Cream sickle and I both cringe when a whiny voice comes over the speakers. There’s something about this song that makes me want to vomit somewhere. As I’m brushing and cleaning, Cream sickle washes his paws in front of him, patiently waiting for me to be done with it. The time comes for me to put him back into his holding cell and he stiffens in my arms. Most of the cats don’t like their metal cages, and I don’t blame them.
Who would want to spend hours on end in a metal cage when they could have the entire room to play in? But Cream sickle hasn’t been cleared for play with the other kitties in the greeting rooms. I give him a gentle hug before I put him in the cage, gently picking each one of his claws out of my shirt as I do so. He yowls one time for me before he lies down in his bed. Perhaps being clean is enough for now.
I move on to the next cage, another cat that needs brushing. There are strict policies on cleanliness here so as not to spread disease. So I pull out all the hair from Cream sickle and shove it into a medical waste trash can, and then I dump the brush into an antibacterial bath before I dry it on a towel. Once the brush is sufficiently clean, I pull out Midnight. I didn’t name her, and I don’t care for the name.
“And this is our feline holding room. These are the cats that are not available yet for adoption and need to be cleaned up and checked out. Oh, Emily!” Gail, the resident veterinary assistant, comes bustling through the door with a man in tow. He’s a few years older than me by the looks of it. He’s also absolutely petrified but trying to show a cool bravado on the outside.
“This is Emily, she volunteers every day here, even on Sundays. If you ever need to know something and I’m not around, you should probably ask her.” I feel a flush hit my cheeks. Wow, I do volunteer here every day. Now that it looks as if I have no life, Mr. Tall, Dark and Handsome is completely off limits.
Gail moves further into the room with her brown, curled hair up in a ponytail and her hazel eyes narrowing as the new guy steps closer to me. I see her shoulders stiffen; she knows I don’t like physical contact. He sticks his large hand out anyway and smiles shyly at me. Oh man, dimples.
“I’m Mason, the new vet tech.” My hands smell like the antibacterial wash that we use, which is not a pleasant odor. There’s an awkward second where I’m not going to reach out my hand to shake his, but I take it.
“Nice to meet you,” I say lamely, pulling my hand back and picking up the brush off the blue, speckled counter. Gail seems to realize that I’m feeling flustered and quickly moves Mason on to the next room. That’s the small animal room.
I can’t say that any of them are my favorite. I work with anything that comes through those doors whether it’s a one thousand pound horse or a half ounce bird. But right now I’m going to be grooming a nine pound, female, long haired cat who hates brushes. I have a feeling her owner either never brushed her or was not very nice about the mats she tends to get on her back legs.
“Come on Midnight, it’s time to get you looking pretty so you can go out with the rest to find a new home. One where you don’t have to put up with me every day.” I smile at her as I pull her out of the cage and stroke her a few times on the table. The attention she’s getting starts up the purring, but as soon as the brush comes up to touch her head she gets wide eyes and scrunches.
I wait, patiently, for about two minutes before she head-butts the brush gently in my fingers. When she feels comfortable enough to let me brush her, I make sure to get all the small knots starting and brush a little extra just to keep the comradery going. My afternoon goes a lot like that, taking one cat out after the next and cleaning up their fur, ears, eyes, noses and a few teeth.
Once I’m finished with the cats, I move on to the small animal area. It’s pleasantly almost empty. There’s just one small gerbil left in her wire cage on one wall and a ferret with severe adrenal disease on the other. The poor fellow came in with a blocked urinary tract, and missing all of his fur except one small patch on his head.
“Bandit, if you don’t stop pooping in your water dish no one is going to want to take you home.” Animals are funny like that sometimes. He was supposedly a well behaved ferret, but the owners were moving into a home where they couldn’t take him. Now, whenever a tech or another volunteer tries to get him out to show him to a potential ferret parent, he bites.
