108. Pet Travel, Irish Dog Breeds & Helping Animals in War Zones

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Pets ad Life, your guide to the latest in Pet Trends products and the joy of the human animal Bond with Kristen Levine and Chris Bonafide, powered by the American Pet Products Association and Dog tv.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Hello and welcome to another episode of Pets Add Life. I am one of your hosts, Chris Bonti, and joining me as always is Toum Raider and Treasure Hunter extraordinaire Kristen Levine. What the heck? Kristen recently has been exploring the jungles of Panama, searching for a lost idol, said to gift eternal youth. Kristen, how's the hunt for eternal youth? Well, that's

Speaker 3 (00:41):
True. I am looking for eternal youth.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
We all are. We all, aren't we all? Hey,

Speaker 3 (00:45):
And you forgot halfway St. Patrick's Day.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
Oh my goodness. How could I forget? While Kristen is down in the jungles of Panama, I am an Ireland driving the snakes from the island paradise of the Emerald Islands.

Speaker 3 (00:59):
There you go.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
Happy St. Patrick's Day. Huge holiday here in the Baf Fadi household. Fun fact, while my last name is Baf Fadi, a lot of my family is Irish and I'm married into a very large Irish family, so I'll be supporting my green on the 17th, that's for sure.

Speaker 3 (01:16):
Yeah. And will you be drinking green beer?

Speaker 2 (01:20):
Not maybe.

Speaker 3 (01:20):
Do the Irish do that or is that just a crazy American tradition?

Speaker 2 (01:25):
It's probably one of those crazy American things, but hey, I'm a crazy American, so count me, bring it

Speaker 3 (01:31):
On.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
Yeah, spot me down for a couple of green beers. Why not? Why not? But hey, we've got an incredible show for you all. I think we're going to be talking a lot about travel and have some really interesting guests this time around. So you want to be sure to stick around for those two stories, two products, two questions as always, because we never fail to bring the best of two things together into podcast.

Speaker 1 (01:59):
Kristen and Chris, present story time

Speaker 2 (02:01):
And let's go ahead and kick off story time. Kristen, you want to go ahead and lead us off today?

Speaker 3 (02:09):
Sure, yeah. My story is more of a kind of a, did you know with St. Patrick's Day theme, Ireland has more native dog breeds than any other country in the world.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
Really?

Speaker 3 (02:22):
And I thought I, yeah, there's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Looks like there's nine of them. So let's see how many of these you've heard of. There are the giant breeds and the setters. So there's the Irish Wolf Hound, which is the tallest dog breed in the world, the Irish Setter, that's the,

Speaker 2 (02:40):
We know the Irish Setter Red

Speaker 3 (02:41):
Coat. Yeah, yeah. And then the Irish Red and white setter, which is actually older than the red version. Then we have the Terrier crew. We've got the Irish Terrier, which is nicknamed the Daredevil of Terriers. I

Speaker 2 (02:55):
Wonder why

Speaker 3 (02:57):
There's the Carry Blue Terrier, the soft coated wheat and terrier. Those are kind of popular. And then the Glen of Al Terrier, that's this real sturdy and low of the ground version. And then the last, let's see, maybe there's only eight. Nope, there's nine. Okay. The last two are the Irish water spaniel, which is the tallest of all the Spaniels and the Carrie Beagle, which is actually a scent hound and one of Ireland's oldest breeds. So there you have it.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
I knew a couple of those.

Speaker 3 (03:30):
You did good.

Speaker 2 (03:32):
I didn't know that there was an Irish setter and an Irish red and white setter. I didn't either. Sounds like just like a fancy Irish. I thought they were all

Speaker 3 (03:40):
Just Irish setters and they were either red or red and white, but now we know

Speaker 2 (03:44):
It's a separate breed. The more you know. Right, that's right. The more that's

Speaker 3 (03:47):
Why you come here,

Speaker 2 (03:49):
The critical information.

Speaker 3 (03:51):
What kind of story do you have this week for us?

Speaker 2 (03:54):
I read a article about a survey done by MetLife Pet Insurance about budgets for pets. And there's some really interesting stats that came out of the study headline stat, not to anyone surprised, 85% said their pet has been their main source of happiness through 2025, which I don't know. That sounds fine to me, but some people may be a little shocked at that number. But what I really wanted to talk about was that 65% of pet owners would make budget cuts to their own lifestyle before disrupting their pets. And if there is something relatable in this study, it is that I think it's absolutely incredible the resiliency of the pet industry, but the fact that in good times everybody sort of moved to these more expensive products. We talk a lot about nutrition on this podcast and how important that is in some previous episodes, specifically talking to some holistic specialty folks, talking about all of the things that can arise from a malnourished diet. And it's impressive to see that people would be like, yeah, I'll eat the ramen noodles so that my dog can have the organic chicken and rice. I guess think that really speaks to the industry as a whole. I'm

Speaker 3 (05:25):
Sure it does.

