Andy Duffer: So how are you, Mike?
Mike: I'm good. I'm really good.
Andy Duffer: Have y'all met?
Jeff Young: I haven't, no, but it's my pleasure.
Mike: No, no, really nice to
Andy Duffer: Mike, this is Dr. Jeff from Animal Planet. He had an eight season TV show.
Mike: Yes, I'm very familiar with it.
Andy Duffer: ⁓ you are?
Mike: Yeah, I'm an animal planet fiend.
Andy Duffer: you know who Mike is. He's a celebrity fashion photographer, animal advocate. He's got a, you have that calendar that you've been doing for like 12 years.
Jeff Young: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Andy Duffer: Welcome back to the Rocky Mountain Vet Podcast. I'm Andrew Duffer. Today we're joined by Mike Ruiz, a celebrity fashion photographer and animal advocate who has spent years working in rescue, raising money for shelters and using his platform to get animals adopted. Today we're going to talk about animal cruelty, what's actually happening, why so much of it falls through the cracks and how the system is failing to hold people accountable.
Mike: Yes.
Andy Duffer: You're still doing it.
Jeff Young: That's great. We do a calendar, made about $1.95 on it.
Mike: Yep, still doing it.
Andy Duffer: Do what?
Mike: ⁓ yeah.
Andy Duffer: you need Mike's expertise. So what do you do? You just pick a shelter and you get models and you go in there and take pictures with the animals and put it on a calendar for them to get adopted We get into everything from breed stigma and shelter realities to weak laws, lack of enforcement, and how human behavior is at the center of it all. Because at the end of the day, this isn't really about animals. It's about people and the choices that they make. So let's get into it.
Mike: every year I benefit a different rescue, so it benefits rescues. the rescue that I'm benefiting this year is called Louie's Legacy, they save over 2,000 animals a year or so. They're really amazing, and they're fully transparent. I know where all the money's going with them. They're very transparent that way, which is important for me, because I don't want to be spinning my wheels raising money for somebody. so they could have a corner office on the 40th floor. so basically what I've been doing for the past 11 years is I find really hot fitness model guys and I get adorable rescue dogs from the rescue and I photograph them together. And the first year it went viral. I think we raised over $100,000 that first year.
Jeff Young: Yep.
Andy Duffer: If you enjoyed this episode, make sure you're following the podcast so you don't miss what's coming next. We post new episodes every Monday at 11 a.m. Mountain Time, 12 p.m. Central. So we'll catch you back here next week. And don't forget, you can also check out Dr. Jeff's merch store. Every purchase helps support Dr. Jeff's new animal shelter. We'll see you next time.
Mike: for Louis' legacy. Some years we better than others. But this year I incorporated some of my female celebrity friends. So it's like hot guys, female celebs, fashion, and adorable rescue dogs. I think that's what it's gonna be forward. We're getting a of media coverage and... ⁓ I'm doing Kelly Clarkson show the day after tomorrow. So yeah.
Andy Duffer: I love Kelly Clarkson. So where can we get the calendar?
Jeff Young: Great.
Mike: you can get it at louislegacy.org slash calendar.
Andy Duffer: Okay. What inspired you to do that? You ⁓ got a pit bull from a shelter?
Mike: Yeah. I did. A friend of mine was fostering this sweet little pit bull and ⁓ I fell in with this dog within minutes of meeting him. You know, and up until then I like, ⁓ because my agent at the time did a lot of rescuing. She's like, you should rescue a dog. And I'm like, I don't have time. I'm too busy and I'm always traveling. But, you know, I met this dog. He looked into my eyes and ⁓ like 45 minutes later I was signing ⁓ And then I started researching how to care for pit bull type dogs. And then I found all this information of how they're misrepresented in the media and how they're abused and neglected and widely discarded. So I thought, well, I should try and do something to help these dogs. And I do a bunch of things, but the calendar is just one of the things that I do every year to help the plight of animals in need.
Jeff Young: Pit bulls represent about 20 % of the dog population, but they are the number one euthanized dog across the country, hands down, by a lot.
Mike: Yeah, sadly, yeah. I mean if you go into any shelter in the country like 80 % of the dogs are pit bull type dogs.
Jeff Young: Now, in all fairness, pit bulls do create the most bites of humans in America, and they are the number one dog attacking other animals in America. ⁓ But said that, when I animal control, they were talking about bands, I've never been breed bands. I believe in vicious dog bands, simply because ⁓ it's not so much the dog, it's the human with the dog. And you can't outlaw the people. get that, know, which we could sometimes, but you can't. It really does come back to how they're treated. I've seen incredibly friendly pit bulls that you can do anything to. At the same time, I give them great respect when they come in and they're a little on the gnarly side, you know, because they can be really dangerous. And I always look at the people. But I've had clients over 20, 25 years that every animal they get is just meaner than a one-eyed snake. Even if it's a good Labrador, it's like, How can you do that to an animal? I don't know how you make them that way. So it definitely goes back to the humans involved, I think.
Mike: 100%. I've encountered literally because I also go into shelters and photograph dogs on death row and I network them on social media to get them adopted. That's another thing I do. So ⁓ I've been to shelters over the country and the vast majority of these dogs are sweet and gentle. even in the shelter environment, ⁓ they're stressed and they're anxious and they don't know what's going on. And yet they still like wag their tail and all they wanna do is snuggle up to you. I'm ⁓ realistic well. Like cautious, like I go into shelter and I know that a lot of these dogs have suffered a lot of trauma. I'm very ⁓ in tune with their language and I, you know, I'm gonna go with a dog that doesn't seem like they would. be receptive to my attention. nonetheless, those dogs need ⁓ care and love and that ⁓ is often the remedy for a lot of behavioral issues.
Jeff Young: Absolutely. The number one reason, 50 % animals given up to shelter is before behavioral problems. But yet how many shelters have a behaviorist or a trainer on staff? It makes no sense. shelters need to be investing in those kind of people because that's how you change those animals' lives versus slating for euthanasia. Or some unethical groups will just shift around a biting dog, whether it be a pit bull, it would be a golden retriever, whatever it is. and the bites don't necessarily follow the animal. And I think that's a horrible thing to do instead of addressing the problem. And it's definitely addressable.
Mike: you have to go back even further than that. Like, you have to go to the root of problem. dogs are dumped at the shelter for a myriad of reasons. 99.9 % of them are human caused. So, a lot of the responsibility and onus needs to be put on the dog guardians. I hate calling them owners, which, I don't know if we're going to talk about animal.
Jeff Young: Yep, absolutely.
Mike: protection laws and stuff and how weak and under enforced they are but but you know that's Yeah, but that's that's the problem is like all of this stuff is under enforced like people are not held accountable Nobody's held accountable for anything and the dogs always pay the price for it 100 % of the time and it's it's heartbreaking
Andy Duffer: We could talk about whatever you want. Animal cruelty is the...
Jeff Young: Absolutely. have a law in Colorado, if you're prosecuted twice for cruelty or neglect, ⁓ have to go to jail. ⁓ were talking about the law a few years ago. I ⁓ asked a simple question, well, how many people have gone to jail because of that? Well, nobody. We always pre-bargain them down. ⁓ of course you do. And that's the crux of problem. ⁓ people don't pay. ⁓ also know ⁓ individual that ⁓ kid in school took a cat home. Wasn't supposed to have the cat, granted. OK, there was no ⁓ But the landlord went by, saw the cat, went in, took the cat, killed it, and basically got a $25 fine. And I was involved in that case years ago. But I remember when the guy walked out, I said, I'd do it again, because at the cat's not pissing in my house. And you learn nothing from that. And there's other ways to handle that. they really are. I man's best friends has really kept the...
Andy Duffer: killed a cat because it wasn't potty trained?
Jeff Young: We don't do the right thing by it. And it's matter of changing human behavior in the end. It's always human behavior.
Mike: And it goes, know, and that's where it all originates from. And the only way you're gonna change human behavior is by changing the perception of what a sentient being is. Because right now in this country, you know, the laws have the same protections as like my coffee table or like if somebody sets my desk on fire, they get the same punishment
Jeff Young: Exactly.
Mike: Well, granted, they probably get a worse punishment if they, you know, because that's arson. But if they set a dog on fire, ⁓ here's a $50 fine. And you know what mean? Like the attitude towards animals, I think it stems from, the utilitarian views that we have on animals. Like animals are to serve us. They're here to feed us. and until we change our views on, animals being put on this planet for our use. ⁓ just continue getting worse, because they're certainly not getting any better.
