And. Done.

Today was a very sad day.

It didn't help that it was raining, hailing, and cold pretty much all morning.

Some good news: Honey Bun and Fargo got adopted out of Maggie's yesterday. Also, Effy, Buddy Holly, and Viola got adopted out of the Fairway. I don't think I mentioned it, but Thomas, the cute kitchen chihuahua at the Fairway also found a home earlier this week.

For my last morning shift, I was at Maggie's. I finally got to work with the caregiver, Jackie, there (usually I'm there on her day off) and she is awesome! There was another volunteer there today and I received some good news from her. We were talking about the internship and she asked who my project dog is. When I told her it was Sharkey she got really excited and told me she ran into the lady who took him on a sleepover last night. When she asked that lady how she was, she replied with, "completely in love." She adored Sharkey and is seriously considering adopting him! I'm so happy for him and I really, really hope it works out. That would really be the best ending to my internship.
Since it was my last day, Jackie asked me which dogs I wanted to walk/take for outing and I didn't hesitate to respond with Sherlock and Jingles.
First I walked Peek-a-Boo. It was still nice outside so it was a very pleasant walk.

Then, Sherlock and I went for a car ride/walk outing. Sherlock always looks so excited when he sees me pull my car around to the back because he knows that means outings. This is how he waits for me-
It's not a very good photo, but he has the cutest intense look on his face like, "I'm ready!"

It was a good drive until it started raining and hailing.



When I got back I took Jingles for a walk. It was pretty miserable, I'm not going to lie. The hail hurt me a lot and it was sooo cold. Not quite the way I wanted to spend my last time with Jingles, but she didn't seem to mind too much.

After Jingles, I took Lugar to Tara's Run to throw a tennis ball around. He is obsessed with tennis balls! Not in the way Sharkey is obsessed with them though- he doesn't rip them apart. Lugar really, really enjoys playing fetch and will continue to play for hours if he's allowed. We had a really good time though. At the end of the session I traded him some really high value treats and put the ball away and he calmed down really quickly. I told him it was time to go and led him to the door and he seemed fine with it - not dwelling on the tennis ball he lost. I was impressed.

It was very hard to leave Maggie's. As I was walking out, I realized that is the last time I'm going to see those dogs (unless I move here, which is very much on my mind). All of the dogs were inside because it was still raining but as I got to my car I realized Jingles had ran to the back of her run to send me off. It was so heartbreaking. 

It's very easy to get attached to these animals which makes leaving them absolutely horrible.


The interns had a pizza party at the Bunkhouse during lunchtime. You could tell everyone was starting to get a little sad.


I scheduled my very last shift to be at the Fairway. I got there today and Kathy asked me if I'd like to let Raisin's run out into the x-pen again. Raisin really comes alive and seems like a completely normal dog when she's in the x-run. She prances and plays with the other dogs and it is great to see. So we did that and then worked on recall with her. These x-runs are really, really long with a lot of turns and trees and etc, but Raisin did marvelous with her recalls. It is so much different from when I first met her. I can now pet her and leash her up. I am so thrilled with the progress she has made and I'm very proud of her.

I let some other runs out into the x-run and then helped feed. The shift was cut short because we had an hour and a half reflection period to present out projects instead of the normal one hour.

It was really hard to say goodbye to the Fairway as well. The caregivers are my friends and the dogs almost feel like children.


The reflections definitely had a different air than normal. Everyone had a sad day. It was nice to see how far we have all come though. For the last reflection, Leesa reads through our initial applications and asked us to compare where we were then to where we were now. A lot has changed for me, along with everyone else.

 This really was the most amazing experience of my life and no words will ever be able to describe how much I've learned and grown. I know I will be back to Best Friends eventually.


Jackie told me this morning that she knew I would make a difference and that is exactly what I intend to do.


Goodbye for now, Best Friends! You have changed my life in so many ways.

Just one more day?!

I had a great, and sad, day today.

My morning started out at the Fairway, which is always great. Kathy wanted to start more training of recall work with the dogs. One of the newly adopted out dogs escaped from their yard and played keep away from their owner. Very sadly, that dog then got hit by a car and killed. If he would have had good recall skills this may not have happened so Kathy is determined to do everything she can to work with the dogs on this.

