Welcome to Animal Posse, the podcast dedicated to the people and rescues making a difference in the lives of animals. Thank you so much, Meredith, for joining me today. I'm glad that you wanted to come on to talk about the crisis that we have going on in animal rescue. Before we start can you share a bit about yourself and the rescue that you are with?

I am 50 Woo. I have been doing animal rescue in some sort of capacity since I was really young. Actually when I was a kid we were still allowed to work if your parents signed off on it with working papers. And I volunteered and had a small part-time job at IDE week. 'cause I grew up in Levittown. That was in UA on Long Island. And I did that a couple of hours a week. And then again, when I was going for my confirmation, I needed to do community service and I did that as well. When I did that, I actually worked in the training department with the rehabilitation cases. They actually taught me at a very young age how to help socialize. Scared cats and dogs, nothing dangerous. Obviously I was a child, but times were different then. And then through college I worked at Northshore League and then after college I started to work in banking, but I still always had a foot in the animal welfare world, be it fostering dogs or cats for other rescues, volunteering at other rescues, things like that. In 2013, we started Paws Unite People because I noticed there was a big gap within the animal welfare community. You foster homes and then you had animal shelters, but there was nowhere for cats and dogs. To go that sort of didn't fit in either bucket. Not ready for a home, but too scared or traumatized to be at a shelter. So that was the goal, was to try to create that middle. We started it out doing it with myself and a couple of other core volunteers who were experienced, who would take those animals into our home until we could save enough money to get a facility. We did an animal abuse case in 2014 where it was a hoarding case. It was over 80 cats. It was Turkish Angora breeder. Some of them didn't make it. Some of them survived, but the town shelter refused to take though. So we rented a building. And it started there small. We started in a 900 square foot facility. Now we're in an almost 5,000 square foot facility. So we've definitely got more space and we are definitely doing a little bit more in the community. We hope not just animals from abuse, cruelty, neglect, but we also train service animals. We train therapy dogs. We have special needs adults and kids come work with the animals that we have that are cleared for that so that they can learn a skillset or they can have positive interactions with animals. Sometimes special needs child can't have a cat or a dog at home, but they can come to this shelter a couple of days a week and play with them. And we also take in animals temporarily for people suffering from temporary shift in housing, temporary homelessness or domestic violence cases where people are fleeing domestic violence right now we have a dog at the shelter from someone who is fleeing domestic violence and two cats from someone who's currently homeless. But we don't put them up for adoption. If that makes sense. Is that enough about me?

It does make sense. It's very interesting too with the background. 'cause I can just imagine, 'cause I do cat rescue, having that many cats in a 900 square foot building and then building up to go to a 5,000 square foot building. That's pretty impressive.

It started so small, like it was 86 cats, but they didn't survive about 40, made it out of the vet. It was one of the worst things I've ever seen. It was like Auschwitz for cats. But yeah, we started super small and then now we're just big. It's crazy. We do international stuff too, like we back up. All the international rescues, several of them in Egypt, Kuwait, Jordan, Korea Taiwan in the event they and Afghanistan, we used to, not now because well, but in the event animals are shipped to the United States and run into an issue at that moment we would step in. So we do have some dogs and cats in the building that came from overseas. We didn't bring them here, but they went to other rescue groups or straight to adopters that it didn't work out because I also don't think animals should be brought to this country and fly thousands of miles just to be euthanized. That really ground to my gears,

exactly.

Yeah.

Can you explain when you're taking in like these pets that are on a temporary basis for the homelessness or the domestic violence, how you end up reuniting them, how long you usually have to house 'em before the people are able to take 'em back.

We try to, each case is different. You never can put, even with rehabilitation, each case is different. Each cat you take in each dog, you take in each family, we assist. It's different. So it's never a one size fits all. So the most recent case, a girl was fleeing a domestic violence situation. She needed to put her dogs somewhere safe. She's very young. Very young, and she has to get her proverbial, what together so that she can start her life over. So I didn't give her a time limit. I told her to take what she needs time-wise, and she comes and she volunteers and helps out take care of the animals, and she gets to see her dog. And I've noticed, especially with domestic violence, women and sometimes men, we've had men stay in these situations that they shouldn't stay in because they love their pets. The last cat case we took in from domestic violence. I had the cat for six months. I've had some longer, we've only had one instance in the years we've been helping out where we did not return the animal. It is a dog. That dog is a permanent resident at our shelter. He suffers from permanent PTSD from witnessing a very horrific event. She ended up going back to her husband. I couldn't give the dog back. But normally I would say it takes people on an average one to three months to get themselves back in order. We had a house fire, it was like eight cats. We had them for nine months 'cause they had to rebuild the whole house. So when I say each case is different, it really is.

