Welcome to Animal Posse, the podcast dedicated to the people and rescues making a difference in the lives of animals. Joining us today is Ashley Gardenier, an animal rescuer and dog trainer. Welcome, Ashley. Thank you for coming on the show.

You're welcome.

I'm excited to talk about your dog training and also your animal rescue, Southern Paws Inc.

Yeah. I'm super stoked. It's really great to be here. Where do you wanna start?

I wanna get into how dog training can help to keep dogs in homes, but before we get into that, I would like to know a little bit more about you. If you could tell me a little bit about your background, how you came to start Southern Paws Inc, and also Oh, okay. How you got involved in dog training.

Okay. So, let's see. I am almost 40 and I started Southern Paws, we're about to hit 11 years. I have been in animal rescue now going on 13 years. And honestly it started I had gotten into volunteering with a wildlife organization and they had these connections to an organization in Louisiana called the Humane Society of Louisiana. And since Katrina, and they had been trying to help them get lower preventatives, like lower cost preventatives and helping them pay for heart worm treatments and stuff like this. And the Humane Society had actually. Come through and had nominated us for thank yous pretty much like an achievement award, right? And a thank you. They were honoring us at this gala and I think I was like 25, 26 at the time. And the owner of the organization was like, do you wanna go to New Orleans for a week? And I was like yes I do. 25, 26 me was like yes. Put me in the car, let's go. And that was how I got my first glimpse of dog rescue and things like, that was my first transport I ever did. And when I was down there I really got to see like firsthand what people were experiencing in rescue in the South and just how different it was. Like, it was just a big culture shock. So. After that I came home and I just couldn't sleep at night. I was having a really hard time and I just really felt like I needed to do something. And at the time they were really struggling with dogs that needed heart worm treatments. And I connected back with my mentor. She actually has since passed away. Her name is Johnna. And I said to her like, Hey, I have this idea, like what if we started this sponsorship program? And that's how the heartworm sponsorship program was born. And we ended up treating like 80 dogs in the course of three or four months. And then that kind of snowballed because they had this hoarding case that they had worked and Johnna needed somebody to come down and help with transport. And it was something I had always been like, oh yeah, I'll help with that. That sounds cool. And I ended up going down and did my first transport and then it just snowballed, right? Johnna was telling me a lot about just how northern organizations at the time, and this is going back 12 years now. Were really taking advantage of the southern organizations where they were getting all of these animals like fully vetted and like ready to be adopted. The southern organizations that were really in these like very rural like poverty stricken areas that didn't have the type of money that we had up here were like putting everything they had into these transports. They were able to run them like once or twice a year, and they'd come up, they'd give them these jobs, and then the rescues up here would turn around and adopt 'em out for three, $400 a piece. And I said they were trying to get like this transport program up and running, and I said, all right, well what if we adopted a couple of dogs off the truck to pay for the trip? Could then, could you like do more? And they were like, yeah. So that's how it got started. And after I would say like a year and a half, I really was just like, I had no time and I was running out of money and I was like I really gotta do something here. So I went to them and I said, listen, hey, like I either have to start taking a paycheck or I have to get like a real job. And they said, okay, well what about, a commission? And I