A kitten with paws the size of a large dog rolled on his back, playing with a chew toy.
That drew a smile from the woman who cares for the young animal – when he’s alone, she watches him with a baby monitor, keeping tabs as she works rooms away.
“I am very much Mom,” said Lauren Genger, a veterinary technician at the Serrano Animal and Bird Hospital in Lake Forest.
Genger’s special ward is a mountain lion cub, 15 week olds at the time. The male cougar arrived with a fractured leg, after being hit by a car in Monterey and transported south by the California Department of Fish and Game. Though Serrano does care for dogs and cats and other domestic pets, it’s one of the few veterinary hospitals in the state that cares for exotic and wild creatures.
Genger, 40, is often the fierce, behind-the-scenes force in their recovery.
“This guy,” she said, referencing the cub, “is why we all work at this hospital.”
Lauren Genger, a licensed veterinary technician, carries an anesthetized mountain lion cub to the operating room for a procedure last year. The cub, struck by a car on the 241 toll road, was injured too badly to be released back into the wild. He has since been placed at the Exotic Feline Breeding Compound’s Feline Conservation Center in Rosamond, Ca. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)
A baby cougar lets out a hiss while recuperating at Serrano Animal and Bird Hospital in Lake Forest on Wednesday, December 29, 2021. The cub was only 12 weeks when he was hit by car in Monterey. Because he will never learn to hunt, he will live in a zoo after he heals. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)
With the Hindu Om symbol representing the oneness of creation tattooed on Vet tech Lauren Genger’s finger, she holds an anesthetized pet rat’s paw during surgery. She works with veterinarian Scott Weldy to remove a non-cancerous abscess at Serrano Animal and Bird Hospital in Lake Forest on Wednesday, December 29, 2021. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Lauren Genger, a licensed veterinary technician, and veterinarian Scott Weldy, prepare to work on an a mountain lion cub under anesthesia last year. The cub, struck by a car on the 241 toll road, was injured too badly to be released back into the wild. He has since been placed at the Exotic Feline Breeding Compound’s Feline Conservation Center in Rosamond, Ca. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG
A duck and a dog are kennel mates at Serrano Animal and Bird Hospital in Lake Forest on Wednesday, December 29, 2021, where they are both receiving treatment. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)
A pet rat is anesthetized by vet tech Lauren Genger before surgery to remove a non-cancerous abscess at Serrano Animal and Bird Hospital in Lake Forest on Wednesday, December 29, 2021. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)
A baby cougar locks his eyes on vet tech Lauren Genger at Serrano Animal and Bird Hospital in Lake Forest on Wednesday, December 29, 2021. “I’m very much mom,” Genger says. The cub was only 15-weeks old when his mother was killed by a car that also injured him. Because he will never learn to hunt, he will live in a zoo after he heals. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Vet tech Lauren Genger holds Butters, her sweet-tempered cat on Monday, March 1, 2021 at Serrano Animal Hospital. Butters served as a therapy pet, giving “hugs” to staff members in need. He died a few weeks after this photo was taken, sending Genger into a difficult period of grief. She had four tattoos made of butter’s paw prints in the exact spots they appear in this photo. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Food and toys sit outside an injured mountain lion cub’s cage as vet tech Lauren Genger prepares to feed him at Serrano Animal Hospital in Lake Forest on Wednesday, December 29, 2021 (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Lauren Genger, a licensed veterinary technician, and Veterinarian Scott Weldy, work on an anesthetized mountain lion cub last year after he was struck by a car on the 241 toll road. The animal was injured too badly to be released back into the wild. He has since been placed at the Exotic Feline Breeding Compound’s Feline Conservation Center in Rosamond, Ca. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Vet tech Lauren Genger’s desk at Serrano Animal Hospital in Lake Forest includes a baby monitor so she can keep an eye on a 3-month-old cub under her care on Wednesday, December 29, 2021. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Vet tech Lauren Genger carries an anesthetized endangered fishing cat into surgery to repair its fractured hind leg on Wednesday, December 29, 2021 at Serrano Animal Hospital in Lake Forest. The animal belongs to the Exotic Feline Breeding Compound, Feline Conservation Center in Rosamond. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Vet tech Lauren Genger wears her philosophy on her wrist as she works on an animal at Serrano Animal Hospital in Lake Forest on Monday, March 1, 2021. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Between her perhaps more stressful tasks, vet tech Lauren Genger stops to pet a puppy receiving heart worm medication at Serrano Animal Hospital, on Wednesday, December 29, 2021. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Lauren Genger prepares for surgery in Lake Forest on Wednesday, December 29, 2021, setting up monitors, heating up the room and the surgery table’s air mattress and scrub solutions. Animals can become cold under anesthesia, Genger says, because everything slows down including their thermoregulating centers within the brain. Veterinarian James Felts who sometimes works with Genger jokes that she is the “patron saint of keeping animals warm.” (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Lauren Genger, a licensed veterinary technician prepares for an animal’s surgery at Serrano Animal Hospital in Lake Forest recently. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Veterinarian James Felts repairs the fractured hind leg of a 7-year-old endangered fishing cat by inserting a 3.5-inch stainless steel plate. The animal belongs to the Exotic Feline Breeding Compound in in Rosamond, Ca. The traveling surgeon works with vet tech Lauren Genger on Wednesday, December 29, 2021 at Serrano Animal Hospital in Lake Forest. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Vet Tech Lauren Genger readies a pallas cat for surgery pre-COVID-19. “As the pandemic has continued, we’ve learned that COVID-19 can infect and cause illness in exotic cats so we’ve updated our standards,” she says on Monday, March 1, 2021. Staff now uses rubber gloves when handling the cats. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)
A sign warns employees at Serrano Animal Hospital in Lake Forest on Monday, March 1, 2021, not to talk to or make eye contact with that a recovering mountain lion that will be released back into the wild. This is different from one that will be kept in captivity where interaction is encouraged. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Vet tech Lauren Genger peeks in on an endangered fishing cat with a leg injury before surgery on Wednesday, December 29, 2021. The cat belongs to the Exotic Feline Breeding Compound in in Rosamond, Ca. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Serrano Animal Hospital Vet Tech Lauren Genger monitors an endangered fishing cat after it underwent surgery for a fractured leg on Wednesday, December 29, 2021 in Lake Forest. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Lauren Genger, a licensed veterinary technician, puts an anesthetized mountain lion cub on the operating table for a procedure last year. The cub, struck by a car on the 241 toll road, was injured too badly to be released back into the wild. He has since been placed at the Exotic Feline Breeding Compound’s Feline Conservation Center in Rosamond, Ca. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Arriving at work before anyone else, the morning still chilly and the light still soft, Genger coos to the cub:
“Good morning, my love. You ready for breakfast?”
The cub answers with a hiss. As he stares back, sitting in a cardboard produce box inside a kennel, his cuddle-me-kitten face changes into something fierce, a reminder that he’s still a wild creature.
Genger is unfazed.
With her bright purple hair glowing under the hospital’s fluorescent lights, and the tattooed message “Doubt your Doubts” exposed on her right wrist, Genger gets on her hands and knees. She shoves a wooden spoon through the kennel’s metal slats, offering a breakfast of raw chicken in the hope the cub will move to one side of the cage so she can clean the other.
When the clinic cares for animals that will be released back to the wild, the staff minimizes imprinting, or interaction and eye contact. The idea is to prevent the animals from bonding with humans and losing the instincts they’ll need to survive in the wild.
This cougar is different. He was separated from his mother at 12 weeks, and wouldn’t be able to survive in the wild. He’s destined to be placed at the OC Zoo.
Genger is his human.
“I’ve been able to cultivate a really special relationship,” she said. “I’m that happy person for him.
“I want him to trust his humans and be motivated by food in case I need him to do other things.”
Genger’s care for this cat, and the hospital’s other animals, is built on patience. But on this morning the cat is not having it. He ignores the chicken on the spoon.
