NZXT PODCAST - #109 - Battersea

Episode Date: October 15, 2021

This week we are joined by Jo from UK-based animal rescue Battersea! We talk about rescuing furry friends, charity, and what it means to be a gamer. Learn more about Battersea and their rescue efforts at battersea.org.uk and sign up for the "Gaming to the Rescue" campaign for a chance to win a custom-wrapped NZXT PC at nzxt.co/battersea Tune in live every Thursday at 10AM PT on twitch.tv/NZXT and send your questions to: [e-mail]

I forgot how bad that song was. All right, folks. Let's start the show. Hold up. One more time. There we go. Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 109 of the NZXT podcast, the official podcast of the NZXT community.

This show is recorded live every Thursday at 10 a year and Pacific Center time. The official NZCT Twitch and is available to stream on demand on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcast, Spotify, and SoundCloud. So do us all a favor. Go save some puppies and kitties because we love all the Ames. animals here. My name is Dennis and with me as always is Ivan. No one's no one can hear me. Yes again. And my name is showing up on the camera for some reason. It's because we're on Google meets today. We're going to we're going to way way back to the old days to the old days. I like how you cropped your name out, but he docs mine instead. I so I I crop my name out because

for some reason you're you're like on a square for some reason like I I don't know it's it's it's weird. I can't, I'm not going to mess with it. It works. I'm not touching it because when it comes to light production, you touch anything, it usually breaks. So, enough about my finger, enough about Ivan not being it'll be heard and ringing another podcast. We have a special guest. Today's special guest is Joe Anna or Joe.

And is that, is it, is it, is it, is it, is it, is it, is it, is it, is it, is it, is it, is it, is a Puzzo? Yes. Okay. Buzzo. Yeah. Buzzo. From, UK-based

Animal Rescue Battersea. How are you doing? Hi, I'm good, thanks. How are you guys? Super excited to have you on. I heard that we have some other special guests joining us later on today. We'll get to that in a minute.

Hopefully everyone watching live can enjoy that. If you're not watching live, if you're listening off the air, listening on demand, just know that we still love you very, very much. So Joe, can you let us know what you do at Battersea? Yes. So I'm the feline welfare manager at Battersea, which means that I'm basically the buck stops with me when it comes to the welfare of the cats in our care.

So I oversee the welfare of all of the cats in our care. And that's, we have three sites. We've got Battersea, Dogs and Cats Home in London. And then we have another site in Old Windsor and another site in Brands Hatch, which, you know, You guys may not know what that means, but there are other sites in the UK. And yeah, I oversee the welfare of the cats, make sure that they are being managed really well. They're happy, they're healthy, and that they, you know, have a nice, smooth journey through to their new homes. Has anyone ever told you that the name Battersea sounds like kind of evil?

No. Not until you can say that. I never thought of that. Yeah, when I first heard it, I was like, man, that sounds like a, like almost like a fictional, like Viking village and like Game of Thrones or something. I don't know. It was just like a very like powerful sounding name. So it renamed that way because right next door to us is the Battersea Power Station. It's quite a famous London landmark, which has been there for a few decades. And I don't know if you've heard of it, but we're really.

literally right next door to it. So we've just become Battersea dogs and cats home. That's actually really cool. How many animals would you say do you guys rescue a year? So between, I mean, amongst our three sites, dogs and cats, we care for about 3,000 dogs and cats every year. That's a lot. So we're pretty big, yeah.

We're quite a big, well-known charity, animal rescue charity. So we do rescue quite a few dogs and cats and rehome them. Do you guys rescue any other animals or just dogs and cats? So just dogs and cats, but I mean, we've certainly had our fair share of hamsters, ferrets, rabbits. I think we may have had some snakes as well. But we do just specialize in dogs and cats. Has anybody ever tried to bring in like a pig or something? Not that I'm aware of it.

It's not, I don't think it wouldn't be unheard of. What's the, what's like the like most exotic? animal as someone said they need to help with, that you can recall. My goodness. I mean, we certainly get, you know, we get calls for help for maybe reptiles and things like that. Other than maybe the odd snake, I don't think we've ever actually taken any in. But that's probably about as exotic as it gets. Certainly birds as well.

We've had birds brought in a few times, yeah. How long have you been doing this, like saving animals? Battersea. So we were established in sort of the 1800s, and we are one of the oldest, yeah, we're one of the oldest animal rescue charities in, probably in the world. We were established by a lady named Mary Tilby, who just started rescuing, it started with dogs, rescuing dogs off the streets, you know, and then we started taking in cats in sort of the early 1900s. And, yeah, it's just gone from strength to strength since then. So we're quite old and well established. I remember I heard this crazy story.

I don't know this is true. This happened in, I believe it was London in the 1800s where there was like some sort of like, I guess it was a war or something going on. But anyway, like I guess people were fighting and they actually had to call a truce in the middle of this war they were going through because all these like rabid dogs started attacking everyone and then like the the two sides

like work together to like kill these dogs I guess and then started fighting each other I don't know is it have you ever heard anything about that? I can't say that I have I'm afraid no I thought that sort of is going like a different direction like like like they're

fighting in trenches and they're about to like shoot and then they see like a pack of kittens and they all have to stop and like save the cats and like no they just you know yeah it was like I've heard that story before. I don't know where I've heard it. I was just wondering if it was true or not.

It's probably made up for all I know. That's crazy. That's a long time. How about you? How long have you been saving animals? Oh, gosh, I've been working with animals myself for probably about 15 years. So I started out in the States and then started working over here about 12 years ago. And I've been at Battersea for six years now.

