Hey. You know, if you follow me on social media, you know that I live on a farm. I got a lot of animals. Go it's pigs, horses, miniature horses, pack because chicken. What am I forgetting? I think we're about to get a couple of tiny little sheet I got this place in the eighties, and you know, a kid growing up in the city, I just really started to connect a lot with animals and with nature, and I for some reason, developed this love of horses, and that was really what brought me to buy this piece
of property back in nineteen eighty three. But I find that when I start caring for another creature, it really helps me to kind of recenter my days. And I think that spending time, certainly in lockdown, around living, breathing
animals and connecting with them was incredibly helpful. And to this day, my wife and I will just say, oh, wow, you know, we haven't been down to hang out with the animals today, and we'll just go and sit there and just I don't know, do little it up and you know, hang out with them, and it can be a very very therapeutic moment. The Fabulous Amanda sayfer It is our guest today on the podcast, and she also
lives on a farm. And I really love this person and I love that she is so compassionate for all creatures. Apparently not male ducks, however, But a little bit more on that later. So if you love animals, lean in and listen up. I'm glad you're here, Amanda. Thank you so much for being here. It's so good to see you. As I've told you multiple times, I admire are you
so much for your chameleon like work. A lot of us are pretty good at doing maybe one thing and maybe two, and I'm talking about some of our greatest, greatest performers. But you are someone who really, really truly does disappear into all sorts of different kinds of parts, as well as all sorts of different kinds of genres of movie. I mean, you really, your your career has
been completely unclassified. And I just wondered if when when you start out, you're really young, right, and you start to do this thing where you're gonna, you know, become somebody else, was it in your mind to try to have the kind of career, to try to explore the different kinds of uh variety of parts that you have been able.
No, it was here. Listen, here's the thing you said. Amazing things. I really appreciate all everything that your perspective on my acting is really meaningful because you have continued to bring any kind of refreshing angle or take to any new character. You always find something different to do. It's never boring, You're never one saying it's that kind of career that like most people want. You're able to bend yourself in ways that you know people wish they could,
and I try to do. And I think the answer to that question is that I was. I very deliberately wanted to bend myself as much as possible when I was younger, so I didn't fit into any mold, or I didn't let the industry put me in any mold because it was super easy to do to a young
blonde girl next door. Sure, and then I was like and then, but it was totally this movie Chloe that I think got people within the industry, producers and actors and casting directors to see that I was kind of pushing my own boundaries and they were like, okay, And that creates trust, maybe not with everybody, but with enough people so they can start seeing me in other ways. You know, it's a little harder for women, it seems, to get out of that box.
Yeah, I mean, I think everything is harder for in our industry for women. But I also think that you make a very good point which a lot of people don't really necessarily get unless they happen to choose this life, and that is that people really would rather have you do the same thing, especially if that thing that you've done has been successful. You know, the first time I was in a successful movie, they just wanted to find pretty much the same movie for me to do again.
But they weren't sequels. They were just in that same sort of pocket and pushing back against that. Sometimes it's a couple of things. Number One, it is without even knowing it, it's pretty risky, you know, because you're not leaning towards the money, really, you know, you're leaning towards something that satisfies you creatively. But you know, I think
that you've really been able to do that. And also, as I pointed out, across all kinds of genres, I make comedy and musicals and horror and dramas and and you know real you know, what do they call rep from the headlines type characters and and and all this stuff.
I mean, it's it's it really is amazing. Now, is there We've probably discussed this before, but is there one thing that's at the top of the list when you look through that giant pile of scripts that come up, uh via email to you just just you don't even have enough room in the hard drive for all those PDFs.
Yeah, just mountains men.
I mean, is is there one? Is there one? Is it? You know, direct, director or star whatever.
It's director, it's totally director. And if it and if it's not, if it's somebody who's very new to the industry or new to directing, or at least somebody that we've we haven't seen before, it's it's descript. It just has to happen. There's got to be something incredibly interesting about the character and what the character goes through, even if it's just me on my own in a short film.
Just if if this person has a true vision and and not an incredible and incredibly like fascinating story or at least grounded or at least realistic story, then I'm in.
