Speaker 1: Since January seventh, we've all been watching the devastation caused
Speaker 1: by the Los Angeles wildfires. The loss of lives, homes,
Speaker 1: and entire communities has been heart wrenching, and I know
Speaker 1: many of you, like me, think of the helpless animals
Speaker 1: that have also suffered. We don't hear their voices and
Speaker 1: they are sometimes not as prominent in the coverage of
Speaker 1: these disasters. But thankfully there are many incredible people who
Speaker 1: are helping address the challenges of rescuing and caring for
Speaker 1: the pets and wildlife, including two people who are here
Speaker 1: with me today. Dia Duvernet is the president and CEO
Speaker 1: of Pasadena Humane Society, which has been responding to the
Speaker 1: Eton fires. Her colleague, doctor Gary Weitzman, is president and
Speaker 1: CEO of San Diego Humane Society, which has been supporting
Speaker 1: their work. Welcome to my podcast, both of you, Gary
Speaker 1: and Dia. Thank you so much for taking time out
Speaker 1: of a very, very busy life work to visit with
Speaker 1: me today. These fires have been blazing for several weeks. Now,
Speaker 1: can you tell us a little bit about the situation
Speaker 1: as it is today? How contained are the fires and
Speaker 1: what is happening now?
Speaker 2: Gary?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think Dea probably should talk specifically to the
Speaker 3: Eaten fire. But this is a really terrible extension of
Speaker 3: our fire season. We never expected fires like this in January,
Speaker 3: but it's never been as dry as it is right now.
Speaker 3: And we've been helping Dea and others up in the
Speaker 3: LA area, and DIA's a good friend and a good
Speaker 3: colleague of mine and really happy to be up there.
Speaker 3: But the fires are starting to break out down here
Speaker 3: in San Diego County too. Just yesterday we had one
Speaker 3: breakout about five miles from the shelter, and the day
Speaker 3: before there was one that was less than two miles
Speaker 3: from our main shelter. So we're just watching it all
Speaker 3: over southern California. They're getting control, but it's very very
Speaker 3: nerve wracking. No, I think you'd agreed to yah.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, the winds were whipping up last night and
Speaker 2: I said, oh my gosh, not these winds again. Now
Speaker 2: we've got more fires. The good news about the Eating
Speaker 2: fires it is about ninety five percent contained and so
Speaker 2: but we just it's like rack a mole right with
Speaker 2: all these fires.
Speaker 1: Well, going back to January seventh, when the Palace Sades
Speaker 1: and Eating fires started, can you describe for us how
Speaker 1: things unfolded for you.
Speaker 2: Well, So we had decided, given the weather report, that
Speaker 2: the winds were supposed to be lowest between four and six,
Speaker 2: and so we closed the shelter early at four so
Speaker 2: that our employees could go home. And I got home
Speaker 2: about six, and I live on the western edge of Pasadena.
Speaker 2: Looking out, I can see the Griffith Observatory, and I
Speaker 2: saw a ridge line on fire. The Pacific Palace sades
Speaker 2: thirty miles from my house, and I said some bad
Speaker 2: words and said, we got to get out of here
Speaker 2: right now. I don't need to wait for anybody to
Speaker 2: tell me to evacuate. And then it did get very
Speaker 2: bad and the fire broke out. And the first thing
Speaker 2: we did at the shelter was called Geary and other
Speaker 2: friends of ours shelters throughout California, to say, come, please
Speaker 2: take all of the adoptable animals out of the shelter,
Speaker 2: because we know we're going to start seeing first of all,
Speaker 2: animals with families who were evacuating and can't take their
Speaker 2: pets with them. So it was remarkable that with you know,
Speaker 2: we had over one hundred animals in our care that
Speaker 2: were available for adoptions, so they're easy to transfer to
Speaker 2: other shelters. It's something we do in normal times. We
Speaker 2: will transfer shelters, you know, transfer animals back and forth
Speaker 2: to shelters, depending if we're full or if someone you know,
Speaker 2: has some space for So we already had the partnerships
Speaker 2: in place, and so immediately Santa Barbara he made and
Speaker 2: Gary San Diego, Sacramento. There were a couple others that
Speaker 2: are escaping my mind right now. They came and that
Speaker 2: very first Wednesday, they all, almost all the animals were
Speaker 2: gone off to these other shelters in California where they
Speaker 2: could be adopted, and there were a few less. So
Speaker 2: Gary said, you know, we'll come back tomorrow morning. We'll
Speaker 2: get the rest because they just numb enough room in
Speaker 2: their trucks. And so that was one reason why we
Speaker 2: were so well prepared to chart handling the influx of
Speaker 2: animals that started coming in. Was about getting the animals
Speaker 2: that we already had prior ifire out of the shelter.
