AHG Pet Care Badge

Rachel's American Heritage Girls Explorer group has been working on earning the Pet Care Badge.  To meet one of the requirements they had to take a tour of an animal shelter.  What a fun visit that was!  Of course, Rachel was drawn to the pets up for adoption and immediately started begging me (unsuccessfully) to take this sweet kitty home with us.

We learned about role of the Animal Services department.  We also learned about different types of wildlife that could be seen in our town and how to identify various animal tracks.

We learned about the vehicles and tools that Animal Services uses when they have to capture wildlife.

Animal Services has a lot of laundry to do.  Look at all of those towels and blankets to make the pets feel comfortable in their temporary home.

We got to see a real microchip that they put in animals that are adopted.  It's just that little dark bar and it goes right under the animal's skin.  Both of our dogs have microchips like these.

If the animal is found, it can be taken to a veterinarian or Animal Services and they will use their scanner to read the identifying information on the microchip.  Most importantly they will get the owner's information so they can get the animal back to their home.

The girls were so excited to meet and pet this gentle giant.  His name is Magnum and he is such a sweet dog.

We all enjoyed looking at the wall of pictures of the various animals that had found their forever homes through Animal Services.  

Random facts that we learned about cats:

• Cats can rotate their ears 180 degrees.
• The hearing of the average cat is at least 5 times keener than that of a human adult.
• Domestic cats spend about 705 of the day sleeping and 15% of the day grooming.