Slow Baja - Dog Rescue In Baja With Stephanie Nisan Founder Of The Animal Pad

Episode Date: May 30, 2020

Stephanie Nisan founded The Animal Pad (TAP) in 2010 after adopting a dog that was about to be euthanized. TAP is an all volunteer-run 501c3 non-profit that rescues dogs from the streets of Tijuana and Ensenada. They work through a network of volunteers and shelters in Northern Baja that locate and capture the strays. The dogs are in terrible shape, malnourished, abused, and with life-threatening ailments, including Canine Transmissible Venereal Tumors (CTVT) -a sexually transmitted tumor cured only with chemotherapy.  In this conversation, we learn about the dedicated community of TAP volunteers that find joy in this challenging work. They travel by the busload to work one-on-one with dogs in shelters. Volunteers vaccinate, wash, socialize, and feed them a highly nutritious meal -a luxury for the weaker dogs that usually have to fight the others for their food. Visit The Animal Pad website here Follow on Instagram Follow on Facebook More [e-mail]

Hey, this is Michael Emery. Thanks for tuning into the Slow Baja. This podcast is powered by Tequila Fortaleza, handmade in small batches, and hands down, my favorite tequila. Hey, this is Michael Lemery of Slow Baja, and I'm in Mission Valley in San Diego talking to Stephanie Nissan of the Animal Pad, and she does dog rescue in the, off the streets of Tijuana and Ensenada, Southern California, too, correct?

Correct. Correct me where I'm wrong. Jump right. You're right. So animal pads and all breed non-profit dog rescue. Rescue dogs, like you said, primarily off the streets of Mexico, I'd say 98% of our dogs come from the streets of Baja, California. Anywhere from Tijuana, the farthest south we've gone so far is Ensenada, hoping to venture further soon. I hear Toto Santos has a lot of dogs running around. You have to get down there soon. I'm joking, but that's a nice town. I know.

But the amount of calls we're getting right now from everywhere in Mexico is just, it's insane. And we want to help wherever we can. But, you know, it's been tough. It's been tough to get over there. But we also do rescue from. We're partners with all of our local humane societies and shelters. So we do rescue from here as well and take in a lot of owner surrenders to prevent them from going to the shelter. And have you had some of that?

during this time where people are losing their jobs and tightening their belts and has that been part of the mix? More than we've ever seen. Yeah, I'm sorry to hear that. Yeah. That's a tough one. Our dogs have, we have two rescue dogs, which I told you about after replacing two rescue dogs that we'd had previously.

And it's just such a wonderful thing. It is. I feel sorry for people who haven't had dogs in their lives. I really do. Me too. So on that touch, you know what I'm about to cry. Starting off on the slow ball hop podcast. Stephanie, really great.

to meet you. You've got such a wonderful reputation. Been checking you out online. I hate to, it doesn't sound right. I've been following your story. Just kidding. Following your story online. And unbeknownst to you,

you are something to cheer in this week's Slow Baja love letter to Baja. We send out a little love letter three times a month or so. And it's always, we lead with a good story. And you're our good story. That's so sweet. That's so sweet.

That's awesome. hey, can I get you on the podcast? And here we are. So what are the biggest challenges? Let's jump into it. There are a lot of dogs. There's cultural issues. There are different approaches.

How do you navigate that without getting kicked out of the country? Is that gal who's telling us what to do? Right. Well, it's a very delicate balance. So I grew up in San Diego and essentially lived in T.J. partying through my college years. Diego State as well. I don't remember many of those nights. And so I also studied abroad in Mexico, in Quernabaca. And then later went to Mexico City. And I really thought I was just kind of never

going to come back to the state. So I do have kind of a hand up in terms of understanding the culture very well. My major in school is Spanish. My minor was Chicano Studies. I mean, so I really, really do. You speak the language. You know the culture. Exactly. And, and, And that has helped a lot. That has helped a lot. So when I started the rescue in 2010, we were rescuing primarily from our high kill shelters. L.A., San Bernardino, some of the highest kill shelters in the nation were right here in our backyards. Which should shock most people. Yes, yes. I mean, the numbers have changed. Oh, it was, I was looking in 2007. I was looking to rescue a dog to adopt a dog. And I was on Craigslist, which, I mean, that's a whole other podcast. But I was looking and I saw an act. for a dog that said this dog will be euthanized tomorrow. And I was like, what? What does that mean? Like, huh? So I replied to the ad and started, you know, conversing with the woman behind the ad. Turns out

she was a shelter networker, which is somebody who goes into the shelters and photographs the dogs that need that are going to be euthanized and does everything they can to get them home or rescued. So, I mean, that set me off in a tailspin of research. I still have the dog that I adopt. from that ad. And he was really abused. He was a bait dog in dog fighting. And yeah, and I'll spare everybody the gruesome details, but it really inspired me, obviously. I've always been an animal girl.