Speaker 1: Why do people.
Speaker 2: Leave their pets when they were evacuating, Oh, well, the
Speaker 2: often you know a lot of hotels don't take pets.
Speaker 2: A lot of sheltered human shelters don't take pests.
Speaker 1: Even in a disaster like this, they don't take pets.
Speaker 2: Yes, Now, it was very unfortunate that in Pasadena they
Speaker 2: set up shelter at the convention center and they did
Speaker 2: allow people to bring their pets, and so we would
Speaker 2: have had even more had they not made that very
Speaker 2: wise decision. But you know a lot of people would
Speaker 2: want to go stay with family and friends, and you know,
Speaker 2: your sister might have a dog that doesn't get along
Speaker 2: with your dog, but so you can come with your
Speaker 2: dog can't come. And so we just started seeing, you know,
Speaker 2: hundreds of people who were bringing us their pets to
Speaker 2: care for them temporarily because they had to evacuate.
Speaker 3: The other thing was I could add is that they
Speaker 3: this caught people off guard. I mean, it happened so fast,
Speaker 3: and it grew so quickly. Some people were at work,
Speaker 3: and we've all heard of or experienced ourselves. Traffic in
Speaker 3: La without fires is untenable. You can't get back. And
Speaker 3: then the roads were closed and it was unsafe to
Speaker 3: go back, and that trapped a lot of animals out
Speaker 3: where people live. And it wasn't their fault, the animals
Speaker 3: or the people.
Speaker 1: It just happened Oh, so I understand the police and
Speaker 1: the fire fighters could not let those people go back
Speaker 1: to their homes. Yeah, how tragic. That is added major
Speaker 1: stress to everybody, absolutely for that Martha.
Speaker 2: This was just when people were trying to evacuate, and
Speaker 2: it happened so quickly, so people couldn't go home from
Speaker 2: work to get their pets to evacuate. So we had
Speaker 2: people who were bringing their neighbors pets because they knew
Speaker 2: their neighbors weren't home, and so they had gone next
Speaker 2: to work to get their neighbor's pets to bring them in.
Speaker 2: And I have a very sad story of one of
Speaker 2: our board members. Actually she lost her house in the
Speaker 2: fire and she was trying to evacuate. She has two
Speaker 2: cats that she adopted from Passing Humane and you know
Speaker 2: when cats get stressed, they can hide, and she was
Speaker 2: trying to find her cats to get them out of
Speaker 2: the house, and then her house literally caught on fire
Speaker 2: and she had to leave and the house is bring
Speaker 2: down and we still go back every day putting out
Speaker 2: food and water to see if somehow the cats survived.
Speaker 2: But it happened that quickly. It's crazy.
Speaker 1: And what about larger animals? I saw a girl ride
Speaker 1: fourteen miles on a freezer to get to get the
Speaker 1: horse to safety. Were there a lot of horse deaths?
Speaker 1: Were animals left in their stables?
Speaker 2: No, I think most of the horses made it out.
Speaker 2: I am not positive about that. But we had one
Speaker 2: gentleman who walked his pony all the way down from
Speaker 2: Altadema to our shelter at Pasadena because of a lot
Speaker 2: of the shelters were getting full and he didn't have
Speaker 2: a trailer, so he walked many miles with his pony.
Speaker 2: We don't usually house horses at our shelter because there
Speaker 2: are other equin sheltering places. But then we quickly got
Speaker 2: the hay and what our feed and whatever care our
Speaker 2: veterinarians said the pony needed, and took care of it
Speaker 2: in our parking lot until we could trailer it to
Speaker 2: an equin shelter.
Speaker 1: What happens to wild animals, the apostums and the raccoons,
Speaker 1: and the where do they all go?
Speaker 2: Well? I think Gary and I, if I'm not mistaken,
Speaker 2: we lead the only two shelters in southern California that
Speaker 2: are licensed and permitted to do wildlife rehabilitation. There are
Speaker 2: many other smaller wildlife for rescues, but we're the only
Speaker 2: shelters that are able to do that, so we were
Speaker 2: also able to provide coordinative response for the wildlife we
Speaker 2: took and sick and injured, and we have lots of
Speaker 2: partnerships with other smaller rescues that might be spec specifics,
Speaker 2: so we would quickly be able to triage or just
Speaker 2: send them straight to those places. But many of them
Speaker 2: we took in and treated ourselves. But one thing we
Speaker 2: really tried to let people know as soon as we
Speaker 2: were able to get in behind the fire line was
Speaker 2: that there were burst water pipes and so the wildlife
Speaker 2: did have access to water, because that was something that
Speaker 2: a lot of people were concerned about and we didn't
Speaker 2: want people going in and putting themselves in danger thinking
Speaker 2: that they needed to rescue animals because they would not
Speaker 2: have access to water. And we even sent cameras in
Speaker 2: overnight cameras with some of the strike teams going in
Speaker 2: and said, if you could put these out near the
Speaker 2: water so we can get some footage of the animals
Speaker 2: coming to drink at night and put that out to
Speaker 2: our public, we hopefully can prevent some of these people
Speaker 2: from illegally and unsafely entering behind the fire line.
