Herding the ferrets is going to be easier than herding the paperwork, isn't it?
So I've started working at the GCFA. Well, for values of work that =/= actually being paid.
Anyway, I said I'm good with computers and such and well... I get enough ferret poop at home and I'm happy to help out, but I really don't want to come in an clean cages all day.
So I've become The Inventory Person. Not like 8 bags of this food and 7 bags of that and 323 litterboxes... I'm doing the nose counts.
Each week when I go in I make sure the computer inventory has the updates - who's come in, who's gone out (dead/adopted/fostered) and who is in which cage. I start with a physical look at who is actually IN each cage and make the computer list. Then I go into each ferret with a movement change (came in or went out of the shelter altogether) or a cage change or a meds change and update their 'chart'.
Now, with roughly 80 ferrets in the house right now, I don't know ALL of them by memory. I do know we have 3 Romeos. No Juliets, but 3 Romeos. It caused grief when I was doing cage updates. So those I know. There's a Romeo in 2, in 8 and in 31. Well, there was when I left yesterday.
I was ALL the STATS girl yesterday. I got cage updates done, the movements done AND went through the website and created an Excel document that listed the roughly 30 ferrets that are still on the website but no longer in the inventory and the roughly 12 ferrets in the inventory but not yet on the webpage. Oh, and I helped with meds.
This morning I get an email... can I drive down to Joliet and pick up a ferret at their local animal control? It was a stray and they tried to adopt it out for a week, but they aren't getting any takers, and really, they aren't equipped for meeting a ferret's needs day in and day out. So I head down and get the most adorable, most social, little silver ever. He needs a bath, though it's not urgent-urgent, and he needed his nails trimmed. That was urgent-urgent, so I did that, because, really, it was bad. Anywho, I drive him up the the GCFA which is halfway between my house and the Joliet shelter and I ask where they want him.
They have a cage set up for him already. In 31.
Dude. Just YESTERDAY there was the 4 mo. old Romeo in that cage! But no... apparently the baby has been pooping rather... acrobatically and was getting it all over the cage UNDER him. Now, you have to understand, the GCFA has the good cages now - the ones with plastic trays on the bottom of the cage, not bars like you hear about in puppymills and such. This little guy was TALENTED if he could get poop where they said he was. Anyway, he got moved to a bottom cage, so the worst he could do was get poop on the floor.
And then I brought in the silver and someone else was coming in with two more transfers from a Chicago shelter. Which means that ONE DAY after I get my nose-to-paperwork matches completely caught up... It's already hosed. Go figure.
It's ferrets. I really shouldn't be so surprised that we can't keep our uh... ducks in a row. Right?
Anyway, I said I'm good with computers and such and well... I get enough ferret poop at home and I'm happy to help out, but I really don't want to come in an clean cages all day.
So I've become The Inventory Person. Not like 8 bags of this food and 7 bags of that and 323 litterboxes... I'm doing the nose counts.
Each week when I go in I make sure the computer inventory has the updates - who's come in, who's gone out (dead/adopted/fostered) and who is in which cage. I start with a physical look at who is actually IN each cage and make the computer list. Then I go into each ferret with a movement change (came in or went out of the shelter altogether) or a cage change or a meds change and update their 'chart'.
Now, with roughly 80 ferrets in the house right now, I don't know ALL of them by memory. I do know we have 3 Romeos. No Juliets, but 3 Romeos. It caused grief when I was doing cage updates. So those I know. There's a Romeo in 2, in 8 and in 31. Well, there was when I left yesterday.
I was ALL the STATS girl yesterday. I got cage updates done, the movements done AND went through the website and created an Excel document that listed the roughly 30 ferrets that are still on the website but no longer in the inventory and the roughly 12 ferrets in the inventory but not yet on the webpage. Oh, and I helped with meds.
This morning I get an email... can I drive down to Joliet and pick up a ferret at their local animal control? It was a stray and they tried to adopt it out for a week, but they aren't getting any takers, and really, they aren't equipped for meeting a ferret's needs day in and day out. So I head down and get the most adorable, most social, little silver ever. He needs a bath, though it's not urgent-urgent, and he needed his nails trimmed. That was urgent-urgent, so I did that, because, really, it was bad. Anywho, I drive him up the the GCFA which is halfway between my house and the Joliet shelter and I ask where they want him.
They have a cage set up for him already. In 31.
Dude. Just YESTERDAY there was the 4 mo. old Romeo in that cage! But no... apparently the baby has been pooping rather... acrobatically and was getting it all over the cage UNDER him. Now, you have to understand, the GCFA has the good cages now - the ones with plastic trays on the bottom of the cage, not bars like you hear about in puppymills and such. This little guy was TALENTED if he could get poop where they said he was. Anyway, he got moved to a bottom cage, so the worst he could do was get poop on the floor.
And then I brought in the silver and someone else was coming in with two more transfers from a Chicago shelter. Which means that ONE DAY after I get my nose-to-paperwork matches completely caught up... It's already hosed. Go figure.
It's ferrets. I really shouldn't be so surprised that we can't keep our uh... ducks in a row. Right?