Internship In K9 Canine Kennels

On June 2018, I had an internship at a local dog kennel. This internship was inspired by my mom’s friend, who is a science teacher in German International School. She wrote a post about how important an internship is in our learning process, as it gives us experience in the field that we are interested in. So.... I decided to do one. I wanted to do something related to animals, because I love animals. First, I made 2 CVs. One was for an NGO (Non-Government Organization) involved with animal welfare and the other one for K9 Canine kennels, run by drh.Titi and Om Tatung, a veterinarian and dog trainer. It provides boarding & training for dogs. I was accepted in the latter.

K9 Canine Kennels is located in Ciputat. It’s pretty far from my house. They’re open from 9:00 – 18:00, but drh.Titi and Om Tatung will come sometime around 12 p.m. All dogs are welcome in the kennel, there are even dogs from shelters staying there! When drh.Titi received my CV, I was immediately accepted. It might be because I was a long time client of hers. I was allowed to work there as long as I wanted, and was even allowed to turn up any time! I started around the end of May, near the Eid-Al Fitr holidays. During long holidays like these, the kennel is usually at full capacity as people usually can’t bring their dogs along with them. My internship lasted a total of 16 days, but I didn’t go to the kennel every day. I initially planned to do my internship for 14 days, but then I extended it, for reasons you will read later on. I didn’t receive any salary for my internship.

I felt pretty excited to do my internship and I expected myself to be really busy on my first few days. Somehow, I really like being busy. However, contrary to my expectations, I wasn’t busy on my first few days. All I did was watch the kennel boys and carried out simple tasks under supervision. My day usually started at 9:00 to 4:30. My everyday chores included feeding and bathing dogs; and taking away the dogs’ dirty bowls. When I had free time, I usually talked with Om Tatung, the head dog trainer there.

My first chore when I arrived at the kennel in the morning was to clear away the dogs’ food bowls that hadn’t been taken away. Usually the food bowls would be taken away by the kennel boys after the dogs finished their meals, but some dogs take much longer to finish their foods. A lot of factors may affect the dogs’ unwillingness to eat, such as sicknesses. The kennel boys would leave the bowls until sometime later, hoping that the dogs would finish their meals. While I was clearing their food bowls, I would also refill their water.

This task wasn’t as fast or as easy as it appeared to be. There were times when the dog escaped from its cage when I tried to take the food bowls. It depended on the position of the bowl in the cage. Some bowls were close enough for me to reach without entering the cage. Some were placed a bit farther in the cage. In these cases, I had to actually enter the cage to be able to reach the bowl. Sometimes the dog would slip out when I open the cage’s door to enter. Luckily, the cages were all in an enclosed area, so no dogs escaped out of the kennel.

My next chore was to bath the dogs. I learned to bath dogs with and without skin problems. During my first few days there, I was supervised by the kennel boys when bathing the latter, because I still couldn’t bath and dry a dog well. Bathing a dog wrongly could result in skin problems. For the dogs with skin problems, I was always supervised by the vet, as there were a variety of problems which require different medications.

During bath time, most dogs are usually calm. First I brought the dogs out from their cage on a leash, then I chained them onto the bathing area. This would prevent them from escaping. After that I would pour a mixture of soap and water over their body then scrub it. Some dogs didn’t like certain parts of their body touched, but as they were chained, they couldn’t really defend themselves. I just had to watch out for the nips and warning bites the dogs made whenever they had the chance. I had to bath the smaller dogs quickly because they usually get cold easily.

Bathing a labrador puppy

The most difficult part was drying them up. We use a blower in the kennel. Blowers emit a really powerful wind from the tubes. We have to put the tube really close to the dogs’ bodies to make sure the skin and hidden furs are dry too. Small dogs are often feisty no matter which part of body the blower tube blow. For bigger dogs, they usually are feisty when their heads are being blown.

Drying up huskies with a blower.

I also learned some tips and tricks during my internship. I had difficulties in cutting dogs’ nails, as they often wouldn’t keep still. The dogs’ would freak out whenever the nail clipper touches their paws. A trick I learned was to cut their paws while bathing them, so the dog was distracted with all the water, soap and scrubbing. I also learned not to comb a dog for too long because all the pulling of the fur could hurt the dog. I was in charge of grooming a dog that was to be picked up on a certain day and I wanted the dog to look “perfect”, with straight fur like those dogs in show competitions. I guess I groomed it for too long and was reminded by the kennel boy that combing too much could hurt the dog. Luckily, it wasn’t hurt.

Not the dog that I combed for too long.

