 The Animal Refuge League of Greater Portland is looking for individuals and families who are willing to be foster parents to kittens and puppies who need a temporary home while waiting for adoption. Leslie talked with Community Relations Coordinator, Lynn McGee, about how the program works. Well, Lynn, here we are with these adorable little kittens. They're great. Thank you so much for bringing them. Oh, my pleasure. I think it's awfully cruel, you know, that you're tempting me here. I'm trying to simplify my life, not add to it. We have our ways of getting to people, yes. Well, I think Little Ginger likes the mic. I think so. She thinks it might be breakfast. Well, this is foster care month, and what does that mean with kittens? Whoops. Well, we're coming into the time of the year where we get a lot of kittens and a lot of puppies, and we really need foster families. Actually, we use foster families all year long for, you know, different animals that might not do well at the shelter that need to get into a home right away. But in particular, like trying to take care of the little guys before they're able to be adopted out, so it's really important that we have families that are willing to do that, and we're very lucky that we do have a large amount, but we're always looking for more. And how long would a kitten stay with a foster family? Well, she was ready to be adopted out. Are they too young right now? They're too young right now. They're eight weeks old, and they need to be spayed and neutered before. And then, right about 12 weeks, that's when we, you know, make sure they're spayed and neutered. Hope you didn't wear your good clothes today. And then they're adopted out. And it's an easy process for people. We ask them to fill out an application, and we have them attend an orientation. We'll even do a one-on-one orientation if somebody can't make the orientation set up that we have. And then we just ask them to follow a few, you know, agree to a few simple rules that we have, and they can be, you know, an adoptive parent. It's great. I think it's wonderful. How many kittens do you have available right now? Well, we just had our kitten shower on Saturday, and so we got rid of all the kittens that we had. But we will be getting, except for, you know, these guys, but they're not old enough quite yet. But we'll have them throughout the summer and into the fall. It's been getting later and later every year. And last year, as I said, we had them right through the fall. And now is this primarily cats, kittens, or do you have puppies as well? Cats, kittens, we do get puppies as well. We have a litter mate program where, you know, we'll, we'll, we'll help with the, the mom and then take the babies. She loves you. She's saying, take me home. I know. It's really cruel. You know, I'm falling in love with this little ginger cat. This is why we like to do a lot of interviews. See, it's much become, and we say hello, and then, you know, we have them adopted. It's wonderful. Yeah. Well, my family crest, you know, is a cat. So. Is it? And the clan. Oh my gosh. That's so funny. An orange cat? No, but. So what, what can people do to find out more about this? All they need to do is contact the ARL, 854-9771, and we'll give you the information on how you can sign up to be, go to the orientation or answer any questions that you might have. Or you can visit our website and just check us out. It's www.arlgp.org. Oh, this one likes being on TV. They all do. Look at it. This one's being pretty good, too. You are. We have another one in here who's a little shy. Yeah. Not wanting to come out on TV. Yes. I understand. Yes. That's difficult. Now, you have another program that's going to be soon at the shelter, and that's a spay and neuter clinic right there. Yes. We're going to be opening a spay and neuter clinic. We're very excited about that. It's, it's been, you know, a long time coming, and we're really, really excited about it. So we'll have more details on that coming up very soon. But it makes a lot of sense. It does. It does, because we, we see so many cats every year, and, you know, every animal that goes out of our organization is spayed and neutered. So we, we really, you know, we really try to stress to people the importance of it. You know, we try to find, hook people up if they can't afford it with low cost spay and neuter clinics in the area that can do it. In the beginning, it'll pretty much, we do our own animals for, for now. We'll, we'll see how that goes. Well, and it's, and it makes so much sense. You know, people have these animals, and then they have more, and they can't handle them. And when you look at the statistics of one animal, how many other babies that they can procreate, it's amazing. You just, it really does make a huge difference. And when you see the number of feral cats that we see, we call them working cats. We don't like feral, because they, they really are, they're, they're hunters. They're, you know, they like to be outside, but they need to have food and water and human attention and shelter. And so we work with different barns in the area, and we try to hook up feral cats, working cats with different barns and farms. Well, I think it's wonderful. I've had many adopted cats, some from the dumpster, actually. But I think we're going to have to go now and play with the kittens. Oh, that's right. And, and thank you for being here today. Thank you for having us. We're bringing you. Yeah, you're cute. They seem to like it. We're giving them a wave. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.