Cattitude - Episode 274 Kitten Tsunami: Why Kitten Season Floods Shelters with Felines

<v Speaker 1>Live.
<v Speaker 2>This is Pet Life Radio. Let's Talk pets.
<v Speaker 3>Hello, fee line lovers, Welcome to catatud I'm your show host,
<v Speaker 3>Michelle Byrne.
<v Speaker 2>So guess what.
<v Speaker 3>It's kitten season. Actually we're kind of in the middle
<v Speaker 3>of kitten season, so I'm a little late, but I
<v Speaker 3>have a guest with me today that's going to tell
<v Speaker 3>us all about kitten season and more. So stay tuned.
<v Speaker 3>We'll be right back.
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<v Speaker 1>Let's talk pets on Petlife Radio dot com.
<v Speaker 3>Welcome back everyone. I'd like to welcome Torrifugate. She is
<v Speaker 3>the director of communications at Shelter Animals count. Welcome Toy.
<v Speaker 5>Thank you so much for having me today. I'm excited
<v Speaker 5>to be here.
<v Speaker 3>I'm very excited to have you. You know, kitten season
<v Speaker 3>is near and dear to my heart, two of my
<v Speaker 3>fur babes, my cats, are from kitten season, and just
<v Speaker 3>in that little rescue I learned so much. But before
<v Speaker 3>we get into kitten season, can you tell us your
<v Speaker 3>background and tell us also what Shelter Animals Count is
<v Speaker 3>all about.
<v Speaker 5>Absolutely. So, I am relatively new to the Shelter Animals
<v Speaker 5>Count team, and by relatively new, I've been here a
<v Speaker 5>little bit over nine months, But I am not new
<v Speaker 5>to sheltering. So I worked for almost thirteen years for
<v Speaker 5>the Kansas City, Missouri Animal Shelter. It's called Casey Pet Project.
<v Speaker 5>We are a nonprofit that runs the municipal shelter for
<v Speaker 5>the city of Kansas City, Missouri, and started back in
<v Speaker 5>twenty twelve whenever the city put out a bid for
<v Speaker 5>somebody to run the shelter, and it was a really,
<v Speaker 5>really old place, and you know, nobody really wanted to
<v Speaker 5>run it, and this organization stepped up and said, you know,
<v Speaker 5>we can really do this and do this well for
<v Speaker 5>the city of Kansas City, Missouri. So I started really
<v Speaker 5>in its infancy as an organization and saw it grow
<v Speaker 5>from taking in about six thousand animals year in twenty
<v Speaker 5>twenty four, there were about sixteen thousand animals that came
<v Speaker 5>into the shelter, so grown rapidly over the course of
<v Speaker 5>the last twelve thirteen years. Got to be a part
<v Speaker 5>of a brand new shelter that was built in Kansas City,
<v Speaker 5>and got to be part of just this very progressive
<v Speaker 5>organization that did a lot for kittens in our community.
<v Speaker 5>You know, we were averaging about twenty five hundred kittens
<v Speaker 5>in foster every year. It was a hugely robust foster program.
<v Speaker 5>And so I left there at the end of last
<v Speaker 5>year and joined the Shelter Animals Count Team, where I
<v Speaker 5>handle all of the communications, all the marketing for our
<v Speaker 5>very small and mighty team. But we are an organization,
<v Speaker 5>national organization that collects data and analyzes it for shelters
<v Speaker 5>and rescues across the country. We have thousands of animal
<v Speaker 5>shelters that submit data to us, and we are able
<v Speaker 5>to then take that data and analyze it and tell
<v Speaker 5>you what's happening, what are the trends in animal sheltering
<v Speaker 5>that is impact acting our industry today. So we look
<v Speaker 5>at we have two reports that we do each year.
