Week 5, Days 1-3: Oh my heck!

This post is entitled "Oh my heck!" because that's my favorite saying around here in Southern Utah. And, oh my heck, have I ever been busy lately! So you're getting three days in one blog post...

Monday

On Monday, I had my last shift in Horse Haven. I am sad that I won't be working there anymore, but I had a fantastic last day there. I got to say good morning to Squeaky the office pig:

And then I headed out to help muck the pastures. This pretty much sums up life in Horse Haven:

The best part of the day was when I got left in charge of the volunteers and got to drive Ruby (the 4-wheeler-type thing) from pasture to pasture! It was a bit of a rough ride for my poor passengers at first, but I got the hang of it:

We also got to go on an amazing tour of the canyons, where I saw my first petroglyphs. It was just a wonderful morning.

I spent my afternoon in Rescue Village, bonding rabbits and working on my project, finalizing my informational pamphlet on rabbit bonding. It was a productive afternoon.

Tuesday

Tuesday morning was spent working from home on my research for Dr. Frank. I'm still so thrilled that I have the opportunity to assist on the exact type of research I've always wanted to do. I'm getting a really good response from my work so far, so I'll be spending Friday morning working on that as well. I headed into Rescue Village after lunch and bonded rabbits again. The fab four, as I liked to call them, were doing great at bonding in their small indoor pen, but that changed a bit today, which I'll get to in a moment. If you ever wonder what I do at work, I spend hours sitting in rabbit pens:

Wednesday

Today was a really great day. My morning shift was an outing with Pepsi. He's seriously the sweetest, cutest dog on the planet! Everyone loves him, and once again, I couldn't make it through town without getting stopped a few times because of his celebrity status. We had a really great time and I started teaching him his trick for tomorrow's obedience class. I decided on "spin" because he follows the lure of a treat really well. He had a gift for me when I got there today, which was the sweetest thing ever: he gave me a t-shirt with his big ol' head printed on it! Pepsi and I had a great morning and did a variety of things. Here he is fishing in the pond by the Welcome Center and then trying to eat his entire bag of treats!

This afternoon, I spent my final shift at Rescue Village. I have really come to love the animals and staff there, so it was a difficult goodbye. The day was rather eventful as I took my four rabbits that I'm trying to bond outside for the first time into a bigger pen. It did not go well. At all. There were so many fights I couldn't keep track of it. I was disappointed that they all couldn't get along, but we were able to keep two of them out to see if they could bond together without the others. In order to assist in the bonding, I stressed them by placing them in a crate and driving them around on a motorized cart around the parking lot. They bond over their shared experience when that happens. Here they are in their cart:

Even though I didn't love the thought of stressing them, I have to say they were nearly letter perfect after that! I took them back to the indoor bonding area and they relaxed together. Luckily the rest of the afternoon was uneventful!

I can't believe I only have two days of work left before I leave here. I love it so much and I've met the most incredible people. I truly feel like I have family here now and I've been really enjoying my work and spending time with my Kanab family and friends after work. That makes keeping up a blog pretty tough, but I'll do my best for the final few days here. I'll have plenty of time to catch up on the plane ride home if I get behind again...

Week 3, Day 3: Halfway Point!

I can't believe I'm halfway through my internship already! I feel like I still have so much to do and so little time! Today was one of my favorite days so far, and I'll explain why in a bit, but first I have to do a little photographic rewind and post some pictures from yesterday to make up for last night's photo-less blog post. I mentioned I worked in horses in the morning. There are two horses in particular that I really enjoyed being around: Helen and Amir. Helen has been blind in one eye her whole life and has gradually lost sight in her other eye over time. She's a beautiful horse, but she just makes me laugh because she lies down and groans all the time. The first time I witnessed it, I thought she was dying! But it's just how she is! Here she is in her beautiful surroundings:

The cool thing about Helen is that she has a boyfriend, Amir. They live in the same pasture and he is her eyes. I love them together. He's a very handsome horse, with a great personality. Here I am with him:

If you aren't familiar with horses, you may be wondering why they're both wearing masks. Those are fly masks to help keep the flies off their faces. Oh, and yes, I'm wearing two jackets in this picture because it was freezing out in the morning, but in the high 80s later that afternoon. Crazy Utah weather. A huge thank you goes out to Ron for letting me borrow his jacket to wear over mine!

