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Paws for Mental Health: Exploring the Power of Animals and Environment on our Wellbeing

Join us for an eye-opening discussion on the diverse forms of support for mental health! In this episode, we speak with Jerome Shabazz about the powerful impact of the environment on our wellbeing. From the air we breathe to the neighborhoods we live in, every aspect of our surroundings can play a role in our mental health. Then, Bey & Kirsten talk with service dog trainer Mark Ruefenacht to learn about the amazing benefits of animal-assisted therapy. From reducing stress and anxiety to boosting our mood and sense of connection, these furry companions have a unique ability to improve our mental health and wellbeing.

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Transcript
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Hey guys, just a quick content warning, in one of our conversations today, there's a brief mention of losing a loved one to suicide. If you are struggling, remember that you can always call the National Suicide and Crisis Hotline at 988. Just three numbers, 988. And we've also linked additional resources in the shownotes.

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And welcome to the so curious podcast presented by the Franklin Institute.

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Hello. Hello.

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We are your hosts.

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I'm Kirsten.

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Yeah, and I am the boy Bey, but please just call me Bey.

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This season, we're investigating the science behind mental health.

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And this was week. We have a very interesting angle to look

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at how the world around you can impact your mental health.

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Yeah. First, we're going to be sitting down with

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Jerome Shabbaz, director and founder of Juveniles Active in Science and

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Technology, to speak on how the environment we live in affects us.

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And then we'll be talking to Mark

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Ruefenacht, founder of the National Institute of Canine Service and Training,

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to talk about the positive impacts animals can have on our mental health.

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Bey, do you have anything in your

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environment, like at home that helps your mental health?

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Funny enough, yeah. I would say plants, but when they start to

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brown and clearly I'm mistreating them, I'm like I start to feel guilty.

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Uh uh for me, it's like I'm so bad at making my bed.

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I always have been so bad at it.

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But when I used to live in a studio apartment and my bed was most of my room,

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it was like also like my dining room table where I ate, where I studied.

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Once I started mastering the made bed. Yeah.

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Chef Kiss. Chef Kiss.

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I'm cured.

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And so now we are going to welcome Jerome Shabbaz to the So Curious podcast.

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Jerome, thanks for coming on.

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Can you introduce yourself?

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Tell us a little bit about who you are, what you do?

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Well, first of all, a wonderful day to be here.

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Thank you for the invitation.

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Yes, I'm Jerome Shabbaz.

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I'm the executive director of the Overbrook Environmental Education Center

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here in Philadelphia, as well as JASTECH Development Services, Inc.

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And JASTECH is an acronym for Juveniles Active in Science, Technology, and Health.

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You, along with your wife Gloria, founded

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Juvenile Active in Science and Technology, as you said, in 1998.

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Can you tell us more about this program?

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Yeah, so JASTECH actually began in 1997 as a workforce development program.

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Both my wife and I had experiences in workforce development.

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That's how we met, actually.

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And so we had this nonprofit organization designed to help create employment and

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make people more employable because we're both trainers and educators.

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And probably around 2000, we started to get requests from schools to help us to

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have access to their students around the environmental science programs.

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And we we're able to write a grant that enabled us to develop a curriculum.

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And the curriculum was called the Overbrook Environmental Education Center.

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That curriculum was established with overbrook high school.

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There service learning communities where students weren't going outside, they were

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just learning about the environment, sitting in the classroom, which is not a

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cool thing, even though that just sitting there yourself.

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And so we were able to get them involved

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in the community and to learn about the environment where they lived.

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And this started to take off into a real

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experience that students were able to relate to.

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And so we kept that going. Beautiful.

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Yeah. And so how does it curate an environment

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that you think impacts visitors well being mindset?

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We're talking all about mental health on this season.

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So what have you experienced in your

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research about how this education center affects?

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One of the first things that the students talked to us about was they said, Mr.

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Shabbaz, you're talking about these wonderful environments and how the

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environment needs to help us, but look at what we have to deal with.