But you do so many other things besides uh, this acting stuff. What have you been busy with since we've been on strike.
Well, when the pandemic hit, we were all kind of at a standstill in every industry of course, everywhere. So my creative brain was still churning out, like fiber art as it does because I can't stop. But with fiber art, you can only do so much and you're always stuck in your little bubble on the couch.
Or wherever you are, and explain to explain that those people that might not know what fiberart is, oh, just.
Anything you can make with yarn really, yeah, yeah, because I've seen you fiberarting on on a step before and I did.
I didn't even know that there was that debt, that that was the thing, anything that could be done with y art.
Yeah, I was, I know, I was in a I was very deep into weaving while we were working together. It's just uh an a knitting, of course, but but I needed I my friends and I my friends who don't aren't actors, aren't in this business at all. We grew up together and so we started this business. That God, starting a business is hard, and also doing something to create to generate money also feels weird because when you I'm usually working with organizations, charities working to generate money
from investors to donate to a certain cause. And this felt different because I'm the cause is our product, and so it's very different, and I'm used to using myself as a marketing tool to get people to donate to these very specific organized war child best friends Inada, and I think with starting a business, I was so I mean, it was all mine. We started it together, the three of us, so we were all founders and we are
all what we say goes. We're all so inc control of what we were building and we really believed in it, and so that was just weird. It's kind of a new path because you.
Were out there looking for investors, looking for seed money to get going.
We never did that. We actually kept it all in house between us. That was really great. But it's still weird to try to get people to buy your product. But I do believe in it and it is amazing. But it is like I did, I started a business. I started a business, and that's what it is.
And this is make it cute, Make it cute.
And we have a charitable like fact factor too, like it's it's you know, we're trying to we are in a sustainable business, and it's really great to network and
connect with other people that are like minded. And in this generation where we're trying to buy less for our kids, and when we do buy things, we want to buy things that are recycled, and we want to we want to be responsible with as consumers because we are, you know, we're always going to be in this capitalists sect, so why not create something that does less damage to the world. And we're doing that, But at the at the core of it, I really like designing playhouses.
Okay, yeah, tell us about the product though, because I I just I just saw it and it looks really super You want one? Sure, I don't have. I don't don't need little.
Kids, I don't think so actually we are going to do it. We are going to make a smaller version for animals because people are people have been asking us and it was always my design and my friends are like, yeah, maybe, and I was like, we must because I've got my fin, I've got my dog and yeah, it's uh, it's made out of cardboard and you can call it corrogate, but the layperson says cardboard and people are like, well, our
kids make stuff out of cardboard. All the time, and unfortunately we've got these massive like boats that look like crap and don't they don't want to throw them away? So why not make something that's incredibly easy to use. I mean, it's it folds up so mm hmm. It's made from recycled well, cardboard is recycled, has to be fifty percent at least.
And their playhouses, right, and their playhouse.
You just it's three little pieces. There's no assembly, you just I mean you do have to assemble it, but it's just three pieces and you just pop it open and you put it in and the roof on and it you're done.
So what was the genesis of that idea? I mean, well, how did that? What made you even think.
About in the market place?
A hole in the marketplace? Do your partners have kids too?
Yeah, we all have kids.
It's the same because you have two kids. How old are the kids?
Know, six and a half and three and there's our six and a half and four, And we were all pregnant with our first the same time, and we all like went on vacations together. We've been best friend since we were five.
Oh wow.
And they all have different experiences like what Maureen was a physician's assistant. She still is and quit her job when she had kids. She has a very good business sales mind and she's also incredibly designed forward and just we have similar tastes and we just were like we need to we don't, there's no ear and was building these playhouses out of all these these refrigerator box and there were double wall, which is a box is normally like Amazon box. It's like one wall m h. And
it breaks down easily and it's great. But she was building them with extra shingles, and she was painting them with ferowe ball colors and everything that we love to see in our own homes. And she's like, this is where I throw all the toys in at night, and this is how I have my zen back with all these kids crappy toys. Sorry, it's chunk. A lot of it's junk. And and then we were like, this is there's nothing like this. There's nothing cute. All the toy
all the playhouses. If they're cardboard, they're a pain to put together and they're not nice looking at all.
