I sit up from my bed very slowly feeling like something is watching me. I slide my gaze around the room and find out what is staring at me. My 200 pound Saint Bernard. It’s like she has her own schedule and doesn’t care what you are doing at the time. You must follow her routine set. Sitting up from bed, she leads me into her room to feed her breakfast. Followed by feeding her, I briskly walk out to the kennel to feed all the other dogs. Knowing that everybody will be hungry due to my oversleeping, I walk the quarter mile even faster.
I stride into the back door and am overcome with the smell of wet dogs and dog food. We just built the dog kennel a month ago and it shows that. The roof still has leaks that the dogs have to deal with until we can get somebody out here to patch it up. We have a lot of leaks that need fixed. The kennel is big enough to house 100+ dogs. The dogs that are coming in and staying here are here for a reason. They are rescues that are overflow from the local humane society. I’ve worked with the humane society for about 10 years and through donations and fundraisers, I was finally able to create this kennel. This kennel has areas for all types and dispositions of dogs: quiet areas for scared dogs, exercise areas for the dogs that have that excessive energy and the scented area that entices the hunters and keeps them busy.
There have been dogs that have come in from all situations. I work with a professional behaviorist and as soon as these dogs get settled here, they get evaluated to see if they can be fostered or adopted out. The ones that can’t get to spend the rest of their lives in the dedicated keeping kennel. I built a kennel off of my own funds for the ones that can’t get adopted out. These ones are usually the ones that have come from surrenders and have become too fearful or stressed out to go into new homes.
There is supposed to be a flood of dogs showing up today. I think they are coming from an overrun puppy mill. There are some days at work when I just feel like screaming and giving up because of all of these dogs that are coming from horrible places. They each have their own unique story and personality that we have to figure out. It takes a lot of time and effort. Luckily though, there also have been a flood of volunteers that have shown up. They aren’t getting paid; they are just being a volunteer. They help me with taking care of all these dogs because there are at least 100 dogs in these kennels.
“Half of the volunteers can go take their break now.” I say over the announcement system. I know that just because I say that, it will be more likely that only 3 or 4 out of my 20 volunteers will go take break. Many of them make their own hours and show at a regular time. I’m just too broke to hire them so they can actually get paid; I wish I could because many of them deserve money and compensation for how much of their time gets spent with the dogs. If I know my volunteers though, they will only take a long enough break to get a bite to eat and they will be back to tending to the dogs.
While they are on their break, I go in a room only I know about. This room holds all memorabilia from the dogs that we rescued but were too extreme to be helped. So for their safety, and the staff’s, we euthanized them. One corner holds the sole thing that is keeping me going. One of the only things I did wrong for quite some time. I keep my first dog’s ashes in an engraved box to remind myself of how irresponsible I was as a teenager. I never took care of him enough. He was always skinny and he was never fully healthy. That is the reason that I keep that there. It is a constant reminder of what I did wrong. That collar serves as my push to do right by other dogs. If I can’t fix what I did to him, I’ll make it up to him through the other dogs.
While I was just off floating the far reaches of my mind, all the volunteers went back to work like I knew they would. If I didn’t know them like I know them, I’d say that they are a bunch of over-achievers. But I do know them. So I can’t call them that. What we really need to get more volunteers is more money. I think although Rigganmore, the city that surrounds us, supports us and loves the work that we do, they are donated out. I would love nothing more than to have a huge donation to help in the buying of food and supplies for these dogs; although I do have an upcoming fundraiser in the local park to go. I am quite hopeful that the fundraiser that I have today will provide a good chunk of money towards that non-existing fund.
Kelly, the manager here at Howling Peace, has decided to help run the local fundraiser and to load up some dogs to show off and hopefully get adopted. We also had invited other local shelters from the area to come and show off who they have and how they are run.
“Why don’t we load up a few of our current lap dogs and some of the herders to show off a few of the ones we have here?” Kelly suggested.