Behind the runs is a really big fenced in area that spans all of the back of the dogs runs. It's the exercise run and the dogs really enjoy getting to frolic around. I let the dogs into the x-run, run by run, to get out some energy. I then worked on recalls with some of the dogs using peanut butter. This worked for the shy dogs that didn't want to stay super close to me, but it was near impossible with the social dogs. As soon as they realized I had peanut butter they didn't leave my side.

Raisin was great today. I've never seen her so happy - running and jumping and even barking. She came up to me as soon as I called her and let me pet her many times. I'm very sad I will be leaving her now that she is starting to trust me. I've heard from other people that she had started to come somewhat near them so I'm glad that some of our socialization is [hopefully] transferring. She really is a great dog and I'd love to take her home if Tucker wouldn't mind, which I think he would.

I'm back at the Fairway tomorrow for my very last shift which is exactly the way I want it. The Fairway was the first dog area I worked in and I'm glad it will also be my last. I've really gotten close to the caregivers there and I will miss them tremendously.

And now for the sad part. Today was my last training session with Sharkey. He's such a good boy and he was a complete rockstar at Tara's Run today. He was quiet and kept much, much better focus than last week. I was so proud of him. Most of the session he spent laying down with his paws on my legs. I don't think I've posted a picture of Tara's Run before, so here most of it is (there are also a few pedestals and a seesaw for dogs to walk across). This is where we had all of our training classes and where they hold agility training. You can see how it would be distracting to a dog, especially while other dogs are also in it.

I had to get Sharkey back early after training. Normally we go on an outing after, but he had a sleep over scheduled and the woman taking him was going to pick him up early. We didn't go on an outing, but we did drive around a bit. I wasn't ready to give him back for the final time and he fell asleep in the car. I've really bonded with Sharkey and I'm really, really going to miss him. I was trying to talk him up like crazy to the lady who was taking him on a sleepover. Sharkey getting adopted would be the best end to my internship ever. Even if it's not right now, I know he will find a home. He is such a sweet dog and such a good boy.

I don't want tomorrow to happen because I don't want this to end.

Two more days left :(

Apologies for my lack of posting, but I've been a busy girl!

Monday I started my day out at Old Friends. They were super busy, which meant I was also super busy. I separated all of the dogs for breakfast, helped with volunteers, and walked some dogs. Remember Eve, the dog who I got to watch use her new cart for the first time? She has been doing FABULOUSLY! In the week and a half she's had it, she has gotten much, much stronger. I saw her standing. Eve standing. On her own. For at least 5 seconds! It was awesome. I also got to watch her go for a walk using her cart with her friend Dumpling. I have a video, but I'm having issues uploading it so hopefully figure it out. In the meantime, here is Eve and Dumpling playing after the walk.

I spent the afternoon up at Rescue Village with the rabbits. I did some cleaning, helped bond some bunnies, and other odds and ends of things, including making Angel Mush. Angel Mush is a food they make for rabbits that need to gain weight or need some incentive to eat, and the rabbits absolutely love it! It has rabbit pellets, pumpkin, water, oat flour, ensure, and V8. Weird combination, I know, but it works!

Monday night I finished up my enrichment poster so I could take it in to the Fairway Tuesday. I will say now that I have gotten many compliments on it! The staff there have started showing it to their daily tours and apparently there is a text message circulating the caregivers at Best Friends about it, which is great. Enrichment is a nice additive to the lives of animals and I hope more areas end up finding some kind of schedule that works for them.

Tuesday morning was my Sharkey time and what a great time it was. I started out by taking him for a walk at Angel's Overlook. It is very pretty there. Our assignment for this week's training class is to teach your project dog a trick and present it to the class on Thursday. The trick I wanted to teach Sharkey was to spin and then do a play bow after, but that may have been too ambitious with only one day of training with him until Thursday.
I ended up taking Sharkey into a large bathroom at DogTown headquarters to work on training with him. He gets too distracted working outside; the same goes for Tara's Run, so the bathroom was the prefect place - smaller, quiet, and no distractions. He did awesome with spin, but I couldn't get the play bow down, so we're going to stick with spin. We also worked on some leave-its, since he needs a lot of impulse control work.

