149. Moani Makaiwi 

[00:00] Colleen: Welcome to unleashed at work and home. I'm Colleen Pelar, and this is where pet professionals come for honest conversations about what it really takes to show up for yourself while serving the animals you love. If you've ever felt caught between compassion and exhaustion, you're in the right place. Here we explore what it means to reconnect with your inner wisdom and rediscover the joy that brought you to this work.

[01:12] Colleen: Welcome back to unleashed at work, at home. My guest today is Moani Makaiiwi... So tell us a little bit about what that means to be a humane enforcement resource officer, and the acronym for that is hero, which I kind of love. That's an awesome acronym for this job. But tell us a little bit about what that means.

[01:29] Moani: I'm basically in two worlds. I'm on the enforcement side, where I can obviously write a ticket, write a citation, but then I'm also on the other side of pet retention and seeing how I can actually help them instead of citing them. Because we all know when you know, when you're unable to show up to court or anything like that. You know, what good? What good is my citation? You know, is it helping or is it going to make it worse for them? And would it be easier for me to just help them with the solution. So that's my role as a resource officer.

[04:50] Colleen: Do you have a preference for certain parts of your job over others, like you just mentioned the education elements of that that are kicking back in for summer? Is that something that you love for?

[05:01] Moani: I love it, the educational outreach, whether it's with our keiki, our children or our adults or our community as a whole, I love it. I love it because to be, you know, in a way, a lot of folks are, you know, the excuses of when we do respond to our call, especially for cruelty or neglect or something in that range, a lot of is based upon what they were taught. And, you know, obviously it's old school, right? It's old school knowledge. And for me to be able to come on in and educate them with 2025 you know, and help your ways you know. And see that change. I love it, and that's through education.

[08:24] Colleen: Oh, for sure, it's the first thing that we let go of whenever we're under any stress, or, like, all the things that make us feel better. I don't have time for that. Yeah, I currently have a dog who's very reactive to people and other dogs, and so one of the things I've been adding in is just snofaris... I think enrichment super important.

[09:29] Moani: Well, I mean, I think sometimes too, you know, in our profession, right? Because our our profession is to talk a lot, especially for me, you know, in well, I should say for Field Services, right? And pet retention. You know, those that have to deal with the human side, besides the animal side, we have to. It's not like we get to have a pass on that. You know, a lot of us, you know, by the time we're done with the day, we just don't want to talk. You know, we just, we don't want to socialize. We don't want nothing. You know what I mean? And you just like, you're just so overwhelmed with the day and everything that went on.

[13:46] Colleen: Yeah, it is interesting how our coping strategies can sometimes get in the way of of other things. Yeah, the best of intentions, and then it it comes out interpreted by the other person slightly differently than the way we were sending the message or trying to send it. Yeah. So one question I always like to ask people is, like, when you were 10, what did you think you were going to do for a career?

[14:13] Moani: Honestly, at 10, I thought I was gonna go into some type of social welfare.

[14:21] Colleen: Ah, well, what a what a smart 10 year old.

[14:28] Colleen: Can you talk me through? What happened between that 10 year old who thought that and this person here today? How did your career path go? What did walk me what have your jobs been?

[14:41] Moani: Well, let's see. I was a 911 dispatcher, emergency service dispatcher for Maui police department and also for Kingman, Arizona police department. I also worked as a Animal Control dispatcher for Orange County, California. Yeah. So I've been constantly around, you know, the first responder kind of career, life, places.

[18:46] Colleen: So, so how long have you been You said you've been a hero in that role for 1.5 years. That's what my note says. You probably said one and a half, but I'm glancing down at my paper and it says 1.5 pretty sure you didn't say it that way. Have you been back with Maui Humane Society for just a year and a half. Or did you have a role before the hero role?

[19:46] Moani: No, I've always been a Maui Humane Society since 2021 and I started off as a humane enforcement officer.

[20:29] Colleen: Tell me more about that. For the people who won't know the line, what is that line?

[20:35] Moani: Well, you know, as humane enforcement officer, you have a case, and you're kind of limited on, you know, your time frame, our island, you know, we only have so many officers... So when you do have a case, you know, most times we're short staffed, so you're limited, unlike as a resource officer, you know, if, if I am being called to go ask, not ask, but to go help someone, then I'm I kind of have an idea of what they're needing. But at the same time, when I do arrive, like I get to have that time. I don't get to rush. You know what I mean, my time with them, I get to sit there. I get to see, you know, a lot of them are my houseless community members, so I sit there with them. And, I mean, some of them even cook my lunch while we're talking, while I'm playing with their dogs.

[22:35] Colleen: So, you know, I've done that also, what a great role, what a what a wonderful, powerful thing to be doing. I love that, yeah. And it takes something from you, and you love it, yeah.

