Looking!

Derrick asks us to let people know what a handsome fellow he is -

He's big, he's black, he has shiny and sleek hair.

He's pretty laid back and is content to lounge around with you or entertain himself while you are away.

He really needs a lap to curl up in.

He's playful too, with toys and with interactive toys but is basically a mellow fellow who has lots of love to share. Oh, he likes to tell you about his day a little bit too.

Do you need someone to come home to who will listen and respond? That could be Derrick!

Cat Adoption, Sunday, 6/27, 1-3 p.m.

Come and join us as we bring cats and kittens together to find forever homes for them. We'll be at the PetCo in Richfield at 66th and Lyndale Ave. S.

Sophia - she'll be coming from Chuck and Don's in Highland, visit her there today or Saturday

Gracie -

Smokey -

Ireland and Limerick - born on St. Patrick's day

Chumley

Sirocco

Riley

Helen

Addie

are just a few of those who will be attending.

Lots of personalities, lots of different looks. Some who would do well as an only cat, another who might need a buddy, many who get along with another cat - very playful or more laid back, big time lap cat or one who is not quite as attention seeking. Big or small.

We'll do our best to find one who would fit well with what you are looking for.

Fostering?

Have YOU ever thought about fostering?

The need is great, the time is now - please join us.


Teasle lived her whole life with ear mites in her previous home. She was spayed through a community outreach program.

Her ears are healing, she's had dental work done and is waiting for a forever home.

She's a mellow lover.

Pet Haven pays for vet care and can provide food and usually litter and other supplies.

Seen a stray on the streets in your neighborhood? Wondered how it survives, where it gets food, how it spends it's days and nights?

Not ready to commit to full time pet ownership but you live in housing that would allow you to have a cat, or dog?

Do you have 6 months to a year to offer to a pet?

Could you attend adoption events twice a month for a few hours to show your foster to the public? You'd need to provide some pictures and bio information to advocate for the right home for this pet.

Do you have a love of animals, want to keep them safe and give them a chance to find a new and secure home?

If you could foster for Pet Haven, we in the cat division would give you a cat that has already been in a foster home. We know what it likes to eat, what kind of litterbox it uses, what it acts like around people. That would open up a spot at an existing foster home to take in a new cat.

Summer is a busy time and the time of the year when there are the most adult cats and kittens in sight, waiting to be rescued.

Tilly is one of them. She had 8 kittens! She would love to be able to have a spot of her own to recover, start playing and forget motherhood. Her kittens do not need her any more and she would love more attention.

Because of the recent tornados in MN families are having to give up their pets. Shelters are being inundated as they struggle to find a spot for the cats and dogs already in the shelter and the new ones who need to find a home.

Learn more about fostering for Pet Haven by clicking here.

If you can help by providing a foster home, we can help another cat or dog.

Working together, we can help more companion animals find forever homes.

If you are unable to foster there are other equally important things you can do for Pet Haven, check us out!

Wendy, an update

Some followers of the blog have been wondering how Wendy is coming along. She is a small, classic brown tabby that came to Pet Haven in March 2010 from a hoarder's house. She was at least 6 months old and weighed only 2# at the time. One eye had ruptured from a herpes infection and the other had the third eyelid glued to the cornea so she had just an upper corner of the eye to receive light and be able to see out of.

She did not know what a litterbox was for.

Wendy has made great strides, graduating from a small cage with litterboxes that virtually covered the floor of the cage to a bathroom to a large 4 season porch and now to a two story home. She knows where the litterboxes are in her foster home are and she uses them.

She finds friends to play with - cats and people, loves to snuggle and chew on you too, plays by herself and with toys. She enjoys the 2 dogs who come for day-care most days.

She has had the ruptured eye removed and is much more easy-going and active since that happened. Her energy level has increased dramatically. She jumps up on the couch to get in your lap in one big leap - kind of like a kangaroo.

In the same surgery the third eyelid was peeled off the other eye and scar tissue removed.

She continues to visit the opthamologist. During recovery she needed to be off her steroid eye ointment for 2 weeks to heal an ulcer but has been back on it for two weeks and, after today's appointment will go back for another recheck in 3 weeks.

She has more scaring but the blood vessels in the eye are shrinking and subsiding now that she has been back on this ointment. She still sees, we hope that it will improve some more but she is enjoying her life now and is full of kitten fun.

Wendy's vet care has been expensive. If you are able to make a donation to Pet Haven to help in the extraordinary care we do for dogs and cats we would be grateful. They can be mailed to:

Pet Haven Inc. of MN

PO Box 19105

Minneapolis MN 55419

Small amounts add up. You can always designate a donation to the general budget, for spay and neuter, for extraordinary care. We are a 501.3 (c) and you will receive acknowledgment of your donation.

