Hi, and welcome to the Animal Welfare Junction. This is your host, Dr. G, and our music is written and produced by Mike Sullivan. We are almost there. This is Season One, State versus Stefan Baldwin, Episode

Ten, Escape from Ohio. In this episode, we're going to be doing a lot of jumping back and forth because there was just so much stuff. And to be perfectly clear, everything on this podcast is probably not even 3% of all the things that he did. It's just details to let people know about the different things that he was doing. So we are going to learn a little bit more about what he did as he was starting to go towards the end and eventually fled to LA, Fled to California. And then what happened after he got arrested while he was there.

as we know, as you can probably tell, Stefan was really about making money, right? It was about fame, money, getting some girls, and. Act was not really making him that much money. It was giving him notoriety. People knew who he was and he was getting more and more famous. He pulled these aggressive dogs from all over the place, but he was just not really monetizing much. So then that led him to start doing other things. Specifically he created an organization that was supposed to be a board and train called Save Them Dogs. With saving dogs. Her, his whole idea was that he was going to get paid by either rescue groups to send them animals that were deemed not. I say not adoptable. And then he was going to do his magic and he was going to make it so that these dogs could be placed in new homes. And then he even extended the service to offer it to people that had animals at home. Like they had their own pets that they could not manage and he was going to make them the perfect pet. But unfortunately, he's just not a good trainer. He's not a trainer at at all. Definitely not a behaviorist. So these ventures. Even though they made 'em money, they really did not bring in much success. Alright. Let's talk about Titan.

Okay. Some of these were just, when I would read them, it was just so shocking.

Right.

That, how could you, I mean, it, it was just, I couldn't even believe it.

I know. And, and it's like I say, like he was, he was really good at lying at about saying this happened and making it sound like matter of fact. Yes. And then you see all of the, all of the texts and all those things that were sent and shared. Yeah. And it's like, this never happened, you know, it was like Absolutely. Total. Yeah. Made up.

My husband got Titan when he lived in Oklahoma before he moved to Ohio. Um, he got in when he was in college. Him along Diesel. Um, I met Titan in 2013 when I met my husband. And up until right before I contacted Steffen, everything was great with him. He just, once I got pregnant, it just made him a little bit nervous, is all. Okay. So that was, was there an issue with Titan in your home after you got pregnant? I just knew that he would be comfortable not having all of the changes. He just liked it being us and there was, there was no issues. Um. I just knew, I mean, all I ever heard was these wonderful, marvelous things about asked Steffen and being able to help anxious dogs. So that's why I reached out to him.

Let, let's start by talking about the expected behavior changes that a dog undergoes when like an owner becomes pregnant.

Yeah, so I think, you know, I, I always felt dogs know a woman is pregnant before the woman knows they're pregnant. You know, they sense that, and it would be natural to see a dog again to change some of their behavior. So they might become more, uh, sort of protective of the, of the woman, uh, maybe positioning themselves in front of them. They might get a little bit barker when people pass by the house or act a little different when people come to the house. So it's not uncommon, but, you know, we really emphasize to do lots of, lots of trainers do sort of a baby preparation program. Um, and then oftentimes you have more people coming to the house and that can throw a dog off because everyone wants to come and visit the baby. So there's a lot of things that occur that create just a, a really tough time for dogs when a baby comes, the first baby at least.

Did Titan have a biting incident? He did. Um, when I dropped Titan off at my brother-in-law's house, um, we told him not to get in's face because he's just been acting a little bit nervous towards me when I'm pregnant. And now after researching, I know that dogs can sit, dogs can sense when you're pregnant and sometimes it just confuses them. Um, so we dropped him off there and we told him to don't get in his face. And Titan knows those people very well. I was in church and got a call that he nipped the girlfriend in the nose. And he had nipped me in the nose as well, and I'm trying to remember a decade ago, but I, I believe he nipped me in the nose when we left from picking him up from that incident. So that's when I reached out to Steffen and was given the whole deal of, it takes a while, there's a waiting list, it's a process. And I said We are willing to wait because he does not deserve to die. And we were willing to do whatever we needed to do to make sure that we put Titan in the most calm atmosphere that we could do for him.

So in, in this case, you know, they were concerned about the, the dog's behavior and the dog was becoming aggressive bit somebody and they made the difficult decision that they needed to place the dog to, to find training and that kind of stuff. And I can see it both ways. You know, it's like, for me personally, I take on the responsibility of having the dog. So the dog is forever, so I gotta figure it out. Yeah. But I also understand that we cannot put ourselves in danger and we cannot put our children in danger. Right. So I, you know, I'm not passing judgment on their decisions. Um, yeah. But then, you know, once step, once Steffen took over Titan, he made some really bad decisions. So from the report that you received, what were the things that he did that shouldn't have happened?

Well, so one of the first things that stood out was after he arrived at his at Stefan's place, just three days later, knowing this dog had a bite history, he took him to an adoption event. This was posted on Facebook. So you have a dog who has a bite history. Um, he just lost his home. He was already, you know, everything had changed in his world with a baby. He's lost his home. He is coming to this new place, and now I'm gonna take you in public to meet all these people at an adoption event. Um, right there, that's just, I, I can't even wrap my head around it, of what an individual would be thinking to take that dog and put them in that situation again, knowing there's a bite history. So we don't even know what truly, you know, motivated that bite. So that was number one. The, the thing that stood out, like, oh my gosh, there was no time to adjust for this dog. And we're, we're not even investigating what really did occur and what's this dog's behavior because just because somebody says, you know, well, my dog, there was a bite. Okay, but what actually happened with that? You know, was it specific to a person, specific to a trigger? There's clearly nothing established. Um, there was never anything established other than she had told him there was a sensitivity to the face. And then I think about adoption events. I've been at many of them. What do people do? They pet them on the head, pet them on the face, the cheeks, you know, everything. So that, yeah, that was definitely, um, a huge, huge concern. Um, they also, um, then I saw, you know, he introduced him to dogs within a week of being at the shelter. So. No time. You know, we've, because if you even thought the three days was decompression, you took him to an adoption event. So now that just throws everything off. And so now you're now putting this dog in another situation in which he's having to meet other dogs. Um, that, hmm, didn't, didn't look good. Um, I could find nothing that he found. And I mean, when I see dogs that have sensitivities to the face, my first thing is medical. WW is there, is there something medically wrong with the dog? Is there ears, teeth, something? You know, we need to get them to the vet and have a full exam.

