Dr. Pitcairn, Dec 16, 11 PPR

The Preparedness Radio Network promotes being prepared for natural and man-made disasters. Tomorrow's Harvest offers a variety of prepackaged meals for emergency preparedness. The Freeze-Dry Guy provides freeze-dried food for long-term storage. Pet Prep Radio discusses preparedness for pets and understanding their behavior. Pam Williams, an animal behaviorist, emphasizes the importance of learning and understanding your pet's communication through body language. Misunderstanding behavior can lead to negative consequences for the pet. This is the Preparedness Radio Network, preparing you for natural and man-made disasters, helpful tips on gardening and homesteading. Be prepared and remember, preparedness saves lives. This is the Preparedness Radio Network. In today's world, being prepared is on everyone's mind. You're being told every day to prepare yourself. Okay, being prepared is one thing, but how are you preparing? 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Johnson, I got a mission for you that could change your life. Oh, good, sir. It involves traveling halfway around the world without so much as half a clue of where you're going or what you're going to do when you get there. Situation normal, sir? Well, I'll be leading this mission, Johnson, so I'll be telling you what to do. You, sir? That's right, Johnson, and I say first things first. Oh, good plan, sir. And what I say first is food. Always remember that, Johnson. Food is a big deal. Sir, my brother-in-law can get us a really good deal on some surplus MREs. Johnson, if you've got half a brain and that empty head of yours, you'll call the freeze-dry guy like I did. That food is better for you. It rehydrates faster, and it's good, Johnson, and it keeps for up to 30 years. Will we be gone that long, sir? I hope not. Now, get your supplies organized and meet me down at the pier at dawn on Sunday when we sail the sunrise. Yes, sir. This adventure is brought to you by the Freeze-Dry Guy. Call 866-404-3663 or visit freeze-dryguy.com. Pet Prep Radio with Sherry, the organic pet lady, is on the air. Tune in for a show loaded with information on preparedness for pets and their people, too. If you're an animal lover, then this is the show for you. And now, the host of Pet Prep Radio, Sherry, the organic pet lady. Well, welcome, folks. Welcome new friends and old friends and friends that we hope to make this evening. I'd like to start out the show and just say how excited I am for the holiday season and wish those that are celebrating Hanukkah a very happy Hanukkah. And for those of us celebrating Christmas, I warmly wish you and your family and your pets a very merry Christmas. We are excited here. We got a little dusting of snow today. It's not as much as we expected, but we were hoping for more and we still have time. And so it's wonderful to be here. I'm Sherry, the organic pet lady and the owner of a micro-business called The Organic Pet. And we offer premium, special, diet-friendly organics for horses, dogs, and cats. And we'd love to have you visit our website. You can do it now or after the show at www.theorganicpet.net. There's a link here on Pet Prep Radio. And we also have a little kitty rescue here called Save the Kitties. And we are always in need of donations. We're a private rescue, but we've taken on quite a few feral cats. And we need food. That would be fantastic. If you can make a little donation, that would be super. We'd appreciate that. We have some information on our webpage. You can go there to donate at our PayPal address. But this evening, I wanted to talk to you folks about how important it is to understand your pet's behavior. This is really important for people to learn and understand, and also for your pet who will very much appreciate your thoughtfulness and consideration to them for learning their language, so to speak. Also, having a well-trained animal right now, that would come in handy just on a daily basis. But just think of the circumstances that we can't even fathom that could happen and how important having a well-trained, understood animal could be not only a blessing, but a great benefit to us at that time. And that's why I've invited my new friend, Pam Williams, to join us today. Everybody, this is Pam Williams. Hi, Pam. Hi, Terri. How are you doing out there in the great state of Utah? Well, we had sun all day today. It sounds like that was more than what you guys had. Yes, it's been gloomy here in northeastern Ohio, but we had a little sunshine the other day, which was nice. Pam is calling in from beautiful Enoch, Utah. And she has a wonderful place called the Hitchin' Post. And, Pam, tell us a little bit about yourself. Well, I reside here in Enoch, Utah, which is just a small subgroup of Cedar City, Utah, in the southern part of the state. I've had a boarding and grooming and dog training facility here for actually Thanksgiving was our 14th year. And so we love it out here. And it's just full of wonderful people and a lot of animals out here. And so we've actually been here for about 21 years. I had a mobile pet grooming business