Sexy Lexi!

As with Noah, we had the honor of overnighting Sexy Lexi for 2 nights. Lexi lives in the Angel Lodges, so we were a bit surprised when we found out she was on the approved list for sleepover dogs at Quail Park.

Before Lexi joined us, we had seen her with two separate Quail Park guests earlier in the week. We introduced ourselves to those volunteers when we saw them, and explained that Lexi would be staying with us in a few days. We wanted to find out a little more about her temparament, likes, dislikes, etc. Everyone said she is fabulous, and they were absolutely right. However, the also said she was a bit...shall we say energetic...so we weren't sure what exactly to expect.

Once we finally got Lexi to our room and could bond with her, we discovered a perfect little gem. If we wanted to play, she was all for it. If we wanted to rest, she just asked that we give her a little space on the bed to curl up and snuggle. She was absolutely wonderful and not at all the spaz we thought we we'd be getting! Trust me though, when we wanted to play she was up for the challenge but was just as happy to go with the flow. She loved going for car rides, walks, and having dinner with us on the hotel patio. She is housetrained and is a complete love!

We found out that poor Lexi actually had a home but unfortunately her person got into some trouble with the law. Prior to this, BF staff had helped her person learn how to properly care for her, and they immediately stepped up to the plate when Lexi needed them most. When her person was sentenced, Lexi found herself in the wonderful hands of the Lodges staff, and she waits patiently now for her next FOREVER home to find her.

If you visit BF, treat yourself to getting to know her a little bit. She is a great ambassador for Pitties everywhere!! Might I also suggest you take her on an overnight adventure... If you don't lose your heart forever I'll be shocked!

Little Bunny Foo Foo or Little Bunny Boo Boo?

Parting is such sweet sorrow. Although by this point in our trip, my husband thought for sure Kim would be sick of me and happy to have a few hours to herself! LOL!

As you probably guessed, Kim & I went our separate ways this morning. She headed over to Feathered Friends and I went to the Bunny House. They are within walking distance to each other and to Angel’s Village (the restaurant), which made splitting up for the morning pretty easy. While Kim seems to have soared through her chores with the birds (lol!), the work at Bunny’s House, not quite so easy! (Just kidding of course. Kim worked her tail off as well!)

There were only 3 of us with the bunnies that day – me, a “permanent” volunteer, and the bunny caregiver. Additional volunteers had signed up but were no shows (grrr…), and the other staff members were up at Area 51 which is where the 300+ Reno Rabbits reside.

Side note – If you’re not familiar with the Reno Rabbits, I’ll give a brief explanation. In 2006, Best Friends, along with other rabbit rescues across the country, learned about a hoarder in Reno who had somewhere close to 1000 rabbits in the backyard. The rabbits who survived the ordeal were sent to different rescue groups, with close to 600 going to a group in Michigan. Times got tough for the Michigan rescue, and earlier this year 312 of the Michigan bunnies made their way back to Kanab to call Best Friends home (until they find their permanent homes of course!). BF set up an area known as Area 51 for these bunnies, and as you can imagine caring for 312 of them takes just a few sets of hands!! Which is the main reason there was only 1 staff member at Bunny House today.

Anyhoo, since they were so short staffed and low on volunteers, I was asked if I would mind cleaning the first bunny house as the caregiver went about administering meds. She felt bad because she said that normally she asks volunteers to do the “fun” stuff like socializing the bunnies, making them toys out of toilet paper rolls, etc. I didn’t mind cleaning at all, as it was obvious she needed help in a bad way.

So, with Rosemary and Sage by my side (the white bunnies in the slideshow), I set about cleaning their building and hoping none of their neighbors escaped (or fought!) on my watch! It was kinda funny because there is a huge sign on Rosemary’s door that says she is a biter. No sooner did I read that, I hear the caregiver asking if I would mind Rosemary being let out because she’s used to hopping around as the staff cleans the runs. She assured me that Rosemary had never bitten her “hard”, which had me a little concerned because you’ll note she didn’t say that Rosemary had never bitten! Anyway, Rosemary was a great cleaning companion and although she liked hanging out by my feet and attacking my broom, not once did she come even close to taking a chunk out of me!

The cleaning took the better part of 3 hours, and afterwards I was rewarded with a bowl of Cheerios to go and socialize with the bunnies in other buildings. They are all so stinking cute, and most took the Cheerios right out of my hand or off of my knee.