I was that annoying chick that, you know, everywhere with animals. I mean, I just love it. And I protested the frog dissection in science class, lifelong vegetarian, essentially. I mean, I just, I love them. I love them. And I didn't grow up with siblings. My siblings are my half-siblings and came later in life for me. And so my pets were my siblings.

Like those were my best friends. And I'm just a caretaker by nature. So taking care of them and providing, making them happy brought me tremendous joy. So I knew that I was going to do something in the animal world. I didn't know exactly what. So back to the Craigslist, got the dog, figured out what was going on in the shelters, and could not believe. I mean, these shelters were violating laws left and right.

Hayden's Act is a law that, you know, sets a certain amount of time before a dog can be euthanized when entering a shelter. And they were violating that, left and right. I mean, and the farther we got involved, the more I knew that we had to, we had to do something. So it took a couple years, but in 2010, I just fired off an email and said to my friends and family, said, I'm doing it. I'm pulling the trigger. I googled how to start a nonprofit, and I did the steps.

And 2012, 13, we got our 501c3 status. We were rescuing before then, but that's when we really started rescuing. So did the shelter thing for a while. And working with other rescues is very interesting in itself. A lot of women that are very passionate can lead to some conflict. And so I wanted nothing to do with the drama. I was just there to rescue dogs. And when I started showing up the shelter and other rescues over there.

And half everyone's age. I know. And twice the energy because you're fresh out. Exactly. You're a fresh kid on the block. That's right. Fresh meat. And they, when I started showing up to the shelters, this was a couple of years into

rescuing from them. And other rescues were fighting me for dogs. Pick of the litter. Yeah. I said, you know what? We're not needed here. The animal pad's not needed here. We want to go where we're needed.

If you're going to fight me for dogs, when there's a thousand more than to be put to sleep, which I'm going to go gladly grab, then what I don't need to, I'll go where I'm needed. Turned our attention to the streets of Mexico. Now, with my background, I obviously knew about the plight of the Mexican street dogs. Didn't really know how to start there. Seriously. Yeah. And it was slow the start.

But once we got in, that's it. We've never turned away. And that was about five years ago. And we never will turn away. I mean, Mexico, it's got my heart for so many reasons. But we call them our magical Meximuts is what we call of our dogs from there. Because they really are magical. I mean, it's a very interesting dynamic and difference from shelter dogs to these Mexican street dogs where

Mexican street dogs typically travel in packs, so they're typically dog-friendly. They typically rely on people for food, the street vendors and, you know, all of that for foods. They're typically, you know, good with people. But they have a whole host of health issues that we had never seen before in the shelter system. But in the shelter system, I was getting dogs that were major separation anxiety, major behavioral issues. Not that those dogs weren't amazing as well, but it's just very different. It was very interesting to see the difference. Very different. Very different. And, you know, these Mexican dogs, it's, you're fighting a culture because dogs there aren't necessarily looked at as we look at them here. Now, that's not to say nobody does in Mexico.

There are phenomenal dog owners in Mexico. The family I lived with in Quirna Baca, the Cocker Spaniel, every week when to the groomer came back with different color bows. I mean, she had a diamond encrusted bed. It was, you know, very different. But then you'd walk outside and there's 50, street dogs that would be waiting for me every morning because they're used to me feeding them, you know, street hot dogs in the morning. So it's a very interesting dynamic and it's definitely provided for an eventful last couple years in Mexico. Yeah, and last couple months. Yeah. So the statistic that we, you know, that I seized upon and then wrote the story about, you're going to exceed or you have exceeded your last year's rescue, your 2019 total since basically the beginning of March.

Absolutely. So last year, in all of the year, we rescued 319 dogs so far during quarantine. So we're saying since March 1st, we are almost at 400. Wow. So congratulations. Let's stand up. Thank you. I mean, it takes a huge village and a huge tribe to make this happen.

So it's by no means me. But it's been incredible. And why? The community. The community is rallied. The community is seen, listen, I've got all this free time on my hands. I've always wanted to adopt or foster a dog. And I just didn't have the time.

And now is the time that everybody's doing it. I mean, to the point where I actually saw a post this morning from another rescue saying, please be patient with us. You know, we have over a thousand adoption application, but our adoption process is still the same. So you still got to go through the steps. Home visits and all? Yes, so sorry.

