April 26, 2024 • 32 mins
In this episode, we’ll talk about the world of rescue dogs with Debby, a passionate advocate for rescue dog rehabilitation. Her journey began in the mid-1970s when she noticed the increasing number of terrified pups entering homes. Through her experiences, she shares valuable insights on identifying rescue dogs' triggers, understanding their impact on adoptive families, and providing effective strategies to help these dogs overcome their fears. This episode discusses Debby's journey, with her transformative relationship with Nora, a fear-biter she adopted, and the profound lessons they learned together.
EPISODE NOTES: Understanding Rescue Dogs: Overcoming Triggers and Fostering Trust
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/save-a-pooch-rescue-dog-welfare-pet-life-radio-original--6669238/support.
EPISODE NOTES: Understanding Rescue Dogs: Overcoming Triggers and Fostering Trust
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/save-a-pooch-rescue-dog-welfare-pet-life-radio-original--6669238/support.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is pet Life Radio. Let's talk pets.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Welcome to Save a Pooch on pet Life Radio.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
Thank you for listening.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
In Today, I am Beverly is like your host.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
This episode is dedicated to understanding rescue dogs and the
journey of rehabilitation and trust building.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
And our guest today is Debbie.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
She's an advocate for rescue dog rehabilitation and her journey
into the world of rescue dogs began in the mid
seventies when she noticed the increased number of terrified pups
entering homes, and her experiences have given her a deep
understanding of the challenges and rewards.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
That come with rehabilitating these pups.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
So when we get back from these messages, we will
hear from Debbie.
Speaker 4 (00:57):
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Speaker 5 (01:39):
Let's talk pets on petlifradio dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Welcome back to Save a Boods.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
We are talking with Debbie, an advocate for rescue dog rehabilitation.
Thank you for taking the time today to share your
experience of helping rescue dogs and their rehab journey, which
is what we are all about. So let's start by
discussing your early experiences as a pet sitter, particularly the
transition from working with dogs from reputable breeders to encountering
(02:18):
rescue dogs. So how did this shift in your clientele
and your understanding of the needs of rescue dogs.
Speaker 6 (02:25):
I was a pet sitter starting in Connecticut in the
mid seventies, and in the beginning, most of my clients
had dogs who had come from reputable breeders, and these
were friendly, relaxed dogs. But by the late nineteen seventies
or early nineteen eighties, more and more people had started
(02:46):
adopting dogs from shelters. I don't even know if there
were that many rescue groups at that point. But anyway,
these were not dogs who had come from a reputable breeder.
And the first thing I noticed, bev is how scared
they were. Some of these dogs would just I would
walk into the room and the person would be there,
(03:07):
or the people would be there and the dog would
be shaking, just uncontrollable shaking. So I kind of shifted
my focus with these particular dogs. How can I reassure them,
How can I bond with them so that they can
relax and trust me? And you know that first the
(03:30):
first time that I took care of them, the first
time or two sometimes it was really difficult for them.
Eventually they got to know me and they got to
know that I was trustworthy. But it was just a
totally totally different experience with these dogs.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Well, you said earlier, I find it very interesting, like
in the mid seventies, you didn't encounter a lot of
rescue dogs, and then it started growing.
Speaker 6 (03:54):
Yes, this was in Connecticut, and more and more people
had become aware of the fact that there were these months,
you know, these dogs who needed homes, and I think
more and more people were motivated to help them. Before that,
it was almost a status symbol to have a pure
(04:16):
bred dog. You know, Oh yeah, we have this Golden
Retriever and she came from this breeder and you know,
we've gotten two other dogs from her before, and you know,
it was just part of and then more and more
people started to open their hearts and their homes to
these dogs who were in shelters, which was great.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Oh that's nice. That's nice. But I'm pretty sure that
the breeders probably like that part.
Speaker 6 (04:41):
Probably not.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
But can you share with our listeners some of the
key indicators or quote triggers And I'll ask you to
clarify what that word is that you've learned to recognize
over the years when it comes to rescue dogs.
Speaker 6 (04:55):
Trigger. The simple answer is a trigger is anything that
triggers a dog. Let's step back a second. I'm going
to share with people. I'm going to share with you
a trigger in my own life. Okay. I was born
late in the years, so when it was time for
me to go to kindergarten, I was still pretty young
compared to a lot of the other kids in my school.
(05:16):
My mother had to take me to the kindergarten class
of oh five times before I would enter the room
because I was triggered by this group of kids. I
didn't know any of these kids. I didn't know what
they were doing. It was a big room with a
high ceiling, and I was absolutely terrified and I basically
(05:37):
pitched a fit. You know, I would not step foot
and I wasn't that kind of kid. I really didn't
ever have temper kintoms. So if you kind of take
that description, a trigger for a dog.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Can be gosh, anything is it can be Yeah, I.
Speaker 6 (05:56):
Mean it can be a person wearing a hat. It
can be a big crowd of people. It can be
loud noises, thunder, sometimes even smells can trigger a dog.
Anything that is very, very unfamiliar. And I just want
to preface this too with Some dogs are just born
naturally confident, you know, they jump all over everything, and
(06:17):
they're they're the first one to greet the new person
or the new dog. Some dogs are much much more timid,
much more shy, and most dogs fall I think in
the middle. Most dogs are a little bit shy here
and more confident there. But if if you get that
shy dog, and that shy dog has come from, you know,
(06:38):
a shelter, oh my god, oh my goodness.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
Yeah, so you were able to I guess see these
even that word trigger triggers me. But for you to
be able to recognize those, it would take oh, I
don't know, I'd say the average person, it would take
a bit to see what's what's normal and what's not right.
