Cat Foster Homes

Save to Favorites

At Animal Aid, some cats in our care are placed into foster homes if they have been at the shelter a long time or are just not doing well in the shelter environment. Sometimes this is due to a cat feeling stressed around other cats or having special needs that would benefit from more monitoring in a comfortable home environment to help them stay healthy. Also some new-to-shelter cats are placed into a temporary foster if our intake rooms are full at the shelter.

We have need for two types of cat foster parents: longer-term fosters and temporary intake fosters.

Longer-term fosters open their homes and their hearts to cats until they are adopted. Animal Aid cannot guarantee how long a cat will be placed with a foster parent; it is dependent on the adoption applications submitted. Animal Aid tries its best to place a cat where we think it will thrive for the rest of its life.

Temporary intake fosters take in cats new to the organization for around 14 days to make sure they don’t break with a kitty cold or anything else that may be contagious to the other cats in the shelter. If they do break with a kitty cold, they will need to stay in foster until they are healthy. Intake foster homes need a separate room that the foster cat stays in away from any other animals in the home.

When applying to foster, please indicate which type of fostering you are interested in.

An Animal Aid foster parent is expected to do the following while a foster animal is placed with them:

• Treat the animal as a furry family member with daily care and love until they are adopted.
• Feed and possibly medicate the animal appropriately to their needs.
• Take the animal to any necessary veterinary or other appointments.
• Communicate openly and frequently with Animal Aid coordinators and staff.
• Be available for meetings with potential adopters to show the foster cat in the home.

In return, Animal Aid provides the following:

• Support for the foster parent through open and frequent communication, including routine check-ins on how the animal is doing in their foster home.
• Coverage for food and supply expenses and veterinary care for the animal at our partner vet.
• Help arranging pet-sitting while a foster is away from home.

More information available here: https://animalaidpdx.org/foster-cat/
Foster application available here: https://animalaidpdx.org/foster-application/