Calling All Creatures Presents Paw Prints on the Couch

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Good evening everybody, and welcome to you, Calling all creatures.
I am your host, Lorie, and tonight we are going
to be talking with Kim Langling. She is the author
of several books, actually, but the ones we're going to
kind of more address tonight are her Paul Prince series

(00:22):
of books. She's got Paul Prince on the Couch and
Paul Prince on the Kitchen Floor. And I'll just start
out right now. I've read Paul Prince on the College
and it was really good and I highly recommend you
guys read it if you like to read about animal stories.
They were some good ones. And I just started Paul
Prince on the Kitchen Floor, so I'll have to let
you guys all know how that one is later. But anyway, Kim,

(00:45):
thank you so much for being on the podcast tonight
and talking with me about your books and all the
other stuff that you do.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
Well.

Speaker 3 (00:54):
Thanks for having me. I've been looking forward to this conversation.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
Yeah, I think it's going to be great. Like I said,
I I loved your books. I thought that was great,
the stories and stuff in there. But before we start
talking about all of that, how about if you just
tell me a little bit about yourself. What kind of
started you off on your writing career.

Speaker 3 (01:14):
Oh, gosh, well, I'm a veteran and I lived with
PTSD due to an experience that I had while serving
and years ago I was asked to share some of
that story in an anthology, so to be a chapter
in a book with other women who were sharing different stories,
their own stories as well, and the book was called Inspire.

(01:37):
And that was the first time I had ever written
anything that was actually published and put out into the world.
And I wasn't real sure about it, and because it
was such a personal story, but I did it, and
I thought, you know, afterwards, I'm like, you know, the
feedback that I received was so positive and maybe taking

(01:59):
that tough stuff that I went through and as long
as it's worded the right way, it'll reach the right
people and it might help others who might be sitting
in a dark spot and maybe have went through something similar.
And so that was kind of the spark. I think
this is back gosh, two thousand and four, two thousand
and five, So there's a while ago, and that was

(02:22):
kind of the spark of it. And you know, working
full time, being a mom, all that stuff. I never
put a whole lot of effort into writing, but I
was writing a monthly article for my local newspaper and
regarding veterrend's stuff, and it just kind of morphed from there.
And then, you know, the world changed in twenty twenty

(02:44):
and my life, along with millions of others, their lives
changed and mine did too, and I found myself at
home without a job, and I'm going, all right, you know,
what what do you get at, what do you like doing,
and what are you passionate about? And let's make something happen.
And so that's when I the last five years, I've
really put effort into writing more and just writing what

(03:08):
I'm passionate about, which is, you know, being an advocate
for veterans and being an advocate for animals. And you know,
what better way than to share other people, help them
share their stories about their beloved pets and how they
enrich our lives, you know. So that's how the Pawprint
series kind of began. It just kind of you know,
it was years in the making and then it all

(03:29):
came about right at the right time.

Speaker 1 (03:32):
Awesome, you know, excuse me. I kind of understand a
little bit about where you're coming that in a sense
where you're coming from. For the veterans thing, I actually
work as a dog trainer and I'm working with a
local organization here hero pause, and I trained service dogs

(03:54):
for first responders and or X first responders and then.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
You have to come on my podcast.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
Well not only that, but we also trained for veterans
and stuff in the military, and so and I right
now I got my first therapy dog team, and so anyway,
that's a whole other side bar. But anyway, one of
my teams all of that though, thank you, well, thank

(04:25):
you for your service. I mean, that's awesome, and that's
this is my way of giving back to you guys,
you know, for those that need uh a service animal
for things like PTSD and uh you know, TBI, traumatic
brain injury stuff like that. So, but one of my
service teams, she, from what I'm kind of gathering from

(04:47):
what you just said, probably had kind of a similar
experience in the military and that also caused her PTSD.
And so I'm gonna I don't know if she's read
this book, this Inspire book, but now that you've told
me about it, I'm going to tell her about it.
So if she hasn't read it. Hopefully she can read

(05:07):
it because he just.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
Wants to chat ever reach out.

Speaker 1 (05:11):
Oh, most definitely. She's very nice late and that's funny.
Her name is the same as mine, as Lorimer, right,
exactly so. But she's a very nice lady. And she
has the cutest little service dog. She's a chug. Well,
I don't want to get too off track, but it
was so great because she she decided, you know, she

(05:33):
kind of wanted her little chug Lucy to learn how
to create space for her. And so, but she's a chug,
so she's kind of small side, you know, and so
she got a little, a little blinky light that she
could put on the top of her harness.

Speaker 2 (05:51):
There you go.

Speaker 1 (05:53):
It was awesome to see her in the store with
her little blinky light on.

Speaker 3 (06:00):
I love it.

Speaker 1 (06:02):
Oh yeah, awesome, awesome. Oh you gotta love it, you know.
So anyway, I'm glad you kind of told me about
that and about that book, because I will most definitely
let her know and I will give her your contact
info if she'd like to reach out and talk to you,
because yeah, she's a very nice lady, and I really
and I talked to her a bit even though she's
graduated now to a full service team, but we still

(06:23):
stay in contact and she'll bring Lucy to my basic
training classes so she can keep her, you know, socialized
with other dogs and stuff. So anyway, yeah, so I'll
let her know. Well, awesome, So that's that's some good,
good info. And then so when you decided to write,

(06:45):
like your Paul Prince books and stuff like that, what
kind of inspired you to gather the stories from various
pet owners instead of like, you know, writing a single
memoir or you know, your your own type of thing.
What made you want to get all these other stories
and put them together?

Speaker 3 (07:03):
For years, I had a dog named Digger, and he
was not a service dog, but he acted like one.
He was. He was my rock. He was not trained
to do any of the stuff that he did. He
just intuitively knew how to calm me down when panic
was rising.

Speaker 1 (07:20):
Would be a good service dog, he.

Speaker 3 (07:23):
Would have been an awesome service dog. He was just
I don't know. You you might understand what I'm gonna say,
but some people might hear it the wrong way. But
I mean, I've had many dogs in my life, and
I loved each and every one of them. But bigger
was that one.

Speaker 1 (07:39):
Oh, yes, Siah was mine.

Speaker 3 (07:42):
Yeah, so like he was like muscle animals.

Speaker 1 (07:45):
Yeah, oh have so animals they really do?

Speaker 3 (07:49):
Yes, Yes, and he was mine. I had him for
fourteen years, I mean just blessed for fourteen years and
he for years. I think it was like the last
eight years, so about half of his life. He had
a Facebook page and I would share he and I
every day we would have adventures and those were our walks.
So but he it was always done in his voice,

(08:11):
from his point of view, and he got a following
and people absolutely loved it. And I kept telling myself,
you know, these are going to be great to have
one day, and maybe I can put them into a
book one day. Well that one day came and I
couldn't do it because as I kept, who was crying.
Oh yeah. And it's been about seven years since then,

(08:37):
and I have all of it put together, but I
still can't finish it. And it's just a hold up
of mine. And they're all happy memories, but I still
sit there and cry. So I thought, you know what,
I know so many people I absolutely love and adore
their animals, and they're not just an animal, they are men.

(09:00):
Of the family, and why don't I share just a story.
And I'm going to reach out to some people I
know and see if they want to share a story,
and maybe I can put this all together kind of
like a chicken soup for the soul type book, you know.
And so that was my thought process. So I reached
out to a few people and they're like, oh my gosh,

(09:22):
you know, how many stories can I write? I said,
you can only write about one pet and one story.
And then I went, no, you know what, you can
write about two pets. So I'll give you two stories,
but it has to be about two different pets, so
you know, if you have a cat and adult whatever.
And so people were just I said, I'm looking for

(09:42):
fifteen to twenty people. Well, once word got out that
those spots build up so fast, and then I had
extra and I said, I'm sorry, I can't pitch' all
in this one book because it'll just be too big.
I'm going to make a second one, though, if you
don't mind waiting at least a year, I'll try. And
you know, I'm going to work and make a second one.
Whe was poppets on the kitchen floor, but it just

(10:02):
kind of it all came together that way. And the
people that you know, as people that I knew as
people that I met through my podcast, other people that
introduced me to these folks, They said, Hey, I have
a lady I know she would love to share a
story about her horse, you know, And it just all
came kind of word of mouth came together, and oh

(10:23):
my goodness going through because each story that came in,
I read through and I would call and personally speak
to the person to ask questions, to get certain things
maybe clarified a little bit more because the majority of
the people had never written before, so there was a
lot of editing and developmental type things that needed to

(10:43):
be done right. And I'm you know, but I still
wanted the stories to stay in that person's voice, not mine,
because it's their story, their animal. So are the are
the stories written perfect? No? And they're not meant to
be you know.

Speaker 1 (11:00):
Their life is perfect.

Speaker 3 (11:01):
They're meant to be They're meant to be real, you know,
And I wanted to keep it that way. Plus I
didn't want I mean, so many of the folks they
were so they became so anxious about how it was written.
I'm like, you're sharing the story about your little fur baby.
Don't worry about how the words are, okay, right, you know,

(11:22):
And so we put it together, and I mean, I
just I love it. I love it in it's imperfections,
and because each story is completely different, because it's written,
each story is written by a completely different person. And
that's another thing that I enjoyed about it. I mean,
oh my gosh, I laughed, I cried. I laughed, and

(11:44):
then I cried some more.

Speaker 2 (11:47):
But then talking to.

Speaker 3 (11:48):
The people, you know, you call up, call them up
one evening after work and I'd be like, okay, hey,
I have a couple questions, thinking this would be a
twenty minute conversation two and a half hours later and
eighteen different stories about their animals. Later, I get off
the phone, I'm like, I gotta go to bed. I
got work in the morning. But you know, I mean,
but you can't, you can't not hear them because I'm

(12:09):
the same way, right, you know. So I just I
so enjoyed both times. Now, there were frustrations, of course,
with any big project like that, and of course you're
working with fifteen to twenty different people. There's a lot
of personalities there, you know, But regardless of all of
it was just it was a joy to do it.
And it was just I was just blessed over and

(12:30):
over and over again putting both books together. It was
just so fun. Yeah, and get to hear all the
stories and to know all of these people out there
that just so loved their pets. Oh yeah, you know,
and it just it brings you together and it makes
you It gives you a little bit more faith in

(12:53):
humanity when sometimes the world feels like there is none anymore.
You know.

Speaker 1 (13:00):
Well, yeah, I did animal control for twelve years, so wow.
So yeah, faith in humanity was something I lost a
long time ago.

Speaker 3 (13:09):
Oh well, I lost my long time to go to
That's why. You know, it's kind of it's kind of
nice when you when you reach and I believe you
know this this just with the work that you do,
you meet hindred people. Yeah, you know, people that are
actually part of your tribe and you might not have
even realized it, and that gives you just that little spark,
that little nugget of hope. You know.

Speaker 1 (13:31):
Oh yeah, most definitely, I mean you know that's the
that and honestly, that's really especially when you so I
did both different, two different. So when I did animal control,
I not only I did shelter animal shelter work, you know,
actually in the shelter and stuff like that and going
on calls. And then in the one for the county

(13:51):
I worked for, I only did field work. We didn't
actually have, you know, our own shelter and stuff, so
we didn't have But so I you know, got to
know both worlds. And it's when you're doing the shelter
type work, you know, you have there's a lot of
bad when it comes to that. There's a lot of

(14:11):
bad sides when it comes to that, but there's so
many good sides. And some of the best things in
the world is when you've had a dog that you
really like. You know, there's a lot of them that
you really like, but when you have just there's this
dog that you really really like and you really, you

(14:33):
know't want to find him a home or even a cat.
I shouldn't just say dog cat whatever you're you know,
trying to adopt, and that perfect person comes in and
adopts that dog or cat and you know what their
life is going to be like from what it is
right now, and the joy you get out of that

(14:56):
is just tremendous.

