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Winston: The Dog Who Helped Rob Heal · Every Pawprint! Every Story!

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, everyone.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to another episode of Every Pop Rent, Every Story.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Dan Popovic.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: And for those new listeners to the show, you're probably wondering what is this podcast all about?
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Well, quite simple, our fur kids, our dogs, our cats.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: We invite family and friends into the podcast, interview them.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's all we do is talk about.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: So my hope is you'll laugh on these episodes.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: You may cry.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: We do occasionally talk about pet loss.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's inevitable.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm also hopeful you get inspired.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think you'll be pretty inspired with today's episode.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm pretty excited.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: We've had a lot of fun, inspirational ones in the past, but hopefully also you feel supported along whatever journey you are with your pet.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: So on that note, I am super excited to welcome Rob to podcast today.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: How are you, Rob?
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: Great, Dan.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: Great to be here.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, um, I talk about one of my dogs, Winston, a lot.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm happy to jump on and talk some more.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and and you see, and for the listeners, Rob and I have a little bit of a of a relationship.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if I can even use that word correctly.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe something better, but you know, Rob and I have really gotten to know each other well.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: So this is gonna be fun, kind of special for me having him on here.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you see right away I avoided saying your last name because I'm like, man, I forgot I have a hard last name.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Kalwar, yeah, see how do you pronounce your last name?
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: Kalwarovski.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, thank you.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: But um, before we get into the pets, I thought it'd be fun to kind of because yeah, you you've got your own podcast, you you do some speaking, um, which you've been helping me on.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so it's it's really fascinating and kind of cool your journey and what you've been doing.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: So share with the listeners a little bit about you what yourself and yeah, what you're doing before we get into the fur kids.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: Totally.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm Rob Kalvarowski, I'm an executive coach, speaker, author.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, my book's called Capitalizing on Chaos.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: And it's it's really about the the inner chaos of us as leaders, how do we navigate that?
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: And then how do we show up in the workplace to engage our people as well as make them happier?
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so I do that.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: I talk, I do speak in gigs.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and most probably most relevant to this is if you watch my TED Talk.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it actually starts off with a story about Winston.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I won't spoil it, but go to YouTube and uh find my TED talk, How to Deal with a Bad Boss, and you'll see it.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we'll definitely put a link and all of those details into the article that goes out with this and in the notes in the the podcast, so listeners can kind of go find it.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um but man, I have a I think a lot of listeners that listen to this know I there's always one question I start with, but man, you had me going on the chaos.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um naturally pets.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when I know Winston, so I'm stealing some thunder here.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: I know Winston for the listeners again with Rob and I.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: Talk about chaos.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: Is there any chaos with Winston?
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: So Winston was one of the reasons I got over a lot of the chaos I was dealing with.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: So, for context, and and also Dan and I met as part of the real mental health ambassadors.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I have I had been struggling with depression and um suicidal ideation for a long time.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I had an attempt in 2013, and it was really in 2019 things opened up for me again.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I was feeling really terrible, and I was in therapy.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: And it was probably a few months into therapy, and I was like hammering it.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: I was going two to three times a week, like really trying to get through it.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I kept getting stuck in these spaces where my body would just shut down and it was just like too overwhelming to my system what was going on.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: And my therapist as part of like EMDR, there's a there's a point where if that happens, you're like trying to imagine something that makes you feel safe, so then you can open that up and continue.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: And for some reason, I always kept coming back to a dog.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so one and one day, she my therapist was just like, Rob, did you have a dog as a kid?
