Welcome to Animal Posse, the podcast dedicated to the people and rescues making a difference in the lives of animals. Last week's episode featured Ashley Gardinier with Southern Paws Inc. And we talked a lot about the animal welfare crisis, so if you didn't listen to last week's episode. Make sure you go back and check it out. But today we're back to talk about the other things that Ashley does, and one of 'em is dog training. Ashley Let's get into how dog training can help to keep dogs in homes, First off, where did you learn to do dog training?

Oh so honestly I learned to dog train when I got Goose. I have a dog named Goose like Goose and Maverick. And he is my soulmate. I love this dog. He is my soul dog. He is my best friend. And many years ago, like going back, 15 some odd years ago before our animal rescue was even a thought in my mind. I had a dog who I had gotten and some rescue, just gave me a puppy and they didn't educate me at all. They didn't tell me I was supposed to socialize her. They didn't still tell me I was supposed to train her or do anything with her. They just said here's a puppy. So I got her and I didn't know I was supposed to do all these things because nobody told me. And when she was seven years old, she jumped up and she bit a little girl in the face and she ripped off half of this child's face and. After it happened which was devastating., I was young, I was like in my very early twenties, and I had to sit down and make this decision on what do I do? Because she had already bitten a couple people. This was obviously the worst bite and really, at that point had calmed down to it's gonna happen again. And I had tried everything. I had dog whisperers, I had tried training, I had tried ecollar work. So through Kylie I went through the gamut with dog training from the beginning. And after this bite happened, it was really bad. There's still a woman that walks around with scars on her face today because of me. Okay. Not because of my dog, not because she was like hardwired, because of me, right? Just because I didn't know any better and. When I ended up euthanizing her. It was still to this day, like one of the hardest things I've ever done. It's probably one of the worst moments of my whole life, honestly, looking back. And when I decided, like right around the time I actually got exposed to animal rescue goose was actually on that first transport back from Louisiana. So I had seen this little chocolate lab puppy it's chocolate lab Catula. And I just thought they were so cool. Johnna had them in her barn and his brother was just gorgeous. And I was like, oh, so Goose, I ended up fostering. I was really concerned if Maverick got adopted before Goose did. 'cause Goose was like this really sensitive sweet dog. And ironically Christmas Eve, maverick gets adopted now, I end up with Goose and everybody was like, you're not gonna keep this dog, you're not gonna keep this dog. I go into Petco and somebody goes oh my God, I love him. I want him. And I was like no, nope. Sorry. Nope. He is mine. And she was like, oh, I thought you were fostering. I was like, no, he's mine. And I like took him out. The next day I walked into the local training center and I said to them, this is what I went through. How do I, what do I have to do to make sure this never happens again? Because I can't go through this again with this dog. And if we're gonna do it, we're gonna do it right this time. And the local training center by me Stacy, who's actually one of my mentors I trained with her for 10 years. I brought all of our behavioral dogs there. I brought Goose there. Not only that, but I got Goose and Lexi, my other dog, both of them are certified therapy dogs. I didn't just go through the like bright and beautiful program like. I went through a two year extensive training with them. So that literally if my dog was on the other, like a mile away from me and I saw him like move a certain way, I was like, I knew exactly what he was thinking. I knew exactly where his head was at. It was just this bizarre connection, right? And I really learned how to read dogs and I actually have a master's degree in, in human psychology in forensic psych. That's a whole nother story in itself. But it was interesting the more training I did, the more I was able to understand dog psychology in a very humanized way. So. I say all the time, one of my best talents, I'm not necessarily good at demonstrating what to do with your dog, i'm great at it 'cause Goose is great at it. That's the only reason. But it's funny because I say all the time my, like the best part of me training and the thing I'm really good at is taking a situation and putting it in human terms so that you can understand what your dog's doing, why they're doing it, why it's not okay and how to fix it. And letting you have that like light bulb moment of oh my God, I didn't think about that. So I always had this psychology. And then with the rescue