Speaker 6 (06:56):
That was one of the things I learned early on
to things helped me a lot. One was to just
start to be you know, very observant, you know, very
gentle with them, very slow moving, slow talking, nothing abrupt,
nothing you know, too excited, and also just kind of
(07:18):
casually keeping a really close eye on them. So and
the other thing I did was to take them for
long walks that seemed to distract them, you know, once
they got their nose to the ground and they weren't
you know, staring at me this new scary person. Once
they once they started to just kind of get into
(07:41):
being a dog again outside they could relax, and then
I could just kind of hang back, you know, you know,
six feet behind them on the leash and and just
watch and see and what did they like, what sort
of set them off? And so the power of observation
plus exercise to mitigate that high level of anxiety, high
(08:03):
level of fear, and I have to add sometimes to
not usually, but sometimes it wasn't just fear. Sometimes it
was actually aggression.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
Yes, I've seen that plenty of times. It's funny. It
reminds me of the days when I used to dog
walk and I would always get the rescue dogs that
was very, very skittish, scared, and every time i'd get
that dog, I was like, oh boy, this is gonna
take some time for rehab to go on a group walk.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
But I'd always.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Begin right off the bat with bringing that dog in
a group but with a leash on, And usually if
they lived in a condo, I'd always take some time
to warm up with the dog and we'd run around
the hallways just to get that dog out of like
a panic mode because I'd have to find this dog
when I walked into their home, it would be in
a corner somewhere, so that took some time for me
(08:54):
to even get the leash on. But after I would
say weeks, these kind of dogs would be running around
in the off leashed dog areas, like running and I'd
be that person.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Jumping up and down and people were like, why are
you doing that?
Speaker 3 (09:09):
It's like, Oh, you have no idea what this dog
has just come from.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
But yeah, so I really commend your work on that.
Speaker 6 (09:15):
And back at you bed, because you know, you stopped
and you took a breath, and you you know, you
honed in, and you you waited. You didn't, you know,
just run right over the dog and try to clip
the leash on or something, which is right, actually send
them into even more panic. You just have to take
it very slowly, very step by step. What I've learned
(09:38):
later was that whole process of taking things very slowly,
step by step is called it has a name. It's
called systematic desensitization. Yeah, okay, three three syllables, you know.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
The medical term for what we were just talking about exactly.
Speaker 6 (09:59):
It hasn't it actually has a formal term. I didn't
know that in the beginning, But when you think about it,
you know what I tried to do is put myself
in that dog's pause. What was that dog experiencing? And
how could I help the poor dog just you know,
calm down and actually even maybe enjoy our time together.
(10:22):
So the combination of slow, you know, little baby steps
and some exercise and some diversion made all the difference
in the world.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
Right right, Yeah, that makes sense, especially with some of them.
Just the car rides can be self therapeutic. So if
people would just do that, not even go anywhere, but just.
Speaker 6 (10:44):
Drive my dog Bev had all the bank tellers trained.
We would ye oh yeah, you know, and they would
see her in the back and I'd roll the window
down and does your dog want to treat? And it's like, yeah, sure, okay,
she loved that. I think too, that there may be
something about the motion of the car, because you know,
like have you heard moms talking about when their babies
(11:08):
are really just crying and crying, they sometimes in desperation,
they put them in the car and strap them in
the seat, and in you know, ten or fifteen minutes,
the baby's falling asleep.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
Yes, yeah, exact same, same, exact, same thing. Now, what
are some common misconceptions people have about rescue dogs and
their tures and how can we work to increase their
understanding of these misunderstandings.
Speaker 6 (11:34):
I'm going to make a really broad general statement here, okay,
and I'm sure some of your listeners will disagree with me,
but dogs who end up in general in shelters or
rescue groups usually didn't get there because they had an
easy start in life. I would say for the most part,
when a dog ends up in a shelter, it's often
(11:58):
because the person or the people just don't understand how
how they can spend even ten or fifteen minutes a
day with their dog, bonding with their dog, to socialize them,
to expose them to new and different things so that
they're not frightened all the time. It really it's a
(12:20):
small investment in time. It's kind of like sitting down
with your kid who's really stuck on their science homework.
You know, they're just I just don't get this Jurassic period.
What does that mean? You know, if you sit down
for ten to fifteen minutes with your kid and explain that,
or explain fractions or something in math, I mean, that
(12:41):
can make a whole huge amount of difference in that
just you know, subsequent time in school. And the same
thing is true with dogs. The more time we invest
in our dogs, try to understand them, try to bond
with them, try to help them. The more we get
to know them, the stronger our relationship will be. And
(13:05):
you know, I mean my dog eventually she got to
a point where I'm pretty sure if I had asked
her to try to do a backflip. She would have tried.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
Yeah, I completely agree with your opinion, So thank you
for bringing that up, and that this is probably for
another phone call. But when you mentioned spending time to
bond with your dogs, there are some cultures where that's
just not a thing. These dogs are just for outdoor guardians.
But that's another rabbit hole.
Speaker 6 (13:36):
Well, and then you know what's fascinating to me though. Two,
and this is a little bit off on a tangent,
is do you remember Chaser, the border collie that who
had the incredible vocabulary.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
Oh, my gosh, I'm thinking of Lassie.
Speaker 7 (13:50):
No, Chaser was a black and white border collie and
she was featured Oh this is now probably gosh, ten
years ago or so on, Like I think she made.
Speaker 6 (14:03):
It to sixty minutes, and you know a bunch of
TV shows. Anyway, she had a vocabulary honestly of over
a thousand words. And then because of that and because
of the research that her her dad did with her,
all of a sudden there was everybody wanted to research
(14:24):
dog cognition, you know what they could do with their brain.
Chaser was so smart. Ooh, there must be other smart dogs.
Out there. Let's check this out. What I love now
and I think this is going to help dogs so
so much. Now it shifted from not just like how
smart the dog is, but what does the dog feel?
(14:45):
There was a time twenty years ago when you if
you had mentioned that any animal could feel, you would
have been considered crazy. That was anthropomorphic and animals didn't
have feelings. Right, well, they do, you know, And now
there's a whole bunch of really cool studies out there
about how dogs feel. So we're finally, finally, thankfully starting
(15:08):
to recognize, Oh my gosh. You know, dogs have a brain,
and they think, and they make judgments, and they also
have feelings, you know, and the bond that we form
with them starts with the strongest feeling of all, which
is love. And then trust and then respect. Those are
the three major components of a really strong, healthy bond
(15:31):
with a dog.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
That's amazing, the three magic words. That's awesome. Thank you
for that insight. We're just gonna have a quick break
and when we get back we'll continue talking with Debbie.
