Just Like Animals
Today, I’m talking about something completely separate from anything else I’ve worked on this summer. This morning, I visited animal control!
I met Granville County’s (GC) animal management director when my internship started, and he invited me to visit the office and the county’s animal shelter. Since I only have two weeks left in GC, I figured I better take advantage of the opportunity! One of the cool things about interning for a county is there’s always something to see and do—just because you work in one department doesn’t mean you have to stay there all the time. Explore as many departments as you can!
My first stop was the county animal shelter. Counties are not required to have animal shelters, but GC has one. Some of the high school interns from GC’s high school summer internship program were there, so I worked with them. Our first order of business was cleaning out all of the cat cages. We had to clean the litter boxes, replace the newspapers covering the bottom of each cage, and clean and refill the food and water bowls. Then, we swept and mopped the floor.
Next, we moved to the puppy area. The shelter has some new puppies coming in and some going up for adoption, so we had to rearrange a few of them and clean their cages. All of this cleaning took probably close to two hours to finish, and let me just say, props to the people who do that every day. It’s not the most glamourous thing in the world and you experience a lot of smells in the process, but it makes staying in the shelter that much better for the animals, and I (and I’m sure they) really appreciate that. So thank you!
Also, the animals were soooooo cuuuuuuuute! There was a kitten that was literally the size of my hand (!) and one of the cutest and best behaved puppies I have met in long time. No, I didn’t leave the shelter with an animal, but the thought crossed my mind!
After almost two hours in the shelter, I transitioned to the administrative side of things and went to the animal control office. The department’s main goals, in addition to running the shelter and promoting vaccination and spay/neuter services, are to protect the public from the introduction and spread of rabies and harm from animals and to protect domestic animals from abuse and neglect. The office gets a variety of calls from people in the community, whether it’s from someone reporting suspected animal abuse and neglect, or someone who’s upset their neighbor’s dog keeps pooping in their yard, or someone concerned about stray cats and dogs on their street. Animal control handles all of those issues.
Again, though none of this is directly related to the work I’m doing, it was nice to get out of the office for a bit and experience something new. Animal control is a service the county provides—something residents may not even realize—and the work they do is important (and fun when you get to play with cute animals).
Local Gov Love,
Olivia
