--:-- Oliver Conway: This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Visit EatCaulipower.com to find a store near you.
--:-- Oliver Conway: So do you want to look and feel your best this summer? Well, don't just think skin deep. Think cell deep with Prolon. Prolon is a plant-based nutrition program featuring soups, snacks, and beverages that nourish the body while keeping it in a fasting state, which triggers cellular rejuvenation and renewal, target fat loss, support lean muscle, and reset your metabolism. So you look and feel your best all summer long. Prolon is science-backed nutrition that can help change your relationship with food in just five days. Get 15% off plus a $40 bonus gift when you subscribe now at prolonlife.com slash iHeart. That's prolonlife.com slash iHeart.
--:-- Oliver Conway: This is The Happy Pod from the BBC World Service. Hello, I'm Oliver Conway. And in this edition...
--:-- Oliver Conway: I actually feel quite emotional because people with Huntington's disease are desperate for some kind of treatment that works. Scientists and patients talk of their joy at the discovery of the first ever treatment for the devastating inherited disease Huntington's.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Also, we speak to a teacher trying to change her pupils' lives with a happiness project. Math is very important. Writing and reading is very important. But what I want for my students when they grow up is I want them to be happy.
--:-- Oliver Conway: The simple steps bringing a sense of community to a vast housing complex in Mumbai. All my life I never had friends. But talking to these women, it's broadened my perspective and really made a huge change in how I look at my life. And... A new way to add poetry to your life.
--:-- Oliver Conway: We start with a medical breakthrough, the first successful treatment for the devastating brain condition Huntingdon's. This is an inherited disease caused by an altered gene being passed from a parent to a child. It results in damage to certain parts of the brain and resembles a combination of dementia, Parkinson's and motor neurone disease.
--:-- Oliver Conway: As you may have heard in our global news podcast, scientists have found a way to slow its progression by 75%. That means the decline people would have experienced in a year takes four years instead, giving patients a much better quality of life.
--:-- Deborah Goodman: I actually feel quite emotional because people with Huntington's disease are desperate for some kind of treatment that works. So I just want to thank Sarah and her team because they're so desperate for this treatment. I'm really, really, really pleased to hear about it.
--:-- Deborah Goodman: I was told the only way to stamp out the disease was not to have children. But I do understand why people do have children. so there's no judgement there, but I chose not to because I didn't want a child of mine to go through what I went through.
--:-- Oliver Conway: In Britain, the US and Europe, places where Huntington's disease is most common, approximately 75,000 people have it, and hundreds of thousands carry the mutation, meaning they will develop it.
--:-- Oliver Conway: The new treatment, funded by the Dutch-American firm Unicure, uses a kind of gene therapy via a one-off injection into the brain in a complex and expensive operation.
--:-- Oliver Conway: The breakthrough raises the prospect that younger people who have the Huntington's gene could be treated to prevent it ever triggering the disease. People like 30-year-old Jack May Davis.
--:-- Jack May Davis: It does make the future seem a little bit brighter, but it's definitely going to help, you know, definitely going to help with knowing that I have got more time here than perhaps I first thought.
--:-- Oliver Conway: The BBC's Sarah Montague spoke to Professor Sarah Tabrizi, who led the research team at University College London.
--:-- Sarah Montague: I've been working in Huntington's disease for nearly 30 years and for the first time these data, which show a 75% slowing of clinical disease progression, is to me the most clear data that this gene therapy slows and modifies the progression of Huntington's disease.
--:-- Sarah Tabrizi: OK, now that's 75% slowing. Can you explain what that means for a patient and for the patients you treated?
--:-- Sarah Tabrizi: It measures a combination of cognition and thinking tests, neurological tests, function, how well you're doing at work, how well you're managing your finances and also how you as a whole are functioning.
--:-- Sarah Tabrizi: Once someone has symptoms of the disease, the time from symptom to death is between 10 and 20 years. So a 75% slowing is going to keep people in work longer, functioning longer, delaying symptoms of disability.
--:-- Sarah Tabrizi: This is truly a game changing result.
--:-- Sarah Tabrizi: Now, we should explain your trial involved 29 patients. Did all of them show that level of improvement?
--:-- Sarah Tabrizi: It was actually divided into a high dose and a low dose gene therapy. It was those in the high dose that showed the highly significant slowing of disease progression.