After mucking, we had to dump all the fragrant horse poop in its proper place. I captured this gem of a shot of Ron, in his new favorite Fredonia t-shirt, in the act of dumping tons of horse poop!

Okay, so now that we're caught up with photos, I can tell you why today was one of my favorite days so far. The first thing I got to do today was go to puppy socialization class. These puppies had amazing manners already and were so precious! The puppy I worked with, along with my fellow intern, Megan, was named Utter. Here she is:

It's almost too much cuteness to handle! After working on some manners and commands with the puppies, they were allowed to have a little playtime. Here's a clip of it for your viewing pleasure:

After working with the puppies, I headed over to another area of DogTown called Maggie's. I've been wanting to work in Maggie's since I found out about it. Maggie's houses dogs who need to live alone and who have some behavioral issues to work on. But they are sweet, wonderful dogs. Usually it's just one or two things that bother them, so we really try to work on those things with training so they can be adopted. I loved the dogs I met there today and I really liked the caretaker. I walked several of the dogs and took notes on their behavior throughout their walks. I like that this particular dog run takes special note of animal behavior and training. I am excited to focus more of my time there in the coming weeks.

In the afternoon, I was back at Rescue Village, bonding bunnies. I'm really enjoying this work. It's really rewarding to me to help a rabbit find a companion and also free up space for more rabbits to be rescued. My first pair that I started bonding have been together each day, supervised, for about a week now. They are Benjamin and Fargo. They're doing so great that tonight, they are being allowed to sleep in the same run, unattended. I'm praying it goes well, and I think it will, given how close they've become this week:

I will be calling Rescue Village first thing tomorrow morning to see how they did overnight! Today, I started bonding a new pair of rabbits: Piper and Scooby. They were very nervous the whole time, but showed no aggression towards one another. We'll have to see how they do in the next few days. Assuming it goes over well with the powers that be, I will be doing bonding as my internship project, and writing a pamphlet to hand out to visitors and potential adopters about why we bond rabbits and how to do it. The rabbit staff is really excited about this project! I love the staff up there. I'm even recording some video of the bonding so I might make a supplemental youtube video on bonding as well, as time permits.

After work today, I went to a talk by one of the founders of Best Friends, which was interesting and fun, but made for a long day. I came home and spent some fun time with my host family. Now I'm getting to bed too late! Tomorrow, I'll be in DogTown all day, first at the Fairway, where I worked my first real shift a couple weeks ago, and then in training class and on an outing with Pepsi, my project dog. After work, I'll be attending the blessing at Angel's Rest, where the sanctuary animals are buried once they've crossed the rainbow bridge. It's a beautiful place and I know I'll cry, so I should probably bring a box of tissues! Anyone can have their pet honored at one of these blessings. When my last dog died, I sent in a donation to Best Friends in honor of her and specified for her to be part of the blessing at Angel's Rest. A ribbon with her name on it was hanging with many others from the tree branches at Angel's Rest. 

One more thing before I end this blog (mostly because I don't want to end it on a sad note!): I heard from one of the vets who works here and does a lot of research in animal behavior, which is my biggest interest. I had asked him if he wanted help with anything that I could do for a project and he got back to me today saying there might be something I could do to help him with the current study he's working on. I'm really excited about that and will meet with him Friday to talk more about it! 

Week 3, Day 2: Horses, Dogs, Bunny Bonding

This morning turned out not to be a morning full of Parelli training, but I was able to discuss with the trainer better times to schedule my work sessions for that. So in the future, hopefully that will work out. For today, I mucked horse pastures, which was actually fun because there were several of us doing it, making jokes, talking, and of course enjoying our beautiful surroundings.

I ducked out of my morning shift early for a special intern opportunity. We got to go with one of the caretakers to her building of dogs, which tend to be very aggressive. Most of them are red collar dogs, and some will stay at the sanctuary forever because they cannot safely be adopted out into society. She talked about their behavior, some of the things they'd been through, some reasons behind why they do what they do (it's actually usually a lack of confidence, just like shy dogs!). If you think about it, that makes a lot of sense: when shy dogs get scared they use the "flight" response and when aggressive dogs get scared they use the "fight" response. At least one dog had a neurological condition where he's sweet and wonderful most of the time, but then basically loses his mind and goes crazy and can be aggressive until the episode passes. The vets still aren't sure what's causing that. A lot of these dogs are actually sweet a lot of the time, but pose dangers because they could flip to an aggressive side. It is great to know that they have such an amazing caretaker, who sees the good in them and does not give up on them, even if they'll live the rest of their lives at Best Friends. These dogs get playtime, walks, treats, training, and everything else the other dogs get. They live a good life. Some will eventually be adoptable to the right person as they are rehabilitated.