crisis, I said like, all right, listen, adoptions are dead. We just had this opportunity like fall in our lap. I'm tired of being a part of, just like getting dogs out. I wanna start working on solutions that are gonna keep dogs out of the shelter and out of the, the thing. So if we can provide a program that's maybe a little bit lower cost than like our local programs, and then the money, it's a win-win. The money is a donation, the money goes back into the rescue. So we're able to actually use the training center to help provide financing for the rescue that we're, that we lost in our adoption fees. And on top of that, the real win is we get to work with people to keep their dogs in their home. So once the upstairs kind of came available, I said, oh, I guess I better go get a certification listen, you don't have to have a certification to be a dog trainer. I personally think everybody should just so that you learn the fundamental basics. But I had also worked with every single behavioral problem in our rescue. I had worked with dogs, during disaster relief in flooded houses that I now needed to carry, that didn't know me and were terrified, I had to work with feral dogs to be able to get them to trust me enough to come near enough to me where we could get them help, there were all these just different things that I had learned along the way. And I said, you know what? I said, I bet we could turn this into something. So I went back actually to my trainers. I have a trainer, Stacy, that I just adore, and then she's just incredible and amazing. And then I have another trainer, Anne, who is also just like absolutely phenomenal, amazing. None of them sugarcoat things like, I don't do well with these like fru trainers, I like the down and dirty. What were you thinking when you did that? Like, why would you think that's okay? That kind of stuff. And, I had built these relationships with them over years and years between my own dogs and dogs in the rescue and dogs with behavioral problems and, asking advice and all these things. And now I put it all together. I got the certification through animal Behavioral College. It was an online course. It took me about a year to probably get through it. And like I said, it was cool 'cause I got to learn the fundamentals of it was really cool to learn how dogs were like domesticated. I knew the commands, like the sit and the down and the, whatever, but I didn't necessarily understand the psychology behind them which was really cool as well as all of the. The methodology, right? And the psychology behind the methodology. That was another element that I found really helpful. I had all these things surfacely, but didn't really understand the education behind 'em. And I had to do like an externship which I did over at and at Good Dog training. And yeah, I just had these really amazing women that I really respect. So I just pulled me under their arms and were like, okay, we're gonna, we're gonna teach you. And I started teaching. I'm still not super confident. I really don't do behavioral modification. I try those are like your bigger behaviors, your aggression, your reactivity, your severe anxiety disorders. The dogs that I actually love to work with the most are very fearful dogs. Those are the ones that I really love to work with. The, fear, almost like fear reactive a little bit. Like I love that I do a lot of what I call exposure work that is not what it's actually called. It's called desensitization and generalization, but like to humans, they're like, I don't know what that means. Those are big words. So, I dumb it down. It's exposing them to just like very mild, like uncomfortable stimulus ultimately, and pairing it with really yummy treats. Like we make it rain hot dogs. But yeah, so that's how it started and I think the hardest part is getting people to train. But it's been really helpful too to be able to also offer up myself as a resource for my adopters, right? Like I tell my adopters all the time, if you, they all have my personal cell phone number, I've had the same cell phone number since I was like 12. The amount of people that have this cell phone number are just, is in incomprehensible, but they can call me anytime day or night. And usually I'm like, okay, listen, if it's a real in-depth thing, like I'm gonna have to send you somewhere, but they can call me. It doesn't matter if you adopted for me yesterday or 10 years ago, you can call me with any behavioral problem. I'll give you some pointers. I'll give you, I'll tell you direction on where you should go. I had an doctor call me the other day from eight years ago. Their dog is having some neuro issues and they were like, what do we do? And I was like, okay, this is what you do. This is where you go, this is the doctor. So I, I think that's more important than anything and it's given me the opportunity to be able to provide more of that from a more educated standpoint, if that makes sense.

