Transcript
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As the year comes to a close, it's the perfect time for animal rescues and shelters and anyone who's passionate about animal welfare to take a step back and evaluate long-standing practices.
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Are the systems we've relied on still the best ways to help animals and adopters succeed?
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In this episode, we're going to reflect on what's working well in the rescue world and where there might be room for growth.
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Whether you're a seasoned rescuer or you're simply interested in improving outcomes for pets, this episode will give you plenty to consider as we move toward a more successful 2025.
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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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Welcome to Starlight Pet Talk.
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I'm your host, amy Castro, and today I am thrilled to welcome my guest, dio Floyd.
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Daio is a highly accomplished figure in not only the dog training but also the rescue world.
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Her journey into the dog world began at a very early age like way earlier than I was like surprised at that Inspired by her father, who is a renowned trainer in IPO dog sport both in the US and internationally.
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By the age of eight, she'd already entered her first national level competition, which is an amazing accomplishment for somebody so young, and since then she has gone on to win the 2021 German Shepherd Dog Nationals.
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She placed second in the Working Dog Championships and she represented the US as the number one member of the universal team at the WUSV and you're going to have to tell us what that stands for World Championship in Lerma, Spain.
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So currently she runs a small training and rehabilitation rescue for dogs in need in New Jersey, and we had several discussions before we recorded this episode and felt like you know, together our blend of training expertise and rescue passion would make us the best people to have this conversation.
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So here we are, dayDo, thank you so much for being on the show.
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Thank you for having me.
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Yeah, so tell us a little bit more.
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I mean I hit some highlights of your experience, but you've been in the dog world since you were in the single digit age, so tell us a little bit about how that progressed from dog world, dog sport to rescue and rehab and training.
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Yeah, so my father, like you said, really big into IPO dog sport, um evolved from Schutzen, which is the basis of how we train police dogs and military dogs in this country.
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So as a kid I was always around dog sports.
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I was especially around and interested in bike sports too, um, so that was something that really guarded my interest when I was little.
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And you know, for a kid, I think initially my dad was like I don't want my little girl out here doing this with you know grown men and big dogs, but he just couldn't keep me in the house, so it just kind of became a thing I'm going to do life long.
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I guess I got to teach her how to do it the safe way, um, and so it kind of evolved from that and um, yeah, so then when I was eight I entered the nationals.
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I think I placed like 15th or something and yeah, I've kind of just been showing dogs and loving dogs since then.
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And yeah, yeah, that was the process.
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So now during COVID especially, you know, competition weren't happening, nothing was really going on and people knew, okay, well, this lady has trained dogs, she's a dog trainer, and they would either not pick up their dogs from training because they couldn't afford it, or their housing and change, or whatever the situation may be, or they would just abandon their dogs at the house because she likes dogs.
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And then I just kind of ended up getting stuck with dogs and that's how this program kind of started, because I can't keep them all, so I needed to train them and find some home.
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And yeah, that is how underdogs began.
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Oh, okay, great.
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You know it's interesting that you got two sets of people that probably are listening to this.
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You've got normal people and then you have rescue people who are far from normal, and the rescue people are listening to that and thinking, yeah, that's what happens all the time.
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And you've got regular people who are thinking I can't believe somebody would just take their dog to training and never come and get it.
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But it literally happens every single day and I think that's a good tie in to what we're talking about today and I want to make it kind of clear up front.
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I hope that everything we talk about is food for thought for people who are involved in rescue and maybe an opportunity for them to look at what they're doing.
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At the same time, I will speak for myself and say, although I, you know I run a rescue, I have volunteered, you know, for 10 years at a shelter as the head volunteer.
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I interact with other rescues and I also get a lot of feedback about other rescues, from their adopters, from volunteers who've left their rescues and come here.
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So I'm speaking from a place of experience, but I'm certainly by no means when I say rescues shouldn't do this or rescues should do that.
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Am I speaking?
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for every rescue, but I'm just kind of sharing my experiences.
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What has been your experience other than, obviously, running your own rescue?
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What's your experience in working with rescues and shelters?
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Well, I feel like it's important to note that every rescue and shelter situation is different, right?
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Some facilities are huge, some facilities are like in someone's house, right, so everybody's at a different level of the work they're trying to do for the community and a different level of funding.
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So that heavily affects the amount of responses that they're allowed to get from the community.
