August 7, 2025 • 52 mins
Special Guest: Erin Maennle — Pet Partners Digital Special Events Manager
In this episode, we’re diving into:
What Pet Partners does to bring comfort, healing, and smiles.
How you and your pet can become a therapy animal team.
Details on the World’s Largest Pet Walk — September 27th!
If you love animals and want to learn how they’re making a difference in people’s lives, you don’t want to miss this! Tune in & get inspired!
In this episode, we’re diving into:
What Pet Partners does to bring comfort, healing, and smiles.
How you and your pet can become a therapy animal team.
Details on the World’s Largest Pet Walk — September 27th!
If you love animals and want to learn how they’re making a difference in people’s lives, you don’t want to miss this! Tune in & get inspired!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Good evening everybody, and welcome to Calling our Creatures. I'm
your host, Lori, and tonight I have my guests from
Pet Partners. I'm with me Aaron Manly. She's the digital
special events manager over there, and she is on tonight
with me to give me all and you all sorts
(00:24):
of information about Pet Partners, what they do, and about
this really cool pet walk that's going to be coming
up in September that we're going to talk about as well.
So I hope you guys are ready to listen in
and enjoy the podcast tonight, because this is a really
good one. It's all about therapy dogs and some of
(00:46):
the cool things that they do to help out people
in nursing homes, hospitals, you know things like that. So, Erin,
thank you so much for joining me tonight to talk
about all this stuff. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited
to be on. I'm a big fan, so it's really
an honor to be on with you.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Well I'm just a needle podcast, but I appreciate it.
Why don't you just go ahead and start out and
tell us a little bit about Pet Partners and the
work your organization does with therapy animals and along with
that and how you kind of got started with them.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Absolutely, So Pet Partners has been around for a long time.
We were founded in nineteen seventy seven. We used to
be called the Delta Society, and we were really founded
by visionaries who realized that when people interacted with an animal,
they are going to have all those feel good endorphins.
And what we do is we try to improve human health.
(01:54):
This is our mission, improving human health through the power
of the human animal bond. And we do that through
our amazing volunteers. We license nine different species, so we're
more than just dogs and cats, but all about serving
some of those most vulnerable populations. And I guess you
(02:14):
could still call me somewhat of a newbie. I started
in November of last year and have been overseeing our
signatory events ever since. So that includes Head of the Year,
Treats and Sweets Day and the world's largest pet walk,
which we're going to be talking about later.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Cool, And now you mentioned the other Okay, the sweets
and Treats Okay, we got it. We got to just
bring it up just real quick. What is that?
Speaker 2 (02:39):
So it is one of our fundraising events, and we
have bakers all across the country they can bake any
time each year, and a portion of those funds helped
support our therapy animal program. Some of the funds can
support our community partners that are in our larger populated
areas where we have more teams, and it's all about
(03:00):
out serving up treats and sweets. So some for humans,
some for pets, but all are welcome.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Oh cool, that's a really cool idea. I wish we
had more. Well, I guess any bakers could really kind
of join in and have, you know, get put out
baked goods and stuff. It wouldn't just have to necessarily
be pet treats and stuff like that, would it.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Exactly? Yeah, yep, exactly.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Yeah, Well that'd be kind of cool. We have a
really nice baker here in our little town. She owns
fur Babies and it's she does really phenomenal great bake
work for the pets and stuff. I've gotten some of her, yeah,
like birthday bones and stuff for my dogs and stuff
like that, and she does cakes and all sorts of stuff.
(03:43):
So yeah, it's pretty cool. So just in case we
have some listeners out there that may not know the
differences between the different types of animals that we have
out there, like therapy animals, service animals, and then of
course support animals. Why don't we touch a little bit
on what the differences is between those.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Yeah. Absolutely, Pet Partners is big on education specifically around this.
So a therapy animal, you know, we encourage people to
pet therapy animals. They are to be shared with multiple
different people. They go and visit and share those smiles.
Whereas a service animal is trained to help one person,
(04:30):
they are not to be petted when they are working
and on duty. And then we have the emotional support
animal for example, emotional support animal therapy animals. They don't
have any special privileges. For example, a service animal can
go into a restaurant, they can stay in hotels that
are not pet friendly, whereas emotional support animals therapy animals
(04:54):
they cannot. They don't have those special privileges. And a
Pet Partner is a big use of our training is
learning the difference between all three of those, so that
we educate our teams and then they're able to educate
others that they come in contact with that might say
the incorrect thing. Of course, they're always friendly about it,
but we do encourage them. If you have an opportunity
(05:16):
to educate someone, do so.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Oh yeah, I'll hardly believe in that. Do the same
thing with my work with the organization that I work with,
Hero Polls here, you know, when we're out and about
and stuff like that. And I've actually noticed it's really
kind of nice that when I'm out with my service
dog teams that a lot more people are taking more
(05:42):
notice that their service dogs and they're not supposed to
be touched without permission, you know, from the owner and
stuff like that, and certain things going on. And some
owners don't want you to touch their dogs at all
when they're out there working right. Others you know, will
allow it as long as the dog sits and stuff first.
But yeah, it's nice to see that. I think more
(06:02):
people are starting to come around and realize that there
is that difference between a service dog and a therapy
dog and an emotional support animal as well, and even
and service animals do come in many different forms, as
you mentioned or not. Service ammals, I'm sorry, therapy animals
and emercial support animals come in many different forms like
(06:23):
you mentioned before, But a service animal, there's only two
that are recognized by the ADA, and that are the
dogs and the miniature horses. Those are the only two
eighty eight that are recognized. So yeah, so I just
thought it'd be good to touch on that, just so
you know, in case listeners out there might not know
the differences, those are the differences and it is important
(06:45):
to know that stuff. So, when you guys have your
teams and stuff out there working in their therapy areas,
how do you guys ensure the safety and the world
well being of both your therapy animal teams and the
people that they're interacting with.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Great question. So we have very rigorous testing that we
put our handlers and our teams through. Our handlers have
to pass an online evaluation basically a test where they
learn what to do, what not to do when they're
on a visit, how to make sure that they are
in tune with their animal, that they're being their animal's
(07:28):
best advocate always. We tell our volunteers your animal always
comes first, and then the two of them will actually
go to an in person evaluation where they will be
evaluated by one of our partners volunteers that is certified
to perform that evaluation, where they will test them on
a variety of different skills based on this species, and
(07:50):
we have two ratings. One rating is basically your animal
is better suited in an environment that is predictable. The
other the well can work in a predictable, predictable environment
or an environment that might be a little more difficult
to predict maybe somewhere where there are children where it
might be loud, or a hospital where there are lots
(08:11):
of noises and different smells. And so we make sure
that we prepare our teams for all of these types
of situations so that we set them up for success.
And we also encourage, you know, when they are on
their visits to show people, tell people how to interact
with a therapy animal, because sometimes we have people that
(08:33):
might be nervous, maybe it's their first time interacting with
the therapy dog, a therapy gat So we always want
all parties to feel safe and like they know the
right way to go about cutting the animal and interacting.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Awesome. Now, when you guys, are you know, your teams
are in their training and doing this stuff, So are
they are you actually going in with your teams to
say these hospital or nursing home settings and kind of
doing some of the training in there, and then you know,
as an observation for before they do their test, or
(09:10):
do you wait until after they've done their testing, because
I'm just curious for the training part of it. How
would you know?
Speaker 2 (09:17):
That's a great question. Some of our teams, for example,
it's their first time they're considering becoming a team with
their animal. We have a lot of amazing volunteers that
will volunteer to have that person come in alone without
their pets and observe a visit where they can kind
of get that hands on experience for what it's like
(09:39):
to go into a hospital or a school with their pet.
And then if they decide, you know, they'd like to
move forward, then they go through the online test for
the human and then they will go and have their
evaluation together. We do encourage, you know, people when they
are thinking, you know, I might be interested in becoming
a team with my animal. We encourage you know, basic obedience,
(10:03):
ensuring that your dog or your cat enjoys being petted.
We don't just want them to tolerate it. We want
them to like meeting new people and interacting. So there's
definitely a few things you can look for in your animal,
if you think it might be something that you'd be
interested in doing together.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Okay, well that's good, and that's a that's a good
way of doing it, having them go in with another
team to observe that team and see, you know what
actually happens when the team does a visit. So that's
a good idea.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
So now Pet Partners therapy teams, what types of settings
do they typically visit? I mean we've mentioned hospitals, nursing homes.
Is that typically the only kind of environments that they
go into or do they go into other environments as well?
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Oh? Yeah, lots of different environments. They will visit. At schools,
we have teams that visit like air force spaces, anything
that you can think of. We've probably had a team
go in and visit any you know, type of facility,
retirement community. Really, the possibilities aren't less as long as
(11:13):
the facility itself is okay. With Pet Partners teams going in,
of course, we make sure that you know, the facility
is all good. Sometimes they'll ask for certain documentation and
you know, they don't want to speak with someone at
Pet Partners, which we're always happy to do to make
sure that all parties are are okay with the visit.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Good good. Now we talked a little bit obviously about
you know, when they're interested in going in and some
of the things that they have to go through evaluations
and stuff. But what kind of training or certification do
the dogs and their handlers actually have to go through
and complete to become a therapy team.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Yeah, so it's it's different based on what species is
being tested. For example, you know your basic obedience, so
you know, sit, stay, being neutral when there's another animal
in the same vicinity. These things are appropriate for our
dogs being evaluated. For example, when we have a mini
(12:18):
horse evaluated, they need to be comfortable backing up. Sometimes
you know, in a small place like a hospital elevator,
they might not be able to turn around, so we
want to make sure that they're comfortable doing things like that.
So each species we have, you know, had conversations with
experts to you know, really see what it takes for
that specific species to be comfortable in a therapy animal position,
(12:42):
and then we have created those tests and then those
evaluations based on the knowledge from those experts.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
Okay, so here's something that just kind of popped into
my head. So Obviously, we want our dogs to be neutral,
you know, with other dogs if they're you know, in
the vicinity or whatever. So what about cats, what if
you have I mean, what about cats, because sometimes you know,
(13:09):
cats can be cats and you're just not quite sure.