So is that why you don't have a British accent? I suppose, yeah. I'm kind of a mutt, really. My dad's American, my mother's Irish. So, yeah, I don't really have the either. I don't think it's a very strong American accent, but I certainly don't have an English accent, that's for sure. Yeah.

What are, I guess, like, what are some of the big challenges that you run into running, running or working at Battersea? I mean, certainly just, you know, we are always having to take in dogs and cats when owners are going through difficult situations or for various reasons like, you know, if they've had a new baby or for allergies or, you know, if a landlord doesn't allow a pet in the home. So it's always bad that an owner has to give up their animal for those reasons. But obviously that's why we're here. And certainly during, you know, COVID. as well. We had quite a few, well, we had a few dogs and cats coming in post-COVID, you know, because a lot of people wanted to get a dog or cat during COVID and lockdown. And then afterwards,

realized that they couldn't take care of them once they were going back to work. And we certainly, we do get our fair share of welfare cases. So, you know, maybe cats are dogs that come into us in a bit of a state and they need to be nursed back to health both physically and, you know, their emotional well-being as well. Right. I've actually gotten in trouble by an animal rescue place and got yelled at by people that worked there. It was really interesting actually because this was like probably 15 years ago.

My family, we were visiting Mexico and there was like a construction site and my sister sister, she found this little puppy dog. It was tiny. It was like, it was maybe like a week old. But this dog, you can tell right away, it was really sick. It had, you know, no fur on it. I think I had like some teeth marks on its legs. And it was sick. And it was actually eating, eating dry concrete. And we feel really bad, you know, and we were like, let's save this dog. Because if we don't save it, it's going to die out here. So we actually smuggled it across the border. Yeah, so we smuggled this dog across the border.

And the first thing we did was take it to animal rescue. Because we don't know where to do dog. We just wanted to say the dog. And so we took it to the animal rescue. And the first thing the they did was like, what the hell? Why are you guys bringing this dog in here? Like can you see it's sick? It's going to infect all these other animals.

And you shouldn't be smuggling animals across the border and that's illegal and all it like they were really upset at us but in you know in my mind we were doing the right thing but you know i guess you know they raised some really good points because we could have caused some serious harm um basically no one no other animals got sick but uh they told us all right we're going to take the animal in we're going to quarantine in it but you know just so you know this dog's really sick and it looks like it might die but just come back in a week or two and we'll see how things are and we came back and i think two weeks later And the dog was like three times the size, didn't even look the same.

And we were like, is that the same dog? And they said, yeah, it's the same dog. It's healthy now. You guys could take it home. So we took it. Yeah, we took it home. And little did we know that that dog ended up being a great dane. Oh, wow.

Yeah, it ended up becoming this giant massive dog that was in our family for a really long time. And he's passed away now. But it was interesting to me. Like I always thought like an animal. rescue was just like you can just drop off any animal on the doorstep and you're going to take care of it but no that's not the case right yeah i think yeah i mean we definitely get people who kind of turn up with a very sick animal or an animal they can no longer care for and we'll certainly do everything we can but every rescue is probably you know they have to think about the big their population they have and anything that coming in you know could potentially put that population at risk having said that you know there's usually things like isolation areas and quarantine areas for cats and dogs like that But it's just human nature, isn't it? You see something that's sad and sick and tiny

when you want to help it. He certainly had a good life. Yeah. And I guess speaking of animals, how about you show us some of yours? Do you mind giving us a little tour over there and showing us what you got? Yeah.

Yeah. I can teach you guys just down through the catarie. Now, I'm going to try to reverse the camera. so that you can actually see where I'm going. I am not very tech savvy, just FYI. Okay, neither are we. Yeah, Sam. Actually, neither is Dennis.

Yeah. Right. Let me not cover the camera with my hand. That might be helpful. So this is one of the, one moment, let me move that everywhere. One of the floors of the cat's tree, we actually have three floors because, well, we just have three floors. The first floor is the re-homing floor, which is where the cats that are kind of ready for a homing will be waiting for their new home. The floor that I'm on now is our maternity floor.

So maternity usually means... Uh-oh. I think it was enjoying a little bit. Let me see. I do have... Hey, guys. So you... Okay.

So this is their pen. You'll see that they are quite messy. They just love ridiculous things like bits of shredded paper. That to them is amazing. So I'm going to go in and I'm going to introduce you to this lovely. Hi, guys. Let me make sure nobody escapes while I'm walking in. I think this might be a Twitch first, like us having cats on stream at an animal rescue.

So cute. Oh, my God, look at the kitties. Just sit down so I can, here we are. So this, now these are called the M. kittens because sometimes the way when we are in undated with kittens we just we kind of go through the alphabet and naming them so that we cannot kind of keep track of who's who so what's that uh is that a purple puck on the floor there i see what's that purple thing on the floor purple yeah there's like a little purple toy on the floor you might say um i guess just like a

little horse uh uh oh there you go i thought it was that actually one of one of these things that have right here. This is the greatest show that we've ever had, Ivan. This is probably my favorite episode so far. Let's get the stare at cats for an hour. It's a horse poochie. It's funny.

We should make a horse poochie. Oh my God, look at that one. Let's see if he wants to have a little. Oh, my God. I get my knee out of the way. Can I have that back? So, yeah, these guys came into us because unfortunately, during lockdown, what happened, at least over here, is a lot of the vets could only see animals for really essential emergency operations.

