June 19, 2024 • 34 mins
In today's episode, we welcome the remarkable Amy Shroff, a dedicated veterinarian and founder of the Veterinary Emergency & Specialty Center of NE, now known as Blue Pearl Veterinary Specialists. Amy, a resident of Wayland, Massachusetts since 1999, shares her inspiring journey in veterinary medicine and her work with her non-profit organization, Lets Save the Strays International. We discuss her mission to assist forgotten animals worldwide, the volunteer-based and self-funded approach of her 501(c)(3) organization, and the significant impact of her efforts in countries like Thailand, Myanmar, Nepal, India, and Ukraine. Amy also highlights the importance of bridging the gap between those who need help and those who can provide it, and her ongoing projects to improve animal welfare globally.
Episode Sponsor: Leah Hart, Real Estate Agent
Links & Resources
Episode Sponsor: Leah Hart, Real Estate Agent
Links & Resources
- Non-Profit Website: Let's Save the Strays International
- Non-Profit Facebook & Instagram
- Women Of Wayland Podcast website
- Podcast Instagram, Facebook, & Youtube
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
This episode is brought to you byLeah Hart, your trusted partner in Boston
suburb, Real State. Hello andwelcome to the finale episode of this season.
We wrap up with the incredible storyof Amy Schaff and her nonprofit Let's
(00:21):
Savedstrays dot Org, which we pledgeto support this season. Amy Schaff a
dedicated veterinarian who has been a residentof Walen, Massachusetts since nineteen ninety nine.
Amy's journey in veterinary medicine is trulyinspiring. She founded the Veterinary Emergency
and Specialty Center of New England,now known as Blue Pearl Veterinary Specialists,
(00:43):
and remains the only sole female ownerof a practice of this size in Massachusetts.
Amy's focus on emergency medicine has significantlyinfluenced her international work. Her nonprofit
aims to assist animals worldwide that havebeen forgotten and have no voice. Through
Let's Savedstrays dot Org, Amy isstarting a movement to care for strays more
(01:07):
humanly and address the human animal conflictin countries like Thailand, Mayanmar, Nepal,
India and more. Her organization hasalso extended its efforts to Ukraine with
a wealth of resources in our country. Amy strives to bridge the gap between
those who need help and those whocan provide it. Many people want to
contribute, but don't know how.Amy's five oh one CE organization is volunteer
(01:34):
based, self funded, ensuring thatninety five percent of every dollar goes directly
to the animals they care for.Her efforts have been recognized with a large
grant from Animals Australia for three consecutiveyears, enhancing the impact of her work.
I am excited to dive deeper intoAmy's incredible work and hear more about
her mission to give a voice tothe voiceless animals of the world. Welcome
(01:57):
to the podcast, Amyschaff, thanksfor having me. I had you in
the season one list. I wantedto have you over because I knew you
were posting about your work and itblew my mind. And I'm like,
Amy Shaw, Well, that bringsa bell like Shaw seems to be an
(02:19):
Indian surname. It is. Itis. It's a Parsi name. My
dad is from Mumbai, my momis from the United States, and so
India is my second home. Butit definitely brings a different flavor to a
person. It does and you think, yes, agreed. Yeah, I
have married a Napoliese American, sobeing an Indian, then my husband from
(02:40):
Nepal, and then my kid isAmerican. So it feels like we live
in this really global world. It'strue. I mean exactly. There are
a lot of interesting international groups thatare here in Wayland, you know,
especially India, and I love Nepal. I've been to Nepal and there's just
beautiful people there. The food isamazing, They're wonderful people. They're by
(03:04):
sweet people they are, And Iam basing all of that on how my
husband is. Yeah, all right, what got you here? So we
were my then fiance now husband,we've married over twenty years. We're living
in Hingham in a tiny cottage andI being a veterinarian, of course,
you know, we had dogs betweenus. We had a Saint Bernard,
a Golden Shepherd cross and too Scotti. So we're living in this small space
(03:28):
and we wanted to buy a homeand the Metro West area has always been
a super favorite, so we lookedand conquered Lincoln Whalen, Sudbury, and
we wanted land and this house cameup, and we originally tried to put
an offer on it, but wecouldn't. But then the house came on
the market again and my husband rushedfrom Hingham to run and put an offer
(03:51):
on it. And it's just beena lovely home we've been there forever.
And it abuts a ton of conservationland. It's just a beautiful and we
have a lot of native gardens,so we have a lot of wildlife.
I have seen your house and Ihave to tell you and tell the audience
of course, that I went topick up some stuff handicraft items for like
(04:12):
Devali lamps that you had, andI entered this driveway and I see character
in everything that's placed inside the windowand outside the our house, and I
was blown away by how amazingly globalit felt to me. You had a
mix of everything. Yeah, Iam super excited to go right into the
(04:34):
story, but we will be talkingabout so many different things today, and
I have my mind going on thelatest auction that you had, Yes Pizza
for Perhaps it was The event wasin Northborough at two of our board members
their home in Northborough. They hadthis beautiful home with this huge barn with
(04:55):
a pizza oven. So we hiredtwo guys to make awesome brickop and pizza,
and we had one hundred and tenpeople show and we made almost thirty
thousand dollars that night, oh,which was a huge success. And so
now we want to do this ona yearly basis to try to cultivate a
following because people were so impressed andexcited about the event and all the auction
(05:20):
items and the raffle and the wineand the pizza and the conversation and being
able to tell the story about let'ssave the strays, you know, and
why it's important. So when youmoved into Wayland. Now I'm taking you
further back into the story. Iwant you to tell us all when did
this love for animals came into Yeah, I always wanted to be a veterinarian
(05:42):
and went to University of Pennsylvania,and then after that came to Massachusetts and
just stayed and had worked in privatepractice, but then opened the Veterinary Emergency
and Specialty Center of New England whichis in Wayland, sorry in Waltham,
and then in two thousand and one. In twenty thirteen, I sold it
to Blue Pearl Veterinary Specialists. Thoseof you who know about blue Pearl,
(06:05):
and then I started. That's whenI started. But was the loving for
animals started young? Yes, veryyoung. I mean I think that both
my parents were super animal lovers.My family on both sides are super animal
lovers. And even though I didn'thave a ton of animals growing up,
I love them and I wanted toI wanted to help them. They're innocent,
(06:26):
they're beautiful. You know, theyhave such pure souls, all of
them. That's something that I've observed. He my best friend is that person.
He's a huge, huge and sheknows that I'm recording you today,
and so she was like, Ilove, love, love this. You
know, that's awesome. So I'mintrigued. So I want you to take
(06:46):
us to that journey of being abi racial kid. You told us just
now that daddy was a PARSI momwas an American. How was childhood?
