Unexpected Encounters

You may have noticed that all my paparazzo work is about dogs except for the occasional stray cat (funny!) and there has been a reason for that – my own cat Spice. He’s 16 years old, suffering from gradual kidney failure and lost almost half his body weight about a year and a half ago. We have his weight stabilized, but I want to be careful about bringing home even a kitten cough at this stage in his life.

I have given myself one reprieve to staying out of the cat adoption rooms … holidays. On the Fourth of July Charlie went with me to the WCAC to cuddle; he cuddled cats and I was cuddling dogs until I realized that there were lots of people there walking and cuddling puppies and dogs, but Charlie was the only one in the cat room. I joined him for the last half hour and had a blast. So on Labor Day I volunteered to go in and cuddle cats and kittens – Charlie chose to sleep in and take Tippi for a mid-morning walk.

There were so many kitties. I looked at all the kennel cards to find out who had not had any cuddling for the longest. Tiggy was my first of the day. The kennel attendant said he was very nice. He certainly was meowing and complaining as I stood next to his kennel. I gave him some chin scratches and even picked him up for a proper cuddle for a minute or two. I decided that he was just vocally cranky; he never scratched or bit me, but he did complain constantly. Next I opened up Scooter’s kennel. He was directly below Tiggy. He didn’t want any attention, but he wanted someone to be “with him” while he ate. So, I stood there with the kennel door open and chatted at him while he ate. I never realized that cats were “social eaters” until I discovered months ago that the longer I was in the kitchen, where Spice’s food is, the more he ate. We now keep food on my computer desk and he’ll graze while Charlie studies or while I’m surfing the Net.

My final cuddle of the day was with two tiny “Basement Kittehs.” They had been grabbing at me while I was hanging with Tiggy and Scooter, so after I had cuddled several other cats for the day I gave in to them. They were, of course, very cute. And I was able to hold them without too much trouble; my biggest complaint was that they kept biting my finger tips and knuckles looking for milk… silly kitties.

I came back on Tuesday and devoted my shift to taking photos of “puppehs.” The new “sticker” system seems to be doing great now that we have happy icon stickers instead of the Baby Blue Stickers of Death. I still prefer going from a list of who needs a photo, and now that I have access to the database as a biographer I can get their room locations… except when they’ve been moved and the database hasn’t been updated… do you hear the annoyance in my voice? I can only imagine how annoyed staff get when they try to find a dog they’ve been told to go get.

My favorites of the evening: Thunder and Jeffrey. Oh, Midnite was a ball of fluffy fun and Gizmo was a sweetie, but Thunder and Jeffrey were special. Thunder is a beautiful chocolate brown stocky lab water dog. He’s about seven years old and was just as gentle as can be. I wasn’t planning on taking his photo, but a cuddler was in with him and he just seemed so at ease with her petting him while he was eating. I took his photo through the open kennel door And although he didn’t try to make the mad escape that most dogs do he did slowly push his way out … kind of like a river barge. I finally realized that he was just about to get away from his cuddler and I went to push him back in his kennel. He is solid, there was no pushing, I had to stand directly in front of him and keep shuffling forward until he backed up into his kennel again. What a lover!

Jeffrey was another one that I wasn’t planning on taking a photo of Tuesday night. The last thing I did before leaving the floor that night was to walk through Dog Stray and see who was coming up in the ranks to go to the main adoption floor. [Side Note: Dogs come in to Dog Stray first for behavior assessment and if they are on Stray Hold it’s to make sure their owners find them before they get put up for adoption.] There he was fluffy, Chow-like, sweet disposition, available for adoption and had been in the Center for a week. I didn’t get to cuddle with him, but he got the majority of my treats and I got some good shots of him.


One last note - there were two other dogs that caught my eye that night, Batman and Tommy. Batman was some sort of Pittie mix (I can’t tell the difference). He was solid black and I saw him right after he got back from his walk. He was panting up a storm … and there it was, that was how he got his name: When he panted like that his face scrunched up, his eyes became slits and he looked like a Batman mask! Tommy, on the other hand, was just pitiful. I see on the web page that he’s become available so I hope that means he got over his initial fear. It is a crazy loud place, the Center, and this big black lab was stretched out in his kennel trying to look like one of the side walls. His eyes were huge and full of fear and his paws were quivering … that’s a Chihuahua look, NOT a Lab look … and it broke my heart. I tried to stop and talk to him, but the dogs in the kennels around us were so wound up hoping for some attention. The sign on Tommy’s kennel was right - he needed a couple of days to get use to the patterns of the Center and then maybe he’d be ready.