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The Science Pawdcast
The Science Pawdcast breaks down the latest science happening in the human world AND the pet world.
Each episode will also bring you a guest to enthral you with their area of knowledge.
You'll learn, be captivated, and laugh along with host Jason Zackowski.
Pets and Science, it's the pawfect mix.
You'll also get episodes of PetChat which are the live shows from social audio.
PetChat is a live community gathering updates about the animals in our life, but also the animals in the wonderful community that supports us!
Heart and Hope.
Science and Shenanigans.
The Science Pawdcast
PetChat Sept 30: The Joys and Complexities of Pet Ownership
Have you ever been mesmerized by the vibrant hues of fall? Experienced the joy of watching your furry friend sniffing out new scents or chuckling over their adorable encounters with elusive beavers? Pet Chat is back, and in this episode, we reminisce about these delightful experiences with our pets Bunsen Beaker and Ginger. We also share a poignant poem capturing the essence of an Albertan fall, a beautiful reminder to relish every moment before winter sets in.
This episode also addresses some essential pet health topics. We delve into the challenging journey of managing pet diabetes, sharing useful tips and experiences to help you better care for your pets. Jamie opens up about her pet, Rose, and her involvement with One Foot Forward, a program by the Black Dog Institute for Mental Health Research. Pet grief is another topic we touch on, comparing the magnitude of loss one feels for a pet to that of losing a family member, and discussing ways to cope with this heartbreaking experience.
Our conversation doesn't stop there! We explore the intriguing world of pet rental services and the rigorous training programs guide dogs undergo before being accepted into service. Aging and longevity in pets is another fascinating topic we dive into, discussing groundbreaking research and technologies aiming to extend our pets' lives, like the Dog Aging Project and AI.
Come join us as we navigate the complex and wonderful world of pets and pet care.
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Hello pet enthusiasts, welcome to Pet Chat, the most wholesome show on X. My name is Jason Zakowski. I'm the dog dad of Bunsen Beaker, the science dogs on social media.
Speaker 2:My co-host is Hi there, my name is Chris Zakowski and I am the dog mom to Bunsen Beaker and the pet mom to Ginger hello.
Speaker 1:Hello.
Speaker 2:Hello.
Speaker 1:Pet Chat is a live show, and if you're listening to the recording, welcome, and if you are here live, hello. Well, should we hear a word from our sponsor?
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Pet Chat is brought to you by one of our sponsors this week, barkandbeyondsupplycom. Barkandbeyondsupplycom is a small, family owned company that started off making joint supplements for dogs but now makes treats and toys, subscription boxes, all manner of goodies for your pooches and your kitties. Skip the big box store and help out the little guy. We'll throw some links up in the nest from Barkandbeyondsupplycom. Pet Chat works this way. We played a game. We will. We share stories about Bunsen Beaker and then we open up the floor to community sharing about their pet stories. Do you want to share your story of the week, chris, before me.
Speaker 2:I can share lots of things you know I keep lots of things in my back pocket to be able to share.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 2:Sure, sharing is caring. Anyway, here I am with the dogs and it has been a busy week but it's been a very rewarding week. Each day we've been able to walk with the dogs and enjoy the changing season. So sometimes here in Alberta you have summer and then it snows, so there's no fall. But this fall, this September, has been quite nice, quite warm, and we've actually been able to witness the leaves turning. Bunsen really likes it and he just sits there and he smells everything and it's just a real surreal time. Also, we had moose. I go through the crop last week.
Speaker 1:Was that this week?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, so many things happened this week. This is a busy week.
Speaker 2:There were two moose walking right through the crop and Jason's like hey, hey, moose.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, you didn't want me talking to the moose.
Speaker 2:I didn't. So what happened was we were safe in our house, away from the moose, and the dogs were by the window and we're all looking at the moose and going, wow, this is amazing. And Jason decided I'm going to go out on the deck. And so he did. And he went on the deck and he started talking to the moose and the moose were like what? And they looked over and then I peeked out the door because it's very terrifying Moose are terrifying.
Speaker 2:But then also, ginger, is the shoot out the door cat now? And I was like, oh no, oh no, I need to be quick to say Jason, why are you talking at the moose? And then close the door very quickly. And then you're like ha ha ha, it's fine, I'm on the deck Famous last words, but you still have more words. So I guess you were right and I was wrong, but that happened. But it's just been a great time. The unfortunate part about having moose and critters go walk through your property is that they poop and the dogs really enjoy that odor perfume on their bodies. So Bunsen did that today. He rolled in something and he reeked.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, he was unbelievably bad.
Speaker 2:It was terrible. They went a different way.
Speaker 1:Chris. They went a different way on the walk and I knew they were trouble as soon as they went a different way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they were planning something, they were plotting. How can we smell the worst possible? Yeah, anyway, so that's one of my stories. I'm just hanging out with the dogs this week and I'm sure we're going to talk about all the other things that we've been involved in, but I'll let you go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've really been enjoying our fall. As Chris said, it's random in Alberta when winter starts. It was forecasted to snow yesterday, friday, yeah, friday Just like west of us. It was forecasted to snow and in the two hours before it was supposed to snow it just didn't. So there was no snow and we have beautiful changing leaves and sometimes when the snow comes it just knocks all the leaves over and fall is like instantaneously over. So we cherish it when it's around.
Speaker 1:I wrote a little poem about beaker. I don't know if it's a poem or rather a story, because beaker reminds me of fall, like her colors and just what fall and autumn are all about. So I don't know. I was just sitting on the couch and I was looking out and beaker was snuggling up with me and I wrote that beaker is the season of fall.
Speaker 1:She is a warm breath and a cold nose. She is the last of the streams and rivers before they freeze. She is the leaves blowing through the wind on chaotic patterns. She's the color of change. She is autumn, the hug and smile before the icy winds circle the farm. She is for endless walks through dappled sun. She reminds us to make the most of every season beyond winter because their stay is all too short. She is of digging and mud and harvesting. She is the fall and that's what I wrote today. That's my story, because that sums up what fall is like for us in Alberta, canada. It's fleeting, it's beautiful and you need to make the most of it. And I think beaker, more than Bunsen, reminds us of that, because she's just lives for all seasons and I think that in between summer and winter is like her time to shine. I see some speaker requests will bring you up in just a second and my other story, chris. We have to talk about the beavers.
Speaker 2:We have to talk about the beavers.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, we do.
Speaker 1:So we thought they moved away. We thought the beavers moved away and they didn't. Because guess what? What? There's more activity. There's more beaver activity. A little tiny tree they knocked down across the where we walk and you weren't there, Chris. And then yesterday we wanted to walk and we found they knocked down more trees Like a huge tree across the creek is wild, and we set up the camera right by where they were working. It's like wherever they work, we set up our wildlife camera and then they just moved to a different area and today there was no footage on it, even though they moved the tree like across the creek. Somehow they moved this huge tree like across the creek. I don't know where they're taking it. They're taking it probably to bite it into chunks and we kind of followed the creek path and we found even more trees that they knocked down. So it's like wherever we go, they go somewhere else and they work really, really hard.
Speaker 1:What's cute is, along some of the new areas they've got up. They've put even more mud. They've put even more mud up along the creek bed creek side. I took footage of it, I just haven't had time to post it and there's all of these rocks. So it's like the beavers were digging and they found a rock and they're like stupid rock and they just like hooked it up on the side of their mud. And I just can imagine like some beaver like working late at night getting like intel about from his other beavers about the cameras we've put up, and they're like don't go over there. Hey, there's a camera. Oh, each and S says we got to work over here. Oh, there's a rock, stupid rock. And they just like huck the rock up out of the creek. Anyways, I got a lot of footage of it. It'll probably wind its way into like a video cut together for tomorrow. It's pretty wild, those beavers.
