Photos by Sarah Ause

Best Friends week continued to unfold with resounding success on Tuesday, which featured Family Day for folks to come and enjoy a veritable smorgasbord of activities for all ages.

For the kids, face painting booths and craft tables were a constant attraction. Budding young artists—and a few not so young—rolled up their sleeves and created an impressive collection of crayon masterpieces, all of which went on a large banner that will soon hang in the Welcome Center. The kids also got to work on crafts that they could bring home afterward.

A few tables down the way, the kids had a chance to win stuffed animals while also learning fun animal facts. The best part was they didn’t even know they were involved in an educational activity. Such unabashed sneakiness!

Here’s how it worked. They’d grab the game wheel—think Wheel of Fortune—and let ‘er rip for all they were worth. The wheel would spin around, cycling pictures of various animals around the sanctuary with each pass. If the pointer landed on a cat, the kids had to answer a trivia question to win a prize. Do you know a cat’s normal body temperature? (101 degrees.) Do you know why a rabbit stands up on his hind legs? If you do, you could have won a stuffed animal and been the envy of all who met you.

No worries, though, the answers were multiple choice and the kids had help from the staffers. After all, no kid should have to flunk a quiz in the summertime!

There were also lots of real animals to meet. Harley the pig, Felix the possum, Oscar the rabbit, and various dogs, cats, and horses scurrying about were only some of the animals to show up for the event.

In addition, there were raffles (complete with free raffle tickets) happening off and on every twenty minutes or so. In short, there were more than enough activities to keep even the busiest visitor occupied.

For mom and dad, the complimentary massage chair beckoned and there were many who heeded the call. There were also free snacks, free sodas, and free pictures with some of the DogTown stars.

Many brought sack lunches and finished off the event with a picnic in the scenic setting of Angels Landing.

With an overcast day providing shade, and just a few drops of rain to keep things even cooler, it was the perfect summer day to enjoy some family time outside. Don’t you love it when things fall together like that? And here’s the best news, this week is just getting started.

Elsewhere at the sanctuary Tuesday, Best Friends founders held cliffside chats reflecting upon the 25 years they’ve spent working toward a world with No More Homeless Pets.

Read blogs about chats by Francis Battista and Jana de Peyer.

    

  

To see a video of the Family Day events, click here.