was like, okay, fine. And I got my first paycheck and I deposited in the bank and opened up Southern Paws. And now our organization, it's a very small organization, but it has this massive reach. We have all kinds of different programs. One of our main focuses is helping to support our sister organizations that we work with. We do still work with Humane Side of Louisiana. One of the board members there has also started Mississippi Animal Project, which has been our primary rescue for years. But we've worked with other rescues in Mississippi, Louisiana. We've started spay and neuter programs that give back to the community down there. We started disaster relief through the 2016 floods in Louisiana, in Livingston and our partners down there in assisting them, that's how our disaster relief program was born. And, it just snowballed. We have our facility up here, which is not a shelter. We're a rescue based organization. But we have our facility specifically for transport holds. So when dogs come up, they stay with us for 24, 48 hours. I make sure they've made it through transport. Okay. They get groomed, they get medicated. They get looked at by vet techs and staff members and making sure that they came through everything. Okay. If anybody needs to go to the vet, they go to the vet, we do quite a bit of pre-adoption, which means they're preselected before they even come to the state of New Jersey. And then we also have now transitioned with the animal welfare crisis. We've really started to transition into more foster based stuff and working like I would say the big theme for the last two years has just been like adaptability. And that's where. The Northern Spay and neuter program was born. We have Spay it Forward and then we also have the training center now that we opened in September. I figured that after all of this time working with dogs, I mean I've seen all of the things, right? I have two trained therapy dogs that I went through training with myself. I've worked with pretty much every behavioral case in the rescue. I have a great support system when it comes to a training network of people that I really trust and whose opinions I valued so highly. And I had just seen like a lot of things. And I had worked in through disaster relief. I had also worked in different shelters, I've also worked in the field and had to work with dogs that were terrified, in dangerous situations. And I just figured Hey, I have this whole situation. We had always said we wanted to have a training center, I just felt that training was just so important about keeping dogs in their homes and when I didn't expect the upstairs of my building to become available so quickly. So like the timeline was very fast. I was like, oh, well, yeah, I guess we're gonna do this. And luckily during COVID I had this kind of dream that I wanted to branch out and do more and like eventually have some sort of eventually have some sort of like a property where I could do training and we could have training and we could have rescue and we could have adoptions and we could have boarding, and all these things. So during COVID we call it the puppy boom, everybody was adopting. I was smart enough to at least put money away for that purpose. And when the time presented itself, I was like it's too good of an opportunity to pass up. Let's do it. I'll get my training certification so that I can at least say, I finally have a piece of paper that says I can do what I've been doing for the last, 12 years. But now I have a piece of paper that says so, and it was really cool 'cause it gave me the opportunity to really understand the like the evolution of dog training as well as a lot of the principals, but you don't necessarily know the principals or like how they come about and like the psychology of dogs and that kind of thing. So I know it sounds long, but it's actually like a quick snapshot. It's just we do so much that, even when you had reached out to me, you were like, well what do you do? And I was like, well, we do a little bit of everything. Anytime we see a need, we try to fill it and go from there.

