National Kitten Day Is Tumbling Our Way

When you detect that an adorable, soft-nose'd, bean-foot'd, mew-giving feline is on approach, what are some of the sounds you might hear?

Padding along a carpeted hallway is one way to know a kitten is about to playfully pounce. Hearing a bit of tumbling, the kind that kittens engage in when they're feeling mischievous, is another sound.

The batting around of a toy or the sound of kibble sliding along a kitchen floor? Yep: There's a kitten in the vicinity.

But such sweet sounds don't flood our kitten-loving senses when an animal-focused occasion is due, though we'd love to be alerted via playful noises and tiny mews.

Rather, rescue groups and animal shelters send out the call, via social media, texts, and mail, all to let feline fans know that their loving support and assistance would be most appreciated.

National Kitten Day trots into our whisker-obsessed worlds on July 10, and Best Friends Animal Society is asking people to foster kittens.

It's a full-on "plea," to be fully frank: Shelters are full of tiny critters and humans can help by opening their homes, and making some time, to guide these youngsters on their healthy and happy path to cathood.

If that, to you, means foster, well, fabulous. If you can adopt? We're raising a paw to high-five you from afar.

And to sweeten this sweet call to action?

The Best Friends Lifesaving Center in Mission Hills and the NKLA Center in Los Angeles are waiving all adoption-related fees on cat and kitten adoptions on July 10.

We are right in the middle of "Kitten Season," which is "when unspayed female cats have most of their kittens," a window that "generally stretches from May to November."