A Day in the Life: Animal Care Worker

             Every day, Patrick Furse walks down the white, labyrinthine walls of the Toronto Humane Society, passes a hallway of caged barking dogs, and into another corridor where a binder filled with checklists of dog walks waits to be marked off.

As an animal care worker, Furse’s duties walking dogs, cleaning feces, urine or both from cages of fearful animals, and ensuring all animals are emotionally and physically stable.

His job may sound easy, but in truth, it’s not for the faint of heart.

“Rain or shine, these dogs need to be walked,” says Furse.

Jordan Bursach, another animal care worker starting his shift with Furse, jokingly adds “We get paid $11.50 for everything we do. You can get paid more at McDonald’s!”

Today, his walk at 10 a.m. begins with Bismarck, a two-month-old Labrador Retriever puppy. Furse reveals Bismarck’s scar on his belly, which was left after two surgeries to remove parts of his intenstine that were infected.  He carries him down the stairs – Bismarck is afraid of stairs - through the back door of the shelter and into a large yard with several fenced off areas for dogs to play.

 “We try to give each dog ten to fifteen minutes of exercise four to five times a day,”

After getting his wildlife biology degree in 2009, Furse wanted to find some animal care experience. What he got instead was a rewarding experience he says doesn’t feel like a job at all.

Bismarck finds a Tim Horton’s coffee cup on the ground and uses it as his own makeshift chew toy. Watching Bismarck, Furse reflects on his experiences for the past two years he’s worked here. When police raided the THS a year and a half ago for animal cruelty charges, Furse was one of three workers in the building at the time.

“I just tried to focus on animals and ignore what was happening. I thought, ‘these dogs still need to be walked’ and I tried to do my job.”

He also played with Bandit, the notorious pit bull who was accused of biting a toddler in 2004 and several THS workers. He says he never had any problems with Bandit, who was one of six pit bulls who were euthanized due to Ontario’s pit bull ban.

“He was just fearful at first, but once he got to know you, he was very friendly and playful. All the pit bulls were highly affectionate…” He doesn't want to continue, because the memory makes him "emotional".

Furse bends down picks up a shivering Bismarck and cradles him inside his jacket. Bismarck moves underneath his jacket, trying to find a comfortable spot to snuggle with him in the snow. Furse believes all animals at the shelter deserve equal treatment, but “you can see my attachment to Bismarck,” he says. “He’s gone through so much at such a young age.

While Bismarck was having surgery, Furse had many restless nights. He’d wake up in the middle of the night worrying about Bismarck, and when he was finally stable, Furse cried tears of joy.

After he walks Bismarck, Furse walks the next dogs on the checklist. All the dogs are anxious and hyperactive when Furse initially enters their cage, then calm as soon as they’ve done their walk. All of the dogs are greeted by volunteers, veterinary technicians and animal care workers, many of them knowing the dogs by name and greeting them like old friends.

“A lot of people think shelter situations are so sad and that all dogs are miserable. Actually, these dogs get more exercise than my own dogs and veterinarians and behaviour specialists check them regularly.”

Ten dogs are being expected to arrive in the afternoon from a Hamilton THS location, so Furse washes down some empty cages, some with square cuts in the wall where dogs can walk to the other side. The cuts were made to make more room for the dogs, who were placed in a tiny cell.

“After the building was raided, it was a huge wake-up call and I think everything changed for the better,”

Before the THS raid, there were 120 dogs kept at the facility at a time. This meant that dogs could only get quickly checked to make sure they were physically okay, but not mentally. Not all dogs got the care they needed. Now, with a cap of about 45 dogs at a time, Furse is actually glad that the changes were forced to happen and that quality for each dog has risen since then.

The Hamilton dogs arrive at 2 p.m., and after lugging heavy crates to the storage room, Furse immediately begins walking the nervous dogs, one of which already had a bowel movement Furse had to clean. As he walks outside with Foley, one of the new dogs, all the workers say hello to their new companion.

He meets up again with Bursach outside, who laughs and tells him one of the employees ‘finally’ quit.

“For real this time?” Furse asks.

“Yup. Just dropped his uniform off at the front desk and left.”

People quitting their job is not uncommon at THS, due to the high stress and the low pay. Of 20 employees hired a year and a half ago, Bursach says he is one of two that remain.

“(The stress) is totally worth it, though; this is a job you definitely can’t find anywhere else.”

When Furse’s shift ends at 3 p.m., he won’t go home and relax from the stresses of his job. He’ll check the THS website every few hours to see if any dogs were adopted.

“You’re always going to have people who are passionate about animals with different perspectives on animal care.” He says. “Some people say you should be more authoritative, but I prefer to be like one of dogs and let them do whatever they want,”

No matter the perspective on animal care, there’s one thing everyone in the animal care industry has in common.

“We don’t do this job because of the pay. We do this because it’s rewarding and we care about the animals.”