Yes, it does. Would you recommend other dog rescues to have a person maybe go through the same course that you did so they know that basic psychology of dog behavior?

Yeah. The more education you have, the better, like the more education you have. And listen, a lot of this comes from experience, right? Like I had an issue today with one of one of our teammates where like she just didn't know the right questions to ask because she's just not as experienced yet as I am. She's still a little bit green. And we had an issue with it because we almost pulled a dog that has like severe neurological issues by accident which was fine. Like it would've been fine. We're still looking at pulling the dog. We just needed way more information than we had. It's like one of those situations where like the more information and the more you can educate yourself, the better. And it's not, you don't have to spend, $3,000 and go get a piece of paper, find a local training center. I have never met a trainer who I was like, Hey, I wanna sit down on your class. And they were like, no, like that's never happened. Everybody should have a trainer in their pocket, like a real trainer, right? Somebody that's good. Somebody that's been doing this for a long time. Somebody that's like really has a background, in dog training. Not like somebody that's oh, I just got a certification like yesterday. It's like me, like I just got my certification. Have I worked on a lot of things? Yes. Am I really confident? Working with like behavioral modifications, stuff like that. Absolutely not. So I'll defer those clients somewhere else. Now, I also tell every single one of my clients that they need to do at least a minimum of a year of dog classes anywhere. It doesn't have to be with me, it could be anywhere. And if they're not local somebody just asked me they're like 20 minutes away from us and they were like, well, is there anybody here? And I was like, yes. This is who I recommend. Go there. So it's not so much, even if you don't know the psychology or you don't wanna learn the psychology, sorry, or you don't wanna learn. Like even if you don't know the psychology or you're not interested in learning the psychology, at the end of the day, have somebody at least in your pocket that does. Somebody that's really good that you're close with or that you can consult with. Because if it wasn't for that half of the issues. That we've had would never have been fixed. And then it's just the dog that suffers. Like you develop all these behavioral problems just simply because you really didn't know any better. Like you dealt with a problem and you were like, oh, I think I can fix this. And like you tried to do what you thought was best, which was like all the wrong things, so even if you don't do it yourself, like just have somebody there that you can use as a sounding board and say Hey, this is going on with this dog. What do you suggest I do?

Let's get onto some of those behavioral issues. You said that a lot of people were complaining about behavioral issues in these COVID puppies or pandemic puppies. Yeah. What are some of those specific behavioral issues that you're seeing? And then how do you address those issues?