Um, Stefan brought Titan into the hospital to have an examination to see if he had any kind of facial sensitivity, and from the exam we did not see anything. But the veterinarian that looked at him recommended putting him under sedation, doing a x-rays or a CT of his face and that kind of stuff. And that was never done, so. Oh, okay. You know, it's like, okay, the dog was touchy about his face. We don't know if it was pain or if it was, I mean, the dog had had snapped at people. Maybe he was getting beat on the face, you know, maybe he was getting hit. Right, absolutely. There's just different things. Exactly. So we don't know what, I know that there wasn't anything obvious, but nothing was, you know, research as far as Does he have sensitivity

Okay. I swear this is the one he placed,

he placed it in the house with the woman, with the little child.

Yes. So then in addition to that, because there was a bite to a child, he then puts the dog into a home with someone with a child. Uh, and these people were not equipped to handle a dog with this type of history. I mean, no owner to my, in my opinion as a, from a shelter perspective, if you have a dog with a bite history, this should never be, you don't send this dog out to a home in particular with one with a trigger expecting these people to be responsible for the behavior modification for this dog. Um, this is a dog that one should have had extensive medical, um, exams done, potentially, uh, you know, a, a veterinary behaviorist to see if this is something that is even safe, you know, safe for placement. But instead he set him up and put him in these situations that just caused this dog to have more episodes.

Yeah, and it's. We, we don't know exactly what happened with the bite, uh, if the, if the kid was even bit to begin with. Correct.

Right.

But one of the things that, that come to mind is that, you know, like with Remy, Lisa and Angelo are people that are experienced in dealing with dogs that need behavior modifications and need to work through all of these, figuring out triggers and that kind of stuff. Yes. So it's really irresponsible to just give this dog to. A foster, like a general foster person mm-hmm. That the dog needs worked with. And these people do not have any kind of training in how to deal with, with these situations.

Right. And that's, you know, we can't expect someone that has no experience to deal with a dog who has a potential aggression issue. They don't have the experience, they don't likely have the timing and the understanding of it. Not to their fault, but it's so irresponsible, you know, to, to think that someone else could just step in and do it. It's not, um, I can't see any good success, successful situations that come out of that. But yeah, I mean he, this was just a significant, this was just a normal pattern of what we saw was just placing these dogs into homes that were not suitable for them. Yeah. Just to get them out.

Yeah. Setting them up for failure to begin with and then blaming the people because Yes, that's another thing that we saw is he would constantly say, I have to go pick up so and so back because these people are idiots and they're not doing the proper decompression. They're not doing what I told them to do, even though he would just dump 'em and not tell them what to do. So it's not even like he gave them instructions and they didn't follow it. It was like, that's right. Touch

this

dog. Have fun.

Right. And there was an absolutely nothing given to these people to help them. And yeah. And I, uh, it's a pet peeve when I see shelters that just bash the adopters when it's like, well, wait, they're not, they're not, they're not meant to know.

What, if anything, did you say to Stephan about putting Titan down? What were your wishes about that? Please don't put him down. Um, and I was told that out of 250 cases, he's only ever put three dogs down. And I knew that my dog's case was mild, so it never even crossed my mind that that would be even remotely thought about. Did you sign anything about transferring ownership over of Titan over to Steffen Baldwin or Act Ohio? Absolutely not. What, if anything, did Steffen say about updates about Titan? He said that he would gimme updates and at some point in time he said that he likes to affect privacy of the people. He said I would do my best to give you updates, but I like to respect the privacy of the people that adopt the dog. I was just telling all sorts of people in rescue how excited I was that Stephan stepped up to help me and that he really wanted to help me and help my dog. Out of all the dogs in the world, my dog is on the way. His off the waiting list finally. I mean, it was like a huge accomplishment, I thought. Did you get correspondence or hear from him about Titan? On occasion, he would respond to me and then started to make me feel like I was a bother because. The text messages were either non existent or they, or the emails were non-existent, or it would be very short, like, I'm busy, but he's timid or something along those lines. It never was like he cared about the people that were dropping their animals off. Didn't ask. Like I, I felt like I dropped off a child and he never wanted to answer me. And then he told me he went to a foster family. And then he told me why I kept asking. He kept asking, he kept asking for updates. He told me that the foster was scared of him and returned him. Um, and then after that he told me that he's with another foster family and that they adopted, I asked for pictures and he even was far as to tell me he was gonna ask his new mom, um, for a picture. But that was after he was already dead. So I never got that picture. And so, do you know how long you asked Stepan Baldwin for information about Titan? Well, I know off and on for over a year. Um, but I remember a specific post I commented on Facebook. And I said, it's been over a year, please give me an update on my dog. And that's after repeated. I thought maybe posting on a public forum would make him realize that he hasn't responded to me, um, and multiple emails and text messages, and I never would get a response. How did you find out that Titan was dead? Mr. Conroy reached out to me and said, are you the owner of Titan? Can you give me a call? And I was freaking out. I mean, I have no idea what to think at this point. I, what my thoughts did don't really matter at this point, but I was like, oh my gosh, did Steffen start a dog fighting ring? Like I no idea what to even think, but I didn't, not one time did I think he wanted me to call because my dog was killed. Um, that's definitely not, so that crossed me. And did you have any information about when Titan was euthanized? Do you know, know when it happened? I, uh, I don't dunno the date in front of me, but in March of 2016, so he had my dog for less than two months. Did you ever see any posts on social media that have worked or trained or rehab Titan? No, not at all. Did you receive any texts or any emails, anything that would indicate that Steffen Baldwin ever worked with Titan about his issues? No, ma'am. Do you believe that, uh, Steffen Baldwin gave your dog a, a fair chance? Did Titan have a fair chance? No, he didn't have a fair chance.

Unfortunately in Titan's case, Titan ended up being euthanized. In the other case, those dogs were able to go back to their mom, but they, they definitely went back broken.

I followed him on social media for a while and then contacted him about, um, potentially training my dogs. I thought he was amazing. Um, he was doing amazing things with aggressive dogs. Um, and I was very hopeful that maybe he could help us. we have an 11-year-old English bulldog. Her name is Bella. We have a 10-year-old English bulldog. Her name is Lily. They had become, um, quite aggressive with each other. We adopted Bella in 2013, and at that time she was guesstimating around eight months old. And then we adopted Lily in, um, the spring of 2014, and she was just a puppy, and, um, they were completely like a, basically a inseparable until, um, the end of 2015. We did fostering for a bulldog rescue and at that time the rescue had asked us to bring in, um, a male. Bulldog, his name was Mo. He was five years old. So we did, um, bring him in to Foster and when we brought him in, we did what we always did with a gradual introduction. Um, the dogs, Bella and Lily separately were fine with Mo, but when we put the three of them together, Bella and Lily immediately started fighting and it just escalated from that point to the point where they could no longer be together. They're both, if they're not together, they're the most loving, gentle dogs you will ever meet in your life. They're little babies, but get 'em together and they just wanna fight each other.

what Lily and Bella are experiencing is something very similar to a condition, better known as sibling rivalry. So even though they were not litter mates, they were really close in age, both female. And once they reached that, social maturity, there is this aggression to determine who is like above in their hierarchy. So it is something that requires really, really intensive, like behavior modification. And unfortunately in a lot of cases you cannot get them to where they can coexist. Um. Calmly with each other. It is fairly common that these dogs end up having to be crate rotated, that the owners have to, you know, keep 'em separate, uh, spend time with them individually. And these dogs are often really, really sweet and nice with the owners and even with other dogs. It's just this particular dog that they have developed this aggression with they are going to have a problem moving forward.

