“Wouldn’t it be great to have kittens around all the time?”
That’s what Cindy Congdon, owner of the Instagram account @foster_kittens, asked her vet four years ago. Little did she know that a friendly conversation she had while taking her kitten for a check up would take her down the path of fostering countless litters of kittens and would create a following of more than 400,000 users on Instagram. As followers of the account, the Metter Media team wanted to get inside the head of the person behind the adorable Instagram pictures. Find out what it is like to have hundreds of thousands of followers and how it helps the kittens that Congdon cares for.
“When I had my first litter of kittens I thought, wouldn’t that be fun to start an Instagram account so that when they were adopted their new family could come and look at baby pictures?” Says Congdon. “[They’d] see what they looked like growing up and what their mom looked like and what their siblings looked like. And for the first couple of litters, I posted pictures on Instagram and then I made little cards to go into their adopting packets that said, ‘If you want to see what your cat looked like growing up in their foster home, go to @foster_kittens on Instagram and you can see baby pictures.”
With a stroke of luck, Cindy Congdon’s account went viral when the Instagram account @cats_of_Instagram picked up one of her photos and shared it with the world. After the picture was posted, her following began to take off. As of today, @foster_kittens has 405,000 followers and has transitioned into a vehicle for getting the kittens adopted. Hundreds of people inquire about the litters Congdon shares on her account; to help place more kittens in permanent loving homes, Congdon has started a second account, @foster_kittens_fyi, that lists the names of other foster homes and shelters from all over the world.
I notice you have litters all the time. How does fostering these kittens affect your everyday life?
I don’t work outside of the home. I am the CEO of the home. I do have several other hobbies but this has become my main hobby. My family helps a lot, and my neighbors come over a lot to see the kittens and play with them. It doesn’t disrupt my life a lot. I do scoop litter boxes almost constantly, and when I have a little kitten who needs constant monitoring it can get tiring. But it’s usually only for a week or two that I have to bottle feed or really keep an eye on them. With the pregnant mommy cats it’s usually only a couple nights I have to check on them a couple times. Cats are easy to fit into your normal life. If you were to, say, foster a litter of puppies, I think that would be a whole different story. But it’s not really disruptive at all.
Tell us about the litters you are fostering now.
Right now I am fostering for two different shelters. Purrfect Pals of course was the first one I started with, but they are about an hour away. And I love them: they are a very small, very lovely, cats-only no-kill shelter, and I just love what they do. An hour drive is tricky to get the kittens up for their appointments, and if one gets sick, I can’t just pop over and grab medicine. So I reached out to Seattle Humane Society last year. They are only about a 20 minute drive from my house so I foster for both.
Right now I have Madeline and her four little kittens. The kittens are now almost six weeks old, and Madeline is about a year old. Her owner surrendered her a day after she had these kittens. She had a previous litter that didn’t survive and all the kittens died. Cats will go into heat again almost immediately after delivery if they are allowed to; she went into heat and got pregnant again and her owners were afraid that they wouldn’t survive either, so they surrendered them to Purrfect Pals... So I got Madeline and her four little kittens when they were two days old and they are thriving and doing awesome and she is a wonderful little mommy.
The plan for this little family is Madeleine will be spayed and her kittens will be neutered and spayed in a couple weeks when they are about two pounds. And then they will be put up for adoption at Purrfect Pals. We have already had many many requests for them and I think they will find really great homes.
The other litter I have is through Seattle Humane Society. Elise was brought over from another shelter that didn’t have a very robust fostering program. She was transferred to Seattle Humane Society and they called me and asked if I could take her. She came about four days before she delivered her kittens so she had some time to get settled in and get to know me — she delivered her kittens about two weeks ago. She had three little kittens that look just like her: little black and white cow kittens.
Same plan with her: once her kittens weigh two pounds, her and the kittens will be spayed and neutered, vaccinated and microchipped and put up for adoption at the Seattle Humane Society. We have already gotten a lot of requests for them. People have already gone over to be approved to be adopted.
Are there more plans to continue to foster kittens?
While I would like to continue as long as I can, there is definitely a season for it: cats go into heat and deliver during the warm summer months. During the winter, I can take in cats that are a little bit older that just need a break from the shelter. Last year, I was able to take in a couple cats that had just had eye surgery. They just needed a nice place to recuperate that wasn’t the loud, busy shelter. They were adopted after that. So, during the off season, I can still take in cats if I want to. I love doing it, so for now I see myself doing it for quite awhile longer.
You mentioned you have two teenage daughters. What does your family think of you fostering these kittens and your social media success?
They are very helpful for sure. Anything I need, they are very good. I try very very hard to not become obsessed with it so I am not ignoring everything else. I try to balance the time I spend with my husband my kids and the kittens… So if you ask [my family] I hope they would say that I do a good job balancing! I definitely make a huge effort to not let it overtake everything. I don’t want anyone to feel like my hobby is more important than they are, so it’s always a balancing act just like it is with any hobby. I try to do what I can, but I make sure that my main focus is always on my husband and my daughters.
It sounds like you are really creating a community of people that are doing similar work to you.
