Latest / Every Pawprint! Every Story! / What 62 Foster Animals Taught Me About Raising Children, Building Resilience, and Letting Go

Transcript

What 62 Foster Animals Taught Me About Raising Children, Building Resilience, and Letting Go · Every Pawprint! Every Story!

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Hello, everybody.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to another episode of Every Pop Rint, Every Story.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: I am your host, Dan Popovic.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: And for you new listeners to this podcast, what this podcast is about is simple.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's about pets.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's about our fur kids, cats, dogs, the inspiration they bring into our life.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: We invite friends, families onto the show to talk about their stories, stories that will make you laugh, stories that may make you cry as we do talk about pet loss, but hopefully stories that inspire you and along the way feel supported no matter where you're at in your journey in life with your fur kid.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm super excited today to welcome a new see, I'm already making a mistake, Cindy.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, a new guest to the show.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we just got you know caught up a little bit before we started.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: But Cindy, welcome to the show.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate it, Dan.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for inviting me.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm excited to be.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: I I am too.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: And then listeners will have to watch the video because we got a fun wallpaper here.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: So I think we got a lot of a lot of fur kids to talk about on this podcast.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Well, many of those are not resident pets.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Most of them are foster pets.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: However, a few became foster fales.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: And in the world of fostering, a foster fale is the the foster that you end up adopting because you just don't want to let them go.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, good.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'm glad you okay.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: I was wondering, I'm glad you defined that's awesome.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I so going on that, how many fur kids do we have part of the family today?
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: We have two resident pets and one foster with me right now.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so three.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um uh what are their names?
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Let's see.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to think in the corner here is Shiloh.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: And Shiloh's our a dog.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: She is 12 years old.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: We fostered her when she was one.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: She went out to this fabulous family.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: And if you can kind of tell, I'm trying to um, she's a red-haired mix.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: We did do a DNA test on her.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: She is 25% Shiba Inu and 10, 7.5 percent of 10 different herding dogs.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: So she was bred as a herding dog, and she came from ranch country in South Dakota, where there are many ranches, and she has that reactivity that a herding dog is designed to have, very attentive.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: So she's been she's been a challenge, but she went out to this family for she was one, we fostered her, she went to a family for four years.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'd get these spontaneous pictures on my phone.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: They were all a red-haired family, so this red-haired family had adopted this red-haired dog, and everybody would be smiling until they weren't.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: And they ran into some extreme medical challenges and they just they couldn't juggle everything.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: They asked if they could re-home Shiloh's.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: She came back when she was five years old, and we've had her now seven years.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: I she was a definite foster phil.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: When she came into our family at one, I really wanted to keep her, but we already had two resident dogs.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: We were committed into this fostering world and loved this family where she went to, and all of a sudden she's back in her home, and there was no way we were letting her go.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: So she she's 12 now, she's slowing down, still barking.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: She's still barking.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's a beautiful story.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's unfortunate to your point that went to a family that and yeah, various dynamics, but the fact that she made her way back to you, that's awesome.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so like a lot of medical conditions.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: The family ended up, uh he ended up with a heart attack followed by a stroke, followed by okay, the family member.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, not the dog, but the family.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: And it was just too much, which was fine.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I I want would love people to understand that that's the best thing to do is to reach out, especially if you've had a rescue pet, is to reach out to your former rescue agency and ask, can you take them back into the system?
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: And most of them are going to because they want to make sure that the animal continues in their care.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I would imagine it probably helped with that familiar familiarity Shiloh had with you already.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: That, oh, hey, here's a familiar face, familiar people, and uh it's hard to say.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: I I'm not sure, you know, and I picked her up, I'm not sure if she recognized me, you know, that but we we formed a strong bond quickly, you know.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: As you know, animals, dogs are particularly very resilient, and she just eased herself right into the family dynamic.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: And then okay, so herding.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: So what are some of the, yeah, I guess what are the some of the things she she does from a herding perspective that may make you laugh if she make if the herding makes you laugh?
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I wouldn't say so much the herding.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: What made us laugh?
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: We would take her to an off-leash dog park.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: My husband and I would walk along and she'd run.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, where'd the dog go?
