Friday, August 31, 2012

CLE day

So, I'm in Valpo today as moderator for a Family Law CLE.  Which means I had to hit play and make sure people sign in and I don't have to pay the $240-ish fee to attend (so many hours of CLE are required for licensed attorneys).  Anyway, the point is, everyone comes to these things and brings something else to do, myself included, so I have my netbook, planner, and all that fun stuff with me.  Hey, I can listen to it in the background and still pick it up, right?  In reality, we all get a binder with info about all of the (recorded) lectures, so I can always look over it later.  Will I?  Probably not, but I have it if I need it.

Onto chin stuff.  Yesterday was a pretty good day.  Without getting way more personal than necessary, I have an undiagnosed medical problem as of yet, and my specialist dr refused to give me pain meds, despite the fact that I couldn't sleep cause the pain kept waking me up, and I couldn't concentrate cause of the pain.  But my family doctor, who can see reason, squeezed me in yesterday and prescribed me a pain med, so I was actually able to function yesterday.  Always a plus.

So, I have this one order from someone I know on Facebook.  She wants a hidey house that can fit 5 chins, with some sort of food bowl on top.  Ok, so basically she wanted the hidey house to look like the cottage hidey house, only with an extra door on the opposite side of the normal door.  And she wanted the hidey house to be like 16 L x 10 D x 7.5 H.  So over the past few days I built that.  Then, she originally wanted a box with a circle cutout to hold a food bowl.  Well.... I only have two of those circle cutout drill attachments, and I paid like $35 for the larger one, and of course, that one was too large.  Since the attachments are a bit too expensive for me to just go buy the right size for a custom order (though, it's not a bad idea in this case), she said to just make a box for the food.  I had a picture of this wooden hay cube holder that I had custom-made for someone, and she liked that, so I went to building one of those.  But, I specifically made it the size where it can hold (relatively securely) the food bowl that she has.  So if she wants to use it with the bowl, she can.  If not, she can put the food directly into the box.  So, that was put together yesterday.  Still have to attach the food box to the top of the hidey house, and then I have to figure out how much this all is going to cost her, if she likes it.  What I usually do with custom orders is I put em next to one of our normal hidey houses and compare size, to get a general idea.  I've had custom houses go for $10 before, because they weren't very big or complicated.  I think this one currently will be bigger than even our Porthole Hidey House, but that'll be a starting point (we'll see how it compares) and we'll go from there.  I hope she likes it, I think it turned out pretty good. 

I had someone ask, a few day ago, if we offer boarding.  Well, I suppose we could.  I emailed her telling her as much.  Haven't heard back yet, I dunno if I will, but I put up a poll on the forum to get an idea of what the contract should say and what I should be charging and all that.  So we'll see.  Maybe I'll work on that contract today. 

Got an order on the 27th for a hidey house w/ hardware and two circular perches.  I have the stuff ready, just need to literally drill the holes for the hardware, attach the hardware to the circular perches, and go from there.  It's on my to-do list.

Currently working with two people to set up times for these people to come over and look at the rats, hoping those will get set soon.  Also hoping that Jim gets off his ass about coming to see/get the baby rats.  I try to be a tad less of an ass to our adoptive homes, but he said he was interested in these rats awhile back -- if he doesn't want them, surely someone else does, but he seems to not want to set a date.  He just keeps asking me what my availability is, and I tell him, then those days pass, and I email him again, and he asks what my availability is, and I tell him, and I never hear back.  And he's only about 30-45 mins from here.  We had someone come from Madison, WI, a 3+ hour drive, the other day.  Surely Jim can find the time to make the short drive and pick up his rats. Ok, so I looked up the email, I originally told him about the males on the 21st -- so I sent him an email saying that our 14 day hold (max) expires on September 4th, so if he hasn't come and adopted them by then, or hasn't given me a deposit to hold them, they will be back up for adoption.  Maybe that sounds a little mean and pushy, but I really feel like #1 - if he really wants them, he needs to make more of an effort to get here over simply asking what my schedule is and not getting back to me and #2 - I am getting sick of being stepped on and taken advantage of.  Most rescues won't hold anything without a deposit, so two weeks is like unheard of.  I'm being nice already, and people are dragging their feet.  I don't even mind if the pickup date is set for two months from now -- if it's set, then we're good, but no pickup date and no emails or anything, I can't hold em forever.

