Who Are We Having for Dinner? with Molly Elwood

Jasmin Singer: We are very excited to talk to you, and this is our live Flock Friday interview, so welcome to the members of the Flock who are here, and we are really looking forward to chatting with the wonderful Molly Elwood today.

So for those who haven't yet visited your site, if I just happened to come across Elwood Dog Meat online or on social media, describe for us what I would see.

Molly Elwood: Elwood's Organic Dog Meat is a local family farm. We've been farming dogs for meat for people since 1981. Everything's organic, everything's free range. They all have access to pasture. It is the most humane, ethical alternative to factory farmed meat. So, if you visit our website, you're going to go on a little journey with us, and we're going to take you through, perhaps where those marketing terms may not really align with our ethics.

Mariann Sullivan: So I feel a bit weird having this conversation because, and it's coming true right now, you pretty much don't break character very often.

Jasmin Singer: No, I don't.

Mariann Sullivan: Jasmin and I were telling somebody about our interview this week, and we said, you know, it's Elwood Dog Meat, and she practically fainted. I mean, even just saying the name of it.

You know, since I see you online, I don't see you break character, but you do, I mean, there is some point where you let people in on the...uh... Joke, I guess it's a joke, in some ways. Where do you draw that line?

Molly Elwood: Well, online for my social presence, it's all farming all the time, we don't break character.

In direct messages we do, but it's just, it's a lot easier to just draw that line and be like, no, we are a farm. And it makes the interaction so much richer, especially when people say, this is fake, and I get to go, what?

What are you talking about?

Mariann Sullivan: So you rely on other people, kind of.

Molly Elwood: Yes, yes, yes. And in fact, oftentimes, if I can find it, I will delete all comments that say it's fake. I have blocked terms on my social media where you can't say fake, you can't say satire, you can't say parody, just because I want people to have that experience.

I want people to have to go on that journey and find out themselves, what it's about.

Jasmin Singer: That's so brilliant. I keep thinking about The Tiny Chef because we interviewed Rachel.

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, also did a great character.

Jasmin Singer: Yeah, we interviewed Rachel...

Mariann Sullivan: In fact, I feel bad even saying there was a character involved!

Jasmin Singer: Yeah, it was really epic just to be chatting with Rachel about Tiny Chef and it's bringing back things to me now.

So I have so many questions. Do you use actual industry sites as models for how you have designed the site?

Molly Elwood: Everything, everything. I'd say it is 99 percent even the wording, all comes from farms, from family farms, from factory farms, from the industry, from anti vegan comments. You know, I get messages in my inbox from people who are like, this is the stupidest thing ever, we don't care.

I just posted one today, somebody said, You vegans it's not that we even care that much about eating meat, it's just we want to make you feel bad. And so I got to change that and just changed it to be like, it's not like you dog lovers make us feel bad about eating dog meat, we just want to make you feel worse as I eat more dog meat.

if you put the mirror on it, everything just becomes so gross. I specifically also think that we are so desensitized to the way we talk about animals and talk about the experience of eating them, that if I get to use their words and just put it right back at you, then you can't accuse vegans of exaggerating. It's the same thing that you say, so, yeah.

Mariann Sullivan: You know, I... I admit, and you know I'm kind of ashamed of this, but I admit that even for me, and I think I feel pretty like horrified at seeing any animal portrayed in that way in any of that language on any site, and even for me, seeing it said about dogs, it has that impact. It brings it to a different level.

It makes you like...

Molly Elwood: Right!

Mariann Sullivan: say what? And like, kind of horrified. It really has a huge impact.

Molly Elwood: It's so funny, especially like the one I just posted today, it was somebody who was saying, so there's a new law in Massachusetts that's passing, I don't know if it has passed, I don't know the specifics of it, that is you can't sell or purchase pork that… pork… pig that has lived without access to being able to move their bodies, being able to extend their limbs.

And so somebody was sharing, they're like, all these big farms are fighting this, but we've always met these standards and you can count on us to be kind to animals. Choose a pig, buy half or whole animal, fill your freezer! And I was just like, when you juxtapose, we really care to fill your freezer with a half or whole dog. Suddenly you're like, how...

Mariann Sullivan: Right. Even for us, or at least even for me.

Jasmin Singer: I have four dogs. And I'm a little nervous that they're in hearing distance right now. Like, it's okay, you guys. It's irony. It's satire. I really want to just pause for one second from asking you about your platform, even though I have a lot more questions about it, because I'm curious of your background.

Is it in theater or writing or?

Molly Elwood: No. It's in writing actually. So, I am a writer. I worked in advertising for the last 10 years as a copywriter. I mean, I did theater in high school, but it was a long time ago. And I actually did stand up comedy for a bit. So that kind of helps with the confidence of not breaking character where you just got to keep plowing through it.

So, yeah, I think that could be what you're seeing.

Jasmin Singer: Brilliant, absolutely brilliant.

Mariann Sullivan: There's a lot of stuff like that I want to explore, but I just want to make sure that people who haven't looked at the website yet kind of understand what's there because it's not bare bones, so to speak.

