The Joy of Adopting a Senior Dog

Adopting and Loving a Senior Dog

Announcer: Welcome to the Starlight Pet Talk Podcast, where we'll talk about and explore ways to help pet parents and future pet parents learn everything they need to know to have a happy and healthy relationship with their pet. So sit up and stay for Starlight Pet Talk, rescue, adoption and pet parenting done right.

Amy Castro: Welcome to Starlight Pet Talk. I'm your host, Amy Castro, and today we're talking about pet adoption, but specifically about senior pet adoption. In my experience, as a rescue person, and as somebody who has volunteered at a shelter for many years, a lot of people go to shelters and rescues looking for puppies and kittens, and they do it for a variety of reasons. I've heard everything from, I want my child to grow up with a puppy and kitten and raise them together. People that just don't trust that a senior pet is gonna behave the way that they want it to behave. And so they wanna kind of raise it in their own image, for lack of a better term. But what I've also found is that not everybody is a good fit for adopting a baby pet. And I feel like,  and especially I've learned over the years that there are a tremendous amount of benefits, not only for the human, but for the pet of considering and adopting a senior pet or an older pet. My guest today is Sherri Franklin, and I was telling Sherri before we started recording that I've been a follower and admirer of hers for a long time.She is the founder and executive director of Muttville Senior Dog Rescue in San Francisco. And she was inspired in the nineties when she saw older dogs basically going into shelters and rarely coming back out, or at least not the way that we want them to come back out. And she was determined to do something about that.

 And now Muttville is going into its 16th year. Amazing to me and on their way to saving more than 11,000 senior dogs. So Sherri, I've got goosebumps having you here. Uh, I'm so excited to have you here as my guest today, and I appreciate you making the time to talk to us about what you're doing out in San Francisco.

Sherri Franklin: Well, it's a pleasure to meet you and any chance I have to, talk about the wonders of senior dogs, I am, I jump on it. So, uh, thanks for having. 

Amy Castro: Awesome. Thanks so much. So, can you tell us a little bit, I mean, a little bit more about how Muttville came about and what inspired you to put, I know, what has been the blood, sweat, tears, time and effort that it would take to grow it to what you've grown it to today?

Sherri Franklin: Well, first of all, it's a lot of passion. It's definitely a labor of love. I was volunteering in animal shelters, in the Bay Area for many years and, and actually my first experience with an older dog that I fell in love with, she was a beagle, basset sort of looking dog,  and she was like eight years old and she ended up at the shelter because her,  guardian had passed away. And when she first arrived, she was happy and waggy, and she was my favorite dog there. So I started walking her every day.  I would go in before I, was a hair stylist, so I'd go in before work. I'd sometimes go in after work, so I'd make sure she'd get out for a walk. And in the beginning she was so waggy and excited to see me, and I watched as a couple weeks had gone by and she had started to lose that glow in her eyes and that happiness and,  I, you know, still was going there trying to keep that going. And I came in one day and she was gone and I was so excited. You know, I was like, she got adopted and I was like, thrilled that, you know, she wasn't there anymore. And then I heard that she, her time had been up and she wasn't there anymore because she had been euthanized.

And like I said, this was in the nineties and I was still, you know, I was in San Francisco, so I was pretty devastated, very devastated, and cried myself to sleep night after night and started working harder and started making plans and said, I'm gonna start a nonprofit. I knew nothing about nonprofits and, and, so it took a little while, but you know, actually, a lot of things started to happen and I started taking dogs home one at a time and finding them homes.

 So I was taking home the hardest to place dogs. Sometimes they weren't seniors, but sometimes they were super shy or. And I realized that it was pre-internet okay, I mean, pre-Facebook. And, um, you know, what we used to do is pin up signs everywhere at grocery stores and cafes. And I, I tell my hair clients, everybody ended up adopting a dog from me.