How was growing up? So youknow, we were I was born and
raised in Riverdale, New York.It's in the Bronx. It's an affluent
suburb on the suburb, but onClaven. So you know, a lot
(07:08):
of my friends are Jewish or Asian. And so here's my mom from the
Midwest and here's my dad from India, and so we're just kind of an
interesting mix. And then we youknow, my mom wanted to buy a
house, right and wanted to takeher kids the suburbs. So we went
to Riverside, Connecticut and bought myparents bought a little house and we moved
there and it was a lot offun. I want to go to church,
(07:30):
so then we started going to church. Even though my dad is Zoroastrian,
they were very active in the church. And I think I just wanted
to belong to a community. Andyou know, Greenwich, Riverside, Old
Greenwich, these are also super affluentcommunities, very similar to Wayland, and
so there were a lot of highachieving individuals. You know, the school
(07:53):
system, there were a lot ofsuper high achieving people. And I think
that that was an interesting role modelfor me. And I don't think I
really understood about diversity. I thinkI was just doing my thing I had
growing on. Did you feel thatyou were different? Yes? Yes,
I mean you know how was foodat home? Yes? So food?
(08:16):
So my mom made Indian food amazingly, So we had so that's the thing
is, we had a whole groupof Indian friends and we had a whole
group of non Indian friends and peopleI think were really intrigued with the fact
that I was half Indian. Soif we went to India, like people
don't necessarily go to India per se, or if I wore Indian things or
Indian jewelry, but I don't.I didn't really become super attached to my
(08:41):
to my Indian side until I becamemore of a teenager. So you have
one of the most fabulous collections ofhandicraps and things I love. I love
all Indian textiles. That's amazing.Yeah, but it's a shopping mecca for
those of you that want to go, it's a shopping mecca, or you
can come to my house and buystuff. Yeah. So that I sell
(09:01):
all these things on Facebook marketplace.I sell them all to fund the nonprofit
and also because I'm a shopper.Oh my god, and you have an
eye for shopping. I want totell people who are listening, if you're
local and you want to buy somereally beautiful pieces, you have a look
at what Amy is doing or selling, not the market place. But yes,
(09:22):
yes, I personally have been benefitedby her shopping Amy. It was
it difficult being this person who hadso much compassion and also had to own
the livelihood. And because I seeyou bringing this work and service to different
(09:43):
countries, how did you make itpossible? So after I sold the practice,
and the reason, the main reasonwhy I sold the practice was because
I thought, it's time for meto do something different. It's time for
me to give back. Its timefor me to try and give or teach
(10:03):
proper humane care of animals in placesother than the United States. And so
I started by volunteering at Elephant NaturePark and chang My Thailand. And I
found that after my dad passed away, we went to Thailand, went to
my dad passed away in India actuallywhen he was visiting, and then we
(10:24):
went for the anniversary of his death. And then I had sold the practice,
and so we decided to go toThailand and I went to Elephant Nature
Park, which is such an inspirationalplace if anyone wants to go, it's
a fabulous place to visit. Andso I started volunteering there. But also
I digress that I learned a lotabout TNVR, which is trap neuter vaccinate
(10:46):
release in Mumbai. What is that? So trap neuter vaccinate release is the
core mission of Let's Save the StraysInternational and it is also what has saved
you know, millions of street dogsall the world, especially in Mumbai.
I mean, Mumbai is an amazingmodel for this, for this concept.
(11:07):
So you know, for example,in me and Mar there are one to
two dogs for every fifty five millionpeople in Me and Mar and there isn't
any resource to spain, nooter tovaccinate. So you have all of these
animals running around, reproducing multiple timesa year. Rabi's is rampant, infectious
diseases rampant, and so Mumbai originallythey thought, well, we're going to
(11:30):
round all these animals up and gasthem, We're going to poison them.
Wow, my goodness. And thetruth is in Mumbai anyway, I mean
sorry, in India, we dohave a lot of people living on the
street. We have people living inhut mints, we have people living not
always in homes. And these people, in addition to everyone, they own
dogs. You know, when you'rein the market and you see a family
(11:54):
on a bullock cart and then yousee their chunky you know, Doberman mix
or some crazy thing and it hasa big collar on it. It's not
sitting there next to them by coincidence, it's their dog. So a lot
of street people were hiding their animalsbecause they said, I don't want these
government veterinarians to come and round themup and kill them. And also the
World Health Organization says that you know, killing, culling, killing does not
(12:20):
work because unless you kill every animalon the planet at once, they're going
to reproduce over and over and over. But by neutering them, by sterilizing
them, vaccinating them, dewarming them, over time you have fewer and fewer
and fewer dogs. So Mumbai therewere a lot of NGOs, nonprofit,
non government organizations, including Welfare forStray Dogs which is WSD, a great
(12:43):
organization, privately funded and the conceptis very basic where basically these dogs would
live in different groups, so dogswould live by the airport, dogs would
live down by you know, differentparts of Calaba and all these different parts
of the city. So they wouldbasically over time, it's been around for
years and years, but it's overtime they have rounded up dogs and they
(13:05):
would bring them to this very basicclinic in a very poor part of Mumbai
that an earians would volunteer. Itwould be sterile surgery. They would neuter
them, recover, vaccinate them,dewarm them, recover them and return them
back to where they live. Andnow, honestly, it's how many years
has it been, twenty years,fifteen years? Now? When you go
(13:26):
and you go anywhere to the market, you go to Calaba, you go
on the Queen's Necklace marine drive.For those of you that have been,
there's hardly any street dogs anymore.And all of the ones that you see,
their ears are notched and that's toshow that they have been neutered and
so and it's just an amazing it'san amazing concept. It's been done in
(13:46):
Nepal, It's been done all overthe world, has been done in Goa
and different parts of the world.And so I wanted to take this to
other countries where there is no resourcebecause honestly, for between twenty anywhere from
twenty to five fifty dollars, youcan neuter deworm and vaccinated animal and one
dog can give rise to over fiftyfive thousand dogs in her lifetime if all
(14:09):
of her progeny reproduce. So thisis a replicable, one health mission.
It helps wildlife, it helps people, We stop Rabi's. But we also
the beauty of let's say the strains, which I know I'm maybe in rambling
a little bit, is we employlocal veterinarians, local street feeders, so
it's also to them also, yes, I teach them how to do.
(14:31):
We teach them how to do internationalstandards of sterile surgery, proper drug use,
steril surgery, steril packs, sterolgloves, sterol suture. So you
know, this isn't a short termpeople want a quick fix. It's not
a short term Plan Zega process,and you have to be really into the
process and you have to be diligence, yes exactly, but you know people
want this. It's just that there'sno resource. I mean, me and
(14:52):
mar is one of the poorest countriesin Asia, and there is no resource.
