Comparing my entry called "Evolution" from 9/4/08 and then the one from now, "Lost: Hope"...all I can say is "Dang."
Too many cruelty cases in the last couple months, I'd say.
Perhaps I will get my mojo back. I forgot how the hopeful feels. I did get my favorite longterm iso kitten out into a fabulous home today...little Silka. That's something good. Two black brother kitties are going home together (!) tomorrow. And we will go check the trap in the empty triple decker apartment and get that poor, abandoned cat in the morning. I did some good stuff this week, skull hacking aside. Tomorrow is sure to be a snow day, Christmas is next week...I'll have five days off in a row and holy jeebus do I love my little three-legged dog...who incidentally wants to go to bed, I can tell.
I'll be ok.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Lost: Hope
Been meaning to keep this thing updated.
I guess it was a phase, the need I had to document, to tell stories. Of late it seems futile....so much wind-pissery.
Perhaps I am straddling Doug Fakemma's Phase Two and Phase Three..., one leg on each as skis, being pulled along by the whiny-engined speedboat of Reality...should I do some wake jumps?
I wish there was a way I could saw open my skull, just like that of the poor little Pom we necropsied yesterday who'd been blunt-traumatized to death by some girl's douchebag boyfriend. He'll no doubt plead out of the charges. Some Facebook espionage has indicated that he and the dog's owner are still hot'n'heavy and he's placating her with some new pug puppies. Meanwhile I am lying awake at night having repetitive visions of holding a small, half-frozen lifeless body similar to that of my own dog, while my boss used the handsaw on the skull. Saw open my own skull, is what I would like to do...to release the last three years' worth of scenes...of situations, of first-hand stories. Release the hundreds of souls whose names and faces I have forgotten...and that's the worst part of it of all. Crack it open and let it all run out...the shadow of hipbones, the cries of an agonal kitten, that hellish sound of ignorance and obliviousness..."Awwwwww!!" Like escaping steam to disappear. Purged, empty, innocent again.
Today I walked around a cavernous, empty, foreclosed tripledecker in the city looking for an elusive cat who had been left behind without food and water for a week or two. She wouldn't come out of hiding, somewhere in the walls or in the dark basement. The emptiness of the place and the disappointment of not finding the cat echoed within me.
This is getting so bad. I wish I had the hope still. But the excuses and the "getting rid of" and the movingallergiesbaby go on and on...the URI never ends...the staff infighting continues...the needle pokes and the plunger pushes and the eyes dilate with a final sigh and what the hell am I complaining about, usually doing just a couple undeniably justified, old/sick euthanasias a day when some people elsewhere have to do dozens? And the Pits sit back there day after day and all the dogs look hopefully at the visitors who only want puppies and the thought of all the undiscovered hoardings going on in the state, the country, the world...all the douchebag boyfriends or vicious little boys who will continue to hurt or kill and get away with it....try not to think of where everyone who we are too full to take in are going...
WHAT am I doing?
And I wish sometimes I'd never answered that ad those years ago...that I could've kept in my little private practice bubble where people take care of their pets and there's not much to agonize over after you leave to go home at night. Where you get to make efforts and put in IV catheters and do dentals and dispense expensive new pain drugs and go all out on treatment plans and good diets and supplements and hell, why not accupuncture, too? This time of year, private practices are overflowing with thankful fruitbaskets and chocolate samplers and baked goods. At the shelter, we get some cards and maybe a couple treats. Our "clientele" mainly just uses us as a dumping place for their discarded pets, whatever free or discounted servoces they can get and also sees us as jail wardens, big meanies who keep cats in cages and dogs in runs...we're a place to grab some (like, 10) free Iams samples on the way out while bitching about what jerks we are for not picking them out of the stack of 30 applicants for the young Golden back there. I wish I'd have stayed in my world sometimes. I was still helping. I was still doing good. And I actually thought the world was a nice place. I wish I'd never had to see so much evidence to the contrary.
That I'd never had to see so much misery and stupidity and pathos....
Or even see the repetitive endless smaller disappointments like seemingly good adopters standing a dog up....of your own friend returning a dog...of a kitten going home with someone you got a funny vibe from- but beggars can't be choosers when they are coming out your ears. Of 18 hamsters being turned in by a guy who adopted 2 a couple months back and swore he was going to keep them seperate.
Oh yes, "bright side" and friggin' starfish and our adoption rate is really high, yes, and I should focus on the good things of which there are plenty...
But the images stay in my mind....and my innocence is lost and I do not know how I went from a wittle puppeeee and kitteeee wuvving wittle girl like everyone else to a deadpan 30-something year old woman in scrubs, with a tranq dart pistol aimed at a snarling dog behind chain link.
In a flash, it seems. WHAM.
Go watch some Animal Planet. It's more cheerful and the soundtrack is better.
I envy those that can keep their fire going. I envy those who can brainstorm and think of solutions...which is vastly easier when you are not in the trenches 40+, shaving a frozen disemboweled half-cat for official photos, euthanizing a perfectly healthy and friendly tabby with a tiny bite wound soley on a rabies law technicality, sitting on a Strategic Planning Committee that you know (due to the politics of a board made up of wealthy people who have NO idea what goes on every day here and you know see most of us employees as "The Help") will likely not get very far at all...when you are gagging behind a respirator mask in a hoarder house, finding ancient cat mummies stuck to a basement floor among the dog shit...
How much more do I have to give? I give my hope, my patience, my heart...of which there ain't much left most days. It's all I can do to get through the day, let alone come up with solutions to big picture problems, to come up with even simple ideas that are so often met with crossed-armed, naysaying coworkers.
This is so hard. The starfish fable isn't cutting it for me right now.
How do you know when to keep fighting and when to know that you've made your contribution and given all you can for the time being?
And if you decide the latter, how do you step back and avoid the 6 ton anvil of Guilt that you know will be falling right on your head? All the imaginary faces like big sad-eyed velvet paintings that I know I will be abandoning if I go.
What if the thing you are good at, the thing that people tell you is your "gift" is the thing that destroys you? Why couldn't my gift be auctioneering or judo or caricature-drawing or beekeeping or freediving and NOT euthanasia grief counseling and fractious animal handling? Huh? Why?
Next year I plan to move into a more focused area of animal welfare...spay/neuter. Will I be able to live with myself or will I feel like a traitor?
"I could never do what you do...I love animals too much."
Screw you. Don't even frigging talk to me.
Apologies. More cheer to come...I think this may just be my semiannual purge.
I guess it was a phase, the need I had to document, to tell stories. Of late it seems futile....so much wind-pissery.
Perhaps I am straddling Doug Fakemma's Phase Two and Phase Three..., one leg on each as skis, being pulled along by the whiny-engined speedboat of Reality...should I do some wake jumps?
I wish there was a way I could saw open my skull, just like that of the poor little Pom we necropsied yesterday who'd been blunt-traumatized to death by some girl's douchebag boyfriend. He'll no doubt plead out of the charges. Some Facebook espionage has indicated that he and the dog's owner are still hot'n'heavy and he's placating her with some new pug puppies. Meanwhile I am lying awake at night having repetitive visions of holding a small, half-frozen lifeless body similar to that of my own dog, while my boss used the handsaw on the skull. Saw open my own skull, is what I would like to do...to release the last three years' worth of scenes...of situations, of first-hand stories. Release the hundreds of souls whose names and faces I have forgotten...and that's the worst part of it of all. Crack it open and let it all run out...the shadow of hipbones, the cries of an agonal kitten, that hellish sound of ignorance and obliviousness..."Awwwwww!!" Like escaping steam to disappear. Purged, empty, innocent again.
Today I walked around a cavernous, empty, foreclosed tripledecker in the city looking for an elusive cat who had been left behind without food and water for a week or two. She wouldn't come out of hiding, somewhere in the walls or in the dark basement. The emptiness of the place and the disappointment of not finding the cat echoed within me.
This is getting so bad. I wish I had the hope still. But the excuses and the "getting rid of" and the movingallergiesbaby go on and on...the URI never ends...the staff infighting continues...the needle pokes and the plunger pushes and the eyes dilate with a final sigh and what the hell am I complaining about, usually doing just a couple undeniably justified, old/sick euthanasias a day when some people elsewhere have to do dozens? And the Pits sit back there day after day and all the dogs look hopefully at the visitors who only want puppies and the thought of all the undiscovered hoardings going on in the state, the country, the world...all the douchebag boyfriends or vicious little boys who will continue to hurt or kill and get away with it....try not to think of where everyone who we are too full to take in are going...
WHAT am I doing?
And I wish sometimes I'd never answered that ad those years ago...that I could've kept in my little private practice bubble where people take care of their pets and there's not much to agonize over after you leave to go home at night. Where you get to make efforts and put in IV catheters and do dentals and dispense expensive new pain drugs and go all out on treatment plans and good diets and supplements and hell, why not accupuncture, too? This time of year, private practices are overflowing with thankful fruitbaskets and chocolate samplers and baked goods. At the shelter, we get some cards and maybe a couple treats. Our "clientele" mainly just uses us as a dumping place for their discarded pets, whatever free or discounted servoces they can get and also sees us as jail wardens, big meanies who keep cats in cages and dogs in runs...we're a place to grab some (like, 10) free Iams samples on the way out while bitching about what jerks we are for not picking them out of the stack of 30 applicants for the young Golden back there. I wish I'd have stayed in my world sometimes. I was still helping. I was still doing good. And I actually thought the world was a nice place. I wish I'd never had to see so much evidence to the contrary.
That I'd never had to see so much misery and stupidity and pathos....
Or even see the repetitive endless smaller disappointments like seemingly good adopters standing a dog up....of your own friend returning a dog...of a kitten going home with someone you got a funny vibe from- but beggars can't be choosers when they are coming out your ears. Of 18 hamsters being turned in by a guy who adopted 2 a couple months back and swore he was going to keep them seperate.
Oh yes, "bright side" and friggin' starfish and our adoption rate is really high, yes, and I should focus on the good things of which there are plenty...
But the images stay in my mind....and my innocence is lost and I do not know how I went from a wittle puppeeee and kitteeee wuvving wittle girl like everyone else to a deadpan 30-something year old woman in scrubs, with a tranq dart pistol aimed at a snarling dog behind chain link.
In a flash, it seems. WHAM.
Go watch some Animal Planet. It's more cheerful and the soundtrack is better.
I envy those that can keep their fire going. I envy those who can brainstorm and think of solutions...which is vastly easier when you are not in the trenches 40+, shaving a frozen disemboweled half-cat for official photos, euthanizing a perfectly healthy and friendly tabby with a tiny bite wound soley on a rabies law technicality, sitting on a Strategic Planning Committee that you know (due to the politics of a board made up of wealthy people who have NO idea what goes on every day here and you know see most of us employees as "The Help") will likely not get very far at all...when you are gagging behind a respirator mask in a hoarder house, finding ancient cat mummies stuck to a basement floor among the dog shit...
How much more do I have to give? I give my hope, my patience, my heart...of which there ain't much left most days. It's all I can do to get through the day, let alone come up with solutions to big picture problems, to come up with even simple ideas that are so often met with crossed-armed, naysaying coworkers.
This is so hard. The starfish fable isn't cutting it for me right now.
How do you know when to keep fighting and when to know that you've made your contribution and given all you can for the time being?
And if you decide the latter, how do you step back and avoid the 6 ton anvil of Guilt that you know will be falling right on your head? All the imaginary faces like big sad-eyed velvet paintings that I know I will be abandoning if I go.
What if the thing you are good at, the thing that people tell you is your "gift" is the thing that destroys you? Why couldn't my gift be auctioneering or judo or caricature-drawing or beekeeping or freediving and NOT euthanasia grief counseling and fractious animal handling? Huh? Why?
Next year I plan to move into a more focused area of animal welfare...spay/neuter. Will I be able to live with myself or will I feel like a traitor?
"I could never do what you do...I love animals too much."
Screw you. Don't even frigging talk to me.
Apologies. More cheer to come...I think this may just be my semiannual purge.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Cyrus
We lost another at work today.....
The ones who stay a long time get under people's skin....or maybe it's a specialness of some sort that seems all the more special because Outsiders, the people coming in to browse, don't seem to detect it. You all know there is a gem sitting there, but because of age or breed or looks or not being a Yorkie puppy, it seems to go unrecognized.