So, I realized, I have a knack for this and I, I really studied a lot about dog behavior and senior dog health. And everything I could learn while I was going for my non-profit status. So, you know, still jumping sort of off the cliff in a way when I started Muttville because I wasn't sure were we going to be able to really adopt out the amount of dogs that I really saw needed us.

And, yeah. And the first, I'll just say the first year we saved 27 dogs and I was so thrilled that we could save 27 dogs. Would've been euthanized at the shelter. And,  now we save around 1100 a year, so we're working with shelters, you know, all over Northern and Central California.

And we're also training other shelters and other rescues that wanna start working on senior dog rescue. We're working with a lot of them and mentoring them on how to do this and. How to make it work and just giving them some tips and cheerleading with them and, and working through their problems.

So I like to think that we're not just saving the dogs that come through Muttville, but we're also starting to see a movement across the nation. And of course, not fast enough for any of us, but,  we are seeing senior dogs get adopted from shelters rather than having to come to Muttville, some of those dogs are actually getting homes while they're still at the shelter,  so, you know, we're being able to save more and reach out further because we were supposed to get five dogs from a shelter this week, from one of our shelters, and three of them got adopted over the weekends. You know, that sort of thing happened. And in the old days, none of them would've been adopted.

So putting them out, marketing them, talking about how wonderful they are has  really made a difference in what we're seeing people actually adopt more older dogs. That's great. 

Amy Castro: That’s great, and I love that education piece. We, at Starlight Outreach and Rescue, which is my rescue, and we don't focus on senior dogs, although they definitely have a special place. Senior pets just in general have a special place in my heart. I usually end up, they end up living here at the Rescue Ranch. But, there's only so much any rescue can do. No matter how grand and how big you are, there's always gonna be a physical limitation to how many animals you can house. And so to be able to reach out like you're doing and sharing your, tips for success with other rescues is so important because we all come across senior animals and in rescue, especially you and,  maybe not everybody is like this, but I have found since starting the rescue, my rescue in 2017, you started off taking every, if anyone called me, I took it and I had animals in every bathroom, every bedroom of my house at the time.

And then I moved to this. Yeah, I know you started off at your house too. And then, my family moved and committed with me to this rescue thing in 2018 and we moved to seven acres and we've got an out building for cats and we've converted the garage and. There's still not enough space. You know, it's like you, there's only so much space, and so to extend that knowledge to other organizations is huge. It’s just super important.

Sherri Franklin: I think at, in the sheltering side of things like you and, and rescue and animal sheltering, I feel that I have camaraderie with everybody because we all love the old dogs. It's very funny. I mean, not everybody rescues them, but you know, when we get our calls, I'll go, we got a special little girl in today.

Or, so I think it's the shelters also that are starting to, you really like open up their hearts, which then spreads out. But I also feel that, you know, what we do, is we have a foster base, so our dogs, we have a shelter and we have adoption events where all the dogs get dropped off, and we have these open houses every week, but we also have over 300 foster homes. Not that they're all active at the same time, because that would be crazy. It would still be so much work for us, but we do have a larger capacity for care because we have all of these lovely foster homes that we've built through the years, and I'm not saying they all foster at the same time, but if there was, And when there has been, a catastrophe of some sort, when we are bringing in dogs from, a hurricane or the fires or anything like that, we reach out to all of our fosters and they're, they're all like so willing to help. So, if there is a, we take in hoarding  situations, I'm sure you probably have seen a lot of that in Texas. And when we have to do that,  we have a community of people that will step up and I highly recommend that any animal rescue organization, whether you have a shelter to shelter them, really start reaching out to your community and get a lot of fosters because those foster families not only get, these dogs a great place to stay, they also help in the adoption process. They give you a lot more information. So your adopter feels, Oh, I'm getting so much more information because the dog's living in a home rather than living at a shelter. And I think that's one of the barriers that a lot of people feel about bringing in a senior dog from a shelter. They don't, they get no, nothing. They don't get a lot of information. But when you actually have a dog in a foster home, people are just more comfortable in adopting that dog. 