Speaker 2:We have footage of the aftermath of their activity, but we don't have actual footage of them.
Speaker 1:No, we don't. They're ninja beavers.
Speaker 2:They are ninja beavers.
Speaker 1:It's so frustrating.
Speaker 2:I think we need more trail cam.
Speaker 1:We need like 60 trail cameras. We need a drone that, just like hovers, is outrageous. All right, and the last thing I'm going to mention is, as of today, we finished packing and labeling and soon to be shipping out every single preorder of the 2024 Bunsen and Beaker calendars. I want to thank everybody for supporting us. We had is the first year we did a pre-sale and we had a goal and we surpassed the goal. We actually had 200% passed our goal and so many people got the adorable highlighter pens that we sold out and I had to order more. And then we almost sold out of the next order and it was like dwindling.
Speaker 1:I was getting stressed. Today I'm like Chris, we're going to run out of these pens. We're going to have to order even more. So I get it. They're super cute. They're like these little highlighter clicky pens One ends a pen, one ends a highlighter. We'll have to order more for Christmas for people, but I just wanted to say thank you for your support. It was really cool. And the second shipment of those calendars if you haven't got yours yet, it'll be to you this week via chit chats. So super, super exciting. Anything else, chris?
Speaker 2:No, I think we can get to our community sharing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and guess what? I heard back from BarkenBeyondSupplycom. I threw a link, a post of theirs, up in the nest. Please check out their store instead of going to a big box store shop. At BarkenBeyondSupplycom, you can use the code Bunsen and save yourself some money as well. All in caps B-U-N-S-E-N. And they have a $20 gift certificate today for some lucky person who's in the chat. Okay, should we? We're going to go to community sharing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 100%.
Speaker 1:All right, do you want me to read the rules?
Speaker 2:or do you want to read the rules? You read the rules you do, so good at it.
Speaker 1:All right. So yeah, the chat is a mostly PG space. Depending on how many times we say things like beaver, we might get shut down. So when you're sharing, you know, try not to swear. If we don't know who you are, you may not get to come up. I'll have to check with you on the backend. We don't tolerate any cruelty or rudeness or trolls, so we can sniff you out pretty easily. I'm sorry if you just made a weird account with a million like letters behind it, but we'll probably have to check with you on the backend. And this you're sharing or asking questions about pets, so please don't talk about cryptocurrency or monetization or anything like that. There's lots of those spaces going on.
Speaker 2:And the other thing is is that we tend to speak have one speaker at a time.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:No, it necessarily as a free for all. Everybody talk at once.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if you're sharing something important, though, then you can probably go. I know money penny was asking, money penny was asking in the chat, so I think we'll go to money penny first, and then I do see Jamie Jamie hasn't been here in a while and then we'll go to Dr Tracy. So I think that's the order. So money penny, go ahead with your pet question or story.
Speaker 3:I'm in love with you guys. I'm in love with Bustin and Beaker. I love the cartoon that you've got and, as you can probably tell, I'm in England. Well, hello.
Speaker 1:It's actually October, isn't it in England?
Speaker 3:Yes, I think we're almost a day forward from you, so I can tell you the future.
Speaker 1:Well, if Jamie's from Australia, so she could tell you the future, and then you could tell us?
Speaker 3:Oh damn. Yes, you should be correct. Is it nice and sunny there? Oh no, you're going into your. Oh, you are going into sunny season, we're going into cold season, that's correct, that's right, it's flip-de-flipped. Oh, I just, I love you guys. I love the cartoon. I've got two little Cavalier King Charles pups.
Speaker 1:No way, they're adorable.
Speaker 3:Thank you, you'll see loads and photos on my profile of them, because I don't have babies, as in human babies. They are my babies. I was never able to have children, so they are totally spoiled, as you can probably imagine, and they're called King Charles. So now they're very, very expensive in the UK, but I hang on to them. They are my absolute boys. They literally saved my life during the pandemic. I got very ill and they would bark if a fire broke out or something like that. But I've got. One of them is very poorly and I just wanted to see if there was any advice or anybody in the room or your good cells might be able to just give me a little bit of a steer. Is that okay?
Speaker 1:Well, both Chris and I are not vets. So if we can give general suggestions, but we do try to steer away from pet health, that's the only thing.
Speaker 3:More motivation then, or something like that might be good.
Speaker 1:Well, we do have people who are experienced dog owners with training. I'd be more comfortable sharing that, but maybe not so much around pet health.
Speaker 3:I make videos of them and they're on Instagram. I can tell you a little bit about how famous they are in England and why they're famous. And there are two dogs that look very much like Bunsen and Beaker in the UK that everybody loves and are an Instagram sensation.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I'm sure we'd love to hear it so do you have you heard of Casper?
Speaker 3:Casper, and well, he's got two or three other little dogs, but when I saw your picture is Bunsen. Is he a newfoundland? I'm trying to work out his breed. He's big, isn't he?
Speaker 1:He is a Bernice Mountain dog, so he's not quite as big as a newfie.
Speaker 3:Ah, okay, so there is a sheepdog with obviously the similar coloring on the face as Bunsen, who's called Casper C-A-S-P-E-R Yep, and if you look on Instagram and he has his own calendar. He became an overnight sensation about two years ago and he now has a huge fan club in the UK and he has a little female dog with him who's very, very funny, with a little Scottish accent and is apparently meant to be a little toady for alcohol and whiskey occasionally. It's very funny. She's called Daisy. So Casper and Daisy just remind me a bit of Bunsen and Beaker. Yeah, lovely.
Speaker 3:So my two little Cavalier King Charles. They're very naughty. They're called Etten and, sorry, they're called Senna and Jensen Etten. Senna is a racing driver, as is Jensen Button, and my hobby is motor racing and Formula 1. So Senna and Jensen, they're both little boys. They've both been very miscevious, but they both got really poorly in the last two or three years, and the eldest one, senna, he's just been diagnosed diabetic. So I'm struggling with all the things of getting injections to a dog with insulin and it's very difficult and I'm finding it really difficult myself mentally and I'm just desperately, desperately worried about them. But I won't talk about that. I just want to say what a lovely room. You guys are fantastic. I just love what you're doing and thank you so much for allowing me to speak.
Speaker 1:We'll check out those accounts on Instagram. Instagram is our like, I guess, third largest account and I know if Paula can speak. Paula has some experience with diabetic dogs, so you might we might get Paula to field some questions if she's got time.
Speaker 3:Okay, lovely, I'll hang on in here, just in case she's around. Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and also money, penny. I did put some of your recent tweets in the nest up at the top, and so, talking about the ketoacidosis and the diagnosis, so that if someone in our space who has experience with that that they could share, that would be fantastic.
Speaker 1:I would like to say I'd rather your dogs be on our money than King Charles, though money penny, because we're Canadian and I do hear that we're losing the queen on some of our monies for the king.
Speaker 8:So yeah.
Speaker 1:I'd prefer a King Charles than King Charles, but that's my opinion.
Speaker 3:Australia decided that it was Australia's choice to get rid of the king on the notes, wasn't?
Speaker 1:it. It's our choice to. I think I don't know. I don't know what kind of pull Britain still has over Canada.
Speaker 3:I hope you don't feel too much.
Speaker 1:No, no, it's, we just spell things with use. We'll go to Paula real quick before Jamie. Paula, did you have any advice about diabetic dogs? Maybe in a general sense, in a general sense.
