Greetings Volunteers,

This week is both National Black Cat Day (October 27th) and National Cat Day (October 29th)! No better time to celebrate the felines in your life and the felines in the shelter awaiting their forever homes! Remember, adoption fees have been waived for all adult cats through the 31st! Check out all the adoption kitties and cats here!

Shelter update: We currently have 308 animals in our collective care. 206 are at Marin Humane: 64 animals in foster and 142 animals in the shelter/Kitty Corner, including: 30 dogs, 4 puppies, 52 cats, 35 kittens, 5 rabbits, 9 guinea pigs, 2 rodents, 1 reptile, and 4 birds. 102 animals are with Hopalong: 5 animals are in the Oakland office and 97 cats, kittens, dogs, and puppies are in foster or offsite adoption sites!

Adoptions update: Hooray for Wednesdays! Brighten up the cool days with the shining smiles of last week’s adopters – or take your autumn up a notch by coming down to the shelter and adopting! . If you’d like more details, here’s the Adoption Report.

Hopalong happenings! Happy Halloween from the Hopalong Foster program! We had a blast celebrating early this past Saturday the 26th, as you can see here! First up was our usual mobile dog adoption event at the Novato Woodlands Pet Food & Treat store, where we added extra cuteness with kittens available for adoption from the Marin Humane RV. We were thrilled that several puppies and kittens were adopted there amidst all the festivities! Each of the four Woodlands locations (in addition to Novato, there’s San Rafael, Greenbrae, and Mill Valley) hosted pet costume contests which our staff and volunteers were delighted to help judge. The day’s celebrations wrapped up at the Mill Valley location’s DOGtoberfest event featuring our some adorable kittens in our RV. Big thanks to the many wonderful volunteers who made the magic happen all day long and across many locations in Marin!

San Quentin Pen Pals: Happy San Quentin day! Today we’d like to re-introduce you to Nala, who joined the Pen Pals program in mid-June. Thanks to her amazing handlers, Nala passed level one of our Pen Pals testing with an easy 100% and learned a ton of useful commands and tricks: sitting next to her handler on a cute, “wait” commands, walking on leash with no pulling, and hitting a mark bucket on cue. She even got to share the bed with her handler and we learned she’s a first class snuggler! We’ve shared Nala on previous San Quentin updates while she was still in the program, but somehow she’s still waiting for her forever home! If you’ve ever been interested in meeting her, now’s the perfect time because she’s currently back at our Novato shelter where it’s super easy to make an appointment or just stop by. We think Nala would really enjoy living with respectful kids who know how to interact positively with dogs. She absolutely adored hanging out with a dog-savvy kid here at the shelter and gave LOADS of kisses!  If you or someone you know would like to meet Nala, give us a call and set up a time! She’s a 3-year-old Pittie just looking for love and companionship. You can reach us at 415-506-6225.

Volunteer High Five to Hilary Black! Fellow Dog Pet Pals, Burt Greenspan and Donna Kalal, nominated Hilary Black for a well-deserved Volunteer High Five. Here’s what Burt and Donna wrote about Hilary: “Hilary has been a stalwart for the Scenting for Shelter Dogs program week in and week out. Regardless of the location of the Scenting for Shelter Dogs session, Hilary is always there bringing multiple dogs to enjoy these enriching sessions. Last Wednesday is just one example. Scenting was hosted in the CEO’s patio and Hilary brought five dogs, that’s five rounds of scenting work! She was the only Dog Pet Pal on the entire 1.5 hour shift! Hilary is great with the dogs, small or large, and they respond in kind to her. Thank you, Hilary, fory our dedication to this important program for the shelter pooches! Cheers, Burt and Donna.”

Tails of Marin: This week’s Tails of Marin article will, hopefully, answer questions you may have on the difference between emotional support animals and service animals: “Service animal versus emotional support animal.”

Helping hands! When the recent hurricanes battered the Southeast, the whole country watched the frightening footage of the devastation. But after the camera crews left and the rest of the country moved on, beleaguered staff at animal welfare organizations were left to care for the many animals and their families who were affected.

That’s why when our friends at SPCA Tampa Bay reached out for help, we immediately agreed. We sent a team of five staff to help however was needed. Not only did our team provide several extra hands for clean-up and daily operations, they also gave some much-needed relief to the exhausted Tampa Bay staff still reeling from the hurricanes’ impacts on their community and their own homes. Our team cleared mountains of debris, repaired their damaged chicken coop, set up temporary overflow housing for dogs, assisted the medical team, walked and played with shelter dogs, fed displaced wildlife like baby squirrels, distributed pet food to folks in need, and sadly, helped the many people surrendering their pets after losing their homes and livelihoods. This is what the animal welfare community is about. It’s showing up even when the spotlight has faded. And it’s about doing the work with an open heart, knowing that even small gestures of support can go a long way toward healing.

Marin Humane Calendar: The 2025 Marin Humane calendar is here! We have a limited number of calendars available for sale. If you’d like to place an order for yourself, or friends and family, you can order online (preferred method), or order in person or by phone: visit Veronica Piedra in the Development office in the Whittell building, or call 415.506.6254.

Do you have your Halloween costume all set for you and your pooch? If not, here are a few suggestions …

Have a sweet and safe Halloween!

Candace