S.T.A.R.T. - Steve Spiro

This week on All My Children Wear Fur Coats, we had the pleasure of speaking with Steve Spiro, the President, and Co-founder of START Rescue. START’s goal is to reduce the euthanasia rates of surrendered, stray, neglected, and abused animals in California and beyond.

Transcript

Welcome to All My Children

Wear Fur Coats with Peggy Hoyt.

Our goal is to keep loved pets in loving

homes by educating pet parents about the importance of

ensuring every pet has a forever home.

For more information about creating a legacy for

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visit animalcaretrustusa.org or legacyforyourpet.com.

Join your host, author, estate planning

attorney, and animal advocate, Peggy Hoyt.

Hello, pet lovers.

Welcome to All My Children Wear Fur Coats.

I'm your host, Peggy Hoyt, and this show is brought

to you by the law offices of Hoyt and Brian,

where we create estate plans for pets and their people.

Also brought to you by Animal Care

Trust USA, a national nonprofit dedicated to

keeping loved pets in loving homes.

We do this by educating pet parents about the importance

of getting a pet trust for their loved pet.

We also provide trustee services, and today we get

the exceptional opportunity to talk to our guest.

His name is Steve Spiro, and he is the

president and co-founder of Start; S-T-A-R-T rescue.

Welcome to the show, Steve. Hi.

So happy to have you. Happy to be here. Thank you.

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All right, I'm going to tell

everybody a little bit about you.

You might be able to tell that Steve was

born and raised in London, England, and now resides

in Los Angeles before forming Start Rescue in May

of 2011 with Renee Ruston and Adam Tarshis.

Steve and his wife Susannah did individual rescues,

helping as many dogs as they were able

to bring home or place in foster care.

Steve is a former boxer, but

now writes screenplays full time.

Well, almost full time, because he also devotes

a lot of energy to Stark's mission.

He has several TV and film projects in development,

and he credits his wife, Susannah, as opening his

eyes to the world of animal rescue and veganism,

and he has not looked back since.
Steve is a huge pit bull fan, and his favorite

quote is, stop blaming the wrong end of the leash.

Welcome. Hi.

I love your philosophy. Thank you.

I copied that from somewhere, that quote.

I can't remember where I saw it, but I liked it.

That's all right.

Flattery is stealing stuff is the

highest form of flattery, right? There you go. Exactly.

That's correct.

All right, so tell us all about

START Rescue, how it got started.

My wife and I were doing individual rescue for quite a

long time and we got involved with a very bad rescuer,

got kind of actually scammed a little bit, so we had

to have some lawsuits and it was like, oh, my gosh.

And so we decided but out of that we realized

it was just the problem was so great that rescuing

one at a time wasn't really helping in any way.

Yes, he helped that one dog, but we wanted to

do it on a bigger scale and got friendly with

a group of people and we decided let's do transports.

So Adam Tarshius, who I'd only met a few

months before that, we became still great friends today.

He actually bought us a small little van.

And the girl that we knew, a friend of

ours, Candace, had lived in Oregon, was born in

Oregon and had relationships with some of the rescue

groups out there that didn't have the animal problem

we had here in our shelters in California.

So some of these groups said, hey, bring ten dogs up.

We can take them, we have room.

So we retrofitted this small little truck

we had and Start began, which is

Shelter Transport Animal Rescue Team.

Start is the acronym.

I love that.

So that makes sense now why if we want to help from

a donation standpoint, we can buy a seat on the bus.

We can buy a seat on the bus.

Although our bus, we call it the Beast.

We went from this small little van to this

38 foot, huge, great truck that can hold up

to like 120 dogs at a time or cats.

It broke down and died on coming back from

the last transport in Bakersfield on last Thursday.

So I think we're going to be truckless for a while now.

All right, so even more important to

buy a seat on the bus.

Now we got to buy a bus.

Now we got to buy a bus and have

it retrofitted because it's got to be specially retrofitted.

So it's safe.

But yeah, this is part of it.

This is part of rescue.

Unfortunately, it's the ups and downs of rescue.

So you've expanded from dogs into cats as well.

We have cats, yeah, we've always

helped cats where we can.

We also have mini track.

We have the big beast and we have

the mini beast or the baby beast.

We call it the baby beast.

Can hold probably 20 dogs and cats.

