Welcome to Animal Posse, the podcast dedicated to the people and rescues making a difference in the lives of animals. Hi, Tiffany, How are you?

I'm good.

Thank you so much for coming on the show to talk about The Washington Humane Society. Could you introduce yourself and your role with the Washington Humane Society? Yes. Tiffany Smith and I am the Vice President of the humane Society, Washington. And how did you first get involved in animal rescue?

As a kid I always loved animals and wanted to be a vet but never could get past the point of being able to put 'em down if they're injured or even, sick and stuff. And so we rescued, growing up with my family,. And then, probably a little over 10 years now. I met up with Magnolia Chapter back then 'cause we were a sister facility off of the humane side of Louisiana. Met up with them and just started volunteering my time and just went from there.

Were you involved in the formation of the Washington Humane Society?

No, they had formed probably a couple years before I started volunteering there.

And what is your mission and what areas do you serve?

We serve mostly Washington Parish. But we do help outside of our parish as well. Our goal now we to have fosters and animals up for adoption and so forth. But as time goes on, we lose fosters and we don't have that ability really to. hold onto foster. So what we do more now is the spay, neutering program trap cats to get feral cats fixed and released back to where they were and to help the public just, educate the public on the importance of spay neuter. The importance of adopting. We work with other facilities and other rescue groups to try to help move animals from the south up north where they have a much successful adoption rate. We just try to help where we can, when we can and try to help the community and how we can with with animal needs.

And how long has the Washington Humane Society been operating in Washington Parish?

I've been helping them for about 15 years and they started before I, came aboard. So I would say probably 20 years, maybe longer.

And the spay neuter program that you have, can you explain what that program is? Is it different from other areas?

I guess it just depends on your price. So we have an amazing vet in her staff out of Mississippi, and we go to Crossroads, Mississippi. They've been doing spay neuter forever. And as time goes on, prices increase, of course. For $85 you can get a female or male fixed no matter the size. And you get rabies shot and now we do every animal that comes in, whether it's a cat or dog, they get microchips too. So that's free of charge. Same with cats. Cats come in. We usually have, vouchers for feral cats. We have trappers that'll go out and set traps the night before, bring the cats in the next day, and then wherever they're tracking that, they'll hold onto the cats for a few days afterwards to make sure, the incisions and stuff are doing good. So we have it once a month and Kay, which is also one of the board members, she helps out with the Washington. Parish shelter. So she does spay neuter with them too. We have everybody call, whoever wants to come in to call first come, first serve because we only could do so many a time. And we have a house that's been transformed into a vet clinic, so to speak. And, parents, so the animals or whatever would drop off their babies fill out paperwork, drop 'em off. We spend the entire day fixing cats and dogs. It could be anywhere up to 60 cats and 30 dogs. We've done a few more. We've done a few less in the a day, and it's our vet staff and then we have volunteers that come and it's a well oiled machine. We have people in recovery, we have people doing paperwork, we. The owners of the animals, if they're ready. Then we have, like I said, our vet staff and her staff, so it's just a bunch of. volunteers and our vet that have everybody get together once a month, usually on a Saturday and do the spay neuter for low cost. Because you take an animal to the vet nowadays especially female, you're gonna pay 150, 200 up to get them fixed. And here it's very low cost for them. Sometimes we do get grants to where we can fix say 30 dogs at one day. Last one we had, it was a grant and we were able to fix all these cats and dogs. I think we had 50 cats and 21 dogs that all were fixed for free through the grant. So I don't know if it's much different than anybody else's. I think price wise we're on the cheap end, but I know that also other rescues do cheap. They neuter at times as well.

Have you noticed any kind of decrease in the feral cat population since you've started this spay neuter program?

I think so, yes. We do a lot of areas like we're building, grocery stores or fast food restaurants where, you have all of 'em that are by the trash cans. And then there are certain areas that we work on. And I think definitely the population has decreased. I do believe that we have made a huge dent in the feral population one cat can produce five kittens, and then those kittens can produce and so on the forth. So I definitely think that we've reduced the the amount of feral animals out there. For sure.

As a board member, what are your duties or what is like a typical day or a typical week like?

