- Boomer, where are you?

Boy - Boomer.

Sometimes the unthinkable happens, but with the help of Love Lost and its pet image recognition software, you can upload your pet's photo to our national database.

It's open to all.

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At Love Lost we believe pets belong at home with those who love them.

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- Hi, I'm Olivia.

And I'm Jane Lynch.

You may know me from Glee, but what you might not know is my love of shelter pets.

Olivia's 13 years old, I've had her ever since she was a little puppy, and adopting her has brought so much joy to my life.

And right now there are hundreds of thousands of amazing dogs and cats in shelters across the country that need our help.

Shelter Me is a series of inspiring stories that celebrate the difference these pets can make in our lives.

- In this episode, we'll see shelter dogs that are given a second chance, by being trained to save human lives.

We'll see an innovative program that helps communities spay and neuter their pets.

And we'll go along with a couple as they visit their local shelter to adopt a cat.

We'll also follow volunteers who take their shelter dogs to a hospital to bring comfort to those in need.

Shelter pets are an extraordinary breed.

They're the absolute best.

And Olivia's one.

Please visit your local shelter to find out all the ways you can help.

Your best friend is just a shelter away, ♪ Love is everything.

♪ ♪ Your love can shelter me ♪ ♪ There's nothing it won't bring ♪ ♪ Open your heart and breathe.

♪ - Dogs can do something special that no human can do.

They can find people who are buried and potentially alive.

- Hey, there's somebody down here.

The Search Dog Foundation's mission is to strengthen disaster response in America.

- We go into shelters and rescue dogs, and we train them to become rescuers.

- Dogs that would normally be euthanized.

- These dogs have the ability to save lives, and they have, and they do.

- We give them professional training, and then we pair them up with first responders, usually firefighters.

- One of the best days of my life was when the search dog foundation came to me and at no cost to my department or myself, handed me the leash of this dog, Hunter, and said, go forth and save lives.

That's all we ask of you.

- With more and more disasters happening in this country, more and more of these teams are needed.

- Nothing else has been shown to be as effective as a dog that is searching.

There is not one machine or piece of technology out there that can do what these dogs can do.

- Come on guys.

- Wilma Melville is our founder and a very special person in my heart.

She's my mentor.

She was a retired school teacher and at 60 years old started wanting to learn about disaster surge, and she trained her dog, Murphy, got certified, and then she responded to the Oklahoma City bombing.

- At nine o'clock this morning an explosion occurred at the Alfred Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City.

- When we got off the bus in Oklahoma City at the site of the bombing, we were struck with the size of it.

Where are we going to begin?

How can we do this?

I could tell that one or two task forces are not gonna make a dent in what needs to be done there.

At that time, 1995, in this entire nation, there were approximately 15 FEMA-certified teams.

The Oklahoma City bombing used 11 task forces.

When I saw how many teams are needed for one building a block long, I realized, oh, this country is way behind in canine disaster search teams.

When I got home, I began to wonder, why was it me, a civilian, a little old lady from Ojai?

How come I find myself at a disaster?

It should be a younger person.

Had I been a firefighter, I could have done the job ever so much better.

I began to realize, I knew now three things.

It took the right handler, the right dog, and the best training for both.

In those days, people were typically taking three and even four years to train one dog.

If you take that long to train the dog, there's not very much dog life left to do the actual searching should you be called.

- And so our founder's goal was to be able to shorten that process.

And so she started by rescuing the dogs and that way you already knew the characteristics that you were inheriting.

When you got that dog outta the shelter, you knew it had the right traits to become a search and rescue dog.

- Most everyone was raising a puppy and hoping that that dog would have the drive and want to be a search dog.

Sometimes they were lucky and it was the right dog, but many times it was not.

I thought, where am I going to get the dogs?

And so I thought, let me try the shelters.

Let me see if there are dogs in there that can do the job.

And there were.

Shelters were a gold mine for dogs that had been tossed onto the trash heap.

Tossed there because they were pesky, noisy, so much energy.

That dog ends up in the shelter.

And if I find it, that's a day of celebration.

Finding the dog with the characteristics needed is not easy.

The dog has to have what we call high drive.

That means that he wants a job, he wants a toy.

- When people are buried underneath rubble, time is of the essence.

You know, every minute counts.

And that's the beauty of these dogs using their nose.

They can cover that rubble in a very short period of time and tell us whether there's someone there or not.

If there's someone there, they tell the rescuers where to start digging.

And then they can also, just as important, they can tell us if there's nobody there, and that enables all the rescue people to move on to other areas, so they're not wasting those resources.

They can go where they're really needed.

- Did you win that toy?

- I had the opportunity to actually respond to the World Trade Center, and that was my very first disaster search.

When you're out there, it really hits you, the responsibility that falls on your shoulders.

When you tell them that there's nobody there, you have to have 100% trust in your training and in your canine partner that you did not leave somebody there.

If not, you would never be able to sleep when you got home.

- The six to seven month training program that the dog enters is very much like a boot camp.

At first, the dog is taught to bark for a toy.

As soon as they're barking well for the toy, we then begin to assure ourselves that they can become search dogs by teaching them that they are to look for a live human.