Speaker 1 (05:26):
Beyond the leash, exploring the untold stories of pet passion and professionalism.

Speaker 3 (05:31):
Oh, you're going to love this guest. I am so excited to talk to her about what she's doing. Her name is Lauren Anders Brown and she's the founder and CEO of Pads Pass, which is a digital pet passport platform. It's a lot of PS that helps pet parents travel with confidence by securely organizing all the health records and verifying international travel requirements. So Lauren built Pads Pass after experiencing firsthand how complicated and stressful pet travel can really be. She and her dog took dozens of flights together around the world before a paperwork mix up led to her being held at the border, her dog being held at the border. Well that had to be stressful. So now she's on a mission to simplify pet mobility and give families peace of mind when they travel with their animals. Pad's Pass launched its Digital Pet Passport app to the public. Ron really loves the letter P when he writes these intros. It launched in 2025 and continues to innovate pet travel and compliance solutions globally. Welcome, Lauren.

Speaker 4 (06:36):
Thank you so much, Kristen. So nice to see you. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (06:39):
It's so nice to have you here. So for our listeners, the world of pet travel paperwork feels like a maze. I can't even imagine traveling internationally with my dog, but what specific travel stress points did you experience that led you to found pads Pass?

Speaker 4 (06:57):
Yeah, pet travel's. Not for the faint of heart, I can say that. I mean, we experience as humans, the red zone in travel, right? That's kind of like when you leave your home to when sit in your seat. And that is just like, I don't know the on fire zone for pet parents when it comes to that process because not only are you dealing with your own requirements as a human if you can travel, but you're dealing with understanding or trying to translate the difficult government websites, the intricate airline requirements, and then trying to take your own animals health information into account for that. And then seeing if it lines up how it all works. I have to say for traveling with a dog for 13 years and only now I've had well over a hundred flights. I should know my flight count at this point.

(07:45):
Getting it wrong once I guess in theory is a pretty good statistic, but as you mentioned, it was also very horrifying and a huge wake up call to just how much mental burden I was carrying for so long of trying to make sure that I met every government requirement that was time sensitive, the correct medication. That was really what caught us out was for any veterinarians listening to this, my dog was given PTE by accident instead of pzi quantal. Again, more peas, right? It's so hard to track of it. And honestly, my heart is with veterinarians because you went to school to take care of the things we love with four legs with multiple species, and you didn't go to school to do international documentation that wasn't part of what you care for and sign up for. So it gets so complicated so quickly that I just, my own experience, I was like, I never want this to happen to me ever again and I never want this to happen to anyone ever again. And how many other people are doing this now? And I went from being the only person camping out sometimes a bit too long at the J-F-K-U-S-D-A office sometimes to get my paperwork to then being like, wow, how many dogs are in my row now?

(09:00):
Someone traveling. So it's complex, but the thing that I love about what we've built is we give people that peace of mind. We make that complexity clear. And anyway, I'll let you get into, yeah,

Speaker 2 (09:17):
Well if there's one thing longtime listeners of this show know about me, it's that I hate complex bureaucracy. I am the enemy of complex bureaucracy. So I'm like the kind of person who reads the fine print on international travel to get all the information because I'm so intimidated by the idea of arriving at travel, a transit hub, unprepared and being shamed into some type of situation where I guess feel uncomfortable. So talk to me about your solution to my problem, because I'm really curious as to how it works because travel anxiety is such a big thing, getting all this stuff and adding the dog to it. Oh my goodness. So what is the digital pad pass and how does it help a guy like me?

Speaker 4 (10:07):
Yeah, so that's a great question. Pads Pass has the Digital Pet Passport, and then we also have another component called Checkpoint. The Digital Pet Passport is what you can download in the App store and Google Play today. You can set up your pets free pet id and then when you want to start planning a trip, you can get a free one week trial right now that's available and then continue to you upgrade for a yearly subscription to be able to keep that. And so part of the Digital Pet Passport package includes being able to upload your animals' health records and then we get them verified by the veterinarian that performed either the rabies vaccine, regular vaccine or treatment. Everything's optimized for travel. And what this does, Chris, is this takes away the need to interpret the government requirements and the airline requirements for your pet because once those health records are held in pads Pass and they're verified, they're then run against our travel requirements generator, our compliance generator.

(11:02):
And so you only get the requirements that are applicable to your animal, to your root, to your specific time of it and everything that you need in plain English rather than difficult and sometimes multilingual situations that are hard to interpret according to which website you land on. And I could tell you from all the different governments and the different destinations I've been to, there's also hidden requirements like ones that aren't even physically published, and I know that's just going to make you go as someone who wants to read the fine print even more out of your mind. And so truly this solution comes from having lived it, having lived it, having failed at it, having succeeded many times and being able to see and understand it from beginning to end. How can we ensure that the human animal bond continues when it comes to travel?

