00:02 [Music]
00:14 welcome back everybody to another episode of the AutoAccon Attorneys podcast i'm your host Attorney Ali and
00:20 the podcast is sponsored by the Auto Accident Attorneys Group where we take
00:25 care of you as you guys have probably figured out by now even though it is the auto accident attorneys podcast it's not
00:31 all auto accidentbased content a lot of this stuff is uh as a girl dad I I' I
00:38 give dad advice uh I try and provide information direct to consumers that I
00:45 would have not otherwise known had I not had people in my life and along those
00:50 lines today we've got one of my oldest
00:55 friends from the personal injury industry who's no longer in that particular industry and pursuing her
01:01 passions my close friend Diana Garcia hi thanks for having me on the pod thank
01:07 you so much for coming back and also this handsome boy with you Mr clayton
01:14 mr clayton's busy right now he's got a toy over there i love it and our regular
01:22 co-host attorney Holly my sister Holly Cole welcome i'm back
01:28 and today's I also Is it there everybody what a darling face and we we've got
01:35 Jetty Jederson Selimi with us as well that's her middle name unofficially
01:40 uh today's episode is the reason I invited Diana on because Diana
01:47 introduced me to the Lifeline Project and a shelter to rescue dogs and that's
01:53 how Jetty has become a part of the family and so I wanted to just open up the conversation for you Diana to talk
02:02 about that journey and what you went down what you experienced and led you to
02:09 uh where you are today and how that relates to me getting Jetty in my life because I love being main character it's
02:16 all about you always no no again thank you for having me on uh especially to
02:22 discuss a topic that's so near and dear to my heart um and we are bonded forever
02:28 now for better or worse we are bonded forever because of little Jetty over here and I love the story of how we got
02:35 to her so I can't wait to you know to have that dialogue with you and explain to the viewers how that came about um
02:42 but um but anyways yeah so uh this dog that you see right here this is Clayton he is 14 years old i rescued him when he
02:50 was 2 years old um it was just a normal stroll through PetSmart um I had a dog
02:57 um already and uh I was just going to the store to get supplies for her and
03:03 there was a rescue organization out in the front of Pets Smart i'm sure everybody kind of knows what that looks like you know when they go to the pet
03:09 store and they see the the rescue organization and all these puppies and um so there were a ton of puppies out
03:15 there obviously they drew the biggest crowd but then off to a corner in a dark kennel there was this guy i'm like you
03:23 know why is he off to the corner all by himself and you know it's it's the intimidation factor you know he you know
03:28 when he was two he was in his prime he was bulky and muscly and and you know people like revered him from afar but
03:36 there was not a whole lot of interest in him because the puppies were stealing the show and you know something pulled
03:42 on my heart but I'm like I can't have another dog like I you know he's full grown i don't know about that i had all
03:48 these hesitations that most people have you know there's a sort of comfort in knowing that you're raising a dog from
03:54 puppyhood that gives you some sort of element of control and so I kind of you
03:59 know did away with the the that pull that I was feeling um but over the
04:05 course of a couple of days I kept dreaming about him and I'm not a dreamer when I'm sleeping I'm out cold so I'm
04:12 like "Okay something's telling me to like check up on this dog." So I called the rescue organization they're like "Oh
04:17 sorry you missed your chance you know he's already been taken i'm like "Oh well that settles it i'm just going to
04:22 go on about my life." Uh and then I get a call a couple of hours later that he's been returned apparently he was too high
04:30 energy for the family that took him and you know they weren't they weren't ready for the responsibility i'm like I guess
04:36 I've got to step up now so I I got him and he came home with me and um like
04:42 I've had him for 12 years and he's been an absolute godsend that's amazing 12 years together 12 years so he's 14 is
04:49 you know what's considered geriatric at this point i mean I think dogs become seniors at the age of seven especially
04:56 the larger breed dogs you know um their life expectancy is not very high so
05:02 having him you know be 14 years old is a real blessing that's amazing a testament too to how much I spoil him with
05:08 supplements and all the things to keep him healthy oh you did a beautiful job because I knew he was older but I didn't
05:15 realize he was 14 he's doing great for 14 wait quick math Ollie like how good
05:21 are you on your feet what is 7 * 14 who uh what's 4* 7 28 so 98 years old that's
05:31 what the equivalent kind of would be to human years i I think they've modified it um a little bit to where he might not
05:38 actually be 98 maybe he's in his 80s but he's doing a great job for it that is the best looking
05:47 octoenarian I've Who was it was it Dairo that just recently got me yeah and had a baby yeah that's That's Mr clayton over
05:55 there yeah i think he's more of a of a Clint Eastwood though than a Robert
06:01 Diero he uh he's not he's not so much mobster as much as Get Off My Lawn yes
06:08 so anyway so that's the story of how Mr clayton came about and then just the um
06:13 I would say the mission behind rescue kind of came over the course of me
06:19 seeing how differently he was treated than your
06:24 typical you know well bred designer breed sort of dog um people don't always
