Coffman Park Pet Festival 9/21/25

Mindy and Mikaela speak with Dr.G at the Dublin Pet Festival!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Us up and give us a positive outlook on life.
But you know what, we have been live all day
long here at Kaufman Park in Dublin at the Dublin
Pet Fair, and what an amazing opportunity for anyone who
loves animals.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
It is so many stories that are here from the
people who've come and set up booths and what they're
doing in their communities. And Mindy, I met a new
friend when I was out in the pouring down rain
I was getting ready to do a Facebook live and
it started to pour. I was like, I'm just going
to come in this tent and meet this lovely lady
who had rainbows all over. And I said, what is
going on with this tent? And I met Loretta Thompson,

(00:33):
who was the founder and director of this amazing five
oh one C three Blessing Animals pet pantry. Loretta, thank
you for coming on the show with us.

Speaker 3 (00:42):
Thank you guys for having us. We appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
It didn't take long for Mikayla to make a new friend.
She was out there in five minutes. She's like, Mindy,
I met a friend. I'm like, of course you did, Loretta.
What you're doing is just really incredible. Can you tell
everyone what you told me?

Speaker 2 (00:56):
Because I think there are families and people listening who
would want to contribut and help to what you're doing.

Speaker 3 (01:01):
Sure, thank you. So we're a nonprofit organization. We're volunteer
driven and donation base and what we do is we're
like sheltered diversion kind of outreach. We want to keep
the pets with families because we don't want them dumped
if they can't afford to pay for their medical needs
or they need food. We don't want them like having
to be surrendered or anything like that. We want to

(01:22):
try to take that slack off of our shelters and
already overcrowded rescues that's going on. So we offer a
lot of different services. We team up with other organizations
to help with like sponsoring Spaan neuter clinics. We do
low cost vaccination clinics. We sponsor them. Really, I'm big
into span neuter, so I'll just do it. If you

(01:44):
just have a dog that needs Spade and neuter, hit
us up because I'm big into that and I would
appreciate that. That'd make my whole day. We give out food.
We work with the homeless to make sure the homeless
pets have in the winter time with like beds, coats,
anything to keep them warm, you know, things like that.
So we're just out there, you know, trying to just
keep these pets with their family, because at the end

(02:04):
of the day, they are family, you know. So we
just want to, you know, make that difference and take
some weight off of everybody else in the process of
trying to do that.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
Can you talk to us a little about some of
what you've seen with your own eyes, some of the stories,
some of the people and their pets that you've touched
that just comes to mind that you just want to
tell their story. Maybe people won't believe what you've seen.

Speaker 3 (02:24):
Well, I went into this thinking that I was going
to save a lot, and I didn't know how much
that I was going to deal with having to put
animals down. So that's where the cremation park came in.
Sometimes by the time they reach out, it's too far gone.
They're like, oh, we didn't know about you or and
you know, and it's it's heartfelt, but we've seen some
pretty bad cases. I mean, I just lost a frenchy
last week in a month that deteriorated so bad it

(02:48):
was down to ten pounds and we just couldn't save
the dog anymore. It went to multiple vets. The home
the girls spent everything. She had to move in with
her parents. She couldn't pay her rent, she didn't pay
her card payment, and then she came to us and
I'm like.

Speaker 1 (02:59):
Well, let's try.

Speaker 3 (03:00):
So we rushed the dog in and that nobody could
figure it out. Blood work was great, but we could
figure it out, so we ended up having to put
it down. Are homeless pets, I try to make sure
that they have heartworre menthly prevention, that they are definitely
vaccinated because they're out in the elements. I have built
some strong relationships with about five pets that during the
wintertime when it's too cold or the summertime when it's

(03:22):
too hot, they will let me keep their dogs to
go to a cooling station or into a warming station
because they trust that I'm trustable now with them, because
I've built that with them, that they'll go in and
do that. So, you know, it's about building bonds, bringing
people together, working together, doing anything that we can because

(03:42):
we're in a crisis right now all the way around.
I mean with everybody, I mean span neoters are backed up.
I mean, we're trying to do everything we can. Shelters
are overcrowded. Anything we can do to help is what
we're trying to do.

Speaker 2 (03:52):
Loretta. For those dogs who are really ill and you
try to save and you can't. You also have some
good relationships with who you're telling me forever friends. They've
really helped you out with dogs who passed.

Speaker 3 (04:01):
They have. They have been a blessing to us. Absolutely.
I never, like I said, going into this, I never
thought i'd deal with cremation. And I'm so glad that
I made that contact before I started my nonprofit with
them with my personal dogs, and that I was able
to incorporate them in with us because they have just
such a wonderful, wonderful program and they what you get
back for what they get it is amazing. I just

(04:23):
love everything they do. They're great.

Speaker 1 (04:24):
So they say that there are angels on earth, You're
one of those angels, because imagine all the little lives,
you say, would imagine if you weren't around? Yeah, I
know what would have happened to all those dogs? Why
do you do this? Honestly from your heart? Why do
you do all this.

Speaker 3 (04:40):
It's my passion. It's always been my passion.

Speaker 1 (04:45):
I have twelve of my own dogs, God love it.

Speaker 3 (04:48):
People think I'm crazy, But when I was in rescue
for thirty years, I took behaviorals because the behaviorals didn't
get Nobody wanted to step up for them and work
with them, and I was able to turn them around.
But I fell on some hard times and my community
stepped up to help me, and I knew from that
point on how I mentally felt losing that I was
gonna lose my animals. I had to do something. Blessings

(05:12):
was formed and I'm sorry, I'm emotionless.

Speaker 1 (05:15):
Don't ever ever apologize, Yeah, don't.

Speaker 2 (05:18):
The storm is blowing in here. In a second, I
was looking at Larry. He wants us to go to
break tell us, tell everyone real quickly how they can
support you and what they can do.

Speaker 3 (05:27):
You can go to our website Blessing Animals petpantry dot org.
All the ways to donate is on our website. We're
on Facebook. You can look us up under Blessing Animals
pet pantry dot org as well.

Speaker 1 (05:38):
Thank you so much for stopping, but I'm so glad.
Michaelem met a new friend me too.

Speaker 3 (05:42):
I feel like I have to thank you guys for
having me. I appreciate you.

Speaker 2 (05:46):
This is What Matters on six' TEN wtvn