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This is Living West Michigan.

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(Lively music) What’s happening?

That’s why you got your hand over it, guys.

Two hands on the cup, please.

All right, ready, Set.

Toss!

Keep going free!

The salmon in the classroom program is helping to create stewards of the environment.

It gives all kids success at some point, which is really great.

And it’s such a great learning opportunity, but it’s also just so much fun.

And it’s something they’ll remember forever.

Bye, fishies, I love you.

Salmon in the classroom has been around since 1997, actually, so it’s been a long time, and it started out with just four schools and that it grew by word to mouth, mostly, and it snowedballed into about 200 schools.

And we now have 330 schools participating statewide, so in every little nook and cranny of the state, we have schools raising salmon from eggs up until par in the spring, and then they get to release them in an approved river near their school and have a whole educational day.

So these fish, oh, we’ve had these for about a couple of months.

time, and we’ve been doing tests about, like, how hard the water is and how rough it is.

And we have about 123 about left.

We’ve been doing really well They love it.

They are very concerned about the fish.

There was a day last week, I was in the building, but not in the room, and they’re like, "I think one’s laying down, I think there’s something wrong with it."

It was fine.

He was resting.

Everything was good to go, but they are very attached to the fish, very concerned about their well being, and as the years progressed, we’re starting to go more into letting them do some of the maintenance of the tank and reading some of the different water quality tests that we’ve been doing.

The program starts with we go to a hatchery near us, and then we go, we do kind of an all day training, we get to tour the hatchery and learn about the different activities activities and the type of salmon we’re growing, and then we pick up our eggs, we bring them back here Takes a couple weeks or so for them to hatch.

Once they hatch, we go through the feeding process, so it’s a few months, they usually hatch around December, and then between April 15th and May 15th, we go and release them in a designated river.

Our biologists do an amazing job understanding what’s kind of happening in our Great Lakes and in our rivers.

So we have research teams that are out sampling all the time and trying to understand, you know, our bait fish populations, the food that these big predator fish are eating, and the predator populations and how they’re all balancing out with each other.

We have six hatcheries in the state that raise different species and stock them in locations that are determined, through research and fishing needs.

So, if you put them in certain rivers, they’ll come back to those rivers.

We’re creating that fishing opportunity here.

I think it really opens their eyes to what we have in the area and what makes Michigan so special and the things that Michigan has to offer in terms of nature.

We’ve been learning about them.

We’ve been studying, and we’ve been like, we’ve been fixing all the problems that we had.

We’re gonna do a release day during the school day, where we’re all gonna get on a bus with the fish, take them to the designated river location that we’re gonna be releasing them, and do a couple different activities.

Everybody grab a cup.. big.

Are you ready to put these?

R. Yeah!

I there.

Fishies!

Oh, they have loved it.

They were a little sad to see the fish go, because we’ve had them for so long.

It was very rewarding.

It felt like we’ve accomplished something as well, just like the kids feel too.

Seeing it come full circle has helped tremendously in the their accountability, knowing that what we were doing with the fish in the classroom, taking care of them, the water quality, feeding, is helped them thrive, and then putting here, it’s kind of like a farewell, all of our hard work, has been worth something Like, we preface today,Yes, we’re learning, but we’re having fun, and we want you to have fun.

That’s what today is for.

Can I say what it probably feels like if I want a salmon?

Yeah.

to feel free and get to swimming a bigger water.

It really teaches kids the importance of taking care of the resources that we have here, and how we can do that through our interactions with animal and plant alike.

It’s amazing to be able to connect kids to something that they don’t necessarily get a glimpse of, and some of these kids have never worn waders and have never been in a river, have maybe never even been to this river.

So building building those connections for kids that have never had that chance is a huge thing, and we teach about 35,000 kids a year.

So it’s a huge impact over time.

And we’ve noticed with some of our kids that may not be as academically inclined, and school may not be of much enjoyment to them, that programs like this and outdoor education and, you know, programs with animals, that’s where they thrive.

So they get an experience where they know that I am good at something and that this is where my specialty is.

Environmental education hinges on just this immersive interactive experience and being outside and being connected to the resources, the more hands on, they can get the better off they are.

They look learn by teaching each other, and they learn by doing.

By the end of the day, they’re gonna be little experts.

So all those connections are, you know, those are long term things.

This is something these kids will remember forever.

Founded in 1939, Leader Dogs for the Blind has been raising, training, and pairing service dogs with people experiencing vision loss free of charge for over 80 years.

Living West Michigan got a a chance to sit down with both a devoted dog raiser and a client of Leader Dog whose lives have been forever transformed by their four legged friends.

Can you speak a little to the history of Leader Dog at all?

It began with rescuing dogs, specifically through a couple of lions clubs members that that wanted to help either a lion member or friend and family that was visually impaired blind.

And they started with a couple of rescues.

We were able to match up and provide that dog, see the benefit of the service, and they started rescuing more and more and grew and grew to what they are now.

Shelley Strobel-Erhardt has been involved with Leader Dog as a puppy raiser and counselor for the past decade.

Not only is she responsible for raising her own Leader Dog puppies, but she also hosts classes for a small group of fellow raisers right here in West Michigan.

I first got involved in 2014.

I’ve been so impressed that I’ve stayed with them ever since.

So how long is the process of raising them?

Like, when do they get paired with a client?

I raised them from about seven, eight, nine weeks, so two ish months old.

I’ve got them for 10 to 11 months, so they’ll be turning anywhere from 1 to 14, 15 months old when they go into college at Leader Dog.

I say college, but it’s in for training Then they spend anywhere from four to six months being trained by the professionals who know how to do cool stuff, learning, guide work.

And then at that point, they’re ideally ready to be paired, and it might be another months or two, three months, depending on class cycles and specific needs within the classes, as to who they match with and go from there.

So, how many dogs have you raised now at this point?

Norman is my 11th.

Wow.

That’s awesome.

I feel like I can’t ask this, but can you pick a favorite?

There’s three or four.

Yeah.

So, how hard is that to kind of let that puppy go?

It’s It’s especially hard.

At first, it didn’t seem as hard because as a raiser, if they career change, which means they’re not going on to guide work and there’s not another agency or a job for them, I’ve rights of first refusal, so the first two I brought home, which is what is in the background.

But now that my house is filled, I can’t have a colony of, you know, eight, nine, ten dogs here, it is harder now knowing that they won’t be coming home with me.

We also got to talk to Nick VanderWall, a Leader Dog client who has received a dog that Shelley raised.

So I lost my sight in 2002 in a hunting accident.

You know, I was in sixth grade at the time, and just kind of hated using a cane.

Yeah, I got over it, but I still never went a lot of places, and I never felt like, you know, I was independent.

I guess I had orientational mobility instructors, that’s what they call the people who teach the white cane to you.

And they’re like, "You ever thought about getting a guide dog?"

I’m like, "Oh, absolutely, I think that would be awesome," You know?

And so senior year olds around, and they helped me kind of apply and do all that stuff, and I went down in June of 2010 I to get out my first dog, and I mean, that sense of freedom, I was finally able to travel places I was going up and down our road all the time with the dog and everything.

Doc is my fourth guide dog.

I had Toby, he was my longest lasting dog.

And then I got back Baxter, and then I got Hodgins, which is the dog that Shelly actually puppy raised.

I loved, love, loved Hodgins.

Wonderful dog, and unfortunately, he just got sick, and then I got Doc here, so.

The first introduction that he made on Facebook of Hodgins was a picture of him with his one, one and a half year old daughter in a backpack, and they were walking, and he said, "This is the first time I can do this.

Because of Hodgins, I can take my daughter for a walk.. As a fully blind person, visually impaired person, with a very active toddler, he could be a stay at home independent dad.

And that just came my heart first.

Sorry, I’m gonna get all teary now, I just thinking about it, but, you know, I posted I reposted that with his permission and said, "This is why I do this."

The nice thing is, I can take them on walks, too.

You know, when they were younger, I’ just put them in the backpack, and me and my dog would you know, my kid would go for a walk.

I walked many, many miles, with them on my back.

So what would you maybe tell somebody that is interested in being a puppy raiser, but is kind of on the fence, not sure about it?

I guess it depends on why they’re on the fence.

Financially, there may be ways to get around that.

Leader Dog can help address that as needs a rise.

Equipment wise, there’s a lot of people that are willing to lend and a lot of raisers with a lot of stuff.

