The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 292: Stacey Shumacher—When Animal Lovers Eat Their Own

Episode Date: January 3, 2023

Dirty Jobber Stacey Schumacher, co-owner of Schumacher Cattle (a ranch with a "pasture to plate program") and founder and executive director of the Texas Coalition for Animal Protection, a non-profit organization that spayed and neutered over 68,000 cats and dogs last year, has a unique perspective on animal rights and animal husbandry and why they are both so crucial.

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Yes. I'm only going to say this once. Are you ready? Yes. Happy New Year. Happy New Year, Mike. I knew you were going to say that. I just don't think it's appropriate much beyond the third to say this.

So if you're listening to this on the 4th or the 5th or the 10th or the 20th, I apologize. But in real time, it's the 3rd of January. Chuck and I are looking at a brand new year of the way I heard it and eager to kick it off with episode number 292, which we have entitled When Animal 1, Animal, lovers eat their own. Yes, because sometimes they do. You can love animals and still find them delicious. You know what? We all eat our own in some way, shape, or form. And today's guest makes that point far more eloquently than I could. It's Stacey Shoemaker. Or is it Shoemaker? Well, she says in Texas, they say Shoemaker, but if you're German, it's Schumacher. And I believe it's a

German name. Yeah, it's difficult to know when to lean into the accent of a thing, you know, especially when it's a person's name. Well, when I was in Nicaragua, we always found it best to, don't you love that one? People like that. Well, look, that very thing ended one of my longest relationships. I won't use her name because I think she might listen to the podcast, but things were going great for a couple of years. And then we found ourselves in a restaurant down in Little Italy in Baltimore. I think it was Daniti's, maybe. Sabatinos. And we're just sitting there and I order and, you know, because she doesn't know what she wants, right? And that's bad enough. It's like, oh, ladies first. I don't know what I want.

You go. Okay. So I order. And then she decides. And she says, I think I'll have the, I think I'll have the fish. And I think I'd like a little side order of some pasta with a little bit of mozzarella on it. I'm like, what'd you say? And she said, I just told the waiter, I'd like a little bit of extra mozzarella. Like, I was afraid that's what you said. She's like, what's wrong with mozzarella? I'm like, nothing's wrong with mozzarella. But that in public,

I don't know. I feel like the universe is sending me a sign right now. And this might be our last meal together. Now, I was still joking when I said that. But of course, it escalated as these things do. Yeah. Turns out we didn't get married. How about that?

No one could have predicted. Anyway, our guest, the station is, Schumacher. And she's amazing. If you saw the most recent or maybe the second most recent episode of Dirty Jobs, then you've met her already. It was the second episode of the new season. Correct. But this being the third of January, it would have been one two nights ago and that's not it. No, it was preempted on Christmas. Oh, Christmas was preempted. Dude, yeah, it's January 3rd. Just let me make my mistakes in the interest of getting to the point. so people can listen to Stacey Schumacher.

Schumacher. And have as much fun as we did. She runs an organization called T-CAP. What's it stand for, Chuck? It stands for Texas Coalition for Animal Protection. They are all about spay and neutering animals, your animals, and in the case of what you did on dirty jobs,

they collected stray cats and neutered them with a thing called TNR. Yes. That's what we're talking about. TNR, Trap, neuter, release. Look, we're going to spend the first half hour of this conversation talking very specifically about the extent of this problem, why she gives a dam, why you should give a damn, and so forth and so on. But the real reason I wanted her on here is just because she's an awesome person. She wrote a letter to me 14 years ago that I never got.

And through a strange set of circumstances, our paths finally crossed in a strip mall in one of the T-CAP facilities that she runs. I proceeded to assist a veterinarian named Dr. Glenn Campbell as he tried to locate a testicle that failed to descend in one of the cats he was neutering. That turned into just a fabulous Dirty Jobs moment, which just aired one or two weeks ago, depending on whether you want to believe me or Chuck, to great acclaim. And so we're kicking off the new year with a shameless plug to Dirty Jobs Sunday night, 8 o'clock. for the rest of this month and part of February. And I'll look back just a week or two ago at my adventures in a strip mall with the woman you're about to meet.

I don't want to overstate it, Chuck, but one of the most fun conversations we've ever had. Well, this is the best conversation we've had this year, no doubt about it. No doubt about it. And you know what? I still think we might have mistitled it. It's a good title when animal lovers eat their own

for reasons you'll soon discover. But a close sector, was he was dirty, but he had good teeth, which is something Stacey said about her husband, Scott, who you'll sort of meet in the conversation that follows. Final thoughts? No, let's get into it. She's an absolute delight. She is really, really great when I first reached out to her. She was so excited because she listens to the podcast. She knew of previous guests. In fact, I think she references a couple in the episode. It's great. She's great. You're going to love her. Truly somebody you should know. an animal lover who really does enjoy a good steak.

It's Stacey Schumacher, episode 292, right after this. Do do do do do do do do. Well, people are still raving, raving, I tell you, about my mother's performance in the latest Pure Talk commercial. And if you haven't seen it, I encourage you to give it a look on my Facebook page and read the comments. They're hysterical. In this commercial, you'll not only see Peggy,

gently criticizing her oldest son for his longstanding and well-established commitment issues. You'll learn about the latest offer from Pure Talk, which includes unlimited talk, text, and data for just $3499 a month, with no contracts and no commitments of any kind. You can see why I love these guys. If, on the other hand, you have better things to do with your time, then watch my mom and me be impossibly charming together, then allow me to remind you, here, without all the cleverness and charm,

that unlimited talk, text, and data on a blazing fast network for just 3499 a month really is an unmitigated bargain from an American wireless company that keeps all their customer service in this country, supports our veterans in a meaningful way, as well as the MicroWorks Foundation, and allows me to exploit my own mother in a national advertising campaign. Do what my mom did. Get yourself unlimited high-speed data for just, 3499 a month at puretalk.com slash row. You can switch in as little as 10 minutes at puretalk.com slash row. Pure Talk. Hi, Stacey. Hi, mine. How are you? I'm doing great. Good. Ask me how I am.

Good. Ask me how I am. How are you, Mike? Well, I'm a little frustrated. I'll be honest with you. I just tried to watch our segment and I got this new remote control, which isn't paired with my other remote control. And in an attempt to refresh my memory of the unforgettable time we spent together down there in Texas, there I am searching for my own TV show, Dirty Jobs, and I can't get the remotes to work properly. And then when I finally do, I don't know where the show is. Is it under demand? Is it under for you? Is it under archive? I mean, just 45 minutes on a snipe hunt trying to remind myself of all that we experienced not seven months ago. It's crazy. It's a clear case of first world problems. I was going to say, that's when you know you've made it, Mike.

It's when you need people. You need your staff to help you work the remote. You're like you've moved past the rest of us. I just have never just felt so old and useless as when I stare at the endless parade of technology in my life, like a cow, looking at a new gate. At a new gate. It just leaves you behind. Yeah. I just, I don't know, man. It's just like the more experienced I get, the more things I accomplish, the more diminished I become, and the more helpless. I ultimately am. It is a very humbling morning for me, Stacey. Well, I'm glad to be here when you're humble. It doesn't happen often. Be honest now. The Dirty Job Special in which you were featured, I call it a special.

