In their words
BY TY PHILLIPS
BEE STAFF WRITER
Last Updated: June 11, 2006,
05:30:22 AM PDT
It is early morning at the Stanislaus County Animal
Shelter. And for you, the animal care specialist,
the day opens in minor chords. You walk to the
computer and print out the list of dogs that fill
dozens of the agency's kennels. You sit there with
your coffee, highlighting in yellow marker the ones
that have been here for five days.
They've all got a story.
Someone stopped loving him. No one ever loved her.
He got too big. She started chewing on sprinklers.
He bit a child. Her owner is out of town, and the
house sitter noticed the dog got out but didn't
bother to call the shelter. Whatever happened,
it doesn't matter now: Their time is up.
You move to the first noisy cage. As you
open
the door, a few dogs try to escape, while others
cram themselves into the far corners to avoid you.
Everyone on the outside says the animals have no
idea what's coming, but you've seen too much
proof to the contrary. Yes, on some sad level,
they know.
You squeeze into the cage and slip your leash,
your noose, around the neck of one. You lead him
back to the gate and open it just enough for you
to squeeze through. You pull his head closer to
the gate, and get ready. Then you jerk him out
quickly and slam the door so the others don't
get out. He's scared and whimpering, looking
around frantically,but he does what he's told
and follows you, faithfully, to the end of the line.
The killing room is a large,
cold place with a
small row of metal cages along one of the
concrete walls. There's a large,stainless-steel
table in one corner, holding syringes, needles
and bottles of tranquilizer and Fatal Plus, a
solution of sodium pentobarbital that usually
kills within seconds.
As a co-worker readies the syringe,
you're kneeling, holding the dog still, cuffing
one leg with your hand. Sometimes you have
to fight them. Sometimes the battle is so fierce,
you resort to forcing them between a gate
hinged on a wall, immobilizing them long
enough so you can get the needle in.
But not this time. This one's calm.
He trusts you. He even gives you his paw:
He's obviously someone's pet. So you
stroke his head softly as the co-worker
finds a vein. Then, just like that, he melts
in your arms. You grab his paw again
and drag his limp body to a corner.
One by one, you lay them out on the
cement floor. One by one. Though county
records show roughly 15,000 animals
are killed each year at the shelter,
it's a number, like eternity,
that defies comprehension. But when one
considers the solitary act of each animal
death, and the people who do the dirty work,
the number 15,000 comes into better
focus. One death is a tragedy; anything
more than that is just a statistic.
On this morning, and every morning,
there will be about 15 to 20 of these
canine executions, not counting the
ones that come in throughout the day
that are injured or unadoptable.
As you walk to the cages toretrieve
another, the anger swells inside you.
Because you know most of this daily ritual
easily could be avoided. Spay and neuter,
people, you say to yourself. Spay and neuter!
Time runs out on a mother pit bull
and her
puppies. When she showed up here last week,
your only hope was that she wouldn't give
birth before her five days were up. But she did.
You hardly could stand to watch
her care for
her pups, licking them, dragging them around
to protect them. Finally, you gave in and fed her
treats, telling her, "That's a good
girl."
Because, sadly, you knew all her efforts were in
vain. This day always comes. Once you've got them
all gathered in the room, you put her down first.
Because you've learned the babies cry when they're
injected, and that only adds stress to the mother.
One by one. One after another.
You stack the singles
into piles. You load the piles into 55-gallon barrels.
You push the barrels into the walk-in freezer, where
rows and rows of barrels fill completely about
twice a week. The barrels are emptied
into trucks.
It's like a factory here. And they call this a shelter?
The stench of death permanently
haunts the air:
It's a dull fragrance you won't forget the rest of
your life. Someday years from now, you'll be
served food at a restaurant, and something will
trigger the memory of that awful smell. Just like
that, the meal will be over. You wash your hands
incessantly; trouble is, what you're trying to clean
doesn't go away with soap and water.
That would
take a psychologist,better than the one you have.
An hour into it, you're nearing
the last of the
morning's kill. Next up is an adorable pop-eyed
Chihuahua you had thought someone might claim.
Or adopt. You start for her, but then you make a
grave mistake: You look into her eyes. In a flash,
your mind acknowledges that this is a living,
breathing thing. Damn dog, now she's under
your skin. Suddenly, you can't bring yourself
to do it. Not this one. Your back yard already
brims with the dogs and cats you've personally
spared over the years, and there's simply no
more room. So, you sneak her off the list and
move her to another kennel. Your day off is
tomorrow, and you just put it out of your mind.
That's all you can do.
Now, through the bars, you spot the big mongrel
You squeeze into the cage, and he moves away.
He's scared and hungry; he's not the alpha male
in this lot, so he hasn't eaten in five days. And who
knows what he went through before he ended up
here? So you kneel and call to him in a pleasant
voice. Now he's wagging his tail because he
thinks you're going to rescue him from this awful
place.
You get him outside and pet him to try to keep
him calm. But he's excited, jumping up and down,
because you helped him out of the chaos. You're
his friend now; he'll follow you anywhere. So you
lead him toward the room and he trots along
happily.
But halfway there, something shifts in him. You
figure he's starting to smell that stench coming
from the freezer. Yes, on some level, they know.
