Transcript
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Every day around the world, working dogs, the unsung heroes of the military contract and police forces risk their lives for the safety of humans.
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But what happens to them when they're no longer able to serve?
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Join us as we explore the heartwarming and sometimes heartbreaking stories of these remarkable dogs and their journey after retirement.
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Get ready to be inspired and moved, so stay tuned.
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You're listening to Starlight Pet Talk, a podcast for pet parents who want the best pet care advice from cat experts, dog trainers, veterinarians and other top pet professionals who will help you live your very best life with your pets.
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We also share inspiring rescue and adoption stories from people who've taken their love of pets to the next level by getting involved in animal welfare.
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My name is Amy Castro, and I'm the founder and president of Starlight Outreach and Rescue and a columnist for PetAge magazine.
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I've rescued thousands of animals and help people just like you find the right pet for their family.
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My mission is to help pet parents learn all the ways that they can care for, live with and even have fun with their pets, so they can live their very best lives and their pets can, too.
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My guest today is Kristen Maurer, co-founder and president of Mission Canine Rescue, a nonprofit organization located right here in the Houston area, where we are.
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Mission Canine Rescue's purpose is to rescue, reunite, re-home, rehabilitate and repair retired working dogs who basically have spent their lives serving us.
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Kristen, welcome to the show.
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Thank you so much.
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I really appreciate you being here as a former military person myself.
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Although I did not work with working dogs I was a public affairs officer but always admired the handlers and the animals and the things that they do and the situations that they put themselves in.
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So what inspired you to start this organization?
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Well, first of all, thank you for your service.
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What inspired me I had found out through.
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I was working my own dog privately.
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I was working her as a narcotics detection dog and in that I was training with officers around the state of Texas and I would go to Dallas each weekend to train with these officers.
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And one of the times they had asked me if I would pick up a military dog that was coming in from Kuwait to Houston and it needed to get to a handler, so yeah, I said absolutely I'll do that, and I picked up the dog.
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And that's when I found out that it costs a lot of money to to get these dogs back from overseas.
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And once the dog retired, if the handler was able to adopt the dog at that time, then it was up to the handler to pay for those costs.
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And so that's kind of where everything started was reuniting dogs and handlers, and it just started on this small scale, but that was back in 2013, at the end of 2013 and in 2014, right out of the gate, there was this big military program where they had utilized right after 9-11, they had utilized private contract companies to help train military dogs and then send them with handlers because they needed dogs quickly on the ground and so and they didn't have enough dogs trained, so they started these two programs and the programs were not as successful as they had hoped, so they were shutting down both programs right as we came out of the gate.
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So in January of 2014 I started getting calls from the Marine Corps.
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My dog is in North Carolina and I have to get this dog and I live in California and Colorado and so for the first part of 2014 I I was flying back and forth going and getting dogs and then getting them to their handlers, and then flying back and doing it again, and I was in the air more than I was on the ground.
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So everything that we done was really there wasn't a great plan.
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And at the end of 2014 we get a call from somebody in Afghanistan.
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She said we have 10 dogs retiring and they have no place to go.
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Can you take them and help find them homes?
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And we had no idea we were gonna put them.
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We didn't know what we were gonna do with them.
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We were really blessed.
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We found a boarding facility out in Sugar Land that said yeah, you can bring them here.
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So we brought the dogs in.
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We got them all vetted and then, within a week of the first call, I got a call from a contract company in Kuwait with 10 more dogs that needed to come to us.
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It was just and nobody talked to each other, it just happened all at the same time and they said can you take him?
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When we said sure, and unfortunately that boarding facility was full, and so we got a boarding facility out near Intercontinental Airport for those 10, and so they landed, and for the first several weeks I'm driving back and forth from Sugar Land to Intercontinental finding veterinarians that would.
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I could get these dogs vetted so that we could get them tested and find them homes.
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And then, once we did all of that and we got all the applications, my business partner Louisa and I she was a vet tech in the army, but she was working full-time as a vet tech, but on the weekend she and I would travel across the nation dropping these dogs off to their new homes.
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It was wow, insane, but it really just kept beginning.
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I mean, it started with the reunions and then went on to the pulling them in, and so 2014 was just a trial and error year and it was insane that's crazy.
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So it just so people are clear.
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You know these people that are reaching out to you.
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They're trying to re-home these dogs.
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It's that there's an urgency to that.
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What?
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What happens to these dogs that are overseas if they don't have a place like Mission canine rescue that will take them in and and get them back here?
