Internship-Day 1!

Day 1 has come and gone, and it was just as awesome as I thought it would be! I arrived at GDB right at 8am. Still needing to use my GPS to get me to and from the house I am staying at in Mill Valley. Hopefully by the end of this week I will get it!

Anyway, so I arrived at GDB rearing to go, and then realized I had no idea where to go. Luckily, the woman I was supposed to meet in the volunteer office was walking out of the kennels as I was walking in. She asked if I was Emily the training intern, and then she took me to the CWT office where I was assigned to my CWT for my internship! Her name is Collier and she's been working at GDB for about a year. She has raised 4 guide dog puppies. I was assigned my own leash and bait bag to use, and off we went to kennel 3!

Kennel 3 is mainly for Career Changes, dogs in for breeder evals, boarding dogs, and dogs waiting for commnity placement or to be adopted. All breeds, genders, and sizes were in this kennel. The first thing I was taught how to do is prepare breakfast. Kennel 3 has about 23 dogs, so I helped prepare the 23 meals, Most of them are on Natural Balance, but some are on special food, for a variety of reasons. We quickly prepared all of the NB meals, and then we prepared all of the special foods. Some dogs were transitioning from one food to another, while others needed a special food for weight loss, firming up stools, etc. Other CWT's served breakfast while Collier and I began taking dogs into the vet. They had about 10 dogs that needed to see the vet this morning, and they only have a small 1-hour time slot to do so. They were short staffed today, and in addition to having to show me how to do everything, we were inevitably behind. I got to meet Dr. Dietrich, he's super nice, as well as the other vet. His name is Jeff I believe, but this morning was such a blur I can hardly remember anything!

After vet checks, we started on the board. This is a big list of stuff that needs to get done each day. For instance, a dog had just been spayed and needed to get out for a 5 minute walk, and another dog needed their back molars brushed. I got to do both of these with Colliers supervision. After we had done a few tasks, it was time to clean the kennel runs. We first scoop out all of the poop and put it in this weird drain contraption thing. No idea where it goes or what it does...will need to ask about that. Then, we have to spray all the runs down with this cleaner called accel (or excel...forgot to read the spelling on the label, but it's pronounced the same either way).  I did the back west half of kennel 3 and Collier did the front half. You have to spray all the corners, and then spray it all over the actual run. After that was done, Collier had me wash the dishes from breakfast. I thought I cleaned a lot of bowls at home with my 4...there are A LOT of bowls. All just regular metal pans. First you scrub them with regular dish soap, rinse them, then you fill a pan with hot water and pour a cup of accel into it. We rinsed all of the bowls and kennel enrichment kongs in it, then they were put into another sink to rinse the cleaner off, and finally propped up to dry. We then went back out into the kennels to rinse all of the accel out of them. After that it was time for a 10 minute break!

The breakroom overlooks the puppy kennels and socialization area, which is really neat. After break we went back to let some of the dogs into the community run to play. We filled a big doggie pool, and they had a bunch of nylabones and 2 jollyballs to go nuts with. They all had a wonderful time. After that we went back into the kennels and Collier went and got her 2 project dogs. Each CWT is assigned a couple of dogs to work with until they leave the kennel. I worked with a sweet little black female who's in for breeder evals. We brushed their teeth, cleaned their ears, and checked their whole body for any cuts/abrasions. Collier makes notes about how each dogs teeth and ears look, how they responded to being handled, etc. (See, puppy handling IS worthwhile!). We then took the dogs for a cemetary walk, which is right next to the campus. We saw some squirrels and a couple of deer! It was really cool.

After that, we put the dogs back and started preparing dinner. The kennel 3 dogs eat around 3pm. Same as last time, filling bowls, handing out meals, collecting dirty bowls, washing said bowls, although we don't have to accel them after dinner. Then we administered various medications to the dogs that needed them, gave one dog a foot bath in medicated water, and made tags for any incoming dogs and took tags down for any dogs that had left (for like foster care, being adopted, etc). After that, Collier and I went into the feed room because Kennel 3 was running low on NB and doggie biscuits. This room has more dog food than a petstore! One of the CWT's in there said that at one time, GDB was feeding around 500 pounds of food a day! Crazy right?

After that was done, my day was pretty much over. I had about an hour left so Collier gave me the CWT reference book and let me go read it in the employee lounge. It had sections on picky eaters (AKA Goldens!!), signs of females in season, a poop chart complete with pictures (that was interesting lol), and a lot of other really cool information.

At some point during the day I took a one hour lunch break and went to Panda Express just down the street from the campus. I hit the snooze button so many times this morning that I didn't have time to make a lunch. We will see what happens tomorrow since I am starting a half hour earlier! Collier comes in at 7:30, so she said I could too if I wanted, and of course I said yes! Who wouldn't want an extra half hour at GDB?!

More tomorrow from the happiest place on earth! Disneyland aint got nothin' on Guide Dogs for the Blind!