00:02 [Music]
00:14 welcome back everybody to another episode of the Auto Accident 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've 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 thank you for having me on the pod thank
01:07 you so much for coming back and also this handsome boy with you Mr clayton mr
01:15 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 everybody oh what a darling face and we we've got
01:35 Jetty Jederson Selimi with us as well that's her middle name unofficially uh
01:41 today's episode is the reason I invited Diana on because Diana introduced me to
01:48 the Lifeline Project and a shelter to rescue dogs and that's how Jetty has
01:55 become a part of the family and so I wanted to just open up the conversation
02:00 for you Diana to talk about that journey and what you went down what you
02:06 experienced and led you to uh where you are today and how that relates to me
02:12 getting jetted in my life because I love being main character it's all about you
02:18 always no no again thank you for having me on uh especially to discuss a topic
02:24 that's so near and dear to my heart um and we are bonded forever now for better or worse we are bonded forever because
02:31 of little Jetty over here and I love the story of how we got to her so I can't
02:37 wait to you know to have that dialogue with you and explain to the viewers how that came about um but um but anyways
02:44 yeah so uh this dog that you see right here this is Clayton he is 14 years old i rescued him when he was 2 years old um
02:52 it was just a normal stroll through PetSmart um I had a dog um already and
02:59 uh I was just going to the store to get supplies for her and there was a rescue organization out in the front of
03:05 PetSmart i'm sure everybody kind of knows what that looks like you know when they go to the pet store and they see the the rescue organization all these
03:12 puppies and um so there were a ton of puppies out there obviously they drew the biggest crowd but then off to a
03:18 corner in a dark kennel there was this guy i'm like you know why is he off to
03:24 the corner all by himself and you know it's it's the intimidation factor you know he you know when he was two he was
03:29 in his prime he was bulky and muscly and and you know people like revered him
03:35 from afar but there was not a whole lot of interest in him because the puppies were stealing the show and you know
03:42 something pulled 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
03:47 that i had all these hesitations that most people have you know there's a sort of comfort and knowing that you're
03:53 raising a dog from puppyhood that gives you some sort of element of control and
03:58 so I kind of you know did away with the the that pull that I was feeling um but
04:04 over the 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
04:12 so I'm like "Okay something's telling me to like check up on this dog." So I called the rescue organization they're like "Oh sorry you missed your chance
04:19 you know he's already been taken i'm like "Oh well that settles it i'm just going to go on about my life." Uh and
04:24 then I get a call a couple of hours later that he's been returned apparently he was too high energy for the family
04:32 that took him and you know they weren't they weren't ready for the responsibility i'm like I guess I've got to step up now so I I got him and he
04:39 came home with me and um like I've had him for 12 years and he's been an absolute godsend that's amazing 12 years
04:47 together 12 years so he's 14 is you know what's considered geriatric at this
04:52 point i mean I think dogs become seniors at the age of seven especially the larger breed dogs you know um their life
04:59 expectancy is not very high so having him you know be 14 years old is a real
05:05 blessing that's amazing a testament too to how much I spoil him with supplements and all the things to keep him healthy
05:11 oh you did a beautiful job because I knew he was older but I didn't realize he was 14 he's doing great for 14 like
05:20 quick math Ali like how good are you on your feet what is 7 * 14
05:25 uh what's 4 * 7 28 so 98 years old
05:31 that's what the equivalent kind of would be to human years i I think they've modified it um a little bit to where he
05:37 might not actually be 98 maybe he's in his 80s but he's doing a great job for it
05:42 that is the best looking octogenarian I Who was it was it Dairo
05:50 that just recently got me yeah and had a baby yeah that's That's Mr clayton over there yeah i think he's more of a of a
05:57 Clint Eastwood though than a Robert Dairo he uh he's not he's not so much
06:04 mobster as much as Get Off My Lawn yes so anyway so that's the story of how Mr
06:10 clayton came about and then just the um I would say the mission behind rescue
06:16 kind of came over the course of me seeing how differently he was treated
06:22 than your 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 he you know he's sweet he