Speaker 3 (14:58):
Yeah. No, Now, all of my dogs have been rescues,
and I've got to tell you, you know, when I
like with this the one I have now, Dexter, I've
had him for about six years now. When when I
first got him, he was so sickly and skinny and
very skittish and very mistrustful. He was astray, so I

(15:23):
had no background on him, but he was so unique looking.
I was like, he'll fit great in my realm, you know.
So I went picked up this skinny, sickly, really skittish
dog and it took him three months to settle, and

(15:43):
I would talk very softly with him every day, and
everything was very gentle and soft. But the first day
I got him, started training because he was two years
old at least, and I'm like, you know, and he
was a large dog. I'm like, I cannot have a
big dog unless he's trained. So I started training and
learned with him. We learned with each other, but and

(16:04):
I would constantly say, you're.

Speaker 2 (16:06):
Going to have the best life.

Speaker 3 (16:08):
You're going to have the best life with me. And
at one point I was like, Okay, he's understanding me. Now,
you know, he's getting it. Because the way they look
at you changes. Oh yeah, you know. And he wouldn't
and see, I'm one like, hey, you want to get
on the couch, You get up on the couch here
with me and snug. Let's go. I'm not one that

(16:29):
says you can't be on the furniture. And so when
I first.

Speaker 2 (16:34):
Got him, he was so skittish and it just broke
my heart.

Speaker 3 (16:37):
It just broke my heart. But I'm like, we're going
to tough this out together, buddy, and I will wait
you out. Because he would lay in a corner and
I'm like, I'm sitting on the couch and if I
would look at him, he would turn his head away
and like like he was trying to hide, right, And
I'm like, all right, buddy, I'm going to wait you out.

Speaker 2 (16:55):
It's okay.

Speaker 3 (16:56):
And as the weeks went on, he would come a
little closer to the couch and he would like scooch
like army crawl a couple inches at a time. Yeah,
And I wouldn't say anything. I would just look out
the corner my eye. I'm like, no, don't let him
know you see him doing it, you know. And then
one night he jumped up on the couch and went

(17:16):
as far away from me on the other side of
the couch as he could, but he was there. I
almost started. I wanted so much to say, oh, look it,
but I didn't. I'm like, oh, I'll scare him. So
I waited him out. I waited him out, and he
finally started army crawling across the couch to me, and oh,
my gosh, this almost makes me cry today because it

(17:36):
took so long and he finally and he's a big dog,
and so I'm sitting there watching TV pretending I don't.

Speaker 2 (17:43):
See him scooting one inch.

Speaker 3 (17:45):
At a time, and he finally got to me, and
this is the first time he ever did this on
his own.

Speaker 2 (17:50):
He put his head on my lap and did the biggest.

Speaker 3 (17:54):
Sigh uh huh, and I just put my hands so
gently on his head and just started silently crying. I'm like, there,
you are, there, you are. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:07):
And I know I just went completely off.

Speaker 3 (18:10):
Topic or whatever that's answered if you had one, But
I think it's those moments. It is those moments that
make it so worth it.

Speaker 1 (18:20):
It is I mean, you know, and like you said
with with your you know your book and each story
is from a different person so each story is different,
and you really do, you know, feel each person's when
they're talking about their pet, the love they had for

(18:40):
their pet and stuff like that, You really do feel
it and stuff like that, and it is it. It's
really so. I say, it was a really good book
to read, and I can't wait to finish the next one.
And speaking of that, I may have to get a
hold of you after the podcast because there's a couple
of dogs that I'd like to mention to you that

(19:02):
might that might be good stories just saying or good
to go into a book.

Speaker 3 (19:07):
I want to do a third and final paw Prints book,
and this one would be called Pawprints on the Front Porch.
But I had a tough time getting people to want
to share their stories. I had fifteen lined up already,
and more than half of them dropped out for various reasons.
And I thought, Okay, I don't know what's happening here.

(19:28):
A lot of people had big, big personal things going on. Wow.

Speaker 2 (19:31):
And then I had a big, big personal thing happen.

Speaker 3 (19:34):
I'm like, you know, okay, this is my sign that
this just doesn't don't rush it. It's all going to
come together the way it should. So I'm still going
to do it. So if you've got some dogs that
have stories they want.

Speaker 2 (19:45):
To tell, well let's do it.

Speaker 3 (19:49):
So because I still have a handful of people waiting
and they said they will patiently wait, and there's no rush.
There's you know, obviously no rush for this. But yeah,
the third and final one will be called Pawprints on
the Front Porch. So I think it's you know, three
is a good number for a series.

Speaker 1 (20:05):
So well, well, the one that I'm just one of them,
I'm just kind of thinking of that might be good
for the paw Prince book. Have you ever heard of
Stevie the Wonder Dog.

Speaker 3 (20:14):
That sounds kind of familiar.

Speaker 1 (20:16):
He's a yellow lab that has the wobbly syndrome. Oh yeah, Stevie.
I was saying he would be a good one for yeah,
you know, and his mom And that's funny because I
follow him because I had them on my podcast a
while back. And his mom she posts videos of Stevie

(20:37):
and doing stuff and a good part of the time
either she's talking to Stevie in it, or she like writes,
you know, hayfwinds or yeah, exactly, it's the dog talking.
It's really cool. Son her and.

Speaker 3 (20:53):
I would probably be kindred spirits because that's how Digger
back in the day for years shared all.

Speaker 2 (20:59):
His adventures exactly.

Speaker 1 (21:00):
And that's what with his.

Speaker 3 (21:02):
Mom, which was me. He called me lady Mama.

Speaker 1 (21:04):
Yeah, and you know, she has Stevie out there doing
his puddle dancing because he loves it when it rains.
He goes out there and he gets in, you know,
because he's got the wobbly so his feet go it
looks like he's dancing. So he's out there splashing in
his puddles, just having a great dog.

Speaker 3 (21:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (21:19):
So so, yeah, Stevie was one. I was thinking it
might be a good addition to a story in your book,
just because of me. She has some good ones. And
then the other one I was thinking more in line.
I don't know if it would just be for a
story in your book, or if you might be interested
in just writing a book, have you. I don't know
if they'd be interested in doing anything like this, But
have you ever heard of Cole the Deaf Dog and

(21:44):
Team Cole Project? So they're in New York. I'm thinking
New York or New Jersey anyway, I think it's New
York and Chris Cole's dad adopted him from a shelter,
and Cole is deaf, and so Chris has a deaf nephew,
and so they actually train Cole using like sign language

(22:08):
sign you know, well command hand commands, and he does
know some sign language. And anyway, Chris has gotten Cole.
He's a therapy dog and Chris is a music teacher
at one of the schools there. And so Cole goes
to work with Chris every day with the kids because

(22:30):
Chris is helping to teach the kids that a disability
is not a liability or an inability, that just because
you're different doesn't mean you can't still do what you
want to do. And then on top on top of that,
they also go visit the veterans' homes. Yeah, and so

(22:51):
Cole has many veteran friends that he's and now Chris
has actually adopted I want to say, is it three?
Three more? And they're in they're bulls and they're pit bulls.
So that's another thing. He's also you know a big
advocate for the pit bulls and showing what these dogs
can actually accomplish. And so he's adopted three other ones.

(23:15):
I can't probably remember all their names. I know it
is CC, Alice and Sully and Solely is actually both
deaf and blind. And then see the other two girls
I think are just deaf, but they're all and Alice
has a cleft palate, so they're all working as like well,

(23:36):
I don't know about Soley yet, but the other but
the three of them are like therapy dogs.

Speaker 3 (23:41):
So I bet you all of their stories are beautiful.

Speaker 1 (23:45):
Oh they are, I mean. And Chris is always posting
it's the team Team Cole project or team Coal is
the in Coal Cole the deaf dog. On Facebook. Chris
is always posting about stuff and yeah, that would be
I think if you wanted to write it a really
good book about you know, something along those lines where
you know, this dog is proving these dogs are proving

(24:08):
that these are the things that can be done, you know, Yeah, you.

Speaker 2 (24:12):
Know there is.

Speaker 3 (24:14):
I don't know if you've ever heard of Michael.

Speaker 1 (24:15):
Hinkson No, I don't think so.

Speaker 3 (24:18):
He is a gentleman, he's blind, and he was in
one of the towers on nine to eleven. His service dog,
his service dog is the one.

Speaker 1 (24:29):
I do know. I read that I read about him.

Speaker 3 (24:31):
Okay, I'm gonna say. He wrote he wrote a book,
and he's been on my show a couple of times,
and I've been on his podcast a couple of times,
and he is a big advocate just like you were
talking about this gentleman you were just talking about for
you know, folks with disabilities. It's not and he doesn't
call them disabilities. They're just abilities that are different, you know.
And he's he's very uh, he's a big, big advocate

(24:56):
for that obviously, because he's blind and his wife was disabled.
She has since pas away unfortunately, but his wife was disabled,
so they both have service dogs, and I mean and
his dog that obviously since passed away since nine eleven.
But just you know what an amazing story. An amazing story.

Speaker 1 (25:16):
I know it was. I mean when I was reading
about her leading him down all those stairs and everything
and out of that building, it was amazing. But you know,
I like I said, you know, service dogs can do
so many amazing things once you know, when you're when
you work with them and train and you live with them,
and they you know, they're your they're your friend, your dog, you're.

Speaker 3 (25:37):
You know, right, and they don't things don't I mean,
they're trained for specific purpose. I had asked him, I said,
did you experience any fear, you know, like some of
those folks that day? I mean, everything was just, you know,
there was fear in the air. And he said, actually, no,
I didn't because him and his dog, he goes, he
couldn't see anything that everyone was fearing. Ah, he's blind,

(26:01):
he said, So he goes, I followed my dog, and
my dog knew exactly what to do. We were a team,
and so we calmly were able to exit the building.
It took a while, but he goes, we were eventually
able to get out. And just and I'm not I'm
not doing his words justice, but the way he worded
it hop on my podcast to listen to that episode,

(26:23):
it was just really just the way he worded it
was so profound. And I'm thinking, you know, people like
me because I have sight and I don't have a
service dog. Until he described it that way, I never
would have understood it, right, you know. And I was like, oh,
my goodness, thank you so much for sharing that. Because

(26:43):
he said, no, I didn't experience fear. Yep, and a
lot of fears because people could see what was coming.
Oh yeah, I'm sure or what they or what they
had to try and get through, right right, He couldn't
see he just followed it.

Speaker 1 (27:00):
Yeah, yeah, he wasn't seeing the smoke and the fire
and the damage and all of the stuff crumbling and stuff.

Speaker 3 (27:06):
Yeah, but you know, he said, I just I followed
my dog because she knew exactly what to do. And
we're a.

Speaker 1 (27:12):
Team, yep, exactly and that and that's the biggest thing
when we're when we're training our teams, at our teams, uh,
they they they have to realize that they are a team,
you know. And it's like I'm always telling my guys
because we we practice a lot of having their dog
checking in with them, you know, to make sure you know,
they're paying attention and they're focused on their handler and

(27:33):
doing what they're supposed to be doing. But it's like
I tell my handlers, you guys need to check in
with your dogs too. You know, you guys are a team.
You need to pay attention to what your dog is
doing and what's going on around your dog and the
people around both of you because you have to be
aware of certain of things as well. So you guys
have to work together, so you know, it's it's trying

(27:55):
to get it's getting them to understand that they are
working with that animal as much had animals working with them.
But then once it clicks and they start doing it,
then they they are working as a team.

