It's interesting when you come back from three days off.

I know, I know, I skipped out on a blog last week about compassion fatigue and what not but with company in town it was tough to find the motivation to write about all the stress that one can endure while working at a shelter. At least the guy said it was a good thing to keep this blog just to get my thoughts down on paper so to speak. I'll go into details about the class later on when I feel that it comes up again in work. Otherwise I am going to write today about being gone for three days and the changes that took place while I was out relaxing with family not even keeping my telephone on.

Of course I am the type of person that checks the shelter's web site while I am away so I can keep updated on what animals have been adopted so I knew a few that I had done showings with last week had a good chance of going home on Saturday. I was right, when I returned I learned that at least two of the dogs that I was hoping would get adopted because the families were good fits did. Apparently there was a little confusion with one of the adopters who was looking at Papi because they assumed they only needed a rental agreement that said pets weren't allowed. It turns out everything worked out because the counselor got a hold of the land lord and confirmed the dog was OK and he got to go home that afternoon.

The big news for adoptions this weekend was Sandra Dee, a wonderful staff favorite that had been in the shelter going on four months. It turns out a family had been keeping their eye on her and once they came in for the interact they were hooked. The family even wrote a letter to the shelter the next day saying how much they appreciated her and how wonderful she is. I did see a few tears coming down for finally finding this wonderful dog their forever home and it surely put a smile on my face when I learned the news.

Of course with the good comes a little bad, Jerry, a black lab that had been adopted some time back was returned because he apparently was chasing the owners cats. Not sure about the whole story but it sure is hard to see this eight year old guy back in the shelter. Hopefully our "senior" promotion with half off adoption fees for animals over five will give some motivations for a possible forever home. Keep your fingers crossed.

So on to my day, it started pretty normal with lots of cleaning and since it was Monday clearing out all of the yards and buckets of poop. I think we skipped last week because we were so short staffed just because of the sheer weight of these bags. I think total it had to be around eighty pounds. At least I got my workout in I guess.

Once all of the cleaning and chores were done I saw that there was a new relinquishment. It was a 14 week old Dachshund puppy that might have weighed four pounds and had this cute little one blue eye. He was so cute all you wanted to do was hang out with the little guy all day long. The reason he was here was that his owner's wife became gravely ill and he felt that it was just too tough to raise a puppy at this time. In any case I don't think the little guy will be here too long once he is available, take a look for yourself and see how cute this guy really is.

The rest of the day was pretty routine. I had a few showings and one turned out to be pretty interesting. The woman had initially come just to look at cats but saw Lucy, our pit/boxer mix and had to meet her. Unfortunately the potential adopter had an invisible fence and because of our policies we tend to steer away from those. The woman was a little annoyed but I hopefully explained our stance as well as possible saying that it might keep the dog in but that doesn't mean that it keeps other animals out. In any case, she was still a perfect home for any of our cats and she decided to take a look at the kittens. She immediately fell for a sweet girl from the "H" litter and decided to adopt. She was very happy with her decision and was not resentful at all for not being able to see the dog. It was good to find her the right pet and see that she was happy with the outcome as well.

I have to say that it is good to step away from work sometimes just to give yourself a break. I can name a hundred things that are good about this job but after my "compassion fatigue" training I can say that I am glad I can typically leave this work behind when I go home. No emails to be filed to phone calls to be returned; just an occasional update on the website to see if anyone has been adopted is all the "at home" work I have. Plus when you see an animal adopted it definitely brightens up my day.