My afternoon shift was at Rescue Village again, which is definitely going to be one of my focus areas. I'm really loving helping out with bonding rabbits. My first pair that I probably mentioned last time I worked there is Fargo and Benjamin. I sat and watched them again today and supervised their interactions. They did so well! They've begun grooming each other and snuggling on their own without me having to smoosh them together. I'll work there tomorrow afternoon again, and the caretakers said if things go as well tomorrow as they did today, they think the pair will be bonded enough to try to stay the night together without supervision. It makes me nervous because they're my first bonded pair and I want them to do really well! I think they will. If all goes well, I'll move onto bonding another set of animals, and this time, we might bond up to four rabbits together at once! Should be exciting! I'm trying to come up with my intern project idea and I think maybe I'll do a pamphlet on rabbits and bonding. It's something I knew nothing about, but is so important to the rabbits. Now that I know, it would be great to help educate the visitors and potential adopters at Best Friends about bonding. The caretakers were excited at the prospect of this project, so that makes me happy.

I'm very excited for tomorrow because I have such a great day lined up: first I get to sleep in because I'm working at the Puppy Socialization Class, which doesn't start until 9:30 and I can't interact with other dogs before that, since the puppies don't have all their shots yet. After playing with puppies, I get to head over to Maggie's, which is an area of DogTown I've been wanting to work in since day 1. They really focus on animal behavior there and I've heard nothing but good things about it. Then, I get to spend my afternoon with the bunnies again. I'm not only growing fond of rabbits, but I love working up there because the staff are really great. So, even though I never thought I'd actually feel this way, I can't wait to go to work tomorrow!

Week 2, Day 2: Lots of walking!

After a very good night's sleep last night, I felt a little better this morning. My morning shift was in Horse Haven, but that doesn't necessarily mean working with horses. Horse Haven also houses goats and sheep, so that's who I worked with today. I actually really enjoyed getting to work with them, as I haven't had much experience with farm animals. The first thing I did was take the sheep on a walk.

That's Lambert up front and Buddy is following us. Lambert is a bit of a rambunctious guy and likes to headbutt people. So my legs are slightly bruised! Other than that, the walk went quite well. Who would have ever thought I'd have a job that required walking sheep?!

After giving the sheep their exercise, I cleaned out their run. Fun fact: sheep poop looks exactly like blueberries. You'd think, as such a large animal, they'd poop bigger! Next, it was on to the goats next door. I adore the goats. They have such personalities! I especially love Joseph and Emily. Joseph is just so cute because his tongue always sticks out to the side:

Enlarge photo to see the side tongue!

And Emily is just the sweetest little girl you could imagine. She walks right up to everyone seeking attention and petting just like a dog! She is such a love and has wonderful long ears. I just want to snuggle her all day!

Emily the Goat

After cleaning for the goats, and making sure that all the animals had fresh food, water, and bedding, we were done! Two of us interns were working together and it took us nearly 2.5 hours.

I got to rest my legs a little after that because another Parelli demonstration was going on today. I fell so in love with it the last time I saw it, that I wanted to see it again. I learned more new facts this week and also got to see a different horse being worked with. Slurpee was today's horse and she is absolutely stunning! She's 17.2 hands tall! She is a sassy girl, so it was interesting to see how Parelli worked with her personality (or, as I should call it, her horsenality). 

Another cool thing I got to see before leaving Horse Haven was watching the vet team work with Missy, the miniature horse with a broken leg. They were so good with her and were taking x-rays to see how she was healing. Just listening to them talk was so heartwarming because I could tell they cared so much about her and giving her the most optimal recovery, whatever that takes. Best Friends is so amazing like that. Here she is, getting worked on:

After lunch, I headed to my afternoon shift in DogTown, where, by the way, I found my water bottle that I had lost yesterday. Today I was in an area called The Garden and it was quite an active place! The staff were introducing a new dog when I got there, so I sat and talked with one of the dog trainers. Turns out he has a Master's degree in animal behavior! It was so cool to talk to him about the field of animal behavior and what types of work one might expect going into it. 

