Interesting ending to a pretty good day

It seems when you have seven puppies in attendance your mornings start pretty much the same every time. The amount of poo these little guys put out is absolutely amazing. I know we are feeding them a lot of food but I wonder if they are even digesting any of it or it actually just runs right through them. Anyways, after cleaning all of the areas from the kennels, the rabbitat, and the cattery, oh and of course all of the iso animals and cats that are spread throughout the rooms of the shelter it was time to take out the trash.

I love it when there is a special event at the shelter's dog park because there is usually so much trash that it overflows in front of the dumpster. It's hard to type sarcasm so I'll just tell you it is actually really annoying, especially when I have five more bags of garbage to fit in the dumpster along with the three that were left out in front. After a whole lot of jumping and prying I was able to get the lid shut and the lock put on.

Today being Monday there are a few weekly cleaning duties that need to get taken care of. One being my favorite, emptying poo buckets. Today was a little different in our approach though. Our supervisor decided to join in and show us how she used to do it. It's honestly pretty juvenile but it was actually pretty fun at the same time and made the task that much easier. What we did was collect all 15 garbage bags full of poo, strategically place the wagon that we put them in and stand about 50 yards away, it was now poo chucking time. I know how horrible this sounds but the bags were sealed tight and it put a little flare into our routine. With me sinking one in the wagon on my third try I was declared the winner and actually didn't have to stuff all of the bags in the already full dumpster. Not only was the task fun I got out of jumping on the garbage in order to get the lids closed.

With the laundry running I got a call to bring two dogs up that had been adopted last week but needed to be kenneled while the new owner was out of town. It was nice to see the same enthusiasm from the adopter as I saw the first day that she met the pair. It was also great to see the little guys get out of here and into a less stressful environment.

After the excitement it was on to another Monday duty of cleaning the cattery windows. Now this was a quick job due to Saturday's grand opening that called for all of us to pretty much spit shine the place. Needless to say I went around the entire shelter to clean as many windows as possible just because there was the time and after the excitement of the poo tossing contest I didn't want any down time.

The down time came and boy did I enjoy it. I was able to spend time with a lot of dogs today and it was truly relaxing and rewarding. I sat with a little one year old puppy that was originally ours but had to be relinquished because the owner lost their job and was in need of a transplant.It just goes to show that you never know the situation that these animals are coming from and you should never judge or assume.

Back to work, it was time to set up the west side kennels for the new arrivals. It was that time again that our behavior therapist goes down to a kennel to give some dogs a second chance. This time there would be eight little guys and two not so little. After I disinfected the runs with bleach I set up the beds and added some toys in all of the kennels. Before I knew it all of the dogs were here from their trip. They were all adorable ranging from a little chi hoo that looks like he was very "special" to a lab and a min pin. Of course you can't forget all of the chi hoo mixes that seem to come out of this shelter. After some quick intros it was time to get all of the dogs down for their afternoon break.

That was when I was called to do a cat showing. Rather it was a cat denial. It was a couple that had put down on their profile that they will de-claw because of their leather furniture and not to mention the man's hound has killed the woman's cat before as well. It was a simple I'm sorry but we can't adopt to you and that was that. I was just amazed at how adamant the woman was about how she was going to de-claw even thought she know what the process entailed. Oh well, hopefully she won't be back trying to use a different name to get one of our animals, even thought I have a pretty good idea that everyone will remember her.

Before I knew it the clock read 4:30 and it was time to grab the last of the dogs from the yards. The only ones left were the new second chance dogs that were still on their break. Most had gone up when our behaviorist talked to me about one guy that she had to separate from the rest because he was beating up on everyone. She had decided to put him with a female to see if there was any change in behavior. Of course that was the dog that was left to be brought up. I opened the gate and the little 15 pound guy dashed to get out, I quickly grabbed him and realized my mistake as continually chomped on my hand. After a few profanities I let go and luckily he ran into one of the other kennels. The sad part is I know that he was just scared and very stressed out, but for the next few days he will have to go on bite quarantine in order to best evaluate the situation. Hopefully his cortisol levels we even out and he will turn out to be the sweetest little guy we have, in the mean time I have to go to the doctor to get some antibiotics and a few 12 dollar band aids.