Latest / Every Pawprint! Every Story! / The Dog Who Refused to Quit on Him: What Dozer Taught a Marine About Purpose, Resilience, and Love

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The Dog Who Refused to Quit on Him: What Dozer Taught a Marine About Purpose, Resilience, and Love · Every Pawprint! Every Story!

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_02: Hello everyone.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to another episode of every pump and every story.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_02: And then we have a n pump of it.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_02: Today comes to limited from you know, BGM is where you are at right now.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_02: I think you're up in Milwaukee or wherever you come.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Reedsburg, Wisconsin, yeah.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: So about two minutes away from okay, so I'm close.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you're good.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um and we have a lot of commonality.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_02: I noticed on your um profile of Savannah, Georgia.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_02: Is that where you were born?
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: I grew up there.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: I was actually born in California, grew up in Savannah, Georgia.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: My family's had a business there since 1939.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's still there.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's Johnny Gannam's on Aversham McGaston Street in downtown Savannah.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I went to BC, if anybody knows Benedictine Military School there.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: I kicked out for a year and then got back in and graduated.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but yeah, I love it.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, I still get home often.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: My I have an adult daughter that lives down there now.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I get home often, but I do love living up here in Wisconsin as well.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_02: No, that that's awesome.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_02: I yeah, I wanted to mention that since I'm in North Georgia, not that that's Savannah, but hey, it's the same state.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: So like my family's at a lake house in Lake St.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Clair, so I go up there a lot too.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_02: So come coming to Mustonville area if you know that area.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_02: So it's a beautiful beautiful area, especially this time in the year from beautiful.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but no, I'm and I'm like, I'm super excited, I'm appreciating you being on this today, typically the listeners to learn more about the learn more about the Delta.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, again, thank you for the things that you've done for the country as well.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then learning so let's let's jump into the um obviously we always start these these podcasts with you know who we have a part of the family today, how many, how many pets dogs cats, and let's start there and then we'll we'll tease we'll tease this into the audience and getting to know about the year delta, so we'll get there.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, so I have a a German Shepherd border colleague that I rescued six years ago.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um he was abused for the first year of his life, was a ball of anxiety, uh, 40 pounds underweight.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, he clobbed onto me as soon as we met.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so my family and I decided to take him on.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: He was a super reactive dog, uh, especially to other dogs and other men.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: But we've worked together for the past six years and he's gotten way better, does fantastic.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I like working with a reactive dog.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't realize it till I worked with Loki uh because it helps me be less reactive.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, we every every day we're either on the trails or on the sidewalk for three to five miles a day, or we hit the trails.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of times what I tell veterans is what I do with my dog is I just get lost in the woods and we just have fun.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, and it's just great.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's great to get back into nature, get to moving.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: I have some of my best ideas, and I write.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, like I said, he's more of my service dog.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: He's more my I'm more his service human than he'll ever be my service dog, and that's fine with me.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know, he doesn't travel with me, which I prefer when I travel and I travel a lot.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: I want my dog home with my family.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm a United States Marine Infantryman, so I don't need a dog with me.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: I want a dog with my family in case something happens there.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, we live in the safest country in the world, so I know that things can happen.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's what it is.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so he's a big furry dog, he likes to run, likes to chase the ball, you know, the squirrels give him hell, but um, you know, he he does he does a better job of ignoring them and and walking past other dogs.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: And like I said, he it dogs just make everything better.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and um, but we just have the one, and typically throughout my life, I've always had just like one dog in my life.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: I've never been one that's had multiple dogs.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we did have two bulldogs for a time, but uh for the most part, I just I'm a one-dog kind of guy.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_02: And you said his name is Loki.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so the the fosters are named him Loki.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: My boys were what were they, would have been like six and eight when we got him.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: So then they they were all into Marvel, and so they loved the name.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it kids like he's a very mischievous dog.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so being the the god of mischief is is a good name for him.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_02: I was okay.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_02: I'm glad you said that's where my head was going when you said Loki.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm like, okay, there's okay, so that that helps.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um, okay, so that's Loki reading your bio, learning a little bit about you before coming into this.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so obviously Dozier's no longer with us, right?