--:-- Sarah Tabrizi: The high-dose group and 12 people, which is typical for a gene therapy, reached 36 months. And in those people, there was this highly significant slowing of disease progression. But it was also accompanied by a significant slowing in their functional decline of 60%, which is huge.
--:-- Sarah Tabrizi: I've never seen anything that slows functional decline.
--:-- Sarah Tabrizi: When do you expect to be rolling this treatment out?
--:-- Sarah Tabrizi: We hope that we will be able to get regulatory approval, likely first in the US with the FDA, and then as soon as possible in Europe and the UK.
--:-- Sarah Tabrizi: It's for the community that we work with and the patients and families, I am absolutely passionate about getting this treatment to as many people as we possibly can.
--:-- Oliver Conway: What is the most important thing children should learn at school?
--:-- Ryan Brazil: I'm very excited about this. This is the first time I'm doing this. I spent some of summer creating this happiness project for us. And I'm very, very excited because I have some big ideas.
--:-- Ryan Brazil: It's going to be a journey that we take together all year, starting in August and ending in June.
--:-- Oliver Conway: That's Ryan, or Mrs Brazil, as she's known to her fourth grade class of nine and ten-year-olds. She's created the Happiness Project, a year-long course aimed at teaching her students about happiness and kindness.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Each month the class takes on a different theme with September being the month of kindness
--:-- Ryan Brazil: Mrs Brazil also makes a podcast with her students called Little Minds Big Talks
--:-- Oliver Conway: She spoke to the Happy Pod Holly Gibbs along with two of her students Lulu and Emmett and started by explaining why she created the Happiness Project.
--:-- Ryan Brazil: There's always things that I want to do as a teacher in my classroom, and if it's not something that's available to me, then I'm going to make sure I get it done.
--:-- Ryan Brazil: I think math is very important, writing and reading is very important. But what I want for my students when they grow up is I want them to be happy.
--:-- Oliver Conway: What's the reaction from your classroom been like? And I guess this is where we bring in Emmett and Lulu.
--:-- Oliver Conway: So I wonder if Emmett, we could start with you. What's the biggest lesson you've learned from taking part in the Happiness Project?
--:-- Emmett: I'd say right now it would be that kindness is like very easy to spread if you just start being kind.
--:-- Oliver Conway: And Lulu, what about you?
--:-- Lulu: Being kind is probably something that brings us a lot of happiness. Like giving is something that can bring us a lot of happiness. And when we give somebody kindness, we might get kindness back in return.
--:-- Oliver Conway: I mean, like, I guess it also like kind of made me think more about being happy because, yeah, I was pretty excited when I heard about it.
--:-- Oliver Conway: I think sometimes it can be a surprise because a lot of the time, again, in school, it's like, sit down, be quiet, get out your math book.
--:-- Oliver Conway: There's something to that. There's a skill there also. We have to follow directions and we'll have bosses someday.
--:-- Oliver Conway: But there's also something about being aware of our happiness. I feel like Lulu almost started to say it because she said, it made me think about my happiness.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Like sometimes that's not even a thing we think about. Like, oh, yeah, that's something that I want to strive to be.
--:-- Oliver Conway: So I think it's exciting when they're discussing it and talking about it.
--:-- Oliver Conway: What about the high five heroes? Explain the high five heroes.
--:-- Lulu: We studied about high fives and like how they make you feel.
--:-- Lulu: A high five can make you like really happy, like high fiving yourself. If you just lightly high five the mirror, it does the same thing. You feel happy.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Ryan, you've started posting the videos on social media and you've had quite the reaction. How does that make you feel?
--:-- Ryan Brazil: Yeah, again, it's like, I guess I got to a point where I was like, we do cool stuff in here.
--:-- Ryan Brazil: I feel like other people could also be doing the things that we're doing. I don't want to just keep it for myself.
--:-- Ryan Brazil: I want a lot of people to do the happiness project. I want a lot of people to learn about high fives and start to encourage each other and themselves.
--:-- Ryan Brazil: I want to spread as much knowledge and mistakes even that I've made that can help others.
--:-- Ryan Brazil: I want to do what I can to help other teachers, which would then help other students.
--:-- Ryan Brazil: We can't learn and access the knowledge if we're unhappy. We want to want to show up to class.
--:-- Oliver Conway: My goal is for when the kids have a doctor's appointment or a dentist appointment or have to go out of town, they're upset that they have to leave school that's the goal.
--:-- Lulu: Has it worked?
