This blog reflects my personal experiences and opinions and does not represent or reflect those of DierenAmbulance Nederrijn.
Cats, Kittens and Time Entanglement
A message from the co-ordinator came in just before I left home. It was a request for someone to drive a pregnant stray cat from the base to a shelter some 40 minutes drive away. These long drives don’t fall within the remit of the ambulance crew because of the time it takes; time that is better spent on a resuce – or being on call for one. Often they go to external drivers, but I guess it didn’t work out for some reason today, hence a plea for a driver from within the pool of volunteers.
I told my wife I’d get to see the cat at the base if I was quick enough. She replied that it’s only a cat and not a nest of cute little kittens. OK, so if I wait long enough, then maybe I’ll see the kittens! 😉
Pregnant Cat
I got there in time! 🙂 There were a lot of people – the co-ordinator, a centralist, another centralist, the driver and co-driver from the previous shift, and my driver. And 2 random guys I’d never seen before. There was so much hustle and bustle that the cat was tucked away in the office and the door shut to give her some peace. I asked if I could take a look.
I’d inadvertently left the door open. Seen as an invitation, people trickled inside raising the decibels. I was semi-ushered outside again; there was already something to do! But let’s get the priorities right. I needed to be told one of the ambulances smelled of cats piss so the doors had been left open!
2 Birds in 2 Boxes 2 Go
Already standing just outside the main entrance was a rescue box, and this was part of our first trip. Inside was a blackbird (meral) who’d been found and brought to the local vet. The vet found nothing wrong with her, so she’d been picked up and brought back to the base so we could release her into the wild. Except she thought otherwise and didn’t want to fly away! Was something still wrong with her? We didn’t know, so we were to bring her to the wildlife rescue centre.
And the mystery of the 2 random chaps at the base was solved. They’d found an injured great tit (koolmees) in the local woods and had brought it directly to us. In fact, by now she was already in a rescue box and stacked on top of the blackbird, ready to bring to the wildlife rescue centre.
When I called in to let the rescue centre know of our precious cargo, a friendly voice greeted me in recognition. I tend to get quite flustered on the phone, let alone on a bad connection whilst I’m bobbing around in a noisy ambulance. In short, I didn’t recognise her 🙁 After the call it came to me; she was the friendly vet who works there! She always had time for me, and I hoped I’d get to call her back again later in my shift and be more friendly!
Road Traffic Victim: Deceased Cat
A deceased cat had been called in. She was spotted on a road and we were to collect her, see if she had a chip, let her owner know, and bring her back to the base for cleaning. The driver noted it was going to be difficult to retrieve her because she was on “…the wrong side of the road”. Just as we delivered the blackbird and great tit to the rescue centre, this call-out was taken off our list. Maybe someone had already recovered her.
Jackdaw with a Broken Wing
A lady had spotted a jackdaw (kauw) with a floppy wing on her lunch walk. She went back to the office to get a (huge) box to keep him safe until we arrived. The ‘package’ was waiting for us at the reception of a large company, and the receptionist called down the finder. We’d forgotten to bring a rescue box with us, but this wasn’t a disaster because it was best to move the bird from the cardboard box into the rescue box inside the ambulance where he wouldn’t be able to escape. The finder wanted to come with us to watch!
I felt awkward shutting myself inside the ambulance with a lady, but I explained everything I did as I did it which I hope put her mind at ease (if it wasn’t…). The cardboard box was about 70 cm deep, and the 4 flaps weaved together to keep it shut. I was in a tangle with clipboards, tablets, a phone, a bulky yellow jacket and a host of other small things; reaching inside the deep box for the jackdaw wasn’t comfortable – but I managed!
His floppy wing was clear. I felt bad for holding it against his body ensuring he wasn’t going to fly away – surely this must have been painful for him? I asked the lady to help me close the lid of the rescue box and I think she was happy to do that. Then I showed her how to open the ambulance door(!). I remembered a shift a long time ago – coincidentally with the same driver I had today – where we nearly locked ourselves inside the ambulance!
Once we were outside I completed the paperwork, asked for her signature and gave a magazine. It turned out she was afraid of birds, so she must have been terrified being inside a small space with one. We congratulated her on that, and of course for pulling the jackdaw out of trouble. She found him near a deceased jackdaw. Maybe they’d been in a fight.
