HELP Program

Just as a newborn babies cannot survive without the care and nurturing of their mothers, abandoned or orphaned kittens and puppies have no chance of survival without urgent and persistent help. North Shore Animal’s League America’s HELP Program (Help for Every Little Pet) provides these precious babies a chance at a long happy life, but it does not come easy. Perhaps the most dedicated staff at the League, the HELP foster staff provides around-the-clock care for sometimes as many as 100 infants. They are hand fed from a bottle, nurtured and cared for until they are healthy and strong enough to be adopted into a loving home.

How do these babies come into our care? Sometimes an owner will bring in an unwanted litter, other times the League rescues a pregnant dog or cat from a shelter, and every once in a while, someone will decide to drop off cats and kittens in our parking lot or other areas where they may not be discovered until it is too late. Completely abandoned, these animals are very vulnerable and often sick. This abandonment endangers their lives, as well as the dogs and cats already in our care because we are unaware of their background, including contagious diseases to which they may have been exposed.

This happened recently when the foster care department discovered over 30 kittens left on our property. As it turned out, 28 of these four and five week-old kittens had ringworm, a skin fungus, which is highly contagious to other animals, as well as humans. All of these cats needed to be examined, dewormed, and tagged.

These kittens will stay in the Foster Care department until the ringworm is resolved through weekly medical baths to kill the fungus. Under the watchful eye of our veterinarians and veterinary technicians they are growing stronger every day. When they are ready, we will begin our search for permanent homes so we can ensure these kittens that had such a rough start will be taken care of for the rest of their life.

Through education about spay/neuter, we are trying our best to curtail the over population of unwanted puppies and kittens so that abandonment will become a thing of the past. Although the kittens are adorable, they are unwanted by the mothers and people who are abandoning them. They are contributing to pet overpopulation. Instead of dropping kittens off at a shelter, they should stop the root of the problem – the stray mother cats that keep having these litters. Every space that these unwanted kittens take stops us from going and rescuing other animals that need saving.

Because of this, we offer a feral cat spay/neuter clinic to help with the problem in NY and also offer low cost spay/neuter referral services throughout the nation. If you have a stray cat problem and are interested in learning more about spay/neuter please click here http://www.spayusa.org.

By supporting the HELP program, you provide much-needed dollars for babies like these who are in dire need.