There's a lot on there. You have a lot of blog posts. Can you tell us a little bit about the kind of things that you make blog posts about?

Molly Elwood: Yeah. So I can just first run down what the website is. So it's elwooddogmeat.com and it starts off explaining the methods of our farm, what you can buy, and then kind of walks you through.

It has these little headlines, like, are you confused, you know, or disturbed, here's why it's okay. And then at the end, it says we're not real, but perhaps think about the emotions that this brought up. Maybe there is no such thing as an animal made for food. Then I have a breeds page that talks about how our animals are raised, and that is more from the reality of how animals are raised, but with like a kind of wink to it where we're like, they may be crammed in a small shed, but they won't be in there for long.

And then I have blog posts, and the blog posts all come from, they're either extended social media posts from family farms, or they are family farms blog posts where I just change a word. Basically, a lot of Elwood's at the beginning was just driven by whenever I was angry about something that I read, I just took it and I changed the words and I just republished it myself.

And one of the things I really like to do is drop in there, I try and put in the word dog as many times as possible to show you how gross it is. If you think about it as a dog, it's really gross. And then I link to pro vegan content throughout it. If I mentioned something about how humanely we harvest our terriers at our DIY harvest, I'm going to link to what that actually is.

I had one about how to humanely, it was about fishing, and it was about these guns that are used to like, stab fish in the head. It's like a little gun to have a quicker death, and so I linked to what that is, and it's just kind of like into the rabbit hole of my anger.

Jasmin Singer: You know, that works much better than like, the rabbit hole of my anger in my head is comparing it to like, raping children, and I don't think that would go over well.

Molly Elwood: It's not as palatable.

Jasmin Singer: No, I guess it's too much. That's just my life is being too much. Uh, I wrote that book.

Mariann Sullivan: You mentioned the breed thing. I think that Melanie Joy mentioned, who kind of also toyed with this kind of idea, but in a much different way. But she seemed to feel strongly, using breed language really hit home a lot, like talking about a golden retriever instead of dog.

Do you find that as well? That the more you drill down on exactly what kind of dog we're talking about?

Molly Elwood: Definitely, and there's different dogs that go viral. It's so funny. It's playing with my audience a lot. Huskies, everyone just loves a Husky and people tag each other who have Huskies. Or if it's Corgis or if it's, um, I think Labradors are too ubiquitous. Nobody really caress much.

But I think specifically pugs. What's funny is I came up with pug bacon because they have bellies and pug/ pig. It's just really interchangeable. So I have a voicemail set up so I can get hate mail that I like to share. But I mean, one of the things I don't share, and I have it on my to do list to share, is I get a lot of fake orders from people.

You know, it's, pardon me for saying, it's always a bunch of dudes who think they're so funny, and they leave me a message, and they're like, this is what I want to order, blah, blah, blah. And it's always Pug Bacon. And I wanted to share how unoriginal it is by lining up all my voicemails of people going Pug Bacon, Pug Bacon, Pug Bacon.

So, number one seller.

Jasmin Singer: Well, do you remember that bacon moment where, like, ten years ago or something, everyone would say mmm bacon?

Molly Elwood: Oh, and you had bacon band aids and bacon toilet paper and bacon every, yeah, people were getting bacon tattoos.

Mariann Sullivan: It's still going on, it's like, bacon is the holy grail, like, grease and salt are good, I admit, but it's all it is.

Jasmin Singer: No, a hundred percent. So you mentioned your blog. What are some of your favorite blog posts?

Molly Elwood: Oh my God. Let's see. My favorite one that I loved sharing a lot was about puppy veal. It came from, there's a dairy farmer...

Mariann Sullivan: Oh yeah, that's good.

Molly Elwood: In New Mexico, whom I like to take content from. She was talking about how veal is not cruel, and in fact, it's a fabulous story of sustainability. You know, we're not wasting these animals, and when they're in their veal crates, they're being fed this specific by product of cheese. So I love sharing that our puppy veal is a great sustainability story.

There was one where there was a massive accident where another woman was saying how much she was helping her neighbors when their pig truck fell over. And so it was like one of the neighbor's dog meat trucks collapsed and caught on fire. And we worked really hard to save the dogs we could, you know, and we're going to help them rebuild their population.

A lot of stuff is horrible news stories too, that really drives home what... it's wintertime, so there are a lot of barn fires right now and large numbers of animals are being burned alive and when you pitch it as cows it's, oh this poor farmer family has lost their livelihood and they're going to have to restock and they don't mention the fact that it was hundreds of animals that were burned alive.

But when it's a hundreds of corgis burned alive, suddenly people get upset about it and you see the reality of it. So, a lot of the blog posts are like that.

Mariann Sullivan: You mentioned that you were a copywriter, which does make sense considering what you're doing now. But can you tell us a little bit more about your backstory, like your vegan story?

Molly Elwood: Yeah.

Mariann Sullivan: And the thing I love about this is you managed to come up with something different. Like, I thought I had heard all the modes of vegan activism, but clearly there are possibilities out there and you are mining one to the nth degree. So how did you wake up about animals, unless you were born awake?