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And they were pointing to things, I mean, literally derogatory spaces where there

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was trash and litter and buildings falling down.

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When you think of Lancaster avenue, 60% of all of the industrialized use of property

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is on lancaster avenue in west Philadelphia.

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And you see a lot of these old facilities that were decaying.

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And they were pointing to this, and they said, the physical place that you're

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talking about doesn't look like the place that we're talking about.

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And I said, you know what?

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I'll make a pact with you guys.

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If you can take yourself seriously because

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you're never too young to take yourself seriously, you take yourself seriously.

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Writing that down. Yeah, I like that.

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And we want to demonstrate what it looks like to see solution.

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We're here to help you. Yeah.

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And so we actually adopted and acquired

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some dilapidated space on lancaster avenue.

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And was able to transform that space and

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bring the students along with us in the process.

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So there's this whole series of physical things that had to be done, but there is a

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whole lot of thinking about what has to be done.

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When you think about the concept of trash,

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you may live with someone and your trash may not be their trash.

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They're like, well, when are you going to get rid of x?

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Like, get rid of x?

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That's my favorite cup, that's my favorite play.

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I'm not getting rid of that.

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So trash is sort of a mindset, and these

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young folks were able to tie into that mindset.

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And what we started doing was actually transforming space.

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But the interesting thing for us is the

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space that we acquired, we didn't realize just how bad that space was.

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It actually had a terminology for it.

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It's called a brownsfield.

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That's a concept that's a determination of a type of property that usually is

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shuttered and has the potential for hazardous waste to be in it.

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So if you ever take a train and you see all of these shuttered buildings on the

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side, oftentimes what happened was the industries that were in them were found.

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It too complicated or too expensive to do

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the environmental repairs to clean up the waste or to clean up the hazards inside

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the building, like the asbestos and lead and things like that.

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So they just left them and we took on a project with a Brownsfield project and we

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were able to start cleaning up the area that the students lived around.

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That's incredible.

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I have a question here, and before I get

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to my next question, you brought up trash being a mindset.

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I think that's such an incredible and an interesting concept.

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What would you say is the process of

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connecting your environment to the concept of trash or vice versa?

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What does that process look like?

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Well, for us, the process is thinking of it as an intersectional experience.

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Our environment, our health and our community.

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When it intersects, that's the sweet spot for us.

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We may talk about the environment, but the environment may not necessarily impact you

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the same way as if it would if you knew the impacts of what it does to you.

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So for example, when I go into a

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classroom, we did that this week with some students.

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We asked folks, how many of you know about

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environmental justice or climate justice and you got a few hands.

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But we said, well, how many of you know somebody with asthma?

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Or how many of you know someone with hypertension?

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Or how many of you know someone with diabetes?

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Then all of the hands went up because we

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know that if those things are how it affects us.

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And once you think about those issues as being connected to the environment, then

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you start to become interested and it becomes exciting to you.

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But then the other issue is we ask people,

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where do you like to go when you want to relax?

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And then they say, oh, we want to go to

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the beach, or we want to go to the mountains, we want to go to the woods.

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It's this connection to nature.

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So there's a whole aspect of science called biophilia that really deals with

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the impacts of how the environment affects the way you feel.

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And so we have a very intentional desire.

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Not only do we want areas to be clean, but

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we want them to be healthy, but we want them to be high sensory spaces.

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So everything we're doing on our development now is very high sensory.

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I love that. I was going to say mental health has had a

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lot of stigmas traditionally, especially in BIPOC communities.

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Can you talk about where those stigmas

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have been and how the conversation around mental health has evolved?

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Up until this point? It has become a big part of our work.

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I mean, typically our work is involved in environment, community, health, but now

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it's involved in the behavioral health because on the behavioral health side, we

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know that there is a need for repose and we need for ability to be able to have

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calming and how it is affecting all of the physiological things that we go through.

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And so probably about 15 years ago, one of the greatest additions to our work was to

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begin to work with public health divisions of universities.

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We work with a lot of universities, and

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the public health folks really brought a different perspective to our work.