We're doing virtual now. Those that'll allow home, sure, but it's very hard when you run an all-volunteer organization, too. I've got to be very mindful of other people in their comfort level. So virtual really has been our focus. And that's a whole other challenge that we've had to deal with during this. But again, fielding more adoption applications, foster applications, volunteer applications than we've ever seen has been incredible. I mean, in crazy, but in the best way. Yeah.

And so let's jump into, I think you have a pretty neat approach to your volunteering. You make it fun. It's a lot of work, I'm sure. Yes. It's a lot of work. And it's probably as mentally taxing as it is physically taxing when you take a trip to Ensonata and you deal with your partner shelter there. which partners in parentheses. I mean, it's a different approach and it's rough.

And that's full of their own problems there that you would, I'm sure, love to solve if you could just be in charge of that too. Biting my tongue. I'm not putting words in your mouth. I'm just saying from an outsider, it seems to me that you've got a great approach where you bring people down and, you know, they have a big day. And you get a margarita or six if you need them. And, you know, you're creating some community. Yes. And I think for me, the coolest thing of the animal pad and kind of being a part of the evolution of it and growing it is the community. And we call it our tap tribe. That's our tribe of people. And, you know, because we're all volunteers, because nobody's paid in the organization and never will be. It sets us apart in a different way where, you know, volunteers that go to other organizations have come to us saying, you know, we felt bossed around or we.

We didn't feel included. We didn't feel like our opinions mattered. And here, I mean, we're all family, dysfunctional and fun and all the qualities of any other family. But we've just have a lot bigger family than most. And it's been really cool to see people come into their own through the rescue. So, you know, I've got 15 different directors, which all, yeah, which are all different departments within the rescue. And that's been really cool. cool to see my directors grow as leaders and to see the organization, their teams grow. And I'm always

pushing them. I mean, they'll be the first ones to tell you I'm procedures and, you know, we've got to put these things in place and you've got to grow your team. It's the only way we can grow. And some of them have been more resistant to it. And then COVID hit. And they're like, okay, well, we see it now. We know exactly why we needed to grow. And, but it's been really cool to see them develop their leadership skills and now have big, you know, my foster team, I think, is at like 30 foster coordinators right now. And that's day to day. I mean, those are people every day that are actively volunteering, managing our foster homes, our vetting teams like 20-something people that handle the vet care of all the dogs and adoptions team, same thing. So it's been, it's been very, very interesting. It really takes a

village. And we're all in the same fields. We're all equal. And I think that's a really cool thing, too and it's important you know for me to all my directors for them to be hands on for me to be hands on i mean i'm in there picking up dog poop with everybody else i mean i'm no better than anybody lots of dog poop and pee isn't there lots of wormy dog poop that's what my daughter said when she was a uh volunteered mudfell she said dad is a lot of poop and pee and i said well you know what get used to it yep and it humbles you real quick you get through that what's you know exactly what's your first intern going to be like after that.

Yeah, exactly. Easy peasy. Very true. So tell me about the bus trips. Tell me about how you approach your volunteer work and how that's become quite a thing. Yeah. A thing. Quite a thing.

How do you keep people involved who were involved and now they can't do it because it's gotten so popular? Oh, I'm known for putting anybody to work at any time. So the trips are very, very cool. So when we started working with this shelter in Ensenada, I mean, it's completely overrun with dogs equipped for about 40 to 50 dogs. Yeah, I was going to say, bring us the numbers. Yeah.

So they're equipped for about 40 to 50 dogs regularly have about 300. You can't see my slack jaw face. I mean, I'm just stunned to hear that. Yeah. And again, lots of cultural differences and in terms of the way that they do things, is not necessarily the way that we would like them to do things. You know, you've got dogs that have been in the shelter for a certain amount of time, and you bring new dogs in that might be sick and carrying illnesses

and thus infecting the dogs that are in the shelter, and it's, you know, it's a cycle. And so we've done some pretty cool things to stop that cycle because we realize that the intake procedure is out of our hands. There's nothing we can do. So we take matters into our own hands and do what we can. So the way that it worked with these trips is, first, it was just me and like our core team that would go down there. We'd go rent a van. And by the way, renting a van, a passenger van in San Diego, not very easy.

There's two places that rents that will let you cross the border with one of these vans. Obviously, these aren't hurts and, you know, really nice, normal rental cars. You get this van and it smells like they were transporting dead bodies. But that's okay because the smell of the dogs in Ensonata is ten times worse. I assure you. So we were renting these vans, heading down there, loading up as many dogs as we could, bringing them back across the border, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. So then we said, you know what, people would really should be a part of this. They should see this. We saw the reaction on social media. Right. I'm assuming people are seeing it. Yes. Like, oh my gosh.

