Transformative Resilience: The Healing Power of Dogs and Human Connection

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:17):
so we are here today with zach scow from marley's
mutts.
But before we get into you,zach, how about we talk about
cora?

Speaker 2 (00:24):
let's do it.
What's her story?
What's her story?
We're here with zach scow ofthe cora rose fan club.
Um, so cora rose is a doubleamputee.
Prior to her I had anotherdouble amputee, her name was
noel, and noel came to us withbilateral fractures of her front
legs, which is a kind of commoninjury when you've been hit by

(00:44):
a car.
We tried to save her legs,couldn't save her legs, had to
amputate them to save her life.
Up to that point it was not aviable injury.
So you'd be euthanized if youhad that injury and you came
into a shelter.
We didn't amputate the frontlegs of dogs.
It was considered like kind ofcruel and unusual.
So when Noel you know herpredecessor went through that
and did it successfully andlearned how to walk on her back

(01:06):
legs, learned how to use a cartand was successfully adopted, a
whole bunch of rescues andshelters who were having
bilateral fractures come in,started to contact us.
So so Noel got, noel gotadopted and Cora came in three
weeks later.
Oh wow.
So the shelter in Madera.
We had shelters in Los Angeles.
All these people were sendingus dogs who may need a bilateral

(01:27):
amputation.
So Cora had broken legs,shattered pelvis, broken back
and was just in bad shape.
She had been casted on both ofher front legs for like two
months at this shelter Hadn'tbeen set, hadn't been treated
properly.
So when we took the one castoff, you know it was in worse

(01:48):
than bad shape.
So she had a basically terminalbone infection that had already
crept up a good portion of herelbow.
So we had to amputate that legimmediately.
We tried to save the other one.
That was not possible.
So we ended up having to do thesame surgery with her.
So, believe it or not, the, the,the most significant injury,

(02:08):
which is the losing of the legs,was not her biggest issue.
Uh, her pelvis was broken inlike eight places and when your
pelvis is broken you can'treally peeing's hard, eating's
hard, walking's hard, sleeping'shard, like you can't do
anything.
So, um, it was quite horrific.
It was.
It was quite um a shock to the,to the eyes, to the systems, to

(02:29):
your conscience, just to belooking at a dog that has a scar
all the way across his chestand going through what she was
going through.
So in the beginning, with herin particular, I thought, man,
did we do the right thing?
Like?

Speaker 1 (02:40):
was this?

Speaker 2 (02:41):
was this you had to thought about putting her down
yeah, I mean we not only wethought about putting her down,
the the lead veterinarytechnician of the hospital would
not sit in the surgery becausethey believed it was cruel and
unusual that amputating a dog,those dogs should just be
euthanized, right?
Um, ironically enough, thatsame veterinary technician,
about two years later, when wehad brought another dog in,

(03:03):
walked me out to the car andsaid hey, I just want to let you
know I was that tech thatwouldn't sit in on the surgery.
I just want to tell you thatI'm sorry and I think what
you're doing is great.
And she, by that point, nowworked on three of our double
front leg amputated dogs.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
We had a big one.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
We had a German Shepherd double front leg
amputee so he had a bilateralavulsion.
So he had a bilateral avulsion.
The nerves in his shoulders hadpopped out from being ejected
out of a pickup truck.
So when you land, if you are adog in the back of a pickup
truck and you flop out into thestreet, your legs will splay out
really quickly and that processwill rip the nerves out.

(03:37):
So he had these palsied legsand so we've had the whole
spectrum small dogs, big dogs.
Well, how?

Speaker 1 (03:44):
did it go from her to the surgery?
Do you keeping her?

Speaker 2 (03:48):
Well, I had.
Yeah, what happened was Cora,you know, cora's predecessor.
I'd had her for six months.
I really fell in love with her.
She got adopted, which wasgreat.
But Cora came in after.
Her process was just a littlemore laborious.
You know, we were that muchmore attached to her because her
, her recovery was verydifficult.
I had little ones come home atthe same time, so my, my
daughters were born at the sametime, around the same time.

(04:10):
So her whole, she integratedinto our family very, very
easily and she just got betterand better.
In the beginning she couldn'tdo anything.
She couldn't stand up to eat,she couldn't walk.

Speaker 1 (04:20):
She but now she's like a normal dog, just doesn't
have front legs.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
So I mean it just goes to show what you can
accomplish when you applyyourself a little bit every day
to getting better.
Right, just every day.
She'd apply herself a littlebit better to getting better and
she would get out of hercomfort zone.
Always, you know, she wasalways trying to do things that
she shouldn't be able to do.
How old is she now?
She's probably 11.

(04:44):
She was four when she came tous.
She was a street dog too, so,um, she looks like a princess
now, you know.
But she it's funny because Isay that because she looks like
a princess she looks like some,you know, like royalties dog,
but she's a street dog frommodesto, like she will rip open
a trash bag in two seconds.
She has like no manners.

(05:05):
She's a complete violator ofprivacy, like she's always
scavenging love and food.

Speaker 3 (05:12):
That is her ML in life.
Well, I mean the realitywatching her.
You know, take it up, take allthe love in.
Here is she is a princess now.

Speaker 2 (05:18):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 1 (05:18):
She's become one.

Speaker 3 (05:20):
Well, you know Carrie .

Speaker 1 (05:22):
She's my doctor and she has a rescue dog from our
foundation.

Speaker 2 (05:25):
Nice.
Yeah, jeremy Shepard, beautifuldog.
So when you have problems withJohn, do you just like take it
out on them?

Speaker 3 (05:32):
I love that dog.

Speaker 1 (05:33):
That dog was like a skinny thing right Now, how much
does your dog weigh?

Speaker 3 (05:36):
Yeah, he was 40 pounds less than he is now.
So he was around 70, I think,at the rescue.

Speaker 2 (05:41):
But you've got to know what I'm talking about when
we adopt out dogs to friends.
I've adopted hundreds of dogsout of people that I know, and
every once in a while you'll runinto someone and be like hey,
you remember that dog I got fromyou, and they'll start
complaining about what the dogdoesn't do.
Actually, no, the truth is well.

Speaker 3 (05:56):
I make comments about it only because he is spoiled.
Rotten, actually tell john jayall the time you know we did, we
weren't looking for the dog.
He kind of called us, caught usoff guard.
Hey, can you help us out?
You know?
We we need to replace this dogand we're like, oh, we're not
really looking for a dog rightthis second.

Speaker 1 (06:11):
But honestly I tell we say all the time how thankful
we are.
And don't you like make this?
I mean this dog.
I made this dog.

Speaker 3 (06:18):
This dog's a princess , her dog's a king I have a 26
pound turkey right now thawingout in the fridge that I have to
cook him tomorrow night.
So yeah, he's a little spoiled.

Speaker 2 (06:28):
It's not quite Thanksgiving, but nice, no, no,
he doesn't wait, that's just hisOctober turkey.

Speaker 1 (06:33):
Well, that's his October this week, turkey.
Where does he sleep and howdoes he get up in the morning?

Speaker 3 (06:37):
He gets up in the morning, he gets four raw eggs.
Look at this.

Speaker 2 (06:41):
Well, she digs her, makes her bed with her
non-existent front legs.

Speaker 1 (06:44):
That aren't there.
Oh, she's trying to dig her bed.
Yeah, she's making her comfybed.

Speaker 2 (06:47):
Oh wow, Isn't that the greatest.

Speaker 3 (06:49):
That is the greatest.

Speaker 2 (06:50):
She does it every night before we go to bed Not at
our house, oddly enough, but inhotel room beds.
She always does this.

Speaker 1 (06:57):
She'll always make it like she thinks she's
instinctually needing her bedphantom limb yeah, she's needing
her bed, so she literallydoesn't know she's missing legs
oh, she knows.

Speaker 2 (07:08):
I mean she knows especially to you know, um, the
way she introduces herself toother dogs and even to people.
She's she's very I don't wantto say she's a back of the pack,
like that kind of submissive.
But she acknowledges that she'sgot an injury to almost every
dog.
So dogs greet each other by bysniffing, by investigating one
another.
And how she moves herselfupside down to like give herself

(07:30):
completely.
She always like exposes herselfto new dogs to basically have
them notice.
You know what kind of impedimentshe's got.
She does it like right off thebat and almost all dogs even you
know, because my home wasfilled with reactive pit bulls,
king corso's, mastiffs I hadprior to her, believe it or not,
I had just a litany of verylarge troubled dogs for like a

(07:52):
decade.
So she's a huge departure fromthe normal type of dogs that I
have.
But for whatever reason, with alot of those dogs she has this,
this aura about her and the wayshe presents herself and the
way she's kind of like adaptedto her injury.
She is like ubiquitouslyaccepted.
I've never seen a dog notaccept her, which is kind of
rare.
Also with poodles they tend toperk the attention of a lot of

(08:15):
dogs because they're poofy,she's got colored hair, things
like that, but for whateverreason, she's very um, everybody
finds her, brings out thesofter side.

Speaker 3 (08:23):
She does, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (08:23):
Which is not Ranger's pretty aggressive, which is not
?

Speaker 3 (08:26):
Ranger at all, Right Well his name's Ranger.

Speaker 2 (08:28):
What are you going to expect?

Speaker 3 (08:29):
Well, his name wasn't Ranger, it was Boo Bunny when
at the shelter at Love Pup.
But yeah, it didn't quite fitthe whole personality of that
dog, so he's he's.

Speaker 2 (08:40):
From Boo Bunny.

Speaker 3 (08:41):
From Boo Bunny to Ranger.

Speaker 2 (08:44):
He's a badass.

Speaker 3 (08:45):
He is a badass 110-pound German shepherd with
attitude.

Speaker 2 (08:48):
Was that like a whole personality transition?
Did you have to explain to him?
You're like all right, nonemore of this little Boo Bunny
shit.