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I I hadn't, because my parents were like, Oh, you're allergic to pets and whatever.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I guess kind of what was happening at the same time was my wife, this was COVID, so this was like 2020, 2021.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: And my wife was was also thinking about a dog, but I mean, she was working at a senior's home, so she was gone 12 to 14 hours a day in the the chaos of of that.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so then I came home and I was like, hey, Umbalia, like my therapist thinks that we should get a dog, and like literally two to three weeks later, we were in someone's home in Edmonton with a litter of puppies that were like barely born and sitting there, and it was like all right, we're getting a dog.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: And so yeah, we got Winston when he was eight weeks old um like March of 2021.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so my wife was still working basically 12 to 14 hours a day.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: She took two weeks off when we first got him to like like because you know they they're up like every two to three hours the whole time.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then basically for like the rest of that 2021 and 2022, I was at home with Winston full time by myself.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: And like he helped me so much with my mental health, um, like the unconditional love and the companionship and like even like the physical touch and like all those things was just like so huge for me.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: No, that's that's awesome.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, he's he's still young, then what five, six years old.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he's five.
• 6:34
  unknown: Yeah.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: And when Winston, yeah, I I know you shared with me, but with with the listeners, how did that name come to be?
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: So there is an episode of The Simpsons where Bart is writing fake love letters to Ms.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: Kerboppel, and the name he picks is Woodrow from Woodrow Wilson, because there's a picture of the president's on the on the wall.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so I was like, and there's this scene like where Mr.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: Kerboppel goes, oh Woodrow.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, I will, I just think it's so funny.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so I was like, Oh, we should call him Woodrow.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: And then my wife was like, No.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: And so we landed on Winston.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: It starts with a W.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, it was just, I thought it was so funny.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I wanted.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: But and actually, I did meet someone years later um who had a dog called Woodrow.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: And so I was just like, I'm super jealous.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, okay.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: Now I don't think you did tell me that story, so that is pretty funny.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think so.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you didn't.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, no, I love that's a yeah, that's awesome.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um and then I guess talk more about, yeah, just you know, how I mean, I know you touched on how how we healed you, the compassion, the the being there, the physical touches.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um I mean, was it was it like a slow progression?
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, did you see the the immediate mental impact?
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, how how did you see that shift in your you know, disposition and mentality?
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, for me, I mean, it was immediate in a sense of like the companionship and the feeling of unconditional love.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I don't think I don't think I ever felt it like that before.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: And my parts all recognized that and the safety.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so, like part of uh the therapy I was doing was internal family systems, and so it's like you're talking about like basically it's kind of like the movie Inside Out.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: And so you're relating to these internal parts that you have that are either hurt child parts or they're parts that are trying to defend you from pain and shame.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so you kind of like effectively you're leading a team inside your own head.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: And so you're building relationships, you're building trust, and immediately all of them started wanting their own mini Winstons to feel safe.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so that was like for me, it was helping my system calm and regulate and feel safe compared to like when you're opening up a lot of like PTSD.
• 9:21
  unknown: Right.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: Basically, your brain thinks that you're in that trauma in the present moment.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: And so you feel like I was feeling a lot of like panic attacks and anxiety and like walking around feeling like I was unsafe in the world.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: Not it wasn't true, but that's what my brain was processing.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: And then by having his presence there, sounds like it must somehow normalize you because it's like, well, I've got to, he's there in the moment for me, I've got to be there in the moment for him.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, and like co-regulation is a thing.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: So so you will this also works with humans, right?
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: But you co-regulate, like your emotions kind of normalize.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so, like a pet and you will kind of stabilize each other.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: And then the other stuff is like stuff like you know, when dogs are goofy, and so like even today, like he does something that I'll laugh at, right?
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like that kind of pulls you from in your own thoughts about whatever to like, oh, he's like chewing on your shoe or something.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, what did he do today?
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: You got me curious now, or I mean, um, well, this morning he like went and got some garbage bag from the neighbors and brought it over to the lawn, and it was everywhere, so yeah, uh stuff like that.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and you can you can't get mad and yell and yada yada.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, okay, I just yeah, I gotta laugh.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: He's he's just exploring, right?
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: Well, sometimes you get mad, yeah.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, unfortunately, yeah, we're human.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then he gives you those puppy dogs look like, what did I do?
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: And then you're like, okay, I can't get mad, right?