--:-- Emmett: Yeah, I mean if I have to like go somewhere travel somewhere usually I do sometimes like miss school like sometimes I'm like I'm kind of like bored here I kind of want to go back to school.
--:-- Ryan Brazil: Gosh, I mean I think every parent listening would want their child to have you as a teacher.
--:-- Oliver Conway: How would you inspire other teachers what would be your advice to other teachers about taking the first step to do something like the happiness project?
--:-- Ryan Brazil: It doesn't have to be these heavy lifts. It doesn't have to be I don't have to have all the knowledge in the world.
--:-- Ryan Brazil: We have access to so much out there. It's not difficult to just reach out to the community that you're in or have discussions around kindness around gratitude around social connections right.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Lulu, how do you feel when you are in Mrs Brazil's classroom?
--:-- Lulu: I feel happy. Like, honestly, if I had, like, a generally bad morning, sometimes, like, coming into school, like, actually helps, like, cheer me up.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Emmett, what about you?
--:-- Emmett: There are things that I, like, really important and really stressing, but school makes me, like, think about other stuff.
--:-- Oliver Conway: It's, like, kind of helpful.
--:-- Oliver Conway: What we want to do is we want to go beyond the walls of our classroom and we want to reach out into the community.
--:-- Oliver Conway: We want to greet as many people as we can by spreading kindness and happiness, you know, all over.
--:-- Oliver Conway: And that was Lulu, Emmett, and Ryan Brazil talking to Holly Gibbs.
--:-- Oliver Conway: I know these days phones are not quite used in the same way as they were last century, but a project dreamed up more than 50 years ago in New York has been given a new lease of life online, and it's stretching far beyond the US.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Carla Conte has the details.
--:-- Carla Conte: Pick up the phone and instead of a voice from a call centre, you get poetry. That was the vision of the late American artist John Giorno back in 1969.
--:-- Carla Conte: He wired up answering machines in New York so anyone could dial a number and hear a poem.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Now, more than 50 years later, that project, called Dial a Poem, is getting a digital revival.
--:-- Oliver Conway: A new website has just launched and the phones are ringing again across the world, from France, Mexico and Brazil to Italy and Hong Kong.
--:-- Carla Conte: Here's a taste of what you might come across. Dial a poem. Slowly, as the talk goes on, we are getting nowhere. And that is a pleasure.
--:-- Carla Conte: It is not irritating to be where one is. It is only irritating to think one would like to be somewhere else.
--:-- Carla Conte: That was Here We Are Now by the American poet John Cage.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Back in the 60s and 70s, callers might have stumbled upon artists like Patti Smith or Alan Ginsberg whispering verses in their ear.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Today, you could hear a new voice from Sao Paulo or Paris, but if the poem doesn't convince you, you can always hang up and call back to hear a new one.
--:-- Oliver Conway: And that element of surprise is part of the charm. You never know what you're going to hear on the other end of the line.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Take this, for example, from Brazilian poet Caetano Romão.
--:-- Carla Conte: The project's organizers call it magic randomness.
--:-- Oliver Conway: One click on the new website and you're connected to an artist you might never otherwise encounter, whether or not you can understand the language.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Like this from poète Mie Brion, who playfully jumps from French to English in her poem.
--:-- Carla Conte: Je sors et là, j'écoute la musique pour aller dans le truc, et là je sens quelqu'un qui me tape sur l'épaule.
--:-- Carla Conte: Je me retourne et là, basta, it's guess, with the dog.
--:-- Carla Conte: The dog is super cute. It's too much.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Dial a Poem has become a global time capsule, a chorus of voices, some of them half a century apart, but all sharing the same line.
--:-- Oliver Conway: And just like in the 1960s, when you have heard enough, you can simply hang up.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Carla Conte.
--:-- Oliver Conway: And still to come on the Happy Pod. This is Jeannie. She's 14. I've always wanted to do this special bathing with her. And now we can, which is cool. Hopefully we can do it every year now.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: According to a nationwide survey conducted by GeneSight, nearly 9 in 10 Americans who've been diagnosed with depression or anxiety believe that mental health medications are somewhat or very effective.
--:-- Oliver Conway: However, despite that belief, more than half of those individuals say they have avoided taking medication due to concerns about potential side effects.
--:-- Oliver Conway: That's why Dr. Whitney Brown, a family and psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner based in Alabama, often recommends genetic testing to our patients as part of their treatment journey.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Dr. Brown explains.
