Do you have that empty nest feeling? Do you miss getting up in the middle of the night to bottle feed your children? Do those children that you are raising need some experience with responsibility? Do you love puppies and kittens but have enough animals at your house already? Then WE NEED you!

We do a lot of things really, really well at the Richmond SPCA. However, we also need to recognize the areas in which the involvement of the community can help us improve. Foster care, particularly for the very young, is one such area. Rather than being reactionary when the need for foster care arises, we need to anticipate the need and build a list of volunteers ready, willing and trained for the task of caring for these most vulnerable orphans.
We have decided to start the process of generating a network of people who can be called at a moments notice to help us with the task of getting puppies and kittens old enough, big enough and healthy enough for adoption while being cared for outside of our Robins-Starr Humane Center. Many times the center is not the safest environment for these little immune systems. We do not want to expose to the germs that they are not yet vaccinated against.

The task may be as simple as fostering a litter of 6-week-old puppies for a mere two weeks until they have had vaccinations and can come in to be spayed or neutered and be immediately available for adoption. It could also mean the need arises on Saturday afternoon for someone to be able to bottle feed a litter of kittens for three or four weeks because their mother was just hit by a car. Even though we have a wonderful staff of employees who might be well-prepared to take them home for a night, it defeats the purpose to have these orphans come back into the center each day with an employee who is caring for them at night. We need them protected in a home until they are ready to be adopted.
So here is what we would like to do. We would like to start training a group of foster care providers with a class that teaches puppy and kitten care. This class would include bottle feeding, assisting with urination and defecation, tube feeding if needed, signs of failure to thrive, proper feeding when not nursing, appropriate interaction and behavior techniques as well as normal and abnormal development for this age group. We want to generate a contact list of providers who have completed the class so that we can get these youngsters off to a great start. We provide everything that is needed including veterinary care, bottles, formula, food, bedding, litter, carriers and support through our medical department.
So if you have a lot of extra time, a big heart and the mothering instinct that these babies need then please let us know by responding in the comment section or contacting us at (804) 521-1329. We can adopt out so many more healthy puppies and kittens if we can find the space outside of our own building with a well-trained, available network of providers. Please join our team and make a difference in these lives!

Today’s blog was written by Dr. Angela Ivey, director of veterinary medicine at the Richmond SPCA. Dr. Ivey spent many years in private veterinary practice before joining the medical staff at the Richmond SPCA in 2004.

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