I just got back a few hours ago from spending another Sunday at the East Valley Animal Shelter in Van Nuys, Calif.  for my Spot.us story. So much went on in the three or four hours I was there, that it’s hard to separate one event from the other. A timid American Bull Dog, hit by a car, unable to move its hind legs and found in Sunland was brought in. A German Shepherd, an Akita and several cats were adopted. Those unfortunate enough to remain in their cages got one day closer to a new home or a death sentence.

The psychological impacts on both humans and animals in a shelter is worth examining. As an animal technician, there’s a point where you have to put your emotions on the bottom of your priority list. After all, you’ve got a job to do, a job that, along with feeding, cleaning and caring for an animal, includes killing an animal. As a dog or cat, cooped up in a cage, with the details of your life hanging on a kennel card and the incessant sound of barking at every hour of the day, all you have to go by are your emotions. It’s a hard life, for both caretaker and resident.

Less than a week away from my deadline, there’s so much to think about and still a few people left to talk to. What has become clear from my research, from interviews, from visits to the shelter and trying to examine the situation that is animal euthanasia in Los Angeles, is that it takes a village working together to protect animals, much like it takes a village to raise a child. All components of the equation must work harmoniously, or else the entire operation will fall apart fantastically.

It’s so funny how dogs come into our lives. One minute they’re with their sisters or brothers or in a shelter or at an adoption agency and the next minute, they’re yours. Sometimes, when the entire house is quiet and I’m on my computer, sitting in the dark, as I am now, and Henry is lying beside me somewhere between dreaming of food and toys, I look at him and it amazes me that I can call him mine. This little dog is mine. When I talk about him, I say, “My dog, Henry.” That is just astonishing to me. I’m sure I sound weird to anyone who is reading this, but you don’t understand. My childhood wasn’t filled with actual pets, just the longing for pets, almost every day.

My parents never let me have a dog or cat, so I would spend my days catching ladybugs and lizards in the back yard to call my own. They finally relented and let me have goldfish, and these were not your ordinary goldfish. They were beautiful, with striking colors, big puffy heads and flowing tails. I had them for a couple years. Then one day, we went on vacation and I came back to find most of them dead. After my goldfish fiasco, I was granted ownership of two anole lizards I kept in a terrarium in my room. Every week, my mom and I would make the trek down to the pet store to buy a bag full of crickets to feed them. A couple would always get loose and make their way around the house.

The lizards were tropical and as such had to be occasionally sprayed with water. I would take their cage out every week and put them in the shade. One day, I left them out too long while I went to the store with my mom and came back to find them shriveled up and gasping for air. They both died. I ceremonially buried them under the oak tree. I was completely devastated. Having felt sorry for me, my parents gave me permission to get more lizards, but I didn’t want to have anything to do with them. It was enough of a traumatic experience that I couldn’t bare to think of having two more.

Year and years went by. Having a dog was a topic of conversation at least once a week in my house, but the end of it was always the same: It’s either me, or a dog, my mom would say.

Thinking back on it now, what a cruel thing to say to a kid. But she didn’t understand, and I don’t blame her. I loved animals more than life itself and she, well she didn’t.

It wasn’t until I graduated from university last year, that she ever gave serious thought to me having a dog. By then, it wasn’t her choice anymore. It was going to be her and the dog and there was nothing she could say or do. So she chipped in and paid for half of Henry. She even came with me to bring him home. Although she might not admit it, they have been best friends every since. She feeds him chopped pepper, he sits in her lap. She worries about him when we’re not home, he watches her cook. She calls him “our dog” and pats his head while he sleeps. They love each other.

Pets are such an important and enriching part of life. Looking back, I’m not sure how I went all those years without Henry. Everything in my life can be crumbling and when I take one look at him when I get home, all of that melts away and it’s just me and him, with his head resting upon my hand, comfortably. It’s where he belongs.