Welcome to my first blog post. I’m new at this so I’m just going to start with introducing myself. My name is Richelle and this blog is about my life with dogs in case the title wasn’t clear enough lol. I’ve been thinking about starting a blog for several months now and was hoping to have a catchy title. However, after a lot of thought this is the title I kept coming back to. It’s fitting as I am literally with dogs 24/7/365.
Let me explain, I am a dog trainer/behavior consultant, I board dogs in my home, I am the Enrichment Coordinator at the Ross County Humane Society, and I am the Associate Director and foster with Paw Patrol Dayton. So my days consist of getting up early and taking care of 7-20 dogs in the morning, yes really sometimes there are that many here. Then heading to the shelter 4 days a week to help take care of 40-60 dogs. After work I may have a training session or two and then take care of those 7-20 dogs in my home again until bed time. When I’m not at the shelter I’m either training or just caring for my boarding dogs, foster dogs, and of course, my own personal dogs. I’m rarely even in my car without dogs as 2 of my personal dogs go to the shelter to help me there and sometimes I take a foster dog or two to work with me as well. A lot of people will say “I don’t know how you do it.” Believe me sometimes I don’t either. However, I don’t know how to give any of it up. I love fostering dogs, ok not ALL the time, but enough I am unable to quit. Fostering allows me to help dogs that may otherwise not make it out of shelters or homes alive. Some dogs just need someone who understands them and I do. Sometimes more than people. Working at the shelter allows me to help dogs there and that is very important to me. For one, volunteering at a shelter is how I learned to understand dogs and what got me started on training dogs. That same shelter lead me to meet the director of Paw Patrol. Shelter dogs are even more misunderstood than dogs in their own home. So helping the adopters understand the shelter dogs and making better matches for dog and adopters is how we keep dogs from coming back or landing in the wrong home. I also get to help keep unsafe dogs from being adopted. There are some dogs that just should not be adopted out. My business is what allows me to work at the shelter, my passion. Without my business I could not afford to work at the shelter. Even though it means I have to work two jobs, it’s well worth it. I had stopped training for 2 years because it was too hard with the shelter job being new plus the hour drive each way. Yes that’s right I drive an hour to work a job that pays half of what I used to make because I love the work. When Covid hit though the boarding side of the business took a nose dive, but people kept calling for training help. So after awhile I decided to do it again to keep up my income. I’m glad I did. Turns out training was just what I needed to bring back more positivity in my life. It’s a good balancer from the things I see and hear at the shelter. So that long-winded hello was my version of the short version. When it comes to what I love I can talk about it forever. So for now that’s my intro. Thanks for reading!
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AuthorI'm Richelle Fair. You could say I'm a dog enthusiast or some might say my life has gone to the dogs. Either way there's no denying dogs are a huge part of my life. Archives
January 2023
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What Our Clients Are SayingAmazing time for both of my pups while we were away for vacation! Drop off was smooth for my anxious pup which is a rarity. They were excited to see me upon pick up, but far more calm than taking them to a traditional kennel and they were worn out from all the playing they got to do! We highly recommend Richelle and her family!~Amanda Baumgardner |