Fostering animal takes commitment

Dear Dr. Fox: Since our retirement, my husband and I have been serving as foster parents for cats who need forever homes. We joined a local network of cat rescuers and are against trapping, neutering and releasing them to live outdoors. My sister has been providing a foster home for dogs for some years now, as well.

Fostering is so much better for the animals than having to stay in cages in shelters waiting for adoption.

I just want to say this is our way of giving back all the love and enjoyment we have had in our earlier years with animal companions. We have given up vacations for this avocation, and it is so rewarding when we find a forever home for our next rescued cat. Perhaps other readers might want to do this in their communities, too.

F.L.P., St. Louis, Missouri

Dear F.L.P.: I applaud what you and your husband are doing, and your sister.

Giving love and attention, including veterinary care as needed, to a fostered cat or dog takes commitment. Such dedication has many rewards, which my wife and I have come to enjoy. Our latest rescued cat recently found a forever home with a family with two children, an old dog and another cat — whom they adopted after we rescued and fostered him a year ago. Now we have found another cat outdoors, whom we must rescue and rehabilitate. So life goes on.

The only downside, which all animal “foster parents” must accept, is that feeling of losing someone you’ve loved and developed a strong attachment to. But the upside is knowing that another life has been saved and improved.

GENE THERAPY REDUCES PAIN, INFLAMMATION IN DOGS WITH OSTEOARTHRITIS

An experimental gene therapy based on the interleukin-10 gene is showing promise in dogs with severe osteoarthritis, reducing pain and inflammation and restoring their ability to move, and it could reduce the need for joint replacements in humans, says University of Colorado-Boulder neuroscience professor Linda Watkins.

More dogs are being accepted into clinical trials, and the FDA recently approved the experimental therapy for human use. (KCNC-TV, Denver, Nov. 6)