SCAA Adoption Day Sunday 26 September: 12PM – 3PM Zapata's Mexican Cantina 5 Hengshan Lu @Dong Ping Lu Come meet our healthy and social rescues looking for a forever home.

Special thanks to Zapata's for hosting SCAA while O'Malley's is under renovation.

Please note dogs are not allowed on the property, so please contact SCAA for alternate dog adoption arrangements.

SCAA invites you to visit us at the 4th Annual Expat Show!

Dear SCAA supporters,

We hope you've returned from summer holidays well-rested and ready for… more holidays as Shanghai prepares to celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day. With the return of many families to Shanghai recently, we are pleased to report a (near) record 9 cats and kittens found permanent homes at Adoption Day in August. We hope the trend continues as we have many healthy and social animal companions looking for adoptive homes!

September's Adoption Day is re-scheduled to Sunday the 26h and SCAA extends our special thanks to management and staff at Zapata's Mexican Cantina for opening their doors to our foster kitties while our regular venue (O'Malley's) is under renovation. Unfortunately, dogs are not allowed on the Zapata's / Sasha's property. Please contact SCAA to make alternate dog adoption arrangements in the interim (dogprogram@scaashanghai.org)

More holidays mean SCAA once again has a foster home plea as many foster parents will travel. If you're able to foster a cat or kittens for a week or two in October, please contact us (foster@scaashanghai.org).

Some upcoming activities and events to keep an eye out for include:

Expat Show – SCAA is grateful to be invited by the Show's organisers for the 4th year in a row. Please visit us at our table in the Associations Village. We'll have bilingual pet care information, fun giveaways, and treats and toys for sale. The Expat Show runs Friday 17 - Sunday 19 September at The Shanghai Exhibition Center.

Community Events – September is a busy month with SCAA happily joining forces with other community organizations to foster compassion for companion animals. Stay tuned for updates in our next newsletter on our inaugural dog visit to a group of disabled adults, monthly BEAN group visit to SCAA's Local Project, and our participation in a Roots & Shoots school fair while Dr Jane Goodall is visiting Shanghai.

Relocation of SCAA's Local Project – With the lease on the rural house where 160+ cats and half a dozen dogs live under SCAA's care expiring this month, the hunt for a new location is well underway. Moving this many animals and preparing a new house to accommodate them is a big task. See our News Update section below on our recruitment of volunteers.

Launch of SCAA 2011 Calendar – Although we won't have this inspiring collection our rescue, fostering and adoption stories available until October, we look forward to unveiling this great new gift idea and welcome students and other groups interested in a calendar sale fundraising initiative to contact us now! (pr@scaashanghai.org).

Thanks for your continued support.

Regards,

The SCAA Team

Making Space for Rescues

It comes as no surprise that SCAA and animal rescuers were stretched beyond capacity this past summer as the usual spring/summer kitten boom coincided with the mass exodus of many volunteers on summer vacation.

Short term isolation of rescued animals from other foster animals or pets is important to prevent the spread of disease. Add this task to family and work responsibilities and you often get inventive and sometimes inconvenient temporary solutions for helping needy strays when resources are tight. At SCAA, we're inspired by rescuers who make space and "make it work", as one famous fashionista would say, until other resources are available.

Calico kitten Julia was fortunate to survive being dumped in a rubbish bin and after a warm bath and a packet of cat food, Julia settled in to what we like to refer to as everyone's kitten-isolation-room-in-waiting.

Every household's "isolation room" put to good use for kitten Julia

Summer at SCAA's Local Project

Yearly Vaccinations in June

At the close of June, nearly 160 cats and 6 dogs had been fully vaccinated and treated for fleas. While many of the cats are cooperative in this yearly effort, some insist on putting our volunteers' cat corralling skills to the test. Cats were scooped up and put through an assembly line of sorts: vaccination, flea treatment and a dab of natural food coloring to evidence our efforts.

