The life in a shelter

I currently work at an animal services shelter in a busy city and in the past worked for a more rural one. Shelter work is not for the faint hearted. I have seen many people come to this field of work only to realize that it’s not playing with puppies and kittens all day. I have seen parvo up close and personal, only to watch these puppies suffer and die. I then emphasize over and over again to people how important it is to vaccinate your pets. I have seen a PanLeuk outbreak in kittens and cats which devastated the shelter and caused many rooms to be placed on quarantine. Unfortunately, a lot of our decisions are based on quality vs quantity of life for many animals. I have seen things that many people can’t even fathom being reality. I can come home some days emotionally drained with barely anything left for myself. I have two kids who are over excited to see mom and want much more than I can give them, or I can be grateful that a patient pulled through and is going to survive. What many people see are kennels lined with dogs, some behaving better than others and all of varying ages. You start to see that some breeds are discriminated against in the highest form just because of how they look. You watch the “aggressive” breeds passed up over and over again. You fall in love with certain dogs because they have been there over 150 days looking for someone to just love them. Where I currently work, we don’t euthanize unless we absolutely have to. It’s not something we want to do or enjoy having to do several times a day. Some days I feel like a grim reaper with the amount of death I deal with and eventually you learn to separate out all the death and it doesn’t affect you nearly as much. What makes this profession worth it is seeing the families coming in looking for a new dog or cat and then see their eyes light up and fall in love with a buddle of fur who is just as excited to find a home with them. You see the seniors find there forever homes and the puppies getting a second chance at life. What you don’t see is all the behind the scenes work we do to keep these animals healthy and as happy as we can. We get to work earlier than most and work even longer hours, running around on our feet all day. We are physically and emotionally drained routinely. Most of us are stretched thin with the amount of work we need to complete. The animals at the shelter are treated like our own. Many people don’t see how draining this work is and others come into this field of work without the knowledge of what will be required of them. After years of doing this job and all the hurt and pain I’ve seen, I am glad to call myself a Vet Tech.