July 24, 2025 • 29 mins
Thank you for your interest in Humane Animal Rescue of Pittsburgh's Barks and Rec field trip program which helps provide vital enrichment for our shelter dogs. So that we can match you with your perfect field trip companion, please tell us a little about yourself and your proposed outing. https://humaneanimalrescue.org/barksandrecapp/
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Ah Welcome in. This is a public affairs program shedding
the light on the interest, issues and concerns of the
greater Pittsburgh area. Good morning, My name is Johnny heart Well.
Today we're going to be talking about a Human Animal
Rescue of Pittsburgh. You may hear us refer to that
organization as HARP, but as one of the largest animal
welfare organizations in Pennsylvania, HARP has been committed to the
(00:26):
welfare of animals, pet owners, and the greater Pittsburgh community
for over one hundred and fifty years. With two domestic
animal shelters and a wildlife rehab center, HARP is a
trusted and caring resource, helping more than twenty one thousand
animals each and every year through its adoption programs, veterinary
medical centers, wildlife rehab center, pet food distribution, and so
(00:48):
much more. One of my favorite organizations, and we have
friends here. Good morning. Let's say hello to Elise Brado,
who is a volunteer manager at HARP. Good morning, how
are you?
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Good morning?
Speaker 3 (00:58):
I'm doing well, an Elise, chef chefrin? Is that how
you pronounce the name siena chefrin? Okay, I need you
to move over just a little bit that way. Okay,
you have a bunch of letters at the end of
your name, mscab mph.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Well what are all these?
Speaker 4 (01:15):
That means? I'm in a lot of school debt, is
what that means?
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Is that what it is? All right? So you have
a bunch of letters and you are a behavior of
Training and Enrichment manager over at HARP.
Speaker 5 (01:26):
Yes, I am an animal behaviorist and applied behavioral analysis,
which is a fancy way of saying that HARP now
uses a lot of behavioral science to tackle the more
challenging aspect of keeping dogs in shelters.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Okay, well all right, so well all I got a
million questions for you. So how did you get into
this field?
Speaker 5 (01:49):
So I actually got into it taking a college credit
where we helped train service dogs and it was totally
a senior year type college credit just for fun. I
found out I really loved it, and I ended up
becoming the professor of that program. And then I also
worked I moved into a prison program, working with residents
(02:11):
there to train service dogs, and it's just kind of
snowballed from there. I've done all sorts of training with
dogs private clients, also working in group settings, and then
over the past year and a half, I've been working
with HARP working on shelter dogs.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Now, now, do you work exclusively with HARP or do
you still do all the other you know, I do.
Speaker 5 (02:33):
Some private client training on the side, but HARP is
definitely my main focus because of how they impact the community.
I can just see like having such a larger impact
than only working one on one in homes.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Okay, are you both from local from Pittsburgh the Pittsburgh area.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
I'm a West Virginia girl.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Well that's fairly close here from the Pittsburgh area. How
about you at.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Least I'm from Pittsburgh.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Okay, all right, well she will talk Pittsburgh.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
Then West Virginia thought, oh yeah, all right.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
So today, I don't know if this is the greatest
program name ever, but it's it's got to be out there.
Barks and rac. Yes, barks and Rack. How has that
not been used before? That is an amazing name. So
what is barks and Rec?
Speaker 6 (03:19):
Yeah, So barks and rec is a new field trip
program that we've designed for our dogs.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
They get out.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
I want to go on field trip with Yeah, I think.
Speaker 6 (03:29):
A lot of people do. And that's kind of why
we started implementing it. The dogs get to go out
for a couple of hours during the day. They get
you know, an extra long walk, they can get a
pup cup. You can even take them back to your
house and let them take a nap on your couch.
And it's just a great way to get the dogs
out of their kennels and for us to get really
important information about how they kind of behave out in
(03:50):
the real world.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
And people like me get to play with dogs. We
get to play with dogs, We get to go to
the you know, the you know, the dunkin Donuts and
get a pup cup and things like that.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Heck, yeah, so this is all fall.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
A part of your volunteer program, right, yeah, all right,
so tell us everything we need to know about bars
and rec like, you know, how do how do how
does one volunteer? How do you you know, what's what's involved?
And how do you become a volunteer? And then once
you become a volunteer, what's what's required of me if
I want to be a volunteer.
Speaker 6 (04:20):
Yeah, so, I guess a little background about our on
site volunteer program. Those guys are the ones who come
in and do kind of our daily walks, so they
do shorter walks. They're coming in for two hours once
a week. This program is not that this is more
of a one off type thing. So you would reach
out to our email address. We would send along and
(04:43):
application that just tells us a little bit about who
you are, your kind of past pet experience, and what
kind of you're looking for out of this program, because
we want to make sure that we're you know, helping
you out as well. And then from there we would
reach out to get a field trip scheduled.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
We wait, wait, hold on, Like, I want to get something.
I want to I want to play with dogs. That's
what I want to do. That's what I want to do.
And you go, okay, you can do that pretty much.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
It sounds like the perfect.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Yeah, you know, I can't really complain about that.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
All right, let's get to the scientific part of it.
So what's what's the result. So it's good for well,
it's obviously good for the human they get to interact
with with dogs.
Speaker 5 (05:28):
So when Alise first came to me with this idea,
I can't lie. I cringed a bunch at work. Why
because we were going to these are my babies. These
are all of my animals that I love, and I
was like, we're just gonna let people just take them out.
And then Elise and her team had some really wonderful,
you know, other examples that have been done across the country.
(05:51):
I know San Diego is a really has a really
big program like this.
Speaker 4 (05:55):
And then thinking about.
Speaker 5 (05:57):
It where the goal is for these dogs to go
home with strangers, the goal is for them to get adopted.
And once I kind of turned it on that and
started looking at it from that angle, I got very
interested in what we can do with it. And so
far we've seen nothing but positive results.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Okay, let's get to let me dig a little deeper
in because you had some you had some concerns, M
and so you know, tell us about those concerns and
have you has those concerns been addressed.
Speaker 5 (06:26):
So the concerns were that our dogs are in a
very unnatural environment, no matter how wonderful we tried to
make it. We play you know, nice reggae music that
they like, and we paint the walls a certain color
and we do quiet times. The shelter itself, it's chaotic,
it's busy. There's just no way around that. Unfortunately, So
(06:47):
with that, our dogs reflect that stress, and they can
be quite high energy. They can get a little jumpy.