So they basically force feed these streetdogs Strych nine in mass I mean
there's truckloads of these dogs, soyou know there is and look if it
worked, okay, but it doesn'twork, and so this is a different
(15:13):
way, a better, more sustainable, effective way. Yeah. International aspect
of this nonprofit makes me think,and you're already in full countries, how
are you doing this? So theconcept of let's say the Strays International is
I want to go where other peopledon't go. I want to give the
animals a voice that don't have avoice. The animals. We've talked about
(15:37):
this that the world has forgotten orthe world doesn't know about. Also well,
okay, but I want to prefacethat because well, as evidenced of
you know, raising over thirty thousanddollars on Saturday at the auction. I
think people do care. I thinkpeople just don't know how. Yes,
(15:58):
and I think even people in thePhilippines. In Nepal is another place where
we have we work with another organizationin Nepal. We've done some T and
VR projects, so Me and Mar, Thailand, Nepal, Russia, pre
Ukraine. We've also done work inUkraine. But people do care. I
think that people just they're always goingto be people that don't care. For
(16:21):
example, if you go again,I'm talking mainly about Mumbai, but you
know there's the there's Julie by thetheater. There's so and so who lives
by the gas station. You know, so restaurants feed them gas stations,
street people and so in Me andmar there's lots of street feeders. As
a matter of fact, if youI'm gonna post on Facebook more photos because
we just finished a project. Wedo two hundred dog We need two hundred
(16:45):
dogs a month, sterilized two hundreddogs a month in Mandalay and every time
it's street feeders who come. Imean, we've really started a movement now.
Monasteries are asking, hospitals, firestations, schools, everyone's like,
come, come, come and dothis because they're recognizing that it's a sustainable
option. You know, they don'twant to you know, people don't want
to bring harm to animals. Listen, dogs can be a nuisance here in
(17:07):
Wayland. We don't have a packof stray dogs as you're walking down the
bike path. But imagine if you'rea Burmese and you have your baby and
you're walking down the street and thedogs are not going to hurt you because
they're more scared of you than youare of them. But they're you know,
they're barking. They tend to bekind of barkie and you're nervous and
(17:29):
you're scared and you don't want that. So what happens is people who are
afraid of them call local governments.Then they can send out people to to
kill them all, and then inthree months you have a ton of puppies.
And what happens is these dogs areterritorial, so you kill some and
then others move in. So itjust doesn't work. So this is it's
(17:49):
about reaching out to the people tosee about solving their own problem. Look,
honestly, how many rubies are thedollar? Now ninety rupees? So
the dollars some crazy amount. TheUS dollar goes so far, I'm telling
you twenty bucks will do this forthese animals. This is paying the veterinarian
(18:10):
proper sterile equipment, you know,proper pre and post operative meds, pain
control. It's inexpensive and it's soit is so impactful. Which other countries
are on your list? So Philippineswhich is a smaller project. Russia.
I have not been to Russia orthe Philippines. I would like to get
there someday. I go to Thailandevery year, and I have before COVID.
(18:33):
I was going to me and marevery year. But we've only really
started doing this since twenty nineteen.Nice I've done in the Caribbean. I've
done work with the Parker Project,which deals with the four corners there of
the US and the Native American people. That's another a great project. But
give me a little bit about thatone. Yes, exactly. So people
ask me, also, well whynot the United States? Well, listen,
(18:55):
the United States also has a greatneed, but we also have resource
sources. And I'm not saying that, Hey, every dog in the US
is set. They're not. Butthe Parker Project, again, I want
to go. I want to bethere at the eleventh hour. I want
to be there where the animals,you know, don't have a voice.
So the Native American people in theUnited States are highly marginalized people and they
(19:17):
were the hardest hit by COVID.And if you go out to the Native
the Navajo Reservation or Zooni or anyof these areas for corners is Arizona,
Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico. Poor poor, poor people, some
people living without electricity, without plumbing. So these animals are running free,
Parvo is rampant, Rabi's is around, you know. But they're the most
(19:41):
beautiful animals and the most beautiful people. And so the Parker Project was started
by a veterinarian nurse, a friendof mine, Alex Allison. She has
also gotten some support from pet Coor pet Smarts, But it started out
as a van and it's an offshootof Elephant Nat Park. So the person
who helped to fund Elephant Nature Parkmet her at Elephant Nature Park. I
(20:04):
met her, encouraged her to goto Health Nature Park and anyway, so
it asked. He said, well, let's open a shelter there, and
she said, no, we needa van to provide Spain eater and general
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(22:07):
facing with them? Expanding internationally orfocusing internationally? What are these struggles so
It's interesting because I think if Ilived in me and mar or lived in
the Philippines, or lived in Russia, lived in Thailand or India, it
would be easier. In the UnitedStates, it's hard because it's out of
sight, out of mind. Yeah, right. But you know, all
of the larger organizations, you know, they are focusing on the on the
(22:32):
US, or they do have someinformation about the US, or about Canada
or you know areas that we knowabout that are near US. But a
lot of these organizations are focusing onthe meat trade which happens in Asia,
or you know the issue with Ukraineand the war. So a lot of
bigger organizations are focusing on that.But they have you know, they have
(22:55):
a lot of influence, they havea lot of money, they have the
ability to advertise and to market,and so learning from them, what can
I do that would be helpful interms of social media and working to promote
our platform and using the software thatwe use to reach as many people as
possible. I mean, even rightnow, the fundraising is mainly here in
(23:19):
the US. We are doing someOne of our board members is Burmese and
she's doing some fundraising in Me andMark and I do have someone that I
work with in Thailand who is helping, but we're not. You know,
that is an untapped resource that thereare people locally in those countries that can
donate, and some of them do, but they don't have a lot of
(23:41):
resource. So I think the firstthing was just trying to get the word
out and help people to understand thatthis even though it's not affecting you in
your backyard, it is affecting theseanimals. Right. What's the parable of
the starfish. There's the kid.There's all these starfish that have been washed
up on the beach, and thiskid is taking a starfish one at a
(24:02):
time and throwing them into the ocean. And the one fisherman the sky walks
by and says, what are youdoing? And he says, I'm throwing
starfish back into the ocean to savethem. And he said, but son,
there's starfish all up and down thisbeach. How will you make a
difference, And he throws another oneinto the ocean. He said, I
just made a difference to that one. So it is about saving the individual
life, and it's about teaching welfare, to teaching people who don't necessarily understand
(24:29):
what international standards of welfare mean.But it's about starting a movement, not
about It's not about the foreigner goingin neutering two thousand dogs and then leaving.