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, I got injured in 2004, Thanksgiving night uh in Iraq.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: The the blast took my left foot, uh, killed my gunner, Ryan Kantafio, and ended my Marine Corps career essentially.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so all my first convalescent leaves, uh, I went on Craigslist.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a boy from Georgia.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: I was a Savannah, I was a Georgia Bulldog fan.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I was in the Marine Corps, the Bulldog is the mascot.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to get a Bulldog.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, I couldn't afford, you know, a true English.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: There was an old English breed that was being offered.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think I paid like 800 bucks for the puppy um out of a trailer park in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: Knowing now what I don't know about dogs, I probably shouldn't have done it, but it was definitely worth it.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know, he was uh eight weeks when I got him, just a ball of fur and wrinkles, and he would sleep on my neck.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: And he always instinctively knew when I was having phantom pains and he would lay next to it.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh when I went through a bad divorce and a bankruptcy, was facing DUI charges, I got really low in life and and almost quit.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: It just was to that point with the bruised brain and the amount of drugs that the VA had me on, and and and just all the things.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: It was it was a lot.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: But he showed me, I mean, he had no special training, there's no special breeding.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: His only talents was getting slobber in a place you thought was physically impossible to get the slobber into and clearing a room with his farts, right?
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: But he was my dog, always ready to do what I wanted to do, never let me down.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: And at that darkest moment, I could rationalize everybody else away.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: They would all be better without me, except for him.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: He would end up in a shelter and be euthanized like the other 300,000 dogs we kill every year that are healthy, that are trainable, that are adoptable, but nobody takes in.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: So that was just enough purpose for me to look myself in the mirror and remind myself that I am BJ Freaking Ganym.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: I was a United States Marine, and that uh it doesn't matter if my weight's being carried by my flesh and blood foot given by God, or my carbon fiber and steel foot given me by science.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: I could handle whatever life threw at me, and by God, I was gonna have some fun while doing that.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: So that's that dozer stayed with me.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: We got remarried, uh, had two more kids, and then in 2018 he passed at the ripe age of 13 and a half.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: Oh wow.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, lived pretty long, and then right after that, I got got diagnosed with lymphoma cancer.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: And and I had already started Sierra Delta.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: We were more focused on service dogs and for like the combat wounded, but going through cancer, not having dozer at the time, um really opened my eyes that this whole service dog thing is a bunch of nonsense.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I worked with some of these great organizations, they're all great, they all mean well, but you add up everybody that's trying to work provide a service dog for a veteran, it only equals about 800 to 1,000 a year with an average cost of$35,000,$50,000.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's ridiculous.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's absolutely ridiculous.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so I came out of chemo and radiation with a whole new plan.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: I called it Life Buddy.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it was going to be open to any veteran.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: We weren't gonna select based on what years you served.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: If you had a disability, there's no disability needed.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, 68% of American households already have a dog in it.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: And from what we can tell, about 80% of veterans already have a dog.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's easy to get a dog.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: There's plenty of dog trainers.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: It only takes two years to become a dog trainer, so that's not a hard concept to create more dog trainers.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: And the veterans are primed for this.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: They went to a boot camp, they went to a school to learn a job, and their whole job was to train and be trained, to make a team.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: So let's cut out the middlemen.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: Let's cut out all the flu foo stuff that they want to save us.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: We don't need saving.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: We need a new mission, we need a new teammate.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: People are complicated, dogs are simple, right?
