In the Arms of Angels

Group, please let me know what you think. I can still make changes before I bring it to class on Tuesday.

I’m seated in the education building of the Central California Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The room looks like a large cabin. It is covered in golden wooden panels from floor to ceiling. There is a wall that divides the foyer from the rest of the room. Large glass cases frame the wall on both sides. They are filled with black and white pictures, plaques, and certificates. There are four round tables on one side of the room and the other half has two rows of seats that face a television.
There are children and adults seated at the tables filling out applications. We’re all here to attend a volunteer orientation. Amanda Allen, a blond, blue-eyed young woman that looks like a college student, is busily scurrying back and forth making copies of driver licenses and California IDs. She’s dressed in a blue CCSPCA t-shirt, baggy cargo pants, and sneakers. It isn’t long before another woman in blue jeans, a white-shirt, and pink sneakers appears and takes her position in front of the room. She asks to have everyone’s attention—she is ready to begin. The first issue she addresses is the issue of the dress code. No shorts, no sandals, no flip-flops—never wear open-toe shoes. Tops and sweatshirts cannot contain any drug or alcohol references, no gang attire and “no Michael Vick” jerseys she says half jokingly. It will only be a matter of time before all the volunteers are given blue CCSPCA t-shirts. Why is blue the official color? Our host explains that one of the reasons is because blue is one of the colors that dogs can actually see. Amanda, who is seated amongst the group, informs us that some of the animals get excited when they see a person wearing a blue top because they associate the color with the shelter’s workers and volunteers. It is at about this time that our host realizes that she has not introduced herself; she is Brenda Mitchell, head of the education department at the CCSPCA.
There is something Brenda needs to make clear to the volunteers. She asks the group, “Who can tell me what the most dangerous dog is? Is it the Chihuahua, the Spaniel, the Golden retriever or the pit bull?” A young man, who’s seated to my left jokingly says, “the Chihuahua.” Brenda is served with different answers from our group, “the pit bull,” I finally say. “You’re all wrong,” she says, “the most dangerous dog is the female dog that has a litter of puppies, but it’s important that you know that all dogs can bite. There is a misconception out there that people and children must be ware the pit bull and it’s such a shame because I can tell you that pit bulls are among the most affectionate and sweetest of breeds. It’s unfortunate that they have received such a reputation because of bad people that select these wonderful dogs for bad deeds. Bad people exploit their good qualities—they are incredibly loyal and they like to please their owners. If their owner asks that they hurt other animals, they’re going to do it, they will do whatever their owners ask them to do and it is unfortunate that some of them get trained to do such awful things. Pit bulls are normally good with families who have children because they’re very intelligent, they’re good workers, and they either have a high or low pain tolerance level which means that children can poke them and bump into them without bothering the dog much. We have about 50, 000 animals that come into the shelter every year, so I can speak from experience. Surprisingly, two of the most vicious dogs that I have seen here were Golden Retrievers; Golden Retrievers are considered one of the most family friendly breeds, but any dog, under the right conditions, can bite.”
The CCSPCA has a program that is called just that, All Dogs Can Bite. It was initiated to educate people, specifically children that all dogs can bite. “Children are taught to be aware of strangers, about fire safety, and the likes, but they are not taught that any dog can be dangerous, all dogs can bite, says Brenda” All Dogs Can Bite goes to classrooms to give children this information and to teach them what to do if they encounter a dog on the street. It seeks to correct the misconception that a dog should be commanded with a forceful voice that he go home, or that a person stretch out his or her arms wide open to appear of larger size and intimidate the dog. “It might work for you,” Brenda points at the young man seated beside me who is of large stature and another man seated at the table beside ours, “and it might work for you. But it won’t work for you,” she points to a young, slim, teenage girl who is seated in the table closest to her. The best thing to do, she informs us, is to Be Boring. That is to stop, face head and gaze upward, fold arms, and position hands underneath the arm pits and remain steady. Usually the dog will sniff the person, find him or her too boring, and continue onward. What a person is never to do is to run. There is a woman who works at the shelter as a volunteer named Crystal. Her son, Tyler, was killed by a dog because he ran from it and Crystal decided that the best thing she could do was to prevent such a thing from happening to another child. She now helps educate children about dogs. The dog that killed Tyler was a pit bull mix that had a litter of puppies. “Actually, there were three dogs, but they only found blood on the mouths of two of them,” Amanda says to me. “The media is partly to blame for the bad reputation that pit bulls have. A story that reads Man Killed by Six Pit Bulls sounds better than Man Killed by Six Pit Bull Mixes, says Brenda.” If a Labrador-pit bull mix hurts anyone, attention is not focused on the dog’s Labrador lineage.