[22:53] Moani: But sometimes you know, like you said, it takes something, you know, it takes empathy, right? You have to have empathy at its core, but at the same time that empathy can be the one that drains you, that can be that double edged sword for you when you go home, when you try to, you know, clock out, yeah, because now you have sometimes when you give a lot and you don't realize that, then you go home and you're giving nothing, and not even to yourself.

[24:32] Colleen: Which is the hard key learning that we all have to have, is that, you know, like we have to To make sure that we're prioritizing the things that really matter to us, which start with ourself, even though that's where we don't typically start, and then those people that are the family, the connection, the friends, we often give them less because they'll understand and Yes, but when we do, there's a diminishment of ourselves and of those relationships, but also of what we have available to give others.

[26:01] Moani: Well, you know, I just, I just feel like, you know, some of you know, there have been times where, you know, I work and take on so many things, and I don't say no, I say yes. And it's because of that that I'm like, Oh, wow, you know, it's like Molokai, right? Well, who better to send to Molokai? I'm from Molokai. You know, my father was from Molokai. My mom is from Maui, divorced parents. So who better to send to Molokai? One, the Kanaka, the Hawaiian me. Two, the one whose last name is from Molokai. Three, one who knows the island... You say yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And then next thing you know, you forget about all the other things that you kept saying no to that you should have been saying yes to, yeah. And then you lose out on a lot of things, and you lose kind of like a part of yourself too at the same time.

[29:01] Colleen: I ask all of my guests to share some words that have meaning to them, and the words you shared were, it's okay to not be okay. Tell me a little bit about that. When did those words come to you, and what do they mean to you?

[29:01] Moani: Um, you know, I think that came to me more so after the Lahaina fire, you know, I just that whole Yes, then determination, all the above. And then I had to learn that I had to reach out for help after the Lahaina fire, because I wasn't doing okay at all. So, you know, I just kind of learned that it's okay to not be okay. It's okay to say it. It's okay to say not today. Yeah, it's okay to give only 20% we are in this, in this line of work, if you know I feel like you know we are we. We thrive on always giving our 100, right? And if we don't give that 100, it's like, what am I doing? When, in reality, we can't always be giving 100 we can't, we can't third days you're gonna be giving 20% and if you're giving 20, take that PTO, take that vacation. Call sick. Call out sick.

[30:53] Colleen: That's fabulous advice. Are you able to take it yourself?

[30:58] Moani: I am actually just tying up loose end since I've been back from Molokai, because we transfer um dogs, you know? So before I left, we had a lot, a lot of dogs. I had a lot of dogs in foster care, SOS Foster and our channels were full and all this kind of stuff. So I'm actually, yes, I am going to be taking a much needed vacation. I'm gonna jump out of a plane, a perfectly fine, operable plane. I'm gonna pull a Selena and let go and jump.

[31:38] Colleen: It's an interesting experience. I did that a couple years ago. I was like, why am I doing this? Oh, okay.

[35:44] Colleen: So give me before I wrap up. Here. Where there is a little bit of that Hawaii as paradise thing. But that's, that's for those of us who don't live there. And you see, you see all of it. You see the beauty. You know you're going to jump and see the waterfalls and and you get to go in the water when you want to go in the water. And also, you see the hard pieces of the houseless people who are caring for their pets as best they can, and for the the fire and all the hard things that are also a part of the reality, can you just share like one, one element that you think is very different to be a pet professional in Hawaii versus in the continental United States?

[40:57] Moani: Um, I think here it's, it's A huge cultural difference, huge you have, you have those that have been here for generations, right? And we've integrated our cultures, our cultures, right? So not only Hawaiian, you have the Portuguese, Filipino, Chinese, Japanese, and they integrated back in the pineapple field days, the cane field days, you know, so everybody learned about their culture, and we meshed it. That's why our plate lunch is a little bit of everybody, really, that's what it is. It's a little bit of every person.

[44:09] Colleen: Let's hope not. I'm never in favor of a tsunami. Never in favor of that. Pisces. I can swim, so I'm good. No, okay, yeah. There she is in the water, letting her problems out. She can do it. She can do it. You seem uniquely gifted for for, for managing the challenges that come because your sunny attitude and also your ability to be just sort of a straight shooter about what is, I think, that that probably comes in really handy for you in your role with the Resource Officer role. So welcome you. Thank you so much for joining me to talk today. It's been such a pleasure talking to you. Oh, wait, I have one final question I wanted to ask. I almost forgot, if I can give you a magic wand and you could just grant a wish of your choosing for pet professionals, what would it be? What would you give us?

[45:15] Moani: My wish would be for us to see what we give to all of these animals, for us to give to ourselves also.

[45:23] Colleen: Thank you. That's beautiful. That's beautiful. Thank you so much. Moani, it was really a pleasure talking with you today, and thank you so much for your patience with all of our glitches at the beginning.