Another Tuesday Blog Post: A Week Gone to the Dogs

Week 3. My week in Dogtown.

But first, week three!? What!? Where is my time here going?

I absolutely loved last week. Each day's agenda was fairly similar in theory, but my days all looked different up at the Lodges - Angel's Lodges. That's the area of Dogtown where I was stationed for the week. Here there is a mix of color colours - green (volunteer friendly), purple (18-and-older friendly), and red (staff only), which made for an interesting experience.

I'm going to do what I did for the horses in my last post and go through what my days of the week looked like at the Lodges. I'll post some pictures of some of the dogs I'm going to talk about here, just so you can have somewhat of a visual:

(Side note - all of these beauties are up for adoption!)

Monday. My first day not in lower canyon. I had to leave a few minutes earlier, but I rolled up at Dogtown HQ at 7:50am. I was escorted back to my area where I met up with Chris and Melissa, two of the caregivers, who gave me a brief tour and showed me the ropes (literally, they showed me the leashes and stuff). Later in the week, I met Terri, another one of the awesome caregivers. Chris and I took Modoc out first so that he could show me the trail. The trail winds behind the runs up a hill to a point that overlooks Dogtown on one side and the cliffs on the other. Benches spot the trail, and it continues to wind up and down and around the area of the canyon. For the next walk, I got to observe a parallel walk between DeeDee and Hummer down the road that leads past some of the founder's homes. I then set off with Treasure on the trail by myself. After a morning full of walking, I had the opportunity to watch an introduction at Tara's Run between Bolt and Esther, two dogs they were trying to see if could potentially live with one another. Before lunch, the other interns and I went to a presentation on the stages of puppy-hood. After lunch, I got to do some clicker training with DeeDee, sat with Pedro (my baby who I'm determined to bring home one way or another), and helped out with feeding. And that was my first day.

My second day at the Lodges started out with distributing am and pm meds for the day. A lot of the dogs up there are either older and/or have some special needs, so a majority of them are on some type of meds and supplements. Walking the dogs took up the remainder of my morning. I took out YoYo, Sneaker, Koda, and DeeDee on the trail, and Treasure and I went on an outing to Amberly's office to visit, Angels Landing to walk around and play some ball, and the creek to chill out before heading back. That afternoon, Sarah and I attended both the Moves Meeting (to discuss any moves of the dogs from one run to another) and the No More Homeless Pets Meeting (in place to either accept or deny requests for dogs to be taken into the sanctuary). Afterwards, I went to continue training with DeeDee and finished up my day with feeding. Actually, I should say my day finished up with an amazing sunset - probably one of the most beautiful ones I have ever seen!

Colourful Sunset

On Wednesday, the Lodges has the dog park. That meant that most of my morning involved taking dogs like Zeus, DeeDee, and Koda to the park to play ball and hang out. I also got to watch some play dates between Blondie and Owen & Ebony and Ava at Tara's Run. Before lunch, I had the opportunity to attend a talk on dog body language given by one of the trainers at the sanctuary. After lunch, I did the usual after-lunch cleaning and poop scooping before working on some clicker training with Dale. Again, I ended the day with feeding and sitting in with Pedro. Note: I got my first mini tail wag from Pedro on Wednesday :)

By Thursday I was getting sad that my time at the Lodges was coming so close to an end. I started out my day by walking Sneaker, Treasure, and DeeDee before heading off to the intern tour of the clinic. That clinic is huge and has some great equipment! In the afternoon, I walked Ava with one of our volunteers. She was really great and offered me some insightful advice about life. Afterwards, Sarah and I watched two of the dog assessments. These assessments are performed by the trainers and offer some insights into the dogs for potential adopters and for people who may want to take the dog on an outing or a sleepover. I got back in time to help finish up with the feeding. I stayed about 30 minutes later so that I could end my day with spending a little more time with Pedro.

Friday morning got off to a little bit of a later start because nobody came in at 6:30am and because the clinic, HQ, and other people kept calling and either needing to talk, meet, or for us to bring dogs. We finished morning meds and feeding, and I began my morning walking routine with Treasure, Bowser, and Koda. I did some poop scooping and water changing before and after lunch. After lunch, these two really awesome ladies, regular volunteers up at the Lodges, came to clean, socialize, and make dinner for the dogs. I finally got to take Pedro on a car ride with Terri, and he was perfect. He really feels much more comfortable in the car. Unfortunately, I had to leave early on my last day to make it to a meeting. We, the interns, attended a great presentation by Dr. Frank on quality of life. Friday night, we had a fire, and made some delicious s'mores and hung out until almost midnight!

The weekend, as usual, called for adventuring. On Saturday, we went to the Toadstools, Lake Powell, Page, and Horseshoe Bend. I was a pretty chill day - there was hiking, swimming, laying out, and Starbucks involved. A good day.

The Toadstools

Horseshoe Bend

On Sunday, I had a great opportunity in the morning to go with Marina, another intern, and some people from the sanctuary to get some pigs from Colorado City. We left Kanab at 7am and ended up picking up 14 of the gals to bring back. We took them to the clinic and unloaded them into the in-and-out runs. There were a couple of babies :) We finished up around noon, and I went back to the house to take a nap and grab some food. Some time after I awoke, I got this brilliant idea to go up to Zion to take some pictures. I left around 3pm, and three of the other inters accompanied me. We ended up actually hiking the Narrows for about 2 hours and went into the town of Springdale for a pizza dinner. By the time we got ready to go back through Zion to go back to Kanab, the sun was setting. It was spectacular!