Paperwork with a little puppy mixed in

Robin Daniels, a shelter assistant at the Mat-Su Animal Care and Regulation Shelter, has been working with animals since she was a teen-ager, when she ran sled dogs.

"Sometimes I can read animals better than I can read people," said Daniels, who has been working at the shelter full-time since February 2000.

While part of Daniels' day is cleaning, feeding and watering the animals that are housed at the borough shelter, a big part of her day is dealing with the public, and a lot of paperwork.

"When I get tired of looking at paperwork I go and look at the dogs to refocus," said Daniels, who estimates she spends around two hours of her day working directly with the animals and the rest of the day dealing with adoption paperwork, vaccinations, records management and the occasional off-site registration clinics in the outskirts of the Valley.

Daniels, a long-time Valley resident who graduated from Palmer High School in 1991, worked at the shelter in 1995 for two years as an on-call shelter assistant, and then returned to the shelter after spending some time as a veterinarian assistant. She's raised horses, pigs and dogs; right now she has a blue heeler named Jodee, and recently lost her other dog, an American bulldog named C.D., to old age. Daniels says that each person working at the shelter has his or her own breeds that they are partial to, blue heelers and American bulldogs are her favorites, and that sometimes dogs and cats from the shelter end up going home with an employee.

"At one point or another, we all have rescued an animal," said Daniels. "I've gotten to a point where I know I can't take any more home."

Daniels says that in order to do her job, a person has to have a lot of compassion, not only for animals, but for people as well. She says that it is important to not only love animals, but also have a good grasp on people skills, because she spends a lot of time interacting with the people who come into the shelter.

"Most of the time I like working with the people, although there's always some that need to learn a little more sense," said Daniels.

"That's when I say 'have fun' and I go back and check on the animals," she joked.

Daniels favorite part of her job is seeing the animals being adopted or returned to their owners, and getting to play with the puppies and kittens. She says that one of the most challenging parts of the job is reading some of the more unpredictable animals; because Daniels has close contact with the animals, she has to make sure they do not lunge at her during feeding and watering each day. The hardest part of her job is seeing animals that have been neglected.

"It's hard to see the animals that come in that are not in the best of health or are injured," said Daniels. "One of the worst parts is telling an owner their animal has been killed by a car."

While that part of the job makes some days hard, having a variety in work duties and lovable animals to keep spirits high makes working at the shelter a job that Daniels says she loves.

"(I'm proud) when I see the animals go to a good home and when I talk to people and they understand what kind of training that animal really needs."