 There are two full moons this month, and the Animal Refuge League of Greater Portland is marking the event with once-in-a-blue moon promotion. Leslie McVane spoke to Lynn McGee, the group's community relations manager, about how you can adopt a pet for free. Well, Lynn, and Cream Cheese are a special guest today. The Animal Refuge League is doing something special this month, the month of August. Yes. Tell us a little bit about that. Well, throughout the summer we've been trying to have at least one Friday a month where we do special fee waivers. We find it really helps get the animals home faster, and that's really what we are. We are all about getting these animals adopted and into a loving home. So this month in August we're taking advantage of the blue moon, and since the blue moon happens once-in-a-blue moon, we're doing a promotional special, and all of our animals are going to be fee-waved. For one day only, Friday, August 24th. Fantastic. Yes. Yes. We're very excited about that. We find kittens, puppies, whatever we have, because you never know from one day to the next whether or not an animal will go ahead. We have a little cheat thing here, here, Cream Cheese. Cream Cheese loves food. And so, yeah, we're very excited about it, that we think that usually people come out in droves, and we want to get as many animals adopted into loving homes as possible. We have a lot of animals at the moment. We do. This is always like one of our worst months as far as, you know, just having a lot of animals. I think, you know, we're upwards of 150 cats right now, just on-site. That's not including, you know, fosters off-site. We have about 40 dogs. I mean, it's just, it's very, very busy. We're up to the rafters with small animals as well. Well, I think doing the blue moon special at the end of summer, when fall is here, and it's still good weather to train a dog and have a dog outside before winter sets in. Exactly. It's probably very smart. And we try to give people as many support systems as they could possibly need. For instance, if they have a dog and the dog needs further training, they want to train it. We have training classes. We offer ARL alums a discounted rate. So we work very hard. We call people after they've adopted an animal to make sure are there any issues that have come up, and we try to help solve them. We really want every adoption to be the perfect fit. So we're doing it. So do you do home visits? We can't do home visits. That's not part of our mission, but we do follow up. We make phone calls. We email. We encourage people to contact us if it's a problem that we can't solve. We have a lot of really wonderful professionals in the area that we will refer people to. So we really work hard at getting people the information they need to have a good adoption. And with this Blue Moon Special, with the money people save in the adoption fees, they can put that toward classes. Exactly. Or food. Or food. Veterinary care or whatever the many things that they need for an animal, for a really good experience for the animal to be well taken care of. So yeah, we're very proud of these promotions. We're also going to start doing something where when people come into the shelter, we may feature a pet from each department. And that is the pet of the day, meaning that that pet will be fee-waved. So we're trying a lot of new things that we think are going to be really helpful in getting our little friends new homes. Now is cream cheese available for adoption? Cream cheese is available for adoption. He's eight years old. He's neutered. He's very friendly, as you can see. He loves car rides. He spent the whole ride over just kind of rolling on the back of my car. He loved it. He's a hound. He's a little vocal. He likes to talk. But when he's getting attention like this, you can see he just, he's very good. He's very quiet when, you know, he's around people. The very people-oriented animals. And he's, yeah, he's a wonderful dog. He just needs somebody to love him. Well hopefully on that blue moon special, someone will love him and he can howl with the light at the moon. Exactly. As I say, we're going to have a howling good time. So yes. So what is it difficult to adopt? In what way? In, do you do many interviews with people that come in and talk to you? Oh, oh, is it the process? No. We like to say that it's fast, fun, and friendly. And really what we try to do is we do a very thorough form that we ask people to fill out. And what that is mostly is to find out what you're looking for in a pet so that we can match you with the right animal that has that personality. Right. You know, you don't want a lap dog if, you know, you don't want a dog sitting in your lap. So we try to, we try to work that. Well I think that's wonderful and hopefully you'll be really busy on the blue moon special. I think so. I think so. And hopefully Cream Cheese won't be coming back with you. She'll find out, he'll find a home. I think so. And I'm so glad you were here. Thank you so much. Thank you. I really appreciate it. Thank you Cream Cheese.