Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Hero pets make human lives better!

Episode Date: May 4, 2018

Nancy Grace talks about how animals help humans -- sometimes even saving lives. Her special guest include Jack Hanna, director emeritus of the famous Columbus Zoo and Aquarium and host of Jack Hanna���s Into the Wild and Wild Countdown, reporter and animal lover Jane Velez-Mitchell, creator of the animal rights website JaneUnchained.com, and two mom's who credit dogs with saving the lives of their children. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Did you know a recent law can leave your personal data exposed online for anybody to find? If you've turned on the news lately, you know the internet has created a dangerous new world. It's time you take back the power by using a new website called Truthfinder. Have you been issued a speeding ticket? Received a lien from the IRS? Did you forget about an embarrassing social media profile? That info may already be online. Truthfinder can help you find it. Truthfinder searches millions of public records,

assembling the data together in one report. Members get unlimited searches, so you can also look up those close to you and make sure they're not hiding something. Visit truthfinder.com slash Nancy. Enter your own name. Get started. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace on Sirius XM Triumph, Channel 132. Mercy! Mercy! Dogs really are a man's best friend. Dogs are our pets and companions. And we love them, even though they often seem unable to do anything more than lie around and run after sticks. You can find all kinds of interesting and incredible stories involving dogs saving humans from disastrous situations.

We hear about heroes and hero detectives all the time, but our unsung heroes, the ones we never hear about, are our furry friends. you real live cases today along with an awesome all-star lineup of a panel including jack hannah we all know jack hannah the director emeritus the animal ambassador of the world famous columbus zoo and aquarium the host of jack hannah's into the wild and wild countdowndown. I mean, this guy. I will never forget doing an HLN show and a Larry King show, which I still have photos of, where Jack would bring on animals from his zoo all the way to New York City. And what a time we had. The best shows ever. And as I've always told Jack Hanna, the best witnesses I've ever

put on the stand were dogs. Also with me, my longtime friend and colleague, Jane Velez Mitchell, reporter and animal lover, Dory Natal, who has an incredible story of how a dog saved her son. And Shannon Niehaus also with us with a dramatic story of a life-saving animal hero. Jack Hanna, welcome to Crime Stories. Tell me your thoughts on animal heroes. Why do they go unsung? Well, you know, we're all in the media, and a lot of times the media likes to talk about negative things with the animals when, you know, it's just news. People love animals since the beginning of time. As I tell people, you know,

I don't know what the prehistoric wolf looked like and things like that, but as things developed over the thousands, tens of millions of years, whatever, then those animals became, you know, probably the food source for many, many people, cave people, whoever was alive then. And, of course, those animals became more, the word I use, habituated, which means used to people. I mean, look at Diane Fossey. I knew her.

She was a friend of mine, and I have a home in Rwanda right next to Mount Grulis where Sue and I have a home there, two miles from where the Grulis live. And you look back at history where the gorillas were poached. They were hunted for body parts and for food and things like this. So as cultures developed throughout the world way back from, who knows, tens of thousands, millions of years ago, cultures developed. And that's what I tell people. I have a saying real quickly, touch the heart to teach the mind. So when I go into these countries all over the world to film, and not just to film,

to talk to them about, you know, taking care of conservation animals like the the birds they might eat too many of, or this and that, and you talk to them about their lives first, the people. Then you can help the animals. I've always learned this over the years of 45 years of doing this, that I go in and help people first, and then that in turns helps the development of the animal world. So that's what I do a great deal of. With me is the renowned Jack Hanna, the director emeritus of the world famous Columbus Zoo and Aquarium and host of Jack Hanna's Into the Wild and Wild Countdown, Jane Velez Mitchell. I will never forget. Oh man, I miss you so much, Jane Velez Mitchell. I will never forget. I think it was during Tot Mom, Casey Anthony. We were all down in Orlando.

And everyone was going to go out to dinner one night. And we ended up at, what was that place? Anyway, it was a steakhouse. And I thought that Jane Velez Mitchell was going to jump out of her skin. By the time it was all over, I was afraid to even have a bowl of spinach. So, Jane Velez Mitchell, why is this so important to you? Well, if we love animals, don't eat them. Don't wear them.