Call me when you're going next. Yes. It was either call me when you're going down or I don't know how you do it. because I couldn't do it. And to those people, it's, we don't enjoy seeing this either, but if we're not in here changing it, who's going to do it? So suck it up and let's go. Let's go save some dogs. So we then started renting multiple passengers or a couple of ants. And having myself and one of our other directors drive with,

and they could fill 12 people. So we started doing signups. We're okay, we could do 25 people. And then people could drive down on the, their own and caravan. So then we were doing these caravan trips and let me tell you, I mean, we're used to very strenuous days, long hot days with smelly dogs, long border weights, but to see the people on their own go down in their own car and I mean, these are 12-hour days. These are, you leave at seven, eight in the morning, got an hour and a half drive to get down

to Mexico. We're working at the shelter all day. And, you know, if there was 30 of us, let's on one of these trips against 300 dogs, we want every one of them to have a bowl of food. We want every one of them to get attention. We want every one of them to have a walk. And it was tough. And then everybody, including the individuals that drove their own cars, would load up the cars and sit in sometimes a four to five hour border wait

before we had Century, which I don't even think about the day as pre-century. And people were doing it with us. And it was so cool. I mean, because you don't eat. You don't. So I would pack snack bags for everybody because I'm not a mom, but I should have been. And I was in a past life because everyone gets a snap bag. Everyone that's got hand sanitizer.

Everyone has gloves. And then I said, you know what? There's got to be a little bit of an easier way. Because as cool as it is to be to cross the dogs across the border. And I think that was a really valuable experience for a lot of people. it's taxing. And so we said, you know what, let's charter a bus. So I found a bus company in T.J.

And now we have, it fits 60 people. Well, 56, actually. And we started to sell tickets for these, but just that cover our costs, not that we make money off of. And we chartered the bus. and would take everybody to the shelter. We would be at the shelter for about three to four hours, ensure that every dog got a bowl of food, every dog got a walk. And back to what I was saying about kind of disease control,

we started to do mass vaccination campaigns, where we would, I contacted the manufacturer of the vaccines, got an account, ordered 300 vaccines, did a fundraiser, brought them down with one of our volunteer vets, and vaccinated the whole shelter. We do that on a semi-regular basis. We've done for my birthday, we did the Brevecto birthday bash. Brevector is a 90-day, flee and tick preventative.

And ticks down there are insane. And so I had a big fundraiser for my birthday because that way I forced people to donate that might not normally. By any means necessary. That's right. That's right. And so then we were able to give all the dogs in the shelter, Revecto, which is, huge because it's also a mange treatment, off-labeled mains treatment, but it works phenomenally.

I mean, to see so many of these dogs that are itchy and bleeding from scratching themselves and they're in a kennel where they just have no relief. They've got the sun beating down on them on top of it. So the revicto provided, I mean, that was a game changer, obviously the vaccines as well. So we've done all of those campaigns several times right before, literally a week before COVID hit. We did our first ban-neuter campaign there. We partnered with an American can run organization of expats that live down in Baja. And they bring out their vets and they set up shop and they span neuter as many dogs as they can. And it costs us $25 per dog, which is here I'm paying quadruple, five times, six times that.

And we were able to get 66 dogs paid and neutered in the shelter that day, which was just, that was one of the the coolest experiences of my rescue, quote unquote, career is to see that. I mean, it's scary. It's because when dogs, I'm never in the room when a dog goes under for surgery or wakes up from surgery, and to have 60 of them laid out on a tarp in the middle of the shelter, you know, with their tongues hanging out. I mean, it's a dramatic, I didn't really share the pictures on my personal social media because that they're scary to see, but it was so cool. I mean, it was so cool. So with the trips, we, again, are at the shelter three to four hours, get back on the bus, and we all smell like, I mean, you have to burn your clothes after you leave the shelter. No joke.

I mean, in full disclosure. So we always tell everybody, you know, there's a whole preparation beforehand, bring a change of clothes, you know, bring a bottle of water, some snacks. So after that, we get changed either on the bus or at the restaurant. We go to Planta Baja, which is a beautiful seaside restaurant, yeah, which many people don't know exist. And it's such. It's a gem. I mean, it's easy to miss. Yes, because it looks so unassuming. And we rent out basically the entire restaurant on the patio. And they do a beautiful buffet lunch. Everybody, the minute they walk through that door is greeted with a margarita. And then halfway through when I give my little spiel with my director of operations, it's with a tequila shot and we buy everybody a shot. Get everybody drunk because it was a very emotionally taxing. day, especially for people who have never experienced it because seeing it on social media is very different than actually seeing it in person. Smelling it.