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Right, because if you are a small rescue and you constantly have to push out, we need help for surgeries, we need this, we need this.
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It's hard because the community, I think, kind of gets a little used to seeing beg all the time.
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So it's hard to get that interaction where some rescues are like, hey, we're putting out the most beautiful photographs of these dogs and they all look amazing and super friendly and we're doing, know, a meat and gruyere brewery, that's going to get a lot of traction, a lot of interest.
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So you know it's tough for me.
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I think one of the biggest things that rescues can do I mean, I know there's a lot of disagreements within rescues, but the biggest thing we can do is just realize that we're all working towards the same goal, right, we all want these animals to get all.
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We all want them to be happy and safe and cared for, and that's where the focus has to go, you know.
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Yeah, yeah, that's such, that's such a good point and it's it's almost a become a joke or a cliche in the rescue world that we shouldn't be in competition with each other.
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Now I, you know, on one hand I guess one could say that if you're in a small, a small community and there's two animal rescues that kind of do the same thing, you know on some level, yeah, you probably are, you know, to a certain degree in competition from the standpoint of limited volunteer pool, let's say, or limited amount of donations locally.
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But I think if we, instead of looking at as us against them, if we looked at opportunities on how we can work together and share those resources, you know one of the sayings that I love as a professional speaker and trainer, not for animals but for humans, got to train them to behave as well.
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In my National Speakers Association, the mantra is not to get your piece of the pie but work together to make the pie bigger.
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And I think we need to take that mindset a little bit more in rescue the pie bigger, and I think we need to take that mindset a little bit more in rescue.
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I would even challenge the thought that two rescues in a small area aren't competing because they have different animals in their facilities, right?
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So the adopter who might be perfect for one dog at this facility may not be perfect for another dog, and that is the way that these rescues and shelters can have a community and be able to say, hey, we don't have a dog who's a good fit for you, but you know who does Quades across the street and help each other out.
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Yeah, exactly, you know to do those referrals and I think a lot of rescues do a good job at that.
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But that is a good point.
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Like I had mentioned to you before, we started recording that we have mostly done cats, and it's just because of it's a long story, but it's because of how we got started and you know the fact that it was more convenient to stash a bunch of cats at my house than it was to stash a bunch of dogs.
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And then you know it's not to say that we don't adopt out dogs, but yeah, I mean it's like you know, we are probably 80% cats to 20% dogs and there are other groups where they're.
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You know the exact opposite.
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And it's interesting because you said adopters and yes, that's a piece of it.
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I mean, obviously we are the cat.
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You know some people even refer to us as a cat rescue and it's like, well, no, we don't just do cats, but we certainly do a lot of cats.
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Not only do we draw cat adopters but we draw people who want to volunteer with cats, and so that's not going to be the same volunteer that's going to go to the other group, that's doing.
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Great Danes or something like that.
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you know, or whatever, as a matter of fact I was surprised to find out when we were trying to and this is kind of a good point on your maybe jumping ahead of things when we're talking about attracting volunteers is that I was wondering, why do we struggle so much amongst our pretty decent volunteer pool to get anybody literally anybody to take in a dog as a foster?
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And I was surprised to find that many of my volunteers are afraid of dogs and it's like, okay, I just thought you were cat people, but I just don't think about like oh, you could also be afraid of dogs.
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So that was kind of surprising.
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Or they were worried about destruction of their homes when they went out and things.
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And it probably makes a good point to how we market for adopters and volunteers as well.
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You know, I mean, it's like you just, like in any in any other business, you go to where your audience is.
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So if I am mostly a cat rescue, then I should be figuring out where is it that cat people hang out whether it's physically in my town or whether it's on social media, you know versus a person who does you know a specific breed of dogs.
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Obviously, those people are going to be hanging out in a very different place than my cat people.
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So it's such a good point.
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So let's talk about animal care and welfare, because obviously there are a lot of issues surrounding how that is done.
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I know that we have run into so.
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We have four cat kennels in a local pet shop and they're quite nice.
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You know, in my perspective they're quite nice.
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The cats are not in there long-term.
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We give them a break.
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Of course the public doesn't necessarily see that that a cat might be up there two weeks and if it is showing any signs of stress we'll bring it back to a home environment.
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But even that has its challenges because cats don't like change.