My belief system is that they're not commodities. They're not things for us to use. They're individuals who are entitled to their own lives and that they have so much more in common with us than they have separating us. The animals that have central nervous systems that have eyes, hearts, ears, anybody who has a dog knows dogs dream. So do pigs. So we have so much in common with these animals. And the truth is what's killing them. And by killing them, we're killing ourselves with heart disease and cancer and many other diseases. So there's a way now to live. And honestly, we can't sustain it, Nancy. Animal agriculture is the leading cause of greenhouse gases,

more than all transportation combined. It's the leading cause of habitat destruction, which makes it a leading cause of wildlife extinction. Why? Because we're seven and a half billion people on this planet, but we kill 60 to 70 billion animals that eat a lot of food. So we have to destroy a lot of forests to create cropland to feed 60 to 70 billion animals, many of whom eat a lot more than we do. Jane Velez, tell me about Jane Unchained. Well, thanks. That's your new. Yes. Thank you for asking, Nancy. When I left HLN, they had graciously allowed me to do one animal story a week. I don't know if they knew what they were getting into, but I was able to cover many, many stories that normally don't get national coverage. Jane, can I just tell you

something? I would pass Jane in the hall and she'd say, awesome ratings, Nancy. I'm like, Jane, you got to stop with the plastic bags. Okay. We know they're bad. I know they're bad. I don't think they realize that you are getting in a lot more animal stories and I'm so proud of you. Janeunchained.com. Yes, thank you. And it's a digital news network for animal rights. We had almost 16 million views on Facebook this past year. We just added it up. Woo! Yeah! So we're growing.

Okay, I want you to take a listen, you and Jack Hanna, to a very special guest joining me right now, Dori Natal. I am looking at a photo of you, Dori, and the story that you have to tell is incredible. Thank you. Tell me what happened, Dori. Welcome to Crime Stories here on SiriusXM 132. Tell me what happened.

I'm sure Jack Hanna and Jane Velez are not going to be surprised, but I bet our listeners are. Go ahead. My son was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when he was two. It's an incurable, non-preventable lifetime disease where his blood sugar, we have to inject insulin multiple times in the day just to keep him alive. Without that, we prick a finger every two to three hours. Okay, wait a minute, wait a minute. It's just so much so fast. I always say I'm drinking out of a fire hydrant. I can't take it all in.

Oh, no. You're a baby. You're a baby boy. I have a boy and a girl. Jack, can you believe it, Jane? I actually have children, my lifelong dream, and I'm miserable because I can just see them walking out the door to college. Little do they know, Mommy's going back to school. So I, my, my daughter just had their twins. So

their birthday parties are now they have to be separate misery. My daughter had to spend the night party. And, uh, one of her little friends has diabetes and she has a monitor. It went off all during the night and I was so afraid I would do something wrong. I kept reading the mom's text message instructions and, oh, I was so worried. And as it turned out, it was not, you know, hard to do at all, but it is very, you have to do it. You have to stay on top of it. I did it one night. You are telling me you give your son injections throughout the day just to keep him alive. Yes, that's the thing that I think a lot of people don't really understand about diabetes is that type 1 diabetes especially is a 24-hour disease.

And I'm trying to be a pancreas for him and it's a very hard thing to do and when he was very little he couldn't tell me how he felt if he felt off so we decided to research all the all the technology we have a monitor we finger prick but then we started we are an animal lover family and we decided wait a minute guys go online and you got to look at the picture of what she's talking about there's her beautiful baby boy he's asleep with the covers pulled up there's a diabetes monitor there's stuff sitting on the like a little pack folded out a medipack you see her hand holding the monitor. It has 57 on it. And right beside it, it's a dog that looks a lot like my little fat boy, a little black dog looking up at the picture. And this is on

Facebook. Now go ahead. I'm looking at the picture right now. Tell me what happened. Well, it was a typical night before bed. We always test his blood sugar. We calibrate his monitors and then we go to sleep. I set several alarms overnight. And there are many things that can wake me up, either my monitor, my alarm clock, or Jedi. And the amazing thing about Jedi is he's been with us for five years now, ever since my son was three, is he can sense when- That's the dog, right? Yes. Jedi is my son's dog, and my son's name is Luke.

Oh, my stars. I get it. He's an English love. Guys, this dog, okay. Yes. Jane, you have to go online. We've posted this on CrimeOnline.com. You've got to see this dog.

