This American Ride
This American Ride Podcast... Two Everyday Red-Blooded American men talking about everything and anything that pertains to you and our Country
Whether you're a die-hard conservative, a curious independent, or even a skeptical liberal looking for alternative viewpoints, our podcast offers something for everyone. So tune in, subscribe, and join the conversation as we navigate the complexities of American politics and culture, one episode at a time.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/this-american-ride/id1703307399
This American Ride
Transforming Lives: Service Dogs Bringing Hope to Veterans
Ever wondered how a furry friend could transform the life of a veteran? Brian from Operation K9 Beethoven joins us to share his inspiring journey of rescuing dogs from euthanasia and training them to become life-saving companions for veterans suffering from PTSD, depression, and anxiety. Inspired by his father's legacy as a Vietnam veteran, Brian brings a deeply personal touch to this heartwarming narrative, blending compassion, community support, and the remarkable capabilities of service dogs.
Join us as we explore the touching story of Beethoven, a therapy dog who brought immense joy and comfort to the host's own parents. From local businesses like Bergen County Harley Davidson to community-driven events and charity activities, discover how Operation K9 Beethoven has become a beacon of hope for veterans and first responders alike. Brian opens up about the vital role that community support plays in sustaining and expanding their mission, showcasing the power of collective effort in making a real difference.
We also dive into the logistics, costs, and challenges of training service dogs, revealing the dedication and volunteer spirit that drives Operation K9 Beethoven. Learn about the heartwarming success stories of matching veterans with their ideal canine companions, the ongoing struggles of training, and the broader impact of prolonged wars on our brave servicemen and women. This episode is a poignant reminder of the profound connections forged between humans and their loyal canine partners, underscoring the importance of community-driven initiatives in addressing the invisible scars of war.
Donate to The Tunnel to Towers Foundation
https://dogood.t2t.org/campaign/baggers-and-brews-poker-run-and-veterans-support-rally-2024/c545044
Welcome back to this American Ride podcast, where we talk about issues that affect you, the average American. What's up? Welcome back to the show. We have an exciting one now today, actually a little off topic from what we've been the drum that we've been beating for the past couple episodes, I would say. But I'm George, I'm here with Bert, and today we are here with Brian from Operation Canine Beethoven.
Speaker 3:Thanks for having me, guys.
Speaker 1:How you doing so. Operation Canine, beethoven man, you guys helping veterans one paw at a time. I love it, that's the goal.
Speaker 3:I love it.
Speaker 1:So providing therapy dogs and psychiatric service dogs specifically.
Speaker 3:Psychiatric service dogs, specifically Our veterans who suffer from PTSD, depression, anxiety, just need that emotional help.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's a. And listen, a dog can mean a lot.
Speaker 3:Sure Can a dog.
Speaker 1:A dog can mean a lot. I have a, it's we, we love our dog, we've always had dogs and you know, even if we go away and my mom lives here with us, if she's, uh, she would much rather have the dog here with her, even if he's in another room, she, she, she likes knowing that he's here, you know.
Speaker 3:That's some kind of like sense of calm that animals bring out, you know.
Speaker 1:So operation canine Beethoven um couple of things we're production based here in New Jersey. Yes, um, a couple of things, we're production based here in new jersey. Yes, in the garden state and um, we discovered each other, uh, when, with our tunnel towers event coming up here on july 13th.
Speaker 2:yeah, so it's uh you know, all by chance. Yeah, I, I uh, you know had messages out there on the internet for looking for vendors and things like that and they reached. I think was it. Was it maureen?
Speaker 3:yeah it was maureen, our director of operations and social media queen, like I like to say about her, and she searches stuff all over the place and she comes up with a bunch of stuff and she'll send it my way, arpy's way, and we're like, oh okay, let's do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she reached out and said, uh, you know, explained what they had and said they'd love to be a vendor at the event, and so we got all set up with that. And then she reached out again and said you know that you know they might be interested in coming on the podcast or or alive for baggers and brewers or whatever, and just getting their message out. Absolutely, let's do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a listen. Social media is a is a way to spread the word. That, uh, you know a way that we've never had before, you know, to spread word and bring awareness. I'm not even sure you know how we brought awareness to issues such as, you know, ptsd in the past. I mean, that's probably why it was never, you know, I wonder how much social media can actually be attributed to bringing awareness.
Speaker 3:It's not much you know it should be out there because our veterans have done so much for us. You know, Absolutely, my father was a veteran. You know it should be out there because our veterans have done so much for us. You know, Absolutely, my father was a veteran. You know, I just want to be able to help people and that's the common goal is to help people.
Speaker 1:Right yeah.
Speaker 3:If you're able to help one or if you're able to help hundreds. You did something.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And so that's what it all is about is Operation Canine. Beethoven is just just helping people, helping our veterans, one point at a time, like I like to say and, uh, you know, get these dogs, we rescue them from, you know, euthanasia off the streets, kill shelters. We bring them back to health. Uh, we check their temperament to make sure it's a good temperament, and that's our goal that our veterans will apply. At our website, there is a process, just like if you're rescuing a dog from a rescue. There's a process and there's information that has to be given.
Speaker 1:Uh, and then it's our goal to, you know, get these dogs trained to become psychiatric service dogs and so they can go to their forever veteran and live a beautiful, happy, wonderful life so, yeah, a lot of stuff, a lot of stuff there, um, and I kind of want to start, we really really, I think, for people to understand, you know, the inspiration behind this and, more importantly, to be, you know, inspired by what you guys are doing, because you know life is busy, like you know, like life is busy.
Speaker 1:It's true, you know it's for people who do things that you know volunteer and above and beyond. It's for people who do things that you know volunteer and above and beyond. Why don't you tell us how it started and what inspired you to get this going?
Speaker 3:So, you know, my father was a three-time Purple Heart Vietnam veteran, served this country, loved serving his country, and then, about January of 2020, at that time my father was at a Paramus Veterans Home in Paramus, new Jersey, and so at that time we were getting ready to sell the house that I grew up in, and so we had a bunch of kennels that we wanted to donate, you know, and give it to somebody who can use it. And so my brother reached out to this woman named Rose, and then Rose reached out to this gentleman named Sam. Sam then reached out to Arpy, and so my brother says to me hey, this gentleman's going to come by on Saturday and he's going to pick up the kennels. Can you make it? And I said sure.
Speaker 3:So I went over to the house and hanging out and all of a sudden I see this truck pull up. And I went over to the house and hanging out and all of a sudden I see this truck pull up and it says canine Beethoven on it. And he and I struck up a conversation and we spoke about what he does and he takes Beethoven to the Actors Guild nursing home in Ramas I'm sorry, hackensack. And then I was telling him. You know, after 40 years of memories and this, and that my mother's a little upset, doesn't know what the future is going to hold, going through a lot, stressed. We're selling the house. We've had dogs our whole life and he was explaining to me about that. Beethoven is a therapy dog.
Speaker 3:And he does certain things, goes to certain schools, certain places, and he brings Beethoven and I said well, would you mind bringing Beethoven into the house?
Speaker 3:I said my mother loves dogs. And he did that. And you can see the instant change of my mother's face going from sad, depressed to happy. And Beethoven just sat at her feet and my mother just was petting him, hanging out. No words had to be said and I just watched and it was amazing. I always knew that dogs do amazing things. We all know that right. But once you see it, that's when you realize how special these animals, these creatures, are.
Speaker 3:Right, and he and I became friends and we were just talking a few times in a row and I said hey, my dad's in the Paramus Veterans Home. And he says well, when I get in there, I will make you a promise, handshake, agreement, that Beethoven will be your father, will be the first person that Beethoven meets, because he had to go through a process At the time. It was an upper respiratory infection going on, so he couldn't get in. And then in February of that year he says I'm here, where's your father located? What room, what floor, what unit? And so he says I'm going to go in and I'm going to meet your father. I keep him my promise, bro. I said thank you. So I called my father and I said I'm going to have a special visit today. My father goes oh you. I said no. He says cousins. I said no.
Speaker 3:About an hour later called my father up. I said how was your visit? He goes. It was the best wake-up call I ever got. And then Arpy and I just forged a friendship and from there we were like thinking what can we do to help our veterans and, a lot of the times, those women and men that are in these nursing homes. Everybody remembers them around the holidays but no one really remembers them if it's not the holiday season. So what we did was we partnered up with Berkin County, harley Davidson and Rochelle Park and they were one of our first big supporters in doing what we wanted to do. And so we did a drive. You know, men's socks, diabetic socks, hygiene products.
Speaker 3:And so we were putting them in all different places throughout Bergen County, and then it just snowballed it just literally. It became Operation Canine Beethoven, helping the veterans one point at a time. And we just started from there and we are where we are now helping our veterans, helping anybody really that matter, even first responders too. And it's just about helping people, and and not only just helping the veteran or the first responder, but it's also helping these dogs. I mean, these dogs are being, you know, uh, euthanized, and so we want to basically try to save both lives right.
Speaker 3:So that's how we really just started mic adjustment, all good we can edit that out. Right, it's natural.
Speaker 2:It's natural it's natural listen. I watch some big uh podcasters on youtube and they're always stopping in the middle and be like could you get closer to that?
Speaker 1:mic, can you like?
Speaker 2:just get personal there with the mics. It is what it is. Get up in there.
Speaker 3:But yeah, so the first visit happened and my father loved it, and it's just that we started to go to like hospitals, rehab centers, other veterans homes, and that's how it all began.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, that is so cool and it's crazy. Partnered with um Bergen Harley yeah, Very nice owners.
Speaker 3:Very nice.
Speaker 1:Um, definitely, community involved. They are, uh, you know, they do a lot of activities with the motorcycle community up there. They do a lot in the, you know, new Rochelle community there, or Rochelle Park community, rather, and I bought a bike off those guys, did you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I tell you, like I said, the owners are amazing, liz is amazing, we just recently, a couple weeks ago, did a bikini bike wash.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I saw that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so for the last couple years they do this every year in June, father's Day weekend and it's $10 to get your bike washed, you get two tickets for a hot dog and all the proceeds go back to us, which is amazing, and then we're able to sell our merchandise as well I saw.
Speaker 2:I saw that on instagram and and I instantly thought, man, I need to call this guy and tell him he needs to do a bikini bike wash at our event. And I was like crap. We're like in a field. There's no concrete, it's not going to work.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but they do it every year and it's great. They're a very big support of us. Anything we've ever needed, they've always been there for us. Awesome, it's great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's great, and being Bergen County-based, I mean Bergen County is as big of a community as it is One of the probably most populated suburbs. It's probably one of the most populated suburbs in the country Because I don't want to call it a city, because it's not a city yet, but at some point soon it may well be, and there's a lot of great businesses up there and a lot of people who've been in that community for a very, very, very long time. They're very giving too.
Speaker 3:I mean, I've been doing fundraising not just because of Operation Canine Beethoven, but over the years I've done a lot of fundraising for a lot of other organizations within Bergen County and even Hudson County. They own, and so you know Hudson County, bergen County people. They're very giving. You come in and you explain to them what you're doing, what your purpose is, what your mission is, and they love it. I mean, who doesn't love veterans and dogs? Yeah, they go hand in hand.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. And this is the thing that I think I didn't necessarily realize about Operation Beethoven, when you know, know I first kind of like picked it up and looked at it is, you guys aren't only saving veterans, you're saving dogs. Yeah, I mean, this is dogs that you guys are rescuing from shelters.
Speaker 3:Um, kill shelters, kill shelters and and rehabbing them yeah you know.
