The North Fork Animal Welfare League now has a new animal shelter for Riverhead Town. (more…)
Tag: Cats
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Before Oliver, a 2-year-old tabby, was adopted in 2012, he was a stray kitten doing his best to survive in an old barn behind a Southold church.
Now, the blue-eyed beauty is Mr. August 2015 in North Fork Animal Welfare League’s first calendar.
Photographed by volunteer photographer Katharine Schroeder of Cutchogue, the “Adopt Love!” calendar features portraits of cats and dogs that have been adopted from or are still waiting at NFAWL, which operates shelters in Riverhead and Peconic.
NFAWL director Gillian Wood-Pultz said the calendar, which is available for purchase at both shelters and at three local businesses, is selling well. All proceeds benefit the nonprofit group.
“They’re great gifts for Christmas,” she said. “Everybody needs a calendar.”
Ms. Schroeder, a freelance photographer for Times Review Media Group, said photographing the animals, who were chosen using a lottery system after interested owners sent in pictures of their pets, was “very challenging but lots of fun.”
“Most of the dogs were so friendly they charged right at the camera, trying to lick either me or the lens,” she said. “I used treats and sound effects to get good expressions from them.”
Ms. Schroeder said one dog, a beagle named Bailey, liked having her picture taken so much that she led the photographer to various locations throughout the house and “posed and posed and posed. I never saw anything like it.”
Not surprisingly, getting the cats to cooperate was a bit trickier.
“Oliver falls asleep when he gets stressed or loses interest in something,” Ms. Schroeder said. “After taking only a handful of shots of him, he nodded off and there was nothing we could do to wake him up. Luckily, one of the shots was perfect.”
“Adopt Love!” is available for $10 at NFAWL’s Riverhead and Peconic shelters and at Groom and Gear in Mattituck, Dog Town in Southold and Harbor Pets in Greenport.
The calendar is also available for $15 (price includes shipping costs) at nfawl.org.
Captions: One-year-old Camo (top, right) was adopted by the Schoenstein family in 2013 and is much more canine than feline, his owners say. Layney (middle, left), a 3-year-old pit bull mix, loves playing with the dogs in her neighborhood.
BARBARAELLEN KOCH PHOTO | Supervisor Sean Walter holds his new puppy, ‘Bandit,’ alongside Pam Green of Kent and Al LaFrance of SAVES, a North Fork feline humane organization.
The times are a-changin’ at North Fork animal rescue nonprofit Spay, Alter, Vaccinate, Every Stray — more commonly known as SAVES — as the organization announced a new president recently and will soon hand over operation of its adoption center at the Riverhead Petco.
TIM GANNON PHOTO | More than 100 animals were available for adoption Saturday at Polish Hall.
Polish Hall in Riverhead was transformed into a giant pet adoption center for four hours Saturday, as the Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons teamed up with five other non-profit or municipal animal shelters for a Pet Adoption and Agility Expo.
“We want to make pet adoption as easy as possible,” said ARF’s Executive Director Sara Davison.
The expo provided “one-stop shopping” for people seeking to adopt dogs or cats from the six participating agencies, which included ARF, Kent Animal Shelter, North Fork Animal Welfare League. RSVP, Southampton Animal Shelter Foundation and Town of Hempstead Animal Shelter.
The dogs were outside the building, the cats inside. More than 100 animals were available for adoption.
In addition, there were agility courses on site for both cats and dogs. All animals at the event were spayed, neutered and vaccinated, and checked by a veterinarian.
TIM GANNON PHOTO | A few cats relax Saturday while waiting for adoption.
TIM GANNON PHOTO | Dressed for the occasion.
TIM GANNON PHOTO | A Persian cat available for adoption.
TIM GANNON PHOTO | Cats try their luck on the agility course.
STEVE ROSSIN PHOTO | Kent Animal Shelter in Calverton helped rescue cats from a “hoarder” house in Miller Place.
A local animal shelter in Calverton is lending a helping hand by offering to take in kittens recovered from a “hoarder” home.
As many as 40 cats were living in-and-out of a Miller Place house before local animal shelter workers stepped in to ease the burden for the resident Monday. The cats did not all live in the house at the same time.
Pam Green, the director at Kent Animal Shelter, said her shelter has taken in half a dozen cats so far, all of which are in good condition. Green said the homeowner has been cooperative in receiving help and getting the cats required medical care.
“They’re healthy for the most part,” Green said. “Some of them are very small and need to be bottle fed and when they’re old enough and can eat on their own they will be spayed and neutered and get their shots.”
Green said similar cases are not uncommon.
“It goes on more than you would like to think. In this situation people sometimes lose grasp of reality and become overwhelmed,” she said. “Maybe they just start out with a couple of pets and then more and more would show up and then they breed and then all of a sudden you have a huge colony.”
Green added: ”I’ve seen worse.”
Traps were placed around the home to pick up cats still on the loose. Green said the process may take as long as a couple of months.
She warned that having too many animals confined to a small living space can pose potentially serious health hazards.
“In these colonies sometimes you get [an animal] that comes in with a disease such as Leukemia and AIDS and they start passing it around the colony, so all the cats are going to be tested,” Green said.
The shelter has plenty of cats currently available for adoption and recently partnered with Petco. Together, once a month, they also host a pet adoption day, which Green says will be a big help.
“When you have too many pets together it puts stress on the animals,” she said. “It’s like when you have too many people and put them in a small place, good things usually don’t happen.”