Shelter Me

- Boomer.

Where are you, boy?

Boomer?

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- Hi, I'm John Hamm and this is Ruby.

Ruby was just adopted from a shelter in Los Angeles and there are so many pets just like her at shelters throughout the country that are waiting for a home of their own and for people to love them.

Shelter Me brings to life stories that remind us that we have the power to make a difference by getting involved with our shelters and helping get more pets adopted.

Save a life.

In this episode, Shelter Me features the incredible work that legendary singer songwriter Emmylou Harris is doing in her community to help at-risk youth and homeless pets.

- We're gonna bring the shelter to the people.

- Yes, I love you too.

- You'll also see a moving segment about fostering pets and an innovative program where police departments recruit shelter dogs for their prestigious canine units.

- Once we just realized how good these dogs were at doing their job, it's the first place that I go now when I'm looking for dogs.

- Ruby is a loving and gentle dog And there are many reasons why these pets end up at shelters, but now they need a new home and a family to call their own.

You can be the one to change their future.

There is no greater joy than giving a pet a brand new start.

They will be forever grateful and your partner in life.

Shelter me.

Give me that one second chance I need.

Oh, shelter me You will have all my love and loyalty.

- So today we're, we're invited to Sutton High School to teach a criminal justice in forensics class.

- Alright, ladies and gentlemen, as you know, the Sheriff is here and as we've been talking about the use of dogs and policing, they're gonna come and demonstrate a very special dog that they have acquired from a local shelter.

This dog was rescued and is now helping the Sheriff's Department maintain drug security at the House of Correction in West Boyleston.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is sheriff Evangelidis.

He is the sheriff of Worcester County and this is Sergeant Chabot and his very special partner, Nikita.

- Thank you.

It's an honor to be here with you guys as the criminal justice class here at Sutton High.

But they expect that we're gonna bring in a big German Shepherd and they see Nikita, they almost laugh until they see him in action.

- So here he is.

This is Nick.

He's a rescue from Puerto Rico that was brought to Sterling Shelter.

They have a program where they rescue dogs.

They were kind enough to donate him to us.

- We looked into it and we determined that there were shelter dogs that could be trained, That they could actually do the job as well or better than your traditional shepherd canine.

- So he sees his collar now he knows this is his cue to start working.

We're able to put some pseudo narcotics in one of these backpacks here.

So let's see if Nikki's on his game today and - How will you know when he finds something?

- His cue is he'll sit down and, then he'll touch his nose to the odor.

And there he goes.

- Whether it be backpacks or lockers or whatever that we suspect there are drugs.

And then he goes to work.

And unlike us who can smell just limited things, he smells everything, but he's trained to focus in like a laser on those particular scents that involve drugs.

When he puts his nose in that spot, that's where the sergeant follows up to believe that's where the narcotics are.

- Good boy.

And then there you go.

Now these are what we call, this is pseudo heroin.

They take one common chemical found in all the drugs no matter where they're made and, and they manufacture this.

So we can use this for training.

Good boy.

Good boy.

He doesn't look like a typical police dog, but if I had some drugs on me, I would not want to go up against him.

- I didn't know shelter dogs could be so useful for like a canine unit.

- He's a perfect example of what is at the shelter and what you know these dogs can do and how they can help the community.

He was down on his luck once, and here he is.

He has a job.

He has a very important job.

Right now, we're on our way to the sheriff's office, the jail and house of correction.

They have reports that there could possibly be some narcotics hidden in one of the work release cells.

So we're gonna go bring Nikita in and and do a quick search of the cell.

See if we can't come up with anything.

- Well, simply because we run a correctional institution and we should be very vigilant about stopping any attempt to bring drugs into the institution.

Anyone who knows corrections knows that that's a ongoing battle, always, 24-7.

- Alright, so I wanna restrain these two individuals so we can search this room as well.

These guys both work at the same facility as the two we lugged earlier this morning for the dirty urines.

We have no reason to believe these guys have anything, but just wanna make sure we cover all areas.

This is a minimum security building where the inmates are getting ready to transition back into the community.

Well, as thorough as we are with our eyes and our sight and our hands, we can't smell things.

Obviously the dog is that sixth sense.

It's trained to find specific things.

We are much more successful at finding things like weapons, other contraband.

But when it comes to the drugs, the dog seems much more effective.

- So, and a negative in both of these rooms.

- I believe he's definitely being more of a deterrent in the mail system because the dog is very in tune with what he's looking for and he's had some positive hits over there.

- I wanted you to check some of this stuff from the K building.

We were going through it last week, but we did get word that there could be something in here.

- Alright, great.

I'll take a look.

So what we're gonna do right now is we're gonna do a quick search of this mail.

This is one of the forms and one of the ways that the inmates do smuggle or try to smuggle narcotics into the correctional facility.

Now this mail has already been pre-op and checked by all the mail room staff.

We'll bring Nikita in and run jim through just to see if there's any narcotics or anything that might be hidden inside these envelopes.

