Cat volunteer stories...
I WISH I had thought to take pictures, but the idea of getting cat poop/mold on my phone was not appealing. And the kitties were calling my name.
I volunteer for the Paw House which is linked with my local PetSmart. I'm also one of the volunteers who lives closest. I only live fifteen minutes away, whereas some people live half an hour or more away. I'm also on Long Island, which got hit like hell by Hurricane Irene (we're all okay over here; no power for a day and trees fallen EVERYWHERE, but we're okay.)
Usually I volunteer on Saturdays. My volunteer supervisor called me and asked if I could clean them on Saturday night because I was the closest and the person who was supposed to cancelled because she was worried about the weather. No big deal! Went in, cleaned out the cats, all was well.
Then she asks if I can check if anyone's volunteering tonight. Nobody volunteered yesterday because the store was closed, and someone was supposed to come in this morning. Or, well, someone DID come in, they just did a shitty job. Literally.
There are nine cages and a total of seventeen cats. That's a lot of cleaning to do if someone hasn't been around to clean. Well... it was a lot to clean tonight.
One of the cages (the cage that has two kittens I'm adopting) had moldy food. I'm guessing the cats got water into the food dish and it got to sit since Saturday and become gross and moldy. I'm ALSO guessing the people this morning didn't bother to check the food very well, because everything was stuck together and disgusting and there's no way that would have happened this morning.
The people also left the dirty water container filled and mixed with food in the room. Awesome.
Then I find that one of the cats has been getting sick because she's so nervous, so I get to clean up gross dried-up cat puke and hairballs. :D Yum! She's okay, though, she's just really antsy.
I also find that one of the cats has a little something wrong intestinally (he's in a cage by himself, so he won't get the others sick, and I let my supervisor know) and the poop is very, VERY mushy. It's somewhere between diarrhea and actual solid poop, and it smelled absolutely vile. Like ass, rotten food, and cat. Disgusting.
One of the cages that has three cats had so much food in the water dishes that I couldn't tell which dish was which. It was disgusting. Mushy cat food; yum!
Tl;dr, the person who cleaned this morning was really dumb and sucks at cleaning the cages, and cat poop/vomit is gross. But it's worth it, because I get to play with kitties.
I volunteer for the Paw House which is linked with my local PetSmart. I'm also one of the volunteers who lives closest. I only live fifteen minutes away, whereas some people live half an hour or more away. I'm also on Long Island, which got hit like hell by Hurricane Irene (we're all okay over here; no power for a day and trees fallen EVERYWHERE, but we're okay.)
Usually I volunteer on Saturdays. My volunteer supervisor called me and asked if I could clean them on Saturday night because I was the closest and the person who was supposed to cancelled because she was worried about the weather. No big deal! Went in, cleaned out the cats, all was well.
Then she asks if I can check if anyone's volunteering tonight. Nobody volunteered yesterday because the store was closed, and someone was supposed to come in this morning. Or, well, someone DID come in, they just did a shitty job. Literally.
There are nine cages and a total of seventeen cats. That's a lot of cleaning to do if someone hasn't been around to clean. Well... it was a lot to clean tonight.
One of the cages (the cage that has two kittens I'm adopting) had moldy food. I'm guessing the cats got water into the food dish and it got to sit since Saturday and become gross and moldy. I'm ALSO guessing the people this morning didn't bother to check the food very well, because everything was stuck together and disgusting and there's no way that would have happened this morning.
The people also left the dirty water container filled and mixed with food in the room. Awesome.
Then I find that one of the cats has been getting sick because she's so nervous, so I get to clean up gross dried-up cat puke and hairballs. :D Yum! She's okay, though, she's just really antsy.
I also find that one of the cats has a little something wrong intestinally (he's in a cage by himself, so he won't get the others sick, and I let my supervisor know) and the poop is very, VERY mushy. It's somewhere between diarrhea and actual solid poop, and it smelled absolutely vile. Like ass, rotten food, and cat. Disgusting.
One of the cages that has three cats had so much food in the water dishes that I couldn't tell which dish was which. It was disgusting. Mushy cat food; yum!
Tl;dr, the person who cleaned this morning was really dumb and sucks at cleaning the cages, and cat poop/vomit is gross. But it's worth it, because I get to play with kitties.