Speaker 1: Guess what will what's that? Mang So, I wanted to
Speaker 1: talk about this politician I think we can both get behind.
Speaker 1: And his name is Duke Rick, and he's from this
Speaker 1: town in Cormorant, Minnesota. And Duke was elected mayor in
Speaker 1: a landslide because the town doesn't want to be represented
Speaker 1: by anyone who's super political. And this is about the
Speaker 1: point I should tell you that Duke Rick is actually
Speaker 1: a dog. In fact, he's the first dog mayor of Cormorant.
Speaker 1: And he's this big, beautiful great Pyrenees. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: really curious about Duke's agenda, but I have to ask, like,
Speaker 1: what does he do as mayor? I mean, as you guess,
Speaker 1: it's mostly ceremonial. There's this deputy who seems to do
Speaker 1: most of the real work. But Duke can often be
Speaker 1: found sitting in a bar where people feed him steak
Speaker 1: and occasionally buy him swigs of beer. This is what
Speaker 1: it says online. He also enjoys hanging out on the
Speaker 1: streets where he's constantly approached by his adoring fans. And
Speaker 1: of course he attends all the city council meetings. But
Speaker 1: he's just this great ambassador for the town. Wow, And
Speaker 1: so does he have any competition or what? He's actually
Speaker 1: won three elections in a row now, and they were
Speaker 1: all of these massive landslides. But you know, there actually
Speaker 1: was one other candidate on the ballot. It's his girlfriend, Lassie.
Speaker 1: So she only got a few votes in the last election,
Speaker 1: but maybe she'll take over when he's tired running for
Speaker 1: office and be sort of the town's first female dog mayor.
Speaker 1: What you're hearing about Duke made me wonder what are
Speaker 1: some other important famous first in doggy history. And that's
Speaker 1: what today's episode is all about. So let's dive in.
Speaker 1: Y Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius.
Speaker 1: I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my
Speaker 1: good friend Man gues Ticketer. And on the other side
Speaker 1: of the soundproof glass sitting with is that a It's
Speaker 1: a Jacktarius? That what it is? Yeah? On his lap
Speaker 1: right there, that's our friend and producer Tristan McNeil. I
Speaker 1: do wish that all of our listeners could see this
Speaker 1: because it is really pretty adorable scene. Yeah. I mean,
Speaker 1: this little guy keeps putting his paws up on the
Speaker 1: soundboard and he's got this I know it sounds weird
Speaker 1: to say this, but like this really focused look. It
Speaker 1: seems like he actually knows what he's doing. So I
Speaker 1: laughed when Tristan told me he wanted to train the
Speaker 1: first dog to record a podcast. But I think they
Speaker 1: might pull it off, which is, I guess all the
Speaker 1: more impressive when you find out that they just met yesterday.
Speaker 1: Oh this is not even Tristan's dog. No, it's kind
Speaker 1: of a business partnership apparently. Okay, all right, well, well,
Speaker 1: we do have a ton of heartwarming stories to share
Speaker 1: on today's show, which is all about famous first for dogs. Now,
Speaker 1: you know, we humans tend to hog the spotlight when
Speaker 1: it comes to making history, which I guess there's no surprise,
Speaker 1: as we're the ones writing it all down. But for today,
Speaker 1: we thought we'd switched up a little bit and give
Speaker 1: man's best friend a chance to finally step out of
Speaker 1: the shadows and really take their bow. So, you know,
Speaker 1: from the first dog to catch a frisbee to the
Speaker 1: first dog to drive a car, we're going to dig
Speaker 1: into the stories of some of history's most remarkable canines.
Speaker 1: That's right, And since our recent President's episode is still
Speaker 1: fresh on my mind, I thought we could start with
Speaker 1: the very first dogs to hold the title of first Dog. Now,
Speaker 1: just about every US president has had a pet of
Speaker 1: some sort, but dogs have always been the most popular
Speaker 1: by far. In fact, sixty eight percent of our presidents
Speaker 1: have owned a dog while in office, and our very
Speaker 1: first president was no exception. George Washington was a huge
Speaker 1: dog lover. He owned fifty different dogs during his lifetime,
Speaker 1: including seventeen who kept him company during his two terms.
Speaker 1: And since Washington was an avid hunter, most of those
Speaker 1: dogs were American fox Hounds, a breed he's actually credited
Speaker 1: with founding seventeen dogs, And it makes you wonder like
Speaker 1: whether he even bothered naming these dogs, and he did,
Speaker 1: so we all know Washington was a great president, but
Speaker 1: he was an even better dog dog namers. So I'm
Speaker 1: gonna list out some of these names. He called them taster, Drunkard, tipsy, tippler.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm sensing a bit of a pattern here, So
Speaker 1: so I feel like either Washington was a lush or
Speaker 1: maybe the dogs were. Yeah, but there were seventeen of them,
Speaker 1: so you know, he couldn't keep up this drinking language forever.
Speaker 1: So some other names included Mopsie, Forrester Captain Rover Vulcan
Speaker 1: makes them an early treky I, guess, and even sweet
Speaker 1: lips sweet lips. Okay, well, all right, so those were
Speaker 1: the first first dogs, but they actually weren't the first
Speaker 1: ones to live in the White House, right, Like, I know,
Speaker 1: Washington picked the spot where the White House would be built,
Speaker 1: but he never actually got to live there. Absolutely true
Speaker 1: that that particular honor went to these two mixed breed
Speaker 1: pups that moved in with John Adams and his wife Abigail.
