Bark All About It!
I’m pretty excited. The Local Bark is teaming with the Sacramento County Animal Shelter. Several trainers and I from The Local Bark have had a few meetings to discuss the possibilities. The possibilities are indeed endless, but we’ve chosen a few great projects to begin with. We’re most excited about beginning a foster program in which we select a dog from the shelter, house it at The Local Bark (combined with home visits with The Local Bark team members, for sure!), give it a loving, extensive training experience, and go on to select a forever home for it.
During my most recent visit to the shelter, my goal was to assess several dogs to begin narrowing down who the lucky first dog might be. We’re waiting until Tuesday to officially begin fostering the dog, as Good Day Sacramento will be with us live as we make our final selection. This is all in an effort to use the experience to teach the public about shelter dogs—why they should consider adopting their next pet from the shelter, and how to go about making the selection.
Back to my story… I often use one of my own dogs to evaluate other dogs’ temperaments. Particularly my German shepherd, Goose, who is rather adept at reading body language and relaying information to me. Today would be no different, except that we were at the shelter, not The Local Bark. It was turning out to be a warmer day than I had expected—too warm to leave him in my truck prior to needing his assistance. I wouldn’t need him until I had narrowed the field down to just a handful. So what to do with him in the mean time? The smart thing would have been to ask the shelter staff if there was some kind of holding area I could put him while he waited. I didn’t do the smart thing. Instead, I chose to tie him in the shade to a tree out in front of the shelter. Duh. It’s a shelter. Hindsight is 20/20. You can guess where this is going. My two trainers, Kaitlin and Jaclynn, and I are making our way through, perusing dogs, when lo and behold, we come across a nice-looking German shepherd. Yep, Goose. After laughing so hard I almost peed my pants, we took down his intake stat sheet (they guessed his age right on!) and led him to the lobby, all smiles, but tails tucked. After a good laugh about the whole thing, they asked me if he happened to be due for his vaccines, as indeed, they had already vaccinated and wormed him! Suffice it to say that I was thoroughly impressed with the efficiency of the shelter staff but completely embarrassed by my naïve mistake. Someone in this business should’ve known better. That said, it gives me a great story for the memory book and makes me completely confident that these great people know what they’re doing. I look forward to working together.