**update -- looked at my email right before I hit "publish" -- I have an email from Jim asking, "when are you available?"   *facepalm*  History is repeating itself.  Well, I did tell him though.  He's got til the 4th

So, as for yesterday... other than building the hidey house, it was cleaning & organizing time.  I went through my lidded basket that holds the stuff for the "other animals" -- the non-chin stuff.  Found a thing or two that can go into the "sale" pile.  Also went through everything under my supply table, that stuff all pretty much stays under there, so that part was ok.  Had to make up some more rat food.

The people who bought one of the baby rats yesterday bought 5 pounds of lab blocks, which pretty much cleared me out of those.  So I'll need to go pick some of those up.  They also bought this one wheel that we have had like forever, so that's one less thing for me to need to sell.  Still haven't gone through the water bottles or feed bowls boxes, but I need to actually clean all the excess food bowls and water bottles so I have all of them together to look through.  I also believe I have a box with some small animal wheels and shelves for some of the small animal cages and all that... need to find that and put that in the pile of stuff to be sold. 

Cleaned a ton of cages out yesterday.  Today was trash day, so Thursday is always a good time to clean cages.  Cleaned out the gp cage, cleaned all the runs, all the rat cages.  Jessie's eyes FINALLY look healthy, so she got her collar back on and went back into the run. 

Buddy and Juno appear fully healed and were listed up for adoption.  Marshmallow & Oreo also appear good to go.  I think we found out the problem with Marshmallow's biting -- she doesn't like people reaching down from above her.    For the most part, she's fine if you're trying to scoop her up with your hands around her belly, but picking her up from above?  Not a good idea.,

Also put up the ad for Psycho.  Mentioned no small kids, quiet home.  Hopefully find a good home for her.  It'll just take a little more time, as so many people have loud homes with kids.  Nothing wrong with that, but that's just not the home for her. 

Renewed and updated the other ads I have for the critters so those are all up to date.

Need to weigh the chins again for their bi-monthly weigh in.

My waiting list is really pissing me off right now.  If you want to be on it, at least have the decency to get back to me when I email you.  If you were added to the list 6 months ago, and you already got a chin, I totally understand.  But if I marked you on the list less than 60 days ago, I don't feel it's too much to ask for you to email me back and let me know that a) you already got a chin, b) you can't get a chin right now, c) you don't want the specific chin I've told you about, or d) whatever else.  It's an email.  Being put on the waiting list doesn't mean you have to buy/adopt the chin when I get to you, it just means that you have first crack at the chin you specify you want when I have that chin.  But to me, that also means that there should be the common courtesy that if I email and say, hey, got the chin you wanted!, you can at least email back and tell me "not right now" or whatever the case may be.

  • I had someone on my list who wanted a 2-3 year old rescue.  Never heard back from the initial email.  
  • Had someone who wanted two chins, preferably babies or younger chins.  She replied to my email, said she was interested and wanted the chins.  When I asked for the adoption form to be filled out, she said she already had.  Did not have it, so I told her so and asked her to email me with it.  5 days passed, I sent the 2-day notice, never heard back.
  • Had someone who wanted a white male that was good with other chins.  Never heard back from the initial email.
  • Had someone who wanted a baby white female.  Responded saying they are not currently in the position to get a chin, but they will let me know when they are.  <----------- this is the CORRECT result
  • Currently emailed someone who said she was interested in a baby, preferably bv, but would take standard or mosaic.  Emailed a day or so ago... haven't heard back yet.  She still has time though. 
So, I think in the future, to get on our waiting list, I'm going to require a phone number as well as email.  Because I know in the past, some of my emails have gone to spam and so people may not actually received them (I acknowledge that not everyone is like me and combs their spam folder for adoption emails), but if I can leave a message or talk with a person, I feel like that's more reliable.

So, I think that's it for now.  Only like 4-5 hours to go.

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