Amra's: Week Two

I wish I had better things to report, like I've had a massive change of heart and now love it at Amra's and that I have developed the ability to talk to dogs and explain to them the problematic nature of certain behaviors, but alas, no such luck. The mental and emotional drain of being at Amra's means that I have come home each night this week and honestly thought about crawling into bed at 6:30. Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday, I was working the building by myself for the most part from 8 am - 2 pm, which I have found to be incredibly frustrating and surprisingly irritating. I feel like I can't take time to enjoy the dogs or the job, because I am running around like a nutter trying to get everything done before lunch. A fair number of our dogs are the hyperactive type and you either neglect their training protocol to get your job done or get behind on your job to follow their training protocol and neither option is a good solution in my world. At feeding and poop scooping times, you either walk into the run in spite of the fact that they are jumping all over the place (including on you) and get the job done and get out, or you stand at the door and wait for them to chill out and then you walk in, which usually means five minutes of opening the door and walking incrementally further into the run and walking right back out as soon as they start their pogo routine. Some dogs get it pretty quickly, others, not so much. In addition, when you are scrambling to get the chores done in the designated time frame and have decided to by-pass the in-out game at the door and just ignore the dog from inside the run when they exhibit undesirable behaviors, the runs are so small (relatively speaking here, of course) that there are several dogs that just jump in their own poo and then jump on you - then it's time to go enjoy your lunch with crap smeared on your pants . . . delightful. Admittedly, poop is a fact of life here, but I can recall only once in the five months that I was at the Lodges that I actually got a noticeable amount of poop smeared on me by a dog and that was only one smear on the bottom of my pant leg. Twice in two weeks at Amra's I have walked out of a run with poop on me - and not just the bottom of my pant leg.
On the bright side, I am getting some more direction from at least one of the caregivers over there about what sorts of things the dogs like to do and where they need work. I have also decided that, while I am at Amra's, I am going to start working on getting the hyperactive kids in our crew to chill out when going out for walks and stop trying to kill people on the stairs. There are some stairs leading up to the building and you have to go up and down them to get to and from the walking trail, problem is, many of the dogs are so excited to get out for a walk that they make a really good effort at dislocating your shoulder as they drag you out of the run and then try to finish you off by taking you head-first down the stairs. So a couple of us have starting asking the dogs for sits and waits at the top and bottom of the stairs, for the most part all the dogs already know sit/wait because they have to wait five seconds for their food, so it is just a matter of translating that command into a new environment and getting them to stop and think.
I like some things about Amra's, but the problem that I am having right now is that the things I don't like, don't really seem likely to change all that much. I don't like being alone in the mornings, but I don't know how much that will really change. I don't like the set up of the facility or the size of the runs, which, again, is not going to change any time soon. On the bright side, as I get to know some of the dogs, I am starting to really like some of them, Debo can always make me smileand Beans is still showing off how smart he is (we are working on "High Five"), Ivy is cute and perplexing as ever, and Chowta is right on the cusp of becoming a confident and comfortable dog.I don't know what will happen over the next few weeks, but I have spoken with one of my managers to let her know that I am not entirely happy with my new area. I told her I would give it some more time but that if there is someone else on staff that they think would fit at Amra's and that would really like to be over there, to just keep that in mind. During the meeting, I was also told that if I decided that I no longer wanted to be at Amra's there was no guarantee that I would be sent back to the Lodges. I will give it a few more weeks, but I spent so much time waiting things out up at the Lodges, questioning why I had come to BF in the first place and thinking about leaving, before things finally got really good up there, that I don't want to do that to myself again. For the better part of three months, thoughts of leaving and doing something else were regularly rolling around in my head and I am back at that point again at Amra's. I am just not willing to spend another three months here being unhappy and flat out miserable at times, so if after a few more weeks, things haven't really improved with my mood and feelings about Amra's, then I will go back to my managers and see if we can find a solution that will make everybody happy.
(All photos copyright Best Friends Animal Society.)