It wasn't. Was it a special? I think it was just an episode, but... Technically it was just an episode, but damn. Me, it was special. You made it feel special because I'm not kidding you. When I walked into that anonymous strip mall in whatever little... What town are you in again?

What was it called? You should have watched the video. We're in Garland, Texas. Oh, friends. I mean, if I can take you back, you know, you hop out of the production van. You never know what's coming. But there you are in a strip mall waiting to me to be. a bunch of cat ladies. And they don't tell me much. I kind of had the basics, but I walked in and

there was Stacy. And in literally Chuck, within two minutes, I knew we were destined. I knew a couple of things were for sure. We were going to have a great episode. And Stacy and I were somehow going to become friends. Not on that particular day because it's impossible to become a friend with somebody when you're filming with them. As you know, there's too much going on. But later, later, I knew we'd be friends and today is the day Stacey you're on this podcast because i wish to be your friend wow wow and my you know i'll tell you my friend card was kind of full mike but i'm gonna make room for you somebody's gonna get the axe somebody's gonna get the hook in order to make room for mike grow they're not alphabetized they are listed in order of importance somebody on the the bottom

has definitely been moved do you think that that's really i mean i know you're kidding but i'm sure you're wrong. Do you think like friendship is a zero-sum game and there's only so much room for so many people? Yes, friendship takes time. You know that. It does take time to be a friend. Georgia O'Keefe said that. To truly be a friend of somebody, it takes time. And you've only got so much time. So absolutely, my friend card was full. But I've made room for you and Chuck. Wow. Sweet. All right. Well, we will put our best foot forward. Let's do it. Did the show, first of all, if we could just bring this back to me for a Did the show, Dirty Shots with Mike Crow, have a positive impact on your humble operation?

You know that Mike Groh. He's a pretty big deal. And so it did. It did. And I'll tell you, and this is, I'm not going to blow up your skirt here. This is true story, Pinky Promise. Great. Doing hard work. And you feature these people and you have given such a voice to really working class people, you know, working to keep the world going. It breathed life into T-CAP. And I mean that in a very true way. It gave those girls and Dr. Campbell an opportunity to really feel proud of what they do and really to kind of take a moment and understand that, man, like, people respect what we do. And we're doing an important thing. We knew that. But when you get that validation from others, it really was humbling. You know, I've watched the video a couple times. And when I watched it,

I see myself like, it looks like I'm like managing a fragrance counter because I'm just kind of walking around. But I think that there was a moment where it was like, you know what, personal success is very hollow. But there was a moment that it was like, this is it. Like I am very proud of what we do here. And that validation was really great. So thank you for that. So yes, it's been good. Good.

I'm glad to hear it. And I really wasn't fishing for compliments. I'm just genuinely interested in what happens to people's businesses when a few million people get a chance to be a fly on the wall. And I know it has to be nervous for an entrepreneur, for a business owner. These are your employees. They're out there. You got to trust me. You got to trust the crew. And you have to hope that your own people aren't going to put their foot in it. Because, right? I mean, there's only one chance to make that kind of an impression. And you just never know how things are going to come through in the edit. Well, let's talk about your people, Mike.

you are successful because you're you, but you also have really great people around you. And so we worked with Dale LaRue, who was a gem. Shout out to him. We worked with Zach. We worked with then. We worked with Eliza. All of those people understood that segment was as much about the mission and about the whole industry. It really wasn't T-CAP.

I mean, it was an opportunity for T-CAP, but it was certainly more about what we're trying to do here. And they treated us like royalty, I have to tell you. And they were so kind. And they, for folks that have never done the dirty jobs experience, I've watched you for 20 years and been such a fan. And we got this call kind of out of the blue. And I kept thinking it was a prank. I told Chuck, you know, it was like, who is this? What is it? What? And so then when we had a couple video calls with your folks, I think that they wanted to make sure that we were legitimate. They wanted to make sure that we weren't crazy people, that we were doing what we said we were going to do. And when they came, so they did a site visit, when they came, I wanted to give them

the wrong address. I wanted to send them to a laundromat and show up and be like, we came all the way to Texas and we're at a laundromat and then, you know, take them to the real clinic. But. Oh, you should have. You should have. And you should have. And you should have. you should have filmed it. And I would have cut that into the show because that's just the kind of Tom Foolery that a man does at this point in his career. You know, he's made...

I had nothing to lose. Everything to gain, nothing to lose. But it was delightful. Good. It was a great day. And, you know, those guys have to do a certain amount of vetting because obviously people get a little weird when you show up with cameras and the prospect of being on the TV does different things to different people.

And then when you sprinkle on top of that, the fact that the thing we're considering doing is rubbing elbows for about eight hours with a bunch of cat ladies, well then, the duty of care increases exponentially. So let's just back up. Talk about T-CAP. Talk about what you guys are doing in that innocuous little strip mall in Garland, Texas, with Dr. Glenn Campbell. For real, that's his name. He's amazing. It's very, very strange when you're removing the testicles of an anesthetized cat named Dreyfus with the guy. who sang lineman for the county or at least named for him.

It's a strange moment. I believe you had a ball. A true ball. So T-CAP is a nonprofit organization that I founded when I was right out of graduate school. And I had done animal protection work as a kid. You know, you would go to the animal shelter and adopt a pet and then find it a new home. And when I was in the early stages of my undergraduate degree, I worked a deal with a local, rental place to rent a van to take these animals to be spayed and neutered and would bring them back.

And you might say, Stacey, why did you do that? Let me tell you, Mike. Stacey, why did you do that? I did that because if you adopt out animals, if you've ever done any kind of foster care or been to an animal shelter, you're not going to adopt your way out of that problem. And it's kind of like it makes a difference. What's that saying, you know, where they're like, why are you taking those starfish out of the ocean? You can't save them all. It makes a difference for those.

Save this one. Yes, correct. But I'm more like very big picture. And, you know, as a young person, it's very, you don't take no very easily. And so I think there's real value in young people getting a vision and saying, this is doable. Let's do this. And so I started a spay and neuter clinic in my hometown of Sulphur Springs, Texas, which is like in East Texas, so lots of dairy farms and those sorts of things. And then when I moved from there,

I started a clinic here in Denton in 2002 because it feels good to do good. It really feels good to be a member of the community and be someone that doesn't just complain. You're that person who really is working to be a part of a fix. Who doesn't just complain? In other words, you still get to complain, but at least you're doing something in addition to the whinging. You've earned it. Yes, to your credit, right? Yin and yang, you know, right? You got to do both.

Nothing wrong with complaining if you do something about it. Well, I guess my problem is I don't understand I'm a fixer. And I don't understand looking like people get so siloed, whether that's in politics, whether that's in views on life. I just don't understand looking around and saying, there is a fix available, let's do it. And so I don't take no for an answer, Really. Kind of like a, my spiritual gift is endurance, Mike. It's endurance.

