Oh, those faces!

Sitting on a bench with a colorful box next to him, Ryan Lefmann waits for the newest member of his family — a cat.

As Lefmann pulls the small white kitten from its box, the feline isn’t shy or frightened, but cuddles and immediately starts to climb onto Lefmann’s shoulder.

“This guy, when we took him out, he really seemed to respond to us,” said the Laguna Hills resident.

The yet-unnamed cat was a stray at the Orange County Animal Shelter, but now will be sharing a house with two dogs. The decision to adopt an animal from this shelter was easy for Lefmann.

“It’s a kill shelter,” he said.

A menagerie looking for new homes and love

Lefmann, who works as an animal technician in a hospital and is planning to go back to school to become a veterinarian, knows all about how animal shelters work and what a problem animal overpopulation is.

The Orange County Animal Shelter in Santa Ana, which serves Huntington Beach and the rest of the county, will take in any animal that needs a home. The shelter worked with a $16.2-million budget in 2008-09 to serve 18 cities and rescue hundreds of dogs and cats, as well as birds, bunnies, reptiles and any other animal that needs a place to stay.

The shelter is caring for a pig, but that isn’t even the most exotic animal the shelter has seen. It has housed an emu and even a monkey once, said Ryan Drabek, the shelter’s interim director.

The shelter is housing about 260 dogs. Some sit in their cages, silently pleading to be taken home with handmade “No tricks, just treats” signs on their kennels, while others make their wishes more vocal — a cacophony of cries for attention are the constant background.

Walking through the aisles of the abandoned is hard. Pete Martin of Irvine can’t go into the cat facility, and his wife can’t bear to see the dogs, he said. Lefmann said the visit is difficult for him too, but ultimately worth it.

“It’s a little hard knowing the reality of it, but I can save one life,” he said.

Success rates

The shelter picks up many of the animals off the streets in addition to the ones dropped off by their owners, and works to find every pet a home. Despite the staff’s best efforts, not all animals can be adopted.

The shelter has a 78% live release rate for dogs — canines that are adopted out of the shelter — but the odds are worse for cats. Felines have only a 27% chance of being adopted, Drabek said. The shelter is required by state law to keep every animal for four days before euthanizing it, seven if it has an ID tag, but the state law isn’t the only factor in the decision, Drabek said.

The shelter doesn’t just euthanize animals after the four-day minimum, but takes into consideration the animals’ temperament and medical condition. Drabek said dogs have stayed in the shelter for as long as nine months — there is no limit on how long they can be kept.

“As long as they remain happy and healthy and adoptable,” Drabek said.

Bettering their health

Even though the shelter can kill most of its animals, it doesn’t — and that leaves a lot of pets that need attention and care. Seeing animals sitting in kennels all day, every day, can be depressing for visitors, but while the animals look despondent, their plight isn’t quite as desperate as they might want future owners to think.

A team of 250 volunteers are on hand every day, nearly all day, to bathe, walk, play with and help train the animals, Drabek said. The volunteers allow the shelter to provide extra services and are an integral part of care, he said.

“Just to play ball with them for 20 minutes, our staff doesn’t have time for that,” Drabek said.

Wearing their sky-blue T-shirts, volunteers can be seen leading dogs around the shelter on a leash or playing ball with a pet in one of the facility’s two exercise areas. There is also a closed-off area for volunteers to play with cats and help socialize them in their enclosed trailer.

Getting the dogs out of the kennel for just an hour a day can have huge benefits to the animals’ health and well-being, he said. Cats’ problems are more than just getting out of their kennels.

The cats and kittens, stacked in row after row of cages, are prone to respiratory infections. Drabek said the cats tend to stay healthy in an enclosed trailer with air purifiers, in cages that are cleaned and bleached every day and with two kinds of chow, the wet food hiding a protein supplement to boast immunity.

Although the respiratory infections kill a lot of the cats, the low live release rate isn’t helped by feral cats picked off the streets, who are almost always euthanized after the four-day minimum because they are un-socialized and ultimately un-adoptable.

Just one more chance

Feral cats are a case-in-point why spaying and neutering animals is so important, Drabek said. Every animal adopted out, except for bunnies, is required by state law to be fixed.

“They don’t want shelters contributing to animal overpopulation,” he said.

The cost of fixing the animals is factored into the adoption fees. Lefmann’s kitten cost $136, while Martin’s 1-year-old stray poodle cost $123.

There are no set adoption fees, but rather, they are based on whether or not the animal is fixed and how long it has been at the shelter. Adoption can cost as much as $220, but the money goes directly toward the service the animal received, Drabek said.

The fees also include micro-chipping, immunizations and licensing, not to mention the estimated $33 a day it costs the shelter to house, feed and care for each animal.

While many animals will stay in the shelter for another day or week — or, for some, forever — Lefmann saved one animal. The kitten is going to his new home where he has food waiting, a special dog-free room for him to adjust and a family to love him. The small white cat, just one of many, is getting what the 250 volunteers and countless staff of the shelter are working for every day — another opportunity at life.

“That’s really our goal here — that each animal here get a second chance,” Drabek said.

Volunteer Opportunities

Dog walker: Exercise the animal and give basic command training.

Cat socializer: Prepare cats for adoption.

Greeter: Offer assistance to the public.

Community and special events: Educate the public about the shelter’s services.

Clerical support: Prepare adoption packets.

Bather or groomer: Help increase a dog’s adoptability.

Foster caretaker: Provide temporary care to an animal in need.

 Volunteers must be at least 18 years old. For more information, go to www.ocpetinfo.org.

Thinking About Adopting?

Here are the basics on caring for some of the animals at the shelter:

Chicken

Housing: Create a coop of sorts using cardboard or wood

Food: Chicken feed

Special Needs: Lots of exercise

Python

Housing: A large enough tank for it to stretch out in with a lock on it

Food: Two to four large mice or one or two rats a week

Special Needs: Snakes require a heating lamp or heating rocks

Turtle

Housing: A tank with water and land areas

Food: Turtle food supplemented with a live fish once a week

Special Needs: A heating lamp and dechlorinated swimming water

Emu

Housing: A large pen and shelter

Food: Special feed

Special Needs: Has to be raised from birth as a pet. Don’t wear jewelry because they are attracted to shiny objects.