Week 2, Day 3: Finding Balance

I'm so exhausted right now, that I'm going to let the pictures tell the majority of the story of my day. I spent my morning in Quincy House, which is an amazing building in Cat World. All the cats have special needs. Many are FIV+, some have neurological disorders, there's even an entire suite called the "Incontinental Suite" for those who need it. From the moment I got there, I hit the ground running and did not stop for a moment until my shift was over. So many cats with so many needs = a ton of work. I felt like I'd put in a whole day already, but it was only lunch time. In the afternoon, I was working at Bunny House. There are tons of adorable bunnies and I continue to learn a lot about them. I socialized the bunnies all afternoon, as many of them are frightened of humans and have come from hoarding (or other equally bad) situations. It was really nice to have a calm afternoon with the animals as a balance to my hectic morning. Here are some pictures from the day:

Quincy House Cats enjoying a beautiful morning

Quincy House Kissing Booth!

Montana, possibly my favorite cat in Quincy. Only one back leg and it doesn't work, but he does great!

Adorable new addition to Bunny House!

Socializing bunnies

Trying to reach the cilantro without having to socialize to get it!

Much better socializing!

I thought this rabbit had awesome "eyeliner"

When I come home from work, I'm exhausted and I am quite dirty (you can only imagine the things that end up on my clothing!) So usually I just feel like crashing. I take a much-needed shower, try to knock out a blog post, eat something, and talk to my loved ones from home before falling asleep. Luckily, when I come home after a long day of work, I have an amazing "family" waiting to snuggle with me. Today, I just lay down on the floor and was swarmed by seven animals, who all wanted snuggles. It was bliss.

Scuba can never get close enough. Half the time he lies fully on top of me.

One dog on each side of me and a cat headed to lie down on my belly.

Me using Mama Rosie as a pillow (Yes, my hair is a mess and I look tired & gross, but Rosie doesn't care!)

Me snuggling with Scubes. I swear I'm going to take this dog home with me in my luggage!

Tomorrow should be another long, but fun day. I am in DogTown all day and I get to go to training with my project dog, Pepsi. I also have to decide by tomorrow where I want to focus the rest of my internship. I'm hoping to find a way to balance a few different areas of interest, while devoting enough time to a couple areas to gain further insight and trust with the animals. Wish me luck on the decisions!

Also, as a side note, as much as I love it here and am super grateful for this experience, I am definitely still homesick. I love the people I'm getting to know here, but I miss my family. I adore every animal I meet, but I miss my animal. My heart aches every day for Lincoln! (And others that I love). I guess I'm just a very family-oriented girl!

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 2, Day 1: Just one of those days...

Today was one of those days in which I just want to crawl into bed and not come out for weeks. I woke up still completely exhausted despite resting all day yesterday and getting a good night's sleep last night. Hooray for chronic fatigue. Almost immediately I noticed my nose felt funny and congested, so I got a tissue and realized I had a nose bleed. That never happens to me! I have no idea why it happened, but it was just foreshadowing my day ahead. I got ready for the day, which was made slightly more difficult than usual due to my leg injury, which I'm not sure I've mentioned on this blog. Somehow I pulled a muscle in my upper right leg and it's been hurting since last Friday. It almost feels dislocated or something because my range of motion is so inhibited, but I can still walk on it. I ate a good solid breakfast, and headed off to a day of work that I was really excited about. I was spending the morning at CatWorld Headquarters and my afternoon shift at Dogtown in the run where my project dog, Pepsi, lives.

My first greeter at Cat HQ was a sweet little cat named Callie. She jumped right from her perch onto my lap and made herself at home:

She's wearing a sweater because she has some itchiness and this helps her not to hurt herself by scratching too much. I was asked to take Callie on a walk, so a volunteer took another cat and I took Callie and we all headed off in my car for Angel's Canyon. It's a beautiful park in the sanctuary where the animals can go to feel some grass under their feet and wander around as they please in a very peaceful place. First, we had to make sure no dogs would disturb our cats though, so we put up this sign:

Next, we entered Angel's Canyon and Callie was very excited to romp around!

