Wednesday, July 02, 2008

one month later

so having completed our first month of doggie daycare/huge life change, i have to say "so far so good."
i really want to do a LOT to fix up the place.
the indoor area is stuffy and kinda stinky first thing in the morning so i want to get a better ventilation system going.
the cement floors and bare walls increase every bark to an ear splitting level so i want to install recycled rubber flooring.
i also want to paint inside and add some 'hominess.' the clean slate of it is starting to wear thin on me and i need to fix it up. i'm almost a bit embarrased for new clients to see it and think that this is how i live.
it is also very, very dirty. i know that dogs are dirty but i think it can be a bit tidier and not leaving me feeling that i was the one rolling around in the dirt all day.
we also lost our groomer, but i think this is for the best because i'm beginning to judge her as flakey. so my friend sam has been acting groomer for us. we are all learning how to do some basic clipping and trimming along with the bathing and brushing we can offer. we have a plumber coming in next week to move the groomer from the master bedroom of the main house to the garage. we also want to add self service washing which will hopefully make up for our lack of a trained groomer.
the shop will also go in the garage and i have been searching online for eco friendly and recycled products to sell.
i also want to compost the dog poop since we fill a kitchen sized trash can every week. i've found a few sites on how to do it and i think the trash service will thank us for it.
sam, when he is not bathing dogs, is planning a farm/garden for the rest of the property. our long term goal is to have fruit, vegetables and flowers and be able to operate a CSA. basically, customers pay us a fee and get a basket of food and flowers every week.

so that's the irons in the fire right now. as for the day to day it can be a bit tedious. mel and i end up exhausted at the end of the day not from physical exertion, but rather from a lack of it. there is no internet or cable yet which means that i can't do any research or blogging from work. we try not to have the dogs barking too much which means that play time can be cut short when the kids get too riled up. if we have enough people per dogs then i pop in the house to do some cleaning, but i can only do so much right now. i think once the plumbing is done i will have a lot of projects to work on.

as for the dogs, we have some sweeties and some naughtys. they naughty ones tend to be younger and just want to play more than anyone else. i feel bad for the sweeties; that they are being neglected because my time has to be spent with the naughtys. "don't eat that rock", "quit digging", "get away from that poop." sometimes the barking makes me cranky, but nothing is better than snuggling up for some fuzzy therapy.
pictured above is one of our top naughties, sumo. i don't get very upset with him because he is my little sad clown.