Valerie has been at Rikki's Refuge a year and a half.  Her parents saw the ad in the paper, called, and set up her interview.  They knew it'd be perfect for their animal loving daughter.  The family always had horses, cats and dogs.  Valerie didn't know there would be this many kinds of animals or how many of each - especially cats!  She's fallen in love with the pigs.  She says she loves everybody except Jackie, the emu, who chases her.  And you know we sometimes have visitors worried about being chased by chickens.  Their much, much smaller cousins!!

"I started working at Rikki's Refuge during emu mating season.  Jack, our only male emu, really liked me.  He'd follow me around and sometimes jump on me if I turned my back.  Maybe this is why Jackie doesn't like me!"

"I hope to work at Rikki's Refuge as long as I can.  I do some of everything here.  I do meds and I scoop litter boxes and I clean the 9th Life Center and I take care of the farm animals.  It's nice to have so much variety. Every job is just as important to the animals and they all must be done every day.  I've gained so much knowledge, especially working in the hospital and learning meds.  I took me a month or two to gain confidence.  I started with small things like giving sub q fluids, then things like pilling.  It didn't take me much time to learn the animals and their names.  I know everybody by name."

"To me the most encouraging part of my job is when a cat is really sick and I help make it better.  That feels so good.  The most discouraging is when we don't win and somebody dies, especially if I'm not there to be with them and to say good by.  That's really sad."

"So much has changed in the time I've been here.  A lots of faces have changed, people, and animals, they all come and go.  I saw the Day Rooms built and the cats just loving to go outdoors to their space.  They love to make us chase them in and out to catch them.  Especially when it's time to give somebody meds, they run out the cat door, I go out back to the Day Room, they run back in the cat door.  They love to tease us!  They know when it's time for their meds.  They know who's on the list before them.  They might be sleeping and when Mr. White gets his meds, Mufasa vanishes !!!"

"My dreams for the future?  To save all the cats in the world.  To save everybody or try anyway."

"I love to see how the cats sleep together.  They lick each other and lay down together and put their arms around each other.  Is so nice to see so many getting along together so well."

Valerie adopted a special needs kitty from Rikki's Refuge.  "When Gizmo came in she was so cute, giant huge eyes and a tiny little body.  She looked so alone all by herself in the great big hospital cages, so I took her home to foster.  Just until she was well and could be adopted.  She was very sick when she came in and had terrible eye infections.  Her eyes were all swollen up.  She ended up loosing one eye."

"She had eye surgery and was spayed at the same time (to avoid two bouts with anesthesia).  When she was waking up, she jumped on my lap and started purring like I was her mommy and I knew I had to keep her."

But Valerie's mom didn't want her to have a cat because they had an elderly dog who didn't like cats, so Valerie snuck her home and into her room in a pink lunch bag every day.  "My dad knew cuz he loves cats too.  When our elderly dog passed my Dad asked my Mom if I could have a cat.  When my mom said yes, Gizmo got to come out of my room.  Now my Mom loves her too!"

"I am a positive change in the world because I help to save the cats and other animals that come here.  So many come to us because they need a lot of nursing care, physical therapy, love to make them stop hating people.  Some day it's hard, especially when I see what some people do to animals, or what they let happen to them, and then I see somebody sick or one I saved jumps on my shoulders and I know I have to come back the next day and save somebody else."

"I see animals that are given up like Gibson who start out mean and hissing and hating the world.  And I talk calmly and love them and blow kisses and they end up nice and loving me back and it makes me feel good."

"I brought my niece out to visit the animals at Rikki's Refuge and she looked at Petunia and said Oh! Look a Pink Elephant !!!"

If you could take one animal home today?  "Taco!  I'm very fond of him, he's such a beautiful color, so playful.  I just love to see him run free in the grass."  Taco joined us after an accident that left him tail-less and with nerve damage affecting his bowels and bladder.  He often needs help relieving himself.  And other times it just leaks while he's sleeping.

Your message to the world?   "Think twice before getting rid of an animal - don't adopt if you're not going to keep it for life."