Episode 30: Captive animals: bringing joy and disapointment to children everywhere

I remember my Mom telling me once that she had to take my sister to a birthday party for one of her friends that was taking place at the local animal shelter. To me, this seemed like the absolute worst, most depressing birthday in history. Imagine, 'happy birthday! you can come play with these sad, lonely, homeless animals. AND YOU CAN'T TAKE ANY HOME!!! YAY! Awful. Happy Birthday, kid. Here's a kick in the knee for good measure.

I think the purpose of the animal shelter is great, keeping adorable pets alive and finding good homes for them. However, going to the shelter has always made me sad. This is still the case, but now that I have a baby who needs to be entertained it is an incredible time-killing resource.

This baby, like I am sure most babies do, thinks that animals are the funniest thing in the world. She loves ducks and puppies and birds and cats. They are like living, moving toys. We do have two cats here at the house, as I have mentioned (and you'll all get to meet them as soon as I get enough motivation to put all of the multi-media involved with that blog post up here) , but LC and Nug tend to bolt in the other direction, with good reason, whenever the baby is around.

So, as part of our Tuesday Time Killing we decided that we would take a trip to the shelter and gawk at some homeless animals, hopefully get a few laughs out of the girl.

We arrived at the shelter to find it bustling, which always makes me happy, with at least four or five different pairs of interested folks walking dogs around and petting cats. Of course, as is always the case wherever we go, the place was also crawling with the elderly. Many of them just killing time by petting captive animals. This made me sad.

We went to see the puppies first, because these tend to make her laugh the most, but for some reason she didn't seem to interested in them, too loud maybe, so we chose the cats instead. What I learned is that the puppy section of the animal shelter is exponentially more depressing than the kitten section. Cats at the shelter lead essentially the same lives they would in your home, only in a cage. They sleep, play, eat, mess around, play some more, cause trouble and the like. Sure, they are happy to see humans and to get out of the cage- it can't be fun in there- but they are no where near as depressed about it as dogs.

Walking through the dog section was like walking down death row. Every cage, all the way down the line, the dogs were sitting in front of the bars looking out. Excited every time someone walked by, waiting to get out of there. No one was playing, no one was sleeping, no one was pooping, they were just staring at us. I am decidedly not a dog person, but even I felt bad enough to want to take them home.

(On a side note, I find that I get a lot of back lash for not being a dog person. It isn't that I don't like dogs, I just think they are annoying. I am not going to do the dog vs. cats debate here, all I will say is that dogs have to go outside to poop- which you then have to pick up in some sort of weird reverse baggy move-, they bark, and they always smell. Not to mention dog people are WAY too weird with their pets. Cats, on the other hand, poop in a neat little box, smell only rarely, and don't make all that much noise. Plus, they are more fun to mess with and you can play with them inside of a small apartment without worrying about tearing up everything that you own).

The cats provided at least 45 minutes of solid entertainment for the both of us, and there were at least three that we considered taking home before coming to our senses. I could tell the baby liked the cats because she screamed the entire time. This is not a cry scream or an afraid scream, this is a high-pitched, top of her lungs, excited scream. This is what she does when she is super happy. Which is cute, I guess, unless you are in public or have a headache.

So, the shelter trip was fun and I am sure there are more to follow. One final story I have to tell before we go. We were in the cat room looking at some furry little guys when I heard a loud bang and a thump. I look over to find a dazed and embarrassed old man picking himself up off the ground with a little help from one of the volunteers. Like a bird, he had mistook a glass window panel for a door. Walked flush in to it and nearly knocked himself out. Ahhhh old people.