Rescue Journal

so today wasn't so great.....

Carol  ·  Mar. 11, 2012

WWWWWWAAAAAAYYYY too much chaos....i finally just parked myself in the computer room, told everyone to stay out and sat there until the dogs started to settle...i figured i better get a lid on things before the whole house blew apart.

i think we need to look at keeping things calmer here...first new rule..no hats or hoods on site. it makes some of the dogs nervous..it totally freaks others out. we are now a human bareheaded facility..a lot of dogs just don't get the human hat thing...it weirds them out.

also i think we need to work harder at working more smoothly and quietly around here. we come bombing in and ripping the place apart, laughing and joking and yelling at each other from room to room, back and forth (and i am guilty of this too!)..not a good scenario when we have brand new freaked out dogs who initially need things to be nice and calm.

anyway..everyone is settled again (thank god!) and i will just piddle around catching up on the laundry mountains while the dogs all sleep until it is time to put the barn guys to bed.

heads up to the staff tomorrow....watch buddy-boy if odie gets too excited or pushy with him, they will fight.....if they start escalating put odie in the kitchen and leave buddy-boy in the computer room.
the two new old ones, lea and sam, (out in the shop) have a life long history of getting loose and buggering off from their yard so keep them in sight at all times if they are out at the barn. today they were almost under the fence down in the bottom field.
if you are too busy to watch them, put them back in the shop.
the new cat in the medical room (zsu-zsu) only eats watered down canned food...and she does eat a lot so puree up a full can of friskies pate for her so she has enough to see her thru til i get home. (please pass this on to izzy cuz she doesn't read the blog.) i am on early shift so will be out of here by 6 am so whatever gawd awful mess there is... is not my fault!!

ok..more laundry and dicking round in here then out to the barns.

Comments

Carol

it should bunny if there are dogs out there..june in particular gets pretty freaked out by hats and hoods...fine if it is raining, i don't want anyone to get pneumonia..but we need to keep in mind that we don't want june to keep being scared of folks cuz they wear weird stuff on their heads...it is harder for her to recognise people she knows and likes.

lots of shelters have a no hat rule... why freak the dogs out if we can avoid it?

ball caps are not as bad as hats with big floppy brims..hoods make it hard for the dogs to identify if they know us or not.

Bunny Horne

Can you confirm whether the no hat, no hoodie policy impacts the barn volunteers too.

erin

i was thinkin we all should have a saints dog reunion one day when the weather is better, bear and bambi quite like their visits. janette, hows nicky? i miss his cute lil self!

Brenda

Yes, it was very chaotic today - but, on a positive note, Sara, the new volunteer said she will come back next week! She walked in the door right behind me at 9am (and it was her first day), so she got to see what it's like from the get-go, and did really well, with me directing her to do 5 different things at once. The weather and the mud didn't help out the cleaning today either, and Ashley finally just gave up on keeping the big dogroom's floor clean. By the way, I think Buddy-boy is lovely - when he's not fighting with Odie.
Note to house volunteers: On the weekend of Pub night (March 24th), I will be coming on Saturday (not Sunday), so I can go to the Pub later on that day, and not have to come in again from Hope on Sunday. Maybe one of the Saturday people will come Sunday in my place? I'll let Jenn know re the schedule.