SEQUIM — It’s a bit like a forest fire with fur.
This is an exceptionally busy summer for those who care for kittens, said Nancy Campbell, surrogate mom to about 60 felines of various ages.
“We’ve had two mild years in a row, and the mother cats get pregnant when the weather is mild,” added Campbell, operations manager at the Peninsula Friends of the Animals shelter off U.S. Highway 101 west of Sequim.
“We are still hammered with kittens,” she said.
Litters born in June are ready for adoption even as more are being born.
Foster homes
Since Friends runs a no-kill shelter, it sends many kittens to foster homes to get them used to people, television, hair dryers and such until they’re old enough to be adopted.
A quintet of kittens, at less than a day old, recently found a foster home with Sandy Johnson, a first-timer in Sequim.
Some time after Johnson’s husband died in April, she went to the Friends shelter looking for volunteer activities and found Campbell, a highly persuasive cat advocate.
Then, four weeks ago, the call came: A gray tabby had been found in the street, inside a duct tape-sealed box.
Campbell brought her to the Sequim Animal Hospital, where she gave birth to five kittens.
Johnson already had a cat and a dog, but she put a large, open box in a utility room, and everybody seems to be coexisting well.
The youngsters, now that their blue eyes are open, are getting curious about the world outside their box, and divide their time between nursing and mewing to Johnson and enjoying her strokes and conversation.
And yes, Johnson’s become attached to the family.
It won’t be easy to bring them to the shelter in another month.
But that’s where they can play with the others and be seen by would-be permanent adoptive families, Campbell said.
If you’ve entertained even one thought about fostering kittens, “go for it,” said Johnson.
“If you’ve got even a cubbyhole to put them in . . . it’s wonderful just watching the development.”
As for keeping one or more, “I’ll have to see, when the time comes.”
Adopting cats
Friends is offering kittens for adoption at Petco, 1205 W. Washington St., through August.
The shelter itself, open by appointment, is light-filled and love-drenched.
Campbell, Friends board president Diane Lopez, and shelter manager Gary DelMastro make it so.
They go from room to room telling the felines’ stories and asking after each one’s welfare.
Lexi, “our full-figured girl,” is a tortoiseshell who was adopted by a woman who knits.
But the woman soon brought her back to the shelter. She was just too huge, she said.
“Lexi filled up her lap,” leaving no room for knitting, said Campbell. “So we placed a much smaller, declawed cat with her.”
Like Lexi, some 30 other adults still need homes.
There’s Spencer, a tawny tom who belonged to an elderly couple who went into an assisted-living home; Alexandra, a shy smoke-colored stray with gold eyes; Helen, a silky white cat who was dumped on Jamestown Beach.
Christopher, also abandoned, recently found a home with a woman who uses a wheelchair.
She came through the cattery to see which felines didn’t mind the noise of the motor and Christopher immediately jumped into her lap.
“Sometimes the cat chooses you,” said Lopez.
In yet another room are the adolescents, cats nobody took home when they were cute kittens.
“They’re at the gawky stage, and not as adoptable,” said Campbell.
But they’re still playful, and “we of course think they’re beautiful at all stages.”
Some hang back, however, gazing at visitors from high perches.
They may be a little wary of strangers, Campbell said.
“We find that cats who are shy at the shelter are wonderful in a quiet, loving home.”
Four “special needs” cats two paraplegics, a diabetic and Tippy, whose neurological damage makes him walk as though he’s intoxicated live at the Friends shelter.
Lifetime care facility
Friends just began fundraising to build a new shelter just south of the first building, so that the latter can become a “lifetime care facility” for cats, Campbell said.
People who can no longer care for their pets could bring them to this home.
Friends will continue to provide emergency help to homeless and low-income pet owners with its food bank, which is stoked by people who donate dog and cat food and equipment.
Many people on fixed incomes run out of money for pet food at the end of the month, said Lopez.
Friends purchased its house in January 2002, after a member donated the funds.
Four part-time staffers and a flock of volunteers keep the Friends shelter clean and organized.
The group purchased the house in January 2002 after one member, who prefers anonymity, donated the funds.
Some donors leave bequests to the nonprofit of their choice, so “something wonderful can happen after they’re gone,” Campbell added.
The Friends donor “wanted to see this happen while she’s still with us.”
To volunteer, visit, donate pet food, equipment or cash, or to find out about adopting a pet, call Peninsula Friends of the Animals’ shelter at 360-452-0414.