Speaker 1: This is Pet Life Radio.
Speaker 2: Let's Talk Pets.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Loving Animals. I'm your host, Doctor Robin Ganser,
and I'm so excited you join us this week because
we have an amazing episode to share with you.
Speaker 4: Today.
Speaker 3: Actress, speaker, and best selling arthur Barbara Niven is here
discussing her passion for protecting the world's animals and her
advocacy against the cruelties of the horrific dog meey trade.
Barbara has been one of our most devoted supporters for years,
and beyond her actionable work on behalf of Animals, she
also has one of the kindest, most beautiful hearts of
anyone I've ever known. Don't go away now, because coming
up next we'll hear from the beautiful, inspirational Barbara Niven
on this week's episod so of Loving Animals.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back. When Helen Brown ran away to
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Speaker 5: Let's Talk Pets on Petlife Radio dot com.
Speaker 6: Well, welcome to Loving Animals this week. I'm so thrilled
to welcome our wonderful friend, a personal inspiration to me,
beautiful actress, someone who actually practices. I know it's called
star power affirmations, which are beautiful and most importantly to
all of our listeners, she loves animals as much as
we do. Please join me and welcoming, Barbara Nevin. Barbara,
thank you for being here.
Speaker 7: Oh, thank you for asking me. Anybody who loves animals
is a friend of mine, because we are already connected,
aren't we?
Speaker 3: We absolutely are. And Barbara, I know that today's busy
for you. You're in Vancouver, you're filming for three and
a half months. The series Chesapeake Shores, which we're so
excited about. So and we love what you do on Hallmark,
and we've loved following you. I loved Oh my goodness,
it goes back to the Great Show with Andy McDowell too.
That was wonderful.
Speaker 7: Oh thank you so much for watching. Seriously, I feel
so blessed to be able to do what I love
and get paid for it. I mean, it's like getting
paid to prey pretend. It's it was my dream from
a long time ago, and so I could not do
it if we didn't have people who watch and bring
it full circle back. So it's such a blessing and
a gift to be able to do this, and I
just want to say thank you for anybody who watches.
And Chesapeake Shores is really special because we are now
in our second season. We shoot on Vancouver Island, which
is another plane ride, either in a propeller plane or
on a ferry to go over to Vancouver Island. But
the scenery here is magnificent. It's almost like it's God's country.
You're just reminded so much every day of God's magnificence
and in the scenery and in the energy outside and
every day, I take a walk on the beach and
just sit and meditate and just reflect and just feel
the energy. And I'm so grateful to be able to
align with you, Robin, and with your causes as well
with American Humane and all you do for animals, because
putting all the positive energy that we can find into
making a difference for those who have no voice is
just such a thrill and such a duty an honor
for all of us to do. And the people that
you can reach with your show now and the people
who are listening, just thank you for supporting animals and
for loving them and doing everything we can to make
their lives better.
Speaker 3: Oh, Barbara, that's so beautiful. And you know, I just
am so fascinated your careers is just amazing. I love
your work. I love that you rescue and use your
platform for conversations about animals not just in the United States,
but are animals around the world and how they're impacting.
But one thing that I want to read is one
of your stars our power affirmations, and I want you
to share with our listeners what this is. This is
one of my favorite quotes of all time from Barbara Niven.
It's never too late to become who and what you
always were meant to be. All that has come before
will lead you exactly to your future self.
Speaker 8: Wow.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, what a truth that is for me, and
I find that it resonates with most people, especially as
as one gets older. You find that all those things
that you've been through our lessons and you kind of
connect the dots eventually as to why they happened. You
don't always know why at the time, but you kind
of are shown the way eventually, and it's like a
map to a destination and a journey. And as I've
gotten older, like I'm in I'm sixty four now and
proud of it. And I know in my in my profession,
women especially don't like to share their age, but dang it,
we have to stop at age discrimination that we impose
on ourselves. Not that so much that everybody else does it,
but we feel like we do that we get belittled
or we are not as much value as we get older.
But we have so much more life and more lessons
to share. And if you don't go through something, how
can you ever teach the lesson and pay it forward
from what you've just come through? And so as I
get older and you tell me if I mean, you're
way younger than I, but you tell me if you
have these kind of whispers in your spirit as well
to where that I feel like I am being led
and being guided towards my purpose now, my life purpose.
And the older I get, the more I feel like
I have been guided in these things that I have,
things that I'm meant to do, that everything has happened
to me, all the lessons that I need to share
and pay forward. Now is that happening to you too? Or?
Because I know your purpose now and you do so
much work for animals and that heading American you may
is such a huge purpose and how did how did
you even get started? And how did how did you
make that commitment and decide to take that lead?