Sometimes they're really pulling on leash or really zigzagging as
they're walking. And so my fear was somebody's going to
take this dog out and not be able to handle
it well, or the dog is going to remain stressed
if it just leaves for a couple hours. But we
(07:09):
pilot it with very small a number of people eligible
to do it, and right away we saw that the dogs,
once they were out of the shelter and doing more
normal things, they were wonderful.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
That would relieve some of the stress absolutely, and they
get acclimated to other people that may put potential potentially
adopt them, so they get used to that kind of environment.
Speaker 5 (07:33):
Yes, it's really nice to see how they do when
they go out on these trips because we need to.
We don't need to know exactly how they're going to
do in the shelter. That is important for their stay
with us, but if the goal is for them to
go out into the real world, we need to see
how they do in the real world. How can they
handle sitting in line to order their pup cup or
we have had people take them out to you know,
(07:55):
if a restaurant has a dog friendly patio, can they
sit there and hang out and be nice and quiet?
Can they go for a three mile height? Can stay
pretty calm and just relaxed on it? And overwhelmingly yes,
we are seeing very good things with that.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Now, Siana, you are the expert with behavioral training. And
I was not aware that dogs like reggae music. I
caught that. I don't think. I wasn't going to ask
about that. Do dogs like reggae?
Speaker 4 (08:23):
So it is incredible.
Speaker 5 (08:24):
Once you start getting into the behavioral science with dogs,
you are going to ask yourself who is paying to
do all these weird studies. And one of the weird
studies was the type of music that lowered cort is
all their stress hormone lowered it. The most reggae and
classical music came out on top. Why I didn't ask
to see.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
I love reggae music. Maybe that's why my dogs are
all chill because I listened to reggae music at all.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
Scientifically speaking, yes, So who runs those kind of programs?
Speaker 1 (08:53):
And how do I get involved with, you know, playing
music for dogs and finding out which kind of music.
Speaker 5 (08:59):
Mostly academic programs.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
That's fun. So how did you get into that, you know,
the behavioral science behind animals things like that. So what
made you interest in that kind of thing?
Speaker 5 (09:11):
Well, I really, when it comes down to it, I
wanted to be a scientist, and that career path was
actually a little derailed by moving towards dog training. So
then about five years after I just kind of looped
them back together and found out there was a whole
degree about applied behavioral science. And so my degree is
(09:34):
technically most of our case studies were about humans, but
there was some to do with animals. I am working
very hard to blend that together because unfortunately, with some
parts of dog training and dog behavior, a lot of
it has been done without true like science and research
and putting in the time for those studies. But that
(09:56):
has been changing over the past ten years, and that's
what I'm trying to bring to HARP, to make sure
that we are doing it in the most evidence based
way of how to help these animals and therefore how
to help this community.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
All Right, so tell us a little bit. What are
some misconceptions or maybe there's you know, things that people
have been doing for years that probably they should rethink.
Speaker 5 (10:18):
So, yes, personal stance, also harp stance, and just any
good trainer behaviorist you're working with, definitely positive reinforcement training,
staying away from aversives or dominance based training methods. We
are trying to build a relationship with these dogs and
that's what we're seeing even with this program is watching
(10:41):
complete strangers come in. How can that dog build a
relationship and communicate with a complete stranger? And we're finding
that they actually do have the tools to do that
when given the opportunity.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
And that's when you say positive reinforcement. We're talking you know,
you know, being kind and gentle and with food and
things like that.
Speaker 5 (11:01):
Yes, and if the dog's communicating, they're uncomfortable. So one
thing Elise's team worked on as well was making the
field trip report card with me. So these campers that
go out on barks and rec field trips come back
with report cards and making sure that you know, we
put things on there.
Speaker 4 (11:19):
Did the dog, Did the dog.
Speaker 5 (11:21):
Ever bark or seem afraid or you know, kind of
cower or anything like that, Because these are communication tools.
We need to know if the dog is doing or not.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
All right at least tell us about the report card.
What are some of the things that you're looking for.
Speaker 6 (11:33):
Yeah, So there's kind of four main sections that we
put on there. The first is how they do in
the car, The second is how they do with meeting
new people, how they did around other animals, you know,
if they're off chasing squirrels, or if they bark at
other dogs or if they ignore them completely. And I
believe the last is just general behaviors out you know,
(11:56):
if there was anything that they noticed, like Sienna was
talking about, that they were afraid of, or that they
were particularly feeling big feelings about. So they it's just
simple checkboxes, and then they have an option to leave
comments as well if they want to give us more details.
But even just the checkboxes give us a lot of
information about how dogs are reacting to these new situations
(12:17):
and ways that we can inform their future adopters about
how to help them through these situations, how to support them,
and again just really helping them transition into their new home.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
All Right, If somebody is interested in becoming a volunteer,
what's the process?
Speaker 6 (12:34):
Yeah, an on site volunteer or a barks and rec volunteer,
both both well, actually for both. Really the first step
is sending us an email and letting us know that
you're interested, and then we can determine, you know, kind
of what pathway works best for you, works best for
your schedule, and we'll send you the appropriate application and
just take you through the next steps from there.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
What are some of the big benefits that you're hoping
to see from this program?
Speaker 5 (12:58):
So one thing I actually this might be speaking on
behalf of a lease and she can definitely elaborate, is
a volunteer program where the person the commitment is a
little more flexible.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
Like, I know, I obviously work a lot.
Speaker 5 (13:12):
I may not be able to commit to however many
hours a week every week. But I think we're seeing,
and she can speak to this, I think we're seeing
a lot of people who are like, oh, I might
be able to do once a month of hanging out
with the shelter dog, which can be a really nice
thing for you know, we're all busy, so that's a
nice way to be able to help the shelter. Still,
(13:32):
another benefit for these dogs is absolutely just giving them
some time away from in a calm environment to get
to go have fun. We've seen the silliest pictures come
back from these, and genuinely, I know my behavior team
we sit around and like teared up because of just
you see the dog rolling and that they see it
(13:53):
rolling in the grass. They're getting One of them went
and got groomed. Someone took them to get groomed. They
have so like SuDS all over their head. We have
a video of one going to home Goods to pick
out their own toy. So it's just it's beyond heartwarming
and cheesy and we love.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
It all right. I got a couple of questions, and
this is from I have two dogs. I have one
who's a rescue. I've had him for almost ten years
and he's between like twelve and fifteen, and he doesn't
do anything. He's an old man and can't hear anything.
