Speaker 1: Now really.
Speaker 2: Really now really hello, and welcome to Really Know Really
Speaker 2: with Jason Alexander and Peter Tilden. Remind you that if
Speaker 2: you subscribe to our show, it will prove that you
Speaker 2: really know, really love us. And speaking of love, have
Speaker 2: you ever wondered if your dog truly loves you?
Speaker 3: A recent cover story.
Speaker 2: Of Newsweek magazine posed that very question and revealed that
Speaker 2: there is now scientific research that provides an answer. Really, no, really,
Speaker 2: but how can science really prove what your dog feels
Speaker 2: about you?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 2: Fascinated by the scientific inquiry, we turned to doctor Gregory Burns,
Speaker 2: the Distinguished Professor of Neuroeconomics at Emory University and the
Speaker 2: scientist who conducted the actual love research, even going so
Speaker 2: far as to train dogs to be reliable subjects using
Speaker 2: MRIs to discover what's really going on in their little
Speaker 2: doggie brains.
Speaker 3: He's got the answer to does your dog truly love you?
Speaker 4: So?
Speaker 2: Pet parents, brace yourselves because you're about to learn the truth.
Speaker 2: Now here's Jesson and Peter.
Speaker 5: We know each other a long time. Tell me definitively
Speaker 5: do I love you?
Speaker 6: Yes?
Speaker 4: I think you love me?
Speaker 1: But how would you prove it?
Speaker 4: How do you know that I prove it if a kidney.
Speaker 4: If I need a kidney, M.
Speaker 1: I really like you.
Speaker 4: If I need a kidney and you stepped the kidneys
Speaker 4: and you stepped the night before, I'm not then, but
Speaker 4: I think you. I think you.
Speaker 7: We've been through enough stuff together. And but is that
Speaker 7: what it is or is it honestly? So yeah, there's like, Okay,
Speaker 7: you asked me for something, I do it for. You
Speaker 7: need a favor, I do it.
Speaker 5: You have you have trouble, I commiserate, We sympathize with
Speaker 5: each other, we have we laugh together.
Speaker 3: We have.
Speaker 5: Got how But what I'm asking scientifically, if a scientist
Speaker 5: had to answer the question, does Jason loved Peter, I
Speaker 5: don't know how they will? Well you get that yet
Speaker 5: here we are talking about the dog.
Speaker 4: Okay, but I think the easier thing here and we'll
Speaker 4: see it. And I love this guy. I ended up
Speaker 4: watching what he's doing now and also know we know
Speaker 4: how he did these studies. So we're going to share
Speaker 4: it with everybody about that because everybody listening as a dog.
Speaker 4: But why don't you tell I know you have a
Speaker 4: story about a dog you were well.
Speaker 5: You know you're talking about a dog in effect, So
Speaker 5: I did a movie years ago that Richard Gear started
Speaker 5: and produced called Hachi, and it is based on a
Speaker 5: true story that happened in Japan with a dog named Hachiko,
Speaker 5: where Hotchiko's owner would walk with Hachiko or Hachi to
Speaker 5: the train station every day so that he would go
Speaker 5: off to work and the dog would make its way home.
Speaker 5: And then the dog must have learned what time the
Speaker 5: train back from work would come and he would walk
Speaker 5: back to the station to greet his owner every day. Well,
Speaker 5: after years of doing this, apparently the owner went to
Speaker 5: the train in the morning, Hotchiko walked with him went
Speaker 5: back home, but the guy died while he was at work,
Speaker 5: so Hachiko went back to the train station. The owner
Speaker 5: never gets off the train, and the story is that
Speaker 5: Hachiko never left the trains, that he waited literally for
Speaker 5: the rest of his life for his owner to come
Speaker 5: off the train. And in Japan this story is told
Speaker 5: and with reverence, and there's a statue Pochigo because he's
Speaker 5: become a symbol of true love and loyalty.
Speaker 1: So we did the American version of that story. I
Speaker 1: got to work with Lilah.
Speaker 5: By the way, one of the hot yeah, one of
Speaker 5: one of the dogs that played HATCHI my first day
Speaker 5: in the trailer, the makeup gals looked at the call
Speaker 5: sheet and went, oh, you're working with Lila.
Speaker 1: And I said, is Lilah good?
Speaker 5: And they, with a straight face, they said, she's the
Speaker 5: Meryl Streep of Ducks.
Speaker 1: And you know what, she was very good. She gave,
Speaker 1: she gave something.
Speaker 5: But I always was wondering, you know, not the not
Speaker 5: the I don't want to be that guy.
Speaker 1: But I go, yeah, he's living.
Speaker 5: The dog is living at the train station because everyone
Speaker 5: that knew the dog and the guy on day one
Speaker 5: is going, oh, he doesn't know. So it's pets and
Speaker 5: cuddles and a treat and a thing and every and
Speaker 5: now the dog's there tomorrow. So by in three days,
Speaker 5: the whole train station is feeding this dog, watering this dog,
Speaker 5: petting this dog.
Speaker 1: Giving it toys to play. I mean, why would it
Speaker 1: go home? Why?
Speaker 4: By the way, it's funny. I have some insight into dogs.