Speaker 1: And while the dogs might have lacked the pedigree of
Speaker 1: Washington's hounds, they also had some pretty colorful names. They
Speaker 1: were known as Juno and Satan. Kind of weird to
Speaker 1: think that Satan was like napping at the White House
Speaker 1: in the earliest years. But all right, so we've covered
Speaker 1: the first first dogs, but what about the first dogs period,
Speaker 1: like first dogs overall? So how do you even figure
Speaker 1: that out? Well, there's definitely a lot of disagreement on
Speaker 1: the specifics of this, but it is worth looking at
Speaker 1: what the history books mainly say. So some say prehistoric
Speaker 1: humans began domesticating wolves around ten or maybe fifteen thousand
Speaker 1: years ago, and you've got others who maintain it was
Speaker 1: even longer ago, like maybe thirty or forty thousand years ago.
Speaker 1: And of course the region where this took place is
Speaker 1: just as much in question. You've got Europe, you've got
Speaker 1: the Middle East, you've got East Asia being you know,
Speaker 1: part of some of the most popular theories. And actually
Speaker 1: they aren't even sure if it was humans who tamed
Speaker 1: these wolves and bred them into the you know, kind
Speaker 1: of the good pups that we know today. Instead, some
Speaker 1: researchers think that wolves domesticated themselves, which might sound weird,
Speaker 1: but if you think about it, you know this could
Speaker 1: have happened by them just scavenging the kills left by
Speaker 1: human hunts, or by hanging around the campfire until someone
Speaker 1: literally threw out a bone. I mean, that's crazy to
Speaker 1: think about. But I'm guessing there's no one dog we
Speaker 1: can hand the title to right for first dog. Ever, Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think you're right, not in not in
Speaker 1: terms of like first dog in general, but there is
Speaker 1: a pup that I want to nominate for the title
Speaker 1: of first pet dog. So in nineteen fourteen, there were
Speaker 1: some workers that uncovered a grave in Germany, and that
Speaker 1: grave contained the ancient remains of a man, a woman,
Speaker 1: and a little dog. And these remains actually date back
Speaker 1: to the Paleolithic era, so we're talking maybe like fourteen
Speaker 1: thousand years ago, and so that makes them the oldest
Speaker 1: known grave where humans and dogs were buried together. Okay,
Speaker 1: so this is kind of splitting hairs on the definition
Speaker 1: of pet but I'm pretty sure our ancestors only kept
Speaker 1: dogs for utility, right, Like, like they weren't carrying them
Speaker 1: around in purses as some sort of accessory. And I'm
Speaker 1: guessing it was more of like a mutually beneficial work relationship. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's deaf only been the thinking in the past,
Speaker 1: but looking at this grave in Germany had actually suggests
Speaker 1: that there might have been more to it than than
Speaker 1: just practicality. Actually, just this year, there were researchers that
Speaker 1: we're looking at this and they brought in this veterin
Speaker 1: area to come in and examine the remains, and what
Speaker 1: they found was that this dog had had problems with
Speaker 1: its teeth and and from that they were able to
Speaker 1: conclude that the puppy actually died from canine distemper virus,
Speaker 1: which you know this this only allowed him to live
Speaker 1: until about ten weeks after he had contracted the disease. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess that's sad, But what does that prove?
Speaker 1: According to that research team, there's actually no way the
Speaker 1: dog could have survived even that long with such a
Speaker 1: life threatening illness unless it was really really cared for
Speaker 1: by these humans. And so this is actually how nat
Speaker 1: GEO sums up the team's findings. They said, this puppy
Speaker 1: represents the earliest known evidence of dogs being regarded and
Speaker 1: treated as pets. The carrot received while it was ill
Speaker 1: and of no use to people, appears to have and
Speaker 1: driven by compassion or empathy. In other words, an emotional
Speaker 1: bond that is pretty sweet actually like and it isn't
Speaker 1: something I'd expect to say after hearing about like a
Speaker 1: fourteen thousand year old dead puppy, but it does make
Speaker 1: you feel for it. And there's actually another archaeological find
Speaker 1: I want to talk about, and that's the first dogs
Speaker 1: to have ever had their image preserved, or the first
Speaker 1: dog to be the subject of our however you want
Speaker 1: to put it, what do you mean, like in cave
Speaker 1: paintings or something, So it's actually cave carvings. And I
Speaker 1: didn't realize these were things. But they were found last
Speaker 1: year at two different sites in Saudi Arabia, and they're
Speaker 1: thought to be the oldest depictions of dogs on record.
Speaker 1: They date back eight or maybe even nine thousand years.
Speaker 1: And what's wild about this is that it would mean
Speaker 1: that humans were training and controlling dogs even before we
Speaker 1: started farming. Alright, so I guess it's my turn to
Speaker 1: to play devil's advocate here, because I mean, what makes
Speaker 1: you so sure that these carvings actually showed domesticated dogs?
Speaker 1: I mean like they could have just been wild dogs
Speaker 1: that were in the air area, or honestly, maybe even
Speaker 1: not dogs. Yeah. Well that's the thing. Like the dogs
Speaker 1: and the carvings, they're actually on leashes. And the images
Speaker 1: show human hunters with packs of dogs tethered to their waist,
Speaker 1: leaving their hands free to shoot arrows at prey. And
Speaker 1: and we know these are dogs because they have the
Speaker 1: characteristics of dog breeds found in the region today. That
Speaker 1: means like short snouts, pricked ears, curly tails. And if
Speaker 1: that wasn't enough proof, the same series of carvings also
Speaker 1: depict wolves, hyenas, lions, and horses, and they look completely
Speaker 1: different from these leash dogs. Wow. All right, Well, I
Speaker 1: guess that's a pretty good evidence. But I'm gonna give
Speaker 1: that one too, you know, and unless there are older
Speaker 1: carvings that come to light at some point, I feel
Speaker 1: like you're probably right that these are the first dogs
Speaker 1: to have their their likeness is preserved. I guess. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean there's another first here. These hunting scenes are
Speaker 1: also the earliest known evidence of dog leashes, so technically
Speaker 1: they might be the first dogs to ever wear leashes
Speaker 1: as well. I mean that seems like a little bit
Speaker 1: of a stretch to use that one is like a
Speaker 1: big first, and I guess that is is pretty interesting,
Speaker 1: but you may be just showing off a little bit.