Speaker 3 (08:54):
You know, he fell right in line really quickly,
which was good.
It didn't take a lot ofeducation.

Speaker 2 (08:58):
Mommy needs protecting.
I don't need a Boo Bunny.

Speaker 1 (09:05):
I need aanger, who's capable of violence.
Let's jump, let's start, let'sshift gears and get to your
story.
Like I, I remember I had you onmy radio show.

Speaker 2 (09:09):
Well, can we just finish with her really quick
more with her.

Speaker 3 (09:11):
Yeah, of course there's more.
What else?
What?
Because, first off, it soundsto me like you've completely
changed the mindset ofveterinarians all over the
country.

Speaker 2 (09:18):
Well, yeah, to understand that there's been a
number of um, and I know yourwife will attest to this because
it's probably one of the thingsthat really brought her into
our organization.
But we've always pridedourselves in trying to provide
opportunities to dogs who don'thave them, who would otherwise
be cast aside.
He came into the shelter, histongue was cut out, ears were
cut off and this was an injurythat nobody had seen.

(09:51):
You know how do you deal with adog with no tongue, like
tortured or there was a mistake?
Yeah, like it was a fight, maybeit could have been cut out,
could have been fought up, buthis ears had been definitely cut
off just rudimentarily withlike a.
He was a big french mastiff.
He came into kern county animalservices and beautiful dog.
He had pneumonia at the timeand when I went in to meet him I
had no idea, I didn't pick upthat he was missing a tongue.

(10:14):
Nobody did so.
We rescued him, took him rightto the vet and the vet called me
a couple hours later and saidum, she was like in tears and
this was a tough gal.
And she said um, hey, you know,we went to intubate this boy,
you know, and move his tongueaside to tape the intubation
tube in, and there's no tongue.
And we're like, what do youmean?
There's no tongue, he's likeit's severed at the epiglottis,

(10:35):
like at the base of his throat.
So when you have a dog likethat, a huge dog, he's
brachycephalic, so you know,underbite, um, they can't
regulate their body temperature,they can't drink, they can't
eat.
So all of a sudden we have thisdog who's terribly skinny he's
obviously been losing weightever since he's been at the
shelter.
Um, they didn't understand whyhe wasn't eating or what his

(10:57):
problems were.
And so all of a sudden we'regoing oh boy, what are we going
to do with this dog?
You know, and he was such aspecial boy like so he teetered
on the precipice of euthanasiaor rescue there for a few days.
They put a esophageal feedingtube in his neck and he started
to come around.
And he started to come aroundand we kept him at the
veterinary hospital for a while.
We got him a bailey's chair,which is for dogs, with mega

(11:19):
esophagus which helps them situpright so that gravity will
help food go down their throat.
And within a couple of weeks wedialed in this process of
feeding him.
We were able to take out hisesophageal feeding tube, which
was giving him food and water.
He started to drink out of amop bucket in the hospital that
was deep, almost like a horselike, because you can't lick he.

(11:41):
So we would create this suctioneffect and all of a sudden we've
got this viable, tongueless dogwho is eating out of our hands.
So we would basically scoop insoaked dry food into our hands
with water and pour it down theback of his throat.
And we did that his whole life.
For nine years or 10 years.
We cared for him.

(12:01):
He learned how to drink, like Isaid, relatively quickly.
We learned how to feed him, ofwhich there was a couple methods
.
We would do protein balls, butusually dry food just out of our
hands, and he's a hundred poundFrench Mastiff with no ears and
no tongue and you're stickingyour hand on his throat to feed
him.
But he was just an absolutelyincredible dog.

(12:23):
So that was the first injurywhere we kind of convinced the
veterinary community and therescue community that this is a
viable injury and, of course,right after that, tons of people
started reaching out.
We've got a dog with partiallymissing tongue, fully missing
tongue and we've had, I think,five or six of them since then
and Hooch went on to become atherapy dog.
He lived an illustrious career,hero, dog of the year in 2016

(12:48):
and just an incredibly specialdog.
My dad really bonded him in theend, and so that was one of the
first examples that taught us.
Hey, you know, let's look atthis a little bit differently.
And so Cora is kind of alongthat line where we could have
euthanized her.
We wanted to try and give it ashot, and because we did, we
could have euthanized her.
We wanted to try and give it ashot and because we did, it's
now considered a more viableinjury that can be treated as
opposed to euthanized.

Speaker 1 (13:08):
So people come to you still every day.
Can you take this dog?
Can you take this dog?
Yeah, how do you say no?

Speaker 2 (13:13):
Uh, cause it's tough with those injuries Any kind of
dog.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (13:17):
For.

Speaker 2 (13:17):
Oh any out constantly and you know I'm, if you're
anything like me, you're a bitof a people pleaser and you want
to make people happy and it's,and you don't want suffering,
you know?
Um, yeah, it's one of thehardest when they get a hold of
me.

Speaker 1 (13:31):
That's when it's hard .
I like to push them off to mywife, push them off to some of
the people in the staff thathave no problem saying no
exactly that way it's, you know.
You know what I mean.
Or if they message me oninstagram, I like to ignore them
as much as I can.
I have like a theory that if,if I ignore them and if they get
through to me three differenttimes, then I'm like I gotta get
this dog in here.
They tried other places andthey're back.

Speaker 2 (13:52):
Let me bring it in you know, but so there's cora so
cora's and where how we'vedeveloped her since she's been
with me for six years.
We've taken her into ourmiracle mut program.
So we have a big therapyeducation program with about 30
dog teams.
So these are certified therapyteams that we send out

(14:12):
throughout the community.
We have a contract with DignityHealth, with Adventist Health.
We have like 100 nonprofitpartners.
So adults, handicapped daycare,schools for autistic children,
like everywhere that thehuman-animal bond could be
important or could affect change, we try to bring our dogs.

Speaker 1 (14:31):
That's nuts, man.
Weren't you just also at theWhite House or doing something
we were in?

Speaker 2 (14:35):
2018 for the First Step Act.
That was the first criminaljustice reform passed in several
decades.
For our positive change programyeah.

Speaker 1 (14:45):
Okay, let's get to you, and then I want to jump
around these different programs,okay.
So when I first talked to you Iwas like eight years ago or so
my wife's been a fan of yoursfor 10 years and we finally
connected on the radio show andI remember you talking about how
you got into this, but itstarted because you lived here.

Speaker 2 (15:01):
Yeah, you lived here yeah, rock bottom was lived here
.
Yeah, rock bottom was Arizona.
Baby Rock bottom.

Speaker 1 (15:05):
What was rock bottom for you?
What happened?

Speaker 2 (15:08):
Rock bottom was kind of a combination of things.
I mean, your rock bottom islike a trajectory right, so I
definitely began it in Tucson onMiracle Mile, baby Jeez.

Speaker 3 (15:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (15:22):
That was you know.

Speaker 3 (15:23):
What year was that?

Speaker 2 (15:24):
That was 1999.
Yeah, that was where that was.
You know what year is that?
That was 1999.
Okay, yeah, 1999, 2000, 2001.
That was when I got into, youknow, cocaine and crack and
making crack and selling.
You know you get caught up withcertain people and I didn't
have any money and I was failingout of schools.
I'd become an alcoholic at thatpoint and so kind of that began

(15:46):
my hard drug kind of spiral.
But then when I was up here inPhoenix I was working at the
Improv in Tempe, which was agreat place to work as an
alcoholic and junkie.
Because, you know, working at acomedy club is interesting
because it's, you know, you'reopen from 4 until like 2 in the
morning, 2.30 in the morning.
Everybody's on that sameschedule.

(16:08):
Everybody are college studentsand kind of hip party folks.
So it was a, it was a specialplace to work.
But, um, by that point I wasdrinking 24 hours a day.
I needed to drink 24 hours aday.
I was using with whatever othermoney that I had or I could
scrounge and, um, my body wasjust failing.
You know, I was gettingscrounge and my body was just
failing.
You know I was getting.
I was having little issues hereand there, but it was obvious

(16:29):
to me that something was goingto happen.
You know, about 2006, 2007, Istarted to have just physical
anomalies that I couldn'texplain.
I moved back to California endof 2007.
And then I immediately went intoliver failure.
I started, well, I didn'trealize I was going into liver
failure.
I knew something was.
I didn't realize I was goinginto liver failure.
I knew something was acutelyhappening to me that was not
good, but I didn't realize itwas liver failure because I

(16:51):
wouldn't go to a hospital.
So I started to turn yellow.
I started to get huge swollen Ilooked nine months pregnant,
started to lose my coherencebecause I had ammonia, you know,
building up on my brain.
So I started to not realizewhere I was at, have these and
sometimes you're not aware thatyou're having those moments.
So you have to have someone.

(17:12):
Someone will look at you and belike, are you, are you okay?
And you won't be aware that youjust have this lapse in being
present.
You know, when you have ammoniabuildup on your brain, because
your liver is not filtering itout of your system, it it almost
makes you, uh, you know, halfhalf here, half not, um, so I
stayed.
You know I was having issueswith blood coming out of the

(17:34):
wrong places regularly and Iknew when that the first time
that happened is when I gotscared, you know.
And then that just happenedevery night or every day and you
just start to think that, well,I'm just going to sweep this
under the rug, like everything.
I was so terrified to go to thehospital because I knew they
were going to tell me it wasrelated to my alcohol and drug
use and having to confront thatthat would have been the end of

(17:57):
me.
People don't necessarilyrealize how inexorably connected
you are to your alcohol or yourdrugs, I couldn't exist without
it.
Period, it was impossible forme to think about existing
without alcohol or drugs.

Speaker 3 (18:11):
So you had more fear of that being taken away than
the fact that you were bleedingout of abnormal places.

