The Science Pawdcast

Pet Chat July 20th: The Art of Johnny Heim Bringing Pet Stories to Life

• Jason and Kris Zackowski

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Johnny Heim, pet artist extraordinaire, shares his journey from childhood drawings of Snoopy to creating art that has raised thousands of dollars for animal rescues worldwide.

• Started drawing as a child in Winnipeg, perfecting his Snoopy technique during long winters
• Won a shrine circus poster contest in grade six, realizing art could bring tangible rewards
• Drew attention with his "Shark Attack" clothing line while in university
• Used drawing skills in advertising career to help visualize concepts for clients
• Reconnected with art during COVID and began focusing on pet portraits
• Raised over $10,000 with his "We're All Made of Stars" portrait series in memory of Kuno
• Creates all artwork traditionally with ink and paper, no digital tools
• Lives by the motto "I draw because they can't" as motivation for his work
• Collaborates with rescue organizations to raise funds through his artwork
• Helps tell the stories of rescue animals through projects like "Unleashing Tales" books
• Currently lives with Olive, his 8-year-old French Bulldog who "lets him live in her house"
• Finds the most joy when people connect emotionally with his portraits of their pets

Email johnny.heim@gmail.com to inquire about commissions. Find his work on X @JohnHeim or Instagram @art_by_heim.

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Speaker 1:

Hello pet enthusiasts, welcome to Pet Chat. My name is Jason Sikowsky. I'm the dog dad of Bunsen, beaker, bernoulli and Ginger. I guess I'm the cat dad of Ginger, the science animals on social media. My co-host with the mostest is Hi there, I'm Chris Sikowsky.

Speaker 2:

I am the dog mom to Bunsen, beaker and Bernoulli and the cat mom to Ginger.

Speaker 1:

Our guest today that you'll hear from really quick in about five to ten minutes is John Hine, and of course, the fourth camera is the B squad and maybe Ginger. Ginger was throwing herself at the far right hand door trying to get in because apparently there are treats. So we'll start with some quick Q&A about Bunsen, beaker, bernoulli and Ginger. Drop your comment in the chat and Chris and I will get to that, and then we're going to get on with the interview with John. So A Ronan's Journey asks from Instagram. How did Bernoulli get his name? Was it different from Bunsen and Beaker? Chris, do you want to field this one? We've talked about it before, but it's a good story.

Speaker 2:

It is a fun story. It has to do with the origin story of getting Bernoulli. It came quickly, right around May long weekend last year, and I said, jason, I have a lead on Bernice Mountain Dog Puppies and would you be interested in getting a puppy? And you said, of course, but you didn't think it was going to happen. And then I arranged it and we drove up to Grand Prairie, which is a 12 hour round trip for us.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

There was a long drive and then I said okay, so we're going to meet the puppies. There are six males, four females and you see, your criteria was that we had to have a male.

Speaker 4:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

And then we had to name with a, b, yeah, name starting with b, yeah. So we drove up, we met all the cute puppies. They were so cute, I wanted all of them. I actually wanted to get two you did want to get two yeah, but we ended up picking red, red collar puppy big red, big red big red. Yeah, he actually lives up to big red, like that he's big.

Speaker 2:

Gets a little longer, something a little longer with Big Red. That's a commercial from my childhood, but anyway, so we're driving home and we're thinking of names and science. Names, of course, to tie with our theme.

Speaker 7:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And I was looking at a bunch of lists and finally I just said what about Bernoulli? And I knew it was the right one, because Jason's voice also caught and he said yep, that's perfect.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, bernoulli is a Swiss scientist, swiss German. The Swiss want to claim Bernoulli and the Germans want to claim Bernoulli. Bernice Mountain Dogs are, of course, a Swiss breed. Want to claim Bernoulli. Bernice Mountain Dogs are, of course, a Swiss breed. So that fit. And what made my voice catch was our account tries to promote kindness and science and provide lift, and that is one of the main principles of Bernoulli's. Principle is the principle of lift. At least it became lift after many years. Bernoulli was not alive when planes were flying, but his principles of changing pressures due to speed is how planes fly and it's now called the principle of lift. So that's where Bernoulli's name came from. Thanks for that great question. Okay, we got another one from Instagram.

Speaker 1:

Cheryl asks was the crew over the moon happy when you got home? And yes, yeah, they were all very happy. I don't think they were as bananas as I thought they would be. They were very happy to see us, as is really any pet when you leave for a while. There was some concern that Ginger would have some shenanigans be angry at us that we left, as I see Donna's here and I'm glad Donna's here. Donna Craig says that her cat sometimes acts up when she's gone, but Ginger was fine. She was happy to see us all. Any questions in the chat from Twitter, chris.

Speaker 2:

Before I read more from Instagram yeah, the question is Chris, before I read more from Instagram. Yeah, the question is what brand of?

Speaker 1:

vacuum cleaner do we have? We had a really awesome. What is it? A little it's a Dyson one that that just for like for spot cleaning Right, but it is beat up. I don't know if I would recommend it. I don't know.

Speaker 2:

But we have a central vac, yeah, so we have a central vac.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so we have a central vac. Yeah, we're pretty fortunate to have a central vac. It allows you can vacuum the house every day very quickly. We don't vacuum every day, but we do vacuum, probably twice a week for sure, or sweep or more, if company's coming over and we don't want them to see the dog hair that it piles up in the corners. So that's the vacuum question.

Speaker 2:

Don't be under the couch. Oh yeah, Not Tumbleweed City under the couch.

Speaker 1:

Sue Cracks is wondering if it was Grand Prairie, texas, and that would be a lot more than a six-hour drive. No, that's Grand Prairie, texas and that would be a lot more than a six hour drive. No, that's Grand Prairie, alberta, canada. We're Canadian and we live in Alberta, so that would be a heck of a thing to get a dog from Texas. Not impossible, just improbable.

Speaker 2:

And they have new regulations going over the border now with animals. So that came in recently, I want to say within the last two years which is smart like I'm, I think you shouldn't have like.

Speaker 1:

Pets go willy-nilly everywhere. They can bring disease and it doesn't take much for a dog, for example, with rabies, to shut down an entire area and cause some really serious ramifications. So I understand the caution when you bring animals across.