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Well, at that time especially, they were either being left behind or euthanized at a rapid rate.
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A lot has changed in the 10 years, with a lot of awareness Just us fundraising.
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A lot of awareness came and we got to work with the Secretary of State on what to do with the dogs that were at least government contracts.
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So the government contract dogs are now pretty protective but they have adoption programs, but they also most of the handlers will get the dogs.
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If the handlers don't get the dogs then they'll call us.
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We get calls from those contract companies.
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But there are other contract companies that aren't contracted with the government and they work for private businesses doing, you know, overseas and doing these jobs or still work for private contractors.
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But they work the embassies or they do something like that and those dogs, if they don't have a handler to go to, they will still just reach out to us.
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If we weren't there then that could be a problem for the dogs.
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We have filled a huge need.
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Yeah, that's.
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I mean, I know I was reading somewhere that and it was as of 2021 that you had already, you know, kind of rescued 1,100 or more dogs.
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Yeah, that's rescuing and reuniting all together, right, but yeah, we're at 14 or 1500 and we've reunited as of today.
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Because we reunited a dog and a handler today that's great In Norfolk, virginia came from Rota, spain, and we flew the handler out to get the dog, but we're at 671 reunions as of today.
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That's incredible.
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I remember reading articles about, you know, especially military working dog handlers like desperately trying to get their dogs back, and the government, at one point, you know, basically refusing to make that happen.
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And so when you said a lot has changed, you know, even from my perspective as a person in the public, that's a pretty significant change in the last few years.
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It definitely has.
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And I mean, if you think about it, in Vietnam the handlers had to leave their dogs behind.
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They turned them over to the Vietnamese, they euthanized them.
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They no handler, I mean got their dog.
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And we've worked really closely with a lot of Vietnam handlers.
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We love these guys and they're traumatized to this day from that, from leaving their dogs in a war zone back behind.
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So if you think from that to where we are today, there's regulations in place where the military does have to, even if the military does not leave them in war zones anymore and hasn't well, since Vietnam, so that hadn't changed.
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But what they were doing is they were bringing the dog back to their duty station, which is a non combat zone, but in Germany, Guam, Japan, something like that and they were leaving them there and they were telling the handler if you want your dog, you need to get your dog from these places.
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And so we definitely filled that need.
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But then we also went in and spoke in front of Congress and we worked with congressmen and senators on different bills and we got laws passed that the military had to bring the dogs back CONUS stateside, continental United States, and we're proud of those because we would work on one, and the first was in 2014.
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And it passed.
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It was bipartisan, it was in the National Defense Authorization Act of 2016,.
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I think is when we finally got everything written and it passed and then the military kind of found a loophole in it and so we went back and we rewrote it again and they found another loophole.
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And then what we found was happening and it took years to find this out, because you can't get a lot of information, but it took years to find out that the law was not matching the DOD the Department of Defense's regulations.
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So the military doesn't go by the law.
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They go by the Department of Defense's regulations, and so there was this disconnect, no matter how many times we tried saying, hey, no, united States Navy, you need to bring your dog back stateside or Air Force or whatever, and then, wherever it is, we'll pick it up from there.
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So, let's say, the dog ends up, like today, in Norfolk and the handler is in Phoenix.
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Well, we'll help make that part happen.
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So, but they were still not doing it for a lot of years, in 2021, we had some.
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This was it's just crazy stuff.
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It was always such a battle.
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We found out that there were six marine dogs in Japan that needed to get back to the states to their handlers.
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Well, that would cost us $6,000 a dog, and we were going we don't have that kind of money to do right at this time.
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And what they were starting to do, instead of euthanizing the dogs, they would just adopt them out to local servicemen and women that are serving over in that area.
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But that's not fair to the handlers who want their dogs.
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So we reached out to a gentleman that he's a retired Lieutenant Colonel and he always said if it's a big need and it's something you really, really need, don't just make it something small, you know, but if it's something that's desperate, you call me and I have a friend that's still a Colonel in the Marine Corps and and he'll help.
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So I called this guy and I said Mike, I said, is six dogs stuck in Japan not getting back to their handlers a big enough need?
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And he said that's a big enough need.
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And so he called this Marine Corps Colonel and that Colonel had started rolling and that Colonel made it happen.
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He got those six dogs because we said we don't care where they come in, we just we'll get them and we'll get them to their handlers, we just need them to come in.
