Sad animals :(
I know I haven't updated in somewhere close to eternity but I'm doing it now so... leave me alone. I've been busy. Very, very busy.
So yesterday began like any normal Friday- no class, slept in, made breakfast, you know, all the good Friday stuff. Then, after dropping Ashley off (she had to go to work), I became painfully aware of my job situation (or lack thereof). I decided to give my secret job agent Alex a call and see if he had a job for me. He told me he had a job for me (if I really wanted it) at Animal Care and Control for $9/hour. I said sure, I really need some money. So, in about half an hour I was in the laundry/ dish room of the Jacksonville pound, trying to figure out if this was real or not. I got about 2 minutes of instruction on my duties which included laundry, sweeping, mopping and any other random tasks that got thrown at me. The complex was huge, and the stench of dog/poo/wet dog greeted me before I got to the door. Yuk, I think it's stuck in my nose- I can still smell it even after a scalding shower.
I later found out from one of the volunteers, Lisa, that the shelter was originally built to accommodate a maximum of 300 animals. She informed me as we were refreshing the ferral cat cages that there are over 600 animals currently housed there. I couldn't believe that, but as I continued working I began to understand the gravity of the situation. In the feral cat room there could be as many as six kittens in one cage and only a couple cages had the proscribed single cat in them. As we were working, Lisa changing the cat's food and water and me, changing their newspaper (which doesn't require opening the cages), she started playing with one particularly noisy orange tabby cat. I was totally freaked and scared that she was going to get her hand bit off but she seemed completely calm. She must have sensed my uneasiness because she then explained that many of these "feral cats" weren't ferral at all- they were abandoned or stray. There just isn't enough room in the "stray cat" room so they've been backed up into the feral cat cages.
It really doesn't matter where they're put though. Most of them will be euthenized within a week unless they're adopted. This isn't exactly hopeful either. I saw about 8 groups of people come in today, most of them looking for their lost pets, and I'm not sure if any of them did any adopting. Because of the crowding, it's much easier to spread disease too, so many of the cats and dogs were sick. This is what really bothered me. There were some that were just curled up in their litter boxes, covered in sawdust, eyes sticky and half open peering up at me. There were tiny kittens, without mothers, sitting and pawing at the cage bars with their little paws. I know I shouldn't be so shocked, but I am, completely.
On the bright side of this weekend, I got my financial aid check, thank God. So I'm going out with Ash and Dana. I have to go get ready now but I'll continue this entry tomorrow.
So yesterday began like any normal Friday- no class, slept in, made breakfast, you know, all the good Friday stuff. Then, after dropping Ashley off (she had to go to work), I became painfully aware of my job situation (or lack thereof). I decided to give my secret job agent Alex a call and see if he had a job for me. He told me he had a job for me (if I really wanted it) at Animal Care and Control for $9/hour. I said sure, I really need some money. So, in about half an hour I was in the laundry/ dish room of the Jacksonville pound, trying to figure out if this was real or not. I got about 2 minutes of instruction on my duties which included laundry, sweeping, mopping and any other random tasks that got thrown at me. The complex was huge, and the stench of dog/poo/wet dog greeted me before I got to the door. Yuk, I think it's stuck in my nose- I can still smell it even after a scalding shower.
I later found out from one of the volunteers, Lisa, that the shelter was originally built to accommodate a maximum of 300 animals. She informed me as we were refreshing the ferral cat cages that there are over 600 animals currently housed there. I couldn't believe that, but as I continued working I began to understand the gravity of the situation. In the feral cat room there could be as many as six kittens in one cage and only a couple cages had the proscribed single cat in them. As we were working, Lisa changing the cat's food and water and me, changing their newspaper (which doesn't require opening the cages), she started playing with one particularly noisy orange tabby cat. I was totally freaked and scared that she was going to get her hand bit off but she seemed completely calm. She must have sensed my uneasiness because she then explained that many of these "feral cats" weren't ferral at all- they were abandoned or stray. There just isn't enough room in the "stray cat" room so they've been backed up into the feral cat cages.
It really doesn't matter where they're put though. Most of them will be euthenized within a week unless they're adopted. This isn't exactly hopeful either. I saw about 8 groups of people come in today, most of them looking for their lost pets, and I'm not sure if any of them did any adopting. Because of the crowding, it's much easier to spread disease too, so many of the cats and dogs were sick. This is what really bothered me. There were some that were just curled up in their litter boxes, covered in sawdust, eyes sticky and half open peering up at me. There were tiny kittens, without mothers, sitting and pawing at the cage bars with their little paws. I know I shouldn't be so shocked, but I am, completely.
On the bright side of this weekend, I got my financial aid check, thank God. So I'm going out with Ash and Dana. I have to go get ready now but I'll continue this entry tomorrow.