0224: Bergen Spay & Neuter Alliance with Kristin Des Marais & Felicia Diamond

Kristin Des Marais and Felicia Diamond of Bergen Spay & Neuter Alliance discuss how a not-for-profit is created and evolves. The great work they are doing in Colorado offers inspiration for potential founders across the country. It’s not enough to have a heart. You also need to have a plan.

Find our guests online at BergenSpayandNeuter.org and on Facebook.

Celebrate 5 years of Rosie Fund by supporting our campaign to sponsor 50 dogs. You can donate at RosieFund.org or through our Facebook page. You can contribute by making a purchase from the store on our website or buying a t-shirt at Bonfire.com. Also check out our page on BarkYours, the online mall with gifts for people who love their dogs.

Music for this episode is provided by alternative string duo, The Wires. Visit them at TheWires.info. Learn fiddle and cello-fiddle online — even if you've never played before — from Laurel Morgan Parks and Sascha Groshang at FiddleLife.com.

The transcript for this episode is available on the Dog Words Buzzsprout page: Buzzsprout.com/840565.

Make a donation at RosieFund.org or through our Facebook page. You can contribute by making a purchase from the store on our website or buying a t-shirt at Bonfire.com. Also check out our page on BarkYours, the online mall with gifts for people who love their dogs.

Rosie Fund online:
RosieFund.org
Facebook.com/rosiefund
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YouTube.com/rosiefund

Transcript

KRISTIN  0:02 
I really do not only care about the animals, I actually care about people. So it kind of goes hand in hand. And I do love both. And it just warms my heart knowing we're kind of making a positive difference in these communities. And we're not just turning our back.

PHIL   0:21 
I'm Phil Hatterman and this is Dog Words presented by Rosie Fund.

Today, Kristin Des Marais and Felicia Diamond of Bergen Spay & Neuter Alliance, discuss how a not for profit is created and evolves. The great work they are doing in Colorado offers inspiration for potential founders across the country. It's not just enough to have a heart. You also need to have a plan.

If you're new to Dog Words, in each episode, we explore the world of dog care and companionship. "We save each other," is the motto of Rosie Fund, which simply means the more we do for dogs, the more they do for us and they already do a lot. If you love dogs, you'll love Dog Words. We welcome your comments, questions and suggestions. Go to the podcast page at Rosie fund.org to share your thoughts. Please download, follow, rate, and most importantly, share Dog Words.

Celebrate five years of Rosie Fund by supporting our campaign to sponsor 50 dogs. So far in 2021 we've sponsored 30 dogs. Help us reach and surpass our goal. You can donate on our website or Facebook page. You can also contribute by making a purchase from the store on our website, buying a t-shirt at Bonfire.com, or buying our note cards and shirts on BarkYours.com. Links are in the description. Your donations and purchases help fund the Rosie Life Starter Kits that make sure these senior and harder-to-adopt dogs have some of the items they'll need in their forever home.

Please follow Rosie Fund on social media. Subscribe to the free Rosie Fund YouTube channel that offers great videos of Rosie, Peaches, and shelter dogs, including some exclusive content like the sweet KC Pet Project dog featured in our latest post.

Next time on Dog Words, Julian Javor from Pet Rescue Pilots updates us on how COVID-19 impacted their work and what's next for this amazing organization that flies pets out of shelters and lands them safely in the loving arms of rescue groups, fosters, and forever homes.

The mission of Rosie Fund is to provide humans with the resources and education they need to give senior and harder-to adopt-dogs a better life. Thank you for joining our mission.

Today on Dog Words we welcome the Bergen Spay & Neuter Alliance represented by Kristen Des Marais, the executive director, and Felicia Diamond, the board president. Welcome to Dog Words.

KRISTIN  2:38 
Thank you so much for having us.

PHIL   2:41 
First of all, Bergen Spay & Neuter does not give away your location. Where is Bergen Spay & Neuter?

