Welcome to the Garden

My apologies for the lack of posts over the last month, in addition to being very busy, things have been a very up and down for me and I just couldn't muster the energy to put on a happy face for a post. I am happy to report that things have improved greatly over the last few weeks and I am hoping it will stay that way from now on. At my request, I have switched areas and am working at the Garden, another area in Dogtown Heights. In all honesty, it is not the area I would have chosen for myself, but I am pleasantly surprised to find that I am really liking it over there. It is quite different from the Lodges or Amra's, we have two octagons consisting of ten runs total and our population fluctuates quite a lot but right now we have about 21 dogs (give or take) - two single dog runs, seven pairs, and one run of four dogs, plus an out dog. All of our dogs are green collar and we are only allowed to have greens in our area. At this time, we are one of two areas where children can volunteer (oh joy of joys) and we get a very high volume of volunteers on busy days (sometimes 20+, though I haven't had the pleasure of that experience yet). The volunteers are both great and not so much all at the same time, the are usually very helpful in walking and socializing with the dogs and they are usually willing to helps with the cleaning and other chores, which means that we all have some extra time to spend with the dogs. But on the other side of the coin, anytime volunteers show up, we have to stop what we are doing and go greet them and show them around and when they are walking dogs we have to play traffic cops when there are lots of them out walking to make sure that dogs don't meet and ensure everybody's (dog and people) safety - this can make a project that should take 20 minutes take all morning on a busy day. So far, they have mostly been good, though and you start to get into a rhythm of doing something popping out the door to put a dog away, doing two more minutes of the project, sending a dog out, three minutes of the projects, etc. No two days are exactly alike but the pattern repeats itself.

We have some really great dogs at the Garden, Simon, our out dog is just a great big sweet potato, he loves to work the crowds for treats. He has a crooked leg - it may have been caught in a trap and never treated, we don't know - but he gets around just fine, but he know that if he wobbles around a little bit and looks all sad, they will just stuff his face with cookies. Don't take me to be heartless here, he really is just fine with the leg, he is so excited in the morning to see us that he will usually run the trail for his first potty "walk". Hera is one of our single girls, some of you may remember me talking about Ophelia from the Lodges, well she and Hera are (probably) sisters, they came in as a group of three, the third being Pandora that I had over at Amra's. I am fairly sure, based on appearance and behavior that Hera and Ophelia are sisters, Pandora is very similar emotionally though she expresses herself a little more outwardly and she doesn't really look as much like the other two - perhaps the same mother and a different father? When I was here last summer, Hera was one of my sleepover dogs - though she didn't let me sleep much, seeing as how she wanted to sit on my head all night and lick me.

I am really excited to be working with these dogs and the staff have been very nice and welcoming to me from day one. I am really excited to be at the Garden, and quite surprised, but I am looking forward to many more happy and uplifting posts. If I have time tomorrow, I will try to write up another post about some more of the Garden pups - they are great dogs and you might just recognize a few of them.

(All photos copyright Best Friends Animals Society.)