Sure

depends. You have to really talk to people. You have to figure out if they're telling you the truth too, which is something we've gotten very good at. We've had instances, oh shoot, yeah, we had a dog that came in. The gentleman temporarily lost his home. His mother passed away. It was sold out underneath him by the family. By the time he found an apartment, his dog was diagnosed with cancer. So what we ended up doing was he got a key to the building and he would just come and visit with the dog. At the facility. I hate calling it a shelter 'cause we're not a shelter. Like all the animals are not in cages, they're in rooms with TVs and couches. It's like a rehab center. But he was able to come visit with his dog. His dog was at a big pit bull. His name was muscles. He lived in the cat room. So he would come, when he had time. I didn't care because by that time we had known him very well. We trusted him. He would come, hang out, go home, take care of his dog leave. But because moving the dog mid, in that hospice situation into a tiny apartment where he had to be carried up and down the stairs just wasn't gonna work. So like I said,, you have to look at each case differently. We just took in. 10 dogs out of a hoarding case. We actually had 17, but seven went to other rescues finally. Thank you. And we have 10 left. And each one of them is different. They all suffer from different issues. Some of them are further along than others. You can't one size fits all rehabilitation work for sure. And you can't one size fits all people that are experiencing an uproot in their life.

How many animals can your facility house?

Right now we have 32 dogs and we have 46 cats. We could technically taken up to 50 cats and I can house, depending on the dog sizes 'cause it's all modular. I could move walls and things. We could probably house eight or nine more dogs. But fiscally, no. We are over capacity from a financial standpoint, which seems to be the problem across the board in animal rescue lately.

Yeah. Yeah. So we can start getting into that too. And another thing too that I would like to mention, because. I love that you're helping out people with their pets for temporary situations rather than have them surrender their animals to a shelter. And I think that's what rescue should be. Or if somebody does need to surrender an animal, it should be a situation like that, like something that is really beyond their control.

Yeah, I don't want your dog. I said this, the girl was so nice and she's just I don't know what to do. I said, you need to get outta there. Keep yourself safe. I don't want your dog, but I'll keep your dog safe while you figure it out. That's why we started this. It was part of our mission statement from inception was to do community outreach to try to stop the cycle of abuse. What and the other side of that was also to try to help good owners keep their pets as much as we possibly could. There's so many animals that need help that don't have good owners, right? So if someone is a good person and it's a good owner and it's a temporary setback, we shouldn't be taking their cats and dogs, especially with cats. I don't want your 18-year-old cat. I don't want your 12-year-old cat, because it's going to end up living in my facility for a very long time if it gets adopted at all. But. I feel like it's so important. If you looked at it that way, if rescue groups tried to be a temporary bandaid in situations like that, it would alleviate the amount of dogs getting surrendered to municipal town county run shelters because people are stuck temporarily. But it would also keep us from having to long-term house older animals that may not be as easy to get adopted. I hope that made sense.

It does. Exactly. And I agree with that too. Now I see in my area a lot, I find people are what I'm gonna say is abusing rescues, because all the calls that we get, it's constantly, oh, I'm moving tomorrow. I need a place for my animal to go. And that's not what rescue is for. Rescue is not for like your lack of planning or your lack of responsibility, it's for animals that are actually in need or in crisis.

Yeah. We never help people like that. Unless it's domestic violence, that's a completely different situation,

right? Yes.

But if people call me, I'm like, I'm moving. I need to rehome my dog. I'm like you should have called us three weeks ago. 'cause I'm pretty sure you knew you were moving then. I feel bad when I do it, we have to have limits. I've had a lady call me once at three in the morning. She got my phone number from an emergency vet and she was just like, I just left my boyfriend, my one cat's at the er. She's my other cat's in the car. I can't afford the pet fee at the hotel. And I'm like, listen, I'll meet you. At the time we were in East Patchog, I'm like, I'll meet you in East Patchog. I'm leaving my house now. I'll be there in 30 minutes. I got you cat. I got you back. Don't worry about it. Just don't worry about it. And we tried to raise money to help her cover the vet bill for the cat that was in the ER because that guy was a piece of crap. So those calls, you can't control that. It's, especially when they're struggling to leave, like a lot of times we'll talk to people trying to get outta that situation and they're not sure. Those are always the only last minute ones I take. From the general public. Because they're leaving. Yeah. It's a lot. Those people go through a lot.