Speaker 9:Sure To be educated. It's from someone that didn't like needles. I can give them like no problem. I have two. I had to. I lost my olive in March, but rose is still diabetic. We have to do shots twice a day. They were both on different insulin. There's different ways to even shake the bottles. When you shake, when you don't, the best advice I can give is get some syringes that are shorter, not the longer ones, because the real short ones are easier to manipulate under the skin rather than having this big lung when we find that they don't yelp. That's really, really helpful. If you get scared of needles, get some syringes and do an orange.
Speaker 3:I'm no problem with the needles and the injections. Yeah, no, I'm okay with that. Actually, my problem is not knowing whether their blood sugar is high or low and not knowing whether there's a critical ketoacidosis coming on again.
Speaker 9:Okay, that's a little bit tricky but the best place I can give you advice to do it and it sounds a little daunting. But you get these little lancets. They sell them in. Even I don't know if Bark and Beyond has them, but I know that Chewy does. But they're like little lancets and you just twist the cap off, flip their lip up and just do a real quick punch and then use the strips and it'll give you the reading right away.
Speaker 9:Get yourself a dog glucose meter at the vet. They sell them. He'll tell you what kind to get. If you want to know a brand, you can instant message me, direct message, and I'll tell you. But they're a lifesaver and that way you do their glucose. You can do it. Usually you do it six hours after they eat and have the injection. You don't do it right away. There's a little time period there.
Speaker 9:It's just a learning curve on how to do stuff from your vet should really help you too and give you some instructions and tell you how to do stuff. We had one. Olive did go into quesoacidosis, so it was pretty scary, but you can usually tell because they really dip low and then they don't look right. Your radar does go up. Like I said, if you have any concerns, my best advice is talk to the vet, but if you want to know what I went through, you can direct message me and I'd be more than happy to help you, because it is a learning curve and our vet gave us gold stars on our forehead because he said, from dumb bunnies to really knowing what to do. It's daunting but you can do it. I know you can. Don't be too afraid of it. Take the bull by the horns, because it's something that you learn and you just do every day. Now we do it like no problem. We do it twice a day.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much. I hope that helps you.
Speaker 1:Thanks for coming up, paul, I appreciate that.
Speaker 9:No problem, jason, anytime. Just a real quick shout out to Sarah and Boris, the Bernie's mountain dog that passed me this week. My heart broke for Sarah, who lost her little puppy this week. I just wanted to say that she's in my prayers and good thoughts. Just don't want to be Debbie Downer, but I just wanted to say that.
Speaker 1:Pet loss and pet death is part of pet ownership, and it was a tough week for sure. I did post about that, I think, the other day with my video. I don't have to go into it now. If you want to know more about you, can maybe ask that question when you come up to speak, or, if there's time, we'll throw it up in the nest. Okay, thanks for coming up, paul. We'll come back to you if you've got a story in a little bit, because I'm sure you've got a puppy story. Jamie, go ahead. Welcome back, jamie. Jamie's back. Good morning, yay.
Speaker 7:I've been away and hiking and away and hiking and busy every Sunday morning for, I don't know, six weeks or something. It's lovely to hear everybody's voices. So, pet story Rose, the problem child, about nearly three weeks ago, while we were on our walk all the dogs get different times off-lead in places where it's safe for them to be off-lead, except Rose decided she needed to bolt down the side of the hill and to look at something. So I was following her but she bolted down through the scrub towards the creek. I thought, okay, rado, I'll catch her at the other end on the way the walk goes around. And I finally caught up to her and I put her back on the lead and we kept walking in and then we went up to the next place where we stopped and they had a swim and then she got out of the water and I thought there's a big red patch on her side.
Speaker 7:At some point, most likely when she bolted down the hill, she's probably caught herself on a wire fence. Oh, no, and she ripped a big patch out of her hip and just like oh. And of course she never says ow, so we never know when she's hurt herself. Jenna will squeal if you look at it wrong. But Rose, it must be the little tuffy that she is never says ow. And so she had this big. She ended up she pulled off the patch of fur because she, like she, peeled herself, which is pretty gross, but it's healing beautifully and the vets had a look at it and no infection and she doesn't have to wear the cone or anything like that. So everything's shiny with her and you never know that she'd hurt herself because she just keeps going like the loony that she is.
Speaker 7:But here, because we're in the future and it's October already, I'm going to just do a little spook for something that I'm doing. October in Australia is Mental Health Awareness Month and for the third year in a row I'm taking part in a program called One Foot Forward, which is for the Black Dog Institute for Mental Health Research. Anyway, during October I'll be running, walking, rowing, riding about 550 kilometres, wow and yeah. So this morning I went off for my first run, I did my first 10 Ks and I came home and I was sitting on the front stairs in the sun having a drink of water and River came out and had words with me because I was outside the gate and he was inside the gate and it was just awful for him that I was outside. So there is a little video of him telling me how awful it was, if people are interested in seeing how terrible I treat my dogs. But thank you so much and I have missed you all. And, yes, I was the winner today, chris, sorry, haha.
Speaker 1:Is this your latest one? The horror of grandma sitting outside with a drink of water? Is that the one?
Speaker 8:That's the one.
Speaker 1:Okay, we'll throw it up in the nest for people to take a look at.
Speaker 8:Oh no, I've done that already, jason.
Speaker 1:Oh, you did it already.
Speaker 7:Well, it's been there twice, Well, there's also, like from yesterday, I think it is the coconut swims.
Speaker 1:I put that up there too. It was hilarious.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Jason and I actually both put that up there.
Speaker 7:So they get to go for a swim. So we go for about a four kilometer walk and we're house sitting for someone at the moment. So they get to go for swims in his pool and chase coconuts, and if Alice just shows up, that's the coconuts.
Speaker 1:That's right, he was wondering about that.
Speaker 7:Yes, all right, thank you, and I'll listen to everybody else's stories.
Speaker 1:Thanks, Jamie.
Speaker 2:Perfect. Thanks and Jamie, I put up the 200 kilometer challenge in the one foot forward. Oh, thank you, Chris. Yeah, I put that in the nest for people to see.
Speaker 1:Awesome, I think Dr Tracy's next Yep. Hi, doc, hi.
Speaker 8:I wanted to tell Chris a positive story about Newfoundland.
Speaker 11:Right, right.
Speaker 8:I don't want her to think they're all crazy chewers. And our Newfoundland. His name was Buddy. Yes, he was just the best dog ever and I think he was the best dog ever. And I think he was the best dog ever when his best friend, dallas, who was a Border Collie lab mix, died. He was just a wreck really. He was always looking for him and he wasn't doing well.
Speaker 8:So I went and got him a puppy, a Border Collie puppy. He was scared to death of that puppy. She was super, super hyper and we had, and he didn't like her either. He was afraid of her too, really afraid of her. So I decided we needed to get another puppy for her. That way she wouldn't bug them so much and maybe they could be covered. So a friend of mine had a lab who accidentally got put in and had puppies, and so we went and picked one out and she was the friendliest, sweetest puppy. When we went in the yard she was the one who came right up to me and she climbed up on my lap and she was only eight weeks old and the other puppies were busy playing with each other and paid no attention to us.
Speaker 8:So we took her home and we named her Rose and I brought her home and put her in the living room and at first ginger that was our Border Collie. We thought maybe she had something to eat because she kept drooling and drooling and then Rose would come up to her and she'd sniff her and go, oh yeah, dog, and walk away from her and she started drooling again. So that went on for about half an hour and then she decided she was okay. So then I introduced Rose to Buddy, our Newfoundland, and he fell in love with her instantly. And it was enormous Newfoundland, and he really fell in love with her. He just couldn't get enough of her. He was with her all the time and she felt the same way about him. When she slept she curled up against him in all that fur and she slept there for years until he finally died.
Speaker 8:But he knew just what she liked and he knew that she was a lab and labs like to chase things, and she loved her balls, and so he would take a tennis ball, and whether it was inside or outside it didn't matter, he would pick it up and he'd bounce it off the floor.