I had so many things. So this is one of my favorite examples to use dog on dog reactivity. Okay. And dog reactivity can come from all kinds of different things, right? And what that mean, what dog reactivity is like your walking down on the street and your dog sees a dog and they just lose their ever loving mind. Okay? This is something we see a lot, right? And a lot of it is because during COVID, dogs didn't see other dogs. Dogs are a lot like humans. They're a lot like child, like children when it comes to psychological and social development. So during COVID, we were not allowed to leave our houses, correct? Correct. So we were home all the time, which means our dogs were home all the time. They didn't meet people, they didn't go out in the world, they didn't interact with other dogs. They lived at home. We lived at home. And then when the world opened back up again, now we are trying to take our dogs places. We're trying to do things with them, we're trying to get 'em off the property, and the dogs are either terrified or like they don't know how to act, right? So a great example of this is dog reactiveness. So, I did dog walking for a year and there was this dog Yeti, and I use her all the time. She's my claim to fame this dog. Because she was so reactive and it was anything she saw, like it didn't have to be a dog. If she saw a squirrel, she was a lunatic. If she saw a deer, oh, forget it. Like she would throw herself on the floor. She would scream like a lunatic. She was this like 40 pound white like Aussie husky mix. And she had taken her mom down like multiple times. She actually really hurt Elise's elbow. At one point and she, when I started walking her, I was like, oh no we're not doing this. I was like, we are absolutely not gonna be doing this. We're not pulling. So within two weeks I said to, she had taken me down like once, and I said to Elise, I was like, absolutely not. We're not doing this. I'm getting a gentle leader for your dog. And Elise was very against it. She didn't wanna do it. And I said, listen, let me at least try it. If you really feel like it's awful, like we've used this, I've used this before on dogs, that I've trained, especially dogs in the rescue that are like large breed and really gonna take you out. 'cause they just are big puppies. There's a great it's mildly invasive. Like it's not a big deal. And what I did was I was a Pez dispenser for treats. And I would do a lot of, in the beginning, turning around and walking in the other direction, right? So we'd see something at a distance. We really, as a society, I'm sure you know this, we need to get out of our cell phones. We need to start paying attention to our surroundings and things like that. A big mistake that I see made a lot is we're in our phones, or, so we're not necessarily looking at what's happening around us that's going to potentially trigger our animals. So in Yeti's case, it's a lot of looking around, looking for deer, looking for dogs, looking for people that are walking, looking for, whatever it is. So that I could use that as a learning moment. And I'm not gonna put her in a situation that I know she's gonna fail in, which is like walking towards a dog or, walking in their space and getting closer to them. I'm gonna literally watch her, she's gonna get alert. She's gonna, get stiff and she's gonna stare and before it gets close or I get close, I'm gonna turn around, I'm gonna shove a cookie in her mouth and I'm gonna walk in the other direction. And we would take a different path that day. And we would just do that over and over again. And eventually over time we were able to get closer and closer. This is actually what I call, this is the exposure work that I was mentioning before. Eventually you get closer and closer and you're desensitizing the dog to being in the presence of whatever that stimulus is. You're counter conditioning her. So that to the point where she would see somebody else and she would literally look at me like, where's my cookie lady like? And it got to the point after, and it took me eight months. Eight months, and on in the eighth month. There was a lady that walked by with a dachshund that was losing its ever loving mind, and she sat right next to me. The dog walked probably between six feet away from her. She looked right at me and was like, lady, where's my cookie? And I'll never forget, the lady said to me, how'd you get her to do that? And I was like, oh, it's been eight months, but it works. And she was like, I was like, she's could you teach mine to do that? And I was like, ironically, yes I could. I'll tell you what, the lady never called me. So it's things like that, that are so simple. And the reason that these resources and being a resource and being, having the training certification and understanding the psychology there's a basis to these behaviors. And this is actually in the conversation I have with every single one of my adopters, okay? Because I tell all of them, like I mentioned before, everybody's gotta go to training. So. It's not, I'm not telling you, you need to train because I think you're stupid and you can't teach your dogs to sit and stay. I'm teaching you to train because you're not a dog expert. You don't know dog psychology. I still don't like, there's still, I call myself number one dog mom, and I say all the time, there are literally like times where I don't know things like, and my trainer's like, why are you doing that? I'm like I don't know. I take my own dogs to other people's classes because every time I go I still learn something new. I co-teach with Stacey in the morning on Saturdays, just so I can learn from her, and Stacey will test me. She'll let me, stick my foot in my mouth and then say, okay, you're wrong and this is why. And I'm okay with that because I'm learning. So what happens with dogs, like leading up to that behavior, right? That behavior was built. It was, the dog wasn't born like that. The dog, that behavior was built. She was got during COVID, I. She wasn't around other dogs. She wasn't around a lot of people, okay? And so when she was seeing these other dogs, people, animals, whatever, she was getting so amped and nobody ever taught her how to handle herself. Okay? Imagine you have a child, right? And that child has never been around people and you stick it in, middle school with 400 kids in his class. How do you expect that child to acclimate? They're either going to be running amuck and psychotic, or they're gonna be terrified and hiding under their desk. They're not gonna know the social skills. They're not gonna know how the interactions, they're not gonna know the appropriate way to interact with humans. So why would we think that our dogs would, and that's where the reactivity come from, comes from. So those are the kind of behaviors that we see a lot of. We're seeing that we're seeing I'm seeing, we're seeing a lot of we call it stranger danger. Okay? And it stems from literally the same thing. They're not used to people coming into their space. And I'm not gonna lie, people are stupid, okay? We do stupid things when we, when it comes to dogs, because everything, every five of our being is oh my god, dog, I love you. And that's not a dog's love language, right? The love language of dogs is smell my butt, like body language. This don't come at my face. And we've just done all the things wrong. They're not used to that. They don't know how to react. So maybe they're getting afraid and they're going to fear react, which is they're going to overcompensate and they're gonna bark at you and tell you to back off. 'cause that's their language, right? Things like that. It's a lot of things. We also never, none of these people trained during COVID because none of the training centers were open. So you also have all of these unruly dogs that are now just like large dogs that don't have matters. They don't have structure, they weren't told, they were never given any rules. And just like children, it's the same concept, right? You ultimately have what I had with my first dog, there was no rules, there was no consequences, there was no structure. If you do that with a child, you're going to have a monster who's climbing your curtains, right? And getting into trouble. So why would we expect our dogs to, in the same scenario, to be well-behaved and not have behavioral problems or not be emotionally balanced? So that's really what we're seeing. And the bigger issue we're running into is a, we as a rescue, we are really overwhelmed. So we, we don't have anywhere to put a dog that's got behavioral issues. And on top of that, we don't have the finances. Like I used to be like, oh, your dog's a little afraid. No problem. I can work with that. We have a great foster and we would throw them in training three days a week. I can't afford, a thousand dollars a week for a dog that's got behavioral problems because you didn't do right by your dog. You didn't train your dog appropriately. And now your dog has behavioral problems and now I'm supposed to try and fix it and spend all this money to do it because you either don't have the money or don't care or don't want to.