Or stubbornness or denial. You know, these are all different houses on the same street where you live. Which one of those is the nicest house? That's the one I want. The nicest house is persistence. There you go. There you go. All right. So I want to get to you specifically in a minute. But one other thing just in general, so people understand if you could just put some context or perspective. on the enormity of the problem, right? Farrell cats in this country are a thing, and I know that the size of the thing must vary depending on the geography,

but in general, what are we looking at and specifically in your zip code? What are you guys dealing with? Well, and so let's talk more about animal shelter pets, just in general, the state of the union with pets in America. And when I'm saying pets, I'm meaning cats and dogs, companion animals. And so 6.3 million animals, I googled it, so you know it's true. Sure.

6.3 million animals entered animal shelters last year. And so here in Texas, we're number one, number two, depending on what source you're using for information. But that's a lot of animals. And of those, you're looking at about a million that get euthanized. And so when you think about that, that is the kind of the environment, I guess, that we're in now. and T-CAP and other nonprofits like us come alongside and we're helpmates to cities, we're helpmates to nonprofit, other nonprofits that do rescue work, and to individuals. Because at the end of the day, and so this is kind of what moves me, you still have your dog, Freddie?

I do. Did he come from an animal shelter? You sure did. And so when you went in there, like you see all these faces, right? And some of them, I mean, they're kind of mean and awful and whatever, but most of those animals really deserve to be in somebody's home, but they're on enough homes for them. And so the reality is what?

Like animal shelters, they do a very specific function. People that work at animal shelters aren't bad people. They have a job. And it's animal control. It's not really to, I mean, if you look at like what their mission is at a city, their mission is to keep you and your family from being attacked by loose dogs for rabies abatement.

You know, it's not to be an adoption agency. It literally is to keep the animals off the street. And so because they're on enough homes, what happens to them? Yeah, down they're euthanized. Down they go, right? And they end up in a plastic sack. I mean, that's the reality. Even if you don't like animals, you know, there are a lot of people for, so we do companion

animals. We also do feral cats. There's a lot of people as a result of the segment that we did with you. We got some emails from people saying, you know, why do you care about these feral cats? cats, you know, your efforts, you know, could be used for other things. Yeah. It's because 70% of animals killed in animal shelters are cats. And so when we think about what we can do, studies have shown that feral cat management

really works. It decreases the number of animals that are in those shelters that you, by the way, as a taxpayer, you're paying for them. So whether you like cats and dogs are not, you're paying thousands, millions of dollars to provide that service to your community. Right, right. But just the numbers alone. I mean, 6.3 million is a big number.

Correct. But that's peanuts compared to the speed with which cats can multiply. And I really wanted to get it right in the segment. That's part of the reason I was looking to try and remember what I actually said. Because, I mean, talk about Google. Talk about sources.

I mean, my God, everywhere I went, I found a different number. It's like nailing jello to a tree, trying to understand, like, just how many cats are breeding as we speak right now and how fast all that's multiplying. I'm still not sure I know. So here's what you should know. If you look at your city's budget, there's a lot of your tax dollar cumulatively that's going to address animal control. If you are a budget person. If you are an animal person, you see the same problem.

You just see it in a very different way. I mean, it's reframing the same situation. The situation is there's a lot of cats and dogs that need homes. And without sterilized animals, we end up with even more. And so that is what T-CAP does. We come in as, you know, really alongside those cities, and we have partnerships with a lot of cities. And we help them control animals in a much more problem. proactive versus reactive way.

What's a vet charge to spay and neuter on average? And what do you guys charge? So, for instance, here locally, I have a dog, his name is Sherman, and he's a big dog. He's like 100 pounds. For me to get him neutered locally would have been about $600. I'm in a small town. We're in Denton, Texas. And so it's not small, but compared to a lot of places it is.

It's like a mid-sized city. but to be fair let's talk about this or and so teacap would charge $65 we typically don't do dogs that are over 80 pounds but it pays to know people um so wait a minute wait a minute size matters when you're neutering a dog it always matters mine i mean what do you guys like charging by the ounce the gram like how do you determine it's in uh in groups so like under 50 pounds is 55 $50 to 80 pounds is $65. And many times we have partnerships with different places that will net that out and it'll be zero to the public. So free or close to free.

So we're talking about the weight of the dog, the size of the dog, not necessarily the size of the testicles, just so I'm crystal clear. Correct. Is it about the, what do you call it, the sedation? Is it about that? It's all of it, Chuck. And, you know, I want to kind of put a pen in this conversation and say that I am not vilifying animal shelter workers. They're doing a job and they wouldn't work there if they doesn't love animals. And I'm certainly not vilifying full service clinics.

You know, stays and neuters are a very small part of what they do. They are there really truly to address animals with really serious issues that are part of people's homes. our program and programs like ours work very hard to make full service care available because the basic things you've already gotten taken care of somewhere else. So imagine like a community health clinic. You may go there to get a vaccine, but you are not going to build that relationship that over time you would have with a full service clinic near you. So there's certainly places in the market for everyone.

Our program is just very mission driven to end animal over. overpopulation and to keep, you know, people and people's pets from getting rabies. It's pretty clear. I get it. Look, I get it. And I'm sure a lot of people listening appreciate the equitable approach to many different approaches. But it seems like the clear and present problem is 6.3 million strays, right?

And the reason they exist in those numbers is that people, by and large, are irresponsible and they don't take care of the dogs they have and the cats they have and so forth and so on. So somebody needs to be on the tip of this spear. Somebody needs to be saying, look, in my opinion, we can have full service clinics all over the place doing all kinds of things. But where is the big giant concerted effort to spay and neuter all of them? And by all of them, I don't really mean all of them. But I mean, where's the effort to get the price down to something really anyone can afford in order to knock that $6.3 million number. down to tens of thousands, which seems possible.

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get good ranchers now. So, I don't know, because here's the thing. We at TCAP, knowing that we were doing this today, I ran the numbers. Do you know we've done 677,000 spays and neuters? Jesus, that's unbelievable. I mean, I know you've done a lot. We still have a waiting list. You know, like we're booked through March of this year. And so I'm very proud that we are seen as a solution, but there are other solutions out there. You know, we're not the only ones doing this, but there is value in low-cost options for folks,

especially, you know, given our current economic situation, you know, a lot of things get left behind. And one of those things are people's pets, especially very preventative type things. Just to be clear, you're saying that someone who has a pet cat can come in and get them spay or neutered at your facility. Correct. Like what dirty jobs profiled was you went out and got a bunch of feral cats living on the street, collected them, and then spayed and neutered those. And presumably took them back and put them on the street. Is that what happened? Yes, that's correct.

And so in any given year, we will do between 12 and 15,000 of those feral cats. And we provide that service for free. But then we also provide spays and neuters for owned cats for like $35 to $45.45. And they make up the $68,000 that we'll do this year. Cats and dogs. 68,000 this year. It's staggering, Chuck. It's staggering.

That's a lot. You know what? Go ahead and repeat it because I want people to really think about the numbers. Okay, so this year we will spay and neuter 68,000 cats and dogs. This is one very modest facility in a very modest strip mall. Well, no, no, a little revisionist, a little revisionist, no. We have eight of those locations. And so if you look at a map of the Dallas-Fort Worth area, whoever's in charge of that T-CAP has been pretty smart to try to make it so that if you are living in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, it's very accessible to you. That's great. So Dallas is doing it right.