Speaker 4: I understand that Hanky was waiting for the movie to break.
Speaker 4: Even dogs are fascinating to me. And and this your
Speaker 4: question of how can you tell if the dog is
Speaker 4: truly in love with you? Right, let's get let's get
Speaker 4: doctor Burns.
Speaker 1: Let me introduce this fine gentleman to you all.
Speaker 5: Doctor Gregory Burns is the Distinguished Professor, not just you know, distinger,
Speaker 5: the associate the underling Distinguished Professor of Neuroeconomics at Emory University.
Speaker 1: He directs the Center for Neuropolicy.
Speaker 5: He has received numerous grants from the National Institutes of Health,
Speaker 5: the National Science Foundation, Department of Defense, and he's published
Speaker 5: over seventy peer reviewed original research articles, many relating to
Speaker 5: his work with dogs. He is a New York Times
Speaker 5: bestselling author of How Dogs Love Us a neuroscientist and
Speaker 5: his adopted dog decode the canine brain. And he's very
Speaker 5: into dogs. He's got another book, What It's Like to
Speaker 5: Be a Dog. He's also he's doing.
Speaker 4: A lot of it. If you're watching this on YouTube.
Speaker 4: Has the coolest den of anybody we've interviewed. Oh and
Speaker 4: there's a dog, your newer dog? Is that the newer dog?
Speaker 6: Oh?
Speaker 8: No, that's Cali. She's the original.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 8: Well she was the first MRI dog.
Speaker 1: So let's talk.
Speaker 4: Let's talk. Can we by the way, yeah heard the dog.
Speaker 5: The dog got up to say hello. You didn't actually
Speaker 5: we always do this. We seg right in without saying hello,
Speaker 5: welcome to the show. It's lovely to meet you. That's
Speaker 5: another's two. Oh, there's two, gorgeous score. Oh that's ahead.
Speaker 5: I actually thought I was seeing the head and arms
Speaker 5: of a primate on the floor for a second.
Speaker 1: Ears.
Speaker 4: So, doctor Burns, can you run us through the background
Speaker 4: of that of what stimulated this entire study, the article
Speaker 4: of the MRIs et cetera.
Speaker 6: Oh, sure, so as I. I mean, the fact of
Speaker 6: it is is that for most of my career I
Speaker 6: used to study humans and put people in MRI scanners
Speaker 6: to see how people think and how they make decisions.
Speaker 6: And that's what field of neuroeconomics is about. And yes
Speaker 6: I still carry that title just because I have nothing
Speaker 6: better to describe myself with. And and what happened was
Speaker 6: this was back in twenty eleven, and if you think
Speaker 6: way back, what was happening in two thousand and eleven.
Speaker 6: What happened was that there was this mission to go
Speaker 6: after bin Laden, remember, and.
Speaker 8: You know that's kind of its only thing.
Speaker 6: But me being a dog person, what captured my interest
Speaker 6: was the fact that there was a dog on that mission,
Speaker 6: and there was a lot of press about it, and
Speaker 6: I saw these pictures of dogs in the military, and
Speaker 6: I didn't know anything about military dogs, but I saw
Speaker 6: these pictures of dogs being trained to jump out of helicopters,
Speaker 6: and I thought, you know, me being an MRI guy,
Speaker 6: and if you've had an MRI, and I'm guessing, because
Speaker 6: we're all of a certain age, everyone here has had
Speaker 6: an MRI.
Speaker 8: You know what they sound like.
Speaker 6: They're pretty unpleasant, they're pretty loud, And so I thought, wow,
Speaker 6: you know, if a dog can jump out of a helicopter,
Speaker 6: then why don't we train dogs to go an MRI
Speaker 6: scanner so we can see what they're thinking.
Speaker 8: And that really was the beginning of it. And as
Speaker 8: I sometimes.
Speaker 6: Tell people, it was also a good excuse to take
Speaker 6: my dog to work every day.
Speaker 4: Yeah wow, so you did. What did your studies yield
Speaker 4: that blew your mind? As far as the dogs truly
Speaker 4: loving us and having feelings and emotions.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well, I mean you have to realize when we
Speaker 6: started the project, really, you know, the dog brain was
Speaker 6: just kind of a an unwritten map. I mean, nobody
Speaker 6: had really looked at how it's organized. You know, we
Speaker 6: know a lot about the human brain. We know a
Speaker 6: lot about other primates because they're similar to us, and
Speaker 6: we know about you know, smaller animals like mice and rats.
Speaker 6: But honestly, it was just kind of initially just going
Speaker 6: out exploring, and so we started with the easiest, simplest,
Speaker 6: dumb experiments we could think of. I mean, one, we
Speaker 6: had to prove that we could train dogs to hold
Speaker 6: still long enough to even get good images that we
Speaker 6: could analyze. And so once we did that, then we
Speaker 6: just kind of proceeded systematically, first with their reward system.
Speaker 6: And when we talk about reward systems in brains, it
Speaker 6: turns out that you know, for mammals, we're all pretty
Speaker 6: similar because you can look at a brain and say, okay,
Speaker 6: that's that part of the brain. This is the reward center.