What do you do in the situation if somebody does call you and they tell you, I've got this dog to surrender 'cause this dog has behavioral problems? Well, I'm sure of course you're gonna recommend training. But how do the people react to that? Being that, you said this dog that you had the one that took eight months to train, it's eight months. So are people open to even wanting to wait the eight months to see if their dog Nope. Will start reacting differently?

Nope. Nope. Not at all. I will tell you, I would say 95% of them do. But I educate them about the rescue crisis. And I tell them, listen, your best bet is this, working with your dog, training your dog, socializing your dog, getting a trainer. I would get a trainer in there immediately working on it with them, trying to get them fixed. I will, if they're local. There's some people who have been like, I can't afford it, and I've been like, bring me your dog. We'll work together. Like I have a little bit of time on Tuesday nights. I got you. Let's see if we can at least fix this portion. And sometimes I get lucky, and sometimes they're like, yes, I got this. But you know that 95% of the time they just call another rescue, and if it's really bad, what am I supposed to tell them? And that's why I don't call people back anymore because what am I supposed to tell them? I'm the rescuer. I'm supposed to be the one that's there to help. I'm supposed to be the one that has all the answers. And it goes back to what you were saying before is we are supposed to be here for dire circumstances, and we're not like people treat us like crap because we can't help you because you have a responsibility to this animal that you committed to. That has done nothing be loyal to you or be the way you trained them or raised them to be, and now you just are dumping them because you don't feel like putting the time, the energy, or the money into 'em. That's really the heart of it. And people could argue with me all day about it, but really at the end of the day, if you I am a big believer in you want, you will, you won't, you don't, if you wanna fix it, you are gonna fix it. If you don't wanna fix it, you are not gonna fix it. So we have to look at that as a population and say Hey, what am I supposed to say? Some cases where a dog's had multiple bites and there's like stitches involved and things like that. I don't recommend they go to a shelter because I also don't think it's fair to the dog.

Yeah. And I was gonna say too, like when you say you're not calling them back, you don't have the room, you don't have the resources to take care of 'em, and I understand that, but let's suppose the next rescue that they call takes 'em. What does that rescue, do? What does that rescue left working with?