Brenda then asks our group how many of us have pets at home. The majority of us raise our hands. She then asks, “How many of you have your pets current on their rabies vaccinations?” I raise my hand with the others. “How many of you have pets that are spayed or neutered?” I consider the question, and then I too raise my hand with the others—although there are now less hands raised for this question. “How many of you have taken your pets to obedience training?” Quickly, I raise my hand. I’m proud to be a responsible pet owner. There are now less hands than before. “How many of you have your pets licensed?” Only Amanda has her hand raised. “It is very important that our workers and volunteers lead by example. We must be responsible pet owners and you will soon realize why it is very, very, very, important that we spay and neuter our pets.”
Brenda encourages our group to call the CCSPCA whenever we spot a wandering dog on the streets. It’s safer for the animal to come to the shelter than to roam the streets hungry and thirsty or risk getting injured. She says that working in the CCSPCA teaches people to view the cardboard box in a whole different light. “I will not pass a cardboard box without first peeking inside it. The cardboard box takes on new meaning here,” she says. “You wouldn’t believe where we find kittens and puppies, and dogs and cats—in cardboard boxes, in plastic bags, trash cans and dumpsters.” There are a few people who come to the shelter regularly to bring dogs that other people have dumped on their property. These people live near large fields and they constantly find dogs—sometimes litters of puppies or kittens—roaming on their property or in nearby fields and they’re kind enough to bring the animals into the shelter. Many people dump dogs on the shelter’s grounds after hours. The workers know that if dog is roaming nearby, more than likely he or she was dumped at the shelter and they have to go and capture the dog. Once, a person tied a dog to a tree in front of the CCSPCA, Brenda asked if any of the visitor’s had tied their dog out there, but he didn’t belong to anyone. He, too, was left to the care of the CCSPCA. Although she didn’t go into details, during the orientation it gets mentioned that a large dog fighting ring was discovered recently in Fresno. “Working here, we get to see the very best, and the very worst in people.”
Brenda’s next objective is to cover the areas in which volunteers can be of service. There are plenty of ways in which an individual can contribute---from unrolling newspapers, to greeting and donating to dog walkers, receptionists, cashiers, and photographers—there are many units that need the extra help, and Brenda tells us that even ten minutes a day can make a difference and help save an animal’s life. Volunteers are free to choose the area for which they would like to work.
After Brenda has covered the many areas in which a volunteer can assist, its time for the tour. There are two buildings for the cats and two building for the dogs. Two are for the cats and dogs that are adoptable and the other two for the stray cats and the stray dogs. We’re first taken into the building that houses the stray dogs. There is a large assortment of dogs, mostly mixes, but I can spot a couple of pure bred dogs including a St. Bernard and a yellow Labrador. Thirty three percent of the dogs that come into the shelter are pure breds. Brenda assured our group that a person looking for a specific breed can find one in a shelter, whether it’s an SPCA, a kennel, or a breed rescue shelter, the quest for a specific breed, however, may require that a person travel quite a distance to get what he or she wants. There is even a website that alerts a person by email when a specific animal that he or she is looking for has arrived in a shelter. Some “surrender” dogs and cats arrive complete with AKC papers that entail the history of the animal’s lineage, but these documents are destroyed for two reasons. The first is that the documents trace the animal to his or her last owner and that owner’s information has to be kept confidential. Another reason for the destruction of the documents is that dogs and cats cannot be adopted until they have been spayed or neutered and since the animals can no longer breed, the AKC documents are of little value.
In the dog buildings there are two rows of kennels. The female dogs are on one side and the male dogs on another. Leading us through this first building, Brenda spots a small mangle of dog waste in a corner, “Fred!” she cries to the other end of the aisle, “I think there may be a puppy loose.” At this point it has become difficult to understand what Brenda is saying. I am having difficulty hearing her. The kennel has become loud with the barking of the dogs, their whimpering, and our group’s cooing over the dogs. Brenda has asked that our group pay attention to the number of male dogs that are on one side and the number of female dogs on the other. I’m expecting to find more dogs on the female side, but when we have past the female section, I can see no difference. Most kennels house multiple dogs on both sides.
Next we’re taken to the building that houses the dogs that are available for adoption. On this evening, in comparison to the stray dog building, there are not too many dogs. The last kennel in this building that is nearest to the exit houses a white female pit bull named Snowflake. When she spots the crowd in the aisle she gets excited and rises on her hind legs against the kennel door. She’s wagging her tail at the group who cannot help but give Snowflake the attention that she craves. Snowflake came from the animal shelter in the City of Clovis whose policy does not permit the adoption of powerful breeds. The shelter’s manager, who’s a friend of Brenda’s, called her to tell her that they had an adorable female pit bull that had won the hearts of the workers. They did not want to euthanize her that is why Snowflake is at the CCSPCA.
