(upbeat music) - Hi, I am Karen Kalunian with Animal Talk, and today we are here at Vintage Pet Rescue with Kristen Peralta, and we're gonna visit all of her little senior dogs and learn more about Vintage Pet Rescue.

(upbeat music) Kristen, tell us a little bit about Vintage Pet and what drove you and your husband to do something as crazy and as fun as this.

- We started Vintage Pet Rescue in 2017.

We had been, we were living in Los Angeles.

Met my husband out there.

When we were out in LA we had 10 senior dogs of our own, but we weren't doing this obviously as a rescue.

We were just kind of living our life with regular jobs, with a lot of little dogs.

- I can only imagine.

Even though you had senior pets previously, it's a little different when they're yours as opposed to when they're everybody's that you're taking on.

(Karen laughs) - Exactly.

When I first started, I had a vision that we would take in maybe 20 dogs per year.

(Kristen laughs) It was, yeah.

- [Karen] That was a good vision.

- [Kristen] It was my vision.

- [Karen] But it didn't quite happen that way.

- [Kristen] No, no, now we're taking in about 25 per month.

The majority, the vast majority of the dogs that come to us are from, directly from owners.

So owners who either go into nursing homes, go into hospice care, have to move in with a relative, or unfortunately pass away, or even just, you know, that they're not able to care for their senior dog anymore because of their own issues.

- [Karen] Health, sure.

- [Kristen] And also the senior dogs, they do need more.

- [Karen] Sure, the financial end of it sometimes.

- That's a big part.

- You folks here at Vintage Pet Rescue do absolutely everything.

And part of why we wanted to come see you today too, is because we really wanna attend a vet visit with you.

- Yes.

- So I think it would be really interesting for people to see sort of what goes into a vet visit for a senior dog, and then we can probably talk about a little bit more of it on the other end of the expense of it and things like that.

So let's go.

Let's head out to the vet visit.

- All right, sounds good.

(bright music) - Hi Zoe!

Hi, Bella!

We're gonna go have some fun!

- Oh yes.

- We're gonna go see the doctor, get checked up.

We're going this way.

Good job.

Hi!

- Hi!

- Hi, Dr. Paradise!

- How are you?

- Nice to see you.

- Hi, Dr. Paradise.

Nice to see you.

Thanks for having us here today at Northpaws.

- [Dr. Paradise] Thank you for coming.

- We appreciate it.

We're gonna get these two little ones all checked out.

- We got Bella and Zoe here.

- With Vintage Pet Rescue and Kristen, and we appreciate you letting us take the time to come in today and watch them get their vet exam.

- Yeah.

- These two are adorable.

They're 11 years old, bonded pair, and hopefully we get a clean bill of health, and we can find them a great home.

- Well, that's the goal here, right?

Okay, girls, let's head in!

- Bella and Zoe came to us from another rescue here in Rhode Island that had them for four months.

- Okay.

- And they just weren't being seen.

They weren't getting adopted.

So we offered to take them in.

And they pretty much had everything they needed done except for full blood work.

So, just wanna get a quick.

- Today, she's up to date on her vaccines, but today we are gonna get some general blood work on her, and so that'll be used as a pre-anesthetic screening as well.

- [Kristen] Perfect.

- She otherwise looks fine for general anesthesia, so.

- Okay.

- Because she has no heart murmur, so- - Yeah, and she's, if anything, she's a little chunky.

So sometimes if they're really underweight, or we're hearing a heart murmur or finding something alarming on the exam, that may want us to take pause for running forward with anesthesia, even with normal blood work.

But she's a little stocky.

- She looks like she- - So if her blood work looks great, we would feel comfortable proceeding with a dental for her.

So I guess our little friend here can run around while we look at her sidekick.

- Come here, sweetie.

- I have six vet visits per week.

So in order to remember all of this, I have notes in my phone for new dog info, and I just take everything in by the dog.

- Just keep adding in.

- And then once I have everything, I can use a bio.

I can use it to write a bio.

- Hey, you're very worried.

- You have to stay organized when you have as many animals and especially senior animals in your care, as Kristen does at Vintage Pet.

- Good thing.

Okay, you two passed with straight As, almost.

(group laughs) A couple of A minuses here.

- [Dr. Meagan] Yeah, that's okay.

- But now you can run around and play.

Wanna come down some?

Come on.

- She's shaking.

- There you go!

Say, yay, you did it!

Good job!

(group cheering) - [Kristen] Good girl.

- And for the adoption process for Bella and Zoe, how do folks reach out to you and what is the best way, because I know they have to come here to meet the dogs, so what's the best way for them to reach out and contact you?

- So all our available dogs are listed on our website.

Make, you know, we really wanna make sure that these dogs are healthy, as healthy as they can be.

- [Karen] In their senior years.

- In their senior years before we send them off to a new home.

So we want to make sure that, you know, a potential adopter has all the information.

So people on our social media might see pictures of dogs and then wonder why they're not on our website.

It's just because medically they're not ready yet.

But all our dogs who are available ready to go- - [Karen] Website.

- [Kristen] Is our website.

- [Karen] And what is that?

- [Kristen] Vintagepetrescue.org.

And that's where you'll find all our dogs and the adoption application.

So normally people who send in the adoption application, we try to get back to them within one to two days to kind of make sure that it's a good fit.

You know, make sure they understand what the dog needs, if the dog needs ongoing care.

And then we'll have most people come here and meet the dogs and see if it's a good fit, and then they can take them home.

- Thank you again, Kristen.

We so appreciate you having us here at Vintage Pet Rescue.

And for more information about Vintage Pet Rescue or any of our other episodes, you can visit RIPBS.org/AnimalTalk.

(upbeat music) To watch more videos like this, visit RIPBS.org/AnimalTalk.