1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:12,360
Hello friends! Welcome to Rough Life. Today I just wanted to take a few minutes to talk

2
00:00:12,360 --> 00:00:18,400
about why what I do works, because if you're in the South you probably don't understand

3
00:00:18,400 --> 00:00:24,200
why we're sending animals as fast as we can up North, and if you are up North you probably

4
00:00:24,200 --> 00:00:30,640
don't understand why we have so many animals to send you all the time. So I have a unique

5
00:00:30,640 --> 00:00:36,320
perspective because I was actually born and raised up North. I grew up in the suburbs

6
00:00:36,320 --> 00:00:41,680
outside of Chicago, so it was a lot like the area in Virginia where we send the majority

7
00:00:41,680 --> 00:00:48,800
of our animals. You did not see stray animals. Our shelters were not overrun. If you saw

8
00:00:48,800 --> 00:00:53,520
a dog running around your neighborhood, you caught it and you held onto it because you

9
00:00:53,520 --> 00:00:57,920
knew even if you didn't know who the dog was, if you didn't know it was your neighbor's

10
00:00:57,920 --> 00:01:04,600
dog, you knew someone was looking for it because there just were no stray dogs. You never saw

11
00:01:04,600 --> 00:01:11,280
homeless animals walking around. So when I moved to Mississippi, I thought it was the

12
00:01:11,280 --> 00:01:15,880
cutest thing that when you would go to the dollar store, go to the gas station, there

13
00:01:15,880 --> 00:01:22,040
would be three, four, sometimes six random dogs just hanging out there. And I'm like,

14
00:01:22,040 --> 00:01:28,400
oh my goodness, this is so fun. You get to get gas and you get to pet some puppies while

15
00:01:28,400 --> 00:01:35,040
you're there until I got closer to these animals. And I realized they're actually covered in

16
00:01:35,040 --> 00:01:41,640
mange. They're scratching nonstop because they're being eaten alive by fleas. They have

17
00:01:41,640 --> 00:01:47,120
ticks the size of quarters hanging off of them. They're skinny, they're sickly, no one's

18
00:01:47,120 --> 00:01:52,280
taking care of them. And then, you know, a few weeks later, you'd be driving by and

19
00:01:52,280 --> 00:01:57,240
one of them would be dead on the side of the road because it was run over by a car. So

20
00:01:57,240 --> 00:02:04,800
it very quickly became not so cute. And I realized that this is totally normal to people

21
00:02:04,800 --> 00:02:11,280
down here. They don't think anything of it to drive by and see random dogs at whatever

22
00:02:11,280 --> 00:02:16,760
store they're going to or to see a random dog walking through their yard trying to find

23
00:02:16,760 --> 00:02:22,880
somewhere safe and dry to sleep for the night. It doesn't face them. And for me, I'm like,

24
00:02:22,880 --> 00:02:27,560
well, we need to catch them. Like, obviously, someone's looking for them. This has to be

25
00:02:27,560 --> 00:02:35,400
someone's pet and we'll reunite them and it'll be this wonderful story. No, literally, they're

26
00:02:35,400 --> 00:02:43,000
just homeless dogs that are living everywhere. So this is why a lot of people up north don't

27
00:02:43,000 --> 00:02:49,080
understand why we have so many animals down here. And that's primarily because there are

28
00:02:49,080 --> 00:02:55,400
very few places in the south that have leash laws. So leash laws are basically just laws

29
00:02:55,400 --> 00:03:01,120
that say your dog has to be confined to your yard unless it's on a leash and you're taking

30
00:03:01,120 --> 00:03:05,600
it somewhere. You cannot just let your dog run loose all through the neighborhood or

31
00:03:05,600 --> 00:03:12,360
through your town. So because no one down here can enforce a law that doesn't exist,

32
00:03:12,360 --> 00:03:19,960
you have some people that have dozens, literally dozens of dogs. And they just let them roam

33
00:03:19,960 --> 00:03:25,160
free. No one is spayed or neutered. No one's up to date on vaccines or dewormer. They just

34
00:03:25,160 --> 00:03:32,040
go wherever they want to go whenever they want to go. And if you know anything about

35
00:03:32,040 --> 00:03:38,760
dogs, you know that they can reproduce very quickly. It's not uncommon at all for a mama

36
00:03:38,760 --> 00:03:45,480
dog to have 10 or more puppies in a litter. So those six dogs that are hanging out at

37
00:03:45,480 --> 00:03:52,160
the gas station parking lot, even if just one of them is female and she has, let's say

38
00:03:52,160 --> 00:03:58,000
four puppies, which it would absolutely be more than that. But for the sake of easy math,

39
00:03:58,000 --> 00:04:03,000
let's just pretend it's only four. You're now up to 10 dogs in that parking lot. All