And plus I love that you're not using plastic, because you know that's that's one of the tough that's a whole other conversation about, you know, our overuse of play classic and what's more single use than a playhouse once your kid, you know, grows out of it. And that's just a lot. That's a lot of that's a lot of stuff that's good going to.
Never break down and it doesn't break down. There's a lot of like different materials that aren't plastic, you know those those there's canvas tents and stuff it takes at least an hour to put together there. Some of them are insanely expensive. The kid craft stuff is great for outside. Our product is not outside. But it's just like it was a giant hole in the market. We're like, I don't want to build. I don't want to build that. I want that. I don't want to build. I want
someone to do it for me. And I don't want to have any butt clenching when I'm at the checkout in online. I just because we were doing market research too. When we started our business. We had to buy all of them, and I mean it was it was stressful because we knew we needed to do we but we needed help making it. We needed engineers, we needed hard woork companies, people that work with this material. We did it all our own and then we met somebody who
this Robert, who actually created Green Toys. Him and his partner created Green Toys, which is all those really cool trucks made out of plastic milk jugs. But so it looks like plastic, it's durable like plastic, but it's not. It's made out of recycled material and it blew up. He sold his company. Now he's an employee of he's a consult and he helps with our finances. But I'm telling you, Kevin, business is hard. We're finally finally starting to talk to investors, like I can't do it anymore.
We have a lot of people interested. We've sent it out to so many people. We you know, we did quality control, We've met everybody. We work within the facilities and on the East Coast. It's expensive to build things in the US. It's just keeping things sustainable is expensive. So it's like, I don't know if this business is you know, to make money as much as it is to create something that we love. Hopefully one day that's great.
Tell me how's your music?
Thank God, I'm working.
Have you been are you doing anything?
Are you doing any.
No, I'm out with the band. We're playing a lot of shows.
This fall around the country or like everywhere, all.
Around the country. Yeah, we're on our way. What's our next run? I think our next roun is maybe Texas and then we're going down south and we were just up in Maine a couple of days ago. So yeah, we're actually playing a lot. And the weird thing about being in a band is that the gigs get booked, Like oftentimes weigh in advance of when my acting gigs
get booked. So I'm always a little bit stressed out because I say, well, if something's going to come through, then we're going to have to you know, cancel a show or or you know, or or or boot it down the road. And it's or I'll have to be flying from some place to another place to another place in a place ranged all bills. And because of the strike, Yeah, you know, it's it's been We've been just able to play all these shows and it's been great. I feel
very grateful to have that. I think both of us, Kier and I have kind of realized during this strike that we we're for better or for worse, we're kind of workaholics. You know, we really do like to work, and so it's been a it's been a whole.
That's the thing. We create all these other worlds for ourselves on purpose or not on purpose, and because we're we want to be creating. And I mean, yes, we're artists and we're actors, but we're artists. So it's like that's many things, like you have you traveling with your band and being able to finally say yes, are you availble, yes, can you do yes? Instead of trying to to fit in, try to do it all because there's only enough time
in the day. And so right now, yeah, I feel privileged too that we're on strike for a great reason. We got to keep negotiating. We got to sort this out sooner than later because people need to work.
They definitely did. What's the thing on the stage?
Speaking for fillings, it's Ashlma Louise the musical, and I've been working on its almost.
I mean, oh, that is so exciting.
But am I ready for that? Am I really? Is my body really ready to do to the show?
Of course it is?
Is it though? Because I did that and it was really great and it was hard, and I didn't have any kids and I didn't live here on a farm full time.
You were with Tommy with your husband, right, were you guys in the play?
Yeah, but this is music and this is Broadway, so there was no pressure to do off Broadway and no music. This is music, him singing. If I lose my voice, I'm not gonna be able to drink as much as I like to drink. There is that, And the kids don't go to school in the city. So it's just am I ready for it? But I keep thinking it's a dream come true. Every challenge has a rainbow at the end of it, and it's gonna be amazing. I'm god, I'm so sicking.
