There is something about companion animals, how we think of them and treat them, that brings out the best and the worst of humanity. As opposed to the animals people eat, where even compassionate people generally put on blinders to avoid thinking about it, homeless companion animals are where we see the best and the worst of humanity collide. So much kindness, so much cruelty.
I reached out to a friend the other day who had recently adopted a
paralyzed kitten and I wanted to see how things were going. How was the
kitten integrating? I sensed immediately by the pause and then the crack in
her voice when she broke the silence that it wasn’t good news. After being
assessed by the veterinarians at the clinic my friend trusts, it was
determined that the kitten was in far worse condition than anyone involved
in her rescue truly realized and would very likely have a short life full of
pain and suffering. The difficult decision was made that euthanasia was the
most merciful option.
My friend, who works full-time from home, was already mentally prepared to
care for a cat with inoperable paralysis and in diapers due to her inability
to control her bowels, and she was devastated that the sweet kitten she’d
had for just a day was in pain with no hope of relief. On the phone, my
friend was questioning if anything could have been done, if she could have
rearranged her home and her life so the outcome could have been different
for the kitten. She has multiple special needs and senior animals and was
not apprehensive of the emotional, time and financial resources that this
disabled kitten would require. On the contrary, my friend was ready. Knowing
that the kitten was suffering and there was no likelihood of reducing it was
a different matter, though. She understood that euthanasia was the most
humane and compassionate outcome for this kitten but my friend did not make
the decision lightly. In fact, she was wracked with grief and self-doubt.
I tell this anecdote because it is absolutely consistent with what I have
observed in the rescue community: People who will move heaven and earth to
help animals in crisis. My friend is one of them. I have been blessed in
life to know some truly wonderful people.
fter college, I started working at a large animal shelter in humane
education and that was where I was introduced to the concept of “animal
people”. Yes, I was a vegetarian when I started there and then vegan when I
left but I cannot say I was ever in the league of these incredible rescuers
I came to know. There were the ones who would bring in feral cats they’d
trapped every week to get spayed or neutered and pay for their surgeries out
of pocket so more kittens wouldn’t be born without homes or care before TNR
was a common practice. There were the ones who would spend their winter
nights trying to catch loose dogs running in the streets. There were the
ones who bottle-fed newborn kittens who were orphaned or abandoned. There
were the ones who always adopted the hard to place animals, the seniors, the
dogs who were missing limbs, the cats who were skittish. There were the ones
who volunteered after work or on their weekends to socialize the cats and
walk the dogs, to clean the cages and help tackle the truly endless piles of
laundry.
And then there were their opposites, the ones who make working at an animal
shelter so soul-crushing, the ones who provide ample fodder for a shelter
worker’s nightmares. All these years later, they still haunt me. These are
the people who would bring in middle-aged or healthy senior animals because
they simply no longer want them, knowing that they could die. They would
surrender animals because their new love interest didn’t want them. They
would move but not look for a place that accepted animals. They would say
the dog “smells funny,” the cat is “too affectionate” or, and this is truly
one I saw, the companion animal did not match their new couch.
There was far worse that I saw at the shelter, of course. I saw dogs brought
to us with severe frostbite, kept outside in Chicago all year without
adequate shelter. I saw a cat who’d been set on fire, rubbing his raw skin
against the wires, purring with contentment at seeing a random person
outside his cage, he was still so friendly. I saw survivors of dog-fighting
rings and I won’t describe that. I saw skeletal, barely alive animals
regularly where you could count every rib. I saw things that I had to
immediately block out.
The shelter I worked at, like all decent shelters, was a refuge where
survivors of human irresponsibility and cruelty had a chance at adoption,
but if not – if they were too sick, too old, too unsocialized, too injured –
at least they were off the streets, we told ourselves and each other, at
least they weren’t suffering anymore, at least they had some moments of
human kindness. We held tight to the happy outcomes but were tormented by
the others.
One of the things I realized early into my five-year stint at the shelter
was that ample evidence of the best and the worst of humanity could be found
there. It was such an unbelievably wide and stark spectrum. The kindest end
and the most heartless end of the spectrum are the people who made the most
long-lasting impression on me; same with the animals. The ones who had a
perfect outcome and the many who could have only been offered mercy stick
stubbornly in my mind 25 years later.
The experience of working at the shelter left me with an understanding that
was new to me, that our species is capable of extremes of unfathomable
cruelty and deep, selfless altruism and love. An animal shelter is where you
see those polarities represented in great abundance every day, as well as
materialism (“This is a purebred! You should pay me for giving him to
you!”), empathy (“There’s a dog tied up in our neighbor’s yard and I wonder
if we can do anything,”), entitlement (“I don’t want this cat anymore. Come
pick it up.”) and appreciation (“Thank you for the work you’re doing. You
are superheros.”) There were people, lots of them, who called with threats,
telling us that if someone from the shelter didn’t pick up their animals
immediately, they were going to kill them, and there were people, also lots
of them, who so loved their adoption experience that they became the best
volunteers. So many ways of behaving, so many perspectives, so many
different kinds of people.
There is something about companion animals, how we think of them and treat
them, that brings out the best and the worst of humanity. As opposed to the
animals people eat, where even compassionate people generally put on
blinders to avoid thinking about it, homeless companion animals are where we
see the best and the worst of humanity collide. So much kindness, so much
cruelty.
I guess my point is, thank goodness for the compassionate ones, the ones who
are so far on the side of kindness, the ones like my friend, who was more
than willing to turn her life upside-down to give a kitten she had barely
met a chance at a good life. This alone gives me hope. I am going to ignore
her polarity now so I can just enjoy knowing that she is in the world for a
moment.
Rest in peace, kitten. You were loved, that much I know.
Return to Companion Animal Care