The Dogs
- Map of the dog yard
- This is a map of the yard where the dogs live. It is mostly to scale and fairly accurate. The map is oriented such that the large dog yard gate is on the bottom left. This makes the compas headings a bit awkward, as West is at the top. In general, boys are on the left, and girls are on the right.
- Map of the staging area
- This is a map of the area where the dogs are staged during the day. The angles are a bit off, but it is pretty accurate. Since the chains are short and the dogs are very close together, we need to make sure dogs that get along well together are staged near each other. In general, the boys are on the bottom, and the girls are on the top.
- Exercise Groups
- When we are not busy, we turn the dogs loose in the exercise yard. To ensure a good time for all, we have to engineer the groups such that everyone gets along. Exercise groups are fairly static, staying about the same from year to year. In general, each group is either boys or girls.
- Food Consumption
- This is the report we look at to figure out how much food to order each week. We frequently update this report by changing the number of calories that each dog to currently consuming. Calorie consumption changes throuhout the year depending on the temperature and activity level. We then convert the number of calories per dog into a number of bags per day and per week. We can also figure out how much money we are spending for each dog per year and then the total dollars spent per year on feeding.
- Rides per Day
- This report shows the maximum number of sled trips a dog can handle in one day. We use this report to see how many sleds per day we can handle. During the summer and fall, we look forward with this report to see if we need to acquire more dogs before the season starts.
- Master Team List
- During the winter, we print out this report everyday. We can integrate the list with the reservation data to show the names, weights and home states of all the customers on that day. It allows the drivers to have a better idea of how much weight they will be pulling that day and gives them a heads up in thinking of ways to shift dogs around if there are heavy time slots. The report also shows the average age of the dogs on each team as well as the harness profile. The harness profile is the long number that tells the driver how many of each size harness they need to get in order to harness the dogs.
My Tax Dollars Hard at Work
Here are some links that show my tax dollars hard at work. And remember, all corporate taxes are paid by consumers.
- PACFA Rules
- 122 pages of rules. There is no sled dog touring business category, but they want to regulate us anyway, so we are lumped into the small breeder class; section 12
- Our Most Recent Inspection Report
- Every once in a while, an inspector comes out to poke around. They make sure we are following the rules in the above document and make sure the dogs look OK.
- Our PACFA License
- If the inspection goes well, and all of the paper work is filled out, and my check clears, I get a nifty little license to hang on the wall and post on the website.
- Our 2011 Exercise Plan
- According to one of the rules in the above link, we are required to submit an annual exercise plan for each of our dogs. Follow the link to see the description of our plan and the specific exercise plans for each individual dog.