“He’s not eating because you’re here,” Genger said flatly to a visitor.
“No offense.”
Patron saint of heat
Having felt unheard and anxious when she was growing up, Genger said she never fit in. Animals, she added, always made sense to her.
“If you just shut up and listen, they will tell you what they need,” she explained in her no-nonsense demeanor.
Genger will try to feed the cub throughout the day. Before going home she’ll weigh what’s left of the 2.5 pounds of chicken – 10% of his body weight – to measure his consumption.
But even as she works with other animals, the cub isn’t far from Genger’s thoughts. As she breezes out to prepare another room for surgery on a pet rat, she calls out to the cub: “Love you!”
She sets up monitors, along with the scrub solutions and the surgery table’s air mattress, and makes sure the room is heated.
She explains the need for warmth: “Animals can become cold under anesthesia because everything slows down including their thermo-regulating centers within the brain.”
Surgeon James Felts, who has a mobile practice, will work with Genger later this day, doing surgery on the fractured hind leg of a 7-year-old endangered fishing cat.
“She’s the patron saint of keeping animals warm,” Felt joked, adding that Genger is the most attentive and talented technician he’s worked with in his many years of practice.
Although Genger will tell you with confidence she was put on the planet to do this, her road to the animal hospital wasn’t direct.
In 2001, with “no purpose and failing grades,” she dropped out of Cal State Fullerton. She told her parents “I’m done wasting your money.”
Off her parents’ dole, she needed a job.
She made her way back to what had always given her comfort – caring for animals.
In high school she’d worked at a pet store, where she sometimes refused to sell creatures to people she didn’t view as a good fit for the animal. After her departure from college, through a friend’s recommendation, she landed a job as an assistant at a veterinary hospital in Orange. She would go on to earn a certificate as a veterinarian technician.
She then taught animal emergency care and clinical skills, with an emphasis on anesthesia monitoring (which she describes as “controlled death”) at Western University College of Veterinary Medicine in Pomona.
With her new-found confidence, Genger landed her dream job working with veterinarian Scott Weldy and his team of respected doctors – Kristi Krause, Nicole Beaudet, and the newest member of the staff, Marianne Dominguez – at the Serrano Animal and Bird Hospital. Krause is president of the Exotic Feline Breeding Compound’s Feline Conservation Center in Rosamond, and Weldy is on the center’s board of directors.
Weldy said his practice has worked on hundreds of wild animals – everything from foxes, rabbits and raccoons to ring-tailed cats, bobcats and cougars – as well as wild birds, such as owls, hawks, falcons and eagles.
They also care for exotic animals, creatures that come from an accredited zoo or private facility like the Feline Conservation Center, Weldy said.
Genger also supervises and trains other technicians on how to care for those animals.
“She’s an amazing teacher. She breaks down every task so it’s easy to comprehend,” vet assistant Franky Belle, 22, said of Genger.
“No matter what your obstacle, she doesn’t give up on you,” Belle said. “Her empathy is inspiring.”
See you soon
As for the cougar cub, Genger said a temporary goodbye recently, putting him in a dog kennel and loading him into the backseat of her 2015 Prius. A few miles later, she delivered him to his new permanent home at the OC Zoo in Irvine Regional Park.
Zoo manager Donald Zeigler said the cub is doing “great.”
“He’s… hitting all his milestones,” Zeigler said. “But (he is) still in quarantine.
Genger said she’s been visiting him in quarantine twice a week.
“He definitely recognizes me and comes to me when I’m there.”
She sits and talks to the cub while the animal tries to smell her hair. She visits some of her other former patients, including two female cougar cubs, also in quarantine, and a coyote.
The boy cub, now 6 months old, will be introduced to the public this spring, when the zoo unveils a new $7.4 million large mammal exhibit.
“I put my heart and soul into healing these animals,” Genger said.
“But I’m only intermediate care,” she said. “This is definitely not a job for someone with attachment issues.”