Jeff Young: Part of the problem is, and I I explain to people all the time, animals are considered like an inanimate object. You you're absolutely right. So there have been a few court cases that, they say that animals are more like a family heirloom. They're an unusual personal type property that has more value than... than the value of that property itself, without the emotional attachment to it. So it's like, if you break someone's TV, you have to replace the TV. When you kill someone's animal, you have to replace the value of the animal, which is two, $300, whatever it may be, unless it's maybe a price breeding animal. But the rationale for that, I really do believe goes back to how we treat, in veterinary medicine, how we treat our large animals, our production animals, because you start dividing that up, well, you know, a cat or dog is a special type. And, you know, we tried to pass a law in Colorado that said if you're found guilty of malpractice and animal dyes, you could be sued up to $10,000. They put a cap on it, $10,000. and I thought that's a rational thing. Every event I knew was just outraged by it. I no, it will put us all out of business. Well, you know, if you're not doing things wrong, what do you have to hide? if we do something, kill an animal, It is more than just a dog or a cat. We should be able to have to pay someone back for that restitution, for that pain and suffering. But that is not the way the law looks at it at all. at the same time, the same groups will say, OK, well, if your dog breaks a leg, I want $20,000 to fix that or $10,000 to do a GI surgery. But if you can't afford that, I will kill it for you for $500. And I've never understood that. just seems totally hypocritical to hell to me.
Mike: ⁓ god, it's...
Andy Duffer: How do you say that with a straight face like as a veterinarian?
Mike: right.
Jeff Young: ⁓ it's ridiculous, you know.
Andy Duffer: Well, why do you think that animal cruelty laws are written at a state level? Like it's every law is different by the state. Why do we not have just across the board? This is what animal cruelty is and this is the punishment.
Jeff Young: because the amount of abuse that goes on with large animals, in particular cows, pigs, the truth is there's ways to raise animals and to kill them a lot more humanely than what we do. you know, you would be putting all these big businesses in big ags. I mean, we're talking, you know, trillions of dollars. I'm sorry. they're not gonna put up with it. They don't want any regulations. And so then you have to divide it down. Well, why is a dog and cat different than a cow? When you start doing that, people get real panicky about it, especially the veterinary profession, and especially big business. So it's a dog chasing its own tail.
Mike: Yeah, it's really heartbreaking. what is, I mean, from your being a vet, do you think ⁓ the root of ⁓ is gonna be?
Jeff Young: I think there have been a few court cases that are interesting. And I do think they have to find at least companion animals as a unique type of personal property, and then then at least hold society to a little bit higher standard, If your dog gets killed in, you know, on purpose by your neighbor or something, there should be a price to pay other than a $200 fine, but you know, it doesn't solve the problem in the grand scheme of things in terms of the cruelty that goes on at a different level for other animals. But certainly for companion animals, I think there has to be some separation. And the laws are going to happen that way. And they were kind of stalled right now. there were some judgments in some jurisdictions where people did have to pay a fairly high amount of restitution for killing someone's animal.
Mike: Were those civil cases or are criminal cases?
Jeff Young: Yeah, there's several cases, yeah.
Andy Duffer: So you're saying that we can't have animal cruelty laws across the board because of agricultural exemptions?
Jeff Young: Absolutely. That's a big part of it. Because the proverbial camel's under the tent. know, once you start, where does it end? and there's people ⁓ sit around and about these things from a philosophical standpoint. But cruelty is cruelty, and I don't care what animal, no animal ⁓ should be subjected to the kind of cruelty ⁓ that many are subjected to on a daily basis in country. And the correlation between animal abuse and child abuse, the correlation between animal abuse and adult criminality is well known, well said. And positive benefits that humans bring to us in terms of our health, and and PTSD, you it, it just can't be underestimated. again, 40 % of people America have children in the household, 70 % of people have animals in the household.
Mike: I all of that is grounds for some sweeping changes. see, that's the other thing confuses me is like, ⁓ for example, like dog fighting, cruelty is very low on the enforceable law thing. know, like they're going to go after drug charges or sex trafficking But hopefully, ⁓
Jeff Young: Yes.
Mike: law enforcement is starting to figure out now, finally, I think, is the correlation between animal abuse and all of those other things. Like where you find dog fighting, you're finding arms, you're finding drugs, finding sex trafficking. So you literally just look for the dog fighting and you can like do a clean sweep of all of the, the higher priority ⁓ you know.
Jeff Young: And that makes sense. The same mentality that goes into abusing children or abusing animals is the same mentality goes into abusing the system and everything else around it. Those people are sleazeballs in every aspect of their life, no doubt about it.
Mike: 100 % like animal abusers are just scourge of this world. they don't have a shred of empathy for a sentient being that is very to over to how they're gonna treat their colleagues, how they're gonna treat functioning as a... productive member society. You know, they're going to take advantage of everything. I mean, it's basically like a scarlet letter
Jeff Young: mass murderer started abusing ⁓
Andy Duffer: Well, that's the thing is if you start with animals, states don't share animal abuse tracking across state lines. So if someone's banned from ⁓ buying an or owning an animal, they can just go to a different state and nothing follows. ⁓
Jeff Young: they do. And they move. And they'll move with 40 animals. I mean, I've seen this, I've seen people come through and come to my clinic as they're moving from one state to another to get out of charges, you know, or to move away from charges. it does happen. I know how you keep a national registry of that thing, but it would make sense because once again, those people are the same people and they just move around.
Andy Duffer: you think they take advantage of that? They figure out which states have weak laws and then they just flock to that.
Jeff Young: I just think it takes a long time to get caught, you know, and so many and I hate to say it, because of the no kill movement, I truly believe we've really enabled people to have way too many animals and not take proper care of them, I'm a nonprofit or, I'm a shelter. And it's not they're not legit, they're disgusting. And some a lot of times it's a mental illness, there's no question about it. You know, but once again, if they get caught, What happens to that person get therapy? No, they get a fine, they get smacked on the wrist, they to pay some money. They may have to, a bunch of animals get euthanized. Once again, the animals suffer. And I've been involved in some of those cases. And in the end, behavior doesn't change. You go back two years later and you're doing the exact same thing. It just takes a long time for it to build a case and to track them down and to nail it to it.
Mike: Yeah. ⁓
Andy Duffer: Well let's talk about what do you go ahead Mike.
Mike: I was just going to expound on that. I've actually had some experience with that. I've gone into shelter and photographed some dogs and a couple of organizations were forthcoming in rescuing, pulling the dogs from the shelter. ⁓ So on paper it seemed like, OK, these dogs are safe, but they went into a more horrific situation. Twice this has happened to us in the past year. people keep cropping up. ⁓ people who are grifting the system for money, they pull these animals and just collect endless of money because ⁓ they're ⁓ under guise they're trying to help these animals, but they're ⁓ not. in one case, the animals in a They hadn't been fed or ⁓ given water for ⁓ weeks and weeks and weeks. some of them found dead and... And these are animals that we thought were safe. I flew across country and I went into the shelter and I brought some of my friends so we do these videos. And we went through all this effort and then we sighed a breath of relief thinking, okay, these animals are safe. And for me, it's for me to think that I helped these dogs and in fact, I put them in a worse situation. And I have the guilt and it's, hard, it's hard to ⁓ navigate, animal advocacy you know, ⁓ to an animal advocate, have to have, you know, an unusual amount of empathy. But as a result, you know, you get, ⁓ you get a lot of trial all the time.
Jeff Young: You get stabbed in the heart all the time.
Andy Duffer: Do you think these big humane groups that are grifting, do you think that they like animal cruelty laws so they can continue to profit off the suffering and advertise?
Mike: Well, one guy who was very well known in Los Angeles, it was in the LA Times. There's a big story on this guy who was like an animal rescue hero. And he would rescue cats that were set on fire and dogs that had their leg cut off with a machete. And he would post it and raise thousands of dollars. Turns out He was doing it to the animals. do you know who I'm talking about? That, that, um.
Jeff Young: I don't know if I want to hear about it.
Mike: He was actually inflicting the trauma on these poor animals in order to raise, hundreds and hundreds of of dollars. I he was very big in ⁓ the world. So like, it's demoralizing, you think these people are heroes and you think like, I can take five minutes off from like posting 50 a because this guy has it covered for today. And it turns out they're pieces of shit. ⁓
Jeff Young: I worked on the Lou Ann Strickland case. Lou Ann Strickland was the wife of the head of the Senate in Colorado, all right? a local humane organization, it was one of the county organizations, had adopted her hundreds of animals. And they assumed that she was readopted them and she kept them all. They finally busted her, but I'm thinking, why the hell would you guys adopt them? Never look at the place, never go out there. Every time an animal was slated for euthanasia, they'd call her up and she had taken a course. Trimble and I were assigned as vets on the case for the state. ⁓ And we went into a quantum they had two to 300 cats in it, no separation from leukemia A's. We had turned over a couch, it'd be a dead black cat. And she'd go, ⁓ that's blackie. And she'd tell you the story of blackie. What two days later do you find another dead one in the corner that's black? ⁓ that's blackie and tell you the same damn story. I mean, a lot of this is a mental illness, but then a lot of it is purposeful because of the money issue like you just described. So you have the extreme both ends, people who really are empathetic and love animals, but yet because they have mental illness, they cause all this harm without even knowing they're doing it. Then you have the other end that are causing the harm on purpose and they do know what they're doing and they're getting money for it, what other? profession or situation can you think of that would be like that? I mean, it's phenomenal to me how we rationalize and how we do things. And yet we have such piss poor laws.
Mike: It's the legal system I I don't know what the answer is. In Scandinavia, in Holland, they have much stricter laws like you can't, a dog from a breeder unless the shelters are empty. it's much tougher to get a companion animal in some countries than Scandinavia. And like here, it's like a third world country when it comes to that. ⁓
Jeff Young: You don't make that much money. mean, even high-end breeders, it's almost like a way of life. It's not necessarily a way to make a lot of money in all honesty.
Mike: Exactly. mean, I don't know what needs to happen there, but.
Andy Duffer: Weak animal cruelty laws are also exhausting shelters. I mean, that's indirectly filling shelters because they're the ones that have to clean up the mess when the dog gets surrendered or gets taken from the person being cruel to the animal. ⁓
Jeff Young: The thing is it takes so much time to go from prosecution to the end of it. So if you end up taking in 50 animals, can try to find foster homes, but I can't adopt them out until the court cases are all done. ⁓ And if ⁓ people have little bit money and they get a lawyer, they can drag that stuff out for years. ⁓ they don't pay any price that. We need ⁓ to ⁓ write the laws where your animal is confiscated, You need to be paying for the room and board of that animal or whatever shelter it goes into. And some places they do, some places they don't, some places you get a small amount. But why should this shelter, why should a nonprofit shelter have to suck that up because someone is evil and cruel? Makes no sense.
Mike: That's another problem right there is, you know, like some of these court cases where the animals are the evidence, who's caring for them? You know, so like the system wants to just get these cases in and out because they don't want to be responsible for caring for these animals, you know, for months on end while these cases go on. these animals are little considered So that's another whole issue, people don't give a crap enough. to wanna take care of the animals. ⁓
Andy Duffer: But what's the point of weak consequences for animal cruelty? A $25 fine for killing an animal? How do you justify that?
Jeff Young: I don't know. You can't, you know.
Mike: Yeah, that's what I don't understand. Like literally what I saying before, like if you set my chair on fire, that's like a, that's the more enforceable crime than setting a dog on fire. Yeah, you know, our sense of felony, setting a dog on fire is ⁓ a
Jeff Young: Might be a felony.
Andy Duffer: Well, was it... Was it... Pennsylvania that just passed a bill that now looks at animals as family instead of property. Have I looked it up earlier and it looks like it's really just for custody with a divorce instead of cruelty. It really just helps people with.
Jeff Young: Yeah. But that's first step it'll lead to, once again, if it's not just personal property, if it's not just a TV like thing, then if someone does something to that animal, you're gonna have a better, bit more standing in court to be able to say, okay, I need reimburse this, this was part of my family. For the record, 76 % of people believe their dog is part of their family in America.
Andy Duffer: I know I do. I know I do. Fred is part of the family.
Jeff Young: ⁓ I always say it was me hanging from a cliff and Fred hanging from the cliff. My wife was up there. She'd be like, hmm, I'll come back to you. I'll get Fred first.
Andy Duffer: Let me get Fred first. Well, let me ask you a question, Jeff. As a vet, you see animals and you know, you just know that that animal was abused and something cruel happened. Like, how do you handle that? You can't accuse them of it, can you? Do you report it? What do you do?
Jeff Young: Absolutely. And listen, we've had animals come in here with three fractures in a six-month period, you know, and it's like, this is not normal. And you may test to see if they have brittle bone disease or some word diseases, but, report those cases and we get people really pissed at us, but we're still limited, you know, technically until they're proven guilty, they get to take their animal back, you know, I can't hold it. ⁓ What I try to do is increase the price and because a lot of times these people don't have money and say, well, you don't have money. I'm keeping your dog. You come up with the money. know, ⁓ by the way, it costs every day. It stays here. But if you talk to our animal control or, you know, places where we call it in, we probably call in more than any vet hospital in the whole state, probably more than all the vet hospitals combined. I see more neglect than over curried. That's the good news, you know, but neglect. And from the animal standpoint, does it matter? know, it probably doesn't neglect is the same thing as cruelty in some ways. ⁓ But work cruelty is not that common. You will see among childism by proxy, which is where a person hurts the animal so it can take it to the vet and get attention, you know, and they hurt the animal again, take it to the vet and get attention. It's called among childs. People do it with children too. Among childs and by proxy, it's a weird thing. ⁓ Some people will hurt themselves to go, you know, to get attention, but it's attention seeking. So there's a lot of mental illness out there around animals and pets. And yet if you're found guilty of something, rarely do you have to go through any type of psychological help or training. And to me, that should be one of the first things that just happen.
Andy Duffer: Have you seen repeat abuses come through the clinic?
Jeff Young: Absolutely. We've had several here already, and we've taken animals away and turned them in. ⁓ One that we highly suspected, we turned them in, turned them in, turned them in. And finally, ⁓ something happened and their partner turned them in and they got prosecuted for cruelty. what's that?
Andy Duffer: Who do you turn them into? Who do you turn them into? someone, if the average person suspects it.
Jeff Young: That's one of problems because it kind of, see, I can't call the animal control a pair. It's whatever jurisdiction they came from. I have to call that animal control. In some jurisdictions are gun hole and others are like, yeah, we'll get back with you, you know, and they're not going to hold off. animal has come a long way. You see animal control, the dog catchers, you know, is kind of a thing of the past ⁓ and ⁓ animal control can be very ⁓ ⁓ And, you when I worked animal control, I went to classes on how to investigate what the law was. I took a cruelty class, neglecting cruelty class at a ⁓ community college that was paid for, you learn the laws and how you enforce them. ⁓ But a lot of control issues are not very good at. ⁓ And once again, it's low priority, you know, it does come back to finances, you know, so.
Andy Duffer: What's the point of passing a law if no one's going to do anything to enforce it? they just pass the laws without funding the infrastructure to enforce it. So I mean, ⁓ is it just a charade?
Jeff Young: But it's the first step. we no laws not that long ago, virtually no laws or very bad laws. ⁓ If get stronger and stronger laws, ⁓ the will come with time. I ⁓ honestly in my heart of hearts that a society that we do ⁓ progress And maybe one step back every now and then, ⁓ I make the argument maybe we're in that process right now, ⁓ but the end, we move forward. And if not, we still have children. We wouldn't have the labor laws. Women would still be at home barefoot, pregnant. mean, humankind wants to be progressive. And there's a reason in Star Trek. They're all vegetarian in the future. ⁓
Mike: which brings me to another thought that I had, know, like as science advances and our ability to understand, the communication barrier between humans and other species, they're starting to make some headway with dolphins, they're figuring out they have like a language of certain words and stuff. I ⁓ feel like we're, going to figure out a way, with AI something how to understand the language of other species, ⁓ I that will really change our outlook. I mean, I can look at my dog I understand exactly what my dog is saying to me their subtle movements or her body language. but I've made the choice to. ⁓ open myself up to understanding that communication. But most people don't. Most people don't give a crap. like, if the dog's barking, they smack the dog, but animals do things for reasons. if you don't understand what those are, you're going to have conflict. So ⁓ I feel like as science progresses and we learn to understand the language of other I think that will really like change understanding of what a sentient being is, if we actually can speak to them somehow.
Andy Duffer: Humans seem to base intelligence off being able to speak.
Jeff Young: The question really comes back, can they suffer? Do feel pain? ⁓ When I went vet school, I came down from Montana. ⁓ I I was mountain man all the way. I was hunted and trapped and everything else. ⁓ And I was taught, I I killed my first deer when I was 10 years old in the woods with a high-powered rifle by myself. ⁓ And I looked my grandkids that are 20-something years old, and hell, I wouldn't give them a high-powered rifle if they're the last person on earth. ⁓ At the time, was raised differently. But having said all that, I was always taught animals don't feel pain. very discart, this is the way they act, and you get in vet school and you find out, oh, by the way, they have all the chemoreceptors, neurotransmitters that we have exactly the same, Now they may deal with pain differently in nature. you don't want to be showing pain in nature because if you do, you're going to be the first one that gets eaten or killed. ⁓ But, they still feel it the same way we do. And it totally changed my life. I mean, it changed how I look at them. And between that and then working animal control and seeing how we treat man's best friend in particular ⁓ was disheartening to me as a human being. It totally changed the way I viewed the world.
Andy Duffer: So what do y'all think is standing in the way of animal cruelty laws? Is it human ego? Is it that we're eating animals and we have to figure out which species suffers and which one doesn't so we can eat them? Is it money? What do you think is stint? It's money? Just always money.
Mike: It's, mean, the root of all of the problems that you're describing are money. know, the cost of caring and being empathetic to animals. And most people are not willing to pay, that price. mean, if you can even look at it that way, you know, in my mind, like, I couldn't.
Jeff Young: always nice. Yep, I agree.
Mike: I don't look at it as like, ⁓ I'm not going to abuse my animal. It's like such a huge price to pay. I don't look at it that way. I love my dog all my heart again, I think if we could bridge the communication barrier between animals, I think would really change people's perception of how experience life and feelings and pain and suffering. Because right now it's, ⁓ most do know, ⁓ they know, they're like, ⁓ it's happening for thousands of years. And there's that, which is bullshit. People are like, ⁓ well, we've been killing animals for thousands of years. And we've been eating animals for thousands of years. ⁓
Jeff Young: They don't understand.