It's good to take that burden of their animals off of them, that's something that they don't have to worry about.

Yeah. I've seen people keep themselves in those situations because rescue goats won't help them. I've seen people stay in those situations because they didn't think that they had options or they didn't wanna give up their pets because they were sad or scared or they loved them. But, I've had people like this girl, her dog's awesome. It's her emotional support dog. She had a traumatic event when she was younger. This is her trained emotional support dog. She called multiple rescue groups and they all offered to take her dog for adoption. I'm like, I don't want your dog's I want you to be okay. And I didn't think that's right either. I don't think it's right to take this girl's dog upfront right away. We set limits, but let's give this kid some time to get back on her feet before you take her animal. I understand her dog is very easy to put in home. It would be a nice, easy, quick adoption, but are we really doing the right thing for that person or that dog?

What is the crisis that you're facing right now? What is your biggest challenge?

Long Island has a very big hoarding problem, so I've been dealing with that a lot. And then funding, there's just no funding. We've seen a lot where I talked about this the other day just with someone where grants I normally get or don't exist anymore. There were a lot of cuts made, especially for my organization. So you have to figure a lot of the funding that we were getting to help women fleeing domestic violence and, or disabled or special needs adults and children was coming through programs that were labeled DEI that have been canceled. And sometimes I think people don't understand how funding from the government works. So the government will issue large grants. Those large grants go to larger foundations and organizations, and then that money trickles down. And as small guys, we apply for those funds. So you know when you get a grant for $6,000 from Red Rover to help people fleeing domestic violence, they got that money from above, and then that money came from above. It trickles down. So unless you're a huge animal welfare organization, you're not getting those big checks. You're getting the smaller pieces of a pie that came from somewhere else. So the grants have dissipated in that bucket. USDA had a lot of funding cuts. We lost $23,000 in grants that fell under that bucket for the cats and dogs spay, neuter programs, stuff like that. And then states are losing their funding or not getting their funding depending on what state you're in. So then those programs get cut. And then also two people have tightened their wallets because the financial state of life has been a little unstable. So you have a lot of people giving less, but asking for more. So I've had an uptick in people asking us for assistance on multiple levels, because when people are struggling financially, you get an uptick in domestic violence, that happens. Those situations become volatile. So we have more people asking us for help that are in bad situations at home, we have more people asking for help because they're homeless or they're losing their home, or they can't afford their home anymore. We have more people asking for help with vet bills. But then I'm also seeing an uptake in neglect cases where people aren't asking and neglecting their animals, and you're seeing an uptake in animals that are ending up in shelters that are in poor state. We just did that hoarding case and nobody wanted to do anything about it because there was no one for nowhere for the dogs to go. The town shelter's full. There's nowhere for the animals to go. The woman is mentally ill, she's not going to get charges. So why take the dogs outta the house? Because where are they gonna go? We'll just condemn her house. She can leave them outside. And I said, no, we're gonna take them out of the house and we're gonna get rescue groups to step up and figure it out. But now you have rescue groups besides myself, there's 25 dogs. I have 10. But me and the other rescues that helped out, now we're stuck trying to find the money to pay these bills in an environment where people aren't donating to help those dogs. So it's a struggle. But yeah, money, money's always been a challenge for rescue groups, but it is really bad lately. I know where you are. It's been really bad too. I have some friends that way. Bad. Bad.

Are you seeing a lot of rescues up by you having to close their doors because of this?

