Lisa is joined by Jeff Allen, the cofounder of Monkey’s House a Dog Hospice & Sanctuary, established in 2015. He has devoted his life to helping people and dogs alike in his dual roles as a human resources manager at a pharmaceutical company and through his involvement in running Monkey’s House (www.monkeyshouse.org) with his wife, Michele Allen, a 2017 CNN Hero recipient. Together, they save and care for hospice dogs. Their sanctuary has been recognized for its outstanding work and was awarded Rescue of the Year in 2017 by World Dog Expo. Living among twenty-five hospice dogs has given Jeff experience and hands-on knowledge you can’t find in a book. Jeff lives in Southern New Jersey with Michele and their pack of furry kids.
Jeff shares some of the stories of the wonderful dogs at Monkey's House as well as the many ways that they care for these lovely dogs. Love, attention, medical treatment and surgeries (some by the wonderful Dr. Judy Morgan) and a number of therapies including nutritional therapy, give these dogs the best rest of their lives they can have.
BOOK DESCRIPTION:
How sad it would have been had Cole disappeared into that dark room in the back of the shelter, alone and frightened, as if he never existed. This is often the fate of dogs afflicted with medical issues. Cole, a senior dog with cancer, was discarded by his owner, much like throwing away an old pair of shoes.
In 2015, Michele and Jeff Allen said enough is enough and started Monkey’s House a Dog Hospice & Sanctuary. Celebrating the beauty each dog has to offer, they have welcomed over 100 hospice dogs into their home. Thankfully, Cole was rescued by Monkey’s House and experienced his final chapter of life filled with dignity and love.
This book highlights 37 of the dogs that have called Monkey’s House home. Share in their journeys, laugh at their crazy antics, and shed a few tears while witnessing miracles of transformation. Rejoice along with these dogs, knowing they experienced the greatest gift of all, the healing power of love.
The Allens and Best Chapter Publishing are donating a portion of the proceeds from Where Dogs Go to LIVE to Monkey’s House a Dog Hospice & Sanctuary, a nonprofit organization.
Lisa is joined by Jeff Allen, the cofounder of Monkey’s House a Dog Hospice & Sanctuary, established in 2015. He has devoted his life to helping people and dogs alike in his dual roles as a human resources manager at a pharmaceutical company and through his involvement in running Monkey’s House (www.monkeyshouse.org) with his wife, Michele Allen, a 2017 CNN Hero recipient. Together, they save and care for hospice dogs. Their sanctuary has been recognized for its outstanding work and was awarded Rescue of the Year in 2017 by World Dog Expo. Living among twenty-five hospice dogs has given Jeff experience and hands-on knowledge you can’t find in a book. Jeff lives in Southern New Jersey with Michele and their pack of furry kids.
Jeff shares some of the stories of the wonderful dogs at Monkey's House as well as the many ways that they care for these lovely dogs. Love, attention, medical treatment and surgeries (some by the wonderful Dr. Judy Morgan) and a number of therapies including nutritional therapy, give these dogs the best rest of their lives they can have.
BOOK DESCRIPTION:
How sad it would have been had Cole disappeared into that dark room in the back of the shelter, alone and frightened, as if he never existed. This is often the fate of dogs afflicted with medical issues. Cole, a senior dog with cancer, was discarded by his owner, much like throwing away an old pair of shoes.
In 2015, Michele and Jeff Allen said enough is enough and started Monkey’s House a Dog Hospice & Sanctuary. Celebrating the beauty each dog has to offer, they have welcomed over 100 hospice dogs into their home. Thankfully, Cole was rescued by Monkey’s House and experienced his final chapter of life filled with dignity and love.
This book highlights 37 of the dogs that have called Monkey’s House home. Share in their journeys, laugh at their crazy antics, and shed a few tears while witnessing miracles of transformation. Rejoice along with these dogs, knowing they experienced the greatest gift of all, the healing power of love.
The Allens and Best Chapter Publishing are donating a portion of the proceeds from Where Dogs Go to LIVE to Monkey’s House a Dog Hospice & Sanctuary, a nonprofit organization.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
dogs , monkeys , volunteers , years , michelle , book , vet , judy , therapy , love , hospice , day , issues , bugsy , shelter , thought , house , live , quotes , monkey
MORPHUS SPOT
0:00
Are you in perimenopause or menopause and have questions? My co host Andrea donsky has a podcast called menopause reimagined, where she answers your questions about this phase of life. So stay tuned at the end where I will share five minutes of her amazing podcast. And there will be a link in the show notes where you can go and listen to the whole episode. Andrea is brilliant and she has worked so hard and knows her stuff. So be sure to check out menopause reimagined after this episode of help power thanks
Lisa
0:42
Does your dog do well answering this question is a fantastic Jeff Allen. He is an award winning Best Selling Author of where dogs go to live, which we're talking about today. Life's a dog bone and his new release leashes in heaven he will be back for both of those. He is co founder of monkeys house dog hospice and Sanctuary you will always find dogs in the pages of his books as he loves bringing their personalities into his heartwarming and inspiring stories. He's honored to be named USA Today's 2021 Animal kind award winner. Jeff, I love it. And I'm so happy to have you on so tell us something that one of your many dogs does.