06:31 notice like their underlying bias but it's absolutely there and and you feel it and when it's like your child Yeah
06:38 you know I mean you have real children so you can tell anytime your child is maybe shunned or maybe treated a little
06:44 differently if that's ever happened it hurts you oh absolutely it hurts you and you're like you know he's sweet he want
06:49 he just wants to be included you know why do people see him as different or as a threat and that's a common stigma that
06:57 exists in society towards the pitbull breed and by and large the pitbull breed
07:03 is what exists out there in animal shelters currently um they're at capacity you know so many
07:11 uh like these dogs are very irresponsibly bred litters are you know
07:16 huge so when they're unwanted or not given the sort of training and
07:22 responsibility that you know that that they're that they deserve they get surrendered to these shelters and um
07:29 yeah and there's not enough people that know enough about the breed or care enough to kind of alleviate that stress
07:36 from the shelters so um so I I I faced a lot of you know little like micro
07:42 aggressions I guess from people you know when they see him they would move to the other side of the street you know kind
07:47 Oh really yeah kind of fear for their safety a little bit um but then you know
07:53 you've over the course of years with you know the um adopt don't shop movement
07:58 you've seen a lot more open-mindedness lot more willingness to approach uh to adopt or at the very
08:06 least to just ask is he friendly can I pet him and that's huge like of course he is like go for it I guess you know
08:13 thinking back I I personally I I wasn't really a dog person so it's not it was
08:18 never at the top of my mind but I was I didn't have a bias towards Pitts uh but
08:25 thinking back I guess most of the media stories that you hear you don't hear
08:31 they're not playing an air what was Airbud right they don't have a pitbull an Airbud but then you see like the news
08:36 piece they're they're very much stereotyped actually that now that I'm thinking about it you're absolutely
08:42 right yeah well you know it has something to do with like their look too
08:47 um they they give like a like a cool intimidating like sort of which is why I
08:52 really wanted one right so you know people with nefarious intents you know
08:58 we'll use them for for harmful things you know animal bedding you know is very much still alive in this country and
09:05 throughout the world and you know because of their sheer strength which was not what they were originally bred
09:10 for um like if if you trace their origins back to you know Europe they
09:16 were actually bred for nanny dogs like the child care they're the sweetest with kids really they're such gentle not even
09:24 giants i mean he's a big boy but they're not all big boys and yeah yeah like the velvet hippos i learned recently
09:30 actually that when uh somewhere down the line they actually crossbred the um
09:37 maybe the English bulldog i I can't remember which or maybe the Staffordshire terrier they they
09:42 crossbreed them with uh rat terriers uh which are known for you know excavating
09:48 you know to get like moles and like they're diggers and they're they're I mean they just chase after their prey
09:54 and so uh they crossbred you know the bully breed with those terriers to um to
10:01 use them for hunting so um you know they would take down like the the wild boars and they you know they would treat like
10:08 other types of animals and stuff so that's kind of how the the the strength and the prey drive came about i see but
10:16 that's not how they began that's fascinating and I did see you're absolutely right when we went to you had
10:23 posted a picture of a beautiful boy named Pedro sure did and I see you you
10:31 brought pictures with I have brought photos okay yep so this is Pedro and uh
10:37 he was up for adoption uh several months ago and you know you of all people
10:44 reached out you're like I'm interested in Pedro go from there yeah you had posted him on social media and the
10:51 origin story for I've never owned an animal uh I no didn't grow up with pets
10:58 uh didn't have a desire to have a dog in the house i actually like things to not
11:03 have dog hair on them i prefer things that way your chair is covered in dog hair right now by the way forget the dog
11:11 hair i saw the saliva come out but no I've I've completely changed and the reason I changed was because my youngest
11:18 daughter uh Juliet that we called Guju really really wanted a dog because she
11:25 wanted to overcome her fear of dogs she grew up terrified not just of dogs of cat animals in general she even our
11:33 neighbors had gotten cats and she wouldn't go near the cat and she was
11:38 working her just on her own she was working through her fear and and she said "This is over a year ago." She said
11:45 that if I have my own dog I'll be less afraid of dogs and I was like "Okay." So
11:52 I used that to my advantage i was like "You have to do this you have to do that you know prove yourself prove
11:57 responsibility doing all these chores." She did about a year of that and I never thought it would really come to fruition
12:02 and she kept asking for an animal earlier this year she was in third grade and they had an assignment to write a
12:09 persuasive essay and the persuasive essay was about why she should have a
12:14 pet and when I read that obviously I went to law school i'm an attorney i
12:20 want my children to be able to persuade as opposed to just like kick and scream so when I saw that immediately I was
12:25 like I don't care about my life she's getting a dog i have to reward this so