Speaker 2 (18:16):
Oh, definitely Because I couldn't cope with
when I was not, you know, goingthe physical.
The withdrawals that I wouldhave from alcohol were terrible
and you know those would happenimmediately if I didn't drink.
There's a couple times I triedto make it a day without
drinking.
I'd go into withdrawals by like2 am is that a genetic thing,
carrie?

Speaker 1 (18:34):
or is that because?

Speaker 3 (18:35):
well, yeah, partially it is actually genetic.
I don't know if you have anyother family members or have a
family history of any type ofaddiction problems, but we, you
know people say well is becausethe family members they would
live through an addictionproblem, or is it's really more
genetic than you think?
Not everybody will have thesame reaction to drug and
alcohol.
People will use the sameamounts that you used and never
talk about liver failure intheir entire life.

(18:56):
But some bodies are not set upto handle that load.
Well, I was drinking.

Speaker 2 (19:01):
You know, my grandfather died of liver
failure when he was 41.

Speaker 3 (19:06):
It's a marvelous story.

Speaker 2 (19:08):
Yeah, I became connected to him in my recovery,
which is very interesting.
But I mean, I drank.
The thing about alcoholism, youknow, I drank every day from
probably junior year, senioryear of high school on.
I started to drink.
I drank every night, I startedto drink every day, all day,

(19:29):
from 2003 until I got sick in2008, and you know, in the in
the last years I was drinkinglike a box of wine a day.
I couldn't afford anything.
So, box of a box of franzia 799back then you're getting five
liters of astronaut wine in abag, inside of a box that you
can pour it around with you, andso it was not like I was

(19:50):
drinking a 12-pack, I wasdrinking eight or nine bottles
of wine a day.

Speaker 1 (19:54):
It's so weird to hear that from you, because when I
look at you right now, you lookextremely healthy.

Speaker 2 (19:58):
You would never know.
That was where you were at onepoint and I needed it.
The chasing, that fix as analcoholic, I needed it.
You know I, I, um, I was soconvinced that I was.
I've always struggled withworth worthlessness, you know.
But when you're in the spiralsof of alcoholism, that
worthlessness is is inescapable,you know.

(20:18):
And I was even more worthlesswithout it.
You know I, uh, so much of mypersonality, so much of my
sociability, so much of my justgeneral fear of my surroundings
was controlled by alcohol, youknow I would.
Alcohol helped me get to a pointwhere I felt like everybody
else.
You know, I had this low gradelike simmering anxiety and like

(20:42):
malaise that I just couldn't,couldn't get away from.
But alcohol would kind of feellike it would let me breathe,
like I could exist without itbeing such a terrible time.
To exist, like just being alivewas difficult.
You know, just being in my ownskin and trying to be contented
in me, with me, coexisting withme, was really, really
challenging.
And when you're traipsingaround those dark corners of

(21:03):
your mind, sometimes alcohol isthe only thing that keeps you,
like within the lines, feelingmore sane.
And when I didn't have alcoholor drugs.
I felt absolutely insane.
You know, the craziest I'veever been is when I don't have
alcohol or drugs.

Speaker 1 (21:16):
You know um how long have you been sober right?

Speaker 2 (21:19):
now just had 16 man wow 16 years 16 fucking years
wow 16.
I couldn't do 16 minuteswithout, without a drink, you
know so.
So take us there?

Speaker 1 (21:31):
how did you so you?
You have liver failure.

Speaker 3 (21:33):
You obviously went to the hospital at some point yeah
, so um you must have hadfriends around you that said,
look, we've got to take oh boy.

Speaker 2 (21:40):
Well, at that point I was wearing long sleeve clothes
to cover up all the yellow andthe bruising, because you bruise
real easily when you're inliver failure.
My eyes were totally yellow, myskin was like yellowish gray,
so I would tan, I would sitoutside and try to make myself
not look yeah, and I wouldn't bearound people.
And then finally my dad, youknow, really got onto it, knew

(22:01):
there was things, because hewould hear me in the bathroom
and so I went to the doctor, didall my tests, was real nervous
about it, and then I went in andshe called me back to her
office this nurse and I hadknown her from like the streets
and do her daughter, and shesaid, uh, she sat me down and
she grabbed my hand and shestarted to pet, pet my hand and
she was like you know, honey,and she started to get like

(22:22):
emotional, you know know.
She said you're in liverfailure and you need to go to a
hospital.
And I was like what do you mean?
She's like you know, you'redying and you this could you
know, this could kill you andyou need to go to a hospital
right now and we can transferyou or you can go on your own,
but you need to go to a hospitalright now and you know, I heard
that and like I remember thewave.

(22:44):
I remember like every ounce ofblood and possibilities and hope
, and like everything drainingout of my body and just going.
Oh well, there it is, dude, I'mdead, like I'm dead because I
can't do this, I can't do lifewithout alcohol, and I'm dead
because I'm apparently they'retelling me I'm going to die,
yeah.
And I tried to convince her.
Like nah, I've just been on onefor like a week.

(23:05):
She's like that's not how livertests work, you know, you're
not just like on a bender that'sflared up your liver, like.
So I uh went home and lied.
I didn't even I couldn't.
You know, my dad wasn't with meat the hospital, so I just went

(23:28):
home and and lied and told himI was.
I told him no hard liquor, youknow, just wine, just bullshit
him because again, I couldn't,I'd never been in recovery, I'd
never been to a program, I'dnever been without alcohol or
drugs, like there was no way, Ididn't have the tools to address
this.
So I hid it for a little whilelonger and then, you know, I
really started to bleed likebadly and I did some research
and one of the ways you die fromliver failure is esophageal

(23:49):
varices.

Speaker 3 (23:50):
It's a miserable death.
Yeah, I've witnessed that.
People need to understand that.

Speaker 2 (23:53):
It is the most miserable thing you could ever
imagine.

Speaker 3 (23:55):
It is the most miserable death you could ever
imagine.

Speaker 2 (23:56):
Esophageal varices occur when your liver is not
accepting all of this blood andbile that's being pumped through
your hepatic duct.
So because it can't get throughthe duct, it gets this portal
hypertension, this high bloodpressure.
So it essentially goes aroundyour liver and it puts undue
pressure on the veins in youresophagus, the arteries in your
esophagus.
They literally blow up and theywill burst and then you bleed

(24:19):
out orally.

Speaker 3 (24:20):
Yeah, trajectory bleeding.

Speaker 2 (24:21):
Yeah, it's the worst thing.

Speaker 3 (24:23):
I had a sponsor.
You've been in the room.

Speaker 2 (24:25):
Oh yeah, me too.
I had a sponsee who wentthrough it and they brought in a
crash cart to solder to burnhis veins shut.
So this is happening, while I'mtalking to him, he goes into an
episode with his family present.
And, yeah, they brought in acrash cart worked on him and

(24:45):
then soldered his veins closedin his throat cauterized him,
sorry, yeahthanks, right in front of you,
yeah, yeah I was in the don'treally have any time you're,
you've got seconds to you'relike, arterially it is as much
blood as you can imagine it willhit walls 15 so did that make
an impact on you when you sawthat?
well, this was.
That was after I got sober, butwhen it started happening to me
, I was having these, these likeperforations, these agitations.
So I wasn't arterially bleeding, I was having like bits of

(25:09):
blood and they were trying tofigure out.
They did endoscopies and foundout that I was swollen, but it
hadn't.
You know, my varices were therebut they hadn't, and you could
see them on the outside.
You could see.
You know these, see, you knowthese.
They look like cords, bluecords, coming down the throat
and uh, yeah, so they werepretty convinced that I could be
.
Uh, my varices weren't going toburst, even though I was

(25:30):
agitating them so much.
Um, but, uh, I I finally cameto with my dad, you know, and
explained to him what I wasexperiencing physically.
Um, explained to him what hadhappened and he took me to the
hospital and they checked me infor long-term care.
It was at Bakersfield MemorialHospital.
They don't do liver transplantthere.
I went into withdrawal, youknow, alcohol withdrawal, and my

(25:53):
kidneys crashed.
I don't remember like the firstfour or five days, but I
remember Sitting with my dad inthe hospital room.
I remember the doctor coming inwith his team and I remember
them just very matter-of-factly,telling my dad he needs a liver
transplant or he's going to die.
And unfortunately he's notgoing to get a liver transplant.

(26:15):
He's got 90 or less days tolive and we're going to try to
keep him comfortable.
We're going to do what we canto try to address your liver.
We're going to give you frozenplasma transfusions so I had
tons of those to try to bring mynumbers down so that they could
do a proper biopsy.
When your liver is failing thatbadly, your blood is so thin

(26:38):
that it won't clot.
So if I get cut, if I have anysort of a, you just bleed and
they can't use blood stoppersbecause you have other
complications.
Just bleed and they can't useblood stoppers because you have
other complications.
So like it's a really um, it'sa really tumultuous diagnosis
because there's some.
And then also when your liverfails, your kidney, your
pancreas, your gallbladder, likeeverything how are you here?

Speaker 1 (26:58):
right now.
Yeah, like what happened?
Did you get?

Speaker 3 (27:01):
a liver transplant.
There had to be, so there hadto be a better purpose yeah, so
um, I mean talk about it.

Speaker 2 (27:06):
So the only thing they could really do to help me
outside of these plasmatransfusions which were the
worst, because it was frozen.
So you just freeze your ass offand you're already so sensitive
when you're in liver failure totemperature, like you get so
cold and they would tap my it'scalled paracentesis, so they cut
a hole in my back and theywould drain my.

(27:27):
It's called paracentesis, sothey cut a hole in my back and
they would drain my stomachBecause you're just filled with
liters and liters and it's sopainful I can't tell you how
painful having all this shitbuilt up in your abdominal, so
your abdominal cavity just fillswith blood and bile Because
it's not being processed by yourliver, so it just leaks into
your abdominal cavity and itpokes out.

