By and large, it has been a good week up at the Lodges. After the chaos of the first week of the two Lodges, we have worked out a bit more of a routine and we are finding our rhythm as a team. Admittedly, I wasn’t so sure about the whole division after the first week, on paper, it is a great idea, but in reality, I was concerned about the frequency of unexpected and time consuming projects that would completely throw the day into mayhem (like flooded buildings) and the lack of a safety net. While the safety net is still a little thin for my taste, now that we have more of a handle of the timing of the day and when we can run late and when we can’t, should such issues arise, I think we will be better equipped to handle them. At the moment, there are a couple of openings around Dogtown and we have some caregiver candidates doing their two-week evaluations, which is a good sign that sometime in the (hopefully) near future we might be getting a little more help up at the Lodges to strengthen that safety net some more. Management had been approved before the separation to hire one more full time staff person for the Lodges and in the meeting when they unveiled the new plan for the Lodges, they said that they were going to lobby for the hiring of a second full time caregiver for the Lodges to give each team a total of four staff and three people most days. For now, we have a pretty good feel for things, but it would be nice to know that there is someone else to help pick up the slack if something goes wrong or someone calls in sick.
Ophelia successfully left for her forever home on Friday morning. I have not heard anything about how it is going yet, but hopefully we will hear something, soon. As a side note for anyone adopting a pet, keep in touch with the rescue, at least occasionally, to let them know how your new family member is doing, it just makes our days to get emails and photos of the dogs that have gone to homes. Knowing that they have a caring and loving family makes all that we do worth while; there is bulletin board in Dogtown headquarters that holds photos and letters from the families of adopted dogs and while I don’t know most of the dogs on the board, it makes me smile just to stand and look at the photos of family pets and read the tales of their antics. We got a really nice email this week from Rex’s new family and it sounds like he is settling in better that we could have imagined and his people love him very much. He even goes to the dog park and seeks out other dog playmates. Last year was a good year for adoptions and this year has started off with a bang, so here’s hoping that it will continue. Later this month we will have a woman coming to meet Oreo and from the sounds of things, pretty much everything with the application has been finalized and, unless something catastrophic happens when they meet, she will be taking him home mid-February. And Sophie’s people are coming near the end of the month and will hopefully be taking her home if all goes well with the meeting. I don’t know if they have other dogs, she can be a bit of a brat with other dogs sometimes, but when it comes to people, she is great.
After the extremely long blogs of last week, I figure this one is long enough for today. I should have time tomorrow to get more stories posted. I hope everyone had a great week.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Friday, January 16, 2009
Getting the Kinks Out
Sunday's mayhem ended up being the worst of it for the week, though Monday put in a good effort at driving me insane. After all the craziness of Sunday afternoon, I had all but forgotten about the flooding situation in Lodge 12 by the time I got to work on Monday morning. I was still very concerned about what we were going to do about Lodge 10, but that was resolved by late morning. It wasn't until I went up in the afternoon to change out the water buckets that I realized we hadn't taken care of the growing puddle that was flooding into the building. They stop growing overnight when everything freezes and it isn't until after lunch usually that there is enough melting going on to start up the flow again. I spent the next half hour squeegeeing and digging and squeegeeing some more, I was able to dig a couple of holes and create a small barrier wall to stop the water from pooling outside the door and instead drain into the holes.
For the Lodge 10 flooding, one of our maintenance guys came up and buried a piece of plastic, bendy drain pipe that would carry the water from its puddle in the run out to the corner of the building and where it would collect in a deep hole he dug outside the fence. The fly in the ointment here is that Kasey, one of the residents of this particular run is the ultimate digger - the entire run looks like it is filled with ski moguls from all of his excavating.
In less than 24 hours, Kasey had discovered the pipe and dug most of it up, however, Jorge, something of a genius, dug a deeper trench for the pipe and used a four foot piece of railroad tie to cover it. This job really builds your creative thinking skills.
In less than 24 hours, Kasey had discovered the pipe and dug most of it up, however, Jorge, something of a genius, dug a deeper trench for the pipe and used a four foot piece of railroad tie to cover it. This job really builds your creative thinking skills.Elsewhere in the Lodges, Gramps, who isn't technically in my area anymore (he's in Lodges B), bloated on Monday afternoon and had to go through emergency surgery. 
He has a weak heart so everyone was very worried about whether he could make it through the surgery, but he is a feisty little curmudgeon and was up and walking the next morning. He will probably be in the clinic for a couple of weeks to make sure he doesn't have any complications. It turns out that he had swallowed a foot from a stuffed toy, this thing that they pulled out of him, which had played an important role in his bloat, was about one inch square and probably less than half an inch thick. I had noticed the footless toy in his run on Saturday and made mention of it to Megan, because, while Gramps loves his stuffed toys, he is not a toy destroyer like most of our dogs. In the three and a half months that I have known him, it was the first time that I have ever seen even the slightest rip in one of his toys. But after all this, rumor has it that he will be in an upcoming issue of the BF magazine, which will do wonders for his chances of adoption.
He has a weak heart so everyone was very worried about whether he could make it through the surgery, but he is a feisty little curmudgeon and was up and walking the next morning. He will probably be in the clinic for a couple of weeks to make sure he doesn't have any complications. It turns out that he had swallowed a foot from a stuffed toy, this thing that they pulled out of him, which had played an important role in his bloat, was about one inch square and probably less than half an inch thick. I had noticed the footless toy in his run on Saturday and made mention of it to Megan, because, while Gramps loves his stuffed toys, he is not a toy destroyer like most of our dogs. In the three and a half months that I have known him, it was the first time that I have ever seen even the slightest rip in one of his toys. But after all this, rumor has it that he will be in an upcoming issue of the BF magazine, which will do wonders for his chances of adoption.And speaking of adoption, our lovely little Ophelia left on a transport this morning headed for her new family in Maryland where she will be the only pet in the house. 
I am so very happy for her and, while it would have been nice to meet the family that is adopting her (they spotted that photo on the Web site and fell in love), I have yet to see anyone meet the little black bean and not fall in love with her instantly. She is a great dog and she will love being the center of attention with her new forever family.
I am so very happy for her and, while it would have been nice to meet the family that is adopting her (they spotted that photo on the Web site and fell in love), I have yet to see anyone meet the little black bean and not fall in love with her instantly. She is a great dog and she will love being the center of attention with her new forever family.While the week was full of hiccups and snags, I really think this new separation of the Lodges will be a great thing for the caregivers and dogs. While the Lodges Awesome and Lodges Boring continues to come up occasionally, it looks like our areas will be now referred to as Angel's and Deja's, after two very beloved Lodge dogs that have passed away.
I hope everyone has a great week and I will do my very best to get some more posts up next week. Happy Birthday Mom!!
(All photos copyright Best Friends Animal Society.)
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Lodges Awesome . . . Err, Maybe Not
This post was written on Sunday, January 11.
As I mentioned in a previous post, the Lodges is being divided into two separate areas. The original team of six staff has been split into two teams of three and the two-sided kitchen has been split down the middle - we are still waiting for the red tape to mark off our territory. When the division happened, we were termed Lodges A and Lodges B until better names could be thought up. As a joke, I, a member of Lodges A, started calling us “Lodges Awesome” while the other side was “Lodges Boring”. To a certain degree the “Lodges Awesome” is sticking around a bit, mostly in jest - and even more so after today . . . I think I may have spoken too soon.
Everything started out fine today, it is Sunday, which means it is our dog park day - we have a two acre dog park and each day of the week a different area has use of it. Sundays are Lodge day at the park, so we have decided to alternate mornings and afternoons between the two sides of the Lodges, since there aren’t enough days in the week to give both sides their own day. Lodges B had the park this morning and we would get it this afternoon. The morning went quite well and we got a pair of dogs out for a walk before it was time to start feedings. The meds got set up for the evening and tomorrow morning and then it was time to start delivering food. We even had enough time to start hand feeding some of the dogs in our area. Hand feeding is useful for a lot of different things, it can help to stop food aggressive dogs from guarding their bowl as they learn that the food comes from the people, not from the bowl and it can also be useful to socialize shy dogs. I was able to hand feed Dexter, a seemingly mild mannered dog that turns into a terror if you reach for his bowl before he is done with it or take too long to let go as you set it down.
We have been hand feeding him sporadically over the last several weeks and he is doing alright with it, but it will be nice to start doing it more consistently. After Dexter, I hand fed Quickdraw, a spunky little black ball of energy whose name fits him like you wouldn’t believe. 
He is very sweet and friendly, but get between him and food and you had better watch it. I have had him come at me twice, once leaving two small punctures in my hiking boot and a bruise on my foot. Both did really well and it was nice to have time to be able to start working on this issue.
After lunch, we had to take care of a few things down at the clinic and then started poop scooping and changing water buckets. When we arrived at Lodge 10 we were a bit behind schedule, having only finished two lodges so far. When I walked in, I found a puddle of water in Ballsy’s run, it was in a strange spot, nowhere near his water bucket and I was concerned that he had either vomited a bunch of water or had peed a lot inside (very uncharacteristic of him), but it really just looked like water, not puked up water or pee. As I looked around I noticed some water in the adjoining run and went to investigate, only to find that the building was in fact slowly flooding from the melt water. I ended up spending the better part of the next hour heaving snow off the roof. Megan changed waters and then came up to join me on the roof and when we finished there, we began working on the giant puddle in Shelby ’s and Kasey’s run. The amount of water that was pooling into the building meant that we could not leave the dogs in the building over night. One of the residents of the building is a former feral that can not be leashed up right now, so we decided that, since their run was the least affected by the water, Dexter and Daphne could stay in their run and we could make a mini-flood wall for them with towels. We had three empty runs in the neighboring building (they are awaiting the arrival of the dogs from Texas, mentioned in a previous post), so we were going to put the dogs there overnight, but when we walked in, we found that at least one of the empty runs in the neighboring building was flooded as well, so it was onto plan B. A different area had three empty runs that they had offered if we needed them, so rather than walking dogs the thirty yards to the next building, we had to walk them all the way to the opposite end of Old Dogtown, but we were grateful for the space. I should mention here that while all of this was occupying Megan’s and my time, we should have been finishing water buckets in the remaining four lodges, preparing the afternoon feedings, delivering the afternoon feedings, and getting ready to deliver meds. Thankfully, our team leader was available to come and get the rest of the waters and the feedings done while Megan and I addressed the Lodge 10 issue. It should also be noted that as we were moving dogs to their overnight accommodations, it was about 5 pm and Megan should have been gone at 4. In the end, everybody should have a dry, warm place to sleep tonight and the flooding seems to have stopped in the building for now. The level of the puddle that is draining water into the building is, for now at least, below a small hole in the wood siding that seems to be the entry point; tomorrow we may be picking a trench from the puddle away from the building in an effort to stop the seepage until the siding can be patched or replaced. I was also able to investigate further the source of the water in the neighboring building - we weren’t able to check it our very well when we found it since we had two rather confused and excited dogs to contain. That leak seems to be a much easier fix (for now), a puddle has been accumulating outside the door of one of the runs and is seeping inside because the water has reached floor level.
