Episode 98: Helping Animals in Ukraine with Dr. Becker

We are joined again by America's Vet, Dr. Marty Becker! Dr. Becker founded the Fear Free Movement and made it his mission to prevent and alleviate fear, anxiety & stress in pets by inspiring and educating the people who care for them. Today we discuss Dr. Becker's recent trip to the Ukrainian border, where he helped in the ongoing efforts to take care of the pets that have been displaced by the war in Ukraine.

Hear from Dr. Becker as he recounts some of his incredible experiences in assisting with the logistics and on-the-ground support in Romania and Moldova on the Ukrainian border.

Transcript

Mikel Delgado [0:23] Hello, everybody! Welcome to this week’s edition of the Good Dog Pod. I am always super happy to chat with today’s guest. You may know Dr. Marty Becker as America’s Veterinarian. He’s written over 20 books, and he currently lives and practices as a vet in Idaho. Of the many things I admire about Marty, one of my favorite things about him is that he founded the Fear Free Movement, which hopefully you are all very familiar with. Fear Free works to prevent and alleviate fear, anxiety, and stress in pets in veterinary clinics, shelters, homes, and beyond. I also appreciate that Marty has the biggest heart of, I think, anyone I know. It’s made of solid gold! And he’s got a wicked sense of humor. Always fun to talk to you, Marty. Today Dr. Becker is joining us to talk about his recent trip to the Ukrainian border to provide care to the pets and people fleeing the Russian attacks throughout Ukraine. Dr. Becker, thank you so much for being here today on the Good Dog Pod today.

Dr. Marty Becker [1:19] I’ve got to give you a compliment. I’m tickled to be here. You know how to say veterinarian. So many people say vet-rinarian. It’s so hard to say! It has six syllables.

MD [1:30] Oh, that’s so funny. It’s kind of like February. There’s other words that nobody can say!

MB [1:34] I had somebody early in my career who came rushing up after a talk I gave. With my inflated sense of self-worth, I thought hey, he’s coming up to congratulate me, and he goes, “You don’t belong up in the front of the room unless you can pronounce veterinarian.” So when I coach people, helping them when they’re starting up or building a brand or doing something, I just say, “Say veteran-arian.” That’s how it works. You did it perfect!

MD [1:59] Good to know! I wasn’t even thinking about it. 

MB [2:02] I’m proud of you.

MD [2:02] Thanks; it’s the little things. Let’s get down to business. One of the reasons I wanted to bring you on: we’ve known each other a while, and I follow you on social media. At the end of March, I saw you announce that you are heading to the Ukrainian border to help. My mind was blown. I’d love to hear about what spurred this decision and how you organized this trip. How did you know where to go, and what kind of help was needed?

MB [2:25] You know what’s funny: this is a true story. I’ve been married 45 years to the love of my life, Theresa. Just when you think you know almost everything about somebody, I throw a big curveball. So our granddaughter, Regan, age 12, was up to stay at our ranch. They went to town to go to lunch, and she comes back, and I have tickets to go to Romania. I don’t think I could say on the podcast everything she said… She was worried about me being safe. And she thought: Maybe he’s got mania. He was sort of depressed, and now he’s in a manic phase. What had happened is I think many of us saw in the news where somebody was trying to rescue dogs at a shelter and was killed. They were trying to get food and water, and they were killed. The lady that had packed a dog 10 miles on her back, a German Shepherd that was crippled, to get it to safety in Poland. Cutie Pie, my little heart dog, is sitting here next to me on the barcalounger (no pun intended)—I pack him from the sofa to the Serta mattress every night, about 20 feet. We always think: Would I risk my life? If the house was on fire, would I run in? Yeah, I would. If the canoe tips over in the rapids, and he was in… Yes, I would. But you actually see it over there. You can say it, but actually seeing it was something else. I looked online, and there were very few plane tickets to Romania. I decided to go in the southern part, instead of going into Poland. So I scooped up these tickets and thought: Let me figure this out. I’m a below-average veterinarian. I mean that. I’m not trying to say it to poke fun at myself. But if you’re a veterinarian, let’s say it’s a complicated diagnostic, and you can’t quite tell from the ultrasound and the things with the spinal cord problems—that’s not me. The older pet that has multi-modal conditions—am I going to crack the code? No. Surgery? No. Technically, I wasn’t going to go over there and do cruciate ligament surgeries or somebody’s dog who nobody had been able to figure out—but what I knew I could do is, I think, bigger picture. The Romanian Veterinary Medical Association—how are they handling this influx of all these thousands of pets coming? I reached out to the head of the Moldavian VMA and found out: these are the challenges they face. Then he connected me with the veterinarians on the border, where they were having to quarantine these pets. Ukraine’s not a rabies-free country, so all these animals coming in had to be quarantined. Then I connected to the veterinary schools, because I knew the veterinary students and staff were volunteering. I was trying to talk to them about Fear Free. One thing led to another led to another. Pretty soon I got 10 days booked. Ukraine is in crisis mode. We’re helping with these pets and the people. Someday, we’ll rebuild it. But right now, what can we do in Romania, Moldova, Poland to help them? Their infrastructure is so far behind. I’ll give you an example: in the country of Moldova, only one veterinary hospital has an X-ray machine. Imagine seeing fractures, imagine seeing bloat, imagine seeing pneumonia. You’d better be pretty good with a stethoscope. 