Mike: I mean, yeah, but we haven't been torturing them for thousands of years. That's the difference. know, like mass farming is such a horrific abuse of life. and ⁓
Jeff Young: It's not healthy for us. The antibiotics, the pesticides, the herbicides, the steroids, it's not healthy for us. Although, from a human standpoint, we're very hypocritical. Like we look at Southeast Asia, well, they eat dogs and cats, a pig is every bit as smart as a dog. ⁓ In fact, ⁓ they're smarter. A lot of pigs are smarter than most dogs. I hate say it.
Mike: ⁓ yeah.
Jeff Young: But having said that, you know, like, wouldn't consider eating our dog, but we think nothing about, eating bacon, but that's, that's the line we've drawn as It's not, it's not a rational line. It's just a line we've drawn more of an emotional thing, you know, because pigs don't make real fun pets, I guess, you know, not real furry and friendly. ⁓ Although I had a pet pig and ⁓ was really cool, just for the record.
Mike: Oh, I met a little sweet little piglet in 2017 named Priscilla. the day that I met that pig, I made that sentient being connection. And that was it for the last time. I can't even say like, oh, I don't eat pork anymore. like even that's disgusts me to think that I ever did in the first place, but I certainly don't and I haven't since that day and don't eat beef and I don't eat dairy
Jeff Young: I think Tolstoy said, if you want to decrease the suffering and cruelty in your life, put down your fork.
Andy Duffer: Well, but not only that, like that is a big factor with global warming.
Mike: yeah, the number one cause of environmental collapse. ⁓
Jeff Young: Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, let's face it, we can make meat now. It's going to get cheaper and cheaper. It's all going to be artificial. And you can argue over how healthy it is if it has a bunch of weird products in it. But, it won't be long that it doesn't make sense to raise the animals in the billions that we do because of the environmental impacts on them, you know, to where, you know, if you can make it in a factory and give people jobs doing that and it's clean. why not, if it tastes the same, and or the health benefits are the same. And I do think the future is bright that way. ⁓ That impossible burger, with the the fake meat at Burger King is pretty damn good. ⁓
Mike: ⁓ That I think is going to be like a key factor in not necessarily changing people's ⁓ of sentient but just changing the economy of like animal production. I lost the ability to cut into meat because it was skeeving me out too much. Just the thought of like cutting into the animal like it freaked me out. so I've tried these like fake beef and stuff ⁓ and cutting into it kind skews me out of it because it's so like beef-like. ⁓ So like, I mean, if you can convince a meat eater that, ⁓ it ⁓ tastes good and it has the nutritional or whatever, which
Jeff Young: Yeah.
Andy Duffer: Yeah.
Mike: you again, it's gonna come very soon. It's probably gonna be healthier at some point, know, cholesterol, less hormones, all that stuff. if we can just like sort of ⁓ sneak it there, you know, and do the baby switch with meat eaters, I think that is what's gonna really help change the collective perception of how to treat sentient beings.
Jeff Young: Yeah, absolutely. I do think it's going to be the environment that's going to force that change. If you do any research at all, I know so many environmentalists that eat meat all the time. It's like, you're not an environmentalist if you eat large consumption of meat. I don't condemn people. ⁓ I you know, ⁓ where come from, but where we come from is not where we're going, is the point. And, you know, as a society, we can be far more humane. And in the end, if you can get the same taste and the same benefits, why wouldn't you? Why would you have to kill something, achieve that? I am to the point in my life where I probably have more respect for a good hunter shooting a deer and eating it than going down and buying ⁓ a hamburger at McDonald's, to be quite frank with you, because ⁓ I know how much more that cow suffered. least that deer had a normal life up to the point at night. And there's something to be said for that.
Mike: Yeah. ⁓
Andy Duffer: Well, before we are, did you want to expand on that?
Mike: No, no, was just, I was agreeing with that. know, I mean, it's definitely a lesser of an evil on hunting a deer but I still get freaked out.
Jeff Young: of evil.
Andy Duffer: before we go, I just wanted to ask y'all, what do you think prevention would actually look like if we had consistent animal cruelty laws that were enforceable? that a tough question?
Mike: it's a broad, it's such a broad thing. I I it's, it's common knowledge people know that the animal cruelty laws in place, they know that if they go and set a dog on fire, they're going to probably get off. Do you know what mean? until enforcement makes the connection that torturing animals directly correlates to more horrific crimes people are gonna continue abusing animals. So until these laws are actually enforced and people actually go to jail for like 30 years, which some dog fighters have, but it just needs to be broader. It needs to be enforced. Like sending a dog on fire, I mean, I to just keep saying that, but it's such a horrific thing and I see it so often in the media. How can you do that? How can you allow somebody to do that?
Andy Duffer: People do that.
Mike: Like is it law enforcement or anybody? How can you not understand that that is hugely problematic in society? that by allowing it to go unchecked ⁓ putting out a monster into society you know what I mean? Like where's it gonna stop?
Andy Duffer: It's a good thing I'm not a judge. Didn't Jeffrey Dahmer start with animals?
Mike: Yes, they all did. They all did. They all tortured animals because being a psychopath that way is ⁓ just devoid of any understanding of right and wrong and empathy.
Jeff Young: Well, yeah, all mass-molars are animals. For me, it comes down to the three things I've been talking about for probably 30 years, and that is spay neuters, If you drop the population, there's few animals that have to suffer, ⁓ and the people have them are going to put more value on them. It's the supply and demand. It's basic economics. ⁓ But you have have good animal regulations. You start with that. and they hope enforcement follows, it takes time. But you also have to have humane education. ⁓ don't know about something, I mean, if you ask inner city kids, where does hamburger come from, they'll say McDonald's. They don't even know it comes from a ⁓ Because we're more and more urbanization, we're just gotten farther and farther away from nature. ⁓ nature is cruel. I I'll be the first to admit that. But ⁓ humans, we have a choice to pick compassion over cruelty. ⁓ And it really is up to us. I like to think we're a little bit more than knuckle dragging the anderthals, although I do question that sometimes, you know, but I do think the future is going to force change upon us whether we want it or not. And I hope that's true.
Mike: Well, just doing your podcast is a huge step in the right direction of And creating empathy in ⁓ youth, ⁓ teaching them ⁓ how treat and the of ⁓ mistreating animals, is a great place start. You know, cause that's one thing like I do this, I do a lot of, I've done some stuff for an organization in Detroit that does, pulls dogs from dog fighting situations. And what they've discovered is that like it's generational. the odd thing is all these dog fighters have cute little inside dogs, know, a little fluffy with the ribbons in there. And then the outside dogs, they abuse and torture and electrocute. ⁓ But the ⁓ children are taught believe that they like that, that those dogs, those dog fighting dogs are bred to do that because that's what they like. they firmly believe that they're not doing anything wrong because that's what they're So you have to teach them the way.
Jeff Young: countries have human education as part of the curriculum. And I think it's the civil Scandinavian countries. ⁓ And that's to say they don't eat meat or anything, ⁓ but you they don't, they don't torture their meat necessarily before they eat it, at least. ⁓ And it's start, you know, you got to start somewhere. ⁓ That's the of life.
Mike: Yeah.
Andy Duffer: Well, Mike, don't know if you know, but Jeff is fixing to build ⁓ a new animal shelter and he's going to focus mainly on animals that need rehabilitation and have medical needs. so. ⁓
Mike: ⁓ cool. Where are you doing that in Colorado? Yeah, that's awesome.
Jeff Young: It'll happen. Connor for Colorado. Yeah. I think the most important thing, honestly, I think I've done in my whole career is I've always trained young vets from all over the world and all over the US. ⁓ You know, they come through here and they we never charge them for that. They stay anywhere from two to six weeks. We have a dorm room for them to stay in if they don't have a place to stay. And we never charge them. I think having them see what we do. I think it makes a difference. And I think, you know, it was from the spay neuter and our philosophy. And I think that I think that's private. I mean, I'm really glad I've spayed a neuter, literally hundreds of thousands of animals. But at the same time, I think it's teaching. I honestly was naive enough to believe when I graduated, know, overpopulation. I was like 20 million animals being killed. Let's go out there and take care of the problem of spay neuter. And, know, about five or 10 years later, it kind of scratched my head. Damn, this thing just keeps coming. You know, they don't go away. It's never ending, you know. And so, I don't know, I think teaching other people and getting people philosophically aligned makes the biggest difference. And I do believe that the kids coming out of school now are just so much smarter than I ever was and they have a much broader view of the world.
Mike: hope so. I hope so for the better. ⁓
Jeff Young: What is good?
Andy Duffer: Well, Mike, if you need a sexy hunk for a calendar shoot, we've got Jeff right here.
Mike: I was going hit you both up. ⁓
Jeff Young: Yeah, if you do a geriatric calendar, then I'm in.
Mike: Oh, you guys are definitely in the next one.
Jeff Young: Thank you, Mike. Really appreciate you coming.
Andy Duffer: Well, ⁓ thanks for doing this with us, Mike. We really do appreciate it.
Mike: Thank you. This was a good conversation and I hope that it ⁓ goes out into the world and changes some minds. all you can do is your best and it looks like you guys are doing that for sure.
Jeff Young: Appreciate it. Thank you.
Andy Duffer: We're trying. Thanks, Mike.