I took Sharkey back and Kersten, one of the team leaders, was at Old Friends. She had a special project for me; she's been fostering a puppy that was found on the streets and he now has severe separation anxiety with her. She asked me to help crate train him and just kind of hang out with him. Let me just say, Bandit is incredibly adorable. He has GIGANTIC ears and is missing one eye. I ended up getting him into a crate and reading to him. He was so quiet! However, as soon as Kersten walked back into the kitchen where I was with him, and then left, he started SCREAMING! It was so shrill and sounded nothing like a dog! He's going to need some work, but I really hope he'll be able to get over his anxiety.

Tuesday afternoon I spent time at the Fairway. All of the chores and dog walking was done for the day. We started getting volunteers to work with the dogs on some enrichment stuff :) I took Raisin for an outing. She was so excited to see me when I first got in her run she ALMOST came all the way up to me (which I know seems like uhhh the dog won't come up to you?! but she's very, very shy and a very special case). I got her leash and then she did come up to me...but so did her three other runmates. Those guys are crazy! They're all black labs with a lot of energy and Raisin is this shy girl. It only took me about five minutes to get Raisin to the point that she was comfortable with me leashing her, which is a HUGE improvement. Once we got outside, she would not get in the car. One of the caregivers, Chris, had to come out and pick her up. She really wasn't bad in the car though. We went to Angel's Overlook for a nice walk. I sat with her in the sand and she sat or laid down and let me pet her for quite a while, although she wasn't completely comfortable the whole time. She got into the car just fine for our ride back. That was the bulk of working with Raisin Tuesday, but every now and then I'd go into her run and call her name and she would come right up to me and lick my hand every time, which is completely awesome.

I worked with some other shy dogs Tuesday like Ashley (who has finally stopped barking at me continuously and will come up and lick my hand and let me pet her), and Zeb, who barks at you for a while and then kind of accepts you after.

After work Tuesday, I went out with Shauna, Chris, and Sam, who is one of the four month interns. I had a great time and will really miss working with Shauna and Chris. They're just both such great people.

Percie

Today was another great day, of course. I spent ALL DAY in Deja Lodges. I didn't get to do too much behavioral work because Josh was off today, but I did do some. Liz was the only caregiver there, so we were pretty busy. I walked eight dogs this morning - Ebony, Pulgas, Scratch, Beauregard, Percie, Dreezle, Celine, and Ava -  all of which were green collar or purple collar because interns can't go in with red collar dogs. This is a large part of why the Lodges are so busy - no one other than staff can interact with red dogs. That means they are the only ones that can clean their runs, feed them, water them, walk them, and medicate them. I worked on mouthiness with Percie. I've mentioned Percie before; he was a street dog from Mexico that has no idea how to interact with people. He really likes people; he just doesn't know what to do, hence his mouthiness. Verbal corrections don't do much, but a verbal correction and taking your attention completely away from him seemed to do the trick; his mouthiness had reduced greatly after our session.

This afternoon I watched Huck and Liz work with Tiki on some handling issues. He does not like his paws or tail touched. It was super interesting.

Then I cleaned out a lodge, did some dishes, and helped Liz with handing out medications to the dogs I could.

I'm very sad today was my last day in the Lodges. The caregivers rock and the dogs are incredible. There is so much learning going on there, with people and dogs alike, and I loved every minute of it. I'm also definitely going to miss Ebony, the kitchen dog. She is beautiful, silly, and so smart.










Since today is Wednesday, it means training at the dog park in town. Since it was the last day I was able to attend, I stayed for both hour sessions. Even with the most basic training, I'm constantly learning new approaches to familiar ideas. I've really enjoyed being able to go to the sessions I've gone to. I'm also going to miss the trainers - the things I have learned from each of them are invaluable.


I have two days left of my internship and I'm really not ready for it to end. I thought this internship would be mostly connecting with animals, but I didn't include humans in that and I really should have.