(11:55):
How can we protect the animal's health? How can we support veterinarians in this process and most importantly, our pet parents and keep government and borders safe? A great example is right now I'm talking to you from Bermuda where we're based and yeah, Bermuda's a rabies free island, and also we do not have any ticks here. So one requirement come out. So it's really important that you meet the requirements to reenter into Bermuda with your pet, because all we need is one tick here, and this is a 21 square mile island. It would just go right. It wouldn't take

Speaker 3 (12:31):
Long to have a ticket

Speaker 4 (12:33):
Infestation.

Speaker 3 (12:34):
Exactly

Speaker 4 (12:34):
Right. So that's why Pads Pass is really the full compliance solution. It helps give that peace of mind to pet parents to know exactly what's needed if you have to wait a certain period of time. The other thing that it does too, Chris, is that when you first upload your records, and especially if you let us know that you have a trip coming up, this just happened with a wonderful Corgi named Georgi a couple of weeks ago. They were like, I'm not really sure if he might need another vaccine, if we want to come to Bermuda. And so uploaded the records was able to run against the compliance checker as we were verifying the records. Georgi had three days to get another vaccine, otherwise he be in rabies jail for seven months.

Speaker 3 (13:13):
Oh

Speaker 4 (13:13):
Gosh. Yeah, those rapid fire quick answers and being able to have it built with veterinarians and animal health specialists are the kinds of things that we can serve to are users.

Speaker 3 (13:27):
So I have a question. Lauren. Pets come in all different species, sizes, ages, shapes, you name it. How does pads pass? How do you account for all those different variations, the health requirements, the age, the species, or even the destination specific rules to create a travel plan that's going to work?

Speaker 4 (13:49):
That's a great question. So we are a startup, as you know, we launched late last year, so we are focused on dogs and cats right now, to be fair, maybe birds one day in the future, but right now, because of how complex it gets and how quickly it does, we're just focused on dogs and cats right now. And also right now, currently we have in cabin dogs and cats. So that would be either your pet that can fit in a carrier or a service animal because service animals also have to meet health requirements, which is really important. So I think that there's sometimes this misconception that service animal, larger animal gets a free pass. Absolutely not. They have to meet every health requirement for every border that they have to pass as well. So they can also use the digital pet passport when it comes to having those questions answered in very plain English and also timed, I don't know if I mentioned that before, Chris, someone who you probably appreciate a real schedule, right? Yeah.

Speaker 2 (14:44):
Yes, I do.

Speaker 4 (14:46):
And actually that is one of the things on that trip that failed. Part of it was my human error. It was me booking the vet appointment with the time zone difference too close to arrival,

Speaker 2 (14:57):
My

Speaker 4 (14:57):
Worst

Speaker 2 (14:57):
Nightmare.

Speaker 4 (14:58):
Yeah, it's so easy to do. Jet lags a real thing when it comes to pet travel as well, right? Yes. So yeah, so the requirements are also time-based, and I think that that's one of the, for me as a constant traveler with a pet, that's something that really helps me make the best decision for my pet and travel, should this pet travel with me on this trip or should it stay at home?

Speaker 2 (15:19):
So Lauren, you said you've done this like a hundred plus times. Let's, let's say we've got a listener or maybe a host of a podcast named Chris out there who may be traveling with their pet for the first time internationally. What's your headline piece of advice?

Speaker 4 (15:36):
Sign up to us early, and I know that sounds like a huge product push, but the truth is we're learning from our users that they come to us when they're about ready to book their trip, and sometimes you might have a few months or a few weeks that you need a vaccine that be due, and we can't get that time back for you. So sign up when you can sign up as soon as you can, because I think the advice and the information that you get early on just better prepares you and it gives you that peace of mind well before you can also then make better decisions when it comes to booking. I can't tell you Chris, how many times people have reached out at times and said like, oh, hey, so I've booked American Airlines, I'm relocating to France. What do I need to know to be able to take my pet with me?

(16:19):
I go, well, first thing, you need to book a new ticket before even all of this knowledge is in my head. And I'm like, you just need to book a ticket. And they're like, what do you mean? My company's already paid for it. I'm flying business. I'm like, well, you can't fly business and you can't fly American across the us. And they're like, they're just spinning in their head. And so that's another great feature that I didn't really get to talk about is that the airline requirements, we only show the airlines that are approved and allowed to fly that route. So a lot of times it's not just country to country specific, it can even get as specific as aircraft size. Like some

Speaker 2 (16:54):
Nowadays, people, they book their travel so much later than they used to, and I am in the events industry and we've got people who are, we're six weeks away actually at the time we're airing this, we're only a couple weeks away, but the time we're recording this, we're six weeks away from a major event and we've got people just starting to book their trip from international and asking for visa requirements and things like that. So if you have a human equivalent for our international folks, because there are, it's crazy. And I think that's a great piece of advice. Start early, ask

Speaker 4 (17:28):
Yourself

Speaker 2 (17:29):
Not just what do I need to book, but what am I going to need? And arm yourself with that information. I think that's great headline advice there, Lauren.