So we're all volunteer based we have changed so much over the past few years from when we used to have fosters. I was the foster coordinator, so my job would be to go out, find fosters, and then have those fosters. Foster, whatever animal they wanted to, I would never say, oh, you have to take this dog or that dog or whatever. I would be like, okay, what is your home life like? What do you have at home? And then, okay, this is what we have available that needs fostering. Once they take their. Dog or cat, whichever it was I would go and make sure they had everything they needed as far as vetting, wormer vaccines, get 'em set up for spay neuter, and then we'd have adoption events and I would help do that as well and get the fosters to bring their dogs there. Over the course of the past few years we, like I said, we've gotten out of the fostering, it's a lot of work. It really is a lot of work, and it's been, Kay, Beth and I mostly us that do most of the, groundwork with that and we had a lot of great volunteers along the way, but everybody gets busy in life and we now just, what I do is spay neuter clinic. If we have something afterwards and animals. lick themselves open or something. They would send me out or Beth depends on who's closer. And Beth usually does most of our recovery, but I do go out occasionally. I also go out and my daughter and I, we will go rescue animals. So I also do, post on, social media, all three do that. But we post on social media animals in need owners that need help with their animals res other rescues, other shelters as well.

Do you have animals in your care that would be put up for adoption?

Not at this present time, no. We, like I said, we got away from the fostering because. there was those few fosters that we had that were tremendous. Their lives got busy and they couldn't dedicate the time, which is understandable to fostering an animal and bringing 'em to, adoption events and when you have the same people doing things over and over again, you spread yourself really thin. And because we're such a small humane society and the demand was so high, we couldn't keep up. So we had to turn our endeavors to something else. And that would be educating the public. That would be rescue, working with other rescues that do transports. Working with the spay neuter programs, getting grants to help the community spay and neuter their animals, working with local shelters to get them on transports and to get the, the rural shelters get the animals out. So that's been our main focus in the past few years.

I understand that, so you switch more to a preventative type role rather than dealing with the animals that were currently there. And I do think that's where you have to go. You have to go to the source, which is spay and neuter, because then when you do that, then you don't have as many animals out there that are actually needing homes. So you mentioned educational programs. Do you have any other types of educational programs or can you explain what you do as outreach programs?

So I know not so much in the past year or so because we, like I said, we've all been busy and health wise for all three of us. We've had a lot going on. But I would go to, schools with an animal and talk to the kids like different grades and stuff, not really young, those who could comprehend and understand a little bit. But talk to them about the importance of spay neuter, the importance of getting your animals vaccinated. How to approach dogs if a dog's chasing you, things like that to start young. Send brochures home and flyers home so they can bring them to their parents to educate them about the importance of vaccinations, the importance of heartworm medicine, the importance of spay neuter, and how you can get our information reaching out at a younger age. A lot of people grow up and they're like we don't know. We didn't know about y'all. We didn't know it was this cheap. We caught our vet and it was hundreds of dollars to get a dog fixed, or we've also offered vaccination clinics before where, you can get vaccinations We've offered rabies clinics before because by law you have to have a rabies certificate and tag and shot for your animal. We've also offered microchip, clinics before. So we've educated the public like that. As far as the importance of why you need to spay neuter, why you need to vaccinate, why you need to, flea prevention and heartworm prevention, what the importance of that is reaching out to younger kids in hopes to start a generation where they grow up and see the importance and want to do better than possibly what we have now.

There are a lot of rescue groups out there that are foster based and even though they do encourage spay neuter they do get overrun. Like you said, you only have so many fosters. They can only take so many and you have such a big influx of animals, so for small rescues that wanna get started with something like you are doing with a spay neuter clinic, what advice would you have to them on how they can get started with that?

