Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: All right, Joni Bonilla, thank you so much for coming into the podcast studio here in Schenectady. We appreciate that.
And talking, dragging you in, it was one ask, and you were like, right away without a problem.
But we're here to talk about you and everything you've been doing for the past 10 years with Operation At Ease.
So before we get into the big picture, the big organization and things like that, tell me about Joni.
[00:00:36] Speaker B: No one ever asks you about me. I don't.
Just starting. Tricky right off the rip there, huh, Stan?
[00:00:45] Speaker A: Well, it's. You know what it is? It's. Sometimes I get so excited about the guests and about what you do, I want to hit the ground running. Like, talk about your organization, all the things you're doing, all the people you're helping. Don't forget to get the website and don't forget the promotions coming up and all that stuff. And it's like, oh, yeah, when did you move to the capital region? Where are you from? Oh, you're from England.
[00:01:04] Speaker B: All right, I can answer those questions. So I moved to the Capital Region about 25 years ago, and I'm originally from Boston, Massachusetts.
[00:01:11] Speaker A: Oh, very nice.
[00:01:12] Speaker B: I did a little bit of moving because of the United States Army.
[00:01:16] Speaker A: All right.
[00:01:17] Speaker B: But, yeah, born and raised in Boston, so I'm a Red Sox fan, which makes me, you know, sometimes not popular, but I stand by it.
[00:01:25] Speaker A: You're welcome to the podcast studio. As a Red Sox fan, you're in friendly company right here.
[00:01:29] Speaker B: Safe space.
[00:01:34] Speaker A: So did you serve or.
I think you. Or married into.
[00:01:40] Speaker B: So I married into it. I was unable to serve. When I was in high school, I had cancer.
[00:01:44] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh.
[00:01:45] Speaker B: But my dream growing up was to join the Peace Corps, which was inaccessible to you in the 90s because of preexisting conditions.
And so then I just married into the military since 1998, the late 1900s.
[00:02:01] Speaker A: Great year. Yeah, great year.
And so where has that journey taken you and your spouse? Have you been everywhere or you've been.
[00:02:12] Speaker B: Well, the spouse says, I have a type, Stan. Okay, so I have a type. I always joke that military men are my preference because the health insurance is free and they're never home.
So my first husband and I, I moved to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in 1998. He was in the 82nd Airborne Infantry. And we.
I think we're in North Carolina for a couple of years. He got orders to Korea. I went back home to Boston to go to college. From there, we went to.
I should say I went to Fort Drum because as soon as we got to Fort Drum, he deployed to Iraq.
So we had one point in our marriage where we were separated for two and a half years.
[00:02:57] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh.
[00:02:58] Speaker B: He did 18 months in Korea, came home for about two or three months, and then did a year in Iraq.
And then we came down to the capital District, and I think he was a civilian for two days. And he enlisted again in the Air Force. And then when we divorced, I found my current husband who was in the army, because I just like that type of guy.
He got out of the army and probably was. I think he was out.
I was with him for about two years while he was in the army, and then he got out of the army, was a civilian for two years, talked about enlisting every day. And now he's active duty at the 109th, where. Yeah, he'll stay till they kick him out, I think.
[00:03:45] Speaker A: Active local, though.
[00:03:46] Speaker B: He's active local? Yep, he's active local.
[00:03:48] Speaker A: And you've adjusted to that, that he's home now.
[00:03:51] Speaker B: Well, 109th deploys every year, all the time. So, like, I don't know that this unit gets the amount of credit or recognition for what they do, but they're gone. So they support the Antarctica mission. We have the only airplanes in the world that have skis that can land on ice. So these guys, every year, without fail, go to Antarctica. So our local airmen miss Christmas, Thanksgiving every single year.
And then in the summer months, they're over in Greenland. Not to mention the other support missions that they go on, like Iraq, Qatar, you know. So while it is an active duty base, they are very active duty.
The difference is, like, I think just that when we were active duty army, when I was with my first husband, we were on an active duty military base where nobody was from there. The adjustment has been not the military life. I'm used to deployments. I'm used to work. You know, he has to travel for different things. That's fine. It's being active duty spouse when you're not from here, but everybody else is. Cause your support just isn't the same. Because other people are relying on their mothers, fathers, cousins, their best friend from high school. And we're not from here, so we didn't have that. So that was the big switch.
[00:05:08] Speaker A: Yeah, but same language. Boston and Capitol. Reed, not so bad.
[00:05:14] Speaker B: Come on. It's night and day. Give me a break.
[00:05:16] Speaker A: Apples and oranges and very few Red Sox fans.
[00:05:19] Speaker B: It's very. Well, yes. There's definitely, like, you guys are a little aggressive with your sports Teams.
I will say that it's just. It's funny, like, being from a city, a big city, and then, like, being in the capital district. And like, I'm driving through Schenectady once with one of my trainers, Mackenzie, who you met, and she was like, I hate driving in the city. And I was like, wait, is this the city? And she was like, yes.
And I was like. Because she's from, like, Amsterdam.