So he's fine. I'm not going to change him. There's
no way he's not going to change me. But I
just got married a couple of months ago, and so
(14:33):
I've got a new dog. And his name is Leo,
and he's about one hundred pounds and he's a golden doodle.
And oh they get along great, which is fabulous. But
one thing he loves that he thinks he's the guardian
of the domicile, okay, and he barks all the time,
any little noise barks. From a behavioral standpoint, what should
(14:55):
I do? Because you know, I live fairly close to
my neighbors and I can't have him barking all the time.
So what do I do?
Speaker 4 (15:03):
So there's several steps to that.
Speaker 5 (15:06):
One is definitely having a good recall Q built in
so that if he's barking at the front door, that
you're able to recall him back to you very quickly.
Speaker 4 (15:15):
But you have to work on that.
Speaker 5 (15:17):
Skill outside of those kind of big, stressful, exciting times.
So if the only time you're ever working on recall
is when you're trying to get him away from barking
at you know, the little old lady across the street,
that's not when he's gonna learn the skill. You have
to learn the skill in easy environments and then work
into harder ones. Another is to make sure that we
(15:38):
are reinforcing the times that he hears.
Speaker 4 (15:40):
Things and doesn't bark.
Speaker 5 (15:42):
So excuse me, so I'll hear people like, oh, he
will yell it, yell it, bark it motorcycles, but not
at lawnmowers. Well, those are similar sounds. So if he
hears a lawnmower and doesn't bark, reward the heck out
of him, Tell him how good he is, you know,
give him treats, and then when that motor cycle comes by,
and maybe he takes that brief pause of hey do
(16:04):
I need to bark, get in there right away and
start reinforcing him and start cheering him on that he
didn't bark a lot of times with training, we're behind
the eight ball. We're saying, how do I stop this behavior?
Or what do I do? Once this behavior has already
gotten out of control, where a lot of it is
actually about prevention.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Oh so all right, so, uh, he barks at anything
and everything? How do I How do I limit that?
I mean, what do I do?
Speaker 5 (16:34):
So when you recall him back to you, he should
it's hard for them to do two things at once,
so it's hard for him to recall while still barking
at what is going on behind him.
Speaker 4 (16:44):
So that's what that recall is for.
Speaker 5 (16:46):
Because as we talked about not using any aversives, if
you try to, like ever punish the behavior out of him,
that does be opposite.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
I thank him, I go thank you leo or a lot.
Speaker 4 (16:58):
Does that make him?
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Well, yeah, he's like, yeah, I'm my saved here. You
should thank me.
Speaker 5 (17:04):
So, I mean, it's hard to tell without being there.
I don't want to give you bad advice either, for sure, But.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
You know, I think that's the fascinating thing about pet
ownership is that you know there is a scientific, you know, behavior,
even with half the time, he's training me more than
I'm for you. So, so what do you do for HARP?
What is your what? What exactly is your job? At heart?
Speaker 5 (17:34):
Any animal that has a set of mental and emotional needs.
Speaker 4 (17:40):
That's my job.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
That's it.
Speaker 4 (17:42):
Yes, it is animal that comes in.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
Yes, and you have a lot of animals.
Speaker 4 (17:47):
Please sure do. It is a very busy job.
Speaker 5 (17:49):
I have an amazing team, and Elise also has gotten
some wonderful volunteers to help our team as well to
try and make these animals happy.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Same question to you, at least how long have you
been with harpin what exactly do you do?
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (18:05):
I have been there for about three years, and I
basically manage all of the volunteer schedules, bringing in new people,
getting them trained, making sure that everyone is kind of
on the same page in terms of handling the animals,
HARP policies and procedures, all of that good stuff, coordinating schedules,
making sure that the volunteers are actually supporting shelter operations.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
In the best way that they can.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
So you are literally hurting cats before you heard.
Speaker 6 (18:34):
It, Yeah, I'm hurting the cats to herd the cats enjoy.
Speaker 4 (18:38):
What should do I do?
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Why? Why is that?
Speaker 6 (18:42):
It's really wonderful to be able to work with people
who you know, they're all there for the same reason
that all of the staff are as well, and they're
so passionate about what they do and about coming in
and helping us. It's really gratifying to work with all
of them and get to know everyone. And you know,
I also get my fair share of animal time as well,
(19:03):
which is, you know, wonderful in its own way.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Talking with at least and Sienna with talking about the
barks and rec with HARP, which is of course, is
the Humane Animal Rescue of Pittsburgh. If you want more information,
the website is Humane Animal Rescue dot org. Talking getting
back to barks and rec how does going on a
field trip help the behavioral team and both the animal
(19:28):
and the and the human.
Speaker 4 (19:30):
So when each pet comes to us.
Speaker 5 (19:33):
There are absolutely some pets that we don't once they
come into the shelter and they you know, often move
from like a pet to a shelter resident until we
can get them adopted.
Speaker 4 (19:42):
Is kind of that flow that I see while they're
there with us.
Speaker 5 (19:46):
We're not doing these big behavioral interventions with every single
dog that comes through. We're you know, dogs for this
field trip program, but some of them do need that
and do need that extra intensive work. Not every dog
co with the shelter the same way. Much like people.
Speaker 4 (20:02):
You know, you have two.
Speaker 5 (20:03):
People who go through the same event in their life
and handle it very differently. So with these pets that
need that extra help and that extra intervention, barks and
rec can actually be a really good tool if we
think one of the things that is I guess contributing
to the problem is them just being in that loud environment.
Speaker 4 (20:23):
So you have to imagine if you have.
Speaker 5 (20:25):
A dog that is afraid of a garden hose, well,
we use hoses to help clean. While you know, we're
working around cleaning at the shelter, that dog now has
to see that scary thing every day. So if someone
working through a lease comes and says, I want to
take out you know Max today, and I go great,
Max hates the hoses? Can you pick them up for
(20:46):
cleaning time? And then he gets this nice break. He
goes on a big, long hike. Some people have taken
them back to their house to just watch a movie
and relax. And so it definitely wins, and it helps
my team to know when he comes back and has
that great report card, Okay, it's true Max is just
stressed in the shelter. Once he gets out of the shelter,
(21:07):
we'll be a okay. Or if that report card comes
back and someone says Max barked at every single bike
that we saw, did you know that? I didn't know
that I had not had that report before. I can
now move forward and do some different assessments with Max
before we determine that he is adoptable. So it can
really guide our assessments by giving us information that we
(21:28):
may never see, you know, coming in the shelter, exp.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
You don't have bikes riding around the shelter.