12:30 right around that same time was when I saw Pedro on your social media post and I I literally was like I love this dog
12:37 what a majestic dog right majestic is such a great way to to describe him so I reached out to you you told me
12:44 where i didn't know about the Lifeline project at the Decab shelter we drove out there tons of animals every What are
12:52 the I don't want to call them cages are they cages cages panels i mean whatever they can put them in at this point every
12:59 kennel was full there was an animal in every single kennel the morning that we
13:05 were supposed to go Juju had school uh it was Valentine's Day valentine's Day
13:10 she went to school and when she was walking to the the bus stop she was
13:16 singing Pedro Pedro Pedro Pedro P she was so excited about meeting Pedro when
13:22 we finally after school I went and picked her up we went to the shelter uh we met Pedro and we went outside and we
13:28 were playing with him loved the dog amazing temperament but super high energy and strong and the idea was that
13:36 Guju would be responsible for walking the dog and looking at him I was like
13:42 "This dog is going to walk you." Like amazing pet not for our household as a
13:47 firsttime animal she understood she agreed we were leaving and I hear
13:56 And Ju Guu is bent down at a kennel at at like looking on the bottom row and we
14:02 look down and we see this face it was Jetty and her she was just wagging her
14:08 tail she was the only dog that was that excited and happy so Juju begged to see
14:13 this dog we weren't even We went for a pit you were about to leave we were on our way out
14:19 we were leaving she wanted to see this dog we went outside we spent about 40 minutes in that little courtyard with
14:25 Jetty and I was like "Well I think we're going to have to take this dog home." I just the way that
14:32 she was interacting with with Guju was like "This is your dog." And the size was perfect all the elements lined up it
14:39 really did and she Yeah now now I've got dog hair on me got a dog licking my
14:45 beard now you're a dog dad um you opened up genuinely your post opened up an
14:52 entirely new world to me i had an episode last week where I was talking about being a girl dad and how I only
14:59 ever wanted boys but having girls taught me so many things about myself I didn't know same thing with a dog genuinely had
15:06 no idea i had gotten warmed up to the idea because we had an inoff dog Dudesen
15:11 who you've met before mh he's also an old man like Clayton but uh and then
15:16 because of Guju it was like maybe we might have to have one but your post
15:21 with Pedro I'll always remember Pedro for the rest of my life because that's what led to Jetty and I got to because
15:28 of this before I forget i didn't realize Diana you brought snacks for Jetty with
15:35 her name on it that you made yourself this morning oh yes so uh you touched
15:41 earlier on on you know career transition and everything i am enjoying and basking
15:48 in fun employment right now and by no means have I really taken a break from
15:54 you know labor because now I'm volunteering at the shelter i'm fostering dogs i'm baking these treats
16:01 every morning and like putting everything into it they're all organic like the ingredients are so healthy they're actually delicious if you want
16:07 to try one for your audience i was wondering how they tasted so I can I can eat this dog treat yep yep
16:16 it's an anti-inflammatory you're going to be the epitome of health after this
16:21 it's blueberries bananas flax seed egg um cinnamon like it's actually quite
16:28 delicious let me try one i I saw you i'll do one too let's chew it together
16:33 all right ready i taste the flax seed and the blueberry you taste the flax seed jenny and I are going to be sharing
16:40 snacks so yeah I bake these in the morning and
16:45 when I go to the shelter I have you know hundreds of treats to give the dogs and I mean I'm I'm kind of like you have an
16:51 inflated sense of ego right now because my treats have never been refused by a dog and if you have a dog stamp of
16:57 approval then I feel like you've just made it well Jetty gobbled it up now I've had it that's the first time I've
17:04 had a dog treat i cannot say the same
17:09 tell me about your first time my husband used to do this thing we lived in a high-rise condo in Midtown
17:16 and they would keep a bowl of like the wish milk bones little milk bones for all the dogs in the building not a milk
17:23 bone came home one night you know it was a night of drinking and he walks up and
17:29 he grabs like a fistful of these milk bones and he looks at the concierge and
17:34 she looks at him smiling thinking that's sweet that he's bringing his dog some milk bones he stares her dead in the
17:40 eyes and just goes inhales it the horrified look on
17:45 her face and I was like "Well now I want to know what it tastes like." So I had
17:51 one too it's pretty bland i can imagine cardboard not like that that's delicious
17:57 was that Brian's first time or he had done that before cuz that's an aggressive move was it an act of
18:03 defiance like I don't know what was going through his head i hope it was his first time but he moved like it was not
18:10 his first time oh the familiarity he didn't flinch not at all oh that is too
18:15 funny but yeah so uh now I I bake these treats um it's a part of like my morning routine i love it like I'm very
18:22 domesticated right now that's awesome um but yeah so um currently actually no
18:29 let's finish talking about Pedro um so Pedro stayed in the shelter system after
18:35 you rejected him ali no um but my one of my best friends who