KRISTIN  2:48 
It's a very good question. We are an organization based in Denver. However, we really don't focus in the Denver area because there's a lot of other resources, veterinary resources within the area. We focus basically on — Excuse me. I have a dog barking in the background.

PHIL   3:07 
I was just gonna say I dropped the ball on introductions because I did not cover everyone who is in this podcast.

KRISTIN  3:15 
Yes, so Duncan is in the background. My recent rescued Scotty. So he came from Aztec, New Mexico and I'm usually not a puppy person. I adopt adult dogs. But he fell into my hands and he's a sweet dog but still working on the training. And he's barking at chickens right now.

PHIL   3:35 
Well, that's the chickens' fault. They're kind of asking for it.

FELICIA  3:39 
My chickens are good chickens.

KRISTIN  3:40 
They are?

FELICIA  3:41 
They are good chickens.

PHIL   3:43 
Well, Duncan doesn't know that. So we need to get Duncan up to speed.

FELICIA  3:47 
We have Duncan. We have Boomer. He's a Newfoundland.

PHIL   3:51 
Hey, Boomer.

FELICIA  3:51 
We have Monkey. He's a Greyhound. Duncan barking. We have Boo Boo. Chi Chi's somewhere

KRISTIN  4:00 
Chi Chi's behind Boomer. So...

PHIL   4:03 
So you were saying that that Bergen also has underserved populations beyond Denver. So you're not Denver specific. So you're more broadly Colorado.

KRISTIN  4:16 
We are. A lot of our focused areas are in underserved parts of Colorado, which is mainly south of Denver. And we also focus on the western slope in the four corners area of Colorado. So these areas, there's limited veterinary resources, demographically, there might be some financial hurdles with getting pets fixed down in that area. So we provide a service with we have a surgical mobile unit, a 26 foot mobile unit, and we have two anesthesia machines and we drive that around to different parts of Colorado once a month. And our usual clinic days are from Thursday through Sunday, once a month. So we do a four day clinic. And I recently finished one for a week, because the need was so great down in the four corners area of Cortez, Colorado. And we did over 280 animals in a week. It was a long, long, long week for all of us.

PHIL   5:15 
I grew up in rural Nebraska but I now live in Kansas City, Missouri. Someone who's grown up in a metropolitan area like Denver, or Kansas City, I'm sure notices and is aware of the needs, whether it's for animal welfare or any other need in the community. And we have to get volunteers to step up. They may take for granted the fact that here are the volunteers, you have a metropolitan area, you have this pool of volunteers. You don't have as many volunteers available in the rural areas, these underserved areas, which have a lot of the same needs.

KRISTIN  5:56 
Right. That's true. What's interesting is I don't bring a lot of the city folks on these trips with me. It's kind of interesting. Every volunteer, I have a few like main volunteers within my program. But mainly, I actually get the community involved, which is kind of neat. So for instance, I do work down in Pueblo, Colorado, south of Colorado Springs, and I have a cadre of local volunteers that are actually willing to help. They love being at the clinics. It also brings kind of ownership in the community instead of bringing people from other parts. I have different town officials down in Delta that we work with. I have someone like locally in Delta, who does our laundry for us. It's just like, it's amazing. I don't know how I could do it without the community support actually.

FELICIA  6:47 
Well, the truth is you couldn't. And so many organizations go into communities and they're just seen as as interlopers coming in to do good and then disappear.

KRISTIN  6:58 
Yeah.

FELICIA  6:58 
In this case, we're really developing relationships with people in the communities finding out exactly what they need, how they want it done. And it makes a big difference in participation.

PHIL   7:10 
It's a collaboration because you have the experience working with different communities, so that you come in and you find this population that wants to serve, but shouldn't have to reinvent the wheel. How do we access the resources? How do we serve our community? Well, we've figured out how to do this in one place. How can we adapt it to your needs? What's different? What's unique? But also what is the same that we can replicate from our previous experience?