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, what are let's keep on that fun.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: What are some like some of the other crazy things that that he's done, or is there like one specific thing that he kind of seems to routinely do, maybe once a week, that just makes you laugh?
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, my wife and I joke that he's like an old man.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um like he'll like groan and sigh when he's like laying down or getting up.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, like he has his little habits and his quirks.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, it's just it's just funny.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: Like he just um, yeah, he's just he's just kind of ridiculous.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: So so very expressive, basically.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and and so like like for folks like I live in Costa Rica and Winston is a 95-100-pound labradoodle, and everyone here has dogs.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um basically they use them as some version of home security.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so like they're they bark.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: However, everybody who has dogs here has either chihuahuas or like tiny dogs, which are maybe 10 pounds, or German shepherds.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: They're that's about it.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: So anytime we walk around, and I actually take them for walks where they don't do that here.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's abnormal for a Costa Rican to take their dog for a walk.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: They're just like not there.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: Some of them aren't fenced in, they just kind of walk around.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, others, they're like my there's like neighbors over there, they're like seem to be leashed up all day and just outside all day.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so when I walk Winston, like everyone stops and like looks at us because we're like one is you know, I'm obviously not a local, and then the other thing is like he is something that they've never seen before.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: And now do you have him on a leash or do you have him off leash?
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: I walk him on leash, yeah.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: Because um, just because other dogs will be they'll run out, or um, sometimes there's cows and cats and stuff like that.
• 13:32
  unknown: Yeah.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: How does how is his interaction pretty good where he does it, you know, he's like, hey, but he'll notice the dog, but he's not gonna like lunge and want to play.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: And but if a dog runs at you, how is that interaction as you're out there walking with him?
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: He's generally good, like he's super well.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, he loves dogs, like he wants to play with them.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but some of the dogs here are super aggressive.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like, there's one yester, like literally yesterday.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, usually it's on leash, but the lady had somebody like coming over, so like the gate was open or something.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: And one like came out and like literally jumped on him and like started trying to bite him.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, it's it's crazy.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like the dogs here.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and like I've gotten like I run every morning and I've gotten bit on my shoe or my ankle a couple times by like a couple dogs around the corner.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, people don't treat their dogs well here.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um hate to hear that, but it sounds like Winston's quite the quite the trooper and dealing with all that and just kind of being there in the moment to support you.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, he he he just loves it.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: Like, um, I mean he, you know, he's super chill.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's um, we have another dog, Sasha.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: She's the one who's a little more skittish, but she's uh she's like literally a farm dog that um kind of adopted me, I guess.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah, so would have been two, two years ago, three years ago, something like that.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: I was walking and I was actually rehearsing a keynote because I was going the week later to to Denver to do a talk.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I didn't bring Winston because I needed to just like focus on, and I like walk and I talk it out loud because that's the way I remember stuff.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so I was about 15 minutes from the house, and there's a farm that grows um Rambutams, they're like these red kind of furry type of fruits.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, never heard of that.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they're super popular.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: They they kind of look like a lychee, but they're a little bit different.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: That one I don't know either.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's some like a lychee is like an Asian fruit, and it's like white and kind of gelatinous on the inside, anyways, doesn't matter.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and like I'm walking and I'm doing my keynote, and like a dog runs out of this farm behind me, and like I stopped walking because I'm like, is this dog gonna try to attack me or what's going on?
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so I stopped walking and and she like sniffed my like the she was behind me, so she sniffed like my ankle, and I kind of like stood there and just didn't move.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I turned around and she just like belly up, like pet rub my tummy.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: And so I rubbed her tummy and then I was like, okay, I'm gonna just keep going.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: And she just followed me, and then eventually she followed me back to the house, and she was like like underweight, all like disgusting and dirty.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, All right, we'll like feed her, and then I'll walk her back to the farm, and hopefully she'll just like go back to where she was.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um and we fed her and then she didn't want to leave.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: And so my wife like gave her a bath and whatever, and then she just like we kind of texted the neighbors and we're like, Does anyone and nobody knew whose dog it was?