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Speaker 2 (16:53):
Welcome back to Save a Poach.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
We are talking with with rescue dog advocate Debbie. Thank
you so much for that inside before the break and
you repeat the three famous words, and that build a
strong trusting bond between human and cadine.
Speaker 6 (17:08):
I think of it as a three legged stool and
the first the first leg is love. And if you
can remember meeting a dog for that first time, it's
truly likes your heart just expands. I mean, you just
know in every cell of your body that, oh my gosh,
this dog is I just love this dog. And then
(17:29):
it expands. It gets bigger to embrace trust, and then
even bigger to embrace mutual respect back and.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Forth absolutely, which brings us to our next topic that
is close to your heart. Can you walk us through
the challenges you faced when you discovered Nora or your
past dog. I guess was a fear bier, particularly triggered
by men, and the methods that you found effective in
helping her overcome her fears and building trust.
Speaker 6 (17:58):
Two weeks after where I brought Nora homebout and I
had been visiting her in the shelter every afternoon for like,
oh my gosh, ten days. I she was a shepherd mix.
She looked like a kind of a blonde, sort of
little bit scaled down shepherd, but she wasn't one hundred
percent shepherd. So I knew from all my years of
(18:22):
pet sitting, if I adopted a dog, my whole life
would change. And it wasn't about putting a litter box
out or anything. I'd have to walk this dog. I
knew all the responsibilities but I really, really really thought
that I was ready, you know, to open my heart
and my home to a dog. And I fell in
love with her. I mean, I literally, I mean it
(18:43):
was like a Disney moment. The sun was beaming down
and I could hear violins in the background almost, I
mean really it was.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
It was just, oh boy, that's awesome. Well, so I.
Speaker 6 (18:57):
Brought her home after about ten days of visiting her
every day in the shelter, and she met my cats,
and one of my cats kind of freaked out, but
he eventually calmed down and everything seemed to be stabilizing
after about two weeks, and then right about it two weeks,
one of the fellows who had helped build my garage
(19:19):
had to come over and do some last minute work,
and he was sitting at one point, he was sitting
on the back steps and he was having lunch, and
I knew that he had dogs of his own, and
I knew he was a gentle man, and I said, Walt,
would you like to meet my new dog? And he goes, sure,
you know, so she went out and she was sitting
next to him, bev on the back steps, and he
(19:41):
was feeding her little pieces of his lunch. I mean,
it was just my heart filled up and I thought,
oh my gosh, she's getting along with the cats, and
now she's getting along with Walt, and oh this is great.
So I turned away from the back door. I don't
know what I was doing, but I got distracted by something.
A couple of minutes later, Walt opened the door and
(20:03):
he said, your dog just tried to bite me.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Oh jeez, And I thought what I mean.
Speaker 6 (20:09):
I thought I knew this dog BEV. I thought I
had vetted her. I thought I had made sure I
had not seen any sign of aggression in her at all,
not toward me, not toward my cats, not toward So
I was in shock. And I remember my stomach kind
of did a flip, and anyway, I panicked. I absolutely panicked.
(20:32):
A few days later, another guy came over to do
some work on the house and he told me that
he and his wife had to just put down their shepherd.
And I thought, oh, well, maybe this is a sign
from God. I said, well, you know, my dog isn't
really working out. And I'm ashamed to admit this today,
but anyway, long story short, they took her. About two
(20:55):
days later, they took her and about two hours after
I had driven off, the wife called me and said
that she had run away. Now did she really run
away or did she try to my husband? I don't know.
I wasn't there. So now I have this dog who
I'd only had for a little over two weeks, and
(21:15):
now she's out in the desk. This is Arizona. There
are scorpions and you know, rattlesnakes and coyotes and havelina.
I mean, and by now it's May. It was getting
up into the eighties during the day. There's a little water,
and I thought, what have I done? I felt terrible.
I immediately contacted a friend. She made up a poster
(21:39):
for me. I posted signs all over town. I called
animal control, I called the local radio station, and I
did everything I could think of, and I just waited
by the phone. It was before I had a cell phone.
And finally, that was on a Thursday. I got a
call on Sunday morning from the shelter and they said,
(22:01):
we think your dog is behind the building. And I
just raced over there and I'm praying, just please please
a let her be there. She it was her, and
when she recognized my boy, she came running over and
I at that moment, I said to myself, I don't
know how I'm going to figure this out. I don't
know what to do or not to do. But we
(22:23):
will figure this out, and I will never ever let
go of you again. So the first thing I did
was I thought, okay, I live in an area. My
neighborhood had a writing stable, and the writing stable had
made an arrangement with the Forest Service. Our whole neighborhood
was surrounded by beautiful Forest Service land, and the writing
(22:45):
stable put trails in. So I thought, okay, why don't
I just try hiking with her on the trails. We
were far away from cars, you know, chances are we
wouldn't meet any other people or dogs or anything. So
we started hiking every single morning for like an hour.
And do you know that, like probably that first week,
(23:06):
Nora would come home, have breakfast and flop down and
take a nap. That was the first time she'd ever
just took a nap and didn't follow me all over
the house and wondered where I was. And you know,
she finally started to calm down, So I thought, okay,
this is good. Then we lived just outside of Sedona, Arizona,
(23:29):
which is a big tourist town. Yes, there's a part
of Sedona where all the tourist buses stop and it's
called Uptown. So I thought, okay, why don't we just
start walking there. You know, there's a lot of people.
It was too much for her. I tried bringing her
to a soccer game. That was too much. So I
quickly realized I had to back off and let her
(23:52):
kind of guide me. If she started to kind of
freeze up, and if I ran my hands down her
sides and there was a lot of muscular tension, I
just thought, Okay, this is too much. Right now, we're
going to have to, you know, go down a side street,
or we're going to have to you know, go someplace else.