Speaker 1:You'd chuck it with his head right.
Speaker 8:Yes, it was great. I've never seen any dog do that before since. And it would cross the floor across the yard and Rose would get all excited and bound after it and get her ball and race around in circles and Buddy would get all excited and bounce it off the floor Until she was done doing it, and then she'd bring it back to him and put it in front of him and then go through the whole thing again.
Speaker 1:Oh my goodness, if you videoed this doc, you would have like a million views on the social medias.
Speaker 8:It was about 15 years ago.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 8:So I didn't.
Speaker 1:No, no, I'm just teasing.
Speaker 8:No, we would have. It was wonderful. He adored her.
Speaker 1:Oh my goodness, bunsen does that with his Kongs. It's the silliest and craziest thing. He takes his Kong and he goes. He moves his big head back and he goes wham and he slams it down on the ground with crazy force and like bounces up and it like ejects crap that's inside it, like all the treats and stuff. Like I know dogs do that, but he was the first one I've ever seen do it and he like and Beaker doesn't do that, she's like whoa, that's violent. So I could see maybe him doing that with a ball if Beaker liked it. I don't know.
Speaker 8:I'm sure he would. Yes.
Speaker 1:All right. Well, thanks for the story, doc. I appreciate it. We have a question from the chat and DM and this is kind of a sad one, but maybe we can help out Sherry. Sherry said that her golden puppy got bit at a dog park and required stitches and she was wondering for advice to keep the dog away from the wound while it heals. And I know we've been through the ringer with Bunsen and Beaker, with injuries and hot spots and surgeries and things like that. Sometimes, when Beaker was spayed she had her surgesuit and that worked really good, didn't it? Chris, would you agree her surgesuit?
Speaker 2:Yeah, the surgesuit was great and then she just had the hotspot on her cheek, by her ear, and the cone worked well for that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, now the issue here is, the wound on this dog is right where a cone would be. That's the problem, right? So it's right on the underside of the neck. I was sent a picture, paula. Go ahead.
Speaker 9:Okay, this sounds really odd but I'll have had surgery and to do something. I forgot what it was but I put doggy pajamas on her, which they sell as a onesie, and they snap like a baby onesie and they were really easy to put on because she couldn't lick it and she couldn't scratch it, because they do have those doggy donuts that are inflatable. But if it's right by the neck area, they do sell these doggy onesies and they go on and it's especially for dogs that have had like surgery or dogs that have been fixed or whatever and they can't get at the stitches. So that might help. I know it's a big dog, but you can still get them.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 8:With Rose one time the dog I was talking about and it worked great.
Speaker 1:Doggy pajamas Okay.
Speaker 8:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, sherry, I hope that helps. I'm so sorry about your puppy getting. It was at a dog park. You know, I've heard from a lot of trainers and this is just what our trainer has said and other trainers we've had on the show is they are very leery of dog parks, of taking your dogs to dog parks Just because of the unit you do. You can't control that environment, right. You can only control your dog. Not everybody else is at a dog park. So I'm I'm just, I'm just so sorry that happened to you, sherry, and we're thinking about your dog. Yeah, okay, who's next on the dock at Chris? Well, that I'm not sure. Okay, I believe I brought up Sid, sid, cindy, then we'll go to Kathy and then back to Paula and then Paula and Tracer kind of the same time. So we're we'll go to Cindy.
Speaker 5:Hello Hi. Thanks for bringing up. Just a puppy update. They're they were eight weeks old on Thursday and the blue Merle went to his forever home yesterday with an easing family, their local family, and they even use the same vet. So that's great and, yeah, they're very active hikers and this puppy's just went to a wonderful, wonderful home.
Speaker 1:Is that the photo of the dog with the new person, with their new person, that Chris put up in the nest?
Speaker 5:It is, he looks massive in the picture.
Speaker 11:He's so big.
Speaker 5:He's the smallest of the three you know, and he's not that big, but he looks massive for some reason in this picture. She sent me so, but she gave me an update and said he's super cuddly, and they already.
Speaker 1:Oh, my goodness, that's so sweet, cindy, I love your, I love your puppy updates so good.
Speaker 5:Well, we have two more, and so now I'll I'll start those two on livestock and see if either one is going to be a candidate for us to keep, and then we'll hopefully advertise one and keep one, and if neither one works out how we want to livestock, I'll advertise both. But the blue moral, it was just, you know, a very happy circumstance because he's not a candidate for livestock, he's not quite as quick as we want him to be, just as far as the thinking dog. For example, when they were six weeks old, I had them out and they were, all you know, playing and there's a golfer hole and he fell in the same golfer hole twice, four times, sorry. And and his litter mates walked around it like the first time he fell in they're like, oh, that's a hole. So yeah, it's probably best he's going to a non-livescom.
Speaker 1:That's funny. It reminds me of when they're training like canine units for police or for drugs and they fail out because they're, you know, like they're too friendly or something like that. It's like they're just not you need. You know, you need a certain dog for a certain job. Right, yeah, you got to. You got to make sure you have the right dog in that job, or it's not great for the dog. So or or or. I mean you as the person with the livestock.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah, so it worked out really great. He's just so friendly and such a happy guy too, so that's perfect.
Speaker 1:Bunsen would be terrible. With livestock He'd be just like doodadoo. Hello sheep, how's it going? Oh, you're escaping. Go for it, I'm going to lie down. You know like he would just not be helpful at all.
Speaker 3:That's funny.
Speaker 1:Thanks for the update. I think we'll go to Kathy and then Tracy. I think that was the order. So we'll go to Kathy and then Tracy. Kathy, hello.
Speaker 10:Hi, can you hear me?
Speaker 1:Can, can, yep.
Speaker 10:Oh, yay, great. So I popped on to address the question about dog diabetes, but also, going backward on topics, the topic of dog parks I would agree that they're not probably the best place, especially for puppies, because people just don't obey, you know, courtesies and things like that. So it's just I feel sorry for this person's puppy that she got or it got bit, you know, especially in such a sensitive area. I don't, unfortunately, have any suggestions, but it sounds like, excuse me, you and other people covered that, so that's good, thanks.
Speaker 10:As far as the dog diabetes, we had a yellow lab years ago and this is like back in the late 1990s that had developed diabetes, well before Paula's dogs, it sounds like. And Paula pretty much covered everything. That's important. But I would just add that first of all, when you give the injections, it's important to vary the spot of injection. When you pinch up the skin and you go for the injection and the skin Try not to do the same spot every time because they'll develop a sensitive area right there.
Speaker 10:And then also, our dog developed glaucoma as a side effect from the diabetes and that was a lot harder to control and manage than the diabetes itself. So it's something to look out, for we didn't have the blessing of the at-home glucose testing, so I think that's really a plus. It's great that we've come so far in dog treatments nowadays, but it's just something to look out for. Maybe be very vigilant about taking your dog back in for the testing and exams and follow-up, and hopefully they'll never develop the glaucoma as well, because it's very difficult. Our dog went blind almost immediately after developing glaucoma and it was expensive. It was like five or 600 bucks a month and we got our drugs from Target. They were human drugs from Eli Lilly, a company from years ago, and anyway it was just tough. But we loved her. She was a great dog and she was beautiful. We love our dogs and that's what we do.
Speaker 10:And, by the way, jason, I loved your poem about autumn and beaker. It was perfect. It was just so sweet, so yay.
Speaker 1:Oh, thank you yeah.