Jeff
1:23
Well, I want to tell you something that's pretty exciting about what our dogs do is they are hospice dogs, a major medical major medical issues. We rescue from shelters, and we go on field trips. So we have a bus that we get on it's called wagon one. We jump on wagon one and we go to the Jersey Shore we go all over the place with them. So my dogs take field trips.
Lisa
1:47
Oh, I love that. I love reading about that. I love seeing the pictures of them on the bus. The whole thing is so great. I want to start with a quote from the boat. Sorry, I'm so excited. I forgot to ask you what I asked every guest before we jump into the fantastic books. When did your love of dogs begin?
Jeff
2:04
I think my love of dogs began when I was when I was a child. We've always I always grew up with dogs. We had a boxer when I since I can remember. Then we had a German Shepherd od with them. We had a Irish setter, which was named was ginger. So always had dogs growing up. And then when I married my wife Michelle, the one of the first actually was the first animal that we got was a German Shepherd Husky mix, named Xavi. So it's always had dogs in our family. Big animal lovers.
Lisa
2:38
Oh, yeah, absolutely. All right. So I'm going to read from your wonderful book where dogs go to live inspiring stories of hospice dogs living in the moment, quote, you're about to experience something unique and magical. Even seasoned dog trainers and rescue leaders are in awe of what they've seen and felt at monkeys house. And during the house you are greeted by dogs of varying breeds, sizes, ages and activity levels, you make your way quickly into the family room to take a seat as dogs gather from all directions, you may opt to settle into a comfortable chair or to plop yourself on the floor to be closer to the wet noses and wagging tails. After a minute or two the dogs begin to calm down and let you know the petting can begin. Okay, that sounds like my idea of heaven.
Jeff
3:27
So I have to say it is and people are amazed. Like I said, even even big dog people right trainers whenever they come over to monkeys house and they're kind of amazed they sit down and usually on the floor because most of the chairs are taken by dogs. And within a short period of time. You could have 20 dogs, all very comfortable and just kind of like enjoying each other's there's no, there aren't any issues with dogs not getting along. It is quiet. Quite Twinkle, twinkle. Twinkle.
Lisa
4:00
Yes, it seems so amazing. And I was taken in by all of the dogs. But let's start with monkey tell us about the little guy that inspired all of this.
Jeff
4:09
Yeah, so monkey came to us about? Well, it was actually about 18 months before we started monkeys house. My wife is a retired nurse. And we started fostering dogs many, many years ago, probably 15 years ago or more. And the shelter's would reach out to Michelle and say, Hey, can you take this dog because they had medical issues and she was able to really help out the ones that with medical issues. And monkey came to us. He was a little Heinz 57 You know, mixed dog. The shelter vet said, Oh, he only has a couple of months to live. Just take them home, let them be comfortable and let them pass. My wife said to the vet said, you know, he just needs some some basic medicine, heart meds. We've had dogs before the head or heart issues. They're like $8 a month at Walmart and the vet said no, no No, just take them home. So my wife that wasn't good enough for us. So she got she got a little uppity and said, That's it. We adopted monkey. She got the meds he saw saw our cardiologist or vet, of course, and lived 17 vibrant months here on our little farm. After he passed, that's when Michelle said, You know what we need to really start monkeys house we talked about opening up a dog hospice, because there's a lack of resources for them. Yeah. And that's how it became monkey sauce.
Lisa
5:29
Well, you know, one of the things that I was so thrilled to read in the book is that you work with the fantastic Dr. Judy Morgan. And Dr. Judy does a q&a every month on the show. And we advertise on each other shows, and we just adore each other. And I thought, of course, Dr. Judy Morgan's involved in this. It was so wonderful to read that.
Jeff
5:51
Yeah, she actually. So she's my wife, Michelle, once she started fostering and then had some of these dogs that had issues. That's when she really got into the food therapy. Yeah. And that's what's really unique about monkeys house now because we did follow Judy Morgan and we still do and, and many other holistic more or less holistic vets and food therapy pushed to fresh foods. So these dogs, which a lot of times the shelter vet says, you know, has the month, two months to live, are with us two years later. Judy came up when CNN was here one time and they asked what's you know, how come these these dogs are living so long? And Judy kind of joked and said, Yeah, we didn't expect that. For we can't take you know, we can only take so many dogs in. But yeah, they live a great life here.
