Celebrating the right way

As I mentioned, March 1st was my 37th birthday.  Most of the time, my birthdays are a little "lack-luster".  I generally get a "Happy Birthday" or two here and there, but there usually isn't much celebrating to be had.  This year was different.

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Wednesday, the day before my birthday, BFF, her daughter and her boyfriend, took us out to lunch to celebrate.  They took us to somewhere we'd never been, a restaurant called Ramano's Macaroni Grill.  I had the Lobster Ravioli and now I'm on a quest to find a recipe for it.  Man-Hide swears we will find one, and that he'll make it for me, but so far, none of the recipes I've found sound quite like the real thing.

I'm not kidding about how good this dish was!  Let's put it this way, I'm sure you've heard of the Food Network Show, "The Best Thing I Ever Ate" where all the famous chefs get on there and talk about the best dish they've ever eaten and where they got it from, right?  Well, if I was a famous foodie on that show, that would totally be my pick.  It was fantastic!

They also bought me a cake with my name on it.  I had a blast and I will love BFF for forever for trying to make my birthday special!

After that, we went to our 2nd orientation at the Humane Society.  We were expecting a large group of people again, like it was at the 1st one, but it ended up just being us and the lady doing the orientation.  With my social anxiety disorder, that was awesome!

I got a BIG birthday surprise while we were there, too.

At our first orientation, we were told that we'd be starting in March sometime, but last week, I saw on their Facebook page that they were having some trouble with their system and that the lady in charge of setting everyone's schedules had lost everyone's email address.  Per her request, I dutifully sent in ours.  Her response was to say she appreciated it, but unfortunately, everything was now behind because of this system crash.  She'd get me a schedule as soon as she could.  I was disappointed to say the least, but tried to take it in stride.

Since we were the only people to show up for the 2nd orientation, and the lady doing the schedules was there, we were given our schedules on the spot, and since we'd put Thursdays on our availability, we were penciled in for the very next day, Thursday, which just happened to also be my birthday!  HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

Thursday, we were up and raring to go early and went and did a little of our weekly shopping and errands, then we were off to the Humane Society for our first official day as Volunteers.

When we first got there, in spite of the two orientations we'd been through, we were still a little disoriented.  We wanted to start with the Rescue Room, (which is where all the new animals go that are waiting for a clean bill of health from the vet tech, or behavior testing, or maybe just an open kennel on the floor.  This is a different room than the regular kennel area that the public sees.) but the kennel worker was cleaning their kennels, so we decided to wait.  We checked the Isolation room, but all the doggies in there were too young to be walked yet (and they have to be walked at the end of your shift with special leashes in a separate area so they don't get the other doggies sick), so we headed for the main kennels.

There was already a volunteer there that was letting the doggies out for free-play in the yard kennel by kennel, so we just kind of jumped in and started rotating kennels.  She would take one kennel resident out on a leash to the field and we would wait for her to get out of the gate, then we'd let the next kennel out for free-play.  When she would get ready to come back in, we'd leash our charges and get them back in the kennels so she could bring her charge through the yard.  (You have to keep dogs from different kennels separated because they might not get along.  Not all dogs at the Humane Society are necessarily good with other dogs.)

We did this until she left, then Man-Hide and I just started going kennel by kennel, taking them out to walk.

I walked one old girl named Emma.  She's a yellow lab, about 8 years old, arthritic and a little over-weight.  I bonded with her immediately.

As I walked behind her and watched her booty bounce with every step, I told her it looked like we had some things in common.  It was my birthday, after all, and I was feeling my age right about then (about an hour in to our session and I'd been chasing puppies all morning).  I could imagine our booties bouncing in unison as we walked around the field.

A little later, we finally made it to the Rescue Room, where I met the most adorable Boston Terrier named Angel.  Now, as you can guess, we have a passion for anything bulldog, and Bosties and Frenchies are both a breed of bull-dog, but they are small and manageable and, frankly, easier to get a place to live with.  When we get our own place, we fully intend to own one or the other.

Angel's paperwork listed her at about 8 years old (like Emma) but with a digestive problem that required a special diet (this is why she was still in the Rescue Room).  We took her out and enjoyed a nice walk around the field, just like with Emma, but Angel decided to take a break about half-way back to the fence, so we sat down with her in the grass and enjoyed the beautiful weather.