At about 9 months of age, Wendy now weighs in at 4.5 pounds - she's a tiny girl who has had her life change in so many ways in just a few months - because of people like you, who take one small or medium or large step to help.

Wendy thanks you!

Father's Day? Yes, Father's Day!

Pet Haven will have a small-in-number cat adoption on Sunday, June 20, from 1- 3p.m. at the PetCo in Richfield at 66th and Lyndale Ave. S.

We'll have 4 or 5 cats there, information and photos on MANY more and can arrange to have you meet a cat in a foster home or at our next adoption on Sunday, June 27, same time and location.

Bring dad or mom or yourself by and see if there is a cat who will fit your needs and lifestyle!

Who is coming?

Derrick

Smokey

Wanda or Ladybug

Helen

Look at pretty Padua - she's been spayed after raising her kittens and is enjoying life as a pampered young girl. She greets you at the door, likes to come for attention, is playful and if you had a screened porch in the apartment or house, she'd love that too!

Pet Haven participates in community Animal Sheltering exercise

On Saturday, June 12, Pet Haven volunteers participated in a "sheltering exercise" conducted in Richfield. Shorty (white poodle) and Trixie (yorkie who her foster affectionately calls "prima donna") are both Pet Haven alums; and Susie (Pet Haven foster) were all volunteer animal evacuees. Erich and Sally (Pet Haven volunteers) were human evacuees. 

The sheltering exercise was sponsored by the Richfield Public Safety Dept and was unique in that it was a joint human/animal sheltering exercise. The scenario was that a severe storm had passed through the area and flash flooding and straight line winds left homes in a portion of the City uninhabitable. The human and animal shelters were set up to house the people and their pets who were displaced by the storm.

The animal shelter was at the Richfield Public School District's bus garage and the human shelter was across the parking lot at a school. There were also human evacuees who arrived with their pets and others who arrived without animals. The human shelter was managed by the Red Cross with the help of Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) volunteers and the animal shelter was managed by volunteers recruited by the MN Animal Disaster Coalition (MNADC) and included animal control staff from Minneapolis and other metro communities. The joint exercise was coordinated by Charlie O'Brien, an employee of the Richfield Public Safety Dept and President of MNADC.

The exercise lasted about 4 hours. The human volunteers without animals checked directly in to the Red Cross shelter. Those with animals first checked their pets into the animal shelter and then went to the human shelter to check in. We were allowed to go back and forth between the 2 shelters to visit our animals and take them for walks. There were about 30 dogs and one very brave cat in the shelter. A volunteer veterinarian was at the animal shelter to care for animals with medical needs.

 

A few volunteers were recruited to play special roles to test whether shelter staff knew how to handle special situations. One human evacuee pretended to become very ill while at the shelter and another arrived at the shelter acting very intoxicated.  Volunteers staffing the animal shelter were confronted with someone attempting to claim a dog that belonged to someone else and a person who was hysterical because they could not find one of their pets after the storm and had to evacuate without him.

The purpose of the exercise was for emergency management and response volunteers to practice procedures and learn from the experience to better prepare them for a real emergency.

Volunteers from other animal rescue groups also participated in the exercise including Pet Haven's partners in the Chaska Shed project, Carver-Scott Humane Society.  

Ali at Chuck and Don's in Highland

Stop by for a visit! This cute, social girl with lots of personality is looking for a forever home.

Ali was at a shelter that free fed their cats - that didn't work for Ali and she put on the pounds. She has adapted very well to her diet, however. It means serving her 1/8 cup (a coffee scoop or 2 tablespoons level) of food twice each day.

Like many of us, it took awhile to gain the weight and it will take awhile to make it go away but it is happening! This brown tabby torti is up to the task with your help.

Ali loves her laser light toy, is very curious, likes to meet the visitors to your home and will follow you around the house as you make beds, clean, wash clothes and is happy to help at the computer also. She's a great companion and will sleep at the foot of the bed by your feet.

Stop by, say 'Hi' to Ali.

Sophia

Ms Sophia, or Sophie as she is known in her foster home, is a cute little thing. She is less than a year old and is a small young lady with very striking markings.

She's a little shy at first and her best friend, Croquet, has recently been adopted so she has taken to hanging out with Buster who was adopted from Pet Haven by the foster family several years ago. In this pose she has the 'upper hand' and is more visible -

Sophia isn't claustrophobic though and doesn't mind a little squashing and squeezing to stick with a friend.

Most of the time she is up and about, busy playing and chasing toys, checking out the sights from the windows.

She'd love a family of her own and another cat buddy to snuggle and play with.

Dolly

Cute as a button and she loves being an only cat.

What Dolly really loves is water! She's always drawn to it and loves to drink from the faucet, and play in it too, probably!

She is very people oriented and will play fetch with her pink mouse and likes to hang around with you. Time for a movie? She'll snuggle up with you then too.