I remember the day he came in....a nonchalant girl my age who was "moving" after having him his whole life. He was an eyesore. It looked like raging mange or at best just an infection from skin allergies. My immediate thought, with his age, his breed (Pit- historically unwanted by most adopters), his cropped ears, his hamburger skin, was to spare him right then. Just put him to sleep rather than have him sit and sit and sit and listen to "Ewwww!" from visitors. That skin looked chronic....longterm, likely to recur. Maybe even mange as a secondary to immunosuppression. A medical can of worms. But....with faithful baths by a devoted staff member and oral antibiotics, he cleared up amazingly and then turned out to be one of the best-tempered Pits we'd had in ages. Still he sat. His cork bobbed a bit in the waters of an off-site adoption event recently....some interest. Things were looking up and what seemed inevitable...me and a syringe and him and crying staff in the back room....seemed out of the picture. The fact that I had seemingly underestimated his projected progress gave me Hope. But then....
Today, suddenly, he collapsed after his bath. In a matter of an hour, even after some MASH-style treatment for shock, he became agonal. And what had seemed out of the picture again became inevitable....urgently. I kept thinking of the girl who brought him....would she care? If he was still with her, would she have done anything or would she have let him die in agony? If he was in a home where he was one of one or two instead of with us where he was one of 40 and always alone from 5pm to 8am, could something have been noticed earlier? He bled out in his abdomen from his spleen, likely cancer. There's little to be done, and whatever could be done would be a flimsy band-aid for a grave situation. I've seen the same thing, massive abdominal bleedout, happen to owned dogs in a clinic setting. It ends up the same. Thousands in diagnostics and critical care and a dead dog anyway.
I was sad, of course, but also pragmatic at the time....and I suppose I have too much practice at letting go. Seriously not sure anymore if that is an asset or a liability. But I see my coworkers and their pain and they haven't had as much practice yet, as much terrible practice with it....and I wish I could take some of it for them, or I worry that some may not get past it, and why am I not crying like that? Why didn't I want the collar....I generally don't get to really know the dogs like they do....if I did, I would need a storage unit for all the collars...and it's usually the one who really loved the dog the most who can lay claim to it. And if it was really a knife in a particular person's heart, then they get the ashes-because believe me, the previous "owner" has no right to them after they wipe their hands and drive away and go off to sleep easy at night and dream about a future new puppy. It's the dignity thing again.....at the very least, the animal's remains can be given the respect no one had for the animal in life. I hate to see people I care about grieve like this when the people who should've cared don't have to. And this time it was beyond us and this time there wasn't the pain of collectively having made the decision and carried out the act. But there was a different pain because no good dog, no good dog like him, should have to die in a health crisis, laying on ratty blankets on the concrete floor next to the freezers in the back of an animal shelter. It would've gone down the same or worse at the emergency clinic, were he owned and loved. But that would have been more dignified. Medical heroics would be hugely impractical in a shelter situation...very costly and very futile... but that and an owner would've lent dignity to the situation somehow.
He was valued more in 3 months that he was in 7 years previous. And his body decided...we didn't really, until he simply needed "help" to do what he was obviously trying to do. But it still felt like a failure somehow...like a lost chance. If there is any fairness at all, he's in a better place. And it gets tiring trying to find the positive in these situations..."better place", "he's safe now," "she's not suffering," like some little look-at-the-bright-side exercise. But, that's all you can do...and get up tomorrow and hope for less tragedy.
The ones who stay a long time get under people's skin....or maybe it's a specialness of some sort that seems all the more special because Outsiders, the people coming in to browse, don't seem to detect it. You all know there is a gem sitting there, but because of age or breed or looks or not being a Yorkie puppy, it seems to go unrecognized.
I remember the day he came in....a nonchalant girl my age who was "moving" after having him his whole life. He was an eyesore. It looked like raging mange or at best just an infection from skin allergies. My immediate thought, with his age, his breed (Pit- historically unwanted by most adopters), his cropped ears, his hamburger skin, was to spare him right then. Just put him to sleep rather than have him sit and sit and sit and listen to "Ewwww!" from visitors. That skin looked chronic....longterm, likely to recur. Maybe even mange as a secondary to immunosuppression. A medical can of worms. But....with faithful baths by a devoted staff member and oral antibiotics, he cleared up amazingly and then turned out to be one of the best-tempered Pits we'd had in ages. Still he sat. His cork bobbed a bit in the waters of an off-site adoption event recently....some interest. Things were looking up and what seemed inevitable...me and a syringe and him and crying staff in the back room....seemed out of the picture. The fact that I had seemingly underestimated his projected progress gave me Hope. But then....
Today, suddenly, he collapsed after his bath. In a matter of an hour, even after some MASH-style treatment for shock, he became agonal. And what had seemed out of the picture again became inevitable....urgently. I kept thinking of the girl who brought him....would she care? If he was still with her, would she have done anything or would she have let him die in agony? If he was in a home where he was one of one or two instead of with us where he was one of 40 and always alone from 5pm to 8am, could something have been noticed earlier? He bled out in his abdomen from his spleen, likely cancer. There's little to be done, and whatever could be done would be a flimsy band-aid for a grave situation. I've seen the same thing, massive abdominal bleedout, happen to owned dogs in a clinic setting. It ends up the same. Thousands in diagnostics and critical care and a dead dog anyway.
I was sad, of course, but also pragmatic at the time....and I suppose I have too much practice at letting go. Seriously not sure anymore if that is an asset or a liability. But I see my coworkers and their pain and they haven't had as much practice yet, as much terrible practice with it....and I wish I could take some of it for them, or I worry that some may not get past it, and why am I not crying like that? Why didn't I want the collar....I generally don't get to really know the dogs like they do....if I did, I would need a storage unit for all the collars...and it's usually the one who really loved the dog the most who can lay claim to it. And if it was really a knife in a particular person's heart, then they get the ashes-because believe me, the previous "owner" has no right to them after they wipe their hands and drive away and go off to sleep easy at night and dream about a future new puppy. It's the dignity thing again.....at the very least, the animal's remains can be given the respect no one had for the animal in life. I hate to see people I care about grieve like this when the people who should've cared don't have to. And this time it was beyond us and this time there wasn't the pain of collectively having made the decision and carried out the act. But there was a different pain because no good dog, no good dog like him, should have to die in a health crisis, laying on ratty blankets on the concrete floor next to the freezers in the back of an animal shelter. It would've gone down the same or worse at the emergency clinic, were he owned and loved. But that would have been more dignified. Medical heroics would be hugely impractical in a shelter situation...very costly and very futile... but that and an owner would've lent dignity to the situation somehow.
He was valued more in 3 months that he was in 7 years previous. And his body decided...we didn't really, until he simply needed "help" to do what he was obviously trying to do. But it still felt like a failure somehow...like a lost chance. If there is any fairness at all, he's in a better place. And it gets tiring trying to find the positive in these situations..."better place", "he's safe now," "she's not suffering," like some little look-at-the-bright-side exercise. But, that's all you can do...and get up tomorrow and hope for less tragedy.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Two Situations
Two situations happened of late that give food for thought.
One was about three months ago. One Saturday, a classic "low-life" straggles in with a strange little hunchbacked, deformed gargoyle of a Chihuahua. His story was that the dog had belonged to his elderly neighbor, who had just gotten committed to a nursing home. He wanted to help, like a Good Samaritan, but couldn't keep the dog himself. So he brought her to us. I came in to her on Monday, as she'd been put in the clinic...no one knew what the deal was with her grotesque look. She turned out to have a huge cherry eye and obvious congenital skeletal deformities, disturbing to visitors...very "Awww!"-inducing. But she had a plucky spirit and would gamely crab-trot outside with me for potty breaks. Of course, staff started getting attached.
Next thing you know, she went out for cherry eye repair surgery, and after a few days, the same weird guy comes back with a very convoluted story, which I couldn't even follow...talking to our director. He now wanted to adopt the dog. It was all pretty fishy and long story short, he finally caved and confessed that the dog was his from the beginning.
Well, naturally, all the staff (including, at first, me) was mega-pissed that our director was going to give this man the dog back. I suppose everyone was feeding their big rescue, rags-to-riches fantasies about this weird little monster dog.
Our director agreed after a lot of discussion with the man (the "lowlife" who everyone had rolled their eyes about at least once) that it would be best for him and the dog if she went back to him.
And here's the punchline, which I still use as an example if a current situation warrants...
The dog had been a sweetie with us...agreeable, good eater, tolerant of affection.
But that was nothing compared with the way she lit up like a friggin' jackpot slot machine when her owner walked into the room to get her. He was crying, she was going nuts in happydance ecstasy. I am CERTAIN that she did not want us magnanimous shelter workers to "rescue" her from the "lowlife." It just goes to show how we let our twisted, overly cynical yet overly idealistic thinking cloud our vision in a situation like that.
Another similar one was just last week. Family member of a staffer called our law enforcement officer, all up at arms about the treatment of a dog in her deadbeat tenant's apartment. Eviction was in the process...landlord goes in to inspect apartment and finds a rat terrier in a wire crate inside the coat closet behind the front door. Supposedly no food and water. Well, with her Animal Planet sensibility, she calls in alarm...describes a situation that sounded awful. I mean, the words: abandoned apartment, no electricity, evicted, dark closet, etc. Sounds horrible, no?
I tagged along for that one. We get there and it's just a mildly messy apartment in moving-out stage. No electricity, but not that hot this time of year. No one home. Landlord lets us in. Dog in crate, barking her head off at us, perfectly healthy-looking. No laws are being broken here. For all we know, the guy (a college kid) just stepped out to do errands. But. Since it's a staff favor thing and we don't really know, we scoop the dog just for safekeeping. It was horrible. A balls-out fear-aggressive little female rat terrier. A snappy snare, some godawful screaming and fish-flopping, some heads peeking from adjoining apartment doors....and we finally got her out. I guarantee you that she would've chosen to stay in her crate in her closet if she could've. But....we had to do our noble duty, right?
She sat in the shelter, plastered against the back of her run, snarling at anyone who so much as looked at her in passing, for 3 days. Sweettalk got nowhere. An irate girlfriend (the dog's actual owner) was in touch with us, beside herself that we took her dog. After she got polite, and after we discovered that the boyfriend was slated to move out of state with the dog to be with the girlfriend within a matter of days, it ended up that we delivered the dog back to him at his apartment. That was even more of a horror show. She was the lovechild of a pirahna and a screeming banshee. Nasty. It took a while, a lot of drama and the sacrifice of a metal snappy snare via bolt cutters to finally get her into a carrier and into the car.
Bleedyhearty Animal Planetaholics might be appalled that we gave the dog back.
But I am here to tell you: she was in no way interested in being "rescued."
This was not a rescue to her....it was Hell on Earth.
She was completely intractable and completely suffering mentally. In no way adoptable unless you wanted your fingers amputated by your new dog. Thank the blue heavens that they wanted her back.
So I ask: what is better? Back to an "imperfect" (and in this case, objectively, merely transitory at the time) home or dead in our freezer?
I vote for the former.
Sometimes our superidealized version of a happy ending does not match up with the animal's. And who are we here for, anyway?
One was about three months ago. One Saturday, a classic "low-life" straggles in with a strange little hunchbacked, deformed gargoyle of a Chihuahua. His story was that the dog had belonged to his elderly neighbor, who had just gotten committed to a nursing home. He wanted to help, like a Good Samaritan, but couldn't keep the dog himself. So he brought her to us. I came in to her on Monday, as she'd been put in the clinic...no one knew what the deal was with her grotesque look. She turned out to have a huge cherry eye and obvious congenital skeletal deformities, disturbing to visitors...very "Awww!"-inducing. But she had a plucky spirit and would gamely crab-trot outside with me for potty breaks. Of course, staff started getting attached.
Next thing you know, she went out for cherry eye repair surgery, and after a few days, the same weird guy comes back with a very convoluted story, which I couldn't even follow...talking to our director. He now wanted to adopt the dog. It was all pretty fishy and long story short, he finally caved and confessed that the dog was his from the beginning.
Well, naturally, all the staff (including, at first, me) was mega-pissed that our director was going to give this man the dog back. I suppose everyone was feeding their big rescue, rags-to-riches fantasies about this weird little monster dog.