Location: Top of the World

Some of my intern friends and  I ventured to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon today. I had a fantastic time. Here are a ton of photos, although they really don't do it justice.

This was the drive in. I saw more grass and trees here than I have since I left WI.

Finally here!

The hike up to Bright Angel point.

How is this possible?!

Our second hike; Cape Final. Super great trail!

I understand why it's called the 'Grand' Canyon. It goes on forever!

Oh ya know, just on the top of the world.

Conversing on the top of the canyon.

Today was really, really great. I can see how it's one of the Seven Wonders of the World. It really is miraculous.


Today's trip marked the end of our weekends together as interns, which is really sad. We've gone to some pretty incredible places together - the Dunes, Zion, Bryce, Peek-a-Boo, and now the Grand Canyon. I think it's starting to hit me that I now have less than 7 full days left in Kanab. This internship was way too short and I'm not ready to leave yet, but I will say I'm glad I got to visit all the places I've been able to since being here.

Gotta look forward to seeing this face when I get back.

Thumbelina

Ahhh I'm slacking. Apologies.

Yesterday was fantastic.

I spent the morning in Rescue Village. I pretty much cleaned out the yurts for the whole time.

In the afternoon we had a slot canyon tour. There's a man who converted this very large Hummer into a tour vehicle. To make up for my mostly photo-less blogs, here's a bunch of pictures.

This is Ken's Hummer.

Entering Peek-A-Boo canyon

The canyon was about 15 degrees cooler than outside of it

This is Todd. He fell from the upper part of the canyon.

You shall not pass.

All of us at the end of the canyon

Because the canyon is much cooler, Todd would have died where he was. So I picked him up to take him outside of the canyon.

Todd acted like a boa constrictor on Jill.

So, that was my Friday. Super awesome.

Today has been my first Saturday actually in Kanab. Most of the shops here are usually closed by the time I get out of work and everything is closed on Sunday, so I decided I would do some exploring around Kanab today.

First things first, I received an e-mail from the adoption department asking if I would be willing to transport a dog on my way back to Wisconsin. Her adopters live in Illinois, so they are going to meet me on the way. The dog's name is Thumbelina and I went to go meet her this morning.

She's the cutest dog ever and so so sweet! She is some kind of shepherd mix, but she's super small - probably only around 30 pounds or so . She was left at Best Friends a few months ago and she is only around 1 and half years old. She had been hit by a car, so her back legs don't work very well, but she can still get around in grass and sand. I sat on the ground by her and she curled up next to my legs. I think I'm going to have a great drive back. My only worry is that I'll not want to hand her over in Illinois...


After going to Best Friends, I went to an auto shop to get my tires rotated and oil change so I'll be set to leave next weekend. Everything in town in super close together, so while they worked on my car I just walked from shop to shop. Three hours later, my car was done. They had even vacuumed the inside and washed the windows for me!

I went home and began to work on my poster for the enrichment schedule that I'm going to hang at the Fairway. Since it was so nice outside today, and because  I heard it was in the 40s at home, I put on my swimsuit and worked on my poster outside on the deck. I'm going to enjoy the warmness of Kanab for as long as I possibly can!

I had another milestone today - Robin let me pet her again! Here's the photo of her I promised before - isn't she pretty?

Tomorrow I'm going to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. How did I get so lucky?

Toy guarding progress; focus, not so much

I'll apologize in advance for this photo-less blog. Promise to make up for it tomorrow!

Today, multiple people asked me if I was ready to go back to Wisconsin in a week. My answer was no. While I miss everyone and Tucker, this has been the most incredible journey of my life and I'm not ready to leave yet. If everyone and Tucker could just be here, my life would be set.

I went to the Fairway this morning to work on my intern project. I'm not sure if I've told you what it is, but basically it's an enrichment schedule. It has everything from puzzle toy feeding, to kong day, to exposure to new scents, visual triggers, and sounds. The caregivers are pretty excited about it and so am I. The animals need enrichment. It makes them use their brains and exposes them to things they may come across later.