Speaker 6: We know where it's located. We know that that's where
Speaker 6: dopamine exerts most of its actions. And so then what
Speaker 6: we could set out to do then is seeing the dog, Okay,
Speaker 6: well what activates it the most? So we know in
Speaker 6: people kind of how it works, We know what motivates
Speaker 6: people kind of the basic primary rewards, things like food
Speaker 6: and water born money, and yeah, you know, all these
Speaker 6: things have been done in.
Speaker 4: The scanners to people.
Speaker 5: I just wondered, you know, how do you present that
Speaker 5: to your colleagues the first time? You know what I
Speaker 5: think we should try, because you know what we've done,
Speaker 5: food and water.
Speaker 1: The next thing comes to my mind.
Speaker 4: I slid it in, didn't he got right behind by
Speaker 4: the way? Not wrong?
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, no, no never.
Speaker 4: I did not charge no judgment.
Speaker 1: You didn't hear me ring a buzzer. I just noted it.
Speaker 1: That wouldn't you die?
Speaker 4: Right now? We said the number one thing dogs love?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 4: So so all right, so you know what brings our bell? Jay? You?
Speaker 4: So what is it? What is in dogs? You were
Speaker 4: able to kind of isolate? That was interesting to you.
Speaker 8: Well, so we started with kind of the obvious things.
Speaker 6: So initially we start with food, and in fact, that's
Speaker 6: how we trained the dogs in the first place to
Speaker 6: go in the scanner, reward them with food. Although I'll
Speaker 6: tell you early on we noted that a lot of
Speaker 6: the dogs that we started training didn't really seem to
Speaker 6: care as much about the food as the actual just
Speaker 6: interaction with with their person and just kind of the
Speaker 6: praise and just the whole activity itself. And that's that's
Speaker 6: how we did all the training, we just turned it
Speaker 6: into a big game for the dogs. So after we
Speaker 6: showed that we could kind of hold up a treat
Speaker 6: and then we could see the reward center of the
Speaker 6: dogs light up, then we started doing kind of more
Speaker 6: subtle things. Then we just did things like okay, well
Speaker 6: just praise the dog, you know, say good girl, good boy,
Speaker 6: And what does that do. Well, it turns out it
Speaker 6: does the same thing. So here we have these dogs
Speaker 6: who most people kind of assume just did what they
Speaker 6: did because at the end of the day, yeah, we
Speaker 6: feed them, we house them, and you know, we take
Speaker 6: care of them. And you know, a lot of scientists
Speaker 6: for many years kind of thought that the biggest trick
Speaker 6: that dogs did in becoming dogs was getting us to
Speaker 6: take care of them. That was their evolutionary breakthrough, right,
Speaker 6: But it turns out it's a it's a bit more
Speaker 6: interesting and more complex than that, because you know, we
Speaker 6: found that for most of the dogs, this kind of
Speaker 6: when you offer food and praise, they're they're pretty much
Speaker 6: equally activating to the dog's reward center. And then in
Speaker 6: some dogs, in fact, the praise was even more activating.
Speaker 6: And so how do you explain that and that The
Speaker 6: simplest answer is, you know, they just have social rewards,
Speaker 6: just very much like people do. You know everyone likes praise,
Speaker 6: you know, everyone likes to be told they're doing a good.
Speaker 8: Job, and you know dogs are the same.
Speaker 5: Does that and I guess this is the essential question
Speaker 5: that we're asking in this episode. Does that equate to
Speaker 5: a true love for the person giving it to them?
Speaker 5: Like if I'm working for a director that I admire
Speaker 5: and he goes, oh, that was a great take. That
Speaker 5: was such a great scene, what a great job. I'm
Speaker 5: sure I'm getting the dopamine hit, but it doesn't mean
Speaker 5: I love this person.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 5: So how do we or do we know at this
Speaker 5: point that you can actually take that reaction and equate
Speaker 5: it to what we think of as love.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I get I get this a lot, and it
Speaker 6: reminds me I once did. I once did did a
Speaker 6: morning show when all these results came out and the
Speaker 6: host was very very well meaning, uh, And I kind
Speaker 6: of knew what she was expecting me to say, because
Speaker 6: she said to me at one point, well, gee, doctor Burns,
Speaker 6: so does my dog really love me? And I kind
Speaker 6: of stupidly just answered what I was thinking at the moment,
Speaker 6: and I said, gee, I don't know you and I
Speaker 6: don't know your dog, how should I know?
Speaker 4: Sure?
Speaker 1: Love?
Speaker 4: See now I love you. I can actually say that, Well.
Speaker 8: Now you know me?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 6: Uh So, Jason, It's it's this, this is a hard question,
Speaker 6: and you were alluding to it in the introduction.
Speaker 8: It's like, how do you know anybody loves you?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 8: Uh?
Speaker 6: Is it because of what they say? Mm hmm uh maybe?
Speaker 6: But you know, I mean people, people are good at you.
Speaker 8: Know, acting, you know. Ah, now I would say that
Speaker 8: dogs are not actors. I don't think so. I mean
Speaker 8: your experience is not bonding right.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Uh So, in many ways, I think it's easier for
Speaker 6: us as humans to read their actions and interpret them
Speaker 6: at face value. So and I don't think you need
Speaker 6: an MRI for this. You know, most most dog owners
Speaker 6: and dog lovers you know, will tell me.
