This is an I-Heart podcast.

This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories,

the show where America is the star and the American people. And to search for The Our American Stories, the show where America is the star and the American people.

And to search for the Our American Stories podcast, go to the Iheart radio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Up next, we're going to hear from Ryan Stewart.

After going through life unsure of what he wanted to do for a long time, he settled

on something quite out of the ordinary. Today, Ryan runs a very successful dog walking business

in New York City. But a job isn't the only good thing in life that dogs have brought in.

Ryan's here to share about the many ways in which dogs have impacted his life and continue to do so daily.

I was born in Taipei, Taiwan, and I was given up for adoption, like immediately.

Like when I was three days old, I was handed over to a military family. And they weren't happy together. You know, it was one of those marriages where the woman was pregnant.

And so my father thought the honorable thing to do would be to marry her.

But they weren't really a good couple. So I think they tried to fill that with kids.

And so they adopted me

and then they adopted two other Taiwanese children. And you know, they had two of their own. So then they had five.

And when I was six, my adopted mother and my adopted father divorced and she left the house. and he raised us for a while alone.

My father, growing up, I always thought he was really, really boring.

He didn't talk much.

He did stuff like he ate the same food.

I remember he ate like grape nuts and like almost every morning or oats or something like that.

And he liked peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and he, aside from his military outfit,

he wore like jeans in a t-shirt and like a cheap windbreaker.

...