Jane, no stealing any more pets, okay? Back to Jedi. Go ahead. So we're a Star Wars family, So Luke loves, named him Jedi. And he has, as Luke calls him, magic powers. Jedi knows when he's going to drop or go, his blood sugar go high about 20 minutes before the meters. And sometimes the meters take a long time to catch up, but Jedi, um, they're still researching the actual chemical, but Jedi can smell the changes in Luke's body. And that night he, um, was laying

on my feet and his alert at night is to jump off the bed, jump back on the bed until I wake up. And so that night I was asleep. Everything was fine fine I had tested his blood sugar like I do every night and I had an alarm set for midnight but it or midnight and three but it was between those alarms and yet I jumped up off the on the bed it took me a minute to wake up because this is every night and then he laid on me and I got up went to the kitchen like I always do got his kit tested him and he was 57 57, which means I immediately had to wake him up and have him ingest glucose. What does that mean, 57? What does that mean? It means... Oh, wait a minute. That's what it says right there, 57. Yeah, the typical... We all need

glucose in ourselves to keep our bodies going. It's the fuel for our bodies. And typically most people run between 70 and 120. That's how much glucose they have in the cells. And below 70, it starts to become dangerous. You can have a seizure. You can go into a coma. Luke feels miserable when he's low. He says it feels like a stone sinking into the ocean. It's the body shutting down because it doesn't have enough glucose. Oh, my stars. Wait, let me just take this in a moment. With me is Dory, who you can see the photo of her little baby, her angel in bed,

has type 1 diabetes. You have it for life, and it can cause a death. Your body starts to shut down. I'm looking at this shot of this beautiful angel and he would not be alive today if it were not for the dog Jedi. And I'm looking at your post and you say I've already given him a glucose tab what else could I do there was nothing so in that moment I'm waiting for his blood sugar to come up like I've done a thousand times and I'll do a thousand times more and I feel so alone in a world that doesn't understand what someone with type 1 diabetes goes through on a daily basis.

And then that moment, I see beside you as this mom is standing there looking down on her son, wondering what's happening. And there is Jedi right beside the bed. Yes. I mean, I am so moved. If you could see this photo so tell me again what did jedi do to make you get up you'd already given him his his you'd already taken care of your baby what made the dog how did he get you awake to get in there um he doesn't stop he he gets he lays on me. He'll nudge me. He'll paw me. Um, he will do whatever it takes to get my attention. We've been working with him for years and he alerts multiple times a day.

So for this particular one, he was not giving up until I woke up and, you know, we're tired. And so sometimes I looked at the meter and I said, the meter said he was OK. So I didn't immediately jump. But when he didn't give up, I got up. And there have been several instances where he's found he's alerted and he's here today because of Jedi helping me do everything that I need to do 24 hours a day to keep Luke happy and here. And Jedi is always there for me. It's an extra companion, an extra layer of support to help take care of Luke. And I'm forever indebted to him. To Jack Hanna, director emeritus of the world-famous Columbus Zoo and host of Jack Hanna's Into the Wild and The Wild Countdown. Jack, when a baby boy says Jedi has superpowers.

He has magical powers. How does it happen? How do they do that? How does a pet do that? Well, you know, listening to what you're saying, getting together what everyone is saying so far, real quick, if you got a second. Our daughter, Julie, who lives with us, is 42 years old, at the age of two and a half. One of the worst forms of leukemia you can imagine in the world, 1977. So we rushed her down to St. Jude Hospital at that two-year-old age.

We were in Knoxville at that time, by the way, and they told us she would not live 12 hours. So we got her barely there, and out of 12 kids on her floor, everyone passed away except she and her little boy. Now, Julie, back to the animals, was used for research. She had radiation in the brain. Along with another little boy, there were only two that survived out of the 12 kids. Today, of course, that was one building in 1977. St. Jude has 30 today. So I'm saying that my daughter, Julie, along with the other boy,

gave their lives. Julius has had her last brain tumor two years ago. She's 43, lives with us. We continue to have tumors, but thank God so far all of them have been, she lives with us, not that they're cancerous, but she's been just, she survived today. What I'm saying to you, talking about animal world, what you all are doing, if you look up, there's a list, and I don't know where it is, of how many diseases, whether it be measles, chickenpox, go down to about 40 of them, you'll see how the animal world literally saved human beings by research. I'm not for inhumane. I don't like animal research. We come to slamming dogs and animals and like that against windshields and test cars like they used to do.