Lisa
6:36
Yeah, well, you give them gently cooked or raw food and no kibble. And that's something that I'm doing now with my dog blue, because he's got skin issues and allergies. And he's always itchy. So now I've got him on just a quarter of his kibble. And I've got him on Turkey and acorn squash. Now he has a million allergy, so he can have like five things. So it's gonna take a little longer to get him totally off the kibble. And I you know, I already see a difference in him. And it's just incredible. So I'm so glad you're able to do that. And that takes a lot. You have some fantastic volunteers and I love how you call them aunts and uncles.
Jeff
7:12
Yeah, actually, my wife came up with that term. She says, You know what? Our volunteers. We need them to be fully invested in our children. Right, our furry children. Yeah. Like their aunts and uncles like you would with you with your regular nieces and nephews. Oh, and that's why she came up with that term aunts and uncles and stuck.
Lisa
7:31
Yeah. And one of the aunts at dawn. Love to bring ml Bob peanut butter pies. I love that. Tell us a little bit about ml Bob.
Jeff
7:41
So ML Bob used to be called feisty Bob. Yeah. feisty. Bob was. Don was fostering Mr. Bob. Actually the time it's Tom was feisty Bob. He was up on top of her kitchen table and he was quite a character. And then once he was done Foster, we have quarantined Foster's for a couple of weeks because we can't bring dogs that may have any kind of like kennel cough or something into our pack. Oh yeah. So for at least two to three weeks, there was a quarantine Foster and she was quarantined, fostering feisty Bob. So when he came to hear Michelle said you know what, he can't be feisty Bob anymore. He's got to calm down. And she we always feel that the we we name our dogs most dogs we don't know what the names are from the shelter. And even if sometimes most of them are are deaf or hard of hearing so you can call them whatever you want. So she picks a great name for these dogs and she said you know, I think he's I think he's he's just he can't be he just be Bob and then the big Facebook family I think she put it out and said What should it be called? And he was much love Bob so much love Bob turned into Mr. Bob.
Lisa
8:52
I love that. You know another dog that really stuck out for me and you did this dance you called it the dance and touch method with Shark the Beagle tell tell us about this dance?
Jeff
9:03
Oh, Shark shark was a tiny little Beagle math fact we think he might have been a lab Beagle. Alright, so and he was not very friendly, except somehow he took to me. So he was kind of my friend. I would dance with him. Yeah, a little odd. But I think it's with him in the cottage, which is a separate area of the house. And he got used to me and I would touch them on the sides like when I was dancing just a little bit. And after a while I was the one that if his harness came off or got his leg went through the wrong hole. It was a Jeff shark needs some help. And I go over and it would take me at first it took me about five minutes to get it back on. And then towards the end. It took me just a few seconds to get it back on so he got used to me but that's how dogs are you know they sometimes they come here and they are. I wouldn't say they're aggressive but they most snippy And he was one of those, but after time and after the love we give them the they really do change.
Lisa
10:06
Yeah. And that's what's so beautiful about dogs. I also really enjoyed reading the different therapies that you give. There's underwater treadmill, or that they do cold laser therapy, acupuncture, regenerative medicine, ketamine infusion, I had no idea or ketamine micro bubble therapy. Dr. Judy just mentioned that the other day in one of our q&a is and I definitely want to try that for blue for his itching and Reiki so for my lab, Benji, we've done I wasn't an underwater treadmill, but we brought him to an aquatic place, we actually had a pool and they he swam in the pool, and they did cold laser therapy, which is helped. Tell us a little bit more about this micro bubble therapy and about a ketamine infusion. I thought that was just for people who want to do like psychedelics in a you know, to heal trauma. That's something I've done, I've talked about, on my other show health power.
Jeff
10:53
Yeah. Well, that micro bubble is these these minut miniscule bubbles that gets generated from this machine. It's it's like a whirlpool almost. But it has a wand and you go across the areas that need it, like you said, if you have a dog that has really bad skin problems, then this will, it may take in normal circumstances, it may take you months to get that healed up this with a with, you know, probably a couple of weeks, it will be healed up with you know, a few treatments a week. And we have one of those here. Wow, we use it on a lot of the dogs. And even sometimes when the dog the skin is not bad. Sometimes we still use it because it just gives him a good feeling. And brings that into him. Now the different type of treatments we use. Like I said, we use a lot of different modalities. And that's what we always recommend people like, Look, you may have a traditional vet, and we have traditional vets. But they're willing to do the non traditional Of course, Judy, who was our vet a long time ago has since retired from really from practicing the veterinary medicine, but she still does a lot of other things right with her her supplements and different products. But the if you go to your traditional vet, hopefully they're open to the non traditional veterinary techniques that can be done.
Lisa
12:17
Oh, yeah. You know, the other thing that I really enjoyed reading about was the imposter tell us what that means.