that I brought with me from southern California. And I've enjoyed working with the people and working with their dogs and helping them to where they have a better understanding of their dogs and enjoy their lives with them rather than spend most of the dog's life in frustration. Right, that is just so important. And that's why I was so excited to learn about, you know, what you've been doing for the last, how many years have you been an animal behaviorist? Well, I've been training and doing animal behavior for a little over 35 years. And so a lot of it is, you know, you read a lot of books, but it's mostly just being with the animals and watching them and experiencing. And I grew up in a family of, my dad trained bird hunting dogs, so watching him and learning from him. And then I did a competition with the obedience competition when I was younger too. So I also worked, my first job out of high school was working with sentry dogs. And so I've had some experience in training about every different type of dog. And so you learn a lot of things. Absolutely, absolutely. And I'm still learning. Don't we all? Oh, my gosh. Yes. Yeah, it seems like the more I learn, the more I realize I just don't know. I think when we stop learning, that's the end of it. Well, hopefully today is not that day. We love to talk about behavior, and since that is one of your expertise, I would like to ask you to share with our people listening today how and why we can learn more about our animals' behavior. Well, basically, and what I try to teach my clients that come to me, is that our animals communicate to us all the time. We very seldom see it. We live in a world where everybody has cell phones and they have TVs and they have stereos, and it's a very loud world in the human world. But in the animal world, it's communication by body language, by posturing. They can't speak our language, but we can learn theirs. It's a lot easier for us to learn theirs than for them to learn ours. And oftentimes when people bring home puppies, you know, they tend to already have in their mind what this puppy is going to do and how it's going to be. And usually the puppy comes from a litter that he's been communicating with his siblings and with his mother, and then he comes into this new human world without his siblings. And so he's constantly trying to communicate, but very seldom do we see or hear what he's saying. And then by the time he's six months old, oftentimes people are frustrated because they're not understanding their dogs and they're starting to have behavior problems. And in reality, it's a very simple animal to live with. It's us humans that make it complicated. So watching dogs, what's really great is when you can watch a pack of dogs and watch how they interact with each other and communicate with each other. That's one of the greatest learnings that anybody I think can have. It's hard when you only have one dog, but when you have multiple dogs, it's fascinating to sit and watch them. And you start picking up on different things. And pretty soon you're sitting there, and if a dog is walking towards another dog, you automatically know what's going to go on because you've been watching them, you know? Yeah, you pretty much know if they're going to pounce on them or... Exactly, by their body language. A high tail fit often means that they're coming in a little bit more dominant. When the dog's head is lowered and his ears are lowered, he's usually being submissive or he's telling you, I'm nervous. Oftentimes we want so badly for the animal to like us that we approach dogs that are communicating to us, please don't approach, I'm nervous, I'm afraid of you. But because we think, oh, but you have to like me, I'm such a nice person, we tend to push these dogs into a corner or into a situation where they've warned us, they've told us every way that they know how. The dog would certainly have understood it, but sometimes with just too much good heartedness, we force the dog into a situation where he ends up snapping at us because he had no other recourse to take. Right, and that would lead to undesirable results for people that don't understand what the behavior really was about. People misunderstand that, misread it, and this dog may end up either in a rescue, in a shelter, or even worse, put to sleep. Correct. Well, and if he did hit somebody, he's going to go into a shelter, but he's going to be marked as a biter, so he probably wouldn't be able to be adopted. And where it was a situation where he normally would not have did, but he was forced into that. That's a really good point. I think that may happen more often than we realize, people not having the education or the awareness of how to read and understand animal behavior, and oftentimes resources are unknown to most people. I think that's one of the downsides. When I go to dog shows and so on, some of the bigger dog shows, I actually meet an animal behaviorist, and there's different types of resources available to dog show people. But to the average pet owner, you might not know where to turn for a resource to become more educated in animal