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But when it comes to care and you know, kind of the animal welfare side of things, what are some of the things from the standpoint of how we're housing and caring for animals that you would say rescues probably need to take a look at?
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animals that you would say rescues probably need to take a look at.
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I feel like a lot of times in shelters and rescue setup and this is specifically for facilities, especially with dogs when we have like kennel run setup, we are essentially creating reactivity, and so reactivity and separation anxiety are some of the two biggest reasons that dogs enter training or that dogs are surrendered Right Because people can't handle it.
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They're like I can't go.
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I can't go for a walk.
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Every time I walk outside, my dog is barking off the leash, it's pulling, it's pulling my arm.
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Those are big reasons.
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So when we're keeping dogs for, however long we may keep them, when we're keeping them and we're not addressing those behaviors in every little part of their lifestyle, Right To their day-to-day interaction with other jobs, to where they're bored at the time, all of that affects how they're going to react when they end up going home and actually finding a family right.
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So, as far as being able to make sure that they are actually progressing during the time that they're being held or that they're in your facility or in your care, I think that's one of the biggest things and it hits on every level, not just like, okay, I'll take the dog home, I'll feed it and we go for walks and I'm a good foster Because, yeah, I don't think you're a bad person.
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You are doing what that animal needs.
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But we can elevate that and that's the way to actually get our animals adopted, yeah, and to make sure that we're applying ourselves to say, okay, so they came in with this issue.
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How do we fix it?
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How do we change it?
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How do we make sure that when they do get to go home, they're now in a place where we can say, hey, so this is what we did and this is what worked for them on the walk.
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So now that you can do that and you can make sure that this animal is going to have success going forward, I think that process, starting from where they live, is the process that works for animals to actually be successful, that works for adopters to actually have that follow through and help so they have a game plan when they bring this animal home.
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I think that that is the key part of making sure that the facility, the lifestyle from the ground up is correct.
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I'm making sure that the facility and the lifestyle from the ground up is correct.
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You know that's a good point.
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You know tying that into.
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You know one of my personal challenges when it comes to the whole animal care side, and it's really about the whole, the whole pipeline, for lack of a better term when we first started the rescue, we would take in anything and everything and very quickly you realize actually it took us several years of basically being to the point of wanting to cut off our own heads you get to a point where you have to start making decisions from the time of intake and beyond, because you know there's a couple of challenges that I think that come into play.
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You know number one what can you adequately care?
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Challenges that I think that come into play.
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You know.
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Number one what can you adequately care for, whether it's housing, whether it's being able to provide those behavioral needs, the training, whatever it might be, and then the aspect of, I think, adoptability and how long that animal is in the system.
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So I want to talk a little bit about kind of all of that stuff, because there are rescues and we've done it before.
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You know well, like right now we've got a blind pit bull.
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She's been on our program for two years and it's like is that something to?
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be proud of, or have we done wrong by her?
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And I think it depends on how they're living.
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Obviously, you know, if somebody's living in a cage for two years, this dog's living in my house If she doesn't get adopted although anyone who wants to adopt a blind pit bull don't listen to this part of the episode but if she doesn't get adopted, I'm just going to keep her because she's only and this is another thing, she's only adoptable in some narrower parameters, right?
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She's not open to everybody.
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So let's address these couple steps along the pipeline.
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So, as far as you know, making decisions about what you should or should not take in, you know, we try to look at.
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We have kind of criteria that we've established.
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Now, how much is it going to cost us and do we have the funds to care for it?
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Whatever, especially, if it's a medical case, how adoptable is it?
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And then you know, then there's the safety factor, like there are a lot of people who believe everything needs to be saved.
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I don't necessarily believe that.
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It's like you want to take on that liability, that responsibility, and put in a lot of time and effort into an animal that you could have put all of that time and effort into five other animals who are highly adoptable.
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You know so you start making decisions like that.
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So what are your thoughts on the?
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You know, like, let's start with the intake.
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Like what could rescues do better to make that?
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Yes and no, we're going to take it in decision from the get go.
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So rescues and shelters are both usually started by people who have really really great intentions, but these are not people who are veterinarians.
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These are not people who have really really great intentions, but these are not people who are veterinarians.
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These are not people who are behavioralists, these are not people who are trainers.
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So these are not people who work with animals for a consistent basis.
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And a lot of times, realistically, the rescue field, the majority of people who are rescuers, are women, and they're women who work over 35.