I did learn this morning, though, that Little Bunny Foo Foo doesn’t stop at bopping field mice in their heads…they go after knees as well! I’m kidding but in all honestly, I somehow really screwed up my left knee while I was there. All I had to do was to walk across a parking lot in order to get to Angel’s Village for lunch with Kim, but I made it about ½ way across and experienced the most excruciating pain E.V.E.R., and was in tears by the time I sat at our outside table. While Kim was inside getting her food, another volunteer came by & asked if i was okay. I didn't realize my sniffling was as audible as it was! Embarrased to say I couldn't handle a couple fluffy bunnies without severely injuring myself, I lied and said that I was just taken back by the stunning views offered at the Angel's Village patio!

By the end of lunch my knee was done and I had no idea how I would manage to get through the rest of the day, much less the rest of our time at Best Friends.

So, while I was playing with the fluffy bunnies, Kim had a wonderful time with the birds. She met a family of 4 Parrots (I believe) who previously lived with a hoarder. This person had so many birds in her basement, she didn’t realize that this particular male & female had mated & had babies until a year later. She discovered the kiddo’s living happily in their parents cage with them, and at that point their size indicated they had been with mom & pop for about a year but no person realized they were there!

Kim also got a tour of the Wildlife Rehab Center, which she really enjoyed. She met a pair of young opossums, geese, owls, falcons, and a whole list of others that I know I am forgetting. Sorry!

Here is the slideshow of our morning. We volunteered at Cat Village in the afternoon, which I’ll post about separately.

Pup My Ride, Amra and the Lodges

We dropped Noah back off at the Fairway at 8:10am. It was so hard to say goodbye to him, but we knew we’d see him again at the end of the day.

We were supposed to be at the Dogtown Headquarters at 8:15am for our volunteer orientation video, but we didn’t get there till after 8:30am. Noah’s caretaker, Brian, practically begged us to run up to Old Friends first to pick up two puppies who were moving into the Fairway, but had no ride to their new digs. Brian had ridden his motorcycle to work that day, so he wasn’t able to get his new charges himself. We were happy to “lend a paw” but weren’t sure how the volunteer coordinators would feel about our late arrival. We went anyway, and asked Brian to radio headquarters and let them know what we were up to.

We met the Old Friends caretaker at the gate, and she promptly handed over one of THE cutest puppies ever named Bangles. He gave great kisses and was a wonderful passenger. Turns out other volunteers arrived right after us, so they took the 2nd furry passenger down to Brian so that Kim & I could get over to HQ asap. Bangles was a little nervous about the whole thing, but the other puppy was absolutely TERRIFIED. Poor thing. He wouldn’t get in the truck at all, was petrified of the volunteers and just about everything else. It was very sad because when you think of puppies, usually you envision little fluff balls happily prancing along without a care in the world except where the next chew toy or ball was coming from. It was pathetic to see a puppy so young so terrified. What horrible things had he already been through to be that scared??

Anyway, we made our way over to HQ but by the time we got there, the video was nearly over. Patti, the coordinator, told us we could have a private showing once she passed out the duties to the volunteers who were actually on time! I had seen the video previously so I wasn’t that worried about watching it, but it was a good refresher for me and Kim learned a lot of great safety info. After the video we talked to Patti for awhile and then headed over to the Amra Octagon in the Clubhouse portion of Dogtown Heights.

The dogs who live at Amra consist of puppy mills rescues and dogs who are, shall we say, picky about their doggie friends and are most comfortable living alone. Mostly Pits and Amstaffs. Beautiful, wonderful dogs who do great with people just not other dogs. We met their caretaker, Jake, on Wednesday’s tour so we were excited to actually work with him. He asked us if we’d like to walk the dogs and we said absolutely!

Jake asked if I would be comfortable walking a stunning boy named Debo, who is a Pittie and purple collar. (Side note – Best Friends uses a color coded collar system. Green means anyone can interact with the dog. Purple means no one under 18. Yellow means medical condition and can only be walked by staff. Red means staff only).

