By Joe Fasbinder
You’ve probably already guessed by the accompanying photo that this story doesn’t deal with champagne, hot tubs or romance, unless your idea of romance includes spaying and neutering. And microchip identification, vaccination, and if you live in the City of Los Angeles, a dog or cat license. Overall cost: $122 for any of the forever friends who are awaiting adoption.
Patricia Kellogg is supervisor of the West Los Angeles Animal Shelter, one of six shelters in the Animal Control system in the Los Angeles: East Valley, West Valley, North Central, Harbor, South L.A. and our own West L.A. Shelter where, at the time of writing, there are two birds, 65 cats, 46 rabbits and 113 dogs awaiting adoption. “That doesn’t change much from month to month,” said Kellogg.
The Shelter is located at 11361 West Pico Blvd., in West L.A., and if you come in this weekend, July 23 or 24, all L.A. City Animal Shelters are offing discounts on adoption fees for Chihuahuas, pit bulls and cats.
A lot of people chose pitbulls for protection, thinking they are aggressive in nature.
“That’s not the case at all,” Kellogg explained. “Most of them [pitbulls] have even dispositions, and are fine in the company of humans.”
Some animals don’t get along with other pets. That’s the case for King, who was in a cage by himself in West L.A. because he had issues with other dogs. Nonetheless he’s as cute as a button, and doesn’t even bark when you approach his cage. He just comes over and looks like you with pleading eyes, wanting you to take him home. He’s hard to resist.
The dog room is a cacophony of squeals, barks and Chihuahuas yapping, that you can hear even after you leave the shelter.
“You can hear the love even outside,” Kellogg said.
Virtually all the dogs and cats here can be identified by name, which at first glance seems sort of disturbing when you come to a cage with a brass plate on it with the name of a Los Angeles City Councilman. “We do that for donors who really help us out,” Kellogg explained.
There are brass plates with names of donors all over the cat and dog rooms at the West Los Angeles Animal Shelter.
And if you find yourself in the unfortunate position of having to give up a pet, you can simply bring it to a City Shelter at any time of day or night, and someone will be on hand to give your pet a temporary place to stay.
“We place about 98 percent of the animals we get in here with forever homes,” said Kellogg. The others are euthanized. It’s a sad but true fact of life that some pets just can’t find a place to live. That figure only applies to pets dropped off at the Westside shelter. “I can’t speak for shelters anywhere else in the city,” she said.
The shelter is in constant need of litter pads, plastic litter pans, stainless steel bowls of all sizes, dog and cat treats, dog and cat toys and a litany of other things that are necessary to keep pets well cared for and happy. If you’ve got it, they probably need it.
