Simon Pavlik, Switzerland – 2010 Testimonial

The idea of going to Canada, to improve my English, meet new people and have a new life experience was born a long time ago. But with my decision to go to Critter Care and work as an intern in a completely new field gave me much more than just that. I also had the opportunity to work with a lot of beautiful animals, do a good thing for nature and get a taste of another job than what I did at home.

After my four weeks in Vancouver, I finally arrived at Critter Care. The baby-season was going on in its full strength and everybody was very busy. The days were usually long and we got new animals coming in every day.

Even though everybody was very nice to me, I felt very awkward during my first days. All the people had so much to do, but I was wandering around asking questions and trying to see and to learn as much as possible. At least doing laundry, cleaning the house, preparing the food plates, shoveling gravel and doing some painting gave me the possibility to make myself helpful during the first days. But then a group of raccoon-babies found next to their dead mother came in, and I got my first three very wild babies.

After hundreds of scratches on my arms and a lot of time trying to get them used to me and to the bottle, these little guys started gaining weight and doing better each day. As exhausting as this time was for me, it was as much a reward that they gave back to me, just being the raccoons that they are.

Because they were such a small group and they probably had to stay over the winther, they were the ones we put together with Miss Kitty, the residental raccoon mum. It was another big step on their way back to the wild.

But this year was not to be a good year for the whole raccoon population. The parvo-virus was going around and killing raccoons in just a couple of days. As much as we tried to keep everything clean and free of flies, there was no way to keep the virus out of the facility and I finally lost two of my babies. It was very hard to lose these little guys after such a long time, and after I put so much energy and time in to save them. But It was a hard time for everybody and we tried to keep each other going. There were the ones we saved and the new animals who needed our attention.

I also had the great chance to raise five little chipmunks. Even they were only in care for a few week, I grew up to be a proud (raccoon- and) chipmunk-father.

My stay at Critter Care was an amazing experience and I didn`t want to miss a single day. The people were just great and we had so much fun! Of course there were times I was stressed, tired, dirty and almost burnt out but as soon as you look at your beautiful animals, you forget about all of this and you know that you`re doing the right thing.

I finally want thank everybody that I met at Critter Care which made my whole stay to such an amazing experience!