Shelter on the Hill: A Humane Society

The 2025 Wine and Cheese event was held on September 20th at the Tejon Ranch Equestrian Center. It was very well attended by the community. Sue Alberti did a fabulous job of putting this together once again with the help of SOTH board members, family & friends. Cary Park entertained a full house under the tent. Attendance exceeded 225 people. The live and silent auction offered beautiful and popular items for bidding. Brenda Gordon and Clarice Smith were our cheese queens and had a beautiful arrangement of cheese, fresh fruit and more. We thank all of our sponsors who made this possible as well as the food and beverage donors. We're looking forward to seeing you again next year!

Our last special Simi Valley Non Profit Spay & Neuter Winnespago event of the year was held on September 23rd. 32 dogs and cats of all sizes and varieties were spayed and neutered. Many of them got microchips and vaccines as well. We are grateful to Simi Valley Non Profit for providing this opportunity for our community.

Frazier Park's 57th Annual Fiesta Days celebration was held August 1-3, 2025, hosted by Mountain Memories Association. Locals and visitors alike enjoyed the parade, vendor booths, pet show, log sawing contest, live bands, rides and amusements for kids and more! Shelter on the Hill was well represented by honorary Mayor Candace Huskey and many of our volunteers who worked in our Shelter on the Hill booth at the Frazier Park Community park. Candace, with her favorite driver Larry, was in the parade with SOTH alumni Eddie. Our dog trainer, Tami Kearney of Mountain Top K-9 Training had SOTH pup Krypto at the booth in the park. Thank you to Mountain Memories for another successful event.

Last week SOTH learned about a homeless couple that got the opportunity to be housed in a regular home. The only problem was, they had 17 dogs, and were only allowed to keep 3 in the new home. SOTH was told all the dogs were pretty friendly, and there were even 2 mama dogs with young puppies. SOTH’s dog trainer and whisperer Tami reached out to management at the shelter & asked if we could help. She said she would be willing to go out there, check everything out, see if they were healthy enough, and friendly enough to be adopted, etc. While out there, she learned this couple once lived locally in PMC and were evicted from their rental during Covid (owners wanted to sell) and had no where to go. They have been homeless for 3 years ☹️. And unfortunately, the husband has some health issues as well. For some reason this hit Tami hard because there was a possibility their paths crossed over the years.

The 17 dogs were not their own, Over the years dogs were dumped and this couple tried to take care of them best they could, but they had no money, and the dumped dogs weren’t spayed/neutered. Next thing you know, you’ve got 17 dog!

Tami decided on taking one of the older pups (5½ months) because he was soo cute, friendly, and just all around seemed like a good dog. Then she also decided on a few of the little pups because everyone loves puppies, right!!!

But they were too young to take away from mom, so she took her too – that way mom can still take care of them. Even mama dog (we named her Reeba) is pretty young herself.

So we are pleased to introduce .... Reeba (mama dog) black lab mix, w/possible husky in there as well, white chest. She has one blue eye and one brown eye, is approximately 13-15 months old. Reeba is a good mama even though young. She’s a sweet girl w/people, but will still need to be tested with other dogs. Reeba is available to place a hold for adoption.

Marshall, a 5½ month old, who is sweet all around. He is black/brown/tan w/blue eyes, has been tested with a few dogs, but he’s still settling in, so we won’t over do it. Marshall is on hold already.

We named the puppies after the Peanuts characters. Chuck and Schroeder are on hold and Peppermint Patty is available to place a hold for adoption. Patty is about 6 weeks old now. She is mostly black with a white stripe or blaze on her face.

SOTH is praying everything works out for this previously local couple and their own three dogs in their new home. In the meantime there are more dogs out there in more encampments that need homes as well ....

Shelter on the Hill organized and hosted another low cost community spay/neuter event on April 29th. Simi Valley Non-Profit Spay & Neuter “WinneSpaygo” arrived in the SOTH’s parking lot as dozens of mountain residents were arriving with their pets. Shelter manager April Hemingway filled all the available appointments for cats and dogs. The numbers for community pets are as follows: 35 surgeries (cats 20 , dogs 15), 16 free 24Petwatch microchips which were sponsored by Mountain Memories Association. We thank Simi Valley Non Profit & Kerri Anderson DVM for coming to Lebec with their mobile clinic and partnering with SOTH to provide this important service to our community.