I pull out his water dish and empty it in the sink, thoroughly washing it before I refill it. To give him some exercise time, I pull him out of his cage and let him run around on the floor with a few toys as I clean out the bottom pan. The other volunteers and techs know that I let Bandit out of his cage while I do this, but apparently one of them in particular does not know.
I don’t have a chance to grab the ferret before Mason opens up the door to the small animal room. The ferret bounds right past him and scurries down the hall before I have a chance even to call out his name. With a frustrated sigh, I grab one of the squeaky toys and stand just outside the door to the small animal room. It’s an incessant noise, but Bandit always responds.
“What are you doing?” Mason asks, putting his hands up to his ears. I don’t answer him; just keep squeezing that toy until the furless wonder bounds around the corner of the hall and races down the tiles after me. I lead him back into the room and close the door quickly, letting him have the squeaky.
“I’m saving your ass on your first day. Whenever you enter a room with animals, knock beforehand.” I try not to sound tart, but I guess it comes out that way. Mason puts his hands in his jeans pockets and tries to look apologetic, but I can see the smirk on his lips.
“I’ll remember that, Mom.” He says, his eyes twinkling. Before I can come up with a smart-ass response, he dives right into the reason he came into this room in the first place. “Gail sent me to get Bandit, said his implant arrived.”
I can’t help it. I smile. Scooping bandit up in my arms, I march right past Mason and head down the hall for the exam rooms. Bandit has been waiting two weeks for his implant. Hopefully it will bring his hair back and make him even more playful than he already is. He’s only four years old, which I suppose to some might seem like a lifetime for a ferret. But it’s really not.
Mason
She’s long legs, cream colored flesh, and heaven walking down the hallway in front of me with a naked ferret in her arms. If I had known there were hot chicks like this in animal shelters, I would have volunteered here myself just to get a few dates. Her hair is an odd color, one that I can’t really describe. It’s something between strawberry blonde and a very light brunette and her eyes are strikingly hazel.
“Which room?” Emily calls back to me, stopping by the exam rooms. Gail opens one up and motions for her to come inside with the ferret.
I’m not sure if Emily realizes it or not, but Gail sent me down to the room to fetch Bandit when she knew Emily would be in there. Apparently the girl has a way with animals. I suppose if Emily had gone to school, maybe they would have hired her on as a technician.
Gail waits for me to get into the room finally and closes the door behind me. She pulls out a hellaciously large needle and hands it to me. I know my eyes pop wide open as I look from the needle to the ferret, but I suppose implants are not small. Emily grasps the back of the ferret’s neck like a pro and holds his scrawny, loose body in the air.
“Now it needs to go right here,” Gail points to a distinct point just below the shoulder blades, and I let my instincts take control. I gently grasp the bottom of the ferret and pull Bandit towards me. The needle slides in effortlessly, and I inject the implant.
As soon as the procedure is finished, Emily holds the ferret to her chest and whispers comforting words to it as she leaves the room. I can’t help but watch her go, mesmerized by the way she’s so distant with people and so open with a ferret. What would make a person want to clam up around others like that?
Sure I was nervous before I came in here; I’m always nervous meeting new people. And I wouldn’t have become a vet tech if I didn’t love animals, but
I don’t radiate this air of frigidness when I’m around others. Although it seems the rigidity is not as strong around Gail.
“What’s with her?” I finally ask Gail when I’m sure that she’s back in the small animal room. My supervisor turns to me with a curious look as she disposes of the medical supplies.
“With Emily? She’s just shy.” I want to tell her that I’m just shy. There’s something more to Emily than shyness. But then again, who am I to judge? I live with my father and younger brother because I’m too afraid to man up and live.
“So what else do you have in store for me today? I got to meet all the other volunteers and employees and stab a ferret, what’s next?” Gail chuckles at my light banter and points at the door.
“We’re going to see if we can’t get an ultra sound of Daisy’s belly; she was due to have her puppies three days ago. I’m worried something might be wrong.” I can gather that Daisy is a dog since she said puppies, but I haven’t meant this particular one yet. As Gail pulls off her gloves, I pull off mine and help her gather a few supplies before we head out.