The bigger issue here is that these building are built on hills of sand that don’t so much absorb water as just shuttle it further down hill and the buildings are in the way. They are also woefully lacking in proper roof drainage, meaning that virtually all of the snow melting off the roof is simply dropping to the ground eighteen inches from the building and it is a toss up as to whether the ground slopes down into the building or slopes out away from the building, which can make a big difference when it comes to wet feet or dry feet.
So, while Lodges Awesome didn’t exactly have an awesome day, there are always some kinks to be expected and Megan and I were able to rely on our co-workers to help pick up some of the slack. Tomorrow is a new day and I think we might just ask for a “do-over” on today to prove our awesomeness. I am proud of the fact that we were able to get the dogs taken care of and address the issue as much as possible today, but it was also a mentally and physically exhausting day that I really hope we don’t have to repeat tomorrow.
(All photos copyright Best Friends Animal Society.)
As I mentioned in a previous post, the Lodges is being divided into two separate areas. The original team of six staff has been split into two teams of three and the two-sided kitchen has been split down the middle - we are still waiting for the red tape to mark off our territory. When the division happened, we were termed Lodges A and Lodges B until better names could be thought up. As a joke, I, a member of Lodges A, started calling us “Lodges Awesome” while the other side was “Lodges Boring”. To a certain degree the “Lodges Awesome” is sticking around a bit, mostly in jest - and even more so after today . . . I think I may have spoken too soon.
Everything started out fine today, it is Sunday, which means it is our dog park day - we have a two acre dog park and each day of the week a different area has use of it. Sundays are Lodge day at the park, so we have decided to alternate mornings and afternoons between the two sides of the Lodges, since there aren’t enough days in the week to give both sides their own day. Lodges B had the park this morning and we would get it this afternoon. The morning went quite well and we got a pair of dogs out for a walk before it was time to start feedings. The meds got set up for the evening and tomorrow morning and then it was time to start delivering food. We even had enough time to start hand feeding some of the dogs in our area. Hand feeding is useful for a lot of different things, it can help to stop food aggressive dogs from guarding their bowl as they learn that the food comes from the people, not from the bowl and it can also be useful to socialize shy dogs. I was able to hand feed Dexter, a seemingly mild mannered dog that turns into a terror if you reach for his bowl before he is done with it or take too long to let go as you set it down.
We have been hand feeding him sporadically over the last several weeks and he is doing alright with it, but it will be nice to start doing it more consistently. After Dexter, I hand fed Quickdraw, a spunky little black ball of energy whose name fits him like you wouldn’t believe. He is very sweet and friendly, but get between him and food and you had better watch it. I have had him come at me twice, once leaving two small punctures in my hiking boot and a bruise on my foot. Both did really well and it was nice to have time to be able to start working on this issue.After lunch, we had to take care of a few things down at the clinic and then started poop scooping and changing water buckets. When we arrived at Lodge 10 we were a bit behind schedule, having only finished two lodges so far. When I walked in, I found a puddle of water in Ballsy’s run, it was in a strange spot, nowhere near his water bucket and I was concerned that he had either vomited a bunch of water or had peed a lot inside (very uncharacteristic of him), but it really just looked like water, not puked up water or pee. As I looked around I noticed some water in the adjoining run and went to investigate, only to find that the building was in fact slowly flooding from the melt water. I ended up spending the better part of the next hour heaving snow off the roof. Megan changed waters and then came up to join me on the roof and when we finished there, we began working on the giant puddle in Shelby ’s and Kasey’s run. The amount of water that was pooling into the building meant that we could not leave the dogs in the building over night. One of the residents of the building is a former feral that can not be leashed up right now, so we decided that, since their run was the least affected by the water, Dexter and Daphne could stay in their run and we could make a mini-flood wall for them with towels. We had three empty runs in the neighboring building (they are awaiting the arrival of the dogs from Texas, mentioned in a previous post), so we were going to put the dogs there overnight, but when we walked in, we found that at least one of the empty runs in the neighboring building was flooded as well, so it was onto plan B. A different area had three empty runs that they had offered if we needed them, so rather than walking dogs the thirty yards to the next building, we had to walk them all the way to the opposite end of Old Dogtown, but we were grateful for the space. I should mention here that while all of this was occupying Megan’s and my time, we should have been finishing water buckets in the remaining four lodges, preparing the afternoon feedings, delivering the afternoon feedings, and getting ready to deliver meds. Thankfully, our team leader was available to come and get the rest of the waters and the feedings done while Megan and I addressed the Lodge 10 issue. It should also be noted that as we were moving dogs to their overnight accommodations, it was about 5 pm and Megan should have been gone at 4. In the end, everybody should have a dry, warm place to sleep tonight and the flooding seems to have stopped in the building for now. The level of the puddle that is draining water into the building is, for now at least, below a small hole in the wood siding that seems to be the entry point; tomorrow we may be picking a trench from the puddle away from the building in an effort to stop the seepage until the siding can be patched or replaced. I was also able to investigate further the source of the water in the neighboring building - we weren’t able to check it our very well when we found it since we had two rather confused and excited dogs to contain. That leak seems to be a much easier fix (for now), a puddle has been accumulating outside the door of one of the runs and is seeping inside because the water has reached floor level.
The bigger issue here is that these building are built on hills of sand that don’t so much absorb water as just shuttle it further down hill and the buildings are in the way. They are also woefully lacking in proper roof drainage, meaning that virtually all of the snow melting off the roof is simply dropping to the ground eighteen inches from the building and it is a toss up as to whether the ground slopes down into the building or slopes out away from the building, which can make a big difference when it comes to wet feet or dry feet.
So, while Lodges Awesome didn’t exactly have an awesome day, there are always some kinks to be expected and Megan and I were able to rely on our co-workers to help pick up some of the slack. Tomorrow is a new day and I think we might just ask for a “do-over” on today to prove our awesomeness. I am proud of the fact that we were able to get the dogs taken care of and address the issue as much as possible today, but it was also a mentally and physically exhausting day that I really hope we don’t have to repeat tomorrow.
(All photos copyright Best Friends Animal Society.)
Don't Wear Wool in Vegas
"What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.” And let me just say, thank goodness for that! To clarify, I don’t mean that I have gotten up to any sorts of mischief in Vegas that I wouldn’t want the world at large to know about, but rather that I am just so very happy that the nonsense that is Vegas has, for the most part, stayed in Vegas, with a few forays into some of the Nevada border towns. Let me back up here and explain why I was in Vegas, a city that, most anyone who knows me knows, I could have died happy never having visited.
My dear friend Megan (pronounced Mee-gan, don’t mess it up!) used to live and work in Vegas after she left BF earlier last year and after a six-month stay in the city, returned to rural Kanab and back to her job as a dog caregiver at BF. She worked as an EMT/security guard at the Rio Casino, a job that she loved with people that she loved. She received word shortly after Christmas that one of her supervisors, a man she took great pleasure in knowing, had passed away.
The funeral was scheduled for Thursday (Jan 8) and she was planning to drive herself to Vegas after work on Wednesday - it is about a three and a half hour drive. I had been enlisted to watch her three dogs and an assortment of reptiles while she was gone for the overnight trip. However, her car decided to crap out on her at work on Wednesday, something about the fuel pump and filters, so, since Thursday and Friday are my days off anyway and I didn’t have any major plans, I told her I could take her out (she can’t drive my car because it is a stick and when someone else offered the use of their car she declined saying that she wasn’t comfortable driving that long of a distance in someone else’s car). Keeley was able to take over the pet sitting post and we were planning on leaving after work on Wednesday. There were a few snags along the way, namely that as we were walking out the door of her house, Trudy, one of her dogs bolted out the door and we ended up spending the next 45 minutes trying to track her down and then giving her the fastest dog bath I have ever seen because she had been across the street playing in the pasture and all it’s wonderful piles of poo.
We finally got on the road to Vegas around 9 pm. It really isn’t a bad drive and we had lots of interesting and entertaining conversations along the way. For those of you who have never driven into Vegas from the east at night, it is an experience . . . to say the least. After hours of driving in darkness through the desert with the occasional town or small city, you pass through the mountains and when you crest the final ridge, you are finally treated to the opulent glitter of the city that has been glowing on the distant horizon for the last hour. As you come down the hill, Vegas stretches out before you like an ocean of wasted electricity . . . yeah, you read that right, all I could think when I came over that last ridge was “Holy crap, could they waste any more electricity if they tried?!?” Still several miles from the outskirts of the city I could feel myself tensing up at the thought of the ridiculous waste that Vegas creates every minute of every single day.
As we worked our way into the city, it was approaching midnight local time and I was shocked at how many cars were on the highway at that hour on a Wednesday night. Driving into town, Megan looked at me with a slightly pained look on her face, the sort of look that says, I am about to ask you to do something I know you aren’t going to want to do, but you will do it anyway because you are my friend. “I know you aren’t going to like this, but the only way I know how to get to Angel’s house is from the Rio, and I was hoping we might be able to stop in there for a few minutes anyway so I can say hi to whoever is working tonight.”
As we walked into the casino, I felt like my retinas had started having seizures and that surely the rest of my body would follow suit soon enough. The blinking and dinging and vibrating and pinging and everything all atwitter was reminding me of the tales I have heard about people with seizure disorders being sent into an episode by the presence of flashing lights and I began to wonder if I might have just developed a seizure disorder myself. Not only was the visual and auditory experience overwhelming (to put it nicely) but the stench of cigarette and cigar smoke and the stifling heat made me want to run screaming from the building if I didn’t first pass out. When Megan asked if I was doing okay, I said I was just trying to do my best to not look like I really don’t belong here and she looked at me and said, “You don’t look like you belong here.” When I mentioned to Megan the ridiculous temperature inside the casino (which again reminded me of the ridiculous amount of waste of Vegas), she looked me up and down, wearing my jeans, a long sleeved shirt, and a zip-up wool cardigan and said, “Don’t wear wool in Vegas.”
We ran into a former co-worker and they chatted for a few minutes - he had absolutely no interest whatsoever in who I was or why I was standing there listening to their conversation . . . at least in a small town people tend to be polite enough in such situations to say hi and acknowledge your existence in the universe. After a quick chat, Megan thankfully led me from the casino and we made our way from the strip to her friend Angel’s house, with whom we would be staying, and slowly my retinas stopped seizing.
