If You Don't Like Cats, Stop Reading

One of my PCV friends who lives nearby has a real passion for animals. So at least once a week, sometimes more, she volunteers at the Kingston SPCA. The facility there has about 20 cages for cats, 20 cages for dogs, a clinic, and space to let the dogs get some exercise. It is in a small renovated house, so it's really pretty cramped. Cats and dogs are not treated very well in many parts of Jamaica, although there are exceptions. Large guard dogs are usually fed very well, and many cats have good homes. But the large amount of stray, hungry, and dirty dogs shows that there is a great need for something like the SPCA in Jamaica.

Since the SPCA has so much work to do, and there is only one office in Kingston, it needs a lot of help. So me and a couple of other volunteers went to the SPCA last Saturday to clean up the cattery. My job was thoroughly cleaning out the cages, while others cleaned the walls behind the cages. Aside from a dirty cage looking bad for prospective adopters, cat waste can carry diseases that make others cats sick. So, with a bleach solution, I cleaned out every possible surface on the cages as best I could. In order to do that, though, the cats had to be transferred out of their current cage into a holding cage, in an exercise that closely resembled one of those puzzles with the little colored squares that must be pushed around to form a specific pattern. It was bad because we misplaced a few cats and they got put back in the wrong cages. But luckily one of the staff there was able to put them back in the right place.

So, if you don't like cats, or are allergic to them, this would not have been a fun experience. But seeing so many little kittens all at the same time was kind of fun, even if some of them did have severe diarrhea. I think I had my fill of cats over the weekend, so I don't need to adopt one to replace old Duodinho, wherever he is.

-Shane