Changing Roads Podcast
Changing Roads Podcast unveils the profound essence of travel, exploring not just the destinations, but the personal transformations within. We unravel the various themes, aspects and narratives of travel that define us, shape us, and lead us to the heart of our own stories.
Changing Roads Podcast
Leave Nothing but Paw Prints: The US B.A.R.K Ranger Program
Wooofff!!! Join Ranger and Brad as they welcome their guests Nicki Wright and Ben Jarvis, the guiding forces behind "US Bark Rangers of the US National Parks," as they discuss the National Park System's B.A.R.K Ranger program and the importance of leaving nothing but paw prints in our journeys with our canine companions in the outdoors!
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Welcome Wanderers, dreamers, loyal Canines and fellow seekers of the open road. This is Changing Roads, a sanctuary for explorers of the world and the self In a world filled with opportunities for exploration. Our four-legged companions enrich our travels in immeasurable ways. As we set out on adventures with our dogs, it becomes imperative to adhere to responsible ownership practices, ensuring a harmonious coexistence in both public spaces and in nature. Embracing this, individuals can travel with their canine companions, creating stronger bonds and shared experiences. This bond between humans and dogs is unique, built on unconditional love and loyalty. As guardians, it is our duty to reciprocate this devotion by safeguarding the world we explore together. Our furry companions yearn for the freedom to roam, sniff and discover. By being responsible owners, we extend their passport to adventure, ensuring that they can enjoy the world as much as we do. In return, we witness the joy in their eyes, the excited wagging of their tails and the deepening of our connection. But it's not just us as humans that understand this. Our dogs are smart, loving and intuitive. They know that their humans yearn for the same things as they do, and they try their hardest to give back to us what we give to them. Thus, there is a unique opportunity for them that arises in our national parks, that becomes a special moment in the lives of our canine friends. They proudly hold their heads high with confidence as they sit in front of a national park ranger and take an oath promising to educate and encourage their humans to follow responsible dog ownership practices in the outdoors. They are sworn in as ambassadors and proudly receive the title of Park Ranger, ceremoniously accepting the new tag on their collar an endearing badge of honor and commitment to always remind their humans that not only do we need to leave nothing but footprints but, on their behalf, leave nothing but paw prints.
Speaker 1:Hi, welcome to Changing Roads. I am your host, brad, joined here by my co-host, ranger, my loyal service dog travel companion and Park Ranger. Ranger is extremely stoked for this episode, because the spotlight today will be falling on him and his furry friends as we talked about the National Park Services Park Ranger program and their responsibility to educate their humans on how to have them in the national park in a responsible way. Our guests today are perfect for this. They are the admins and co-founders of a social media page and group called the US Park Rangers of the US National Parks, and we can't be more excited to have them on. So, all that being woofed, I would like to introduce you guys to Nicky Wright and Ben Jarvis. How are you guys doing?
Speaker 2:Hey, brad, we're doing awesome. We're excited that you're having us here.
Speaker 3:Thank you, hi. We're glad to be here.
Speaker 1:Absolute pleasure. Like I said, it's nice to see you guys finally face to face. We've interacted over the past a year and a half but we've never actually spoken together. So it's nice to have you guys here, nice to see you all.
Speaker 2:It's happening. We're excited. Thanks for inviting us.
Speaker 1:Of course. So I'd like to get into the Park Ranger program with you guys here in a little bit and what that is, and we're just going to talk in general about having your dog in a national park responsibly, or anywhere for that matter. But I'd like to get some background on you guys first. If you'd like to share some of that.
Speaker 3:Okay, I'll go first. So I'm from Indiana originally and I've been down in Florida for 20 years 21, something like that now. I never did much traveling at all until probably about seven or eight years ago.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I went on a trip with Nicky to the Grand Canyon. That was the first time I'd ever been on the western side of the country and I remember thinking, whoa, that's different. And I still didn't get really bit by the travel bug that was at the Grand Canyon. But it was a few years later that we went to Alaska for the first time and Nicky and another group of people went up there for the first time and that's when I really started to get excited about the idea of traveling. And so since then now I'm on a personal goal to hit all the big national parks in the 63 and then found the Park Ranger program and so now that's part of the travel goals.
Speaker 1:Awesome, and you guys you get to bring your dog goes with you now. So to most of these places.
