Miami Proud: Teen volunteer has purr-fect job caring for vulnerable kittens
MIAMI - What is the job of a cat foster mom? It's critical for Miami-Dade Animal Services in helping the neediest cats and kittens in our community.
Every day this summer and almost all year-round Abigail Batic is busy with one little ball of fur or another. The Hialeah Gardens High School student says the foster parenting role sort of landed on her doorstep.
"I started to foster cats because we found an orphaned kitten in our front yard, so I was learning how to bottle feed her and I came across the MD Animal Service animal foster application," Batic said.
She shows us one of the bottle-feeding kittens named Juniper.
"Not only is he a bottle-feeding kitten, he does have a general deformity on his hind leg so he's a little special kitty. I'm bottle feeding him every 3 to 4 hours -also in the middle of the night- so that's not fun but it's definitely worth it."
South Florida's warm climate means cats are breeding all year, and many newborn kittens are delivered here to animal services without their mothers and need a lot of care. Some of them don't even have their eyes open. It's volunteers like Abigail to the rescue. Flora Beal is the spokesperson for the department and had so much appreciation for Abigail.
"She really is very special she takes these special needs kittens all the time she nurtures them she brings them back to health," said Beal.
Right now she has four at home including Juniper. Sticky has a broken arm and he's blind, and there are two other kittens that are 7 weeks old and they both have a skin condition. She's had more fosters than she can count, and dogs too, some of which stay with her for months. And although she can get attached to them, it's extremely gratifying when they go to a permanent home.
"It makes me so happy knowing that they're going to have someone else who is going to take care of them and love them as much as I love them."
Incidentally, Abigail is looking at turning her animal care skills into a career.
"I know how to bottle feed I know how to tube feed I know how to give these animals fluids and that's just stuff that's going to help me in the future. I definitely want to have a career with animals I'm leaning towards veterinary studying shelter medicine …who knows maybe I can work here!"
There are always animals who need care, on average 150-200 cats and kittens available for adoption. If you want to foster you can apply for that, and it doesn't cost anything other than your time and kindness all the supplies are provided. You can learn more here: Pet Adoption (miamidade.gov)