Cat Wrangling

I saw this on FaceBook and it made me laugh. I don’t know how many pills I’ve given cats — but it’s lots! My first ever job was in a cat and dog boarding kennels. I looked after all the cats and a kennel of dogs.  This was before the days of compulsory cat vaccinations, and that year cat ‘flu hit the cats. (Scroll down for the rest of the story.)

I had to give all the cats a tablet twice a day and the sick ones more and different pills and plenty of water, using a squeeze injection thingy  (technical term) to squirt water into their mouths.

I got right into the swing of giving cats pills. The vet showed me how. I tucked the cat into my armpit, gently pulled its head back by the scruff of its neck until its mouth opened, tossed in the pill, and massaged the cat’s throat until it swallowed the pill. (Or not, in which case I retrieved the spat-out pill and repeated the process.) And it was all done and dusted quicker that the time it took to read this.

I was sixteen and as it turned out, I was doing two people’s work. They’d sacked one kennel-maid, and I was given her work in addition to my own. Plus there was the cat-flu. I got no extra help from the people who owned and ran the kennels. It was also high summer, and while they and their two daughters spent their lunch and tea breaks in air-conditioned comfort inside, I was never invited. 

I did the work because I loved the animals, and I cared about the sick ones so took good care of them. The fact that I was exploited didn’t occur to me until much later. I guess it was a life lesson. A lot of us start our working life being exploited, don’t we?