<v Speaker 5>We have our annual report that comes out at the
<v Speaker 5>beginning of every year, and then we are gearing up
<v Speaker 5>for our mid year analysis, so that mid year analysis
<v Speaker 5>does come out after the first six months of the year,
<v Speaker 5>and we're kind of able to tell you, you know, we're
<v Speaker 5>really able to tell you what's happening in animal sheltering
<v Speaker 5>for the first half of the year, kind of what's
<v Speaker 5>to be expected. And you know, another thing that we
<v Speaker 5>offer all of our organizations that submit data to us,
<v Speaker 5>We have these incredible dashboards and portals that organizations can
<v Speaker 5>get into that look at they can look at a
<v Speaker 5>data outlook of like what their data is looking like
<v Speaker 5>for the year, what forecasting is looking like. We're working
<v Speaker 5>on other dashboards as well for our organizations. There's grant
<v Speaker 5>opportunities for those who submit data to us, and really
<v Speaker 5>like we just can't do the work without the organizations
<v Speaker 5>that submit data to us, and we're able to put
<v Speaker 5>this data out there for everybody to look at for
<v Speaker 5>the year.
<v Speaker 3>Now, that's great, especially the fact that the shelters have
<v Speaker 3>access to a portal and that there's grants that are
<v Speaker 3>available as well.
<v Speaker 5>Absolutely, yep, we offer we do data drives and stuff
<v Speaker 5>throughout the year, so if you submit data to US,
<v Speaker 5>then you automatically qualify for grants, So it's a it's
<v Speaker 5>a huge win win to sign up to submit data
<v Speaker 5>to US, and it's free to submit data as well.
<v Speaker 3>That makes it even better because there's so many rescues
<v Speaker 3>out there. I'm just curious about this. How many rescues
<v Speaker 3>and shelters would you say there are in the US.
<v Speaker 5>So we analyze that there were thirteen five hundred and
<v Speaker 5>twenty seven animal sheltering organizations that operated in twenty twenty
<v Speaker 5>four in the United States, so that breaks down to
<v Speaker 5>a little over forty one hundred shelters and about ninety
<v Speaker 5>four hundred rescues. And we collect and analyze data for
<v Speaker 5>both shelters and rescues because it's very important to tell
<v Speaker 5>both both of the stories of what's happening in the
<v Speaker 5>shelters and what's happening in foster based rescues as well.
<v Speaker 3>Right, and these are only now. There are are other
<v Speaker 3>possible rescues and shelters that are not incorporated.
<v Speaker 5>So the data that we do collect, we have over
<v Speaker 5>seven thousand organizations that submit data to US, and then
<v Speaker 5>our data team actually built in this scientific estimation model,
<v Speaker 5>so we're able to, with the help of this model,
<v Speaker 5>you know, put together like fill in the gaps of
<v Speaker 5>those organizations that maybe we don't have data from. And
<v Speaker 5>there's a lot of information on our website about what
<v Speaker 5>goes into this model that we do have, but it
<v Speaker 5>really does help us, you know, fill in the gaps.
<v Speaker 5>And our goal, of course is one hundred percent participation
<v Speaker 5>because without the data, we can't tell the story. And
<v Speaker 5>it's so important that every animal is counted and that
<v Speaker 5>every organization's efforts are amplified.
<v Speaker 3>Yes it is. Now we're talking about kittencies and we're
<v Speaker 3>going to get into that in a second, but to
<v Speaker 3>also do dogs as well.
<v Speaker 5>We collect analyzed data for both dogs and cats, but
<v Speaker 5>you can also submit data for really any species that
<v Speaker 5>you're caring for, so horses, we analyze equine data, small animals, livestock,
<v Speaker 5>you know, whatever it is that your organization cares for,
<v Speaker 5>you can submit that data. We also have our community
<v Speaker 5>Services dashboard, so if you are an organization that provides
<v Speaker 5>services to the community, such as giving out pet food supplies,
<v Speaker 5>maybe you're a low cost veterinary clinic, or you're offering
<v Speaker 5>medical services to the community, you can also submit that
<v Speaker 5>data through our Community Services dashboard, So that is another
<v Speaker 5>way that you can submit data to us. And it's
<v Speaker 5>really important to note that data as well, because we
<v Speaker 5>none understand that shelters are really having to provide a
<v Speaker 5>lot more community services such as giving out pet food
<v Speaker 5>and offering those low cost services to the community or
<v Speaker 5>free services. So if you're an organization that provides any
<v Speaker 5>sort of support to your community, you can submit data
<v Speaker 5>through there as well.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, good to know. Let's talk about kitten season. So
<v Speaker 3>we're recording in July, so kitten season is really April
<v Speaker 3>through October.
