eaceful music) (gentle piano) - Thanks for watching another episode of "My Wisconsin Backyard".

Hi, I'm Traci Neuman.

- And I'm Brian Ewig.

And we're here today in Milwaukee's notoriously dog friendly Third Ward neighborhood.

- Sampson.

- [Person Sitting] Hi.

- He's seven years old.

- [Traci] We learn what it takes for these caring canines to become certified in animal assisted interactions.

- [Brian] We head up to Slinger to meet some kids who have the need for speed.

And we take you to an ice cream shop exclusively for our four-legged friends.

- All right, why don't we introduce you to some of our friends here.

This is Stella with me.

And then we have Ginny, Troubles, Jet, Logan, and Jean.

- Oh, interesting.

You know Traci, WC Fields once said, "You should never work with animals or children".

(Traci laughing) I gotta just move them over just a little bit.

Now who do I hand these to?

- [Traci] Animals I can see.

- What about working with children?

- Brian, I would have no idea about that.

(groovy music) - Would you like to pet her?

- [Person Sitting] Oh, I'd like to pet her.

Oh, she's beautiful.

- Thank you.

- [Person Sitting] Hi, Sunny.

- I think all dogs have a job they need to do.

And this is her job.

- Yeah, what a pretty girl.

- There's something they pick up on.

What it is?

You'd have to ask him.

- It's wonderful.

He's a beautiful dog.

- Nicely done.

- Pets Helping People is a local nonprofit organization.

We've been around since 1998.

And our mission is to train owners and their big hearted dogs to go out into the community and share the canine love with those in need.

- [Camera Person] Nice, beautiful - Dogs are non-judgmental.

They're extremely forgiving and loving and caring without any premise.

- Could I say hello to your dog?

- Yes, this is Sampson.

- Sampson, hi.

- He's seven years old.

- [Person Sitting] Hi Sampson.

- And if you enjoy animals, interacting with a dog is an amazing experience.

You have to have four basic skills mastered, a sit or a down, walking on a loose leash.

We do a two minute stay at the end of a 20 foot lead, and also the leave it command, which is where you have to walk over a scented treat and back again.

And that's really important.

If you're in a hospital or in a hospice situation and a pill gets dropped on the floor, you certainly don't want your dog in harm's way, so they have to have that leave it command mastered.

- For this exercise, we're gonna walk through the doorway, we're not going to eat any treats, and then we're gonna walk right back in.

If you need to, you can use your sterner voice with your dog to tell that leave it.

You can take a real good hustle.

It's hard to bend down and grab treats if you're in constant motion.

And just go through and then come back.

Just that easy.

All right, let's start with Sampson.

You got this.

Yep, absolutely.

Nice.

Beautiful.

Nicely done.

(people clapping) Good job Samson, showing us how it goes.

- Most recently, he started going to the library, Greendale Library, first Saturday of the month for two hours, and he has children read to him.

Dogs, you have to have control of your dog that they're not going to be distracted, or take a pill from somebody, from a patient.

So, they're really important tests.

- All right.

Can we please have Yeti next?

Just give me three good laps and we'll be good.

- He will pick out, at the cancer center, the sickest people and just go and sit with them.

He's been known to sit with people for the whole two hours they're there for infusion.

He has such a calming effect on people.

- All right.

- So do you want me to.

- Yeah, you can just sit or down.

- Oh, put her down there.

- Yeah, just park her down near that round wall feature thing and I'll hold the end of this.

And you're good.

- [Dog Owner] Turn around - [Instructor] And it can be a sit or a down, whichever one you think she'll be more comfortable in.

- [Dog Owner] Sunny, sit.

Okay, stay.

- [Instructor] All right.

And if you'll join me over here.

- [Dog Owner] Stay.

- I noticed Sunny, at a very young age, used to love to go into my mother-in-law's nursing center, and she had dementia.

And she would just lay by her side and just let her pet her, even though she was nonverbal.

And then all the other residents loved her too.

And I knew she had to do something with her life, and this is it.

- [Instructor] And one more good lap, and then we'll be good to go.

Nicely done.

- We have lists of places that have asked for therapy visits.

Hospitals, the VA, we do visits at Sojourner Family Peace Center, women's correctional centers, nursing homes, hospice programs, anywhere that you can think of where a cold nose and a wagging tail would comfort someone is appropriate for pet therapy visiting.

- Hey, come on here.

- Walter, hey, Walter.

- Yeah, yeah.

He's my second wirehair pointer.

I had a female, Josie, before this.

And when we decided that we would get another dog, my wife said, "We can get another dog," and she said, "And I don't care if it's a male or a female, but we're gonna name it Walter."

