A Change of Pace

With all of my weeks beginning on the busiest day of the week I have gotten used to my "Mondays" flying by in the blink of an eye. Today was different however, not sure if it was the weather or what but I honestly felt a little out of place because it was such a laid back Saturday. It began as usual, having that sense of urgency to get the dogs down to their runs and get all of their kennels cleaned. Surprisingly they decided to postpone the disinfecting because we were a little short handed again. I think I am the only person who has disinfected in the last six weeks but if you have read my previous blogs you know that I enjoy doing it. Back to the story, without disinfecting we were able to knock out the kennels and feedings in under an hour and a half and were able to do all of the morning duties before we opened the doors.

Once all of the cleaning, laundry, dishes and garbage were taken care of one of the staff went to a dog training class for about two hours and I decided to go and socialize the puppies. Let me tell you, it's such a tough job to play and work with the puppies. For one you can't deal with any of the sick dogs because you don't want to expose the little guys to any sort of illness. What does that mean for me, I have to spend a lot of time with two little puppies and their puppy breath. After the little guys had fallen asleep in my lap I got a call over the radio for my help in the office. I responded quickly and realized that the rest of the staff was taking a break and eating some homemade hummus that someone had brought in. It's nice when you get called to go and take a break and eat some great healthy food rather than the normal donuts.

After the relaxing few minutes I decided to knock out some more laundry. I really do know how a postal worker feels when the mail never stops coming because it always seems that as soon as you get the laundry caught up you start your week and the piles are back. I'm not complaining though, it is my relaxing time when I turn on the radio, listen to the news, and fold fold away. Once I was finished I noticed that bags and bags of donated towels were coming in. I thought to myself I just hope they were clean. Luckily they were but the real problem popped into my head...where are we going to put all of these, we're low on room as it is. Luckily someone suggested that we donate a good chunk of our towels to another shelter that isn't as fortunate as ours, a win win kind of situation. I just need to remember to thank the girl scout group that organized the towel donation for us. Once again the community getting involved and helping more than just our shelter.

With chores caught up it was time to learn how to do cat showings. I have kind of steered away from them just because I really don't know that much about the animals. I guess that is why I asked to go along this time, it's about learning not being complacent. Once we did it though I realized how much easier they were than dog showings. You basically want to check out the adopters profile and figure out if they want an indoor or outdoor cat, also whether or not they plan on declawing. Depending on the way that you answer this question and the cat that you are looking at could disqualify you from the adoption process. So on to the showing, it was a couple that was just here to "look". The woman had lost her cat about four weeks ago and was still not quite over the grief. She did have a couple of cats she wanted to meet but once she met that special lil girl she knew that if she was to adopt this would be the one. The couple spent some time loving on the eight month old little girl but decided they wanted to think about it over night. That is usually the best idea becuase you never want to jump into owning a new pet. The problem however arose later in the day when a women who had lost her cat about two weeks ago fell in love with the cat and adopted her. Hopefully the original couple will understand and they can find the perfect cat that they can't go home without.

Cat showings in the bag I needed to go feed the little puppies. Their feedings are too complicated but they are pretty strict. We free feed them dry food throughout the day and feed them puppy wet food three times a day. It is very important that the little guys are eating becuase they are growing so fast. I'm just glad that there are only two of them because they do make quite a mess.

During lunch I learned that a great little mutt with the biggest underbite I have ever seen outside of an English Bulldog got adopted. The reason this is such a big deal (not that it ever wouldn't be) is because this little guy has been here since before I started working here. To top it off he was diagnosed with heartworm and just finished his last treatment about a week ago. If you don't know about the two month treatment it involves some heavy chemo therapy that can leave the dog powerless for several days and cannot be active for a month after each treatment. Long story short, he is one of our favorites here at the shelter and it was sad to say goodbye but the happiness surely squashed any feelings about the little guy leaving us.

Later in the day there was another showing with a lab that has been in the shelter even longer. Everyone always holds their breath when this lovely little girl gets a showing. She is a little older so they seem to be very few and far between. From what I was told though the showning was very promising. The next step is to bring in another family member tomorrow to make sure there is no allergic reaction. I'll make sure I light a candle, say a little prayer, and keep my fingers and toes crossed for this one.

A little more cleaning, some afternoon feedings, a lot of manual labor, and some more loveing on the dogs closed out this supposedly busiest day of the week. Even if the urgency isn't there like usual there is always something to do in the shelter. With a little less showings and traffic today I had the oppurtunity to spend some time with some animals I hadn't really gotten to know yet. It's kind of that double edge sword though, you try to not become attached to the animals but it reallys is a difficult task. All of the animals here are incredibly loving and the more you get to know them the more you care for them and the more difficult it becomes to see them in this place for months on end in some cases.