I would say partner up with somebody who has been doing it or does it because we're all supposed to be out there for the better of the animals. We all have our own ways of doing things at times, but the end result, if you're out there for the animals, then you want to help another rescue. You want to help your fellow rescuer to educate them and to help them with, okay, this is how we did things. And then not saying that they have to do it exactly how we do it or how someone else do it. They can take our lead or someone else's lead and run with it. I try to go to someplace that has this going on. A spay, neuter clinic, a regular thing, low cost, see how it's done. You get donations, you get grants. Grants are a big thing. And then once you get your feet wet it all falls in line. But I would definitely, shadow a rescue group, if you're a small, especially a small rescue group, shadow them and see how they do things. And not saying how we do things is the exact and the way that has to be done. 'cause everybody has their own way of doing things. But at least you would get the concept of it, you'd get the gist, and from there you'd say, oh, okay, we can do it like this instead. So I would definitely say try to shadow, ask questions, and the rescuers that are out there for the animals and not for the glory of what they do, they're gonna be the ones that are gonna wanna help you. They're because they see you wanna help stop this overpopulation and you wanna help these neglected animals. And so we're on the same team because you have those out there who aren't like that. They're out there for the glory of look at me, type attitude.

I was actually gonna say in the bigger cities, that goes on a lot. There is a lot of fighting

Yes.

Between rescue groups. I don't understand it. 'cause everybody has the same goal.

Yes. I don't, and that's all I can say is it's about a status thing. We did this much, we did that much. It's a, look what we did, look what we did. You can say that all day long, what is the quality of life of the animals that you have and that you're, where you're sending 'em. If you doing your job as far as an animal rescue or a shelter or whatever, then. Everything speaks for themselves. You're gonna have negative anywhere you go with any rescue you have, someone's gonna say something negative about a rescue unit is done to us all the time, but those who know us, those know who what we stand for and what we do for the public and what we have done and what we'll continue to do. Know that. These are just other people that are upset. Maybe we couldn't have helped them in the timely manner that they wanted us to, because that's not how life is. We couldn't help some, we can't always help people with their problem, and a lot of people wanna put their problem onto us. Big corporation, rescues. It's all about how much money can we get in. And look at our numbers. And that's not always a big thing. It needs to be about the animal and not about the recognition. Obviously you want your rescue to be recognized, but it's a whole team thing. Anytime my daughter and I or or my kids and I, we went on a rescue, it was never. Look what we did. It takes a team, and that's always been our slogan is it takes a team. There's never one person. It's always multiple people that make everything work for the better of the animals.

Absolutely. And that was the whole point behind this podcast is I was hoping that this will actually bring rescues together because it's time

it needs to,

yeah. It's time for them to start working together and put aside the glory like you said.

Yes. And see I worked as ACO in Bogalusa, a officer. And there's rescues, I didn't care for some of the people that, volunteer with them or worked with them, but it's not about my feelings towards those people, it's about my feelings towards them wanting to help the animals that are in need that I had in my care and I might not like their personality. We might clash, but they're still doing good for animals and helping. And as long as that's going on, I could put any differences aside and work with somebody for the greater good of abused, neglected animals, because there's such a high population of them.

I definitely agree with that, and then I see that happening too, where rescues will fight over actual volunteers because you might have one person that has this philosophy I'm gonna help where I can, and it starts like a big feud between rescues. It's crazy sometimes, if you're in it for the animals, just put that to the side. It doesn't matter.

Yeah, if you're in it for the animals, then it shouldn't matter If Nancy helps you and then goes across the street and helps them and then goes down the road and helps it shouldn't matter because no matter what, it's still an animal in need, whether it's in your care or whether it's with another rescue's care. It's still an animal in need and that's what you have to look at. Some people are like, oh the dog crossed over state lines. It's not our problem anymore. It's still an animal in need. It doesn't matter how many people you have helping you, or if those people wanna go someplace else and help them because the day that they can, you take the help you have, you take it, you be grateful for it. And then if they wanna help somebody else, another, agency or whatever, let them, because they could be like, oh, they didn't have a problem that we helped them. Next time we're gonna come back and bring five people with us. So you always wanna be happy for your companion rescues because you all have to work together. And when you don't and you collide and you fight, that's when it becomes about not the animal. And that's a lot of problems with a lot of rescues.

Absolutely. You are in Washington Parish, so Washington Parish is a smaller parish in the state and a lot more like of a rural area. So how do you get your primary funding?