Sherri Franklin: So foster support is huge. And not only that, they tell their friends, they put it all over their Instagram and their Facebook of their new foster dog. They sometimes end up adopting the dog or one of their friends adopts the dog. So, they help in the adoption process overall as well. So that's been really helpful for us. 

Amy Castro: Yes. I think that's a key for a lot of the rescues that I see here in Texas is that, not every, most of them don't have a building or a storefront. It's, we were, until we moved here, we were completely foster based. And really it is, as a matter of fact, right now, That's why I've got my headset on and hoping you're not hearing noise. We're constructing a another, another building. It's gonna basically increase our ability to care for dogs by about 400%.

 Of course. I've got the, of course I've got the cart ahead of the horse because I'm building the building and I haven't even started the fundraiser for it yet, but,  But we're working on it. You mentioned the idea of that first dog and how, you know it ended up in the shelter because the owner passed away.  And I get calls like that every single day and I know that's a huge reason why senior pets find themselves in shelters. But what else do you know? What are some of the other things that you see as to why so many senior pets end up in shelters?

Sherri Franklin: Well, a lot of things, especially right now. People are feeling displaced. Somebody goes into a nursing facility, two people have to move in together, two family members, and they both have dogs and the dogs don't get along. So there's the housing issue. The housing issue,  there's the veterinary cost. Which we're trying to work through that and, and talk to people about sort of a spectrum of care and saying, you don't need to go get an MRI on your 12 year old dog. You know, the vet may say that, but let's just talk you through that. So trying to keep dogs in the home when they have a health issue rather than having them being given to the shelter given up to us. And we have managed to work through that with quite a few people that never really thought there was an alternative to the Cadillac of care, which is the super expensive, especially here in San Francisco. The veterinary costs are, just like the cost of living here, it's, it's a lot. And so if you've got a senior person living on a fixed income, and we get a lot of dogs from seniors, but you know, anybody that's on a fixed income or living paycheck to paycheck can become overwhelmed pretty quickly with the cost of veterinary care. So we're, we're working on educating people on how far do you have to go and how much do you have to spend and do you need all those tests? And let's talk about keeping your dog comfortable and happy and giving it a great quality of life without getting an MRI. So, and we see hoarding situations now out in the Central Valley and eastward where they're picking up stray dogs off the street, old dogs. I just, I have a dog here who was picked up on a freeway. She was picked up in Oroville and she was on the street. You know, like this devastates me and I take home the real broken dogs. So I'm like you, I keep all the, I have nine dogs here right now, and they're all laying in beds around you. So there are people that are throw, just not throwing out. I, don't wanna say because who knows what the reason is, but we are seeing more strays as well. 

Amy Castro: Yeah, it’s tough trying to label it, but at the same time, I think probably there's a certain level of, I'm desperate, I have no place to turn. Maybe if I release the animal, somebody like you is gonna pick it up, because I'm kind of, I'm kind of like you. I actually wrote a blog post about this years ago about having a syndrome called Pumpkins Without Stems syndrome. Stems from going to the pumpkin patch back east and picking your pumpkin for Halloween.

And I'd always pick a good looking one, but at the same time, I'd always convince my mother, can I take that one that doesn't have a stem or the one that has warts or whatever it is? No, because it's like, I feel bad for it. It's gonna be 

left behind.

Sherri Franklin: I say, tap into all the people that feel that way. You'd be surprised.

Amy Castro: I know.

Sherri Franklin: how many there are out there that really wanna help and take the dog that's been there the longest, or the dog with the worst skin or the ugliest one, or the one with three legs, or the one with one eye, or.  

Amy Castro: Yeah.  So what do you, what do you attribute your success to? I mean, gosh, if I could have, and we've got great fosters, don't get me wrong, but I definitely need more dog fosters, which for some reason we can't seem to round up. But you have so many, and like you said, they may not be active all at the same time, but how do you find people that are willing to take in senior dogs? And then I know you do a lot of hospice, foster, and not everybody wants to do that. How do you, how are you finding these people?