Speaker 1:So I mean it's donation money. It's, it's donation money. It's not cheap to get a dog from a shelter and make sure they might need to be spayed. They might need to be if they weren't already or usually paying for that from the shelter, because the shelter so politely spays their animals and then charges you for it when you adopt them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean we're lucky because we've partnered up with Bergen County Animal Shelter, along with this other organization called the New Jersey Veterans Network, which they do amazing things as well, and so we've partnered up with them, along with their coordinator, doc, and so we've partnered up with them. And so now we're growing and that's all we want to do is keep on growing and growing and growing and try to help as many veterans and people that we can you know help.
Speaker 3:I mean, that's like I like to say I just want to help you, that's it. If, if, if everybody in this world can just want to help people it would be a better world, no doubt you know like imagine that Most people want to help people.
Speaker 2:They want to help themselves.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But a lot of veteran communities up there too. I mean, I remember just riding around Fairlawn and Fairlawn was one of those towns where people hung the stars in their windows and there was a house. I never forget this house. I think the house was yellow but it was real close. It was like your typical Fairlawn kind of old craftsman um, and it was right by the high school and they had three flags in the window I said, good lord, yeah, good lord.
Speaker 1:They got three flags in the window, american flags, no, the the uh star, it's the white and the red. That shows you have a member in service. Oh, yeah, yeah, so you would see a lot of those around town.
Speaker 3:Very patriotic.
Speaker 1:It is a patriotic town.
Speaker 3:Very.
Speaker 1:People will realize our Memorial Day parade and my house was like on ground zero for the Memorial Day parade. We were on Burdann, so everybody you know we did three meals, we were there all day, we partied all day, but the Memorial Day Parade was. It was miles long.
Speaker 3:Same thing with Saddleburg.
Speaker 1:Saddleburg, New Jersey.
Speaker 3:I mean they got the, the flags that are on all the light poles and those who have served. I think, every single town in New Jersey city, every single one of them should have that agreed because there's definitely. Veterans living there, yeah, or those who have, are no longer with us yeah and there are towns that don't do that oh lots.
Speaker 1:It's like my wife, my wife's grandfather was just uh put up in uh lyndhurst every single five points in lyndhurst they had his flag put up, so it was a very cool thing. We need to go up there and see it. It was just put up like maybe a week ago.
Speaker 3:It's cool.
Speaker 1:So it's cool.
Speaker 3:Not every town does it.
Speaker 2:Vincentown does it, which is great. Yeah, and they've had a Memorial Day parade for a long time, a long time running. Yeah, so that's cool it.
Speaker 1:But yeah, you're right, there's way too many that don't, and they should all be doing that. I feel like when we I mean the town we grew up in there was a memorial, they prayed.
Speaker 2:There might have been in pemberton oh, ours now like I don't remember anything, which is crazy because we were a military town yeah we were you, so you would think like we were a military town.
Speaker 1:but um, because we both grew up just outside of four ticks mcguire, okay little town called A little town called Browns Mills, that was there and that was. It was a base town and we never had anything like that. That's shocking. I don't remember it. There might have been something up in the borough, I feel like.
Speaker 2:Borough borough might have, but they're kind of they're separate, you know.
Speaker 1:That's shocking to me, because you said right by Fort Dix military base here too as well well, it's uh joint base mcguire dicks, lakehurst, back then, back then they were all separate.
Speaker 2:Now they've joined okay, as a joint base but back then it was on my way up here yeah, yeah, back then it was fort dicks, it was mcguire, and then there was lakehurst naval base, but now it's all one. But yeah, be in the town, right? You know, every base has those towns right next to them and usually they're loaded with people that work on the base or retired from the base, and to not have something like that is a little bit weird yeah, that's strange.
Speaker 1:That's when we moved the fair lawn it was like everybody was excited that we were on this like parade route and I was like, oh, it's parade, like how long could it be? But they, they take their, they take the memorial day very seriously up there sodlebrook, like I was saying, that thing is long, it's great I mean we get up on a float with the dogs.
Speaker 3:I mean it's a lot of fun.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's cool, you guys do a float there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we get on a float yeah.
Speaker 1:Nice.
Speaker 3:So with the dogs you guys, your operation K-9, beethoven, they do all the training. So, yeah, so we work with several rescues and then, um, from there we have our own trainers. We have Sam, he's upstate New York, uh. Then we have, um, our head, uh, behavior special, and a trainer, his name is Chris, uh, and then we have a, like a few other trainers just in case if they can't do it, we have some backups, you you know. So they do the training and, uh, the rescues will call us and let us know.
Speaker 3:Just like bringing back up bergen, county harley, there was a gentleman who reached out to us a couple years back and he says I heard about you guys just being down at bergen, county harley, and so we were able to rescue a dog and that dog was literally 20 minutes away from being euthanized. So the dog didn't have a name, so we named it Miracle. So this gentleman met the dog, trained the dog, and he came to us and said Look, I like the name, but I found you guys at Harley Davidson in Bergen County, in Rochelle Park. And he goes can I name it Harley? How can you say no? And he's also believe it or not. He's an employee of Tunnels for Towers, oh, wow, wow, yeah, cool connection so.
Speaker 3:I did send him the flyer Nice, so I don't know he'll come or not.
Speaker 1:Very nice. I was telling him the flyer Nice so.
Speaker 3:I don't know he'll come or not. Very nice, I was telling him about it.
Speaker 1:He obviously rides. If he was at Bergen, harley, yeah.
Speaker 3:And he takes Harley to work all the time.
Speaker 1:That is awesome.
Speaker 3:Out in Staten Island and so, yeah, so we train the dogs and, like I said, we work with several trainers, because their schedule is as crazy as everybody else's, you know, if they don't have the room then we have to figure out where the dog is going to go, and the training takes about like four to five weeks, six weeks.
Speaker 2:Okay, that was going to be my next question. The timeline on it, that's it, huh I mean give or take.
Speaker 3:I mean, you know the process starts with the veteran obviously filling out the application. We get it, we review it and then from there there's a phone interview and then after the phone interview there is a house inspection. Now if it's too far we'll just have them. You know, snap some videos, some pictures. You know common areas we don't take. You know, pictures of anything like their bedrooms or private area. You know we want to see how the house looks, you know.
Speaker 3:I mean there has been times where we're like no, because the house where they lived wasn't safe, so we're not gonna put a an animal in that position, right? So we you know, and then, once the dog is trained, it's like about a 30-day, you know, trial period to make sure that the dog is getting along with the owner and the owner is getting along with the dog and the owner is able to keep it up, you know, and um, and that's, after the 30 days, the dog becomes their, their animal.
Speaker 1:Hmm, what is um a training is actually a lot quicker than I thought. I thought so too. I thought it'd be a lot longer than that.
Speaker 3:I mean there's been situations where it's been longer. It depends on the dog yeah, is there what?
Speaker 2:what is like that is it? Is it expensive? Is there like a?
Speaker 3:so, everything from start to finish, it's about seven thousand dollars say every day no, no, seven thousand from okay getting the dog from the applicant, let's just say he's. You know so. From the veteran bills, the training, so it's a sponsor, a full dog, and start to finish is seven okay, all right yeah, not cheap, not crazy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, I've heard other places that are a lot more money yeah um, but uh. Yeah, I mean a lot of the times. You know these rescues that we work with. They're so good so they're giving us discounts too you know, or some rescues may say you know what it's going to go to a veteran. You know, and you don't owe us anything.
Speaker 1:You know, get us a t-shirt okay, you know something like that, you know so it's.
Speaker 3:We've been lucky as far as that's concerned. You know, because they we're a 503C not-for-profit, so all the money that we make goes right back to the program. Merchandise sales, donations goes right back to our program. We at Operation Canine Beethoven we work for free, we don't take a dime.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:I mean, we're all volunteers.
Speaker 1:Wow yeah.
Speaker 3:You know it's a lot of long weekends and traveling here.
Speaker 1:You guys did an event yesterday in Bayonne.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we did, yeah, we did really well and yeah. East of San Vito. It was really. It was a good I so happened to be on that planning committee For the feast. Yeah, yeah. So, I was like, hey, can I get a table? They're like sure, you know, I didn't have to pay the what was in the feast.
Speaker 1:Oh, hang on South Jersey here yeah.
Speaker 3:South Jersey, not Italian. We don't have feasts what? Do you have festivals?
Speaker 1:No, we don't have any of that stuff Really. Yeah, so this is we have farm fairs.
Speaker 2:Oh fairs, yeah, Not the same, not the same, not the same.
Speaker 3:I mean we had a bunch of vendors setting up along fifth street between avenue c and and broadway, and then we had in the parking lot of the church, trinity parish, uh, we had, um, all the food trucks, sausage and peppers, empanada, lady, I mean we've had, you know, obviously, ice cream truck, so we've had, you know, all these different kinds of foods and stuff like that. And then on the main street was where your vendors were, the stage, the beer garden and a wine garden, which was great. And then I set my table up right next to the stage perfect it's um zeppelis, of course, zeppelis a feast or a good time um.
Speaker 1:They're usually, you know, around some type of a religious holiday yeah um, my first experience with a feast was san genero in the city and um, you know, they're bringing, bringing down the statue and everybody's, like you know, pinning the statue to, pinning dollars to the to the statue and and, uh, you know, because it's san genero, nobody got carded and you could drink it like 18, like nobody cared. You're walking around the streets with beers like nobody, like no. San genero had no rules back then and I know it has since changed.
Speaker 3:I remember my press was Hoboken. Well, they used to do a Hoboken one Well there were two in Hoboken, though. Yeah, I mean, I remember my parents taking me all the time. You know it was great. You know you see Johnny Maestro and Brooklyn Bridge.
Speaker 1:Of course they would always have like a Frank Sinatra impersonator in Hoboken and I love going to festivals and feasts and so it was right up my alley. And a feast. That's a great way to bring awareness because people are. You're hitting people from, I would say, probably 90% from the community the feast is in. Oh yeah, 90%.
Speaker 3:And this is our first one that we've done in Bayonne in a very long time, because they used to have one years ago at Assumption and so that school and that church closed down. And I remember when I moved into Bayonne at like 07, 08, I went to this thing. I was like this is the coolest thing ever they got you can gamble with a little wheel. And I went to this thing I was like this is the coolest thing ever they got you can gamble with a little wheel. And they had a bar and all this food. I was like this is amazing, you know. So I was approached for what I do for a living, my real job. Not to say that this is not a real job, but my real job, the one that pays.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the one that pays right, this one pays in, just seeing the smiles, warm feelings and the warm feelings yeah, that's good and the happy tears, as I like to call them. So I was approached to see if we can put this thing on and we got together with a bunch of people and we got a committee together and the community came together, the Rotary Club of Bayonne came up together and we got it going and it was a good success. Nice Sounds fun. It was a lot of fun yesterday.
Speaker 3:I'm calling it to a next year.
Speaker 1:Bayonne was a Bayonne's a cool city. For those who don't know, it's like this city that's kind of sandwiched between, like New York and Newark, staten Island.
Speaker 3:Staten Island Jersey.
Speaker 1:City. Yeah, it's like it's this. You know it's 14c off the turnpike and, um, like we were talking about before, I spent a lot of my summers there, uh, bayonne just talking about like patriotic towns and cities and stuff bayonne is full of veterans, full of veterans, full of veterans patriotism.
Speaker 3:I mean, listen, I we've, they've, the city of bayonne and these organizations, especially the rotary club. They've been so good to operation canada like it's, it's, it's crazy it's you know a lot of these bands that are from bayonne. They've done fundraisers for us and they're just, they're all up on it and they love the mission and the purpose and it's just just, it's amazing thing.
Speaker 1:It's interesting. One of one of my, one of my early uh experience was with veterans. I was in my grandfather. He was, uh, you know, world War II. Um, he was World War II vet but we talked about chippies and they didn't have. I don't know if there wasn't a VFW or these guys didn't go to a VFW back then or what the what the story would have been probably like in the early 80s. But um, it was all world war ii vets at this bar named chippies and that was like the first time I, I the first time, and me being a small kid, like hearing these guys talk about world war ii and you know telling the stories about, you know building bridges at night to get across the rhine and you know, under like basically blind fire Cause there was no night vision back then.