And so a lot of owners had to wait to get their cats neutered. And that meant that potentially there were some unwanted pregnancies. And these guys were the result of a member of the public's cat that she wasn't able to get neutered during lockdown. Now luckily, the vets are all back up and running and everything's fine. But yeah, this was a litter of kittens that came about sort of accidentally. So are they all related? Yeah, this is one litter. There's five of them.

So what do we have? One, two, three, four. There should be another ginger. Oh, he's sleeping. I don't know if you can see. He's kind of tucked in. They're all related and they all look different. That's interesting.

Yeah, you can actually have a different dad to one litter. Really? I didn't know that. Yeah, so the female, this is a bit of a lesson here in reproduction, but when the female goes in the season, essentially all the males come out of the woodwork. You know, she's sent marking to advertise that she's available. and, you know, she can mate with more than one male.

And oftentimes the kittens can actually have more than one dad. Oh, my God, that's so cute. It's crazy. I never knew that. Wow. Yeah. I think that's why. Can any other animals do that?

I don't know. I mean, I don't know if other animals that have multiple, I guess, mating partners can potentially have maybe dogs as well. I know certainly cats. He's woken up now, so he's come to say hello. Yeah. So you call this the cattery, where you keep the dogs. Is that called the dogggery?

No. What do you guys call the dog board? The kennels. So, yeah, casserie is, I guess, I don't know if that's a British word, but cattery where you, if somebody's going away on holiday, they'll board their cats in a casserie, or a catarray is, you know, where cats that are looking for homes. And then, yeah, just kennels for the dogs.

So all these cats, are they eventually all going to get adopted? Is that the plan? Yeah. Yep. So they'll all, yeah, be neutered and vaccinated and treated for, you know, preventatives like fleas and worms. And we also microchip over here. And then they will eventually go to new homes when they're not eating.

a paper. Hey. Yeah, we just, we, uh, we, uh, here at my place, we adopted a cat, uh, things like three, two, three months ago now. I, I, I, I don't even know. And it was the same process, like the, she had her shot. She, she was neutered. Uh, she was chipped and everything. So it was a, it was really cool. That, that, that adoption, uh, rescue process was really lengthy because we had to apply. Then they did like a phone interview. And then we had another interview. And then that's when we were actually able to like choose a cat.

Then we had to go meet the foster mom. And that was a process. And she basically had to make sure that she liked us. And then. Yeah. And then we were able to take the cat home with us. Yeah. That sounds, I mean, most rescues will have kind of an application process.

Yeah. For us, we, we have what's called a matching process. So we just make sure that the, you know, your home environment and what you're looking for and also what you can provide matches what the cat's needs are and, you know, the type of home that the cat is looking for. And we have a team of our homers that basically do that matching process just to ensure it's a, you know, a lifelong match and these guys are set for life. Oh, I don't know. He's coloring. Hello. Hello. Do you ever, you know, like one of these, like these cats and just keep them for yourself if you like. if you really want them?

Well, no, I already have two cats of my own, and they're very happy just being the two of them, as much as I'd love to take more. Yeah, I think maybe not. There's always the odd favorite that you think, oh, I'd love to take him home, but I would always go through an older cat over a kitten. How far can you guys, you know, send these cats to,

like, if someone in the United States of America wanted to adopt one of these, you like mail one over here? Unfortunately, no. So we do adopt throughout the UK. But if somebody does get in touch with us, because we have had cases where people have gotten in touch from Spain, I think. And even when we do a big push for like a social media push

for a cat, oh, we're going to watch them use the literature. When we have a social media push for a cat who maybe has this sort of a funny look or a really sad story, We'll get people from the states, from Canada, from, you know, Australia asking if they can re-home the cat and if we can send the cat to them. But unfortunately, no, that wouldn't be in the best interest of the cat. And we always say that it's best to go with a cat who's, you know, with a rescue center that's closer to home. Because there's cats all over the world looking for homes. Hi, guys.

Do famous people ever go in there and adopt animals? Yeah, we've had a few famous adopters. the one and only Tom Hardy adopted a pair of kittens from us, and I believe he's adopted a dog from us as well. He's one of our ambassadors. He's always kind of doing

bits and pieces for us and plugging battering. He's great. And we've also had Jerry Hallowell, who you all know is Ginger Spice. So she's adopted. I'm not going to show you the guy longer, Jay. Let's go to this guy here. She's adopted from us as well.

And we've also re-homed cats to, so we've re-home Larry, who you might know as the Downing Street cat. He lives in 10 Downing Street in the Prime Minister's residence. Oh, cool. Oh. He's a famous cat. Yeah. Where are you going? Yeah, I have a toddler, and she recently discovered the cartoon Garfield.

So she's like, she's like obsessed with cats now. She has a little cat toy that she walks all the time, so you probably have to get her a cat one of these days. I think maybe. I think you should. I mean, yeah, cats and kids, you know, we are always for rehoming cats to live with children because then you can teach them to be respectful and compassionate and how to appropriately, you know, interact with animals. So it's always great to kind of start them off young. Is there a reason why cats don't like me?

because I've had cats before my life and they've always hated me. Like I actually have scars on my hands. Seriously? Yeah, from being attacked by a cat. And like I've never met a cat that liked me. Is there like a particular reason why a cat would like, I don't know, maybe it's the way I smell or something?

You know, maybe when I like... I mean, it could be. So one of the biggest, one of the biggest things that cats look for in a person is someone who's actually if you were to just completely ignore a cat, they will probably come up to you and want to interact, whereas the more that you're trying to kind of go after them and, you know, come here, kitty, kitty, kitty,

and kind of wanting that interaction, that's when they'll sort of, you know, skiddle and run off the other way. So it could just be the way in which maybe you're approaching them or interacting with them that they don't see, you know, they're not keen on. I guess you know what it is. I do stare at them.

