The Beginning

My kitten Instagram account started as a place to store my photos so my friends and family wouldn’t be bombarded with photos of my foster kittens, but it became something bigger than I imagined.  It has now become a place where I document the lives of the fosters kittens that are in my care as well as a place I share the work I do trapping and neutering feral, free roaming cats.  I didn’t even imagine that I’d be trapping and neutering neighborhood cats.

And never did I imagine that I would one day I’d be sharing kitten care tips, advocating for spay/neuter, educating against declawing or networking for cats I had never even met that were in need of rescue on the other side of the world!

I knew that people would enjoy seeing the sweet faces of cute kittens, but I quickly wanted it to be more than that.  My fire inside began with wanting to inspire others to step up and foster.  See these cute kittens?  You could play with cute kittens in your home too.  There are so many of them that need a place to stay temporarily that municipal shelters are euthanizing cute kittens to make room for more coming through the door.

Standing in the lobby on my first adoption event and seeing how many people were walking in off the street discarding animals that they found or no longer wanted was not only shocking, it was gut-wrenching.  The shelter was limited in space and when the kennels were full, animals were turned away.  The more I watched this happen, the more I wanted others to know this, so I took to my public platform and started to post.  I’d capture the attention of those scrolling through their Instagram feed with a cute kitten face and then in my caption, I’d hit them with the reality, the truth about the huge problem going on that not many people knew about.

Here’s the great part.  I soon realized that this post of an adorable kitten face had power.  Power to inspire, power to motivate.  I knew that my words alone couldn’t do it, but a cute kitten could.