I finally had an adoption again

Since my duties at the shelter have changed these past three months I have found it more and more difficult to get animals adopted due to my sparse time working in the kennels. Well, today was a little different. As usual it began by taking out the dogs and of course cleaning up the kennels. Once that was all done and the doors were open to the shelter it was go time.

I immediately started a showing with a sweet elderly couple who was looking at either a lab or golden mix. I began by talking about their needs and their living situation and found out that they would be a perfect home for just about any animal. I initially talked to them about Lady, our resident long termer but after talking to them for a bit it seems she might be a little to much for them, actually a lot to much. After ruling her out we moved outside to take a look at some of the new faces and see if one might be a good fit. It turns out they absolutely fell in love with a dog named Bali. Unfortunately she isn't available until Saturday but they should be back then. I really hope it works out because the family was incredibly sweet. I can't tell you how many times the man broke down in tears because of the loss of their last dog a few months back.

My next showing was with a young hispanic couple who initially I thought might not be a good fit because of the way they answered the questions on their profile. When I talked to them though I got a completely different feeling. This would be their first time owning a dog so they really didn't know how to answer the questions like where would the dog sleep. After discussing to them our dogs and where they come from they agreed that the animal could pretty much sleep wherever they would want to. I talked to them about being patient and waiting for the perfect fit because this is no small commitment. Thankfully the couple was very attentive and hopefully the rest of the family comes back on Saturday to find their new addition.

After all of that it was time to give our little five week old puppies a medicated bath. We think, of course, that they might have some skin issues that need to be dealt with. I have to say for them never having a bath before they did pretty well. Hopefully it helped because I certainly saw some hair loss. In any case, we will make sure that they are healthy and we are already taking applications for their adoptions which will take place in two or three weeks. The picture up top is one of the cuties that didn't like her bath so much.

Closing out the day I had one more showing. It was with a grandmother and grandson that had been in yesterday to look at Petey the cat. When they came in today they wanted to see the dogs as well. After filling out yet another application I showed them our little chihuahua pomeranian mix named Teensie Marie. They absolutely fell in love with her but were still indecisive about getting a dog or cat. I explained that there was no rush and this was a huge decision. Well, they did take their time and came back to the shelter and decided on Teensie Marie. It was nice to see the smile on their faces and it was even nicer to see Teensie Marie strutting out of the parking lot with her new family.

Thanks for reading everyone and if you aren't already following my I would appreciate the support. I also had to include a picture of Wylie, the ten year old dachshund we took in on Saturday, you almost can't even tell that he has the worst teeth I have ever seen, but we'll fix that.

Finally learning some new cat names

Since our hours at the shelter have changed to accommodate daylight savings I have strictly been cleaning up after dogs in the morning. What that means to mean is that I really haven't gotten a chance to work wit the cats in almost two months. Today though was different, we had three openers so I was able to make my way over to cattery.

It didn't surprise me when I almost didn't recognize any names on any of the kennels. Unfortunately I did recognize some at the same time, those special ones that have been at the shelter for way to long. While I was cleaning though it was nice to meet the new ones and get a sense of their personality in order to better explain them if there was a showing. Even though it all seems positive I noticed that one of our cats, Chester, seemed a bit under the weather. Luckily we noticed it because it turned out he had a fever of about 105. Another cat I learned about was Missy, a siamese mix that absolutely does not like me. Good to know that a cat will swat and hiss even if you merely look at it.

Anyways, once the cattery was done I helped bring up some of the dogs to their freshly cleaned kennels. We have a few new faces since our behavior specialist headed down to another shelter on Monday and picked up a group of ten. In addition to that there was a new ten year old dachshund named Wylie that came in as well. This special little guy had come into county as a stray with his brother who had been attacked by a coyote. Sadly his brother didn't make it but luckily Wylie made his way to us. Overall the new group looks really good, even the one eyed pomeranian mix. Hopefully when they become available on Saturday they will all find homes.

