Tasha's Progress

Well, I know I have been talking a lot about Tasha, the adorable cattle dog that has some issues with human affection, but she is just making so much progress that I can't help but be excited for her. This past week was a very good one for her. She loves to go for rides in the golf cart (or cars, whatever), she just sits on the seat and watches the world go whizzing by, she loves it. Last Saturday, I took her for a ride around the Lodges on my golf cart (yes, they are still letting me drive one) and went up to the kitchen to say hi to some of the other caregivers. Tasha is really good with other dogs, so she got to meet Mini, our team leader, Michelle's, adorable and super laid back grey-blue pittie (she acts more like a cat than a dog sometimes) and even let Michelle pet her a little bit. Later in the week, some of our regular staff walkers (aka staff that work in other areas of BF, like the Welcome Center, that come up and walk our dogs, because they are staff, they are able to take out the red collars that volunteers can't take) had Tasha and her run mate Chow Baby out for a walk when I crossed paths with them on my golf cart. Tasha immediately climbed up into the cart and sat with me for several minutes so I could pet her. Another staff member, Mike, who has known Tasha for many years, was also standing there and commented on how much she has improved over the years, saying that they used to count to ten and then stop petting her. He said he always knew how long he could pet her before she would start growling and snapping and it is amazing to see how much progress she has made (not just with me, but since she initially arrived at BF). I have also gotten approval from management to take her on an off-leash hike sometime soon. The trainers have been organizing several weekly off-leash group hikes and I just know that Tasha would love to go and would do great off-leash (she used to go off-leash all the time), but because she is red collar, I had to check with a lot of people about it before I could get the okay, since volunteers and interns are often on the hikes. Now it is just a matter of finding some time to do it. Schedules have been a little up in the air of late and so the Dog Day thing hasn't really been happening, but hopefully over the next few weeks things will calm down some and we can get back to doing it, if she hasn't done an off-leash hike by the time I have my next Dog Day, I will do my very best to make it happen.
I might be able to get another post in tomorrow, it will just depend on whether I have time tomorrow night or not, don't hold your breath, but I will try. If I don't get it done, have a great week and I will get another one up on Thursday. (Photo copyright Best Friends Animal Society.)

Being Thankful

Well, I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving and ate some good food with good friends and/or family. I had a really nice time eating myself stupid with some of my coworkers, it was cold and rainy here yesterday which made for a really nice day to stay inside near a fire chatting and eating and then going to bed early.

It was another good week overall at the Lodges, there were a few bumps and bruises along the way but I have come out the other end of the week still moving forward. The bumps and bruises came into play on Sunday with Tina Louise. She is an incredibly sweet pittie that has some issues with other dogs and can be very reactive on leash. She is walked with a chain leash for this reason, because she tends to jump around and bite the leash when she sees other dogs and can't get to them.

I was delivering food, when Jeanne, one of our regular volunteers, came into the lodge I was feeding and asked if I could please come help right away. Another volunteer had taken Tina out for a walk and missed the path back to Tina's run and ended up coming down in between a bunch of other dogs' runs and Tina was becoming too much for this volunteer to handle. I went out and took Tina from the volunteer and got her back up to her run, where I took her in through the side gate instead of taking her in through the building where she would be passing some other dogs and might get even more worked up. As we walked through the gate, she pulled hard and fast to the right heading for the building, however, I wasn't yet through the gate and she ended up whipping my right forearm into the gate post and latch. It was incredibly painful but fortunately I was wearing four layers of clothing on my arms and it didn't break skin, there was a little bit of what looked like a rub burn but that was it. There was, however, some concern that she may have broken my arm. It was very sore for the rest of the day and my manager offered to take me down for X-Rays but I told him I wanted to give it a day and see how it felt. Since the swelling was minimal, there were no deformities, and there was no numbness or tingling I didn't really think it was broken. It remained quite sore on Monday, the thing that concerned me most was what was painful and what wasn't - lugging a full water bucket didn't bother me at all but holding a can of dog food like you would hold an open can of soda was surprisingly uncomfortable. By the end of the day Monday, I still wasn't convinced that I needed to get X-Rays, so I told my manager that I would have a final decision for her on Tuesday. (Side note: For those of you keeping track, I have two managers, one him and one her.) When I got home Monday night and unwrapped it (I was keeping it wrapped with an ace bandage for the rest of the week to provide some extra support for my wrist at the suggestion of manager John, who is also an EMT), it began feeling much better and by Tuesday it was feeling almost entirely better. I kept it wrapped for the rest of my work week, but it is doing just fine now. Right after it happened, everybody was saying that I was going to have a big nasty bruise from it, but I have never been one to get big nasty bruises - got one in hurricane force winds on a volcano in Guatemala, but that has been about it. So, I have been watching my arm intently for any signs of a big nasty bruise, and it looks like I have skipped that step in the healing process again (I am, admittedly, a little tiny bit disappointed).