Speaker 5 (21:34):
Sometimes yes, sometimes no, that's just chance, that's total chance
with that. Or we had one fun one that they
asked if we knew about the dog's obsession with pillows.
They took the dog to their apartment and I can't
remember the fats name, but it was obsessed with like
the pillows on the couch. And of course that is
not something we knew from the shelter, so then we
(21:55):
got to work on that.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
And there's certain breeds that are fascinated with, like you know, doors,
are you know, synonymous with like tennis balls and things
like that. But you go beyond something like that, right correct.
Speaker 5 (22:08):
We see the dog very much as an individual. You
have to take into some breed needs. So like if
you have a herding dog, we know that they need
to run and be active and they like to have jobs.
If we have that labrador, hey let's fill a kiddie
pool for him today and give them some swimming time.
But when it comes to what the dog needs as
far as a behavioral intervention, we have specific assessments for
(22:34):
like to test them and actually give them scores and
then build our treatment plan individually for that dog.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
So when did you come up with the idea of
barks and rec and when did you launch it and
you know, even in a small contained and then and
what do you hope to accomplish moving forward.
Speaker 6 (22:53):
Yeah, so it actually started with our on site volunteers.
Field trips were a really popular thing before for the
COVID pandemic, and then we started to bring that back.
We got a ton of interest with just people who
they were coming in you know, each week and doing
these kind of shorter, more chaotic walks that were the
(23:15):
daily bathroom break walks, and then whenever they got the
chance to get the dog off site, they really got
to see this moment where the dog relaxes, decompresses, and
really starts to enjoy themselves. And people were giving us
really wonderful positive feedback about that, and so that's when
when we started kind of formalizing that process for our
(23:36):
on site volunteers. We started thinking about, well, how can
we get other people involved as well, give these dogs
more of a chance to get off site, give more
people a chance to help us out to spend some
time with our dogs, and it really just kind of
snowballed from there.
Speaker 5 (23:51):
You know.
Speaker 6 (23:51):
We got Siana's team involved, we got marketing and all
of that involved, and it just really grew from there.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
When did you come up with the concept of the
report card or trying to get feedback about the dog.
Speaker 6 (24:05):
Yeah, that that kind of came about. People were giving
us sort of these informal notes and we just needed
a way to standardize it. We wanted to also give
people things to focus on, so we wanted to give
them sort of ways to categorize their own experience and
(24:26):
again just formalize it so that it's easier for us
to interpret and easier for them to figure out what
they should be looking for when they're out with their dog.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Does it help the dog get adopted? Because once they
come in and somebody's interested and you say, hey, you
know what, here's a couple of notes. These are things
that I noticed about this particular dog. And are they
surprised that you know some of that information?
Speaker 2 (24:49):
I'd say yes. I mean I think that.
Speaker 6 (24:54):
Probably one of the bigger things that we see is
even just seeing the dogs in these more natural environments,
it helps people imagine the dogs in their life a
little bit better. It's not super easy to imagine a dog,
you know, hanging out on your couch when you see
them in kind of their kennel or just running around
in a playguard at the shelter, but it's really easy
(25:15):
to imagine them hanging out in your living room when
you see them hanging out in somebody else's living room.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
So somebody becomes a Bark's Bark and Wreck volunteer. Have
you had anybody who actually adopted one of the dogs
that they tried out.
Speaker 6 (25:31):
I'm not sure if we've had that happen yet, only
because a lot of the people who we've been trialing
with so far are you know, already are on site
volunteers or our fosters who may not necessarily.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
I've already got twenty of them. Yeah, I can't use
one more? Yeah, yeah, boy. Every time I go into
the shelter, I was like, oh, how do I not
go home with one of these dogs.
Speaker 5 (25:59):
We have had a couple friends of the field trippers,
so somebody took a dog out for a field trip,
shared the pictures of all this dog, and then a
friend we had that a couple time, a friend or
a family member or neighbor did end up adopting from that.
So that right, I mean, that's a way to help
get exposure for these really wonderful dogs, because sometimes an
(26:22):
adopter's coming in and they're looking through all of our
available dogs, and understandably it's a little overwhelming. How do
I pick which one? But like at least said, if
you see your friend put on their you know whatever
social media story of a dog just snoring and sleeping
on their couch, You're like, ooh, that could be the.
Speaker 4 (26:39):
One for me.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
I wanted to I'd lost two labs in the same year,
and so I wanted to get a hospice dog, you know,
And that's my hospice dog. I've had them for ten years.
Speaker 4 (26:53):
That story is pretty common.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
Actually, all right, so before we're going to recap the
bar and rec but I want I know you work
for HARP, but tell us what you love about the organization.
Speaker 5 (27:06):
Oh that I I love how HARP does work within
the community, like it is truly it is not a
shelter that just exists to take the animals in and
adopt the animals out.
Speaker 4 (27:23):
There are so many community programs.
Speaker 5 (27:26):
I run, public training classes, there's way if you need
additional support, like Ellie's pet pantry, things like that. It
really is trying to make Pittsburgh a better place for animals,
and so I really.
Speaker 4 (27:39):
Like that community at least.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
Same question.
Speaker 6 (27:41):
Yeah, I mean my answer is pretty much the same
as Sienna's. I just I think our focus on supporting
the community and also educating the community, even educating other
staff members internally on just best practices, and also helping
to you know, have happy and healthy animals and pet
(28:01):
owners and nature lovers and all of that in our community.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Just helping to support all of that.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Yeah, all right, we only have about a minute left,
So tell us everything people should know about barks and
rec and if they want to help out, what do
you recommend?
Speaker 6 (28:16):
Yeah, absolutely so, if you want to get involved in
barks and rec, shoot us an email at bars and
Rec at Humaneanimal Rescue dot org. We will send you
the application and we'll get a field trip scheduled anytime
between the hours of ten am to three pm, seven
days a week.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
Can you give them the people listening an idea of
what kind of field trip you're talking about.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (28:41):
Popular choices are a long walk in the park, so
Frick Park, Allegheny Commons Park, anything like that, taking them
to a drive through for a pup cup, taking them
back to your house and hanging out in the.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
Yard or on your couch if you're comfortable with that.
Speaker 6 (28:59):
If you have other ideas, feel free to bring them
to us and we can definitely you look through and
approve them and match you with a dog who's going
to enjoy that type of experience.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
Humane Animal Rescue of Pittsburgh. If you want more information
on box and rec and everything they do, the website
is Humaneanimal Rescue dot org. Atleast and Cianna, thank you
so much. I appreciate you thanings you. Thanks for having
us as always. If you have any comments, concerns, or
an idea for a future program, please email us from
this radio station's website. I'm Johnny Heartwell. Thank you so
much for listening.