KRISTIN  7:40 
Yeah. We initially when we start these programs out, we reach out to the community and knock on wood — knocking on my head — we luckily have a lot of volunteers that just come out and email and say, "Hey, we would like to help and do whatever and you know, whatever that may be." And we onboard them. And they're almost like family to us. It's very interesting. You know, this last clinic we did in Cortez, I didn't know what kind of situation we were going to be in. For example, I used to live in Durango for a very short period. But I'd never spent time west of Durango is Cortez.

FELICIA  8:16 
It's the four corners.

KRISTIN  8:17 
It's the four corners area and I had never been to their shelter. I didn't have time to actually set up and see the shelter prior to our clinic. So it was a crapshoot. And I couldn't be more impressed. It was probably our best venue, yet, in all the years I've done these clinics. And the reason why I think it was the best clinic is I could not believe how much volunteer support we had, including the shelter help. And that shelter, I ended up kind of having different thoughts initially like, "Oh, it's probably just a dirty, rundown shelter." No. That shelter being a clean freak, as I am the cleanest facility and most professional people and we had all the help in that community. And there could have been more. We just didn't need as much volunteers. But we were able to get the job done. And we're talking 12, 15 hour days. And these volunteers, including the shelter staff at the Cortez Animal Shelter, were there in support. We got the job done.

PHIL   9:15 
Well, that certainly speaks to what a community can do when it makes a commitment to something like animal welfare. Because your perception prior to your visit that this is just gonna be a run down facility because a lot of small communities, even if they don't lack the will, may lack the resources to have a nice facility and even in metropolitan areas with a — I hesitate to say "well-financed" because very few animal shelters or animal welfare facilities are well-financed, but very few of them if any of them are dedicated facilities. They're typically a repurposed facility that is no longer good enough for something else. So now we will use this to help Animal Control or kennels. And I'm fortunate to be in Kansas City where we do have a facility that was built specifically for this purpose. From the first architectural design, it wasn't even a repurposed design from some other large building to being an animal facility. It's for animals. So you go to a small town and it's to be expected that it's an old barn or an old doctor's office, or just an old storefront that's been repurposed and is dilapidated. And we really don't have the funds to do more than what we are. So it's encouraging that there are places out there that say, "That's not good enough for our community. That's not good enough for our animals. Let's do better."

KRISTIN  10:46 
Yep. It's true. Yeah. Unfortunately, a lot of these shelters, especially in Colorado, are run by the city in these rural areas, or they have a city contract with another group. And so some are great, some are not so great. In this situation, we really lucked out. But what I do really embrace is not only doing spay and neuter, we also try to provide other resources. So if our vehicle is not actually present, because we can only be so many places at one time, and we're only doing a clinic once a month, I try to establish partnerships with veterinary communities without local animal shelters or welfare agencies, and figuring out ways to get those needs met if people do call me for spay and neuter or vaccine needs. So it's not just about our group. It's about how can we serve the community that we work in and do it right. Because we're not going to be there not answer the phone for them, I'm there for them 24/7. Kind of makes my husband go crazy. But I really do not only care about the animals, I actually care about people. So it kind of goes hand in hand. And I do love both. And it just warms my heart knowing we're kind of making a positive difference in these communities. And we're not just turning our back to them.

FELICIA  12:05 
Last year, during COVID, most of the shelters just couldn't do spay and neuter. But Kristin figured out a way of how to sterilize it and how to do it and how to put it together and how to socially distance, how to have everybody mask. And last year, how many?

KRISTIN  12:22 
We did over 2200 surgeries for the community. We only do Colorado. So that's for Colorado. And a lot of that clinics and big, wealthy shelters were not helping out the communities. And I understand the reason why they couldn't because of liability, and there's just a lot of red tape. But we were able even with our quarantine with those, we actually had three months of quarantine, that we just did not do surgeries. And that was during the springtime. And then we started getting there was a spike in November, December. So we decided not to do clinics then, either. So...

