I feel like I've been slacking

It always seems that when Tuesdays (my Friday) roll around I am so ready to be at home that I do just about everything possible to do as little as possible. This Tuesday I really did start the day out fine, it just seemed that as the day progressed I quickly became less and less motivated.

The day started off pretty unassuming with the usual cleaning. It has been a little different since we have seven puppies that are all free fed so you can imagine how their homes look after 12 hours of confinement. Not only is there about five solid pounds of poo but about 90% of the time the little guys run through it and spread it everywhere, including my shirt as they are carried down to the puppy yard for a morning romp with each other.

After feedings and getting all of the guys back in their kennels I moved onto what seemed like the fewest rabbits I have ever seen here. Apparently there were quite a few adoptions of the little guys which made the cleaning a breeze aside from the running nose and constant sneezing. I really do think my theory is working though that the more and more I work with them the less my allergies will affect me. My reactions are night and day different from the first time I entered the rabbitat to today which is a really good thing.

After the rabbits I moved to iso to take care of the bite quarantined dogs. They were able to get out for a break and I made sure they had lots of good food for the morning. I'm not going to lie though, even though one of these guys was only about 20 pounds I was still very hesitant in entering the kennel, especially after the fact that my hand is covered in band aids after our last encounter. I took things very slowly and had another staff member help in calming the animal who really wasn't ready to leave its area. We decided to leave him be and just put a pile of treats in the kennel, some fresh water, and a bowl of food.

Moving on to taking out the garbage we decided it was going to take two of us today. Simple reason, we knew the dumpster was already stuffed full and today we would need someone to sit on the lid while the other locked it up. To my surprise we were able to get all of the bags in the dumpster, flip the lids, jump up and down a few times, and put all of our weight on the top and were able to get the thing locked down. I'm just glad no one was watching as I started slipping off of the damn thing and nearly broke my ankle. Hey, you gotta do what you have to do, and luckily the garbage will be picked up the next morning.

When I was washing my hands I got a text from my fiance saying that our son, a.k.a. our dog, had eaten a bag of chocolate so I asked around and decided to bring the guy up to the shelter so we could keep an eye on him. It was nice at first to have his familiar face smiling at me but after a while it was more of a nuisance because he really deterred me from helping the other guys. I decided to introduce him to a few dogs to see if we could find him a play date and it was fun to watch him interact and run around with one of our shelter dogs that has yet to make any friends here.

During the rest of the afternoon there was an abnormally high rate of EBR's (euthanasia by request) that was just depressing. I had to help carry in one of the dogs because he was so large. He was a sweet gray lab that weighed in at about 130 pounds that was crippled from his mid section back. We carried him on to the stretcher where he made a mess of himself. The owners were very emotional and you can really only say "I'm sorry". It is so sad to not only know that this animal is about to go over the rainbow bridge but to see the emotions that the family is experiencing truly makes these moments tough. I know that it is part of the job but it doesn't make it any easier. I'm just glad that I was not there to help out with the really tough task.

Luckily I was able to go and throw the ball around with my boy and his new friend. It really got my mind off of the tough reality that we all get old at some point and there is a threshold when we say that it is time to end the suffering. Turning away from all of the depressing stuff, our little guy that has been returned twice and just got through his second round of heart de-worming got to go home today. I have to say, I am probably going to go home and light a candle and cross my fingers that the third time is the charm. This poor little guy has been through so much that he really does deserve to live a full and happy life. I know that he will make a great addition to any family, I just hope that his latest one appreciate him for the companion that he is. On my Dad's suggestion I have taken a picture of him just so you can see how cute this little under bite guy is. Thanks for reading and keep the comments coming, I love to know what people are thinking.