I think I woke up on the wrong side of the bed

Everybody has them, some call them Monday’s and some call it waking up on the wrong side of the bed, well I am just calling it my day. I haven’t felt this in quite a while but whether it is from the lack of sleep last night or just being rubbed the wrong way today I really did not want to be here.

The day started as usual with splitting up the cleaning and teaming up so we could knock it out before we opened. After scooping up lots of pooped we sprayed down the kennels and got all of the dogs fed. After bringing all of the guys up from their morning break it was time to move to the cattery. I was assigned all of the “free range” cats that are spread all over the property. We have a total of five cats that pretty much have their own spaces due to their stress that they feel in our smaller kennels. Not sure if it is the other cats or the space that they are in but because of their behavior they were moved to outlying rooms and offices. It has seemed to work very well because all of the animals are doing much better.

After feeding and changing the litter it was time to head back to the main cattery and help out with the remainder of the duties. The big task today was rearranging the cats in order to make room for a whole bunch of new cats that will be brought in tomorrow. The big grand opening of the cattery is this weekend and the staff is trying to make sure everything is perfect and we have a full house. Not to mention it is kitten season and there are still a lot of animals on foster that are waiting for room to join the shelter and begin looking for a new home.

After mopping I was walking back into the office when a woman came jogging up. She seemed a bit frantic and notified me that she had found a stray. I told her we appreciated her concern and put the animal on leash and brought her into the office. She was a sweet hound mixed that was chipped when I scanned it. One of the staff called the number and was able to get a cell phone answering machine and told the owner that there animal was at the shelter. Later the woman called frantically saying that we had her dog and wanted to know where we were at. A few minutes later a couple showed up, without a leash, wondering where her animal was. She asked what we did with her collar and when I said she didn’t have one the woman suspected that we had taken it. There was no thanks for taking care of her dog and no sign of appreciation. In fact I had a good sense of animosity coming from the woman. I told her thanks for chipping her animal and once again got no response. They had another dog in their car and said maybe they should get him chipped. I said it was a 25 dollar fee and they responded he wasn’t worth it. I was in a crappy mood to begin with but this just added to it. People out there have no clue and it was really amazing how some people have no clue what we are doing and actually seemed like they were looking down on me. Get a clue people, you need to learn the facts and get out of your bubble and realize that we are out there to help, and when we do help, you need to acknowledge it.

As I dragged myself to finish up the poo buckets and all of the rest of the weekly closing duties I was called to do a showing with a little puppy. The adopter was a single Peace Officer and really fell in love with the little girl. He seemed very knowledgeable about training and after about half an hour of interaction he wanted to take her home. The fees are 150 dollars with a 50 dollar cash deposit that will be returned upon completion of any type of training. The officer said that there was no way that he would take her to training but agreed upon the terms the shelter has. The reason for the elevated costs is because puppies require more vaccines and the training is to make sure our little girl is properly socialized so in the long wrong will be an excellent pet.

As I looked at the clock I noticed it was finally getting close to closing time. This day really seemed like it took forever. After taking all of the dogs our for their last break and making sure their kennels were cleaned and full of water I was ready to head out. Today was a tough day where I really didn’t care about being here. I know that there is always something good to take out of here but today I had a tough time realizing it. The whole situation with the stray really threw me off as well. I guess my positive twist on this is to know that there are people out there like them and need to take advantage of that. Whether you have 30 seconds or an hour, you need to try to educate people as much as possible on either chipping their dogs or the importance of training your animals. I hope I can get out of the funk and get back to business because today was not a good day.