Speaker 2 (28:06):
So yeah, second nature.

Speaker 1 (28:08):
Yeah, so it's it's awesome though that.

Speaker 3 (28:10):
She did that with dogs.

Speaker 2 (28:12):
Do you work with dogs for folks that have diabetes?

Speaker 1 (28:17):
Well, if so, the organization I work for is she
only because we are a five on one C three
and stuff, she only trains dogs for well for people
like first responders or ex first responders and military ex
military and stuff. But say if someone was in that
category that had diabetes, then we would be training to

(28:40):
alert for that stuff because we do we do train
our dogs for alerting on things and different things like that.
So for people that have medical conditions right right, And
you know, it's great if you have a dog that
you know just does it naturally because it's it's so
much easier to do the training with them. But even
if they don't do it naturally, there are certain things

(29:02):
that you can do to help the dog realize. Like
just say, for instance, someone might have a panic attack.
I mean, it's not the same as diabetes, but say
a panic attack or zoning out or something like that.
Then we can train that dog, you know, to do
several different tasks to kind of bring them back into
focus and come back to themselves. So for you know,

(29:26):
things like cazars and maybe diabetes and stuff like that,
well like caesars, you know, and stuff like that. Obviously,
we have dogs that alert and can get their person,
you know, get their person alerted so that they can
lay down or sit down, whatever they need to do
to stay safe.

Speaker 3 (29:39):
So to the dogs, now, I was a friend of mine.
She has a it's not diabetes, but her sugar will
tank yep, grankly. And apparently when that happens, a human
gives off some.

Speaker 2 (29:53):
Sort of scent they do.

Speaker 1 (29:54):
It's like a.

Speaker 3 (29:57):
Yeah, like a sweet kind of s Well, we can't smellt,
but the dogs.

Speaker 1 (30:00):
Yeah, it's a sweet type of s Yeah.

Speaker 3 (30:01):
And I found that fascinating because I didn't know that
because she was training. She got her puppy and she
was training that puppy to alert her yep.

Speaker 2 (30:10):
And I have an uncommon, rare form of diabetes.

Speaker 3 (30:14):
And I was at her house for lunch one day
and we're standing there doing but her dog still a puppy.
She was still you know, just in the beginning, like
the first six months of training. She came and curled
herself around my feet and I went, oh, look, she's
taken a nap on my feet. And my friend goes, no, Kim,
check your blood. She's alerting you. Yeah yeah, And I went,

(30:34):
what are you talking about.

Speaker 2 (30:35):
She goes, check your sugar, sweetie.

Speaker 3 (30:37):
So I checked my I had my this is before
I had a censor or anything in my arm, but
I had my glucose, my glucometer. So I checked. I went, oh,
my gosh, it's going really low and I'll probably start
feeling it in like fifteen minutes. And she goes here,
drink some juice.

Speaker 1 (30:50):
Yeah, yeah, yeah you did.

Speaker 3 (30:53):
And I was also learning that was like kind of
at the beginning of me learning how to take care
of this weird kind of diabetes as well. But I did,
you know, I was just like, oh, look at this
sweet little pomp She just curled herself around my legs.
She's like, sweetie, she's alerting you.

Speaker 1 (31:06):
Yeah, we have we have Well, so the my boss
or my boss, well, the lady that owns hero Paus,
the organization I trained for. She actually also works full
time for soldiers. Best friend and so she trained service
dogs strictly military, you know, ex military for soldiers, but

(31:28):
I do evaluations and stuff for their tests and stuff
they have to go through before they become a full
service team. So one of the ladies we actually had
in soldiers, that's her dog alerted for. I think it
was diabetes. Her dog would alert for that, so I
want to say it was diabetes. I could be wrong.
It might have been something else, but I thought it
was diabetes something like that it would alert for. And

(31:50):
then one of these.

Speaker 2 (31:52):
Dogs are just simply amazing.

Speaker 1 (31:53):
They are, and another it was funny. One day I
was working with someone. We were we were standing there talking.
It had not been the greatest day for me, so
I was a little stressed and were sitting there and
her dog had come over and he was like kind
of putting. I don't think I don't remember. I don't
think he was really sitting on my foot, but he
was at least putting his you know, pressing down on

(32:14):
my foot with his paw kind of standing you know,
and I was I was kind of laughing about it,
and she let me pet him, and I was like, oh,
he's and I said, he's giving me deep pressure therapy,
and she's like, yeah, I like he knew I was stressing.

Speaker 3 (32:35):
Yeah. So yeah, animals. You know, if humans would just
pay closer attention to how animals interact with each.

Speaker 1 (32:43):
Other, yeah, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 (32:45):
Think I think humans would be better off any animal,
not just dogs.

Speaker 1 (32:51):
An an animal, yeah exactly.

Speaker 3 (32:54):
You know, watch the birds how they take care of
each other, you know what I mean, any animal. I
don't know. I'm one that just loves animals period. And
I'm as out I'm outside as often as I can be,
and I'm out there talking to the birds and all
the critters and I feed them all. And you know,
I'm one of those people.

Speaker 1 (33:10):
Yeah, yeah, I understand there's a lot of people out
there like I mean, I talk to my dogs. I
don't talk too much to the wildlife outside as much.
But yeah, no, I.

Speaker 3 (33:22):
Like my gully I have. I have deer every night
that come through my my yard. Every night of the
year they come through, and in the springtime and in
the early summer they bring their babies through. And I'm
always humbled by that because I'll be like, well look

(33:42):
at you, mama and your baby. Thank you for bringing
her to Thank you for introducing her to me and
bringing her in, you know, to me. I mean, it's
like I don't want them to get so so used
to me because, Okay, there is hunting in Pennsylvania in November.
You know, that's just that's just part of life. That's
just how it is. But I'm always humbled by when

(34:03):
the young moms bring their babies into my yard. Oh yeah,
because they could stay in the fields and they could
stay in the trees, but they don't. They're actually coming
and they're used to seeing me because I'm out there
and it's always gentle. That's why I call it my realm.
You know. I'm like, everything that comes into my realm
is safe as long as you stay in my realm.

(34:23):
You're saying, you know, we got the raccoon and the
ring neck pheasant and the possum, you know, and hey,
but if you're a chipmunk or a squirrel, my dog's
going after you. Sorry. Ye, the survival of the fittest when.

Speaker 1 (34:36):
It comes to that, yeah, typical dog thing squirrel.

Speaker 3 (34:40):
Oh my god, and he's got such a high this
dog here has such a high prey drive. I mean,
it's you know. I the first couple of years I
had them, I just kept a tally on the refrigerator
and people would joke and be like, what's on the
telly this today, I'm like raccoon and three skunks. They're
like skunks. I'm like, yeah, he hasn't learned.

Speaker 1 (35:04):
My mom's husband had a Malomew eighth wolf and they
kept him outside, you know, and tied and he was
tied up or whatever. But man, I'm telling you, the critters,
you would think they would have learned not to come
within the area that he had that he was tied in,
because he killed anything that came in there in skunks
and he never got sprayed because I don't even know

(35:26):
how he got him unaware, but they'd be coming through.
He would get them without them knowing it, and he
would literally just flip them and break their neck. And
he never got sprayed. Yep. I couldn't believe it.

Speaker 3 (35:36):
Dexter. Dexter just isn't that smart when it comes to skunks.
You know, Digger, I had him, like I said earlier,
fourteen years and he never quite learned either. Mike Elly
and there was there was a three week, no yeah,
three week period of time he was sprayed five times,

(35:58):
Oh my god, in three weeks, and I'm like, somebody
killed the skunks, because oh it was horrible. My house
literally smelled of skunk.

Speaker 1 (36:09):
For over a year, oh my goodness.

Speaker 3 (36:11):
And whenever, like we had talked about off Mike, how
it's humid, very humid where I live in the summertime, right,
so with that humidity kicked in the summer, you could
smell it. And I'm like, is this ever gonna go away?

Speaker 1 (36:25):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (36:27):
Yeah, skunk. And please anyone listening, don't say tomato juice
and anything else that you've ever heard of, because nothing works.
So lemon juice. I have had three dogs that have
been sprayed well over two dozen times. Nothing works. I've
tried everything.

Speaker 1 (36:45):
We fought lemon juice because animal controllable. Hey, I'll be
on I never got sprayed when we had the trap
skunks and remove them. I was lucky. I never got sprayed.
But you know, it's all on how you go up
to the trap and everything and approach it. But and
of course you know, usually have something in front of
you so you don't get sprayed. But one time I
did get it was a residual the skunk sprayed, but

(37:07):
when the breeze caught it and kind of brought some
of it back onto me, and uh, we use lemon
juice and it got rid of it. I was kind
of amazing.

Speaker 3 (37:17):
See lemon juice I've never heard of. I know that
skunk spray is an oil.

Speaker 1 (37:22):
Yeah, lemon juice is an acid.

Speaker 3 (37:24):
Skin it. So they always I used dish soap.

Speaker 1 (37:27):
Yeah, well lemon juice is like the acidy and so
acid and you know, yeah.

Speaker 3 (37:34):
But yeah, mixed it with don dish soap because don
dish soap get rid of the oil. Now.

Speaker 2 (37:40):
Now see here's I was a little sticky that.

Speaker 3 (37:41):
That might work awesome, But if it's in their mouth
and in their.

Speaker 1 (37:45):
Ears, yeah, well yeah, it's gonna say you're not gonna
want to put lemon juice in their mouth or anything.
You might be able to clean a little bit in
their ears, but but yeah no. My friend, one of
my co workers, another animal control officer, she's the one
that told me. But and she actually we had some
lemon juice spray. She had it in a spray bottle
and I you know, so she kind of she sprayed

(38:05):
because I couldn't go home and change because I live
the ways away, so she's just sprayed me down with
I was a little sticky, but yah, lemon, just get
rid of the smell. So wow.

Speaker 3 (38:14):
Yeah. See, usually when it would happen, it's like the
middle of the night. My dogs get sprayed. So I'm
out there. I'm like, okay, well, time to get naked
in the backyard again, because you can't you just throw
those clothes away?

Speaker 1 (38:26):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 (38:28):
Because my dog would come running at me, foaming and yiping,
and then he'd come and shake, and then he's shaking
all that crap. I'm like, all right, now I have
to take off all my clothes in the backyard again
and throw them away. I mean it's because it doesn't
go away, and I'm not putting stuff like that and
my washer machine. Oh yeah, boy, the joys of being

(38:48):
sprayed by skunk? How fun? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (38:51):
Yeah. And I gotta put this out there too, Okay.
I know we just talked about our dogs getting into
it with skunks and my mom's husband's dog killing him.
I don't condone all that kind of It's not that
I was a young teenager. Okay, guys before any of
you know it grew up. But either way, don't don't

(39:11):
kill me because I was saying that his dog killed skunks.

Speaker 2 (39:15):
But I mean, here's the thing.

Speaker 1 (39:17):
It just happens.

Speaker 3 (39:19):
It happens. And here's the thing. Dogs are animals. They
are and they have their animal instincts.

Speaker 1 (39:25):
And that was his territory and that skunk encroached upont me.

Speaker 3 (39:30):
He was in the alpha male and that's what Dexter
does here. And I now remember I live in the country.
I'm surrounded by fields.

Speaker 1 (39:36):
Yeah, that's where he was too. He was surrounded by fields.

