Animal welfare is my life but it's also making me lose my mind.

Author: Jessica Kooistra

  • Overload

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    Jessica Kooistra
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    It’s been a crazy couple of weeks. This post is the result of the many stresses that currently reside inside my brain, traveling into my neck and shoulders and making my muscles ache. The post will not be pretty, or grammatically correct. It is just a purge of thoughts and emotions that will hopefully still…

  • A Special Hell: Part 2

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    Jessica Kooistra
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    The scalpel cuts deep into the stomach lining making a perfectly straight line and splitting the organ wide open. Her gloved hands pry apart the stomach allowing us to peer inside. Rocks, leaves and undigested dirt make up the hollow cavern. It is Tuesday morning and I find myself kneeling on the floor of the…

  • A Special Hell: Part 1

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    Jessica Kooistra
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    *Disclaimer: this post will have some graphic stories and photos. I encourage you to read on anyway. It may not be what the general public sees on a daily basis, but it is my reality. My job. The most frustrating part of my profession is that people assume there is a black and white. An…

  • Third World Welfare

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    In the 15 years now that I have been part of the world of animal welfare in America I have seen so many changes. Changes for the better. Changes that make the general public more aware. Changes that demand better from us humans. It was not always a given that your cat or dog would…

  • Immigrant

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    It is ironic that I am writing this next post while home on Thanksgiving break. Growing up in Namibia I had never heard of Thanksgiving. I remember one morning my sister had some kind of large lizard in bed with her. Wearing her head to toe pajamas, lying on her back she had this reptile…

  • Not the usual suspects

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    “What is the most unusual animal you’ve had to deal with” is a question I’ve heard many times over the years. While most of my calls involve dogs and cats, you can imagine I’ve seen my share of random other animals in the past 15 years of doing this job. Responding to a rogue pet…

  • A Day in the Life.

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    You’ve seen ‘Animal Cops’ on Animal Planet right? Those people in uniforms that find awful puppy mills and starving horses and take the asshole owners to court. Or the one who picks up a hit-by-car dog and rushes it to the vet just in the nick of time. Well, that happens sometimes. The tedious, long…

  • DOA

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    Will you die one day? Of course you will. We all will. Do you have pets? Do you know who will take care of them when you are no longer here? I was called to a house where police were on scene with a man who had passed away in his house. DOA (Dead On…

  • She-Ra

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    Jessica Kooistra
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    I had just started working the road alone, after accepting the position as animal control officer and going through several weeks of training. I pulled up to a house in East Grand Rapids where a woman had reported a stray dog in her yard. I got out of my animal control vehicle, a large cargo…

  • Meatball

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    Jessica Kooistra
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    I almost made it through this summer without a foster kitten. Almost. Today I received a call from a man that saw a truck slow in front of his home and dump out what appeared to be some kind of small animals. The truck took off before he could get a closer look or a…