Rescue Drama

I’ve finally caved in and turned on the air conditioning at home, and Tink and Zeugma are taking turns standing on the printer with their paws on the window sash and their bellies up to the cold air blasting from the window unit.

So this morning, I’m cleaning out cages in the cat room (warning: cheesy MIDI) with D., who’s another volunteer at the shelter, and K.’s the senior volunteer working in the dog room with N., when the phone rings. Ben and Annie, a ginger tabby and a big black and white, are following me around trying to jump into the cages I’m cleaning after I pull out the litter boxen and the newspaper and bedding, Peanut’s guarding my coffee cup, and Reba’s being a bitch and taking random swipes at me. And it’s mostly a quiet morning, not like the chaos with all the dogs excited and barking on Wednesday morning after one of theirs who’d gotten away from the volunteer walking her this weekend had been found in the woods and returned, with the barking getting the cats all freaked out and barfy and yowly and hissy and swatting at one another. The phone rings, and I hear K. pick up and talk briefly, asking questions, and then giving directions. A few minutes later, it rings again: more directions.

K. comes into the cat room, a little exasperated, cigarette in hand, running her other hand through her hair. “This guy,” she says. “This guy’s like driving around, saying he’s by the drug store, and I told him how to get here, and he says he can’t find us. The drug store’s on Main, right?” D. affirms this. “So he says he’s got a puppy he wants to drop off. Says he found this puppy by the side of the road last night and doesn’t know what to do with it. We’re not hard to find, right?”

A few minutes later, a third phone call, and shortly after that, I’m in the front room with the nervous cats — the ones who aren’t so good in the big room with the other cats — cleaning up plates of old food when I see a minivan pull up. I take the food plates back into the big room and put them in the sink, and D. and I are taking stock of what to do next when K. comes hurtling into the cat room with a little yellow rag cupped in her hands, her eyes wide. “What. The fuck. Is this?” she asks.

It’s tiny. Maybe the size of your index, middle, and ring fingers held together. The way she’s got the rag wrapped around it, we can only see the head and neck: long head, eyes closed, little floppy ears, pink skin, faintest dusting of black fur. “Oh my God,” says D. She takes the rag from K. and cradles it. We all look at it. I blurt the obvious: “It’s a newborn.”

K. puts her hands to her forehead. “Who the hell — a newborn — leaves,” she begins. “We’re not equipped — we can’t take care of something like this. Shit.” She stops to think a moment. Then, to D.: “Keep it warm. I need to make a couple calls.” She leaves the room. D. cradles it close and she and I just look at the tiny thing as it stirs a bit and turns its blind head.

Seconds later, K.’s back and all business, swift and collected and imperative: heating pad from the storage room and put it in the microwave. Warm towels from the dryer. Set up a space on top of the cabinet in the puppy room. Mix up some warm Esbilac. Feeding syringes are in the cupboard. And then she’s on the phone going down the list of the shelter’s vets, trying to find an open slot. Everybody’s quiet, hushed, even the dogs. And things come together and settle down, there’s a slot in Cornwall later on, and we feel like we’re OK.

And D. pulls the rag back to get a better look at the baby, and her face goes a little funny. And N. gets a better look, as do I.

And D. calls to K., “I think the puppy has hands. With fingers.”

Like, long fingers. With little sharp black nails. And that ain’t like no puppy tail I’ve ever seen. K. comes to look, and agrees: long head, yes; floppy ears, yes — but that’s no dog.

As it turns out, we’ve rescued a newborn squirrel, and the vet has found a slot for it at a wildlife shelter, who are going up to Poughkeepsie today to the spot where the young man found it, since if there’s one, then mama’s gone and there are likely more.

The cat room is mopped and the cages are clean, except for Reba’s, who decided to continue to be a fartling and trashed hers as we were leaving. I got some quality time with the superabundance of black kittens in their shared cages in the puppy room, and with a young black lab who barked at me when I didn’t pet her frequently enough. And I’m sure there’ll be more of the same drama next week, but right now, it’s Tink’s turn on the air conditioner, and I need to fix dinner.