Jessica Collier

Week Two: 2/4/07-2/10/07

This week was very interesting for me. I actually got to do some dirty work at the shelter. I went with Crystal Boles this time and we got to clean out the puppy cages. This was a very messy job. A lot of the dogs have problems because they eat different foods all the time since their food is donated. So, you can imagine what we had to clean up. They didn’t really tell us how we were supposed to clean the cages so we kind of had to figure it out on our own. We made quite a mess with the shredded paper that we put into the kennels. We probably cleaned about ten puppy kennels. After we did that we held some puppies and decided to explore the back part of the shelter. In the back they keep the full grown dogs and puppies that are not up for adoption yet. There is no heat back there and it is not really clean. Some of the walls are falling down too. Crystal and I saw a mouse run into the wall. I hate mice so it was very difficult for me not to scream. This made me sad. I can understand putting full grown dogs back there because they have big coats to keep them warm but the puppies don’t. They do not even put blankets or dog beds in their cages. All they get is shredded paper for warmth. They have blankets and stuff but they do not but them in their kennels. They keep them on shelves so I do not understand why they don’t put them in with the dogs.

When we were getting ready to leave we asked one worker if he liked his job. He said that he didn’t like it that much because he is the one that has to put the animals to sleep. I do not think that anyone could do that job and be a happy person.