09/24/2026
How wonderful!
Kittens are the animals least likely to leave a shelter alive. Not because their medicine is impossible — but because almost no one was taught it. 🐾💙
Stacy sits down with Jordyn Purpura, a final-year veterinary student and twelve-year neonatal foster parent, to talk about one of the most consequential gaps in animal welfare: almost nothing in veterinary education begins before eight weeks of age.
Jordyn has experienced this gap from every angle — as a foster parent hearing "there isn't much we can do," as a shelter worker placing bottle babies, and as the person sometimes present for their euthanasia when no foster could be found. For a long time, there was a defensible reason to accept this gap: it didn't matter what a vet was willing to prescribe if there was nobody to take that kitten home and feed it every two hours.
But that excuse, he argues, has quietly expired. Foster networks have grown. Nurseries have opened. Funding has followed. What hasn't caught up is the reflex — too small for blood work, too small for imaging, too small for a medication that was never labeled for a body this size.
That reflex has a body count. And Jordyn is doing something about it. 💙
🎧 Listen now: https://youtu.be/PhPtEbIrXf4?si=lm5SwijSo3jLJL2a