Alumni New Years Resolutions For 2016

As we near the end of the year we find ourselves in a pretty enviable position: we don't have a lot of pets. What with our Home For The Holidays and the enormous hearts of Silicon Valley, most of our kids have found permanent homes. We have a bunch of new kids that are getting ready to go up for adoption but this blog finds us with very few adoptable muffins to highlight.

So instead of showing off our adoptable fuzz-nuggets, we decided to ask some of our favorite alumni about this coming year. Now that they've found homes, what are their resolutions? Where do they see themselves going from here?

Hey there - check YOU out. 

Fresa: I'm going to bring back the jaunty wink. It was a big thing in the fifties and it's just fallen out of fashion. I'm going to make a wink the new 'hello'. It will be awesome. And it plays to my strengths. Making lemons out of lemonade and all.

World domination in 5....4.....3....

The kittens: Destruction. Mischief. Hijinks. We're only young once and when we hit that whole cat-hood phase of life we generally mellow out. So make hay while the sun shines. See if we can set some records on number of curtains decimated, that sort of thing. 

Today is not a loafers day. But the tennis shoes are totally legit. 

The puppies: We're going to try really, really hard not to poop in your shoes. True, it's such a perfect vessel for it. And true, it's an awesome trick to play. But we're going to work on this, really we are. 

Do they make apple bottom jeans for cats? 

Copper: I'm going to give Kim Kardashian and Beyonce a run for their money. If 2016 is the year of the Flamboyant Rear View, I've got this one in the bag. 

Hey girl...

Gidget: I'm going to change the way the world thinks about chihuahuas with just one smile. Yappy? Skittish? Snappy? I think not. 

I could use a hand here. 

Paul: I'm going to learn to speak a little hooman. Just phrases like "get me my toy",  "I need more wet food" and "if you try to trim my nails again I'll flay you alive". It's always good to learn another language, I think. It's enriching. 

This time will be different. 

Jasmine: I'm going to get to a point in my life where the bear stops hitting me in the head. I'm going to catch the bear. The bear won't just be a thing that happens to me. 

I'm serious about the nail clippers. Go. 

Abigail: I'm going to be more honest with how I feel. If I love something, I'm going to let people know I love it. Wait, are those nail clippers?

Mmmmf und gffdt thhhoy. (It's a good toy).

Linus: Mmph mmmmph errrrrmpppphh ptthhhhhhfff mrrrrrf. Nnd fnnth hermpff.

(Translation: I'm going to hold this toy all year. And find a home.)

To everyone who made our year so special and awesome, thank you. Thank you to our amazing volunteers, our tireless foster parents, our huge-hearted adopters and super-generous supporters. From all of us to all of you, thanks for a wonderful 2015. 

Twas A Few Days Before Christmas - And The Cats Ruined It.

If you follow us on Facebook and Twitter, you probably saw our adorable puppers in The Dodo last week:

Do we really need the bells, people? Is that necessary? 

Every single pooch sporting Christmas gear got adopted. So we thought...hmmm. Can we try this with our cats?

Not putting them in costumes, of course. You can put the nicest cat ever in a costume and it will immediately look like a man-eating mountain lion. It might actually flay you alive, too. Cats do not like costumes. We appreciate that.

But what if we put them in Christmas sets? After all, it worked wonderfully last year when this little muffin sat in a gift box and almost broke the internet.

I can haz adorbs?

Being as brilliant and resourceful as we are, we set about gathering holiday props and constructing elaborate sets to highlight our amazing cats. There's no way this could go wrong, right?

Malcolm, our incredibly experienced and talented volunteer cat photographer was trepidatious about this whole thing. But we soldiered on.

Two things happened:

The cats had a blast.

Disco pawty! Kill the ball!

And, in the great tradition of cats and holiday decorations, they laid waste to the sets.

This is the last time you will ever see this ornament alive. 

We sort of knew this was going to happen when we put a prop down next to our first model, a high spirited kitten named Timmy, and he gave it this look:

Your moments are numbered, little tinsel tree.

A second later the tree was on the ground where Timmy joyfully set to kicking the snot out of it. It was like MMA fighting but with a kitten and Christmas tree. 

We won't even tell you what he did with the ball.

I'm going to need some lima beans and a nice Chianti.

We then decided to try an adult kitty and went with Pumpkin Pie, who thought this was possibly the best thing that had ever happened to her. 

Ermaghawd! Ribbon!

There was no prop or decoration she didn't want to interact with. And by 'interact with' we mean 'destroy',

Ermaghawd - Christmas ball!

The only thing that kept Pumpkin Pie from trashing everything was that she got adopted. Right when we were shooting her a nice lady came in and fell in love. Godspeed, Ms. Pie. We hope your new home is full of decorations and your new owner is not too fond of them. 

With Ms. Pie gone, we turned to our FIV+ gals, Princess and Loretta Lou. Famous for being rock solid and affectionate, we were certain they would treat the holiday theme with the correct amount of gravitas. 

I said I wanted BOWS, people!

We thought wrong.

Loretta Lou tried. Despite being famous for being a clown, she spent a couple of minutes contemplating the ornament...

Meh. I don't see what the hoopla is about. 

But then decided to play with a ping pong ball instead.

What cat doesn't like to sit in boxes? We thought boxes would be a no-brainer. 

Look at how nicely my face fits in the corner..

Again, we thought wrong. We wound up with a whole new genre of photos: the butt in a box. 

Does this box make me look fat? 