What's it stand for again, T-CAP? Texas Coalition for Animal Protection. Okay. And why isn't there a version of this in every state? Or is there? There are. There are a lot. You're near San Francisco.

The San Francisco SPCA does a lot, for instance. There are a lot of different programs. It's not TCAP. We were one of the first larger providers here in Texas, but they're everywhere. Thankfully. Good. All right. Well, I'm going to try and figure out what makes you tick in just a minute, but I want to add one

little codicil or caveat as well. That's a good. Odicil. That's a good one. That's a good legal term. It's a legal term. It's a legal term. It's a legal term. That's why I'm not familiar with it. It's sort of an addendum, a thing that you would add on a supplement sort of thing. We just kind of glazed over where Freddie came from.

Freddie, he was on the streets initially, got scooped up. He's just a pup, and he wound up in Bakersfield. And that was, I think it was a kill shelter down there. And then he wound up here somewhere in Marin through some kind of interconnected organization that gets dogs out of kill shelters and into non-kill shelters. All right. That's where he ultimately came to me. But Chuck has a friend, Amy, who what is that organization called? Oh, gosh, you got me.

But there are all these kill shelters down here in Southern California. And they have non-kill shelters up in Maine. sorry, not Maine, Oregon, Washington State. And part of what they would do is load a truck up with all of these dogs and take them north. And you have to drive there as quickly as possible. So it's two people that do it. And I did it once with Amy. And I would never do it again.

But we had 70 dogs in a truck. And we drove as fast as we could to get to and dropped to like six different shelters in Washington and Oregon. Yeah. Yeah. So here in Texas, there are programs that fly them. They rent up planes and they fly them to the northeast. And so we've been part of a lot of those like vetting the animals before they go on their trip, which is really rewarding. So here's my question.

In light of that, in light of the Herculean effort, you can Google that too, Chuck. That one I'm familiar with. It means really large and ambitious. Strong. Yeah. In light of people like Amy who are filling up vans with dozens of dogs. and driving them like on some sort of underground railroad and people putting them on planes, right?

And people running these operations out of these strip malls. I mean, all of that is happening, right? And it's all an attempt to knock that giant 6.3 million number down. But talk to me then about the Westminster Dog Show. Talk to me about pure breads. I have really good friends who own pure breads and they love them and they're wonderful dogs. And I find myself because I'm,

I'm fundamentally a polite person and I don't like conflict. I bite my tongue because what I want to say is, what the hell are you doing? What about the mutt? What about the mixed breeds? They're loyal, unconditionally, they're hearty, and they're taking it in the neck from sea to shining sea. Make the pure bread thing makes sense for me. You're stepping in it, Mike.

You're stepping in it. I know. I've been stepping it for 20 years. It's my job. So here we go. there is a place for registered animals that are working to better that breed characteristic. I think where it goes sideways is when you get those, and we've all heard about them, the backyard breeders, when you get those people that are really exploiting those animals and not working to better the individual characteristics of those breeds.

I have no problem with registered animals. I think that I understand wanting a certain pet for a certain reason or a, you know, a working partner, for instance. You've got, you know, Malinwas and those sorts of things. Those dogs are bred for something very specific. I have no problem with that. I think where it goes sideways is you get those people who are breeding those animals indiscriminately simply for a paycheck. That's where that 6.3 comes from. If you look in a lot of the shelters where we work, because we go and work at animals.

shelters as well. You see a lot of faces that you recognize. You see a lot of purebred animals there that for one reason or another, you know, maybe it's labs that were supposed to be one way, but they ended up, you know, just breeding really bad characteristics. And so they have problems. So I think there is a place for those, but quality breeding like you would have at Westminster versus, you know, breeding in your backyard or what's fueling it, right? Money is fueling it. Money and demand. You know, I look at it, and again, I apologies, I'm not trying to ruffle anybody's feathers.

Like, I love all dogs. I love animals. And I love people who love animals who own purebreds. So let it be written. So let it be done. But I look at it sometimes, and I'm reminded of parents who are desperate, desperate to get their kids into the right school, the proper school. A school with not just a degree, but dare I say, a parent. I'd agree, right?

And maybe it's a stretch, but the way we think about what a good education is and the way we think about what a good dog is or a good pet, you know, there's some varsity blues stuff going on with this. And I just find it so odd. And I know, I know that many of my friends who are devoted to their breeds, walk them through, T-CAP, walk them through. Jesus, Chuck, do you remember in Golden Ring Mall when we were kids? work in there. They had a place called the puppy palace. Ah, and that's just what it was. Yeah. Well, I used to call it the puppy prison. I mean, you'd walk in there. It was literally a retail store. And the doll, it was like, how much is that doggy in the window? Except they weren't in the window. They were in cages. Yeah. And they were there like 24-7. And people would just, you're going

through the mall and you go in. There they are. And your kids are with you. And you fall in love through a cage in a second. And they want a $5,000 dog. Whatever it cost, they pay for it for all the wrong reasons. And now you got a really expensive dog. So we don't have, you know, you guys don't have puppy sales at stores anymore. A lot of places in the nation, they still have that. Well, you guys are working to only be able to adopt animal shelter pets out of stores. Is that right in California? Do you know? Oh, I don't know. I think that's right. No, but this was back in Baltimore, And this was back in 1979. So I have no idea what the, you know, what the current laws are.

But I do know they're ephemeral. You can Google that, Chuck. It means ever-changing. And ephemeral almost sounds a little bit like feral. Hmm. A pH versus an F. Yes. Yeah.

Yes. Yes. When two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking. But you digress. What is a, what did you call it? A malefurious? A malinua. You know those dogs.

You see those. I'm sure I do, but it's a funny, it's a funny word. A malinua. Yeah. Explain to Chuck what it is and assume I know. So it's a smaller shepherd-looking dog with a very high drive to work. It's like a German shepherd with like working clothes. Imagine that.

Working clothes. Now, do you? Do you draw some sort of line between dogs that are registered simply for the fun of it and working dogs, like herding dogs and things like that? Mike, we love them all, just like they were ours. Okay. If you bring your pet to us, we will not make you qualify to be serviced. You come in the door, we're going to treat you the same. Good.

What all pets do you handle there? Dogs and cats. Lots of dogs and cats. Gotcha. No parrots. Do you do the same thing for dogs with, you know, like collecting stray dogs and spay and neutering or is that not a big problem? Farrell dogs are not an issue, really. You got a lot more cats.

I'm sure that, you know, probably in cities you have more of that, but here not so much. Okay. All right. So everything we've said so far in the last half hour is all really kind of leading up to the thing I really want to get at, Stacey, which is you. All right. I have a file somewhere around here that I stole from the Discovery Channel that was accumulated over the years of dirty jobs, filled with letters from outraged viewers, filled with letters from the Humane Society, from PETA, from any number of organizations who saw me over the years interacting with all creatures great and small. And as you know on that show, we don't really pass judgment so much. We try and show the viewer what we see.