Next, I did a ton of walking! It was actually only two walks in a row, but it felt like forever. The first girl I walked was the sweetest little thing. We walked with two other dogs (and people) and took a long trail, since they hadn't been out for a walk in a while. I was tired after that walk, but was asked to take another dog on a walk. This walk was not so easy! In the few minutes that I was holding the dog on the leash outside his run (waiting for his companion), he jacked up the muscles in my entire body. I couldn't believe how strong he was and how much he pulled, running from side to side, chasing lizards, and dragging me along. Luckily, I switched dogs once we began the walk, but the other dog on the walk was nearly as difficult. What a workout for me! I was glad to get back to the dog run! Unfortunately, after all of that, my injured right leg (pulled muscle? still not sure) finally caused me start to limp a little. I've been able to walk just fine up until this point, but anything beyond that was impossible. Let's hope resting it will help...

After walking, it was feeding time. I helped prepare the meals for all the dogs and served some of them, along with some volunteers and staff. We had a dog in the kitchen with us "helping" while we prepared the dinners and she was such a sweet little girl. I thought she was a puppy, but I think she's actually about 2 years old. She was just so playful! Her name is Kira:

After feeding, the day was almost over, so I went and socialized a sweetheart of a dog, named Zena, who is absolutely terrified of people. She came from a hoarding situation and has had a rough life. I want so badly for her to be adopted and be able to feel safe with her own forever family where she will get all the attention and care she so deserves. She's just beautiful, but never got close to me. I threw treats out into her run and she took a couple after I was out there for a while, but that's as far as we got today. My heart goes out to her and hopes she finds peace after all she's been through. I'm so glad she found a home at DogTown for now.

Well, that's been my day! I'm exhausted and sore all over (thanks to a head-butting goat and a (friendly) beast of a dog that I walked! Tomorrow, my morning shift is with some special needs cats, which I'm very excited about, and then the afternoon will be all about bunnies! I'm hoping for a less physically demanding day with those two animal populations!

Week 1, Day 3: Pepsi, Parrots, and Pictographs

Today's been a long day and my brain feels like mush, so hopefully the photos will do the majority of the storytelling for me.

Project Dogs

The first thing the interns got to do today was pick our project dogs! Each intern picks one dog (from a list provided by staff) to work with for the duration of our internship. Sometimes they're shy or have some behavior issues that could be worked out. Other times, they just need basic manners to make them more adoptable. They're all green collar dogs and we will work with them in training class and help socialize them. We're allowed to take them on outings into town, or just around the sanctuary. I plan on taking my project dog to the Welcome Center and into town so that tons of people see him and want to adopt him! We met all the dogs before deciding which one each of us would take. Sometimes, the dogs just chose us. All the dogs would be fantastic to work with, but I had a top 3 in mind and I got one of my top 3 dogs! Introducing....[drumroll]....Pepsi! Pepsi was the first dog we met and he was such a love. He greeted everyone happily and lingered a little with me, giving me a bunch of kisses on the chin. I totally fell in love with him. He's an adorable Pit Bull/Basset Hound mix. Click on his name above to see a picture and info about him! I'll keep you posted on our progress together as a team.

More Orientation 

After we got our project dogs assigned, we headed up to the Upper Canyon for two more orientations: Wild Friends and Feathered Friends. What that meant, was 2 hours in a row of standing and walking in the hot desert sun, listening and learning. I have to admit, I was exhausted and my legs and back hurt a lot by the end of those two hours! Wild Friends is where the sanctuary helps wildlife, such as predator birds. Some wild friends will be at the sanctuary forever because they wouldn't make it in the wild, some are adoptable, and others are being rehabilitated to be released back into the wild. Here are some of the friends we saw:

Next, we moved onto Feathered Friends, which includes parrots and cockatoos. Interestingly, one of the beautiful dogs rescued from the disgusting cruelty of Michael Vick's dog fighting ring has found her permanent home at Best Friends and she prefers to live by the feathered friends rather than the other dogs (can you blame her after what she went through?). Best Friends actually took 22 of the dogs rescued from Vick (now called the Vicktory dogs) and many of them our now living happily in forever homes. There were two that were mandated to stay at Best Friends for life. That doesn't mean the sweet girl who loves to live with parrots is in for a bad life. She's got it pretty good at Best Friends (all the animals do!). She's now a purple collar dog (not red!) and she's working on her Canine Good Citizen test! Here she is:

UPDATE: I was mistaken when I originally wrote this post. Kayla, the Vicktory dog above, is actually NOT one of the ones mandated to stay at Best Friends for life. She is adoptable!