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: Well, herding dogs, they do this big circle, and we're over there turning around looking for this dog, and the next thing you know, she's looking at us because she comes around, she knows where everything is, she's very aware of her environment, and she comes back and she's now on the path looking at us.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like, where have you been?
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know, not what have I done, but where have you been?
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: So she's she's got this amazing, you know, she's attentive to any noises when we're out walking in the in the brush.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: If it's squirrels or mice, rabbits, she is there.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: The funny thing is, you have a reactive dog, I had a reactive dog, and taming that around people or other animals is not always easy.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: And one day, one of my daughter's friends, who was a veterinarian, had heard the story that she was reactive and he was coming for dinner.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: He stopped, filled up his pockets full of dog kibble, and all night long just kept feeding her dog kibble.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: We never heard a peep out of this dog, which was the first time ever that she didn't stand at the table and bark, or we had to put her outside in her dog pen and bark.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: And that was then at the light bulb for us is I just carry copious amounts of treats wherever I go.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: When we see people, I give them treats to give to her.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: And now that the herding dog is attentiveness, is she's got her radar up in the neighborhood.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: Every time she hears what could potentially be a person who could potentially have treats, she is Zoom, pulling me in that direction.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I've I've trained her to not be so reactive, but she's now also I want treats.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I could I could see it because I you're making me think how to do that with like Carly, because yeah, she would zone in on my pocket, and if we went for a walk, she'd probably be staring a hole in my pocket if she knew that's where the treats were.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um that's really cool.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um now remind go ahead.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I was gonna say, I was gonna just say I use that.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: I have a neighbor who went into assisted living two years ago.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: I would have never thought I could bring Shiloh to assisted living because she barks at everybody.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: And now they all know I'm gonna come in with treats that they can give to Shiloh.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: But what we're finding now is that people are saving things so that when we come in, they have things saved to give to her.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: So one day it was a cookie, another day it was bread from lunch.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: And my favorite one was a man who opened up the seat of his walker, it has a storage area in it, uh-huh, and he had the salmon from lunch wrapped in a napkin, and he was waiting for Shiloh to come in.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: And she's just like she sees that door, and she is so happy to be there.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: And someone told me one day, she is the best behaved dog, and I just I was beaming and laughing at the same time, thinking that at any moment in time, if somebody lunges at her, you know, or leans down into her face, she's gonna bark.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but for the most part, if you can get to them early enough and say, here's how she works best, here's how it is to give her a treat, you're fine.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: That's very cool.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I yeah, I can see her excited.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I know where we're going, I'm excited.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: Now, in the early days, how did she do with like car travel?
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, she loves being in the car.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, yeah.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: That's a challenge we have with Carly, but that's cool to hear.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, how about like the water?
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: How does she do with the water?
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and that's the irony.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: We have she was our 21st foster dog and the first dog that loved the water, and she's not a swimmer.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, she's not gonna go like a lab and run out or you know, jump in the water and swim out for a ball when her feet can't touch.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: But you can play a ball all day long if she's on the shore and she's in and out of the water, and she was our first ball-loving dog.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: We had retrievers that we fostered and they didn't even love playing like that.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: So she was one of our family's favorite dogs because she loved to interact with us and she would be walking around.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: She loved us all equally.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't she was attached to me or attached to my husband or one of the kids.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: She loved us equally.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: If I left, she didn't have anxiety that I was gone.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: Well, somebody else is here, which is wonderful.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's wonderful when you have an animal that can attach to everybody equally.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: That's very cool.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, that yeah, you don't see that too often.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: That's really cool.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, how did Shiloh get her name?
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: She came to us as a foster with the name Shiloh.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: Cool name.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um gosh, we're probably gonna have to do a few of these episodes with you.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: We got a lot of fur kids to talk about, Prime.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: We've only gotten into one.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, okay, so we got Shiloh.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: We talked a little bit about her, we got her today.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: We got two others to talk about, and I'm sure uh let's yeah, let's get to the next one.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: Who's the next one to talk about?