Ah Welcome in. This is a public affairs program shedding
the light on the interest, issues and concerns of the
greater Pittsburgh area. Good morning, My name is Johnny heart Well.
Today we're going to be talking about a Human Animal
Rescue of Pittsburgh. You may hear us refer to that
organization as HARP, but as one of the largest animal
welfare organizations in Pennsylvania, HARP has been committed to the
(00:26):
welfare of animals, pet owners, and the greater Pittsburgh community
for over one hundred and fifty years. With two domestic
animal shelters and a wildlife rehab center, HARP is a
trusted and caring resource, helping more than twenty one thousand
animals each and every year through its adoption programs, veterinary
medical centers, wildlife rehab center, pet food distribution, and so
(00:48):
much more. One of my favorite organizations, and we have
friends here. Good morning. Let's say hello to Elise Brado,
who is a volunteer manager at HARP. Good morning, how
are you?
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Good morning?
Speaker 3 (00:58):
I'm doing well, an Elise, chef chefrin? Is that how
you pronounce the name siena chefrin? Okay, I need you
to move over just a little bit that way. Okay,
you have a bunch of letters at the end of
your name, mscab mph.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Well what are all these?
Speaker 4 (01:15):
That means? I'm in a lot of school debt, is
what that means?
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Is that what it is? All right? So you have
a bunch of letters and you are a behavior of
Training and Enrichment manager over at HARP.
Speaker 5 (01:26):
Yes, I am an animal behaviorist and applied behavioral analysis,
which is a fancy way of saying that HARP now
uses a lot of behavioral science to tackle the more
challenging aspect of keeping dogs in shelters.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Okay, well all right, so well all I got a
million questions for you. So how did you get into
this field?
Speaker 5 (01:49):
So I actually got into it taking a college credit
where we helped train service dogs and it was totally
a senior year type college credit just for fun. I
found out I really loved it, and I ended up
becoming the professor of that program. And then I also
worked I moved into a prison program, working with residents
(02:11):
there to train service dogs, and it's just kind of
snowballed from there. I've done all sorts of training with
dogs private clients, also working in group settings, and then
over the past year and a half, I've been working
with HARP working on shelter dogs.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Now, now, do you work exclusively with HARP or do
you still do all the other you know, I do.
Speaker 5 (02:33):
Some private client training on the side, but HARP is
definitely my main focus because of how they impact the community.
I can just see like having such a larger impact
than only working one on one in homes.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Okay, are you both from local from Pittsburgh the Pittsburgh area.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
I'm a West Virginia girl.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Well that's fairly close here from the Pittsburgh area. How
about you at.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Least I'm from Pittsburgh.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Okay, all right, well she will talk Pittsburgh.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
Then West Virginia thought, oh yeah, all right.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
So today, I don't know if this is the greatest
program name ever, but it's it's got to be out there.
Barks and rac. Yes, barks and Rack. How has that
not been used before? That is an amazing name. So
what is barks and Rec?
Speaker 6 (03:19):
Yeah, So barks and rec is a new field trip
program that we've designed for our dogs.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
They get out.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
I want to go on field trip with Yeah, I think.
Speaker 6 (03:29):
A lot of people do. And that's kind of why
we started implementing it. The dogs get to go out
for a couple of hours during the day. They get
you know, an extra long walk, they can get a
pup cup. You can even take them back to your
house and let them take a nap on your couch.
And it's just a great way to get the dogs
out of their kennels and for us to get really
important information about how they kind of behave out in
(03:50):
the real world.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
And people like me get to play with dogs. We
get to play with dogs, We get to go to
the you know, the you know, the dunkin Donuts and
get a pup cup and things like that.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Heck, yeah, so this is all fall.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
A part of your volunteer program, right, yeah, all right,
so tell us everything we need to know about bars
and rec like, you know, how do how do how
does one volunteer? How do you you know, what's what's involved?
And how do you become a volunteer? And then once
you become a volunteer, what's what's required of me if
I want to be a volunteer.
Speaker 6 (04:20):
Yeah, so, I guess a little background about our on
site volunteer program. Those guys are the ones who come
in and do kind of our daily walks, so they
do shorter walks. They're coming in for two hours once
a week. This program is not that this is more
of a one off type thing. So you would reach
out to our email address. We would send along and
(04:43):
application that just tells us a little bit about who
you are, your kind of past pet experience, and what
kind of you're looking for out of this program, because
we want to make sure that we're you know, helping
you out as well. And then from there we would
reach out to get a field trip scheduled.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
We wait, wait, hold on, Like, I want to get something.
I want to I want to play with dogs. That's
what I want to do. That's what I want to do.
And you go, okay, you can do that pretty much.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
It sounds like the perfect.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Yeah, you know, I can't really complain about that.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
All right, let's get to the scientific part of it.
So what's what's the result. So it's good for well,
it's obviously good for the human they get to interact
with with dogs.
Speaker 5 (05:28):
So when Alise first came to me with this idea,
I can't lie. I cringed a bunch at work. Why
because we were going to these are my babies. These
are all of my animals that I love, and I
was like, we're just gonna let people just take them out.
And then Elise and her team had some really wonderful,
you know, other examples that have been done across the country.
(05:51):
I know San Diego is a really has a really
big program like this.
Speaker 4 (05:55):
And then thinking about.
Speaker 5 (05:57):
It where the goal is for these dogs to go
home with strangers, the goal is for them to get adopted.
And once I kind of turned it on that and
started looking at it from that angle, I got very
interested in what we can do with it. And so
far we've seen nothing but positive results.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Okay, let's get to let me dig a little deeper
in because you had some you had some concerns, M
and so you know, tell us about those concerns and
have you has those concerns been addressed.
Speaker 5 (06:26):
So the concerns were that our dogs are in a
very unnatural environment, no matter how wonderful we tried to
make it. We play you know, nice reggae music that
they like, and we paint the walls a certain color
and we do quiet times. The shelter itself, it's chaotic,
it's busy. There's just no way around that. Unfortunately, So
(06:47):
with that, our dogs reflect that stress, and they can
be quite high energy. They can get a little jumpy.
