I don't think I have gotten a break all weekend.
Saturday morning I got called into work. Worked for 11 hours before I
finally got home. And when I got home, I had more work to do. I had to
upload and resize photos to place on Petfinder, and had to email and
speak to more rescues about pits at the shelter. After that was all
done.. Saturday was also the boyfriend's birthday, so we celebrated
with his family and friends. *I* was supposed to take him out and treat
him to dinner, but I was so exhausted I ended up with a headache and we
opted to stay home that night.
Come Sunday, I have to work again. I had to leave by 6:30 to clean the
kennel at the vet office, and then go to the shelter. I was supposed to
only work the morning shift at the shelter, but I ended up staying all
day. And what a day it was. First thing in the morning, I'm late to the
sheler because cleaning the kennel at the vet's took a bit longer than
expected. Not more than 10 min into cleaning the main cat room(for
healthy, vaccinated, adoptable cats), a coworker called me into the
intake room.. a cage door was open, and a feral cat was missing. I had
been bitten not more than a few months back, and I wasn't going to make
that mistake again. So we got another coworker as well, collected some
heavy duty gloves, a kennel leash, and the catch pole. The cat was
hiding under one of the cages. I had to manage to manuever it and get
the noose around the neck in very cramped quarters. We finally were
able to drag it out(with a tremendous fight) and shove it back into its
cage.
But that wasn't all... we look up to the cage above it, and there is
another feral cat.. giving birth... in her LITTER box. Clumping litter
+ placenta + kittens = NOT good. The mom wasn't cleaning the babies so
I knew in the cold shelter they'd get chilled, they had hard clumping
litter all over their bodies, and they were still wet with the
umbilical cords attached. So, we got the catch pole, gloves, and a
kennel leash. Got the kennel leash around her head, got the catch pole,
had to pin her to the back of the cage while I took her babies to put
them in a litter box with blankets in it to take them to the tub room
to get the litter off of them, their cords cut, and get them all dried
off. And we had to fight with the mom to get her into a carrier and out
of her litter box to finish giving birth. That was a battle, I tell
you. All said and done, she had five kittens total. She did end up
actually taking care of the last three all on her own(because they
weren't covered in litter like the first two), but she is now back to
trying to abandon her babies now that she's in a bigger cage in the
intake room. Right now it is looking like we may keep the mom alive for
1-2 weeks just so that the kittens will have more chance of surviving,
then euthanizing the mom and either finding a surrogate mother, or
fostering and bottle feeding them.
and that day we also got in two more littler of kittens only about 4
weeks old covered in fleas - and even more adult cats, which means its
about time we have to clean house again.
which always makes the job more stressful and sad
Oh, but that's not the end of it. Right now my shelter is in terrible
financial situation. We have 9 pitbulls I had hopes of getting most
sent to rescue. Six of those nine were 8 week old puppies.. they have
coccidia. We don't have the funds to treat them, but they are getting
treated, which is ridiculous. And to top that, our most highly
adoptable, sweetest, most perfect pitbull I've ever met has Parvo. We
don't have the funds, but we are treating him as well. If I had to make
the decision considering our financial problems, I wouldn't treat him.
It just isn't smart. But I love him and part of me is glad he is. But
it is creating a HUGE burden on us kennel hands who have to try and
keep everything bleached down as to not spread it. OYE!
Have I mentioned that I'm exhausted and have a back ache?
Lol... and the vet and vet techs were worried about burnout at the vet
office's kennel!? Ya right.. that place is heaven compared to this.