Find the scent.

Bark, bark, bark at the place where that scent is the strongest.

Stay there until we get there.

- Although the handlers look at this as a very, very serious job, the dogs don't see it that way.

We train them like it's a game for them.

They're having the time of their life.

When that person is found in the rubble, that's where the fun is.

And so to them, even when they show up at a disaster, they're playing the same game.

To the dog it's hide and seek.

I go find the person, and that's where the fun is.

Typically, the Search Dog Foundation recruits our handlers among firefighters.

Our handlers do not get to choose the dog.

- Sundowners kennel has been known for many, many years.

I started it in 1967.

I started working with Wilma long before the foundation became a reality.

She had a search dog who she was having some problems, and I helped her solve those problems.

And that's the dog that eventually went on to go to Oklahoma City.

And of course that was the catalyst actually for the foundation starting.

Do you know how many times we've stood here watching handlers waiting for their dog to come through the door?

It's very exciting.

But I want you to know that this is the beginning of at least a 12-year relationship.

It's gonna last longer than most people's marriages do these days.

So I just want you to know, it's exciting.

It will have a lot of pitfalls in it.

We are here to support you no matter where you are.

You're only a phone call away.

This is Roxy.

Somebody wound her up this morning.

- That's right.

Just remember, you don't have to wear a face mask, but you have to be very quick.

You can tell that she has fair amount of pizazz.

So that's dog number one.

- Energy to spare.

- That's right.

And she's a little shepherd cross of, of some sort.

She has the most beautiful eyes in the world.

And here comes your second dog, Java.

And here is Java.

Do you see what I'm saying?

Ignoring her actually will work very well.

And she's trying to get through that gate because she knows the toys are in the bucket.

So Java, we feel is, is a Bloodhound cross.

If you'll take her away, then you and Sharon and I will talk about what we think.

- The dogs are really way up here right now as far as they're learning.

The handlers are down here.

And it'll take about, you know, I would say about six months for that to kind of come even.

- You are going to walk and you are going to take that little dog right there.

- Hi Roxy.

- We're gonna wait.

And Eric, you get Java.

- Java wait.

- Yes.

Good, good.

Watch your head.

- She's a good looking dog.

She seems to listen very well right now, so I, I'm hoping for great things with her.

- Well, we got a lot of training to do.

We got a long ways to go, but we'll get, we'll get there eventually.

And it's definitely been worth it, worth the wait.

- Roxy, heel.

- Over the years we have produced 140 search dogs that are out there doing things.

Now many have retired and so we're always replacing them.

We have a methodology that puts a handler and a dog together in a way that leads to success.

We found that if we've trained the dogs and then pair them with a firefighter, we have the best of all possible worlds.

- I wanna check out, see how your footwork is, and have you and Java start working as a team, forward.

- Java, heel.

- I want you to walk a little faster.

Think about her breaking almost into a trot when you're moving.

Pick up those feet, Eric.

About turn.

- See what you wanna think about is your hand's always next to your body.

And if you feel it get tight, you give a pop and then you put it back.

You wanna make sure, if she's not paying attention to you, don't let her put tension on the leash.

Give her a little pop.

It's not really a correction so much as a pay attention to me.

- And a little faster.

When they both came in, I have to say Java was the harder nut to crack, our brindle girl.

She just has a lot of hound in her and that's not as easily trainable, where Roxy has pretty much been a rock star since the time she got here.

She was meant to do this kind of work and she loves to have a job.

Java is going to be an amazing search dog and she's going to give her handler a lot to think about.

- Get up, wait.

Good.

- The dogs that we train are not the dogs that we were training 25 years ago.

We are getting better as trainers, we are refining the techniques.

We are becoming more readily able to pick the qualities that we need to have an end product.

Not all the dogs that we take in, that we think are going to work, actually end up graduating after X number of months.

They just don't.

The ones that haven't have gone on to become wonderful drug dogs and arson dogs because they could do everything except the footing.

So now we're more careful about that.

We test footing right from the get-go very, very strongly so that we are sure not to keep a dog that doesn't want to get its feet wet or get onto something that's a little dodgy - Climb.

- That's it.

Climb.

Cynthia already, right from the beginning, she was concentrating.

She wanted to be right.

She's very precise.

Putting her with a dog like Roxy, who is precise, a shepherd, very spatially aware, this is how we should do stuff.

It seemed almost a given.

Now you couldn't get nicer than that.

I mean, honest to God, very careful.

She's much more careful of her feet than Java is.

Java just says whatever.

It falls through things.

- That's it.

Climb.

- Just take a step forward.

There you go.

Looking at his demeanor, I think Eric, he's going to be able to be patient with Java and not lose his commitment to it and get upset.

I think he can absorb a lot of maybe not such great responses until he gets a handle on that relationship.

- Good job.

- Excellent.

Nice.

- He's a problem solver and a little bit more easygoing and he's going to need that with a dog like Java.

Things are going good.

She's testing her limits, but she's got a lot of energy.

She's got a lot of potential.

She's been trained really well up until this point.

Now I just gotta catch up to her.

- She is fabulous.

- Good job.

She already knows everything we're doing.