And we do once a month a cat transport also

to the Pacific Northwest to help as many cats.

And we have a fund.

We donate $1,000 a month to

this girl, Faith, who's great.

She pledges on cats that are

in the shelter system here. So we try and help.

So we love all animals especially the dogs and cats.

Yeah.

So why does California have

a problem and Oregon doesn't?

That used to be an easy question to

answer, but now Oregon is getting full.

Oregon has started like some of our groups can't take

as many dogs because they're having their own cris.

There's several answers to that question, but

basically the shelves are full right now.

COVID really hurt the situation.

You know, people got dogs during COVID They were home.

Now they're going back to work.

A lot of people are dumping their dogs in a

shelter or worse, they're just throwing them onto the street.

There's a big problem here.

Big crisis.

Also, the person responsible for the Labradoodle who came

up with the idea, a lot of people have

those doodles and it's caused a huge problem.

And now I'm getting calls and the shelter is

full of cockadoo poo's and Labradoodles and the breed.

I have noticed that.

Yeah, I've noticed that recently.

Lots and lots and lots of doodles for adoption.

Lots of doodles.

Also, the film Dog came out.

A lot of people bought German shepherds.

The shelter is actually full

here with German shepherds.

It used to be pit bulls.

Now it's German shepherds and huskies

due to Game of Thrones.

I'm hearing this is what I've been hearing.

There's a lot of issues.

Also, there was the whole issue here

in La of no kill La.

Which wasn't true.

They were still killing dogs, but

they weren't picking up strays.

They weren't enforcing any spanuta laws.

So now people are coming in from other cities bringing

dogs to the shelter saying, oh, you're no kill.

And the shelter is like, no, we're not, we are kill.

So they're getting completely full as well.

So the issue is just on so many different levels.

It really is.

And unfortunately, the animals, these dogs and

cats are the ones that suffer. Absolutely.

So what do you think the solution might be?

I think the solution is absolutely mandatory

spay a neuter laws like enforce it.

Enforce it.

Enforce it.

That's it.

Riverside did it for back in the day.

This is going back quite a few years.

It was the director of Riverside.

Riverside is one of the largest counties in the

country, and their director was called Robert Miller.

And they enforced something called

the Licensing campusing Program.

And him and Dr.

Drusey, the head vet at the time, came up with

this idea of basically they hired two animal control officers

that went door to door and if they heard a

dog in a house, they put a sign up on

the door saying, is your dog fixed vaccinated microchipped.

And they gave them the option to fix the

dog for free because our group was helping pay.

We also fund Spain Neuter for low income residents.

They could get the dogs fixed.

Then they had tons of their own programs as well.

They could get the dog fixed for

free and the vaccinations would be $10.

If they didn't do it, they would

be fined and it would go on.

I think it went to the franchise tax board and on

a driver's license so they couldn't get out of it.

And people got their animals fixed and they

went from, like, a shelter that was 80%

kill rate to 80% live release rate.

They really dropped the numbers down and the increase

the number of animals coming into the shelter decreased

dramatically over a period of time, and it takes

two to four years to really see that effect.

But it worked.

It really worked out there.

I would see how it would take some time,

definitely, for you to see the long term effects

of that, but it seems like there's so many

great organizations like yours that are out there that

are working hard, that are spaying and neutering animals,

that are placing pets in forever homes.

Obviously, it's not a new problem.

It's been going on for centuries.

Yeah, everyone's telling me, and I'm seeing as

well, it's the worst now it's ever been.

It's a real crisis. Yeah. Spay, Neuter.

And also the other problem is

the clinics are so expensive.

We get calls saying, listen, we want to take our

dog in, but it's like $800 a gallon animal fixed.

Like, jeez, that's really hard.

Now we work with low cost spay and neutral clinics.

Woman called Diana Benz.

She's incredible.

We're trying to open one up in Bakersfield

as well, but she does it really inexpensive.

So you have to try and find those

vets that do low cost spay and Utah.

So does Bakersfield have a bigger crisis

than the rest of the world?

You think Bakersfield is awful?

We've been working with a group of girls

called Rad rescue, which is rescuing abandoned dogs

and also Southern California Pomeranian rescue.

Lisa, she's the one that reached out to me originally

to say there was this crisis out in Bakersfield.

