The day of a kennel attendant… the day is never done.
We wake up early. On a cold wintery day not wanting to roll out of bed, and in the summer we dream of going out to the beach instead. But we get out of bed and arrive to work on time. Knowing that the day will only get better from here.
We arrive 5-10 minutes early to ensure our staff and customers do not wait. Sometimes even earlier to get a jump start on the day before we even open. The building is typically pretty quite until someone accidently makes a loud noise, or until we turn the lights on. Once a noise is made or the lights go on we’re greeted by the familiar sound of barking (don’t worry we’re use to it, it’s merely white noise).
We begin our days by running all of our group dogs out to a play yard, where one of our staff members is patiently waiting for them. (Neither rain, no snow, no sleet, heat, or power will keep us from taking care of our pups).
Once they are out of their rooms, we begin to bring one by one our individual (or rotations as we like to call them) out to their own individual yard. In between doing so we get what we refer to as “the light”, which is our lovely bell that’s up front that we ask customers to ring for service. In case you ever tried and couldn’t hear “the bell” that’s why, it’s a light, it’s not a bell only the dogs can hear. J
While all the pups are out in a yard we clean their rooms and prepare their breakfast as quick as possible (of course still paying attention to all the little details). Once their meal is prepared and their rooms are cleaned we begin with bringing in our individual dogs back to their rooms one by one, followed by our group dogs coming in to their rooms.
While our opening crew has been taking care of our current boarders and incoming daycare pups we also have a taxi person, out on the road picking up some of our daycare pups.
At about 9:30am/10am: Our taxi arrives. Our daycare taxi pups are taken to their own yard so that they may have an opportunity to relieve themselves and stretch their legs before they join the playgroup.
Right around this time is when we typically have the most pups. At this point we like to evaluate what dogs we have for the day and make the decision on how many playgroups we should have going on. Depending on a variety of factors (activity level of the dogs, weather, and staff members present) we will decide how many play groups we should have going or if some high energy pups just need to get some extra attention.
While the group dogs are getting playtime with the other dogs our rotation dogs are also getting lots of TLC and attention from the staff too. For our individual dogs (rotations) they are brought out to a play yard for at least 10 minutes every hour. If there are only say 3 rotations that mean each of those rotation dogs are getting at 20 minutes of loving every hour.
Also the staff during this time is taking care of our routine operations. Cleaning the facility to make sure it’s spic and span. Not to mention taking care of our customers with returning phone calls and checking in/checking out daycare, boarding, and grooming customers. Some of our other staff is checking our boarding guests rooms (again) and preparing lunches for boarding and daycare dogs (daycare dogs only get fed if requested/food is brought in).
At around 11:30am/12pm our lunch pups and all of our boarding guests are brought inside to their rooms for a lunch time break. They are typically inside for about an hour. Depending on the weather this will dictate if the playgroup is inside or outside.
At about 1pm the lunch boarders/daycare pups are brought back out to the playgroup to continue their romping, sniffing, and lounging.
The playing continues until about 4pm when it’s dinner time (boarding guests, and again daycare pups are only fed if food is provided).
At about 4:15pm our taxi driver begins gathering their taxi information and begins getting their taxi dogs ready for their journey home. The bus departs depending on how many & where our daycare pups are being dropped off.
Roughly at 5pm our dinner pups are brought back out to the playgroup getting a couple more hours of playtime before bed at 7pm. During this time many of our daycare friends bid us farewell for the evening. Our staff is again checking our boarding guests’ rooms to make sure they are nice and cozy for the evening double checking to see if any of our boarding guests get any bedtime snacks—of course refreshing waters as we check each pup’s room.
At 6pm special attention is made to make sure each of our rotation dogs have at least one more opportunity to relieve them selves before bedtime. Remember though they have been getting continuously (nonstop) getting attention for at least 10 minutes every hour from when we open until we close.
As close to 7pm as possible we bring our overnight guests back to their rooms and tuck them in for the evening. *We hope that by 7pm all our daycare pups have been picked up. But if not all our daycare guests have left we will contact the owner and go from there.*
At 7pm we lock up for the evening, but our job is not done. We double check to make sure all the pups are snug in their beds and tucked in for the evening. All the lights are off (so they can have a peaceful evening), and we make sure the building is all locked up. Before we leave we prep for the next morning making sure we have a heads up as to what boarding guests we will be expecting to see. Finally we say goodnight to the pups and then we’re back the next day to do it all over again.
Exhausted at the end of the day, but smiling because hey, who can’t smile when they’ve been spending the whole day with dogs! In the end a tired dog is a happy dog and that makes our day all worth wild.
I hope you enjoyed just a little peak into the day of the life of a kennel attendant.
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