Yes, and smelling it and feeling it. Smelling it and feeling it. Yes, yeah, seriously. And so when you, when we first get to the shelter every time, we prepare everybody on the bus, of course, and we give everybody about 15 minutes to walk around the shelter and familiarize themselves and kind of not desensitize themselves, but to understand what they're dealing with here because it's this is when they've got to get the emotions out because then it's work then we are there I mean it's enjoyable work but you know you've got to cycle through

five about five dogs each volunteer to make sure everybody in that shelter gets a walk and gets food and gets water which is another rarity that they get there um in the food they just throw on the floor so the dogs have to fight for it I mean you're like talking about you're talking about a mass these dogs aren't an individual pens or cows or any of that. It's not the SPCA in San Francisco. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. And it's no cement, so it's dirt. And so when it rains, they're sleeping in mud.

And there's, you know, 50 of them in one kennel. They do have individual crates stacked. And that's, to me, is those are the dogs that I, they break my heart. Because they, some of them can't even turn around. And they just live in this crate. And that's, Again, I'm going to bite my tongue, but it's, um, those dogs definitely get out with us. And I always say it's the best day of these dogs' lives until we come back and do it again.

So it's obviously, I'm sorry that people can't be here with us to see the passion on your face. It's quite clear that you're not making this up. You are deeply moved, deeply passionate and utterly committed to making, to making a better, uh, future for these dogs. Right. So let's jump into how can people help? One top, top three ways that somebody who didn't know about you until they've heard this podcast or the other podcast you're on today. Congratulations. Our friends at Tales from Baja had you on this morning.

I told them they should call my episode Tales, T-A-I-L-S. Very good. What's the top three ways? So for people that are anywhere in the country, we're, like I said, we're all volunteer-based. Anywhere there's Venmo is the world. Well, true. But I mean, and donations obviously are hugely important because we don't qualify for a lot of grants because we're rescuing from Mexico. So you do have grant writers, volunteers working trying to find money for you.

We need grant riders. Very bad because I feel like the ones that we have might have gotten burned out a bit because, again, we're not qualified for. I mean, we're more than qualified, but we, in the eyes of these grants, they're for American dogs. Right. Which our dogs all become citizens. Yeah, that's right. So that's tough. So obviously donations are hugely important, and 90% of our budget is vet care because the dogs that come from Mexico are not, like I said earlier, not dealing with our typical health problems that we deal with here.

Our vets that we've worked with for 10 years, they have gotten so much education from our dogs. It's unbelievable. There's something called TVT, which is a K9 STD, which we do not deal with here, runs rampant. in Mexico. And it creates, it's called, it's transmissible venereal tumors. So it creates these large tumors that are only able to be treated with chemotherapy. Chemotherapy obviously is not cheap. And I would say three to four out of ten dogs we rescue have it. And putting them through the chemo on a dog that's already not necessarily super healthy. That presents its own challenges. But knock on wood, we've never had an issue.

I mean, we go through the chemo. It gets done. They're a new dog. Beautiful. On to the next. So we deal with a lot of health issues. And like I said earlier, they're tick-borne diseases. Every dog, so our intake vetting is very different than anybody else's intake vetting.

And all of our partner vets obviously know it. They have to immediately get what's called a 40x test. And that's to scan for tick-borne illnesses, which I think we've rescued, like, 30 dogs that don't have a tick-borne disease, at least one. Most of our dogs from Mexico have two, sometimes three tick-borne diseases. And they're very easily treated, thank goodness, with a very cheap antibiotic, but it takes a long time sometimes to clear completely. And if they go untreated for too long, they can do fatal damage.

I mean, it can damage the kidneys. There's a lot that goes into it. But anyway, so with the TVT treatment, none of our vets had ever dealt with it before. And they didn't know what it was, and they just diagnosed it as like a cancer. And one of our vets is now like the authority on TVT, thanks to us. And our dogs in San Diego, everybody goes to him. Every rescue now goes to him for TVT. I mean, it's been insane what we've learned and what our vets have learned.

But so going back to the original question, of course donations are huge. Our Amazon wish list supplies are always needed. We actually just had a mom dog get an emergency C-section this weekend. She had seven puppies. She almost didn't live. We had to give her a blood transfusion. So that was a $5,000 ordeal for one dog that our adoption fee will probably be $250 for her. And now we've got the puppies, the seven puppies.

