Have you added play into your training time?

Now, let’s get to the interview!

Transcription:

Laura Wombwell
Hi there, it’s Laura from Laura Wombwell Photography. And joining me today is Jason Shute of Shute Balanced Dog Training. Hi, Jason. I’m so excited to have you joining me today.

Jason Shute
My pleasure. It’s great to be here. Thank you very much.

Laura Wombwell
So, you have been active in the Guelph dog community for quite some time. But for those folks who may not have heard of you, I would love to know how you would describe your business.

Jason Shute
Sure, so I mean, I’m a dog trainer, my business is a dog training business. I’ve been I’ve had my business established here in Guelph since 2008. I kind of refer to myself as a play and reward based, balanced style dog trainer. And I focus primarily on obedience and problem solving, behavior issues, etc, etc.

Laura Wombwell
Thanks. Excellent. So 2008, that’s quite some time to be in business. How did you get started down this road?

Jason Shute
You know, I got started because I have in my family a number of animal wranglers and trainers, it kind of runs in the family. And I was inspired by them to get into, to make a living, doing and working with the animals that I love. And so they I sort of followed their their lead a little bit, they’re also encouraged me. But I had an opportunity to sort of change directions and what I was doing the early 2000s, and I got a opportunity to apprentice with a master dog trainer in Niagara region. And I did a three year apprenticeship. Of course, typically in the in the dog training world apprenticeships run around a year or so. I went deep, as I tend to do with most everything that I do, probably including did the answer that I’m giving you to your question. Yeah, you know, and so I do, I do sort of a lengthy apprenticeship, and that opened up my business.

Laura Wombwell
So your business is called Shute Balanced Dog Training. What does balanced training mean?

Jason Shute
Balanced dog training, essentially, is an approach that encompasses all aspects of sort of operant conditioning and classical conditioning. So there are, as you know, in the dog training world there, people love to sort of camp up in the dog training world. And so you know, the one very, at one end of the spectrum, you have your all positive force free type dog training, the other end of the spectrum, you have your old school, yank and crank, you know, sort of like Wolf Pack theory, dominance theory based kind of stuff. And then in the middle, you have this balanced sort of approach. And that’s sort of what I like to do. Because, you know, there are there are limitations to certain things, right, we, in my opinion, if we are limited by that 1950s behaviorism model, we find ourselves confined and limited. And the last thing you want to do in your training and working with dogs is to get stuck. You want to be able to roll with stuff, you want to be able to, you know, do some of this, try that that’s not working. Let’s go here, okay, that’s not working. Let’s try this. Bam, there it is. Let’s stick with that and work with that. So flexibility, the ability to maneuver through a variety of different situations with dogs. I feel the balanced approach gives me the ability and the skill set to do that.

Laura Wombwell
As you know, anyone who works with animals knows, you know, it can be really unpredictable. Is there anything that you would say you really specialize in?

Jason Shute
Yeah, I mean, I would say that my sweet spot when it comes to training and working and how I’m interacting with dogs is going to be around play. Play for me is a super important, it’s a critical part of what I do with dogs. And, you know, I mean, constructive, productive, interactive play and communicating the objectives of very specific games that we play, in order to bring out their fullest potential. The synthesis or the merging of play and training for me is, is really the sweet spot that I’m looking for. Play for a lot of people and and trainers as well seems to be more of an afterthought. Play is the thing you do after you’ve done your train, or plays the thing that we do if we’re just trying to burn energy out of the dog. But play for me is not the afterthought thought play is really a focus, play is an integral part of how I how I work with dogs to develop, you know, trust, cooperation, teamwork, impulse control, working through the commands, you know, conditioning the dog to respond to me and want to listen to my information when they’re in a super high state of arousal. One of the challenges I think that a lot of people encounter when they’re working with their dogs is that they’re typically working with their dogs in a low or mild state of arousal. So when dogs hit a higher state of arousal, they get cranked up, they become adrenalised, they’re full of endorphins, dopamine, that’s when they tend to listen less to their humans. And that’s typically when we need them to listen the most. So for me, you know, I love to get dogs cranked up through play, and then work in my obedience pieces back into play. And the way that I do this is I like to spend much longer in the reward phase of the play than in the working phase, which is sort of a slightly different approach. You often see people who are using play as a reward, and we’ll use the, the play or the toy, almost like a food reward, and that the dog performs a behavior, maybe they’re marking it, they give the dog tug, tug, tug, oh, and then they’re right back into work again, and this is teasing, teasing the dog with this the the appearance of play, I much prefer to spend much longer I might, I might play for three, four or 5, 6, 8 minutes and ask for one simple command within that time, and then bam, we’re back into our our reward phase. Always more time in the reward phase, and then in the work phase for me typically. And then of course, we can start stringing behaviors together and and asking for more or less, depending on what the dog is, how they’re motivated, they are how into it, those types of things. So play for me, is, I would say my specialty, and being able to communicate the objectives of these games clearly to dogs. So that that that keeps them in the game that motivates them to want to continue interacting with me in that super fun way. And then also my ability to commute, to teach people who don’t know so much about this aspect of dog interaction, being able to teach them how to also communicate those objectives clearly enough to their dogs in a way that dogs actually understood dogs already know how to do it. It’s, it’s the humans that have a hard time sort of bridging that gap and kind of like thinking dog so that’s kind of my sweet spot.