--:-- Dr. Whitney Brown: As part of my treatment plan, I offer the GeneSight test, which analyzes how a patient's genes may influence how they metabolize or respond to certain mental health medications.
--:-- Dr. Whitney Brown: It gives me insights and takes out some of the guesswork that can be associated with prescribing them.
--:-- Oliver Conway: If you or someone you love is facing challenges with depression or anxiety, talk to your doctor about how genetic testing may help.
--:-- Oliver Conway: To learn more, visit genesite.com. That's genesite.com.
--:-- Oliver Conway: So do you want to look and feel your best this summer? Well, don't just think skin deep. Think cell deep with Prolon.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Prolon is a plant-based nutrition program featuring soups, snacks, and beverages that nourish the body while keeping it in a fasting state, which triggers cellular rejuvenation and renewal, target fat loss, support lean muscle, and reset your metabolism.
--:-- Oliver Conway: So you look and feel your best all summer long. Prolon is science-backed nutrition that can help change your relationship with food in just five days.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Get 15% off plus a $40 bonus gift when you subscribe now at prolonlife.com slash iHeart. That's prolonlife.com slash iHeart.
--:-- Oliver Conway: This message is sponsored by Greenlight.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: Next, to India, and a project that shows how small changes can transform the way people feel about where they live.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Govandi is one of the poorest neighbourhoods in Mumbai. In recent years, thousands of new apartments have sprung up, built for people who used to live in informal housing or slums.
--:-- Oliver Conway: But with 25,000 residents crammed into 60 high-rise buildings and no transport to get them to work or school, many began to miss their old communities until one woman inspired them to take action.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Chavi Sajdev went to meet her.
--:-- Oliver Conway: I was born on a sidewalk. I lived my entire life on a sidewalk. Got married there, had two children, no toilet, no running water, no electricity.
--:-- Oliver Conway: But I always thought I have the right to live a full life. That's 47-year-old Parveen Sheikh.
--:-- Oliver Conway: In 2008, her shack on the sidewalk was demolished to make space for a bridge. And then through a lottery system, her family was allocated an apartment in this housing complex.
--:-- Oliver Conway: We were so excited when we got our flat. And almost more than that, because we now had documentation for identification papers.
--:-- Oliver Conway: What I didn't have growing up, my son's got. And a dress. It was a dream come true. Until it wasn't.
--:-- Oliver Conway: The apartments are small, 256 square feet, just about 5 meters by 5 meters total. The lanes are narrow and dingy, the houses have no sunlight, and a lot of things weren't working.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Garbage collection, the water supply, elevators.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Parveen mobilized her neighbors to ask for better amenities.
--:-- Oliver Conway: It was during this process she came across architect and urban planner Sandhya Janardhan in 2016.
--:-- Oliver Conway: In Singapore itself, the public housing is fantastic. And I said, why can't we bring the same thinking to India?
--:-- Oliver Conway: Ask the community, what do you need? Let's figure out what's realistic and what we can achieve and then move forward with that.
--:-- Oliver Conway: She helped connect them to the right authorities, get funds for repairs and services, and encourage them to start cleaning up the space and making small areas more welcoming.
--:-- Oliver Conway: I spoke to 25-year-old Taiba about it.
--:-- Oliver Conway: We used that map, had a discussion, picked one spot to clean up.
--:-- Oliver Conway: People used to do drugs in that corner because it was that dark. After we brightened it, they moved out and it became safe.
--:-- Oliver Conway: And when we finished, we realized how useful it was.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit and they realized they needed more public spaces.
--:-- Oliver Conway: They created a library. Kitab Mahal means Palace of Books.
--:-- Oliver Conway: That's Natasha Sharma. She works with Sandhya and leads the Arts and Design program.
--:-- Oliver Conway: She told me how they set up the library by combining two abandoned apartments.
--:-- Oliver Conway: We saw that kids really started opening the books and they didn't know how to read, but they would see the visuals and they would understand the story and they'd be like, come here, you read.
--:-- Oliver Conway: A couple of minutes walk away from the library, they created an art space.
--:-- Oliver Conway: The workshops here attract older kids too. They've had rap, slam poetry, photography and theatre programs.
--:-- Oliver Conway: But even after the second space was blossoming, the residents felt there was a vacuum.
--:-- Oliver Conway: The solution was a third community space called Awaaz, or Voice.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Women from 18 to 65 are welcome to attend workshops or just chill.
