(upbeat music) - Welcome to "Inspire."

We're very happy to have you here.

On this show, we feature women who work with and care for animals, coming up next on "Inspire."

(gentle music) Inspire is sponsored by Kansas Furniture Mart, using furniture to inspire conversation.

And by the Blanche Bryden Foundation.

- [Announcer] The Friends of KTWU, honored to support programs and services that enrich the lives of our viewers.

- [Announcer] And the Raymond C. and Marguerite Gibson Foundation.

(upbeat music) - Hello, welcome to "Inspire."

I'm excited to be back with my wonderful co-hosts, Danielle Norwood, Leslie Fleuranges, and you.

Today's show is all about professional animal caregivers, both those taking care of our furry family members, as well as those working at rescue facilities to take care of animals until their forever family can be found.

- We rely on others to care for our pets, utilizing the services of veterinarians and veterinarian technicians to keep our pets healthy.

And we utilize grooming, boarding, and daycare services to keep our pets looking and feeling their best.

Many of us enjoy equine activities.

Horses require their own unique breed of caretaker that's attentive to their needs.

And zoos, they have a variety of species of animals, each requiring specialized care and dietary requirements.

- On today's show, we're discussing the importance of caregiving for all of our animal companions, large and small, at the farm, in the zoo, and in the home.

Our first guest today is Brenda Grimmet, Owner and Founder of B&C Equine Rescue.

Welcome to "Inspire," Brenda.

- Thank you very much.

I'm so happy to be here.

- How long have you been caring for horses?

- About 50 years.

- Wow.

- Wow.

- Yes.

- How did you get started in this?

- In the rescue?

- In the rescue, or just your passion for caring for horses?

- I've always loved horses, they've always been my passion.

I got my first horse when I was 16.

- Wow.

- And he lived to be 38.

- [Danielle] My goodness, that's uncommon, isn't it?

- It is, it is.

- If you guys have never been to her place out in Carbondale, around the close, out in the country, it's fabulous.

Brenda, thank you and your volunteers, your whole family for what you do for horses.

What happens?

How do you know when somebody needs your services and how do they come to B&C Equine Rescue?

- We get lots of phone calls.

"Can you take my horse?

I can't afford to take care of it.

I don't know what to do."

We try to help out as many people as we can without having to take a horse.

We do take them in from the sheriff's office for seizures, neglect.

We've had to go to court to the people were usually found guilty and they didn't get their horses back.

So, and then they're relinquished to the rescue and we rehabilitate them and fix 'em all up and some are adoptable and some stay at the rescue.

- And so what makes one of your horses adoptable?

- A lot of people don't want the aged ones, 20 and up.

They're a little bit more responsibility.

They require a little more food, a little more care.

But they want 'em to be able to be rode and wanna be able to take care of 'em and they, it's just a lot of responsibility.

And so our aged ones will just stay there.

And if you do want to adopt from the rescue, you have to fill out an adoption.

Mostly you have to meet me.

(all laughing) And I see you face to face, it's not over a phone call, you have to see me face to face, come visit the rescue.

And if I don't approve or I get a bad vibe, I just say, "You're not ready for a horse."

You're just not approved.

Others have to show me where they're gonna keep the horse if they have any knowledge.

They can't have barbed wire fencing.

They have to have shelter.

Although the law does not require shelter, I do.

Special feed like Thrive is a complete feed and that's what all of ours are on.

And you have to buy that for that particular horse because you wanna keep, you don't want, horses have 28 feet of intestine.

- Wow.

- So you don't want to go and feed a sweet feed or a feed that they're not used to 'cause you can really mess up their stomach.

So keep to keep 'em happy, you know, the Thrive, they get hay, some alfalfa, maybe Himalayan salt is a big thing.

Horses love that.

Worming, farrier.

You gotta provide everything that we do, if not better.

- So who supports you?

How are you staying to do this for 30 years, or since 2007 you've been doing this?

- That's when we started, yes.

- How on earth do you afford to do all of this?

- Well, I'm retired and so is my husband, so some of it's out of pocket, but we do a lot of fundraising, as much as we can.

We have events at the rescue.

We have events at Four Corners Restaurant, we did some at Jalisco's up North, and we rely on donations.

We fundraise on Facebook all the time.

There's always something coming up.

This horse needs to go to the vet.