Speaker 8: Robin Wow?
Speaker 3: Well, you know, Barbara, that is I think what you've
said is so so true. I do hear you know
daily I try to listen to what is my purpose
and stay focused on that because this world can be
so distracting. It can be so distracting. We let so
much you know, come at us and attack our spirit
and our core and our and what is meant to
be our purpose. We can be often led down a
different path, and so that's why I'm just I'm in
love with your quotes and your star power affirmations. That's
I think so important if I'm going to be posting
some of these just in my personal space, so I
will wake up every morning and repeat these, because I
think that's really what it's all about, is repeating how
did we get into what our life is meant to be?
So I ended up at America in Jumaane after spending
a career in social good in you know, the philanthropy space.
But I felt that I was doing public policy lots
of different things, that a real calling was more hands
on work, and that I would feel that my purpose
would be better served in life to be able to
make a difference in the lives of creatures and creatures
not just including our cats and dogs, but all creatures.
I've known since I was a little girl watching those
little Disney movies and Mutual of Omaha Wild Kingdom that
I remember those and I wanted to make a difference
for animals. And I'm just so fortunate that I had
this opportunity to lead American Humane. It is challenging every
day because we'd see so much cruelty, so much lack
of awareness, lack of resources to do the work that's needed.
That's a big challenge every day. We know what the
problems take in terms of resources to resolve and to
make a difference in the lifes of animals, and that's
challenging to secure the resources.
Speaker 1: To do the job.
Speaker 3: Well, that is all, you know, what we think about
every day. So I have to tell you from your
affirmations are so important to me and I want to
thank you for putting those out there.
Speaker 7: Thank you well. The particular one that you that you
read about is never too late to begin, is really
true because so often we feel like, oh, if we
didn't make a certain choice in at say at eighteen,
whether it's for career or love or something, it's never
too late to change. I think it takes a lot
of courage to change. And I call it just doing
a course correction. It doesn't even have to be a
major you know, like move or anything. But sometimes of
just a few little little degrees on that dial, maybe
veering just a little bit to the left or maybe
a little bit to the right can make all the difference,
and you're probably already being guided. But sometimes you just
need to. And I do it honestly. I do it consciously.
Every New Year's I sit and think, well, where have
I gone this last year? What has happened, and what
do I need to do now to look at the
bigger picture to maybe make it incorporate just a few
more little changes in here. And what you were saying
too about there being such an overwhelming need for to
help creatures that's both both the two legged and the
four legged and ones that don't have any legs, that
it can be really overwhelming. And sometimes you get so
overwhelmed and so depressed by the need and by the
cruelty that we see, and by the poor little creatures
who have no voice, and we want so much to
be their voice. But all we can do is say them,
one animal at a time. And what I find is
that by joining forces with others like you or I
do other animal rescue groups or people saving groups. I
work with other organizations too, that sometimes we can be
a leader, and sometimes we in need to just sit
back and let other people lead and help recharge and
refill our own little energy tank and a heart tank,
because it can be too overwhelming.
Speaker 3: For one person, especially.
Speaker 7: Yeah, with such a negative there's so much negative energy
right now. But I feel like we are awakening and
we're coming together, like you and I have, and like
your listeners here on that will hear this show, we
are being awakened for a purpose, and we're being led
together to come together because we can make much bigger
of a difference together. And I need you, I need
them because sometimes that I can be the strong one,
and other times when I'm crying over seeing an email
about dog meat festivals happening in China, you know, I
need to be able to be filled up by all
of you two. And that's how we help each other,
and we can. I do believe that the good energy
and the good people and the good hearts will win
in the end, but just in the meantime, we have
to hurry and do it as fast as we can.
But all we can do is they one at a time.
Speaker 3: I think that's beautiful. One other one of your quotes
that means a lot to me, particularly when I think
about the cruelty and abuse we see in the animal world,
how humans treat animals. This is one that just resonates
what they did to me then does not define who
I am today, I'm hereby reclaim my power, and I
thought that was beautiful. I hereby reclaim my power, and
each of us have power to make a difference in
the lives of animals, which is one reason I think
we're called to do this work. We know that we
have to reclaim our power to do it. Barbara, we're
going to have to go into a commercial break briefly,
but I want to come back and talk about the
meat festival in China and your advocacy about eliminating one
of the most horrific cruelties I think out there for
our precious canine. So we'll be back right after this
brief message. You're listening to Loving Animals. This is your
first Robin Canton.
Speaker 2: We'll be right back right after these messages.
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Speaker 8: Pet Life Radio dot com.
