talk about animal friends and sarah cherry sits on the board of animal friends and she's very involved in well let's put it this way she has her own rescue agency for as long as i know she's had three to five dogs all the time and always replacing  thousand and four yeah and i actually toward the facility right is they were starting a capital campaign to build a facility in the north hills on kampong road and they were so out grown in that facility in the strip that they had animals in the office in the restrooms in the hallways in the attic so it was very much needed and i got very involved in the capital campaign yes i believed in their mission and they're located on camp or in road and i recall correctly there's a nice kind of a bridge that you go over and yeah it's a beautiful campus there's quite a lot of acreage and we make good use of it by walking the dogs on the trails they've put in there and having outdoor play areas for the residents we even have a cat play facility it's it was a like an outdoor room but now it's a cat play area it's great where do they get their funding from donors it's all all done and all donations so so i know the animal friends has a benefit every year black tie benefit that's our main benefit and that's what time of the year every year well it changes a little bit this year it was in september but this has been very it's months the website always has to date and that's kind of a ball kind of a ball type of event yes yeah and now it's a two day event we have friday and saturday saturday is the formal dinner friday is more towards facility and lots of auctions silane and wine and it's a lot of fun you get to see a lot of the animals and socialize a lot so so corporations know people don't know yes we have some major sponsors you p m c is one of the major sponsors for grasso investments is another one that's a major sponsor  you know through the years we've had different pet foods and pet companies so how do you take in money donations financial donations but you'll take in food you'll take callers and we always need bedding and all those things yeah toys toys yeah the people that work at volunteers are paid people know both their staff and volunteers the volunteers actually i think they logged twenty two thousand hours you know combined last year it's just an amazing operation with the volunteers and you have veterinarians we have on staff at marion's and  yeah so your service and the dogs that are brought in they all have to be screened first they all have to go through testing and evaluation before they can be put in with the general population shelter because there are so many diseases out there now that they all have to be screened first in their evaluated for their temperament and for their adopt ability many things on this funding campaign which you tell us what i'm really want to talk about is the capital campaign for the howard ashe wellness center which is second building that's going up on the campus as we speak it's a beautiful building and it is in keeping with the look of the original shelter which if you've never been i suggest you go out and see it it's very impressive and it will be for space and neuter which is our main focus because that's the only way we're going to solve this problem is by reducing the population so general public can bring their dog or cat in and have them taken care of it's mostly yes but it's mostly for  economically depressed ok for people who can't really it's it's not to replace your community veterinarian it's to service a population that isn't taking their pets is veterinarian that is wants to have them spayed and neutered but can't afford it can't even get to the vet because they don't have transportation you can't take a pet on a bus or so we go out into the community right now with our mobile a neuter van and like for instance will go to braddock and will set up in a parking lot maybe a parking lot of an abandoned space or a parking lot of a school and they line up first thing in the morning they want vaccinated easer and that's so important because a lot of animals are given up because the owners haven't yeah because if they get sick the owners can't afford their care so vaccinations are very important i mean they're important part of the community pets are and so we want to keep them southie as possible and even some medical care is you know in certain cases we take care of some medical care so that the pet can remain in the home with the family so so you're doing it on the on a mobile bases where you continue the mobile bases as well no it will be a all in house i mean there's a huge operating  facility in the new building and it will be a permanent space for doing all of that in the vaccinations in the wellness evaluations and there's actually quite a few components for the wellness center that's one major component and that's priority but the second major component is the humane investigations which is what which is we have to humane officers and they investigate  and they go in for you know if there's dog fighting rings there's hoarders if you know if there's a dog that they've moved away and they've left a dog in the which is common  even probably more common with cats the cats you know we have that's another program we have that is very important to the community is the feral cats there's a lot of call on these and we will continue to go out to the colonies and collect the cats bring him into this facility spayed neutered them and they take them back to their colony so that and that's not an easy thing no it's not just feral cat is almost impossible so that on the whole call yeah yeah and then to take them back yeah so because that's their home that's what they that's their community and so they're being fixed so that they don't reproduce so that wrench away the call and he will no longer cease to exist and you know we have a lot of people out in the community that even though it's a feral cat c they're feeding these cats there they have adopted them under certain basis on their terms right so they care for them they you know they're attached to them and we want them to you know be willing to have these cats neutered and fade so that you know once again the see only way we're going to solve this problem for feral cats take that independent cat theory to new dimension  talk about a cat fight so what is a targeted a for completion of the spring of just twenty seventeen so that's not that far off i would is a know and we have raised almost seven million of the oh most nine million it's going to take to you know pay for this facility for the building of the facility and we have a lot of fun fundraisers that you can go to the website and you know see the schedule and hopefully participate in you know building the facility for our community it's very much needed we do my food program it's called the child way again it's much like food bank for people who need it to supplement is just for allegheny county residents or you know what washington has their own we do coordinate when washington needs us we do step in for what they might need particularly in  situations when you get a big group in that's tough for a facility for a shelter did he handle and hoarding happens quite frequently and i think it's the the wonderful intentions of the person and they can say no and then suddenly you have twenty dogs or you have thirty cats or something like that and then then you can't can take care of them right can you have a time of the effort the energy or the money right it then becomes an abus situation of neglect becomes a situation of starvation if they don't have money they can't feed them so you've had probably five dogs at one time and i had six and it takes a lot and to give each of them attention as they need if you have twenty forget it they're not going to be socialized they're going to have problems and the sad part of it is you know  i stopped at six but if i didn't say no i would have had twenty easy because people take these dogs because it's they're cute when they're puppies or it's a nice christmas gift or birthday   there's a lot of reasons for it you know some of it is mental health the the owners or the hoarders are trying to fill a void oftentimes it's women and