That could be seen as quite scary for them, you know, that direct eye contact. She's saying you're mean, Ivan. She's saying you're a mean person and cats aren't lucky because you're meany. Have you ever looked like a cat straight at the eyes? Like, they look so, I don't know what it is. Like their eyes are like, you can like look into their soul or something. And it feels like they're like staring into yours. It's like really, really interesting.

I guess I'm going to just start ignoring cats then. So like that's like, yeah. I mean, I don't know, like, I was really worried that, like, our cat wasn't going to like me either because I never had a good experience with cats. And then the one we got, she's, like, the sweetest thing ever. She's, like, super nice. Except when she, like, bites my nose and, like, I'm trying to sleep, she just, like, walk up to my chest, purring as loud as you possibly can, and takes a chomp on my nose and just walks away. I'm like, okay, cool, thanks. Maybe she's trying to, what, wake you up for breakfast or, I don't know.

She does it to be a jerk. There's no rhyme or reason. The interesting thing, too, about cats to me is that they, I feel like they don't even need owners, like, to be honest. Because, like, they're very independent, you know. Like, like, right now, my parents, they actually have, like, I'm not even exaggerating. They have a dozen cats that they go to their backyard every day to eat. my mom started feeding them and then like they'll disappear like the entire day and then they'll you know come back at night or whatever but I don't have I have no

idea what they're doing throughout the entire day like they're not in my mom's backyard so I don't know where they're at and I almost feel like like they can kind of survive on their own is that true do you think like cats are more independent than dogs or any other animal well I mean the argument is that cats really aren't fully domesticated because with dogs domestic was essentially we domesticated dogs. We chose to kind of domesticate them for our, you know, for our uses, whereas cats chose to domesticate themselves when they started coming closer and closer to human settlements

and hunting and, you know, providing rodent control around sort of grain settlements and things like that. And so we didn't really impose that on them. They chose to do that themselves. And so you can argue that they're not even fully domesticated. There is still that wild animal in there. And that's why they can be quite self-sufficient. In London alone, there are thousands, maybe even millions of feral cats.

And those are cats that are not socialized to humans. They live completely. I mean, they may scavenge for food and they may be fed by people who leave food out for them. But other than that, they're really quite self-sufficient. They don't really have homes. And they're happy. They thrive. And so, yeah, cats are kind of still, what are you doing?

are kind of still wild, wild animals. Yeah, because you have a dog and your dog runs away, that dog is going to have a really hard time, you know, finding food and finding shelter and all that, right? So that's interesting. Yeah. No, cats are much more self-sufficient. That's why people think they're, they could be quite independent because they can go off and, you know, hunt and do kind of explore and have, you know, fulfill those natural behaviors quite happily while you're out at work or that kind of thing, whereas dogs are much. more reliant on people. Yeah.

So, yeah. So you said you have two cats. Do you have any dogs? No, no dogs. The cats won't allow it, I'm afraid. Oh, no. That's sad. I am a cat person.

I will admit it. Yeah, we got our, we got our puppy first, and then we got the cat, and the cat doesn't allow the dog. So she's pretty much taken over the home. Is it true that cats and dogs hate each other? Yes. just adjusting myself here. It depends.

You know, if you, if you introduce them appropriately, they can get along quite well. But anything that the cat isn't used to or hasn't sort of grown up being exposed to can be quite scary for them. And that includes dogs. That includes children. So with kittens like these guys, for example, we try to socialize them really well. So they're pretty robust and, you know, socially able to cope with a busy household or maybe living with a dog, things like that. So it's all about the socializing and how much they're exposed to when they're young. Do you have a favorite cat breed?

I like the domestic short hair, which over here we just call them mauggies, basically just your typical old-fashioned cat. Somebody's using the toilet. You might hear that noise over there, so that's what that is. It's just scraping. Oh, yeah, yeah. You've seen this breed. take you next door to one of our adults and leave these guys to... Yeah, let's check him out.

We, if that's all right. I don't know. I kind of love kittens. I mean, no one's just chilling. It's just great. It's almost like the cat's talking to us, right? Do you stay here with these guys if you like? No, for sure. Let's see what the other guys got going on. So you're saying that you were saying that you guys have a have a maternity ward? Yes, so we have an area that we, excuse me, we house our mums and kittens and kittens on,

and that just means it's a little bit more quiet so that if we have any pregnant cats or, oh, that's a smelling one, sorry. Excuse me, can you move out of my way? So if we have any queens or cats who are giving birth, then it's a nice quiet area for them. All right, I'm just going to, excuse me, guys. Did you call it the caternity ward? That's a good one. That's not a good idea, actually.

We missed out on that. It's always trying to change it. I'm going to introduce you to Pepe. Pepe. That's an awesome name for a cat. Pepe the cat. Yeah, Pepe the cat. If he's actually interested.

Hey. So he is 13, so he might be sound asleep. He's actually sound asleep. He's looking very content. You want to come down? Oh, no. Right. I can find someone else who's, it is sort of past their bedtime.

So some of the cats may be having a snooze. Who's that, meowing? Oh, it's Nala. We definitely don't want to meet Nala. Oh, no? Why not? So Nala is a cat who, I'm just going to go get my key. so I can open up another pen.