Speaker 10:So that was my thoughts. I kind of popped on right when Paula did, but I'm glad Paula went first because she really covered the most important and most relevant points. And it's just diabetes with dogs, it's manageable. You just have to stay on top of it and just understand that it's now part of your life. You know it's now part of part of the plan.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, that's great, great advice. Thank you so much, kathy, for coming up and sending some, some messages. I just got a message, a DM, from MoneyPenny about glaucoma. So that's, you know, that's some good advice there too, yeah, perfect. Yeah, Okay cool, we'll go to Tracy and then Paula and then tennis ball. Bondi, tracy, hello, hi guys. Hi Is Ricky doing. Okay, you said he was not himself a couple of days ago.
Speaker 4:Yeah, he's still. I mean, he's doing a lot better.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay.
Speaker 4:Like I have a cold, so I've had a cold for a few days, so I could be doing better, but he's you know. Back to himself.
Speaker 1:Oh good.
Speaker 4:Jumping on my counters again, you know being a cat. I mean it's going to be upsetting when he like stopped being able to jump. But I'm also like you could, you could get a new hobby, get a different hobby, you know. But yeah, he's good. I'm going to go home to him soon and then hopefully he's down to snuggle, so, but thankfully it was just like a one day thing and he was back to normal, like when I got home from work that day.
Speaker 1:So, but you do always worry about your pets anyway, so oh yeah, if Bunsen and Beaker are off, I'm I'm worried about them. I'm sick with worry, like even Beaker's hotspot. I was just worried about her all day with her hotspot and it's just like a little tiny wound on the side of her ear, so, or like her cheek.
Speaker 2:Well, 100%, Jay. We were very worried and I left midday.
Speaker 1:You took her to the vet, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I took her to the vet. Like I have a I guess we call it a prep period and lunch, and so I went over that. Luckily I had that, so I was able to take her. It was a two hour round trip, but just to get her looked at to make sure that it wasn't a foreign body in her face.
Speaker 6:Like a beaver tooth.
Speaker 2:Like a beaver tooth, yeah, or something, and just to have it checked out, because we're not. We just saw that it was green and kind of yellow and gross. So we definitely got the medication and he's like perfect and good as new.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah, I mean they're families.
Speaker 4:We got to take care of them.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 4:So I mean that's about oh, let's go on on with that. Just glad he's better and you know he can continue a straight in again, so he wants.
Speaker 1:All right, thanks, tracy. Thanks for the rookie update, paul. We'll go to you. You jumped up early and then I said I'd swing back to you, so I'll honor that, and then we'll go after you to tennis ball, bondi.
Speaker 9:Okay, thanks. I don't have really too much else to say. I just want to say Chixie's doing pretty good with her puppy school. She's learning to stay in one spot, but she's so funny and classed because she was so shy, but now she wants to see what everybody's doing. It went from like one end to the other, but she's getting there. She's pretty smart, but it's been raining here.
Speaker 9:We've been getting deluge rain in Connecticut. It's been absolutely bonkers. But I can't go outside and try to train her in another environment, so it's only been in the house. So it's. It's been a little bit fun that way, but I'll try to get some pictures next week because unfortunately my poor husband comes to and she loves my husband, so she doesn't train when. When he's there, she just wants to run back to him and jump in his lap, so poor Dave's got to sit in the car, but anyway. But I just wanted to say thanks, guys. Your poems are great, your videos, oh man. Everybody get on these great trail walks we do with Jason and Chris. They are spectacular. Coming from Twitter now they're not so fuzzy and I've been really enjoying them.
Speaker 9:So thank you. And the activity book I I looked at it, I love it. I I'm saving one just to save and then one I'm going to mark up and then the other ones I'm giving away to the neighborhood kids.
Speaker 1:So have you tried some of them? Have you tried some?
Speaker 9:Yeah, I did some of the word. I like those searches and I was just I do. You're gonna think I'm corny, but I love the maze when like try to go to beaker in the middle. You know, like when you have those placemats.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I do the, I do the activity books as like that are made for you know the age younger age group. They're fun.
Speaker 9:They are fun. And hey, when you get older you need that education again. But anyway, I'm joking, but anyway they're great. So you know, has after everybody, get one, everybody, cause they are awesome and you're going to be even more so. So I'm already counting how many busters there are in my issue.
Speaker 1:So Okay, all right, smart All right, very good, thanks guys. Thanks, paula. Do you think it would be tough to train a puppy in the winter? Chris, cause, paula's right, like um, like we always had puppies in the summer, like I, would not be fun to have a puppy in like February.
Speaker 2:When it's minus 50.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you're going to take them outside? Yeah, that would be rough the puppy would go quickly though. The puppy would go quickly yeah.
Speaker 2:But I think it's different if you have a fenced yard to say cause we don't. So every time our dogs go out, we go out with them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, we'll head over to tennis ball Bondi. Hi, tennis ball Bondi.
Speaker 11:Hi, I'm actually Janice and hi Janice.
Speaker 11:I was two golden retrievers ago. So I should probably change the name on my account on Twitter if I could figure that out. Um, I thought I would share um about dog parks and there is this thing. It's very big here I'm in the Portland Oregon area but they are national but kind of targeted to big cities, called sniff spot and they run off an app or you can go to their website and people with extra land rented out to dogs, kind of like the Airbnb of dogs by the hour, okay.
Speaker 11:So you know you can end up here. You can end up pretty quickly in some rural areas, like you know, maybe people have stables and horses and then they have a fenced field and they'll they disclose are they fully fenced, partially fenced, you know? Are there amenities? Or you know, obviously if you live in an apartment, there's some people that just are like this is my backyard, you're welcome to it and it's super popular here and you can get a friend.
Speaker 11:You know you can sign up for two dogs or four dogs and you can get a friend and it's very reasonable here. It's 10 to $20 an hour.
Speaker 1:So you rent it. You rent it as a group or yourself, so it's more private.
Speaker 11:Yourself. One person has to have an account and rent it, but you could, so I often. I have a new rescue golden. He's 15 months and I rent it and my friend comes and brings her a taller, and so we have two dogs that can play together there. But we're not at a dog park, we're in a private area.
Speaker 1:That's fascinating.
Speaker 11:I mean I mean go capitalism and I'm telling you the ones that are super nicely appointed, that are, you know, in locally so you don't have to drive like an hour and a half to get to them, right? Yeah, it's so popular. There's one that we go to that it books out for two weeks in advance and their book morning tonight. There's a 15 minute gap between dogs so you can come and go safely oh gotcha.
Speaker 11:It's. But I mean, what an awesome. Also, if you have an empty field, what an awesome thing. You can mix money on it.
Speaker 1:Hey, chris, we've got some of that out here. Yeah, I think a whole lot of like one person would come though, because we are in the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 11:Yeah, yeah, but it can be a really good alternative to a dog park, that's cool, I like that.
Speaker 11:And even just going alone you know, sniff, smart sniffing you suddenly are somewhere brand new to sniff and explore. It's good for them. So, yeah, yeah, so that would be my advice is, if you're in a city that has this service and it's I think it's far more popular in the Northwest than other areas there's a million of them here, you know, but it's been a really great thing and I've only ever used it with this newest dog. I've only had him like five months and it's just been great.
Speaker 2:Is Wooster. Wooster is my new dog.
Speaker 11:Wooster is my new dog. Oh, I put him in the nest. Oh, he's a golden retriever.
Speaker 11:He was in the guide dog training program and we'll cover his ears and say he flunked out, but he is an absolutely he's going to be a wonderful dog. He's still very much a teenager puppy, oh yeah, so I'm a little tired, but he's going to be an amazing dog and he's he's stunning. So I feel like somebody just handed me this absolutely beautiful dog, so he's a great addition after a loss of maybe my, my sole dog, golden retriever. So I I disappeared from your forms for a while because I had to have a little recovery time but I'm I'm back with with Wild Wooster and trying to navigate teenagehood.
