Work stories

I don't remember how my day started, but here's how it ended:


A couple came to surrender six cats- two adults and four kittens. The guy came in while the lady sat outside with the cats and smoked. He was pretty upset about one of the cats; the others were a stray mama cat and her kittens about 10 weeks old.

He said that they were moving and weren't allowed to have any cats in their new home. I took the cats in and as he was filling out the form outside with his wife, a volunteer said, "Aren't those the people who surrendered all those cats a while back?" And sure enough, it was. The wife had used her ID on the previous visit a month ago, so the connection wasn't made immediately. They surrendered six cats on their previous visit, 5 of which had been euthanized because of socialization/health and only one survived, honestly partly because of freak show value: he's almost 40 lbs.

This prompted a rant in receiving that there is no accountability for people surrendering animals, and that "the system is broken." Amen to that.


A family came in toward the end of the day to surrender their cat, a 10-year-old declawed medium-haired female. Why? She is incompatible with our other pets. How long have you had her? 10 years. Can you tell me exactly what is going on? Well, basically... We adopted two kittens 18 months ago and decided not to declaw them. We declawed our first cat because she scratched our baby on the face, but that was ten years ago. The new kittens just beat the hell out of her because she can't properly defend herself and won't bite. So we tried keeping her in a room by herself, but she keeps peeing on everything and everyone is miserable so we're bringing her here. Are you aware that if we cannot rehome her (and her chances are worse because of her age) that she will be put to sleep? Yes.

At this point, her son tearfully says, "So, does that mean we're taking her home?" "No."

You are a terrible person. Have fun in your car with your crying child, and congratulations on teaching them how to be a responsible adult. You deserve far worse than having your priceless possessions pissed on.


A woman with her mom came to surrender her dog, a young adult "pit" mix. Looked more like a shepherd mix to me. Everyone was busy, so she got in line. The lobby was quickly filled with the stench of infection. It was so gross we almost asked her to wait outside, but she was already in and deserved to get all the dirty looks she received.

When I got to her, she said that her kids were heartbroken, but she couldn't afford to take care of the dog. This woman was immaculate and had obviously not spared any expense on herself, but couldn't be bothered to take care of her dog. When asked what the smell was, she said, "I don't know, I think she has something infected on her neck." Could it be from the collar? "That's what I thought, but it's not." Uh huh. Has she been to the vet? "Oh, yeah, she has." Which vet? "Banfield." Right.

Not only did she lie about the dog going to the vet (she'd been seen last fall, and the only concern were her nails were too long, and today they were seriously overgrown), but she tried to give me a false address and inaccurate ID. When I got the dog to the back and had a chance to look at her, I found out that the dog's collar and harness had rubbed her skin raw. Both her neck and under her armpits were infected and open. I sat with her and started removing her torture devices and waited for the vet to come.

I was livid and would have liked nothing more than to strangle the owner. And animal control couldn't do anything because they had already surrendered the dogs; animal control usually threatens owners with cruelty unless they surrender the animals immediately.

The system is broken.


That's how my day ended, dealing with those quality people, one after the other, probably all within one hour. I was ready to hide in the bathroom until the front doors locked. So exhausted.