Laura Wombwell
So would you say then for owners who are wanting to get the very best results from their training, I know sometimes it goes fantastic when you’re with the trainer, and you’re all working together, and then you come home and it’s like, oh, man, so what what would be your advice to like, get those best results once you’re not in that training situation, but you’re doing your homework?

Jason Shute
Lose the control freak? Right? I say you know, people get so obsessed with Oh my god, the dogs not doing what I need them to do. That’s okay sometimes right? We have to you have to be a bit you have to be a bit flexible, you have to identify Well, why why is it breaking down? Why is something breaking down? Chances are it is the clarity of information, it is the sequencing of proper information. It is the motivation of the dog and how interesting you are your, your how you are presenting these lessons to the dog. I mean, the very first thing is to identify what is the breakdown. And if you can, and then once you can identify what that is, well then then just chill out. Right? Take a step back, take some breaths, relax, okay, like lose the control freak. Let it breathe a little bit, right? Take a moment, okay, this is what’s going on. This is where it fell apart. Okay, what was it. And now let’s, let’s analyze it, come up with a game plan, and then come back to it. If you need to take a break, take a break. If you need to come back to walk away and come back the next day. That’s cool, too. But people take it personally, when they are trying to teach their dog something and the dogs not responding. And so that’s when we start to get frustrated because we built up expectations in our head. And the trainer made it look easy. So why can’t I do it? That’s what they do. So I I like people just to kind of lose the control freak. And ultimately, don’t worry about your own timeline, we tend, you know, we live in, you know, we are obsessed with this, you know, needing everything now, in this time in our society, right? We live in like Amazon Prime world, right? I want everything now, or yesterday is even better. And when you’re training dogs, oh, and when you’re working with any animals, when you’re training with dogs, your timeline is really fairly irrelevant in the whole grand scheme of things. It’s the dogs timeline, ultimately, is the only thing that matters.

Laura Wombwell
Nice. I love that advice. I think too often we forget, even if we’re trying to instill a behavior or, you know, you want it to be fun for both the dog and the owner, because that’s what keeps it going.

Jason Shute
Yeah man, that’s what it’s all about. That’s what that’s why you’re doing it. That’s why you have a dog in the first place.

Laura Wombwell
So, what’s one thing that you wish that the general public knew about dog training?

