Thursday, February 17, 2011

St. George picture update part 2

All of these photos were taken at the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Kanab, Utah. 

You can visit their website here .

It is the largest animal sanctuary in the U.S.  We chose this as our first weekend outing in southern Utah. Elyssa was missing her dog terribly and we thought if she could connect with some other animals it might help.  The Sanctuary is in Angel Canyon, and had 1700 animals the day we visited.

 Waiting for our tour to start. More gorgeous blue skies.

This cat is Scotty, he was born with his eyelashes turned in against his eyes. Every time he blinked his lashes would scratch his corneas, as a result the vets ended up removing his upper eye lids, and he has very poor eyesight. He also had a funny little fang that stuck up out of his mouth.  
    
 This cat was very calm and quiet. He only had one eye.
 And our very favorite was Marni. She was a 9 year old lab/pit mix. She was so sweet. The kids and Justin absolutely adored her. We would take her home if we could.



The Sanctuary was Absolutely AMAZING! Clean unlike any other I have ever been to. Organized beyond anything I have ever witnessed. Cats with feline lukemia had their own building. Cats with special needs their own building, older cats had their own place. Same with the dogs, small dog buildings, large dog buildings, older dogs buildings. They even had places for dogs who would rather live alone or with just one buddy. They had 42 puppies in the nursery and they would eventually graduate to puppy preschool. They had bird buildings and horse haven, piggy paradise for pot bellied pigs, bunny housing, one sheep. A horse that has had a prosthetic leg for 17 years. 

This sanctuary took in 20 of Michael Vicks dogs. I think 2 of them are under court order never to be adopted out. 6 have been rehabilitated and adopted, and the others still live at the sanctuary. The sanctuary employs approximately 480 employees, and has an operating cost of $100,000 per day. 
The Pet cemetery was beautiful and extremely peaceful. They have placed over 1000 wind chimes in the cemetery as well. 
If you are planning to adopt an animal this is an awesome place to do that. Each animal comes with a life plan folder that has all of their known history and of their time at the sanctuary. Plus they are available for sleepovers if you are staying in the area. 
The tour is free and takes about 90 minutes. I would highly suggest taking the tour if you are in the St. George or the Zion National Park areas.  You can also rent cabins in the sanctuary and volunteer.

2 comments:

Charlotte said...

That is such a neat place. I've seen documentaries about it, but it would be really cool to see it in person.

Meagan said...

If I took Jon there we would not leave with less than 3 dogs. So we will not be going there!