Speaker 1:you know they were just kind of shooting at the sound, the Germans and but they would build the bridge and they'd probably get as many as much as they could across at night Because as soon as daytime came the German spotters would zero in and just blow the bridge with the artillery. So they knew to like to get away. But like here and I was like one of the stories that like just kind of stuck out and you know in my head but hearing these guys you know they, they own them was full of vets.
Speaker 3:Yeah, man, they have a lot of VFWs. They got a lot of Catholic war veteran association.
Speaker 1:I remember the Catholic war yeah.
Speaker 3:And um lions clubs. It's just it. It's great. Yeah, you know I mean it's. You know I go into those places once in a while. You know I'm a member of the auxiliary in Saddlebrook, post 3484. And um you know, that's more of like a younger crowd. You know where the Bayonne is still the older crowd which is great, you know, just to sit there and talk to them, and I was meeting people yesterday that I've never met before. Love what we do and they would talk about their experiences in the military.
Speaker 1:You know, in the 60s and stuff like that.
Speaker 3:And, you know, just hearing that reminds me of the stories that my father used to tell me. My grandfather was Normandy.
Speaker 1:Navy.
Speaker 3:And so it was just great to I love talking to that older generation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's amazing when they open up, so tell us what.
Speaker 3:I think everybody has their their notion of what a, what a therapy dog is, what is so it's like a service dog trained in commands blocking where the therapy dog side of it they get trained in like good leash matters so they can go to like hospitals and rehabs and be with the people. So there is a difference. The difference is is where the psychiatric service dog is being trained in one or two extra things and those dogs can go anywhere. They can go to restaurants, hotels, on a plane, they have rights to go to supermarkets. They can go anywhere when the therapy dogs they're kind of limited.
Speaker 3:But, their temperament has to be also as good as a psychiatric service dog, because they're going in crowds. They're going to like hospitals, like I said rehab centers so they're.
Speaker 3:You know, we do a lot with our therapy program in those situations as well as like we'll go to like boy scouts, girl scout troops so they can get their animal badge and just teach them the importance of dog safety, how to approach a dog. Uh so, and I, and I get to see it. I mean, we've been to a bunch of hospitals and rehab centers, lions, you know, the veterans home yeah, lions new jersey the hospital.
Speaker 3:They don't remember our names if we haven't been there for months and they see beethoven or they see duffy or they see any of our therapy dog program dogs walk in. They just they melt, they get to their knees and they just hang out. They hug the dog, they pet the dog and it's just an amazing sight to say, yeah, you know, it's just like I said, we, the dogs, are the stars. We're just the ones that are able to verbally put out our mission and our purpose and helping anyone who can, we can possibly help. Yeah, in a nutshell, it's cool.
Speaker 2:Do you know how many dogs you guys have trained and matched with?
Speaker 3:so far we've done 20 dogs to 20 veterans okay, yeah, that's, that's since 2020 2021, 2020, yeah, wow so I mean it's not a lot, but it's a decent number listen, it's a, it's a process.
Speaker 3:It's a process, all right you know, not a lot, you know, and it's made the difference, you know. I mean, we're working on um, we've had, uh, two veterans who just applied, so we're in that process of getting their information and you know, a lot of the times is that we will not place a dog into a home that already has an animal. Okay, because it just won't work Right Like we've tried it.
Speaker 1:We learned our lesson and we've moved on.
Speaker 3:It's just tough because that dog is being trained where the other dog is not.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:And there has been situations depending on it. Each situation is different, right, just in anything in life. Other dog is not, right, and there has been situations depending on that. Each situation is different, right, just in anything in life. And so what we've done is that there's been times where a veteran has reached out to us and said I have a dog, this is the kind of dog I have, this is the age could we train my dog?
Speaker 3:right, and so we've kind of went into, you know, dipped in that side of the pool and and so, depending on the situation, every situation is different, uh, and so we've done that too, so they've had that dog for a little while yeah they wanted to be trained in leash manners, or they wanted to just to be trained, and we'll try to help them out and we pay for that too okay so it's like it's not no money comes out of their pockets whatsoever, like that's zero.
Speaker 1:That's a great fit, and that's not something I I got from looking things up either, but I mean, that is um it, it is a great fit and it's, you know, from a economic standpoint a a much more reasonable way for an organization to do things, because then you have your training costs but you don't have the adoption and a lot of the other stuff that goes along with it.
Speaker 3:So we had a gentleman who called us two years or so and he says I want a dog, but I want a boxer and we responded back and we said we can't guarantee that we rescue what we can rescue.
Speaker 3:We train our dogs, and we can't. We're not going to go in that side of the business where someone says I prefer to have. It's tough, you know, especially with rescues, right, yeah? So he simply said if you can't find a boxer, well, I'll just go out and buy one and then I'll go to a boxer rescue and then I'll have it trained by you guys. So then Arpy calls me. He tells me. So Arpy picks up the phone and calls a rescue that he knew of and the woman said well, yeah, I have boxers, but I don't know if I can get one right away because I have a list.
Speaker 3:So then Arpy then explains more into detail about who we are and what we do. This is on a friday, let's say monday. She calls him back, says I love what you do. I reached out, I looked at your social media pages, your youtube, the whole nine I'm kind of to pump you up the list a little bit I got a dog for you and it's a boxer. So we called the guy back and he fell in love with Sophie. His wife fell in love with Sophie. We got the dog trained. I was able to drive the dog down to where he lives, hung out with the dog in the car for about two hours and it's been great. Ever since he's become a big supporter of us.
Speaker 3:He does some like volunteer work for us, um, and you know he works, you know, for the government and he brings his dog to work and he goes to like all certain like events when he can, and so he's been a, you know, a huge asset, because a lot of these veterans they don't, they don't want the whole pop in circumstance you know they don't want to have the whole crouch, you know right, yeah carrying them on.
Speaker 3:Yay, good job, you got a dog yeah and so a lot of the times we'll just highlight the dog. You know, and that's why we're we're I'm really big on HIPAA. Like I have a sheet, a form that it says a photo consent. If you don't want to be on our social media, that's fine. Like you know, we're cool with that, I get it. You don't want to be out and about people saying, oh, he's got this psychiatric service dog. So a lot of them are shy and some of them just can't do it because they're afraid of crowds. And so luckily, about a couple weeks back, we gave a dog to a guy in bayonne older generation, older guy and he was okay with, you know, being introduced and this, that and the other thing. He just said I don't want to speak, I said that's fine, but he was able to sustain and be able to be you know, seen by a bunch of people, you know and, uh, so it's, we try to.
Speaker 3:Now we've gotten to the point where we want to try to see and if we can get the dog they want. But in the very beginning of operation canine beethoven we kind of were like, no, we can't we're rescuing these dogs, we're just gonna.
Speaker 1:Let's just see what we get. Good, yeah, so what type is there a type of dog that kind of lends itself? Is that your next question to the? Training because I mean I've had a couple of different dogs over the years. I mean I had a blue tick beagle. There was no way she was ever going to be a therapy dog.
Speaker 3:You know, the trainers say every dog is trainable. I can train the dog, okay. The problem is, it's the owner keeping up with the trainer. The dog is trainable. Not all human beings are trainable to keep that dog. So you know, know, obviously you got your german shepherds that are amazing. Yeah, your golden retrievers that can be trained. I mean, they're, they're just known to be, there are, there are breeds out there that are known to be good yeah to be trained are there ones that are known to be harder to train?
Speaker 3:I'm sure there is, we haven't come across okay I mean, I would think that there are some dogs that are out there, like you said. I mean, there's just some that are.
Speaker 1:I can't feel like sight hounds, you know who, when they you know like like gray hounds, even though they're lazy, you know they have that you know, they are. They are lazy dogs actually, but but they're. They're sight dogs and when they see something like they got to go get it it's reactive it's, it's an, it's an instinctual thing and and I wonder you know, I guess my question is like can you take a dog that's like a, like a weimaraner or something like that, that's, you know, a hunting dog by?
Speaker 3:I don't think so yeah in my opinion I don't think so, but the trainer could probably tell you differently. Obviously, that's the business that they're in, so they're going to want to be able to. I can train every single dog Some dogs are probably not trainable. It's just the nature of the beast.
Speaker 1:I had one not trainable, and then I got well, you see, hank, hank's a good boy. Not trainable. Is that what you're talking about?
Speaker 2:he's perfectly. He's perfectly trainable, he's perfectly trainable.
Speaker 3:When are you gonna? Start that he's good man, how old is he? You said you, you're not sure uh we think he's like five or six. But I mean obviously I. I would think as the dog gets older it might be a little harder to train. Um, you know, you don't. We don't train the dog right away when it's, like you, year or two in. They got to be a little older and then they'll start to grow.
Speaker 1:So you can't teach an old dog new tricks.
Speaker 3:I guess not.
Speaker 2:So you said you guys don't put these dogs in homes that already have a dog? Yeah, this is just a curiosity question. Is it possible that trained dogs learn bad habits from untrained dogs?
Speaker 3:Exactly, yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:Interesting. Yeah, is it possible that trained dogs learn bad habits from untrained dogs? Exactly, yeah, okay it's interesting.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know I can see it.
Speaker 2:I mean humans do it yeah, but yeah no, it's.
Speaker 3:It's hard when you want to. I have a problem with saying no to people well, especially people who are, people who are coming to help.
Speaker 3:They're coming for help, yeah right, I mean in the beginning we thought it would be hard getting donations or selling our merchandise. Yeah, we thought it would be easier and it would be a lot more that we were going to get more applicants coming, you know, to us. But it was the opposite. We were getting the donations, we were getting the the merchandise sales and it was hard. Opposite we were getting the donations, we were getting the merchandise sales and it was hard to get these applicants because our veterans have a hard time asking for help?
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 3:So it was now that we've maybe, that we're maybe a little more established, you know, I mean, there's many organizations that do what we do.
Speaker 3:We're not national, we're local, you know so you know, um, so you know, someday do I hope that we become national, of course, but I would need a lot more staff, you know, yeah, the three, four of us, five of us just wouldn't be able to do it, you know. So we honestly thought the money aspect, the donations, the monetary stuff, the sales of the shirts and hats and stuff like that, would be harder. But it was the complete opposite People were buying our stuff you know, and it was hard getting. It was hard getting applicants. Well, there's.
Speaker 2:I mean there's a reason why the you know the veteran suicide rate is so high. You know they're. They struggle to ask for help. They're. They're proud people're proud people and you know it's so hard to admit you need help and I think people don't understand and, um, you know what, what people need at that point?
Speaker 1:you know it's uh, and so, before I get into this, we're gonna go into this because we have a, we have something deep. I want to go into real quick, but let's take a word from our sponsor Legendary USA.
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Speaker 1:I love being legendary.
Speaker 2:Just got my vest recently from Chris and actually a jacket too. I can't wait for it to get cold again, to use it because— Can't wait for it to get cold again. Think about what you're just saying right now. I know I don't really mean that but— I'm a winter guy's, not me.
Speaker 2:This heat is horrible, not me, but but I'm not a all the gear all the time kind of guy, which I know I should be, but I'm not. So that leather is hot man. It's almost 100 outside right now. I can't imagine leathering up to go for a ride, but it's amazing stuff, amazing quality. We've got gloves, we've got jackets, vests um, they got all the good stuff.
Speaker 1:Um, definitely check them out, I love I love my vest from there, super soft oh, it's so nice.
Speaker 2:Yeah you go. You know, we've been to all these rallies and there's all these leather tents, you know, and they're all made in pakistan or wherever, and china, or china, wherever, and they just, if you hold one and hold the other one, it's just night and day. The quality, that's soft, american-made leather, is beautiful, uh so hey, we digress um.