No, I'll fight that every day. However, when it comes to animal research for humane, by the way, I said humane, all right, when my own daughter or other human beings are being used, the animal world literally has saved many of us. And one of the hardest things for me to do is what I have over the last 20 years. I guess if you call it, I don't use the word celebrity, by the way. I never have. I'm an animal ambassador, and I don't like the word celebrity.

But when people come to me, and a little child, for example, last year was nine years old. I think it was from Indiana. Her sister, she came. She had maybe her, they told us on the phone, and they called the last wish and special wish. The last wish is you go to my office, you'll see the pictures of these young people who didn't make it. Their last wish was to see an animal. You won't believe this. They came there

last year. You could see that she was, because I've been through all this stuff, she has no hair, all the treatments with drugs and everything, and she hadn't smiled. All of a sudden, I put a little penguin right there in her lap, and sure enough, she smiled for one of the first times. It's amazing what animals will do.

Then I asked the father, let me wipe her hands off. I have a little sloth I want her to touch. It was born there, our zoo in Columbus. And he said, no, Jack, her hands will be washed very shortly, and he pointed to heaven. You don't think that myself and the five of us there didn't lose it? You know, and what you're talking about, the same kind of thing. Animals, for some reason, they have a way with them. When I've seen these children, there are pictures on my walls of ones

that did not make it, but they had their last thing. When I go to children's hospitals, even, with some of the animals, you see these children and how they just come out of that pain, and I wish I could explain it. You know, like I said, I have a saying, I live by it. You have touched the heart to teach the mind. And these kids are really touching my heart more than I am theirs. And I just, you know, I don't know if that's what they, I can answer your question again if you want me to. But I'm just telling you what I have to look at.

I don't have to do it at all. But it's something that really shows me in life what the animal world means to all of us. You know, there were no words more beautiful than what you said, Jack Hanna. And I know you don't want to be thought of as a celebrity, and that's the truth about Jack. He's a world-famous celebrity. Everybody knows Jack Hanna. In fact, I may be guilty of putting you in my last book

where there was an animal-related murder, but you weren't connected to that, Jack. So anyway, what I'm saying is everybody knows you and everybody loves you for what you're doing for animals. Did you know about a recent law that could leave your personal data exposed online for anybody to find? If you've turned on the news lately, you know the Internet has created a dangerous new world. Data breaches expose private information. There's a new cybersecurity threat every other day, and criminals can sell the identity of you and your family on the dark web. It's time you take the power back by using a new website called Truthfinder.

Truthfinder allows you to find out exactly what information exists about you online. Have you gotten a speeding ticket? Received a lien from the IRS? Forgotten about an embarrassing social media profile? Truthfinder searches through millions of public records, puts all that data together in one easy to read report. Members get unlimited searches, so you can also look up those close to you and make sure they're not hiding something from their past. You also get free dark web monitoring to make Truthfinder the ultimate tool in identity protection. If your personal info appears for sale on the dark web, you'll be the first to know.

Visit truthfinder.com slash Nancy. Enter your own name. Get started. Dogs have this unbelievable, cats too, sense of smell. Humans have about 5 million scent receptors. Dogs have up to 3 million, depending on the breed. And it's been proven that they can sniff out a chemical change and detect all types of illnesses in humans, including epileptic seizures, certain types of cancer, diabetes changes.

And a theory is that our present-day dog ancestors' gray wolf pack survival depended on the ability to know which member of the pack was sick. Jane Velez, you have reported on so many pet heroes. Weigh in. Yes. Well, first of all, you should pay attention to your dog in your home. There's a great story out of North Carolina about a dog, a Labrador, who would get very agitated when the family's babysitter was around

and would try to place himself between the 7-month-old boy and the babysitter and growl. And the parents noted the dog's hair would stand up. So they saw this happening so often, they decided to put a recording device in the home when they left. And they found out that this babysitter was abusing their child, slapping the child and insulting the child. And because they were alerted by the dog, they ultimately had this woman arrested. So when you're a parent or you're just a person, pay attention to your dogs. If you want to know what it's like to be an animal, take a vow of silence for a couple of hours and see what mechanisms you're going to use to communicate. You're going to find yourself