Yes. A lot of rescues are closing their doors. A lot of rescues are closing their doors. I just saw the other day I was like, another rescue shutting down because they can't afford their bills. There was a horrible story I saw floating around this woman that euthanized all the dogs, which I think is insane. And she was sketchy to begin with. But that's what's happening is that people, animal rescues and animal shelters are clothing shop because they can't afford to pay their bills. And we are on the edge I have rent to you in four days, and I still have to find $4,000 for that. But, I make phone calls. I'm pushing fundraising. On top of that, you have utility bills. Like people don't understand how much it costs to run an actual facility. Foster based rescues can be very expensive. But for a facility on Long Island in New York, we are spending $9,000 a month in rent. And insurance fees. And then utilities are about 1200 bucks a month. And that's just to keep the lights on and the door open and you have to add a dog food, right? Veterinary care and all the other things on top of that. So we are, our budget to run the shelter every month is about $15,000. Barring no major medical event. And we were doing that, but now that grants are gone and funding's gone, like I sit and I say we're not gonna take anything else in the dogs. Were in emergency. I wasn't gonna put them back in the backyard. There was just a way, and thank God other rescue groups stepped up to help. 'cause I don't know what I would do with 25 of them, but it really comes down to we have to start deciding are we going to try to keep going or are we gonna try to place what we have and close our doors because they're just, donations are just not there. But I know three rescuers that are done, they're not doing it anymore. They're just not going to do it anymore. They're just gonna close it up. They're gonna adopt out what they have and close shop because they're killing themselves. And it breaks my heart because as these smaller groups close, where did the animals go? Because the town shelters are full. We've done a really good job. And and it's other problems. You, and I hate to say this, like rescue groups get mad. I, we did a really good job at like with the no kill movement, right? To reduce euthanasia rights, to increase live release rates. A lot of that comes from town municipal shelters not taking in pets I'm seeing it where people will call me and say, especially with cats, I called the town shelter because I'm being evicted and I have 30 days to leave. But they said they can't take my cats, they have no room. I just saw, was it John, one of the rescuers on Long Island posted that he picked up five cats today. The owner got evicted because ACC didn't take them. So we're gonna start to see more, I think more street abandonment. I'm noticing a lot more friendly cats and dogs floating around the streets than I normally would see. Especially from where we are. It's indicative of a bigger problem right

do you think rescues may, in a sense, have created the problem by giving people this mentality that they can always. Go surrender their animal, so if the shelter's not gonna take it, there's this thought, then there's rescue, but then of course rescues get full. Do you think that could have anything to do with it as well? Or what are your thoughts on that?

I don't think that we created it. I think it's really hard to say. I just got a call the other day, seven month old pit puppy, perfectly dog social. And it was somebody who adopted a dog from me, and it was an older dog. And she's listen, I'm trying, my kid's friend, they have this dog, their parents lost their house. They have nowhere to go. I said, I'd take the puppy in. It is torturing my dog. I said I'm sure it is. Because the dog I gave them could be a little tricky with other female dogs, especially younger ones. She goes, but I didn't want the dog to end up getting euthanized. And when they went to the town shelter and asked if they could take it, they said that they had no space, that the only owner surrenders they were taking were for euthanasia. Who wants to euthanize a seven month old puppy? Nobody, right? So they just said, we can't take it right now. So there was nowhere for the dog to go. I ended up calling a different town shelter who I knew had space, and I was just like, listen, can you please just take this puppy? There's nothing wrong with it. It's just a puppy. I can't take it. Now, do I want that dog sitting in a town shelter? No. It's a puppy. It needs proper socialization and it needs to be, in a foster home or an environment like mine that's close to a home that's structured because this puppy's just going to end up being conditioned at a critical development age to be in a shelter and you don't want that. But I had to say no because I can't afford it, and I think that. We didn't create the problem by always being there, but we definitely put a bandaid on it for a while, for always trying to find a way, because it really does come down to money because if the rescue groups have the money to pay for the vet bills, to pay for the whatever, the marketing the Facebook ad the management, the all of the things you need to do to raise money, fundraising costs, all of that stuff, if they have the money to get that all done, then the animals could get adopted, the vettings finished. But when you have to wait to raise the money needed to do the thing so that you could put the cat or the dog in a home, it starts to drag it out. And if you overload yourself, you just can't afford it. I know four animal rescue groups in my area alone that have, vet bills in upward outstanding balances of $40,000 each. Right now our outstanding vet bills are on three K and I'm having a heart attack. I never let it get that bad. You can't get it. Let that bad. But I have to say no. And I think, again, I don't think we created a problem with the general public. I think that we bandaided it by not saying no, because we were getting donations and now that we're not, and things are cut, and funding's cut and people tightened their wallets and things are unstable, we're starting to see the effects of that. I hope if that made sense.

It does. It makes a lot of sense with you having bills of 15,000 a month, that's a lot. Yes. It's very difficult to get that amount in. I can only imagine.

I'm going to cry. We were getting grants, so I never, and this is truth. I never would've signed the lease for this building where we are. If I thought for an iota of a moment that I was gonna lose $50,000 in grant funding overnight. Never. I never imagined that I was gonna get an email. 'cause that was consistent for years. $69,700 is the total loss for 2025 in grant funding alone. That's pretty much almost the shelter bills. A lot of money. And it was a lot of emails saying, listen, we're sorry. We know we approved you for a grant for first quarter 2025, but due to cuts and funding, we are unable to do that and we apologize. You're just like, oh, great. Shoot me.