Jeff
12:24
So most people would hate that term, right? And then you got somebody who's bad and making. We love imposters. imposters are a dog that will come here. One of our imposters was Archie. He was a very big blockhead yellow lab. And he we thought he had cancer in his leg because he had a really bad lamp. And the vet did at first, but we kept getting checked out. We said we don't think it is cancer. And here he had a bad break at one time. We also got him again with the food therapy, he lost about 20 pounds. So he was now in better shape. And he wasn't he didn't need hospice care. He didn't need that. So we tried to get them into a forever family. And we've gotten about a dozen dogs in to forever families now that we're not quote hospice dogs, you know, when, when they're at the shelter, and they take a look at them. They don't do. They don't always are able to do thorough examinations of everything. They kind of say, Oh, this dog is terminal. But they're not. They come here, they eat the great food, they get the vet care. And we're like, you know what, this dog could have a forever family. So we get them out to a family.
Lisa
13:33
Yes. And everyone who listens to the show knows I'm a pit bull fanatic. And I don't remember the name but to call them the mayor which made me happy and he's just an absolute sweetheart. And at first you were like a pit bull. And I'm like, oh, no, Jeff, come on. You got to know more than that. They are the sweetest Love Bugs. Oh my God. They just want to smoosh on you. So tell us about the mayor.
Jeff
13:52
That was Parker, Harper's the mayor. And he came he came the first year we opened monkey's house. And you're right, we have so we have the house. We have the garage, which is now fully converted into supporting dogs. And then on the other side of the garage are two rooms. That should be my main key right with my big TV set. But it's not. It's the cottage. The cottage is where dogs go because sometimes. Sometimes these dogs even though we we only try to bring in dog friendly, cat friendly because we do have a couple of cats too sure. But they just didn't get tired of being with 20 dogs. So there's always a few dogs out in the cottage when well sometimes we'll rotate them they'll come in for a while and they'll go back out. It's a home setting. It has couches like everything else. And so Parker used to be in there and he would be in the house. It was so funny when he came in the house. I think I think the show he used to love watching was like Little House on the Prairie. Yes. He would do. He would just be glued to the TV. It's like what what's going on with this? But he yeah when I first when he first came and I walked into the college cottage that night from Mark. I did. I said what a pitbull? And my wife said get over. Yes. And next thing I know. He's looking at me. Oh yeah. Finally, we've had about a half a dozen pit bulls or pit bull mixes. Every one of them has actually been the friendliest dog to people.
Lisa
15:17
Yep. Oh, yeah, it's just incredible. You know, another thing that was so heartwarming was to read about Kayden he's young, one of monkeys houses youngest volunteers at just three years old, he started autism and there were three dogs that were attached to Kaden, Harley, Fletcher and Bugsy, tell us a little bit about these dogs.
Jeff
15:38
Yeah, so So Harley was a like an Alaskan Malema. He was a big dog. He had an almost a bowling ball size cyst on his side. Oh, that that got removed. And he lived a couple of years with our forever he was in with one of our volunteers and Holly and Caden. They loved him to death. She always has a couple of our dogs sometimes up to three or four. She's fostering for us, and they were best buddies. But the one that really took me was Bugsy, Bugsy was a bug, which is a Boston Terrier pug mix. Ah, that's why his name is Bugsy. He was very active here. He was he was with us for a couple of years. But he always got he was a little bit excitable when new volunteers came. And he didn't have any odd teeth. But he would kind of like grab them here and there. And until they until they got used to him, but then he said you know what, I'll take them home because she doesn't have people coming over and Bugsy fell in love with Caden. And like you said Caden with us his he's on an autistic spectrum. He also has sensory overload issues. And I explained in the book How Bugsy would when he was having that he put his hands up to his ears, and Bugsy would come over and put it leaned his head against his hip. And next thing you know, Caden has taken his hand down and petting Bugsy, and then he's kind of brings him out of it. And no training bugs, he had no training for that. It's just dogs have these instincts that we've noticed time and time again, we've had our German Shepherd sore, who was our personal dog, who was kind of like the calming influence over monkeys house. You know, when when one of our dogs would be passing sore had her head resting on the dog, and she wasn't real dog dog friendly either, either. So they really can sense when someone needs a little help.
Lisa
17:45
You probably get asked this a lot. How do you deal with the grief?
Jeff
17:48
It's an I do like to talk about it? Because I think some people might think well, okay, you do, this is what you guys do. And you probably don't get that emotional, we get as emotional as anybody would with their dog with their individual dog. We get the same way. I mean, it rips our heart out. And matter of fact, you know, it's been very sad here. Last two, probably about two months, we lost five dogs, we've lost a lot of dogs. All of a sudden, it seems like sometimes it goes in spurts but not five dogs in like two months. It hurts. As Michelle said, I think in our interview with the heart, she was at the Hallmark Channel One time and they asked her about it as well. And she said, you know, the day that it doesn't hurt anymore is today I stop. Right? And that's right, because these dogs were willing to take that pain over and over again, to give them the best final chapter of their life.