FELICIA  12:22 
But we're small and agile.

KRISTIN  12:43 
But we get the work done. Yeah.

PHIL   13:02 
There's advantages to being sort of outside the system. You can adapt and not having to route things through multiple committees and submit it to government approval at multiple levels. If you have a town that says, "Hey, it looks like you've got this figured out. Come on out. Let's do this." Great, more power to them. So yeah, being small and agile. I would hope most of our listeners appreciate the importance of spay and neuter beyond it just being a choice related to, "I'm not breeding my animal. So let's go ahead and and alter." Talk about the importance of that, especially in small communities where you have underserved populations who may not have the means, otherwise, to get their pet spayed or neutered, or may not even be aware of why this should be a consideration.

KRISTIN  14:00 
I ended up doing a proposal for the city and county of Delta, which is right out on the western slope of Colorado near Montrose and Telluride or Grand Junction over on that side of Colorado. And I proposed the situation when I was on a Zoom meeting with the city of Delta actually in both the city and county. But there is a big problem. And that's the feral cat problem. We have a huge feral cat population throughout the world. And a lot of these cats depending on the climate can have up to four to five litters in a year. They can start reproducing at 16 weeks of age. People don't understand that. 16 weeks of age. And then after they have a litter, they can start reproducing two weeks later. So you do the math. It's so important on so many levels to have your pets fixed. And if they're outside cats, you're going to have a huge colony within a year or two. So it's just better to be proactive than be with a huge problem. And then a lot of the problems that we have with the feral cats, it's a human error. And we're trying to clean it up. And we've done a lot on the western slope. We've cleaned up and done over 1200 surgeries for feral cats in their area in the county in the last year. And so they ended up funding us for the feral cats for that purpose alone, which was great. I asked them for a certain amount, they gave me a little bit more. So, and we're only allocating that...

PHIL   15:30 
That's a nice surprise.

KRISTIN  15:31 
Yeah, so we're just allocating that for the feral cats. And it's been really a good program and the vets that I hire, I have this real incredible vet who I've been using for several years, and her name's Dr. Ruth Parkin, she started VIDAS. V-I-D-A-S. And she's actually world renowned. She's licensed here in Colorado but she travels around the world and also teaches vet students in other countries how to do high quality, high volume surgeries. And then her vet tech, who's also amazing is Laura Littlebear, who used to work for Humane Society, United States. They are my vet team and they are a powerhouse. And they can do up to, well, we've done up to 100 cats in a day. Believe it or not. And still it's like a 12 hour day but it gets done. And we have a whole system to do it.

PHIL   16:26 
If someone's not getting their pet spayed or neutered — you alluded to this earlier with the other services that you provide, especially if you can find out in advance other small procedures that may be needed — I'm guessing that's not uncommon that people come in with, "Yeah, I've never had my pet altered. And I don't know, is this an infection? Could somebody look at this?"

KRISTIN  16:48 
We do all that. Yeah. And as long as we have, and we're able to do it, sometimes we like to hire — I mean if it's a hernia, small hernia that can actually be done while the animal is in surgery, we're happy to do that and provide and we ask for a donation if people can afford that. If they can't, we just do it. It's just the cost of the surgery. We do minor things if we can do it, or we make notes and let the client know.

PHIL   17:16 
Taking care of those minor things often can circumvent a later much more invasive procedure that's more expensive and more risky to the animal. If someone's not getting to see a vet, they don't catch things early.

KRISTIN  17:32 
Correct.

PHIL   17:33 
So even if you're not performing the procedure, just being able to tell the pet owner that, "We can't take care of this now, but get this looked at. It may cost you $200. But if you don't get this looked at, it could cost you thousands of dollars, or you may just lose this animal."

