‘Place’ Maker Does His Heart Good : Creator-host Fred Bergendorff’s hobby and pet project is an Anaheim-produced TV show on KDOC that features adoptable dogs and cats from area shelters.

The waiting area for Fred Bergendorff’s TV guests doesn’t quite compare to the “Tonight Show’s.” Rather than getting to spend their nervous preshow moments sequestered in a greenroom filled with chic furniture, TV monitors and heaped deli trays, there is merely a riser of tired brown carpet for them to lounge on, off to the left of the spare set.

But Leno and Letterman’s guests are never so pampered: Each of Bergendorff’s is being stroked, coddled, massaged and cooed to by an attendant. Some guests roll over, shameless as Madonna, offering their bellies to be rubbed.

Then some chirpy disco-lite music starts up, a couple of the guests join in with a high pitched whine--like the dogs they are--and another segment of “The Pet Place” begins taping.

Creator-host Bergendorff earns his keep working behind the scenes in the radio industry, as promotion director for KNX 1070 news radio, but on-camera he has the assured manner of a Casey Kasem or Dick Clark, not to mention, at 50, the latter’s timeless hair. He wears a white ribbon on his crew-neck sweater. It’s something he originated, intended to convey the message: “Be Kind to Animals.”

For a pet lover, “The Pet Place” might be the best gig in the world: In his half-hour show--aired on KDOC Channel 56 every Saturday at 6 p.m. and Sunday at 6 a.m.--Bergendorff’s job, in essence, is to pet cats and dogs. Volunteers carry them on one by one, and Bergendorff pets them.

It’s petting with a purpose, though. The animal guests, usually a dozen per show, all come from Southland animal shelters and desperately need homes. “The Pet Place” does remarkably well at getting them homes. At this particular taping, last Thursday at KDOC’s Anaheim studios, the show celebrated its three-year anniversary on the station, and its 4,000th pet adoption.

The anniversary program, which aired the last weekend, was practically a spectacular, featuring balloons, a cake, a citation from the city of Los Angeles, as well as a plaque from the show’s sponsor, Jonny Cat, purveyors of fine cat-box filler. Indeed, a costume-character Jonny Cat himself put in an appearance.

Usually there isn’t so much icing.

“We don’t go heavy on entertainment here,” Bergendorff said. “Nothing should upstage the animals. They’re the stars. I like doing it this intense way, where we showcase many animals in every show, and talk about the important aspects of pet care, without a lot of flash.”

Indeed, the set looks like it cost all of $35. There’s a sign, and a carpeted table, on which the furry guests sit, usually, while Bergendorff introduces them to the home audience and gives out their kennel number and shelter at which they might be found.

Occasionally, a pet will bolt. One particularly large dog once took the table over with him. Sometimes there are what they genteelly refer to as “accidents.” As is inevitable with the volume of animals they’ve had on the show, a couple of helpers have been nipped or clawed in the guests’ nervousness.

At this taping, one would swear many of the animals were experiencing stage fright. Bergendorff explained: “They might think they’re at the vet’s, but it’s also a situation they’ve never encountered before, with all the bright lights. If they get jumpy, that’s all part of the experience for us, and people are willing to go through that to give these animals a chance.”

He’s never been bitten, or even gotten fleas from his guests, though he does get more dog kisses in an evening than many folks get in a lifetime. “But one hazard of this job is the dry-cleaning bills,” he said. “I can only wear things one time before they have to go in again.”

They tape every other week, two shows a night. Most of the animals are of mixed breeds. “He’s a schnauzer, possibly,” opined one shelter rep of the dog he’d brought to the show. And so it proceeds, with Bergendorff’s sweater picking up hairs from semi-spaniels, shepherds, Airedales, terriers and various cats.

Some of the animals are handicapped. Along with a deaf purebred Brittany spaniel, Eileen Pinder of the Huntington Beach-based Orange County Humane Society brought on Emma, a dog that had been at her shelter for 2 1/2 months. Though blind, she still had eyes that said “love me,” and it is the show’s getting that look into people’s homes that will probably place Emma in one of those homes.

“Let’s please be responsible pet owners,” Pinder reminded the audience. “It was pouring rain when Emma was found wandering.”

“Isn’t that terrible?” Bergendorff commented, with genuine concern.