Speaker 2:Well. So my dog, charlie, was serviced and he could actually fly with me, similar to Ranger flying with you. But our dogs now, neither them are service animals, so we only take them on driving trips to the parks. But my background is actually as a professional performer in New York on the Broadway circuit and traveling nationally and internationally, and I was fortunate in all of those cool gigs to do a bit of everything from the awesome to the weird, including when I was just a junior in college. It took me to Alaska for the first time and I worked at this beautiful location stunning Denali National Park, canyon area, dinner theater, of all wacky things. But the cast was talented. We sang some actually shockingly beautiful music and the National Parks bug bit me right in the 17 year old bottom Wait, not 17, hold on.
Speaker 2:It was my junior year of college. I can't even do math. Hold on everybody. I was 20, turning 21. Not a math league, I was getting a degree in musical theater, so let's all let that math stuff go. But from there I traveled quite a lot with work and the outdoors has always been a source of great joy for me, always been a dog person as soon as I could be, as soon as I was off the road and I actually resettled in Florida, of course, I immediately became a dog mom and right around that time gosh, it's like 18 years now I met poor Ben and he's been stuck with me. We've been best friends ever since and I was happy to kind of poke him and lure him into all of my travel antics and now he's kind of the linchpin of planning our travel and always being on it. So it's exciting and we incorporate our dogs as much as we can.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Yeah, that's a wonderful thing to be able to take your dog traveling, and not just because you can't leave him at the house, but it adds so much to your dog's life. Ranger was out on the road for a year at all these national parks, and what a lucky dog, right. So it's a true pleasure to be able to bring your dog along with you on these trips.
Speaker 2:It really is. I was able to take Charlie, who was previously my mom's service animal, on a trip with us on another friend, to Sonoma and Napa Valley. I mean, that dog went to wine country so he lived it right and I'm thrilled that Ranger got to see 63 national parks. What dog to do that man. It's so awesome.
Speaker 1:He's got a world record, but, yeah, he's a lucky dog. Like I said, when you are traveling to all these places with your dog, it also takes an amount of responsibility. Right and it's a thing that I see in the national parks quite often is irresponsible dog owners, it happens. So the National Park launched this park ranger program in it was 2015 in Olympic National Park and it was so successful that they just jumped right in. They were like oh yeah, let's keep this program going and we need these dogs to be educating their owners on proper practices. So would you guys like to talk about what the park ranger program is?
Speaker 3:Yeah, of course. So bark is an acronym, the B stands for begging your poop, a is for he's on leash, r is for respecting the wildlife and the K is for knowing where they can go. I would say it's not just people and their pets not following the rules, it's people not following the rules and it's whether they have a pet or not. It's.
Speaker 3:There are so many stories of people doing ridiculous things in the national parks, just not following the rules and doing dumb things with the animal life. It's always annoying when you take your dog anywhere and you're following the rules and then you have to avoid to step in and then you see a dog that's running off leash up to you and you never know what that interaction is going to be. But it's like you're in a national park. I kind of feel like there's a little bit of a common sense kind of thing to know you're supposed to do that stuff. But yeah, so when I took my first bark ranger, bella, we always followed all the rules and I didn't really see too many people not following the rules with their dog. But every now and then when you see that kind of stuff you're like, ah, the more people follow the rules, the more that they're going to allow the dogs to come into these spaces, and the more you don't follow the rules, then they're going to decide hey, dogs can't come here.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. It opens opportunities in other national parks as well. If we continue that pattern of being responsible dog owners in the parks, then other parks are going to be like. This is working. Let's start allowing dogs into this park that they may not have been able to before right. So it grows on itself and the more that we do that and be responsible, the more opportunities that people have, the more opportunities our dogs have. And if we don't follow these practices, then obviously it can ruin it for everybody and then our dogs don't get to go to national parks, which is very sad.
Speaker 2:Precisely, and since Olympics started the program it's grown and grown to a multitude of national parks and a lot of other places that maybe your listeners wouldn't normally think of. There's a lot of NPS installations, national historic monuments, national memorials, historical sites. Even the Fish and Wildlife Refuge has created some bark ranger programs. Some state parks have created bark ranger programs and we founded US bark rangers to highlight not only how to reinforce, I should say how to be responsible, follow the rules, keep the wildlife safe and keep your dogs safe. I mean, you don't want your dog running around off-leash in their country. That's not sensible for you and other humans, right?