Donations. We run off donations and grants and we do fundraisers like crazy. We'll sell shirts. We do raffle tickets. We'll do half and half, where you sell raffle tickets, and then whoever, we draw a number and whoever gets it gets half the pot and we get the other half, adoption fees. Not like when we did have adoptions our adoption fees weren't high at all. I think our adoptions were a hundred dollars and we pay 85 for a spay neuter. So you're looking at $15. We, put in pocket that put back into the rescue. And after you look at, all vaccinations and stuff like that, you're not making anything. You don't make anything anyways in rescue because it always goes whether. In the form of food or medical. We just have to hope for donations. We have regular people who, like, when they pass, they'll give a donation to memory of we have to have people to do fundraisers. And that's how we in grants and that's how we survive.

Where do you have your raffles?

So we do 'em online usually. Because we don't have a building. Washington Humane Society does not have a building because we were foster based, so we've never had a building. So we would do 'em online. We would pre present everything online and then we would do a live drawing and pick, just draw from whatever. And whoever won would win the prize and we would meet them and do the prizes. If they're in Bogalusa, we would meet 'em in Bogalusa, in Franklinton, pine, any of those places.

With your spay neuter clinic, you said that the Washington Humane Society does not have a building, but you have a house that you use that was converted to a medical facility. Is that correct?

Yes, it's our vets, so it's not our building. It's like an older house and she purchased it herself. And it's in Mississippi and we have our clinics there. But it's strictly for spay neuter. That's all it's for.

So I guess it wouldn't be open to the public then unless you had an appointment for your events.

Yeah. So unless we have a spay neuter clinic, then, it's not open. And the spay neuter clinic's open to public, obviously, but as far as just going there, no, it's just strictly for spay neuter on those days that we have it.

And how many volunteers total do y'all have?

That varies. Now if we're talking about clinic, we have day 1, 2, 3, 4. Up to at a clinic sometimes we just have four. But volunteers overall, that's hard to say because you have some people who volunteer once. You have some people who volunteer regularly, I would have to say we probably have 10. maybe 15 that volunteer regularly for things. The spay neuter whether it be like every other spay and they come to, or every spay neuter. And then we have people who volunteer. Like when we had one a couple weeks ago, they brought us sandwiches and pizza and drinks and snacks and a cake to feed the, to feed us while we're there working from, seven 30 to who knows, 5, 6, 8 o'clock at night. It just depends on how long it takes us to get done.

What are some of the challenges you have in recruiting and retaining the volunteers?

I think that a lot of people come in volunteering thinking I was gonna get to play with puppies or play with dogs and that's it. I know when I worked at the shelter and that was a lot, they didn't realize that, volunteering could also mean cleaning up behind a dog. It could mean helping mow the grass. It could mean helping give vaccinations, holding 'em. It could mean, sitting with a sick dog, just one dog that may need a little more extra time with someone to, they're scared or something. It could mean cleaning kennels out cleaning the feed room out. So I think sometimes volunteers don't realize, they think, oh, we're just gonna go have fun, play with the dogs, and cats, don't get me wrong, they need socialization. That's very important for the mentality of an animal. But it's also hard,. And I think that sometimes people don't realize that and when they do realize it, they don't wanna come back unless it's something fun, which is great. It's fine. You still need those people too, but. You also need those who are willing to put in the hard work, the sweat, the labor part as well. And I think that sometimes people don't realize how hard it is until you get there to do it.

Yeah. You get to play with them, but you have to clean up after 'em too yeah. Then that is a job. Definitely. It's not something that's fun.

No, not all the time. No.

What are the barriers to affordable veterinary care for pet owners in Washington Parish, and do you help bridge that gap?

