Month: May 2012

So having talked fairly generally about what was going on at the Austin Humane Shelter during 2012 (with some comments about my involvement) in Volunteering at the Austin Humane Shelter Part 6, Part 7 and Part 8, I want to switch gears into self-indulgent prattling mode and talk about how it was (or wasn’t) affecting me personally. Some of this will detail my time at the shelter, some of it will tie in with stuff about my own dogs ALFIE and NORMAN, who I have written about in their own article series.

Don’t be surprised if this is a little bit all over the map as I’m jumping back and forth across topics. I wasn’t able to find any good flow for this part of the story.  Also my system ate what I had initially written so I had to start from scratch (because computers are evil).

Back to Me

As I mentioned in Part 6, I had moved up to full blue BRATT in 2011 and never lacked for anything to do.… Keep Reading

So in Volunteering at the Austin Humane Shelter: Part 6 and Volunteering at the Austin Humane Shelter Part: 7, I described the insanity that made up merely the first half (or so) of 2011 there.  That included the Bastrop Hoarding Experience along with a very special dog that had to be put down, along with the loss of our air conditioning in the middle of a brutal Austin summer. And while those three events might have been enough to deal with, it was only the beginning. We still had four months left in the year and things weren’t over yet.  Today I’ll finish describing the rest of the year.

September: Bastrop Burns

Yup, Bastrop again. Because between the drought and the heat and everything else, Austin can become a tinderbox and shit sometimes burst into flames. And there was a really horrible fire out in Bastrop. Like weeks of land burning and people losing their houses kinds of fires.… Keep Reading

So last time in Volunteeering at the Austin Humane Shelter: Part 6, I talked about my move up to blue BRATT and the start of the year’s craziness which was that Bastrop Hoarding Event. And while that one event would have been enough to exhaust anyone, it was just the start of the absolute craziness that was 2011. We continue with the next big shelter drama, a rare occurrence but one that caused a lot of problems.

Early August: A Dog Gets Put Down

I mentioned in the original series that the Austin Humane Shelter is a no-kill shelter. That is, the shelter doesn’t put down dogs as a matter of course. In reality this means that dog euthanasia is kept to 10% or less; it’s also only done on a dog by dog basis. It’s never done for time (i.e. if a dog is at the shelter for too long) and it’s never done based on breed.… Keep Reading

So since it’s now been forever since I did an update, and since I apparently still can’t think of anything to write about diet, training, etc. I figured I’d do an update on my time at the Austin Humane Shelter.  I’ve now been there a full year and a half (I started in November of 2010 as I was crawling out of my depression, as I detailed in Volunteering at the Austin Humane Shelter series) and quite a bit has happened since then.

I’ll be mainly focusing on 2011 since, frankly, last year was crazy almost from start to finish.  Actually, it wasn’t crazy, it was pretty much a disaster.  Things started off quietly enough, the first couple of months were just normal times at the shelter.  I was deep into my winter training grind and volunteering regularly.  We pick up in Februrary, 2011.

Working Blue

By the time I had been at the shelter for four months, I have moved from a newbie Green BRATT through Blue Dot and then had taken a special full blue BRATT class (that was put together for 5 of us who had forgotten to get into the main class).  … Keep Reading