Speaker 2:

What about a tapeworm cyst?

Speaker 1:

A tapeworm cyst. I think that probably traveled in wolf or coyote, Chris, Though yeah, Okay looks like we're out of looks like all the questions have dried up, which is usually the case between the five and 10 minute Mark. Do you see any other questions before we get going?

Speaker 2:

I don't, but sometimes my feed doesn't refresh.

Speaker 1:

It is working on YouTube because Mark is watching from YouTube and dropped a comment from YouTube. Hi, jason, chris and Johnny and B squad and Madison is watching on Facebook I like the little icons that come up and Caleb is watching on Twitter and, unfortunately for the Instagram folks, you guys are on a separate page. All right, looks like we're out of questions, but that's fine. We've got a bunch of questions for our guest, so I'd like to introduce John today. John, how you doing?

Speaker 7:

I'm doing very well. Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1:

Now, the folks on Twitter or X probably know you best because that's where you're the most active and you do a ton of artwork for cats and dogs and oh, we got tons of hearts and claps showing up in the chat for you, John, on Twitter, which is really sweet.

Speaker 7:

I was thinking that the audience.

Speaker 1:

I don't know. I don't know if you can see that people are dropping hearts and stuff. Sorry, go ahead, john.

Speaker 7:

I was just going to say I was hoping that the audience wasn't what I'm looking at on the B squad there, because they're a little hostile. Yeah, that's the effect I have on people, that just yeah, eventually this is what happens.

Speaker 1:

That's like my chemistry class in block seven in June. That's what all the kids look like.

Speaker 7:

In June. That doesn't work?

Speaker 1:

No, even that's how.

Speaker 3:

I felt in.

Speaker 1:

June. I guess my first question for you, John, is what got you into doing art Like you are? You do all of these really cool cartoons. The big one I think people are familiar with is you did an awesome fundraiser for Marla in memory of Kuno, but where did your art start?

Speaker 7:

I think it started as a young child in Winnipeg, with long winters just locking myself in the room and learning how to draw Snoopy, like I think just about everyone else on earth did. Perfected Snoopy mastered the Charlie Brown head, which was basically making sure that both ends of the circle kind of matched up around his ear, and then I just always was doodling rather than paying attention. I think I had more cartoons and notes all the way through elementary and then I'm on the older side. So in grade six it was 1976. And I recall entering a shrine circus poster contest just in the open area at the school and I ended up winning and it was just this ensemble collage of folks in trapeze on the tightrope, just maybe an elephant or two. And then we won, the family won tickets to the shrine circus, which at that point I realized there's money in this, there's perks. I'm gonna live large now I'm just gonna draw.

Speaker 7:

Actually, and for summer jobs I worked at a place called Falcon Lake in a provincial park and I started drawing cartoons, for they had a beach canteen. Yeah well, I drew folks climbing up a ladder trying to access like a giant drink. I did some stuff. I came up with a line of like clothing called shark attack in early university and I got some stuff silk screened and I kind of learned the business of taking an idea and actually turning it into something. Yeah, so at the time I just had there was a market days at the university and I just opened, I drew a shark on a hanger and put the t-shirt on him and it was shark attack three fins and people were giving me 15 bucks. And then I migrated into sort of advertising and being able to animate and draw for a client helped visualize. It, just removed a step and actually helped me close some sales.

Speaker 7:

And now that I'm retired I started drawing again during COVID and did quite a bit of work with the Hurt folks. Owen Wilson and Lucille Ball were pretty easy to draw. Chihuahuas are funny because I usually make them kind of cross-eyed so their eyes aren't quite lining up, just that's. And then put some jewelry on them and it just started building. And now now I do it for fun and I've aligned with the pet community on x or twitter. At the time and, although I'm surprised, I saw I was up to over a thousand followers on instagram, which is an easier way for folks to see my art because, because Twitter is basically like walking outside in the morning and throwing pieces of paper in the air and hoping to find them somewhere. As far as art is concerned, it's tough, yeah, yeah. So at least there's like a central repository there for art on Instagram and then Blue.

Speaker 7:

Sky a little bit, but that seems to be. You can get fragmented pretty quick with posting same content across multiple platforms, so our X is like home base, and then Instagram offers at least the ability to look at all the art.

Speaker 1:

We have some speaker requests on Twitter. We just have a couple more questions for John and then we'll open up the floor to questions for you from the audience, if that's okay. Chris, do you have any questions?

Speaker 2:

someone had posted about a book that you helped, I guess, illustrate called the rose, and can you explain a little bit more about that? Like it's for raising money for rescues or can you, yeah.

Speaker 7:

So I was approached by erica, who is someone I've just met through X and she's a writer and lives in Buffalo, new York, and reached out and said we'd like to do something around generating content around the stories that these pets have gone through and hopefully raise some money. So we did one I illustrated the first one and she wrote it some money.

Speaker 7:

So we did one I illustrated the first one and she wrote it and we did it in conjunction with Kathy at Rescue Co-op and Lola Patola I think it's the little pup's name. So we ended up doing this book and then she launched a little company called Unleashing Tales. The idea I think we up to a hundred books with about 600 bucks going back to with royalties back to the rescue. But the idea is to empower kids and schools to write stories about their local rescues, illustrate, write them and raise funds for them, taking them through the process of story writing and being a little bit altruistic and learning that it's not just about being on your iPad all day. There are places that you can be on it but maybe with an eye for harnessing some creative power and really just unleashing your creativity and generating some great content and telling these pet stories. All these pets have usually horrible stories I have been doing a little bit of. I follow I think it's good doggo, and the guy is it neil?

Speaker 2:

nall in in thailand yeah, yeah, nile, nile harbison yeah.

Speaker 7:

So he just sort of randomly started drawing some of the stuff there and just doing the background and watching the videos. What he goes through and his team goes through to basically just keep these dogs alive and then hopefully find forever homes for them, was quite compelling. When you dig a little deeper and then just the dog community on twitter like the efforts that people go to to travel and get dogs rescued, and rescued from kill, shelters and just some of the horrific things that people do to pets is just it's sickening. But a lot of times, through the efforts of this community, these dogs have a future and they live to bring joy to the folks that end up adopting them and and then they get a little few extra ear scritches and get to live out there for the rest of their days in a loving home. So that's why I do it.