“I didn’t know there was an ultrasound machine here.” Gail didn’t mention one, but she’s walking me down a long, white hall with several supplies in her hands. She leads me into a room with a few nice machines. There’s a plack on the wall that reads Thank you Dr. Noggle.
“We didn’t about a year ago. Dr. Noggle’s been doing very well at his practice and decided to donate some of the older equipment to us. It’s only a few years old.” Gail bustles about the room and sets up the machine carefully. I watch her every move. During classes at the university I was instructed on how to use one of these, but I only got to use one once.
I follow my supervisor back down the hall to the dog kennel and stop in the doorway when I see Emily again. She must be finished with the small animals and is now trying to coax a rather vicious looking German Shepherd out of his cage. Gail steps behind the young blonde and whispers to her to be careful with that one.
“I got it Gail, she’s just not sure of where she’s at is all.” Emily gives up on trying to get the dog out of the cage and puts one foot gingerly in. She stands rigidly with a surety that I would never have felt around a dog drooling like that. The she looks as if it might rip off a hand that dares to reach out and touch it.
Gail comes out of one of the cages with a shy golden retriever behind her on a short leash. She leads the plump dog past me, and I close the door, but not before I look back to make sure that Emily is not being gnawed on. As we walk down the hall, I can’t help but wonder why they would allow her to get into a cage with a dangerous animal.
“Is that dog considered adoptable?” I ask Gail as I catch up to her.
“No, Baby’s not adoptable right now. But we’re a no kill shelter and Emily begged us to give her a shot at training the dog. You should have seen her two weeks ago. She wouldn’t even let someone walk past that cage without biting at the bars so hard her gums were bleeding. On several occasions, I had to make sure she didn’t break teeth.” Mason furrows his brows as he walks. Maybe some people are just gifted, and others have to work at it. He feels a pang of jealousy, wishing that he were that easy going around vicious dogs.
Gail stretches the Golden Retriever out on the table, and I grab the clippers. This time I take charge and shave off the hair on the poor dog’s belly, careful not to catch any of the swollen mammary glands. “What’s her name?” I ask as I turn the clippers off.
“Daisy,” I can’t help it, I grin. It’s a fitting name for a bright gold dog with light brown eyes. She’s adorable.
“Daisy,” I repeat, stroking her muzzle before I help Gail bring the machine over. It turns out that Daisy’s babies are just not quite ready to pop out of their mother yet. Perhaps their initial estimate of how far along the puppies were had been wrong.
“She probably has another four to five days yet,” I tell Gail, gently patting Daisy’s head as I speak. She quivers under my touch but welcomes it with a few wet kisses and nose nudges to my palm.
“I agree. I’ll have to take her home with me tonight to make sure. I’m sure Tina’s tired of staying all night with her. She needs a break.” I want to offer to take the dog home with me, but I know that my father would not appreciate it. So I keep my mouth shut and settle for the fact that Gail will be taking her home, and she won’t be alone when her labor starts. Maybe my father won’t be opposed to a puppy, or two.
We walk the dog back to the kennel, and I glance around for Emily instinctually, it’s as if I’m honed in on her. When I finally catch sight of her at the back of the kennel with an arm slung around Baby’s neck, my mouth drops. The dog is happily panting beside her with her ears perked. It’s only been twenty minutes!
I make my way to the cage and stand outside of it, the door still open. Gail is busy settling Daisy back down for the day until she’s ready to leave. Emily looks up from the hole she’s fiddling with in her jeans and flattens her palms over it when she sees me. I see the thin line of blood trickling down inside her jeans.
“She bit you,” I point out, crossing my arms over my chest.
“It was my fault. I flinched, and she took that as fear. So she nicked me, it’s not a big deal.” I raise an eyebrow and look at the dog she’s clinging to now.