The next day, a mama pit bull that we had just rescued off the streets. And thank goodness it just happened. She literally went into labor days later, which was. was yesterday. She had seven puppies as well. We've got another couple that are pregnant. So we actually just posted a thing saying we need supplies more than anything right now. I mean, we need formula. We need because the puppy or the dog that was in the ER that almost didn't make it, she didn't produce any milk. And that's the thing when you're rescuing malnourished dogs who their whole body, her whole body weight was were these puppies and they literally suck the

life out of her. She had no fat, no reserves, nothing. And so, but thank goodness. She was with us and we, when our emergency room that we work with, the best on the planet. I mean, they take such good care of our dogs. And it was so sweet. They said these dogs, because it's been crazy for vets everywhere during COVID. They said that these puppies just totally brightened our day. You know, it was a really, so it's, that's very cool. So supplies, donations. And we have a ton of admin positions that can be done from anywhere on any of our teams. All of our foster coordinators or adoption coordinators, our vetting coordinators, a lot of them don't live in San Diego.

And those are people that are assigned certain fosters that manage them through the process. We have another division, which is recently formed, which I'm sure you've seen a lot of this, is the puppy selling that happens on the border. That's the most disheartening thing as a frequent border crossers to see. And people don't know about it. No, and I mean, the salesmen are spinning a good story. Yeah. And the puppy is cute.

And there's that window where those puppies are so flipping cute that, you know, you've got your kids in the car. Oh, mom, dad, rescue. I mean, it happened to me, not in Tijuana, but in San Francisco, you run into the grocery store, you come out and there's dog rescue out in front. You've got three kids with you, and it's pit bull, pit bull, pit bull, pit bull, and then this walker tree and cune hound, I'm like, I'm going to give that dog a better life. Right. And then all of a sudden you find yourself with three young children in a walker tree and cunehound in a third floor apartment. You say, what am I doing? So that dog went on to a much better life than I ever had.

He ended up in Sun Valley, Idaho on a 10-acre farm. But, you know, for a long time, I was completely invested every waking hour and making that dog's life better and my life not so miserable. Right. But the pull of a puppy is immense. Especially now they're dressing them up. So how do you message by the monkey on the surfboard, don't buy the puppy? Buy the churro. Don't buy the puppy.

And how do you, how do you deal with that? So because of that, we formed our activism wing called TAP Act. And that's really a great way for people to get involved that are anywhere in the world, really. So obviously, Tijuana busiest border crossing in the world. And these guys, since, I mean, since I've been going down there, so I'm not going to age myself, but many, many years. You're young. I've been seeing me. I've been going there since the middle 80s.

Yeah. You're young and bringing a passion to this. And they were still selling them. They were showing them. Exactly. Absolutely. And so it's such a simple message. You know, let's end the demand and they'll end the supply.

Very, very simple. And just do not buy. I understand you want to. I understand the pain. I trust me, I get it. I bought one of these puppies many, many, many years ago. And it was from what was a crackhead. I mean, it wasn't a typical border selling guy.

And it was right before he walked into the border. Anyway, I did it too. And but that dog, I still, I got adopted it out to somebody in my real estate office at the time. And amazing life to this day. That's not the normal story. But from somebody who's done it, I get it. I feel it. And now the tactic is these guys are walking along the border weight and putting the dog

actually in your vehicle. So they will hand you the dog and walk away for a couple minutes. So now you're bonded. Now game over. I mean, if you've got an ounce of a heart, how I get it. I understand it. And it's so hard. But if you buy that puppy, they're going to go and keep selling.

They're going to go get another one from that poor mom. God only knows what condition she's in. And it's going to, the cycle will continue. And now these guys sometimes tied to the carton. hotel. We've worked quite a bit with the Mexican government. And we've been told specifically by them, don't like go down there and mess with these guys. We've at first thought, you know, we'll go hand out brochures in the borderweight educating people about this. And that was quickly shut down of you're putting yourself in major danger by doing that. Because think about

it. These guys are selling these puppies from anywhere from $1 to $300. Way more than they can get for drugs and it's quick and it's easy. And it's illegal in Mexico, but they haven't done. The new mayor did a crackdown a little while ago and it worked for about a week. And then they were back out in full force. So the simple message is don't buy these dogs. Our goal is to get on the tourism websites, on the government tourism website, on the local San Diego tourism website saying just a little blurb, hey, when you cross the board, you're going to see these puppy sellers, don't buy it. And here's why. I mean, just a little blurb is what we want.