And this is this is too overwhelming. I can tell
you this though. We started going to different soccer fields
(24:17):
at the beginning of the soccer season. By the end
of the soccer season, Nora knew where all the fields were,
and when she realized that we were pulling up to
another soccer field by the end of the season, she
was whirling around in the back seat. She couldn't wait
to get out and say hello to everybody. But I
just I just had to be patient. If she wasn't
(24:39):
ready to go to the bleachers yet, I had to
just you know, hang out kind of near them and
let her just stand there and you know, and then
maybe next next game, a little closer to the bleachers,
and oh, then we can actually go up to maybe
walk on the bleachers. It was well well worth every
single minute I put into it. Wow, she changed, She
(25:00):
absolutely changed, you know, she became a new dog.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
That's amazing that you put in that much. You're committed,
you're committed, and oh if only people were just that
committed to the pewing journey of the dog, because exactly
like some of them may need a shorter time, some
of them may need longer time. The shortest I've seen
was two weeks, but it seems like in your case
(25:25):
maybe months.
Speaker 6 (25:26):
I would say from start to finish, it was almost
two years, because wow, it was really in the beginning
it was like three steps forward and four steps back.
She seemed to, you know, like one day she would
make a lot of progress and we'd go back to
the same place and it was like starting all over again.
And so he just keep doing it, and keep doing it,
(25:49):
and keep doing it. A lot of trainers and behaviors
say that that is flooding. If the dog truly, truly
is becoming that overwhelmed, stop you don't. You don't want
to cause more damage. You don't want to flood them
or overwhelm them. But I believe it's important to help
dogs face their fears. If my mother had given up
(26:12):
on me and never brought me to kindergarten, I might
never have gotten an education, you know. I mean, I'm
glad she hung in there with me, right right. I
knew this dog was smart, I knew she was sweet
and loving. I you know, and I just it was
(26:33):
like watching a flower bloom and slow motion, very slow motion.
But eventually I could see this beautiful rose all, you know,
in full bloom. It took it took a long time,
but it was worth waiting for. By the time gosh,
I actually trained. I got Nora to be able to
walk by the side of a road when there were
(26:55):
cars going by.
Speaker 8 (26:57):
Wow.
Speaker 6 (26:58):
Yeah, I mean, she would have she would have done
anything for me. We took a fun agility class together.
That was one of the best bonding experiences. It was
a great experience for her to meet other dogs and
meet other people. She was very athletic anyway, you know.
Her nickname by the end of the class was rocket
(27:18):
dog because she tried so hard, she was so fast.
It was we all cheered each other's dogs on. It
was it was fun. Agility for a lot of dogs
is a wonderful, wonderful way to bond with your dog.
I highly recommend it.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
Oh yeah, I support that sport.
Speaker 3 (27:37):
It looks fun, it sounds fun. I'm sure it's a
lot a lot of work.
Speaker 6 (27:41):
You know. I mean, once the dog gets the hang
of you know, okay, this is a jump, or this
is the tunnel or what. Once they kind of like
get a few things down right, it kind of triggers
them to try more and oh you want me to
go up this a frame? Okay, no problem, I can.
You know, they just it sort of I don't know
it once they can do one or two things really easily. Yeah,
(28:05):
they love it. But there was this is funny. There
was this one dog in our class. He was older,
he may have had I think he probably had arthritis
or something. He would do everything in the course, but
he would walk. He never ran at all, never, but
he did it. He still did it.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
But that's awesome. I'd love to see that.
Speaker 6 (28:26):
It was so much fun. It was so much fun. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
Now, before we wrap up, let's talk about your current projects.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
What are you up to? What are you what are
you working on?
Speaker 6 (28:35):
Well, I'm actually I just recently submitted a book proposal.
I've been writing a book about Nora and you know,
sort of what I think of as zooming in on
her and then zooming back out. The title of the book,
the working title of the book is called by the
Grace of Dog and it's lessons that Nora taught me.
(28:55):
You know she that's nice, Thank you. She was light
of my life. She changed my life. She helped me
become a better person, and she's also helped me work
with other dogs. I always think of her when I
work with other dogs. So I just recently submitted the
proposal to a literary agent in New York. And this
(29:18):
is a woman I selected in part because she has
dogs of her own and she's competed in agility with them,
and I thought, ooh, you know, maybe she'll maybe she'll
be interested in this, and I hope she is because
I'd love to get this book out there. I would
love to have people understand that when you are rehabilitating
a dog, just be patient and understand that it will
(29:44):
take them as long as it takes. Supportive of them,
always encourage them, always praise them when they get it,
you know, I mean, and you can see massive changes
in dogs in very little time. But you kind of
have to put again and put yourself in the dog's
pause and feel what the world must feel like for them.
(30:06):
How overwhelming is it for them?
Speaker 2 (30:08):
Absolutely?
Speaker 3 (30:09):
And it does take a oh, you know, a little
bit of effort to be self aware to observe it.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
But Nora, you prove that you can.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
Yeah, and especially when you came from a position of
having doubts.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
Yeah, you came a long way. That's awesome. I love
hearing about that.
Speaker 5 (30:22):
You know.
Speaker 6 (30:23):
I think those three nights that Nora was missing in
the desert, I remember saying, you know, God, if I
ever get another chance to be with this dog, I
promise I will never you know, I will figure this out.
Just give me another chance, please, you know. And you
know it took a while, but I'm so grateful. I'm
(30:44):
so grateful that she that I was reunited with her,
and I find it kind of I mean, today I
can kind of laugh about it. But she didn't try
to find her way back to my home. She found
her way back.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
To the shelter, right boy, don't tell you? Oh wow,
oh boy. Well we are at a time. I really
appreciate you Debbie for being here at our show, Producer
Work Winson for making the show possible. And if people
want to keep in touch with your book, what is
the best way for them to do so? We'll put
(31:17):
your email also on the on the show page.
Speaker 6 (31:20):
Yes probably. If you're interested in doing a dog behavior consultation,
please send me an email, which you mentioned is on
your web page. Now. I'm happy to do this on zoom.
