What a day!

Wow...what a day. I don't even know where to begin! We were a bit short staffed today, meaning we had our work cut out for us. My 8 hour work shift felt like it all happened within an hour...by the time I knew it was 5 o'clock and time to clock out! I usually get to the shelter around 7:20 am and start the cleaning in either cats or dogs, and today I was in cats. We had plenty of work to do, including cleaning the cages and scrubbing out the 4 free roam rooms. To top it off, we have these HUGE new cat trees in the rooms which are wonderful...but a pain in the butt to move in order for us to clean the rooms (pictures below). We need to finish cleaning by 9:45 since we open at 10am, but today we barely finished at 9:50 and didn't have time to get a break.

Some of the cats enjoying the tree houses that were donated :)

Anyways, after cleaning we opened the doors and already had people lined up in front of cat and dog receiving. (-____-) That's all I can say to that. I received the first 2 cats and then 4 kittens right after. Luckily they were all healthy and in good shape, so they were all able to be put up for adoption! I then ran over to dogs and did the dog meds, then worked up front (adoptions) for most of the day; I was the only dog adoption counselor on staff and I am proud to say that I can finally do all the paperwork comfortably and feel confident in adoptions. I sent Boosie home today from my previous post and helped the new owners lift him into their car - he was a bit woozy from the surgery. He gave me a big wet doggy kiss after putting him in the can...which was pretty much the highlight of my day :)

I also did five adoptions; three of them were sent home today and two were put up for spay/neuter for tomorrow morning. For being so short staffed and having a million things to do on top of that...it was a great dog adoption day! Throughout the day we also had some other things come up, such as a dog getting loose (from a customer, not ours) and girl scouts getting a tour of the shelter. AND to top it all off, we still had to deal with the Parvo incident from yesterday and had to clean out some kennels and areas over again with bleach then let it soak...meaning our space was limited.

Somehow we managed and at the end of the day, being able to have dogs and cats get adopted out to good homes makes it all worthwhile :) It can be really stressful at times and there are moments where I feel like escaping and just hiding in a kennel with the dogs. All they do is give us love and are always excited to see us...I couldn't ask for a better stress reliever there.

VIDEO

Here's a video I've been meaning to add of two ADORABLE terrier puppies that were recently adopted at the shelter. After watching this video, you'll see what I mean by how excited they are to see you! If I'm ever feeling stressed or overwhelmed at times, I take a minute to sit in a kennel and just enjoy their company :)