[00:05:50] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:05:51] Speaker B: You know, so I'm always like, okay, so then we go over, like, the bridge here on Erie Boulevard, and I'm like, are we out of the city yet? Like, so, like, that's kind of funny, you know?
You know, so it's kind of. It is. It's.
[00:06:05] Speaker A: Yeah. Boston. I love Boston. My wife was there, you know, the original Airbnb. She worked on her side out in Boston. So she was, like, literally renting a room, you know, back in the aughts.
And, you know, she was commuting via Greyhound because it was like, you know, do we want to move together? Because do you want to get a job in Boston area? I'm like, no, the whole family's here, so we want to stay here. So I'll go to school there, we'll stay here, and then when I get done, carry on.
So, you know, she would come home on the weekends, or else I'd go out on the weekend and hang out and things like that. Love Boston. Love. Driving's a challenge. Why we can drive in the breakdown lane still petrifies me.
[00:06:45] Speaker B: We just do what we want. We do what we want. Driving them like, it's wild now, having. So my children are 17 and 19, and when we go back home and I'm like, this is how I learned to drive. Like, it is so, like, bananas that, like, they just let teenagers drive in that situation. Like, so I think that now. Cause I'm so removed from it, like, at this point, I've been gone probably longer than I lived there, you know, but.
So that's. The driving is a little wild. I miss public transportation so much.
[00:07:18] Speaker A: Real public transportation.
[00:07:20] Speaker B: I wish Albany had, like, a trolley or like, some manner of something, because I don't go to Albany ever. And I would if I could hop on, like, a trolley and get there or some manner of train and get there. Like, I know we have the bus, but we can do better. It's a state capitol. Yeah, do it. Give us a trolley.
[00:07:39] Speaker A: Yeah, there's like, three main streets. Yeah, just run it.
[00:07:44] Speaker B: Just run it.
[00:07:44] Speaker A: Just get me to that. If I can get from one End to the other and not have to stop every minute.
[00:07:50] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, no, I agree, I agree.
[00:07:53] Speaker A: So military's been. The military life has been part of you.
[00:07:58] Speaker B: Yeah, it's the only life I know, you know? Yeah.
[00:08:01] Speaker A: And then operation at ease, the counterpart to that, the friendly part of that sometimes for all of us, most important part, our four legged friends.
I think there's a story of how this developed.
[00:08:20] Speaker B: There's a story.
[00:08:20] Speaker A: And where was the connection instantaneous or did it dawn on you? So what's that?
[00:08:27] Speaker B: I've always worked with shelter and rescue dogs since the 90s, since Fort Bragg. I got a job at the local shelter down there. I spoke to the shelter director about becoming a dog trainer and everything I needed to do. I went to college for animal care. So it's kind of the only thing I know. Two things in my life, shelter and rescue dogs and military. So I always say, like, everyone thinks I'm, oh, Joan, you did this great thing. But I'm just combining my two loves of men in uniform and dogs.
I always joke about that. But I had a friend in Fort Bragg, Freddie, who is still a very, very good friend of mine.
His pet dog passed away about 10 years ago, right before OAU had started.
He's a four time combat veteran, 20 years of army infantry.
And he called me up and said, can you help me find a dog? My dog passed away and I miss her. And now when I knew Freddie in North Carolina, he was not a lover of dogs. He was very polite with your dogs. Like somebody who doesn't like your children is with your children. You know what I mean?
So to hear him talk about how he found a dog that was impactful to him really spoke to me.
And a few things he said was probably one of the most prominent things he said was he would be laying in bed after his wife and son went to work and school and just laying in bed in darkness. And she would just nudge him and then he would have to get up to let her out. And then when he was out, he would realize the trash had to go to the curb. And then if I'm at the curb, I'll take the dog for a walk. And then the dog needs dog food. Well, that was next door to the gym. And just how this like domino effect of how this dog. And it was a dog that one of his friends gave him, his friend was getting stationed in Alaska. Military families notoriously don't keep their animals. So Freddie goes, oh, again, it was the same premise. Just a dog that somebody didn't want anymore. That kind of got his life going. So I was that. You know, my mother always jokes that if you've met me, I've given you a dog. Because, like, so I started looking for a dog for him, and I was horrified. Like, I was met with red tape, politics, waiting lists. Somebody told me, Five years. I said, Five years. This man went to war four times. He's in a mental health crisis today.
Five years, $30,000, $50,000, or they'll pay for the dog. But everything else associated with it. He has to pay for airfare, two weeks in a hotel, food. And I'm like, but he's on VA benefits. What is. None of this makes any sense, you know? So I got very mad about it because I was like. And I was really doing some, like, deep.
Why can't the government shake? Fisting. You know what I mean? Like, do better. And I try, as a general rule, if I'm complaining about it, like, I don't complain about things. I won't fix myself.
So I just woke up one day. I woke up one day and said, I'm just gonna do it myself. My husband said, go for it. So I put a GoFundMe up and I created the program. And I. It's nothing that I thought it was going to be. And I guess everything that we needed because we're still, you know, we're going strong 10 years later.
[00:11:40] Speaker A: So this was. So with Freddie, this was down at. This was Fort Bragg.
