Mary and Rick Ensminger are dedicated cat people. Sitting in a room devoted solely to housing and caring for foster cats, the couple from the Beach Haven Gardens section of Long Beach Township interact with each of the seven fosters they recently brought home. The pair, who have been volunteering as cat fosters with the Friends of the Southern Ocean County Animal Shelter since 2005, have been watching six 10-week-old kittens and their mother since April. Kittens Duke and Earl and their mother, Victoria, are orange tigers. Prince is an orange tabby, and Duchess, Lady and Princess are black-and-orange tortoiseshells.
The Ensmingers, who are also board members of FOSOCAS, have fostered more than 80 cats and kittens over the past nine years. They decided to dedicate time to the effort after Rick retired and started volunteering as a cat socializer at the Southern Ocean County Animal Shelter in Manahawkin. Rick grew up around cats, and even though Mary always had dogs, the couple has owned cats together since they were married in 1967.
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| Photo by Jack Reynolds The foster kittens and their mother have a room all to themselves, where they can sleep and play at will. |
“The shelter is on total overload. The poor volunteers that work out there, they said it’s so depressing,” said Dorothy Reynolds, president of the Friends of the Southern Ocean County Animal Shelter, a nonprofit organization that extends its help beyond assisting Manahawkin’s county-run shelter to care for the health and welfare of its animals.
The local animal shelter and rescue groups take in as many kittens as they can accommodate. However, they do not have unlimited space; they have room only if individuals adopt the pets that are already there, Reynolds emphasized.
“Millions of dogs and cats are euthanized every year (in the United States) because there are more homeless animals than there are homes for them,” said Reynolds. “Always adopt from a shelter or rescue. Remember, every time you buy a pet instead of adopting, it means a homeless pet will become a statistic,” she urged.
Many kittens grow up to be feral cats — homeless strays that are abandoned by irresponsible owners, lost, or born outdoors due to the many cats roaming the streets that are not spayed or neutered. If they survive, they will continue to struggle to find food and shelter. Nearly 100 percent of feral cats brought into the shelter are euthanized because they are more like wild animals than adoptable pets, said Reynolds.
Approximately 700 cats from the Manahawkin animal shelter were euthanized in 2013, said Reynolds. That number was down considerably from 2012, she added.
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| Photo by Jack Reynolds Fosters 'truly give the gift of life.' |
The decrease is in large part due to the success of FOSOCAS’ Trap-Neuter-Release program, which started in March 2012 to spay or neuter feral cats in the area. Any kittens found during the process are rescued and put into foster care.
“Thanks to the many fosters with the Friends who have or are caring for kittens in their homes, many, many kittens are living today in loving homes,” said Reynolds. “There are also many cats and dogs who need temporary foster care while they wait for their new home. Fosters truly give the gift of life.”
In 2013, 512 cats were adopted from the Manahawkin shelter, and 495 cats were adopted from the shelter in 2012, said Reynolds.
During the past few months, many kittens have been found living in boats. Newborn kittens that have lost their mother are in special need of help.
“If they’re left out in the wild and their mother has been hit by a car or something’s happened to her, they not only starve to death, but they can’t empty their bladders. So it’s really a sad ending for them,” said Reynolds. “It’s not that they’re just hungry, they’re actually in pain. These kittens just cannot survive if they don’t have their mother or if someone does not foster them. That’s really the bottom line.”
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| Photo by Jack Reynolds All of the fosters are now healthy and very playful and affectionate. |
Besides taking care of seven foster cats, the Ensmingers currently have seven cats of their own, four of which had or have special needs. The house cats live on the second and third floors of the home, while the fosters are kept in a separate room on the first floor. The space is complete with everything the fosters need, from crates, litter boxes, food and blankets to toys, scratching posts, cat perches and cleaning supplies. Originally a bedroom for the Ensmingers’ daughter, who is now married with kids, the room was converted into a room for cat fostering after 42 inches of water from Superstorm Sandy destroyed the entire first floor.
“Since our kids are both gone and married and have kids, we decided that because we want to continue fostering, we would just make this room available strictly for (the fosters),” said Mary.
The fosters are kept downstairs away from the other cats to help prevent the spread of any possible infections they might have previously contracted.
Although the pair will foster only cats that are disease- and flea-free, the fosters do sometimes get sick. Kittens that become ill have a better chance of survival if they are taken care of in a foster home, said Mary.