Speaker 8: It's like, well, gee, you just proved what what I've.
Speaker 6: Known all along, and the best way I can I
Speaker 6: can kind of conceptualize this in terms of love. And
Speaker 6: because I've been asked like, what's your definition of love?
Speaker 6: So we have to acknowledge that that word does not
Speaker 6: really capture all the nuances of it. We apply it
Speaker 6: in so many different ways and in so many different
Speaker 6: types of love. You know, whether it's romantic love, parental,
Speaker 6: brotherly love, friendship. The word applies to all the circumstances.
Speaker 6: And so my view is that if we take kind
Speaker 6: of a dog version of it, however we define it,
Speaker 6: then I.
Speaker 8: Think it's easy to recognize.
Speaker 6: And it is easy to recognize if you say love
Speaker 6: is non transactional, meaning it's not dependent on something else.
Speaker 6: It's not dependent on the fact that I feed the
Speaker 6: dogs or do anything else. It's just that they want
Speaker 6: to be with me or whoever. And if they come
Speaker 6: up and they just want to be around you, hey,
Speaker 6: I'll take that as love.
Speaker 1: So that for me, that begs two questions. And I'll
Speaker 1: use my.
Speaker 5: Departed dog, Sandy as an example. So when I would
Speaker 5: see Sandy at the end of the day, if I
Speaker 5: come home from work, she would do what I would
Speaker 5: expect to dog it is crazy about me to do.
Speaker 1: She'd get very excited. She couldn't get on me enough.
Speaker 5: You know, she's rubbing her whole body, tail is going,
Speaker 5: the licks are happening. She's I mean, this is the
Speaker 5: most effusive dog. Because Daddy came home. Now, if the
Speaker 5: doorbell rang and Peter was at the door, she would
Speaker 5: pretty much exhibit the same behavior with him. And so
Speaker 5: is is it that I guess what I'm asking is,
Speaker 5: does she love me less because she seems to love
Speaker 5: him too? Or is it just that as a pack
Speaker 5: animal and interacting with humans that she knows, well, this
Speaker 5: is someone who will take care of me. This is
Speaker 5: not anybody that's gonna harm me. I'm gonna go check
Speaker 5: this out. Is she just excited? What? What when you
Speaker 5: see a dog reacting similarly to a new person, should
Speaker 5: we read anything into that?
Speaker 8: Well, this is a Jason problem, not a Sandy problem.
Speaker 1: You know what? Now suddenly.
Speaker 4: Just he just he's just off the game.
Speaker 5: Now, I'm going to know all these guys at the
Speaker 5: end of the thirty five years I've known you, and
Speaker 5: now I can start saying, I think it's a yeah,
Speaker 5: I never sought to do that.
Speaker 1: But what do you what do you mean by that? Seriously?
Speaker 6: I think dogs are promiscuous, to be honest, I got you,
Speaker 6: I got you. I mean that's how they are. I
Speaker 6: mean not obviously not all dogs are that way, and
Speaker 6: I can think of many examples who aren't. But I mean,
Speaker 6: they're happy to be around people. And if it doesn't
Speaker 6: lessen you know, her love for you, that you know
Speaker 6: she likes someone else. So what as I said, they're promiscuous.
Speaker 6: I mean, we can get into their reproductive habits and
Speaker 6: that will make even more sense. But and I think
Speaker 6: I think actually all of these things are tied together.
Speaker 6: Their biology is is a certain way and it's different
Speaker 6: than ours, so the relationships that they form are going
Speaker 6: to be different. But I do think that in many
Speaker 6: cases they're unconditional. They're not They're doing it because they
Speaker 6: enjoy it, not because we feed them.
Speaker 8: So I think that's what's important, right.
Speaker 1: But that's what leads me to the other question.
Speaker 5: And then I know you have a lot of questions,
Speaker 5: But this is another one that I think was very
Speaker 5: specific to me that I'd never seen before. So my mom,
Speaker 5: when she was alive, you know, came to visit a
Speaker 5: couple of times. We usually go to her, but.
Speaker 1: She came a couple times to our house.
Speaker 5: And my mother was never the dog would never see
Speaker 5: my mother be anything but effusive to me. My mother
Speaker 5: was effusive to the dog, but my dog from the
Speaker 5: minute my mother stepped in the house, would not be
Speaker 5: in the same room as my mother, just wouldn't do
Speaker 5: it no matter what. If we called her in for
Speaker 5: a treat and she saw my mom in the room,
Speaker 5: she wouldn't stay in the room. And I thought, what
Speaker 5: is it that she knows that this woman that either
Speaker 5: I have affection for her, or this woman has a
Speaker 5: higher status than me, or I couldn't figure out what
Speaker 5: she's picking up on. My mom wasn't sick, because I
Speaker 5: know dogs can smell illness sometimes and that might have
Speaker 5: pushed her away.
Speaker 1: But that was one of the conundrums.
Speaker 5: Do you have any I'm asking you to be almost
Speaker 5: a dogs like collegies at this point, but do you
Speaker 5: have any inside or have you ever witnessed anything like
Speaker 5: that before?