So in the spirit of this Thanksgiving tradition, among all the regular things for which I am thankful - a loving family, great friends, cool dogs, etc - I am also very thankful for having two functional arms and two functional legs, none of which are broken (knock on wood!). I am also thankful that I got to have a little IM chat today with my great buddy Clair, the rare and elusive, South Polar Bear!

Clair and Fernando: Thank you for the Thanksgiving wishes! More tales from the Lodges tomorrow! (Photo copyright Best Friends Animal Society.)

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Hello all!
Just wanted to take a minute to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!!!!
As it turns out, the person for whom I am pet sitting this weekend has Internet access, so I will be able to get some more detailed posts up over the next couple of days. It has been a pretty good week with the dogs, I will go into more detail later.
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving, wherever you are! I will be at a coworker's house eating myself stupid on her twice-baked potato casserole and homemade bread - Thanksgiving, the holiday of Starch . . . for vegetarians, anyway :)

A Few More Ups and Downs

There hasn't been a lot of new and exciting stuff going on around the Lodges this week, so I am at a little bit of a loss as to what to talk about today, but I do have a few more little tidbits to tell about the past week. It is pretty mundane stuff, but this is what I do and these are the things with which we concern ourselves on a daily basis.
To begin with, one of my special buddies, Marge has decided that she isn't so fond of me or any of my coworkers at the moment. As I mentioned last week, she is being tested for ringworm on her ear flaps and we are treating her with a topical anti fungal solution. There are two ways to apply the solution, either squirt it directly on the sores or soak a piece of gauze and dab the solution on that way. It has become quite clear that Marge is not so fond of being "messed with" in these ways. Fortunately (knock on wood), she isn't aggressively making her displeasure known - no biting, no growling - but she is refusing to get anywhere near anybody right now. We have to follow her around her outdoor run until she seeks refuge inside and then get in there and get the stuff on her ears before she can get back out. She absolutely hates having it done and I can understand, I have a few splits and cuts on my fingers and I have gotten the solution in there and it doesn't feel very good. It makes me sad though to walk into her run and have her go in the opposite direction instead of barreling across her run grinning and then mushing her face into my legs. She doesn't like us very much right now. But on the up side for Margie, we had some absolutely wonderful volunteers up to help us out for a few days and they were staying at the BF cottages so we asked them if they would like to take Marge on a sleepover. I would like to try to get her on sleepovers at the cottages more because she can be a little "leaky" and a lot of people don't want to worry about that in a regular hotel room, but it is not big deal at the cottages. It took a little convincing, not because they didn't want to take her, but because they were going to need to be heading out of town by about 8:30 am to get back to Vegas in time for their flight, but they said okay and they just loved her to pieces. While I wasn't there to receive her when she returned, Keely told me that they said she was their "Heartbreaker" and they just didn't want to let her go. I was really happy that in the middle of this unpleasantness with her ear treatments, Marge was able to have a very special night with two very special ladies.
Elsewhere at the Lodges, we have been having some concerns about Heidi's weight, it has been fluctuating a little bit and she has been having some "poo" issues (not everyone that reads this is as okay with bodily functions as I am, so I will just leave it at that). A poo sample showed some bacteria (I think) that were either not supposed to be there or too abundant, so she was started on a ten-day course of meds and we re-weighed her on Wednesday. Over the course of two weeks since she was last weighed, she has put on about three pounds! We will re-weigh her again in a couple of weeks to make sure that she is either gaining or maintaining her weight, but this was a big step in the right direction for her. It's the small victories. :)
I am not sure what my schedule will be next week, I haven't been told that it will be different due to the holiday, so I will probably have Thursday and Friday off as usual. However, the library is closed next Thursday and Friday, so I will try to find some time earlier in the week to get over here and put in a post, but if I miss it, I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Alex