After some catching up and visiting we crawled into bed around 1:30 am; as he left the room, Angel warned us that his father gets up at 4am and his mother at 5am and his sister at 7am, what he didn’t tell us was that they had no idea there would be two girls sleeping in the middle of their living room floor, so as each family member woke and left, they flipped on a light somewhere nearby and were surprised to find a mess of blankets and two people on the floor. Angel works the night shift and doesn’t see much of his family and so, they were caught completely unaware of our presence. It also didn’t make for a very good night of sleep.
In the morning, we got ready for the funeral and were going to meet up with some of the other Rio security and EMT folks to catch up and have some breakfast before the service. I was quite hungry, having only eaten a slice of pizza and some traditional road munchies the night before. However, my hunger quickly evaporated when we arrived at a Carl’s, Jr. - for the easterners not familiar with the chain, it is something like a Burger King, they are owned by the same company that owns Hardees. Not exactly offering a menu full of vegetarian choices, I declined to eat and just had some water, Megan (a non-veggie) claimed she wasn’t hungry but admitted later that she wasn’t about to eat in front of me if I wasn’t going to eat - she is a very good friend.
Following the service we went to a bar for a toast to their departed supervisor. Of all the bars in Vegas, we just happened to walk into an Ohio State Football themed bar - there were photos and trophy replicas and flags and jerseys in a display case and a few things hung on the walls, I have learned in my two years away from Ohio that Ohio State is remarkably inescapable. When we asked the bartender why on earth a bar in Vegas is decorated in the scarlet and grey, she explained that it used to be a Nebraska bar because the owners are originally from Nebraska, but then the Cornhuskers (or whatever they are) started to suck and Nebraska fans are very fickle so they decided to theme the bar after another team. There was much discussion and one of the other bartenders (an Ohioan) really pushed for Ohio State. In the end, Ohio State won out because their fans are so fiercely dedicated that even when they suck, the bar will still be packed for game day. (If you don’t know Ohio State fans, you just don’t get it - picture the most rabid sports fan you know, multiply it by ten and you will be somewhere in the vicinity of an average Ohio State Fan - my brother has an Ohio State toothbrush.)
After a couple of hours at the bar, I announced that if I didn’t find some food soon, I may have to resort to eating my own arm. We drove back across town to Angel’s house, opting to take the city streets rather than the interstates - a choice I have yet to understand, crossing the Strip is a nightmare of traffic, for the distance we were driving it shouldn’t have taken more that half an hour but the trip took nearly an hour. My level of frustration at the traffic, combined with the lack of food in my stomach and the uncomfortable nature of my fancy-pants dress shoes made me want to kick somebody in the knees.
After packing up our things and thanking Angel for his hospitality, we took to the road in a search of food. We had one quick stop to make and then it was time to get some sustenance, unfortunately, Megan spent the vast majority of her time in Vegas going to work, home, or EMT classes and rarely ventured out into the city on her own. Her ex was the all knowing, directionally gifted one that knew all the great places to eat and exactly how to find them from virtually anywhere in the city - Megan was having trouble keeping track of the location of the Strip as we drove around, in spite of the towering building and cranes erecting more towering buildings. So we meandered through the city looking for someplace to eat, but everything we spotted was on the wrong side of the road or I was in the wrong lane and we were in too much traffic (again) to make any sudden movements. Finally we just gave up and decided that perhaps it would be better to just get on the road and stop for dinner in Mesquite. As we pulled onto the interstate ramp, we realized that we were jumping onto the highway at 5:03 pm, just in time for Vegas rush hour. Quickly rethinking our plan, we hopped off at the next exit a quarter-mile down the road and she looked at me with that same pained look of the night before. “Would you be totally against eating in a casino?” And to be honest, my stomach was thinking, “Casino’s are famous for their all-you-can-eat buffets and I could eat my weight in anything right about now.”
“No, I could do a casino,” I said, forgetting for a moment about the smoking and the fact that by eating in a casino, the casino would be getting my money, something I had vowed not to let happen. But I needed food, so I was willing to bend the rules a bit, at least I would be getting something in return for my money.
“There is an All-American Bar and Grill in the Rio and I am sure they will have something you can eat.” So, after an hour of fruitless searching and aimless driving, we were off to the Rio to find some food .
We finally reached the restaurant in the Rio and there were a few people ahead of us to be seated, as we waited, it occurred to me that it might be smart to check out the menu before we were committed to a table. Certainly a restaurant in a place as cosmopolitan and international as Las Vegas would have some vegetarian options, but alas it was not to be. I couldn’t even find some generic pasta dish that I could order sans chicken, there was nothing except for a side salad and perhaps a nice baked potato or some mashers. On most days, I could have made do, but I had not eaten anything all day other than some of the left over road munchies from the night before as we were meandering through Vegas in search of real food. I didn’t want some sad excuse for a vegetarian option in a casino grill, I wanted a real meal, preferably as big a my head. So we trudged back out to the car and just sat for a minute pondering the situation and our complete inability to pick a place to eat in a city of thousands of restaurants. Really, both of us would have preferred little elves appear in the car and whip up a magical feast, but that wasn’t happening so we had to make some choices.
As we discussed the option of enduring the rush hour traffic and making the 90 mile drive to Mesquite again, I was suddenly struck by the fact that I was ridiculously warm in spite of my car heater being turned to off, the thermostat on the neutral setting, and my wool-free attire. I felt like there was hot air blowing on my pants and with a startling belligerence directed at no one in particular I began ranting and raving about the temperature in my car and when I paused after questioning (in a rather unwarranted accusatory tone) Megan as to whether she was warm or not, she just stared at me with a confounded look of concern and announced, “We need to get you some food. We are not going to Mesquite.” She directed me where to turn out of the parking lot and we began driving again. After only a few blocks on Flamingo, we came across a Thai restaurant. One of the things I miss most about living in a city, or even near a city is the variety of food, in Kanab, we have fast food, a couple of American diner type places, and several Mexican restaurants. There isn’t even a greasy, bad Chinese place, the closest Asian restaurant is an hour away, which makes me sad because it is truly one of my favorite ways to eat out. So when I spotted Thai Spice, I was of course in the wrong lane and it was on the other side of the road. I almost gave up on the idea and continued driving, but then decided to pull a u-turn and head back. As soon as we walked in, I knew it was going to be good. The lights weren’t blinking, there were not video poker machines or slots crammed into the corners, aside from the open sign in the window, there wasn’t any neon lighting, it was quiet, and it didn’t reek from years of smoking and it wasn’t boiling hot inside. I had found my happy place. We ate dinner and I thoroughly enjoyed the calm and quiet atmosphere and the food was tasty and satisfying. Full and happy, we made our way back to the car and onto the interstate for the drive back to Kanab. By then the rush hour traffic had died down and we were able to escape the city without too much difficulty.
Megan asked that we stop at Wal-Mart in Mesquite, in spite of a deep and festering loathing for the chain, I agreed to the stop. As long as I didn’t have to buy anything, I would be fine - I had already pushed my limits nearly to their breaking point in Vegas, and the store was relatively empty (it was about 10 pm) and I was too worn out to even care that much, so I wandered aimlessly through the store with Megan for a little while and then we were back in the car.
“Okay, home now, no more stops!” Megan announced as we were pulling out of the parking lot. We still had about two hours to go before we got back to Kanab. There was, however, to be one more unplanned stop. As we were coming into a construction zone in the western outskirts of St George, I got pulled over for speeding. Now, let me just clarify here, I rarely speed, and if I do it is generally not more than a few miles an hour over the limit. While I tend to follow the rules in general, I have been learning more and more about fuel efficiency and am realizing that speeding, especially on the high-speed interstates of the American west kills your car’s fuel efficiency, so in spite of 75 mile per hour limits out here, I rarely press it above 70. As we came into the 60 mph construction zone, I slowed down and continued chatting with Megan and didn’t notice that as I was driving down a small slope, my car was slowly coasting up in speed. And then came the lights. And then a few choice words on my part as I pulled to the side of the road. I rolled down my window, pulled out my license, registration, and proof of insurance and tried to stop shaking and put out of my mind the possible fines I may have just earned myself being in a construction zone. Megan and I were patiently waiting for the officer to come to my window and we were both startled and momentarily confused when we heard a knocking sound coming from somewhere else. As I looked around, I found that the officer was standing at Megan’s window, not mine. Megan locked the doors in an effort to open the window, so I used my buttons to open her window. The officer asked if I had seen where the limit dropped to 60 and when I said I thought I was going 60, he informed me that he had gotten me at 67 - crap and a half! I apologized and he was very nice and said that there was no need for apologies and asked for my driver’s license. I gave him all my papers and license and he asked where we were going. We told him we were on our way back to Kanab and he asked from where we were coming. In my head, I groaned, I didn’t want to tell this officer that we were on our way back from Las Vegas at 10:30 pm, for it would certainly lead to more questions and probably assumptions of drinking and debauchery. But I also didn’t want to mention the funeral, I would never have wanted Megan to think that I was using her dead friend to get me out of a speeding ticket, so while I fumbled around in my head for the best way to spin the answer, Megan announced, “We are on our way back from a funeral in Las Vegas.” He asked a few more questions, most of which Megan answered - she was closer to him and my brain had apparently gone into vapor lock because I was having trouble forming words let alone complete sentences. Have I mentioned that she is a very good friend? Without even returning to his cruiser to run my license, the officer returned my documents and wished us a safe trip home. I was more relieved than I can say and he was very nice. He was part of the K-9 unit of the highway patrol, so before he left, Megan asked about his dog and they chatted for a minute and then we were on our way. As I merged back on the interstate, relieved to have not been hit with a speeding ticket and fines, and minding my speed carefully, Megan made the observation, “A turn signal might be nice.” I immediately flipped it on and we both started laughing. We made it home, exhausted, a few hours later. For all my new found dislike of Las Vegas, I should say, for a friend, I would do it all again without a moment’s hesitation.
I learned two very important things from my Vegas experience, 1) don't bother discussing energy efficiency and conservation with the locals, it is about as productive as hoping elves will cook you dinner in your car and 2) don’t wear wool in Vegas.
My dear friend Megan (pronounced Mee-gan, don’t mess it up!) used to live and work in Vegas after she left BF earlier last year and after a six-month stay in the city, returned to rural Kanab and back to her job as a dog caregiver at BF. She worked as an EMT/security guard at the Rio Casino, a job that she loved with people that she loved. She received word shortly after Christmas that one of her supervisors, a man she took great pleasure in knowing, had passed away.