Speaker 3: I know you're an animal lover, Martha, and it's one
Speaker 3: of the wonderful things about you. I lose sleep thinking
Speaker 3: about animals that are trapped behind or left behind, and
Speaker 3: especially wildlife in so many cases because their whole universe
Speaker 3: is is gone. I mean, it's burning. There's no way
Speaker 3: to comfort them or care for the So we opened
Speaker 3: up our wildlife hospitals in San Diego just to be
Speaker 3: ready and on call. We had notice from California Department
Speaker 3: Official Wildlife that there was an identified bear that had
Speaker 3: gotten burned, California black bear. And we take them in
Speaker 3: on a regular basis, and we were just waiting to
Speaker 3: get that bear in. But I think he's done well
Speaker 3: enough that they're going to leave him in place, and
Speaker 3: he seems to be surviving.
Speaker 1: Okay, oh good.
Speaker 3: The animal part is just awful. It's better, I think,
Speaker 3: you degree. It's better than it was back in the
Speaker 3: days of Katrina, when we heard so many stories people
Speaker 3: tying dogs up to fence posts and leaving them in
Speaker 3: their houses just because there was no understanding. And now
Speaker 3: we do have that understanding, and I think there's a
Speaker 3: lot of generosity out there, a lot of compassion. Can
Speaker 3: you imagine not being able to get to your home
Speaker 3: where your dogs or your cats were every much your
Speaker 3: livestock I mean, but especially you know the LA area,
Speaker 3: people care deeply about their animals, and that was you know,
Speaker 3: there were horrible stories, but then there were incredible stories
Speaker 3: of just total care for their pets and for their livestock.
Speaker 2: And Gary mentions livestock. So one of the hardest calls
Speaker 2: we responded to initially was a home in Altadena where
Speaker 2: the bull and the goats and the horses, and so
Speaker 2: we spent a lot of time around the table with
Speaker 2: Gary's team and others trying to figure out how are
Speaker 2: we going to do this, because I'm like, I want
Speaker 2: to keep this bull where it is. I don't want
Speaker 2: to bring the bull into the shelter. But the problem
Speaker 2: was that the bullets, the animals did not have access
Speaker 2: to water because it was a bridge going over to
Speaker 2: the property that had come down in the storm. So
Speaker 2: there was this deep ravine that you couldn't get across.
Speaker 2: And then once you got up over the ravine, there
Speaker 2: was a long winding road up to the pasture and
Speaker 2: it was a burned out car along the road so
Speaker 2: that no bull would be able to get past it.
Speaker 2: And so initially what we were doing was just getting
Speaker 2: you know, twelve packs of water across, and the owner
Speaker 2: was carrying water up the hill for his life suck
Speaker 2: so were so then we're thinking, well, I was like, well,
Speaker 2: can we get the Army Corps engineers back to build
Speaker 2: a bridge? And then we're like, but then there's still
Speaker 2: the burnt car, and I said, well, we could push
Speaker 2: the burn car over at the side of the hill
Speaker 2: if he doesn't mind. And then we were like, well,
Speaker 2: we could park a water truck on the side of
Speaker 2: the very vein, and we could put an empty tike
Speaker 2: over there, and we could pump the water up and
Speaker 2: then pump it up, and so these were all the
Speaker 2: strategies we're trying to do. And then finally the owner
Speaker 2: brilliantly got a bulldozer in and started moving earth around
Speaker 2: to make a temporary bridge, and then did push the car,
Speaker 2: the burned out car over the hill so that he
Speaker 2: was able to actually drive the water up to the animals.
Speaker 1: It's just incredible how cars burnt to in just shells
Speaker 1: of cars, and that's how fierce that those fighters are
Speaker 1: and the ember is falling on a roof and then
Speaker 1: the house is up in flames in just a few seconds.
Speaker 1: It's it's really really drastic.
Speaker 2: Well, so another big challenge for us Martha initially was
Speaker 2: here we have all these hundreds of animals coming in,
Speaker 2: but the winds are still strong, and our shelter is
Speaker 2: only ten blocks south of the evacuation line, and so
Speaker 2: I was trying to come up with a very immediate
Speaker 2: way to pop up an off site temporary shelter for
Speaker 2: about six hundred animals in the case that we just
Speaker 2: had to pick up and evacuate.
Speaker 1: Do you know how many animals actually have been displaced
Speaker 1: by a total?