We try to keep a bank, a balance in our budget to be able to afford emergencies.

Sometimes that doesn't happen.

Sometimes we need help so that's why we post pictures.

We put out a newsletter, asking for help, you know, and donations will come in.

It's been pretty tough this last year.

- [Danielle] I'm sure, since covid.

- Yes.

- Yeah.

- Yes, because we didn't, during the covid thing, we didn't do any events.

We just didn't allow people and we usually do three or four, up to five events at the rescue.

- Wow.

- So.

- How many horses do you typically have out there?

- Well, we've got 21 right now.

- My goodness.

- We've had up to 35.

- Wow.

- We only have 14 acres.

So a lot of 'em are on dry lot and the special feed, because it's so complete, because we have a lot of seniors.

We have the back 10 acres that some can graze on.

And then we have our little house and then, which is an acre, and then the rest of the acreages, the horses roam all around.

(Brenda laughing) - That's one of the things I love about you because at her home, like everybody's welcome in or out, whether you have two legs or four legs, which is so cool.

(all laughing) But Brenda, we need to concentrate on something that people really don't wanna see, but we need to show it because it needs to be out there why they come to you.

Let's talk about the horse with the halter embedded in its.

- Yeah, we take in some pretty severe cases that we don't know if they're gonna live or not.

The latest one, just a week ago he came, he had a halter on that was, had been embedded in his nose and in his jaw.

He was skin and bones.

It's just actually skin draped over the bones.

- Oh wow.

- Yeah.

And so they apparently had taken the halter off, somebody did, and he has this big old scar on his nose and so I use Mederma scar cream that you buy for people and I'm putting that on there, but his whole face was sunburned.

He's a white horse.

- Oh wow.

His face was- - Appaloosa, right?

- Appaloosa, his face was so sunburned.

And his one eye is, you know, he should have had a fly mask on to protect from the sun rays.

- Right.

- So, I just pour, the first night I gave him 25 pounds of Thrive horse feed and he ate it all and the next morning I gave him another 25.

Now I just keep it in front of him 24/7 and he'll eat his fill, then he can go back to it and eventually the whole top line will fill out first.

It builds muscle.

It is so safe to feed that much of Thrive.

- Wow, well this is really fascinating.

I mean, it's upsetting to know that people would do such things to these beautiful animals.

- And to lie.

"Oh, that horse is okay."

The Animal Control went and looked at this horse.

"He's old, he should look like that."

I'm sorry, Shawnee County.

- Wow.

- Okay.

- And that is not true.

I mean, they need to be looking after everything and thank you again.

There's so much more we can do, you guys.

And thank you Brenda and and her crew.

It's important work at B&C Equine.

Coming up next, we're gonna go to a local pet boarding service that provides tender loving care to its guests and you know who's at the head.

Stay with us.

(upbeat music) - My name is Ty Goeke.

I am the Pet Enrichment Director here at TLC Pet Nursing Hotel, but as a Pet Enrichment Director, I oversee and organize what the dogs do on a daily basis.

So we have multiple puzzles and activities that we do with the dogs, especially if they are food-motivated.

If they are toy-motivated or praise-motivated, it just looks like the reward is different.

We have the tunnel, we have these climb things that we can make into obstacle courses.

We've also used the partitions to make mazes in the basement for them to go through and find treats and stuff like that.

We have the ball pits, the tip ball pit and the big pool ball pit.

We have the iDigs and we just try to motivate the dog to do something different with their day.

We also do sniff-faris, which are basically long-lead walks around the neighborhood and let them smell all the different things in the neighborhood, in the environment, and we have puzzles.

So the puzzles that we have are mostly hide and seek kind of puzzles where we hide treats in like the cruck, like the holes, and then put things on top of them.

We have probably around 15 different puzzles and the level of difficulty is anywhere between beginner to like level four, where you have to move one puzzle piece to move another puzzle piece.

And what I enjoy about my job is that it's probably the best job I've ever had because basically what I'm doing is I'm playing with dogs all day long.

It's a very simple way of putting it, but it's basically all about the animals that we take care of and I just get to watch them grow and learn and kind of come out of their shell.

A lot of times we do enrichment with dogs that are super anxious and like fearful.

And so even if they come downstairs and they just smell their surroundings, that's better than just being frozen in their suite because of fear.