Speaker 7:

I draw because they can't. That's my motto and I started drawing. There's a little dog called Deke who visits little cancer kids and so I started drawing some of that. He's got like a little you can appreciate a little shirt he wears around and visits kids on their hospital beds. It just brings 15 minutes of joy to an otherwise sad situation.

Speaker 4:

I love doing it. It comes easy to me, but I do work at it.

Speaker 7:

And I make sure that that folks have something fun to remember their pets with. But the one I did for Marla it was we're all made of stars. I believe I was listening to a Moby song. Yeah, it sort of stuck in my mind and Kuno had just passed away and I knew she was going through a lot of hardship with the loss and even just like the training that that he had gone through to help her with just her daily, just getting through the day and just I know Chesney was like in the wings. But so that one I just thought I'd draw. I'd hand draw individually five or ten ready to help raise some money, and I threw it out there and I woke up and there was like 89 requests yeah so I'm not really set up for that.

Speaker 7:

So I ended up drawing and doing prints. But the biggest, the biggest part of that, truthfully, was people were getting hold of me on Instagram and direct messaging on Twitter and then they would send me like a PayPal donation with their real name and I'd have to match that up against their Twitter handle, yeah, their mailing address, and then I've been hacked on PayPal. So there's a thousand of me on there now, so I actually have to go in and send an email request to everybody. So there was. It just became this hydrated monster, but we ended up getting over a hundred out. I think we raised just over $10,000.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that was amazing. Yeah, we have two of those prints actually.

Speaker 7:

That's right. Yeah, you guys were quite generous, so thank you for that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, guys were quite generous, so thank you for that. Yeah, we have one, I've you have one in your above, in your school.

Speaker 2:

Right, chris, you took it to your school. Yeah, and it's, they're framed. Yeah, I love them. I love kuno. We were fortunate to be able to go to the red deer dog show and marla and kuno and chesney definitely participated there and I brought him a burger and he's such a good boy. He was such a good boy like he would hold it in his mouth and beaker would scarf that down in three seconds. There's no weight, no impulse control. But Kuno was just, I don't know, he had this presence. You would go and he would sit with you and you're just relaxed and just rub him and Chesney is like the cutest gushiest cute ever, like she's such a sweetheart. But they're very different. They had very different personalities and Kuno definitely was a special dog.

Speaker 7:

I recall like he would do the weather right, so we'd have a tie on and he'd just be out doing the weather, and so I started drawing him on his own, and then whenever there's two dogs living together, there's way more opportunity for dialogue between them. Yeah, somebody's done something they shouldn't have or they're conspiring against something. Yeah, usually I mentioned earlier you can never go wrong in a cartoon with a squirrel throwing an acorn at somebody. That just lends itself to imagining what's happening next or what happened just before that. So I like to leave a little bit of whimsy in my cartoons and get people to think of what might have happened just before that. So I like to leave a little bit of whimsy in my cartoons and get people to think of what might have happened just before I drew that or what they're looking at yeah, I'll tell you writing text from bunsen way easier now than when we just had just bunsen.

Speaker 7:

That was yeah tough he says, yeah, you're trying to get in his head, but now you can lay that over, ginger. Now, yeah, the cats always have such an attitude that I often hope somebody has a cat and some dogs, because that immediately sets up some degree of chaos.

Speaker 1:

That's funny. Okay, one more question for you, and then we'll get to everybody waiting patiently, and that's just about your own pets. Do you have any currently? Do you have any stories from pets that are no longer?

Speaker 7:

with you. I have none. My first pet was a budgie Okay, and that was growing up. Her name, creatively enough, at the time was Pretty Girl. And our family went on vacation and we left the bird with our backyard neighbors and we were all very anxious to get home. And we got home and they handed the cage over the fence and it was a completely different color bird and they had switched out the bird. The bird apparently had flown away while we were on holidays and they tried to pawn off a blue bird when we gave them, like a green and yellow budgie.

Speaker 7:

So I was traumatized and I still imagine pretty girls out there living a very fruitful life, maybe not pushing a shopping cart around with recycling in it, but she's just enjoying herself all these years later. Since then I've had four Basset Hounds which is a story in and of itself, and two at one time, and they both liked to be on the bed when we had two kids. So a very busy part of my life was the early, like late 90s. We had two Basset Hounds and two little girls in the house so that we had the parade that would go down the road and then we had the basset hounds.

Speaker 7:

Like they're a beautiful dog, they're very stubborn. You could be out for an hour and a half and still be on your front yard. Um yeah, they and their ears get very smelly and they drag. They were bred to keep trap the smell in their ears, right. So it was near their nose and so their dewlap and yeah, so we.

Speaker 7:

So I've had to say goodbye to four dogs, which is never fun, honestly, and as much as you like to give them the last meal and stuff, it's just that drive home is just. You get over it and you try to, but then you see something under a couch and you're like, oh my god, yeah, and now, right now, I have all of them. She's an eight-year-old French bulldog. Aw, she lets us live in her house, which is very nice, and my wife wants to get a parrotlet A what sorry, a parrotlet.

Speaker 7:

It's a new breed of bird, it's like a little parrot. Oh, she has a friend who has one who has a dog also and we get videos of the bird on the dog's back and they're playing. And we get videos of the bird on the dog's back and we're playing. I just don't know if Olive would instantly eat it Kind of Sylvester and Tweety. But anyway, olive is. She's a little firecracker for sure. So I do get some inspiration on general dog behavior, not breed specific. We have a big log pile in the backyard and Olive will climb it and pull the log out and sit down and chew all the bark off of it.

Speaker 1:

For no reason, absolutely no reason whatsoever it must be delicious.

Speaker 7:

I'm assuming it's got something in there that she needs. I have to get the leaf blower out every night just to clear off the patio. She's a treat. I love her.

Speaker 1:

Alright, thanks for the stories. And it's always. It's wistful to remember the dogs you've lost, but then there's also that tinge of sadness too. But I appreciate you telling everybody where is, where's, the current dog at your feet? She's in the backyard barking right now she's barking.