- The first day he was here, we found somebody trying to smuggle Suboxone in on the glue of an envelope.

So not only your traditional marijuana and things that have a strong scent, but he can pick up the odor on narcotic prescription drugs, which is really where the drug scene is at right now, whether it be Suboxone or you know, prescription drugs like Oxycontin or Percocets, or whatever.

He has the ability to pick up the scent on those.

And that's what we're really trying to stop.

- So this is a positive hit on this piece of mail here.

What you got?

Pretty good hit.

So we'll just give him a little reward here.

So you can see, you know, he's really into it.

What we have here is a good positive indication.

We'll take this back to the investigators and we'll let them do their thing and we'll see if we got a good hit.

What do you think, Nick?

Huh?

Good boy.

Alright.

The biggest thing he has done is he's been a deterrent.

And the word is out.

And if you walk down the blocks here.

or you're out in the community, people know the Worcester County Sheriff's Department has a new canine, and he works.

- Nikita was a dog roaming the streets of Puerto Rico, you know, and he was rescued from down there and he was brought to the Sterling Animal shelter here in Massachusetts and put up for adoption.

Today we're heading back to the Sterling Shelter where Nick was from and we're gonna meet up with Leigh Grady.

And I haven't seen Leigh, nor has Nikita, since she donated the dog and we brought him down to Plymouth County for 12 weeks of training.

- Hi!

Hi, Leigh.

How are ya?

Nikita!

How are you?

I know, it's so amazing to think that just a year and a half ago he was on the streets of Puerto Rico.

I know.

You know, we thought it was a great thing because you know, a lot of times people think that, you know, shelter animals are old and broken and, you know, they're, they're diseased and have medical problems and behavior issues, and we rescue a lot of really great, friendly, loving dogs.

Alright, you can take me home now.

I'm bringing you the leash.

I'm ready to go.

For us, it's pretty rewarding because, you know, we do place about 2,500 dogs and cats every year.

And, you know, we never in a million years thought that one of our dogs would go into a position like this.

So it's pretty exciting for us.

Well, it's so good to see shelter dogs that are actually going into programs like yours because, you know, too often it's always a purebred lab or a shepherd or a malenois.

You know, and it's so fun to see, you know, little scruffy 26 pound mixed breed dog that's out there making such a big difference.

Right.

- He's getting there.

- That's wonderful.

- We're so proud of him.

Yeah.

Nicky!

we are heading to Bridgewater, Massachusetts, and we're gonna meet up with the training group that Nikita participates in with his trainer, Kenny Ballinger.

- So my name is Ken Ballinger, I work for the Plymouth County Sheriff's Department.

I'm an assistant deputy superintendent and I'm a canine trainer.

So we're unique here in Plymouth in that we, aside from a large canine unit that we maintain, both for outside services for the police agencies in our county, as well as a correctional facility, we're also a regional training center.

So we have about 120 dogs from maybe about a hundred or so agencies that come in and train with us for their basic training as well as that maintenance training that they do on a monthly basis.

- Sergeant Jonathan Simmons, Pembroke Police.

This is Canine Louie.

He came from Rockland Mass., from the Rockland Shelter.

He's trained as a single purpose narcotic detection dog.

Hi.

I'm patrolman Michael Glowka with the Plymouth Police Department.

This is Canine Shirley.

Shirley's certified in narcotics as well as friendly find.

My name's Deputy Jim Creed.

I'm from the Plymouth County Sheriff's Department.

This is canine Boing, she's 16 months old.

She was rescued from the Angel View Memorial Shelter in Boston, and she's a single purpose narcotics detection canine.

- Patrolman Matt O'Brien, Sandwich Police Department.

This is Canine Cota.

She's a single purpose narcotic detection dog.

She was rescued from the Brewster Animal Shelter and she's two years old.

- I'm Officer Trudel, the Eggertown Police Department.

This is my canine partner, Buster.

He's trained in narcotics and also air scenting for friendly finds.

He was a direct surrender to the Sheriff's department before he went to the shelter.

My name is Sergeant MarK O'Reilly from the Massachusetts Department of Correction.

This is canine Sophie.

She was a direct surrender from family in Waymouth that couldn't handle her anymore, and she's certified in narcotics.

- So we're here this morning to do what is a typical canine training day today.

There's basically two types of dogs that you'll see.

A dog that's here in his basic training or imprinting.

And then also dogs that are here for in-service.

Tom Chabot is a sergeant from Worcester County Sheriff's Department, and they were in the process of sort of re-looking at their canine unit and, and trying to make it more effective to fit the correctional environment.

And they had heard that we were doing some stuff with shelter dogs and Tommy, probably having come from a patrol dog environment, was maybe looking for the biggest burly lab that he could find.

When I showed him that Nick was gonna be his dog at about 15 pounds, he thought I was kidding.

And I think that since then he's seen the value of what it is that Nick offers.

He's a lot in a small package.

So right now we have between 25 and 30 dogs that are currently being utilized for police service that are shelter dogs directly from shelters.

