Glancing off to my right, I glimpse the surface of the ponds and notice that the sludge there is beginning to resemble a dry lake bed as the dark brown surface is covered with irregularly shaped cracks in various sizes. I quickly turn my attention away and think of something else. This scene is only temporary, I think to myself, since the workers there will turn the surface under and allow a new layer of sludge to begin drying there in the sun.

As I exit my car I cannot help but wonder what it must be like to work at this animal shelter. The odor is overpowering and I hurry toward the door, hoping to escape the smell as I enter the building. Once inside, I continue to smell the stench of human waste combined with the smell of animal waste from the one hundred or so cats and dogs temporarily sheltered there. The hollow sounds of dozens of dogs barking in their enclosures in the long, cemented corridors almost echoes as I begin to walk toward the kennels.

As I move through the hall, I notice a door which leads to a small room filled with very sanitary racks of stainless steel cages. As I enter, I notice that the floor is smooth cement and has a drain in the center so the shelter personnel can easily hose it out while cleaning. The room has a very cold feel to it. Inside of each cage is a cat. Some of the cats have pushed themselves as far into the back of the cages as possible and are laying inside their litter boxes. Three cages on the bottom portion of the rack contain mother cats and their litters of kittens. This room is mostly quiet, with just an occasional cry from the occasional cat. I notice that the hollow sounds of dogs barking seem to echo in this room despite the fact that the door is closed. A small black and white kitten reaches through the bars toward me in a kind of semi-interested appeal for friendship. The kitten climbs toward the top of the cage door and clings there as if frozen, waiting for me to respond. I turn and exit the room, closing the heavy door carefully to avoid making a noise that might frighten the animals here. Once the door closes I think to myself that the noise made by a slamming door is the least of their worries.

As I begin to walk down the long corridor that leads to the dog kennels, I hear a commotion coming from the lobby. I turn around in time to see a petite woman struggling to pull a large black dog through the door. Once inside, she pulls and coaxes the now shivering dog close to the reception desk. She fumbles as she blurts out a very superfluous explanation about the dog and her reasons for wishing to surrender it. The monotone male voice behind the counter responds by asking a series of questions about whether the dog has ever bitten anyone, if it’s good with children and housetrained. He then hands her a paper to sign and calls someone in the back to come and get the dog. She hands the worker the leash. The dog trembles as she quickly exits the building.

The workers exchange no words and express no emotion over what has just transpired. They know that most black animals are considered unadoptable because people don’t want black fur on their carpet or because people somehow are unable to interpret the expressions on the faces of black pets. They know that many people can look closely into the face of a black pet and are not able to distinguish a “nice-doggie” from an unfriendly dog. They know that the black dog will probably be euthanized despite the fact that he’s only two years old, loves children and is housetrained. They also know how to suppress the painful twinges of heartache dealt to them while they are at work because they do this five days a week and have been doing this for years. The emotions come later at home when they let their guard down for just a few seconds as they wait for sleep to sooth them at night. These quiet times alone in the dark are the hardest times and the only time the animal shelter workers allow themselves to feel. Sleep offers a little comfort after the tears have fallen. Tomorrow is another day at work.

As I make my way down the corridor, the sounds of barking dogs becomes louder and is almost deafening as I enter one of the walkways between the long rows of kennels. The floors of the kennels are cement and each has a gutter and drain built into it so the workers can easily hose the urine and feces out of it. As I peer through the chainlink fencing, I see that each kennel contains several dogs in various breeds and sizes. Some of the dogs are leery and do not approach the fence where I’m standing. A small, matted brown dog cautiously approaches and attempts to sniff my legs through the fencing. Another larger dog hides in the very back of the kennel and trembles as the other dogs become agitated and begin barking louder than they had been barking before.

I move up and down the walkways, carefully looking into each kennel as I go. One kennel on the end contains a medium-sized dog with seven puppies. I begin to feel sadness and a deep empathy for this dog and her puppies but I force myself to keep walking, focusing instead on the stench in the air. I regain my composure and finish searching through the kennels. I feel disappointed as I realize that my dog isn’t here and I begin to feel dread at the prospect of coming back tomorrow to search again.

As I walk toward the exit a man walks in carrying a pet carrier containing a small cat. He stammers as he explains that he can’t keep it because he’s moving next week. He answers the series of questions and signs the paper like the woman before him. He and the cat disappear in separate directions. The sound of the door slamming shut behind him has no affect on the dogs at all.

Once in the parking lot, I notice that there are no cars there but mine. No one has arrived to adopt a pet. Each has seven days to be adopted before it is humanely euthanized. I put the car in gear and begin to weave past the series of waste treatment ponds. The workers there have turned the surface crust over and the new, wet layer shines in the sun as it begins to dry. I realize as I am surveying the scene that the unwanted pets are another kind of human waste. Each day some of them are euthanized and more arrive to take their place.

I wonder, as I accelerate onto the highway, how a society as advanced and as compassionate as ours could allow such a tragedy to occur so routinely that the issue is so ingrained in our collective psyche that we overlook the horror of it all. I imagine the hundreds of dogs, cats, puppies and kittens who die there every year in just that one shelter and I wonder if they were ever so much as an afterthought to those who left them behind. I wonder if any of the millions of pets who are euthanized each year in the United States ever weigh on the minds of those who abandoned them to that fate. I almost cry as I imagine five days at the city animal shelter and what it must be like to feel such desperation and such hope, all the way until...

The End.