Speaker 1: All right. Well, well, speaking of ruins, there's another pouch
Speaker 1: in line with that theme, and that's the world's first
Speaker 1: archaeology dog. If you're gonna stretch one, I'm going to
Speaker 1: stretch one. So I know what archaeology digs are, But
Speaker 1: what are archaeology dogs are? Are they for like hunting pottery? Well,
Speaker 1: actually that could be an application down the line, but
Speaker 1: for now, an archaeology dog is one that can locate
Speaker 1: human bones that are hundreds of years old, and the
Speaker 1: first dog to be trained to do this. Is this
Speaker 1: Australian black lab mix and her name is Mighelou. And
Speaker 1: the way that came about this is that her trainer
Speaker 1: a guy named Gary Jackson. He was trying to think
Speaker 1: of a new application for dogs amazing sense of smell,
Speaker 1: and so you know, keep in mind dogs have somewhere
Speaker 1: around two hundred million more old factory receptors than we do,
Speaker 1: so scientists have been using them as field assistance for
Speaker 1: years now. So I had actually read a little bit
Speaker 1: about conservation dogs, which are these dogs trained to track
Speaker 1: all sorts of tough to spot while species and they
Speaker 1: track everything from like tiny toads, lizards, invasive plants, even
Speaker 1: gorillas which can be people shy apparently, but uh, some
Speaker 1: marine biologists and this is the craziest one of them all.
Speaker 1: Have you even started using dogs to track whales by
Speaker 1: the scent of their droppings? Isn't that amazing? Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: amazing they could even pick up on that. But or
Speaker 1: go back to to miglu just for a second, because
Speaker 1: the closest thing to what she does would probably be
Speaker 1: like like those cadaver dogs that law enforcement used to
Speaker 1: find those decomposing bodies. But of course that doesn't work
Speaker 1: for archaeology because the remains you're dealing with their long
Speaker 1: past that decomposition stage. So it's it's not that that's
Speaker 1: what they're smelling out like they're they're not trained to
Speaker 1: sniff out rot. They're actually trained to smell human bones.
Speaker 1: So they just gave her a bunch of old bones
Speaker 1: to smell, and we're like, I don't know, like, now
Speaker 1: go find more like this. That That is exactly what
Speaker 1: they say. That is the training manual. World. Actually, what
Speaker 1: they did was they got permission from these Aboriginal tribal
Speaker 1: elders to train you know, this dog to smell these
Speaker 1: ancestral bones. And they did this with this museum collection
Speaker 1: and actually found this interview where he goes into detail
Speaker 1: about how this works. So here's what he says. We
Speaker 1: recreated an Aboriginal graveyard and also scattered some animal bones there.
Speaker 1: What we saw was that the dog was able to
Speaker 1: find a buried bone from about ten feet away, even
Speaker 1: if it's as small as a fingernail. We would just
Speaker 1: take a cotton ball and touch the bone and then
Speaker 1: touch that to the rock and she could still find
Speaker 1: the smell. The big test was at an Aboriginal burial
Speaker 1: ground in South Australia where a six hundred year old
Speaker 1: grave have been found. A few years ago. We were
Speaker 1: given about an acre to search. Museum officials and tribal
Speaker 1: elders were there and they knew where the graves were,
Speaker 1: but not us. Within two minutes, Migaloo was circling this
Speaker 1: one spot and it was exactly where the dog was
Speaker 1: and it was a six hundred year old grave. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's stunning. It really is fascinating that that dogs can
Speaker 1: do that. And you can almost think, like how much
Speaker 1: easier would be to get a grave site protected from
Speaker 1: development if you had a dog that could show you
Speaker 1: where the bones word and just I don't know, like
Speaker 1: a few minutes. It's pretty remarkable of the applications. And
Speaker 1: also like if you can find bones that easily, then
Speaker 1: pottery doesn't feel that far away, or or even things
Speaker 1: like dinosaur bones or other kinds of fossils, right, definitely,
Speaker 1: I mean I think all of those are our possibilities.
Speaker 1: And you know, there's also the chance this technique could
Speaker 1: be used to crack cold cases that you know, police
Speaker 1: are still dealing of where maybe there was this you know,
Speaker 1: thought to be a body buried in a certain area,
Speaker 1: but they were never able to find it. But you know,
Speaker 1: whatever benefits we reap from this, we will all owe
Speaker 1: it to Migalo for for helping us get started with
Speaker 1: this type of work. The world's first archaeology dog. Well,
Speaker 1: we still have a bunch of dogs to talk about,
Speaker 1: including seeing eye dogs. But before we get to those,
Speaker 1: let's take a quick break. You're listening to part time genius.
