A buddy for man’s best friend

By Gina Farthing

Published: October 1, 2008

When you meet Barbara White you have no idea about how passionate she is. But bring up the subject of animals and she’ll knock you for a loop with her compelling emotion for them.
A thin woman with golden brown hair, White is soft-spoken and friendly. She has an easy way about her that immediately makes you feel comfortable in her presence. Smiling come easily for her.
She’s a gentle soul with a soft spot for man’s four-legged friends.
She volunteers her time to help out at the SPCA and for Spay Neuter Inc. and also puts in some time to assist the Waynesboro Senior Center.
Nita Lewis met White at the Waynesboro PetSmart but she’d known her previously.
Lewis started Spay Neuter in 1997 and the organization partners with the pet supply store with the Luv-A-Pet center there.
“Barbara said she wanted to help,” says Lewis.
So White helps clean the center daily and fosters kittens.
“She’s very outgoing and wants to learn more,” says Lewis. “She’s always trying to get more volunteers.
“Barbara always comes through in a clinch.”
Janice Gentry, of the Waynesboro Senior Center, also speaks well of the kind of volunteering that White started providing in 2007.
“She’s very dedicated and very giving,” says Gentry. “She used to come every day to check on our fish. She has a skill set that we don’t have.
“She even counts them to make sure no one’s missing!” says Gentry. (One of the members at the senior center now handles the daily tending of the senior center fishpond.)
“So Barbara now does it on weekends,” Gentry says. “She got rid of our algae problem, so now everyone can enjoy and see more of the fish.”
When Barbara was a girl, her father spoke to her about her aunt one day, the one who raised her orphaned mother.
“ ‘Barbara,’ ” he said, “ ‘You might think that your aunt hasn’t had much of life, not getting married and taking care of your mother. But she made a difference to your mother. No matter what you do in life, make a difference,’ ” says White.
“That stuck with me,” she says.
One of the duties she performs is walking the dogs at the SPCA.
She takes dogs out of the kennel, one by one, on a leash, and walks them down a quiet path up on a hill behind the facility. It’s a dirt path that leads to a little bench at the end where she can sit with her new friend. White chats with her canine buddies, lets them look around, pets them and assures them that they’ll find a new home.
White’s animal friends wag their tails and snuggle her legs in approval.
One friend to another.
“Every life form is struggling,” she says. “We put a lot of resources into people but animals sometimes need more help.”
White says that the public’s general perception is that dogs and cats are basically wild animals and can care for themselves with their instincts.
They’ve been domesticated, White says. Not all cats know how to mouse and not all dogs know how to hunt.
On the other hand, then there is the feral animal issue. People let their animals out which then become wild and seemingly unable to tame.
“But that’s not true either,” say White, who whips out her little black MP3 player to show you her latest accomplishment.
A little video plays showing a fluffy snow-white mother cat with her son and daughter, being stroked and brushed at length, playing with the brush, not skittish at all. They’re beautiful, medium-to-long haired cats, animals that a cat lover would die to own.
“It just goes to show you that anything can be tamed,” White says.
White is working with other groups of feral cats too, which is why the mission of Spay Neuter is so important to her.
“The feral problem won’t go away with its being addressed,” she says. “Spay Neuter works to have the animals neutered, so they won’t have anymore and then they try to find good homes for the animals.
“That’s why more fosters are needed.”
Fosters are temporary homes where the animals stay until a permanent home is found for them rather than in an animal shelter, where there is not enough room for all the animals all the time.
White says more no-kill shelters are springing up due to more people volunteering to share their homes, but there is still a great need for more of both.
“Fosters and walkers get to see a huge variety of species. It puts your place in the world into perspective,” she says. “And you don’t get bored.”
White feels that if more people would volunteer the problem would be a lot less and tells volunteers to not lose heart due to the immense workload.
“Someone once asked Mother Theresa how she dealt with the poverty she encountered on a daily basis.” says White.
“And she said, ‘One at a time.’ ”