I don't think sometimes until all of a sudden you
have a problem.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Yeah, yeah, sure so, And I don't want to misspeak.
It's funny when you start at Pet Partners, they they
have you take an evaluation online. And I took the
dog course because I have a dog, so I'm not
as well versed in the cats. But the main thing
that we would look for is that your animals not
showing aggression. Okay, you do not license, you know, teams
(13:43):
where there is an instance where an animal is aggressive
towards a human or towards another animal. So that's kind
of a big thing related to cats, I would tell you.
I again don't want to say anything that's not one
hundred percent true.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
So being his home kind of any animal can be.
I mean, obviously you wouldn't want to have a cat
and like a guinea pig or something going at the
same time, that may not be a good thing.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
I'm just saying, and well, you know, it's so funny
you say that. We I'm thinking about a team in Cincinnati.
Jack's a therapy dog and he often visits with one
of our therapy rabbits, and they are both just amazing
therapy animals. Yeah, they just love each other. They will.
They've got some great photos together. But yeah, I know
(14:36):
we encourage, you know, animals being neutral towards one another,
and they really exude what it means to be great
therapy animal teams, both of them.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
They'd have to be. Boy, I'm telling you, if you
had a cat and see a guinea pig or something
together that guinea kids started moving around and squeaking, that'd
be there'd be some hard stuff for a cat to
be like, Okay, I'm not gonna look at him. I'm
not gonna look at him. I mean I can't. Obviously,
I know that there's cats out there that are gonna
(15:06):
be fine with almost any other animal and stuff like that.
Same with dogs, like you just said with the dog
with the with the rabbit. You know, there's a lot
of pets out there and a lot of animals that
are fine with other breeds and varieties of animals. But
it was just popped into my head. I'm just like,
I don't know about a cat and any peg being together.
That just might not be a good thing. So yeah,
(15:31):
I can just see that one Sylvester and Tweedy or something,
Tom and Jerry going on there, not trying to get
morbid or anything.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
But I just this just.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Kind of pops in my head. I don't know if
we want to take, you know, little mister Gary the
guinea pig with the cat into the room at the
same time. Oh my gosh, all right, a little bit
of festivity. So are there any specific breeds or qualities
that make it? And this is interest because I'm saying
a good therapy dog, but I mean not just therapy dog,
(16:07):
even when it comes to I don't know certain breeds
of cats even are there? Do you know, obviously you
do the dog stuff more so I don't know if
you'd really know more about the cats. But do you
know if there's any particular breeds dogs cats that make
better therapy animals than others do?
Speaker 2 (16:24):
So? At pet parters, we are inclusive to all species
of dogs and we welcome you know, any any type
of breed. I will say we have out of all
of the dogs we have. Most of them are Golden retrievers.
That's definitely, yeah, we see the most Golden retrievers. But
(16:45):
also of all of our therapy dogs, twenty five percent
are rescue animals, which I think is a great time
to just bust that myth. I think oftentimes people think
you can't, you know, teach an old dog nutrix that
clearly we've had some amazing handlers that have rescued an
animal and that animal has turned around and helped so
many people. So just a testament to the great people
(17:08):
that we have volunteering with us here at Pet Partners.
But yeah, again, just looking for and you know, animals
that enjoy being around people. They have that sweet disposition
about them. You know, they want to be around people,
they enjoy being petted, They've got those basic obedience skills,
and again you know they have a great relationship with
their human. We want teams. You know, we can't just
(17:30):
have a great dog, We also have to have a
great human one that looks out for the pet. We
have this very long acronym you are your animal's best advocate.
Yah yah bash that doesn't quite roll off the song.
But just looking for people that enjoy being with their animal,
and I want to make a difference. So we always
(17:50):
encourage people you might have a potential therapy dog, a
therapy animal in your home. If this kind of sounds
like your pet, you know, they like to be petted,
They get in energized being around people. You know, go
to our website check it out. It might be something
that you two could enjoy doing together.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Yeah, exactly, And I'm glad, you know, you kind of
brought up with the the qualities and stuff for therapy
dogs and that a lot you know, twenty five percent
of them are the rescues because there's been I mean,
I've talked to people on the podcast over the years
that have just for instance, people don't understand too like
(18:32):
these dogs that because of course we just have another
freaking dog fighting thing with another football player going on
yet again. So it's kind of like number one, don't
you learn Number two? The dogs coming from them situations,
quite a few of them can be rehabbed into doing different,
(18:53):
you know, things and being out in public and with
other animals and dogs and stuff like that. It just depends,
you know, on the dog and the circumstances and what happened.
But one of the ones that comes to mind was
it was one of Michael Vick's dogs. I had Rue
Yori on and uh yeah, he had of course, Wallace
(19:19):
was his his big you know, rescue dog that went
on to be the national you know, disc champion, frisbee
champion and stuff and all sorts of different titles and
stuff in frisbee. But he actually adopted one of the
vic fighting dogs from I'm not sure if it was
bad rap that had him after Michael, if they, I
(19:43):
think it was bad Rappers who had the dog, and
then I think he went out and met the dog
and adopted him. And his name was his name was Hector.
And Rue went on to get Hector certified to do
therapy work, and so he take Hector around and did
all sorts of therapy work with him until he passed away. So,
(20:04):
you know, that's just one instance that comes to mind
where you know, dogs can come from that kind of
a situation or a shelter or whatever and just work
out perfectly for those kind of works. So just because
their shelter dogs, you know, or coming from this kind
of a situation, doesn't mean that they can't turn out
to be phenomenal dogs.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
Absolutely. Yeah, sometimes they're the most sweetest and you know
they have the most love to give. And yeah, I
think I was amazed when I saw the numbers. But yeah,
I mean you can, you can make it happen. And
just I've heard some really great stories from some of
our volunteers, you know, where they got their rescue animal
(20:47):
and so shy and you know just coming out their
shell over you know, weeks and months and looking at them,
you know, two three years later where they've made hundreds
of visits and the complete you know turnaround that they
were able to make. It's really amazing.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Oh yeah, and other gets a success story. For one
that got rescued from the shelter is Cold the deaf dog.
I mean Chris, his owner you know, got him from
the shelter. And now I mean Cole not only is
showing people, you know, how you can do so many
things even if you have a disability, which now you
know Chris is adopted. I think three more that are
(21:26):
either deaf or deaf and blind or whatever and so,
but Cole is a therapy dog. He goes into the
veterans' homes and the nursing homes and stuff like that.
As well as working with the kids at the school.
So you know, these dogs, man, they come from these
shelters and they just a lot of times will make phenomenal.
And I'm a little biased just because I did animal
(21:48):
control for a number of years and I know what
these sheltered dogs are capable of, because that's pretty much
all I've ever owned was a shelter dog. So and
my last one is with me right now, and she's
sixteen years old, and uh yeah, yeah, she's lived a good,
lime life. I'm actually kind of shocked that she's sixteen
(22:12):
and she's still I just regular dog for you, believe
it or not, just regular Pirina dog food. But yeah,
she's you know, she's doing okay, although I'm thinking that
it's probably getting near that time unfortunately. But uh yeah,
so she'll be the last one out of well, my
(22:33):
son's got his dog. I had him for a while, so,
but she'll be the last out of six.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
That I had.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
So yeah. Anyway, you got a lot of them here,
shelter dogs. And everybody says that to you, I got
the best dog. I'll tell you what. This one, this
little girl here, she has turned out to be from
what she came in and how she started to what
she is today is amazing because she is just one
(22:58):
of the She really is one the best dogs. I've
probably ever seen her. Ad for her the way she is,
you knows from what she came from. So anyway, I
just got lucky. I got good dogs. Just like everybody else.
We all have good dogs. Let's stay saire. We all
have good dogs and good cats, good guinea pigs, good snakes.
(23:18):
Whatever you may own, do good. Okay, Well, let's go
ahead and let's talk about the world's largest pet walk
that's going to be coming up September twenty seventh. So
why don't you tell us what it is all about.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
Yes, this is so exciting. So this is the eighth annual.
We've been doing this a long time, and we will
have teams probably in all fifties eights several countries walking
on September twenty seventh with the goal of spreading awareness
of all pet partners and pet therapy in general. And
(23:56):
we also utilize the walk as a fundraiser and any
funds that we raise help support Pet Partners as therapy
animal program so that helps us extend our reach help
more people in vulnerable situations. And it is all about
just getting active, taking steps with your pets. So we
will have people that are going to take a walk
(24:18):
around their neighborhood. Some will go walk in the park,
others will go on a trail trail walk with their pets.
We have people that walk individually, we have people that
form teams and go as a group, and we just
extend and offer an invitation to anyone that wants to
get active to go online and register to join us.
(24:42):
It is going to be so much fun. But we anticipate,
you know, flooding all of social media on September twenty
seventh with pictures of proud pet parents walking with their
animals and supporting pet partners.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
Well, that sounds like fun. And it doesn't matter how
far they walk or anything like that. Even if they
go out and say walk the block, that's that's good
as part of it.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
Absolutely. Yeah, we encourage everyone just to walk a location,
a distance that feels right for the animal, and yeah,
just make the most of it. We have some really
fun prizes we like to incentivize our walkers, so you know,
with some fundraising, they can earn a branded pet bandana,
(25:26):
T shirt, all of which has our world largest pet
walk logo tends to draw questions. You know, why are
a group of twenty of you walking and matching shirts?