So we help bridge it as far as when we offer the spay neuter clinics, the vaccination clinics, microchip clinics and stuff like that, because it's very low cost, like a microchip for $10. You can't go to a vet and get a microchip for $10. You are looking at $45 at, to walk in at least. And then, probably or more for the. Whereas we would do clinics and say we have a hundred chips where we could do a hundred dogs or cats for $10 a pop, which is covering our costs of the chip easily and helping the. Public. Same with vaccinations. We buy 'em in bulk, we get 'em a little cheaper, and so we can offer a vaccination for $10 and get it done and do it right. So people aren't scared to do it. Or maybe they have an aggressive dog and they just need help doing it, I think most vets not all but most vets have gotten away from. It's about the animal and not about money. A lot of vets are not very personable. They, just wanna rush you in, rush you out, like doctors nowadays. But I think that most vets have started to do it's about a money thing. Our vet is wonderful if she can help you out or help anybody out. With something over the counter or whatever, she's gonna tell you she's gonna let you, she's gonna help you because her priority is the wellbeing of the animal, not about the cost. Now, she's not gonna sit and say, oh yeah I'm give this to you for free. Because she still has to cover her costs. But she is by far. And I've met a lot of vets, and like I said, I'm not saying all vets like this, but she is by far one of the most compassionate vets that I've ever worked with. Just because it is about the animal and it's not about the cost. Of, she's not gonna run a hundred tests, she's gonna say, okay. So I think that's a problem with vets nowadays it's more about money than it's about the animal and helping the human with the animal.

For the vaccinations and the microchip clinics, when you do those, do you and your volunteers give those or do you have your vet there to give those vaccinations and microchips?

If it's a rabies clinic, our vet is there because it has to be. If it is a microchip or a vaccination. Like you're just annual vaccination? No, it's a handful of people that we know and trust and I've done two of them the past few years myself organizing a microchip and a vaccination clinic, and it's just of you get cars going, they stay in their vehicle. We come up, it's a checkpoint. Everyone, you get your paper, you pay, you come up, we get everything. Go up next, It runs really well. Okay. So not everybody gives 'em, because we wanna make sure that you know how to give them, you give them, efficiently. We, don't have time to sit and wait for people to learn how to do it during a clinic like that because it's usually fast paced. You have people waiting to get in because it's usually first come, first serve. If we have a hundred, we do the first a hundred.

And what if somebody has an animal and there's some kind of illness going on with the animal, but they can't afford vet care? Do you assist with that as well?

We have in the past. We'll also ask for donations to help cover it. Like I said, our vet works with us, so we have in the past set people up and we don't make it a habit like this because, we are a nonprofit organization that they make payments to us, like if they can pay this amount then we can cover the rest and we'll try to work little payments out here and there with them. And like I said, our vet is wonderful at, we explain everything to her. This is what's going on. And it might be an elderly person that's on disability and their dog is really sick and she say, okay, I'll do it at cost for this so she's not making anything of it. She's given her time and it's at cost where it would cost her for the medicine. No visit charge and stuff like that. So we do help out the public when we can. Our only bad thing is our vet is all the way to Mississippi which we don't mind a drive, but we can't always do a drive because, we have families and we work outside of volunteer work.

Since your vet is in Mississippi, how far is she away from y'all?

She's in Gulfport, Mississippi. But like I said, she comes Crossroads, which is 30 minutes down the road from me, from Fanklinton I've driven to her place plenty of times and go for it. And so have Beth and Kay and we have some volunteers that will drive a sick animal or injured animal or hurt animal there. And like I said, we also work closely with different shelters who have vet staff on. call or have vet staff that can stabilize an animal until we can get 'em to a vet, or they can get their vet to look at 'em. So that's why I say it's always very important to have open communications with all vets and shelters that are around you and never turn help down because now, nowadays you need as much help as you can in the animal world with as many as we have on the streets and overpopulating.

Right now, since your vet is a little bit of a drive away, do you do like a transport for the clinics that you have or do you have people just bring them back and forth to the vet?

So the spay neuter clinic, since it's on crossroads, they bring their animals. We've had people bring them an hour away. Because even driving an hour and paying like an $85 fee is still cheaper than going to, a vet. So they bring their own animals and then we call them an hour before their animal is ready to pick up, to give them clean enough time to come and we stay, obviously stay until the last animal was picked up, but they bring their own animal and then they take 'em home themselves. Unless we have worked something out ahead of time and if it's a disabled person or an older person, they can't get their animal. We might have a volunteer that would pick them up and drop them out, back off. That has happened before 'cause I've done it before.

And how is your relationship with the Washington Parish Animal Shelter?