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: So now veterans can come into Sierra Delta.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: IDM verifies them.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: They build a profile, they attend some classes, they attend a cohort, they learn all the different ways that dogs can help humans and have been helping humans for 35,000 years.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: Then they'd select what training curriculum they're going to commit to, and then which training professional in their area they're going to use, work with that training professor, professional to create a training plan, submit it to us to review, and we will fund up to$3,500.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: In that investment, we have people achieving service dogs together.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: We have people doing other things like dock diving, uh, agility courses, frisbee, just a good family dog, cattle dogs, synth detection.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, whatever you want to do.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: We don't do bite work for protection work.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: These are all accomplished men and women of the United States military.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: They should need protection.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but and it's working.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: We've had eight people over the age of 80 complete, and every other age bracket, gender, color, disability, it doesn't matter.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: It works.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: And it works because the medicine is actually in building the relationship with the dog.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: It works better this way because the veterans actually have agencies as grown adults, grown accomplished adults who served in the military.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: Less than six percent of this entire population has served in the military, and less than one percent of that six percent actually saw combat.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: So what dogs are simple, dogs make life better.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: Veterans are smart, capable individuals.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: We have plenty of dog trainers.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: We can vet them just like we vet our mechanics, we vet our plumbers, we vet our whoever we engage in a contract with.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: And the most important thing we focus on is what the veteran needs to know.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: And that what they need to know is they need to master the tactics and TTPs to achieve whatever curriculum they want to master from that trainer while that trainer is working with them.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: I do not need the trainer to train the dog, I need a trainer to train the person, and I need that person to do what they said they were going to do for the rest of the day, and that's where we have this fun digital community where they share their pictures and their videos of what they're doing with their dogs, how it's making their life better.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: It works for all of them because it's their plan and they can adjust if they think they need a service dog, and then they realize, oh my gosh, having a service dog, you need to uh dedicate 20 to 25 hours worth of work right with the dog.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to do that.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: Well, great, you don't have to.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: You can back it down to 10 to 15 minutes a day to have a good dog or anything in between.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: But at the end of the day, you are a United States military veteran.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: This is your plan.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: You you you you already did the job, and in some cases did it in extreme circumstances of writing a plan, executing a plan, and then reevaluating that plan to then do it again.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's all we're asking you to do with your dog.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: Other than that, we're just telling you to have a little fun with it.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like if you need a dog to pick things up for you, you need that, hey, it's there, you can do it that way.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: I would tell that most of the people I know that struggle picking stuff up can actually benefit from trying to pick things up more often.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: Getting a dog to do it for you, right?
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: So again, it's a common sense approach.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: We have standards, but the veterans have the ability to meet those standards or to change them to meet it as long as it's healthy, it's ethical, and it's sustainable, and it's good for the dog and it's good for the person, and it's good for your the community around you.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: Do it.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: We're not doing it for you, we're not here to save you.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a veteran myself.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: I don't need saving.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think any of these veterans need saving.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: I want to work with other people, and I think the dogs provide a good bridge to the people who didn't serve, to the people that did serve, so that we can find better balance in this because I know for a fact, being a visibly injured and kind of higher profile veteran, that all this gratitude can cause a lot of problems in your life as well.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: So let's figure out balance.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: There's enough veterans that need a little bit of this love.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I get too much of it, and so I'm trying to figure out a way to spread it around.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: And if you don't really like people, well, you probably like dogs.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: So let's just make sure there's enough love for the dogs.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I was gonna say at some point, yeah, if you don't like people, you you may love dogs, but those dogs may end up forcing you to like people, right?
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_02: Because they want that interaction.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, most of the veterans say that the the more they work with their dog and develop that relationship, the better everything else gets around them.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, why are we gonna send a dog away for three years and pay$50,000 for somebody else to get that medicine versus providing it to the veterans right away?
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: In our system, the veterans can start training with their dog as early as six weeks.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: But typically it takes anywhere from six to 12 weeks for them to get settled in and figure out what they want, write their plan, we pay, they get started.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's that simple.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: There's plenty of dogs, there's plenty of dog trainers, there's plenty of veterans.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, that's great.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_02: And then so and and touching on that, so for you know, veterans that that may be listening to the to the show, um, obviously we'll provide links and articles in the podcast for them to follow.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, how would they get started?