I was just looking through the "Favorite Photos" section on BF Web site and came across this photo of our little Rottie mix, Alex - as you can see from the crazed look in his eyes, he LOVES his biscuits!

He missed that biscuit, but proved very adept at catching flying food. I was on the other end of the leash a few weeks ago when this was taken by one of our wonderful staff photographers, Molly Wald. We were going for a new cage card photo, but I don't think this one's going to be the final pick. More tomorrow, have a great night! (Photo copyright Best Friends Animal Society.)

Ups and Downs

Hello everyone, I hope you have all had a great week. This week was full of ups and downs at Dogtown and the Lodges. I am told that as the seasons change – fall to winter and spring to summer – we lose a lot of animals. I have known of dogs passing away, but Tuesday, November 18, Dogtown lost three of its charges in a single day. While I did not know any of the dogs personally, I know their caregivers and it was very sad to see the toll it takes on them. The loss of one of my charges is a day that I have dreaded since before I came here and I know it will reach me someday (hopefully not soon). One of the dogs that passed away was Trinket, she was a former resident of the Lodges and when she developed a brain tumor and began having seizures, our wonderful volunteers, Jeanne and Robin, offered to take her into their home as a hospice foster, giving her a home and all the accompanying comforts for the last months of her life. She was already living with them when I started, so I did not have the fortune of knowing Trinket, but she was loved by many and will be missed. We also lost Brandi, a dog that had recently arrived back at BF, and Huck, a resident of Old Friends. They will all be missed.
On the happier side of things, I am continuing to make progress with the dogs and have been trying to find time here and there to work with Tasha on her issues with affection. On Sunday, I had a little time in the afternoon and things were pretty quiet around Dogtown, so I got some really good treats, dried chicken and duck jerky broken into little pieces, and took Tasha to headquarters. I asked some of the staff if they would be willing to come pet her and give her some treats, explaining that she has a tendency to growl and snap when people pet her. Patti, one of our volunteer coordinators, was the first to step up (it helps a lot that Tasha is so adorable and people just want to get to know her). She gave Tasha a few treats and started petting her - not a growl, snap, or even curl of the lip from Tasha! More and more staff joined in and for ten minutes Tasha was getting pets and treats from people and took it all in stride. I was so excited I almost burst, though of course I had to keep a calm, cool head and not get her excited, but I could hardly contain myself!
While we had some very difficult losses this week, we are also continuing to make progress and create a better life for the dogs that are living at the Lodges. There are plans taking form that will, over the course of the next two years or so, really improve the lives of our dogs (and caregivers, too).
And, as a final note for today, perhaps the happiest story of the week – after ten years at Best Friends, our lovely pittie, Valentine has gone to her forever home! Strange though it is to see her run mate, Tex, solo these days, I couldn’t be happier for her and hopefully we can find Tex a new friend soon, enjoy Portland, Val!!