tapping and doing a lot of the same maneuvers that dogs can because they can't speak English, but they can communicate. And, you know, what I say is it's not just dogs. We have this odd thing in our culture where some animals, oh, we love them, we adore them, we deify them. Others, they're not entitled to any respect, and we consider them commodities. Let me just tell you that there's tremendous, tremendous intelligence in pigs. In fact, Lulu, a housebroken pot-bellied pig, saved her human companions' lives. The woman was on vacation, Joanne, in Pennsylvania. She collapsed in a heart attack. The pot-bellied pig ran out of the mobile home

where they were staying, crashed through the gates. When a car was coming, the pig would lie down on the road. Several cars just veered around the dog. Lulu kept running back to check on her human companion. Finally, she ran out, threw herself on the ground again. A motorcycle stopped, followed Lulu back to the mobile home, and that's where he encountered Lulu's mom lying there, having had a heart attack, and they called 911. So pigs are extremely intelligent animals. They are smarter than dogs, and they have the intelligence of very young human children. So as we expand our circle of compassion beyond the boundaries of our own species, let's not just stop at dogs and cats.

Let's consider all animals. Because guess what? We're all animals, including us humans. You know, Jane Velez Mitchell, have I told you today, I just love you. I loved you from the very first moment that you filled in for me as a guest host on CNN's HLN. And that was just it. And to hear you speak and tell your stories, I just want the world to love you as much as I love you.

I just can't imagine that I've got Jack Hanna and Jane Velez Mitchell on at the same time. You know, I've got another lady with me, and I want you guys to hear her incredible story. And again, I'm looking at a picture of her, and I've just got to tell you, it just really makes me cry. It's this lovely blonde lady, and she's wearing tights, black tights and a blue T-shirt. And she's looking down at a little boy who looks like he's reading a iPad and he's got his head resting on a big dog.

Like he's a pillow with me right now. And let me just go ahead and destroy your name. I think I'm saying correctly, Shauna Niehaus. No. Yes. Oh my goodness. Alan, let me just rub it in that I pronounced it right the first time. I'm like, some people, you, that I won't mention. Shauna, I'm looking at this little boy and I'm guessing this is your little boy. You're a five-year-old. Yes. What happened? So the day this picture was taken was the day that we met Tornado, my son's service dog. That was the first day of our training class. You know, we live in Japan right now. We're Americans, but we live in Japan.

And we had been fundraising for quite a long time to cover the cost of training for Tornado. And then also for our family, our family of five traveling from Japan to Ohio to the organization that trained Tornado for Kai. And there's so much. Why does Kai need a service dog? So Kai is autistic. Um, we, when he, when he was younger, we noticed that there are some elements to, uh, having an autistic child that can be really challenging. Uh, and as a parent, it's your responsibility to, um, you know, help them live their most fulfilling life, give them the most access to the world, support them, and love them in the best ways that you can. And Kai is a dog person. I'm a

dog person. And he's always, where he would find troubles socially with people or find challenges with people, those social interactions didn't come really naturally to him, but he did always gravitate to dogs. So my husband and I debated getting him a pet dog, but we thought, well, if we're going to get him a dog, let's get him something proper that can be with him. If this is who he he might make a connection to let's go for it so we we we decided to um fundraise and have a tornado raised for Kai so this the day that of the picture that you see is the first day that they met, towards the end of the day, after we had traveled across the entire globe through the continental U.S. to get over to Ohio, we met Tornado for the first time. Kai was really overwhelmed. I think we were all overwhelmed, along with other families who were other recipient families who had received their dogs that day and Kai my husband had to take Kai back

to where we were staying and give him a break and kind of bring him you know in and out you know as he could manage himself and then this was sort of at the end of the day shortly before we were leaving and out of nowhere Kai came out of the children's playroom, grabbed his iPad, and then just came in late on Tornado. And sorry, I'm getting emotional. So that moment where you see me kind of crying is actually it was really like, like an ugly cry was sort of the moment that two years of hope went into that moment. You know, we signed on to fundraise. We signed on to travel. We signed on for all of this hope that Kai might connect with his service dog

and that his service dog, Tornado, would help be that bridge from Kai to bring those connections to the rest of the world, to help give him access to the rest of the world, to help give my husband and I peace of mind when, you know, we live in Tokyo and it's exceptionally busy here and the people, the crowds are out of this world and that's overwhelming for anybody let alone you know a child with sensory processing differences already an american kid in tokyo and he is autistic to add on to it i'm looking at this photo and you say it was worth every fight every diagnosis every dollar every paper filled out every school meeting every tear i shed every step forward every step back to see what you're

seeing right then and it's you say the face of a mother who sees her child, who she cannot hug, wash, dress, snuggle, and touch freely because of his autism, now laying on his service dog of your child's own free will. And I've got that photo posted on CrimeOnline.com. Jack Hanna with me, Jane Velez, Dori Natal, Shauna Niehaus. Jack, what is it about the presence of animals? I mean, hold on, Jack.