After about 10 or 15 minutes, one of the Adoption Counselors headed our way.  To begin with, I thought we'd done something wrong and they were coming after us, but as she neared, she said Angel's new family was there to pick her up!  She got adopted practically right out of my arms!

I'll be honest, I wasn't sure how I would handle dogs I bonded with getting adopted to someone other than me.  I was afraid I'd be sad and maybe even cry, but when we got there, we found out Georgia had been adopted and then Angel gets adopted practically from my arms.  I was thrilled for both of them!  Now I understand how people manage to work in shelters.  There is serious satisfaction in knowing one of "yours" found a home and that you made a really stressful time in their lives just a little bit better.

After we finished up at the shelter, we went up to Bald Rock.  For those that know me, this is a religious experience.  I find so much peace with myself and my life up there, and it was exactly what I needed after all the stress and drama I've been dealing with.  We even took some pictures while we were there, but I've been having a hard time getting around to getting them off of Man-Hide's phone (my battery goes dead the minute I think the word "camera").

All in all, it was an awesome birthday!  Truly one of my best yet!

Love, light and happiness...until next time!

Working it out

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I've been a busy bee today with Wow being down.

I created a Blog Frog Community page, a Facebook Fan Page, set up an RSS feed, made buttons and did some moving around.  I'm really starting to like the way my blog looks.

I know all the awesome bloggers out there say that you shouldn't have a dark colored blog, but I like it, it suits me and my personality, and I think that's all that really matters!

I also had a busy day yesterday.  No, the taxes haven't come in yet (I wish!), but I did go to the Orientation class I've been talking about with the local Humane Society.

Last night's orientation was basically a "pick your part" kind of deal.  They had different groups for people that wanted to go to nursing homes and take puppies in to visit the residents, people to work the clinic, people to work in the kitty room and the puppy room (and more I can't remember) and then they had the dog walkers.

Dog walking is the group Man-Hide and I signed up for.  Why?  Well, it's actually more involved than you would think.

We will be attending a 4 week class in April to learn about dog training, coached by a very experienced professional behavioral trainer.  We will be working with adult dogs, which just don't get as much attention, or as many prospective adopters, as puppies and kittens.

Adult dogs that do get adopted, are often returned for behavioral issues because most of them have never known much companionship or been exposed to much beyond the end of a chain.

As Dog Walkers, we will be not only walking the dogs, but working with them on their behavior, such as not jumping on people, calmly exiting the kennel, sitting and staying, and taking the time to just sit and relax with them and allow them to relax.

Originally, I was thinking I might like to work with the puppies (and I'm thinking about giving an extra day to the clinic since I want to be a vet tech anyway), but now that I have signed on for the Dog Walkers, I'm really glad I did.  That's what Man-Hide seemed to be the most interested in and to start with, I wanted it to be a "together" kind of deal anyway.

I feel like working with the adult dogs, we are truly giving something to them.  Allowing them to see that there are good people out there that care about what happens to them.

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I did get to have one of my warm and fuzzy moments last night.  When we first got there, there was an American Pit Bull mix in one of the kennels.  He was beautiful, but you could tell looking at him that he was stressed out and unhappy.  We spent a few minutes there with him before orientation started.

We went out at the end of orientation to the kennel area where he was to get a demonstration from the lady in charge of the Dog Walking volunteers on some of the basic behavior stuff, just enough to get us started until our 4 week class in April (we'll start volunteering in March) and I saw a big sign on his kennel that said "ADOPTED" in big red letters.  I was so happy for him!  Bull dogs in general have such a bad wrap and they often don't get adopted from shelters.  Many of them live out the remainder of their lives there until they become sick or so stressed out that their behavior no longer qualifies them for adoption, so I was thrilled to see this beautiful guy get a home and I even got to watch him walk out with his new owner to go to his furever home.

The hard part was that while we were waiting, we also saw owners come in to surrender their dogs.  That's going to be the part that makes my heart break, but at least I know that we will be there to give them some love while they wait for their furever home.

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A quick update on Mom.  They got the liver biopsy results back and the spots on her liver are benign.  Looks like the cancer is confined to her colon and whatever is going on with her blood.  She has hopes of getting to come home Friday sometime, and I truly hope she does.  She has been missed.  She will still need to get an appointment to have the cancer removed from her colon and she will have to undergo chemo after that, but at least there is progress.

Love, light and happiness...until next time.