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So they got all six to come in to San Diego and we flew to San Diego, we rented a van and we drove.
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My business partner, luis and I drove those dogs across the country.
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The last one ended up in North Carolina.
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So we drove from San Diego to North Carolina dropping up off dogs along the way to their handlers.
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But when that happened, that Marine Corps Colonel who made that happen had started rolling so badly.
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He was able to get the DOD regs kind of started and people looking and in 2022 they passed.
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So now the military has to bring the dogs back Conus, and then it's up to the handler or us.
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They'll reach out to us to get the dog to them from there.
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So it's been a crazy ride.
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That's the reunion side.
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Now the adoption side and the rescue side is a whole different ballgame.
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So that's actually what I was going to ask about next, you know, for the ones that don't have a handler that's chomping at the bit or able to take the dog back, because I'm envisioning originally, when I was thinking retired dogs, I'm thinking about old, decrepit, 14 year old dogs, but they retire these dogs a lot younger in many instances for a variety of reasons, right?
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Sure, some do.
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It just depends.
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Now, the Department of State, I think the, and don't quote me on this, but I'm pretty positive.
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Their rule is that the dog has to retire by six or seven, which is great because it gives the dog a retirement.
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But some companies keep them and the military will keep them as long as they're working.
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They're going to keep them working.
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So we get both.
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We get old dogs, we get some younger dogs, but we just got well, we didn't get them yet.
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We just paid for a big group of five retired mind detection dogs out of Bosnia.
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Oh wow, and that's a private contract company and those will be landing here in Houston next week.
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So yeah, Wednesday and so what will happen to those when they come, when they get back here?
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Well, we'll get them medically checked out.
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If they need to be neutered or spayed, we'll make we'll take care of that Any medical needs they have.
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Just make sure that they're healthy and ready to go.
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We do a complete blood panel on them.
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We do X-rays on them.
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We want to know their intake when they come to us and then that way we have a baseline and when we adopt them out then the doctor knows what they have come into them.
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We can tell them this dog has this, this and this and what they're prepared to do to go into the home, because it's a lot of ask.
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I mean, especially some of these dogs are older and it's a labor of love for someone to adopt them.
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The way we feel is they've worked their entire life to protect mankind.
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It's our turn to get back to them.
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Right.
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Yeah, definitely.
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So that's what we can do, and it's so interesting with military.
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we obviously have had a draft in the past in the United States.
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I went into the military willingly and pretty much knew what I was getting myself into.
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But these poor animals that serve in the military or serve with a contractor or even police dogs, they're oftentimes basically born and raised for that job and they don't really have a choice.
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I mean they do it well, because they're bred to do it well.
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But I think it's awesome in what you said about them retiring them younger, so they actually can.
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You know, they have that working period but then they have a period of life where they can just enjoy life and that's.
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they deserve that, for, after all, they've done, they do and I think, a common misconception, and it was mine too, so I get it.
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But I've learned over the years that everybody's like oh, these dogs, they're bred to work and they want to work, they do.
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And they do it because for them it's a game.
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They love going out and finding the ball, they love going out and finding the calm, which is what they're doing when they're looking for a bomb or they're looking for drugs.
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They're not looking for a bomb or drugs, they're looking for their toy that has been teased with them for so long.
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So so all they want is that toy.
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And they get to play with it for what?
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Five minutes and it's taken away.
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So it becomes an obsession looking for the toy.
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So everybody's like oh yeah, no, they love this and they do, they love the hunt, they have a good time.
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But what they don't love and what I've learned over the years what they don't love is living in a kennel, in a five by five run away from their person.
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They don't love that.
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I'm telling you right now.
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They don't love it and it's stressful to them and we know it because we had, we had kennels and we do have some kennels, because it's not just like with people.
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It's not 100% across the board.
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Some do better in a kennel setting.
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I will say that that are more institutionalized, I call it.
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But so we do have kennels, but we originally just had kennels and they were stressing themselves out and injuring themselves in our kennels.
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So what we did is that's when we, at our facility, we created 30 by 30 yards for each dog so that the dogs have a space to run, and and they, they're next to another dog and they may not know how to be around another dog, because I never really have been.
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So all of a sudden they're going.
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I don't know if I like you, I don't know if I don't, but they're not going to fight at the fence because they have all this space.
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So they'll run to the fence and then run and play and do.
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And the next thing, you know, you look up and they're all peaceful and happy laying around.
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And then at night we bring them in and we crate them.