And so that's great for the awareness piece, but it's
just one of our most beloved events. Our volunteers look
forward to it every year, and I think we do
too at Pet Partners.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Hey, here's an idea. If you guys don't have your
own dog and you want to do this, you should
obviously go to the shelter and volunteer to walk dogs.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Absolutely, it's so funny you mentioned that we actually had
a group I think it might have been last year
where they did exactly that. They went and they got
some shelter dogs and they took them for exercise and
had the best time. I think it even led to
some adoptions, which is amazing.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
Yeah, that's great. I know the shelter, you know, the
in the town here where I'm at, well close to
where I'm at, they have volunteer dog walkers and stuff
like that. So I'm gonna email I know the their
supervisor over there, so I might email her about this
and say, hey, if case any of your dog walkers
(26:32):
are interested in helping out with Yeah, you know, letting
me know, and I'll post it on my Facebook pages
and stuff too, get the word out there. So it's
a good cause, you know, helping therapy animals and stuff
like that. Why not exactly.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
Yeah, And we make it so fun. We we love
a big celebration at pet Partners. And so after the
fact about mid October, we have what we call the
Sneaker Awards, and we we award certificates to different teams
and different walkers based on, you know, how many teammates
they recruited or how much they raised during their fundraising.
(27:09):
You know, let's say there were a social media superstar.
We have Sneaker Awards for that. But just a great
way to look back on the event and see what
we were able to accomplish together and get excited for
the next year.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Right, a couple of things, I think a couple of
these things we might have just answered, real quick, but
real quick, How did the event actually get started? And
how much has it grown since it did get started?
Speaker 2 (27:34):
Yeah? So started Actually Tracy Pryor, she's our chief development officer.
She's been with Partners for about eleven years, so she
was instrumental and starting this great event and every year
it just continues to grow where we secure sponsors for
that corporate level, we continue to grow in number of
(27:54):
teams and number of walkers, and yeah, I mean every
year we just sa far higher and you know, look
forward to seeing that big turnout and watching you know,
everything continue to grow.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Right right. And I think we already answered anyone can
participate even if they don't have a registered therapy animal, obviously,
because I just said go to the shelter and walk gods,
So absolutely obviously anybody. Hey, you know what, if you've
got a cat that likes to walk, right, you can
walk your cat too. Write any animal you can, we have.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
It's funny we have several cat teams. I think we
have I know of at least one rabbit that.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
Will be is it ferret king?
Speaker 2 (28:34):
So yes, we are inclusive of all species.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
You know, people like to walk the ferret. I had
friends that had ferrets and they would go camping with
their ferrets and they would take them for walks. That's great.
So yeah, so there you go, guys. You don't even
have to have a dog if your cat likes to
go for walks, or if you say have ferrets or
or you know, getting pigs. Maybe I guess maybe I
like to walk. I don't know. Maybe you maybe your
(28:58):
snake likes to go out wrapped around your waister, you know,
your shoulders. You can go for a walk with your snake.
There you go. Absolutely, I can see this now. People
are gonna be out there with their snakes around their
shoulders taking pictures and video going hey, I'm out here
on this pit walk.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
Exactly. Okay, definitely would some attention, that.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
Would be great, that really would. Okay, guys with people
with snakes, this is what you're doing on the twenty
seventh of September. You need to go walk your snakes. Hey.
I had a friend that probably would have done it.
I'm honestly. She always she when I was running the
shelter in the in the small town about a half
hour away, she we had someone leave their snakes behind
when they moved out, and so she had had snakes before,
(29:43):
so she took them and it was like a red
tail boa and uh, like a little tree python. Anyway,
she would take them outside all the time and let
them go around in her tree. And I'm just like, okay,
she'd walk around with them all the time. I mean,
I'm fine with snakes, but I was just like, Okay,
(30:04):
you're going a little more extreme than most people would
but okay, so yeah, anyway, so there you go. Guys.
You can walk anything on the pet Walk on the
twenty seventh, and obviously other ways people can get involved
is you don't have to go walking, you can also
they can also donate, or they can also spread the word,
(30:26):
say through social media sites and things like that.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
Correct, Absolutely, yes we encourage. Maybe you don't want to walk,
but yes, if you feel inclined to donate, know that
we use the funds to support our mission at Pet
Partners and our therapy anical program is at the heart
of what we do. So yes, we would love to
have them walk, make a donation if they're able, and yeah,
(30:51):
anything that can be shared on social media would be amazing.
We want to flood social media with pets and people
walking on September twenty seventh.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
Awesome. So for the Pet Walk, is there say if
someone well, and I guess it doesn't matter if you're
going to be flooding social media. I guess that kind
of answers that question too. If there's any virtual or
like remote participation options for people who can't actually attend
an official walk location. So if you lived out in
(31:25):
the Boonies, man, you know, and you're miles and miles
away from somebody, but you want to go walk.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
Mm hmm, yeah, no, absolutely, So we would encourage those
people to sign up as individual walkers and then walk
in your hometown at the location that you choose the
distance that's right for you. I live in western North
Carolina and I don't have very many teams nearby. I
believe the closest one is maybe two hours. So I've
(31:51):
recruited some of my neighbors, some friends and family, and
we're gonna walk our civilian dogs around town a couple
of blocks and just make the most out of the day.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
And so for people to do the fundraising aspect of
the walk, for you guys, is there like any forms
or any paperwork or anything like that that they need
to have to have, say, sponsors or people that are
donating fill out so that then they can collect after
the walk.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
So we have a couple different ways. We encourage everyone
to go on to our website. You can go to
our special events tab and you can click the World's
Largest Pet Walk that will take you to our official
site where we have a running total of how much
we've raised so far, and you can donate online using
a credit card, or you can mail a check into
(32:45):
our Pet Partner's headquarters our mailing address of courses on
our website there. But yes, we'd love to have that
support either of those two.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Ways, okay, perfect.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
And then pet Partners is a nonprofit, so anything that's
donated will be tax deductible.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
Yep. Yes, of course that's a good thing to mention.
So people know that now the money that gets raised
from the pet walk, So can you tell the listeners
where the money raised actually goes and how it's helping
to support your guys's mission.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Of course, so when we say their animal program, that's broad.
But for example, pet Partners supports all of our teams
that we have, and so when a handler signs up
and pays for their registrationcies, they do pay a portion
of pafit. Pet Partners covers seventy five of what we
(33:47):
spend yearly on a team, and so these funds help
with that. They help with our liability insurance that we
provide for our teams when they go on visits. In
the instance that there was an accident. It also helped
us with ongoing training for our handlers, for our evaluators,
helped us with research. We love research and putting some
(34:10):
scientific evidence information out there about what really happens when
people interact with one of our therapy animal teams. So
it's very broadom biillah. That supports so many things that
are just intricate to the Pet Partner's mission, and so
when you support us through the walk, you're really supporting
(34:31):
you know, all eighty five hundred plus Pet Partners teams.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Awesome. I mean that's a lot of.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
Teams absolutely and growing, growing by the day, which is amazing.
We have seen, you know, year after year, especially post COVID,
just the number of inquiries we receive requesting therapy animal
visits just continues to climb. So there is clearly a
need and we are always looking for new teams. So
(35:03):
again encouraging people that are listening. If you think you
might be interested, please check us out on our website.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
I'm glad you kind of brought that up about how
you know you're getting more and more requests to have
teams coming into places and stuff, because I was actually
going to ask you about along those lines what kind
of impact do you see therapy dogs having on the
communities as a whole.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
It is so important. We have great relationships with so
many facilities that our teams are going in visiting, and
it seems like every time they go and visit, you know,
almost immediately we're hearing feedback from the facilities that you know,
it impacted the patients day so much, they're already asking
when the team is coming back. And so it just
(35:52):
goes to show really what these visits do for these
people that are experiencing some very difficult times. So there
is such a need and that's why, you know, Pet Partners,
that's why we do what we do. We want to
help people, and you know, sometimes just petting an animal
means the world to some of these folks that were visiting.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
Yeah, so share a story. So, my good friend Rob
was in one of the local nursing homes here. He
was eighty three and he'd been diagnosed with dementia and
he loved dogs, but obviously he couldn't have a dog
in there. And so we have, you know, a couple
(36:37):
of local therapy dog teams, and so I was able
to get a visits scheduled for him so he could
at least have you know, the dog, a dog coming
in and seeing him. And in the meantime, we just
got we got him a big old cuddle clone thing
made so that he had his one of the dogs
he used to have as a younger man. And so anyway,
(36:58):
but the impact that the most therapy dogs had on him,
he loved having them come in and it was so cool.
They had made little cards of they had a picture
of the dog on the front and then little information
and facts about the dog and I think the team
a little bit on the back. And it was so cool.
(37:20):
He had to show me all of the cards that
he had gotten from the dogs that had come to
visit him. So it really does make a really big
impact on these people. And I've seen the same when
I see things that Chris posts from Cold you know
about Team Cole the Cold Deaf Dog and stuff, and
he sees the veterans and things like that, and you
see these people in the videos and how happy they are,
(37:43):
and so these animals really do make a really big
impact on especially these older folks that are now in
say a nursing home like that they're not in their
own homes. Anymore. They don't have a lot of their
own things they do, can't have animals, and a good
part of these such suations. So it's so important for
teams to be able to go in and give them
(38:05):
a little more normal, normal, normalcy. Am I saying that right? Normalcy?
Speaker 2 (38:12):
Absolutely? No, And I've heard it's so funny. I've heard,
you know, very similar stories where you know, for example,
one lady that I chatted with, she had her therapy
dog go into a classroom and these students were struggling,
maybe not wanting to do the work that their teacher
(38:33):
had provided, and you know, they had a visit with
this sweet golden retriever and it was almost instant. They
were energized and excited to work because they knew that
if they did, you know, their school work, they're going
to get a visit from the therapy dog. And it
really is such a mood booster.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
Yep, Yeah, it really is. I know. I've had a
couple of people inquiring about doing some training to do
some therapy work, and one wanted to go into the
schools and stuff like that. She moved here from another
state and her dog, she'd already gone through all the
training and basic CGC and stuff, and her dog was
actually going into the schools and the other state, but
(39:15):
she had to get them, you know, so that he
was able to go to the ones here. So yeah,
but yeah, they do. They make a really big difference
in a lot of different situations. So it's it's good
that they're around to help people out. And let me see,
I was going to ask you how someone could become
(39:36):
a Pet Partner's volunteer or become a team, but you've
already kind of put out there that they need to
go to your website. What is your website, by the way,
why don't you go ahead and throw that out there.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
Yes, it's pet partners dot org.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
Okay, and they can also go there to donate or
to sign up for the pet walk as well.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
Absolutely, yes, we've got a special tab for especially Vince
and the world's argest Pet Walk should be the first
little thing that you can click on there. But yes,
a website is always a great place to start for
people that are potentially interested in becoming a team. We've
got a lot of resources for things, you know that
(40:20):
we've chatted about on the call here, and if you're interested,
you know, you can go ahead and sign up, get
some information on the evaluation piece that you the human
would have to pass, and some great things that you
can be working on with your animal in meantime.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
And the pet Walk thing comes up, like right after
you go on to your website, because I've gone onto
your website and it comes right up and says you
can't if you want to sign up for a believe
it pops right up.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
Yeah, and I'm glad we're chatting about that. We also
have what we're calling kind of world's largest Pet Walk
kickoffs we host to a month and it's really just
a nice informal info session. They're usually about thirty minutes.
