Animal Rescue with Marion Garnett

you sometimes want to make a real difference to someone’s life?

Someone I know fostered a child for the first three years of the child’s life. She says that, although she couldn’t keep the child forever, she believes the care she gave in those years will make a great difference to the whole of that child’s future life.

We can’t all foster children for three years (although we can consider it) but we might be able to spend a few weeks fostering kittens at a crucial time in their life.

Appropriate care given during the early weeks of a kitten’s life can make a real difference to how that kitten behaves as an adult.

The greater the variety of positive experiences kittens have between two and eight weeks of age, the more likely they are to adapt well to whatever life has in store for them in the future.

Kittens which have not been exposed to positive new experiences during this period are more likely to be scared of new things in later life.

So that is why staff at the vets where these beauties are being boarded are making every effort to ensure they grow up to be well socialised cats.

The kittens come from a large colony of cats, that Hounslow Animal Welfare Society (HAWS) have been working with for some time. They were found when someone heard meowing coming from a shed.

Inside, they found six weaned kittens, nervously fending for themselves. HAWS were able to trap five of them but haven’t been able to catch the Mum and sixth kitten. But they are still trying.

The kittens are seven weeks old so are the right age for socialising. This means the vet staff are exposing them, in a positive way, to different experiences.

In order to help with kitten socialisation, Cats Protection (cats. org.uk) have produced a chart giving examples of key things kittens should experience such as meeting people of different ages and hearing different sounds.

Of course, it would be easier if these five kittens were in a foster home but HAWS foster homes are all booked up. Not a vacancy in sight.

So if you’re thinking to yourself, you would like to do something which makes a real difference to someone, becoming a foster carer for kittens could be the answer. If you’re interested in fostering for HAWS see haws-animals.org.uk.

If you would like to offer a loving home to any of these five, call HAWS on 020 8560 5443.