Jane Velez Mitchell, you'll be happy to know I've got six pets in the house right now. Our rescue, as I say pound puppy, but I don't think we're supposed to say that anymore. A rescue dog that they told me was a purebred dachshund. Well, that is so not true.

But whatever he is, we love him. He's insane. Fat boy. Cinnamon girl, who is the cat. My nephew and his wife and baby are living with us right now. They have Precious and Benji. And then my daughter got obsessed with guinea pigs. Now we have Abby and Chloe who chase each other all night long and week and popcorn and the whole works.

So, and she wants another one. Just want to tell you that. Jack Canna, what is this calming, this calming influence that pets have. Even at night after we have supper and we finished our homework and we're sitting around watching something on Disney, they want to bring the dog in to sit with them. What is that? I just think the dogs are bright enough to know about what the temperament is, what's going on at night time. These animals sit and watch and learn things.

But one thing I want to mention real quickly, I was listening to what Jane was saying, and the three things I talk to people that I learned from my dad on the farm when I was five years old. I wanted to get a little parakeet. And my dad said, Jack, I know you love this little parakeet you saw in the store window. Yeah, I do, Dad. He said, remember something, son. It's a word called responsibility, just like on this farm here. You're responsible for the life of that animal. That means you will take care of it every single day. You'll make sure it's had a great life. You're not going to

have some little small cage, and you're going to take care of that animal, Jack. But you know something, after you love something like you do, you have a responsibility when you have a pet. You have the love for it. You have the responsibility for it. And you know something, I figured out about 20, 30 years ago, guess what else it teaches? And you may think I'm being morbid here. It teaches death. For example, when little Petey died five years later, I buried him in a cheerios box at the top of our hill there on the farm. Now, that was my first one. And next time we had the terrible thing, I had two little goats and my dad felt terrible. One of them hit underneath the car and lost his life. Now, after those two things, my grandfather died two years later. Now, what I'm

saying, everybody, is for me to go through death of a grandparent or my parents are both gone, you see how as you get older, what happens? And you may think I'm crazy when I use that word death. I won't use it in front of children. But what it teaches all of us, at least taught me, and I know it teaches others, that when you have an taught me, and I know it teaches others, that when you have an animal like that, whether it be a dog, a bird, whatever it might be, it teaches those things. You have to love that animal, your responsibility for that animal, for its life, and life will end. But a lot of young people like myself didn't understand.

We all know this. I'm 70 now, and you never think life is going to end until you've seen what I'm sure Jane and myself and a lot of you guys have. If you work with animals, you know what's going to happen eventually, but children don't understand it. You don't sit there and talk to them about it, but they'll be exposed to it. And I may sound corny on this interview today, but those are the things I've lived by when it comes to animals. You love them, you're responsible for those animals, and then at that point, you know that day will come. But a lot of people don't understand that day will come. And that's what I think the animal world helps with as well. You know, Jack, another thing that I love about you and your whole team, your beautiful family and wife, you live by the words you preach.

You don't say one thing and do another. And you know, at a time where every time I go online or dare to turn on the news, I hear about one more famous person has done allegedly a horrible thing. And you know what? That's not true about Jack. That is not true. What he says, he lives by. And you know what's interesting? You'll be happy to know all four of you lucy first became obsessed well john david got obsessed with dogs hence fat boy street name nitro and um then lucy was obsessed with cats i'd sneak up on her on her ipad to see what she was looking at and it would be cat videos i mean we all we all had to watch them. One cat video after the next. Okay, so that's how we got Fat Boy and Cinnamon.

Then we had Cinnamon for about six months until the video started again about guinea pigs. Last night, I said, can I have that awesome salad you're making? She says, Mom, this is for the guineas. I mean, it's a full-on salad. It's carrots. It's red bell peppers, green bell peppers, romaine lettuce, cucumbers, zucchini, the works. And she makes two full-on human salads. No wonder they poop all the time.