06:49 want he just wants to be included you know why do people see him as different or as a threat and that's a common
06:56 stigma that exists in society towards the pitbull breed and by and large the
07:01 pitbull breed is what exists out there in animal shelters currently um they're
07:09 at capacity you know so many uh like these dogs are very irresponsibly bred
07:15 litters are you know huge so when they're unwanted or not given the sort
07:22 of training and responsibility that you know that that they're that they deserve they get surrendered to these shelters
07:28 and um yeah and there's not enough people that know enough about the breed or care enough to kind of alleviate that
07:36 stress from the shelters so um so I I I faced a lot of you know little like
07:41 micro aggressions I guess from people you know when they see him they would move to the other side of the street you
07:47 know kind Oh really yeah kind of fear for their safety a little bit um but
07:52 then you know you've over the course of years with you know the um adopt don't
07:58 shop movement you've seen a lot more open-mindedness lot more willingness to
08:03 approach uh to adopt or at the very least to just ask is he friendly can I pet him and that's huge like of course
08:10 he is like go for it I guess you know thinking back I I personally I I wasn't
08:16 really a dog person so it's not it was never at the top of my mind but I is I didn't have a bias towards pits 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 in 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 um which is
08:52 why I really wanted one right so you know people with nefarious intents you
08:58 know we'll use them for for harmful things you know animal bedding you know is very much still alive in this country
09:05 and 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 ants i mean he's a big boy but they're not all big boys and yeah yeah like the velvet hippos i learned
09:30 recently actually that when uh somewhere down the line they actually crossbred
09:36 the um maybe the English bulldog i I can't remember which or maybe the Staffordshire terrier they they
09:42 crossbred them with uh rat terriers uh which are known for you know excavating
09:48 you know to get like moles and like their diggers and they're they're I mean they just chase after their prey and so
09:55 uh they crossbred you know the bully breed with those terriers to um to use
10:02 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 them 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 oh yeah the
11:11 dog 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 who we called Ju Guu 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
11:30 cat animals in general she even our neighbors had gotten cats and she wouldn't go near the cat and she was
11:39 working just on her own and 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 I
11:52 used that to my advantage i was like you have to do this you have to do that you know prove yourself prove responsibility doing all these chores
11:59 she did about a year of that and I never thought it would really come to fruition and she kept asking for an animal
12:04 earlier this year she was in third grade and they had an assignment to write a persuasive essay and the persuasive
12:12 essay was about why she should have a pet and when I read that obviously I
12:18 went to law school i'm an attorney i want my children to be able to persuade as opposed to just like kick and scream
12:23 so when I saw that immediately I was like I don't care about my life she's getting a dog i have to reward this so
12:31 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 Ju Guu begged to
14:13 see 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
14:31 just the way that she was interacting with with Ju Guu was like "This is your dog." And the size was perfect all the
14:38 elements lined up it really did and she Yeah now now I've got dog hair on me got
14:45 a dog licking my beard now you're a dog dad um you opened up genuinely your post
14:51 opened up an entirely new world to me i had an episode last week where I was
14:56 talking about being a girl dad and how I only ever wanted boys but having girls taught me so many things about myself I
15:03 didn't know same thing with a dog genuinely had no idea i had gotten
15:08 warmed up to the idea because we had an inoff dog Dudesen who you've met before he's also an old man like Clayton but uh
15:15 and then because of Guju it was like maybe we might have to have one but your
15:21 post with Pedro I'll always remember Pedro for the rest of my life because that's what led to Jetty and I got to
15:28 because of this before I forget I didn't realize Diana you brought snacks for
15:34 Jetty with her name on it that you made yourself this morning oh yes so uh you
15:41 touched earlier on on you know career transition and everything i am enjoying
15:47 and basking in fun employment right now and by no means have I really taken a
15:53 break from you know labor because now I'm volunteering at the shelter i'm
