Speaker 1: Hey, this is Pet Life Radio. Let's talk pets.
Speaker 2: It's all behaved with Arden More, this show that teaches
you how to have harmony in the household with your pets.
Speaker 1: Join Ardna.
Speaker 2: She travels coast to coast to help millions better understand
why cats and dogs do what they do. Get that
leadest scoop on famous faces, they're perfectly pampered pets, and
who's walking goo and rent him Tinseltown. From famous pet
experts and best selling authors to television and movie stars.
You'll get the latest buzz from Wagging Tongues and tails Garner,
great pet tips and have a dog on per flying
fun time. So get ready for the paws and applause
as we unleash your oh behave hosts America's pet edutainer
Arden Moore.
Speaker 3: Hey, pet pals, Welcome to the Old Behave Show on
Pet Life Radio. I'm your host, Arden Moore. Now we
are so dogone lucky. That is because our special guest
today is one of the top veterinarians in the country
and a great author to boot. She's on a mission
to help people of all ages, even kids, learn how they,
in their own ways, can be possum pet advocates. She's
here also to talk about her latest must get book.
It is called a Dog named six or seven. I
got you curious as a cat right now, don't I
don't I so at this time, please give pause and
applause to doctor Nancy Cave. Welcome, Welcome, doctor Nancy. Thank you. Arden.
Speaker 4: I'm so so happy to be here.
Speaker 3: You know, we've been in the pet world, both of
us a few decades or two or three, and this
is our first time that we got to at least
meet via zoom. But I've always admired who you are
and what you do. And humbly, she's not gonna say this, guys,
but there's some big awards in the veterinary field that
veterinarians be honored with, and one is the Leo Bustead
Companion Animal Veterinarian of the Year. And this one's a
big one in the Hills Annual Animal Welfare and Humane
Ethics Award. So medicine and ethics not a bad double win,
doctor Nancy, thank you.
Speaker 1: That's all you're gonna say.
Speaker 4: I mean, that's a big deal.
Speaker 3: What's your bloss I mean, you know when they have
the Emmys and the Oscars that can never get the
celebrities off stage.
Speaker 4: I think it speaks to the fact that I love
what I do. I have always loved what I do,
and of course I love animals. I believe that I
emerged from the roomb loving animals, and what I found
after practicing for a few years is what I super
loved was helping give people peace of mind in terms
of taking care of their pets.
Speaker 3: I like that.
Speaker 4: I love helping people in that way.
Speaker 3: Well, you're doing it, and you're doing it very well. Everyone.
We are speaking with doctor Nancy. Kay. We're going to
dive into her new book.
Speaker 4: You've got to get.
Speaker 3: It's called a Dog Name six or seven. We're gonna
let you know a little bit by what that all means.
Like you all know the drill. We gotta take a
quick break, so sid stay, we'll be right back.
Speaker 1: Time for a pause.
Speaker 2: Four very ones, actually sit and stay all behave.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back.
Speaker 4: Take a bite out of your competition.
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Speaker 6: Let's talk pets on Petlife Radio dot Com. All behavior
is back with more tail wagging ways to achieve harmony
of the household.
Speaker 1: With your pets.
Speaker 2: Now back to your fetching host, America's pet ed You
Tayner Ardenmore.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to the old Behave show on Petlife Radio.
I'm your host, Ardenmore. Our special guest is a great gal.
Her name is doctor Nancy Kay. She is a vetner
and yet put that DVM at the end of her name.
But she also has written that one, not two, but
three books maybe even more, and her I guess your
heartbeats dog, cat and other critters, right.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, for sure. And I'm pretty passionate about horses too.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, all right, so she is a nay sayer
in a good way. Oh that's bad. That's bad. What
I love and why I'm so glad you're on our
show today. We could talk for hours about all the
things that you've done, but we need to reach what's
going on, and that is you are here to help
us shine a light on puppy Mills. I don't like
that Puppy Mills, and you did it in a very
creative way. And the book A Dog Named six forty
seven is actually a novel, and I'm going to have
her fill in the blanks, but you brought out your
inner pre teen in this. I mean, I'm reading the
dialogue between the main characters Mia and Cassie, and I'm like,
doctor Nancy, did you just do a Freaky Friday with
fur Ah?
