Lee Toast

I know I complain a lot about work. Most people hear way more bad things than they do good things, but it’s all just nitpicky spats. I really, really, really love the work All Breed does. As far as dog rescue goes, this is exactly what I want. I love that we’ll help the dogs no one else will, or can. I love the fact that we succeed, often, in finding loving homes for dogs slated for euthanasia. I especially love that we have so many great foster homes who know that a lot of these dogs are hard to adopt and are perfectly happy to keep them forever and help them be the best dogs they can be. Our adoption process is the only one in the state (that I’ve seen at least) that I can trust. We offer every training class imaginable and I love our methods. We strive so hard to not be judgmental of other training methods, of other rescue groups, and we have a good working relationship with the Humane Society and do our best to create a symbiotic situation with them. They have their place and we have ours and we couldn’t operate without them. I think we, and other groups like us, contribute a great deal to their success as well. I can’t think of any other group that puts so much attention into every individual dog, and does everything in its power to ensure a long, happy life for each one. I love us.

Rescue work is hard. Working for a non-profit is hard. Or it’s really easy and I just suck, but I’m hoping that’s not it. I think I have vocalized a desire to quit and do inconsequential work several times this week. And not much has happened, it’s always just little things adding up, and apparently I’m the most easily stressed person ever.

There is always tension at work between someone. I think it’s just because we are all in the same boat, and we are all broke and we are all spending waaaaaay more time than we should be worrying about the dogs and the organization and not taking care of ourselves. I complain non-stop about work environment and I always have a problem, and someone is always irritating me, but I just need to back off and remember that all of us live life there and we are doing our best. Well most of us…

I have two foster dogs right now. Polar Bear and Starling. They are crazypants. They keep getting into spats over food, and playing too rough and then screaming at each other, and all the usual stresses of having too many dogs in a little place. It’s just been awhile and it’s getting under my skin more than usual. Thank goodness Zack is here to deal with just about everything.

I miss Lilah.

Another of our dogs, Isis, is sick and may have terminal cancer. Our big success of the week is that we found her a place to die comfortably if that is what it comes to.

Mynah’s adopters are the source of drama right now too. Her adopted dad and one of our instructors clearly do not get along and it has created a lot of tension over training methods and Mynah’s happiness, etc. I know she is happy there, but the family is getting nothing out of training right now, and that is what is supposed to set us apart from other rescue organizations. It is very important to me that she gets a good foundation for training that the family can build off of, and I am not sure how to accomplish that right now.

Moving on, I am the anti-rich. I owe $500 to US Bank which I have to pay if I want to deposit my $9 paycheck. Grr.

This is the whiniest post ever. Here are some good things:

Harry, a dog who has been with us for way too long, and who has not been in a foster home for a long time, is getting adopted. Finally.

We had a very tricky/tense/ridiculous situation with one of our foster puppies that has finally resolved and is going to work out.

I took pictures of some of the recently adopted dogs and their new families, here they are:

Shadow
Oreo
Koda
Astro

I also have lots of new pictures from my life. Lots of Bish for some reason. Here they are:

Bish looking normal.

Blurry Bish with Ball.

Bish and chocolate.

Bish looking not normal.

Bish and Henrie playing the pianer.

Bish and me looking specifically stupid.

Colleen and Mange match each other.

Andy and me and our hair.

Zack and Andy and me.

Zack and Andy and me again.

Dingo and me.

Dingo loves me.

New foster, Starling, and me.

New foster, Polar Bear.

Kumar in a toilet. Without water in it. I promise.

That was a lot of pictures and a lot of bitching. Sorry.

Awwwwwwwww.

So yesterday Anya graduated her first training course. Hooray for Anya! She probably should be much farther in her training that that, but she was so scared of the building that it has taken until recently to get her to settle down in the classroom and learn. I’m the flakiest ever, so I missed a bunch of the lessons and we had to request special treatment and do a private graduation.

Inside the building, she did perfect. Literally. She got perfect 5’s on all of the indoor behaviors which are with me (walking nicely on a leash), wait (stay), sit and flat (down), and quick (emergency recall). I have never seen a dog get all 5’s on even that much. But then we went outside. I knew right away that she was going to be too stressed outside to do much, let alone keep up her scores. We did sit for greetings, where someone comes up and asks if they can pet your dog, and your dog has to sit pretty while being pet. It took me awhile to get her to stop stressing and sit down, and she is uncomfortable with people she doesn’t know really well, so I had to treat her the whole time, but she did it. 3.5, good enough. She did quick very well, but was too distracted to sit quickly at the end, so she got a 4 on that. Then walking nicely on a leash again, which she did pretty well but still didn’t want to sit down when we stopped, so she got a 4.5

Our average score was 4.5 Still pretty darn good if you ask me. We were beat by some small white dogs who got 4.9 each, but for where Anya started, I was very proud. We started the next level course, Canine Connection, that night. After that we do Practical Perfection and then Freestyle! Woo hoo! I want to do Agility as well, but doggie dancing is what I’m most excited for.