<v Speaker 5>It is. Yeah, we really see. It's really interesting. So
<v Speaker 5>we have these automatic data transfers that we get from
<v Speaker 5>from our shelters that submit data to us. So if
<v Speaker 5>you're an organization that is submitting data to us and
<v Speaker 5>you don't like manual data entry, if you use certain
<v Speaker 5>softwares animal management softwares, you can sign up for what
<v Speaker 5>we call APIs for those automatic data transfers, so that
<v Speaker 5>you don't have to submit that data manually anymore. It
<v Speaker 5>just comes to us automatically. And with that data, we've
<v Speaker 5>been able to really dive into what we call animal
<v Speaker 5>level data. So this is getting down into the nitty
<v Speaker 5>gritty with our data and looking at an animal's journey
<v Speaker 5>from intake through their outcome.
<v Speaker 3>Just in the information that you sent me and I
<v Speaker 3>just read the basic report, it gets very detailed. Let's
<v Speaker 3>talk about kitten season. What is kitten season because some
<v Speaker 3>of the cat levers listening now and some are like,
<v Speaker 3>I'd never heard of that before.
<v Speaker 5>Yes, kitten season is the time of year where we
<v Speaker 5>do start to see those underage kittens typically under eight
<v Speaker 5>weeks old, that are coming into the shelters to be
<v Speaker 5>careful coming into rescue groups, and that really rants up.
<v Speaker 5>We see a huge spike in May. So when we
<v Speaker 5>look at it breaking down by region, we can see
<v Speaker 5>it's a little bit varied by region, but my goodness,
<v Speaker 5>when May hits, you just see this massive intake increase.
<v Speaker 5>And really that peaks around Memorial Day holiday is when
<v Speaker 5>we see the most cats coming in to shelters as
<v Speaker 5>around Memorial Day.
<v Speaker 3>A female cat, they can have kittens all year long,
<v Speaker 3>though correct, yes.
<v Speaker 5>They can definitely shelters that if you are in a
<v Speaker 5>shelter that experiences four seasons, if you're in a community
<v Speaker 5>that does have four seasons, you may not see as
<v Speaker 5>many kittens coming in. But I live in an area
<v Speaker 5>in Kansas City where we have very very mild winters,
<v Speaker 5>and we would see kittens coming in all year round,
<v Speaker 5>but majority of them were coming in during those spring
<v Speaker 5>and summer months.
<v Speaker 3>Right, And I live in South Florida, Fort Lauderdale, so
<v Speaker 3>we have no sea. Yeah, so all year long, you.
<v Speaker 5>Were going to see them the most. And in fact,
<v Speaker 5>when we look at the South Atlantic, that is the
<v Speaker 5>highest region that sees the most kittens coming in.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, but I was gonna asked this question a little
<v Speaker 3>bit later, but I was surprised to see that the
<v Speaker 3>Pacific Northwest actually had the most kittens.
<v Speaker 5>Correct, It looks like the majority of the South Atlantic
<v Speaker 5>had the most by regions, so and then the Pacific
<v Speaker 5>was very much up there. So the Pacific region, the
<v Speaker 5>South Atlantic region, and what's South Central also, So any
<v Speaker 5>of those lower lower states in the United States were
<v Speaker 5>seeing majority of the kittens coming in.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, And why is it that you know, everybody is
<v Speaker 3>just aware of kitten season. Why they don't say, you know,
<v Speaker 3>my regular listeners cat lovers, they love cats. They don't
<v Speaker 3>necessarily work in shelters some do you know or rescues.