Speaker 4 (17:37):
Absolutely. Second option to that point, Chris book a refundable fair, especially when you're starting

Speaker 2 (17:41):
Out travel. I love a refundable fair. I love a refundable fair. I love changing my mind. I love a refundable fair. Always. You got to pay for it though. I'm always paying those extra few dollars. I'm probably, I am the sucker who makes it financially makes sense for these things. I do rarely actually refund or cancel. So

Speaker 4 (18:02):
You're

Speaker 2 (18:02):
Welcome everybody. I'm subsidizing your cancellations, but

Speaker 4 (18:06):
Chris, you probably move your dates and that is something that has to happen quite often. You might not have to fully cancel a trip, but I find too with pet travel is that something has to change because I could only get a vet appointment on this day, or there's embargo restrictions about entry, especially during the summer months. I can't arrive on a weekend or something. So having at least a changeable flight where you're not paying each time you have to change because the rules have changed. Now we prepare our users as best as possible, but if something comes into effect very suddenly, yes, of course we can send an announcement to everyone, but you still have to change your flight. We can't do that for you. True,

Speaker 3 (18:48):
True. Well, Lauren, thank you so much for using your struggles and headaches and nightmares in travel traveling with your pet to help all of us with Pads Pass, remind us again where we can download the app and if there's any other place we should follow you.

Speaker 4 (19:02):
Absolutely. Yes. So you can go to pads pass.com and from there, or you can also look for us on the App store and Google Play. We're available in both. Download us from there. Start your seven day free trial if you want to start to see what flights are available. Fun, exciting news. We've launched Mexico and we have two more big announcements that are going to be coming before we are at Global Pet Expo as well of different destinations that are kind of on the hot list of places people want to go to. So you can download us there, start your free trial. You can also reach out to us if we have any promos or discount codes running, just like come to pads pass.com, send us a chat, send us an email at team@padspass.com. We're pretty accessible and we really just want to help anyone who has any questions, especially early pet parents, especially people who are nervous to travel. It is possible, it's a little different, but we make it clear and give you that peace of mind to be able to know you're doing exactly what you need to from end to end.

Speaker 3 (20:04):
Fantastic. Amazing.

Speaker 4 (20:05):
She's

Speaker 3 (20:05):
Taking care of it for you. Go ahead and download that app now, even if you don't have a trip plan, do it early and you'll be prepared. Thank you so much, Lauren, for joining us today. Thank

Speaker 4 (20:15):
You both. Bye.

Speaker 2 (20:18):
Well, listen, I am feeling much more calm about all my upcoming travel now after speaking with Lauren.

Speaker 3 (20:25):
Me too. I was once told by an American Airlines ticket agent that Tulip was too tall to fly, even though she fit in her carrier. So

Speaker 2 (20:35):
You must not that past, you must not be this tall to ride this ride. She said,

Speaker 3 (20:39):
I know. Where are we at Disneyland?

Speaker 2 (20:41):
What's going on here? Yeah, yeah. Did she have a little stick with Mickey Mouse with his hand going like, that stinks. But yeah, I think, I don't know. I'm so anxious when it comes to travel. I mean, this whole thing with Global Pet Expo, it's a trip I've taken like 12 times before. I know everything I need to bring, and I'm still running through my packing list a million times and getting all my documents on my phone and stuff like that. And it's just like a quick little trip to Florida. So yeah, if I had to fly with a dog, I would be a pad pass subscriber in a heartbeat.

Speaker 3 (21:12):
Yes, the anti-Anxiety Pet Travel app.

Speaker 2 (21:15):
Yep. No side effects. And it's my honor to welcome Nate Mook, a humanitarian leader and storyteller who has worked on the front lines of crisis response around the world from 2018 to 2022. He served as the first CEO of World Central Kitchen helping scale the organization into a major global disaster relief force. After that, he continued his work in Ukraine, including serving as a special advisor on Ukraine for the Howard G Buffet Foundation. And he's been recognized by President Zelinsky with the order of merit for his efforts. Nate is also a co-founder of the Hachi Co Foundation, which supports cats and dogs affected by the war in frontline Ukrainian communities, including getting food to animals left behind in newly liberated and high risk areas. Nate, it is a pleasure to have you on the podcast.

