Our Last Day with Best Friends :(

Today we woke up to a sad thought. I (Sarah) said, "Oh no we are leaving tomorrow!" Ali said, "I'm literally gunna start crying." We took Richard, the cat that we took for a sleepover, back to CalMar. We listened to a pitbull talk - these dogs are not evil, that's a stereotype. Before having our last vegetarian lunch, we got to socialize with the dogs one more time. The last part of our day consisted of being scared of biting birds, although we made them toys and cleaned their rooms. I (Ali) even got the greeting bird, King O, to sing "I aint' nothin' but a birdy." Check out the King on Youtube - he's up to 112,000 hits.




After saying goodbye to the animals, we wrote our final thoughts on this Winterim - our thoughts were more like essays than a couple of words.

One time when we were working with the dogs, I (Sarah) walked a dog named Jingles. She is so adorable and is such a good girl. I said good bye to her today in her run when she was laying down on her bed. She loves to smile and is great with people. So come to Utah and adopt her!


Hope you all had a good Winterim!
Love,
Ali and Sarah

Meet King Richard

The kitty in the picture above is Richard! He is one of the many adorable cats available for adoption here at Best Friends. However, he has been diagnosed with feline leukemia, and is often passed over for a forever home because he can infect any other healthy cats he would be living with. But as you can see, he is incredibly playful and a complete cuddle bug... and would make a great companion for anyone considering adopting their first cat! (Hint hint...)

On our second to last day at the sanctuary, we started off cleaning out the pig pens. We also returned our sleepover pig, Cherry, who was a very good girl... except for her waking Kelsey and Ali up at 5:00. After working with the potbellies all morning (who are actually really clean and friendly animals), we went back to the rabbit cages in the afternoon for some poop-scooping. We are looking forward to our last volunteering day, and everyone would like to thank Mrs. Hutchinson for the treats in Kelsey's care package (including Richard!)

See you all on Saturday!

New Best Friends: Richard the Cat and Cherry the Pig

Today was a very nice and relaxing day. We started out by cleaning the cat rooms in CalMar, a house for cats with Feline Leukemia. It is similar to AIDS for humans because it is a virus that attacks their immune system and in their bones, but it's for cats, and other shelters euthanize the cats that they have with Feline Leukemia. Contrary to what other shelters think, cats can live many years with this disease, so Best Friends doesn't euthanize them and gives them a chance to live a longer, happier life. After cleaning the rooms, we played with the cats. One of our all-time favorite cats was Richard who was very playful and loved to give "hugs", where he would stand on his hind legs and put his front two legs on you. After working with cats we had a very nice lunch and tanned outside for a while to relax even more. We proceeded to the doggie headquarters and learned how to clicker train dogs. It was a new experience for some of us and a normal practice for others. The trainer that taught us was very knowledgeable about all things dog and was able to answer all of our questions, including Kristina's question as to how to get her dog to stop barking for attention, a very difficult thing to cure apparently, but manageable. Once we all got the hang of the clicker training and all the questions were answered, we went to trail repairing. We went along "The Garden Loop" and cleared the trail so it was void of anything but sand, got rid of all visible dog poop, and made the edges of the trail clear so no one would get confused of where to go. It was a very relaxing day compared to other days of shoveling, raking, and other such tasks. Looking to the near future, tonight is going to be very exciting for all of us because we have a very adorable pig by the name of Cherry, spending the night with us. Everyone can come in and visit, but Ali, Julia, Sarah, and I (Kelsey) have the privilege of having her in our room for the night. Opposite to what most people think, pigs are very clean, very cute, and very well behaved. Attached is a picture of the "CherBear" as we like to call her. We are all having a blast here, but we also can't wait to be home soon!

Just Another Day or Two or Three at the Sanctuary...

We have heard from those at the animal sanctuary in Utah often. We have since given them access to write their own posts, however this should catch you all up on their first week there.

(email received on 3/10)
Yesterday (3/9) we worked with dogs and bunnies. We cleaned a dog house and took the dogs to the park. For bunnies, we worked on cleaning their runs while also socializing the wild bunnies by trying to feed them lettuce. Here are some pictures. One is of Annie Davies playing ball with 2 dogs in the park (above). Another is Sarah Casey, Ali Pouliot, and Jenny Weil giving “Mika” some loving in the park (below bottom). The third is Colby Galliher and Becca Gilbert cleaning in bunnies (below top).

(in a comment posted on blog on 3/11)

Hello Everyone!

Today we played and cleaned up after the kitty cats of best friends. Hannah met a new friend named Honey who she was overly obsessed with. She would like to know, Dale can i bring her home?! Other than Hannah's obsession, Colby discovered Hutch (Kelsey) is a werewolf because she wasn't used to human touch". Other than that, we learned about puppy mills and what they are and why best friends doesn't support them. After we learned about the puppy mills we went on a hike to an under ground cave and we got lost... woohoo. We have a dog with us tonight, his name is Jay-Z. He is a black lab, very playful. We will keep everyone updated!

Peace. Love. Kitties.

PS. Annie breaks hearts.

(sent to blog on 3/12 by faculty leaders)

Today (3/12) we headed down to the Horse cemetery and for the morning, we tore up tumble weeds and put them in a huge pile to be burned. The workers and the vets were very thankful of our work. The horse graves looked great after we cleared out the tumble weeds. Heather, our guide, drove us to some rocks right off the road. She showed us petroglyphs on the side of the rock carved by the Anasazi tribe. Then we went to lunch and lounged in the sun until most of us got pretty red.

After lunch we went to puppy daycare. We split up into groups and took the puppies for walks and took them off leash to play with them. We had plenty of one on one time with the puppies and we wanted to adopt plenty of them. Colby made a friend, Aero, who followed him around wherever he went. After Ms. Simon and Ms. Ruby pulled us away from the dogs, we drove into town and had a delicious dinner at Nedra’s, a Mexican and American restaurant. We are all looking forward to Zion tomorrow (3/13).

***************

We are sure you will "hear" from them again. They have consistent internet access and now have access to post their own articles on this blog!

P.S. The Poulin Family just adopted a rescued dog on Saturday! Welcome Riley to the LA Community!

Making Best Friends Out West

All Creatures Great and Small Winterim had to hang out and watch the "animals" in the airport while their flight was delayed on Monday night. Soon they boarded and flew straight to Vegas on the same night the on-campus students enjoyed a "Vegas Casino Night" here in Groton. They drove a few hours to arrived to their Western US destination - Utah!

On Tuesday they settled in at the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary and had a huge tour and orientation to the large animal shelter. Today, Wednesday, the expected to work with bunnies and dogs. We hope they are having great weather and look foward to hearing from them again!

If you want to know more about what they are doing post a comment and maybe they will answer you with a response.