[00:11:44] Speaker B: Well, Freddie ended up in Fort Lewis in Washington. We met each other in Fort Bragg in the late 90s.
[00:11:50] Speaker A: Okay, Fort Bragg.
[00:11:51] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:11:52] Speaker A: And you place.
You make one match.
[00:11:57] Speaker B: So we take dogs from shelters and we pair them with veterans and first responders, and then we provide a free guided training program for post traumatic stress, mobility, and psychiatric service dogs. We will actually be training our first hearing dog this year.
[00:12:12] Speaker A: Really?
[00:12:14] Speaker B: We have an aviator out in Fort Leavensworth, Kansas, who has called us for help.
[00:12:22] Speaker A: You place Freddy with an animal?
[00:12:24] Speaker B: No. Nope. The irony of the story is, then Freddie goes, I don't think I'm ready for a dog.
[00:12:28] Speaker A: Oh, no.
[00:12:29] Speaker B: So I was like, okay. So about two or three years later, Freddie got his dog. But he was not our first dog.
[00:12:35] Speaker A: He was not your first?
[00:12:36] Speaker B: Nope. Oh, Lord, no.
[00:12:39] Speaker A: Freddie.
[00:12:39] Speaker B: Freddie.
[00:12:41] Speaker A: I know, Freddy.
[00:12:42] Speaker B: I know. Our first dog was Dan and Shirley, and they are actually the silhouette in our logo.
[00:12:49] Speaker A: No kidding.
[00:12:49] Speaker B: I took that picture in Lowe's of them walking off together. And I always like our marketing to be very familiar to us, very personal, not a clip Art person, you know, not bashing people who do it. But it's just not the feel I want for us. Like, I wanted Operation At Ease to feel like Fort Bragg felt like for me where we were just all there in it together, you know, and so we keep everything as just even the name. I wanted a very recognizable name, no matter what branch of service you are in. You know, what OPERATION stands for, you know what at ease means, you know, so that's, you know, we just. I wanted all of it very inclusive.
[00:13:27] Speaker A: So you go from, you know, being a military spouse and then you go from an animal caregiver, things like that.
And then you snowball thrust in gravitated CEO based.
[00:13:44] Speaker B: Probably snowball would be the great. Like, I went from, honestly, a very quiet life. Like, my husband always jokes that, like, I'm like a spinning top, like, you spin me and then I'm like going. But eventually, like, the top just stops spinning.
So I had a very quiet. Like, I used to joke that my goal in life was to be as unimportant as possible.
And now, like, the joke is I got important at work and it ruined my life, but didn't ruin my life. But that's like, just what we joke about at oa. So I had a very quiet life. Trained. I did dog training classes two or three days a week. I boarded dogs out of my home. I was just, you know, home with my kids, and everything was quiet and easy. And now, you know, so when you.
[00:14:28] Speaker A: So again, Freddie's. That first.
[00:14:31] Speaker B: Freddie was the catalyst.
[00:14:33] Speaker A: The catalyst.
[00:14:33] Speaker B: The catalyst that there was a problem that needed to be addressed.
[00:14:36] Speaker A: And then you had the first match with Dan and Shirley.
[00:14:38] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:14:40] Speaker A: Is that when lightning struck or was it in the process? You're like, this is what I need to do.
[00:14:45] Speaker B: No, lightning struck immediately, as soon as I decided. But I didn't know what all was entailed. Like, it never occurred to me I would do podcast interviews. It never occurred to me I would do so much public speaking. I have a huge fear of public speaking, and I do tons of public speaking. I didn't know what, like, tabling at an event went or like, fundraising. I had no basis in that. No background in that. Like, I was a really good, solid dog trainer with just a true, deep appreciation for my military family.
And, you know, and then you look around and the Capitol district is saturated in military and, you know, where the state command, you know, is right in Latham and the Guard got their ass kicked in Iraq and Afghanistan. We just. And these guys went multiple tours. How is There not.
We euthanize a million dogs a year, we lose minimum. You know, the buzz number is 22 veterans every day to suicide, which is. That's not an accurate number. But why are we just not saving these lives together? So.
[00:15:59] Speaker A: Gotcha.
The.
How hard was it?
What did you learn?
What were the pain points?
I mean, you saw the first one. Red tape.
[00:16:13] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the hard. Honestly, it all, like my father used to always tell me, if it's meant to be, it's easy. So really getting the ball rolling was easy. Like, people were super excited about us, you know, the hardest part probably was just.
I think the hardest part was figuring out who's going to help me in this. Where are my strong points? You know, with people developing a team, I didn't really have management experience, you know, or like. So in the beginning it was like, everybody come. You know what I mean? And then it was like, whoa, hold on, that's too much of everybody, you know, but, you know, everybody who's come through the doors taught me something.
And I think that my biggest lesson that I've learned is that when people leave, it always makes room for the better person to show up, you know, so I've kind of learned that, like, I don't maybe get to keep all the people I want in this job, but the right person is coming, you know, so that's just now the lesson that I always teach my kids. Like.
[00:17:23] Speaker A: 10 years.
[00:17:24] Speaker B: 10 years with a lot of growth. I want to say 10 years. Yeah, 10 years.
