Welcome to Animal Posse, the podcast dedicated to the people and rescues making a difference in the lives of animals. Today's guest is Bill Barse. He is the founder and director of DoggoneExpress. com. Hi, Bill. How are you today?

Well, I'm fine Dixie and you happy new year.

Happy new year to you. I'm great Not Looking forward to this weather though

it'll come and it'll go

so can you give us a brief bio on yourself?

Sure I was born and raised for the most part in Massachusetts In New England and went to college in Ohio. I was studying pre med to be a veterinarian, and then I had an accident playing ice hockey which eliminated my career as a veterinarian, and I lived in the Washington, D. C. area up until the year after Katrina hit down here, and during Katrina and Rita My brother and his family and all their pets came to stay with me in Maryland, and they tried to convince me to leave what I had up there and where I'd lived for 22 years to come to Louisiana and be a real estate commercial industrial broker. That was my background, and I agreed eventually to do that, and I came down here one year to the day after Katrina and Rita hit. Yeah. And worked as a commercial industrial real estate broker, primarily for offshore companies with heavy industrial land and some commercial strip shopping centers that we're trying to rebuild and reestablish themselves. But during that time, I also. continued my work with shelters, animal shelters and befriended and got very close to helping the Humane Society of Louisiana as an investigator for situations that may not be very desirable for animals. And somehow, some way, I found out that there was so many dogs primarily canines here, struggling after Katrina, and there weren't enough adoptions, and many of the rescues really needed a way to get the dogs up north where they could be adopted, so I took some of my earnings and bought five, four, five double tandem wheel homes. enclosed trailers and had them retrofitted with insulation and air conditioning and I lent them to different rescues that would drive anywhere from 15 maybe to 20 25 dogs up north to be adopted. I did not do the transports. But I lent out the equipment and the generators and they just had to bring back. The trailers cleaned out and gas and the generator and I just provided that equipment for free. And to make a long story short, at one adoption event, I was introduced to a woman's daughter who was like 13 or 14 as the man who transported all these dogs up north for adoption. And I said, well, that's not actually what I do. I provide the equipment and the young girl said, well, what's the name of your business? And I said, well, my business is I'm a real estate broker, but I just do the transport equipment. For those organizations and need it. And she said, well, you don't have a name. And I said, no, I just do what they know who to call. And she goes, oh, okay, well, I'll get you a name. And I said, okay. And I didn't pay too much attention to it. But about three to four months later, I'm at another adoption event on the West Bank of New Orleans. And the mother of that child saw me. And she says, oh my gosh, I gotta get my daughter Catherine. And I said, Oh, and I really didn't remember her or her daughter, but her daughter came out of the Petco store where we were doing an adoption with the Plaquemines Animal Welfare Society, and she goes, Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. Stay here. Don't go anywhere. I got something in my car. So she went into the parking lot. She came back. I'm going to call it an artist portfolio. It's like a large, like a leather or maybe vinyl case where people put the artwork that they carry around all their flats and nothing framed, but just pieces of paper that, you know, had art or things on it. And she says, I came up with a name for your business. And I'm going, excuse me, what are you talking about? She said, Yeah, I told you I'd come up with a name because you take dogs and you get them sent quickly up north to be adopted. And I go, Yeah, I do. But I don't do it. My equipment doesn't. She says, Well, the name of your business should be DoggoneExpress. And in all fairness and all sincerity at that time, the hair on my arms went up. And I just thought that was a name that I thought it was pretty unique and clever and so I said, you know what, I would like to buy that name from you and she said no, it's free. It's free. And she says, Oh look what I drew. And she pulled out a picture of a dog that didn't have feet but had wheels, which we've now branded as our logo called speed dog. So I convinced her mother to allow me to give her a check for 150 for the exclusive rights for dog on express. And speed dog, which we have as I speak today over the course of being with DoggoneExpress I tried to find ways to help shelters get more dogs adopted down here along with dogs being exported up north. And the people I talked to would say, yeah, I'd love to adopt the dog, but I just don't have time to train it or whatever. And these were shelter dogs. So we really didn't know their background or their history. So I guess I went online one night and I looked up dog training and whatever and I found that there was a Dominican nun who lived in Wisconsin, Sister Pauline Quinn, who started the first inmate dog training program for shelter dogs in the state of Washington at a women's prison. And I thought, oh, that's clever. That's a good thing for not only the dogs, but for the inmates, you know, and the Department of Corrections. So I contacted her and ended up, she called me back and she said, well, we'll sell you our program. We have it in operations successfully in five prisons in California and the state of Washington. So I ended up giving them money to acquire the program called Pathways to Hope, which became our program. And my senior vice president and our attorney