Speaker 4: That's funny, That's super funny. My first exposure to puppy
Mills was as a practicing veterinarian, and I would see
from time to time puppies that were recently purchased and
brought in horribly sick with an insectious disease or a
congenital disease, which means a birth defect, and the puppy
just came into the people's home, they picked it up
at the airport, or they were met with the puppy
halfway to where the kimel is. And oftentimes what these
puppies have isn't fixable, or if it is fixable, it's
going to be at great expense. And the people are devastated.
And it turns out that they and they retrospectively figured
out that they purchased their puppy from a puppy mill,
which is a large scale commercial breeding facility. I would
call it factory farming of puppies because what it really
is is profit is prioritized over the wellbeing, physical and
psychological wellbeing of the dogs.
Speaker 3: You gave some numbers about how many puppies are sold
every year and about how many puppy mills are there
in the country.
Speaker 4: There's estimated to be and it's an estimate because a
lot of puppy mills are not licensed in the United
States through the USDA. So it's estimated that there are
ten thousand puppy mills scattered across the United States. Arden.
Can you guess which state has the most dense population
of puppy mills?
Speaker 3: Well, I read your books, so I know. So I'm
going to let you just show me misstery. It's miss A.
Speaker 4: And these puppy mills produce approximately twenty six million puppies
a year. Oh my gosh, either go to pet stores
across the country. About ninety five percent of pupp cut
store puppies are from puppy mills, and they're also sold online.
And this really makes the task of avoiding a puppy
mil purchase so simple. There's only two things you have
to do. One never purchase a puppy from a pet
store and two, never purchase a puppy online without going
to the kennel, touring the kennel, and meeting the mama dog.
Most puppy mill beaders won't let you come anywhere near
their facility because they have too much to hide. So
if you can't go visit the kennel, forget about it.
No matter how great the websites, let's see, because a
lot of puppy peoples have websites that are complete shams.
The problem is is that people fall in love with
a photo of a puppy online and they keep going
with it. And I say, if you go onto a
breeder's website and there are dozens of puppies for sale.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's jump in. Because there are reputable dog breeders
out with veterinarians and veterinary geneticists and others to maintain
the health of a line. And I think there's like
over two hundred recognized dog breeds by the American Kennel Club,
So I think you're making a clear distinction, right.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, A responsible or a reputable breeder is someone who
really wants to enhance the quality of the breed. They're
not going to take their show poodle and mix it
up with a Bernise Mountain dog. They're not going to
do that. And they will insist that you come to
their kennel because guess what, they have more questions for
you than you have for them. And they may not
have a puppies available. They may breed only two litters
a year, in which case he'll probably refer you to
another responsible breeder or say get on the waiting list
for next year. So it's really so simple. Can you
visit the kennel. If the answered yes, go visit. If
the answer is no, please walk away. Because this is
a matter of supply and demand, and if we back
off in the demand department, guess what, Couppy Miller's are
going to go out of business. That's right, that's exactly right.
Speaker 3: So instead of being a like a preachy tone that
you could have done in a blog or put in
a book, you got this creative juice in your brain
and said, I'm going to channel my inner pre team
and get the message out through a character named Mia
in a book called a dog named six four seven.
When did that all happen? Were you sipping on a latte?
What was going on?
Speaker 4: No? No, I spent a couple of years getting to
that point. Here's why I wrote the book. I've been
disillusioned what adult generations have done in terms of stop
eating puppy mills. I just am not a patient person,
and I don't want to spend a year or two
on legislation that's going to increase cage size by two inches.
I remember being very inspired by Greta Chemberg.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, and tell the two people on the planet
who she is that don't know her.
Speaker 4: She is no longer a kid, but she was a
kid when she became a very vocal, well known climate
activist and she I was so impressed by her, and
I thought, well, this is it. We need to take
the puppy mill lessons to kids, because middle grade kids.