Speaker 7:

I've got some. We've in the last two, we've had one, two, three, four, five dogs move in around us, Okay, and she's going insane. I'm trying to work on how to not get her to bark in the backyard. Her hair stands up like a wolverine and she just gets. She actually barks so aggressively she hops backwards. It's very comical to see.

Speaker 1:

But she's outside barking right now awesome not my problem currently okay, we have a bunch of people who are requesting. My guess is they want to talk to you, john, or ask you a question, if I owe anybody money, we can talk offline okay, sounds good.

Speaker 1:

What we're gonna do is'm going to try and keep it somewhat organized. So we do have we're on four different platforms right now. So we'll start with maybe somebody on Twitter spaces and then we'll go to one of the comments from people watching live and then, for people who are watching live, you're going to hear the voice of the person asking the question. I mean, you are not going to be able to see them because they're on X spaces, so just it might be. You might like who's talking? Where's that voice coming from? But that's what that is. Okay, we'll go to the herd who requested the mic.

Speaker 2:

Hello, Hi Jason, Hi Tina, how are you? It's in ages. It has been a while we Dean how?

Speaker 8:

are you? It's in ages. It has been a while. We've missed you. I have a food and medication schedule that I finagled.

Speaker 8:

This time while I was I had y'all on mute for a little bit there. I wanted to say hello voice to Johnny and thank him for everything he has done for us. I don't know exactly how he stumbled on us, but it was with Owen Wilson. I dropped a couple pictures. In the comments there's like a 15-second sketch that he's probably mortified that I put up. But for whatever reason, that's the very first piece of artwork I saved. My phone is full of his artwork. He drew a picture of these. I have one pair of pink boots and he immortalized them and it became a thing and everybody thinks that I love pink, which I don't. I will give pink gifts with love because I know it comes from the heart, but it is absolutely not my color. But it is my color because of this sketch that Johnny did for me.

Speaker 8:

Most recently he helped me raise funds for Catherine O'Hara. She's a senior diabetic chihuahua who had about 10% of her vision left clouded over from diabetic cataracts. Diabetic cataracts almost always turn into glaucoma. The cataracts themselves are not painful. Glaucoma is a pressure in the eye kind of thing, and it is extremely painful for dogs like downright excruciating. Painful for dogs, like downright excruciating. And within a week of picking up Catherine, I picked up another dog who had the cataracts and glaucoma. Her eyes were so bad I couldn't even show them online. I couldn't let that happen again. So John did this fundraiser and, yeah, we raised over 50% of her bill just from that fundraiser. He doesn't owe me any money and we'll clear that one up, but he's a fabulous artist and it's been like watching Ant and Tram of the Puff Dog family grow up. John was a very small account when he approached me and I fully exploited him. I don't take credit because it's all him, but I'd like to think that I pushed him into the ocean.

Speaker 8:

That is dog Twitter and cat Twitter and critters. So he draws my critters too. He did some great pieces of my bearded dragon. He also oh, owen Wilson. He was very ill. We nearly lost him around his first birthday.

Speaker 8:

I bought him the stuffed giraffe with giant long legs because Owen had the giant long legs. Owen proceeded to destroy this poor animal and it became a daily update thing and we called it the Jeffrey Files. I would like to make it very clear this is Jeffrey with a G, not that other Jeffrey files, because they're just bad and we don't want to talk. But yeah there's. I put a picture up of the files that he made. There was just that's just a small sample. There were hundreds of them. I would like to report back that Jeffrey was saved by the help of the Bunsen Stuffy. I can't find the video of that, but it was the Bunsen Stuffy 1.0. Sebastian from we Rate Dogs and I had the live Twitter feed going along with it and it has a very special place in my heart because they don't make the jeffrey giraffe anymore. They don't kind of like a baby with their favorite binky or pacifier. That if it's not that they don't want it I love drawing your animals.

Speaker 7:

I try to get to the couch shots every Friday. Oh my gosh, that's got to be hard. I can't imagine a lead up to get everybody just sitting there.

Speaker 8:

They are so good I have been doing it so long that the new dogs catch right on and they know they're getting a piece of Owen's special food. Owen's food is very expensive, it's also very smelly, and the dogs go wild for it. So that's their big treat for the week.

Speaker 7:

So I do have to ask, because you do more than you do dogs and cats, but you do bearded lizards. I do have to ask about Turkey. Is he still around?

Speaker 8:

I don't have Turkey anymore. He had a disease called hole in the head and it's exactly as bad as it sounds. I do have a little tank right now with the glow glows like the go-go's. There's some glow fish. I have three frogs that started as Morgan Freeman and Morgan Fairchild. I lost one of them, so I got a couple more and now it's Morgan and Morgan and Vivian Law.

Speaker 8:

I have a little community of snails that are keeping it clean for me, so it's super low maintenance. Yay for Herd Mom, because everything else is high maintenance. I also have a general pet chat update. I know there's some of our mutual followers on here and maybe some of your followers remember me from a while back, but two of my parapups Kiefer Sutherland, who's been paralyzed from the shoulders back for two years, is ready to start walking. He's crawling with both legs. He's standing up, holding it. He's figuring out how to move his legs with help from me, and I don't know if little Barry with spina bifida, who should never be walking, has been watching us or what, but I've been working on getting a dislocated knee back in place for him and he took two whole real life steps this afternoon.

Speaker 1:

Amazing, that is amazing.

Speaker 8:

I saw your posts about it earlier and I was like whoa, yeah I was like whoa, so here I'll repost it, and that way, if you want to share that one, because it is good and for folks, for example that Facebook and YouTube, who maybe aren't familiar with who you are.

Speaker 1:

You are a registered nonprofit and you basically help out dogs that have special needs, right Do the most extreme special needs.

Speaker 8:

Some of them are not extreme but for the folks off platform, I do have a very small Facebook. I had a private issue that I don't want to discuss with Instagram. Maybe we'll go back someday. I have a dog that has no back legs. I have paralyzed dogs, I have blind, I have deaf. I do a lot of medical rehabilitation as a foster mom for animals that need amputations, animals that need amputations. I never thought I would be an expert in the care of such a procedure, but I am and I'm very honored that they let me help them.