Speaker 1:Um gotta give our our guy Chris a little credit.
Speaker 2:Give him some props.
Speaker 1:Um, I think when what I was going to say before this. Um, people don't understand PTSD and it is a form of depression in a lot of ways. And people don't understand depression if they've never suffered with it or they haven't been in a field where they somehow have been trained to recognize it and and deal with it. I think the average person has no idea like they're at a loss. They don't know what to do.
Speaker 1:Um, one of my first experiences was at the va in um in uh, east orange, and I used to check pacemakers for a living and we were there checking pacemakers and had a room full of vets and had a couple of young guys who had a variety of issues, who were young vets, and one guy had a pacemaker and a nurse practitioner walked in and dropped a clipboard and the clipboard hit the floor like perfectly flat and you're in the VA and VAs are like old big, like echoey a lot. It's just echoey rooms, right yeah. And when this clipboard hit the floor, this dude was out of the chair and on one knee and ready Like there was no thought about it.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like it was. You know, the switch had flipped and it scared the crap out of me because I didn't. I didn't see him, I didn't see that coming. You know, and and that's something that, like, people are going through their day dealing with, and that's something that, like, people are going through their day dealing with. And when I was peeling through the layers of Operation Beethoven, you guys have on your YouTube site a video that really I got to say this video needs more views, like it needs. It was done in conjunction with Barb Charlie Davidson.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And it was filmed upstairs in their hog room. Is that where it was filmed? Yeah, I believe it was upstairs in upstairs.
Speaker 2:Yeah, wait, where's this video?
Speaker 1:at where do you find it?
Speaker 1:it's on uh operation canine beethoven's youtube page okay, veterans journey called a veteran's journey and it's about the justin who was a marine and um did uh, did a combat tour obviously at least one and suffered from serious PTSD. And telling his story about trying to come back into what we would consider normal everyday life, civilian life Into civilian life was difficult for him. He was injured, turned to painkillers I'm sure there was alcohol involved and one of the things that kind of hit me, even though this wasn't even like the most intense part of the story was, you know, people would call him and he would be depressed and I pick up the phone Right, and then eventually people would stop calling and the reality of it is is somebody you know, with that level of depression and that, that that level of trauma you know close people out yeah.
Speaker 1:They, they close people out. And if you get them and you say to them, them, what do you need, you're never going to get that answer right. You know, you just got to go spend the time, or you got you, you. You have to figure out a way to weasel yourself in. And so often people are like they give up, it's too hard, they, they. Well, it's either I, I don't. For some people it is going to be too hard, most certainly. But it's also, I think, a lack of understanding and, you know, a lack of awareness of of just how to kind of open somebody back up yeah, I mean he, you know he talks about in that video, about what his dog has done for him, yeah, and how it changed.
Speaker 3:And so the gentleman who did this video off camera said what do you want to get out of this video? And the simple answer was I want to try to get as many psychiatric service dogs to our veterans as we can, because Xena helped me, yeah, and continues to help me, and so that was also the other premises of how this started too yeah like I didn't know, justin, at the time when I met rp it was like the three of us came together and it was like meant to be, if you believe in that kind of stuff and you know rp visiting my father and my father always talked about to the day he died.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and then when my father passed away, arpy brought beethoven to the funeral home and my family loved it and my mother loved it. I asked the frontal director. I said listen. I said and I you know small town hasbro kites, everybody knows everybody very. You know well-known rural home in Hasbro Kites.
Speaker 3:And I said hey, you know. I said this is what I do in a nutshell, and this is what happened with this dog you know, Beethoven, he is you know, he's a service dog, he's a therapy dog, he's got all his papers. Good citizen awards and everything and he says yeahrian, absolutely, I can't tell you no and so when rp went back to his truck to get beethoven, everybody loved it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I got cousins of mine who talk about you know still to this day, you know the first time we met beethoven yeah, and, and the first time they met beethoven was when my when we wake to my father and you know, and so they still talk about it and and, and you know it, it helps. It helps, just like going back with justin. It's helping him. Yeah, a great deal, you know, and so a part of that video was also why we started what we did. And you know, I always like to say we just want to help people. Yeah, I mean it's, it's, it's very important yeah, I mean it was.
Speaker 1:I mean you know divine intervention, you know that saved justin's life. I mean he was, he was at his, at his breaking point. I mean there's no other way to explain that right it's it's divine intervention
Speaker 1:um and he was at his breaking point when his when something told his father to call him yep, and he picked up that phone call it's a tough video to watch, but I do recommend I recommend watching it because if if you've, you know and even you know I talk about like my one experience and there's like I've worked with people over the years who I've known gone into the service and definitely weren't the same when they came out of the services, that means that they have PTSD and people change over years, but this was like Heavy.
Speaker 3:This is this puts you in touch with it. This was like heavy this. This is this puts you in touch with it.
Speaker 1:I mean it's, it's real and and the reality of it is. You said you paste 20, 21 dogs 20, 20 out of 20 dogs. I mean it's it's great that you help 20 people, but more so than just just helping somebody. Maybe you saved one person, you hope so you know what I mean, like I'll never know that you know yeah, I hope so.
Speaker 3:And I get asked a lot like what are the responses of them once they receive the dogs, like do they call you? And one of my main focuses for operation canine beet is to have a family to keep, as a family to all the veterans and the dogs that we've placed and we want to be a part of their lives as long as they want to be a part of our lives, because if they're falling down on hard times, if they need a bag of food, if they need treats, if they need toys, they need bowls, call me, we'll get it to you one way or the other. Yeah, and either I'll bring it to you or I like to say, well, just Amazon it.
Speaker 3:Amazon should pay me, because I say that a lot, they should pay all of us. Yeah, I mean listen. You talk about Amazon. I mean, for the first time in my entire life I just ordered Amazon for the first time and I'm 43.
Speaker 2:What Prime?
Speaker 3:No, just regular.
Speaker 2:Oh, just ordered from it, Just used Amazon for the first time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, oh really yeah, Friends of mine can't believe it and I'm like no like three weeks ago, yeah, you know, my niece's birthday was, you know, in June, and I was like I'm not going to see her. So I e-gipped her a gift card and I actually told her. I'm like, listen, I'm like this is the first time I ever used amazon. She's like, really, I'm like, yeah, she goes, I order everything on you. I said I know so first time, and then I start going through the list. I started buying stuff slippery slope, my friend.
Speaker 2:Yeah, now, now I'm hooked, I'm hooked I hate it. I hate it because I hate that it kills, like small business mom, and pops me too. Oh my god, the convenience yeah, I hate.
Speaker 1:I hate it for what it is, but I love what it does.
Speaker 3:Yeah and I'm like lunch break and I'm like I'm searching oh, I like this, I like that. Now I'm getting emails. You may like this you know you get the whole.
Speaker 1:You know the recommendation stuff, you know oh yeah, but just put something you like in your cart and leave it there for a while yeah, and then all of a sudden you just start.
Speaker 3:You know've noticed that.
Speaker 2:Just talk about something specific around your phone and see what pops up.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, I mean, you know it's like you know getting ready to, like you know, schedule and put the hotel reservation in and all of a sudden I'm getting all these other hotels coming up yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but you know, download the Marriott Envoy app.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but yeah, the marry up envoy app, yeah, but uh, yeah, I mean I want to form this operation canine beethoven family where they can. They need us and you know, and they need anything because we set them up too. So once we, it's not like I don't want to be like, here's a dog by you know, yeah, yeah, so we set up.
Speaker 3:We set up worst thing you can do yeah, we set them up for a good month or two full of food and and and treats and toys and a lot of stuff we get donated, but, uh, we won't take the food because each dog has their own dietary needs, right? Yeah, and so I, I just want people to know that if they're having a hard time, they can come to us and we'll get whatever we can get to them. Yeah, as fast as possible. That's cool and uh, you know, and sometimes it happens where they don't, you know, after they get the dog, they go off into sunset.
Speaker 3:But what I was trying to say is that we gave a veteran a dog and, uh, he lives down in times river. I'm sorry, no, manahawken, manahawken, and I went down and I I love going down to the jersey shore born and raised, going down there my whole life, lbi and Ship Bottom I'll make a day trip out of it and one of my favorite restaurants are down there. So I went down, I met with the father the son was somewhere else at the time, but a beautiful home and of course we said yes and uh, I called the son. I said listen, you've been accepted to the program and he was so like he really couldn't speak and he was, you know, thankful and grateful.
Speaker 3:And then, about 20 minutes later, as I'm driving back up on the parkway, the father calls me and he says to me you do not realize how much this means to me and my family especially as a father, because this is going to help him more than you will ever know.
Speaker 3:And when you hear that it just puts everything into place, it's like wow, not only are we going to make a difference in this young person's life, but it's also going to make a difference to his family and his father, you know, and so hearing. That is why we keep on going. Let's try to just put our head up high yeah just steamroll through it and try to help.
Speaker 2:It's got to really just confirm all that hard work that you guys do and everything that you put into it and the purpose you know to get that feedback.
Speaker 3:That's really cool and the gentleman came and we had a nice little handoff you know and you know it was, that was in Saddlebrook the VFW and you know um, you know it was. That was in saddlebrook the vfw. And uh, you know I get up there I say a few words and we give the dogs and the writers in saddlebrook post 34, 84. They've been huge support of us as well and um you know you got grown men in tears yeah, yeah yeah, some of these guys are like don't you ever talk like that again.
Speaker 3:You know you've got me. You know got me all in tears and great to see you know, because it's humbling.
Speaker 1:It's all about helping people, especially our veterans well, and it shows you in in the case of, you know, in manhawken, you know what a spot, you know that kid was in yeah it shows you like his father knew where he was obviously yeah you know and just you know, you have in your interaction with him. You might might not realize it, but but again, like you know his father's family close to him, like they knew, they knew where he was.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know what I mean and he needed help and you know it could have been you know, it could have been um something small, or it could have been something bigger than we'll probably ever not know. Yeah, so you know, suffers from ptsd depression and uh, you know, I said to him. I says you know, if you're not comfortable in being a large crowd, figure something out.
Speaker 1:You know he goes no, I'll be good.
Speaker 3:He came up with his mom that day. His father couldn't come and the mother even said that day this means a lot, Big deal. It means a lot.
Speaker 2:Big deal. Then we had a what? 20 plus year war. How many guys are affected by that? How many people out there that are affected by it? That haven't come forward. Yeah, people that have been dramatically affected by that and haven't come forward and admitted it or asked for help, like there's just probably so many people that have issues they're not used to asking for help. No.
Speaker 3:They're the ones that are saying help me. You know what I mean. They're going through war, I mean, and they're giving people too, because they don't want to ask for help.
Speaker 1:They're giving lives to their country.
Speaker 3:Because they're signing that blank check.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, they're used to solving problems and not getting help solving problems or asking blank check. Yeah, yeah, they're used to solving problems and not getting help, solving problems or asking for help yeah, the ones that people go to them for help.
Speaker 3:And so you know, you hope that maybe that'll change. You know, yeah, you'll never know, it probably will never change that way. But you know, if you have a support system behind you and your family or your father, your sister, your mother say, hey, this would be a good thing, yeah, get yourself a dog, you know it's, and sometimes that's usually the case when there's a family or they're that, that unit, behind them.
Speaker 2:and so you know, a lot of the times they don't have that, they don't have that support system yeah, I think we're probably light years ahead of where we were for the guys coming home from like world war ii right, but we're still light years away from like where we need to be. I feel like being accepting of the issues that these guys have and understanding those you know invisible wounds that they have.
Speaker 3:And we can also go back into this too. It's like government really doesn't help.
