Sit Happens

That’s one of the captions on the T-shirt that is on sale in the local PHS office and I’m very keen to get it 🙂

Its been quite a while since my last post on my PHS/SPCA activities. After my new volunteer orientation, I had a session with the head of Dog TLC (Tender Love & Care) group who gave me a walk-through of the work that is expected out of the voluteers. That day the dog I worked with was named Chessie. Today I had another session and was very keen to work on the same dog, but Chessie was in foster care. So my shadow (mentor) said that since she usually works with the yellow tag dogs, lets do the same for today. Yellow tag dogs are the ones which are huge and need lot of strength to keep them under control

First we worked on Frickles who is a rottweiler mix. He was pretty huge and very very energetic. The moment all the dogs who are kept in the kennel see any volunteer (green t-shirts) with a leash, they know that they are going to be taken out and get very exicted about it. So it becomes a challenge to get the harness on them. They can even escape the kennel while you are trying to get in, and thats what exactly happened with Frickles. My mentor was trying to get into the kennel and he slip away through the her legs. Luckily I was standing some feet away from all the action and he decided to just head in my direction. I was able to catch him…something more like how you would hug a 2 yr old running at you. Deep inside I was scared, but showed a very calm outlook so that the dog doesn’t take advantage of my feeling.

As the treadmill was closed, we just took her to the play area and both Frickles and I had a wonderful time. He showed lot of interest to treats (which kinda makes it very easy to train), responded to the commands. It would be great if we can get him to a stage where he can be adopted.

After finishing with Frickles, next stop was Cara – a very bulky and strong pit-bull. This one can jump a fence/wall which is 10 feet in height. This time I didn’t take any chance and harness’d it myself. Out in the play-yard, she was more interested with sticks, plastic bottles or anything that is lengthy to play with. Also not a dog which likes treats 🙂 So I had some resistance to even get her to sit, but finally she did respond and that was an awesome feeling 🙂 (Much better than debugging the most complex database issue)

If I hadn’t had any social engagements tonight, I would have continued to work on the thrid dog, but since I had to be at some place for dinner, had to stop with just 2. My mentoring session came to an end with that and I kinda got license to go on my own. All I need to do is to work out some schedule for it. Being-with-the-dog-schedule shouldn’t be a problem to fit in 😉 considering the fun I had.

Before I hit the bed, here is a Chandamama shot for the night