Will anyone come watch us compete when we get there? It’ll be realllllllly cheesy and awesome.

I think there is something in the air which is making work completely intolerable. Is it a full moon or something? Every dog I know that normally behaves beautifully has been completely crazed these past few days. I went in to work tonight already dreading it, as last night was pretty stressful. As I just told my boss, tonight was so bad that I briefly considered quitting. It was awful enough to warrant a blog. So for those of you who care, here is my rant:

So on Friday nights I teach a 6:00 pm puppy class and a 7:30 pm adult dog class (Puppy Elementary and Foundation Course). These were the first two classes that I started after getting back from Africa, and so I hadn’t taught in about two months before they started. I’ve been a little rusty, but not too bad.

I walk into the building tonight ready for the puppy graduation, and realize that last week I neglected to have anybody fill out the form which we use to create their graduation certificates, and I also forgot to tell them that we would have a potluck party. So at 5:30 pm I have no food, no party, and a bunch of dogs without certificates. I got so flustered trying to get all the paperwork for graduation together that I didn’t even notice that my assistant hadn’t shown up. At 6pm, the entire class is there and there is no way I can run graduation without an assistant. I’m not even sure it’s legal.

SO, I go out to the front office to try to find an assistant. Dana is nice enough to call someone and find out where Sherry, my assistant is. Turns out she went to Arizona and no one told me. Misty (a co-worker) offered her 11 year old son, Justin to help. I also called Zack to come help, but he was 25 minutes away. So Justin and I go back into the classroom where the entire class has decided to just let their puppies off leash to play. I’m glad they are all friends and have bonded with each other, but there really should not be a play session without a staff member present. Plus, there is one dog in that class who is very small and scared of the big pile of dogs and his owners were holding him trying to comfort him while a bunch of dogs came running at him. Gah.

I get everyone back on leash and we start class. Several of the dogs who can normally do everything perfectly were so distracted that they wouldn’t even sit. No clue why. Everyone was disheartened. When we get outside to do some tests out there, for some reason the whole class decided to pow-wow in the middle of the parking lot instead of line up on the sidewalk. So I had to break up another greeting session and ask everyone to spread out. I’m starting to think this might be why the dogs weren’t doing so well, because they kept getting to interact and distract each other….

Anyways, we finish graduation, everyone passes (though not with the scores they hoped for), and now we have no party to give them. They again, decide to take their dogs off leash and play, and now I have no way to finish up. I need someone to print certificates, and I need someone to monitor the play session. Out of Justin, Zack and myself, I am the only one who can do either thing. So I ask Zack to watch them for a second, which I probably shouldn’t do, and then race to print everything up. Fortunately Kristy (co-worker) showed up and took over for Zack. Then the printer screwed up. Kristy and I had to switch jobs. Then we get all the certificates, hand them out to a bunch of people not paying attention and then everyone leaves. Worst graduation ever, I provided no form of community like I have been wanting to and ran out of time to talk to people extensively about more classes. It sucked, I suck.

Moving on, the next class showed up, and somehow I managed to kick everyone out of the last class by 7:30. They should have been gone by 7:15 at the latest. I scoot everyone in, and we start class. I was completely off my game, class was boring and awkward for everyone, it’s too cold to work outside and several people have problems which I so far have failed to fix. I also could not get one of the dogs to work with me, and that’s not the first time it’s happened in this class, so I’m worried clients are losing faith in me. Blah. Anyways, that class gets out and it’s not too disastrous, but I was in completely the wrong mindset for teaching.

THEN we realize that since my assistant for the first class didn’t show, only Kristy and I are there to take care of all of the dogs. Fortunately Zack was nice enough to have already walked Dozier and Isis. So Kristy takes out Clementine and sticks her in a room to play. That leaves Wyatt and Petey. Kristy wants Wyatt, which leaves me with the job of getting Petey out. Petey was recently moved upstairs next to a bunch of other dogs and he is a complete maniac. Getting him out means literally wrestling him out the door and hoping he doesn’t fence fight with the other dogs on the way out. He has taken me down several times and bruised up my leg in the process. It’s not his fault that he has to deal with all this new stress, but it’s still really hard. This time is not too bad on the way out, and Zack takes him outside while I clean the kennels.