MD [5:40] So the needs are, it sounds like, huge. Even before the crisis. 

MB [5:46] The one clinic that had an X-ray machine in Moldova—I went there for safety. In the US, every vet clinic has a radiology machine or X-ray machine, mostly. You have lead aprons and you have lead gloves and those badges that check your dosages. Their gloves were a pair of oven mitts. When I went to the veterinary school to lecture to them about Fear Free—and why was I bringing Fear Free in? They were seeing an extraordinary amount of dog bites, cat scratches, and injuries. Think of this: all of a sudden, I’m taken out of my home. I’m gone. I’m in a subway. I’m in a train, I’m in a bus, I’m in a car. And then we get here with all these people that are stressed—probably the most stressed they’ve ever been in their lives. These pets are stressed. And then they come across the border and all these good-hearted people come rushing towards them. Direct eye contact, fists out, “What’s his name? Can I pet him? How’s he doing?” The pet is going to react with fear-based aggression. But why are all these cats so calm over there? It’s amazing.

MD [6:57] Yeah, you see the pictures of people carrying them, right?

MB [7:00] They think they’re going to die! That’s why. They’re frozen in fear. Collapsing immobility. They’re not just calm and somehow different from our cats. They literally think they’re going to die. It was one thing just to teach people at the border, when these pets come, to turn sideways, bend down, take a knee if you can. You can glance at the pet. Get them to come over to you. If you have a little treat, they’re hungry, all the better. Finding out now, a couple months later (6-8 weeks later), we have been able to drop the injuries at the border tremendously just by simple animal handling techniques. 

MD [7:35] That’s great. Wonderful. What did you do while you were in Romania? Where did you stay? What was your day-to-day like? It sounds like you were doing some talking to students. 

