This past weekend while running errands I saw a sign at PetSmet that foster families were needed.  I was once a foster parent for a little black kitty.

It was 2001 and I had just moved into an apartment that allowed pets with a small deposit.  Being a flight attendant I am not home enough to have a pet.  But I really, really wanted a cat.  I had seen a sign that the Denver Dumb Friends League needed foster parents.  I immediately signed up.  I had to have an interview and a home visit.  I fibbed a little when I told the lady I was home everyday.   But it worked I was approved to be a foster parent.

A week later I received a six month old all black kitty.  She had just had a litter of kittens and had gotten fixed.  She followed me around the house and I named her Shadow.  She lived with me for one month which was the assigned time.  I wrote up a little blurb to put on her kennel at PetSmart .  I wrote it from Shadow's point of view.  I met the coordinator from the DDFL at the PetSmart location that had room for kitties up for adoption.  And I cried like a baby.

It was very hard to give up Shadow even though she wasn't my kitty to begin with.  I knew that.  I guess I could have applied to adopt her, but I just wasn't home enough for a single kitty.  (When I bought my house I did adopt two kitties who I still have).   I've never given up an animal that I owned and I hope to never experience that feeling again.   I felt responsible for her and I felt like I was letting her down.  

The coordinator walked me to my car, gave me a hug and basically told me that I should reconsider being a foster home.  In fact I should find an entirely different avenue of volunteering.   To this day every time I go to PetSmart I stop in and visit the kitties up for adoption and tell them I would take them home if I could.  I don't volunteer in any capacity at the shelter, but I do take in pet food occasionally.