Day One and Then Some

So, it has been almost a week since the last post, and oh what a week it has been. In the last post, I promised to cover Day One, but this post will be covering Week One. As mentioned before, The Lodges is very spread out and there are over 90 dogs residing in the area. The day to day schedule varies between three to six staff and yet there never seems enough time to get everything done. Most days I have been able to walk one or two dogs in the morning after getting the early eaters fed and before starting to "cook" the morning feeding. A big part of day one was just familiarizing myself with the area again, getting to know my coworkers (Terry, Larry aka Bob Vila, Keely, Jorge, and Michelle), and meeting some of the dogs. I should also mention here Jeanne and Robin, the wonder-volunteers, they come to the Lodges five days a week in the morning to walk dogs and socialize with them, they are both really great people.
There is a rather odd mishmash of dogs up at the Lodges, many of them are dog aggressive to some degree and some of them are very quirky about people they do and don't like. And then there are those that look like they might try to eat you alive at the gate and as soon as you go in with them they are all wags and sniffs. On day two, one of the dogs at the Lodges, Sophie, had been changed from a red collar to a purple one, so Jeanne and I took her and her red collar run mate, Rex, for a nice long walk (quick rundown on collar color meanings: green - volunteers may walk them, purple - volunteers over 18 may walk them, yellow - okay with volunteers in their runs, but no walks, red - staff only). Rex is one of the most unusually colored dogs I have ever seen; he has a long black saddle over his back (like a German Shepherd), gold and black brindle legs, a white neck with black ticking, some grey on his head - he has just about ever patterning of color a dog can have, and he is a really nice dog. Sunday I met another character up there that just cracks me up every time I see him now. He is a big black lab mix with a white chest; he is a red collar dog and he will stand at the door to his run and bark or snarl at you and between the black coat and red collar, he looks incredibly menacing. That is until you realize that he isn't so much snarling as he is grinning with the excited hope that you are there to play with him, every time he gets excited (especially when running toward somebody) he curls his upper lip into a big grin. Once you get past the intimidating appearance, he is just a big clown. Overwhelming though it may be, things are going quite well, and as I get settled in, I will be sure to share more tales of the Lodge Dogs. I have another day off on Thursday, so I should be able to post again then.