When Kay McDaniel talks about her daughter Meg’s affection for animals, she puts it very simply, “she’s an animal lover of all kinds.”

But Meg, 12, a sixth-grader at St. Francis Xavier, takes her love for animals a step farther than most. She’s a volunteer at the Vicksburg-Warren Humane Society shelter on U.S. 61 South, working periodic weekends and spending her holiday and spring breaks working at the shelter. When she has a birthday, she asks for donations of pet food and supplies for the shelter. She uses money she receives for Christmas and birthdays to buy supplies for the shelter.

“We couldn’t do what we do without the help of the community, and especially, when you have children like Meg, who sacrifice of themselves for the Humane Society to help unwanted pets, that’s just remarkable,” said Georgia Lynn, Humane Society director. “I have the greatest of admiration and respect for Meg McDaniel, because she is so young and will sacrifice a birthday gift for herself and place an animal with needs in front of her own.”

Meg’s affection for animals goes back to her family, which has chickens, four dogs, four cats and a horse.

“We have several rescue animals,” Kay McDaniel said. “Most of our animals are not full-blooded, they’re just animals Meg rescued for us. One of the female dogs we have is rescue. She saw her on the road. It was freezing and she was trying to get warm in the leaves, and after a day went by, Meg couldn’t stand it any longer and she had to be ours.”

She recalled another time Meg and her father, Ronnie McDaniel, rescued some squirrels “that we nursed back to health for two weeks and then let go.”

Meg has been a volunteer with the Humane Society since she was 9. “I wanted to work with them, and my parents knew Miss Georgia,” she said. “She let me come and work there.”

One of her initial jobs was caring for a puppy that had lost its mother. Meg’s home became a foster home for the pup.

“ It was a sad puppy when we got her, and in a few days with all of Meg’s love and attention, that dog had a wagging tail and started eating and drinking,” Kay said. Working at the shelter, her mother said, “I think is very good for her. It’s educational, it teaches responsibility.”

Meg handles a number of duties at the shelter, cleaning the kennels and walking and playing with the puppies and dogs, and exercising the horses, and she spends most of her free time at the shelter, working weekends when she can and spending her holiday, spring and summer breaks at the shelter.

“I don’t like to travel,” she said.

“When she doesn’t have other things on the weekend, she’ll mention to me that she wants to come down here (to the shelter), and we’ll make plans for her to be here,” Ronnie McDaniel said. “Saturday mornings I’ll bring her down and wait to make sure there’s an adult present and leave her. I never really ask what tasks they have set up for her to do, because it really doesn’t matter. Whatever task they ask her to do, she’ll do it.”

Meg said the most enjoyable part of her work is being with the animals, socializing with them “and help them recover from the terrible place where they’ve been and giving them a second chance.

Her favorite animal is a donkey that has been a resident in the Humane Society’s horse pen for several years.”

“I’ve been around her for two years,” she said. “She’s been around for quite a while and she just has a connection to me. Animals seem to relate to me. I really like the lab puppies outside, and they are a few weeks old; they’re really sweet. I have a good connection to baby animals. It lets me know when they start out young they turnout to be nice and sweet and don’t hurt anyone.”

Her own horse, she said is young; she’s four years old.

“My dream is to be a vet. Since I was little, I would play vet with my animals,” she said. “I had a little table and I would put them on there and examine them.”

And working at the shelter “gives me a good feeling,” she said. “When I’m not around them (the animals), there’s a spot (missing) somewhere inside.”

The birthday donations began about three years ago, she said, adding she and a friend had a birthday party together last year, “And I talked her into giving the dog and cat food to Humane Society. Gave them $100 from my birthday money.”

She added she also convinced her friend to begin volunteering at the Humane Society.

“Meg is one of the very few kids that does this, and she’s trying to get some of her friends at school to do this as well,” her father said. “Without kids like her and people like us, those animals don’t have a chance.”

But there is one other thing Meg would like to do at the shelter.

“Meg can’t wait until she’s a full-fledged employee,” her mother said.