Anyone who fosters animals in need will tell you that it’s fulfilling, but very busy work! Carla Wibright is a volunteer foster with the Austin Animal Center in Texas. She’s only been fostering a year, but is already finding new ways to make her foster work a little easier!
Carla’s first foster was also her first foster fail – a four-month-old puppy named Harambe. Together, she and Harambe make a comfortable foster home for the kittens she fosters!
Carla’s latest foster kitten, Jasper, joined her family just last month. She tells iHeartCats, “On Aug 3, they sent out an email that they had ‘an itty-bitty baby kitty’ that had just arrived and the center was full so they needed someone with bottle feeding experience. How could I say no?”
“I took him home and gave him a bath in Dawn dish soap, the water turned brown, poor little guy was filthy. I live around the corner from a cat hospital and I took him in and got him weighed, .67 of a pound. The vet said he was more likely 14 days old.”
Jasper is a sweet, lively kitten with a big personality, and keeps Carla’s hands full! Although she loves spending time with her foster kitten, there are times that she needs to do other tasks, and being a crafty lady, she came up with a clever solution to keep Jasper close AND handle business!
“I took up quilting in March and started thinking about coming up with some kind of sling idea or smock to donate to the shelter and to Desperate Housecats. I saw a video of a smock that a Boston animal shelter uses for their feral cats. Since we’re Austin and the smock would have to be made of canvas to be strong enough, I wanted something that would be more comfortable and cooler. A friend lent me a book of aprons and I tweaked a BBQ apron; made it shorter, set the pocket up higher.”
“It was a pretty useful tool with him, he’d nap while I did housework. He got used to the vacuum because I was holding him in the apron safely while the vac was on. I could mix his food and he’d watch me through the screen in the apron.”
Carla explained on Facebook that she hoped that with the pocket on the apron higher, Jasper would be soothed by her body warmth and the beating of her heart. It seems to have worked, as Jasper sits happily in the apron while Carla takes care of other things!
“He’s now 6 weeks and I just got him weaned off the syringe in the last couple days. I post videos and pictures of him all the time on Facebook and a friend has fallen in love with him and will be adopting him in a few weeks after Jasper has been neutered and is old enough.”
Jasper is almost ready to be on his way to his forever home, and although goodbye will be hard, Harambe will get a new friend and Carla will have space for a new kitten in her apron!
Featured Image: Carla Wibright