Jason Shute
So I mean, my feeling is that the sort of the general perception of dog training is is of course influenced by what people see on TV, whatever, right? They’re watching dog shows. You know, there are a bunch out there, right, and these are all they’re all sort of, you know, work off elapsed time right? So that big, lots of drama and you know, elapsed time box in the corner, three minutes. And okay, the dog is now, you know submitting to or whatever. Right. I mean, that to me is completely unrealistic. I mean good dog training is doesn’t make good TV doesn’t I’ve had so many I’ve had, you know, all kinds of people approach me with doing TV dog shows over the years, from guys from Animal Planet, a production house in Toronto, we even did a teaser for a show that we’re going to do. There, there’s it but Dog Training isn’t isn’t exciting for TV, it makes boring TV, because good dog training is you know, gradual, incremental, you know, improvements over time, right at the to where the dog is, you know, internalizing, generalizing, discriminating the behaviors, that takes time. And so oftentimes, then people want you to fix a problem in under three minutes, because that’s what they saw on TV. And so my job is then to explain to them why you know what, that’s that’s a produced TV show. That is, you know, they’re they’re setting that drama up, what we don’t see is where are those dogs next week? Where are those dogs in a month from now? Where are those dogs two years from now? What are we talking about in terms of long term lasting training? The quick fix stuff generally doesn’t work that well or last. When we’re talking about dogs. So the quick stuff, right, I show up to somebody’s house. Okay, I need you to fix this, this and this. Okay, well, let’s talk about actually what’s going to happen.

Laura Wombwell
So if folks are wanting to seek out a dog trainer, what are some key things that you would encourage people to look for?

Jason Shute
Yeah. I mean, I would, I think if you have a dog, you should seek out a dog trainer, even just to get some some basics under your belt, learn how to communicate, learn how to play, these type of things. You don’t even have to train with me. But here’s the thing that I always recommend to people is, you know, if you’re looking for a dog trainer, call them up. Go on, observe a class in session. Okay? I want people to find the right fit for them. So if you call up four or five dog trainers, and you go to them, and you ask them if they can sit in a class, well, now you can see how these people interact, interact with the client, the human clients. And you can also see how they work with dogs. And you know, some are great with dogs not so good with people. Some are great with people not so good with dogs, you got to find that balance that works for you. You’re spending your hard earned money, you want results. You want to have the best fit possible, so that you can get the most out of that experience. So I tend to encourage people to look around, check people out, see who’s see whose philosophy you get behind, see how you again, how they interact with people and dogs and what works for you and then go with that.

Laura Wombwell
Excellent. So I have a couple of quick questions for you from the group.

Jason Shute
Great.

Laura Wombwell
So I would love to know what is your top tip for adding a new dog into your family enviraonment?

Jason Shute
Well, my first piece of advice around that is, let’s say you’ve adopted a pet. So we’ll say we’re talking about that, you have a dog, you, you’ve got you, you’re going to pick up your dog from the rescue the shelter, breeder, whatever. Now typically, if we’re talking about a dog who’s been in some type of confinement, in a kennel, or if we’re talking about a rescue dog, or shelter, dog, humane society, etc, etc. And the what most people do is they get super excited, like, right on, dog’s coming home, they go get the dog, put it in the car, come back to their house, and then they’re into the house, and bam, Hey, everybody, here’s the new dog. Not so, not so cool. I would tend again to let that breathe a little bit. So a lot of transition time the dog needs their, it’s a big shock to their system, I would highly suggest if you are going to get a dog, before you bring that dog, even into the house, you bring the dog, park in the driveway, put a leash on that dog and you take that dog for the walk of their life. Like a two hour, two and a half hour, whatever you can walk. So you can just walk around with that dog, that dog can get a sense of you, or even take some other family members with you, they can keep up with that kind of endurance walk, but you want to walk that dog a lot. So the dog can get a sense of you, you’re not asking anything from the dog on the walk, you just want them to kind of be around you. But while they’re actually doing something, so they’re moving around, they’re checking out environment to get a sense of who you are. They’re also becoming a little bit more relaxed, they’re burning off some energy, they’re sort of decompressing from all that time stuck in a cage or a candle and haven’t had a walk like that. And when you take them, then you eventually work your way back home. Now your dog’s gonna walk into that new environment, their first sort of impressions or vibe that they will have when they come into that new environment will be one of relaxation and calm. You give them a nice bowl of water to drink, give them a nice place to lay down. And then everybody just kind of let the dog be, let the dog be.

Laura Wombwell
Nice. Another question for you. So I know with you know, with COVID more people have been getting outside with their dogs, which is fantastic. But a lot of people have been encountering off leash dogs where they are not supposed to be off leash. Any tips for humans dealing with encountering an off leash dog while they have their dog on leash.