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_02: Just kind of uh come to the website, uh fill out a form that's simple and then it's you go to the website, cierdelta.com, you click join the community.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: ID me is going to come up.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: You put your ID me credentials in there.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: It says you're a veteran, you're in the community.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: Now you just build your profile, you review the courses that are in that community, you introduce yourself to the rest of the community, you'll see the list of when the onboarding sessions are, when the hangouts are, when the trainer talks are, when the cohorts happen.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: You follow along.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like again, this isn't hard.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: And if you have a dog right now and you're like, oh, it's not working, just work on sit, heal, and place.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: If you can accomplish those three commands, you're in a good spot.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, stop humanizing your dog and stop trying to have dominance over it.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: Right just work as a team.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: There's plenty of good YouTube videos out there, there's plenty of good Instagram things out there, there's books out there, but you can also join this community and start just listening and seeing what everybody else is doing, and just start doing something with your dog.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: Take your dog for a walk, make them walk next to you instead of pulling on the on the leash, you're gonna be light years ahead of where you are right now.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_02: And and let's say they join the community, but they don't have a dog.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um, is that is that like placing how you don't have one, helping somebody understand?
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: Again, these are grown accomplished adults.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: There's shelters all over the place.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: There's 300,000 dogs available.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, there are plenty of apps, right?
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: There's also breeders.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: You can, I mean, again, in that community, you can meet other people.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: We have veterans in our community that are dog trainers, that are dog breeders, like, but don't tell me you can't.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: Ask AI.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: AI will tell you where the breeders are around you and where the trainers are around you.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: This is not complicated, and you are an accomplished individual.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: Finding a dog, in my opinion, is a personal choice.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: And for me, I think the dog chooses us as much as we choose the dog.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: So why are you gonna give that to some random bureaucrat or some do-gooder that's like, I'm here to save you, we're gonna give you this great dog, and stop, be a man, be a woman, be a be a veteran and put together the plan.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: If you need a small dog, get a small dog.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: If you need a big dog, get a big dog.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: But you better be able to take care of that dog.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: You better have a home appropriate for that dog.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm not going to tell you you can't or do anything, but I am going to shoot straight with you.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: If someone comes to me and says that they can't afford a dog and they're looking for help with dog training, I'm going to send them to an organization that's going to help them either earn more money or earn more benefits or whatever.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: But if you can't afford a dog, I don't care how sad your story is, you shouldn't have a dog.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's our responsibility as the the higher species, if you will, right?
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't we own the dog, but I don't think we need to uh like they're not possessions.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like I've had a CEO from one of these other big traditional service dog organizations trying to help veterans argue with me that these dogs that they're training are more like my prosthetic leg that they're medical devices.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's a disgusting approach to it because my leg does not have a soul, it's carbon, fiber, and steel.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: I throw it out the window, the we're just out sixteen thousand dollars or whatever it costs to make that leg.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: These dogs have a soul, even if they have a job, they have a soul, they are alive, right?
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: That needs to be taken into consideration.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: They're not to be made to do anything, you should be asking your dog to do it, and if your dog's not willing to do it, you should be asking yourself, do you actually need the dog to do it, or are you trying to achieve some kind of fancy label or some sort of stats?
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: Right, like this, they're good mirrors of us, right?
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: My dog's a little bit reactive, probably because I'm a little bit reactive, right?
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: As you can probably see from my passion in this, but we have to work through that.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: There's I've been through hard things, there's only one way through a hard thing, and that's through it.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: That that staples commercial was great, but there's no such thing as an easy button.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: And every time I've ever tried to take the easy way, it's caused worse problems.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: There's no easy way in any relationship.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: But if you actually want a meaningful relationship with your dog, it only takes 10 to 15 minutes a day of doing some sort of structure, uh fun.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like we need to approach this like a practice, like yoga or prayer or working out or eating right or maintaining our finances.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's the same thing.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: The dog has needs, you have needs, and then there's physics, right?
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: There's only so much a dog, like the dog isn't gonna do your taxes, it's not gonna paint your house.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what are we what are we spending$50,000 on a dog for?
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what are they doing exactly?
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: Blind people aren't even using dogs as much anymore, they're using sonar technology.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: You you need it to smell your diabetes, like we've got so much technology around diabetes that your phone will go off.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: And everybody ever talked, like, even the homeless people I see in the streets with dogs, their dogs aren't misbehaving the majority of the time.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: They know their job.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: Those people have dependency issues, they have mental health issues, they don't have any money, there's no trainers going around to train them, but what they do have is time and a need, and they have a relationship with that dog.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: So, what the heck is everybody else's problem?