Lisa
18:47
See, and that's what's so beautiful. Because a lot of the times they think, Well, you know, they're got too many issues, and they're not gonna live that long. Anyway, so let's what's the point? And you're like, what's the point? Some of these dogs have been so broken by people and don't know any compassion. But whether it's two days, two weeks or two years, you're gonna give them that wonderful life that all dogs deserve.
Jeff
19:09
And you know, time time is not really a factor. To be honest with you. We could have a dog for two weeks and I think it upsets us more the two week ones than the two year ones and let me tell you why. Because we weren't able to give them that love it theirs last month or year of their life. And that is that is really said that the who knows what their life was previously it probably wasn't that good if they were dumped at the shelter. And that's really sad.
Lisa
19:39
I can't stand when people don't want their dogs anymore because they're old. So you talk about a 13 year old plush shitzu that her owners wanted to euthanize her because as they put it, she's just too old. And that is just awful.
Jeff
19:53
It's sad. It is sad because 9090 plus percent of our dogs are that that case like So we ended the good thing about monkeys house is Michelle and I have a philosophy is we don't look at the past at all. We don't generally we don't know their past. So when they come here from that day forward, that's what we look at. And we try to only have positive energy here like we don't want to look back and I we have a large Facebook followings and sometimes the dog will come in and it is a mess. It's missing its back legs, it was mistreated. And, and I get it when some of our followers say, you know, karma and they might they might be really Yak, you know, giving it to the previous owners. I don't we don't do that. We're like, Okay, let's move forward. Let's go forward. Let's be positive all positive for him.
Lisa
20:42
You're very mature. I'm like, I want to take them I know I
Jeff
20:46
know where we want to do that. But you know it's not it doesn't do anything and we don't want to bring that negative energy into monkeys house.
Lisa
20:53
Exactly. And speaking of positive energy, I love this. You have examples of some of the names of dogs were given when they came to monkeys house, Mr. P body, P E, for a very good reason. Tell us about Mr. Pee- body.
Jeff
21:08
So Mr. P buddy and Lucy, are to be they were to hunting bagels that came here when we weren't like just the kind of the day we opened basically, they were outside dogs. And when we weren't really ready to open up monkeys house yet we we put them in our barn. We had horses at one time. So we made sure and actually we glue came over and help fence it in and everything. So they were in our barn. They had a they also had an igloo inside the voice. So then they had to, if it was wintertime, we had coats, they wouldn't come in the house. It took us about a year to for them to come in the house. But how they got the names is really something like volunteers would come over and they'd start walking the male dog and the female female was Lucy and a male dog and I don't think we had named for him at the time. But he would everybody would walk them and he didn't care where he peed. He ran on your leg. So we call him Mr. PE Mr. Peabody. And it's so funny.
Lisa
22:06
You also had Princess granny. I think her name was his granny but you thought she deserves to be a princess. Yeah, it was
Jeff
22:13
like old grainy or something like that. She's not she's not old granny. She's a princess granny. And she ended up one of the volunteers Karen loved Princess granny. She would come every Saturday and help feed the dogs and she always took care of granny because when he was she was friendly, but not overly friendly. But she really took to Karen and Karen and next thing you know she had five different tear tears one to match every outfit she had. And I think a picture in the book has Karen with a tear on yes with with Francis granny. And one of the other names that we that I really liked. I think I highlighted was Leo. Yes. So little Leo. He was found by somebody who stood out taking a walk and we just found next to a dumpster. And she thought it was like a first she thought it was just an old rag laying there he was so dirty and beat up. Some of those like someone hit him on the head and she saw some movement. So luckily she grabbed them and took them to the shelter where they cleaned them up and you know bandaged up his injuries. Next thing you know he came here. It took a year for us to really to touch him without him flinching. But when he came, Michelle said he was so timid. She called him Leo to give him the strength of Leo the lion. He was here for about two years and and he was loved by all.
YUMWOOF SPOT
23:37
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DR. JUDY MORGAN SPOT
24:53
Does your family include a dog or a cat? Would you like to be better educated on how to advocate for their health naturally, then why not check out all of the amazing resources on naturally healthy pets.com Dr. Judy Morgan is a trusted advisor and a regular guest here on the dog eared podcast. She has over 38 years experience as an integrative veterinarian, acupuncturist chiropractor, food therapist, author, speaker, podcast host and owner of Dr. Judy Morgan's, naturally healthy pets. Dr. Judy's goal is to change the lives of pets by educating and empowering pet parents just like you in the use of natural healing therapies, and minimizing the use of chemicals, vaccinations, and poor quality processed foods, head on over to naturally healthy pets.com where you'll discover healthy product recommendations, comprehensive courses, the naturally healthy pets podcast, informative blogs, upcoming events and so much more. Again, that's naturally healthy pets.com The place to learn how to give your pet the vibrant life that they deserve.