Our director agreed after a lot of discussion with the man (the "lowlife" who everyone had rolled their eyes about at least once) that it would be best for him and the dog if she went back to him.
And here's the punchline, which I still use as an example if a current situation warrants...
The dog had been a sweetie with us...agreeable, good eater, tolerant of affection.
But that was nothing compared with the way she lit up like a friggin' jackpot slot machine when her owner walked into the room to get her. He was crying, she was going nuts in happydance ecstasy. I am CERTAIN that she did not want us magnanimous shelter workers to "rescue" her from the "lowlife." It just goes to show how we let our twisted, overly cynical yet overly idealistic thinking cloud our vision in a situation like that.
Another similar one was just last week. Family member of a staffer called our law enforcement officer, all up at arms about the treatment of a dog in her deadbeat tenant's apartment. Eviction was in the process...landlord goes in to inspect apartment and finds a rat terrier in a wire crate inside the coat closet behind the front door. Supposedly no food and water. Well, with her Animal Planet sensibility, she calls in alarm...describes a situation that sounded awful. I mean, the words: abandoned apartment, no electricity, evicted, dark closet, etc. Sounds horrible, no?
I tagged along for that one. We get there and it's just a mildly messy apartment in moving-out stage. No electricity, but not that hot this time of year. No one home. Landlord lets us in. Dog in crate, barking her head off at us, perfectly healthy-looking. No laws are being broken here. For all we know, the guy (a college kid) just stepped out to do errands. But. Since it's a staff favor thing and we don't really know, we scoop the dog just for safekeeping. It was horrible. A balls-out fear-aggressive little female rat terrier. A snappy snare, some godawful screaming and fish-flopping, some heads peeking from adjoining apartment doors....and we finally got her out. I guarantee you that she would've chosen to stay in her crate in her closet if she could've. But....we had to do our noble duty, right?
She sat in the shelter, plastered against the back of her run, snarling at anyone who so much as looked at her in passing, for 3 days. Sweettalk got nowhere. An irate girlfriend (the dog's actual owner) was in touch with us, beside herself that we took her dog. After she got polite, and after we discovered that the boyfriend was slated to move out of state with the dog to be with the girlfriend within a matter of days, it ended up that we delivered the dog back to him at his apartment. That was even more of a horror show. She was the lovechild of a pirahna and a screeming banshee. Nasty. It took a while, a lot of drama and the sacrifice of a metal snappy snare via bolt cutters to finally get her into a carrier and into the car.
Bleedyhearty Animal Planetaholics might be appalled that we gave the dog back.
But I am here to tell you: she was in no way interested in being "rescued."
This was not a rescue to her....it was Hell on Earth.
She was completely intractable and completely suffering mentally. In no way adoptable unless you wanted your fingers amputated by your new dog. Thank the blue heavens that they wanted her back.
So I ask: what is better? Back to an "imperfect" (and in this case, objectively, merely transitory at the time) home or dead in our freezer?
I vote for the former.
Sometimes our superidealized version of a happy ending does not match up with the animal's. And who are we here for, anyway?
Evolution
I think it is critical in Life in general, and particularly in a line of work such as this, to allow the flow and evolution of your thinking. I look back even at things I have said in past blog entries and cringe a bit. This is all stream of consciousness. How I felt (and whatever I said) about Humanity at some point last Thursday, last August, in 2006...whenever...well, it changes. At my core, I know most people are good. Just call me Anne Frank, right?
It's a danger not to recognize that beliefs are nebulous....to consider things and modify as needed. I see several of my coworkers who seem to be stuck quite often. Being pissy one day is one thing. But to have decided, like, 2 years ago that People Suck and to not entertain any notion otherwise does a huge disservice to yourself, those who have to be around you...and most importantly at work, the animals.
I am constantly pondering these things. I think you must, or you'll wind up a stony old angry prune. If you can't accept that things are all shades of grey and that you must approach each individual situation, animal, relinquisher, adopter, visitor, volunteer, etc. individually....well, you are remiss.
Another, more pensive and optimistic coworker and I have been discussing this of late. One thing that makes for an interesting thought is this: If (name coworker) wanted to adopt an animal here and had to fill out an application, would it be approved? A lot of times, I'd say...NO. Not even by that person themself, were they the person deciding.
Where do we get off expecting perfection when we are not perfect?
Can you tell me that no one working here has ever had their cat declawed, particularly before they knew better? Are everyone's litterboxes spotless all the time? No one's dog has ever gotten loose and ended up getting scooped by AC?
We will deny someone for having "too many" other animals when the person doing the denying is a borderline hoarder themselves? I mean, where do we get off? When I am working in the garden, I tie my little spoiled brat of a housedog outside nearby...she'll run off otherwise. Well, hello...I am "tying my dog outside". Call the SPCA! Why is my "tying out" ok, but someone else's "tying out" is automatically on a rusty chain, 24/7, without food and water?
Bombshell: growing up, my family had a succession of cats. They all lived outdoors...would come in just to eat and hang around. I can think of at least 2 unneutered males we had, who invariably would come home beat up and eventually never come home again. They probably knocked up half the neighborhood. We didn't know any better. The cats seemed extremely content. Granted, that was decades ago, but still...does that mean I should be crucified, laughed at after I leave the room? My application for a kitten crumpled up and tossed into the wastebasket? The particulars of our home, when I grew up, would not have made us ideal adopters. Here's another bombshell: I'm pretty sure 2 of my cats are way overdue on their rabies right now. I keep forgetting. So where would I get off talking smack about someone bringing in their animal here who's not current? Especially when we employyes have the luxury of being able to get meds and labwork at cost...free exams from our volunteer vet. Even Frontline under retail. Most people do not get that. We forget that a simple annual visit for a "civilian" can wind up in the couple hundreds after vax, heartworm test, meds and Frontline. Yay for us. It's too easy to forget.
And again with shades of grey....
There is a definite issue in our shelter with adopting out a cat to someone if they say they might let it outside.
Newsflash: "outside", by definition, does not necessarily mean ignored, left out to get in fights in a busy urban area with lots of traffic and a pack of coyotes in the area. "Outside" can mean lots of things. There is a responsible form of "outside." Sometimes I even hear someone I know bitching about relinquishers when I know for a fact that they "got rid of" their rabbits a couple years ago.
We're human. I get angry, too. I feel I have the real right to be angry here, more than anyone else, considering that I am the sole executioner. But each situation is different, and coming at everything angry just creates another vicious circle. The people who are in this vicious circle don't see it...they just think that Humanity is constantly proving their anger justified. Where did it start in a given circumstance? Chicken or egg?
Rigidity has no place in Life at all, I don't think...and again, certainly no place in this line of work. Nothing is that simple. Would that it were.
Anthropomorphizing is such a convenient thing. If you want to make animals just like people, how about go all the way? To wit- are OUR lives perfect? Imagine nurses in the maternity ward refusing to let any babies leave the hospital without being able to be absolutely sure that their whole lives would go perfectly. The parents would have to be married, guaranteed forever. Everyone would be expected to live comfortable, pretty lives...with nothing bad ever happening in their childhood or beyond. No disease, no accidents, no upheaval, no tragedy, no big changes in life circumstances. Impossible, no? That's not Life. So why do we think we can appoint ourselves authority of the future, preferably Perfect Life of animals?
It all seems too much sometimes. It is difficult not to judge from past experience. To judge people. To judge situations. How can you not?
One common judgement I am struggling with right now is towards low income/disabled people. Most of us tend to not prefer adopting to those who we think (and again, who the hell are we?) don't have the financial means nor perhaps the common sense to "properly" care for an animal to our exacting (<---sarcasm, because again...show me your litterbox right now!) standards. But let me ask this. If you were a clingy little neurotic dog, would you rather have a rich, nuclear family, frou frou home with holistic food and a million toys...where you were in a crate alone 10 hours a day while everyone was at work, school, soccer, ballet...or would you rather have a poorer, rustic home with Ol' Roy and a Hartz flea collar but an owner who was there with you 24/7 doting on you every moment?
What would the dog choose?
Exactly.
And it should be our job, our REAL job, to help and educate the latter to be the best owner they can be.
Some of my coworkers can't seem to grasp this, but most people really want to do the best they can, only they don't know what it is...unless we tell them. And tell them in a polite, respectful way.
This is something that needs to be considered.
It's hard to change, and I sympathize with my stuck coworkers or others in the field. I read a lot about newer sheltering models...the no kill movement. We are pushing 90%, so I think we can be proud. It is hard not to beat yourself up about the 10% The 10% haunt each and every one of us, as do the failed adoptions. And that is the thing- we cannot let the smaller amount of bad overshadow the vastly larger amount of good. Letting that happen only turns you bitter, angry, judgemental. It is a loss of opportunity for a positive outcome for you, an animal, an adopter.
I dunno.....just rambling. All you can do is get up every morning and do the best you can and strive for even better tomorrow. We need to stop seeing the public as the Enemy. Maybe it makes things easier for us, psychologically. Us against Them, saving all the animals. Maybe it's the easier way to deal....the lazier way, since it takes less effort to refuse to engage meaningfully and openmindedly with someone who does not fit your paradigm of "Perfect Animal Owner." But the thing is, there's no such thing. It's not that simple. And I can see how the public can come to form judgements about shelter workers just as we come to form judgements about the public. Tit for tat.
It's a danger not to recognize that beliefs are nebulous....to consider things and modify as needed. I see several of my coworkers who seem to be stuck quite often. Being pissy one day is one thing. But to have decided, like, 2 years ago that People Suck and to not entertain any notion otherwise does a huge disservice to yourself, those who have to be around you...and most importantly at work, the animals.
I am constantly pondering these things. I think you must, or you'll wind up a stony old angry prune. If you can't accept that things are all shades of grey and that you must approach each individual situation, animal, relinquisher, adopter, visitor, volunteer, etc. individually....well, you are remiss.
Another, more pensive and optimistic coworker and I have been discussing this of late. One thing that makes for an interesting thought is this: If (name coworker) wanted to adopt an animal here and had to fill out an application, would it be approved? A lot of times, I'd say...NO. Not even by that person themself, were they the person deciding.
Where do we get off expecting perfection when we are not perfect?
Can you tell me that no one working here has ever had their cat declawed, particularly before they knew better? Are everyone's litterboxes spotless all the time? No one's dog has ever gotten loose and ended up getting scooped by AC?
We will deny someone for having "too many" other animals when the person doing the denying is a borderline hoarder themselves? I mean, where do we get off? When I am working in the garden, I tie my little spoiled brat of a housedog outside nearby...she'll run off otherwise. Well, hello...I am "tying my dog outside". Call the SPCA! Why is my "tying out" ok, but someone else's "tying out" is automatically on a rusty chain, 24/7, without food and water?
Bombshell: growing up, my family had a succession of cats. They all lived outdoors...would come in just to eat and hang around. I can think of at least 2 unneutered males we had, who invariably would come home beat up and eventually never come home again. They probably knocked up half the neighborhood. We didn't know any better. The cats seemed extremely content. Granted, that was decades ago, but still...does that mean I should be crucified, laughed at after I leave the room? My application for a kitten crumpled up and tossed into the wastebasket? The particulars of our home, when I grew up, would not have made us ideal adopters. Here's another bombshell: I'm pretty sure 2 of my cats are way overdue on their rabies right now. I keep forgetting. So where would I get off talking smack about someone bringing in their animal here who's not current? Especially when we employyes have the luxury of being able to get meds and labwork at cost...free exams from our volunteer vet. Even Frontline under retail. Most people do not get that. We forget that a simple annual visit for a "civilian" can wind up in the couple hundreds after vax, heartworm test, meds and Frontline. Yay for us. It's too easy to forget.
And again with shades of grey....
There is a definite issue in our shelter with adopting out a cat to someone if they say they might let it outside.
Newsflash: "outside", by definition, does not necessarily mean ignored, left out to get in fights in a busy urban area with lots of traffic and a pack of coyotes in the area. "Outside" can mean lots of things. There is a responsible form of "outside." Sometimes I even hear someone I know bitching about relinquishers when I know for a fact that they "got rid of" their rabbits a couple years ago.
