Angels for Animals needs foster homes

By KALEA HALL

khall@vindy.com

GREEN

It’s kitten season and Angels for Animals needs foster homes.

Every day, the shelter at 4750 W. South Range Road gets in 20 to 30 kittens and cats and there’s just not enough room to keep them all at the shelter.

“The goal is to save every adoptable animal,” said Diane Less, founder of the shelter, which started 27 years ago. “The no-birth concept is so important.”

Right now, Angels has 300 to 400 kittens and cats in foster care, but is in need of more. The foster homes basically hold a spot in line for the animals to make it to the floor for adoption.

Dog foster homes, which are harder to find, are also needed.

Angels provides the food, litter and health care for the fostered pets, and, in return, the foster parents take care of the animals and Less hopes they help look for permanent homes.

“These fosters are little satellites for the shelter,” Less said.

To address the large population of kittens and cats in need of a home, Angels for Animals encourages owners to spay and neuter their pets and roaming pets they find or that come to their door.

“The biggest problem is the free roaming cats,” Less said.

Loose kittens and cats tend to be ignored until the population of them gets overwhelming, Less explained.

“We need to empower [owners] and put it out there that if you have these cats, fix the cats,” Less said.

Since the early 2000s, Angels has fixed more than 60,000 cats and more than 20,000 dogs.

“People don’t understand the amount of animals we take care of,” Less said. “We are putting 10,000 spays and neuters through here in a year.”

In addition to looking for foster homes for animals, Angels needs donations to build its $10 million Angel Wing, a 25,000-square-foot space that will help with the overcrowding at the shelter. So far, Angels has raised $4.6 million since 2015. Donors can sponsor a square foot of the new facility.

Less said the parking lot expansion for the new facility will be started this fall.

“We have to get started on it,” Less said.

Applications to be a foster parent to an animal can be found on the Angels for Animals website: www.angelsforanimals.org.