It's the #s, not the $s

On my way out of the shelter tonight, I looked at the register receipt and realized that the total dollar amount of the days revenue was not telling me anything important. I wanted to know how many animals were adopted today? How many lost dogs and cats went home with their owners? How many strays were picked up off the streets and are going to have food, water and a warm, safe place to sleep tonight?

In almost all my previous work, it's been about the dollars. Did this event net enough $? Are there enough members to meet budget $? How many $ should we ask for in this grant proposal? Meeting fundraising, earned revenue and expense projections was important.

Now I'm not looking at the revenue side. I have to monitor the expense side but my ultimate measure of success is how many animals did we save today?

I really like that ruler.

I am covered in white dog hair and smell of goat

Thank goodness the 18 goats and 4 sheep were reclaimed by their owner tonite. Of course it was at 5:45pm. I helped to load the animals and once we got them all in his trailer, he wanted to pull the nursing kids to take them in his truck. He just started handing them out the trailer and we grabbed them. Like almost every very young animal, the little goat was adorable.

My newest office companion is a loving 1 year old male white german shepherd mix. I don't think he'll be with me for very long.

We need a barn!!

The day started off great - we are in the middle of developing a master plan for the renovation/expansion of our facility. We reviewed every facet of our operation, how it's working (or not working) now and what we would like it to be. One element we lack is holding for livestock. We talked about how many horses, cows, sheep, goats and pigs we handle in a year, how many at one time and what we do with them. We finished at 2:30pm. In a "be careful what you say" moment, we got a call to get a cow out of the middle of a road AND a call to pick up 20 stray sheep and goats. Where's a barn when you need it!!! Luckily the cow had made its way back home but the sheep and goats are currently being held in temporary quarters at the shelter. We'll decide what to do with them tomorrow. We were called about three dogs at a home that was burning this morning. The resident was not home so we took the dogs to the shelter and made them as comfortable as possible. Luckily they had rabies tags so we were able to call the veterinarian and get the name and cell number of the owner. Our vet tech called and the owner answered. "This is *** and we have your dogs safe at the shelter," she said. "Why do you have my dogs?" said the owner. A few more questions made it obvious that the owner had no idea his home had just burned down! At least he found out his animals were safe and then that his house was gone rather than finding out about the fire and wondering if his animals were okay. But a rough day for our staff person!

Youthinize

We got a complaint today submitted through an on-line form. It was full of misinformation (as usual) and misspellings. One we get all the time is spray and nuder but I must admit that youthinize is a first.

I was leaving the shelter last night just after sunset and as I rounded the curve before going under the bridge I almost hit something in the middle of the road. I stopped and saw two deer had run across the road (no crossing the road jokes!). They watched me for a moment and then ran back across the road and into the pipe yard next door. Another deer was waiting for them and all three moved back to the tree line along the creek. It made me smile.

Equal Time

I now have an equal opportunity office. The addition of a cat cage right in front of the window has brought a black cat with beautiful green eyes to spend the days with me. He has been here way too long and this is a way to feature him and give him more space.

Mondays

Mondays are so quiet - it's the day when all the staff are in but we're not open to the public. It's a chance to do some deep down cleaning and move through the shelter without bumping into people. I walked the halls for an hour this morning trying to figure out why it looked different - the hallway runners had been taken outside to be washed. Too bad we can't just leave the floors bare - to much of a slipping hazard.

The clinic is busy though. They have two days worth of adoptions, Friday and Saturday, to get ready for pick-up. I see lots of animals go out the front door with their new families on Mondays. Two young, beautiful, healthy pit mixes went home with two young men. I couldn't help but walk out of my office to tell them to take good care of these two babies, feed them, love them and no fighting.

Sometimes we just take a deep breath and believe in the basic goodness of people. Sometimes we're disappointed but we're rewarded with a good outcome for the people and the animals often enough to keep trying. That's what we must do, keep trying.

THE Dog Show

Feeling ambivalent tonight about the Westminster Dog Show. It's such a celebration of the pure bred dog and yet one of it's biggest sponsors, Pedigree, has great commercials highlighting the wonderful animals to be found in shelters across the country. You just can't judge personality, loyalty, and sheer devotion, all characteristics found in our animals in abundance.

Off to Denver

We sent 22 dogs to Denver last night. It was very exciting and so amazing to be loading healthy animals into a vehicle to go some- where they are so valued instead of unloading a vehicle with animals from a hoarder or puppy mill. We are so lucky to have a volunteer who was eager to take this on. It was hard to send the blue dobie but I know he will go to someone who will love him and take good care of him.

I've had a new baby in the office this week. Another young white pit bull, this one impounded from a too small wire cage in a back yard. No shelter, no food, no water and sitting in his own waste. He is timid, underweight, startles at every sound and is walking on his ankles. When he is on the bed in my office he lies on his back and wriggles. He can't get enough of stretching out and having someone scratch him behind the ears.

Newspaper article about the transfer program.

http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articleid=20090204_11_A1_Amanda617304

Bowl Cam

That camera underneath the clear-bottomed water bowl in the Puppy Bowl is so amazing. I love watching the Puppy Bowl on Animal Planet since I couldn't care less about the Super one.

They get the puppies from shelters and give them great toys to play with but they end up playing and wrestling with each other much more. It was a great line-up this year and it's good to know they have all been adopted. Maybe it will move more people to come to our place.