Speaker 2: I think we took in over about nine hundred animals,
Speaker 2: but those were including animals that were with us that
Speaker 2: their owners had left in temporary custody, and then those
Speaker 2: that these wonderful, amazing strike teams went in and rescued,
Speaker 2: as well as strays that made it out or were rescued.
Speaker 1: This is justin Pasadena, Yes, what about all the Malibu people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we don't serve that area. We serve Pasadena and
Speaker 2: ten other cities, including Alta Dina. But Altadena is really
Speaker 2: unincorporated Los Angeles, and so unincorporated Los Angeles contracts with
Speaker 2: us to provide regular animal control services, but we're not
Speaker 2: connected to provide emergency services. So technically LA County had
Speaker 2: jurisdiction but asked us to assist through a mutual aid agreement.
Speaker 2: So we assisted, and we were the shelter for all
Speaker 2: the animals that came out of the inn fire.
Speaker 3: What I heard in LA was there's a lot. I mean,
Speaker 3: do you just mention nine hundred animals And I'm sure
Speaker 3: there's at least twice that number really in her area
Speaker 3: or more that aren't getting that help that we want
Speaker 3: to provide. When this is over, we're unfortunately going to
Speaker 3: find probably more deaths amongst people and animals than we're
Speaker 3: going to have the stomach for. But LA as a
Speaker 3: whole has been hit really hard.
Speaker 2: Well, I think Gary that thanks to our collaborative efforts,
Speaker 2: we did a phenomenal job with the search, secure recoveries
Speaker 2: in the eating fire, and we are you know, we're
Speaker 2: thirty miles away from the Palisades, and it's not our
Speaker 2: service herea that's La Animal Services. So I really haven't
Speaker 2: had a chance to even catch up on how their
Speaker 2: rescue recovery efforts went. But I know that at the
Speaker 2: Eaton fire, thanks to you and so many other partners,
Speaker 2: it was just the most amazing experience to see how
Speaker 2: we all mobilized and worked around the clock to help
Speaker 2: every animal you needed our help.
Speaker 1: How do your field teams actually work?
Speaker 2: This is an interesting thing is that none of my
Speaker 2: animal control officers are fire trained and equipped. You have
Speaker 2: to have a lot of special safety equipment, and my
Speaker 2: understanding is not a lot of the LA County officers
Speaker 2: are either. So organizations like Mary's and the ASPCA and
Speaker 2: the North Valley Animal Disaster Group and Kern County Animal
Speaker 2: Services came in and they had the strike teams that
Speaker 2: are properly trained and equipped to go behind the fire lines.
Speaker 2: And so for us, we did not send our officers
Speaker 2: behind the fire lines. But food is important, as you know, Martha,
Speaker 2: and so we made sure that we were getting three
Speaker 2: meals delivered for two hundred people every day to our shelter.
Speaker 2: And when the strike teams went out, they were already
Speaker 2: had their breakfast, lunch, all the beverages they knused, so
Speaker 2: they didn't have to come back for lunch, and they
Speaker 2: would go in and get the animals and then meet
Speaker 2: our officers at the fire line so our officers could
Speaker 2: transfer them back to the shelters, so that these specialized
Speaker 2: folks who were trained in the rescue could focus all
Speaker 2: their efforts on the rescue, and we were providing support
Speaker 2: on the other side of the line.
Speaker 1: How are you tracking pets who've been separated from their
Speaker 1: owners and how do you reunite those pets with their owners?
Speaker 1: Oh well, we made a huge effort to keep all
Speaker 1: of the animals that have evacuated during this time at
Speaker 1: pasading Emain, doing whatever we could in terms of popping
Speaker 1: up temporary shelter and our public training, the classrooms and
Speaker 1: everywhere else we could so that all the animals would
Speaker 1: be there. They were well cared for by our thousands
Speaker 1: of volunteers and one hundred and fifty staff members and
Speaker 1: five full time vets, and so when people were coming
Speaker 1: to look for their pets, they only had one place
Speaker 1: to go, or if they had left them in our
Speaker 1: temporary custody, of course they knew where they were. But
Speaker 1: there were a few problems because well these are sad problems,
Speaker 1: because some people who thought that they were just bringing
Speaker 1: us their pets to provide temporary care while they evacuated,
Speaker 1: then found out that they had no homes to go
Speaker 1: back to, So that's turning into a much longer custody
Speaker 1: and care situation for us. But we are committed to
Speaker 1: keeping all of those animals first, as long as it
Speaker 1: takes for those families to rebuild their lives and take
Speaker 1: their pets back, because when you've lost everything else, you
Speaker 1: certainly don't want to lose your pet. So we have
Speaker 1: the fabulous network of foster families, and you know, we'll
Speaker 1: wait just a little bit longer before we start really
Speaker 1: deploying these animals that we know are going to be
Speaker 1: with us for a year or more to foster homes
Speaker 1: they're willing to care for them, and as far as
Speaker 1: the injured strays coming in.