Do do you love love love the music that's in the show. That's great? And so do you so you have all you have all the songs now so you can you can literally work on them all the time. Yeah.
Because we did well, they're probably changing because we only did two workshops. Have you ever done a musual?
Never done a musical?
No?
I did one music. We did one show where it was about the Yale Whiff and Proofs, which was a is the a cappella a cappella group at Yale? Yeah, we did a play probably in the Know the eighties or something like that in New York off Broaby and so they were singing in that, but it was definitely not a musical. So so you have the songs. Is it the world party? Are you? Are you feeling like you really want to strengthen your voice? Is that the thing to make it through the.
Hos yamina and need to stand or whatever. I also need to find my middle voice again. I mean I've been training in a different way with different music for so long for fun, and then now I'm just getting back to like the OZ because there's a lot of OZ and I hate singing. You know, we sing, we go in our middle voice and head voice. It's like oohs and ease are so easy. So I work out OS's is.
It? Do this? Are the songs? Do they kind of sit in the pop rock world or are they more traditional Broadway o case?
So it's like all rock. I'm flok. It's it's my dream. It's like it couldn't be better.
Oh that's so great.
Because we had just Tommy and I had just seen Nico Case at levon Helm Studios. Have you played there before?
Yeah? We played there. Yeah, we played with with Levon when he was alive the Midnight Ramble. Yeah, it was quite an experience, you know. It's yeah, it's a great place for people that don't know. Levon had this barn up up in in Woodstock and uh, yeah that he built, and you know, you got we get the opportunity to bands, We get the opportunity to go and essentially play in this in this barn to a small but great crowd, amazing sound, and then uh, you're you're kind of opening
for Levon. In this case, it was Levon and and Larry Campbell and a bunch of great players and and and then at the end of it you get asked to sit in and it was such a great experience. He's one of my favorite drummers. And I got to sit sort of like on the lean against this radiator that's against the wall behind him and just and watch his amazing left hand and the stuff that his left hand was doing. And it was a it was a
great night, great night for me. I actually acted with him, uh a few years ago, many many years ago, Uh, in a movie and uh so we we kind of knew each other already, but that was great anyway. So so what did you you saw? What did you see up there? At that point?
We saw yeah, and it was incredible. And it was our first time at Lewand Hill Studio and we sat there and it was just it was Tommy's my husband is the biggest Ego caes fan, like of all time. For his birthday, I had his daughter to learn our daughter, sorry, his daughter, my daughter, our daughter. I had her learn I wish I was the Moon tonight and she learned the entire thing and and have and and and that's like one of her best songs. And the lyrics are
crazy for six year olds to be singing amazing. But I was working. I was doing my second workshop with Nico at the time. I was teaching my daughter the song and she listened. I showed her the video of her practicing, and she was just so alown away and she was like, are you trying to kill him? And I was like, he's you know, it's her. Her voice speaks to him and me and many people. It made
people feel safer in the world. Nico cases like a treasure, a national treasure, and the fact that she's composing all of the music for this show is just so kismet and it makes me feel like this was like sent to me from God because I you know, I can sing it, and I feel connected to it in a way that I don't feel for with a lot of people, a lot of musicians. And also I get to act and I get to play Thelma, and that it gets to work with friends, you know, I Trip Coleman's directing
and beautiful theater director. Yeah, and so many wonderful people are part of it, and Mandy who was ran Williamstown for a long time who I'm friends with, and it's just like such a perfect little pocket of art for me to now fulfill.
Okay, I wait to see that.
When do you go into rehearsal, I think, well, we have our third workshop in November, which is the two week workshops. We do all the songs again and everything again, and then we have like most of our cast, and then I think we're I think we're hoping for January twenty twenty five because we need this next year to I mean, dude, putting things something new, putting new musical out on Broadways.
Apparently, yes it is.
I have digests.
Well that's so exciting. Now I want to just talk about your you grew up in Allentown, and I know that you you just have this great, great, deep love for animals. Did you have animals or ride horses when you were younger or any of that? Now you didn't. You didn't grow up on a farm in Alaison. So what do you think it came out of?