KRISTIN  17:51 
Yep. And there's a lot of problem like with dogs. Testicular cancer in the males. For females pyometra. So it's just a whole bunch of different things that really it's important to actually, it's not only just the pet overpopulation issue, it's also health issues and behavior issues. We can do dogs and cats. And there's a controversy on that on whether, and I understand on both sides of it. I usually try not to do them that young, but we do do surgeries as long as they're two months and two pounds of age. And that's for dogs and cats. Now some vets there's a debate on like, they should be like 4 or 6 months, especially with bigger dogs, who should be fixed later on. I've heard different stories. I'm not sure what's right on that. But we do take care of them at early ages if the client wants them to, especially even the bigger dogs.

PHIL   18:43 
And it's an attempt to mitigate this not being addressed at all. Yeah, in an ideal world, someone who has easy access and the resources to take care of this when their dog is older.

KRISTIN  18:58 
Mm hmm.

PHIL   18:59 
Great. Not an option for everyone. Well, let's rewind a little bit. You've talked about the different communities that you serve. How did you get started? 'Cause obviously you didn't start serving all of these communities. What was day one or leading up to day one of Bergen Spay & Neuter Alliance?

KRISTIN  19:18 
I've been doing animal welfare for almost three decades. You know, I had other careers but it was always as a volunteer. I was with the shelter, local shelter in Denver assisting with adoptions and ran the volunteer department. And then noticed there was a need back in the early 2000s with a lack of spay and neuter outreach. And I saw a lot of the PACFA data that came in to Colorado. And PACFA's Pet Animal Care Facilities Act. And those PACFA numbers of animals the live release rate in the shelters. There are some that were very low in the rural areas. For instance, Pueblo at one time, we're just even talking like 10 years ago, they had 66% live release rate. And I'm like, "Well, how can we change those numbers? How can we maybe solve some of these issues?" And of course, the root of it, of course of anything is spaying and neutering and bringing awareness and education to these communities and providing those resources so they can get their pets fixed. So initially, I started focusing on spay and neuter back in 2003. And it was a group called 4 Paws Pet Center Colorado. And during that time, I would do work with the Colorado Veterinary Medical Association, DVMAS, Denver Area Medical for their SNIP program, which is a local program throughout Denver. And that provided voucher programs for people who couldn't afford surgeries. And there were different participating vets. We had about at one time 50 vets locally that would do one to ten surgeries per month. Those would fill up and these vouchers could be provided by Denver Animal Shelter, and then I would be taking the calls. We would fill up within the first week. So at that point, I started kicking in my own funds with my own foundation with 4 Paws Pet Center. And I started helping out. I got some different vet clinics to do some extra surgeries so people didn't have to wait another month to call back to get one. And during that time, I had done that for several years, and I ended up getting in contact with Felicia through a mutual friend of ours who I named my group after. And they were, I don't know if you want to discuss what you started with the Pet Food Drive, initially?

FELICIA  21:40 
Wendy Birkin and I started Pet Food Drive. Katherine Sachs. Yes, Kathleen, three of us started Pet Food Drive in 2008, during the recession.

KRISTIN  21:49 
Right.

FELICIA  21:50 
And that's how we met.

KRISTIN  21:51 
And that was my second program. And we on boarded that as a second program. So we were doing spay and neuter outreach, and then a pet food drive program. And during that time I was actually rescuing animals. And that was kind of the puppy panderer of my neighborhood is what a friend of mine coined me as because I was always looking for someone. And at that time, there were no laws, I could actually rescue under 20 animals and have it through my own organization without having to be licensed through the state. And after those 20, I would actually take 'em to the Denver Dumb Friends League or different local animal shelters or rescues that could take other pets. And during that time, I met this gal named Tiana and she knew some other people. She was getting her master's up in northern Colorado. And I'm like, "Hey, do you know anyone that can take these dogs?" And so we would kind of tag team. Well, fast forward to 2013. She had finished up her master's and was doing her, um, had done a thesis on running a nonprofit like a business and we met for coffee and she showed me her business plan. I said it was phenomenal. I said, "Hey, do you want to be partner with me?" We had three different programs, three different names. So it was 4 Paws Pet Center Colorado, Inc, Furry Friends Food Drive, you need the pet food drive, and then we had Paws and Co Adoptions. It's very confusing...