It's about me guiding local people onhow to do this. So trying
to sell that that's a bad word, but trying to sell that concept to
people here. Some of them havenever been and maybe never will go to
(24:53):
these places. But when you aface of a dog, or face of
a cat, or a face ofsomeone who loves that animal is the same
everywhere. So I was surprised andtouched by the success of the auction and
that tells me that event, thattells me that people do care. So
yes, try I think starting gettingthe nonprofit off the ground, you know,
(25:15):
trying to raise money locally here orjust not even money, it's also
awareness. You know, everyone hastheir handout, you know, giving money
for this, and there's need everywhere, children, people, you know,
look at the situation with Israel andGaza right now. It's a nice not
to mention the animals. I mean, I'm not saying that. And that's
(25:37):
the other thing people will say,you know, what about people, Well,
you know that's another y. Yeah, of course. So it's just
about it's about telling the story.How good am I at telling the story
about the plight of these animals,but not just the animals, the people,
you know, and this does helpthem, It does help them.
So Amy, I see you boastingabout these animals and the videos that sometimes
(26:02):
it breaks my heart, but sometimesit's important to get your heart broken so
that it is. Yes, andsome people say I don't want to see
it. I don't want to seeit. The fact that rescued pup has
to be taken from one country tothe other because of the burns of the
war, that bakes my heart.Yeah. Absolutely. And that's the other
thing too, is a lot ofpeople are interested in rescue. And while
(26:26):
I understand, and I've done mypart in rescue and I did get it
was a struggle because a lot ofthese street dogs are not great as pets.
You know, they want to bethey're happy on the streets, they
have their place, they have theirplace with their people, and so how
do I you know, it's howmuch is it fifteen hundred one thousand dollars
(26:47):
to bring a dog from these countries? The CDC has blocked that opportunity.
But even if the CDC didn't,you know, I can spend one thousand
dollars and bring one dog over whowas happy where he was living, and
now he's in a home where he'snot happy. Maybe on that Yeah,
we've had a lot of foster failswith some of these Asian dogs. Or
(27:11):
yeah, or I can spend Ican you know, help thousands and thousands
of animals with that with that samemoney. So yeah, Originally it's a
very Western philosophy too. Well,you know, we're gonna give them a
home, which I do think alldogs and cats do need. They would
love to have a home and abed and a place where they feel secure
and happy. But it's not thesame for each animal. So I've seen
(27:33):
it on the street where you know, they're they're free, they're happy,
they get to wander where they want. As long as they don't get in
trouble and they're healthy and they don'tpose a threat to people, and there's
no human animal conflict. Everyone wins. So I mean you have this big
hot yeah, this mission, youhave this vision with this nonprofit, and
(27:56):
it's already working in for countries.What do you see the future of this.
I know that you spoke about makingthis into a movement. I want
to know a rare does Amy getall this bush and motivation from? And
B I want to know what areyou looking at in the future for this?
(28:18):
So it's just started, and youknow what I would love to see
happen is more global more global interest, corporate sponsors, you know, I
mean, every every nonprofit needs moneyto run, right, So it's you
know, we if we had youknow, if we had endless amounts of
resources, I would love to builda mobile clinic in Me and mar You
(28:41):
know, I would love to bringinternational medical standards to the doctors that I
work with. And Me and marThailand already has some pretty good standards,
but I would love to improve that. Russia, I would love to improve
that. So it would be greatto have mobile clinics in these areas and
be able to work in more cities. Yanggon the biggest city in Me and
(29:02):
Marn. Already people are saying,when are we gonna have a project in
Yangon? When are we gonna havea project in Yangon's help? So the
other thing is travel expenses are alot, yes, so that I don't
use the money from the nonprofit.It's my own I work part time now
to fund the nonprofit and to fundmy old That's what I do. I
work time to find this to write. This is of course last thing that
(29:25):
I wanted to ask you before weleave this conversation, which I don't want
to, but we spoke about compassionfatigue, and I want to, yeah,
and I want to know what doyou do? And you have so
much compassion for so many different things. And this speaks also to even veterinarians
and all medical, all service professionalshere in the United States and everywhere.
(29:48):
So as a veterinarian, we talkabout compassion fatigue because veterinary medicine has exploded.
You know, there's so many morepeople needing veterinarians. As a matter
of fact, I have a medicineappointment with someone at four o'clock today because
I also do that part time tohelp raise money for the nonprofit. So
(30:10):
compassion fatigue, because you know,you have so many people and so many
animals that need you all the time. You know, when I wake up
in the morning, because Asia's hasbeen awake, you know, there's messages
from the Philippines, messages from Russia, messages from Thailand, Messages from me
and mar you know, questions,concerns. I have people who are you
know, asking me all kinds ofquestions, clients who ask me, ask
me questions, and compassion fatigue hasbeen around, that concept has been around
(30:36):
forever. So it's true. Thereare days when I feel really depleted.
There are days when I say,you know, why don't I just give
money to some organization and be donewith it? Right? Why do I
have to keep keep doing the hardstuff? You know? Why? You
know, why can't I just youknow, live a life of leisure,
you know, but it's just notin me, because but do you sometimes
(30:59):
just leave everything in and you arelike, okay today, I don't want
to think about it. Yeah,there are there are days. There are
days when when I don't have todo anything. I garden, I walk
my dogs. Yeah, so alot of it. I've seen thet Yeah,
we need to do self care,but it's not always easy, you
know, Sometimes it just feels neverending. And so I do. I
do encourage people to take time.You have to. You have to care
(31:22):
for the caregiver, right, soto take time to you know, take
a breath, get off social media, you know, go go out into
nature, take a walk, youknow, be with your be with your
pets, be with your family,you know, so that you can unplug
a little bit. Because if you'rein valin you get all that forest bathing
(31:44):
in. Yes, that starty forestbathing. We go into western woods.
We'll probably do it today. Yeah. So I'm I'm blessed. I'm lucky
to be able to live here withmy husband and family that I can we
can do that, we can takethose breaks. But it's it's still a
lot. It's still a lot.And I see other veterinarians struggling, you
know, with with that compassion,fatigue, with that exhaustion, and it's
(32:07):
it is a lot of it isabout self self care, and it's not
easy. Amy. I am fangirlingyou in my heart, and I wish
I could just like jump out ofmy chair and tell you that being this
voice for the voiceless is incredibly important, especially today when we are so connected
(32:27):
as a global village, especially todaywhen all we see around us is grief
and sadness and the war bruns andand then health issues and whatnot. Exactly,
I know I think you driving thiscause I'm wishing you all the success,
all the everything in the world thatis positive and good for your movement
(32:50):
to Thank you becout big. I'mjust amazed by your work. This is
this is incredible and it's not youknow, for people they think like at
this point human rights are the mostviolated ones. But I think people who
do not see them, see thesevoiceless animals, they're doing another rights violation.
