Lending A Helping Paw: Fostering for Kitten Rescue Los Angeles
As Told By: Nicole Margulis
It all started with the faintest mew. I was eight years old sitting in my living room watching Saturday morning cartoons, when I began to hear what sounded like a kitten meowing from our backyard. Dismissing it as part of the show, I went back to my Scooby Doo reruns. But then I heard it again, louder each time. That’s when I decided to get a second opinion. I called my dad over. As the semi-professional animal rescuer of our cul-de-sac, he would know what to do. The mew had evolved into a full blown meow, and my dad sprang to action with a carrier, some wet food, and some gloves. Two hours later my dad and I had successfully rescued a precious three-week old kitten that had been hiding behind our air conditioning unit. She was malnourished, covered with fleas and struggling with an eye infection. She wanted to be rescued...and she chose us. I watched my dad gently give her a flea bath, which revealed her beautiful black and white coloring. She almost looked like a little bumble bee, with thick black stripes and a tiny black tail. As she looked up at me, I knew we would be inseparable from that moment on. Up until that spring day, we had been a dog family. My parents had volunteered with our local SPCA chapter and helped rescue and adopt out dogs to good loving homes. But here, in this moment, we had our first cat and she was all mine. I christened her Suzette, because once she was bathed she looked like a little princess and that’s the kind of name eight-year-old me thought princesses had. That tiny kitten lived a long and fruitful life of 13 years where she was the unspoken queen of our home. Seeing my dad that day inspired me to begin my rescue journey, and now 27 years later, I have had the honor of helping many dogs and cats in need.
As an adult, I enlisted in the Navy and had to take a few years off from rescuing due to my deployment schedule. It wouldn’t have been fair for me to rescue or foster during a time of so much change. However, near the end of my enlistment, a serendipitous event occurred which brought me face to face with my next fur child. I had a couple of months left in the Navy and was finishing up shore duty, knowing I wouldn’t likely be deployed again before I separated. I decided to sell my car because I knew I would be moving to Los Angeles. I listed my car online and waited patiently for a reply. As luck would have it, the first inquiry I received was from a lovely young woman a few towns over from the base. She was interested in my car but wanted to ask me an animal question just on the off chance that I might be able to help. Turns out, not only could I help, but I was gifted with caring for my first neonate rescue kitten. When she appeared at my door she carried a small basket with the tiniest neonate in tow. He was the smallest kitten I had ever seen, weighing in at just one ounce. His rescuer had waited for an entire day for a mother to come back as this sweet little soul mewed from her lawn. She hated the idea of leaving him out there but also understood that being with his mom would be the best thing for him. The mother never returned. His rescuer knew right away that she did not have the skills or resources needed to care for a kitten so young. She explained that something in her heart motivated her to tell me (a total stranger) about the kitten she had rescued. To this day I feel that the universe wanted me to care for this cat. She got the car and I got Wally, my soul kitty. Wally has been a constant companion through some of the most difficult times of my life, and an amazing surrogate cat dad to the countless kittens that have come through my door. Every time I welcome a new forster to my home, Wally acts as the welcoming committee. He grooms them, makes sure they get the lay of the land, he shows them the litter box, when food time is...I couldn't ask for a more loving fur kid. He has taught many a kitten how to cat and is just as much a part of socializing our fosters as I am.
Once I began fostering and rescuing more regularly, I learned of a wonderful L.A. based organization called Kitten Rescue Los Angeles. After Wally’s rescue I began to focus more on neonates and the special needs those kittens require. Kitten Rescue Los Angeles helped give me additional training, and veterinary resources to care for these vulnerable cats. Most neonates do not make it out of shelters. They require 24 hour care and local shelters do not have the resources or staff. Along with their own nursery, Kitten Rescue Los Angeles does an amazing job advocating for this vulnerable population. Volunteers are carefully vetted and trained, and potential adopters are screened through a specific adoption process that involves an application, interview and in-home visit to make sure these cats go to safe and loving homes. As of today I have rescued, fostered, and found homes for many kittens here in Southern California. It is more than rewarding but a part of who I am. I am compelled to help animals in need. Humans domesticated these animals and we have a responsibility to them. I have since trained my husband in animal rescue and we work as a team helping the cats in our community. We live happily with our own two cats: Wally and Pepper (Pepper was a later rescue, special needs kitten who has chosen my husband as her person), as well as our dog Layla who may love kittens more than any dog out there. Together we have taken my parent’s legacy of rescue and incorporated it into our own lives. I cannot imagine my life without rescue.
If you want to volunteer or become a part of the rescue community here in Los Angeles, please visit kittenrescue.org to learn how you can help animals in need.
About Nicole Margulis
Nicole is a Los Angeles based on-screen actor, stuntwoman, and voice over performer. She has worked in television and film for over a decade, working on shows from HBO’s Westworld to most recently Nickelodeon's multi-cam comedy Side Hustle. She is passionate about storytelling and loves diving into a character from the comfort of her own broadcast quality home V.O studio. Nicole served as an Intel Analyst in the United States Navy, and also volunteers for various veterans groups in Southern California. Nicole has studied motion capture performance with some of the best in the business at both the MoCap Vaults and Mind’s Eye Tribe under TJ Storm. She is also a member of the V.O. Dojo, and trains regularly with Brent Alan Hagel of Trailer Voice Artists, and Tina Morasco of Sound and Fury. She is represented by Brandie Ilsen of Aperture Talent out of L.A. and Linda Ryan of Crossbeam Talent in the Atlanta market. For more information on future collaborations, or Voice Over services please check out MargulisVoices.com or visit me on social media. For more information on cat rescue in Los Angeles, please visit Kittenrescue.org or your local Humane Society. Nicole currently resides in Los Angeles with her writer-husband Joshua and their three fur kids Layla, Wally and Pepper.
MEOWTASTIC!
We at Lucky Pineapple Films love cats. We love them so much, we have our own cat themed store, The Cattiest Cat Shop. To celebrate our love of cats, we invited people to share their own cat stories. When we moved the website over to a new shop, we didn’t want to lose them. Voila! Here the amazing cat stories are forever preserved on the Lucky Pineapple Films website.