Speaker 2:Not at all. Doesn't help at all. If they did, we wouldn't need people like you guys.
Speaker 3:I'd be out of business, so to speak.
Speaker 2:They don't at all, and that's one of the things we've said many times. Just with the little event that we're doing, the government doesn't help these guys even a fraction of what they need, and it really is up to all of us trying to do something, just something. If everybody does something little, we can make a difference.
Speaker 1:I have never been so humbled in my life as to when we sat in this very room and came up with this poker run and and came up, you know, with with tunnel towers, maybe like a day later and and the biker community are very giving people.
Speaker 2:Some of the best man.
Speaker 3:They are. They are simply the best.
Speaker 2:Well, it's filled with vets for one, so they understand yeah.
Speaker 3:Or family members. They have family members a father an uncle or a son for that matter, but the biker community, as we was talking about bergen, county harley, giving people I mean such giving people and I've seen it in other cities and and towns and stuff and how giving they are yeah and how supportive they are to any organization. I mean, if it's, if it's a child who needs, you know, donations because the child is sick. It's just the biker community as a whole is one of the most giving people ever. Who put that there?
Speaker 2:Yeah, if it's children, dogs or vet-related man the biker community is they can raise some money, man.
Speaker 1:All over and, honestly, I think what people don't realize is they give what even they don't have. I think what people don't realize is they they give what even they don't have. Yeah, and I know that we've had people given us more than they they probably you know. Then then they probably you know should have or or or probably could have, but they make their, they make. They were talking about people who make sacrifices to give. Yes, and that, to me, is just a breed of person. That is just a special, special breed of person.
Speaker 3:It's just not. I mean, you know, when we were, when I was told about this event July 13th, I've said absolute like I we got to do it. Yeah, so I'm going to be by myself.
Speaker 2:Unfortunately, I don't think RP or Beethoven is going to be making it but going to be making it, but I'll be there, okay, as you guys know, and and I'm just all about it. So, what do you like when you show up at these events? Set up a table, what do you? What do you have? What do you? What are you doing there? T-shirts, okay, so you're selling your stuff yeah, we got hoodies.
Speaker 3:Zip ups hoodies. Uh, our new t-shirt that we just got not too long ago is the one. That's the one I'm rocking hikers, love merch they love to buy merch you're rocking and um, but yeah, we have beanie hats, okay, um, you know. So I'm gonna only be able to take a little bit with me, because I, you know, I can't fit everything in my car so I'm gonna have, I have, um, uh, we have our perquette shirts, I call them.
Speaker 3:We call them the perquette shirts because there's a picture of Beethoven, and actually this one right here, this actually right here. I don't know if you can see it in the camera, so he made that as a shirt. He's a National Guardsman and he was out in front of Prime's Veterans Home when the height of COVID was happening and they were there to assist them in anything they needed and we got this picture done and it's one of our biggest sellers. That's awesome. And it says you know, operation canine Beethoven, helping veterans, one point at a time, so I'm going to have my shirts.
Speaker 3:I'm going to have a bunch of other things.
Speaker 1:That's cool Bikers. Do love merch.
Speaker 2:They love shirts, they love hoodies. Yeah, and that's kind of a little segue. Um, we can talk about this offline, but I think it'd probably be a great idea to have you on one of our baggers and brews live streams, because those guys and you don't have to, we can do that virtually, you don't have to come down for that, but that they, those that crowd would would love this stuff too, because they're big on vets, they're big on dogs and they're big on giving back. So we, we could, we could reach, we could reach a lot of people.
Speaker 3:Awesome, we just met, but I feel like I've known you for years, yeah, so it's like uh, I can always take the ride down. If schedules don't permit, then we can definitely do something on zoom or streaming. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, I mean, mean, it's like I said, the biker community is just a giving community and they want to help, and they want to help people yeah yeah, people don't realize that and they get enjoyment out of it.
Speaker 2:I, I mean, it's a reason, it's camaraderie, reason to ride, reason how many rides are set up to raise money for something you know, and it's like it's 20 25 bucks for for the rider, but they get to go ride and do what they love and they're also helping something.
Speaker 3:Come back, have food and eat.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:You know, after the party.
Speaker 2:Can't beat it, man. It's an amazing community. It really is, and so I think it gets a bad rap sometimes in some segments of the communities because they envision, you know, sons of anarchy, hells, angels, whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But the average rider, the 99 man? They only want to do is ride, have a good time and help people and people don't realize.
Speaker 1:Just this poker run that we're doing. I mean, yes, we're helping, that's we're donating to tunnel towers. Our goal is fifty thousand dollars, by the way, to tunnel towers. Getting there, yeah, we're getting there and, um, you know, we're doing all that, but at the same time, we're going to help fielders, local business, we're going to help, uh, the pick, pick a little pub. Why are we? Oh no no, no, I'll help pick.
Speaker 2:I mean I'll eat there and they're great, but it's not.
Speaker 1:But the village, our local bar, yeah, billy boys.
Speaker 2:Billy boys, another local boy at Tara's, another local bar Plus, the American Legion in Pemberton VFW in Medford bringing business there, going to bring business to those places, and not to mention all these vendors that get to come out, that are small. They're basically these small businesses Chasing the American dream with their product and whatever they're selling. So it's helping a lot of people and they're helping us help vets.
Speaker 1:It's just a great community of people. Just this is your first year doing it, right? Yes, listen, this thing started as a little poker run because we were doing group rides. Yeah, a lot of people were coming to and wasn't. I don't want to say we're nobody's getting anything out of it, but kind of nobody was getting anything. Nobody was getting it right, I mean, that was like it was.
Speaker 2:it was us trying to grow our YouTube channel and um and try to kind of give back to the people that watch us and stuff like that, and it really wasn't benefiting anybody but us as the YouTube channel to grow the YouTube channel and we've been doing that and chasing that thing for, you know, four or five years and we and you know we're not, you know, famous, but we've grown to a nice little size with a nice community of followers and we finally were just, like you know, let's stop chasing, growing our channel and and let's find a purpose to give back to something, and we're both very much into, you know, the military and the veteran, veteran community and you know fathers that are vets and things like that.
Speaker 1:So responders or police yeah, I'm a nurse by trade, so it's you know.
Speaker 2:Thank you, it was it was just it was something that hit close to both of us and it was doing something that wasn't for us, and that was kind of what we wanted to do this year.
Speaker 3:So it's amazing. I'm looking forward to it. Yeah, I'm looking forward to getting down there and hanging out with you guys so excited, I can't wait, it wait.
Speaker 1:It's getting close, man, it's starting to get exciting. It's been work, but I feel like it's really starting to get exciting.
Speaker 2:Well, it's exciting, for sure, and it's getting to that point where I can start worrying about the weather.
Speaker 1:Yeah, from my experience it gets exciting and then that day before you're like oh, I wish it's over.
Speaker 2:It's going to be a frigging whirlwind. I know it's going to happen and our thing is kind of an all-day thing. It was scheduled from 11 to 7, but now that we're at Fielders we really don't necessarily. I guess the sunlight will be our quitting time, but it's, I don't know. It's going to be a whirlwind and I know it's going to be here and gone and I'm not going to get to talk to and communicate with and thank everybody that I want to, because there's so many people that have been involved in making this what it's going to be and I know it's going to be so fast and we have so much going on and making sure everything's run right and it's going to be.
Speaker 1:My gut tells me we're going to be crazy and we're not going to enjoy it like we'd want to enjoy it if it wasn't our event.
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm not really. I don't plan on it being the good old hangout that I usually get.
Speaker 3:From my experience, it's like in that moment when you're doing an event, and then when the event is over like a day or two goes by it takes you some time to like sit back and reflect on what you just did, and that's when you're like wow, we just in the moment. You're like running around and you're like you know and you're not. So my suggestion is, every so often, take a deep breath and be like wow, yeah, Take that moment in and just be like wow.
Speaker 2:My goal is and we haven't even discussed this yet but my goal is that I can handle making sure everything runs good and putting out fires and all that, and I really want him to be able to spend some time with his camera, going around with the camera, getting all the different people on video. Just make making it so that we have, we have this all captured so that we can a put out a good video about it for everybody that's not there and just be yes and being just like have the memories, because it's going to be so fast that he's going to see things that I didn't get to see and talk to people that I didn't get to talk to, and vice versa. So hopefully we can capture as much of it on video, for obviously we have a YouTube channel, so video is life.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean it is and just documenting, kind of you know what it is for so many things we do on youtube is you know we're documenting an experience for people who can't experience that right, I mean there is there's lots of people that I think watch us. Some of the I guess heartwarming is messages is to say it's like people are like you know, I can't ride anymore or you know, you bring me back to riding, or I'm not able to ride, or I used to ride and it was great to watch your video and you know.
Speaker 1:So I mean those simple little it is it is and it's, uh, you know, the the trek has been an experience, to say the least, but um, we've, um, we've gone from never doing an event before outside of a group ride, and our group rides were like this. We posted it it. No idea who's showing up Our last one. Well, actually it was the first one.
Speaker 2:It was the first one. It was the first one. And we were at Fielder's.
Speaker 1:We rented out at Fielder's and Fielder's will serve breakfast in the morning. So we're like we got the bikes parked, we're going in, we're going to grab something to eat. We and you know one of the guys, sam, who was helping us with this event as well came in. He's like you guys got to see the parking lot and we walked out there and it was like 40 bikes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we expected like 10 or 12.
Speaker 1:We expected like 10 people. So we went back inside and Sam came back in again. He was like yo, you got to see the parking lot. It was like 70 bikes Wow.
Speaker 2:I think that first one. We ended up in the high 60s and we were like holy crap, because it was just a you know Baggers and Brews group ride, come hang out and ride with us. Again, we weren't raising money for anything.
Speaker 3:The name in itself is interesting. That's amazing. That's how little things start and it's like you just have an idea, you focus on it, execute it yeah, and you just see where it goes, and if it doesn't go anywhere, well you try again. You know yeah self off and pick your head up the eye and and keep it moving. Yeah, I'm, listen, I'm really looking forward to it. Um, I've gone to a lot of bike runs you know over the last several years, and this one seems like it's going to be a good one.
Speaker 1:This may very well be the biggest motorcycle event that the state of New Jersey has seen since the last war. To the shore pandemic. Oh, it's pressure out there. I mean think about that though.
Speaker 1:I mean, I mean the state of New Jersey is not big on motorcycle events. We're just not. Yeah, and nobody's had one. And you know, sam, you know, sam, you know, had the pinelands bike fest going for a little while which started the show, some promise, and then we've kind of piled this on top of that and in a way but it's tell me another event that you've gone to that was motorcycle and and veteran fundraisers are related I will say only only from being very active on Instagram and stuff like that and watching all that stuff and following all that stuff, I feel like North Jersey does a much better job about doing events bike nights and things like that than we do down here.
Speaker 3:They do a lot of them. Yeah yeah, there's a lot of bike nights they don't have to ride very far to it.
Speaker 2:Obviously, everything's so congested and close, but I feel like they always have stuff going on. Every time I see something, I'm like, oh, what's up it's all the way up there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, bergen County Harley, they do a lot of bike nights in the summer.
Speaker 1:Bergen County I can't get up there. I was just going to bring a rutt cut. He's never been to rutt cut. Oh man, you're missing. He's never been to rutt cut.
Speaker 2:I'm partial to yeah, no, hot hut's rut is oh that bad.
Speaker 1:You want to know it's great. You want to get a ripper, you want you walk in the hot grill you're like uh, one all the way, I'll have. Uh, I'll have one all the way. Diet coke fries, and this guy turns around it's like one all the way. So all the way is um mustard chili cheese onions.
Speaker 2:Yeah I mean, I'm good so far, but what else is everything?
Speaker 1:chili cheese onions, okay I could tear that up.
