Summer is the time to soak in the sun rays and ocean breezes, and when we go out, we often want to take our four-legged friends with us. That was the inspiration for last week’s Taps and Tails happy hour.
The event offered free beer, a dog pool, and dog agility equipment to create a fun environment for humans and dogs to have fun and mingle. Meanwhile, patrons placed bids for Petcube cameras and Architecture for Dogs dog hammocks that were custom-painted by Pow Wow artists Dave Van Patten, Sean Caho, Jeff McMillan, Apex, and Amanda Lynn.
The dog-friendly environment was a draw for people all over, including Alice Leung and Ronney Lau who brought their dog Daisy.
“We’re from Pasadena… but seeing other areas that are so welcoming to animals, we’re hands down all about that.”
Proceeds from this collaboration, including the silent auction and tips for the beer service, went to Long Beach Animal Care Services animal shelter. The shelter was there with the adoption wagon, happy to get a little extra funding and exposure during their busy summer season.
“It’s a great PR event for us. A lot of people here don’t know about the shelter, they don’t know that we have this incredible adoption wagon, and we wanted to introduce the public to some of the animals that are up for adoption,” said Michael Fratino, community information specialist for the shelter.
Long Beach Animal Care Services is the official and only city animal shelter. They are also contracted with Signal Hill, Seal Beach, La Salle, and Los Cerritos.
“Basically, we take in all the animals for the city; we are the shelter. If there’s a situation involving an animal, [the city] gets the animal and brings it back,” Fratino said. “It’s also a place, unfortunately, where a lot of animals come to us from a surrender situation. Or, if an animal is harmed, it would come to the shelter and we’ll try to find a home for it.”
In addition to re-homing, Fratino says most their work is also finding lost animals’ homes and summer is a busy time for that. After Fourth of July, they pick up many animals that have run away from fireworks.
On top of pet licensing and finding lost pets’ homes, they have more than enough on their hands—working toward getting animals adopted.
“Right now, we’re at capacity. Almost all the shelters are at capacity whether you’re in the San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles, Orange County; it’s summer, and there are a lot of different reasons why all the shelters are at capacity,” Fratino said. “I think at one point we had about 200 cats and 100 dogs; we’re doubling up and we’re doing the best we can to find all of them homes or find their homes.”
To keep up with the extra load, they’ve been taking the adoption wagon to 100 Days of Summer events like movies and concerts in the park. In fact, they are invited to take the adoption wagon out somewhere on a near-daily basis, indicative of support from the pet-friendly community.
“We’re extremely pet-friendly here, all you have to do is take a walk in any of the neighborhoods here,” Fratino said. “Long Beach is one of the biggest cities around and at any given moment from the beach all the way North, there’s a large contingency of pets all over.”
For more information on Long Beach Animal Care Services, including how to volunteer or adopt, visit http://www.longbeach.gov/acs.