And so it begins . . .

Hello all and welcome to the first installment of my new blog!
Let me start by saying that my plan for this blog is to create a simple and convenient way for me to keep in touch with family and friends across the globe. My computer access in the coming months will probably not be as regular as it has been and I decided that this was a good way to keep people updated on what I am doing. It also helps to avoid that guilty feeling you get when you don't have time to read someones email and you just end up deleting it; this way, you will be able to come to the blog when you like and read however much you want. This will be a place where I can relate stories from my life and keep in touch, an idea I stole from my world traveling friend Clair. Now to the good stuff . . .
As many of you know, I will be starting a new job as a Dog Caregiver at Best Friends Animal Society (BF for short) just outside of Kanab, UT this week. I arrived back in Boise from my visit in Ohio at 10:30pm last night (Sunday), I am packing up my stuff today and taking care of a few errands, and tomorrow I will be hitting the road bright and early for the ten hour drive to Kanab. I am a little under the weather at the moment - bit of a sore throat and cold - I spent some time Friday with a gang of first graders and I think I may have picked something up from them. So, assuming nothing worsens, I will start work at BF at 8:00am Wednesday morning. It is a tight schedule, I know, but I am so excited to start work that even if I planned on taking a few days to settle in before I started work, I would probably end up at the Sanctuary anyway; also, Kanab is a town of 4,000, so there's not a lot to do there.
For those of you unfamiliar with BF or the concept of a Dog Caregiver, here's the rundown. BF is the largest no-kill animal sanctuary in the US, taking in a variety of domestic animals, primarily dogs and cats, but also pigs, goats, horses, birds (domestic and exotic), and rabbits, among other critter, they also have a wildlife rehab facility. The sanctuary is located on 33,000 acres in Angel Canyon at the heart of Utah's high, red rock desert about 30 minutes from Zion Nat'l Park, maybe 60 minutes from Bryce Canyon Nat'l Park, and about two hours from the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. It has to be one of the most beautiful commutes to work in the US. The job itself will involve walking, feeding, and socializing with dogs, along with the requisite cleaning and poop scooping that comes with dogs. Facilites at the sanctuary are unlike most shelters in the US; rather than keeping dogs in cages or small single kennels, the goal is to keep them in "multi-dog" runs, allowing them to socialize with other dogs and learn from one another. Buildings are shaped like octagons with large outdoor runs radiating out from the building, dogs have indoor outdoor access pretty much all the time. Dogtown is the largest physical area of the sanctuary (there are more cats than dogs, but dogs require more space to run) and it is divided up into communities and sort of laid out like a little city. Old Dogtown is where the original dog buildings, Dogtown Headquarters, and the Clinic are located; Dogtown Heights was built starting in 2000 and is laid out as a "Gated Community" with two of the buildings dedicated specifically to older dogs, called Old Friends. I don't know where in Dogtown I will be working yet. People usually only work with one species (with the exception of caregivers at Horse Haven, who care for horses, goats, sheep, burros, and any other livestock in their area) and caregivers generally work in the same one or two buildings from day to day, which provides consistency for the animals and ensures that changes in their behavior are recognized more rapidly.
Well, that is probably enough information for now. I will do my best to get more posts up in the coming days as I get started with the job.
Just as a side note, there will be two more new episodes of DogTown, the National Geographic Channel's series chronicling the lives of dogs at BF. They will air this Friday and next Friday at 10pm eastern.
Okay, I gotta get packing!