(33:14):
It's like a big thing. It'strue. I mean, that's the
thing. I think. It's notthat you can't say that one is more
deserving than the other. We alllive here together, you know, and
they often compare that, and that'snot all. Yeah, you can't,
I mean, because we're one species, but there's multitudes of species all over
the world and we need them.Amy. It's incredible. Thank you,
(33:36):
Thank you so much for having me. I love this tradition of choosing a
nonprofit every season and trying to helpthem. And it won't be possible without
the episode sponsor, the production sponsor, and the technical sponsor. So a
huge thanks to all of you andthe listeners. I urge you to listen
to every episode this season because it'ssuper powerful, incredible and impactful. Thank
(34:00):
you so much for listening. Thisis your host Tiamani, and you were
listening to Women Are Whalen the podcast. We'll be back with a new season
soon. Until then, I wantyou all to keep listening, keep supporting,
and do not forget to subscribe.
This episode is brought to you byLeah Hart, your trusted partner in Boston
suburb, Real State. Hello andwelcome to the finale episode of this season.
We wrap up with the incredible storyof Amy Schaff and her nonprofit Let's
(00:21):
Savedstrays dot Org, which we pledgeto support this season. Amy Schaff a
dedicated veterinarian who has been a residentof Walen, Massachusetts since nineteen ninety nine.
Amy's journey in veterinary medicine is trulyinspiring. She founded the Veterinary Emergency
and Specialty Center of New England,now known as Blue Pearl Veterinary Specialists,
(00:43):
and remains the only sole female ownerof a practice of this size in Massachusetts.
Amy's focus on emergency medicine has significantlyinfluenced her international work. Her nonprofit
aims to assist animals worldwide that havebeen forgotten and have no voice. Through
Let's Savedstrays dot Org, Amy isstarting a movement to care for strays more
(01:07):
humanly and address the human animal conflictin countries like Thailand, Mayanmar, Nepal,
India and more. Her organization hasalso extended its efforts to Ukraine with
a wealth of resources in our country. Amy strives to bridge the gap between
those who need help and those whocan provide it. Many people want to
contribute, but don't know how.Amy's five oh one CE organization is volunteer
(01:34):
based, self funded, ensuring thatninety five percent of every dollar goes directly
to the animals they care for.Her efforts have been recognized with a large
grant from Animals Australia for three consecutiveyears, enhancing the impact of her work.
I am excited to dive deeper intoAmy's incredible work and hear more about
her mission to give a voice tothe voiceless animals of the world. Welcome
(01:57):
to the podcast, Amyschaff, thanksfor having me. I had you in
the season one list. I wantedto have you over because I knew you
were posting about your work and itblew my mind. And I'm like,
Amy Shaw, Well, that bringsa bell like Shaw seems to be an
(02:19):
Indian surname. It is. Itis. It's a Parsi name. My
dad is from Mumbai, my momis from the United States, and so
India is my second home. Butit definitely brings a different flavor to a
person. It does and you think, yes, agreed. Yeah, I
have married a Napoliese American, sobeing an Indian, then my husband from
(02:40):
Nepal, and then my kid isAmerican. So it feels like we live
in this really global world. It'strue. I mean exactly. There are
a lot of interesting international groups thatare here in Wayland, you know,
especially India, and I love Nepal. I've been to Nepal and there's just
beautiful people there. The food isamazing, They're wonderful people. They're by
(03:04):
sweet people they are, And Iam basing all of that on how my
husband is. Yeah, all right, what got you here? So we
were my then fiance now husband,we've married over twenty years. We're living
in Hingham in a tiny cottage andI being a veterinarian, of course,
you know, we had dogs betweenus. We had a Saint Bernard,
a Golden Shepherd cross and too Scotti. So we're living in this small space
(03:28):
and we wanted to buy a homeand the Metro West area has always been
a super favorite, so we lookedand conquered Lincoln Whalen, Sudbury, and
we wanted land and this house cameup, and we originally tried to put
an offer on it, but wecouldn't. But then the house came on
the market again and my husband rushedfrom Hingham to run and put an offer
(03:51):
on it. And it's just beena lovely home we've been there forever.
And it abuts a ton of conservationland. It's just a beautiful and we
have a lot of native gardens,so we have a lot of wildlife.
I have seen your house and Ihave to tell you and tell the audience
of course, that I went topick up some stuff handicraft items for like
(04:12):
Devali lamps that you had, andI entered this driveway and I see character
in everything that's placed inside the windowand outside the our house, and I
was blown away by how amazingly globalit felt to me. You had a
mix of everything. Yeah, Iam super excited to go right into the
(04:34):
story, but we will be talkingabout so many different things today, and
I have my mind going on thelatest auction that you had, Yes Pizza
for Perhaps it was The event wasin Northborough at two of our board members
their home in Northborough. They hadthis beautiful home with this huge barn with
(04:55):
a pizza oven. So we hiredtwo guys to make awesome brickop and pizza,
and we had one hundred and tenpeople show and we made almost thirty
thousand dollars that night, oh,which was a huge success. And so
now we want to do this ona yearly basis to try to cultivate a
following because people were so impressed andexcited about the event and all the auction
(05:20):
items and the raffle and the wineand the pizza and the conversation and being
able to tell the story about let'ssave the strays, you know, and
why it's important. So when youmoved into Wayland. Now I'm taking you
further back into the story. Iwant you to tell us all when did
this love for animals came into Yeah, I always wanted to be a veterinarian
(05:42):
and went to University of Pennsylvania,and then after that came to Massachusetts and
just stayed and had worked in privatepractice, but then opened the Veterinary Emergency
and Specialty Center of New England whichis in Wayland, sorry in Waltham,
and then in two thousand and one. In twenty thirteen, I sold it
to Blue Pearl Veterinary Specialists. Thoseof you who know about blue Pearl,
(06:05):
and then I started. That's whenI started. But was the loving for
animals started young? Yes, veryyoung. I mean I think that both
my parents were super animal lovers.My family on both sides are super animal
lovers. And even though I didn'thave a ton of animals growing up,
I love them and I wanted toI wanted to help them. They're innocent,
(06:26):
they're beautiful. You know, theyhave such pure souls, all of
them. That's something that I've observed. He my best friend is that person.
He's a huge, huge and sheknows that I'm recording you today,
and so she was like, Ilove, love, love this. You
know, that's awesome. So I'mintrigued. So I want you to take
(06:46):
us to that journey of being abi racial kid. You told us just
now that daddy was a PARSI momwas an American. How was childhood?
How was growing up? So youknow, we were I was born and
raised in Riverdale, New York.It's in the Bronx. It's an affluent
suburb on the suburb, but onClaven. So you know, a lot
(07:08):
of my friends are Jewish or Asian. And so here's my mom from the
Midwest and here's my dad from India, and so we're just kind of an
interesting mix. And then we youknow, my mom wanted to buy a
house, right and wanted to takeher kids the suburbs. So we went
to Riverside, Connecticut and bought myparents bought a little house and we moved
there and it was a lot offun. I want to go to church,
(07:30):
so then we started going to church. Even though my dad is Zoroastrian,
they were very active in the church. And I think I just wanted
to belong to a community. Andyou know, Greenwich, Riverside, Old
Greenwich, these are also super affluentcommunities, very similar to Wayland, and
so there were a lot of highachieving individuals. You know, the school
(07:53):
system, there were a lot ofsuper high achieving people. And I think
that that was an interesting role modelfor me. And I don't think I
really understood about diversity. I thinkI was just doing my thing I had
growing on. Did you feel thatyou were different? Yes? Yes,
I mean you know how was foodat home? Yes? So food?
