My First Day in the Kennel

Me standing with Fluff on my first day, Dec 2024

I can remember my first day vividly. It was Friday, the 13th of December, 2024. Olivia and Martin were in Finland that day, so it was just Nat, Theo, Thore and I. Nat picked me up in the caddy at 7.45am, and we started work at 8. First, she gave me a tour.

“Here’s the staff room, here’s the dog-kitchen, here’s the hospital room – for the dogs, not for us!”

It was -20°C. I was wearing 2 pairs of socks, thermal under layers, a jumper, my work pants and work jacket, a beanie, a buff, and 2 pairs of gloves. And I was still cold. Nat showed me how to use the shit-pickers to scoop the frozen faeces into the wheelbarrow and told me to ignore the dogs in the kennel until after I’d collected their poo. Then I could let them sniff me, say hello and give them a pat. There were two dogs per kennel, each with their own little house so that they could get out of the cold. I hesitated at first. Could they smell my nervousness? Would they jump up at me? Bite me?

Bob was a big boy, and although he was chemically castrated, even I could smell his testosterone. He backed away from me when I offered out a gloved hand. It was silent. He barked. Then the whole kennel erupted with barking and howling. It felt like a chorus of rejection. I hurried out of the kennel, locking their door behind me. When the barking and howling had subsided, I tried again with Collin and Yard. This time, it went better. Collin jumped up at me and tried to lick my face, and Yard made happy noises that sounded a lot like a pig. Their tails wagged profusely.

Nat gave me a run-down during coffee break. Every morning was the same. The handlers shit-picked the kennels, the guides fed the dogs. If there were tours that day, we set up the sleds and the fireplace for the guests. After coffee break, if there were tours, we would harness the running dogs and put them in line so that they were ready for when the guests arrived. If there was room, sometimes the handlers could join the tours. If there wasn’t room, we stayed behind and kept the fire going. On days that we didn’t have tours, we would let the dogs out to free run in the kennel in groups, for around an hour per group.

By the time we stopped for lunch, I couldn’t feel my fingers or my toes. The staff room was my warm paradise, and I felt my body slowly warm up. The pins and needles were painful, but a necessary stage to thawing out. The day felt longer than it actually was, because we had to whip out our headtorches at 3pm. The dogs got fed again, and we had to rinse down all of the equipment (but first we had to boil the kettle and defrost the tap so the hose would work). When we got home, I was exhausted.