Sherri Franklin: Well, first of all, the hospice. We do a hospice adoption. We don't do hospice foster, we started out doing hospice, or hospice foster, but we soon realize that people grow to love these dogs and want to be able to make decisions for these dogs. We do find that what we do cover is we cover palliative care for the dog. We have, we will cover wellness exams for the hospice dog. We will cover comfort care,  palliative care, we will cover euthanasia, for the dog. So the cost isn't extreme Sometimes I think that our hospice dogs get adopted even more quickly than some of our regular dogs. We have people that come back time and time again and take hospice dogs, and I think it's about our communication around that.  We talk about how these dogs can teach us so much and how being able to offer this as a gift, it's not for everybody. And we talk about the fact that it's not right. You'd be surprised how many people step up and after they do it once they want to  do it again. They feel it's very rewarding for them and it's not gonna cost them a lot of money.

It's the way we talk about it and the way we market it and I mean, even families with children are adopting hospice dogs and that talk to their kids about a good death, how life is, and then you have death and maybe it's San Francisco, but you'd be surprised how many families actually do talk about it with their children. So they're all over the map with that. I think it's, we don't, we don't hush hush about it, and we're very transparent about it, and I think that's what brings more people into hospice. As far as fostering goes, I think one of the things that has helped us with our hospice foster program is that our turnover for adoptions and our length of stay is less than a month. So most foster families know that their commitment, if they want to take a vacation in June, they could foster a dog right now. They have their foster dog for six months. Um, that wasn't always the case. I think it's become, we've become sort of the go-to place for an older dog. So, and we've, I said we made senior dogs sexy people. Are now asking for senior dogs and asking for a dog that's a little more mature. So we're seeing adoptions happen more quickly, so therefore we have more fosters because they're going, oh, well I can foster for a month. So that's been helpful in getting more and more fosters together. And also if a foster takes a dog home, they realize it's, no, we don't, we supply everything. Food, dogfood, dog beds, everything, so, medical care. We have a vet clinic on our property, Muttville Vet Clinic. So I feel that all of that helps people in making that decision to come and foster a dog with Muttville.

Amy Castro: I think that support, when you're trying to recruit volunteers and we try to do the best we can with it too, being able to provide that support and provide what people need because it is a bit of an unknown when you're getting, well, anytime you're fostering, there's a certain level of unknown about how this is gonna play out. But especially with a senior pet that might have additional needs beyond a three year old healthy pet that just kind of needs food, water, exercise, for the most part, sleep, that alleviates a lot of the concerns. And that's, that's one of the reasons why people give up senior pets too, is just that, like you said, the expense of the care as they age. I think it's also interesting, you made the point about families wanting children to learn what end of life might be like, for an animal. And it's interesting that so many times when people are looking for a puppy, What do I want my kid to learn? I want my kid to learn responsibility and I want them to learn this, and I want them to learn that, which of course, may or may not play out depending on whether they really make them pooper scoop or whether that kind of goes by the wayside. But what could be a better education than learning empathy and care for an animal that needs that additional help and the privilege of being with an animal at the end of its life and having it with you in your home and not sitting in a cage at a shelter, just waiting to die. 

Sherri Franklin: Yeah, yeah, it's, that's part of the reason I think so many people are stepping up these days to do that and I'm a hospice mom. Most of my nine dogs here are hospice dogs. I have a team, a small team, committed team that comes to my house still, that are all volunteers that I said, just sit here and hold the dog. Some of them go for like, a short, 10 minute walk. I mean, most of them don't need a lot more than that. And it's rewarding. I mean, people love doing that. My little team here, they look forward to their day if they come and do that. So, you know, it's an easier thing to do than have a dog that needs, you know, an hour or two of exercise every day. 

Amy Castro: Exactly. One of the things that I hear down here with people adopting older pets when I'm trying to encourage them to at least consider is that they have anxiety or fear around losing, even if it's somebody who's 75 years old, they're worried about losing that pet too soon. They want to have this long life with their pet. How do you get past that? Or do you not face that with people out there?