Speaker 3 (39:39):
Yeah, and so it's like Dexter he not and Digger
was the same way. Digger he was great at dispatching groundhogs.
The farmers loved him. Yeah. Yeah, that's just they're they're
an animal and they're they're doing their unnatural instincts. Is
it fun and is it? No? I don't enjoy it
because I have.

Speaker 1 (39:59):
To go clean it up, so exactly exactly, we're the
ones that I have to take care of that and
bury and things and stuff like that.

Speaker 3 (40:06):
But right.

Speaker 1 (40:07):
But yeah, anyway, and Julie, I'm so sorry. You were
just on my podcast the last podcast, and it was
about skunks. So we were I had Indian Indiana Skunk
Rescue Julie.

Speaker 3 (40:21):
I would love to learn more about skunks because the
only thing I know about them is my reaction from
them when my dogs get sprayed, you know, so and
I know that. I mean, they're so sweet. And I
love all animals, I do. I love all animals. Uh,
that would it would be so interesting to learn more
about skok just like people are afraid of bats. I

(40:43):
find bats fascinating actually, and they're wonderful for the environment.

Speaker 1 (40:49):
I had uh bat World Sanctuary on with me out
of Texas a while back, and then actually my next
upcoming podcasts, which I'm going to talk about, you know,
at the end of the podcast, which we aren't getting
kind of close to you and stuffn't really talked about
the books to me, but that's okay. But anyway, so

(41:10):
my next one is actually with a bat biologist and
we're gonna be She has put a book out and
though oh I don't have it right next to me,
it's a little Wonderful World of Bats, Wonderful World of
Bats or the Weird Weird I'm sorry, the Weird and
Wonderful World of Bats.

Speaker 2 (41:29):
And that would be fascinating.

Speaker 1 (41:31):
Yeah, it's an awesome book. I'm almost done reading it
and I've got about fifty more pages to go. And
the beautiful, beautiful pictures photos in the book, I mean,
they're just gorgeous pictures that she's got in there. And
it is just chock full of all sorts of information
that you need want that you might want to know

(41:52):
about bats and stuff different. You know, species of bats,
the vampire bats, the straw colored bats, the Egyptian fruit
bats and African fruit bats. So yeah, there's all sorts
of bats and all sorts of information about them in
the book.

Speaker 3 (42:08):
Fascinating and that, yes, send me, send me what you
just said about all these different people in an email. Yeah,
I would love to check into it, like if they've
got a book, or get on their website and follow
them or whatever, because a lot of fascinating stuff and
I'd like learning about stuff like that.

Speaker 2 (42:27):
I always want to learn more.

Speaker 1 (42:28):
So yeah, yeah, I'll send you. The title of the book.
Batworld is actually the bat bat World Sanctuary, and they
don't usually use sanctuary after it's just Batworld, but they
actually have live batcamps because you know, they have bats
that can't be re released out in the wild. I mean,
whether they came from you know, zoos that no one

(42:49):
or whatever, or you know, they just got injured and
stuff and they can't fly whatever. And so they have
all sorts of different bats there and they have their
gery Jerry Batrick Ward. But they had the backcam so
you can at night, you know, the batmen that you
can actually see the bats and feeding and eating their
little insects and playing with their toys and and just

(43:09):
you know, being bats. So it's kind of cool, I
get to you know, so because they were on my podcast,
I found out about the batcam, so I kind of watched.
I watched the back cam every once in a while.
So you know, there's all sorts of different cams out there.
I'm sure people don't even know about. I had gosh,
I got to think of the name of the it's

(43:31):
a marine aquarium in Florida. They're the ones that had
wintered the dolphin and they actually have marine cameras and
so you can see the dolphins and the seaatters and
the pelicans and stuff like that that they have there
at the Yeah, the ones that can't go back out
into the wild, you know, like winter she had that
prosthetic fin. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so unfortunately Winter passed away

(43:57):
a couple of years ago. Yeah, but they still have she.
They had a second dolphin that came in that I'm
thinking also had to have a feet. She had something anyway,
and she was in with Winter. But so they still
have her. They have several dolphins there, but they have
a camera.

Speaker 2 (44:13):
How cool?

Speaker 3 (44:14):
How cool would that be to be in paw prints
on the front porch, even even though they don't have
paw prints.

Speaker 1 (44:20):
Yeah, well, you know, you could always contact I'm sure
you know that. I'll send you the name. I'll send
you the name of the aquarium, and you can always
ask them.

Speaker 3 (44:31):
They might mightn't They might love bringing about all this
animal stuff. I love it. This is so fun.

Speaker 1 (44:36):
International Walter cam all winter.

Speaker 3 (44:39):
I was watching a cam a bald eagle. Yeah, I
was watching them, Sonny and Gizmo.

Speaker 1 (44:45):
Yeah, I just I was watching those.

Speaker 3 (44:47):
I watch them the whole time. And then they you know,
as the as the baby eaglets got bigger, and then
they finally flew off their own.

Speaker 1 (44:55):
Jackie in Shadow have the empty nest, now Shadow.

Speaker 2 (44:58):
That's right.

Speaker 3 (44:59):
Now. There was three and the third one didn't make it.

Speaker 1 (45:02):
Oh yeah, at the very.

Speaker 3 (45:03):
Beginning because well, you know, it was just too tiny
and just wasn't able to make it.

Speaker 1 (45:07):
But Sonny and a Shadow and Sonny, Sonny and Gizmo.

Speaker 3 (45:12):
Yeah, Sonny Yeah. And I mean and they do every
once in a while, were you watching, Like they would
post something on Facebook and say, oh, they're doing a
flyby of the old of the old house.

Speaker 1 (45:23):
Yeah, yeah, look.

Speaker 3 (45:25):
They are thriving. Yeah, fun. Yeah, I watched that one
all winter long.

Speaker 2 (45:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (45:30):
And then International Wolf Center they have the wolf camp
set up and they actually I think they just got
in a couple new because they they have because they're
like a educational type center too, so they have wolfs
in like natural habitats in Minnesota, and so I mean
they're big enclosures, but they're more of a natural They

(45:50):
have their dens and they're in the woods, but they
have cameras set up so you can see them. And
I think they've got a couple young I don't know
if their pups or just young adults that they just
got because and they'll you know, people come in and
learn about them and stuff like that. They're like they're
ambassador wolves. And then they have some of the old
ones and so yeah, so you can watch the wolves too.

Speaker 3 (46:09):
Oh that would be they well they all sound really cool.
See then I would be watching those all day, every day,
and I would get nothing else done.

Speaker 1 (46:18):
Yeah, it's hard to balance that stuff.

Speaker 3 (46:21):
Yeah, no, seriously, because once, like with the with the
bald eagles, I was like, oh is there another post today? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (46:31):
Yeah, you'd be amazed at all the cameras very invested
in it, you know, you do you do sometimes when
I mean, especially when you're watching it from like the
beginning and they're like eggs and then all of a sudden,
you know, they're getting hatched and then they're growing and
you're and it's really kind of cool to see, especially
like with the eagles, because they may you know, for
life and stuff, and so they're coming in and they're
taking care of it, you know, and seeing that family

(46:53):
interaction is kind of, you know, really good.

Speaker 3 (46:55):
It was fascinating and I loved watching how like when
they the young ones were learning to flap their wings
and just getting ready to fly. Yeah, you know, and
they would trip and fall over and you know, but
they wouldn't fall out of the net because I'd be like, oh,
they're going to fall over this. But when they first went.
I can't remember which one flew first. I can't remember.

Speaker 1 (47:16):
I think it was Gizmore. I want to say, I
think it was Gizmo.

Speaker 3 (47:20):
When I saw that, I almost started crying.

Speaker 1 (47:24):
You know what was I thought it was.

Speaker 2 (47:26):
Look at you go. It was just amazing.

Speaker 1 (47:29):
I thought it was funny because the second one, she
didn't want to leave the net. She was having a
little more trouble leading, and so that's when Shadow he's like, hey,
I got the fish over here in the tree. If
you want to eat, you gotta come over here.

Speaker 3 (47:45):
It was fascinating, though, to see how they interact with
each other.

Speaker 1 (47:48):
Yeah, they have their.

Speaker 3 (47:50):
Own body language, their own verbal language, you know how
they It was. I found the whole thing fascinating. Yeah, yeah,
really cool.

Speaker 1 (47:57):
I liked how the eagle Jackie and Shadow would like
stare at each other and gaze into each other's eyes
and stuff. That was pretty cool.

Speaker 3 (48:05):
Or they would pull each other off every once in
a while.

Speaker 1 (48:08):
Yeah, well, you know, you got to have your fights
so you can make up.

Speaker 3 (48:11):
That's right, That's right.

Speaker 1 (48:15):
Oh my goodness. Oh yeah, it was pretty cool. I
guess we should go back to talking about your books
and stuff now that we've completely gone off track for
everything else. But that's okay. So I did another thing.
I wanted to kind of ask, so, you know, with
your stories, and like you did mention that you had

(48:35):
a couple in there that were actually told from the
pets perspective, So what kind of made you want to
actually do some of those from that narrative instead of
sticking with just the person? I mean? Was it.

Speaker 3 (48:51):
Because the.

Speaker 2 (48:53):
Humans wrote them that way and that's how they submitted them?

Speaker 3 (48:56):
And that's how I always share the stories of my
dogs from their perspective, not from mine. So I like,
I like when I come across other people that do that,
because for years, you know, with Digger's story, it was
always told from his perspective, right right, you know, And

(49:16):
that's that's just how I write from the animal's perspective
now and paw prints on the kitchen floor the introduction
Dexter gives.

Speaker 1 (49:25):
Yeah, yeah, Soctor.

Speaker 3 (49:27):
Dexter tells it. So it was I got such a
kick out of when a story would come in from someone.
I'm like, Oh, they're writing it from the cat's point
of view. Awesome, you know, And I don't know. For me,
I've because that's how my brain goes. You know, there's
certain animals you can look at and you're like, I
know exactly what you're thinking, you little turd. I know
exactly what you're thinking of doing right now. And so

(49:50):
you know, I would just come up with full conversations.
And it's so fun when you meet other people that
have that that imagination and that create of thing and
they have that deep connection with their animal right because
there's you know, to me, that's you just get it.
I don't know when when I would share those stories,

(50:11):
when Digger would share his stories, and I shared them
clear up to his last day from his perspective, and
then the only story I shared from my perspective was
the after right it passed away, and but it was
in a dream form, and people were so thankful and

(50:37):
they said, you know, because they're like, oh my gosh,
they were so invested in Digger. They said, we're sitting
here sobbing and knowing, knowing that you had to say
goodbye to him today. We've been crying all day long
because I would share this is you know. Every once
in a while there he'd be like, well, lady mom says,
you know, I know, I'm really tired and she says,

(50:59):
she's a o kay was saying goodbye to me now,
but I had to stick it out. I had to
make sure she was okay because I've been I've been
with her for so long. I don't know what she's
going to do without me. But you know, she said
she it's okay, and I'm tired, and she said she'd
let me go, and I let her know it was time.
And so those were the conversations, right, and people were like,

(51:23):
you know, we were literally sobbing our eyes out, knowing
that day that you were saying goodbye. And it was
about three weeks later that I popped on and shared
a dream from Digger's perspective, but it was my dream
that I had, but it was Digger talking to me
and my dream and people were saying and he was
he was just he was letting me know he was okay,

(51:44):
and he was thanking me. And I shared that story.
It's in the it's in the end of the first book.
It's called it's called a Special Visit, and it's not
written very well, and that's okay, But I was very
distraught when I wrote that, and I said, it's stay
in there, and this is how it's going in the book. Yeah,
but people, I still get messages from people all these

(52:07):
years later saying, you know, I just came across this
story and thank you, thank you so much because I
just had to say goodbye to my cat or my dog,
or my horse or my iguana, whatever the case may be.
And they say it. It settled me down a little
bit and made me feel much better, right, you know,

(52:29):
And to me, that's what it's about. I don't want
every story in these books to be the final goodbye.
That's not the point of the stories. That's not the
point of the book, because the final goodbye. Think about it, folks,
that's just one day. That's one day. And I had
to remind myself of that. I'm like Kim with Digger,

(52:51):
that's one day. You had fourteen years of nothing but
awesomeness with him. Don't focus on the one day. Because
their lives are as long as they're meant to be
right here, you know, there, as long as they're meant
to be and they're here to do their job, and
oh my goodness, don't they do their jobs well? They do,

(53:12):
you know, they do their jobs well as long as
they have a decent human being in their life, they
do their jobs well, and how blessed we are.