They are on zoom and you'll hear from me, but
you'll also hear from some of our veteran team captains
(41:12):
that have walked in the Pet Walk for several years,
and they'll share their experience, what they usually do to
recruit and fundraise, and what type of walk they're hosting
on walk day. And it's a really great thing to
come and attend if you're kind of on the fence
or maybe you want some more information, and then of
course we share you know, next steps on how you
sign up but those webinars are listed on our website
(41:37):
as well.
Speaker 1 (41:38):
Very cool. Do you have any other events that are
going to be coming up in the next couple of
months besides the Pet walk?
Speaker 2 (41:47):
So after the Pet Walk, we will switch gears for
the Pet of the Year and it is going to
be I believe it will be the fifth year that
we are hosting. But it is so much fun. It
is also a fundraiser and all of our pets that
are interested in running can submit an application and we
(42:09):
work heat of the year to a team that raises
the most funds for the Therapy Animal Program. And so
these teams will get support obviously from friends and family,
maybe employees at facilities that they visit. But it is
so much fun. Our twenty twenty five Pet of the
Year is River, the Golden Retriever. His handler Katie raised
over fourteen thousand dollars for the Therapy Animal Program and
(42:32):
they have been amazing ambassadors thus far. They were crowned
in April of this year.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
That's awesome. That's that's a lot of fundraising.
Speaker 2 (42:44):
She was a natural.
Speaker 1 (42:46):
Yeah, yeah, sounds like it. She's doing a good job. Awesome. Yeah, Well,
we are kind of nearing the end of the podcast, erin,
but I was wondering if you might have any final
thoughts or message is that you might like to share
with our listeners about about the upcoming walk or your
guys' mission or anything along those lanes.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
Yeah, oh my goodness, we've covered so much that and
I know we've said it, but just want to encourage,
you know, everyone listening, take a good look inside your home.
You might have some really great potential therapy animals. Think
about you know, your children too, pet partners. We have
a lot of minor handlers, so handlers that are under
(43:29):
the age of eighteen, and that's a really great thing
about us. Your children can become a team with their
pet and volunteer at a young age. So just look
inside your home. If you're interested, go on our website
and again, we would love to have everyone listening join
our walk. The more walkers, the more impact we're able
(43:51):
to make. And just excited for September. Cannot wait.
Speaker 1 (43:56):
Yeah, it sounds like it's going to be a lot
of fun. I might have to see if I can
borrow a dog mine. She's a little old and I
can't really. She goes to half a block and we're done.
So she's just not about walking anymore. She used to be.
Speaker 2 (44:18):
If it just has to be half a block though,
that's okay, I'm just a requirement.
Speaker 1 (44:24):
She just raised her head and looked at me with
that one. He said, Oh, okay, no distance requirement. Yeah,
we can do that end of the driveway. I'm good.
It's fair because she used to like to go for walks,
and so I had her and I had my other dog,
and I just lost him about three or four months ago,
(44:45):
and so he had gotten to the point he couldn't
He had arthritis really bad and he couldn't walk very
far at all, so I couldn't really take him for
walks anymore. So then I kind of wasn't taking her
because it wasn't fair for him because he'd have a
fit because he couldn't go for a walk and he'd
loved to walk. So then when I lost him, I
was like, okay, well I can start taking her for
(45:08):
walks again. And yeah, we made it about halfway. Actually
I made it a block, and at that point it
was pushing her to try to come back home, so
I was like, yeah, we ain't gonna do that again.
Speaker 2 (45:20):
Well, I have a three year almost four year old
and we have to do about three miles a day
where she is just crazy girl. Oh yeah, yes, so
much energy. So she's ready for September now, I'm.
Speaker 1 (45:35):
Sure she is. Sounds like it. So I'll have to
I do dog training and stuff, regular dog training, basic classes.
I'll have to pass on the word to my training
classes because they all like to go out and take
their dogs for walks, so maybe they'd like to sign up.
Speaker 2 (45:49):
You know.
Speaker 1 (45:50):
I'll pass the word on and put it out on
my Facebook pages, and I'll definitely put it on the
Calling our Creatures Facebook page and stuff like that, so
I get the word out for you guys.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
We appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (46:01):
Yeah, well, I appreciate you being on tonight with us
and sharing all of this great information about Pet Partners
and about the world's largest pet walk and all the
different therapy animals that you guys have in your programs
and stuff. It was great learning about all that stuff
and learning more about the Pet Walk and stuff. I
(46:22):
think that's going to be a really cool event coming up.
And again, if you guys are interested, go check out
Pet Partner's website and if you want to be a
therapy Dog team, sign up with them. If you're not
interested in Pet Partners and you want to stay somewhere local,
you know, you guys, because I know some people like
to do that as well. You guys can always look
(46:42):
around locally for therapy dog or therapy animal you know
organizations as well, and Pet Partners I'm sure has different
branches and all sorts of different towns. So yep, So
you guys, I'm sure if you guys want to be
a therapy animal team, I'm sure if you look around,
you guys can find something that fits for you. Whether
(47:03):
it's Pet Partners or whether it's a local, smaller team
or something like that that you're more interested in. It's
all up to you, guys, But check them out and
see if it's something that you'd like to do, because
it's always great to be able to help with your
therapy animal and go into nursing homes and schools and
stuff like that and erin. With that being said, you're
(47:25):
welcome to stay on if you'd like. I'm just going
to announce my next couple upcoming podcasts, And if you
don't want to and you want to jump off, that's
perfectly fine, because I know it's getting pretty late where
you're at.
Speaker 2 (47:36):
So yeah, yeah, I might jump off, but thank you
so much for having me. I've had so much fun
and I can't wait for everything to come out.
Speaker 1 (47:46):
Yeah, I'm excited. So I'm looking forward to seeing how
you guys do with the pet walk. Awesome.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
Okay, great, I'll look for that link and hope you
have a great night.
Speaker 1 (48:00):
You have a good night too, allright, by all right everybody.
So Aaron jumped off there, Like I said, it's pretty
late where she's that. I don't blame her. I jump
off too, all right. So the next couple podcasts that
I have coming up, I think you guys are going
(48:20):
to like, I have sorry here here, let me pull
it off real quick. I have Turpentine Creek Sanctuary. They're
going to be on August twenty first, washing and say,
the sanctuary is going to be on, but Tanya, the
founder CEO of the sanctuary is actually going to be
(48:41):
on with me, and she's gonna be telling us all
about the sanctuary and some of the different resident animals
that they have. But I'm I think we're going to
focus well, we're probably gonna talk about pretty much all
the animals they have because they have quite a different
different animals. They have a lot of the big cats, lions, tigers,
(49:03):
they have bears, lions, tigers, and bears. Oh my, so
we got lions, tigers, and bears and hyenas if I
remember right in there. And I'm sure there's probably some
other panthers and some other probably bobcats and those kinds
of stuff like that that they have, because you see,
(49:24):
Turpentine Creek Sanctuary takes in a lot of those big
cats and bears and stuff like that that come from
either exotic pet trade or from say circuses, zoos, you know,
those kinds of places. So I'm looking forward to talking
with Tanya on August twenty first and learning more about
(49:45):
the sanctuary and just what all they do do there
and all the different animals that they have. I think
that's going to be great. And then on September fourth,
I am going to have Rebecca shaper On with me
and we're going to be talking about her book, Roses
to Rainbow. This is about Rebecca's journey after she lost
(50:09):
her dog Gus passed away, and it's kind of about
Rebecca's journey and how Gus from the other side kind
of helped her through her grieving process and healing and
kind of helped her find the path that she's on
now and doing healing work and stuff like that. So
(50:31):
I think that's going to be a really good podcast
as well to have Rebecca on and come talk to
us about that kind of stuff and about losing our
pets and the grief we go through. You know, everybody
that's had a pet more or less has probably lost
the pet at some point in time. Maybe if you're
a newer pet owner, maybe not, but you know, if
(50:54):
you've had pets over the years, so we all kind
of know what it's like to lose our pets. But
Rebecca's going to come out and talk about the grief
of losing a pet and her experiences and her journey
and how she overcame that grief and started doing what
she does now as a healer. So I'm looking forward
(51:16):
to that as well, So don't forget August twenty First,
I'm going to have Tanya from Turpentine Creek Sanctuary coming
on with me to talk about the sanctuary and all
the animals they help out. And then on September fourth,
Rebecca Shaper with her book Roses to rainbows and talking
about that. So I hope you all enjoyed tonight's podcast,
(51:39):
and I hope you all stay safe out there this weekend,
and don't forget to come on back in a couple
of weeks and listen to the next podcast and learn
a little bit more. And thanks everybody for tuning in.
Speaker 2 (51:51):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (51:51):
I should probably throw out there before I do get
off tonight. If you have any ideas for any guests
or shows that you'd like to find out about you're
about or have on, shoot me an email at Calling
All Creatures nineteen at gmail dot com. Calling All Creatures
nineteen is all put together, all lowercase. Or you can
(52:12):
find me on Facebook. You can either message me, you
can comment under a podcast announcement whatever you'd like to do.