It's amazing the ups and downs that you experience at an animal shelter. Right now we have had some adoptions, of course not as many as we would like, but there are some dogs that have just been here way to long. I think that right now we have three or four dogs that are pushing four months and above which is to long for any animal to be in a shelter, no matter how good it is. Once the animal has been here that long it becomes even more difficult to get them adopted because they are acclimating themselves to well to the shelter life. Typically you will see them digress into fence fighting, start inhibiting anti social behaviors, and sometimes even becoming aggressive. We do our best along with a great group of volunteers to keep this from happening but then the double edge sword comes out. While we are focusing on one animal, another isn't getting the attention they need. It's one crazy cycle that I wish we could do a better job with.

The rest of my afternoon was spent bathing our ring worm pit bull, hanging out with our ring worm carrier, and of course throwing the ball for our ring worm beagle. Are you seeing a trend here. We do have a bit of a skin outbreak at the shelter but luckily our medical staff caught on very early. I hope staff and volunteers don't forget to spend time with these animals for the fear that they could catch it because that would mean the dogs would start going downhill faster without the interaction they need.

Closing out the day we didn't have any adoptions but some solid showings for a few of the new guys that will become available soon. Hopefully the week picks up because we have a full house now with some great animals just waiting for their perfect home. Thanks for reading everyone and I look forward to your comments. Oh yeah, the picture up top is Chester, the poor tabby with a high fever.

Dealing with the people one on one

Today was my day away from the animals and at the front desk dealing with the customers. I can never say enough how much of a change it is to jump from the kennels to the office and the complete variety of people that come into the shelter.

My morning began by checking the emails and voice messages. I returned one voicemail of a woman asking for help for a hurt dove that wasn't able to fly. I heard that the message was from about ten minutes ago and since the woman took the time to call us it was only right for us to return the call. I explained to her that we were a private shelter but I would certainly help her get to the right people that could help her out. Unfortunately by the time that I called she said she went back outside and there was nothing but a plume of feathers. I told her maybe it just had to try extra hard to fly and shook out some feathers, not that it was probably eaten. In any case I thanked her for caring enough to call us and she was happy she at least got her call returned.

The other message was from a rescue group that we had called earlier about picking up some donations. Because we have such a great relationship with our community we get in a lot of things including extra bedding and dog food. Because we only use one particular type of food though we find organizations in need and make sure that if we have it and they need it, we will get it to them.

It's finally opening time by this point and today we have three dogs heading home. They were just altered yesterday so they will have to take it easy for a while but I really do love the day that these animals get picked up. The smile on the new owner's faces is priceless, not to mention the gratitude that the adopters have as well.

With the dogs going home today and several showings the front office became a bit hectic at times today. We ended up having two adoptions, Haley and Abby, who both found great homes. It was nice to see two dogs at the shelter for such a short period of time before they found their forever homes. In addition to the two adoptions there was also a lot of showings which was great to see since adoptions seem to be down this month.

Closing out the day we did have a few new animals come in via relinquishment. We had two cats that the families ended up having allergies too. I understand how this could happen but I also have a tough time thinking about giving up my animals if I became allergic as well. I have said it before, that I am not a people hater, but if you truly love your pet there are other things that you can do. This is usually why I don't always trust the reasons why people relinquish their animals. Anyways, the other little guy that came into us was a tiny little silky terrier puppy. The dog was just to much for a the family which is understandable. Luckily the little puppy found its way here because she won't be here for very long.

My days at the front desk are always something new. I learned today that for those people that still use a phone book we are the only number listed in the entire county as a humane society. It's kind of funny because we are actually a private animal shelter and there are four county shelters all around us. What that means for us is the people that still actually use the yellow pages always call us to ask the most random questions and of course for us to get them the right number. Well, at least we actually answer the phone and not some recording, at least we have that going for us. Thanks for reading as always everyone and I look forward to your comments. And remember, there are so many ways that you can help these animals in your area, check out volunteering at your local shelter, it was one of the most rewarding times in my life.

Know what you are feeding your bottle babies!

The morning started off with foster kittens being returned to the shelter because of horrible diarrhea. Now these aren't just any kittens, when they went out they were a mere five or six days old. What that means is they need constant attention, warmth, and of course hourly feedings. We have a great network of volunteers that are trained to get the animals weight up until we can alter them and put them up for adoption, but in those rare instances when something goes wrong they are brought back to the shelter to be looked after until they can get healthy again.