18:42 does a lot of this work with me she she was obsessed with Pedro from the beginning she's like I'm going to take
18:47 this dog so she she pulled him out for a few days she couldn't keep him indefinitely because she has five of her
18:53 own it's a zoo at her house um but her posts and pictures of him captured the
18:59 attention of one of her male friends so he ended up taking Pedro um so Pedro
19:04 posting dogs on social media you guys are saving lives oh it's becoming so
19:10 popular it's funny i was thinking about that on the way over here because um I saw one of these like you know hottie
19:17 influencer Alex Earl alex wasn't she too she's previous like a a bar stool girl
19:24 or she was like friends with call her daddy girl too she was part of her podcast network okay yes that's right
19:30 yeah so I saw that Alex Earl and her boyfriend will take a dog for the day
19:36 and just like give them the the high life you know let them sleep in their bed and everything and it's a whole
19:42 thing well good segue into I hope that you're going to show Oh absolutely the speeches of course so you know the
19:49 movement definitely kind of started in the West Coast i feel like to adopt and not shop it's like they were almost
19:55 shaming people for buying from breeders which I do not do like you know certain
20:00 families like require like those dogs and if that's your preference that's your preference yeah um but then I would
20:06 say that the movement kind of you know just increased big time when Dave Portoi
20:12 you know the head of Bar Stool Sports El Presidentede uh you know caught wind of this poor
20:18 mama dog at Lifeline Animal Project she had been overbred um you know she had
20:24 that saggy gross belly skin and it was just like pitiful and she was rescued from a hoarding situation it often
20:31 happens uh where you know these breeders are just so irresponsible and they'll have you know all these dogs you know
20:38 under terrible conditions and the authorities are notified so they go in there and they raid it and then you know
20:44 all these dogs that they pull are taken to the shelter so Dave Dave was made aware of this dog through his ex-wife
20:52 who's actually a big animal rescuer too and he just couldn't get her out of his head so he you know hopped on his
20:58 private jet came down to Atlanta and he saved Miss Peaches and um it started
21:04 this whole thing like Miss Peaches amassed a million followers within maybe like less than a month and people were
21:10 just enamored by her story she's the sweetest thing you know he was buying her the most lavish things he bought her
21:15 like a Louis Vuitton poncho a Goyard like bowl like set and she destroyed
21:22 everything of course you know like his Gucci wallet was like in shreds his AMX
21:28 is just like he's like Miss Peaches and he would just never get mad at her and it was just the most endearing thing
21:35 that I mean like this dog I mean she was living the life in Miami getting leftovers from Carbone she had a home in
21:41 Nantucket and you just love to see it right so uh Lifeline invited Dave and
21:48 Miss Peaches back a year later to their annual Good Human Gala it's this charity
21:54 event you know that they throw once a year um they invite you know members of the community you buy your tickets you
21:60 buy a table and it is just like a free-for-all of charity you know there's silent auctions all sorts of auctions i
22:06 want to say they raised at this event maybe $900,000 close to a million and
22:12 Dave Dave wasn't even like the biggest you know contributor to it i mean I I
22:17 saw like this like old widow lady you could tell like she just like was just burning through her ex-husband's money
22:23 she's like lifting her paddle i'll take it i'll take it i'll take it i'm like geez lady how much do you have yeah but
22:29 anyways this is a picture uh I was invited to the gala and uh you'll see Dave right here and Miss Peaches i was
22:36 sitting at the table right next to them and I was all about Miss Peaches i I didn't even really pay attention to Dave
22:43 but that's what he wanted that's awesome uh so it was a really great experience and uh Miss Kes has gone on to just be
22:50 the ambassador for a lot of things um he's really pushing her forward and all
22:55 the proceeds made through her site go to animal rescue um his first big check
22:60 went back to Lifeline but then he's been supporting other rescue organizations in New York he just came out with like a
23:07 selzer in her name really yeah like it's got her picture on it it's like this like lemonade sort of seltzer um so
23:15 proceeds from that go to animal rescue uh she got the keys to the city for
23:20 Miami from the mayor oh she really made something of herself oh my god I want to come back as Miss Peaches in my next
23:26 life everybody does girl everybody does don't get jealous don't get jealous jenn
23:32 is living a pretty good life so um so yeah we've got to give
23:37 Dave Portoy a whole lot of credit for what what he's done it's a very like altruistic sort of thing from from his
23:44 end but yeah I love to see the influencers really get involved because it's changing the way that people view
23:50 these dogs cuz you got you know Ali your experience walking into the shelter it was it was sad wasn't it it was
23:55 heartbreaking and again I I never wanted a dog i didn't grow up with dogs being there I I felt overwhelmed and I was
24:03 like I I wish I could take more than one it's a very emotional Yeah it is an emotional experience because you don't
24:10 even know if half of them are going to make it out um because you know just like fire marshall code these shelters
24:16 are subject to capacity restraints because at a certain point housing that