Jason Shute
I mean, a lot of dogs can support that right, there are a lot of social dogs out there, an off leash dog comes running up. Oftentimes those off leash dogs are also quite social themselves, hence them being off leash, but that’s not always the case as we know. So ultimately, I think you need to just see what happens there. I mean, don’t freak out. Right if it if an off leash dog is coming up, just relax, see what happens. If you know dogs and you can read dogs, you know, try and try and glean some information is that dogs coming up? How are they approaching? They might be coming in a little hot but are they coming in with? What’s their body language? Are they are they looking friendly? Are they looking are they coming in aggressively, I mean, you can make these little reads as you see dogs, the dog comes up, a lot of people initially or immediately are going to tighten up on their own leash, preparing for potentially the worst, adding a lot of tension to their leash and to their dog, potentially triggering other unwanted responses in the dogs. So my advice is just to relax, just chill out. Let the dog approaches. See what happens. You know, if you need to make a move, you can just get in there and do some hollering, some clapping, scare the other dog away. But you don’t want to start there. Because now you could you can startle your own dog or or, or communicate to your dog that you don’t you’re afraid of that other dog, it’s going to create some type of reaction. So we don’t want to get this feedback loop going, you just want to kind of assess how it’s happening. And just go with what information or what what is presented to you. If you need to, if you need it’s going to be a bite, break it up, stop it. If it’s going to just a nice little pleasant interaction. Well great, let that happen. Why not? Just depends on your dog, if you have a social dog, if you have a nervous dog, you have an anti social dog or defensive dog or territorial dog, there’s so many other aspects to that. But in general strokes, I like to just be kind of chill about it and see what happens. Typically, your dog is looking to you for information also on how you’re going to handle the situation. So if you handle the situation was with some composure, and some some calmness, your dog will probably respond in absolute kind.

Laura Wombwell
I love that advice. One last question for you. So we had one owner who has two dogs at wildly different levels of training. So once a border collie, smart as a whip, and one is not. So when you have two dogs to have different reactions to training and different levels of training as an owner, do you still train them together? Or do you split them up for training?

Jason Shute
You split them up for training for sure. You know, trying to train two dogs who are even fairly, even with training at the same time is a challenge, right? I generally don’t suggest that anyway. But if you have dogs at completely different levels, you need to spend that individual time with that dog while you’re training them. So you can focus in and give that dog everything it needs at that moment. If you’re trying to if you’re trying to work with this one and this one in your start doing that juggling act, that’s not going to be a productive training session. You know, let’s just let’s just be real, it’s, it’s, it’s going to be frustrating for you. And if you use the moment you get frustrated and your trainings out the window. So So I highly recommend you spend you know, you you spend individual time with those dogs. And you because they possibly need different approaches, they may they may need different dynamics or that or need different learning environments, right. So you have to be able to probe work with one dog that’s in front of you at a time. And then just kind of be be all there be completely present with that one dog and give them everything that you can give them and get that reciprocating sort of energy feedback loop going.

Laura Wombwell
Fantastic. I thank you so much for answering some of the questions from the group. We’ve talked a ton about how you help other people’s dogs. I would love to hear a little bit about your own pet so who lives with you and how did they come to be there?

Jason Shute
Yeah, so my dog that lives with me now his name is Pacho. Pacho is a three year old cattle dog I raised him since he was a puppy. He comes from a cattle farm you know he’s he’s my guy he’s my you know he’s my ride and die you know we do we train like crazy, we play like crazy. He loves to play together and for us you know play and training is just all one thing man when we’re when we’re training we’re playing when we’re playing we’re training and and so that’s kind of how we do things here he’s he’s an excellent dog to have out in the world. He’s He’s super social, very rarely need to worry about his leash stuff. He’s not on leash very often. He’s beautiful dog loves all creatures great and small from you know he would never even heard a butterfly let alone a cat or a squirrel or a dog. He’s he loves all humans. features. So he’s a real pleasure for me to move around the world with me do lots of hiking. We do lots of he comes canoeing with me, we do back country. He’s awesome. He’s just, he’s good. He totally suits me up and down.

Laura Wombwell
Nice. Are there any favorite either places to go or things that you do with each other in the region?