[00:17:29] Speaker A: Relationships don't last 10 years.
[00:17:31] Speaker B: Yeah, I know.
[00:17:32] Speaker A: Careers don't last 10 years. Friendships don't last. I know our friends are animals if we're lucky. I know you hit 10 and you're like the lottery. And then after that, every other. Every the day after 10 is a lottery win.
Did you ever see this being?
[00:17:51] Speaker B: Never.
[00:17:53] Speaker A: You identifying as oa?
[00:17:55] Speaker B: I never thought I would be a face of anything.
Like, I never realized.
Like, this organization makes you understand the importance of yourself, you know, which I wasn't expecting. When I started this. I thought I would do two or three dogs a year. And within six months I quit my job and we had our own training facility. And now we're doing dogs out of state and we're offering mobility training. And now we have this, our own therapy dog program for the first responder community. Like, we were just featured with fasni, the Fire association for the State of New York, where featured at their annual conference. You know, it's like I never saw any of this coming.
[00:18:36] Speaker A: It Just do you have a number? Do you have how many?
Okay, this might be the easiest question.
This is the one she knows.
[00:18:46] Speaker B: Here's the question. I don't know. Here's the answer. I don't know the number. I don't ever want to know the number. There are people that do know the number, but I think we have. I work with the demographic of people that have so many numbers and statistics already attached to them, and I never want them to be one of that. At operation at ease. So when I get an application, the only number I want to know is the one person in front of me. So I don't know the number.
That's the number. Yeah.
[00:19:17] Speaker A: What's not realization? But have you learned? Because you talk about. And again, the name Operation at ease.
The perception is our service members, as it should be. It's the automatic.
But that's not where it stops. Because you just mentioned that about our first responders and others.
Did that strike you, surprise you or did it seep its way in, or was it.
[00:19:49] Speaker B: No, that surprised me. They're the hardest. They're the hardest. Yeah. So, like.
So the first responder program started because of the Schenectady pig bowl. The police department plays the sheriff's department in a charity football game. They're doing it again this October, if I can plug that.
And they asked us to be the recipients because our program is offered first responders.
And when they selected us, I didn't feel right taking that money because while we're open to first responders, first responders weren't utilizing it. So these guys were going to raise money basically to support my veteran program.
So in that, we created our therapy dog program. I got tired of the local organizations and I wanted a program that was exclusive to the military and first responder community. Maybe you don't need a service dog. Maybe you want one.
You know, this gives us the ability to service an entire department instead of one person.
So we created the therapy dog program. We got amazing support from Niskuna Fire District 2. They just had us. When I tell you these guys had us keep showing up. And there were.
I want to say it took about seven or eight months for anyone to talk to us because we were just there. We were the outsiders in their department. But there were three men, Tom, Chris and Jerry, who just kept inviting us. And we kept coming and kept coming because it was very important to them that they had something for, you know, preventative for post traumatic stress or something therapeutic after they've had a bad call. And then they were kind of the catalyst for that.
[00:21:37] Speaker A: And that's a different program from when we think of, you know, it's a broad stroke with a brush that we say therapy dog.
There's those therapy companions, the constant.
But then you've got, then it sounds like at the firehouse, we've got more to give impact, more people.
[00:21:59] Speaker B: So a service dog is a dog that is trained to work for one person, the person that's holding the leash. A therapy dog is a dog that is trained to work for many people. I find that our service dogs have more longevity out in public than our therapy dogs because of the sheer amount of people the therapy dogs work for. And our program is a little harder.
It's a public program.
People attend classes at OAE and the money we raise from those classes supports the free program.
And then it's a four month program. We do a lot of training out in public.
You have to pass two separate tests from an outside organization.
And then when visit, one of our trainers is always with you.
So we just. Because sometimes we're visiting for sensitive things. You know, we've visited at military bases when they've lost, you know, people to suicide. We've gone, you know, to yellow ribbon events when they were coming home and they had lost people overseas, you know, so we make sure that our handlers are trauma informed and know what is appropriate to say, what not to say, you know, because it's just a greater responsibility than just walking into a school and having a five year old read you a book. You know, you're changing that person's feeling about going to work that day.
[00:23:21] Speaker A: How important is it?
[00:23:22] Speaker B: I think it's very important. I think our whole, like probably one of the biggest responsibilities that I think I shoulder is, you know, our goal is to keep everyone alive.
And you know, so we take dogs and everyone's excited about our dogs and it's great that I can give that back. But you know, ultimately we're just trying to make people understand like you have value here, you have value, you know, and people love you and care about you and we want you here, you know, and so it's just the dog.
Maybe you can't have a relationship with your kids right now or your spouse right now because people talk back, people are messy, people have feelings, people want to be validated, you know, and your dog just does that. Your dog is not going to question.
But yesterday you said that or why are you doing this? You know, that's your first step into relationships. And then you get to trust us. And trust your dog. And it's like this huge domino effect, you know, and then if you're not here tomorrow, who's taking care of your dog?
So it's, you know, that's probably the heaviest. It's just, you know, making sure everybody keeps their feet on the ground.