And their makeup consists primarily of narcotic detection dogs, cell phone detection dogs, firearms detection dogs and friendly find, people, dogs for missing children or Alzheimer's people.

- I think it's a great message where you have resources that don't cost any money, which can be trained to detect narcotics or cell phones or any other items.

They're a resource we have, there's no cost that gives them a job to do and a home.

- We also are fortunate enough that we're allowed to think outside the box and develop new training methods and use new types of dogs and all of those things.

And it's actually encouraged.

So that's, I think that what, that's what sets us apart.

- Okay.

What we have inside here is some pseudo makeup.

It has heroin, cocaine, and some marijuana.

It's gonna go on the board.

The dog should come in and be able to locate it on the board.

- So he is in week three of his training right now, and he was a dog that was found in the woods.

And so three weeks ago he was, he was a stray and he was brought into the shelter and, and I think we were pretty fortunate that there was a need for the dog.

So, the point that he's at right now is what we call imprintation.

So he's learning a whole number of things right now that will eventually turn into real world searches, the most important one being, he's learning what his target odors are.

And so in this case it's the smell of narcotic odor.

Dogs like this actually bring a lot to the table that young dogs that we pay a whole bunch of money for, on average, we're paying around maybe $7,200 to $7,500 for what we call a green dog, that might have been raised for the purposes of police service in Europe or in this country, but they don't have a lot of the life experience that these dogs have.

So they bring a little bit of street toughness to the to the table.

And things that we have to work on repetitively, maybe for weeks on end with a dog that's been raised in a almost a sterile environment, these little dogs that we get from rescue have survived life, and, they come, if anything, we have to tone 'em down a little tiny bit because they're so used to doing things that we have to teach other dogs to do that cost a whole lot more money.

- The capabilities of these dogs are as wide and as varied as the types of dogs.

Now we're looking for things that we never thought before we'd have to look for, especially in correctional settings: cell phones, things that can be smuggled in.

And you know, it amazes me that no matter what technology we're talking about, these dogs surprise us every day with their ability to seek out those items and to find them.

- The uniqueness of this is for here in the state of Massachusetts, Max was one of the first two, and only dogs, that were trained specifically to detect cell phones from the pieces of them.

And we more or less got donated a whole bunch of old phones.

And we get rid of all the, the sort of pieces that are everywhere in the environment, the plastics and the metals.

We narrowed it down to the screens, batteries, and then the circuit boards.

From that point on, like any other odor source that we would train, we combine them in the reward system for the dog.

There was a very distinct electronic smell and oil that coated all the circuitry.

And that seems to be the common theme that the dogs have locked onto as a target odor more than anything.

We want that dog to say as precisely as possible that he can put the tip of his nose as well as his body as close to the source of the odor as possible.

- A couple times a month we get called out to the post office to sniff a couple packages that the postal inspectors flagged as suspicious.

A lot of marijuana.

She's found liquid heroin.

So they, they send it in anything they can try and mask it in.

A couple objects up here that I could walk around, I could hand guide her to each one, and once I hand guided her to this one, she sat, showed final response.

And apparently there's something in there.

I believe it's heroin.

- So we're food reward trainers.

So what that means is that the only time that these guys eat is either during a controlled search at a training or during a live operation, just watch her, Matt, so she doesn't get into that.

So I'll open that up a little tiny bit.

So in here is live heroin.

So the impression from the dog's perspective is that the quicker I find that target odor or odors, the sooner I get my food.

So our whole initial part of it is just teaching them to react to the odor.

Then once they've mastered that odor, or the block of odors, we separate the odors and we put them out into a practical environment.

Some of the searches that you'll see here today, where the dogs are just doing what it is that they would be required to do during their job.

- When she made the turn, you could see it, a slight change in her behavior.

So to me that indicates that she's picked up on some odor, in this case, human odor.

At which point, that's when I cut her loose and let her go.

And then, as she goes past the odor, she realizes that, hey, wait a minute, I've gone past it, comes back, isolated it, and then came in and found it.

- The benefit to these shelter dogs is they are not conventional looking police dogs.

A lot of them are off size, where they're a little bit smaller, so they are more utilitarian, that we're able to get them into places that we wouldn't be able to get a bigger dog.

So the action is gonna be a vehicle sniff.

And this is the most typical of all probably canine detection searches that we would do.

In this area here, it's a big problem with diversion drugs or pills.

So we've got some Dilaudid in here, there's eight of them, I believe.

And we'll show you what a vehicle sniff looks like.

Sniff.

- I know, you wanna get in here, don't you?

Go!

Hop up.

Good boy.

Yeah, hop up, hop up.

This could, could be a police stop on the street or this could be part of a ongoing narcotics investigation.

And, you know, they want to run a dog just to make sure they got everything out of it.

When I first brought this dog to Kenny, you know, I was like, geez, I'm kind of worried about his size.

And he was like, no, absolutely not.

This is great.

A small dog definitely has his advantage.

Good boy, Nick.

Good boy.

What you got?

What you got?

