By: John Limbaugh Vallo Vision News
Dogs and cats are known to communicate by smell, but odors and fragrances also have an effect on people. The first thing Caitlin Gibson noticed when she walked into the Shelby Humane Society 5 years ago was the unpleasant smell.
In a place where hundreds of stray animals are kept together, a visitor might expect to encounter the smell of urine and feces, but Caitlin was surprised at just how strong the smell was inside the facility.
“I could tell just by the smell that there were too many animals there.” Gibson said.
Caitlin was led by a volunteer down narrow aisles of dog kennels stacked in columns of two. Each dog she passed peaked its head or jumped to the front of the cage to get her attention. Caitlin says she began crying in the middle of the aisle because Seeing all of of them vie for her attention made her feel terrible that she couldn’t “take them all with home.”
Caitlin did not walk into the shelter to adopt that day, but to leave a stray she had found wandering in an abandoned gas station lot.
Since that day, Caitlin has volunteered nearly 400 hours of her time at the Shelby Humane Society. Beginning in the October, 2017, Caitlin cleaned kennels, resupplied water feeders and fed the animals each day for weeks.
“It was a straightforward routine, but that’s what made it easy,” Gibson said, “I spent three days a week volunteering to work full shifts so I could help make the place more hospitable for them.”
Two months after she started volunteering, Caitlin was driving home when she saw a truck driver leave their dog on the side of a county road. Caitlin says the driver stopped a few hundred yards ahead of her and opened the passenger door before “shoving the dog out and driving off.”
Caitlin brought the dog, a pit bull/lab mix, back to the shelter. Caitlin says the ordeal angered her, but it was only the beginning of something that she cannot explain to this day.
“I started encountering more strays,” Caitlin said: “Somehow, it was like wherever I went, I would come across a dog without an owner. I felt like something was drawing me to them. It was actually kind of creepy.”
Between December, 2017 and August, 2018, Caitlin encountered eight strays and brought them back to the shelter. Around this time, the shelter began to grow overpopulated and Caitlin was asked to help transfer some of the animals to off site adoption events.
The events, which were held at public locations across the Shelby County area, gave Caitlin a chance to see many of the dogs she had tended to welcomed into new families. Caitlin says the experience was “emotional, but in the right ways.”
When the COVID pandemic hit, animal shelters closed to the public and Caitlin could no longer volunteer. Caitlin took Casey, the lab mix she had rescued from the side of the road, home with her.
During the pandemic, Caitlin began attending the University of Montevallo where she currently majors in Theater Tech. Caitlin says the past two years have been hard on her, but Casey is her “reason to keep going.”
“I fell into depression for a while thinking about the animals just shut in the shelter,” Caitlin says, “I just wanted to be there for all of them, but I was stuck at home for over a year.”
Caitlin recently joined Alpha Gamma Delta, a sorority on campus. Through their philanthropy network, Caitlin was able to begin volunteering at the Shelby Humane Society again.
Caitlin currently spends eight hours a week at the shelter feeding, grooming, and preparing the animals to meet any potential new family that walks through the shelter doors.
“I can’t take all of them home with me but I can make their time here easier,” Caitlin says.”
Caitlin has said she doesn’t know what she’ll do once she graduates, but if she can keep “helping lost animals find hope,” she will.
To volunteer or adopt like Caitlin, visit the Shelby Humane Society’s website.
Vallo Vision News 