That is a lot, but it gives us a lot to talk about, so that's good. One thing that I wanna talk about, 'cause I hear about it, but I'm from the south. I've been in animal rescue here forever. What we have going on here is a normal thing for me because this is the only place that I have ever lived. I am used to multiple kitten seasons. Like I understand that. Oh yeah. We have nonstop kitten seasons here and other areas are fortunate enough not to, but explain what you mean by the culture shock in animal rescue here.

Well, so Dixie, where are you guys?

I'm in Louisiana, in New Orleans.

Okay.

Yeah. And Oh, okay,

okay. Yeah,

yeah. I'm familiar with Humane Society of Louisiana, so, I know, you know a lot of people there.

We still work with them and we still do a lot of work with Livingston. Dog people of Livingston Parish Lanelle, who runs the fix. The big clinics there. I don't know if you know about that in Livingston.

No, I did not.

Anyway, yeah, this is like totally off topic, but yes. I love Louisiana. I feel like there's a part of me that just is always home there. I don't know if you've ever felt that, like when you go outta state and you have that one state, you just fall in love so much with, and you always feel like a part of you is always out there. That's my Louisiana, new Orleans is my favorite city but yeah, and I will say we're seeing a little bit more of it now because of the animal welfare crisis that's been going on in the us. But when I first started, first of all, we don't have dogs that are outside. Like we, nobody has outside dogs in Northern New Jersey, New York, like tri-state area. They don't like, if people's dogs are outside, they get the police called. Animal control gets called. It's just not a thing. We do have cats that like, I know like my neighbor's got a cat that's an indoor outdoor cat. And we do have feral cats. We do have issues in this area specifically with like cats in general. Like we do have a pretty solid kitten season. There's actually a rescue I work with that's 20 minutes from me 'cause we don't do cats. And they've really done an amazing job focusing on spay and neuter and they're finally starting to see some results, but they've been doing it for 10 years. It's crazy but everybody here is a house pet. That's the first thing. We also all have fenced in yards, or we keep our dogs on leashes. Nobody's animals really run wild. And again, if you see a loose dog, like you call like the police department or animal control, and you're like, Hey, there's a dog, and I think that to me was huge. I remember driving around down the road the first time I was in either Louisiana or Mississippi. And I was with Johnna my mentor and I'm driving their brand new transport van, and I'm giggling because it was just such a funny experience. But I'm driving and there's a dog that goes darting into the middle of the highway and I immediately slammed on the brakes, pull over, and she looks at me and she's what are you doing? I was like, I gotta go get that dog. There's a loose dog in Jersey, like we see a loose dog. I got a leash in the car. We got treats. Like the whole neighborhood is trying to get it. Like we have dog trappers specifically up here to find people's loose dogs. And I just remember her looking at me and be like, you can't go take that dog. And I was like, what do you mean? She was like that's somebody's dog. I was like, that's not somebody's dog. It's running in the middle of the highway. I almost just ran it over and she's like, Ashley, you can't go take that dog. So, that was really big. I remember going to the the property the first time and there were like 80 dogs on the property that all had heartworm. And this was like the first time I had ever even heard of heartworm, aside from the fact that oh, hey, we give our dog a pill once a month to prevent it. But I don't think any anybody, 90% of us up here, really have, unless you're in rescue and you're familiar with it because of rescue. The average person has no idea what that is. So it was also my first time with that. And I remember looking at one of the members of the team and being like, well, what's the deal? And she was like, oh. She's you see that row of dogs back there? Yeah, they all have heartworm. And I was like, okay. What does that mean? And they were like, well, we gotta get 'em treated. And I was like, well, what happens if you don't get 'em treated? And she's oh, they die. And I was like, I'm sorry, what? No. She was like, yeah. She was like, we're gonna treat them, but we have to get the money to do it. At this point, we're just trying to keep 'em comfortable until we can get enough money to treat them. And I was just like, I just remember like my mouth being on the floor and just being like, that doesn't happen here. That would never happen here. Like never, there's just never a world that we would live in the Northeast where like the population wouldn't rally of humans wouldn't, rally together and help these dogs. It was just baffling to me. So those are the things, that we see, under that I saw that, understanding the overpopulation problem, I was somebody who was always like, not really understanding of the shelter system, right? I remember saying to Johnna well, why can't the shelter just take them? And her trying to explain to me, open intake shelters and how they have a commitment to the public that they have to take things in, and how that ultimately leads to the overpopulation issue, which leads to the high euthanization rates, which again, up here, our euthanization rates are not anywhere near what they are down by you guys. So, yeah, so I guess that's, those are some of the things that, we, I really saw firsthand on that first experience that made me be like, somebody needs to do something about this. And then I was like, oh, I guess I miss somebody.

Yeah. It is crazy how it is here because, I will say too the way people look at spay neuter here. It isn't like an educational thing. It isn't an economical thing. I know plenty professionals that don't believe in spay neuter or just don't even know about spay neuter, which to me it's absurd because, every animal that we've had has always been spayed or neutered. But here, I don't know what it is, there's plenty of people that can afford to get it done that don't get it done, and there's plenty intelligent people that still don't get it done. So I don't really understand, how you can even reach people more here to get 'em on board with doing it.

So our biggest issue here is definitely the financial portion of it. Like I'm about to blow your mind right now. An average spay and neuter in where, in Bergen County, New Jersey is going to run you anywhere from 800 to $2,300.

Wow.