<v Speaker 3>But what's so important for people to know about kitten season?
<v Speaker 5>Oh, there's so many things really to know about kitten season. One,
<v Speaker 5>I think the shelters and rescues have done a really
<v Speaker 5>good job over the last many, you know, ten years
<v Speaker 5>or so of just informing the community how they can
<v Speaker 5>help kittens. And we can always strive to get the
<v Speaker 5>word out even even more so when kitten season is
<v Speaker 5>ramping up, people can use data like what we provide
<v Speaker 5>at shelter Animals Count to really look at Okay, so
<v Speaker 5>this is the time of year that I can expect
<v Speaker 5>to see the most kittens coming in. So how can
<v Speaker 5>I get my community rallied around helping with getting all
<v Speaker 5>these kittens out of the shelter and eventually into new homes.
<v Speaker 5>So it's through fostering, asking for support, Through fostering, asking
<v Speaker 5>for donations. Kittens require a lot of very specific types
<v Speaker 5>of donations like warming blankets and disks and kitchen scales.
<v Speaker 5>I mean, there's so many interesting things that the community
<v Speaker 5>can help with and provide support for. Just volunteering maybe
<v Speaker 5>the kittens are coming in volunteering to help clean kennels,
<v Speaker 5>you know, just there's so so many ways that you
<v Speaker 5>can help, And so shelters and rescues always can really
<v Speaker 5>inform their community about how they can help move these
<v Speaker 5>kittens into new homes.
<v Speaker 3>What about the age of adoption. So the people that
<v Speaker 3>work at the shelters and rescue are pros. They can
<v Speaker 3>pretty much gauge the age of the kitten.
<v Speaker 5>Yes, the kittens that come in. There's so many great
<v Speaker 5>resources out there for aging kittens and how to wean
<v Speaker 5>them if they come in without a mom, how to
<v Speaker 5>wean them into solid food. There's so many great resources
<v Speaker 5>out there for shelters and rescues to follow in. Around
<v Speaker 5>eight weeks is typically the time where we see kittens
<v Speaker 5>that are going into homes. They're at least eight weeks old.
<v Speaker 3>My next question about how old? I know what you mean?
<v Speaker 3>Why am I cats?
<v Speaker 5>Molly?
<v Speaker 3>Her mom gave birth to her and my doorstep along
<v Speaker 3>with two others and kittens. They take a lot of
<v Speaker 3>work and they were all healthy and fine. But then
<v Speaker 3>when they start moving around, that's a challenge.
<v Speaker 5>Yes, they become very active. Let's say, what can we do.
<v Speaker 3>I had neighbors calling because where I lived there's raccoons
<v Speaker 3>in the back. So neighbors calling I had. I had
<v Speaker 3>to figure out a way to keep the raccoons and
<v Speaker 3>put non toxic of course, And I had a neighbor
<v Speaker 3>write me a letter saying, somebody put something very smelly.
<v Speaker 3>There was something you could do with hot pepper and
<v Speaker 3>something else. It wasn't toxic to any animal, but it
<v Speaker 3>would keep the raccoons away. I had to put this
<v Speaker 3>smelly rag all over my property and a neighbor called
<v Speaker 3>and said, who did that? This was like, sorry, hello
<v Speaker 3>is me. I didn't want the raccoons to get the kittens.
<v Speaker 3>You know.
<v Speaker 5>I always loved like whenever we had kittens coming in
<v Speaker 5>in the shelter, like every day, multiple litters of kittens.