40
00:04:03,000 --> 00:04:08,680
of them are mating. And in six months, that mama dog is going to be pregnant again. And

41
00:04:08,680 --> 00:04:13,680
any of her puppies that were females in that litter will be pregnant by the time they're

42
00:04:13,680 --> 00:04:19,560
six to 10 months old. In one year, your six dogs at the gas station parking lot are now

43
00:04:19,560 --> 00:04:25,080
well over 20 dogs, depending on how many of the puppies are females. And this is happening

44
00:04:25,080 --> 00:04:32,280
year after year, litter after litter and multiple parking lots and multiple fields in town and

45
00:04:32,280 --> 00:04:39,480
multiple backyards all over the south. You also have battles between the city and the

46
00:04:39,480 --> 00:04:45,640
county. I, I actually don't know if it's like this up north too, but I do know that down

47
00:04:45,640 --> 00:04:51,040
here, it's very common to have an animal shelter in the city limits. What that means

48
00:04:51,040 --> 00:04:55,800
is if you live in the city limits and there's a stray dog in your yard or even just your

49
00:04:55,800 --> 00:05:00,400
own dog that you decide you're done with and you no longer want, you can call animal control

50
00:05:00,400 --> 00:05:05,960
and they will come pick it up. But if you're in the county, there's no one that can help

51
00:05:05,960 --> 00:05:11,640
you. You cannot take a dog to the, to the shelter if you live in the county. There are

52
00:05:11,640 --> 00:05:17,760
so many instances where people who live on the very first road in the county will have

53
00:05:17,760 --> 00:05:22,720
a dog wander up to their house and just refuse to leave and they can't do anything about

54
00:05:22,720 --> 00:05:27,400
it. But if the dog would have just stopped at the house right before theirs at their

55
00:05:27,400 --> 00:05:31,440
neighbor's house, they would have been in the city limits and they could have taken

56
00:05:31,440 --> 00:05:36,320
it to the shelter that day. But the shelters are not always the answer to the problem down

57
00:05:36,320 --> 00:05:42,760
here because first of all, not every town even has a shelter and most of the shelters

58
00:05:42,760 --> 00:05:50,200
are very small because most of our towns are very small. So like this isn't some huge building

59
00:05:50,200 --> 00:05:57,760
with wall to wall stainless steel kennels. It's usually a small metal building with 10

60
00:05:57,760 --> 00:06:05,080
to 15 cages, no heating, no air conditioning and like one animal control officer to oversee

61
00:06:05,080 --> 00:06:10,000
everything. So when someone at the gas station gets fed up with the six stray dogs that are

62
00:06:10,000 --> 00:06:15,320
harassing their customers for scraps of food, they can call animal control and he will come

63
00:06:15,320 --> 00:06:22,880
pick them up. But those six dogs are now taking up about half of the cages at that shelter.

64
00:06:22,880 --> 00:06:28,360
And this can go one of two ways. If it's a kill shelter, which they almost always are

65
00:06:28,360 --> 00:06:34,280
down here, that means whoever has been there the longest is euthanized so that that kennel

66
00:06:34,280 --> 00:06:39,560
can go to one of the new gas station dogs. Some shelters have a seven day hold. What

67
00:06:39,560 --> 00:06:46,240
that means is at the end of seven days, whether there are new dogs needing to come in or not,

68
00:06:46,240 --> 00:06:50,520
they're euthanized. That's it. You have seven days for someone to come get you or you're

69
00:06:50,520 --> 00:06:56,080
dead. Now, some shelters have the seven day hold, but they won't euthanize until they

70
00:06:56,080 --> 00:07:01,720
have to for space. So you could be there for two months, you could be there for a year,

71
00:07:01,720 --> 00:07:07,080
but they aren't going to kill you until they need your cage for another dog. And seven

72
00:07:07,080 --> 00:07:13,240
days is actually pretty generous. I know of some shelters that have a three day hold.

73
00:07:13,240 --> 00:07:20,000
I think five days is actually pretty standard, but I just went with seven. So that's what

74
00:07:20,000 --> 00:07:24,600
would happen if your town's shelter was a kill shelter. If you happen to live in a town

75
00:07:24,600 --> 00:07:28,800
where they have a no kill shelter, which is rare, but there are several of them in the

76
00:07:28,800 --> 00:07:36,000
south that have them. No kill shelters operate a little differently. No kill does not mean

77
00:07:36,000 --> 00:07:40,920
that no animals are euthanized at these shelters. That's actually a common misconception. You

78
00:07:40,920 --> 00:07:47,000
can still euthanize animals at a no kill shelter. I think it's like 10% or something. So as

79
00:07:47,000 --> 00:07:53,160
long as you're not euthanizing more than 10% of the animals that come into your shelter,