People were just dumping the dogs

in the field out there.

So we got involved last July, and to date we've

rescued, I think, about somewhere between 160 and 180 dogs.

People just open the car and throw them out.

It was on the news there.

We did billboards.

We had a billboard campaign out there.

But those girls are just literally out there

feeding those dogs and trying to trap them

and help as many as they can. It's bad. Yeah.

I cannot even imagine somebody letting a family member

out to fend for themselves on the highway.

It's incredible.

I don't know.

I always tell people what Gandhi said, you can

tell a nation by how they treat their animals,

and I feel like it's getting worse.

What does that say about us as humans?

How can you have the consciousness to

do that to a harmless animal?

But you see people treat kids the same way and

what they do to read in the news and see

on the news and what we do to each other.

It's really terrible.

It is terrible.

So you mentioned A pomeranian rescue.

Is there a pomeranian problem in california, too?

I think she has quite a few pomeranians.

There's an everything problem here in california. Yeah.

I mean, my friend shannon over at the porterville shelter

texted me the other day and said, hey, we have

these two labradoodles that are at the shelter.

We can't place them. Can you help?

So every breed there's a problem with.

Well, and I think part of the issue, and I don't know

if you agree or not, is that people get enamored with this

vision of a dog, not the actuality of a dog.

And doodles are high energy dogs, obviously.

Um, so they take a special kind of family and a special

kind of owner, kind of the same way that pit bulls take

a special kind of family and a special kind of owner.

They may not be for everybody.

I'm one of those goofy people, steve, that I have

everything from a pomeranian up to a labrador husky.

So I go five pounds to 85 pounds and

pit bulls and dachshunds and everything in between.

How many dogs do you have?

I have six dogs. Six dogs.

So you have a pomeranian which

is also in your office, right? Yes.

As a boy or girl? That's a boy.

His name is piper.

Piper is very, very well behaved.

He is very well behaved.

He's been around a long time

helping me work during the day. Piper.

And who are the others?

Hi, Piper.

So we have Abby at the office as well.

She's one of our office dogs.

And then we also have at home wolfie and

blue and bingo and Dorla and holly doyle.

Darla.

Like from the little rascals?

Yeah, I was going to say from the little rascal.

That's great.

Her full name is darla dinkle, queen of tinkle.

What breed is she?

She is a papillon jack russell mix. Oh, my god.

That's hilarious.

And she's a mess.

And do you guys have a problem out

there in florida as well with the animals?

We do.

I would like to think that we're doing a fairly

good job, but I think we have a lot of

the same issues as any growing population does.

And right now, a lot of people

are relocating to florida, it seems like.

And I was afraid what happened was going to happen

back with the pandemic was that people were going to

empty the shelters, which is literally what happened.

There were no dogs available in the shelters.

They'd all been adopted or fostered.

And then as soon as everybody went back

to work, as you mentioned, then we started

having the shelters filling up again and even

bigger crisis Than we had before that.

And since I come from a mentality of my pets

or my children, I can't imagine giving away one of

my kids, because I think adoption is for life.

When I counsel clients and they want to adopt

children, I tell them, this is a forever commitment.

You don't unadopt a child.

And it ought to be true for

dogs and cats and horses as well.

I agree.

The most fascinating thing is that I've met and

we've helped homeless because we have a thrift store

as well that helps homeless and their dogs.

You see homeless people love their dog

more than anything else on the planet.

And we're like, wow, it's so impressive.

And I've seen and we've had the experience

of very, very wealthy attorneys dump their dog.

Just dump their dog.

It's like there's no class system here.

It's the individual.

We've been shocked and surprised and overcome

by just so much kindness and also

complete opposite to such crawness.

It's like, wow, it's an eye opener.

Every day is an eye opener. I agree.

I absolutely agree.

All levels and all levels. Yeah.

So, because you're in the TV industry and the

movie industry, tell us a little bit about your

TV show called is it called Boned? Boned, yes.

So I partnered with my friends Silver Cleggian and

Alison Eastwood, who's Clint Eastwood's daughter, and we created

this show about the animal rescue world.

And it's basically set through the eyes of a woman

who doesn't it's a half an hour dark comedy, and

it's set through the eyes of this woman who's a

publicist, very successful Hollywood publicist, who hits a dog in

a crosswalk and is made to do community service.

