Agoura Hills : Pets Up for Adoption at Pumpkin Festival

Leo, a big orange cat who lives in a cage at the Agoura Hills Animal Shelter, doesn’t understand the language of humans. So he has no way of knowing that his freedom may soon be at hand.

He dozed through the morning Monday, oblivious to the commotion as shelter workers prepared for Saturday and Sunday when he and dozens of dogs and cats will be put up for adoption at the Calabasas Days Pumpkin Festival at Paramount Ranch.

This the third year that the shelter has brought animals to the fair, and shelter officials say the success of the previous two years has encouraged them to try again.

“You are exposed to 40,000 people over a two-day period,” shelter director Bruce Richards said. “You don’t get that at the shelter.”

The first year the shelter placed 58 animals at the fair, said Richards. The second year, it placed 78, he said, and this year it hopes to place 90.

A Burbank-based animal protection group called Actors and Others for Animals will pay to have the animals spayed or neutered, Richards said, and a Van Nuys group called Mercy Crusade will pay for vaccinations.

“It would normally cost about $80 to adopt,” Richards said. “Now, it will cost the adopter $35, and they can save more if the animal is already neutered.”

Smaller animals will be on display at the festival, to be held in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, officials said. Larger animals will be kept at the shelter, at 29525 Agoura Road in Agoura Hills. For information, call the shelter at (818) 991-4233.

The shelter, which is normally closed Sundays, will be open this Sunday so that people can adopt animals, he said.

The shelter won’t let just anyone adopt, officials cautioned. Last year, a handful of would-be adopters were turned away because they could not demonstrate in the questionnaire they were asked to complete that the animals would be going to good homes.

The shelter also tries to discourage people from adopting animals on an impulse. “We don’t want any emotional type of adoptions,” said Taffy Baron, a shelter volunteer.