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I had been volunteering at the North Attleboro Shelter for about a year when Sue Stocks, the assistant dog officer, asked me if I wanted to help out in the cat room. I responded with "You want me to what?"

Let me put it bluntly. My fondness for cats was virtually non-existent. I had grown up with dogs and that's all I knew. No one in my family ever had a cat.

At the shelter, I would always just walk right past the cat room. My thing was dogs. Who was I kidding? My peripheral vision was clearly intact. I could see those cats looking at me through the screen door. All they wanted was someone to acknowledge their presence.

I told Sue I hated cats but would accept my new position - with hesitance, of course. Believe me, there were no screams at the bingo table when I accepted this position.

As far as I could see, cats were snobs that walked around with their noses up in the air as if to say, "I'm better than you and if you don't get out of my face, I'll smack you." So six years ago, I started my new career in caring for cats in the Luv-A-Pet room at Petsmart. The room was run by the North Attleboro shelter. We supplied the cats and the volunteers and they supplied the space and the exposure to the public. Much to my surprise, I saw the plight of homeless cats and I began to understand why they say that cats have nine lives. I could also see why they wanted to smack me. The majority of them were abandoned, abused, ignored, uncared for and just treated like a piece of discarded garbage. I was appalled at how some of the cats ended up at the shelter. My heart was truly melting and my non-existent love for them was blossoming.

As a teenager, my vote was always for the underdog, no pun intended. Even in my high school years, I would notice the kids who sat alone at lunch and ask them to join my friends and me. I wanted to bind up the brokenhearted and give acceptance to the rejected.

Every cat that came in had a story to tell. Some of them would meow for days because they were trying to tell me their story. I would soon discover the real truth about cats in shelters. People would move out and throw them outside to fend for themselves. In some cases, they would leave them locked in the house to be later found by a landlord or a realtor.

With each new cat that came in, the tears would flow. It didn't take long before my face would show the signs of a broken heart when a new wrinkle would appear. I understand now what people mean when they say they paid for every line on their face.

Don't get me wrong, it wasn't all doom and gloom. Those dejected and hopeless cats would eventually find their forever homes. For some, it took months and months of giving them what I call "love therapy" to help them to trust people again. First, they needed to hear kind words spoken in loving tones, then gentle head and chin rubs, and finally the caress. They needed to be rehabilitated. Of course there was more of an explosion of joy when the ones that took the longest to come around finally found their forever homes.

Then there were those cats that were abandoned because they were sick. It would take us weeks to find out what was wrong with them. For some, it was too late and I would have to be the one to pay for someone's ignorance. I would take them to be put to sleep, hold them in my arms, kiss their heads and tell them how much I loved them. I was determined to let the cat leave this life knowing that at least one person loved them.

It is now seven years later and I am still volunteering in the cat room, but I have moved to the "big house," as I call it, at the shelter itself.

Don't get me wrong, I still love dogs. But I've discovered there is room in my heart for cats, too. I now have three cats who are all shelter rejects. There is Millie, the former diabetic; Franklin, who is afraid of his own shadow; and Chubby, who is just that. Oh wait, how could I forget my dog Faith, the Lhasa Apso who happily shares her living quarters with any new additions to our feline family?

So, Linda, "Would you like to help out in the cat room?" YES, ABSOLUTELY, YES!!!

One question changed the whole course of my life and I ended up finding my passion. Now, how could I refuse that? MEOW!

LINDA FABER is a volunteer at the North Attleboro Animal Shelter. You can e-mail her at Faberfamily@juno.com.