Speaker 2:

And then you also help organize cross-country travels like remember Nacho, yes, the Nacho run.

Speaker 8:

Nacho was brought into my veterinarian with bags of medicine and a stack of veterinary papers. That turned out not to be really the situation, but he was a golden retriever and too big for my house, so where does he need to go? The golden ratio in the Florida Keys. We got together, we got. This was my first big run and from Idaho to the Florida Keys it took about a week. We had a ton of volunteers. The whole internet watched this thing. It was in the news. Two-time Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Gwen Fiosa, mom to the dog Sergio. You should check them out. Shameless plug there. She wrote a lovely article about it and that kind of made me want to get more involved with that.

Speaker 8:

Most of my dogs end up getting adopted out of area, off of the social media posts. People make connections with them. I always do the first part of the travel and get them at the very least to Utah. I have gone to Florida and as far as Florida on one side, Los Angeles on the other, for dogs that have ended up staying here. I help people out for dogs that are not even mine ended up staying here. I help people out for dogs that are not even mine. It's one of the coolest things you can do is help get a dog to their forever home. Cats, I think, are easier to travel with, but that hasn't really been. Nobody really jumps at taking a new cat in a carrier. I can't blame them for that.

Speaker 7:

Cats are super particular at the Starbucks drive-thru too, so you don't want to travel with cats.

Speaker 8:

No, they don't mix well with Starbucks.

Speaker 7:

They're really demanding.

Speaker 8:

Yes, that other magic window though that has the broken ice cream machines. I won't plug them. They have some good ice cream and cats. Some cats love cream, some don't. I have one that requires milk on the floor every day, can't be in a dish, can't be on a counter, has to be floor milk and a couple of drops and she tootles off.

Speaker 2:

Oh, that's cute. Thank you so much for all that you do, Teen, and for stepping up to speak. We really definitely appreciate it and I know that you've been excited to talk to John, to Johnny, here, so thank you for giving me the open mic.

Speaker 8:

I probably took up a lot of time, so I'm going to say goodbye and go feed some dogs.

Speaker 1:

It was really good to hear you, hear from you. Ok, love you guys. Bye, ok, take care, we'll do a couple of comments. Then we'll get to another speaker. Mark, who's watching on YouTube, says Johnny, love the cartoon you did of ginger.

Speaker 7:

Do you need an eraser? We talked about that just before. Right, yeah.

Speaker 1:

And on Instagram, ice Goddess says we love seeing your work when it's posted on X, so people are just dropping comments about they love your art, john. Most people on Instagram, I think, are just watching right now. There's not a lot of comments, no. So there's no comments or questions on Instagram right now, so we will go to who came up next.

Speaker 2:

Chris, I was just I was just gonna say mark the comment there, mark has a beagle named ginger. Yeah, and she's sure a cutie. I don't know, jason, you brought everybody up. I think sasha the bernadoodle was next and then, so we'll go to sasha, or it's actually. Ho, hi, holly, hi.

Speaker 5:

Chris, hi Jason. Hello, I'm good and just wanted to say I'm so glad you guys enjoyed your week on my little island here.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. It was awesome.

Speaker 5:

That was awesome. Sasha misses you, of course. She loved all the cuddles and loves, but I wanted to give a huge thank you to John for Sasha's birthday drawing. It was I. Just we absolutely love it and she has been my little Muppet since the first time I ever saw her, and there's a little story there. I've been calling her a Muppet since she was a little puppy and when she was about six months old, some friends of ours from Seattle came up to visit and they walked in, met Sasha, and one of them just she says instantly my God, you're right, she is a Muppet. So, yes, next step is to get that mounted and framed and add it to my Sasha art collection. So thank you so much for that. We love it.

Speaker 1:

And I think we got to see that in person, didn't we, Holly?

Speaker 5:

Yes, I showed it to you when you guys were here.

Speaker 1:

Yes, we saw the art in person, john, because we had supper with Holly and Colin and then we went back to their place and got to meet Sasha and Toby.

Speaker 5:

It was awesome. Yes and yes, and I don't think they're listening, but obviously a huge thanks to the mom of beagle bow and beagle sky for commissioning that for us, so I absolutely love it awesome.

Speaker 1:

Okay, we'll go to paula, who's on x, and then jamie hi paula hi, hi everybody.

Speaker 6:

Hi, johnny, nice to see you and hear you on x. This is so exciting I'm I couldn't wait to see this and hear this welcome. I have a I put in the chat. I have a piece by that johnny did of a late olive I love the name, by the way, your dog, your frenchie, and my angel olive and angel Rosie, with Annie Arpulli and I actually got a gift of Marla's painting of Kuno, so I just had them framed together and I got it back yesterday. So I'm pretty excited about it, but I just showed half of it for mine.

Speaker 6:

But you did an awesome job. We just love you. So we we just want to know is there any? What is your favorite animal to draw? And I see a sloth on your wall behind you and I didn't know if that was like one of your favorite animals or is there something that you said oh gosh, I can't draw it. So it's a combo question what's your favorite thing to draw? But is there an animal or dog breed that you came across? And you're like man, I just can't get this character and you stumped on it and thank you for all you do for Marlon the Herd.

Speaker 7:

I think you're an angel. So thank you very much, Welcome. Thank you for thanks, for all the kind words. So yeah, my drawing style has changed quite a bit. I look back at I've probably got a thousand drawings here in my studio that just aren't going anywhere. But if I look at like a sheet, like a stack of photocopy paper about 500 sheets I've probably got six or seven stacks the same size of just random art. So that I got that. It's a sort of a stuffy sloth. I can't have it near the ground or my olive will demolish it. But I got that at a tech conference and I call they were giving them away at a booth and I couldn't not bring one home. So that's my motivational sloth. It usually has a cartoon bubble beside it that says get to work. It's somewhere around my studio here.

