After checking in with Terri and Andy at New Friends, We were pointed towards lodge #13, the home of Ogy and Heidi. Terri said Heidi can be kind of rambunctious, and will sometimes go after shoes, and she can be a little hard to manage when you first go in and when you're putting her back in her run. She suggested we use a chain leash so she wouldn't bite it, and one of the other caregivers went to get her out for me just to be on the safe side.

An went in to get Ogy in the meantime, and I went to the side entrance of Heidi's run to pick her up. I took the leash and we were off, out on the trail behind #13 and New Friends. At first, Heidi was stopping to stare back at the lodge. I would gently pull her leash back towards the trail and relax it when she turned and started moving again. We only had to do that a few times, and then she just kept going. After that she was happy to be on the walk with me. She liked being petted, and she liked sniffing the trail. On the way back I started jogging a bit with her, which she seemed to enjoy. This time we were by ourselves, out of sight of any of the other dogs so as not to cause a commotion. I returned her to her run, and she was nice and calm when we got there.

Next on our list were Bijou and Theresa. It was close to feeding time for these two, so we were asked if we could just sit with them instead of taking them out. That was fine with us, and we walked down to their lodge. First we went in with Bijou, and I grabbed her bucket of fish treats on the way in. Bijou was happy to have visitors, and she was also happy to get a few treats while we sat on the bench in her run. She loved the treats and took them fairly gently from my hand, but man was it messy. She did like to slobber a bit. We stayed with her for a while, and then moved next door to Theresa's run.

Theresa was probably hoping I had a ball for her

Some of you may have seen Theresa on Dogtown. She's the little mostly white Staffordshire Terrier with a black patch over her eye. But her most distinguishing feature is the ball she's always carrying in her mouth. On her episode of Dogtown, she needed medical attention because she had swallowed something that had come off one of her balls or toys. We entered her run and she was really happy to see us. She was jumping up on us, licking and wiggling. She just loves people, and she may love her fish treats even more. The combination of both people and fish treats causes her to go into an explosion of happy, and it's really a joy to see.

After we had spent a few minutes with her, Andrea, one of the caregivers, stopped by the lodge to feed all the dogs there. Since we were already in the run with Theresa, she handed her bowl over the fence to us with instructions to just stay back a bit when we put the bowl down because she has shown a little bit of food aggression in the past. I took the bowl and went into the indoor section of her run and put the bowl down. What I saw next was more reminiscent of putting a tree through a wood chipper, or maybe of an industrial strength vacuum cleaner than it was of a dog eating her breakfast. She was finished in about 10 seconds flat, and she ran outside for more affection from An and me.

When we left, I grabbed Theresa's bowl and brought it back up to New Friends to give it to Terri, who was washing bowls. I stopped to pet Freya, a beautiful Australian Shepherd hanging out in New Friends. She belongs to Andy the caregiver, and she was so sweet. Her fur was really soft and smooth. Seems like every time we go to New Friends, there's some awesome dog hanging around in there.

Purdy was calm but still happy we were there

It was about 11:15 or so, and I looked over the daily checklist of all the dogs in the lodges to see who hadn't been walked yet. Purdy was a dog I hadn't interacted with before and she hadn't been walked so I asked if we could walk her. Terri said we could socialize with her in her run if we wanted to, so we agreed. We went down to Purdy's run and sat with her for a bit. As we were petting her, a man approached the outside of Purdy's run holding a bag of milk bones. I didn't think anybody was supposed to be feeding the dogs from outside of the run, but he looked familiar.

"I think that's Gabriel," I said to An as we watched him hand a milk bone to Purdy through the fence.

"Hello," he waved to us. "I'm Gabriel, one of the founders. This is my Sunday routine, I go around giving treats to all the dogs here."

His accent was unmistakable. This was definitely the man I had spoken to on the phone earlier that week.

"Hi, nice to meet you," I waved from inside Purdy's run.

"Thank you for helping with the animals," he said. "We appreciate it very much."

Again I was struck by the significance of his words. He's thanking us for volunteering and helping with the dogs, when he is one of the people who founded Best Friends and has been helping thousands of animals across the span of 25 years. If anything, we should have been thanking him.

"We love it here," I said, once again not really knowing what to say. I still found it hard to believe that Gabriel personally called everybody who made a donation to Best Friends, and that after so long he still went around every Sunday to give treats to all the dogs. It reinforced the feeling I always get when I go to Best Friends, the feeling that every person who works there is doing everything they can to help these animals. There is no pretense, no posturing, and no delusions of grandeur.

This is the real thing. Over the months that we've gone to Best Friends, over the space of each visit, we've seen nothing less than absolute dedication from every person we've interacted with. It's inspiring, and it's one of the reasons I keep wanting to come back. Maybe it will rub off on me, maybe I can become a better person.

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“Bijou was happy to have visitors, and she was also happy to get a few treats while we sat on the bench in her run.”