Speaker 3:That sounds great relish, maybe relish, I'm not sure. Maybe not a big relish fan but so, uh what?
Speaker 1:my wife the relish, my wife's cousin, he's a retired nypd from the three four. His mom was a little italian lady worked at the hot grill her entire life. She immigrated here, really, she immigrated here from italyian lady, worked at the hot grill her entire life. She immigrated here. She immigrated here from italy, got a job at the hot grill and it was the only job she ever had cooked wieners her whole life. Her whole life, man, whole life, the hot grill. I'm telling you a lot. That's the kind of business the generation of like hot grill.
Speaker 3:He's right, because I remember going when I was younger with my father because right across the street is a field, so we would would like sleigh ride down this field and we would go and have like hot chocolate and, you know, french fries with gravy and hot dogs, and my father loved hot dogs.
Speaker 1:So my mother does too. It's a North Jersey thing, so you're.
Speaker 3:Jersey born. I was Jersey born, yeah, what town. Hasbrokites. Okay, and so you know, my father would wake us up at like 6 o'clock, 7 o'clock on a Saturday, feet on the ground, let's go. And we'd be like where are we going? Wherever the road take us and wherever the road will take us, and he would drive up Route 80, and he would find some of these hot dog places.
Speaker 1:Go to Johnny's Hot Dog. Johnny's, that's the one I hear a lot about too. I thought Johnny's is great. There's a military base up there.
Speaker 3:Oh, is that the uh, the picatinny when you come off this one exit, there's a cracker barrel, okay, and then right off the exit, uh, before the cracker barrel, is his hot dog place and it looks like it was an old home, like an old house yeah, I can't remember what never eaten, ever I know, because it was on the way to pub 199. I feel yes, pub 199 was right there. They got their clams and all that. Yeah, I could see this.
Speaker 1:Uh, I could see.
Speaker 3:I, I know exactly right on the corner as you're coming up and it looks like a. It might be called the hot dog house. I don't know, but it looks like like an old fashion like house. A family lived there back in the day and they converted it into a hot dog place. But yeah, north Jersey, why is North?
Speaker 1:Jersey. So into hot dogs, I don't know Interesting, I just feel like it was a cheap food. I mean the hot dog. We had hot dog trucks in Newark that were just unbelievable. I mean guys making homemade relish, homemade onions Crazy levels of hot dog stuff that you would never even think would come out of a hot dog truck in a city.
Speaker 3:And they were leveled up so much.
Speaker 1:Nothing's better than a hot dog and a Yoo-Hoo, yeah, and a Yoo-Hoo and a can, though Listen, I do like Yoo-Hoo, you've got to have it in the can. One of my favorite drunk hot dog places went out of business Libby's.
Speaker 2:Libby's, where's Libby's libby's, where's libby's libby's was in patterson and uh, were you there?
Speaker 1:we did you do the ride where we went down to the hot dog place down at the shore. Yeah, yeah, that was um. What's that called? What was the name of that place? I thought there's a famous hot dog place in wildwood how about this spot?
Speaker 3:talk about bayonne? Hmm, the treatise no, no no, you never went there.
Speaker 1:No, I've never been there no, no, no really in bayonne no no, my, my bayonne was my, my bayonne. It was a spanish restaurant I remember we used to go to. They used to have really good paella and then, like, the rest of my bayonne was like judickeys, shellies, hippies, okay, and the buster brown store, because that's where we used to go buy our shoes.
Speaker 3:It was like waste that's way before my buster browns.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, that was buster brown was a thing man yeah, that's way before my buster browns, that was a thing and you and it was like a walk. It was probably. Honestly, it was probably like a six block walk, was it? But when you were a kid in the summer you were like, what, where are we going like? Because my grandmother walked everywhere. She walked everywhere, you know. She walked from Judickeys to St Henry's in the winter.
Speaker 2:She walked here from Ireland, didn't she Just?
Speaker 1:about.
Speaker 3:We also had the one hot dog truck. Now it's on First Street Park Dilly Dog, dilly Dog.
Speaker 1:I feel like I knew Dilly Dog from when I worked there, because he's going to be on medical center sometimes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he has a truck out on First Street Park now.
Speaker 2:I'm going to have to alert Tony and Kerry about this podcast because you guys are probably talking about all places. I mean they're Jersey City, bayonne people, tony's living in Manahawken now.
Speaker 1:Tony's born in Bayonne.
Speaker 2:I think Tony's Jersey.
Speaker 1:City.
Speaker 2:I think Kerry's Bayonne, if they can correct me if they listen to this, but yeah, that's their neck of the woods and my parents, my great-grandmother, first immigrated here.
Speaker 1:She was in Bayonne, then they were in Jersey City. My mother lived on Five Points back in Jersey City Okay, which is not even someplace you really go to these days or die. It's like that it's a rough neighborhood. Um, and they lived in greenwood for a while. I have pictures of pictures somewhere of greenwood, jersey city, and it was beautiful. And and now greenwood. You go to greenwood. You don't know whether or not to take your wallet with you or leave it in the car, like it's a conscious decision.
Speaker 2:It's like it doesn't sound safe in either spot, I know that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:It's like, do I take it with me or do I just leave it like, or do I just start separating stuff, put stuff in different? Pockets if you got to consider those things just don't go, oh man yeah, go there for work, but it's you know I've had to go through those areas and then you go through those areas and then you go to like downtown Jersey City.
Speaker 3:On the waterfront and that's, you know, washington Boulevard. I used to work on the 17th floor from the Newport Mall radio station down there and radio stations didn't go over there. Now they're in the city. But even back then downtown after a certain time we didn't want to hang out. But now they've brought it up. What's? Back then downtown after a certain time you didn't really want to hang out, but now they've brought it up what's?
Speaker 1:back then. How long are we talking? We're talking way off track here 2020?.
Speaker 3:Okay 2019, 2020, 2021-ish.
Speaker 1:All right, Do you remember the candy store? Actually take that back.
Speaker 3:Do you remember the candy store 2001, 2001. 2001. Do you remember the candy store? Actually, take that back. Do you remember the candy store 2001, 2001.
Speaker 1:2001. Do you remember the candy store in the Newport Mall?
Speaker 3:I remember the record shop. Okay, there was a record store there, not?
Speaker 1:far from the record store was a candy shop. Yeah, and that was, take it to the candy shop, my Aunt Louise's candy shop.
Speaker 2:Let George, lick my lollipop. There you go.
Speaker 3:It was 2001. Yeah, I would say 2000, 2001. Yeah, I was working in the radio business.
Speaker 1:So it came out of Beethoven. This is what happened. This is what happened to me.
Speaker 2:And he's like I don't know what you're questioning you know what Beethoven does like hot dogs, see that.
Speaker 3:And meatballs with no sauce on it there you go. Sauce gives you heartburn, one of our favorite restaurants is in munaki, and so we where in munaki, new jersey munaki it's like you know where uh metlife stadium is yes it's around that area okay, yeah, all right yeah, it's behind another trivia, another tree.
Speaker 1:So good.
Speaker 2:I know you said your whole goal is just to help people and that's what you guys are doing as K9 Beethoven. Do you have and we mentioned this because you mentioned needing more people? Do you have a bigger goal, a long-term goal? Have you guys thought of that as an organization? Would you like to expand? Would you like to be maybe not nationwide, but just more than just where we are?
Speaker 3:I definitely think the goal is to expand. I think it would be dumb of us to say let Not nationwide, but just more than just where we are.
Speaker 2:I definitely think the goal is to expand.
Speaker 3:Okay. I think it would be dumb of us to say let's just stay where we are.
Speaker 2:Right, I mean we want to improve yeah.
Speaker 3:We want to improve and improve as we go by. I mean, listen, we got a great crew of people I mean they're all volunteers, the pet therapy program people. They're taking time out of their day on the Saturdays, on the weekends, even during the day, to go to, like schools and stuff, even though schools are closed right now but it's the summertime. But you know they do a lot and they don't. They should get a lot of the credit, you know, because they're taking time from their day, from work, to bring their dogs to all these places and you know, you got, you know the trainers, they, they, they're helping us huge, you know.
Speaker 3:so it's, yeah, we would love to expand it. We just hope that you know we can get maybe more people you know to help us as well. So what?
Speaker 2:do you think from from a very basic perspective, you need to start expanding as well.
Speaker 3:So what do you think from? From a very basic perspective, you need to start expanding. I think we need to. Uh, you know, we can't always be at the same spot, all of us, and sometimes it's tough because, like, there has been times where we've overbooked like an event like where, like, oh, we got this, oh wait, we said yes to this same day.
Speaker 3:So luckily, our head trainer day. Yeah, so luckily our head trainer, uh, chris, uh, you know he's got family members who help us, so there's certain events that he'll go to with them. And then I'll go to another event with arpy. Like you know, it's in the beginning every weekend. Going hard was me and arpy going to all these bike runs, going to all these, like you know, festivals and fairs, and, and, and just hitting the pavement and going, but and within the last two years or so, we've gotten people to help us. So, like one example, like I had to be somewhere early in the morning for a check presentation with rp and then, luckily, chris was able to stay at that warriors run and do that and sell, where I had to jump in the car and go to Bayonne for another check presentation. So now we're getting to the point where we need more people that want to come out and help us.
Speaker 2:So you need volunteers that want to be a part of your organization be on the team and donate time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, must love dogs. Well, of course.
Speaker 3:And you get the people who are like, yeah, yeah, I want to help, I want to help, I want to help.
Speaker 2:It's a lot, and then they don't realize they start to realize that certain things are like, yeah, we'll help.
Speaker 3:I mean, listen, I'm not going to force anybody. I or, if you come to me you want to volunteer, want to want to volunteer? I can't force you, I just can't.
Speaker 2:I mean, I'll give you a team. You don't want somebody that you're forcing you want people that are all in.
Speaker 3:You know. I mean we have, like I said, we have a great crew. It's me and RP Maureen who keeps us men together, keeps us grounded when we fight each other.
Speaker 3:She's the referee you know, um, and then we have chris, and then we have the pet therapy program and we have a young gentleman named nick. He's like our project manager, he's always willing to want to help us and stuff like that. He's he's in high school and he loves what we do and and so we have that and we partnered up with, like I said to you guys earlier, the new jersey veterans network, uh, with doc and um, his partner, uh, the president over there named, uh, what's his name?
Speaker 3:uh, mike, and so you know, we're having, you know, getting more people to help, which is great because in the beginning it was like every weekend, like even my mother would say to me don't you want to have a life like when you start something like this? It's your life that you have to keep on moving, keep on going, because eventually, hopefully, you hope that people will come on board and love it and want to help too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so so are most of the vets that do reach out and apply. Are they in this Northeast area?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean we'll. We, we service New Jersey, pennsylvania, we service New Jersey, pennsylvania, new York, and we'll go further if it's a right fit, obviously if it's going to work out. But we had a little I think it was Mississippi, I think we did one and it didn't work out.
Speaker 2:How come?
Speaker 3:For certain reasons, it's far.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's far, and it's for other and you can't stay as like involved as you want or it was Joplin Missouri.
Speaker 3:Actually, it was Joplin Missouri, yeah, and it just didn't work out. Without getting into real detail, I feel I feel like you would need a chapter. Like you would have to expand this in chapters.
Speaker 1:Like hey if that's my so that was my question.
Speaker 3:Let's just say, like we did in a situation like that, where all the money that we're getting in is going to our program right. So if a situation occurs and they're like in Joplin Missouri, we have to get back out there again.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Or we have to pay somebody To get yeah, all right, or we have to pay somebody to get there, to get there, right. So then we're so, then we're. We're losing money in a way. Right, we raised all this money for that one particular dog and sponsorships and stuff like that, but then it doesn't work out where we got to pay more money, so I think what we did was we got excited, we learned our lesson, we brought it back you know, right and we said all right, you know what, let's do the metro area, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut.