Yeah. I don't know. And you know what? There are times like we actually got wrecked. Like we got blown up on social media. Like all hell broke loose because. There was a dog that was brought one of ours. And I work very hard to get all of our dogs back. Like right now I have two dogs that I'm trying desperately to get back into rescue. They're 10 years old. The guy has got medical issues. Luckily the dog walker has been really helpful and she's been working with me because I don't have anyone who put these dogs, one of which has behavioral issues. The other one's great, but like they're two bonded, 10-year-old pit bulls. So we've been trying, but like we can't. So I've told them like, reach out to other rescues and if you can find a rescue that's got the resources right now, let them go there if you asked me that three years ago, I would've been like, absolutely not. Nobody is allowed to touch my dogs. Those are mine. Like they come back to me, no questions asked. That is my responsibility. That is my dog. The problem we're running into now is we don't have the resources anymore that we used to have. One of the things I do is now I educate people about that when they adopt with me. Everybody gets a spiel about this, about the animal welfare crisis and how nobody has resources. And I pretty much tell them like, nobody's got help. Nobody can help you now. This is gonna be on you, so really think this through before you leave here with this dog. But like we got wrecked years ago because I had a dog that came in. It was at a local shelter. The dog had pretty rough behavioral problems. The dog had attacked a child. There was like quite a bunch of things that I had heard. So the dog ended up there. They had contacted us to take the dog back and I said, I'm really nervous about taking this dog in because the dog had gone after a child twice. And I said, okay. They were like, well, just put it in a home where it doesn't, but I didn't have, at the time, it didn't have a placement. So they dumped the dog at the local shelter and the shelter calls me and they're like, Hey. Will you take this dog back? And I was like, listen, would you guys, I don't have anywhere to put this dog right now. Would you guys be willing, I know that you guys do behavioral analysis, like evaluations on your dogs. Would you guys be willing to do a behavioral eval on this dog and let me know what you find? And they said, okay. So they did the behavioral evaluation, which did not go well. Okay? Not at all. Like dog bit. The hand twice, didn't go well. Then they did another evaluation two days later and the dog failed again. Okay. So they call me back and they're like, while I'm on the phone with them, I'm like, okay. I'm like, Jesus. I'm like, where are we gonna put this dog? And I'm like, all right, let me make some calls. Let me see. And the girl says to me, we do have other organizations that like to work with this type of dog that do have the resources. Would you want me to reach out and network them? And I said, yeah, absolutely. I said, if you have another organization that has better resources than I do right now to be able to help this dog please. Because at the end of the day, it's not about my ego, it's not about the money, it's not about whatever. It's about the dog. So if we can find somebody to help the dog, great. Let's do it. Like in the meantime, I'm gonna keep looking for a placement. You guys let me know if you find anything. I was looking for a placement. Looking for a placement. Never found one Called back, talked to 'em again. They said, listen, we have a rescue that's willing to take the dog. I said, okay, well listen, if it doesn't work out, if God forbid this dog is gonna be euthanized, let me know and I will come and get it. I promise you just call me and let me know. They were like, okay, dog goes to rescue. We get blown up all over social media that like, what a bunch of trash we are because we dumped our dog at a shelter to die and we would rather the dog be euthanized than come and help it. When I, we were getting like hate mail. I got phone calls about this and every time I told them like, we still have a review on the Southern Pause page about this situation. And literally my answer was, in that moment, we did not have the resources to care for this dog. The dog would've been put down if it was, if it came to us. So we found there, they found a rescue where this was supposed to be a partnership where like they were providing a, helping us to provide a solution to a problem and. The dog ended up going there. They placed this dog with children, okay? They sent me pictures of this dog in a home with young children, with all kinds of other things. I never would've put that dog there, never. But whatever they did worked okay. And they sent me, so every couple of years I get our social media gets blown up again with pictures of this dog living its best life with children and whatever else is in the home with the dog. And they send it to us to shame us every time this organization to tell us all about well we, you know this dog. Look, it's with children. And look, we placed it with this and you left it to die. And like all these different things. And every time I say, oh my God, I'm so happy that this dog is alive, he's thriving, and we made the right decision. Sad. 'cause at the end of the day, it's not about me or them or anybody else, or it's about the fact that the dog is alive, the dog is thriving, and the dog is living its best life.

Yeah. And that's terrible though, that you had to go through that with the bad reviews

Oh, we go through it all the time. All the time. Especially now, anytime one of our dogs comes up and we don't have somewhere for it to go, we get some rescue or social media warrior or whatever calling us and telling us how awful we are because we can't take our dogs back because right now we just don't have the resources.

It's wild, even if another rescue steps in, why would you drag somebody else's name into it? If the dog is safe.

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I know the best. One of the biggest criticizers that came out during that whole thing. She had a whole bunch of stuff to say. A couple years ago. It actually turned out she was a hoarder. And she got busted and charged with animal cruelty. And I was like, are you kidding? I was like, like somebody sent it to me and I was like, shut up. I was like, that's unbelievable.

Most of the people that are leaving the comments, they're people that never would foster in a million years anyway. It's like an ego boost for them. It makes them feel good to say something.

