After 20 years in the U.S. Army and two deployments to Iraq, Rose found the transition home harder than anything she’d faced in uniform. Without the camaraderie and purpose of service, she struggled with anxiety, depression, sleeplessness and nightmares, and she withdrew from the world around her.

Then her fellow wounded warriors pointed her to American Humane Society’s Pups4Patriots program, where she was paired with Tiny Tim, a Labrador Retriever. The two graduated together in December 2024. Today Tiny Tim’s steady routine of meals, walks and playtime gives Rose’s days structure, and she opens the blinds, enjoys the beach and the carnival, and can walk into a busy store and feel safe.

Join Dr. Robin Ganzert for a moving conversation about service, healing and the human-animal bond. In Rose’s words, she never could have known that a hug of paws would save her life.

Most people have never heard of the Indus River dolphin, and it exists nowhere else on Earth. Known locally as the bhulan, it is functionally blind and navigates one of the world’s great rivers entirely by echolocation. Dams and irrigation barrages have shrunk its range by roughly 80 percent, yet it is one of the few river dolphins whose numbers are climbing instead of falling.

On this episode of Robin’s Nest, Dr. Robin Ganzert talks with Dr. Abdul Kabir, a veterinarian and One Health researcher from Sindh, Pakistan, about how dolphins get stranded in irrigation canals, what a rescue looks like, and how fishing communities along the river have become the species’ strongest protectors. They also discuss why zoos and aquariums should be part of the fight, and what this rare comeback can teach the rest of the world.

In this episode:

• What makes the Indus River dolphin so unusual
• How a rescue works when dolphins are trapped in canals
• Why community partnership is the key to recovery
• The case for connecting field conservation to zoos and aquariums

Dr. Yadvendradev Jhala, one of India’s foremost wildlife scientists and a returning Kiessling Prize finalist, rejoins Dr. Robin Ganzert to talk about the species that rarely make headlines. He explains why fewer than 120 Great Indian Bustards remain and how his breeding program became their insurance policy. He also covers his 25 years with Asiatic lions, which descend from fewer than 50 animals and are severely inbred, and his research on the world’s most ancient wolf lineages and on the vulture deaths that led India to ban diclofenac. He says his greatest contribution is the roughly 1,600 conservation practitioners he has trained, and he describes the international field course he would build with the Kiessling Prize.