News
Bissell Empty the Shelters December 2020
Oakland Animal Services will be participating in the Bissell Pet Foundation’s Empty the Shelters campaign in December 2020 (exact dates to be announced).
Adoption fees for pets adopted during the event will be $25 (excluding any applicable dog licensing fees). All adopters will be required to complete a short survey from the Bissell Pet Foundation. To learn more about our adoption process, see here.
FOAS is hiring an Outcome Team Associate
Are you a team player who enjoys working with animals and people? The Friends of Oakland Animal Services is adding to their team! FOAS is looking for an Outcome Team Associate to help facilitate adoptions of animals from Oakland Animal Services, provide support to the rabbit foster program, and provide support to members of the Outcome Team. Deadline to apply is Friday, November 13.
FOAS is hiring a Spay/Neuter Program Coordinator
The Spay/Neuter Program Coordinator is a key role in the day-to-day operations of Friends of Oakland Animal Services’ (FOAS) free spay/neuter program. You’ll be our main point of contact with Oakland residents wishing to participate in the program, ensuring that appointment and voucher requests are handled promptly, keeping detailed records in our database, and being on-site to oversee our monthly events. Bilingual English and Spanish speaking and writing ability are a must. There is also an opportunity for additional hours managing FOAS donor data entry, acknowledgements, and mail support.
Apply by September 10: More details and how to apply
Spend quality time with your dog and raise money for OAS!
Rescue Run Club’s 3030 Challenge is a virtual event taking place during months with 30 days. Participate in the month of September to benefit FOAS!
Run or walk 30 miles in 30 days with a dog. Take your dog. Take your own dog, borrow a friend’s or neighbor’s dog, volunteer to walk a shelter dog… any combination can be used to complete the 3030 Challenge! Complete the mileage on your own schedule, at your own pace, with the dog – or dogs – of your choice.
Register here: https://www.rescuerunclub.com/3030
Is your cat Ms. March? Is your dog Mr. May?
We want to hear about YOUR very special “Happy Tails!” The Friends of Oakland Animal Services (FOAS) 2021 calendar will feature the pictures of adopted animals, along with a story about what makes them happy.
Enter your favorite photo of your pet to win one of 12 coveted spots in the 2021 Calendar. The top vote earner will be on the cover of the calendar and will also be featured on one month, with the remaining eleven featured one per month.
We invite you to join the fun by participating in this special fundraiser. All proceeds will go toward our mission: Providing homes, health, and happiness to Oakland’s homeless animals. The contest winners will be determined by public online voting.
Upload your photos today
- Submit your photo here: https://www.gogophotocontest.com/friendsofoas
- Once a pet photo is submitted, it will appear in the online gallery, and be open to voting by the general public.
- $1 per vote. All votes are donations to Friends of Oakland Animal Services.
- Those who donate $25 or more of votes will receive a calendar (be sure to include your mailing address).
- Winning photos will be included in our 2021 Calendar. At least the top 4 dogs and top 4 cats will earn spots in the calendar, and 2 spots are reserved for “other” animals.
Make your holiday wishes come true!
![](https://www.oaklandanimalservices.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Holiday_Wishes_2020-300x300.jpg)
The Petco Foundation, together with BOBS from Skechers, want to know all the ways, big and small, that your adopted pet has changed your life for the better. Winning stories will receive up to a $100,000 Holiday Wishes grant award for their adoption organization PLUS winning adopters will receive a Petco shopping spree and BOBS from Skechers shoes!
Two Puppies Unite a Transplant Patient and Her Donor
Submit your Holiday Wishes story by Sept. 23!
Here’s how to submit:
- If you’ve adopted a pet from Oakland Animal Services, share how your pet changes your life for the better each and every day. Write your story in 500 words or less.
- Upload at least four photos to support your story: one photo of your pet by him/herself, one photo of you or your family with your pet and two additional photos. You can add video too to help illustrate the bond between you and your pet. Visit petcofoundation.org/holidaywishes to read prior year’s winning entries and get some inspiration. Remember, good stories will show how your pet changed YOUR life.
- Include our organization’s contact information so that we can be eligible for a grant award:
- Organization Name: Oakland Animal Services
- Executive Director Name: Lisa Franzetta, FOAS Program and Fundraising Director
- Organization Email Address: info@oaklandsanimals.org
- Organization Phone Number: (510) 535-5602
- Organization Tax ID Number: 20-4053711
- Submit your story and photos to petcofoundation.org/holidaywishes by Sept. 23, noon CST. But hurry because only the first 10,000 stories are guaranteed to be reviewed.
Winners will be announced during the holiday season. Finalists will receive a Petco shopping spree up to $1,000 and BOBS from Skechers shoes, and the organization they adopted from will receive a grant award ranging from $5,000 up to $100,000! For more information, visit petcofoundation.org/holidaywishes and join the conversation on social media using #HolidayWishes.
Support Jessie’s Virtual Kitten Shower and make a wish come true!!!
We’d like to introduce you to Jessie, a very special OAS volunteer and kitten whisperer.
You can support Jessie here.
Though Jessie is “just” a teenager, she has already changed countless lives through her foster and volunteer work for OAS. Since May 2019, with support from her family, Jessie has been fostering homeless OAS kittens. As a young shelter volunteer, she started out doing non-animal handling chores like laundry while working around her school schedule. When our volunteer team saw her level of commitment, Jessie became a rabbit volunteer, providing care for the bunnies–cuddling, but also cleaning cages and feeding greens. On the first day of shelter-in-place, Jessie was one of the first in line to bring home both a foster rabbit and a foster cat! All of this on its own is heartwarming. But there is more to know about this amazing young woman.
