Monday, September 05, 2005
Why I work here.
After a frustrating, depressing or long day at the shelter, I sometimes find myself wondering why I come to work every day. Then I get letters like the one below that was received yesterday at our website email address.Dear Oakland SPCA--
If you could please make sure that this letter gets to your Operations
Manager, we would be very grateful. It is our understanding that she
discovered the lovely one year old grey tabby cat we adopted from you
a few weeks ago (you had named her 'Rhonda', but we've changed it to
'Georgia') under the stairs leading to her house [see post titled Four Felines from June 20], and we'd like her to know just how thankful we are that she made Georgia available to us. We would also like her to know how amazingly well Georgia has adapted to her new home.
I'm sure you recall what a skittish, semi-feral little thing she
was. At this point, you would hardly recognize her! The learning curve
was high; there were no litter box/eating issues at all, even on the
day we brought her home. We had expected Georgia to take her time
getting comfortable in "her" space... but by day 2 she was pressing us
to let her explore the next room. At the end of a week, she was
comfortable ruling over the whole apartment. Not that Georgia isn't
still a little shy, but we've cut off all the space below beds and
couches so as to encourage her to be social, and it seems to be
working.
Though she has yet to crawl into one of our laps, Georgia is now
comfortable hopping onto the couch and curling up next to us. She
craves attention and is constantly mewing for belly rubs. In the past
week, she has become *extremely* vocal, almost as if she's trying to
have a conversation. Her loving ways are matched (if not exceeded!)
by her playfulness. I've known many a feline, and I've never met one
who was quite as feisty! She's able to entertain herself, certainly,
but she also wants us to take part. If we want to, say, read a book
quietly when she wants to play, Georgia will attack the turning pages,
or pull at our shoelaces. It's well worth the distraction, as her
antics keep us laughing all day.
We know that many of the wonderful SPCA worker/volunteers were worried
about the probability of Georgia's being domesticated, so we just
wanted to let you know that though she still has a bit of the wild
thing in her (and that's part of why we love her), she seems very
content to be the newest member of our family. Thank you so much for
taking such good care of Georgia until we could bring her home!
Letters like these are why I work here.
