[gentle country music] - [Narrator] In this episode of "Around Texas," we take Reveille to her hometown, and tour the birthplace of Texas A&M University's mascots.

We'll also go to the border of Texas and Mexico where the Texas A&M Schools of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences have joined forces to provide world-class medical care to thousands of animals across the Rio Grande Valley.

All that and more, on "Around Texas."

[tranquil music] Everything is bigger in Texas, and the Texas A&M University System is no exception.

With 11 universities and eight state agencies, the people of Texas A&M serving more Texans and making a bigger difference than ever before.

These are the educators, researchers, emergency responders, and public servants of the Texas A&M University System.

Learn how their work is impacting both Texas and the world.

Welcome to "Around Texas With Chancellor John Sharp."

- Miss Reveille, Texas A&M's mascot is recognized around the world.

From showing up to countless public appearances, to running onto Kyle Field before every home football game, the work of Reveille and her handlers never seems to end.

But last summer, Reveille got to take a break.

Her breeders invited her back to her birthplace in Kansas where she reconnected with her mother, one of her brothers, and some other collie friends.

[tranquil music] - This is my longest trip with Reveille as her handler.

I'm really excited to see how she reacts with her family, where she was born, if she even recognizes her parents or her siblings.

This is her first time back to Kansas since she moved to Texas A&M.

This is not just like a one-off breeder that we're sending her back to.

This is a breeder who's not only donated one dog to the university to be the mascot, they donated two.

And I think that's really special and they're the only breeders to have ever done that.

- It's not just what it takes for the animal, but you have to understand the environment, 'cause it's a whole picture.

It's a holistic environment.

I don't believe there is a school that has a louder environment at their football game than Texas A&M, and she needs to be able to handle that.

The ability to have a really good collie show up and be seen by as many people and being as beloved as she is, that is the tie that really makes it easy to associate ourself with the school.

We feel like we're fulfilling a very important role for both collies and for Texas A&M.

- When they're in the welping box, their personalities, you start to see 'em when they're tiny, and Reveille was just special.

I mean, she was absolutely an outgoing puppy.

At five weeks, Reveille started learning sit, and stay and turn.

But when you're five weeks old, that's a big deal.

[laughing] I felt so positive about this dog that I named her Reveille.

She never had another name.

[laughing] We called her Reveille.

[tranquil music] - [Narrator] Known as the First Lady of Aggieland, Reveille is Texas A&M's official mascot, and the highest ranking member of the Corps of Cadets.

The original mascot was a black and white stray picked up from the road in the 1930s.

When the bugle call, Reveille, was blown to wake the cadets, she howled, hence the name which stuck and remains.

Reveille II was a donated Shetland sheep dog, but every mascot since has been a full blood rough collie.

Each year a sophomore in and Company E2 takes over as Reveille's handler.

For the 2023 to '24 school year, Teddy Neal has the honors.

- Traveling with Rev is fairly simple.

She's really easy to go.

She sleeps most of the way, so she's a great travel companion.

So we're going back to the breeder 'cause we thought it would be really cool to let Reveille go back to her roots and get to meet her family.

I've never been to Kansas before, so I'm really looking forward to being to a new place.

I'm also really excited to see the breeders.

- [Narrator] The current mascot, Reveille X, was born on September 5th, 2019 in Topeka, Kansas.

She was donated to the university by Juell's Collies, an award-winning kennel owned by Julie Hendrickson and Russell Dyke.

Reveille X was the second Aggie mascot from Juell's Collies.

- Collies are not one of the top breeds like they used to be.

Lassie's not really something that most of the new generation recognize now.

They don't see it, so in any of the Reveilles it's important that she is an ambassador to the collie world, and it's important that we get the right collie, not just a collie as an ambassador.

It's an honor to be selected.

It's something that I think we do well and we understand the whole picture.

- More people know Reveille than they do our National Champion, and so she needs to be a very good representation of our breed.

There are 178,000 golden retrievers born every year.

There are only 7,000 collies born every year.

Russell and I own Juell's Collies together.

Russ wants to become a judge, so he's concentrating on understanding the standard for a collie.

I am more of the caretaker.

I am the one that does all of their grooming and I also do most of the training.

- When we first showed up, she definitely recognized the house.

She definitely recognized some of the spots, but definitely for me, this is the first time that I ever saw it was she's never rolled over for a dog.

And when her mom walked out, it was instant, like she smelled her mom, then she rolled over.

Something clicked and and she didn't do that for any of the other collies.

- I just knew Reveille X as a baby would do well.