Speaker 3 (27:43):
And you do look pregnant.
They look nine months pregnantcavity and it pokes out and you
do look pregnant, they look morepregnant than pregnant.

Speaker 2 (27:48):
Wow, I still have, you know, stretch marks all over
the both of my sides from fromthat and uh, yeah, I mean
essentially they.
What they said is, if we can'tbring your numbers down, if we
can't, you know, get your, yourbilly rubin, your ast, your lt,
all these different metrics down.
You know, this is just whatit's going to be like.
And when you become become sickenough, you know, or when
insurance refuses to pay for you, we'll send you home on hospice

(28:10):
, you know, because you can't,you need six months of sobriety
to qualify for a transplantperiod.
You cannot get into atransplant program.
There's only seven hospitals inCalifornia that do liver
transplant and I was not at oneof them.
So it was hopeless, man, to behonest.
There was just no hope.
You know, I had some friendscoming and visiting me.

(28:30):
I don't think people reallyknew overall how bad it was back
then.
You know what kind of shape Iwas in.
But the first real sense ofhope and I got addicted to
Dilaudid immediately, like youwant to.
Yeah, I'm going to have a whole.
Well, I was whole what was theaddict?

Speaker 3 (28:46):
switch to the next addiction that's part of the
problem is, you know we have touse drugs like benzodiazepines
to get you off alcohol, but thenyou become addicted to the
benzodiazepine feeling, andthat's the challenge is helping
them break the addiction cyclewhich is much bigger than just
coming off the drug du jour.
Yeah, 100.

Speaker 2 (29:05):
I mean I got into, uh , I got in there, went through
withdrawals, you know, and whenI kind of came to they were
looking at the pain chart on thewall the smiley face, the
straight face, the frowny faceand then the crying frowny face.

Speaker 3 (29:21):
You were the crying.

Speaker 2 (29:22):
Crying frowny face all day long, baby that means.
Dilaudid and morphine everyfour hours and you know it, just
like how Cora wants to eatdinner right now.
You know exactly when yourtime's coming up, which nurse to
bitch at and complain to.
Within like a week or two weeks, I was a danger to myself and
others in the hospital, so I hada babysitter attached to me who

(29:44):
had to do everything with me.
This has got to be a movie atsome point, and it babysitter
attached to me, who had to doeverything with me, and this has
got to be a movie at some pointand uh, it was wild man.

Speaker 1 (29:49):
So what happened?
How do you did you?
Where do they think?

Speaker 2 (29:50):
where I'm sitting in my hospital room and my dad is
an engineer, so all he isthinking about is not losing his
son and he's there every day.
Right, my mom wasn't there, Ididn't have that have.
My dad was my dude and he stillis like.
That dude rode with methroughout it all.
He's driving an hour and a halfto get to the hospital every

(30:11):
morning.
Um, and I come, come to my roomand there's three dudes in
there tattooed with like theylook like mormons like short
sleeve dress up shirts with ties, yeah, and like, what is what
is all this?
and uh, it was an aa meeting.
It was an hni meeting foralcoholics, anonymous.
They came to my hospital roomto have a meeting of my first

(30:31):
meeting of aa.
Right, I'm going, holy shit,this is interesting.
But uh, the guy that was inthere had gotten through liver
failure in prison and my dad isonly hearing all this data.
That is, your son's gonna die,your son's gonna die, your son's
gonna die.
And here's this dude.
He went through hepatitis C,liver failure, which is a
different type of liver failure,but nonetheless liver failure.

(30:51):
So here's this dude.
Looks like a million bucks,went through it in prison.
I'm in a real hospital, notprison, you know.
Maybe I've got hope, and so thatwas a real catalyst to get my
dad motivated to try to figurethis out.
And he just never gave up.
Man Again, he's an engineerwith like a tactful strategic,
never say die, we're going tofigure this out.
Like mentality.

(31:12):
He's not exuberant like that,but he's very focused and like
engineering minded, you know.
And so he just was going tofind a way to get me a
transplant.
That was his just goal.
Is he?
My son is going to have a livertransplant.
We're going to get this for him, we're going to figure it out.
And a couple of weeks later,this nurse that we were working
with through my insurance, shewas at UCLA, one of the

(31:34):
hospitals that did transplant,and she connected me with the
transplant team at Cedars andthey had an opportunity for me
to come basically apply for thetransplant program.
But I had to be there, you know, and so we found, had this
opportunity.
My dad says we're going, we'regoing to do it, we're taking you
to cedar.
And I was born at cedars, youknow, in 1997, I mean 1979, and

(31:55):
uh, so we go to pull everythingout.
Doctors are going you can'tfucking leave here, you know
you're, you're extremely fragile, like you could die on the
drive down there.
You can't leave, leave thishospital.
My dad's like fuck you, we'releaving, you know.
And he, so they bring the legalpeople down to sign me out
against doctor's orders, a stackof paperwork he's got to sign,
pull the shit out of me.
And we sped down the two and ahalf hours to Cedar, sinai, and

(32:19):
we met with Dr Tram Tran and hertransplant team and they
admitted me into the program andthey said um, look, this is
like really, really really close, call um, but if we keep you
here you're gonna die.
Um, so we're gonna send youhome and we're gonna take you
off almost all of yourmedication.
Um, we're gonna send you hometo the care of your dad and your

(32:40):
dogs and stay close to anemergency room because you're
gonna need it.
You know so.
And my dad's going what thefuck are you talking about?
We're gonna do what?
Why?

Speaker 3 (32:49):
did they say if, if we keep you here, you're gonna
die.
What was their thought process?

Speaker 2 (32:53):
the thought process was I was addicted to drugs, I
was failing you were addicted todilaudid at this point if you
graphed my.
I've been there for five and ahalf weeks, so if you graph my
progress, I got sicker every day.
I was the hospital.
I got sicker and sicker, andsicker and sicker.
Quality of the food wasterrible.
The amount of things they wereputting in my body was, and they
were trying to treat mydepression.
They were trying to treat myinsomnia.

(33:15):
They're trying to treat my pain.

Speaker 3 (33:16):
They're trying to treat my liver All drug based.

Speaker 2 (33:17):
Trying to treat my kidneys all with pills, get
another medication All which aredone through the filtering
systems of your body, which ofmine, were failing.
So you're going to put more andmore shit through my system
that my body can't process.

Speaker 1 (33:28):
Poor dad man.
Well, your dad must've beengoing through to see his son
going through this.
It's unbelievable.
So at what point?
Like, when I look at you herein front of me, you look like an
extremely healthy guy.
So where, when, did things turnaround?

Speaker 2 (33:39):
Only on the outside.

Speaker 1 (33:40):
When did someone go?
We got a liver for you.
Is that what happened?

Speaker 2 (33:44):
No, it's not what happened.
Sorry, it takes a long time,it's just a process.
So I got admitted to theprogram.
So I'm officially a transplantpatient.
So if I can stay alive for sixmonths and not drink or use,
they'll get me a livertransplant.
They send me home.
I go through withdrawalsimmediately, which was terrible.
So I convinced my dad to takeme for shots of dope at the

(34:05):
hospital A couple of times.
I fooled him to you know.
Just keep me going.

Speaker 3 (34:09):
Yeah, so now we're going for through narcotic
withdrawal.

Speaker 2 (34:18):
Oh yeah, it was terrible, it was the worst.
Um, if I didn't have my, my pitbull, marley, with me, like I
was so suicidal but I couldbarely move when I was going
through that Cause it was sofragile physically and these
were terrible withdrawals.
I mean, when I was goingthrough that because it was so
fragile physically and thesewere terrible withdrawals, I
mean, you know, tremoringuncontrollably, seeing things,
hearing things, blood comingdown my walls, it was, I was.

Speaker 3 (34:36):
It's like a Stephen King movie.

Speaker 2 (34:37):
It was and I just had my I remember my hand just on
his chest, like his solar, justlike feeling his chest, and he
was so confident and so sturdyand so present, and so there
that I just remember, and I wasjust shaking, I just remember
going like, just holding him,just going fuck me, Let me get
through this, you know, and um,and then after that, you know,

(34:58):
when I got through, that therewas then it was suicide, because
I had couldn't put my mindanything productive.
It's just, I'm a waste, wasteof space.
I'm doing this to my dad, I'mdoing this to myself, I'm not
going to live anyway.
This is all a waste.
Um, and sometimes, when you havelike, when you feel like all of
your agency is gone from, fromlife, you know, sometimes all
you can do is like take yourlife, you know, is like remove

(35:21):
yourself from the equation.
When you, when there's nothingI could practically do to like
help myself, I, I couldn't walkat the time, I was so ill and uh
, so I would just sit up there,you know, with my dad's gun and
and, uh, and just you know, rackbullets in, put bullets, take
them out, rack them in, pop theclip out, pop it in think about
where I was going to go.

(35:42):
Um, think about how, you know,just like, I spent several days
just like spiraling through thatprocess and you know, it wasn't
until it was about a few weeksafter getting out of the
hospital and I had a reallyterrible moment in bed.

(36:02):
You know, you lose control ofyour bowels very regularly
because you're on this medicine.

Speaker 3 (36:06):
Medication that does that.

Speaker 2 (36:08):
Oh, and you lose and lactose they're the worst.
So they just make you, you know,lose yourself.
And, um, I gotten up out of bedto try to clean myself off and,
uh, you know, I walked by themirror in my bathroom, the
downstairs bathroom, and youknow this is wild to think about
, but, but I passed by this fulllength mirror and I looked

(36:30):
myself in the mirror and youknow, it was completely yellow.
I looked like I was 80.
My belly was so big and it'sjust varicose veins, this huge
belly, my belly button'sherniated, you know, it's
sticking out.
I'm rail thin because I've beenin the hospital for a month and
a half, so my muscles haveatrophied.