He did real well.

You could see he was starting to get the odor from the front seat.

- And that was probably about 15 years ago that we started pulling the first dogs from shelters.

And once we just realized the beauty of how good these dogs were at doing their job, it just, it's become more commonplace for us to do it.

It's the first place that I go now when I'm looking for dogs.

- Oh boy, Nick.

Hop up.

So we're able to get a dog out of a shelter, save his life, bring him on board to our department, train him for free, and now he's become probably the most sophisticated drug sniffing dog in our county's history.

And the same time, he was cost effective.

County dispatch to six fifty.

- Six fifty's on Ma'am, go ahead.

Lancaster PD just called.

They'd like to know what your ETA is to that location.

Good receive, ma'am.

Well be code four at that address.

I'm just pulling up now.

Thank you.

So we're heading back downtown Worcester.

We're going to go through the Community Correction center.

We're gonna search some probation offenders, some parolees, and some house arrest offenders at the center.

They go there for classes.

And we'll just do some people searches to make sure that they don't have any narcotics on their person.

- This is one of Worcester County's community correction centers.

And we have three different populations of folks who come here.

We have inmates who are on house arrest, and are on ankle bracelet.

They report here.

It's a day program for them.

They have drug testing.

They go through classes: coping skills, life skill classes.

We do job training here.

We also have probationers and parolees who are ordered here from the courts for different types of programmings.

Good morning everybody.

I'm Deputy Tuttle in charge of the COPE program.

Some of you have seen us before.

We're gonna be bringing you out in groups of five to six to have Nikita, our drug dog, do a search of you.

So what we we need right now is the first group in the back, get up and exit the room.

Have all your belongings in your hands are with you while we are a treatment facility, and our main goal is to treat folks, the reality is, everyone here has committed a crime.

We wanna show we're serious about what we're doing here.

And Nikita's just a great tool for us to use.

He's not intimidating, but he's effective.

Okay you guys, listen up.

I'm gonna do a quick search here.

Just keep your hands by your sides.

What's that?

- I have my water bottle nd stuff.

Yeah, just leave it in there and that's fine.

Just keep your hands by your sides.

If the dog comes up to your hand, don't pet him.

All right?

Don't talk to him.

It'll be real quick, alright.

- That's good.

Wow.

- So he's given a positive indication here to the presence of narcotics.

Nicky, that's a good boy.

Good boy.

We will separate him from the group.

and these officers here will conduct a search of him.

- They never know when it's coming.

The last time we did this was probably a couple weeks ago.

One person sees that dog hit the hit the door, everybody starts to panic.

Even though Nick's probably about 30 pounds soaking wet, you know, it sends a little shiver, because they're like, oh no, I gotta get rid of whatever I have.

And it sends a message because then you know what?

They're not gonna take it here.

They're not gonna take it into this rehabilitation type setting, this reintegration into society.

A lot of the people here, they want to get away from it.

They come here to get help.

So anybody that really has it, you know what?

Get 'em out.

And the dog, the dog sends a message, as strange as that may seem, because it's such a little dog, okay?

Okay, all set.

And if a a rescue shelter and was able to be trained, that's phenomenal.

- At the end of the day, me and Nick, we drive home.

You know, we got about 25, 30 minutes to just decompress a little bit.

We go home and, you know, it's time off.

- Hey guys.

- Hey!

Hey Nikki.

He transitions so well from work to home.

When we pull in the driveway and I open the door, and he just knows, you know, he knows it's time to relax.

- Here you go.

Go ahead kiddo.

You know, McKinley usually meets me out in the backyard, and they play around on the deck a little bit together.

it's good to give him a break, you know?

Some of the environments that he's in, you know, it's nice for him to come home and just be able to be a dog, you know?

Now give him the, give him the the sit command.

There you go.

And wait till he sits good.

Nick...

Okay, now give it to him.

Good boy Nicky.

- He's awesome with my daughter.

They have a lot of fun playing together.

They're both very high energy.

So it works well with her being young and him being so young.

Nick!

I mean, it's a great story.

And I think a lot of people should go to shelters, you know?

I mean, there's a lot of dogs that need good homes as you can see with him.

You might think... Do I got treats on my face?

- I think he just likes you.

Nicky, we love you.

You're a good boy.

Dog's first.

Then me!

I think Nick knows his roots.

You know, he had a tough life.

You know, he's lived a lot that we probably couldn't understand, but I think he knows.

I think he knows he's got that second chance.

We are on call 24-7.

You know, holidays, weekends.

You know, we're really never off.

We can always be back on duty at any time, so...

Hop up.

I think he does a better job than I do at that sometimes, you know.

You get that call and you're like, ah, all right, let's go.

But you know, he doesn't know any better.

He just, he's, he's... A dog like him, and, and all these dogs, especially these shelter dogs, they want to please you.

You know, so everything they do, they're trying to please you.

And they'll, they'll go out of their way.

They'll go above and beyond.

And he's grateful for it.

And we're grateful to have him.