And how did you decide to do this?

Molly Elwood: I was born definitely not awake. I came from just a normal American family, or rural American family, so my family went hunting and fishing and I went hunting once. I wasn't able to get a deer, but I went hunting and I did all the training for it.

We had a meat freezer I didn't think about animals at all except for the fact that I really loved them I was really obsessed with them. I'd, you know, rescue worms from puddles and stuff, but that's different from the animals that are on our plate. And then I thought I could go vegetarian just to try it out.

When I was older, in my late twenties, I was just thinking I liked animals and what if I just tried it out and it turned out vegetarianism is really easy because cheese! Like you just swap out all meat for cheese and eggs and it's great. And then I started thinking about labels, humane labels specifically, and I was really into the cage free, you know, humane, ethical eggs.

And I remember once going to the grocery store, and they were sold out of my ethical, cage free, humane eggs, and I was like, wait a minute, am I just not gonna buy eggs today? What am I gonna do? I don't get to eat eggs. And so the seeds were planted and then I saw, I think it was either Humane League or Mercy for Animals, video about the chicks going into the macerator.

And I went, what is this I'm seeing? And, you know, the typical thought process is these videos I'm seeing are probably from some other country. They're really old. It was a one time thing. So I went down the rabbit hole of Googling and trying to disprove veganism and was up till 4am and realized, oops, cows have to be pregnant to have babies to have milk. It was so shocking.

And, I decided to try veganism for just a month ago. I think it was February and I was like, I'll try it. It's not going to work. And thank God I won't have to be vegan. And then it was really unfortunate because it was real easy.

And so I was like, oh my god, am I vegan now? I guess I'm vegan. And so I tried to hide it for quite some time. But, I think the truth of everything, as I started to talk to people about it, I felt the need to, like, you know, the first person I tell is my uncle and he's like, he's like, well, you know, almonds use a lot of water.

I'm like, oh, I can't be vegan because almonds use water. And so then you google that. And then you find Earthling Ed's 30 Arguments book, which is fabulous. And I memorized it. I printed it out and I highlighted everything because I was ready to fight. I was ready for anybody to try and disprove veganism to me.

And then it was funny because nobody wanted to talk to you about it. Like, after you're armed, nobody cares. Nobody wants to hear about it.

Jasmin Singer: I want to hear the rest of the answer, but I am just curious.

Did you know any other vegans at this time?

Molly Elwood: I did! What was funny is one of my good friends and my boss was vegan, and I remember taking him out for like lunch, and I took him to a place where he couldn't eat anything. He ate like a dry bagel. I didn't think about it.

I was like, come with me to the bagel shop. And I remember asking him, why are you vegan? And he goes, you know, I just saw too many videos. I just don't want to be part of it anymore and the lack of specificity like if he had said, Did you know? I would have, but you know, he was very polite, he's being very respectful.

And I also thought, when I decided to go vegan, I basically thought I was gonna die. I just assumed you were gonna die. And, that was fine, because I couldn't handle being a part of that problem to animals.

And then when I had my first, you know, like, they do the blood tests at work for your insurance, to keep your health insurance or whatever, and I remember getting my first blood test, and it was like, have you been fasting? And I went, no. And, turns out it's good for you!

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah. Who could've guessed?

Molly Elwood: It was amazing. I wasn't going to die.

Jasmin Singer: Oh, well, okay. So I'm glad you didn't die because well, we'd be sitting here talking to nobody, which would just be awkward. But aside from that, your Elwood dogmeat wouldn't exist. So tell us about that journey for you because as Mariann mentioned, it's unique.

Molly Elwood: Well, it's funny, because I didn't go out setting out to do this. I'd done a lot of activism, and I just felt that I could do more, and so I was always trying to find new things to do. I lived across the street from Trader Joe's, and I bought one of those little real estate boxes, and I painted it white and put a big heart on it, and I said, info about animals, and inside I would, like, put recipes and magazines and stickers and stuff, and it was always full.

Every time I opened it, it was always full. No one had taken anything ever. It was like, there's books in here, free books, and it was like, no.

What it was, I wanted a good vegan bumper sticker for my car, and I didn't like any of the bumper stickers that were out there. I thought some of them were too preachy, some of them were too vague, some of them couldn't drive it home.

Mariann Sullivan: A lot of them are really busy. They have way too much information.

Molly Elwood: Yeah, exactly.

Mariann Sullivan: That's so vegan. Like you want to tell everybody everything.

Molly Elwood: Everything, all the things! And so it was funny because my husband and I were brainstorming about what the best bumper sticker would be. And we thought, wouldn't it be funny if we made a sticker that looked like we were selling dog meat and then just put an extra one next to it that said, why are you mad, bro? Go vegan, you know, something like that.

And then I went, you know, you can just design and print things online. I was like, well, what if I actually made it go to a website? And I was like, well, what if I made a website? And then I just made a website and I didn't expect anybody to look at it. It was just a website for me and my bumper sticker.

