Scratch This: Your guide to vets, shelters and more

The following is a listing of local resources for people with pets and pets with people. No commercial businesses are suggested other than emergency veterinary clinics because, well, emergency.

The information is not by any means exhaustive, so please post any additional suggestions in the comments section, which will be reviewed. You can access this list through a link at the end of future articles.

As with anything else, Google what you need and then check each resource for authenticity and quality.

Local rescues and shelters for adoption, volunteering, and donating

Each of these rescues is a good resource for a new forever buddy and an opportunity to volunteer. Many of them also provide information and education about low-cost veterinary assistance, including spay/neuter, TNVR (trap/neuter-spay/vaccinate return), neonatal kitten resources and training. They operate through donations and volunteer power, so feel free to make a donation of cash, in-kind stuff like food and leashes, or time.

(Please don’t ask any of the rescues except for Long Beach Animal Care Services to accept an animal you’ve found or want to relinquish. Most of them are full or use shelters as sources.)

·       Beachfront Mutts Rescue

·       Bunny Bunch

·       Cat Cove

·       Feline Good Social Club

·       German Shepherd Rescue of Orange County

·       Helen Sanders CatPAWS

·       House of Broken Cookies

·       Jellicle Cats Foundation

·       K-9 Kismet (also a partner with Long Beach Animal Care Services to train dogs to make them adoptable)

·       Little Lion Foundation

·       Long Beach Animal Care Services, Long Beach’s municipal shelter

·       Long Beach Spay and Neuter Foundation

·       Newborn Feline Rescue (They need bottle-feeder volunteers)

·       Paws in the Sand Cat Rescue

·       Pet Food Express Cat Adoption Center, populated by The Little Lion Foundation

·       Pug Rescue of Korea

·       SAFE Rescue Team

·       Seal Beach Animal Care Center

·       Southern California Bulldog Rescue

·       Sparky and the Gang Animal Rescue

·       spcaLA

·       Stray Cat Alliance

·       TippedEars

·       Wrigley Kittens

·       Zazzy Cats

For humans and pets in crisis

·       Call spcaLA’S Animal Safety Net at 323-733-0219 if you are about to enter a shelter and your pet needs a safe haven, too.

·       Access RedRover’s Domestic Violence and Pets page for detailed descriptions of their programs to keep survivors' pets safe

·       This entire article deals with animal abuse, types of abuse, how it's prosecuted and where to report it.

·       If your pet has passed or you need to say goodbye, please check out the resources in this column.

Low-cost veterinary clinics and spay/neuter procedures

Remember that “low-cost” is comparative and doesn’t mean “cheap.” However, the prices are lower than those of other veterinarians.

Long Beach Animal Care Services has spay/neuter vouchers available that many locao clinics accept. The vouchers take a healthy nip out of the cost of a procedure. Access the link, and click the right button for your own pet or the left button for community and stray cats. Order them ASAP, as there may be a wait. Check LBACS’ website for health-focused events and programs.

Helen Sanders CatPAWS offers low-cost spay/neuter and vaccination procedures for both community cats (they must come in a trap, and they will receive the required ear tip) and owned cats.

The Little Lion Foundation offers low-cost spay/neuter and vaccination procedures for community cats and owned cats and also provides low-cost veterinary care for owned cats.

Get em Fixed is a low-cost spay/neuter service for dogs. For $50 and an application form, your dog will have a spay/neuter procedure from a veterinarian.

Amazing Small Animal Practice focuses on spay/neuter and also offers dental, vaccines, diagnostics, and in-home euthanasia.

Golden State Humane offers low-cost spay/neuter and veterinary services, with locations in Long Beach and Garden Grove.

CAMP LA is a full-service community medicine clinic, which includes spay/neuter procedures. Their CAMP Mobile Clinic offers vaccines, flea and worm treatments, and other services. Access their calendar here.

Know someone who needs convincing to fix their pet? Read the info on Pet Spay and Neuter FAQs | Best Friends Animal Society and Spay/Neuter Your Pet | ASPCA, and pass it on to them.