I don't. I truly don't know.
You're in a barn, right, animals. Yeah, the barn.
This is the like really this was an old stable obviously we made into these two rooms are guests room. This is like the middle barn, the barn barn that's actually over there. You can kind of see it right over right over there. That's like the barn, and that's you know, where where all the good stuff happens, where all the sick animals come in when they need help.
So you take animals in. I didn't. I didn't realize that.
You take for instance, we're getting two new horses, and the fencing guys are here right now to fix the third paddock, and we only have three, and we'll only ever have three and we always will always you know, be a capacity. But everybody in the town kind of knows what our deal is. We'll take it animals who are very old and they all pretty much pass away here m so it's a sanctuary essentially, okay, and we get retire So this retire he's coming. He's thirty years old.
He's coming on this week this weekend, once the fencing's done, and he's coming with a friend.
Of horse, a horse. Sorry, yeah, okay, because you have you have some other stuff too, you have got goats.
We mainly it's like we can have as many many horses as anyone can have because we have room. We have a retiree, a trail horse who's who's thirty and he's he was going to go off to auctions, so we were just like I'm here and then his friend. But his friend is not retired. He's ten years old and he's in great health. Oh good, So that's not that's not normal. We don't normally take in people who are in great health.
Do you get up on him ever? I mean, they sound like they're not they're they're they're not sound.
But but no, this guy is going to be the first sound. Oh it's thirty year olds of the thirty year old the ten year old. I wouldn't read on because I'm not experienced enough. But she can be broken, and he will be one day, hopefully. But the thirty year old is the one that I'm gonna put my kids on.
Oh nice, that's awesome. That's very exciting. And you have and you have goats and your beloved dog.
I love a dog. And ducks. We've just taken in two more ducks. Ducks are real pain. I don't recommend it. Do anybody do you have ducks?
No chickens, but no ducks.
Yeah?
No, ducks.
Don't do it. Don't do it. It's hard, it's there. They're very very vicious to each other.
Wow, okay, I didn't know that about ducks. Well, I think that's a good segue. Is Julie available to hop on with us?
Hey?
Why Julie? You guys know each other?
Yes we do.
There's Julie Castle from Best Friends Animal Society. Thank you so much for joining Amanda and me.
It's an honor to be here, big big fans of both of your work.
Thanks you too. You know I was I was reading up about you and have just what I find to be pretty fascinating journey into what it is that you do. So maybe just explain that it's almost like you got You're on your way to law school and got a flat tire or something and ended up going into animal rescue.
But UH, talk to me about how it happens, you know.
I think it's a measure of really, I don't want to sound too wu, but it's a measure of really being up into the universe, you know. And I was I just graduated from college, and my friends and I knew it was our last hurrah before graduate school.
So we decided to take a trip to Mexico.
And at the time, I drove this really old nineteen seventy nine Dodge Colt and it had a different color panel. Every panel was a different color because I'd been in so many accidents. And we stay down there until we ran out of money, and we realized that we had just enough for a candy bar each and gas to drive eighteen hundred miles back home, and we decided to drive straight through. And my friend who was with us, she was a huge animal fan, and she'd been donating
to this small sanctuary in southern Utah. She begged us to stay, to stop at this sanctuary. None of us wanted to. We hadn't showered, we retired. We were fighting. Finally we agreed to stop, just to kind of shut her up, and we pulled into the magnificent canyon, Red Rock Canyon, that in any other state would be a National park. And I was so taken by the spiritual nature.
Of the place.
I was taken by the founders, and I was taken by the the ethic of no kill.
I'd never heard of it before.
And well, maybe you could just explain to us what that means.
No yeah, no kill is really it's a philosophy. It's that every life has intrinsic value, and every life that can be saved should be saved. In pure data terms, it means we know that about ninety percent of all the animals that in our America's shelter system are savable, and that ten percent sometimes they need to be humanely euthanized, either they they're too sick or injured, or maybe their behavior issues are too severe. And so that that's the
pure definition of no kill. But for us, it really is a philosophy.