Jessie has a lung disease that makes her eligible for a wish from Make-A-Wish Greater Bay Area. Most Make-A-Wish children, who are all facing life-threatening medical conditions, make wishes like taking a trip to Disneyland, or meeting one of their sports idols. Amazingly, Jessie’s one special wish is a philanthropic one–to help kittens at OAS by hosting a “virtual kitten shower.” As part of her wish, Friends of Oakland Animal Services will also receive a $5,000 donation in Jessie’s honor from Make-A-Wish Greater Bay Area!
Jessie’s generous wish will enable OAS to purchase much-needed items on our “kitten registry,” providing for all of the foster and medical care needs for our kittens as they get big and strong enough for adoption. We at FOAS are overwhelmed and inspired by Jessie’s incredible dedication and generosity–so much so, that we have committed to raising a matching $5,000 for Oakland’s kittens. Now, we need your help to meet this match for our dozens of kittens currently in foster care–and to make Jessie’s wish have double the impact for Oakland’s neediest animals.
The typical kitten arriving at OAS as a baby requires supplies like formula, bottles, kitten food, litter, a scale, and a carrier. They also need routine medical care including vaccines, flea prevention, medication for diarrhea and upper respiratory infections, and spay/neuter surgery. All told, each kitten in foster costs the shelter over $200, assuming they have no additional medical expenses.
Right now, OAS has 60 kittens in foster care, as this year’s unusually long “kitten season,” which began in the spring, is still in full force. Because shelter-in-place has impacted spay/neuter programs across the nation, the 2020 kitten season has no end in sight.
Jessie’s $5,000 wish come true, plus $5,000 from our FOAS community, means that we can continue to provide care for our city’s tiniest cats as these litters of bottle babies continue to arrive at our shelter doors.
Please help us continue to provide the love and care that every kitten deserves during this year of unprecedented need–and to celebrate Jessie’s dedication by meeting our challenge match goal of $5000. Your gift, no matter how small, will help make Jessie’s “virtual kitten shower” a truly life-changing event.
And on August 23, we’ll be celebrating live with a special baby shower broadcast from one of our shelter’s bi-weekly kitten adoption events! Jessie, FOAS, and Make-A-Wish representatives will join remotely as we livestream from the shelter, where our foster kittens who are ready for adoption will show off their cat-stuff and meet the families waiting to adopt a new best feline friend. Stay tuned to the OAS Facebook and Instagram feeds for details on how to join the party!
Support Jessie here: https://charity.gofundme.com/o/en/campaign/jessies-kitten-shower
Dog days of summer: a fundraiser for our dog foster program
A special message from OAS Director Ann Dunn:
![](https://www.oaklandanimalservices.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/MeiMei-928x1024.jpeg)
Meimei was a sweet, playful girl for her age. She was in foster for a few weeks where fosters discovered she had urinary incontinence. She was placed on meds putting the incontinence under control. We would not have learned of her incontinence at the shelter. Meimei was adopted at the end of July.
I think everyone understands that the shelter is a stressful place for animals, but the sad reality is that a dog who is shut down or seems aggressive in a shelter, or who has some behavioral issues, is unlikely to be given a chance.
Before becoming OAS Director earlier this year, I founded and ran Cat Town, a cat rescue organization with a mission to help OAS cats who are at-risk for euthanasia because they are too scared in the shelter environment to show their true personality. I was told back then that the cats we set out to help were “unadoptable.”
By getting scared cats into an environment where they feel safe, so potential adopters can see their true personalities shine through, Cat Town helped increase the save rate for cats at OAS from 58% in 2011 to over 90% today.
![](https://www.oaklandanimalservices.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Nellie2-1024x1024.jpg)
Nellie was very shy, scared, and needed socialization. She also demonstrated food guarding behavior. Nellie went to foster and blossomed into a sweet, playful, and smart dog where no food guarding was observed. She was made available for adoption in the beginning of July and adopted two weeks later.
Knowing that there are so many parallels to dogs, one of the first things I did after starting at OAS was to reach out to FOAS to help me create a targeted foster program especially for dogs who aren’t doing well in the shelter and just need an opportunity in a foster home to thrive and become adopted.
- Our new foster initiative for these dogs in need of special assistance gets them out of the shelter and into the homes of one of our more than 350 Oakland foster families, as quickly as possible. But that’s just the beginning.
- We support our foster families with supplies, classes, and individualized support from professional dog trainers.
- We oversee doggie play groups at the shelter, an important behavior training opportunity for both fearful and aggressive dogs.
- Our “canine good citizen” approach focuses on improving a dog’s behavior, and the support provided to fosters and adopters means they can take a chance on a “dog in progress,” knowing they won’t be stuck without support in a challenging situation.
FOAS has set a goal of raising $10,000 to help dogs once deemed unadoptable. Please, give today to support our Dog Days of Summer campaign, which will help make our shelter’s visionary program a reality for all of our dogs in need. Thank you!
FOAS job opportunity!
Friends of Oakland Animal Services (FOAS) is hiring for two positions operating out of Oakland Animal Services: Foster Coordinator (primarily for kittens and cats) and Feral Cat Coordinator. These are both half-time (20 hour/week) positions. Depending on experience and availability of interested candidates, FOAS is open to hiring one full-time staff person to fill both roles.
Please note there is currently a half-time staff member who serves as a support to the foster program.
In your cover letter, please clearly specify whether you are interested in one or both roles. Please also indicate your general willingness to consider a half- or full-time position. Applications must be submitted by July 20.