Stray cats, dogs in Eastern Iowa find help through pet foster programs

Rudy the kitten is nine weeks old and does not seem to care that he only has three legs. He runs gleefully down the hallway of Cedar Rapids Animal Care & Control at top speed, playing just like any other kitten.

A few weeks ago, that wasn't the case. Rudy was brought to the shelter seriously injured, possibly from being hit by a car. After a surgery to amputate his damaged leg and two weeks of care from a foster family, he is fully recovered and waiting to be adopted.

Without volunteers willing to act as pet foster homes, that might not have been the case, said Diane Webber, manager of Cedar Rapids Animal Care & Control. The shelter, managed by the city of Cedar Rapids, is at full capacity and does not have the staffing or the space it would take to give Rudy the amount of attention he required while recovering.

'We couldn't do it without foster homes. There just wouldn't be enough room. When we had 200 cats in here this summer, another 50 were out in foster homes,” she said. 'It's all about saving as many animals as possible.”

Animal Care and Control uses fosters primarily for injured animals, newborn kittens that need to be bottle fed and for dogs that need to be trained to overcome behavioral issues.

For this city shelter and for non-profit shelters around Cedar Rapids, fostering is an important part of rescuing animals.

Non-profit shelter Saint Rescue & Adoption Center, at 1200 16th Ave. SW, rescues cats, often working with hospice and nursing homes to take in cats whose owners can no longer care for them, as well as taking in strays. Most live at the shelter, but foster families are also integral to their mission.

Jaclyn Neyens and her two teenage daughters volunteer with Saint Rescue to care for kittens that need to be bottle fed. It's time consuming - new babies need to be fed every two to three hours and can be very messy.

'They need a lot of hands on. It's a lot of work,” Neyens said. 'But I just love it. They give unconditional love. It's just so rewarding that way.”

Her biggest challenge? Not keeping the kittens after they get old enough to go to the shelter or be adopted. She reminds herself that if she kept them, she would have to stop fostering new kittens.

'I feel like the greater good is fostering rather than having another cat,” she said. 'There's such a need. These kittens really need to be with people.”

Kathy Condon is the foster lead for Last Hope Animal Rescue at 1823 16th Ave. SW. Last Hope works primarily with fosters - dogs come into their shelter, are brought up to date on vaccinations and treated for things like fleas and then placed with a foster home.

Last Hope covers veterinarian care, medicine, food and treats for the foster families, operating entirely on donations and volunteer labor.

Living in a family home allows the foster parents to see the dog's temperament outside of a shelter environment, making it easier to match the dog with the right family for adoption, Condon said.

'You get to know the animal a lot better,” Condon said. 'You can see how it's going to be in someone's home.”

Lisbon-based Fur Fun Rescue, another non-profit shelter which takes in dogs, operates with the same principle.

'Having a dog in a foster home means we can work on any behavior or temperament problems,” said board president Roxanne Hoover. 'We know our dogs and if they're good with children, good with cats, good with other dogs.”

Alison Williams and Travil Newell have been fostering dogs through Fur Fun since last Christmas. The couple have three cats and two dogs of their own, but that hasn't stopped them from taking in a stream of dogs - they have fostered 14 dogs over the last 10 months, including one whom Williams helped give birth to puppies. They write profiles and take photos of the dogs they foster to help them find adoptive families.

Their own dogs are a chihuahua and a chihuaha-weiner mix, so they mostly take in small dogs. Their current foster, a chihuahua puppy named Pixie, chased their dogs around their yard last week, working off energy and excitement.

He's just two pounds, but was smaller when someone found him hiding in a pile of junk in Missouri. The organization Pilots for Paws brought him to Iowa when Williams volunteered to foster him. Fur Fun works with Pilots for Paws often to take in dogs from around the country when their local shelters can't accommodate them.

'We always go to the pet store with my daughter, and she's always upset we couldn't take a puppy home. This has kind of been a way to have that new dog feeling all the time,” Newell said. 'It's great knowing you're helping an animal that might have been put down or been living in a cage. You're helping it find a good home.”

GET INVOLVED

Animal Care & Control

900 76th Ave. Drive SW, Cedar Rapids

(319) 286-5993, cedar-rapids.org/local_government/departments_a_-_f/animal_control

Fur Fun Rescue

229 Badger Road, Lisbon

(319) 929-6657, furfunrescue.org

Last Hope Animal Rescue

1823 16th Ave. SW, Cedar Rapids

(319) 200-4880, adopthope.org

Saint Rescue

1200 16th Ave. SW, Cedar Rapids

(319) 551-7537, saintiowa.org