The funeral was scheduled for Thursday (Jan 8) and she was planning to drive herself to Vegas after work on Wednesday - it is about a three and a half hour drive. I had been enlisted to watch her three dogs and an assortment of reptiles while she was gone for the overnight trip. However, her car decided to crap out on her at work on Wednesday, something about the fuel pump and filters, so, since Thursday and Friday are my days off anyway and I didn’t have any major plans, I told her I could take her out (she can’t drive my car because it is a stick and when someone else offered the use of their car she declined saying that she wasn’t comfortable driving that long of a distance in someone else’s car). Keeley was able to take over the pet sitting post and we were planning on leaving after work on Wednesday. There were a few snags along the way, namely that as we were walking out the door of her house, Trudy, one of her dogs bolted out the door and we ended up spending the next 45 minutes trying to track her down and then giving her the fastest dog bath I have ever seen because she had been across the street playing in the pasture and all it’s wonderful piles of poo.
We finally got on the road to Vegas around 9 pm. It really isn’t a bad drive and we had lots of interesting and entertaining conversations along the way. For those of you who have never driven into Vegas from the east at night, it is an experience . . . to say the least. After hours of driving in darkness through the desert with the occasional town or small city, you pass through the mountains and when you crest the final ridge, you are finally treated to the opulent glitter of the city that has been glowing on the distant horizon for the last hour. As you come down the hill, Vegas stretches out before you like an ocean of wasted electricity . . . yeah, you read that right, all I could think when I came over that last ridge was “Holy crap, could they waste any more electricity if they tried?!?” Still several miles from the outskirts of the city I could feel myself tensing up at the thought of the ridiculous waste that Vegas creates every minute of every single day.
As we worked our way into the city, it was approaching midnight local time and I was shocked at how many cars were on the highway at that hour on a Wednesday night. Driving into town, Megan looked at me with a slightly pained look on her face, the sort of look that says, I am about to ask you to do something I know you aren’t going to want to do, but you will do it anyway because you are my friend. “I know you aren’t going to like this, but the only way I know how to get to Angel’s house is from the Rio, and I was hoping we might be able to stop in there for a few minutes anyway so I can say hi to whoever is working tonight.”
As we walked into the casino, I felt like my retinas had started having seizures and that surely the rest of my body would follow suit soon enough. The blinking and dinging and vibrating and pinging and everything all atwitter was reminding me of the tales I have heard about people with seizure disorders being sent into an episode by the presence of flashing lights and I began to wonder if I might have just developed a seizure disorder myself. Not only was the visual and auditory experience overwhelming (to put it nicely) but the stench of cigarette and cigar smoke and the stifling heat made me want to run screaming from the building if I didn’t first pass out. When Megan asked if I was doing okay, I said I was just trying to do my best to not look like I really don’t belong here and she looked at me and said, “You don’t look like you belong here.” When I mentioned to Megan the ridiculous temperature inside the casino (which again reminded me of the ridiculous amount of waste of Vegas), she looked me up and down, wearing my jeans, a long sleeved shirt, and a zip-up wool cardigan and said, “Don’t wear wool in Vegas.”
We ran into a former co-worker and they chatted for a few minutes - he had absolutely no interest whatsoever in who I was or why I was standing there listening to their conversation . . . at least in a small town people tend to be polite enough in such situations to say hi and acknowledge your existence in the universe. After a quick chat, Megan thankfully led me from the casino and we made our way from the strip to her friend Angel’s house, with whom we would be staying, and slowly my retinas stopped seizing.
After some catching up and visiting we crawled into bed around 1:30 am; as he left the room, Angel warned us that his father gets up at 4am and his mother at 5am and his sister at 7am, what he didn’t tell us was that they had no idea there would be two girls sleeping in the middle of their living room floor, so as each family member woke and left, they flipped on a light somewhere nearby and were surprised to find a mess of blankets and two people on the floor. Angel works the night shift and doesn’t see much of his family and so, they were caught completely unaware of our presence. It also didn’t make for a very good night of sleep.
In the morning, we got ready for the funeral and were going to meet up with some of the other Rio security and EMT folks to catch up and have some breakfast before the service. I was quite hungry, having only eaten a slice of pizza and some traditional road munchies the night before. However, my hunger quickly evaporated when we arrived at a Carl’s, Jr. - for the easterners not familiar with the chain, it is something like a Burger King, they are owned by the same company that owns Hardees. Not exactly offering a menu full of vegetarian choices, I declined to eat and just had some water, Megan (a non-veggie) claimed she wasn’t hungry but admitted later that she wasn’t about to eat in front of me if I wasn’t going to eat - she is a very good friend.
Following the service we went to a bar for a toast to their departed supervisor. Of all the bars in Vegas, we just happened to walk into an Ohio State Football themed bar - there were photos and trophy replicas and flags and jerseys in a display case and a few things hung on the walls, I have learned in my two years away from Ohio that Ohio State is remarkably inescapable. When we asked the bartender why on earth a bar in Vegas is decorated in the scarlet and grey, she explained that it used to be a Nebraska bar because the owners are originally from Nebraska, but then the Cornhuskers (or whatever they are) started to suck and Nebraska fans are very fickle so they decided to theme the bar after another team. There was much discussion and one of the other bartenders (an Ohioan) really pushed for Ohio State. In the end, Ohio State won out because their fans are so fiercely dedicated that even when they suck, the bar will still be packed for game day. (If you don’t know Ohio State fans, you just don’t get it - picture the most rabid sports fan you know, multiply it by ten and you will be somewhere in the vicinity of an average Ohio State Fan - my brother has an Ohio State toothbrush.)
After a couple of hours at the bar, I announced that if I didn’t find some food soon, I may have to resort to eating my own arm. We drove back across town to Angel’s house, opting to take the city streets rather than the interstates - a choice I have yet to understand, crossing the Strip is a nightmare of traffic, for the distance we were driving it shouldn’t have taken more that half an hour but the trip took nearly an hour. My level of frustration at the traffic, combined with the lack of food in my stomach and the uncomfortable nature of my fancy-pants dress shoes made me want to kick somebody in the knees.
After packing up our things and thanking Angel for his hospitality, we took to the road in a search of food. We had one quick stop to make and then it was time to get some sustenance, unfortunately, Megan spent the vast majority of her time in Vegas going to work, home, or EMT classes and rarely ventured out into the city on her own. Her ex was the all knowing, directionally gifted one that knew all the great places to eat and exactly how to find them from virtually anywhere in the city - Megan was having trouble keeping track of the location of the Strip as we drove around, in spite of the towering building and cranes erecting more towering buildings. So we meandered through the city looking for someplace to eat, but everything we spotted was on the wrong side of the road or I was in the wrong lane and we were in too much traffic (again) to make any sudden movements. Finally we just gave up and decided that perhaps it would be better to just get on the road and stop for dinner in Mesquite. As we pulled onto the interstate ramp, we realized that we were jumping onto the highway at 5:03 pm, just in time for Vegas rush hour. Quickly rethinking our plan, we hopped off at the next exit a quarter-mile down the road and she looked at me with that same pained look of the night before. “Would you be totally against eating in a casino?” And to be honest, my stomach was thinking, “Casino’s are famous for their all-you-can-eat buffets and I could eat my weight in anything right about now.”
“No, I could do a casino,” I said, forgetting for a moment about the smoking and the fact that by eating in a casino, the casino would be getting my money, something I had vowed not to let happen. But I needed food, so I was willing to bend the rules a bit, at least I would be getting something in return for my money.
“There is an All-American Bar and Grill in the Rio and I am sure they will have something you can eat.” So, after an hour of fruitless searching and aimless driving, we were off to the Rio to find some food .
We finally reached the restaurant in the Rio and there were a few people ahead of us to be seated, as we waited, it occurred to me that it might be smart to check out the menu before we were committed to a table. Certainly a restaurant in a place as cosmopolitan and international as Las Vegas would have some vegetarian options, but alas it was not to be. I couldn’t even find some generic pasta dish that I could order sans chicken, there was nothing except for a side salad and perhaps a nice baked potato or some mashers. On most days, I could have made do, but I had not eaten anything all day other than some of the left over road munchies from the night before as we were meandering through Vegas in search of real food. I didn’t want some sad excuse for a vegetarian option in a casino grill, I wanted a real meal, preferably as big a my head. So we trudged back out to the car and just sat for a minute pondering the situation and our complete inability to pick a place to eat in a city of thousands of restaurants. Really, both of us would have preferred little elves appear in the car and whip up a magical feast, but that wasn’t happening so we had to make some choices.
As we discussed the option of enduring the rush hour traffic and making the 90 mile drive to Mesquite again, I was suddenly struck by the fact that I was ridiculously warm in spite of my car heater being turned to off, the thermostat on the neutral setting, and my wool-free attire. I felt like there was hot air blowing on my pants and with a startling belligerence directed at no one in particular I began ranting and raving about the temperature in my car and when I paused after questioning (in a rather unwarranted accusatory tone) Megan as to whether she was warm or not, she just stared at me with a confounded look of concern and announced, “We need to get you some food. We are not going to Mesquite.” She directed me where to turn out of the parking lot and we began driving again. After only a few blocks on Flamingo, we came across a Thai restaurant. One of the things I miss most about living in a city, or even near a city is the variety of food, in Kanab, we have fast food, a couple of American diner type places, and several Mexican restaurants. There isn’t even a greasy, bad Chinese place, the closest Asian restaurant is an hour away, which makes me sad because it is truly one of my favorite ways to eat out. So when I spotted Thai Spice, I was of course in the wrong lane and it was on the other side of the road. I almost gave up on the idea and continued driving, but then decided to pull a u-turn and head back. As soon as we walked in, I knew it was going to be good. The lights weren’t blinking, there were not video poker machines or slots crammed into the corners, aside from the open sign in the window, there wasn’t any neon lighting, it was quiet, and it didn’t reek from years of smoking and it wasn’t boiling hot inside. I had found my happy place. We ate dinner and I thoroughly enjoyed the calm and quiet atmosphere and the food was tasty and satisfying. Full and happy, we made our way back to the car and onto the interstate for the drive back to Kanab. By then the rush hour traffic had died down and we were able to escape the city without too much difficulty.
Megan asked that we stop at Wal-Mart in Mesquite, in spite of a deep and festering loathing for the chain, I agreed to the stop. As long as I didn’t have to buy anything, I would be fine - I had already pushed my limits nearly to their breaking point in Vegas, and the store was relatively empty (it was about 10 pm) and I was too worn out to even care that much, so I wandered aimlessly through the store with Megan for a little while and then we were back in the car.