<v Speaker 5>We had so many families that fostered together, like if
<v Speaker 5>it was really fun that we would see like kids
<v Speaker 5>that were naming all of the kittens. They would have
<v Speaker 5>just the most ridiculous set of names. But they were
<v Speaker 5>always so so cute, And I think really another good
<v Speaker 5>thing for people to understand is what kittens need to
<v Speaker 5>come into the shelters and what kittens perhaps are being
<v Speaker 5>cared for by a mom. And again there's great resources
<v Speaker 5>out there if kittens are you know, being taken care
<v Speaker 5>of by a mom. Then there's an alternate path that
<v Speaker 5>you can take to potentially not have those kittens come
<v Speaker 5>into the shelters. But for those of them that do
<v Speaker 5>need to come in and get that medical support and
<v Speaker 5>everything that they need, the shelters are great resources for that.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, we're going to talk more about that as soon
<v Speaker 3>as we come back. We'll be right back.
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<v Speaker 3>Welcome back everyone. We're talking to Toy Pugay. She is
<v Speaker 3>the director of communications at Shelter Animals Count and we're
<v Speaker 3>talking about kitten season. We're talking right before the break
<v Speaker 3>about the age of kittens, because not everybody knows this.
<v Speaker 3>What is the highest population of kittens at risk?
<v Speaker 5>Well, definitely the highest. The most vulnerable population of kittens
<v Speaker 5>that are at risk are those under four week old.
<v Speaker 5>Kittens and the four to eight week old kittens. So
<v Speaker 5>when we look at we break down our non live
<v Speaker 5>outcomes by age group and we look at it. In
<v Speaker 5>twenty twenty four, thirty five percent of non live outcomes,
<v Speaker 5>which means they had to be euthanized or dieting care,
<v Speaker 5>we're under four weeks old, so those kittens are incredibly
<v Speaker 5>vulnerable when come in. And then again those four to
<v Speaker 5>eight weeks old was about thirty eight percent of all
<v Speaker 5>the non live outcomes. And kittens and fostering kittens can
<v Speaker 5>sometimes be a heartbreaking situation. Like you can you can
<v Speaker 5>have kittens that maybe die and care or have to
<v Speaker 5>be euthanized, and they're very very they're very vulnerable population,
<v Speaker 5>and I think that it's so important, you know, for
<v Speaker 5>shelters and rescues to be very transparent about you know,
<v Speaker 5>what could happen when people are fostering kittens. It can
<v Speaker 5>be one of the most rewarding experiences that you'll ever
<v Speaker 5>have in your life of taking care of kittens. But
<v Speaker 5>this is a very tiny and vulnerable population, and sometimes
<v Speaker 5>there is heartbreak associated with this, and I think it's
<v Speaker 5>just important to look at the data and understand that
<v Speaker 5>these are vulnerable populations and then work towards how do
<v Speaker 5>we continue to strive to towards those live outcomes.
<v Speaker 3>So we talked a little bit again before the break
<v Speaker 3>about the data and how it helps shelters. How can
<v Speaker 3>the data and helping shelters to help the people that
<v Speaker 3>are just cat levers that are listening. Does it help
<v Speaker 3>the cat lever to just know when to adopt kittens
<v Speaker 3>or what they can how they can support the shelters
<v Speaker 3>or yeah, I.
<v Speaker 5>Think you really hit the nail on the head. It's
<v Speaker 5>how you can lean in and support shelters. Chances are
<v Speaker 5>there is a shelter or rescue near you that would
<v Speaker 5>love to have your help, whether it's through fostering, whether
<v Speaker 5>it's through donations of time or monetary gifts, supplies, whatever is.
<v Speaker 5>There are a lot of kittens out there still that
<v Speaker 5>do need support and help, and there are a lot
<v Speaker 5>of groups out there that would love to have that support.
<v Speaker 5>And when we look at this data, we can really
<v Speaker 5>look at you by region, by age, group, whatever it is.
