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Wednesday, April 22, 2009

A slow one to say the least

Today was pretty uneventful for one major reason, we were closed because the parking area was being re paved. I know I know there are no adoptions but there was still plenty to do. The cleaning was pretty uneventful but seemed to go by pretty fast since pretty much everyone cleaned everything. The one bad thing was I forgot to take my allergy pill and it seemed to slip my mind when I decided to clean the rabbits. After about 100 sneezes, and yes a couple of snot rockets (hey I was in the military, you do what you have to do) I was able to finish up by placing some ice packs into the rabbit cages to help keep them cool on this record breaking hot day.

After the cleaning, and a lot of nose blowing, it was time for our first kennel staff meeting. It was pretty basic going over some specific adoption procedures and some new tasks that were going to be implemented. Me being me I had to speak up on a few subjects concerning tact and adding that if there is ever a need for a Spanish speaker I would be happy to help. The staff was pretty shocked to learn that I spoke another language but they were very happy to have someone able to translate for them. Apparently there has been a need for it in the past and no one to help resolve the situation. I am glad that I can be of some more help rather than just being the heavy lifter and master pooper scooper.

With a short lunch I sped home to let my dogs run around in the yard for a bit. When I got back feedings had already been done and now came the down time. I say down time because there were no hectic showings to attend to but in the shelter there is always something to do in the shelter. The new task at hand was to see about pairing up the dogs and seeing if we can't make some new friends with some of the new guys with our old guys. It's a slow process but when it works it is really something to watch. We paired up everything from our puppy to our boxer mix who seems to annoy everyone. There were a couple of instances that we had to separate a few dogs but over all we were able to make two large play groups that not only is fun to watch but I am sure it is fun for our animals to experience.

When I went back to some of the empty kennels I noticed that a newly relinquished dog seemed to have some blood in her urine. I informed our vet tech and she was already aware. Apparently the dog was in some serious medical trouble and was not mention about 14 years old. It had already been decided that the animal would be put down. It is always a sad thing to find out that this is going to happen but you have to realize that it is the right thing to do sometimes.

Pretty uneventful the rest of the day, even though it seemed like it took forever for five o'clock to come. We made sure all of the animals went out for their afternoon break and attended to all of the water bowls. With some frozen kongs strategically placed it was time to call it a day. Even though there were no adoptions I had the opportunity to spend some time with the new dogs and getting them out of their kennels for some well deserved play time. There was the tough experience of sending a dog over the rainbow bridge but you know that they are no longer suffering. Thanks for reading and I will be adding an additional blog this week because I am helping out this Thursday because we are a little short handed, not to mention a little extra money so I can spoil my dogs even more with some added toys I can buy for them.

2 comments:

  1. Nick,
    You don't have to clean the rabbits.
    I don't!
    -Aud

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  2. I know, I know but the more I do it the easier it is. There was a recent study on food allergies that those allergens given in very small doses can build up an immunity, should work with the rabbits to :)

    ReplyDelete