Scratch This: Long Beach’s overcrowded animal shelter is in dire need of volunteers
Plus, meet two dogs and two cats that need forever homes.
Public service announcement: our shelter at Long Beach Animal Care Services is short-staffed and needs volunteers to help walk dogs, cuddle cats and clean their boxes and socialize rabbits.
LBACS is so overcrowded with dogs that they’re kenneled in offices and in rooms reserved for other pets. Our shelter doesn’t perform euthanasia for space, so they need to get creative with finding kenneling options such as fostering and even the shelter manager’s office. I could say that you’d be smacked by a wagging tail anywhere you walk, but it’s actually the volunteers that get the tails wagging, and you’re sorely needed.
Shelter volunteer Patti Mysior put out a call for volunteers on Nextdoor and got a lot of refreshingly positive responses. She said it well:
“Do you love animals and want to help shelter dogs and cats? I am a volunteer at Long Beach Animal Care Services, better known as the Long Beach Shelter, located at 7700 E. Spring Street. Since I work solely with the dogs, I am speaking on their behalf. We need volunteers! Before you say ‘Oh, I could never do what you do, volunteering around all of these dogs, it would be too sad,’ you absolutely can. And the happiness you would give them will fill you with happiness! We need all sorts of help, from washing out bowls, preparing frozen treats, filling water bowls, cleaning kennels, walking dogs and more. Although we try to give every dog a walk and possibly cuddle or play time, we have over 100 dogs and we don’t always get a chance to get to every dog every day. It breaks my heart to see them looking at me as I go by, wondering if they’ll be chosen for a walk that day. We offer the training needed, and you don’t have to commit to a specific amount of hours a week. You would be working with people who care about dogs and want to make their day by simply giving them some attention for a few minutes.”
Patti went on to explain how dogs in kennels can stress one another out with loud barking or develop stress from being cooped up. Kennel stress presents in behaviors such as spinning in their kennels and licking the walls, making them less appealing to potential adopters. Volunteers help to ease the stress and thus reduce the behavior, which helps them become the actual dog they are.
If Patti has piqued your interest, you can begin the application process. The process, along with information about requirements, training and opportunities, is described on the shelter’s volunteer page. After you create an account, you’ll get an automatic email directing you to complete a California government background check and a Live Scan fingerprinting. The background check can take up to a month to complete, so spend your waiting time visiting the shelter and acquainting yourself with the animals.
“I know that's a roadblock, but an important one, since our volunteers often interface with the public,” said shelter director Melanie Wagner.
Volunteer director Matt Yniguez said that the background check and fingerprinting are required for the California Department of Justice and FBI to clear the applicant.
“I've seen people get cleared a month after their Live Scan submission, and I've even seen people get cleared the same day,” Yniguez said.
When the background check clears, Yniguez will contact you for registration for orientation. LBACS requires all volunteers to complete several non-animal handling hours before being trained to handle dogs, cats or both. Dog volunteers will complete 16 tier-1 hours of training for dogs and 8 hours for cats. Tier 2 involves handling pets, which is well worth being trained for.
“I think it's a good idea to recruit volunteers who are dedicated and who have gotten a good amount of experience rather than rush people into the animal-handling role,” Yniguez said.
“We have well over 200,000 adults [in Long Beach], so it’s very feasible to expect that we should be able to get 20 volunteers a day,” Patti said in her post. “Unfortunately, on a good day, we might have eight to 10. Please consider joining us—you could change [a pet’s] future!”
Apply here to make the biggest difference in a shelter animal’s life.
Yours drooly
Meet four LBACS Olympic gold medal winners ready to celebrate their unique differences in a forever home. The two kitties below are proof that with love and care, special needs pets are winners as well.
To see all the competitors for your attention and affection, visit this link. To adopt or foster any of them, email PetAdopt@longbeach.gov to speed the process, or call 562-570-7387. Better yet, meet them in person at LBACS, 7700 E. Spring St., Long Beach, at the entrance to El Dorado Park (no parking fee for shelter visitors). Visiting hours are Wednesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Enzo (ID#712421) is the star of this video, but the volunteers walking him and loving him are the supporting actors in the truest sense of the term. Video by Amber Rood Durfe.
Fiddle Faddle (ID#A723215) is a 5-year-old female miniature poodle who is choosy about her friends. As soon as she gets to like you, you’re in her exclusive winner’s circle!