80
00:07:53,160 --> 00:07:59,840
you're able to maintain that no kill status. Basically, no kill shelters just don't kill

81
00:07:59,840 --> 00:08:06,680
for space like the other shelters. Instead, they're building that was made to house, let's

82
00:08:06,680 --> 00:08:13,520
say 50 animals will actually be stretched to hold upwards of 150 to 200 animals. They'll

83
00:08:13,520 --> 00:08:19,560
have cages lining the hallways, doubling sometimes tripling up on dogs and kennels,

84
00:08:19,560 --> 00:08:24,280
putting kennels outside in the back with tarps and dog houses. They'll have a play yard

85
00:08:24,280 --> 00:08:29,240
where they stick 10 to 15 dogs at a time and just hope they all get along and no one picks

86
00:08:29,240 --> 00:08:35,960
a fight. But even still, there will come a time when they just absolutely cannot fit

87
00:08:35,960 --> 00:08:41,920
another animal. So when you call animal control to come pick up those six dogs at the gas station,

88
00:08:41,920 --> 00:08:47,320
they may just flat out say no. If they don't have room or they cannot or will not euthanize

89
00:08:47,320 --> 00:08:52,280
for space, there's nothing they can do. And now you're just stuck with six dogs at the

90
00:08:52,280 --> 00:08:58,720
gas station. I keep saying gas station because that's a scenario I gave you in the beginning.

91
00:08:58,720 --> 00:09:04,680
But this could be anywhere. You could have six dogs show up in your yard one day and

92
00:09:04,680 --> 00:09:09,560
refuse to leave. It could be your elderly mother's house. It could be your apartment

93
00:09:09,560 --> 00:09:13,960
complex where you're not even allowed to have dogs. It could be your small businesses parking

94
00:09:13,960 --> 00:09:21,280
there literally everywhere. Okay, so that's a little bit about what it's like in the south.

95
00:09:21,280 --> 00:09:26,840
A lot of people in the south don't realize that this is a problem that only the south

96
00:09:26,840 --> 00:09:32,280
has. They assume it's like this up north to so they don't understand why we're spending

97
00:09:32,280 --> 00:09:39,320
the money taking the time going to all the effort to send so many animals up north. I

98
00:09:39,320 --> 00:09:44,400
cannot tell you how many times I've taken a litter of puppies for someone and they'll

99
00:09:44,400 --> 00:09:49,160
be like, now what are you going to do with them? And I'll say, oh, we're going to send

100
00:09:49,160 --> 00:09:54,640
them up north. Well, where they're going to be adopted. And almost always they say they

101
00:09:54,640 --> 00:10:01,280
don't have dogs up north. And quite literally no, they don't. Not like this, because they

102
00:10:01,280 --> 00:10:07,200
have leash laws and because they enforce breeding licenses and permits. Obviously,

103
00:10:07,200 --> 00:10:11,640
this is not the case for every single town in every single state up north. But for the

104
00:10:11,640 --> 00:10:17,360
most part, it's far more common than it is uncommon. You don't see backyard breeders

105
00:10:17,360 --> 00:10:23,360
like you do down here. And okay, there's a difference between backyard breeders and puppy

106
00:10:23,360 --> 00:10:28,760
mills. But that's a whole different episode for a different day. But basically, a backyard

107
00:10:28,760 --> 00:10:34,080
breeder is someone who just has one, maybe two dogs that they breed. They're generally

108
00:10:34,080 --> 00:10:39,680
taken care of to the extent that they're at least comfortable, they're fed, they're able

109
00:10:39,680 --> 00:10:45,440
to move around. But by no means are they well taken care of. But more on that in a later

110
00:10:45,440 --> 00:10:51,040
episode. But anyways, you don't see a lot of those up north. Up north, you usually have

111
00:10:51,040 --> 00:10:56,720
to have a license or a permit to breed your dog. A lot of states also require you to spay

112
00:10:56,720 --> 00:11:02,000
or neuter your dog unless you are a licensed breeder. So that means you cannot let your

113
00:11:02,000 --> 00:11:06,960
dog wander around the neighborhood because of the leash laws. And you cannot have your

114
00:11:06,960 --> 00:11:13,080
dog unaltered, you have to spay or neuter your pet. Because they're able to enforce

115
00:11:13,080 --> 00:11:19,800
all of this, you don't have many or even any unwanted litters that are born. Whole towns

116
00:11:19,800 --> 00:11:26,640
could go a full year without a single litter of puppies being born. That's crazy. That's

117
00:11:26,640 --> 00:11:33,360
my dream for the south one day. So anyways, that's just a little bit about why we do what

118
00:11:33,360 --> 00:11:39,960
we do and why it's even able to work the way it is. It's a rough life, but someone's

119
00:11:39,960 --> 00:11:57,880
got to do it.