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: The next one is Checkers.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: He is a cat.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: And checkers, if you can imagine, think of a checkerboard black and white.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: He is black and white.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: He is a tuxedo cat, and but his nose is smudged, so he's got black smudge.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, well, that's the black and white tuxedo is Angus, that is one of my foster cats.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't have a picture of checkers up here.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: Checkers, my daughter was at a gas station and sees this little black and white thing running through the grass, and he was only about five uh five weeks old.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_02: Oh wow.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: He had, we don't know if somebody dumped him or if a mama cat had come through and he just couldn't keep up.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: His back legs didn't work, so he was dragging them.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: She, of course, brings him home.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: She, this is the girl that became the veterinarian.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: She brought him home, and over time he developed the ability to use his legs, but he has a really strange little gait.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: When he runs, he can't use them independently, so he hops like a bunny.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: And he runs, runs, runs, hops, hops, hops, falls over.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_02: Oh gee.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: So he's a he is a character.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: He he plays, he is the ball-playing cat.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: We could flick a ball, he'll run, get the ball, and bring it back.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: And his favorite to his favorite game is to flick the ball just above his head so he has to jump up for it.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: And now he can't jump, so he sits there and he lean, you know, reaches for it.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: But he can play that for hours over and over and over.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I can I'll be downstairs.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: My husband will be going to bed, and I can hear they're playing the game because you hear the cat flying off the bed to go get the ball, bring it back.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he's very engaged for as you would not unbelieve that the cat has a disability.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: That's very cool.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: So, okay, so with the ball, I'm I'm curious with the ball playing, and it sounds like Shiloh likes ball playing.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: Is there any kind of ball hogging that goes on, or do they get along or can they do it so yeah, how does that ball playing dynamic happen between those two?
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's really interesting that you asked that question.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: We've never had an issue.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: Shiloh is not a resource garter, so I it's I think she just understands that checker's game and that checker's ball.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: Very cool.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, my daughter has a dog that walks in, takes all the cat toys, and puts them in her mouth.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not malicious, it's just like, oh, there's a toy, and he doesn't chew them, he just carries them and then eventually lets them go and the cat plays with them again.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: But that's not like I'm gonna take it from you, it's just oh, there's something new.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's a lot of gotta love the dynamics of their interactions.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so check.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: So your daughter is the vet now today that you mentioned.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's cool.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that's a whole nother story, probably.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, did you ever figure out what might have happened with the back legs?
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: The beauty of having a daughter as a veterinarian is they have done some pretty comprehensive exams and different what's the word, um, explorations.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: They can't identify anything and he's not in pain.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: So they was something that happened when he was born or some genetic abnormality that doesn't identify itself in an MRI or an x-ray or some kind of physical exam.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: He, like I said, he's not in any pain.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: So we are very careful about his weight because he goes, goes, goes and flops, goes, goes, goes and flops, and because he it's a whole it's like the back part of his body flops over.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: So we're just very careful about his back.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: How old did you say he is?
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: He's now eight.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: Eight.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: Sounds very resilient, man.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: Just uh wow, yeah.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um cool.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so Shiloh Checkers.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: I I get the story on Checkers, the name, the checkers board.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's cool.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, all right.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: Who's the third one?
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: The third one is our little girl Jazzy, and she is my 62nd foster, but my first respite foster.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: So all the other animals that have come to us have come through abandonment, shelters, rescues, things like that.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: Jazzy's person ran into some just crazy poor timing where he was in between, had moved out of one apartment and he was getting ready to move into another apartment in another state for another different job and got very sick.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: He got so sick he couldn't travel.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: He had no longer had a home and no longer had a job here, and he was so sick for so long he lost his job and then he lost his apartment.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: So he became headless.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: And he was trying to figure things out and living in his car with Jazzy, and Jazzy's a little brown tabby cat.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: She's all of seven pounds, but she was she was not thriving in the car, and the we had this incredible heat wave come through.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: He couldn't keep her in the car, it it just was not safe.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: He ended up working with animal control.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: She's a woman that I work with through a number of volunteer organizations.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: She put out a plea.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: Is there anybody could that can foster Jazzy so that she doesn't end up in a shelter?
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: So all of the other animals that I worked with, we were coming out of shelters to alleviate the pressure of overcrowding there.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: And in this case, with the respite fostering, we were trying to keep her out of the shelter and prevent overcrowding by helping this man.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: And she goes home tomorrow.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: He was able to get a new job and build up what he the financial stability he needed to find a place.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: So he just moved in yesterday and she's moving in on Saturday with him.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: Feels bittersweet, right?