Speaker 1:Dogs cannot carry a bear spray.
Speaker 2:Precisely, but we have been able to, with the help of our members, and one member in particular, kind of create a roadmap of now. What are we at like about a hundred and fifty?
Speaker 3:Oh, it's a lot. Yeah, I'm not quite sure.
Speaker 2:I actually am not even sure of the number of actual national units, fish and Wildlife, state parks that have the bark ranger program where dogs can actually kind of complete checklists, do different tasks. At some of the places they earn really cool swag like bandanas, certificates, and our favorite is always the tags, sometimes these very cool wooden tags, metal arrowhead medallions, sometimes they're site-specific, Sometimes you're earning them for free and at some places they're for purchase. It just depends on the park and how integrated the program is, and on our map and on our page we try to share all that information so that our members know what to expect when they go to the different places and act responsibly. So it's pretty groovy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's really cool. When I first started my national park journey with Ranger, I knew about the bark ranger program and the first tag I got him was generic and not attached to a park. So I didn't know that these different parks have their own tags, and halfway through it was too late and I was like, oh no, I should have been collecting these the whole time. So, and now I do, and some of them are really cool. I have one hanging right here that says Junior sled dog from Denali.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, the sled dog exhibition in Denali is amazing, right? That's so much fun. We're big Alaska junkies, as you are. We've talked about it before. We're all Alaska lovers and enthusiasts.
Speaker 1:Yeah, actually that's another thing I kind of wanted to bring up. There are professional bark rangers in the National Park Service, like the Denali sled dogs, for example. They are bark rangers, but the park rangers actually use them to bring supplies and travel through the Denali wilderness during the winter, which is really cool. And there's even a border collie in Glacier that they use to herd big horn sheep out of places that have high traffic. So the National Park has these professional bark rangers and they have their jobs, but our dogs have their own jobs too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, their job might be couch potato, but in the case of Denali, for example, which I had the pleasure of living, as I mentioned, yeah, as you mentioned, the sled dogs actually do all of the heavy lifting. During the winter they're responsible for every commute in and out of the park. And when I was just a young, in back in the day working in Denali, we actually had the opportunity to adopt or co-adopt, if you will the Alaskan Huskies, the Wolf Husky Mixes, and we would run them as the little puppies were getting stronger and stronger before they actually became the bark ranger sled dogs. So that was a great part of my youth.
Speaker 2:You ran them Literally jogged them, literally ran them, and this is back when they're puppies, when they are first coming out of the kennels. This was in 1998, was my first time living in Denali and you could actually quote co-adopt them and you would actually run them and exercise them with the park service.
Speaker 1:Oh wow, I didn't know that. Actually that was on a volunteer basis, I'm assuming.
Speaker 2:Correct. I don't know if it's still current. Mine were talking 10 years ago, but it was really cool and I had, like, a friend who worked at the theater program with me who co-adopted, so a couple of days a week we would take turns jogging the puppies.
Speaker 1:That's really neat. All my listeners. If you want to go do something really cool, go to Denali and check to see if you can co-adopt. That's one of my favorite things that I've ever done in a national park is go see those dogs. So it's pretty cool. It's a neat thing. Thank you for doing that. They have an important job. I wanted to ask you guys, too, what led you to create your group US Park Rangers of the United States National Park? What planted that seed in you that you saw a need for that to happen?
Speaker 3:Well, so about three or four years ago now was I don't remember what year it was anymore I was taking a road trip from here up to Indiana with my first Park Ranger, bella, and Along the route I'd already decided I wanted to see the big national parks and I always kind of had in my mind that I wasn't going to go out of my way to see the smaller units, the smaller ones. But if I came across any on my, if I especially if I were driving between one spot to another, if I came across any, I'd like to stop and see what they were about. So, looking at my path, I decided to take a look at the maps on the National Park Service to see if there were any National Park units. Along my route and heading up through Georgia into Tennessee, I found Little River Canyon National Preserve and I was just looking at their page, trying to see what you could do.