In the evening, I prepared the dogs’ meals. I only prepared the evening meals because their morning meals were prepared really early in the morning, before I came. There were a variety of dog food, cooked and raw meat, veggies, fruits, milk, and broth. Some dog owners also brought their own pet’s meals. I was responsible for some cages, and I had to memorize the foods that the dogs’ in those cages eat. It could get pretty hard when the dogs that occupy the cages kept on changing.

Feeding the dogs

Every morning and evening the cages were cleaned by the kennel boys. Somehow, I wasn’t offered to clean the cages, so I decided to ask them to teach me. I had to scrub away all the muck and wash them out. It was pretty tiring and smelly, but at least I made their temporary living space clean.
If a dog just moved out and its cage wasn’t needed urgently, the cage was sprayed with flea repellents. I was taught to pump the flea repellent formula into the sprayer. I had to spray carefully around the cage and avoid the other cages. The flea repellent is poisonous when licked by the dogs, and can cause death.

I got my first bite from a dog when I was doing this internship. The most painful was when I caught a runway black dog. It was my mistake; I tried to pick him up from the back without any warning. Surprised, the dog turned around and bit my hand in self defence. But from that, I learned that I must let him sniff my hand so that he knows me, then put a leash around his neck slowly, without any shocking movements.

The proper way to meet a dog. Put out your hand for it to sniff, then slowly touch its body or put a leash around its neck.

I was also taught to prepare vaccines for the dogs. During my first times preparing them, I couldn’t get the vaccines out from the bottles into the syringe. They kept on getting stuck, and I was always helped by vet Titi. Towards the end of my internship though, I was able to prepare a lot of vaccines, and even vaccinated police dogs!

Preparing vaccines under the supervision of drh.Titi.

Preparing vaccines for the police dogs 

I also talked about some of the jobs police dogs have. I’m quite interested in police dogs, because they seem cool. Om Tatung explained that the most common police dog jobs in Indonesia are as detection dogs. They are usually trained to do human tracking and sniff out bombs and narcotics. Now, some dogs were trained to detect illegal food and things brought into an airport, not limited to just bombs and narcotics. There are also detection dogs that were trained for detecting certain sicknesses, such as cancer and diabetes, but those types of dogs are still not trained here in Indonesia.

My favourite chore out of all of them was bathing dogs. It’s because I would often get wet after bathing them (especially the big dogs) and it’s like I’m playing with water. I also enjoyed watching the water drops sprayed out of the dogs’ body by the blower.

In the kennel, I fell in love with a Rottweiler called Joey. He’s from a shelter and is staying in the kennel. It was because of him that I extended my internship until 16 days. I visited him every Saturday. He came into the shelter because he disappointed his owner. His previous owner bought him to guard the house, but as Joey was a happy go lucky clown and really friendly, a thief came into his owner’s house and stole a laptop. Disappointed in Joey’s inability to scare the thief away, the owner threatened the shelter to take him or else he would be abandoned into the road. Joey’s previous owner had a reputation of abandoning dogs and buying new ones right after abandoning the other dogs, with many different minor reasons of abandoning his dogs. When I was in my internship, I played with Joey. He was a big strong dog though and I couldn’t control him. I talked with Om Tatung about how I should control dogs properly. He taught me that I should establish myself as Joey’s leader, and not obey whatever Joey wanted. Instead, Joey should be the one to obey me.

It was usually the kennel boys’ jobs to bath Joey, but as I came every Saturday on my extended internship, it became my job to take care of him. I bathed him, brought him out, and trained him. He wasn’t feisty in his bath, but he was especially naughty. He liked to grab things that he could reach with his mouth and paws and chewed them like a toy. This included the blower, the shampoo bottle, etc. That’s why I always brought him a toy from the kennel’s dog toy collections for him to chew. I taught Joey some commands under Om Tatung using toys, as he had a high play drive. The problem was that once Joey gets hold of a toy, he didn’t want to give it back. He would bite anyone who wanted to take his toy out of protectiveness. The bite wasn’t strong enough to make my hands bleed, but they hurt. Thus, Om Tatung taught me many different ways to teach Joey not to be overprotective with his belongings.

Joey's bath time!

Joey and his toy

All done!

I really loved these extra times I spent with Joey but he was eventually brought back to the shelter. Therefore, I also ended my internship.This has really been a great experience for me. I learned a lot of dog husbandry and training methods from my internship. It was a really fun experience, and I hope to do it again but in a different place. I hope this experience would be helpful with my dreams to be a veterinarian.