Speaker 1:That's the that's the essence of the post I made, um, because there were some hard losses this week with people that we know, with their pets and grief, can go somewhere and when you're ready, one of the best places it can go is that you can pour that into a new animal, and it sounds like that's what's happening with you.
Speaker 11:I feel like this was kismet or meant to be, because, um, you can spend years on a wait list attempting to adopt a guide dog flunky their beautiful red dogs and I, my first one, my bond. I was a guide dog flunky and I was on the list over three years and I was on the list for him three weeks, like I just matched to you know the things I dealt with with my other dogs matched to this dog and and they called me so three weeks and I was like, well, that's a good thing I have all this dog gear because of dog and we were off, so he's he's a fun dog.
Speaker 1:Are you smiling from ear to ear, Chris?
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, your post says he's wild and crazy and fun, which means that he would not make a good guide guide dog, but he was a perfect pet.
Speaker 1:Can you imagine if, like beaker or feta were guide at dog, animals, people, people would die, people would get like walked into traffic and stuff.
Speaker 11:Yeah, squirrel, gotta go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly yeah.
Speaker 11:Um, so I he's very much absorbs kind of my energy and stuff, but uh, so he would do well at being bonded to the person, but the focus of that job was way too much for him.
Speaker 1:There's a huge percentage of dogs that um fail out of that dog dog guide academies. Um, we like that. We've covered that on the science podcast, so, like the science of it is, I think the percentage is like around 10%. Like 10% of the puppies make it all the way. It's quite, quite, quite low.
Speaker 11:Um they're, they're doing some more breeding programs now to try and improve that number, but like, if you get like 30% of a litter, that's phenomenal, that's like off the charts. But it's usually 10 to 20%, depending on the program and the demands um literally all of that. I've taken him to everyone's like oh he's such a nice dog, it's good. It's a stressful job for them, it's.
Speaker 1:They're amazing, these dogs, at what they do, but it's it's a difficult job so yeah, we had a toddler at her house, um and uh, just matching the emotion of the toddler when, when Rafi left, chris, the Bonsonet beaker, just went right to sleep. They're like it's too much. There's too much emotion, you know, like they just went right to sleep.
Speaker 5:Yeah so they're all.
Speaker 1:yeah, those guys, the, the working dogs are always on. So they're, they're working hard, they're working hard.
Speaker 11:Yeah, yeah, but but really it's. It's literally, you know, about 10% and and there's a lot of wild cards because they they have volunteer puppy trainers right that train according to their program. But I mean, obviously some of those people are better than others at at the basic training and then they bring them into the um campus facilities to train the, the guiding skills, those skills, but um, so there's it's. I you can imagine it's difficult to get um dogs through there and yet they serve a huge number of people. It's amazing. So absolutely yeah yeah, and what those dogs do is amazing. They're the um intelligent decision making, yep.
Speaker 1:All you have to do is uh follow, like Kuno who works with Marla and um and then yeah, and then of course Samson ScienceDog.
Speaker 11:Samson.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, joey.
Speaker 1:Ramstog, exactly those dogs. I'm just like, oh my God, they're amazing. Um, we met Chesney, uh, at the skills and when she came to Red Deer and Chesney was a little puppy and we were just like, oh, this dog is amazing, it's a little marshmallow.
Speaker 2:She is amazing. And did you? Did you see that she got her canine good neighbor last night?
Speaker 1:Yeah, she, uh, what of course she's, she's, she's like the nicest sweetest well-behaved thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Marla Chesney and Kuno are in Lord Minster.
Speaker 1:Oh they're in. Yeah, they're doing a competition right.
Speaker 2:Doing a competition and guess where they'll be next week.
Speaker 1:Are they in Red Deer?
Speaker 2:They are. We should go say hi, 100%. I'll drag you out of the house.
Speaker 1:That's right. That's what happened last time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I had to drag you out of the house. You're like, I love being at home.
Speaker 1:I do. I love being when it's been a busy week. I love nothing more than to be at home.
Speaker 2:I know. So, jason, actually um, today is a national day for truth and reconciliation here in Canada, um recognizing um the atrocities um and and moving forward with truth and reconciliation with our indigenous people. Yeah, um, so it's. It's a really important day here um in Canada, but yesterday your school division was um off in recognition.
Speaker 1:It's not, um, it's not a holiday, but we yeah, my division just didn't have school that day.
Speaker 2:That's right. And they said, well, what are you going to do? And you said, well, I'm certainly not leaving the house.
Speaker 1:No, why would?
Speaker 2:I.
Speaker 1:Everything I love is in the house.
Speaker 6:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yes, communities, this province of the state, political, social, ethnic and queer, or producing, when I have time, video games like bathrooms. I know where they are. My house is the best.
Speaker 2:Anyway, so that happened.
Speaker 1:I got so much done yesterday, by the way, I'll have you know. Ok, we had Sarah come up and. Hi, sarah, how are you doing? Are you doing? Ok, we were. We were actually talking about just. Our hearts are out to you for the loss of your dog this week, so sorry, thank you.
Speaker 6:Thank you. Yeah, it's been a hard week. We just thought little Daisy's ashes and that was that's almost as. That's almost as difficult as the day, you know getting her little ashes and I don't know. But our other dogs they aren't acting the same. You know they're sad.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they can just feel it. They have grief, you bet.
Speaker 6:Especially her little puppy, which we are now so thankful that she that she had him, even though it was an accident. She just had the one giant puppy and he's not. He's not the same. He's usually very rambunctious and Daisy would play with him constantly, and Charlie doesn't like to play with him as much. Daisy and Sammy were about the same size, so they played really well together, so that's been hard.
Speaker 1:I don't have any words, aside from where we're thinking about you and and you are reading into it correct Like dogs dogs are. They have, they have big brains. They have brains like us and they know when there's a missing person or animal. So it's a thing.
Speaker 6:How long do you think that lasts?
Speaker 1:I can't answer that Dogs don't have the same perception of time as humans do, so I do know that's a thing. So their perception of time is very warped compared to ours. My guess is my guess is that will probably pass sooner than yours as a human, because we have a much more. We have a much more finite grasp of time than dogs do.
Speaker 6:So I'll take take lots of pictures of your puppies, because you never know, and it'll be the last.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Yeah, it made me when, when you had, when you had said that happened and then, of course, boris the burner passed away this week, it made me reminisce about the loss of Callan and some of the stuff that we went through. And, yeah, it's a tough, it's a very, very tough time. We we actually broke down the science of pet grief on one one episode of the science podcast and they there's actually been science done about it and the science into pet grief. There is no difference. There is no difference between the loss of a pet and this includes, like this is not just dogs, this is a pet.
Speaker 1:There's no difference in the grief that a human person feels, like a human person feels with the loss of a pet, and any immediate or close family member. It is exactly the same, um, and I think, I think I hope society changes a bit with that, because it's always papood a bit if you're not an animal lover, animal owner, if you're not a pet parent. So I know I that's one of the things that and it's been done a couple of different studies and they've both been pretty conclusive that it's the same. But in that, because it is the same, then the supports to deal with the grief are the same, um, and if there are supports there. If you've lost a human, you care about. The same strategies and therapies and things like that can work for the pet that you've lost too. So if you've experienced that, if you're, you're grieving, that's something to think about, and sometimes just talking about it is better than not.
Speaker 6:Oh, I agree, I agree, we, we're, we're trying to just keep it positive and we've, um, we're, we've laughed a little bit about, you know, miss Daisy and um, and how, how mean she was to the other dogs. She had little dogs, she was tiny. Daisy was um, uh, 18 pounds.
Speaker 1:So she was tiny. She's a beagle, Sarah.