Debo is a very distinguished fellow who prefers a proper introduction before being sent on his way to walk with a stranger. For this reason, and because I have more experience with Pits than Kim does, we all agreed that I should be Debo’s walker. Our intro went great and soon the two of us were on our way. The day was beautiful and Debo & I enjoyed our time together. That is, until time to head back to Amra. As soon as we got off the hiking trail and on the road back to Amra, Debo decided he wasn’t ready to say goodbye yet and he promptly sat his tushie under a tree. And stayed. And didn’t budge no matter how hard I tried or how much I bribed. Debo is a pretty hefty boy and there was no way I was getting him to move. Around that time, Kim appeared at the other end of the trail with her dog and I shouted to her to get Jake to rescue me from Debo’s stubbornness. It took Jake & me another 10 minutes to get Debo back to Amra but we were finally successful.

Just because I like to learn as much as possible about these dogs, I asked Jake how Debo ended up at Best Friends. He told me that his poor boy had been hit by a semi, which broke his back and jaw. He was brought to the BF clinic after the accident but his person never came back to get him once he recovered from his injuries.

I walked China Girl next, and absolutely fell in love. China is a Hurricane Katrina survivor, and is just so excited to have a second chance at love and a furever home. She L.O.V.E.S. people and adores any affection that comes her way. She’s a bouncy, happy, larger than life girl who is just waiting for her new family to find her.

Another Katrina survivor named Shocky was the next pooch to steal my heart. She is all about fun, play, joy and laughing. She definitely kept me entertained on our walk. She’s a trip and although she made my right arm a bit longer than my left each time she saw a lizard, she absolutely captured my soul.

Jake brought Wiggles out to me next, a gorgeous midnight black Pittie girl with ears cropped so close to her head it brought tears to my eyes. She is undergoing heartworm treatment so our walk was only 5 minutes, but what a 5 minutes it was! Her personality is as beautiful as her coat, and while I don’t know much about her past I do know her future is full of possibilities (that DON’T include a dog fighting ring).

After Wiggles and I said goodbye to each other, I ended my walking session with sweet little Bat Girl. She has about the wackiest ears I’ve ever seen, hence her name! I tried my best to get a photo of her, but true to her breed she was nothing but a mass of wiggly dog who almost wiggled herself out of her skin each time I pet her. I hated bringing her back to her run because she had so much fun on our outing but I know she is in excellent hands with Jake.

By that time, all the dogs had been walked and I asked Jake if I could spend some time socializing with Beauregard. Oh.My.Goodness. Be still my heart. Beau has a heart condition that is likely terminal but for the time being, Beau isn’t letting that diagnosis stop him from being the absolute sweetest dog on the planet. All he wanted to do was curl himself up on my lap and become one with my soul. Which, by the way, he did. 100%. His little face is haunting me still, and I so hope he finds his family long before his condition robs him from that chance. Sweet Beau, I hope you know how much I love you. How is it possible to spend 45 minutes with a dog, but be touched by them forever?

After lunch at Angel’s Village (Best Friends restaurant for staff & volunteers), we headed over to volunteer at the Lodges. The Lodges is a portion of Dogtown for dogs who are happier not sharing their run with a doggie roommate, or with a very special, very carefully selected roomie. The Lodges has mainly Pits and Amstaffs, but there are also other breeds, as well as red collar dogs. We met Jorge, a Lodges caregiver, and he asked us to clean a few of the swimming pools on the Angel’s side of the Lodges.

We started off with Rueben, who I met on my first trip to BF. It was a great reunion, but Rue has been at Best Friends waiting for his home for far too long. He is an amazingly wonderful dog who just thrives on attention. He wants to be your bestest friend ever, if only you’ll let him. He is incredibly affectionate, loves to receive belly rubs and to give kisses. He is extremely muscular and impressive looking which may be intimidating when you first see him, but he is nothing but a huge, huggable, lovable baby. In fact, he even made an adoption video, hoping the right person would see it and finally bring him home. Check it out here, and PLEASE contact Best Friends (or me!) if you want more info on him.
Rueben's Pool

We tackled Orlando’s pool next, and were quite entertained by this bouncy, happy black Lab! Talk about personality, he is FULL of it! He is very people oriented and treat motivated, so training him would likely be easy and fun. Orlando wants so badly to have his own person/people, and is well worth the inquiry you may be considering right now.

Heidi & Woody may share a run, but it looked like Woody was the only pool user. Heidi, the little princess, was much too dignified to let us see her with wet fur. Woody is also quite the hole digger, but what would you expect when 2 strangers come in and steal your beloved pool for a few minutes. These two dogs are so sweet and loveable, and deserving of their own yard with a pool or digging area.