So if what we see is castration going on in Craig Colorado with lambs vis-a-vis biting the testicles off, well, then that's what we show you, right? And we just kind of put it out there, and obviously conversations follow later. But my point is, my question is, you're not a typical animal lover. You are clearly a woman who loves animals, but you run a ranch with your husband. You occupy a really interesting piece of real estate in my view, because like me, and the reason I think we should be friends, is that we unabashedly love our pets, and we love the animal kingdom. But we enjoy a good stake, and we understand, it seems, our role in the food chain, or at least we are aware of some kind of hierarchy.

And that's what I want to hear about. You're the kind of person I think people need to hear from because you've got a foot in both worlds. Tell me if I got any of that wrong. I think I'm certainly straddling a line. Yes. So the disconnect is what? Animal lovers shouldn't eat meat.

Yeah. Is that the disconnect? Or, I mean, I know many vegans. I know many PETA people. And they've got strong views on leather. whether it's in shoes or coats, they've got strong views on fur, they have strong views on what we chew and what we swallow, and they have strong views about the hierarchy of man,

the food chain as we understand it, and a thing called dominion, strong views. Well, and I think there is room in the world for all of those views. I think when it starts to get a little difficult, is when we start to attack our own. I'm going to be honest, Mike, and I'll tell you that most of the people who work here at TCAP, most of the people who are veterinarians who are providing the surgeries here, very few of them are vegan, very few of them are vegetarian, but I would push back that there are few people in the

animal world doing more for animals. That's the reality. And so, you know, when you think about the judgment, sometimes animal people eat their own, They're not going to eat animals, but they'll sure devour somebody that doesn't have the same exact views as they do. Sometimes I would say, you know, you have to kind of get out of your own thinking and look at things in a very holistic way. And so when we think about, let's talk about PETA folks or let's talk about, you know, the investigative journalist going into farms. I loved your segment with your dairy farm friends. Sure, I'm like and Sue.

Yeah. And you talked a lot with them about, you know, they had a very bad situation there that they had to overcome. I think that they would look back and say that those animal people did their farm good. Yeah, it was painful at the time, but things got better. And so before I say that all PETA people are bad or, you know, people that don't eat meat are bad, I think those folks in many ways have pushed the industry in like the food production industry. in a very good way, to a point. But the reality is people are always going to eat meat. Whether it makes you happy or not,

there's room at the table, literally and figuratively, for all those folks. And so, for me, it really makes sense that people who love animals would raise them to feed other people versus somebody that doesn't care at all about their well-being. Shamedless plug. Long before she was Peggy Roe, my mom was Peggy Noble, daughter of Carl and Thelma Noble.

It was her father, Carl, who inspired me to pitch a show called Dirty Jobs to the Discovery Channel and later start a foundation that honored the kind of work Carl Noble did for a living, trade work, skilled labor. That foundation is called MicroWorks, and today I'm proud to tell you that we've helped thousands of people get the training they need to begin a career in the skilled trades. In fact, we'd love to help you. You can apply for a work ethic scholarship right now at microwerworks.org. We've set aside $10 million for this year's applicants. Thanks to a number of very effective fundraisers,

including the one with my grandfather's name on the label. I refer, of course, to Noble Tennessee Whiskey, K-N-O-B-E-L, which is now available in a variety of delicious mash bills, all of which you can peruse at Noble Spirits, In fact, if you spend $100 and use code Carl, C-A-R-L, you'll get one tube of orange bitter-infused sugar cubes for free. That's code Carl with a C to get nine sugar cubes, ingeniously engineered to make nine perfect old fashions every time.

It's my favorite way to support Microworks and my favorite whiskey to sip responsibly after a long day of interviewing people on this podcast. Pick up a bottle at Noble. Spirits.com. K-N-O-B-E-L-Spirits.com. Soon may the nobleman come to bring a bottle for everyone. One day when the waitin is done, we'll take a drink and go. So here's where I'm coming from. I agree with all that.

We are in violent agreement, for sure, with all of that. But because I work in such a weird industry and because I've been out there for a while around this topic, I'm not kidding you when I tell you, I have stacks and stacks and stacks of letters from people. And I don't want to paint with too broad a brush, but I'm going to because I've got stacks and stacks and stacks of letters from people who simply wanted to tell me that in their view, there is no real difference between eating a cow or a lamb versus a dog or a cat. and many of them will go even further. And talk about eating your own. Well, yeah, cannibalism, right? So there's this whole moral equivalency argument that is under this thing that makes me wonder

if everybody does, in fact, have a seat at the table. Because if you do, in fact, hold the view that there is no dominion and that all life is more or less created equal, then you're going to have a very hard time reaching for that second pork chop with the gravy. Well, I'm going to disagree. I feel like as humans, we have dominion over those animals and we care for them. We do. But they're here to serve people.

And we do the best job that we can to be as conscientious and as kind, but they are livestock. If we were in China or we were somewhere where, you know, our land was very limited. but we wanted a meat-based protein, suddenly eating cats and dogs doesn't seem that foreign. We have a lot of space here, and we do eat, you know, cattle. We don't eat horses. We do eat cattle. And so I cannot make you, if you choose to be vegetarian,

if you choose to be vegan, I cannot make you understand a completely different frame of reference. What I can do is help you understand. how your food is raised with kindness, with compassion, until a very bad day. That's why, that's why, Chuck, I wanted her on, because she's fighting, she's fighting the good fight, but she's doing it at a time when people are so divided. Like, we don't want the cognitive dissonance, right, that comes from someone saying, no, it's not A or B, it's not this or that.

This is a nuanced position. It is a nuanced position. So somewhere in a lot of people's minds, there's the book of truth. And in the book of truth, in some chapter, it says that you cannot be an animal lover, not a true animal lover, and eat them. And there's always been a certain amount of, I hesitate to say logic, but rationale to that thinking. But today, it just seems hyper, real and people really, really struggle with it.

I will tell you that I think that you are, because of the visibility you have and the name recognition that you've worked so hard to create over, you know, a very storied career, you maybe see the tip of that iceberg. So my husband is a fourth generation farmer and farmer and rancher in Cook County, Texas, which is a small, a small place. And when he and I met, that was the first former rancher I had ever had the pleasure of dating. And I can remember calling one of my girlfriends because he is younger than I am. Scandal.

How much younger? How much is too much? There is no too much. I mean, unless you start adding up in dog years, it might get a little weird. So in dog years, it would be like, I don't know. So he's 10 years younger than I am. Whoa. Whoa.

Woo! Giddy out. No, but when I met him, I will tell you, he was so capable. I mean, he could do anything. He could fix your car. He could do your taxes. He could mow your yard. You could do whatever.

And I remember calling one of my girlfriends, and I said, listen, I don't know who this kid's going to marry. But, man, he's just such a good person. And so when we started to seriously date, and he was, you know, he raises. Angus cattle as seed stock for other producers and then, you know, has added a pasture-to-plate program. He raises them. He raises them. I thought you said he races them. That would be interesting.

He raises cattle. You mention that. No, that's a whole different podcast. The nostalgia effect is real. And you talk to people who can see both sides of an issue, the people that I feel like make up, a majority of your public, they understand, they remember going to their grandparents' house and raising that animal, it having a name, and then they ate that animal. And when they remember that, very quickly, what do they say?