Speaker 1 (53:23):
Golly, yeah, that's for sure. I mean, I just I
just lost my Loki boy a few months ago. He
was he would have actually it was just before his
fourteenth birthday. He was would have been fourteen, and then
about a month before we lost him. Right now, I

(53:43):
actually have to help my sixteen year old get on
the couch because she can't jump up here by herself.
So I may sound like I'm a little bit further
away just for a second if I'm talking, but.

Speaker 3 (53:57):
Here on my couch. I slept on my couch for
two months because Digger was a very large dog and
he could no longer do steps, and he was over
one hundred pounds and I couldn't lift them. So I
slept on the couch while he slept on his overly
cushy bed on the floor. And I would sleep with
my hand on him for two months. So you know,

(54:20):
we do what we got to do because their lives,
their whole life is spent loving us and waiting on us.
They wait for you to get home from work, they
wait for you to get home from the store, They
wait for you to take them for a walk. They
wait for you to feed them. Their whole life is nothing,
but you you are their whole world, you know. So

(54:41):
I was like, you know what, I'll sleep on the
couch as long as I need to, Buddy, that's okay.
I'm right here, you know.

Speaker 1 (54:47):
Right, yeah, yep, yeah, but them all so well, yeah,
so I got my old lady here, my little old
lady here. She was actually a shelter. Well, all of
my dogs except for the very first one. I had
seven at one time.

Speaker 3 (55:05):
And.

Speaker 1 (55:07):
My first one he actually can't. I was working, I
didn't wasn't in animal control. Then I was working for
a convenience store in one of my co workers dogs
had puppies, and of course my son saw and that
was the first one we got, and then after that
then came the animal control and the six next ones
were all rescues from the shelter. Because you know, when
you do animal control, that's what happens. You become a

(55:30):
dog collector or a cat collector whichever. Yeah, and a
good And it's funny because you know, with all the
different many many animal control officers and this is hilarious
actually own pit bulls or Staffordshire terriers or whatever you
want to call them. Pit bulls is the slang word,
but some buldy breed. Most animal A lot of animal

(55:52):
control officers own bulldy breeds because we worked with them
all the time and we know what they're capable of
and what they can do. Anyway, this girl here, I think,
is a this is funny, a jack Russell pit bull mix.
So yeah, she kind of has jack Russell head, but
then kind of the pit I mean, not small, but
the looks and everything of the jack Russell head and

(56:14):
then the pit bull type body. So it's yeah, but
she's she's not bad. She's a good girl. But she
came to the shelter when she was only a couple
of years old, and she is dog picky son. She
doesn't hate all dogs, but she doesn't like all dogs,
and I don't blame her. I don't like all people,

(56:38):
you know. I tell people that all the time, that like,
well my dog doesn't seem to like this other dog. Well, okay,
do you like everybody you meet? I mean just because
the dog. You know, we all say dogs are pack animals.
Not every dog is a pack animal.

Speaker 3 (56:54):
No, no they're not. And you know, I rely on
a dog's actions and much much more reliably than I
do on humans.

Speaker 1 (57:05):
Yeah, exactly. So anyway, my dog, Picky Girl, I tried
for a couple of years to get her adopted out.
And this is a horrible story, but anyway, my animal
controls under the police department, and so the one of
the sergeants one day after we had left the shelter

(57:27):
for the day, came out, like on patrol or whatever.
And so since I had had this little girl at
the shelter for a couple of years and was not
getting her adopted out, I decided to make her my
shelter dog, my shelter mascot dog, and so she had
the run of the shelter. She had her own kennel
with the doors always left open so she could come

(57:48):
and go as she wanted to, and then out of
the yards, well the outside yards, not the other dog kennels,
but so she could kind of come and go as
she wanted. And then she did have a doghouse set
up outside if she wanted to stay outside. She had
a swimming pool with water to get in, and she
had food and toys, you name it. So anyway, he
came one day after we left and she does what

(58:11):
any dog does that's guarding her yard in her territory.
She came running and barking and growling at the fence.
Keep in mind this fence is over eight foot tall
with three strands of barbed wire around the top of it.
He went back. He was someone that was afraid of dogs,
and yeah, and so he went back to my police

(58:33):
chief and told them that I had a menace to
society at the shelter and if she ever got out,
she would attack somebody. And so the police chief then
told me to either get her out of the shelter,
adopted or whatever, or to put her down. And so
I said, okay, and I got her out of the
shelter into my home. And this is where she's been

(58:56):
since let me see for the last let me see,
she's sixteen she came home, So twelve years I've had her.

Speaker 3 (59:04):
Yeah, mineso to society.

Speaker 1 (59:06):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 3 (59:06):
And you know there's people, there's people that other people
don't understand because they have some sort of issue or
trauma or something. No one says get rid of them
or put them down.

Speaker 1 (59:19):
Yep, And she's good.

Speaker 3 (59:21):
I mean, that's like you know, you know, over dramatic
but seriously, come on, Yeah, someone has to be the
voice for the animals because they don't have one.

Speaker 1 (59:30):
Yep, And she's fine with people. She is one of
the best dogs. And that's funny. I know a lot
of people say one of the I've had the best dog,
but she really, she really was for the start in life.
She is probably one of the only dogs that I
ever had coming in my shelter that I would absolutely
say probably had been abused at some point in her
very young life. It took me a week to even

(59:54):
be able to enter the kennel with her.

Speaker 3 (59:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (59:58):
I sat outside her kennel for a week, giving her
treats and talking to her while she growled at me.
And we got to and unfortunately, as most people know,
in kennels you get full and sometimes you have to
make space. And since she was not showing signs of
being adoptable, I at that point was this is this

(01:00:21):
is very interesting. I looked at her. She'd let me
come into kennel and I sat down on the dog
bed in there, and she was over in the corner,
you know, away from me, and just giving me the
stink eye, you might say. And I looked at her
and I said, look, I said, this is this is
our coming to God moment here. If you don't let

(01:00:43):
me touch you and pet you to where I know
I'm going to be able to get you adopted out.
I'm going to have to put you to sleep because
I got other dogs coming in, and you're not adoptable
at this point, and I don't have anybody that they're
at this point, there's no that's going to work with her, right,
So I am not even kidding you. I said that

(01:01:05):
to her, and she got up and came over and
let me pet her.

Speaker 3 (01:01:10):
See I believe that.

Speaker 1 (01:01:12):
Yep. And I've had her for twelve years. So yeah,
she's been great with my grandkids. Yeah, I know, she's
been great with my grandkids. I have no issues with
her with my grandkids. She's good with all of them.
If she doesn't want to deal with them and she
gets tired of them, she goes to a different room.

Speaker 3 (01:01:30):
Yeah, that's what my dog does. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:01:32):
And the kids, no, don't follow the dog. You know.
We we trained the kids just like we you know, yes,
and you have to yeah, yep, exactly. So yeah, so
that is my Misty Mays story.

Speaker 3 (01:01:44):
Wonderful yep.

Speaker 1 (01:01:46):
And so now she's lived to the ripe old age
of sixteen and hoping to mix. Well. She's got a
few more quite a few months yet before the seventeenth
birthday comes.

Speaker 3 (01:01:55):
But but she's been living her best life.

Speaker 1 (01:01:58):
She has, she has, she's got it made with the
treats and the love and everything.

Speaker 3 (01:02:04):
So she's ok. Yeah, that's that's how the dogs in
my house have always been too. And people joke, they're like, wow,
like when I got Dexter, they're going to does Dexter
have any idea how lucky he is? Right? Maybe not yet,
but he.

Speaker 1 (01:02:17):
Will right right exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:02:20):
If they know I spoil my dogs rotten and that's
okay because they should. And most you know, most dogs
coming from a shelter have been through something.

Speaker 1 (01:02:30):
Oh yeah, most definitely, I mean whether it's Yeah, what
really interests me is all the people. And I believe me,
I've probably heard so many stories you wouldn't even believe
some of the stories. But what interests me is the
people that bring the dog in because you know, they're
having whatever issue it may be with the dog, whether
the dog is pottying in the house or it's barking

(01:02:52):
too much or jumping up on people knocking the grandkids
or the kids down. When you look at him and say, well,
have you tried to do any training with the dog,
and the answer you good is no, I'm turning it
in And it's like, oh, okay. And then they say no,
I'm turning it into you because I just I don't
have time or I can't be able the problem, blah whatever, okay,

(01:03:15):
And then they turn right around and look at you
and go, but I know you'll be able to find
it a good home. And I turn around look at
them and go, yeah, because you but you know, here's
the thing. I got to find it a good home
with someone who's now willing to take on the problem
that you weren't.

Speaker 3 (01:03:30):
Willing to take created that they created.

Speaker 1 (01:03:32):
Yep, exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:03:33):
Yeah. You don't get a dog and not you have
Like I said earlier, you have a dog. You got
to train it. Yeah, in the right way, train it
the right way. Does it need to be forceful or
mean or anything in any way? You know? And if
you don't know how to train a dog, then learn
ye or.

Speaker 1 (01:03:48):
Go to a trainer. It doesn't cost that much.

Speaker 3 (01:03:51):
No, it doesn't.

Speaker 2 (01:03:52):
No, it doesn't at the very least you could YouTube it, yep.

Speaker 1 (01:03:56):
I mean my basic dog my training classes and year
we live. We're in a very pretty rural area and
it's not, you know, one of the higher income areas,
but you know myself and at least one of the
other trainers, maybe a couple of we don't even We
do a six weeks course for basic commands, and then
we also do an advanced class in six weeks for

(01:04:18):
the to get them canaine good citizenship certifications if they
want to go that route. But we don't even charge
one hundred dollars for those six weeks of classes MAA.
So it's like, you can't afford ninety dollars, Well, that's okay,
I'm ninety dollars. You can't afford, you know, one hundred
dollars for a six weeks class to train your dog?
What does that equate to? What like fifteen bucks a

(01:04:40):
week something like that? Coming?

Speaker 2 (01:04:43):
Well, do it equated to the pet's lifetime?

Speaker 3 (01:04:46):
You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (01:04:47):
Well, yeah, exactly that work?

Speaker 3 (01:04:48):
How worth that ninety dollars? Is worth it to have
a well adjusted animal within your family?

Speaker 1 (01:04:55):
Right and if you can, sorry, if you can afford
to go out and buy alcohol or six reds you
can afford to pay for dog training if you have
a dog.

Speaker 3 (01:05:03):
Exactly, Yeah, I have. I actually have a pretty hard toime.
Well you probably do too. I have a hard time
with people that say, well, you know, they go to
the bathroom in the house, and the way I look
at it is there's no bad dog, there's just stupid
bad humans.