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm excited about it.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's a very different, it's very different type of fostering.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas in most fostering, you get this animal, you're you're helping them to heal if there's healing emotional or physical that has to happen.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: Then you build a profile, excuse me.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: And the the goal is to then go find somebody to matchmake to be that that bring that love together.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: And in this case, they have this intense love and bond.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: He did not want to lose it.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: And this gave him the opportunity.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: I would take her in temporarily while he got himself resituated.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's I don't have to go through the process of finding somebody and worrying about if they're going to bond and things are going to be great.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: I've been in touch with him through the last three months, and he's come over to meet with her and connect with her, or not beat her, but to connect with her.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's amazing.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that wow, that's an amazing story, too.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: And that's um to your point, glad he got back on his feet.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: Now, is Jazzy the one that's over there?
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: I guess to your right up there looking.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have her on here.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: She's she is to my left, sleeping right here.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: And normally she she's only seven pounds, and her favorite thing is like a little newborn baby where she'll lay right here with her head right on my shoulder.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: Very cute.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah, seven pounds, that's tiny.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, and she's still gone, she's five years old, so she's not gonna get any bigger.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: And did you get to name her?
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: Did the name come Jazzy?
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: Her name, her name is Jazz.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: I call her Jazzy, Jazzy, Jazzy Girl, Jazzerin.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you know how names go with animals.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: We were at an event last night, and there was a vendor who she's now known as Jazzy Jeans because this vendor was Jazzy Jeans.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's her name.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: Bottom plays on that one, I can imagine that's cool.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: And then, like you said, so she goes home today or tomorrow.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: She goes home tomorrow.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: So they there was this family, the family was in crisis.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: We were able to step in and help this cry the family in their crisis in order to get all the elements back together, and now they'll be reunited.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: And that's it's a whole different form of fostering.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: And we're starting to see many more rescues and shelters acknowledging that and making space for it because it does keep the animal from going into a shelter and taking up those resources, finding a whole nother family, and it keeps from that heartbreak of a family having to give up an animal because they're in crisis, right?
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: Gosh.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: So, how long have you been doing this?
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: Fostering for about 16 years.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: And then are you is it specific organizations that you're working with, or you're sounds so or you're working with multiple organizations?
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: When we first started fostering 16 years ago, our dog had died.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: Our kids were right at the cusp of their teenage years, and then it was a sudden death, totally unexpected, created this huge tsunami of emotions for our kids.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: I had no skills to help them through their grief, let alone my grief.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: My thought was let's get a dog.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: The dog died and then made them sad.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: Let's get another dog to patch that grief.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: Then we couldn't agree.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: The first dog, the dog that died, Sierra, we gotten when the kids were little and we were driving that bus.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: And now we had all these in this different input, and we couldn't agree.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: So we said, well, let's just have a parade of dogs.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: Let's just foster.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: We started fostering, we did all of our dogs with one organization, which second chance animal rescue.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: When we got Shiloh and she was so reactive in the early stages, I shifted from fostering dogs to fostering cats.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: She has no issue with cats.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: And it was just a lot harder to introduce a dog who's come out of a shelter situation that could be traumatized from abandonment or abuse, and then have to introduce her to Shiloh.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: So we decided we're going to avoid that and we started fostering cats.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Kids are now out of the house.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: I have two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a hallway.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: We call it the foster suite.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: They they have a big space that they can go from being in a small space, we call it the you know, the safe room.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: And then as they earn their abilities to move into bigger spaces, I know that they'll come out from hiding or you know, they're not gonna climb the screens or something like that.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: They the more privileges I give them in terms of space and the two different different windows and see different things.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, that's cool.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um so all right, natural curiosity with with Sierra, where's Sierra at on the board?