Speaker 1: So we're talking about the famous first of a few
Speaker 1: good dogs, all right, Mango. So we talked about Miguelo,
Speaker 1: who was the Australian black lab that's been helping archaeologists
Speaker 1: dig in all the right places. But I want to
Speaker 1: get back to the basics and and maybe talk about
Speaker 1: the kind of service or assistance dog that most of
Speaker 1: us know best, and that's of course sky dogs. So
Speaker 1: for a long time now, these dogs have been helping
Speaker 1: blind and visually impaired people navigate the world much more
Speaker 1: independently than they would be otherwise. And so I want
Speaker 1: to talk a little bit about the history of their service. Well,
Speaker 1: one of the things that's interesting to me is that
Speaker 1: it really is hard to pinpoint when the first ever
Speaker 1: guide dog came. Like you said, it's been going on
Speaker 1: for such a long time. And in fact, the earliest
Speaker 1: evidence of dogs guiding the blind dates all the way
Speaker 1: back to the first century a d. And there's this
Speaker 1: fresco in the ruins of this Roman town and it
Speaker 1: actually depicts a blind man being led by his dog.
Speaker 1: So you could say that's the first guide dog. But
Speaker 1: the truth is that assumes that the artist based it
Speaker 1: on real life subject and and that's kind of hard
Speaker 1: to verify. Well, I mean, there is one thing that
Speaker 1: we can say, and that it wasn't until the eighteen
Speaker 1: hundreds that trained guide dogs became, you know, such an
Speaker 1: important part of the medical establishment. I was looking at
Speaker 1: this article on history dot com and here's how they
Speaker 1: put it. The earliest systemic instruction of guide dogs took
Speaker 1: place at a Paris hospital for the blind. Within a
Speaker 1: few decades, the practice had spread to Austria, where a
Speaker 1: blind man named Josef Risinger he trained his spits and
Speaker 1: later a poodle so well that people actually began to
Speaker 1: suspect he was faking his disability. Then in the eighteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: another Austrian by the name of Johan Wilhelm Klein founded
Speaker 1: the Institute for Training of the Blind and Vienna as
Speaker 1: a teacher there. His dogs of choice were poodles and shepherds,
Speaker 1: and well, you don't see too many guide poodles today.
Speaker 1: German shepherds are still a common choice for training. So
Speaker 1: I'm curious that, like, do you know when guide dogs
Speaker 1: first became a thing in the US, because I I
Speaker 1: feel like they aren't really mentioned in the early American history,
Speaker 1: you know, in the colonies or whatever. Yeah, there was
Speaker 1: a little bit of this that I saw and doing
Speaker 1: some reading for this episode where you see it counts
Speaker 1: from the mid eighteen hundreds and these were dogs that
Speaker 1: were helping guide the blind. But it really wasn't until
Speaker 1: the late nineteen twenties that you started to see this
Speaker 1: practice gaining ground on you know, kind of on this
Speaker 1: side of the Atlantic. But that change was largely thanks
Speaker 1: to a wealthy American woman named Dorothy Harrison Eustace, as
Speaker 1: well as a blind nineteen year old from Tennessee and
Speaker 1: his name was Maurice Frank. So we're talking about ninety
Speaker 1: seven here, when Eustace wrote an article for the Saturday
Speaker 1: Evening Post and it was about her recent trip to
Speaker 1: a dog training clinic in Germany, and this is where
Speaker 1: doctors had been training guide dogs for use both by
Speaker 1: veterans and civilians. And she herself had been living in
Speaker 1: Switzerland at the time and she was breeding and training
Speaker 1: these police dogs for the Swiss Army. But she'd never
Speaker 1: seen anything like this new German method for training dogs
Speaker 1: to act as guides for the blind, and so in
Speaker 1: her article she was praising this technique as as a
Speaker 1: way for the visually impaired too, as she says, once
Speaker 1: more take up their normal lives. So where does this
Speaker 1: guy from Tennessee com in? So that's Mars Frank, and
Speaker 1: he hears about the article immediately writes a letter to
Speaker 1: Eustace asking her to quote train me and I will
Speaker 1: bring back my dog and show people here how a
Speaker 1: blind man can be absolutely on his own. So you
Speaker 1: fast forward to the next year and Frank spent some
Speaker 1: time with her in Switzerland and returns home with his
Speaker 1: very own guide dog, and this was, of course a
Speaker 1: German shepherd that he had named Buddy. And the press
Speaker 1: in the States goes crazy about this story. And so
Speaker 1: it's the first case of a properly trained guide dog
Speaker 1: in the US and reporters are asking Frank, you know
Speaker 1: how having a guide has improved his life, and he
Speaker 1: decides to give them some pretty compelling proof and and
Speaker 1: shows and that with the help of Buddy, he can
Speaker 1: navigate across one of New York's most hazardous thoroughfares. This
Speaker 1: was a street known by locals as Death Avenue. It
Speaker 1: seems a pretty but it seems like there could be
Speaker 1: other ways you might test this. But fortunately when he
Speaker 1: did it, they made it across without a scratch. And
Speaker 1: just a year after that, Frank and Eustace founded the
Speaker 1: first American guide dog school and they called it This
Speaker 1: Seeing Eye, and it's actually still going strong today. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's amazing to think about how relatively recent that was.