It started, um, at the end of 2015, and when I contacted Stefan, it was, I believe July of 2016. Um, I think it was um, save Them Dog Training or something similar to that. I just contacted him directly. It was really bad. Between the two of 'em it was frightening. Um, it was awful. Ultimately I would've loved it if we could get back to where we were, but, um, at the end of the day, we just wanted to be able to have the dogs co-exist in a room together. Um, so that, 'cause you know, we were living our lives separately basically. 'cause we, you know, my husband would be with one dog, I would be with another. And so it would've been nice if we could have all been together. Um, so even if we couldn't get things exactly the way they were, we would've liked to have been able to coexist in a room together. The first thing he did was he did come to our house and, um, assessed the dogs and, um, ask a lot of questions and kind of got information on the dogs. I remember I, he did one visit, um, and then he came back and did a second visit. And at that time he, um, brought one of his training dogs with him, Bullwinkle, so he did two home visits like that. Um, and then after the second he said it was probably best to do. Um, some one-on-one training with them individually at his house. Ultimately we were real okay with that because we agreed that that's kind of what they needed.

And where was the one-on-one training going to take place?

At his home. We agreed upon $350 a week. He was just gonna work with the dogs. Um, initially it was kind of a let's, I'll take 'em and we'll see what happens. Um, but um, we were all optimistic that there could be some sort of resolution.

So Angela sends Lily first to go stay at Stefan for this. Basically what's considered board and train, which me personally, side note, I hate, board and train. like a good trainer, a good behaviorist trains you on how you should take care of your pet, not taking them away so you have no idea how things are progressing. And then as expected, she's sending him messages. She's asking how Lily is doing, and he is giving this A plus plus report. He is just basically talking about all the great things that he's doing and all the great things that Lily is doing, how well she is advancing with her behavior.

How's Lily tonight? Stefan said, oops, missed this. She's good. I'm going to do some leash walking with another dog slash trainer this afternoon. And I said, has she been able to be out of her cage much? And he said, oh yes. She's only in it when I'm gone. She has the kitchen and laundry room, which opens up to the backyard and that side yard. She's not in the crate. It's just an additional barrier to make sure the baby gate doesn't get pushed open into add space for safety, but still let them see each other into parentheses. I asked has she been aggressive at all? And he said as we transition, having her crate trained around might be a good thing for your house. Just to avoid those oops situations. She gets really excited. When my dogs get really excited, I wouldn't call any of it aggression though. And I said, okay, cool. Sounds like she's doing good. And he saw, I'm really proud of her and I said, yay.

One major red flag, and for her, I'm sure it's like hindsight is 2020. But a huge red flag was the fact that she wanted to go visit Lily and see how she was doing because she missed her. This is like her daughter, and he was thinking that that was not such a good idea.

I had asked one time early on if I could come visit her and he said it wouldn't be a good idea to come. To the house. Um, 'cause it may cause some regression for her. Um, and I had talked about maybe, um, 'cause at the time I was also doing some, um, teaching for the acute care program at Wright State and I was doing clinical site visits on students. And um, I had a student in Columbus and so I had mentioned, well, I'm gonna be in Columbus if you would want to, um, be willing to meet maybe somewhere just so I could see her because I mean, I missed her. And, um, I don't think that ever happened. I don't know. I don't remember why, if it was, why we didn't meet, but I don't think it ever happened.

This back and forth keeps going on for a few months. And then finally, it's time to swap out Lily for Bella, because Lily's training has gone fantastically well according to him. And so now it's time to give Bella the same type of training so that hopefully they can work on putting them together.

How did Lily come home? How did that happen?

We met in a parking lot in, um, I took her home

How did Lily transition back into your home?

She was a little different. She seemed, um, I guess I expected her to be super happy and excited is we, like we were for her to be home, but she seemed pretty withdrawn. And um, the one major thing I can kind of remember that sticks out is she had started, um, urinating in the house, um, even on our bed, which is multiple times, which is something she had never done before. Hey, I need some advice on Lilly. She's been, since she's been home, she's peed on my bed three times. She's never done that before. What the hell is going on with her? Why would she start doing all this all of a sudden? I can deal with a lot, but that's too much. And he said, who sleeps in your bed normally? And I said, him and her dog. And he said all.

So my primary concern when I have a dog, especially an adult dog that has never had urinary problems, that has not had accidents inside of the house, is always, let's rule out medical. Let's rule out if she has a urinary tract infection, if she has metabolic problem, diabetes, something like that, like something medical to which immediately Dr. Stefan says it's not medical, it's behavioral.

Lily needs to be created more if she's going to act out like that. I'm not sure why she's doing it unless it's to reclaim her house with Bella gone. But it is a behavioral choice she's making, because she knows not to, and it, it's not a medical issue. So her choices need to be limited until she can make the right ones.

The fact that he was so sure that it was behavioral lets me to believe that he understands this behavior is secondary to what has been going on in his home. So it can be secondary to undue stress and anxiety. Also, it can be due to being in a cage all the time, being in a crate, being in a filthy environment, potentially sitting in a crate and urinating on herself. So, you know, basically all of the potty training that they did to get her to where she was at, completely out the window.

He said, Shay's the most headstrong dog I've ever worked with. Haha. I think the best thing would be for me to pick Lily up and bring her here.

So after a few months of having Bella, now it's time for him to bring Lily over so that he can start working on the reintegration of the two of them. Now, one thing to consider is the fact that that would not be in their home, right? We want to make sure that they can be together in their home, that there are no stressors, no triggers. So he's going to do all of this work with them at his home in including the fact that there are all these other dogs that are gonna increase the level of anxiety and stress.

how did Lily settle in being back there? He said amazing. I said, have her and Bella seen each other? And he said, ha ha. Oh yeah. And I said, and question mark, was it bad? And he said, as expected, LOL.

Alright, so October 14th, 2016. What is your comment to them?

Hello? Have the girls kissed in, made up yet? How a girl can dream, right? He said, ha, ha, ha. They stare less intently at each other. Lily is doing better than Bella, but Lily had more training to. I'm still optimistic until you tell me otherwise. And I'm in it for as long as it takes. I picked up two extra overtime shifts a month from now until the end of the year. Just in case you need a little more time than expected. I just can't stand the thought of giving none of them up.

