“We’re now in Dante’s Ninth Circle of Hell,” Long Beach Animal Care Services manager Staycee Dains asserted. Dains was alluding to the the apocalyptic deluge of kittens born yearly between the end of February and finally at its ebb by October. The Scratching Post readers and others concerned with cat welfare know it as kitten season, the result of the thousands of unaltered female cats who meet up outdoors and sometimes indoors with their male counterparts and bear tens of thousands of kittens. You know where most of them wind up—the ones lucky enough to live through it.

“July and August are the worst times,” Dains said. “If you look at kitten data intake, it starts creeping up in March and gets really steep between April, May and June. It peaks in July, then there’s a tiny dip, and it peaks again in August. Then, it dips down, and by October, the numbers are down similar to what they were in and May—back down to ‘normal.’ It’s sort of nature’s horrible joke.”

Volunteers in the cat cottages and catio recreation areas have their paws full with cleaning out kennels, scooping litter boxes, checking that there’s enough food and water for the cats to thrive, eyeballing the babies for medical issues, playing with them, cuddling them, discovering their personalities (yes, they’re far more than glaring, meatloafing piles of fur), calling them their liddle snookie-ookie-ookie-wookie-schnookies, and doing everything that they can to share the burden of duties with an already overwhelmed staff.

A couple of weeks ago, The Scratching Post spotlighted dog volunteers and the canines they love and who love them, too. Meet the Long Beach Animal Care Services cat persons and the floofs they’re caring for. It’s all adult cats this time—little kittens are sure cute, and they get adopted faster than the adult cats, seniors and the ones grown past the adorables. They are waiting to go home, too.

Kittens grow up to be cats anyway, so if you’re considering adopting one, consider a loving adult who’s past all the baby tantrums. They will thank you.

Shelter adoptions are conducted through appointment, so contact [email protected] to meet any of these fine, fine felines. Some of them have been lingering at the shelter for months. They need to go home.

Janet McWhorter is a dedicated, devoted kitty volunteer. She socials their photos on every outlet she can. She’s there nearly every day feeding, playing, observing, cuddling, and speaking fluent cat. She’ll tell you about the royal Siamese Levi (ID#A655339), 2 years old, and lovely senior Peach (ID#A658852), who’s 11 and still lovely.

 

https://youtu.be/etvXKB54-DE

 

https://youtu.be/WpTiaWYDgEk

 

Susan Schulberg is a kitty stalwart. She’s also completely focused on the cats, from checking for medical issues to making sure that their canned meals are mashed up with a spoon to give them that great flavor experience. Meet Susan, 3-year-old Sherlock (ID#A658053) and Arizona (ID#A654830), 5 years old.

https://youtu.be/clOYwKuNwnM

Kathy Roddy has worked closely with shelter pets for eight years. She’s part of a three-person adoption team that includes Carrie Bain and Julie Dyer. Together, with support from the volunteers, they send home a steadily increasing number of cats, dogs and rabbits every year. Here’s Kathy with bonded pair Carl (ID#A660851) and Maurice (ID#A660852). Both are 3 years old.

https://youtu.be/lHnexBr4E9Y

Heidi Poe has worked at Long Beach Animal Care Services for almost 20 years. She’s had experience both in the field and inside the shelter and has experienced the joy of reuniting pets with their people, the grief of having to give up on an animal, and the frustrations of a shorthanded staff and the changes and inconveniences that COVID-19 restrictions still impose. She knows every resident in both dog and cat kennels, and likely the Bunny Barn. She’s especially fond of the striking Mitzie (ID#A510485), 8 years old.

https://youtu.be/SNKdg5qibXY

Virtually Pets

Just fur fun and fur-ther education

Jackson Galaxy’s Cat Camp Summer Sessions: 10–11:30 a.m.; Saturday, Aug. 14 and Aug. 21; Zoom channel; $20 for Kitten Poopinar; $10 for grief session.

Summer’s here, and Jackson Galaxy, a great slate of pet people (including the meme-worthy Kitten Lady Hannah Shaw), and Petco Love, which is providing the marshmallows and chew sticks for the s’meowrs, have teamed up as camp counselors for three sessions of cat camp. Get the scoop on the poop, quite literally, in the Aug. 21 session about divining the significance of the caboodle that comes out of a kitten’s caboose. For anyone who’s suffered the loss of a cherished furry housemate whether during the pandemic or before, the Aug. 14 session on compounded grief, a term for how the universal COVID-19 losses amplify personal loss, will guide you and the rest of the participants through dealing with your losses. Read further descriptions and purchase tickets at this link.