Speaker 5 (22:07):
Thank you for having me. Great to be here.

Speaker 2 (22:10):
Yeah. So obviously this is a pretty loaded topic, and I think we all sort of had a big moment when everything was escalating in the Ukraine where we had a realization that things were going wrong, but your realization came a little differently. You looked at it and said, we have to do something for animals. So what was that moment like for you, and how did you realize that this needed to be addressed through your own organization?

Speaker 5 (22:38):
Yeah, so I was running World Central Kitchen in 2022, in February, 2022 when the full scale invasion broke out in Ukraine and we're coming up on the four year anniversary. It's really hard to comprehend something I never would've thought would've would've been continuing for so long. And I actually entered Ukraine very early on in the war. I crossed over the border from Poland, I think it was on February 27th, 2022. So it was just three days after the war started, and it was really chaotic at that time. You didn't know what was going to happen. There was talk that kyiv with the capital of Ukraine was going to fall within a couple of days. The US military was warning us that attacks were coming into the west of Ukraine as well near Poland. And so it was just a really kind of uncertain time and quite scary. But once I crossed over into Ukraine and started talking to people, what he realized was in addition to our work, we were serving food to refugees, thousands of refugees that were fleeing across the border as the war was going, we realized there were a lot of people within Ukraine we needed to help.

(23:55):
And so that was the beginning of my sort of journey in connection with Ukraine. I started in the West, of course, after crossing over from Poland, but very quickly went to the Capitol Kyiv, and then within a couple of weeks had made it east into Har Kiev in the eastern cities, very close, just 40 kilometers from the Russian border. And Har Kiev was under huge, huge attack in the beginning of the war and just spending time with Ukrainians and didn't really know what to expect going into a situation like this, but realizing that not only was the need very high, and we as World Central Kitchen could do a lot to help people in this time, in this part of the war, but I found myself side by side with the Ukrainians, the volunteers that were there helping out their communities, people that were providing all sorts of assistance to folks because it was, not only were there bombs falling, but you were just unable to get supplies and goods and nobody was going to work, obviously.

(25:02):
And so it created so much humanitarian need. But what I saw from the very beginning was also how much Ukrainians loved their animals in the middle of the war. You had people that were taking care of pets that had been left behind as maybe families had to flee from certain areas. People tried to take their pets with them as they were crowded into these evacuation trains, standing room only for 48 hours. I mean, it was being, I met many grandparents that told us that the last time they'd evacuated like this was in World War II when the Nazis came, and it brought back memories as they were fleeing their homes, and some people were able to bring their animals with them. Some weren't. They left behind with neighbors or others who had stayed behind. And you started to see the impact on pets, on the dogs and cats within Ukraine.

(26:04):
But the Ukrainians, I would see this everywhere we went, they would take care of, they would oftentimes feed the dogs and the cats before they would feed themselves. And the soldiers that were defending Ukraine on the front lines were taking care of animals. And so from the very beginning of my work in Ukraine, I started to see this, and we would do with World Central Kitchen, we were feeding the humans, but we would also try to see how we could support and what we could do, helping some of the animals as well. But things really crystallized in the fall of 2022.

(26:49):
I guess I want to say I fell in love with Ukraine, but it's sort of a weird thing to say in the middle of a war. But there's something that really sticks to you in these moments, and you're sort of in the proverbial trenches with the Ukrainians. And even though I wasn't obviously defending the country with a gun, I felt like you're doing your part in the defense of the country. And I realized that I wanted to stay focused on Ukraine because it was a very important moment. And so I ended up leaving World Central Kitchen and starting to work with a philanthropist named Howard Buffett and the Howard g Buffett Foundation, who likewise had come to Ukraine to support World Central Kitchen and recognized this is, I need to do work here. I need to support and do what I can to help and has put huge amounts of philanthropic donations into Ukraine.

(27:50):
And that really broadened the scope of what I was doing. And as I was traveling around Ukraine, and it sort of crystallized in this moment, in the fall of 2022, we had gone to a liberated area. Ukraine had pushed back the Russian invaders and pushed them out in the east in certain towns. And we had gone back into these towns. And what we found was that after the Russians had pulled back and the Ukrainians had secured these areas, and people were merging out of the basements that they had been for months living in under this occupation, is that in many places there were more pets than there were people left behind. The animals had been left. And these aren't just sort of what maybe in the United States we would consider like strays or wild animals or wild cats or dogs or feral animals. I mean, many of them had collars on and you would see them, they had to learn how to survive.