Am on YouTube and stuff like that as well. You
can only shoot me a message on there. I don't
get on there quite as much, but I do check
the Facebook pages and stuff like that. But any ideas
(52:35):
you guys have would be great. Guests, specific animal topics,
anything that you might like to talk about. Shoot me
something and let me know and I'll see if I
can make it happen. All right, with that being said,
have a good night everybody, see you all in a
couple weeks or not see you all, but hopefully you
all hear me in a couple weeks. All right, good night,
Good evening everybody, and welcome to Calling our Creatures. I'm
your host, Lori, and tonight I have my guests from
Pet Partners. I'm with me Aaron Manly. She's the digital
special events manager over there, and she is on tonight
with me to give me all and you all sorts
(00:24):
of information about Pet Partners, what they do, and about
this really cool pet walk that's going to be coming
up in September that we're going to talk about as well.
So I hope you guys are ready to listen in
and enjoy the podcast tonight, because this is a really
good one. It's all about therapy dogs and some of
(00:46):
the cool things that they do to help out people
in nursing homes, hospitals, you know things like that. So, Erin,
thank you so much for joining me tonight to talk
about all this stuff. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited
to be on. I'm a big fan, so it's really
an honor to be on with you.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Well I'm just a needle podcast, but I appreciate it.
Why don't you just go ahead and start out and
tell us a little bit about Pet Partners and the
work your organization does with therapy animals and along with
that and how you kind of got started with them.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Absolutely, So Pet Partners has been around for a long time.
We were founded in nineteen seventy seven. We used to
be called the Delta Society, and we were really founded
by visionaries who realized that when people interacted with an animal,
they are going to have all those feel good endorphins.
And what we do is we try to improve human health.
(01:54):
This is our mission, improving human health through the power
of the human animal bond. And we do that through
our amazing volunteers. We license nine different species, so we're
more than just dogs and cats, but all about serving
some of those most vulnerable populations. And I guess you
(02:14):
could still call me somewhat of a newbie. I started
in November of last year and have been overseeing our
signatory events ever since. So that includes Head of the Year,
Treats and Sweets Day and the world's largest pet walk,
which we're going to be talking about later.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Cool, And now you mentioned the other Okay, the sweets
and Treats Okay, we got it. We got to just
bring it up just real quick. What is that?
Speaker 2 (02:39):
So it is one of our fundraising events, and we
have bakers all across the country they can bake any
time each year, and a portion of those funds helped
support our therapy animal program. Some of the funds can
support our community partners that are in our larger populated
areas where we have more teams, and it's all about
(03:00):
out serving up treats and sweets. So some for humans,
some for pets, but all are welcome.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Oh cool, that's a really cool idea. I wish we
had more. Well, I guess any bakers could really kind
of join in and have, you know, get put out
baked goods and stuff. It wouldn't just have to necessarily
be pet treats and stuff like that, would it.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Exactly? Yeah, yep, exactly.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Yeah, Well that'd be kind of cool. We have a
really nice baker here in our little town. She owns
fur Babies and it's she does really phenomenal great bake
work for the pets and stuff. I've gotten some of her, yeah,
like birthday bones and stuff for my dogs and stuff
like that, and she does cakes and all sorts of stuff.
(03:43):
So yeah, it's pretty cool. So just in case we
have some listeners out there that may not know the
differences between the different types of animals that we have
out there, like therapy animals, service animals, and then of
course support animals. Why don't we touch a little bit
on what the differences is between those.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Yeah. Absolutely, Pet Partners is big on education specifically around this.
So a therapy animal, you know, we encourage people to
pet therapy animals. They are to be shared with multiple
different people. They go and visit and share those smiles.
Whereas a service animal is trained to help one person,
(04:30):
they are not to be petted when they are working
and on duty. And then we have the emotional support
animal for example, emotional support animal therapy animals. They don't
have any special privileges. For example, a service animal can
go into a restaurant, they can stay in hotels that
are not pet friendly, whereas emotional support animals therapy animals
(04:54):
they cannot. They don't have those special privileges. And a
Pet Partner is a big use of our training is
learning the difference between all three of those, so that
we educate our teams and then they're able to educate
others that they come in contact with that might say
the incorrect thing. Of course, they're always friendly about it,
but we do encourage them. If you have an opportunity
(05:16):
to educate someone, do so.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Oh yeah, I'll hardly believe in that. Do the same
thing with my work with the organization that I work with,
Hero Polls here, you know, when we're out and about
and stuff like that. And I've actually noticed it's really
kind of nice that when I'm out with my service
dog teams that a lot more people are taking more
(05:42):
notice that their service dogs and they're not supposed to
be touched without permission, you know, from the owner and
stuff like that, and certain things going on. And some
owners don't want you to touch their dogs at all
when they're out there working right. Others you know, will
allow it as long as the dog sits and stuff first.
But yeah, it's nice to see that. I think more
(06:02):
people are starting to come around and realize that there
is that difference between a service dog and a therapy
dog and an emotional support animal as well, and even
and service animals do come in many different forms, as
you mentioned or not. Service ammals, I'm sorry, therapy animals
and emercial support animals come in many different forms like
(06:23):
you mentioned before, But a service animal, there's only two
that are recognized by the ADA, and that are the
dogs and the miniature horses. Those are the only two
eighty eight that are recognized. So yeah, so I just
thought it'd be good to touch on that, just so
you know, in case listeners out there might not know
the differences, those are the differences and it is important
(06:45):
to know that stuff. So, when you guys have your
teams and stuff out there working in their therapy areas,
how do you guys ensure the safety and the world
well being of both your therapy animal teams and the
people that they're interacting with.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Great question. So we have very rigorous testing that we
put our handlers and our teams through. Our handlers have
to pass an online evaluation basically a test where they
learn what to do, what not to do when they're
on a visit, how to make sure that they are
in tune with their animal, that they're being their animal's
(07:28):
best advocate always. We tell our volunteers your animal always
comes first, and then the two of them will actually
go to an in person evaluation where they will be
evaluated by one of our partners volunteers that is certified
to perform that evaluation, where they will test them on
a variety of different skills based on this species, and
(07:50):
we have two ratings. One rating is basically your animal
is better suited in an environment that is predictable. The
other the well can work in a predictable, predictable environment
or an environment that might be a little more difficult
to predict maybe somewhere where there are children where it
might be loud, or a hospital where there are lots
(08:11):
of noises and different smells. And so we make sure
that we prepare our teams for all of these types
of situations so that we set them up for success.
And we also encourage, you know, when they are on
their visits to show people, tell people how to interact
with a therapy animal, because sometimes we have people that
(08:33):
might be nervous, maybe it's their first time interacting with
the therapy dog, a therapy gat So we always want
all parties to feel safe and like they know the
right way to go about cutting the animal and interacting.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Awesome. Now, when you guys, are you know, your teams
are in their training and doing this stuff, So are
they are you actually going in with your teams to
say these hospital or nursing home settings and kind of
doing some of the training in there, and then you know,
as an observation for before they do their test, or
(09:10):
do you wait until after they've done their testing, because
I'm just curious for the training part of it. How
would you know?
Speaker 2 (09:17):
That's a great question. Some of our teams, for example,
it's their first time they're considering becoming a team with
their animal. We have a lot of amazing volunteers that
will volunteer to have that person come in alone without
their pets and observe a visit where they can kind
of get that hands on experience for what it's like
(09:39):
to go into a hospital or a school with their pet.
And then if they decide, you know, they'd like to
move forward, then they go through the online test for
the human and then they will go and have their
evaluation together. We do encourage, you know, people when they
are thinking, you know, I might be interested in becoming
a team with my animal. We encourage you know, basic obedience,
(10:03):
ensuring that your dog or your cat enjoys being petted.
We don't just want them to tolerate it. We want
them to like meeting new people and interacting. So there's
definitely a few things you can look for in your animal,
if you think it might be something that you'd be
interested in doing together.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Okay, well that's good, and that's a that's a good
way of doing it, having them go in with another
team to observe that team and see, you know what
actually happens when the team does a visit. So that's
a good idea.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
So now Pet Partners therapy teams, what types of settings
do they typically visit? I mean we've mentioned hospitals, nursing homes.
Is that typically the only kind of environments that they
go into or do they go into other environments as well?
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Oh? Yeah, lots of different environments. They will visit. At schools,
we have teams that visit like air force spaces, anything
that you can think of. We've probably had a team
go in and visit any you know, type of facility,
retirement community. Really, the possibilities aren't less as long as
(11:13):
the facility itself is okay. With Pet Partners teams going in,
of course, we make sure that you know, the facility
is all good. Sometimes they'll ask for certain documentation and
you know, they don't want to speak with someone at
Pet Partners, which we're always happy to do to make
sure that all parties are are okay with the visit.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Good good. Now we talked a little bit obviously about
you know, when they're interested in going in and some
of the things that they have to go through evaluations
and stuff. But what kind of training or certification do
the dogs and their handlers actually have to go through
and complete to become a therapy team.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Yeah, so it's it's different based on what species is
being tested. For example, you know your basic obedience, so
you know, sit, stay, being neutral when there's another animal
in the same vicinity. These things are appropriate for our
dogs being evaluated. For example, when we have a mini
(12:18):
horse evaluated, they need to be comfortable backing up. Sometimes
you know, in a small place like a hospital elevator,
they might not be able to turn around, so we
want to make sure that they're comfortable doing things like that.
So each species we have, you know, had conversations with
experts to you know, really see what it takes for
that specific species to be comfortable in a therapy animal position,
(12:42):
and then we have created those tests and then those
evaluations based on the knowledge from those experts.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
Okay, so here's something that just kind of popped into
my head. So Obviously, we want our dogs to be neutral,
you know, with other dogs if they're you know, in
the vicinity or whatever. So what about cats, what if
you have I mean, what about cats, because sometimes you know,
(13:09):
cats can be cats and you're just not quite sure.
I don't think sometimes until all of a sudden you
have a problem.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Yeah, yeah, sure so, And I don't want to misspeak.