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: Two weeks later, I was on a run and she used to come running with me, and we ran by the house, the the farm.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: And at that exact moment, the farmer was pulling up in his car, and so a guy guy gets out of the car, says something to me in Spanish.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: I don't understand it, but it was clear that it was his dog, and I'm like, take her, I don't want her, but I didn't think about it at the time.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: She walked around him, like she went to the other side of the street around him and around and kept going.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: And then when I got home, I was like, it kind of hit me, and I was like, that was really weird.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_01: Because like if I leave the house for if I take the garbage out, which is like maybe like you know, 10 meters away, like when I come back, Winston's like, oh my god, where'd you go?
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: And like we were gone for you know, she wasn't at her place for like a week and a half to two weeks, and she didn't want, and I was like, Oh, he definitely abused her, and like it makes sense, like based on her condition, but yeah, and so now she she adopted us, and so we have another dog.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: Uh well, no, that uh awesome story, yeah.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's wow.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I mean, he hasn't come by to bug you and want the dog back, so that's good, or has he?
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: No, he was he was kind of making it clear that we could have her, and I was like, I don't want her because I was like, I have one, I don't need another one, right?
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: And then she just kind of chose, and that was it.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: Now was um, but that's still great because it's like, all right, here's well, one, you fed me, you bathed me.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to leave, I want to get on the couch.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, how was Winston when when she first came over?
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: He was fine, she was not.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, anytime like she has very strong resource guarding, and it makes sense because I think with the farms here, they get like a bunch of dogs, and they kind of just like throw the food down.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: And they all kind of like they don't go in the house, right?
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: They kind of are outside and whatever.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so like I wasn't prepared for this, and like Ambalia wasn't prepared either.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: And so early we had some stuff where we were like getting the food ready, and Winston like naturally wants to stand next to us because that's what he's done forever.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: And when she would get too close, she would like attack him because she would feel like he's like encroaching on the food or whatever.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um that's gone down a lot.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's good.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um right, like um, we still gotta be a little careful.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like it happened last week out of the blue, and it hadn't happened for probably six months.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but so now it's just a lot better.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: But stuff like that takes time.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: And we had, you know, we you and I talked about it and the same issues with Carly and the resource garden.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, it it takes time, patience, learning what what they need or want to kind of you know support them.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: But um, so was Sasha her name, or did you get to name her?
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, umbalia named her, yeah.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, her name was I forget something else, but yeah, she just she became Sasha.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: Any story behind that name?
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know, honestly.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: I was not part of that.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: I was okay.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: That was another Bart Simpson episode with Sasha and Sasha Gabor, Sasha Gabor.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: I wish I wish there was a good story behind that one.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then any idea how old she is?
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: I think now she's about two or two and a half.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, because we took her in to get um spayed or neutered, whichever the female one is.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then what's the breed?
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you mention that.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: She's some sort of mix.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 21:37
  unknown: Yeah.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: Well, she's very she's got very strong like herding mentality.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: So like there are sometimes there's cows that will walk like in the field behind me, and she will run through the fence and like bark at them and like do her thing.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, she's crazy.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: Does she get behind you and like nudge you along on hey, get moving?
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: Or not really 'cause Hazel does that, right?
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: I told you that she does that because she's ridgebacks are are I think they're they're kind of hurting mentality too.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: So she'll hurt she'll hurt me sometimes when she's hungry.
• 22:12
  unknown: Yeah.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um but so you don't walk with Sasha, but you still walk with Winston, obviously, every day, every day or every other day.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Sasha.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: She used to run with me, and then one time she got hit by a car.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: Oh um, it wasn't like it was she was off leash.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and she kind of orbited me, and then she like ran across the street and then ran back, and then a car was coming and hit her.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: She was fine.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but since then she doesn't really want to leave the yard.
• 22:48
  unknown: Yeah.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: And she she has like some weird terror stuff, like loud, like anytime it thunders or people shoot fireworks, or there's like loud noises, like she goes and hides underneath the couch in my wife's office.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: Gotcha.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's probably a good thing, then I guess, right?