Speaker 1: I mean, you look at all the roles assistance dogs
Speaker 1: filled today, and it's not just helping people with vision loss,
Speaker 1: but also hearing impairments, epilepsy, autism, PTSD. It's pretty remarkable. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, when you lay it all out there, it
Speaker 1: is actually pretty amazing the number of different ways dogs
Speaker 1: have been able to help people just over the past
Speaker 1: century or so. Yeah, I mean, they're getting the title
Speaker 1: of man's Best friend for a reason. Then, Actually, I've
Speaker 1: got a great example of this. It's this Yorkshire terrier
Speaker 1: named Smokey, and during World War Two she became the
Speaker 1: world's first therapy dog. So this goes back to this
Speaker 1: American soldier named Bill Wynn, who adopted her after finding
Speaker 1: her in this abandoned foxhole in New Guinea. This so
Speaker 1: Smokey's first act of service was to save the lives
Speaker 1: of Wind and his entire squadron. Apparently, the soldiers needed
Speaker 1: to string this telephone wire through a seventy ft pipe
Speaker 1: underground so that these three different campsites could communicate with
Speaker 1: one another. And the problem was that the pipe was
Speaker 1: only eight inches wide, so of course it was impossible
Speaker 1: for human to crawl through it, and instead dozens of
Speaker 1: men had to spend days digging a trench to get
Speaker 1: the wires underground, and all the while they were leaving
Speaker 1: themselves exposed to enemy attack. Or at least that was
Speaker 1: the plan, and that's how it would have gone had
Speaker 1: it not been for Smokey. So she was the scrawny dog,
Speaker 1: weighing about four pounds, standing just seven inches tall, and
Speaker 1: she could actually fit into the pipe with ease. So
Speaker 1: with a little bit of luck and a little bit
Speaker 1: of patients when was able to tie the wire to
Speaker 1: Smokey and coax her through the pipe from above ground,
Speaker 1: and of course, the little pop got the job on.
Speaker 1: She was credited with saving the lives of some I
Speaker 1: think it's two fifty men and also forty planes that day.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, I mean, that is pretty incredible story. But
Speaker 1: I'm curious, like, if if Smokey was such a cool
Speaker 1: hand on the battlefield, how did that transition happen to
Speaker 1: becoming a dog doing therapy type work. So pretty soon
Speaker 1: after when adopted her, he came down with dangae fever,
Speaker 1: which is horrible obviously, and he was sent to this
Speaker 1: army hospital and a couple of days later his friends
Speaker 1: came by his fellow soldiers and they brought Smokey to
Speaker 1: visit him, and the nurses were just in love with
Speaker 1: this little dog, like, you know, she's brave, she's tiny,
Speaker 1: she's got a big personality. And so not only did
Speaker 1: they cuddle her, but they took her around to all
Speaker 1: the other wounded soldiers, and uh, you know, when when
Speaker 1: he was there, saw how Smokey really changed the mood
Speaker 1: in these rooms. These were these depressed and injured soldiers
Speaker 1: who took turns holding her and penning her, and it
Speaker 1: completely changed their outlook. So once when was well enough
Speaker 1: to leave, he started taking Smoky or on to visit
Speaker 1: other wounded soldiers. He even taught Smokey some pretty impressive
Speaker 1: tricks to keep them entertained. While he was there. He
Speaker 1: taught her how to walk a tight rope, how to
Speaker 1: ride this handmade scooter, and even how to spell her
Speaker 1: own name. Wow, those are all impressive things. Although I'm curious,
Speaker 1: what do you mean spell her own name? I guess
Speaker 1: he'd call out the letters of her name one by one,
Speaker 1: and she would go and pick out these big cutouts
Speaker 1: of the letters with her mouth. So I guess she
Speaker 1: was showing off in that way. That's pretty great, I mean,
Speaker 1: even though I can do that part about the spelling
Speaker 1: of the name. But but Smokey does sound like a
Speaker 1: pretty wonderful dog. He definitely, And and as word of
Speaker 1: her impact spread, you know, pretty soon all these other
Speaker 1: owners of dogs will bringing their dogs around his therapy
Speaker 1: dogs to recuperating soldiers. In fact, by seven, American civilians
Speaker 1: had donated around seven hundred dogs to military hospitals around
Speaker 1: the country. I saw that standard just floored by it,
Speaker 1: you know, And and when and Smokey had a happy
Speaker 1: ending to after the war. They kept right on touring
Speaker 1: hospitals right up until Smokey retired at the age of
Speaker 1: twelve and nineteen fifty five. And then she lead a quieter,
Speaker 1: still peaceful life for two more years after that. All right, well,
Speaker 1: for this last sement, I feel like we should focus
Speaker 1: on a few dogs whose achievements were a little bit
Speaker 1: more down to earth. But before we do that, let's
Speaker 1: take one more quick break. Al right, well, so let's
Speaker 1: talk about some dogs who have claims to fame that
Speaker 1: won't make us second guess our own life choices. You know,
Speaker 1: Pops Wup were the first to do you run of
Speaker 1: the mill, classic dog type stuff. All right, well, I've
Speaker 1: got one, So why don't we talk about the first
Speaker 1: dog to win Best in Show, which you know should
Speaker 1: make us feel okay because it's not really threatening to
Speaker 1: us human types. And so surprisingly, this is actually something
Speaker 1: I don't think we covered when we did that episode
Speaker 1: on HOWD A Game of Dog Show. I don't know
Speaker 1: how we left this one off. But you know, as
Speaker 1: you might remember, Westminster Kennel Club held its first Dog
Speaker 1: Show way back in eighteen seventy seven, but strangely, the
Speaker 1: event didn't include a Best in Show until about forty
Speaker 1: years later in nineteen oh seven, and the first dog
Speaker 1: to win the award was this smooth coated Fox Terrier
Speaker 1: named Warren Remedy. Such a great name, but don't let
Speaker 1: the name fool you. Warren Remedy was actually a female dog.
