Western University’s Volunteer Foster Program

"Fostering Hope"
POMONA, Calif. – Between May and October, the six Los Angeles City animal shelters expect to take in about 9,000 kittens younger than eight weeks old. Such a burden would overload the system, so the Los Angeles Department of Animal Services developed a program for kittens to receive foster care in people’s homes.

WesternU College of Veterinary Medicine students are partnering with the Los Angeles Department of Animal Services to find foster homes for kittens. Animal Services will deliver a group of foster kittens to WesternU’s Pomona campus on Tuesday, July 27, 2010.

The WesternU Student Chapter of the Association of Shelter Veterinarians (SCASV) is asking for campus volunteers to foster at least three kittens at a time for four to five weeks.

“We want to help out with the overpopulation of these kittens,” said SCASV Co-president Yesenia Esguerra, DVM ’13. “There are so many of them. The shelters get bombarded in the summertime with so many kittens, so we want to try to help them find homes, and also control overpopulation by spaying and neutering.”

By law, kittens must be at least eight weeks old to be adopted.

“When we get ones that are younger than eight weeks, we have to decide what we’re going to do with them,” said Jeremy Prupas, VMD, chief veterinarian for Los Angeles Animal Services. “The best thing for kittens is to foster them, which gets them out of the shelter.”

Foster parents have the choice of adopting as many as two picks of the litter that they foster. Last year, 10 people from WesternU fostered 41 kittens.

The problem is simple to understand, but difficult to find a solution: too many cats are having too many kittens, Prupas said.

“When springtime comes, the days get longer, and then we know it’s going to happen,” Prupas said. “By late April-early May, that’s when the onslaught happens. Cats are having kittens at the same time. The solution is for everyone to spay and neuter their cats. We can’t have these numbers.”

If you think you might want to take part in this program and save lives, please email us at [scasvclub@westernu.edu], to be added to the interest/contact list.

Western has already partnered with the Upland Animal Shelter in an academic respect, and many of you have or will very soon rotate through VACS at their facility. In the recent past students have started volunteering their time to save lives by fostering orphaned kittens and puppies who would otherwise be euthanized due to the lack of foster homes available.

Last spring alone, students fostered and saved the lives of over 60 kittens who would have otherwise not had the chance at a long, happy life. This is our chance to give back to the community and at the same time remind ourselves why many of us chose this profession in the first place.

The Upland Animal Shelter is amazing- the amount of compassion and care shown by every shelter worker, humane officer and manager is unlike any shelter I have ever worked with. This summer when the number of foster homes was scarce, each of them were taking home litters of kittens to try and save as many lives as possible.

If you think you might want to take part in this program and save lives, please email us at [scasvclub@westernu.edu], to be added to the interest/contact list.