They're just developing this burgeoning awareness of social issues out
in the world, kind of looking outside of themselves and
their friends and sight. Oh, they're recognizing social issues. So,
you know, Arden, as you know, I'm a nonfiction writer
for the most part, my previous books have been nonfiction.
Speaker 3: Well wait, mitute, this is where we you're gonna love me.
Author to author everybody ready, I haven't write in my
notes before that. She did a book which is a
great book. It's called Speaking for Spot and it was
an Amazon is an Amazon bestseller. Lots of winds, probably
not a new car, but you've got lots of things
to dust, and then your dog's best health. And did
I get it right?
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a dozen reasonable things to expect from your vet. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Okay, So get back to this. So in preteen years,
they're they're kind of getting ready to not be a
look at myself. They're kind of looking now at the
world exactly.
Speaker 4: So I sat down and wrote a nonfiction book about
puppy mills for middle grays.
Speaker 3: Wow, that's not brilliant.
Speaker 4: But I did about three or four iterations, done a
lot of time on it, and at the end of
each iteration, I said, man, if I were a middle grader,
there's no way I would read this book.
Speaker 1: So what'd you do?
Speaker 4: I pivoted, and I decided I need to write fiction.
And I wrote some fiction when I was in high school.
As you might imagine, writing fiction is a big learning curve, yes,
and I literally spent years learning the craft of writing fiction.
I took classes, I did seminars I have been participating
for years and two writers critique groups who write children's fiction.
And I went through several revisions of my fiction, the
novel A Dog named six four seven, and I would
have an editor look and tell me it really needs
major revisions. And each time I just put the book
a side and felt like I can't do this, And
then I would recall the look on a particular Docson's face.
I went undercover into Puppy Mills and also attended her
dog auction undercover. It took everything in my power to
wipe any emotion off my face. And I remember in
one Puppy Mill, one Docson looked at me the way
dog six four seven looked at Mia. This soul to
soul helped me kind of communication, and I would picture
that dog and I just give it just got to
chill up my spine. I do every time, and then
I would go back to work on the novel.
Speaker 3: So let me ask you this, Wow, doctor Nancy, how
did you get to be undercover at a puppy mail first?
If you're able to share, I love what you did
because I learned, if your mother tells you she loves you,
check it out. So you got to see it firsthand.
Speaker 4: I felt like I didn't have credibility if I didn't
see it firsthand.
Speaker 3: So how did you do it?
Speaker 4: I happened to meet a particular person whose name will
not be named.
Speaker 3: Don't worry, we don't need a divorce.
Speaker 4: No, and she goes into puppy emails. I'm not even
going to go further than that.
Speaker 3: No, No, And I respect that, But that's a gutsy
broad move on your part, doctor Nancy, to say I'm
gonna I'm going to do this.
Speaker 4: I had to do it. I needed street cred and
I felt about doing that. I didn't have street cred, okay,
And it was painful, Arden, let me tell you that
it was painful. And I would go back out to
the van and cry, and then white white hears and
go to the next fem.
Speaker 3: You know you're a physician for pets and you probably
wanted to immediately help a pet that was not doing
well so that but you had to think of the
greater help, right right.
Speaker 4: I mean, these are animals that spent their entire lives
in a cage with wire mesh floors, and they have
in some automatic feeders, automatic water, so nobody ever even.
Speaker 3: Has touches up.
Speaker 4: Nobody touches them.
Speaker 3: Hey, everyone, this is a serious topic and we need
to have this out there, and we're gonna dive in
more after we take this quick break, So sit stay,
we'll be right.
Speaker 2: Back time for a walk on the red carpet, of course,
all behave. We'll be backing up lash right after these messages.
Speaker 1: We wear fur and we're damn proud of it. What
hands our four legs and our tail and we go
to the bathroom outside, Well, we may not be too
proud of that. Sniff around, Ben, mark your spot right here.