Speaker 1: So what was it about Warren that when the judge
Speaker 1: is over, I mean her looks mango? As one reporter
Speaker 1: wrote for The New York Tribune, quote, Warren Remedy is
Speaker 1: practically true to type. She is tan marked with strong head,
Speaker 1: keen expression, good outline and grand ribs. Yeah. I feel
Speaker 1: like the grand ribs always do the trick. Yeah. It's
Speaker 1: definitely the mark of a champion, for sure, and there's
Speaker 1: no doubt that that's exactly what Warren was a three
Speaker 1: time champion in fact, because not only did she earn
Speaker 1: the first ever Best in Show awards, she went on
Speaker 1: to win the title in the next two Westminster shows
Speaker 1: as well, which of course makes her the oly three
Speaker 1: time winner in the history of the competition. She is
Speaker 1: Westminster's most winning is dog, And you know, we think
Speaker 1: about how political the show has gotten in the years
Speaker 1: since then. I feel like it's unlikely that Warren's ever
Speaker 1: going to have anybody, you know, take that crown from her.
Speaker 1: Good for her. And and speaking of dog shows, do
Speaker 1: you know that they're actually the reason that dog biscuits
Speaker 1: went mainstream back in the late eighteen hundreds. I did not,
Speaker 1: And in fact, I don't think I've ever thought of
Speaker 1: dog biscuits going mainstream. You never heard of like putting
Speaker 1: your biscuits in beta, like, I don't think so. So
Speaker 1: the first dog biscuits were invented in eighteen sixty by
Speaker 1: this electrician named James Spratt, and prior to that, nobody
Speaker 1: had really thought of food specifically for dogs. People just
Speaker 1: fed dogs like the scraps and whatever was left over
Speaker 1: from their own meals, and that all changed thanks to Spratt.
Speaker 1: He created these meat fibrine dog cakes, that's what his
Speaker 1: project was called. And uh, there was something he came
Speaker 1: up with after noticing the way dogs gobbled up hardtack,
Speaker 1: which is that stuff that sailors used to take with them.
Speaker 1: It's supposedly taste horrible. But we're to Spratt's new products
Speaker 1: spread and by the new York Times was actually heralding
Speaker 1: it as the quote principal food of dog shows. That's
Speaker 1: kind of a funny story about So where where are
Speaker 1: we going on? This? Is this the first dog to
Speaker 1: eat a dog biscuit? Pretty close? So sprats biscuits actually
Speaker 1: had one shortcoming. Atlas Obscure says they were quote woefully
Speaker 1: square in shape. And this is a big, you know,
Speaker 1: difference from all the bone shaped biscuits are our dogs
Speaker 1: get today. Alright, So so I still don't know exactly
Speaker 1: where we're going to start. We're talking about the first
Speaker 1: dog to ever eat a bone shaped biscuit, exactly. It's
Speaker 1: a big deal and I feel like it should be celebrated.
Speaker 1: But this is how it happened. So sometime in seven,
Speaker 1: an organic chemist and inventor named Carlton Ellis received a
Speaker 1: desperate plea for help from the local owner of a slaughterhouse.
Speaker 1: And the owner was looking for this profitable way to
Speaker 1: use all the waste milk his work produced, and he
Speaker 1: had hoped Ellis could help him find one. So Ellis
Speaker 1: took on the task, and, likely inspired by Spratt's famous
Speaker 1: dog biscuits, he began experimenting with this biscuit of his own,
Speaker 1: one made from milk, malt, grain, and a few other ingredients.
Speaker 1: So he made a milk bone. Yeah, but not quite yet.
Speaker 1: So at first Ellis baked the biscuits into what he
Speaker 1: hoped would be this appealing round shape, but when he
Speaker 1: tested the biscuits with his own pop, the dog wanted
Speaker 1: nothing to do with him. So, as a professional chemist,
Speaker 1: he was kind of baffled by this. Like he'd worked
Speaker 1: on all these landmark products, including margarine, polyester paint remover,
Speaker 1: and so he figured he should have been able to
Speaker 1: mix up an appetizing treat. So rather than change the ingredients,
Speaker 1: he just changed the shape of the biscuits. And this
Speaker 1: is where he told Popular Science quote, I had some
Speaker 1: more biscuits baked from the same stock, but in the
Speaker 1: shape of a bone, and I found that my dog
Speaker 1: manifested a tremendous interest in the bone shaped biscuit, which
Speaker 1: is pretty great, But like, why would the dog care
Speaker 1: what shape the biscuit was? So I have no idea.
Speaker 1: But after he hit upon this pleasing shape, Ellis partnered
Speaker 1: with this company that started mass producing biscuits for him,
Speaker 1: and they called him milk bone Biscuits. Which are famous now.
Speaker 1: Then he sold the brand into Biscuit. But right up
Speaker 1: until his death, Ellis couldn't quite put his finger on
Speaker 1: why his dog liked the bone shaped biscuits so much,
Speaker 1: and he actually once told this interviewer that his dog
Speaker 1: Hauld either simply liked the design better or else. Quote
Speaker 1: after shaping the biscuit in effort to cater to his taste,
Speaker 1: he felt duty bound to fool his master by simulating
Speaker 1: an interest in it. Sure, that's exactly what it was,
Speaker 1: all right, Well, for this last one, I'm going to
Speaker 1: sort of bend the rules a little bit because honestly,
Speaker 1: I can't tell you who the first dog to catch
Speaker 1: a frisbee was because it was about twenty years between
Speaker 1: the products debut and the story that I wanted to share.
