What's Love Got To Do With It?

For those of us who chose to work, volunteer or participate in animal rescue, love is the motive. It's heartbreaking to see animals in distressing situations or homeless, without families to love and care for them. We are unashamed animal lovers, and we choose to sacrifice time, money, resources, and our hearts to help them.

As a personal foster fail (more than once), I recently asked Circle of Friends Animal Society foster Chris Risse how she could stand to give cats up after she had cared for and become attached to them. This was her response:

I wasn’t sure I would be able to foster either, but it has been one of the most rewarding experiences I’ve ever had. Before I started, I made a deal with my family that I would not adopt any of the first three batches of kittens we had. I think that kind of took it off the table for me and really put my focus on the joy of the process – helping the kittens become wonderful feline citizens and getting to share them with people that absolutely fall in love with them, and then I start over! Having a never ending supply of adorable babies has it’s perks! I did foster fail on my 4^th batch, and there are a couple that I still miss and kind of wish I had kept, but I regularly get texts and pictures of most of my former fosters and that brings me immense joy.

I love her perspective of getting to share the cat love - focusing on the joy of the process and watching others fall in love with and welcome into their hearts and homes the kitties she socialized. So what does love have to do with it? Everything...because cats!!

If you're in Georgia and are interested in fostering through COFAS, you can contact them here. Many areas have a local SPCA Humane Society and often other animal rescues you can reach out to for more information about fostering in your area.