I just have to figure out how they were teaching her before and trying to get her to listen to me.

- Have her sit.

- Sit.

- Good.

- Hook her up.

- Because Roxy's a shelter dog to me, it's kind of, it's kind of cool.

- A lot of the animals in the shelter, they're usually there for a reason.

You know, somebody can't handle 'em or they don't know what they're getting themselves into.

And it just takes people to recognize their potential with the right shaping.

They can go from being locked up in that shelter, in death row, and be able to do some real good in the country.

- In this field, what we call the direction control field, the handler will send his dog towards objectives, - Sit, stay.

- When the dog gets there, he will make sure the dog stays there until he's ready to move the dog by hand signal and voice and whistle.

- Keep going, keep going.

Just keep going.

Walk, walk, walk until she, keep going.

Now stop.

- Get up.

Sit.

Good.

Fabulous.

Over.

This is how we start them off.

Running from one thing to another and staying there until directed to do otherwise.

Doing direction control is eventually going to mean that you can direct a dog in a search to cover areas that it may not have covered on its own, and you could move it into a more advantageous wind direction so it would have the opportunity to scent a victim that was buried.

So these are exercises that are designed to teach the dog how to respond to signals from its handler.

It takes a while for them to learn how to do this.

And obviously when you see the patterns, they're going to objects that are very obvious to us.

But when you translate that to a rubble pile, as a handler you would want to direct your dog to a higher elevation because a scent would be coming up.

And so they would get more information more rapidly and be able to indicate where a live human victim was.

- The reason the search dog handlers and their dogs spend so much time training, being constantly ready, in a state of readiness, is for the victim.

I can't stress enough that all these hours training and doing demonstrations is for one sole purpose, and that's to find a live human being.

- We're in Albany, New York at the task force training sites, and we're here today, actually this whole week for an Iron Dog competition.

- Iron Dog is sponsored by the Search Dog Foundation and we have 20 handlers from across the United States come out here in New York.

We get to see how other teams across the United States train.

How they use their dogs and their search theories, and then they get to see ours.

- We've been doing this annual event since 2002, and the whole objective is to put on a mock disaster.

They will have a search team manager that will be four teams paired up just like they do when they go on a real deployment.

- It is a competition in a sense, but in reality it's excellent training.

- The way the FEMA system is set up with the 28 teams in the United States, is on a rotation schedule.

So not every disaster is seen by every team around the country.

The value of the mentor process is to teach the lessons learned on previous disasters, and we're basically creating scenarios and mentoring on what to see in the future, what they may see.

It's a little gnarlier than we normally do, but that's what training's about, you know, push us and the dogs to the limit.

- The victim is the most important thing to that canine.

And if it wasn't for you guys willing to kind of hide from that dog and let that dog alert on you, the dogs would just stop working.

So I just wanna reiterate from the state of New York, from the division of Homeland Security, how happy we are that you guys are willing to come out and do this.

So thank you very, very much.

The idea here is to take these dogs at the level they're at, their level of training, and just improve on that.

So these dogs are ready.

And the best way I can describe it to you is, if your son or daughter were trapped inside a collapsed building, we wanna make sure that the canine we send is absolutely 100% prepared to find that child for you.

- The training schedule on top of my regular work schedule is a little hectic.

I have less of a personal life, but now I have a constant companion at home and another extra little bit of work to do while I'm at work at the station.

But generally speaking, it's good.

- It's been just life as usual, just another dog at the house.

Now she comes everywhere I go.

It's kind of like having a kid, you know, everywhere you go, you gotta plan.

Okay, do I have a place for my dog or do I have somebody to look after my dog if I want to go out some night?

- Now I have to make sure that she is able to use the restroom when she needs to.

She eats on time, she gets the training that she needs.

Kind of like taking a child to school.

And then on top of the training at the station, I have to make sure that she gets to the training that's with our group where we have an actual leader that teaches us and makes sure that we're on the right track.

So yeah, she really is tied to my hip.

- To be a search dog handler takes a special breed.

The commitment is over the top.

You're talking about hours and hours away from your family.

Wear and tear on your vehicle, miles on the freeway, all for one person.

And that's that someday, hopefully, your dog will find a live human being.

The disaster may not come, but that dog has to be constantly ready, always training, just like firefighters.

We never know when a disaster's gonna hit - Search.

It is one of my jobs to come back, put together lessons learned and disseminate it throughout the country to other teams.

Are we training in the right direction?

So part of that mentor program is to teach Eric and Cynthia what they have no clue of what's ahead of them.

Otherwise we would always be rookies.

Our experience in Haiti was a life-altering experience for our team.

The destruction and death everywhere was overwhelming for everyone.

The first search that Hunter was actually put on, I brought him up to the edge of the debris pile, just like you saw in the training.

He took a direct route across the top of the building, started to circle around, and at that point I knew he was on to something.

He started penetrating between the floors, trying to get back as close as we could because we want the dogs to get as close as we can to the victims.

Did not know what we had, and it turned out to be three women that were trapped underneath four stories of debris.

So the rescue team was called in and for the next seven hours this team dug in the area that we were.

When he alerted on these people was a life-changing moment for this country, for me, for the search dog foundation, and more importantly, for the team of 70 people that are about ready to help rescue what he found.

