Good old customer service

As part of my new schedule I mentioned that I will be helping out up at the front desk, well, today is one of those days. I have to start by saying it is a nice change to see all aspects of the shelter but there are also those situations up here that I never thought would ever come up at this shelter.

The one common thing that I am experiencing up here is the constant telephone calls inquiring about everything from coyotes to neighbors complaining about barking dogs. In addition to all of the usual calls we get about animals and general questions we also get a good amount of calls that are actually looking for their local shelter which could be one of many. More often than not the majority of the phone calls all I end up doing is giving the caller another number. Sometimes it is kind of tough to always be polite because people don't quite understand that we are private and don't have animal control, they think that I just don't feel like helping them.

Aside from the influx of phone calls there is also the walk in traffic. Everyone from potential volunteers, to donors, to the all important adopters make their way through the front desk. Today was no different except that two ended up being one in the same. We had an elderly couple come in to donate towels to us and because they were here ended up taking a peek at the dogs we had in our care. Before I knew it they were in a showing with our Noodles and ended up adopting. They were the cutest couple that I knew were going to spoil the hell out of this little dog. They even asked if we would know where the best place to buy a car seat for him was. Hopefully they will keep us up to date and bring him back for visits because it's always nice to see updates on our little guys. This side of the adoption is nice to see because you really get to experience the emotion that these new families are expressing.

Along with the adoption comes the tougher times as well. We had a total of two relinquishments and two returns today. The more I go through these things the more I understand how hard it is for these owners to give up their pets. Two of them were sweet little dogs that the owner just didn't feel like they were living a good enough life so she thought we would find them a more suiting home. The other two were returns due to a divorce, as I have mentioned in the past whether it's ten days or ten years we will always take back our animals. I just hope that everything goes accordingly and these guys don't stay in the shelter for too long.

Closing out the day I have to add that we also deal with strays, in a limited capacity. Because we are private we have to call county to come and get the animals since we are not contracted to do it. That is unless the animal is micro chipped, then we simply call the owners and tell them to come and pick them up. Luckily the animal that came in today was micro chipped, the funny thing was the address and number were not correct but the secondary information was. It was amusing to call the mother in law of the owner to tell her that her son's dog was at our shelter. The comment I got back was, "he got out again". Luckily the son came in within the hour and we informed him about changing his contact information. I am just glad he had a chip in the first place.

Sorry for no pictures today but hopefully a lot tomorrow. As always thanks for reading and I hope I didn't bore you to much today and of course thanks for your comments.