Humane Society

Appearantly I don't communicate enough about what I am doing other than complaining about work. I started volunteering and the Humane Society again. I had such a hard time when I did it for six months a couple of years ago but I felt that need to start doing something productive and stimulating other then school and work. I still find it difficult going in there week after week and seeing the same cats over and over again until they get taken away for one reason or another that normally doesn't have to do with adoption. My ultimate goal is to be able to be an adoption counselor, but I'm finding the training and mentoring sessions very tedious and difficult to schedule because of work/school. Another depressing part is seeing how irresponsible people treat their animals and the reasons why most animals arrive to the shelter. It's mainly a moving situation but more often then not it's because of neglect. Breaks my heart.
So my average day of volunteering starts with me coming in and saying hi to the front desk girls and grabbing my volunteer apron. I mainly work with the cats and hardly work with the dogs because most of the volunteers work with the dogs and the cats don't get enough attention. I always sanitize like crazy. A couple weeks ago, some idiot, either a worker, guest, or volunteer didn't sanitize between kennels so they had a massive outbreak of kennel cough. Look it up. Not pleasent. So I spent most of the shift cleaning the kennels and trying to clean the cats eyes and nose and cuddle them so they are warmer and the fever isn't so unbearable. Anyway, I come in a see who is meowing the loudest and go take them into the aquiantance rooms and play with them for a bit. I normally do this for about an hour and then move to the unpleasent tasks... Making sure the litter is full and pooper scooping, water, food, fresh towels, fur brushing, etc. I try to see if the workers need me to help with anything, then I peace out unless I want to cuddle some more.
The down side to this is that I have to shower and wash my clothes right away or else Gwen can get super sick. I haven't been the best at keeping her up on her shots, but even if she was fully vaccinated, she would still be extremely succeptible. I also get pretty depressed for the rest of the day, but I think it's worth it, because my ultimate goal in life, besides being on E! is to be able to help drive for harsher punishment for animal cruelty and to find a solution of overpopulation of cats and dogs.
Lately, there has been a lot of talk to about registering convicted animal cruelty offenders on a list like a sex offenders list. I have listened to both side of the arguement and can see how this might affect some people negatively, I can also see how it will help deter more crimes and prevent further abuse. I for one would like to know if my neighbor has been convicted so that I know if Gwen should be allowed to go outside or not. I also might have a little skewed vision on animals and see them as innocent and defenseless as children. The down side of this is that punishment for animal cruelty is not as harsh as it probably should be. Each state is different on their laws, but for the most part, the awful stories I read about normally end in maybe a year in jail. Let me remind everyone that serial killers start out as animal abusers... Shouldn't someone who has a tendancy to torturing innnocent animals be sent to a correction facility to be rehabiliatated?

Anyway, enough of my rant, I mainly just wanted to say enough of the cruelty jokes, it affects me personally now.