Lisa
26:18
And I know that you see a lot of physical ailments as well. I mean, tumors and teeth issues and leg issues. What are some of the craziest things you've seen that that Dr. Judy was able to help with and operate on?
Jeff
26:34
Yeah, well, so every dog, I think we've I would say probably 80% of the dogs that come here have need dentals really bad dental I mean, you're talking sometimes 20 teeth plus come out of the dog. But that's and that's it that makes a big difference. You can see the turnaround within just a couple of days. Could you imagine having you know you probably everybody on the cast broadcast here probably has had a toothache at one point. And oh, yeah, of course, you mentioned having a mouthful. teeth like that. It's terrible in your line throw. So that's one of the things we try to get done as soon as possible if they need it. Now, there are some circumstances because a lot of them also have heart issues. And you have to we have to get to the cardiologist first to make sure that the anesthesia and the body can take what needs to be done to get those teeth out. So that's something that we have to do as well. But that's that's almost all dogs have the dental issues. We have a lot of tumors, we've have dogs, we've had tripods, we've had a dog's missing both back legs. So we've had tons of different type of carts. We've also had quite a few bigger dogs, mostly German shepherds that have dem degenerative myelopathy which is the the canine version of ALS, Lou Gehrig's disease. So, we've had dozer I think those are was in yeah, those are those are an aerial those have to in the Vulcan chapter. Yeah, they both they both were in carts. Actually. dozer was more in a wagon. And I pull them up and down the street. He was only here for three months, boy, but he's still everybody's heart. Big German Shepherd. He was just a sweetheart. And you know, the beautiful thing about dogs are he only lived he was only here for three months. He enjoyed every day. You know, if I always say this, if someone told us me that you have a terminal diagnosis, I have a terminal issue. Are we going to enjoy every day? Are we going to are we gonna live in a moment? Are we going to be like depressed and worried about it? And I mean, rightfully so. But these dogs they just live every day and I hopefully from taking care of over 150 Dogs now and seeing this that I have that attitude if one eventually something happens to me. I'm like, You know what? Okay, that's fine, but I'm gonna take my walk on the beach. Yes, still enjoy my life. Yeah,
Lisa
29:06
we all need to take that attitude. You write about Hannah bear and you said that Hannah bear was one of the most stunning dogs that ever called monkeys house home and I love that you say quote like all dogs, we pull off the euthanasia list. She was on the list for what was wrong with her. No one can see all that was right with her.
Jeff
29:25
Yeah, that's right. That's it's a thing people see what's wrong with them. But if you look the other way and say what's right about this dog, you know, Hannah bear, a little Pomeranian. She had no hair from the neck back when she came to us. And she had mammary cancer. Do Hokulea Angela Swan they will even Uzi right. So we you know, Dr. Judy did this surgery, but before she could do surgery, we had to get her healthy enough. So again with the food therapy, so it took us a few weeks to really get her in shape for the Surgery. Jodie did amazing work on her, got the masses removed. Now she still had cancer through her body. But she was with us for two years her hair grew back. She was stunning. And she loved the beach. She stayed there on the beach and that long hair would just blow in the wind. And she was a character when she first came. She like I said, we take we try to bring in dogs that are dog and cat friendly. Because we have cats as well. Not monkeys house doesn't, but we kind of rescue some cats here. And what's cool with it shouldn't be I shouldn't say it was cool. started chasing the cat around like after. It's like okay, now I guess she's ready to go now.
Lisa
30:42
But that's a good sign not for the cat.
Jeff
30:46
you'd catch her snoozing with the cat at times, too. I think she was just a character.
Lisa
30:50
Oh that's so funny. You know, I'm wondering if listeners are thinking how the heck do you do all this logistically? I mean, especially with the raw or gently cooked food and if they have different issues or allergies. I know in the book, you talked a little bit, it's quite an ordeal. Talk to us about this and kind of give us a typical day of feeding at the house monkeys house.