Speaker 2: Pet Life Radio, Let's talk pets, Let's talk past it,
Let's pet headline Radio, petlight Radio dot Com. Hi, this
is John O'Hurley reminding you you're listening to the O
Behave show with our and more.
Speaker 1: On tet Life Radio.
Speaker 2: We're back from the lot. Just check the paper and
we had our record showing at the box, the letterbox
that is now back to old Behave.
Speaker 3: Here's Hardy Welcome back to the Old Behaved show on
pet Life Radio. I'm your host, I'd moore. Wow, this
is a powerful guest. She is doctor Nancy Kay, a veterinarian,
an author and a gutsy woman who said I needed
to get some street cred and she got into infiltrated
a puppy mill and then this is horrible a dog auction.
Talk about that.
Speaker 4: So dog auctions, and there aren't many in the United States,
but on any given day when they sell, they can
go through a few hundred dogs. Basically, it's a place
where puppy millers congregate to trade their awares. You know,
they may have five older poodles that they don't want anymore,
and they might buy four or five new breeding stock,
mostly breeding stock that they're optioning on. And it's not
just one dog at a time. They'll put five little
chiuawas up on a table and there's all kinds of
bids and the person with a winning bid can buy
each dog at that price, or they can choose which
one they want and then others fall in behind them.
There are also rescue organizations who attend these auctions, and
I don't know, Arden, if you're aware of some concerns
and issues going on within the rescue community.
Speaker 3: Well, I know there's a lot of issues, but which
one you're pointing to. It's only a half hour show,
doctor Nanson, but go ahead, Okay.
Speaker 4: Well, basically, it's hard to see rescue organizations paying top
dollar for these dogs one because we know how hard
it is for them to get that money too. It's
perpetuating what the puppy millers are doing. I think other
rescue organizations come in and the dogs that really aren't
being bid on they can buy for and those might
be the dogs that.
Speaker 3: They take, but they still have to buy them.
Speaker 4: They still have to buy them.
Speaker 3: That's correct. So let's pivot just a minute, because I'm
trying to tease people to get your book A Dog
named six four seven. I need you, as one author
to another. You need this because you've got a powerful message.
There is a couple of very important websites that I
want you before we forget that, I want you to
mention your personal one, and what about the Kids United.
I'm not going to say the whole thing. I'll let
you do it. Sure.
Speaker 4: So my personal website where there's a lot of information,
general information that I think is helpful to readers, and
that is Dr Nancy K. So no doctor, No, it's
just Dr NANCYK dot com. And the other organization I'm
creating and it's in process, is called Kids United for
Animal Welfare dot org dot org. Yeah, so it'll be
a nonprofit. And the way that what I've done there
is I'm powering kids to know the facts about the
animals they eat and puppy bills as well. So for example,
there's a whole section on interpreting food labels, and you
know how confusing egg carton labels are. I spell it
out so that one can know, Yeah, I do need
to pay nine dollars for this dozen eggs because yeah,
it's free range or not even free range, pasture raised pasture.
Free range can mean they're in a crowded bonnard and
there's one little open door that very few of the
chickens get out of, So not even free range, does it?
Pasture raised is what one should be looking for, and
it talks about the five freedoms that define animal welfare,
and so the beginning of the pigs page, for example,
demonstrates what pigs need to be happy and healthy and
in terms of the five freedoms, and then you scroll
down and you see factory farming of pigs, which is horrific.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is.
Speaker 4: I think kids need to know that. And I'm not
out there trying to convince anyone to become vegan or vegetarian.
Speaker 3: Yes, I understand. So one of the real powerful, i think,
very creative approach to strategies you're taking is you are
writing from the voice of a twelve year old girl
named Mia. Yes, in the book a dog named six
four seven. So she's got a pal Cassie. And can
you kind of tea us up how this all starts.
I'm not going to give away the finish or anything,
but people want to know because I thought it was
a twelve year old right there. You had me at
twelve years old?
Speaker 4: Thank you?
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Mea is kind of a grumpy girl. Her parents are
divorced and she doesn't understand the divorce. She doesn't do
well in school, Her single mom works all the time.
