Kanab, UT

Me and my big sis Kim at her dream workplace, Best Friends Animal Sanctuary.   This place is amazing, check out their website to see people really making a difference one animal at a time.

This is one of their surrenders, his name was Schwartz or Schlitz or something like that, what a cutie, he was born with this little foot on the front and is doing great now that he is at the sanctuary, he is like the holy ambassador of the lobby at the welcome center.  If you go there you might be honored to meet him in person, I was.
There were so many fantastic things about our visit to Kanab I hardly know where to begin so I will begin at the beginning.

This  is the first take your breath away piece of scenery I saw when nearing the place.  As I was to find out, "This ain't nothin'".  The scenery around Kanab is just breathtaking, canyon after canyon full of amazing red rock, underground lakes, huge fields of sagey sagebrush, a charming town where they shot hundreds of the old westerns Terry watches over and over again and of course my sister lives there, absolutely the icing on the cake.  Except for the unusual cold snap when we were there this place is perfect paradise.  Of course the very first thing we did when we arrived was to go directly to Kim's house and give her a big hug.  It was so good to see her that I felt like crying.

This is her house.  She rents some acreage, home to her and her 10 dogs.  She has 8 little ones and 2 big ones.  The one that stole my heart is Pixie, the ancient chiuawha (sp?), a hospice dog she has had over a year now.  Then there is Benny the long haired weiner dog who is the official greeter and in charge of everyone's social life.  He is the hostess with the mostess.  Then there is Cody who I nicknamed "the humper", guess why?  Of course his favorite target is little tiny frail old lady Pixie who doesn't mind his actions.  Then there is Tank, the Shitzu who is built like, guess what a tank and has absolutely no expression on his face ever, he never cracks a smile but likes Kim to lift his big self onto the couch at night.  I think I saw a glimmer of a grin that he has trained her to lift his big butt up every night.   The black and white speckled heeeler (her name escapes me right now) who just likes to cuddle, and all the others she has given a great home to.  I am bummed that I didn't take pictures of  them but when you are in their presence all you can think is wow, look at all these dogs!!  Every night when we would sit on the couch and watch movies each person gets a dog on their lap, a dog next to them, a dog on the other side and a couple of dogs on the back of the couch like head warmers.   The whole time Benny is running across all the laps making sure everyone has a person to sit on. It is dog heaven there.

Some cool petroglyphs at the animal sanctuary.  I loved the colors of the rocks.

We met Margaret Schreiber at the horse division of Best Friends and she took us on this amazing tour of the place.  This is the underground lake.  Best Friends owns 3000 acres of the canyon and leases like 30,000 more from BLM land.  This is not some small time place.

Underground lake right behind us.

 We went hiking but that will be another posting cause the pics are really cool.

This is at the sanctuary, a natural ampitheater with yes an underground lake under it.

Okay, so I have to get to bed, I am at the Midwest Horse Fair and we are tired since we work from 8am to 7pm here.  It is our dream weather though, 40 and raining with 80 mph wind, okay, not really but it seems like it.  MaryJean won't even go out in this weather, she says she can just hold it until it warms up a little.