24:22 many dogs becomes inhumane it's more inhumane than just euthanizing them uh
24:28 so the the entire nation is at critical levels um you know you saw that every
24:34 single kennel was filled here in this rescue in Georgia but one of my neighbors she rescued her dog from San
24:40 Bernard San Bernardino in California and she said there were six dogs to a kennel same size as those kennels that you saw
24:47 six dogs to a kennel i can't even believe that they're fighting for their life they're fighting for their resources they're fighting each other uh
24:54 just to get the attention just to get the food she says it's it's just a horrific sight to behold so um something
25:02 has to be done obviously if you're listening one of the best things you could do with your life if you're bored
25:09 you want to give back you want to help you want to find some meaning go at a minimum just go check out the shelter
25:15 you don't I'm not going to force anyone to adopt i can't through video i don't want to guilt you into it but at least
25:21 go and and spend some time and you can foster right at these shelters yeah you know I I was mentioning to Holly um
25:28 before this that you can commit as little or as much as you want to to
25:34 animal welfare um I love Lifeline because they get very very creative about ways that you can help so if you
25:40 want something that's kind of I don't want to call it loweffort um nothing's loweffort right but um I think if you
25:47 want it to be like a one-time thing but you know you've got a full-time job uh
25:52 you know you could always encourage your company to engage in corporate retreats um so I I know plenty of business owners
26:00 um you know financiers and you know like suit and tie kind of guys that will do
26:06 uh corporate retreats at the shelter and you know once a quarter they'll take you know their entire teams out there and
26:12 you know they'll they'll clean kennels they'll walk dogs they'll prepare goodie bags um and it's just kind of a bonding
26:19 thing you know it's it's a way to show that you know corporate responsibility um so you can do that uh one of my
26:25 favorite things to do with Lifeline is the dog for the day program and it's uh it's very similar to like checking out a
26:32 library book except it's a four-legged living breathing dog
26:37 you walk in and uh Lifeline has already categorized their dogs by uh low level
26:43 so they call it L1 those are the easy button dogs they're not strong pullers they're you know they don't show signs
26:49 of you know reactivity or anything like that they're just easy and um so they've
26:54 got these dogs pulled out already you go in there you say "You want to do dog for the day?" You can flip through the catalog and pick the one you want uh
27:01 they also organize it by you know who has not spent time out of the shelter when the last time was that they went
27:08 out uh so you get to make like an educated decision of like who you want to take out for the day and there's all sorts of activities you can do you want
27:14 to go for a hike take the dog with you uh you want to go sit you know at a patio and enjoy some beers take the dog
27:21 with you if it's a dog friendly patio and then you just you just bring them back before closing time and you know
27:27 you return with a dog who's decompressed who's happy who has met people you're able to submit notes about their
27:33 temperament do they do well with children are they good with males uh do they take treats gently i mean there's
27:39 there's so much value that you can give to these organizations that frankly are
27:45 too stressed to focus on those kind of details they're just trying to keep dogs alive at this point and if you go and
27:51 foster you when you do take them out for the day you can post on your own social media right and so you can p it to your
27:57 own network and really help but somebody I heard somebody say it takes a village they weren't talking about dogs but that
28:04 concept makes sense i mean the more people that share funny you should say it takes a village i have like this
28:09 other photo that I really wanted to kind of highlight um just about how the community like this the community really
28:16 helps restore your faith and humanity um so Lifeline has a huge you know
28:22 following like a ton of loyalty and something happened a few months ago where like their water line broke or
28:28 something like that and they weren't able to fill bowls of water for the dogs so they put out like an SOS on uh on
28:35 Facebook and they're like "We need water please you know send us water." like
28:41 thousands of people got on Door Dash and ordered gallons and gallons upon
28:47 like crates of water and within a matter of like 30 minutes they had sufficient
28:53 water for days wow to you know supply these animals so even something like that you know you don't have to take a
29:01 strange dog into your home and you know give it all sorts of investment even
29:06 though I do know people that invest a ton of money into these dogs thank God
29:11 for them sometimes people really can be beautiful you know what's funny what's that okay so okay when COVID happened
29:20 tell me like the first show that the nation kind of binge watched the first
29:25 show when COVID hit that they binge watched yeah what show like spearheaded
29:30 like the Netflix binging movement i don't know oh now I don't know that I
29:36 feel like Well no I'm not mad at myself cuz I was completely You remember who Joe Exotic was oh that's
29:42 right like I know tiger so funny tiger absolutely right all right so the way
29:48 this fits in is uh the dog I can't wait to see you wrap this up so the dog that I'm uh that I fostered last um he's he's
