Things are going pretty well at the San Francisco SPCA. Recently, our longest cat resident, Cat Benatar found an adopter. They came back a week later to buy her a new collar, and told me she’s doing really well. Rowdy, an 8 year-old Rottweiler, found a home after nearly five months at the shelter. It really makes our day when a senior dog or cat finds an adopter. I missed the moment he left, but I heard there were a few tears from our staff when he left the building.
On the other end of the spectrum, about five times a day, I get a call or a client walks in and asks if we have any kittens. The answer’s often the same, “no, not right now, but soon. But of course, we have many, many wonderful adult cats that would make great companions.”
For some reason, that almost never leads to an adult adoption. I say it anyway, because it’s true and because a kitten is only a kitten for a few months, then it pretty much resembles an adult. They grow fast, trust me. I remember once being able to hold my boy Max in one hand. This morning, as he lay on my chest while I read, his fifteen pounds almost suffocated me.
So I’ve come to accept that people love kittens, and if they want them they should have them. We just can’t keep up with demand right now. If a kitten is made available for adoption in the morning, he or she would most certainly be adopted by the early afternoon. We had three kittens available at one when we opened and within an hour, someone placed a hold on all three!
All this will change in weeks. Cats breed in spring, and kittens are heading out into foster care as I write this. They’re being cared for by volunteers who will take care of them until they’re old enough for spaying and neutering. We will eventually see hundreds go through the system through the summer and into early fall.
Speaking of kittens, I decided to pay a short visit to Yoda, the kitten captured at the SFPD crime lab that’s been in the news recently. Because of all the notoriety, he’s become something of a little celebrity at the shelter. I had heard he had been neutered recently, and was being moved back to his cage in Shelter Care.
Yoda hanging out in Shelter Care
Yoda is doing really well. He used to spend a lot of the day hiding under a small towel we gave him, but now he’s spending much more time playing with toys in his cage and exploring. As you can see from his body language, he’s still a little nervous, but with all the attention and love he’s received from San Francisco SPCA volunteers, he may soon be a candidate for adoption.
It was almost 6:30. We were closed and I was cleaning up my work area and sharing a couple of stories with a staff person about some of our adoptions that day. I heard someone tugging on the front door. Usually we can tune this out, because people are sometimes confused about our closing hour, which is different on the weekends than week days.
On a hunch, I approached the door. It was a family. They were holding a box and it looked serious. I open the door to see what was going on. They said they had found a nursing mother in their backyard. She had four kittens. They had called Animal Care and Control, and they had come for the cats, but left one of the kittens behind.
Yoda
It had been three days. I took a quick look at the kitten. He or she didn’t look good. I told them we couldn’t do any type of intake at this hour, but they should take the kitten to Animal Care and Control, since it was possible the mother was still there.
I closed the door, a little sad about the oversight. Kitten metabolisms are so fragile, my guess was the prognosis for his survival wasn’t good. While it was wonderful that Yoda was doing so well, and that he would most likely have a happy ending, I was reminded in an instant that he was just one of hundreds more that will be born because people don’t spay or neuter their cats.