Amongst doing other chores and visiting with the dogs, I worked with my girl Raisin. I decided we'd start our session with a walk. Well, that wasn't completely what happened. Raisin is in a run with 3 other very active dogs who will pretty much follow you around non-stop if you're in the run with them. I blocked them inside since it was near impossible to get the 3 outside and Raisin inside. My attempts to leash her up failed. The outside portion of the run is much too big, and we haven't had much socialization together outside. Kathy helped me get Raisin inside and the others outside. She was too fearful for me to put on her collar so I sat in my usual place next to her bed. She came over and then left again. And then came over and left again. As time went on (which was probably only less than 10 minutes), her tail would wag more and more and she would sit next to me for longer and longer. She sat next to me for what I think was the longest continuous duration yet, pawed at me a bit, and then stood in front of me (which never happens!) as if to say "ok, I'm ready for my collar!" IT WAS AWESOME. I put her collar and leash on and off we went. I could tell she was still skeptical of me by the way she glanced at me every so often while walking, but it's still and improvement. We got back from the walk and sat in her kennel for a bit. She lied down a few feet away as I read a book to her. She let me pet her all the way down her back and on her stomach today. I realize the progress doesn't seem immense, but that's not how it goes. I am willing to wait as long as I need to so that she is comfortable and we don't end up going backwards.

I wish I could say my afternoon went as well. We had training with out project pets. As soon as Sharkey and I got into Tara's Run, I knew it was going to be a rough session. There were tennis balls behind a fenced in area near where Sharkey and I were working. He was fixating on them, so I asked Tamra to move them out of eyesight. That didn't seem to matter for Sharkey as he spent pretty much the entire hour session trying to find them. It was a little frustrating, but I realize that something as tempting as tennis balls to Sharkey is not something he can easily overlook. Next time, I'm going to aim to be at the back of Tara's Run again as that's where he was the most calm.

I brought Sharkey back and helped out with some chores at Old Friends. They didn't have any volunteers this afternoon so they had quite a bit of work that needed to be done. Huck came for a Sharkey toy session around 4 and I observed. Sharkey has made tremendous progress with dropping toys! He started to drop them much quicker than last week. I'm glad that he's improving. This will eventually help his fixation issues  :)

After, Cherie asked if Huck could work with Benny, a small chihuahua who has recently taken on a fear of men. Huck and I sat down in Benny's run and Huck worked his magic. At first, Benny was hiding behind me and barking continuously at Huck. By the end of the session, Benny was in Huck's lap. I will definitely be using the things I learned from Huck when I work with other cautious dogs.

Tomorrow the interns have a slot canyon tour. It's going to be a whole lot of fun!

Busy, busy, busy

I didn't post yesterday because there was a lot of things going on, so here goes.

Rango

Yesterday I spent the morning at Deja Lodges. This is where I learn the most about animal behavior (scratch that, EVERYWHERE I learn about animal behavior but it's the most directed here), so I always look forward to shifts here. Today they were SUPER busy, so I didn't do a ton of directed learning, but I did get to socialize with a very shy dog, Rango. You can read about Rango here. He's got kind of a sad story, but he's been socializing with new people. He took to me immediately, which the caregiver, Liz, said was a good sign. He spent most of the time leaning into me for rubs. That was until I got up to grab a book. Reading to the dogs is a form of enrichment and they enjoy it. He was not ready for me to get up and was actually very fearful when I came back into his run. That was my bad. I think the sudden movement of me getting up and leaving threw him off. It was a quick switch. I sat away from him, not looking at him, and read the book out loud. Eventually, he made his way back to me for more rubs.

After working with Rango I hung out with Scratch. Scratch isn't up on the Best Friends website and I'm not sure why. Scratch is a great dog, and one of the few green collared dogs at the lodges. He was so sweet. I had to clean his run earlier and he was not too happy when I had to block him out of the indoor portion to sweep and mop. He's really a social guy.

The other interns and I didn't spend lunch at our normal spot at the Village. Instead, we went down by Kanab Creek and sat on some rocks and ate our lunch. It was really pretty (pictures to come later). It was also very peaceful and calm.

