Saturday, June 14, 2008 --Activities begin at Noon

 

Martha in one of her infamous raffle hats!

My Week as a Kennel Helper

By: Martha Kohberger

When Linda Jensen asked if I would like to work in the kennel I said, ”I would love to”.  After thinking about it, I had serious doubts about what I was getting into.  After all, look at me, I’m not young, I’m fat and I work at a desk all week.  I’m not exactly in the best of shape and exercise is not part of my vocabulary.  I worried that I would be Linda’s first kennel helper drop out.  But, I decided I would give it a try.  After all, I help at the GPA – Mass. Adoption kennel every Sunday, how much harder could it be?

I had the privilege to work in Aljo Kennels for 5 days in May and they had somewhere around 90 dogs.   For those of you with 3 dogs, that is like have 30 times more dogs to care for.

We started the day at 6 am (which means I had to get up at 4:30 to be there on time).  First we would let the boy dogs out.  Each dog had to be muzzled then let out of his or her crates.  While doing this you had to make sure you didn’t let any girl dogs out at the same time by mistake.  When they all got out to the turn out pen, one person would stay out with the dogs.  It’s their job to pick up the poop as it dropped.  Sounds easy, doesn’t it?  But remember that you have over 40 dogs in the same area, some are digging holes, some are trying to get you to pet them, some are trying to get the other dogs riled up and the rest are pooping at the same time.  Meanwhile you are trying to stop any fights from starting, stop the dogs from digging, pick up the poop and give attention to the dogs asking for it.  After 15 or so minutes you move the dogs from one section of the pen to another section so the dogs that haven’t eliminated will do so.  While one person is doing this, everyone else is in the kennel cleaning the crates taking out any soiled paper and replacing it, by sweeping them out and mopping the wet crates.  After this is done the floor is mopped and swept.  Then the boy dogs are let in.  This is when I spent a lot of time trying to figure out which dog went in which crate.  It was like a giant game of concentration that I wasn’t very good at.  After the boy dogs are safely in their crates you repeat the whole process with the girl dogs.

Martha with a group of GPA volunteers in the paddock at Raynham

Martha with her Marthas Raffle, brindle female

After the girl dogs come in someone takes the soiled paper to the compactor, the poop buckets to the dumpster and changes the water in the water buckets.   Then you load some of the dogs into the truck for unofficial schooling or sprinting depending on which day of the week it is.  Sprinting is done in a long fenced in area and allows dogs that haven’t run in a while to keep in shape.  Unofficial schooling is done on the track.  Dogs that aren’t racing yet are run on the track to get them ready for racing by having them chase the lure.  They can be hand slipped or run from the boxes, depending on what learning stage they are at.
After sprinting or schooling you take them back to the kennel where you start weighing the dogs that are racing that day or the next day.  The dogs running that day are weighed and then put back in their crates with the muzzle hanging on the latch to remind you not to feed them.  The dogs running the next day are weighed, and then they are groomed by cleaning their ears, cutting their nails and combing them.  Liniment is then rubbed on their legs and backs to warm their muscles.  There can be a lot of dogs that need to be weighed, depending on how many are racing or doing official schooling.  After you have taken care of the dogs that are going to race, the dogs that had raced the previous day are brought out and inspected to make sure they didn’t hurt themselves on the track.  After they have been evaluated, any injuries are attended to and they are again rubbed with liniment oil. 

Marthas Raffle resting at the Raynham

While this is going on, the trainer is mixing the food.  This is done in a large bathtub that is on a stand on wheels.  He mixes up the basic ingredients that all of the dogs get and has additional nutritional supplements in bottles and jars that only some of the dogs get.  He mixes up special snacks that the dogs that are racing that day get.  These are very small portions that include the nutrients that the racing dogs need.  The snacks are fed first, and then the rest of the dogs get the normal meals.  Each meal is weighed out for each dog and additional supplements are added as necessary.  If you have ever had several dogs on different foods and supplements you can start to imagine what its like to have to remember the specifics for 90 dogs.

Marthas Raffle littermate, Delicate Halise at Sanford Orlando

As soon as the dogs are done eating, you have to turn them out again.  This is done the same way it is done at 6am, however you only have to clean the crates that may have been soiled since that time.  While the dogs are out, the bowls and bathtub are being washed and you again have to mop and sweep the floors.

Now it’s about 11 am and its time to take the dogs over to the track to be weighed in at 11:30.  You put their racing muzzles on, load them into the trucks and drive them over to the track.  You take them to a secured area where they are weighed then put into a crate that corresponds with the post position and race the dog is racing.  If you’re lucky you are finished with the weigh in by noon and you have half an hour to grab lunch before the racing begins.
 

Two Marthas at the Finish Line at Raynham Greyhound Park

After one of your dogs finishes a race the lead out person brings the dog to you in the trainers area.  They remove the muzzle and silk and hand you your dog.  The first thing you do is clean out their eyes and faces, because they have a lot of sand on them.  Then you clean their feet and you have to make sure you get all the sand off so if they got any little cuts they don’t get infected.  Then you walk the dog to cool them off, and walk and walk and walk and walk.  After you have made many circuits of the building and your dog is beginning to breath a little easier, you take your dog out to pee on the grass then load them into the truck.  Sometime during racing you hope you have a break of several races when your kennel’s dogs aren’t running so you can go back to the kennels and do another turnout (complete with picking poop, mopping, sweeping and changing the water).
On certain days, after the pari-mutuel racing, they have official schooling races, which is different from morning unofficial schooling.  These are non-betting races from the boxes that determine when a dog can start pari-mutuel racing.  Dogs are weighed in at the trainer’s area and race from the boxes.  Nights when there are schooling races, you might not get back to the compound until 5:30 pm or so.  When you do get back to the compound you feed the dogs that have raced a meal and then its time to turn the dogs out again.  On Fridays and Saturdays, there are both matinee and evening races, so you are back out at the track again in the evening.

 

Let me tell you, I was mentally and physically exhausted at the end of every day.  I can only speak about Aljo kennels because that is where I worked, but every person working at that kennel really cares about the dogs.  I would often see the kennel helpers speaking softly to a dog while grooming, feeding or cooling them off, or giving a dog extra pets or treats and it didn’t matter if the dog was a good runner, or one that wasn’t doing so well.

In finishing I would like to thank Al and Joyce Smith, Don, Buster and Paul for showing me the ropes of the racing kennel.  I would also like to thank the Raynham/Taunton Racetrack for allowing me to go behind the scenes and Linda Jensen for giving me this once in a lifetime opportunity.
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