Work stories

Yesterday:

Couple walks in with a wicker pot cover.

"We found these three kittens. Mama's run off and they was just born yesterday."

We explained how kittens that young without a mom are euthanized immediately because they'll starve to death. The woman says she got a bottle and milk but couldn't feed them because the bottle was too big. We suggested getting kitten bottles and trying again.

"I don't want to."

Well thank you, ma'am, I'll just take those kittens off to die. Much obliged.

Then they ask if I have something to put the kittens in. I say yes, prepare a transfer cage and place the kittens in it. As I'm walking away, they place the basket on the donation rack. Thanks for making me handle these kittens for no reason.

I left them screaming in the euthanasia room.

Today:

An old guy, maybe 70, 80, walks in and says he needs to drop off his dog. I explain the process and probable outcome and ask him to bring the dog in because it is too hot to be in a car, even with the windows rolled down.

Why are you surrendering the dog? "I have comp'ny and they don't like him, so I have to get rid of him." How long are they staying with you? "About a week." You could board him for a week. If you leave him here, he'll probably be put down. *shrug*

As I enter his information in, I notice he'd surrendered another dog about 3 weeks ago. "That was his mother." Would you like to know what happened to her? "Did y'all put her down?" Yes.

I renamed him Inigo.

Brilliant gems of the day

1.
Two children walk up to the front desk, one about 13 and the other about 8. Both are awkwardly holding scruffy dogs by their armpits. 
"Hi! We'd like to donate our dogs!"
"You mean surrender them?"
Yes!
We don't have any open kennels, so there's a high chance your dogs could be euthanized if you surrender them.
-blank stare-
Put down...?
-blank stare-
Put to sleep?
Oh! But they wake up, right?
No.
Ohhh. So you mean...?
Yes. Dead.
-sad face-

2.
A woman walks in. She is pushing a stroller with a baby in it, holding a toddler by the hand, carrying a half-full large bag of dog food and holding a chain leash to a boxer. She only has two hands, and the baby in the stroller is flailing about and the boxer looks frazzled, almost as frazzled as her owner.
"I need to drop my dog off."
"We don't have any open kennels, and there's a high chance she might be put down."
Oh, but she's a very nice dog.
It doesn't matter. If we don't have space, we don't have space. The only way would be if we took another dog and put her in their kennel, and we don't want to make that decision. I'm sure you wouldn't want to go back there and decide which dog goes to make space for her.
You mean, I can go and choose a puppy and put her there instead?
No.

Work story

A gem from yesterday, because I am too tired to type the others. This one takes it, though.

A lady comes in with two separate cat carriers and her 10-year-old daughter. There is a kitten in each carrier. She puts a pink carrier on the counter and says, "I need to surrender this kitten." How long have you had it? "Oh, I just got it yesterday." Where?"Franklin County." Is it friendly and healthy? "Well..."

The kitten is dying. It is a 2 month old black and white kitten. Its eyes are almost completely crusted shut, its eyes are closed, it is breathing fast out of its mouth. I am absolutely shocked when she opens the carrier. That kitten is dying. "Oh, no, I just came from Banfield and they said it's fine, it just doesn't feel well." No ma'am, that kitten is dying. Someone lied to you. That's not normal. Did they give you any medicine? "No." Then you need to go back and yell at someone for not telling you your kitten is dying.

Real story, partially inferred, mostly pieced together from conversations with the doctor from Banfield and staff from Franklin County Animal Control:

Woman adopts two kittens for $25. Kitten appears to have an eye infection or cold, but woman insists that she will take kitten to vet and take care of it. Woman takes kitten to vet next day, kitten is severely congested but woman declines medicine and states she will simply surrender kitten to shelter because she cannot afford treatment. ONE HOUR LATER, kitten is presented with what appears to be moderate to serious URI (upper respiratory infection; read: cold) exacerbated by heat exhaustion. Despite claiming to have gone directly from vet to shelter, it is suspected that kitten was left in car for at least half an hour while family presumably ate lunch.

5 more minutes in the car, and that kitten would have died.

Not to mention the cat that wasn't surrendered. What the hell is going to happen to that cat?

During our conversation, I was sure that the kitten was going to die before I could even get it back to euthanasia. In fact, its head lolled back and its mouth was hanging open for most of the conversation.

Luckily, though, our 20 minute process enabled the kitten to cool down, and he even perked up when I put his carrier on the table in euthanasia. When the techs went to put him down, he was lively enough that they took him to vet treatment instead, where they got some fluids in him. He's dehydrated with moderate URI, but alive.

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.

Work stories

2 most notable stories of the day, both sad for different reasons. 