- People who foster pets are the unsung heroes of the shelter world.

When you foster, you provide a temporary home for a pet while you help find a new adopter.

Most shelters and rescues have these programs in place or can easily set them up.

Fostering is meaningful, fun, and most importantly, it saves lives.

- I am the bridge between what was and what can be.

I am the pathway to a new life.

I am made of mush because my heart melted when I saw you.

Lonely, unwanted, afraid to love for one little time.

You are mine.

I will feed you with my own hand.

I will love you with my whole heart.

I will make you whole.

I am made of steel.

Because when the time comes, when you are well and sleek, when your eyes shine and your tail wags with joy, then comes the hard part.

I will let you go.

Not without a tear, but without a regret, for you are safe forever.

A new dog needs me now.

- I am Rebecca Morris.

I'm the Public Relations Coordinator for the Health Department here in Nashville, Davidson County.

Yeah, you ready to go out?

People here in Nashville refer to us as just MACC, but what that really stands for is Metro Animal Care and Control.

We take in, really, the animals of Nashville.

And we truly are trying to find homes for all the animals here at the shelter.

Hey Lauren.

Hey.

Who do we got here?

Hey, this is Cagney and Lacey and they're Rat Terrier mixes and they have a pretty cool story and I'm hoping that we can get them into a rescue.

What do you think?

- Well, what's the story?

My name's Lauren Bluestone.

I work at Metro Animal Care and Control as the manager.

It is a city facility.

This is open admission, which basically means that we accept all animals, owner surrenders, strays, everything that basically walks through our door.

The capacity here safely is about 200 dogs, maybe a little bit more, and probably about a hundred cats.

- They were really loved, but they weren't, the homeless man who surrendered them, wasn't able to care for them anymore.

And he really, he just, he asked us if we could try to rehome them together.

So I was hoping that they could maybe go into rescue.

- I think we have actually two rescue agencies coming today.

Oh, great, cool.

Crossroads and Bonaparte Retreat.

- Okay, I'm gonna take 'em out for a little walk and hopefully today they'll be their day.

- Alright, sounds great.

Thank you.

- Thanks, Lauren.

Having rescue groups like Crossroads and Bonaparte just a phone call away means so much to us here at the shelter.

When we're having days with intaking upwards to 40 animals a day, knowing that we can just give them a call and they'll be here to be able to help us, it means a great deal.

Hopefully you guys are gonna find an amazing home together.

- A big black dog, little too much gray around the muzzle.

Big black dog.

Why she ended up at the pound is a puzzle.

Big black dog.

- I am Emmylou Harris and I've been very fortunate to have a successful recording career since 1975.

And it's given me a lot of pleasure and a lot of rewards.

But I do have a second career that maybe a lot of people might not know about.

I have a dog rescue here at my home in Nashville that I started 10 years ago.

It's called Bonaparte's Retreat after a dog that I rescued and who traveled with me on the tour bus, for 10 years.

I had this big flat backyard, that I wasn't going to put swimming pool or a tennis court in, and that I could actually build a small shelter.

It was just one of those things, kind of an "aha" moment, when I went, you know, I could do this, and I could help some animals.

Of course, it's grown so much because I've become more and more aware of the plight of shelter animals.

So today is a really big day.

We actually have some vacancies here at Bonoparte's Retreat 'cause we've had two pretty important adoptions.

So Steve Williams and I, who helps to run the a Bonaparte's Retreat.

Good morning.

Hey, we're going to go down to MACC, to Metro Animal Control and pick some dogs, and eventually find them a home.

Can't wait.

- My name is Lisa Stetar and I'm the Executive Director of Crossroads Campus.

Crossroads connects people and pets.

And that's really at the heart of everything that we do.

And we use those connections to create hope and healing and opportunity for young people and homes for homeless dogs and cats.

We just left the Crossroads Pet Shop and adopt store in Germantown and we're headed out to the city shelter to pull some dogs and cats and bring them back here for an adoption event we're gonna hold tomorrow here at the store.

We'll be having a concert and trying to get some of these pets into loving homes.

Our store is also a place where we provide job training for young people who are aging out of foster care, or young people who are just trying to move out of poverty.

We're gonna meet up with Steve Williams and Emmylou Harris, who is the founder of Bonaparte's, and she's also one of the founders of the Crossroads.

She'll be singing tomorrow at our store.

- We have these events at Crossroads.

We get the dogs, have been pulled at MACC that are gonna be at the store for adoption.

Bonaparte's comes and brings dogs.

We invite other rescues to come.

We like to have MACC bring their own dogs.

And then to draw people in, we have music.

It's a really special place.

And I think people have to, to see it to quite, to quite believe it.

Hello.

That's another thing about cats.

They don't bark.

People don't spay and neuter their pets.

Well, what's gonna happen to these, these puppies?

What's gonna happen to these kittens if you don't have homes for them?

- The interesting thing about Bonaparte's and what makes them really significant is they were one of the first rescues to actually go and work directly with our animal control with our city shelter.