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At night we put them in crates because we're trying to get them ready to get into a home and if somebody were to go to work or something, then they can crate their dog and know their dog's going to be safe in a crate and so these dogs sleep in crates and some people think that that's good or bad.
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I'm telling you they love it.
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They go in after a day out in the yard all day long and they go into the crate and they go right to sleep and their air conditioned and heated kennels.
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We never let our dogs freeze or get too hot in the summers.
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You know, last summer was so hot.
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They go out in the morning and they go into their crates and the guys would walk them all day, you know long, and these dogs would be dragging them back to the crates.
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No one's swan in the air conditioning.
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It was hot.
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So it's just things we've learned over the years.
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And so for me and then I've learned.
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So custom and border patrol dogs.
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I'm going to give you that example and this one broke my heart the most and that was that we got a custom border patrol dog and he was awesome and he was so happy to be at our place.
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You could just tell he was like this is great.
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And so I started asking the CBP people about the dogs and they said the sad part is is that they're living in these kennels.
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And because the way CBP is, because they are constantly changing shifts.
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It's not like a two shift thing with Customs and Border Patrol.
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There's people going all night long and all the dogs live in the kennels.
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So these dogs are living in a kennel and somebody comes in to bring a dog and put it up and somebody else comes in to pick up a dog and take it out.
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The dogs get up and they're barking and they go crazy and so and this happens all night long.
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So these dogs for years never rest, I mean never get a break, and that one broke my heart the most.
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But but they get to us and some of them don't want to leave because they're like oh, this is great, like today, such a beautiful day in Houston, and they're all out in their yards and I can promise you they're not even it's not chaotic.
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You can drive past our facility right now and you won't hear a dog barking because they're all just laying out in the yards.
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Now they do.
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When we take them out in the mornings they're barking, they feed them in the mornings they're barking, and once they settle down, they're, they just settle down.
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And in the evenings, when they take them back in and feed them, you know they they're kind of chaotic then, but for the most part they have a pretty peaceful existence at our place.
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But our goal is that we're just a stepping stone, so we're we're we're going to help decompress them to a point and then our goal is to then know as much about them as we can so we can find them a home, a true home, to retire on a couch.
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So yeah, we're a dog bed, you know yeah, other than the fact that they, you know, that they've kind of lived in in that isolating experience or spent a lot of time isolated in their working lives, are there any other common issues that, let's say, somebody was going to consider adopting a former working dog?
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Obviously, each animal is individual, but are there common issues that these animals come back from service with A?
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lot of them have a high prey drive because that's what that has been ingrained in them.
00:20:18.099 --> 00:20:24.719
So they may not do well with small animals or cats Not all of them.
00:20:24.719 --> 00:20:28.272
We've tested with cats and have gone into a cat home and done just fine.
00:20:28.272 --> 00:20:32.186
So, like you said, not across the board, but probably more likely than not.
00:20:32.186 --> 00:20:37.247
My retired working dog would never allow a cat in the house, but he's great with my little dogs, he's fine.
00:20:37.247 --> 00:20:41.920
So it just depends on the dog and we have to get to know him in that regard.
00:20:42.642 --> 00:20:55.789
One thing we do with this whole obsession so I touched on it earlier how they train is so they're looking for their toy, this toy, this elusive toy that they have this high drive to find.
00:20:55.789 --> 00:20:58.808
That's their favorite thing and they get to play with it for a few minutes.
00:20:58.808 --> 00:21:03.957
Then the toy's taken away and then, once they find something again, where do we get your toy?
00:21:03.957 --> 00:21:06.067
That's a lot of day work for your toy.
00:21:06.067 --> 00:21:16.163
So the first thing we do when they come into our care is we give them a whole bunch of toys and we're just like have at it, because you're never going to have to search for this again.
00:21:16.163 --> 00:21:24.458
You're just going to get it for free from here on out and so some of that drive we can take some of that drive away and some of them, some of them no.
00:21:24.718 --> 00:21:27.044
I mean I had one retired.
00:21:27.044 --> 00:21:32.099
He was a mind detection dog out of Afghanistan and he had been pretty tortured over there.
00:21:32.099 --> 00:21:42.364
He was a little bit of a hot mess but I loved him and all my other dogs were just so respectful of him because they just knew Robbie was just a little off.
00:21:42.364 --> 00:21:49.178
But he never got over that obsession and so if anyone else had a toy he'd run and go get their Kongs.
00:21:49.178 --> 00:21:52.628
And I have pictures of him with like 10 Kongs on his dog bed.