PHIL   23:13 
It's a mouthful.

KRISTIN  23:15 
Yes, under the umbrella of 4 Paws Pet Center.

PHIL   23:17 
Your business cards had to be huge. Or just very small font.

KRISTIN  23:19 
Oh, it was ridiculous. And we did a great job. I mean, Tiana was amazing. And the pet food drive, we really did a great job. But I think what happened during that time, and it really evolved and became more adoption centric. Which was no fault of anyone's. It just really should have been a separate entity like these programs, not necessarily the pet food drive, but adoptions and spay neuter part. And so not to go into a lot of detail, but my partner Tiana and I split off and I let her keep my nonprofit status and their group is still flourishing. So we parted ways. I took my mobile truck, and this was in June of 2019 that we separated. Felicia and I had a very good friend who's the one who started that pet food drive for the other organization and huge supporter of spay and neuter and I just thought it was the right thing to do. She had passed away in 2017 from a brain aneurysm. I actually decided that would be the best name to name it after our girlfriend Wendy Bergen. And so that's why it's called Bergen Spay & Neuter Alliance after her. And since we started, and we became a 501(c)(3) early August of 2019, we've done over 4500 right now? 4500 surgeries.

PHIL   23:35 
Well, that's certainly a wonderful tribute to her memory and I think another key point in your sharing the evolution from where you were years ago to now is that recognition of maybe our focus has shifted. Maybe we need to step back and figure out what it is we're trying to do and refocus. Because I do see lots of people with the best of intentions, just sort of falling into, "Okay, we're doing this just because this is what's happening around us. But this isn't what we intended to do. But this is important." Well, maybe someone else can meet that need or maybe you need to change what is the purpose of your organization. So to recognize "This needs, still needs to be addressed. Tiana, you take that." And Tiana takes the ball and runs with it, "And we're gonna do this." And but also that Tiana had a business plan. And I don't think enough not-for-profits do that. They see a need and their business plan is, "We're gonna meet this need."

KRISTIN  24:47 
Yep.

PHIL   24:47 
That's not going to get you a loan at the bank.

FELICIA  25:56 
No.

PHIL   25:57 
And if you were a small business you would need to have a business plan. And the reason for that is the bank wants you to be successful so you can pay back the loan. Well, we want the not for profit to be successful so it can reach its goal so we can serve these populations. And if you don't have a plan you don't give yourself much chance for success.

KRISTIN  26:18 
Yes, I agree.

FELICIA  26:18 
So founders have good hearts and they rarely have plans and missions tend to creep. And those are the two most dangerous things that can happen to a nonprofit. I've been in the sector for 50 years. So I'm always always paying attention to mission creep. And one of the wonderful things about Tiana is that, as one of the founders of PawsCo she recently retired and is pursuing something else. And I haven't talked to her about it but I suspect she was concerned about founder syndrome. And that was the reason why I left my nonprofit is because founder syndrome is such a dangerous thing. You hear about it and you say, "Here's a great idea." The founder says, "Oh, we did that already. We did that. No, no, we don't do that." And the founder becomes the only voice that's heard. So that's what's been really wonderful with working with both Tiana in the past and Kristin now is that both of them see that.

KRISTIN  26:22 
And we were a great partner. I mean, I there's no qualms about, I think Tiana was like "Oh my god." After she left, you know, she goes, "This is really hard. Just with me alone." I go, "I get it. Yes, you can do it." But she had other pursuits, too. And a full time job. I'm in a little bit different situation even though I have other work. I'm not working crazy hours like she was and then trying to run a nonprofit. So that was part of the thing, too. But now I think and my husband being in the animal welfare world, he's like, "You two need to be kind of separate entities." And it was really difficult for funding purposes. It's like, "Okay, well, you're doing what? You're doing spay and neuter?"