Mike: I'm good. I'm really good.
Andy Duffer: Have y'all met?
Jeff Young: I haven't, no, but it's my pleasure.
Mike: No, no, really nice to
Andy Duffer: Mike, this is Dr. Jeff from Animal Planet. He had an eight season TV show.
Mike: Yes, I'm very familiar with it.
Andy Duffer: ⁓ you are?
Mike: Yeah, I'm an animal planet fiend.
Andy Duffer: you know who Mike is. He's a celebrity fashion photographer, animal advocate. He's got a, you have that calendar that you've been doing for like 12 years.
Jeff Young: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Andy Duffer: Welcome back to the Rocky Mountain Vet Podcast. I'm Andrew Duffer. Today we're joined by Mike Ruiz, a celebrity fashion photographer and animal advocate who has spent years working in rescue, raising money for shelters and using his platform to get animals adopted. Today we're going to talk about animal cruelty, what's actually happening, why so much of it falls through the cracks and how the system is failing to hold people accountable.
Mike: Yes.
Andy Duffer: You're still doing it.
Jeff Young: That's great. We do a calendar, made about $1.95 on it.
Mike: Yep, still doing it.
Andy Duffer: Do what?
Mike: ⁓ yeah.
Andy Duffer: you need Mike's expertise. So what do you do? You just pick a shelter and you get models and you go in there and take pictures with the animals and put it on a calendar for them to get adopted We get into everything from breed stigma and shelter realities to weak laws, lack of enforcement, and how human behavior is at the center of it all. Because at the end of the day, this isn't really about animals. It's about people and the choices that they make. So let's get into it.
Mike: every year I benefit a different rescue, so it benefits rescues. the rescue that I'm benefiting this year is called Louie's Legacy, they save over 2,000 animals a year or so. They're really amazing, and they're fully transparent. I know where all the money's going with them. They're very transparent that way, which is important for me, because I don't want to be spinning my wheels raising money for somebody. so they could have a corner office on the 40th floor. so basically what I've been doing for the past 11 years is I find really hot fitness model guys and I get adorable rescue dogs from the rescue and I photograph them together. And the first year it went viral. I think we raised over $100,000 that first year.
Jeff Young: Yep.
Andy Duffer: If you enjoyed this episode, make sure you're following the podcast so you don't miss what's coming next. We post new episodes every Monday at 11 a.m. Mountain Time, 12 p.m. Central. So we'll catch you back here next week. And don't forget, you can also check out Dr. Jeff's merch store. Every purchase helps support Dr. Jeff's new animal shelter. We'll see you next time.
Mike: for Louis' legacy. Some years we better than others. But this year I incorporated some of my female celebrity friends. So it's like hot guys, female celebs, fashion, and adorable rescue dogs. I think that's what it's gonna be forward. We're getting a of media coverage and... ⁓ I'm doing Kelly Clarkson show the day after tomorrow. So yeah.
Andy Duffer: I love Kelly Clarkson. So where can we get the calendar?
Jeff Young: Great.
Mike: you can get it at louislegacy.org slash calendar.
Andy Duffer: Okay. What inspired you to do that? You ⁓ got a pit bull from a shelter?
Mike: Yeah. I did. A friend of mine was fostering this sweet little pit bull and ⁓ I fell in with this dog within minutes of meeting him. You know, and up until then I like, ⁓ because my agent at the time did a lot of rescuing. She's like, you should rescue a dog. And I'm like, I don't have time. I'm too busy and I'm always traveling. But, you know, I met this dog. He looked into my eyes and ⁓ like 45 minutes later I was signing ⁓ And then I started researching how to care for pit bull type dogs. And then I found all this information of how they're misrepresented in the media and how they're abused and neglected and widely discarded. So I thought, well, I should try and do something to help these dogs. And I do a bunch of things, but the calendar is just one of the things that I do every year to help the plight of animals in need.
Jeff Young: Pit bulls represent about 20 % of the dog population, but they are the number one euthanized dog across the country, hands down, by a lot.
Mike: Yeah, sadly, yeah. I mean if you go into any shelter in the country like 80 % of the dogs are pit bull type dogs.
Jeff Young: Now, in all fairness, pit bulls do create the most bites of humans in America, and they are the number one dog attacking other animals in America. ⁓ But said that, when I animal control, they were talking about bands, I've never been breed bands. I believe in vicious dog bands, simply because ⁓ it's not so much the dog, it's the human with the dog. And you can't outlaw the people. get that, know, which we could sometimes, but you can't. It really does come back to how they're treated. I've seen incredibly friendly pit bulls that you can do anything to. At the same time, I give them great respect when they come in and they're a little on the gnarly side, you know, because they can be really dangerous. And I always look at the people. But I've had clients over 20, 25 years that every animal they get is just meaner than a one-eyed snake. Even if it's a good Labrador, it's like, How can you do that to an animal? I don't know how you make them that way. So it definitely goes back to the humans involved, I think.
Mike: 100%. I've encountered literally because I also go into shelters and photograph dogs on death row and I network them on social media to get them adopted. That's another thing I do. So ⁓ I've been to shelters over the country and the vast majority of these dogs are sweet and gentle. even in the shelter environment, ⁓ they're stressed and they're anxious and they don't know what's going on. And yet they still like wag their tail and all they wanna do is snuggle up to you. I'm ⁓ realistic well. Like cautious, like I go into shelter and I know that a lot of these dogs have suffered a lot of trauma. I'm very ⁓ in tune with their language and I, you know, I'm gonna go with a dog that doesn't seem like they would. be receptive to my attention. nonetheless, those dogs need ⁓ care and love and that ⁓ is often the remedy for a lot of behavioral issues.
Jeff Young: Absolutely. The number one reason, 50 % animals given up to shelter is before behavioral problems. But yet how many shelters have a behaviorist or a trainer on staff? It makes no sense. shelters need to be investing in those kind of people because that's how you change those animals' lives versus slating for euthanasia. Or some unethical groups will just shift around a biting dog, whether it be a pit bull, it would be a golden retriever, whatever it is. and the bites don't necessarily follow the animal. And I think that's a horrible thing to do instead of addressing the problem. And it's definitely addressable.
Mike: you have to go back even further than that. Like, you have to go to the root of problem. dogs are dumped at the shelter for a myriad of reasons. 99.9 % of them are human caused. So, a lot of the responsibility and onus needs to be put on the dog guardians. I hate calling them owners, which, I don't know if we're going to talk about animal.
Jeff Young: Yep, absolutely.
Mike: protection laws and stuff and how weak and under enforced they are but but you know that's Yeah, but that's that's the problem is like all of this stuff is under enforced like people are not held accountable Nobody's held accountable for anything and the dogs always pay the price for it 100 % of the time and it's it's heartbreaking
Andy Duffer: We could talk about whatever you want. Animal cruelty is the...
Jeff Young: Absolutely. have a law in Colorado, if you're prosecuted twice for cruelty or neglect, ⁓ have to go to jail. ⁓ were talking about the law a few years ago. I ⁓ asked a simple question, well, how many people have gone to jail because of that? Well, nobody. We always pre-bargain them down. ⁓ of course you do. And that's the crux of problem. ⁓ people don't pay. ⁓ also know ⁓ individual that ⁓ kid in school took a cat home. Wasn't supposed to have the cat, granted. OK, there was no ⁓ But the landlord went by, saw the cat, went in, took the cat, killed it, and basically got a $25 fine. And I was involved in that case years ago. But I remember when the guy walked out, I said, I'd do it again, because at the cat's not pissing in my house. And you learn nothing from that. And there's other ways to handle that. they really are. I man's best friends has really kept the...
Andy Duffer: killed a cat because it wasn't potty trained?
Jeff Young: We don't do the right thing by it. And it's matter of changing human behavior in the end. It's always human behavior.
Mike: And it goes, know, and that's where it all originates from. And the only way you're gonna change human behavior is by changing the perception of what a sentient being is. Because right now in this country, you know, the laws have the same protections as like my coffee table or like if somebody sets my desk on fire, they get the same punishment
Jeff Young: Exactly.
Mike: Well, granted, they probably get a worse punishment if they, you know, because that's arson. But if they set a dog on fire, ⁓ here's a $50 fine. And you know what mean? Like the attitude towards animals, I think it stems from, the utilitarian views that we have on animals. Like animals are to serve us. They're here to feed us. and until we change our views on, animals being put on this planet for our use. ⁓ just continue getting worse, because they're certainly not getting any better.