I just pray. I pray that she doesn't get in horses, okay? I just don't think I can take it. And I know more guineas are on the way. Listen to this story, guys. This woman, Diane Boucher, was woken up from a deep sleep at 4.30 in the morning by Oreo, her cat. The cat wouldn't stop screaming, would not stop screaming. She ran out to check on the cat.

And you know that sound when you hear your cat or dog make a crazy, high-pitched, screamy sound? She ran out, and what she found were flames. And if it had not been for her cat waking her up, you know, she would be dead and her home destroyed. There are stories like David Cici, 14 years old, couldn't swim, fell out of his dad's boat. And within minutes, a dolphin called Filippo had come to the tourist attraction and saved the boy's life, pushing him up out of the water to safety.

I mean, a dog, Brenda Owen, gone out for a walk with her dog. She spotted a wheelchair on a riverbank, sees a woman in the water. She called out. The woman didn't answer. She said to the dog, fetch. The dog jumped straight in that cold river water and pulled the woman to shore. I mean, it goes on. A two-year-old child in Texas walking with his grandmother when Arf, the family's dog, got very agitated so badly,

the dog thought, I mean, the grandmother thought, I better take the child inside. The dog's going crazy. The child's mother came out to find Arf in a fight with a 24-inch North American coral snake. And, Jack Hanna, you can tell us about coral snakes. Go ahead. Yeah, well, it's a snake, obviously, that can be fatal. It's not a matter of like a rattlesnake. You know, people talk about rattlesnakes all the time. The good Lord made a rattlesnake because a snake will rattle, so you don't step on it. People say, oh, my God, it like a rattlesnake. You know, people talk about rattlesnakes all the time. The good Lord made a rattlesnake because a snake will rattle, so you don't step on it.

And people say, oh, my God, it's a rattlesnake. Well, be very happy it's a rattlesnake. A coral snake looks like some other kinds of snake, king snake, things like that. But that's neurotoxic and hemotoxic, as you know, is a rattlesnake, those kind of snakes, where it's just a very painful bite and also just rots. But when it comes to a coral snake, which is pretty rare, the animal has to basically chew. It doesn't have the fangs.

And that's neurotoxic, which means it goes to the brain and you go to sleep, basically. And I'm sorry to say, you might just sleep forever. So people get mixed up on snakes. I've filmed snakes all over the world. But people always ask me the question, oh my gosh, Jack, have you been bitten? I don't like that question because as Jane will agree, if I'm bitten or something by an animal, usually

most of the time, it's my fault. It's not the animal's fault. When we film out there for 30 years, I made it clear 30 years ago, you respect. It's called respect for your animal at home. It's respect for the elephants, the lions. Some film crews love to go in there and push it to where the damn gum thing attacks the Jeep and throws it over. And some guys get bit, you know, the reality TV. I'm not a big fan of it because it doesn't teach the young people

how to go to Africa or India or the North Pole, South Pole, wherever I go. We film with respect. Okay, maybe you don't get the best film of something attacking and blood flying every which way. That's their home, not my home. And we always feel with respect to these animals. We've always done it. And our crew has been together for 23 years. And we all work as a team, as a family. And we look at those wild animals.

You're an animal at home. You respect your animal at home. You don't sit down and take a dog. My dad taught me that. And you put food there and all of a sudden you have a two-year-old or somebody visits you, and they go over and grab the food out of the dog bowl, and Jane will tell you that could be a fatal bite. Not a fatal bite. That could be a terrible bite.

So kids have to learn about animals, and I know I'm jumping around a lot. My dad used to tell me on the farm I have AT&T or ADH. I don't know what the heck I have. My dad would tell me. I can't remember if it was ADH or AT&T. ADHD. Okay, whatever it is. Anyway, I jump around a lot, but I just try to explain things about animals and some dogs and they're even bitten anybody, but you can't go up to a dog and

just grab the food out of the pot. I learned all these things on the farm and how to respect the animal world, and that's what I try to do when I film and when I talk about the animals. If you come to the Columbus Zoological Park. I think Jane knows 98% of our animals today, 98% come from other zoos. I can go collect if I need a sperm or an egg or something like that, because I think we really are the arch of the world. We weren't that, we were not that by the way, 20, 30 years ago, but today millions, tens of millions of dollars are spent on to make sure these animals have habitats that are some of the best in the world. If you can't touch the heart to teach the mind of these people about your dogs or cats