Sherri Franklin: Well, it's interesting here. I think there's been a learning curve around that. I feel like we are seeing, especially in this, in San Francisco. I mean, it's hard to have a puppy here and we talk a lot about, when we talk to our senior, we have a special program, senior for senior program. And what we like to really stress is that a lot of our dogs. Come from homes with a senior and they're already used to being in a senior home. So that's like a, win-win for the dog, for the, for the senior that's adopting. We are very transparent about health issues with each dog, and no dog has a guarantee on health. None of them, you know? You get a puppy that gets bone cancer, I mean, a four year old dog that gets bone cancer, you know? You know, there's all sorts of things that can happen. I mean, I think that some of our dogs that are seven years old are too much for a senior sometimes, and like that dog needs a lot of exercise and it's seven. And I don't even think some of the seniors that wanna adopt can handle that amount of exercise with the dogs, so depending on lifestyle, depending on so many things. But I think pushing out that we do a special adoption for seniors has been really a wonderful way to get the word out. That we have special adoption counselors that work with our senior, senior population people over 65. They get a special volunteer. She's a volunteer. She's, she's been our seniors for seniors adoption counselor for years. She's a senior. She has five dogs, I think. So she's very adept at sort of talking to, to one-on-one with a senior or maybe a senior and the caregiver or a senior and their daughter or son who's helping them find the right dog. Really match make with them and find out what the needs are. You don't need a puppy that you're gonna trip over. Either puppy's gonna jump on you and maybe you're gonna fall down and break a bone. So there's a lot of different aspects of getting the word out and talking about why, why an older dog is better for a senior. Not everybody's gonna listen to you. I hear stories all the time. Say, why? I don't know why my neighbor just got a puppy. It just kills me. They should have adopted from Muttville. I told them about Muttville. So you can't save them all, but you put the message out there. You talk about your program. This is what we did to, to really pump up our senior for seniors adoptions, which now make 25% of all of our adoptions are too senior. Um, last week, 30% of our adoptions were two senior citizens, so I think it’s a marketing issue as much as anything else. So it is, an educational market. It all goes back to that., really.

Amy Castro: Yep. And we run into that too with cats and dogs, with people wanting to adopt kittens. And it's like, I think one of the things, and I was in, in an episode that actually will air, before this one was talking to a trainer about, and even he said, I just took in this puppy. I don't know what I was thinking, because it's been a long time since I've had a puppy. People, I think people, it's like childbirth, right? You forget. You forget how it was. And then you have another one. I personally didn't forget and didn't have another one. But some people do and I think you don't realize, you forget how much work that puppy is, or you forget that those kittens do like to take a flying leap and climb your leg. And if you're a senior citizen, like you said, the tripping issue, thinner skin. You're, now you're bleeding. So, and then that could be a challenge for anybody, but, especially, it could be a safety issue, like you said, for seniors. So if you were going to help me down here in Texas to market the benefits of adopting a senior dog…. 

Sherri Franklin: Well,  they're grateful and you, you know, you're saving a life. And I think that more people are coming to realize, that senior dogs are dying in shelters at a higher rate sometimes than others, or sitting in this shelter and spending in their last days there in, if it's a no kill facility and they just hold onto a senior dog until it's no quality of life or whatever, you know the reasons.

