Shelter cats, Bella

            I volunteer two days a week at my local animal shelter. I am lucky enough to have a No-Kill shelter near me. No matter which way you slice it, re-homing animals is a tough job. But I like to do what I can to help the critters feel more comfortable during their time in the shelter. I focus on the cats, brushing them, petting them, cleaning their litter boxes, and getting to know them. I try to give them a voice by writing what I've learned about each of them and posting it with their information card at the shelter. I don't have enough energy to do this for every cat, but I try to help the ones who have been there the longest.
            I also take lots of pictures. Each cat gets one picture for his or her profile on the shelter website, so we try to pick the best one. But then I often have leftovers - good pictures that didn't show the whole cat, or adorable pictures of the cat yawning that wouldn't be appropriate as The Picture That Defines This Cat. I hate to discard these, so I post some of them to the shelter's Facebook page. Sometimes, though, the cat I just photographed on Saturday gets adopted on Sunday. And then I have these pictures, but no need to post them. It's the best possible news! I love it when that happens. I do still want to share some of my pictures, though.

            This cat got adopted a number of weeks ago. She was a long-time resident at the shelter. Her name was Bella (her new family may have changed it, I'm not sure). Bella was a mad scientist cat. She could open anything, given enough time to work out the latch mechanism. She would open the door of the community room and go flying through the shelter, zigging and zagging and ducking past people's ankles. She never shut the door behind her, either, so then there was a mass exodus of cats who would quite happily go exploring.

            Bella did not always open the door herself. One of her favorite things to do was to wait just inside the door for some hapless potential adopter - especially someone with children - to open the door. Then, Zing! Out she goes. We put a sign on the door warning about her ninja capabilities, but it did no good. Bella could out-dodge even experienced cat people nine times out of ten, especially the first time she met them.

            For a little while, we swapped Bella out of the community room and into a cage in the lobby. We hated to do it, but it was pure mayhem having her letting the other cats out all the time. But no matter, Bella figured out how to open her cage, too. These are the stiff, cranky cages that new volunteers spend a couple of weeks learning how to open and close, so Bella has a learning curve similar to human shelter volunteers.
            Finally, we had to put latches on the outsides of both doors to the community room. Bella still found the occasional (i.e. at least twice a day) opportunity to go gallivanting about the lobby, but it made things a lot more manageable. And just after that, I came in one Saturday to find she had been adopted. Perfect timing!