In 20 years, my department, LA County Task Force Two, we had never found a live human being.

Going back to Oklahoma, 9-11, Katrina.

They were all either deceased or we didn't find anyone.

And for many of the members of this team, this was the first time we'd had a chance to rescue a live human being.

- I think I've actually probably become even a little bit more enthusiastic about it.

It is everything that I expected.

Everybody was telling us how big of a time commitment it was, and I understood that a little bit of a financial commitment as well, and I understood that as well.

But just seeing Roxy grow and seeing her improve, every time she does something new and something better than she did last time, it makes it all the more better.

Hopefully sometime by mid-year this year we'll be certified.

We'll pass our FSA and then we'll pass our CE.

So hopefully we'll be deployable and then we could be of the best use to the City of Los Angeles and to the US that we possibly can.

Otherwise, you know, I hope to go to the next Iron Dog.

- We recently graduated two dogs and now the process has to keep going.

Heidi and I need to find other dogs to start the cycle again.

You like this?

- Yeah.

What we're looking for is a dog that engages with the toy.

Some dogs will make eye contact with me because they're just pleading, you know, please get me outta here.

Other dogs, I'll have a toy out and they'll immediately just, you know, wherever I have that toy, they're looking at the toy.

Yeah.

Oh boy, look at that - Good drive.

- Look at that.

The dogs that we use, they're very high energy, they're very focused.

They're that myopic dog that's always throwing a toy at you and pestering you to play.

And a lot of people can't handle that.

So they end up at shelters because really they're too much dog for most people.

For us, they're perfect because that tenacity, that myopic focus is what's going to save you when you've got 20 minutes to live in the rubble.

They've got to just keep searching and searching and not tire of that.

All of a sudden, whatever that grass smells like is more important to her than this toy.

If her sole focus isn't on finding her target, which is supposed to be you, you very well could expire if she gets distracted and wants to go smell the hamburger that's under the rubble.

All right, so this is the boy that we had in Bin 98.

Hey buddy.

Hey bud.

Oh yeah, you like that.

What we're looking for is to see if he stays engaged with the toy.

That's good enough.

So what I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna throw the toy way up there and see if he'll go up on this pallet.

There we go.

Which he's gonna have to watch where his feet are going.

There's a void space.

Good boy.

He stayed interested in the toy the whole time, even though he is really tired right now.

He still has that toy with him.

That's victim loyalty, we call that.

And that means when he finds you, he's gonna stay with you until the rescuer arrives.

Now that we're at 135 teams trained, there has always been in my heart a desire to train 168 teams, one for each person who died in Oklahoma.

At first, I never thought that was possible.

When you start with three, now that we're at 135 and more are coming, I think in 2014, we'll hit that number.

- Watts is basically about 15 to 20 miles away from Santa Monica, Beverly Hills area.

It is a whole 'nother world.

We have strays by the hundreds.

I mean you can walk down the street and in the next five minutes find 5, 10, 15 strays.

Half of them will be dead in the middle of the street on the side of the sidewalk.

So this is why it's very important for us to have the Amanda Foundation.

They are the mobile clinic that comes all the way from Beverly Hills down to Watts and offers free spay, neuter, vaccines and chip, free of charge to our low income residents here.

- So thank you all for being here.

This Saturday is our annual Christmas in Watts and Amanda hit the streets today and giving out the flyers.

The reason it's so important for us to come to this community particularly is that there isn't a veterinarian who has the address Watts, California.

For the animals, we're it to help in this neighborhood for vaccines, for education, for spay and neuter.

You figure last year we did 7,000 free surgeries.

So if even half that number of animals had one litter of six, that's over 20,000 puppies and kittens that weren't born only to end up on the street.

So this is what makes a difference.

- Some people, if they can't afford to keep their dog, they'll do the right thing and take it to a shelter or reach out to a rescue.

Some people just dump them and oh my goodness, there's a litter with puppies that somebody dropped.

Some of these dogs that are giving birth are homeless their self.

So the minute these puppies are born, they're automatically born into being strays.

I don't really want these puppies here.

This is horrible.

These small businesses, recycling centers, auto body shops, they'll take in these strays and use them as their guard dogs.

Can you please get me that dog?

- Yeah, I'll get that dog.

Dog Man is a good friend of mine.

He is a dog trainer here in Watts and throughout South LA.

- I've been dealing with dogs practically all my life, and this is the worse I have ever seen with the strays running the street.

- Hi Terry.

I came across a litter of five puppies.

These dogs are living in filth.

They're living in the middle of the street.

They have no - Bring them in.

- Okay.

Did you get him?

- Yep.

- All right.

- I just try to help 'em, but I just can't help 'em all.

So if it wasn't for these organizations, I don't know what I'd be doing.

- Amanda said to get the address down and she'll come.

We'll come back and pick up the mom.

- All right - This is my reality.

This is their reality.

This is the life the dogs here in Watts live.

I have five puppies and we're gonna do the best we can.

We're gonna get going, I'm gonna get them over to the Amanda Foundation and get them the help they need.

Without our help, who's gonna help them?

So this is the reason why I do this every day.