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Bergendorff has loved animals since he had pets as a kid. “And I’ve read all the books, ‘Lassie,’ ‘Lad, a Dog,’ and probably seen every pet movie that’s ever been out. We had the animal stars of ‘Homeward Bound, the Incredible Journey’ come on the show. It was terrific. I don’t know how I feel about human stars, but I was in awe of these animal stars. That’s a favorite movie of mine.”

He only has one pet of his own at present, a Maine Coon cat, but he also feeds a group of strays that live near his Long Beach home. It was one of these strays that led him to where he is now.

“One day in late 1989, this one little cute black cat from the group disappeared, and some people told me they thought it had been taken to the Long Beach animal shelter. Going there was the most important trip of my life, because it made me aware of the tremendous pet overpopulation problem the animal shelters are dealing with,” he said.

He proposed to the shelter that he feature some of their animals on a local access cable show. He began doing that, and still does, and after a year began also doing the expanded version of the show on commercial station KDOC.

There have been a few rabbits, snakes and iguanas on the show, but nothing more exotic. “We encourage people not to get that kind of animal, because exotic animals belong in exotic places, not people’s homes. By far, we feature cats and dogs because that’s where the tragic pet overpopulation is that we try to address. There are between 15 and 25 million euthanized a year. Whatever the number, it’s tragic to comprehend. We can’t do anything about the rest of the country, but we can certainly do our best for our area,” he said.

With no shortage of his own species suffering in the world, why does he feel drawn to animals?

“For me, one thing is that they can’t speak for themselves. They have no voice, so some person needs to be the voice for them. And they look so in need of love and homes. They’re so trusting. Give them a little food and take care of them and they give all this love back in return.”

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The show alternately features animals from 22 Southland shelters. Some 96% of the animals featured become adopted, and he says that rate is 100% for the typically hard-to-place handicapped pets that Bergendorff makes a special effort in presenting. Some lucky times, owners see their missing pets on the show and are reunited.

The 4,000 featured pets that were adopted don’t tell the whole story of the show’s success. “The estimate we get from the shelters is that overall possibly as many as 15,000 animals have found homes because of the show. There’s a reason why we do the show the way we do: People can’t call in to adopt a pet; they have to go to the shelter. We know they’ll be in the mind to get a pet when they go down, and if eight people go down interested in a dog that was on the show, maybe six of them will go home with other ones.”

“This show has helped us tremendously,” says the Humane Society’s Pinder. “Almost 100% of the animals we feature here find homes. I don’t know what I could do for a lot of our handicapped pets without ‘The Pet Place.’ It’s when they see them here on the show that a lot of viewers feel in their hearts that they can take on that responsibility. Without that visual tool, a lot of them would not have gotten homes.”

Bergendorff estimates his show draws 40,000 to 50,000 viewers, and he has derived some small amount of celebrity from it. “I was at Disneyland a couple of weeks ago, and three different people recognized me, stopped me and said they enjoy the show. Another came up to me in San Diego yesterday.”

He also makes personal appearances at pet shows, where often several hundred people will stop to talk to him. “Some want reassurance that all these animals do get taken care of. Some just want to talk or show me pictures of their cats and dogs. Some have adopted our pets and want to share how they’re doing.

“We’d had one beautiful German shepherd named King on, who’d lived in Big Bear. One night a drunk in a bar had shot him and he lost a leg because of this cruel act. He ran out into the snow, and there were heroic efforts of the community for days to find him. We had him on and this wonderful family adopted him, and they came out to a personal appearance I made and showed me pictures of King in the swimming pool with the family. I love things like that.”

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Most of the people involved in the show volunteer their services, including Bergendorff and co-producers Missy Will and Gary Lycan. “We’re lucky if we get our expenses covered,” Bergendorff said. They recently received nonprofit status, using donations to defray production costs. (You can call Elevad Productions, (310) 594-9244.)

He says his devoted producers make his work on the show as easy as possible, and given his druthers, he’d tape it every week. Despite working full time, teaching broadcast marketing part time at San Diego State University and doing everything tied to the show (it’s not just personal appearances; they’ve organized emergency aid for animals following earthquakes, riots and other disasters), Bergendorff claims he’s not a workaholic.

“When you love something a lot, it’s not an effort. Even if I’ve had a bad week, my eyes light up when I meet the animals. It makes you feel that it’s important and you’re helping, making a difference. That’s such a high that I can’t see myself ever not doing it.”