And so I was glad that the one that I found was a male so that I didn't have a female named Walter.

I'm not quite sure what I would've called her if it had been, but.

So I did a little bit of research on different therapy dog organizations around southeastern Wisconsin.

And Pets Helping People is a smaller, almost strictly volunteer group.

And my father had died in home hospice a number of years ago, and we didn't ever have a pet therapy, or therapy pet to come to visit him.

He's only at home just for less than a week before he died.

But I thought, "Oh, that might be a good organization to get hooked up with."

Hey, come on.

Yeah, yeah.

So, you wanna just come around and say hi to everybody?

Huh?

Yeah.

So you can feel the difference when the black fur at the top of his head is just very, very soft, and the gray is the wiry part.

When I first got Walter and realized what a amazing personality and gentle personality he had, I thought this would be a nice opportunity to be able to kind of pay it forward, I guess.

And I had just been so very, very blessed with him that I thought we would love the opportunity to bless others.

Especially when patients have had dogs themselves in the past.

They are real interesting to talk to.

Everybody has a story one form or fashion, and he just is kind of a story starter.

(gentle guitar) - And he makes us all very happy to have something to share.

I lived with a family of five others in my family, and we had a white Collie.

It's fun.

- Well, it brings back wonderful memories of having been raised with dogs from English bulldogs, to boxers, and then I had Rhodesian Ridgebacks that I showed.

It's comforting, it's soothing, it brings back wonderful memories.

(people laughing) And it brings tears and laughters and smiles.

(upbeat music) - Right now we have some kid's fishing clinics that are going on.

There's 10 different Milwaukee County parks.

The whole purpose, of course, is to introduce kids to fishing, especially in these urban areas where, maybe, families or kids of less access than some others.

- You wanna know where they are and where they're hiding, so that's where you wanna find them.

You wanna find them where they're hiding instead of, like, going for the little ones.

- It's fun, it provides something for the kids to do, but it's a great way to introduce kids to our local parks, of course, the natural resources, fish, and just get them thinking about the environment.

- I just put the worm on, hooked it like two times.

- Typically the structure of these clinics is the kids will go through a couple of stations, learn about fishing and fish in general before they go fishing.

- It goes through that loop, and then it goes back through the loop that you just made.

- So there's a knot tying station where volunteers will teach them how to tie their own fishing knots for either just tying line or learning how to tie lures, in some cases.

There's a fish ID section where they can learn about the fish that they might catch.

Water safety is talked about.

And then one of the other stations too, one of the highlights is actually a cooking and cleaning station where the volunteers will teach them how to clean and cook their own fish.

- I cook 'em for two, three minutes.

And the kids taste them and they just seem to love them.

(upbeat music fades) - [Off Camera] Pow, there you go.

Pow.

- [Fishing guide] Oh, my God.

- [Off Camera] Pow.

- Look at that.

This is good eating, buddy.

These are the ones you want.

- [Off Camera] Wow.

- [Fishing guide] What do you wanna do with him?

Do you want to keep 'em, or do you wanna put 'em back?

- [Fishing Kid] Put 'em back.

- [Fishing guide] Put 'em back?

- The Hunger Task Force was gracious enough to donate some demonstration fish that they stock in here.

And we have some nice big 13, 15 inch perch.

- [Vijay] Take one, grab one.

- Wait, can we keep that?

- That's the bate.

You have to learn to put it on.

You put it on right up here.

- They're so cute.

- This little guy loves fishing, so we are here to do some fishing for him.

He wants to learn, he knows how to fish, but he doesn't know the right way of fishing.

So we are here for that.

And they need to learn more about our natural resources and everything.

And it's something that you do to relax yourself, an activity.

He really loves it.

And I go with him.

I'm not into fishing a whole lot, but I'm doing it for him.

(upbeat music) - [Off Camera] There you go honey.

Perfect, look at you.

Look at that, it's heavy.

- [Fishing Kid] Another fishing rod.

- No, this fish we're keeping.

You wanna keep it?

- I wanna keep it.

- [Fishing guide] Okay, we need a bucket.

- Just the love of fishing and making the kids do some besides sit at home on the electronics.

Get them out in the outdoors and, you know, we're not gonna be around forever, our favorite pastime, bring it to the kids.

- [Fishing Kid 2] I feel like it's just fun to, like, try and catch fish and, like, sometimes you can catch big ones.

You just gotta wait a little bit, until, like, the fish start to, like, actually bite the worm.

- It's fun outside.

It's beautiful to not be on electronics.

Because there's plenty of fish, people are catching fish.

And there's nice fishing here.

(music fades) (peaceful music) - [Traci] To see more of our short stories, check us out on Facebook and Instagram or milwaukeepbs.org.