Sometimes they're really pulling on leash or really zigzagging as
they're walking. And so my fear was somebody's going to
take this dog out and not be able to handle
it well, or the dog is going to remain stressed
if it just leaves for a couple hours. But we
(07:09):
pilot it with very small a number of people eligible
to do it, and right away we saw that the dogs,
once they were out of the shelter and doing more
normal things, they were wonderful.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
That would relieve some of the stress absolutely, and they
get acclimated to other people that may put potential potentially
adopt them, so they get used to that kind of environment.
Speaker 5 (07:33):
Yes, it's really nice to see how they do when
they go out on these trips because we need to.
We don't need to know exactly how they're going to
do in the shelter. That is important for their stay
with us, but if the goal is for them to
go out into the real world, we need to see
how they do in the real world. How can they
handle sitting in line to order their pup cup or
we have had people take them out to you know,
(07:55):
if a restaurant has a dog friendly patio, can they
sit there and hang out and be nice and quiet?
Can they go for a three mile height? Can stay
pretty calm and just relaxed on it? And overwhelmingly yes,
we are seeing very good things with that.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Now, Siana, you are the expert with behavioral training. And
I was not aware that dogs like reggae music. I
caught that. I don't think. I wasn't going to ask
about that. Do dogs like reggae?
Speaker 4 (08:23):
So it is incredible.
Speaker 5 (08:24):
Once you start getting into the behavioral science with dogs,
you are going to ask yourself who is paying to
do all these weird studies. And one of the weird
studies was the type of music that lowered cort is
all their stress hormone lowered it. The most reggae and
classical music came out on top. Why I didn't ask
to see.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
I love reggae music. Maybe that's why my dogs are
all chill because I listened to reggae music at all.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
Scientifically speaking, yes, So who runs those kind of programs?
Speaker 1 (08:53):
And how do I get involved with, you know, playing
music for dogs and finding out which kind of music.
Speaker 5 (08:59):
Mostly academic programs.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
That's fun. So how did you get into that, you know,
the behavioral science behind animals things like that. So what
made you interest in that kind of thing?
Speaker 5 (09:11):
Well, I really, when it comes down to it, I
wanted to be a scientist, and that career path was
actually a little derailed by moving towards dog training. So
then about five years after I just kind of looped
them back together and found out there was a whole
degree about applied behavioral science. And so my degree is
(09:34):
technically most of our case studies were about humans, but
there was some to do with animals. I am working
very hard to blend that together because unfortunately, with some
parts of dog training and dog behavior, a lot of
it has been done without true like science and research
and putting in the time for those studies. But that
(09:56):
has been changing over the past ten years, and that's
what I'm trying to bring to HARP, to make sure
that we are doing it in the most evidence based
way of how to help these animals and therefore how
to help this community.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
All Right, so tell us a little bit. What are
some misconceptions or maybe there's you know, things that people
have been doing for years that probably they should rethink.
Speaker 5 (10:18):
So, yes, personal stance, also harp stance, and just any
good trainer behaviorist you're working with, definitely positive reinforcement training,
staying away from aversives or dominance based training methods. We
are trying to build a relationship with these dogs and
that's what we're seeing even with this program is watching
(10:41):
complete strangers come in. How can that dog build a
relationship and communicate with a complete stranger? And we're finding
that they actually do have the tools to do that
when given the opportunity.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
And that's when you say positive reinforcement. We're talking you know,
you know, being kind and gentle and with food and
things like that.
Speaker 5 (11:01):
Yes, and if the dog's communicating, they're uncomfortable. So one
thing Elise's team worked on as well was making the
field trip report card with me. So these campers that
go out on barks and rec field trips come back
with report cards and making sure that you know, we
put things on there.
Speaker 4 (11:19):
Did the dog, Did the dog.
Speaker 5 (11:21):
Ever bark or seem afraid or you know, kind of
cower or anything like that, Because these are communication tools.
We need to know if the dog is doing or not.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
All right at least tell us about the report card.
What are some of the things that you're looking for.
Speaker 6 (11:33):
Yeah, So there's kind of four main sections that we
put on there. The first is how they do in
the car, The second is how they do with meeting
new people, how they did around other animals, you know,
if they're off chasing squirrels, or if they bark at
other dogs or if they ignore them completely. And I
believe the last is just general behaviors out you know,
(11:56):
if there was anything that they noticed, like Sienna was
talking about, that they were afraid of, or that they
were particularly feeling big feelings about. So they it's just
simple checkboxes, and then they have an option to leave
comments as well if they want to give us more details.
But even just the checkboxes give us a lot of
information about how dogs are reacting to these new situations
(12:17):
and ways that we can inform their future adopters about
how to help them through these situations, how to support them,
and again just really helping them transition into their new home.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
All Right, If somebody is interested in becoming a volunteer,
what's the process?
Speaker 6 (12:34):
Yeah, an on site volunteer or a barks and rec volunteer,
both both well, actually for both. Really the first step
is sending us an email and letting us know that
you're interested, and then we can determine, you know, kind
of what pathway works best for you, works best for
your schedule, and we'll send you the appropriate application and
just take you through the next steps from there.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
What are some of the big benefits that you're hoping
to see from this program?
Speaker 5 (12:58):
So one thing I actually this might be speaking on
behalf of a lease and she can definitely elaborate, is
a volunteer program where the person the commitment is a
little more flexible.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
Like, I know, I obviously work a lot.
Speaker 5 (13:12):
I may not be able to commit to however many
hours a week every week. But I think we're seeing,
and she can speak to this, I think we're seeing
a lot of people who are like, oh, I might
be able to do once a month of hanging out
with the shelter dog, which can be a really nice
thing for you know, we're all busy, so that's a
nice way to be able to help the shelter. Still,
(13:32):
another benefit for these dogs is absolutely just giving them
some time away from in a calm environment to get
to go have fun. We've seen the silliest pictures come
back from these, and genuinely, I know my behavior team
we sit around and like teared up because of just
you see the dog rolling and that they see it
(13:53):
rolling in the grass. They're getting One of them went
and got groomed. Someone took them to get groomed. They
have so like SuDS all over their head. We have
a video of one going to home Goods to pick
out their own toy. So it's just it's beyond heartwarming
and cheesy and we love.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
It all right. I got a couple of questions, and
this is from I have two dogs. I have one
who's a rescue. I've had him for almost ten years
and he's between like twelve and fifteen, and he doesn't
do anything. He's an old man and can't hear anything.
So he's fine. I'm not going to change him. There's
no way he's not going to change me. But I
just got married a couple of months ago, and so
(14:33):
I've got a new dog. And his name is Leo,
and he's about one hundred pounds and he's a golden doodle.