Speaker 7:

As far as the funnest things, probably the most common dog I've been drawing are beagles. I do a lot of work with a rescue co-op and then Skye and Bo are both beagles and they're just easy to draw. They have a fun snout. But I'm trying to test the limits on my like a lot of my drawing I just get comfortable with certain poses and I'm trying to. I'm going through all my Disney books and my Warner Brothers books and just looking at the different leg positions of dogs and how they open their mouth and kind of their facial expressions, their heads turning one way but their body is the other, just getting the cadence down for when they're walking, making sure the legs because the legs are alternating so they're not both out front at the same time, one's back and the middle. It's just weird between running and walking there's different ways the dogs and animals in general with four legs move. So I try to make sure I'm getting a little bit more accurate in my depictions. Even though they're cartoons there's some thought that goes into them.

Speaker 7:

I've tried to draw times barry when he's been wet and just not. I'm just trying not to always be so like particular with where the lines fall and when you've got a wet dog and you're just drawing with ink, which I should just mention now. I just draw ink and paper and markers. I don't do anything digital. If someone needs something digital, I end up taking what I've done and just scanning it. In some horrific cases I've gone through the process of inking it and coloring it on the good paper and then realizing I've got the dog's name wrong, I've misspelt it, so that goes in the garbage and I have to start all over again.

Speaker 7:

Yeah, yeah. So, Paul, I'd like. Beagles are easy to draw. I'd start to stretch down. I've done some. Birds and cats are fun to draw too, especially cats in the cat tree or cat condos where they're scratching or they're glazing. But I just try to like, and then lots of people ask me to put themselves in with their pet. So I'm trying to get better at drawing people. I'm not quite a caricaturist. Those guys seem to have a certain vibe to their output. I don't draw that way. And then, yeah, just having a conversation between the pets we talked about with Jason earlier, about when there's more than one animal in the picture. It's so much more fun to create a bit of a conversation with the pets, so it creates some dynamics and it doesn't get old because you smile at it all the time.

Speaker 6:

That's great. Thank you very much. I think it's great. I can see you evolving. I've been watching you for quite a number of years now. It's really awesome to see how you've been growing and going into different avenues. So congratulations. I hope, too, that you maybe do a book on your own too, so that would be great. Or something good comes along too. Great job, and again, thank you for everything that you do.

Speaker 7:

I appreciate the kind words and thanks for following us all.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for the comment, paula. I do have to say you did draw me with Ginger, like you did a picture of me with Ginger, and you definitely made me look like commander shepherd from the mass effect video game. So I do appreciate you can shave.

Speaker 7:

I was very generous with you, jason.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you definitely shaved off. Some of my neck fat look pretty svelte in the picture you drew, so I appreciate that it was more about ginger.

Speaker 7:

Why does it always come back to you? What, oh no, the drawing. You know what I mean. It's always about you the drawing of.

Speaker 1:

I'll share the picture for people who are watching live. Yeah, the drawing of ginger is very cute, and that one we have up on the wall in our house too. Oh, oh, that's the wrong button.

Speaker 7:

One second. You just got the one of you and Ginger on your shoulders. Right, that just arrived.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, that's the one I'm talking about, yeah, so people are watching live.

Speaker 1:

You can see that. Great job, thank you.

Speaker 2:

You got the holiday five o'clock shadow there. Jason gets that by. If he shaves at 6 am, he gets that by, I don't know 7.05.

Speaker 8:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

He just all of a sudden boom, he's a chia pet. Yeah, it just grows very quickly.

Speaker 1:

I am very close to an orangutan in my family tree. Okay, thanks, paula. We'll go to Jamie and then to Donna and then we'll get to some comments, because a couple have popped up. Hi, jamie, hello.

Speaker 2:

Hi Jamie, Hello.

Speaker 3:

Hello, sorry, it has been so very long. I've been really busy with work and hiking and work and hiking and dogs and all that sort of stuff. But, john, thank you very much for all your artwork. I don't have one personally, but I love seeing them when you post them. They are well done and so amusing in so many cases. So thank you very much.

Speaker 7:

Sometimes I think I'm posting too much stuff.

Speaker 7:

No, no Now that I'm retired from the workforce. I've spent a lot of time here at my drafting desk and drawing, drawing, so not a lot of it. I would say 80% of it makes it to the airways, but there's some stuff that it doesn't. I've tried not to be political. I've learned that people aren't following me to hear about my world vision of politics. I've stopped putting anything orange in my cartoons it's all about the pets Because I've actually had people say John, I'm not following you to hear your views on US politics, so lay off. And I said OK, and I said okay.

Speaker 3:

That's a true story. Coming from Australia, our views of US politics are possibly similar to yours, but yes, your pet pictures are beautiful. Thank you very much. And from pet news here Rosie's doing well, river's doing well, tennessee's doing well, the chicken's not so good. The dingo that lives in our street managed to get in and take away maybe 11 birds over the last two months. Oh yeah, yeah, and I think Jackie was one of them, which is a bit sad. We're very. The fences have been repaired and we're very careful with putting them away at night and the dogs don't. The dogs don't actually do anything about keeping him out, which is a bit of a pest, but Rosie's. It's the middle of North Queensland, winter, so winter in the tropics. So we got down to seven degrees the other day, which was just bitterly cold for townsville, and rosie still went swimming because she's just insane I'm glad to hear all the dogs are well and I'm sorry to hear about the chickens.

Speaker 1:

I know gourd lost a duck to an owl, didn't he one of his ducks, which was very yeah?

Speaker 2:

and then we recently had a weasel come in to the coop yeah and it took a big hunk out of a chicken's neck and the chicken survived, and so they put polysporin on it so it didn't get infected. But now it's like a growth like the corpus. What is it that cordyceps? The cordyceps is like an alien. I know it's not a good look, it's not a good look, but the chicken's alive.

Speaker 1:

Chris, it's a giant scab and the chicken is doing fine.

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Speaker 5:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

The chicken is fine, it just has the way it healed.

Speaker 4:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

Thank you very much and I hope to try and get back in more often, just being so busy. And, donna, it is lovely to see you here.

Speaker 7:

Thanks for calling in.

Speaker 1:

No worries. Thanks, Thanks, Jamie. Johnny, you had a little smirk at the seven degrees. You're a fellow Canadian.

Speaker 7:

Hey, that's a beach day in Winnipeg.

