A new starter on the busiest week
Three students start the week before the summer holidays. They are keen and they like dogs. What they do not know is how you clean a run between dogs, which disinfectant goes where, how feed rounds work, where the owner's food is stored, which dogs are never walked together, how to fill in the medication chart, or what to do if a dog slips its lead in the car park.
Your head kennel hand is supposed to show them. She is also doing arrivals, rounds and three medication schedules. The students pick it up in bits, from whoever is nearby, and each learns a slightly different version.
Training lives in one person
Most kennels do not have written routines. The routines exist, and they are good, but they live in the heads of the people who have worked there longest.
- There is no written guide to the daily routine.
- Training happens by shadowing, during the busiest weeks.
- Each new starter learns from whoever they are paired with that day.
- Nobody records who has been shown what, and when.
- Returning seasonal staff come back a year later having forgotten half of it.
The cost of learning on the job
New staff who are unsure make more mistakes and take longer. Experienced staff who are training while working get tired and short-tempered, and they cut corners on their own jobs to cover.
There is also the question of evidence. If something goes wrong with a new starter, being able to show what they were trained in and when matters, both for your own review and possibly for your licence.
An induction built from your routines
What we build captures your routines once and uses them to induct every new starter.
- We sit with your most experienced staff and write up each routine as a short guide with photos: run cleaning between dogs, feed round, medication sign-off, walking rules, arrivals, collections and what to do in the situations you care about.
- New starters get the guides on their phone before their first shift, so day one is not the first time they see them.
- Each routine has a sign-off: a senior watches the new starter do it and signs them off in the system.
- During their first weeks, tasks appear as checklists on the kennel tablet, so new staff tick through steps rather than guessing.
- Until signed off, new starters are not rostered alone on tasks that need it, which the rota planner can check.
- Returning seasonal staff get a refresher and sign-off at the start of each season.
| Routine | Guide | Sign-off by |
|---|---|---|
| Cleaning a run between dogs | Steps and photos | Head kennel hand |
| Feed round | List and storage map | Any senior |
| Medication sign-off | Step-by-step | Senior, observed twice |
| Walking and group play rules | Rules and dog notes | Head kennel hand |
The routines are yours. We write them the way your team does them. Health and safety, employment and animal welfare requirements should be checked by your own adviser.
First week, done differently
The three students read the guides at home the weekend before. On Monday they each shadow a routine, then do it while a senior watches and signs them off. By Wednesday they are doing feed rounds with the tablet checklist. Your head kennel hand spends her time on the tricky dogs, not explaining where the disinfectant is.
Is your induction a busy colleague?
- Seasonal staff start in your busiest weeks.
- There are no written routines, only what people remember.
- Each new starter learns a slightly different version.
- You have no record of who was trained on what.
- Returning staff need retraining every year from scratch.