Speaker 6:Yeah, she, oh, that's a little beagle. She was a tiny, tiny little bit. Her puppy is bigger than her, um, um, so we sort of laughed at that, um, but we're just having like nice happy conversations around. Uh, daisy, and um, and you know what was people? People are so affected, um, sorry.
Speaker 1:Take your time, it's okay, and if you and if you don't want to, that's to speak, that's okay. One thing I'll mention, um, is, I don't know when the interview is coming out, but I, on Tik Tok, there is a vet. Um, her name is Faith Banks and she is. She specializes in hospice. She's a hospice vet and, uh, her her posts on on Tik Tok I was, I started falling her in there like very profound posts and I reached out to her and she jumped at the chance to be on the science podcast. So, um, my interview with her was like amazing, I thought.
Speaker 1:I thought it would be like extremely emotional to talk about hospice, hospice with pets and it, and it wasn't, it was, it was, uh, it was a really, I want to say even like therapeutic and cool interview. So when that interview comes out, I'll make sure I post about it. Um, faith isn't Dr. Dr Banks is not on Twitter, she is on Tik Tok. So, uh, you won't find her, but but if you are on Tik Tok, search uh, dr Faith Banks and she's a great follow for social media.
Speaker 6:Is that where she uses dogs for hospice patients or for pets in hospice?
Speaker 1:No, so when, uh, a pet enters end of life, she is, that's her specialty, Um, so she one of the one of the things that she talks about, that, and I and I don't want to bring everybody down because it is a heavy topic but one of the things that I think is really cool is that she developed this 10 point scale. To talk to a family about where their animal sits on that 10 point scale, what their quality of life is, to make a decision if it's time to say goodbye, like for euthanasia, and I think for a lot of people you don't know where your pet is until you talk to, like a vet who knows more than you about quality of life. Um, and I think that was like the coolest conversation, because once you see where your pets quality of life is, and if they start to dip into what would be considered even something like suffering, then it makes that decision so much easier, Um, and and lighter, even though it's a very sad time. So that that's what she specializes in.
Speaker 1:That must be hard on her as well, I talked to her about that, like that was one of my questions. I'm like are you okay? Because being a vet or a veterinary doctor is extremely hard. They have one of the highest percentages of, like, suicide rates out of any profession. And I said are you doing okay? Is your mental health okay? And she said that her mental health has never been better. Because that's what she does she focuses on the care for an animal and it's all that type of emotion. What's really hard for vet doctors is to go from that to giving a puppy shots, to like all of these other things in a practice that are jumping all over the place emotionally and you can't regulate yourself. So I did ask her that question.
Speaker 6:Well, it's good that she's in a good place and knows that she's helping families make a hard decision and making it for the right reasons. My mom and dad had a English Bulldog and she was 16 years old.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 6:And I know she had the best care possible, that she developed cancer and it's just as expensive, by the way, to treat a dog with cancer as it is a person. And they put, I mean, she had chemotherapy and she had her pills and she had radiation treatments and they were this was when she was 12 and they gave her, you know, she's probably not gonna, you know she's probably not gonna live long and he lived until she was 16 and my mom couldn't let go and it took the vet to tell her that it's time. It's time, you know you wouldn't want to live like this and she had such a hard time, but she did feel a sense of wellbeing that their dog was now, you know, happy and not suffering.
Speaker 6:So that did help, that did help and it helped her with her grief as well. So she knew that she had her dog far longer than those dogs. You know, their lifespan is not 16 years.
Speaker 1:No, that's why I was a little stunned.
Speaker 6:The boy that they got lived 17. Wow, 17 years. He was old, but that is care I mean. Those dogs sneezed wrong and my mom had them at the vet. In fact, their bills were so expensive that their pet insurance cut them off.
Speaker 1:Oh man.
Speaker 6:They could no longer get pet insurance. So that was my mom was like well, I was gonna bankrupt the company with my two elderly dogs, so it's probably a good thing. It was care. You know, care for your pets like you care for yourself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and if anybody's wondering, the longest lived dog is. I thought this was like fake when this was like when this the news came out about and I dug into the background and it was verified by, like I mean, vets and other news organizations Bobby was a Portuguese dog, lived to be almost 31 years old.
Speaker 6:What kind of dog?
Speaker 1:I was a Portuguese Australian cattle mix dog. No, sorry, no, that was the previous record holder. It was a Portuguese dog and it was a mixed breed. A mixed breed.
Speaker 6:How old 30?
Speaker 1:Almost 31. I know, isn't that hard to believe.
Speaker 6:That is, I thought, the longest living dog gosh. I think, though I saw a post, was like a 25 year old golden retriever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, other ones have outlived it. There was a cattle dog lived to be 29,. But Bobby was the longest living dog and it was like verified by Guinness and other vets and I thought it was ridiculous. When I saw that I'm like, no, there's no way. But there you go.
Speaker 6:Could you imagine the 25 year old golden retriever? I think they said the only thing that was. I think it was a female and the only thing that was wrong with her was she had a little bit of dementia and aging bones and things. But if you can have a dog live for 25 years, how amazing is that?
Speaker 1:In. What makes it bananas is if you flip that to a human, that would be like you or I, living well into the like 180, 190 years old, like that. How ridiculous is that right? If you're like, yeah, my grandma lived to be 180, you'd be like, oh yeah, get out of town, right? Okay, sure we had a.
Speaker 6:There was an AI space that my friends the Krasensteins had done and they were talking about a neural link for pets and increasing their age if AI could detect diseases such as diabetes or heart disease, kidney failure through AI technologies, because by the time you find out that your dog is diabetic or has renal failure, typically it's just too late.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they have, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 6:Yeah, you're now treating the problem instead of preventing it from happening, and I thought, oh gosh, you know, if they ever developed that technology, I would sell everything I had and all of my dogs would be fit with AI and they would be peeing on my headstone because they live so long.
Speaker 1:That's yeah, that's incredible. I'm holding out a little bit on all the neural link stuff until I see some data, but True, I mean, we would all love our dogs to live way longer. So I'm with you there, Paula, your hand is up, go ahead.
Speaker 9:Yeah, and Sarah, I'm so sorry about Daisy. I cried with you. Oh my God, I was so upset that haunted me for days. But anyway, the AKC magazine just had an article to Sarah about they want studies and they're asking for dogs. They're trying to see if they can make dogs live longer. So there was a big study about this AI and it was all in the magazine and they're looking for test dogs or whatever and it was really interesting.
Speaker 6:I don't know would you put your dogs, Paula? Would you put your dogs in that kind of test Cause? What if something goes wrong?
Speaker 9:Yeah, I don't think I would unless like I'm kind of with Jason unless I see some more facts. But I don't know if it was exactly AI, but they were just saying that they're trying to see if they can get dogs to live past, like the, you know, 14 to 20 age. You know they wanted to kind of stretch that age span, so it was a pretty interesting article in the AKC magazine so and they had a whole shlua vets and scientists doing all these studies. But well, hey, I always said I would have sold my soul to the devil just to get two years more with Olive. I always joke, but anyway, you know. But you know I always see we'll see him again. I don't care what they say, cause I just I just feel like you know, will Rogers said, if dogs don't go to heaven, then I'm not going.
Speaker 1:So I agree with him Send me where they go.
Speaker 6:You got it Well, paula, I will tell you. I made the joke once on Twitter, but I've said it to my husband for years that I just keep him around and you know, in case my dog needs a kidney. And it's true, because if my dog needed a kidney I'd be like you know what. You have a perfectly healthy kidney and my dog needs it.