Marilyn (ID# A719434) was brought in with her Siberian husky brother, Mayfield, when a resident spotted them running loose on the street. They’ve been at LBACS since April. The volunteers find Marilyn to be a fun, good girl, full of energy. Throw a ball, and she’ll run back with it faster than Noah Lyles! Like any serious runner, she loves drinking from a hose.
A gold medal for a golden boy in his golden years! Uncle Roger (ID#A722911) is in darn good health for a 14-year-old cat. He’s blind in his right eye and his sight is possibly compromised in his left, but it doesn’t stop him from relaxing like a champion kitty! He loves his sunny spot on the catio and would love to scout one out in a forever home!
Poor old Gerald (ID#A720121) deserves his medal for coming through like a champ! He came to the shelter with a mess of symptoms: dehydration, a buildup of fluid and a corneal scar in his left eye that left him blind in that eye, severe dental disease, and a chronic kidney problem. He almost didn’t make it, but thanks to his determination and great effort from the LBACS veterinary staff, the 12-year-old beat defeat. He now suns himself on the catio, in a private spot so that the other residents don’t eat his special kidney diet. He eagerly leans into head scritchings from volunteers and visitors. Can someone give Gerald some privacy and a forever home?
Tail-waggin’ and nose-boopin’ events
TNR Action, Education and Awareness Group meeting
Do you do TNR (trap/spay-neuter-vaccinate-microchip-release of stray cats) with a passion but want to share resources with and get support from an equally engaged community? Are momcats having kittens in your neighborhood, and are dadcats yowling at them to make more? Are you on your last shred of yarn trying to figure out what you can do?
Get some answers at this grassroots meeting, the first in Long Beach to focus on combining forces to humanely stop the birthing of unwanted kittens in the urban wild. Speakers will include rescues, experienced trappers, and Long Beach Animal Care Services staff members, in particular LBACS cat coordinator Lindsie Merrick.
The group meeting will take place Saturday, Aug. 17, 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. at the Education Center at Long Beach Animal Care Services, 7700 E. Spring St., Long Beach, at the entrance to El Dorado Park. No parking fee for shelter guests.
Benny the Cat’s seventh birthday party fundraiser
You are invited to a party to celebrate the good life of a good kitty! Benny might not have had any life at all if he hadn’t been rescued — he was horribly abused as a kitten and nearly died from injuries that his owners left him with. Today, he’s living the life that any cat would envy. Nonprofit cat rescue Helen Sanders CatPaws is once more putting on a family-friendly fundraiser in Benny’s honor. The party will help give every cat a happy-ever-after and also raise awareness of domestic abuse. Attendees can enjoy a vendor fair, games and prizes, arts and crafts, face painting, a raffle, and of course, birthday cake! Lunch is included, too! You’ll meet adorable, adoptable kittens, who, like Benny, are hoping to find their own loving families. The shelter at Long Beach Animal Care Services will bring their Adoption Waggin’, and partygoers can tour CatPAWS’ spay/neuter mobile clinic, which the party will also help fund. All funds will go to CatPAWS. Of course, Benny will be there! Hope you will be, too!
Benny’s Birthday Party will take place Saturday, Aug. 24, 11 p.m.–3 p.m. at Marina Community Center, 151 Marina Drive, Seal Beach. Tickets are $20, free for kids 10 and under. Buy tickets here or at the door.
Helen Sanders CatPAWS annual Show Us Your Kitties calendar contest
Time to submit your favorite photos of your favorite pointy-eared people so that they can live on in purr-petuity, or at least through 2025! Helen Sanders CatPAWS’ annual contest raises funds for medical bills and food for CatPAWS rescues, and it also helps power the rescue’s spay/neuter mobile van. This year, the goal is to reach $10,000, which will be used to continue the lifesaving work they do in our community and beyond. Follow the instructions on the link to enter your cat. The top three submissions will be offered a personal sketch of their photo! Because every dollar counts and to encourage people to share their beloved kitty photos, CatPAWS has waived the entry fee this year! The organization will strive to put every photo on the calendar, whether they’re top 12 or not. You can even reserve a special day for a thumbnail on your calendar: a birthday, a “gotcha” day, or a memorial to a beloved cat for $15 a space. So go ahead — show us those kitties! We know you want to!
Follow this link for instructions to enter the Show Us Your Kitties calendar contest. Entries may be submitted until 11:59 p.m. PDT on Monday, Sept. 30. Voting ends Tuesday, Oct. 1 at 9:00 p.m. PDT.
Need a low-cost veterinarian, information about trapping community cats, places to volunteer — anything pet related? Follow this link for resources. Please add your own ideas in the Comments section.
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