We gave up.

What's the moral of this story? 

 Holidays are more fun with cats around. So many boxes go un-sat in, so many ornaments don't get knocked off the tree without them. If we haven't reminded you that during our Home For The Holidays Promotion is going on through December 31st, we do now. $15 adopt fees.

• No kitties were harmed in the making of this - all glitter and potential uh-oh items were used under supervision and immediately cleaned up.
• Happy day! Loretta Lou and Princess went home together two days after this shoot. 
• Tyler, our final kitty in a tree, is actually adopted. He only has three legs but can ruin a decoration with the best of 'em. 

One Small Blanket Changes A Big World.

This is a story about a woman named Donna. We know almost nothing about her. But we know she is a hero. 

 We've never met Donna. We do know she has a poodle. We don't know what her poodle looks like, just that he's lucky to have a mom like Donna. Since we don't know what her poodle looks like, we'll use a picture of Charro, who just arrived here, instead. 

I'm Charro. I just got here.

We know that Donna lives in a town in Georgia. We don't really know anything about the town except it that there is a woman with a big heart and wonderful sewing skills who lives there. 

One day our mail truck showed up with a package addressed to us from Georgia. In the package was several beautiful, hand sewn blankets and note from Donna. She makes these blankets for different shelters and sends her packages full of love across the country to help homeless dogs and cats.

We think Donna is amazing. 

So do these bunnies who are recovering from their spay/neuter surgery under her blankets.

Snuggly bunny-ritos. 

This momma and babies that arrived here yesterday think she's pretty awesome too.

I'm going to need a nanny over here. Stat. 

They're waiting for their foster family to show up but in the meantime Donna's blanket made a baby's first vet visit a little more comfortable. 

Snuggly puppy-rito.

Buddy, our newest office kitty, is also a fan of Donna's blankets. 

Adorable kitty-rito.

He's hanging out in our admin area until he finds his new home.  We don't think it will take long. He's pretty stinkin' cute. 

Thank you, Donna!

While the animals who use her special blankets love Donna, we love her too.

There's really no such thing as 'animal work'. Animal work  - and animal issues - are people issues. While we meet so many fantastic animals, we also meet a lot of awesome people. While we get to make animals happy (like Donna did with her blankets) we also get to make people happy. Happy like this little boy was happy when his family adopted their cat:

Best. Day. EVER.

 Because animals make people's lives better. 

And people, like Donna, make animals lives better. It's a give and take. 

What makes our lives better? Knowing that somewhere in Georgia is a very nice woman busily making blankets to comfort homeless animals. Not because she knows the animals personally but just because she knows they need comfort and wants to help. 

Every day we see so many heroic acts: a Facebook group that makes and sends out dog toys to shelters. A guy who is late to work because he found a kitten in the parking lot and wants to make sure it gets to safety. Pretty much each and every one of our volunteers. A woman who drove a homeless family to our facility so they could get their beloved dog vaccinated.

And we see how those acts change lives, both human and animal. We see the wagging tails:

But we also see the people, who don't have tails to wag but show us in other ways they're happy. 

We just wanted to take a minute to thank Donna and thank all the other Donnas who take time out to make a life better. All of you are changing the world. 

*Debbie, and her Debbie's Toys For Shelter Dogs group, make us proud to be human. Thank you.

What's More Awesome Than The Chance To Get A Sweater Shaver For $4?

Giving Tuesday!

Today is Giving Tuesday - sort of like Black Friday and Cyber Monday except you can actually feel good about it and you're not left with a waffle maker that seemed like a great idea at the time. 

Jackson the Puppy knows adoption counselor KC is on it.

Basically Giving Tuesday harnesses the same feeling that is so ubiquitous on those shopping pseudo-holidays - the idea that spending lots of money makes you generous - and actually does something useful with it. You haven't spoken to weird Uncle Al in six years. You don't need to buy him that Snuggie, no matter how much of a good deal it is. You don't need to have the useless-gift-hangover that comes after dropping your hard earned cash on these things. You do, however, love animals and unlike Uncle Al's Snuggie, the animals will use your gifts. 

Bruno is grateful for the toy but more grateful for the help finding a person to use it with. 

In fact, the animals are going to be ridiculously, absurdly happy with your gifts. Even the ones that don't seem like they'd be a good gig for them at the time. Funding vaccine clinics and medical care might seem the pet equivalent of socks and underwear, gift wise, but the ability to lead a long, healthy life isn't. 

Vet tech Candice can make ouch-y stuff less scary - even that whole thermometer thing.

Our pets are so ecstatic with their gifts that we asked them why Giving Tuesday was a better deal than that Pedi Egg your coworker is never, ever going to use (even if you saw her feet in sandals once and they were terrifying). As you can see, their responses speak for themselves. 

Particularly squirmy bunnies with little white noses. 

Some of them were funny...

Some of them were too adorable for words...

Don't worry new dad - I'll help raise the little hooman properly. 

And some of them were tinged with a bit of sad...

Don't feel bad for me - I'm still a happy girl. 

But all of them speak to what we're able to do with your help. Which is make lives better.

I can haz shoes to poop in? 

If you're feeling so inclined, you can donate here. 

If you have people on your gift list who are hard to shop for but deserve better than a cheese-cutting set, we have tribute cards. 

If you know people that are dying for a pet, we also have gift cards that cover the cost of adoptions.

If you're dying for a pet yourself, come see us. Through December 31st, adoption fees on all pets are just $15. 

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.