(08:16):
So my mom made Indian food amazingly, So we had so that's the thing
is, we had a whole groupof Indian friends and we had a whole
group of non Indian friends and peopleI think were really intrigued with the fact
that I was half Indian. Soif we went to India, like people
don't necessarily go to India per se, or if I wore Indian things or
Indian jewelry, but I don't.I didn't really become super attached to my
(08:41):
to my Indian side until I becamemore of a teenager. So you have
one of the most fabulous collections ofhandicraps and things I love. I love
all Indian textiles. That's amazing.Yeah, but it's a shopping mecca for
those of you that want to go, it's a shopping mecca, or you
can come to my house and buystuff. Yeah. So that I sell
(09:01):
all these things on Facebook marketplace.I sell them all to fund the nonprofit
and also because I'm a shopper.Oh my god, and you have an
eye for shopping. I want totell people who are listening, if you're
local and you want to buy somereally beautiful pieces, you have a look
at what Amy is doing or selling, not the market place. But yes,
(09:22):
yes, I personally have been benefitedby her shopping Amy. It was
it difficult being this person who hadso much compassion and also had to own
the livelihood. And because I seeyou bringing this work and service to different
(09:43):
countries, how did you make itpossible? So after I sold the practice,
and the reason, the main reasonwhy I sold the practice was because
I thought, it's time for meto do something different. It's time for
me to give back. Its timefor me to try and give or teach
(10:03):
proper humane care of animals in placesother than the United States. And so
I started by volunteering at Elephant NaturePark and chang My Thailand. And I
found that after my dad passed away, we went to Thailand, went to
my dad passed away in India actuallywhen he was visiting, and then we
(10:24):
went for the anniversary of his death. And then I had sold the practice,
and so we decided to go toThailand and I went to Elephant Nature
Park, which is such an inspirationalplace if anyone wants to go, it's
a fabulous place to visit. Andso I started volunteering there. But also
I digress that I learned a lotabout TNVR, which is trap neuter vaccinate
(10:46):
release in Mumbai. What is that? So trap neuter vaccinate release is the
core mission of Let's Save the StraysInternational and it is also what has saved
you know, millions of street dogsall the world, especially in Mumbai.
I mean, Mumbai is an amazingmodel for this, for this concept.
(11:07):
So you know, for example,in me and Mar there are one to
two dogs for every fifty five millionpeople in Me and Mar and there isn't
any resource to spain, nooter tovaccinate. So you have all of these
animals running around, reproducing multiple timesa year. Rabi's is rampant, infectious
diseases rampant, and so Mumbai originallythey thought, well, we're going to
(11:30):
round all these animals up and gasthem, We're going to poison them.
Wow, my goodness. And thetruth is in Mumbai anyway, I mean
sorry, in India, we dohave a lot of people living on the
street. We have people living inhut mints, we have people living not
always in homes. And these people, in addition to everyone, they own
dogs. You know, when you'rein the market and you see a family
(11:54):
on a bullock cart and then yousee their chunky you know, Doberman mix
or some crazy thing and it hasa big collar on it. It's not
sitting there next to them by coincidence, it's their dog. So a lot
of street people were hiding their animalsbecause they said, I don't want these
government veterinarians to come and round themup and kill them. And also the
World Health Organization says that you know, killing, culling, killing does not
(12:20):
work because unless you kill every animalon the planet at once, they're going
to reproduce over and over and over. But by neutering them, by sterilizing
them, vaccinating them, dewarming them, over time you have fewer and fewer
and fewer dogs. So Mumbai therewere a lot of NGOs, nonprofit,
non government organizations, including Welfare forStray Dogs which is WSD, a great
(12:43):
organization, privately funded and the conceptis very basic where basically these dogs would
live in different groups, so dogswould live by the airport, dogs would
live down by you know, differentparts of Calaba and all these different parts
of the city. So they wouldbasically over time, it's been around for
years and years, but it's overtime they have rounded up dogs and they
(13:05):
would bring them to this very basicclinic in a very poor part of Mumbai
that an earians would volunteer. Itwould be sterile surgery. They would neuter
them, recover, vaccinate them,dewarm them, recover them and return them
back to where they live. Andnow, honestly, it's how many years
has it been, twenty years,fifteen years? Now? When you go
(13:26):
and you go anywhere to the market, you go to Calaba, you go
on the Queen's Necklace marine drive.For those of you that have been,
there's hardly any street dogs anymore.And all of the ones that you see,
their ears are notched and that's toshow that they have been neutered and
so and it's just an amazing it'san amazing concept. It's been done in
(13:46):
Nepal, It's been done all overthe world, has been done in Goa
and different parts of the world.And so I wanted to take this to
other countries where there is no resourcebecause honestly, for between twenty anywhere from
twenty to five fifty dollars, youcan neuter deworm and vaccinated animal and one
dog can give rise to over fiftyfive thousand dogs in her lifetime if all
(14:09):
of her progeny reproduce. So thisis a replicable, one health mission.
It helps wildlife, it helps people, We stop Rabi's. But we also
the beauty of let's say the strains, which I know I'm maybe in rambling
a little bit, is we employlocal veterinarians, local street feeders, so
it's also to them also, yes, I teach them how to do.
(14:31):
We teach them how to do internationalstandards of sterile surgery, proper drug use,
steril surgery, steril packs, sterolgloves, sterol suture. So you
know, this isn't a short termpeople want a quick fix. It's not
a short term Plan Zega process,and you have to be really into the
process and you have to be diligence, yes exactly, but you know people
want this. It's just that there'sno resource. I mean, me and
(14:52):
mar is one of the poorest countriesin Asia, and there is no resource.