(36:50):
I'm completely purple andyellow and my eyes were all sunk
into my head and and I lookedat myself in the mirror and I
just went, oh, it is realfluorescent light bulbs and I
didn't recognize, like, any ofwhat I was looking at, you know,
and I remember sticking my likenose up to the mirror and
looking at my eyes trying tofigure out, like, is that me, is

(37:13):
that fucking me, you know, andI just like, oh, my God, this is
.
I can't believe this is wherewe are, you know, and I just
started sobbing, just like youknow, this is the most pathetic
thing in the world.
I can't believe you've donethis to yourself.
You know, know, this is themost pathetic thing in the world
.
I can't believe you've donethis to yourself.
You know, this is what you dowhen you're left to your own
devices.
This is like well done, scowl.

(37:33):
Look what you've done toyourself.
You know, and just never alower moment of, especially as,
like a, we all have a certainlevel of vanity to ourselves to
like see yourself in such adeplorable state and then kind
of like looking like death.
You know meaning, like you justkind of know you're not going
to be around.
It's a surreal feeling, youknow.

(37:56):
And uh, you know I looked overat my dogs and they're all
sitting by the toilet because Ispent a lot of time there, and
they're all looking up at melike nothing's wrong.
You know, like we're going tobe okay and like not only do

(38:17):
they see me in there, but theysee like a future for me, that
they recognize that I'm still inthere, that even though I don't
see myself, I don't recognizemy morality, my who.
I am physically, who I ammorally, who I am spiritually
what the fuck am I?
I don't, I don't see myselfanymore.
I'm looking at somebody who Idon't recognize anymore.
But my dog still saw me andthey saw me.

(38:40):
I saw, right through all thesephysical problems and everything
I was going through, and theykind of acknowledge just who I
was, that I was standing infront of them, that I was going
to be okay, that we were goingto be okay, you know.
And I got to thinking aboutwhat would happen, you know, if
I wasn't around for them.

(39:02):
And, uh, I didn't go back tosleep that night, we just stayed
up and I tried to journal.
I just remember writing andwriting, and writing, and
writing, and writing and writingthat night.
And then, as the sun started tocome up, I thought to myself my
handwriting is terrible and myspelling is dog shit, I'm going
to die next week.

(39:22):
Someone's going to find this,they're going to go.
Boy, he really was a dumbass.
Look at this handwriting andthis spelling.
But I took a picture of thesunrise that morning and then
that next day was like the firstday of the rest of our lives,
like me and the dogs, justcommitted to like, rigorously
committed to trying to getbetter, like every moment of
every day was spent trying toget better and we just started

(39:45):
by walking, like just walking,and I couldn't walk barely at
all like down the driveway andback like a few dozen feet and I
would walk around, kind of theyou know the property.
And every day I started to geta little bit better and I
changed everything that went inmy body.
You know only vegetables,grilled vegetables, clean

(40:06):
protein sources, no complexcarbohydrates, no sugars,
started making smoothies,basically vegetable smoothies,
and trying to eat clean and um,the process was like rapid.
I started to get better, likeimmediately, and I got off all
every drug I was taking.
So I was on 17 medications whenI got transferred and within

(40:28):
the first like month of gettingout of the hospital, I was on 17
different medicines and none ofthem were really medicines.
They were all in some way,shape or form killing me or not
doing me any positives.
And as soon as I, you know,really cut down, when it went
into my body and started to move, started to move my body,
started to replenish my body,things started to get better.
And at that point I'm going toCedars every two days and then

(40:49):
it's, then it was like everyweek for testing.
You know I was having liverMRIs and CTs and all kinds of
stuff, and you know, it wasabout after the first month or
two, certainly by November,because I got out of the
hospital September 8th, 2008.
And by Thanksgiving I wasreally starting to look
different, like my jaundice wasgoing away.

(41:10):
I actually went to Thanksgivingdinner, like with my family.
People were surprised to see me, um, and it just never stopped.
I just kept getting better andbetter and better and the whole
time I'm trying to, you know,survive for transplant, if I can
get six months so and I'm goingto meetings, constantly going
to meetings twice a day.
I made my home at in recovery.

(41:30):
My every thing I have in lifeis owed to recovery.
Every single thing I have,without exception, is due to,
you know, working a program athousand percent.
You know, there is no other way, there would have been no other
way for me to find, you know,salvation or happiness or
sobriety.
The fellowship, the structureof the fellowship, the

(41:51):
acceptance inherent within thoseprograms was like, was critical
for me, if you could graph myself-esteem on a chart, just
from cause.
I needed to practice.
I needed to practice livingsober.
I had no fucking idea how tolive.
I couldn't drive sober.
I had driven intoxicated mywhole life, wildly intoxicated I
mean I was.
I would gen genuinely havethese panic sensations just

(42:13):
driving because I couldn't.
You know, I was so used tobeing sedated and the program
really gave me a place topractice being a human and
practice interactions withfemales and interactions with
men.
And then I got to bring my dogsaround and you know, I started
fostering dogs about a monthinto the process for

(42:34):
organizations that I had workedfor in the past.
So like about a month and ahalf, two months after getting
out of the hospital.
You know, we had three fosterdogs, then that went to five and
six and we had a litter ofpuppies and then those would get
adopted.
And so all of this time I spentworrying about myself, my
inadequacies, my insecurities.
I spent on the dogs, I spent onwalking them, creating

(42:56):
structure for them.
I would write their biographies, I would take their pictures
and I'd always write their.
Their biographies were alwayslike ludicrous.
It was always like prisonstories because they come from
the shelter, so it would be likecookie.
You know, black lab blah, blah,blah.
I was incarcerated fordisorderly conduct or peeing in
public or streaking or just dumbdog stories that were

(43:17):
completely fabricated and I putthem up all over stores all
through town, so like severaldozen stores.
And so I'd go in and I was theyellow dog rescue dude who had a
rottweiler pit bull who wastrying to find dogs homes.
And I was working for a coupledifferent organizations.
You know, you know fosteringand, and it just kept building
momentum and they didn't do bigdogs where we were, but I was

(43:39):
fostering all the big dogs andwe started to have success
because of these dumb assposters that I was doing and
everybody kept saying, well, youjust got to keep doing this.
I'm like, all right, let's keepdoing it.
And again, all my attentionthat had previously been put on
myself my own shit, my ego, my,this, my that was put into
service.
I spent very little timethinking about myself.
It was thinking about mybrothers and sisters in the

(43:59):
program, thinking about my dogsand thinking about being
creative with how I market thesedogs and being creative with
how I train these dogs.
So all of a sudden now I'mengaged in creativity and things
that I didn't really have inlife.
I wasn't a very creative person.

Speaker 1 (44:12):
And all the time you're doing this, your liver is
healing itself.

Speaker 2 (44:14):
Yeah, I'm just getting better and better every
week.

Speaker 1 (44:16):
So you're literally sitting here in front of us
without a liver transplant.
Yeah, your liver healed itself.

Speaker 2 (44:21):
Well I have.
So I went in for my six monthreview at Cedars to be, you know
, kind of determined eligible.
And you know, in order to get atransplant your MELD score has
to be essentially above 17 for aparticular period of time.
Your MELD score is your modelfor end-stage liver disease
score.
That score is based onbilirubin, albumin, est, alt,

(44:42):
all of these factors that spitout your creatinine, that spit
out a figure.
My score was 26,.
So I was plenty eligible.
But by the time I had six monthssober it had dropped down.
I was no longer transplanteligible and my numbers were
continuing to improve.
So I had, you know, I was endstage for, I think, five years

(45:03):
and then I became stage threefibrosis in like six years ago
or maybe a little bit longer.
So my body continues to, myliver continues to regress in
terms of its cirrhosis, and Iknow this is complicated and
we're getting kind of technical.
But cirrhosis is scarring ofthe liver.
You're not supposed to getbetter, you know you're.

(45:23):
You're supposed to kind of likemaintain.
It doesn't improve, it doesn'theal.
But if you're, if you're youngenough, if you take good enough
care of yourself, if you reallychange what goes into your body,
your liver can heal.

Speaker 3 (45:34):
It can regenerate.
It's one of the few organs thatcan actually heal itself.
But I think age was on yourside, definitely.
Sure, yeah, I was 28 when I gotsick.

Speaker 1 (45:42):
Have you done stuff like hyperbaric chambers and all
that stuff?

Speaker 2 (45:45):
Yeah, I do hyperbaric chambers with Dr Amen for my
brain health, so that's onething I've been working on with
him.

Speaker 3 (45:51):
I do yes, Daniel Eamon.

Speaker 2 (45:52):
Yeah, he's awesome man, so he has your site on
Hyperbaric.

Speaker 1 (45:55):
Chambers.
He does, she's got HyperbaricChambers.

Speaker 2 (45:57):
He does.

Speaker 3 (45:57):
Yeah, he sends clients to us from California.

Speaker 2 (46:04):
We started working with Hyperbaric.

Speaker 3 (46:06):
Chambers on a burned litter of puppies that we had
with Dr Grossman, who pioneeredthe oh, I know, grossman.

Speaker 2 (46:14):
TLA.
He's in Southern Cal.
Well, his son, yeah, peterGrossman, dr A Richard Grossman
was the pioneer of the Grossmanburn centers, the infamous, like
world-renowned, grossman burncenters.
He was in the Navy and hepioneered a lot of that
technology because they use itfor the wobbles when you are
going underneath water and comeback up you know you can lose
the bends or the wobbles,whatever.
I just make that up.
Um, yes, we, we use those withsome some burned puppies that we

(46:36):
were able to save their lives.
They had skin grafts and thewhole nine yard.
He treated them at west hillshospital as a human hospital.

Speaker 3 (46:42):
Okay, he treated these dogs that I think he's the
one that treated jay leno.
Yeah, yeah, yeah he passed awayum.

Speaker 1 (46:47):
Dr richard grossman passed away about uh seven or
eight years ago, but his son'sstill very, very but you were
doing hyperbaric for brainhealth Because I would assume it
would help with everything,wouldn't it?