(29:06):
They were sort of roaming around and doing their best. And the people that were still, the residents that were remaining there were also trying to help, as I said, Ukrainians love their animals. And so we would meet grandmothers who hadn't left. Many of the people that didn't leave during the war were the older generation who said, I'm not, this is everything I have. This is my house, this is my farm. I got displaced during World War ii. I'm not getting displaced again. This is my life. This is my home. So be it. This is, so then those that stayed, we met grandmothers that were taking care of 30 dogs and 20 cats in one house. Their entire yard was taken over by animals that they would do their best to feed and to help out. And so immediately we saw this huge need to help out. And so we didn't go into it saying, oh, we're going to start a foundation to help the animals and help these displace pets on the front line. But we found ourselves in a situation where there was tremendous need. And my colleagues, and some of them I had worked with from World Ral Kitchen, some of them I was working with through my work with the Howard G Buffet Foundation, but we sort of had this moment and said, well, let's see what we can do to help.

Speaker 3 (30:32):
And Nate, to that point, just for us, for those of us that are trying to picture the scale of this, there's so many layers to this crisis, but can you help us understand what pets affected by war actually looks like on a day-to-day basis? What are the most urgent needs that you're addressing, and is there hope for the future of some of these pets that have been left behind?

Speaker 5 (30:59):
Yeah, so there is so much incredible work being done to help animals in Ukraine. There are shelters all across the country. There are obviously veterinary, veterinary clinics that help animals that have been injured or sick. There's a lot of adoption efforts, especially with a lot of displaced animals or those that get evacuated. What we really focused on and what we saw were the animals that were really in these frontline areas where nobody else's going. There are no veterinarians, there are left behind, there's no resources in many places. There's no shops. You can't just go buy pet food. So that was really our focus in these areas. And these areas are very difficult because they are under constant bombardment, and it's getting worse with, you may have heard of some of the drones and the Russian drones that are being used. So even from the early days of when we started, it's far more dangerous, we had to relocate some of our team to another city. The highways are lined with netting to protect from drones coming in from above. Our team now drives with a drone detector device that picks up signals, video signals from the drones so they know, okay, if there's a drone nearby, we got to get off the road. We got to get protected. It's a very, very dangerous area where we operate all along from the eastern part to the southern part. And you see a big mixture.

(32:32):
You have very domesticated animals that have been left behind because maybe their family members have been killed or their family members had to flee and they couldn't take their pets with them, and you can't evacuate all of them. You can't get all of them adopted. And so our feeling was there's a question that we get asked, well, why don't you take these animals a shelter? And the problem is there's not enough people to, and so an animal that's living a dog or a cat that's living in their community and maybe being taken care of by some residents, if we take them away and put them into a cage in a shelter to maybe never get adopted, it's not really a better life. So what we try to do is to try to do our best to help them where they are. And so some of them are sick and we can try to help them.

(33:25):
We actually have a mobile veterinary clinic. We bought an old ambulance and with some donations, we were able to turn it into a mobile veterinary clinic to do sterilization, which is a big thing because otherwise you'll end up with more animals on the front lines. And then also some medical treatments as well. So we give basic medications. We do some treatments with the van. So these animals are, many of them are living outside in the wintertime. We try to provide support. This winter we built a lot of shelters where the dogs can live, for example. Some of them go and live in the basements or are brought into people's homes.

(34:13):
It's a big mixture. And you see all types of animals, big, small, all different breeds, all different types, and they're all, but they are friendly. And there are packs of dogs, for example, that live in the forest near one of the highways. And every few days, every week, we drive up and they come out to greet us and they're living. And these were domesticated dogs that then have sort of been forced to survive just like the people. And that's kind of the situation, and it's really tragic. But I will say what gives me hope is are all of the people that take care of the animals in the south, in Herone region. There was a few years ago, the Russians blew up a dam and flooded this huge area, one of the biggest ecological disasters in the world. And there was a woman named Grandma Olga, and she had cats, and she put them on her head and rescued them as she was the floodwaters were up to her chin, and she took care of these animals. And so we started bringing her pet food and medicines for them as she take care of them. So you see some of the most amazing people, the most kindhearted people that take care of these animals in these areas.

Speaker 2 (35:43):
That's amazing. Yeah, it seems like some folks do get a happy ending, but we got to let you go. Nate, I let you get back to all this incredibly important work you're doing. Thank you. I'm sure your schedule is absolutely loaded. Thank you so much for taking the time to hop on the podcast today and share your story. And you heard 'em, folks, get out those wallets, get those donations in and help out some of these Ukrainian animals.

Speaker 3 (36:05):
Thank you, Nate.

Speaker 5 (36:06):
Thank you,

Speaker 2 (36:10):
Kristen. You ever talk to a guy and realize you just haven't really done much with your life?