15:59 fostering dogs i'm baking these treats every morning and like putting everything into it they're all organic
16:04 like the ingredients are so healthy they're actually delicious if you want to try one for your audience i was wondering how they tasted so I can I can
16:12 eat this dog treat yep yep it's an anti-inflammatory you're going
16:18 to be the epitome of health after this it's blueberries bananas flax seed egg
16:25 um cinnamon like it's actually quite delicious let me try one i I saw I'll do
16:31 one too let's do it together all right ready i taste the flax seed and the blueberry you taste the flax seed
16:38 jenny and I are going to be sharing 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 tell me about your first time
17:13 my husband used to do this thing we lived in a high-rise condo in Midtown and they would keep a bowl of like the
17:18 wish milk bones little milk bones for all the dogs in the building a lot of milk bone came home one night you know
17:26 it was a night of drinking and he walks up and he grabs like a fist full of these milk bones and he looks at the
17:33 concierge and she looks at him smiling thinking "That's sweet that he's bringing his dogs milk bones." He stares
17:40 her dead in the 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 yeah he didn't flinch not at all oh that is too funny but yeah so uh now I I bake
18:18 these treats um it's a part of like my morning routine i love it like I'm very domesticated right now that's awesome um
18:25 but yeah so um currently actually no let's finish talking about Pedro um so
18:32 Pedro stayed in the shelter system after you rejected him Ali Elm
18:39 no um but my one of my best friends who does a lot of this work with me she she
18:44 was obsessed with Pedro from the beginning she's like I'm going to take this dog so she she pulled him out for a few days she couldn't keep him
18:50 indefinitely because she has five of her own it's a zoo at her house um but her
18:57 posts and pictures of him captured the 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 Earl wasn't she's too she's previous like a a bar
19:23 stool girl or she was like friends with call her daddy girl too she was part of her podcast network okay yes that's
19:30 right yeah so I saw that Alex Earl and her boyfriend will take a dog for the
19:35 day 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 peaches 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 um but then I would say
20:06 that the movement kind of you know just increased big time when Dave Portoi you
20:12 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
20:23 um you know she had that saggy gross belly skin and it was just like pitiful and she was rescued from a hoarding
20:30 situation it often happens uh where you know these breeders are just so irresponsible and they'll have you know
20:37 all these dogs you know under terrible conditions and the authorities are notified so they go in there and they
20:43 raid it and then you know all these dogs that they pull are taken to the shelter so Dave Dave was made aware of this dog
20:50 through his ex-wife who's actually a big animal rescuer too and he just couldn't
20:56 get her out of his head so he you know hopped on his private jet came down to Atlanta and he saved Miss Peaches and um
21:03 it started this whole thing like Miss Peaches amassed a million followers within maybe like less than a month and
21:10 people were just enamored by her story she's the sweetest thing you know he was buying her the most lavish things he
21:15 bought her like a Louis Vuitton poncho a Goyard like bowl like set and she
21:21 destroyed everything of course you know like his Gucci wallet was like in shreds
21:27 his AMX is just like he's like Miss Peaches and he would just never get mad
21:32 at her and it was just the most endearing thing that and I mean like this dog I mean she was living the life
21:38 in Miami getting leftovers from Carbone she had a home in Nantucket and you just love to see it right so uh Lifeline
21:46 invited Dave and Miss Peaches back a year later to their annual Good Human
21:52 Gala it's this charity event you know that they throw once a year um they invite you know members of the community
21:59 you buy your tickets you buy a table and it is just like a free-for-all of charity you know there's silent auctions
22:05 all sorts of auctions i want to say they raised at this event maybe $900,000
22:10 close to a million and Dave Dave wasn't even like the biggest you know contributor to it i mean I I saw like
22:17 this like old widow lady you could tell like she just like was just burning through her ex-husband's money she's
22:24 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 Peaches has gone on to just
22:49 be 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
23:00 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 seltzer 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 Miami from the mayor oh she really made
23:24 something of herself oh my god I want to come back as Miss Peaches in my next life everybody does girl everybody does
