The Kitten Inn cannot operate without the support from our wonderful team of volunteers. Wether this be bottle feeding, cleaning cages, helping on adoption days, picking up or dropping off of cats and kittens, having mothers and / or kittens in their homes – every volunteer matters – no job is too big, no job is any less important – everyone puts in 110%.
Susan and the Trustee’s want to thank each and every one of our volunteer’s for the sleepless nights, to the covered in all sorts and all the love they give to the kittens, to the cleaners and the everyone else who puts in their heart and soul into our vision. To all the donors who allow us to continue doing the amazing job – thank you. From $1 a day, or $1 a week – every little bit helps.
Our Volunteers wanted to share some of their experiences as a volunteer:
I started fostering in March 2014. Susan originally kindly lent me a kitten to see if my older cat was open to the possibility of a sibling. Being new at fostering my husband and I slept apart so the kitten was not lonely at night. After a few days we decided the kitten was lonely during the day and needed a playmate its own age. We went back to Susan and got a second kitten. Since then we have never looked back.
Once our first two kittens were at weight they were returned with many tears. It took around 30 minutes after we left to realise that we wanted to keep the tortishell kitten. We raced back to Susan who laughed at us and allowed us to adopt her on the spot. We named her Olga and took her to the amazing vets at Khandallah to be desexed and microchipped. Olga was very trying after her operation. She ended up being wrapped in a bandage to stop her pulling her stitches out.
Olga and JD, our first cat have become firm friends and we have never regretted foster failing our first kitten.
Since Olga we have welcomed 62 and counting other foster kittens, some with mothers and some without. The most we have ever had at one time was 14.
We have had some very sick kittens that have required around the clock care. We have had to bury two kittens in the last year. We have had to bottle feed kittens and syringe feed kittens. Olga and JD comfort the sick and wash the motherless.
In our spare time we occasionally do the vet run to Khandallah when other fosterers are unavailable and we buy things from the garage sale. We have directed friends and family to come and adopt who now have happy cat families.
Steph
Hi,
I joined kitteninn as a fosterer/volunteer in mid November 2015. I heard about their need for donations of kitten food via Facebook and my vet,I dropped off food initally at my vet to be dropped off,but the following weekend called in to bring more.
I spoke to Susan at the time and told her of my background breeding cats and I was offered a mum and five babies to foster.
From there I raised mum till kittens were weaned ,then the kittens to the optim weight in which to desex them,from this I kept two kittens,my foster fails and they are now healthy five month olds playing havoc in our household.
Since then I have raised two seperate litters of kittens all have found there forever homes.
With me at present is a young mum and seven babies all doing great,mum has a home to go to once kittens are weaned.
I find helping out this way very rewarding,I am a retired lady in my late sixties ,and I love doing this to help out these cats and kittens who thru no fault of their own find themselves in this situation.
I also help two times a week at the inn with cage cleaning.
Any one who has some spare time to spend helping out at the inn or fostering will really find it rewarding,so if you think this is something you would like to do,get in touch with kitten inn we are a great dedicated group of people who are there to give care and love to these beautiful cats/ kittens.
Cheers Sue Lane.
I joined Kitten Inn back in May 2014 when I lived just down the road. I had previously fostered for another organization, but like that KI was a lot closer. I was given 4 kittens to start with, just to see how I liked it and if I could handle it. I loved it, felt the work was absolutely rewarding. My child became my special little helper, having ADHD meant that we often get the more timid and less social kittens to tame. There is nothing more satisfying then when you see them being chosen by their new family members. I have found a kitten in my garage one night, he was the most scared little cold grey bundle, after a few months he was a completely different kitten, and on adoption day he was shy and not interactive, until 1 particular person came in, George knew this was his forever family, and immediately started interacting with him. They choose him that day, still brings a tear to my eye. I am one of the “pick upper’s” and have seen some horrific sights, some I can never unseen, I collected 4 kittens and a mum cat that had all been left abandoned in 2015, at only 3 weeks old they had all got horrendous infections in their eyes which had caused irreversible damage.
I have hand feed babies, I have had kittens down my top to keep warm, to feel safe for countless hours, I help out cleaning cages, I have spent countless hours updating our website and at markets / stalls collecting much much needed funds so we can continue the work we do. I have also buried a few kittens this season, this is always heart breaking, soo much effort goes into loving them that they still choose to leave us.
I have never foster failed, but I have adopted one of my beautiful baby’s from the Inn, she is soo good with the kittens, always following them around, and chatting away to the mum cats.
I love the work I do and I urge people to donate or help out, even $1 a week makes such a difference.
Mellissa
April 2015 I had never heard of kitten inn.
A friend of mine shared one of their posts and I was hooked from that moment on. A devastating post came across my screen of a tabby kitten horribly neglected she had 6 siblings who were full of fleas, ringworm dehydrated, malnourished all the horrible things you could imagine for a kitten these 7 had it, the inn gave updates over the first 24 hours in their care and my heart cried for these poor things. It was about 11pm 17th April 2015 kitten inn put out a desperate plea for someone to nurse 7 very sick and contagious kittens to health, they could not risk keeping them at the inn or the others would have got RW. I didn’t hesitate and said I would take them after having a quick chat with my partner and daughter, Not realising the extent of there poor health and the tough road ahead we got the spare room ready, and picked them up the very next day. Got into a strict routine (not infect our two fur babies) it was adorable watching them perk up, look healthier, become more vocal, oh they were so vocal, meal time was a pleasure to watch because I knew how they were deprived of the simple things such as food and water, on the 26th of April the weakest and sickest one of the lot, went down hill fast, and on the morning of the 27th April 2015 I held him and cried as he took his last breath his name was mr whitey. That was the worst experience ever.