Bonaparte's kind of blazed that trail for us.

Hello.

What about this little guy?

When I did first go there, it's true that their euthanasia rate was very, very high.

There was a statistic that probably only one in every 10 dogs was gonna make it outta there alive.

Which is a really, it is hard thing.

I can understand why people would say, oh, I can't go to any shelter 'cause I'd wanna take them all.

Well, it's true, of course we all wanna take them all.

But the point is, if you don't do anything, you can't at least save one.

Would you like to get out of here maybe?

I think that's a yes.

- Good.

There's a reason we come here, because we want to help this community.

We want to help these dogs.

- Metro takes in everything.

They have to.

So we pull animals from the facility to make more room here, but we also try to send people to Metro.

Whenever we have an adopter come in, and we don't have what they're looking for, we help try to overcome that stereotype of what this place is.

We're able to say, come here.

It'll be a good experience.

- Look at this guy.

This is Sammy.

This is Sammy.

Look at Sammy.

You, you've got a lot of energy, don't you?

Look at you, sweet guy.

When I first decided that I wanted to incorporate a dog from MACC, that was about a little over eight years ago.

I just said, which dog are you going to, you know, do next?

Which one is gonna be euthanized next?

And they pointed to, to Bella.

She had gray around her muzzle.

Hard to tell how old she was, but I did take her because I felt she was in imminent danger of losing her life.

And she had been at MACC for about two months.

She's an older dog, found wandering a major thoroughfare here in Nashville.

So it's hard to know what her story was.

Bella was a shelter dog.

- Bella was one of the, if not, you know, one of the best dogs Emmy ever had.

- I just took a chance, you know, and it turned out that Bella and Kita just kind of completed each other.

She was the, the go-getter and the alpha dog.

And Bella would just kind of would just go along with whatever.

And then it turned out that she was great on the bus.

So I took, I took, I would take both of them.

And after the shows, when we would come out for an encore, hopefully an encore, they would come out and I would do just a little spiel about the fact that they were both rescues.

And please go to your local shelter.

Save the life, save your own.

Obviously, you know, they can't live forever.

I read a quote somewhere where dogs' lives are too short.

Their only fault, really.

- One of the things I thought it's a tribute to Bella is we'd pull a black dog.

So that's what we did.

We, we pulled a dog named Sammy.

My goodness!

Well, hello.

Mr.

Excitement!

He's a long legged boy, isn't he?

I know.

- Dogs can be in a kennel.

They can be, you know, barking or animated, or maybe even fearful and hiding back a little bit.

And that's not always a true indication of their, their personality.

All that really does is tell you: this is how this dog behaves if confined in a small area with a chain link fence.

But getting 'em outside, getting some fresh air, I think makes all the difference.

Okay!

So who you working with, Ginger?

How's the assessment going?

She's doing well.

She's pretty energetic.

Don't just look at the way they're acting in the kennel and just figuring that's the personality of the dog.

- This is amazing.

The difference in just a short period of time from when we first saw him.

We're getting to know Sammy, changing his name to Spy Boy.

We just want to get a more normal environment where he can learn to be the dog that he was always meant to be.

And I feel that that's the case with all shelter dogs.

- Rescue organizations like Bonaparte's Retreat as well as Crossroads, It's extremely important.

They save lives.

- You really are not just saving the life of that animal, but you're saving the life of the animal that's gonna have a space in its kennel once it goes out the door.

At the end of September, our euthanasia rate was just 44%.

A year ago it was closer to 80.

What we've done over the past year is started creating partnerships with rescue organizations to help get the animals out the door in larger volume.

As of today, we have 34 rescue partners here in the community.

Gonna go riding in the car.

Yes, I love you too.

- Shelter pets play a really important role in what we're doing here.

We pull dogs and cats from our city shelter.

They come and live in the store.

- Crossroads Pet Shop in the Top is not your regular pet store.

We're actually a social enterprise.

We're a not-for-profit.

We have a unique place here in that we have interns who are getting job training.

They learn job skills here.

As an intern, part of what I do is, I help the groomers.

I learned the proper way to wash a dog.

I didn't think there was a special way to wash a dog.

I didn't know how to clip nails before.

And now I do.

I get to clean up after them and learn how to treat them and it's just a lot of fun.

- We have partnerships with several community organizations like Goodwill and Youth Connections.

The biggest thing that we're looking at is breaking generational poverty.

- Caring Connections is a humane education program.

We have a Caring Connections class that we've been running at a program called Monroe Harding for a couple of years now.

Monroe Harding houses teenage young men, ages 16 to 19.

There's usually about 24 young men living on their campus.

So we go out on Saturday, we bring the dogs, we're teaching them how to be safe around animals, but most importantly they're helping us train our adoptable dogs and to, to make them more adoptable, to make it more likely they're gonna stay in a home.

Cortez is one of the interns who's been with us the longest.

And he comes to us through our partnership with Monroe Harding.

He joined us when he was still in high school.

And my understanding of Cortez's history is that he'd gotten into some trouble around drug dealing.

- I actually got caught.

I did seven months.

So after that, just when they sent me down, I just did a lot of thinking.

I was here within three days after I got out.

- And he's really blossomed.

And he's now, he graduated from high school in the spring and he is now in community college.

But he continues to work with us.

- People try to get second chances, just like animals need second chances.

And that's basically what Crossroad is about.

I ain't never been, I had nobody to actually be nice and let do something like this.

So... - Come on, sweety.

I think we got two great dogs, don't you?

Oh God, yeah.

These are great dogs.

We started Bonaparte's Retreat.

We got our first three dogs July July of 2004.

So we've been going a little over 10 years.

Yep.

Hey there Maggie.

You got some new friends.

Hey Tigger.

Every single dog is unique and different and extraordinary in their own way.

Once you get them out of the anonymity of the shelter and you get them one on one, then you see them blossom into who they are.

It's just an extraordinary thing.

- The main thing that we want to do is to work with the animals that we have now.

Do the best that we can with them and find them homes.

I always say my hope is not to get to know the dogs too well.

Because if we don't get to know 'em too well, that means that we've found 'em a home and we're able to pick right back up out at Animal Control, bring some more in and keep that process going.

- Come on in.

This was built a few years ago as a gift from my mother.

That's my mother, Eugenia Harris.

She lived with me for 21 years.

She's at a Crossroads event last year and someone gave her a puppy to hold.

And I can tell you if my mother was holding an animal, it was one happy animal.

She exuded so much love.

- Anytime I rescued a dog from the animal shelter, my first role was to knock on the door and let Emmy introduce the new dog to Ms. Harris.

- And she would always say, "Oh, how beautiful."

Everyone was beautiful to her.

- Historic Germantown is a transitional inner city neighborhood that I've actually lived in for over 20 years.

The area that the store is located, we're right on the edge of almost two communities.

There's one that's growing and there's all kinds of development and new housing being built.

And then there's just across the street from us, quite a bit of poverty.

So we have folks who come in who have tremendous resources.

And we have people who come in who are struggling to really be able to care for their pets.

I think empathy's right, really at the heart of what we do here.

And it's empathy for animals.

And that translates to empathy for people.

So we're getting set up for the adoption event.

And then we have some great musicians showing up.

So, just a couple hours it'll be hopping around here.

We invited Metro Animal Care and Control to come down and bring some of their dogs, Bonaparte's with some of their foster dogs.

And of course featuring the dogs and cats that we just pulled from Metro Animal Care and Control yesterday.

- So Little Brownie needs her medication.

So when she was spayed, they intubated her, which means they put a a tube down her throat so she could breathe.

And sometimes that irritates their throat.

Earnest has kind of a challenging home life.

Not a lot of support, not a lot of belief in his own abilities.

We're able to give him some self-confidence and show him that he does have a lot of potential and a lot of talent.

For her, we're hoping it's a treat, so just hold it out just like you would a treat.

Let's see if she'll, she'll go for it.

Perfect.

Good girl.

- I just like working with animals and I got a chance to see how the animals in the shelters, how they lived and stuff like that.

And doing this kind of want to help 'em.

- All right.

Give her a little love and she was a good girl for that.

- I go to Nashville State Community College.

As for my time being here, I thought about like what I wanted to do in the future and I could kind of see myself possibly owning my own business.

Kinda like what they do here, getting cats and dogs off the streets and just getting 'em homes.

Hopefully I get a chance to do that.

- Today we brought Metro Animal Care and Control down.

They brought their truck and brought some of their dogs here for adoption.

When we have an event like this, volunteers show up and it's just, it tends to be a lot of fun.

- I'm with Metro Animal Control.

I'm a volunteer just coming and doing events like this, adoption events, just really getting folks to think about, when they're looking for a pet, coming and adopting from a rescue.

This community right here is really dog friendly.

The neighbors hopefully will come out and see what's going on.

And if they're not adopting, they'll come and start volunteering with some of these organizations.

- We have seven dogs here today.

And we've got all of our amazing volunteers to make sure all the dogs get exercise and get to meet as many people as possible.

- This is Peaches.

Oh, we love her so much.

She is a sweetie.

We're hoping she will find a home, so that Leslie can foster yet another dog for us.

We depend so much on our fosters as most rescues do.

We tell people we'll pay all the vet bills, supply the food, put the dog on the website, take care of all the potential adoptions.

You just need to provide the, the, the time, the space and the love.

Yeah!

Come on, Buddy.

So oftentimes people are a little bit nervous about coming to our shelter.

And so over the past year we've really been trying to get out to as many events as we possibly can to get our animals out in the community where they need to find the loving homes.

- When they kind of come here to a place in the community, people see these wonderful people that work there and these incredible animals.

So yeah, we are gonna bring the shelter to the people.

I would really rather have a rescue dog.

- Oh, we love that.

Oh, you're so sweet.

Alright, well we're having a lot of live music.

Best ticket in town.

It's free.

Oh man.