We have a good working relationship. Kelsey, who is the director over there and she does spay neuter clinics all the time now. And Kay works with her with that 'cause Kay is like our go-to spay neuter woman, she does ours and she helps Kelsey with hers. So we have a really good working relationship with them.

That's great. Do you ever deal with handling animal cruelty or any kind of neglect cases?

Yes, we have we used to do that all the time and we still do, if people call, but usually they'll call the police first or whatever. We don't have jurisdiction like a police officer does, but people will call us or let us know and we will get the police involved or the authorities, whoever we need to. The humane society of Louisiana is a bigger, Jeff Dorson if we need him because he's on a bigger scale than us. We will get others involved in helping an animal that's being mistreated. And as I worked as animal officer, I was able to do that more with authority by the police department to handle cases like that, neglect. And we have had several neglect cases.

When you have the neglect cases, do you put those animals like in a foster system?

When Washington Humane used to have the foster system, yes, we did. We would, because we had a large base of fosters. At one time I think we had 10 fosters. But it would be a foster that we knew very well. We knew they could take care of that animal. Beth was our number one foster. For cats and dogs. And she's very well knowledgeable about medical stuff. So she would take some on, and we had a couple others that were knowledgeable with medical and issues with dogs. So we did put 'em in a foster system. When we didn't have it anymore, then we would work with, Bogalusa Animal control when I was there. And Kelsey and other rescues that have a foster based system or even a building, and we would work with them like we worked North Shore before. But we would work with them and they may take the animal on for us and we just give over everything to them. So if we were raising money for it, it goes to them. If people were sending like for dogs that are emaciated. If they're sending food and blankets, it would go to them then. But yeah, those neglect cases and stuff like that we partner with different rescues, shelters, and when I say shelters, I mean like the Washington parish shelter, like one that, is very knowledgeable and has vet staff. But that's how we do neglect cases.

What challenges do you face in reaching all corners of Washington Parish with your message and services?

I would say just people stuck in their ways. That just don't care. In law enforcement we run into a issues with law enforcement. We have three where we had three shelters. We had one in the city of Franklinton. We have one in the parish, which is Washington Parish in all shelter. And we had Bogalusa the city shelter, which is Bogalusa animal control. Bogalusa animal control was shut down this year. It needed to be shut down. It is not operable at all, any, any longer. They don't have animal control there either. We have, I think someone who is now acting as a parish animal control officer. I don't know his exact title as far as what he can and can't do. And then Franklinton has, firefighters will go out and, pick up animals and stuff. So the problem is, our biggest issue, I think with any rescue really is. Law enforcement. A lot of times law enforcement do not know the updated rules or laws of animals, and they wanna turn a blind eye. I'm not saying everybody's like that, but working with law enforcement as animal control, I saw that firsthand. A lot of them, oh, it's not my problem. It's not a human, it's not, a law is a law. Whether it be a human law or an animal law, a law is a law. And if you're there to uphold the law, then you need to uphold all the laws. It doesn't matter if you're an animal control officer making people uphold the laws, or if you're a police officer or a sheriff deputy or whoever. A law is a law, and I think that we need to get back to that. To that part where an officer, sheriff, deputy whatever, they need to uphold all laws. And I know that's a lot, but that's the world we live in now. So you can't uphold some laws and then not other laws just because I'm not human.

And that is something that I'm actually consistently hearing too, from a lot of other rescues that I've been speaking with.

Yes. You'll call, you'll tell people to call the sheriff's department or call the police station, whatever, and they'll be like, okay, we'll send somebody out. Because it's an emergency. I've been there I've been where people are selling animals in a parking lot. They're not supposed to or giving away, and they're not supposed to be. That's a law. And it might be a stupid law, but it's a law for a reason. Some people might think jaywalking is stupid law, but it's a law for a reason and you can't pick and choose which ones you're gonna uphold and not uphold. So that's, that is a big problem I think everywhere. Is that I think that officers once a year, maybe once every six months, need to have a training with animal rights. And they need to just, if you become an officer, become a police officer, sheriff, deputy, or whatever, you need to understand that a law is a law no matter what it obtains to. And I think that once, if we can get that through, it would, things would be a little better. Not saying that's the cure of everything, but that's a starting point.