I never had a better steak. That was the best food. And so the nostalgia effect, I don't listen to a TED talk about it. It's real. And so there is a large part of our community of our world who recognizes the value of men and women working hard to safely feed the world. So come back to this husband that I love, but sometimes I want a throat punch. It's real life. I told him, Scott, you need to tell people where their food comes from.

People need to know that. I mean, it's the dirty jobs approach, but like just some guy with an iPhone saying, hey, guys, here's what we're doing today. We're fertilizing this crop or we're, you know, doing all these things. There is value in that. And if all you hear in the media is that organization with a very large marketing budget telling you that farmers are bad, ranchers are bad, That's the takeaway. But I do think the agriculture industry has understood there is a value to show people, to tell people how their food is rice. Because we're very far removed from that, very far removed.

What you said before, we eat our own. That's what this is all about. When you think about the 340 million people in this country that share our addiction to chewing and swallowing things, And when you think about the concerted effort to rally them against the very people who are providing the very thing to which they're addicted to, that's eating your own. That's self-defeating. And we just wind up either with a guilty conscience or, you know, the PETA problem or the environmental problem. Oh, the farmers, they're wrecking the land. Oh, the farmers are so cruel to this.

it's unbelievable how maligned one and a half percent of the population has become. And it's insane to me and crazily ironic that that same group of people are single-handedly responsible for feeding 330 million people three times a day over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. That's correct. And I would say that just as kind of a like a side note to that, those people, those farmers and ranchers, they can't be devastating the environment. This is how they're making their living. And so, you know, technology is amazing. You have auto-steer tractors now. You have ways that they

can plot your pastures, and it tells you exactly how much fertilizer to put in one spot versus the other. GPS, right? Correct. They're all about conservation, because, again, I cannot take advantage of a certain resource and it continue to work for me. That reasoning just doesn't make sense. So what did Scott say when you told him in that, forgive me, but sort of sexy yet paternalistic tone you have, Scott, you need to tell people where their food comes from. What did he say? To what extent did he agree? And what did he do about it, if anything? I got a lot of eye rolls. I get those a lot from a lot of different people. But in this instance, that explains the throat punching fantasies. Yes. I think that it's not his thing, Mike. It's not his thing, but I think it's very

valuable. So we call it, hey Scott. And so that's how the second start. Hey Scott, what are you doing? Well, I mean, look, I think it's a really important point to make, though, because farmers are farmers. And as farmers, they are generalists. And to your point, he's so damn capable at so many different things. Because if you're not a farmer and you're not a generalist, you're a farmer out of business. Correct. Correct. But is it too much to ask that on top of every other thing that we expect them to do,

including saving our lives, right? Is it too much to ask that on top of all of that stuff, we also want them to run an effective PR campaign? We also want them to change the degree to which the average Joe has become disconnected from their food. That's your job, Mike. That's your job for how America works. Come on, I studied for this test.

We're studying. All right. Well, let's see how deep you studied. Because I think you told me when we met that you had reached out to Pilgrim, my old production company, back when we were doing dirty jobs to get on that show, and it didn't work out. It's a true story. And so here's the story.

So it had to have been 13, 14 years ago. Through discovery, they had a, you know, like message, dirty jobs thing. And so I wrote a letter. It was compassionate. It was really an emotional plea. It wasn't a letter. It was an emotional plea. I see. Hey, you know, I've got this guy in North Texas. They artificially inseminate cattle. They spray pastures. They plant crops. They do all of these things. The world needs to see this. Radio silence, mind.

No, but here's the funny thing. So fast forward years later, David, I think it was his name. He was your show, one of your show guys. Barsky. He's in, we're talking about feral cats. He was a little. one that originally reached out to us. Dirty jobs? No, this is recent. This is like, Recent.

Oh, okay, school of humans. Okay, so back forward, he calls. And I'm like, like, did they read my letter? 13 years later. I knew that postal service. I knew they were slow. They need to increase it by more than a cent each year. And so I answered the phone, you know, we talk about whatever.

So when you come in to TCAP, it was like, imagine being in, in, this is how I've explained it to my friends, I'm like at the Price is Ride. And I'm like in and I love the Price is Right and I'm watching it on TV and I'm in the studio audience. And then they say, Stacey Shoemaker, come on down. And you go to the front. That's how I felt. And so it's like this guy that I've watched on TV comes in and I'm like, what took you so long? I've been here the whole time, Mike, the whole time I've been here. God. You willed it.

It just took 13, 14 years to come true. We had to have done something. And so, you know, fast forward. T-CAPis spayed and neutered almost, you know, more than half a million. We're getting close to a million. And here I am a rancher's wife looking at the industry saying, listen, just like Liam Nielsen, I have a very specific set of skills developed over a lifetime career. I'm here to help the farming.

community. Now, there are probably a lot of farmers shaking their heads, Mike, like, oh my gosh. But. No, no, I'll tell you what, there are probably a lot of Liam Neeson fans shaking their heads. Like, it's not right. It's Neeson. You might have a very specific set of skills, like letter writing and whatnot, but remembering. It's not speaking. It's not speaking. No. Here's a fear that I have. And this is something that you can kind of help with. The fear that I have is if you look at the makeup of the farming community, the ranching community, they're all getting older. You know, for young people, you talk a lot about trades. For people wanting to get into the farming and ranching world, it is very, very difficult. And that's something as a nation, I feel like we

should be very concerned about. There's a word that almost always precedes the word farmer. and it's generation. And there's a word that almost always precedes generation, which is first, second, third, fourth, or fifth. You said it earlier. Scott's what, a fourth generation rancher? You know, you don't really hear zero generation. We just, hey, let's buy a ranch.

Let's give it a shot. No one does that, you know. And you're so right. We have to protect the DNA of this whole thing. When I met him, and I asked him if I could tell this story, and he said, yes, he looked definitely like a little... Scott?

Can you tell that story? Don't make me punch you in the throat. No. I said, hey, can I tell the story? And he looked like someone who had fallen off a turn of truck. He had a hole in his shirt. He was dirty. He did not prepare for that meeting appropriately.

But you're either impressed or you're not. You're either impressed or you're not. but when I met him and went to his home, I think I had bought into the notion that it was going to be the Yellowstone. Yeah. It wasn't the Yellowstone. No. And when I saw you, I thought you were going to be Beth Dutton. But, you know, there's a little bit of Beth.

I try not to disappoint. I try not to disappoint. So I would say that, you know, where we are, we lease a lot of land. And so when you say, you know, in a lot of places, you know, in a lot of place, A lot of the places have been sold throughout the nation. You have somebody that breaks up a family farm, and maybe one of the kids wants to farm, and the rest don't. And so we get the opportunity to lease a lot of land, but it's very, very capital intensive to be able to farm. Ranching, I think, is a little less because you can sell out in a day.

Farming is not that way at all. There's a lot of accoutreement that come along. Don't ask me to spell it. No, it's French, and it's got a little accent. I like the way you said it, though. Accoutremant. They have a lot of accessories, you know? Barb, I have a little girl.

