Happy endings found at pet-adoption event

SAYREVILLE — Sprite was feral and scared of everyone when he arrived at the Sayreville Pet Adoption Center two years ago. Now the orange and white cat roams freely around the shelter, purring and rubbing up against anyone who walks by.



Sprite is one of 176 cats at the shelter, which held its "Paws and Stripes Forever" Open House on Saturday.

Shelter workers and volunteers blended red and blue smoothies, handed out patriotic cookies and cupcakes and sold various pet-related tchotchkes to raise money for the shelter.

"When we have an event like this I always hear people saying, "We didn't even know this shelter was here,"' said Barbara Keegan, who has been the shelter director for two years.

The privately owned no-kill facility handles animal control for Sayreville, South River, Helmetta and Spotswood.

Last year the Sayreville Pet Adoption Center brought in 513 cats and adopted out 379. It also brought in 264 dogs and adopted out 148, although Keegan said most of the other dogs were reclaimed by their owners. The shelter had 19 dogs on hand Saturday.

Saturday marked its first "Stars and Stripes" event, but Keegan tries to hold similar open houses because they generally yield more adoptions than a typical weekend day.

Eight to 10 cats are usually adopted as a result of open houses, while two or three would be adopted in a typical weekend.

Eleanor Maliszewski of Sayreville was one of the steady stream of prospective pet owners that made their way into the shelter. She was wandering through the two cat rooms with her four grandchildren, looking for a cat or kitten to bring home.

"We're just getting the feel of things right now, because it's a big responsibility," Maliszewski said as the kids made their way around the shelter, trying to decide on their favorite cats. "It's not like a shade of lipstick you can just return if it doesn't work out."

Matthew, 10, liked an adult cat sitting in a second-level cage.

"This is the cat I like that keeps tapping your hair," he said as the cat reached its paw out of the cage and repeatedly combed it through Maliszewski's hair.

His three siblings, meanwhile, had their eyes on a litter of five orange and white kittens.

"They're cute and they're little," said Thomas, 8. "This one taps my hand."

One of the kittens reached out of the cage and gave Thomas a little high-five as Amanda, 11, and Crystal, 7, watched. Kittens like that usually find homes pretty quickly. It's the adult cats and the few with diseases like feline leukemia who can spend their entire lives at the shelter.

The shelter vaccinates for feline leukemia and feline immunodeficiency virus before adopting the cats out, but a few have the diseases when they come in. That means they have to stay in their cages while many of the other cats roam around freely. And they're notoriously difficult to adopt out, since they could infect other cats.

Rory, a big orange tabby, came into the shelter when he was 7 months old. He had feline leukemia, so he lived in a cage in the office.

"We thought he would just live here for the rest of his life," Keegan said.

But a year after he came in, a vet saw his picture online and decided to take him home, where she had another FeLV-positive cat.

And while every animal doesn't find the happily-ever-after that Rory found, those success stories are the reason Keegan believes she has the best job in the world.

"This is my dream job, as hard as it is," she said. "You see a lot of bad things, but you see a lot of good things, too."

In the next room, Ryan Wilde was making the rounds to visit with all the cats. Wilde, 40, of Parlin, volunteers at the shelter with his wife, Ligia.

They adopted one of the cats three months ago — a black cat named Shadow with nerve damage in his leg that causes him to walk crooked and constantly fall over. They renamed him Pigeon because, Wilde said, "when he purrs, he vocalizes," and sounds like a cooing pigeon instead of a purring cat.

Wilde suspects that Pigeon won't be the last cat they bring home from the shelter.

"That's my wife's favorite," he said, pointing to a black and white short-haired cat named Nina. "If she doesn't go home soon, I have a feeling she'll be coming home with us."


source: www.thnt.co