So they basically force feed these streetdogs Strych nine in mass I mean
there's truckloads of these dogs, soyou know there is and look if it
worked, okay, but it doesn'twork, and so this is a different
(15:13):
way, a better, more sustainable, effective way. Yeah. International aspect
of this nonprofit makes me think,and you're already in full countries, how
are you doing this? So theconcept of let's say the Strays International is
I want to go where other peopledon't go. I want to give the
animals a voice that don't have avoice. The animals. We've talked about
(15:37):
this that the world has forgotten orthe world doesn't know about. Also well,
okay, but I want to prefacethat because well, as evidenced of
you know, raising over thirty thousanddollars on Saturday at the auction. I
think people do care. I thinkpeople just don't know how. Yes,
(15:58):
and I think even people in thePhilippines. In Nepal is another place where
we have we work with another organizationin Nepal. We've done some T and
VR projects, so Me and Mar, Thailand, Nepal, Russia, pre
Ukraine. We've also done work inUkraine. But people do care. I
think that people just they're always goingto be people that don't care. For
(16:21):
example, if you go again,I'm talking mainly about Mumbai, but you
know there's the there's Julie by thetheater. There's so and so who lives
by the gas station. You know, so restaurants feed them gas stations,
street people and so in Me andmar there's lots of street feeders. As
a matter of fact, if youI'm gonna post on Facebook more photos because
we just finished a project. Wedo two hundred dog We need two hundred
(16:45):
dogs a month, sterilized two hundreddogs a month in Mandalay and every time
it's street feeders who come. Imean, we've really started a movement now.
Monasteries are asking, hospitals, firestations, schools, everyone's like,
come, come, come and dothis because they're recognizing that it's a sustainable
option. You know, they don'twant to you know, people don't want
to bring harm to animals. Listen, dogs can be a nuisance here in
(17:07):
Wayland. We don't have a packof stray dogs as you're walking down the
bike path. But imagine if you'rea Burmese and you have your baby and
you're walking down the street and thedogs are not going to hurt you because
they're more scared of you than youare of them. But they're you know,
they're barking. They tend to bekind of barkie and you're nervous and
(17:29):
you're scared and you don't want that. So what happens is people who are
afraid of them call local governments.Then they can send out people to to
kill them all, and then inthree months you have a ton of puppies.
And what happens is these dogs areterritorial, so you kill some and
then others move in. So itjust doesn't work. So this is it's
(17:49):
about reaching out to the people tosee about solving their own problem. Look,
honestly, how many rubies are thedollar? Now ninety rupees? So
the dollars some crazy amount. TheUS dollar goes so far, I'm telling
you twenty bucks will do this forthese animals. This is paying the veterinarian
(18:10):
proper sterile equipment, you know,proper pre and post operative meds, pain
control. It's inexpensive and it's soit is so impactful. Which other countries
are on your list? So Philippineswhich is a smaller project. Russia.
I have not been to Russia orthe Philippines. I would like to get
there someday. I go to Thailandevery year, and I have before COVID.
(18:33):
I was going to me and marevery year. But we've only really
started doing this since twenty nineteen.Nice I've done in the Caribbean. I've
done work with the Parker Project,which deals with the four corners there of
the US and the Native American people. That's another a great project. But
give me a little bit about thatone. Yes, exactly. So people
ask me, also, well whynot the United States? Well, listen,
(18:55):
the United States also has a greatneed, but we also have resource
sources. And I'm not saying that, Hey, every dog in the US
is set. They're not. Butthe Parker Project, again, I want
to go. I want to bethere at the eleventh hour. I want
to be there where the animals,you know, don't have a voice.
So the Native American people in theUnited States are highly marginalized people and they
(19:17):
were the hardest hit by COVID.And if you go out to the Native
the Navajo Reservation or Zooni or anyof these areas for corners is Arizona,
Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico. Poor poor, poor people, some
people living without electricity, without plumbing. So these animals are running free,
Parvo is rampant, Rabi's is around, you know. But they're the most
(19:41):
beautiful animals and the most beautiful people. And so the Parker Project was started
by a veterinarian nurse, a friendof mine, Alex Allison. She has
also gotten some support from pet Coor pet Smarts, But it started out
as a van and it's an offshootof Elephant Nat Park. So the person
who helped to fund Elephant Nature Parkmet her at Elephant Nature Park. I
(20:04):
met her, encouraged her to goto Health Nature Park and anyway, so
it asked. He said, well, let's open a shelter there, and
she said, no, we needa van to provide Spain eater and general
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(22:07):
facing with them? Expanding internationally orfocusing internationally? What are these struggles so
It's interesting because I think if Ilived in me and mar or lived in
the Philippines, or lived in Russia, lived in Thailand or India, it
would be easier. In the UnitedStates, it's hard because it's out of
sight, out of mind. Yeah, right. But you know, all
of the larger organizations, you know, they are focusing on the on the
(22:32):
US, or they do have someinformation about the US, or about Canada
or you know areas that we knowabout that are near US. But a
lot of these organizations are focusing onthe meat trade which happens in Asia,
or you know the issue with Ukraineand the war. So a lot of
bigger organizations are focusing on that.But they have you know, they have
(22:55):
a lot of influence, they havea lot of money, they have the
ability to advertise and to market,and so learning from them, what can
I do that would be helpful interms of social media and working to promote
our platform and using the software thatwe use to reach as many people as
possible. I mean, even rightnow, the fundraising is mainly here in
(23:19):
the US. We are doing someOne of our board members is Burmese and
she's doing some fundraising in Me andMark and I do have someone that I
work with in Thailand who is helping, but we're not. You know,
that is an untapped resource that thereare people locally in those countries that can
donate, and some of them do, but they don't have a lot of
(23:41):
resource. So I think the firstthing was just trying to get the word
out and help people to understand thatthis even though it's not affecting you in
your backyard, it is affecting theseanimals. Right. What's the parable of
the starfish. There's the kid.There's all these starfish that have been washed
up on the beach, and thiskid is taking a starfish one at a
(24:02):
time and throwing them into the ocean. And the one fisherman the sky walks
by and says, what are youdoing? And he says, I'm throwing
starfish back into the ocean to savethem. And he said, but son,
there's starfish all up and down thisbeach. How will you make a
difference, And he throws another oneinto the ocean. He said, I
just made a difference to that one. So it is about saving the individual
life, and it's about teaching welfare, to teaching people who don't necessarily understand
(24:29):
what international standards of welfare mean.But it's about starting a movement, not
about It's not about the foreigner goingin neutering two thousand dogs and then leaving.
It's about me guiding local people onhow to do this. So trying
to sell that that's a bad word, but trying to sell that concept to
people here. Some of them havenever been and maybe never will go to
(24:53):
these places. But when you aface of a dog, or face of
a cat, or a face ofsomeone who loves that animal is the same
everywhere. So I was surprised andtouched by the success of the auction and
that tells me that event, thattells me that people do care. So
yes, try I think starting gettingthe nonprofit off the ground, you know,
(25:15):
trying to raise money locally here orjust not even money, it's also
awareness. You know, everyone hastheir handout, you know, giving money
for this, and there's need everywhere, children, people, you know,
look at the situation with Israel andGaza right now. It's a nice not
to mention the animals. I mean, I'm not saying that. And that's
(25:37):
the other thing people will say,you know, what about people, Well,
you know that's another y. Yeah, of course. So it's just
about it's about telling the story.How good am I at telling the story
about the plight of these animals,but not just the animals, the people,
you know, and this does helpthem, It does help them.
