Colin's goodbye

I never got to writing about Colin's leaving, because I had a hard time with it at first, and later on it became something that was still on my to do list. But now that I currently have a new foster, and want to tell her story here as well, I think it's a good moment to share the last bits of Colin.

Colin really stole my heart, but unfortunately he didn't go well with my own cats, else I wouldn't have doubted about keeping him. So his adoption ment a bit extra to me, and it didn't turn out as I'd hoped. The adoption process goes as follows: people can see the kittens online (on various websites) and contact the shelter about a kitten they have an interest in. The shelter then talks to them to see if they think it would be a match, and if so, it's just a matter of seeing if the new owner still feels that way after seeing the kitten. So if the shelter thinks it could be a match, I get a bit of information about the possible new owners' situation (do they have kids, other cats, etc.) and get their contact info, and make an appointment with them. That's a bit different than going to a shelter and kinda picking out a cat there, but it's way better for the kitten to be with a fosterhome, and so the new owners come to my house. If all goes well then, they go to the shelter and in the mean time, I contact the shelter to share how it went and to let them know that the owners are on their way to sort the adoption papers. Of course there's some exceptions here, like when a kitten needs to stay a little bit longer because of medical reasons for example, but in such cases the new owners will have to go pay a part of the adoption costs already. Anyway, Colin was allowed to move straight away if it was a match and the people that wanted him sounded like they had a good home for him, and I made an appointment with them.

When they came to me, Colin was sitting in the front window, which he didn't dare to do for long yet, and so he saw his new owner and her company (her husband didn't join) approach the door. I'm not sure if it was her enthusiasm (and who can blame her, cute kitten in the window!) or what caused it, but as soon as I opened the door, Colin bolted and hid behind the laundry machine. No matter what I tried after that, a nice snack, toys, Dewey's help, Colin refused to come from behind there. So I ended up just sharing information about Colin and showing photos, and his new owner decided she wanted him anyway, and so they left for the shelter. I then contacted the shelter as always, and explained that the new owner seemed nice, but that she didn't actually get to see Colin. The shelter had doubts about that as well, and in the mean time, Colin was still hiding. It took about 15 mins after they left before he came from under there, rushed past me and hid under the bed.
The shelter decided to talk to the lady, to see if she maybe could visit another time (perhaps with her husband as well), and if she really wanted to adopt a cat that she hadn't seen, but she really wanted him that day. Unfortunately shelters often aren't in a position to be too picky and wait for the perfect match from all sides, and because it was a match from 1 side at least and she came across as a nice owner, the adoption continued. In the mean time I managed to get Colin from under the bed and locked him up in his room, and after a while he relaxed more again and we just sat there and cuddled. I was in tears because I hadn't seen him react to visitors like that before and I so wished he would've loved his owners from the moment they met.

The owner and her company came back after quite a while (the shelter really took their time with them from what I understood), which was awkward for both sides I think after they had their unexpected chat with the shelter, and I went upstairs to put Colin in his new cage. Colin was hiding under the closet and hissed when I took the cage into his room, and I had to catch him and pull him from under there. Needless to say, this broke my heart. With Basil I had a similar situation, the last I could do for him was cage him (when he was back at the shelter), but Basil reacted very well to his new owners from what I heard and so that was a bittersweet thing to do. With Colin it was just a thing that went against my instinct, you want to protect "your" kittens from all negative situations or gently guide them through scared things. I just wished so badly he would've at least given his owner a chance when she was here, so we could've shown him that she wasn't scary and have a better start, but his reaction was way worse than I could've imagined. And because I had seen him scared a lot more, I wasn't sure what to expect this time, would he stay that way for long or would he quickly recover in his new home? Last I heard was a reply his new owners gave to the shelter, and it sounds like he's doing well, which I'm really happy about. Even though the adoption didn't go as I'd hoped, there's also kittens that we never heard more of (I still wonder about them), and I'm very glad that Colin isn't one of them ánd that he's ok. I think they're very lucky with him, and I hope he's having an awesome life with them, made friends with their cats and showing them the cat that I saw in him.