We're human. I get angry, too. I feel I have the real right to be angry here, more than anyone else, considering that I am the sole executioner. But each situation is different, and coming at everything angry just creates another vicious circle. The people who are in this vicious circle don't see it...they just think that Humanity is constantly proving their anger justified. Where did it start in a given circumstance? Chicken or egg?
Rigidity has no place in Life at all, I don't think...and again, certainly no place in this line of work. Nothing is that simple. Would that it were.
Anthropomorphizing is such a convenient thing. If you want to make animals just like people, how about go all the way? To wit- are OUR lives perfect? Imagine nurses in the maternity ward refusing to let any babies leave the hospital without being able to be absolutely sure that their whole lives would go perfectly. The parents would have to be married, guaranteed forever. Everyone would be expected to live comfortable, pretty lives...with nothing bad ever happening in their childhood or beyond. No disease, no accidents, no upheaval, no tragedy, no big changes in life circumstances. Impossible, no? That's not Life. So why do we think we can appoint ourselves authority of the future, preferably Perfect Life of animals?
It all seems too much sometimes. It is difficult not to judge from past experience. To judge people. To judge situations. How can you not?
One common judgement I am struggling with right now is towards low income/disabled people. Most of us tend to not prefer adopting to those who we think (and again, who the hell are we?) don't have the financial means nor perhaps the common sense to "properly" care for an animal to our exacting (<---sarcasm, because again...show me your litterbox right now!) standards. But let me ask this. If you were a clingy little neurotic dog, would you rather have a rich, nuclear family, frou frou home with holistic food and a million toys...where you were in a crate alone 10 hours a day while everyone was at work, school, soccer, ballet...or would you rather have a poorer, rustic home with Ol' Roy and a Hartz flea collar but an owner who was there with you 24/7 doting on you every moment?
What would the dog choose?
Exactly.
And it should be our job, our REAL job, to help and educate the latter to be the best owner they can be.
Some of my coworkers can't seem to grasp this, but most people really want to do the best they can, only they don't know what it is...unless we tell them. And tell them in a polite, respectful way.
This is something that needs to be considered.
It's hard to change, and I sympathize with my stuck coworkers or others in the field. I read a lot about newer sheltering models...the no kill movement. We are pushing 90%, so I think we can be proud. It is hard not to beat yourself up about the 10% The 10% haunt each and every one of us, as do the failed adoptions. And that is the thing- we cannot let the smaller amount of bad overshadow the vastly larger amount of good. Letting that happen only turns you bitter, angry, judgemental. It is a loss of opportunity for a positive outcome for you, an animal, an adopter.
I dunno.....just rambling. All you can do is get up every morning and do the best you can and strive for even better tomorrow. We need to stop seeing the public as the Enemy. Maybe it makes things easier for us, psychologically. Us against Them, saving all the animals. Maybe it's the easier way to deal....the lazier way, since it takes less effort to refuse to engage meaningfully and openmindedly with someone who does not fit your paradigm of "Perfect Animal Owner." But the thing is, there's no such thing. It's not that simple. And I can see how the public can come to form judgements about shelter workers just as we come to form judgements about the public. Tit for tat.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Vicious Circle
People think, judging from discussion boards I sometimes sneak around, that shelter workers are jerks. That's understandable, perhaps. Maybe all you want to do is to stop in Kittens-R-Us and pick up a 2 month diversion. Maybe the stringent and overbearing requirements we have, like speaking to your landlord to make sure it's ok that you have a pet, and also our sneaky tactics in trying to catch you unawares with the questions about whether you plan to declaw, whether you're going to let the cat outside, whether your other pets are spayed/neutered...I know. The audacity!
We are looser than most shelters, actually. We don't even call your vet for reference. Home visits? Ha. We hardly have time to go pee in the course of a day. Who's going to go do home checks? We will give you a hard time if you tell it to our face that the kitten is to be a surprise gift for your 19 year old boyfriend. But all in all....if you are articulate and polite, you'll most likely get what you want from us within reason.
But, yes. We are jerks. I think a lot about this. I do not really work the floor, play kitty petting zoo, do adoptions. I am too busy doing everything medical-related. Work that at one point was shared with two others who have since left and not really been replaced. But I think a lot about it, the impression we, I, give to visitors. I remember a couple years back at the Toyota dealership...the night we went to sign papers on the purchase of my Fit. They were busy. I grasped that. But for an hour, it seemed like at least a half dozen little metro-coiffed, cologned, necktied young car salesmen were zipping around from the finance office and back, right by our faces, all stressed looking...and no one so much as smiled and said..."Someone will be with you! Sorry!" I was offended. And I got to thinking that perhaps I do that. I know I walk harried and cranky-looking, all rushed, back to the copier, my boss' office, wherever, right past visitors-who-may-need-help. I try try try to pick my averty gaze up off my shoes and smile and say..."Have you been helped?" But somedays the burden is already too heavy and I just can't bring myself to open that can of worms. Honestly, I don't really want to know whether you have been helped, because there's a chance you'll say..."No, I haven't!" I have stuff to do, my Care-O-Meter was maxed out like 2 years ago, I have death and disease nipping at my heels constantly, and I don't want to get even further behind in my work to chit chat about why our adoption fee is "so high" ($85).
I try try try to be nice. Sometimes I go whole hog and stop what I am doing to answer any questions in the world for you. I feel good after it, and I hope you do, too. I say my Care-O-Meter is maxed out...but really it's not. It's part of me. But I can't muster that up constantly while getting pummelled with rotten tomatoes of Problems, Sob Stories and Futile Tasks all day.
Some of my coworkers don't seem to try that much. Sometimes I cringe at stuff I overhear. On one hand, I understand their crabbiness. We have had enough. We are emotionally bankrupt a lot of the time. We know you are quite possibly just in the throes of a kitten orgasm and not really thinking longterm. We have as good of a handle as we can on the ubiquitous cat URI that is in every shelter...and your pointing out that someone is sneezing or complaining about an eye goober is not seen as being that helpful, thanks. Your proclivity, as a layperson, to debate with us about the children-age-restriction assigned by a professional behaviorist to the nippy Jack Russell down there is tedious and slightly offensive. On the other hand, though, we could be friendlier. You are uppity to us. That makes us uppity to you. Which came first on a given day, I don't know. Some people, a couple coworkers of mine included, really should not be in a position to deal with the public. But how did they get like that? From dealing with the public.
I don't know what the answer is....maybe if we were nicer, the public would be less infuriating.
Maybe if the public was less infuriating, we would be nicer.
It's not like this all the time, but on a busy day, some scenarios play out that are unpleasant to overhear. Decent possible homes may be lost.
There has to be a better way. I just don't know what it is. A deli counter? "Number 23?" Something.
We are looser than most shelters, actually. We don't even call your vet for reference. Home visits? Ha. We hardly have time to go pee in the course of a day. Who's going to go do home checks? We will give you a hard time if you tell it to our face that the kitten is to be a surprise gift for your 19 year old boyfriend. But all in all....if you are articulate and polite, you'll most likely get what you want from us within reason.
But, yes. We are jerks. I think a lot about this. I do not really work the floor, play kitty petting zoo, do adoptions. I am too busy doing everything medical-related. Work that at one point was shared with two others who have since left and not really been replaced. But I think a lot about it, the impression we, I, give to visitors. I remember a couple years back at the Toyota dealership...the night we went to sign papers on the purchase of my Fit. They were busy. I grasped that. But for an hour, it seemed like at least a half dozen little metro-coiffed, cologned, necktied young car salesmen were zipping around from the finance office and back, right by our faces, all stressed looking...and no one so much as smiled and said..."Someone will be with you! Sorry!" I was offended. And I got to thinking that perhaps I do that. I know I walk harried and cranky-looking, all rushed, back to the copier, my boss' office, wherever, right past visitors-who-may-need-help. I try try try to pick my averty gaze up off my shoes and smile and say..."Have you been helped?" But somedays the burden is already too heavy and I just can't bring myself to open that can of worms. Honestly, I don't really want to know whether you have been helped, because there's a chance you'll say..."No, I haven't!" I have stuff to do, my Care-O-Meter was maxed out like 2 years ago, I have death and disease nipping at my heels constantly, and I don't want to get even further behind in my work to chit chat about why our adoption fee is "so high" ($85).
I try try try to be nice. Sometimes I go whole hog and stop what I am doing to answer any questions in the world for you. I feel good after it, and I hope you do, too. I say my Care-O-Meter is maxed out...but really it's not. It's part of me. But I can't muster that up constantly while getting pummelled with rotten tomatoes of Problems, Sob Stories and Futile Tasks all day.
Some of my coworkers don't seem to try that much. Sometimes I cringe at stuff I overhear. On one hand, I understand their crabbiness. We have had enough. We are emotionally bankrupt a lot of the time. We know you are quite possibly just in the throes of a kitten orgasm and not really thinking longterm. We have as good of a handle as we can on the ubiquitous cat URI that is in every shelter...and your pointing out that someone is sneezing or complaining about an eye goober is not seen as being that helpful, thanks. Your proclivity, as a layperson, to debate with us about the children-age-restriction assigned by a professional behaviorist to the nippy Jack Russell down there is tedious and slightly offensive. On the other hand, though, we could be friendlier. You are uppity to us. That makes us uppity to you. Which came first on a given day, I don't know. Some people, a couple coworkers of mine included, really should not be in a position to deal with the public. But how did they get like that? From dealing with the public.
I don't know what the answer is....maybe if we were nicer, the public would be less infuriating.
Maybe if the public was less infuriating, we would be nicer.
It's not like this all the time, but on a busy day, some scenarios play out that are unpleasant to overhear. Decent possible homes may be lost.
There has to be a better way. I just don't know what it is. A deli counter? "Number 23?" Something.
Two roads diverged...
It's been nonstop lately. A couple people on vacation this week, including our intrepid receptionist, "The Gatekeeper." She's been at the shelter for a dozen years or so. How ever she keeps going day after day with the violin-laden verbal diarrhea pouring out of the phone receiver and at her desk window over and over and over, I'll never know.
Yesterday, in the midst of a couple crises, including an owner-present euthanasia or two and a fish-hook-in-lip debacle with the past-due-to-be-neutered cat of a lady who (insert story involving moving and no money, but "Thank you thank you thank you! You guys are wonderful! I will come back on Wednesday and make a donation!" AKA, sedation, neuter, vax, nail trim, pain meds, antibiotics and fish-hook-removal, on the house while "donation" gets rerouted towards a sixer and a carton of Pall Malls)...well, in meanders a classy-looking broad with a dog who needed a rabies shot THAT DAY, because she needed proof for court the next day. Typical. It's amazing to me how these things in these people's lives happen on such an urgent basis. I always thought that generally, any formal notification such as a court date, collections notice, evictions,and even voluntary moves, babies being born, allergy developments and the like, kind of came on with some time to plan...but it doesn't seem so if you go by the pressing needs of our clientele.
Anyhow...so.
Court date tomorrow for an animal control citation, I'm assuming. Rabies shot needed TODAY!!
After finishing the removal of the fish hook and the testicles from the cat, it was her turn. She drags in a big plastic crate. I start drawing up the vaccine. My boss starts filling out the certificate. Lady can't fathom if the dog is over or under 20 lbs, so I glance in the door at the little, oh, 8 pounder within. And I just knew.
I was looking my own dog in the face, but yet not. After some questions, I came to determine that indeed, this was littermate to my own beloved Svetlana. This lady's sister is an illustrious breeder of PoodlePoms. Pomadoodles. Diddlypoodoodleranains. Whatever the frig.
My dog came from my work. She was 8 weeks old, still with her mom and littermates, and her rear leg was crushed...compound fracture. "Breeder" took her to a vet and was outraged at the prospect of spending three hundred on exam, xrays, etc. I remember it, 2 years ago...I remember my boss asking what the family's annual income was (we can only offer financial aid to people who qualify as low income). I remember the answer being "$80,000." I remember my boss' reply was silence and then an apologetic "no."
I remember the next day, we were closed down (UNHEARD of!) so staff could all attend a compassion fatigue workshop. It was time for Us. Our time. For a day, no animal garbage dump and recycling center services. One. Day. I remember in the middle of crying group therapy time, hearing the "tink tink tink" of a dipshit at the front window, knocking. It was a couple and a puppy with an e-collar and a homemade "cast". SSI papers were in hand for proof of need. Little batfaced foxy black puppy...and scent of gangrene from across the room. The amazing coincidence of a puppy matching the description and injury of yesterday's phone call! Puppy was zipped off for an emergency amputation.
