The End of the Day...

It was a hard day today. Media interviews, meetings and e-mails about policy and politics took up way too much of the day. But it's how the day ends that carries into the evening at home.

We had closed for the night and as I was about to leave the shelter CC, one of the field officers, said Dr. P was looking for me. I walked into the clinic to find a cute, well-fed, well-taken-care-of Yorkie in a carrier on the exam table. CC had gone out out on a call for an injured animal and found this little guy lying on the side of the road, probably hit by a car. He was drooling, couldn't stand, had head injuries and appeared to be in extreme pain. Dr. P was on the phone trying to track down the owner through a microchip detected in the dog. We hoped to find the owners and get their pet back home to them so they could get him to their vet. Instead, after three phone calls ending with an answering machine at the corporate offices of a huge breeder corporation, we have a severely injured animal which we believe has an owner somewhere and no clue as to who they are. So now we have to decide whether to keep him as comfortable as possible in the hope an owner will appear tomorrow or to euthanize him to put him out of pain and distress. We do not have the resources to provide the kind of care a dog that has been hit by a vehicle needs to successfully recover.

Finding microchips that lead to no contact information, breeder information, previous owner information, disconnected telephone numbers is a daily occurrence at our shelter. Why would someone who supposedly loves their pet not update their information when they move or not even register the chip? It makes our job of uniting lost pets so much harder.

We were working on the Yorkie when LH brought us a tote (like the ones you buy at Target to store your Christmas ornaments) with five kittens about four weeks old. Someone had driven up to the front door, left the tote and driven away. Coward didn't even have the *%$# t bring them to us when we are open. They were so sweet, eyes wide open looking up at us crying, but the mom to continue nursing them, we just couldn't keep them.

Our little Yorkie is now in a kennel in the clinic, hopefully asleep on pain medication and steroids. Maybe tomorrow will bring a successful resolution.

I got home about 7:30 this evening feeling very discouraged - I hope tomorrow is a better day.

Where has ten months gone!!?!!

Yes, it's been 10 months since I posted here and good changes have been taking place. Among the most obvious are the new outdoor play yards and the outdoor dog runs. Now our dogs get more time to play outside. Law students painted the public areas of the shelter last month in blues, green and yellow, a huge improvement for both the staff and our visitors. I know it's made a big difference in my mood when I go in.

The most exciting change is to come - we've opened bids to build a new surgical suite, surgery prep and surgery holding area. We are going to upgrade the clinic space and improve all the interior animal spaces with solotubes (skylights) to bring in natural light. It's not the $8.6 million upgrade/renovation I'd like to be undertaking but that will come, someday.

Since my last post we've had a change in our city's elected officials and unfortunately, the shelter and animal welfare challenges are not of the same importance to the new regime. Maybe it is better to ignored than on the firing line but I miss the support from the top I used to have.

I have missed writing here and hope to be much more regular as we move into fall.