It's funny when you start at Pet Partners, they they
have you take an evaluation online. And I took the
dog course because I have a dog, so I'm not
as well versed in the cats. But the main thing
that we would look for is that your animals not
showing aggression. Okay, you do not license, you know, teams
(13:43):
where there is an instance where an animal is aggressive
towards a human or towards another animal. So that's kind
of a big thing related to cats, I would tell you.
I again don't want to say anything that's not one
hundred percent true.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
So being his home kind of any animal can be.
I mean, obviously you wouldn't want to have a cat
and like a guinea pig or something going at the
same time, that may not be a good thing.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
I'm just saying, and well, you know, it's so funny
you say that. We I'm thinking about a team in Cincinnati.
Jack's a therapy dog and he often visits with one
of our therapy rabbits, and they are both just amazing
therapy animals. Yeah, they just love each other. They will.
They've got some great photos together. But yeah, I know
(14:36):
we encourage, you know, animals being neutral towards one another,
and they really exude what it means to be great
therapy animal teams, both of them.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
They'd have to be. Boy, I'm telling you, if you
had a cat and see a guinea pig or something
together that guinea kids started moving around and squeaking, that'd
be there'd be some hard stuff for a cat to
be like, Okay, I'm not gonna look at him. I'm
not gonna look at him. I mean I can't. Obviously,
I know that there's cats out there that are gonna
(15:06):
be fine with almost any other animal and stuff like that.
Same with dogs, like you just said with the dog
with the with the rabbit. You know, there's a lot
of pets out there and a lot of animals that
are fine with other breeds and varieties of animals. But
it was just popped into my head. I'm just like,
I don't know about a cat and any peg being together.
That just might not be a good thing. So yeah,
(15:31):
I can just see that one Sylvester and Tweedy or something,
Tom and Jerry going on there, not trying to get
morbid or anything.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
But I just this just.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Kind of pops in my head. I don't know if
we want to take, you know, little mister Gary the
guinea pig with the cat into the room at the
same time. Oh my gosh, all right, a little bit
of festivity. So are there any specific breeds or qualities
that make it? And this is interest because I'm saying
a good therapy dog, but I mean not just therapy dog,
(16:07):
even when it comes to I don't know certain breeds
of cats even are there? Do you know, obviously you
do the dog stuff more so I don't know if
you'd really know more about the cats. But do you
know if there's any particular breeds dogs cats that make
better therapy animals than others do?
Speaker 2 (16:24):
So? At pet parters, we are inclusive to all species
of dogs and we welcome you know, any any type
of breed. I will say we have out of all
of the dogs we have. Most of them are Golden retrievers.
That's definitely, yeah, we see the most Golden retrievers. But
(16:45):
also of all of our therapy dogs, twenty five percent
are rescue animals, which I think is a great time
to just bust that myth. I think oftentimes people think
you can't, you know, teach an old dog nutrix that
clearly we've had some amazing handlers that have rescued an
animal and that animal has turned around and helped so
many people. So just a testament to the great people
(17:08):
that we have volunteering with us here at Pet Partners.
But yeah, again, just looking for and you know, animals
that enjoy being around people. They have that sweet disposition
about them. You know, they want to be around people,
they enjoy being petted, They've got those basic obedience skills,
and again you know they have a great relationship with
their human. We want teams. You know, we can't just
(17:30):
have a great dog, We also have to have a
great human one that looks out for the pet. We
have this very long acronym you are your animal's best advocate.
Yah yah bash that doesn't quite roll off the song.
But just looking for people that enjoy being with their animal,
and I want to make a difference. So we always
(17:50):
encourage people you might have a potential therapy dog, a
therapy animal in your home. If this kind of sounds
like your pet, you know, they like to be petted,
They get in energized being around people. You know, go
to our website check it out. It might be something
that you two could enjoy doing together.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Yeah, exactly, And I'm glad, you know, you kind of
brought up with the the qualities and stuff for therapy
dogs and that a lot you know, twenty five percent
of them are the rescues because there's been I mean,
I've talked to people on the podcast over the years
that have just for instance, people don't understand too like
(18:32):
these dogs that because of course we just have another
freaking dog fighting thing with another football player going on
yet again. So it's kind of like number one, don't
you learn Number two? The dogs coming from them situations,
quite a few of them can be rehabbed into doing different,
(18:53):
you know, things and being out in public and with
other animals and dogs and stuff like that. It just depends,
you know, on the dog and the circumstances and what happened.
But one of the ones that comes to mind was
it was one of Michael Vick's dogs. I had Rue
Yori on and uh yeah, he had of course, Wallace
(19:19):
was his his big you know, rescue dog that went
on to be the national you know, disc champion, frisbee
champion and stuff and all sorts of different titles and
stuff in frisbee. But he actually adopted one of the
vic fighting dogs from I'm not sure if it was
bad rap that had him after Michael, if they, I
(19:43):
think it was bad Rappers who had the dog, and
then I think he went out and met the dog
and adopted him. And his name was his name was Hector.
And Rue went on to get Hector certified to do
therapy work, and so he take Hector around and did
all sorts of therapy work with him until he passed away. So,
(20:04):
you know, that's just one instance that comes to mind
where you know, dogs can come from that kind of
a situation or a shelter or whatever and just work
out perfectly for those kind of works. So just because
their shelter dogs, you know, or coming from this kind
of a situation, doesn't mean that they can't turn out
to be phenomenal dogs.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
Absolutely. Yeah, sometimes they're the most sweetest and you know
they have the most love to give. And yeah, I
think I was amazed when I saw the numbers. But yeah,
I mean you can, you can make it happen. And
just I've heard some really great stories from some of
our volunteers, you know, where they got their rescue animal
(20:47):
and so shy and you know just coming out their
shell over you know, weeks and months and looking at them,
you know, two three years later where they've made hundreds
of visits and the complete you know turnaround that they
were able to make. It's really amazing.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Oh yeah, and other gets a success story. For one
that got rescued from the shelter is Cold the deaf dog.
I mean Chris, his owner you know, got him from
the shelter. And now I mean Cole not only is
showing people, you know, how you can do so many
things even if you have a disability, which now you
know Chris is adopted. I think three more that are
(21:26):
either deaf or deaf and blind or whatever and so,
but Cole is a therapy dog. He goes into the
veterans' homes and the nursing homes and stuff like that.
As well as working with the kids at the school.
So you know, these dogs, man, they come from these
shelters and they just a lot of times will make phenomenal.
And I'm a little biased just because I did animal
(21:48):
control for a number of years and I know what
these sheltered dogs are capable of, because that's pretty much
all I've ever owned was a shelter dog. So and
my last one is with me right now, and she's
sixteen years old, and uh yeah, yeah, she's lived a good,
lime life. I'm actually kind of shocked that she's sixteen
(22:12):
and she's still I just regular dog for you, believe
it or not, just regular Pirina dog food. But yeah,
she's you know, she's doing okay, although I'm thinking that
it's probably getting near that time unfortunately. But uh yeah,
so she'll be the last one out of well, my
(22:33):
son's got his dog. I had him for a while, so,
but she'll be the last out of six.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
That I had.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
So yeah. Anyway, you got a lot of them here,
shelter dogs. And everybody says that to you, I got
the best dog. I'll tell you what. This one, this
little girl here, she has turned out to be from
what she came in and how she started to what
she is today is amazing because she is just one
(22:58):
of the She really is one the best dogs. I've
probably ever seen her. Ad for her the way she is,
you knows from what she came from. So anyway, I
just got lucky. I got good dogs. Just like everybody else.
We all have good dogs. Let's stay saire. We all
have good dogs and good cats, good guinea pigs, good snakes.
(23:18):
Whatever you may own, do good. Okay, Well, let's go
ahead and let's talk about the world's largest pet walk
that's going to be coming up September twenty seventh. So
why don't you tell us what it is all about.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
Yes, this is so exciting. So this is the eighth annual.
We've been doing this a long time, and we will
have teams probably in all fifties eights several countries walking
on September twenty seventh with the goal of spreading awareness
of all pet partners and pet therapy in general. And
(23:56):
we also utilize the walk as a fundraiser and any
funds that we raise help support Pet Partners as therapy
animal program so that helps us extend our reach help
more people in vulnerable situations. And it is all about
just getting active, taking steps with your pets. So we
will have people that are going to take a walk
(24:18):
around their neighborhood. Some will go walk in the park,
others will go on a trail trail walk with their pets.
We have people that walk individually, we have people that
form teams and go as a group, and we just
extend and offer an invitation to anyone that wants to
get active to go online and register to join us.
(24:42):
It is going to be so much fun. But we anticipate,
you know, flooding all of social media on September twenty
seventh with pictures of proud pet parents walking with their
animals and supporting pet partners.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
Well, that sounds like fun. And it doesn't matter how
far they walk or anything like that. Even if they
go out and say walk the block, that's that's good
as part of it.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
Absolutely. Yeah, we encourage everyone just to walk a location,
a distance that feels right for the animal, and yeah,
just make the most of it. We have some really
fun prizes we like to incentivize our walkers, so you know,
with some fundraising, they can earn a branded pet bandana,
(25:26):
T shirt, all of which has our world largest pet
walk logo tends to draw questions. You know, why are
a group of twenty of you walking and matching shirts?
And so that's great for the awareness piece, but it's
just one of our most beloved events. Our volunteers look
forward to it every year, and I think we do
too at Pet Partners.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Hey, here's an idea. If you guys don't have your
own dog and you want to do this, you should
obviously go to the shelter and volunteer to walk dogs.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Absolutely, it's so funny you mentioned that we actually had
a group I think it might have been last year
where they did exactly that. They went and they got
some shelter dogs and they took them for exercise and
had the best time. I think it even led to
some adoptions, which is amazing.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
Yeah, that's great. I know the shelter, you know, the
in the town here where I'm at, well close to
where I'm at, they have volunteer dog walkers and stuff
like that. So I'm gonna email I know the their
supervisor over there, so I might email her about this
and say, hey, if case any of your dog walkers
(26:32):
are interested in helping out with Yeah, you know, letting
me know, and I'll post it on my Facebook pages
and stuff too, get the word out there. So it's
a good cause, you know, helping therapy animals and stuff
like that. Why not exactly.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
Yeah, And we make it so fun. We we love
a big celebration at pet Partners. And so after the
fact about mid October, we have what we call the
Sneaker Awards, and we we award certificates to different teams
and different walkers based on, you know, how many teammates
they recruited or how much they raised during their fundraising.