This half-day project involved a downtown departure in the wee hours of the morning to escape the mid-day heat and was possible thanks to our dedicated volunteers, vaccinations at cost (RMB 5,000) arranged by PAW, and a donation from Frontline.

Project Renovations in July

In July, SCAA completed extensive project renovations over a two-day weekend. Around RMB 3,000 in supplies was put to use rust-proofing and painting the fence enclosure and rebuilding some of the well-worn cat walks. As with all of our activities, they could not be done without a small team of dedicated volunteers!

Unfortunately, SCAA's project must be relocated soon as the lease on the rural house won't be renewed. So we anticipate many more tasks to recruit volunteers for! Making the most out of this move, SCAA will take the opportunity to set up our new location with more and better facilities with new cubby holes, climbing trees, clean towels & bedding and pet baskets. Thanks to this year's sponsors, we have a pressure washer and industrial wet-dry vacuum to clean up the new space before nearly 160 cats and half a dozen dogs move in.

Interested in helping? Contact volunteer@scaashanghai.org for more details. Interested in donating clean, gently-used bedding, baskets and cat trees? Please contact donate@scaashanghai.org.

Cat Adoption Feature – a Perfect Kitten Pair

What's more adorable than a kitten? TWO OF THEM!

Not only are two kittens twice the fun as one, there are great benefits for pets and owners from adopting a pair. First of all, kittens form a close bond with each other and keeping them together as they grow encourages them to develop into confident cats secure in their environment; important building blocks for the human-cat bond. Secondly, kittens are tiny bundles of furry energy that will dive bomb each other in the middle of the night rather than land on your head. Finally, for those animal lovers practically chained to a desk 10 hours a day, two kittens keep each other company during the workday - avoiding the risk of raising a "loner" cat or a lonely (i.e. bored) cat prone to destructive behaviour. Although two cats may cost a bit more than one, all of the litter box instruction, scratching post training and other start-up work can be just as easily taught by you and reinforced by each other.

Foster kitten brothers Jackson and Bruno are some of the sweetest siblings you'll ever meet. They were found in a garden, huddling next to their sibling who had been killed by the van they were still dangerously curious about, climbing into the wheel wells and up inside the frame. Their rescuer didn't hesitate to scoop them up and put them inside her handbag for the short walk home.

Bruno and Jackson in June, showing off the bond that's only strengthened over time!

In foster care for 3 months now, Jackson and Bruno have impressed each set of foster parents with their strong bond. These two play, eat, and sleep together and love to share their energy and affection with people. Adorable is an understatement for describing this pair.

For more information on adopting Jackson and Bruno, please visit the SCAA website (www.scaashanghai.org) or email foster@scaashanghai.org.

Foster Care Investment Profile: Neo

Each month, SCAA features the investment needed to get just one of our many foster animals healthy and adoptable. As financial times get tough for everyone, we hope this feature not only accounts for where donations are going, but underscores the critical need for the donations we request on foster care intake and adoption.

Neo with his "mini me" foster kitten friend Minny

Neo is a soft-coated ginger male just under a year old who enjoys being held upside down in his foster dad's arms like a baby. Neo arrived in his foster home in need of a lot of care – purchased suffering from a common skin fungus (ringworm) by an unsuspecting animal lover who then couldn't prepare a sick kitten for export. His foster parents treated Neo with anti-fungal shampoo and cream for several weeks. Neo is now healthy and happy, and sharing his foster home with foster kitten friends while patiently awaiting adoption.

THANK YOU! THANK YOU!

Our deepest thanks once again to all the animal lovers and supporters in Shanghai, around China, and around the world for their generous donations. Every RMB, Dollar, Pound and Euro counts.

Picking up pet products like nutritional supplements while in the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Australia etc is a great help to the animals in Shanghai who don't normally have access to them!

