Renee spent most of the last hour of her shift sitting on her butt. For almost a whole hour she sat on a dog bed barely moving. Saints paid Renee an hours wage to do this. And you know what? There was nowhere more important for her to be. See, none of us work at Saints for the money. Nor the glory, if you can believe that. We are there because we want to be. End of story. Ask Kevin, who comes in Sunday mornings to do cartrophen injections because he doesnt want his guys going that one more day without. He doesnt get paid for that. Kevin could leave it til Monday morning. But he doesnt. Ask Dionne, who lost sleep last night worrying over whether or not Mama Teresa and Luke were getting along, if Mama dared to cross over the gate during the night. Btw, they were fine, Luke just pulled a bit of attitude when he felt Mama walked too close to his toybox earlier in the evening when Dionne was doing dinner. No toys, no problem. And we all check the blog repeatedly each night, every night. I went back to work late this afternoon after my shift was long over to relieve Renee from her laying-down-on-the-job duties. She had to leave at her scheduled time to make it to her night school class that she takes, Dionne was busy doing a vet run, Carol was still at work. But Odie absolutely positively could not be left alone for even a moment. He was panicking, crying, scared out of his mind. The worker guys were cutting holes in the wall with loud tools, banging on stuff, generally making a racket. And Odie, being blind, was terrified. It is up to us, the staff, to keep the animals in our care safe. It makes no difference that Odie was in no actual danger, he needed company to FEEL safe. And helping him feel safe was top priority for that hour or so. Money well spent.
Everyone is out of sorts with this reno. Squirt hid in his doghouse for awhile today, Fairlane, who Carol moved into the laundry room seemed to be breathing faster than normal, and while I was there helping Odie through his ordeal, I saw Fairlane actually visibly shaking. So I made sure to spread the love around, and as soon as the guys were out of the kitchen everyone calmed right down. Teddy seems different, he is a very lonely dog, and having to separate him sucks big time. We should have test results in any day now, so hopefully he can go back to being his true grumpy zombie self once the house gets put back together. Theres no walking room in Carols bedroom anymore, too many dogs and not enough beds so today we added a big huge mat. So guess who goes and lays on it? The only dog in the whole place that no other dog is stupid enough to sleep with? Crazy old Jeremiah. Figures. I wonder if our lovely groomer lady Ann would be willing to attempt Peppers bangs? Poor thing cant see. Puff got shaved today, I havent seen him so I dont know how cute he looks, but hes usually pretty pissed for a little while after the fact. Super pissed when it was discovered that he has a puncture wound...hmm...LUNA! I discovered today that Amber looks like shes dead when she sleeps. I wonder if she is deaf because I went into her pen to check on her and she didnt move until after I picked her up. And then I felt pretty bad because I obviously woke her up (quite rudely, Im sure she would say) from the Worlds Best Nap.
It was an hour well spent. I had Odie wrapped up in a blankie tucked up on my lap having adorable scared husky snuggles <3