- What we're doing today is spay neuter outreach to the community.

It's a very grassroots program here and it's really word of mouth.

And the day that we're here, some of the neighbors go through the different projects and say, Hey, they're here today.

And then people start coming across and it's sort of like the field of dreams.

You know, you build it and they'll come.

- Are you low income?

Do your own a dog?

Then this is the clinic for you.

- And he's here to get neutered.

- Yes.

- What we have been able to do in Los Angeles is really enlighten a lot of communities about the availability of spay and neuter and why they wanna do it.

And now we're busy, now people want to have it done.

- It's a big day for Snowball.

So, you know, I'm happy for her, you know, get it done, you know.

- If you wanna tell those people about this program I'd be happy to get those puppies fixed too.

Oh, I'll definitely.

- So I'm gonna give you a schedule.

Does he need vaccines?

- Vaccine?

I'll give him his vaccines because he's already neutered.

I wanna help you, you did the right thing.

I wanna help you out, give you free vaccines.

- We will probably do about 30 or 40 surgeries today.

We find that these vans look really, really great for us, the mobile clinics.

And we're able to get a lot more surgeries done than we would in a regular full service veterinary hospital.

- I speak Spanish.

- You speak only Spanish?

- Okay, let see if I can find somebody who speaks Spanish.

So this lady came in today to get her dog vaccinated.

I talked her into getting her dogs spayed today.

And we will have less homeless dogs on the street today.

- Excited!

She's excited.

- She is.

She's a house dog.

It's more than just dogs.

This is about people.

This is about talking to people and taking the time and not just educating.

If you're not ready today what's preventing you from doing this?

I really wanna know.

- Hey, hey, hey.

How you doing?

- How you doing?

Are these yours?

- Yes.

- Oh, they're beautiful.

What we try to do is we try to make friends with people.

I'm not gonna get anywhere lecturing anybody.

And clearly I'm not from the neighborhood.

And what business do I have coming here and telling people their business.

And if I come in with that attitude, nothing happens.

- Have you considered spaying her?

- Next time she has a puppy, she's good to be fixed.

- Yeah.

Okay.

- And I'll be able to call him in a few months and say, or a month from now and say, so you thought about more about getting your dogs spayed or neutered and do you still have those puppies?

And a lot of times people come back to me and if I can make a friend, I might get to spay and neuter those dogs.

And that's my goal.

- We're gonna neuter him and give him his vaccines.

All right?

And good for you for getting it done because you know how many pits are just ending up in the pound.

There's not a lot of spay mobile programs across the country.

I know of about seven and ours is the most successful.

We are the only one I know that does the volume of dogs especially and the volume of large breed dogs especially.

- We returned to the location where the five puppies that were rescued by myself and Dog Man on Tuesday.

We were able to find the mother.

We brought her here today so we can get her spayed and vaccinated with the promise that we would return her, - Me and you.

Me and you are animal control.

I mean it.

Oh, your daughter's dog had puppies?

Half the people we talked to.

Where'd you get your dog?

My neighbor had a litter.

My aunt's dog had a litter and now their dog has had two or three litters.

So you see where the problem is?

So it's rampant out there.

This backyard breeding.

So there's a problem and this is the answer.

- So are you gonna bring him back and let me spay him?

- Okay.

Yeah, we'll bring 'em here.

It's free, we might as well.

- It is free.

- The vast majority of people go, yeah, I'm on board.

And they'll do it.

And so then we get that mother dog in and we stop the cycle there.

- Maybe I can spay that mom.

- The mom and dad there too.

- Carlos, I'll do your whole neighborhood.

- Okay.

It's just making it available and providing the education about it.

- I can do him today.

Did he eat?

When's the last time that he ate?

- This morning.

- This morning?

Okay.

- But the thing is that I have to bring $20, no?

- No, man.

This is free.

- Yeah, yeah.

What about the shots?

- It's free.

Am I not your favorite person?

- I don't want him neutered.

- Yeah, you do.

We're not gonna do you.

Just the dog.

So you let me neuter him?

- Yeah - Sure.

Okay, lemme take him on board.

Come here good boy.

Oh, he's handsome.

He's a handsome boy.

He's a good boy.

And now he's gonna be a good neutered boy.

If you've got thousands of animal shelters across the country and all of them are full, clearly you're doing something wrong.

So we'll never adopt our way out of the problem.

That's part of the answer, but it's not the whole answer.

The most effective fast answer is aggressive spay and neuter that will make the difference.

We've proven it here in Los Angeles.

In 2000, we were taking in 75,000 animals into our shelters.

After five years of the spay mobile program being on the ground, we were able to reduce that to 56,000.

So if everybody across the country was being as aggressive with their spay neuter as we are, I think that we could solve the problem.

I really believe that.

- Tell your friends.

Okay?

We wanna help everybody.

All righty, I'll bring him right out.

Here's Snowball, Look at his tail wag.

So when anybody says, oh, I think it's a frill, free service, I say no, no.

You can either spend your tax dollars, housing animals only to kill them and dispose of them.

Or you can spend your tax dollars preventing the problem.

- Nice little dog.

She loves you.

- In Latin the name Amanda means worthy of love.