And so you you walked, you saw this animal sanctuary, and you decided to just that your life would take a different path.
I saw this animal sanctuary, We pulled out of the sanctuary, and I stopped the car at a gas station and put a couple of quarters in the pay phone and called my dad and said, Hey, I'm not going to the University of Virginia law school.
I'm a canab Utah.
And I how did how did that? How did that?
Oh? He was so happy for me. No, he was.
Okay, okay, I you know, honestly, I don't think he got over it for a decade. Wow. We were really it was really hard scrabble stuff in those early days. You know. It was I was making one hundred and eighty three dollars every two weeks. You know, we didn't really have an h R department.
And that was in canep.
That was in cannap And you were expected to do whatever it took just to keep the lights on and keep the animals fed.
And so it was tough. It was really. I mean it's still tough in its own way.
But back then, were the majority of the animals horses.
No, we had about seven hundred dogs, seven hundred dogs, five hundred cats.
How do you keep I can't imagine seven hundred dogs.
Oh, it was crazy.
So I was employee number seventeen, so there were seventeen employees and then the founders. There were about twenty founders, so all told, are about forty people taking care of this massive sanctuary. You know, the acreage back then was about three thousand acres.
God, So I've been to caneb and I'm I'm we're here. You have a pizza joint? Oh yeah, yeah, that I want to go to. But it's hard for me to imagine that there's that many animals even around there. It's it's it's not a very heavily populated part of the world.
No, it's not.
A cannab is one of the most sparsely populated places in America. So we knew social distancing before it became a thing.
A We are so thrilled to share that. Best Friends Animal Society is partnering with Warner Brothers Discovery for the twentieth anniversary Puppy Bowl to help animals find the loving home and match donations to cover adoption fees for their pet life saving centers nationwide. From February seventh to the fourteenth, All you gotta do is text puppy, that's puppy to seven zero seven zero seven zero or head to puppybowl dot com to donate to double your impact, or find
a shelter near you. Watch Puppy Bowl on Animal Planet at Sunday, February eleventh, at two pm Eastern time eleven am Pacific time.
We've got parrots and bunnies and pigs and horses, and we have a whole wildlife department where we see golden eagles and bald eagles and hawks and deer and bob cad and all sorts of things.
And what do you think about men and I were speaking about her desire. I don't know how this works to to actually kind of take her own property and try to make it and try to use it as Obviously, I don't think you're going to be able to fit that many dogs at your place, will you, But just try to use it as a you know, a sanctuary is is that something that you can that people can actually look into doing and that you can help them with or or you know, navigating you were talking about
navigating the governmental rules around that and I'm curious about that.
Yeah, we have a whole course on that how to start Wow amazing sanctuary where we go through all that for people, you know, how to get your how to register for a five LLO and C three status, what legal support you need, what you're operating budget should look like, basic animal care. We go through the whole thing and we get a lot of people that have come through
that course over the years. We've been doing it for about thirty years, and our whole premise is just to be generous, generous with our experience, with our knowledge, with.
The success that we've had.
We really really believe that passing that along to other organizations and people, it just makes this community stronger as.
Environing people to like, if they want to, if they really want to do this, take animals in or at least advocating for animals at any at any cost, like just to get people just to get it on their minds to know that they can do that because everybody can advocate for what they believe in, and especially animals because they don't have voices. It's just like, I love that you're teaching people how to how to save animals, like physically saved them too, and bring them into their homes.
It's like fostering is Fostering is like one of the most incredible things that I've I can that humans can do because they take them in until they can find homes. And I think that's amazing too, Like you get people to really foster if they can't commit to these animals, they foster them, but then they also have to get rid of them and send them away to their forever home. And that's it's like the most selfless thing to me
that I feel like that you can do. And you guys are so good at advocating for that too.
Do people come to actually come to you and adopt off off of the best friends, Yeah.
They do. And our sanctuary holds a really special place because it really is the place where most animals that come here and need that extra lover or attention, extra medical care, extra special needs. But we've got life saving centers all over the country.