Speaker 8: I have.
Speaker 6: The last of that to describe this situation since you
Speaker 6: asked so. When when we started the project, you know,
Speaker 6: we were always we were looking for dog volunteers or
Speaker 6: people to volunteer with their dogs, and and of course
Speaker 6: many people volunteered, and we would develop kind of an
Speaker 6: audition tryout process to see which dogs might be suitable
Speaker 6: for MRI training. And one of the students, I mean
Speaker 6: the students in my lap kind of were always first
Speaker 6: of mine, and oftentimes their dogs turned out to be
Speaker 6: unsuitable because they were too anxious, they didn't like the
Speaker 6: noise for all sorts of reasons. Although we had one
Speaker 6: dog who basically we tried to get through the process
Speaker 6: and uh, his owner she came to me one day
Speaker 6: and she says, I don't, I don't think he can
Speaker 6: do it. And I said, I asked her why, and
Speaker 6: she she didn't really want to give me the answer,
Speaker 6: but then she finally said.
Speaker 8: Well, he's a.
Speaker 3: H M.
Speaker 6: His owner she came to me one day, he says,
Speaker 6: I don't, I don't think he can do it. And
Speaker 6: I said, I asked her why, and she she didn't
Speaker 6: really want to give me the answer, but then she
Speaker 6: finally said, well he's a racist m.
Speaker 4: M okay, wow wow.
Speaker 6: Uh, well, i'd bean basically he was. He had been
Speaker 6: adopted from the shelter. We don't know anything about his background,
Speaker 6: but he could not stand to be around African American people.
Speaker 8: Oh my, which was a problem because.
Speaker 6: I mean, you know, people have all while there's work
Speaker 6: in our MRI environment, and and he would just go
Speaker 6: off the handle and become aggressive when he wasn't normally,
Speaker 6: so uh, So the point of the story is that
Speaker 6: that we don't know what association's dogs form, you know,
Speaker 6: before you know, we get them, or even after we
Speaker 6: get them. We don't know kind of what clicks in
Speaker 6: their head. But sometimes they make these associations for reasons
Speaker 6: only they know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, maybe your dog. Maybe Sandy overheard you
Speaker 4: talking about how your mother steals silver work from restaurants.
Speaker 4: So there's some salt check saw checkers, sweet and Low.
Speaker 4: When Jason's mom passed, she left them two million dollars
Speaker 4: worth of sweet of loan that she had taken from restaurants.
Speaker 5: Now, you know what, in thinking about this, you know
Speaker 5: what it might be because I don't know if Sandy
Speaker 5: ever saw any other person with red hair.
Speaker 4: Some of our dogs. There are certain people, no matter
Speaker 4: what you did, they just didn't just didn't like them.
Speaker 4: There's certain people we don't just like and you know
Speaker 4: it's not rational. And you don't even know what it
Speaker 4: is about your history before you go, because the books
Speaker 4: are fascinating, but you're really fascinating. I watched where you've gone,
Speaker 4: not just the dogs, but during COVID that you moved,
Speaker 4: you uprooted your family, you moved remotely to a farm,
Speaker 4: which you'd never done before, which makes me laugh. It's
Speaker 4: like me and a farm gone, what are we doing here?
Speaker 4: Which end is up? And you got these cows. I
Speaker 4: saw that the cows know who you are once they
Speaker 4: got comfortable with you. The cows are lying there and
Speaker 4: you're scratching them. And so we had a guy on
Speaker 4: who has who works at an alligator farming flord, and
Speaker 4: he's got these alligators crawling all over them and petting them,
Speaker 4: and he says, they're not going to bite me. I've
Speaker 4: done this twenty thousand times. And so if I got
Speaker 4: that wrong, this prehistoric looking evil that I'm watching in
Speaker 4: the guys, it's scratching, scratching its head, and I'm seeing
Speaker 4: cows lying with you, not saying that they've evolved the
Speaker 4: same way. It made me really sad in how we
Speaker 4: get stuff wrong with animals. So I let you address
Speaker 4: it where you're at with that now, because apparently you
Speaker 4: love these cows and they love you. If you see
Speaker 4: these videos, and you should, it'll blow your mind. They
Speaker 4: lie down and present present so that you can scratch
Speaker 4: their belly. Was that a shock for you? It is?
Speaker 6: And and and thanks for that because I want to
Speaker 6: give a plug for the book which is coming out,
Speaker 6: so right there.
Speaker 8: Yeah, cow puppy, Cow puppy.
Speaker 5: By the way, ladies and gentlemen, hel puppy can't forget
Speaker 5: it is.
Speaker 6: It is a shock in some ways. But now the
Speaker 6: more the more animals that I get to know, you
Speaker 6: you start to see that there are commonalities. You know,
Speaker 6: that all animals have this capacity to pretty much get
Speaker 6: along with at least their own species, and tabarying degrees
Speaker 6: other species too. The alligator surprises me a little bit
Speaker 6: because I mean, you know, they're old. They're really old, right,
Speaker 6: those animals, but they do you know, but then again,
Speaker 6: they do live together, right, so they have some kind
Speaker 6: of social structure in some sense. They don't eat each
Speaker 6: other typically, and so then you realize it's like wow,
Speaker 6: I mean, all these animals out there have these very
Speaker 6: complicated social structures, and not only that, they have the
Speaker 6: capacity I think built in forgetting enjoyment and some kind
Speaker 6: of reward out of it. Because you know, that's how
Speaker 6: evolution works, you know, it kind of links these things
Speaker 6: that are so important for survival to our reward systems.
