All my life I have loved animals. When I was younger, I often thought about being a veterinarian to help animals, but I realized I wouldn’t be able to handle losing an animal. Therefore, I took my love for animals in another direction, volunteering.  

As a kid with not a lot of money, I knew I wouldn’t be able to help in that area, so I started volunteering at my local humane society. At first, I was a little nervous to start, but after going through the training and meeting the staff and other volunteers, I was ready to start.  

I have always been more of a cat girl, so I took up the position of cat-cuddler. Every week I would spend a couple of hours with the cats after school. My main job was to give the cats enrichment time, while also getting them accustomed to human touch and love. This soon became my favorite time of the week, an amazing way to de-stress and a very rewarding experience.  

I met so many different cats with different personalities and learned so much from them. Some cats were super friendly and loved playing while others were extremely scared of humans and would hiss/try to scratch you if you got near them. Because of the animals’ varying personalities, the staff had a system put in place to keep us, volunteers, safe. There was a whiteboard outside the kennels with all the animals’ names and they were either written in blue; the friendliest, green; friendly but skittish, and red; the animals who had some attitude and could only be played with by the staff and volunteers who had over 40 hours of experience. At first, I stuck mainly to the blue cats but as I came more often, I worked up my confidence to work with the red cats. I was often scratched, which was expected, but I learned the value of patience and trust with these cats. The secret was to talk to them at first and build up that trust to where they would eventually let you pet them.  

Their lack of trust made a lot of sense though when you realized they came from environments where they were often mistreated.  

A lot of the animals brought in were found in horrible conditions. They would have fleas, were malnourished, and come from homes of neglect or from the streets where they had to fend for themselves. This experience made me realize even more that all animals deserve rights and as a society we should help protect them in ways they can’t themselves, and from ourselves.  

Humans often forget that we have a huge impact on wild and domestic animals. From large companies destroying their natural habitats, the lack of laws pertaining to animal protection, to the large market of dog fighting and black market for animal parts, humans majorly impact other animals.   

I did end up adopting a kitten who is now 2. His name is Nico 🙂

It would majorly benefit these animals if we passed more laws to protect them. Even with the Animal Welfare Act, Human Slaughter Act, and state protection laws, there are no laws that recognize animals as legal persons with rights. Until this happens wild and domestic animals will continue to struggle and be mistreated by humans. This isn’t to say that making animals legal persons would solve the mistreatment done to them, but it would certainly help.

Some ways you can help on a personal level though would be to volunteer at your local humane society, donate to charities helping animals in need, donate food, toys, and pet supplies to local shelters, and if you wish to do a little more set up a program or fundraiser for animals in your community. 

Animals are a major part of the world, life, and teach us things we can’t ourselves, so it is important to be kind to all kinds of animals, not just humankind.