Welcome to the Soul Touched by Dogs Podcast, the show for dog lovers who
see dogs not as toys or tools, but wise souls worth our respect and care.
I'm an Herrmann, and I'm your host.
I talk to poor some humans, people who do great work for dogs and their people.
So come and join us for today's conversation.
Anke: Hello and welcome, Akoy.
I'm delighted to have you here
Arcui: with me today.
Honestly, Anke, when you reached out to me, it felt like this is
something I should be a part of.
I know that, you know, this is a conversation and of course you'll
introduce the concepts and everything we'll be talking about in a bit, but
animal welfare is something that's very close to me and I have a reputation of
leaving meetings to go and save dogs, so I was really excited to be here.
So thank you for having me.
Oh,
Anke: I love that.
I love that.
Like, tell me more about leaving pages.
Like, before we go anywhere else, just, you know, for people who don't know you,
where you're based, what's your day job?
And, uh,
Arcui: we'll take it from there.
Wonderful.
So my name is Anke Osora.
I'm currently in India.
I do travel around a lot, but India is where I reside the most.
I am the founder of a global brand strategy consultancy where we mostly
work with forward thinking entrepreneurs who are truly impact driven and want
to uplift their community of users.
We help them create brands that can gravitate their
right audience towards them.
I'm also a facilitator, podcaster, a published author, a huge dog herder
and dog rescuer, hence I'm here.
And someone who coaches creators in the business of design and freelancing.
So that's a very micro version of everything I do.
And yeah, I hope I answered all your questions.
Anke: I'm just thinking, Ooh, I want to have you back for another podcast I
Arcui: have.
Anke: I love that.
So, so Tell me, I mean, just, just give us an overview, you know, because I just
want to mention the way we met is someone who we both know, uh, said, Hey, you
know, you're doing this thing with dogs.
You should talk to Akbar.
He loves dogs and he's a big, you know, and so, and I just
reached out and here we are.
Right.
So it's like, what is it that
Arcui: you're doing with dogs?
Well, uh, first of all, thank you to Paula James for the
shout out and for connecting us.
I really appreciate that.
And so.
I do a lot of things with animal welfare.
I'm, in fact, in the process of getting certified as a proper veterinarian
because of too many things, but I have been someone who has burned his face
trying to rescue dogs, who is currently asked not to be in rescue zones because
of a psychological evaluation where I can no longer handle things, but
the thing is, I'm someone who has Who honestly cares a lot about dogs.
I've had seven dogs in total throughout my life.
I've currently two that are sleeping on the bed near me
and I've rescued over 500 dogs.
Most of my job is to, I used to manage teams for other organizations first.
When I was leaders, I was one of the captains over there.
Then I realized that they were cutting corners and they
were not really dedicated.
So I started my own organization.
Well, that was more of like managing multiple teams.
So I used to manage close to 20 teams that had 40 people in each of them.
And now I'm someone who is trying to build our overall home for dogs.
I hate shelters.
I think they're demeaning and it makes it all, it just makes
dogs more scared and depressed and it's a stressful environment.
So currently what I'm working towards is trying to create a Purchase a property
and adopt all these dogs as my own, as my pets, and provide them a decent amount
of luxury, and instead of trying to find foster homes for them, keep them there
with me, and provide all the resources they'll require, and love them as if
they're my family, and convert this into a business model where individuals can
sponsor dogs, they can buy merchandise, there's content created around them,
because one thing as a brand strategist, I understand that it's the narrative.
If you look at a video of a sad dog that needs help, You're going to skip it.
Any sort of, we see all these NGO and non profit ads and we want to skip
them because it takes a toll on us.
But rather if you see a funny video of a dog who might be three legged or might
be missing an eye, but he's doing stupid stuff, having the fun of his life, and
he's having fun with everybody else, and you're seeing fun content around this.
You're going to love it.
You're going to watch it and you're going to ignore the part that he was rescued or
she was rescued, but rather they're having good life now and you can be a part of
it, but it's not that we're demeaning you, it's showing the post work after rescue.
I'm someone who's constantly involved in animal welfare as much as I can be.
And.
I've been called to go on rescue missions sometimes.
I'm mostly called when they're rescues in mountains because I know parkour and I
can handle myself in hills and everything.
So I get asked when they're emergency situations or if a dog is
extremely traumatized and it's not responding because of me knowing
how to deal with so many dogs.
I know how to engage with them, how to calm them down,
how to have them sire on me.