23:30 jealous Jenny don't get jealous jenny's living a pretty good life so um so yeah we've got to give
23:37 Dave Portoi 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
24:00 there I I felt overwhelmed i was like I I wish I could take more than one it's a very emotional Yeah it is an emotional
24:08 experience because you don't even know if half of them are going to make it out um because you know just like fire
24:14 marshall code these shelters are subject to capacity restraints because at a
24:20 certain point housing that many dogs becomes inhumane it's more inhumane than
24:26 just euthanizing them uh so the the entire nation is at critical levels um
24:32 you know you saw that every single kennel was filled here in this rescue in Georgia but one of my neighbors she
24:39 rescued her dog from San Bernard San Bernardino in California and she said there were six dogs to a kennel same
24:45 size as those kennels that you saw six dogs to a kennel i can't even believe that they're fighting for their life
24:51 they're fighting for their resources they're fighting each other uh just to get the attention just to get the food
24:57 she says it's it's just a horrific sight to behold so um something has to be done
25:03 obviously if you're listening one of the best things you could do with your life if you're bored you want to give back
25:10 you want to help you want to find some meaning go at a minimum just go check out the shelter you don't I'm not going
25:16 to force anyone to adopt i can't through video i don't want to guilt you into it but at least go and and spend some time
25:23 and you can foster right at these shelters yeah you know I I was mentioning to Holly um before this that
25:29 you can commit as little or as much as you want to to animal welfare um I love
25:36 Lifeline because they get very very creative about ways that you can help so if you want something that's kind of I
25:42 don't want to call it loweffort um nothing's loweffort right but um I think
25:47 if you want it to be like a one-time thing but you know you've got a full-time job uh you know you could
25:53 always encourage your company to engage in corporate retreats um so I I know
25:58 plenty of business owners um you know financiers and you know like suit and
26:04 tie kind of guys that will do uh corporate retreats at the shelter and
26:09 you know once a quarter they'll take you know their entire teams out there and you know they'll they'll clean kennels
26:14 they'll walk dogs they'll prepare goodie bags um and it's just kind of a bonding thing you know it's it's a way to show
26:20 that you know corporate responsibility um so you can do that uh one of my favorite things to do with
26:26 Lifeline is the dog for the day program and it's uh it's very similar to like checking out a library book except it's
26:33 a four-legged living breathing dog you walk in and uh Lifeline has already
26:40 categorized their dogs by uh low level so they call it L1 those are the easy
26:45 button dogs they're not strong pullers they're you know they don't show signs of you know reactivity or anything like
26:51 that they're just easy and um so they've got these dogs pulled out already you go in there you say "You want to do dog for
26:57 the day?" You can flip through the catalog and pick the one you want uh they also organize it by you know who
27:03 has not spent time out of the shelter when the last time was that they went out uh so you get to make like an
27:09 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 itch 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
29:12 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
29:43 right like I know tiger so funny absolutely right all right so the way
29:48 this fits in is uh the I can't wait to see you wrap this up so the dog that I'm
29:53 uh that I fostered last um he's he's a cutie and this lady you know saw him on
29:60 my social media post and she was like I want to kind of take over the foster since you can't do it for much you know
30:06 for very long i'm like all right cool so she's one of these ladies that you know she's die hard about these dogs like she
30:13 wants to invest in their training before you know she finds their per you know permanent home because she wants to make
30:20 it as difficult as possible for whoever adopts the dog to surrender them you know she wants them to you know be the
30:25 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 set him to the tiger but she told me that Carol
30:55 is like the nicest lady in the world a little woo woo 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 Mushi 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
33:03 nothing like he was fine he grew up with a litter we didn't adopt him until he was about like eight months old so he'd
33:09 already been around several dogs and then he comes into our household and she's like "Look in this house we
33:16 fight." And now he's worse than she is everyone's a threat everyone's a threat