I can do it on the phone. I've done that,
you know once the pandemic started, and I will give
your listeners a discount, so any questions you have. I've
(31:41):
also done dog behavior classes, which I love doing, and
now that we you know, everybody does zoom, I am
more than happy to gather together a group of people,
maybe five or six people for five or six weeks
and we can focus on anything that they need to
work on with their dogs.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Awesome.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
Thank you for that offer, very generous and if you
have any questions, comments or ideas for a show, please
email me at Beverly at petlifradio dot com. So, until
next time, spread animal compassion.
Speaker 5 (32:13):
Let's Talk Pets every week on demand only on petlifradio
dot com
This is pet Life Radio. Let's talk pets.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Welcome to Save a Pooch on pet Life Radio.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
Thank you for listening.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
In Today, I am Beverly is like your host.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
This episode is dedicated to understanding rescue dogs and the
journey of rehabilitation and trust building.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
And our guest today is Debbie.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
She's an advocate for rescue dog rehabilitation and her journey
into the world of rescue dogs began in the mid
seventies when she noticed the increased number of terrified pups
entering homes, and her experiences have given her a deep
understanding of the challenges and rewards.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
That come with rehabilitating these pups.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
So when we get back from these messages, we will
hear from Debbie.
Speaker 4 (00:57):
Say aodbite out of your competition, advertise your business with
an ad In Petlife Radio podcasts and radio shows, there
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(01:19):
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Speaker 5 (01:39):
Let's talk pets on petlifradio dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Welcome back to Save a Boods.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
We are talking with Debbie, an advocate for rescue dog rehabilitation.
Thank you for taking the time today to share your
experience of helping rescue dogs and their rehab journey, which
is what we are all about. So let's start by
discussing your early experiences as a pet sitter, particularly the
transition from working with dogs from reputable breeders to encountering
(02:18):
rescue dogs. So how did this shift in your clientele
and your understanding of the needs of rescue dogs.
Speaker 6 (02:25):
I was a pet sitter starting in Connecticut in the
mid seventies, and in the beginning, most of my clients
had dogs who had come from reputable breeders, and these
were friendly, relaxed dogs. But by the late nineteen seventies
or early nineteen eighties, more and more people had started
(02:46):
adopting dogs from shelters. I don't even know if there
were that many rescue groups at that point. But anyway,
these were not dogs who had come from a reputable breeder.
And the first thing I noticed, bev is how scared
they were. Some of these dogs would just I would
walk into the room and the person would be there,
(03:07):
or the people would be there and the dog would
be shaking, just uncontrollable shaking. So I kind of shifted
my focus with these particular dogs. How can I reassure them,
How can I bond with them so that they can
relax and trust me? And you know that first the
(03:30):
first time that I took care of them, the first
time or two sometimes it was really difficult for them.
Eventually they got to know me and they got to
know that I was trustworthy. But it was just a
totally totally different experience with these dogs.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Well, you said earlier, I find it very interesting, like
in the mid seventies, you didn't encounter a lot of
rescue dogs, and then it started growing.
Speaker 6 (03:54):
Yes, this was in Connecticut, and more and more people
had become aware of the fact that there were these months,
you know, these dogs who needed homes, and I think
more and more people were motivated to help them. Before that,
it was almost a status symbol to have a pure
(04:16):
bred dog. You know, Oh yeah, we have this Golden
Retriever and she came from this breeder and you know,
we've gotten two other dogs from her before, and you know,
it was just part of and then more and more
people started to open their hearts and their homes to
these dogs who were in shelters, which was great.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Oh that's nice. That's nice. But I'm pretty sure that
the breeders probably like that part.
Speaker 6 (04:41):
Probably not.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
But can you share with our listeners some of the
key indicators or quote triggers And I'll ask you to
clarify what that word is that you've learned to recognize
over the years when it comes to rescue dogs.
Speaker 6 (04:55):
Trigger. The simple answer is a trigger is anything that
triggers a dog. Let's step back a second. I'm going
to share with people. I'm going to share with you
a trigger in my own life. Okay. I was born
late in the years, so when it was time for
me to go to kindergarten, I was still pretty young
compared to a lot of the other kids in my school.
(05:16):
My mother had to take me to the kindergarten class
of oh five times before I would enter the room
because I was triggered by this group of kids. I
didn't know any of these kids. I didn't know what
they were doing. It was a big room with a
high ceiling, and I was absolutely terrified and I basically
(05:37):
pitched a fit. You know, I would not step foot
and I wasn't that kind of kid. I really didn't
ever have temper kintoms. So if you kind of take
that description, a trigger for a dog.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Can be gosh, anything is it can be Yeah, I.
Speaker 6 (05:56):
Mean it can be a person wearing a hat. It
can be a big crowd of people. It can be
loud noises, thunder, sometimes even smells can trigger a dog.
Anything that is very, very unfamiliar. And I just want
to preface this too with Some dogs are just born
naturally confident, you know, they jump all over everything, and
(06:17):
they're they're the first one to greet the new person
or the new dog. Some dogs are much much more timid,
much more shy, and most dogs fall I think in
the middle. Most dogs are a little bit shy here
and more confident there. But if if you get that
shy dog, and that shy dog has come from, you know,
(06:38):
a shelter, oh my god, oh my goodness.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
Yeah, so you were able to I guess see these
even that word trigger triggers me. But for you to
be able to recognize those, it would take oh, I
don't know, I'd say the average person, it would take
a bit to see what's what's normal and what's not right.
Speaker 6 (06:56):
That was one of the things I learned early on
to things helped me a lot. One was to just
start to be you know, very observant, you know, very
gentle with them, very slow moving, slow talking, nothing abrupt,
nothing you know, too excited, and also just kind of
(07:18):
casually keeping a really close eye on them. So and
the other thing I did was to take them for
long walks that seemed to distract them, you know, once
they got their nose to the ground and they weren't
you know, staring at me this new scary person. Once
they once they started to just kind of get into
(07:41):
being a dog again outside they could relax, and then
I could just kind of hang back, you know, you know,
six feet behind them on the leash and and just
watch and see and what did they like, what sort
of set them off? And so the power of observation
plus exercise to mitigate that high level of anxiety, high
(08:03):
level of fear, and I have to add sometimes to
not usually, but sometimes it wasn't just fear. Sometimes it
was actually aggression.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
Yes, I've seen that plenty of times. It's funny. It
reminds me of the days when I used to dog
walk and I would always get the rescue dogs that
was very, very skittish, scared, and every time i'd get
that dog, I was like, oh boy, this is gonna
take some time for rehab to go on a group walk.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
But I'd always.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Begin right off the bat with bringing that dog in
a group but with a leash on, And usually if
they lived in a condo, I'd always take some time
to warm up with the dog and we'd run around
the hallways just to get that dog out of like
a panic mode because I'd have to find this dog
when I walked into their home, it would be in
a corner somewhere, so that took some time for me
(08:54):
to even get the leash on. But after I would
say weeks, these kind of dogs would be running around
in the off leashed dog areas, like running and I'd
be that person.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Jumping up and down and people were like, why are
you doing that?