Speaker 3 (46:56):
It helps with the liver regeneration as well.
But yeah, one of the toxicitieswe haven't talked about with
the alcoholism is thedeterioration of the brain cells
.
Yeah, that comes along with it.

Speaker 1 (47:08):
How often do you do hyperbaric, I feel it how often
as I can.

Speaker 2 (47:11):
It's in Encino, so it's hard for me to get to, but
I love it.
The hyperbaric process isreally wonderful because you're
in there for an hour, you canchoose to meditate, you can
choose to breathe, and if you do, it's quite nice.
You don't.
It might be psychosomatic, butyou feel like you're you know.

Speaker 3 (47:27):
Getting that deep inspiration?

Speaker 2 (47:29):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I enjoy it.
It's nice to be locked in atube with no distractions.

Speaker 3 (47:34):
No one can get to you .
I think it's what John Jay andI both say At her place you can
go 90 minutes, you can go.

Speaker 1 (47:39):
I mean it's fantastic , Get a tan too, and they'll
have a TV on the outside so youcan watch TV while you're in
there if you want, or you canjust go to sleep, yeah that's
right.
So how incredible program.
Marley's Mutts and the prisonprogram.
And I mean it's what.
Would just just differentsplinter cells have grown as you
?

Speaker 2 (47:56):
Yeah, man.
Well, I mean, first of all,it's wonderful to be here, like
you know, to have people likeyour wife and yourself, to have
other people root on rescuers.
You know we have such an oddculture and to have you guys
root me on like you have overthe years has really meant a lot
.
Um, I pull for you guys too,you know, and and so thank you

(48:17):
for the, for the encouragementand the motivation, and um,
that's really what.
What got it going was mycommunity was like hey, you
ought to do this.
I was like what?

Speaker 1 (48:26):
like start a dog rescue but, like your, rescue
marley's mutts.
Is it your own facility?

Speaker 2 (48:29):
it's not in your house no, no, so it started out
just in in the house in thegarage.
It took over our house tookover the garage, took over the
house we had puppies and dogs inthe laundry room.

Speaker 1 (48:39):
All the kids everywhere, dogs they were.
It was.
It was out of control and itwas ruining our house ruining
houses, probably ruiningrelationships.

Speaker 2 (48:48):
It was tough, man.
Um yeah, it's somewhataddictive because you know
you're trying, you know you'retrying to address suffering,
you're trying to address livesand it's hard not to be all in
it's hard not to go, you know,neck deep into the process and
try to save them all you knowRight.
But yeah, it just started outslow like that.
It started out with a handfulof rescue dogs.
I was making those posters,putting them up all over town.

Speaker 1 (49:18):
But when I got released from the transplant
requirements, all of a suddenI'm, I'm alive, you know.

Speaker 2 (49:20):
So it's like, well shit, what am I going to do?
You're here for a reason, bro,yeah, but I don't have a degree,
I you know, I don't have anyskills, I don't have anything.
What do I have to bring to thisworld?
You know, um, but I had shownover the last six months that I
could do this, um, that I couldbe creative with their marketing
, that I could talk to people,that I could kind of exemplify
what rescue was.
And yeah, it was just reallythe veterinary hospital and the

(49:43):
local pet store.
They were like you need tostart your own company.
And I was like does the IRS letlike drunks come?
Am I allowed to do that?

Speaker 1 (49:51):
You know, when you think about where you started
and where you said you were likeyou were going to die and then
cut to 2018, you're at the WhiteHouse.

Speaker 3 (49:59):
That was wild Right.

Speaker 1 (50:00):
I mean, that's a six.

Speaker 3 (50:01):
It's so inspirational .

Speaker 1 (50:02):
How has Hollywood not done a movie?
Or have they talked to you,because I know you've got
friends in Hollywood?

Speaker 2 (50:06):
Yeah, no, no one's ever talked to me about them.
I mean, people have touched onBecause I have so many students
from prison that I'm very closeto who have their own miraculous
stories of recovery.
Brian James is one of them.
I'm meeting him in Tucsontomorrow.
He gets in tonight.
He was a juvenile lifer who did29 years and the last chunk of
his years was in our program andyou know he adopted his dog out

(50:27):
of prison and his story is justmarvelous.
So are so many of our trainersthat come from the prison
program.
So are so many of our trainersthat come from the prison
program.
But to wrap a bow around howMarley's Mutz was created is
really just.
Why I wanted to thank you isbecause it's just grassroots
community organizing.
It's just people saying theybelieve in me and saying, hey,
you ought to do this, andencouraging me and me saying,
well, fuck, because it wouldn'thave come from me.

(50:48):
Even with the self-esteem I haddeveloped, I still wasn't gutsy
enough to think I could, and Ifor sure thought the IRS was
going to find like some way toshit on whatever I was trying to
develop.
And I went and talked to alawyer and the lawyer was like
no, no, no, this is possible.
I'm like, are you sure, causethey're going to figure me out
and they're going to, they'regoing to deny this.
There's no way they're going toallow it.

(51:09):
So, for the first like sixmonths as a DBA, as like a doing
business as, and applied forour nonprofit status in the
process.
So we've been a company since2009,.
Been a nonprofit since 2010.
And yeah, it was reallyremarkable.
My community just keptencouraging me to do what we
were doing.
The veterinary office gave me akennel at the veterinarians to

(51:29):
like deal with strays.
We had some Boy Scouts buildsome kennels up at the house.
We started to develop a fosternetwork based on these posters.
So real quickly I had a coupleof dozen fosters and Marley, my
Rottweiler Pitbull, was soincredible at like pack
symbiosis.
He could really keep thebalanced feel of a pack.
He really knew how to addressinsecure dogs, really knew how

(51:52):
to level out more kind ofdominant dogs, and so Marley's
Mutts was born.
There was also no.
There were like purebredrescues back then, so many of
them.
There was no like mutt rescuesand we all had mutts, so like
it's called Marley's Mutts.

Speaker 1 (52:08):
So Marley's Mutts was born.
You know, I keep thinking aboutlike taking this podcast and
sending it to some producer inHollywood listening to your
story.

Speaker 3 (52:16):
Please do Well, because think of the inspiration
that we've just talked about injust a few short minutes.
I mean the message that's comeout from this, and so many lives
could be impacted in a muchbroader way if the story got out
.

Speaker 2 (52:29):
Boy.
I think about deaths of despairand the number of liver.
I don't remember the exactnumber, but during COVID the
number of liver failures anddeaths of despair related to
alcohol is wild.

Speaker 1 (52:41):
Wild.
Your story could inspire andchange the lives of millions of
people.
I mean you're here for a reasontoo.
I mean that's crazy.

Speaker 2 (52:47):
There are forces of our, there are sociocultural
forces at work that do notreally want to address alcohol
and like what it means to oursociety, thoroughly, like even
the Well, I would say that's abig stance of Dr Amen.

Speaker 3 (53:01):
We brought up his name earlier.
He's really come out and takenover the last two years and he's
been shunned by the medicalcommunity for his stance on
alcoholism and that one glass istoo much.

Speaker 1 (53:12):
And he's a real believer in it and he's just got
a lot of data to support thatyeah, so are you 100 healthy now
, or you still have?

Speaker 2 (53:18):
for the most part.
Yeah, so I have stage threefibrosis, I have advanced liver
disease, but um, and what thatcould, how that could manifest,
is is cancerous nodules, growths.
So I go in every six months fortransplant review, essentially
to make sure.

Speaker 3 (53:33):
can stem cells help him?
Yes, I was going to say weshould.
We always talk stem cells onliterally every podcast.

Speaker 2 (53:39):
I can't help it but.

Speaker 3 (53:40):
I know it's hard not to, but absolutely, with stage 3
fibrosis it could be a truebenefit.

Speaker 1 (53:45):
Yeah, Wow, we go down to Mexico, her and I.

Speaker 2 (53:48):
Yeah, I've been a big fan.
I did some research and Istarted learning about that a
couple years ago.

Speaker 3 (53:53):
I was actually thinking more about the Health
Symposium with all the nationalbiohackers in Cabo.

Speaker 1 (53:59):
He would be an amazing guest from that
standpoint don't you think youwant to come to Cabo with us in
January?

Speaker 2 (54:06):
Are you kidding me?
Is that a real question, youknow?

Speaker 1 (54:08):
who, gary Brekka, is you ever follow that?

Speaker 2 (54:09):
guy Him.

Speaker 1 (54:11):
It's us two, him and a couple other people.
Yeah, we're going to have aPompa Pompa and Josh X, recca
and Dude, we're going to Josh X.

Speaker 3 (54:19):
Axe, josh Axe, josh Axe.
Yeah, I would love to.
We're going to have a combo andwe'll those stem cells all the
time.
I mean for people who are doingall the things right.
They have the most uptake rightthey get the most benefit and

(54:39):
he's already doing all that.
He's walking the walk he needsto.
He's living a very balancedlife.
He's avoiding substances in allforms.
He's putting only pure foodsinto his body.

Speaker 2 (54:50):
He's the perfect candidate for let me ask you a
question.
So one of the most preposterousthings about having liver
failure.
You know all of the onlyinstruction I got from a medical
professional.

Speaker 3 (55:02):
I'm not going to be shocked with whatever you tell
me.

Speaker 2 (55:05):
What I could do to advocate for myself is don't eat
any salt, that's it.
So I was in acute kidney liverfailure, kidneys, gallbladder,
pancreas, pancreatitis for likea year was limit your salt
intake.
Yeah, that was it nothing aboutfruits and vegetables.
Nothing about fiber fiber wasvery important.

(55:26):
I I found at least.
Again, it might be my owndelusions, but I I overloaded on
fiber the whole time.
I was in in early recovery andI felt like, from an absorption
standpoint, like I got so muchbetter when I increased the
fiber in my diet and when I cutout you know nonsensical
carbohydrates.
Everything started to getbetter so quickly.