Now, I was dogless for a dozen years...since leaving home at 18. I could've had a million dogs all that time, with being a vet tech. But I always declared I would wait until I owned a home. And it would be a sporty fun dog, medium sized. A labbish mixy thing maybe. At this point in time, we were set to close on our house in three weeks. As nursynurse, of course it was me who had to take home little tripod puppy to watch her that night. And the next night. A Poodle-Pom was not what I'd pictured myself with. But Cupid's arrow flew anyway. It was worrisome for a while, because the people who brought her in (who turned out to be "breeder"'s brother-in-law) were supposed to come up with a few hundred dollars to cover the amputation, and get her back. I was in love already. My boss kept me strung along for weeks, even though the people hadn't so much as called to check on her in all that time. Finally, I adopted her. She was a terror as a pup, a bitch to housetrain and has a horrid yap...but she is the apple of my eye, my Sveta. She runs around on three like nobody's business, and goes to schools and nursing homes. We just passed our Delta test for pet- assisted therapy. She makes the worst day disappear with her happy dance at the door. I love this dog ridiculously. Personality plus. Her tag says it all- "Piece of Work."
To see her sister in a piss-slippery plastic crate, shy of touch....what her life might have been....
She was scrawny and worried-looking. She had never been vaccinated until now. We also tried to get into the friendly spay discussion but didn't get far due to obvious lack of interest and a strange, sleepy ennui. The lady remembered the one with the broken leg. "We thought they'd just put it to sleep."
Hardly!
How profound it is, the way happenstance and random events can shape our whole future. Or that of a dog. Thank heavens Sveta lost that leg. Thank. Heavens. It was such strange mix of emotion to watch the other dog, the parallel reality, my own little bedbug's sad doppleganger, leave the building.
Yesterday, in the midst of a couple crises, including an owner-present euthanasia or two and a fish-hook-in-lip debacle with the past-due-to-be-neutered cat of a lady who (insert story involving moving and no money, but "Thank you thank you thank you! You guys are wonderful! I will come back on Wednesday and make a donation!" AKA, sedation, neuter, vax, nail trim, pain meds, antibiotics and fish-hook-removal, on the house while "donation" gets rerouted towards a sixer and a carton of Pall Malls)...well, in meanders a classy-looking broad with a dog who needed a rabies shot THAT DAY, because she needed proof for court the next day. Typical. It's amazing to me how these things in these people's lives happen on such an urgent basis. I always thought that generally, any formal notification such as a court date, collections notice, evictions,and even voluntary moves, babies being born, allergy developments and the like, kind of came on with some time to plan...but it doesn't seem so if you go by the pressing needs of our clientele.
Anyhow...so.
Court date tomorrow for an animal control citation, I'm assuming. Rabies shot needed TODAY!!
After finishing the removal of the fish hook and the testicles from the cat, it was her turn. She drags in a big plastic crate. I start drawing up the vaccine. My boss starts filling out the certificate. Lady can't fathom if the dog is over or under 20 lbs, so I glance in the door at the little, oh, 8 pounder within. And I just knew.
I was looking my own dog in the face, but yet not. After some questions, I came to determine that indeed, this was littermate to my own beloved Svetlana. This lady's sister is an illustrious breeder of PoodlePoms. Pomadoodles. Diddlypoodoodleranains. Whatever the frig.
My dog came from my work. She was 8 weeks old, still with her mom and littermates, and her rear leg was crushed...compound fracture. "Breeder" took her to a vet and was outraged at the prospect of spending three hundred on exam, xrays, etc. I remember it, 2 years ago...I remember my boss asking what the family's annual income was (we can only offer financial aid to people who qualify as low income). I remember the answer being "$80,000." I remember my boss' reply was silence and then an apologetic "no."
I remember the next day, we were closed down (UNHEARD of!) so staff could all attend a compassion fatigue workshop. It was time for Us. Our time. For a day, no animal garbage dump and recycling center services. One. Day. I remember in the middle of crying group therapy time, hearing the "tink tink tink" of a dipshit at the front window, knocking. It was a couple and a puppy with an e-collar and a homemade "cast". SSI papers were in hand for proof of need. Little batfaced foxy black puppy...and scent of gangrene from across the room. The amazing coincidence of a puppy matching the description and injury of yesterday's phone call! Puppy was zipped off for an emergency amputation.
Now, I was dogless for a dozen years...since leaving home at 18. I could've had a million dogs all that time, with being a vet tech. But I always declared I would wait until I owned a home. And it would be a sporty fun dog, medium sized. A labbish mixy thing maybe. At this point in time, we were set to close on our house in three weeks. As nursynurse, of course it was me who had to take home little tripod puppy to watch her that night. And the next night. A Poodle-Pom was not what I'd pictured myself with. But Cupid's arrow flew anyway. It was worrisome for a while, because the people who brought her in (who turned out to be "breeder"'s brother-in-law) were supposed to come up with a few hundred dollars to cover the amputation, and get her back. I was in love already. My boss kept me strung along for weeks, even though the people hadn't so much as called to check on her in all that time. Finally, I adopted her. She was a terror as a pup, a bitch to housetrain and has a horrid yap...but she is the apple of my eye, my Sveta. She runs around on three like nobody's business, and goes to schools and nursing homes. We just passed our Delta test for pet- assisted therapy. She makes the worst day disappear with her happy dance at the door. I love this dog ridiculously. Personality plus. Her tag says it all- "Piece of Work."
To see her sister in a piss-slippery plastic crate, shy of touch....what her life might have been....
She was scrawny and worried-looking. She had never been vaccinated until now. We also tried to get into the friendly spay discussion but didn't get far due to obvious lack of interest and a strange, sleepy ennui. The lady remembered the one with the broken leg. "We thought they'd just put it to sleep."
Hardly!
How profound it is, the way happenstance and random events can shape our whole future. Or that of a dog. Thank heavens Sveta lost that leg. Thank. Heavens. It was such strange mix of emotion to watch the other dog, the parallel reality, my own little bedbug's sad doppleganger, leave the building.
Friday, July 25, 2008
As Much Fun as a Root Canal
After a couple weeks of pain, which moved around the entirety of my mouth and varied in intensity from slighly annoying to crying at 3 a.m., I finally made it into a dentist and then an endodontist. No longer am I a root canal virgin. This week, I endured the first of two...out-of-pocket. No one becomes a vet tech for the insurance benefits, believe me. Or for the paycheck.
Having asked everyone in my acquaintence whether they'd had one, and how bad it was, I entered the endodontist's office only somewhat anxious. It was fast. Exactly one hour after the start, I found myself back in the car, pulling out of the parking lot with a numb mouth and a heavy sigh. It really wasn't bad, except for a couple seconds...and having to write so many digits on a check. Apparently, some people, once in a while, sport a "hot tooth." That's one that doesn't get blocked completely by the novocaine as it should. Happens once a month or so, they said. Lucky me...Miss July. There was a second when I felt the drill inside my tooth. It was as though someone dropped an atomic bomb in my jaw. Fat Man and Little Boy both. At once. I held still, but the physical response was intense...heart racing, muscles quaking, throat whimpering and eyes flooding. All at once I was 4 years old and I needed my mommy. Thankfully after a couple minutes and a couple more blocks, I felt nothing. And it was shortly done, after a whole lot of unsettling shoving of implements up my face.
It was not pleasant.
But you know what was more torturous than the root canal itself?
There I was, mouth open, laying back, rubber dam clamped in place over the victim tooth and covering my gaping maw....unable to speak. Gagged, essentially.
And there sat my friendly, nice endodontist and her nurse, one on each side...handing things and poking things and handing things back. And they were chatting up a storm, right over my head about how much "fun" my job must be. They'd asked me where I worked in that getting-to-know-you, pre-shoving-things-in-your-mouth phase of the appointment. I told them. Then, after the panic of that pain moment, the needles and the drilling....just wanting it to be over...they then started talking about how great it must be, how much fun, how much the nurse would probably love to have my job. What torture to be unable to clarify. To be unable to garble..."Euthanasia! Neglect! Cruelty! Cat Hoardings! Boomerang Adoptions! URI! Short-staffing! Stupidity! Abandonment!"
Lord. Isn't that terrible, to be at that point (which I have been for quite a while now), to be SO hot to rain on people's parade when they surmise that sheltering... that horribly underpaid and emotionally traumatic animal welfare work, is all about playing with puppies and kittens all day? Selfish, perhaps....to resent the "animal loving" public for not having to see what is in my face Monday through Friday and even in my dreams Saturday and Sunday. I can't tolerate people having the wrong idea either way...and I am not quite sure which is worse, over a tray of cheese and crackers at a party..."What do you do?"..."I work at the SPCA."
a.) "Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!!! (pitch always rising at end, images of frolicking kittens in person's head) That must be SOOOO much fun!!!"
b.) "Ohhhhh. That sucks. Do you have to....you know...put them to...sleep?"(person edging away as if I am wearing a tattered executioner's hood right then)
I just can't let people keep either view, and I get pretty defensive either way.*
Neither is right. Except...also, both are right.
One is demeaning and one is insulting.
It's an important conversation.
Which can't be had in the middle of a root canal.
Mind you...generally, I don't bring it up. If it comes up, and I can't skirt around it, then I might get into it. My preference, out of context, is to avoid the topic of what I do alltogether. I'm no soapboxer...do not think so for a minute. Had I not gone to the root canal after work, wearing my logoed scrubs and badge, perhaps it all could've been avoided.
It's just been a long, hard week, I suppose.
*PSA: please, whatever you do, when you are out some sunny Saturday running errands and decide to swing by your local shelter or pound to engage in indiscriminate, dirty fingerpokery into each and every kitten cage, do NOT go up to any staff members and say the following:
"I could never do what you do! I love animals too much!!"
You are trying to sound friendly and whatever, and we can totally dig that...thanks. really. But that statement is the biggest, steel-toed kick in the nuts to all of us who show up day after day like the gluttons for punishment we are. No offense, but you with your pampered pets and Animal Planet habit (god bless you, seriously...there should be more people like you, and then maybe there would be less need for people like us) don't have the same concept of "love." To "do what we do" is for the sort of love that chews you up and spits you out...that takes you higher than you will ever be in your life...and that takes you to rock bottom more often than most people have to endure. Thanks for the sentiment....but if you get a shelter staffer or ACO on the wrong day with that statement, you may be sorry. Instead, a sincere "I appreciate what you are doing for the community...it must be so hard sometimes. Hey...who's your favorite dog/cat here right now?" will make someone's day.
Also, try to refrain from the other standby insensitive but well-meaning remark: "I couldn't work here. I'd take everything home."
a.) Does that mean that I'm an asshole for "only" having one dog and three cats?
b.) Come tag along on a hoarding bust... Vick's Vaporub stinging the skin under your nose within your mask, shit-skating through a puke-inducingly filthy house full of dozens of decrepit, dying and/or dead cats. Then remind me what you said about "taking them all home."
Thank you, good night. It's just Friday. It's nothing personal. We can talk about cutewittle baby kittens some other time, 'k?
And I really am not this much of a sourpuss. Honest.
Having asked everyone in my acquaintence whether they'd had one, and how bad it was, I entered the endodontist's office only somewhat anxious. It was fast. Exactly one hour after the start, I found myself back in the car, pulling out of the parking lot with a numb mouth and a heavy sigh. It really wasn't bad, except for a couple seconds...and having to write so many digits on a check. Apparently, some people, once in a while, sport a "hot tooth." That's one that doesn't get blocked completely by the novocaine as it should. Happens once a month or so, they said. Lucky me...Miss July. There was a second when I felt the drill inside my tooth. It was as though someone dropped an atomic bomb in my jaw. Fat Man and Little Boy both. At once. I held still, but the physical response was intense...heart racing, muscles quaking, throat whimpering and eyes flooding. All at once I was 4 years old and I needed my mommy. Thankfully after a couple minutes and a couple more blocks, I felt nothing. And it was shortly done, after a whole lot of unsettling shoving of implements up my face.
It was not pleasant.