Speaker 3:It was looking at the pet section to see what the pet rules were, and that was the first time I'd ever seen the words bark ranger on a national park page. I'm like what is this? And I looked at it and I looked at my dog, bella, and I said you're gonna be a bark ranger, yeah. And so we stopped and we did all the tasks that particular site had tasks they I don't remember what they were announced a few years back, but I think they did want to see a picture of the poop being bagged, which is kind of weird. I think they wanted to see a picture of weird.
Speaker 2:It's essential. I mean, that's what a park ranger principles, right? I mean it's not free fertilizer. Well, you got to clean it up, yeah.
Speaker 3:But I think if anyone saw me taking a picture of a bag of poop you may think something kind of weird was going on a hundred. So we completed the checklist and I went to the visitor center and I said I got these pictures, so what's this bark ranger thing all about? And they gave me the tag. I and I believe that site actually let me bring her into the visitor center, which you're not supposed to do. But they actually asked me to bring her in because they wanted her to meet. They had a dog inside already, someone I think it was a park rangers dog that was in there and they wanted her to meet the dog and see if everyone was cool with each other. And of course they were. And so she got her first tag. And that one was a neat one because it was a metal, metal arrowhead and it was specific to the site. It was a specific little river canyon bark ranger tag.
Speaker 3:So that was the first one I ever got, and just a little bit north of that is Russell Cave National Monument it's. When I say a little bit north, I mean like basically it's like maybe 25 minute drive. I don't even think it was a half hour drive and she got another one there, and so after deep kind of breaking down this trip and starting to look at this like how many places have this Kind of came to notice that a lot of the information that was available was very fluid, not very accurate and not compiled anywhere. If you search before our group started, if you were to search for bark ranger locations, you'll find a handful of website resources that are either not entirely accurate or they're very out of date. They've got places that no longer have them or they are missing. A lot of places, right.
Speaker 2:So, basically, ben and I saw a need, we saw a missing element which was just Actual up-to-date, mind you, up-to-date, always being fluid, but actual an up-to-date, sort of premier site or reference point for people who dig this sort of thing Traveling with their dogs, earning fun swag while Practicing the principles and we saw the need to put something into place.
Speaker 2:So Ben is actually the founder of the group and we immediately realized there was lots of niche Dog moms and dog dads like us who had an affinity for the parks, had an affinity for bringing our pets responsibly, and they're in burst US bark rangers and it's been so exciting to see it grow and grow. And Just the members like yourself you were kind enough to share your incredible journey, brad and our members share everything from their journeys to like simple moments and everyone just offers insights, advice. I Think it's like the only Facebook or other social media group I have ever personally seen that never, ever has a harsh word, a political statement, man. It's all just people being kind and supportive of the missions and it's and actually been now has a new ranger that's kind of taken over the torch.
Speaker 3:Yep, I've got Ranger Maisie. Her official name is Miss Maisie Daisy and she goes by a lot of nicknames because she wiggles a lot, so I also call her wiggle. But she was a rescue and shout out to pep pal, animal rescue in St Petersburg, florida. They're a great rescue and she's a 50 pound mix of lab and border collie maybe, and she's super sweet. And we happen to be lucky enough to have one of the smaller national park units about 30 miles away across Tampa Bay called the Soto National Memorial, and they do have a very well publicized bark ranger program. You show up there. They've actually got the information sitting on a placard outside the visitor center. So she earned her first bark ranger tag about a month ago Then, so this is gonna be the first of many for her. Unfortunately, for Bella, the bark ranger program in the parks was kind of new, like you said, 2015, and we didn't find it until 2020-2021, something like that right around the whole pandemic time, and now with Maisie, the sky is the limit for what she's gonna earn.
Speaker 1:So Fair enough. What's interesting from your group? When I joined, I didn't know that there was a bark ranger program at All these other locations under the National Park Service.
Speaker 2:Smaller units.
Speaker 3:I think they just referred to them as MPS units.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's 63 congressional US National Parks and those would be things like Glacier, yosemite or Denali, and Then there are all these other MPS units and I didn't know before I got onto your page that there were bark ranger programs, had all these different places. Now I want to take Ranger to all these other places and start picking up tags and all these national monuments, and I didn't know that before I got on your page, so you guys shared that with me.
