Best Friends

Today we sit 500 miles from our destination which is just west of Mt. Hood, Oregon. We're in a nice little trailer park in Wendell, Idaho. Stopped here in honor of Paul's ultraconservative Marine buddy whose first name is Wendell. He'll be happy to know the town is mostly illegal Mexican farm workers, gays, lesbians and a handful of bisexual transgenders. We expect Wendell will change his name to "Bob". More about this in a future post. But now to something serious in far southern Utah.

 

You may have heard of this place: Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Kanab. 

Best Friends is home to more than 1000 abandoned dogs, cats, horses, pigs, reptiles, birds and even pet bugs. Like the bumper sticker says, the world is a better place when we are kind to animals.

Spread across more than 3700 acres in southern Utah's red rock country (pretty, but not as pretty as Sedona), Best Friends welcomes visitors, many of whom come for a working vacation. They walk the dogs, feed the horses, care for the other animals, conduct free bus tours and spread the word about animal adoption. In our RV park near Kanab a couple from Illinois introduced us to their new pug "Veronica" who (or is it "whom"?) they had just adopted from Best Friends.



These are the two hummingbirds we adopted. They're flying around inside the trailer crashing into walls and dive-bombing our new pet snake.

All the proceeds from the Best Friends gift shop go to support the organization.

This is for all you cat people. Hug a cat and what do you get? Your eyes scratched out.

Did we tell you about Daisy and my sandwich? A couple of months ago I took home a Styrofoam doggie box with half of a huge sandwich and an even bigger pickle. Paul and I left it in the truck with Daisy while we went into WalMart. Came back not five minutes later and all that was left was an empty box with a few bite marks. She had even attempted to re-close the box so we wouldn't notice. No wonder Daisy's so fat. Don't trust your dog to watch your food. They ain't watchin'. They're eating.

For beer lovers: butt sniffing themed squeaky toy, made in China.

We bought a bunch of gift items, mostly as a donation to the organization, and Paul was greeted by this young cute clerk wearing her magic garments under a sundress and he after paying he thought, "What the hell, I'll give this Mormon thing a try." I now have a sister wife. 

Here's Paul and Daisy, the world's biggest and littlest Morons.

Here's Daisy who refuses to be converted with her new favorite squeaky toy, a rubber bottle of cabernet.

The animals from Best Friends come from all over the country. Overcrowded shelters give their extra pets to Best Friends knowing they'll be well treated and not euthanized. This is not only the largest pet sanctuary in the country but also the largest no-kill shelter.

In an interesting twist, this place is a stone's throw from the huge Navajo reservation where more than 100,000 feral dogs and cats are on their own. It's a disturbing and tragic situation. While driving through the Navajo nation we saw a little puppy sitting petrified on the yellow line between the traffic lanes. We were going to stop and grab it but it made it across the road, into the tall weeds. Only the good, one true Catholic Church Lord knows its fate.

 There are, however, a few rays of hope to help these poor animals through vaccination clinics and spay and neuter events.  Our veterinarian's office in Sedona has a heavy three-ring binder filled with photos and profiles of so-called "res dogs" (reservation dogs)  that need to be adopted.





Daisy with her new best friend, her rubber squeaky cabernet toy and Best Friends bandana. Check out www.bestfriends.org

On down the road we go into Oregon today. Bye bye. Buy Starbucks.