Best Friends - Day 5 - The Lodges - 9/15/08
For those who have been to BF, but haven't been to the Lodges, you don't know what you're missing! There's a whole city of dogs back there. They're all behind the Dogtown Headquarters, and there are A LOT of dogs.
Today I dropped Keri at Cat Headquarters, returned BJ back home, and headed to Headquarters to sign up for the Lodges. While there, Cherry, one of the Vick dogs featured on Dogtown was there. She was clearly very frightened, all crouched down. She's just a beautiful dog and I just know that one day she will flourish thanks to the efforts of all the wonderful staff at BF.
I headed up to the Lodges and met Jeanne and Keelie. Jeanne moved from CA to Utah 7 years ago with her husband. She and her husband volunteer 5 mornings a week at the Lodges. Which must be a tremendous help since there are SO many dogs that need to be walked and not enough staff to walk them all. They also don't get enough volunteers over there. Everyone seems to migrate over to Old Friends. You'll work your butt off at the Lodges, but it is well worth it. And the staff are incredibly appreciative. Keelie has been at BF for a month. She used to live in another area of Utah and Seattle. You would never know she's only been working there a month. They are lucky to have that girl. One of the staff brought their dog to work with them. She's a gorgeious blue pitbull named Minnie with cropped ears. What a beautiful, sweet girl she is!
The Lodge is a huge area with lots of dogs. I started out walking dogs as soon as I got there. The trails are uphill (imagine walking on the beach UP HILL). The views are stunning. They definitely have the best views of all the dog areas, which makes up for the exhaustion you begin to feel rather quickly. Between the heat and the higher elevation, it can be a challenge. My first dog to walk was Nicole. She's a pretty little tan pitbull missing the bottom part of her jaw. The poor girl was used as a bait dog in dogfights. Unfortunately, Miss Nicole wasn't very interested in walking. We didn't make it very far when we had to turn back. She was much more interested in gettin' some lovin' than doing any kind of walking. Next up was Pickles (who would be our next overnight dog). Pickles is a very sweet, little black pitbull. Next, Jeanne and I walked Cinderella and Mr. Chips. Next to walk was the beautiful Ophelia. Yet another sweet, black pitbull. Pickles and Ophelia had both been mentioned to me during the week as great overnight dogs. Pickles hadn't been on an overnight in a while, which is why I picked him. Next to be walked was Purdy and Yogi. Yogi was a young black and white dog. Purdy was an older dog. They live together.
Time to visit Mr. Bones. Please see my last entry for details on my visits with him.
I then went to help staff walk two dogs that hadn't been walked in quite some time. Larry and I walked Buddha (who is a staff only dog) and Papago. The dogs were both wonderful to walk and very happy to get out. Larry took me to a spot with a fabulous view of the Lodges and the Garden. Larry is a retired NY fireman. He lived in NY and FL before moving to Utah to work at BF. He's been there for 2 months. You can tell how much he loves his job and all the dogs he takes care of.
Luchtime! I picked Keri up at cats and we went to Angel Village to eat. We sat out on the deck and met a woman from Cape Cod and a man from Canada. Both volunteers. The woman from the Cape is considering moving to Kanab and working at BF. She is currently an OR nurse at a hospital on the Cape.
After lunch I drove Keri to bunnies and I headed back to HQ to sign up for the Lodges again. This was the most work I've done in an afternoon since arriving at BF. But, I really felt like I was helping. Terry (one of the Care Givers who has been at BF for 5 years) and I cleaned out the lodges. We swept them out and gave the dogs fresh water. We went to give Mr. Bones his shot (mentioned in my last entry). We cleaned out Ogy's run. He is so sweet! He loved getting attention and affection. Camo (who may have since been moved), Pacer and Lola, all live there also. I met Reuben who is a real cutie pie. Bad weather scares him to the point where he'll climb under his bed and if you open his door he'll push by you into the main room and won't go back in until things quiet down. And then there's Theresa who always has a ball in her mouth. There's a blog here on her and she's going to be featured in one of the upcoming Dogtown shows, along with her caregiver - Terry (much to her chagrin!). Theresa has cancer that is under control at the moment). Recently, she had gotten sick and they thought the cancer had come back. They saw something in her stomach and she had to have surgery. They found the leg from her ball (it was one of those balls with the legs) in her stomach! So the staff had to go and remove all the legs from the balls. Theresa is SO cute and really pretty.
Time to help feed. Thankfully they have golf carts to get around this property, otherwise I would have really been dragging. Not to mention the toll it would take on all the staff every day.
I gathered up Pickles and headed to HQ to sign her out, then picked up Keri. We ordered a pizza and were concerned about Pickles driving us nuts when we were trying to eat it. But it turns out we had nothing to worry about. He went over to the door and laid down with his back to us while we ate! That was a refreshing change. All our overnight dogs were huge beggars! Not our Pickles. He was such a good boy. I just adore the pitties!