A Day in the Life . . .

As promised yesterday, here is a description of what goes on each day up at the Lodges.
The day starts at 8 am - on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday we have a Dogtown staff meeting at 8, so we don't get up to the Lodges until about 8:20-8:30. First thing somebody goes around and does the morning check, this involves stopping at all fifteen lodges and making sure that everyone is there and okay. This is also the time when certain dog's doors get propped open for the day and in a few of the two-dog runs we hang one of their beds up on the wall to give them some more room to maneuver and make it easier for caregivers and volunteers to get in and out of the runs. While the morning check is happening, somebody else is going around giving dogs their morning meds, most of the dogs just get a spoonful of wet dog food with their pill(s) stuck in the food, the trick is keeping it all straight who gets which meds. Each dog that gets meds has their own cup in a mini-muffin pan, so it isn't that difficult - unless you hit a big bump with the golf cart and send meds flying, but we usually travel with a towel over the muffin tins to keep this from happening. Also during the morning check and morning meds, somebody is making up and delivering the morning feeding for the five dogs that get food first thing in the morning. Five dogs out of 90+ doesn't sound like that much, but two of these dogs are very picky eaters and it sometimes involves a lot of culinary creativity to come up with something they will eat. Once all of this is done, we have a few dogs that rest for a couple of hours each morning, so we have to make sure they are blocked inside their runs. And then if we are lucky and have enough people and time, we can get a dog or two out for a walk before we have to start the morning feeding. Sometimes, if there isn't really enough time to go for a good long walk, you can go hang out in a run for a little bit and just have some fun there.
Around 9:30 am we usually start "cooking" the morning feeding - we don't actually cook anything, it is more just preparing. All the dogs get a morning feeding (the ones that get fed first thing get a "token" which is usually just a spoonful of wet food in a bowl or a handful of kibble so they don't feel left out). There are two sides to the kitchen so generally one person cooks one side and another cooks the other side. I have found that the fastest and most efficient way to prepare the feeding is to mix everything in the sink. On one side this involves mixing roughly seventy cups of kibble, about seven six-ounce cans of wet food, and about three cups of water, on the other side it is slightly less, using probably about 55-60 cups of kibble, six cans of wet, and two and a half cups of water (give or take). Each run has a food card that goes in their bowl so the people delivering food know which bowl goes to which dog. If there are enough staff, one person delivers the food from one side of the kitchen and another delivers the other side as the food is being prepared. Then they go around and pick up the empty bowls they delivered as they are delivering later groups of food. As the dirty bowls start arriving, the cooks are usually finished serving up bowl and switch over to dishwashers once their sinks are cleaned out. Sometimes we have two people washing and bleach rinsing and sometimes we have one person wash and another rinse the usually 100+ bowls and then they have to be dried and restacked for the afternoon feeding. By the time dishes are all done it is usually about 11:30am, which leaves just enough time for someone to dole out all the meds into the muffin tins for the afternoon and following morning. Other staff are usually out running around letting out the resters (the dogs that have to rest for a half hour after eating, usually for medical reasons), and sometimes somebody might go get a head start on poop-scooping or water buckets before lunch. We also have a dog that get sub-cutaneous fluids each day so if there is time before lunch, somebody may go down and give Niblet his fluids, otherwise that happens just after lunch. During lunch, pretty much everything shuts down from 12-1 everyone eats and takes a break before the afternoon gets rolling.
At 1 pm, if he hasn't already had his fluids, a couple of staff go down to give Niblet his fluids and somebody else gets the food ready for the couple of dogs that get fed at 1:30 and delivers their meals. As these tasks get finished, we start poop-scooping or cleaning and changing water buckets. We alternate days, poop-scooping one day and sweeping out the buildings and cleaning out water buckets the next day, then back to the poop the following day. Depending on how much time we have and how many staff and volunteers, if we can dump the water buckets and give them fresh water each day that is the preference, but some days if we are short on time or staff or both, we will just top off the buckets that are still pretty clean and clear and only dump the really sandy, drooly, and/or peed in buckets.
Around 3 pm we start preparing the afternoon feeding. Only about half of the dogs get an afternoon feeding - either medically they require it, or they need too much food each day to get it all in one feeding (usually anything more than 3 cups of food a day has to be divided into two feedings). In the two dog runs where one dog gets a feeding but the other doesn't, we give them a token so they don't feel left out, so this works out to about 45-50 dogs getting some kind of food in the afternoon and 50+ more bowls to be washed, rinsed and dried.
After all the afternoon feeding is taken care of, we have to do the evening meds, let out the resters from the afternoon feeding, and do the evening check - closing propped open doors, putting beds down, turning on heaters and making sure everyone is present and accounted for and still looking healthy. And the day ends at 5 pm.
I have probably forgotten some things here, but you get the basic idea. Now I need to go home and take a nap because I am exhausted just thinking about it all!