Speaker 2:Well, to be honest, thank you for acknowledging that, but I just want to reflect that right back to our members. Honestly, folks like you sharing your good knowledge as you traveled with Ranger to the Big 63, our folks have shared all those regional sites and we continually are actively updating our map, which side note, if you want to chat about it, we're excited to talk about how we are hoping to brew an actual app, a super phone friendly app. That's kind of the next thing on the horizon. Our map is already accessible by phone. You can absolutely use our Google map from the Facebook page onto the Google Maps element. But an app is kind of what we're dreaming of as our next step.
Speaker 2:But yeah, it's our members. It's again I've mentioned the loving members, but it's their local knowledge that they share. They care that we use and we update the photos they take of the swag that they get. And, in fact, I believe you were sharing with us that you might be near us in Texas coming up soon for a little trip that we're taking and we're actually excited to go to Waco. Because is it Waco?
Speaker 3:Waco.
Speaker 2:Males it has a. Bark Ranger program. Is your dog a Bark Ranger there?
Speaker 1:Yes, I was actually going to bring that up to you guys. We have Mammoth over here, so yeah, let's go get our Bark Rangers tags together.
Speaker 2:Oh, we're in yeah.
Speaker 1:You'll really love that place too. It's a neat place. Your dogs are going to love it they're going to. It's a good Bark Ranger tag to get this app that you guys are talking about. You explain that a little bit more, because that's really interesting and cool to me, because you're continually giving people more and more resources that they're able to use in their travels with their dogs to all these national park places. I'm really interested in that. When you said that, that's the goal.
Speaker 2:We're sort of in the infant stages of discussion. We have an incredible member who actually goes to my alma mater university, who's one of our tech gurus. That's helped us with a lot of things, and we're chatting with him and we're starting our research. We want to make the group and the information about the Bark Ranger program be just completely accessible wherever, whenever you are with your pup. So we have learned there is a development program that sometimes coincides with universities and other schooling, and so he's in school at my alma mater. So we're just in the infant stages of talking about it, planning it and saying about developing it. So maybe the next time you're kind enough, maybe to invite us back, maybe we can chat about how we've actually made it action and what's going well, and maybe some of our members could even say how it helps them plan their trips and be more joyful. I mean, the whole point of life man is to be joyful and, speaking for myself, especially as I've gotten older, having my dog with me makes everything more joyful. So if we can help our members do that, it does and you guys have created a community.
Speaker 1:That is absolutely wonderful and everyone's there for the right reasons and you let it loose and now everyone is just sharing and interacting with each other and they're so excited to share their experiences in these places. They go and, like you said, we're all learning from each other now and we're all sharing with each other and at some point you stand back as the admin and you're like you guys, you all take it from here.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I remember I was talking to Nikki when we first started the group and we started getting our first like two, three, four members and I told her kind of the goal of this is so that it's not just us prompting interactions to where it becomes more kind of like an organic living group, that kind of is taking care of itself, and it's awesome to see that's happened now. I think we're approaching 6,000 members on the group now, which is amazing, and it's started growing almost seems like, exponentially the last couple of weeks or the last month especially.
Speaker 1:That's really cool. I'm so happy for you guys. Like I said, you guys really made an impact and helped on mine and Rangers journey to all the National Park, so we hope that our story added to your group and inspired people to do things that we were doing. That was our point. We wanted to inspire others to follow in our pop prints, so I hope we did that and they continue to inspire me and, like I said, that is the whole point here. We're trying to inspire people to be joyous and go out there with their dogs and have fun, live life and not leave poop on the side of the trail.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, I think a big goal that we have is awareness. We have a we have a member who actually created or assisted in creation of a bark Ranger program at a National Park site here somewhere on the East Coast. So it's a facilitate awareness of the bark Ranger program. We've kind of came up with a really beautiful, I think, a beautiful logo, a beautiful design that we've we have on stickers, and I've got magnets that are custom made and some very beautiful bandanas the dogs can wear and a patch.
Speaker 3:I love seeing people taking their dogs out.
Speaker 3:They got the backpacks I love, I love the hiking backpacks and it's a great thing to put the patch on and we've got some tags that the dogs can wear as well, just to kind of show off your pride in your bark Ranger and then people will see what is this.