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: Let's take complete ownership of this relationship and develop it with the dog for the benefits of both the human and the dog and leave it at that.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: Just because you got a vest on and you get your dog from some highfalutin place, it doesn't mean anything to me.
• 20:10
  unknown: Right.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: What I care about is a story between you and that animal and how you treat each other.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: And then whether or not I allow you into the space that I have control over, you can't demand any of that.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: I don't care what the law says.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: I will let you in if you are a person I want to be around, or I will not ask the way it should be.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: When veterans call me and say a coffee shop won't let me in with my dog, and you know it's a service dog, the first thing I ask them is look around.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: Is there another coffee shop?
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: Ask somebody else what's so special about that place.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody owes me anything because I served and because my leg got blown off.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: I did it willingly.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: Making my life better is not somebody else's responsibility, it's my responsibility.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yep, yep.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: And that's everybody.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: So don't come to me with your demands of what you're entitled to based on what the VA rating is or what the what any of the law.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: I don't need permission from the government or the medical community to get help from a dog.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: What I need to do is I need to do the work to make it happen.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we provide as here at Delta is those avenues to for them to define the work that they want to do, find an ethical prep professional, and then go accomplish the mission.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_02: So the the passion, yeah, in touches.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, obviously, I can see the passion right there with you.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's um is that Dozier?
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_02: Can we thank Dozier for that?
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_02: And was that uh was that the inspiration behind all this?
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's a little bit of my family, being a third generation immigrant and and and having a family business, working in a family business, knowing that there's no entitlement.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: We need to get this done because it's what's best for the family.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: Joining the United States Marine Corps, the smallest branch, the most storied branch.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Because we get less and we do more with it.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: The less entitlements, the less things.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: Like when I got low in life was because everybody was tripping over themselves to help me because they saw me as some sort of hero when nobody wanted to help the other 200 Marines that were with me.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's the thing that where my passion, like where I'm really pissed about, is how the country is responding to us for what we willingly did for this country and not listening to us.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: 80% of the negative outcomes in the veteran population, in my professional and humble opinion, is directly correlated with how we deliver services in this country.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: The only thing we offer veterans is service dogs, even though less than a half a percent of the total number of veterans actually need an ADA medical assistance service dog.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: And the majority of these ADA medical assistance service dogs are not as important as they once were due to the technological advances that we've had and how we've been able to cure a lot of the things that these dogs once did.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: But their relationship that they have with us, that unconditional love, that ability to for us to understand that these dogs need us more than we need those dogs, is the is the thing that technology can never take away.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_02: Right, right.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we need to focus on is that relationship and not reduce it down to some specialty task.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: I I love it when I'm asked to come speak about my community next to somebody else's, and they do these demonstrations of how the dog can pick up the credit card.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: My first question to those veterans is you have a hard time picking up a credit card, and then they'll all blush because they know they're lying.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: Because they know that they're making a bigger deal out of something that doesn't need to be a big deal.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: And again, that's where a lot of the pain is in the veteran community, is because we're having to reduce ourselves to something to make it palatable for the rest of the country to support us, even though it was in the contract that we signed when we signed up to do it.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: Now, for some reason, we have to prove a disability to get the support from the country.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I love everybody, and I know that everybody has the good intentions, and this is what I'm trying to bring to everybody's like forefront of their mind is that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and we can see it in how we're approaching dogs and veterans.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: When you look at any of these traditional service dogs, and again, they're good people, they believe in their product, and I'm for it, like I'm for freedom, right?
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: But you're not gonna tell me that that's necessary because I'm gonna say, no, it's not necessary.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: $50,000 in three years to train a dog for all these tasks, and most of the veterans I know don't even use 90% of the tasks that you trained a dog on.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: And you're breeding dogs when we have a surplus of dogs in our country that need a home, right?
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: That need a job.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: And the majority of these veterans don't need credit cards picked up, they don't need doors open for them, they don't need the dog to go every single place with them.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: What they need is that unconditional love that that person that is there to do what they want to do and they want to do it, without question.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: I've never seen a dog put a person on hold.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: I've never seen a dog say, Hey, I'm too busy today, I can't do what you want to do.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: I've never seen a dog quit on a person, though I have seen organizations quit on people, I've seen family quit on people.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: And the government will definitely quit on you, right?