who's on our board, the Honorable Judge Diane Lundeen and I approached and had a meeting with the Secretary James LeBlanc of the Department of the Public safety and corrections in Louisiana and proposed to Secretary LeBlanc free of charge that we would provide some inmate training for a general obedience for dogs out of shelters and the agreement, which became the memorandum of understanding that was signed by the Department of Corrections and by Doggone Express gave us The segue or the lead in to both a women's prison in Saint Gabriel and into a men's prison and Angie Louisiana called Rayburn. Now, 13 years later, we are starting. Programs in four different prisons over and beyond the one that's been in existence for 13 years. And we also have along with from the big house to your house. And that's what we call the inmate prison programs and dogs that from that are primarily service dogs and emotional support animals that are needed and utilized by a lot of veterans and quite a few families where they may have a child who has a spectrum of autism and for people who have physical challenges, whether they can't bend over, they may be confined to a wheelchair. And we train dogs That come from shelters to do specific task, and they do qualify under the American Disabilities Act section two and three as service dogs. So we've had a great success with that. As of the end of last year, we had placed over 770 dogs were. in shelters and or pulled from shelters, which means shelters if they become overpopulated and they have animal control that normally they just go down a list for the dogs that have been there the longest. And they are euthanized. It's unfortunate. It's a sad commentary on our society. We definitely need to have more spay and neuter laws. But in the meantime, we pull as many dogs from shelters. And from rescues who pull from shelters and run these dogs through our programs. We don't sell the dogs. We ask a recipient and that is somebody who would get a service dog from our big house to your house program to donate. 150. That basically helps us offset our insurance, our gasoline, our transportation, you know, Our veterinarian bills and dog food, all of which we have to provide. The Department of Correction does not provide any of that. So the donation is tax deductible, and it's not a requirement, but it is something that we need. And, you know, advertises we're seeking that donation to help continue the program. We have another program called Companions for Life and Companions for Life is where we offer veterans who have a DD 214 or discharge papers or sometimes active military who are being treated for any number of physical as well as psychological. Challenges, whether it be PTSD, anxiety, depression or they may have some prosthetic devices that encumber their ability to cope in our society. So we provide some canine training for these veterans. And it's getting ready to restart because we had a slowdown due to covid and due to funding. And we also had to have a facility in Jefferson Parish that was ADA compliant, which has now been completed. So in Harahan, we will. Offer free dog training to any veteran, male or female, for whatever reason, once a week, and then we will also provide them a YouTube channel password, where if they can't attend the training in person, they can actually go to any number of our courses that we will offer through a YouTube channel. And then once a month, we hope to do live broadcast for anybody who is involved in the Companions for Life program so they can watch and possibly interact with their laptops, their computers, or their smartphones as we are demonstrating a specific skill or training technique or proper animal care, which includes heartworm prevention, making sure their nails are not too long, making sure that their ears are cleaned of mites and basic grooming, all of which are. Very important for proper canine care. So, that's what we've got going on. We are also proposing to construct some sea container kennels. We don't have a project name for it other than the sea container kennels. Where we take a 40 foot sea container. And we modify it so we can house up to 10 dogs in the stainless steel kennels on the inside, climate controlled, with a 6 foot by 10 foot exterior chain link run, covered. on the outside. And these sea containers can be offered to shelters that need more space. But they also could be sent to parishes that have nothing in terms of any type of containment or shelter for canines and any number of the 30 parishes that have absolutely nothing in the state of Louisiana for canines. So over and beyond that, I personally am a deputy with the Washington Parish Sheriff's Department and I handle animal issues. So if there is animals that have been abandoned, mistreated, abused be it livestock. cattle, horses, goats, pigs, chickens and or canines and cats. And we've had in one situation a hamster. It's not a happy story, but I did get a call from a deputy one night. When he did a welfare check on an individual who had been sick and the individual had passed away within the last week and nobody knew it, and they didn't know what to do with the hamster that was in a cage, so I told him, bring it into the station and I would rehome the hamster, either with a school or we would find a good home for the hamster, so. Doesn't make any difference what the size is. I don't re home fish and I don't really get actively involved in wildlife even though I do get calls about coyotes and Bear sightings because we have those in the Mount Hermon, Washington Parish area. Other than that, I take care of 8 horses, 3 donkeys, 1 pony, 2 cats, and presently where I am at the Humane Society Sanctuary in Mount Hermon. We have 10 dogs, 5 of which are being scheduled to go into our prison program as we get other dogs adopted. I don't have any spare time. So that's what I do.

