Do I LOOK Like a Red and Yellow Steel Fixture?

"Excuse me sir, but I think you have mistaken me for a fire hydrant!"

That was what I may have said, had the little guy who peed on my foot been fluent in English, but since I knew he wasn't, I just laughed nervously and hoped that the other gentleman standing before me wouldn't be too put off.

I was showing this little guy, a rat terrier named Scrapper to a prospective adopter, in my new capacity as a shelter volunteer at Chicago Animal Care and Control (ACC). He was undeterred.

My foot and shoe, on the other hand, were very deterred, but were nonetheless stuck with their fate.

I am doing this public service, not out of the goodness of my heart, though an animal-loving heart it is, but because I enrolled in "Animals in Contemporary Life," my externship class at DePaul. This class encompasses a few areas of the issues of animals in our world, and city shelter life is one of them.

At ACC, any animal that walks, or is carried, through their doors is taken; if you found a stray dinosaur on the streets of Chicago, they'd most certainly have a cage for it. This is the fate of the 30,000 animals per year they take in, only some of which make it out again through adoption. But once an animal makes it to the adoption room, it is guaranteed an eventual home, either through direct adoption from the shelter or foster programs through other, no-kill shelters. It is the role of volunteers to walk the dogs and show them to their prospective families. This is what I did today for three hours. As far as work days go, it doesn't sound like much, but walking dogs for three hours is nothing to sneeze at (unless of course, you are allergic!)

I began with Chevy (a big, tan Chihuahua) and ended with Scrapper. Between was Tiger (another big, tan Chihuahua who I saw adopted), Celeste (a gorgeous white American Staffordshire Terrier, same thing as a pit bull) who mostly walked me, Lil Buddy (a pat on the back for me - when I brought Lil Buddy back in from his walk, I noticed a woman and her grown daughter on the other side of the adoption room and told them they hadn't seen this one yet. They fell instantly in love and adopted him!), and Hailey, a small-ish black Lab. Coming into contact with every single one of those dogs felt like a privilege for me; they were dirty and some had grotesquely overgrown nails, but I got on the ground with each of them (except Celeste who would have loved that a little too much) and scratched their bellies and gave them hugs. It was a moving experience, an honor to have a role in the lives of these souls, some of them poor, some perhaps not.

(I have discovered something about myself in the process: big, tan Chihuahuas kind of give me the creeps. They remind me of something, I'm not sure what, but I think it belongs in a Stephen King novel.)

I came home exhausted, but worlds richer for the experience, less a pair of socks (if the pee-stain doesn't come out), and ready to go back for more. My assignment requires a minimum of 20 service hours, but I can see me doing this for a long time. Too bad it's a 30-mile trip each way - that would be the one thing that'd put a stop to it with gas at these prices. But if course Naperville and the surrounding suburbs have shelters, too.

Scrapper didn't get adopted today, but not because of his urinary stunt. It was because he is not good with small children and the man who was interested had them. So, back to the drawing board for Scrapper. But I have high hopes for him - this is the second attempt in two days that someone made to adopt him.

Someone will be lucky enough to have him pee on their shoe very soon, I can just feel it.