If it’s a time commitment, there are a lot of different programs you can opt from.

You don’t have to take the puppy from eight weeks to 18 months unless you’re willing to.

You can take a puppy and do a pass along program.

The first six months or the last six months of their raising.

You can get the puppy through the nippy puppy shark stage, but adorable and a lot of work.

Or you can get the dog through the it’s already housebroken and it has some good foundation, and you can take a m mature dog on and maybe go through the hormonal teenage stage with it.

So there’s given pros and cons, giveives and takes, but depending on what the concern is, there may be a program or an option that can address that.

Otherwise, if you’ve got questions, talk to somebody who’s been a raiser and find out why you keep doing it, because there’s a lot of reasons not to, but there’s more reasons to do it.

Yeah.

So you’re going through the teenage phase with Norman right now?

Oh, yeah, he’s fully hormonal, teenage, 20 something boy.

He may not know his name on some days right now, but, yeah.

That sounds fun.

So, do you know about any of the requirements?

Like, can anybody be a puppy raiser?

Pretty much, yeah.

You do not have to have puppy experience to do this.

There’s a lot of support and training along the way.

You have to have the wherewithal to be able to cover the food, the meds, but if you’re willing and able they are welcoming people to come in because they need puppy raisers.

They got more puppies than they have raisers at points.

So they want to make sure all these puppies have loving homes and that loving homes who want them can get set up in a program that works for them as well, for the mutual benefit.

So why is it you do this job?

What do you love about what you do?

Um, well, one, you get a cute puppy, but to you, you can make a difference in somebody’s life.

When you’ve met that client and you can see how their whole life changes, it is pretty cool to see the difference they make.

Doc loves me.

You know, we are gone, this past weekend, and he saw my wife, he kind of licked her and stuff, but he went straight to me and just jumping, just, you know, loving, just all that kind of stuff.

He just was slowly focused on on me.

And so, I mean, our bond is pretty tight, I would say.

Nothing better to take a walk and get some fresh air on a beautiful day like today.

I definitely have a special place in my heart for all the cats here.

It’s kind of a perfect little respite.

Okay, cat it is.

Happy Cat Cafe is a unique coffee shop.

We have a full service coffee shop.

We have coffee, tea lattes mocktails.

But the unique part is that when you come in and get a drink, you can actually bring it into an adjacent room, and it’s full of adoptable cats.

We work with a local rescue called Fig and Friends Rescue.

They are a nonprofit, and they help the most vulnerable cats in the community and then we act as a foster for them.

So they let us house 12 to 15 cats here that people can come and play with, and you can actually bring one home if you want.

When did you decide I want to do this?

I want to open this shop.

I grew up around around cats, the family bonds over cats, you know, when we visit each other, we kind of always just tell stories about our cats, and it’s how we show love a little bit.

And so I come from a food service background, and I knew that I wanted to have something related to my experience and hospitality as well So it’s kind of the perfect marriage between cats, which were my first love and then food service and hospitality.

How does that feel to you as a cat lover, as a business owner, as a member of the community, to be able to provide this outlet for people and for cats?

I feel really grateful that I got to do something that I truly love, and that also, in my opinion, not only helps the cats, but helps people because every single one of those cats went to a home and, like, enriched the lives of those families as well.

So it’s kind of like a ripple effect.

Each cat that gets saved from here takes another one off the street, so it helps another cat come in, and we’ve seen adoption rates go up in general in this setting, so we think that the cats being more comfortable in a free setting where they can interact with people is helping them get adopted faster.

And then just having a place where people can connect the love cats, I think, is also really great for the community.

And you’ve had that happen, where people come in in and meet their new best friend.

If I’m looking correctly at the wall, you’ve had that happen 945 times.

Actually, that is really out of date.

We are up to 970 times.

Wow So, we’’re getting really close to 1,000 right now.

So we keep saying we’re almost there, we’re almost there.

We’re starting to plan our thousand cat adoption party right now.

I bought a condo a couple years ago, and I was like, I really need a pet."

So I, like, looked them up, and I came, and I like sat with the cats a little bit, and there was this orange girl, an orange one, and I was like, "Oh, I really like you.

And her name was Ravioli.

And I was like, "I need you."

So the next day, it was, like, the day after I bought my condo, I was like, "Yup, you’re coming home with me."