29:56 a cutie and this lady you know saw him on my social media post and she was like
30:02 I want to kind of take over the foster since you can't do it for much you know for very long i'm like all right cool so
30:09 she's one of these ladies that you know she's die hard about these dogs like she wants to invest in their training before
30:16 you know she finds their per you know permanent home because she wants to make it as difficult as possible for whoever
30:22 adopts the dog to surrender them you know she wants them to you know be the perfect family dog before she before it leaves her hands so she um got a trainer
30:30 for this dog his name is Kane let me show you a picture of Kane so she got a trainer for Kane and she allowed me to
30:36 participate in Kane's first training session and his trainer is um a lady
30:44 that used to work for Carol Baskin at Big Animal Rescue you have no idea how
30:49 much I was dying to ask if Carol Baskin actually killed her husband and said to the tiger but she told me that Carol was
30:55 like the nicest lady in the world a little woowoo but like you know great intentions like always great with like
31:01 you know the wild cats she was telling me crazy stories of how they get tigers
31:07 and lions to obey and she's like "It's the same with any animal even children you know you've just got to distract
31:13 them with a higher value treat and you know that that'll that'll get them to
31:19 obey." And I'm like "Wow." She was telling me that she would take big buckets like Home Depot Home Depot
31:25 buckets and freeze blood in them and almost make like a blood
31:31 popsicle and and it would distract the tigers enough to where she could go in there and like clean like their whole
31:36 like habitat and everything and just walk among them cuz they were busy with their blood popsicle that takes a lot of
31:42 testicular fortitude a thousand and she's tinier than I am but yes so she is currently training Kane this dog that I
31:50 bought beautiful dog oh he's so confused he's so cute um he will not have a
31:55 problem finding a good home and he's going to be the best trained dog there is cuz he learned from somebody who's
32:00 Tiger King adjacent wow you know Ollie I'm I'm a little sorry
32:06 that you didn't Well I'm not really you're also a dog owner but I feel bad that neither Mushie nor Ralphie are here
32:14 oh they can't they're I'm thinking can I send my dogs to this trainer they're the
32:19 best they're the absolute best when it comes to people i swear to God these are like little humans when it comes to
32:25 other dogs they're so reactive they're I'm surprised so we had the first dog
32:31 Mushi she's half Chihuahua half rat terrier you're talking about rat terriers and we had her for like a good
32:38 five years before my husband was like "We need a second dog." and she had already exhibited reactive behavior with
32:44 other dogs i was like there's absolutely no way so we bring in the second dog and it was there was definitely um a period
32:52 of time that was some growing pains but eventually like now they're best friends i don't know what she's been whispering
32:58 to him but she's like no we hate all dogs in this house because there was nothing like he was fine he grew up with
33:05 a litter we didn't adopt him until he was about like eight months old so he'd already been around several dogs and
33:11 then he comes into our household and she's like "Look in this house we fight." And now he's worse than she is
33:19 everyone's a threat everyone's a threat everyone on four legs is a threat i grew up with Jack Russell Terriers and Oh
33:26 they're insane like uh we would take this dog on a walk and he would to get
33:32 to another dog to kill him he would choke himself i mean there were so many times that he like suppressed his own air supply and like fainted by God
33:39 because he just had to kill that's dedication those are my dogs i get it yeah so they
33:46 came in here and I hate it because they're such small dog stereotypes when we're out on walks and we've had we talk
33:53 about being like defensive of your children i we've had people just kind of like scoff and be like typical small
33:60 dogs and I'm like "No they're the best they're not like yappy little things they're just protecting themselves well
34:05 you know what that actually makes me feel better there's comfort in company right okay well maybe it wasn't like you
34:10 know discrimination against just my big bully dog if all of them are discriminated against I'm cool yeah no
34:17 it's it's all there's just haters out there you know
34:23 you're talking about they're just like people it's a great segue into talking
34:29 about auto accidents and dogs they're family members i this one already has a
34:34 middle name Jetty Jederson uh she although I don't have a restraint system
34:40 for her in the car she I've got it where the back seat is essentially her little
34:46 kennel so she's super comfortable if we're in an auto accident though she doesn't get a bodily injury claim she is
34:53 treated as personal property so it's it's just the cost of replacement of the
34:59 dog and not the injury and that's just so crazy to me and I I get it there has
35:05 to be you know some sort of designation for what counts as what but you know we're at the height of society where you
35:12 know we're invested in not just keeping them alive but giving them the best
35:18 quality of care you know we we invest in their health insurance that's a whole thing
35:24 um you know and and we protect them at all costs but at the end of the day you know they're still designated as
35:30 property and so when when they're assessing the value of your property
35:36 you're like "No this this dog is you know there's no price there there's no replacing this this animal for me it's