But you know what was more torturous than the root canal itself?
There I was, mouth open, laying back, rubber dam clamped in place over the victim tooth and covering my gaping maw....unable to speak. Gagged, essentially.
And there sat my friendly, nice endodontist and her nurse, one on each side...handing things and poking things and handing things back. And they were chatting up a storm, right over my head about how much "fun" my job must be. They'd asked me where I worked in that getting-to-know-you, pre-shoving-things-in-your-mouth phase of the appointment. I told them. Then, after the panic of that pain moment, the needles and the drilling....just wanting it to be over...they then started talking about how great it must be, how much fun, how much the nurse would probably love to have my job. What torture to be unable to clarify. To be unable to garble..."Euthanasia! Neglect! Cruelty! Cat Hoardings! Boomerang Adoptions! URI! Short-staffing! Stupidity! Abandonment!"
Lord. Isn't that terrible, to be at that point (which I have been for quite a while now), to be SO hot to rain on people's parade when they surmise that sheltering... that horribly underpaid and emotionally traumatic animal welfare work, is all about playing with puppies and kittens all day? Selfish, perhaps....to resent the "animal loving" public for not having to see what is in my face Monday through Friday and even in my dreams Saturday and Sunday. I can't tolerate people having the wrong idea either way...and I am not quite sure which is worse, over a tray of cheese and crackers at a party..."What do you do?"..."I work at the SPCA."
a.) "Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!!! (pitch always rising at end, images of frolicking kittens in person's head) That must be SOOOO much fun!!!"
b.) "Ohhhhh. That sucks. Do you have to....you know...put them to...sleep?"(person edging away as if I am wearing a tattered executioner's hood right then)
I just can't let people keep either view, and I get pretty defensive either way.*
Neither is right. Except...also, both are right.
One is demeaning and one is insulting.
It's an important conversation.
Which can't be had in the middle of a root canal.
Mind you...generally, I don't bring it up. If it comes up, and I can't skirt around it, then I might get into it. My preference, out of context, is to avoid the topic of what I do alltogether. I'm no soapboxer...do not think so for a minute. Had I not gone to the root canal after work, wearing my logoed scrubs and badge, perhaps it all could've been avoided.
It's just been a long, hard week, I suppose.
*PSA: please, whatever you do, when you are out some sunny Saturday running errands and decide to swing by your local shelter or pound to engage in indiscriminate, dirty fingerpokery into each and every kitten cage, do NOT go up to any staff members and say the following:
"I could never do what you do! I love animals too much!!"
You are trying to sound friendly and whatever, and we can totally dig that...thanks. really. But that statement is the biggest, steel-toed kick in the nuts to all of us who show up day after day like the gluttons for punishment we are. No offense, but you with your pampered pets and Animal Planet habit (god bless you, seriously...there should be more people like you, and then maybe there would be less need for people like us) don't have the same concept of "love." To "do what we do" is for the sort of love that chews you up and spits you out...that takes you higher than you will ever be in your life...and that takes you to rock bottom more often than most people have to endure. Thanks for the sentiment....but if you get a shelter staffer or ACO on the wrong day with that statement, you may be sorry. Instead, a sincere "I appreciate what you are doing for the community...it must be so hard sometimes. Hey...who's your favorite dog/cat here right now?" will make someone's day.
Also, try to refrain from the other standby insensitive but well-meaning remark: "I couldn't work here. I'd take everything home."
a.) Does that mean that I'm an asshole for "only" having one dog and three cats?
b.) Come tag along on a hoarding bust... Vick's Vaporub stinging the skin under your nose within your mask, shit-skating through a puke-inducingly filthy house full of dozens of decrepit, dying and/or dead cats. Then remind me what you said about "taking them all home."
Thank you, good night. It's just Friday. It's nothing personal. We can talk about cutewittle baby kittens some other time, 'k?
And I really am not this much of a sourpuss. Honest.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Positions to Be Put In
Just last month, there was an article in Veterinary Practice News about "convenience euthanasia". It actually mentioned that as a private practice vet, if you are uncomfortable with the reasons for a euthanasia given by a client, you should refer them to a local SPCA or humane organization. Hi. That's me.
Thankfully, even we have standards and will not put animals down just for shits 'n' giggles or out and out "convenience." I have to sleep at night. It's nothing taken lightly. But I suppose I have done, or participated in doing, plenty of them that a private vet may not have done. For example, our "clientele" tends to be that of the lowest income bracket. People who cannot afford extensive supportive care for a degenerative disease. People who are not capable of proper treatment for something as manageable as, say, diabetes. People who cannot afford possibly pointless chemotherapy for cancer...or even expensive NSAIDs for advanced ortho problems. In the scheme of things, having come from private practice, it does bother me. But, this is their pet...their family member. Suffering is directly around the bend. I feel okay with having a hand in preventing that suffering by euthanasia.
Same with aggression. I respect the courage it takes to undertake the responsibility of deciding such a thing when human safety is at risk. Lesser people dump it on a shelter and let us be the "bad guys." These cases are hard and sad. But in the scheme of things, it, too is preventing suffering.
Then there are the nebulous ones. Case in point: a couple owns two teenaged cats. Neither is in ill health, particularly. Foreclosure, going into assisted living, whatever...but cannot keep the cats. What are the possibilities? Put them in the shelter where they will be overlooked and miserable, ripped from their known lives of over a decade to be put into a cage to compete with kittens? To be put in the path of the upper respiratory infection that we are never free of, the catching of which is directly related to stress? Will some miracle person fall out of heaven and come into our shelter wanting not a kitten, not a young cat, not a pretty cat, but coincidentally two nondescript, teenaged cats possibly on the brink of costly degenerative health issues? Is it fair, for them, to force them to endure a hellish existence on the off chance that monkeys might fly out of my butt? Add onto that the fact that we are full, and in order to undertake this doubleforcing of hell onto two older cats, some others will have to go? These are the sticky, judgement call situations that happen in every shelter. It sucks. And I am the one who has to carry it out and go home at night. I know, I feel, I did the right thing. It was gentle and peaceful and dignified and number one, it was the choice, the responsible choice, in the given circumstances, of the legal owner of the cats. It was the best that could be done for them. Until you are willing to go to your local shelter and adopt two teenaged, un-special, nondecsript cats yourself, then you shouldn't say a thing. It was the best thing for them in the circumstances. They would've been stressed and confused and frightened and lonely otherwise. Death cannot be worse than that. Yet, it tore me up. Know that should it come to this in your life and with your animals...that there will be someone aching at the task they must perform for your convenience. I do it because someone must...someone who cares. Someone must be gentle and apologize to them for you...must tell them they are beautiful and special and that things will be better for them on the other side. But it sucks. And it eats my soul. I can only hope that upon my own death, I am not met with a mob of angry animals.
There I am, right in the dead eye. She was a pretty cat, to me.
Thankfully, even we have standards and will not put animals down just for shits 'n' giggles or out and out "convenience." I have to sleep at night. It's nothing taken lightly. But I suppose I have done, or participated in doing, plenty of them that a private vet may not have done. For example, our "clientele" tends to be that of the lowest income bracket. People who cannot afford extensive supportive care for a degenerative disease. People who are not capable of proper treatment for something as manageable as, say, diabetes. People who cannot afford possibly pointless chemotherapy for cancer...or even expensive NSAIDs for advanced ortho problems. In the scheme of things, having come from private practice, it does bother me. But, this is their pet...their family member. Suffering is directly around the bend. I feel okay with having a hand in preventing that suffering by euthanasia.
Same with aggression. I respect the courage it takes to undertake the responsibility of deciding such a thing when human safety is at risk. Lesser people dump it on a shelter and let us be the "bad guys." These cases are hard and sad. But in the scheme of things, it, too is preventing suffering.
Then there are the nebulous ones. Case in point: a couple owns two teenaged cats. Neither is in ill health, particularly. Foreclosure, going into assisted living, whatever...but cannot keep the cats. What are the possibilities? Put them in the shelter where they will be overlooked and miserable, ripped from their known lives of over a decade to be put into a cage to compete with kittens? To be put in the path of the upper respiratory infection that we are never free of, the catching of which is directly related to stress? Will some miracle person fall out of heaven and come into our shelter wanting not a kitten, not a young cat, not a pretty cat, but coincidentally two nondescript, teenaged cats possibly on the brink of costly degenerative health issues? Is it fair, for them, to force them to endure a hellish existence on the off chance that monkeys might fly out of my butt? Add onto that the fact that we are full, and in order to undertake this doubleforcing of hell onto two older cats, some others will have to go? These are the sticky, judgement call situations that happen in every shelter. It sucks. And I am the one who has to carry it out and go home at night. I know, I feel, I did the right thing. It was gentle and peaceful and dignified and number one, it was the choice, the responsible choice, in the given circumstances, of the legal owner of the cats. It was the best that could be done for them. Until you are willing to go to your local shelter and adopt two teenaged, un-special, nondecsript cats yourself, then you shouldn't say a thing. It was the best thing for them in the circumstances. They would've been stressed and confused and frightened and lonely otherwise. Death cannot be worse than that. Yet, it tore me up. Know that should it come to this in your life and with your animals...that there will be someone aching at the task they must perform for your convenience. I do it because someone must...someone who cares. Someone must be gentle and apologize to them for you...must tell them they are beautiful and special and that things will be better for them on the other side. But it sucks. And it eats my soul. I can only hope that upon my own death, I am not met with a mob of angry animals.
There I am, right in the dead eye. She was a pretty cat, to me.
Strange Fetish
All the area municipal pounds have their own arrangements where euthanasia is concerned- generally private vets, who I image charge the pound (and thus taxpayers) for the service. On occasion, in a bind, we will help one of our local pounds out by doing a few here or there, or in dire circumstances, such as an ugly hoarding raid or somesuch.
I never mind helping the pound of the town in which our shelter sits. The ACOs are both wonderful, cool guys. Definitely not the brainless, brawny, union-babied sort that fit the stereotype.
Today they needed our help with one of their own complicated situations involving a huge brute of an American Bulldog with a sexual fetish for large plastic items such as carriers, trash cans and buckets. Often, the dogs they need our help with are pick-ups from the community...generally pits who want to eat the face of any human being who looks directly at them. Often, they are the sorts who can't be safely handled, even on a steel snare pole. Ones who require the dart gun. But this one was different. A huge block of muscle and testosterone, this dog had been rescued by the ACOs from a life of being tied to a dumpster. He had remained at the pound, up for adoption, for a couple months. He was way too much dog for most people, and a certain danger to public safety, in the wrong hands. A giant jack O' lantern head mounted on a Sherman tank body. From the start, he was trouble. In the AC van, on the way from his dumpster to the pound, he managed to get some nookie with a hapless plastic crate which was also in the back of the van. It broke apart, leaving him with the metal grate door firmly stuck on his...er....
The ACO rushed him to a veterinarian for help, being that there was blood, and a metal cage door dangling, stuck to the dog's belly. By the time they made it in to the exam room, the excitement had subsided, the bulb of the penis went back to normal, and the door fell off. I suspect the veterinary staff is still talking about that one.
He sat at the pound for months, occasionally finding a way to have his way with a bucket or trash can, and the staff got to like him. Finally, "the right home" for so much dog seemed to come along. It lasted a couple days. He became aggressive, frightening the new adopters. He came at one of them pretty seriously when they tried to stop him from humping a trash can. There would be absolutely no stopping a dog of his strength, should he choose to back up his charge. "High Value Aggression," anyone? It was clear that a big, strong, hypermasculine dog who was used to a junkyard life would not be a suitable housepet. Neutering was on the docket and just hadn't taken place just yet. But at middle age, tendencies, I believe, are formed. This was obviously a lifelong habit. These sorts of decisions are never made lightly. We are all here to save and do the best we can for the most we can. But this big lug was a severe liability. Not to mention, from his point of view, his chances for a safe, comfortable, proper, secure, temptation-free life ahead were slim. A life in a chain link run is no life at all. Not to mention, at a municipal pound, the influx never stops...cannot hbe halted by the words, "Sorry, we're full." Most other random or breed rescues won't take on a bite risk like that....and they're usually all full, too. So the staff decided to let him go. You know...let him "go."
