Last week, we were asked by the state of Maine Animal Welfare Program to assist with pets in need of housing pending a court case. If possible, whenever we are asked to help with situations like this, we do. These pets are not from our area, but that doesn’t matter; most shelters in Maine help whenever we can because these situations often involve more pets than any one of us can absorb. Here at Midcoast Humane, we feel a particular responsibility to do so because we are lucky enough to have a veterinarian on staff. Most shelters in Maine do not.

Our team worked together beautifully to handle the influx of high needs pets, and all the parts worked together as they should. Our transport coordinator went to the site and got the pets for our shelter, brought them back and got them unloaded; our clinic team started examining and shaving the ones with mats; our admissions coordinator and foster care team jumped in to make sure everyone got vaccines, dewormer and flea/tick preventatives, and folks from other areas pitched in as extra hands were needed for bathing and feeding. I was very pleased that we did our jobs like a well-oiled machine, and those furry souls would be clean, comfortable and well fed that night.

But then I saw one of our newest staff members leave the exam room and just stand there, still, leaning against the door that had shut behind her. The look on her face stopped me dead in my tracks. She looked stunned, overwhelmed and sad all at the same time. I asked her if she was OK and she shook her head slowly and said quietly, “Those poor babies.”

I thought about her, our new staff member, the rest of the day. I can no longer tell you the first time I saw a pet in the condition these pets were in. By this point in my career, I’ve seen it more times than I can count, and my coping mechanisms are well in place. I’m able to do what we need to, get everyone the care they need, move through the situation and cry later, if need be. Part of coping for me is not thinking about the circumstances too much. I cannot bear to think about how pets come to be in this condition, the long-term neglect and sometimes outright cruelty and violence they experience, and how it must feel for them. Instead, I concentrate on what we can do to make it better.

The simple reality is that there is trauma in what we do. We see things we wish we didn’t. We hear stories that we don’t tell our friends and family. We get good at equivocating when discussing our day at work; we focus on the good things that happened, or tell the story about how we managed to spray ourselves in the face with the hose. We don’t talk about the sad, the upsetting or the traumatic because secondhand trauma is real. Just hearing the stories we have to tell can cause deep distress to the listener. In my first year of sheltering, my ex-husband asked me, “Can we treat your job like you’re a cop and you don’t talk about it at home?” It’s not a coincidence my ex-husband brought up police; they’re first responders and see a lot that is difficult for most to process.

The second time around, I married a man with firefighting experience. It’s pretty hard to faze him, he has gut wrenching stories of his own, as most first responders do. He will listen to me talk about anything work-related that I need to, and I know I can be blunt and truthful and not scar his psyche.

I haven’t shared any details of the situation I described above, first because it’s an active case and I cannot do so, but I also do not want to upset you. What I do want you to know is that sheltering is not all puppies and kittens and happy adoptions and puppy yoga. We have a whole other layer to our work that we do when pets have been let down by the people who should have been taking care of them. The puppies and kittens, happy adoptions and puppy yoga are what refill our emotional reserves and give us the joy to keep going but truthfully, nothing has made me happier in weeks than seeing those pets clean, groomed, fed and sleeping peacefully.

Jess Townsend is executive director of Midcoast Humane.