And then, there’s Spuds… WOW! Talk about impressive. Talk about a big love muffin. Talk about a noggin!!!! This dog has the most enormous head ever. As big as his head is, his heart is even bigger! The tail never stops, the kisses never stop, the snuggling never stops until he’s curled up, big head and all, on your lap melting away in your arms. Sweet Spuds, what I whispered in your ear the last time I saw you will soon become my morning and evening prayer. I miss you already, and I’m not even gone yet.

So, that wrapped up our careers as dog pool cleaners. It was hard, back breaking, but GRATIFYING work. As a thank you, each dog (minus Heidi of course) immediately jumped into their fresh pools, grateful for the attention and care we had just bestowed upon them. What they don’t know, though, is how an hour with each of them impacted each of our lives.

Forever.

Introducing Noah!

So what’s one of the most exciting parts of visiting Best Friends? Enjoying one of their dogs on an overnight visit! Sleepover Dogs is a great program that benefits not only the dogs, but…

1. the volunteers get to fill the void of missing their own pets back home
2. the evaluations provided by the BF volunteers help the staff to learn what areas to work on with the dogs
3. and potential adopters get to read each evaluation to help decide if the dog they’re interested in would be a good match for their family
   

Sleepovers are amazing for all parties, but especially the dogs that get a much needed break from their runs. They are exposed to all kinds of things they’ll encounter once they do get adopted, such as televisions, hair dryers, microwaves, traffic, car rides, beds, showers, slamming doors and drawers, and the list goes on and on. Many of the dogs at Dogtown have never seen or heard any of these things, much less dealt with them day in and day out. Anyway, I’m a HUGE fan of overnights if you can’t tell, so I’d like to introduce you to our new pal, Noah.

Simply put, Noah is F.A.B.U.L.O.U.S. If I didn’t have a male aggressive dog at home, Noah would be on the first plane back to Virginia. He is a yellow lab / husky mix, and there may be something else in there also. No matter what his mix is, he has the best qualities of each breed!! I’m not sure how old he is, or how he ended up at Best Friends, but we plan on finding all that out before we leave. I do know that he’s been at the Sanctuary for about 4 months, and with his outstanding personality, hilarious personality, and stunning good looks, I doubt he’ll be around much longer. He is a star here and everyone recognized him and knew his name, regardless of whether we were walking him at Best Friends or in Kanab.

We kept Noah with us for two days, Thursday and Friday. After we picked Noah up the first day and we all introduced ourselves, the 3 of us went to Rocking V Café for a scrumptious dinner on the patio. Noah did great with all the traffic (foot and vehicle) and loved the attention he received from passersby. He was a great ambassador for Best Friends and rescue dogs!! We took him on walks through “downtown” Kanab, took him on car rides, and introduced him to lots of people. No matter what we did he behaved phenomenally and was always ready for the next adventure.

Yes, I cried when we returned Noah this morning. Yes, I’m missing him like crazy now. I love this boy and am so honored to have spent the past 2 days with him. If there is such a thing as a perfect dog, you’ll see Noah’s picture beside the definition. Love, love, love this boy and I cannot wait to hear he has found his furever family. Could that be you by chance??!!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Road Trip

Day 3 - Thursday, August 6, 2009

Today we took the day off from volunteering and drove to the north rim of the Grand Canyon. It should have taken about 1.5 hrs to get there, but with all of our stopping for photo shoots and whatnot it was probably closer to 3 hrs! The drive was just stunning.

I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves – absolutely amazing!! The best part of the day (aside from picking up our overnight doggie Noah), was seeing a herd of wild Bison on our way to the Grand Canyon. A.M.A.Z.I.N.G.!!!!

I'll make a separate post about Noah, because he deserves all of your attention. For now, enjoy these pix from the Canyon!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Goat Herding and Poopology

Day 2 - Wednesday, August 5, 2009

We had our volunteer orientation at 9:30am, video at 10am and tour at 10:30 this morning. The volunteer video has changed since I saw it in 2007. BF updated it with the Vicktory Dogs, and their latest Puppies aren’t Products campaigns. Kim & I walked out of the video room in tears, but SO GRATEFUL we have both been given this opportunity to help everyone at BF this week, including the amazing animals in their care.