She's a cat who we've deemed would actually be, oh, keys, thank you, much better suited to living in sort of a farm or a stables. Oh, interesting. So not only do we re-home cats to pet homes, but we also find homes for those cats that aren't really socialized to people and would actually be much better living in, like a farm or a stables, and they have free run at the place,

they're cared for by someone, they have food more, shelter. Right. Hi. Those are the ones that go to the Tiger King? Nope, definitely not. Did you watch that? Did you watch that show? I did. Yes, it was quite riveting, I have to say. Yeah, I did watch that. Yeah, it was a, I gave it super interesting to me because I guess they're like, you know, just cats in general, like, like a like these like this cat right here that you have you know like this regular just domesticated cat actually very similar to like these like giant wild cats that you see on like you saw on that show i guess like tigers and whatnot are they i guess how closely related are they to you know lions and tigers and all that

i mean same um gosh i have to go back to science now so same gene, not genus. They're different species. I mean, they're not really, there's certainly similar attributes, but they're far enough removed that, you know, you could never really domesticate a lion or a tiger or a cheetah or anything like that,

whereas domestic, you know, cats can be domesticated, can be tamed, so to speak. So, you know, that's why you often get those incidents where you've got a lion or a tiger who's been living as a pet and something happens where they end up, you know, attacking someone or their owner. Yeah, so they're quite different. I would never condemn having a big cat as a pet. Are Liger's real?

I think they are. I think they are a hybrid that has been, you know, created. through the breeding of two different species. Not, yeah, not the most ethical thing, but yeah. This is the best podcast ever, just turning out cat butts all day. So, Joe, can we hear a little bit about gaming to the rescue? Because we heard it's a pretty big event for you guys, and it's supposed to help out a lot, right?

Well, yeah, so gaming to the rescue is basically, I don't know if it's like a campaign, but it's a way of allowing gamers to support Battersea. And so basically you can, I'm not a gamer myself. So if I use the wrong words and things, do correct me. No worries. You can game while fundraising. So like live streaming while you game and fundraise for a charity like Battersea. It's okay.

Dennis isn't a gamer either. It's okay. Yeah, pretty much. I dabble. Yeah, and one of the prizes you can win is a custom-wrapped NZ-T-PC, and it's wrapped in, like, cool doggy and kitty art. So for anyone that's interested in that, you can go to nzxte.co slash battersea and participate. You say you're not a gamer, but have you ever played a video game?

So yes, my first gaming console was a Sega Genesis. And it was so Sonic and Golden Axe. Yeah, I can't remember what else, but then moved on to Nintendo. And now I have an Xbox, and I'm really into Assassin's Creed. I've just discovered. How can you're saying you're not a gamer and you're telling me you have an Xbox I'm into Assassin's Creed and all this? Are you saying Xbox gamers don't count?

No, not at all. I just don't know what the definition of a gamer is. Okay, so the definition of a gamer, you play video games. If you play video games, you're a gamer. Pretty much, yeah. That's cool. Yeah. You probably, but maybe you feel that way because you don't play a lot, right?

How much video games are you playing? playing um i go through phases so right now i'm i'm playing um assassins creed origins and i'm i'm i guess yeah i guess i play maybe like a couple hours a week that'd be funny dennis if she plays more than us and she's saying she's not a gamer yeah i'm not really a gamer you know i only put like 20 hours a day what's your definition of the gamer jay Um, well, so I would think somebody who has like the headset and they like talk to people online, you know, while they're playing and they have a special chair. You're here first folks. If you don't have a gamer chair, you're not a gamer. That's funny. That's that's that's actually pretty hilarious. So what else? What other prizes?

can people win through Game to the Rescue besides the custom wrap PC? Oh, gosh, there's a question. I think there's, gosh, I think there's like gift certificates maybe. Yeah, I think you guys might know more about the prizes than I. I just see I do see hoodies and shirts and tote bags and things like that. Oh yeah. Yeah. So various paraphernalia.

Yeah. Yeah, so, yeah, so I was actually, I was trying to pull it up, but I'm having some issues right now because internet stuff. But the way that you would do it is basically here, I can actually pull it up here. We just won't have any cameras for a bit. So this will, this will be fine. This is for charity, so it doesn't matter if it doesn't look perfect. So let me just turn off my dark reader because I have this dumb thing here. Okay.

So the way it works, folks, is giving to the rescue. So basically it's, if you guys are familiar with like, games. gamers for giving or Let's Play or other charities, it works very similarly where if you're a streamer or if you're someone who wants to get involved in and help raise some money, what you do is you basically do something

like you choose a challenge, whether, you know, we're going to stream, we're going to speed run, whatever it is, it could be be let's walk five miles every day, right? And then you create your fundraising page through Tiltify or Just Giving, depending which one you like or what you're able to do. and then as you raise money for this charity,

you can earn some cool stuff, like a tote bag if you raise 100, I believe it's pounds, right? 100 pounds, 350 pounds, or 500 pounds. You get a shirt or a hoodie. So you guys should follow me on Twitch because I want that hoodie. I'm going to get a ship to myself.

Yeah, and it's basically a way for you, for you folks out there on the internet. to get involved and help raise some money, help save some kittens and puppies and do a little bit of good. Yeah. And the money goes to the care of all the cats and dogs, sorry, in our care. I believe the stat is it can, it's about 500 pounds per animal per week. Oh, wow.

So, yeah, because obviously we neuter everyone and vaccinate them and then, you know, feed food and litter and toys and all sorts. So everything goes to the cats and dogs. And Marina here, this is Marina, by the way. I was going to say that if you guys are just spending 500 bucks per animal, then I'm not taking care of my animals well enough. How much is 500 pounds in dollars? Do you know how much 500 pounds is in dollars, Dennis?