• Adrienne and Tom Urbanec: US$2,000 PayPal donation
• Adrienne and Tom Urbanec: L-Lysine supplement paste and eye drops not available in Shanghai (shipped from Singapore and Hong Kong)
• Deborah Butcher: RMB3,000 donation for pet sitting cats Pearl and Blackbeard currently awaiting transport to The Netherlands
• Emily Pan: RMB2,000 for laser pen cat toys
• Beth Wilson, sponsor Pantry Magic: RMB1,000 for kitten Julia's care
• Dr Beryl Lo, Petshome: RMB1,000
• CF Pan: RMB600 for laser pen cat toys and RMB300 donation towards kitten Oliver's care
• Leslie Bai and Francesco Ronsivalle: RMB 800 donation for pet sitting cats Pearl and Nikita while owners where in Europe for their wedding (congratulations!)
• Britta Erickson: US$100 PayPal donation towards kitten Oliver's medical care
• Jeffrey and Angela Cheong (California): $100 (via nephew CF Pan) for laser pen cat toys
• Jane Hoffman, New York City Feral Cat Initiative: $75 PayPal donation towards care for bottle feeding kitten Aji found by a friend visiting Shanghai
• Emily Wong: US$50 PayPal donation (in addition to generously donating her time to code the SCAA newsletter!)
• Francesca Mulazzi: RMB 100 and L-Lysine supplement paste from the U.S.
• Edward Woodward: $10 PayPal donation
• Fangqing Wong: $6 PayPal donation
• Neale and Wendy Hill: Pet accessories, toys and cash donation in memory of dog Kanyati
• Emily Osann: L-Lysine supplement paste from the U.S.
• Echo Cao: Cat tree for SCAA's local project
• Sian Meeuwsen: Pet accessories

Long-time Sponsors and New Supporters

As SCAA animals continue to benefit from the support of long-time sponsors and welcome help from new ones, we felt it appropriate to continue to the pairs theme with a special highlight of two generous sponsors: vip-Pet and Love Box Self Storage.

Vip-Pet has generously supported SCAA since our first year helping needy stray and abandoned companion animals in Shanghai. Vip-Pet offers quality, imported pet food, toys, and accessories as well as organic treats, all conveniently delivered to your door.

Shopping with vip-Pet is a win-win for pet owners and SCAA alike: purchases via the SCAA website link to vip-Pet are tracked and vip-Pet donates some proceeds of sale to support SCAA's foster and project animals. Thanks to SCAA supporters' online shopping in 2009, vip-Pet donated RMB10,000 to SCAA.

We encourage owners to continue pampering their pets with vip-Pet products. Visit SCAA's website and click through to http://www.scaashanghai.org/pet_supply_shop_vip_pet.shtml to shop for a good cause. Use the Comments box to mention SCAA referred you!

SCAA also welcomes new sponsor Love Box Self Storage. Everybody has stuff and SCAA is no exception! Thanks to donations of pet toys, accessories, raffle prizes and merchandise, SCAA can raise funds for our foster and project animals. But as the years went on, SCAA directors and volunteers were slowly losing our personal space to storage.

Love Box kindly donated storage space to SCAA and it couldn't have come at a better time as we recently lost our Adoption Day cabinet storage at O'Malley's due to renovations. Adoption Day cages, towels, and other needed items are now safely tucked away.

For convenient and secure storage space visit Love Box Self Storage!

Putonghua Pet Tips

Cat got your tongue when it comes to explaining your pet care needs in Chinese to Ayi or communicating with well-meaning neighbors or other animal lovers?

SCAA Putonghua Pet Care Tips are here to help. Thanks to foster mom, adopter, and generous donor Winnie Lee for her vital input!

Asia's craziest crazy cat ladies (and gentlemen)?

In case you've forgotten how lucky you are to have a cat or dog companion in your life, check out these less fortunate animal lovers in Japan, paying to pet cats because many of Japan's tiny apartments don't accommodate or allow pets.

Osaka's Cat Time Café as reported by an animal-loving blogger on Amazingdata.com:

674 Adoptions to Date!!

Kittens 413
Cats 131
Puppies 48
Dogs 79
Bunnies 3

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