Speaker 2 (01:05:18):
Yeah, you know, you've.

Speaker 3 (01:05:20):
Got to and I know that's being mean, but you've
seen way more than I have. Uh that probably, you
know just makes you go, oh, you know, you have
to bite your tongue a lot. But to me, it's
like I didn't I didn't take my dogs to any
your formal training. I just instinctively knew how to do it,

(01:05:40):
you know, and how it would work well in my family,
you know. So the words I use, the tone I use,
the hand commands I used, and in the way I
did it. And my ex husband he was German, so
we've my last two dogs have been trained in German, right,
and that seems to work very well too. You know.

Speaker 1 (01:06:00):
I think it's because German is a harsher language. I
think it's because German is a harsher language, and I
think with that harsher language and harsher guttural tone you
have to put into those words. Yes, yes, oh, and
that's amazing. You don't know how many people, Oh my god,
please please do not sit there and try to beg
your dog to do something. Oh my gosh, it's like, oh,

(01:06:23):
come on, please sit, sit, shit, can't you sit? No,
that's not how you do this.

Speaker 3 (01:06:29):
Sit.

Speaker 1 (01:06:31):
You know you gotta be firm, you gotta have that tone.
I'm not telling you to be me.

Speaker 3 (01:06:34):
You want to say, do you think your dog actually
understands the English language? Right now?

Speaker 1 (01:06:40):
It's like you are near being too wishy washy. What's amazing?
This is you're gonna laugh. Service dog my service dog teams.
I have ex military people and I am not in
the men, and it's the guys I think that are
a little worse about. I literally have these gentlemen that
are like todd pound guys. Some of them are sitting here,

(01:07:02):
going sit, come on, you can sit. Sit and I
look at him and I started, I've done it to
two of them.

Speaker 3 (01:07:13):
Now.

Speaker 1 (01:07:13):
I started laughing, and I'm not going to say his name,
but I'm like, were you in the military, And he
says yes, I said, did you not learn knifehand? Do
you not know how to give a command?

Speaker 2 (01:07:29):
Were you equated to?

Speaker 3 (01:07:32):
Did your drill instructors say, would you guys please line up?

Speaker 2 (01:07:36):
I know, well, And.

Speaker 1 (01:07:38):
That's the thing. Some of these guys were like those
types of sergeants and stuff. And I'm like, did you
command your guys like that? I know you didn't, So
don't do it when your dog. I'm like, do you
do that with your children if your children are doing
something to get in trouble. I'm not asking if you're
beating your child or if you're screaming at.

Speaker 2 (01:07:57):
Him certain firm tone and so exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:08:02):
And that's why I'm like, do you do you use
the same tone with your child when they're doing something wrong?

Speaker 3 (01:08:06):
Hey?

Speaker 1 (01:08:06):
Will you please just try to stop doing that? No,
that's not what they listen to. I'm not saying, Okay,
everybody out there listening. I'm not condoning child abuse or
anything like that either. You don't.

Speaker 3 (01:08:18):
I'm like me either. It's just it's the tone they use. Yes,
And now it's funny with my dog.

Speaker 2 (01:08:23):
With Dexter and with Digger, I used to do it too, just.

Speaker 3 (01:08:26):
To practice because they are both trained in German and
every once in a while we're out in the field,
because I let them. We're out in the field. You know,
I'm very rural as well, and I would let them.
They're not on a line or anything. They run free,
you know, and live in their best dog life. But
if I called them back, the better darn, we'll be
back to my knee, you know, sitting beside me. And

(01:08:46):
every once in a while, instead of using the tone,
I would use a softer tone. And they literally never
heard me. Yeah, never even wouldn't even acknowledge. But as
soon as I used the right tone, they perked right up.
They just come running back. Now they're not afraid, right,
that's just they know what they need to do and
they just come running back. They want to please you, yes,

(01:09:07):
they want to love.

Speaker 1 (01:09:09):
You, yes they do. That's and that's you know, positive
reinforcement training, and that's what we do, and you know,
and it works wonders. But you still need to have
that firmness of tone so that they know that they
listen and they know you're not messing around, you know.
But yeah, just it's amazing to me some of these
people that do that kind of stuff. And I'm like, no,

(01:09:30):
you got to have a.

Speaker 3 (01:09:30):
Firmer dog, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:09:32):
And then the women is like, do you have a
mom voice? Do you have children? And if they say yes,
I said, do you have a mom voice? YEA, use it.
I have a mom voice. My dogs listen to me.
I am their alpha. And although people are trying to
get away from using alpha for the dogs and stuff now,
but I am their leader in this house and they

(01:09:52):
listen to me.

Speaker 2 (01:09:53):
I mean sometimes I'll laugh.

Speaker 3 (01:09:56):
This is like a joke that I have between me
and the dog. I'll be like, Dexter, here's the boss
in this house, and don't give me a look like,
uh mom, we both know the answer to that, right.

Speaker 1 (01:10:06):
Right, Oh yeah, of course, of course I am. Of
course mine are two. They've got me wrapped.

Speaker 2 (01:10:12):
Oh yeah, oh yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:10:14):
But it's like, I mean, just for example, my daughter
and son when they were younger and both still lived
at home, and we had our first dogs, and I
like you, they get on the couch. Obviously I just
helped my old girl up on the couch, but so
the dogs on the couch. My daughter wants to sit down,
there's nowhere to sit, but where the dog is. Of course,
we're going to make the dog get down because we
are humans, or we're going to make them at least
move and give us a spot to sit. So, you know,

(01:10:37):
she's like, get down, come on, get down, Chance, get down.
And I looked at her and I said, what are
you doing. She's like, I want him to get down
so I can sit down. And I said, well, you're
not going to get it to get down using that
tone of voice. And she's like, well, what do you mean.
And I looked at him and I said, Chance, get down,
and he immediately got down, and she just looked at me.

(01:10:58):
I said, you don't use the right tone anytime. And
then even after she moved out of the house, she
would come over here. The dog would never mind her.
He always me and my son immediately, but he would
never listen to her for anything. And I'm just like,
it's your tone of voice, and I keep telling you that,
but you know, and then after a while he just
got used to it, and he wouldn't listen to her

(01:11:19):
because he was just like, yeah, you ain't making me
do anything anyway. They do, they do, so she would
be so mad.

Speaker 3 (01:11:28):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:11:29):
Yeah, they aren't just like kids, they're like toddlers exactly.
That's why I'm like, okay, women, mom voice when you're
giving commands. Guys, if you're in the military or you're
in the police department, dad voices. Yeah, there you go,
Dad voices. He'd grieve people. Tone of voice means a lot.

(01:11:49):
And saying their name, you know, that's another thing people
don't realize they'd listen. Dogs listen to people talk all
the time. So how do they know if you're talking
to them unless you use their name, right, So you know,
sometimes you might have to do that, you.

Speaker 3 (01:12:05):
Know, yeah, if they do, you're you know what a
good point to bring up dogs because there it's like
Charlie Brown, Charlie Brown bump. They hear it all all
day long, every.

Speaker 1 (01:12:15):
Day, wah exactly, and.

Speaker 3 (01:12:17):
Then and then they hear their name and they perk up.
They're like, oh, what am I supposed to do?

Speaker 1 (01:12:21):
Exactly? And that's why I tell people doing that too.
You know, when you're training your dog, if you're not,
you might need to use his name because they're used
to listening to you talk all the time. If you
say the name, you might get more intention.

Speaker 3 (01:12:34):
That is such a good point to make, though, I mean,
it's so you know, it's so common sense. But well
I never even thought of it that way. Yeah. Yeah,
you know, you dogs hear you talk like my well,
your dog and my dog they've been listening us to
us talk for over an hour now and unless I
say his name, he's completely ignoring me and sleeping on
the couch right now.

Speaker 1 (01:12:52):
Yeah, mine just jump Mine just jumped down and walked
into the other room. So yeah, I mean.

Speaker 3 (01:12:57):
That's that's you's tired of listening to you.

Speaker 1 (01:12:59):
Yeah, I mean exactly. She's like, are you ever gonna
get done talking?

Speaker 3 (01:13:02):
Are you done yet?

Speaker 1 (01:13:04):
But you know, but that's the thing, you know, and
it's the things you learn from someone who's doing dog training.
But you know, and I tell people you know that
all the time. It's it's your tone of voice. You
got to use their name. And and I literally tell
them too. I said, you do understand that you're not
here for me to train your dog. You're here for
me to train you to train your dog, exactly, And

(01:13:27):
then they kind of yeah. Then they look at me
and I'm like, and then the light bulb.

Speaker 3 (01:13:32):
Goes on.

Speaker 1 (01:13:34):
And it's just like, oh, yeah, you know what, You're right,
Yes I am. I know I'm gonna show you what
you're gonna do with your dog, but you're gonna go
home and for a week, you're gonna work with your
dog at home. So because this is what it's all about,
is working with your dog, bonding with your dog, and
being a team, and also on top of that, figuring

(01:13:55):
out the pecking order and that you're the leader and
the dog is the follower, because that's what dog dogs
really want. They want a leader. They don't want to
you know, these dogs that you know try to bully
their humans and stuff like a lot of that time
it's because the human isn't taking charge and isn't you know,
being the leader. And this dog now feels that they're

(01:14:16):
the ones that got to take charge and be the leader,
and they have all this weight on them. And you
see such a change when you start to actually switch
that and you become the leader and you start giving
them structure and you write and stuff like that, you
will see a totally different dog.

Speaker 3 (01:14:33):
They will change routine and structure. Yes, so important.

Speaker 1 (01:14:38):
Consistency, Consistency, absolute.

Speaker 3 (01:14:42):
Yes, Consistency and patience you have because every dog is different,
every breed is different, just like people. Every person is different.
No one has the same personality, same thing with dogs,
you know. And I had to remind myself that, like,
because Digger was just so ridiculously small. He was taught
something one time and he never forgot it. He was

(01:15:04):
ridiculously intelligent. We only gave him a command one time.
He never would forget it. He was It was just crazy.
I actually I would laugh and say he's half human
because he understood everything we said. Now, I had to
remind myself when I got Texter, he is a different dog, right,
is not Digger, and therefore I have to let his

(01:15:25):
personality come out and work with that, right. And it
took months, So I mean, you know, you do have
to have patience because it took at least three months.
But I trained him from the first night I brought
him home, even though he was sick. I started training gently,
you know, and he is uh. I still have to
do reminders, like little reminder trainings, you know, out in

(01:15:47):
the backyard with him. And I had to remind myself
though he's not Digger, He's a completely different dog with
a completely different personality, right, you know, because sometimes I,
you know, I would look at Digger and I'm like,
you are half human? In there you are so because
you can look in the dog's eyes and you're just like, gosh,
you're so smart. And there are times when I look

(01:16:08):
at Dexter and I'm just like, well.

Speaker 2 (01:16:10):
Look at you. You're You're just a big old.

Speaker 3 (01:16:11):
Dog in there, because sometimes he's just looking at you
like I just ate deer poop. Yeah, I think that
was the best thing ever.

Speaker 1 (01:16:20):
And I'm like, oh, exactly, yeah. And they all have
such different personalities. Yeah, but they're all beautiful.

Speaker 3 (01:16:29):
They're all beautiful.

Speaker 1 (01:16:31):
Yeah, And they are.

Speaker 3 (01:16:32):
All beautiful little souls.

