Working from the Heartland

Candy Watson
Shelter Worker, Friends for Animals
Asheville, North Carolina

There are all sorts of signs hanging at the Buncombe County Friends for Animals. A poster featuring a kitten under covers reads, "Faith is like a blanket, it only works when you're wrapped up in it." Another poster talks about what can happen when a cat isn't neutered or spayed: within five years a single cat and all her unneutered offspring can produce 450,000 cats. Dogs are a little less prolific, they only produce 70,000. Other signs read "Cattery," where the cats are kept to await adoption. "Please don't handle animals without assistance." "Large dogs for adoption."

The smaller signs attached to the many cages that fill the animal shelter are the hardest to bear. They read: "can't handle," "travel too much," "moved," "hold for cruelty investigation," and there's one that comes up so often it only needs an acronym. Everyone who works at the shelter knows this one: TMA. "Too many animals." These are the cages that usually contain a litter of puppies or kittens.

Part of Candy Watson's job as a shelter worker is to find out from people who bring in their animals exactly why they're giving their pets to the shelter. Some of them truly feel badly about having to give up their animals. But then there are the others.

"Most of the time, it's a stupid reason," she says. "Sometimes people will just say, 'I just don't want it no more.' I make them understand that we'll do the best we can to find a new home for the animal, but it is subject to being put to sleep. And like as not they'll say, 'I just don't care what you do with it.'

"If you're having a day with a lot of those types of people coming through, you can really just not want to be around anybody for a long time," she says.

Ironically, it was Candy's desire to work with people that brought her to working in an animal shelter. Growing up she wanted to be a cosmetologist, but marriage and children quickly followed high school. By the time she felt her kids were old enough for her to work, she simply went to the local employment office to see what computer listings matched with her skills and interest in learning new things. The listing for "kennel worker" appealed to her childhood affection for animals and yen for working with people. But it wasn't until she went in for an interview that she learned just what kind of kennel worker she would be: someone who would be caring for abused, sick or strays; someone who would be finding homes for some, but euthanizing others.

"I knew they had to so some form of euthanasia, but I didn't know I'd be the one doing it," she says. "When I came in and filled out my application, they mentioned it. And eventually they asked me if I thought this would be something I expected I could do. I didn't know for sure, but I knew time would tell."

"When new people come in to work, they're put in adoptions first," she says. "We just don't want to expose them right away to what happens in what we call 'the back of the house.' You want to see the happy part first. But even up in adoptions, you still have euthanasia in your face."

This is a good policy for the newcomers, but sometimes it weighs heavily on Candy's spirits. As one of the long-time staffers (three years is considered the average tenure of a shelter worker and she's into her fourth year), she is more frequently assigned to the back of the house to give the newcomers the time they need to get used to their environment.

"When you work too much in the back of the house, doing receiving and euthanasia, it can be very stressful. All you're seeing is the incoming. You don't get enough of the happy endings, watching animals get adopted, talking with the people and making sure the animals are going to good homes."

The back of the house. This is where the dogs and cats begin the new chapter of their lives. Whether they are delivered by the tiny animal control staff which is responsible for covering over 400 square miles within the county or dropped off by kind-hearted folks who seem to attract strays or delivered by owners who are simple disenchanted with their pets, they come through the back where they are sorted, assessed for their health and temperament, treated, bathed, wormed and tucked into a clean, warm and dry cage of their own.

Some find new, caring homes to go to. (The promise to neuter the animal is part of the deal.) The lucky ones are returned home to their rightful, loving owners. In her three years of working at the shelter, Candy is still amazed that more owners don't file a lost report with the shelter as soon as they miss their animal.

"In this county the owners don't check with us first," she says. "They'll advertise on the radio and in the newspaper, but they'll wait as long as a week before coming to us. Well, we don't hold animals longer than three days. That can be really upsetting."

But then there is the occasional miracle story, like the dog that got stolen.

"We had one family whose dog was stolen, but the thief brought the dog in to our shelter a year later," she says. "Well, just about that same time the original owners were finally ready to adopt a new dog, so they came to the shelter to choose one. And there was their dog! That just blew everybody's mind. People were crying. The dog was ballistic. It's the first time I ever saw something like that happen."

But the ones who don't make it home return to the back of the house where they are led into a small room painted sky blue with puffy white clouds. Known as the "euth room," this is where dogs and cats are gently and lovingly ushered into what the shelter workers hope is the direct translation of the Greek word, euthanasia: good death. It's part of the job, and after a new employee has been on the job a while, the time comes to learn this new skill. The senior staff tries to let the new employees take their time. But sooner or later, that time must come.

"The first thing you do is watch. And I watched three times before I was ready to participate in the procedure," she says. "Then you start by being a holder."

Every morning after the staff cleans the cages that had gotten dirty overnight, they meet for task assignments. Some get assigned to adoptions, some get assigned to receiving. And two get assigned to the euth room. There they stay all day long, the holder and the euthanizer, processing anywhere between 30 to 75 animals during their shift. The euthanizer is the one with the needle, but Candy says that being the holder is the hardest.

"The holder's the one who is charge. They're the ones feeling the animal going in their arms. The holder is the one who feels it. If you can be a good holder and withstand the emotions of feeling the animal die in your arms, you can be pretty sure that you're ready to start injecting."

Candy cried the first time she held an animal. And now and then she still cries. Getting used to the job is a process of stages, she says, the only constant is the compassion.

"Sometimes there are days when I just want to move everything up to adoptions, when I really don't want to be euthanizer for the day, she says. "There are other days when I'll take an animal home with me and foster it until the shelter has room for it to stay in adoptions." And then there are days when she does her duty. Over and over again.

Part of her duty is to help prevent more unwanted animals and perhaps shorten the workload of future shelter workers. So she takes her story to the schools.

"The younger you can get to people and make them understand, the more lasting impact you're likely going to have," she says. "Adults are going to do what they want. But if you can convince a child that it's important to fix their pets, not only will they more likely neuter their own when they're adults, but they might even go home and tell their parents it's important to fix the ones they have now. Try to implant the importance in their brains now, and maybe they'll be able to change their parents, too.

Of course, her children know exactly what she does.

"My kids know what I do, and they love my job," she says. "They go to school and tell everyone. It's important that my kids are proud of me. What would be the purpose of what I'm doing if I can't even teach my own children responsibility and consequences for the way you take care of your animals?"

And it's also important to Candy and her husband that her children know how much she loves her work.

"How are they ever going to go out and find a meaningful career if all my husband and I do is come home and complain about our jobs? They know I wouldn't be happy anywhere else right now.

"I feel better about myself because of what I do. I'm smarter than I thought I was, and I'm braver than I thought I was."

Copyright 2005 by Martha Finney. All rights reserved.