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Photo: Mrs. Long Beach Kym Cloughesy, with Delaney Cloughesy<\/em><\/p>\n Kymberly Cloughesy is in training for her new job position 11 hours of the day, four days a week. She spends numerous hours more volunteering as an animal rescuer and advocate; has two grown children, one of whom lives at home; and manages to have a loving marriage of shared interests to Phil Cloughesy, a Long Beach Police Department officer whom she describes as \u201ca saint.\u201d Like Justin Rudd, founder of Community Action Team (CAT), she either manages on three hours of sleep a night or has a clone.<\/p>\n Kym has volunteered and worked in several capacities for the Long Beach Police Department for most of the past 15 years, with three interim years spent in the PR department of Long Beach Memorial Hospital. Most recently, she was the East Division Police Service Specialist until her position was eliminated because of budget reassignment. She\u2019s now in training as a public-safety dispatcher. On Nov. 4, Kym was awarded her latest title, Mrs. Long Beach, at a ceremony sponsored by CAT at the Grand Ballroom<\/a>. She handily passed the swimsuit and evening-wear competitions as well as the interviews, but Kym feels that what she does outside the ballroom weighed heavily in her winning the title.<\/p>\n \u201cI think part of it has to do with the fact that I\u2019ve been volunteering for at least the past seven years\u2014maybe even longer than that,\u201d she said. Kym\u2019s involvement includes community work with the LBPD, the Police Officers Association, Community Action Team events Friends of Long Beach Animals and Friends of the El Dorado Dog Park. But her work with Best Friends<\/a>, a national animal welfare organization centered in Kanab, Utah, that mentors community programs and especially working toward no need for shelter euthanasia is where her red carpet takes her heart, soul and spirit.<\/p>\n The National Geographic Channel show Dogtown <\/em>introduced Best Friends to Kym and Phil. The show is a no-holds-barred animal-rescue program set at Best Friends\u2019 headquarters shelter in Utah. It presents seemingly hopeless, horrible animal-abuse situations and the tireless work done by veterinarians and pet behaviorists to attempt to reverse them. \u201cI\u2019d sit at home and watch\u2014it piqued my interest and taught me a lot,\u201d Kym said. \u201cThen I heard that there was a Best Friends superadoption in Los Angeles, so the husband and I decided to go out on Date Day with no intention of adopting. I then made the decision to be a volunteer with Best Friends.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo intention of adoption\u201d aside, the Cloughesy household includes not only a cop of Irish descent but also four good-size dogs with a Gaelic lilt to each of their names. They were all adopted from different shelters: Murphy from spcaLA<\/a>, Delaney from Best Friends, Guinness from SEACCA in Downey<\/a>, and Dublin from Agoura Hills<\/a>. Kym says that the first adoption came from seeing the need during a Santa Paws delivery one Christmas.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve always been animal lovers, but we never had the opportunity to have dogs in our household since Phil and I were together because we were renting,\u201d she said. \u201cShortly after moving into our house five years ago, we made a decision that we were going to get a dog. The first place I went was to the Pitchford Companion Animal village, and I adopted from the spcaLA side.\u201d<\/p>\n The Cloughesys have volunteered at the L.A. shelter for the past two years, and Kym worked for six months there while she was still working at the LBPD. She served as a dog caregiver and an instructor for the dog-handling class that new volunteers are required to take. Besides the schlep to L.A., she and Phil also do transports for Marley\u2019s <\/a>Mutts <\/a>in Tehachapi<\/a>, sometimes at 3 a.m.; help the Red Nose Lucy Foundation<\/a> in its shelter assistance efforts, and are training for disaster relief at Best Friends. The organization recently transported pets from shelters in Staten Island, Long Island and New Jersey that were hit hard by Hurricane Sandy. Both Cloughesys said that they\u2019re ready to use their vacation time to go in the next catastrophe.<\/p>\n \u201cAlthough local support is very important, you have to think globally,\u201d Kym said. \u201cYou can help more this way.\u201d<\/p>\n Kym represents Mrs. Long Beach and Best Friends at a special pet fair at Recreation Park honoring Kait and John Seyal (at left, with their dogs Grace, Jenny and Max) at the final two and four legs of their Dog Walk Across America. (Want to read a great blog? Click here<\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n That\u2019s a big part of Kym\u2019s Mrs. Long Beach platform: working toward realizing Best Friends\u2019 humane no-kill mission (click here <\/a>for a brief overview<\/a>). Looking at our shelter population and the number of dogs, cats and rabbits abandoned to the streets and born in them, this seems like an impossible dream. But Kym\u2019s no quixotic windmill chaser\u2014she says that there are four ways to do it: educate, adopt, spay\/neuter and volunteer.<\/p>\n This is one of Best Friends’ No-Kill L.A.’s billboards, which to the uninformed may appear to be an ad for designer jeans for cats.