Speaker 2: This is a really really really important message about and
Speaker 2: we talk about this all the time, Gary, Right, everybody
Speaker 2: needs to microchip their pet. If you're pets, the way
Speaker 2: that they're going to get back to you is through microchip.
Speaker 2: But we've had families who are coming in and not
Speaker 2: recognizing their own pets because the animals are stressed, they
Speaker 2: are burned, they are you know, have smoke in elation
Speaker 2: and dehydration and they're not even responding to their owners.
Speaker 2: And the only way that we were able to connect
Speaker 2: owners with their pets was by you know, they said, well,
Speaker 2: my pet was black, and so we're like, well, let's
Speaker 2: scan all ten of these black cats and see if
Speaker 2: they have microchips, and then we make the reunification from the microchip.
Speaker 1: So people should really pay attention to those kinds of
Speaker 1: very important safety feet safety things, yeah to do.
Speaker 2: It's a great opportunity to say, everyone, please microchip and
Speaker 2: license your pets so that if they ever go stray,
Speaker 2: we can give them back to you without ever having
Speaker 2: come to the shelter.
Speaker 1: I've been hearing about some of the injuries like burned
Speaker 1: paws and burned fur and what are other injuries that
Speaker 1: they're suffering.
Speaker 2: Well, there was one really sad case of a dog
Speaker 2: we had who was actually in the car evacuating with
Speaker 2: his family, but somehow jumped out of the car and
Speaker 2: then we our teams went in and rescued that animal.
Speaker 2: Later all four paws were completely burned, but the animal
Speaker 2: was fine, a fine. I think it was a cat. Actually,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry it was a cat. I mean, we had
Speaker 2: some terrible situations that we heard of of people going
Speaker 2: behind the fire lines who were not authorized and making
Speaker 2: animals pets and saying these people must be horrible people
Speaker 2: because they didn't evacuate with their pets, not really day
Speaker 2: at work or doing something else. The legal first of all,
Speaker 2: pets are property. You're seizing someone's property. Any animal that
Speaker 2: comes out of that situation needs to go immediately to
Speaker 2: the shelter so that we can try to reunite it
Speaker 2: with a true owner. But to blame these victims who
Speaker 2: had no choice about leaving their pets behind, it's just
Speaker 2: been really infurigating.
Speaker 1: Do you have enough resources to help all the displaced pets,
Speaker 1: enough veterinarians, enough medications? Do you have enough of that?
Speaker 2: We have been so fortunate and so desperately needing the
Speaker 2: outpouring of support that we've received from the community. We
Speaker 2: encourage monetary donations so that we could just quickly source
Speaker 2: and supply whatever materials we needed when we needed them,
Speaker 2: such as specialized medical supplies and whatnot. A lot of
Speaker 2: people still want to donate, you know, bowls and leashes
Speaker 2: and toys, and at first, actually that created a little
Speaker 2: bit of a second crisis for us because we were
Speaker 2: so happy that they were coming, but there were so
Speaker 2: many people dropping off supplies that I mean, we had
Speaker 2: tons of supplies. And I was on an interview with
Speaker 2: Larry Mantle and our public radio station of Blockdown, and
Speaker 2: he said, yeah, our employees could not get to work
Speaker 2: because there were so many people dropping off supplies at
Speaker 2: Pasadena Humane. And so we quickly were able to partner
Speaker 2: with another shelter in our community at San Gabriel Valley
Speaker 2: Humane Society, and we asked, you know, can we just
Speaker 2: direct people to you to drop off the stuff. And
Speaker 2: thankfully they have a field behind their shelter, and we
Speaker 2: need this stuff. Because then we rented as many U
Speaker 2: haul trucks as I could find and started putting all
Speaker 2: the stuff in the trucks and supplying the pasta convention
Speaker 2: center with whatever they needed for the families who were
Speaker 2: sheltering there with their pets. And then we were supplying
Speaker 2: pet owners who just needed help through our shelter where
Speaker 2: they could come and just take whatever they wanted, whether
Speaker 2: it was food or whatever they needed. And then also
Speaker 2: once we had the strike teams in place, then we
Speaker 2: set up kind of a drive through where all the
Speaker 2: trucks that were going out to behind the fire lines
Speaker 2: could drive by in the morning and stock up their
Speaker 2: trucks with food, water, so whatever they might need out
Speaker 2: in the field.
Speaker 1: Did any shelters get burned?
Speaker 2: Not to by awareness, that's good.
