There is no doubt Dr. Cate McManus is an animal lover.
Standing in a hallway in the Irving Animal Shelter, she holds, pets and accepts kisses from a small puppy that was surrendered to the shelter because he was sick.
“They had lost four of the six puppies in the litter,” McManus said.
As the veterinarian for the City of Irving, it’s her job to make him well—along with all of the other animals in that shelter.
“Give me that cookie!” McManus says to an older dog that’s spending the day in her office.
The dog, Cheyenne, is maybe around 8-years-old. When she came into the shelter she couldn’t walk on her own.
“So when she came in, yeah, she wasn’t able to stand,” McManus said.
Local
The latest news from around North Texas.
Thanks to some basic care, medication and love, Cheyenne is now walking again.
“And her personality’s definitely coming out. She definitely wasn’t like this when she first came in, so I think she’s feeling a lot more comfortable,” McManus said.
McManus also takes her work home with her. Over many years, she’s fostered a lot of pets.
“I’m sure easily over 300. That’s why you have to have an extra bathroom—just for your fosters,” McManus said with a laugh.
She provided a safe and loving home for a pair of Siamese kittens.
“Don’t you wanna be on TV?” she asks them as she holds both in her arms.
The animals were fostered by McManus and another staff member until they were old enough for her to spay or neuter them so they, too, could be adopted.
But she says the best part of her job, is this, “being able to, you know, save a life that otherwise might not have been saved,” McManus said.
She’s now holding a seven-week-old puppy that was surrendered to the shelter by his owners because they couldn’t afford his life-saving hernia surgery.
“We’re happy that they came here looking for care for him when they realized it was kind of beyond their realm of what they were able to do,” said McManus.
McManus’s life is dedicated to helping animals get healthy so they can get adopted and find a forever home.
Her bonus is paid in advance with puppy kisses.