And then as I was sharing it on social media, people really liked it. And I went, oh, maybe I should make social media for it. And then it went viral. And suddenly I'm a dog meat farmer two years later. So it's just kind of spiraled.

Mariann Sullivan: So I know that one of the things that you've said is that it's important to avoid the defensiveness that automatically arises and makes people shut down.

So how does this approach, in your opinion, get away from activism that immediately puts up people's defenses?

Molly Elwood: I think it kind of short circuits a lot of things because you spend most of it not thinking about your own self. In the discovery phase of what the heck is this, you are going, what is this, I'm upset, this is awful, I think x, y, and z, whatever feelings you have about eating dogs are going to be going in your mind and it has nothing to do with you.

Then when you find out what it is, it still isn't about you, then you're still thinking about why did they make this? It's still not an attack on you. You're still focusing on the idea. And I think that that's one of the just magical random thing that has popped up through this is it stops targeting the person immediately.

It allows you to have discussions about the animals in a way that is not personal until it's personal enough as in, I have dogs and I care about them. So, yeah.

Jasmin Singer: Yeah, the people who I have in mind who would be kind of the angriest at you are definitely animal lovers.

Molly Elwood: Yeah.

Jasmin Singer: Dog and cat lovers who maybe have vegetarian inclinations.

Molly Elwood: Yeah.

Jasmin Singer: But not really. Like they kind of just say that. Have you noticed that at all?

Molly Elwood: Definitely. I mean, there's people this works for, and there's people this doesn't work for. This doesn't work for hunters, this doesn't work for adventurous eaters, you know. But it is people who are on the edge, the people who go vegan because of this are people who are animal lovers who have flirted with the idea but never really understood what it meant. It's me in the grocery store looking at that cage free egg going, I'm gonna visit this farm someday and I'm gonna make sure that everything's fine, I just don't have time for it right now, but I definitely care about animals. This is the person who needs that one last shove, and if not, it's the seed planted for that person for later on, so.

Jasmin Singer: Mariann, I know you have a question and I don't mean to interrupt you, but I just, I need to ask this. And, Mariann, don't listen too closely because you're a lawyer, but has there ever been anyone who's tried to shut down your page because of what you just mentioned, like false advertising or anything like that?

Molly Elwood: Yeah, you know, it's funny is the first thing I did when it went viral is I spoke to a lawyer. It falls under satire and parody kind of laws. I'm actually not false advertising. And, tell me if I'm wrong, false advertising would be like, I actually send you something that says it's dog meat and it's not dog meat.

I'm not actually selling anything. I'm not selling anything. I mean, I do have shirts and stickers for sale, but, I'm not selling anything. So there's not false advertising. So, yeah.

Jasmin Singer: You're my favorite person of 2024 so far. Mariann, go ahead, ask your question.

Mariann Sullivan: So going back a little bit to what you were talking about, the people who respond, or the dog lovers, and I do see them online in the comments, and people are furious, just furious. I mean, are those the people who wake up, or does the anger work in your favor as an activist tool?

Molly Elwood: I think it does. I have all these auto responses that I can just drop in.

So when things go viral, I just get a lot of things on my DMs. It's just death threats and F you, blah, blah.

Mariann Sullivan: People hate you a lot.

Molly Elwood: They hate me. I love it. So my responses, I have one that's like, you're a very compassionate advocate for animals. This is the anger that we want.

This is the anger that all vegans feel, that we all want to express. This is how you can feel about any animal. I also think, you know, it's meant to make you angry, and you're supposed to sit in that emotion and be like, why do I feel this way?

I don't know if you saw, on Plant Based News, the video went viral of a kid knocking over an Elwood dog meat tasting stand at the, I think, University of Texas. One of your previous guests, Faraz Harsini, with ASAP, he includes Elwood dog meat in his activism on campus. And they caught a big one! And they caught him on camera, the kid just destroying, knocking over all the signs and screaming into the camera, Dogs!!! How can you do this?

And I talked to this kid afterwards and I was like, well, what did you feel? And he was just like, he was so upset that everyone was standing by and no one was doing anything. He's like, how can all these...

Jasmin Singer: I have a lot of sympathy for him.

Molly Elwood: I know and that's the thing. And it was great because I felt bad going, you know, I'm so sorry that this went viral and he's very confident.

He's like, I'm not mad because in everybody's eyes, I'm standing up for dogs. I'm a hero. It doesn't matter. Like, I behaved the way that everyone would behave. And I was like, it's true. You did. So...

Jasmin Singer: I am currently listening to the audiobook of Britney Spears memoir.

I'm going somewhere with this Mariann! I am, I am.

Mariann Sullivan: Such a left turn.

Jasmin Singer: No, no, no, I am. I went and I watched, right before this interview, I went and I watched Oops! I Did It Again. And so it's in my head.

And every time you're talking, you're like the kid, you know, getting angry, like, Oops! I Did It Again, or you posting another graphic and pissing someone off. Like, I think Oops! I Did It Again needs to be your song. Oops, I did it again. I played with your heart or whatever.