Jeff Young: Part of the problem is, and I I explain to people all the time, animals are considered like an inanimate object. You you're absolutely right. So there have been a few court cases that, they say that animals are more like a family heirloom. They're an unusual personal type property that has more value than... than the value of that property itself, without the emotional attachment to it. So it's like, if you break someone's TV, you have to replace the TV. When you kill someone's animal, you have to replace the value of the animal, which is two, $300, whatever it may be, unless it's maybe a price breeding animal. But the rationale for that, I really do believe goes back to how we treat, in veterinary medicine, how we treat our large animals, our production animals, because you start dividing that up, well, you know, a cat or dog is a special type. And, you know, we tried to pass a law in Colorado that said if you're found guilty of malpractice and animal dyes, you could be sued up to $10,000. They put a cap on it, $10,000. and I thought that's a rational thing. Every event I knew was just outraged by it. I no, it will put us all out of business. Well, you know, if you're not doing things wrong, what do you have to hide? if we do something, kill an animal, It is more than just a dog or a cat. We should be able to have to pay someone back for that restitution, for that pain and suffering. But that is not the way the law looks at it at all. at the same time, the same groups will say, OK, well, if your dog breaks a leg, I want $20,000 to fix that or $10,000 to do a GI surgery. But if you can't afford that, I will kill it for you for $500. And I've never understood that. just seems totally hypocritical to hell to me.
Mike: ⁓ god, it's...
Andy Duffer: How do you say that with a straight face like as a veterinarian?
Mike: right.
Jeff Young: ⁓ it's ridiculous, you know.
Andy Duffer: Well, why do you think that animal cruelty laws are written at a state level? Like it's every law is different by the state. Why do we not have just across the board? This is what animal cruelty is and this is the punishment.
Jeff Young: because the amount of abuse that goes on with large animals, in particular cows, pigs, the truth is there's ways to raise animals and to kill them a lot more humanely than what we do. you know, you would be putting all these big businesses in big ags. I mean, we're talking, you know, trillions of dollars. I'm sorry. they're not gonna put up with it. They don't want any regulations. And so then you have to divide it down. Well, why is a dog and cat different than a cow? When you start doing that, people get real panicky about it, especially the veterinary profession, and especially big business. So it's a dog chasing its own tail.
Mike: Yeah, it's really heartbreaking. what is, I mean, from your being a vet, do you think ⁓ the root of ⁓ is gonna be?
Jeff Young: I think there have been a few court cases that are interesting. And I do think they have to find at least companion animals as a unique type of personal property, and then then at least hold society to a little bit higher standard, If your dog gets killed in, you know, on purpose by your neighbor or something, there should be a price to pay other than a $200 fine, but you know, it doesn't solve the problem in the grand scheme of things in terms of the cruelty that goes on at a different level for other animals. But certainly for companion animals, I think there has to be some separation. And the laws are going to happen that way. And they were kind of stalled right now. there were some judgments in some jurisdictions where people did have to pay a fairly high amount of restitution for killing someone's animal.
Mike: Were those civil cases or are criminal cases?
Jeff Young: Yeah, there's several cases, yeah.
Andy Duffer: So you're saying that we can't have animal cruelty laws across the board because of agricultural exemptions?
Jeff Young: Absolutely. That's a big part of it. Because the proverbial camel's under the tent. know, once you start, where does it end? and there's people ⁓ sit around and about these things from a philosophical standpoint. But cruelty is cruelty, and I don't care what animal, no animal ⁓ should be subjected to the kind of cruelty ⁓ that many are subjected to on a daily basis in country. And the correlation between animal abuse and child abuse, the correlation between animal abuse and adult criminality is well known, well said. And positive benefits that humans bring to us in terms of our health, and and PTSD, you it, it just can't be underestimated. again, 40 % of people America have children in the household, 70 % of people have animals in the household.
Mike: I all of that is grounds for some sweeping changes. see, that's the other thing confuses me is like, ⁓ for example, like dog fighting, cruelty is very low on the enforceable law thing. know, like they're going to go after drug charges or sex trafficking But hopefully, ⁓
Jeff Young: Yes.
Mike: law enforcement is starting to figure out now, finally, I think, is the correlation between animal abuse and all of those other things. Like where you find dog fighting, you're finding arms, you're finding drugs, finding sex trafficking. So you literally just look for the dog fighting and you can like do a clean sweep of all of the, the higher priority ⁓ you know.
Jeff Young: And that makes sense. The same mentality that goes into abusing children or abusing animals is the same mentality goes into abusing the system and everything else around it. Those people are sleazeballs in every aspect of their life, no doubt about it.
Mike: 100 % like animal abusers are just scourge of this world. they don't have a shred of empathy for a sentient being that is very to over to how they're gonna treat their colleagues, how they're gonna treat functioning as a... productive member society. You know, they're going to take advantage of everything. I mean, it's basically like a scarlet letter
Jeff Young: mass murderer started abusing ⁓
Andy Duffer: Well, that's the thing is if you start with animals, states don't share animal abuse tracking across state lines. So if someone's banned from ⁓ buying an or owning an animal, they can just go to a different state and nothing follows. ⁓
Jeff Young: they do. And they move. And they'll move with 40 animals. I mean, I've seen this, I've seen people come through and come to my clinic as they're moving from one state to another to get out of charges, you know, or to move away from charges. it does happen. I know how you keep a national registry of that thing, but it would make sense because once again, those people are the same people and they just move around.
Andy Duffer: you think they take advantage of that? They figure out which states have weak laws and then they just flock to that.
Jeff Young: I just think it takes a long time to get caught, you know, and so many and I hate to say it, because of the no kill movement, I truly believe we've really enabled people to have way too many animals and not take proper care of them, I'm a nonprofit or, I'm a shelter. And it's not they're not legit, they're disgusting. And some a lot of times it's a mental illness, there's no question about it. You know, but once again, if they get caught, What happens to that person get therapy? No, they get a fine, they get smacked on the wrist, they to pay some money. They may have to, a bunch of animals get euthanized. Once again, the animals suffer. And I've been involved in some of those cases. And in the end, behavior doesn't change. You go back two years later and you're doing the exact same thing. It just takes a long time for it to build a case and to track them down and to nail it to it.
Mike: Yeah. ⁓
Andy Duffer: Well let's talk about what do you go ahead Mike.
Mike: I was just going to expound on that. I've actually had some experience with that. I've gone into shelter and photographed some dogs and a couple of organizations were forthcoming in rescuing, pulling the dogs from the shelter. ⁓ So on paper it seemed like, OK, these dogs are safe, but they went into a more horrific situation. Twice this has happened to us in the past year. people keep cropping up. ⁓ people who are grifting the system for money, they pull these animals and just collect endless of money because ⁓ they're ⁓ under guise they're trying to help these animals, but they're ⁓ not. in one case, the animals in a They hadn't been fed or ⁓ given water for ⁓ weeks and weeks and weeks. some of them found dead and... And these are animals that we thought were safe. I flew across country and I went into the shelter and I brought some of my friends so we do these videos. And we went through all this effort and then we sighed a breath of relief thinking, okay, these animals are safe. And for me, it's for me to think that I helped these dogs and in fact, I put them in a worse situation. And I have the guilt and it's, hard, it's hard to ⁓ navigate, animal advocacy you know, ⁓ to an animal advocate, have to have, you know, an unusual amount of empathy. But as a result, you know, you get, ⁓ you get a lot of trial all the time.
Jeff Young: You get stabbed in the heart all the time.
Andy Duffer: Do you think these big humane groups that are grifting, do you think that they like animal cruelty laws so they can continue to profit off the suffering and advertise?
Mike: Well, one guy who was very well known in Los Angeles, it was in the LA Times. There's a big story on this guy who was like an animal rescue hero. And he would rescue cats that were set on fire and dogs that had their leg cut off with a machete. And he would post it and raise thousands of dollars. Turns out He was doing it to the animals. do you know who I'm talking about? That, that, um.
Jeff Young: I don't know if I want to hear about it.
Mike: He was actually inflicting the trauma on these poor animals in order to raise, hundreds and hundreds of of dollars. I he was very big in ⁓ the world. So like, it's demoralizing, you think these people are heroes and you think like, I can take five minutes off from like posting 50 a because this guy has it covered for today. And it turns out they're pieces of shit. ⁓
Jeff Young: I worked on the Lou Ann Strickland case. Lou Ann Strickland was the wife of the head of the Senate in Colorado, all right? a local humane organization, it was one of the county organizations, had adopted her hundreds of animals. And they assumed that she was readopted them and she kept them all. They finally busted her, but I'm thinking, why the hell would you guys adopt them? Never look at the place, never go out there. Every time an animal was slated for euthanasia, they'd call her up and she had taken a course. Trimble and I were assigned as vets on the case for the state. ⁓ And we went into a quantum they had two to 300 cats in it, no separation from leukemia A's. We had turned over a couch, it'd be a dead black cat. And she'd go, ⁓ that's blackie. And she'd tell you the story of blackie. What two days later do you find another dead one in the corner that's black? ⁓ that's blackie and tell you the same damn story. I mean, a lot of this is a mental illness, but then a lot of it is purposeful because of the money issue like you just described. So you have the extreme both ends, people who really are empathetic and love animals, but yet because they have mental illness, they cause all this harm without even knowing they're doing it. Then you have the other end that are causing the harm on purpose and they do know what they're doing and they're getting money for it, what other? profession or situation can you think of that would be like that? I mean, it's phenomenal to me how we rationalize and how we do things. And yet we have such piss poor laws.
Mike: It's the legal system I I don't know what the answer is. In Scandinavia, in Holland, they have much stricter laws like you can't, a dog from a breeder unless the shelters are empty. it's much tougher to get a companion animal in some countries than Scandinavia. And like here, it's like a third world country when it comes to that. ⁓
Jeff Young: You don't make that much money. mean, even high-end breeders, it's almost like a way of life. It's not necessarily a way to make a lot of money in all honesty.