“Okay, home now, no more stops!” Megan announced as we were pulling out of the parking lot. We still had about two hours to go before we got back to Kanab. There was, however, to be one more unplanned stop. As we were coming into a construction zone in the western outskirts of St George, I got pulled over for speeding. Now, let me just clarify here, I rarely speed, and if I do it is generally not more than a few miles an hour over the limit. While I tend to follow the rules in general, I have been learning more and more about fuel efficiency and am realizing that speeding, especially on the high-speed interstates of the American west kills your car’s fuel efficiency, so in spite of 75 mile per hour limits out here, I rarely press it above 70. As we came into the 60 mph construction zone, I slowed down and continued chatting with Megan and didn’t notice that as I was driving down a small slope, my car was slowly coasting up in speed. And then came the lights. And then a few choice words on my part as I pulled to the side of the road. I rolled down my window, pulled out my license, registration, and proof of insurance and tried to stop shaking and put out of my mind the possible fines I may have just earned myself being in a construction zone. Megan and I were patiently waiting for the officer to come to my window and we were both startled and momentarily confused when we heard a knocking sound coming from somewhere else. As I looked around, I found that the officer was standing at Megan’s window, not mine. Megan locked the doors in an effort to open the window, so I used my buttons to open her window. The officer asked if I had seen where the limit dropped to 60 and when I said I thought I was going 60, he informed me that he had gotten me at 67 - crap and a half! I apologized and he was very nice and said that there was no need for apologies and asked for my driver’s license. I gave him all my papers and license and he asked where we were going. We told him we were on our way back to Kanab and he asked from where we were coming. In my head, I groaned, I didn’t want to tell this officer that we were on our way back from Las Vegas at 10:30 pm, for it would certainly lead to more questions and probably assumptions of drinking and debauchery. But I also didn’t want to mention the funeral, I would never have wanted Megan to think that I was using her dead friend to get me out of a speeding ticket, so while I fumbled around in my head for the best way to spin the answer, Megan announced, “We are on our way back from a funeral in Las Vegas.” He asked a few more questions, most of which Megan answered - she was closer to him and my brain had apparently gone into vapor lock because I was having trouble forming words let alone complete sentences. Have I mentioned that she is a very good friend? Without even returning to his cruiser to run my license, the officer returned my documents and wished us a safe trip home. I was more relieved than I can say and he was very nice. He was part of the K-9 unit of the highway patrol, so before he left, Megan asked about his dog and they chatted for a minute and then we were on our way. As I merged back on the interstate, relieved to have not been hit with a speeding ticket and fines, and minding my speed carefully, Megan made the observation, “A turn signal might be nice.” I immediately flipped it on and we both started laughing. We made it home, exhausted, a few hours later. For all my new found dislike of Las Vegas, I should say, for a friend, I would do it all again without a moment’s hesitation.
I learned two very important things from my Vegas experience, 1) don't bother discussing energy efficiency and conservation with the locals, it is about as productive as hoping elves will cook you dinner in your car and 2) don’t wear wool in Vegas.
Friday, January 9, 2009
Changing Plans and Visiting Angels
And here is a post that was written when the time stamps says it was (scroll down for one I wrote last week but couldn't post until today).
It has been an interesting week, in good ways mostly. Things are changing quite a lot up at the Lodges. Our long term plan has been made a little longer-term because BF will be receiving about twenty dogs from a rescue group in Texas that took dogs from BF during the Katrina rescues and is now shutting down. As per the contracts that BF signed with groups that took in their rescues from Nola, BF is still ultimately responsible for the care of any animals, so now, three years later, we are taking in twenty dogs for whom they can no longer care. We will be getting several up at the Lodges, but nothing is for sure until they get here.
The trainers have been trying to get Jerry Lee into a run with a group but it hasn't been going very well. 
Interestingly, we were told that Jerry Lee doesn't do well with other males and so he wasn't put into a group, but he hasn't shown any dog aggression to speak of at BF so a few weeks ago they did an assessment and determined that he isn't really dog aggressive in spite of what we were told when he came to BF. They first tried him in a run up at Conrad's and Leopold's and the male dog in the run jumped him, which terrified Jerry Lee, but he didn't fight back. Then they tried him in a run at Octagons 1 & 2 and again the male dog chased him around and jumped him, so he is back at the Lodges until we can find a place for him where he isn't going to get harassed. He is an incredibly good dog, I have never seen any aggression from him and I am really hoping that we can try and get his collar color reassessed.
Interestingly, we were told that Jerry Lee doesn't do well with other males and so he wasn't put into a group, but he hasn't shown any dog aggression to speak of at BF so a few weeks ago they did an assessment and determined that he isn't really dog aggressive in spite of what we were told when he came to BF. They first tried him in a run up at Conrad's and Leopold's and the male dog in the run jumped him, which terrified Jerry Lee, but he didn't fight back. Then they tried him in a run at Octagons 1 & 2 and again the male dog chased him around and jumped him, so he is back at the Lodges until we can find a place for him where he isn't going to get harassed. He is an incredibly good dog, I have never seen any aggression from him and I am really hoping that we can try and get his collar color reassessed.As I mentioned before, Rex has gone home and his runmate, Sophie, has an application and her new people will be coming out later this month to meet her.
As well, sweet little Ophelia is going to become a Maryland dog, she will be leaving to go to her new family once transport can be arranged, I am so happy that she has found her forever home!
And, Savannah has an application, so she is going through heartworm treatment (she was rescued from a shelter after Hurricane Gustav) and then her prospective people are going to come meet her with their dogs and if that all goes well, she will go home, too.
And finally, I got a call a couple of days ago that Oreo has a really good application as well. His prospective mom will be coming out later this month to meet him and if it all goes well, she will take him back to Vegas in February. 
Of course, none of these are completely definite but they are all very good prospects and it will be nice to see so many more dogs going into forever homes!
As well, sweet little Ophelia is going to become a Maryland dog, she will be leaving to go to her new family once transport can be arranged, I am so happy that she has found her forever home!And, Savannah has an application, so she is going through heartworm treatment (she was rescued from a shelter after Hurricane Gustav) and then her prospective people are going to come meet her with their dogs and if that all goes well, she will go home, too.And finally, I got a call a couple of days ago that Oreo has a really good application as well. His prospective mom will be coming out later this month to meet him and if it all goes well, she will take him back to Vegas in February. Of course, none of these are completely definite but they are all very good prospects and it will be nice to see so many more dogs going into forever homes!I have also started taking dogs home occasionally on sleepovers. My first guest was Tasha (of course) and she did wonderfully. 
She met my friend and former roommate Carissa and her dogs and did great with all of them. Back at my house, she did really great, there was almost not growling or snapping - the few occurrences all happened when I was intentionally pushing her boundaries and she stopped as soon as I let her know that her behavior was not acceptable. She is becoming very trusting with me and really starting to let down her guard with new people. I also too Ophelia home for a night and she did very well, too. She has been a sleepover superstar for a long time now and she was delightful with me as well. She tends to get a little nervous in new situations, so I want to get her exposed to some new things before she goes to her new home so that the transition won't be as difficult for her - though really, I think she will settle in very quickly.
She met my friend and former roommate Carissa and her dogs and did great with all of them. Back at my house, she did really great, there was almost not growling or snapping - the few occurrences all happened when I was intentionally pushing her boundaries and she stopped as soon as I let her know that her behavior was not acceptable. She is becoming very trusting with me and really starting to let down her guard with new people. I also too Ophelia home for a night and she did very well, too. She has been a sleepover superstar for a long time now and she was delightful with me as well. She tends to get a little nervous in new situations, so I want to get her exposed to some new things before she goes to her new home so that the transition won't be as difficult for her - though really, I think she will settle in very quickly.The other major change that is happening up at the Lodges is that we are splitting the Lodges into two areas to bring down the number of dogs that we as caregivers have to monitor. So, starting this Sunday, I will be part of the Lodges A team (we will come up with better names) and will only be caring for the dogs in seven lodges, rather than fifteen. I think it is going to be a really good change for the caregivers and the dogs alike, but it will be hard to not be working with some of the dogs that I have grown to really love. Tasha is still in my area, so I will get to continue to work with her, but Jerry Lee will be in Lodges B, so I won't get to spend much time with him anymore, of course he is probably going to be moving out of the Lodges all together, soon, when they find a group that won't pick on him. And there are many more that I will miss, but it will be nice to have fewer dogs in my care and fewer people to have to work with - I don't mean that the way it sounds, but when you and your coworkers are going in fifteen different directions all the time, it can be really hard to come together and have a discussion about anything and it always seems to take several days for suggested changes to take place because ideas have to be run by everyone and discussed and it just gets tricky working with six people, now I will have two other people on my team.
If you haven't had enough BF talk after all this, you should read this article - http://celebrate.bestfriends.org/news/cancer-survivor-gives-the-gift-of-membership.aspx, Nicole is a volunteer that just survived breast cancer and came to volunteer for three weeks at BF and she spent the majority of her time in dog and most of that was up at the Lodges so we all got the chance to get to know her and love her. On her second to last day in town (this isn't in the article but it should be!), she took a day off from volunteering at the sanctuary and drove the 160 miles round trip to go to St George on a major shopping spree for the dogs of the Lodges. She came back with a rental car crammed with beds, blankets, leashes, harnesses and treats, just for the Lodge kids. Some of her friends donated cash to the venture, so now we have lots nice, new goodies for our dogs. She is a really amazing person and I can't wait to see her on her next visit . . . did I mention that she arrived at BF just three days after she finished her last radiation treatment - what a woman!!!
I will bring this one to an end now, it has been a while since I posted and this one has gotten a little out of control, but stay tuned for an upcoming post about my recent adventure to Las Vegas . . .
(All photos copyright Best Friends Animal Society.)
Good Changes and Fond Farewells
Let me start out by saying that I am writing this blog on Friday, January 2, 2009 (Happy New Year!), in spite of what the blogger time stamp may be. I am writing this on my computer at home and will post it to the Internet later - I don’t have an Internet connection at my house. Now to the actual post . . .
I got back to work on Tuesday, after a very long day of travel on Monday, fortunately I didn’t have any problems or delays getting back - doesn’t it always seem to be the case that when you are traveling, you have all the delays and bung-ups going to the place you really want to be (getting the vacation started, getting back from a business trip, getting to the South Pole, etc). Upon my return to the Lodges, not too much had changed, in fact, I was a bit surprised at how little had actually changed. Two dogs swapped runs and one dog, Gina, got adopted, but other than that, things were pretty much the same. Apparently, the people that adopted Gina (a Lodge dog for less than two weeks), came to BF to volunteer just before Christmas. They had agreed before their arrival that they would not be adopting any dogs since they have an eighteen month old lab at home in Indiana and then they met little Miss Gina and they weren’t leaving without her. It was only a matter of time before this little girl found her way into a home, she is spunky and small and outgoing in an adorable kind of way that just makes you smile.