The siblings were then named the super 6 they all
Made it through the sickness and quarantine and made it to weight, we got very sad when we knew it was getting close to the day we had to take them back. My partner was the first to say can we adopt one?? My heart skipped a beat and the hard task began of how does one choose. Two out of three chose the same kitten blacky aka fatty who we adopted and named Yogi Bear. This began my journey as a foster parent of kitten inn. To date I have had 27 kittens and 5 mum cats come through our home and leave loved happy and socialised, I’ll keep doing this for as long as I can.
Dotty G
I learned about Kitten Inn through their Facebook posts. I was looking for something to do to give back to the community and I’ve always been crazy about animals, especially cats. So I started volunteering as a cage cleaner. Last year, Kitten Inn was in desperate need to fosterers, so I ended up with a tortie mum and her six kittens – 4 boys and 2 girls. One of the boys, a tabby, had an injured eye; it had likely been clawed. It was likely that he would lose the eye. Numerous vet visits, and antibiotic and eye cream applications later, it was decided that he didn’t need to lose his eye, but our vet said “he’ll need a special family because he’ll need ongoing care of that eye for the rest of his life.” With the vet, we decided to hold off a bit on having him neutered to give his immune system a bit more time. His brothers got up to weight and went off to their forever homes. His mom went back to her owner (who still keeps in touch with me). The girls weren’t quite up to weight, so they were still with us. One evening, my husband said, “well, the vet says this one needs a special home, and I don’t think you get more special than here.” So that was foster fail #1. The two girls came up to weight. And they went off and were spayed, microchipped, vaccinated, and I brought them home until the weekend. They were to go back to KI on Saturday morning. My husband said “Tom will be lonely without his sisters.” I agreed and asked if he wanted to keep one. He said, “well, yes, but how would you choose. Guess we’d better keep them both.” So I had the job of calling Susan at Kitten Inn to tell her I wasn’t coming in the morning. And I still hold the record for most foster fails in one fell swoop. They’re not a year old, Tom still has his wonky eye and Moppett and Mittens are our much loved lap kitties who keep us laughing.
Terre M
My Experience Being a Kitten Inn Fosterer
I have always had a love for animals and toyed for many years with the idea of breeding exotic cats. I started following the Kitten Inn FaceBook page and very quickly became educated about the situation this organisation was facing with the magnitude of unwanted baby kittens and extremely young pregnant cats which all of a sudden weren’t cute fluffy kittens anymore and had now become unwanted.
Heartbroken is probably the best word to describe the feeling I had when time after time I read a post about an incredibly sad situation which had led to a beautiful kitten or group of kittens ending up at Kitten Inn. Before long the question started popping into my head – what can I do to help?
Could I really do it, would the family be ok with me fostering, would I be able to given them back? But the idea was cemented now and I wanted to be a fosterer. After the checks and paperwork I got the message I had been waiting for “there are kittens here with your name on them go up to the inn and collect them”.
My partner and I turned up and left the inn with 5 of the most beautiful kittens I have ever seen and those kittens spent about 5 weeks with us, we learnt so much over those weeks. One of those wee babies weighed 350grms and was no more than skin and bones and to watch those babies turn into beautiful healthy and loving kittens over their time with us was honestly the best feeling ever.
Yes there were some tears on the day they were ready to go back to Kitten Inn but there was also such a great feeling of satisfaction to be taking back these beautiful babies who were absolutely ready for their forever homes and to have a family of their own.
We have had quite a few kittens in our home since that first group and each lot have been unique and not only provided us with some challenges but on every single occasion the rewarding feeling comes back when I take these babies back to the Inn to be adopted. There is still a feeling of sadness when I have to give them back but I wouldn’t swap these experiences for the world and genuinely hope to be able to do my bit to help for a long time yet.
Karen B
I started volunteering at the Kitten Inn March 2015. Every Saturday morning I help with adoptions – I absolutely love what I do, but there is a bit more to it than most would think – it’s not all cat cuddles and kitten time.
Before we open for adoptions at 11am we need to tidy up, set up the enclosure, herd cats (and we all know how difficult that is!) and have them settled before people arrive to adopt their forever kitties.
We greet people as they arrive, demonstrate how to handle kittens, explain the adoption process and we provide a great amount of advice too – busting myths and explaining facts.
There is something special about the way our cats and kittens are adopted – every now and then we will witness a pet choose his or her human and it’s just beautiful. We try to create a special experience for everyone adopting a new pet, while also keeping the stress levels of our cats and kittens as low as possible.
The role I play is rewarding, and I’ve become a part of something that is bigger than me – I feel like I make a real tangible difference to our community with the team at the Kitten Inn.
Dianne