Best Friends Animal Sanctuary by Melissa

Cookie

Mason and I arrived in the dark. Late. After 10 PM.

We knew it would be that way. We only had two days to spend at Best Friend’s Animal Sanctuary in Kanab, Utah, and we’d booked the cheapest tickets available. I planned this quick, low-budget trip with two goals in mind and not a lot of time to accomplish either. First and most importantly, I wanted to ask the sanctuary to help us with dogs hard to rehome, like fear-aggressive Bentley and deaf Sugar Ray, but I also secretly wanted to scope out the place for any potential job opportunities. What better place to make a living writing about dogs than at the most famous animal sanctuary in the United States? For an idea of their renown: Best Friends rescued the Michael Vick dogs and had a reality show called Dogtown on the National Geographic channel for two years.

Arriving after sunset in no way prepared me for the otherworldly scene that surrounded me when I woke up on Sunday, January 19th. I circled like a pinwheel outside our cabin door, propelled by beauty not breeze. Canyons with variegated shades of red and brown, like rust, towered around us in water-smoothed formations that made me think about Mars or the moon. It was as dusty as a scene out of Dune too.

We didn’t have a lot of time to investigate because we had a full day: Tour at 8:30, Orientation at 11:30. Volunteering at 1:15. Don’t be late.

Less than ten minutes after the tour started, I asked for help rehoming our special needs dogs. Our guide Margaret urged ICHBA to apply to become a network partner. She said if we qualify, then Best Friends could help us. Goal one: Check. I felt giddy and sat back to absorb the grandiosity of a “dream” animal sanctuary.

As Margaret drove Mace and I around the 3700 acres that make up Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in southern Utah, I felt profoundly moved and found myself volleying between tears and laughter. Margaret, an elderly beauty, pointed out the Angel’s Rest animal cemetery, the Jenny Craig stall where the overweight horses had to traverse a bluff for water, and the renowned Dogtown, the place where the Vick dogs that will never get rehomed live. I wiped away a tear dangerously close to teetering over the edge, thinking that anywhere that caused that kind of emotional reaction seemed like the right place for me to work. I was more determined than ever to leave my resume.

As far as our volunteer work, Mace and I fed and walked eight different medium-sized dogs in three hours from the Dotty and Petey apartments. We initially wanted to have a pig sleepover, but Piggy Paradise was under quarantine due to swine flu, so we choose Cookie instead. Cookie was a standard mutt, but her eyes were as gold as polished coins. We took her for a hike to Hidden Lake, a cave with a pond at the mouth. Smart and eager to please, she walked alongside my thigh in perfect leash etiquette after only a few minutes of instruction. She also puked twice in the rental ( 🙂 ) car on our way to Kanab to pick up our takeout Pizza Hut pizza. Overnight, I spooned Cookie like we had the rest of our lives to cuddle. Even though I had seven dogs waiting for me at the Farnival, saying goodbye to her turned out to be hard.

• • •

I woke up my last day at the sanctuary, long before Cookie was willing to get out of bed, and realized there is no other place in the United States (and I’ve probably traveled a million miles within our borders) where I felt as emotionally inspired as I did touring and volunteering at Best Friends. At first I thought it was the view, but that was just a rookie’s reaction. I think anyone that sees that part of the country is lucky, but in retrospect, my heart prefers the woodsy eastern mountains or the rocky northwestern coast.

In fact, it didn’t dawn on me until the plane ride to Nashville that I experienced hope at Best Friends because every human in that joint spoke the same language we do at the Farnival. Being there was like finding home.

I also understood with perfect clarity that I would never apply for a job there. Best Friends is an animal welfare worker’s Disneyland. And they are just as well funded as Mickey too. Doing rescue work in the rural south for ICHBA, an organization with meager resources, has been and is a lonely proposition. But Best Friends doesn’t need me. The need is here, at the Farnival, in Cedar Hill, Tennessee.

(ICHBA is currently applying to become one of Best Friend’s network partners. If we qualify, then the sanctuary assured me they could help us with our special needs animals.)