behavior. There's one book that you and I have talked about off-air that we both agree is a fantastic book, and I don't make money off of referring this book, but it's really amazing, and it's called The Dog Listener. For horse people out there, they may have heard of The Horse Whisperer, but this is called The Dog Listener, and it's by Jan Frenel. Is it Jan Frenel? That's correct. Yep, and she's fantastic. The foreword is written by Monty Roberts, who is a well-known horse gentler, I guess we could call him, not a traditional trainer. Fantastic resource. Half the book is about behavior and situations, and the other half of the book is a 30-day training guide, and I'll tell you, if I actually sold that book, I'd be making a few bucks. That's a great resource. Do you have another resource you might recommend? Well, there is a lot of great books out there. One of them also is called How Dogs Learn, and that is by Mary R. Birch, Ph.D., and John S. Bailey, another Ph.D., and that has been a great reference book for me too, and oftentimes when I'm struggling with a behavior problem that some methods I've tried isn't working, I refer back to that book, and it's really helped me. I very much so like Cesar Millan's way of approaching dogs and understanding them, and what he does too, basically, people will call him up and ask him for, they'll tell him, well, our dog is on his last leg. If we can't fix this, we're going to have to get rid of him. And what he does, and I do this up here in this area, he goes and he fixes the people, and once he fixes the people, then the dog automatically falls into place. And I know it sounds very simple, but it really is. I mean, you're going to have some of your tough dogs to work with, but for the most part, it really is that simple. That's a great point that you raised there, and we as people, like you mentioned a little bit earlier in the broadcast, that people need to be more aware of how they are moving and the tones of voice, these sorts of things, towards the dog. And there are things that we do as people, and, you know, most of us, we're not doing it on purpose. We're not trying to make the dog angry, or we're not trying to make the dog miserable or uncomfortable or scared or nervous, but we're doing things that we don't even realize we're doing. Exactly. Right. And so, you know, when I'm into horses, and Pam is too, for those of you out there that aren't familiar with Pam, and we both know that the problems that may arise are usually 2% the horse and 98% the person. That's exactly right. And as you said, the human not on purpose. They just don't have an understanding. But there's so much information out there now and in the past there wasn't. They just had to go to a traditional type trainer. And now there's so much more out there and to learn by. The thing is with the hogs at Sissel Sunny is that they are the perfect lie detector. You cannot lie to a dog. What you think is what you predict. And I explain that to my clients when they call their dog to come to them. If they're thinking, gee, I hope my dog comes, call your dog isn't going to come. But if they call their dog to them and just assume the dog is going to come to them, that's a positive energy and it draws the dog to them. Because the dog says, oh, well, you know what you're doing. I'll come follow you. Which makes us the pack leader, correct? Exactly, yes. And oftentimes the word dominant, that you have to be dominant, people tend to back away from that word because they think, well, that means I have to be mean. And that's not true. Dominant only means calm and assertive. That means, hey, I know where I'm going, come follow me. And the dog is already a born follower. He's looking for his pack leader. Oftentimes in a dog's life we put them in a situation such as being a pack leader, which they're not capable of doing. So we start having these behavior problems with these dogs, and we can't understand it. Then we try to fix it using human psychology, and that doesn't work because they have their own. And, as I said, it's such a simple thing. I tell people when you walk in the house, when you walk home, get in the house, walk in the house like you own the house. But most people, the first thing they do is when they walk in the door is they come in low and can't wait to pet their dog because they haven't seen them for a whole hour or two, and immediately greet the dog. And what I try to explain is that a submissive dog, if you've ever watched a submissive dog approach a dominant dog, they come in low. They come in with their head low, and they come in low, and they're saying, I don't want to fight with you. I submit to you. And people unwillingly come in the house, and especially small dogs, well, they bend down because they're excited to see them, so they trigger an excited frame of mind of the dog. But not only that, they're coming in low, so the dog looks at them and says, oh, well, you must be coming in submissive. So it puts the dog right away as a pack leader. That can create some problems in the household. Could you maybe give some examples of what that alpha