[00:24:37] Speaker A: As a dog handler, dog lover, which is, I think we all come out of the shell that way. I mean, you know, most of us through this process, what have you learned about the canine? I mean, how, how much credit doesn't a canine get that every canine deserves?
We think it's innate, but how much have you learned about the mentality of it, the reactions, the emotions of a canine?
[00:25:09] Speaker B: Yeah, so I've learned that some of the innate things that our dogs do that we never have to teach our nightmare wake up or interrupting disassociation, like if they like space out, the dog will innately interrupt that.
I had a veteran once get into a verbal altercation at a store which was out of this person's character, but this other guy caught him at the right day, at the right time and his service dog actually jumped up on him to push him away from it. We never trained that. So they really do connect with our people.
They become a therapeutic tool for the entire family.
You know, because I, I did a call once with another organization who I won't mention, but they were talking about doing an in house therapy program, bringing in a therapist and how many people? Because we did that once for a year we offered telehealth.
How many people did we help? And I said, well, are you asking me how many people you should help? Like makes it worth it? And he said yes. And I said, well, the answer to that is one.
Because when you help one person, I give one dog, one veteran or first responder, one dog.
Now I have this person because our program's guided. So I'm not training this dog. You're coming to class every week and you're training this dog.
So now I'm ensuring that person is leaving their house once a week.
That person is meeting expectations again, has accountability. They have to work with their dog. You know, now you have this person who's feeling better and maybe this person now can sit with their family for dinner because they have to teach the dog not to beg for food at the table. Whereas before they didn't sit for dinner. Now that kid's child is like, man, my parent is sitting here for dinner. I'm going to go to school tomorrow and I'm not going to be in a bad Mood. My teacher is not going to have to give all her attention to me now. She can address the whole class. So it's just this, like, crazy domino effect of when we help one person, how it just ripples through people. You don't even think it will ripple through, you know, So I don't even remember what the question is now.
[00:27:27] Speaker A: Just about. Just about, you know, the intelligence of the Canaan.
[00:27:32] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So the dog. Just knowing that, you know, our dogs, it's fun to watch them. It's really fun to watch a dog no one wanted become somebody's everything.
You know, I always say, like, we work with difficult dogs and difficult people, and we put them together, and we just see what happens. You know, we have a very high success rate with the matches. I'll tell you what. My favorite breed. You want to guess?
[00:28:01] Speaker A: It's gotta be something we don't see every day, because we see the labs out there as dogs and we see shepherds more trained.
It's gonna be a poodle.
[00:28:12] Speaker B: Is my favorite. What do you think my least favorite is?
[00:28:17] Speaker A: Is there a least favorite dog?
[00:28:19] Speaker B: Well, for service dog work. For service dog, like, life, there's no least favorite dog life. But for service dog.
[00:28:24] Speaker A: Service dog, it's gotta be. Is it the Chihuahuas? Because they're a tough breed.
[00:28:30] Speaker B: All right, ready? I'll tell you this. I'm gonna blow your mind right now, Stan.
[00:28:33] Speaker A: All right.
[00:28:34] Speaker B: My favorite breed, hands down, for service dog work, Pit bulls.
[00:28:38] Speaker A: Really?
[00:28:38] Speaker B: My least favorite breed to work with for service dogs, golden retrievers.
[00:28:43] Speaker A: Really? Yes, we see them.
[00:28:46] Speaker B: God bless those people that do it.
I think they're, like, they're great therapy dogs. Cause they're very sensitive, and they're very connected to their people.
But what happens, especially when we're dealing with, like, dogs that help people with trauma and, like, psychiatric conditions, the person is emotional, and the dog is emotional. And now everyone's hitting the ceiling at Colony Mall. You know what I mean? So, like, I had one veteran who would get anxious in crowds, and she had a golden retriever. And as soon as she would get anxious in the crowd, her golden retriever would jump on her and start, like, let's get out of here. Because now you're nervous. I'm nervous. Why are we here? So. And I find, like, these pities to be just so.
They're just so agreeable. Like, they're just so good. Like, they're so. They're friendly.
They get such a bad rap. Like, we have just got to stop.
Like, really, we've got to Stop. Only doing news stories on pit bulls when they cause an injury because they're overbred. So they're going to be in the news because they're overpopulated. But the majority of them are wonderful. We have to also only stop doing news stories on veterans with post traumatic stress who do something extraordinary like die by suicide, hurt another person. You know, the majority of veterans, the majority of pit bulls are awesome. The majority of veterans, like, it's not sexy, but they just go to work and raise their kids. You know what I mean? But we like sensationalize these two groups of people and I find when they're together, it's like a symphony.
It's like a well orchestrated dance.
[00:30:28] Speaker A: And you talk about saving both.
[00:30:32] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:30:33] Speaker A: Saving the lives of our service people and then saving the lives of these canines.
Have you had to say no to canines?
[00:30:47] Speaker B: So I want to first say, like.
[00:30:49] Speaker A: You know what I mean? It's just because you're always matching.
There's got to be an A and a B. Yeah.