(upbeat music) - We're back.

Thanks to Leslie Fleuranges for the tour of Tender Loving Care Pet Nursing Hotel.

And our next guest also has a passion for working with animals.

Margaret Price is the Manager of Animal Care at Helping Hands Humane Society.

Welcome to "Inspire," Margaret.

- Thank you for having me, ladies, I'm enjoying this.

- So how long have you been at Helping Hands Humane Society and what's your role there?

- Right now my role is manager.

I oversee our missions department and the kennels and I kind of help with the behavior program also, the department there.

I've been with Helping Hands for 22 years.

- Wow.

- Yeah.

- And I'm just now meeting you after all these years that I've been in there, but you're in the back, you say.

- I'm usually in the back running around, so, yes.

(Danielle laughing) - And so tell us now, how are things with the sort of the quote, unquote, "potentially end of the pandemic" and people getting new pets?

Are the shelters empty now?

I know there was a program to empty the shelters.

How are things going?

- That went well.

Unfortunately, we are still getting quite a few animals into the shelter, more I think in the last couple of years.

I think with economy and things that going on, and so our dog population is up this year.

- I wanna say, I've known Margaret for all of those 22 years.

I feel like I've known her for 30 or 40 years 'cause she's synonymous (Danielle laughing) with Helping Hands, she makes over and you do so much.

Everybody sees her on other entities, television entities, radio entities, but you do so much and part of the reason that we wanted you to come is there are so many women at the shelter who actually take the lead and take care of all those animals.

- Yes.

- Over 6,000 that come through the doors every year.

- Yes, in all the departments, there's lots of good women there that do a lot of hard work there at the shelter, yes.

- Talk about the behavior because that's a big issue.

And to make sure that an animal is ready for its new home.

- Correct.

- Behavior, and you do that training.

- We do.

So we do have a behavior department.

And so what we do is we look at each animal.

When they're ready to be ready, we give them their behavior assessment, so we look at to see what we can do for them.

A lot of them do get to go up for adoption and so we of course spay and neuter all of our animals and then they go up for adoption.

And the ones that don't, they're scared or nervous, we do have a behavior department that does work with them.

We have foster care people that work with them, families that which we really love.

And we've got a great group of volunteers that also help with us to help, again, to save more lives, 'cause that's our mission is to save as many lives as possible.

- Well, I was not a pet person (all chuckling) before getting in contact with Helping Hands Humane Society.

- [Margaret] So we turned ya.

- You have, you have.

- That's good.

- And thank you to Grace.

I mean, literally every time I go in, "So, we getting you a dog today?"

I was like, "Oh my goodness."

But every time we do a video together and I get to be with one of the animals looking for a forever home, I fall in love.

- You do.

There's a lot of them to love over there.

- Oh my goodness, there really are.

Talk about the wide variety of animals 'cause you have some wonderful dogs, some cute cats, but you also have some other animals that we wouldn't necessarily think of.

- We do, we do, we have lots of wonderful dogs, puppies, cats and kittens, but we also call them pocket pets.

And so those are, if you're not a dog or a cat, you're a pocket pet and that can be Guinea pigs, rabbits, mice, rats, ferrets, birds.

- [Danielle] Okay, did you say mice?

- Yes.

- You said rats.

- And mice.

(all laughing) - My goodness.

- You know, I'm telling you, rats really do make great pets.

- They do.

- When the people love their rats, they love their rats.

They're very social animals, believe it or not.

- They love to be read to, they'll listen, they will listen.

- You're lying.

- No, no.

I've read to 'em, they're- - No, you didn't.

(all laughing) - I did.

- No, you did not.

No, you did not, oh my goodness.

- Six of 'em and they were all sitting around paying close attention.

- Wow, that's a whole other story.

(all laughing) I mean.

- But we do, we do get a variety of those.

So if you're not, if you are not a cat or dog person, but you really want some companionship, they're very social animals, your ferrets, your Guinea pigs, your rabbits, your rats are very social animals.

- Wow, and so you have a hand in trying to make sure that when families come in that they have, the animal that's gonna be, you know, their temperament suited to whatever family they're trying to match with.

- We have great adoption counselors will help you with that.

So when you come in and you're looking for a specific animal, talk with the adoption counselors because they would be great, they're great and they'll love to help you find that right match for your family.

I believe not every animal matches every family in life.

