This blog would never want to tell anybody not to donate something to the Carson shelter. But if you still want to donate blankets, please contact the Carson shelter and ask to speak to Officer Tammy Howlett first, or go down there in person and talk to her. She is the officer who has been hauling the donations to the back every night. She's putting blankets away in hidden spots that most volunteers and shelter workers aren't even aware of.
This scene is becoming a nightly occurrence. This is behind the office on Thursday, December 5, where another load of blankets has been dumped. According to Tammy, a moving truck came earlier that day and left a load of used moving pads.
This is in the back, just outside the laundry room. Actually, it doesn't look much worse than it usually does, but normally the laundry room is under control.
This is what the laundry room looked like when I started duty on Thursday night. That's a fairly new washer and dryer. Unfortunately, it doesn't operate as fast as we'd like it to.
Here is a wider view of the laundry room. The door is holding back a tsunami of blankets that have been piled on to the grooming tables. If the blanket rack looks like it's getting empty, that's because the blankets out in the kennels haven't been picked up yet.
And these photos don't show where Officer Howlett and others have been stashing extra blankets. The laundry room is the only place with blankets readily accessible to me as a volunteer.
This is the laundry pile now after I spent the evening picking up blankets in buildings 1 and 3. Putting out blankets and quilts in each and every cage usually doesn't work very well because bored dogs love to shred them. That stuffing and shredded fabric often ends up in the drains and risks clogging them, which isn't fun. By the way, you'll notice a second washer and dryer stack, next to the blanket rack. That machine has suffered from overwork. And there is another washer-dryer set in the back which I did not photograph, also dead from overwork. That's another reason why putting out blankets and quilts in each and every kennel doesn't always work.
Certainly, efforts are made to put out blankets and quilts for puppies, pregnant/nursing dogs, and fragile, sick and elderly dogs. But each kennel contains an air vent, and warm air gets blown through the vents every night. In addition, the dog building doors are kept closed in the evenings to help keep the warm air in. Because of one misleading news story about a dog freezing to death, I am wading through all this trying to help get this under control when I would like to be showing animals to the public or doing other things for the dogs. We need this to be under control so we can readily access grooming supplies, toys, and other things we keep back here.
I won't disagree with anybody who says these dogs need more systematic and regular medical care. But I don't think putting a blanket in every kennel is necessarily the answer.