So we are at November 7th. Is it your belief based upon the text message that, that you've been receiving that the Lily and Bella are making progress?

Yes.

Did you actually get to spend time with one of the, one of the dogs?

He felt that it was not a good idea since they were making progress, um, to kind of bring me in the picture since I was one of the resources they were guarding. He said, I think they need a lot more of this together time. It gets better and better each time, but I also think that if I came over and set your house up, you could manage them safely and do the same work I'm doing now. This was the first day, there was no tension at all when I put them together, but I also exercise them first so they're nice and calm. I give them dog cannabis treats, totally legal and essential oils to help them calm their minds. Also, I did have to get the taser out once in the beginning. They both hate the sound and that aversive tool helps them make the right decisions when they see it out.

Yes,

you heard it right. He just acknowledged to the owner that he used a taster out on them enough that they hate the sound of this aversive tool. So he's aware that it's an aversive tool, but it makes them help the right decisions when they see it. I.

These are just two very stubborn dogs, and of course both bitches, I'll hate to say it, but hitting that button will stop them both in their tracks if they try to go at it. Just the noise. I only have to do it once with them. When I first started to bring them together, then one time I just had to motion towards it and Bella changed her mind. Haha.

Did the two dogs interact when they came back to your home?

At first they didn't. Um, Bella or, um, Stef had told us we needed to have them home and separate, um, until they kind of got used to being home and the smells of each other and just being home and settling in. And so we did. Um, and then after a while we did, um, he had told us that initially we should just put Cage. Put them in a cage in the same room, kind of how he was doing it.

So after having Bella and Lily back at their home for several weeks and doing all the steps that Stefan had said they needed to do to be able to reintegrate them, they decide to have Bella's on a leash. Walk her towards crate. And Angela is so excited about this reunion, this, this ability for them to kind of be civil with each other, with the safety of a crate that she recorded the interaction, she was hopeful that she was gonna be able to tell people, look how great my dogs are doing. Uh, we are going to hear the audio from this interaction and I wanna warn you, it is, it, it's bad.

Come on. Come on. Don't at the pool. No. Good girl. Bella. Lily. Come here, Lily. Good girl. Bella girl. Lily. Come on. Okay. No, put your on the seat. Oh. Oh. Come. Oh God.

This is just such dangerous and irresponsible behavior. He was not qualifying or trained or capable of dealing with a problem that quite honestly probably doesn't even have a a solution, but he gave them hope. He took their. Money. She had three jobs. She was taking on extra shifts to be able to pay him, for him to most likely just leave these dogs on a crate all day, not doing anything. And in the end, Lily got hurt and her husband got hurt. He required surgery, she required, um, veterinary care. So it's just so ridiculous the, the harm that he caused to people and their animals. And of course, directing blame, it's because she did not get the taser.

He said, were they able to stop with a verbal correction? I said, Nope. And he said, do you have the taser? I said, no, I didn't order that until last week, and it won't be here until January 3rd. I do have their shock collars that I could put on them and use the vibration and noise and just not shock them. Uh, I, oh, see, they know you don't have the upper hand for now. I'd say yes until it gets here. I don't know if the vibrations will be enough, but they do need to know that you have an aversive tool to stop them from fighting. At what point do you actually use it? Did either of them get the, get the experience of it, meaning the zap? He said the sound. For sure. I never had to touch a dog with it, but that red zone they get into can't happen. It jogs their memory and the old behavior starts right up again. It's far better to do all positive training, but have the quickest aversive tool to stop them from losing their shit the second they start to get into that mode. Then them knowing you have that upper hand checks them.

So this is a lie, right? Because she is flat out asking, did you use the taster on them? And he said that he never actually used it, that he didn't touch him with it. But before he did say that he just used them. The one time used it the one time. And then after that, just hearing the sound that would make him run away. A dog is not just going to hear the sound of the, of the taster or the vibration and immediately know that this thing is going to send all these vaults of electricity through me. So just him trying to all of a sudden say, well, no, I don't use it, but you have to have an aversive with you. That makes absolutely no sense.

What was the cost of the training for them?

It was $350 a week, so I think it was a little over $5,000 maybe. Roughly I had to work a lot. I picked up, you know, I had the three jobs and then I also picked, just picked up extra at my work whenever I was able to. I was disappointed. I don't feel like we, um, got the results that we were led to believe were happening.

You have heard a lot about, he wanted to be on a show, he wanted to be on Animal Planet, and some of that was actually correct. There was back in 2014. We met with a producer and she made kind of like a quick intro about the work that we were doing. Basically showcasing what he was doing on the field and then how I was taking care of the animals afterwards. And it was really nice and she was very excited. But something came along. He got a hold of a producer at Lionsgate and Lionsgate, you know, to him that was so much better than this other production company that was doing smaller shows to him, Lionsgate was the road to fame, so he ditched this other person and then went with Lionsgate to look into it and went as far as recording a pilot.

I wanna say he was getting contacted in May, just based off of things he had stated. So prior to that, he was having people reach out to him to write for the Huffington Post. Now they wrote, they read what he wrote. Now they wanna do a TV show on him. Eight production companies offered him contracts. He signed at least four, I think five, but at least four contracts to do shows with production companies of which three were pitched to Animal Planet. And I believe one was pitched in that Geo. And I always used to wonder like, what if he really got that show?

Now, originally he had said again that they were going to primarily be discussing about the work that we were doing, but he didn't. Again, that was not enough for him. So he went and sought out other individuals that were higher profile. You know, he, he went after Gordon Shell, he went after Katie Nelson, and all of a sudden this show takes a completely different direction. And for the pilot, he takes Lion's gate on trips that involve sneaking into people's. Um, like suspected animal abuse location and then spying on them with drones, which is not legal. You have to have a warrant for that. So that right there would've just completely destroyed this. We have discussed about the death of his ex-girlfriend, Shelby Grabor, and. He, he blamed a lot of his bad decisions on how sad he was about her death. However, on the day that she passed, um, I sent him a text saying that, you know, if I was really sorry about the loss of his friend, he did not reply for a couple hours, and then his reply was like, Hey, I am hanging out with the Lionsgate people and we're coming to the, your clinic. Looking back, I think about all the things that happened and I question myself about. How did I not see things? But then when I look at the timeline, everything happened in such a short period of time. Everything was really, really fast. And if you recall with our, uh, interview with Maya Badham she said that these people are really good and they just accelerate these relationships with people, whether it be romantic or business relationships. Everything just moves really, really, really quick. And it's like. You just don't know even know what hit you. So in the middle of all of these things happening, he comes to me and talks about how he fundraised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the Union County Humane Society, which we've heard that that was not correct. Um, and he says about doing this event called the Art of Act. The Art of Act was going to be a gala, a dinner that he was going to invite all of these big funders, donors, and there was going to be an art gallery. We were gonna talk about the different things that we were doing, and then we were going to make all of this money.