Putting Petey away, on the other hand, is a different story. Apparently he was so excited by the possibility of seeing other dogs that he literally dragged me up the stairs, knocking me into the post at the top on the way, and skinning my arm and finger on the wall. Finger starts bleeding everywhere and hurts bad enough that I have to tell myself not to look at it until Petey is safe in the kennel. Once he’s in, I check and it’s really not bad, just hurts horribly. I go back downstairs, fighting back tears from stress and then Kristy puts Wyatt away, I put Clem away and it’s over.

Lauren (my boss) made it a little better by apologizing a lot, since apparently she was supposed to tell me Sherry wasn’t coming. And she let me out of class tomorrow, so that helps a little.

Still the worst night ever, workwise.

Tell me good things.

ones who just show up and help you clean your house! Best ever. Here is the evidence:

Zack is all sick and here he is cleaning the piano:

Henleen cleaned the porch, which they have wanted to do forever:

Then I told them to look cute, and Colleen looked bored and Henrie looked disgusted, but it was cute anyways:

Then Colleen said “look I’ll help him die.” Oh Colleen.

Here are some pictures that have no common denominator. I just like them and they are new. Enjoy:

In the spirit of Henrie and The Bish, which has the same ring to it as Benny and the Jets, I too shall post a random blog about nothing. It will be in list form:

Things I’m Happy About

1. 1. Colleen and I hung curtains last night. I love them and I love Colleen.
2. 2. My house is semi-clean and lovely. I love the new arrangement of furniture and might post pictures. Suwa and Kumar are happy about it.
3. 3. My piano.
4. 4. We took Anya to the dog park today and she had fun.
5. 5. Sammy Sam the turtle went to the vet to get her nails trimmed
6. 6. Andy is over and playing Smash Bros.

Things I am Not Happy About

1. 1. One of the adoptive homes for the puppies fell through. Sad, I liked them.
2. 2. I am le broke.
3. 3. Zack is sick, Dana is sick, everyone is sick.
4. 4. Dana is moving away.
5. 5. I haven’t seen my family in too long. Except Daddy came to visit me recently and it was nice.
6. 6. I miss Lilah.

So there.

Last night I went to a meeting at work about client retention. The basic classes have been filling like mad, so much so that we’ve even had to start offering more classes because they fill up too fast. However, the class enrollment thins after that. Advanced classes are, of course, always smaller than basic ones, but we want to find ways to encourage more people to go on to later classes.

SO… I was thinking about it, and it seems like the clients that stay in classes the longest are also a huge part of the organization.  They come to events, they run events, they enroll in every class, they are on committees and they foster dogs. They do everything. I am not sure if they got addicted to classes first or All Breed first, but it seems like pulling new clients into the All Breed Rescue & Training community is the ticket to keeping them in classes.

Now I need to come up with ways to do that. I have two goals:

1. Get new clients involved with the organization. Not just asking them for money or to come to events, but really make them want to get involved. Show off all the fun things they can do, make them want to be part of it. We have obedience teams, agility teams and doggie dancing teams that people love to do, and somehow we need to make it more apparent to new clients. How can we make celebrities out of those teams? How can we better show the new classes all of the things they could do and the bonds they could make? I teach on Friday nights when there is no one else in the building. Those classes just come in, listen and train, and leave. They don’t get to see all that happens like the daytime classes do.

2. Create community within the classroom. I have noticed that a lot of clients who sign up for more classes sign up together.  The classes that become friends with each other want to take more classes together and want more opportunities for their dogs to play and interact. How can I make them bond with each other? We can play games, but I am also looking for cutesy, even cheesy ideas to make the classroom more interactive. Things like putting up boards where people earn stars and keep track of each others progress, and somehow make them encourage each other. Maybe taking pictures throughout the class to give them before/after albums at the end. Something that will make them want to see what else their dog can do. We could have weekly challenges, like goofiest dog picture, where everyone brings in a picture and we vote together… I even toyed with the idea of dedicating a few minutes here and there during which people switch dogs and have to train each others dog. That, of course, has a series of pros and cons and I’m not sure I’ll be able to pull it off.

Anyways, I really want to start making the classroom warmer and more inviting and finding ways to get people involved. I would really appreciate any input or ideas you may have. I also will probably post this multiple places to get as much help as possible, so sorry if you have to read it twice