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.