it's a mental issue yeah and they just they can't ask for help because they're ashamed or they're embarrassed or whatever but  it happens all way too frequently and you hear those things in the news but they still happen on a regular basis yeah my last two that i got were from a hoarder  situation that were you know they had to recover from severe anorexia and an infestation a fleece that was awful one of them was pregnant with two puppies she was only a pound and a half and she was carrying two puppies one was delivered live only live for three days the other one didn't make it out burst can now so if we hadn't rescued her she would have died a painful we've been nonstop every day so wherever i go they go so they're being worn out well we're going to take a little break sherry will be back in a few moments with our guys sherri the vien everett and she's talking about only aunt my mother was an only child this is my dad's sister lived with us while she was in nursing school and she had a little that we eventually just kept because i was absolutely obsessed with this little guy and he was a lot of my life and from then on i always wanted a dog and i wanted to be involved yeah and then you proceeded to have dogs throughout your life was there pal didn't have the there there was a short period in adult life yeah when i really couldn't because i was single and carefree and just didn't have the lifestyle at that time i mean i knew they had their commitment and they're important that you devote so much time to them and i was devoting more time to my career and having a good time and traveling so there was a period of time in my twenty's when i didn't have a pet and that's the thing when you it has to be the right time to have a dog yes because it does limit your ability to travel you know there are complications and traveling with the dogs or having to board them or having a dog sitter kind of the how you're your lives kind of center around her dogs yeah they do and in lies the problem people don't assess that when when they decide to bring the pet home that their whole life is going to change well when i first got involved with issues dog issues was when i was in my these down and picketing them and taking the sick ones and you know the ones that really had very little life left but so that they would have a loving warm place for the to train them to be you know family friendly and then screen the people who wanted to adopt them and i did this in coordination with the department of agriculture and then i got  into i took a break and then i got into the medical rescues and did that for thirty years so these are all dogs that had medical issues and while they had the behavior issues they had either been abused or neglected or abandoned which was the gamut of my dogs as well so it's very common now the ones the that was ones that i worked with the department of agriculture division of dogs the ones after that that i rescued they had medical issues they had very serious issues that needed surgeries and lifelong care and they would live with me for their entire mortality which i think when i first met you at least have four  five when i first met you know and they give back so much more than you give them oh they they do absolutely you know they're it really truly is unconditional love and no matter what the situation is they love you but the ones that have been rescued they know somehow they know and they're pretty special you know all of mine of course were rescued i had a few from puppy mills and they were in the war shape and just passed this this year but they were fifteen fifteen and a half but they were i got them on the day they were being put down because they were so sick and i've gotten that too and it's it's nothing to just put the dog it's just it's terrible because some of the groups that we think have compassion for animals dogs and this western pennsylvania eastern ohio northern kentucky western or the west virginia we need legislation is a hotbed of this type of abuse and breeding of animals and we need some serious reform and legislation to get rid of this they've they've come a bit you know as in controlling them and having more transparency required of them but it's not near where it needs to be on when i was researching what i found that they did was they would set up and and then when they were close they would run and find another yes that's another thing hidden c s i them again and then go go back to work they'd be tipped off and so they would hide the dogs or whatever and then set up somewhere and the it started to have billboards up and down the turnpike addressing it it's still a big challenge for pennsylvania ohio tennessee west virginia way too many the ones that i got that were medical rescues they were mostly from my passion you are your passion is the doxies mine is maltese and so the breeders knew that i took the sick ones they really took excellent care of them i didn't have the situation where they were coming to me from abuse well i had one but they were coming to me because they had seriously were born with serious medical conditions and would either be euthanized or would die shortly and i would take them to a higher state can't say enough about ohio state and they would i mean sometimes i'd spend a month there they would bring them back from the brink i had one they brought back from the brink maybe five times and she lived a normal mortality so you know she needed support care her entire life but boy was she worth it but i would take them from the breeders because the breeders didn't have the money to give in these surgeries in this kind of medical care and it would take away from you know their program taking care of their existing breeders it wasn't that they didn't want them to have the care they just couldn't afford it yeah because it's expensive it's very expensive the medical model for animals are identical to ours exactly so you know it wasn't i would never take an i'm sorry to say this but i wouldn't take a puppy mill pet because it supports the puppy mill and i don't want to support the puppy mill in any way even some of the large breeders boarder if i don't know if the inspectors are on top of them they can and then it's like a hoarder situation i get too many and they can't take care of them at least not appropriately so i have two dogs for this one breeder would have about three dogs on average mostly if there was any condition she would pass them off on somebody even when even when i had the five i had help i mean to properly take care of them and groom them you know appropriately regular intervals and and have someone to you know play with them when i'm a little busy or whatever spring where the top floor will be mostly the surgery center and the vaccination clinics it's got an education classroom it's got a full time vet and  that techs that will be housed in there then the bottom floor is for the humane investigations they'll bring them when they bring in these dogs and cats they are terrified they're petrified sometimes they're in horrible medical condition so they have a wonderful staging area it's a big room that's dedicated to receiving a large amount of animals and being able to  and even even bug you know parasite infestations mange then you can quarantine them down in that floor and they can get a prop medical care and evaluation and we can bring in you know a big hoarding situation and have the space to do that we also have our trial way again donations way for food yeah and people who have to choose between feeding their pets or feeding themselves a lot a lot of pittsburgh to senior citizens and they're on fixed incomes and we all know what's really impacts the animals and nobody yet has any consideration you know last night i was i went to a hundred acre matter i did house which was which was a lot of fun  funds animal friends yeah so we're very grateful to them they've been terrific to us over the years we have fundraisers all the time and we have a lot of partners with them yeah yeah yeah friends and the good that they do yeah everybody can go to the website and keep up with us and come join the fun and come and get involved you'll be glad you did share a living ever ever heard from a board member