I knew when I decided to become a volunteer at the Wake County Animal Center that it was not going to be easy. Everyone expected me to bring home a new pet weekly. After my orientation session, I realized that this job was not for the faint of heart. I learned that the difference between the county shelter and rescue organizations like the SPCA is that the shelter does not have the choice of turning animals away if they’re full. That leads to some very tough choices for the staff. I certainly wouldn’t want to be the one to have to make those kinds of decisions.
What I learned next as I met more and more of the people who work for the Wake County Animal Center is their incredible love for all the animals that come through the center. They want the strays to go home. They want the “turn overs” to find a forever home. They want the neglected ones to find loving homes with lots of good food and medical care.
They will do everything they can to make sure that everyone gets the best possible chance at finding a new home. When the shelter gets full, the people there get on the phones to find foster homes. Angeline, and now Joanne, work hard to have a growing list of people and organizations that are willing to foster animals. As of May 5, 2011 there are 38 dogs and 74 cats in WCAC foster care. That includes shelter staff who take home as many as they possibly can. Right now I think half of the staff has between two and four bottle-fed kittens they’re fostering. And when needed, other staff will call people they know to foster as well.
In a previous post I talked about how upset and angry I was about Sienna being euthanized at the shelter because of a URI. I understand why the WCAC isn’t able to be a completely “no kill” shelter, but sometimes that special dog or cat gets taken by the process, and sometimes it’s going to hit me a little hard; that’s what’s happened the last week or so.
Sometimes it’s tough on me not because the dog in question is a Chow, but because of the dog’s personality. I know I make it harder on myself by checking up on each dog I photograph to see what has happened to it. And I’m realizing that who that dog was at the time it was with me in the kennel may not be who it was with someone else.
Case in point: Raza, a beautiful Great Pyrenees, was euthanized earlier this week. The reason noted was “VERY [their emphasis] aggressive and charged one of the techs.” My first thought was “bull puckie!” Just a little over a week ago I and another volunteer spent ten minutes in Raza’s kennel putting him in costume and taking his picture. He was sweet and kept giving Jenny his paw to shake.
Then again, it has been with sadness that I have watched poor Marko slowly go kennel crazy over the past several weeks, becoming more and more aggressive until he too had to be euthanized. And the sad truth is that even if Raza didn’t go completely crazy like Marko, even one “red zone” attack makes him a danger to someone in a future home.
So, I could get angry and stop volunteering at the shelter. But if I stopped, what good would I be to all the other animals to come? So my only option is to reconcile myself to the fact that as the only intake facility in the entire county, the shelter will need a great deal of community involvement to gain “no kill” status. Until that happens, I need to be there to do what I can to get these guys adopted before they’re sent off to the Rainbow Bridge.
No comments:
Post a Comment