THEA
“Thank you.” I took my coffee from the young woman behind the counter. I had ordered the extra-large with an extra shot of espresso. I needed it to get through what I just knew was going to be a wild day.
With my go-go juice in hand, I walked to my car. My black scrubs made people think I worked in a hospital or the medical field. They would cringe if they knew I wore black scrubs to hide the pee, poop, and drool I spent my day wallowing in. And the pet hair was easy to get off. My job was not glamorous, but for the most part, it was rewarding.
I drove toward the industrial side of the city. It wasn’t pretty. There were more abandoned warehouses than occupied ones. It seemed like every month another business was shuttering their doors. The neighborhood was slowly getting worse. Thugs, drug dealers, and people up to no good seemed to be drawn to the area. So far, Paws in Hand Animal Haven had been left alone. It could have something to do with the twenty dogs we had inside.
I parked my car in the back of the warehouse. I could hear the dogs barking inside. That usually meant it was feeding time. I unlocked the back door and let myself in. One of the volunteers, along with my best friend, Ally, were already inside.
“Good morning, ladies,” I said.
“Good morning,” Ally replied. “I hate to start your morning off with a bang, but there was a gift left at the back door.”
I groaned and dropped my head. It happened all the time. We had cameras, but it didn’t matter. Either they left the animals at our back door, or the animals were left to fend for themselves on the street. “What exactly was in the gift?”
“Four kittens,” the volunteer, Maya, answered. “Probably about six weeks.”
“Healthy?” I asked hopefully.
“They looked great to me,” Ally said. “Nice coats, no icky eyes, and relatively fat.”
“Thank God,” I muttered.
“We put them in the intake room for now,” Ally said.
“Do you guys have the feeding under control?” I asked.
“We do,” Ally said.
I left them and made my way up the stairs to our office and storage areas. It wasn’t exactly convenient, but we needed every inch of space on the bottom floor of the large warehouse for kennels. Upstairs housed some of the other critters we took in.
We had a room with a few parakeets that were hoping for homes. I walked past the closed door with the beautiful picture of a parrot taped outside. The room next to it housed the many guinea pigs, hamsters, and ferrets we ended up with. At times, we even ended up with mice, which always seemed strange considering we fought so hard to keep mice out of the building.
My office was in the corner. It was large and could probably be really nice given a little energy and money. I just couldn’t see spending money to make my office look pretty when there were so many other things that needed funding. I flipped on the light and did my best to ignore the clutter.
I didn’t spend a lot of time in my office. It wasn’t that I didn’t have a mountain of paperwork to do. I just didn’t have enough time in the day to do it. It usually went home with me. After dropping off my purse, pulling my long brown hair into a messy bun, and just getting right with the world, I left the office to start the day.
Our kitten room was on the other side of the birds and rodents. We even had reptiles from time to time. Thankfully, that room was currently empty. I loved animals, but reptiles were not animals in my opinion.
It was hard to have a bad day when it started off cuddling kittens. The kittens were kept separate from the adult cats. The babies in the room were very young and not quite ready for adoption.
“Good morning, kitties,” I cooed as I walked in the door.
A few were already up in their cages and playing with their littermates. Others were still sound asleep. I couldn’t resist loving on a few of the friendlier ones while I put out the food and refilled water bottles. After taking care of them, I fed the birds and the guinea pigs before going back downstairs. We had a few volunteers coming in later that would handle cage cleanup. Without our volunteers, we would sink. I liked to think I was superwoman, but I wasn’t. I would never be able to keep up.
“I’m opening the doors,” I hollered. My voice echoed around the space. Cement floors did nothing to quiet the echoes.
I unlocked the front doors and sent up a small prayer there would be a flood of people wanting to adopt a pet. Ally knocked on the window of the intake room. She held up one of the kittens and smiled. I opened the door and popped my head in. “They look good,” I said.
“I’m going to move them into the quarantine room,” she said. “I already put them in the system. Maya is anxious to name them.”
“It’s all her,” I said. “I’ve run out of names. I’m resorting to the alphabet at this point.”
She passed the kittens off to Maya, who carried them upstairs to one of the many quarantine rooms we used. We couldn’t risk infecting the other kittens with any viruses. Ally and I took our usual seats behind the semi-circle desk that stood in the center of the area. I had tried my best to make the old warehouse inviting and comfortable. We had chairs for those waiting for an application to be approved.
“I’m going to get George,” Ally said. “He’s going to get adopted today. I just know it.”
I turned on the computer, thrilled to see there were numerous applications submitted for a number of our animals. I hoped it worked out. I needed these animals to find homes. Ally returned a few minutes later with George on a leash. George was a mutt. There was no kind way to put it. He was what my dad would call a Heinz 57. It was almost impossible to identify his breed. I was guessing lab, collie, maybe even a little pittie. But he was the kindest, gentlest—if not a little on the ugly side—dog I had ever seen.