So our charity isn't named after a person, but rather our philosophy of how we feel our dogs and cats should be treated, that they're worthy of our love.

Like any social problem, it's two steps forward, one step back.

But I know that we can, in my lifetime, change the wholesale slaughter of surplus animals.

That it doesn't have to happen, and it can change - A lot of kitties here.

You know, Grant's like five months old.

So I'm thinking - You might need someone to engage him a little more.

- Yeah, he's a little bit wild.

- It might be great to have an older cat, right?

- They've got some real cute ones.

I saw them online.

- Well, let's check them - First cat we see.

- Yeah.

- In the door, fall in lovee, right?

How's that going to work out?

- Too many people, they come to the shelter and they think it's gonna be like this dark and dreary place.

It's nothing but a bunch of concrete and a bunch of depressed animals.

And it's really not the case because it's run by people.

It's run by very compassionate people.

And we always want to try and get the best outcome for as many animals as possible.

- Hi, we are kitty shopping.

We've got a little five monther at home.

- Excellent.

Why don't you guys come on back with me, we'll go check out our community rooms.

Welcome to the cat room.

Let go ahead and take a look.

And they all have different personalities and you can kind of get a little bit of a feel for them here.

- She's sweet.

This cat is gorgeous.

Oh, his owner gave him up.

Wow.

Another owner surrender.

- Most of these animals lived in homes.

The main reason why animals show up at the shelters, when owners turn them in, it's because they can't find a place to live with their pet.

- She's like a work of art.

Another reason also is just because of the economy.

After 2008 when you had the markets crash, that's when we started seeing just people turning in pet after pet after pet.

Because they had to move from a larger place to a smaller place.

- Well this is, this is hard.

They're all beautiful.

They all need a home.

I've fallen in love at least four times.

- We have so much variety.

You'll find purebred, you'll find mixed breeds.

You can find what you're looking for at the shelters.

And these days with the way the website works, you can cater your search.

So if you don't find something in this one, we've got five other shelters that work with us.

- He came in as a stray, but he's so friendly and sweet.

He's 10 years old.

- I dunno if I'm strong enough to lift your weight.

You're so big.

- There you go baby.

A lot of people have been coming in to adopt older cats.

Well they know their manners.

- They do.

- And they know how to do everything.

Socks is a year old.

Again, another stray, but obviously used to people.

- Absolutely.

- Oh, look at that.

She's cuddling up.

- And you guys are always willing to let people spend the time like this with a kitty.

Get to know the kitty.

- Yes.

- Yes.

- Oh, that's working.

Oh, that's, that's working for Ricky.

Oh, I tell people over and over again.

You know, you might be coming in and if it's not perfect, pass it up.

I've had couples that have been coming in for four or five months looking for that perfect animal and then when they hit it's like magic.

- Yes.

I'm kitty approved here.

- I'd love to show you guys another cat room.

- Okay.

- This is more of like an open space for them.

- Hi guys.

Oh my.

Hi.

Aren't you big?

I've already got a purr.

It's gonna be hard to beat this little bug.

- Still got that new cat smell.

- Yeah, she is the one.

Can we kiss Kitty?

- Yep.

What are you doing?

Oh boy.

Well the best pets do come from the shelter and say what you want.

But I think the animals get it.

When animals come here, they know what's going on.

They know that they're going to a forever home and, and that really does make the difference.

It's important just to remember that you want to look for what's gonna make you happy and you're gonna find it here.

And you're gonna come across a bunch of smiling people who love to do what they do.

- Oh, she's coming.

There she is.

Hi Jake.

Alrighty.

Hi baby.

Okay.

Oh my gosh, she's so pretty.

Right.

Alright, so she's ours.

I can pick her up.

Go ahead.

We saw a lot of good kitties today, but you won.

You're perfect.

Nobody pushed us.

We took all the time we wanted with the animals.

Jake, he knew all those cats.

He could tell us all about 'em.

I had a lot of fun today.

- This place changed my attitude about city or county shelters because all the people are really, really nice.

The animals are clean, the place is clean.

It's just great.

I'm really impressed.

- She's gorgeous.

Thank you so much for adopting a shelter pet.

Remember to tell all your friends this is the best place to come and get a pet.

- She'll tell 'em too.

- Oh, excellent.

- Okay, we're going home.

- Let's go.

- Thanks guys.

Have a safe drive.

- All right, come on you.

- There are people that are amazed that dogs are allowed in the hospital.

My name is Jack Baron.

I'm director of the UCLA People Animal Connection, also known as PAC.

The program currently visits about 40 different departments of the hospital.

- He's very gentle.

- We go into pediatric intensive care, we go into neural intensive care.

- Hello.

- We go into pediatric surgical units.

- Oh, I had my ninth brain surgery.

- We go into the ER, which is one of my favorite places.

Some of the results we get in there, we see them smile and sometimes that's the only time they smile.

- It's Finn.

He's our four- legged friend from the People Animal Connection therapy.

- Hi Finn, come on in.

- Do you mind if Finn comes on the bed?

- No, not at all.

- Okay, great.

Come on baby.

Oh, - Currently with our approxi- mately 60 teams that we have, we do about 8 or 900 visits a month.