Mike: Exactly. mean, I don't know what needs to happen there, but.
Andy Duffer: Weak animal cruelty laws are also exhausting shelters. I mean, that's indirectly filling shelters because they're the ones that have to clean up the mess when the dog gets surrendered or gets taken from the person being cruel to the animal. ⁓
Jeff Young: The thing is it takes so much time to go from prosecution to the end of it. So if you end up taking in 50 animals, can try to find foster homes, but I can't adopt them out until the court cases are all done. ⁓ And if ⁓ people have little bit money and they get a lawyer, they can drag that stuff out for years. ⁓ they don't pay any price that. We need ⁓ to ⁓ write the laws where your animal is confiscated, You need to be paying for the room and board of that animal or whatever shelter it goes into. And some places they do, some places they don't, some places you get a small amount. But why should this shelter, why should a nonprofit shelter have to suck that up because someone is evil and cruel? Makes no sense.
Mike: That's another problem right there is, you know, like some of these court cases where the animals are the evidence, who's caring for them? You know, so like the system wants to just get these cases in and out because they don't want to be responsible for caring for these animals, you know, for months on end while these cases go on. these animals are little considered So that's another whole issue, people don't give a crap enough. to wanna take care of the animals. ⁓
Andy Duffer: But what's the point of weak consequences for animal cruelty? A $25 fine for killing an animal? How do you justify that?
Jeff Young: I don't know. You can't, you know.
Mike: Yeah, that's what I don't understand. Like literally what I saying before, like if you set my chair on fire, that's like a, that's the more enforceable crime than setting a dog on fire. Yeah, you know, our sense of felony, setting a dog on fire is ⁓ a
Jeff Young: Might be a felony.
Andy Duffer: Well, was it... Was it... Pennsylvania that just passed a bill that now looks at animals as family instead of property. Have I looked it up earlier and it looks like it's really just for custody with a divorce instead of cruelty. It really just helps people with.
Jeff Young: Yeah. But that's first step it'll lead to, once again, if it's not just personal property, if it's not just a TV like thing, then if someone does something to that animal, you're gonna have a better, bit more standing in court to be able to say, okay, I need reimburse this, this was part of my family. For the record, 76 % of people believe their dog is part of their family in America.
Andy Duffer: I know I do. I know I do. Fred is part of the family.
Jeff Young: ⁓ I always say it was me hanging from a cliff and Fred hanging from the cliff. My wife was up there. She'd be like, hmm, I'll come back to you. I'll get Fred first.
Andy Duffer: Let me get Fred first. Well, let me ask you a question, Jeff. As a vet, you see animals and you know, you just know that that animal was abused and something cruel happened. Like, how do you handle that? You can't accuse them of it, can you? Do you report it? What do you do?
Jeff Young: Absolutely. And listen, we've had animals come in here with three fractures in a six-month period, you know, and it's like, this is not normal. And you may test to see if they have brittle bone disease or some word diseases, but, report those cases and we get people really pissed at us, but we're still limited, you know, technically until they're proven guilty, they get to take their animal back, you know, I can't hold it. ⁓ What I try to do is increase the price and because a lot of times these people don't have money and say, well, you don't have money. I'm keeping your dog. You come up with the money. know, ⁓ by the way, it costs every day. It stays here. But if you talk to our animal control or, you know, places where we call it in, we probably call in more than any vet hospital in the whole state, probably more than all the vet hospitals combined. I see more neglect than over curried. That's the good news, you know, but neglect. And from the animal standpoint, does it matter? know, it probably doesn't neglect is the same thing as cruelty in some ways. ⁓ But work cruelty is not that common. You will see among childism by proxy, which is where a person hurts the animal so it can take it to the vet and get attention, you know, and they hurt the animal again, take it to the vet and get attention. It's called among childs. People do it with children too. Among childs and by proxy, it's a weird thing. ⁓ Some people will hurt themselves to go, you know, to get attention, but it's attention seeking. So there's a lot of mental illness out there around animals and pets. And yet if you're found guilty of something, rarely do you have to go through any type of psychological help or training. And to me, that should be one of the first things that just happen.
Andy Duffer: Have you seen repeat abuses come through the clinic?
Jeff Young: Absolutely. We've had several here already, and we've taken animals away and turned them in. ⁓ One that we highly suspected, we turned them in, turned them in, turned them in. And finally, ⁓ something happened and their partner turned them in and they got prosecuted for cruelty. what's that?
Andy Duffer: Who do you turn them into? Who do you turn them into? someone, if the average person suspects it.
Jeff Young: That's one of problems because it kind of, see, I can't call the animal control a pair. It's whatever jurisdiction they came from. I have to call that animal control. In some jurisdictions are gun hole and others are like, yeah, we'll get back with you, you know, and they're not going to hold off. animal has come a long way. You see animal control, the dog catchers, you know, is kind of a thing of the past ⁓ and ⁓ animal control can be very ⁓ ⁓ And, you when I worked animal control, I went to classes on how to investigate what the law was. I took a cruelty class, neglecting cruelty class at a ⁓ community college that was paid for, you learn the laws and how you enforce them. ⁓ But a lot of control issues are not very good at. ⁓ And once again, it's low priority, you know, it does come back to finances, you know, so.
Andy Duffer: What's the point of passing a law if no one's going to do anything to enforce it? they just pass the laws without funding the infrastructure to enforce it. So I mean, ⁓ is it just a charade?
Jeff Young: But it's the first step. we no laws not that long ago, virtually no laws or very bad laws. ⁓ If get stronger and stronger laws, ⁓ the will come with time. I ⁓ honestly in my heart of hearts that a society that we do ⁓ progress And maybe one step back every now and then, ⁓ I make the argument maybe we're in that process right now, ⁓ but the end, we move forward. And if not, we still have children. We wouldn't have the labor laws. Women would still be at home barefoot, pregnant. mean, humankind wants to be progressive. And there's a reason in Star Trek. They're all vegetarian in the future. ⁓
Mike: which brings me to another thought that I had, know, like as science advances and our ability to understand, the communication barrier between humans and other species, they're starting to make some headway with dolphins, they're figuring out they have like a language of certain words and stuff. I ⁓ feel like we're, going to figure out a way, with AI something how to understand the language of other species, ⁓ I that will really change our outlook. I mean, I can look at my dog I understand exactly what my dog is saying to me their subtle movements or her body language. but I've made the choice to. ⁓ open myself up to understanding that communication. But most people don't. Most people don't give a crap. like, if the dog's barking, they smack the dog, but animals do things for reasons. if you don't understand what those are, you're going to have conflict. So ⁓ I feel like as science progresses and we learn to understand the language of other I think that will really like change understanding of what a sentient being is, if we actually can speak to them somehow.
Andy Duffer: Humans seem to base intelligence off being able to speak.
Jeff Young: The question really comes back, can they suffer? Do feel pain? ⁓ When I went vet school, I came down from Montana. ⁓ I I was mountain man all the way. I was hunted and trapped and everything else. ⁓ And I was taught, I I killed my first deer when I was 10 years old in the woods with a high-powered rifle by myself. ⁓ And I looked my grandkids that are 20-something years old, and hell, I wouldn't give them a high-powered rifle if they're the last person on earth. ⁓ At the time, was raised differently. But having said all that, I was always taught animals don't feel pain. very discart, this is the way they act, and you get in vet school and you find out, oh, by the way, they have all the chemoreceptors, neurotransmitters that we have exactly the same, Now they may deal with pain differently in nature. you don't want to be showing pain in nature because if you do, you're going to be the first one that gets eaten or killed. ⁓ But, they still feel it the same way we do. And it totally changed my life. I mean, it changed how I look at them. And between that and then working animal control and seeing how we treat man's best friend in particular ⁓ was disheartening to me as a human being. It totally changed the way I viewed the world.
Andy Duffer: So what do y'all think is standing in the way of animal cruelty laws? Is it human ego? Is it that we're eating animals and we have to figure out which species suffers and which one doesn't so we can eat them? Is it money? What do you think is stint? It's money? Just always money.
Mike: It's, mean, the root of all of the problems that you're describing are money. know, the cost of caring and being empathetic to animals. And most people are not willing to pay, that price. mean, if you can even look at it that way, you know, in my mind, like, I couldn't.
Jeff Young: always nice. Yep, I agree.
Mike: I don't look at it as like, ⁓ I'm not going to abuse my animal. It's like such a huge price to pay. I don't look at it that way. I love my dog all my heart again, I think if we could bridge the communication barrier between animals, I think would really change people's perception of how experience life and feelings and pain and suffering. Because right now it's, ⁓ most do know, ⁓ they know, they're like, ⁓ it's happening for thousands of years. And there's that, which is bullshit. People are like, ⁓ well, we've been killing animals for thousands of years. And we've been eating animals for thousands of years. ⁓
Jeff Young: They don't understand.