[00:30:54] Speaker B: So sometimes we have to say no. I do want to say, like, I don't credit myself for saving anyone's life, but I just provide the tools for them to save their own because they do all the work. I might give them the venue for that, but they do it. You know, I don't save anyone's life. Everybody in my program makes the decision every day to get up, get their feet on the ground and go to work and whatever that day. Whatever work they can do that day.
Sometimes we have to say no to dogs. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, not every dog is suitable for service dog work.
[00:31:24] Speaker A: Gotcha. Temperament.
[00:31:27] Speaker B: Sometimes. Yeah. Temperament or trainability or age. I just had to someone, you know, if somebody has a dog in the home, we'll do a conditional enrollment with them and then see if their dog is suitable for work.
But I just had to tell someone no the other day because our dog is eight years old and that's a senior dog and we're not giving them a job.
They're not going to work.
[00:31:51] Speaker A: Enjoy it.
How big milestones.
One year.
We made it two years. Well, we think we know what we're doing. Five years. You're feeling really good. What did the 10th anniversary feel like?
[00:32:10] Speaker B: It was, you know, honestly, it was more emotional for me than I was expecting it to be. Like.
So we did this little, like, anniversary at OAE and I really didn't invite anyone. I really didn't. I was, I just put it on social media.
We didn't, you know, we mentioned it in an email, but I didn't send out individual invitations.
Sometimes I like to pretend these things aren't happening and for no one to come. So then people came, and I was like, oh, my God, people, okay. And I was like, I made a speech, which I hate making, but I almost cried.
But I'm not a crier, so if I almost cried, that's full blown crying because I just don't cry, you know?
So, you know, we expanded. Our facility got bigger, you know, where we placed a dog out of the Capital District, which we don't often do, but we did that this upcoming year, which was wonderful.
We're going to place another one out of the Capitol. So we're kind of growing in that way, you know, I think it's nonprofit. Work is hard. It's nuance y. It's not like starting a small business.
There's a lot of schmoozing and relationship building and making everyone like you, which was super hard for me because I'm not a person who really cares if you like me. So, like, I'm from Boston. We don't care. We don't like you. We don't care if you like us. Like, I might have been gone a while, but that's like, I was bred with that, you know? So, like, that was super hard for me. Like, okay, wait, I have to make sure people like me. Okay. All right. Okay. You know, and like, finding your niche, you know, we do a motorcycle, you know, our motorcycle ride every year for post traumatic stress awareness, where we try to mainstream the idea of dropping the D. I hate ptsd. I hate post traumatic stress disorder.
Sounds so permanent.
Like, you're not disordered. Your brain is functioning normally. It's healthy. You're experiencing stress after trauma.
So we have, like, this amazing support from the biker community. I don't ride motorcycles. I find them terrifying.
But we do this ride every year. We hang out at the Harley dealership all summer. They're so good to us, you know, and, like, they came to our tenure and it was just like, I almost cried when they walked through the door because these are people I otherwise never would have connected with in my life, you know?
So the.
[00:34:37] Speaker A: I want to say the tough question for last.
[00:34:39] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:34:39] Speaker A: But we're getting there. All right?
[00:34:40] Speaker B: I'm here for it.
[00:34:41] Speaker A: There's one tough question.
[00:34:42] Speaker B: Throw it at me. Let's do it.
[00:34:46] Speaker A: The gains when you talk like this will be you're going to place your first hearing.
[00:34:50] Speaker B: Hearing dog. We're going to take a whip at that.
[00:34:53] Speaker A: So what Is like, we talked about the companions and therapy and things like that. What's the nuance? Where is this? Where it derived from? Where is it looking to go? Where can it go?
[00:35:06] Speaker B: So we have this great aviator. He was a warrant officer for the army for 30 years, and he flew Chinooks, and they made him deaf.
And he lives out in Fort Leavensworth, Kansas. And he called us. He needs a dog to alert him if someone's coming up behind him or if, like a doorbell rings or the phone, you know, and it's something we've never done before, but we were like, if you don't mind, we'll give it a go. And so we're going to try it. And then, you know, the goal always is to just help someone else. Like, so we. We try to never turn anyone away. I always try to never turn anyone away. You know, I know I can't save everyone, but there's always a way we can help in some capacity. You know, this dog we just placed in January, we placed with a September 11th first responder. He lives down in Long Island.
And he said, you know, filled out the application. I was picking up the phone to tell him, like, I'm not sure what we can do because we're in Schenectady here on Long Island. Our classes meet weekly. And then I saw September 11th. He was there within an hour of the buildings falling, you know, so I just called him up and said, you know, whatever you need, we will make it happen for you. And we did.
I mean, now this is like with. We have. We work with so many other organizations to make this happen. Like, we work with Project Paws out in Greenville.
[00:36:29] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:36:29] Speaker B: Is that a place? Yes, yes. Green. I wasn't sure if it was field Greenville.
[00:36:33] Speaker A: No, there's a field.
You're working on a Greenville?
[00:36:36] Speaker B: Yeah. So Project Paws, you know, and they work in a prison program. So when we do out of state dogs or out of our placement dogs, we put them in jail first, get some training there, then we do some board and train with, you know, one of our interns from SUNY Cobleskill. So, like, we're just. We just.