Because okay, I see broader goal is.
To end killing of shelter pets five and so the bulk of our adoptions take place in one of those centers or through our network partners, about forty four hundred now.
So and do you do it also online that people go and look look for look at animals online and come from other places, because like you said to me, there's so few people in Cannab for instance, that you know or or or do most of the animals and Cannab just kind of stay there.
No, No, it's like destination location for people.
So I want to go. I really will not that no I need, I don't need any more animals, but I would like to go. Yeah.
I mean, it's crazy how many see it online, see an animal that what they want to meet, and they travel all the way out to Canab fall in lot have a new family member.
I want to ask you both something that man that we can start with you and okay, I'll give you. I'll give you example. I'm the youngest of six, and to me, this is a really this really is kind of a head scratcher for me. With all of my brothers and sisters, the desire to uh be around animals, be comfortable with animals, have animals. It goes from I don't want to ever see any animals in my life
to a complete obsession with one of my sisters. You know, has Has has always had multiple dogs, sometimes for at a time, and is just you know, obsessed.
With her dogs.
And I'm just wondering, I mean, because both of you actually clearly care deeply about you know these creatures. What do you think it is that makes somebody feel that way about them or not? Because I can't figure it out for myself, and I can't figure it out for the people in my family.
It's almost like it feels like Nature talks through animals more than they do human more than it does humans, I guess, because animals are simpler and it's easier to trust. Maybe maybe there's just that, maybe you feel closer to God with them. For me, I feel I feel closer to nature. I feel like the energy from an animal gives me a sense of belonging in the world. I don't. I'm I still can't make sense of it, so I
can't really answer your question. I just know how I feel when I'm around them, and how I feel when they're hurt, And I think that they never would. They just don't they need our help. They don't deserve it. They don't to see an animal and pain. It's just like I have to interview. You have to intervene because they need they most neatly need it. It's up to them, I guess. But if, like especially if you can, you know, intervene and and help them, you should. But it's just
I don't know, I don't know. I just feel I feel like I'm more fulfilled. Maybe it's just like a like a selfish need, but also like there's a symbiosis happening, you know, when I'm in the mornings, when I go out and feed. It's just even if the mini is trying to kick me, I can't fault them for any They're just innocent kick you. That's just the law. And the guy he's he's cut off really hard life and it's not his fault. So it's just like I have to be careful around him, you know. And it yeah,
he really whips. He's very no but they couldn't walk when they got here, so they It's just like there's just something so incredible. And you know, Julie, you like the impact that you had for like millions of them. It's just like you, you know, there's a spiritual level to carry for animals and being around them, being in their presence that like really just uh, how about for you, Julian.
You know, I mean I feel like it's almost some of it, I think is your approximate location to animals growing up, and I think the younger you're exposed.
The younger you're exposed.
The the more quickly that develops.
It's almost like a sixth sense.
And you know, you hear people talk about developing that sixth sense. I think with animals that bond is so powerful once you experience it, because it's almost on a different plane. To me, it's like there's no judgment, there's no These are special beings that we inhabit the earth with and for us to think that somehow.
We're the.
You know, we are the elevated being on this planet, I think for obvious reasons, you know, we gravitate toward that. But at the end of the day, it's quite arrogant to place ourselves on this different level when the reality is we are all connected.
You you have a goal in twenty twenty five. Can you talk to us about that?
Ah?
It's so like this is this is what gets me up in the morning. You know, when you think these founders that started this organization in this sanctuary in the middle of nowhere really smart people, and they just ask the simple question, why why is a society have we chosen to round up animals, put them in a shelter
and exterminate them. It's just such a The practice was crazy, and you know, it's something that had been going on for one hundred and ten years by the time they rolled around, and so their idea was so radical and novel, but so simple and so so I can't even imagine that today. Because back then the estimation was seventeen to twenty million animals were dying every day in Americas shelters. We have gotten numbered down to three hundred and eighty five thousand.
That's oh my wow, that's increasible.
To think about a lot of these founders are still alive and active in the organization. And to imagine that you could bookend actually changing the world in your lifetime starting this movement and then seeing it kind of you know, get across the finish line.