My Dog Day

I had my first "Dog Day" on Wednesday which was a wonderful way to end my week, I had so much fun just hanging out with dogs and taking them on extra long outings and walks. My first dog was Astronomy (no photo) of the "Digging Through the Desert" post. Being such a scent driven dog, I thought he might enjoy a trip down to Horse Haven and all the new and different smells that accompany horses, goats, burros, sheep, and pigs. The car ride down was . . . challenging; he was very excited and anxious and insisted upon leaping from the back seat to the front seat at ten second intervals for the entire ride. As we walked toward the horse and goat pastures after parking the car, he seemed to be enjoying the new smells and sounds of the area, until he spotted the goats and sheep and decided that it would be great fun to go chase them around and bark at them. As soon as he started fixating on the livestock, we turned around and went back in the other direction. I took him down into a small valley across the street from the Welcome Center and we took a nice long walk there instead. On the ride back up to Dogtown, I kept hold of his harness to keep him in the front seat and stop him from hopscotching back and forth (disclaimer: my preference is for dogs to ride in the back seat or have a seat belt in the front, however when the choice is seat belt-less front seat riding or risking driving off a cliff due to the distraction of a leaping dog, I choose front seat!).
My next playmate was Twyla, an older dog that is incredibly sweet but has issues with some people. We still aren't sure what gets her going so my team leader suggested getting her out and if she reacts negatively to anybody, make a note of it in her file so we can start working on those issues more. I decided to walk her down to Tara's Run, an open air building that has agility equipment, space to run, and some things dogs might find in a home environment. It is a great place to take dogs and let them go crazy for a little while off leash, even if you aren't doing agility training. Twyla is somewhere around eleven years old, so I wasn't about to have her jumping through tires, but I thought she would just enjoy the play time and did she ever! She did go over the A-Frame and the Catwalk with some enticing cookies from me, she even tried the See-Saw but got scared when it started to move. And the tunnels, oh she loved those tunnels, she was going through them without cookies, she just loved running in and out and investigating the fun sights and smells they contained. There was also the requisite frolicking with the stuffed animal in her mouth, we had a great time. After about fifteen minutes in Tara's, somebody else was in need of the space, so we took a walk down a trail that she doesn't usually get to use and by then she was getting tired and it was her lunch time so we headed back to her run.
After Twyla, I spent a little time sitting in Heidi and Pirate's run. Heidi is a very exuberant Rottie mix, but her run mate Pirate is incredibly shy and will only take treats from me through the dog door (I think there is one caregiver from whom he will take spoonfuls of wet food when she is giving out meds). I had to lock Heidi inside while I went and sat outside with Pirate. He only ever came within about six feet of me and spent most of the time pacing, barking and growling well away from me. Once we get into a better rhythm of Dog Days, we are hoping to start hand feeding him which will do wonders for increasing his desire to be with humans.

After about 25 minutes with Pirate, I went down to give Niblet (no photo) his fluids and then it was my lunch time.

After lunch, I went to visit with some of our new residents, Cole and Bagera (no photos). They are both shy and not able to be leashed up for walks yet. They will come close enough to take treats and Cole likes to stand about four feet away and bark at you. I took some treats and a leash down with me and just sat in their run for about a half hour. They were curious about the leash and perfectly willing to take the treats, but I wasn't able to get the leash on either one of them.
At about 1:40, it was time to take Pickles to his Hydrotherapy appointment.

BF has a special underwater treadmill for physical therapy for some of the animals. Pickles has bad joints and bow-legs, so he goes to Hydro three times a week. It was only just a few weeks ago, after three months of appointments, that they were finally able to get him to actually walk on the treadmill. They were just filling the tank with enough water to take some of the pressure off his joints and letting him wander around for a little while. Over the last couple of weeks he has gone from no treadmill time to walking for a couple minutes at a go with somebody in the tank with him and a belly sling to help him from sliding back on the treadmill to walking for twelve minutes in the tank by himself at this most recent visit. It has been very cool to see him finally get it and be making such great progress.

After Pickles was back in his run, I decided to take Tasha for a special outing. There used to be a caregiver that worked down at Horses that would come up and get Tasha most days and take her down to be an out dog at Horses (out dogs get to walk around off leash and out of runs because they can be trusted not to wander off or get into trouble - usually). I decided that Tasha might like to go visit her old stomping grounds for a little while. Unlike Astronomy, Tasha was an absolute dream in the car, sitting quietly in the back seat watching the scenery go by. When we arrived at horses she was very excited to be somewhere different. We walked all around the horse pastures and even passed somebody else walking their little dog. Not a single bark or growl at anybody (human or animal). She is a truly excellent dog and I would love, love, love to see her find a home someday. She is almost ten years old and is so incredibly well behaved its is amazing, she just has this one issue that has been holding her back. She comes to people like she wants to be pet but then when they start petting her, she sort of panics and starts growling and snapping. I have been working on this with her, and Keely, another caregiver has been doing the same, hopefully, with a concerted effort, we can really start making some good progress with her.