Speaker 1 (01:16:33):
I love them all they are. And I'm not even
going to get into cats because cats is a whole,
entirely different animal out there because they just own people.
I don't even know why people think we own them.
They don't know cats.

Speaker 3 (01:16:44):
I'm allergic to cats, so I've never had a cat,
so I've never had, you know, the experience with the cat,
So I wouldn't be able to participate much in that
one them they make me break out.

Speaker 2 (01:16:57):
I break out, my next breakountain hives.

Speaker 1 (01:17:00):
It depends on the cat. I'll be honest. My daughter's allergic.
She's not allergic to every cat, but she is allergic
to cats. It just depends on the cat.

Speaker 3 (01:17:08):
Yeah, I think you're probably right, because my sister used
to have two cats. Is I could be around them
as long as I didn't touch them.

Speaker 1 (01:17:15):
Yeah that's half. Yeah, that's because of the dander on
them and stuff. Yeah, yeah, I.

Speaker 3 (01:17:19):
Couldn't, you know, because I would think, well, they live
in the house, you would think that something. No, it
was only if I would pet, because I mean, I
love animals. I'd be like, or they jump in my
lap and I'm like, oh, I can't patch you. You've got you,
you know, but you want to. But yeah, my whole
neck would just break out in hives. It was kind
of a scary thing.

Speaker 1 (01:17:38):
So yeah, no, I've had I've had a couple of
cats over the years. The one I'm more of a
dog person, and my dogs I can't. My one I
have now, she doesn't like cats anyway, so I wouldn't
have a cat. But my first cat I had was
a big We lived in the country and actually someone
dumped a male and a female cat at my mom house,

(01:18:00):
and of course the female was pregnant, and so we
ended up with kittens, and me and my brother kept
two of the kittens, and my well, my mom ended
up with a bunch of more cats because she kept
other first two. But anyway, mine was a big black
cat and I called him, of course, panther. Why would
you name a big black cat, you know? So so yeah,

(01:18:20):
so Panther it was. And his brother and I don't
he walked like he was kind of like this regal,
regal type princely cat, so we we named him Regie,
which was regal but rege. So anyway, and they were
pretty good sized cats, to be honest with you. I mean,

(01:18:40):
my panther could sit on an autumn and pretty much
he'd be curled up sleeping and pretty much take up
most of the autuma. So yeah, so they were they
were pretty good sized cats. But anyway, I had moved
out of my mom's house and I was living with
my boyfriend and we had and we had the panther,
and I can't remember what was going Me and my
boyfriend were having an argument about something, and so he

(01:19:03):
was sitting in the chair and I was laying on
the couch and we had been arguing about something and Panther,
I guess, had been under the couch or somewhere, so
he had kind of heard this argument, and I am
not even getting he come out. He jumped up on
my boyfriend's you know, he jumped up on the ottoman
and then up onto my boyfriend's lap, walked up his lap,

(01:19:24):
you know, up like he was going to come up
to get made over and petted. And he literally slapped
my boyfriend across the face with his paw, and then
he jumped down and came over and jumped up on
the couch and laying on my chest.

Speaker 2 (01:19:39):
It's took care of that exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:19:41):
That's exactly what it was. And it was so week
at that point. Now we're laughing, and I just looked
at my boyfriend and I said, don't mess with me.
That's right, My attack cat will come after you. Yeah,
he was all.

Speaker 3 (01:19:56):
Animals, they all have just amazing personalities.

Speaker 1 (01:20:00):
They do they do.

Speaker 3 (01:20:01):
Yeah, they're awesome and you know that.

Speaker 1 (01:20:03):
And that's another thing. And that was I think one
of the biggest thing in your books. I mean, those
personalities with those people telling the stories of their pets,
those personalities really came out. So that's what really made
I think the book was so good was the you
could you could just feel the personalities of the different animals, so.

Speaker 3 (01:20:23):
Well would we bring without those sweet souls in our lives?

Speaker 1 (01:20:26):
You know, I'm telling you, I know exactly so well,
I think we're probably going to have to end this
we're a little bit over. But before we do, I
did want to ask you. You did mention your podcast
real quick, so I wanted you to just kind of
tell us what your podcast is and the name of
it and kind of what it's about.

Speaker 3 (01:20:45):
Well, the name of the podcast is called Let Fear Bounce.
I started about five years ago, in twenty twenty, when
the world changed and the world seemed to be throwing
fear out at everyone. So I was like, I'm not
going to catch that. I'm gonna let it bounce. So
I started a podcast not knowing anything about podcasting, just

(01:21:07):
had folks on to talk about maybe fears that they're facing,
maybe fears they have went through. And it's fun because
the most over the years, it's kind of changed a
little bit, but it's still the same premise, but now
it's I think ninety percent of my guests are authors.

Speaker 2 (01:21:24):
They've just written a book or they've written a few.

Speaker 3 (01:21:26):
Books, and they talk about you know, sometimes they talk
about their books like because it might be a trauma
that they went through, or just in general fears, you know,
talk about you know, some really cool things that they're
doing with a nonprofit or something, and I'm like, well,
what have you had to you know, I'm sure there's
been struggles that have come, you know before you trying

(01:21:48):
to get this off the ground or trying to get
funding for this. What did you face to overcome that? So,
you know, just any type of type of fear, because
we all have it, or frustrations whatever. Fear is masked
under many other words in our lives. But it's just
you know, I've had fastinenating people from all over the
world on the new episodes are uploaded every Wednesday on YouTube,

(01:22:13):
and at the end of each episode, I ask every
guest to toss out a nuggetive hope to the listeners,
so something it's motivational, inspirational, and closing the show out
that way. I just started doing not a couple of
years ago. I get a lot more feedback on that
because the ending was first. It's kind of cool to

(01:22:35):
know that people were actually listening to the whole episode, right,
But then they're waiting now on that nuggetive hope. They
want to see what this person's going to what their
neuggative hope is going to be, and to hear nuggets
of hope from all these different people, different cultures, different countries.
The one thing rains true the whole time. It's like

(01:22:58):
the same theme, you know, the nuggets of hope. It's
just basically, be kind, Just be kind, you know, make
the world, make your slice of the world a kinder place,
leave it a better place than what it was when
you first came into it, you know. And it's it's
the resounding theme. And I'm thinking, you know, if the

(01:23:19):
world would just listen, it would be a different you know,
it would be a different, better place, you know, and.

Speaker 1 (01:23:26):
You know, and you're so ray, And I'm glad you
actually said that and brought that up and that you
have that at the end of your podcast. Because the
rescue community, which I am still you know, a part
of and involved with, especially obviously doing podcasts and stuff
I do all sorts of different animals, animal products, animal services,

(01:23:46):
you name it, authors and stuff like that. But at
the end of my podcast a couple of weeks ago,
I was kind of talking about this because I don't
know if you heard about it, or now. But we
had a very special lady in the rescue community that

(01:24:07):
was had started Save a Fox and she was rescuing
foxes and she had started out with some wild ones
and stuff, but then she got involved in rescuing the
fur farm foxes. Because what happens when a fur farm decides,
you know, they're not going to use these foxes anymore,
they kill them. You know, so well obviously they kill

(01:24:30):
them anyway, they're fur farm foxes, but you know, anyway,
some things had happened and people bullied her, bullied her online.

Speaker 2 (01:24:43):
Is this the one who passed away recently?

Speaker 1 (01:24:46):
Yes, it's Michaela. Michaela.

Speaker 3 (01:24:48):
I saw that that came across my Facebook feed.

Speaker 1 (01:24:51):
Yeah. Yeah, I did not actually talked to Mikayla personally,
but I did have one of the volunteers from Save
a Fox was on with me and we talked about
Save a Fox and all of the great work and
stuff that they had been doing. And someone had actually
posted what a lot of the bullying was about, which

(01:25:11):
I think is I'm not going to get into the
whole story, but it was exactly it was. It was stupid,
it was senseless, and I don't even understand why that was.
It was an issue what was going on. But anyway,
they made it an issue and they bullied her and
she already had some problems anyway, she had been I

(01:25:33):
think I don't know she had autism. It wasn't you know.
The huge her husband actually came out and ended a
very very touching video. And so it's not like I'm
making things up or read this stuff. This is what
her husband actually said. So she did have slight autism
and stuff like that, and literally on her personal Facebook

(01:25:56):
page she even was always trying to help people deal
with autism if they had it and helping people then
they could contact her and she would talk to them,
you know, and things like that and try to help
them out if she could. And so yeah, so because
of a bunch of people going online and bullying her
to the point she just couldn't take it anymore, she

(01:26:18):
took her life. So be kind is a very very
good thing, right.

Speaker 3 (01:26:25):
And there's literally keyboard warriors. I'm sorry, there's no place
for you.

Speaker 1 (01:26:29):
Nope, Nope, there be a big.

Speaker 3 (01:26:32):
Bully and you think you're all big and bad because
you're sitting behind a keyboard and no one's ever going
to see your face one day, one day someone.

Speaker 1 (01:26:40):
Will yep, exactly, you leave it that.

Speaker 3 (01:26:45):
One day someone would You will have to face judgment.

Speaker 1 (01:26:47):
One day, yep exactly, and they will, and you know,
and it was horrible. A lot of the rescue community
has put a lot of stuff out on Facebook and
her memory and you know, stuff like that, and and literally,
I mean exactly if you you know, it's funny because
parents always tell their kids, if you don't have something
nice to say, don't say anything at all, and that

(01:27:11):
is so true. If you cannot be nice, keep your
mouth shut. You don't need to say anything. Scroll by,
don't pay attention to it. I mean, if it's something
that if the person you want to talk about, you know,
in this case with MICHAELA, it wasn't like any type
of cruelty or anything like that that was going on
from my understanding. But yeah, so if there's there's no

(01:27:32):
reason for it, don't do it. I mean there was,
there's there's no kind of cruelty, abuse or and this
isn't just animal this is people too. If you know,
if there's not something going on.

Speaker 3 (01:27:46):
That's horrible, if it's not directly affecting negatively, just be quiet.

Speaker 1 (01:27:51):
Yes, I mean, obviously, if you see a child being abused,
yes you're gonna freaking, you know, turn them in and
say something.

Speaker 3 (01:27:58):
Just for the sake of exactly why that you need
you need to sit there and look in the mirror
and figure out what your issue is, because it's that issue.

Speaker 1 (01:28:07):
Is all yours, exactly. You You obviously have something that
you're miserable about to want to make somebody else as
miserable as you are. But yeah, so it was so
after my podcast a couple of weeks ago, I kind
of went into a little soap box moment. But you
know that that's the whole thing, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:28:27):
Just be kind people, I mean, seriously, just be kind.
It doesn't cost a time to be kind. And there's
no reason. No one can give me any reason, I
think ever, or try to convince me that there is
no reason to be kind, right exactly, it just won't work.
There's no reason to not be kind and to be kind.
And this is hard, This is really really hard.

Speaker 2 (01:28:50):
To be kind to those who you don't think are right.

Speaker 3 (01:28:56):
And here's behind every face is a story. And those
people that are unkind, Now granted some of them, I'm
being general here, but you see someone who's really unhappy
and miserable, there's a reason for that, yep, you know.
So try not to judge too harshly because no one's perfect. Nope, here,

(01:29:21):
no one's perfect. And if some did, would you want
someone judging you as harshly as you may be judging others? Right?

Speaker 1 (01:29:29):
And here's another tip. If you're on Facebook and you
see something you don't like, you can scroll.

Speaker 3 (01:29:34):
Yeah, you don't have to read it, you don't have
to keep following it. Just don't pay attention.

Speaker 1 (01:29:39):
Yep, you don't have to pack.