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As opposed to just looking at the environmental issues.

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You start looking at the epidemiology of a

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neighborhood, it's telling you what people are impacted by.

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And oftentimes the major health

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disparities in communities in West Philadelphia and North Philadelphia

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particularly, where it's a lot of African Americans.

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You see hypertension, you see diabetes, you see obesity.

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And you don't think about how stress is connected to that, but stress is connected

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to that, air quality is connected to that, water quality is connected to that.

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And so we had to take into consideration the psycho emotional impacts of the

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environment, even to the extent of creating what we call micro habitats so

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that we could see different types of birds coming back.

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Oh yeah? Where is that?

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What's micro habitat? Wow.

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Microhabitants like these small environments where there's places where

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they can live, where birds can live, where bees can live.

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So pollinator plants so that you can get

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bees and butterflies and monarchs to come back.

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The idea is that if you're only just

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seeing a pigeons I remember one of the kids saying, mr.

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Shabbat, it looked like a rat with wings.

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They just get a bad rap.

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They do get a bad rap, right?

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But under the same token, imagine if you see a greater diversity and you have the

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very intentionality to create a space where other types of birds I mean, we're

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right between Cobb's Creek and Fairmount Park.

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So when they migrate, they're just like us.

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They want to rest and get some water and get some food.

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And if you create those environments and those are the micro habitats where there's

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water, there's food, there's place to rest, then they too will tend to rest.

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Now we have new species of birds that are migrating to the site.

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So you see more color and you see more animals.

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Part of our work, too, is about equity on our work.

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When we're looking at equity and

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inclusion, it is a behavioral aspect and it's a connectivity.

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The connectivity for us is that there are statistics to show that your physiological

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relationship to the park, for example, Fairmont Park, is one of the largest urban

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parks in this country does not denote your feeling that you can.

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Access it because there were situations years ago where people discriminated and

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kept you out of certain places in the city and told you where you could not go.

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And it's amazing how those things carry on from one generation to the next.

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So you'll have people that live next to a

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park or close to a park area, but don't utilize it.

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And so changing that around, changing that whole relationship to natural systems

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really matter because we are systemically connected.

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We have these symbiotic relationships with

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water and air and land because we come from the Earth ourselves in some respects.

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And so we can relate to them.

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There are inheritance. Right.

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As a human being, I think I have as much right to a tree as you do.

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And so I think the issue is not

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questioning whether or not it's a benefit, but questioning who has access to that

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benefit and making certain that everybody has a right to be able to enjoy it.

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And so that's what we're doing. In a sense.

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It's like very intentionally making certain that people are not afraid to

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participate, to have better what we call literacy, of understanding what the

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systems are, and that education makes you feel more connected.

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I was at the Discovery Center in the park

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yesterday, and there was a gentleman who was an expert birder.

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He was a falconer,Oh wow.

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And it was African American brother.

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He said it's not too many of us to do this kind of thing, but he was an interesting

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person, and he had this wonderful relationship with his birds.

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And he just said that if I didn't have

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this, I would be a terror to you and to myself.

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And he looked like he was absolutely serious.

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He was genuine. He was genuine.

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He was very authentic and very real.

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And the beautiful thing is he was talking

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about how these birds helped him, and then he's had this extraordinary story about

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pain that he experienced and how nature brought him through it.

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Wow. And I love also that you're working with schools, so you're kind of sparking

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this joy in young people that, I mean, hopefully is eradicating, like you said,

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the generational thing of, like, we just don't go to the park.

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It's just how we've been, my family, we didn't do it, whatever.

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And I love that you're like starting that at hopefully a young age.

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Absolutely.

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Um And so can I ask what are some of your future goals as it pertains?

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I know that's a big question to overbrook environmental Education center,

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particularly if you have any, when it comes to the mental health community.

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Yeah, come on Jerome. Five year plan.

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So we actually have a master plan.

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So it's called the pharmacy. Nice.

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And the Pharmacy Master plan is pharmacy Overbrook Naturework Center.