Speaker 6: Well, welcome back to Loving Animals. This is your host,
Robin Ganzer. We're here with the inspirational Barbara Neven and Barbara,
I'm so glad that your life purpose involves loving animals,
and so much so that you have been a significant
advocate for making change, not just in our country, but
indeed around the world. Talk to me a little bit
about your feelings, your angst, your pain when you learned
more about the Yulon meat festival in China.
Speaker 7: Well, and okay, so there's a Yulin meat festival in China,
but it's not just the dog and cat meat trade
in China. It's around the world, and there there are
videos out there that talks about that shows actually what's
happening to these animals. So let me let me just
say what it is. First. In many mostly Asian countries,
people feel that eating animals or and particularly for man,
eating the animal's penis makes them more viraal. And you know,
it's not just about animals here, but you know, we
can go into so much more about like eating the
rhino horns and all these different myths that happened because
they feel like these animals give them magical powers. But
specifically about the dog meat festival in Yulen, China. We've
all kind of heard the words before, but it's easy
to close your eyes and not think about it because
it's so horrific. So I finally started watching one of
the videos that I got in my email, and I
will never get the site out of my mind. I
urge you, probably maybe you can watch three seconds of
one of these videos. It will be implanted forever, and
you will never get the picture out of your mind
because what they do. They have these animals, these beautiful
dogs and cats that are often stolen, they've been pets,
they are stolen because there's such a need in these
festivals at this time to take them out one by
one and in front of the other dogs, to kill them.
And before they kill them, they believe that their meat
tastes better if they have been terrified first and tortured first.
So they will do whatever they can to make the
animals suffer the absolute most, including their main thing that
they love to do is to skin these animals alive.
You watch the video with them actually starting at the
top of their neck pulling the skin off of these animals,
whether they're it is so horrible you cannot even believe it.
And often in these videos you see these men who
are doing it and I'm saying, man, there are maybe
women who do it too. I'm saying that man as
a collective human race, man are smiling because they're getting
off on it. There are each one of the un
Meat Festival happens in June. It's coming up again twenty
ninth or somewhere. The last week of June.
Speaker 3: And in Korea, right, I mean there's Korea.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, it happens in Korea too, but the Yuan
one we're focusing on right now because it's happening so quickly,
and we're trying to put pressure at the Chinese embassies,
et cetera. And in Korea it happens as well, and
there is a new South Korean leader that was just
elected who is an animal lover, so he is said
to be going to putting a stop on it, at
least exerting pressures, because these are not just fund festival.
These are culture driven because their myths that the village
and the people have passed down that by eating these
animals and torturing them they actually get their magical powers
in their body. But of course we know that that
is not true, and they are eating such bad karma.
And so anyway, I'm trying everything I can to raise awareness.
And the thing that I find the most difficult, and
which is what it didn't even sink into my soul
that this could be happening for so long, is when
something is so horrible, we all close our eyes and
turn away because we can't look at it. But we
have to look at it and be crushed enough in
our souls to pass it on and see their urgency.
So that's what I'm doing now. I'm trying to do
everything I can to raise awareness. You and I have
talked about what American Humane is doing to help this
cause as well, and thank you so much for doing it,
because I know you just rest. Thank you many animals
again from China didn't hear from the document trade I.
Speaker 1: Did last fall.
Speaker 3: I was in Hong Kong and we were able to
be part of a rescue effort that involved over one
hundred dogs, and I think it was a dozen that
we paid for for full transport, for every bit of
their relocation back to the United States. And that was
a moment that really it really shook me. It really
made me feel like, again, that's our purpose, right, that's
the purpose we started out in this conversation about how
we can really make a difference. And I believe that
bringing those dogs back is an opportunity for Americans to
have a conversation. Because the dogs are here on our soil,
we can look at them and see their creatures just
like the own dogs in our own shelters here in
our country. And rescue groups in the country.
Speaker 7: They are just normal.
Speaker 3: They're normal dogs.
Speaker 7: Yes, they're not packed anything and a dog. Even when
I've heard when they're rescued from a meat farm like this,
they still when the rescuer comes up and they've never
ever had a kind hand to pet them. They're often
without food or water. They're raised in fear. Yet when
they first planned love the way good Tail still dogs
have such hope.
Speaker 3: Yes, and they have hope and they have faith in
us humans, and it is a it's all about love.
And Barbara, I have to say that I'm so touched
by your willingness to use your incredible platform to help
make the world better for helping us all be aware
so that we can use our tools to drive change
and use our platforms to drive change. We've worked with
the World Dog Alliance. We're hoping that through some international
relationships that we'll be able to stop this horrific practice
and importantly stop the practice in South Korea before the Olympics.
A lot of work for us to do for animals,
and I think there's some great partnerships that we can
build internationally.