Speaker 3: The generosity has been incredible. I mean, Dia was just
Speaker 3: talking about up in Pasadena, but you know for us
Speaker 3: here in San Diego where we brought animals in from
Speaker 3: Pasadena Humane and we've learned so much, right do you know?
Speaker 3: We've learned through all of the disasters that have happened
Speaker 3: over the last fifteen years. We don't want to displace
Speaker 3: the animals that are separated from their owners. We want
Speaker 3: to clear shelters so that they can take in those animals.
Speaker 3: And that's exactly what we were able to do with Pasadena.
Speaker 3: But the generosity in La was incredible, But it also
Speaker 3: was down here in San Diego. We put out a
Speaker 3: call for fosters because we normally have anywhere from one
Speaker 3: thousand to three thousand animals in our care per day.
Speaker 3: Right now we're at about thirteen hundred. But people came
Speaker 3: in and they took our dogs. And that's incredible because
Speaker 3: you probably know there's been a dog situation across the
Speaker 3: United States where there are so many, so many dogs
Speaker 3: in all of our shelters, and people stepped up. We
Speaker 3: had eight hundred and seventy five foster applications within a
Speaker 3: matter of four days, and we really asked for the unicorn,
Speaker 3: which was someone who could take a big dog. We
Speaker 3: have lots of big dogs who didn't have a dog
Speaker 3: because our dog, the dogs don't always get along and
Speaker 3: probably didn't have children, so that they could take a
Speaker 3: dog that might not be for every family, and they
Speaker 3: were just able to step up. We basically got about
Speaker 3: forty or fifty really solid fosters out of all that.
Speaker 3: We're still getting them in, but it really it's heartwarming
Speaker 3: to hear that people really cared, they care deeply, and
Speaker 3: they came to all of our aid.
Speaker 2: Well, Gary, I'm sorry, but I can top those numbers
Speaker 2: because going into this, we had two thousand regular volunteers
Speaker 2: and probably at roughly one thousand foster volunteers, and in
Speaker 2: the past ten days we've had over the numbers have varied,
Speaker 2: and don't quote me, but I know it's been at
Speaker 2: least six thousand volunteer applications and yeah, so yeah, okay, right,
Speaker 2: that's awesome's and so I've been saying, you know, please
Speaker 2: be patient with us because you know, we're just dealing
Speaker 2: with a rapidly evolving emergency situation, having to deal with
Speaker 2: the immediate needs at times. So right now, we're trying
Speaker 2: to keep all the pets at the shelter as long
Speaker 2: as we can so that, you know, families can reunite.
Speaker 2: But eventually we are going to have to start putting
Speaker 2: a lot of animals into foster homes for longer term care.
Speaker 2: But you know, people keep calling back. I called, I
Speaker 2: want to foster, and it's it's not that we don't
Speaker 2: want your help, it's just that we can't respond to
Speaker 2: you right now, and we're gonna need you, so please
Speaker 2: stand by and we will get to you, and we
Speaker 2: really appreciate it. But right now, what we're trying to
Speaker 2: do is just get the monetary and other resources we
Speaker 2: need to properly care for these animals at our shelter.
Speaker 1: How do you rehabilitate I mean, it takes a while
Speaker 1: to heal a wounded animal, and they do, they stay
Speaker 1: right in the shelter.
Speaker 2: Well, Gary's a vets, so he'll have more details on this,
Speaker 2: but we have five full time vets on our staff,
Speaker 2: plus we brought in a lot of specialty vets who
Speaker 2: deal with species that we don't normally treat. We've had
Speaker 2: tortoises and cockatoos, and we had a goldfish. I think
Speaker 2: that's the first time we rescue a goldfish, but it
Speaker 2: came in a lon jar. So we've gone from goldfish
Speaker 2: just like a goldfish in a bowl, we've gone from
Speaker 2: goldfish to a bull.
Speaker 3: Well though there was also a a koi pon. The
Speaker 3: koi teams go in and actually go and tend to a.
Speaker 2: Koi pond, so one koi pon Gary. There were a
Speaker 2: lot of koi and those were very challenging rescue situations
Speaker 2: that reguard specialized equipment, and then we had to figure
Speaker 2: out where do we take the koi And so some
Speaker 2: of the gardens in our area were so nice. So
Speaker 2: Wisconsin Gardens let us bring koi, and then Huntington Botanical
Speaker 2: Gardens let us bring koi because they already have lots
Speaker 2: of koi pons. And so luckily this has been a
Speaker 2: big lesson to me, is that networking and relationships, that's
Speaker 2: not what you do when you're in the middle of
Speaker 2: the disaster. That's when all the networking relationships that you
Speaker 2: have already built just really pay off. And I can
Speaker 2: call Gary on his cell phone and say, Gary, can
Speaker 2: you send a truck up and take these animals out
Speaker 2: of here so that we can be here for the
Speaker 2: animals that need to be evacuated. And when you have
Speaker 2: those kinds of friendships with your colleagues and relationships between organizations, it's,
Speaker 2: you know, a true lesson in the real power of collaboration.