Speaker 3 (09:09):
It's like, Oh, you have no idea what this dog
has just come from.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
But yeah, so I really commend your work on that.
Speaker 6 (09:15):
And back at you bed, because you know, you stopped
and you took a breath, and you you know, you
honed in, and you you waited. You didn't, you know,
just run right over the dog and try to clip
the leash on or something, which is right, actually send
them into even more panic. You just have to take
it very slowly, very step by step. What I've learned
(09:38):
later was that whole process of taking things very slowly,
step by step is called it has a name. It's
called systematic desensitization. Yeah, okay, three three syllables, you know.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
The medical term for what we were just talking about exactly.
Speaker 6 (09:59):
It hasn't it actually has a formal term. I didn't
know that in the beginning, But when you think about it,
you know what I tried to do is put myself
in that dog's pause. What was that dog experiencing? And
how could I help the poor dog just you know,
calm down and actually even maybe enjoy our time together.
(10:22):
So the combination of slow, you know, little baby steps
and some exercise and some diversion made all the difference
in the world.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
Right right, Yeah, that makes sense, especially with some of them.
Just the car rides can be self therapeutic. So if
people would just do that, not even go anywhere, but just.
Speaker 6 (10:44):
Drive my dog Bev had all the bank tellers trained.
We would ye oh yeah, you know, and they would
see her in the back and I'd roll the window
down and does your dog want to treat? And it's like, yeah, sure, okay,
she loved that. I think too, that there may be
something about the motion of the car, because you know,
like have you heard moms talking about when their babies
(11:08):
are really just crying and crying, they sometimes in desperation,
they put them in the car and strap them in
the seat, and in you know, ten or fifteen minutes,
the baby's falling asleep.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
Yes, yeah, exact same, same, exact, same thing. Now, what
are some common misconceptions people have about rescue dogs and
their tures and how can we work to increase their
understanding of these misunderstandings.
Speaker 6 (11:34):
I'm going to make a really broad general statement here, okay,
and I'm sure some of your listeners will disagree with me,
but dogs who end up in general in shelters or
rescue groups usually didn't get there because they had an
easy start in life. I would say for the most part,
when a dog ends up in a shelter, it's often
(11:58):
because the person or the people just don't understand how
how they can spend even ten or fifteen minutes a
day with their dog, bonding with their dog, to socialize them,
to expose them to new and different things so that
they're not frightened all the time. It really it's a
(12:20):
small investment in time. It's kind of like sitting down
with your kid who's really stuck on their science homework.
You know, they're just I just don't get this Jurassic period.
What does that mean? You know, if you sit down
for ten to fifteen minutes with your kid and explain that,
or explain fractions or something in math, I mean, that
(12:41):
can make a whole huge amount of difference in that
just you know, subsequent time in school. And the same
thing is true with dogs. The more time we invest
in our dogs, try to understand them, try to bond
with them, try to help them. The more we get
to know them, the stronger our relationship will be. And
(13:05):
you know, I mean my dog eventually she got to
a point where I'm pretty sure if I had asked
her to try to do a backflip. She would have tried.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
Yeah, I completely agree with your opinion, So thank you
for bringing that up, and that this is probably for
another phone call. But when you mentioned spending time to
bond with your dogs, there are some cultures where that's
just not a thing. These dogs are just for outdoor guardians.
But that's another rabbit hole.
Speaker 6 (13:36):
Well, and then you know what's fascinating to me though. Two,
and this is a little bit off on a tangent,
is do you remember Chaser, the border collie that who
had the incredible vocabulary.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
Oh, my gosh, I'm thinking of Lassie.
Speaker 7 (13:50):
No, Chaser was a black and white border collie and
she was featured Oh this is now probably gosh, ten
years ago or so on, Like I think she made.
Speaker 6 (14:03):
It to sixty minutes, and you know a bunch of
TV shows. Anyway, she had a vocabulary honestly of over
a thousand words. And then because of that and because
of the research that her her dad did with her,
all of a sudden there was everybody wanted to research
(14:24):
dog cognition, you know what they could do with their brain.
Chaser was so smart. Ooh, there must be other smart dogs.
Out there. Let's check this out. What I love now
and I think this is going to help dogs so
so much. Now it shifted from not just like how
smart the dog is, but what does the dog feel?
(14:45):
There was a time twenty years ago when you if
you had mentioned that any animal could feel, you would
have been considered crazy. That was anthropomorphic and animals didn't
have feelings. Right, well, they do, you know, And now
there's a whole bunch of really cool studies out there
about how dogs feel. So we're finally, finally, thankfully starting
(15:08):
to recognize, Oh my gosh. You know, dogs have a brain,
and they think, and they make judgments, and they also
have feelings, you know, and the bond that we form
with them starts with the strongest feeling of all, which
is love. And then trust and then respect. Those are
the three major components of a really strong, healthy bond
(15:31):
with a dog.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
That's amazing, the three magic words. That's awesome. Thank you
for that insight. We're just gonna have a quick break
and when we get back we'll continue talking with Debbie.
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Speaker 2 (16:53):
Welcome back to Save a Poach.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
We are talking with with rescue dog advocate Debbie. Thank
you so much for that inside before the break and
you repeat the three famous words, and that build a
strong trusting bond between human and cadine.