What you need to do is get the reasons out to your community, so, you know the reason. Tell stories. If you have Facebook and Instagram, get yourself a following. Get some youngsters that really know how to handle Instagram. Like, I don't personally do the Instagram post, but I have people at Muttville that can do that. Tell the stories, tell the wonderful stories of these dogs and tell people like, you can always teach an old dog new tricks. They love Netflix. You know, I mean, tell the story, the real stories. Some of these dogs are so compelling. We actually got a TSA dog, a dog that used to be trained to sniff out things at TSA, and she's 15 years old and she spent and dedicated her life to doing that. And now she's homeless and we're gonna find her a great home. So, telling some stories talking about in a very positive way, about all the wonders and the beauty of adopting an older dog. And I think there are so many and everyone's different. So people are touched by different things. Some people are touched right by the fact that this dog lived with the man till he passed away. And they want that dog because, that’s what they're, that’s, they go, oh my God, he dedicated his whole life and now he's alone. Some people are really touched by the fact that the dog was found on the side of the road and that's the dog they want. We have them all, we have dogs from the side of the road, which is so sad, but, we sort of celebrate the fact, not that they came from the side of the road, but now they have their opportunity to have a second chance. And I think that all goes to telling the story and marketing. Marketing and photos. Lots of photos. We just put up a, we're calling it the WAG Cam by, a friend of mine. His wife passed away. Her, their last name is Wagman. That's their real name. Wagman. And it's the Wagman Wag Cam. And, we put that up in our shelter. We just, we have people watching it all day. So even though it only shows one place in our whole, well, you know, we're cage free. We've been cage free since 2012, I think 2011 we opened our shelter and we've been cage free the whole time. Showing human friendly place where people can come and not be depressed by what they see, but be able to touch the dogs, be able to see that the dogs are happy at the shelter. So we have this cam that's on, four hours a day. And people watch it all the time. I'm, and we just put it up like a month ago, and I'm getting emails, like I keep it on my background. I'm at work all day. So, things like that get the word out and, especially if you really want to attract a lot of people that don't, that aren't in your circle right? Is social media.  

Amy Castro: Yeah. You know you make an excellent point, we do a huge percentage of our fundraising on Facebook, and again, we're tiny compared to you guys as far as a rescue goes. But it's always such a crapshoot, for lack of a better term, you have this video, you have a story, whatever it might, and, and what appeals to who and how much. That's, it's so interesting and I think, and we've done so many posts because there are so many benefits of adopting a senior pet. The fact that they're, if they're not house trained, they're easier to house, train than a puppy. They're not gonna chew on your shoes. They're going to sleep more, maybe less exercise. There's so many benefits for a lot of people with their lifestyles, and you can tell them that all day long and they still will turn around and say they want a puppy. But I think that you make a good point if you give them a compelling, we use the term story. It's interesting that in, not only in rescue, but also in my world as a, as a speaker, it's like people are are swayed by story.They like story, they're gonna remember the story. Story doesn't mean made up story could be a true story. And so sometimes the truth is, sometimes the truth is better than anything you could make up. 

Sherri Franklin: When I say makeup, I, I'm, I guess I'm talking about things like we love sunsets on the beach, right? Embellish something, but. The stories that we have, we don't need to, we just need to write them in a certain way or tell them in a certain way. And put the positive spin on it. Yesterday, this blind dog was found. Now it's sitting at my feet. This sort of five days ago, this dog was living with his guardian and he passed away, and now the dog's at the shelter. But guess what? It's coming to Muttville. So it's always putting that. Spin on, on the dog and on the story of the dog so that people will see, like, they're like, oh God, he lived with somebody for so long. Or, you know, it's, it's what touches everybody is different, right? I want the broken dog. I like the really broken dog, uh, with the really sad background that tends to be the dog that I'll take home.

We get hoarding dogs and we get puppy mill dogs and people love to be able to. Right. And so it's getting the word out and it's educating your public. And I think the trend,I've seen it change in the past 16 years. For 20 years I've been doing rescue, you know, cause I was doing it one at a time for a long time. But I've seen a tremendous amount of change in people coming to rescue, people coming to Muttville, people going to shelters and asking for a senior dog. We get people that say, oh, the S P C A sent us over to you because we said we wanted a senior dog. You didn't hear that. That's great. Years ago you did not ever hear.

And that might just be in San Francisco, but  I don't think so because we get dogs. Way, way out there. And their dogs are getting adopted now too.

Amy Castro: You know, the whole concept of, of rescuing, it used to be, oh, I'm so proud of my purebred dog that I paid X, Y Z dollars are, and you're seeing more and more over the last, for sure, 10 years where people, I've had people talk about rescuing a dog, but they really just got it from their neighbor.