She's been at Chuck and Don's in Highland once but did not find her forever home that time, she'll probably go back again, or, she can be seen at her foster home in between adoption events.

Jenga

Jenga is a beautiful girl in appearance and personality. When she came to us in March she had very little hair between a lack of nutrition and a flea infestation in the house of the hoarder she lived with.

She has made a remarkable recovery, due to the care and devotion of her foster family who have been able to see her grow physically, regain her health and blossom in her playfulness and affection.

Jenga is looking for an adult or quieter home with older children because she is deaf. If she is sleeping on the floor she will feel you moving around the house because she feels the floor vibrations. If she is up on a piece of furniture, she does not hear you moving around. She's always more than happy to have you talk to her, pet her and wake her up but she is a sound sleeper. If she is awake and sitting on a carpeted floor, she may not sense you walking up behind her so you will need to watch out for her a little.

She loves to have another cat buddy to play with too - we hope we can find a home with another cat to play with this young lady - or consider one from her foster home!

Jenga has a new lease on life, a long, healthy, fun-filled, well loved life! Lucky, lucky girl.

Go to PetHavenMN.org, click on the cat adoption application to fill out an adoption application for Ms. Jenga or any of our other cats or kittens!

Adoption and newcomers

Croquet is the third of the kittens from the hoarder house we rescued 13 from in March who has been adopted. She is a very cute and spunky little girl who loves to show off, be with people and play with another cat. She joins another cat who was adopted two years ago from Pet Haven who also came from a hoarder situation.

We are not a large enough group to regularly take in many from a hoarder but do become involved occasionally through the Animal Humane Society and private cases we learn about. These cats can be very disadvantaged - ill, starving, filthy from no litterboxes that are clean, hairless from poor or inadequate nutrition, flea bitten to the point of having scratched themselves raw and for the babies that means severe anemia also, sometimes they do not survive.

This group has by and large regained their health and most are ready to be adopted. Truly a success story.

The following kittens will be ready for adoption after their spay/neuter surgery on June 8 and a few days recovery at their foster home. Their mother was not even a year old when she had these 5 - teenagers shouldn't have kittens and Padua is happy to be a real 'cat' with time for games and fun.

Her kittens were born on St Patrick's Day and have Irish names. Here are pictures of some of them:

Two boys and 3 girls. One boy is a medium haired brown tabby with white - he'll be quite the stunner when he grows up. The others are all short haired. Another boy who is gray and white, 3 girls who are gray and white with one brown tabby and white. They are all well socialized, lots of fun and love to play with another kitten or older cat.

Gracie is visiting Chuck and Don's in Highland. She's a cute girl, is fine with a respectful dog and loves to sit in your lap. She's very people attentive!

Here she is, waiting for her foster mom to come sit down in their favorite chair!

Adoptions - Sat. and Sun.!

Jenga says "Join us!"

PetCo Richfield, 66th and Lyndale Ave. S.

When:

Saturday, 6/5, 11-1 p.m.

Sunday, 6/6, 1-3 p.m.

Different cats both days! Great personalities, different looks, lots of choices. Plenty of black if you are looking for black! Some of those coming:

Gracie -

Chumley

Helen

Sophia

Louise

Croquet

And possibly on Sunday: Shannon and some of her siblings! They are ready for spay/neuter next week and can be adopted and brought home after surgery and a day or two of recuperation in the foster home.

Kati - a busy lady

Kati has moved to another foster home so she has more space to run and play.

She's looking for a home, perhaps with multiple floors or a large rambler, so she has lots of places to explore, windows to check out what's happening and people who would love to play with her. If you had a screened porch she would love that also!

She loves to talk to you and is willing to chat even if you aren't answering her back!

If you worked from home even part time, she'd enjoy that too.

When Kati is bored she can be nippy so we are looking for an adult home for her. Kati is a beautiful girl who does not show well at our adoption events where she is stressed and grumbly. It is possible to see her in her foster home and she does attend events also.

Ali is looking for a home

This pretty brown tabby torti has lots of character and playfulness to keep you amused and charmed. Like most cats she is curious about everything and especially enjoyed exploring the tent. You can even find 'toy' tents that any self-respecting cat would like to take a nap in and hang out to watch for exciting things passing by.

She absolutely loves her laser dot toy.

Ali is on a diet - the laser dot picture is when she was at the beginning of her diet and she is slimming down!

She tolerates her measured amounts of food twice daily and is getting 1/8 of a cup of dry two times a day. She'll always need to have her food measured for her which isn't hard to do.

Ali is waiting at the door when you arrive home from shopping or work and happily follows you around the home as you put away groceries, do the wash, clean or rest.

She's very respectful of your space and sleeps at the foot of the bed so she can be close to you but doesn't crowd.

This pretty lady is outgoing and will be happy to meet your family and friends when they come for a visit.

Ali hopes to find a home soon, along with her other Pet Haven friends!