- Joyce?

I'm Erin.

And this is Finn.

- Erin Rice has been a volunteer for the PAC program for about four years, five years now with Finn.

Finn is this large white Labrador Pyrenees that is just the most mellow, big, lovable guy you could ever imagine.

And Erin's got this great smile and, and always has that smile on her face.

And she brings so much joy just to people.

And then she's got this wonderful dog.

They're the perfect fit really for the units they go into and they've become one of our best teams here at UCLA.

- The program started in 1994 and when you think of a hospital, I never, before I found out about this program, ever would associate someone's pet being allowed in to visit other people.

So it is unique.

We go through a lot of training to be able to be a part of this program.

And it's special because we get to go in to a patient's room and sit in a bed with them and really connect them with our dog and allow for comfort and healing, some nurturing, which is usually much needed.

- Then I come see the kids.

- I love the fact that we have shelter dogs that are coming to UCLA and giving to our staff and our patients and visitors.

They were rescued, they came home, they were trained, they've gone through all the steps and here they are lighting up everyone's face in the hallways.

That to me is remarkable.

So many of these dogs have had these horrible past experiences.

They come in, they strut their stuff, they're proud, they're confident, they're well-behaved, they're calm, and look what they're doing for people they don't even know.

- For me, it's really about building community and that he was, you know, a forgotten animal that was days from being euthanized, and now he's part of a bigger picture and giving back and that's, that's something that really touches my heart.

Hi.

Are you okay with Finn getting in the bed?

Okay, Finn, come on.

Come on Finn.

Oh my God.

Right here.

Good boy.

Look at that smile.

Jake's been talking about dogs since he's been in the hospital.

Would you like to give him a Cheerio?

My son Jacob, he's a two year law student at UCLA.

- Where's the - Cheerios?

They're over here.

- About three years ago he was diagnosed with a brain tumor and they said, we just need to watch it and we hope that you never have to have it out.

Three weeks ago he started having some more symptoms and they ended up admitting him and he had a surgery.

What originally was a small brain tumor.

Now was a large brain tumor.

- Right now we're in the neurological ICU.

They had to take out the brain tumor.

So they keep you in this room for, it feels like forever, but probably only like two weeks.

You can't really do anything.

So it's really nice just to have a dog there.

Just, you know, saying hi and being pet.

And I mean, again, I love dogs.

I think they're amazing animals and this is really, this is really great.

It's a very weird concept to be constantly tethered to something, but you know, you gotta live through it.

You just gotta love where you happen to be and know that you're gonna get great treatment and one day, maybe perhaps an awesome dog and you know, it puts a smile on your face 'cause yeah, it can be sad, but why not make it happy?

- I haven't seen him this happy since he was admitted.

You know, look at him.

This is just, this is just great.

- It blows my mind that these animals who have such an impact on on the people here could have been gone.

We could have lost them.

- I got Scout when he was eight weeks old and I found him online at the Downey shelter.

I actually wanted to get a girl dog.

So there were two girls and a boy that had gotten dropped off on Saturday.

So I went first thing Monday morning when they opened and my friend yelled at me and said, you gotta come see this dog.

And I said, no, no, no, I don't want a boy dog.

And she said, no, no, no, you don't understand.

I found your dog.

And he apparently climbed over all the other puppies to get to the front.

And so we pulled him out and he just started rolling in our lap and tugging at my sweater and obviously tugged on my heartstrings 'cause I ended up with him.

You have to pass the pet partners test before you try to get into the People Animal Connection.

It can be a really quick process if you have an amazing dog.

- Hi there.

- Look at this beautiful dog.

He's a good boy.

- He's going to check things out.

It does take about three to four months to go through all the paperwork and all the screenings and all that.

- Oh, you're a good boy.

- And then you may or may not get accepted depending on how well your dog does.

- Good.

There you go.

Good boy.

- Oh yes.

- There you go.

That wasn't hard.

Yeah.

- Oh, look at his ears.

Do your ears go up or down?

Scout.

They're usually up in squirrel hunting position.

When I got here and they said he had a stroke, I was scared.

Fortunately he's coming through and made huge progress and our golden's been missing him.

So I think it's great.

I think it's very therapeutic for, I mean we're dog lovers, but I think it would be a benefit to anybody.

Everything sounding very optimistic.

And then seeing the dog, it was just the icing on the cake.

I think he should be visiting every day.

It's a nice diversion from being in a, being in a bed with all this mechanical stuff and ice cold room and you get a warm living friendly creature.

I think it's great.

- Initially we heard doctors saying, does that work?

I mean, isn't there some problem?

The dog's too rambunctious or there's a potential infection.

And after we got enough data to show that this was really all good, they're eager to have it start in their programs.

And a number of other programs in the city have modeled themselves after this program.

We started with the idea that it was going to be good.

We couldn't see many down sides, but then we decided we better get some data.

- Hi there.

Many of these patients have a catheter inside in through their blood vessels that measures their heart output and the resistance of the blood vessels, the constriction.

And from studies comparing three different groups, one that didn't receive any special therapy.

The second group was the volunteer came in, but without the dog.