Speaker 3:I'm willing to go to Rhode Island, you do like four hours four hours four to five hours you know, you are, or we can drive if we have to, you know. And so just the Joplin thing didn't work out and I think that brought us back down to reality and said you know? And then we need chapters, you know. That would be a great idea too. Down the road, I would be open to having a chapter, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that was my next question. Because George knows I like to do things big and not just go simple. Because George knows I like to do things big and not just go simple. So if in your vision of expansion and and being more nationwide is that kind of the way maybe it needs to start, is if somebody was to reach out to you from Joplin, missouri or whatever it is and say we're interesting in in, like or Florida.
Speaker 2:Miami, yeah, wherever, and maybe then you just start working with somebody to build for no better term chapter somewhere else. Is that kind of how you could expand, or do you?
Speaker 3:have a different vision for it. I can see it maybe down the road Anytime soon. Maybe not so much to be honest, it's a process. It's a process. It's you know a lot of things, but you need people in those locations that want to do this.
Speaker 2:It's you know a lot of things, but you need people in those locations that want to do this.
Speaker 3:Yes, yeah and are going to want to have the same passion.
Speaker 2:Right People is a more than one person, heavily vetted, obviously, and having a passion.
Speaker 3:Every organization has their main three or four people Right.
Speaker 3:And so you know, if they want to do it, it would take a lot for me to consider that because it's a lot of work. You don't realize it until you're in it. Like it's a lot of work, it's your weekends, it's your, you know, during the week you're doing stuff Like you know, they're kind of like YouTube. Yeah, it's, it's. You know. There's times where, like I, you know, I work Monday through Friday and then I may have to leave and just say, like an organization reached out to us hey, can you come and speak about your program Like? Or we have, you know, another pet therapy program thing. I don't really tend to go to a lot of pet therapy program events because I don't have a dog right now, but sometimes I'll go, you know, support you know, hang out, you know, and so it's.
Speaker 3:there's a lot to do to keep this afloat yeah, no doubt so it is time consuming, but you know what I have to say this, though I don't know if you guys I think you guys would agree with me for what you guys do, not only should we be thanking our veterans, but and the dogs that we're saving, and because they're doing amazing things too but, in hindsight, our support system, our families there are times where I'm not around for a whole weekend and I want to see my mom or I want to hang out with my brother, so we got to thank them as well. Our family I want to thank Arpy's arpy's, you know, wife and, and you know, maureen's husband, and even chris and sam and their family members, because this takes a lot of work yeah you know.
Speaker 3:I mean, you guys are putting together this huge event. That's going to be successful. There's no doubt about it. I mean, you're connected with tunnels for towers, they do amazing things and so it takes a lot of work.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and and and sometimes you do feel bad because you're connected with tunnels for towers, they do amazing things and so it takes a lot of work yeah and and and sometimes you do feel bad because you're like I'm busy, busy, busy doing this and you know, if you have kids and and just family, it's like but they, but they're supporting us yeah, no doubt, so they have to be thanked as well. I mean it's it know.
Speaker 2:I mean I've had to miss recently, within the last year, getting into this podcast and we spend a lot of time away from them trying to do this stuff and they definitely they're definitely sacrificing a lot of what they want out of life for us to do this crap, so they definitely deserve credit, and and I mean, up until now we haven't even been doing anything that was for anyone else other than just our own hobbies and enjoyments, you know.
Speaker 1:So this definitely, this definitely dialed it up a notch. I would say from from the time commitment, obviously. But um, listen, on tuesday my wife was like what's going on this week? I was like we're gonna have a nice quiet weekend and uh, last tuesday, yeah, yeah last tuesday, until you're gonna have a quiet weekend.
Speaker 2:I was like, yeah, we going to have a quiet weekend.
Speaker 1:I was like, yeah, we're going to have a quiet weekend. It was like, oh yeah, we're going to we go. We have a veteran buddy of ours trying to get a business off the ground. We've done a shoot, a video to support him and support his business that he's got going on. So we did that in the morning, which is where we were last night, which I didn't think was Saturday, I thought it was Tuesday and Stacey was like I realized that by night it's tomorrow night. I was like, oh, I'm so sorry and she goes and you got the podcast on Sunday.
Speaker 3:And I was like next weekend I'll be quiet, next weekend I'll be quiet. You got some husband chores to do.
Speaker 1:She's making that list as we speak. He's got the gears turned next week in the quiet yeah, listen you guys.
Speaker 3:What you need to do is you need to download a calendar we have one and your phone and your phone. Yeah, we do, because maureen made us down and listen. I don't like downloading apps and it was one time where, like we totally forgot that we had an event and we missed it and I just figured I'd download this app, and so we put everything in the app so we have that yeah I don't, I don't use it.
Speaker 1:We have, yeah, my wife uses it. I'm trying.
Speaker 2:I'm trying to set up baggers and brews and this. American ride business on this calendar that he refuses to use.
Speaker 2:So I have to like middleman, his wife to let him know that we have something. But no, we have, there's always one in the coop. Oh man, when I came to my wife with this idea because, again, we've been running with this baggers and brews thing for four or five years now, eating up a lot of time, a lot of time away from the wives and kids, and then I came to her with this idea, new venture, it's separate and it's different than, but it's gonna eat up more time. And if you could have seen the looks I got. But, um, no, they, they definitely deserve a ton of credit for supporting us, um, in our wild, crazy dreams of yeah, I don't even know what our dreams are, but whatever. Um, but hey, we're doing something good right now, which is for now, I'll take, I'll take it, yes, it works.
Speaker 1:Channel towers thing is, it's exciting, it's you know. Again, we wanted to pick something where we could have some impact, obviously, and but not something that was so big where I felt like the CEO was making a million dollars, you know, trying to run an organization.
Speaker 1:I just didn't want my, didn't want my money to pay for somebody's three homes and a mercedes I just a lot of them and I'm not saying those organizations don't do good things, but everybody you know needs to make a choice as to who and what they're going to work with. And tunnel towers was you know? I mean we. I moved into hoboken in 2001. It's 2002, actually, I spent a lot of 9-11s down at the waterfront.
Speaker 1:It's always been something that my wife was living in Hoboken at the time that it happened. Her roommate at the time was in the PATH train that was underneath the World Trade. After the first plane hit, they did not let people out of the, out of the train. She was in the last train that they did not let disembark and they turned that train around. So she was in. She was in the tunnels in the river. When the towers went down it was minutes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's um, it's obviously something that's always been close to us and we say this so often. You know the term never forget, which is something if you've been around 9-11 like never forget, and I'm like how could you like? It's their slogan, never forget, yeah, and it could never like resonate with you. It's like I'm like how could you forget that? Like it's. You know what I mean. It's like pearl harbor. Nobody's forgotten pearl harbor. How can we possibly forget, you know, 9-11, and then we kind of see the stuff that's going on in the world right now and we go yeah, I mean never forget, means a little something more than it did in 2003.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean. It's it carries. It carries a lot more weight with me than it ever did yeah you know so, but it's amazing.
Speaker 3:you know, what you guys do is amazing and, like I said, I keep on repeating myself, but I'm looking forward to this.
Speaker 2:I am too. It's going to be. It's going to be a fun day.
Speaker 3:It's going to be great, you guys got some bands playing or we got bands.
Speaker 2:George can tell you about the band we got bands.
Speaker 1:We got a. We got a Hendrix impersonator Hendrix.
Speaker 2:We've got a lot of guys who are vets, man, a lot, a lot of band members donate. They donated their time to this. Yeah, none of these guys we're not, thank god, because we didn't have the budget, for none of these guys are are we're paying. You know, they're all volunteering their time, which is awesome. We got um you know porta potties.
Speaker 1:I mean I say, like I said before, I was humbled the amount of people that were like you know, I mean you don't get what you don't ask for but the amount of people that went asked yeah step to the plate yeah, I mean, or they realize what you're doing, like hey, how can we, yeah, the really cool thing like that, like we didn't?
Speaker 2:we had zero budget for this event. Yeah, like we don't have any money, like we're a tiny youtube channel barely getting by, like we don't have a budget to put on a big event. So our goal was to do as much as we could with people donating because of what we're doing, sponsorships and donations.
Speaker 2:And anything we did have to pay for was going to come out of what we're raising, which we wanted to make as little as possible, and we really have managed to do that. We've had so many great companies that are like we'll give you you. You know, like you said, the porta potty was a star, star, star.
Speaker 1:We do a what tricky tray? So yeah, sound auction. It's, it's silent. Yeah, so it's sound auctions, kind of like south jersey, for uh, tricky tray, oh is is.
Speaker 2:Is chinese auction inappropriate in north jersey?
Speaker 3:they just always called them tricky trade that too, but other people call it a card party. I In North Jersey. They just always called them tricky trades. No, that too, but other people call it a card party.
Speaker 1:I've never heard of that. That must be some Hudson County stuff. Raffle, raffle.
Speaker 2:Hudson.
Speaker 3:County is definitely a card party.
Speaker 2:We call it raffles too.
Speaker 1:I mean, I call it a tricky tray. But for all intents and purposes it is a tricky tray.
Speaker 3:But it's silent.
Speaker 2:Yes, we've had. We've had a lot of items donated that we're going to be able to raffle off awesome. That's great, which is great. We just got another one today, awesome, um, so that I mean just the people that have jumped in to help out, you know, the um, a tent company, whatever you know, giving us a massive discount, huge discount, the, the 12 porter party potties that are like free, just donated, um, we've had other things like I'm missing things, but we've had, but we've had uh, so much stuff.
Speaker 1:We're getting a sound system that somebody's volunteering their their time with um, but it's all about we're.
Speaker 2:Uh, we have an mc because everything we gotta spend money on comes out of. You know what we want to go to our veterans, first responders. So we're trying to keep that as absolute minimum. And uh, and like I told him, in a way, this whole thing was a blessing. With the moose lodge um bailing on us because we were actually paying a rental fee for that and where we're at now and an insurance fee. And now, where we're at now, we're not paying anything.
Speaker 3:But I mean, come on. Yeah, so we're actually saving more money for free? Yeah, exactly, and you're a member too, right exactly?
Speaker 2:but now, now where we're at, they're not asking us for anything and we'll bring a lot of business into them. They'll have a great day, you know, on alcohol sales things happen for a reason absolutely yeah absolutely.
Speaker 1:It was stressful the night that it happened, but it was extremely stressful.
Speaker 2:It's gonna be yeah you know you're an event this big that we've been planning now for probably eight months, and, and, and, and been booked with the with the moose for over six. Um, to have them all of a sudden be like hey, I got bad news, you can't have it here, was like I, my pit of my stomach. I was just like, and I had to call him and I was like hey, uh, are you sitting down? I got, I just came from the moose and he's like what? And I'm like they're not letting us have it. And I was. He's like what are you?
Speaker 3:kidding me.
Speaker 2:I got all my money back. I got all my money back and we got a video coming out this week, just FYI, we're not pulling any punches on that. We think what they did was really jacked up and you guys watch on Baggers and Brews. You'll see the video coming out this Tuesday about the Moose Lodge. But we did our rant. We ripped on them. That'll be out Tuesday. But we're trying to move on and everything works out like you said, for a reason and it's going to be amazing. We've got so many awesome people helping us out with this. It's so cool.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like I said, I'm looking forward to it. Man, look forward to things like this, you know, and while I'm there, if there's anything, I can do to help you guys?
Speaker 2:let me know. Hey man, we just want people to come and buy your stuff and contribute to the Operation Canine Beethoven. So where, if people want to donate money or buy, is there a place to donate just money without buying?