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So we're literally working with some

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partners during this project called Science Shop, where we're bringing

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institutional knowledge around science and technology and climate at a localized

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level, and that's being developed out currently.

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And we actually have some wonderful

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resources, and we're starting to do planning now so that we'll have this high

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sensory space, and it's called the Nature Work Center.

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And Nature Work Center is going to deal

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with everything from your visual stimulation to your auditory.

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It's going to be kinesthetic, and it's

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going to touch all of the sort of learning cues for people.

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And then there's a theme for it.

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It's play learn and grow. All right?

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And so the play part is that you are not necessarily playing just as a child.

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We're always playing right?

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And so we'll have big musical instruments

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out there so that you just feel like you want to hit a xylophone or it's going to

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be chimes, so that you'll have this sort of a tone that will always allow you to

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feel like you're in sync with what's happening.

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Because chimes respond to the wind and

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you'll be able to sort of sink your rhythms up with it.

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But it's very intentional using water and

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sound when you talk about the sense of water, water is one of the most placid and

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calming factors because what happens is it allows us to sink up.

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Yeah absolutely.

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So, Jerome Shabbaz, what is your number one thing, priority number one that you

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want people to take away from this conversation?

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We actually have the opportunity to make the reality that we seek and that we could

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close the gap between our aspirational and performative selves.

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When we do that, we start to live a more authentic life.

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And so we're bringing those natural

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systems into a neighborhood level so that we can find peace every day.

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We don't have to go on a vacation to find a calming space.

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We want to be able to find a calming space right around the corner.

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And that's what the brookston is representing.

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I love that. That was incredible.

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Yeah. Thank you so much for coming in.

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Seriously. Jerome Shabaz, it's been such a pleasure.

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Thank you for being here. Great.

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Well, thank you all very much for the invitation.

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Appreciate spending a little bit of my Sunday morning with you.

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Yeah, thank you.

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That was awesome.

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Thank you so much, Jerome Shabbaz, for coming onto the show.

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That was really great. That was really great.

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Yeah. Bey and I both live here in Philly.

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Go birds. And we can both really relate to how a

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major city can affect you and your mental health.

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For sure. Yeah yeah.

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And Philadelphia has its own special little effect on us.

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All right, bey, what's your favorite spot in the city?

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Yeah, growing up, I was in southwest

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philly, deep southwest, and cobbs creek was always a really nice spot.

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Honestly, it had all kinds of mental health effects on me as a kid.

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It was super scenic.

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And if you're in a city and cobbs creek

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has this, like, tiny little stream, it's a creek, right, of water.

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And I would go like super early in the

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morning and I would see possums, foxes, deers, foxes.

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Is it fox or foxes? Foxi.

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Foxi.

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I saw fox, I saw deers, I saw possums. What about you?

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Okay, so my favorite spot in the city,

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because I went to college in center city, now I live in south south Philly.

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I would say most of center city is not

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good for my mental health because it's so many people and I need that break.

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But least favorite spot that's the worst

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for my mental health is like, if you make me go to love park or Christmas village.

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I'm in a mood for three business days.

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Well, Bey, you know how much I love dogs,

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I'm super excited to talk with our next guest, Mark Ruefenacht.

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Mark. Welcome to so curious.

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Introduce yourself and tell us what it is you do.

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Sure.

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I will give you just a little brief background on what I do.

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I'm actually a measurement scientist, and that is what got me into working into

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forensics and the measurements that are associated with forensics.

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And that actually led me into dogs, believe it or not.

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So I was working in some breathalyzer technology and over 20 years ago and I

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started thinking about what can a dog do for a diabetic, a type one diabetic?

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Can they smell blood sugar changes?

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And so I was actually the first one in the

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world to train a dog to detect and alert to blood sugar changes.

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And we started a nonprofit organization

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called Dogs for Diabetics, first one in the world.

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And since then, there's lots of

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organizations that have started doing this.

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And this type of service dog is quite popular now.

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But the interesting thing that came out of this is that we noticed that the dogs were

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doing a lot more than just the blood sugars.