Speaker 6 (17:08):
I think of it as a three legged stool and
the first the first leg is love. And if you
can remember meeting a dog for that first time, it's
truly likes your heart just expands. I mean, you just
know in every cell of your body that, oh my gosh,
this dog is I just love this dog. And then
(17:29):
it expands. It gets bigger to embrace trust, and then
even bigger to embrace mutual respect back and.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Forth absolutely, which brings us to our next topic that
is close to your heart. Can you walk us through
the challenges you faced when you discovered Nora or your
past dog. I guess was a fear bier, particularly triggered
by men, and the methods that you found effective in
helping her overcome her fears and building trust.
Speaker 6 (17:58):
Two weeks after where I brought Nora homebout and I
had been visiting her in the shelter every afternoon for like,
oh my gosh, ten days. I she was a shepherd mix.
She looked like a kind of a blonde, sort of
little bit scaled down shepherd, but she wasn't one hundred
percent shepherd. So I knew from all my years of
(18:22):
pet sitting, if I adopted a dog, my whole life
would change. And it wasn't about putting a litter box
out or anything. I'd have to walk this dog. I
knew all the responsibilities but I really, really really thought
that I was ready, you know, to open my heart
and my home to a dog. And I fell in
love with her. I mean, I literally, I mean it
(18:43):
was like a Disney moment. The sun was beaming down
and I could hear violins in the background almost, I
mean really it was.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
It was just, oh boy, that's awesome. Well, so I.
Speaker 6 (18:57):
Brought her home after about ten days of visiting her
every day in the shelter, and she met my cats,
and one of my cats kind of freaked out, but
he eventually calmed down and everything seemed to be stabilizing
after about two weeks, and then right about it two weeks,
one of the fellows who had helped build my garage
(19:19):
had to come over and do some last minute work,
and he was sitting at one point, he was sitting
on the back steps and he was having lunch, and
I knew that he had dogs of his own, and
I knew he was a gentle man, and I said, Walt,
would you like to meet my new dog? And he goes, sure,
you know, so she went out and she was sitting
next to him, bev on the back steps, and he
(19:41):
was feeding her little pieces of his lunch. I mean,
it was just my heart filled up and I thought,
oh my gosh, she's getting along with the cats, and
now she's getting along with Walt, and oh this is great.
So I turned away from the back door. I don't
know what I was doing, but I got distracted by something.
A couple of minutes later, Walt opened the door and
(20:03):
he said, your dog just tried to bite me.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Oh jeez, And I thought what I mean.
Speaker 6 (20:09):
I thought I knew this dog BEV. I thought I
had vetted her. I thought I had made sure I
had not seen any sign of aggression in her at all,
not toward me, not toward my cats, not toward So
I was in shock. And I remember my stomach kind
of did a flip, and anyway, I panicked. I absolutely panicked.
(20:32):
A few days later, another guy came over to do
some work on the house and he told me that
he and his wife had to just put down their shepherd.
And I thought, oh, well, maybe this is a sign
from God. I said, well, you know, my dog isn't
really working out. And I'm ashamed to admit this today,
but anyway, long story short, they took her. About two
(20:55):
days later, they took her and about two hours after
I had driven off, the wife called me and said
that she had run away. Now did she really run
away or did she try to my husband? I don't know.
I wasn't there. So now I have this dog who
I'd only had for a little over two weeks, and
(21:15):
now she's out in the desk. This is Arizona. There
are scorpions and you know, rattlesnakes and coyotes and havelina.
I mean, and by now it's May. It was getting
up into the eighties during the day. There's a little water,
and I thought, what have I done? I felt terrible.
I immediately contacted a friend. She made up a poster
(21:39):
for me. I posted signs all over town. I called
animal control, I called the local radio station, and I
did everything I could think of, and I just waited
by the phone. It was before I had a cell phone.
And finally, that was on a Thursday. I got a
call on Sunday morning from the shelter and they said,
(22:01):
we think your dog is behind the building. And I
just raced over there and I'm praying, just please please
a let her be there. She it was her, and
when she recognized my boy, she came running over and
I at that moment, I said to myself, I don't
know how I'm going to figure this out. I don't
know what to do or not to do. But we
(22:23):
will figure this out, and I will never ever let
go of you again. So the first thing I did
was I thought, okay, I live in an area. My
neighborhood had a writing stable, and the writing stable had
made an arrangement with the Forest Service. Our whole neighborhood
was surrounded by beautiful Forest Service land, and the writing
(22:45):
stable put trails in. So I thought, okay, why don't
I just try hiking with her on the trails. We
were far away from cars, you know, chances are we
wouldn't meet any other people or dogs or anything. So
we started hiking every single morning for like an hour.
And do you know that, like probably that first week,
(23:06):
Nora would come home, have breakfast and flop down and
take a nap. That was the first time she'd ever
just took a nap and didn't follow me all over
the house and wondered where I was. And you know,
she finally started to calm down, So I thought, okay,
this is good. Then we lived just outside of Sedona, Arizona,
(23:29):
which is a big tourist town. Yes, there's a part
of Sedona where all the tourist buses stop and it's
called Uptown. So I thought, okay, why don't we just
start walking there. You know, there's a lot of people.
It was too much for her. I tried bringing her
to a soccer game. That was too much. So I
quickly realized I had to back off and let her
(23:52):
kind of guide me. If she started to kind of
freeze up, and if I ran my hands down her
sides and there was a lot of muscular tension, I
just thought, Okay, this is too much. Right now, we're
going to have to, you know, go down a side street,
or we're going to have to you know, go someplace else.
And this is this is too overwhelming. I can tell
you this though. We started going to different soccer fields
(24:17):
at the beginning of the soccer season. By the end
of the soccer season, Nora knew where all the fields were,
and when she realized that we were pulling up to
another soccer field by the end of the season, she
was whirling around in the back seat. She couldn't wait
to get out and say hello to everybody. But I
just I just had to be patient. If she wasn't
(24:39):
ready to go to the bleachers yet, I had to
just you know, hang out kind of near them and
let her just stand there and you know, and then
maybe next next game, a little closer to the bleachers,
and oh, then we can actually go up to maybe
walk on the bleachers. It was well well worth every
single minute I put into it. Wow, she changed, She
(25:00):
absolutely changed, you know, she became a new dog.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
That's amazing that you put in that much. You're committed,
you're committed, and oh if only people were just that
committed to the pewing journey of the dog, because exactly
like some of them may need a shorter time, some
of them may need longer time. The shortest I've seen
was two weeks, but it seems like in your case
(25:25):
maybe months.
