Our recent Fun Friday combined my youngest child’s favorite things: friends, animals and reading. We combined all these things while visiting the Animal Rescue League of Berks County, Inc., 58 Kennel Road in Birdsboro.
The shelter is one of thousands across the nation that take in abandoned or rescued dogs, cats and other critters. According to the Humane Society website (humanesociety.org), up to 8 million dogs and cats enter shelters each year. A fraction of these are reclaimed by their owners, and approximately half of the rest are adopted by new families. These means shelters are full year-round with animals waiting for a home.
The Berks ARL has been helping these animals since 1952, receiving an estimated 900 cats and 300 dogs a month and placing about 4,000 of those in homes each year. We heard about the shelter from my daughter’s good friend. He and his family are regulars at the shelter, so they invited us to join them for this visit.
As soon as we entered the building, my daughter and her friend signed in for the Book Buddies. This program started at the shelter a year ago and, according to the ARL website, helps animals (who are soothed by the rhythm of reading voices and positive social interactions) and the readers (who improve literacy and animal companionship skills).
My daughter and her friend raced down the hallway to select books, then headed to the cat room. Here we found a dozen or so animals in individual cages along the walls, and four larger ‘rooms’ housing several cats each. Book Buddies are asked to carefully enter these rooms (making sure no cats escape) and to share the ledges, perches or balconies the cats enjoy while reading aloud to them.
As soon as the children climbed into a room, friendly cats came out to investigate. In no time at all, my daughter was sitting cross-legged in a balcony with a pile of books, a purring cat in her lap and another curled at her feet. Her friend sat on an inside ledge and was distracted from reading by a playful kitten who pounced on his shoelaces. His older sister sat in another room, happily holding another friendly feline.
Perhaps an hour passed as the children read, moving from room to room as long as they sanitized their hands between stops. Shelter staff busily worked around us, feeding the animals, cleaning up messes and answering questions. We found out that some of the cats in the individual cages are not eligible for adoption (due to a recent surgery, etc.). The others were available, but could only be held by those seeking to adopt that day. All of the cats had a small paper identifying them by name, color and other characteristics.
After the relative calm of the cat room, the kennel was a boisterous place, filled with ‘pick-me’ barks and wagging tails. Our group quickly settled on a friendly terrier named Juliette. We had already signed a simple waiver at the front desk and received ‘volunteer dog walker’ badges, so we simply found a shelter worker for a leash and headed outside with Juliette.
Adults must hold the leash of dogs being walked (and are asked to keep a distance from other dogs and walkers), but children can ‘co-walk’ with a second leash. Taking turns holding the leashes, our group made our way to one of two, fenced dog runs. Here, we set Juliette loose. She enjoyed a lively game of chase with the kids before flopping at their feet and presenting her belly to be rubbed.
Soon, it was time to put her back on the lead. We took a longer loop back to the shelter, circling a pen that sometimes holds horses and other large animals (none were there that day). Back at the shelter, we returned Juliette to a worker and made time for one more stop, the ‘Critter Room.’ Here we found several large rabbits, a brightly-feathered bird and a pair of shy mice.
The children were reluctant to leave and did try to talk both mothers into adopting another pet (or two). However, we had set the parameters before we left; each house already has the right number of pets, we reminded our children, and we were doing an important job here today instead by showing love to lots of animals while they waited for the right family to adopt them.
I must admit, the Book Buddies program had an added benefit when it came time to leave. We reminded the kids to turn in the list of books they read in exchange for a small prize from a box kept near the front door. As the two younger children searched the loot for the perfect prize, the rest of us browsed a waiting area where were we found a nice assortment of gently used or new items: collars and leashes, training books and food. Most of these items were available for a donation, and this is where our ‘Fun Friday’ budget kicked in – we made a donation of $5 to the shelter and got a bag of treats and toys to take to our own dog at home.
As we headed out, my daughter was already making plans for a return visit to the shelter. For more information about adopting or volunteering at the Animal Rescue League of Berks, call 610.373.8830 or visit berksarl.org.