Speaker 1: But when it comes to the official sport of dog frisbee,
Speaker 1: there's no question that the first and best to ever
Speaker 1: play was this pup named Ashley Whip It. So I
Speaker 1: think I read about this when we were doing research
Speaker 1: for our WAMMO episode. This is the dog with the
Speaker 1: awesome nickname, right, Oh, it's a terrific nickname. The nickname
Speaker 1: is the surest Jaws on all four paws and that
Speaker 1: was coined by a writer in Sports Illustrated. So you know,
Speaker 1: it seems like it's got to be true. But we
Speaker 1: need to back up for just a minute to nineteen
Speaker 1: four and this was when Ashley and his owner Alex
Speaker 1: Stein actually stormed the offices of Wammo. So Stein and
Speaker 1: witness firsthand how talented his dog was at catching frisbee,
Speaker 1: and he wanted the toy company to bring Ashley on
Speaker 1: is maybe like a mascot or something, but unfortunately Whammo
Speaker 1: was not interested at this point. So Stein was trying
Speaker 1: to figure out what else to do so that the
Speaker 1: world could see how talented his dog was. So he
Speaker 1: comes up with this idea to storm the field at
Speaker 1: Dodger Stadium when the teams are you know, switching places
Speaker 1: between innings. And so the game was about to resume
Speaker 1: after the eighth inning and Stein ran onto the field
Speaker 1: toss the frisbee forty yards out. Ashley then jumps this
Speaker 1: three foot wall with ease and snare this disc out
Speaker 1: of mid air. And actually, because the details of this
Speaker 1: are are pretty great, I do want to read this description.
Speaker 1: This was you know, from a friend Jake Rosen from
Speaker 1: from mental floss. And here's what Jake says. He says,
Speaker 1: with fifty thou people cheering in the stands and millions
Speaker 1: watching at home, Ashley and Stein effectively invented the phenomenon
Speaker 1: known as dog frisbee. The animals seemed to linger in
Speaker 1: the air like Jordan's off the rim. His massively muscled
Speaker 1: hind legs propelled him skyward, his body contorted like a
Speaker 1: salamander swimming upstream, jaws gripping the disk. The outfielders set
Speaker 1: down on the grass and watched the nearly eight minute performance. Finally,
Speaker 1: Stein departed, jogging up the same stet of stairs. Security
Speaker 1: was waiting near the top. They zip tied his wrists
Speaker 1: and ushered him to a holding cell full of drunks
Speaker 1: and eight track cassette thieves. But that isn't the end
Speaker 1: of the story, right, No, it's definitely not. And things
Speaker 1: actually started to look up for Stein and Ashley almost
Speaker 1: immediately after this. In fact, even when they were still
Speaker 1: in the holding tank. There at the stadium, the halftime
Speaker 1: coordinator for the l A Rams was there and he
Speaker 1: came to visit them. So he slipped his business card
Speaker 1: through the bars and invited the d o to appear
Speaker 1: at their next home game. Of course they decided to
Speaker 1: do this, and after that they made two appearances on
Speaker 1: merv Griffin and The Tonight Show. They went on to
Speaker 1: perform at the White House even during the Super Bowl,
Speaker 1: And of course all this got WHAMO to change their
Speaker 1: tune on dog frisbee. And not only did they pay
Speaker 1: that two and fifty dollar fine Stein and Curd for
Speaker 1: trespassing on the baseball field, but they also co sponsored
Speaker 1: the first annual Fearless Fido Frisbee Fetching Fracas, which is
Speaker 1: just an amazing dog competition. But anyway, a year later,
Speaker 1: the World Frisbee Championships began hosting a dedicated canine division
Speaker 1: and it's the still running Ashley Whippett Invitational. So I
Speaker 1: like that story a lot, and I think now that
Speaker 1: we've made it to the end of the episode, it
Speaker 1: actually means that Tristan and his dog associate just made history.
Speaker 1: Well not so fascinating. We've still got a fact off
Speaker 1: and you know, anything can happen during that. So let's
Speaker 1: let's hold type just a little bit longer. Ye all right, Well,
Speaker 1: I'll kick this off with the story about the first
Speaker 1: dog to receive a rank in the American military, and
Speaker 1: I love this story. So we're going back to World
Speaker 1: War One and it was the hundred and second Infantries,
Speaker 1: twenty six Yankee Division, and they were in training at
Speaker 1: Yale and there was the stray dog that just shows
Speaker 1: up and starts hanging around. And the soldiers eventually start
Speaker 1: taking a liking to this dog, so they nickname him Stubby,
Speaker 1: and they teach him a few tricks, including how to
Speaker 1: salute with his paw, just putting it over his eye,
Speaker 1: and this would eventually come in handy. So when it
Speaker 1: was time to ship out to France, they somehow managed
Speaker 1: to smuggle Stubby with them, and as you might imagine,
Speaker 1: the commanding officers were not thrilled when they discovered Stubby.