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: So, what what is the issue?
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: What is it that we don't trust our veterans and these dogs to work together with a reasonable and accomplished dog training professional?
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, wow.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, where where do we go?
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, what what's some of the future?
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_02: Like, where where are we going next?
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_02: It sounds like you're just kind of getting started bigger and bigger.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: We're only raising about a million to a million and a half a year.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna get close to 200 vets served this year.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: We did 155 last year.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: Before that, we were figuring it out.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: We were hovering around 100.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: Next year, I expect us to be at 300 to 500, depending on how much money we can raise.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: The only thing holding us back from doing 10,000 veterans annually is raising 50 million dollars.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: We spend up to 3,500 on each veteran, plus about another 1,500 for the community and for all the connections to all the other things that that we just need to provide the left and right lateral limits for.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: We don't actually need to do it for them.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: Them doing it themselves is the medicine, right?
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: But give them the safe space to do it, give them the the opportunity to do it based on the fact that they served.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: So if you can see that's 5,000 per veteran, right?
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, 50,000 equals 10,000, right?
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: 500,000 equals or excuse me, 50 million equals 10,000.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, 50 million equals 10,000.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: 500 million equals 100,000, right?
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: And there are organizations out there raising 400, 500 million dollars, right?
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: So 500 million can equal 100,000 veterans, 100,000 dogs getting professional health annually.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's amazing.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: The VA gets 800 billion dollars and only services 30 percent of the total number of veterans.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: Now, that's medical care, that's way more nuanced, but this is what I'm saying.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: We can solve that, we don't need the government's permission, we don't need the medical community's permission.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: So in the beginning, everybody was talking about we need a doctor's note in order to give them a service dog.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I surveyed all the major medical colleges in this country.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know how many medical colleges are training doctors on dogs?
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_02: Uh no, I wouldn't even take a okay.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: I was gonna say zero, but yeah, it's zero, right?
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: Unless you're going for veterinary care, and even then that's medical, they're not training on the relationship with the dog and the person at veterinary school, right?
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: Plus, dogs and humans are working for 35,000 years.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: We don't need to explain it.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: If you own a dog, like 68% of American households already have at least one dog in it.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yep, yep.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: Why did they bring the dog?
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: There was something that they needed from the dog.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: There's it says as American as anything else, it says American as free speech is having a dog.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: So why are we overcomplicating this relationship when it comes to getting help to make your life better?
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's the whole reason we brought them into our life.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's the whole reason dogs started working with humans, and humans started working with dogs however long ago it was, thousands of years ago, was because we could help each other.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: It hasn't changed much.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: There is no expert in this field.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: You are the expert if you own the dog.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: You need to figure out what's to be what's going to work for it.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: And just like anything else in life, if you need help developing that, it's yeah, find the right professional.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: There are there's somebody there that can help you, or watch the video, or read the content.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you don't actually have to go to school to know anything.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: You can go to a public library and get all the assets that you need.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: And these dog trainers, again, I've worked with over 1,800 dog trainers across the country in the past nine years.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: I've only had to kick out three.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: So this whole notion that all the dog trainers, it's nonsense.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's like when people say all the mechanics are bad.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's not true.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: I've used a ton of mechanics, I've only come across you know, a handful at best of shady mechanics.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: But most people want to be the hero in their own story, right?
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: We have created all of this sense of unsafe or what be a grown human being and live your life.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: What I tell the veterans is live a life that was worth fighting for.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's what you did.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're a civilian that didn't serve, how about you live a life that's worth somebody else fighting for?
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's what's happening.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I'm a C student at best.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I I never understand when people talk about how hard they work.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: Why would you work that hard?
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: You only got such a finite time.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: I spend most of my days playing with my dog.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: I and I've set up my life to be that way.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: Figure out what it is you want to do and do it.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's the greatest thing about living in America, is that you can't do it.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: I don't understand why everybody's complaining.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: Who's gonna make it better for you if you're not gonna make it better for you yourself?
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: And if you can't develop a relationship with your dog, like if you can't feel better after playing with a dog, you should probably go to the hospital because there's something wrong with you.