Well, after our experts did some research on the issue because a ten day old kitten that isn't eating and having running of the bowles is a pretty serious thing. It turns out that the KMR (kitten milk replacement) manufactured by PetAg has had a few issues. Apparently there have been several complaints that it has been killing animals. There was a few articles found that basically said that the powdered supplement was actually spoiled. The manufacturers excuse was that every can leaves the factory in good shape but suspects that some delivery trucks stayed out in the summer heat too long and the cans went bad. Not sure who's fault it is but there should certainly be a warning on the can, especially when the expiration date isn't until next year. In any case, if you have bottle babies, make sure you smell the powdered formula first, it should smell almost sweet, and not like chemicals. If if you do find a bad one, make sure you let the manufacturer know.

Well, then, my tirade is over and on with the day because the little kittens are now eating more and their poop is pretty normal. After cleaning it was more cleaning. I forget that the two days that I am in kennels are pretty slow as far as showings go so I try to focus on hanging out with the animals, deep cleaning, and trying to keep myself busy. I was able to almost catch up on the laundry when I got a call for a showing. It was unfortunate because they wanted to look at a dog that has to go home with another dog because of his separation anxiety. Aside from that everything seemed pretty good with the household. Hopefully they find what they are looking for because they seemed like a good family that just wants the right dog.

After more cleaning, scrubbing crates, and washing dishes it was time to take the dogs out for their afternoon break. As I was doing this a woman approached me and asked what kind of dog I had on leash. I explained he was a shepherd mix. Next time I cam down to the yards I asked her if she had any more questions and she then explained that her dog had just passed yesterday and she needed to be around them today. It's tough to come up with the right words to console people but I always try. She was an extremely nice woman who wants to get another dog but she just doesn't know what kind or when to do it. I talked to her for a little while and she held herself together well because I would have been balling my eyes out. Hopefully she continues to come back and we can find her a new addition to the family.

Thanks for reading everyone and of course your comments. All of you our there that read this have some attachment to animals and it is because of you that shelter's like the one I work at continue to be successful. And of course I had to add another picture of the puppies to put a smile on your face.

Smells like rotten eggs

When we began taking dogs out this morning it was important that we focused on a particular order of how we handled the animals. The reasoning for this was cross contamination on some young ones and some sick ones. This becomes very important when you are dealing with five week old puppies. We typically don't take in animals so young but I have to say that their cuteness might have played a part in them being in the shelter.

Having the young animals you have to make sure that you always handle them first and of course wash up every time before you handle them. Once you take care of them then it is on to the rest of the population. Then of course our sickies, which seems like a few right now. It turns out that we have a ring worm issues with several dogs. If your not familiar with the fungus I suggest reading up on it because it can get pretty nasty. And now we have three with the potential of a fourth popping positive.

The treatment isn't to crazy but it does take a while for this fungal infection to clear up. First comes a topical medicine applied twice daily to the affected area. The other form of treatment is medicated baths. I didn't think the baths were that bad because I had actually never used the right stuff to wash them in. Usually I would use a maleseb shampoo that soothes the skin but today was a little different. We ended up using a prescription sulphur bath. You heard correctly, a bath that literally smells like rotten eggs. Even worse, where we wash the animals is a whopping four by six room without the best ventilation. There was a point that I had to leave otherwise my lunch was about to come back up. Luckily this is only a weekly thing because not only was it tough on us but the poor little dogs actually had to have this stuff dry on them. Hopefully it helps because if it doesn't I feel bad that we all had to go through it.

The rest of the day was pretty routine. It was nice though to learn of the adoptions that had taken place over the weekend. Our girl Rikki, who has been here for a while and was starting to get a little nutty found the perfect home. A woman saw her online and new from that moment that she was the dog for her. A few of the new arrivals also got adopted which was nice to see. Of course they can't go home until Thursday when they start their recovery from their surgeries.

Like I mentioned before, in addition to the adoptions we have a whole lot of new arrivals that were taken in by our behavior specialist. There was everything from five young puppies, to boston terrier and bichon siblings, and even a solid white puggle (maybe). It's nice to see some adoptions and some new faces come in. Now I just want to get all of the other long termers out of here so we can get in a few more newbies. It really is tough to see great animals stay in the shelter for so long, no matter how good of a place we have, it is still a shelter and still extremely stressful.