Oh yeah. 100%. 100%. Nobody knows. Like even listen, even sometimes my board members, they just don't get it, right? And they're actively in the trenches with me every day, right? So to have Joe Schmoe on the internet,, like I said before, 95% of these people have no idea what's actually going on in animal rescue or with the animal welfare crisis or anything. And the only thing we can do is just educate them, and that's what I try to do every time somebody is mad at me because I can't take a dog or, or the best is they're like, like we got a call the other day, I still can't believe this. And I called the local rescue my contact over there and I was like, Hey, be advised this call is coming to you next. I got a call from a guy who breeds. Bernice Mountain Dogs, backyard breeds Bernice Mountain Dog. And his unspayed female is fighting with his pregnant female, so he needs to rehome the the not pregnant female. And I was like, I'm sorry, what? I was like, is this real? And I said to him, I said, listen, we can't help you with that. I said, but. I know the shelter nearby, they're great. Like they, they do a really amazing job. We actually pull from them all the time. So I was like, all right, well let's send it over there and see if it at least gets behaviorally tested, and then we can see if maybe we can pull it. But I called up my contact over there, Mike, and I was like, Hey, just be advised. Wait for this call. It's coming. He was like, are you kidding? And I was like, Nope. I was like, I told him to call you 'cause I got nowhere to put that. He was like, unbelievable. I was like yep. Because I can't make this up.

Yeah. I would've been like, well, if you spay and neuter, it curbs those behaviors, so,

oh, yeah, I mentioned that. Or the better one is they're like, well, we're gonna go buy a dog. That's one of my favorite things, like people say to me, especially when we reject them because I told you I'm a snob when it comes to my adopters. I have a very specific type of adopter that we adopt to, and I'm a total snob about it. And I'll get certain people and they're like. Well, this is why people go to breeders. And I'm like, okay, so go to a breeder? Like I, I actually don't know what to tell you. That's fine, but you cannot have one of my dogs. I'm sorry, but I'm not, I'm really not sorry.

I understand that too. 'cause I'm the same way and I do a lot of bottle feeding I do kittens. When you put that much time and effort into getting them well because Yeah, bottle feeding, they're very delicate. And then sometimes you have to deal with things like, with illnesses that'll pop up and you essentially have to go nurse them back to health. So I feel like if I'm gonna have to be up in the middle of the night every two hours to feed a sick kitten I want that kitten to go to a home with somebody who's gonna do the same. So I'm picky. Exactly. I'm picky too because it's like that's all of my love and dedication and everything goes into taking care of these animals. And so I wanna make sure that they're going into a home that's gonna provide the exact same for them

As you should. And that's, I love, like I said, I keep going back to this I love what you said before about like animal rescue isn't just for you to dump all your animals on us, right? It's here for a last resort. It's here for an emergency, it's here for a medical case, it's here for whatever. And I've been there, right? Like I, I don't typically do cats. Occasionally, I told you I like to fill needs wherever I'm needed. So occasionally I will do kittens. It's rare, but it's usually like somebody found them and they're like, whatever. So I'll get them in and I'll take care of them and I'll feed them and I'll do all the things until. I'll ultimately foster them through our rescue and then send them to do adoptions with a partner rescue that we work with that's like a cat rescue. And even in those situations I've had kittens that came in practically feral that I spent time and energy befriending, and I want them to have the best life ever, like I and every one of these dogs. And I don't know about you but I know every time I get a dog back, especially a dog, that came out of like a situation. 'cause no matter how hard we work, no matter how diligent we are, no matter how meticulous we are, there's always gonna be that like 1% of douche baggery that somehow manages to evade us. And the dog still ends up in a crummy situation. It's rare, but it I've seen it a couple times in my career and I don't know about you, but every time it's happened, I've looked into the eyes of that dog and just felt awful. Like I was like, I made the wrong decision. This is because of me. And I know we're not supposed to think that way. And everybody's you can't think that way. But at the end of the day, that's how I feel. Well, every time I have a dog that's returned, every time I have the dog, especially a puppy that comes back with behavioral problems, I'm like, damn, I should have picked better. I'm so sorry buddy. I should have picked better.

Yeah, I totally understand that.

Yeah, it sucks. That's the one part that, and like only have to do euthanizations. 'cause we have this puppy hospice program that we started totally by accident. This thing came on and it's such a long story, but it's, we call it Griffin's legacy. We call it the Baby Shark program, and it's specifically for neurologic hospice, puppies. Okay. Like babies. And it is the hardest program. It is the most rewarding program. But I think when it comes to the downsides of rescue, like we have a couple of downsides, that's the one that's the worst. Anytime we have to euthanize anything, I feel like it's awful. Anytime something dies, I feel like that's the worst part. But I also feel like on the same level, having to look a dog in the face and know you failed them, that's something that like it, it falls. I don't know about you, but it falls in the same category for me.