Wildlife resources

If you should find a wild animal in distress, LBAH’s wildlife page has a series of excellent guidelines for what to do before you contact a wildlife organization or LBAH, when they resume their wildlife program:

·        Be cautious because wild animals are very quick and powerful. They have strong instincts to protect themselves and can inflict serious injury.

·        Be particularly wary of shore birds with pointed beaks and birds of prey with strong talons. They can inflict serious eye and bodily injury.

·        Call your local animal control authorities to see if they can capture the animal.

·        When captured, place it in a box, keep the box covered and in a warm spot, and keep children away. These animals can easily die from fright, so keep handling and observations to a minimum.

·        Do not attempt to provide medical care. What seems to be such common-sense treatment for our personal pets or us humanoids does not carry over to wildlife.

[Text courtesy of Long Beach Animal Hospital]

Several local and kind-of-local wildlife organizations can help as well. Read the instructions on their “found an animal page” before you make contact.

Remember also that most of the organizations are run by volunteers, so you may not get an immediate response. Contacting your local shelter is a good idea as well. All of them will happily accept donations.

This list will be added to the resources page found at the end of the column:

California Department of Fish and Wildlife has a listing by county of state wildlife rehab centers. There’s even one for bats, in Manhattan Beach. (Please don’t touch an injured bat, or any bat. According to a 2024 CDC publication, bats are the most commonly reported animals with rabies.)

International Bird Rescue, San Pedro, for marine birds

Long Beach Animal Care Services, to report wildlife in distress

The Marine Mammal Center, seals, sea lions, otters, whales

South Bay Wildlife Rehab and Education, for birds

Wetlands and Wildlife Care Center, wild birds and mammals, with some exceptions. See list on link.

Socialization

Blockhead Brigade centers around pit bulls and variations thereof, arguably the most misunderstood of breeds. Through Blockhead Brigade’s staff and volunteers, pitties and their humans learn socialization through inventive events, programs and techniques. Shelter pitties are among the beneficiaries as well — volunteers take them for walkies.

Long Beach has a plethora of parks for pups and one beach for Bowser to bum at. Dogs can run off-leash and meet other mutts. Caveats, though: the parks have rules, and people are expected to observe them for their dogs’ safety and the cleanliness of the park. Understand that, knowing both human and animal nature, this doesn’t always happen. If your dog is aggressive, don’t bring them.

Long Beach Animal Care Services also has a behavior-training page with a ton of resources to help you have a happy, forever life with your buddy.

Resources and services for people in need

Contact Danae@projectstreetvet.org and mention that you want to be part of Diana Geosano’s Project Street Vet effort in Long Beach, particularly if you know of someone in need. Access this link to donate to Project Street Vet.

Found Animals is a humane project started by Dr. Gary Michelson, a renowned orthopedic spinal surgeon. Found Animals started as a free microchip registry for pets in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, after so many animals were lost. The organization now offers grants, help with pet-inclusive housing, and assistance with providing food and health care for people in need who want the best lives for their animals.

Pet food resources

Animal Assistance League of Orange County Fill out the online form.

Best Friends Access the link for resources for food and medical help in California.

Christian Outreach in Action Provides food for both humans and pets. Located in Long Beach.

Feeding Pets of the Homeless A national organization that offers and lists resources to people experiencing homelessness and financial instability.

Food Finders The charity sends any pet food donated to partner agencies. Good for donations.

Long Beach Community Table Provides food for humans in several locations and has pet food when available to them.

LA Regional Food Bank Provides an aggregate of food banks throughout California. Access the link to locate the banks in your area. It’s touch-and-go, but depending on donations, pet food is available.

Orange County Animal Allies No Empty Bowls program Call the number on the link.

Pools of Hope Accepts pet food donations and gives them out when they have them.

Rescue Train Pet pantry serves families with pets in the Los Angeles area.

For emergency resources in Los Angeles County, dial 211 for a multilingual directory.