Yeah. So we run a low cost spay and neuter program and our low cost, which really is not really that low cost. It's way better than that. But our low cost program runs you 250-450 I think it is. So. And that's considered low cost here. So that's one of those needs in our community that we've been trying to really give, like break into and try and provide a solution for. And it started actually in Louisiana during COVID. I was really just feeling frustrated that the population numbers were, everybody's getting adopted, we were moving everybody out, but the numbers weren't dropping. And I said, we have these finances rolling in from adoption fees and like donors, we had big donors back then that, we weren't in the same like financial crisis that we're in now, but we had a lot, we had a lot more money then. And I said, it would be really cool if we could develop a program to give back. To the communities that we've been working with, for so long. And Mississippi Animal Project had a voucher program. Humane Society, Louisiana had a small voucher program and it was actually another rescue in Louisiana. Walking in the Sun, Mindy Defender, I think is her last name. She actually, and I were talking one night just girl chat, like gossiping and like whatever, and complaining about, being an animal rescue. And she had said something about this one neighborhood and I said to her, I'll tell you what, if you can get some people to donate spay neuter to that area up to 10, I will match them. She was like, really? And I was like, yeah. And we started this really cool, spay neuter task force. There ended up being like 13 different organizations that all jumped on the bandwagon in the middle of COVID. And we did t-shirt fundraisers, we did all this stuff and we ended up spay neutering, like 60 animals just through, they would find people that would match them. We would find people that would match us. Like we ended up all doing, 60 animals. We had, Tito's got involved, vodka for dog. People love them. They donated money to the task force, like we were able to do, I think it was like 60 dogs. I think we did when all was said and done, which I guess doesn't seem like a lot, but really it was. If you look at the numbers of the procreation numbers, but up here we don't really, everybody up here wants to spay and neuter their animals. It's very bizarre here. If we get an app and there's an animal in the home that's not spayed and neuter, we're like, okay, is it a medical issue? There are areas, there are pockets of areas in and around where we are, where it's less common. And those areas are definitely areas where the socioeconomical they're poorer areas. I'm trying to say this a different way to make it sound nicer, but that's the truth. It's the poorer areas up here that we do see more of it. Another program we have is we do shelter revamps. I'm a hazmat technician. So I'll go in and from a disease control standpoint, go in and try to get a shelter that's super sick, try to implement protocols and deep clean and show everybody the appropriate ways to clean and what to do. And we actually had a shelter right by us and they hired me for three months to do a contract there. And there is one area and like they're still struggling with it. Every single thing that comes outta that area in New York, it's right over the border into New York. Everything that comes outta that area is not spayed or neutered. There's another area that's about a half hour from us. Anything that comes outta that area is not spay and neutered. And there are definitely areas that are like less wealthy. I don't know if that has anything to do with it, but I do think that it's more common in the poorer communities. And I do think there needs to be more outreach. I think there needs to be more education. I think that there needs to be more spay and neuter, and I think that there are people in these areas that would want to do it, but at the end of the day, they can either feed their children or get their dog spay and neutered. What would you choose?

I don't see that here because the parish that I'm in, we have very low cost, like spay neuter or cats options.

Yeah.

We have free spay neuter for feral cats, and there's specific breeds of dogs that are very low cost. And then there's other low cost programs for dogs. Some of the low cost ones, I'm gonna say are probably like $60. I do cat rescue, so I could be a little bit off on that. But the crazy thing, like specifically too with the cats is we have it in this parish where it is free. If you have a feral cat in the trap, it is free. And we still struggle here with trying to get people to get them in to go get 'em spayed and neutered.

I'm so jealous.

Yeah, so jealous. It's crazy. So, like I said here, it's not quite what I would say, an economical thing because I know people that can well afford to just go to a regular vet and get it done and they just won't go get it done. And then like I said, with the free programs, it's still hard to get people to go get it done.