33:22 everyone on four legs is a threat i grew up with Jack Russell Terriers and Oh they're insane like uh we would take
33:29 this dog on a walk and he would to get to another dog to kill him he would choke himself i mean there were so many
33:35 times that he like suppressed his own air supply and like fainted oh by because he just had to kill that's
33:41 dedication those are my dogs get it yeah so and they came in here and I hate it cuz
33:48 they're such small dog stereotypes when we're out on walks and we've had we talk about being like defensive of your
33:55 children i we've had people just kind of like scoff and be like typical small dogs and I'm like "No they're the best
34:02 they're not like yappy little things cuz they're just protecting themselves well you know what that actually makes me feel better there's comfort in company
34:08 right okay well maybe it wasn't like you know discrimination against just my big bully dog if all of them are
34:14 discriminated against I'm cool yeah no it's it's all
34:19 there's just haters out there you know you're talking about they're
34:25 just like people it's a great segue into talking about auto accidents and dogs
34:32 they're family members i This one already has a middle name Jetty Jederson
34:37 uh she although I don't have a restraint system for her in the car she I've got
34:43 it where the back seat is essentially her little kennel so she's super comfortable if we're in an auto accident
34:50 though she doesn't get a bodily injury claim she is treated as personal property so it's it's just the cost of
34:58 replacement of the dog and not the injury and that's just so crazy to me
35:04 and I I get it there has to be you know some sort of designation for what counts as what but you know we're at the height
35:10 of society where you know we're invested in not just keeping them alive but
35:17 giving them the best 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 you 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
36:17 like dropping a widow's a widowerower's husband's corpse and it like falls out
36:24 so because he's not even alive if you want to talk about property i mean I'd make the argument that that's more
36:29 property than a living dog living animal but um that would be infliction of
36:36 emotional distress because it was a person wow yeah well I mean that designation extends to all sorts of
36:42 legal claims you know so the self-defense you know you can't you know if somebody breaks into your home
36:49 threatens your dog you can't really exert lethal force on them if the threat
36:55 is to your dog if it's to yourself or another human then it passes and then weren't we also we talked about medical
37:02 malpractice at one point you and I did didn't we where veterinarians are not liable for medical malpractice because
37:09 dogs are property right i've never thought about that yeah it's It scares
37:14 me wow cuz you can't ask your dog like "Where did he touch you?"
37:21 Oh no sorry you know what's funny is I have a
37:27 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 you i'm like no no it is funny because I feel
37:46 like I 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 Shambblei 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 low level and obviously you use
40:29 your 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 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 cuz 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 hospice care oh and the family just
41:17 didn't want to deal with the dog this poor dog that's lived his life in comfort and so um bad part about some
41:23 humans is they feel so much guilt you know surrendering a dog to the shelter that they oftentimes have to justify
41:29 their reasoning and they'll submit you know some notes that aren't so you know friendly or advantageous to the dog so
41:36 um this dog Ted entered the shelter system and immediately declined he stopped eating he started selfharming
41:43 and uh he was on death's doorstep and so they posted about him i'm like I got to do something about Ted so I went and I
41:50 got him and I saw the notes that you know that said that he was not friendly that he was aggressive and he lunged at
41:57 people and I'm like well I guess we'll find out and so I took him and he's just I mean
42:02 he's an angel he is a little possessive about his toys but you know uh 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
42:23 L1 and all these things but if you feel that you are you know kind of an experienced
42:28 um dog owner or dog handler then you know an L2 designation or an L3 doesn't
42:34 mean that a dog is bad it just 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 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 of 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 moisture 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 covered 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 we need a new customer you 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
47:02 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