And oh they get along great, which is fabulous. But
one thing he loves that he thinks he's the guardian
of the domicile, okay, and he barks all the time,
any little noise barks. From a behavioral standpoint, what should
(14:55):
I do? Because you know, I live fairly close to
my neighbors and I can't have him barking all the time.
So what do I do?
Speaker 4 (15:03):
So there's several steps to that.
Speaker 5 (15:06):
One is definitely having a good recall Q built in
so that if he's barking at the front door, that
you're able to recall him back to you very quickly.
Speaker 4 (15:15):
But you have to work on that.
Speaker 5 (15:17):
Skill outside of those kind of big, stressful, exciting times.
So if the only time you're ever working on recall
is when you're trying to get him away from barking
at you know, the little old lady across the street,
that's not when he's gonna learn the skill. You have
to learn the skill in easy environments and then work
into harder ones. Another is to make sure that we
(15:38):
are reinforcing the times that he hears.
Speaker 4 (15:40):
Things and doesn't bark.
Speaker 5 (15:42):
So excuse me, so I'll hear people like, oh, he
will yell it, yell it, bark it motorcycles, but not
at lawnmowers. Well, those are similar sounds. So if he
hears a lawnmower and doesn't bark, reward the heck out
of him, Tell him how good he is, you know,
give him treats, and then when that motor cycle comes by,
and maybe he takes that brief pause of hey do
(16:04):
I need to bark, get in there right away and
start reinforcing him and start cheering him on that he
didn't bark a lot of times with training, we're behind
the eight ball. We're saying, how do I stop this behavior?
Or what do I do? Once this behavior has already
gotten out of control, where a lot of it is
actually about prevention.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Oh so all right, so, uh, he barks at anything
and everything? How do I How do I limit that?
I mean, what do I do?
Speaker 5 (16:34):
So when you recall him back to you, he should
it's hard for them to do two things at once,
so it's hard for him to recall while still barking
at what is going on behind him.
Speaker 4 (16:44):
So that's what that recall is for.
Speaker 5 (16:46):
Because as we talked about not using any aversives, if
you try to, like ever punish the behavior out of him,
that does be opposite.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
I thank him, I go thank you leo or a lot.
Speaker 4 (16:58):
Does that make him?
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Well, yeah, he's like, yeah, I'm my saved here. You
should thank me.
Speaker 5 (17:04):
So, I mean, it's hard to tell without being there.
I don't want to give you bad advice either, for sure, But.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
You know, I think that's the fascinating thing about pet
ownership is that you know there is a scientific, you know, behavior,
even with half the time, he's training me more than
I'm for you. So, so what do you do for HARP?
What is your what? What exactly is your job? At heart?
Speaker 5 (17:34):
Any animal that has a set of mental and emotional needs.
Speaker 4 (17:40):
That's my job.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
That's it.
Speaker 4 (17:42):
Yes, it is animal that comes in.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
Yes, and you have a lot of animals.
Speaker 4 (17:47):
Please sure do. It is a very busy job.
Speaker 5 (17:49):
I have an amazing team, and Elise also has gotten
some wonderful volunteers to help our team as well to
try and make these animals happy.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Same question to you, at least how long have you
been with harpin what exactly do you do?
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (18:05):
I have been there for about three years, and I
basically manage all of the volunteer schedules, bringing in new people,
getting them trained, making sure that everyone is kind of
on the same page in terms of handling the animals,
HARP policies and procedures, all of that good stuff, coordinating schedules,
making sure that the volunteers are actually supporting shelter operations.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
In the best way that they can.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
So you are literally hurting cats before you heard.
Speaker 6 (18:34):
It, Yeah, I'm hurting the cats to herd the cats enjoy.
Speaker 4 (18:38):
What should do I do?
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Why? Why is that?
Speaker 6 (18:42):
It's really wonderful to be able to work with people
who you know, they're all there for the same reason
that all of the staff are as well, and they're
so passionate about what they do and about coming in
and helping us. It's really gratifying to work with all
of them and get to know everyone. And you know,
I also get my fair share of animal time as well,
(19:03):
which is, you know, wonderful in its own way.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Talking with at least and Sienna with talking about the
barks and rec with HARP, which is of course, is
the Humane Animal Rescue of Pittsburgh. If you want more information,
the website is Humane Animal Rescue dot org. Talking getting
back to barks and rec how does going on a
field trip help the behavioral team and both the animal
(19:28):
and the and the human.
Speaker 4 (19:30):
So when each pet comes to us.
Speaker 5 (19:33):
There are absolutely some pets that we don't once they
come into the shelter and they you know, often move
from like a pet to a shelter resident until we
can get them adopted.
Speaker 4 (19:42):
Is kind of that flow that I see while they're
there with us.
Speaker 5 (19:46):
We're not doing these big behavioral interventions with every single
dog that comes through. We're you know, dogs for this
field trip program, but some of them do need that
and do need that extra intensive work. Not every dog
co with the shelter the same way. Much like people.
Speaker 4 (20:02):
You know, you have two.
Speaker 5 (20:03):
People who go through the same event in their life
and handle it very differently. So with these pets that
need that extra help and that extra intervention, barks and
rec can actually be a really good tool if we
think one of the things that is I guess contributing
to the problem is them just being in that loud environment.
Speaker 4 (20:23):
So you have to imagine if you have.
Speaker 5 (20:25):
A dog that is afraid of a garden hose, well,
we use hoses to help clean. While you know, we're
working around cleaning at the shelter, that dog now has
to see that scary thing every day. So if someone
working through a lease comes and says, I want to
take out you know Max today, and I go great,
Max hates the hoses? Can you pick them up for
(20:46):
cleaning time? And then he gets this nice break. He
goes on a big, long hike. Some people have taken
them back to their house to just watch a movie
and relax. And so it definitely wins, and it helps
my team to know when he comes back and has
that great report card, Okay, it's true Max is just
stressed in the shelter. Once he gets out of the shelter,
(21:07):
we'll be a okay. Or if that report card comes
back and someone says Max barked at every single bike
that we saw, did you know that? I didn't know
that I had not had that report before. I can
now move forward and do some different assessments with Max
before we determine that he is adoptable. So it can
really guide our assessments by giving us information that we
(21:28):
may never see, you know, coming in the shelter, exp.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
You don't have bikes riding around the shelter.
Speaker 5 (21:34):
Sometimes yes, sometimes no, that's just chance, that's total chance
with that. Or we had one fun one that they
asked if we knew about the dog's obsession with pillows.
