The Freezer

The freezer is not for the faint of heart. Or for the weak of stomach.

Yesterday, a man came into reclaim his cat, which had been sitting in the freezer for a few days. Even in the freezer, dead doesn't smell very good. He handed me a cat carrier, I brought it out to the freezer, fished around for the right bag, and returned his carrier to him, with an unspeakably sad weight inside.

We laugh about the freezer- if we didn't laugh, we'd cry and not be able to continue on with the day. But the freezer is one of the parts of my job I try not to think about too often. The "John Does" of the pet world are in there, for the most part, since the amount of deceased animals that are actually reclaimed or identified is very small compared to the amount of unknown animals that come through the shelter. Hit By Car's and Dead On Arrival's sit in there with the animals who wait through their stray period and aren't lucky enough to make it out reunited with their family or matched up with a new family. We fish out only a few, to go home for a decent burial.