Speaker 1: So, if you're a pet owner, what are like three
Speaker 1: or four things you should do to prepare for such
Speaker 1: an evacuation. I mean, I can think of what I
Speaker 1: would do, But what do you suggest to people to do.
Speaker 3: We're always telling people that we are really wanting people
Speaker 3: to prepare ahead of time. DA set it perfectly. You
Speaker 3: take care of all of the planning before you need
Speaker 3: to start to execute. So definitely start with microchip Please
Speaker 3: entire world, please microchip your pets, microchip your horses, microchip
Speaker 3: your turtles. I mean, we do microchip clinics all the time,
Speaker 3: and I know Pasadena does as well. Santego Human Site
Speaker 3: is one of the most biodiverse areas in the country.
Speaker 3: We've got tons of not only wildlife, but also companion
Speaker 3: and livestock animals. Microchip everybody, Microchip your spouse if you're
Speaker 3: have to. So that's the number one thing. A caller
Speaker 3: with a tag still the old way works. That's a
Speaker 3: great idea. Make sure you have a couple of days,
Speaker 3: three days worth of hat, food, handy that you can
Speaker 3: just grab that because what happened in Los Angeles people
Speaker 3: having to leave within five minutes, you don't have time
Speaker 3: for anything. Have that bag ready, food, bowl, water, a
Speaker 3: couple of bottles of water just to take on with you.
Speaker 3: It really it could be a difference.
Speaker 2: Of life for that. You know, my pet was already
Speaker 2: with a pet sitter at the time because we had
Speaker 2: just traveled down to San Diego for a weekend, and
Speaker 2: so I didn't have to worry about my pet. But
Speaker 2: I knew I had to leave fast. And it tells
Speaker 2: you what's important. And to me, the one thing I
Speaker 2: grabbed was my son's baby book. It's heartbreaking you hear
Speaker 2: about So you have a if you have a cat,
Speaker 2: have a cat cage, handy.
Speaker 1: All those things. Oh yeah, so you could just throw
Speaker 1: the cat in the cage.
Speaker 2: And oh yeah, medications, medications, veterinary records, you know all
Speaker 2: that will be very help.
Speaker 1: Well, the veninary records, I mean, see that's something and
Speaker 1: probably people don't have that handy, just like they don't
Speaker 1: have their birth stritripic is handy, and they can't find
Speaker 1: all their personal papers.
Speaker 3: Another really interesting thing is we really tried to train
Speaker 3: people here to actually trailer train their horses, because if
Speaker 3: you can't get those horses out of there in something
Speaker 3: with an engine and wheels, you have lost the chance
Speaker 3: to save your horses. So definitely make sure those horses
Speaker 3: get trained to get into a trailer.
Speaker 2: And the trailer situation at Altadeen was a bit of
Speaker 2: a crisis at first, so you know, people who didn't
Speaker 2: have trailers, the ones that were able to keep getting
Speaker 2: back in, kept going in, bringing the horses, going back
Speaker 2: and going back in.
Speaker 1: Can you each tell us a really nice story, a
Speaker 1: nice a nice reuniting storys or something that's uplifting.
Speaker 2: I can go first. The one for me was there
Speaker 2: was a gentleman who was not able to evacuate with
Speaker 2: his dog, left the food and water. We were able
Speaker 2: to rescue the dog. It turned out that the dog
Speaker 2: had originally been adopted by this man from our shelter,
Speaker 2: and the dog had been tied an abandoned outside our
Speaker 2: shelter of fence when he had adopted him. So for me,
Speaker 2: that is a full circle story to have reunited that
Speaker 2: for taylored dog with that gentleman who adopted him originally
Speaker 2: for our shelter when he was abandoned and neglected. That's
Speaker 2: really kind of like give me chills.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's really nice. We have at San Diego. He mean,
Speaker 3: we have an emergency response team, which was what we
Speaker 3: were able to provide to Dia along with her troops.
Speaker 3: We trained them to go behind fire lines and we
Speaker 3: actually get them certified by CalFire and basically FEMA training
Speaker 3: that Calpire certifies. But they went have you ever heard
Speaker 3: of the Zorthian ranch in the LA area. Yeah, very
Speaker 3: famous place. Yeah, a lot of animals and these team
Speaker 3: members went behind the fire lines, had to hike really hours.