So I took her home.

And then a year after that, I saw that they posted this really gorgeous cat with bright blue eyes, and I needed her too.

So I got her, and she’s been with me for two years now, and they’re sisters, and, yeah, I love it.

So, ravioli, and then what’s the other?

Miso.

Miso.

Yeah gosh, that’s so cute.

Yeah.

So, even if you’re in here and you’re not looking for a cat, you’re somebody who just wants to come and cuddle with with the kittens, because you’re buying coffee or you’re buying a drink, are you still kind of helping the mission forward by allowing your business to foster?

Every single dollar that you spend here is going to help cats, because it goes directly back into their environment where we, you know, where we keep them, as well as supporting the business as a whole to stay open to support adoptions.

So a percentage of our profits go to them as well.

So any time you just get a coffee, we would love to have you, you know, come in and get a coffee here so you can support animal welfare, support cat rescue.

Can you talk to me about some of the cats we have in here?

Right now, we have a cat named Sudeko, and she was rescued from the bombings in Beirut, Leanon.

So Fig and Friends has a partnership that helps bring cats that are trapped in war torn countries over to the United States to get rehomed.

So she is first of possibly many cats that we will get from overseas.

There’s one cat that’s not up for adoption, and that’s Ray.

So Ray is completely blind.

He was from the streets of Detroit and had two extremely infected eyes that had to be taken out when he was the baby So Julie, who is the director of Fig and Friends, decided that she could never part with him because he’s very special.

So he is now our resident cat.

He is the ambassador of all things, happy cat and Fig and Friends, and he loves the catwheel.

He loves to climb on everything.

You would never know that he’s blind.

He really shows how resilient cats are.

Getting to help kitties that were rescued, a lot of the cats that come in here are just a little bit come from rough backgrounds, and it’s really comforting to see them go to a place that they’re loved properly.

So I think that’s probably my favorite part about the job.

The fact that I could give these cats, like, a loving home, and I’ve seen them grow so much since I first brought brought them home.

They’ve gained, like, healthy weight from eating, and they’ve been more social, like, with people, so that’s been good to see.

Our life together is good.

I’ll come home and I’ll rest or throw on some Netflix, or just go to bed ’cause I work nights, I get some snuggles, and just beam by me and comforting me, like, in a way that, you know, they’re not talking to me, that kind of thing, but just, like, being close to me.

Yeah, just three girls hanging out.

You keep in touch with some of the people that have adopted through you.

Is that pretty normal for you to, you know, stay in touch and maybe hear more about cats, like, after they’ve left We do a spotlight every Friday called Forever Home Friday, where we reach out to previous adopters to tell us their story and how the cats are doing.

The people from the rescue, as well as our staff gets really, really, really attached to the kitties, especially ones that have been here a long time or that have special stories.

So we also have a group on Facebook, Happy Cat Homes, which we keep up to date with them as well.

So we love updates, we love to connect with the adopters.

We find that people often come back and adopt a second cat when they’re ready You have two.

Do you think you’ll come back for a third?

I thought about it recently.

I don’t know.

We’ll see.

If they threw a cute one on their Facebook page, we might scoop it up.

So, when we talk about Happy Cat Cafe in the future, what do you hope kind of sponsor this in the next few years?

So, we’ve been through a lot at the cafe.

It’s been almost eight years that we’ve been open now, and a lot of changes.

We hope to expand a little bit in our cafe side.

We want to bring in some really light, simple food.

And then there may or may not be another location happening.

Okay.

We want to find the perfect spot for the next one, so we’re not rushing into it, but but it is something that is in the future plan.

Our goal right now is just to stay the course of where we’re at and continue to grow the Cat Cafe We’re really excited to reach the milestone of a thousand adoptions, which is something that looking back over the years is a really, really exciting thing and a really meaningful kind of number and milestone for us.

And so people can come in off.

Sorry, that was so cute.

People can come in off the street.

This is the hardest interview I’ve had to do to focus ’cause they’re so cute.

We have friends over.

Do you see that big one on there?

That’s big.

Nice.

Where?

I’m not sure.

Cool.

Get you here.

You heel?

Norman.

Heel.

You so exciting!

Hey, up.

(Lively music) ♪ Have a good day!

♪