I was a little worried that some of the dogs might give me a bit of a hard time since it had been a week since I had been around. I, and my fellow caregivers, have been making such wonderful progress with Tasha, but I had found that sometimes when I came back from my weekends, she had taken a small step backward from where she was when I left, so I was really unsure what to expect from her, but to my great surprise she was very happy to see me and has been incredibly trusting and doing very well with her training. Over the course of several weeks before I left, I was working on “Kiss” with her. It started out by putting a piece of biscuit or kibble between my lips and letting her take it from me - she was always very gentle, she is good with treats, but when she was taking them from my mouth, she was always extra careful. After a few tries, I started including the command “Kiss”, then after a few days, I would ask for a kiss without the treat between my lips and when she would touch her nose/mouth to my lips, she would get the treat. Now, if she knows I have a treat and sitting isn’t getting the job done, she will try the kiss to see if that will open the "cookie jar" and while before, she would always get stage fright when I would ask her for a kiss in front of other people, she is now kissing both Keeley and Megan on command as well. The next step is to get a brave “stranger” (aka someone that doesn’t work with her regularly) to try the kiss and see if she will do it. I have also been starting to work with her on target training and she is proving to be quite the pro at it as well. For those of you who don’t know what target training is, you teach a dog to touch a target, often your hand at the beginning, and then you can start transferring the target to other things, like light switches and doors. I had tried targeting several months ago, but I would always wear gloves and if I tried with bare hands she didn’t really get what I wanted, I think when she would touch the gloves, it was because she wanted to smell them, but now she is doing it like she has known how to do it all along, plus there is more of a relationship between us now and we understand each other better than a few months ago. She has also started jumping up on me with her front feet and then stretching her body out and arching her back while I pet her. I would sometimes hold up a treat and ask her to jump up on me to get it and she would do it but as soon as she had the treat she would put her feet firmly back on the floor, she always seemed a little nervous and uncomfortable with this kind of contact, but now she is completely different. Jumping up can be a signal of dominance, but it also shows a confidence and comfort that she didn't have before and she hasn’t done it at inappropriate times so far. As well, stretching is a good sign that she is getting more and more comfortable with me. It was really nice to come back and find that she doesn’t seem to have taken any steps backward and has actually continued to move forward.
On Tuesday, Rex’s (aka Sexy Rexy) new people arrived and I got to introduce them to their new dog, it was very cool. He was a little aloof with them and his runmate Sophie put in a very good effort to try and steal the show, but they were smitten. He met their other two dogs the following day and then they took him on a sleep over. He came back for the day on Thursday and then when Terry took him down for another sleepover with them that evening, they told her that they didn’t want to bring him back anymore. He was theirs and they wanted to keep him for the rest of their time in Kanab. While she was very excited that Rexy had found such wonderful people, Terry did have to explain that they would have to bring him back at least one more time so that everyone could say good-bye, that is just how things work around Dogtown. They agreed that they would bring him back at least one more time before they left town, probably on Saturday, but I talked Megan after work today (I had the day off) and she said they brought him up for a farewell visit today and might not come back up tomorrow. I am a little disappointed that I might not get to say good-bye, but even if I don’t get to see him off, I am very happy for him to have found such nice people and I really hope that he has a wonderful life with them!
Well, that is about all I have for today, I hope everyone had a safe and happy New Year. My wish for 2009 is that this Earth and all her inhabitants will find in them the spirit of peace that has been so lacking of late and we can all learn to delight in the differences of our fellow humans (and all creatures for that matter).
As a final note, I would like to offer my deepest condolences to Jane Goodall and the staff of the Jane Goodall Institute on the passing of Gregoire, he was an inspiring reminder that all creatures on this Earth deserve the deepest respect and honor humanity can offer. He will be missed. You can read his story here: http://janegoodall.org/gregoire/default1.asp.
I got back to work on Tuesday, after a very long day of travel on Monday, fortunately I didn’t have any problems or delays getting back - doesn’t it always seem to be the case that when you are traveling, you have all the delays and bung-ups going to the place you really want to be (getting the vacation started, getting back from a business trip, getting to the South Pole, etc). Upon my return to the Lodges, not too much had changed, in fact, I was a bit surprised at how little had actually changed. Two dogs swapped runs and one dog, Gina, got adopted, but other than that, things were pretty much the same. Apparently, the people that adopted Gina (a Lodge dog for less than two weeks), came to BF to volunteer just before Christmas. They had agreed before their arrival that they would not be adopting any dogs since they have an eighteen month old lab at home in Indiana and then they met little Miss Gina and they weren’t leaving without her. It was only a matter of time before this little girl found her way into a home, she is spunky and small and outgoing in an adorable kind of way that just makes you smile.
I was a little worried that some of the dogs might give me a bit of a hard time since it had been a week since I had been around. I, and my fellow caregivers, have been making such wonderful progress with Tasha, but I had found that sometimes when I came back from my weekends, she had taken a small step backward from where she was when I left, so I was really unsure what to expect from her, but to my great surprise she was very happy to see me and has been incredibly trusting and doing very well with her training. Over the course of several weeks before I left, I was working on “Kiss” with her. It started out by putting a piece of biscuit or kibble between my lips and letting her take it from me - she was always very gentle, she is good with treats, but when she was taking them from my mouth, she was always extra careful. After a few tries, I started including the command “Kiss”, then after a few days, I would ask for a kiss without the treat between my lips and when she would touch her nose/mouth to my lips, she would get the treat. Now, if she knows I have a treat and sitting isn’t getting the job done, she will try the kiss to see if that will open the "cookie jar" and while before, she would always get stage fright when I would ask her for a kiss in front of other people, she is now kissing both Keeley and Megan on command as well. The next step is to get a brave “stranger” (aka someone that doesn’t work with her regularly) to try the kiss and see if she will do it. I have also been starting to work with her on target training and she is proving to be quite the pro at it as well. For those of you who don’t know what target training is, you teach a dog to touch a target, often your hand at the beginning, and then you can start transferring the target to other things, like light switches and doors. I had tried targeting several months ago, but I would always wear gloves and if I tried with bare hands she didn’t really get what I wanted, I think when she would touch the gloves, it was because she wanted to smell them, but now she is doing it like she has known how to do it all along, plus there is more of a relationship between us now and we understand each other better than a few months ago. She has also started jumping up on me with her front feet and then stretching her body out and arching her back while I pet her. I would sometimes hold up a treat and ask her to jump up on me to get it and she would do it but as soon as she had the treat she would put her feet firmly back on the floor, she always seemed a little nervous and uncomfortable with this kind of contact, but now she is completely different. Jumping up can be a signal of dominance, but it also shows a confidence and comfort that she didn't have before and she hasn’t done it at inappropriate times so far. As well, stretching is a good sign that she is getting more and more comfortable with me. It was really nice to come back and find that she doesn’t seem to have taken any steps backward and has actually continued to move forward.
On Tuesday, Rex’s (aka Sexy Rexy) new people arrived and I got to introduce them to their new dog, it was very cool. He was a little aloof with them and his runmate Sophie put in a very good effort to try and steal the show, but they were smitten. He met their other two dogs the following day and then they took him on a sleep over. He came back for the day on Thursday and then when Terry took him down for another sleepover with them that evening, they told her that they didn’t want to bring him back anymore. He was theirs and they wanted to keep him for the rest of their time in Kanab. While she was very excited that Rexy had found such wonderful people, Terry did have to explain that they would have to bring him back at least one more time so that everyone could say good-bye, that is just how things work around Dogtown. They agreed that they would bring him back at least one more time before they left town, probably on Saturday, but I talked Megan after work today (I had the day off) and she said they brought him up for a farewell visit today and might not come back up tomorrow. I am a little disappointed that I might not get to say good-bye, but even if I don’t get to see him off, I am very happy for him to have found such nice people and I really hope that he has a wonderful life with them!
Well, that is about all I have for today, I hope everyone had a safe and happy New Year. My wish for 2009 is that this Earth and all her inhabitants will find in them the spirit of peace that has been so lacking of late and we can all learn to delight in the differences of our fellow humans (and all creatures for that matter).
As a final note, I would like to offer my deepest condolences to Jane Goodall and the staff of the Jane Goodall Institute on the passing of Gregoire, he was an inspiring reminder that all creatures on this Earth deserve the deepest respect and honor humanity can offer. He will be missed. You can read his story here: http://janegoodall.org/gregoire/default1.asp.
Monday, December 29, 2008
The Coming Changes
Well, here I am just wasting time in the Charlotte airport while I wait for my flight to Las Vegas and playing with my new little computer that I got from my mom for Christmas, it is a pretty neat little thing and it is hardly bigger than the average hardback book! It is a nice diversion from the people-watching and reading, I thought I would just write up a quick post and save the reading for the plane.
While I must admit that I was really not looking forward to heading back to the desert today, I am slowly getting more excited to see what has changed since I was last up at the Lodges. There was talk of trying to get Jerry Lee into a new group before I left. 
I hadn't really gotten to know him since I started at the Lodges, due in large part to the fact that his former run mate Coconut can be a little bit . . . bratty (or something else that starts with a "b") and she would get mad if he was getting attention and she was not.
A few weeks ago his eye started looking really bad, it was getting cloudy on one side of the eyeball and really blood shot on the other side and seemed like it was starting to bulge out of the socket a little bit. I took him to the clinic and they asked if we would be able to get eye drops in him, which I was not very optimistic about and then they said he needed them four times a day and I got really doubtful that we would be able to safely do eye drops so many times a day before he got fed up and decided to eat one of us . . . he is a pretty big dog, probably some kind of Shepherd Akita mix and probably in the 70-80 lbs range. When I told Terry and Jorge that we were supposed to get the drops in him four times a day, they both laughed and said we should just ask for the oral medication - Jorge said he would call at the end of the day the next day to find out if I still had all my fingers. So you can imagine everyone's utter surprise when Jerry Lee took the eye drops like a pro . . . sort of. He does take every evasive maneuver he can think of, but he also knows that there are treats involved in these encounters and inevitably the treats win out. This dog, whose assessment says that he is a bit head shy (doesn't like his head to be touched too much) and is especially sensitive about his ears, is letting us man handle his head several times a day to get it into just the right position for the drops. Just before I left, he went back to the clinic and now has two different kinds of drops that he needs twice a day five minutes apart, but not more of the four times a day stuff. I have been just so very impressed by Jerry Lee's patience through all of this - not once, not on a single occasion has he even made any hint of an aggressive move toward any of the caregivers, in spite of all the man handling, not even a little growl over the course of two weeks! A few days after the start of the eye drops, we decided to take Jerry Lee out of the run with Coconut and put him by himself until we could find him some new run mates. We were told that he is not very good with male dogs, but they have since tested him and he has done just fine with males and females, which means that he can probably go into a group run, which would be wonderful for him. The day after I left, I am told they tried him in a run in a different area of Dogtown with another male and a female, but the other male didn't like Jerry Lee and went after him (from what I have heard, Jerry Lee again just took evasive measures and didn't really fight back). I am excited to see what has changed with Jerry Lee since I left and to find out if he has found some new run mates yet. He is a really great dog and I am really hoping that we can find his forever home soon.
