Moms in the Animal Shelter

Jennifer Vanderau
Cumberland Valley Animal Shelter

(5/2018) One of the neatest things that ever happened at CVAS occurred – probably not accidentally – on the night we moved into our new building.

Let me set the scene for you. In the weeks and days leading up to the big move, we were packing like insane college kids, some of whom may have waited until the night before to load up boxes. (Strategically doesn’t make eye contact with mom and dad otherwise they’ll know I’m talking about me.)

We had a plan. We had help. We had a team that had a huge truck into which we loaded all the animals. I’m not joking about this one. We had dog and cat crates all lined up and ready to go and we had volunteers help us get the animals into the back of the huge 18-wheeler and we took off.

To this day, I can remember seeing that truck slowly pulling out of the old shelter and I thought to myself, "There goes the lifeblood of this organization."

When we got to the new place we situated the animals as quickly as possible in the hopes of minimizing the stress they must be feeling.

It was the next day that we got our surprise.

One of the dogs, Emily, was in her kennel when we checked on everybody, only there were more dogs than just her there. Turns out she had been pregnant all along and surprised us on the very official day at the new CVAS with five puppies! They were the first new residents of the shelter!

All of the pups and their mom eventually got adopted, but I have kind of a soft spot in my heart for mothers. Keep in mind, and with full disclosure, I’m not a mom, I never have been a mom and likely never will be a mom, unless some cosmic miracle happens the likes of which could get me on Ellen, but that will be a story for another column.

I haven’t had the connection of another life growing inside of me, but as much as I’m able, I can see the power, the humility, the poignancy of it. I have a feeling if I ever did have children I would likely be a "mother bear" and turn pretty vicious if anything happened to my child.

I sometimes fancy myself the mom of my hoard of felines, but I realize it’s absolutely not the same thing as giving birth.

So I look at the moms in the shelter with more than a little fascination.

We have moms with puppies sometimes, as well as moms with kittens, and I have to tell you, every time I glance into those kennels and see the babies nursing and the moms look up at me with an expression I can’t define any other way than "knowing," it gets me. Right in the heart.

Then there are the moments when the babies have grown up a bit and are racing and ripping around and walking all over mom when she looks up at me with an expression that says, "I’ll give you twenty dollars if you get me out of this kennel for just a couple of hours. These kids are driving me crazy!"

There’s no doubt about it – whether human, canine, feline or any other species, moms have it rough.

Moms at the shelter have another added issue that absolutely breaks my heart. Everyone loves puppies. Everyone loves kittens. Once the puppies and kittens are old enough, they’re taken from mom, everyone is spayed or neutered and they’re put up for adoption.

Inevitably what happens is the puppies and kittens get adopted fast – sometimes we even have fights over them – and it’ll be a few months later and I’m walking through cat or dog adoption and there are those eyes, looking up at me again.

Mom is still with us. Mom gives me that look like she doesn’t really understand what happened to her and her babies. It’s like she had a purpose, did what she was supposed to do and now she’s left on her own with nothing to care for and nothing to love.

It’s heartbreaking when the moms take a while to find a home.

The moms are often super-special, super-loving and all around incredibly sweet animals. They just get overlooked because of their age or their breed or the fact that everyone wants the puppies and the kittens.

Do you know I had someone literally just the other day say to me as I was snuggling with one of the smallest kittens we have, "Isn’t she the sweetest? It’s a shame they grow into cats."

I had to turn away because my reaction was not terribly friendly. Can you imagine? OF COURSE they turn into cats! That’s nature! It’s what happens!

It’s incredibly frustrating and likely one of the reasons our older animals – and moms especially – tend to stay in the kennels longer.

And so, with the time of year and the talk of motherhood, let’s give a shout out to all the moms out there.

If you think about it from a purely biological perspective, moms are the only beings on the planet to actually give birth to another living creature, only to have that being eventually grow up and leave the nest or home. That, in and of itself, has to be one of the toughest aspects of motherhood – to care for another creature so deeply only to have nature dictate that the relationship won’t be one-on-one forever.

What strength that takes.

Moms (and some dads – Father’s Day is coming up next month, after all) are typically the ones we go to when we need nourishment or comfort or an ear to listen or advice or maybe just a warm hug. They give and give and give and it’s incredibly impressive.

In fact, the mom I started this column about, Emily, actually was called upon to nurse another litter of puppies after hers were ready to move to hard food – and she did! Can you believe it? Have you ever seen the photos online of a mama cat nursing a baby squirrel?

Moms are seriously amazing.

My mom (and my pop too) are a huge part of the reason I am who I am and I’m incredibly grateful for that every day.

So with Mother’s Day coming up, let’s take a moment and thank all the moms out there – both two-legged and four-legged and remember they really are the heartbeat of the family.

*****

Jennifer Vanderau is the Director of Communications for the Cumberland Valley Animal Shelter and can be reached at cvascomm@cvas-pets.org. The shelter accepts both monetary and pet supply donations. For more information, call the shelter at 717-263-5791 or visit the website www.cvas-pets.org. CVAS also operates thrift stores in Chambersburg and Shippensburg. Help support the animals at the shelter by donating to or shopping at the stores.