This is where I will be spending the last week of my internship at Best Friends Animal Sanctuary! Maggie's Mercantile is where they keep some of the dogs that need some 'extra love & attention' for training purposes or behavioral issues. All of the dogs are super sweet though! Today I worked with Hayley, she's one of the caregivers at Maggie's, and I also worked with a 4-month intern, Chelsea. I spent my morning taking the dogs on walks! First, I took Nugget for a walk. She is such a sweet girl.
I promise she has ears... They're just not visible in this picture for some reason!
After I walked Nugget, I took Fillmore for a walk. He's a crazy, high-energy pit mix! He's really goofy and really affectionate! Then after Fillmore, I took Rainey for a walk. She's a hound mix. Unfortunately, I couldn't get a good picture of her! I will get one at some point this week!
This is Wallie. This picture is misleading because he is an enormous pittie!!! I've never seen a dog with a bigger head. But as big and powerful as he is...
He's just a teddy bear :)
After I got done walking the 4 dogs, Chelsea asked me if I could take Pepsi on an outing. Pepsi has some joint problems, so he doesn't really enjoy walks. But he loves car rides! So we hopped in my car and drove around Kanab for about half an hour. He was very happy in the car, as you can see! I brought Pepsi back to Maggie's just in time for lunch. So in the afternoon, when I got back from lunch, Hayley and Chelsea told me to come with them to take Pepsi to his laser treatment over at the clinic. We all hopped on the golf cart and went over to the clinic, which is only a few minutes away. Every so often, Pepsi gets laser treatments on his front legs/elbows because of his degenerative joint problem and his arthritis. Everyone, including Pepsi, has to wear goggles to protect their eyes from the laser. Pepsi doesn't seem to mind wearing Doggles whatsoever :)
He's such a big, dopic goofball. He was extremely patient for the duration of his laser treatment! After Pepsi was done, we also had to take Fiesta to get a laser treatment for her Spondylosis. Fiesta is a small, nervous pittie. She didn't enjoy the laser treatment nor did she want to cooperate for a picture!
After we were done at the clinic, Chelsea and I prepared the afternoon feedings for the pups. I could be wrong, but I believe there's 13 dogs at Maggie's right now! After they were done eating, we did some cleaning/sweeping in their runs. It was an easy day in Dogtown. In a way, I felt at home. Being with dogs is second nature to me, so it was nice to feel so comfortable today! I definitely think it will be a great week, and an awesome way to end my internship!
To end my day, the interns had a presentation on Breed Discrimination. It was basically a conference call and a powerpoint with Lola Handzel; she is a legislative lawyer who works in conjunction with Best Friends! Her main focus is to totally end breed discrimination altogether, and in turn, put herself out of a job! As many of you already know, pitbulls are today's most misunderstood breed in the US; receiving unimaginable amounts of prejudice and discrimination. Ridiculous laws exist all over the country restricting people from owning a pitbull. Although progress is being made, Lola said there's many states that won't get with the program. Halfway through the powepoint, Lola showed us a slide of about 15 pictures of dogs, and told us to identify the pitbull. The tricky part is that every single dog more or less looked like a pitbull! This example that Lola gave us should totally discredit breed discrimination in its' entirety. If we can't even identify one pitbull out of a few pictures, how can we possibly have state laws that prohibit the fair and equal treatment of an entire breed? It's ridiculous. Here's a link that pretty much sums up everything that Lola touched on today. It's extremely important that we're all informed on this issue.
http://bestfriends.org/uploadedFiles/Content/Resources/Resources_for_Rescuers(1)/Adoption/608Pit%20Bull%20hand%20out.pdf
If you'd like to take it one step further, and I hope you will, please take the time to join the Action Network on Best Friends' website, or send an email to your local officials (Copy & paste the link below). There's so much you can do to help put an end to breed discrimination, and it won't take much of your time at all! By simply being more informed and aware of the current issues, we will make a difference. Please share these links with everyone! :)
http://bestfriends.capwiz.com/bestfriends/home/
