the eval: week one

Day One
For my first day they had me attend the tour everyone else gets to see. First you watch a 15 minute video on what Best Friends is all about and what they do. Then you board a tour bus or van on a 90 minute scenic tour of the grounds while the guide explains the history and various places within the sanctuary. There are two stops on the tour with one at Dogtown, and Catworld for the other before returning to the visitors center. After the tour I drove to HR for my 30 minute orientation/paper sign-fest. Next up was lunch at the Angel Village Cafe for a healthy lunch (veggie) where I had another 90 minutes to kill. My final stop was Dogtown HQ where I met up with the Admin Assistant for a personal behind the scenes tour of Dogtown ending with another paper sign-fest back at HQ. The day was nonstop but easy.

Day Two & Three
I reported to the Fairway where I would be trained over the next two days. The first day where was a bit hectic which led us to falling behind that morning, but we were caught up well before lunchtime. The second day went very smoothly with us staying ahead of everything. What was nice was that I got to experience the other side of what goes on when you're not a volunteer. Some duties between a caregiver/volunteer do overlap, but not as much as I expected. I learned both opening/closing duties, food prep, giving medication, various Dogtown protocols, interacting with volunteers, report updates, and several other things I can't recall at the moment. All in all I'm exhausted with all I've done and taken in, but loved every single minute of it.

Day Four & Five
This time I reported to Maggie's. It was once a store but was converted to training facility from what I was told. The day here started off much like my first day at the Fairway, it was chaotic. To up the ante many of the tasks/chores here have to be done in very specific ways. Partly was because some of the dogs living there required special attention, and because of the layout of the building being different from other kennels. A lot of unexpected stuff came up that the trainer had to deal with which left me (at times) idle on the first day. I was able to jump in and do more on the second day since I'd been trained, and there were also less interruptions.

All in all I felt I did alright this week. I made a few mistakes along the way, but the trainers noted that I corrected myself before repeating them. One more week to go before I find out if I get to be a caregiver at Dogtown.