After Tasha's outing, it was time for Marge's clinic appointment. I noticed some crusties on her ears about a week ago and the Dog Tech suggested we take her to the clinic. Now, I will admit, Marge is one of my favorites up at the Lodges, on of our smilers and she just loves to bury her face in your legs ("Itchy Face!") while you scratch her butt and she dances with her back feet. I will admit, I have given her more than a few kissed on the head over the past few weeks, and now it has been determined that she probably has some kind of topical fungal infection (possibly ringworm) on her ear flaps, so Keely and I were joking that our lips are probably going to fall off or something (Keely kisses her, too). Just as the vet was telling me to make sure everyone knows to wash their hands after handling her ears, Keely walked into the clinic and grabbed Marge's head and laid a big kiss on her head. The vet looked at me and said, "Tell her to wash her hands."

By the time I got Marge back to her run, I had just enough time to fill out files for a few of the last dogs I had taken out and then went down to spend a few minutes with Ophelia in her run, since I didn't have time during the day to get her out for some more fun. She is such a cuddle bug though, I think she enjoys just having somebody around for a while to pet her and rub her belly.

All in all it was a great day. I want to get a little more organized about my next Dog Day, perhaps have a bit of a plan in place already, so that I can work with a few more dogs, but for the dogs that I did work with Wednesday, they had fun and really, that is what it is all about. I hope everyone is doing well and has a great weekend!

(All photos copyright Best Friends Animal Society.)

Dog Days and Birthdays!

First let me address the comment from "-J.", also know as John Sibley, a friend and fellow caregiver at BF, John: very funny, it was difficult to contain my laughter at the library; everybody else: while I did run my golf cart into an electrical box last week, I am nowhere near as much of a terror on wheels as the lady in the video (I've never bailed out!). It is definitely going to take a while to live that one down, though; more than one person has suggested a helmet and seat belt might be in order for my golf cart.
And to the comment from Ben and Emily, you just let me know when you are ready and we will make it happen!
Now on to the good stuff. It has been a good week at the Lodges. We have had a lot of dogs moving around within the Lodges and a few new arrivals (and departures and rearrivals - it can get confusing). We also have a new caregiver that will be at the Lodges full time and it looks like they are going to start giving us some more people part time, too! This is all very exciting because it means that we will finally have more time in our days to spend with the dogs. Over the last month, there has not been a lot of time to spend with the dogs outside of the time when we are in their runs to clean and poop scoop. But now that we will be having four to six people consistently up there, we are making a plan that is going to make things so much better for caregivers and dogs alike. Introducing the "Dog Days" plan!!! Anytime there are more than four people working at the Lodges, four people will work like it is a normal day, doing the feeding, cleaning, meds, etc and the extra person(s) will get to have a "Dog Day" where they get to spend the whole day with the dogs playing, walking, going on outings, working on issues, and socializing, they will also be responsible for any clinic or hydrotherapy appointments and giving Niblet his fluids. Everybody is very excited about the idea and it is proving to work very well so far! I got to have a dog day yesterday and it was just so nice to get to do fun dog stuff all day long, going for outings and walks and just hanging out with dogs. Plus, when the other caregivers know that there is somebody having fun with the dogs, it makes their days better too.
Well, I am about out of time today at the library, I will have a good long post tomorrow all about my dog day!!
And as a final note, HAPPY BIRTHDAY BEN!! Here's to the final year of your twenties!

Part of the Gang

I heard from one of my coworkers yesterday that a pair of our dogs, Ivy and Fiero, are going to be moving over to the Heights today! This is very exciting news for them, they are both great dogs and both green collars, by being moved over to the heights, they will get a lot more exposure to people and their chances of getting adopted will go way up. I hope we can get more of them moved over soon, we get some volunteers at the Lodges, but it is just a drop in the bucket compared to what they get in the Heights. Almost all of the dogs in Dogtown Heights are green collars that are great candidates for adoption so that is where the search often begins for a lot of people (some who don't know they are looking until they've met their new best friend).