Speaker 7: To help and also absolutely and it's huge now that
we use the economic and in the high level platform
of the Olympics in South Korea at kan Yang. Isn't
that where it is? I'm not sure if I pronounced
that correctly, but we all need to put a pressure on.
And I won't also say that each one of us
can do something. It's just like working to save animals
and the animal shelter or rescue efforts. Each one of
us has a tool and a gift and a talent
that we can use. Maybe it's starting a petition or
adding your signature to a petition or and there are
so many petitions out there now. All you have to
do is google dog meat trade, South Korea, Olympics, et cetera,
and you will go to a site and all the
action items are right there. If each one of us
is listening, who is listening right now, would go and
do that? Call the South Korean consulate, call the Chinese
embassy in your area. There are people who are already
giving you the tools and mapping out the actions that
you can take daily, because now is the time that
we can come together and do something every single day
to help end this and help raise awareness. I personally
have been sharing this with on social media every day
on my Twitter feed and my Twitter if you want
to get in on this and start sharing too. Is
at Barbara Niven and so many of my friends that
I've met now on social media are also paying it
forward and doing that. So just raise awareness where you
are and then have the groups that you're creating just
start taking action, because I really feel like we are
in the best time possible that we can help stop this.
It's about educating us here and also educating the people
in the countries because they don't know any better. I
guess at these festivals as they're doing this, people like
there's probably in a four x four crate cage, wire
cage where the animals have no food and water. There
are probably six huge dogs crammed in there in there
somewhere on the bottom where they can't breathe, et cetera.
And then the humans that are at the festival, they're
celebrating and they say, oh, I want that one with
the tongue hanging out on the bottom.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's horrible suffered the most.
Speaker 7: And their children are watching, so they come out, they
watch the animal. They're all laughing as they're getting tortured
and skinned alive and then sometimes and it's cats too.
Sometimes they're all thrown into boiling water alive because and
they watch them screen because they think it tastes better.
These are things we need to know. We have to
talk about that that is not right. And they're passing
that down to the kids too, because they're getting normalized.
They're getting numbed to cruelty. Up when we know better,
we can do better. So let's know better here, and
the people that are hearing this right now, please do
something today and let stop this. Let's do what we can,
one animal, one person at a time, they help stop this.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Barbara for that powerful statement. On one closing note,
give me the names of the senior pets in your
life because you have some wonderful loves at home.
Speaker 7: Yes, I do, and I miss them. Can you tell
me tell I'm homesick today, I'm like a wreck. I
think about the animal things that I do. Yes, I
have when I'm gone. I'm gone for three and a
half months on this shoot, and I never have gone
anywhere without. You know, I can't take my animals, so
I always make sure that I have a wonderful couple
staying there. So my animals all sleep in the bed.
They've never not slept with humans. In fact, that's kind
of how I judge people. Hopefully they all let their
animals sleep with them. I probably sleep with animals mostly,
but I have a sixteen year old death and almost
completely blind. Your key named Lucy have no teeth either,
but she's doing great. A fifteen year old Chiwawa named Pepper.
And then my dear Lola just passed way in November.
She ended up with a brain tumor and passed away.
And I called the same rescue that I had gotten
her from because I'm a foster failure, and adopted an
eight year old little ram chubby Chiwow and named Meggie.
So that's my family. I love YEP. I know we'll
have to talk again again. Anybody who follows me on
social media knows me and loves my dogs as well
and has helped me through. When you have senior dogs,
things go wrong just as with us. So there's extra
medications and you know, extra surgeries and extra bit man,
adopting a senior is so wonderful, not only for you
but for them and I. One of my things that
my cause is that you are so kind about to
let me talk about Robin, is is how to really
consider adopting a senior and not just a cute puppy.
Speaker 3: And we're going to have you be for that. People
need to know this. Seniors need a home and you're
in a great example of fostering and being a foster
failure with the senior dog is the best failure ever,
I think. Yeah, Tom, Barbara, I'm so glad you could
join us today. This has been such a wonderful episode, enlightening, informative,
hard to hear at times, but I tell you it's
a game changer for many of our listeners who now
know about what animals face around the world.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: Friends, you know, I think sometimes we forgot some of
the whores that are going on across the world that
are impacting our favorite animals, like the terrible dog meat
trade that Barbara discussed today. As a CEO of American Humaine,
I'm dedicated, just like Barbara, to stopping these whores, to
stopping and ending the abuse of animals, and to really
building a better humane world for all creatures. From one
animal lover to another, thank you for joining us for
this week's episode of Loving Animals. Remember this week and
every week I'm loving animals, and I know you are too.
Speaker 5: Let's talk beats every week on demand and only on
petlifradio dot com.