I spent the afternoon over at Old Friends. Sharkey has gotten quite attached to me. He threw a tantrum when I was in the run next to his or just in the center of the octagon. Cherie was super busy and the only caretaker so I was also busy, which was nice. I worked with some great volunteers, helped clean, blocked the dogs out for feeding, fed, picked up a dog from the clinic and many other things. My time went by very quickly at Old Friends, and on top of it I had to leave early for a presentation on TNR (trap, neuter, return).

I'll give you a quick low-down on TNR. Basically, there are community cats (feral, strays) all over the place. TNR is an attempt at controlling the cat population. Female cats get pregnant really quickly and can have an absurd amount of kittens through the duration of their lifetime. What happens with TNR is a shelter, or rescue, or whatever, will live trap the cats. They'll look for a notch on the ear of the cat, which is a universal signal that that cat has already been fixed. If not, they'll transport it to a clinic to have it fixed. After it has healed, the cat gets returned to where it was found. This lessens the procreation of these cats. \

Tuesday and Thursdays at the clinic at Best Friends is reserved for fixing feral cats. A few times a year, they go to big spaces and trap cats. This weekend, they're going to Gap, which is a reservation in Arizona. Best Friends has been working with the residents of Gap to let them come in and fix their cats and dogs. Yesterday, the interns were offered to help out at Gap with the cats. I've decided not to go for several reasons - it's our last weekend in Kanab and I had already made plans to go to the Grand Canyon, and there also may not be very much for us to do as they are unaware of how large the cat population is. I considered just driving down to help one day, but it's a pretty far drive for a day trip. It's something I would like to do in the future,  however.


Today I had another great day!
I started my morning in Deja Lodges again, however most of the chores were done yesterday so I got to observe dogs ALL morning! It was awesome.I started with trainer Huck and caregiver Josh. We went to go see Percie. Percie was found as a stray on the streets in New Mexico. He's become Josh's project dog as it seems Percie has never really been around people and has absolutely no clue how to interact with them. He knows Josh and continuously offers appeasing behaviors. Huck went in to the run, who Percie has never met before, and we watched to see how he would interact. He was really cautious at first, walking as low to the ground as possible, but over time we saw Percie's progression. He went from that extremely cautious stage to walking taller and sniffing Huck a bit to wagging his tail and sniffing Huck for long durations and then finally to sitting with his back towards Huck, a sign of comfort because he didn't feel the need to keep an eye on Huck. It was awesome to see his progression!

After that, I watched a dog introduction with Huck and Jen, one of the team leaders at DogTown. They were introducing Tiki, who had a runmate who was a little too people possessive, in with Astrid, a young and energetic dog who loves other dogs. The introduction went well. At some points, I think Astrid was a little too high strung for Tiki, but he corrected her and she took his corrections. I think they'll be a good pair.

After the introduction I went with Huck and Jen to work with Diamonte, who came in to Best Friends with puppies. She was really young. She is an incredibly overstimulated dog a lot of the time but they have been working with her on impulse control.

I walked a dog with Josh later, who reminded me a lot of Ruger from Old Friends. They both have so much excitement when someone comes into their kennel that they hump the person a lot. Dodger has been getting much better with calming himself down, which I also got to see the progression of.

I had to leave the lodges early for a tour of the clinic at Best Friends. It's small, but they have a lot resources. They even run their own blood work and fecals as opposed to sending them out. A new clinic will be starting to be built soon, so everyone is looking forward to having more room.



My afternoon was spent at the Fairway. I didn't do too much other than feeding, walking, and socializing, but that made for a fun day. I went in with Raisin again, but this time we were outside. When I sat down she came and checked me out immediately, but then left right away. She spent the rest of our session together a few feet away.

Earlier today, Josh and Huck told me every Wednesday they do dog training sessions for the public at a dog park in town. I decided to check it out. It's a beautiful dog park! They usually have around 20 people show up so they've split the class up into 5-6:00 and 6-7:00 sessions. I went to the 5-6 session. It was really great to watch and went by so quickly! They started having the clients give a "watch me" command, which they fully taught last week. Then they worked on recall work, which I got to help with! It was great. People would ask me questions that I actually knew the answers to! How great is that?! I will definitely be attending the session next week as well.