Yeah, no, I agree. Before we end the call, what final message or advice do you have for our listeners regarding the animal welfare crisis?

Oh, God. Spay and neuter your animals. All of them. Train your dogs. Okay. Reach out for help if you need it before you get to the point where you need to rehome. One of the biggest things I say to my clients all the time is always is like my most disappointing thing is I wish you reached out sooner. Don't wait six months make the call, even if it's just to ask the questions. And I think, honestly, I think I can speak for an entire community of rescuers and trainers and whatever animal professionals. In saying we, we would rather have you ask too many questions. We'd rather have you reach out with something stupid that and send us a picture and are like, is this normal? Or, should I fix this? Or, we don't expect you to be a dog like expert, right? But we do expect you to have the common sense to reach out to the ones who are, and it's important to know that everybody in the rescue community right now needs to band together. We need to help each other in whatever way we can. Whether that's with information, whether it's with education, whether it's with, help with transport, whether it's somebody's got an extra foster. Maybe it's somebody has more resources than the other one right now and they can step in and help. Or maybe it's just, hey, a phone call for a plea for help. Right now, if you can't foster volunteer, if you can't volunteer, donate, if you got no money, share it. Just keep sharing because right now, the only way that the animal crisis is going to get better is if we all change. Like the communities have to change. The people have to change. The mentality has to change. If it doesn't change, it's never going to get any better. We're not gonna be able to un dig ourselves outta this one, like we're too far in it. It's gotta be something that like changes as a whole for us to be able to fix it, right? Or we just have to hold on for the next 10 years until everything finally writes itself and the adoption population goes back up again. And the finances, the financial world gets a little more stable or, that kind of thing. So. Be supportive, be kind just be nice. Please be kind to one another. And like I said, train your animals spay and neuter them. Take responsibility for them. Take accountability for them. Start working with them before they develop problems. Build the kind of dog you want instead of trying to correct it later. And always reach out and ask questions. Like I said, I don't think anybody's ever going to turn around and be like, no, we, or shun you because you asked if that behavior was a little weird and is it okay? That kind of thing. So, use the resources that are there for you and don't wait too long to use them.

It's a great message, and I would rather answer a question than take an animal back. That's the first thing that anybody should do is, even another rescue if you're having difficulty with something just. Reach out to somebody else and see they might be able to help you.

You'd be amazed. One thing that I've always found my whole life is the power of a phone call, right? Even if it's just a, Hey, I don't really know who I'm supposed to talk to about this, but I'm hoping somebody can give me some guidance. You'd be amazed the kind of response you're gonna get. There's never been a time that I've done that where I've never somehow gotten something that benefited me. Whether it was knowledge, whether it was the answer to a question, whether it was direction, whether it was whatever. It's make the phone call because that's another thing, like we don't ever call people anymore. And it's something I also tell, we work with teenagers too. And in the rescue and my teens, I tell them all the time, like, when you get into college, make friends with your professor, talk to people, call them. That's how you're gonna get your foot in the door with things like, and it's the same thing in animal rescue, right? Make the phone calls, ask the questions. You'd be shocked how many answers you're gonna get.

Thank you so much for joining me today, Ashley. I really enjoyed our conversation.

Yeah, thanks so much for having me. This was really fun.

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Paws in the night Claws in the fight Whiskers twitch and tails take flight They’re calling in Stories to spin From the wild to the heart within Broken wings and hopeful springs We’re the voices for these things animal posse hear the call. We stand together. Big and small Rescue tales We’ve got it all Animal posse Saving them all The vet’s got tips The rescuer’s grit The foster homes where love won’t quit From a pup in the rain to a bird in pain Every soul’s worth the strain Animal posse Hear the call We stand together Big and small Rescue tales We’ve got it all Animal posse Saving them all Every caller tells a tale, every howl a whispered wail, we rise up. We never fail. This is the bond The holy grail Animal posse Hear the call We stand together Big and small Rescue tales We’ve got it all Animal posse Saving them all Every caller tells a tale Every howl a whispered wail We rise up We never fail This is the bond The holy grail. Song by Suno.ai