That's wild. Yeah, that's wild. We don't have that up here and I think that's different. That's a big difference between north and south. But I also think that's a lot of why the population up here is so much less than the population down south. Like our overpopulation is still probably only a quarter of what yours is. We're seeing a lot more now because we had so many animals come up during COVID that like a lot, I would say nine out 10 dogs that are ending up in the shelters right now up here are from the South. I do have some issues with these organizations that have no fallback plan that are located out of state and they come up and they do these like adoptions with random people in the northern states and then they like leave and go home. And if it doesn't work out, the dog has nowhere to go because there's no like northern partner. So that's something that I don't really love. We see a lot of that up here. We also are seeing a lot of, like the puppy mills that are now bringing vehicles full of puppies that are sick and broken and, just these poor puppies and dogs and they're just passing them out up here like they're selling them for $1,800. You go to a gas station and you collect all of these dogs, and they're not real rescues. They're dogs. That definitely came from really bad breeding situations. Backyard breeders puppy mills, you name it. And animal control is trying to cut down on them, but they're not located here. So it's like, how do you cut down on that when they're not here? They drop the dogs and then they like leave.

Right.

So that's another thing that we're now seeing that's becoming a big overpopulation causing our area to overpopulate. We're not seeing the overpopulation, I don't think for necessarily the same reasons so much as you guys are like, yeah, we still have the I don't want, we have the BS surrenders and the this and the that. Like we still have a lot of that. But I would say our overpopulation is now becoming more of a problem here because of dogs coming outta the south now. I don't think that we shouldn't help dogs from the south. I think that we should just be responsible about it. I still get a lot of my dogs from the south and I love helping, being able to help out wherever we can, whenever we can for whatever we need to. But that's something else that like, I would say is a big difference. Our overpopulation rates and our euthanasia rates here. Are very low compared to the south. And that's what one of the big things that I constantly tell people. 'cause everybody's well, why don't you help dogs here? And I'm like, I do help dogs here. But when our euthanasia rates start to match the ones in Louisiana, Texas Oklahoma, Mississippi, when Kentucky, West Virginia, when we start to reach those levels, then you can talk to me about not pulling outta the south. But we haven't reached that. We are very lucky and I really think that spay and neuter and neuter has a big impact on that.

Yeah. You're fortunate that that many people are pro spay neuter where you are. With all these dogs coming in, like you said, from these backyard breeders and puppy mills, and as well as these transports coming up from the south, does that affect your adoptions?

Yes and no. So when I say this, these are not responsible rescuers that I'm talking about. Like I know a lot of responsible rescuers who do transports up north like every week. I've been doing this for a long time. That's been like our main source of getting dogs. So I wanna be very clear that I'm not talking about responsible rescuers who are doing transport to the Northeast with receiving partners and, that kind of thing. I think that there is definitely a need for puppies that we don't typically have a lot of puppies here that are available. I hate to say this 'cause it makes it sound like it's a t-shirt store, but it is a business at the end of the day when it comes to the nonprofit and the rescue, there is a supply and demand. And my thought process is, if. We don't have a lot of puppies and we need puppies and you guys need to move puppies, that works. Little fru dogs do a lot better here. Like they go faster. So yes. If there's not a lot of them locally, then yeah, I think that getting them from the south is definitely beneficial. The problem I have is with organizations that are brokers ultimately that are posing as rescues. Some of them didn't even get their 5 0 1 C3. But there's a couple of them that, like we know of that animal control has been trying desperately to cut down. And they go and they either breed 'em in the backyard, they know backyard breeders that they're getting them from, they're going to puppy mill auctions. That's a big one. And they're ultimately brokers, like they're puppy store brokers. That's what they are. And then they pose as rescues and they bring 'em up, here. Then, so in that regard, yes, because if I can go as, as a adopter, right? And I can go pay $1,500 and somebody is telling me this dog is quote unquote rescued, why? And I can get a pure breed, multi poo from them. Why am I gonna come to Southern Paws and get like a little hound, pity puppy,

right?