Mike: I mean, yeah, but we haven't been torturing them for thousands of years. That's the difference. know, like mass farming is such a horrific abuse of life. and ⁓
Jeff Young: It's not healthy for us. The antibiotics, the pesticides, the herbicides, the steroids, it's not healthy for us. Although, from a human standpoint, we're very hypocritical. Like we look at Southeast Asia, well, they eat dogs and cats, a pig is every bit as smart as a dog. ⁓ In fact, ⁓ they're smarter. A lot of pigs are smarter than most dogs. I hate say it.
Mike: ⁓ yeah.
Jeff Young: But having said that, you know, like, wouldn't consider eating our dog, but we think nothing about, eating bacon, but that's, that's the line we've drawn as It's not, it's not a rational line. It's just a line we've drawn more of an emotional thing, you know, because pigs don't make real fun pets, I guess, you know, not real furry and friendly. ⁓ Although I had a pet pig and ⁓ was really cool, just for the record.
Mike: Oh, I met a little sweet little piglet in 2017 named Priscilla. the day that I met that pig, I made that sentient being connection. And that was it for the last time. I can't even say like, oh, I don't eat pork anymore. like even that's disgusts me to think that I ever did in the first place, but I certainly don't and I haven't since that day and don't eat beef and I don't eat dairy
Jeff Young: I think Tolstoy said, if you want to decrease the suffering and cruelty in your life, put down your fork.
Andy Duffer: Well, but not only that, like that is a big factor with global warming.
Mike: yeah, the number one cause of environmental collapse. ⁓
Jeff Young: Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, let's face it, we can make meat now. It's going to get cheaper and cheaper. It's all going to be artificial. And you can argue over how healthy it is if it has a bunch of weird products in it. But, it won't be long that it doesn't make sense to raise the animals in the billions that we do because of the environmental impacts on them, you know, to where, you know, if you can make it in a factory and give people jobs doing that and it's clean. why not, if it tastes the same, and or the health benefits are the same. And I do think the future is bright that way. ⁓ That impossible burger, with the the fake meat at Burger King is pretty damn good. ⁓
Mike: ⁓ That I think is going to be like a key factor in not necessarily changing people's ⁓ of sentient but just changing the economy of like animal production. I lost the ability to cut into meat because it was skeeving me out too much. Just the thought of like cutting into the animal like it freaked me out. so I've tried these like fake beef and stuff ⁓ and cutting into it kind skews me out of it because it's so like beef-like. ⁓ So like, I mean, if you can convince a meat eater that, ⁓ it ⁓ tastes good and it has the nutritional or whatever, which
Jeff Young: Yeah.
Andy Duffer: Yeah.
Mike: you again, it's gonna come very soon. It's probably gonna be healthier at some point, know, cholesterol, less hormones, all that stuff. if we can just like sort of ⁓ sneak it there, you know, and do the baby switch with meat eaters, I think that is what's gonna really help change the collective perception of how to treat sentient beings.
Jeff Young: Yeah, absolutely. I do think it's going to be the environment that's going to force that change. If you do any research at all, I know so many environmentalists that eat meat all the time. It's like, you're not an environmentalist if you eat large consumption of meat. I don't condemn people. ⁓ I you know, ⁓ where come from, but where we come from is not where we're going, is the point. And, you know, as a society, we can be far more humane. And in the end, if you can get the same taste and the same benefits, why wouldn't you? Why would you have to kill something, achieve that? I am to the point in my life where I probably have more respect for a good hunter shooting a deer and eating it than going down and buying ⁓ a hamburger at McDonald's, to be quite frank with you, because ⁓ I know how much more that cow suffered. least that deer had a normal life up to the point at night. And there's something to be said for that.
Mike: Yeah. ⁓
Andy Duffer: Well, before we are, did you want to expand on that?
Mike: No, no, was just, I was agreeing with that. know, I mean, it's definitely a lesser of an evil on hunting a deer but I still get freaked out.
Jeff Young: of evil.
Andy Duffer: before we go, I just wanted to ask y'all, what do you think prevention would actually look like if we had consistent animal cruelty laws that were enforceable? that a tough question?
Mike: it's a broad, it's such a broad thing. I I it's, it's common knowledge people know that the animal cruelty laws in place, they know that if they go and set a dog on fire, they're going to probably get off. Do you know what mean? until enforcement makes the connection that torturing animals directly correlates to more horrific crimes people are gonna continue abusing animals. So until these laws are actually enforced and people actually go to jail for like 30 years, which some dog fighters have, but it just needs to be broader. It needs to be enforced. Like sending a dog on fire, I mean, I to just keep saying that, but it's such a horrific thing and I see it so often in the media. How can you do that? How can you allow somebody to do that?
Andy Duffer: People do that.
Mike: Like is it law enforcement or anybody? How can you not understand that that is hugely problematic in society? that by allowing it to go unchecked ⁓ putting out a monster into society you know what I mean? Like where's it gonna stop?
Andy Duffer: It's a good thing I'm not a judge. Didn't Jeffrey Dahmer start with animals?
Mike: Yes, they all did. They all did. They all tortured animals because being a psychopath that way is ⁓ just devoid of any understanding of right and wrong and empathy.
Jeff Young: Well, yeah, all mass-molars are animals. For me, it comes down to the three things I've been talking about for probably 30 years, and that is spay neuters, If you drop the population, there's few animals that have to suffer, ⁓ and the people have them are going to put more value on them. It's the supply and demand. It's basic economics. ⁓ But you have have good animal regulations. You start with that. and they hope enforcement follows, it takes time. But you also have to have humane education. ⁓ don't know about something, I mean, if you ask inner city kids, where does hamburger come from, they'll say McDonald's. They don't even know it comes from a ⁓ Because we're more and more urbanization, we're just gotten farther and farther away from nature. ⁓ nature is cruel. I I'll be the first to admit that. But ⁓ humans, we have a choice to pick compassion over cruelty. ⁓ And it really is up to us. I like to think we're a little bit more than knuckle dragging the anderthals, although I do question that sometimes, you know, but I do think the future is going to force change upon us whether we want it or not. And I hope that's true.
Mike: Well, just doing your podcast is a huge step in the right direction of And creating empathy in ⁓ youth, ⁓ teaching them ⁓ how treat and the of ⁓ mistreating animals, is a great place start. You know, cause that's one thing like I do this, I do a lot of, I've done some stuff for an organization in Detroit that does, pulls dogs from dog fighting situations. And what they've discovered is that like it's generational. the odd thing is all these dog fighters have cute little inside dogs, know, a little fluffy with the ribbons in there. And then the outside dogs, they abuse and torture and electrocute. ⁓ But the ⁓ children are taught believe that they like that, that those dogs, those dog fighting dogs are bred to do that because that's what they like. they firmly believe that they're not doing anything wrong because that's what they're So you have to teach them the way.
Jeff Young: countries have human education as part of the curriculum. And I think it's the civil Scandinavian countries. ⁓ And that's to say they don't eat meat or anything, ⁓ but you they don't, they don't torture their meat necessarily before they eat it, at least. ⁓ And it's start, you know, you got to start somewhere. ⁓ That's the of life.
Mike: Yeah.
Andy Duffer: Well, Mike, don't know if you know, but Jeff is fixing to build ⁓ a new animal shelter and he's going to focus mainly on animals that need rehabilitation and have medical needs. so. ⁓
Mike: ⁓ cool. Where are you doing that in Colorado? Yeah, that's awesome.
Jeff Young: It'll happen. Connor for Colorado. Yeah. I think the most important thing, honestly, I think I've done in my whole career is I've always trained young vets from all over the world and all over the US. ⁓ You know, they come through here and they we never charge them for that. They stay anywhere from two to six weeks. We have a dorm room for them to stay in if they don't have a place to stay. And we never charge them. I think having them see what we do. I think it makes a difference. And I think, you know, it was from the spay neuter and our philosophy. And I think that I think that's private. I mean, I'm really glad I've spayed a neuter, literally hundreds of thousands of animals. But at the same time, I think it's teaching. I honestly was naive enough to believe when I graduated, know, overpopulation. I was like 20 million animals being killed. Let's go out there and take care of the problem of spay neuter. And, know, about five or 10 years later, it kind of scratched my head. Damn, this thing just keeps coming. You know, they don't go away. It's never ending, you know. And so, I don't know, I think teaching other people and getting people philosophically aligned makes the biggest difference. And I do believe that the kids coming out of school now are just so much smarter than I ever was and they have a much broader view of the world.
Mike: hope so. I hope so for the better. ⁓
Jeff Young: What is good?
Andy Duffer: Well, Mike, if you need a sexy hunk for a calendar shoot, we've got Jeff right here.
Mike: I was going hit you both up. ⁓
Jeff Young: Yeah, if you do a geriatric calendar, then I'm in.
Mike: Oh, you guys are definitely in the next one.
Jeff Young: Thank you, Mike. Really appreciate you coming.
Andy Duffer: Well, ⁓ thanks for doing this with us, Mike. We really do appreciate it.
Mike: Thank you. This was a good conversation and I hope that it ⁓ goes out into the world and changes some minds. all you can do is your best and it looks like you guys are doing that for sure.
Jeff Young: Appreciate it. Thank you.
Andy Duffer: We're trying. Thanks, Mike.