Well, you're very busy. Some remarkable programs, so I'd like to ask questions, too. Like about the general program. So when you go to select the dogs, specific? I know in the shelters we see a lot of mixed breeds. Is it a specific type of dog that you're looking for to put into those programs?

Well, that's an excellent question. Here's what I try to train shelters to watch for. I want a dog that's dog friendly. Number one. I want a dog that preferably is medium to large size. And it's not that I have anything to eat. With smaller dogs, it's just they are harder to contain in the prison environment because if they go under a fence in one of our dog yards, the trainers can't go after it. A correctional officer has to go after it. So all of the dogs we look for are number one prefer. They can't be dog aggressive. We don't care about the breed. We prefer heartworm negative only from the standpoint of cost of getting them treated. But that's kind of a rare situation now is to find dogs that are heartworm negative in a shelter. We look for a dog that can focus. In other words, if I'm doing it myself, I'll take a treat or something and let the dog in the kennel smell it. And then I'll hold it up to my forehead. And see how long that dog will focus on that one little treat. And then I'll reward the dog with it. And if a dog can focus, and he's not off the wall crazy, and you know, pretty stable on all fours, then we'll consider that dog in our program. They have to be neutered or spayed. That's a requirement by the Department of Corrections. But other than that, we've had. Everything, every type of dog. You can imagine. We've had some purebreds. We've had a lot of petty mixes. We've had a lot of Labradors, a lot of shepherds, a lot of golden misbehaviors. That's what I call them. But golden retrievers and, the trainers have done a wonderful job. They're with the dogs 24 7. The dogs sleep in a kennel under the inmate trainers bed, caught in a dorm. So they get a lot of attention and they're trained seven days a week, usually from the hours of 7 30 or so until dusk. When it's dark, the dogs have to clear the yard. They can't be out in the dark in the dog yard.

And then how long do they normally stay in the program before they're trained and ready for adoption?

Well, that's another good question. Sometimes it'll range maybe eight weeks since we've got to make sure that they have all of their general obedience recall. That is, you call their name, that dog's gonna come to you. That's name recognition recall. Sit, down, stay, leave it. Are all very important. Leash or heel walking. In other words, not pulling on a leash when they're leashed up. Cause dogs have to be off a leash, on a leash, excuse me, when they're off their property. That's a state law. Some exceptions to that leash law are service dogs that are working with somebody who is in a wheelchair, and then they don't necessarily, by law, have to be on a leash. But any other dog in the state of Maryland, whether it's a service dog, emotional support dog, a pet, has to be on a leash off its property. The Training, like I said, can range from maybe eight weeks or so. We do have a proficiency evaluation procedure where we evaluate a dog over a couple of weeks to see if it hits 80 percent or higher on various tasks. That not only the trainer has the dog do, but somebody else has the dog do. So it's not just the trainer giving the dog the command. It could be another trainer or it could be someone like me for more advanced training where we train a dog to retrieve by name. In other words, we could tell a dog get glasses and a dog will go and try to find eyeglasses and bring them back to the recipient. Get meds. The dog will go into a kitchen or a bathroom where there may be prescription bottles out on the counter and bring One prescription bottle at a time to the recipient. We can't train the dog to read the prescription. So it just continues to get the bottles until the recipient gets the medication that they're requesting. We also train the dogs to pick up things that somebody who may have titanium rods in their back or may have back. Or arm issues where they can't bend over and pick up things, a dog will immediately pick up anything that's dropped and raise it up so that the recipient can handle that which has been dropped since the recipient can't bend over and get it and some of the training can last over a year. I'm going to say in the average, probably 90 days to 120 days is probably average. three to four months.

Not too bad. I thought it would be a little bit longer than that. Now, how many dogs have you adopted out from the program since its inception?

We've placed over 770 dogs as of the close of 2024.

Wow, that's amazing. Now what is the adoption process like if somebody was interested in adopting a dog?

