Welcome to Animal Posse, the podcast dedicated to the people and rescues making a difference in the lives of animals. Hi everybody. This is Dixie with Unwanted Feline organization, your host of Animal posse. Joining me today is Stephanie Smith. Stephanie is an animal lover, animal advocate, and an independent rescuer. Hey, Stephanie

hey.

Welcome to the show. I know the other day we spoke briefly on the phone and you were talking about all these stories and rescues that you've been involved in, and you talked about how you had a very successful social media page that was getting a lot of information out there that got shut down. So I definitely wanna talk about all of that. But before we get into that, can you tell us a little bit about yourself? How is it that you. Became an independent rescuer, an or an animal advocate.

Let's see, back in 2022 I had a friend call me, asked me if I could go and check this crate on the side of the road. Went and checked it. It was not a good thing called animal control. They come out. It took a while to unscrew the container the dog was in. It was in a container that you normally take your dogs to the vet in or cats. The puppy, it was probably a six month old puppy, probably younger. It was deceased. I'm not gonna go into details what was going on with it because it was not good. And then I realized there was a problem. So I've always rescued animals and took care of 'em. But that day I really got involved with contacting. The mayor, Commonwealth attorney, the Sheriff's Department trying to figure out what we could do and the problem that people don't see is there's not enough manpower in these positions. And there's not enough people like me what I'm seeing is people get on the computer and we call 'em keyboard warriors. If those keyboard warriors would actually get up from behind that computer and start attending these city council meetings the county meetings, because there is two different entities people need to understand there. It is a true meaning when it says it takes a village because it really does one person. Can make a little change, but it's gonna take more than just one to get laws changed to help these animals. So let's fast forward a little bit. I had this page, it was going great. Had 14,000 followers. We were getting things done. We were getting animals rescued from bad situations meeting a lot of other rescues from different states. I was on the phone. It's just me. I keep saying. We, but it was me. I made phone calls. I talked to sheriff's departments in different towns. People would send me photos, videos of an animal. I stayed in close contact with different sheriff's departments 'cause I couldn't actually get in my car and drive 500 miles. But what information was coming into me, I was translating back to them. I got a lot of animals rescued just by doing that. Staying in contact with judges, sheriffs, and you've got to be kind. You've gotta be kind. You can't go in there like a bull in a China shop. You know these people. They work hard and there's not a lot of them and I really feel bad for 'em. 'Cause they do try and they get the blunt, people think they don't do anything. They really do try. They just don't have the manpower.

Let me interrupt you for just one second.

Sure.

What is the area that you are in? What state are you in?

I'm in Kentucky, but I was mainly gonna focus on Kentucky on my page. But I had so many people reaching out from other states needing help. It's just not Kentucky, it's just not Illinois. It's the whole United States that's having problems.

So you were basically sitting in front of your computer on your page, helping. Hundreds and hundreds of miles away just by making phone calls and doing all those things. Yes. Wow. That's wonderful. Yes.

I was not being a keyboard warrior. There's a difference here.

Absolutely.

When I say keyboard warrior, I'm talking about someone that goes you need to go do something. Why don't somebody go help that person or help that animal that is a keyboard warrior. I was seeing there was a problem and I was taking those extra steps in, making phone calls collecting videos from people that send it to me. Pictures, addresses people's names, and I was getting it out there. To the correct people, like the police department or the judges or who it may be. And I'm gonna tell you, I met a lot on the phone, didn't meet 'em in person, and I'm over the phone. I met a lot of very kindhearted sheriffs, judges, lawyers. They care. They care, but they can only go so far. And then it takes the citizens to jump in. It really takes a village. It takes all of us.

When you say that you need the citizens to jump in, explain why you need that to happen.