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So we're talking about people who may be retired, people who may not be necessarily having the physical capabilities to take care of a one-year-old mastiff or Great Dane, right.
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And so when we believe that we have to take in all these animals and we have to save as many, but we can't give them the quality here or help or the assistance that they actually need, we're putting ourselves at a disservice as well as the animal, and that's something that I think rescues and facilities have to learn over time, because you can't convince anybody.
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You don't want to be convinced, but that is something that, doing this for a while, you will learn as far as what you are actually able to do.
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So I do think that's an important piece of it.
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Yeah, even starting back in the volunteer days when I was volunteering for a local city shelter, we pretty much avoided for the longest time doing offsite events, to be perfectly honest, because our volunteers, although they were probably okay to come, go out to the fenced backyard and take one dog out of time, let it run around and play and then bring it back in.
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They did not have the dog handling experience or the behavior experience to see.
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To take a dog in public.
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To take a dog in public.
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And the one time I will never forget it, like the one time that I convinced the facility like let's just go and participate in this thing, we're going to take this limited number of animals.
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I kid you not, there was a almost dog fight and I saw it from across the room getting ready to happen and intervened.
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Ok, the volunteer that was handling the dog, who was going nose to nose with a strange dog, had no clue, despite the fact that we did provide, you know, to the best of our ability, some training.
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Obviously they needed a lot more.
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Another dog, soon, like within five minutes of getting there, got off leash and was running around loose inside the facility.
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It's like, okay, never, ever again.
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You know, and you know you don't want to take that one experience and say, well, really, never again.
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But I think it is important to think about, you know, especially if you are foster-based or if you have volunteers coming into your facility, what are they able to handle?
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I know a lot of the larger.
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You know you talked about the big organizations versus the small.
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You know a lot of the big organizations have very clear guidelines.
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I am a red volunteer and I've had this level of training and I can take out all the dogs who are labeled red and not red in a negative way.
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Just pick the color.
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And.
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I'm brand new, so I don't have any dog handling experience.
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I've only had this one little hour of training, and so I can only take out blue dogs, and it's like there's something to be said for that and that works great in theory, but when you're also talking about animals who have like especially working dog breeds or dogs who have like certain anxieties, the consistency is part of what they're missing.
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So even when we have six or seven different volunteers coming, the dog is not getting consistency because they're not seeing the same person every day.
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So they have to restart and build a foundation, rebuild a relationship.
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Every time a new person comes to their door and then they're doing that overwhelming for months on end.
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Eventually they get tired of that and they don't want to come out anymore, or they're like I don't trust you, I mean I'm a little nippy.
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And so then we say, oh well, now this dog has to be put on the E-list or this dog, you know, it's not safe, this dog can't be adopted out no, then it's not getting consistency.
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They're not bonding with any humans.
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They're in a facility where there's constant noise and there's no connection, and for a lot of dogs, especially working dog breed, they deteriorate really fast in those kinds of environments.
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So it makes it even harder for them to end up getting adopted.
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You know.
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So when we, when we do this process, even when we have such a a well-organized group as far as like okay, this person is trained.
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We still have to make sure that they're trained to the level that they need to be, which is hard because most trainers don't want to work for free, especially good ones, but that that is an an important key to as far as being able to have some kind of community, or reach out to the people who are in their area, who do have longevity within their community, who have really worked well, because people will help, people will help, and getting people who actually do this to help is going to be work its way to gold, as opposed to getting new volunteers.
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If you can get someone who really knows what they're doing, it makes so much of a difference.
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Yeah, and I think the challenge becomes, you know, for the many, many small rescues that are out there.
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And I've learned, I've learned this like well, first of all, I've discovered that if I decide, in this rescue in Starlight Outreach and Rescue, that we're going to take in a dog, there's one of two places that it's going to end up.
00:19:47.913 --> 00:19:57.986
And one would be with our veterinarian, not like living at the vet all the time, but with our veterinarian, and that's likely because she asked us to bring in a case that she had.
00:19:57.986 --> 00:20:03.304
Or it's coming to my house because I don't have anybody.
00:20:03.304 --> 00:20:10.028
And then, even then, we've gotten to the point where it's like exactly what you said, like a Malinois or a Mal mix.
00:20:10.028 --> 00:20:14.527
It's like I don't have the time and energy to manage that and give it what it's need.