MB [7:45] My wife was worried about me. I have a neurologic condition, so I was going to fly first class until I saw the ticket was $20,000. And then I thought: I’m not flying first class. The jetlag didn’t hit me too bad. I went to Bucharest, and that’s where I met the head of the Romanian VMA. He also teaches at the veterinary school in Bucharest. There’s four veterinary schools in Romania. And then I headed over to a border town Galați. That was only about 10 miles from the border of Moldova, Ukraine, and Romania. The Danube goes to the southern part of Romania—that's the border between Bulgaria and Romania—then it goes up and empties into the Black Sea. The Danube is not blue. Maybe I’ve been watching too many Viking cruise commercials. It was brown, and it was choppy and windy. But there’s a place called Sava’s Safe Haven. It was amazing. World Vets (who I’m a board member of) had worked with them in the past, so I met with them. It’s a non-governmental non-profit, family-run shelter. They have 300 dogs there. They knew every single dog by name. They must have been invisible corks in these dogs, because there was no poop there. The two hours I was there, not one poop! Something odor-neutral, too. It didn’t smell. It wasn’t fragrant. It was just very clean. They knew the medical history, and had great records on them. That’s where I spent the first day. They were housing a lot of these pets who were quarantined. As they were getting food and medicines and collars and leashes and cages and beds, they were taking them over to the border to be taken back into Ukraine. The next day, we went over to the actual border. There’s very few bridges across the Danube. There’s a new one being built, but from the mouth of the Danube and the Delta, it’s almost 50 miles before you get to a bridge. So they’re mainly crossing by ferry into parts of Romania. I’ve been involved with America Humane, going to natural disasters before. But it’s nothing like a disaster in a war zone. I will say that. I could head artillery, a little bit in the distance, like you would hear thunder. The people were so terrified. I think the world kind of learned from Hurricane Katrina that people would not leave their pets behind. Here we are in Romania—per capita income is $6,000; in Moldova, it’s $4,000—it’s a second-world country yearning to be a first-world economy. But they were just terrified. The ferry comes across. The whole thing just comes alive. There’s the Red Cross. There’s World Vision. There’s UNICEF. There’s people I don’t even know who they are, but everybody comes when the ferry comes across. First person I saw was a man in a wheelchair being pushed off. He got off the ramp, and when he actually touched Romania soil, he started sobbing. Through an interpreter, I found out that his town was being bombed. His apartment was hit. He threw himself over his two elderly cats to protect them. He took all the shrapnel in the back. Why was he crying? Because his cats were safe. Those cats were his family. Another lady came across with 10 Jack Russell Terriers. You’ve got to think about this! Unbelievable! Let me paint this picture for you: two Jack Russell Terriers on leashes in both hands, six of them strapped on her like baby bjorns. It was unbelievable. I was like: Am I actually seeing this?! She was pulling a wagon with a rope around her waist, a kid’s wagon, full of dog food and medication and even some toys for the dogs. She had been walking for 10 days. She had not eaten. She was just drinking, but not eating. Listen to this: she had no shoes on. Her feet were frost-bitten. I’m making this kind of funny, but I was like John Dutton on Yellowstone. I had more layers on than Kevin Costner when he plays that thing. And I was freezing to death! I’m a North Idaho boy. She was worried she’d be judged. She was a breeder! Her grandfather was a breeder. Her father was a breeder. Her father and her mom! She was a breeder, and she was worried she’d be judged because she had 10 dogs. She was met with love and help. She went to the medical tent one way and the Wirehaired Fox Terriers went the other way. I guess I’ve watched enough Everest movies to know what it looks like when you’re probably going to lose toes. But by god, she made it. 

MD [12:46] That’s incredible. One question I had: had you ever been in this part of the world before?

MB [12:50] No, I’ve traveled the world, but Romania was the 90th country I’ve been to. Moldova was 91. 

MD [12:58] That’s impressive.

MB [12:59] But listen to this: Sava’s Safe Haven! It looked like a sprinter van. It was white. It looked like a sprinter van we typically see, but it was a French version. It had a 50-gallon tank. Before I left, I decided I would gas it up for them. They didn’t want me to, but I insisted: $527 to gas it up! Their gas is over $10 a gallon. Think of this: they’re making $500 a month, per capita. She was working full-time as a veterinary technician, making $500 a month, with $10 a gallon gasoline. 

MD [13:37] We can’t even really comprehend. 

MB [13:40] We can’t. You think: How do they do it? They have gardens. They do a lot of canning. There’s 2-3 families in a household. But your world is really small. She had only been to Bucharest, an hour-and-a-half drive away. She had only been there two or three times in her life, and she’s 24 years old. You just don’t realize. But to see them at the border, giving themselves. There were so many local people there that had made muffins and sandwiches. It’s not just the Red Cross there. There were so many individuals helping with these pets. I have to tell you one thing that you’ll get a kick out of: they started limiting it to 5 dogs per person. I went back there the second day. Five dogs per person per day. 

MD [14:20] Coming in?

