Battersea Dogs & Cats Home need cat foster carers (Aug 2023)

Perhaps the most famous cat and dog shelter in the world, Battersea Dogs & Cats Home have put out a call for cat foster carers. It seems that they have a level of demand for their services which they can't quite keep up with and they need foster carers to take up some spillover from their shelter in Battersea.

Foster carers take cats from the shelter into their homes and they become like agencies for the shelter. They work in partnership. Sometimes foster carers do better than shelter workers because a cat and dog shelter is inherently quite stressful for cats and dogs because there's lots of noise and lots of other animals and people.

Cat at Battersea. Image supplied.

In contrast, cat fosters have perhaps one or two cats and the whole environment is much calmer which helps to reduce stress which in turn can help to improve health and welfare particularly if the stray cat was rescued when suffering from health problems.

Battersea are timing their request for cat foster carers with International Cat Day which is August 8, yesterday. They say that being a cat foster carer is a rewarding and heartwarming experience.

It is also a good way to be with cats without owning them. The shelter pays all the expenses so you can almost be a cat owner for a set period of time before the cat is adopted without the expense. The problem is that you can become very connected to a particular cat and it can be very painful to give him or her up to the adopter.

Battersea said that the cost-of-living crisis "is affecting the number of cats coming into us". They added that in June this year 25% of rescue cats coming into their centres were relinquished because the owner could no longer afford to keep them and pay veterinary bills.

The RSPCA are going through a similar experience. They said that the number of unwanted pets is growing. They also said by the way that the number of abuse cases is growing in the UK. That's a worrying trend.

An advantage for cats being cared for by foster carers is that they are likely to present to adopters a better side to their character because, as mentioned, they are less stressed and therefore they are more likely to come forward and be confident which is what people adopting cats want to see. If you can find more about foster caring for cats at Battersea by visiting their website.