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: You know, go running with Winston, keeping her back safe at home.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, now do you I I know you travel quite a bit and then you've got speaking.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: So do you take them or occasionally just take Winston?
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: Or how does that kind of how does that dynamic work?
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: Do you bring them with you?
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: Oh no, no, no.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: They'll we have a a boarder person here.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: Gotcha.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 23:34
  unknown: Yeah.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: But any any like traveling vacations with them, or not really?
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you're kind of in a vacation spot as it is.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we'll take them, we'll take them to the beach.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: Like, we're actually going this weekend.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, right.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: So like Winston loves the beach, and he'll just like get, you know, he'll go swimming, he'll get completely dirty, um, the whole bit.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_01: Sasha gets into it too.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but yeah, not too much.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like it was a it was actually a huge kind of a pain to get him here from Canada.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but now that he's here, it's just like he's almost too big now to fly.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I don't know.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I don't know if that'll happen if we can take him anywhere.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, that makes sense.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: But hey, well, at least you got the beach, like you said.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: So they they both aren't afraid of the water and they'll both get right into the water.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Winston used to be, but then it was, I think it was the first time I went surfing.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_01: I was out, obviously, and he was just like, must save dad.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: And then he just like he got too deep and he started swimming, and then he was like, Oh, I can actually swim.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so now he does it.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like Sasha, she just like there's like a there's like a creek, I don't know, five minutes from here or something.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: And like we went there one time because sometimes I'll go and I'll sit in it, and she just like immediately got in and was swimming around.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: So she's already into it.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's cool.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: So are you do are they both your dogs or Winston's more yours and Sasha's is more your wife's, or or do they equally share the two of you?
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: Winston definitely is mine.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I mean, he was into my wife more right away.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, both like when we met him when he was you know four weeks old or six weeks old.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then also because my wife like took care of him for the first two weeks.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: But I mean, then I was with him like basically all the time for a year and a half.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so yeah, he's he's he's mine.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um Sasha is is a bit split.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: My life, my wife's definitely more attached to her, though.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it sounds like like you were saying in the beginning with the story that Winston really helped you through a challenging time in life, so that that's a pretty powerful bond.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um and yeah, that's you know, that that's even amazing to kind of think about.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um now, do they do they sleep with you guys or do they have their own beds, or how does that routine kind of work out?
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Winston sleeps with us.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Sasha sleeps on the couch.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: How big is Sasha again?
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: I forgot what you said.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, she's she's a lot smaller.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: She might be like 30 pounds.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: So you got the you got the big teddy bear crab in you in the bed and the small one somewhere else.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's hilarious.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: Gotta love how that works.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but yeah, any anything else like with Winston on on how he's kind of helped your journey to to where you're at with what you've done, like any because I know you mentioned the TEDx.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, did you do you bring more of him into like some of the stuff that you do to help others?
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_01: I I talk about him on a lot on leadership.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, like when you mentioned, right?
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: Like you can't get mad.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_01: Like literally, I talk about in my TED talk, I talk about this time where Winston tried to basically chew an entire tree.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, he was he grabbed a branch and it was still attached to the tree.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I got mad.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: Like I was like, you know, and then I had to realize that like he's a dog.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: That's what dogs do.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: And like it helped me with my own one, it was self-awareness, but also the emotional intelligence of just like why am I getting mad at this?
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um so that's something that I use a lot.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um I also talk about him.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_01: I have a I have a keynote where I talk about like how to achieve your goals.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I use a story where um he he found a bone in a bush one day, and I took it from him and I threw it like way far away.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: But like every day for a week after that, he kept going back into that same bush, going, Where's this, where's this bone in this magical bush of bones?