The CCSPCA is not a “no-kill” shelter. There are three main reasons for which animals are euthanized. An animal that gets sick may spread disease to others and there simply isn’t enough money to treat each animal that get sick which is why any animal that is discovered to be sick is euthanized. Another reason is temperament. An animal that express irritability or mistrust of some or all of the people that approach him or her is euthanized to protect the workers. The last is, kennel stress. Sometimes it happens that an animal that has been incarcerated begins to develop kennel stress. A dog for example, may charge the kennel door or he may begin to gnaw on his coat—signs that he or she is psychologically distressed, such an animal also becomes a threat to the animals and the shelter’s workers. This is not to say that the animals are only euthanized for these reasons. There are not enough kennels to house every dog and cat that comes into the shelter, so although the CCSPCA does not give each animal a determined amount of time for adoption before he or she is euthanized, room has to be made for the newcomers so someone must determine what animals will lose their lives to make room for the new ones. One program that helps alleviate this situation is the foster program. Volunteers and employees offer to take animals into their homes until they can find permanent homes. Some foster kittens and puppies that are two young for adoption, then they either bring them back to the shelter or continue to care for them at home until they find suitable homes. Brenda herself has fostered about 195 dogs and cats.
We are then led to the building that houses the adoptable cats and kittens. It is in this room that that the group becomes distracted and has trouble listening to Brenda because the cats and kittens are meowing and extending their paws at the crowd. The young man standing beside me is forced to turn his back toward the tour guide because a kitten has clawed the shoulder of his shirt. “No one is listening to me, I can tell we have a lot of cat people in this group,” says Brenda.
Our last stop on the tour is the stray cat building. We walk into a room with about ninety kennels for the cats. Each kennel is occupied; those that house kittens contain what seems to be the entire litter. Despite everything I’ve seen and heard until now, this is the room with the most disturbing image. In the center of the aisle there is a row of stacked portable cages. The cages are so small, that the adult cats have no room to move. They are actually lying on top of their litter boxes. Their small bowls of food and water are either lying in front of their faces, or at their sides. “Look around you,” she says to us, “do you think you could possibly pick the cats that you would save, because not all of these cats are going to find homes. Only two percent are going to find homes, and seventy five percent of that two percent are going to be kittens which doesn’t leave much of a chance for the adult cats.” Earlier Brenda had said that last summer, over a period of ninety days; the shelter had collected 7,500 cats. She says that in order for each cat to be able to find a home in Fresno, a two person family would have to adopt ninety cats. Cats breed during the warmers month which is when the shelter collects their biggest number of cats and then as the weather begins to cool and winter approaches that number also declines, but if a warm winter ensues the shelter continues to collect a large number of cats for that entire year. “What is the solution to this problem?” Brenda asks our group. “Spay and neuter,” some cry out. “Alright, good job.”
The CCSPCA has other programs and services that were developed to help decrease the number of homeless animals. The CCSPCA offers either low-cost or, to those who qualify, free spaying and neutering services. Proceeds from sales collected in the on-site thrift shop support the spaying and neutering services that are provided by the shelter. They have low cost pet vaccinations, a microchip service, and it even offers free obedience training classes. They also have a reclaiming unit that helps people locate their lost pets. They take adoptable dogs and cats to off-site adoption locations to help find them permanent homes. At the last Super Adoption event that is held annually at Fresno City College they were able to place 200 animals in permanent homes. And this year at the Fresno Fair 85 animals were adopted. All these programs were created to help people and their pets. But the CCSPCA also has programs geared to help the community, such as All Dogs Can Bite and the Pet Facilitated Therapy program. The Pet Facilitated Therapy program takes carefully selected and trained animals to convalescent hospitals or assisted living centers. The shelter, however, is continuously in need of volunteers to help keep these services and programs operating. The CCSPCA has 90 employees and 500 volunteers. The majority of volunteers are not full-time and not all of these are regulars. Both Brenda and Amanda were volunteers at the CCSPCA before they were hired as employees.
After the tour, the group is taken back to the education building to collect their name tags. It is here that I thank Amanda for her help before I excuse myself. Brenda is busy helping the group with this last task before the end of the meeting. I know she’s had a long day. The shelter is open from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Wednesdays, and it is now slightly past 9 o’ clock. I know that Amanda and Brenda are two women who love their jobs.