The dogs benefit, people come in, you know, and it, it really is a community affair.

Nashville is where I've lived the longest.

I've been here 30 years.

But I really think it was getting involved in animal rescue that made me a part of the entire community.

Before that, it was like songwriters and musicians.

But once you plant a flag and say you have a goal, then it's really important that you get involved with everyone else who shares that goal.

So that makes your world and your community larger.

I'll see out there, Doug.

Lisa found this place.

And in the shortest time possible they have made it into this place that is a real service to the community.

Time for a bath now.

I can't tell you how many years we sat around trying to figure out how to put this whole idea together and finally settled on opening a store.

Like, start small, so that we could figure out what we were doing.

You know?

Because we wanted to do a lot in order to save people.

We wanted to save animals, but we also had to make money, you know, to keep going.

Seventy-nine cents is your change.

We are trying to find good homes for animals that are abandoned.

Time is also bringing business in terms of the community within the inner city.

- Oh, and there's Ginger.

I met Ginger yesterday.

Ginger.

Are these say new owners?

- Yes, ma'am.

You have got a great little dog there.

Ginger was brought into MACC as a stray.

And she came into our facility on Friday and Saturday, she went home.

- I totally agree with the mission that they're having youth work with the dogs and kind of get them some experience in caring for an animal.

And I think that part of it is really exciting.

I've got four rescues So glad to be here today.

- Nashville's full of talented musicians.

So we're lucky to always have a great lineup.

And it really brings people to the table.

And it just, it just adds an air of, you know, festivity.

And our intern, Cortez, got up and shared some of his rap with us and we had a lot of fun.

- I never pictured myself actually doing this.

I always dreamed it, but I never actually thought I would do it.

- That was like watching one of your own children get up there and perform.

He did a great job.

And it's an opportunity for people to hear his voice and hear his story.

So we were very proud of him.

Thank you.

Give it up.

- I feel my confidence is sky high.

On a scale of 10 to a hundred, It is, it is a hundred right now.

- A part of our vision has always been to create a residential program for the young people we serve.

And that's really where the name Campus comes from.

We'd like to create a residential campus.

So we'll start with building out the store here, and creating a space for four to six interns to live and have affordable housing.

And eventually we'll have our Crossroads campus, where we'll have affordable housing and dog training and fostering, all under one roof.

- Just an opportunity to really create community for the kids, because that's what we all need.

If we're going to successfully transition into adulthood, we need connections, we need community.

So take the lead and I will follow.

And if you let me, I'll be your shadow.

Shelter me Give me that one second chance I need.

- So this is my first rescue dog.

- Ben was actually found on the streets.

He was roaming in East Nashville.

And one of our animal control officers found him.

And we were able to get him on a leash.

And we're so happy that he made it to the shelter.

And he's gonna have a pretty amazing life.

- They just need some help.

And I'm in a place in my life where I can, I think I can offer some help.

So, give Ben a better life than what he was destined to.

- It's really rewarding to see these dogs and cats get to go home.

And the great thing is, a lot of times the person who's adopted stays in touch with us.

They may live in the community or they may continue to be a customer here.

And so it's fun to watch those relationships develop.

- Hello everybody.

I wanna thank you so much for coming.

I spent the entire day at MACC yesterday.

It's extraordinary what they've done.

The euthanasia rate is, is cut drastically.

There are a lot of shelters that, besides Crossroads and Bonaparte's that they are partnering with.

If you have a chance to go out there and check it out, it's really quite amazing.

It does bring the community together.

And we're just getting started.

I mean, there's so much more that can be done and I think that will be done.

- Those of you who know me, have seen me, and know that I wrote a song about a very special dog named Bella.

Big black dog A little too much gray around the muzzle Big black dog Why she ended up at the pound is a puzzle A big black dog Did she run away because somebody didnt treat her right?

Did they leave her out in the cold night after lonely night?

A big black dog A big black dog I found her one day down there at the metro.

A big black dog Waiting in a cage In line for the death row.

A big black dog The song is personal for me.

Bella was so unique, as they all are.

But if I do talk about the song in the shows, I want it to encompass all shelter dogs.

You know, every dog needs a chance.

It's for the yellow dogs and the white dogs, and the spotted dogs and the little dogs, and the medium sized dogs, and all the dogs that you find, every shape and size and combination.

Big black dogs, they're everywhere Looking for a home, they're hungry and scared All they need is food and attention They give you back love sometimes redemption I swear, you could find it there in a big black dog.

My big black dog.

- Come on little buddy.

Let's go.

Hold on to me as we go.

As we roll down this unnfamiliar road.

although this wave is stringing us along just know you are not alone Because I'm going to make this place your home.

Settle down.

It'll all be clear.

Don't pay no mind to the demons they fill you with fear.

The trouble, it might drag you down.

If you get lost, you can always be found.

Just know you're not alone.

'Cause I'm gonna make this place your home.

Come on Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh Oh oh oh oh Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh Petco Love Lost.

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Oh, my baby!

Home, with the families that love them.

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