We took him to the wildlife rescue centre. I called in, hoping to reach the vet again, but sadly it was someone else who I didn’t recognise. A group of people sat outside on break when we arrived including one of the head animal carers. I also noticed the blackbird and great tit we’d brought in earlier hadn’t been picked up. I’d like to think that inside the 2 closed cupboards were 2 different birds that had been brought in (by another ambulance; not ours as we only have 1 shift at a time). But does this make me cruel for hoping for injury for 2 additional creatures? In any case, I had a bad feeling about being there this time round.
Stray Cat Shot by Idiot
(Reminder: Thoughts and opinion here are my own and not representative of DierenAmbulance Nederrijn)
We needed to pick up a cat from a vet on the way to the rescue centre.
The cat was a stray, but regularly visited a house where food was left out for him. Recently the property owners noticed he’d been injured so they took him to the vet. They found lead bullets in him, the kind hunters use. Evidently hunters had shot this poor cat, and the shot had broken his hip. The vet treated the cat, and the property owner released him back into the wild.
But things didn’t seem to be going well for the cat, so he was brought back to the vet. And this time he was castrated. We were to pick up him from the vet and return him – with medication – to the property owner. I don’t know how the admin was arranged, but apparently it had gone through a shelter. The upshot was I had no forms to complete.
I felt a bit strange when we pulled up in the ambulance at the vet. It seemed we carried out a real emergency service, like when ambulances pull up outside a hospital. But the reality is far from the truth; a lot of the time it feels like we’re barely more than a taxi service. We’re not trained, and even rescuing animals for the most part simply means picking them up once someone else has found, rescued and captured the animal in need.
Anyway. These feelings aside. We brought a pet caddy from the ambulance into the vet with us. We were met by the same paraveterinary who’d shown me around a couple of months ago, and who I’d just bought some anti-flea, ticks and worm drops from the day before. She was happy to hand over the cat with the cage he was already in.
I was pleased about this because the cat hissed as we picked up the carrier, so handling him wouldn’t have been wise at this time. A blanket was draped over the cage to keep him in the dark as a calming measure and we placed him into the ambulance
He wasn’t happy for a while. On the way to the property we noticed a terrible stench; our cat had sprayed (or something?) – and we couldn’t ‘escape’!
On the administrative side, all cats, even strays, are counted as pets. And this means I need to take at least 1 picture of them otherwise my ‘report’ can’t be submitted. It was crucial I took a picture! I did this just after we parked up outside the property – in the luxury of some fresh air!
We were shown into the back garden and we set down the carrier. The driver went back to the ambulance to get a long protective leather glove because even opening the carrier with an angry cat inside can cause injury! Whilst he was away I showed the property owner the medication. She had questions so I directed her to the vet. I recognised the name (metacam) because I’ve given it before to my guinea pigs and to my cat and am fairly sure it’s a painkiller, but I wasn’t going to take any chances.
The driver came back and carefully opened the carrier door. After just a few moments the cat shot out – even with his hip which we could see was still dodgy. It was nice to hear the property owner telling me where the cat would go – and indeed he did! I love it when people are attentive to animals’ behaviours, characteristics and personalities! 🙂
We wondered whether we should take the (stinky) pet carrier back to the base and clean it before someone brought it back to the vet, or whether it could go back to the vet as it was. Since the vet was on the way to the base we thought we may as well see if they wanted it back now. They did, so that saved us some cleaning time! 🙂
Menial Jobs
From now on there were no more rescues, just some menial tasks.
Collecting cat litter grit from a food bank company at a children’s petting farm.
That’s about it. We only had the name of the farm and the road name. The road had 2 other petting farms, one of which we mistakenly turned up at. We were kindly directed to the correct one!
Collecting donated clothes.
From 2 places. The traffic was terrible, there weren’t many clothes at either location and there was a lot of crap in the containers. It took a lot of time (and petrol) and the driver and I were really frustrated, but the centralist was very happy we did it…though didn’t understand why there were so few clothes when the note said they were overflowing with them.
Stinky Ambulance
As for our stinky ambulance – we left the doors and windows open to give it a good airing (ahem…like the other ambulance!) but in our defence the smell was only in the air and the ambulance was clean.
As a final task I moved a cleaned cat trap back into the first ambulance, realising then that its previous occupant was probably the source of their feline smell.
End of Shift
I’ve grouped the rescues together. In reality they laced through each other because we tried to minimise the driving time and distance. For some reason the traffic was dreadful; there were queues and slow moving lines everywhere 🙁
I finished the shift with a raging headache and I couldn’t wait to get home. The people on the shift afterwards turned up late as they had trouble with the traffic too. In their defence, when they’ve turned up early before they’ve relieved us immediately, so I have no hard feelings! Give and take! 😉
