Turns Out, It's Not Just Cats Up In Here

Did you guys know that DuPage County Animal Care and Control has other animals besides cats and kittens?

It's true. Why, here's one that filtered through today:

He is sitting in Kerry P.'s in box because she worked today to find him a foster family. I imagine he was her priority because it would have been tricky to keep any paperwork on top of him. He would have wiggled it off and it would have fallen on the floor and it would have been a big mess.

I called him Pete The Pup, but we won't really be naming him. His fosterer will. We're great around here, but little baby dogs need to be with people. Foster families are the perfect place for an eight week old pit bull.

I'm going to be honest with you. I mainly posted that little guy's picture for three reasons.

1. Baby dogs need foster families too sometimes
2. Puppies don't know how to help with paperwork properly. White paperwork is best at room temperature. It's the pink paperwork that needs to be kept warm. Cats know this instintively. Puppies, not so much.
3. This picture will look GREAT as the thumbnail when I post it to Facebook.

Bowling Was FUN!

Guys, you know what was super fun? The Frames for Fosters bowling outing that we held on Sunday. I had so much fun that it took me this long to recover.

Of course Scratch on a Stick was there with bells on. Before I imbibed him with my magical essence, I stuck a picture of bowling ball on his paw. Voila...a bowling SoaS.

I spent a lot of my day hanging out at the Foster board to draw attention to what it takes to be a fosterer.

If you signed up to be a fosterer at the bowling event, you received this lovely tee shirt. Now, I'm not a huge fan of tee shirts (they bind up under my armpits and tend to make me fall down), but this is the best photograph of a tee shirt I believe I've ever seen:

I didn't just stay at the foster information table. I also tried bowling out. Since it was a bowling event.

I had a REALLY hard time finding shoes that fit. I explained to the shoe clerk that my feet are specially designed for all surfaces and absolutely would not scuff their floors, so I got to forgo the shoes.

Finding a bowling ball that fit was not a walk in the park either.

I ended up just bowling with the paper bowling ball that was taped onto my paw.

That was a lot of standing around waiting my tun. And you would never guess this, but two dimensional bowling balls don't roll very far. So the next thing I knew, I was keeping score.

Luckily, eventually, Kerry Panzone, our Foster, Volunteer and Rescue Coordinator, came over and rescued me from the fun. She said she needed my help at the fostering table again. Kerry P. always has my back.

The day wasn't just about me, though, it was also about the 50/50 raffle. This is my young friend Martha who did an awesome job selling raffle tickets. She loved selling raffle tickets so much that sometimes she wouldn't even wait for the grown up helping her to help her. I guess selling raffle tickets make your snow boots itch (Martha was so quick at selling raffle tickets we couldn't even get a picture of her doing it).

But Martha wasn't the best part of the 50/50 raffle. Bob was. Bob won the 50/50 raffle. This is Bob (in this picture, Bob is the one that isn't Kristie):

 Let me explain what a 50/50 raffle is. It is a raffle where, if you win, you get to have 50% of the raffle sales and the charity gets to keep 50%. Well, Bob wasn't there on Sunday to win money, he was there to give money to the animals. So you know what he did? He immediately donated his winnings to the shelter. Bob is a good, good guy.

You know who else is good? Pam Stella. She is a board member who came out to help on Sunday, even though she has a million things going on. This is Pam (on the left) and Kristie L (on the right).

The tall, round one in the middle is Patricia. She's also on the board of Friends of DuPage County Animal Care and Control.. She was going around at the bowling outing talking all about how this was her idea and she's so great and blah, blah, blah. But you know what? It wasn't her idea. It was my idea. The idea for a bowling outing was all mine. I had the idea right after I heard Ann P. and Amanda R. talking about it. Just because Patricia can read my mind doesn't mean that she can take credit for my ideas.

I won't dwell on that though. You know me, I don;t judge. It's just not in my nature. The point of the day was to 1) have fun and 2) raise money for our foster care program. I would say we exceeded both of those goals. Over 100 people came out to bowl and we raised over $1,500. Let me tell you, $1,500 is going to by a whole lot of kitten formula and that will allow us to help so many baby kittens during kitten season!

Bowling? BOWLING!

OK, guys. Raise your hand if you've gotten tickets for the Frames For Fosters fundraiser on Sunday.

Excellent!

Wait? What's that? You haven't heard anything about our Frames for Fosters bowling fundraiser at Brunswick Zone in Glendale Heights (at the corner of North Avenue and Glen Ellyn Road)? Well, that means you aren't constantly checking Facebook for our events and/or are not getting e-mails from Friends of DCACC.

I'm glad we're touching base now so I can tell you about it. This fundraiser is Sunday, January 15th from 2-5. If you buy your tickets in advance, they are $20 each or a family four pack for $75. If you wait until Sunday, the tickets are $25 each. All proceeds from the event will go to our foster care fund.