Speaker 1:So the greatest thing about dogs scientifically, why they don't live as long is the. You know, the reason why dogs are so good is cooked into the reason why they don't live so long, like we. We we genetically altered them to to make all these different dog breeds that are just so amazing and cool, and in doing so, that is like cooked in their, their, the length of their life, because we want.
Speaker 6:Because of crossbreeding.
Speaker 1:No, because we wanted to change like they're. They're, of course, the scent from wolves in the wolf lifespan is six to eight years, a little bit longer in captivity. So they're kind of like, their genes are linked to wolves. But also, you didn't want a dog to like, live 30 or 40 years If you wanted to rapidly change the breed, like if you have to think like five or 600 years ago, you wanted to have a dog to have lots of babies, select the ones with the traits that you want and cruelly probably call the rest and then breed those further to get the dogs that you wanted. So we're, we're kind of dealing with the like. Dogs are amazing and they're great and they're the best thing on earth, but cooked into that is some of the choices our ancestors made. And and yeah, the dog aging project is the one that I believe that Paula was talking about. I think Sarah Bram put it in the chat. Very interesting, though, right, dog aging, such a cool area of science.
Speaker 6:Yeah, I wouldn't mind my tax dollars going to fully fund the.
Speaker 8:EGF tax.
Speaker 6:Oh, so your property taxes are $10,000. Okay, 20,000,. Fine, I think it can work itself a job.
Speaker 1:I think you guys down there have a couple of fighter jets. That would probably fund the whole thing.
Speaker 6:Oh goodness, I wish that thing would have crashed in my yard. I would have had it on eBay and it would have funded all of my dogs to have their own house.
Speaker 1:It's okay, we don't have any of those to spare up here in Canada.
Speaker 6:So no, but, but I do hope they advance that I think that you know advance the age of dogs. But I wanted to ask you what's the world's oldest cat?
Speaker 1:I don't know the answer to that. I would have to Google it. I'll Google it right now. World's oldest cat.
Speaker 6:Because we had a cat. We got him. He was an adult, and this was when I was five and he was, he was, he wasn't neutered, and he was one of those cats that would disappear for four, five, six, seven days and then he would come back all skinny and then he'd stay and he'd eat and then he'd leave again. His name was and I'm old, so his name was Buford T Justice. Do you know where that's from?
Speaker 1:I've heard. I have heard of that. Yes.
Speaker 6:It was from Smokey and the Bandit he was Buford T Justice and and old Buford he was. We don't know how old he was when we got him. He was an adult and we got him at when I was five years old and he was still around when I was 16. And my mom said that cat has to be 50 years old. How old is this cat? And and he passed away when one of our neighbor kids and shot him with a BB gun. Oh yeah, but you know, my mom the animal lover, that poor kid, that poor kid. I'll leave it there, but that poor kid.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there'd be some John Wick nonsense happening on my side.
Speaker 6:Oh my, God, it was. My mom was John Wick, before there was John Wick.
Speaker 1:Your John Wick's your mom was the archetype for the John Wick story.
Speaker 6:She was, she was. They lived in a tiny town and it became kind of a controversy because my mom was like calling for the death penalty for this poor child.
Speaker 1:I wouldn't put it past like the whoever directed that. They're, like you know, trolling through the archives and then your mom pops up and like, hey, that'd be a good, that'd be, we just need to make your mom like a ex hitman. Oh, that's something like the Bobby Yaga.
Speaker 6:Oh, he was the first, I'm not kidding. That boy was the first prosecution that they had done in that town probably in the entire state but in that town for animal cruelty and death, and he was a kid but he got punished. He had to do community service.
Speaker 1:Well, good.
Speaker 6:His community service was at my mom's house, so she berated him daily, berated him daily. His name was Michael and she would be like oh, Michael, you're going to have to clean out the cat boxes today. You remember cats, don't you? Oh my?
Speaker 1:goodness.
Speaker 6:Everybody's here yelling at this kid.
Speaker 1:I feel that's karma. That is it really was.
Speaker 6:It really was.
Speaker 1:I have a Google search for you, for everybody. Sarah asked. The world's oldest cat was named Cream Puff and lived to be 38 years old, so 38. No 30 years old Yep Cats can be much longer livid than dogs. As we all know, they're smaller creatures and they don't have that same DNA. They don't have the same shorter lifespan cooked into them that dogs do, because we never really bred cats for anything. They just kind of showed up and we're like, hey, you're cute, and they moved in.
Speaker 6:Ginger is a kitty.
Speaker 1:Go ahead, Chris, you can answer.
Speaker 2:Jason, I was thinking was he 38 years old but never kissed a girl?
Speaker 1:Probably it's a cat. He probably kissed lots of girls, chris.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we got Ginger at seven months, or they said that she was seven months. She's a rescue, but I've had two long-lived cats.
Speaker 1:You have yeah, Poco. How long did Poco live?
Speaker 2:She was like at least 20. We had her a very long time. I got her. I love that cat.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:And Lee Bay.
Speaker 1:Yep Lee Bay was over 20 easily.
Speaker 2:Yeah, easily. We had her on the farm with us and she was Melissa's cat.
Speaker 1:Poco was one of those cats that was probably a demon and could lick fire. And did you find Poco in a dumpster, like it was just one of those? You have a dog and some of the purebred dogs. This is. It comes from a line of Sir Bartholomew II and it cost $7,000. And Poco was like. Poco came from the garbage and fought, fights, rats and no, poco did not come from the garbage. Okay.
Speaker 2:But we did rescue her and we got her in BC.
Speaker 1:So she fought like raccoons.
Speaker 2:I don't think so.
Speaker 1:Probably there's raccoons all over British Columbia, chris.
Speaker 2:There are, that's true, but I don't. Maybe she bought raccoons, but anyway, we had her, we loved her and we brought her to the farm and she was an amazing cat.
Speaker 1:No, she was awful.
Speaker 2:She didn't know and enjoyed you. Okay, and that's probably why you don't like her, or you didn't like her, but no, I've warmed up the cats.
Speaker 1:Chris, I've warmed. Do you know who's sleeping next to me? Ginger, ginger. Yeah, she comes into the room and she sleeps right next to me.
Speaker 2:I know.
Speaker 1:But we have gone on a bit too long and we should probably do the draw for Bark and Beyond the $20 gift certificate. I hate to wrap it up, but we normally are only an hour, but this conversation was actually super engaging, Sarah. Thank you for a couple of the extra points there. I appreciate that. Well, as we're wrapping up, Chris, do you have any closing words?
Speaker 2:Just thank you everybody for coming tonight and sharing your stories with us, your joys and your sorrows. That's all part of being a pet community and we understand what you're going through and we're excited for your puppy stories. But then, also the hospice end-of-life stories are very important as well To share together. Yeah, so just thank you for coming out and being with us tonight.
Speaker 1:I'm very thankful that we have PetChat. We started this a year or more ago. How long have we been doing PetChat A year straight with?
Speaker 2:a couple of misses.
Speaker 1:Year and a half.
Speaker 2:We have. I think you actually started on spaces as one of the.
Speaker 1:I don't want to call them the prototypes, but I wasn't one of the betas, but it was there. But anyways, the point I'm making is that it's allowed us to have a community where we can hear each other. Like Twitter, social media is Twitter's text-based, pictures-based, and having conversations and hearing each other's voices is very, very cool. I think that's so neat. And from everybody who comes up to speak, we've gotten to know you so much better. And for the people that listen in every day and live vicariously through everybody's stories, I mean that's so good. Social media can be really negative, but PetChat never is. So thank you for everybody who comes in and speaks and listens. I don't really have anything else Calendar sales. We don't really have anything to talk about on our end yet.
Speaker 2:Well, we just made the sticker packs and the pen packs.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, you were printing how many stickers did. How many calendar sticker sheets did you have to do last night? That was wild.