When the ACO arrived, I came out to the back of the van to hear a huge ruckus within. I thought it was some freaked-out, aggressive display....I wondered if I should go set up the tranq gun. But no. It was the big blockhead going to town on another plastic dog crate, like there was no tomorrow. He had busted his tether in the van to get to it. And he wasn't going to leave it without a fight. Finally, he was wrangled away and guided into the back room, all worked up...red-faced and intense. Finally calming a bit as no plastic objects were in sight.
Things went easily, he became sedate and then he went to the big Rubbermaid factory in the sky. I made a pawstamp on a card for the ACO to take back for everyone, and he showed me some goofy, jack o'lantern grinning, upside down headshots of the dog on his cellphone camera, playing earlier in the day. This was a hard one for the pound staff. They loved him as much as they could. They won't forget him. And he is safe now, in a much better place than this complicated, generally apathetic world.
I never mind helping the pound of the town in which our shelter sits. The ACOs are both wonderful, cool guys. Definitely not the brainless, brawny, union-babied sort that fit the stereotype.
Today they needed our help with one of their own complicated situations involving a huge brute of an American Bulldog with a sexual fetish for large plastic items such as carriers, trash cans and buckets. Often, the dogs they need our help with are pick-ups from the community...generally pits who want to eat the face of any human being who looks directly at them. Often, they are the sorts who can't be safely handled, even on a steel snare pole. Ones who require the dart gun. But this one was different. A huge block of muscle and testosterone, this dog had been rescued by the ACOs from a life of being tied to a dumpster. He had remained at the pound, up for adoption, for a couple months. He was way too much dog for most people, and a certain danger to public safety, in the wrong hands. A giant jack O' lantern head mounted on a Sherman tank body. From the start, he was trouble. In the AC van, on the way from his dumpster to the pound, he managed to get some nookie with a hapless plastic crate which was also in the back of the van. It broke apart, leaving him with the metal grate door firmly stuck on his...er....
The ACO rushed him to a veterinarian for help, being that there was blood, and a metal cage door dangling, stuck to the dog's belly. By the time they made it in to the exam room, the excitement had subsided, the bulb of the penis went back to normal, and the door fell off. I suspect the veterinary staff is still talking about that one.
He sat at the pound for months, occasionally finding a way to have his way with a bucket or trash can, and the staff got to like him. Finally, "the right home" for so much dog seemed to come along. It lasted a couple days. He became aggressive, frightening the new adopters. He came at one of them pretty seriously when they tried to stop him from humping a trash can. There would be absolutely no stopping a dog of his strength, should he choose to back up his charge. "High Value Aggression," anyone? It was clear that a big, strong, hypermasculine dog who was used to a junkyard life would not be a suitable housepet. Neutering was on the docket and just hadn't taken place just yet. But at middle age, tendencies, I believe, are formed. This was obviously a lifelong habit. These sorts of decisions are never made lightly. We are all here to save and do the best we can for the most we can. But this big lug was a severe liability. Not to mention, from his point of view, his chances for a safe, comfortable, proper, secure, temptation-free life ahead were slim. A life in a chain link run is no life at all. Not to mention, at a municipal pound, the influx never stops...cannot hbe halted by the words, "Sorry, we're full." Most other random or breed rescues won't take on a bite risk like that....and they're usually all full, too. So the staff decided to let him go. You know...let him "go."
When the ACO arrived, I came out to the back of the van to hear a huge ruckus within. I thought it was some freaked-out, aggressive display....I wondered if I should go set up the tranq gun. But no. It was the big blockhead going to town on another plastic dog crate, like there was no tomorrow. He had busted his tether in the van to get to it. And he wasn't going to leave it without a fight. Finally, he was wrangled away and guided into the back room, all worked up...red-faced and intense. Finally calming a bit as no plastic objects were in sight.
Things went easily, he became sedate and then he went to the big Rubbermaid factory in the sky. I made a pawstamp on a card for the ACO to take back for everyone, and he showed me some goofy, jack o'lantern grinning, upside down headshots of the dog on his cellphone camera, playing earlier in the day. This was a hard one for the pound staff. They loved him as much as they could. They won't forget him. And he is safe now, in a much better place than this complicated, generally apathetic world.
The Why and How
This work is certainly a nebulous, everchanging thing... in the way of how one deals with it.
The esteemed Doug Fakkema sums it all up.
Any thinking person, when faced with the same issues every day, is always trying to come to terms with the big Why. In our case, Why must we contend with the same problems day in and day out?
My idea of Why changes from time to time.
My current Why, the reason why animal sheltering is necessary, is simple:
Puppy and Kitten Addiction.
It's more complex than that, but that's it in a nutshell. That mentality is reflected in lots of areas in society, really. New is better. Pretty is better. Exciting is better. NOW is better. Fewer people are of the mindset of investing time and work into anything, whether it be relationships, cars, homes, work situations, education. Pets are no exception. And something about the face of a baby anything makes many people stupid and shortsighted. When I am in a room with a needle and syringe in my hand, putting to sleep a stereotypical big, strong, undisciplined, dominant 2-4 year old unneutered male dog who has indicated a distinct tendency to maul the hand that feeds, this is what I think about and feel anger about. I know that there was a point when that dog was a cute little puppy, and someone was impulsive in their sea of "AWWWWW!!"s, in their puppy lust. I know they goo gooed and bought large amounts of toys and treats for the first several months. I know also that they never took the time for good socialization and training, nor made the effort to discipline. I know it came time to neuter and they chose not to spend the money, just as they chose to remain passive in discipline. Fast forward a couple years, Baby Huey has become a monster and gee, the owner is "moving." Here I am cleaning up the "mess." We can't risk our 130-something years' existence, our function of helping thousands, just for this one individual...this giant, walking bite risk. One skilled lawsuit would eradicate us. So here I am, needle in hand. It eats at me. And what I also know is that the person who turned the dog in is sleeping soundly at night, ignorantly believing that there are people out there who are not consumed by reckless puppy lust, who would be willing to put their family and neighbors at risk by adopting a big, macho, grown up time bomb, people game to put in the exhaustive work to rehabilitate it....and that these mythological, benevolent and capable people will happen to walk into our shelter some sunny Saturday and "fall in love" with the drooling snarl of the beast in Run #11. This belief is stored in the brain next to the one that so many have...that there is some magical "Farm" where all animals go and live and romp forever in harmony. And no doubt the turner-inner is already dreaming of their next cute wittle puppy. And several Saturdays have come and gone, with 60%, easy, of visitors leaving after a cursory stroll to see if we have any small-breed puppies kicking around somewhere. We don't. The dog in #14 was a small-breed puppy, fresh from Hunte Corp. three years ago....too bad now he's a dominant little shit with balls like walnuts, ready to take your toddler's face off over a dropped Cheerio. Er, uh...or should I say, his owners were "moving." So many people start edging out when they hear there are no puppies here. A friendly mention of some nice young adults we have brings a glaze to their eyes.
I see the same when I stand in the cat room. Each face...each 5 year old given up for "moving", and who will sit here for months, meowing for their food in the morning, while kitten after kitten gets adopted.....they were once a kitten, too. I imagine them, adult face morphed into baby face, rewind 5 years....tiny face peeking out of a box at a flea market, or even from the cage bars of our own shelter...the soundtrack is always the same: "AWWWWWW!" (the sound of Hell itself). And now, the face not even worth a glance to most people. How short the distance between the cuteness of kittenhood...the fun of making your own lolcat .gifs, the glee of buying toys...to adult cathood. I prefer the latter, and thankfully some others do, or else we'd never get our adults out. But still...each time I look at a shelter cat's face here, now, waiting, given up...I only see a kitten, once worshipped. Now fallen.
Thankfully, we rarely must resort to euthanasia of our own animals. Thankfully, once in a while and sometimes in wondrous spurts, folks do come along and see something special in an adult animal. Thankfully, too, conscientious people come in to adopt a puppy or kitten with the well-thought-out intention of committing for life. That is as good as anything...each kitten in a lifetime home is one less adult cat ending up in the shelter system in the future.
What is the Answer? Spay/neuter seems to be. Obviously. But, I ask: if society is leaning more and more towards a sense of individual entitlement and instant self-gratification (can anyone deny this?), won't there continue to be a demand for cutewittle puppies and kittens? A reduction in population but an increase in demand....how will that work? Hopefully I am wrong.
The esteemed Doug Fakkema sums it all up.
Any thinking person, when faced with the same issues every day, is always trying to come to terms with the big Why. In our case, Why must we contend with the same problems day in and day out?
My idea of Why changes from time to time.
My current Why, the reason why animal sheltering is necessary, is simple:
Puppy and Kitten Addiction.
It's more complex than that, but that's it in a nutshell. That mentality is reflected in lots of areas in society, really. New is better. Pretty is better. Exciting is better. NOW is better. Fewer people are of the mindset of investing time and work into anything, whether it be relationships, cars, homes, work situations, education. Pets are no exception. And something about the face of a baby anything makes many people stupid and shortsighted. When I am in a room with a needle and syringe in my hand, putting to sleep a stereotypical big, strong, undisciplined, dominant 2-4 year old unneutered male dog who has indicated a distinct tendency to maul the hand that feeds, this is what I think about and feel anger about. I know that there was a point when that dog was a cute little puppy, and someone was impulsive in their sea of "AWWWWW!!"s, in their puppy lust. I know they goo gooed and bought large amounts of toys and treats for the first several months. I know also that they never took the time for good socialization and training, nor made the effort to discipline. I know it came time to neuter and they chose not to spend the money, just as they chose to remain passive in discipline. Fast forward a couple years, Baby Huey has become a monster and gee, the owner is "moving." Here I am cleaning up the "mess." We can't risk our 130-something years' existence, our function of helping thousands, just for this one individual...this giant, walking bite risk. One skilled lawsuit would eradicate us. So here I am, needle in hand. It eats at me. And what I also know is that the person who turned the dog in is sleeping soundly at night, ignorantly believing that there are people out there who are not consumed by reckless puppy lust, who would be willing to put their family and neighbors at risk by adopting a big, macho, grown up time bomb, people game to put in the exhaustive work to rehabilitate it....and that these mythological, benevolent and capable people will happen to walk into our shelter some sunny Saturday and "fall in love" with the drooling snarl of the beast in Run #11. This belief is stored in the brain next to the one that so many have...that there is some magical "Farm" where all animals go and live and romp forever in harmony. And no doubt the turner-inner is already dreaming of their next cute wittle puppy. And several Saturdays have come and gone, with 60%, easy, of visitors leaving after a cursory stroll to see if we have any small-breed puppies kicking around somewhere. We don't. The dog in #14 was a small-breed puppy, fresh from Hunte Corp. three years ago....too bad now he's a dominant little shit with balls like walnuts, ready to take your toddler's face off over a dropped Cheerio. Er, uh...or should I say, his owners were "moving." So many people start edging out when they hear there are no puppies here. A friendly mention of some nice young adults we have brings a glaze to their eyes.
I see the same when I stand in the cat room. Each face...each 5 year old given up for "moving", and who will sit here for months, meowing for their food in the morning, while kitten after kitten gets adopted.....they were once a kitten, too. I imagine them, adult face morphed into baby face, rewind 5 years....tiny face peeking out of a box at a flea market, or even from the cage bars of our own shelter...the soundtrack is always the same: "AWWWWWW!" (the sound of Hell itself). And now, the face not even worth a glance to most people. How short the distance between the cuteness of kittenhood...the fun of making your own lolcat .gifs, the glee of buying toys...to adult cathood. I prefer the latter, and thankfully some others do, or else we'd never get our adults out. But still...each time I look at a shelter cat's face here, now, waiting, given up...I only see a kitten, once worshipped. Now fallen.
Thankfully, we rarely must resort to euthanasia of our own animals. Thankfully, once in a while and sometimes in wondrous spurts, folks do come along and see something special in an adult animal. Thankfully, too, conscientious people come in to adopt a puppy or kitten with the well-thought-out intention of committing for life. That is as good as anything...each kitten in a lifetime home is one less adult cat ending up in the shelter system in the future.
What is the Answer? Spay/neuter seems to be. Obviously. But, I ask: if society is leaning more and more towards a sense of individual entitlement and instant self-gratification (can anyone deny this?), won't there continue to be a demand for cutewittle puppies and kittens? A reduction in population but an increase in demand....how will that work? Hopefully I am wrong.