Okay. Let me give an example. I'll just give you an example that something that happened to me if I was someone that did not get involved I seen someone physically beating their dog. This really happened beating their dog, kicking it, punching it really abusing this dog. Now, see, if I didn't get involved, I could just shut my door and the problem would never get solved. The animal would continue to be abused, but the person I am and the community and the citizens getting involved, I stepped out. And said, you don't need to hit that dog no more. And I was filming. People need to understand they need, and I'm talking, they judges, lawyers, sheriffs. They need that proof, that video, that photo. They need that proof. To be able to prove that this is what's happening. So I took the initiative to get involved, take the video, take the pictures. I called 9 1 1 and said, Hey, send somebody out here. And that's what I mean by getting involved. I didn't shut my door and. Just let it continue to happen every single day. I got involved, I got it stopped, and I had to stay on it. It's not something that resolved that very day because it takes time. People think I did report it. Okay, just because you reported it. It takes time. They've got to build up the evidence and get their, because when you go in front of a judge, you've gotta have proof. If somebody come up to you and said, Hey John down here,, that's just an example. He's down here punching his dog well. You don't know if you can believe it or not, but if they've got video evidence that's really happening, that's what it's gonna take to get done. The citizens need to get involved. That's why it was called Citizens Against Animal Abuse and Neglect, because it takes the citizens getting involved, not just one. Not just one citizen. It takes the citizens, everybody getting involved. I would go to meetings down at the courthouse. They're gonna listen to 50 people instead of just one. And when you're the only one standing there. It makes it look like you're the chopper, because it's okay, wait, why is there just one of 'em? She's not, really pleading her case here. But if you've got 50 people behind you or 30 people saying the same thing, believing in the same thing, you're gonna get more of a response, something happening. You've got to stick together. It does take people getting involved.

I'm glad you said something too about the videoing because this is something that I see a lot of, especially with people who trap and dump cats. You constantly see people saying, oh, somebody trapped and dumped my cat, and they'll go on social media. They will complain and complain about it. And I'm like, today there is no reason for you not to have video with the cell phones that we have available. Correct. It's easy to get video and then not only that. If you are suspecting that somebody is trapping and dumping, which is illegal, by the way, if you are suspecting that somebody is doing that, you can even go get a game Camera. Game cameras are inexpensive, so you can hide it somewhere where you can get that video. But a lot of people wanna invest all that time complaining. Like you said, they don't go out and physically do anything, and people will even tell 'em, you have to go out, you have to get the video. You can't just say, so and so is trapping and dumping cats. You need to get some kind of video proof of it, and with, yes, with everything available, there really is no reason that you can't get something like that done. It's easy, and if you can't afford. A game camera to set up, ask somebody else because they might have one to lend you.

They may even have cameras on their house. I have even went to the extent of people saying this is happening, and if it is in my area, if it's not, I go on Google and look around. People may have cameras on their house. There's too many cameras. Too readily available nowadays. There's no excuse not to have cameras. And I'm glad that you said the trapping and what you're saying, they're the cats. They don't want 'em in their neighborhoods. And is that what you're getting at is people's trapping 'em and relocating 'em?

So like in our area, okay. Yes. We have the TNR cats are considered Yes. Community cats. So yes, in my area they are allowed to be there. A leash law does not apply to a community cat. So if they're ear tipped and they're around in an area and they're in A colony where they're well cared for, they're allowed to be there. And you'll have people that are just cat haters. Or animal haters. They don't want to even see 'em. The cats don't even need to go on their property. They don't wanna see 'em there, though. That's the problem. I understand situations where they could actually be a nuisance and people, might not even be feeding them in the correct place. They might not be feeding them enough. They might be. Feeding 'em to where they're leaving food all around and then it does create a little bit of a nuisance. But to the ones that do it the correct way, you'll just have these people that almost try to lure them into their yard just so they could trap 'em and dump them, even if they're not bothering them. It's just like the sight of them bothers them. They don't want them to be there, period. So they'll admit to neighbors that, oh yeah, I trapped and dumped that one 'cause I didn't want it here. And it's like people will come out and they'll be like, yeah, so and so that, lives next door to me trapped my cat. You don't have proof of it. They can tell you, there you go, all they want that they trapped and dumped your cat. And you don't have any proof of that though. So you need to have proof. You have to record it. Exactly. And if you love animals, then you will take that extra step to protect them.

