Continued: A Career In Kindness

A Minnesotan in the desert

I love Minnesota. Yes, it's cold and you can be made fun of for the accent and the lutefisk tradition, but my family and friends are there, and I have a cozy little house with a big yard. Two years ago, however, I left the 10,000 lakes for a little town in the red desert of southern Utah. Just about the only thing in this rural desert area besides miles and miles of dry, red dirt and a few national parks is Best Friends Animal Society (www.bestfriends.org) - a veritable Mecca not only for the 2,000 animals who live here, but for the people who left their "other" lives behind to live and work here. People like me.

Two years ago I was a fledgling freelance writer in the city and loving every minute of it. Then Hurricane Katrina hit, and I was in a van along with others from a Minnesota animal shelter, headed for Best Friends' Katrina rescue camp in Tylertown, Miss. It was six months of communal living in a tent or a trailer with whoever else took a leap of faith and drove down to help the animals in distress. After nine weeks of work, I signed on with Best Friends as a permanent employee, planning to move to Kanab, Utah, sight unseen. And now here I am, a campaign specialist at the largest no-kill sanctuary in the country.

I spend about two-thirds of my time in Kanab, working behind the scenes to stop puppy mills. If you haven't heard that term before, then you're my target audience! The other third of my time is spent on the road, working with other humane organizations to get dogs out of puppy mills. (I won't preach here, but for more information, visit network.bestfriends.org/truth.)

Fact is, until I got here, I had no idea that this kind of job even existed. To be honest, working full time for an animal welfare organization was not in my life plan - I was going to be a travel writer, making big bucks for taking fantastic, all-expenses-paid trips to exotic locales. There are no big bucks in this work, and my travels are usually to places like Nebraska or rural Tennessee or Nevada. And let me tell you, there is nothing glamorous about this job. But it's never dull either.

One stoplight in town

Heading to work each day is still rather surreal even after two years. I make my way past the one stoplight in town and head north to the sanctuary. There's nothing like rounding the bend in the road and getting that first glimpse of Angel Canyon, where the sanctuary sits, nestled in the red rocks and scraggly desert fauna. Turning off the main road, I meander past fields and paddocks tucked up against sheer red cliffs. Donkeys bray, horses nicker for breakfast, and wild turkeys and deer wander around the gravel road, seeming to know that every creature, down to the littlest mouse, is recognized as a sentient being in this place.

People helping animals

There is no typical day or week or month at the sanctuary. Not only is it home to a constant flux of 2,000+ dogs, cats, birds, horses, pigs, rabbits and more, but there is much more to be done than just care for our own menagerie. There are abused bears in India, earthquakes and floods in South America, wars in the Middle East, and millions of animals still being euthanized in shelters right here in the States. Those are big battles to wage. On any given day, a large percentage of my colleagues are out and about, working with communities to help solve their homeless pet problems.

The most unusual and wonderful thing about living and working here is just how important the human/ animal bond is to everyone. There are more pets in my office building than people: six humans, eleven pets. Everyone - from the founders to the cooks and maintenance people - is here because they love animals. It's as simple as that, and it's alternately loads of fun, and sometimes heartbreaking. It's one of those jobs that you hope there won't be a need for some day. But with 3.7 million pets being euthanized in shelters every year, we still have a long way to go.

It's tough to be so far away from my home state, but even my little dog Toto loves it here (who knew poodles make such rigorous desert hiking buddies?) So I'll keep heading to the office every day and bouncing around the country, working to stop puppy mills. We'll all keep heading to work every day in hopes of making the world a little better, simply by being kind to animals.

Kelli Ohrtman is a freelance writer from Minneapolis who works at Best Friends Animal Society in Kanab, Utah. Reach Kelli at her website, www.kelliohrtman.com.