“It should be reported,” I glance in the direction that Gail went to make sure she’s not around. “But I can keep it quiet if you promise to tell me if she does it again.” Emily narrows her eyes at me, much like the dog. I have a feeling she’s trying to determine whether or not she can trust me. Then she nods once as Gail comes up to my side and slides her leg down so that the blood trail isn’t visible.
“You’ll have to teach me how to do that someday,” I tell her before I walk off with Gail to finish up the day.
Chapter Three
Emily
I’m not sure what he means by having to teach me how to do that, to lie or to train a dog? I thought he was a vet technician; he should be able to train dogs. I pull my arm away from Baby and look down at the bite on my hand too. That’s what I was trying to hide in the first place. A dribble of blood drops off my thumb, and I sigh as I wrap the wound in my t-shirt to stifle the bleeding. Baby licks my cheek apologetically, and I let her.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her, standing up slowly to give her time to understand what I’m doing. She can sense my melancholy mood and shies away from me before I leave. This incident hasn’t put us back any in training. I made sure to assert myself after the bite, standing over her without looking at her in a confident manner.
Dogs are tricky. They need to learn to trust a person and see that the person is actually trustworthy; it’s not at all about how you speak to the dog but how you use body language. For Baby, she needs to realize that I am in control of the situation and that I am a person that she can trust during a situation she feels uncomfortable in. It’s going to take many more weeks before I’m confident enough to say that she can go to a kid free home.
I close the door to her cage and turn around to find Jesse standing in the doorway to the kennel room. She smiles at me knowingly and looks down at my leg, her eyes narrowing. I come up with my best answer on the fly.
“My leg snagged on a loose wire, cut myself,” I tell her quickly, making my way to the sink. She leans her back against the counter and looks down at my hand, biting her bottom lip.
“I suppose that was from when you tried to get your leg loose from that pesky wire?” She asks in a chiding voice, looking at the cage that I just came out of. “If she’s too dangerous to adopt out you’re wasting your time, Emily.” I glare at her as I wash my hand, grabbing a bandage from one of the cabinets and putting some antibiotic ointment on it before I slap it on the bite wound on my hand.
“I’m not wasting my time; she’s a perfectly fine dog! She’s just afraid; wouldn’t you be if you were a six year old German shepherd dropped off by your owner who just couldn’t handle taking you for a walk every day? She does
n’t understand, hell, I don’t understand how people can do this!” I’m about to cry, so I turn away from Jesse to wipe the angry tears building up away, and take in a steadying breath. She doesn’t touch me, for which I’m thankful.
“I know, I’m sorry. You’ll get her straightened out, and some nice man will come in and adopt her, preferably a tall, dark and handsome one with strikingly blue eyes.” She makes a purring noise, and it shoots out of my mouth before I can even comprehend what I’m about to say.
“Green,” I correct her, thinking she’s talking about Mason. There’s a dead silence behind me, and when I turn around, Jesse is beaming from ear to ear. She tricked me!
“So you did notice the hunky vet tech walking around today. I mean, who wouldn’t, he’s pretty edible.” I blink a few times, wondering if she’s thinking about going after him herself. It’s not like I have a chance with a guy like that. It’s not like I’ve ever thought about having a chance with a guy since my mom passed, I’m damaged goods.
“Who, that guy who was in here with Gail?” I ask her innocently, throwing away the bandage wrapper in a basin under the sink. Jesse slings an arm around my shoulders as she walks me out of the kennel room, making me stiffen. She doesn’t withdraw her arm, just keeps walking until we’re at the front of the building.
“You know exactly who I’m talking about, Emily. Now go home and take care of the other bite wound on your leg and don’t wear too much perfume when you come in tomorrow.” I feel my cheeks flush, does she mean I’m wearing too much now? Wait, I didn’t put any on.
“What? I’m not wearing any.” I tell her, and she just rolls her eyes.
“For Mason, I meant. Don’t wear too much perfume for Mason.” I slide out from under her arm and grab my bag by the door from the cubicle. Before Jesse can make my cheeks flame any brighter, I wave to the receptionist and slip out the door.
Rescue (Emily and Mason) Page 2