If the Vicktory dog was the highlight of my tour of Feathered Friends, the parrots were definitely my low point. I got bit by a parrot! And guess what? Their beaks are strong! It hurt! I had my back to a bird in a cage and she reached out and bit the back of my shoulder:

I'm told parrots have no saliva and cannot give me any sort of disease by biting me. But I was told this will probably bruise up pretty badly. Needless to say, I will not be focusing in birds from here on out!

Lunch

As usual, we ate at Angel Village and it was packed because there were updates being given by staff throughout lunch. There were stories of adoptions, successes, ways to help spread knowledge in the community, etc. It was fascinating and often funny and/or heart-wrenching. I honestly nearly broke down crying at my lunch table because I was so exhausted, hungry, and angry about getting bit while I was minding my own business. Then someone starts telling an emotional animal story and I was nearly a goner. I managed to hold it together and it was mostly a really great lunch.

Horse Haven!

I got to spend my afternoon working at Horse Haven, which is an area that I do want to focus on for the rest of my internship (along with a couple other areas). I adore horses and I fell in love with each one that I met today. There were plenty of volunteers in Horses today, so the mucking went quickly. We drove from pasture to pasture in a four-wheeler-type-thing and met lots of different horses. Each pasture is gorgeous and has views to die for! Below is the pasture at Disney Barn. It's called that because Disney built it when they wanted to film a movie there. I believe at least three movies were filmed there and Best Friends kept the barn up, because it is actually a really great barn!

Below are two gorgeous horses, and the one on the right is named Cowboy. You'll notice his middle is completely sagging. Some horses develop that later in life, but this guy was born with it. Because of that, he was going to be killed. Luckily, he was saved and is living a happy, healthy life at Best Friends.

See the gleaming coat on this next horse? His name is Smurf and I got to groom him. I also got to brush  another horse to keep flies off of him while the farrier worked on his hooves. 

After we finished mucking and grooming, we took the 4 wheeler (which you can see a little of in the picture above) out for some sight-seeing in the canyons! It was amazing! Below is Kanab Creek.

Next we saw some legitimate Anasazi ruins! 

Here's me at the Anasazi dwelling (don't ask why the photo is discolored...for some reason blogspot is discoloring a ton of my photos, but I'm just posting some of them anyway).

A little ways down the road, the Ansazi had a storage area for their grains:

On the walls of the storage area, we got to see actual pictographs (they've been studied to make sure they're legit). You can sort of see the shape of hands painted on the wall below:

The last stop in our sight-seeing tour was a hidden lake. In the photo below, you can barely see the entrance to the lake under the rock overhang.

It was super dark inside, but once our eyes got adjusted, we could see that there really was an underground lake in there!

Here's me at the entrance to the hidden lake:

After sightseeing, it was time to head back to do more work at Horse Haven. I swept out the office/lobby. Did I mention there's an office pig?! His name is Squeaky and I'm in love with him:

This note about Squeaky was on one of the office doors and made me laugh:

Horse Haven also houses goats and sheep, so the last thing I did before leaving was go help put the goats and sheep to bed. I asked if this meant telling them a bedtime story, but really it just meant getting one goat her medication (which I fed to her), and then cleaning out their areas, making sure they had enough food and water for the night, and closing in the couple animals that need to be closed in at night. Below is a very lovely sheep named Buddy. 

I ended my nine-hour day feeling completely exhausted and sore, but satisfied with a good day's work helping animals in need. I will leave you with an adorable story from Horse Haven. There is a small horse named Missy that came to Best Friends with a badly broken leg that had not been treated properly. The poor little horse had to spend all her time here immobile in a sling, getting her bandaging changed, but not getting to be a horse. She was getting pretty depressed. Then, Steve the goat came along. Steve was lonely too, so the staff decided to see if they could keep each other company. It's a match made in heaven and both animals clearly love each other. And the great news is that Missy is in her first week out of her sling and doing great! Here's Missy and Steve napping together:

Again, sorry for the weird color distortion. Any other bloggers having trouble with that?