And then the third group was the volunteer bringing the dog in.

And that group showed the greatest impact in terms of blood pressure, in terms of improvement in cardiac output, reduction in cardiac work.

So that was really a substantial benefit and that was statistically analyzed.

So we knew that this was real data.

Now in addition, by talking to the patients, by taking care of thousands of patients in here, those of us who've done that know that the patients do feel better, they express it.

But we do have objective data.

So it's not anecdotal.

- The staff loves it.

We all stop what we're doing and go and alcohol our hands so we can cuddle with the dogs.

It's a fantastic program.

- It gets you out of that space with the human drama that we deal with day in and day out in a hospital.

We see a lot of sad things.

We see humans at their best and sometimes we see them at their worst and sometimes we need to be, when we're involved in that, you don't realize how that's affecting you.

And to have that moment where a dog comes in, you get some love, some unconditional love, some unconditional affection from the dog, it really can change your attitude and help you through the day.

Now if this doesn't bring a smile to your face, nothing else will.

- Bella was a rescue, she was a stray here on the streets of LA.

She's in heaven, you know, visiting people and she just loves, she loves the attention.

I think sometimes she has an idea of the work she's doing, but more often than not, she's just so gleeful to be around people.

Shelter dogs, I think they understand, they love it and they have so much love and joy to give and to give back.

And that's the amazing thing too, is with a program like this where they, they can give it back.

She loves visiting, you know, people of all ages, but she knows too how to kind of be mellow and stay outta the way when business happens.

When you're in the emergency room, she knows how to kind of back away and not have to be the center of attention.

There's so many volunteer teams in this program that have shelter pets and I think it kind of helps educate people and show people shelter dogs are just as good, if not better, than something you buy from, you know, a breeder or a pet store.

This little dog was given to me for free, no money at all.

And she's just, she's not only completely enriched my life, but she's hopefully brightened the days of everybody here at the hospital.

- My name is Nancy Lipman and I started in January of 2001.

- Good boy.

- I decided that when I could retire, I was gonna look for something that was more meaningful.

At the same time, we had gone to a rescue and adopted a dog and she happened to be the calmest dog I'd ever had.

For the first probably six weeks we wondered if we had adopted the only dog that didn't know how to bark.

- Go ahead, you can pet him, he doesn't care.

She was just so calm that the idea came to me that with training she could become a therapy dog.

So I spent a year training her in obedience and then we tried out for a group and I've been doing this ever since then.

Hi Aubrie.

I'm Nancy and this is Mo.

Can he come say hi to you?

Okay, come on big guy.

Let's go.

And down.

There you go.

Would you like me to move him up further into your lap?

Good boy.

- So cute.

- These visits just make me so high because it's just a concrete example of the fact that these dogs have an enormous impact on the quality of the patient's lives.

- It made me very happy because I haven't seen my dog Roxy in a long time and I really miss her.

I'm very excited and happy.

I can come closer.

- Hi guys.

Can we come in for a visit?

- Great.

Jonah, this is Finn.

And I'm Erin.

Can Finn come up on the bed?

- Yeah, that would be great.

Come on, let's go.

Finn.

- There we go.

- Oh, come over here.

Is that okay positioning?

That's fine.

Hi Jonah.

I'm Erin and this is Finn and he's six.

- Can you say, Finn, I'm seven.

- You're seven.

I'm seven.

You're older than the doggy.

Oh, - He loves Cheerios.

Jonah is nonverbal.

So being able to connect with someone that he doesn't have to talk to in order to do that is pretty big for him.

Last Thursday, Jonah had a hemispherectomy, so he had the left side of his brain removed completely.

He's had seizures since he was 18 months and they got to the point when we couldn't control him with medicine anymore.

So it was a hard decision, but we're really hoping that it controls his seizures and that he is able to actually do more than he was before because there was some suspicion that that side of his brain was actually preventing him from progressing as far as he could.

So it's been a big week.

He loves animals.

It's one of the things that he very clearly loves and doggy.

That's right.

Jonah doesn't sign very often.

It's only like the third time I've seen him do that.

So that's big.

Yeah, when he patted his leg, this is the sign for dog, but we have taught it to him like this.

So he, it was a 1, 2, 3, pat and right when he was looking at Finn, so he was definitely signing dog.

Yeah, he's, he's really paying attention to what's going on.

It's great.

- I'm certainly pretty happy.

I see him every day and this is the first day that he's been wide awake, interactive.

In prior days it's been a struggle to get his eyes open and get him looking around the room.

So I'm very happy to see the improvement we have this morning.

There are a lot of visiting dogs, so if this is helpful, we will accept the help.

This is, this is precious.

- This is great.

- I had a very good friend of mine told me that one of the nicest things we could ever do is just be a gift in someone else's life.

- This is great.

- I have seen absolute miracles happen and it keeps me going because most of the time when I leave the hospital, I'm on an incredible high knowing that I've definitely impacted people's lives in a positive way.

- All these dogs deserve a second chance.

People need to go to these shelters.

People need to adopt these dogs.

These dogs make great, great pets.

They all deserve a second chance.

And I'm hoping that this message will get out.

And people understand that you can get a great, great dog from a shelter.

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