It's a lot of great people working together to make this happen.
[00:36:58] Speaker A: And so you're networking. So is the placing focus capital region or is. Or where we are you?
[00:37:09] Speaker B: I think so. I think we could do outside of the Capitol District as it comes up. You know, as it comes up. Like, I just had somebody out near Syracuse apply.
Well, there's a service dog organization for veterans out there already. So I referred them there, but I said, if the wait is longer than you can manage, call me back and we will figure it out. Because again, when you're working with breeding programs, you have to find two dogs to breed, you have to hope they get pregnant. Then you have to wait for the mother to have the babies, you have to raise the puppies. Then you have to do some training. Then you could have a litter of 12 dogs, maybe use three.
That's how these waiting lists happen. We don't do that. We take them from shelters.
[00:37:51] Speaker A: And that's what I was gonna say. That's what's different.
[00:37:53] Speaker B: We don't have a waiting list.
[00:37:53] Speaker A: Is that you, you know, are you going to shelters and looking in that painful cage? It's hard that I refuse.
[00:38:05] Speaker B: Yeah, it's.
So when I work, I worked in shelters for years. Years I worked at the largest snow kill shelter in the state of North Carolina. We had over a thousand animals.
I worked up at shelters up in Watertown in Boston. And Compassion fatigue is 100% a real thing. And I had to stop. I had to stop. And I had to remind myself when I started, like for profit dog training, that I was still helping because a well trained dog stays in their home, you know. And then when I started oae, it was a great way to do both. So I. We're not a rescue. I'm not gonna take your dog if you can't keep your dog. And your dog is so wonderful, it could be a service dog. Tell me where, what shelter you brought him at. And I can look at them there.
But I have to go into the shelter with the right headspace on because it is very unemotional. Like I always say, it's like buying a loaf of bread.
Just walk in.
And when we get our interns, a lot of them are like, that was way harder than I thought it was going to be because you're just looking at these little things that just want to go home. They just want to go home, you know, and you're going, no, no. Yes, maybe, no. Yes, maybe, you know, and then you take them out. So you heard what happened in Half Moon with the time for pause and bandits, right? We took one of those dogs.
We don't ever do anything like that.
But they reached out to us and they were like, we have to get these dogs gone. I was out of town at the time. I was doing a college tour.
So I called two of our trainers and I'm like, you guys have to be. If you two are okay walking in there and leaving with no one, then go. But if you can't walk in there, then we're not going to bother. So we ended up taking one, but we evaluated.
They evaluated three, and we left with one.
[00:39:55] Speaker A: Because there's a greater good. Is that kind of like what you have to drill down into the interns? Like, yes, there is puppy and there's always puppy love. But you've got to look at the big picture.
[00:40:07] Speaker B: Big picture. What's going to get this person moving? What dog? And what's going to make this dog successful? Because we need the dog and the person successful. I always figure out by the time they've come to me, you've tried everything. You did inpatient, you did group therapy, you've done meds, you've done, you know, and you're really just like, I need to be out and whatever, because you're not the same ever again. You're never going to be the same again.
But how do we make your new normal comfortable?
And how do we figure out what that looks like for you? And we work in conjunction with their therapists. You have to be in therapy to come to us. You have to agree to stay in therapy if there's.
If needed, we work with their therapists to make sure that our program is safe, like emotionally safe. Because we're going everywhere you don't want to go. Every place you've been avoiding, we go there with your dog. We're taking you food shopping. Like, think of food shopping. We go grocery shopping. We do it blindly, right? Well, you're a veteran. You've been to combat situation. You're walking into a building with one main entrance that you know of, an exit you can't see on the other side of your aisles. You're rounding corners and there are people there you weren't expecting you might stop. And then three people are around you with carts and you can't move. Like, grocery shopping is a harrowing experience for a lot of our teams. We're going grocery shopping. If you haven't been to the airport since 2003 when you came home from Iraq, we're going to the airport. It's on our list. How do we make that successful for you? So we work, you know, we're not therapists. We're trauma informed. We do take trauma informed care classes to make sure that we are, you know, being sensitive to people we work with and then other. But when we need extra help, we work with their mental health professional to make sure everybody's having a good experience.
[00:41:56] Speaker A: Tough question. Okay, what's next.
[00:41:59] Speaker B: Oh, man.
I mean, I can't tell you what's next, but there might be something happening today at 5 o' clock that's next. So you'll have to have me back.
I mean, what's. I mean, I'll tell you our goal.
[00:42:17] Speaker A: Yeah. Two year plan, three or five year, 100%.
[00:42:20] Speaker B: Our goal is to buy a property. We want to buy a property.
We need more room. Even with the wall coming down, we still just need space.
And I want, you know, we just want to buy somewhere so that we can just further.
You know, ideally my ideal would be we'd buy a property with apartments where we could, like, work with other veterans organizations for housing or house our veterans there when they come from out of state, you know, because I think ultimately, like even just being able to have an Airbnb and then putting our out of state guys right now, we just pay hotels, you know, would alleviate a cost for us being able to do more events at our facility. So we're not just always packing bins and moving places, you know, so that's our five year goal, is to buy a property.