It was just in my gut and my heart that I knew that that dog would be okay because of the process with Reveille VIII.

The dog is so important to you guys.

We recognize that, but we also understand the business behind it.

- [Narrator] Julie and Russell have a proven knack for breeding collies with the perfect temperament to serve as Reveille.

The dogs have to be patient, willing to endure lots of affection and able to tolerate loud noises, like 100,000 fans at Kyle Field.

They would usually take the dog to high school football games and around other loud crowds, but the COVID-19 pandemic eliminated the normal routines and the breeder had to get creative.

- We have a lake that is just a half a mile from here.

I took her for lots of walks.

We would talk to as many people as we could.

[laughing] The last time that we saw her was when we delivered her down to Texas A&M.

She looks good, she looks healthy, she's a great weight.

Her coat is extremely healthy, because she's comfortable.

She's comfortable in what she's doing and who she's with.

That's what went through my mind on seeing her again.

- You can't breed out poor temperament, and that's the basis of what would go back behind the line that Reveille is in.

- We have here living with us, Reveille's mother, Katie, and Reveille's brother.

His name is Prince, Prince George, not just a half brother or sister, but her litter mate is here.

And we're still looking for this line to continue and continue this breeding.

We may have two or three really great show dogs in our career, but when you have a Reveille that is doing well for the school, that to me is just as exciting as somebody's doing more winning.

[tranquil music] - I realized how much the breeders, not only do they care about the collies, they still care a lot about Reveille, but you can tell they still really love the dog and miss her.

And so it was really nice to bring her back to where she came from and see where she came from.

- When we would go to your football games and I would see that dog out there, it would just be choke up because we helped with that.

We saw how much she's loved, and it's always hard to say goodbye to a dog.

You know, realize that I'd spent a lot of time with her, a lot of time.

This isn't my dog anymore.

This dog belongs to Texas A&M, and she's really now trying to become a member of a new handler's family.

So I am absolutely proud of the fact that she's serving you well.

When Texas A&M needs either Reveille XI or XII, and I have one that I think that fits, you bet.

You bet I'd make that decision very easily that this dog needs to go to Texas A&M.

[tranquil music continues] - With me is Teddy Neal, who's a member of the Corps of Cadets of Texas A&M, and the handler of Reveille, which of course is our mascot and the highest ranking member of the Corps of Cadets.

He and Rev had a pretty full schedule these days with lots of public appearances, but the two of them have made time to be with us today.

Welcome, Teddy.

- Good to be here.

- So what are some of the duties that are required of Reveille's handler?

- Main thing is probably getting her wherever she needs to go on time, making sure she's okay, taking care of her.

I look after her everyday needs, so anything she needs I get for her.

- And I would suspect during the summer, everybody wants y'all to come all over the place.

And so obviously you do this full time and it's a 12 month deal, right?

- Yes sir.

- What surprised you most about being her handler that you didn't know before you you got the job?

- Honestly, just how normal she is.

She's Miss Reveille and that's very important.

But like everyone, when I first got her, you had the idea of her, and she is as special as she is, and while she still maintains that specialty to me, she very much became over the summer just like my dog.

Like it stopped, you know, I can't believe I'm waking up to the mascot of Texas A&M, to I'm just waking up to Reveille, and that's just how it becomes.

So it surprised me how quickly that happened, and how much it's like, okay, when she has the blanket on, she is the mascot of Texas A&M, but any other time she's basically just like a normal dog for me.

- So when you took her home, did you get any indication that she knew who mom and dad was, she knew who her brothers and sisters were or that she knew she was home, any indication of that?

- A little bit.

So when we went to back home to Kansas, the breeders had about maybe seven or eight collies that were out, but her mom was the only one that she kind of rolled over to and paid more attention to.

And I've never seen her do that with any dog.

And her mom wasn't even the oldest collie, so it had nothing to do with, okay, this is the oldest so she's the leader or whatever.

But when she did see her mom, it was almost instant.

Like she saw her, she sniffed her and then she rolled over.

And I've never seen her do that with any dog.

So I do think even though it might not be like you or me seeing our moms and we recognize it's our moms, I think she did definitely recognize something.

- How about that?

So what advice do you have for future handlers?

- Two things.

Probably the first piece of advice that I was given by my predecessor was there's gonna be times, find a reason to enjoy everything.

Like you said, it's a 12 month process.

You only get 12 months to do this, so enjoy every minute of it.

'Cause after the 12 months, you're not gonna be able to do it again.

And the second thing is you're gonna have a lot on your plate, but you can't worry about the stuff that is two months down the road.