And

you served on the fundraising committee. What did, do you remember any of the event events that you were involved in? Sure. Um, probably the biggest one was the Art of Act. Um, then there was a pedal with your pooch. There was actually two of those. We started working on a second Art of Act. Um, and we also, uh, participated in Wag Fest, which is a, a festival for dogs in, uh, Columbus.

Okay. So let's talk just briefly about the Art of Act and it's a RT of act. Mm-hmm. Play on words. Yes. Okay, so tell me what was the art of that?

So we, we had a pretty good group of people, um, that reached out to artists in the community to have them contribute, um, a piece of art. It was, we had photographers, we had sculptors, we had, uh, painters, we had all kinds of different types of art that were contributed. Um, and then we auctioned those off. And we also had, I wanna say like 60 or so gift baskets of different kinds of things that had been donated. Um, it was a high, high end dinner, um, and, uh, really nice evening event for people that might be, might be more interested in contributing on the long term.

He was expecting at least $50,000, but probably more. And then the way that things were supposed to be done was that the funds were supposed to be split. 50% was supposed to go to act. 50% was supposed to go to Rascal Charities. And what was exciting to me was that we had already spent a lot of money from Rascal Charities doing these projects that had not gone anywhere. So that was going to be able to replenish our funds and allow us to continue doing more work. And then his 50% hopefully, was going to just go towards this bill because he was up to about $20,000 that he owed us. Soon as there, after he started the planning process, he immediately said, Hey, we already have $10,000 towards the Art of Act and expenses should not be more than $2,500. So right there, you know, we were looking at quite a bit, and later the same day he text back and he says, we're up to $12,500. So right now, just off the bat, we're at $5,000 for each organization with, which for us, was huge. He just continued to tell us about all the sponsors, all the people that donating, how the venue was covered, everything was taken care of. The ART of ACT was actually very successful event. There were a lot of people, everybody seemed to have fun. We were able to discuss about, you know, the things that we were doing for animal welfare, but as expected, he never really had any interest in splitting the funds.

Do you have any idea, Nancy, what approximately how much money was netted from the art of that?

It was around 16,000. And if you recall what was supposed to be done. With those funds. The, those funds were supposed to be split between operating costs for ACT and, uh, rascal Animal Hospital, where ACT had a pretty good bill. And if you know, to the best of your knowledge, did Rascal Charity, rascal Animal Hospital, rascal Charities, did they receive half of those funds? Not to my knowledge, no.

So first it was we have $10,000 each. Then it was, we have $8,000 each. Then it was like, well, actually. We only have about $2,000, and then there was just basically nothing. So he brought $2,000 to pay towards his bill and he said that was from the events fund. So that's when I realized that he had no intention of giving Rascal charities any actual funds. He was just gonna use the Rascal Charities money towards his bill, and then the rest of the money he was gonna kept. That summer, he just blew the money off. There are texts between him and his girlfriend saying that he couldn't believe that the money was already gone. He didn't know how it disappeared that quickly, that he needed to pay our bills. He needed to pay other bills, and he had no money left. At this point, my manager, Nikki, had a sit down with him and said, you cannot bring anything else here. Like your bill is too high. You owe us too too much money and you need to make a payment. And his response to her was that he didn't think that he had to pay the bill because all those animals were being used towards the show that we were planning on. Like what? There. There was never talk about that. And let's think about the fact that some of the bill was his own personal dogs. He was bringing his own dogs and putting them under the ACT account, so he was trying to get off from this whole bill by saying that we had discussed that it was towards the show. Thankfully, Nikki's no pushover, so Nikki went ahead and told them that's not it. We are not gonna let you, uh, build more on this account and you need to get stuff paid. Seeing how all this money from ACT was just kind of disappearing. That's when it just really hit me that, you know, he was lying about all the things that he could do with animals, because I could see that he was just not really. The dog whisperer that he touted himself to be. But then money was disappearing and we we're not talking about, you know, a lunch here and there, we're talking about tens of thousands of dollars. So at that point, I reached out to my accountant and I said that I wanted to look into it because I wanted to know if he was lying to the IRS, if he was committing fraud. So he started looking into it. He realized that there were huge discrepancies between what Act Ohio was submitting to the Attorney General and the filings to the IRS. Um, so we, we thought that he was using ACT Money for himself, and this just gave us that information that perhaps he was.

we had known he had stolen, you know, had not paid you the money that he had owed you from the Art of Act. So we knew that, you know, so. That was like $16,000. So, you know, there's a lot of money there right off the bat from the first thing that we're told about. And then you had also mentioned that he had done other fundraisers with you and you had never been paid on any of 'em, which is true. Which then I would come to find out, there was like six, six fundraisers he ran with, uh, act Ohio and Rascal and Charities. And you guys never received a dime from any of 'em. He kept it all, uh, even so much as the one where you guys did the uh, uh, hoarding case. Uh, and a year later he publicized that on a GoFundMe and brought in a couple thousand dollars from it and, and just didn't share.

If you were involved in an investigation, you're not going to let the person that you're investigating know what's happening. So at that point, even though we were limiting our services to him, I didn't wanna completely cut ties because I needed to get more information. I needed him to feel that we were still friends to a certain extent. The next part of the story takes us back to the beginning, which is Remy's story. So Stefan shows up, comes in through the front door, and tells the receptionist that. He has this dog that is a vicious dog and has to be euthanized because he killed another dog, but because he is, he has a dangerous dog license, he cannot bring him in through the front door, so he wants to bring him in through the back so he is shown to the back. He tells me about the, the story about it, and I remember seeing some stuff online about how he had a dangerous dog license because of a couple of incidents in the Trumbull county dog Pound, but I honestly did not know much more about it. So he tells me, you know, the dog unfortunately killed another dog. And because he's a vicious dog, he has to be euthanized. So, uh, we sedated Remy. He was euthanized and, and then even though he says about how sad he was, how upset he was and about Remy and about his girlfriend and everything else. That was not his attitude that day. He was just like business as usual. We were in the process of receiving a ct. We had purchased this CT scan machine that was going to be really helpful, both for our patients and then also for forensic cases. But unfortunately, we were short. We were short about $18,000. So the company, because it was towards the end of the year, because this was December 28th. They wanted to to process the sale before the end of the year. So they went ahead and provided the machine, like delivered the machine, but they would not install it until the payment was completed. So this is all happening while Stephanie is there and he sees it and he says, Hey, would I be out of your shit list if I help you secure the $18,000 that you need? And I was like, sure. So he immediately tells me, okay, I'm gonna call Christine Tortorella from the Tortorella Foundation because they should be able to help.

want to talk to you about a CT scanner. Are you aware of a CAT scanner associated with Rascal Animal Hospital?

