About a year and a half ago, I was ready to adopt a new cat. Town Lake was the only place I considered going, because adopting at TLAC really does save an animal’s life. On the website, I saw a picture of the cutest cat in the world, so I went in to meet him. His location was noted as ISO-1, which I learned was where staff and volunteers care for the sick cats. After looking at all the other animals, I got taken over to meet this little guy. He looked at me with big blue eyes (one all infected and gooey), rolled over to ask for a tummy rub and I fell in love. Frankie is now the king of my house and the kitten of my heart.
Frankie! Who lost his eye to an infection but us still so very loved!
When I was ready to start volunteering about a year after I adopted Frankie, working in ISO-1 was something I was very interested in doing because I was so grateful to the volunteers who had worked to get Frankie well. I got a crash course in administering breathing treatments, monitoring eating habits, force feeding cats that have stopped eating, and record keeping. The ISO-1 volunteer group is responsible for special care for as many as 20 cats at a time that have upper respiratory infections. Shelter life causes URIs to spread quickly through cat buildings. Having a unit like ISO-1 makes us able to save hundreds of cats a year.
Kitties getting a nebulization treatment at TLAC
I expected to enjoy working with the cats, and I expected it to be rewarding to see cats get well and move on to happy adoptions. It has exceeded my expectations, though. I hadn’t realized that there are so many wonderful cats in the world, and I’m grateful to get to spend time when they need love and care the most. There’s not much better than hearing the name of a cat that I helped nurse back to help get called over the P.A. because it’s being adopted.
What I didn’t expect was how much I would enjoy the people that I work with. Every day that I’m at TLAC, I get to work with the caring staff. I could never have imagined the amount of work that the vets, vet techs and animal care staff do to care for these poor, miserable kitties. I love also that they solicit and respect the thoughts of the volunteers about the condition of the cats. The volunteer team is wonderful as well. I’ve made a few extremely good friends who encourage and inspire me with their humor, sensitivity and dedication.
The other day someone stopped me in the shelter’s parking lot to thank me for volunteering. My response was “Oh, no! Don’t thank me! I’m so lucky that I get to do this!” I really am lucky, even on the days that I’m up to my elbows in canned cat food and cat snot. It’s the best volunteer job I could imagine.
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