Speaker 3:When I took Maisie to the Soto National Memorial recently and got her first bark Ranger program, I ran across a bunch of people had the dogs there and I talked to them and they actually did not even know that was a thing and they were at one of these sites and despite the fact there was a big placard on the front of the visitor center, they still did not know there was a bark Ranger program, but you know, they saw she had her bandana on and she had her tags on. It's kind of advertising the fact that this existed, and so then they knew and hopefully they did the same for their dog, all of those items. We do have an eBay site that is linked on the face on the Facebook group and be nice to. We love seeing everybody who takes the take. It's great seeing our design, the design that I came up with, that is, on things that we are seeing our groups dogs out in the National Parks doing, which I think is really amazing.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. You're acting, you're allowing people to be ambassadors and, by the way, they're beautiful products, beautiful logo. It's definitely something you want to stick on your dog and, like you said, you're being an ambassador and people are noticing and you're reaching maybe further than you ever intended. You're making an impact. Have you guys ever reached out to the National Park Service?
Speaker 3:Well, if I can speak to that, we actually have a handful of National Park units who are members of our group and criminal rangers as well, and they share information on the page. They sometimes will put our posts on their pages, so it is kind of a this cool little social media interaction that we have. So, yes, and every time I go to a spot I always talk to them about our group and give them a card and stuff and they're always happy to share and to mention it and they love doing that. They really do, I think a lot of times, especially the smaller National Park units. Maybe they don't get a ton of visitors in the day and they love like they'll, just they'll do this all day long and it's great to see that. Like I said, like I feel like maybe we are ambassadors for this and we do have I don't know how many it is, it's a handful that are on our page.
Speaker 2:But in terms of a formal connection, we have not done that yet. I suppose we've been waiting to sort of brew and grow. I mean, we're just now knocking as soon on the door of 6,000 members. We have a small Instagram following as well, so we just, I remember we just had one member and like and then like my handful, and all of a sudden we had 5,000 amazing members and, like I say, I think we're ready. We're still kind of growing and brewing, but I think partnering actually with some elements of the formal park service is the goal and, quite particularly and quite honestly, we would love to eventually I know Ben has expressed to me, maybe you can express in terms of the merchandise that you sell Like eventually, definitively, like giving part of that profit. Yeah, I, mean absolutely.
Speaker 3:That would be an awesome, that would be an awesome goal. Right now, everything is it's very small scale and you can't buy one sticker at a time. You got to spend a lot of money to get to get even like a small amount of them, and so by the time you pay for all that stuff, there's never anything left over.
Speaker 2:Well then it's taking you different manufacturing come up with things that you felt were great for the group.
Speaker 3:Yeah, obviously.
Speaker 2:But eventually the goal is to funnel that money towards park ranger programs and amazing national parks.
Speaker 3:I think it would be awesome if every national park site with them reason had a park ranger program. For instance, cuyahoga Valley in Ohio, a very dog friendly national park, but they don't have a park ranger program. Why they don't, I do not know. I've heard rumors that they are thinking about it, but there is a funding issue and ultimately there's funding, but then they have to go through and do studies and whatever. I'm like you're already very dog friendly, so why not just have it?
Speaker 3:But there's every time I go to a place that does not have a park ranger program, unfortunately, I either find that nobody there is actually all that well versed in it, so then I kind of educate them and plant that seed, or they'll say that it's in the works but it's taking a while.
Speaker 3:They've got to build specific trails and figure out where the dogs can go. So I think the more people that we touch and it's not just us but the ambassadors, it's everybody in our group the more people we have in the group, the more people that go out to the parks and, more importantly, speak to the rangers and say, hey, we'd like to bring our dog here, even if it's just to have a cool little tag to get our dog and we know that we can't take the dog on a trail that's through the back country, but we'd love to be able to take the dog and stop it and overlook and let the dog get a new sniff opportunity and a cool spot and get the bark ranger tag. I think that would be an awesome thing to see.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's amazing that we have the power to make those impacts that are recognized in the end by the National Park Service, or even donating to the National Park Service so that they can help fund these programs that they might not have the funding for. I think the National Park Service, they really rely on us as park visitors to give back in that way, like when Ranger and I were doing our journey. We were trying to bring awareness to service animals and accessibility and people with disabilities in the National Park System and that is what we had to give back. And the National Park Service. They really appreciate that they have a big job to do. So when people like you guys and people like me or members of the group, when they have something to add back into the National Park System, don't be afraid to pick up that torch and say something. Because our parks are going to grow because of the visitors, because of these communities, that's our responsibility to give back.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And just to tag on to what you just said, two different points. Number one everybody buy your year long pass, support the parks when you're there, spend your money, throw your money at the gift shops, throw your money at the food and have your well, well, well behaved dog with you, looking fabulous, acting fabulous, following the rules when you do. And second to that, just continue to show the constant love, the constant joy. Spread that share, that talk to people when you're there. Because one of our other penultimate goals I'll say penultimate goals because I think this is a little down the road is after forming your basic app, which is going to take a lot of legwork. I would love.