behavior would be so that people might recognize those things? Well, coming from the dog? Yeah, like, yes, if the owner comes in and gets submissive to the dog, the dog thinks that, all right, now I'm the alpha dog. What kind of behavior issues are we going to run into? Well, you're going to run into where you, especially if you're coming with groceries, you want to be able to put your groceries down. The dog is all over you, jumping on your bark, and actually is demanding that you give him attention. When you're sitting on the couch, especially the smaller dogs, or if the larger dogs will come and they'll either, they usually will try to lay on your feet because they're possessing you. A small dog jumps up on your lap, he's possessing you. Oftentimes if somebody else sits on the couch with you, he will become, for us, the worst person, even if it's a family member, because he's owning you. Dogs should not approach you without permission. In the wild, it's just like the wolf pack, because their brains are programmed the same way, they do not approach the pack leader without permission. And it's just, you're not being cruel, you're just, they have to wait to be invited up on the couch with you. So you're saying boundaries. Exactly. Right. That's right. People need to learn what the boundaries are. Now, we have about six minutes until our break, so this leads me to ask you. With the behavior, as we're learning how to take on our role as the dominant, which means confident and not mean, role within our pack, how can we, how will this best benefit us in an emergency preparedness type of a situation? What are the benefits to starting now to be prepared for that time when, say, the poopy hits the fan and, you know, how important is this? Well, for one thing, the dog is going to listen to you, even when there's a disaster going off or sirens going off or, you know, helicopters flying low or whatever, you know, out of the norm is happening. If you stay in a calm assertive energy, the dog is going to come follow you, even when he's in a panic. One of the things, too, as far as it keeps the – it's healthy for the human is what it is. What a dog – the only thing that a dog requires of you besides being fed properly and watered is to stay in balance, that their pack is in balance, and you, the humans, and the family are the pack. And what that requires is that you stay in a calm assertive energy from the time you go to bed – from the time you wake up in the morning until you go to bed at night. What happens with this is the dog is actually forcing you to stay in that energy in order for him to stay balanced, and that's the healthiest energy that a human can be in. You can deal with all the stresses of the day when you are in a calm assertive energy. So it's healthy for the human and it's healthy for the dog. When things are in a panic or things – well, I like the Jane Fennell one when she said that she's out hiking with her dogs and they hit a whole bunch of bees that came and started attacking them. They all went running and running straight to the car, and it was probably about a quarter of a mile that they all had to run, got into the car, and that's when she realized, oh, my dogs followed me. They stayed with me. They didn't panic and go every other way. They stayed with her. That's really good advice. Having a dog that you can understand and communicate with, and I don't mean communicate on a psychical level as far as, you know, getting and picking their brain, but communicating with them by understanding their body language and pack behavior as it is in the wild is a very important thing, especially – well, you know, on a daily basis it comes in handy, but just think of how much more useful it's going to be in a situation where you may not have an option to say a lot, but your movement or your reaction is going to delegate to the animals and they're going to understand it. Is that probably a good assumption there? Oh, yes. Yes. And you know what? It's just like when we have children. We have to, in cases of emergency, we're the ones that have to stay calm for the sake that the children don't panic. Same way with our animals. We need to stay calm so that they don't panic. So it actually is helping us and the animals. So that just makes us stronger is what you're saying. Yes, it does. That's really awesome. So they kind of force us to stay under control. Yes. So to speak. Yes. Well, that is – I'm sorry. Go ahead. Yes, no, I just think that's really groovy. Yes. Well, I think that's why animals are such a special gift to us. I think that they are a blessing to us. They are here to help us and aid us. I would agree with that. I do think that they're here on Earth to give us a glimpse of unconditional love because as people, we just fail miserably at it, even with our best efforts. And I agree with you in that. And when we come back from the break, we're going to take a potty break pretty soon here at 27 after the hour. Now we're going to talk to Pam about training and how it's important to have a well-trained dog and some other really interesting questions regarding training