Speaker 6: And so yeah, so I kind of fell into this
Speaker 6: world of farming. I got these little cows to help
Speaker 6: me manage pass masters, and then I ended up falling
Speaker 6: in love with them because they have very dog like traits,
Speaker 6: except it's it's like, you know, take your your most anxious,
Speaker 6: kind of nervous dog, and you know, scale it up
Speaker 6: to be about four hundred pounds and then you've got
Speaker 6: a cow kind of So it takes a little bit
Speaker 6: of work, and they reciprocate in ways that it kind
Speaker 6: of makes you like you have to take it down
Speaker 6: several notches just to be around them. They don't play
Speaker 6: like dogs in that way, but but they but their
Speaker 6: calmness kind of rubs off on you. And so so
Speaker 6: that's what I'm you know, trying to tell people. And
Speaker 6: and does it make me think.
Speaker 8: About kind of where my food comes from?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you bet.
Speaker 5: This is where my evolution of all these stories we've
Speaker 5: done Peter with with you know, dogs that are pushing
Speaker 5: buttons and the alligators, and we've done a fair amount
Speaker 5: of stuff that all the bottom line is is that
Speaker 5: these animals are capable of a lot more interaction, a
Speaker 5: lot more cammunication, a lot more self pormination, a lot
Speaker 5: more emotionality, you know, I'm not surprised that cows can
Speaker 5: react like a puppy. But you know, you were talking
Speaker 5: about the animals on your farm, and I'm going, well,
Speaker 5: but certainly not a chicken. And then I'm sitting in
Speaker 5: there going, well, but why not a chicken?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 5: Why am I so quick to dismiss the notion that
Speaker 5: a chicken could be just as capable of some of
Speaker 5: this interaction as a dog or a And where I'm
Speaker 5: left after all these conversations every time is going, I
Speaker 5: don't know how to move through this world. And a
Speaker 5: the easy fix as well, you're a vegan, then you're
Speaker 5: not going to use animals for your sustenance. But the
Speaker 5: innate abuse that we keep on other species as we
Speaker 5: make the world something that functions for us is endless.
Speaker 5: And it was it was not that it's ever okay,
Speaker 5: but it was a little more okay when I thought, well,
Speaker 5: they don't you know again, they can't. You feel it
Speaker 5: that they can't, and this this you know yeah? And
Speaker 5: are you because forgive me, I have not read the books.
Speaker 5: Are you do you move towards any sort of a
Speaker 5: overarching philosophy about what our responsibility is or what what
Speaker 5: we need to at least be considering as we continue
Speaker 5: to reshape this world in the image.
Speaker 1: We know to accommodate all of this.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you know, it's it's an evolving philosophy, to be sure.
Speaker 8: But I'm not I'm not vegan, I'm not vegetarian.
Speaker 6: I don't promote those and I think then, I think
Speaker 6: that's kind of the not the best way to think
Speaker 6: about it. I think you're on the right track. And
Speaker 6: this is how I like to think about it, is Okay, Look,
Speaker 6: we we want to live, we need to eat in
Speaker 6: this world. There's a lot of people that need to
Speaker 6: be fed. How can we do it in a way
Speaker 6: that you know, essentially respects the animals whose lives that
Speaker 6: we depend on. And I know some places do it
Speaker 6: better than we do. I think I think in the
Speaker 6: US it's it's horrible, frankly, Uh, you know, I would
Speaker 6: like to kind of move in that direction, and I
Speaker 6: think people are thinking about that. The problem, of course,
Speaker 6: as I'm sure you know, this is expensive. You know,
Speaker 6: to to raise food and animals that way costs money,
Speaker 6: and not everyone can pay that price, so it's going
Speaker 6: to be slow. I think if consumers want it, then
Speaker 6: you know, things will shift.
Speaker 4: It's been slow. Well, check out the new book Cowpuppy,
Speaker 4: An Unexpected Friendship and a scientist Journey into the Secret
Speaker 4: word of Cows. Can you know? Go online and we
Speaker 4: got links on our site to if you're listening to this,
Speaker 4: Doctor Burns again, thanks so much for check out book
Speaker 4: Cow Puppy and Unexpected Friendship and his Journey into the
Speaker 4: Secret World of Cows. Thanks so much, You're wonderful.
Speaker 1: Thanks guys, a pleasure.
Speaker 4: You know the the it's so it's funny because he
Speaker 4: did all the research and a lot of good information
Speaker 4: there as far as yeah, if you think your dog
Speaker 4: loves you, the research shows to release oxy toastin or
Speaker 4: whatever they love drug in and also the serotonel that
Speaker 4: I still have two things in preparing oxytocin yet is
Speaker 4: the other drug that love?
Speaker 1: Doctor til you know what information I understand?
Speaker 5: Information is powers, David, What did we learned that?