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: That is a good question.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um she is not on the board because we adopted her, we did not foster her.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: So these are most, these are all fosters.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: Fosters, okay.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but but Sierra was the first.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: Sierra was if you look at Shiloh, which is that happy girl right there.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: Very happy, yes.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: Sierra looks exactly like that, same exact body shape, same exact head shape, but she had gray on her face.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: And she was tan and gray, whereas Shiloh is or she Sierra is tan and black, and Shiloh is orange and black.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: The two of them are the predecessors, no, successors of the ultimate dog in the world, and that was Snooka.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: And Snooka was a dog that my first rescue senior week at college, and I was walking across the back then we all lived in dorms.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: I was walking from my dorm to the cafeteria across the quad, and all the other kids had left.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: It was just the seniors left on campus.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: There was this furry dog, and I stopped to pet her, and she was just or he was delightful.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: I met up with my friends.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm standing in the line inside the cafeteria, and there's the dog.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, what?
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: So I take him outside, pet his head again, and then go back in the cafeteria.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: And two hours later, I'm on the other side of campus and in the weight room.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: I go to put the weights onto the rack, and I turn, and there he is again in the weight room with me.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: And it turned out he had been the vet calculated or estimated he'd been on his own for at least six months.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: He was severely underweight, which you couldn't tell.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: He was just this big ball of fluff.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: He was uh part keys hound, so he was just like elk hound keys hound mix, and he was tan in black like Sierra, except for all tan face.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: So Snooka, Sierra, and Shiloh, all same body shapes, big curly tail with feathers, feathers off of their legs, big balls of fluff.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: So okay, so Snooka, all right, so that that's a fascinating story here.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: So Snooka was the first one, but then I'm always fascinated to just like hear that on how of a sudden he's shadowed you, you're going, you're doing, you're going to these different areas or across campus, and there he is.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like something's meant to be there, right?
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: There's a message there.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um on how the how you how you guys became family.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um I I'm sure now you've heard it as you talk to more people.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: There is a a wide-held belief that you don't find animals, they find you.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I am that was my first experience that of all the people that were on that campus and of all the buildings in this big campus, he found me there.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I I didn't couldn't take him into the dorm.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: And somebody I knew, I don't even remember who that was, took him for the week as we were working with animal control and the local shelters and rescues.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: Eventually, they this kid graduated and left campus, and the dog became my care.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: And eventually the animal control said, either you turn him into the pound or you adopt him, and he became mine at that point.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: Did you get to name him?
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I'm assuming so.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: I did, I did.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: And a friend of mine was crazy.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: A friend of mine was a uh wrestling fan, and back in the day it was Jimmy, Jimmy, the superfly snooka, and that was his so it was Jimmy Snooka, and they called him the superfly, and Snookah just seemed like the perfect name for a dog that looked like he came out of the Arctic, so he became Snooka.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: I love it.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: That's a great and he was he is the dog to which every dog in our world will be compared.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: He could sit in the front yard, would never wander, except for the neighbors loved him and he would just wait until they came home.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: He'd go to their house, get a biscuit, and come back.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't matter who crossed in front of the house, it didn't matter what was going on.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: He knew where he he belonged, and he wasn't going anywhere.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: And he was he was people fought over caring for this dog when my husband and I would go somewhere.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he was just that magnificent of a dog.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: It was a it was a tough one, and yet at the same time, he was not you could throw a toy, had no interest, had no interest in sticks, balls, any of that stuff.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: He was walk beside you, go hiking.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: That was what he did.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so even though Shiloh now looks like Snooka and has that same body shape, they're just very different personalities, right?
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so how wow, that's really cool.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, always envious, too, of dogs that are just hanging out in the front yard and you can go inside the house and not worry about them running off.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that's really cool.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: How long?
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_01: How long did you have them before um he passed?
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: The vet estimated he was about three years old, and we had him 12 years.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: Oh wow.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was a tough, it was tough because he was totally with it and physically fine until the very end.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: And he ended up 15 years old, and they believed that he had kidney issues, and it was just a real quick decline.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: Decline, yeah, which was great, but he didn't have a lot of that.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't have a lot of that caregiving, whereas later in life I ended up with a little one of our foster dogs, rascal.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: He was a black poodle, mini miniature black poodle, and he ended up with Cushing's disease.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: And we ended up spending a year trying to manage that, and that was tough.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: That was really tough.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: Interesting.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, what is yeah, I've heard what show my ignorance.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_01: What is what is Cushing's disease?
