Photo Credit: Best Friends Animal Society Los Angeles Kitten Nursery

It may not pay in cold, hard cash, but being a volunteer baby kitten snuggler still has to be one of the best jobs ever. Getting paid with cuddles and love and helping to save the lives of shelter cats is a pretty big reward of its own.

All of that snuggling takes place in a kitten nursery. In fact, Best Friends Animal Society currently has two of them, one in Los Angeles and one in Salt Lake City , where orphaned kitties and nursing moms, are given round-the-clock care.

Staff and volunteers both lend a hand to bottle feeding the kittens who come from area shelters, which typically don’t have the resources to take care of them, like making food, cleaning, giving lots of love and performing a myriad of  other tasks that help keep the adorable felines safe and well.

Volunteers can also sign up to provide the kitties with love and affection, because, just like human babies, snuggles are a very important part of the kitten nursery operation, too.

Being petted, held and generally fussed over gets the kittens comfortable with people, which helps make them more adoptable. In turn, that helps to get them out of the shelter and into homes.

A spokesperson for Best Friends, Eric Rayvid, told the Huffington Post, “This handling helps get the kittens to their ‘peak adorable fitness,’ ready to be adopted. It’s a tough job but somebody’s got to do it, right?”

Watch more about Best Friends and volunteer kitten snuggling here: