I run an spca foster program. i started out the same way everyone does - feeding stray animals. i have fed strays since i was a little kid. i used to spend my allowance money on cat food.

In the 90's i started feeding a small colony of animals, mom and babies in philadelphia where i was attending college.

this expanded to southern nj by delaware and then to north florida when i was here. the woman who used to put ads in the newspaper for people rescuing animals and needing to adopt them out got sick. then her husband got cancer. then they had to move. she didn't know what would happen to all the people who needed to place out their animals. she had stopped rescuing animals herself because she had so many left over animals from the passed (more than twenty) years. but she was helping a lot of people by paying for the ads and screening potential adoptors.

i have always volunteered at the pounds. just walking dogs or bottlefeeding. when i was placing out a bunch of kittens a woman who used to volunteer at a shelter here said she had gone by to visit a no kill shelter and went into the cat room and it was full of the SAME ANIMALS that had been there two years before that. wth?

so i went over and talked to their coordinator and requested a list of animals in need of adoption who were at the shelter more than six months. she gave me a list of thirty animals and i placed them all out through the newspaper. then she gave me another list of twenty or so animals and i placed all of those out. then they asked me to foster and bottlefeed orphaned kittens. i told them only 3 week olds. they would slip in the two week olds anyway and they all lived and it was okay. i was nervous about doing newborns because so many of them die. then she asked me to take ones that have mange and i did that and i didn't get mange and they all lived and were fine. and the shelter people were kind of jumping for joy over this. i brought them in weekly and they were always fat and clean and healthy. lots of flea baths with those little ones and lots of moist food with baby rice cereal in it to make them fat and lots of kmr formula.

i didn't know at the time how rare it is for a foster mother to work out, especially with little ones and how even more rare it is for the foster mother to be able to successfully adopt out the animals. i do professional sales, so for me, selling and screening potential customers wasn't a difficult thing. (i was ten years younger back then! lol.) their people just need training.

the following year another county asked for my help. and if i was doing over one hundred animals then i'd need help so i recruited foster mothers and discovered what a headache that usually is. hiring people for ANYTHING is the hardest job there is. so many people lie and you never know what you are really getting. you have to really learn to read people and even then it often doesn't really work out.

i had to become an official organisation on my own so i wouldn't have to do it through the pound i was helping. so i filed an ein tax form with the government and got advice from other rescues who stated being an spca of any sort is the better way to go because the name spca is recognized. many start with silly names and then have to switch their name over later. we started out as spca foster.

about ten of us do rescue every year. some do multiple litters some do ONE cat each year. but its one more than the general public does - and they can tell you EVERYTHING about that one cat. some do ONE cat every OTHER year. some will help me but no help other groups because so many groups are very controlling. our group doesn't have meetings. i try to stay out of everyone's way as much as i can. i return all phone calls within 48 hours. (used to be 24 hours but its too much for me nowadays to do that). we do everything out of our own pockets. they can adopt out with my forms and their names in there or have me adopt, its their choice. they have first dibs on adopting the animals themselves just like in a foster care program for children.

then i have another ten foster parents each year that are revolving door people. its a once in a lifetime thing for them and they probably will never do it again. some love rescue and just need guidance on how to do it themselves. i tell them what catalogs we use to order medicine the phone numbers and web sties and where we go for reduced spay and neuter. and i tell them what books we use like home remedies for dogs and cats by prevention to help us diagnose problems. i tell them they can call me anytime for help. this also works for MOST people but not for all of them. most of them will foster for the 3 months until the kittens are ready for adoption with no problem and others freak out over it. you never know what you are getting. some follow the rules and mine are very loose and basic rules and some can't quite get it, become anxious and lose it totally. its the humans that make rescue difficult, not the animals.

best of luck to you with this.

also doris day league which merged with aspca a couple of years ago, gives advice on becoming rescue. best buddies in utah gives classes in how to become a rescue. doris day mostly fed colonies, set traps and had them fixed from trapping. one of the girls scraps metal to support her colonies, she picks up metal after garage sales in her pick up. another puts out jars for the fixing part of it. its not free. i don't like to think of how much i have spent on it, but its a great hobby. its very fulfilling.