Time flies

I can't believe Seth is 10 years old already. It just seems like yesterday he showed up at my house and said he was moving in. I'd had no intention of getting another dog, I already had 3 dogs, a few cats, chickens, pigs, goats, sheep, rabbits etc. Seth's breeder was a friend and I had been listening to the puppies on the phone since the day they were born. I had no interest at all in getting one. After the pups were older they drove down with the remaining ones to take to a local dog event near me. That is when Seth looked at me and said "I'm going to live with you." My friends brought Seth's Mom and Dad and brother and sister with him and they all spent the night since they lived so far away. Seth stayed with me on the couch that night and never thought about his parents or siblings again and in fact I swear he waved goodbye the next morning as they drove off, then turned to me and said "well what are we going to do now?' I'd had herding breeds before but never one that did the things Seth did at such a young age. When I first took him out to my goats when he was 12 weeks old I thought Hmmm..I'm definitely going to have to learn how to work with him. That was my start with working sheepdogs. Time has flown by and I now have my 5th Border Collie. I really can't imagine being without them now.

                                                                Seth at about 5 weeks old.

Seth at 7 mos

Seth working a demo when he was 3 years old

Seth a couple weeks ago.

Frustration and Venting

I love my shop and I really like most of my customers. But I really have to wonder about people sometimes. I get at least 1 or 2 No Shows a week. People who call up and make appointments then never show up or call to cancel them. Then there are the ones that show up 10 to 30 minutes late and just act like that's ok. Well I have a schedule and if I have a dog come in late it puts me behind and my other customers can suffer. Of course its never their fault. It's the traffic or the dog got loose and they couldn't catch it or like the woman the other day, she just plain said she overslept! Never an apology or sorry I hung you up, just oh well, it wasn't my fault. I do let the late ones know I'm not happy about it but I can't do much about the new customers who just never show. I hate not being in control. Today I had 5 dogs booked. That is pretty much a full day for me since I have no help and have to answer the phones and take care of retail customers on top of grooming. Also I have to leave for 1 hour late afternoon to pick up Jenna from school, so that makes it difficult to do any more dogs. Well due to no shows and cancellations I now have only 2 dogs. The first dog of the day was a new customer and she didn't show or call. Right before she was due to show I had a couple calls from people wanting to get in today. I was full then so I had to make them appointments later in the week. Well after the first one didn't show it was too late to get anyone in to fill that time slot. The next one changed to tomorrow so that left me with 2 hours of wasted time. That's a loss of income. As much as I love owning my own business and I definitely make way more money than I did working for someone else, I really hate these kind of days. Good thing was the extra couple hours with no dogs did give me time to catch up on some paperwork.
Well, I have a dog in now so I better get to work.