A whole lot of cleaning

Today was one of those days that I just put my head down and went to work. There was nothing wrong with me and my attitude was good, I just had the motivation to go around and clean. As usual, the morning started with taking all of the dogs down to their runs for their morning break. Once that was done it was time to get scrubbing. I focused my efforts on the South kennels and immediately started spraying everything down with disinfectant. Once everything was lathered up I got to scrubbing. I have to say, there should be an industrial use for bird poop, the amount of elbow grease that you have to put into getting it off of the windows is amazing.

Well, eventually, I got the kennels a little cleaner and began getting all of the breakfasts ready. There were a few special meals for some of our senior guys that recently had dental extractions. Nothing complicated, just wet food. After all of that was done it was time to start bringing the dogs back up. It was nice to see that over the weekend there were a few play groups made and all of the animals were out having fun while we cleaned.

After the morning cleaning I headed back to ISO to clear out the kennels that had recently been used. We actually had six dogs dropped off in front of the shelter in one crate while I was away and they had to be kept back in quarantine until county could come and pick them up. I really don't know what else to say on that topic other than at least the people didn't leave them in the middle of the freeway. Anyways, I digress, I ended up disinfecting the kennels that those dogs were in and soon moved on to the next dirty thing, (there seems to be a never ending supply at the shelter).

Luckily we had a solid staff on so I was able to knock out a few of the cleaning projects, with a lot of help. I noticed that the pet kitchen had already been taken care of today so I moved on to the dirty crates and litter boxes, not my favorite job. I pre soaked everything hoping that the cemented on kitten diarrhea might come off a little easier if I left it for a while. In the mean time I recruited another staff member to help me knock it all out. Amazingly enough, when you have two people who are actually working, some of the things that I usually think are tough become pretty quick and easy.

After all of the cleaning I got a call to help with an interaction. It was with one of our skittish little guys named Chili Willie. When he first came to us he wouldn't even come out of his crate let alone walk on leash. With a little work and patience from everyone at the shelter he has slowly come out of his shell. The interact was a little sketch at first with our little guy trying to act all tough, but after a little walking together both dogs seemed to bet a little more comfortable. We decided to move them into the yards and see how they interacted. It was really more just hanging out than anything else, but they weren't annoying each other either. It wasn't the perfect interact but the couple that was looking to adopt were very dog savvy and the questions and suggestions that they had put me at ease with the adoption. It turns out they absolutely loved the little guy and got to take him home today.

Overall the day goes by so fast when all you do is clean. It was nice to organize a few things and it was even nicer to send a dog home. Thanks for reading everyone and I look forward to your comments. The pictures are a few of our new arrivals from our second chance program. The more I learn about them I will share with you.