It's like, okay, that's what you, yeah, no, it's saved it from your neighbor. But yeah, it's like I, I'm proud, I'm a rescuer, and look at what, look at where this animal came from and look how awesome I am. And it's like, Great. You know, because you are awesome when you rescue. 

Sherri Franklin: True. You know, I have to tell you a funny story. We used to always do this big, big horse show. It was um, it's like an international horse show. It's called the Menlo Circus Club Horse Show. And we would be the a, the only dog rescue. For years we were there and we would have a pen with all, you know, maybe 15 dogs in it, and all the kids would come over.

And they, you know, we let the kids come sit with the dogs. And I cannot tell you how many children said, oh, we have two rescue dogs. I mean, they brag about their rescue dogs instead of bragging about their, whatever it was. They were like, oh, you know, we just rescued a dog too. And I just, I was blown away because these are people that, fly to Europe and pick up a dog, which,we can, we aren't gonna go.  I know, right. But it's really, really cool, how much that's changed, you know, that, that they actually are bragging about their rescue dog. And I've seen it firsthand myself. Pretty good. 

Sherri Franklin: Especially for the child to say that, you know? Yeah. They're, yeah. Grow up and rescue. 

Amy Castro: Yes. And we need, we need more of us. We definitely need more of us. So what's on the plate for the future of Muttville? Any exciting things? I mean, obviously I know you've always got exciting things going on because I watched your videos. But,  what would you like to share with us that people might want to keep their eye out for, for the future of Muttville?

Sherri Franklin:  Well, we have big news. We bought a campus in San Francisco about four blocks from where we are now. So we bought a campus of, well it's, we call it a campus because it's three buildings with an outdoor courtyard that will have our vet clinic, it is going to house a community center. We are completely cage free like we are now, already cage free, but in a much larger sense and very flex space. We are going to make this a very human friendly, a place where people will want to come. It's being designed, interior, designed by my friend Ken Fa. He does human places. He hasn't done animal shelters, but he's done boats and hotels and everything. But this is going to be very magical, very happy, very upbeat, very colorful space for humans and all of our dogs too. So we are gonna have a doggy daycare for foster dogs. So when people want to foster, but really work all day. They can drop their dog off at Muttville and so their foster dog would be available for adoption that day. So we'll be open for, we do, we have humane education. We have seniors for seniors,  Cuddle Club, we call it for, mostly for isolated seniors. And they come and they get to volunteer, cuddle dogs, walk dogs just hang out. So this is gonna be a super change in the whole old way of doing animal sheltering, which is not so people friendly and people don't wanna really go there. This is going to be, we already are that, but with our new space, it's, we're really thinking and doing everything that we want it to do in the space we're in. But, we'll, we're gonna do it on a major scale. We're in the process of building. It'll be done this year and it's gonna be truly amazing. We'll have grooming. Right now we do grooming. It's like in a basement, little basement area. We'll, we'll actually have a grooming, a space for grooming. We wanna do job training for youth and do a lot of, outreach and be able to take in more animals. I mean, as you know, being able to step up more and more and the need never seems to go away. In fact, right now, I feel like the need is stronger than ever. And so to be able to have that capacity to save more lives and to have more adoptions, because we're going to be introducing more and more people to what we do, and it's just so, so, so exciting. So keep watching because it's gonna be amazing. You know, we already have a vet clinic and we can do most things. We do surgeries in-house now. It's really good because it’s brought our cost per dog down. But we're going to be able to do a lot more with our clinic than we do now. So a lot of our outsourcing will not have to happen. So that's also gonna save some money so we can save more lives again.

Amy Castro: Yeah, the money aspect, it's so important. Anytime you can bring something in-house and save some money, I mean, it's just adds to the number of lives you save. That's so important. 

