I've met them all!

Well, I have made it through another week at Best Friends and I am learning and doing more every day. I have now been in with every dog in the Lodges at least once. My team leader decided that I should take some time with Roger, a former caregiver now staff dog walker that has worked with the Lodge dogs for the past nine years. He knows them as well as anybody, so Michelle (team leader) decided to have me go on walks with Roger and the dogs I hadn't met yet. Florence was our first challenge, she is a really sweet dog once she knows you, but I am told that she has bitten people in the past as they turn their backs to leave her run.

This is Florence. I have never seen a dog with ears quite like hers - she isn't doing it in the photo, but she often carries her ears directly on top of her head so that the tips and inside edges are touching, it looks like she is wearing some kind of squashed up, misshapen pill-box hat.

This is Charmer, Florence's runmate. He is big and strong and pretty goofy most of the time. While I walked Florence, Roger took Charmer on a walk down a different path, because the two of them can be very crazy at the beginning of their walk. Charmer likes to try and walk himself by biting the leash so he has to be walked with a chain leash (as you can see in the photo) because he can bite through the fabric and woven nylon ones.

I also finally got to know Paris (no photos) a black pit mix with some white on her face and feet. She likes to bark at the gate or the fence when she doesn't know somebody, but after she gets used to you, she becomes all wiggles and wags. I was doing my very first morning check - going around to make sure everybody is present and accounted for and healthy, propping open some doors and putting up some beds - and Paris' door needs to be propped open for her runmate Becket who is blind and has trouble with balance. One of the other caregivers was going to come around to their lodge to open the door since I hadn't successfully met Paris yet. But then, when I walked into her building to make sure everybody was there and okay, she was at the gate just wiggling away and waiting for me to come say hi. After a moment of thought ("Should I or shouldn't I?"), I decided to just go for it, I had been told, if she isn't barking at the gate, she will be fine, and she was. She acted like she had known me for years and just wanted some love. It was a really great way to start the day. Later that morning I took her for a walk with Roger.

This is Waylon, the day after I walked Florence and Paris, I got to take him for a walk. He is a big chow mix and has a tendency to bite, especially when people are leaving his run. On the up side, he is incredibly food motivated, so if you toss a few cookies to the other side of the run or just hold them up out of reach, he will fixate on them and you can easily get out of the run.

Since walking Waylon, Florence, and Paris, I have been able to go into their runs to retrieve their food bowls, which is making life a lot easier for everybody at the Lodges. It used to be that someone would ask me to go do something in 13 and 14 (their lodge numbers) and I would have to say, "Well, I can do everybody except these three because I haven't met them yet." Now, I can just say, "Okay!" and go do it.

I have also been spending time with a dog named Tasha, working on making friends with her. She seems like she wants to be around people, but then she gets nervous and starts growling or snapping a little bit. It is a slow process to get to know her, but she is very smart and knows a lot of commands. Her run mate, Chow Baby, has a trachea problem and has to have three meals a day of wet dog food mixed with water until it is the consistency of a smoothie. He eats pretty quickly, so I have been grabbing a few treats and going in to feed him and then while he eats, working with her a little bit on her basic commands and letting me pet her. Yesterday, when I went into their run to change their water buckets and she walked over to me while I was putting down their outside bucket, so I knelt down to say hi. When I did, she came right up to me and laid down, wedging herself under my my leg as I was kneeling and just laying there for a minute. It was very exciting for me!

This is Tasha, her adoption bio says she is an Australian Cattle Dog mix, she is colored like a Dalmatian, but has the build and coat length more like a cattle dog.

And this is Chow Baby, her run mate - clearly a Chow.

I will try to get another post in tomorrow, I was thinking "A Day in the Life of a Lodges Caregiver". I hope everyone has had a great week! Again, all photos are Copyright Best Friends Animal Society.