Benny the Cat’s third birthday celebration: 6:30–10 p.m., Tuesday, Aug. 24; link available here, free event

Join Benny the Cat’s human family and Helen Sanders CatPAWS in celebration of the third birthday of the best boy in the whole world! Benny survived horrible abuse as a kitten, and his story has been told many times over. This year, a virtual celebration will be held for Benny and the lives he’s inspired as well as his special bond with so many fellow cat lovers—and fellow cats, too! Helen Sanders CatPAWS is sponsoring this special event, and there will be lots of party-favor opportunities: Benny biography books, CatPAWS tote bags and a $100 American Express card. You’ll learn about our guy winning fourth place out of 26,000 cats in the World’s Most Inspiring Cat Contest and all his other adventures! Guests will have a ball (and maybe chase one around the room) playing cat trivia games, catching up with old friends, and making new ones! The event is free; donations are optional. Here’s your special engraved invite! Living well is the best revenge, and so is loving and being loved!

Comedy and Cats: 7:30–9 p.m., Saturday, Sept., 4, Feline Good Social Club, 301 Atlantic Ave., Long Beach, $25.

Join the feline adoptables and residents at Long Beach’s premier cat lounge as you laugh hysterically at the comedians onstage while the cats wonder how come you’re not laughing at them. Six comedians, backed by the lounge kittens, will give you the laugh you surely need by now in the Salty AF comedy show. Guests will be socially distanced among the lounge’s three rooms (2,000 square feet!), so there’s plenty of space for you and the cats to socialize. Bring your own beverages. No kitten around, get your tickets soon because social distancing doesn’t allow for a packed house! Tickets are available here.

Best Friends’ Strut Your Mutt fundraising event: details and events here

Ready to start building a team or just strut your stuff solo? Best Friends, a nationwide organization whose intent is to save every animal life possible, has started its registration for its October 23 Strut Your Mutt Day virtual walk. The goal is to raise $2 million for both the organization and animal shelters and rescues nationwide. Access this link for instructions on how to build your team or register yourself, and participate in virtual events such as pig yoga and meeting the animals at Best Friends Animal Sanctuary as you move along the time line. Mutts and all manner of mammals will thank you!

Calendars: 365 days of furry love

Helen Sanders CatPAWS Show Us Your Kitties 2022 calendar contest: entries accepted up to 5 p.m., Saturday, Sept. 18.

Calling all stage cat mommies and cat daddies! Now’s the chance for you to buy the way of your ridiculously adorable ridiculous feline into the spotlight! Helen Sanders CatPAWS cat rescue is again holding its annual photo contest in which you can enter your own cat and get your friends to donate funds to vote for a cover or month photo position on the calendar! It’s a lot less fattening than asking them to buy your kids’ fundraising chocolate, and the money taken in will pay more medical bills for cats, put together more DIY newborn-kitten-care kits, and fund all the good things CatPAWS does—the goal is $10,000, but they’ll settle for more. You can also reserve a special day for a kitty whose memory you want to honor. CatPAWS will attempt to place every photo received somewhere on the calendar. Grab all the details here!

Stray Cat Alliance’s Ravishing Rescues Calendar: entries accepted from 12:01 a.m., Tuesday, Aug. 10 until 8 p.m., Friday, Sept. 3.

Show your ear tips, kitties! The champion of cats stray and homeless are looking for your picture-purrfect cat to show off in the cutest photo you can find. All felines invited, no matter where they entered your home from. Each vote costs only $1, and 100% of the proceeds will be used to help homeless cats and kittens at Stray Cat Alliance. If your feline gets the most votes, they will win a top spot in the coveted 2022 Stray Cat Alliance Ravishing Rescues Calendar! Details available here.

Help wanted, help given

Cherry Pie for Cherry Eye clinic: Friday, Aug. 13,  Fix Long Beach, 1749 Magnolia Ave., Long Beach, by appointment only.

Cherry eye is an inflammation of a tear gland on a dog’s third eyelid. Cherry pie is a delicious, gooey, juicy fruit pastry, usually round. Fix Long Beach and Sparky and the Gang dog rescue are eager to make a trade. Please contact the group for an appointment for a special price on the surgery by texting 310-809-7374. Little Jack Horner never had it so good!

Volunteer walkers needed for senior citizens’ dogs

Ida’s Walkers is a program of The Heart of Ida, a 501c3 nonprofit organization serving the older-adult population in and around Long Beach. Ida’s Walkers offers dog-walking services to low-to-moderate-income seniors who are hospitalized, have limited mobility, or are at risk of falling. If you want to help senior citizens keep their beloved pets as long as they are able to live at home, call 562-370-3548.