We thought about billboards. But again, we're going to make ourselves a target because it's a lucrative business. And nobody wants their lucrative business shut down, especially by a bunch of American chicks trying to save puppies. So education is key. So right now we're actually working on a PSA and getting one produced, which we do need help with. So if anybody wants to help us with that. Yeah, I think you need a, I think you need a, um, by, by border, both sides of the border celebrity that can say this needs to stop. Yes.

Because I did dive, took a deep dive on your Facebook. Yes. There's quite, quite a conversation there about people who see both sides of the story. And, you know, we're not going to dive too far into the weeds on that. But that's beautiful, wonderful, needed, hard work that you're doing. It's just so important. It must be so difficult, honestly, to change that one puppy at a time. Very, very difficult.

To see the long term. But they're sick. These puppies are sick. And so we try to tell people if you don't, you know, just buy it. Don't buy them because you're going to have to deal with a very sick puppy. Nine times out of ten, they have parvo, distemper. Somebody just bought one. One of our volunteers who knows better while transporting rescue dogs for us bought a puppy in line.

And I said, are, am I in the twilight zone? How is this happening? But I get it. We all do this for our heart. Trying to help. Yes. And you see the puppy and it might look sick and it's you want to help. You think you're doing help. And that dog had distemper and that's a fatal disease.

Parvo is nothing compared to distemper. But, you know, so through education and through just public awareness, just even spreading the word that, hey, don't buy these puppies because of XYZ. You're not helping. We have only one time has anything. never been done about this by the government. And it was in 2007. And we met with the agent. One of our meetings, he's up in L.A. He's been phenomenal with us and helped guide us through this as well. But that was a two-week operation and nothing has been done since. If you Google it,

and that's how I started, you know, this idea was born in the border weight, obviously, seeing the puppies being sold. And you Google, puppy selling, Tijuana, border. I, I googled everything. There's nothing. Nothing. Nobody's doing anything. And I could not believe it. And so here we are.

I mean, we're fighting the good fight. We're trying. So, you know, we've done more research than I, obviously, I think anybody has at this point. We have a tap back director who's completely dedicated to this. She's an animal law. And so we've determined, okay, this is our course of action. We're going to get a PSA done. And we're going to, you know, go to city.

council first and see what we can do, but we've got to get both sides to sit down and talk both sides of the border on how we can combat this together. Obviously, right now, there's bigger fish to fry with COVID and that kind of stuff, but we really are hoping that we can make a big difference here because it needs to change. Enough already. I mean, it's been going on for cheese. Absolutely enough already. What's next for you? Oh, I'd be buying a ranch in the Valle and having wine and dogs. That's the dream.

The dream is to have a sanctuary. I mean, that's when I started here or there. So if you would have asked me a couple years ago, I would say here. And you were in real estate. I'm in real estate. And the zoning and the kennel permits and just the land cost in San Diego alone, it's unattainable for us. Again, being all donation-based, you don't have a savings. We can't save.

I mean, it's tough for something that big. Mexico's the way to go. We do ideally want something in Tijuana. and that's why we did meet with the mayor of Tijuana. I've been in his office multiple times. If we can get the dogs to a facility in T.J, I can have a full-time vet there for, I don't know, 4,000 a month, which is you saw one ER bill, and they could vet all of our dogs. I mean, I would say, we would save so much money.

And the whole thought is it would be self-sustaining. I would love to have little apartments there where volunteers can come on the weekend and they can, you know, make a donation, but, you know, work with all the dogs that weekend. And then it's super easy to just cross them across the border. Once they're healthy enough to cross, we cross them. And what we're doing now is we rent out partially a kennel facility in not the best area of town, but we have volunteers there morning, noon, and night. And all the dogs, the minute we cross the border, they go there for a quarantine period.

And then we have our mobile vet come out and do the intake vetting from there. From there, they go to foster homes, and then on they go. So if I could eliminate that step and do that all in Mexico, since that's where the majority of it's happening anyway, and then cross them, so much easier. And I could get land and I get a property for an eighth of what I would pay here. So I think that's the most realistic attainable goal right now is to get a facility there. Is that a warehouse? Is that a funky ranch? What is that in your head?