So that's where we see the issue. The other issue is when these dogs get up here, whether they're from rescues, they're either from rescues who don't necessarily have a fallback plan for them up here, we will see a lot of organizations from the south come up. There's not like a receiving rescue. And that's what I mean by responsible. Like they're just doing random adoptions and they don't have a rescue that they're partnering with, so that if that adoption doesn't work out, the dog has somewhere to go. So is that influencing us here? Yeah, it definitely is because now that dog doesn't work out, the rescue is in Texas. There's no way to get the dog back to Texas. So now the dog ends up in a shelter here and takes away our space that we have for our local animals that need a place to go.

How are surrenders since you did bring that subject up on people that might adopt a dog from these people that are just randomly driving it up and decide they don't want the dog anymore. How are your adoption returns in general? Because I knew here it seems to be, at a high right now.

Knock on wood, my return rate is still less than like 3%. But I am also a psychopath when it comes to my adopters. Like I am very picky to the point where the, probably the biggest complaint is that I scare everybody. And at the end of the day, if they're still interested in the dog, then maybe they can have it. I am a jerk like that and I pride myself on it. Like I am a very real person. I tell everybody all the time, I'm like, you are really nice and my job is to find a good, perfect match for you. But at the end of the day, my responsibility my priority is not you. My priority is this dog. So it's really nice that you've had a hundred dogs and you've never had to do training, and all of them have been circus pets and they're fantastic and blah, blah blah. But I have a really specific criteria for the things that you're gonna need to do with any of my dogs for the first year. And if you're not gonna do them, i'm sure you're a great home, but you can't have one of my dogs. So my return rate is still less than 3%. However, our foster program is like overwhelmed, so overwhelmed from trying to help out with local surrenders, helping out our local shelters. Last week I pulled two dogs from our local Rockland shelter, one of which is a diabetic like disaster. He's the best and I love him. His name is Remy, and he is completely emaciated and was like a diabetic mess. He finally made it through his first night without wetting his diaper, which was huge. And he's finally stabilizing on his insulin after a week. Then I have two dogs right now that I'm desperately trying to pull out animal control. I pulled one a couple weeks ago from them. I tried to get my adult dogs locally from them. We are just so overwhelmed everywhere. The other day, it was like before one o'clock, I had six calls from people trying to surrender dogs. And they're not my dogs, so I can't say the returns are bad in my organization. But I can say that surrenders are so bad. Like today I got a call from somebody in Pennsylvania, not even locally in Pennsylvania. He somehow heard about me from somebody and heard about my organization, and he has two deaf and blind white boxers that he would like to rehome.

Why?