Molly Elwood: Got lost in the dog meat game.

Jasmin Singer: Yeah, I'm not sure I recommend the Britney Spears memoir in case anyone's wondering.

Mariann Sullivan: I'm not sure you're really tying this in, Jasmin.

Jasmin Singer: Well, okay, I've been up since 3:30 this morning, so, Mariann, why don't you take the next question before this continues to devolve?

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, I want to go back to actually the subject of the interview and, you had mentioned, and I'm really curious about this, and I hope that a lot of people listening to this interview are as well, that it's not just you, other activists are using Elwood materials on their own. Can you talk about that a little bit and how you would recommend people would use this?

Maybe avoiding people getting quite as mad at them as you, for people who are not into that. Some people may be into that, I don't know.

Molly Elwood: Yeah, yeah.

It was really exciting the first time someone reached out to me and asked if they could do a dog meat tasting. And I was really nervous, because I had done it at Vegandale, and I had had somebody get really angry, and wipe everything off my tables and it was really scary and intimidating. And I went I can't I don't know about the legality of this I don't want to be responsible if anybody's hurt, but I realize activists are bold people who do stuff all the time that make people get upset and do things like this.

So, I made a part on my website. It's elwooddogmeat.com/farmhands. And I have a bunch of free downloads. You can download posters, you can download banners, you can do tastings. I've explained how you can set up a table. I've only done it once myself, and you know, it depends on where you are.

Can you get kicked out? I'm not familiar with all this, but there's so many skilled activists out there who are doing things already. They're already out there leafleting and they're talking to people. This is just another tool they can have if they want to do something more whimsical that's a little different from what they're already doing.

You can download brochures and hand them out. I actually just did this in, I was in England and I did this in York at their Christmas market just for fun. I had this big roll up banner and I just unrolled it really quickly and I leaned it up against a tree and I just started handing out brochures to anybody who would take them and I'd see people with dogs and I'd just lie to them.

And I'd be like, this is for your dogs. And they went, oh, and then they would look at it and they'd walk away. And then they would look back at me and I'd just be like, bye. It's just the brochure is the website in short where it's like, we look like you're selling it. And at the end, you're like, why are you upset?

Mariann Sullivan: The whole brochure is on the joke until the very end?

Molly Elwood: Until the very end until the very last. The last page is did you know that you can feel this way about all animals and here's some resources and the website And so I have all that stuff on the website, but I also have, I wrote down how many, I have volunteers who are running the farm in other countries. They've translated the website into other languages. I give them the brochures and they translate those, and they're doing dog meat tastings.

We're in Brazil, and Spain, and Norway, and where else? The Netherlands, and Finland, I just got an email that that just got finished. So what's nice about that too, is it's really centered on their cultures, you know, so the cowboy doesn't translate in Spain as much.

So they're doing amazing work and it just brings tears to my eyes how lovely all these people are and they're all bringing their own skills to it. The Spain one is just off the Off the hook, so, yeah.

Mariann Sullivan: No, I can imagine seeing other people run with this idea.

Molly Elwood: Mm-Hmm.

Mariann Sullivan: and, and make it international, it's so exciting.

Jasmin Singer: And speaking of international, I know that some people have said that the site is, is racist since there are cultures in which it's considered normal to eat dogs.

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah. This, this drives me crazy. Like, well anyway, you ask your question, but it's so crazy the way people think!

All right, go ahead Jasmin.

Jasmin Singer: No, that's how I feel too, it's so upside down because your whole point, right, is that it's no worse to eat dogs than other animals. But can you talk about this reaction, and how you think they're thinking about it all and how you respond to it?

Molly Elwood: Yeah, I think that we all want to be very sensitive to the experiences of different people.

I have this on my FAQs, is Elwood's organic dog meat xenophobic? And it's actually not, it's actually showing to you that the cultural bias we have in our country is, I mean, even just the bias we have against the animals that we eat. Culture should not dictate what we put on our plate, it shouldn't be our ethics, and I think that if you have a problem with Elwood's, um, I have trouble articulating it and I just want to be very careful about what I'm saying.

There was a point when it first came out that Elwood's was accused of being racist and I got cancelled and somebody messaged everybody on my Twitter feed and was just like, don't follow this account.

But I think that we are getting to the point where this has entered the conversation so much that it stops being about race and starts being just about the animals, which is where we need to be focusing on it. And, for that matter, Elwood stands with the South Korean farmers who are being attacked right now.

If you're going to let everyone farm, let everyone farm. So...

Mariann Sullivan: It just seems so illogical to me. I don't want to get in trouble either, but, you know, I'm not that worried about it. Cause the whole point of your site. Or the whole point of the mega, not the site itself, I mean the whole point of the site itself is that it's fine to eat dog meat.

So, how could people have a problem with that? And the whole point of the meta kind of argument is that eating dogs is no different than eating other animals. So you shouldn't eat any of them. That's the point you're trying to make. It's the opposite of saying eating dogs is a terrible thing to do, or a more terrible thing to do than eat the animals that people in other countries eat.