I don't know. Can you tell me? I don't know. It's about 750 maybe. $750. Wow. So yeah, Dennis, you're not, you're not taking good care of your cat. I'm not.

I'm not. I need to be better. My cat's sad because I'm a terrible owner. That is such a cute cat. So that's cool. All the money you raise from Gaming to the Rescue go straight to the animals, huh? Yeah. It does, yeah.

So I guess the money goes to like vaccinations and Yeah, I mean, everybody gets I'm sure microchipping isn't cheap, cheap, right? No, no. And I mean, I guess neutering vaccinations, you know, if you were to do that at a private vet, it would be quite expensive. So, yeah, and then also they are treated. And also if they have any medical issues while they're with us,

a lot of the cats have dentals. A lot of them need various operations, treatments, things like that. So that's all, it all goes to them. Do you happen to know how Battersea came up with the idea of gaming to the rescue? You know, I think that we have a member of staff and our fundraising team who's like really into gaming. I want to say that and then they reached out. And, you know, we do know that certainly during COVID, a lot of people probably were indoors, you know, and doing things that they, you know, a lot more gaming maybe because they weren't able to go out as much. And so maybe it just became more popular and a way of supporting charity, you know, is to kind of be, I guess, sponsored through, you know, when you're streaming while gaming, I guess.

And that's my trying to sound like I know what I'm talking about. I'm doing streaming. I ask because I think it's a really cool and unique idea. And you're totally right. Like if people are playing video games and streaming already, and if they love animals, you know, why not? You know, help out a place like Battersea, help them take care of some animals.

I think it's a really good cause. And I'm actually quite proud that NZXC is able to support it in any way we can. Yeah. Shout out to Trishna, by the way, right? Yeah, Trishna for setting all this up. Thank you. I've heard that gamers tend to be, like, animal lovers, you know. I don't know if that thing, but...

I think that's true, actually. I don't know why that is. I wonder why. I think it's because after getting yelled at and called Lydia for, like, five hours, the last thing I want to do is talk to the human beings, so just go pet your cat or do you go pet your dog? But for those... Therapy animals?

Yeah. But for those who are wondering, like, how this money helps, this is right after the website. So they're saying here that, like, 50 pounds could pay for vaccinations for, like, up to 14 animals, $100 could pay for an essential welcome kit for Dogger Cat through 100. It could go for a Mums and Pups bundle. Do you know what a Mums and Pups bundle is? That sounds really cute. Mums and Pups bundle? Yeah.

I'm not sure what that means. I wonder if that means the actual caring for, because when we have sort of not like, like, a cat with her kittens or a dog with puppies. We're caring for them throughout the entire process that mom is caring for the dogs. So that's a good eight, nine, eight, ten weeks. So it's quite, you know, quite a long while. All right. Resource into me. And besides gaming to the rescue, how else can people get involved in support Battersea? Yeah. Well, we also run a lot of like challenge events. And so we every year, one of our biggest events is called Muddy Dog and it's essentially where you go through a very muddy obstacle course

with your dog and raise money to do that. It's a huge, it's a massive event, everybody loves it and we do it all over the country. And also, not even raising money, but we operate with, we have volunteers that dedicate their time to coming here every day and helping to feed and, you know, feed the animals and clean out their pens and walk the dog. and foster cares as well, that foster cats and dogs for us that aren't coping in the cachery in the kennels. So we actually, you know, people giving up not only potentially funds to us, but their time. And, you know, we're really, really grateful for that because we can't operate without those people. I just looked up the muddy dog battery challenge and it looks super

cool. It's huge. It's massively popular. Yeah, it looks like guys do it in a bunch of locations too which is awesome yeah throughout the UK and we get loads of people it's one of our biggest events so it's it's quite quite big you should do that Dennis with Picasso do the muddy dog let me see here I'm trying to see if I can find a video of it maybe you can watch it there's just like a little previous ones yeah let me see here I can pull it's a it's a two and a half K or five 5k obstacle course that's that's kind of challenging I've never done it so I don't I wouldn't I couldn't do it it's it's hard but it's fun it's a lot of fun

that sounds like I found something here we wanted to raise many to Batesley because we're both dog lovers and we've rescued dogs those dogs do be muddy and people really should pay more support to Battersea because Butters his work is fantastic in terms of rehoming and repairing. Dogs are just a great part of society. That is way too cute. Oh, you're freaking out because we're playing dog noises. To our family that we wanted to help raise money for us today.

Everyone's here for a reason to enjoy being out with a dog in the fresh air and raise money. It's not too tough for people like us. We're not runners. We're doing it for the love. Do it for the love, folks. Go get muddy. My favorite obstacle was probably the bull. Ile's favourite obstacle was anything that was wet and muddy. As soon as we saw it we decided that it was a team building event for us. I know for myself but I'm a massive lover of animals and I wanted to give something back so I will definitely recommend it. The atmosphere is amazing, everyone's really friendly and helpful and the obstacles aren't as toughish as things.

They'd set it up really really well. There's lots of volunteers around the whole track. Everyone here is like really dog friendly so they're all wanting to say hello and it's just really nice, it's really great. Great. An overweight, middle-aged woman with a pinned leg and arthritis can do it. Oh, damn. You want to get money with your dog. It's great fun. Absolutely.

Amazing adventure. If you're an animal lover, like, you have to do it. It's just a brilliant day out and really friendly people. Muddy and fun. That's it. That's it. Muddy and fun, right? And it looks like a lot of fun.

