First Experience at the Fieldsite

My first trip to the RISPCA as a fieldworker was last Thursday, October 10. I stopped by at around 1 in the afternoon, and I ended up staying longer than the thirty minutes it took to take my preliminary fieldnotes. The experience was a little overwhelming at first because there was so much to see.

The first place I went to take fieldnotes was in the dog room. I ended up only spending about a solid five minutes in this location, and I somewhat surprised myself with the reason why. I had an Akita as a child, which is a large dominant breed of dog, and my best friend has two German Shepherds and her sister has Doberman Pinscher. Though my current dog is small, quiet, and docile, I figured my previous experiences with large, loud dogs would make me prepared for the dogs in the shelter. This was not so. I found the barking disconcerting and a lot of the large dogs intimidated me. I've never considered myself as someone afraid of dogs, so I was surprised that I was so unnerved by these animals. I ended up spending a majority of my time in the cat room, which in itself is not surprising, but I thought I could maintain a balance between the two for research purposes. In the future I will have to work harder against my natural affinity for cats and apparent discomfort with loud dogs.

Something I noticed was that each cage has a sign on it that lists information about the animal it contains. The things listed were usually the animal's name, breed, temperament, the reason it was surrendered, and any other information the RISPCA may have on that particular animal. I found myself intrigued by the reasons for surrender more than anything else. Some of the reasons listed seemed valid, but I found that most of them seemed like excuses. Of course that is my subjectivities talking, but giving up an animal you've had for months because your apartment doesn't allow pets seems fishy to me. Did you just move into that apartment, or did you not talk to your landlord before adopting a pet? That's just irresponsible.

Though I was intrigued by the reasons for surrender, a lot of them also disturbed me. One cat was back at the shelter because of an "inappropriate litter situation" that caused the cat to ruin its owners carpets. I find it disturbing that a person would take responsibility for an animal only to give it up because it became inconvenient for them. Having a cat that doesn't use the litter box correctly is definitely a problem, but it's one that isn't that difficult to solve either. I just did a very quick Google search and found this helpful article that offers reasons for this behavior as well as solutions. Another cat was back at the shelter a few months after its adoption because its owner is now in a nursing home, which made me sad. There were several cats at the shelter that were rescued from a hoarding situation, which I found very disturbing. Most of the cats were sleeping when I arrived, and I noticed that most of the cats rescued from the hoarding situation were sleeping hidden under blankets or underneath cat beds rather than on them. I feel like there's a correlation there but I'm not quite sure what it is.

I talked with a worker in the cat room for a while and we ended up talking about the animals she's adopted. She asked me if I heard about a dog called Indi that was at the shelter last year. I told her I had not and she told me to look him up on the RISPCA website. She mentioned that he has just started to walk again, which made me curious as to what the situation was with this dog. I found a page about him online and I was greatly disturbed by what had happened to this poor creature. Here is the link to his page if you are interested in learning about his situation but be warned, there are graphic descriptions of animal abuse and neglect as well as images of Indi that may be disturbing.

I can tell that it is going to be hard to ignore my subjectivities during this project, but I am eager to get back to my fieldsite and see what else I can discover.

Positioning Myself

Part of being a good fieldworker is acknowledging your own subjectivities. I am a white 18 year old able-bodied cisgender female from a middle class family in Seekonk, MA. I was born in Newport and spent the first year of my life living in Narragansett and the next two in North Smithfield, though I consider Seekonk to be my hometown. I was raised Roman Catholic but if I had to label myself I would say I'm agnostic. I work as a waitress in East Providence and I currently attend Rhode Island College as a first year student. I live with my mother and father and my two sisters, ages 17 and 6. We've had a number of pets over the years; currently, we have a dog and two cats. All of these facts are relevant to my research in that they can affect the way I view and interpret data.

The people at my fieldsite vary in age, gender, and race. This subculture is a very diverse group, so I don't think anything like my age or gender will pose a problem. I'm a little nervous about overcoming my inherent shyness, but the people I've encountered so far have been very welcoming and easy to talk to.

I chose an animal shelter as my fieldsite because of my love of animals, and I know this love will definitely cloud my objectivity. I know I am biased when it comes to certain things, (one that comes to mind is the act of declawing cats - it's mutilation), but some biases are so ingrained in my psyche that I'm not consciously aware of them. Hopefully exploring my own privileges and beliefs will help me uncover these biases and remain more subjective in my field study.

An Introduction

Welcome to my blog, I'll be your guide.

Over the next couple of months I will be making weekly visits to the RISPCA, a nonprofit humane society, in order to observe, take notes, and collect data. These visits are a part of a fieldworking project I am doing for my First Year Writing class. The purpose of the project is to study and learn about a specific location and its subculture and traditions.

I chose to do my fieldworking on the RISPCA because that is where I adopted my cat, Calliope, or Callie for short.

I have always loved animals and I wanted to be a veterinarian for a large portion of my childhood, though I moved away from that when I realized that I would have to euthanize animals as well as deal with abused and neglected animals. My personal experience makes me curious about how the RISPCA workers and volunteers deal with that sort of thing on a daily basis.

All in all, I am excited to begin the research and start sharing my discoveries.