and how that can benefit us not only now on a daily basis but to prepare for an emergency situation when it may come. This is Sherry, the organic pet lady, and special guest Pam Williams. And we'll be back right after the break. Hang in there and call your friends. Have them join us right now on Pet Prep Radio with an organic pet lady. You're listening to the Preparedness Radio Network. We'll be back after a word from our sponsor. I'm Dr. Prepper, and I'm here today to tell you about the Wonder Mill. How did grain mills create the most luxurious and quality flowers from any hard grains or beans? They contract with the world's best-suited factories to manufacture the Wonder Mill to the highest specification in the industry that they plan and design right up there in Pocatello, Idaho. They're the only American company with both electric and hand-operated models. I like them so much I bought both, and you should too. I use the electric model for the finest flower, and I use the hand-operated model for making my grits and creamy wheat for breakfast. And I can have it fresh every day. 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Now, back to the show on the Preparedness Radio Network. Well, hi, everybody. It's Sherry, the organic pet lady, back with you with our special guest, Pam Williams, who has a wonderful place out in Enoch, Utah, called the Hitchin Post. And we've just finished our first segment talking about behavior and what we can do to understand our animals' behavior a little better, why it affects us on a daily basis, how, by understanding behavior, we can improve the quality of life for both us and our pets. And she offered a few tips on how to achieve some improved behavior. And now we're going to be talking, for the final segment, we are going to be talking about training. Hi, Pam. Hey. How was your break? How do I make a break? Very good. Okay, well, let's talk about training. You know, explain to folks, you know, hey, is it important to have a well-trained dog? Well, I'll tell you, there's nothing worse than calling your dog and having him just look at you and then keep going, especially if he's heading out to the street where cars are coming. That's probably one of my most, the most that people will call up and complain about is that the dog won't come to them when they call them. And it's so important. That's probably one of the most important commands you can teach your dog, because it can save his life. So, but, you know, all your sit, down, stay, comes are all very important. And it's not so much the fact that you're, it's very important that you're teaching the dog this, but you're also, you're teaching him psychological things. I'm starting to lose my voice when you know it. And what the sad thing is, a lot of people think that, like, their little chihuahuas and Chih-Tzus and stuff don't need training. They need training just as much as the bigger dogs do. There's also, if you have company coming over, where it's much worse than having you open up the door and your dog's jumping all over them. It won't be long before they, ah, they don't want to come over and visit. Why don't you come over to my house? I don't have any dogs. You know, or, you know, you should be able to take your dog almost anywhere with you. And they are invited in a lot more places if they're well trained. That's a very good point. You know, people, some people may not understand how to train an animal or have tried to train the animal on their own and not been consistent and so haven't reached, achieved the results that they had been hoping for. What do you recommend for people, you know, in that kind of a situation that might be on a limited budget that can't afford to spend thousands of dollars on a, you know, fancy trainer? Oh, well, then come to me because I certainly don't get that kind of money. But, well, there's a lot of dog trainers out there, a lot of dog training classes and stuff. But I would investigate and go and watch some of the, see if you're allowed to come into the classes and see what things are done and stuff and to feel comfortable with your dog trainer. One of the things that I have found, because I grew up, you know, kind of learning some of the older ways also. Right. Which are less than positive enforcement, right? Yeah. I mean, in the end, a lot of times you get the same results, but I find that the positive reinforcement, it gets you quicker results and a deeper bond with the dog. Yeah. Instead of obeying you out of fear. I would agree with that. I've seen it done both ways, both with horses and with dogs. And one of my favorite horsemen in the world is John Lyons. You know, positive reinforcement. You can, you know, also Buck Branaman. These guys, they take a horse and within hours they're riding these horses. And, you know, same with dogs. You know, you can beat an animal into submission, but you're looking for trouble later. That's very true. Yeah. And a lot of these horsemen these days have learned that. But what they've done out and then is they've studied the horse herds and watched how they interact with each other and how if a horse