• 31:10
  unknown: Right?
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: Bill Murray has that great quote like, I don't trust a man that doesn't like dogs, but I definitely trust a dog that doesn't like a man.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_02: I I haven't seen that one.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_02: I like that though.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, I'm gonna have to go look that one up.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's not he's very true.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: When my dog growls at a person, it's usually for decent reasons at least.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm not saying they're automatically bad, but I'm gonna question it, that's for sure.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they they have they have a scent that you and I don't have, which is um unique, but then we're getting close to the end of this one.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um this has been great.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_02: Well, but I think like you said the the relationship, it's all about the relationship.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, I can't say word for word what you said earlier about how um you know, they don't care what your title is like and just they're they're there for you.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, I love being able to come home from a rough day of work or a rough day of traveling, you know, then have got some really nasty traveling, but I know it's waiting for me on the other side of that door.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_02: And it's you know, that just kind of brings that wave of stress down, so to speak.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um it really does.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you haven't seen The Heart of the Beast yet with the new Brad Pitt movie, I have not.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's the perfect showcase of the relationship.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: I thought they did a great job.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, these are extreme circumstances, right?
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: He's a special operator, the dog was a war dog, but that doesn't matter.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's the relationship that they the two of them have, and that is possible with anybody that has a dog if they make themselves available to the dog in that way, if you set up your routines, right?
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: Dogs are pack animals, they need to know where they fit in your home, in the pack, and they need to be able to predict a at least a reasonable routine of you're gonna leave at this time, you're gonna come back.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: At this time, we're gonna walk, I'm gonna get fed at this time, at this time we're gonna play here.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying it's gotta be every day directly, like it's not that the dog needs to feel, needs to understand that certain things are gonna happen at certain times because they're seasonal, right?
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: They are very in tune with the nature.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: They're their their whole life is dominated by their nose mostly.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: Right, and that gives them information different than us.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not about dominating the dog and making it do all the things that we don't want to do or can't do, it's about building that relationship that we use what they're good at and we use what we're good at to create the magic between us.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: But that's what we're supposed to do with each other, too.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we're supposed to do in the community beyond.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so by bringing people down to that, once they realize that they have more power in this relationship, they realize they have more power in other relationships, and then they realize that they can wield that power for good.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_02: Uh yeah, I think you just might have got a good closing here because uh, you know, uh that you you just summed it up, and and that was perfect because I usually ask a question, but um I think that was a great way to to close, BJ.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I appreciate you giving this opportunity.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry, I go on more, but it's um this is my life's work, you know.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um 10 years professionally with Sierra Delta, 15 years, you know, just really figuring it out and really trying to live it, and then working with thousands of other veterans, yeah, thousands of dog trainers.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like this is not a small sample size, and we still have more to figure out, yeah.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so we need your help.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_00: Sierra Delta.com is where you can find us.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: All the socials is Sierra Delta Dogs or Sierra Delta.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we're easy to find, we're easy to work with.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because this isn't this is an easy relationship that's been established by everybody that came before us, and these dogs, they make it easy.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's why they don't live as long as us, is that they come and knowing how to love, and we take a lot longer to figure it out, but it's worth figuring it out with them, and that's why losing dozer.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: I would rather lose dozer than and have that relationship than to never have had dozer in all of my life.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: Last way, same with that.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_00: So it's worth the sacrifice, just like serving in the Marine Corps, just like anything else I do, I do it because it's worth the sacrifice.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I hope that everybody else can find a way and find the agency and the authenticity to figure out what is what is worth it to them and then commit to it and enjoy it.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_02: That's awesome, BJ.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you, thank you for being here, listeners.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_02: We will make sure, you know, go check the notes of this, go find you know, the article that follows with us.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_02: We'll have the links to go find BJ for veterans that might be listening, you know, join and get involved, and then in BJ, I'm sure there are links and information in there if we have planters or corporations that want to, you know, help with the fundraising element of it.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_02: So BJ, thank you for your time today.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_02: Don't go anywhere, just email it um as as we come to you know, we're not gonna tell that.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for your time today.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having me.