or some of these animals, when I do my speeches to 2,000 or 3,000 people in these theaters, I ask the audience, how many of you have ever seen an elephant in Africa? No hands. How many of you have ever seen a killer whale? No hands. How many of you have seen, I could go through a list of 5,000 animals, and usually sometimes I'll see a dolphin you'll get some hands up so what i'm trying to say is in the zoological world in the aquarium world having these animals now that we know how to breed them and have them and have the proper habitats and then i'll agree with people way

back when they weren't good habitats but now today we do that because we have to let people see for themselves why they would love an animal to save an animal. You can't love something, you can't save something. In the world, my wife hates this term but I'll say it real quick. I have kids and grandkids. I'll tell you one thing as I travel the world. The main thing we have everybody, you can do global warming, say everything you want to, it's called overpopulation. I think Jane knows this probably. Overpopulation takes animals' room. It's that simple. And it's not rocket science

or anything. We can sit here and debate on global warming. You can debate all you want to. Water, air, all this stuff. What cause is this? The good Lord put the earth here. He told us to do with what predator-prey relationship on our earth. Obviously with so many people, it's been screwed up. So that's why we have to sit here and

at least teach people something about other animals throughout the world and that kind of thing. Hopefully people learn from their dogs and cats. Without the animal world, none of us would be here in many different ways. The animal world has taught me a lot, by the way. When I go out there and study the gorillas or watch them for all these years and the lions, which are a real social animal, not like the solitary cats most of them spot. You see the snakes, for example. You know, these are all creatures on Earth. And if you go out and learn about them and see them, then you respect them.

You know, Jane, what you were saying earlier about it's not just cats and dogs. On a hot August day at Brookfield Zoo, a three-year-old boy falls into a gorilla enclosure and actually gets knocked out. A female lowland gorilla, Binti Jew, guarded the boy from all the other gorillas. Then she picks the baby boy up in her arms like a human would hold a baby. She's got her own 17-month-old baby on her back, and she carries the human baby 60 feet to an entrance and hands the baby to the human zookeepers. I mean, Jane, why don't people understand that animals are extremely intelligent? Well, because they can't speak English, and this is why some people have here in Los Angeles, you'll probably chuckle. But one of the things that some of the animal rights activists are

doing is taking a vow of silence for a couple of hours every day to communicate non-verbally so that they can understand what it's like to be an animal. And so, you know, animals exhibit unconditional love. They are highly intelligent. They have all the emotions that humans have. They experience terror. They experience loneliness. They experience longing. They have all the whole range of emotions. I mean, my gosh, my four little rescues here at home, we've got a reality show going on right here with Cabo San Lucas, Foxy, and Foxy from Fresno, rescued from the streets of Fresno, Little Rico, rescued from the streets of Puerto Rico, and Tux, the cat rescued from Queens, New York.

I want you to tell me, Jane Velez Mitchell, from your encyclopedia mind about animals, an animal hero story. Yes. Well, you know, we've had fires here in California. And of course, we urge everyone, take your companion animals with you if there's any kind of danger, because you never know when you're going to get back. Well, there was a family in Sonoma County just recently that had to evacuate. They woke up, they saw the flames encroaching, they grabbed their daughter, they grabbed their eight dogs and cats, But one dog refused to leave. Their house was totally destroyed.

They came back several days later, and Odin had saved the eight rescue goats, as well as a baby deer who had joined fleeing the flames. And he was singed and he was limping, but he saw it upon himself as his responsibility to herd and save those goats. With me today, Jane Velez Mitchell, my friend, longtime friend and colleague. You know what, Jane? You're beautiful on the inside and the out. My awesome friend, Jack Hanna, director emeritus, animal ambassador

of the world-famous Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, host of Jack Hanna's Into the Wild and Wild Countdown, Jack Hanna, friend, my new friends, Dory Natal, and her dramatic story of how Jedi saved her baby's life, and Shauna Niehaus with a dramatic story of her son who is autistic and his new life with his service dog and their struggle living in a strange land with a strange language but with a wonderful, wonderful rescue pet. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast.