Page Animal Adoption Agency – Chasing Simple Dreams

My mommy keeps taking all these pictures of me!

My mommy reads the blog Change is Hard, and occasionally that lady, Dawn, lets her dog, Katie write blog posts. My mommy really enjoys them so she thought it would be cool if I wrote something, just to change it up. (Ok, actually she’s taking dictation from me because it’s almost impossible to type on a keyboard when you have paws like I do.) Details, schmeetails, I say.

By the way, I’ve been added to her The Herd page! Check me out – don’t I look like a model in my picture?!!!?

So, anyway, I want you to know that today is the BEST DAY EVER!!! I mean, yesterday, I thought was the BEST DAY EVER! But today is it!! Can tomorrow even be the BEST DAY EVER???! I guess we will see!

So, I guess I should tell you a bit about myself so you know where I’m coming from with these posts. I was what they call a “rez dog” – that means I was born on a reservation and I lived on it for a few years. I had a couple litters of puppies, and my owners cropped my tail, as they sometimes do to cattle dogs (or heelers, as I am also called). They weren’t that nice to me – they never let me inside their house, at all! (So different from my mommy now, who always insists on bringing me inside after our walks, and then giving me a treat!) I love my mommy. Have I said that yet? Because I really do.

Anyway, the people who I first lived with wouldn’t let me inside their house. They would even put their foot in the door to keep me from going inside. I really couldn’t understand why they didn’t want me to be with them. Was it something I did? Was it something I barked?

When I had had my second or third litter of puppies (I am a dog, so I can’t count), they brought me to the Page Animal Adoption Agency. At first, I felt lonely for them, I mean, they were the only people I ever knew. But soon, I met some really nice people named Natalie, and Sharon, and Doris, and Sara and Brian and Shelley. These people were so nice to me. They gave me hugs and kisses and took me on walks or car rides to the park or canyons. They encouraged me to cross over what i learned is a threshold, from the outside of the building to the inside. And they let me hang out in the room with all the cats, and they let me hang out with lots of little puppies, I love cats and little puppies. It’s the bigger dogs I don’t like. So, yeah, I don’t have any problems with Osito, or Baby O, as my mommy calls her sometimes.

My mommy has three cats, and I’m really trying to be friends with them but two don’t seem to like me very much, and one of them seems to tolerate me. Callie and Max hiss at me, and HoneyBun occasionally hisses at me, but I have noticed when she raises her paw to me, her claws aren’t out. I know she doesn’t want to hurt me. The other two, I’m not so sure about. Mommy says to give it time, but how much time do they need?? I mean, I’ve been with Mommy now for a month!! A whole month of living indoors! A whole month of sleeping on a bed at night!

This is one of the places we went this weekend – Tingley Beach!

My mommy and I go on walks every day. She says she’s “walking the crazy out of me,” and I have no idea what she’s talking about! I just do flips and circles in the air sometimes because I want to go, go, go! and sometimes she’s not moving fast enough for my liking. So I just need to give her a little encouragement, ya know??!! And on weekends, we go on long walks. I’m not sure how long they are, but she keeps taking me to all these new places with woods where there are lots of smells and places where I feel the need to leave some pee mail behind for my brethren. 🙂

We went to this place this past weekend too. My mommy kept saying “Morgan, can you believe all these pictures?? They are hundreds of years old!” (All I cared about was the smells on the ground, and then when that evil hot air balloon showed up, I was FREAKED out!!!)

Anyway, it’s getting late and I need to get some of my beauty sleep. I’m already on the bed, and dictating all of this takes a lot of energy out of me! But I kinda like this writing thing, ya know? Maybe I will write again soon! And remember, this is the BEST DAY EVER!!

IMAG0370_1 — Lake Powell from near my RV about an hour before sunset. Yes, I’ve edited the pic for color but it gives you an idea of just how beautiful it is.

So it’s been a busy few weeks since I last posted. I finished up the job at the animal sanctuary and then moved a few days ago to the small (but still bigger than where I just left) town of Page, AZ. You might not have heard of the town’s name, but it’s home to a huge lake (2nd largest reservoir) called Lake Powell. Simply put, it’s gorgeous. I don’t care what the naysayers say about “oh the lake’s level is down so far right now, it’s just a pond compared to what it once was… blah, blah, blah.” You know what? I’m not gonna let them rain on my parade because the view I see every morning and every evening makes it all worthwhile.