There's never enough money and the worst thing of all
is Nia is dog crazy and her mom is terrified dogs,
so she doesn't have a dog in her house. So
that's sort of MIA's character.
Speaker 3: I like that, was that adapted from others or even
a little bit of yourself growing up?
Speaker 4: I don't know me as a tomboy. That's true for me.
And there's a lot of characteristics in Cassie that are
true for me as well.
Speaker 3: And who's Cassie? Tell me?
Speaker 4: Cassie is her twelve year old best friend. There's a
little bit of an outcast in the sense that she
dresses eccentrically, she colors her hair all different colors, and
she's Jewish. And Mia spends a lot of time at
her house, and by virtue of eating Sabbath dinners over there,
learns a little bit about Judiaism. And Cassie has two
dogs whose names are my own two dogs do a
shout out, Quinn and Nelly.
Speaker 3: Quinn and Nellie are like, you better put us in
this book exactly.
Speaker 4: So the opening scene is Mia is walking to the
river to meet Cassie to go swimming. It's a hot
September day. School has just started, and Mia hears some
sounds out in the meadow and it's clear where all
the tall grass is and she can't see what's coming
at her, but there's something sweeping through the meadow coming
at her, and it scares the bajitis out of her,
and she finds out, oh, it's a dog. And it
turns out this is six four seven, and how is
it where shul It's in permanent marker on a little
plastic collar that she wears. So it turns out she's
a pregnant runaway from a puppy mill.
Speaker 3: And what kind of dog is she?
Speaker 4: A Golden Retriever and she's being followed trapped by a
man with a rope. So the mission for Mia becomes
the man drags the dog away, and Mia just feels
helpless and hopeless to do anything about it. But she
can't let it go, and so she recruits Cassie and
together they do a lot of Nancy Drew like things.
Speaker 1: That's good.
Speaker 3: I was gonna say, oh my gosh, yes, I read
Nancy Drew growing up? Did yousoutely? You know Nancy drew
up in the heavens are like you go, doctor Nancy Cage,
you got me you.
Speaker 4: And you know what kids are reading Nancy Drew Now
too good Good. I know it's timeless. So her goal
is to figure out where this dog is, but it
becomes a much bigger goal when she realizes that this
dog is from a puppy mill.
Speaker 3: What has been the feedback? Do you have any twelve
year olds that have been good critiques of your book
A Dog named six four seven?
Speaker 4: Well, I found twelve middle grade beta readers, oh smart,
and they gave me feedback. They loved the book. And
what I'm really jazzed about is that before reading a book,
fewer than half of them knew what a puppy mill was.
So I feel like this is the right market to
write this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh my gosh, You've done a lot in the
world for a veterinary medicine I mean accomplished veterinarian. But
what's your take on this book? How has this changed
your life?
Speaker 4: This book in particular, because.
Speaker 3: First of all, it's finally there.
Speaker 4: Oh and it's hard to believe because it's been so
long in coming, and the book launch was just on
September twentieth, And I am loving at the reviews you're
rolling in and there are all five star reviews, knock
on Woods so Far, Ohio Animal Advocates wrote a beautiful
review of the book, and what I loved about it
is they completely got the point of the book that
kids are going to love it. Here is a quote
from them, why read it for youth? The novel provides
both a gripping narrative and an empowering message. You have
the ability to speak up for those without a voice.
Speaker 3: There you go. How's that for an excerpt? Did I
do my homework on you? You did?
Speaker 4: And I have always been a person who wants to
create change in the world, and this is my lane
animal welfare.
Speaker 3: Wow. Wow. We have just a few minutes, doctor Nancy, Kay,
and we're going to get you back on to another time.
But I just want to salute you for what you're doing.
And I just recently got a new adoptee. Her name
is Nova. She is Oh my god. We did the
DNA and they said twenty seven percent Pomeranian and twenty
seven percent American pit poll. Who did what?
Speaker 4: That sounds like a physical feat.