We headed over to Angel Village for a wonderful lunch with an equally wonderful view. BF invites volunteers to join staff members for a vegetarian lunch each day, and let me tell you it was amazing. We had tomato basil soup, grilled cheese sandwiches, potato salad, blueberries, peaches, salad, chocolate cookies, and I’m sure other things that I’m forgetting. Regardless, it was fabulous & we had to roll ourselves to the car afterwards.

After lunch we made our way over to Horse Haven for our video orientation at 1:15pm. I was sad to see that Britt, the Horse Haven welcome piggie, wasn’t there to greet us as she did back in 2007. Sadly, she recently passed the Rainbow Bridge, and there was a memorial set up for her on the Horse Haven counter. Kim & I grabbed stones to lay on her tombstone and to keep for ourselves.

Once the video ended, we teamed up with BF staffers Margaret and Ronnie, volunteers Richard & Vicki, and intern Michelle for a special “project.” Hmmmm….

Turns out we were to build chutes to switch goats from one enclosure to another. Apparently, the mother daughter goat team of Emily & Lydia doesn’t enjoy the grass in their area, so they weren’t keeping it as tidy as they should. However, the goats at the far field - Maggie, Olivia, Joseph, and one other I can’t remember – aren’t nearly as finicky so our project was to switch everyone which trust me, sounds easier than it really was! Not to say it wasn’t fun though!! I can honestly say I never thought I would be a goat herder but I loved it! They were so funny, and we especially fell in love with little Olivia. Once all the goats were in their new homes, we moved a few of their houses around, then sat back to admire our hard work while the goats happily munched away on their new grass.

About an hour after it all started, we switched tasks and went with Margaret to the horse pastures for the all important task of mucking. Yup, we became poopologists for the rest of the afternoon. As unglamorous as it was, we had a BLAST and the ladies we were teamed with were all wonderful. Margaret, the BF staff member, took us to a hidden jewel that is close to the pasture on the other side of Kanab Creek. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

During the mucking, I was able to catch up again with Alex the Great, Grandpa Bernie, Cowboy and a few other horses I met back in 2007. For those of you who have visited BF before, Alex is now in the Disney pasture with a beautiful 35 year old Arabian named Yasmine, and the two are best buddies. Loved seeing him again!

We then moved on to grooming Mercer, Luna and a few of their friends in the pasture right outside of the BF cottages. We also hung out with a new horse, Sasha, who was completely feral when she arrived at BF. She and her horse friend were previously owned by an idiot who “forgot” to feed them for TWO YEARS, and they were both severely malnourished and underweight when they arrived at BF. Sasha had also been bound at her hooves and drug by a truck at one point, so it’s no wonder whatsoever that she didn’t trust humans at all. Once she realized she is safe at BF, that the food is plentiful, and that she is loved, she slowly started lowering her wall and now she is thriving. She is starting to enjoy being around humans, and she actually nudged us a few times through her gate. She has gained back the weight she lost and she is absolutely stunning.

My internet connection is still iffy so I'll post an update on day 3 as soon as I can. For now, enjoy the slideshow of day 2!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

5 hr flight + 4 hr car drive =

Pure heaven once you finally arrive in Kanab, UT! I wanted to blog last night when we arrived but I was so exhausted I was lucky to know my own name.

The flight from Dulles to Vegas went well, but we did have a little more than an hour of pretty intense turbulence. We landed in Vegas around 10:30 and it took F.O.R.E.V.E.R. to finally get our rental car. Then it took F.O.R.E.V.E.R. to get down the Vegas strip. We finally made it to the highway around 1:30 and drove 4 hrs to Kanab. It was a very long day but we made it safely which is all that matters. Once we got settled into our room at Quail Park Lodge, we headed over to Escobar’s for a patio side Mexican dinner, then crashed hard in our ultra comfy pillow top beds.

By the end of the day we were both punchy from pure exhaustion, and were saying/doing some pretty crazy things. Kim’s favorite new word is “populization” and I seem to be fond of locking us out of our room. We also learned how spoiled we are at home. Things like automatic car door locks and windows are really missed right now!

We also met a few other Best Friends volunteers before calling it a night last night, and we fell asleep looking forward to our first real day at BF. Our internet connection is a little iffy, so I’ll post as often as I can. I’ll update you on day 2 tomorrow!