It's raining cats and dogs (and raccoons and squirrels and bears and bobcats and seals)

So! I slightly lied in my first post. It was just a cream-colored lie, really, not even a white lie. I said that currently I am volunteering at a wildlife rehab center. The TRUTH of the matter is, I WILL be starting to volunteer at a wildlife rehab center VERY SOON. I actually just got home from my orientation (three and half hours long, mind you), and it was SOOOO COOOOOL!

This place is aweeeesooommmme (for those of you reading this who really aren't into the whole nursing animals back to health and picking up lots of poop and smelling of animal fur and disinfectant, you may not think it is aweeeesoooommme, but you can at least think it's pretty neat-o). It is the only wildlife rehab center combined with a companion animal adoption shelter in the entire state of Washington, and it is one of the very few in the entire United States. It's called PAWS, which stands for Progressive Animal Welfare Society. They were founded in 1967 by two women who realized there was a huge problem with the overpopulation of cats and dogs in the area, and geniously (probably not a word) realized that encouraging people to spay and neuter their pets would help ameliorate the issue tremendously. Of course, animals starting showing up on their doorstep right and left from owners who felt they could no longer care for their pets and knew these women would give them a good home, and eventually PAWS was formed.

Anyway, I won't get into all the fun facts that they spewed at us tonight, but I will say that the facilities are amazing, the enclosures that the wildlife are kept in are tremendously naturalized and the care seems to be top-notch. They do their best to minimize human-animal interaction with the wildlife rehab center, since they don't want the animals to become used to humans and look to them for food and shelter upon release. They do, however, bottle and syringe-feed the orphaned baby animals, and during the summer (when I will be volunteering) there is lots of hands-on work with baby birds, squirrels, raccoons, rabbits, and even sometimes bears and bobcats (several of which they are housing right now). The companion animal shelter is also one of the nicest I've ever been to (and trust me.. I've been to plenty. I like to browse and fantasize about owning all of the adoptable dogs in every city I move to). It broke my heart to see all of the dogs and cats needing homes, but you could tell they got walks and playtime every day, and many of them were even participating in daily training sessions, which a LOT of shelter animals will never be lucky enough to experience with such limited resources. These dogs get quality care, and every volunteer I met tonight seemed to genuinely want to give their love and time to these animals.

I will stop with all my mushy animal nonsense, but one last plug.. if anyone is looking to adopt an animal and lives in Washington, go to PAWS! Pretty sweet place. I can't wait to start volunteering.

ANYWHO... onto very different types of animals... when I was thinking about names for this blog a few days ago I googled several different things that I thought may represent me in some way or another: "odd-looking animals", "awkward animal names", "strange sea creatures", just to name a few. Here are a few of the pictures that came up:



Fathead Fish (I may add this guy to my aquarium)

Also:



Wolf eel. Stuff of nightmares. Poor guy.

Another unfortunate fellow:



Sea Pig. Hmmm...

Yet another:



Aye-Aye. Absolutely terrifying.

And lastly:



Yeeesh.

That's all I got for now! Stay tuned for some more tasty bits in the coming days (Mom, I'm talking to you).

In the words of Bonnie Swanson:

"Bye now!!"