Speaker 2:Personally, my mom was disabled and I would love. I think the journey that you and Ranger took is so amazing. We've been so grateful to have you in the group and sharing your journey. And, that being said, the penultimate goal would be to have our app not only feature the programs with the swag and cool trails, but accessible trails, those details. This is a short trail, this is a paved trail, so maybe, if you're in a wheelchair or your dog is stroller bound, maybe you have a tripod dog that can walk, but walk short distances. We would love to integrate that a few steps down the road, once we actually get our map and our app continuing to groove, but right now we're just approaching 6,000 members, so give us a couple years and hopefully we'll be doing genuinely great things for the accessibility community, as you've expressed, is important to you. We feel the same.
Speaker 1:I love that, and if you need anything from me, All your info, man, you've been everywhere.
Speaker 2:We need all the 411.
Speaker 1:Also, it's never too early to you don't need a certain amount of followers to get something going. When Ranger and I started we had 50 maybe. But when you just do it, when you pick up the torch and run with it, people notice and they see, and then it just grows from there and it spreads out like wildfire. So 7,000 people, that's plenty.
Speaker 2:It exists just at the amount of free hours in the day. So we just have to hit the lottery as well, and then we'll be full time on this joyful journey. But we're working that way. We're working that way.
Speaker 1:Fair enough, I'm going to put you in touch with one of the National Parks Public Relations officers up at the Department of Interior, because he would love you guys and he actually also just started the National Parks Services new podcast. I don't know if you've heard of that. It's my park story.
Speaker 2:We've heard of it but we haven't had a chance to give all the lessons. So I would love that connection. I know Ben would too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, ranger and I are episode two. On that, I would love to send him your way, because this is what the parks want. They want us to tell our stories, because that's going to make an impact on the park system and it's going to make everybody's experience in the National Parks all that more enjoyable. So I'm going to send him your way. Your third podcast. You just did one, right.
Speaker 2:We did. There was a local group of two amazing ladies that run a dog photography studio in the Tampa Bay area. As Ben mentioned earlier, we're in St Petersburg, florida, and Lori and Nikki were kind enough to have us on and very eloquent ladies and we had a great time chatting to them, but at sort of a different angle of the dangle than what we're chatting to you about. But yeah, that was a great fun time and we're thrilled to be here today as well. Number three yeah, bring it Third time's a charm, right?
Speaker 1:He would absolutely love you guys. Yeah, I didn't listen to your last episode yet because I wanted to go into this one fresh.
Speaker 2:You didn't want to know all of our trade secrets. Yet we don't have that many secrets.
Speaker 1:I don't want to know anything. I wanted to wait. Now I'm going to go listen to it after this. I super appreciate what you guys are doing. I believe in what you're doing. I stand behind you, and if there's anything that I can ever do on my end to continue to support you guys and spread this, you let me know. I'm at your disposal because we're all on the same team here. We all have the same vision. At the end of the day, it's helping our dogs too, helping our doggoes.
Speaker 2:I bring my senior dog, lily, who's not service, but I bring her every and absolutely anywhere that I can, because our lives are short and my senior girl's life is even shorter. I take her to the beach every chance I get, and the more she's with me the more joy I feel. So we all know dogs are healers right, they heal us.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, the other way around.
Speaker 2:They heal us, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:He's my service animal. He plays a huge role in literally healing me, so don't know what to do without him, that's for sure.
Speaker 2:Well, we are in advance. We're grateful for your time today. We're in advance grateful for the connection with the park service. I know you've really worked a lot of inroads with them and we're excited to see you potentially in your hometown in the not too distant future and have a bite to eat with you and hug Ranger. Give him some snuggles.