(27:09):
You know, let's say there were a social media superstar.
We have Sneaker Awards for that. But just a great
way to look back on the event and see what
we were able to accomplish together and get excited for
the next year.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Right, a couple of things, I think a couple of
these things we might have just answered, real quick, but
real quick, How did the event actually get started? And
how much has it grown since it did get started?
Speaker 2 (27:34):
Yeah? So started Actually Tracy Pryor, she's our chief development officer.
She's been with Partners for about eleven years, so she
was instrumental and starting this great event and every year
it just continues to grow where we secure sponsors for
that corporate level, we continue to grow in number of
(27:54):
teams and number of walkers, and yeah, I mean every
year we just sa far higher and you know, look
forward to seeing that big turnout and watching you know,
everything continue to grow.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Right right. And I think we already answered anyone can
participate even if they don't have a registered therapy animal, obviously,
because I just said go to the shelter and walk gods,
So absolutely obviously anybody. Hey, you know what, if you've
got a cat that likes to walk, right, you can
walk your cat too. Write any animal you can, we have.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
It's funny we have several cat teams. I think we
have I know of at least one rabbit that.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
Will be is it ferret king?
Speaker 2 (28:34):
So yes, we are inclusive of all species.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
You know, people like to walk the ferret. I had
friends that had ferrets and they would go camping with
their ferrets and they would take them for walks. That's great.
So yeah, so there you go, guys. You don't even
have to have a dog if your cat likes to
go for walks, or if you say have ferrets or
or you know, getting pigs. Maybe I guess maybe I
like to walk. I don't know. Maybe you maybe your
(28:58):
snake likes to go out wrapped around your waister, you know,
your shoulders. You can go for a walk with your snake.
There you go. Absolutely, I can see this now. People
are gonna be out there with their snakes around their
shoulders taking pictures and video going hey, I'm out here
on this pit walk.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
Exactly. Okay, definitely would some attention, that.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
Would be great, that really would. Okay, guys with people
with snakes, this is what you're doing on the twenty
seventh of September. You need to go walk your snakes. Hey.
I had a friend that probably would have done it.
I'm honestly. She always she when I was running the
shelter in the in the small town about a half
hour away, she we had someone leave their snakes behind
when they moved out, and so she had had snakes before,
(29:43):
so she took them and it was like a red
tail boa and uh, like a little tree python. Anyway,
she would take them outside all the time and let
them go around in her tree. And I'm just like, okay,
she'd walk around with them all the time. I mean,
I'm fine with snakes, but I was just like, Okay,
(30:04):
you're going a little more extreme than most people would
but okay, so yeah, anyway, so there you go. Guys.
You can walk anything on the pet Walk on the
twenty seventh, and obviously other ways people can get involved
is you don't have to go walking, you can also
they can also donate, or they can also spread the word,
(30:26):
say through social media sites and things like that.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
Correct, Absolutely, yes we encourage. Maybe you don't want to walk,
but yes, if you feel inclined to donate, know that
we use the funds to support our mission at Pet
Partners and our therapy anical program is at the heart
of what we do. So yes, we would love to
have them walk, make a donation if they're able, and yeah,
(30:51):
anything that can be shared on social media would be amazing.
We want to flood social media with pets and people
walking on September twenty seventh.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
Awesome. So for the Pet Walk, is there say if
someone well, and I guess it doesn't matter if you're
going to be flooding social media. I guess that kind
of answers that question too. If there's any virtual or
like remote participation options for people who can't actually attend
an official walk location. So if you lived out in
(31:25):
the Boonies, man, you know, and you're miles and miles
away from somebody, but you want to go walk.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
Mm hmm, yeah, no, absolutely, So we would encourage those
people to sign up as individual walkers and then walk
in your hometown at the location that you choose the
distance that's right for you. I live in western North
Carolina and I don't have very many teams nearby. I
believe the closest one is maybe two hours. So I've
(31:51):
recruited some of my neighbors, some friends and family, and
we're gonna walk our civilian dogs around town a couple
of blocks and just make the most out of the day.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
And so for people to do the fundraising aspect of
the walk, for you guys, is there like any forms
or any paperwork or anything like that that they need
to have to have, say, sponsors or people that are
donating fill out so that then they can collect after
the walk.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
So we have a couple different ways. We encourage everyone
to go on to our website. You can go to
our special events tab and you can click the World's
Largest Pet Walk that will take you to our official
site where we have a running total of how much
we've raised so far, and you can donate online using
a credit card, or you can mail a check into
(32:45):
our Pet Partner's headquarters our mailing address of courses on
our website there. But yes, we'd love to have that
support either of those two.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Ways, okay, perfect.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
And then pet Partners is a nonprofit, so anything that's
donated will be tax deductible.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
Yep. Yes, of course that's a good thing to mention.
So people know that now the money that gets raised
from the pet walk, So can you tell the listeners
where the money raised actually goes and how it's helping
to support your guys's mission.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Of course, so when we say their animal program, that's broad.
But for example, pet Partners supports all of our teams
that we have, and so when a handler signs up
and pays for their registrationcies, they do pay a portion
of pafit. Pet Partners covers seventy five of what we
(33:47):
spend yearly on a team, and so these funds help
with that. They help with our liability insurance that we
provide for our teams when they go on visits. In
the instance that there was an accident. It also helped
us with ongoing training for our handlers, for our evaluators,
helped us with research. We love research and putting some
(34:10):
scientific evidence information out there about what really happens when
people interact with one of our therapy animal teams. So
it's very broadom biillah. That supports so many things that
are just intricate to the Pet Partner's mission, and so
when you support us through the walk, you're really supporting
(34:31):
you know, all eighty five hundred plus Pet Partners teams.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Awesome. I mean that's a lot of.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
Teams absolutely and growing, growing by the day, which is amazing.
We have seen, you know, year after year, especially post COVID,
just the number of inquiries we receive requesting therapy animal
visits just continues to climb. So there is clearly a
need and we are always looking for new teams. So
(35:03):
again encouraging people that are listening. If you think you
might be interested, please check us out on our website.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
I'm glad you kind of brought that up about how
you know you're getting more and more requests to have
teams coming into places and stuff, because I was actually
going to ask you about along those lines what kind
of impact do you see therapy dogs having on the
communities as a whole.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
It is so important. We have great relationships with so
many facilities that our teams are going in visiting, and
it seems like every time they go and visit, you know,
almost immediately we're hearing feedback from the facilities that you know,
it impacted the patients day so much, they're already asking
when the team is coming back. And so it just
(35:52):
goes to show really what these visits do for these
people that are experiencing some very difficult times. So there
is such a need and that's why, you know, Pet Partners,
that's why we do what we do. We want to
help people, and you know, sometimes just petting an animal
means the world to some of these folks that were visiting.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
Yeah, so share a story. So, my good friend Rob
was in one of the local nursing homes here. He
was eighty three and he'd been diagnosed with dementia and
he loved dogs, but obviously he couldn't have a dog
in there. And so we have, you know, a couple
(36:37):
of local therapy dog teams, and so I was able
to get a visits scheduled for him so he could
at least have you know, the dog, a dog coming
in and seeing him. And in the meantime, we just
got we got him a big old cuddle clone thing
made so that he had his one of the dogs
he used to have as a younger man. And so anyway,
(36:58):
but the impact that the most therapy dogs had on him,
he loved having them come in and it was so cool.
They had made little cards of they had a picture
of the dog on the front and then little information
and facts about the dog and I think the team
a little bit on the back. And it was so cool.
(37:20):
He had to show me all of the cards that
he had gotten from the dogs that had come to
visit him. So it really does make a really big
impact on these people. And I've seen the same when
I see things that Chris posts from Cold you know
about Team Cole the Cold Deaf Dog and stuff, and
he sees the veterans and things like that, and you
see these people in the videos and how happy they are,
(37:43):
and so these animals really do make a really big
impact on especially these older folks that are now in
say a nursing home like that they're not in their
own homes. Anymore. They don't have a lot of their
own things they do, can't have animals, and a good
part of these such suations. So it's so important for
teams to be able to go in and give them
(38:05):
a little more normal, normal, normalcy. Am I saying that right? Normalcy?
Speaker 2 (38:12):
Absolutely? No, And I've heard it's so funny. I've heard,
you know, very similar stories where you know, for example,
one lady that I chatted with, she had her therapy
dog go into a classroom and these students were struggling,
maybe not wanting to do the work that their teacher
(38:33):
had provided, and you know, they had a visit with
this sweet golden retriever and it was almost instant. They
were energized and excited to work because they knew that
if they did, you know, their school work, they're going
to get a visit from the therapy dog. And it
really is such a mood booster.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
Yep, Yeah, it really is. I know. I've had a
couple of people inquiring about doing some training to do
some therapy work, and one wanted to go into the
schools and stuff like that. She moved here from another
state and her dog, she'd already gone through all the
training and basic CGC and stuff, and her dog was
actually going into the schools and the other state, but
(39:15):
she had to get them, you know, so that he
was able to go to the ones here. So yeah,
but yeah, they do. They make a really big difference
in a lot of different situations. So it's it's good
that they're around to help people out. And let me see,
I was going to ask you how someone could become
(39:36):
a Pet Partner's volunteer or become a team, but you've
already kind of put out there that they need to
go to your website. What is your website, by the way,
why don't you go ahead and throw that out there.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
Yes, it's pet partners dot org.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
Okay, and they can also go there to donate or
to sign up for the pet walk as well.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
Absolutely, yes, we've got a special tab for especially Vince
and the world's argest Pet Walk should be the first
little thing that you can click on there. But yes,
a website is always a great place to start for
people that are potentially interested in becoming a team. We've
got a lot of resources for things, you know that
(40:20):
we've chatted about on the call here, and if you're interested,
you know, you can go ahead and sign up, get
some information on the evaluation piece that you the human
would have to pass, and some great things that you
can be working on with your animal in meantime.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
And the pet Walk thing comes up, like right after
you go on to your website, because I've gone onto
your website and it comes right up and says you
can't if you want to sign up for a believe
it pops right up.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
Yeah, and I'm glad we're chatting about that. We also
have what we're calling kind of world's largest Pet Walk
kickoffs we host to a month and it's really just
a nice informal info session. They're usually about thirty minutes.