needs discipline, how another horse disciplines it. And it's the same way with the dogs. There's a lot of great videos out there now of the studying of the wolves that I recommend to everybody. All those myths that we used to be told about wolves are, so many of them are not true. And it's amazing how close our dogs really are to the wolves. It's a very structured hierarchy. But what I found with the dog training, and as I started out just, you know, teaching these dog training classes, and a lot of the people in there, there's some that would pick up on it pretty good and others would struggle. And if they were having trouble, let's say, getting their dog to heal next to them. And so I'd say, okay, well, let me see your dog. And I'd take their dog, and it healed nicely for me, and I'd hand it back to the owner. The owner would try it, and it wouldn't heal very nicely for him. And that's when I realized I don't need to concentrate on the dog, I need to concentrate on the human. Because it doesn't matter how many sit-down, stay-at-homes you teach your dog, if he does not perceive you as the pack leader and have confidence in you, all of that doesn't do you any good because he only obeys you when he wants to. Okay, so this is building upon the behavior segment we just discussed and how important it is for people to understand that they need to be confident in order for the animal to trust them, to follow them. That's correct. And, you know, especially when they're first starting out, because, you know, I've been doing it for over 35 years, so I do make it look easy. And I don't want to discourage people, so I explain to them, it's because it's not your comfort zone. But if you do it every day, five, ten minutes, just go for a walk, and then you begin to get more confidence. The more confidence you have, the more confidence that goes down to the leash. Everything you feel goes down that leash. If you're worried, if you're concerned, if you're feeling awkward, it goes down the leash. But it takes practice, and it only requires five, ten minutes a day of working with your dog as far as the healing and that type of stuff. I would say maybe any more than that would start to get kind of boring for the animal. Yes, right. And you always want to make it fun. But that doesn't mean that structure in feeding is very important. They need to sit. And then when you set the bull down, you tell them to wait. It's just only for a few seconds. You don't sit there and make them wait for five minutes. And then you tell them to get it. Okay, that's good psychological training for them. And it also gives you the opportunity to be placed in, I'm your pack leader, and I'm letting you eat. Because in the wild, they wait for the pack leader to allow them to eat. Even though they are involved in the hunt and the kill, the pack leader still decides who eats and in what order. It's very structured. So all these little things add up. And most people don't think about these little things. When you walk out the door, most humans think, oh, I'm going to go for a walk. I'm going to take my dog for a walk. Well, dogs don't go for walks. They're hunters. So as soon as you step out that door, they're actually in a hunting mold. And if they step out and they're out in front of you, they're leading the hunt. And it's important that it's your hunt. You lead the hunt. When you want them to go potty, you give them permission to go potty. They don't drag you over to the tree. It needs to be very structured. And you need to keep in mind, also, dogs get frustrated in their backyard. They're migrators. They need to get out and go for walks. It's good for the dog, and it's good for the human. I get people tell me all the time, well, I have this beautiful backyard, and we put all this stuff out here for the dogs, and it's a half acre. It's all fenced. And she's still digging and chewing things and destroying it. Well, it doesn't matter how nice your backyard is, it's still a giant fishbowl to your dog. And it's frustrating. He needs to get out, and he needs to be with his pack leader. And like I say, it's just as healthy for the human to be out there doing that. I would say, yeah, definitely, both emotionally and physically, to get away. Turn your cell phone off and concentrate on that walk. It's good for your health. That's another point I wanted to make. How important is fitness going to be in an emergency situation? I mean, we all know that now it's going to be January, and everybody's got their New Year's resolutions. But I think this should be a really important priority, because your ability to be able to climb hills or trek on a hike or whatever might arise in the future as far as an emergency situation, we really don't know what we're preparing for necessarily, but we do know the important things are food, shelter, clothing, and now learning the behavior of our animals so that we can better understand them, and training, and it's important for our dogs to be in shape. Definitely, yes. And there sure is, just like there's humans, there sure is a lot of out-of-shape dogs out there. A lot of that is caused