As kitten season arrives, Asheville Humane Society is hosting their annual virtual kitten shower.
With many neonatal kittens already in foster care and many more expected to come through our doors, the kitten shower wishlist includes items that allow volunteers, foster families, and staff to provide lifesaving care with essential items to keep kittens healthy, fed, and well-adjusted as they grow old enough to be adopted.
The Asheville Humane Society foster program is one of the most vital to the organization. Every year hundreds of lives are saved with the help of foster care, most of which are neonatal kittens and puppies. Foster parents are crucial for providing around-the-clock care, such as bottle feeding, monitoring temperature, and socialization.
Evie Schenkel, Foster Care Manager at AHS, says, “We try to eliminate barriers to fostering by providing all care supplies for the duration of time an animal is in foster care. That way, the foster parent only has to worry about providing the daily love and attention the animal needs. With each item donated, our budget is freed up to be able to purchase more specialty supplies for our more intensive cases.”
Please consider purchasing an item from the wishlist to help the kittens!
The Kitten Shower wishlist can be found here.
AHS is also launching a comprehensive education campaign to inform Buncombe County residents of what to do should they find a kitten or litter in the community. Though our instinct is to rescue every tiny animal we see, removing a kitten from its mother is incredibly harmful in the first weeks of formative development. To mitigate “kit-napping” we are releasing resources that illustrate the signs of when a kitten/litter needs intervention, and when they should stay with their mom. For more information, text KITTENS to 828-220-5559 or visit ashevillehumane.org/found-kittens/.
Written by Asheville Humane Society.