00:20:14.527 --> 00:20:15.891
So, no, I will not take that in.
00:20:15.891 --> 00:20:19.409
You know, you want to give me an old, blind Shih Tzu.
00:20:19.409 --> 00:20:27.050
You know, yeah, I could probably manage that with my existing, you know, and understanding the existing makeup of the already four dogs that are in my living room right now.
00:20:27.090 --> 00:20:27.893
And it's a range.
00:20:27.893 --> 00:20:28.653
It's also important.
00:20:29.099 --> 00:20:35.013
Yeah, it's from the four-pound chihuahua to the 40-pound blind pit bull and a couple of oddballs in between.
00:20:35.013 --> 00:20:51.785
So it's like I've got to think about all that mix and I think when rescues decide we're going to go for volume, because we went through that and it was post, a little bit post-COVID, where we were growth mode and it's like, well, we only brought in this many dogs last year or this many animals last year.
00:20:51.785 --> 00:20:52.847
We need to ramp that up.
00:20:52.847 --> 00:21:00.112
And then it finally dawned on me when I was about ready to cut off my own head Do we actually have to do that?
00:21:00.112 --> 00:21:01.114
Maybe we don't.
00:21:01.160 --> 00:21:26.340
And that's where we really started establishing some criteria of what we're going to take in and literally like we came up with a system of assigning a point value to an animal based on capacity only Right litter of bottle fed kittens because of the amount of time and effort that it takes to care for those animals.
00:21:26.340 --> 00:21:41.298
And so you know, that way we know that what we're taking in is something that we can manage, based on the housing that we have, based on the number of volunteers that we have, based on how long is somebody willing to hold on to some bottle babies that are a day old.
00:21:41.298 --> 00:21:46.035
Are they going to keep them until they're weaned, or are they like I can only lose sleep for two weeks and I need them to go to somebody?
00:21:46.075 --> 00:21:51.691
else, and so we created this whole system and it really impacted the number of animals we could take in.
00:21:51.691 --> 00:22:00.423
But I feel like it really highly increased the quality of the care and then the ability to get them ready for adoption.
00:22:00.423 --> 00:22:10.891
But I see other organizations like there's one locally that it's at least on a monthly basis they're advertising that a foster has lost a dog and I know that happens.
00:22:11.392 --> 00:22:25.445
But I think it happens because there's obviously something that's missing for it to happen so frequently, I think, and also, I think we do the animals a disservice when we think of them as something that needs to be saved.
00:22:25.445 --> 00:22:32.126
We want to see them helped instead of addressing them as an animal and saying, ok well, this animal is really stressed, this animal is clearly very overwhelmed.
00:22:32.126 --> 00:22:33.705
Let me take a second out now.
00:22:33.705 --> 00:22:35.547
Well, we have to get Sparky bitchy today.
00:22:35.547 --> 00:22:40.509
You can post it on the top of all those and Sparky's in the back of the crate growling and screeching and freaking out.
00:22:40.509 --> 00:22:47.009
Yeah, it's yeah, sparky, you're ready for the big show.
00:22:47.009 --> 00:22:47.775
Sparky doesn't need a home right now.
00:22:47.775 --> 00:22:48.339
Sparky needs to decompress.
00:22:49.741 --> 00:22:51.484
Yeah, what are your thoughts about?
00:22:51.484 --> 00:22:55.854
You know, because I am of the belief that some animals just should not be adopted out.
00:22:55.854 --> 00:23:01.307
Oh yeah, I'm not saying I've come across a ton of them, but I think there are some.
00:23:01.307 --> 00:23:06.255
Like to me when start putting, and I'll use Sassy as a prime example.
00:23:06.255 --> 00:23:29.891
So she is blind, she's around certain kinds of people, she's fine, but she can be nippy and she has, you know, nipped at people, especially in situations where, like as an example, if I was to have a party, which I never would but if I was to have a party and a bunch of people came through the door at the same time and all my dogs were loose and everybody was raising holy hell.
00:23:30.352 --> 00:23:32.313
And then somebody went to reach to pet Sassy.
00:23:32.313 --> 00:23:36.776
It would not surprise me if she snapped at them, because she has no idea what's going on.
00:23:36.816 --> 00:23:42.241
She can't see all the other dogs are going nuts, they're all putting off this.
