two bites

Two women came in today to have their bites verified. This isn't something that happens very often- someone calls and says that they were bitten by a dog, and then they have to have a designated staff person verify that they were really bitten by a dog. The women came in within minutes of each other. And what is weirder, the women were bitten by each other's dogs. Or so they say. There was no dog fight. There was no "incident." One woman was bitten, and conicidentally, minutes later, her dog bit the other woman. Something was very suspicious in this situation. We have to take the reporting parties' word on these bites, so we signed both dogs into mandatory bite quarantine.

In other weird moments today.... A family came in and wanted to look at a dog. Standard operating procedure: before any person can view any animal, we have them fill out a short application- front and back of a single page. The application covers their address, where they want their animal to sleep, their past and current pets, etc. After the application is filled out, we check in the computer to make sure all the information matches up. This family was quite alarmed by this application and left, telling me that the application borderlined on an invasion of privacy and that they would go through other channels to find a dog.

Another family started to fill out the application for a dog, but asked me first if all the dogs had to be microchipped before leaving the shelter. I explained that yes, microchipping was part of the adoption process and would be covered by the fees. The girl explained to me that they were against microchipping and so could not adopt. They left without further explanation.

A man who was on hold waiting to connect on the phone today gave me a lecture about how awful our classical hold music combined with the PSA's about spay/neuter and microchipping were. How DARE we tell him that someone would be with him shortly when in fact, it took me 27 minutes to get to his call? I promised to alert my supervisor to this dire situation.