MB [14:22] Coming in. They were just getting too many dogs. They were running out of room. Five dogs per person per day. I saw a midsize car—figure, going to the airport; you’re going to Hawaii or Florida and you need a midsize car. Inside that midsize car were 5 people with 25 dogs. 

MD [14:40] No!

MB [14:40] It was like a canine clown car. Amazingly—I didn’t hear any aggression. I don’t know why. But when the vehicles came up, they lined up to go through customs and immigration there. The whole thing comes alive, and there’s water and there’s chocolate and there’s wet wipes and Tylenol and all sorts of things you can have. Then somebody came with a big plate of sandwiches. There were several people with plates of sandwiches. So one stopped here and one went down the line a little bit. As they crossed with those sandwiches, the whole car shifted. The dogs all moved to that side! You could actually see it move! This person was starting to reach out to get a sandwich and this dog shot out like one of those—I don’t even know what it was like! Something you see on Animal Planet or something. Just grabbed about 6 sandwiches and went back in there. But it was funny, and it was probably needed at the time to just have something to laugh about in these serious situations. 

MD [15:43] Sure, a little comic relief. It’s a great picture. I think, for a lot of us, we’re here in the United States. We feel very distant from what’s happening. We’re aware of it, but… What did you learn about the war in Ukraine and how it’s affecting the citizens and the animals that were coming through the border? What did you take away from what they’re experiencing?

MB [16:02] I’ll tell you: I cried quite a bit. I almost took my wife. I must be getting more estrogen. I know I’m losing hair! I cry at movies and everything. Man alive, to see people who have lost their husband or… There was one family. A husband had lost a hand and most of his arm in agriculture. So he was exempt from service, but he was fleeing, and he was killed. Somebody else was staying there, fighting. They had a Doberman that had jumped as they were fleeing, over a ditch, and tore his cruciate ligament (that’s the ligament that keeps the knee solid). Since they had been staying in Moldova, the dog had got to sleep in the bed with the wife and her husband, who before had said, “No dog in the bed.” He agreed that when things come back, the dog is allowed to stay with them in bed. But I know the thing that’s the most amazing was seeing people actually do the stuff that I say I would do myself. And then I think: Would I walk for 10 days and get frostbite? I don’t think I would. I think I would stop somewhere and just say, “Somebody haul me across the thing!” That would be hard. We see a lot of pictures coming out of there. We see these people with their pets. I wrote a book called The Healing Power of Pets. We really know that pets don’t just make us feel good. They’re actually good for us. That’s a big part of what’s going to help these people handle this and be able to recover. Another case I saw there: things just keep popping in. It’s so vivid, I can see it. A lady (late 30s), about my daughter Mikel’s age, had a Doberman with a muzzle on. Over there, it’s not off putting because a lot of dogs are put on a muzzle. This dog was a sweet, sweet dog. A 12-year-old girl had a cat in a backpack, with a little bubble in the back. And then a little girl, about 7, had a hamster cage, the one you think of from being a kid or seeing it at a pet store: pastel color, yellow, red. Waiting on the other side of the border control was the husband, the dad. He had been working overseas. So he wasn’t going back into Ukraine. The family was finally getting out. They were waving at each other and crying. All of a sudden, they’re through and they come together. He kisses his wife and the Doberman rolls up and knocks her out of the way! It gave him, not only a face wash, but I saw a tonsil swab! I saw tongue!! His dad was there, so the grandpa was there. We all gave them a distance to reunion. The little girl held up this hamster cage, up in the air. Her dad got down on his knee and was looking in the hamster cage. I found out later that the hamster’s name was Gracie. She told me it was her best friend. I’m thinking: God, that is amazing. That’s their touchstone to home. That connection back home. Really touching. 

MD [19:13] You recently mentioned observing compassion amidst the horror, and I know you’ve also talked about your own struggles with depression and mental health. If you don’t mind speaking about it, I’d like to hear about how you dealt with processing what you’ve experienced. I know some friends of mine did rescue during Hurricane Katrina, and when they came back—I can only describe it as PTSD. It was really intense. How are you keeping yourself mentally healthy through all of this?