Speaker 6 (25:26):
I would say from start to finish, it was almost
two years, because wow, it was really in the beginning
it was like three steps forward and four steps back.
She seemed to, you know, like one day she would
make a lot of progress and we'd go back to
the same place and it was like starting all over again.
And so he just keep doing it, and keep doing it,
(25:49):
and keep doing it. A lot of trainers and behaviors
say that that is flooding. If the dog truly, truly
is becoming that overwhelmed, stop you don't. You don't want
to cause more damage. You don't want to flood them
or overwhelm them. But I believe it's important to help
dogs face their fears. If my mother had given up
(26:12):
on me and never brought me to kindergarten, I might
never have gotten an education, you know. I mean, I'm
glad she hung in there with me, right right. I
knew this dog was smart, I knew she was sweet
and loving. I you know, and I just it was
(26:33):
like watching a flower bloom and slow motion, very slow motion.
But eventually I could see this beautiful rose all, you know,
in full bloom. It took it took a long time,
but it was worth waiting for. By the time gosh,
I actually trained. I got Nora to be able to
walk by the side of a road when there were
(26:55):
cars going by.
Speaker 8 (26:57):
Wow.
Speaker 6 (26:58):
Yeah, I mean, she would have she would have done
anything for me. We took a fun agility class together.
That was one of the best bonding experiences. It was
a great experience for her to meet other dogs and
meet other people. She was very athletic anyway, you know.
Her nickname by the end of the class was rocket
(27:18):
dog because she tried so hard, she was so fast.
It was we all cheered each other's dogs on. It
was it was fun. Agility for a lot of dogs
is a wonderful, wonderful way to bond with your dog.
I highly recommend it.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
Oh yeah, I support that sport.
Speaker 3 (27:37):
It looks fun, it sounds fun. I'm sure it's a
lot a lot of work.
Speaker 6 (27:41):
You know. I mean, once the dog gets the hang
of you know, okay, this is a jump, or this
is the tunnel or what. Once they kind of like
get a few things down right, it kind of triggers
them to try more and oh you want me to
go up this a frame? Okay, no problem, I can.
You know, they just it sort of I don't know
it once they can do one or two things really easily. Yeah,
(28:05):
they love it. But there was this is funny. There
was this one dog in our class. He was older,
he may have had I think he probably had arthritis
or something. He would do everything in the course, but
he would walk. He never ran at all, never, but
he did it. He still did it.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
But that's awesome. I'd love to see that.
Speaker 6 (28:26):
It was so much fun. It was so much fun. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
Now, before we wrap up, let's talk about your current projects.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
What are you up to? What are you what are
you working on?
Speaker 6 (28:35):
Well, I'm actually I just recently submitted a book proposal.
I've been writing a book about Nora and you know,
sort of what I think of as zooming in on
her and then zooming back out. The title of the book,
the working title of the book is called by the
Grace of Dog and it's lessons that Nora taught me.
(28:55):
You know she that's nice, Thank you. She was light
of my life. She changed my life. She helped me
become a better person, and she's also helped me work
with other dogs. I always think of her when I
work with other dogs. So I just recently submitted the
proposal to a literary agent in New York. And this
(29:18):
is a woman I selected in part because she has
dogs of her own and she's competed in agility with them,
and I thought, ooh, you know, maybe she'll maybe she'll
be interested in this, and I hope she is because
I'd love to get this book out there. I would
love to have people understand that when you are rehabilitating
a dog, just be patient and understand that it will
(29:44):
take them as long as it takes. Supportive of them,
always encourage them, always praise them when they get it,
you know, I mean, and you can see massive changes
in dogs in very little time. But you kind of
have to put again and put yourself in the dog's
pause and feel what the world must feel like for them.
(30:06):
How overwhelming is it for them?
Speaker 2 (30:08):
Absolutely?
Speaker 3 (30:09):
And it does take a oh, you know, a little
bit of effort to be self aware to observe it.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
But Nora, you prove that you can.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
Yeah, and especially when you came from a position of
having doubts.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
Yeah, you came a long way. That's awesome. I love
hearing about that.
Speaker 5 (30:22):
You know.
Speaker 6 (30:23):
I think those three nights that Nora was missing in
the desert, I remember saying, you know, God, if I
ever get another chance to be with this dog, I
promise I will never you know, I will figure this out.
Just give me another chance, please, you know. And you
know it took a while, but I'm so grateful. I'm
(30:44):
so grateful that she that I was reunited with her,
and I find it kind of I mean, today I
can kind of laugh about it. But she didn't try
to find her way back to my home. She found
her way back.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
To the shelter, right boy, don't tell you? Oh wow,
oh boy. Well we are at a time. I really
appreciate you Debbie for being here at our show, Producer
Work Winson for making the show possible. And if people
want to keep in touch with your book, what is
the best way for them to do so? We'll put
(31:17):
your email also on the on the show page.
Speaker 6 (31:20):
Yes probably. If you're interested in doing a dog behavior consultation,
please send me an email, which you mentioned is on
your web page. Now. I'm happy to do this on zoom.
I can do it on the phone. I've done that,
you know once the pandemic started, and I will give
your listeners a discount, so any questions you have. I've
(31:41):
also done dog behavior classes, which I love doing, and
now that we you know, everybody does zoom, I am
more than happy to gather together a group of people,
maybe five or six people for five or six weeks
and we can focus on anything that they need to
work on with their dogs.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Awesome.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
Thank you for that offer, very generous and if you
have any questions, comments or ideas for a show, please
email me at Beverly at petlifradio dot com. So, until
next time, spread animal compassion.
Speaker 5 (32:13):
Let's Talk Pets every week on demand only on petlifradio
dot com
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