- That's true.

- It's really important to do your research.

Don't just go by the look of the animal.

Go by the personality, what you have time for, the age of the animal, how much care that animal's gonna take, how much money that animal's gonna take 'cause there are certain dogs that are gonna take more money than others because they need to be groomed more than some others, so you gotta take that in consideration when you're looking.

So I always tell people, "Do your research," but if you're need, wanting an animal, please come out and see the Humane Society because we do have a great variety and some wonderful animals up for adoption.

- So what inspired you to go into this business 22 years ago?

- It's a really interesting story, so 22 years ago, I was actually a teacher, so I taught behavior disorder in the school system and there was a volunteer at the shelter who I taught one of her students and she, I was looking for a part-time job and she said, "Well, come out to the shelter," because I've loved animals.

So my dad was a veterinarian and I really wanted be a veterinarian, but science and math was not my thing.

(all laughing) It really wasn't, and so I went out and started volunteering during the summer and my weekends and then I just loved it so much that I retired from teaching and moved to the shelter full-time.

- Wow.

- And so I just love it.

Animals have always been my first passion and so I love that I was able to do this.

- And I don't know what the shelter would do without you, Margaret.

(all laughing) - They'll survive.

- And the breadth of information that you have and the passion that you have.

- [Margaret] Well, thank you.

- And matching everybody up, that's a big deal.

And it's also important to let everybody know that an animal displays a different behavior oftentimes in a kennel- - Correct.

- Than they would when they get to go home with you, so expand on that, will you?

- Correct, so we always just say even though we look at an animal, their temperament can change 'cause sometimes those animals could stay with us for a little while, but they don't show their, I always say their true colors because they have to decompress.

And so they're with us for short periods so when they go home, those behaviors could get better and then sometimes they could not, but that's the reason why we have our policy.

We always, any animal you adopt from us, if it does not fit you, please bring it back to us.

We will always take them back.

But their behaviors do change, their temperament does change, so we always tell people is when they get an animal, give it time to, don't overwhelm it when you get 'em home.

Let them decompress.

Don't expect a lot out of them.

Let them get acclimated to you and to the environment.

And we have a behavior team that will help you.

Anytime you wanna come, you need to call or come, talk with the behavior team and we'll help you with that, with those behaviors, and we have training classes.

- Yes.

- Which I love.

So when I get Parker, which is going to be my dog's name- - [Margaret] I love that name.

- I'm going end up being like, "Margaret, can you help me out?"

- [Margaret] Oh, you bet.

- Me and Parker gonna need little training.

- Yes.

- I'm just saying.

(Danielle laughing) - We also have some great trainers too that work for us too that offer training classes.

And we also have an agility instructor, wonderful lady, who gives, does agility classes for the public also.

- Nice.

- So, yes.

- Very beautiful.

- I'm so excited.

- I love it.

- Yes.

We have great resources to help you out.

The shelter really does.

We're not here just to get dimes, we're here to support the community and so we have resources so if you're looking for a resource, you need some help, call us, and if we can help you, we will help you.

- Well, awesome, thank you so much.

- [Margaret] Well, thank you for having me, thank you.

- With us and for all that you do to take care of our animal friends.

Coming up next, we head to the Topeka Zoo and Conservation Center to see how zookeepers provide compassionate care for all their creatures.

Stay with us.

(upbeat music) - Say hi.

Good.

(elephant barks) My name is Adrienne and I am a zookeeper at the Topeka Zoo.

So with our elephants, we do have a daily routine that we go through with them and that is all the simple stuff like making sure they can present their ears for blood draws, making sure their feet look okay, doing some different stretches, since we do have some older ladies, making sure they move around is really important for arthritis.

Some of the challenges are they don't always want to participate, so if they don't want to do something like participate in their daily training routine or anything like that, we don't force them.

They can choose if they want to participate or not.

So if they don't, if they walk away, then we're done.

We'll move on to something else.

We're not gonna make them stand there and do something they don't want to do, so we use a lot of positive reinforcement here and that's what we've had the most success with.

Probably one of the most rewarding things is when they recognize you.

Like when you come in during the day and they like turn to greet you or you come back from a vacation and they're like, "Oh, you're back!"

and they're so excited to see you.

- Can you say hello?

I'm Rachel McNemee.