I hadn't really gotten to know him since I started at the Lodges, due in large part to the fact that his former run mate Coconut can be a little bit . . . bratty (or something else that starts with a "b") and she would get mad if he was getting attention and she was not.A few weeks ago his eye started looking really bad, it was getting cloudy on one side of the eyeball and really blood shot on the other side and seemed like it was starting to bulge out of the socket a little bit. I took him to the clinic and they asked if we would be able to get eye drops in him, which I was not very optimistic about and then they said he needed them four times a day and I got really doubtful that we would be able to safely do eye drops so many times a day before he got fed up and decided to eat one of us . . . he is a pretty big dog, probably some kind of Shepherd Akita mix and probably in the 70-80 lbs range. When I told Terry and Jorge that we were supposed to get the drops in him four times a day, they both laughed and said we should just ask for the oral medication - Jorge said he would call at the end of the day the next day to find out if I still had all my fingers. So you can imagine everyone's utter surprise when Jerry Lee took the eye drops like a pro . . . sort of. He does take every evasive maneuver he can think of, but he also knows that there are treats involved in these encounters and inevitably the treats win out. This dog, whose assessment says that he is a bit head shy (doesn't like his head to be touched too much) and is especially sensitive about his ears, is letting us man handle his head several times a day to get it into just the right position for the drops. Just before I left, he went back to the clinic and now has two different kinds of drops that he needs twice a day five minutes apart, but not more of the four times a day stuff. I have been just so very impressed by Jerry Lee's patience through all of this - not once, not on a single occasion has he even made any hint of an aggressive move toward any of the caregivers, in spite of all the man handling, not even a little growl over the course of two weeks! A few days after the start of the eye drops, we decided to take Jerry Lee out of the run with Coconut and put him by himself until we could find him some new run mates. We were told that he is not very good with male dogs, but they have since tested him and he has done just fine with males and females, which means that he can probably go into a group run, which would be wonderful for him. The day after I left, I am told they tried him in a run in a different area of Dogtown with another male and a female, but the other male didn't like Jerry Lee and went after him (from what I have heard, Jerry Lee again just took evasive measures and didn't really fight back). I am excited to see what has changed with Jerry Lee since I left and to find out if he has found some new run mates yet. He is a really great dog and I am really hoping that we can find his forever home soon.I am sure there will be many changes once I get back to the Lodges, two days away always means moved dogs or new dogs, so I can only imagine what may have changed after a week away. I'll keep you posted! I hope you all have a safe and happy New Year!
It is time to board the plane, please excuse any typos or other weird grammar, I didn't have time to reread it before posting.
(All photos copyright Best Friends Animal Society.)
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Trash Cans and Traveling
Trash cans have been taking up entirely too much of my brain (and blog) space lately, but I am happy to announce that I finally found small, lidded trash cans that I could afford. Well, I don't know if afford is the right word here, but I am just not going to spend $30 on a fancy pants trash can that would hold three pieces of paper, a juice box, and a banana peel, just because it has a motion sensor that makes it open when you are nearby, so you don't actually have to touch it (which, I have to say, totally defeats the purpose of having a lid on a trash can to keep curious critters from using it as a snack bar in the first place). So, anyway, I found trash cans at Bed, Bath and Beyond that I really like. Not only are they small and simple with a swinging lid, but they are made of biodegradable plastic and they were $10 each - I just love the poetry of biodegradable trash cans. Plus they aren't ugly! Following Barrie's advice, I bought two, one for the bathroom and one for the kitchen. I almost went looking for them at Wal-Mart, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. We hates the Wal-Mart, we hates it! Anyway, that will hopefully be the last post about the state of my trash cans, we will now be leaving all the "Trash Talk" to the Clair the elusive Southern Polar Bear.
In other news, I am in Ohio for the holiday with my family (aka most of the people who are reading this blog), I arrived in late last night after a very long day of traveling. I left my house at 5:50 am to drive eighty miles to St George where I took a shuttle van to the Las Vegas airport two hours away and then proceeded to wait for three hours for my flight to take off . . . blah blah blah, we all know how these airport stories go. Anyway, I finally got to mom's house at about 11:45 pm, making it about sixteen hours of traveling, all after a long day up at BF and a short night of sleep. You may recall an earlier post talking about Sage, the dog with the head tilt and either a brain tumor or an inner ear infection. Well, I have been remiss in my duties here and I have forgotten to tell you all that our wonderful volunteers, Jeanne and Robin, offered to foster her in their home, she finally has her forever home in her old age. 
She has been doing amazingly well in their care, her head tilt is gone and she stopped circling (something that often accompanies the head tilt), she made herself at home immediately in their care and they fell in love with her the minute she walked in their door. She knows she is home. So you can imagine how distressing it was to be heading for the door, ready to start my vacation and hear that she was coming in and was not in very good shape, her head tilt was back, she was circling, and she was trying (unsuccessfully) to both vomit and poop. The last two things are classic signs of bloat, which, as it turns out was what was happening. She went through emergency surgery to reposition her twisted stomach and staple it to the abdominal wall so that it won't twist again. She has not been eating well for weeks, she had only had about a cup and a half of food the day she bloated, so the vets think she may have been "trying" to bloat for a while now, and it just wasn't until Monday night that she went into a full twist and bloat. With many dogs, you can actually see the bloat happening as their stomach distends, but Sage has an incredibly bushy, thick coat making it very difficult to see small changes in her shape. My co-worker, Terry, and I decided to stay with Jeanne and Robin while they waited for results from the surgery, which, thankfully, went well. Yesterday, she wasn't up and moving, yet, but she was giving kisses and seemed to be feeling somewhat better. The vets said that if she made it through the first 24 hours after the surgery, we were basically out of the woods. Thank goodness that Sage is such a stubborn, tough old broad; it was difficult to leave knowing that she was in such a precarious position, but there are a great many people that know and love Sage dearly and she does appear to be recovering well (Knock on Wood!), I just keep sending her all the good thoughts and healing energy I can muster.
She has been doing amazingly well in their care, her head tilt is gone and she stopped circling (something that often accompanies the head tilt), she made herself at home immediately in their care and they fell in love with her the minute she walked in their door. She knows she is home. So you can imagine how distressing it was to be heading for the door, ready to start my vacation and hear that she was coming in and was not in very good shape, her head tilt was back, she was circling, and she was trying (unsuccessfully) to both vomit and poop. The last two things are classic signs of bloat, which, as it turns out was what was happening. She went through emergency surgery to reposition her twisted stomach and staple it to the abdominal wall so that it won't twist again. She has not been eating well for weeks, she had only had about a cup and a half of food the day she bloated, so the vets think she may have been "trying" to bloat for a while now, and it just wasn't until Monday night that she went into a full twist and bloat. With many dogs, you can actually see the bloat happening as their stomach distends, but Sage has an incredibly bushy, thick coat making it very difficult to see small changes in her shape. My co-worker, Terry, and I decided to stay with Jeanne and Robin while they waited for results from the surgery, which, thankfully, went well. Yesterday, she wasn't up and moving, yet, but she was giving kisses and seemed to be feeling somewhat better. The vets said that if she made it through the first 24 hours after the surgery, we were basically out of the woods. Thank goodness that Sage is such a stubborn, tough old broad; it was difficult to leave knowing that she was in such a precarious position, but there are a great many people that know and love Sage dearly and she does appear to be recovering well (Knock on Wood!), I just keep sending her all the good thoughts and healing energy I can muster.While it is nice to have a break from work, it is strange to think that I won't be back at the Lodges for a whole week. Coming back from a two-day weekend can often mean new dogs, moved dogs, changed meds, and different routines, I can't imagine what it will be like to come back from a week away. I hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday season and I will try to get a few more posts up in the coming days. Best wishes!
(All photos copyright Best Friends Animal Society.)
Thursday, December 18, 2008
When the poo is covered in snow . . .
Thanks, Barrie, for the wastebasket advice, this has become something of a quest for me of late. There is, apparently, an alarming shortage of small wastebaskets with lids in Kanab, UT, big kitchen size ones are no problem, but I don't want one of those, I want a nice little one with a lid that can serve as a bit of a deterrent for any dogs I might bring home for a night. A little one can be tucked under the sink in my bathroom, not so with a big one, so, the wastebaskets are continuing to occupy too much of my brain space. 
Sort of like this, but more puzzled.
A view of the canyon in the snow.
A co-worker's dogs, patiently waiting in the snow for mom to go home.
How can you not smile at a face like that? His name fits him well - Charmer!
In other news, we are getting slapped around something fierce by Mother Nature this week, which has led to much snow-covered fun-filled shenanigans up at the Lodges. For those of you not experienced in golf cart driving in the snow without a windshield, let me tell you, it is both fun and frightening all at the same time. As the snow began to pile up (we are probably currently over a foot of snow right now - in the desert . . .), the golf carts did as well. One could find carts abandoned in several not-necessarily-road areas over the last couple of days, just piling up with snow and waiting for rescue (as a side note, let me just say, none of them were mine).
As for the ones still running, actually moving (especially from a stop) could be problematic, too. As I was coming around a turn, I saw co-worker Keely spinning her wheels and trying to "kick start" the cart (keeping one foot on the gas and pushing at the ground with the other foot). In an attempt to be helpful, I shouted up to her to pick up her feet and I would bump her with my cart to get going. Immediately after I finished yelling, she put her foot back in the cart, leading me to think she had heard me, but that was apparently not the case. When I bumped her, she jumped so far off the seat I thought she might hit her head on the roof and then turned around to see what had just happened. Upon seeing me, she began laughing and announced that I was lucky I didn't make her pee her pants, we couldn't stop laughing as I continued to push her struggling cart down the road.
There is just something about snow that makes it a lot easier to just let it go and laugh. It cushions you when you fall and provides easy ammo when you are annoyed, there is just something fun about snow - of course Clair may beg to differ, if I were surrounded by snow 24/7 as far as the eye could see for six months, I would probably not be so fond of it. But for us desert dwellers, it is kind of fun.
Snow does lead to a lot more maintenance work and throws the normal schedule at the Lodges into a blender. When we knew the first storm was coming in, we got all the normal first thing in the morning stuff done and then went out to start poop scooping - frozen poop has a lot of good qualities, less stinky, not mushy, etc, but I was told to keep my mouth shut when trying to whack frozen poo loose from the frozen ground (I haven't made the mistake of learning this lesson from personal experience, yet). We also get to go around and beat the ever-loving crap out of the shade tarps to knock the snow off before they collapse under the weight of the white stuff. It really is quite fun beating on them with broom sticks and throwing your whole body weight into the sagging tarps and jumping around to get the higher up parts, but boy do your legs hurt in the morning. And you do tend to accumulate other casualties during the process, we managed to punch a small hole in one tarp - turns out wooden broomsticks are better suited for not damaging the tarps - though, we did lose a wooden broomstick to a frozen tarp, snapped it like a toothpick which also led to nearly peed pants at the hilarity of it all and an wonderfully puzzled look on Theresa the dogs face at the two spastic nut jobs in her yard.