Thanks for reading everyone and of course thanks to all of the volunteers out there that make saving animals possible.

The loudest dog EVER!

My one day a week in medical is always something that I look forward to. The main reason is because pretty much every day that I am back there I not only get to learn something but typically it is a completely different day back there every week.

The day began as usual by dulling out the morning meds. Today it was the typical anti-biotics and pain killers but there was the added miconosol. This is because we have had a dog break with ring worm. Sounds like fun huh. This is one of those times that I take extra precaution not because I don't trust the dog I just don't want to contract this stuff. The amazing part was we might have another dog with a similar issue. We noticed some hair loss on another dog named Kissy and the vet said it could potentially be ring worm or a transferrable form of mange. I haven't ever worked in a place where I could bring home so many crazy things before, hopefully the tests will come back with some good news but for not we are treating Kissy with all of the above and taking every precaution that it doesn't spread like wild fire into the shelter.

Once all of the meds were done it was time to do some intakes on three little terrier pup mixes. I was surprised at the weight of the little guys with an average of about five pounds and they are already almost six months old. You want to talk about tough to draw blood from. When we got to doing the final intake we started to shave the little pups leg and got the loudest screech I have ever heard come out of a dog. There wasn't anything different that we did, I think that the poor little girl is just so under-socialized and has had such little human contact that any little touch through her for a loop. We finally got everything done and once the ringing in our ears stopped we realized that the blood snap test that we were supposed to use was useless because we missed the snap time. What that meant was that we had to do it all over again and put the poor little puppy through another blood draw. I felt horrible listening to her cry but we had to do it. At least now I know I will never ever miss another snap test after that experience.

The rest of the day was occupied by data entry and making sure all of the new dog's files were updated in our computer system. We basically make sure that all of the vaccinations, tests, treatments, and medications are entered so that when an adoption takes place the new owner knows exactly what their new family member will be due for in the future.

Closing out the day we decided to wash our eighty pound pit bull with ring worm. We gave him a medicated malaseb bath that actually took two people to do. I don't think the poor little guy has ever had a bath from the way he took it. Once the ten minutes of letting the soap sit and rinsing him off was done though he seemed like a new man. Hopefully his skin condition won't spread and we can get him out of here sooner than later.

That's it for today, as always, thanks everyone for reading and sharing my ups, downs, and new experiences with me.

Front desk kind of busy

I have to say, I absolutely love my quiet time in the mornings up at the front desk. I get to relax, drink my coffee and prepare for the day. My early morning work consisted of changing up the pre recorded on hold messages for the shelter, which is unfortunately in my voice, and of course preparing some monthly reports.

The two reports that I compile every month are very similar but serve two separate purposes. The first is what is called an asilomar report. It basically is a break down of all the animals that pass through the shelter from adoptable to euthanasia by request and then exactly where all of the animals come from. It is then put with other local shelters to compile a county wide number. The other report I send to our fund developer (money getter). The excel sheet I send to that person is basically all of the adopter's information so we can send out cards asking for donations. Since we are completely private, this is where a lot of our backing comes from.

Once that was all done it was time to mop up the floor where the roof had leaked last night. It's amazing when I see pictures of the shelter from fifty years ago and see how much the facility has changed. I really do feel proud to be part of something that has not only been around for a very long time, but has been doing the right things that entire time as well.

Finally the rush of people started arriving at the shelter. There was a constant flow of showings and we had two solid cat adoptions which was great to see. A sweet cat by the name of Maui who was previously adopted and then returned hopefully found her true "forever" home. Another great cat adoption was with a sweet guy that initially had some health issues when first coming into the shelter and still had a heart murmur found his perfect family. His name is Louie and he had been at the shelter going on four months. It was great to see him go but also the smile on the adopter's face when she walked out the door.

Everything else was pretty normal for the day. We did have a crazy drunk guy come in and yell at a few dogs but eventually he left and we all got a laugh out of it. Other than that it was a whole lot of answering phones and dealing with people that are trying to relinquish their animals. I am always amazed at why people give up their animals. I still have to tell myself that I am not a people hater.

Thanks for reading everyone and I had to add that picture of top of our medical director's dog with a new cat. Gotta love it when a boxer and a kitten fall in love!