100%.
[00:43:15] Speaker A: What. How do, how do people with loved ones. How do people that were fortunate enough to listen to podcasts to maybe tick something off and say, this might be perfect for Jack.
[00:43:28] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:43:28] Speaker A: How do they. How do we get in touch with you?
What do we do?
[00:43:32] Speaker B: Yeah, so we have a. You know, first thing you could do if you're not sure you're ready for a phone call is visit our website. So it's www.operationease.org.
and all the information is there about all of our programs. We also offer an array of, like, regular civilian classes to the public, puppy beginner specialty classes, private lessons. And training your dog with us means that you're helping a dog leave the shelter. You know, you can call me or text me. My phone number is 518-847-9941. All calls on the number on the website all go directly to me.
So everything starts and ends. We're in each other's life.
[00:44:16] Speaker A: And then on the website we make donations.
[00:44:18] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, you make donations. All of our events are there. You know, we have some good events coming up, good fundraisers.
[00:44:25] Speaker A: Okay, what we got coming up? Yeah, what can't we miss?
[00:44:28] Speaker B: All right, Katie Manning is coming in September to Operation At Ease. You can come talk to dead people with us.
You have to come. She's legit. It's bananas, but she's good. Okay, so she's doing like a gallery reading we'll have our therapy dogs there to provide emotional support when people cry.
We have the pig bowl Oct. 18 at Schenectady High School. That is a fun event. Fun event.
So we'll be doing. That's the Schenectady Police Department and the Sheriff's Department. And then we have our diamonds and dogs silent auction on November 6th at Glen Peters in Albany.
And then the motorcycle ride is back.
[00:45:10] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:45:10] Speaker B: July 25th. 26th.
[00:45:13] Speaker A: Next year.
[00:45:14] Speaker B: Next year.
[00:45:14] Speaker A: Which is fantastic.
[00:45:16] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:45:18] Speaker A: Dumb question.
[00:45:19] Speaker B: Ask me a dumb one.
[00:45:21] Speaker A: Do you have dogs at home?
[00:45:22] Speaker B: I have three dogs at home.
[00:45:23] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:45:24] Speaker B: I have three. Yep. I have three rescue dogs at home. I have Chubby, Chubby Moo Cow who came from Homeward bound. She's almost 16 years old.
[00:45:34] Speaker A: God bless her.
[00:45:35] Speaker B: I mean, she's a great pair of nice mix. She still goes up and down the stairs on her own.
You know, she takes. She naps hard, like, at least four times a day. We're like, is she dead? And then she's not. She still gets up and eats. So we have her.
I have Wonder Mutt, who is 10 years old. He came from Mohawk Hudson Humane Society.
He was a bad dog. He was a bad dog. He had a color attached to him like, he was a red dog. Only, like, certain volunteers could walk him.
So.
But he's. I just love him so much. And then we have Douglas, who also came from Mohawk Hudson. Douglas was.
I walked into the shelter. Not in the right headspace, like I told you. I have to go in. In the right. And I didn't. And he had just come up from the hurricanes down in Alabama. He was super sick. He had pneumonia. He was so emaciated, he had bones showing I didn't know existed. And I 100% flashed back to when I was down south at the shelters, and I was like, this dog will die if I don't bring him home. He wouldn't have. Oh, Hudson would never let this dog die. You know what I mean? They wouldn't. They have a vet on staff, like. But I 100% was brought back to that place because when I worked in North Carolina, my spare bedroom was kennels and IVs and anyone you couldn't get to at work, you brought home.
And so I brought him home. We gave him breathing treatments in the basement. We had to hand feed him.
And then he was about three years old when we brought him home. It was during COVID So 21.
So then I thought he was this nice dog, and I adopted him out.
And within, like, two or Three hours. The family called me and was like, he won't let us go near him. He keeps growling at us. He hasn't gone out to pee.
And what's funny is when I placed him, my kids were devastated. And I was shocked because we'd fostered before, but they were devastated and I said, if they don't keep him, we will, thinking we would never see him again. So within it was like three hours, we had to go get him and he just jumped in the car. And then we realized he's this like semi feral street dog who is not a friendly dog. He was friendly with us because he was on the verge of death and we hand fed him. So he just lives his weird little life with us. But three's my number. When we lose the cow, I'll get another one. I like three threes. Yeah. I would beware of a dog trainer who doesn't have a dog.
[00:48:06] Speaker A: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. It's like I don't trust. I don't trust a skinny chef.
[00:48:09] Speaker B: Yeah, a skinny chef. Would you go to your mechanic who didn't drive?
[00:48:13] Speaker A: Yeah. You know, absolutely. Just saying thank you so much.
[00:48:17] Speaker B: Thank you so much. This was fun.
[00:48:19] Speaker A: Keep up the good work.
[00:48:20] Speaker B: Yeah, appreciate you.
[00:48:21] Speaker A: And we gotta, we gotta make the rounds.
[00:48:23] Speaker B: Yeah, let's do it.
I'll be.