I didn't even call him back. Every day is like this. I could read you, I have visual voicemail. I could literally read you every single one in my inbox for like my voicemail inbox for the last four days is just surrender requests after surrender requests. It's disgusting. Yeah. And it is the animal welfare crisis that we are all in right now during COVID. I have theories on this, like the animal welfare crisis to me during COVID. And I remember one night sitting here, it was like midnight and I was on the phone, like gossiping with Jess, my one partner. And we said this was gonna happen. She was like, this is coming. And it's gonna be bad. And to be honest, that's why I stockpiled money because I knew that this was gonna come and I'm so grateful that I did because we wouldn't have survived this last two years without the money that we put away during COVID. We had the puppy boom during COVID, and during the puppy boom, everybody's big concern was like, what's gonna happen when everybody goes back to work? That's, at least in my area, like that was a big thing. Everybody's getting these dogs and what's gonna happen when they go back to work? 90% of these returns are not, at least the ones that like, or I shouldn't say returns, I should say surrenders. Everybody that's calling me wanting to return surrender their dog. It's not because of their work schedule, surprisingly enough. Like it's because they're behaviorally awful. Because, they're ultimately COVID children. Okay. They were never properly worked with, they were never properly socialized. And now they have aggression issues, they have they have anxiety disorders. You name it, they've got it and that's why they wanna return the dog. We are seeing a lot of people that can't afford to keep their dogs. Our economy right now is trash. People are having to downsize. They're having to move. When you move the place you're moving to. Personally I'm currently looking for rentals right now for myself. I have three dogs where and I've been looking now for three months now. Luckily, I'm okay where I am. Like I could stay here forever if I wanted to, but at the end of the day, I can't find a rental. So I'm like, okay, so now what do you do? Now you're losing your home, so what are you gonna do? Or you really have no money, you can barely afford to feed your kids. How are you gonna feed your dog? So we're dealing with that. That's a big portion of the rescue crisis. Yes. Do we have the people that are like, oh, I just feel like I don't have enough time for my dog. Yeah, we do. I feel like they're few and far between than the other ones. The other thing that's contributing is during COVID, everybody that wanted a dog got one. So our adoption pool right now is so small because everybody got one. So these are either the kids that are now coming up that were, in high school during COVID that are like early twenties, that kind of thing. They're now looking to adopt. So we have that population. We also have the people that want a second dog, right? Like most of my adopters are actually returning adopters for their second pup. So that's another element. And this is probably not something I should say to the public, but I'm gonna say it. We live in a generation where nobody is accountable for anything. Everything is everybody else's problem and people are lazy. Nobody wants to put the time, the effort, the money. Or anything when they can dump the dog off somewhere else. And that's the culture we live in. I say all the time, the only way we're getting out of this animal welfare crisis, like everybody's got a band together, now the population has to start helping themselves. And that's actually where the training center was born. 'cause I was like, all right, we gotta start doing something to help the people that are actually willing to put the time and the energy into doing it. So that's what led into training. And everybody that calls me and all of these calls, I say to them like, can you foster? Everybody wants me to help. Can you help this dog? Can you help this dog? Can you help this dog? But nobody wants to foster the dog. Nobody wants to help us pay for the dog. Nobody wants to buy food for the dog. Where are we supposed to put them?

We see that here too. I know from my personal experience we have a lot of the people here that are, oh, I don't have time anymore. For a dog it's a little bit different than it is for a cat. A cat is absolutely fine if you go to work all day. In fact, your cat probably is get out the house and leave me alone. I just like to tolerate you when you come home 'cause that's just how cats are. But here it's like a lot of people are like, well, I just don't have time. So they're reaching out to rescues and what aggravates me about it is a lot of these people don't realize what a rescue is actually for. A rescue is not for you getting out of your responsibility. A rescue is there for the dire situations. And those things that just come up unexpectedly. Like something like a hospitalization, a death in the family or something like that. But it's not for people. That are just like, I wanna just get rid of my dog or my cat today 'cause I don't have time.

Yeah. Yeah. And we see that. And in that moment, have you seen that meme that's like circling, that says something about your dog would much rather lay on their couch all day in the air conditioning like, than be, in a shelter or something like that. Have you seen that meme? That's how I feel about that. And I say that to people and I, everybody that calls me that I do talk to that doesn't like just get our voicemail. 'cause at this point I've stopped calling them back because I don't have the mental capacity to be polite anymore to sometimes. So if I do happen to answer and they do say it, I explain it to them and I say, Hey, listen, you are trying to rehome your animal in the absolute worst time. Let me tell you about the animal welfare crisis. And I educate them and I'm like, honestly, the best thing you can do for this dog right now is go find a trainer. Train your dog. Okay, get a dog walker. Go to doggy daycare. Or, I hate to say it, but sitting at home in the air conditioning is a lot better than being in a shelter and then being euthanized for space.

We've reached all the time that we have for today's episode, so we're gonna cut the conversation short, but I will be back next week with the conclusion of the conversation that I had with Ashley and we're gonna get in more into talking about the dog training. So I hope you can join us next week If you are enjoying our show, please consider leaving us a donation. A hundred percent goes to our animals.

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