Doing the right thing is often not the easy thing

If this is the only post you read of my blog, know this was not easy for me in the least.

I am moving. I am not only moving, but I am moving two hours away and I am moving into a slightly smaller house so I am having to downsize somewhat. We are getting rid of some of our furniture and as many decorative items as I can bear to part with.

I am also making a plan to move our six cats and make it as comfortable for them as we can. I have a quilt at the new house soaking up the scent there so they can at least get used to that before we go, I have a 'go bag' being planned with some food and treats and quite a few items from home that will make them feel comfortable in the isolation room while they are there.

And then there is The Crimson Tide

I could not fathom the idea of bringing TCT (aka Spot) with the cats, and I couldn't face the idea of taking him up first, setting him up coming home, then bringing up the cats, mostly because the cats have to be packed up and out of the house before the movers come. I could bring the cats and then the fish, but that would be six hours on the road and one incredibly long day and it would mean the cats would be at the new house alone for over four hours.

So I thought about bringing him up on another day but then who would feed him? I also wondered where I would put him as we are not going to have both bureaus in the bedroom (downsizing) and with the cat's love of sitting on top of the tank I couldn't think of another good place to put it. I knew that the best thing for Spot was to find him a new home.

It broke my heart to think of doing it, because when I make a commitment to an animal I intend to care for that animal for their entire life but in this case, the kind thing to do would be to find someone closer to care for him. I know Spot isn't bonded to me, he doesn't care who puts his food in his water, so letting him go would not harm his quality of life (as long as I found someone who wanted him).

When Kathleen, who adopted Maxwell and Ducky (aka Faraday) from me a few years ago, posted she just bought a betta fish I lamented that I had wished she had said something (when really I was lamenting not having said something sooner) and she found someone who was willing to take Spot for me. I was both elated and sad.

This weekend Spot went to his new home.

I took the decorations out of the tank and lowered the water to make transport easier. Fortunately, his new home is just a couple of miles down the road so transport was pretty quick. I packed everything up and brought some warmed water for refilling the tank so he would have the water he is used to to help him adjust to the transport before changing the water (we are on a well, so all water is slightly different)

We brought him home in the beginning of November in 2015 (wow, I thought he was a year and a half, but he is two years) so it was hard to see the spot empty that night.

A few days later I am still thinking I forgot to feed him. I know he is doing well. I asked for an update the next morning and I was told he was doing well and I was given a few photos

I am still sad that he is no longer here but I know, I mean it *I know*, this was in his best interest. I accept that there are instances where you have made a commitment to an animal and in doing what is best for that animal you have to keep an open mind that sometimes letting go of your idea of what or how it should be is what is in their best interest. Be it a cat that can not adjust to the home that it is in or a dog that needs more exercise than the circumstances they are in can allow. There are many things you can try for those situations, so rehoming isn't the first choice, but it should be on the table that if the animal can't adjust that you do what the animal needs and find a place that will give the animal what it needs. I know there are people who disagree with this and who scream loudly at the idea of an animal leaving their 'forever' home before their life ends, but I think they are too close-minded to realize that sometimes, in some instances, they can be doing more harm than good.

Thank you, Kathleen, for once again finding a great home for an animal in my care (she has found homes for quite a few of my foster kittens in the years since I met her) and thank you, Melanie, for taking on Spot and these awesome photos.

Do you think you want an aquarium? #catenrichment #APIfish #sponsored

This post is sponsored by MARS Fishcare and the BlogPaws Professional Pet Blogger Network. I am being compensated for helping spread the word about API Perfect Start but Tails from the Foster Kittens only shares information we feel is relevant to our readers. MARS Fishcare is not responsible for the content of this article.

I have been wanting a freshwater aquarium for a few years now. When I was first married some twenty odd years ago we had fish. Yes, I had a fish tank with cats, and no, it didn't end well. One of my cats decided to sit on top of the tank and some how ended up turning up the temperature on the heater and cooked all of my fish. It was a sad sad day at Casa de Gato, and my husband said he was done with fish.