Fix Long Beach low-cost pet-services clinics: selected days and times, 1749 Magnolia Ave., Long Beach, services available by appointment at www.fixlongbeachpets.com.

Fix Long Beach is taking appointments for low-cost spay/neuter, dental, vaccines and other vet needs for cats and dogs. Vaccination clinics take place on the second and fourth Thursday of each month. Visit their webpage or Facebook page for details.

DIY Kitten Care Kits available free at Long Beach Animal Care Services

Kitten season is here and shelters and rescues will be scrambling to save their lives, get them fixed, get them adopted. It isn’t unusual to find nests of young, seemingly abandoned kittens during kitten season. It is a natural reaction to want to help, to save them.  If you are interested in obtaining a Kitten Care Kit made possible by Helen Sanders CatPAWS, please email [email protected].

Spay/neuter vouchers available at shelter

Long Beach Animal Care Services has spay/neuter vouchers available. They’ll take a healthy nip out of the cost of a procedure. Residents of any of the five cities served by the shelter can telephone the general number at 562-570–7387 to request a voucher.

 Spay/neuter appointments available at SNP/LA

The Spay/Neuter Project of Los Angeles (SNP/LA) is back in business for free and low-cost spay/neuter services, and they’re extending the hours of their vaccination clinics. The San Pedro clinic will give shots between 9 a.m. and 8 p.m. every third Thursday at 957 N. Gaffey St. Call 310-574–5555 to see if you qualify for services.

If you can see the bottom of the kibble bag

Undre Porter pets his dog while in his room in Long Beach Thursday, April 15, 2021. Porter was homeless and is now in transit housing in Long Beach. Photo by Thomas R. Cordova.

 

Pets of the Homeless’s home page gives a self-description as the only organization focusing only on providing food and care for pets belonging to homeless people. Businesses and other organizations across the country receive in-kind donations of food and other needs that the dogs and cats’ human families can pick up at outreach locations. The following Long Beach businesses will accept your donations:

Trendi Pawz, 3726 E. Seventh St., Long Beach

Belmont Heights Animal Hospital, 255 Redondo Ave., Long Beach

Paw Shoppe Pet Center, Inc., 6416 E. Spring St., Long Beach

Food and supplies are available Mondays from 9 a.m. to noon and Saturdays from noon to 3 p.m. at Beacon for Him Ministries, 1535 Gundry Ave. Long Beach; and Thursdays from 9 to 11 a.m. at Christian Outreach in Action, 515 E. Third St., Long Beach, Donations will be gratefully accepted at these locations as well.

Adopt, adopt, adopt

Adoptees on display

Pet Food Express Cat Adoption Center: 10 a.m.–8 p.m. weekdays and Saturdays, and 10 a.m.–7 p.m. Sundays., Pet Food Express, 4220 Long Beach Blvd., Long Beach, adoption fees apply.

This adoption center is a much-needed satellite operation of Long Beach Animal Care Services. Julie and her team pull adoptable cats—”adoptable,” to these guys, means any cat in a shelter kennel! The team socializes the kitties until they’re adopted, which takes less time than you could imagine!

 Helen Sanders CatPAWS adoption center: viewable daily during store hours, PetSmart, 12341 Seal Beach Blvd., Seal Beach, adoption fees apply

Window-shopping’s a neat pastime and likely has become more common during the pandemic. Helen Sanders CatPAWS has applied window-shopping to cat adoption; you can peer at several of the fine felines through the windows of the PetSmart adoption center in Seal Beach, and now, you can finally visit with them, scratch their little ears, and rub them under their chinny-chin-chins on Saturdays from noon to 3 p.m. Volunteers will answer questions and provide you with adoption information! Be sure to wear a mask. You can find adoption applications and all the kitties here.

Links to loveables

two dogs and a cat on one border, two cats and two dogs on other. Caption says, "May we couch-surf at your place?"
May we couch-surf at your place?

Nota bon-e—fosters are needed everywhere!

If you’ve always wanted a pet but aren’t sure if you’re ready for a lifetime (the animal’s) commitment, or if you’re past the pet-roommate days for any reason, fostering might be a great way to go, especially with one or more of the kittens popping up during kitten season. Every one of the organizations listed below is in desperate need of fosters who’ll social them and help save their little lives. Who knows—maybe one of those lives will change your mind about the not-ready-for-roommate thing!

These nonprofits also regularly feature cat, dog and rabbit adoptions. As of now, adoptions are mainly by appointment. Fosters are needed for kittens as well. Click on the links for each rescue in case of updates or changes. These organizations operate through donations and grants, and anything you can give would be welcome. Please suggest any Long Beach-area rescues to add to the list.