And she's hated she's all over the news because

she drove off after she hit the dog.

So she's hated all through America

and all over the world.

So she goes to this rescue center, and the guy

that runs it is this kind of rural womanizer.

He's kind of like a bit of a

bad boy, but he loves the animals.

And those two just clash.

And basically, the series is a TV series.

It shows you she slowly falls into this world.

She slowly sees the other side of life and these animals,

and she starts to get a bond to them slowly.

So we shot the pilot, and right now

we're just trying to sell the season.

So we've had some meetings. It's been tough. It's hard.

It's hard.

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Yeah.

Well, I wish you great success.

And both Sylvia and Alison have been

on the show in the past.

Yeah.

So I've had the chance to meet both of them.

That's great.

Yeah, they're both lovely.

And we've been working on this show,

and we really want to list.

The carp is really fun and also

bring so much awareness to the animal.

We put some of our personal stories in

there as well, so we can share. Yeah.

How could you not put your personal stories?

Yes, exactly.

Well, if you run out of personal stories, call me.

I will.

So what would you tell people who are listening?

Because you're probably preaching to the choir, to

the people that listen to this show.

But what would you tell people who are listening?

What they can do to help to help animals in general?

Animals in general and shelter transport

animal rescue team start in particular?

Well, in general, just go out, rescue

a dog, go to the shelter.

It depends.

It's going to be an expense.

You're going to have vet bills.

You're going to have bills.

A dog's in a shelter. So it could be sick.

It could have kennel cough.

Unfortunately, vets are very expensive right now, but

if you can afford it, it's the best

investment you're ever going to make. They are precious.

And go out and rescue or team up

with a rescue group and try and foster.

Get involved.

You can even get involved with shelters.

Go to the shelter and ask to help. Go volunteer.

They walk the dogs.

Those dogs need to get out.

They need to get socialized, so they need us.

If you want to help Start, you can go

to our website, startrescue.org, and just send us tons

of money so we can keep saving lives. Sure.

Or shop for merchandise. Right. Yeah.

I think this I haven't been on the website

for a while, but yes, there's stuff on there. Yeah.

You have cool stuff.

T shirts, hats, tank tops, hoodies, a

book called 52 days with a hero. Yes.

I wrote that with my friend Linda.

That's a true story of a dog that we rescued.

It's a really wonderful story, actually. Yes.

Colleen, who works we have a girl,

Colleen, who works for our organization, starch.

She's really helped us. She's been incredible.

That's the other thing is

surrounding yourself with good people.

And then where is your resale store located?

If people are in your area and

they want to check it out?

The Start resale store is in Sherman

Oaks, which is on basically, vanyes Boulevard.

And I notice you feature a $5 jean rack.

And I come from the place of I never buy new

jeans because I'd much rather buy them already broken in and

wash, so I know they're going to fit, right?

There you go. Yeah.

The store is great.

And people donate because it goes to the animals.

People donate some incredible stuff.

They have a very expensive room

up there called the courtier room.

And that's high end clothing up there.

Yeah, I see Jimmy Choo, manolo.

Blonick prada. Yeah.

Come out and get your high end stuff

and help the animals at the same time.

They don't fit me, but they fit other people.

And we can sign up for your newsletter.

You can donate, you can volunteer your time.

I think you've given some wonderful advice, Steve.

I feel like people that are willing to

foster or forever foster, and especially the seniors

or the less adoptables, you'll never be sorry.

It will change your life in a big way, for sure.

Oh, absolutely. It really does. Yeah.

Fostering is fantastic.

I mean, it also frees up the shelter.

Animals are the best.

Go out there and rest.

Do you want to tell us about one or two

of your favorite animals that you've had in your lifetime?

Well, one we've rescued or one with

just one that you've had personally?

Yeah, or rescued. Doesn't matter.

Yeah, I mean, Moy Moy was my boy.

He was this pit mix that

was really depressed at the shelter.

And I went to visit him every day for

twelve days until I could get him out.

I even called up and pretended I was the

previous owner so we could release him earlier.

But they didn't believe that.

And he was really depressed and it took us basically

about a year to get him back to happiness.

And then when he did, he

was this incredible, credible dog.

Every dog we bought home, we

bought home hundreds of dogs.