In April, the Ensmingers’ current foster kittens contracted a parasite, most likely from their mother, which caused them to suffer from digestive issues. As foster parents, Mary and Rick had to regularly clean the kittens as well as give them two different types of medication for three to 10 days, depending on the prescriptions.
“That’s the hardest part, when they get sick and you have to keep cleaning up after them,” said Mary. “But that’s not always the case. If you’re watching and catch it early, it doesn’t last long. Kittens are kittens. They’re like having a baby or a little toddler that you have to watch to make sure it doesn’t get in trouble.”
“As any cat owner will know, or any parent, there are those times where it’s a little bit difficult,” agreed Rick.
Thankfully, the mother cat trains the kittens to use the litter box, he said.
All of the fosters are now healthy and very playful and affectionate. Mary and Rick check on the kittens and their mother three or four times a day to feed them, clean them, clip their nails, clean their litter and, of course, play with them.
“It’s time-consuming because if you’re going to do it right, you’ve got to play with them, you’ve got to spend time with them, you’ve got to handle them,” said Mary.
A main objective of fostering is to socialize the animals so that they are comfortable around people and therefore adoptable. Mary recommends foster parents invest in some kind of home veterinary care book, even Kittens for Dummies, for guidance. Most foster parents are willing to help others who are interested in fostering, and the Manahawkin shelter also holds orientation classes for kitten care. If fostering is not an option, the shelter is always in need of volunteers to help socialize the cats there.
“It’s a really great feeling to know that you’re helping these cats get homes because by fostering them, you’re socializing them,” said Rick. “You’re making them not afraid of people so that they’ll be adopted. I think that’s the main thing. It sounds corny, but it’s true.
“When one of them jumps up on your lap and starts licking your finger or acting real affectionate, it’s like cat seduction,” he added. “There’s almost nothing you can do about it. It’s like, ‘I want that cat.’ We always say it’s more often the cats pick out the people than vice versa.”
Although fostering creates an additional responsibility, the positives outweigh the negatives by far, assured the couple.
“This is a big hit for our granddaughters when they come to see us. And the thing is, it’s really not that much work,” said Rick. “I’ve had kids, and I’ve had grandchildren, and trust me, a whole bunch of cats is a lot easier than two kids or two grandchildren. You come down here, you sit in the chair, you have all these kittens with you. It’s just fantastic; I love it.”
Aside from the daily routine, the couple also take the fosters to the veterinarian every two to three weeks for vaccinations and to check on their overall well-being.
“You could say it’s a hobby, but it’s more than a hobby because you’re saving the cats’ lives,” said Rick. “The money we spend on this, somebody else might be spending on flying a model airplane.
“The cat’s healthy. That’s all that really matters. So I figure it’s like karma. Maybe I won’t come back as a cockroach,” he joked. “If you can afford it, and you can help the cat, why not?”
Like the Ensmingers, many fosters pay for the necessary supplies and veterinary expenses out of pocket. However, FOSOCAS and the Ocean County Health Department, which sponsor the foster program, will provide fosters with all of the required equipment and pay for all medical costs.
“Everyone can’t do it out of pocket, so we will help people who can’t,” said Reynolds. “We wouldn’t want them not to foster because they couldn’t afford the needs of the kittens or the cat.”
When the litter arrived at the Ensmingers’ home, the kittens mostly lived in the crate with their mother, who was let out to roam around the room when she was not nursing. Now that the kittens are big enough to climb and wander around by themselves, the crate is left open.
“We’ve got it pretty much kitten-proof, so I don’t mind leaving them out overnight because there’s really nothing in here that’s going to injure them. There’s just no way that they can be hurt,” said Rick.
When the kittens weigh between 2 to 3 pounds, they will be taken to the shelter to be spayed or neutered. They will also receive a microchip implant, which animal shelters, animal control officers and veterinarians routinely look for to help return lost pets to their owners. After surgery, the cats will then be transferred to the animal shelter or to Petsmart in Manahawkin, where they are put up for adoption.
“It’s so gratifying when somebody adopts them and you see their excitement and the affection they have for the animal,” said Mary.
“You can’t change the world, but you can save some cats,” added Rick.
— Kelley Anne Essinger
This article was published in The SandPaper.
— Kelley Anne Essinger
This article was published in The SandPaper.
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