the spca
I was in my early 20′s, going to school full time and working full time. But that didn't matter, all I wanted to do was volunteer my time at the SPCA. I went there every week and woke up early on Saturday mornings to help out. It was run mostly by volunteers and meager staffing. There was a white board with a grid map of all the dog kennels - each one named and when the last time a volunteer walked, washed or checked on them. Oftentimes the scariest dogs were the ones that spent days in row inside -without an update on the white board. They were hard to handle and if you didn't have a relationship with the dog it was challenging to safely take them out. That happened to me a few times. But the dogs that were most desirable didn't stay long. It’s hard to judge the character of a dog when its been caged for days in a scary environment. It had fenced in yards where you could play with the dogs and every morning I went I would make it a point to get as many dogs as I could out to play for as long as I could.
One day I got an email asking for volunteers for the surgical department and I had no idea what it entailed but I jumped on the opportunity. When I showed up at 5am the first time, I was with a vet tech who showed me the surgery room, how to set up trays, supplies, how to sterilize. She sent me with a list of dogs and cats to gather and prep for surgery. The Vet rolled in and began setting up equipment and was ready to get to work immediately. The Vets that came to do the surgeries (spaying/neutering/other medical operations) came completely of their own accord and got no compensation whatsoever for their time. They just wanted to do it (at 5am on a Saturday morning, go figure). We would get the animal ahead of time, put it under, shave it, iodine it, and have it ready to go on an operating table the second the vet had closed up the previous animal. We only had a certain window of available time and sorted through as many animals as we could. Most times a Vet Tech was in there helping us but some times it was just a few volunteers and the Vet. I got to see so much and it was an amazing experience to help out. When I started getting more comfortable and capable in that environment I was given more to help out with and more to take charge of.
One day, during our surgery session, a Vet Tech brought in a dog she was fostering. He was a large grey pit bull with internal bleeding. He was bleeding bad. I think something in him wasn't closed up completely from his previous surgery. He was pouring out buckets of blood. I was rushing around grabbing fresh towels after towels and putting used ones in a bucket that was practically filling with blood while they tried to get him down on the table. But the issue was he was bleeding too bad for anyone to know where the blood was coming from internally. We couldn't soak it up fast enough for the Vet to find the source. And we were short-handed that day. I stood next to the Vet while she calmly panicked and demanded towels to soak up the blood. There must have been six hands in that dog at one time including mine. I used so many rags and finally with quick persistence the vet was able to see where it was coming from and put a stop to it. She handed me an instrument attached to the insides of the dog and told me to hold still while she worked. I’ll never forget that adrenaline. We all thought we were going to lose that dog. It was rough, but the dog would be sealed up and sent to recovery.
One particularly bad day, we operated on a small white kitten who had just hit an expectable number of weeks to operate on and we wanted to get her up for adoption. The vet was nervous about operating on something so small she could barely find her parts. The male surgeries where “easy”, the females were a little more complicated. Before long I started to realize the Vet was taking longer than she should have. She was having trouble fixing something. It was me, the Vet, and two other girls in there. We tried to help but there was only so much we could do and time was running out. It got to the point where there was no fixing it. And no turning back. And the Vet had to call it. You could see on her face that this part of her job wasn't pleasant for her. One of the younger girls started crying in the operating room and had to leave to wait in the hallway. I stayed to help the Vet. It just seemed like a terrible truth to run away from when you knew what was going to happen anyways. I was there when the Vet decided to pierce her heart with a needle as quickly and painless as possible. She told me she would take the kitten home to bury her on her own property since it was her fault and her responsibility. I was used to death. Loss was all around me growing up and taught to me through some very hard lessons. When I was 6 I had my own kitten who became my constant sidekick and best friend. One day when I called her home, she wasn't walking right and bleeding from an accident or a fight. The Vet I took her to couldn't save her. She spent the night with me hiding in the pantry floor until she died in my arms. My mom told me life was teaching me to have the strength to know loss.
Sometimes in the back hallways of the SPCA I would see stacked up crates and kennels that would be picked up later to be brought to the other location. I knew what that meant. I would walk by trying to pretend I didn't see them. Pretending like I didn't know the truth of what happened to some of the overflow of animals. I know you cant save them all. Maybe you don’t have to. Maybe just one or two here and there. And maybe that’s all that counts in the end. That you did what you could.