This is Ivy, how can you not fall for that grin!

And this is Fiero, he is such a character, pretty short but just full of energy and ready to be friends with anyone who happens into his run.
On the Ballsy front, I am happy to report that I think I might have a better handle on how to read him. It seems that it is all about his tail - if he is unsure, he stands with his tail like a flagpole, straight up in the air and stiff as can be, but if he is happy to see you, it is just wagging away. When I walk into his lodge now, instead of a flagpole I am seeing wags and that is a great feeling. I have been taking an extra minute or two with him here and there, just petting and hanging out when I can. I am feeling more and more accepted by the dogs. I didn't really see it until we had some new people in the area helping out for a few days, we had two two-weekers (people doing an employment evaluation) and then we had some staff from other areas helping us out this past week while some of our regular staff were on vacation/weekends. It is amazing how fast you forget what it was like being the new kid on the block with the dogs, I am so used to being able to walk into lodges now and get a few welcoming and excited barks (especially around feeding time) that it was a bit jarring to go around with the unfamiliar people and see how the dogs were responding to them - not so welcoming barks from a lot of the dogs. While I don't want to sound like the plight of others makes me feel good, it did help me to realize that I am being accepted by the dogs and they are treating me differently now than they treat strangers. I talked about Batman in a previous post, he is barrier aggressive and a lot of people take a very long time before going in with him. These days he is so happy to see me most of the time and just wants me to pet and love on him for as long as I can stay. It is strange to see this wonderfully friendly and affectionate side of some of these dogs and then see how they respond to somebody new. Well that is about all I have time for today, the library is closing momentarily, so I must be going. Have a wonderful week! (Photos are still copyright Best Friends Animal Society.)

Digging Through the Desert

Sorry for the long time between posts. My roomie Carissa was having a Halloween costume crisis last Friday and so we were running all over town all day trying to create the perfect look for her, quite a chore in Kanab, Utah. And, this week, I changed shifts with one of my coworkers, so I am off today (Friday) and tomorrow, but worked yesterday. It was a long week, we were a little short on staff and I had six days straight, but there were no major catastrophes - a few minor ones (one involving myself, a golf cart, and a big green electrical box that is now slightly out of place), but nothing that can't be fixed :)
Being that things were a little tight on the staffing side this week, though not as bad as it could have been, I was surprised to get to spend as much time with dogs as I did - guess we are getting more organized about things! Overall, it was a pretty good week. I took Astronomy for a walk this week, what a dog (sorry, no photo). I am told that he came to BF from a Catahoula breeder along with a litter of his puppies. He is a purebred Catahoula Leopard Dog and is all grey with dark grey spots and patches (aka Blue or Merle). They are very smart, very motivated working dogs that are often used for hunting and herding but I think they would be great at a number of other dog jobs. Astronomy, Tron or Tronnie for short, loves to dig holes, deep, big holes that he could probably get lost in if given the opportunity. During our walk, which felt more like an archaeological expedition, we stopped to dig a number of rather small investigative holes. Upon reaching a prime piece of digging territory (I have yet to determine the qualities of prime territory), Tron would settle into his mission, digging and sniffing and digging, then repositioning to get a better angle, digging, removing obstructive roots, sniffing, and digging until I could finally convince him to move along, at which time we would begin the exploratory process all over again. I lost count of the number of investigative holes he dug, I think we ended up with three or four big holes, deep enough to fit the entirety of his upper body to his waist or more, at times all you could see through the flying sand were his back legs splayed across the ground, his butt in the air, and his tail going like you wouldn't believe. It was all great fun! There is a construction crew up at the sanctuary getting ready to put in water to the dog park over in Dogtown Heights and I have been thinking about suggesting Tron go over to help with the trenching - cheap labor and he would love it! If you know any excavators looking for a trusty sidekick, send 'em Tron's way.
I hope everyone had a great week and enjoys their weekends! I will try to get back to the library to post again tomorrow. It looks like more people are having success with the comments, keep trying, I like reading them (it can be pretty tricky to decipher the anti-spam codes that you have to enter in order for the post to go through).