She has accessories. Farmers have a lot of accessories. The federal government is not going to close America's skills gap. They have an important role to play for sure, but if we're serious about reinvigorating the skilled trades on a national level, We need more organizations like Skills USA making a real difference on a local level. These guys have been around since 1965, and today they are relevant like never before with hundreds of chapters in schools all over the country and hundreds of thousands of students

participating and competing every year. Nobody is doing more to train the next generation of skilled workers than Skills USA. And I'm encouraging you to at least consider being a part of the this movement. Skills USA advisors and volunteers aren't just teaching trades. They're launching careers and strengthening the backbone of our country by mentoring the next generation of industry leaders. In high school, you could be among the people who are making this movement explode. Join the skilled trades movement. Support career and technical education programs through Skills USA. There's no better way to do it. You can volunteer at a local chapter. You can start a chapter in your own

town. Or you can just go to their website and see the impact for yourself and see too how easy it is to get involved. Thousands of kids are being introduced to the trades in a way that's absolutely positively moving the needle. The goal is a million members by 2030. I think it's doable. I'm doing what I can to help them. Learn more at skillsusa.org slash mic. That's skillsusa.org slash Mike. I'm talking Skills, U.S. Skills, U.S.S.S.S. USA.

So were you doing the T-CAP thing when you met Scott? I was. Yes. So what's a fourth generation farmer say to a woman 10 years his senior who seems to be kind of into him

but is currently on a mission to spay and neuter all the cats she can find? You sleep with one I open, Mike. You sleep with one eye open. No, he came to work for me at my house. I had cattle. And so he had been referred as a helper for the day.

And he came. I bossed him around for two seconds and I went to work. And he and I did not see each other for months at a time. And so I just remember looking him up on Facebook because he had looked dirty when I met him. and he had nice teeth. And I thought, man, his mom must love him. He has good teeth. To his credit and to the credit of farmers and ranchers, you know, in our area,

that's a hard way to make a living. Oh, my God. I think it's the hardest. I really do. A hard way. And so let's talk about what people do if they want to be farmers. Can we talk about that or what they want to do if they want to be ranchers? Yeah.

It's all about relationships, you know? Like, it's all about relationships. It's all about finding somebody maybe that you can partner with or that you can work under to see how they do things because that's not a skill that one would learn in some esteemed, hallowed institution. Of higher learning. No, you must do it. Correct. There's no jumping over the apprenticeship portion of this program. Right.

Right, because if you don't do it correctly, it can be, like, devastatingly expensive. You lose everything. Yes. Yes. And so I would say that, you know, one of the things that I get the opportunity to do, and I'm really a proponent for the farm credit system, do you know what that is? Yeah. I used to work for Farm Credit Bank, actually.

But explain it to people, the Farm Credit System. So the Farm Credit System was set up by Congress in the early. 1900s through a seed grant. And it was completely designed as a way of farmers and ranchers finding low interest long-term financing. And so that is a system that I actually, you know, in transparency, I sit on a board for a member of the farm credit system. And I think that is extremely important for people who think, you know, I'd really like to feed the world. I'd really like to have a noble profession that really contributes to the world. There are ways through the farm credit system of finding financing, especially young, beginner, and small. They have like a

program specifically designed for young people or people just starting out. Where do you go? So you can go. If you do a Google search, I work with an organization called Lone Star Ag Credit. But if you Google a farm credit system near your home, wherever it is that you live, you can find ways of getting financing because traditional banks typically do not lend large amounts of money for those sorts of things on a long-term basis. Why? Is it just a risk, risk, risk? Yes, there's a ton of risk. And it's much easier to support businesses that are brick and mortar versus. versus buying a $250,000 piece of equipment.

And this is the world. Then you have to use it to make money. This is the world that we're in, you know, and I'm not really complaining about it, but I can't help but say that it's very, very, very difficult to get a loan if your intent is to grow food that people need to live. And it's very, very difficult to get 6.3 million strays

knocked down to the smallest possible number. when the country is full of people who will pay many thousands of dollars to have a registered animal. And so we are constantly, it seems, in this tautology of encouraging behavior that we really don't want and discouraging behavior that we really do. And so it's jagged little pills like you, honestly, that make a difference. I really mean that as a compliment. You wrote a letter 14 years ago. because you had to be in your bonnet

and you were pretty sure that you and I would sing out of the same hymn book and that our paths ought to cross one day. Now, it took 14 years, but, you know, if we're looking for a moral to a story, then it might be this. When in doubt, write the letter. When in doubt, do the thing.

Do the work. Try. Yes, you could say when in doubt, do the work. You know what? Let me hijack this a second. Chuck. I haven't had a chance to talk to you about this yesterday, but I listened to a podcast called It's the Always Sunny podcast,

and it's the cast of Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Right. And it's freaking funny. So I'll just recommend it if you're a fan of that show. If you're not a fan of the show, you're going to be very confused. But Danny DeVito told a story just a week or two ago, and I think you'll both love it. This is a long, long time ago.

He gets his first break, and it's an off-Broadway show. and the part's perfect for him, but the director winds up casting. Who's the gold guy? Bill Devane, right? So William Devane gets the part. Danny Devon. Over Danny DeVito. Right? Two very different types there.

Yeah, it was like the role was a saucy stable boy. Very strange anyway. But it was perfect for Danny. He didn't get it. But then the director needed to raise some money for the play. So he asked Danny to read that. part for investors, right, because Bill was out of town. So this happens all the time, Stacey, in the business, right? People get together, they read a play for people with the money, and the

people with the money decide, okay, I'll fund it or I don't fund it. So they fund it. They decide to fund it. Bill Devane comes back to town, and the show goes on, and Danny's kind of out in the cold and feeling kind of bad about the whole situation. And then William Devane gets an offer he can't refuse to star in another Broadway production downtown and he's got to leave this show. So the director calls Danny back because he remembered what a menschie was to show up to read the part that he knew he wasn't going to get. And he says, Danny, the part's available. Do you want it?

So like Danny says, this is unbelievable. This is my shot. And he says, yes. And he already knows the part. And they rehearse a little bit. And boom. There he is on Broadway. The first night he does the show, he goes home, he's on Cloud 9, he knows it's going to be a hit, he feels great, he goes back.

The next day, they're taking the marquee down. The show was canceled, all right? He does one show, and he's canceled. And he feels about as bad as he can feel, and he walks into the cafeteria near the theater, and he meets a woman named Rhea. Ria, of course, turns out to be his wife and the mother of his children. but then it gets even weirder. He gets a phone call from a guy doing a play downtown. And the guy says, hey, there's a part in this play that I think would be great for you.

The guy who called Danny DeVito is William Devane. The play that William Devane is starring in is one flew over the cuckoo's nest. Cuckoo's Nest, I knew you were going to say that. Danny DeVito goes, gets the part, and they have a terrific run. Milo Scho Foreman comes to see. the play, signs on to direct the movie, which Danny DeVito winds up doing. William Devane, not so lucky, Jack Nicholson comes along. Sorry, Bill, you're out, Jackson. But the point is, Danny DeVito showed up to read a part he didn't get. And as a result, he met his wife,

brought some kids into the world, starred in one of the greatest movies ever made, and went on to redefine TV as Louis De Palma in Taxi. Because he read for a part he didn't get. You wrote a letter. He said yes. He said yes. He said, why not? And I'll tell you, man, I never get tired of stories that end like that.