Well, we do have an application. They contact us. We get a lot of referrals from the VA, the Veterans Administration. Many people search online. And Doggone Express pops up on the first or second page of Google now. I'm not exactly sure, but if you looked up service dogs in Louisiana, DoggoneExpress. com would pop up. You could contact us by phone or by email. We send out an application. We review the application. We call the recipient, proposed recipient, to get a little bit more information. Kind of get a gauge on their type of lifestyle. Because we're not going to place a high energy service dog with someone who is basically I am not using this negatively, but like a couch potato, somebody who's not very active who just wants something to be next to them and cuddle with them as they watch TV or knit or whatever they're doing. So we. Kind of do a informal profile of the recipient so that when we send them videos, which we do, they can see the videos of the dogs being trained. So, you know, if one of them is interested in a medium sized dog. Preferably a male, whatever, then we can send them videos of dogs that may have some of the skills and trained to meet the needs of the recipient and they can watch the dogs over a period of time as they go through their training so they can see their process. In some situations, if they get clearance, in other words, if they don't have any felonies or pending legal situations, we can actually get clearance for them to actually come into the prison and meet the trainer and meet the dog. And if there's good chemistry, and it's usually me who makes the ultimate decision, like, yeah, it's a go, or I don't think this is the right fit. Let's just keep working on another canine or whatever. They can take the dog, the canine, for a week we'll hold the donation check if necessary for a week to make sure it's a good fit, and they can take all the medical information we have on the dog to their vet to have the dog checked out, and then after that one week, We call it a test drive. If everything's working out, then it's a formal adoption. We send them the microchip information, the rabies tags, and we consider the dog adopted.

I do have another question, too, about the adoption process. So, as far as the dogs that are available, do you have a list of the dogs that are available or are you the one that does more of the matching? And then the other question is, if somebody is in another state, do you adopt out of state or you primarily do with the adoptions within Louisiana?

The first question is, we have in the past on our website, DogOnExpress. com, have on the very first page, a place where you can see dogs that are available for adoption. And you go all the way down to the bottom of the first page of Doggone Express. And unfortunately, we're working on this. Most of the dogs that you can see there now have been adopted. We're getting ready to take more dogs in. I'm taking two in tomorrow that will start being on our website as Marley and Otis as adoptable dogs. These two dogs will primarily be trained for brace and stability, because I have two veterans right now who need a stability dog because they're having problems maintaining their equilibrium. And their balance and also when they fall, they need some kind of dog that's trained to brace so they can actually put their hands on their vest and hold collar as we call it and Get back up off the ground. Now these air stability brace dogs and I have two large dogs that are going in after a vet appointment tomorrow at 10 30 into Rayburn prison for training. Now the second part of the question. And I kind of forgot what that was.

That was, if you do adoptions primarily to, residents of Louisiana, or do you do out of state adoptions? And then I guess if you do the out of state adoptions, would you do like a transport or do they have to come pick up the dog?

They have to come pick up the dog. We do not ship dogs. We will not ship dogs. We've placed dogs in Michigan, we've placed dogs in New Mexico, we've placed dogs in Texas, we've placed dogs in Florida, and in all situations the people either had to fly in and then rent a car and take the dog out, but we will not ship. We will not put any dog on any plane.

You said too that you had Marley and Otis. You're training those to be like stability dogs? Yes. So if, what if somebody contacts you and they say, Hey, we're looking for a particular type of service dog. Would you be able to potentially put a dog in the program to make a service dog as requested, I guess?

For some situations, we can't train a dog to do a specific thing. For instance, we get a lot of calls from people say, can you train a dog for epileptic seizures? And we say politely, no, because that requires the dog to be trained with the individual. And we can't have individuals coming into the prison for training. We don't do diabetic alert dogs because the diabetic alert is based on a specific smell that comes from a cotton swab of somebody who's having a low blood sugar situation and that's a specific smell for that person. So we don't do epileptic or seizure alert dogs. We don't do diabetic alert dogs. We don't do seeing eye dogs. But we do cover people who've had hearing issues. We've actually trained at Rayburn Prison in Angie, Louisiana, deaf dogs for people who had no hearing. Who then, also the recipient. Was had a loss of hearing, and we had a trainer who would train the dog, believe it or not, an American sign language so that the person who received the dog could use American sign language and the dog would respond by, you know, coming. whatever. And the way that we had somebody who was hard of hearing or couldn't hear and also was mute. The question was, well, how do you train a dog to come when that person wants them? So we trained the dog with just a vibrating collar. That's all it did is vibrate. So if you pushed a little sending unit The collar would vibrate and the dog was trained to look for whoever's giving them the come signal with their hand, which is the palm facing out and then bringing it back towards your face, like, come here, but there's no sound or whatever. It's just the dog following the hand signal to come.

Wow. That way the dog That's amazing.

