Bonding with Jordan through Volunteering

“This is where we usually keep the puppies, but we don’t have any in residence with us right now,” the shelter director explained, “but that’s okay because summer brings us plenty of kittens, and they’re using the space right now. The next room is kittens and cats, and our adult dogs are down the hall to the left in two separate rooms. Feel free to look around.”

The Joliet Township Animal Control Center is responsible for sheltering stray or unwanted kittens, cats, puppies, dogs and various other furry and feathered critters and placing them in forever homes, as well as assists in locating lost pets and recovering loose and stray animals to ensure public safety.

Located in a converted ranch-style home, the lobby is bright and cheerful, and visitors are immediately greeted by the sounds of ringing phones, busy staff members and a rambunctious tortoise-shell kitten climbing the sides of a four-foot play cage.

Jordan has wanted to volunteer at the shelter for the past two years, so I promised her this summer she and I would volunteer one day a week together. We completed some basic paperwork to help the shelter figure out how to best put us to use, and the director told us they would be in touch in a few days with our volunteer assignments.

Rather than leave right away, Jordan and I decided to get our kitten fix and spent a half hour visiting the fuzziest little ones to the eldest of statesmen, one more loving than the next. Just as I would kneel down to pet the cats in the lower cages, my ponytail would suddenly be flipping in the air as the residents in the apartments above were whacking away at it with their paws, vying for every bit of attention.

It was a symphony of meowing, chattering and purring, as Jordan and I took turns reading the cage tags to determine if our newest friend was a boy or a girl, if they already had names and their ages were known, and if they had any particular likes or dislikes (“Grace, 18 months, very affectionate and loves canned cat food”).

Of course we each fell in love: Jordan was convinced the twelve-week-old black short hair boy would make a perfect friend for Sparky and Alle back home, and Grace’s affectionate nature almost had convinced me one more cat would be welcome in our home. Stay strong, Laura, the idea is to find forever homes for the shelter residents in other people’s residences, not ours.

We moved into the adult dog area, and the din of the barking dogs bouncing off the concrete walls was almost deafening. The majority looked friendly, with bright, shining eyes and tails wagging so fast their bodies were wiggling. A few were timid and sat patiently at the front of their pens, waiting to sniff our hands and receive a pat on the head.

We were just about to leave when they caught our eye: Two dogs off to the side in the corner, sitting quietly and patiently awaiting their turns for some TLC. Their pens were yet unlabeled, but one looked to be a white-faced Saint Bernard and his neighbor a full-blooded mutt with a beige coat and terrier base.

They were the sweetest and gentlest dogs I had ever met. As one of the staff members came through the room to return a resident to his den, she gave us two dog treats for our new found friends. As Jordan and I each fed our friends simultaneously, they each responded in kind by spitting their treats back in their food bowls, returning our gaze and waited for us to continue petting them.

We spent an additional ten minutes with our new found friends, and Jordan and I joked that if these dogs were able to talk they would both sound like Dug the Dog from the Disney-Pixar movie “Up” (“My name is Dug, I have just met you and I love you”).

Just from our first visit I knew that Jordan and I would constantly lean on each other to be strong when gazing into the loving and grateful eyes of the puppies and kittens, dogs and cats, and to remind ourselves that our job was to find permanent homes for these wonderful animals because they deserved it.

I know this will be a great bonding experience for Jordan and me, and we’ll have the opportunity to meet and make many new friends this summer with both two and four legs.

And when I grow weary, and my logical strength is sapped by the power of puppy breath or a cat’s motor boat purring, I will fall back on my mantra: "This creature’s forever home is not my home."