Speaker 9: Well, listen, who knew about the these cows and the
Speaker 9: oxytocin and you know the niacin or whatever Peter's talking about.
Speaker 1: He's just throwing it, David dunk question of neurochemistry.
Speaker 3: I'm just saying.
Speaker 4: The right way you get vanilla.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, right, exactly.
Speaker 9: Well, but I did actually come up with a theory
Speaker 9: with the Jason and your your dog and your mom. Yes,
Speaker 9: I think I heard rumors there's a little bit too
Speaker 9: much Chanel number five there.
Speaker 1: That could be my mother.
Speaker 5: My mother did wear alone, that is, that's true, and
Speaker 5: and my wife is very sensitive to smells, and so
Speaker 5: there isn't normally.
Speaker 4: Wow, that's look at you, detective boy.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's right, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 9: And and you know now that we're talking about, you know, animals.
Speaker 9: You know obviously that we have the dogs that are
Speaker 9: you know, have these personal interconnections to us, and now
Speaker 9: we have the cows that also can have these personal
Speaker 9: interconnections to us, and you wonder how that will affect
Speaker 9: how they taste.
Speaker 3: So people who are.
Speaker 9: Interested in doing that, they have three years to travel
Speaker 9: to South Korea before the sale and distribution of dog
Speaker 9: meat becomes illegal.
Speaker 1: So you you have a finite time to figure that out.
Speaker 4: I can't imagine you read of all places I was
Speaker 4: waiting for him to give us, now what I was
Speaker 4: thinking he was going to, Yeah, you know what, a
Speaker 4: cow who's scared, you can taste different because dogs run
Speaker 4: snow when you're in stress. That if an animal distress,
Speaker 4: you can taste whatever. I didn't do the instead your
Speaker 4: dog tours for South Korea. He's getting kicked back for something.
Speaker 1: But that it is true. You know, it's interesting.
Speaker 5: We do eat and rabbit and venison, and you know
Speaker 5: they're cute, and so I sit there and go, how
Speaker 5: could you possibly eat it?
Speaker 1: But we're just a counsel, you know.
Speaker 4: It's it's arbitrary.
Speaker 5: You know, Dana has the things. She won't need anything
Speaker 5: that's cuter than her wife.
Speaker 1: That's my right. She goes, I'll eat a fish. I'll
Speaker 1: eat it.
Speaker 4: So wait a minute. So but she wanted, like when
Speaker 4: they bring out the lobster to show you, does she say,
Speaker 4: could you bring out that otter's And it goes, I'm
Speaker 4: just saying not.
Speaker 1: She'd eat the lobster.
Speaker 4: So they have to show a picture because you lost
Speaker 4: her to another lobster. It's adorable, but not the data.
Speaker 4: So that but our point is, yes, so Dana has
Speaker 4: that same same I love you data. But that's pretty insane.
Speaker 1: But that was that insane. I think that's actually a
Speaker 1: good rule that eliminates a lot of things. You proach it.
Speaker 4: So if if we had a cow that looked like
Speaker 4: this frowning had a face, one of those faces that
Speaker 4: you're saying in a cow of that the cow we find,
Speaker 4: hug the cow and you go, Dana, and you don't
Speaker 4: we walked into a door right now, I'll eat it. Yeah,
Speaker 4: But we just we just attribute what we want to animals,
Speaker 4: give them a hierarchy and decide which your pest, which
Speaker 4: are which are But we say that's an invasion, you
Speaker 4: know what.
Speaker 5: I mean, not to get into this subject because we're
Speaker 5: we've already scretted some things that go This won't make
Speaker 5: the show, but it is interesting thing to think about
Speaker 5: the sacrilege that we have put on cannibalism, and we are,
Speaker 5: you know, to many animals other than human beings, we're
Speaker 5: just another cow.
Speaker 4: Well, since you brought it up, let's end this way.
Speaker 4: I always want to fly. I carry condiments just in case.
Speaker 4: I you know, if you all saw the movie with
Speaker 4: the Brazilian soccer team, Jay and I could tell you
Speaker 4: right now as we go out and say goodbye, would I.
Speaker 5: Eat you to come up with something that would be
Speaker 5: really a thoughtful, provocative, yet thoughts.
Speaker 4: Due We started with just just to our audience, who
Speaker 4: are members who were left?
Speaker 1: I asked if how you know I love you?
Speaker 5: And now it's going to because I let you eat
Speaker 5: my foot.
Speaker 4: We started with does your dog love you? And Jason
Speaker 4: was going to close with canalism.
Speaker 1: I wasn't gonna close with it. I'm asking that.
Speaker 4: Punctuation mark, and you know, speaking of cannibalism, there's nowhere
Speaker 4: to go. Good night, everybody. David, did you have anything
Speaker 4: else you want to say after cannibalism?
Speaker 9: I would just say wine pairing I think is probably.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 4: This evening. I just want to be completely clear that
Speaker 4: this show does not any way, shape or form advocate
Speaker 4: at all, not at all, non at all. Although that
Speaker 4: was a very good movie. Thank you for joining, Thank
Speaker 4: you for joining us.
Speaker 5: Thank you, thank you very much, love you, thank love you,
Speaker 5: Love you, David, love you more than love you.
