Pets and Their People
Making A Difference
Looking as sharp as a Wall Street banker, Kenn Altine hurries into the Sacramento SPCA administration building, three staff members trailing behind him as they listen intently to their boss. A crisp white shirt with French cuffs, traditional cufflinks and an expertly knotted tie are the daily norm for Altine, who joined the SSPCA as chief executive director in 2016.
“I always wear a shirt and tie. Every day,” says Altine, who previously worked as an editor and executive in journalism for 30 years, including stints in San Antonio, Reno, San Francisco and Houston, before moving into the animal-welfare world. “When you live and work in Houston, there is a dress code. In the middle of summer, you wear a long-sleeve shirt and you never go outside without a jacket. It’s becomes natural,” Altine explains.
Freedom Flight
The twilight sky is amber with hints of rust from the late summer sun. Towering 300-year-old oak trees canopy the expansive lawn. We gather at the edge of a grass knoll overlooking acres of lush grape vines laden with fruit almost ripe for fall harvest. Everyone is still.
Debby Duvall, a volunteer with the Wildlife Care Association, stands before us with two plastic pet carriers, each holding an orphaned barn owl. A young guest is her assistant for the evening. They both don heavy leather falconry gloves. Unlatching the first carrier’s metal door, Duvall gently pulls out the imprisoned bird, and instructs her guest assistant to grip the owl’s legs while she holds the bird in position for release, the owl’s fierce talons gripping the sturdy gloves for balance.
Good Day to Spay
As I drive into the parking lot of the Sacramento SPCA, I see several people and pets already lined up outside the Spay/Neuter Clinic. It’s 6:45 a.m.
Animal owners and rescuers leisurely chat to pass the time on this crisp fall morning, cat carriers and humane traps scattered about their feet. Dogs, large and small, scruffy and fluffy, struggle against their leashes to greet one another.
Flying With Fido
Recently, a dear friend, who has lived in the Sacramento area for 40 years, decided to relocate back home to the Midwest where she spent the first 28 years of her life. Despite the prospect of harsh, snow-laden winters and saying goodbye to her many friends, she sold her Carmichael house and purchased a two-story condo with a stunning view of her new city.
There was just one problem. She had to transport her 17-pound schnauzer mix and four cats more than 1,500 miles to their new hometown. And it was not going to be by car—four cats in carriers and an active pooch on a four-day road trip would be too stressful.
Out of the dark
By her own admission, Gina Knepp didn’t know a pit bull from a Pomeranian.
“But I knew how to motivate people. How to get energy behind the mission,” says Knepp, who took over as animal care services manager at the city’s Front Street shelter in 2011.
Her mission was to turn around a failing facility with an abysmal 20 percent “live release rate”—the percentage of animals leaving the shelter alive.
My Little Buttercup
Visit the artisan jewelry store, Little Relics, in Midtown on Tuesdays and Thursdays and be prepared for an enthusiastic welcome from Buttercup the bulldog.
“Sometimes she becomes an overzealous greeter,” says Buttercup’s owner and master jeweler Susan Rabinovitz. “She follows people around. She thinks everyone is here to see her.”
3 Shelters, 1 Mission
This is how the conversation typically goes: “My friend found a stray cat and took her to the SPCA on Bradshaw.” “You mean the county shelter?” “Isn’t that the pound on Front Street?”
Confusing? Yes. But it doesn’t have to be. Let’s start with the basics.
Long Journey Home
Bodie bounds onto the well-worn leather sofa and makes himself comfortable, furry head on a blue chenille pillow. The 75-pound German Shepherd with soulful brown eyes and gigantic feet is a long distance from China, where his journey began.
This handsome canine is one of the lucky ones. Found abandoned on the streets of Shanghai, he spent three years in a local shelter before making his way to the United States and his 4,000-square-foot home in Elk Grove with new owners Anna and Dave Kuhn and their other two rescue dogs.
Creature Comfort
The small sign hanging from the front door says it all: “Spoiled cats and their household staff live here!”
Spoiled cats indeed. Honey West, a tortie with a “tort-i-tude,” is most comfortable hiding under the bed when strangers call. Black Bart, a sleek panther-like feline, will make himself at home in anyone’s lap. Watson, a handsome short-hair tabby with golden brown highlights, is good about getting his daily diabetes shot but expects a treat for the effort. All three are seniors at 9, 10 and 11, respectively.
Forbidden Food
Not long after my husband, Mark, and I moved into our Wilhaggin home, we decided to build a deck and pergola off the master bedroom. Mark is a man of many talents—he is a consultant for the state Legislature during the week, but on weekends he turns into a tool-toting maniac capable of building or renovating just about anything.
When the gorgeous redwood structure was complete, it called out for a decorative vine that would wrap around each of the four corner posts and provide a canopy of shade during Sacramento’s hot summers. Without a second thought, we ordered online four Tempranillo grape vines. In addition to being fast growing and hearty, the plants would provide Mark and his son the opportunity to become home winemakers.
A Man & His Dog
Will Rogers wrote, “No man can be condemned for owning a dog. As long as he has a dog, he has a friend.” For Jim Hastings, that friend is a 45-pound canine named McKinley. True to his breed—a Vizsla with sleek rusty-gold fur and a slender athletic frame—McKinley has abundant energy and a drive to move. “This is not a lapdog. This is a field dog,” says Hastings, 90, who walks with his canine cohort 4 to 5 miles every day along the American River Parkway near River Park. “Otherwise he’d be a nervous wreck. Anybody who has one should know that.”
Feline Family
A “civil war” is how Leslie Finke describes the situation among residents last year at the Albert Einstein Center in Arden-Arcade.
“It got downright vicious,” says Finke, the center’s executive director for 37 years. “I’ve been here a long time. I’ve never seen such disharmony in the building. It was a civil war here. People were so mean to each other.”
Hen Heaven
In the pecking order, Anchovy is the chief chicken. She is an Ameraucana and lays pale blue eggs. “She will boss everyone around,” says Nicole Martin, who lives in Arden Park with husband Phil, and their daughters Phoebe and Lucie. “She will literally peck the others on the head.”Anchovy barely tolerates being picked up, but loves to be around people, especially Phil when he is working in the family’s spacious backyard garden. “She follows me around the whole time,” he says.
Lost & Found
Early in 2017, an unaltered female terrier mix with silky red hair was picked up as a stray in Woodland by Yolo County Animal Services. When shelter staff evaluated her for adoption, she failed the behavior test. She was too frightened to walk on leash or to be handled. When they reached for her, she cowered at the back of her kennel. When they attempted to leash her, she struggled against the harness.
Kitty’s Kitties
Leo, a spunky feline with soft swirls of auburn-red hair, is calling to his mom, Kitty O’Neal, from his outside sanctuary. “Are you ready to come in?” O’Neal queries her very vocal 12-year-old boy. Leo is perched on the top tier of his three-story cat condo in the backyard of O’Neal’s Curtis Park home, which she shares with husband, Kurt Spataro. Attached to the cage is a long tunnel made of netting that allows Leo to venture into the garden.