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's a a tumor in the pituitary or adrenal glands, and it just impacts how the body reacts.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: So he was crazy thing.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: The his gums in his mouth grew.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that was they grew to the point the doctor they had to do surgery to remove the gum material so that he could chew.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: So they're just crazy things would happen.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: Then he lost a lot of fur.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it makes how your body regulates itself not work.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that does sound like a lot.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: And then, but also with Snooka, it sounds like lived a good I I you know, as much as we hate, right?
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: They're only here with us nine, 10, 15 years, it flies by, but sounds like he had a great life.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, he did.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: He had a great life.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: Love, love the name Snooker.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: Shoot, you know, we're getting close to time here too on this episode.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: And we uh we're we're we're we'll have to do another one because there's so many.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_01: So all of the pictures you have in the background back there are um fosters.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, Shiloh, the one Shiloh on there is is family.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's weird to say that is family today.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, obviously they're they're all family, they're fosters, but um or are they they're but all of those aren't with you today, they've just kind of passed through part of the the family, and they're with different families now, or they're they've gone on in in this world.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: That that is absolutely correct.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: And they're they're all fosters.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: So on on the top row right here is Frankie, and all these stories of the dogs and three of the cats, all the stories of the dogs and three of the cats are in my book, Mom Loves the Dogs More, a memoir of family rescue.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the main arc of that story is our family's journey through the teen years where our kids ended up having some mental health challenges.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: We we learned in their teen years that they both had ADHD and they both had anxiety.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: We were managing, learning how to manage that as we were fostering all the dogs.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: So the book, the main arc is our family, but every chapter is features a different foster dog and their story.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: So you learn about learn about Frankie.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: Frankie's the cover model.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: You hear about Shiloh, uh, the next cat, that's uh Vegas, but then um we've got this that's Skip.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: Skip is uh became George Michael when they renamed him, and so every every dog brought something with them, and every dog we learned.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: Some of them had more trauma than others, but they all needed the same things and they all needed different things based on their personalities, based on their experiences.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: That unfolding of that lesson that you can help them thrive by identifying what they need was critical for me and helping my kids as they were going through their journeys of not just being teens and going through all the normal stuff that teenagers go through, but also having mental health challenges.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: How do you work at that?
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: And they were on opposite ends of the spectrum.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: One was inattentive ADHD, and the other one was hyperactive ADHD.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: So you couldn't just say, oh, they are executive function challenges.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's what does that mean and how does it manifest?
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: So the dogs gave us this constant practice of a lot of the things that our therapists were teaching us were the exactly the same things that the dogs needed.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: We just get to practice with the dogs and apply it to the kids.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: And in the end, it was by individualizing what they need instead of trying to give them a one size fits all approach, right?
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: They were able to become the best, the truest versions of themselves, and that was for our family and our kids the thing that was the glue that kept us together.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: Because in the book, the fear, and as I'm out talking about my book and talking with other parents, as kids get into the teen years, the biggest fear is are we going to lose that bond that we have been building all these years?
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: And then all of a sudden we've got this teenage stuff, all these inputs that are trying to pull us apart.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: How are we going to stay together?
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: And the number one thing was to look at each of these kids as an individual.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, you need similar things, but what do you need to thrive?
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_00: And we learned that over and over and over again with the dogs, and as they and now the cats, and as they go out into their families, you've got these very stable, loving animals moving into another relationship, and people are just blossoming with them.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's the matchmaking is fabulous.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: But so the book is all about the different animals that you see back there.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I say the three kittens because we ended up with three kittens in this whole process of we were on a dog fostering quest and we ended up with three quick kittens we had to foster because you just never know.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_01: No, that that's awesome.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: We'll definitely get the link and all that to the book.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_01: We'll add it for the listeners to the description of the podcast and then in the article.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I'll definitely add that sounds like a fascinating read.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'm I'm curious too, with um with the different dogs and the stories uh in the book.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um are there elements did did you see that each one of them has their own different story, but with your kids from a mental health perspective, each one of them may have did something a little bit differently that that helped, I would assume, with with your kids from a mental health perspective.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: And the first thing, the biggest the first thing that you learn with the dogs, the cats is healing.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: You can't you can't go beyond anything, you can't achieve anything until they are healed or on the process of healing.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: Our kids were both exemplary students.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: All of a sudden, what keys us into some change is their grades start dropping.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: All right, what's going on here?