Here she is, looking lovely in her sweater and her halter for walking:

She was doing great the whole time. That is, until she decided to play a little game on me and run under a nearby low stage of the amphitheater. No big deal, I thought. I'll just tug on her leash a little and bring her back out. After a moment, I thought she was coming out on her own because the leash felt easy to pull. Well, I pulled it out and little Houdini had escaped her halter! There was no longer a cat at the other end of my leash! Before long, she'd wiggled out of her sweater too, and was contentedly sitting just out of arm's length under the wooden platform. I couldn't believe I let a cat get loose outside! Some maintenance men nearby helped us call to Cat HQ, since my cell phone had no service, and we waited for a staff person to come. She tried to coax out Callie with me and the volunteer, but eventually we needed to call in yet another staff person. This one came armed with Callie's favorite treats and slowly she came out of hiding. What a rascal! I felt really bad, but the staff were so kind about it and said it happens to everyone at least once.

We all headed back to Cat HQ and started deep cleaning the cat runs. Now, all morning I'd been feeling a little extra tired and light-headed. But after about an hour or so of cleaning, I was getting to the point where I was having pretty bad dizzy spells. I know I have low blood pressure issues, so I sat down and drank some more water. It still wasn't helping. I asked if there was anything I could do that just required sitting. I ended up in a cat run sitting on the floor, socializing two cats who are terrified of humans. It was actually one of the most rewarding parts of my day because I was able to get one of the cats to crawl onto my lap and lick baby food off my fingers. That's huge, considering both cats bolted from me when I first entered the room.

Still feeling weak, I headed to the Village for lunch, thinking a good meal would help. Well, I did have a good meal, but it unfortunately didn't make me feel better. I was so excited to head to DogTown to see Pepsi, though, so I tried to put everything else out of my mind. Pepsi's dog run is pretty chaotic. As it turned out, he had a vet appointment at 2:00, so I ended up taking another dog to the on-site dog park. Because the dog I took is dog-aggressive, we had the entire dog park to ourselves. This dog is so sweet! If you're interested in a dog who adores people, but not so much other dogs, Sunshine Girl would be perfect for you! I loved watching her run around off-leash and she always came back to sit near me for a bit and check in:

Unfortunately, my day was not improving by leaps and bounds. I managed to get my head impaled by a dagger shaped tree branch while moving to sit down on a bench:

So that didn't really help my dizziness much! Around 2:15, I took Sunshine Girl back to her run so I could take out Pepsi. This would be my first time with him alone and I was excited and just wanted to get to know him. Unfortunately, I was dizzy, had a headache, and my range of motion in my right leg is  negligible. All that was easy to overlook, when 70 pounds of pure muscle came running my way, full of excitement and tail wags. Pepsi really is a sweetheart. He just adores other people, and people adore him. He just needs some work on his manners and his stubbornness! He's certainly a handful! We headed over to Tara's Run, which is where training takes place. It was empty, so we had it all to ourselves, and he could be off leash in this wonderful facility:

We went up and down some of the agility equipment together and he sniffed around a bit, but mostly he just wanted to snuggle. If I sat down, he sat right on top of me! He is quite sure he's a lap dog.

Well, my cardiologist did tell me that compression on my legs could help my low blood pressure, so I guess Pepsi was just helping out! All he wanted was to be close, get petted, and occasionally drown my face in sloppy kisses. His tail hardly ever stopped wagging.

Here's the sad thing about Pepsi: humans have tried to euthanize him 3 times already in his life! And it has never been for anything he did wrong! He gets a bit of a skin condition when he's stressed, so his first owner wanted to put him down due to itchy skin. Really?! He and one of his mates were sent to a shelter to get put down and a rescue group got there as quickly as possible to save them. Unfortunately, they were too late for his mate, but luckily they were able to save Pepsi in the nick of time. Pepsi was adopted out again after that and two more times his various owners wanted to euthanize him because of his skin condition. He was saved each time and eventually came to Best Friends. With the TLC that Best Friends provides, his stress-induced skin problems vanished. And now, despite people having let him down his whole life, he absolutely adores them and loves to spend time cuddling. It's almost like he's soaking up all the love he missed out on in his early years. He deserves so much love and I've already completely fallen for him. 