PHIL   27:51 
Yeah. "Where's our money gonna go if we give you a donation?"

KRISTIN  27:55 
Yeah, so that was a real challenge.

PHIL   27:56 
There's a link in the description for this episode to Bergen Spay & Neuter...

FELICIA  28:00 
Dot org.

PHIL   28:00 
...where people can see how that money gets spent by either getting involved or finding a clinic. So anybody who wants to know what services are available, go to BergenSpay andNeuter.org. You can see the services. There's a link for getting involved to give of your time or your money, and, perhaps most importantly, how to find one of these wonderful clinics. Your calendar is on your website so people know where you're going to be located. If there's a community that is not part of your network but recognizes that this is a need that should be met, do they need to either reach out to you or — and this is something we like our listeners to do — figure out how to start their own network? Would you be able to offer guidance to anyone who says, "How do we get this up and running? What can you teach us?" Can they sit down with you for a cup of coffee and you show them the ropes?

KRISTIN  28:19 
As long as they live in the Denver area or one of my communities served in Colorado, happy to do that. With our nonprofit it's kind of unique in the sense that some of the funding, I'm a volunteer myself as an executive director founder, but the money that actually goes to Bergen pays for the services for the vet and the tech and the veterinary materials. So it's kind of a unique kind of thing and how we kind of operate. So it's not for everyone.

PHIL   29:26 
For our listeners in Colorado, if you're looking for a animal welfare cause to support here's a great one. Click through the link on the website. Anybody else out there who thinks, "Hey, this could work elsewhere." You're probably right. It could. If you're willing to work hard. So work hard and start your version of what is being done here. Thank you so... Boomer just drifted back into the shot. Hey, buddy.

KRISTIN  29:55 
That noise was Boomer, by the way.

PHIL   29:58 
Handsome boy, Newfie. Well, Felicia and Kristin, thank you so much for what you're doing. And thank you for sharing your afternoon with us from Colorado. Going forward. any updates you have for us anything you want to share with our listeners, let us know and we'll get you back on.

FELICIA  30:15 
Goodbye!

KRISTIN  30:15 
Thank you. Have a great rest of your day.

PHIL   30:18 
Thank you.

I'm Phil Hatterman and you've been listening to Dog Words presented by Rosie Fund.

Thank you to Kristin Des Marais and Felicia Diamond of Bergen Spay & Neuter Alliance for joining us today. Links to BergenSpayandNeuter.org and the Facebook page are in the description.

Next time on Dog Words, Julian Javor from Pet Rescue Pilots updates us on how COVID-19 impacted their work and what's next for this amazing organization that flies pets out of shelters and lands them safely in the loving arms of rescue groups, fosters, and forever homes.

A big thank you to alternative string duo The Wires featuring cellist Sascha Groshang and violinist Laurel Morgan Parks for playing the wonderful music you've heard on today's and previous episodes of Dog Words. Supporting The Wires supports our mission. When choosing the music for each episode of Dog Words, I try to find something from The Wires that fits with the tone of that episode. By no means have I played every song from their catalogue. There's much more from The Wires than what you hear on this podcast. Learn more about The Wires at TheWires.info and download their music on iTunes. Check out FiddleLife.com and learn to play fiddle and cello-fiddle online from Laurel and Sasha even if you've never played before.

Celebrate five years of Rosie Fund by supporting our campaign to sponsor 50 dogs. With your help we've already gotten to 30 dogs. You can donate on our website or Facebook page. You can also contribute by making a purchase from the website store, buying a t-shirt at Bonfire.com, or putting some of our merch in your cart when you shop at BarkYours. Links are in the description. Your donations help fund the Rosie Life Starter Kits that make sure the senior and harder-to-adopt dogs have some of the items they'll need in their forever home.

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Thank you for listening and remember, we save each other.

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