Speaker 1:

Chris didn't want to hear this, but this morning there was frost on the grass, if you can believe it. Yeah, there was frost on our grass. I couldn't believe. It was like is that frost? And then I touched it and it was frost. So we had a really cold night where we are. So just a couple comments, then we'll get to. Donna. Madison says maybe the chicken is the same one bernoulli had. It has nine lives. Acl says hello from north carolina. And then, just maybe to clear up something, because we have some new people listening, roberto's like who's talking? So we have people who are on twitter or x and they're listening by audio and they have the ability to jump in with their voice, if that makes sense, okay. And then there was a bunch of comments on instagram loving your drawings, because I've been sharing the screen, so people have been able to see them, john, so that's very cool okay, thank you yeah, okay we'll go to.

Speaker 7:

Oh sorry, go ahead, no, I just think that's the best place to see like the 3,000 cartoons that I've got, because, like I mentioned once, the cartoon is lost in your screen on Twitter, you won't find it again yeah, you'd have to go to your profile and scroll down.

Speaker 1:

We'll go to donna. Hello donna, good to see you.

Speaker 4:

Hopefully you're doing well y'all, good to see y'all and thanks. I put a comment in the comments because this isn't about me, but they thanks y'all. I just can't thank everybody enough for all the outpouring of love and people I've never met in real life, except for a few of you guys, and I just feel so close and not so isolated. So thank you. But, john, you do so much for some. Oh, you cut out. I'm here.

Speaker 4:

I think you're the perfect blend to hang with Chris and Jason, because you guys both spread kindness and empathy. They add the science piece to it and I think your artwork, in a massive time of grief, gives some joy and perspective and it's awesome. But since you do, or so others, how can we support you in like donating supplies to you? Because that is not cheap, as I know, and I think it needs to come back to you a little bit. And then, a second part of that is I would pay good money to see artwork of the Zajkowskis and all the animals in their Comic-Con era and all their little outfits, because I think that would be cool, like a little between the Mandalorian and all the other stuff when they're in their outfits. I think it would be cool.

Speaker 4:

And third, if you love drawing cats, boy, have I got a cat for you. You love drawing cats, boy, have I got a cat for you. But I because she always walks around like a dog with her fake mouths or fake chicken and she's just a pistol. But big fan of all of y'all, actually, but big fan of your work, what you do for others, and I'll give you the floor oh, thanks, I appreciate that.

Speaker 7:

Yeah, the supplies, it's really just my time and experience. So I don't have any problem donating my time and I do get some commissions now and again and I use that revenue to buy more paper and more ink. And I remember a joke because I draw very quickly and that seems to befuddle people about how fast I can draw until they're like not charging enough and all that kind of stuff. So I remember an old man goes to the dentist and he's got a rotten tooth.

Speaker 3:

He can't sleep, he can't eat, he can't drink and he sits down in the chair and he's a bit grumpy and asks the dentist says dentist is where I gotta take the tooth out.

Speaker 7:

And he goes how how much is that going to cost? And he says it's going to be $100.

Speaker 7:

He says how long is it going to take? It's going to take about five seconds. He says that seems like a lot of money for the time it's going to take. The dentist says I can make it last as long as you like. So it all comes down to experience and tackling problems, and I love what I do.

Speaker 7:

I recently retired from the real world so I'm drawing every morning. I have like a sweet spot where I really enjoy drawing after my first couple cups of coffee start around eight o'clock and then the creative sort of desire drops off again to early evening. I never want to be in a place where I have to feel I have to draw. I'm drawing because I love it and then I see when someone sends me a picture that I've drawn of their cat or dog that went over the rainbow or a funny situation that they went through with the cat learning to swim or dogs getting into trouble and then just bringing joy to folks that realized that I did that with a piece of paper and a fountain pen. To me it just gives me a reason to get up in the morning, because you need a reason to get up.

Speaker 7:

And although retirement sounds like bliss, you do need a mission. You do need to get out of bed. The pedal falls off the rose pretty quick when you've got nothing to do off the rose pretty quick when you've got nothing to do. And I'm super fortunate that I've got this, this talent that I work at that can have me on shows like this, but I've had to work at it.

Speaker 1:

It was a 60 year overnight success kind of thing if, because we're getting questions about this now john, if people want you to do some art or if people want some of your art, do they just message you, and if you have time or if you have the inclination, If I follow them on Twitter, that's easy.

Speaker 7:

They can send me a message on Instagram. If I follow them on Twitter, they can send me a note. Other than that, you can email me which?

Speaker 3:

is easier.

Speaker 7:

Because then again I get into a situation where someone's asked me to draw something. They've sent pet pictures and then I forgot where they sent it from or where they sent me an email, but the pictures are on twitter and like, so email works best and are you okay with me putting your email up in the jumbotron for people who are watching live?

Speaker 7:

and then if someone wants to reach out about, because christmas is just around the corner, but I have. Actually we're going to do some. I think that rescue co-ops got a three-year anniversary next month, so we're going to do some fun stuff with commemorative auctions like greeting cards and stuff. There it is. Look at that. It's on the Jumbotron One of the good things on a Jumbotron these days.

Speaker 2:

Oh, Too soon. It's never too soon I missed my snap.

Speaker 7:

It's on June. Actually I think it might be June.

Speaker 2:

It's pretty funny.

Speaker 7:

A cat with a dog at a Coldplay concert.

Speaker 1:

I know the cat and the dog.

Speaker 2:

But Deke is in the chat and said hi, mr Johnny, it's me, deke. They're listening right now.

Speaker 7:

Awesome. Hopefully the folks Deke that we sent. We drew the pictures for have got them. One was in the mail and the one with the frame I think was going to Texas, so hopefully that gets there. I find that once mail leaves the Canadian, the great white North, it's a wild west. It stuff takes months or days and then it's like they tie it to the back of an F-150 and drag it down the road to someone's house. I don't know what the US Postal Service is up to these days, but it's nothing good.

Speaker 2:

They've been defunded.

Speaker 1:

We have similar troubles. When it goes to europe, I can track it, I'm like, oh, it's going great, and then it just vanishes and I'm like I hope it gets to germany.