I just marvel at that for real.
And so you think, okay, there's three hundred and eighty thousand animals that are still dying. That's a thousand a day roughly, it's a lot. It's like forty three an hour or something.
And how do you decide who goes and whose days. It's just like I can't imagine being that position. Yeah, I mean, that's what needs to happen, Like, how does it get that bad because there's just no room.
It's a combination of factors. You know, some of these shelters that we work with, we worked with one in a fairly decently sized city.
This was right before COVID.
We we have programs all over the country.
We walked into the shelter.
Thirty thousand animals were coming in every year, twenty six thousand were dying. And within a year and a half we had taken that shelter from saving four thousand lives a year to completely getting them to ninety percent. And they have never gone back. And that's the beautiful thing. It's a combination of letting the public public know you're
there really these animals, the public. Because seventeen million people are going to get a pet this year, we know that for a fact, YAP that del alta between seventeen million and three hundred and eighty five.
This is not rocket.
Science, like we're talking about putting people on Mars and we can't figure this out.
There's something.
Yeah, that's that's a that's a fascinating statistic. Is there a some place that people can go either to learn about the work you're doing or to find to find an animal. You know, it's this is this is this is the moment for the call to action.
Yeah, we've got two years left to solve this. We're all we're all in, we're all working very hard. You can go to best Friends dot org. There's so many different ways to get involved. Amand dimension fostering which immediately saves a life. That we have an action team that helps locally. We've got a network of rescues and shelters that's forty four hundred strong that we support every single day, and that you know, we hope others support through volunteering and donating.
But you can go on our website.
You can see all of our adoptable animals, and there's a lot of different ways you can get involved, even if you don't have the time.
That's awesome, that's awesome. I love what you're doing, you know, on behalf of let's say Doc and Norma, Jean and Jolene and Apollo and June and Johnny and Lucy and Little Ricky and Daisy Junior and Sharona and Kate, whom I forget thank you. They just they wanted me to say thank you for all all that what you're doing it's it's it's really amazing. Thank you, and both of
you keep up the good work. Amanda. I hope that you can continue to to uh, you know, to work this this this angle of taking in animals that need help.
I've I've so enjoyed my time with best friends. They always it's always such a celebration set of I mean, you look at the numbers and they're harrowing and it's really upsetting to know, yes, it's three hundreds, it's it's less than half are being used nice, but it's still so many. Like it's not ignoring that fact, but it's also celebrating the fact that we're you're going in the right direction and you are and nobody's stopping. So I'm I'm through. I mean, it's coming up and it's every day.
I I know how how how much you love your job, and it really rubs off.
Well, thank you and we're grateful for your support, and you know, it's uh, I think there's an authenticity to you that that I really gravitate toward.
I know a lot of people do.
There's just this, you know, really special message that you have to deliver about just about anything you talk about.
So it's very.
Cool too, you know, have both of you to support this cause so deeply, and I'm super grateful, and I think it's a at the end of the day, it really is a noble cause. Like it's it's it's one of those that you know, there's no there's no divide to it. Really, there's no politics around it in terms of you know, when eighty percent of Americans have a pet at home, you know, it's a it's one of those rare causes that so many different people get behind.
And it's just.
A true honor for me to do this, Like I feel like this work is not I didn't choose this, this is it's like what you said earlier, I kind of just walked into this and and I feel like I'm really not it's it's it's at some other hand whatever.
May be.
Awesome. Well, thank you guys so much for being here. I really do appreciate your time.
It's so nice to your employee.
That's your face and yeah, back at you, back at you. And I think it's very very fitting that you did this interview from a.
Thank you so much.
Hey, guys, thanks for listening to another episode Six Degrees with Kevin Bacon, and if you want to learn more about the Best Friends Animal Society and all that incredible work that they are up to, head to their website Bestfriends dot org. That's best Friends dot org. You can find all the links in our show notes, and if you like it, you're here. Make sure you subscribe to the show and tune in to the rest of our episodes. You can find six Degrees with Kevin Bacon on iHeartRadio,
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