Jason Shute
Yeah, well, we love to, we love to just hike so I mean, all the local trails around here and all the all of the awesome green space and wild space that we have in the area. And in the gwelf, Wellington area, I mean, southwestern Ontario. There’s so many beautiful spots here. We you know, during the summer, we go to the beach out on Lake Huron at least twice a week. I have beach days, marked off on my calendar through go all summer, and nothing gets in the way of those. Those are my beach days. And that’s it. So we hit the beach a lot. That’s kind of stuff we do, you know, I just, I just do my I live my lifestyle the way I love to, and and he is absolutely adapted to how I flow. And so we make an awesome team that way.

Laura Wombwell
So Jason, I really appreciate you spending some time tonight. So before we end off, I have some quickfire questions for you.

Jason Shute
Love them.

Laura Wombwell
All right. cat or dog?

Jason Shute
dog.

Laura Wombwell
Favorite breed?

Jason Shute
Cattle dogs. And here’s one that’s going to blow your mind. Dachshunds, and another one that’s going to blow your mind. Chihuahuas.

Laura Wombwell
I have one of those. That is fascinating to hear a trainer say that you love dachshunds and chihuahuas.

Jason Shute
I do. I mean, I mean from a training perspective, not super interesting for me, but from just a nice lovely dog to have around the house, a nice lovebug right, the most affectionate dogs on the planet. Those are them. You know, I also am a big fan of I should say the street dogs that I work with internationally. I’m a big fan of the street dogs like the Filipino Aspins, the Asong Pinoy are among my favorite dogs. They the Indian pi dogs have worked extensively with them, love those dogs. And then of course from a training perspective I want to get into some hot and heavy training you know we’re looking at you know, some more working type breeds you know, the the Malinois, Dutch shepherds, those type of dogs I also love those type dogs. But um, for me personally like my number one is going to be the cattle dog. those are those are nearest and dearest to my heart. Probably.

Laura Wombwell
Awesome. What is Pacho’s favorite treat?

Jason Shute
Chicken feet.

Laura Wombwell
Awesome. Would you say Pacho is full of beans full of dreams, or full of something entirely different?

Jason Shute
Full of dreams.

Laura Wombwell
If a human actor were to play Pacho in a movie, who would play him?

Jason Shute
Sean Connery.

Laura Wombwell
Awesome. If time and money were no object, what one amazing thing that you would do with Pacho?

Jason Shute
I would take him to China, and we would hike the entirety of the Great Wall.

Laura Wombwell
What an amazing answer. That’s so fantastic. Most people, I asked that question. They’re like, I want to travel with my dog. So that ends it off for the quickfire. Again, thank you so much for giving your time. Before we close it out. I would love to know how the southwestern Ontario pet parent community can best support you?

Jason Shute
Well, you know, the community, the dog community in this area has always supported me. I mean, I couldn’t even I couldn’t even start to express the entirety of my appreciation for the local dog community you know, they’ve supported me so and give it show me so much love over the years. You know, they’ve been you know, voting me their favorite dog trainer through all the different awards, community awards, platforms and stuff like that for many years in a row. And I you know, I couldn’t ask anything. more from them. I mean, they’re showing me that that support in that way is ultimately the best thing they can do for me. Also much less about showing me the support but showing the dogs the love. I mean there are so many dogs in need out there. You know if you really want to support dog people, you got to support the dogs too. And and you know, donating to local rescues, international dog rescues, those types of things where, you know, they need the support more than us, you know, working trainers. That I think would be my favorite way to show some love to the dog community would be to the dogs themselves through some type of donations to your favorite rescue organization.

Laura Wombwell
That is an absolutely perfect answer to that question. So, thanks so much, Jason. I really appreciate it.

Jason Shute
It’s absolutely a pleasure. It’s nice to nice to speak with you and your your community.

Laura Wombwell
And thank you folks so much for listening. This is Laura from Laura Wombwell Photography. I’m joined by Jason Shute of Shute balanced dog training and we both hope that you and your pets have an awesome day. Bye!

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

e some really, really complex surgeries for us. And just as importantly, oftentimes will tell us that dog doesn’t need surgery, you know, this dog needs rest, or he needs therapy. And he’s an invaluable asset to the rescue as well.