Speaker 3:merch. No, you can go to our website, which is OperationCanineBeethovencom.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:The letter K, number nine, go to our website. You can buy our merchandise or you can donate right through the website. We take, like PayPal and Vemo and stuff like that, and then our address. Our PO box is there too, if you want to send a check. You know, dealing with Vemo and stuff like that, they take their fees Right, of course, but you know our PO box is there and you can send us a check if you want, okay. And then you can go to our Instagram page or Facebook page, operation Canine Beethoven. Like it, share it, tell people all about it, spread the good word about Operation Canine Beethoven. That's what it's all about. And then on July 13th, I'll be there with a table. We'll be selling some merchandise. I'm not taking everything with me, but I'm going to take a good amount and we're going to be selling that. And then I can also take donations at the table as well.
Speaker 2:Hopefully you'll sell out all your stuff early. Then you can just hang out and have some drinks. That's the plan.
Speaker 3:Then I may have to Uber it back to the hotel.
Speaker 1:Hey, it's all good, that's ultimately the plan guys.
Speaker 3:I mean I want to bring what I. You know, like I said, we have hoodies, we have zip ups, we have pullovers, we have shirts, you know stuff like that and um, but uh, yeah, you know, I'm hoping to. You know, I do it. I did my event yesterday and so rp text me and he was like, uh, how you doing? I said, well, check the numbers, you have the access. And he says, well, don't come back if the bins are not empty. Okay, our RP's business, yeah he's business.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he runs his own business, so he's a business dude.
Speaker 3:But I love him. We get on each other's nerves but we have a great relationship. But I didn't sell everything out. We did really well, which is, like I said, bayonne man, they've been very good to us over in Anderson, that's awesome, and the Rotary Club over there and just everybody there has been great. So we're going to get the merchandise put in order and put back into place and I think our next event is going to be with you guys.
Speaker 2:I'm excited. July. Do you have July? And I know, because I picked the date, it's going to be sunny and beautiful. Do you have like a pop-up tent or something? Oh, absolutely Okay, perfect, I just I've. I still got to go around and I've said this to everybody but, all my vendors like I don't want you melting in the sun.
Speaker 3:It's going to be hot. I got tents. I got my weights Awesome, yeah, we roll professionally.
Speaker 1:Perfect, awesome yeah.
Speaker 3:I mean I usually do like a two-table, three-table setup, beautiful For this it might be like one or two tables, because I can't fit all my tables in the car.
Speaker 2:Whatever you need, we got plenty of space. Yeah, we'll figure it out, but yeah, bring what you can, because I think, uh, I think you're gonna sell some stuff. I know, I know, but bikers love dogs and they love vets, so you're gonna sell some stuff, for sure win, win have you heard of um one dog, one soldier one?
Speaker 3:I've heard of that something else one bite, one dog, one soldier.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have heard of that okay, because it's um, that's a local down here. Right, it's another organization that's, I guess, similar to what you guys do. I've heard of it, I don't it's been a while they'll be there. So, um, yeah, you can. I mean, I don't know if you guys, you know, have rivals.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't know how that works in the canine bring that up because I I was talking to somebody yesterday and he's a part of a group called Canine for Warriors and they're national, they're out in Florida, and we were just talking. I'm like, listen, there's small organizations that do what I do and there's ones that are national and this, that and the other thing. There's no reason to have any like friction, no competition, and I I go, he goes, no, I agree, 100 I go. We're all doing the same thing. It's all about the common same purpose the same purpose.
Speaker 3:yeah, and you know they can reach more people. We can. We can go, can go local, we can do this, we can do that. I said we shouldn't be in competition with anybody, god no, Anybody, anybody.
Speaker 1:anybody who thinks that it doesn't clearly doesn't get it.
Speaker 2:Especially an organization that's not making a profit.
Speaker 3:You're doing it for a lot of organizations that are out there. I'm not going to say is there going to come a time where we have to take a salary? We may have?
Speaker 2:to grow Maybe we may have you may have.
Speaker 3:Um, you know that's in the hands of the accountants and lawyers, I guess Right, but yeah, there's going to come a point where we're going to have to, like people say to me all the time like wouldn't you love to quit your job and make this a full-time job and get paid and get benefits?
Speaker 1:for something you love.
Speaker 3:The problem is, I love what I do for a living, monday through Friday. Oh, okay, so I run a thrift store.
Speaker 2:Well, you're rare.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I do you run a thrift store, A thrift store, and we help the community in Bayonne. It's social services and we have a food pantry. So it's like I love what I do.
Speaker 1:This is going to be an offline conversation. That is an offline conversation.
Speaker 3:But yeah, no, I mean, are there days where I'm like, oh, I've got to go to work? We all have those days. But I've been with the same agency for going to be 10 years in July and I started as an instructor. It's an agency that has two group homes for adults who are 21 and over, who are definitely disabled Down syndrome.
Speaker 3:Asperger's and stuff like that. And then there's a center where I used to work, where that's their job, like they're going to work, just like we go to work every day, and we have programs, a crushing program, you know, aluminum recycling program, shredding, and it's been teaching them like life school.
Speaker 2:That's like uh, I'm out in the community. What did Tim work for? Locally, my brother-in-law.
Speaker 1:I forget, but yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:They had the same type of thing where they had Same to everything here, yeah.
Speaker 3:And so it's. You know, I like what I do. It's like I love my both jobs. Yeah, like it would.
Speaker 2:I think it would take a lot but the, but the reality of growing something like what you're doing with operation canine beethoven. If you want people, if you want it to grow, people have to invest more time and invest more time. They have to not have another job. Yeah, so you might have to have people on salary and I know a lot of people when it comes to charity of types of things. They get really crazy about it and they get like all butthurt if 109 000 of the profits not going towards whatever the the purpose is. But yeah, like who, aside from somebody who's a bazillionaire with free time, like who's got the time to do it full time and so you're gonna have administration costs, of course.
Speaker 3:I mean of course. I mean you know you are. I think, as long as that stuff's this closed, it's fine. Oh yeah, it's, you're going to have administration costs.
Speaker 1:Of course I mean, yeah, you are. I think as long as that stuff's disclosed it's fine, oh yeah.
Speaker 3:I mean, we do have a bank account, obviously, and we do need office supplies Of course. And you know, so it's yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2:What are you guys supposed to pay for? Every little single thing out of your own personal money? Like that's ridiculous yeah.
Speaker 3:I mean thing out of your own personal money, like that's ridiculous. Yeah, I mean in the very beginning that happened, of course, um, and it still happens from time to time here now. Uh, but listen, I mean, yeah, I mean there is a goal at some point to maybe cut a salary, but I ain't gonna, I don't wanna, you know a hundred thousand dollars, six, seven right yeah, make me comfortable, right, and I'll continue doing what I do for my day job.
Speaker 3:And you know, if it gets to that point, it does. If it doesn't, we'll just keep on trucking and helping people.
Speaker 2:Keep helping people. That's awesome. All right, so what you got, man, that's that's it. You're the inquisitive one.
Speaker 1:We are, you did good.
Speaker 2:You did good today, man Considering the odd man out that doesn't have pets, and I didn't come from North Jersey.
Speaker 1:I think I hold my own.
Speaker 3:You held your own today. Listen, guys, thanks for having us. I tell people all the time when I do podcasts and interviews and stuff we can only do so much locally from a Facebook point of view instagram, social media, our events that we pull through, but half of the medium, like you guys to like, push our mission and our purpose. So thank you for having absolutely I look forward to seeing you.
Speaker 2:Canine beethovencom right, it's got operation, operation, operation. So you don't have to be local to us here to help out. If you are listening from anywhere else you can can go to operationcaninebetovencom and buy some merch. You can just flat out donate if you like dogs and vets.
Speaker 3:Just do it.
Speaker 1:You know, or if you're feeling real giving sponsor a dog.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that too.
Speaker 1:Is that how that works?
Speaker 3:You can sponsor a dog, yeah you can sponsor a dog or you can sponsor three.
Speaker 2:What does it mean to sponsor a dog? So what would it mean to sponsor a dog?
Speaker 3:Meaning that an organization like the Bayonne Rotary Club they sponsored they raised money for three dogs.
Speaker 2:So that was that. When you said it took like $7,000 or whatever, is that what you?
Speaker 3:mean To cover that cost. It's $7,000 a dog.
Speaker 2:Okay, awesome.
Speaker 3:Yeah, an organization could do that for sure, yeah, and so you know, and so you know um an mc can do that, absolutely they could it's what's, it's um what? Happened to your mind, I don't know.
Speaker 1:I don't know okay, I got a limp. Yeah, I got loose there.
Speaker 3:But yeah, so, um, amateurs, no, just kidding. Yes, um, but now. But now, yeah, it's $7,000 a dog. So you know, individuals can sponsor a dog if they want. I mean organizations can, Clubs can.
Speaker 1:The nom. Knights did Right or almost yeah they almost got there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the nom knights.
Speaker 2:And all the information to sponsor dog is on the website. Everything is there.
Speaker 3:Awesome, everything is there. Awesome Everything is there. You can email us, you can reach out to us. We'll get back to you. Our information is on our pages and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:Awesome All right, man, awesome, and we're going to talk more about getting you on Baggers and Brews, because I think we got. I think we have a fan base over there that is super into both dogs and vets, so I think it's a good match. Talk about it again over there. Yeah, just in case. Get it out to as many people as possible.
Speaker 3:Yeah, let me know, I'm up for it.
Speaker 2:Awesome, I'd love Again. You'll get mad at me. I'd love to do it before the event, but again, we got three weeks.
Speaker 3:We got three weeks we got three weeks.
Speaker 2:I gotta check my schedule. Three weeks, oh man, all right, my wife's gonna kill me well, you did that one you did that one yourself. Yeah, this is. This was an awesome one. Man, this is really cool what you guys are doing. Yeah, I love it. I love how passionate you are about it. Um, all of it the, the dogs, the vets helping people.
Speaker 3:I love how you guys are passionate too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we surprise people now and then we're not just bad dumb drunks over here.
Speaker 1:We're your whiskey. We're working on it.
Speaker 2:Wrap us up, man. I'm done, you done, I'm done. Are you sure I'll?
Speaker 1:quit now, all right. Well, listen, man. Brian, thank you for coming out Again, if you haven't heard us say it 50 times on here. Operation canine Beethoven, located right here in New Jersey. They are going to be at our event July 13th helping us raise money for tunnel towers and helping raise money for their own ventures as well. And, like we were just saying to recap, you want to get involved. Hit them up. Operation canine Beethovencom. And if you don't really realize or you're having trouble conceptualizing what they're doing, go to their YouTube channel, watch Justin's video, and I feel like if that doesn't hit you in the stomach, nothing will or even read the testimonials on the website too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but that video that video hits it's hard.
Speaker 3:So that video should have more likes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it should have more views, definitely. Um, I'm going to share it to our uh, to our community, as soon as we're done here. I'm not done.
Speaker 2:Cause I didn't realize, I just forgot. If you've only heard about our event through this podcast, there has been a change in venue in the venue.
Speaker 2:So the event will now begin and end at Fielder's pub in Hamilton, new Jersey. You can Google it. It's easy to find the address, but where it was going to end at the moose lodge is no longer. We've we've changed things. So, just so everybody knows, if you weren't going to do the poker run and you were just going to show up for the event, don't go to moose lodge in mount holly, come to hamilton, new jersey fielders pub. I just wanted to get that out there because it's all over our instagram, but just in case, just in case you're only listening to this and you were going to come um fielders pub, hamilton, new jersey. That's where everything's taking place. So the event starts at 11. If you're not doing the ride, come at 11. You're doing the ride. Registration is 9 to 11 at Fielders Pub. Yep, now I'm done, awesome.
Speaker 1:All right, and that's a wrap, and we'll catch you in the next one.
Speaker 3:Thanks guys.
Speaker 1:Deuces.