So yeah.
I love it.
Anke: I just love it because, I mean, I don't know, it's part of the reason I
even started this Soul Touch for Dogs.
It's kind of that same thing.
It's this whole, you know, almost like starting at the source of the
problem rather than like, okay, we just pop them in some shelter now,
you know, where there's I love it.
As you say, you know, where it's more like a prison, it's not, it's not really.
And, and also have it with a proper business model, because, you know,
the saddest thing is when, when, I don't know, especially here in Spain,
there's lots of, you know, sort of young girls, they kind of have no jobs
and they sort of like scrape together something to sort of feed the dogs.
I'm like, this would be so, you know, you know, there's a different income
source so to have this and this more positive approach to it rather than like
the misery and please give me something I just couldn't love this more and so
how did you how did you get into that like how did you rescue your first dog?
Arcui: I think it's still very weak for me I I remember when I was a very young kid,
I used to be scared of the street dogs.
And I'd be scared to cross the, and once I entered the lane, my house
would be like five apartments after, and there'd be multiple street dogs.
And I'd always be scared when I would be coming back in the evening for maybe some
sort of tuition or something like that.
And I'd be very scared.
And I don't know, slowly I started to realize that they're not trying
to scare me, but they're just trying to protect themselves.
Um.
It just happened in the moment.
The first time I rescued a dog, it just happened in the moment because
throughout my own journey of discovering who I am as an individual, I started
to fear less about that the world is out for me, but rather just trying to
make a better place for themselves.
And I remember seeing this dog when I was trekking and This dog was injured.
And while it was very scared, the moment I started approaching it,
it was growling and everything.
And I started going towards it.
He bit my finger and I was like, that's all right.
I didn't harm him or something.
And I was like, then I calmed him down.
And I always used to carry a lot of medical kits because I get injured a
lot when I'm trekking and everything.
So then I cleaned him up quickly.
And then I Calm him.
Then he hugged me and his nails were very sharp.
He was like a mini puppy and everything, but his nails were very sharp.
So then I hugged him and like he climbed up with me and then I took him to the vet
and that was just like a one time thing.
But after that, I kept wanting to do that.
I kept wanting to.
Be there.
And there's something I call about purpose.
We talk a lot about purpose in branding and brand strategy because
it's something a lot of people ignore, but I think it's very important.
And purpose is not something you can discover.
You're not born with it, but you discover more of it the more you do.
When you do things that fulfill you, you open that layer of purpose and you realize
that all right, this is the next step.
And so while I thought it was helping businesses that are, you know, trying to
change the world or helping freelancers that would love to be able to be free
of, you know, unnecessary stress, I realized that my next stage is to
help Dogs to be able to feel free and not be scared to be their best self.
And so I got involved in rescue drives.
I got involved in adoption drives and one through one thing or the
other people started calling me, Hey RK, how do I calm this dog down?
Hey RK, how do I communicate with this dog?
Hey RK, there's a dog that needs rescuing.
Can you help?
And.
Through something or the other, I found myself leading teams because I am someone
who's always very good at leading people.
And so when someone is doing something wrong, I could see it at their second
guessing what they're supposed to do.
I was there able to communicate what they need to be doing.
And just some or the other way, I found myself leading teams at organizations.
There's a fly here for some reason.
They have left the garden open and so everything comes in.
I'm just like, what is that fly doing over here?
But yeah, and.
Then I realized that this organization is hiring people just for the sake of it.
They have funding, but they're cutting costs.
They're not taking care of dogs.
They're still getting infections.
And some of them are ending up worse than how they were when we found them.
So I started donating my own money and I realized that that does jack shit
because, and I'm sorry if I, if you're not allowed to cuss or something, but
yeah, I started donating my own money.
And even that did nothing because.
Well, unless you're in charge, especially in situations, and if you're
with the right people who are truly dedicated, people are going to slack
off, they're going to cut corners, and it's going to be challenging.
So, through various situations, various challenges that we did overcome, I decided
to just, you know, do it all by myself.
And I didn't have people and I will be having a lot of people because it's
not something you can do all alone.
But to get the main stuff done, I would rather have it be all on my own
property and everything belonging to me.
That way I have the most control and these dogs don't have to be
affected by someone's misjudgment.
So yeah.
Yeah, I love
Anke: that.
Love it.
Um, so.
Is there, is there something that you wish people knew?