Speaker 3 (36:15):
I was just thinking the same thing. Just when you think you're doing something really important, like recording a podcast to help pet parents, and then you talk to a guy like Nate who's helping pets in war torn countries,

Speaker 2 (36:27):
It's amazing. Yeah, he's hopping off that call and helping babushkas feed abandoned cats. I'm hopping off this call and answering bitter emails. The two things are not the same. It's such incredible work, such incredible work, very interesting perspective. I know we've all probably heard a lot of news about the war in Ukraine and the invasion, but I think that was a really unique perspective on the situation. So really cool stuff. The

Speaker 1 (36:56):
Product of the

Speaker 2 (36:56):
Week, and it's time for our product of the week. A little different that time, Chris. A little reverb. Yeah, a little reverb. A little twang. And we're talking a lot about travel on this episode. So I wanted to bring a fun little travel product to the foray here.

Speaker 3 (37:20):
What is it?

Speaker 2 (37:22):
I'm going to do it. Billy May style. Are you traveling with dog kibble in Ziploc bags stop. So I love and hate Ziploc bags. I think they're unreliable. I've had 'em pop, I've had 'em come unsealed. Everything that can go wrong with the Ziploc dogs. And you know what? At the end of the day, it doesn't really keep much fresh. So if you're thinking like I'm traveling with my dog, I got to bring the dog food. And you don't want to bring the whole, you're buying from Costco or whatever from Chewy, the big bag that shows up on your doorstep, and you don't want to lug that around. A lot of people just shove it in a reusable Ziploc, but you're losing freshness and you're oxidizing the food. So cargo, who I think I've brought some of their travel products up on the show before they make an amazing reusable kibble carrier, it's going to run you about 20 bucks.

(38:20):
And it's like, for those of you familiar with water sports, it's like a wet bag. So it's made of that same synthetic material and you kind of wrap up and twist the top and buckle it together. And as somebody who used to do a lot of camping, these bags are great. I used to take my cereal with me and my trail mix in these kinds of bags, and let me tell you, it did much better than the people who just shoved them in Ziplocs. And it took up less room in my pack because you're able to get all that air out really, really easily. So it's cargo.com, they call it the Kibble carry. It's going to run you 20 bucks, I guess. Think it is a great alternative. And guess what? It's reusable, man. You're not throwing away all those Ziploc bags. They're going to be much more sustainable. So go ahead and check it out. And it's backed by Cargo's lifetime warranty. So that bag is guaranteed to last longer than you will.

Speaker 3 (39:19):
I love Cargo's products they make,

Speaker 2 (39:21):
Yeah, check out the website. They make all sorts of travel oriented products. They've got a whole tab for travel products for your dogs, so be sure to check those out. Alright, Kristen, what do you got

Speaker 3 (39:32):
Today? So my product of the week has to do with the fact that spring is right around the corner and our indoor kitties need some enrichment. They want to watch the birds and the butterflies outside. So I found this really cool window cat bed. It's got suction cups, it attaches right to the window. But what's cool about this one is it's shaped like a sideways hammock, almost like the shape of a moon, but a hammock. So it's not flat. And I think cats would like that because it's a little bit more cozy, but they can also see out the window. And this particular one is only 38 bucks on Amazon. It's made by Happy Kitties, the Happy Kitties store. And it comes in three different versions. One has a really cool striped hammock, one has a fuzzy hammock, and one has just a plain canvas hammock. It says it holds up to 50 pounds, which I might call BS on that. It doesn't look like it would hold 50 pounds.

Speaker 2 (40:32):
And I want to see the 50 pound cat.

Speaker 3 (40:34):
I want to see the 50 pound cat. But what it's going to say is if it says it holds 50 pounds, then surely it's going to hold your cat. And it might even hold two cats. Your cats want to cozy up together. But like Laura was telling us, if you have multiple cats, you might want to get multiple cat window beds because they like to have their own separate resources. And you can put them in different areas of the house so they can get away and be on their own to Bird and Butterfly watch if they'd like to. So check that out. We've got links to both of those products in the show notes

Speaker 1 (41:07):
Q and As.

Speaker 2 (41:09):
Alright, Kristen, it is time for our favorite part of the show where we answer two questions from our incredible audience. I know what you're thinking. Incredible audience. How do I get my question answered by Chris and Kristen? Well head on over to pets add life.org/podcast. Scroll on down to the bottom of that page. You'll see a form to submit your question. Or if you're feeling as brave as St. Patrick himself, as he drives the snakes from the Emerald Islands, you can submit a voice memo and you may hear your question played live on our show. So with all that housekeeping out of the way, getting pretty dang good at that spiel, you

Speaker 3 (41:48):
Are, I'm going to toss you the first question.

Speaker 4 (41:52):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (41:52):
All right, Chris, so this is from Lauren in Madison, Wisconsin and Lauren says, we have a dog and we're thinking about bringing a cat into our home. What's the best way to socialize a dog and a cat so they feel safe around each other and don't end up stressed and for fighting?