MB [19:38] That’s what Theresa was worried about. So, we have manic depression in our family. We’ve got four suicides on my side of the family, two suicides on Theresa’s side of the family, and everybody is on medication, which is good. If we had a history of diabetes, we probably would all be on insulin, and if we had hypothyroidism, we’d be on Synthroid or if we had epilepsy… It’s just what it is. I’ve been in a pretty dark depression for about 18 months. I finally decided to go through therapy. This was late last year, in December and January. I got to meet a lot of Marty Beckers, and man, they’re strange. I go back and visit all these Marty Beckers in my lifetime, and there are some you’ve just got to keep bottled up. This young guy was just out of school—the psychologist—and he didn’t have a lot of experience. I don’t know how many cats you’ve seen in your life. You’ve seen thousands of cats. He had education and training, but no experience. What he did know was from college. After four times, he was willing to try something. He just made a tiny little addition to the treatment regimen, and he said, “It’s going to take about 3 weeks typically. Don’t expect it immediately. It might take 6 weeks.” I went to Hawaii with my wife and, honest to gosh, in 3 weeks, it was like turning a lightswitch on. I had been depressed and in the dark for 18 months. I went to bed sad and woke up happy. I’ve been happy ever since. I’m real open about my own mental health issues. I think going through therapy was just another thing—I could see how valuable that is, to help me understand some things that have happened in my life. I’ve kind of been like, “This is no problem. I’ll just wall that off, like you would an abscess or a scab.” So, going over there, I think that’s part of what Theresa was worried about, too. They’ve had two interventions in my lifetime, which is interesting. One, I thought we were having an intervention for my wife, Theresa, to get her knee fixed because she kept putting it off—I didn’t realize they were going to have one with me, so we had a twofer: a two for one, in one visit. She did get her knee fixed, knee replacement, and mine was to quit working so hard on Fear Free because they thought it was going to kill me. The other one was about helping too many people, that I put myself at risk by always trying to help people. I did slow down from Fear Free, but I love helping people. It energizes me. I’ve gotten more than I’ve ever given. This was certainly the case there. I did see the trauma. I, personally, had never seen anybody come from being wounded in war. So to see a guy that was shot up with shrapnel and hearing the story from the lady who was running for her life—the guy who was missing the hand was killed—and they had to flee… It just is something I’ll never forget, but it makes me want to help more. It makes you want to help. Most people can’t go over there. And if you did, a lot of times like this, it’s probably better to go back later and help something when things are dwindling and there’s other needs. But there’s some really good organizations that people can support that have vetted things. I know when we give to the Red Cross, or my wife and I give to World Vision, I know where that money is going. There is WorldVets.org, that’s one. It’s like Doctors Without Borders. WorldVets.org is a really good one. There’s another one, if you want to give directly to something that I can vet for: World Vets has worked with them for over a decade. And then I got to meet these people. I think it’s Sava’s Safe Haven (savasafehaven.com). They have a PayPal account set up. 

MD [23:30] That’s good to know. We’ll double check and make sure we have the correct link for our listeners. It looks like savasafehaven.com.

MB [23:40] Really amazing people. They knew every one of the 300 dogs by name. I just could not believe it. The way these dogs came to them—you know that book, Bones Would Rain From the Sky by Suzanne Clothier?

MD [23:53] Oh, yeah. She’s great.

MB [23:55] I got out there, and they had these dog biscuits made. These dogs were all around me. I felt like I was inside of a ball of fish that the killer whales would school together. I had all these things, and I thought this was the perfect opportunity: I just started throwing dog bones up in the air. It was this incredible frenzy of dogs coming there to get a dog bone. I only saw one case of aggression, and that was a newer dog that had come in and had some resource guarding. There’s all these playgroups and all these dogs together, but no aggression. No poop. All good hair coats. Everybody was vaccinated and had parasite control. These people have nothing! The van broke down because they were hauling way too much food over to Ukraine. So we’re trying to help them get $15,000 to get a used van. 