<v Speaker 5>We can look at it and say, okay, so in
<v Speaker 5>may I know that the kittens are going to come
<v Speaker 5>in big time, and so I can really ramp up
<v Speaker 5>my efforts and help them by signing up to be
<v Speaker 5>a foster advanced of that, or you know, maybe it's
<v Speaker 5>doing a supply drive like a kitten shower. I love
<v Speaker 5>kitten showers. I think they're the cutest thing ever, like
<v Speaker 5>having a baby shower, but for kittens. Wow, We're where
<v Speaker 5>you just get with your group of friends and say,
<v Speaker 5>here's the wish list for this organization, bring supplies. We
<v Speaker 5>used to host them in breweries. I always thought that
<v Speaker 5>was so fun, Like we had a brewery that would
<v Speaker 5>host a kitten shower and people would come and drink
<v Speaker 5>beer and bring supplies for the shelter. It was always
<v Speaker 5>a good time.
<v Speaker 3>Hey, that is a great idea, you know, having or
<v Speaker 3>if someone's even having a party, don't bring anything, bring
<v Speaker 3>something for kittens.
<v Speaker 5>Absolutely. Oh. We always had like the cutest kids that
<v Speaker 5>did birthday parties for the kittens. Instead of asking for
<v Speaker 5>birthday gifts, they asked for items from the wish list.
<v Speaker 5>Like just the cutest thing ever and the best kids ever.
<v Speaker 5>It was just adorable. So there's so many ways to help,
<v Speaker 5>and really just looking at the data, you can really
<v Speaker 5>see that timeline of when most help is needed.
<v Speaker 3>So the most help is needed May through.
<v Speaker 5>So underage kittens that are under eight weeks old peak
<v Speaker 5>in May, but they come in pretty much all summer.
<v Speaker 5>Then we start to see the eight week old to
<v Speaker 5>five month olds. They come in June, and July is
<v Speaker 5>when they peek coming in. So the kittens that are
<v Speaker 5>born in the spring that end up coming in just
<v Speaker 5>a little bit older. So it really just goes on.
<v Speaker 5>I mean the whole year you do see kittens coming in,
<v Speaker 5>but May through you know, July August is when we
<v Speaker 5>see the peak times of kittens coming in.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, And then one of my peeves is people from
<v Speaker 3>times forget that kittens become cats, so you know, when
<v Speaker 3>you're making the commitment. They're cute little fluffballs when they're little,
<v Speaker 3>but they become cats and they're part of your family
<v Speaker 3>while they're a kitten, wather juvenile kitten while they're a cat.
<v Speaker 3>So I think too many people forget about that. And
<v Speaker 3>they're cute kittens, Let me have them around and when
<v Speaker 3>they become cats and more mischievous. Okay, let me get
<v Speaker 3>rid of the cat. Dennis. My first cat was rescue.
<v Speaker 3>He was just in the streets dumped. So what do
<v Speaker 3>you have to say about people that are thinking about
<v Speaker 3>and I know you work for a research place, but
<v Speaker 3>you have enough experience with shelters. But think of people
<v Speaker 3>that are like, it's kitten season, I want to go
<v Speaker 3>get a kitten, but am I ready or not? What
<v Speaker 3>would you tell them?
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, I think really just look at your lifestyle, like,
<v Speaker 5>you know, do you have kids, how often are you home.
<v Speaker 5>The good news about just cat adoptions overall is that
<v Speaker 5>cats are still having are definitely having a moment in
<v Speaker 5>animal sheltering. Cat adoptions have just increased and the time
<v Speaker 5>that they're spending in shelters, the amount of days has
<v Speaker 5>decreased over the past five years. So cats are getting
<v Speaker 5>adopted at a pretty significantly fast rate versus their counterpart
<v Speaker 5>with dogs. So we are seeing cats that are getting
<v Speaker 5>adopted faster than dogs, and I think a lot of
<v Speaker 5>that does have to do with lifestyle changes. You know,
<v Speaker 5>the cost of care is going up for pets. People
<v Speaker 5>maybe think that cats are, you know, more affordable to adopt.