Yes, I am.

Okay.

I explained to Ms. Tortorella, you know, this is a $250,000 machines. They required a deposit. We had most of the deposit. We were just short $18,000. And she said that she could not give one group $18,000 because that's a lot of money.

what was she writing to you about?

Well, she's writing to me about our offer to help them purchase the CT scans so that they could get it to work. And she served low income patients and so we. The conversation is, can we, if we, we bring it up, you know, into your office by pt, that's, we'll give you 10,000 rent for, but shoot, we talked about the, uh, that, that another eight would either come back to us for our then profit, or it would, we would arrange for it to go someplace for a nonprofit.

$8,000 she would give us as a loan to pay back within six months so that then she could reappropriate it to another group. And that was perfect because six months, yes, absolutely we can pay you two, $8,000 back. She was very excited about helping us. We were super excited because we were gonna be able to get this CT machine and everything was like, great, right? No. Why? Because Stefan was involved. So that was that conversation, that three-way call. Had been the last time that I had spoken, the, the one and only time that I had spoken to her, because he never gave me her contact information. So March 28th, right? We started this in December 28th, March 28th, the company that sold us the CT scan. Was, you know, gave us an ultimatum and said, you're gonna have to return the unit, which was gonna cost us money. We were gonna lose the deposit that we had made. So he finally texted me to call, uh, Ms. Tortorella directly, and he said that he had just spent an hour talking to her and that he could not get anywhere with her. So he, you know, I, that at that point I needed to talk to her, which is what I wanted to do from the beginning. So. I call Ms. Tortorella and she says something to me completely different to what Stefan had said. So she says that she told Stefan that I had to fill an application, which he never told me. So that had never been done. Because an application was not filled, the board was not going to approve and they were not gonna release funds. But furthermore, Stefan said that the money that she was going to be releasing was going to go to pay the ACT account. And the fund foundation said that they don't do that. They don't, they don't pay back bills.

So our foundation has a grant application process that helps us, you know, do the best we can to serve what we do. So she, I did thank her for giving us the information we needed to facilitate the grant. And granted this size is, you know, substantial for us. So what I was trying to say is I know there was the $18,000 balance on that CT scanner and they needed it. So I thought, well, okay, let's get that taken care. But, but we wanted actual grant they would keep, as a grant is a 10,000. So we were, I wanted to make sure, well, I said for low income veterinarian services would be. A, a compliment and that's what we ended up agree, agreeing on.

So Chris, if I understood you, 10, $10,000 of the $18,000 went to Rascal Charities, correct? Yeah. Yes. The other 8,000, where did, where did those funds go?

Well, initially it went to pay. So they could get the CT scanner in and get it working. But I said, that's a larger grant. So that 8,000 through Rascals in our agreement needed to go to another one. 'cause that's a larger grant that we generally give, so she agreed, they got the scanner in and then we agreed that Save Ohio Pets was, uh, really helping functioning, um, productive low income services. And so we. She that ended up helping the spay and neuter at their, their, um, events to promote, to serve low income community and Columbus.

And so we're talking about the organization that worked in partnership with Rascal was state Ohio Pets?

Yes.

Okay.

Very good.

So. I explained to her, yes, during our three-way conversation, she made it clear that $10,000 was going towards services for low income and rescue animals through Rascal Charities. And the other 8,000 was a loan that we had to pay back. And she was so thankful because he was totally gaslighting her. She, he had her second guessing herself that she had said that when she never did so. We got everything sorted out. She gave me the information for filling the application. I filled the application and then within, I wanna say a week to 10 days, we had the funds. But in the end, the reason we had not received the money. Was because Stefan was trying to get them to use all the money to pay his bill, and he was just not being truthful to either side. And you know, if he keeps us from talking to each other, we're never gonna figure it out. So he did a really good job for three months of keeping us from being able to discuss things.

And, and again, one of those people that he was blessed to have supporting him, you know, and as I had talked about, you know, earlier that he had so many good people behind him that he could have done great things for, with, with the support that he had. And he, and he chose to do things like that. You know, he tried to scam her and get. Half of that money, like $8,000 or 10,000 to pay his bill, you know, while the other, you know, eight or 10 went to, you know, your grants or, or, or towards the pay. Uh, your, and that was the holdup. And I did interview, uh, Christine Tortorella. And, uh, and you know, one of the things she told me that, uh, that really stands out is that, you know, she said that for the first time he pulled that mask off and she saw what was really behind, you know, what he was putting out there on social. And that was not, you know, what she saw. She believes to be the real person and that he was very angry and screaming at her. And, uh, you know, you would probably have to ask her, but the conversation went something to the effect of, you know, I thought you cared about animals and that, you know, you were doing this because you wanted to make a difference, uh, you know, in animals, the animal world. And he screamed at her, why the hell would I do this if I'm not getting anything out of it? And then she was so taken aback by that. Um, and then that, that was it at that point, you know, she was done with him as well.

For us, this was basically like seal the deal. After this, it was obvious that I was not really going to be talking to him anymore. So there were a handful of texts that I replied that he, he sent me and I replied after that. He brought a couple of dogs afterwards, but. He never reached out to me prior to bringing them in like he did before. He was just bringing them in as a regular client for a regular urgent care. If you remember from the first episode when we were, um, talking with tsa Kargakos, she started setting out social media posts and putting out rewards, asking for information about Remy, and this is what got Detective Conroy involved. He started looking into it and he reached out to Stefan at one point, and if Stefan had replied and given him a reasonable excuse as to what happened and what, why he did what he did, he may have even dropped it But because of Stefan's deception, he started looking more and more and more into it. And that's why our second episode is called The Rabbit Hole, because he just kept going. Into it and finding more things and more things and more things and more things until he eventually was able to make a case. However, there was so much stuff that it was just never ending. So during this period of time, Stefan realizes that he's under investigation. Somebody's finally going to figure out all of the scams that he's running, and then he decides to pick up and leave for California, the man that. Says that his son is the most important thing for him. Decided that going to California and starting over without his son was the most important thing to him. So that right there to, to the people that knew what was happening, that was clear that he was just trying to run away and he almost got away, uh, before he was able to be searched.

at the end of the night when we were done with the search, now we're, we're tired. This is like two in the morning now. And, uh, and we were in the, uh, the, one of the bays of the inside of the garage at the sheriff's department. And then, so we walked up to him and his attorney and said, you know, do you wanna, you know, you wanna sit down and talk? And, uh, uh, his attorney said, I gave my client the advice, and, and, and Baldwin said the place of my attorney, I, you know, I'm not gonna answer any questions. And then, uh, so we, uh, he, uh, attorney gave us the information of, you know, his address of where he was going, gave us his phone number, and, um, that was it. He was free to go. And he asked if he was free to go and we're like, yeah, he's free to go. And, uh, I believe in the next morning, on February 8th, and he then left, uh, for California.

