It was such an honor to be the keynote speaker for humanesociety and its annual Take Action for Animals conference this year in DC. Not only did it give me a chance to brush up on my stage fright—uh, speaking skills, it also gave me an opportunity to share my gratitude to the many animal advocates who sacrifice so much for the animals. In addition, the group graciously listened to my story, one that I was too scared to share with anyone else: The story of losing my Rudy. Grief over our animals is a very strange thing. As I shared with the HSUS family, I’d never felt such overwhelming despair in my entire life. It felt weird to talk about because I didn’t think people would understand how I could feel so sad over “just a dog.” But I knew that if there was any group of people who would ABSOLUTELY understand, it was this crowd. And they did. If you’d like to listen to the full speech, comment “speech” below. #animaladvocacy #hsus #veganfortheanimals #ilovedogs