 Barked: Tue May 5, '09 10:44pm PST |
 | |  | | Here is my short story-
A Day at the Rescue Centre
I volunteer at a pet rescue centre & sometimes things happen that aren’t planned. Well quite often these types of things happen when working with 4 legged furrys. Sometimes these things are instantly funny & sometimes it takes a little while to see the “funny” or humor in the situations. This is one of those situations.
After I started there I was so nervous the first few days. I worried about not remembering to do everything properly & not in the right order- Just general concern about doing a good job.
This was after I had been there a few months, I was really getting comfortable being there & doing my job. I had gotten pretty good at feeding everyone in the proper order & keeping track of who went where etc.
Oh it was awful! The day I lost a kitten!!
You can only imagine-I opened their cage door & out came 4 little furballs running & jumping so happy to be free & able to explore everywhere & everything. I was sure I counted 4 little furry fellows. There were 4 names on the card on the cage I knew that-I could see & I didn’t have to look real close. I did all the scooping & wiping & cleaning as with all the others. The little kittens had a great time playing with the older kittens from the other cage & Fipper the dog was laying down snoozing as usual. Everything was normal, nothing was out of place. Well as normal as it gets trying to get everything cleaned up & ready to open at 10 oclock. Until the time came to sweep & mop the floors & that meant catching all the little fellows to put them back in their kennels so we could get on with the job. Well there’s the 2 big fellows, great now I just have to catch those little one & then that’s it but I can only find 3 kittens. Oh no where is that other one? If I were a kitten where would I hide? I looked in all the kitty trees, under the desk in each shelf, no kitten anywhere! Now I’m getting concerned- I didn’t really think it would be there but just in case I went to the kitchen & asked the people doing dishes if they’d seen a cute little kitten, checked the Litter Box (that’s what we called our washroom) walked down the hallway to the back door even checking in the 3 dog kennels-not there. Well maybe it squeezed under the door & went downstairs so I checked the intake room going down the front stairs , opened the door & looked around the dog kennels , nothing there that I could see- well I will check with the girls in the yellow room cleaning the kennels down here. By this time I am really worried & getting close to tears. I open the door & everything is like any other morning-how do I say I’ve lost a kitten- its awful to admit you’ve lost a tiny little kitty but I need to find it. “Has anyone seen a kitten, I can’t find one from the bottom kennel” Kerry looked up “no we haven’t seen anything, but don’t worry I’ll check when I come up in a few minutes”. I went up the back stairs just in case somehow he got out the door to the kitchen & down the stairs but I know there’s almost no chance of that.
With the floors washed & laundry down to the laundry room I check the cat rooms just in case I let it one of them by chance. It’s almost impossible that happened but I have to check everywhere just in case.
10 o’clock is here & the girls are opening the store. Kerri stopped in the shelter to check things out for me. One look in the kennel to see 3 little guys sleeping peacefully & she said to me “well they’re all there which one is missing?” I was so close to crying-not just tears-real crying and she wants to know whose missing? She looks at the tag & looks at me & said Boggle’s been adopted-see it says that beside her name but they just didn’t cross her name out. She walked around & glanced in every cage & said everyone is here.
Have you ever felt stupid? Well I wanted to crawl into the toy bench. I was so sure that 4 kittens came out of that kennel. I could not believe I had done that!
Well it was rather humorous after a cup of coffee & a snack but it took awhile to get control of those tears that were shed.
It’s been months since that happened & now I can laugh about it. It is still vivid in my memory though- One of those things you remember!!
We have since moved to a new building & other things have happened awhile to be but never again did I do that. I from that day on I always read the tags with the names on the kennels & checked both the tags & the number of kittens that are in the kennels so I am sure of how many come out so the correct amount go back in the kennel.
From that day on I have gone to great even exaggerated lengths’ to make sure that the same number goes in that came out.
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Dogster Obsessions: The Starter Kit for Dogs by Wildebeest
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