Beverley Canon loves animals. She must. In the past two-plus years she has managed to find homes for 200 kittens and four dogs.
Canon was a volunteer at the San Jose Animal Care Center about 2? years ago when she went home upset about the number of animals being euthanized. She talked to her husband, who went to work getting a nonprofit status, and Friends 4 Pets was born. Her son-in-law designed a website, rescue@freinds4pets.org, that shows pictures and the status of the animals that need homes.
She now works with the center, which provides her with a list of mostly kittens that are 3 to 6 weeks old, but also takes some cats. She currently has about 21 kittens and a couple of cats, including a Russian Blue, which are noted for a sweet temperament.
?It?s kitten season, and right now there are tons of kittens that need homes,? the Almaden resident says.
Canon and her four helpers take them in, feed them and let them grow. Once they?ve reached the 2-pound mark, Canon pays to spay or neuter them and puts them up for adoption. She also pays any medical bills, gets their shots and microchips the animals.
?We go to a low-cost spay and neuter clinic that?s open to the public and offers reasonable costs for the operation. It costs $20 for females and $15 for males,? she says.
?There were almost 8,000 cats and kittens euthanized in one local shelter last year,?
she said, quoting her website. ?Our purpose is to lessen that number by rescuing as many of these shelter animals as possible, spaying or neutering them, and working hard to see that all are adopted into new loving homes. However, if some are never adopted for any reason, they will have a loving home here. We will never have an animal euthanized unless it?s suffering from illness or injury and can?t recover,? she says.
That?s apparent from her calico Missy. She was found in San Jose covered with fleas and trying to nurse five small babies, two of which soon died. Canon found her at the shelter unable to sustain the three remaining kittens. She took them home with her and shortly after, another kitten died. The cat almost gave up, but after Canon sat with her, she went back to the kittens, and they grew stronger and were adopted. No one came for Missy, but she became the Canon housecat and still babies all the other pets in Canon?s home, even occasionally washing the two dogs? faces.
The Canons house those two dogs, Missy and two other cats. Five animals per home is the legal limit in San Jose.
Her daughter, one of her helpers, also takes in and has adopted out small animals including parakeets, rabbits and guinea pigs. ?We just found a home for a rabbit,? Canon says.
Dogs are harder to rescue, she says, but she?s rescued four of them. There were two strays in the neighborhood, and she took two from the shelter when it wasn?t cat season.? ?One of my dogs gets jealous, so I mostly stick with cats,? she says.
While some of the kittens are placed online, Canon sometimes takes the animals to adoption fairs at the Petco on Blossom Hill Road, next to Kohls. Most of the cats are considered American shorthairs?mixed breeds?but she currently has a Siamese and a Bengal, ?which could be mixed but they look like purebreds to me,? she says.
Friends 4 Pets charges $80 for the first adopted kitten and $40 for a second one. It charges $50 for adult cats. The money is used to pay for the spay/neuter costs as well as any veterinary bills and food for the pre-adoptive ones that she fosters. In addition, the nonprofit offers public education in hopes of reducing the number of animals euthanized every year.
Article source: http://www.mercurynews.com/san-jose-neighborhoods/ci_20650584/friends-4-pets-finds-homes-kittens-cats-san
rob gronkowski kim richards robert hegyes mary louise parker mary louise parker cher morgellons
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