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you can't, you know, we were trying to all right spend more time studying, do this, do that.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_00: And the reality was once we we had to figure out what was going on and then heal that.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: And once we figured out the strategies to help them move ahead, then you can start adding things to that and greater expectations, greater enrichments, building confidence, building skills.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_00: And the same thing with the dogs, they come in here.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we had this little white Bishon Crosby, his name was Crosby, and he was a little lamb.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: He looked like a lamb, he was pure white, little 10-pound guy, but he walks into that house with all of the confidence you've ever you can't even believe.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_00: He'd been in a shelter, he comes in all confident.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: Couple months later, we get a little shihtzu name April, and she couldn't lift her chin off the floor.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: We had to figure out what each of them needed, but Crosby, it turns out, had a huge separation anxiety.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_00: So he walks in and he's all happy and he's ready to go because you're there.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: But as soon as you leave, he's struggling.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: April, this little shihtzu, we had to figure out how to help her heal in order to engage her and create some life within her.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so, same size body, very different scenario.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_00: We everybody gets walks, everybody gets plays, everybody gets petted and groomed, and all the things you want them to do, but you have to also figure out what they need individually.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, powerful.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_01: I I I see a bunch of tool kits here in in the future, everything that you're kind of describing, um to help folks, like you said, with the different individual situations, mental health, it's it hits everybody differently.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um as we conclude this, man.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um trying to think you you hit on a lot of stuff that's a great way to end on already, but what what's what's next?
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_01: You've got you know you you're working on another book, toolkits, you you're doing some speaking.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_01: What's next?
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: All of the above.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_01: All the above.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: As a and you're probably finding this out as an author.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_00: You have three big mountain ranges.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_00: You have the range, you know, the mountain range of writing, then you have the mountain range of publishing, and now you have the mountain range of activating and marketing and getting this book out.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, and there that world is very scattered.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_00: There's it's easier to write that darn book because there's structures and there's precedent, and there are plenty of ways you can market a book, but every one of them, every book is successful in a different way, and figuring that out.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_00: And that's my that's what I'm working on right now, is really trying to understand where are the readers of the book, who are the readers because you think you know they are, and right learn different things when you're out doing it, and that's what I want to I want to get really good at that before I write the next book because again, you still have to know how to scale that mountain range.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I feel like if somebody can accomplish that and conquer that, it's you based upon these all these stories and different challenges that you've encountered and conquered.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_01: I hate to say that word conquer, I can't I can't think of a better word, but um, all the different scenarios that it seems like you have gotten in your life and the things that you've done to adopt, to adjust, to thrive.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I'll leave it at that.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_01: So I so I I'm excited to see where things go.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_01: Any, I guess as we conclude this, any like parting or closing advice or guidance that you would want to share with pet families from all of your learnings?
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_00: I think the last thing that the last few things I've said is the most important is to look at them all as individuals, also adding to that, what were our expectations when we brought this animal into the house?
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_00: And marry those expectations with what the animal is either capable of doing or providing or becoming.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_00: When you can pull those together, that's so much easier in your life to look at that animal and help it to thrive, which helps your relationship.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_00: So that was in our going back to what I said is watching the individual treatment we get to the animals was what we ended up doing with our kids from that.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_00: It was that appreciation of how we approached them and how we parented them, that was the glue that has kept us together.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, the reality is a lot of people, you ended up with reactive dogs, I ended up with reactive dogs.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_00: There's plenty of ways to connect with people.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_00: If your expectation about that animal was to connect with people, there are different ways of doing it, and it takes a little bit of digging to get to it, but you will find it.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_01: Love it.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_01: Good way to end and close.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_01: That's yeah, phenomenal, inspirational.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but for the listeners, we will make sure you've got Cindy's details in here.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_01: Definitely a link to that book.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then yeah, anything else as you have these speaking engagements, um, we'll kind of share that so folks can kind of come and listen to you.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_01: But Cindy, thank you so much for being on the show today.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate it, Dan.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_00: This was very fun.