Back to work

Coming back from several days off is never easy, today wasn't so bad though. I came into work noticing that there was a pretty solid staff and realized we had everything under control even though we were going to be a bit short handed in the afternoon.

Since our normal staff wasn't here there were a few differences in how the day started out. For one, I actually didn't have to clean today! I think that this is a first at my days at the shelter. So rather than clean I had to dish out all of the meds to the animals which might have actually been tougher than cleaning. The reason I say this is because there were a total of four animals on ear meds which can be a daunting task. On top of that there is another dog that also needs two eye medicines along with several pills, poor guy. Once I got all of the ears cleaned out and waited ten minutes to put more drops in them. Of course it's easier said than done. Pretty much every one of the dogs that needed the medicine was kenneled with another dog in the break yards, what that meant was that I had to no only control one dog while I stuck drops in their ears I had to dodge the other ones that would jump all over me. In the end, I was dirtier than I had ever been when doing kennels. In fact I actually had to change my shirt because of all of the mud that ended up on me. Hey, at least it was something new. Whether it was more difficult or not, I did learn a few things, like not all dogs like cream cheese.

After all of the meds were done there was still time to help out cleaning. I headed over to the rabbitat and got to work. Luckily there was a volunteer there to help take the rabbits out to their play yards which makes the cleaning that much easier. I can never thank them enough for taking time out of their days to help the animals and the staff. Because of the volunteer we were able to clean in record time, then of course head out to do more cleaning.

Once all of the morning duties were done it was time to spend some quality time with some special needs animals. We have a list of dogs and cats that need special attention and work to make sure that they can be as adoptable as possible. The dog I chose to work with was a Siberian Huskie mix who can be a bit of a spaz at times. She means no harm but she can certainly make it feel that way. I took her to our quite room which is a small area in front of the shelter that has no barking dogs, a nice couch, and carpeted floors. It took some time and a whole lot of jumping but finally she settled down and got comfortable. I think she just needs a very active household possibly with another dog because the energy that this dog has is amazing. It was good to see that she could calm down indoors though.

Later in the day I had a few showings, a few denials, and absolutely no adoptions to speak of. Even though I didn't send anyone home there was a nice cat adoption and I think a few of the showings that I had could pan out in the future. One in particular really stood out, it was with a family that had lost their dog of 13 years three weeks ago. They had been to several shelters but felt that the right dog would pick them. Overall they were a perfect household to send any of our animals home to, it's just a matter of finding the right one. They said they will think about Dixie, the sweet dog they were looking at but they will also check back to see if there are any new additions.

Kind of a different day today with some nice quality time with the animals. It did get a bit hectic in the end trying to make sure that everything got finished, but being a little short handed and having some late showings made the afternoon fly by. I hope in the next few days that some of the wonderful families that came in to look at animals will be back to take them home. Not a great day for adoptions but that doesn't mean that tomorrow won't be. Thanks for reading everyone and I look forward to your comments. By the way, the picture up top is Kissy, our overweight cat that likes to lounge around in the indoor/outdoor room.