I've brought it up a few times over the years. I miss having fish, and I thought it would be fun to have a tank in the kitten room for the kittens to watch the fish, and I thought it would be fun to have a tank in the house for The Crew to watch the fish, but my husband said he wasn't interested and I wasn't inclined to go get one and bring it home without him.

So when I had a chance to blog about API© Fish Care I immediately signed up and I was thrilled when I was picked. There was talk of buying beta fish but I wasn't obligated to do so.

Since it has been probably twenty years since I had a tank, the first obligation was to go see what was offered..and learn how to start an aquarium all over again. Fortunately my husband was up for this and came with me.

This is the young man who helped me. You can't tell, but his name is Emery and he had a cat icon on his badge, I figured this was going to go well. We talked for a while, and I had vague recollections of starting a fish tank and how complicated it was, how you needed 100 different things and you had to set it up and wait a while, and then you had to bring the fish home, so needless to say I had like 100 questions and he very kindly answered them all, even let me take a photo of him as you can see.

My husband wanted to 'rescue' a beta fish. I have never liked the idea of them being kept in cups like that; I knew they had to be kept separate or they would fight and hurt one another. Emery assured me that their natural living conditions were in areas where they would often end up in mud puddles with even less water than this, and that keeping them this way for a short time wasn't horrible... I imagine it is a bit like keeping a cat in a cage at a shelter... well as long as they are properly cared for. I imagine some places don't care for them as well as others. These betas all appeared to be in good health and had clean water.

I looked over the tropical fish, even considered getting some gold fish, but in the end decided to get a beta.

My store had only two of the three different size API Perfect Start™ Aquarium Kits offered by API, the three gallon and the seven gallon. They also offer a 1.5 gallon which would have been very nice for a beta since Emery told me the general rule of fish is one inch of fish per gallon of water, but since these were my options I went with the three gallon.

The kit came with the tank, the filter and the hood which has the light built into it. LED which is nice because it takes less energy to run, but also because you can get some funky colors with it. It also comes with a starter kit of water conditioners and salt. The salt confused me to no end because I wasn't setting a saltwater aquarium, but I figured they knew what they were doing (you should have seen the cats begging at my feet as I opened up that package and shook the salt tablets into the water, they all thought it was a bag of treats)

The kit does not come with gravel or decorations despite the photo on the front of the box. Initially I was a bit disappointed, but then I probably would have been more disappointed if I didn't get to pick things out and had to go with someone else's choices. I also want to mention how impressed I am with the filter motor as I can barely hear it running; very much a bonus because we put the tank in our bedroom.

I was still pretty leery about the setup being so easy. I figured if there was to be more about it Emery would have told me, because I imagine the people at PetSmart want you to enjoy your aquarium and not be overly frustrated, so in the end I followed all of the instructions and ignored all of the 'but what about' questions running around in my head and things went very well.

Meet "The Crimson Tide".. we call him Spot for short.. He looks mighty red in this photo, but he has quite a bit of blue on him as well, he is nearly iridescent.

And as for cat enrichment, yeah, that is going pretty well. The Crimson Tide seems to like the interaction because he continues to hang out in that corner. From what I hear betas are fairly intelligent, and you can actually teach them tricks!

I would have loved to have put a tank in the kitten room, but there wasn't really a good spot for it, and I am guessing there will be a month or two this winter when I don't have guests in the kitten room and I wasn't inclined to make myself run downstairs twice a day to feed a fish I wouldn't be seeing much of.

One issue I am having is feeding with the filter running. If I leave the filter running the return from the filter pushes all of the food to the floor where Spot won't eat it, so I have to unplug it to feed him. I'm trying to figure something else out, but I have yet to. If you have any ideas, I'm totally open to them, please, let me know in the comments.

If you would like to learn more, you can check out their website. They are also on Facebook where they are currently running a chance to win an aquarium

You can also check out some of the posts done by other bloggers. I don't normally share these, but I had so much fun reading them all, I thought you might enjoy it.

* Pawsitively Pets             * My Brown Newfies & me     * Carma Poodle
* The Small Things      * Pet Coupon Savings         * Horseshoes & Handgrenades
* 4 The Love of Animals  * Spencer the Goldendoodle    * Pets Weekly