Very true.

Even though our main focus as clinic volunteers is cleaning and feeding, that still gets us a lot of up close and hands on time with the animals after their initial diagnosis. If we keep our eyes out, even though we don’t have the kind of training the rehabbers do, we can still call out when we see something isn’t right, like they aren’t eating, feel cold, have a parasite that slipped by, etc. and they can get another checkup that can help us to modify the care they’re getting.

I’ve done all those things, and hopefully it has made a difference. We only have 2 full time people allowed to do the bulk of actual treatment, and with 4000+ patients a year, they don’t get the time to keep rechecking the work like we do. We are the second (and third, fourth, fifth) sets of eyes for them!