Thursday, November 26, 2015

Forget Black Friday, We Have Awesome Bad Cat Puns.

You there.

Do you mean me? 
Yes you: felines of HSSV. We have an announcement:

It's Home For The Holidays time. And it will be CAT-aclysmic.

Make your list of what you're looking for in a person.

Dictate faster, hooman. I don't have all day. 
Because this is your time. Adoption fees on our entire CAT-alogue of all of you adorable cats and kittens are reduced through December 31st.

Get prettied up to make your best impression.

I should change my part. Just to change it up, you know? 
You're going to meeting a lot of new folks so you'll want to look your best. With fees of only $15 to adopt, you guys are going to be CAT-apulting out of here. 
No. Way.

Yes way. So you might want to lay off the CAT-nip for a bit. Mike, we mean you. You look CAT-atonic.

Whoooooaaaaa. Peoples.
It wouldn't hurt to put your best paw forward. You know, to CAT-er to potential forever people that are coming to meet you. 

I pick yous. 
It's important for everyone to know what a CAT-ch each and every one of you is.

Get out of the way, Bob. I'm a better catch than you. 
And that each of you is so special and unique that it's impossible to CAT-egorize any of you. 

I can do this! Check me out!
Because to miss a chance to take one of you amazing guys home for only $15? Well, that would be a...


CAT-astrophe


* We would like to thank awesome volunteer cat photographer Malcolm Bramwell, who makes amazing visual cat puns like this. 

Monday, November 23, 2015

Happiness Wins: Three Reasons To Be Thankful.

Hi. Have you seen my adorable cow nose?
It's been a tough few weeks around the world. In times like this it's easy to forget what a wonderful, beautiful place the world is and how many good people are in it. Happiness is an amazing panacea for strife, sadness and fear. At the very least it's a great distraction.  We're not suggesting that you ignore the rest of the world and trot blindly into the sunset, just that you take a moment during this holiday season to get some perspective. For that reason we wanted to give you three things to be thankful for. And as this is our shelter blog, of course we have to pepper it with pics of our adorable dogs. 

1) Because People Are Good.

And DeEtte is exceptionally good. 
Right now, in a million places around the world people are doing good things to try and make the world better or easier. People are helping the injured, people are showing compassion to their neighbors, people are opening the doors for each other or letting people go first at four way stops. People are taking time out of their busy day to make someone else feel better. We see a lot of really good people. The majority of the people we see are wonderful. People like volunteer DeEtte, who's here several days a week offering quiet company to the shy, exercise to the bored, treating every animal like it's her own and every person like a friend. We are incredibly lucky to have folks like her.

2) Because We're Never Too Old To Play Like Kids.

Look! I can fly! I'm flying!
Roll down a hill. Throw a ball against a wall. Buy a deck of Uno cards. Take the dog to the beach. Try to remember how to do the Macarena. Humans have the amazing gift of being able to lose themselves in activities. Take advantage of that. If you forget how, hang out with a dog for a while. Get a laser pointer and go play with a cat. Every day here we're surrounded by animals who remind us how to frolic. It's a good thing to remember. If there's breath, there's hope. And there is so much hope in this world.


3) Because No Matter Who You Are, Someone Needs You.

This ball isn't going to throw itself.
It's just a fact: someone needs you. Maybe they need you because you're mom or dad or because seeing you makes their day. Maybe it's because you throw the ball (FYI: Ophelia REALLY needs someone to throw her ball). Or because you're the only one in the office that makes decent coffee. Or because you scoop the litter box. Somewhere, someone's day is made better by the fact you're in it. Have trouble believing it? Stop by and hang out with our pets sometime. We guarantee you'll make a dogs day by popping in for some pats or giving a cat some lap-time. 

Did someone say lap-time?
Should you need someone else to need you, Home For The Holidays starts Friday, November 27th. Adoption fees on all pets are $15 through the end of the year. We have a passel of amazing animals that would be enormously grateful for the chance to go home with you. 

As an organization, we have so much to be thankful for this holiday season. We're grateful to our community that supports us. We're grateful that we have the best staff ever. We're grateful to our volunteers who offer us and our animals so much love. We're grateful to our amazing foster peeps who open their homes and their hearts. We're grateful that we seem to get the absolute best animals and the most amazing people come to adopt them. 

And of course we're grateful for this brave kitten,  even if he does lack foresight:
I should have planned this WAY better. 

Have a great holiday.  

Monday, November 9, 2015

The Pillsbury Adorable-Off: The Foster Pets.

Hey foster animals, we've got a bit of an issue.

What kind of issue? 
We need more foster parents. 

Just for kittens?
Oh, Mr. Magoo. Get on with your beautiful blind self. Of course not just for kittens. For special needs dogs like you and for puppies and for regular dogs. So we need to ramp up the adorbs fact. Big time. Let's pull some heartstrings. 

Like this? 
Very good, little nuggets. Excellent in fact. And you pulled it off without waking up. Nice.

So why do we need more foster homes? 

We're waiting. Enlighten us.
Kittens, I appreciate your competitive spirit. You really came out swinging on this one. The reason we need more foster homes is easy: capacity. A building is a very finite thing.

I'm listening....
A building is a finite thing: if you have one hundred rooms in that building, you can only fill one hundred rooms. Anybody else is out of luck. 

Like this feather is about to be out of luck?
Nice parlay to the belly pic, kitten. BUT yes, one hundred rooms, one hundred spaces*, right? And we could only fill those rooms with pets that were okay with rooms. Anyone who was a little shy, maybe had a special need, was too young or came in needing some extra time to recover would also be out of luck.

So I would be out of luck? Since I had a little nose job?
Yes, Tucker, like you and your extra-adorable lopsided nose. But we don't like 'out of luck'.

FYI, black cats are not unlucky. Just to get that in there. 
Nice try with the nose, Velcro. As I was saying, foster homes allow us to remove that whole 'out of luck' thing from the equation. We can take kids that are too young...

I is too young. 
Yes, you are. We can take kids that are too young, a little shy, needing some extra medical help..

I need medical help. I can't reach my mousey.
No Paul, being lazy is not a medical condition. Get your own mouse.  But we can take all those kids AND our capacity is no longer finite - it can expand with the number of foster homes we have.

So like a gazillion extra places?
Just stop. Stop with the head tilt. Not only is fostering a great way to save lives, it's also fun and super rewarding. We provide everything - food, medical, care, everything but the love. So it's like renting love. 

We lurf this little girl.
The kittens are playing the 'adorable kid' card. NICE. But it is like renting love and then getting to watch that love go onto a new home and know that you saved that life. Another nice bonus? Our yearly foster reunion where old friends and families can hang out with new friends and families. 

You just look so familiar - and I don't know why..
Now that the amount of adorbs has blown everyone away, there's only one question left: How can I get in on this?

Super easy-peasy. 

As easy as my masterful kung-fu moves. 
For dogs, fill out this easy application and we'll have you come in for an orientation. If it seems scary, it's not. You get a foster-mentor who you can always call with questions.

For cats and kittens, fill this out or keep an eye on our calendar. We have foster kitten orientations pretty often during peak kitten season.

Not convinced yet? 

How about now?

Stop the presses. We win.
Or now? 

Not so fast, puppies...
Great. We'll look forward to hearing from you.