Field journal
When the boarding app says full and two runs are empty
A kennel in Pending closes online booking at noon on Friday because the app reports every run taken. At four, two indoor runs still have no bowl, no bed, and no card. The Sunday exercise book — the one the dawn staff actually trust — has names the app never received.
This happens when weekend requests arrive as a Facebook comment, a forwarded WhatsApp, or a note tucked under the office door, and nobody types them in before the “full” flag flips. The app is not lying so much as reading a list that stopped being the list.
We do not tell kennels to throw away the book. We ask them to photograph the Friday page and the occupancy screen at the same hour, for two weekends running. That pair of pictures is usually enough to see whether the drift is a missed intake, a cancelled board that still occupies a slot, or a staff member who will not type after 3 p.m. because the signal drops in the corridor.
A front-desk day is the wrong shape here. You want someone in the kennel aisle, reading cage cards, not someone at a consulting-room till.