“Sounds like a good idea. Let’s load up the oldest ones that can make the 2 hour drive. They are going to be the best behaved ones. We want to make an impression and we can’t do that with rowdy, untrained dogs,” I informed her.
“I will go load them up and get everything in the van,” she responded.
She gets everything loaded up into the van and we start the haul with our trailer. Our trailer is set up so the dogs can be looked at from the outside of the trailer. The doors are made of metal and have huge slots in them so the dogs can be viewed. The littler dogs usually end up getting paired together so that it saves room in the trailer for the bigger dogs. We end up taking 4 of our little dogs and 3 of our big herding type dogs.
We arrive at the park 2 hours later like scheduled and start setting up the trailer. We have with us applications for adoptions and a pamphlet on most of the dogs that we’ve had since we built the kennel and have yet to find homes. We are hoping that we can get just a few dogs adopted today. I leave Kelly to manage the trailer and wander around to the other booths. As I’m walking around, I feel like someone is watching me again. I casually just look around me and catch the eyes of the person that was watching me.
My breath stops. He is so handsome! He has this short, dirty blonde hair that almost calls my name. He looks to be quite tall which is a huge plus for me. Handsome mystery man starts walking towards me and my heart tries to climb out of my body. As he gets closer, I realize he has blue eyes which make him even more. He finally stops right in front of me.
“You look a little lost,” handsome mystery man states.
“I’m not lost. I’m just looking at all the other shelter booths here before I head back to my own,” I reply back at him.
“Oh. Well, OK then. I’m Erik by the way.”
“It’s nice to meet you Erik. I’m Miranda. So, what are you doing here that you ask me that? While you answer that question, we should walk back to my booth,” I ask him.
“Well, I have a little extra change that I want to donate to a shelter that needs it. I was just walking around observing all the shelters here, just looking at them. I was also just maybe looking for a dog that needed a home.”
Now he had my full attention (as if he didn’t have it before) because I needed that money. I was taking everything out of my own pocket, it wasn’t easy. My heart starts to beat even faster and it feels like it’s going to break out of my chest. He was stunning and apparently he had extra money he was willing to give away. That was always a bonus. I started throwing ideas around in my head about how I could get him to donate to Howling Peace and maybe adopt one of our older residents. I finally get one and I just roll with it.
“So,” just to break the silence, “what dog are you looking for? We have most breeds at our shelter, you name it, and we’ll probably have it.”
“Do you have an Irish Wolfhound? I’ve always wanted one of those. They are just huge and I want a big dog. I’ve got this huge house and I need to share it. And I think that It’s too good of house to not share with a dog. The only other alternative is I could share it with you…”
Gosh this guy was bold, because that was definitely not what I was expecting. My brain again went it to overdrive and threw it into frenzy just like before. I started to think of what I could say.
“I can’t just move out of my house and away from my kennel. I’m just not able to,” as we arrive back at my booth.
“And I see why! You have put everything into this kennel; I can see that just by the pictures. OK. So, do you have an Irish wolfhound or was that ‘we have almost every breed’ thing a joke?”
“Oh. Right... Dogs. Yes, we actually only have one Wolfhound and her name is Cecilia. We have had her since this kennel was built and no one has taken a second look at her. We received her from the Humane Society because they were about to put her down and they felt that wasn’t right so they contacted me and I took her in. She is currently in our permanent resident section because there has been no interest in her. She came from a hoarder and was abused so she is a little shy but by no means aggressive.”
“She sounds perfect. I would love to take her for you. What do I need to do to be able to adopt her? Do you know how old she is?”
“She is about 4 years old. She has loads of energy in her and she loves to play with the other permanent resident dogs in the kennel. There is an application for potential adopters to fill out. I would guess that if your adopters form passes, you will have her in the next week.”
“Cool. I’m already excited about her and I haven’t even seen her yet!!”

He did sound quite excited about her. I know they say you should never involve romance with work. It’s worth a shot and there can’t be any harm in my getting together with him, but sometimes it’s good to test your limits and see where your breaking point is. And hey, he even has money!