--:-- Oliver Conway: I met three 30-somethings, Shafina, Shireen and Saida.
--:-- Oliver Conway: All my life, I never had friends. I worked as a tailor and every day I just stuck my earphones in, put my head down and worked.
--:-- Oliver Conway: But talking to these women, hearing from the moderators who conduct workshops, it's broadened my perspective and really made a huge change in how I look at my life.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Even for my son, he's seven. I used to be so scared of letting him out of my sight. Now he goes to Hamrahi and the library.
--:-- Oliver Conway: I trust the community will look out for him. We're lucky to have this option.
--:-- Oliver Conway: My relatives live in different resettlement areas and they're so envious. They're cooped up at home. They have no community.
--:-- Oliver Conway: The women would love a space to get away from their in-laws. It's where us women have our eyes. We hear each other.
--:-- Oliver Conway: At home, no one has time for us. Here, we are heard.
--:-- Oliver Conway: And that report was by Chavi Satchdev.
--:-- Oliver Conway: And you can hear more on People Fixing the World wherever you get your BBC podcasts.
--:-- Oliver Conway: It's that time of year again when the focus in the US state of Alaska turns to that high-stakes competition of who is the fattest bear.
--:-- Oliver Conway: During Fat Bear Week, people watch live streams of the creatures getting ready for hibernation and vote for their favourite.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Christine Loberg, a ranger at Katmai National Park, explains why it matters.
--:-- Oliver Conway: The Fat Bear Week is very important because bears need fat in order to survive hibernation.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Just think of yourself going to sleep for about six months and not moving not eating not urinating
--:-- Oliver Conway: And people find that fascinating including myself digging 40 fish or more in one sitting
--:-- Oliver Conway: So that just amazing
--:-- Oliver Conway: Over 100 calories a day. That's just crazy.
--:-- Oliver Conway: And so, you know, these bears are just fascinating. They're playful. They're fun. And it's just exciting to see them go from a skinny bear when they come out hibernation to these massive bears that go into hibernation and don't eat for months.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Christine Loberg.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Voting closes on September 30th, and we'll have more on the winner in our next episode.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Our next item features a man who has, it's fair to say, become a bit obsessed with finding unusual ways of raising money for good causes.
--:-- Oliver Conway: In 2017, Tom Harrison completed the London Marathon, crawling along the pavement dressed as a gorilla.
--:-- Oliver Conway: He raised tens of thousands of dollars for a gorilla conservation charity in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Tom, a former police officer in his 50s from south-east England, is hoping to repeat the success by cycling some 180 kilometres across the north of England in a similar outfit.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Richard Hamilton caught up with him during training.
--:-- Oliver Conway: We're cycling along in the pouring rain in Hyde Park in central London and I'm with Tom Harrison and the last time I saw you Tom you were dressed as a gorilla and you were on all fours doing the marathon and here we are several years later and tell me what your latest challenge is.
--:-- Oliver Conway: My latest challenge does involve an element of being a gorilla. I'm going to be half gorilla half paramedic.
--:-- Oliver Conway: The legs of a gorilla, the top half dressed as a paramedic because I'm raising money for Buck's NHS Trust charity.
--:-- Oliver Conway: I'm cycling across the country, starting in Whitehaven, Cumbria, going all the way across to Sunderland over two days.
--:-- Oliver Conway: And it was quite an interesting challenge in terms of choosing the costume.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Well, I put my costume up for auction, effectively. Whoever donated the most money got to choose what I wore.
--:-- Oliver Conway: The person with the highest bid decided that they wanted me to retain an element of my innate grilliness, but also to highlight what it is that we're fundraising for, hence the split costume.
--:-- Oliver Conway: And were you worried that it might have been more embarrassing? I mean, when I first spoke to you, you said that it might be a chicken or the nurse's outfit was the most popular.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Yes, I was a bit worried that I was going to be a dinosaur.
--:-- Oliver Conway: I guess less safe and embarrassed, but more for the awkwardness of trying to ride a bike dressed as a dinosaur.
--:-- Oliver Conway: You're a bit of a sort of compulsive charity challenge guy, aren't you? You've done an awful lot of things.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Yeah, I haven't really stopped since being a gorilla.
--:-- Oliver Conway: I hand-cycled, started at Mland's End and hand-cycled, again dressed as a gorilla over 19 days to John O'Groats.