Jeff
31:10
Yeah. So Michelle is the expert on now I say, you know, thanks to Thanks, Judy, kick and kick started it off. And like I said, Michelle has been really done a lot of research and education on it. So we'll have you know, say we have 2025 dogs here at one time. And they have different conditions. Right. So one you'll have cancer, someone has kidney issues, someone has liver issues, someone has all three or but you know, more than that. So they have to get a base food. So we have anything from beef, chicken, turkey, sometimes rabbit, a lot of times rabbit, we even have, I look in the freezer. And Michelle has like alpaca, llama, how what is so it depends on what the is needed for the dog. So they all get basically tailored meals, they'll get supplements, there's all kinds of supplements go in, and still they get traditional medicine, if they need it, what we find is with the food therapy, a lot of that medicine can be reduced and sometimes eliminated. Michelle has had somebody come in with like stage three kidney failure. And next thing you know, it's either stage one or it's gone from just from the food therapy and just the good care that they get. That's incredible. And so dinner time takes well breakfast and dinner. They take about an hour and a half each. Now it's gotten much quicker over the years because now it's it's I don't want to say it's an assembly line. But I know who gets what. And there's a whole system to it. It's there's a little video out there somehow off to put it back out of me feeding one time it's in. It was sped up to to like, Oh, I think it was like the Italian music that. Oh, I love. Yeah. And it's it's sped up. So but you could see all the plates we have. We have little circles where all the plates go and who gets what plate and who gets what food, though.
Lisa
33:08
Madison, tell us about that.
Jeff
33:10
So for Madison is an everybody can do this. Now obviously, it's Michelle being a nurse and now having so much knowledge in in canine medicine and food therapy. So it's probably might be easier for us. But anybody can do sofa medicine. It's First off, we say you should want to hug your vet. That's one of the things I think I say in a book. Yeah, you should want to hug him and maybe you don't hug him, but you should want to hug him or her a mom, because they're the ones that are looking out for your dog. For your baby right now. Yeah. And then you should talk to the vet, if you if let's say your dog is needs fluids, or your dog is diabetic, and you're afraid to do you know, give the insulin or afraid to give the fluids, talk to your vet, have them show you how to do it, learn how to do it, because it's going to be much easier on your dog to stay at home and do it read on the sofa. When we say sofa medicine, you're given fluids right on the sofa, we've done it a million times now. Anybody can do it. I mean, I do it. I'm not I'm not a medical person in the family. I do all that now. So I think whatever you can try to do at home. Number one is it's going to be more, it's going to be better for your dog, you're not going to get stressed out going to the vet. Right? It's usually probably not the place they want to go. Also, it's going to be easier for you because you might not have time in your busy schedule. So you can do it right at home. And financially today, everybody. Everybody's struggling. You can do it at home. It's going to cost you a lot less money.
Lisa
34:44
That's so true. How many volunteers do you have? Are uncles and aunts I should say
Jeff
34:50
uncles and aunts so we had a lot more before COVID Sadly COVID kind of put a monkey wrench in everything right and even volunteers because we were doing it You know, the social distancing. So we basically for two years, we only had like one or two volunteers that came over. So we it was, it was tough. Luckily, I was working from home, I didn't have to commute so I could help out a lot more. But it's just starting to come back. But still, it's you know, I think it's one of those things people get into a habit, right, get into a habit of coming every Saturday, every Tuesday afternoon. And it's we we haven't gotten them all back yet, to be honest with you, the 10 volunteers right now that help out. How do dogs get to monkeys house, most of our dogs come from the Philadelphia area, which is about 45 minutes away from us. We're in South Jersey, okay. But there are also a ton of shelters in New Jersey to that we we take dogs from I would say Michelle gets a request probably every day. And that's another thing that is really heartbreaking because we can't take them. We can't take what I was going to say, if we don't if we don't take them if some other rescue won't take them. Most of them though. We're probably one of the only ones that can take them because there's only a handful of dog hospices in the world quite like ours. So sadly, sadly, a lot of them have to get euthanized, I guess. But yeah, we don't we do not reach out looking for dogs. People talk to us, and reach back to us every day.
Lisa
36:20
I bet you know, you mentioned working from home. So you do all of this plus a full time job? Yes. Oh my gosh. It's incredible.
Jeff
36:30
Somebody said how do you write books, you know, take care of monkeys house, you have a full time job. And I did say, You know what, I I watch very little TV. It's amazed at how much TV i You must have used a lot, you know, watching my younger days, but I don't watch TV. So reading the books to me is like I'm writing my own TV movie.
Lisa
36:52
Well, tell us about your other two books, which after I read them, I definitely want to have you on.