Speaker 3: But she was taken to a no kill shelter, Eastlake
Pet Orphanage and I was surrendered by a homeless couple
where my dog now and three other little females were
living in a car homeless, and they were able to
help the couple, and they were able to console the
couple about the importance. They didn't force, but they voluntarily
presented the animals to the place. And my dog's about
three years old and had never been spaded. Oh wow,
she has turned out to be a gem. My dog
and my dog Emma, and my two cats, Rusty and
Casey have embraced her, and so has my wife Julie.
So I love this dog so every day.
Speaker 4: I want to see her, and I suspect your fans
do as well. Can she come up on your lap?
Speaker 3: Well? I will show after. This is kind of awkward
because I have to turn everything off, but I will
run a photo and we will show a fat I
will show you after the show. But she already knows
watch me sit, leave it stay, come. And she's the
best hugger at night on the bed.
Speaker 4: And how are all the dogs? How are all the
animals getting along with the goods?
Speaker 3: Slow and steady. Everybody she knows she gets fed last.
And she is a great little addition to our family.
My dog Kna is a safety dog and a therapy
pet and I teach pet first staid vetinary proofd with
my orange tabby Casey. And I think we've got one
in the make with Nova because law, because Conan's getting
a little older. So I just want to tell you
from my heart, I call them shelter a lums.
Speaker 4: I like that.
Speaker 3: Don't call them rescues. I love foster parents. Don't say
you're a foster failure. Say you're a foster success.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: If that pet does connect with you and your family,
why do they always apologize? Can you answer that?
Speaker 4: No? No, it doesn't really make any sense. And I
think rescue is a tricky word. Yeah, And in this case,
the shelter rescued her from circumstances or way less than ideal.
But how lucky is Nova too has landed in your lap?
And how lucky are you?
Speaker 3: Oh? Trust me? For my twenty five years in the
pet world, I got a tattoo on my upper left
thigh that's a heart in between a cat and a
dog looking at each other. And we purposely made them
silhouettes with no eyes, so that you can make that
any dog, any cat. So that was my way of
that's my path. My path is to help people with pets, safety,
with first aid and rescue.
Speaker 4: Shouldn't we see your tattoo now that you've brought it up?
Speaker 3: Oh, Mark, this is gonna be great. Hey, we don't
know if we can do this. It's on my approtise,
so I won't show anything. Okay. Oh wow, there you
go heart.
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, I love that Arden.
Speaker 3: There you go, hey, pet all my pet pals. We've
been following the Old Behave show since two thousand and seven.
Ardn't just dropped her drawers to show you her heart
dog cat tattoo because doctor Nancy K told me to
do so, I take full credit. Hey, thank you so
much for being on. I really want everyone to go
out and get the book A Dog Named six four seven.
Go to Dr Nancy k dot com and also please
check out Kids United for Animal Welfare dot org. Big
news on O Behave front, there was a million podcast
group I don't know. They just posted it on LinkedIn
and they picked the top one hundred podcasts and humbly,
Oh Behave is number three, number three, number three. Oh
and so at this time, I also want to do
a shout out to my producer, Mark Winter, executive producer
of Pet Life Radio because we've been doing this since
two thousand and seven together and it was a huge
honor to be named number three best pet podcast on
the planet. Please safety is my big mission. I do
veterinary approved Pet First Aid on different levels. I even
teach vetinarians and I teach people to be instructors. We
offer in person, interactive, zoom and now self paced courses.
So please check out Pet first Aid for you because
it always features pet safety dog Kona and pet Safety
cat Casey, which we add a little humor to our classes.
And until next time, this is your flea free host
Ard and Moore delivering just two words to all you
two three and four layers out there.
Speaker 2: All behave Coasta around the world.
Speaker 1: It's all behaved with art and more.
Speaker 2: Find out why cats and dogs do the things they do,
and get the latest buzz from Wagging Tongues and tails
and rin tin tinsel Town. From famous pet experts and
best selling authors to television and movie stars. You'll get
great tail whacking pet tips and have a fur.
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Speaker 2: All behave with America's Pet Entertainer Art More every week
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