INTERVIEW: No worries, ‘Amanda to the Rescue’

Photo: Amanda Giese is the star of Amanda to the Rescue. Photo courtesy of Animal Planet / Provided with permission.

Amanda to the Rescue is the new reality series on Animal Planet that follows real-life pet rescuer Amanda Giese as she travels around the United States to help dogs with special needs and big medical troubles. This pet-icular show is meant to be both inspiring and informative, showing the frontlines of how many pets in the country need a helping hand.

Some of the adventures take place in Giese’s home state of Washington, but on the inaugural season, which premieres Sunday, Oct. 28 at 9 p.m., she also travels to Puerto Rico and Hawaii to help shelters and pets in dire circumstances.

Although Giese has grown fond of all pets, her specialty are dogs who find themselves in great need. Helping her with this mission are her two children and partner; together they house many pets in their home and also seek to find “forever homes” for those who are simply stopping by for a few weeks.

Recently, Hollywood Soapbox exchanged emails with Giese about the new show. Questions and answers have been slightly modified for style.

What can audience members expect on the new series?

On the new show, fans can expect to see us travel all across America in natural disaster locations, working with our shelter partners, as well as especially breeders that are surrendering special needs animals to us, and they’re going to see a lot of major medical / special needs animals and hospice animals, as well as a lot of highly adoptable … animals that will be going to our rescue partners. They’re going to see a whole lot of family adventure, cute puppy faces, happy tales (tails!) and happily ever afters.

Is the world a better place for animals today compared to when you began your rescue work?

I do believe that the world is a better place now than when I grew up when it comes to animal advocacy; however, I do not believe we are where we need to be when it comes to animal advocacy and welfare. I think we need much stricter laws. I think we need to actually implement the laws that we currently do have, and we need to hold people accountable to the furthest extent of the law when there is abuse and neglect. I also believe that — not just when it comes to canines, felines and the domestic animals — but when it comes to the wildlife and the agriculture animals, we need better laws when it comes to regulating animal welfare.

How proud are you that your children also took up rescue as their mission?

I am wildly proud as a mother that both of my children are humanitarians deep down in their hearts and that they do act upon their humanitarian cores regularly in their lives. One time, I remember when my son was in the eighth grade, he was running the last track meet of the year, and there was this adorable, young peer of [his] named Sebastian, who had cerebral palsy. And that year Sebastian wanted to run track.

I remember at the meet, Beast gets on the line — and mind you, Beast took first place at every single one of these track meets in his division — and so Beast gets on the line. It’s his last one to go undefeated, and when they take off, Beast is not running at his normal pace. He slows down and runs the entire race side by side right next to Sebastian, and in the end, Sebastian crossed the line before him.

Sebastian’s mother called me and told me that she had never had a moment like that with Sebastian where he was the winner. Beast told me that winning first place wasn’t important to him, but seeing Sebastian win meant to whole world to him — that is what is inside of my son.

And the same thing applies to Jade; she has a bleeding heart for animals and special needs children. She’s come with me to China to work with children who have Down syndrome in the orphanages. Both Jade and Beast are huge advocates and proponents of what we do here in saving the ultimate underdog, so I’m just wildly proud of both of my children.

How can an individual TV viewer — maybe even a child — make a difference for animals and the environment?

I think that being aware is where we need to start with animal advocacy, but also global conservation. I would say just to think about your choices. When it comes to animals, I think the biggest thing we can do is remind our children that they’re a commitment, and they’re a lifelong commitment. There are circumstances that do pop up out of everyone’s control where sometimes that can’t come to fruition. Sometimes it doesn’t work out to be ‘happily ever after.’ For the most part, we need to remind our children that if you commit to an animal, you’re committed to that animal [forever]. That means you have to sacrifice and make adjustments to accommodate to your animals in order to properly care for them.

I think it’s also really important to remind people that kindness really is cool, and treating animals and fellow peers with kindness is really going to show who you are at your core. You want your core and your character to be a kind person because that will eventually help you get ahead in life, and it will make the world a better place.

When did you first fall in love with animals, especially dogs?

I first fell in love with animals when I was an infant. I remember I was in love with the ducks at the local pond, and I would try to feed them. One time, I must have been 2 years old, I reached out with a cracker, and I didn’t want to let go of the cracker because I wanted to pull to duck onto the shore. But the duck was much stronger than me, and it yanked me into the nasty duck pond!

It’s moments like that where I knew I’ve always been drawn to animals. When I was growing [up], my grandma had a farm, and every summer I spent my entire summer on the farm. And so for me, animals were just a way of living; it was my upbringing. It was my whole world.

I remember another time, I was around the fourth grade. I won my first goldfish from the state fair. It was orange when I won it, and I put it in the window sill in its little fish tank. And by the time it passed away four years later, it was white. I’m not sure if the sun bleached it out, but I ended up changing its name to Wizard. I would have full conversations with Wizard, read books with Wizard and teach him my homework, so I know it’s a funny story. But basically animals were always an integrated part of everything I did in life.

Were you immediately open to the idea of being followed by cameras?

I had done documentaries before, so I was definitely open to having a camera crew here. There were certain things that I just felt needed to be restricted to maintain some sort of privacy, but as you’ll see in the series, a lot of that went by the [wayside]. They literally watch me brush my teeth, put my makeup [on] every day, wake up and go to bed, but we have such an amazing film crew that we fell in love with each other right away as a family. We’re a really tight-knit group of people, and there is a lot of trust there. At first, whatever apprehension or fear I might have had quickly fizzled away just because we got along so well, and I knew that they were going to support me in whatever [they] needed and wanted to do.

How big is the crisis involving dogs being in need of rescue, support and proper healthcare?

We’re making positive strides everyday towards the better, but we definitely have a massive gap to still fill when it comes to animal welfare, medical care, affordable medical care because veterinary science is a business. There are a lot of people out there that are incredible animal pet owners, but the financial care to take care of these ailments that pop up are just so astronomical. So we need to find ways to make things more affordable, especially spay and neutering programs. We’ve got to fund more spay and neuter programs hands down as we do still have a massive epidemic. … It comes down to resources available to the public for spay and neuter, and it comes down to education and enforcing the laws that we do have available to us and implementing better laws. We have a long way to go, but hopefully this show will help advocate for where we need to be.

What do you hope viewers change about their lives after watching the series?

I hope that after viewing the entire series, viewers will walk in front of a mirror and ask themselves: What is it that I’m passionate about? What is it that I want to do something about? Whether it’s one day a year, one day a week, I want viewers to ask themselves what they really want to do to take that next, brave step to launch themselves into being a humanitarian. If you want to work with children, the elderly, veterans from the military, animals, wildlife, third world country efforts, whatever it may be, look at yourself in the mirror and ask: What has always tugged at my heart? What is my passion? Then give yourself permission to get out there and do something about it.

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

Amanda to the Rescue premieres Sunday, Oct. 28 at 9 p.m. on Animal Planet. Click here for more information.