Speaker 1:I can't wait. You haven't met him yet. Ranger, come here, he's so cute.
Speaker 2:You guys can't see because we're on a podcast, but Brad is rocking this Hawaiian shirt with Ranger's photo all over it, and I have a Hawaiian shirt, similarly with dog faces. So I'm living and loving it, good boy Ranger.
Speaker 1:Everybody needs a Hawaiian shirt with their dog's faces on it.
Speaker 2:Now every single person is going to get that ping down their phone, because that's what happens.
Speaker 3:Not sure that I will, but maybe.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's cool I had a thought too.
Speaker 1:Maybe we're just going down rabbit holes, but with the cool things that you guys sell, maybe you should do like a bark ranger calendar.
Speaker 3:We've thought about it.
Speaker 2:That's actually.
Speaker 3:yeah, yeah, I thought that's an idea that's been thrown out and that may be coming. I've been kind of brainstorming some ideas on how to do that, because I would like to feature our members, but trying to figure out a way not to. It's like our group is great, but I've been on a whole lot of other Facebook groups that are not so great and I do not want to get into a spot to where we pick a handful of dogs and then we got people who are upset and been out of shape that their dog was not picked. There's something like that. So it's definitely something I think is worth taking a look at for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's super cool. Anything we can do to get that message out there, and even if it's putting things on your wall, putting things on your dog, putting stickers on your car, you guys are right on track, so I really appreciate it. We're coming to the end of this. I wanted to ask you if you could give one thing for my listeners to take away at the end of this. What would you have to say to them?
Speaker 3:Well, I would say be sure to take your dog with you as many places as you can. As Nikki already said, they're on a very much shorter time scale than we are, and it's very important, not only just for our memories but just for their well-being, to take them places and don't let them just be stuck in the house all day long. They're long enough as it is.
Speaker 2:I would say if you're not feeling joyful, if you don't have your joy, make a new plan, make a new start, figure it out. I don't know what that is to everybody. I know I sort of reformatted my whole life at 46 and it was tricky, but I'm so much more joyful now and that includes having more time at different spots to travel and incorporate my pup and find your joy. Work hard at it, be brave, take chances and hell, if you're lucky enough to be like Brad go to all 63 big national parks where we haven't all made that goal yet, but find your joy. Just sit in that joy. Don't sit in anything else. If you're sitting in something else, let that frustration, let that anger be fuel. Let it be fuel to get you out of that situation and into your joy.
Speaker 1:I love that. That's absolutely perfect. Yeah, you're right. They don't live as long as us. Ranger just turned two. By the way, his birthday was yesterday.
Speaker 2:He's only two and he's had that kind of life. That's amazing.
Speaker 1:He's not stopping. We're going for all seven continents.
Speaker 2:Whoa, that's cool. Antarctica, huh, Are you going to take the polar plunge?
Speaker 1:Ranger might, yeah, never stop. Keep traveling. Travel with your dogs. Be responsible. Pick up your poop, please don't. People don't want to step in it. Yeah, bag your poop. Keep them on a leash. Don't let your dogs chase. Bears Know where you can take them.
Speaker 2:Always on a leash.
Speaker 1:Let's keep it going and improve it for other people and not ruin this for everybody. So again, thank you guys so much for being on. This was an awesome conversation and I'm really excited to share this episode with my listeners and I love you. Ranger loves you. I'm glad that you got to meet him. Finally, we will see you guys in Waco in a few months.
Speaker 2:And we are blessed and looking forward to it. Thanks for having us.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Thank you all so much. And actually do you want to tell people where they can find you on social media?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. If you simply hashtag US Bark Rangers just the old pound sign, as we old people say hashtag US Bark Rangers U-S-B-A-R-K-R-A-N-G-E-R-S. I think I spelled it correctly. If you pop that into actually just a simple Google search or on Facebook, it will immediately link you to oodles and oodles of amazing posts on our US Bark Rangers Facebook group page.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Go check it out. It's a great group and you can find us on wwwchangingroadscom. Our links to both Spotify and Apple podcasts are on there and we appreciate all of you as listeners. We are hoping that you are enjoying this podcast and we will see you next time. Thanks so much. Bye, guys.