Emergency veterinarians

“Scratch This” doesn’t put our opposable thumbs up, down or sideways regarding these hospitals. They’re here for your convenience because we all know that stuff happens with our animals. Print the list out and stick it on your fridge.

·       Bixby Animal Clinic Urgent Care, 3938 Atlantic Ave., Long Beach, Monday toFriday, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., Saturday and Sunday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.

·       Fountain Valley Emergency Pet Hospital, 9475 Warner Ave., Suite D, Fountain Valley, Monday–Friday, 6 p.m.–8 a.m. (the following day), Saturday–Sunday—24 hours

·       LBC Vets, primary and urgent care

·       Long Beach Animal Emergency, 4720 PCH, Long Beach, 24 hours

·       Long Beach Animal Urgent Care, 2540 E. Anaheim St., Long Beach, Monday–Friday, noon–10 p.m.

·       VCA Lakewood, 10701 South St., Cerritos, 24 hours

Newborn kittens

If you find a litter of newborns, please, please wait a couple of hours to see if Mom’s just out shopping at Rodents 4 Less to feed her little family. Then, leave them there until they’re weaned (see TNR).

If the mother doesn’t show up after a few hours, bring them to Long Beach Animal Care Service. LBACS and The Little Lion Foundation have a program called the Bottle Baby Brigade in which fosters will help feed the kittens. There simply isn’t enough staff to do it all.

Helen Sanders CatPAWS has put together free DIY bottle-baby-feeding kits that LBACS will give you if you want to nurse the kittens.

Access these links on The Little Lion Foundation and Helen Sanders CatPAWS’ websites for further advice on kittens. There’s a donation link in there, too.

TNVR

That stands for “trap/neuter-spay-vaccinate-microchip/release.” The other side of saving the lives of those adorable newborns is turning off the faucets. If cats are giving birth on your doorstep or under your house, there is help. Remember, however, that you’ll be expected to be active in the process.

Retired FBI agent Kris Beardsley organized the TNVR Action, Education, and Awareness Group, a coalition of trappers, feeders, transporters, fosters and others who want to share resources and continue to bring down the number of free-roaming, unaltered cats who are contributing to the great numbers of kittens born to the street and the resultant shelter overcrowding and euthanasia. The effort has developed into the TNVR Community Cat Coalition. The group meets more or less quarterly at Long Beach Animal Care Services with the support of the shelter’s community cat coordinator. To attend the next meeting and be a part of the solution to save little lives, check out the group’s new website, instructions in boldface because it’s a microcosm of everything a trap-happy human needs. If trapping’s in your future, check it out as well.

If you’re presently a trapper and are looking madly around for low-cost spay neuter because it all comes out of your own pocket, Helen Sanders CatPAWS and The Little Lion Foundation know that and are offering it free to community cat trappers if they live in Long Beach, Signal Hill, Los Alamitos and Cerritos — the areas that LBACS serves. Cats must be brought to the clinic in traps in which they were captured. Check the links for information.

All the low-cost clinics mentioned above will spay and neuter community and stray cats — you need to bring them in the traps you nabbed them in. LBACS’ voucher program offers a maximum of five Community Cat Vouchers, and Golden State Humane has free Feral Fridays.

Stray Cat Alliance and Alley Cat Allies are two LA nonprofits who’ll give you more basics about trapping.

Hive mind

Friends of Long Beach Animals, our city’s most venerable animal-welfare organization, has been helping Long Beach’s shelter, rescues and pets at large since 1989. Check them out!

If you’re on Facebook, check out and like the Wrigley Kittens page. Animal advocate and organizer-in-chief Kelly Lopes cobbled this group together a few years ago. If no one on this page can give you sound advice about TNR, food, veterinary help et alia, no one anywhere can.

Thanks to all the animal heroes who gave input on this column, particularly Brandy Gaunt, Deborah Felin-Magaldi of Helen Sanders CatPAWS, and LBACS volunteer Susan Peszat.