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cThe ultimate goal is to reduce the number of animals in shelters\u2014I believe it\u2019s a five-year goal to bring the numbers down,\u201d Kym said. \u201cI believe that one of the biggest things that our city of Long Beach needs to tackle first is education. People need to understand that they\u2019re not going to get a \u2018higher-quality animal\u2019 from a breeder. Just because an animal is in the shelter doesn\u2019t mean that it did anything to get into that situation. Animals get lost, animals get relinquished, people just don\u2019t have time or a home for them, people overbreed animals. People go to pet stores and purchase animals for 12 to 15 times the cost of getting a rescued animal\u2014and these pets come from puppy mills. My personal belief is that there should be litigation on the books that says that pet stores cannot or will not sell cats, rabbits or dogs that were purchased from breeders. I encourage anyone who makes the decision to go into a pet store to go to a shelter first. Think about the decision you\u2019re making by purchasing or breeding an animal, and then think about which animal in the shelter you would make the decision to euthanize.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd we need to encourage people to adopt from our shelters. Long Beach has a good platform, and many people, especially high-profile ones in the city [Mayor Foster and his wife, Nancy, are famously fond of ACS adoptee Noah], have adopted from our shelter. Anyone who has a voice needs to step up and share the message because if you don\u2019t step up and rescue an animal, how are we going to convince other people to do it?\u201d<\/p>\n Not spaying or neutering a pet is a big, big factor in shelter euthanasia. The littermates who weren\u2019t given away, dumped alive in trash cans or unceremoniously killed by the owners wind up in shelters where they\u2019re euthanized if homes aren\u2019t found or an already overburdened rescue pulls them out.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are approximately 6,000,000 animals who die every year in shelters across our country,\u201d Kym said. \u201cThere is no shortage of animals, nor will there be one any time soon. Everything I\u2019ve heard from veterinarians and everything I\u2019ve read [about spay\/neuter] contradicts anything else I\u2019ve heard about it being bad for an animal. It lessens the chance of testicular cancer, the animal is less likely to stray from your house\u2014people seem to believe that it changes pets\u2019 personalities\u2014if anything, it calms them down.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd I am sick and tired of hearing people tell me, \u2018I just want my children to see an animal have one litter.\u2019 <\/em>[With that one litter], we\u2019ve brought six to 10 more into the cycle that we now have to try to find homes for. And if you manage to give them away, do you know if the people you gave them to will give them good homes\u2014and did you bother to get them spayed or neutered before you gave them away? People need to realize that this uses their tax dollars. Local government has to pick up the cost of those animals who were brought into the system.\u201d<\/p>\n The fourth element, volunteering, is walking the talk, and sometimes the dog. \u201cIf I can get people to get their butts out of their houses and do something, I\u2019m going to do it,\u201d Kym said. \u201cIf you can\u2019t adopt, foster. If you can\u2019t foster, volunteer. If you can\u2019t volunteer, donate\u2014and I encourage people to donate locally as well as globally. If you can\u2019t donate, share stories on Facebook. If you can find two hours a week to spend with an animal that\u2019s in a shelter, you\u2019re going to possibly make a difference in that animal\u2019s life\u2014you can actually share with someone else the true essence of an animal you\u2019ve worked with and say, hey, this is the personality I\u2019ve seen. This dog likes playing ball. This cat likes rubbing up against you. If you can share these stories with potential adopters, we\u2019ll get more people into our shelters.\u201d<\/p>\n And if, in five years, there\u2019s still shelter overpopulation and mass euthanasia of animals?<\/p>\n \u201cThen we\u2019ll continue on our mission, because if something can be done at that level to bring the numbers down in the city of L.A., it can be done anywhere. This is our planet, these are our animals, and we have the responsibility to care for them.\u201d<\/p>\n The least I can do is speak out for those who cannot speak for themselves.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n ~ Jane Goodall<\/em><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Found Animal Foundation\u2019s 12 Pets of Christmas<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cOn the second day of Christmas, I gave all my true love<\/p>\n To two cats a-purring<\/p>\n And a grinning pittie, silver as chrome.\u201d<\/p>\n Hulk and Radio, males, about 5 months old. Need to be adopted together. Ask for ID# A482087.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n Beautiful Ava, about 9 months old. Had a rough start and needs a soft spot. Ask for ID#<\/em>A479085.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n The Found Animals Foundation<\/a> is offering coupons for $30 off cat adoptions and $40 off dog adoptions at shelters throughout L.A. County up to Dec. 23. Hulk, Radio and Ava are available on the shelter side at Long Beach Animal Care Services, 7700 E. Spring Street, and there are a whole lot more than 12 in there as well as on the spcaLA side. Click here for information<\/a>.<\/p>\n![\"kym](\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/kym-at-dog-walk-620x465-620x465.jpg\")
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Virtually Pets<\/h3>\n
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<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\nPet Projects<\/h3>\n
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