You know, when you come across with, you know, when people treat dogs, abandon
dogs, or like, I don't, you know, over here it's a lot about people misjudging
what it means to have a dog, so they get a dog and it's like, oh my god, or
it's a toy for the kids or, you know, or they kind of want it as this companion
and then when it doesn't do out of the box what they thought it should
be doing or that it gets too big or whatever, then it just gets Somewhere.
Right.
So what's in, in your, in your experience, what's, what's one
thing you, you love people near?
Arcui: I wish they saw them as their children first.
The thing is, we are, a lot of people are just set with so many unnecessary
boundaries on who they should be loving.
Who what is something worth loving?
Mm-hmm.
They want love.
People want to feel belong, um, belongingness.
They want to belong to something or the other, but they're
not willing to share that.
And it's these people that end up causing most of these challenges where they
maybe get a husky and then they realize that, Oh, I can't take care of this
husky because it's too much maintenance.
And then they just abandon them.
And this is something I've seen a lot.
And they see dogs doing things that are unnatural to them.
Like maybe they're licking themselves too much.
They're humping things or they're sometimes eating stuff
they're not supposed to, and that might be a headache to you.
So you decide to abandon them.
The thing is, would you want that to happen to your own kid?
Or would you want that to happen to you?
If you were a kid, wouldn't you want to be accepted even if you're weird,
if you grew fat or if you started doing stupid stuff, you wouldn't
want your parents to abandon you.
You wouldn't want to, your parents to say that, Oh, well, he will
survive some way or the other.
I don't need to care about this thing.
So.
It's just that you need to be open to love something beyond
your basic requirements because that's what it does to have babies.
When you have a baby, it's going to be just that they are not going to be able to
communicate with you for a very long time.
There's going to be a lot of trading and everything else needed.
And but the thing is with dogs, it's a different thing.
You're speaking in a whole other language and it's more about intent.
A lot of times I talk about this a lot that when it comes to people, they get
scared of dogs because of their actions.
But here's the thing.
If you're frustrated, like I've done this with my dogs, like, uh, they actually
helped me control a lot of my anger when I used to come back from Turkish chemistry
because I'd be frustrated but I don't have tendencies of taking it out on people.
So I'd be in my room and I'd like try to break something or just, you know, be
like this and my dogs would get scared.
And they knew that I'm not going to hit them.
They knew that very well, but they could sense the intent in
me of the anger and frustration.
And there have been times where I just go to my dogs and annoy them.
Like I make this scary monster face.
I'm like I would hurt them, but they are like fighting with me.
They're playing with me.
And they know that that is love.
So dogs work on intent.
If they can sense that you're here to love them, even if you
look like a serial killer, they're just going to play with you.
But If they can sense your intents are wrong, but no matter how
much you smile and everything, they'll be able to sense that.
My dogs can sense that.
Like even right now, when I was doing this, they're just like looking
at me like, what's wrong with dad?
Why does he always do this and everything?
And sometimes I've been so frustrated that I've been in meetings and I just do this
and my dog just walks out of the room.
She knows that, you know, he is not in a good mood and everything.
So they can sense intent.
So it's not that, you know, what they're doing, it's about how you're with them
and what your true intentions are.
I
Anke: love that, love that.
So, where, what's the best place for people to, to find you, get
in touch with you, work wise or around dogs or any, anything,
and we'll pop the link, you know.
Arcui: So the best way to get in touch with me is via my LinkedIn,
because it's only social media I'm most active on nowadays.
And even if you just look up RKOSR, I'm literally the only one in the world.
So any social media link that comes up, you can connect with me there.
Uh, for my agency work, you can again, get in touch via LinkedIn and soon
there will be a lot more content coming around the organization I'm
building and how I'll be shifting away from running an agency to completely
running an animal welfare organization.
So if you're on LinkedIn and if you're in touch with me, you'll be able to see
all the transitions take place as they happen throughout the next five years.
And yeah.
Anke: Love it, love it.
And I shall have you back for sure when, you know, when you're launching.
So we're going to give you a bigger and a nicer stage to kind of really share it
with people because that's just wonderful.
I really appreciate that.
Thank you so much for coming and I look
Arcui: forward to having you back.
Thank you for having me and it was a wonderful experience and I hope I was of
value to your show and to your community.
Absolutely.
Thanks so much for listening.
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And if you know a pawsome human you think I should interview,
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Email me at Anke.
That's A N k E at Soul touched by dogs.com.