Speaker 7:

I heard I rely on the mail personally to get artwork to people and I heard that canada post is recommending that the union, like the union's, recommending they don't take the newest offers.

Speaker 1:

It just seems to be ongoing, but anyway, yeah, we rely on it too for our stuffies and stuff. So we're watching it hopefully as well.

Speaker 2:

And the calendar that will be coming out.

Speaker 1:

So a bunch of stuff. Yeah, yeah, anyways, that's a problem for a different day. Yeah, maybe we bunch of stuff. Yeah, yeah, anyways, that's a problem for a different day. Yeah, maybe we have one more speaker. Do you have time to take one more question and then we'll kind of wrap up, or do you got to get going? No, I'm good because you're later than us. Is it like 10 o'clock for you right now nine o'clock? Eight o'clock here okay, only now seems like 10 o'clock okay, we'll just bring.

Speaker 1:

I'll check the chat again for any. Oh one question while belinda's coming up do you have a website or just email you?

Speaker 7:

just email me right now. I don't have a website yet. That's on my wish list ultimately to just to make the process easier, mostly for people who want stuff done. Yeah, because people. There's probably five or six questions back and forth before I can pull the trigger and if there's a way for me to have, I did register a website called cartoonificationca. It's just being parked right now, but I want to the ability for folks to upload photos, pay for something, put some notes in and send it so I can keep track of it better as well. I've got a stack of stuff here that is in no particular order that I try to get to each morning. So it would be. I'd like to be more organized. No website, email only now. That's the easiest.

Speaker 1:

So one more time I'll put the email on there. It looks like Belinda had some trouble connecting. She's not we. She's been up to speak before, but that didn't work and she got booted, so maybe she lost internet.

Speaker 2:

I. And then one more comment here on Twitter in the chat, ryan, the chief of staff for Rory, says you've done so much for Rory, you're so good and your art is so beautiful.

Speaker 7:

Oh, it's so beautiful. Oh, it's so nice to hear that sort of stuff, because you know what I do art and I send it out, but I do work alone. So it is nice to hear feedback from folks that appreciate the stuff that I do, because I do work in a bit of a vacuum as far as day-to-day and then I just entertain myself by drawing. So it's nice that people appreciate it. So, thank you, ryan.

Speaker 1:

Sounds like how you entertain yourself was a little bit more exciting than how Chris does. Chris, what have you been doing all summer? Long for fun.

Speaker 2:

Oh, I've been doing math. Yeah, I've been doing permutations and combinations and the fundamental counting principle, probability, rational equations I've got. But I just am trying to refresh because I have a new course that I'm teaching in the fall. It's math 30-2. It's a grade 12, it's high school level math and I just want to make sure I'm fresh and I know it all so I went to a private boys school growing up for high school and there was absolutely zero opportunity to have creative outlets.

Speaker 7:

It was math, physics and chemistry 300 I had to take in high school and I still remember the distance formula from physics and all the weird things. Strangely enough, you don't need to know that to draw a picture.

Speaker 2:

But yeah, I'm excited.

Speaker 7:

So good for you. Thank you Awesome.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for being our guest tonight, John. I so appreciate it. You've done art of our guest tonight, John. I so appreciate it. You've done art of our animals in the past and we've loved it. So I can say it now to your face how much we appreciate the art you've done, and especially that one of Ginger on my back, which is really sweet, that one's hanging in our house in the living room and we have people notice it.

Speaker 7:

They're like oh, that's so cool, like people notice it and they make comments, like it's really fun yeah that's why I do it, just to make, to put a smile on your face thank you I appreciate having me on, so thank you very much and hopefully everyone enjoys their summer and I'll check my email tomorrow morning and maybe there's a few new customers that are going to have some artwork soon.

Speaker 1:

And you are on Twitter and you are on Instagram. What is your handle on both? Just for folks.

Speaker 7:

You know I'm going to have to figure it out again. On X I am at John Heim J-O-H-N-H-E-I-M.

Speaker 1:

Okay, and on Instagram I am art underscore by underscore, heim Art underscore by underscore Heim, yeah, okay, perfect, yeah, just so folks can find you and.

Speaker 2:

I just wanted to add one more thing. Sebastian from the Cowboy Cat Ranch, also in the chat, wants to thank you for all that you do for the animals we love, dr Sebastian.

Speaker 7:

I've still got some work on my to-do list for him, so let him know it's a work in progress.

Speaker 1:

Perfect.

Speaker 2:

That's us too, like we have a. We finished the first start of our text from bunsen book. It took us a week, and so we know all the stuff that kind of goes in behind the scenes and we can't create.

Speaker 1:

We can't draw worth beans, chris we can't draw anything.

Speaker 2:

No, zero, john johnny's.

Speaker 1:

johnny's a wizard. I look at what people who have that artistic ability have and I I'm like how do you do that? It's just, it baffles my brain. Yeah, all right, I think we'll wrap up. We'll save our stories for next week. Hey, chris.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think so, okay, yeah, we can talk about our stories next week, all right, hey everybody, thanks for coming to Pet Chat today. Again, thank you to Johnny Heim. John Heim, the aspiring cartoonist. I like your handle there. Thank you for being our guest today and giving up your time. Thank you for having me. When we announced that you were going to be a guest, there was tons of people very excited definitely a lot of folks on Twitter who know who you are, or X, as a lot of the artists shared there. Yeah, anything else to add? Chris?

Speaker 2:

I know. Just thank you again for being our guest and sharing your joy and passion for all that you do and the donation of your time to help the rescues, and just the positivity that you have. It's just infectious and just thanks again. It's just so great. And thank you everybody for coming and listening to our show tonight or in the future. Like Jamie, it's the morning for her and, yeah, and for those of you who came up to speak, we appreciate you sharing your stories. It's tough to talk in a large group in front of people, so we just love that you're here with us in our community.

Speaker 1:

And, as we close, if you haven't already known, fun Facts with Bernoulli. Our Fun Facts book is out. It's on our store. Our link is in our bio. We have a limited supply and we'll cross our fingers with. If everything goes to plan, in the next 10 days the Bernoulli stuffies will arrive at our house and we will start shipping them out to all of the people who so graciously were part of the pre-order campaign.