MD [24:51] This leads into my next question: what can those of us at home do to help? I think a lot of us feel helpless. We want to do something. It sounds like WorldVets.org and savasafehaven.com are two good organizations. Money is probably the most useful thing right now; let them decide how to spend it. 

MB [25:10] You know what’s funny? I’ve seen over the years, a lot of times, money helps because they can buy what they need locally. It helps the economy. A lot of those drug companies, when they’re short on vaccines, why can’t Merck or others send the stuff? You can’t get it into the country because it’s restricted so much. A lot of these companies have European branches, but if they can buy the stuff locally, then it’s right to them. In that particular shelter, they were seeing so many pets and they all had parasite logs: fleas, ticks, roundworms, hookworms, all the worms you could think of. They need to buy parasite control products. Best bought there. These people also had a whole storage container full of stuff for kids. They had diapers and wet wipes and formula and things like that. Just every two days, they were headed to the border with a load. Unbelievable. They’re exhausted but exhilarated by helping. World Vets also has a veterinary clinic in Moldova, the one I spoke of that had the oven mitts for safety. Every pet that comes from Ukraine to that clinic in Moldova, the veterinary care is all free. 

MD [26:30] Wow, so anything we can do to support these orgs! It seems like this is not ending right away, so probably the needs might shift.

MB [26:40] It’s going to get worse. It’s going to get worse, if you look at what the predictions are. The Russians and this war, this horrible war, are trying to go right across the whole part of southern Ukraine and cut off their access to the Black Sea. In fact, they want to get to Moldova. There’s that Transnistria, that little breakaway part of Moldova where Russia has troops. They want to connect those two together. What’s happening now is in the last few days, they’ve been doing a lot of artillery and cruise missile attacks and bombing in Odesa. That’s where a lot of these pets have been coming to Ukraine from, to Odesa, then back across the border. I just talked to them yesterday. They’re just seeing lots of people coming, whereas people back in Kyiv (I can’t pronounce some of those other cities) are feeling comfortable enough to go back. It’s the opposite now in southern Ukraine. 

MD [27:33] I know you’re starting to plan your next trip, right? 

MB [27:37] Yeah, I’m talking to the World Small Animal Veterinary Association and World Vets about when we can go back. This time, I took four suitcases full of dog toys, which was interesting. I’ve never traveled so commando on something in my life. I had literally one pair of pants that I never washed. When I came home, Cutie Pie was A) screaming excited to see me and B) thought I would be on the canine version of Dateline, cheating on him or something. I had so many dog smells on my pants. I don’t think he’s ever witnessed anything like that in his life.

MD [28:15] At least he didn’t see the dog biscuit tossing. That might have just destroyed him.

MB [28:20] You are exactly right. I think that would have destroyed him. He wouldn’t have understood that. But I did see a dog over there—when I go back, I’m going to bring back—her name is Phyllis. I named her Phyllis. She had just come from Ukraine. She was a really wiry-haired one. I met Phyllis Diller one time. I took her her wig one time. Crazy story. How did Marty Becker end up taking Phyllis Diller’s hair to her? For our generation, she had this crazy hair spike and talked about her husband. This little dog had the typical long teets you see when you’ve traveled the world and you see a stray dog who’s had litter after litter after litter. She had real long elongated teats, a 20-pound dog, and she was pregnant again. She was pretty starved because she’s feeding these puppies inside of her. She was kissing me, and I was kissing her. She was just getting ready to be groomed. I promised Thersa before I left—she made me promise: don’t. I know, I know. I promised. Well. It’s going to come home when I go back. I’ll tell you that much. 

MD [29:28] You talked a lot about homed animals coming through with their humans. Are there a fair amount of strays coming through as well?