<v Speaker 5>So cats are definitely continuing to have a really really
<v Speaker 5>good moment. We still see, of course, a lot of
<v Speaker 5>senior pets coming into the shelter that need homes. And
<v Speaker 5>there are some amazing people out there that just love
<v Speaker 5>to adopt senior or special needs cats. So no matter
<v Speaker 5>you know what type of animal you're looking for, what
<v Speaker 5>type of cat you're looking for, just kind of look
<v Speaker 5>at your lifestyle of coft and your home thinking about,
<v Speaker 5>you know, what would fit best with your family if
<v Speaker 5>you have other pets, all of that factors need to
<v Speaker 5>go into when you make a decision to adopt.
<v Speaker 3>Those your good point. I also want to add, if
<v Speaker 3>you have super super fancy furniture, probably cats not for you.
<v Speaker 5>Well, they make all sorts of fun things like cat tees.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, they do. I was actually I had Jennifer Conrad
<v Speaker 3>from American Cats The Good Bad Cudley about did you
<v Speaker 3>see that movie?
<v Speaker 1>No?
<v Speaker 5>I didn't, really good check it out.
<v Speaker 3>Pagonist is a British woman who's pregnant, and she was funny,
<v Speaker 3>it's not the typical kind of like a documentary that
<v Speaker 3>you'd see, it's wonderful. And so I mentioned that and
<v Speaker 3>she said, you're you're wrong, because she has a lot
<v Speaker 3>of clients, you know, fancy Beverly Hills and fancy areas
<v Speaker 3>of California that have gorgeous sofas, And I said, you're right,
<v Speaker 3>you know, there are deterrens. There are plenty of deterrence.
<v Speaker 3>And if you get a good scratcher.
<v Speaker 5>Yep, a good scratcher or the little kitten claw covers,
<v Speaker 5>you know, the cat claw covers.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, for myself, I get the furniture that's universal because
<v Speaker 3>it never fails. There's going to be one of them,
<v Speaker 3>you know that's gonna claw. The part of my couch
<v Speaker 3>that has a few claw marks, there's two scratchers right
<v Speaker 3>in front of it. So wow. You know, kittens are
<v Speaker 3>smart and they're cunning and if they want to, you know,
<v Speaker 3>get into some mischiff, they will. And to me, I think,
<v Speaker 3>just be prepared, you know.
<v Speaker 5>Yes. And here's another tip too, that we always acourage
<v Speaker 5>people if they were interested in adopting a kitten to
<v Speaker 5>consider two, adopting two at once and getting a buddy
<v Speaker 5>from the same litter potentially, or that way that they
<v Speaker 5>have each other to play with and cause mischief with
<v Speaker 5>that they're playing with each other. And so we had
<v Speaker 5>great success of finding homes that were people wanted to
<v Speaker 5>adopt two kittens and then they grew up together.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, that is a great idea. Actually, my mother in law.
<v Speaker 3>When her two cats passed, she adopted two together, and
<v Speaker 3>they just they're the best of friends. They keep each
<v Speaker 3>other busy and they're all good. I think it's better
<v Speaker 3>to have two together at once rather than have one
<v Speaker 3>because their cats are territorial, then add another one. So
<v Speaker 3>that's what happened to me, and that was a challenge.
<v Speaker 3>We worked through it, but that was definitely a challenge.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, good for you. Yeah, it's uh, you know. We
<v Speaker 5>would do even buy one, get one discounts and things
<v Speaker 5>like that. So it was always always very successful and
<v Speaker 5>it was really just so keeps see two kittens going
<v Speaker 5>home with a family.
<v Speaker 3>I heard it from Venarians and so so much that
<v Speaker 3>if you're going to adopt, adopt to it doesn't cost
<v Speaker 3>that much more. They don't eat a lot, and this way,
<v Speaker 3>don't keep each other company, and you don't don't have
<v Speaker 3>to worry as much when you're at work or out
<v Speaker 3>of the house.
<v Speaker 5>One hundred percent. You're absolutely right.
<v Speaker 3>We'll see as trends in the near future for shelters.