People need to realize that animals don't have voices, so you have to be that voice for them. They've gotta remember. It's all hearsay unless there's proof. Video proof. Photo proof. I love video though. Let me tell you I started TNR down at a place that I go to. I realized there was a big, major problem. So when I went to leave, I immediately got on the phone. And this is what I'm trying to get people to understand. It takes. You one person to get the ball rolling. I seen there was a problem, so I financially could not do it. 'cause there's 60 cats there and I picked up the phone and made phone calls to people, I was like, Hey, do you know somebody that can help me financially get these cats fixed? What do I need to do? Who do I need to call? And it ended up I did find somebody that had a grant and was like, let's get 'em fixed. So let me tell you when I go and feed 'em, 'cause I feed 'em once a day. I do have an Amazon wishlist because I can't financially feed all these cats. And plus I got cats of my own. I have a page, it's called pet Blessing Box. It's got a blue box. And I'll talk about that in a minute, but I do film when I go. First off, I did not start this just by, Hey, I'm gonna start doing it. No, I found out who the manager was of this park and. I asked them, it's a trailer park. I said, is it okay that I do this? This is what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna bring these cats back. They're gonna be fixed. They're going to have their rabies shots and they'll have an ear tip when they come back. And if I'm lucky, can get 'em a home. Absolutely thrilled to death that I was doing this. I have talked to, not all, but. 90% of the residents in that area, I'm very kind to 'em. I'm not rude. Some of them come out and said, please don't fix these cats. I don't know who your cat is out of 60 cats. I do film. I film when I feed. I don't film the people. I don't have the camera filming everybody's. I'm very respectful. I film the cats when I feed 'em. I do take pictures of the cats and I post it. That's one thing people need to do to show what you're doing. If you're doing TNR, 'cause there's somebody else in our area that does it too and does the same thing. It's to show the community what you're doing for one, and also to protect yourself. And there's just a lot of reasons that you need to do it. But if people are trapping these cats and taking 'em and dumping 'em, people need to get that on recording or maybe, go up to push record on your phone and go up and talk to 'em and say, Hey, are you doing this? And if so, why? How can we fix this? Because I had a neighbor in my neighborhood doing the same thing, trapping the cats that I was getting fixed. He said, I didn't like the cats coming in my yard. And I said there is deterrence that you can buy. There's stuff that you can put around in your yard and I do tell 'em the benefits. Cats keep mice and snakes and things that you don't want coming in your home or around your home. They keep 'em down. So maybe talk to 'em about that as well, if that's what they're doing, but definitely get that. Proof that they're doing it.

Yeah. See, I had a situation a couple of months ago. We have a feral and he had passed away suddenly.

Oh no.

I went back on my cameras and I looked, from The time that we fed him the day before to the time that we found him, we looked at all angles. Just 'cause I wanted to make sure that nobody did come, intentionally put some food out. Or something to harm him. In this case, no. It turned out when we told my vet her best guess would be like, he threw like a blood clot or something like that, and that just caused him to pass away. But it was beneficial to have those cameras to know that we knew that nobody came and gave him something that he wasn't supposed to get. Nobody came and harmed him. And at least that gave us some bit of closure on that, because it's upsetting when they're fine one day and they're like that the next and you just don't know what could have happened. You don't want somebody coming up and kicking him or hitting him or leaving out something that he should not be eating. And at least with those cameras, it did give us that peace of mind. 'cause and it took us a long time, but we went back and we watched every single angle. To track him to see where he was. And he never left the property. He stayed within the property, so nobody did harm him. So it was just, like I said, peace of mind knowing that

Oh absolutely. Yeah. You've got to have that proof most definitely.

Tell us a little bit about the pet Blessing box.

I noticed that there was on the pages that I follow, people would be on there asking for cat food or dog food, that they couldn't make it. Maybe a couple of days until their next payday or whatever. So at my church, we have a blessing box for the people and I thought this is something that nobody has around here for pets. So I talked to my church and they were great with it. They said That would be awesome. I gave my husband a plan on how I wanted it built. So he built it and we installed it. Because I didn't have my Citizens page anymore which I have been trying to appeal. Since May of what? Of 2025? I'm still trying to get it back. It's just sitting there. I went ahead and made the pet blessing box page. People send me food to feed the cats in the colony down here. And they also send me food or. People can stop and put food in the box. The box has helped a lot of people. I've had people contact me and say, Hey, just for a couple of days, a lot of times I'll take it to 'em, 'cause some people don't have cars, so I'll take the food to 'em. Sometimes they'll meet me over there. To make sure that they actually get the food, 'cause I don't wanna put it in the box and somebody else come and take it when this person's in need right now. So the box is there basically A person can put food and they'll have like pet clothes and collars and that's just fine. Anything for a pet people put in it. And I've known it's helped a lot of people and I'm really thrilled because it was something I was hoping that would. Be like a virus and spread, people would start picking it up and doing it, other places would do it. So now out by the mall area, they have a pet blessing box out there now. It's taken time, but it's happening and I'm glad that it's happening. Because We don't need just one. We need more than just one box because it's just not in this area that needs help. It's all over. I do ask people, I put a sign in there because, and I know this is going off topic, but I did reach out to people and talk to 'em in other states that had pet blessing boxes. When people put things in boxes, this is even in the people box, they need to cut that barcode off. 'cause I didn't know people actually take the items and try to return 'em. I learn something every day. A lot of times I write donated on the food because people will take it and resell it. Even if the barcode's gone they try to resell it. It's just part of it.

Wow.

But that was off topic, so

It's good information to know because I will tell you I feel inspired now. I am already thinking about going to approach a few churches in my area with a pet blessing box. 'cause that is a phenomenal idea.

