We drove 75 miles east today to Kanab, Utah, a quaint little town where many old westerns were filmed, including Gunsmoke. I’ve always wanted to visit the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, the country’s largest sanctuary for abused and abandoned animals, located in Angel Canyon, just 5 miles north of Kanab. There are only 3 RV parks here, and we are at the least expensive one, Hitch-N-Post, which is $24/night. It’s not much but none of them looked too great. With a predicted low of 35 tonight, we wanted power, so here we are.
The tour of Best Friends begins at the Welcome Center, pictured above. There are several hummingbird feeders on the porch that were very busy.
They first show a 15 minute, very interesting and informative film about the Best Friends Society and the sanctuary. Then there is a 90 minute tour through the sanctuary in a 13 seat van. They own 3,800 acres of land in beautiful Angel Canyon, which, as Jim said, looks like a national park. The views of Grand-Staircase Escalante were impressive.
This is a picnic area and one of the sets for the National Geographic Channel’s show “Dogtown”.
Besides the usual cats and dogs, they also have areas for birds, horses, pot-bellied pigs and rabbits. And they have a wildlife rehabilitation area.
A few of the horses.
We stopped at one of the cat buildings and got to go in and visit. There are usually about 700 cats there on any given day. The sanctuary is successful in adopting out around 75% of the animals every year.
Our next stop was one of the dog buildings, which housed older dogs looking for new homes. There were two greeter dogs at the gate, and Jim and I both were smitten with Aspen, an 11 year old three-legged dog pictured on the left. He kept rolling over and waiting for someone to rub his belly. I think if we were living in a house, we would have had to take him home with us.
There is also a huge cemetary, Angels Rest, with hundreds of wind chimes.
This is quite an impressive operation, and definitely worth a visit (and a donation). They also depend on lots of volunteers, and I would love to come back and help out sometime.
But tomorrow we’re off to Lake Powell and warmer weather.
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