They are on zoom and you'll hear from me, but
you'll also hear from some of our veteran team captains
(41:12):
that have walked in the Pet Walk for several years,
and they'll share their experience, what they usually do to
recruit and fundraise, and what type of walk they're hosting
on walk day. And it's a really great thing to
come and attend if you're kind of on the fence
or maybe you want some more information, and then of
course we share you know, next steps on how you
sign up but those webinars are listed on our website
(41:37):
as well.
Speaker 1 (41:38):
Very cool. Do you have any other events that are
going to be coming up in the next couple of
months besides the Pet walk?
Speaker 2 (41:47):
So after the Pet Walk, we will switch gears for
the Pet of the Year and it is going to
be I believe it will be the fifth year that
we are hosting. But it is so much fun. It
is also a fundraiser and all of our pets that
are interested in running can submit an application and we
(42:09):
work heat of the year to a team that raises
the most funds for the Therapy Animal Program. And so
these teams will get support obviously from friends and family,
maybe employees at facilities that they visit. But it is
so much fun. Our twenty twenty five Pet of the
Year is River, the Golden Retriever. His handler Katie raised
over fourteen thousand dollars for the Therapy Animal Program and
(42:32):
they have been amazing ambassadors thus far. They were crowned
in April of this year.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
That's awesome. That's that's a lot of fundraising.
Speaker 2 (42:44):
She was a natural.
Speaker 1 (42:46):
Yeah, yeah, sounds like it. She's doing a good job. Awesome. Yeah, Well,
we are kind of nearing the end of the podcast, erin,
but I was wondering if you might have any final
thoughts or message is that you might like to share
with our listeners about about the upcoming walk or your
guys' mission or anything along those lanes.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
Yeah, oh my goodness, we've covered so much that and
I know we've said it, but just want to encourage,
you know, everyone listening, take a good look inside your home.
You might have some really great potential therapy animals. Think
about you know, your children too, pet partners. We have
a lot of minor handlers, so handlers that are under
(43:29):
the age of eighteen, and that's a really great thing
about us. Your children can become a team with their
pet and volunteer at a young age. So just look
inside your home. If you're interested, go on our website
and again, we would love to have everyone listening join
our walk. The more walkers, the more impact we're able
(43:51):
to make. And just excited for September. Cannot wait.
Speaker 1 (43:56):
Yeah, it sounds like it's going to be a lot
of fun. I might have to see if I can
borrow a dog mine. She's a little old and I
can't really. She goes to half a block and we're done.
So she's just not about walking anymore. She used to be.
Speaker 2 (44:18):
If it just has to be half a block though,
that's okay, I'm just a requirement.
Speaker 1 (44:24):
She just raised her head and looked at me with
that one. He said, Oh, okay, no distance requirement. Yeah,
we can do that end of the driveway. I'm good.
It's fair because she used to like to go for walks,
and so I had her and I had my other dog,
and I just lost him about three or four months ago,
(44:45):
and so he had gotten to the point he couldn't
He had arthritis really bad and he couldn't walk very
far at all, so I couldn't really take him for
walks anymore. So then I kind of wasn't taking her
because it wasn't fair for him because he'd have a
fit because he couldn't go for a walk and he'd
loved to walk. So then when I lost him, I
was like, okay, well I can start taking her for
(45:08):
walks again. And yeah, we made it about halfway. Actually
I made it a block, and at that point it
was pushing her to try to come back home, so
I was like, yeah, we ain't gonna do that again.
Speaker 2 (45:20):
Well, I have a three year almost four year old
and we have to do about three miles a day
where she is just crazy girl. Oh yeah, yes, so
much energy. So she's ready for September now, I'm.
Speaker 1 (45:35):
Sure she is. Sounds like it. So I'll have to
I do dog training and stuff, regular dog training, basic classes.
I'll have to pass on the word to my training
classes because they all like to go out and take
their dogs for walks, so maybe they'd like to sign up.
Speaker 2 (45:49):
You know.
Speaker 1 (45:50):
I'll pass the word on and put it out on
my Facebook pages, and I'll definitely put it on the
Calling our Creatures Facebook page and stuff like that, so
I get the word out for you guys.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
We appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (46:01):
Yeah, well, I appreciate you being on tonight with us
and sharing all of this great information about Pet Partners
and about the world's largest pet walk and all the
different therapy animals that you guys have in your programs
and stuff. It was great learning about all that stuff
and learning more about the Pet Walk and stuff. I
(46:22):
think that's going to be a really cool event coming up.
And again, if you guys are interested, go check out
Pet Partner's website and if you want to be a
therapy Dog team, sign up with them. If you're not
interested in Pet Partners and you want to stay somewhere local,
you know, you guys, because I know some people like
to do that as well. You guys can always look
(46:42):
around locally for therapy dog or therapy animal you know
organizations as well, and Pet Partners I'm sure has different
branches and all sorts of different towns. So yep, So
you guys, I'm sure if you guys want to be
a therapy animal team, I'm sure if you look around,
you guys can find something that fits for you. Whether
(47:03):
it's Pet Partners or whether it's a local, smaller team
or something like that that you're more interested in. It's
all up to you, guys, But check them out and
see if it's something that you'd like to do, because
it's always great to be able to help with your
therapy animal and go into nursing homes and schools and
stuff like that and erin. With that being said, you're
(47:25):
welcome to stay on if you'd like. I'm just going
to announce my next couple upcoming podcasts, And if you
don't want to and you want to jump off, that's
perfectly fine, because I know it's getting pretty late where
you're at.
Speaker 2 (47:36):
So yeah, yeah, I might jump off, but thank you
so much for having me. I've had so much fun
and I can't wait for everything to come out.
Speaker 1 (47:46):
Yeah, I'm excited. So I'm looking forward to seeing how
you guys do with the pet walk. Awesome.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
Okay, great, I'll look for that link and hope you
have a great night.
Speaker 1 (48:00):
You have a good night too, allright, by all right everybody.
So Aaron jumped off there, Like I said, it's pretty
late where she's that. I don't blame her. I jump
off too, all right. So the next couple podcasts that
I have coming up, I think you guys are going
(48:20):
to like, I have sorry here here, let me pull
it off real quick. I have Turpentine Creek Sanctuary. They're
going to be on August twenty first, washing and say,
the sanctuary is going to be on, but Tanya, the
founder CEO of the sanctuary is actually going to be
(48:41):
on with me, and she's gonna be telling us all
about the sanctuary and some of the different resident animals
that they have. But I'm I think we're going to
focus well, we're probably gonna talk about pretty much all
the animals they have because they have quite a different
different animals. They have a lot of the big cats, lions, tigers,
(49:03):
they have bears, lions, tigers, and bears. Oh my, so
we got lions, tigers, and bears and hyenas if I
remember right in there. And I'm sure there's probably some
other panthers and some other probably bobcats and those kinds
of stuff like that that they have, because you see,
(49:24):
Turpentine Creek Sanctuary takes in a lot of those big
cats and bears and stuff like that that come from
either exotic pet trade or from say circuses, zoos, you know,
those kinds of places. So I'm looking forward to talking
with Tanya on August twenty first and learning more about
(49:45):
the sanctuary and just what all they do do there
and all the different animals that they have. I think
that's going to be great. And then on September fourth,
I am going to have Rebecca shaper On with me
and we're going to be talking about her book, Roses
to Rainbow. This is about Rebecca's journey after she lost
(50:09):
her dog Gus passed away, and it's kind of about
Rebecca's journey and how Gus from the other side kind
of helped her through her grieving process and healing and
kind of helped her find the path that she's on
now and doing healing work and stuff like that. So
(50:31):
I think that's going to be a really good podcast
as well to have Rebecca on and come talk to
us about that kind of stuff and about losing our
pets and the grief we go through. You know, everybody
that's had a pet more or less has probably lost
the pet at some point in time. Maybe if you're
a newer pet owner, maybe not, but you know, if
(50:54):
you've had pets over the years, so we all kind
of know what it's like to lose our pets. But
Rebecca's going to come out and talk about the grief
of losing a pet and her experiences and her journey
and how she overcame that grief and started doing what
she does now as a healer. So I'm looking forward
(51:16):
to that as well, So don't forget August twenty First,
I'm going to have Tanya from Turpentine Creek Sanctuary coming
on with me to talk about the sanctuary and all
the animals they help out. And then on September fourth,
Rebecca Shaper with her book Roses to rainbows and talking
about that. So I hope you all enjoyed tonight's podcast,
(51:39):
and I hope you all stay safe out there this weekend,
and don't forget to come on back in a couple
of weeks and listen to the next podcast and learn
a little bit more. And thanks everybody for tuning in.
Speaker 2 (51:51):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (51:51):
I should probably throw out there before I do get
off tonight. If you have any ideas for any guests
or shows that you'd like to find out about you're
about or have on, shoot me an email at Calling
All Creatures nineteen at gmail dot com. Calling All Creatures
nineteen is all put together, all lowercase. Or you can
(52:12):
find me on Facebook. You can either message me, you
can comment under a podcast announcement whatever you'd like to do.
Am on YouTube and stuff like that as well. You
can only shoot me a message on there. I don't
get on there quite as much, but I do check
the Facebook pages and stuff like that. But any ideas
(52:35):
you guys have would be great. Guests, specific animal topics,
anything that you might like to talk about. Shoot me
something and let me know and I'll see if I
can make it happen. All right, with that being said,
have a good night everybody, see you all in a
couple weeks or not see you all, but hopefully you
all hear me in a couple weeks. All right, good night,
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