Speaker 3 (55:47):
Right.
No one ever talked to you aboutthe fact that if you did
hyperbarics even at that time,once you became medically stable
, of course, but, hyperbaricscould help take those viable
cells that were still viablewithin the liver and amplify and
help heal that.
So no, I mean doctors in themedical community.
They're not really set up, oreven, I have to say, they're not
even trained appropriately totalk outside of the

(56:07):
pharmaceutical world.

Speaker 2 (56:08):
That's the problem they can give you pills.
Yeah, she's different, I meanit's.
It's bizarre to me that therehasn't been a step back approach
to evaluating some of theseprotocols and saying, all right,
let's.
This human being has a a bodyfiltering problem.

Speaker 3 (56:21):
Let's look at his body filtering and let's
understand how we can enhance orhelp him filter in a different
way or detoxify pancreatitis orno?
That's gone.
Nope, I haven't had that's aside effect of the pressure
systems within the liver itself.
So the kidney, the pancreas,they're all trying to handle
that overflow pressure.
So once he starts to drop downon that fibrosis score, then
those organs aren't stressed.

Speaker 2 (56:42):
The pain you really are.
I wasn't fibbing when I neededthe cry face pain amount.
The reason you're in so muchpain is your belly is so filled.
There's so much.
It's like 10 liters of liquidin your stomach, in your belly,
and the pressure that puts onall your internal organs is so
painful and like lateral g'swhen you're in a car, like

(57:02):
taking a corner, and you haveall that.
It's so painful.
So they're relieving all thatpressure and taking those liters
.
They're taking like theparacentesis, three or four
liters out of my stomach.

Speaker 3 (57:13):
The the problem is, as you already know because you
went through it is it justreaccumulates.
It's a temporary fix for a week, a couple of days, whatever how
often someone can stick aneedle in your back.
They're just pulling it off andit comes right back within
hours.

Speaker 1 (57:25):
What do you think when you hear his story of being
that he recovered naturally?

Speaker 3 (57:30):
I think it's a story you almost never hear as a
physician I mean, we don't havethese stories, we don't have
these happy endings right we, we, we talk to people every day in
the icu units in the er and wesee them come in and we do
exactly what he said.
Okay, I want you to prepareyourself, get your family around
, get your friends in when youstart making plans, because
you're not going to survive this.
That's the normal road that wego down and for a big reason

(57:51):
that you already pointed outbecause the tools we give you in
your tool chest to survivearen't very good.
From our medical community, wejust throw pills at people,
pills, procedures.
So I'm not when I hear it.
As a doctor who's beenpracticing almost 20 years, I've
never heard this story beforewow, dude, I've seen.

Speaker 2 (58:07):
You know, I've been in the transplant program for 16
years now and there's a lot ofpeople that I know that have
died almost all of them, to behonest.

Speaker 3 (58:15):
Yeah, that's the problem, that's the reality.

Speaker 2 (58:17):
And I have known a few people who have gotten
better, who were younger, whowere in some form of end stage
failure.
But yeah, it's very rare, it'svery rare.

Speaker 1 (58:26):
And look at you in shape you got tattoos.

Speaker 2 (58:30):
You had a freaking cool dog, a successful dog
rescue.

Speaker 1 (58:35):
A couple.
You had a freaking cool dog asuccessful dog rescue, a couple
of kids.
Yeah, you were freaking at thewhite house.
You're like doing all you'rechanging the world and now this
story's got to get out.
I mean, I thought we're goingto talk to you mostly about the
dog rescue, but your healthwhich is great because we have a
doctor here telling you I meanit's, it's incredible boy.

Speaker 2 (58:48):
I mean, if I, if there's anything from my story
that I could impact the worldwith, it would be, um, the
pattern of care that I was given, how to address the pattern of
care for other people who are inliver failure Because again
you're told, just as a matter offact, you have end stage.
It's not stage four, it's theend.
This is the end for you.

Speaker 3 (59:07):
You're either going to get a liver transplant or
you're going to die.

Speaker 2 (59:11):
And they don't, um, very clearly adjust, radically
adjusting what went into my bodyand how I moved my body was the
key to success, and to notaddress either of those
variables when trying to to comeup with a satisfactory equation
to treat someone's health isjust mind boggling to me.
I mean, how, why would we notlook at the larger spectrum of

(59:34):
treatment and, um, I don't know,it's it's frustrating larger
spectrum of treatment and Idon't know it's, it's
frustrating.

Speaker 3 (59:40):
Well, I mean to get and to go down that road.
We get into a very politicalsituation of how the system is
funded and what is reallypromoted within the medical
system.
So, you have to step outsidethe box, and you did that on
your own.
Unfortunately, not everybodyhas the wherewithal to know what
they need to do and get thatinformation.

Speaker 1 (59:56):
What's your dad like now?
What?
What is your?
Have you ever had a moment withyour dad like dad?
Look at me now, like he saw you.

Speaker 3 (01:00:04):
He's got to say I'm so proud of there's got to be
like is he pardoned?

Speaker 1 (01:00:07):
is he involved with more of these?

Speaker 2 (01:00:07):
my dad is my best friend.
I don't.
I wouldn't.
Maybe I wouldn't characterizeour relationship as best friend
because he's so much of a dadand he didn't grow up with a dad
.
My dad's dad died of liverfailure when he was 41.
We never talked.
I might as well go into thisreal quick because I think
you'll like it.
So I didn't know my grandfather.
His name was Kermit.
He died in 1961.

(01:00:29):
My dad was 14.
He was in World War II, deployedtwice different areas.
He was re-enlisted, went backto Korea.
I do have a bunch of picturesof him in bars all over the
world.
Every picture he's in a barwith Korean girls or with
everyone and I.
The way I was taught about himwas to not ask about him.
We don't talk about Kermit,don't bring him up.

(01:00:50):
I never heard anything abouthim my whole life other than you
know the the here or there,something terrible.
And so I get out of the hospital.
I'm desperately dying of liverfailure.
You know, I'm really having ahard time.
And I was in the bedroom in thecloset going through some
things and I found mygrandmother found a bunch of

(01:01:12):
boxes from from when she passedaway in 2003.
I opened one of the shoe boxesand on the top of it is this 24
hour a day book, this littlerecovery book.
I recognized it because I hadone from going to meetings.
I'd been going to meet.
I had to go to meetings.
I had to go to recoverymeetings per Cedars-Sinai to
qualify for the liver transplant.
So a lot of people who areembarrassed about being on court

(01:01:34):
cards in A meetings I don'twant a fucking who are
embarrassed about being on courtcards in a meetings.
I'm gonna fucking livertransplant card.
That's when you're low, um.
So I'm having to go to meetings.
I'm starting to learn theprocess, although all I wanted
recovery for was a livertransplant.
When I went into my firstmeeting of of uh alcoholics
anonymous, I just raised my handin the beginning of it and
asked to speak to the.
I need to speak to thepresident of this chapter

(01:01:55):
because I need a livertransplant.
You guys need to help mefacilitate.
And they're like hey, buddy,you know we don't have a.
Well, let me have the vicepresident.
We don't have.
We have a secretary.
Would you like to talk to thesecretary?
I was like sure.
So they just kind of likepushed me off and let this
delusional dude and liverfailure like, but they kept me
coming back and so, anyways,back to the.

(01:02:16):
So I opened this box, find thisbook.
I open it and there's mygrandfather's Social Security
card in it, kermit Alden, scow.
And it's got a piece of paperthat says 730, cadillac.
It says Friedman.
On it, it's got some numbersand then it's marked.
It's got a ribbon, it's marked.
You know, there's a date marked.
So I bring it out to my dad andI was like, holy shit, dad,

(01:02:38):
check this out.
I, you know, I found yourgrandpa's recovery book and my
dad had no idea his dad was inrecovery.
He just knew he died analcoholic of liver failure by
himself.
So I bring it out there.
I passed to my dad and he goes.
He's starting to flip throughit and my dad doesn't really get
emotional, you know.
And he goes, goes.
I'll be damned, I'll be damned,I go what he goes.
It's marked july 3rd, I go.

(01:03:00):
What's july 3rd?
He goes.
That's the day he died.
So my grandfather who was dyingof liver failure trying to make
a difference read.
The last time he opened thisbook was the day he died of
liver failure.
Fast forward many decades.
I'm opening this book in liverfailure, looking for a prayer.
Jeez man and it's my favoritepossession.

(01:03:22):
I should have brought it withme.
So I bring it to a meeting thatnight and it's pretty
interesting.
So the five numbers were hissponsor's phone number.
Friedman was his sponsor,that's what that name meant.
730 Cadillac is the men's stagmeeting on Cadillac street in
downtown Los Angeles.
So my sponsor knew likeeverything that was on this
piece of paper and uh, yeah,it's been like one of my.

(01:03:45):
It was my first like God shot,my first connection to to some
sort of like communication andyou know it was really special,
really really special about thisand this is so important when
it comes to recovery is beingled to a God of my understanding
.
Having permission to engage ina relationship with a God of my
understanding was so important.
I grew up, my grandfather was acommunist.

(01:04:07):
I never went to church, neverbeen to church One day in my
life.
I was militantly agnostic,borderline atheist, started an
atheist club in high school tobasically battle the religious
club and just take them down,debate after debate.
So I was very inclined to notbe religious.
Right, and what alcohol?