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and it's it's like I I draw the parallel that like a lot of us are taught that hard work is how we succeed.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like we just keep going back to that well.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_01: And actually it's not, it's through relationships, it's through strategic, um, like strategic, you know, it's through mindset and like strategic relationship building and like letting your goals known.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_01: And like Winston, after a week, he I he like sat there and looked at me and looked at the bush and looked at me and looked at the bush and like whined at me, and then I bought him a bone, and like that's how you get success.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: They they speak in their own ways, it's just a matter of you and I catching up to them and understanding it, right?
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's awesome.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, totally lost my train of thought when I made that comment, but um yeah, because I love what you're saying too, because I you know, and how he helped you, like you talked about self-regulation.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm gonna guess probably the fact that you know they hold us accountable, right?
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: They create routine stability throughout the day, but they really hold us accountable that they get fed at a certain time each day.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: You take them so yeah, it's was that part of kind of therapy for you that hey, that that accountability really helped you as well.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: The part that helped me was like I'm a very regimented person, so that was already part of my thing.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: Like I I got up and I would like go work out and I would do my thing.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um what I actually started doing with Winston was I would take a break.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_01: It was somewhere around 10 or 10 30, 11, and I would go and I would sit with him and just like basically pet him for for like 15 minutes.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: And it would like give me this break in my day where and it helped me like return back to the moment and like and like accept love from somebody else.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: And like that was really helpful for me.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I had like literally put that in my calendar.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: It was like, I mean, it sounds crazy, right?
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_01: But like it was something that I did that was like really helpful for me.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_01: Right, because otherwise you're just sitting at your desk and like you're working, and like you know, you're going through your mental health challenges, and it's easy to sort of forget yourself.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: And like that was a time where it was like I started to like regiment self-care in a sense, um, or pet care, I guess.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I know we're getting close to the end, and uh it's some of what you just said is probably a a good segue, but before we go there, so Winston, um and Sasha, they're like you said, they're really your first, right?
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: You haven't had any before, they're your first.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: So luckily we don't have to talk about pet loss on this episode.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um they're still here.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's yeah, that's still here.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: Plenty more to plenty more to go.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but you know, for for listeners of this show, just you know, having pets, you know, what no matter what journey they're in, and and you know, since this focus has been a lot on on health, I mean, what gosh, like what what advice or what suggestions would you share, would you, you know, provide that's really helped you and having them in your life?
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_01: I think the biggest thing is it's kind of that trope of taking care of them takes care of you.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I think as as high achievers, typically we don't take care of ourselves.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_01: We're out like I literally had a call this morning with uh a client who's an executive at a you know Fortune 100 company, and you know, they're they're burning the rope at both ends, right?
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: And he he has a one-year-old and he was saying like his his daughter forces like was was up at 5 45 this morning.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: So she's she's kind of doing the same thing that Winston did for me, where it's like she was forcing him to get up, she was forcing him to take care of her, but it's like I was saying, like, you gotta remember you.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what do you want?
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_01: Where do you want to go?
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not just about like what she forced him is like now he has to actually like leave his desk and go home at at five o'clock or six o'clock instead of working right at 12 hours.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think that's one of the biggest benefits is like is allowing them to help you improve your own, like taking care of yourself.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's a great way to end the episode.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um so thank thanks, Rob.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thanks for thanks for being on here.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, it's it's been special for me kind of getting to know you and and have more of a you know working relationship with you.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I just wanted to again thank you for being on this.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: And for the listeners of this uh episode, I'll definitely make sure we um the article that will go out there will hop have all of Rob's contact information.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: We'll definitely get a link to that TEDx that you're talking about with Winston so they can kind of go see it as well.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: But um, yeah, thanks for being on the show again today, Rob.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for having me.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_01: And for folks, right?
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_01: So Dan's doing keynotes now.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_01: And so he's coming to you.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to have someone come to your office to talk about pets and leadership, pets and emotional intelligence, pets and empathy and and also pets and employee engagement, hit Dan up because he'll have a phenomenal keynote for you.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for that plug.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that is a wrap for today.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: Don't go anywhere just yet, but um, thank you to the listeners.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Rob, and we will see you on the next episode.