Sort of like this, but more puzzled.Finally, I thought I would include a few more of the Favorite Photos of the Week from the BF Web site.
A view of the canyon in the snow.A co-worker's dogs, patiently waiting in the snow for mom to go home.How can you not smile at a face like that? His name fits him well - Charmer!(All photos copyright Best Friends Animal Society.)
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Tough Question
Well, I should have known that when I tell folks to ask questions, Ben would ask the one question that I really can't answer - who is my favorite dog, aside from Shelby, of course? There are some really great dogs up at the Lodges and I don't think I could pick just one favorite. I do have some favorites though, Tasha, Marge, and Batman come to mind immediately. Then there's Archie and Ogy and Pinky Bear (aka Pinkerton), we can't forget Astronomy (aka Tronnie or Stinky Face - he eats poop) and Paris (Par Par) and Ophelia (the little Black Bean) and Ursa and Diego (the Crazy Kids), Buddah, Annie, Tex, Savannah, Rex (Sexy Rexy), Sophie, Twyla, Niblet (Nibbly Nibs or Nibnib), Rueben and more that I just can't think of right at the moment.
It was a good week up at the Lodges for the most part. One down side to the week is that Sage has been in the clinic all week with a very pronounced head tilt which generally indicates one of two things, an inner ear infection or a brain tumor . . . big difference. So we are still waiting on diagnostics to find out which it is, being that Sage has one ear canal that is completely closed up and another that is partially closed and she is deaf and has been subject to chronic ear infections in the past, we are really hoping that logic and history will win out over a brain tumor. In addition to our worries about Sage, Old Friends sadly lost a sweet dog named BJ a couple of days ago to bloat. Bloat is a very strange condition and vets really haven't been able to figure out what makes it happen, though there are a lot of theories. We always check on the dogs first thing in the morning and last thing at night to make sure (among other things) they aren't showing signs of bloat. When a dog bloats, the sphincter between the stomach and esophagus malfunctions and/or their stomach rotates either partially or fully (this is called torsion) closing off either end of the stomach causing fluids and gases to build up in the stomach causing it to bloat. If it is not caught soon enough, the stomach can become necrotic and the dog can die.
On the more positive side of things, Synergy continues to do well with Mowgli. They had a bit of a spat yesterday afternoon, so we decided to hold off on leaving them together for the night for a bit longer (when a new dog is introduced to a run, they are pulled out for the first seven nights in an effort to prevent any fights when there aren't staff around to break it up). The day of the disagreement was supposed to be the first night they spent together. We are also putting Tex and Savannah together and so far (fingers crossed!!) all seems to be going well. Tex is a Bloodhound mix, probably has some Shepherd in him, too 
and they think Savannah is an Aussie, Shar Pei mix, in person, she has got a face you just won't believe.
and they think Savannah is an Aussie, Shar Pei mix, in person, she has got a face you just won't believe.Savannah has been tried with several dogs, but always seems to get herself into trouble after a few days. Today will be day five of their living together and I really hope it continues to go well. Tex lived with Valentine for quite a while and has been solo for about a month since she got adopted and so we are really hoping that Savannah can be his new buddy.
And on a non-work related note, in the final days of my 26th year (no that is not a hint -seriously, not a hint!) I have taken a very big step. I will, in the next few days, be taking up residence in a house that I will have all to myself. That's right, for the first time in my life, I will live without any roommates; I have never lived on my own before, so I am both very excited and a little bit nervous about the whole thing. It is a one bedroom, one bathroom house and it is very nice and clean with a nice little yard and I can't stop obsessing about all the stuff I have to get. There is all the obvious stuff - bed, couch, table, etc., but then there's all the little stuff, too. One night, I lay away for an hour mostly debating with myself about whether I needed one waste basket or two, I may have driven myself completely insane before I have the chance to enjoy the house. As always, I hope you all had a great week and I will do my best to get back to the library tomorrow for another post (though, much of the day may be occupied by preparation for the new house and moving). If I don't get another post on here, have a wonderful week! (All photos copyright Best Friends Animal Society.)
Friday, December 5, 2008
The Not Macy's Holiday Parade
Nothing too exciting to report today. We had a holiday parade in Kanab last night, let me tell you, what a show, we are giving Macy's a run for their money! The streets were closed at about 6:55 pm so the parade could commence at 7:00; local businesses made "floats" (decorated cars for the most part) and of course there were the fire trucks and a mildly frightening Smokey the Bear tossing candy to hoards of onlookers. A bunch of Dogtown staff walked dogs (mostly their personal dogs) that were sporting a variety of holiday decor - flashing collars and twinkling lights - and Trixie the miniature horse pulled her pint-sized cart, all aglow with holiday cheer. It was pretty fun, Echo, one of the dogs I was pet sitting a couple of weeks ago was there and I think she licked the face of every kid in the crowd, twice. We walked down Main Street for a couple of blocks, then turned around and went back in the direction from which we had just come. It was quite a show, the streets were opened back up by 7:35 pm.
Elsewhere in life, I am working on finding a more permanent living situation. I am trying to find a good balance between being rational and too picky, which is a surprisingly difficult feat here in Kanab. I have been avoiding the task since I have been here, mostly because I knew that I had some pet sitting jobs lined up and I would be leaving to go back to Ohio for a week around Christmas and it seemed silly to rent a place that I wasn't going to be utilizing for all that time. But I am getting impatient and ready to find somewhere that I can make my own space and worry less about roommates - which is not to say that I don't like my roommate anymore, we are good - I am just ready to be more on my own . . . and get the rest of my suitcases unpacked, I have forgotten what most of my wardrobe even looks like.
That is about all I can think of at the moment, sorry for the shortness and the boringness of the post - it is kind of like Kanab in that regard. Hopefully I will have more exciting stories to tell next week (good/happy exciting, not the other kind, a book I am reading is talking about being careful what you wish for). Again I say, if you have questions, I would be more than pleased to address them and have something more to write about than just random thoughts.
Take care and have a great week!
Elsewhere in life, I am working on finding a more permanent living situation. I am trying to find a good balance between being rational and too picky, which is a surprisingly difficult feat here in Kanab. I have been avoiding the task since I have been here, mostly because I knew that I had some pet sitting jobs lined up and I would be leaving to go back to Ohio for a week around Christmas and it seemed silly to rent a place that I wasn't going to be utilizing for all that time. But I am getting impatient and ready to find somewhere that I can make my own space and worry less about roommates - which is not to say that I don't like my roommate anymore, we are good - I am just ready to be more on my own . . . and get the rest of my suitcases unpacked, I have forgotten what most of my wardrobe even looks like.
That is about all I can think of at the moment, sorry for the shortness and the boringness of the post - it is kind of like Kanab in that regard. Hopefully I will have more exciting stories to tell next week (good/happy exciting, not the other kind, a book I am reading is talking about being careful what you wish for). Again I say, if you have questions, I would be more than pleased to address them and have something more to write about than just random thoughts.
Take care and have a great week!
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Good News
Another week has come and gone and it is very hard to believe that it is already December. We've had some great news this week up at the Lodges and there are some exciting things happening. We found out yesterday that Ann Allums, one of the trainers, has chosen our lovable Mason to be her project dog in an upcoming season of National Geographic's "DogTown" TV series.
The film crew arrived yesterday and spent the day getting acquainted with Dogtown and discussing which dogs will be filmed for the next batch of shows. I believe the next season of "DogTown" is already finished being filmed and is somewhere in the post-production process now, the filming that will be happening now will continue for several months, (in my completely unofficial, simply speculating opinion) I would guess that these episodes won't be airing until sometime late next year at the earliest. Mason has been without a home for quite sometime, I was told that he arrived at Best Friends when he was about a year old and he is now about eight. He is really great with people and CGC certified, but he is not so great with dogs or cats which is a stumbling block for many of our dogs. For those of you wondering, CGC stands for "Canine Good Citizen", it is a nationally standardized training and evaluation program to promote responsible dog ownership and well behaved dogs.
The film crew arrived yesterday and spent the day getting acquainted with Dogtown and discussing which dogs will be filmed for the next batch of shows. I believe the next season of "DogTown" is already finished being filmed and is somewhere in the post-production process now, the filming that will be happening now will continue for several months, (in my completely unofficial, simply speculating opinion) I would guess that these episodes won't be airing until sometime late next year at the earliest. Mason has been without a home for quite sometime, I was told that he arrived at Best Friends when he was about a year old and he is now about eight. He is really great with people and CGC certified, but he is not so great with dogs or cats which is a stumbling block for many of our dogs. For those of you wondering, CGC stands for "Canine Good Citizen", it is a nationally standardized training and evaluation program to promote responsible dog ownership and well behaved dogs.Elsewhere at the Lodges, one of our solo girls, Synergy, has made a new friend!
All week she has been going on play dates with Mowgli, and after several years of living the single life, she may have found herself a run mate. 
After several days of short play dates, she spent the entire day with him yesterday and from all accounts, so far, things are going quite well. She has been solo for so long, because she is a very dominant female that has a tendency to hump other dogs (an expression of dominance) and get very overbearing. I don't know Mowgli personally, but I have been told that they have somewhat similar personalities, in other words, he won't take her nonsense, and it seems to be working out well. So if everything continues to go smoothly, Synergy will be moving up to Conrad's and Leopold's, a pair of octagons near the Lodges, and we will be getting one of their dogs.
All week she has been going on play dates with Mowgli, and after several years of living the single life, she may have found herself a run mate. After several days of short play dates, she spent the entire day with him yesterday and from all accounts, so far, things are going quite well. She has been solo for so long, because she is a very dominant female that has a tendency to hump other dogs (an expression of dominance) and get very overbearing. I don't know Mowgli personally, but I have been told that they have somewhat similar personalities, in other words, he won't take her nonsense, and it seems to be working out well. So if everything continues to go smoothly, Synergy will be moving up to Conrad's and Leopold's, a pair of octagons near the Lodges, and we will be getting one of their dogs.Well, that is about all I can think of for today. If anyone has any questions about BF or Dogtown or what I do everyday or the nature of the universe, feel free to post them here or email them to me and I will do my best to answer them. Questions are good, they help me find things to talk about when I am trying to come up with ideas for posts. More tomorrow . . . (All photos copyright Best Friends Animal Society.)
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