Laura Wombwell
Excellent. So I know, your rescue relies fairly heavy very heavily on foster homes. If folks don’t have, you know, the time or the resources to be a foster right now, what’s the best way that they can help you out?

Roz York-Brodsky
As I mentioned before, we are very reliant on donations. And there’s literally no donation too small, it all helps. And we are registered Canadian charity and are really happy that we’re able to issue tax receipts to people. But even the simple act of sharing a post, and just getting more awareness for the rescue for rescue in general, for our dogs for maybe something we’re doing for fundraising is very helpful as well. It’s not that often that we need help with transport and things like that. But it does happen occasionally that we’ve posted on the page that we need help moving a dog to a new foster home or a veterinarian, and the public always, always comes through for us. We have wonderful followers.

Laura Wombwell
Are there any particular fundraising campaigns that you’d like to highlight right now?

Roz York-Brodsky
We are going to be doing a raffle for a beautiful quilt that one of our supporters has made for the rescue. And that should be coming up shortly. But unfortunately, the fundraising events are another casualty of COVID. You’ve done so many beautiful events for us with your photography, with Christmas pictures and Halloween and Valentine’s Day and Easter. And that’s always been so so helpful. Hopefully, by Christmas next year, we’ll be able to do that again. But events are just not able to happen right now. And it’s certainly had an impact on things. Another great way for the public to support our rescue and any rescue is once events are allowed again to go out and support them go to adoption days and things like that.

Laura Wombwell
Excellent. So I would love to know for you what is the most rewarding part of being involved in dog rescue.

Roz York-Brodsky
There’s so many things. I love it. It’s truly, like, the most meaningful thing I’ve done in my life. But I guess overall, it’s just taking a dog out of a really, really unfortunate situation. Dogs that maybe had severe medical injuries, and making them well and whole, and getting them into an adoptive home, and then getting those fabulous updates that we get. We all love the updates from our adopters, so keep them coming. And invariably, we always get the “I didn’t rescue the dog, the dog rescued me” kind of messaging. And it just makes it all worthwhile. Because there’s a lot of heartbreak and stress and days where I want, you know, we all wonder why am I doing this to myself, but it’s the good just so so so far outweighs the days that can be hard.

Laura Wombwell
Yeah, I think for anyone who hasn’t had a rescue dog in their life, that moment where they start just coming into themselves and interacting, like, you know, a regular dog who doesn’t have a care in the world. Oh, my gosh, it changes your life.

Roz York-Brodsky
Oh, absolutely. And quite honestly, a lot of the dogs, they come off transport without a care in the world. And they’re just so happy to be in a home and out of the shelter. And right away. They’re loving the people and the other animals in the house, we see the gamut. You know, we take puppy mill dogs, and they can be really, really heartbreaking for a long while. But invariably, they come around. And they always need the right home just like any other dog. The fit is the most important thing for all of these dogs to thrive.

Laura Wombwell
Do you have any special stories, any special dogs you’d like to tell us about?

Roz York-Brodsky
Well, they’re all very special. And I could probably talk your ear off about them. But I’ll just highlight a dog that we recently had in rescue named Shaggy, who was hit by a car in Kentucky. And when he first was taken to the shelter, they thought they were going to have to euthanize him because of a lot of injuries. But that just for whatever reason decided she really wanted to try to pull this boy through and his internal injuries healed. He needed a rear leg amputated. And once he started healing from amputation, and started walking, they realized that his front leg on the same side where the leg had been amputated, was very injured. And it wasn’t anything that showed on x rays, because it was nerve damage. So they reached out to us with this heartbreaking video of Shaggy, and found to foster for him right away, brought him up, sent the X rays. And he went for a consult with Dr. Levy, we were really hoping there’d be a surgical solution. But there wasn’t. And we were all very heartbroken about that. But you know, we were told not to give up and that there were options, which we pursued. And he went for months of hydrotherapy and different therapy, till they were able to straighten his leg to the point that he could be fitted with a custom orthotic brace. And from the minute he had that brace on, he was able to do things that he hadn’t been able to do, like sit like a normal dog, go to the bathroom without falling over. Little things that really mean a lot. And we had great interest in him for adoption, which was lovely, because he is going to be an expensive dog to maintain with therapy and the brace will need to be replaced periodically. But he got an amazing home, we get the best updates, and he’s just living his best life.