Have you tried to come up with some other kind of. Fundraising ideas or things to do

Anybody wanna buy a kidney didn't work. I tend to be really sarcastic. The biggest thing everybody says to me is I always act like it's gonna be fine. They're like, Meredith, everybody thinks you're just gonna figure it out, out. I'm like, I know it's bad. I don't know. We're pushing fundraising as hard as we can on social media, but the general public, I'm not the big org. We had a big bump in finances. We did help overseas and I mentioned that, and we worked with animal rescuers in Afghanistan when the fall of Afghanistan happened. Activision Blizzard, the video game company gave us a large grant $600,000, but that was specifically to get those women out of Afghanistan and their families, right? So that was donor directed funds. We got that money, we got everybody that was helping our US troops and our go US government employees over the years with the cats and dogs out of Afghanistan. And then that money was gone, never to come back again. I couldn't give you for anything else. So sometimes people look at our finances and they see that big bump, and I'm like, yeah, that was a COVID loan and, A grant for a specific purpose and then nothing. And then we're back to normal. It's oh look at Meredith. She's 150, 190, 150, 200,000, 800,000. And then it goes 200,001, 200,000, one 50. 'cause we, it was just that one peak. 'cause sometimes you have that one big thing. But that one big thing didn't give us like public notoriety. No one knows who we are. That was just someone who knew that we worked with that shelter and wanted to help those specific people. We are not a big org that gets in thousands of donations that has hundreds of thousands of followers. We have 33,000 on Facebook's, 3000 I think on Instagram, and two, almost 2000 on TikTok. Like we're not big. So relying on your social media base is just not, we don't have a hundred percent followers. It's just that doesn't work. So I've been trying to think outside of box with grants, and not just for myself, but some of the dog sanctuary rescuers. It breaks my heart, these people have committed their lives to helping dogs that are just not adoptable at all. And they put this, they dumped their whole life savings and their whole life into it. And now no one's giving grants to people who aren't doing adoptions. And then even still, it needs to be a certain amount of adoptions. And that's hurt. And I was like, even with me with rehab to give a good example, we were getting $40,000 a year from a very big. Store organization. We'll just say that. And that they shifted gears. Now we do abuse, cruelty, and neglect cases. So you and I both know these, the dogs I took from a hoarding case, they're not gonna get adopted quickly, i'll have to heal them. I have to take them to the vet. We need to get their skin better They have behavior issues that I'm gonna work on. So we may be six months before those 10 dogs are ready to leave my facility. Now, during those six months, I'm not doing puppies and kittens. I'm not taking in those kinds of animals. So my adoption numbers for the next six months are gonna be low. So when they shifted gears to how many cats or dogs you got adopted a year, I lost that money. So you're starting to see the people that do what I do or the sanctuary work, lose out on opportunities from larger foundations and grants that still are out there because they're strictly basing it on numbers, which is where I think encourages the problem. So if a shelter or a rescue is getting money based on the amount of adoptions that they do, are they doing ethical adoptions? Are they really making sure that these animals are going to the right home? How many of those animals are returned or dumped in local shelters? There's a big one here. They do hundreds of adoptions a month. I have three of their dogs and eight of their cats in my building.

I can understand that because I do more, sanctuary. I do more. Like adult cats. Of course I'll take in kittens. I help kittens Oh, have. But the whole thing with an adult cat is an adult cat is, they're overlooked. They take a long time Yes. To get adopted. It does make a lot of sense because you might see these groups that are taken in puppies adopting out all these puppies right away. But meanwhile, the people that have the adult animals, they're with those animals for several months before you find a home, because everybody wants the cute little puppies and kittens,

not just months. Eight years ago I was left 50 cats and $50 in a will, and all those cats were 10 years old. Can I tell you, I still have problems with my building. I have a cat that just turned 24 years old. Lisa's been with us for nine years now. She's 24 years old. Nobody wanted her nine years ago when she was not 24 years old because she was a senior then. She's like ancient now. And then you also have rescues like mine that may take dogs. Like I have a beautiful dog. She's seven years old. Her name is Pebbles. She's been with us for almost five years. She's mint. She does not like other dogs. I would put her with a newborn baby. I would put her with an newborn baby. She works with nonverbal autistic kids. She is amazing. She cannot go to a home with other dogs. She cannot go to a home with a house, with a chain link fence. Come on Long Island. That's pretty common. So she's been with me a long time because I refuse to set her up to fail. So what we've done with dogs is they're part of our outreach program with the kids. So like when people call and say, we can't have a pet, my son really loves dogs. I'm like, great, I'll throw 'em in the backyard with Pebbles. He can wash her, go swimming. I don't care. You can sit there for three hours, doesn't matter. It makes her happy. You wanna take a dog for day trip? Go ahead, take PEs go. She just doesn't like how the dogs don't let her interact with another dog. You see a baby in a carriage, she'll lick its face. But like you have a lot of that, like I'm sure you have cats that have been with you way longer than a couple months. Oh dear. We all have those. Yeah. But right now we have, like I said, the amount of cats we have. I have 16 cats over the age of 19.

