Fur Family Filed with Rescued Love

The Story of My Pet Podcast

Episode 15- The Joys of Animal Companionship and Connections Developed with Rescue Pets.

Host: Julie Marty-Pearson
Guest: Amy Fagan

[00:00:00]
Hello. Hello, my friends and fellow animal lovers. Welcome to another episode of the story of my pet podcast. I'd like to welcome Amy Fagan to our podcast. Hello, Amy.

[00:00:12]
Hello. I'm so glad to be here. I'm glad to have you. I'm going to tell my listeners a little about you, and then we'll start chatting.

[00:00:20]
So Amy lives in Maine with her husband and their rescue dog Whitney. They also have two cats, Clarence and Storm. I love those names clarence, Storm sorry. And Amelia plus six chickens. We were just talking about them.

[00:00:39]
She works from home and has her own jam business called Amy's Garden Jam. And she has a podcast about sustainability called Grounded and main podcast. Sounds like fun. Well, thank you again, Amy, for being here. Yes, thank you.

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So did you grow up in Maine, or did you move there? You lived there? I did grow up in Maine. I was born and raised here, moved around quite a bit. I lived in Utah for a year, but I ended up coming back.

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My husband and I are here. We've been in the same house for 15 years next week, and now we're gardening and have our little Jennyard for the critters. Well, it sounds like I've never been to Maine, but I've always wanted to go there. Very silly fact about me. When I was little, I loved watching Murder She Wrote, and it was based in Maine, and I always thought that would look like a nice place to live.

[00:01:43]
Oh, I didn't even know that. Oh, you did it. Yeah. The main character, the author, lived in Maine, and so I would say 80% of the episodes happened in and around Maine. So I've always thought that looks like an interesting place to be.

[00:01:59]
Never actually thought yeah. Let's talk about your love for animals. Did you have animals when you were young? We did have animals when I was young. We always had either a dog or a cat, I think at my mom's house, my dad's house, we had rats.

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We had pet rats because one of the kids had allergies. Okay. Oddly, he has his own dog now, but we thought he had allergies, and so we had pet rats, and I love pet rats. I have non pet rats, which I'm not a fan of right now at our house. Right.

[00:02:37]
But we always had rats. And then when I started living on my own and I moved back to Maine, I ended up getting a cat of my own, and she changed my life. I can't imagine not having a cat. Yeah, I'm the same way. I didn't grow up with them, but I got one as an adult.

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It was my first pet, and it's like, okay, well, I'm always going to have a cat now. They're my people. Yeah, I'm totally a cat person. I fall head over heels for dogs. I could probably be without a dog, maybe, but I just can't see myself without a cat.

[00:03:19]
Yeah, we had four at one point, so yeah, I totally understand. We only have two now. It is a thing. Once you have it, you realize they're just a part of your everyday life. It's really amazing.

[00:03:33]
Right. My husband is the grounding one, grounded one. He's the one that keeps me low. Like, I could easily have more than two cats, but he reminds me that they get sick and they have problems and you have to pay for food and vet bills and stuff like that. Right.

[00:03:51]
My husband is the same, and I've found meeting people through my podcast, a lot of us, whether it's a husband or a wife, we all have that grounding person in our life. So we don't have two dozen animals. We kind of have to. Have to, yeah. So talk to me about your current dog, whitney.

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Oh, whitney. Whitney. Whitney came to us. She's been with us just four years, and she is the dog version of me. I've learned in the last four years.

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My first dog of my own, we lost 2018, january. And she broke my heart. I fell apart, and after several months, I realized that I was completely, like, unhealthy even. I couldn't even imagine walking without a leash in my hand. And so I just wasn't walking.

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And so I was just super out of shape and really unhealthy. And so we got a dog, and we were thinking a little bit bigger because she was a pomeranian, she was £9. And as much as I love pomeranians, I was like, okay, I'm willing to branch out a little bit. Like, we can go a little bit bigger and maybe like £18, £20 maybe. And we found whitney on pet finder, and I just saw her picture, and she was my dog.

[00:05:26]
We met her and she was just so timid and wonderful, and she was a little bit kissy. But the lady that was fostering her said, don't put your face too close. She can be nippy. But she was totally not nippy. But she is with other people very much.

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She's an australian cattle dog mix. Okay? So she's very loyal to her people, and she does not like men. But she loves my husband. He is her boy.

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And I'm home with her all day long, every second of every day. And she has her own work that she's doing in the office across the house, on the couch, and I don't see her all day long. And then my husband comes home and she's like, oh, my goodness, there are people here. Yes, it's fine. I get her at 300 in the morning, of course, but she is so snuggly, and she is so sweet, and she has the nicest size.

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She is not £18. She is like 45. I was going to say by looking. At the picture, she's a little bit tubby. She gets that from my side.

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But she came from Georgia, and we don't know what happened, but she's very reactive, she's very anxious. And I don't know if it's protective or if it's just fear. I don't know. I actually had an animal communicator come over once, and I was like, I just need to know how I can help her. What can I do for her?

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And she was like, you don't want to know, you don't want to know, which is not helpful. But at the same time, I guess it doesn't really matter. We just need to know that that's what we're dealing with. So we actually have a sign up on our door at our gate in case anybody comes over that says, please do not put your hand down for the dog, even if she begs you to, because she does bite. And she's been a couple of people, not bad, but enough to make us worry.

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And sometimes that's our role with our animals is to be their protector. I follow some people who have amazing dogs, but they are reactive for different things, and it's just about protecting them. And people think, oh, it's a dog, I want to pet them. Well, not all dogs like that. I totally get it.

[00:08:01]
Oh, my gosh. And yeah, I mean, everything that everyone has been taught our entire lives, like, when you meet a new dog, you put your hand down so that they can smell you. Right. Please don't do that at my home. That's always been my thing, too, when you meet a new dog.

[00:08:15]
But now I know better for sure. Right. I'm a dog sitter, and one of the dogs I take care of is Australian Cattle Dog Mix. And they know she was a ranch dog and wasn't treated well, so she's the same way. She's very timid.

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But once she knows you oh, yeah. You're her people. She has to know where you are. Twenty four, seven, I have to make sure you're okay. So I can imagine I can just picture her, Whitney, following her husband around.

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Oh, my goodness. Yeah.

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And when we first got her, we were advised to not leave her alone with cats unsupervised. And so I was worried about that because Clarence pants, he makes his own rules. And so we put Whitney in a bedroom with a baby gate so that she could smell everyone and see everyone, but everyone didn't have access. And Clarence, just within minutes, he scaled that baby gate and he was in there, and I was such a wreck. But everyone's fine.

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Everyone's fine. And even with the chickens, like, she's fine with the chickens. If the chickens run in front of her, she might snip. But she's not out there. She's laying out there right now, probably with them just wandering around.

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They all just hang out in the same yard. It's so cool because I just think of her as being this crazy, wild dog, and she's been so troubled, and. Sometimes all they need is the right home and then they're at ease with the people they know are going to take care of them. Yeah. So how long have you guys had chickens?

[00:09:57]
This is our 9th year. Oh, wow. Not the same chickens. I've heard that from people that there can be quite a turnover in the chickens. Yeah, we lost our oldest chicken, who was seven a year and a half ago, I guess.

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So that's pretty old. And then we lost one this year who was eight, but we had only had her for a little less than a year. And your two cats, Clarence and Amelia, how long have you had them? Amelia, we've had a year yesterday. Oh, that's right.

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I saw you post on Facebook. Yeah, just yesterday. And she was a rescue. And she is the sassiest little thing. She makes no noise, she has no tail, which I think is just adorable.

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She's like a little bunny. And she has a little notch in her ear, which makes me think she was feral, but they said that she was not. I mean, she's very mild and she is very quiet. You don't even hear her. I have one of those.

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I was just saying that to my husband. He had been in my office with me and I went into the kitchen and I literally turned around and there he was. It was like, you're a ninja. How did you do that? Exactly?

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She's a ninja. Except in the middle of the night, I'm really working with her to keep her awake during the day. I'll just keep poking her, like literally poking her. Stop sleeping, stop sleeping. Because at three in the morning, she's wandering around the house and she'll like, the other night I have unfrosted my sister.

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My sister likes to make fun of me. Unfrosted Poptarts little package of unfrosted Pop Tarts on my desk for an emergency. She picked that up and she dropped it on the floor. And then she's walking through the house talking, like, telling us what she found at 300 in the morning. So we got to stop them.

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You got to sleep at night? Yeah, I think it's their witching hour. And I've had cats do different things. One of my oldest cat, he would just go stand in the hallway and start meowing. We're like what?

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Why do you have to pick the most echoey spot to do it? Right, yeah, I mean, 03:00 is also basically when I wake up in the morning and I move around, but I think she's up anyway. But she'll look for things to find. She's looking for stuff to get into. And Clarence, we got them in 2015, six and a half years.

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We got him as a kitten. Okay, and how did you come upon him? Did you adopt him or was he a rescue? We adopted him, I guess. I mean, somebody had kittens and brought them home.

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But I've become so accustomed to having two cats that I can't imagine. I feel so bad leaving the house if there's only one cat. I don't want to take Whitney out if Clarence is alone. But we had this cat before Amelia who was so special. He was our first boy, our first boy cat for either of us.

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And he was our first boycott together. And he was so special. And we lost him last year in March. But before Clarence, we lost a cat. And so Clarence was replacing a cat that we had lost after a few months.

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But ouch was our cat. He would literally walk through the house crying like he was just so lonely and broke my heart. Oh, my gosh. So we had to work quickly and find him a cat. Yes.

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And he would snuggle Clarence and no one else can snuggle Clarence. He would snuggle with Clarence and he would give him kisses and clean his ears and oh, my gosh, it was the sweetest thing ever. He was so happy to have the companionship. I love it when cats are like that. Yes.

[00:14:10]
I don't like that he was sad ever, but I do love that he just loved that. Companionship. Clarence. I was worried about Clarence when we looked lost ouchie, he wasn't really showing signs of being lonely, but I didn't want to leave the house and have him be alone because I can only imagine he's like a dude. I don't think he misses anyone.

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I don't know. He's very cool, but I worried that he would and he just doesn't show it right. So we got Amelia and he does not love Amelia. Not yet, anyway. I totally understand what you're saying.

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And for people that have never had cats, boy cats and girl cats are very different. I've always had boy cats and our youngest, Frenchie, was my first girl. And oh, she's sassy. And she will let you know when she wants you. If she doesn't want you, she will let you know, too.

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Yes, boy cats are lovable. All of our boy cats have always been more lovy and want to lay on her laps and friends, she's just kind of like, I will let you know when I want that. But it's funny because she's obsessed with our other cat who is a boy. She follows him around and has a special little meow for him. So they've developed their bonds in time.

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I hope so. I hope so. Amelia I've always loved girl cats. I'd never known boy cats until we had Ouchie. But I'm so happy to have a girl cat.

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I'm so happy to have a girl cat.

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She's very quiet, but whenever anybody, Whitney or Clarence walks by, she'll just like she'll pat them on the phone.

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And. It'S not like, hey, how's it going? It's like, what are you going to do?

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Are you going to get mad? Are you going to be okay? Because I'm new. I'm still new. It's only been a year.

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I don't know. She is so bad like that. But I love it. I love to see it because nobody does anything to her, and I don't know if they're like, we can't break her. She's new.

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That's Clarence. Okay. I was going to say I keep seeing one walk around behind you. Yeah, he's got a tail.

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Whitney is the dog version of me. She's anxious, and she's quick to act, I guess. And when I'm upset, I get very irrational, and I think that she's the same way. And I've learned this over the last four years, but we got Whitney in August of 2018. 2019.

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I was in a car accident, and I was out of work for four months. And so I had said just to back up a little bit when our dog Bella passed away, I was like, no more dogs. I am never going to hurt like this again. I can't. And then the whole, like, I wasn't walking thing, but so Whitney was not planned, but we had her, and oh, my gosh, if I did not have her with me when I was home alone for four months, I would have gone nuts.

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I would have gone nuts. It was meant to be. It was absolutely meant to be. And even if we don't plan it, a lot of times we end up with the pets we're supposed to have for a point in time. And I think that sounds like that's what you're saying.

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I know myself. There have been times in my life where I've had to be at home for long periods of time. And without those pets, I mean, I honestly don't know how people keep saying that don't have animals to talk to or just have that companionship that animals are so in tune with us. They can tell when we're sad, when we're not feeling well, and whether, you know, they do their own special thing, but it's such an invaluable bond to have with them. Absolutely.

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Well, she sounds like she's a great. And we can tell them things that we can't tell anyone else. Exactly.

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I'm not crazy. It's true. Yes. Even about our husband sometimes. Yes.

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Well, and like you said, each pet has their own relationship. Each of our cats has a different relationship with me than with my husband. But we have our special things, and so that's what just makes it so amazing. Right. So I wanted to talk to you about your podcast, grounded in Maine.

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When did you start that, and what got you interested in doing that? Oh, my gosh. So it started airing in June. Okay. I've been talking about it for two years.

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I volunteer at a local farm as a gardener. I've been doing this is my fifth year doing that. And I was talking with a friend while we were weeding over the summer two years ago. And we were just talking about how cool it would be to test out homesteading skills. So canning and gardening and different methods that people do and then do a YouTube channel and test it out and then report back the next week.

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We thought that would be so cool. And so we were going to do that together and then something happened and she didn't have the available time. And so I was like, I'm not doing it on video, so I'm going to plan to do a podcast and I'll just talk to people about sustainability because it's a little bit broader than homesteading, right?

[00:19:55]
What kind of things have you talked about on the podcast? I've had a couple of Herbalists on, a couple of foragers, and lady that is into recycling and she works with lobster men, so reusing lobster rope because for safety reasons, they have to dispose of it every so often. But it's a lot of rope. And so finding artists that will make sculptures with that rope so that it's not just thrown into the waste. And so I thought that was really cool.

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And there's a lady that just opened up a store in Maine called Gogo Refill. And I know they must have them in California where you can just go and refill your cleaners and soaps and stuff, but there wasn't one in Maine, and it's the only one in Maine still, and it was the first one in New England. So she opened up that store and so I had her on. So she's got a lot of sustainable products and refill products. That's great.

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And I just had a guy on who he talks about chickens a lot. Well, and from my perspective, I don't know a lot about that. My husband does all of our gardening and things. But yeah, there's so many little things you don't know and I'm sure it's very specific to the area of the country or world that you live in. So that's really amazing.

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Yeah.

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My goal, my goodness, some words, my goal is to just make it seem less daunting and less intimidating because there are so many different areas of sustainability, to leave a lesser footprint on the earth, but just to talk to different people who do it differently and have people be touched by that and say, I could totally do that. Right. Because if I talk to different people doing a lot of different things, it will touch somebody. Yeah, that can be an overwhelming thing because you feel like you have to do everything, but each thing that you do, like going to a store that can refill your cleaning supplies instead of buying a new bottle every month is one step and it makes its own district. And I feel that the same way about this podcast and helping people to help animals, it's like, well, maybe you can't adopt right now, maybe you can't foster, but there's always little things you can do.

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Even reposting an adoptable dog on social media can make an impact. So I think that the same thing that you're doing with your podcast. Yeah, and I do that. I post that you might have seen it, but I post available dogs and cats and I have a cousin who just moved into a house and so she's looking for a dog and some cats and so I'm constantly tagging her. She tagged me all the time.

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No, I'm good. Right, but I mean, with your podcast and your work, I'm sure you know people all over the country and such and if you were to post something, somebody would see it and maybe they would know someone. Exactly. Yeah. You never know who you're going to reach.

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So that's an important thing to do for whatever your passion is, is a part of being sustainable where your Jam business came from? Or were you already the Jam business. Is not really related to the podcast. It did start about the same. I could do Jam without people seeing me and I don't have to be like out doing it, it's just something.

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So for Jam, my work doesn't really provide a lot of income. I do office work and I don't make tons of money. My husband does. Okay, so my contribution has been gardening and preserving what we garden. And so I've been canning tomatoes and pickles and stuff like that.

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And my sister got married eight years ago and I made jams in little jars for their wedding favors. And so everyone that came to the wedding got a jar of jam and they were like, you need to do that, you need to do that. I love that.

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So while I was out of work with the car accident, I couldn't put weight on my foot. So I was just sitting, I was taking people were like, watch lots of YouTube and lots of TV, got caught up in the soap operas and whatever, and I was doing workshops and webinars and talking to the state and finding out what rules and regulations and just psyching myself up for something. And so I was like, I have this time to get everything in line for the Jam business. So I did that. And when I was able to walk in May, I had a kitchen lined up and I had everything that I need to get going.

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So I work full time. I work full time and I make Jam on Sundays and then I do. Podcasting, other things here and there whenever it works out. Yeah, that's great. Now I think that we all find our place in the world.

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We all find I realized because for so long I worked in areas because I could and I was good at it and I did it. But when it's not feeding that passion, you have to find those ways of getting it out there. And I think that's why there's so many people with podcasts. But it's because we all have these different little things that we love and that we can share with people and spread around. Right.

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And it's something that by saying it out loud, someone else might say, oh, my gosh, I feel the same way. Right. And I totally do. Whenever I'm listening to podcasts, I'm like, oh, my gosh, totally. Yes.

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Well, and, you know, for me, I think same for you. There is a group of us women that aren't human moms, but we're for moms, and it's a very important part of our life. And it's one of the reasons that I decided to start the podcast about pets. Because I know there's so many of us out there that whether you have human children, too, or don't or whatever it is, people don't realize that the connection that we have to our pets. And it's so invaluable that we want to share that, but we also want to share it so other people can experience it.

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Absolutely. I love it. That's awesome. I love yesterday's episode. That was so great.

[00:26:33]
Oh, thank you. Yeah, I was really excited about that. Our listeners obviously won't know. One of the episodes I just released was about animal shelters and how we can support them because they're such an important part of the community and people don't realize how much support they need. I can't even imagine what the employees go through day to day, but they do it and they're dedicated because that's their passion.

[00:26:59]
And so, yeah, I think always telling people to support animal shelters no matter where you live is such an important speaking of that, I know you mentioned to me an organization you know about called Susie Senior Dogs. Yeah. Susie Senior Dogs is based out of New York, I believe, and they work hard to find homes for senior pets, and I'm very passionate about that. My Bella, she was about 14 and a half when she passed away. She was having seizures.

[00:27:35]
She had her throat anyway, she had congestive heart failure. Okay. Something about her throat was closing up. I forget now. I remember when she was sick and after she passed away, people kept saying, you must be glad at least to not have that responsibility.

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And I just lost it. I was like, I would give anything. I would give anything to be able to give her her five meds, give her her lace three times a day. I would do anything to get her back as a senior. So many people, I just see it so often, you know, people dump their animals off because they're too much work or they're too expensive or whatever, and that just breaks my heart.

[00:28:25]
And I think of how much love those dogs and those pets have to give and how they deserve better. Absolutely true. Again, so many people don't realize how many older animals, dogs and cats, get taken to shelters or just left behind when they're moving or whatever it may be because they have an illness that either they can't afford to take care of or they just don't want to. Or like you said, sometimes they just become so much work and it's not right that those animals in that point of their life have to be in a shelter. And so rescues that focus on saving those dogs are so important.

[00:29:08]
So I will link all of the information about Susie senior dogs in the show notes. But it is such an amazing thing. You don't realize just because the dog is old in years doesn't mean they don't have many years left. I follow some accounts where their dogs are 16 or 17. They're on CBD and their loving life, it doesn't matter if tomorrow is their last day.

[00:29:31]
They're living every moment for what they have. And like you said, you would give anything to have her back. They're still giving you that love and companionship even when they're not doing as well health wise. Right. It's our job to keep them happy and healthy as long as we can and not to give up on them.

[00:29:55]
Yeah, it's a partnership. They choose us as much as we choose them and we take care of each other. And to dump somebody in there, oh. Gosh, yes, I can't deal with that. But all we can do is help support the ones that do get left behind in any way possible.

[00:30:18]
Yeah. So I always say if you're going to adopt a pet, just realize you're adopting them for their entire life, which could be as long as 20 years depending on what type of pet it is. So even longer. We have two tortoises and one is approaching 30 at this point. Oh, my God.

[00:30:34]
He may outlive us, but we're dedicated to take care of him as long as we have him. So that's just something important people have to realize. Yeah, absolutely. Well, Amy, thank you so much for being on the podcast. It was great to meet you and hear about your amazing fur babies, past and current, and I will be sharing them and their cute pictures when we've host this episode.

[00:31:00]
So I just want to thank you for sharing and thank you for what you're doing with your podcast and spreading awareness on sustainability. Such an important topic. Thanks so much, Julie. I appreciate the time. Yeah.

[00:31:11]
Okay, listeners, I'll talk to you next time I'm.