Laura Wombwell
I think we even have a video of Shaggy in his new home. (video sound)

Let’s like you said earlier, there’s always the right dog for the right home. It’s just about taking time and finding that fit.

Roz York-Brodsky
Absolutely. And the other thing that I find so heartening about what we do is we do take a lot of senior dogs. And as long as they’re healthy enough to get adopted, they get adopted. There are people out there who will open up their hearts to a 14 year old dog a 16 year old dog knowing they want to give them the best end to their life possible. So we never hesitate to take for older dogs.

Laura Wombwell
But I think

I know there’s been this huge puppy boom during COVID. But being an adopter of not a senior dog but an adult dog, there are some things that older dogs give you that, you know, a puppy is very challenging. Adult dogs are often a really nice breath of fresh air.

Roz York-Brodsky
Oh, absolutely. And and of course we love our puppies too. We, you know, young or old. It all depends on the person really. For many, many years, I got eight week old puppies that was our life for many years, and loved them all. But I realized about 10 years ago that my puppy days were behind me. And they are a lot of work, the rewards are great. There’s something to be said for, you know, bringing in this little eight week old dog and seeing them through their whole life. But just as joyful and meaningful is bringing in a 12 year old dog, and just giving them the best life possible.

Laura Wombwell
Absolutely. So speaking of dogs that you’ve had throughout your life, I would love to talk a little bit about your current pets. So who who lives with you currently? And how did they come to be there?

Roz York-Brodsky
We have a number of dogs here. And a few of them were rescues foster fails. I’m a proud member of the foster failure club. One of them was one of those very, very special needs terrified dogs that she was found closed up in a box after having puppies. And she’s the only foster I’ve had that I really felt would not emotionally survive leaving me. And so she stayed. And that’s Annie and she’s a beautiful, Beagle spaniel mix of some kind. And she’s definitely got her quirks. And it’s been extremely rewarding having Annie with us, she trusts my husband and I implicitly and to gain the trust of such a terrified dog is really fulfilling, but she can be challenging. It just makes her more lovable as far as I’m concerned. We have a eight year old black Russian terrier was an owner surrender in North Carolina. And we had had a previous black Russian terrier, and it ends up this guy is his nephew. So to me, it was the universe just working in very mysterious ways that Princeton ended up in our home. Unfortunately, he is one of the dogs with nutritional dilated cardiomyopathy. And we had to stop fostering because of that, because just the risk of him even getting like a mild kennel cough or something like that would be too much for his heart. So we’ve put a pause on fostering as Princeton’s health of course, comes first. We did have a pallative foster for a while with him, which was nice because I felt that I still had my foot in the fostering door. But unfortunately, Lainey had to be euthanized after being with us for a few years. And she was quite an old girl. And then I always have a Westie or two, poking around. We’ve had Westies since the day we got home from our honeymoon almost 37 years ago. So can’t imagine life without a little white dog. And they’re always an adventure in and of themselves wonderful dogs, but very much stubborn little terriers. And I have Should I keep going?

Laura Wombwell
Oh, yeah.

Roz York-Brodsky
My mother in law’s dog is with us right now. And I that’s about it, I guess. Wow, I love them all. As you can see, they’re such good dogs. They’ve been very well behaved during all of this. And they’ve all been great with foster dogs that have come and gone over the years, we’ve had over 40 foster dogs while we were fostering and as much as I miss it with Princeton being ill, I hope I don’t get back to it for a long time, and that we still have him with us for many years to come.

Laura Wombwell
So with that many dogs, what are some of your favorite things to do in southwestern Ontario?

Roz York-Brodsky
Well, with having multiple dogs, we don’t go a lot of places with so many dogs. We have a very nice size yard, they love the yard, they love each other. It’s amazing seeing dogs who just have formed this wonderful relationship. And they’re very welcoming to any other dog that comes in here. Everyone in my family has dogs, and they have Save me dogs. It’s just a hazard of knowing me you end up adopting dogs. And don’t you know when in the good old days when we could be together they know the rule is you don’t come to my house without your dogs. So at times the dogs would outnumber the people. And it was just wonderful to see how sociable they all are, how well adjusted they are and I just saw enjoy seeing their relationships with each other and of course their relationship with me because no matter who you are, nobody loves you like your dog loves you. So they’ve been a great help to me during COVID I think it would have been much more challenging without the dogs and without the rescue, because I do feel that I’ve been able to still do what I’m passionate about, even during these very, very strange times.

