The Best Friends Podcast Episode 87
On behalf of everyone at Best Friends, we’d like to wish all who have served in the armed forces a Happy Veteran’s Day! To commemorate this special day, we talk about the healing power of pets and how the right animal can help veterans through tough times as they readjust to life back at home.
We all know the healing power of animals. Studies have shown that the benefits of sharing your life with a pet range from decreased stress levels to lower blood pressure - some studies have even shown that animals can reduce pain and ease depression and anxiety.
Marie Peck, the founder of The Fetch Foundation in Arizona, is this week’s guest. We learn how their "Homeless 2 Hero" program takes dogs facing euthanasia in shelters and trains them to become heroes in their own right, providing the kind of support and unconditional love to veterans that only a dog can provide.
Click here to check out all the episodes from the podcast.
Resources from this episode- The Fetch Foundation: Homeless 2 Hero
- Best Friends network vlog: Keeping America’s military members and their pets together
- Best Friends network: Alternative Outcomes Training Playbook
Guest this week
Marie Peck
founder, The Fetch Foundation
Marie Peck has spent 35 yrs in animal rescue. After a high-powered photography career, she is now full-time living her passion for rescued dogs.
From assisting other rescues with foster and training to founding and running The Fetch Foundation in 2010. Her deployments have run the gamut from human search and rescue across the Southwest to assisting and county emergency departments and Best Friends in large and small animal rescue at disasters sites after hurricanes. Marie has been a Search K9 handler for a decade and now has 2 Therapy Dogs to serve Veterans and First Responders after traumatic incidents.
She lives at Fetch Foundation training facility where dogs are taken in and trained for service, search and therapy by remarkable trainers only using positive methods. Livin the dream!