--:-- Oliver Conway: You also got to Ukraine at some point.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Yeah, that's right. That's probably my other biggest challenge, which was about two weeks I cycled from the UK all the way to Ukraine.
--:-- Oliver Conway: I was raising money for a Ukrainian charity that were helping to repair homes damaged in the shelling.
--:-- Oliver Conway: The other thing, of course, I did was the backwards marathon. I walked backwards round the London Marathon in support of Ukraine, but on that occasion raising money for the Red Cross.
--:-- Oliver Conway: What have you got lined up in the future?
--:-- Oliver Conway: I am planning to cycle to Istanbul this time next year.
--:-- Oliver Conway: And what do you think's been the most challenging one or physically tough?
--:-- Oliver Conway: Crawling the London Marathon was very hard. I hadn't really used my arms in that way before.
--:-- Oliver Conway: But equally, the hand cycle was a really difficult challenge because it went on for such a long time.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Psychologically, it was very hard. I do remember one time I'd sort of cycled all morning, stopped exhausted outside of Anik in Northumberland and just cried.
--:-- Oliver Conway: It all sort of got a bit on top of me. But once I'd done that, I could get back on the hand cycle and carry on.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Tom Harrison talking to Richard Hamilton.
--:-- Oliver Conway: When I was learning to swim as a youngster, the basic stroke we started with was doggy paddle.
--:-- Oliver Conway: But should dogs themselves be able to enjoy the experience of splashing about in public swimming pools?
--:-- Oliver Conway: Well, Germany is trialling just such an initiative.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Stephanie Prentiss has the story.
--:-- Oliver Conway: It's late afternoon at a swimming pool in Berlin. and it's a great afternoon to be a dog.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Germany has decided to let some of the outdoor pools in its capital go to the dogs as part of a first-of-its-kind event, letting dogs take the lead in the lanes, with people queuing up all afternoon to help their furry friends get their paws wet.
--:-- Oliver Conway: The head of Berlin Swimming Pool Operations, Claudia Blöckengnagel, said the regular human swimmers have been advocating for their pets' rights to swim for some time.
--:-- Oliver Conway: And she could no longer look a dash-hund in the eye and refuse.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Visitors keep asking us if they can bring their dogs. Dogs are normally not allowed in the outdoor pool.
--:-- Oliver Conway: There are many dogs here that love the water and there is great demand for this.
--:-- Oliver Conway: So we have now simply given in.
--:-- Oliver Conway: With fur in mind, organisers drained the pool and refilled it without chlorine and admission was calculated per foot and paw at four euros per dog and two euros per human.
--:-- Oliver Conway: One human at the front of the queue was dog father Mark with his adopted dog, Jeannie.
--:-- Oliver Conway: This is Jeannie, she's 14.
--:-- Oliver Conway: There's also a stand from the animal shelter and I donated something today because they gave me this little one 14 years ago.
--:-- Oliver Conway: They said she was abandoned, she was 11 or 13 weeks old and I gave her a good life.
--:-- Oliver Conway: And now, today, I've always wanted to do this special bathing with her and now we can, which is cool.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Hopefully we can do it every year now.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Organisers are yet to confirm if they'll repeat the furry fiesta next year.
--:-- Oliver Conway: But from the sound of it, there'll definitely be demand for more hunderswimmen.
--:-- Oliver Conway: A report by Stephanie Prentiss.
--:-- Oliver Conway: And that's all from the Happy Pod for now.
--:-- Oliver Conway: If you have a happy story you think would make other people smile, we'd love to hear from you.
--:-- Oliver Conway: As ever, the address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk
--:-- Oliver Conway: And you can now watch some of our interviews on YouTube.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Just search for The Happy Port.
--:-- Oliver Conway: This edition was mixed by Louis Griffin and produced by Will Chalk, Holly Gibbs and Rachel Bulkeley.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Our editor is Karen Martin.
--:-- Oliver Conway: I'm Oliver Conway. Until next time, goodbye.
--:-- Asma Khalid: America is changing. And so is the world.
--:-- Asma Khalid: But what's happening in America isn't just a cause of global upheaval. It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere.
--:-- Asma Khalid: I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C.
--:-- Asma Khalid: I'm Tristan Redman in London, and this is The Global Story.
--:-- Asma Khalid: Every weekday, we'll bring you a story from this intersection, where the world and America meet.
--:-- Asma Khalid: Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