Laura Wombwell
That’s incredible. and nice to hear that even while your rescue is uplifting dogs and, you know, helping out the community, you’re also being a resource for each other.

Roz York-Brodsky
Absolutely. It’s a wonderful community, the rescue community, I can’t say enough about it. We belong to certain groups with other rescues, everybody helps each other, everybody’s very generous with advice, supplies, or sometimes if you have a dog that you really want to help, and you just don’t have a spot and we’ll put them out to other rescues. So it’s a great community, mainly women. You know, there’s very few men that you know, we’d love to see more men getting involved.

Laura Wombwell
So to end off, I have a couple of quickfire questions for you. Are you ready? Alright. So cat or dog,

Roz York-Brodsky
Dog.

Laura Wombwell
Favorite breed?

Roz York-Brodsky
It’s really changed over the years. It’s always been Westies, but I have grown to absolutely adored beagles.

Laura Wombwell
Nice. What are your dog’s favorite treats?

Roz York-Brodsky
Dehydrated liver.

Laura Wombwell
Nice. Now, normally, I asked folks, if a human actor were to play their dog in a movie, who would it be? Because you have a variety of dogs what I would like to know is if your dogs were all in a band, what kind of music would they play?

Roz York-Brodsky
Well, it has to be rock, they’ve grown up with rock.

Laura Wombwell
Are your dogs full of beans, full of dreams, or full of something entirely different?

Roz York-Brodsky
Some of each. The Westies are pretty active. And Princeton rests a lot these days. So I will say full of dreams. But it’s quite a variety. I love watching them play together.

Laura Wombwell
If money were no object, and all of our current restrictions were lifted, what is one incredible thing that you would do to spoil your pets?

Roz York-Brodsky
That’s a hard one, because I really can’t think of anything that they would want that they’re lacking for. Their favorite thing is just that I’m home so much right now. So honestly, I think that they’re very, very happy. And like all dogs, all they really want is their human and to be loved. I absolutely love that answer.

Laura Wombwell
So as we end off, is there anything that you would like to say, to the Southwestern Ontario Pet Community?

Roz York-Brodsky
I’d like to thank the southwestern community, for their support of rescues in general, and for being really really good pet parents, Ontario should be very, very proud of the low numbers in our own shelters, and the compliance with things like spay and neuter, and proper veterinary care, heartworm prevention. So we’re doing a good job here in Ontario, and to keep it up and to spread the word about rescue dogs and how they’re all wonderful dogs deserving of a good home.

Laura Wombwell
And if folks want to support you, whether it’s with donations, whether it’s by liking and sharing social media, where can they find you?

Roz York-Brodsky
Our website is savemedogrescue.ca. And if anyone wants to reach out to someone with any particular questions, they can email to info@savemedogrescue.ca. And on Facebook, we’re Save Me Rescue, and we’re also on Instagram and Twitter.

Laura Wombwell
Excellent. Well, thank you so much for joining me today Roz. I really appreciate your time and I really appreciate you sharing that that really deep look into how rescue works and and how we can best support you. So thank you. (barking)

Roz York-Brodsky
That’s Annie saying thank you for all you do for rescue for save me in particular and we’re so appreciative of all that you do as well.

Laura Wombwell
Excellent. Well, and thank you to everyone listening. This is Laura from Laura Wombwell photography. I’m here with Roz York-Brodsky from Save Me Dog Rescue, and we both hope (barking)

well as the enemy. We

Well, Annie definitely hopes that you and your pets have an awesome (barking)

Roz York-Brodsky
Annie’s getting some help now now in the barking department!

Laura Wombwell
Annie did so well the whole time.

Roz York-Brodsky
She did. They were very good.

Laura Wombwell
Well, this is me and Roz signing off. We hope that you and your pets have an awesome day. Bye!

Roz York-Brodsky
Bye!

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