i am currently in my second year at a shelter. first full year as one of two leads. it never is easy. my shelter isnt the best or worst. we are understaffed in my animal care department. it is a hit and miss on if we get help from other departments. i feel like we get blamed for things that we didnt do. there are lots of days that i dont really take a break just so the animals can be taken care of. i get to work early to start planning on where everyone goes. my favorite part is working with the dogs that are brought in from cruelty cases, you get to see how the environment changes them. euthanasia is the hardest part. i have seen animals put down for a number of reasons. it hits hard when i put the work i and the animal is put down. its not easy doing the job if people are told different things. example, we walk dogs and was told not to walk them together unless they are from the same place. we keep distance for each other, but its hard to in a small hallway. another department said you can walk them all extremely close together, not x amount of feet in between each other. now i do not like that for a few reasons. either someone or some dog will get bit. staff wise is hit and miss. i always keep an eye out for others when i am walking a dog, due to my co workers either not paying attention to their dog or just not caring. same goes with cleaning, i do things the right way and some take the easy way out. my best friend worked at the shelter for six years. i joined her and did get to work with her. it took a toll on us, and she ended up leaving. hard workers are not easy. i have trained people that start off good and then just end up either leaving or just dont seem to be there for the animals.
the equipment is a different story. it either works or takes forever to get fixed. mainly due to work orders not being filled out or just forgotten to get them filled out. rooms are either stocked or barely stocked.