Speaker 3 (01:29:40):
I don't watch TV anymore because I can't stand all
the crap that's on there. I tried to think TV
five years ago. You know.

Speaker 1 (01:29:48):
I do streaming so I can pick and choose what
I want to watch. And that's what I do.

Speaker 3 (01:29:52):
I do streaming or I watch things like on YouTube
and stuff. But I don't want regular normal I got
rid of cable years ago.

Speaker 1 (01:29:59):
I got I had, I got rid of thish years ago.
To I just do my little my different streaming apps
so I can watch different shows, I can pick what
I want. I try not to watch news and stuff
as much as possible, especially on the week, because it's
just like, I don't even want to know. I can't
even handle what's going on in the world anymore. Nowadays
everybody's lost their minds and gone crazy.

Speaker 3 (01:30:19):
So I'm just saying, it's so it's so readily available
within minutes now. Well second, really, that's it's a human
being is not meant to take in so much information
that is out there every day.

Speaker 1 (01:30:33):
Well, and then on top of it, half the time
you never know what's truthful and what's a.

Speaker 2 (01:30:37):
Lie, and that's just going to get worse and worse.

Speaker 1 (01:30:39):
Oh yeah, most definitely, most definitely we can see that.
And I hate to say this, but because of everything
that's going on politically, we have all been so divided
at this point. And it's funny. I was just talking
with some of my co workers, I think it was
yesterday morning, and I said, you know, in this maybe
many people don't think this or want to agree with it,

(01:31:00):
and I don't care. It's just my personal opinion. But
what's going on right now today, with the divisiveness that
this nation is under and facing, especially because of all
the political stuff that's going on and everything, this to
me is kind of like civil war when we were

(01:31:21):
all divided over the slavery issue. You know, we're kind
of at that point that I feel, you know, we're
so divided at this point. It is like family against family,
brother against brother, sister, because everybody has their own I
mean some families obviously all have the same political views,
but not everybody. And then friends, I mean, my god,

(01:31:43):
people are unfriending each other and everything else over this.
People that have been friends for years and years now
we're unfriending each other or fighting, and it's crazy. And
I'm like, this just reminds me of the Civil War days.
I mean, seriously, this is all divided, and.

Speaker 3 (01:31:57):
You look at the least the way this is my opinion,
and the way I look at it is is like, wow,
what a great plan.

Speaker 2 (01:32:03):
Whoever put this together? It's working so well?

Speaker 1 (01:32:06):
It is it is.

Speaker 3 (01:32:08):
Because it's it's it's a much, much, much, much bigger
story in the background. This stuff has been in the
works for years, decades and decades, you know. So you
sit there and you're thinking, then, that's at least my thought.
You know, it's like, well, those people that wanted this
and are enjoying it, you know, job well done. I'm

(01:32:29):
not going to participate in it because I have a
little bit more discernment than others. And I also don't
believe everything I hear or see. Actually, I never ever
believe everything I first hear and first see. I do
my research, right, and I do, and I don't do
it through mainstream media. I do actual research. I don't

(01:32:50):
listen to the media. Nice.

Speaker 2 (01:32:52):
That's rule number one.

Speaker 3 (01:32:55):
Ye. Yeah, so you know, use common sense and discernment.
And you know, my best advice is just turn the
TV off.

Speaker 1 (01:33:03):
Yeah yeah. And people quit fighting over political crap.

Speaker 2 (01:33:07):
I mean, hey, go outside and take a walk instead.

Speaker 1 (01:33:11):
I know, right, there's so many other things that maybe
I mean literally, I it's crazy the people that are
unfriending each other over this. It's like, my god, people,
what is wrong with you guys?

Speaker 3 (01:33:22):
It's just I just say, I stay out of it.
And I'm like, no, I just go for another walk
with my dog.

Speaker 1 (01:33:28):
You know, you know what I do.

Speaker 3 (01:33:31):
It's not worth the energy, the negative energy.

Speaker 2 (01:33:33):
It's not worth it. And I have other things to
worry about to take care of.

Speaker 1 (01:33:38):
And it's fine because I you know, I have family
members and friends on both sides of the crew, and
I just and I see them posting on both sides,
and I'm just like, Okay, I'm not saying anything either way.
I'm just staying out of it.

Speaker 2 (01:33:52):
I never do and I never post anything, never like that.

Speaker 1 (01:33:55):
I very rarely won't post anything.

Speaker 3 (01:33:58):
It's very rare. It just causes arguments and it turns
people into these keyboard warriors, and I don't have any
respect for a keyboard warrior.

Speaker 1 (01:34:08):
No, I don't either.

Speaker 3 (01:34:09):
Wait, especially if they're not able to back anything up
with facts. They're just reposting.

Speaker 1 (01:34:13):
Memes exactly exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:34:17):
It's like, Okay, do your research and convince me, but
otherwise I don't want to hear anything you have to
say exactly. Yeah, well that's all I have to say
on that. I know.

Speaker 1 (01:34:29):
Right, let's get off of that topic and we're going
to get We're going to end this anyway. But where
can everybody find your books if they would like to
buy them, or and if you want to give out
your web if you have a website, any information on that,
if people would like more information on you.

Speaker 3 (01:34:45):
All the books are available on Amazon, and they are
actually discounted well through tomorrow because Amazon Prime Days was
the eighth throughly eleventh, so I decided to discount the
books for those few days. So tomorrow at midnight they
go back to their regular price, so they are on
discount right now on Amazon. But best place to find
me and all that I'm doing and everything what's maybe

(01:35:05):
coming up and you know, hopefully in the near future
the pop prints on the front porch. Book submissions will
open up for that all on my website. And the
website is just kim linglingauthor dot com, so it's just
my first my last name, author dot com and that's
kind of the one stop shop. And the contact goes
through Dexter because he is my office manager and he

(01:35:28):
gets all the messages to me. So there you have it.

Speaker 1 (01:35:32):
You go. Dexter such a good office manager.

Speaker 3 (01:35:36):
He is a great He tells me when I need
a treat, he tells me when I need to go
for a walk. He's an awesome manager.

Speaker 1 (01:35:43):
I had a couple on a while back that started
an organization called Tripods because they try pods because they
had a German shepherd and he ended up with an osteosarcoma. Anyway,
they had to amputate one of his legs and so
he was their chief fun officer. There you go, yeah, yeah,

(01:36:09):
everybody has to have a chief fun officer.

Speaker 3 (01:36:12):
That's right, that is right, or re Furrey.

Speaker 1 (01:36:15):
Office manager, whichever the case may be. Yes, and not
just dogs. I mean I know many cats that like
to be you know, those little office managers. They're right
up there on those keyboards while you're working the supervis.
Don't you think they're not thinking you better spell that
word right?

Speaker 2 (01:36:36):
They're awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:36:36):
Oh they are. Well, Kim. It has been just a
joy to have you on tonight, and we just kind
of threw most of the questions to the winds and
just had a really good discussion instead, which is much
better that way anyway. I like that much better.

Speaker 3 (01:36:49):
So it's fun. It's just fun when we just kind
of go with what's what, what's happening conversations. Yeah, well,
thank you very much for having me on. It's been
a true pleasure. I enjoyed it.

Speaker 1 (01:37:00):
I did too, And I will shoot you an email
with the info and stuff like that and the names
for like Cole and Stevie and stuff like that, just
so you remember just in case.

Speaker 3 (01:37:11):
So no, wonderful. No, I appreciate it. Yeah, because I
definitely want to go and follow them and see what
they're doing.

Speaker 1 (01:37:17):
Oh, yeah, most definitely. Cole is awesome. I love Cole
and Chris. They're so they're really good people people and dog.
And you'll love Cole too because he wears a Superman
costume because he's yay, because his liability it's a super
it's a superability.

Speaker 3 (01:37:34):
So that's right. Oh, how awesome? Yeah, now I can't
wait to look it up. All right?

Speaker 1 (01:37:40):
All right, Well, Kim, I know it's pretty late where
you're at, so if you want to jump off, you ken,
I'm just going to announce my next couple podcasts coming up,
so or you can stay on and listen to that
if you'd like, it's up to you.

Speaker 3 (01:37:52):
All right, Well, thank you once again for having me on,
and I hope you have a wonderful rest of your
evening out there.

Speaker 1 (01:37:58):
All right, Well, I hope you do too. I'm sure
you'll probably be heading the bed a lot sooner than
I will be.

Speaker 3 (01:38:05):
Thank you once again, take care.

Speaker 1 (01:38:07):
All right, Thanks Kim, We'll talk to you sir.

Speaker 3 (01:38:09):
Thanks, bye bye bye.

Speaker 1 (01:38:13):
All right, everybody, So that was a great podcast. I
hope you guys enjoyed it as much as I did.
It was awesome talking to Kim and just having a
good old conversation with her about different things and the
animals and all of that, so I hope you guys
liked it as well. So the next couple podcasts coming

(01:38:33):
up is Fascinating Facts about Bats. I am going to
have Alison Brokaw on with me, and as I mentioned earlier,
she is the one that wrote the book though Weird
or Weird and Wonderful World of Bats or It's the

(01:38:54):
Wonderful and Weird World bets. I think it's the weird
and World. I don't have it right in front of me, guys,
I'm so sorry. But anyway, so she wrote that book,
and like I said, it's got beautiful pictures and stuff
like that in it, awesome photographs. If you guys are
interested in bats, I highly recommend getting the book. It
is all about bats. I mean, you learn a lot

(01:39:17):
of really cool stuff in there about them, all sorts
of things. So if you do want to know about them,
that's the book to get and read and tune in
for the podcast on July twenty fourth, because that's when
Allison will be on and she'll be talking with me
about bats and about the book that she wrote. So
looking forward to that. I do like talking about bats.

(01:39:40):
And then on August seventh, I am going to have
and I hope I say her last name right erin
mainly mainly I'm so sorry if I didn't say that right.
She's with Pet Partners and she is going to come
on and talk about Pet Partners and the service dog

(01:40:03):
work and stuff like that that Pet Partners does, and
they also have a pet walk that'll be coming up
in September that she wants to let everybody know about
where you guys can go on and walk with your
dogs and raise money to help veterans and service members,

(01:40:23):
know ex service members, stuff like that. So I'm kind
of excited to have Aaron come on and tell us
more about Pet Partners and the pet walk, especially since
I trained service dogs. So it's going to be a
really good podcast. I hope you guys will be able
to come back and listen in on that one, So
don't forget. July twenty fourth, we'll be talking about bats

(01:40:44):
with Allison, and then on August seventh, we'll be talking
with Aaron about Pet Partners, service dogs and the pet
walk coming up in September. So I hope you guys
will be able to come back and listen in and again,
I hope you all enjoyed tonight's podcast. Don't forget to
go out and get Kim's books. They're discounted on Amazon
right now for prime days, and you guys are gonna

(01:41:06):
like them. You're gonna enjoy them. They're really good, and
like I said, the personality of these pets really come
out from their humans telling their stories. So I'm so
glad she was able to come on tonight and talk
about all the stuff we talked about and a little
bit about her books. So all right, everybody, I hope
y'all have a great weekend and stay safe. I hope

(01:41:26):
y'all had a great Fourth of July. I hope your
pets and everything stayed safe on the fourth of July,
and if unfortunately did happen to get out that you
were able to go and find them at your local
shelters or maybe at your neighbor's house if they had them.
But I hope you guys all had a great fourth
of July. Mine was pretty good. And again, I hope

(01:41:47):
y'all stay safe this weekend and come on back and
listen on the next podcast. All right, good night, everybody,

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