I'm gonna tell you something. It says a lot about a church when. They love animals. To me that means a lot. And I've had people reach out from Wisconsin California, different areas and ask where the church is. I'm like it's in Kentucky, and they said if it was here we would go because with a church caring about animals also. That means a lot. And another thing that I'm gonna talk to my pastor about is having pet blessings. Set aside a day aside for our pastor to bless an bless animals, for people to come up and bring their animals to be blessed because to me, animals. Have souls and they're gonna go where we're going and they're gonna wait up in heaven for us. I just, I feel that way. I feel that they've been put here to comfort us, to show us what true love is, and they should be treated kindly and they, they need blessings too, just like we do. So that's something I've been meaning to talk to my pastor about is ha setting a day up for that. Absolutely. And encourage people to to donate. And also the news station around here did a story on it. On the box to try to get the word out so people know that the box is there to donate. Let's help each other. 'cause we do come up on hard times, especially nowadays, and there's a lot of elderly people that has called and said, I don't know what to do. Do I feed myself? Do I buy my medicine? Or do I get my pets some food? If you can offer just a little bag of food that takes a lot of pressure off of somebody, and plus you're feeding that animal.

Yeah, it does. And it keeps them in a home because I don't think a lot of people realize how difficult it is to rehome an adult animal, and not just because of the scarcity of homes for them, but it's also so stressful for the animal that a lot of times especially like an older cat will grieve themselves to death because they're used to being with one person their whole life. If you're on hard times, it's a lot easier for you to ask for help and ask for food and ask for litter than it is to rehome that animal.

Yes ma'am. And I've got an example, matter of fact, he's listed on my page on the Pet Blessing Box page. I need to film him. Prime example, this very elderly orange cat shows up at my house not a couple of weeks ago. It is very heartbreaking. It hurts my soul to no end because this cat. Walks around crying, crying, walk, comes in the house, goes room to room, crying. I know he's looking for somebody. So he come in one day and he had a little blood on his lip, so I took him to vet and yes, this cat is elderly and she did agree with me. Someone dumped him. I think maybe an elderly person passed away or maybe got put in a nursing home and the family didn't want it. So they thought, oh, let's drop it at Stephanie's house 'cause she's got all these other cats, and boop, they dropped it. What people don't understand. Animals imprint on us, and they can Google it, they can read it. They are just like people. They imprint on us. They love us. We are their family. We are their mom, we're their dad. We are their human. And that's what's important to them. And this poor cat is walking around looking for its person and can't find it. He cannot find his person and he cries and he's grieving. The first couple of days he didn't eat and because I took the time with him and I held him and just showed him some compassion, he's starting to eat now, but he's still looking for his person. Because I'm not his person. And people don't realize what they do to these animals.

Lately in my area, we've been having a lot of people trying to rehome senior cats and Yeah, currently they're in a home and they'll have these random reasons why they cannot keep their 10, 11-year-old cat. But I'm gonna say in the last week it was about eight cats that I saw that people were trying to re, that is so broken. And I know I've spoken to two different people and I'm very frank with them because as a rescuer, I feel it's my responsibility to, to educate them. And I will tell them that, look. I understand you might have something going on in your life, I understand that, but I also want you to understand that rehoming, these elderly cats, 'cause I mean they are seniors at this time and I'm like, yeah, they've been with one person their whole life and I'm like, rehoming them. They are likely going to grieve themselves to death. And it happens all the time. And I've had two people cry this week because I've told them that. But at the same time, it's also something that needs to be said because a lot of the times I think they just think they'll just go into a new home and they're fine. And it does, they'll never be fine. Yeah. It doesn't work that way, and a younger one you might have a better chance at, but even the younger ones grieve, they get really pissed off.

I read because I wanted to find out when they imprint on a person. I'm thinking it takes now, don't quote me on this. I think they could get up to six months old or six weeks old and imprint on you. They imprint fast. People need to take that in consideration, they need to sit and think that's like getting rid of their child? I know people get mad at me when I it's different than a human child. I get that, but. They love us. These animals love us. And when you take an animal, you take that animal for life. Don't take that animal just 'cause it's cute, and it's gonna get older and you're gonna get older and life changes. And you just need to know that when life changes, that animal's gonna stay with you. I don't think I've ever re-homed an animal, not mine. All the cats that I have been dumped on me. When the pandemic hit, I never had cats. Not that I hated 'em, I just had dogs and chickens. But when the pandemic hits, someone dumped 22 cats on me and I thought, oh my gosh, what am I gonna do? What I did, I reached out, I got 'em fixed, and there you go. And I feed 'em every day. And they love me and I love them. I didn't ask for 'em. They just were dumped on me. But I'm not gonna be mean to 'em.