I think it's super cool that, you know, you guys are raising money in really creative ways. You're not just asking people for money. You're like, you know, challenging to do stuff like this. This is really cool. Yeah, we've also just done, we're doing a campaign right now. It's called Wear Blue for Rescue, and it's encouraging, so I have a little tag on, and it's encouraging people to wear Blue to promote rescue animals. And we recently just had Tom Hardy with one of our Wear Blue for Rescue shirts on,

because he's promoting his new film, Venom, Venom 2. And I think it almost crashed our website when we put the video of wearing the shirt, and he's like answering questions that the little questions were placed on these two dogs, their collar, and the dogs trotted up to him. And he'd take the question from their collar and these two dogs just milling around. And yeah, it was quite popular. So yeah, that's just to encourage rescue animals. Dennis, get Tom Hardy on the podcast next week, please, so we can ask him about this.

I would love to have Tom Hardy on the podcast. Do you kidding me? I can ask some questions about Batman. Marina now because she's gone to bed if that's okay okay all right good night Marina good night now she's coming back down but I think she's uh do you want to come back down okay she's come back down so you can have a little bit more all right seems like a really sweet cat she's actually the mom of the kittens that we were just in with oh that's really cool that's awesome Yeah.

That's adorable. I mean, that's pretty much all the questions we have from us. And I know we might have some questions from the community. If folks have any questions for Joe about Battersea and the work that they do, please ask in the chat. I have a question for Joe. Oh, yeah, what's the question? What is your favorite video game animal?

Video game animal. Yeah. Garfield. I'm trying to think of something sort of warm and fuzzy, but I really enjoy the dragons in Skyrim. That's probably the connection to Game of Thrones. Dragons are real animals, so that counts. That's true.

I always go bad when I have to kill them. Here's a question from Purple Radish. So Purple Radish wants to know, What is a normal day like at Battersea? Well, I'll give you a normal day in terms of caring for the cats. So we start at 8 o'clock and the team come in and they check all the cats first thing to make sure everyone's okay. And then they feed them. They change your litter tray.

They clean out their pen and give them fresh water. Make sure that they're all fine if they need their blankets refreshed or anything like that. And then all of the cats in our care, some of them might need extra social. or extra enrichment like toys or somebody to sit with them to, you know, if they need company to help them feel safe and to eat. And then all of the cats also have to be, so we do an assessment of them to create a picture of what they are so that they can then be matched to the right home. So the care team will do an assessment, maybe a couple a day. And then throughout the day, you know, we do have people coming on site. Well, we have people who have booked an appointment to come and potentially for home a cat.

So we'll go and meet with them and find out what they're after and what their home is like and trying to match them with a cat that's suitable for them. And then again in the afternoon, it's feeding and cleaning the cats again, making sure they're all happy and safe. We do have the vets coming as well throughout the day to check on the cats and check. with cats that have operations, administer medication. And yeah, so it's a lot of, it's hard work. It's eight to five every day. We're open 24 hours.

So we have staff, you know, we have security on site 24 hours because we often get cats and dogs coming in, you know, being being brought in after hours. So there is always someone here to make sure. Sounds like a very busy day. It's quite busy. It's quite full on, yeah. Scavira wants to know. How many animals do you actually want to take home with you? Me personally, there's always the odd sort of old, disheveled, usually black cat that I just love the oldies and I love black cats.

But I already have two cats at home and they wouldn't be very happy if I brought anything else home. What are your cats names? They are called Clementine and Puffin. Puffin. Puffin, like that. That's a cute name. Kind of a related question here, but I'm smart, dumb, asked. Do you get to keep any of the pets that you rescue?

Me personally. I mean, yeah, so we have had staff re-home cats and dogs that they, if they become quite close to them. So we definitely do have cats and dogs that get rehomed by staff. Sometimes volunteers as well, fall in love with an animal, and they end up rehoming them as well.

Hi. So it does happen, yeah? Yeah, you're making me want to adopt a cat now for my daughter. You might have to. You should. Cats are pretty chill. Just make sure you give them little clippies

on their nails every now and then so they don't scratch you up. Yeah. They're actually like a litter of kittens a couple months ago, I found them in my backyard. I have a couple sheds, and I found them hiding back there. And I started giving them water and, like, food here and there. And, like, they just disappeared one day. So I don't know what happened to that. I feel like the mom might have moved them or something. Like, like, do you know if, like, is that a thing? Like, like, I've never seen that before. Like, this is the first thing? Like, this is the first thing. I've ever had like a litter to show up in my backyard like that and like they were there for like a week and then they just disappeared. Yeah, that happens a bit where if you have a feral cat who gives birth and something, like they'll find a shed or, you know, somewhere safe and warm to give birth and then they could, you know, stay there. And if something suddenly becomes, they feel as unsafe, they may decide to move their litter somewhere else.

So it could have been that the queen was a feral cat who just happened to find your shed is a nice, warm, safe place to give birth. I was scared I did something wrong that's funny that's funny Marina's going to use the toilet now so I'm going to leave the bag Oh yeah So I have a quick question

About Gaming to the Rescue So I'm looking at some of the top fundraisers is this like total Or is this for like So for example We also do some work with gamers outreach So they'll do a campaign

it like, you know, will last like a month or two months or something like that. And then that's when it ends. And I'm seeing here on the top supporters list, is this, is this like for the current, for the current campaign or like, can I, can I do give me to the rescue like whenever I want or is it like during like a set amount of time? I think it's whenever they want. I think because they can, you can, they can set up sort of like a just giving page or a fundraising page to raise money.