I'm one of the zookeepers in the animal man department, so that's elephant, hippo and giraffes and the new incoming hoofstock.

We have a daily routine that we usually try and stick to.

It's always come in in the morning, turn on all the lights, say your good mornings, and make sure everybody's bright, alert and responsive.

Then kind of shift them where they need to be in order to give them their morning hay, or these guys, they're produce and grain, stuff like that.

For the elephants, we usually have a team of two that work with them and train them and clean up after them.

And then the rest of us will do hippo and then giraffes and whatever else that we need to do with the animals in our area.

After the morning routine, we focus a lot on training or daily activities.

We take the girls on walks around the yard when it's nice out to keep them moving.

Do a lot of training activities with Tank our hippo.

Definitely the bonding experience that we have with our animals, it's really great to kind of have that connection with them, know that they trust you and you can trust them and there's that nice relationship-building process that we go through with any animal, no matter what kind that you work with, but also seeing their great strides in training.

You get to be a part of that great success of them accomplishing a goal or accomplishing a task to better their welfare in the future, so that's always really great to see.

Keep trying.

Good job, close.

(gentle upbeat music) - Wow, what a staff.

We thank the staff at the Topeka Zoo and Conservation Center for everything they do for the animals, and girls, this is one of the things that I thought was so cool, organizations working together, the Zoo Enrichment Program works with Margaret Price at the Helping Hands Humane Shelter for their enrichment program.

I love it when a community comes together and it's all for the benefit of animals.

- And it's the majority of them being women.

Thank you, the women are coming together, making things happen.

- [Betty Lou] Right, always the caregivers.

- Always the caregivers.

We have the compassion, we have the love, and we have the talent, above all else to do these things.

So I was loving it, I was loving it.

- Yeah, and the attention to detail.

I mean, each animal species has to be on a certain diet, certain weight, all that type of thing, the behaviors.

We talked to Brenda earlier with B&C Equine Rescue.

That's a labor of love.

- Yes.

- And you know, the things that they've seen on every level, abuse, and then how to overcome that, and it takes a caregiver, a caregiver.

- And it has to be somebody who, it's not an eight to five.

- [Betty Lou] No.

- We're talking about in the middle of the night she's nursing a horse and making sure that they have everything they need and if they need to go to the vet in the middle of the night, and this is her money.

- Right.

- Yes.

- She's not even receiving a lot of help and she needs the help for everything that she's doing.

- She needs a 501(c)(3) and she needs those folks to donate to her on that Thrive food.

- Right, she definitely does, and then, you know, and for the animals, and in every capacity, there are so many rescues that people love to be there, but we need people who love to contribute.

If you can't adopt an animal, if you can, care another way.

You know, give monetarily.

- Right, right.

- And you can foster.

I know a lot of good people that are fostering animals and I would want to take them all in and keep them, but you know, they know that this is their responsibility for a certain time and then they bring them back and hopefully a forever family would want to adopt the pet.

So, I mean, it just really is beautiful how we care about our animal population.

- Right.

- Exactly.

And if you can't give money, you know, like the Helping Hands Humane Society, they take blankets, they take diapers, they take different things that the pets need, so it's not just cash.

If there are things around the house that are in great shape that you can't use anymore, the shelter can use them.

- Right.

- Or volunteer.

I mean, ladies- - And volunteer!

- All the organizations, like even Brenda out at the out the Equine- - The Equine Center.

- If you don't know how to take care of a horse, she will- - She will teach you.

- She will train you and then you're gonna be all the better for it.

Oh, you guys, we could go on and on, but that is all the time we have for today and we hope you've been inspired to do everything with animals that you can.

Women are caring for our animal companions.

As a reminder, you can watch this program again at watch.ktwu.org.

- And if you're so inspired to learn more about our guests, find out what's coming up on future shows and get additional access to our content.

Be sure to visit our website, www.ktwu.org/inspire.

- Inspiring women, inspiring you, and inspiring animal caregivers on KTWU.

Thank you for watching.

(upbeat music) - [Betty Lou] Inspire is sponsored by Kansas Furniture Mart, using furniture to inspire conversation.

And by the Blanche Bryden Foundation.

- [Announcer] The Friends of KTWU, honored to support programs and services that enrich the lives of our viewers.

- [Announcer] And the Raymond C. and Marguerite Gibson Foundation.