So what does he do? He goes to California and literally starts the whole thing all over again, except now he's doing save them dogs, right? He has this ranch that somebody paid for him. He has all these animals. He starts making new contacts with different humane organizations, both local and huge humane organizations, like even national Humane organizations such as Best Friends. So he has everybody believing that he can save the, save these dogs and do so much well for him. But as expected, everything started going exactly the same way. He started taking animals in, having them euthanized. He had some really serious cases where volunteers that he was taking in who had very little experience with animals, got very seriously injured by these dogs, like hospitalization, broken bones, just really horrible things that should have never happened. That only happened because of his irresponsibility. So he basically goes to California and does exactly the same thing, but there is so much stuff and we don't have the time to go through all of that stuff. That would be a seasonal all in itself. So we are just going to talk about Andy. Andy was the feral dog that he had taken in from Ohio. He took it all the way to California and he took Andy just because, again, Andy had a big following, but another group that specialized in so-called feral dogs was going to take Andy, and he immediately came in and undercut him and took her, and poor Andy. Thankfully she's still with us, but she went through a really hard time because. He couldn't handle her and she had all sorts of health issues. So to talk about Andy, we are going to be talking to the actual trainer who is also now her owner. She adopted her about Andy's story.

I'm Cheri Lucas, and I'm the founder and president of Second Chance at Love Humane Society in Templeton, California. That's in, on the central coast of California. I'm also a dog behaviorist. Um, so that's what I do for a living, but my heart is in my rescue. Um, and we've been around for about 36 years. We've rescued and placed over 5,000 dogs in that time. We're all volunteer, run. Um, no, no breed in that we would turn away. We would just basically pull dogs that are on the euthanasia list in southern California, um, at different shelters in Southern California.

What kind of behavior issues do you work with more, more frequently?

I would say the, the primary thing that, that I see is dogs that are unsocialized, um, dogs that are, have been just either on the streets or thrown in the backyard of somebody and never interacted with, and as a result, they have. Severe social deficits with people. They're terrified of them. Um, a lot of them are horrible with people, but they're, they're really good with other dogs because those are their people pretty much. That's who they've hung out with. Um, so I deal with, there's a lot of that in California where there's just dogs roaming even in packs, which a lot of people don't. They don't think of California that way. But we have a lot of rural areas that are. Are like that, and they just, they just live, um, like, like wild packs. It's crazy. Sometimes when they're really old, they'll dump them. So I deal with a lot of that where I try to build up a dog's confidence and I socialize them with other people. I deal with a lot of dog reactivity, dog aggression, aggression towards people or with other dogs. And, and, and I'll do basic, just obedient stuff as well. But my heart is kind of in the undersocialized. Dogs is the ones that need the most help and that are the hardest to turn around.

How did you first hear about Andy?

I was contacted by, um, live love, um, rescue out of Long Beach, and they were an integral part of the rescue when they closed down the, the whole, um. You know, facility, if you wanna call it that, where there were like, I think like 200 dogs or something. And don't quote me on that, I'm not sure how many dogs were up there, but there were a lot of dogs and they couldn't get her, they were having trouble trapping her because she was so terrified of people they couldn't get her on the leash. Um, she had been, um, put in a, in a pen that had nothing in it, just like. Bales of pay and a doghouse and no interaction with people for, I believe it was seven years. And so she had no social, uh, skills with people at all. So they had four of those dogs left. All the others had been pulled and put into different rescues. Um, and she was one of the last ones. So they asked me if I could help her because they knew there's no way she could go directly into a home. She'd never make it. They, um, they trapped her in the, you know, the kindness traps that they do and they brought her up to me, uh, in that for initially for rehabilitation, not for me to keep, but for me to rehabilitate.

What was your initial observation of Andy? What did you think about her condition when you first met her?

She was in the worst condition of any dog I've ever taken in. She was. Severely overweight. Apparently, from what I've been told, she was just like thrown a bowl of food every day and just, you know, a huge bowl of food and just ate, and no, she had no medical care whatsoever. She was not spayed, which was amazing to me because she was supposedly in rescue for. Years and years. I know in this one facility, I think for seven years, she was never spayed. She looked like she had had multiple litters of, of dogs, she had hair. It was unbelievable the amount of hair she, she had just lumps and, um, huge masses of hair everywhere. She had an opened. Uh, cyst on top of her head that was oozing. Um, she had horrible, um, something, uh, like another mass inside of her nose that I wasn't even aware of until I had her go in for her spay and the bet checked it out and found another mass in her nasal cavity. Fortunately, they were both benign. Um, so she was in awful condition and she could, you know, was really, really difficult to handle her. She was just terrified.

What was her overall like? Mental and behavioral state?

Just scared of everything. Um, like when I put a leash on her, I had to basically las over her. I couldn't just walk over to her to, you know, to get her, I had to kind of corner her in my yard and. You know, it was terrible because you don't wanna instill more fear in them, but if you can't get, you know, get hands on with them, you can't help them. So I finally got a leash on her, and then she flailed around and, and just like alligator rolled. And, uh, it was clear that she'd never had a leash on before. Um, so she was very, very afraid. But I, one thing I did notice about her right away is that she was very curious about my pack. Um, and I was told. That she was dog aggressive, that, that, that's why they could never place her, that she was human and dog aggressive, which was an absolute joke. She was anything but that. Um, so I gradually introduced her to my pack and she was flawless. They, you know, basically she's just a super neutral dog with other dogs. She has no issues with them. So she integrated really beautifully with my pack, and that's where I saw her finally come alive.

Did she ever act. Aggressive towards you, like even when she was still trying to get used to you and getting leash and, and flailing and stuff. Was she trying to be aggressive of what or did is, was that everything just like fear-based?

Never. I never saw one, to this day, I've never seen one drop of aggressive behavior from her towards me or towards another dog, or towards anybody, even at the vet as, as difficult of a time that she had at the vet. She had to be sedated for them to really look at her. But it's not because they, she was gonna try to bite them. They just couldn't keep her still. So they gave her twilight sedation so they could, you know, check her out thoroughly. And they ended up having to shave her completely, uh, down to the skin because of the amount of mats on, on her body. But, um, even my vet, I remember him saying, you know, this dog is, there's no way this dog is ever gonna bite anybody there. She, all she wanted to do was get away. That's all she wanted.

How did you start and how quickly or slow did things move?