Wow.

No one's adopting those. Yeah, they're not leaving. They're leaving, but just not that way, which is why I don't cage. That's why we have the furniture and the couches and the television sets and the waterfalls and they make it look like a house and people come and sit and pet the cats and watch tv. And our cats are dog socials. So I use the cats that have been with me for eight years that were supposed to die eight years ago because they were supposed to be hospice cases and still live. They're great with dogs. So when we get dogs in, like we just took we just took three chihuahuas from another rescue who got those chihuahuas from a hoarding case with 63 dogs. They got the chihuahuas in February. The dogs were not doing well, they weren't moving forward. I'm like, ah, we'll throw 'em in the cat room. And everyone thought I was crazy. I'm like, you just wait. The cats will sort it up. Cats became friends with chihuahuas. Now Chihuahuas are approaching people because their cat friends are right. So at least the cats have a purpose. The cats get to help other animals move forward. They have a purpose. They're happy. They have a chihuahua to bother. They can clean it. They play with it, but they are hoping as well, so they have a purpose, which was that middle. I tried to, I told you I tried to fill a middle. So are our cat sanctuary camps. Yeah. I don't know. If somebody came to me tomorrow and said, I'd love to adopt Lisa, I'd be like, really? If Lisa likes you, sure. Take her home, let her go home. But nobody's adopting a 24-year-old cat. With a tilted head. No one. But Lisa loves those chihuahuas, so it, Lisa, those chihuahuas are learning how to live with a multi pet home. 'Cause there's a dog in there that's a permanent resident as well. And he loves dogs. He just hates people. So when people visit, I have to take him out of the room. But he loves dogs. So they're learning how to live with other dogs. They're learning how to live with cats. They're learning. It's funny, 'cause hoarder dogs go to the bathroom everywhere and one of the chihuahuas pooped on the cat's like ottoman. And the cat just smacked it. And that dog has not pooped on the ottoman since. So they're helping with housebreaking. And if you look at our videos, I have a video of Barry who is our handicap dog, she has no hind legs. She's been with us for almost five years now. She's actually got a potential adopter. We have to do a meet next week. But it took me that long to find a dog with no hind and legs, a home where someone was willing to take on that. But Barry has helped us socialize so many dogs, and I was like, here, 10 schnauzers go play. And she's teaching them to trust people. And if it wasn't for Barry and the cats, those dogs would not be as far along as they are because they're making friends with Barry. They're making friends with the cats, then they're watching Barry and the cats and baby sharks, the other dog interact with people and go, oh, hey, I can do that too. So it's, but like we don't have those adoption numbers that are crazy because sometimes that's not just one. Sometimes it actually is years. And those on the animals that other places could say you should have euthanized them. And again, I'm gonna go back to some of these animals, did not fly 3000 miles to die 39 cats were left at JFK airport. What was I supposed to do? Let them get euthanized? Hell no. Some of them were older. I still have them. It's okay. They're at least doing something to help other animals find a home. It's just now that things have gotten numbered base, it's just hard.

I understand.

I babble. I'm a New Yorker.

That's okay. What do you think needs to be done to change things? Or how do you forecast things in the future in animal rescue?