Jeff
36:56
So my second book is life's a dog bone to it all day long. And it is a coffee table book. So I had a lot of fun doing that. Obviously, it wasn't quite as intense as a as a novel. But I have pictures of most all the dogs that lived here at one time. And a quote that goes along with the picture. Some some are, some are famous quotes. But majority are I just made up some quotes. And they're inspiring quotes, sometimes funny quotes. Like one of my quotes is it's a picture of a dog kind of built with a big smile on his face. And I say this all the time, too. Now when I see people playing with a dog, I said, I've never met a grumpy person playing with a dog. Right? Have you never made a controversial claim. And one of my other quotes that I that I really liked and it has this really old dog lane on it. It's champ he's laying on a sofa, probably look at the oldest looking dog I think we maybe ever had. And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the dogs you loved along the way. Absolutely. That is great. Oh, that's that's my coffee table book. It's I know, people say they have it on their coffee tables, because they like to look at it once a while and people come over and and pick it up because it is kind of cute. And it's easy to read, you know, just the, to the pictures and the media quotes, then, but all along I had this other story in my head, I get these stories in my head. So that's how I write my wrote my last book two leases in heaven, is because I had this story that I wanted to tell it's a fiction novel. So this is my first fiction. It's a love story. With a of course, dog backdrop of a dog sanctuary. Oh, nice. So I it's fiction, but I took some of the some of the little bit of our story is in it. And what's great is there's so many different personalities when you have 150 dogs, all different types of dogs. There's so many person so they fit beautifully in this story, because there's a story about this. So they fit into the story and I tell their stories. It's and I said I just released it last week. So I'm waiting to see the different reviews to come in. I think it's a great book. Of course anybody who writes a book thinks it's the best ever right? But it's very good. It's a very good story. So we could talk about that at a later time.
Lisa
39:27
Oh, absolutely. I would love to have you back to talk about both likes dog bone and also leashes and having Jeff what is monkeys house need in terms of donations? Generally, because
Jeff
39:38
we are so specific in our feeding routines that we don't we say don't don't send any food. Don't send any treats, because even the treats like we are treats or even special treats that they get because it really makes a difference. What we need is obviously it's very expensive with the vet. So any kind of donations monetarily would be great. We also have also have an Amazon wishlist that has some of the supplies we need. That is on on monkey's. house.org is our website, and volunteers to others. There's actually a volunteer application if you live nearby, we would hope that volunteers that would come at least once a week, there's an orientation that we'll go through. And then we do like I never say they'll they'll do once a week because the dogs will then get used to the person instead of someone coming just every so often.
Lisa
40:31
Right? You know what, uh, oh, go ahead.
Jeff
40:33
No, they're the big the big three things that we need is funny. One of the big things I think, on Amazon wishlist is probably paper towels, to a lot of paper towels, cleaning supplies.
Lisa
40:45
Okay, that is good to know. I will check out that wishlist. Jeff, was there anything that we didn't touch on that you were hoping to talk about today?
Jeff
40:52
I think that the overall theme of the book, I just wanted to because some people will say, Oh, is your It's too sad for me. It's too sad for me to read. And I'm like, well, first off, it's not that sad. There are sad moments in the book. But I feel that it's an inspiring book. I think it's, it gives you hope. And that's when I take when I try to write my books and in my new book to unleashes in heaven. I try to take you on an emotional roller coaster. I mean, it's not a huge roller coaster. Right. But it is, I mean, you have ups and downs, but it's finished. When you're finished with it. It was a great journey. It was a great ride that you went on. And it was inspiring, and it gives you hope. And that's what I think I want people to understand is hospice, that people think a hospice, it's too sad. It's not sad. It's actually wonderful. It's one of our volunteers said once it's the happiest place on earth move over Disney said 5% of the time, 95% of the time, it's the best.
Lisa
41:57
I mean, I was crying tears of joy, not just the little bit of sadness, but mostly joy and obviously hope and inspiration, Jeff, you are a match. It's a good person, you are a mansion. I'm just so thrilled you came on the show again. Today we talked about where dogs go to live, inspiring stories of hospice dogs living in the moment, Jeff, tell us all the ways we can find you and tell us again how to donate.
Jeff
42:21
Okay, so the best way to find a book, obviously, I'm on all platforms. But if you go to Jeff Allen books.com, Jeff Allen books.com that has all my books out there as a little bit of bio on on me and so you can go there and check that out. That'd be grateful. You can also go to Amazon Barnes and Noble wherever you can look the titles up or you could look Jeff Allen up there's other Jeff Allen authors, but you you would find me that's one thing for monkeys house, I would say if you really interested in monkeys house, follow us on Facebook. So there is a Facebook page. We we post every night, the different dogs, people fall in love with us from around the world, literally from around the world. We have close to 100,000 followers now and tasks. So it's, it's we never expected we this was all about the dogs and it still is but it's still a community and when these they they communicate with one another if someone else loses a dog, then people chime in. So it's really it become a great thing more than just the dogs. So check that Facebook page out. And of course our website which I'm going to be updating soon, but it's monkeys house.org
Lisa
43:35
Fantastic. Jeff has been such an honor to get to talk with you. Thank you for you and Michelle for all the incredible work that you do. And if people want to check out my goodboys past and present you can follow me on Tik Tok Instagram and Twitter at Lisa Davis mph and speaking of Facebook, I recently started a Facebook page dog eared with Lisa Davis. Also while you're checking out dog here check out health power as well. Thank you so much. Keep coming back.