(peaceful music) (peaceful music continues) (club clacks) (upbeat music) - Who can give me one clue that you can use to go out there and find a sugar maple?

Go ahead.

- When it's opposite.

- [Teacher] So opposite what?

- Opposite branches?

- Everybody do that, opposite branching.

And you have to look up to find that.

But yeah, opposite.

That's a sugar maple, good job.

That's an oak tree down there.

That big one.

So every year we go from the last hole, we go six inches over and up.

So this is where we're gonna tap it.

We're gonna put it in the tree.

And I'm wondering, should we drill it in like this?

- [Students] No.

- [Teacher] No, why not?

- [Students] Because the sap's not gonna come out.

- Right, we wanna use gravity to help us.

We also don't wanna do it like this either, not way down.

We wanna just do a slight, slight angle.

And when you come up here, look and see, you'll see some white wood.

That is called the sapwood, and that's the layer of the tree we're drilling into.

So when you see that, you know we're getting close, okay?

- The physics and the chemistry that makes the sap flow happens when you have freezing nights and warm days.

That triggers the reaction within the cells of the trees that converts the starch to sugar.

And then it's basic physics that creates the pumping action.

In each cell, there's a little bit of gas, I mean just a tiny bit, mostly CO2.

As it freezes, that gas shrinks, it draws the solution that's in the the vesicles of the tree up to that area.

As it warms up during the day that gas expands and it forces that solution to an area of low pressure, which in this case, would be the tap hole.

Basically, for southeast Wisconsin, it's the month of March.

- Okay, remember we made our summac spiles, or our poles.

Well, let's test and see if it really works, okay?

And this is why it's called tapping because you tap a spile into the tree.

Let's be real quiet.

(hammer gently clanking) Okay.

All right, let's see.

Yes.

- Yeah, it's coming.

- [Teacher] Is it coming?

- Yeah.

- Okay.

Now.

- [Students] I see it, I see it.

(upbeat music) - All right.

What are we making?

- [Students] Syrup.

- What kind of syrup?

- [Students] Maple syrup.

- Everybody, like you know it.

What kind of syrup?

- [Students] Maple syrup.

- All right.

We're making maple syrup here, right?

We collected the sap from the trees that you folks helped us tap.

We're bringing it back here, we're boiling the sap.

We call it an evaporator.

And the way it works is we build a fire down here, we really get it hot, the sap gets hotter and hotter, and pretty soon the sap starts to boil.

(heavy door clanking) - So the evaporating process is two step.

We have a reverse osmosis system.

From there, once it's concentrated, the RO unit will concentrate it from the roughly 2% to about 5% sugar.

Once we have it in there, we pump it up into the head tank up there, and from there it's all gravity fed.

And it feeds it into our evaporator system here.

The evaporator system is a two-stage system.

The first stage gets rid of about 70, 75% of the water before sugar.

And then our final stage here takes it to the syrup level.

And in order to get it to syrup, we need to have it at a concentration of about 66% sugar.

And to do that, we need approximately 43 gallons of sap for every gallon of syrup that we produce.

And then we test it to find out, do we have the proper sugar content?

- [Sugarmaker] This arrangement here, the level on the hydrometer should match the level on the dial on the sample cup.

If the hydrometer is floating higher, then we've overcooked.

If it's floating lower, then we're undercooked.

- When the numbers properly match, we have the correct sugar content.

And that's essentially the process.

(upbeat music) - Bud, is that what you want?

- [Carter] Yeah.

- Okay.

Do about five or six laps, okay?

- [Carter] Okay.

(jazzy music, engine revving) - All my friends think it's really fun.

My teachers also really think it's cool.

- People think it's kind of crazy.

(engine revving fast) - It's fun, but it's scary when you, like, spin out or crash.

- What I probably learned out of football that they learned out of the racing karts, the teamwork, the aspect of dedication, and following through with what you do.

- I really like the competing because, when you win the race, then you know that you did something special.

And not very many people can always do that in life.

(engine revving) - Yeah, it is a little nerve-wracking realizing that he goes 60 to almost 70 miles an hour and he's only almost 13.

(engine revving fast) - We just try and go on the track, get faster, and get more practice in so that, when the race day comes, that we're prepared and ready to do our best.

(engine revving fast) - It's all in a controlled environment.

We have all of our fully trained safety staff here, if needed.

Yeah, we make sure that you're not going out and trying this on your own at your house or on the road or anything like that.

Making sure that you're doing it in a controlled environment.

They go through a full tech inspection.

There are some of that going on today to make sure that they have everything that they need.

And then we are also watching as they go out on the track to make sure they have everything on appropriately.

