Pet Talk

by Cathy Davis
    I know I talk a lot about fundraisers so I wanted to take a break from that for you today and take you through a few days of life at the animal shelter. If you follow us on Facebook you might have a pretty good idea already about how exciting and busy things can be. If you don’t, you might be surprised at how much activity there is at the shelter on any given day.
    First of all, school is out, so we’ve had a ton of volunteers coming to walk dogs, help clean, socialize the animals, and we are thrilled to have each and every one of them. We wish we could keep them all year, because volunteers are the heart of any rescue organization. And when I refer to volunteers I also include the employees in my mind because all of them give more time than they are paid for and aren’t paid anywhere near what they’re worth.
    As an example of “life at the shelter” we had a kitten admitted who was found in a vehicle motor. The poor little thing had an injury to her mouth, which is being treated, but is otherwise OK and I think she might even be spoken for already.
    We took in a cat that had been hit by an ambulance, her leg was badly injured and finally had to be amputated. Shelter Director Heather Miller adopted this little lady and she is doing extremely well. Heather paid the bill for the surgery herself, something she didn’t have to do, because it was a stray and the shelter would have paid that bill, but this is Heather, and she has a house full of special needs critters to prove it.
    At our last meeting we arrived at the shelter to find Heather bottle-feeding a two-day old kitten. The shelter took in five babies who were left as orphans when her mother died giving birth. The owner had no idea what to do with the kittens and asked the shelter to help so Heather takes three of them home at night because they have to be bottle fed on the hour, and another employee Marsha takes the other two kittens home. They are absolutely adorable and our hopes are that they will survive. It’s always touch and go when babies lose a momma like that, but the shelter works hard to make sure they have every chance at survival.
    Our longest resident dog, Baxter, went to a new home last week and his adoption was finalized. And our longest cat resident Ellie also went home last week. We do a lot of adoptions and every single one is special but it always touches our hearts when the long-term residents finally find a good home. In June we adopted out 24 animals and we also networked with Calais PAWS and helped the Waterville shelter with two rabbits that are now available for adoption.
    The shelter often receives calls to help when an animal control officer is not available and we have a licensed ACO on staff who is a contracted back-up for some towns. It’s not uncommon for Heather to get a call at 9:30 p.m. to help with a cat in Ludlow or to run out to Amity. I don’t know how she finds the energy to do all that and get up every hour all night long to bottle feed kittens.
    We have had a cat, Tommy, who has been fighting an eye abscess for months. He is finally healed up and someone is coming to look at him on Wednesday. He’s the sweetest kitty and the staff did a remarkable job with him, making sure he recovered fully and didn’t lose his eye.
    We had two adult cats come in from an owner who is moving to California and couldn’t take them and we would love to see them to go a new home together. They are big cats and very nervous right now, but wouldn’t you be? Because they are already altered, the shelter will waive the adoption fee for these kitties if you take the both of them. They’ve lived their entire lives together, and we don’t want to split them up now.
    We have a mom and four babies out in foster care until they are old enough to be placed. They should be back in just a few weeks.
    Every time I run out to the shelter, the building is full of people. Some are visiting, some are adopting, some are dropping off donated items, some are working outdoors, but there is always just a bustle of activity and all I hear is chatter and laughter and music and an occasional barking dog, and some mewing and purring. Yesterday I had a very bad day and where did I go for my five minutes of comfort? I went to the shelter, sat down in the cat room, picked up a 10-week old Maine Coon kitten and put her soft little body up to my face, turned my ear to her and just listened to her purr. All around me were people, one little girl was there socializing the cats, another lady was there to adopt, the lobby was filled with people filling out pre-adopt forms. I sat back in my chair and just grinned, all the frustration of life washing away from my stressed out old body.
    God sure knew what He was doing when He gave us cats and dogs. And it’s up to us to take care of them and give them as much joy and pleasure as they give us. Have a great week.