He starts jerking his neck back, using his front
legs to try to pull you back. The more you fight
him, the more he realizes he should fight.
So you drag him the rest of the way.
Once you get him into the room, he's still
fighting pretty hard. Your arms are getting
tired. To get him to the table, you both trip
over piles of dead dogs that now cover the floor.
Finally, you get him stopped. The soft talk helps
a little, and you're able to hold him still enough
for the co-worker to find a vein. Once it's in,
you let go. He moves away, woozy. They don't
always die immediately. He wanders over to
the corpse of another dog, and sniffs it a little
before collapsing onto the floor.
Spay and neuter, people!
Leaving the room, you remember something
you wanted to tell a co-worker. She's working
alone in the cat room, putting down several
dozen to start her day. You open the door, but
the scene makes you forget what you wanted to say.
There she is, sitting in a corner, crying,
surrounded by dozens of dead cats that litter the
floor. You make eye contact and get ready to say
something, but she waves you off. It's a quick shake
of the head that says, "I'm fine; just leave me alone."
So you do. For those who do this for a living, it's
mostly business as usual, life goes on. But there are
occasional meltdowns. Not to mention divorce,
denial, alcoholism, nightmares, antidepressants
and all sorts of other ugly side effects.
Walking away from the cat room, a simple
question
forms in your head,one that plagues you often
throughout your days here: Does anybody care
about animals? Anyone at all?
Inside, you know there are thousands of people, just
like you, who cherish their pets and treat them like
family. Or even royalty. Working here, you rarely
see those folks. They take care of their animals.
Instead, you get the people who
- before business
hours - drop off a cardboard box of mangled kittens
that were used to train pit bulls to fight dirty.
Usually, they just toss the dead alongside the road
somewhere, but for some reason,
someone brought
these in. You open the box to discover all but one
are dead, and the only one alive is using its front
legs to crawl toward you because its back legs are
crushed.
Or you get the people whose hobby is trapping
feral cats and bringing them to the shelter.
Once you asked about strange lines etched into
the stick they use to hold the trap shut,
hoping you were wrong. But, yes, like notches
in a gun, that's how they track how many cats
they've captured. It's a game to them.
Or you get the man who brings in three kittens
in
an ice chest he placed in his trunk. In the middle
of summer. When you open the lid, most of the
horror has played out. You look up and scold him,
asking him what he was thinking. And he shrugs.
Not like it matters, he says, they didn't belong
to anyone.
Or you get the people who pull up in a moving van
to drop off their family pet, saying that they can't take
the dog with them and that they were unable to find
the animal a home. They drive away, conscious clear,
leaving the dirty work for you.
Like you're some kind of sin-eater.
And to think, you took this job because you
wanted to save animals. Standing there at the
kennels, lost in the flashbacks, you ask yourself
again: Does anybody care? Anyone at all?
A friendly face pops into your mind.
Yes, there is one, you finally remember, trying to
cheer yourself up. That poor young woman from
the west side, the one who's been coming by
twice a week for the last six months, looking for
her beloved red Doberman pinscher. She keeps
asking you, "How long should I keep looking?"
And you keep telling her, "As long as your heart
needs to." Who are you to take away hope?
And now, come to think of it, you did notice a
nice-looking Doberman in the back kennels
this morning. Nah, couldn't be, you think.
He disappeared six months ago. But, needing
a miracle, you go and check anyway.
You look him over for a while. There is some
red in his coat, but you're not certain.
Cautiously, you have someone call
the woman.
Be sure to tell her we're not sure, you say, but
let her know we might have her dog. An hour
later, the woman is scurrying through the hall
toward the back kennels. You can barely keep
up with her.
I think I hear him, she keeps saying excitedly.
She keeps calling out his name. All you hear is
what you always hear: the deafening din of
scores of barking dogs. When you get to the
back kennels, a lowered metal guillotine door
is keeping everything outside. So you raise
the door, and 80 pounds of frenetic dog come
bounding inside, wildly running around
the cage. You think to yourself, how would he
even know she was coming? Yes, on some level,
they always know.
Just like that, this huge dog plasters itself
against the chain-link fence, licking the
fingers of a woman who's pressing herself
against the fence, too. The scene is
reminiscent of lovers on a beach. It's him,
it's him, she keeps saying. All the while, this
enormous dog is emitting the strangest
high-pitched yipping you've ever heard,
almost like a puppy.
Overcome with emotion, the woman sinks to the
cement gutter and starts sobbing into her hands.
You sit next to her to offer some comfort. Then,
before you know it, you're right beside her,
bawling uncontrollably. She's crying because
her life is complete again.
And you're crying because, after working this job,
your life never will be the same. Because for every
animal that leaves with its owner,
half a dozen are hauled off in garbage trucks.
No, you think, wiping away the tears,
this is no place for an animal lover.
Personal note to you:
If you think this happens elsewhere and not here,
it does, on a smaller scale. There are times when
adoptions are slow, like this past June. It's still
real bad for the cats and kittens. But things ARE
better than they used to be and in comparison to
other area shelters. And it's all because of you,
our overall adoption rate is up, way up. Please
keep doing what you are doing and adopting.
Thanks for doing what you can, it has made a big
difference.Please get involved in our fundraisers.
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