After leaving work, still not feeling well, but grateful that I had a pretty relaxed afternoon, I drove home. This is what my commute looks like, by the way:

Am I lucky or what?!

So that's been my day. I ate salty food and drank water when I got home to try to help the dizziness. That's when I realized I'd lost my water bottle sometime this afternoon with the dogs. Ugh. One of my pet peeves is not having water with me at all times. It's not the end of the world because I'll just get a new bottle tomorrow (or see if I can find my old one), but it just seemed like a fitting ending to a day that didn't go so well for me health-wise (and cat-wise!). 

I love it here so much. I love this internship and I love the people I'm meeting. I can't say enough good things about being here and having this opportunity. But today was the first day since I began actually working here that I started to question if my health will hold up, given that I've been dealing with chronic illness for 2 years. I want to see this through to the end so badly and it would crush me to leave, so I'm really hoping that today was just a fluke of a day and that I'll feel better the rest of the week. If, under extremely unfortunate circumstances, I do not feel better soon, I need to keep in mind what's best for me and the animals. They deserve someone who has energy and health to take care of them. I deserve to take care of myself. What good would I be to Pepsi (or anyone else) if I feel too sick to concentrate or can't stay standing? Let me tell you, if I fainted, Pepsi could drag me from here to the other end of the sanctuary and back without breaking a sweat! That boy is strong! So I'll keep an eye on things. For now, I'm continuing to fuel my body, drink lots of water, and rest. Here's hoping for a better tomorrow.

Weekend Photo Blog

This weekend, I had a nice combination of exploring the Kanab area and just relaxing at home with my furry Utah family. On Saturday, I went out to Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park with a few of the other interns. It was beautiful out there and great to spend some time with them outside of work. Let me also say that hiking around in sand dunes is a really good workout!

We climbed to the sandy peak seen here.

Meghan and Me on the ridge

Japhy, Meghan, and Steph

Gorgeous views for miles!

To give some perspective of how big this place is, that tiny thing on the bottom left is a 4-Wheeler!

Meghan, Steph, Me, and Japhy at the top of the dunes!

Me, making a sand angel :)

There were tons of cows along the road to and from the dunes.

After our afternoon at the sand dunes, I headed into town (and ran into Meghan everywhere I went!) and had to take a picture of the hilarious and slightly creepy fake cop that sits in town everyday:

Introducing My Utah Fur Family!

Today, I just had a relaxing day because I was really tired from the week. I did snap a few photos of the animals I'm living with here in Kanab. I have completely fallen in love with them and I'm their Aunty Jill! Get ready for massive cuteness...

Bobbo and Ruby

Sydney is playing camera shy. 

Beautiful Sydney

Sydney's action shot - leaping for the counter!

Sydney braves the sink to get at the catnip hiding on the counter!

Beautiful Lola

Lola jumping for the counter

Lola wanting a belly rub. You can pretty much always find her like this!

This is Otis. He took the longest to warm up to me, but we're best buds now.

Otis in "his" chair

Maggie is so sweet. She's best friends with Scuba the dog.

Maggie was the first to parade into my room and hop into my bed on the 1st night I was here.

Rosie is the mama of everyone. She's such a love.

Kodiak is the man of the house. He's so sweet!

Scuba's love and enthusiasm makes it impossible not to adore him.

All the animals get along so well!

Scuba and Kodi

Best buddies Maggie and Scuba, with Lola to the left

Hope you've enjoyed meeting the wonderful animals I get to spend my time with when I'm not at the sanctuary. They're all incredibly well-behaved, happy, and loved. My host family has done an amazing job raising them. And they are all rescues! 

Tomorrow, I head back to work and I get to work my morning shift in Cat Headquarters, which I'm really excited about, and my afternoon shift in DogTown, in the area where Pepsi lives. I can't wait to spend time with him and get to know him!