Place of Mind

The Place With The Most Meaning

When asked to pick a place to that is part of my routine and to look at it more closely the PAWS Tinley Park Animal Shelter located on 191st street in Mokena immediately came to mind. I help there every Friday since late October, early November and it is a truly humbling experience. I started helping there as a way to get service hours for a vet assistant class I was taking at the time. I have since graduated from the class but fell in love with the shelter and continue to help there and it is the best part of my week. But these pictures are just a small part of my week and do not show everything I do there because I am not just playing with puppies all day. When I am there, I am cleaning cages, walking dogs, feeding dogs as well as showing dogs to the public on occasions. But since writing this I am happy to announce that all the dogs mentioned have since been adopted! Now, Roland Barthes’ Camera Lucida, calls that “punctum”, “I shall therefore call punctum; for punctum is also: sting, speck, cut, little hole—and also a cast of the dice”.

Picture B is of a room that is known to the volunteers as the stray room because it houses the dogs that have not yet have had the necessary medical evaluation to be deemed adoptable. Not all of the dogs in that room are actual strays most are transfers from other shelters in the area, but some are brought in by police, on occasions, from either Tinley or neighboring towns. I primarily work in the stray room when I am there and it is a cool experience since the room changes weekly so it is always a surprise when I walk in on Friday morning. The one hard part about not knowing what dogs are in there is that I never know if they are going to be friendly or not because some in there, like the transfer puppies are very lovable and friendly, but others like the pit bull that is currently there is not so friendly and that is only because he is scared and does not what is going on and why he is there. The door that is seen in the back in the photo leads to the outside kennels. There are four of them out there and that is where we put the dogs so we can clean their cages and get them walked. But working in this room has taught me a lot of responsibility because unfortunately the shelter is the dog’s temporary home so it is up to me and others to take care of them and keep them happy and comfortable.

Now picture C is of our big dog room which houses the larger, adoptable dogs. I am not in that room much but I go in there when I finished walking the dogs and cleaning cages in the stray room. The dogs in the big dog room are mostly friendly and excited to see you when you walk in but some can be a little fiesty. That is one of the biggest rooms there and the dogs there are all very sweet. What you cannot see is in the middle in the of the right side of kennels there is a door that leads to the outside kennel area. It is similar to the stray outdoor kennels except, this side is much larger. I do not help with taking these guys out of their kennels and taking them outside because I am working in the stray room but I will come help and bring them back inside. But when I took the photo the dogs were outside except for one who growled and barked at me when I walked past her.

The next picture, picture D, is of the outside kennel area for the big dogs that I mentioned earlier. Where the dog is coming out of the right side of the photo is a gate that leads to field and more larger runs for the bigger, more high energy dogs, like our year and a half old German Shepard named Balto, who is currently up for adoption. While these runs are great and allow the dogs to burn off some energy the downside is when I am walking dogs past those runs that dogs are usually barking like crazy. The entrance to the bigger runs are located where the dog, whose name is Kallie, is on the right side of the photo. There is also a gate out that way that leads to the field which is the main walking area for the dogs.

Picture E is of one of the dogs whose name is Dillon and he is a six month old hound mix, who is currently up for adoption. He is super sweet but an absolute goofball. I went to put my leash on him last week so I could take him out the outside kennel and bring him inside and he thought I was playing with him so he kept biting my leash. But nonetheless I got him inside and into his cage, until the Vice President of the shelter needed me to get him out so she could get a weight on him and give him his preventive medicine. So I went and got him out of his cage and we headed for the door to go out into the hallway so I could bring him to the medical room and he got nervous and I had to basically drag him to the medical room and back to his cage, which was actually kind of hard.

This final picture, picture A, is of Balto our white German Shepherd who I had mentioned earlier. He is just shy of a year and a half and he is very sweet but has a lot of energy. He jumped on me last week and was just about as tall as I am but he seems to really like being loved on. He is in the first cage on the right as soon as you walk in from the hallway. He tends to get a bit wild around other dogs though because I think he just gets a little too excited, but with people he is very sweet.

In all, PAWS Tinley Park is an awesome place to volunteer at, not just because of the animals but the people as well. Everyone I volunteer with is so nice and helpful and we all genuinely work well together. They are the type of people I am not afraid to go to for help if I need it. But this is just a small part of what I do on Fridays there, as Roland Barthes called that punctum. It also was a study. To look at a place that you go to often, that has become a part of your routine and to basically look at the details of it and give someone who does not know about it a bit more insight into why it is part of your routine and the shelter is definitely part of my routine. Not so much my daily routine, but my weekly routine. Roland Barthes basically called giving someone insight through photography, studium. “...it is studium, which doesn’t mean, at least not immediately, “study”, but application to a thing, taste for someone, a kind of general enthusiastic commitment, of course, but without special acuity”. In that quote he also mentioned an “enthusiastic commitment” which is true with me. I am committed to helping at the shelter and I am enthusiastic about it which is why I chose there to take pictures and to write about. But if you are interested in adopting or volunteering, I recommend checking out the website to see what dogs and cats are available.

Work Cited

Barthes, Roland. Camera Lucida. 27 Feb. 2020