I think in general, first, everybody needs to stop arguing. Animal rescuers argue all the time. It's not a competition. We all have to come to some sort of middle level because animal cruelty laws in this country, in the United States are not consistent. In most cases they're not enforced. But the reason, and working with politicians as much as we do, especially with helping Afghans and then other things we're doing with law enforcement and hoarding cases, I can tell you most politicians think animal rescuers are nuts. 'cause we're always arguing and we're always fighting and we're always badmouthing each other. And you and I both know that's true. So we need to try to stop, take a step back and try to work together for like comprehensive animal welfare reform that's consistent., I think also you need to look at the hoarding issue that occurs across this country with animal hoarding. And really start looking at it like this is a mental illness problem. So when we do a hoarding case. Typically when I'm mitigating it, and it's not law enforcement, and I've done that before, I haven't done one in two years, but we have helped orders get their numbers down, clean their house up without getting arrested. And we work with social workers and mental health professionals and you need to make sure they're getting the aftercare and then that's dissipated. So now it's arrest them, press charges, take all their animals away, no follow up, no follow through. They get convicted five years, no dogs. Guess what happens in five years? They go get more dogs or they're convicted and they're told that they can't have pets and they get them anyway and nobody follows up to make sure they don't. So I think we need to do a better job addressing the hoarding problem that's happening across this country. 'cause it's everywhere. I think we need to, as rescue groups, create partnerships with law enforcement, district attorneys, people in positions of legal authority to try to figure out a plan to what to do in these situations. To try to stop gabit from going forward. Wellness checks, things like that. I also think that maybe we need to try to get better partnerships with the townships and the counties and the states that we're in to try to help, especially when we're stepping up to take animals that were abused, that were part of an investigation. Because if we are gonna step up and take 10 dogs out of a case that was where a person was arrested, the animals are also a victim of a crime. So the county or the state or the township could, in theory. Help the animal rescues that help those animals with some of the expenses because they do that with people. Those are just my random thoughts. And I also think we need to try to come to some sort of way to get a consistent across the board, maybe a coalition where we could try to help people pay their medical bills more on a national level so that they don't surrender because they can't afford something. A network of organizations that are willing to offer up foster homes to temporarily house pets like we do would also be fantastic. I could go all day on this. Sorry. There's lots of ideas.

Yeah. Those are all great ideas. And what you said too about the rescue groups working together, that was one point of this whole podcast when I first started it, is because I did see a lot of rescue groups, like they fight with each other.

Yes. And yes.

Rather than fight with each other, work together, we all have the same goal.

Yeah Like I'm not competition, so generally speaking, I try to get along with everybody, but I'm that weird bucket, right? I'm not competing with you. If you're doing kitten adoptions, you win. I had five kittens this whole year, and they're just getting adopted now because they were so malnourished I couldn't fix them until they were six months old, right? And then I have a bunch of old cats and old dogs. I have cats and dogs. I can't bring new adoption events at Petco or Pet Smart because they don't like other cats and dogs. So I'm not anyone's competition. The people who know who I am are usually within the rescue community because again, I'm the person that you call, like I have three chihuahuas. I can't do anything with the Merediths. Do you have room? I'm that person. But I think we all need to work together because I picked up the phone and I called all the people that I've helped before, and I'm like, Hey, she want a schnauzer because some of the dogs in this house didn't need me. Some of the dogs outta these 25 dogs didn't need to be at my facility. Yes, they needed medical care, but they did not need as much socialization. They were not as traumatized as some of the others. I think if we all worked together instead of competing for the high profile cases, that would be way better.

Yeah I agree with that. I had somebody come look at two kittens that I had the other day to adopt 'em together. They looked at 'em and I told 'em, I'm like, look, before you make this decision on my two kittens, I'm like, they have two other groups that have adoption events. Go check them out too.

yep. People come to me and they're like, Meredith, I saw you have a dog. It's worm. Worm is a seven pound Maltese. He's been with me for almost four years now because worm's fence, his criminal offense that ended him up in a town shelter was hopping a neighbor's fence and ripping a German shepherd's ears off again. I'm gonna repeat. It's a seven pound Maltese. He's extremely large dog aggressive and he flies like a squirrel flying squirrel. So I worked with Worm on not hopping five foot fences. He doesn't do that anymore. Initially when we had him for adoption, I said he needed a DPS collar. He doesn't run away anymore. He doesn't bolt anymore. He is got a lot of training, but he is still a jerk. He's just a jerk. He's not an abused dog. He was a spoiled brat that never got taught rules, structure, or boundaries. They bought him in a pet store, they had him for a year, and then he did that because they never told him no. 'cause he was cute and they carried him everywhere. And they, and that goes back to what could we do differently? Education, educating people on how to train your dog, how to train your cat to use a litter box. All of that stuff. Going out into the world and putting out podcasts and, advice like you see, if you follow us on social media, I try to tell people what we're doing to rehabilitate dogs or how to train a dog or how to help a cat. Because I think it's important to share that knowledge, not only within the rescue community, but with the general public. As well. Because if that had been done, if somebody told people it doesn't matter that he's only seven pounds, you need to train him that it's not okay to eat your neighbor's German Shepherd because on the day that you let him go in your backyard because you didn't realize Cujo was next door outside, he's gonna fly over the fence. And you would think that Worm would've lost that fight. He did not. We have 148 pound Amberly. He's a good boy. And I know Worm got over a fence and nipped at him and he just looked at me and he's little dog Matt. Now I'm very lucky 'cause Hugo's good with little dogs. He tolerated that. But somebody's dog next door may not. We need to educate people like how to train the dogs, but we also like need to make sure that we are not setting dogs up to fail. I'm not gonna put Worm in a house with someone with a four foot fence. That'd be crazy.