00:23:42.241 --> 00:23:45.130
You know crazy energy and so you know, obviously I manage those situations.
00:23:45.130 --> 00:23:46.340
But your average, you know.
00:23:46.340 --> 00:23:55.809
It's like I can't adopt her out to the average person and there is a voice in the back of my head that says, should I even adopt her out at all?
00:23:55.809 --> 00:24:08.131
You know, like if you have to put these kind of you know parameters and then there's some, I think, that are so extreme that like it shouldn't be a question in your head that it shouldn't be adopted out, I don't, I don't even think Sassy's that bad, yeah, but what are your thoughts?
00:24:08.392 --> 00:24:08.852
No, I.
00:24:08.852 --> 00:24:16.121
So I've gone to the same vet since I was a child named Larry, and he's amazing.
00:24:16.121 --> 00:24:29.579
He runs Philadelphia Animal Hospital and when we talk about dogs with behavioral issues and dogs who have experienced so much trauma, right, or have serious health issues, the main thing that he always says is look at the quality of life and the quality of life will tell you right.
00:24:29.579 --> 00:24:41.066
So, in your position, if you're saying Sassy Sands, the Christmas party, has a good life, has activity, has, you know, loving her, and wants to do stuff, then that dog, she's good to go.
00:24:41.066 --> 00:24:45.787
She just needs to find someone who doesn't do nothing and has no visitors, right?
00:24:45.787 --> 00:24:47.409
But, um, unfortunately.
00:24:47.469 --> 00:24:50.534
Yeah, in rescue I have experienced animals who I mean.
00:24:50.534 --> 00:25:00.373
I once went to do an eval on a plan of a lady who worked in rescue and she took the dog home because she said they tried to put him down and it was a huge pit bull course.
00:25:00.373 --> 00:25:06.128
They tried to put him down and for whatever reason I don't know if the dosage was off or something, but he didn't go out.
00:25:06.128 --> 00:25:12.648
So she said well, I'm gonna take him home and he's treated up multiple times, you know.
00:25:12.648 --> 00:25:19.712
But but because we're looking at them as this mythical thing of goodness instead of an actual animal.
00:25:19.712 --> 00:25:23.983
Yeah, people do that and they put themselves in danger and they put themselves in harm's way, you know.
00:25:24.183 --> 00:25:24.785
Well, and they put.
00:25:24.785 --> 00:25:30.095
They put unsuspecting adopters and the person walking in the park.
00:25:30.095 --> 00:25:34.090
I mean that's, you know, it's, it's it's one thing for the animal to have a quality of life.
00:25:34.090 --> 00:25:38.963
It's, you know, I think, public safety and you know I always think about.
00:25:38.963 --> 00:25:39.545
You know what?
00:25:39.545 --> 00:25:43.574
What if this dog goes out and you know, bite some kid's face off or kills, kill somebody?
00:25:43.574 --> 00:25:45.275
You dog goes out and you know, bite some kid's face off or kills kill somebody.
00:25:45.295 --> 00:25:46.095
You know it's like I don't know what.
00:25:46.095 --> 00:25:52.597
That is the way rescues interact with each other, because if you put a dog down and doesn't technically have a bite history, other rescues are going to come after you.
00:25:52.597 --> 00:26:01.566
You know, even if you've had it evaluated by every behavioral and every person, they're going to come after you and say, well, this dog deserves to live, because they're not working with one.
00:26:01.566 --> 00:26:02.448
So they don't know.
00:26:02.468 --> 00:26:09.261
Know what you're experiencing, yeah, so we don't necessarily advertise that stuff, although I always tell my volunteers and anybody else.
00:26:09.261 --> 00:26:21.423
It's like if you ask me what happened to so-and-so, I'm going to tell you the truth, and if you don't like it, then you should have stepped up and taken him home and adopted him yourself, because I can't, and you know, and it's the same thing I tell people adopters when I turn them't.
00:26:21.443 --> 00:26:24.288
And it's the same thing I tell people, adopters, when I turn them down.
00:26:24.288 --> 00:26:33.325
And it's like you can make you know, you can make all kinds of justifications for the things that you do, like declawing, and the bottom line is I'm the one that's adopting it out.
00:26:33.325 --> 00:26:38.554
I have to live with my decision, mentally, physically, emotionally, and so the answer is no, and it's you know.