It would help if people could think straight. It just seems like, when it comes to animals, people's brains get short circuited. Like, do you think that, and do you think that this is one of the ways of kind of drilling through that?

Molly Elwood: I do, and I think it's funny because one thing that really expanded my veganism was a lot of people, even vegans, saying, you know, well, you're going to increase consumption of dogs at this point.

You know, if you keep selling it like this, you're going to make people curious. And, the awakening of being like, I guess I don't care if people eat dogs. If you're going to eat a pig, you're going to eat a dog, you're going to eat a chicken. Maybe the dogs would have a better experience than pigs in captivity. I don't know. I think it's all messed up.

So. I kind of entered this weird nihilism space.

Mariann Sullivan: I mean, viscerally, I understand that reaction, but logically, it doesn't make any sense at all for any vegan. I mean, you know, of course, like... and viscerally, it's not that different for me, I mean.

There is something, it's weird, but there is something that creeps me out even more than looking at other animals, but that's just me being stupid.

Another technique that you've used is bus ads, is that right?

Molly Elwood: I had an ad on the London Underground this summer.

Mariann Sullivan: Oh, Underground, okay.

Molly Elwood: On the subway, yeah, and then I've had some billboards. I have a billboard up right now in Peoria. It was great because the space was donated by, I think it's, Peoria Animal Rights Activism Group. They get the space and they were like, we should do it as an Elwood's space.

So it's up right now, and it was up earlier last year. I have an ad right now. I'm going to show it. I'm really excited about this. This is my first print ad. This is in the Seattle Stranger, their holiday magazine. And so I got an ad for...

Mariann Sullivan: Oh my god! That's amazing.

Jasmin Singer: Did you get any pushback by the magazine or like?

Molly Elwood: No, this is lovely. The woman who does the ad placement for the Seattle Stranger loves this. She's not even vegan. She's just like, I love this. You get so much interaction.

So I'm from Pacific Northwest and the Seattle Stranger's connected also to the Portland Mercury and I did a Valentine's Day ad last year for an event for a romantic dog meat harvest event followed by a romantic dinner.

And I did it as a Facebook and in part of their email series. So it was great. It's like, what should we do for Valentine's Day? We should go have a spa or we should go do this. So when she reached out to me about this print ad, I was very excited.

I've been thinking about this, tell me what you think. So they. Oh my god, I can't believe I'm about to say this. Okay, they do this thing called HumpFest, which is a amateur porn festival, but it's fun because it's for the whole neighborhood.

Everyone goes and they go to these things, but the ad placement before the festival is so affordable, and the idea of making a dog meat ad, and what a receptive audience that would be, whoever is open minded enough to be going to this amateur artistic porn fest, they might like my dog meat ads. And she was like, you should do this, so I'm thinking, what kind of commercial?

Jasmin Singer: Oh my god, definitely.

Mariann Sullivan: So people, other than vegans, do they find it funny?

Molly Elwood: They find it funny and they find it thought provoking and actually what's really lovely is there's a long tale of it is there's a respect from them. Like I think that there's a level of the intellectual play of Elwood's, once you get it, is really entertaining and so I've had like a vegetarian chef who messaged me last year you know, he gets what I'm doing, he finds it interesting. And then he messaged me like four months later about something that he saw that aggravated him, and he's like, it reminds me of your stuff, and I'm like, that means he's still following. That means this vegetarian is still in the comments, and I have meat eaters too who follow, and even if they think it's funny, they share it, and they're going to reach other people who may be more sensitive than they are. So the shareability of it keeps it going.

Mariann Sullivan: I think it's such an important thing to always remember that just because people's immediate reaction to something that you do is negative doesn't mean it's not going to have an impact, especially if it's something that makes them keep thinking.

Jasmin Singer: And Mariann asked if people find it funny.

I know that humor is a tough issue for animal rights advocates since it's hard to find anything funny in what's happening to animals. I also have done stand up and I am dubbed the vegan lesbian killjoy. So I kill joy, not animals.

So people are, by and large, making fun of us rather than the other way around. So why is humor important?

Molly Elwood: So it's funny with the stand up stuff, I was having trouble doing stand up because I started stand up at the same time as I went vegan.

And so my jokes weren't about veganism, but as I got more into veganism, I got more and more depressed.

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, totally.

Molly Elwood: And I remember my therapist being like, I think you're really funny. I think you should really do some jokes about veganism. I'm like, there's nothing funny about maceration.

Like I can't get there. The audience is going to hate me. And I thought what was funny is this is the first funny thing that I felt about veganism that I was just like, Oh, it's funny because I'm mocking the industry and mocking the words. I like to say that I'm not mocking farmers. I'm just mocking the human experience of this dissonance that we have.

But the humor is really important because it keeps you going. Like for me, I don't think that I could have done this for two and a half years if it didn't have that amusing, dark humor aspect of it, and it wouldn't be shareable without it. And it's funny how many people are like, is this a joke?