Yeah. Makes sense. Makes total sense.

Yeah. Yeah. So when people call me and say, how high is your fence? And they'll go, oh, I have a four foot chain link. I'm like, yeah, does your neighbor have a dog? And they're like, yeah, my neighbor has this golden retriever. I'm like, I know that this shelter have Malteses available. You need to go there because Worm is not the right dog for you. I refer them to other groups that I know have dogs, similar body type to the little one that they inquired about.

Because it makes a better fit for everybody.

Yep. And we have the worst schnauzers from this case. So when people call me and say, Hey Meredith, I was calling about the Bayshore hoarding case. I'm like, oh, you know what? Most of mine are not ready yet, but I know that Valerie's are. So you can call them at the adoption center, or I know that Virginia's are, you can call Attack North for country kids. Or, I know Yorkie 9 1 1 took four from me. They have younger ones. They had no issues. They're just babies. You can call them because if you don't do that, a no one's gonna ever wanna help you again. And B, like the goal is to get animals adopted so that you can free it up so that there is space. I don't know. It's not a competition if you don't have the right animal and your rescue for someone, it shouldn't be just, we don't have that right now. I'll keep you on the list in case we get something in that matches your needs. It takes three seconds and we all know who has what. It takes three seconds for us to go, you know what, gimme a second look for a Maltese. Let's see who has malteses in the area.

Yeah. I love that you do that.

You gotta, I dunno. People say I'm too nice.

Before we end the call, what final message would you like to share with our listeners?

I just wish everybody would do one kind thing every day 'cause if we all do that, we can make a world a better place. And I also to always remember before you judge, think. Put yourself in that person's shoes. If you grew up like that person grew up, you might do the same thing or make the same choices. If you were in that person's situation, those things could have happened to you. Goes back to kindness. So when you're dealing with people, especially animal rescuers, when people call you and ask for help and they really do need help or they can't afford the vet bill, instead of going online and it's oh my God, I got this dog from these people and they couldn't afford the vet bill and he's really sick. Maybe say Hey, somebody fell in hard times. They couldn't care for their dog. They had the wherewithal to call and ask for help. We took the dog in. We're gonna get it the help it need, or we wanna try to help these people 'cause they're a good owner because if we did that, we can actually, if we kept dogs with good people and cats with good people. We literally could go to the town and the county shelters, the high kill shelters and help the animals that nobody wants because we would have the space and the th instead of just flipping adoptable pets. I hate to use the word flipping. I'm not calling people flippers, but we can't just do kittens and poppies, but I get that it's easy. I don't do kittens and puppies. Do you know why? Could you guess? I didn't wanna be one of those people. I didn't wanna be adoption fee driven. I didn't wanna fall into the trap. I gotta go pull a bunch of puppies. 'cause we need money to pay for things. I wanted to figure out a different way. We've been at, since 2013. This is the first time I'm having a major problem. I could not have predicted this life situation at all. Like this one's for the books,

but yeah. Yeah, nobody could predict. Yeah, I tried.

I was like, what the heck? Wow, I've never had someone offer us a grant, get approved and go, oops, sorry, our funding got cut. That has never happened. And you can't even get mad. You just laugh. I gotta laugh. So other final thought is to please again, be kind, but also be conscious and aware and take responsibility. If you're going to take on a case, see it through. If you can see it through, ask for help. Don't dump it on someone else. When someone else does actually help you. Make sure that you don't abandon them with that situation. I guess that's it, right? That was a good end.

Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me and I think things will end up getting better, so just hang in there.

Trying. We'll see what happens. Whatcha gonna do. You're not gonna pack it up. You're gonna keep fighting. I have my quote of the day has been, let's just go down swinging. You are gonna go down, swinging, go down trying, go down swinging. At the end of the day, even if you fail, if you tried your best and you did everything you could, then you're gonna be able to sleep at night. But if you just give up and walk, then you didn't try. There's always that what if in the back.

Yeah. And it sounds like you've done a lot of good, that's for sure. Thank you for listening and we hope you join us next week. If you know somebody that loves animals as much as I do, please send 'em our way. We would love to talk to 'em. If you are enjoying our show, please consider leaving us a donation. A hundred percent goes to our animals.

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