Speaker 3: It was precarious to get there. Actually, that's where they
Speaker 3: found the ball and the cows and other animals and
Speaker 3: we're able to provide food and water and make sure
Speaker 3: that they were okay. A lot of people know about
Speaker 3: those animals and that place has been around for well
Speaker 3: over maybe seventy five years, and I know it took
Speaker 3: some damage, but the animals were okay, And honestly, that's
Speaker 3: all that becomes important in the world is your family
Speaker 3: and your animals and make sure that that is okay
Speaker 3: and they were able to do that.
Speaker 1: What do you suggest that we here, like on the
Speaker 1: East Coast do to help.
Speaker 2: Really, honestly, Martha, monetary donations or the way that we
Speaker 2: respond not only to this disaster now, but I think
Speaker 2: Gary and I are pretty committed to working to continue
Speaker 2: to build a collaborative response network and animal welfare community
Speaker 2: to respond to other disasters. And we know that there
Speaker 2: will be more. And I think we have just demonstrated
Speaker 2: with this eaten fire like what can be done if
Speaker 2: you quickly mobilize, and that as nonprofit organizations, Geary and
Speaker 2: I are really nimble and quick. We don't have to
Speaker 2: deal with a lot of red tape and we can
Speaker 2: get stuff done. One of Kiri's people who I met
Speaker 2: in this her name is Summer, and she's one of
Speaker 2: the fire trained people, and she is just so wonderful
Speaker 2: and she and I developed a really special connection, and
Speaker 2: so she gave me a big hug, and she said, like,
Speaker 2: what we've done here has just been so amazing and
Speaker 2: the care you provided and food, and we also had
Speaker 2: mental health support on staff and chair massages and anything
Speaker 2: we think of to bring in to just keep the
Speaker 2: people going who were working around the clock. And so
Speaker 2: she we're hugging and she's talking, and she's and my
Speaker 2: PR manager is standing there and he says, so summer
Speaker 2: is what you're saying is like best disaster Ever, how
Speaker 2: became our little tagline amongst the group. You know, it
Speaker 2: doesn't sound like an appropriate thing to say, but you've
Speaker 2: got to have a sense of humor in this work
Speaker 2: on a good day and especially in the disaster. And
Speaker 2: it really was the best disaster response that I think
Speaker 2: most of those who are very experienced had ever seen
Speaker 2: because of the power of the collaboration. So give us two.
Speaker 1: Addresses that people can send funds to so that we
Speaker 1: have something real here.
Speaker 2: Do you what do you suggest Pasadena Humane dot org.
Speaker 1: Gary, do you have a suggestion?
Speaker 3: Well, we want to be able to help others in
Speaker 3: affected areas and ourselves with our emergency services, so I'd
Speaker 3: have to say Sdhumane dot org for San Diego humane,
Speaker 3: but really right now, we're not the ones that are
Speaker 3: needing it. It is really up in Los Angeles right now,
Speaker 3: but you know we're watching fires now. So I'd say
Speaker 3: even more importantly is to tell everybody around the country,
Speaker 3: you know, prepare for disasters more coming. We know that.
Speaker 3: Just make sure you've trained yourself and you can get
Speaker 3: your pets to safety and just be prepared.
Speaker 2: Well. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: I am so sorry for everything that you're going through,
Speaker 1: and I hope that these fires stop soon. I hope
Speaker 1: the winds die down and we don't have too many
Speaker 1: more eruptions.
Speaker 2: I have one question for you, Martha, because I think
Speaker 2: just to help, is that I would love to invite
Speaker 2: you to come for a visit to Pasting, Maine so
Speaker 2: you can meet some of these animals. But I also
Speaker 2: I bet you have like a favorite dog biscuit recipe,
Speaker 2: and I think if you could share that recipe and
Speaker 2: just ask everyone to make some dog biscuits and take
Speaker 2: it to their local shelter, that we would have some
Speaker 2: very happy dogs.
Speaker 1: That's a very nice idea. We're a friend of mine,
Speaker 1: Aery Katz, and I are starting a new Instagram blog
Speaker 1: called Raising the Perfect pet and all of this stuff
Speaker 1: will be covered in that blog.
Speaker 2: Look for that.
Speaker 1: It'll be up and running shortly. But the first one
Speaker 1: was a recipe for making your own dog food, so
Speaker 1: which I do. We made fifty seven quarts of dog
Speaker 1: food the other day, and I wish, I wish I
Speaker 1: were closer. I could bring it to your shelter. It's
Speaker 1: so delicious.
Speaker 2: Well, just send me your send me your biscuit rep.
Speaker 2: And I'll post it and at least uh other people
Speaker 2: will I know, Thank you, I will all right.
Speaker 1: Well, Thank you Gary, thank you Dia, and and best
Speaker 1: of luck in the coming day. Thank you, Martha, Thank
Speaker 1: you so much.
Speaker 3: What a pleasure talking to you.