For some reason, you wrote a letter 14 years ago and you never heard anything back until the week after Christmas, 2022, when we sit down to solve the book. problems of the world. Can I get an amen? Amen? Did we solve those problems? I don't know. No, probably not. I hope that maybe we gave a little more perspective. Well, I'll tell you what's going to be a part of the solution. Whenever it's solved, ultimately, it's going to take somebody who's straddling the line, like you. It's going to take somebody with a foot in two worlds, somebody who loves a good steak and who will stay up nights trying to help the feral cat population. Put me in coach. Put me in coach. I'm ready.

Dude, you're in. You're already in. You got the part. You're Danny DeVita. You did it. You know what you are not. You are not profoundly disconnected from the problem of stray cats or from where our food comes from. You understand both worlds. That's a very good thing. Thanks, Chuck. It's my pleasure. Hey. Hey, back when you wrote that letter to Discovery all those years ago, you were watching dirty jobs at the time.

Did you see or do you remember the episode with Earl, the butcher? The pig farmer. No, no, no. Or the butcher where they went into the. Where I shot a cow on camera. Yeah. Yeah. So here's the thing.

I don't like that they have to die for me to eat them. Well, do you want to eat them alive? Do you have any idea how horrible, how horrible. that is? No, but I don't relish that part of animal husbandry. I recognize it's a reality. How's that? Well, look, I can't say it better than you did before. Scott, we need to know where our food comes from. That was the impetus that drove me to meet Earl the butcher in western Michigan, who every day drives to small farms populated with people who raise their own beef but becomes so attached to them that they can't bring themselves to handle the slaughter. So Earl comes in and the family gathers and they all go over and they pet the cow and then Earl shoots it.

And within moments the cow is in four pieces, four giant pieces in the back of a wagon. And then we're back at his place and that cow in the course of one day is turned into six or seven hundred pounds of steak that will feed that family for a long time. Look, if you're not willing to see that, if you're not willing to do that, I'll tell you, Stacey, the hardest thing I've ever done on TV. And I don't think I've ever told this to you, Chuck, but of all the crazy stuff on that show, standing next to that cow, looking at the camera, just like I'm looking at this one, explaining to the viewer who Earl is and why we're here. As that cow licked my neck, Earl handed me the rifle. And his words were, make it quick and don't screw it up. And I stepped back.

I shot the animal between the eyes. it went down hard and we filmed everything. And to this day, that generated more letters, I think, than anything we did. But Stacey, I'm telling you, that's a version of what you said to Scott. Part of showing people where their food comes from is paying respect to the animal. And if you're not willing to look at that, then honestly, I'm not sure how you can eat it with a straight face. Can I get an amen? Amen.

Amen. I've said too much. What are you doing today? We've been talking for an hour and seven minutes. I'm not going to keep you any longer, but I'm curious. What's the day look like? This was the highlight of my day. Now, tomorrow I've got some big things, but you were kind of it today, Mike and Chuck.

Like, now I'm going to do paperwork. I've got lots of paperwork to do. I'm going to encourage my colleagues to greatness. Do you feel like I can do it? We're making a difference. We're going to embrace the suck. And we're going to do it. And so that's today and every day.

You're an inspiration. You're a natural leader. I'm glad I know you. Oh, I've got a lot of letters and comments from people who want to know how Dreyfus is doing. He is on the lamb. He's out there. He is living his life. He's living his life, Mike.

He's not accountable to. to anybody, he has, some people would say pretty successful. I mean, is that the mark of success when nobody tells you what to do anymore? Well, I wouldn't know. Chuck would not know. And I am not sure. I just know that that every decent episode of Dirty Jobs takes an unpredictable turn. And when Dr. Glenn Campbell said, join me in searching for this testicle that didn't drop. and we went rooting around and what appeared to be the lower GI tract of Dreyfus, the one bald cat.

I mean, I just thought, well, there are times when I think I'm done with dirty jobs. I have to be done because everything... Did we almost finish you off? Is that what you're saying? No, I'm saying, finally. That almost finished you off.

That didn't take much. No, no, no. It didn't almost finish me off. It gave me hope. It gave me hope for the series because when you think you've seen pretty much everything, when you shoot a cow on the head

and bite the testicles off a baby lamb and so forth and so on. You figure, okay, I've done it. And then a veterinarian named Glenn Campbell allows you to assist in the search for a testicle that failed to descend. In a cat called Dreyfus, and I don't know if you saw the promo, Stacey. To the tune of deck the halls holding up Dreyfus' testicles, that was big. I tell you what made my day. I got a text message yesterday.

You talked about feral cats on the Kelly Clark. And show. I feel like I kind of made it. I did. I did. Spay and neuter your pets. That should be the takeaway from this. You don't like lots of dogs and cats in the world.

You're not a dog or cat person. Spay your cats. Spay your dogs. You love dogs and cats. Want everybody to have one. Spay and neuter. That's the takeaway. The Texas Coalition for Animal Protection is your.org.

And if people want to contribute, they should go to. Texas for them.org. Is that correct? That's correct, yes. Texas for them, F-O-R-T-H-E-M.org. Thanks for the shout-out. Chuck. I appreciate that.

It's my only real reason to be here. This is only real task. Well, he did it. He did it well. A plus. It took him an hour and 11 minutes, but he got there. Mike, you have really breathed a lot of life into T-CAP. We do the same thing.

Every day, we do it really well. Working hard doesn't mean that it's always fun, but it means that there's value in that hard work. And I want to thank you for that. You're welcome. You've really given a lot of people not only here, but in the whole humane community, really a shot in the arm. And I appreciate that. Well, thanks. You give those ladies my regards.

Freddie, I think, is still a pretty good ambassador. I still get letters from people all the time, you know, because he's a mutt from a shelter. And he's cute as can be. I mean, he is a bit of an asshole, but I love him. He's a terrier. He's a terrier. That's what they do. Yeah.

That's what they do. Say hey to Sandy the cat lady and, of course, to Dr. Glenn Campbell and all the fine folks there at TCAP. Absolutely. In that little strip mall. Doing great work. I hope that, I hope we have done both of the industries that I hold so dear a good job. Scott, any final thoughts? I'll tell him what to say.

Let's call him. You're telling him what to say. That's right. He's up on the throat punching. I love the... Chuck, I think you were taking a pee when she said. He was dirty, but he had good teeth. I did hear that, yeah.

I don't know. That might be the title where we eat our own. We'll sort it out now and let you go about your day. But thank you. Don't hang up until we upload. And happy New Year, sweetie. It's great to be your friend. Give your mom my best.

My mother and I don't speak anymore. I talk to her all the time. And we keep secrets from Mike, so... I'll take her. Thanks, son. Adios. Bado do, do do do do do. To the guys who advertise and subsidize, the podcast that I do. They spend their dough, and you should know before you go.

That's why it's free for you, because it's free. I hope you see and then agree. Their bottoms should be kissed without the guys who advertised. The show would not exist. There's no podcast without a spot. Thank them for pay in the fray Please don't fast forward through their commercials Even ones that you hate

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