(This post was written last week. The two dogs, Albert and Layla, mentioned in here have been adopted since then.)

Sunday afternoon at Toronto Animal Services South. I'm upstairs in the office with Jen and Shannon talking about the new restaurants in the neighbourhood. Someone brings in a cardboard box.

Jen looks inside.

"It needs water," she says. "Looks like it's been poisoned or something."

I look into the box and see a black cat, bone thin, tear encrusted eyes, trying to hold itself up against the side of the box.

"We need to get it to the emergency clinic," Jen says. "Are you a boy or a girl?" she asks and checks as she gently transfers the cat to a proper carrier. "Oh, you're a girl."

"How do you know she's been poisoned," I ask.

"Dilated pupils. She can barely stand. She's dying. It might be something else but it looks like poison. The vet will find out and let us know."

There are no drivers available to take the cat to the Veterinary Emergency Clinic downtown so Jen decides to take the cat herself. It'll take an hour and a half to make the return trip so she'll have to stay late that night at the shelter to finish her work there.

I walk downstairs with Albert, a Poodle, and on the way see Layla behind the front desk. Layla is a small, fragile white Maltese who had been used as a breeding dog for her whole life of seven years. She looks up at me, curious, not nearly as shy anymore as the last time I saw her.

Layla is still on pain killers and is waiting on an all-clear from the vet before she goes into adoption (update: please note that as of this posting, Layla has been adopted).

James walks in through the front door. It's his day off so he's wearing civilian clothes. He's got a cat carrier and I look inside but the dark silhouette doesn't look feline.

"What've you got?" I ask.

"Domestic duck," James says. "There's a bunch of them out by ---------."

"What do you mean, domestic?"

"They were kept by someone and then dumped. They don't know how to take care of themselves on their own."

"You must've had a fun time catching them."

"The first bunch were easy. I just stood there and they came running to me biting at my legs because they were all starving. Now the rest are a little more skittish. This one I had to spend the afternoon out there, trying to tempt it with food and then I netted it." As he walks away to the temporary duck pen, James says, "The other ones brought in have already been rehomed. I'll have to find a place for this one."

I take Albert outside. Albert was found with 13 other poodley dogs in an apartment where the original call to the city was for a bug infestation. All the others have already been adopted or fostered out. Albert is the last one. He's a sad little guy with a quizzical expression on his face. It had taken him weeks to come out of his shell and take his first intrepid steps outside. Now he's still a little uncertain at times but mostly trots along beside me as we walk.

It's cold out. I've put Albert's Christmas sweater on him and he seems to be doing okay. I'm pretty sure he'll be home before Santa comes calling (update: please note that as of this posting, Albert has been adopted).

I haven't been spending as much time at the shelter these last few weeks and sometimes I ask myself why I keep going at all. Is it guilt? A sense of responsibility? No, if it were just that, I would have abandoned the cause long ago. I go because there are the animals, of course, and the sense of groundedness they provide me. There are the photos and the writing which are a creative outlet and make me think I may be doing something useful when I post them online. But a large part of it, something which I hadn't thought about until recently, is that it allows me to be around people who care, who spend their lives caring and who act upon that care. It's a shelter not just for the animals but also against a world fixated on selfish things. In many ways, it's a shelter against the momentum of my own life.