Just do it one week at a time, or one day at a time just to keep everything straight.

- Thank you.

We've been here with Teddy Neal, who's the mascot handler at Texas A&M University, and a member of a Corps of Cadets Outfit E2, of course.

Teddy, thank for what you do for Texas A&M.

- Not a problem.

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[upbeat music] [tranquil music] - Each year Texas conducts the largest emergency training exercises in the nation called Operation Border Health Preparedness.

Texas A&M School of Veterinary Medicine Biomedical Sciences, has joined this operation to provide care to over 1000 animals across the Rio Grande Valley, improving the quality of life for Texans and their pets.

[tranquil music] - Millions on alert across the country for the threat of severe weather and flooding.

Tornadoes already reported ripping through Southern Texas.

- Hurricane Harvey has shut down the Gulf Coast of Texas as we've seen.

- The first time I went down with public health, there were families lining up at 2:00 AM to get vision testing, and by 8:00 AM all of the glasses had gone.

I was stunned.

- There was a woman who received new eyeglasses and she was crying, and she was crying tears of joy because it was for the first time that she was able to see her grandchild's face.

- One of the biggest things that drew me to Texas A&M was the history of service.

Not just military service, but service in your communities.

Service not just to the Aggie community, but the communities you come from, and the communities that you're going to be in.

- As the Land Grant Institution, our mission is to serve the people of the state of Texas.

- In Raymondville, which is in Willesee County.

They don't actually have a veterinarian here.

I mean, there's people here that have a median household income between $30,000 and $40,000, and they have to take care of their animal as well.

We're like this luxury that they now have access to.

- I have been in the military, I'm still in the military, and for me, everything is about giving back.

- About a third of the students that we send to Operation Border Health Preparedness are actually from the Valley, and they want to serve the communities that they came from.

- This community needs these services.

A lot of people will go the entire year waiting for Operation Border Health Preparedness to come back to these communities.

- Without opportunities such as this one, I don't believe I would be here today.

- It is a really impactful thing thinking about how much pain these people have to be in to be willing to camp out starting at 2:00 AM the day before to make sure they can get a tooth pulled.

[tranquil music] - [Narrator] In order to be prepared for disasters in the state of Texas, the Department of State Health Services holds an exercise so that all stakeholders can practice being in a disaster and experience what it would be like to be deployed.

This exercise is called Operation Border Health Preparedness.

Operations are conducted in five separate locations across the Rio Grande Valley.

Texas A&M Health has participated in this exercise since 2018, including over 100 students and staff volunteers from the Colleges of Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, Public Health, Nutrition, and Veterinary Medicine.

- In many ways it's impossible to practice for disaster.

However, there are certain things that we can do to practice and be ready.

This is the nation's largest disaster preparedness exercise, and we get to participate.

Our students have a great opportunity to see what their role would be in terms of responding to a disaster should they be called to do so.

- From 8:00 AM Monday of the week of that exercise until 10:30 on Friday, just a few days later, our team provided primary and preventive healthcare to 1022 dogs and cats from Willesee County and beyond.

The companion animals of people who would not otherwise have had access to veterinary care.

To me, that's an absolutely stunning accomplishment.

- [Narrator] Students work alongside stakeholders from the Department of State Health Services and the Texas State Guard providing medical care, patient assessments, vaccinations and nutrition education.

Veterinary students provide primary care services that include vaccinations, flea treatments, and physical exams, all at no charge to the residents of South Texas.

Participation in these operations not only give students valuable learning opportunities and hands-on experience, but provides much needed medical assistance to the residents of the Rio Grande Valley and their pets.

Services that are otherwise unaffordable or simply not available to them.

- We have seen approximately 6,500 patients and delivered about 30,000 services in partnership with all of the stakeholders for Operation Border Health.

- This is a huge opportunity for us as students to not only impact animals, but the people in both human and veterinary coming together to make a difference in the community.

And to me, it really brings back the point of One Health.

[tranquil music continues] - [Narrator] For 2023, the Medication Assistance Program was added with the assistance of the Coastal Bend Health Education Center, which is part of the Texas A&M University System alongside Healthy South Texas.

Pharmacy students work with staff from these programs to provide low cost prescription medications to patients who otherwise cannot afford them.

- One of the things that we really wanna focus on with interprofessional education as it relates to our students learning with, from, and about each other is the sense of practice.

Our students get to use the state of Texas as their classroom.

By going into these communities we have a huge impact on the lives of fellow Texans.

- I've had a chance to visit students when they were down there in Raymondville participating, and they say they were completely exhausted.