And then if somebody wanted to, you know, do that themselves, Yeah, anybody can sort of fundraise for us and or donate on our behalf. That's something that they can absolutely do at any time. Okay, cool, cool. So we have another question here from the English gentleman. Well, they asked if Battersea was in London and I said yes and then they followed up with a question that said, I have no idea what this is regarding, but they asked, have they finished building up nine elms, yet.

So that's the area that we are, that's kind of our area and it's still very much, lots of office blocks and flats and things are still going up. So that's an interesting question. I guess he must be familiar with the area. He is the English gentleman. Yeah, he would know. No, it's still every day there's new office buildings and things going up. So still very much progress going on.

Daniel T 1988 wants to know. Have any cats or dogs become infamous with the Battersea staff? Infamous? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, we've definitely had a fair share. So I mentioned Larry earlier. He's the 10 Downing Street cat, which after he was rehomed to 10 Downing Street, we would still have staff sometimes invited over during Christmas to visit with him and to see him again.

And then we've also rehomed a cat called Palmer Street. cat called Palmerston. He was named after a previous foreign secretary, I think. What? And he was home to the foreign office, to the foreign office, another government office. And he was a pretty

popular guy because we had him in the cat's tree for a while and he actually was, he lived in our office for a little while so that we could find out that, you know, make sure that he was comfortable with the office life. Right. And many of the staff remember him well and quite fondly. So yeah, there's definitely some favorites among the staff.

The English gentleman just followed up and they said that for reference, the new fancy U.S. Embassy in London is in Nine Elms, an area just south of the river next to Battersea. So there you go. True. Literally just down the road from us, yeah. Now we know. Thank you, English gentlemen. Thank you, English, gentlemen.

Really saving our bacon here. bacon is a well actually never mind you guys don't do pigs so I think bacon's fine awesome well I'm not sure if you have any other questions but Joe do you have any questions for us any questions for our community that you want to ask no I just want to say you know thank you to everybody who does support animal rescue and the gamers as well out there and it's certainly great opportunity to to you know game for rescue. So just encouraging everyone to go out and do that.

You heard you hear you. If a reference show, you are a real gamer. Probably more of a gamer than we are, to be honest. I haven't played a game in like four days. I've been just way too busy slicing fingers off and whatnot. Do you have any last minute announcements? Yes, we do. I got them right here because I pulled it up.

So first thing, it's first. And we've been talking about it all day. Win yourself a custom wrapped kitty cat and puppy dog PC. I just got the link right there. Learn more about Battersea. Yep. Learn more about Battersea at what's the website? I had a click on it.

It won't tell me. Adercy.org.org. Or. UK. Yeah. Orda, UK. Follow Battercy on all social media platforms. Some of the social names are a little different than others.

So I would say go to the website. At the bottom of the page, all the links are there. their Facebook, their Twitter, their YouTube, their TikTok. You guys want to see some cats and dogs. They're on TikTok. And also Instagram. And if you want to send them an email. Oh, sorry.

Newsletter. It's a newsletter. I just saw the mail button and I'm like, I guess you want to ask them a question via email. That's the thing. Go for it. And also, this is a NZXT one. We launched a bunch of stuff. I'm sure you guys have been paying attention to all our social medias.

We launched a bunch of stuff, NSXT.com. And personally, check out, check out our TikTok. Doing a lot of work on there. We're throwing up a lot of cool content. We should do a duet with Battersea on TikTok. That'd be cool. Yeah, we should. We should do like the Battersea, I don't know, lift your dog up contents.

I have no idea. Muddy Dog TikTok challenge. Muddy dog, TikTok. There you go. Throw your phone into a pile of mud for donations. We do have one last minute quick question from the English gentleman, and I'm going to let it slide because he is a gentleman. So they want to know if we want to give a home to a cat but aren't necessarily local, do they allow that kind of thing? Yeah, we re-homes all over the UK.

And, yeah, when they say local, I assume they mean they're still in the UK, but just not in London. but obviously we tend not to re-home to other countries. It's not easy to ship a cat to another country. But no, we do we're home to all over the UK. We've had people come as far as from as Wales, Scotland, and yeah, we definitely will be home. Yeah, I think I drove like three hours for our cat. And we didn't even know that we were going to take her home that day.

We just, like, we're meeting her for the first time. She looked really, really cute in her photo. And luckily, you know, you know, it ended up being a fruitful trip, you know. We had to drive back empty-handed. She likes car drives, apparently. She's a big fan of car rides. All right, folks.

And with that, hopefully doesn't blow anybody's ears. Prepare. One last minute thing. If you are listening live right away, we are going to throw a host to somebody or a raid. Have it ready to go, right? The raid's ready to go. It's one of our, one of our UK partners, actually. So, you know, there we go.

It's a, we're all tying in here, folks. We're keeping it in the family. All right. Let me start this out. Oh, terrible sounds. Thank you once again, Joe, for joining us. Really appreciate it. That's okay.

No worries. Thank you for having me. Anytime you want to hop on and just throw the cam on some cats and dogs. We're super down with it. I have no problem with that just being the entire show. Let's see here. Thank you to everybody who tuned in. Remember to tune in next week at 10 a.m Pacific Center Time,

the official N-Z-X-T Twitch and follow at N-Z-T and Battersea on all relevant and irrelevant social media channels. And if you want to send us a question off the air, you can do that at podcast at N-Z-X-C.com. That email again is P-O-D-C-A-S-T-Podcast at N-X-C-T-com. And don't forget to listen to previous episodes on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Google Podcast, Spotify, and SoundCloud. Also, share the show with a friend

save some dogs and cats if you have room if you need some extra love in your life go ahead and rescue with that guys thank very much we'll see you next time have a great one stay around for the raid bye