So Amy, I see you boastingabout these animals and the videos that sometimes
(26:02):
it breaks my heart, but sometimesit's important to get your heart broken so
that it is. Yes, andsome people say I don't want to see
it. I don't want to seeit. The fact that rescued pup has
to be taken from one country tothe other because of the burns of the
war, that bakes my heart.Yeah. Absolutely. And that's the other
thing too, is a lot ofpeople are interested in rescue. And while
(26:26):
I understand, and I've done mypart in rescue and I did get it
was a struggle because a lot ofthese street dogs are not great as pets.
You know, they want to bethey're happy on the streets, they
have their place, they have theirplace with their people, and so how
do I you know, it's howmuch is it fifteen hundred one thousand dollars
(26:47):
to bring a dog from these countries? The CDC has blocked that opportunity.
But even if the CDC didn't,you know, I can spend one thousand
dollars and bring one dog over whowas happy where he was living, and
now he's in a home where he'snot happy. Maybe on that Yeah,
we've had a lot of foster failswith some of these Asian dogs. Or
(27:11):
yeah, or I can spend Ican you know, help thousands and thousands
of animals with that with that samemoney. So yeah, Originally it's a
very Western philosophy too. Well,you know, we're gonna give them a
home, which I do think alldogs and cats do need. They would
love to have a home and abed and a place where they feel secure
and happy. But it's not thesame for each animal. So I've seen
(27:33):
it on the street where you know, they're they're free, they're happy,
they get to wander where they want. As long as they don't get in
trouble and they're healthy and they don'tpose a threat to people, and there's
no human animal conflict. Everyone wins. So I mean you have this big
hot yeah, this mission, youhave this vision with this nonprofit, and
(27:56):
it's already working in for countries.What do you see the future of this.
I know that you spoke about makingthis into a movement. I want
to know a rare does Amy getall this bush and motivation from? And
B I want to know what areyou looking at in the future for this?
(28:18):
So it's just started, and youknow what I would love to see
happen is more global more global interest, corporate sponsors, you know, I
mean, every every nonprofit needs moneyto run, right, So it's you
know, we if we had youknow, if we had endless amounts of
resources, I would love to builda mobile clinic in Me and mar You
(28:41):
know, I would love to bringinternational medical standards to the doctors that I
work with. And Me and marThailand already has some pretty good standards,
but I would love to improve that. Russia, I would love to improve
that. So it would be greatto have mobile clinics in these areas and
be able to work in more cities. Yanggon the biggest city in Me and
(29:02):
Marn. Already people are saying,when are we gonna have a project in
Yangon? When are we gonna havea project in Yangon's help? So the
other thing is travel expenses are alot, yes, so that I don't
use the money from the nonprofit.It's my own I work part time now
to fund the nonprofit and to fundmy old That's what I do. I
work time to find this to write. This is of course last thing that
(29:25):
I wanted to ask you before weleave this conversation, which I don't want
to, but we spoke about compassionfatigue, and I want to, yeah,
and I want to know what doyou do? And you have so
much compassion for so many different things. And this speaks also to even veterinarians
and all medical, all service professionalshere in the United States and everywhere.
(29:48):
So as a veterinarian, we talkabout compassion fatigue because veterinary medicine has exploded.
You know, there's so many morepeople needing veterinarians. As a matter
of fact, I have a medicineappointment with someone at four o'clock today because
I also do that part time tohelp raise money for the nonprofit. So
(30:10):
compassion fatigue, because you know,you have so many people and so many
animals that need you all the time. You know, when I wake up
in the morning, because Asia's hasbeen awake, you know, there's messages
from the Philippines, messages from Russia, messages from Thailand, Messages from me
and mar you know, questions,concerns. I have people who are you
know, asking me all kinds ofquestions, clients who ask me, ask
me questions, and compassion fatigue hasbeen around, that concept has been around
(30:36):
forever. So it's true. Thereare days when I feel really depleted.
There are days when I say,you know, why don't I just give
money to some organization and be donewith it? Right? Why do I
have to keep keep doing the hardstuff? You know? Why? You
know, why can't I just youknow, live a life of leisure,
you know, but it's just notin me, because but do you sometimes
(30:59):
just leave everything in and you arelike, okay today, I don't want
to think about it. Yeah,there are there are days. There are
days when when I don't have todo anything. I garden, I walk
my dogs. Yeah, so alot of it. I've seen thet Yeah,
we need to do self care,but it's not always easy, you
know, Sometimes it just feels neverending. And so I do. I
do encourage people to take time.You have to. You have to care
(31:22):
for the caregiver, right, soto take time to you know, take
a breath, get off social media, you know, go go out into
nature, take a walk, youknow, be with your be with your
pets, be with your family,you know, so that you can unplug
a little bit. Because if you'rein valin you get all that forest bathing
(31:44):
in. Yes, that starty forestbathing. We go into western woods.
We'll probably do it today. Yeah. So I'm I'm blessed. I'm lucky
to be able to live here withmy husband and family that I can we
can do that, we can takethose breaks. But it's it's still a
lot. It's still a lot.And I see other veterinarians struggling, you
know, with with that compassion,fatigue, with that exhaustion, and it's
(32:07):
it is a lot of it isabout self self care, and it's not
easy. Amy. I am fangirlingyou in my heart, and I wish
I could just like jump out ofmy chair and tell you that being this
voice for the voiceless is incredibly important, especially today when we are so connected
(32:27):
as a global village, especially todaywhen all we see around us is grief
and sadness and the war bruns andand then health issues and whatnot. Exactly,
I know I think you driving thiscause I'm wishing you all the success,
all the everything in the world thatis positive and good for your movement
(32:50):
to Thank you becout big. I'mjust amazed by your work. This is
this is incredible and it's not youknow, for people they think like at
this point human rights are the mostviolated ones. But I think people who
do not see them, see thesevoiceless animals, they're doing another rights violation.
(33:14):
It's like a big thing. It'strue. I mean, that's the
thing. I think. It's notthat you can't say that one is more
deserving than the other. We alllive here together, you know, and
they often compare that, and that'snot all. Yeah, you can't,
I mean, because we're one species, but there's multitudes of species all over
the world and we need them.Amy. It's incredible. Thank you,
(33:36):
Thank you so much for having me. I love this tradition of choosing a
nonprofit every season and trying to helpthem. And it won't be possible without
the episode sponsor, the production sponsor, and the technical sponsor. So a
huge thanks to all of you andthe listeners. I urge you to listen
to every episode this season because it'ssuper powerful, incredible and impactful. Thank
(34:00):
you so much for listening. Thisis your host Tiamani, and you were
listening to Women Are Whalen the podcast. We'll be back with a new season
soon. Until then, I wantyou all to keep listening, keep supporting,
and do not forget to subscribe.
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