The move here was a bit rough at first – some downed trees, and the campsite I wanted didn’t have water running to it. So I ended up taking the site next to it, and am now just hoping the downed trees get cleaned up sooner rather than later. There are also some problems with the water at the new site, but they are workable. I also can’t wait to make my space more inviting – it will have to wait until I get a paycheck as I’ve used the credit card too much lately. But more inviting, it will definitely be! Luckily, the animals seem to have adjusted to the move rather quickly. For the first day, Callie and HoneyBun hid a lot and were clearly freaked out, but they seem to have recovered just fine by now, as you can tell from the photo below.

HoneyBun appears to have settled in comfortably.

So I also just started my new job this week. I will be supervising and yes, it’s been a while since i did that in any official capacity, so I’m a bit nervous, but think I’ve learned a lot over the years from my supervisors, both bad and good. Going to try to discard all the bad habits and things I saw, and do my best to keep the good, plus tweak those things with my own personal style. And you all know me, I like to research the hell out of anything so I’ve been reading some self-help/teach-yourself books on management, and will be trying to hone my people skills as well. I know it won’t all be easy but I hope to not disappoint the ones who believed in me enough to offer me the job.

When it comes to managing, in the past, I’ve tried to always lead by example and make it very clear to folks that I will never ask them to do something I’ve not done or won’t do myself. I hope that will come through loud and clear. And God knows, for 6 months, I took care of a lot of animal poop so I think it’s safe to say there isn’t much I won’t do, if it needs to be done. From what I hear, we get extremely busy in the summer and there will probably be some overtime in my future. If that’s the case, I’ve already decided I will be trying to save as much $ as I possibly can. If it works out for me here, I could see myself trying to buy a small house or condo.

I finally got to take a tour of the Glen Canyon Dam. It’s the second largest, and also Lake Powell is the second largest reservoir in the country, trailing just behind Lake Mead in terms of capacity. I will also be attending a fundraiser for the local animal shelter/adoption agency, known as PAAA (Page Animal Adoption Agency). Hoping to meet other like minded people there – something tells me I will!

IMAG0376 — One of the most gentle dogs I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. After his initial shyness, he and I are buddies now. I’ve been licked on the face several times to prove it. 🙂

I just started pet sitting for a good friend, and will be for the next week or so in the evenings. He has the most awesome, old-souled (yes, “souled” is a word, I’ve just created it!) dog that I swear is part Australian Shepard and Lab by the looks of him, shy but super-loving dog. (In the pic, he has a dog treat on his head. I was trying to bond with him at the time by lying next to him on the floor in the closet where he went and hid when I tried to take his pic. I think the treat convinced him enough to sit still for this one pic.) He also has a very handsome and talkative Siamese who has epilepsy and thus requires medication twice a day. I’ve never seen a cat take a pill so easily in my entire life. You just pop his mouth open and shove it in, and you’re done. Awesome! If I go to Lone Rock tomorrow (as you all know, one of my favorite places to be out here), I may be taking his dog along for the ride and an involved game of Fetch. (In case you are all wondering, yes, Baby O is doing just fine and she’s snoring next to me as I type this, in fact.)

Balloon coming in for a soft landing on the third and final day of the Kanab Balloons and Tunes festival. That was a perfect weather morning and as the balloon landed, I could hear the birds singing.

Before I left UT last week, I was able to take in a balloon festival with a new, but very good friend of mine. For three days, the balloons were able to get into the air, which is just awesome. They also had a Balloon Glow portion to the weekend where they had all the balloons set up on the street and at certain times, all would light up their balloons with the propane-powered hot air. It was a pretty amazing sight to see, and it just felt good to be leaving Kanab on an up, rather than down note.

It was so difficult to snap a photo at just the right time as the balloons were lit up!

In case any of you are wondering, yes it’s been two weeks since I’m completely Prozac free as I mentioned in my last post. I’m feeling great. I’ve been getting up and running in the mornings, and went to the local gym for the first time today. Had a great workout that left me feeling tired and famished, and a bit sore, which is just the way I like to feel at the end of a great workout. It’s a feeling I’ve not had in a long while, so I think things are looking up in that department and in so many others as well.

And on that note, I think I will end this post. Thanks as always for reading.

Tag: Page Animal Adoption Agency

Musings with Morgan

Let’s Catch Up, Shall We?

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