00:21:52.628 --> 00:21:57.723
He's just sitting there with his tongue hanging out and just with his Kongs everywhere.
00:21:57.723 --> 00:22:08.786
But a lot of them, even my retired police canine at the same time I had him at the same time he would let Robbie take his Kong because he was like I'm done with that, I don't need that anymore, you can have it.
00:22:08.786 --> 00:22:13.691
So it just depends on the dog, like you said, but that's a big obsession.
00:22:13.711 --> 00:22:22.401
I think there's a misconception that they're all completely potty trained when they get, because but we try to work on that with the crate training.
00:22:22.401 --> 00:22:28.281
That's another part of them going into a crate is teaching them how to be in a home and getting them ready for a home setting.
00:22:28.281 --> 00:22:37.327
As far as contract working dogs, their obedience isn't perfect because the contract world is a little different than the military.
00:22:37.327 --> 00:22:41.542
Their goal is to get as many out as possible to make money.
00:22:41.542 --> 00:22:49.811
So all they're training these dogs on is how to find bombs or drugs or whatever it is they're doing with the dog.
00:22:49.811 --> 00:22:52.659
They're not really working on obedience as much.
00:22:52.659 --> 00:22:55.565
So some of the dogs need some obedience.
00:22:55.605 --> 00:23:01.007
But they're all so smart that's the other thing that's across the board.
00:23:01.007 --> 00:23:11.028
True, they're so smart that they learn extremely quickly and they figure out really quickly how to be respectful and how to do most of the obedience.
00:23:11.028 --> 00:23:22.598
We are starting a program where we have a former handler who's going to come several days a week and work on obedience with some of the dogs so that they'll have that basic obedience when they go into a home.
00:23:22.598 --> 00:23:23.240
So that will help.
00:23:23.240 --> 00:23:28.038
But the people who adopt from us most of them come back for more.
00:23:28.038 --> 00:23:31.550
When their dog passes they're ready for others.
00:23:31.550 --> 00:23:34.480
I think once you've had one it's really hard not to have one.
00:23:35.102 --> 00:23:40.076
So the people become just obsessed with the dogs, as the dogs do with their toys?
00:23:40.438 --> 00:23:54.025
Yes, I always say they're like potato chips you just can't just have one, because you know what they did, you know what they've been through, you know what their job was, and so it's kind of an honor to be able to give back to them a little bit.
00:23:54.025 --> 00:23:57.558
That's how we feel and that's how our adopters feel.
00:23:57.558 --> 00:24:00.445
As far as our adoption process, it's pretty strict.
00:24:00.445 --> 00:24:14.921
We have a huge application, online application, and then we have two adoption coordinators who ask all of the questions and find out if they're a fit for the dog, because a lot of times I mean it's a lot, it's a lot of ask for somebody.
00:24:14.961 --> 00:24:32.915
They need to be prepared and our adoption coordinators are very honest that we, you know they don't sugarcoat things just to get dogs adopted, because our goal is, once that dog goes, we don't want them to come back, we want to know about them and we want to know how they're doing and we want them to be happy, but we want them to stay in their forever home.
00:24:33.538 --> 00:24:51.637
Once they talk to the adoption coordinator and they've been approved through them, then they go to the manager of our facility and the manager of our facility, along with our kennel guys, come up with four or five dogs that would be a good fit for them and then they can choose from those dogs.
00:24:51.637 --> 00:25:05.097
And that's how we do it, so that we can make sure let's say, you're an active hiker and you certainly don't want a dog that just wants to, that's just retired and wants to be on a couch, you know, or on a dog bed.
00:25:05.097 --> 00:25:07.262
You want a dog that's a little more active.
00:25:07.262 --> 00:25:20.050
So we try to really hone the dog and what they do to the person and as much as we can, yeah, we stress that even in our pet applications you know it's all about fit.
00:25:20.167 --> 00:25:29.766
I mean we stress that in so many episodes of this podcast is that there's no point in getting an animal that doesn't fit your lifestyle, because then you're going to be wanting to give it back to me and absolutely.
00:25:31.095 --> 00:25:34.021
I love the animal, but I don't want it back, and that's just it.
00:25:34.563 --> 00:25:36.166
And for their sake obviously.
00:25:36.654 --> 00:25:38.980
But yeah, that's 100%.
00:25:38.980 --> 00:25:44.115
And I think that's why we don't put who's up for adoption on our page.