<v Speaker 5>That is a great question. It's really interesting when we
<v Speaker 5>look at your overyear data because we're kind of seeing
<v Speaker 5>we've been comparing to pre pandemic levels of like what
<v Speaker 5>the animal welfare landscape and shelters and rescues look like
<v Speaker 5>before the pandemic, and we've kind of established this new norm.
<v Speaker 5>We continue to hear about shelters that are in crisis,
<v Speaker 5>that shelters that are full, dogs are staying in shelters longer,
<v Speaker 5>causing capacity capacity strains, and we're continuing to see this
<v Speaker 5>sort of new normal with the data, and we're going
<v Speaker 5>to continue in like analyzing it that's year over year analysis,
<v Speaker 5>so that we can look for any sort of varying trends,
<v Speaker 5>especially with our mid year analysis coming up. Compare it
<v Speaker 5>to last year, see how things are looking. But it's
<v Speaker 5>really exciting with this data that we've been releasing, like
<v Speaker 5>our kitten level analysis animal level analysis, because this has
<v Speaker 5>never been done before, so we're looking at brand new
<v Speaker 5>data for our industry. And because of this, we're able
<v Speaker 5>to look at what potential trends we can, you know,
<v Speaker 5>have for next year. We can say, Okay, this is
<v Speaker 5>what the datas looked like for the last two years
<v Speaker 5>for kittens coming into the shelters. We can expect this
<v Speaker 5>same you know, data for or at least very very
<v Speaker 5>close to it. For the following years, and so it's
<v Speaker 5>really being able to provide this level of analysis to
<v Speaker 5>our industry that's never been done before and just informing
<v Speaker 5>trends for the future.
<v Speaker 3>Right, it's like forecasting for the forecast.
<v Speaker 5>Yes, and we do have forecasting dashboards for shelters too,
<v Speaker 5>so they can look and see, Okay, this is what
<v Speaker 5>my year has looked like so far, So this is
<v Speaker 5>what can I can expect for the rest of the year.
<v Speaker 3>Oh, that's wonderful. Where can our listeners find out more
<v Speaker 3>about Shelter Animals Count and about kitten season.
<v Speaker 5>You can go to shelteranimalscount dot org. We are on there.
<v Speaker 5>We have publicly available dashboards, so you can see national
<v Speaker 5>trends as well as state level data. So if you're
<v Speaker 5>curious of what your data is looking like in the
<v Speaker 5>state where you live and comparing it to those around you,
<v Speaker 5>you can see that. We also offer a lot of
<v Speaker 5>webinars and blog content that do feature information about data standardization.
<v Speaker 5>A lot of these deep dives into the analysis, such
<v Speaker 5>as the kitten data, and that's all on our blog.
<v Speaker 5>And so there's a lot of really exciting things that
<v Speaker 5>we have coming up for the rest of the year
<v Speaker 5>as well as looking towards next year and just offering
<v Speaker 5>more and more resources for our shelters or rescues and
<v Speaker 5>the animal welfare industry as a whole.
<v Speaker 3>Well, that's wonderful, Toy. Thank you so much for all
<v Speaker 3>you do for the kitten and the cat.
<v Speaker 5>Yes, of course, thank you so much. You can follow
<v Speaker 5>us on social media as well, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and substuck.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, thanks so much. I hope all of you enjoyed
<v Speaker 3>the show. I want to thank Torri Fugate, the director
<v Speaker 3>of communications for Shelter Animals COUNT, for coming on Catitude.
<v Speaker 3>Thanks so much to my loyal listeners of Catitude, I
<v Speaker 3>appreciate you so much. Thanks to my rescue cats Dennis,
<v Speaker 3>Charlotte and Molly, my wonderful cat crew, and of course,
<v Speaker 3>this show would not be the same without the magic
<v Speaker 3>of my producer, Mark Winter. Thank you so much, Mark
<v Speaker 3>for all you do and remember, lose to Attitude, Have Catitude.
<v Speaker 1>Let's Talk pets every week on demand only on Petlifradio
<v Speaker 1>dot com.