Story one: This lady comes in to adopt a kitten that she had previously canceled her deposit on and then uncanceled, so of course I think she's a flake. Turns out her brother-in-law was killed by an underage drunk driver and she inherited his two teenaged sons, so she's understandably nervous about taking on more responsibility. But she decided to go forward and even adopt an adult she also fell in love with. We wait the ten minutes for both cat and kitten to get FIV/Felv tested. 

Of course the adult turns out to be Felv+ and is euthanized, so I have to give her a refund, apologize profusely and congratulate her on her kitten as she cries her signature onto all the paperwork. 

Kill me. 

Story 2: This woman with a bad attitude comes in with a cat in a carrier so scared he crapped in it. She proceeds to tell us how she needs to return the cat to us because he isn't using the litter box and she is getting married and moving in with her fiancé who doesn't want the cat. She has other cats and of course he hasn't been to the vet, but he's a perfect cat otherwise and oh wait he's from the SPCA, what do you mean it's not the same? 

When reminded that her contract requires her to return him from whence he came, she becomes indignant and says there's a moving truck in front of her house. 

Then she has the nerve to ask if we can get the cat shit out of her carrier. Are you f*ing kidding me?! She's lucky I didn't piss in it myself and stuff the whole mess down her throat.

Every. Day.

Sacagawea

A beagle got reclaimed today. Weird, in itself. At first I wasn't impressed with the owner, but after speaking with her and thinking about it a little, I'm glad she's being such a responsible pet owner. First off, the beagle was her first pet, and she'll readily tell you that a beagle is a terrible first dog. She won't be getting another. She also asked why unaltered animals cost more to reclaim than spayed/neutered animals, and after explaining, she said, "Yeah, I should get her spayed." Hopefully she'll do that. Then, we started talking about beagles in general and I told her how nice her little girl looked and told her that the two I've had (temporarily) had yeast skin infections. She said, "She does, too." I honestly couldn't tell. This may be the first beagle that's been reclaimed to a decent owner who actually cares about quality of life. After all the idiots and jerks, it's nice to meet someone different.

Kittens!

I've been working cats for a while. There's only one other KA who likes cats, and I don't mind, so that's what I do.

A while back, I pulled this guy from stray:

They named him Dark Angel and put him in CQ. This is back when we were at capacity and were fighting for every free space.

The front desk offered to put him up front in a kennel with them, so at least people could see him when they walked in. He had a huge sign saying he was available and awesome.

Soon after, a litter of kittens that had been running around behind the front desk were discovered to have panleuk and euthanized. DA was quarantined to his kennel. Probably fine because of age and never actually touching the floor, but at risk because of being a stray and possibly coming into contact with things/people the kittens had touched.

He was adopted anyway =)

That's when I found another kitten in stray but didn't pull him because he was sick. Receiving wanted him checked before they put him in CI for treatment. He waited for vet attention for 3 days. Finally, someone from receiving checked him themselves, and he had sores (indicative of calici). He was euthanized. Had the vets looked at him earlier, he would either have been euthanized or treated, but wouldn't have spent those three days rotting in the feral room. I'm still upset about that.

Week before last, I tried to stay in CQ as much as possible because of recent panleuk "outbreaks." On two separate occasions, about a week apart, kittens were found with panleukopenia. On the second occasion, in an effort to contain the outbreak, a dozen kittens were euthanized. I'm not sure how much about that I can say here, but someone should have been fired, no one has been, and I am still pissed about this.

Despite my best efforts, the past two weeks I've been in CS, the feral room. There were some cats and kittens I was monitoring and thinking of pulling, but luckily someone got to them first.

Mickey So Fine "feral"

Mickey So Fine "available for adoption!"

Poor Mickey. I don't know what happened to him before he got to us, but he has some pretty ugly marks on his face, what looked burns to me. You can kind of see them in the pictures. He was not ready for the floor, in my opinion, but it's better than being in the back. Hopefully he'll come around.

This past Saturday I pulled four kittens:

They named the first one after me, not knowing there were three more on the way.

Rasin & Craisin

First, I just pulled Rasin and requested his name be Raisin. Little spelling error, oh well. Then I decided to pull his brother, Craisin, the wee one in the back, in hopes that some time in CQ would help him out. Miraculously, he decided he wanted to be nice, too, and he got put on the adoption floor.

This is my favorite:

Haymitch "feral"

Haymitch "available?"

Not sure if he made it to the adoption floor yet. He had a pretty nasty booboo on his neck. Said it looked like a pustule. Ick. He is absolutely stunning and a wonderful, snuggly purr box. I was tempted to bring him home, but he needed to be looked at by the vets. I guess he looks like Zsasz to me. We still miss him.

UPDATE: Haymitch went into foster, got very fat, and was adopted by a lovely family.

It's been pretty busy in the cat rooms. We have a new volunteer who has been doing a fantastic job cuddling and adoption counseling. There have been some notable adoptions, but we could always use more.

Now, for another week. We'll see what happens.