Scrubs

[shakatany]

Yesterday at the crack of dawn (well 6:30 am which is pretty early for me as I'm an owl not a lark) I woke and donned my borrowed scrubs and about an hour later we were at PAAWs where a delegation of cats greeted us at the door. At PAAWs the cats waiting to find homes are not kept in cages but have their own room to live and play in with practically everything a cat could want except for that forever home (of course there are cages for newly brought in or sick cats until they are ready to join the general population). My first job was to scoop the poop which I did until I was called to help elsewhere. The vet arrived a short time later and soon patients were showing up for their operations. It was fortunate that I was there as they were extremely short-handed that day. Once again I got to assist the vet as he spayed or neutered 3 dogs and 10 cats. This year I learned how to glue the wounds shut which the vet now does to keep the wound closed over the stitches as added protection. One tiny cat had three huge cysts on her ovaries and one dog was monorchid so he had only one descended testicle so the vet, with CM assisting him, had to go digging in the body to find the other one. I moved the post-op patients to the heating pads that kept them warm while they recovered from their surgery. The anesthetic is a diuretic so a few patients let loose floods of urine, and once, trying to move a recovering cat out of one carrier into another, I got a mouthful of spray of some mixture of body fluids so I rushed to get a Coke to wash out the taste (it was my third soda of 2008 - ordinarily I am not a soda drinker). Aside from a few scratches that was the worst of my "wounds". Finally when most of the patients had left I got to play some more with the cats and kittens. One kitten, apparently weaned to soon, loves to nurse on my hands and arms and I get tiny kitten hickeys. A couple of volunteers were also there to play with and socialize the kittens - some of the friendliest kittens and cats have become so due to their patient efforts. We returned home by 6 and were so exhausted we simply bought a couple of Papa Murphy's pizzas for dinner. 

	Here is part of the cat room. A couple of their litter boxes are hidden in the wooden unit.
	Here is a cat sleeping in a "tree" in the cat room. You can see some of the walkway shelves that are all around the room.
	The operating room
	One of the kitten rooms (they currently have two though one may be turned into another OR).
	Here's Cooper, a recent addition, who's still very timid.
	Here's Thief who loves to suckle.

PAAWs is a wonderful place for cats and people who love them.


 

Comments

[sockmonkeyhere.livejournal.com]

What a wonderful place, and what wonderful people such as yourself for operating it. Animal playrooms should be a requirement for every shelter.

[shakatany.livejournal.com]

I'm just a visitor who will do her best for the 2 weeks I'm in Fargo.

The compliments should go to Lori, a true cat "whisperer" who started it all. When CM first brought me there in 2006 it was all in one room (the one that's now the cat room). Last year they had four and have now expanded into five rooms with the cat room and the two kitten rooms turned into feline paradises. There are good people in the world - now if we could just get rid of the others *sigh*

Shakatany

[simplykimberly.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a totally awesome place!

[shakatany.livejournal.com]

Oh it is. A woman named Lori started it to do something about the feral population and it snowballed. I love that the cats are not kept in cages. The volunteers are real cat people - one of CM's neighbors brought 2 of the skittish kittens home for the weekend to try to really socialize them. Her husband says she's fostered some 20 kittens this year including some that are so young they have to be bottle-fed frequently (well you know all about that *g*).

Shakatany