by, I think we have been programmed that our dogs need treats constantly. They just need their bowls filled and pets filled, which is not healthy for them. And dogs are not grazers, so they shouldn't have their food down all the time anyway. Yeah, they're different than horses, right. Yes. So there's, like I said, a lot of psychological training along with physical training. But a good 40-minute walk every day is healthy for both. I also encourage people, whenever I take on a dog for training, I like to, once I've got their healing down pretty good, I like to take them out to downtown. I park in one of the shopping stores there. And I walk that dog around in the parking lot area. I walk him up where the doors are automatically opening and closing, people coming in and out with carts. That is such good training for the dog. Because so many times I've seen dogs that have escaped out of the back of their truck or out of the car or whatever, and all of a sudden they're in this situation and they're in a panic. And nobody can catch them because they're just so panicked. They're almost blind and deaf to anything except for running as fast as they can. Right, fight or flight. Exactly. That's a good point, especially for our urban dwellers. Yes. Because they don't get to see all the heavy traffic like your city dogs do. That's a really great point. That's one of the things I just didn't think about. That would be extremely important to have your dog acclimated to all types of environments for safety's sake and for any kind of an emergency. You don't know when the emergency will occur. Who knows? You could be at the mall or you could be in a big city. Who knows? Well, if an emergency does occur, it's going to become a very busy place, whether you live out in the country. I also work with what's called the Utah Emergency Animal Rescue. And we've gone out on some calls where we've had some flooding and such, and to get the horses and other livestock and also dogs. One of the problems was when an area is being evacuated, we've had fires here too and we've had to evacuate some towns and stuff or parts of the town. The people don't want to leave if they can't bring their animals with them. Right. And oftentimes we're taking the people to the shelter, they can't have the animals. So this group goes in there and rescues the animals. And if these animals aren't used to different people, it's going to be hard to catch them. If they easily panic, it's going to be even harder to catch them. And so that's why I always suggest people bring your dogs into the city, get them used to the sights and sounds. And, you know, some people have a different idea about, well, I don't want my dogs getting used to strangers, which I certainly understand. A lot of my dogs, I have search dogs, and I don't want them just wandering off as a stranger. But at the same time, if somebody's trying to rescue them, they need to be able to be social. Yeah. Yeah, that's a really good thing. And I think that we'll actually have you on again to talk about that more in depth to help people. We're getting close to the end of the program here, and I'd like to thank you, Pam. Pam, you want to give us your website so people can find you? Sure. It is the HitchinPulse.org. I don't think you have to do the www with it, but I'm pretty sure you don't. But it's the Hitchin, H-I-T-C-H, apostrophe, N, Pulse.org. We do boarding and grooming and dog training and behavior. That's awesome. And I have Pam's information on my website too. If you didn't have a pen, you couldn't write it down, or you didn't want to listen to the program all the way through again. But I'd like to thank you, Pam, for coming and visiting with us today. And I just wish you a Merry Christmas and hope that your dogs all get a nice hug. We're here at the Organic Pet, and we'd like everybody to tune in next week for a re-broadcast. I'm not certain if it will be the Dr. Pitcairn broadcast or if it will be this one, but they're both worth listening to again. In January, we'll be airing at a new date and time. We'll be moving to Saturdays at 6 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, and we have a wonderful guest, Dr. Belfield, scheduled, who is just a remarkable human being and has contributed so much to feeding dogs and cats and just a myriad of animal health and nutrition. We would like to make sure that you don't forget to get your pets some organic treats at the organicpet.net. And once again, we'd like to wish everyone a Happy Hanukkah, a Merry Christmas, and a very Happy New Year. All the best to you in 2012. And until next time, be prepared. You've been listening to Pet Prep Radio on the Preparedness Radio Network. Tune in each time for timely tips on how to maintain your pet's health. It's all about preparedness for pets and their people, too. Questions or comments for Sherri the Organic Pet Lady? Email Sherri at theorganicpetlive at gmail.com Email Sherri at theorganicpetlive at gmail.com Or visit her website at www.theorganicpet.net Until next time, remember, preparedness saves lives. 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