MB [29:34] Yeah, they had 200 dogs there for adoption and 100 that were owned. So people would come across the border, if they were going to stay with somebody in London, but they had to have their pets there. Or somebody that came and found home, but they had five dogs and they could only board two of them there. It’s really funny. In the US, there’s a shortage of adoptable dogs in most shelters. The ones a lot of people tend to want are those small to medium dogs, fuzzy and cute. Those dogs over there—I didn’t see one dog that I would have identified as being purebred in those 300 dogs. If those 200 dogs were in the shelter here, they’d be gone in a week. They were cute. Well-socialized. There are some groups working in Norway and Germany—other places like this—and England, where they’re actually short of pets to adopt. I know in the past, we’ve had the Underhound Railroad (people have called it): pets from the south to the north. They have somewhat of an equivalent there that’s being activated.

MD [30:37] I think the big thread in this whole thing for me has been that the human/animal bond transcends politics, transcends country borders, and all the other ways we choose to separate ourselves from other people. Do you have positive feelings about how we can use this to fix all these problems? Can the human/animal bond bring us together? 

MB [30:59] I live in extreme north Idaho. It is extremely conservative up here. I guess I had more of a world view of things up here through my experiences and maybe just the way I was brought up… but we might not agree about politics, and we might not agree about religion, but that bond that people have with their pets: there’s no jealousy. My mother graduated from college when she was 16 years old. There’s a genius thread that runs through some of our family. My sister was number one in her class at Yale. That’ll give you an idea. My brother’s kids were like perfect SAT scores, full-ride scholarship to Columbia. So when my brother talks about his kids, it’s always like I feel a little jealous. When he talks about his dog, Buddy, it’s nothing as far as jealousy. So you go over there, and I can’t speak Ukrainian or Russian or Romanian, but I’ll tell you the universal language: when I can get that dog’s tail wagging, and that dog is giving me a kiss or taking a treat or if I can get that cat out of frozen fear, then that’s universal. That’s just like if you have a human baby giggling—I love the way little kids laugh and stuff like that. That’s how I connected with them, through their pets. There’s a picture I have of a border patrol agent there that handled that whole border area. He was a senior guy. I don’t want to make it sound like it was a decrepit building with a lightbulb, but it was modular buildings with us in an office (myself, a veterinarian, and just him). He scared the crap out of me. I’ve been all over, 91 countries, but I’ve never been in this thing with one guy in a room and he’s asking these really tough questions: “Are you here to get money out of these people?” Blah, blah, blah. I was like, “Oh boy.” Then all of a sudden, the veterinarian says, “Do you have a dog?” The guy says, “Oh yeah!” 

MD [33:05] An icebreaker.

MB [33:06] A German shorthaired. He gets his phone. He’s going through these pictures, and he’s smiling while he’s going through the pictures. And then he gets to this picture, and he shows me this dog. Honest to god, he is grinning so wide he could eat a banana sideways. Then he shows me a picture of his SUV with the dog on the tire-cover in the back. Then we go outside, and he’s back to the same grim demeanor. But at heart, there’s only one greatest pet in the world, and everybody has him or her. I would say that’s my parting thought.

MD [33:40] If you could just bring Putin and Zelensky together to talk about their pets… 

MB [33:49] I can’t imagine Putin with a dog. I just can’t. But did you see where they just had a little Jack Russell Terrier that was a bomb-sniffing dog that was celebrated in Ukraine? Oh my god. Think of dogs on the Fourth of July, and think of dogs with thunderstorms. And then think of noise phobias over there.

MD [34:11] And the zoo animals, too. It’s very distressing. 

MB [34:14] Oh, it’s just terrible. We’re not going to go into Ukraine, probably, but we are going to make sure we can do something to help. Whatever we can give is going to help over there. That’s for sure.

MD [34:26] Absolutely. Thanks so much for doing this work. It’s amazing.

MB [34:28] Well, I’m going to go back. This next time, Theresa is going to go back. When we come back, Phyllis is going to come with us. She’ll have quite a story to tell!

MD [34:27] Yeah, we expect a full report. Well, Marty, thank you so much for telling us about your experience. It’s very moving. I’m just blown away by what you do. If you’re not familiar with Dr. Becker’s work, please go to fearfreepets.com and learn all about his life project, which has changed so many human and animal lives. Thank you for being here. I’m sure we’ll talk again soon.

MB [34:56] It’s an honor. Thank you.