- [Carter] We also have all the protection like five point belt in there.

We have HANS device, a fireproof suit, some fire resistant shoes, gloves, and a HANS device.

That all goes towards how safe we are.

- It's one of those that you're like when we start with the go-karts, you know, they start out, they drive really, really slow and, you know, as their confidence builds and they get used to doing it, they start going faster and faster.

One of the things that we did with my son and we used to let him drive in the yard with it just to get used to it.

- [Person Radio] Good luck kid.

- I grew up working on my car when I started racing.

My dad always made that important that I do a lot of the maintenance on it, you know, changing oil, changing gears.

So I became really mechanically inclined.

And so I'm going for mechanic engineering at UW Milwaukee.

(engine whirring) - My dad really likes it.

It's always been a me and him thing.

My goal is, like, I would really love to make it to NASCAR and become a mechanical engineer, and like work in that field in general.

(engine revving) - My daughter, she loves racing too.

And she rides in the go-kart.

Yeah, there's definitely, that's number one is safety with us.

We have to make sure that they have all the appropriate gear and make sure they're fitting in the vehicle.

Safety is number one.

And just respecting the cart.

- Like it's a little bumpy and you feel like the bumps.

And you kind of feel the wind in by your hands and arms.

(groovy music) - The kids work on both of the cars learning about mechanical stuff, learning about sportsmanship, teamwork.

But I think it's just they keep building their confidence.

And the more they do it, the faster they keep going.

- I think that's really big.

I mean, as a young driver to build confidence just be able to go out by yourself and just run laps.

And then once you get comfortable, you can start trying to drive in a pack.

- And then another goal is I wanna go to NASCAR someday.

- [Mother] It's been really fun with the family and just a great family time and it's just been really cool.

(groovy music, engine revving) (playful music) - [Camera Person] What kind do you like?

- Well, Salty Paws is a doggy ice cream store and bakery.

And we currently have nine flavors of dog ice cream.

Vanilla, banana, peanut butter, bacon, which has been probably the most popular.

We have cheese, blueberry, and we have a carob that is the equivalent to chocolate, only it's dog safe.

(playful music) A lot of dogs are sensitive to dairy.

So we have seven flavors that are made from lactose-free milk.

And we have two flavors made from goats milk, and that makes it easier for the dog to digest.

(playful music) We have dehydrated meats, and we have cookies that you can top the ice cream with.

We also can serve the ice cream in a dog bowl for dine in, we have to-go cups with lids, and then we also do have waffle bowls and cones.

- [Camera Person] You gotta grab it.

- People love to buy treats for their dog, celebrate their dog.

And, so we have cookies, we have cakes, we have whoopie pies, we have cannoli, we have a lot of bakery items that look like they're good enough to eat for a human, but they are all made for dogs.

And, it's just, you know, so Dogs can have a fun, positive experience.

- Domino is a rescue that we adopted, my husband and I adopted in Chicago.

We found out, when we adopted her, that she was born deaf, completely deaf.

She's very food motivated, so treats have helped us a lot teaching her hand signals since she's deaf.

So, we are big fans of treats in the right context.

- We're stopping in today for our puppy, well not puppy, four year old Rider's birthday today.

We like to try new places, and I thought we'd stop here tonight.

Made it right in before close, so we're happy we're here.

- There's actually very few human children in the neighborhood.

Everybody here is a dog owner.

So I think this is the perfect neighborhood for a spot like this.

- The Third Ward is super dog friendly.

And there are, yeah, like probably hundreds of dogs here, which is really awesome.

It's fun to watch them just walk by every day.

The dogs immediately are drawn to the door, which is super fun to see.

Taking a dog for a walk is a good exercise both for them and for people.

So it's a good way to get some extra steps in, some physical activity.

- I think it gets people outta the house to do stuff more with their dogs other than just go outside, go for their walk.

Like, there's a little more interaction, a little more playtime.

It's also really good socialization.

So if you have a dog that needs to work on socialization, this is a good opportunity, a good area to come to.

- [Dog Owner 2] Oh, she likes it.

- [Employee] The cheese is a hit.

- The dogs certainly love the ice cream, but it makes people happy to see their dogs happy.

And really my goal in opening Salty Paws is just to help spread joy and make both dogs and people happy.

(playful music) - Thanks for watching another episode of "My Wisconsin Backyard".

- To see more of our short stories, you can check us out on Facebook and Instagram or Milwaukeepbs.org.

- All right, these guys are getting a little feisty here, I'm glad we're done with the episode.

- Should we say goodbye, Stella?

- All right, let's go.

(peaceful piano) (peaceful piano continues) (gentle chimes)