Kitty Sitter

I’ve wanted to do some sort of volunteer work for a while now and yesterday I began at the London Humane Society as a cat socializer – I jokingly call my position “kitty wrangler”.  

I’m one of many who spend one-on-one time with the adoptable cats.  Some of them have been abandoned and traumatized.  Some are very shy, some are kind of kookoo and others are simply starved for affection.  We in the cat volunteer section simply play with them, brush them if they’ll let us and give them lots of belly scratches.  The idea is to get them used to a variety of people so that when potential adopters come to call, they meet a friendly cat.  I was lucky with the four I spent time with this week.  They were all friendly and although two were pretty shy, they warmed up to the point that I had them purring against my neck.  It’s 90 minutes without worries or cares beyond imagining these critters in good homes.  I think I’m going to like it.

I did apply for a couple of different human causes but for whatever reason, my offer was never taken up.  When I first contacted the Humane Society I had hoped to walk dogs but I see now that the cat task might be the best outcome after all.  It’s calm and warm and so far the only hazard has been getting covered in hair.  I can live with that!  It also scratches my itch to have a fur baby of my own.  I know I don’t live a life that’s appropriate for an in-house animal so this weekly visit will give me my fix.  I don’t expect every week to be as serene as yesterday.  I’m sure I’ll get an authentic scratch or two.  But that’s a small price to pay for 90 minutes of pure purring pleasure.