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And that's what I'd like to share with you

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today, is a little bit more about what they're doing on the psychological or the

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therapy end of things, not just for diabetics, but for some of the other

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people that we're working with as well, too.

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Can you talk about what the process is of how do you train dogs for these purposes?

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So we train dogs specifically for three different purposes.

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I'm going to categorize them into three.

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Our organization has grown.

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We're now known as the National Institute

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of Canine Service and Training Dogs for Diabetics as being one of our programs.

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The other program we have is called First Response Canine, that is, for our first

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responders who have served and have post traumatic stress injuries.

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And then we also have a program called Love on Leashes.

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And that's kind of where I'm going to focus.

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A lot of our attention today is on the

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Love Unleashes program, and that's for youth ages 12 to 25.

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So up to the young adult range who are experiencing severe anxiety.

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And when we talk about severe anxiety,

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we're talking about debilitating anxiety where they can't function

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a normal day like me and you going into work and things like that.

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And the interesting thing about this is that as we were training the dogs for

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diabetics and people who live with a chronic disease, we saw that some of the

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benefits coming out of the dogs, aside from alerting to blood sugar was the

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psychological benefits and the therapy that the dogs were giving people who are,

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I'm going to say, anxious about their blood sugars.

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And a blood sugar drop can be very debilitating very, very quickly.

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And so a type one diabetic has a tendency to want to keep their blood sugars stable

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or maybe a little bit high, and the dogs were able to give them a little bit of

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reassurance that they were in a safe place with the dog.

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The dog was going to let them know if their blood sugars were dropping.

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We have technology today that will do that, but the dog is typically about ten

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to 20 minutes ahead of any technology that the consumer has available to them.

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So it's still a pretty remarkable thing that the dogs can do.

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But we train them on scent from other diabetics.

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So we collect scent and we do a scent

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discrimination process where we reward the dog for identifying the correct scent.

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And we actually collect sweat.

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You could collect breath and there's other things that you could collect, but sweat

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is not a biohazard, number one, and then also really easy to work with.

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And so we work with the dogs on the sweat.

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So I want to take a step back and ask you what inspired this work that you're doing.

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And more specifically, you talked about

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being the first to interact with dogs to detect diabetes.

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What even sparked or triggered that

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curiosity to say, hey, maybe a canine can help with this?

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Sure.

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So take a step back almost at least well 25 years ago.

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So I've been a type one diabetic for more than half of my life, and so I was living

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with type one diabetes back in those days, 30 more or more years ago.

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It was just assumed if you were a type one diabetic that you were going to go blind.

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That was just one of the side effects.

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Now let me just stay right up front for

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any type one diabetic that's listening to us that is no longer true.

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We have so much better control and so many

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more tools than what we had 30 and 40 years ago.

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But I got involved and started volunteering.

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I wanted to pay forward with guide dogs

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for the blind, thinking that one day I would need a guide dog.

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And so I got involved with that

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organization, and that's how I got started with dogs.

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And it was actually in New York City one

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night in 2001 that I had a very low blood sugar.

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The dog did not alert on me.

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That's one of the myths that you hear in the story that's been published.

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But the dog did not alert on me, but it did help me through that low blood sugar.

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And I was able to get myself the help that I needed to get myself conscious.

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And I was not unconscious, but I'd probably had a seizure at that point.

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And so the dog was just there with me, and that's what inspired me.

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It was just I'm working on breathalyzer

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technology and I was working with dogs and I thought, okay, what can a dog do?

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What can a breathalyzer do?

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I just put those two things together and

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that's how I started the three year research project into diabetes.

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20 plus years laterwow.

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Dogs for Diabetes is doing this amazing work.

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We've put out over 200 dogs. Yeah.

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Wow. Oh, my gosh.

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So this whole season that we're doing on

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the So curious podcast, we are talking about mental health.

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So what is it that you think, in your opinion, and this is open ended, but what

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do you think that taking care of your mental health mean?

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Like, what does that mean to you?

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That's a really good question.