They took the dog to their apartment and I can't
remember the fats name, but it was obsessed with like
the pillows on the couch. And of course that is
not something we knew from the shelter, so then we
(21:55):
got to work on that.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
And there's certain breeds that are fascinated with, like you know, doors,
are you know, synonymous with like tennis balls and things
like that. But you go beyond something like that, right correct.
Speaker 5 (22:08):
We see the dog very much as an individual. You
have to take into some breed needs. So like if
you have a herding dog, we know that they need
to run and be active and they like to have jobs.
If we have that labrador, hey let's fill a kiddie
pool for him today and give them some swimming time.
But when it comes to what the dog needs as
far as a behavioral intervention, we have specific assessments for
(22:34):
like to test them and actually give them scores and
then build our treatment plan individually for that dog.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
So when did you come up with the idea of
barks and rec and when did you launch it and
you know, even in a small contained and then and
what do you hope to accomplish moving forward.
Speaker 6 (22:53):
Yeah, so it actually started with our on site volunteers.
Field trips were a really popular thing before for the
COVID pandemic, and then we started to bring that back.
We got a ton of interest with just people who
they were coming in you know, each week and doing
these kind of shorter, more chaotic walks that were the
(23:15):
daily bathroom break walks, and then whenever they got the
chance to get the dog off site, they really got
to see this moment where the dog relaxes, decompresses, and
really starts to enjoy themselves. And people were giving us
really wonderful positive feedback about that, and so that's when
when we started kind of formalizing that process for our
(23:36):
on site volunteers. We started thinking about, well, how can
we get other people involved as well, give these dogs
more of a chance to get off site, give more
people a chance to help us out to spend some
time with our dogs, and it really just kind of
snowballed from there.
Speaker 5 (23:51):
You know.
Speaker 6 (23:51):
We got Siana's team involved, we got marketing and all
of that involved, and it just really grew from there.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
When did you come up with the concept of the
report card or trying to get feedback about the dog.
Speaker 6 (24:05):
Yeah, that that kind of came about. People were giving
us sort of these informal notes and we just needed
a way to standardize it. We wanted to also give
people things to focus on, so we wanted to give
them sort of ways to categorize their own experience and
(24:26):
again just formalize it so that it's easier for us
to interpret and easier for them to figure out what
they should be looking for when they're out with their dog.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Does it help the dog get adopted? Because once they
come in and somebody's interested and you say, hey, you
know what, here's a couple of notes. These are things
that I noticed about this particular dog. And are they
surprised that you know some of that information?
Speaker 2 (24:49):
I'd say yes. I mean I think that.
Speaker 6 (24:54):
Probably one of the bigger things that we see is
even just seeing the dogs in these more natural environments,
it helps people imagine the dogs in their life a
little bit better. It's not super easy to imagine a dog,
you know, hanging out on your couch when you see
them in kind of their kennel or just running around
in a playguard at the shelter, but it's really easy
(25:15):
to imagine them hanging out in your living room when
you see them hanging out in somebody else's living room.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
So somebody becomes a Bark's Bark and Wreck volunteer. Have
you had anybody who actually adopted one of the dogs
that they tried out.
Speaker 6 (25:31):
I'm not sure if we've had that happen yet, only
because a lot of the people who we've been trialing
with so far are you know, already are on site
volunteers or our fosters who may not necessarily.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
I've already got twenty of them. Yeah, I can't use
one more? Yeah, yeah, boy. Every time I go into
the shelter, I was like, oh, how do I not
go home with one of these dogs.
Speaker 5 (25:59):
We have had a couple friends of the field trippers,
so somebody took a dog out for a field trip,
shared the pictures of all this dog, and then a
friend we had that a couple time, a friend or
a family member or neighbor did end up adopting from that.
So that right, I mean, that's a way to help
get exposure for these really wonderful dogs, because sometimes an
(26:22):
adopter's coming in and they're looking through all of our
available dogs, and understandably it's a little overwhelming. How do
I pick which one? But like at least said, if
you see your friend put on their you know whatever
social media story of a dog just snoring and sleeping
on their couch, You're like, ooh, that could be the.
Speaker 4 (26:39):
One for me.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
I wanted to I'd lost two labs in the same year,
and so I wanted to get a hospice dog, you know,
And that's my hospice dog. I've had them for ten years.
Speaker 4 (26:53):
That story is pretty common.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
Actually, all right, so before we're going to recap the
bar and rec but I want I know you work
for HARP, but tell us what you love about the organization.
Speaker 5 (27:06):
Oh that I I love how HARP does work within
the community, like it is truly it is not a
shelter that just exists to take the animals in and
adopt the animals out.
Speaker 4 (27:23):
There are so many community programs.
Speaker 5 (27:26):
I run, public training classes, there's way if you need
additional support, like Ellie's pet pantry, things like that. It
really is trying to make Pittsburgh a better place for animals,
and so I really.
Speaker 4 (27:39):
Like that community at least.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
Same question.
Speaker 6 (27:41):
Yeah, I mean my answer is pretty much the same
as Sienna's. I just I think our focus on supporting
the community and also educating the community, even educating other
staff members internally on just best practices, and also helping
to you know, have happy and healthy animals and pet
(28:01):
owners and nature lovers and all of that in our community.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Just helping to support all of that.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Yeah, all right, we only have about a minute left,
So tell us everything people should know about barks and
rec and if they want to help out, what do
you recommend?
Speaker 6 (28:16):
Yeah, absolutely so, if you want to get involved in
barks and rec, shoot us an email at bars and
Rec at Humaneanimal Rescue dot org. We will send you
the application and we'll get a field trip scheduled anytime
between the hours of ten am to three pm, seven
days a week.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
Can you give them the people listening an idea of
what kind of field trip you're talking about.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (28:41):
Popular choices are a long walk in the park, so
Frick Park, Allegheny Commons Park, anything like that, taking them
to a drive through for a pup cup, taking them
back to your house and hanging out in the.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
Yard or on your couch if you're comfortable with that.
Speaker 6 (28:59):
If you have other ideas, feel free to bring them
to us and we can definitely you look through and
approve them and match you with a dog who's going
to enjoy that type of experience.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
Humane Animal Rescue of Pittsburgh. If you want more information
on box and rec and everything they do, the website
is Humaneanimal Rescue dot org. Atleast and Cianna, thank you
so much. I appreciate you thanings you. Thanks for having
us as always. If you have any comments, concerns, or
an idea for a future program, please email us from
this radio station's website. I'm Johnny Heartwell. Thank you so
much for listening.
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