Wow, there are a lot of dogs in our care

I got to work a little earlier than usual today and was able to pick and choose what my morning cleaning duty would be. Luckily I am still assigned to dogs because in all honesty I am not the biggest fan of cleaning up after the cats. It's not that I don't like my feline friends it's just not that much fun to scoop a bunch of litter with animals that are literally scattered across rooms at the shelter. Now the downfall right now of not cleaning cats is cleaning the 40 or so dogs that are in our care. I know that it is really nice to be full but you kind of forget how much work each dog is every day. Taking them down to their yards is a task in itself let alone feeding and cleaning up after them.

Once I got my last dog up after changing their bedding, getting some food down, and giving them some fresh water it was already opening time. It was surprising for a Monday but there were already customers walking in the doors, not to mention about 20 campers that hang out in the education center for the week learning about animals and the services we provide here at the shelter. It's nice to have a full house except when I want some peace and quite in the bathroom and I have 20 kids pounding on the door seeing if there is someone in there.

From the get go there were showings. I noticed the first one coming down to the yards just about ten minutes after we opened. I was surprised because we were still cleaning out the yards and taking care of the poop buckets when I saw the family come down with an adoption counselor. It was a surprise only because usually Monday's are pretty nonchalant and we are able to take care of all of the cleaning without too many distractions. I guess since it is summer now all the kids are at home and a good way to get out of the house is to go down to the local shelter to look for a new pet. I personally think that it is the best time for families to get a new animal for the simple fact that people tend to have the most time to handle the new situation and train the animal while they are at home. Hopefully this holds true and we can have a ton of adoptions these next few months.

For a Monday it really did fly by today. I did have a few showings with one standing out. It was with a little terrier mix named CiCi. She was super sweet and loving in the showing and the woman absolutely adored her but we still had to do a showing with her male Maltese. The initial intro went well with some butt sniffs and walking together so we decided to put them in a yard together. Overall they were just ignoring each other and marking all over the place. There didn't seem to be any guarding which was good but then CiCi the female mutt decided she was going to hump the little guy for the rest of the showing. Whether he was running after a toy or trying to jump up in a chair, there she was humping away. It was really unfortunate to see, especially when he tried humping her and she immediately attacked him. That was when I said the showing was over. The sad part was the woman absolutely loved CiCi but when you got her with the Maltese it was a completely different dog. Not sure if it was the Napoleon complex or what but such a dominant female might need to be an only dog.

Moving on there were more and more showings being called over the radio. There were a few adoptions but my concern seemed to be making sure that everything got done. Of course the laundry was close to being caught up when at the same time both the dryer and the washer seemed to be down. Luckily I was able to find the breaker to reset the washer and the dryer I had to crawl into the lint trap to find the "mysterious" reset button that is hidden behind a screen and under a screwed down metal box. I thought it was hot today until I got underneath there, I literally came out covered head to toe in lint and it stuck to me well since I was sweating so badly. Hey, at least it was working and no piles and piles of laundry were flowing out the door.

No matter what you do in a day here at the shelter you can always go home and say that it was a good one when there is an adoption. I can rightfully say today was a good day not only for that reason but because our little friend Harry the sick puppy continues to improve. You can really see it in his face when you walk up to his kennel and rather than him not moving he runs up to the front to greet you with a big smile on his face and his entire rear end wagging back and forth. I am not going to lie, like any other job there are things that I don't like about this place and decisions I don't agree with, but there is no other job like it out there. It's funny when you don't even think about what you get paid because the reward comes in so many different ways.

I do have to add a small picture for everyone. This is the caterpillar one of our staff decided to save because he was right near a nest of birds. She even knew what type of butterfly he was going to become. No matter what type of living thing is out there, the compassion the people here have is truly a unique characteristic I look up to. Thanks for reading everyone and I look forward to your comments.