Coming from an animal control background, I know a lot of people when they hear animal control, they're scared of it, they think of the old, kind of cartoons with the the dog catchers

yes

so it's not a good thing. They don't have a good association with animal control, why is animal control needed and do you think that there should be animal control in Washington Parish?

I definitely think there should be animal control when you have animal control. It does help the law out in general, the police. Because that, that one part, and, Washington Parish is, it's small, but it's still big. So two or three animal control officers doing the entire parish and city limits of everywhere. That's not a lot. And honestly, not with the population overpopulation that we have. And the cruelty, the dog fighting rings, all that stuff that goes on here. So we definitely need animal control and it would help officers out. Those who are there for the public and not necessarily for animals. There needs to be accountability. If you're going to have an animal, there needs to be accountability for it. You're accountable for your kids that are humans and they're living, then you need to be accountable for other living things that you're supposed to be taking care of because that animal didn't choose to come live with you. You chose to take that animal in, you chose to go buy that animal or to go rescue that animal or whatever. We don't get to sell our kids because we're having another baby. So why should you be able to just dump a dog because you are having a baby or because you want a puppy? Because this dog's older. Laws need to be enforced and I think that's a big thing with the difference between up north and down south is up North enforces laws, they enforce spay neuter they uphold laws as far as you have to have your animals. They have to have 'em. You have to have tags on 'em. You have to pay a fee for 'em. You only can have so many. There's so many backyard breeders they just wanna look away. If I don't see it, I don't, the problem's not there. And it's still there. It's still there. So animal control officers are definitely needed.

What are your long-term aspirations for animal welfare in Washington Parish and the Washington Humane Society?

I would be lying if I said I wish we could go back to foster base. But that's just not foreseeable for us. I hope to do, still more clinics, obviously and rabies clinics and vaccination and microchipping. Because I think when you have healthy dogs all around, then the animals that the shelters do get won't be as sick or, they won't have to put as much money into 'em. Because there's healthier dogs running around, if that makes any sense. Definitely more outreach of spay neuter and grants with spay neuter to help those with low income or no income or the elderly to help them. And I just wish that we would, there's so many dogs that are chained with no, no proper shelters or that are just standing in mud. I just wish that. Like I said earlier, law enforcement was forced to enforce laws for animals and it didn't just come down to one or two people or rescue groups to have to constantly nag and nag to get that done. There's, we can't do it ourselves, so we all have to work together. And so I would hope that. One day stricter laws would be made, or at least laws that we have would be enforced more to help with these animals.

What message would you like to share with the community about the importance of animal welfare and responsible pet ownership?

Just think about it. Think about what you want. Not buy off a whim. Or, adopt or get one oh, my kid wants a dog and your kid's four years old, and then six months later you're giving the dog up because the kid wouldn't feed, the dog, wouldn't take care of it. It's a 4-year-old. It's a kid. I have three kids and we fight them all the time about feeding the dogs and that's, that is their responsibility is to feed the dogs. And but then, they're like, oh, we want this to know it. It's a responsibility thing. I'm not gonna get rid of my dogs because I have to force my kids to feed 'em sometimes. So you have to take ownership. You have to take responsibility. And before you think, oh, I want this kind of dog, do your research. 'cause you might think you want this kind of dog, but it's your lifestyle for that dog. And a lot of people don't realize that. They think that it's a cute dog, they want that dog, and then they throw it like a pug outside. A pug cannot be outside a Boston. terrier cannot be outside, so do your research on these dogs. And seriously consider getting 'em fixed. Everybody says, oh, I just want one from the litter. Okay? What happens to the rest of the dogs? You want that one? They have seven. So you have six dogs now that can breed. So is one really worth six more dogs that can breed, that aren't gonna get fixed? So just the outreach of more importance of spay neuter. Everybody says if you spay and neuter all of them, then you'll never have any more dogs. That's not true. That's not true at all.

Yeah, absolutely not true. Thank you so much for joining me today.

I appreciate it. Thank you for having me.

You're welcome. 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.