(01:04:27):
What a program of recoveryreally did for me was introduce
me to the idea of finding a Godof my understanding, not Jesus,
not Vishnu, not Buddha, a God ofmy understanding that
incorporates everything in thisworld, that is my creator, my
source, whatever, but somethingthat is not me, first of all,
you know, a God that is not meand and a God that is, you know,

(01:04:48):
really focused on, on, onservice and connection and um, I
didn't know what that meant inthe beginning, you know, again,
I was kind of like I'm not a Godguy.
I didn't like the word God, youknow, forget about all the
principles associated withreligion.
But once I, once I found thatbook, you know, I started to
pray to my grandfather.
I started to just try to closemy eyes and try to communicate

(01:05:11):
with something greater thanmyself, just as a practice, just
to communicate, get out of thistransom and into something else
, and it was the.
It was the best thing that'sever happened to me in my
spiritual development is is kindof locating a source, energy,
and um, communing with thatenergy, if that makes sense, and

(01:05:32):
having the permission toelaborate on what god means to
me, what a god of myunderstanding means to me, and
having that develop in my lifehas been probably the central
aspect to my sustained sobrietyis knowing that I have a God of
my understanding in my life,active in my life, that I can
tune into, that I can connectwith, that I can use to help aid

(01:05:55):
me in that aching lonelinessthat has always traveled with me
.
You know what I mean and that'swhat I think some people don't
allow themselves to get out of.
Recovery is God doesn't meanJesus, it doesn't mean
religiosity, it doesn't meandogma, it doesn't mean all of
these things.
God means a source, energy, youknow, or whatever you want it
to mean, but it can be such apowerful connection and such a

(01:06:18):
entertaining and interestingconnection to develop throughout
your life.
You know I love going to churchnow.
You know I love practicingspiritual connection.
These were I couldn't sit stillfor five seconds much less like
pray, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:06:33):
so um, that's one of the things you're you're like a
miracle.
Absolutely is.
I feel like Cora and you havegot some serious connections.

Speaker 2 (01:06:42):
I'm going to lop off an arm soon, just to make it
like you know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (01:06:45):
That'd be great if you could do it on the podcast,
yeah, or?

Speaker 2 (01:06:47):
maybe just a pinky, something that's not totally
necessary Listen, man.

Speaker 1 (01:06:52):
thanks for stopping down.
It was a great story.
Can we talk about one morething before we wrap?
Is that okay?

Speaker 2 (01:06:57):
Not like all of you, don't have something to do in
life.

Speaker 1 (01:07:00):
Just got to go to bed and wake up at 3 am.

Speaker 2 (01:07:02):
So the reason we're here is, you know, we're
bringing the Positive ChangeProgram to Arizona, so we spent
all day out here at theCorrectional Complex in Buckeye.
You know we've been runningprison programs in.

Speaker 1 (01:07:17):
California for the last nine years.
Uh, prison programs incalifornia for the last nine
years.
Shout out to that warden, bythe way, shout out, baby.

Speaker 2 (01:07:21):
The warden was a listener, so I'm in the car and
I let the warden, so he's thewarden of all eight prisons and
I let him know I'm doing he goes, he goes, the john jay and I
was like number one withprisoners yeah, and he said that
, um, he used to have umemployees get in trouble for
sitting in the parking lotbecause they had to finish John
Jay segments and didn't want tolike miss a special morning

(01:07:44):
segment.
So he'd have to like holler atpeople, for they're all John Jay
fans.
They've been riding or dyingfor decades.
Buddy Grateful, yeah, thank you.
So yeah, we're the statelegislature.
Thanks to you know, some somemovers and shakers within the
arizona government have approveda decent chunk of money for
prison programming related to todogs.
So we're bringing our rescuedog rehabilitation program, our

(01:08:07):
comprehensive inmate caninetraining program, to arizona.
We hope, hope to get it startedby january.
We were out there touring allday.
Today, we'll be working with,you know, maricopa day.
Today We'll be working with,you know, maricopa County Animal
Services.
We'll be working with One Love.
We'll be working with really asmany organizations as possible
once we get off the ground,because we hope to grow it and

(01:08:29):
I'm just super excited, man, wehave 27 formerly incarcerated
dog trainers working inCalifornia and in the pet
industry.

Speaker 1 (01:08:36):
So they come to the prison and they bring dogs and
they teach the prisoners how towork with the dogs and vice
versa, the dogs it's a littlebit more elaborate than that.

Speaker 2 (01:08:44):
So the dogs will come from the euthanasia list.
Typically our process is younglarge dogs.
Young large dogs are mosteuthanized because they lack the
skills to get adopted and stayadopted.
And when a dog is big it's moreof a liability adopted and stay
adopted, and when a dog is bigit's more of a liability and all
of these different things Right?
So the idea was when I startedit was we just need more fosters
.
We need more foster homes.
We can save more lives.

(01:09:04):
We didn't have a ranch at thattime so we were just just
working with fosters.
So we we went into Californiacity correctional facility was
our first spot and, um, we'venever stopped.
Since we've been at eightfacilities.
We've had boys and girlsjuvenile programs, the first of
their kind juvenile programwhere you have euthanasia list.
Dogs come from the shelter,they live in prison for three
months.
We're going in every week withprofessional dog trainers to

(01:09:28):
teach the structure, the wholecurriculum, which is quite
elaborate.
We have homework, presentations, all kinds of different things
and the goal being to again getthe dog adopted and stay adopted
and then help provideopportunity to our students to
join the pet industry when theyget out of prison and it's been
radically successful and itbrings down the violence on the
yard.

(01:09:48):
We're in almost exclusivelymaximum security prison, so we
have come in to teach programson prisons where there aren't
programs, because they're highsecurity.
It's very difficult to getprogramming into high security
facilities.
A lot of organizations won'twork in high security facilities
, so we really pride ourselvesin being able to like come in
with the dogs, bring the energy,bring the violence down, bring

(01:10:10):
the hope up.
You know, lower drug use.
That's another thing that dogsdo.
Man Maybe we do that in podcasttoo from cabo is the correlation
between dogs and recovery.
You know, because dogs are amirror, if you the whole, one of
the central principles ofpositive change is that whatever
energy you're feeling, whateveryou're experiencing, you're

(01:10:33):
transmitting that through theleash.
So you need to truly check inwith yourself.
Check in with yourself, breathe, check in with yourself,
breathe into yourself, breatheinto your belly, not into your
chest.
You know, really process whatyou're experiencing, because if
you're not responsible for thatenergy, you're going to transmit
it to your dog and you're goingto throw your dog off, and in
doing that, that's really likethe first step to awareness of

(01:10:55):
any kind and so I'm reallyreally excited.
I think we could, we could makehow can people?

Speaker 1 (01:11:00):
people can't get involved, or do they donate?

Speaker 2 (01:11:02):
like oh yeah, you can donate at marley's muttsorg.
You know, you can find us onsocial media at marley's mutts,
at positive change.

Speaker 1 (01:11:08):
It's p-a-w-s-i-t-i-d it's on on the marley's mutt
instagram.
You have all the links on thereyeah, yeah, we do well if you
ever need us love pop or myradio show to help promote, are
you?

Speaker 2 (01:11:18):
kidding me.
I would love to have you guysaround.
You know we we're looking foras many partners as possible,
especially you know we're goingto be.
I'm gonna see you in tucsonright, I'll be there saturday
hell yeah, buddy or friday, oneof those two, that's outstanding
.
That's really cool man thanksfor doing that, um, yeah, so I
think, um, you know, the animalshelter, sheltering system in

(01:11:38):
America is abysmal.
It sort of exists in theshadowy, dark crevices of our
you know, as does the prisonsystem.
Right, you have these culturalblack eyes that are really
negative, karmic forces withinour society, and we have a real
opportunity to combine those twoto make them much better to

(01:11:59):
make them exponentially betterand just what we've seen in the
last bunch of years running ourprogram, to see how many guys
have gotten out and successfullytransitioned into the pet
industry.
How many you know we'vegraduated 600 or 700 dogs.
You know 1200, 1300 inmates,and our students are marvelous,
man, these guys have so muchpotential.
So, yeah, you know 1200, 1300inmates, um, and our students
are are marvelous, man, theseguys have so much potential.

(01:12:20):
So, yeah, you know, I, I, um, I, as with you man, there's,
there's just somethingenergetically and like
karmically about how we treatman's best friend.
We, we have, um, we treat man'sbest friend like they're our
worst enemy and we've not doneanything comprehensive to
address that, whether at themunicipal, state or federal
level.
And we have some realopportunities to make change and

(01:12:40):
there's just no more excusesanymore.
You know there are a lot ofgood solutions in this world.
Positive change is one of themand I think one of the ways
we're going to limit we're goingto involve communities that
have typically, like, createdthe animal welfare problem is by
initiatives like positivechange.
You know the animal welfareproblem is by initiatives like
positive change.
You know, because the realityis like we've blamed the animal

(01:13:00):
welfare problem on, like certaindisenfranchised communities.
Well, it's this community orthat community that creates all
the problems.
All the dogs are coming fromhere, coming from there and by
working with positive change.
You know, most of our trainersare people of color, gang
members of color, you know.
So they're going back to theircommunities, to Compton, to
Chula Vista, to all these places, to bring everything that

(01:13:21):
they've learned into theircommunities.
They're being employed in thepet industry in their
communities.
So they're bringing all this,these new ideas um into their
community about animal welfare,about sheltering, about best
practices for how to be a petparent, you know.
So I'm excited to see where wecan take this and I certainly
appreciate your help, man Ofcourse man.

Speaker 1 (01:13:41):
Well, thanks for coming, man.

Speaker 2 (01:13:43):
Yeah, you know, you've never not returned a text
message, not answered a phonecall.
Thanks, either you're gettingless popular or no.
I really appreciate it, man.
You've always been like youknow.
One of the things about youthat I think people should know
is like you're that energy thatis you.

Speaker 1 (01:14:01):
Oh, thanks.

Speaker 2 (01:14:01):
And a lot of people you know turn on that energy
when things are on and then youknow it goes somewhere else.

Speaker 1 (01:14:07):
But that's you, man.
Thank you man, Thanks man, Bye.

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