Doggy Fat Camp

WHAT a weekend...I was going to post yesterday but as I was writing this post, I fell asleep lol. Weekends at the shelter are always ridiculously hectic and stressful - I always get home exhausted and the first thing I want to do is shower, eat, then sleep. The shelter is always full of people, which is both good and bad. Many come with the intention of adoption, while other come just to visit our animals...and then there are some people that think we're a petting zoo. We're also right next to a huge flea market, so many people trickle over to our place after the flea market to see the puppies and kitties. The good thing about weekends is that we usually get a lot of adoptions, and this weekend was no exception :) We got at least 10 cats adopted out and I think around 5 dogs - successful weekend!

I was working in cats this entire weekend, and in the beginning I would moan and complain (to myself) wishing that I was in dogs and not cats. But what good is that gonna do? I've never been much of a cat person, so I've been taking this opportunity to learn as much as I can about cats and so far I've learned a lot! Cats have such unique personalities and I've come to appreciate them and I gotta say - I'm beginning to really like these kitties! I mean I still consider myself more of a dog person...but I totally get why people can be so obsessed with these cuties. It was hard at first because their body language is much more difficult to read than dogs...so sometimes they look very happy that you're petting them and then BAM, out of nowhere one would swat my hand away. Oh unpredictable kitties...

Saturday BY FAR is our craziest day of the week and we were hoping that this Saturday wouldn't be too bad...but of course that didn't happen. There was one situation that happened on Saturday that I thought would be worth sharing:

So there I am eating lunch on my mid-day break with two other co-workers, one the assistant manager and another staff member, relaxing and enjoying our break. We still had like 20 minutes of peace left when in comes another staff member, clearly irritated, and begins to rant about something or the other. As it turns out, there was this lady outside who INSISTED that we take in the 17 cats she had in her car, and if we didn't she would have let them loose in the parking lot. It was her daughters cats and we had asked if she could call her daughter to get permission to relinquish the cats to us, and she just would not do it! To clarify, we don't take in lost or strays, only owner relinquished pets (must have the owner's permission). This lady was not the owner so we couldn't take in these cats unless she got her daughters approval - if not they she would have to take them to animal services. She was so upset that she went straight to her car and was about to start letting the cats loose. That's when my co-worker ran in to get us. Well...there went my lunch. 

At least five of us ran outside and were able to stop her and we just decided to take in the cats and call animal services ourselves so they could pick them up. What on earth crazy lady?! That would have been pure CHAOS if she let those cats loose... My guess is that she took those cats from her cat hoarder daughter and didn't want to call her daughter because she probably didn't even know that she took them! I swear it's crazy the things we see at the shelter...people never cease to amaze me.

Now on to the topic of the day - Doggy Fat Camp.

First, meet the two pups Rosie and Spooner! I know I know Spooner is an odd name...but we didn't choose it! Her previous owner, a military man, gave her that name and unfortunately had to give her up because he was being deployed. These two girls came in recently and have since been our resident fat campers.

Rosie is a 10 year old beagle with a very sweet personality and loves to give kisses. Spooner is younger, around 4 or 5, and is a precious big girl! She shakes her entire behind whenever she's excited to see somebody and they both love to take walks. Both are also very overweight.

Rosie and Spooner have been put on a very strict diet ever since they've gotten here and I'm proud to say that they've both lost weight! We walk them often and give them lots of love throughout the day. I'm happy to say Rosie was recently put up for adoption and is now waiting for her forever home. We are still working with Spooner to get her to lose some more weight before she gets put up for adoption. You'll also notice in the pictures that her lower back is shaved down - and that's because it was all matted...so now she looks like a little lion/dog :)

I took advantage of the beautiful weather we were having today and took them out to the play yard so they could run around for a bit. Here are some pics of them enjoying themselves outside :)

Overweight people are not the only ones with the obesity problem...dogs and cats struggle with this too! Owners think that they by giving them a scrap here and giving them endless amounts of food is just giving them love. Oh so wrong! I don't think I need to explain this further...but it is upsetting to see some of the dogs come in like this. Good thing we are able to work with them and get them back to a healthier state :)