And I really want to say, no, it's not a joke. It's the reality of billions of animals everywhere, but at the same time, okay, it's a little funny. Wiener dogs are funny. I have to confess, I'm not a dog person. So I find dogs even funnier.

Jasmin Singer: Oh my god, that's so brilliant.

Mariann Sullivan: Speaking of funny, tell us a little bit about your 4 H chapter.

Molly Elwood: Oh god, I just launched my 4 H chapter! So I had posts about my 4 H chapter, but it didn't exist. And what's really nice about the Elwood universe is, stuff can come and go and it doesn't matter. I purposefully, you know, I have children with all different names. Brandish is my favorite name right now.

Brandish has had some trouble with 4 H, where he's been caught crying as he's having to give up his dog. So I have some 4 H posts, but I just launched the page on my website about how you can sign up your kids, and it was spurred by I hate saying this as a vegan, but I did go to the county fair.

I miss going to the fair, and I feel like it's activism at the same time because I'm going to go see things that are horrifying, that are going to give me inspiration.

So, um, I went through the 4 H tent and was just so upset. And so all I did is I took pictures of all the 4 H displays and I took their brochure and I took it home and then I just spun it into the dog thing.

So I now have 4 H brochures and a 4 H page and if you want to sign your kids up, you can. And what's great is they raise the dogs just for like six months and then we auction them off and the kids get a portion of the proceeds.

Mariann Sullivan: I mean, it's funny, and at the same time when you think about this is exactly what happens to the kids in real life, because, for them, they're real animals.

They're not just like, you know, just like dogs are. I mean, one of the reasons we care so much about dogs, I think it's because we know dogs, you know, we've met them.

Molly Elwood: It's funny because I moved to a rural area when I was, um, 12, 13, and all the kids did 4 H. And, I remember going once to a 4 H meeting with my friends. And it was the meeting where they all put rubber bands on the tails of their sheep to make the tails fall off. And I remember just being like, that seems awful, why can't they keep them? And this seems painful. And the kids are going, well, this is what we're taught and this is how it happens.

And, you know, they're just regurgitating what their parents have told them. And I remember trying to question and being like, hello in there, like, you can't agree with this. And they're like, nope, we have to. This is the marching orders. And I remember going home and asking my mom, like, well, I really want to do 4 H.

I'd like to have a sheep. That sounds lovely. And my mom was like, well, are you willing to kill it at the end? And I was like, what, you kill it? I thought these were pets that you just had a sheep and they told you how to care for it. And I was like, no. So. It's shocking.

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, you had mentioned you've done some in person events, and that people do in person events with your materials. Can you just tell us a little bit about how it goes? Like, how emotional does it get? And how do you deal with that? And how do other people deal with it? It sounds terrifying to be honest.

Molly Elwood: I think that I must be wired funny.

It's really exciting.

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, I know. I, you seem a little bolder than me.

Molly Elwood: Oh, I don't know. I think I'm just looking for any interactions. It's pretty heart pounding to be out there, to have these conversations. When I was just in York, just handing out brochures, I had a man, it was a man, a woman in a baby carriage.

They were looking, they were just daggers at me. And it was funny because meanwhile I was talking to a vegan activist who had come by and he was like, I love what you're doing and I really get this. And so from the couple's perspective, me and this woman are having a dog meat deal because I'm sharing my brochure and stuff and the person's talking and the gestures are all very positive.

Mariann Sullivan: Oh my god.

Molly Elwood: Yeah, I know. That's the thing, the interactions to me feel, I'm very hopeful about them. Like, so the angrier they are, it is somebody saying, how dare you do this?

And then you follow up with, well, do you eat other animals? I'm sorry. Are you vegetarian? Is that what you're offended? And they're like, no, I just think this is wrong. Then you can be like, so, but what if they're raised for it? Does that make a difference? They're like, no. And I'm going, well, what is the difference between a dog being raised for it and a pig?

And then they go, well, one's a pet and I'm like, pigs are pets. And then we go from there and I say, so this isn't real and it's meant to have you have this internal conversation. What is this about? And they go, Oh, I feel so relieved. And I'm like, but is it a relief for the billions of animals that do experience this?

And they go, Oh my God, I get it. I get why you're doing this. And they may not say it to my face, but they will take the brochure and they'll walk away and then they have to have this internal debate with themselves. Sometimes there are people who are like, especially at Vegandale, I had a big booth, and so most people thought I was selling dog treats. So they'd come up with their dog, and these are people who are vegan/vegetarian-curious, so when they come up with their dog, and I'm like, no, no, no, these are dogs, you can't feed that to your dog.

They have, again, a moment of, holy, I can't emotionally function right now.

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah. Yeah.

Molly Elwood: And then when you talk them through it, they're like, so that's the vegan experience. You're like, yep, that's the vegan experience. We're just erasing that bias you have about some animals are objects and it's really.

The thing is that I don't do a lot of in person events. It's just, I don't have the experience. I'd like to do more, but the people who are doing great things with this, there's a lot of activists, you know, they share their videos. A man named Cliff in Belfast does a lot of Elwood stuff.

