Info Feature: A Day at Kamp

It might be useful to read about what goes on during the day here. We’ve been asked about it a number of times before, but it’s tough to give a short answer, and tougher to give one without a good deal of thought.

The work day starts at roughly 6:30-6:45 (sometimes earlier; depending on bad weather and/or how many overnighters there are to feed breakfast). First thing, all overnighters are let outdoors to go to the bathroom. (Some mornings, they’ve already done so inside, requiring several minutes’ cleanup.) Then breakfast is served – one dog at a time (or all the dogs from one household at once) so that food and any meds aren’t co-mingled. If we have cats staying with us, they are also fed and their litter box is cleaned. In the midst of this, the open air beds (a mix of human toddler beds, doggie camping cots) have their thick, cozy blankets pulled up and stored for the day to keep them from getting dirty and hairy over the course of the daylight hours. At 7:00 we open the office up. From that point, it’s morning intake of day care dogs and boarders while trying to keep up with refreshing the drinking water and scooping up in the yard.

Speaking of scooping: It’s pretty much an all-day affair. You can’t leave colonic gifts out for any length of time. They can get trampled and tracked around, or worse, eaten. Unlike some other day care centers which only pick it up every 2 or 3 hours, we stay on top of it constantly. Some days it seems, literally, like life is poop.

Outdoor activities throughout the day include (but are not limited to) fetch with tennis balls (a favorite), occasional leash walking, tossing toys about, and water games (in warm weather, of course). A recent popular indoor game is laser pointer chase. (If you’ve never tried it, a laser pointer could just be the best $5 you ever spend for your dog or cat.) Other indoor activities include ball chase, wrestling (which needs no human encouragement to start), brushing, and once in a while, a cookie party. You’d be amazed at how instantly an entire crazy pack can become the best-behaved dogs in the world when the cookies come out. Interspersed through the indoor and outdoor stuff is some affection time for everyone. That’s accomplished either by sitting and being surrounded by a bunch of panting faces, or standing in one place, petting one dog, and waiting for the others to realize what you’re doing and then crowd around. Cats are visited a few times every day for doses of play and attention, as well. The long and the short of it is this: when the weather is rainy or bad, your dog is still getting exercise, and just as importantly, they’re getting some supervised mental stimulation and companionship with others. That’s a good thing to keep in mind when you look out your window in the morning and see rain falling.

Of course, there are still plenty of things to do that have nothing to do with the animals. Phone calls need returning, emails need answering, blankets, bed sheets, bath towels and dog dishes all need to be washed, repair projects wait in line, the government always wants its money and its paperwork filed, new dogs need to be evaluated, the Facebook page needs updating regularly, the newsletter needs to be written...the list goes on and on.

Late in the day, roughly in the 5:30 range, it’s supper time for our overnighters. The common room gets swept and mopped, the drinking water fountain gets cleaned and replenished one more time, the beds get their blankets put back on, and the shop closes at 6:00. Overnighters generally are so tired they fall asleep, and most often they are awakened when it’s time for a mid-evening visit, and later, a last bathroom trip outside, between 9:30-10:00. The dog door leading outside is locked, the window shades are pulled down, everyone gets one last cookie and affection, and then it’s time for "lights out." It’s never totally dark in there, though; there are two night lights, and the TV stays on at very low volume (either Animal Planet or History Channel).

This really isn’t a complete description, and every day is a little different, but hopefully you now have a general idea of what happens every day here at Kamp K9!

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