Sherri Franklin: The other thing that's really nice about having a vet is that we get dogs, and I don't know if you do Amy, but we get dogs that are sometimes in really bad shape, medical shape, and we are able to deal with their pain and do, sometimes we do emergency surgery the day they arrive. And being able to alleviate pain and suffering and also be able to do emergency surgeries. Nothing has been better for us than having that in-house and I know not every rescue can do that, but as you grow, it's something I really talk a lot about in a senior rescue anyway, is that to have the ability to call on a vet at a moment's notice is, is so important.

Amy Castro: Yeah. It's huge. And we've been super lucky. We've had relationships with several veterinarians and veterinary practices, but I will give a shout out to Dr. Zoo at Family Animal Hospital. She actually had her, had a rescue called Zoo's Rescue and we merged, I don't wanna say it was last year. It's all been a blur, but we merged and, and she's always been super  supportive of rescue, but it, and it's not like she runs out to my house necessarily, but she's been tremendous in her support of the rescue and emergency situations. We even had a dog that we brought in named Daisy a while back, and we got this call of, found a dog and it's having puppies, and I'm thinking,  I heard that before. Until, until they say, and there is a puppy stuck. Like it's partly born and partly not. And it's like, how do you deal with that? You know? And, I worked for a vet for eight years, but I'm no veterinarian. And so to have a vet that's willing to go above and beyond after hours or whatever it might be, is enormous, but even better, you know, if they're on staff and you can be working with them on a daily basis, we will. We'll grow to that point at some point. But yes, veterinary support is huge. 

Sherri Franklin: It was our largest, it still is our large, largest, budget line item. So,  because now we hired the vet and, and vet techs and we have a surgery suite and everything else, but all in all, It saves lives, it saves money. It also supports, what we do and what we do is we want dogs to thrive. We don't want dogs to be in pain. Those are like two really, really important things. And, and to, to have that to, really be able to focus on that is so important.

Amy Castro:  Yeah. Definitely. So if people, I'm gonna put links up in the show notes for the show, but, is there any particular place that you wanna direct people, like, Hey, I wanna learn more about Muttville. Should they go to your website, Facebook?

Sherri Franklin: Well, I think what's the best place, the most important thing is, is if you want to learn more about muttville, go to muttville.org and that's not muttville, it's muttville no s, muttville.org. And then, for following us on a day-to-day basis, and we have a pretty good Instagram following.  And also Facebook, of course, we post all of our adoptions. We post all of the dogs coming in. So you get to, you can stay minute to minute, involved. We love to have visitors, so, be in touch. If you wanna visit Muttville, we, if you're in the Bay, if you're visiting the Bay Area and you wanna visit Muttville,let us know. We'd love to see you. Hopefully by the end of the year we're gonna be in our new facility, our new campus. And, then we'll just love to show it off. We're gonna just, we want be, we are going to be what the world needs in animal sheltering, which is a cage-free, very comfortable place for dogs and people to be.

Amy Castro: And I have to say from, again, just looking at it from an outsider standpoint, I think you're already there. You're just going to 2.0. The 2.0 version, because you guys are the gold standard I think for senior pet care thank you for doing all that you do. Is there any other final points that you wanna make ?

Sherri Franklin: Adopt the senior pet? Because you'll not only be doing such a great thing for the dog, but you will do a great thing for yourself and your family and your. 

Amy Castro: Definitely. Definitely. Well, yeah, definitely. Sure. Well, Sherri, thank you so much for being here and for sharing about what you know, what you're doing at Muttville and the value of adopting a senior pet. I think it's, an inspiration and a message that more people need to hear. So thank you so much. 

Sherri Franklin: Oh gosh, Amy, it's just been a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you thank you.

Amy Castro:  So all of you listeners out there, if you enjoyed this episode and you've enjoyed other episodes of Starlight Pet Talk, you know we're new, so please help us get off to a great start and also to help more pet parents learn about all of the things that we talk about in the show. So share this podcast with your pet loving family, with your friends and colleagues, and as I always like to wrap up and say, if you don't do anything else this week, give your pets a hug from us. 

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