Say hello to my little friend, Passer Domesticus AKA chirpy-boy or as the Los Angeles Department of Animal Services knows him, A0968416  N  . I found chirpy-boy Friday night while walking back home when I saw him/her in the corner of my eye. Chirpy-boy was on the floor next to a wall. I walked up to him/her and instead of flying away, he/she bounced away and that’s when I knew something was wrong with him/her. I chased him/her a little bit more to make sure and he/she could fly away and he/she didn’t. I also noticed how small chirpy-boy is, so I knew he/she was still a baby. I managed to corner chirpy-boy and grab him/her with my hand. In my hand I could feel all of chirpy-boys body trembling and his heart pounding. It felt as if my whole hand was throbbing at a high rate. At the same time when I picked up chirpy-boy he/she screamed and bit my palm as hard as he/she could, it didn’t hurt. One thing you have to understand about me is that I’m an animal advocate,lover and owner of a black lab (Harley Quinn) that saved my life and helped me lose 20 lbs. Animals and advocating for their welfare is something close to my heart. I have written about the horrors of puppy mills/pet stores, at my schools news paper and have helped other’s realize/understand that if they decided to take in an animal, adopting is always the best bet. (This could go on for days so yeah, I’ll stop now). With chirpy-boy in one hand and my birthday cake on the other, I headed home and made arrangements for chirpy-boy spending the night until the morning, when I would take him to the North Central Animal Shelter. 

   

~ Chirpy-boy bitting me…again… ~

This is not the first nor the last time I have gone to the shelter with an injured animal. About a year ago, walking around Evergreen cemetery with Harley and her mom Brooklyn, I found an injured baby opossum. He was hit by a car or possibly a person because he/she was bleeding from his ears, mouth and nose. I found a dirty car mat and carried him back to the house. I tried to get someone to drive me to the shelter that night but no one was available nor willing to help me. Thus I placed the opossum in a shoe box and waited until the morning to take him/her. When I went to check on him/her in the morning, ants were eating him alive : ( I knew I couldn’t do anything so I let him go in peace. A few months after that, again walking the dogs around Evergreen, I found a crow with a backwards wing. Obviously broken, I nabbed the crow with my jacket and again took him back to the house. This time around my friend was at the house and I asked her to take me to the shelter. It was 9 p.m. and thankfully the North Central shelter has 24 hr drop off service. After he tried to pluck my eyes out during the rescue, we dropped of the crow and left him/her in good hands. I never did find out what became of him/her. 

 

Back at the house I was able to get a good look at chirpy-boy and I was right about him/her having a damaged wing. I know you can’t really tell from the pictures, but it looked as if he/she was mauled or he/she just had a bad fall from the tree he/she lived in. As I was giving chirpy-boy water and making holes in a shoe box, I noticed that Dr. Dolittle 2 was on in the living room. I noticed the irony and I got chirpy-boy and sat down to watch the movie and enjoy some cake. My only concern for chirpy-boy was that because he was injured, the blood might attract ants, so I stashed him in the closet. In the morning there were a few ants on the box, but they were attracted more by the crap than the blood. 

  

After cleaning of the ants off and making sure chirpy-boy was still with me, I prepared his box for the bus and metro ride ahead of us. Thus I stuck some labels on the box that warned others that there was a live bird in the box. I got some weird looks on the bus. 

~ Chirpy-boy holding up in his box while on the bus ~

~ Chirpy-boy in his box ready for his first and last train ride ~

~ Chirpy-boy and I reach our destination ~

At the shelter I handed chirpy-boy to the on hand animal control officer and he punched in my info. I have a fie because of my dogs license. I asked him what’s going to happen to chirpy-boy and he said that he’s going to be taken to a wildlife rescue and depending on the veterinarians diagnoses, he would be put to sleep or rehabilitated. He gave chirpy-boy a quick look and told me that he’d probably be patched up and released because the wing wasn’t broken. He gave me chirpy-boys I.D. number so I can check up on him later on and find out what happened to him. 

  

Having seen chirpy-boy off I stuck around a bit to console the other animals they have for adoption. I had a tear in the corner of my eye as the cats and dogs in the cages cried and purred for my attention. 

I’m a huge softy for animals and whenever I see them in their cages, rubbing themselves on the bars for my attention, I just can’t help myself. 

~ Clawing me for attention. If I could I would adopt every animal at he shelter ~

Deciding to leave before I break out in tears, I noticed that there was a strip club across the street. WTF ??? An odd location to have a strip club. None the less, I headed back home knowing chirpy-boy will make it. Realizing that I knew that my job there was done, at least until I come across another injured or stray animal. 

For more information about animal services, adoption and locating your local animal shelter you can visit the L.A. Animal Services web site.