Because it's so populated. And it's ramshackle as well. Well, and so I wish I could show you. So Rosarito Pound, their actual Pound, is in the middle of these mountains. You would have never been. You wouldn't even know it exists. And it is a beautiful. The facility is not beautiful, but it's in the middle of this picturesque valley. That's what I want. I want that, even if it's in Rosarito. And because it has land where we could also do host events, people could rent it out. They could get married there. They could do their Kinsendettas there while benefiting, rest of it. And because it has land where we could also do host events. People could rent it out. They could get married there. They could get married there. They could do their kinsettas there while benefiting, rescue. I would love that, but in TJ, that's not so attainable because there's not a bunch of open space. So in TJ, it probably look a little bit different. But at this point, we're going to get what we can get. And Takate's too far away? It's not too far away. It's much closer than Ensenada. Right. We just haven't ventured there yet. And it's hot. It's really hot. So, you know, I would love to stay kind of in our zone. So, you know, T.J. Rosarito, I don't want to go down

to Ensenada or Valle because it's too far of a commute is what we're seeing. That's why we're one of the only U.S. rescues that operates in Ensenada. There's a lot of rescues now in T.J., which is so cool because when we started, there were not. It felt like we were alone on an island, fighting this fight, and, you know, it felt like no end in sight. Now there's a ton of rescues that are rescuing from T. Which is beautiful. Granted, there's more dogs than any of us could deal with combined. But that's been very cool, but nobody's going farther south. Nobody's going down to Ensenada. And so we don't just work with that one shelter in Ensenada.

We've got, there's a lot of independent rescuers around. There's another shelter that we started recently working with there, which is amazing and run very differently, which has been very interesting to see. And then there's a battle between the shelter. Anyway, that's been a... Well, as you've seen with the folks that are placing dogs, I've dealt with the doxent world a little bit, doxy rescue. And shuttled doxins up and down I-5 from Southern California to Northern California. And, you know, people are passionate. Yes.

People are passionate about that. And I can clearly see your passion. And I just want to say thank you so much for making some time to talk about dog rescue and the animal pad and your work on the Slow Baja podcast. And let's wrap it up. Give us a message to sustain us a little bit. In these tough times, people are sheltering in place. And you're working with helping people bring animals, bringing dogs into people's homes. What one last positive message would be?

Take us home. So for me, like I said earlier, is it's so odd to say, but this quarantine COVID has been the most amazing thing to ever happen to the rescue. And I cringe saying that because I feel so bad saying that, but it's the truth. It's been the most beautiful, inspiring thing to see people decide, I've got all this free time. I'm going to do good. I'm going to do good with it. And they're hooked now. Now, because once you get in to the rescue world and you transform a life, by fostering because that's truly, I always say those are the heroes of rescue. Oh, that's so hard. Not us. It's the fostering, you know is a foster. I failed twice. And now that they're seeing this whole beautiful side, the amount of feedback I'm getting

personally from volunteers saying it's changed their life and they don't know what they, I'm going to get emotional. They don't know what they would do without it or without their foster dog. And it's, I want to tell them it's you, but you're saving their life. And I know that there's you know, they're helping yours too, but it's just such a beautiful process to be a part of and to see and to see light come out of this darkness that is this time has been one of the most transformative experiences of my life. So I'm so sorry I'm not normally such a mess. I really appreciate your passion and bringing this message to us because it's important. It's so important, but it's just, it's impossible without the good people in the community

and the people, everyday people, we're nothing special. We just follow our dreams and follow our passions and we let it guide because once you see it, you can't unsee it. You've got to do something. There's nothing special about us. And to see more people realize that and realize that they can make a difference by doing something so small, even by just helping us send emails, that's making a huge impact too. You can make a difference so easily.

You just have to want to and just ask, see where you can help. I mean, I'll take everybody. I'll take all the volunteers. We're we don't discriminate here. And we are so grateful and we're so lucky because none of this would be possible without this tribe of ours that everybody in the world can be a part of. And we're just so thankful. We're so thankful.

Well, I look forward to following up and seeing how you do. And I think you're going to meet your goal of a thousand dogs. A thousand dogs this year. I mean, we're almost at 500 for the year. That is astonishing. We're here. We're talking in the end of May here. so we're not even halfway through the year.

Stephanie, I want to say thank you so much for making some time for slow Baja. It's obviously your passion about this. And if people are going to find you online, where's the best spot for them to find you? So we're super active on social media. At the AnimalPad on Instagram, same on Facebook, same on Twitter. And you can find Tapback through there as well, which is the activism wing. And www. www.com.com.

It's our website. All right. We're going to leave it right there. Thank you very much. Thanks. Hey, you guys know what to do. Please help us by subscribing, sharing, rating, all that stuff. And if you missed anything, you can find the links in the show notes at slowbaha.com.

I'll be back before you know it. And if you want to receive notices on new episodes, please follow Slow Baja on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook for you old folks.