Crazy Day

Today was a crazy day.

My SO's stepsister met me at the store with some vaccines she ordered on-line for her rescued puppy.  So I shot stuff up his nose, poked him with a needle, and cut off all his nails.  I swear, dogs are never sure if they should be happy to see me or not.  I see and understand more doggy body language than most people, and that makes them happy.  I usually have something good or fun on me somewhere, and that's just great.  But every once in awhile I do terrible things like cut their nails, stick swabs in their ears, shoot liquid up their noses or stick them with sharp pointy things, and that's not so fun.  I can see the indecision on my mom's dog's face every time I come over.  Do I run and greet her or do I run behind the couch and hide?  Should I be excited or nervous?  Hopefully the next time I see Lil' Dude I won't have anything to do to him besides nice things, and he'll forgive me.

Immediately after that, some people who had put a puppy on hold yesterday were in the store to purchase him, so I sold a puppy.  That usually takes, for me, about 45 minutes to go over all the warranties, explain vaccine histories and all that good stuff.  By the time I got back to feed the puppies, it was already 10:00 a.m.  They were not pleased with this turn of events, I could tell.  The morning chorus was frenzied, and that takes some doing considering there were only 7 dogs in the kennel at that point.  Halfway through the feeding routine, the owner let me know that 15 puppies were due to arrive "any minute now."  I had to rush to finish feeding and watering and then rush to put together 15 kennels and give them one last spray over with Lysol.  I managed to spray myself in the face with Lysol.  Twice.  (It tastes sweet.)

Then, new puppies.  One of the managers stuck her head back in the kennel door to tell me they were here.  Kay.  So I go out back and was shocked to see that the puppies were just loose in the back of this guy's van.
Oh yeah, and there's 18, not 15.  WTF.  Usually, he has them all in individual crates.

What happened is that they had accidentally delivered the puppies to the OTHER store.  The OTHER store is a  blog post in and of itself.  Suffice it to say that we at our store do not like the OTHER store.  As Dr. W. put it, "You definitely have different ways of doing things."  They somehow managed to get ALL the puppies out of their cages, which meant they were probably in the OTHER store's nasty kennels, and had time for this guy to get all his kennels broken down for the trip back home (for all I know he had left and had to turn around and come back) before someone there realized.. hey.  These aren't our puppies.

WAY TO GO OTHER STORE & PUPPY BROKER.  WAY TO GO.

Way to drop the ball on that one, thanks.

And, as the puppy broker man said, "There was no way I was putting all those kennels back together after I'd broken them all down."

Well who's going to put you back together after I break you down, that's what I want to know.

Texts between me & Dr. W. starting at 10:20 a.m., which was right as I was informed that puppies were due at the store "any minute."

Me:  15 puppies arriving today 10:20 a.m.
Me:  Make that 18.  18 pups running loose in the back of the guy's van & 15 min after they've gotten here, I hear coughing.  11:21 a.m.
Me:  I'm going to murder someone.  I know it.  11:25 a.m.
Dr W:  No murdering.  :~) 12:25 p.m.

I have spent a month.. no lie, an ENTIRE FRICKIN' MONTH, eradicating the kennel cough scourge that affected probably a good 25 or 30 dogs.

I cleaned the kennel top to bottom.  I used every kind of disinfectant we have, some of them twice. I scrubbed walls, floors, nooks, crannies and ceilings.  I went through 3 cases of latex gloves, three bottles of clavamox suspension, a quarter of a case of clavamox 62.5 mg tablets and a half a bottle of doxycycline.

And they just exposed all 18 of our new puppies to not only whatever is in the OTHER store, but kennel cough.

OMFG Yes, murder!

So the entire time I'm giving Progard KC to every new dog, I just have this huge sense of FAIL.  Not that it's my fault, but I feel really stupid giving a bunch of dogs a kennel cough vaccine after they've already been exposed.  WTH is that going to do?  At that point it's just a really expensive Neti Pot.  But, that's what the owner wants.  Not my store.  I have to tell myself this a lot when something makes no sense.  Not my money, not my store.

I still want to pound that guy into the floor, though.  The puppy broker guy, not the owner.  I mean wth dude.  Yeah I'm sure it would have been a pain in the ass to put 18 Vari Kennels back together after you just took them apart.  Frustrating, yes.

But what about the pain in the ass I'm about to get because you didn't?

#$%!