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And I'm not a mental health expert, so

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I'll put that right out front as a disclaimer.

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Okay.

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But I have lived with mental health issues, with friends and family.

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We did lose one of our teens to suicide a number of years ago, seven years ago.

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So we know what it's like to live through a family loss of losing somebody.

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And that's really what inspired me to

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start the Love on Leashes program, is I didn't want another family to have to go

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through what our family went through in losing a 15 year old boy.

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So mental health really flies the gamut across so many things.

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And I think that really, when I look at

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mental health, I like to look at also the physical health.

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And I know the buzz word today is

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wellness, but we were talking about wellness ten years ago.

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It just wasn't a buzz word.

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And really, when we look at it, we need to be looking at balancing the mental health

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with the physical health and having the overall wellness of everything.

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And really, the two can't go without each other because your physical health is

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definitely going to impact your mental health and vice versa.

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If you are depressed, you're less likely to eat healthy, you're less likely to get

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out and exercise, you're less likely to even sit outside in the sunshine.

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And so when I think about mental health, I really have to think about the entire

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package of what I like to call human wellness.

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So it's the whole being that is well, and

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not just the mental aspect of it, but the health.

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And I've struggled with both sides of it.

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I've seen the effects of living with a

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chronic disease for more than half my lifetime.

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I have been through cancer and other

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things that have been very difficult for me.

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And it was easy to say in those moments, oh, I put on a warrior type attitude and

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said, I can learn how to do something again after I had a very debilitating

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stroke a number of years ago when I got the H1n1 virus.

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So that was before we were aware of all

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the side effects of COVID But I still went through the mental health pieces of

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saying, how am I going to get through this?

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How am I going to do this?

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And things like that.

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So, again, I think that the two can't be separated, physical and mental health.

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Mark, thank you so much for sharing.

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I really appreciate that.

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Can you talk about any training that can be done with a dog that can maybe detect

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anxiety and how that might be able to relieve anxiety?

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So the approach that we're taking, and let me just say, there's multiple paths to the

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summit and there's some very excellent other dog programs out there that also

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have ideas and what they're doing, we're taking the scent based approach.

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So the scent based approach where the dog smells the cortisol, and we feel like

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that's one of the biggest precursors to helping the person intervene with the

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anxiety, or let's even say an anxiety attack.

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And then what we try to do is have that person calm themselves with the dog.

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Now, there's a few things that we do with the dog.

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One is just the physical touch, so the dog may interrupt an anxiety attack.

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Sometimes people pick at themselves or they chew their fingernails or they do

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other things when they've got high anxiety.

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So the dog may do some interrupting skills.

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The other thing that we train the dogs to

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do is literally a cuddle, and not all dogs like to cuddle,

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That's so true.

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And so we actually train the dog how to cuddle.

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Most shepherds are not cuddly dogs.

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Labradors love to cuddle, but most shepherds do not.

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So that's more of a trained skill that we give them.

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And so we teach them how to cuddle, and

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not just to wrap your arms, but to get in a position where you can feel the breath

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of the dog or you can hear the heartbeat of the dog or whatever.

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So we do that.

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Now, that's not always possible.

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So we also have what we call pressure

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therapy, where the dog may come up halfway onto your lap or something like that.

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So there's some trained skills that we do.

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You mentioned the breathing heartbeat.

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Is there like a synchronization process or something like that?

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How does that work? You've hit the nail on the head.

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Nice Bey. You hit it.

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Let's go.

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So this is something that you can do with your pet dog.

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I suppose you could do it with a cat.

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I'm pretty allergic to cats, so I have not tried it, but I think it would work.

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I suppose you could even do it with a horse.

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There's a lot of horse therapy that goes on as well too.

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So what I recommend doing is with your dog, if you have a dog, is just laying

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down with your dog, hopefully you can get your head so that you can lay your head on

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his or her chest or next to it, listen to the heartbeat.

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Now, dogs have almost twice as fast heartbeats as what humans have.