Speaker 2 (42:08):
Yeah, this is a loaded question. There's a lot that goes into it and I'm going to keep it short. I'm going to keep it simple. The first is making sure you are adopting the right kind of cat. There are some cats who are not going to have the confidence or the gumption to live in a home with a dog. So if you're adopting a cat, which I hope you are, you should ask the shelter if there are any cats in the shelter who shared a home with a dog and that there wasn't a mismatch because some cats will end up back in a shelter because they couldn't get along with a dog. And some are there for other reasons and got along fine with the dog. So that's step one. Step two is time. They got to figure each other out. These are two different animals and they are not like the bond that we share human to dog, human to cat.

(43:02):
They don't have any type of natural inclination to get along. There's nothing baked into their DNA that's going to make an existing dog who's been in your home and a cat that's either coming out of a shelter from wherever who's already gone through. Because if you're bringing the cat into your home, they've already kind of gone through their bonding adolescence or their infancy. I'm not really sure what you'd call that stage, but they've already sort of developed those important bonds. It'd be a lot different if you were birthing the kittens in your home and they kind of arrived and now had this dog as sort of a defacto cat. So you've got two warring factions in your home, and the only solution is going to be time. So you want to create an environment where the cat has their space the dog cannot get to for any reason.

(43:51):
So whether that's a separate room or a basement or a fence off a corner of the living room. And you get one of those neat little window things that Kristen was talking about before, you give them their space and you want to do things on the new pet's terms. So if the new pet is feeling overwhelmed, time to end that session. If the new pet's not reacting well, it's time to end that session. Start with little bite-sized pieces, 10 minutes of them being in the same space and see how it goes. And this type of exposure therapy over time, even if they don't end up best friends, they'll at least end up tolerating each other, which sometimes is good enough.

Speaker 3 (44:28):
Yeah, that's true. I'm glad you added that last part, because they might not be best friends. They might,

Speaker 2 (44:33):
Might

Speaker 3 (44:34):
Not, but that's okay as long as they have their space. All right, what you got for me?

Speaker 2 (44:41):
Let's see. Were you looking at number one or number three

Speaker 3 (44:44):
Number? I think it was three. Number

Speaker 2 (44:46):
Three on our little sheet of notes here, who would've thunked that Chris and Kristen actually have things in front of them as they do this show? I wouldn't. So question three comes from Ron's neck of the woods, actually Michael from Hoboken. And Michael asks, I worry that I might miss early signs when something is wrong with my pet. What are the most important health changes or behaviors pet parents should watch for that signal? It's time to see a vet.

Speaker 3 (45:15):
Good question, Michael. And if we're not paying attention, it's kind of easy to miss some of these signs or you might not pick up on them until it's been going on for a long time. I would say if your pet, we'll talk about dogs first. Actually, a lot of this will apply to both. If you see any changes in their eating behavior, they stop eating or they don't finish their bowl of food like they normally do, or they're drinking more water or less water. So that's on the feeding and water. You want to keep an eye out for that. If their personality changes at all, they're less friendly, less social. Maybe they're spending more time by themselves, perhaps for cats, cats are masters at hiding illness.

Speaker 2 (46:06):
Yes, they are.

Speaker 3 (46:08):
And this is just a natural instinct to protect themselves in the wild. So cats, you really have to pay attention. Your cat might be spending more time under the bed or in a closet. They may not, again, back to the food. They may not be eating the same way they normally do. They may be vocalizing more and they may be less social than usual. So I would watch for any, really any change at all, whether it's behavior or routine or personality, that could be an indication that there's a problem. But you could also make sure that you're not missing those veterinary wellness visits. So for younger pets, it's once a year as your pet ages and gets to like six, seven years old. It should really be twice a year. If you're doing those wellness visits, getting the blood workup, getting the physical exam by your vet, that's also a great opportunity to catch potential problems that might be early on and get them treated or taken care of before they become bigger problems. So great question, Michael. Just keep a close eye on them and yeah, thanks for your question.

Speaker 2 (47:16):
All right, folks, that brings us to the end of our show. Happy St. Patrick's Day to all of those celebrating. Don't celebrate too hard. You've got work in the morning. That's

Speaker 3 (47:27):
True, that's true. And we talked about the Irish breeds of dogs. I looked up to see if there were any Irish cat breeds. And unfortunately there are not. But black and white cats, or the tuxedo cats, as we call them, those are considered very lucky in Irish folklore. So if you have a tuxedo cat, the luck of the Irish.

Speaker 2 (47:47):
See you next week. Y'all

Speaker 1 (47:48):
Pets. Add life, your guide to the latest in pet trends products, and the joy of the human animal bond with Kristen Levine and Chris Bonafide, powered by the American Pet Products Association and Dog tv.