It's a Sunday, meaning no shelter hours today but that's ok, yesterday morning wore me out. Robin, the lady who invited me to try out a morning shift, was right when she said it is more fast pace.
I arrived at 8 and work began immediately. There were 6 of us in total working: myself, 2 other volunteers, Robin, and 2 another staff women. The volunteers and I were instructed to walk the dogs around the enclosure and to the back side of the shelter where they were put in outdoor cages while the staff cleaned out the indoor kennels. Along with being fast it is loud. When the others see a dog get a leash and get to leave its kennel, the chorus of barks begins and it continues until everyone is back in their kennels, equating to 3 1/2 hours of barking.
Needless to say my ears were happy when Robin asked me to help her clean the much quieter cat room. New volunteers aren't allowed to handle the cats because it takes a certain amount of training (something I'm rather aware of having a relatively unfriendly cat myself). But it was still nice to clean out the cages and make them nice and pretty with blankets and toys. I'll have to get some pictures of the cats sometime. There is one beautiful Siamese cat with the bluest of eyes, and a big, fluffy orange cat named Garfield (who I made sure got the Garfield comics when lining his cage with newspaper). Once the felines were cared for it was back to the dogs.
Once all the kennels are cleaned, rinsed and disinfected the dogs are returned to their respected kennels. The floors are then cleaned and squeegeed and by the time all that is done its time to walk the dogs again. When walking the dogs we start at one side of the kennels and work our way down, making sure not to skip any dogs. I didn't take as many pictures yesterday as before but I did get a picture of one special dog.
Meet Schwartz! He is a big teddy bear of a dog. When he gets super excited he likes to jump up on you and with him being 50-60 pounds that's not really something you want him doing. Luckily he is a good listener and after I made clear to him that it's not ok to jump on me, he calmed down and we were able to continue our walk and now he is one of my favorites to walk. He is such a handsome dog with the sweetest temperament and on top of all that, he's a pit (my fave) <3
Well that's all really. I'll most likely be going back on Wednesday sometime!
until then, have a good week! And adopt don't shop! :)
No comments:
Post a Comment