Every single dog went to him.

It was almost like he had this

he just conveyed this incredible confidence and

love and compassion for other dogs.

And every dog would just go to him

and sleep with him on a pillow.

And if we ever had an aggressive dog, maybe

they'll bark at now the dog never at him.

He was like the king of the house.

And he actually died on my birthday.

Oh, no.

Actually, it's been ten years.

It was ten years ago.

And what does moimoi mean?

Does that have a special meaning?

Originally I called him Maury after

my grandfather, whose name was Mori.

Then my wife just started calling him Moimoi.

He just became a moimoi.

And then we rescued. Funny. Yeah.

How they all end up with

a nickname, right, they're a nickname.

And then we asked another dog that looked

like him and he became baby Moyn.

He's still with us today, and

I'm sure your grandfather is honored.

Yeah, he loved animals too, actually.

I remember actually when I was a kid, we went to his

house and he rescued his tiny little kitten that he found in

his garage there, and he nursed it back to health.

He was very kind.

That's awesome.

Well, I had a tremendous growing up as well, because I

got to be raised by John Hoyt, who was the president

and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States. Wow.

So I grew up in animal welfare and animal advocacy,

and it's always been a part of my genetic makeup.

I think that's incredible.

Do you have siblings? I do.

I have three sisters.

Are they all animal lovers as well?

Everybody was an animal lover. Absolutely.

That's incredible.

I mean, if they weren't, we had

to drop them off on the highway.

Good.

Small, of course.

I'm just joking, but no, everybody was animal lovers.

And as kids, we all worked at the

Humane Society of the United States in the

summertime, doing filing, answering the phones, working in

the library, stuffing envelopes, whatever it took.

And that was just part of how we grew up,

and it just wiggled its way into my bones.

And even though I thought I was going to be a

veterinarian and I ended up in law school, I still had

to find a way to incorporate animals into my daily practice.

So I help a lot of people now create

estate plans for their pets, so plans that are

going to guarantee that if something happens to the

pet owner, that the animals are taken care of.

That's great.

That's our long term plan.

We're actually saving up very slowly, unfortunately,

but saving up for our own property.

We want to get our own sanctuary center.

Oh, that would be awesome. Eventually.

Maybe a couple years down the line. Yeah. Sir.

Well, you always got to have another goal, right?

Yeah, exactly. Of course.

Going to keep growing.

All right, well, what would you

leave us with here today, Steve?

I would leave you with it's so funny.

I was thinking about that, and I've heard this a few

times the last few days on TV shows and stuff. Be kind.

We treat each other like crap. Be kind. I see.

Like the other day, I was at the bank.

I opened the door for the woman, and she looked at

me and she's like, no one's ever done that before.

I'm like I was speechless.

I'm like, Well, I'm doing it for you now.

And they pass it along. Just be kind.

Just be nicer.

I stopped beeping at people at lights.

Now when the lights turn red, I used to beep, move.

Now stop doing it.

Sometimes I just flash or go, hey.

Or just wave. Exactly.

I think we all got to be a little bit nicer. Seriously.

I think so, too.

I think everybody's been traumatized a little bit over the last

few years, and we all have some healing to do.

And being kind is going to be

the first step in that direction.

Being thoughtful as well. Yeah.

Doesn't take that much effort.

And it feels good.

And be grateful. Right?

And be grateful.

Yeah, exactly.

Those are all wonderful. Be grateful.

Be kind, be thoughtful. There you go. Exactly. Okay.

We're going to start a new movement, you and I.

Yes, exactly the kind, thoughtful movement.

All right, so, listeners, we have been

talking with Steve Spiro with START Rescue.

And START stands for Shelter

Transport Animal Rescue Team.

They are located in California.

You can find them online at startrescue.org.

California apparently needs a lot of help with pets.

So if you're in that area and you can adopt or

foster or donate or give your time, please do so.

And we thank you so much, Steve, for joining us today.

It was a pleasure.

I'm so happy to be able to add you

to my list of friends, people that I've met

through this journey, and to our listeners.

We hope that you'll join us each and every week.

And you know my motto, until

there are none, please adopt one.

And until next time, happy tails. Bye. Thank you.

Thank you for joining us on All My Children.

Wear Fur Coats with your host, Peggy Hoyt.

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