{"id":1370,"date":"2017-06-14T15:37:07","date_gmt":"2017-06-14T15:37:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lbpost.com\/articles\/life\/pets\/frolic-for-felines-shelter-volunteers-create-kitty-toys-with-a-help-from-a-little-friend\/"},"modified":"2017-06-14T15:37:07","modified_gmt":"2017-06-14T15:37:07","slug":"frolic-for-felines-shelter-volunteers-create-kitty-toys-with-a-help-from-a-little-friend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/hi-lo\/pets\/frolic-for-felines-shelter-volunteers-create-kitty-toys-with-a-help-from-a-little-friend","title":{"rendered":"Kittengarten Recess! Shelter Volunteers Create Kitty Toys, with a Help from a Little Friend"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What can get your happy train back on track more quickly than a cat-toy-making party? Invite a little feline to test the toys out, and your jollies will know no bounds.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, June 11, Long Beach Animal Care Services\u2019 (ACS)<\/a>\u00a0Enrichment Coordinator, Kathy Roddy, gathered some of us kitty-cuddling volunteers to create playthings for the shelter\u2019s cats to keep them interested, engaged and silly instead of lying around in their kennels bored silly. Playing with toys helps exercise and socialize the cats and increases their chances of adoption.<\/p>\n

\"Lissette<\/p>\n

“Oh, won’t they love<\/em>\u00a0this!”\u00a0Volunteer Lissette Martinez gets her inner kitty on with pipe cleaners! Photos by Kate Karp.<\/em><\/p>\n

Inspired by Beatles music and the thoughts of the little moggies, the volunteers got creative with pipe cleaners, feathers, toilet-paper-roll cores (Don’t throw those away! The shelter needs them!), wine corks (they\u2019d been soaked in water to prevent unintended inebriation) and jars of catnip (which induces feline inebriation in the best way possible). Roddy soon decided that it would be a good idea to have a cat try the toys out, so she plopped a tiny kitten on the table. Oh, the oohs, the aaahhs and the aaawwes, and the playthings passed all tests with flying colors\u2014literal flying colors, everywhere.<\/p>\n

\"Heather<\/p>\n

Shelter enrichment coordinator (left) and volunteer Heather Williams are enchanted with the little kittengartener.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Heather<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"Dont<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

“I am wants biggest catnip blunt inna world.”<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Not<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

“Holy cats, I iz baked!”<\/em><\/p>\n

We were suggesting toy manufacturing companies that would welcome a cat in as a toy tester\u2014Catsbro, Fishy-Price and Cat-tel came to mind\u2014and during the conversation, we decided that Mattel would be a good name for the kitten. He couldn\u2019t have cared less if we called him Englebert Humperdink\u2014he had food, a litter box and a lot of new friends to cuddle him, whom he welcomed with rumbling appreciation, and he was in full toy overload.<\/p>\n