They learned new skills, physical examination skills, communication skills with a diverse group of animal owners, and it also helped them reflect on their responsibilities as veterinarians, realizing it's not just people with money who own pets and love them, but it's people who don't have the resources for normal veterinary care or access to veterinary care who love their animals and are part of the family.

And our students really use Operation Border Health to be able to fully understand their full roles as veterinarians.

- While disaster response is the main goal of Operation Border Health Preparedness, we are serving the patients of South Texas.

Practicing in communities that stretch your ability, stretch your understanding of the world, these are transformational learning experiences for our students.

- It's a rare opportunity for a group of students to be able to participate in the veterinary care of more than 1000 animals in a week.

Planning for next year will certainly take into account the popularity of our participation this year, and I well imagine that we will have to think about having the appropriate number of people, supplies, vaccines to support at least 1000 animals next year and beyond.

I fully anticipate that this will be something that we'll do every year, and I can only see our participation growing.

[tranquil music continues] - We're here with Dr. John August, who's Dean of the School of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences here at Texas A&M.

Welcome, Dr. August.

- Thank you, sir.

- Appreciate you being here and your service.

So tell us about Operation Border Health Preparedness and what it looks like to you, and just what that organization does.

- I first had a chance to become involved with Operation Border Health when I was in the School of Public Health for a year or so in the Dean's office.

Saw what it was doing down in the cities along the border to help families from underserved communities to have access to medical care, especially children before the school year, and thought that if ever I came back to veterinary medicine, we would love to see veterinary medicine involved.

And three years ago we got the invitation to be involved in Raymondville, in a county without a veterinarian, and one of the poorest counties, not only in Texas, but in the United States.

And for the past three years, the Veterinary Emergency Team with colleagues have provided primary and preventive veterinary care for the citizens of Raymondville and surrounding areas.

- So how do folks know that you're coming?

- This year there was a lot of word of mouth, but the city of Raymondville and the school district, we had our operations out of Raymondville Early College High School.

We're very good in putting out notices in social media, on the radio and elsewhere, to let people know that veterinary care would be available during that week at the high school.

- And how many pets or animals would show up?

This is the second year or third year?

- The third year.

This year we had 1022 dogs and cats from 8:00 AM on Monday until 10:30 AM on Friday that received care that otherwise they would've not have received care because there's no veterinarian in the area.

It was a wonderful experience for our students.

- Yeah.

So how does human health get affected by animal health?

- Firstly, Willesee County is an agricultural county, so a lot of people get their income from agriculture.

We weren't down there to deal with that with Operation Border Health, but families love their pets.

And whether you've got money or not, you still wanna make sure that your pets are healthy.

And if they're not, then it gives you a lot of stress.

And so we were able to provide reassurance to the owners of more than 1000 animals that their pets would be getting the vaccinations they need and get the preventive care and the parasite control.

- Well, when we have hurricanes, when we have tornadoes, when we have fires and things like that.

You guys obviously go into that impacted area and rescue animals and serve animals.

Does this play a role in that?

- It does, and Operation Border Health and Preparedness happens every summer.

We know it's gonna happen in late July.

So the Veterinary Emergency Team can use this as a planning exercise to help prepare them for the more urgent needs when they're called out for hurricanes or for floods or or other disasters.

And it allows us to work closely with colleagues in AgriLife in disaster assessment and recovery, allows us to bring the maximum number of students down to Operation Border Health so that they can get a high impact learning experience.

So really it's a planned experience for the team to help them plan for the next urgent experience like a hurricane.

- Well, obviously you have to have a lot of support from probably outside to make this happen.

Tell us about who helps y'all do these kinds of things.

- We have some wonderful philanthropic help from the Banfield Foundation.

Banfield own many veterinary clinics, and they've been very generous with regard to this.

We've used Association of Former Students money to help get our students down there and make sure that the students are cared for.

Veterinary medical associations across the state provide funding, but they also provide veterinarians who help in this large team.

And then we depend heavily as well on AgriLife with the Disaster Assessment and Recovery Team that work so closely in logistics with the Veterinary Emergency Team for this.

And we had one wonderful donor, this private donor this past year who provided $50,000 towards this because they felt that it was such a good thing to do.

- Yeah, great service provided by Texas A&M.

Dr. August, thank you for what you do for A&M and the people of Texas.

- Our privilege, sir, thank you very much.

[tranquil music] - [Narrator] What kind of world do you want to live in?

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At Texas A&M RELLIS, tomorrow is a big day.

- That's all for this week.

See you next time on "Around Texas."

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