35:42 family right?" Yeah did they take that into account as far as like the
35:48 emotional loss that the person experiences i understand okay can't you have to designate this animal as
35:54 property but as far as your personal recuperation are they thinking about
35:59 that well so the um whether it's intentional infliction or negligent
36:05 infliction of emotional distress the harm that's being caused must be to a
36:12 person so to a loved one like the classic example is of a funeral home like dropping a widow's a widowerower's
36:20 husband's corpse and it like falls out so because he's not even alive if you
36:26 want to talk about property I mean I'd make the argument that that's more property than a living dog living animal
36:32 but um that would be infliction of emotional distress because it was a
36:37 person wow yeah well I mean that designation extends to all sorts of legal claims you know so the
36:44 self-defense you know you can't you know if somebody breaks into your home threatens your dog you can't really
36:52 lethal force on them if the threat is to your dog if it's to yourself or another human then it passes and then weren't we
36:59 also we talked about medical malpractice at one point you and I did didn't we where veterinarians are not liable for
37:06 medical malpractice because dogs are property it I've never thought about
37:12 that yeah it's It scares me wow cuz you can't ask your dog like where did he
37:17 touch you oh no
37:25 sorry you know what's funny is I have a sister I have two daughters and even my dog is female i am surrounded by female
37:34 energy so I'm like super sensitive to like I feel like I'm the only protector
37:40 when even it's a joke but it's like where did where did he touch i'm like no no it is funny because I feel like I
37:47 half the time we're protecting you that's probably really what's going on but you're protecting me from myself yes
37:53 yes oh I love it it's beautiful i do think it's important if I could push any
37:59 message for today it's about people spending time at the shelter adopting instead of shopping one thing that you
38:06 were talking about making it super easy for people to go and just spend a day with a dog were you telling me that
38:13 there is a a bar close to the shelter oh yeah tell us about that so it's um I
38:19 mean Lifeline has three shelters in the vicinity they have one in Shambbley one
38:24 in Fulton and then another one uh close to the Shambbley uh I don't know why
38:29 they're so close to each other but that's where they are um but the the place where you got Jetty the Shambbley
38:36 Decab Rescue there's a bar close by called Blue Top and it's you know it's
38:42 bar food it's Mexican it's great um and they have an outdoor patio area but the
38:47 dogs are allowed indoor and outdoor and it's just like a fun you know lively experience you can go with a bunch of
38:53 your friends um the staff knows the drill they've got hot dogs ready to go for the pets and um so that's normally
39:01 like where I'll go with my friends like "Hey you want to go to the shelter?" That's kind of our thing you know and uh so we'll take a dog each of us will and
39:08 then we'll take them to Blue Top and so um I'll show you guys like this is a dog
39:13 that I took his uh her name was Skittles it is now May so um the dog's name is
39:19 May um and so anyway so I took Skittles to Blue Top one day posted all these
39:24 sweet little photos of her and it captured the attention of a friend that I had not seen in almost 20 years uh it
39:33 was like a friend that worked retail with me when I was like a teenager wow and uh she sent this photo to her friend
39:39 who was mourning the loss of her family dog and this person drove three hours
39:45 from Mon to come meet Skittles and is now like you know a prime member of her
39:51 family you know does well with her three-year-old and six-year-old and I mean the pictures really do wonders but
39:57 um taking them to these locations really gives you a lot of personal enjoyment honestly
40:03 that's so cool i also want to touch on you were saying earlier about how the dogs are categorized like the L1 level i
40:10 love to hear that because again with like reactive dogs I get really nervous about taking a dog out i'd love to do
40:15 that but I'm like well what if the dog's out of control how do I like like handle that so hearing that they've already
40:22 done that kind of work and made a point to highlight the dogs that are going to be like lowle and obviously you use your
40:29 you have to use your judgment too right like consider the amount of stress that the dog's been in um the fact that
40:34 they've not been exposed to for example like cars whizzing by or
40:39 bicycles whizzing by like how are they going to react to that so it really is our responsibility as humans and
40:45 caretakers to to provide a safe environment for them and and kind of prepare for the unexpected um right because you
40:53 know so the current foster that I have right now his name's Ted he's a senior
40:59 as well he's 14 years old his story is really sad and if you're Diana likes older men i agree i'm picking up on that
41:05 they're more mature they're We're on the same wavelength this poor dog was
41:10 surrendered a month ago when his 90-year-old owner had to uh enter
41:15 hospice care oh and the family just didn't want to deal with the dog this poor dog that's lived his life in
41:20 comfort and so um bad part about some humans is they feel so much guilt you
41:25 know surrendering a dog to the shelter that they often times have to justify their reasoning and they'll submit you
41:31 know some notes that aren't so you know friendly or advantageous to the dog so um this dog Ted entered the shelter