Speaker 1: Laurie, everybody in the both love you.
Speaker 4: Love you.
Speaker 3: That's another episode of really no really comes to a close.
Speaker 2: I know you're wondering, who are the ten most famous
Speaker 2: dogs from the silver screen? Well, all in good time,
Speaker 2: my pretty But first let's thank our guest to doctor
Speaker 2: Gregory Burns. You can follow the Good Doctor on his
Speaker 2: website Gregoryburns dot com or.
Speaker 3: On x or he is at g Burns.
Speaker 2: You can also enjoy his newest book, Cow Puppy, An
Speaker 2: Unexpected Friendship and a scientist's journey into the secret world
Speaker 2: of pals.
Speaker 3: Find all pertinent links in our show notes.
Speaker 2: Our little show hangs out on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and
Speaker 2: threads at really No Really podcasts. And of course you
Speaker 2: can share your thoughts and feedback with us online at
Speaker 2: reallynoreally dot com. If you have a really some amazing
Speaker 2: factor story that boggles your mind, share it with us
Speaker 2: and if we use it, we will send you a
Speaker 2: little gift. Nothing life changing, obviously, but it's the thought
Speaker 2: that counts. Check out our full episodes on YouTube, hit
Speaker 2: that subscribe button and take that bell so you're updated
Speaker 2: when we release new videos and episodes, which we do
Speaker 2: each Tuesday. So listen and follow us on the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 2: Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And now
Speaker 2: the answer to the question who are the top ten
Speaker 2: most famous dogs for movie or TV history?
Speaker 3: Lugging in at number.
Speaker 2: Ten is Benji, the adorable mixed breed who started in
Speaker 2: six films all bearing his name between nineteen seventy seven
Speaker 2: and twenty eighteen. Number nine is an animated pop blue
Speaker 2: from Blues Clues. Blue ran on Nickelodeon for ten years,
Speaker 2: has been translated into fifteen languages, and spawned spinoffs and
Speaker 2: a live stadium tour. Number eight is Old Yeller from
Speaker 2: the film by the same name. The popular book from
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty six. Became a hit Disney film in nineteen
Speaker 2: fifty seven, and the classic remains a fan favorite even today.
Speaker 2: But watch it with tissues because you're Dennenedam. Number seven
Speaker 2: is another animated favorite. Scooby Doo, the canon Detective was
Speaker 2: born in the nineteen sixties, and TV Guide recently named
Speaker 2: him the fifth greatest TV cartoon of all time. Number
Speaker 2: six has appeared in newspapers and television.
Speaker 3: Specials since nineteen fifty.
Speaker 2: It's Everyone's Favorite Beagle and Charlie Brown's only friend, Snoopy
Speaker 2: like that Red Barron. Number five is Hatchi co or Hatchie,
Speaker 2: the famously loyal and Kita who waited at the train
Speaker 2: station for his owner's return for nine years.
Speaker 3: Hatchie at Dog's.
Speaker 2: Life was a hit film co starring our own Jason Alexander.
Speaker 3: Number four is a real life.
Speaker 2: Dog made famous by his film story It's Falto, the
Speaker 2: amazing Alaskan Husky who led a dog sled team in
Speaker 2: nineteen twenty five to transport a Theoria vaccine from Anchorage
Speaker 2: to Noam, Alaska, a treacherous, near impossible trek of five
Speaker 2: hundred and forty miles.
Speaker 3: Number three is a popular name. Rin Tin Tin.
Speaker 2: Rinny was an actual German shepherd who served in the
Speaker 2: infantry in World War One. His owner brought him back
Speaker 2: to America afterwards and trained him as a movie stunt dog.
Speaker 3: That training made him the star.
Speaker 2: Of twenty seven different films, and when rin Tin Tin
Speaker 2: died in nineteen thirty two, it led to a national
Speaker 2: day of morning as the death of every dog should.
Speaker 2: Number two is the name most people know the beloved
Speaker 2: college named Lassie. She debuted in nineteen thirty nine as
Speaker 2: the affectionate, brilliant and loyal friend.
Speaker 3: She was known to be for her many films.
Speaker 2: Brooks radio shows, comics, toys, and a seventeen season long
Speaker 2: television series, and in the number one spot, It's Dorothy's
Speaker 2: Best Friend, Todo Toto was played by a female black
Speaker 2: brindle pirn Terrier. Actress Judy Garland was so enamored of
Speaker 2: the puff that she tried desperately to adopt him as
Speaker 2: her own. But at the time there was talk of
Speaker 2: a standalone Toto movie, so Miss Garland did.
Speaker 3: Not get to keep her puppy pals.
Speaker 2: But we will never be able to forget the bond
Speaker 2: between them. It was Toto that reveals the man behind
Speaker 2: the curtain is Oz, and it is the Wicked Witch's
Speaker 2: attempt to hurt Toto that makes Dorothy brave enough to
Speaker 2: strike back, all of which proves that Toto is the
Speaker 2: real main character of the Wizard of Oz. And no,
Speaker 2: I will not be hearing any arguments to the contrary.
Speaker 2: Lena Really is a production of iHeartRadio and Blase Entertainment.