I hope it’s helping people realize that fostering is the same. It’s fun to do, and who wouldn’t want little kittens around? Plus, they also help their kittens get adopted.
You have over 400,000 followers, which is awesome, and I am sure you get a lot of likes and a lot of comments. How do you deal with comments? Have you ever had to deal with any negative comments?
You would be surprised — it’s kittens right? I get a lot of negative comments and a lot of bad language. It’s so shocking — it’s kittens! Seriously, guys!
At the beginning, I tried really hard to respond to people’s comments when I could, but now it’s too much for me. It would take too much time! I don’t respond as often as I would like, but if people ask me a direct question in the comments, I do respond. There a few people that comment a lot or have been following since the beginning, so I try to respond to them when they make a comment.
As for the negative comments, it seems like it’s not really meant to be negative. It’s just that people in other countries have different understandings of a lot of things about cat care. The only real negative I get is about neutering or spaying. Every time I get my kittens neutered, I get one of two comments from people: either “Why would you neuter them? It’s their natural destiny to have children,” or “Here in Sweden, we don’t neuter them until they are 6 months old. Why do you do it so young?” If I am polite and [explain,] people usually understand. And people are against neutering and spaying, I understand. But in North America, we just do not have enough homes for all kittens, and this is what we have to do to help with that.
Speaking of comments and captions, we all just adore your witty captions on Instagram. How do you come up with your captions? Is it just something that comes naturally?
I am not funny in real life. But people say things like, “You should be a stand up comic.” I could never do that because I really am not quick on my feet. But if I think for a few minutes, then often I can come up with something clever. It’s like the kittens just make you creative because they are so — I don’t know — they are so cute, and they are always doing funny things. You just see things from their perspective and it makes you want to be light hearted and creative and funny, like they are. Usually when I come up with a good caption is when I am just playing with them and videotaping them. If I sit down and play with them and do a few things with them, then that’s when the creative comes, so it’s definitely something that the kittens bring out in me.
Do you have any other social media accounts? Do they differ at all depending if you are using Instagram, Twitter or Facebook?
I have the @foster_kittens_fyi on Instagram, for foster kittens frequently asked questions. If people say, “What are the steps to adopt?” or “How did you get started fostering?” or “Is it hard to give the kittens up?” — those are some basic questions I get asked a lot — I can just point them towards that account to read what I have written about each of those questions.
I do have a Facebook for the kittens, but I don’t like Facebook as much as I do Instagram, so I do not post as often. I also have a YouTube channel and I live stream on that occasionally, but for now, Instagram is my main one. I would like to branch out a lot more with YouTube, but I just don’t have the time to do more with it.
Recently you have been doing a lot of live Instagramming, where you track the births of your litters. Can you walk us through that process?
A lot of people would like it if I could live stream the births, but, you know, birth is messy and things happen and it’s not always happy. I need to be able to edit what people see for a lot of reasons. Usually when the cat is delivering, I will just catch a quick video and then I will edit out the parts I don’t want and put in the parts that I do want. I don’t make a lot of comments and put a caption. Later, I might go back and put in a caption or comment on what people are saying. But I always want my number one focus to be on the mom cat and what she needs and does she need help.
So there is no doubt the internet loves cats. How does your social media work help your cats that you foster?
The best part is that people feel really attached to the kittens, and that makes them want to adopt the kittens. I feel like my kittens are really lucky, because they really get great homes... The ones that adopt my kittens have seen them be born on my Instagram account, and have watched them grow, watched their eyes open, watched them use the litter box for the first time, or go down the stairs for the first time. So they feel a real connection to these kittens.When the kitten is ready to be adopted, there is a whole line of people who truly want to adopt it. It’s not just a knee-jerk response; they have been planning this for awhile, so I feel like the kittens are really loved and wanted before they go to their homes. And it’s also really amazing to me that there will be a waiting list for these kittens. They are not Persians or Ragdolls, they are just tabbies or domestic short hairs, but there are so many people that want them because they feel a real connection to them.
Not everyone is prepared to be a cat parent. What would you say to followers that are looking for a way to help you or a shelter, but not necessary adopt a kitten?
That’s a great question. I have an Amazon wish list and people send in supplies for the kittens all the time. The shelters, of course, will give me anything I need: they take care of the vaccines, the viral testing, any medicine. They give me food, toys, litter, blankets, etc. But anything that my followers send is one last thing I need to buy for myself or get from the shelter, and it frees up supplies for other foster parents. People can also donate to any shelter. Almost all of them have a webpage with an Amazon wish list or a PayPale accounts where you can make donations.When I was trained to foster for Seattle Humane Society, I was so surprised at how many options they had for people to volunteer… Even if you can’t care for a pet or foster, there are really creative ways for you to get involved, to make a donation, or take a dog for a walk.
Follow Foster Kittens for more cute: Instagram | Facebook | YouTube
You can help Cindy’s foster kittens at this link.
Cindy Congdon is a foster parent for Purrfect Pals, Arlington WA and the Seattle Humane Society, Bellevue WA. Cindy is the owner of @foster_kittens for Instagram and Facebook, and started and manages the Youtube channel foster kittens.
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