Well, my pack was responsible for the majority of the rehabilitation. If I didn't have a pack of balanced dogs, I wouldn't have been able to do what I did with her. But I, you know, she began to trust me because of the other dogs. And I, I have, I do a lot of, um. What's called place work where I get cots and I line them up along one, one fence line in my yard. And I teach dogs that if they go to place, that they're left alone. That's basically like an anchor spot for a dog and. You know, I teach people to do it in their home and in their yards and, and everything. And so she saw my dogs doing it, and so she gradually started going over there herself and picking out a cot, um, to lay on, and that she would lay with some of the other dogs and on the same cot, and that's how she began to trust me. And then I, I didn't push on her. You know, I, that's one of the things people really have a tendency to do with these fearful dogs is they try to negotiate with them for love and they. Push and they, you know, basically, well, they'll put their hand out for the dog to smell and it just basically scares the dog even more. Or they talk in, in a, you know, baby talk to them. They, they do anything to try to get the dog to come around. And it's kind of the same for people. If people don't feel social at a, for example, at a social event, um. And they just, they don't feel like mingling with other people. Then going over and putting social pressure on them is, is just gonna make them wanna leave the, the event, it's not gonna turn them around. And it was the same, you know, it's a grueling long process to get a dog to feel comfortable around people when they've never, um, been around people. You know, she was out in a field for years and then she was in a, in a pen for years. And, um, so that, you know, there's, that's what's called and there's, there's an imprint made. On dogs when they're certain, like from nine to 12 weeks, and then again at seven to nine months where whatever happens or doesn't happen to them during that period of time becomes a permanent memory for the dog. So it's very, very hard to turn around. It can be modified, which it has been, but she's never going to be the kind of dog that wanna come over and and get in your lap.

So you said that you know, she, she was demonstrating curiosity about you and kind of understanding that you were a safe human. How long did it take before she let you, like, touch her and interact with her?

Well, I could touch her, um, the first year she was here, but I had to, she had to be, you know, seated or laying down, um, where she felt safe. She, I had a funny situation in my house where I have, inside my house and my kitchen, I have, uh, dog beds, bolstered dog beds that are lined up in my kitchen on the other side of my kitchen so that I could be in there cooking and my dogs can lay on their beds. And she really wanted to be in with the pack. I'm sure she was more drawn. To the pack than she was to me back then. But I also had a, a treadmill, a doggy treadmill lined up against the wall, you know, next to the pillows, but against the wall. And that was her place, that's where she liked. She didn't get on the pillow, she got on the treadmill. It was so funny. And she just, she was comfortable there. And then she could kind of keep an eye out for anything. She thought might threaten her, but I would open the door and boom she was in. So that was it. But it probably took nearly a year for that to happen. It's a very long process, and I'm saying nearly a year before she came, wanted to come in on her own without any, you know, any help from me.

Yeah, I imagine, you know, I see dogs that. As you, as you said, you, they get used to you and they, they accept your, almost like they accept your existence, but they're never what most people would think of as a pet, right? Like the dog that comes to you and wants to go out for a walk and brings you the leash and, and that kind of stuff. And, and, and I mean, it's important to understand what the dog's needs are so that then we can still have 'em have a good quality of life within the boundaries of what's okay for them, right? Right.

And, and that's why I ended up adopting her because I, I knew there was no way, no one was gonna be drawn to a dog that they couldn't touch, um, and, and couldn't get near. And I also didn't wanna traumatize her anymore. She'd been through enough changes and I don't think she would've been happy anywhere else where she, she didn't have multiple dogs. To coexist with. I don't think she would've been, I know she wouldn't be happy 'cause that's her whole life is other dogs. She loves them. And, and even though she's almost 15, she still plays, she'll still go out and, and play and jump around with the other, with the other dogs, you know, at little. Slower pace than she used to, but she's super healthy. She demand barks, which that started about a year ago. She never did that before. But now if I'm late with lunch, she lets me now. You know, she'll stand there and look at me and bark like, okay, Andy, you know. So the, those are all new behaviors, but most people don't have the patience to take on a dog that they don't, they don't quote unquote get anything from, you know, they want a dog that's more interactive with them that can, they can love and cuddle on.

In your opinion, how detrimental was it that she went from being an outdoor feral dog and then he went into Stephan's organization? He was allowing her to be with dogs that were dog reactive and then she was being isolated and not really worked with.

Yeah. Um, it must have been pure hell for her. It was everything that she didn't want was to be secluded

It, it makes me think of when we think about like the five core freedoms for animals, one of them is freedom of expression. Right? Freedom. Freedom for them to express themselves in the best way that they want to, right? And that's kind of, you know, what he took away from her. Was she one of the you she was lacking in in a lot of things. 'cause she wasn't being fed properly and she wasn't given proper veterinary care and that kind of stuff, but she wasn't even allowed to be the dog that she needed to be.

Yeah. And, and to not spay her is absolutely baffling to me that you could have a dog that long that you transported clearly, you know, totally across the country, and never had that taken care of in Ohio. Never had that taken care of in California for all those years, is absolutely mind blowing to me. I, I just, it's just everything he did to her was abusive, everything, and she just lived in hell. All those years and, you know, I'm so, I'm so glad she's doing so well and she's lived with me since 2020 now. So she's had five years of living a life that she could have never, she would've probably been dead by now if she had continued to be there. Um, but she's got all of her needs met and I, and I let her be who she wants to be. You know, I don't, I don't try to put her in a mold that she has no way of getting into. It's, it's very gratifying for me to know that she's gonna live out her life happy, you know, and, and not just for like six months to a year, which is what I, when I first got her, she was just in such poor condition. And when she had that mass. On her head and then the one on her nose, I was more concerned about when they took that out and biopsied. It was quite a sur you can imagine what she went through being spayed and having a mass removed from her nasal cavity and her head at the same time. So she was, it was a pretty brutal surgery that she had to recover from. But when they sent the biopsy in and I was certain it was gonna come back, you know, because of her age. I mean, she was almost 10 when I got her. And, you know, so, so poorly cared for. I just assumed it was gonna come back malignant, but it didn't. Um, I was blown away, but I initially thought, well, I'll take this poor dog and give her a year of life or whatever. However long left, you know, however long she has left, and she's striving and it's been five years now. So, uh, and I have her blood work done, you know, twice a month. She's perfectly healthy. She doesn't need any pain medication. She's, she loves her food, she loves her people, she loves her dogs. So I'm, I'm glad I got to be, you know, I only, I had her for a year before I, I said to the, the other rescue that had given her to me initially for rehab. I said, she's not going anywhere. This is her home. She deserves to be here. So.

It takes a whole three years to get this case. Put everything together, go over all the charges, have the detective meet with the prosecutors in Union County to discuss all of the different things. There were lots and lots and lots of charges, and they had to go through everything and see what are the things that we can prove? What are the things that are worth taking to trial? One of the things that Stefan talks about is that they threw everything in the kitchen sink just to see what would stick. No, no. These are the things that they felt that would stick, and as we will find out, most of them did stick.