Monday, July 21, 2008
Skeletal Pathos
This has happened twice in the past few weeks. Both times were pit bulls, coincidentally. Euthanasia, I feel, is the most important part of my job, hands down. Fortunately, we are a private shelter and not a pound, which means that when we are full, we have the luxury of saying so. The euthanasia of our own animals is not frequent and is soley based on physical or mental suffering or bite risk/liability. That explanation is for another day.
On any given afternoon, euthanasias generally are what we call DPOs, or "Down Per Owner", as opposed to DPS, "Down Per Shelter." I am it for euthanasia- the only one there now who can do it or prepare for it. I am the one who talks to the owner, if they want to be present. It varies, just like people's emotional displays vary. It can be draining, the counseling part. I explain, give the sedative, prepare them and their pet...and then our director, a former equine vet, comes in for the injection. That's just a formality. He'd be the first to tell you that I am the better shot. But it looks better to have the whole nurse/doctor thing going. If they drop-off (which I never understand), then it's all me. And in a way, it's better like that. It's a private thing, and other than the owner, I'd rather it just be me and the animal.
The reasons are generally warranted. Almost always illness and old age. End stage cancer. Sometimes aggression. Those are hard. That is a hard decision to come to. It is very courageous and responsible to step up and make this decision rather than dump a dog at a shelter without full disclosure and put not only other people and other animals at risk...but an entire shelter at risk for future liability...and the dog in question at risk for a life of misery. Sometimes we are wrangled into euthanasias that are seemingly more for convenience. The lines are blurry. Nothing is black and white. But, that is for another time.
Recently, though, have come two very upsetting situations involving pit bulls, spaced by a couple weeks. Both were very well-loved. Too loved, in fact. Both made it to a ridiculous age...16 and 17. Both would easily have been prosecutable cruelty cases had we come upon them in other circumstances...like if a concerned neighbor had called us. Both arrived comatose and absolutely, horrifically emaciated and dehydrated, attended by owners who were in such a state of hysteria that everyone was uncomfortable. Both were scheduled as "routine" DPOs....old dogs whose time had come. In each case, when the paperwork had been done, and the dog was brought into the exam room, jaws dropped. I have never seen anything so skeletal, alive. How to speak to the owners? You are, on one hand, so cognizant of the human-animal bond...I mean, it is our life's work. You can understand how people can love their pets and have difficulty letting them go. But on the other hand, here in front of you is blatant neglect in the fullest definition. "How long has he been like this?" "Did you take him to a vet?" Both situations yielded disturbing answers. If you love something so much that you are in hysterics...and mind you, this is not a traumatic, acute situation but a progressive one....how can you let things go so far?? A.) You've had several more years with this animal that most people get with theirs, since most dogs make it to 13 or 14, max. B.) You have to have seen the dog melting away like an ice cube for the past few weeks. It should not come as some insurmountable shock that death was near.
Perhaps I speak from a more pragmatic point of view, since this process of letting go is so familiar to me.
But I cannot fathom letting my animals or my loved ones get to the point of looking like Auchwitz victims in a coma and not doing something.
It's an odd point of balance in the moment, to gently make a point to the person about being more proactive in the future, yet still remain compassionate. They should know that this is not acceptable, yet they still deserve our kindness at this dark moment in their life.
These are hard. We have prosecuted people for allowing a dog to get even remotely to that state without intervention. The only difference is that the owners of these two pit bulls came to us, and we were not called out to them.
I can still feel the washboard of ribs under her dry coat, the hip bones like carved cups. Thick, yellow mucus filled her eye sockets under sunken, glazed eyes. She must've once weighed 50-something pounds but was now 20, according to the husband. Occasional breaths were the only clue that "life" was still within. It was horrible. For all they give us, we owe them a dignified end. To keep them medically comfortable when illness and age set in, and to let them go when suffering begins. This was not dignity. It was pathetic. The wife was outside having a breakdown. The husband left the room. My boss, one of the kennel girls, and I looked at each other, still incredulous and sickened. Then I set this poor dog free. I kissed her cheek as I injected. It was like kissing a bare skull.
I hope I never see a dog so thin ever again. Or if I do, it will be in "Evidence" photos.
On any given afternoon, euthanasias generally are what we call DPOs, or "Down Per Owner", as opposed to DPS, "Down Per Shelter." I am it for euthanasia- the only one there now who can do it or prepare for it. I am the one who talks to the owner, if they want to be present. It varies, just like people's emotional displays vary. It can be draining, the counseling part. I explain, give the sedative, prepare them and their pet...and then our director, a former equine vet, comes in for the injection. That's just a formality. He'd be the first to tell you that I am the better shot. But it looks better to have the whole nurse/doctor thing going. If they drop-off (which I never understand), then it's all me. And in a way, it's better like that. It's a private thing, and other than the owner, I'd rather it just be me and the animal.
The reasons are generally warranted. Almost always illness and old age. End stage cancer. Sometimes aggression. Those are hard. That is a hard decision to come to. It is very courageous and responsible to step up and make this decision rather than dump a dog at a shelter without full disclosure and put not only other people and other animals at risk...but an entire shelter at risk for future liability...and the dog in question at risk for a life of misery. Sometimes we are wrangled into euthanasias that are seemingly more for convenience. The lines are blurry. Nothing is black and white. But, that is for another time.
Recently, though, have come two very upsetting situations involving pit bulls, spaced by a couple weeks. Both were very well-loved. Too loved, in fact. Both made it to a ridiculous age...16 and 17. Both would easily have been prosecutable cruelty cases had we come upon them in other circumstances...like if a concerned neighbor had called us. Both arrived comatose and absolutely, horrifically emaciated and dehydrated, attended by owners who were in such a state of hysteria that everyone was uncomfortable. Both were scheduled as "routine" DPOs....old dogs whose time had come. In each case, when the paperwork had been done, and the dog was brought into the exam room, jaws dropped. I have never seen anything so skeletal, alive. How to speak to the owners? You are, on one hand, so cognizant of the human-animal bond...I mean, it is our life's work. You can understand how people can love their pets and have difficulty letting them go. But on the other hand, here in front of you is blatant neglect in the fullest definition. "How long has he been like this?" "Did you take him to a vet?" Both situations yielded disturbing answers. If you love something so much that you are in hysterics...and mind you, this is not a traumatic, acute situation but a progressive one....how can you let things go so far?? A.) You've had several more years with this animal that most people get with theirs, since most dogs make it to 13 or 14, max. B.) You have to have seen the dog melting away like an ice cube for the past few weeks. It should not come as some insurmountable shock that death was near.
Perhaps I speak from a more pragmatic point of view, since this process of letting go is so familiar to me.
But I cannot fathom letting my animals or my loved ones get to the point of looking like Auchwitz victims in a coma and not doing something.
It's an odd point of balance in the moment, to gently make a point to the person about being more proactive in the future, yet still remain compassionate. They should know that this is not acceptable, yet they still deserve our kindness at this dark moment in their life.
These are hard. We have prosecuted people for allowing a dog to get even remotely to that state without intervention. The only difference is that the owners of these two pit bulls came to us, and we were not called out to them.
I can still feel the washboard of ribs under her dry coat, the hip bones like carved cups. Thick, yellow mucus filled her eye sockets under sunken, glazed eyes. She must've once weighed 50-something pounds but was now 20, according to the husband. Occasional breaths were the only clue that "life" was still within. It was horrible. For all they give us, we owe them a dignified end. To keep them medically comfortable when illness and age set in, and to let them go when suffering begins. This was not dignity. It was pathetic. The wife was outside having a breakdown. The husband left the room. My boss, one of the kennel girls, and I looked at each other, still incredulous and sickened. Then I set this poor dog free. I kissed her cheek as I injected. It was like kissing a bare skull.
I hope I never see a dog so thin ever again. Or if I do, it will be in "Evidence" photos.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Where to start...?
I am a Certified Veterinary Technician.
It's not a career I exactly chose, per se. Basically, at 17, it was time to get a job. I'd always been an animal person. An anti-social, overly sensitive and ponderous kid who felt more comfortable in the presence of those with fur, feathers, fins....those without expectation and rules and judgements. Those who did not speak nor require me to speak. Trite, perhaps. But it was (and is) so. So at 17, merely for need of a job, I headed for a local veterinary hospital. It blew my mind to be given money, regularly, for bathing dogs and cleaning cat cages! Ah, the ignorance of youth.
Blah blah blah, FF through meeting a boy, moving clear across the country, marrying boy, being betrayed by boy, finally leaving boy for another boy, and settling into current situation....and here I am nearly 17 years later, still a veterinary technician. I love it. I hate it. I am embarrassed for not being something more highly valued and highly paid. It blows my mind now, not that I am getting paid for this, as before...but that I am getting paid so little for doing so much, while my peers get paid so much for doing so little quite often. Despite or because of my passive "career choice", not sure which, I am not a money person, really. I can spend frivolously with the best of 'em, yes...but I have no taste for fine things in the mainstream sense. I suppose working in scrubs and not having to buy a stylish office wardrobe does offset my salary a bit. And I firmly believe that one of the great Truths of Life is that however much money you make, you will inadvertently spend that much more. So nobody's really any better off than anyone else. Having zero credit card debt and naught but an under $1000 a month mortgage and a Honda payment as debts puts me and R. in a much better place than 90% of the population. So, the fact that I still haven't broken $30K a year in my life is irrelevant. It should be, at least. It does gall me if I stop and think about it.
Especially with what I endure in my current job. The emotional trauma, the spiritual exhaustion, the social responsibility, the shoveling of shit into the tide because some people must undertake the duty. This was a stumbling-into as well.
See, I am an animal shelter vet tech.
The things I see, you couldn't make up. It's not as tidy and black and white as a commercial with Sarah McLaughlin.
It's been exactly three years since I started here. By now, it's not the things I remember that haunt me...not the names and vague faces that I manage to recall. No. It's the ones I have forgotten. The human brain can only hold so much. It's the situations and individuals that have slipped into oblivion that bother me most.
That is what this blog is for...to capture them before they fade away.
It's not a career I exactly chose, per se. Basically, at 17, it was time to get a job. I'd always been an animal person. An anti-social, overly sensitive and ponderous kid who felt more comfortable in the presence of those with fur, feathers, fins....those without expectation and rules and judgements. Those who did not speak nor require me to speak. Trite, perhaps. But it was (and is) so. So at 17, merely for need of a job, I headed for a local veterinary hospital. It blew my mind to be given money, regularly, for bathing dogs and cleaning cat cages! Ah, the ignorance of youth.
Blah blah blah, FF through meeting a boy, moving clear across the country, marrying boy, being betrayed by boy, finally leaving boy for another boy, and settling into current situation....and here I am nearly 17 years later, still a veterinary technician. I love it. I hate it. I am embarrassed for not being something more highly valued and highly paid. It blows my mind now, not that I am getting paid for this, as before...but that I am getting paid so little for doing so much, while my peers get paid so much for doing so little quite often. Despite or because of my passive "career choice", not sure which, I am not a money person, really. I can spend frivolously with the best of 'em, yes...but I have no taste for fine things in the mainstream sense. I suppose working in scrubs and not having to buy a stylish office wardrobe does offset my salary a bit. And I firmly believe that one of the great Truths of Life is that however much money you make, you will inadvertently spend that much more. So nobody's really any better off than anyone else. Having zero credit card debt and naught but an under $1000 a month mortgage and a Honda payment as debts puts me and R. in a much better place than 90% of the population. So, the fact that I still haven't broken $30K a year in my life is irrelevant. It should be, at least. It does gall me if I stop and think about it.
Especially with what I endure in my current job. The emotional trauma, the spiritual exhaustion, the social responsibility, the shoveling of shit into the tide because some people must undertake the duty. This was a stumbling-into as well.
See, I am an animal shelter vet tech.
The things I see, you couldn't make up. It's not as tidy and black and white as a commercial with Sarah McLaughlin.
It's been exactly three years since I started here. By now, it's not the things I remember that haunt me...not the names and vague faces that I manage to recall. No. It's the ones I have forgotten. The human brain can only hold so much. It's the situations and individuals that have slipped into oblivion that bother me most.
That is what this blog is for...to capture them before they fade away.
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