And the conversations with a skilled outreach person, the dog meat thing works so well. They figured out how to seamlessly have that transition between this is real to this isn't real. Why do you feel this way? I share a lot of those on my Instagram account. Those conversations are really powerful.

Mariann Sullivan: I think that's exactly, I mean, what you said, it requires a skilled activist. So much of animal rights work does. I mean, there are so many fine lines to be drawn and careful communication, and it's hard. And I just have so much respect for the people who do it. I would have a tough time with that.

I kind of interrupted you about it, the couple with the baby carriage.

Molly Elwood: No, that didn't end well. I play a role when I do this as being super cheerful. Because I'm like, this experience is going to be so memorable when you interacted with the lady selling dog meat.

And then if you're in England, you're like the American woman who was selling dog meat. So I was just like, I don't know what the problem is. Are you vegetarian? Just kind of be kind of a little clueless. What's the problem? I don't get it. And then he was just like, leave, leave town, get out now.

And I was like, what if I told you it's not real? He couldn't comprehend. He was just like, go away, leave, and I was just like, okay. So I just backed away and then they glared at me for a little bit longer, took some pictures and left. And so they never found out it wasn't real, even though I told them it wasn't real, even though I was trying to hand them brochures, they were so upset that they just walked away.

Mariann Sullivan: I'm laughing and I just feel so bad that I'm laughing because I appreciate where they're coming from, they probably, could learn a little bit more, but they're trying to stick up for animals. And here I am.

Jasmin Singer: How do you do when you're watching a sitcom and there's a misunderstanding, like, let's say it's Three's Company and like Jack and Chrissy are in the apartment, but Janet doesn't think they are, because I have to change the channel because I'm mortified.

I can't handle any kind of. You're all about it.

Molly Elwood: I'm all about it. I've been watching Cheers right now. That's kind of my, my own comfort.

Mariann Sullivan: We're living in the past here, Three's Company.

Jasmin Singer: I love Three's Company. Rest in peace, Suzanne Somers, Anyway, last question before we move on to our bonus content with our flock today.

So it's the beginning of the year and just looking ahead, what's next for you? Like, where do we go from here? You've kind of, I don't know, conquered the world, I would say lightly. So now what?

Molly Elwood: Well, it's really kind of stressful, because I kind of feel like I got the tiger by the tail for a lack of a vegan metaphor. I'm sure there's a vegan alternative.

He's my friend, the tiger.

Jasmin Singer: He really likes it when you've got him by the tail.

Molly Elwood: Yeah, but we're gonna go places. And I don't know if I have a good enough grip. I'm worried.

Jasmin Singer: Someone said in the chat, tiger lily by the roots.

Molly Elwood: I got the tiger lily by the roots, and I don't want it to fail. And I also, I'm very much aware of how far can you go with a dog meat campaign? So I know that there's going to be a limit. So in the next year, I'm going to try and create some like kits so people can do dog meat tasting. So the idea would be perhaps you could apply for a dog meat tasting kit and I'll give out a certain amount and it'll be funded so that way you can receive all these things. You can get a t shirt and brochures and things. And I would like to start having meetings with people who are actually doing this so they could give the advice, you know, if I had a couple of recorded videos telling people how to do dog meat tastings from the people who are actually doing them, giving their advice, I think that'd be great.

I have some dream projects right now. There are some dog shows that I'd like to do some things with, and I was just working on a billboard for that just before this call, so we'll see if I can get that going. My tagline is if you don't place here, you always have a place at the table on the table.

Something like that.

Mariann Sullivan: Oh my god. I don't think you can do that in person, you'll end up dead.

Molly Elwood: I know, but think about these passionate dog lovers. These dog lovers who are like, I love my dog so much that I'm going to spend every moment and shampoo every single strand of their hair and then I'm going to go eat a cow, like.

Jasmin Singer: I know, I know.

Molly Elwood: I think a lot of this is just like, every time I see like a dog in a snowsuit. It just pisses me off so much.

Jasmin Singer: Vicki, maybe we should make that sentence the audiogram for the social media. Just that sentence by itself. Amazing. Molly, I love you, I adore you. Really, truly, you surprised us.

And I feel like nothing surprises us ever. So can you tell our listeners how they can follow along and maybe help you out in any way?

Molly Elwood: Yes, so you can share the website is elwooddogmeat.com. I'm on Facebook and Twitter as elwooddogmeat. Instagram is elwoodsorganicdog. I have a Patreon as well. You can find it on my link tree, which It'll be easy to find. I'd love any support or any donations through PayPal is also on my link tree because that money goes to billboards and goes to maybe that dog show. It just helps me help the activists who are doing things on the street. So that would be amazing.

Jasmin Singer: Just going back to that dog meat tasting kit. I want to see that grant application to like veg fund. I just really want to read it. Like I want to pour myself a glass of wine, put my feet up and read your grant application. Anyway, Molly Elwood, thank you so much. Stick around because we have a Q& A with our flock, but we so appreciate you and we are just so happy that you were able to spend this time with us today.

Molly Elwood: Thanks for having me. It was really fun.