41:38 system and immediately declined he stopped eating he started selfharming and uh he was on death's doorstep and so
41:46 they posted about him i'm like I got to do something about Ted so I went and I got him and I saw the notes that you
41:53 know that said that he was not friendly that he was aggressive and he lunged at people and I'm like well I guess we'll
41:58 find out and so I took him and he's just I mean he's an angel he is a little possessive
42:04 about his toys but you know u but who isn't right um but yeah so he I've had
42:10 him for two weeks and he he eats he loves food he just has to be in like the right place to do it his wounds are
42:16 healing he's he's almost ready to be adopted out that's right so you know I know that they have their designation of
42:22 L1 and all these things but if you feel that you are you know kind of an experienced um dog owner or dog handler
42:30 then you know an L2 designation or an L3 doesn't mean that a dog is bad it just
42:36 means that they're a little more effort okay so yeah but L1 is easier of Ted of
42:41 course I have a picture of Ted i got to see this i love that you brought so many
42:46 pictures first off I brought Yeah like every single dog that I have uh that I have uh fostered over the last year I
42:53 brought a picture of him so that's Ted he had to be in the cone because you know he kept trying to eat out his
42:58 wounds but he's doing good and now he's a little spoiled um he was all crusty like old man crusty like on his elbows
43:05 and his nose so I give him like nightly coconut oil massages oh God oyster and
43:11 now he loves it he'll just put his little nose up to me he's like ready for his coconut oil hey can I come live with
43:16 you give me a little nose coated up massage so yeah I can tell Diana that
43:22 you are going to leave an everlasting impact on the animal world maybe who
43:29 knows where the what the future holds but maybe you can start some sort of coalition where we start lobbying for
43:35 literal animal rights and that way the auto accident attorneys group can start
43:40 bringing claims for dogs we need you need a new customer need to expand your practice area for sure i mean there's a
43:47 lot to be done legislatively i think that I think that's going to be the core um movement to kind of help defeat
43:55 what's going on right now nationwide with like the shelters being over capacity um I I myself live in a very
44:02 like upand cominging part of the city where there's a lot of um you know young
44:07 people apartment complexes and they they want to adopt these dogs but because of breed restrictions in the apartments um
44:16 you know renters insurance won't cover what is deemed an aggressive breed so that extends to not just the bully
44:22 breeds but German shepherds Rottweilers uh Doberman's um and so you know they're
44:27 oftentimes limited in what they can do to help so yeah you know changing laws
44:33 um you know maybe even you know with the with the insurance companies like what
44:38 if you had to like complete a course to prove yourself as a responsible pet owner kind of like you know if you lose
44:45 your license because of a DUI you have to do a defensive driving course to get it back or something you know right some
44:51 sort of certification there's ideas out there we need to put our heads together i love that yeah I love that
44:57 diana before we wrap up is there anything that you feel like we didn't touch on that you would be remiss not to
45:04 share with our viewers you know there's not like one piece of like information
45:10 or like a fact that needs to be shared this is this is a lifelong journey of education and and commitment but you
45:18 know intrinsically like at that heart kind of level I I just ask everybody to kind of like examine you know the the
45:25 state of their lives you know is there something that you're missing is your mental health suffering like do you feel
45:32 alone at times like you know I would encourage anybody to look outside of
45:37 themselves and you know help those who are less fortunate whether it's a dog whether it's you know any other kind of
45:43 organization a children's organization a homeless organization you know battered women whatever um look outside of
45:49 yourself and I'll tell you I mean it will it will change your outlook entirely to realize that not only are
45:56 you blessed yeah we all go through like really terrible things but there's always somebody that you can help and as
46:01 a byproduct it will it will come back to you in you know droves of joy and so I
46:07 just encourage people to look outside of themselves that is so beautifully said and it falls in line with our firm's
46:15 motto of we take care of you everything you're saying is about taking care of others i love everything that you stand
46:23 for i love what you're about i love the work that you're doing you're you're living it and I appreciate you coming i
46:29 appreciate your time i appreciate your friendship and I appreciate what you're doing for animals more than anything else thank you for having me absolutely
46:36 all right everybody i hope you enjoyed today's episode please if you can adopt
46:42 and don't shop if you're not looking for an animal or a new family member at least go and check out the shelters and
46:48 and foster one take a dog out and grab a beer it's it's the most fun you could possibly have i'm not even a dog person
46:55 and I love them now but leave comments share this episode as always I'm here to
47:01 take care of you you can take care of me by helping people find their way to these podcasts and spreading the
47:07 information that we're sharing until next time take care everybody