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So you can't necessarily count on the

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heartbeat, but maybe every other heartbeat or every third heartbeat, take a deep

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breath and use that as your tick tock in and out breathing exercise that you might.

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Do in a meditation, but it's a heartbeat.

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And the other thing that you can do is the breathing of the dog.

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So when the dog breathes in, you breathe in.

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Now, the bigger the dog, the longer the

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respirations are going to be closer to a human.

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If you're working with a small breed dog,

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you're probably going to have to do half of their breathing.

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So breathe in with the dog and exhale with the dog.

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So a sleeping Labrador is going to probably be snoring a little bit.

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Breathe in with the dog, breathe out with the dog, and they become your monitor.

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And it's actually just such a natural way of monitoring your breathing.

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So if you're feeling anxious and you want

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to slow down your breath or slow down your thoughts, slow down your thoughts with

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that heartbeat and that breathing exercise.

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That's simple.

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Everybody can do it at home, and it works magic, let me tell you.

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Put on some Lo fi hip hop beats with your dog.

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Yeah. Right! What a sceince behind it. Yeah. you can do that too.

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I know. In your opinion, completely opinion based,

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what is the difference in receiving comfort from a dog versus a person?

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It's huge.

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Now, there's benefits to both, right? Mhmm

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But that dog is going to be unconditional love.

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That dog is not going to be thinking about his response while you're forming your

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question or your thoughts and trying to give their experience.

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That dog is 100% nonjudgmental.

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They communicate through their eyes and their listening and their soul.

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I encourage people talk to your dog, and even before we were doing mental health,

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we talked about the fact that it's healthy.

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When you're training a service dog, for

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example, to talk to them, they can be some of the best therapists.

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You can talk about your problems with your dog, and they just look at you with their

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eyes and allow you to bury your soul if you want to bury your soul with them.

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Oh, my Gosh. This is a wonderful way to wrap up the

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interview, but I'm going to ask one last question.

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Can we see your dog? Sure.

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Give me just a second to wake her up.

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She's really snoring.

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She's right here by my feet. I'll grab her.

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I can't hear her snoring at all, actually so.

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It's a light snore.

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She can snore pretty darn loud.

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Hello.

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Sorry to wake you up. Hi.

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What's the puppy's name?

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Her name is Amelia Earhart. Hi, Amelia Earhart.

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And we call her Millie.

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Oh, Millie. Thank you.

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Well Mark.

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Thank you so much for taking time to honestly share all of these experiences.

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Thank you.

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Yeah. Thank you so much, Mark and Millie, for coming on the podcast.

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Yeah, that was incredible.

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I'm so sad that this is an audio only show.

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An audience can't get to see Amelia

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Earhart, but trust us, she was incredibly adorable.

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And the work that these dogs do is really important.

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Ughh.And she's going to be so helpful to someone someday.

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She's already such a good employee.

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She's so talented.

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I'm emailing this guy.

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Yeah.

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Can Millie work for me?

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Put me on a waiting list? Yeah.

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All right. So on that warm and fuzzy note, this

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brings us to the end of another episode of So Curious.

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Please make sure to tune in for next week's episode.

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You're not going to want to miss it.

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We're going to be chatting with Becca Lane, who is the outreach coordinator of

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the Philadelphia chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, or Nami, to

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talk on the categories and language that we use around mental health.

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Yeah. Thank God for Acronyms.

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It's going to be a great episode, so don't miss it.

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This podcast is made in partnership with Radio Kismet.

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Radio Kismet is Philadelphia's premiered podcast production studio.

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This podcast is produced by Amy Carson and Emily Cherish of Radio Kismet.

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This podcast is also produced by Joy

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Montefusco, Jayatri Das and Aaron Armstrong of the Franklin Institute.

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Head of operations is Christopher Plant.

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Our assistant producer is Seneca White,

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our mixed engineer is Justin Burger and our audio editor is Lauren DeLuca.

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Our graphic designer is Emma Seager.

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And I'm Kirsten.

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Michelle Cills. I'm the bull Bey.

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See you next week.

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Stay curious.

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