Let me ask you before we end the call. You had this very successful social media page, you said it was citizens against Animal Abuse and Neglect, so it got shut down. Yes. What led to it Getting shut down

and I had no idea why Facebook did not send me an email. All my admins were took off and I've sent appeal. I've all but begged. Please somebody call me, email me, let me know why my page was, the page is sitting there, it's just sitting idle. And I knew something was up because a day or two I wouldn't be able to get on it. And then I'd be able to get on it and then I wouldn't be able to get on it. And then I had to go through the back door through Instagram to get on it. And so I put on there, to follow my Instagram account because I was trying to keep my page going and they shut my Instagram down and my Facebook. They didn't shut it down. It's still floating out there. I can't get on it. It's, I don't know what happened. Like I said, I never got any kind of notification of why no explanation, nothing. And so I have wrote. Facebook since May. Please, what do I need to do to get my page back? This page made a lot of differences in animals' lives and what do I need? And never have I heard anything back from anybody. So I know a lot of people didn't like me and and everybody knows in rescue. I don't understand it. I may never understand why one rescuer may not like the other one. That makes no sense to me. If we could all work together, what a difference we could make. If it was reported, I would know who did it. I can't prove, so it's just my mind thinking, who did it? Because there is people that felt offended because, and rescue, if you do one step ahead of anybody else, they're gonna get angry. And what better way to lash out than to keep reporting and try to get your page shut down? And they succeeded. Whatever, whoever did it, whatever, they succeeded because now I can't access the page. So if anybody knows of anything, anybody I can reach out to, they'd be great. I've tried to figure out how to get back on it. I've reached out to people and they're like me. They don't. Really know how Facebook works.

Yeah. It's a shame when you're out there trying to do so much good and then something like that happens and then, the ego with some people that are in rescue is a lot too. 'cause you do have these people that are selfless. They will help anybody, they'll help any rescue, they don't care. They just wanna get animals to safety. And then you have these other people, they just want the glory.

Yes. Yes. And I will say another thing that I've seen that questions that makes me question if you're gonna start a Facebook group that is a lost in found group. Don't block people. Those kind of groups do not need to block people. Whe whether you don't like people or not, because that is strictly for helping the animals, and it shouldn't be about. Getting you the glory. Because we do have several groups in our area that are lost and found and they block all the rescue groups in this area. So how is that group even helping animals? They're really not. That's another big thing. You need to put your feelings aside when it comes to this. Does that make sense?

Definitely. I actually run a few lost and found pet groups I'm not the only admin, there are several admins on these groups. Yes. And what we do is a lot of the times we pre-approve the rescues. Because we want them on our pages looking to make sure that either they don't see that animal or, and we've had many successful reunions because we have so many rescuers on there. They can spot a difference between a cat and another cat or a dog and another dog like you wouldn't believe. And so there's so many pages that when they're on there and they see matches. We get 'em reunited all the time because of that. Because we have all these rescuers on there. And the shelters too. Yeah.

You need all hands on deck, and the more the merrier. I know these groups around here, they even have animal control. The shelter, they have 'em all blocked. And that's, I know that's off topic, but I could go on for hours about things that I wish people would see what they're doing. A lot of people, I feel like they get into it for the wrong reason. I think they get into it for the glory, the shine, the get their name out there. That's not what it's about. It's about saving animals and making life for animals better.

Absolutely. Thank you so much for coming on to speak with me today. I enjoyed listening to everything that you do and like I said, I'm definitely gonna start reaching out about getting PET Blessing boxes around, because that is Yes. Phenomenal idea.

Yes. If anybody knows anything I need to do to get that page back, citizens Against Animal Abuse and Neglect have them contact me because I've really tried hard to get it back and I've been unsuccessful. And check out my page Pet Blessing Box. 'cause I do post about a lot of animals and what I do. Because I dibble into a lot of things, not just TNR and, anything to do with animals. I'm gonna try my best to help 'em out.

Yeah, definitely. I'll get that page from you and I'll include that in the show notes, so anybody that wants to check it out can go take a look at it.

Okay. Thank you so much.

That's it for today's episode. I wanna thank everybody for listening and supporting us. If you wanna take that an extra step, consider becoming a member. We just added this to our website, animalposse.com, scroll down, look for the support tab. Our membership program is going to help us directly support animals in need, whether that be through vaccinations, food or spay neuter efforts.