Once a week I went to the Animal Rescue Network to help cleaning the cat shelter.
There are over 100 cats in the shelter. Three to four volunteers clean their litter boxes, refill the water and food bowls. We also brush and sweep away the hair and mop the floor. Volunteers come in morning and evening shifts, leaving the cats a quiet afternoon.
The shelter is divided into various rooms; sociable, healthy cats in the main room, another room for cats with diabetes, a medical ward where cats are kept in cages for they need special food/medication, new cats will be put in reception room waiting to be tested.
Of these rooms, volunteers are taught to work the room of FeLV the last. In that room cats are infected with Feline Leukemia Virus.
Feline Leukemia is a highly infectious disease among cats, though not human.
So we wear lab coat and gloves when we work on that room. After that, we are not to touch other cats in the shelter.
Cats in the Leukemia room looks healthy. They are just more vulnerable to other diseases and die young.
Cats do not know they are in the very desperate ward, supposedly.
But all the cats in Leukemia room are strangely friendly. There are shy cats, defensive cats, leave me alone cats or bite and claw cats in other rooms, but the cats in Leukemia see volunteers like santa claus.
Every time we open the door, they come to greet us, they meow and look at us with joy. They do not fight among each other for a pat or a hug.
The Leukemia room used to have some ten cats. Now Chester, Jonas and Charlie stay there.
Do they know they are in a disease ward?
Chester usually stay in the cat bed on the table. Last week he was on the floor. He stared at the table and then climbed to my lap. I thought he is a bit chubby or too lazy to jump up by himself, so I put him on the table, and get a chair next to the table for him to come down.
He then stayed in his usual bed, massaged the bed for a long time, and then gave me this peaceful look.
It is always tiring cleaning the last room, but the cats know how to encourage their human friends. Chester was acknowledging my effort, or so I thought.