Well, sometimes the dog's in another part of the house or maybe in the yard. And, you know, you can't stomp your floor in the house and have a dog out in the yard here, but this little vibrating collar, which is rechargeable, and all it does is vibrate. There's no shock. There's no sound. It just vibrates. And the dog's trained to look for whoever is signaling to come. And the dog would go to that person.

You got the idea from the program, that was already, in Well,

actually, it was, it's, I didn't mean to interrupt, but it was actually started by a Dominican nun, Sister Pauline Quinn, and the first, very first inmate training program was at a women's prison in the state of Washington in 1982. Now, there's probably 30 states that have some kind of jail or prison dog training programs. And they're actually working in some situations with cats that are being pulled from shelters to work with some of the inmates who have some emotional or psychological problems. As a companion animal and the cats are getting a lot of attention and the inmates are getting some kind of emotional support, which can be used to modify their behavior. In other words, if you want to have a cat or you're going to train a service dog, you can't have any write ups. You can't get in trouble. You can't be a problem inmate. Or you lose that privilege. So prisons use it as a behavior modifier, too. Which I have no problem with. But a lot of people have asked, Well, would you give somebody who's a murderer a service dog to train? And I go I don't. have any control over someone's past, whatever they've done. And our judicial system has said, you need to be incarcerated for a period of time. That's already done. The only ones I will not allow in our training programs at any time is someone who's been charged with Animal abuse, not convicted of charged with if they've been charged with that, they're not in our program can't be in our program. But We've had people who have stolen have. Burglarized received stolen property, sold drugs. Yes, that runs across the whole spectrum. Other than anyone who's ever been charged with animal abuse.

Do you ever have people from other areas reach out to you to ask you about starting a program or how they can start a program like this?

Oh, yes. Oh, yes. We'd be more than willing. We invite them to come visit our program. I get people from different correctional facilities who want to come see how we do it. And as long as they pass the clearance test, the security evaluation by the Department of Corrections and the ward and say, yeah, they're fine. They can come in. We set up a time where they come visit and we'll give them, you know, all of the forms that we use. And they can model their program after hours, or like I said, there's probably 30 states now who have some variation of a program like we have, we just happen to be the largest in the state of Louisiana, the women's. Prison program is being run by one of my contract trainers, Brooke Defoe. She owns the Dog School of New Orleans, and she's worked with me and had been in our prison program as a trainer, and she's running the women's program. So, we got the prisons covered.

Now I'd like to hear more about the training for veterans, too, in Harahan, Louisiana

yes. Harahan, St. Tammany Parish, and Washington Parish. Three parishes.

How would somebody sign up for that, if that's something that they were interested in?

Contact me at my email address, or go to Doggone Express, and there's phone numbers and email, and that's all they have to do. One of our trainers will call them and set up a time. We do try to keep the classes less than 10 people. Only because we need to also do group as well as individual training. These classes are once a week, they can come as long as they want to come, there's no certain time frame. It's not like a 6 week course or a 10 week course, they can come, we've had some come for several years. because they like the camaraderie. They met other veterans who became their friends and their dogs got along and they look forward to it once a week.

And so everybody has at your website, it's DoggoneExpress. com. Is that correct?

That is correct, Dixie. Yes.

And would you like to give everybody to your email address? Sure.

It's the letter L, like in Louisiana. And my first name, William, W I L I A M. Last name is Bars, B as in boy, A R S E. It's all run together. You don't have to have caps or anything like that. It's LWilliamBars at A O L dot com.

I want to thank you for taking the time to speak with me. I really enjoyed learning about all these wonderful programs

Well, this has been the best podcast I've had all year.

I hope so.

Oh, by far. And great questions. And if any of your listeners have questions, and they want to contact you certainly, I think I know you, and your co work, and the co hosts of your program, podcast, well enough to, you know, you can refer them to me, or you can give them my phone number.

I certainly can. And I'll make sure I put all of your information too in the, description so that way everybody will have your, email address as well as the doggone express. com link.

That'll be great. That'll be great.

All right. Well, thank you so much.

Well, thank you. I hope you have a great 2025 to you and your co host and maybe sometime if you ever come up to where I live up in Mount Hermon. If you do come up sometime, maybe we can go out and have dinner.

That sounds like a plan.

Thank you.

And that's all the time we have for today's episode. If you are in animal rescue, or if you know someone that has a story that should be told, please contact us. We would love to have you or them on the show Thanks for listening, and please join us next week as we continue to explore the world of animal rescue.