Aren't logistics fun? I only have one more detail to give you and then I'll share with you a couple of slides that I put together for the event. That piece of business we should take care of is a link to buy tickets:

Click on these words to buy tickets to the Frames for Fosters Event. 

So I've been working on a couple of things so the bowling event will be entertaining (you know, I want to make it even more entertaining than it already will be, what with the bowling, pop, pizza, shoe rental and football games playing on TVs around the place). One of the things is a powerpoint presentation about the process of fostering a kitten. I LOVE POWERPOINT! Do you guys love powerpoint? Of course, I'm not exactly sure how to get my slides in this here blog post, but that's ok.

A two week old Kitten and her siblings arrive at the shelter

You, the fosterer, would get a phone call asking if you are available to foster

You pick the kittens up from the shelter, after receiving thorough training



At first, the kittens will sleep a lot. Sometimes they will also look around.

For the first couple of weeks, you will be bottle feeding the kittens (we’ll show you how)

As they grow, you’ll play with the kittens

Of course, you will also give the kitten lots of love.

When the kittens are about 4 or 5 weeks old, you’ll teach them to eat big kitten food

And use the big kitten litter box

The kittens will play and play and play

They will also sleep and sleep and sleep

Eventually, when they are 8 weeks (or two pounds), they will come back to the shelter for their man or lady cat surgery

Then, they will meet their forever family who will love the kitten forever.

I would like to thank Google Images for making this post possible.

It's Still Christmas Time, Until Tomorrow

Did you guys know that the Christmas season doesn't officially end until January 5th? Or 6th? Wikipedia is a little unclear. So, that means I have license to tell you about my Christmas.

First of all, I didn't get any new outfits. That's kind of OK because I've gotten out of the habit of wearing hats. I should start that tradition back up. I did get a LOT of Temptations treats, which is really what I wanted this year.

That's not to say that no one picked up my mantle (pun intended). Look at how adorable Nutmeg was in her Christmas finery:

Nutmeg was one of the last of the 2011 Kitten Season kittens to be adopted. I really liked Nutmeg and in the last year, I've REALLY started to pay attention to kittens and their care. I don't know if it's my age or what, but I can't get enough babies. Expect to read a lot this year about our foster care program. It's my new thing. Remember when Mr. Grant babysat for Phyllis's daughter Bess on the Mary Tyler More Show? Well, that's me recently. The world's gone all topsy turvey and I like kittens.

I did wear a bow tie for Pictures with Santa. Did any of you come out for Pictures with Santa? Chances are at least some of you did, since there were SO MANY people that attended. We had almost 100 families come out and you know what guys? I was so GOOD at pictures with Santa. I sat on the copy machine almost the whole time and let people pet me and talk to me and talk to each other about me. Really, I have to say, I was a really big deal that day. The highlight was when I heard one little girl tell another little girl "This is the first time I've met Scratch in real life, but I've met him many times on the Internet."  That reads a little creepier than it was. How does the internet make that happen?

 Anyway, there's only one picture of me sitting on the copier at Pictures with Santa and everyone is totally ignoring me. I really need to get new paparazzi following me.

I had my picture taken with Santa a couple of times that day, but my favorite picture from Pictures With Santa 2011 is this picture of me and Kerry Vinkler, the shelter's director:

I love this picture so much I think it should be the new shelter logo.

So, I had a good Christmas. But you know what? I'm ready to flip the switch to the next big holiday. Of course the holiday that I'm referring to is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The Sunday of MLK weekend, we're having a super fun bowling outing at the Brunzwick Zone in Glendale Heights. We're calling it Frames for Fosters and all the proceeds go to our foster care fund and I really hope to see each of you there.

Welcome to 2012!

Oh, hi guys! Do you feel good? You look good!

Anything been happening in the last, umm, 64 days since I've posted anything? 64 long days. I know you guys have been worried about me because the messages on Facebook ranged from the pleading

to the irritated

 Somebody high up in the county even wrote to Kerry V. asking about my health:

Well, I'll tell you, I don't know if it's been so much a case of writers block as it's been "I'll just sit down and watch this episode of M*A*S*H* on YouTube, and then write a blog post after that." But you know what guys? One episode of M*A*S*H just turns into another.

And I think "Well, I didn't write a blog post today, but I TOTALLY will tomorrow." And then tomorrow comes and I would get involved in making biscuits out of a comfy blanky left out in the office. Do human's make biscuits out of blankies? If you don't, you totally should. It is mesmerizing.

This last week, I've been borrowing Carolyn K. from the front office's Kindle Fire. It turns out that I am GOOD at Monopoly. But sometimes, the darn racecar won't trade with me and I lose and then I have to play another 100 games to get over the humiliation of losing that one game. Losing to a computer stings.

So, as you can see, I've been extremely busy. But I'm back. My New Year's resolution  is to give you guys at least eight blog posts a month. I'm sure it will go better than my Chinese New Year resolution. You guys deserve it.

So, I'll be back on Thursday with a recap of what I've been up to in the last two months.Besides watching You Tube videos, relaxing, and playing video games.