Speaker 1: Later on, but before they have a chance to discipline anybody,
Speaker 1: of course, the pup just pulls up his paw and
Speaker 1: does the little salute stun and they decided to let
Speaker 1: him stick around. I guess it's like a mascot for
Speaker 1: the group, but it's actually pretty amazing because he was
Speaker 1: much more than a mascot. You know. They trained the
Speaker 1: dog to do so many different things. He learned to
Speaker 1: sniff out chemical agents, and he would come back and
Speaker 1: warn the soldiers, you know, when he would sniff these
Speaker 1: things out. He learned how to help find wounded soldiers
Speaker 1: so the paramedics could get to them. But you think
Speaker 1: about everything that he did for them. It was because
Speaker 1: of all these efforts that a hundred and second Infantry
Speaker 1: actually promoted him to sergeant. And so by the end
Speaker 1: of his service, Stubby had served in seventeen battles over
Speaker 1: just an eighteen month period. That's pretty incredible. So I've
Speaker 1: been reading all these stories about dogs, you know, saving
Speaker 1: and helping people, but I really like the story about
Speaker 1: how dogs are also getting involved with saving lives of
Speaker 1: other animals. And this is in South Africa. You know,
Speaker 1: poaching has been such a problem there for years, with
Speaker 1: things like elephant tuss or whatever, and and to combat this,
Speaker 1: they're now more than two d and ruleees in an
Speaker 1: anti poaching and Canine Training academy, and these pups are
Speaker 1: going to be trained and then mashed up with various
Speaker 1: national parks. And the idea is that if there's this poacher,
Speaker 1: that spotted arranger would strap one of these pups onto
Speaker 1: their chest and then take a parachute on their back
Speaker 1: and then float down to the area as quickly as
Speaker 1: possible to stop the poacher. And the roll of the
Speaker 1: dogs is to sniff out the criminals and and try
Speaker 1: to catch them. And it's still early on in the program,
Speaker 1: so it's not really in full effect, but it sounds
Speaker 1: pretty spectacular. That is pretty interesting. So I always wondered
Speaker 1: how dalmatians got associated with firehouses and decided to look
Speaker 1: into this a little bit, and and I was surprised
Speaker 1: to see that, you know, this one actually dates back
Speaker 1: much further than I would have thought. So we're going
Speaker 1: back to the early seventeen hundreds when Dalmatians were often
Speaker 1: used to run alongside the carriages of English aristocrats. And
Speaker 1: you know, they tend to like running alongside horses anyway,
Speaker 1: But in doing this, they would protect the horses from
Speaker 1: other animals and keep them from getting spooked. And in fact,
Speaker 1: it even became kind of a status symbol to have
Speaker 1: even more Dalmatians around your carriage. So you know, over
Speaker 1: time this carried over to accompanying the horse drawn wagons
Speaker 1: that would transport the firefighters, and again, in doing this
Speaker 1: they would help protect the horses and kind of keep
Speaker 1: them calm. As they were approaching the fire, because horses
Speaker 1: are often afraid of fire, and Dalmatians tend not to
Speaker 1: be as afraid of anything for that matter. And so
Speaker 1: you know, the pups would stay back when they were
Speaker 1: off to fight the fire, and they would guard the
Speaker 1: wagon to make sure nobody stole equipment or anything else
Speaker 1: on the wagon, including the horses. It's so funny. I've
Speaker 1: always just kind of accepted that they're the mascot of
Speaker 1: these firehouses, but it's great to hear the backstory. So
Speaker 1: we've been reading a lot about self driving cars in
Speaker 1: recent years, but one thing I hadn't read about was
Speaker 1: a dog driven car. And this is from an animal
Speaker 1: shelter in New Zealand. I came up with this idea
Speaker 1: to show how smart their dogs were by training to
Speaker 1: their pups, and the dog names are Porter and Monty,
Speaker 1: and they taught them to drive a Mini Cooper, specifically
Speaker 1: Mini Countrymen that was specially outfited for them. So the
Speaker 1: dogs learned to start the engines, then use the gas
Speaker 1: and brakes, and also steer and they actually became celebrities
Speaker 1: when one of their test drives was aired on TV
Speaker 1: in New Zealand. Wow. Well, that's definitely amusing and impressive.
Speaker 1: But I have to say I'm gonna want to up
Speaker 1: you on this one, because while it is impressive to
Speaker 1: think of a dog driving a car, I feel like
Speaker 1: it's even more impressive to teach a dog how to
Speaker 1: pilot a plane. Maybe a little bit scary, but also
Speaker 1: impressive at the same time. And I don't know what
Speaker 1: it is about New Zealand training dogs to drive stuff,
Speaker 1: but this actually comes from New Zealand as well. So
Speaker 1: there's an animal trainer and a zoologist named Mark Vett,
Speaker 1: and he taught this group of dogs to fly. And
Speaker 1: we're not just talking a few days of training. So
Speaker 1: for some reason this went on for months. I actually
Speaker 1: have no idea why they put this much into training
Speaker 1: dogs to fly planes. But they were using in the
Speaker 1: indoor flights simulator, and in order to teach them how
Speaker 1: to pilot the plane, they'd use these different colored light signals,
Speaker 1: so they would use blue to indicate they should go left,
Speaker 1: they would use red for right, and white just meant
Speaker 1: to keep going straight. And I guess for the heck
Speaker 1: of it, they even taught them to do a figure eight,
Speaker 1: which is terrifying to try to be in a plane
Speaker 1: where a dog is doing a figure eight. But you know,
Speaker 1: there's no word on a plan to actually do anything
Speaker 1: with this training. But it did kind of make me
Speaker 1: laugh to think about people one day getting on a
Speaker 1: plane and looking in the cockpit and seeing a K
Speaker 1: nine just like co piloting this plane and making the announcements,
Speaker 1: which would probably be just as clear as hearing a
Speaker 1: regular pilot's announcements over the intercomps. I love that those
Speaker 1: dogs on my co pilot shirt actually makes sense. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: that's what the whole point is. So I actually had
Speaker 1: a fact about a dog who pressed nine one one
Speaker 1: to save a life, But this idea of dogs doing
Speaker 1: loop to loops and figure eights in the sky, it's
Speaker 1: just so good that I think you have to take
Speaker 1: home with the trophy. Wow. Well, congratulations to Tristan's pup
Speaker 1: for for really getting us through this episode. Let's hope
Speaker 1: this one actually publishes, because we think he's the first
Speaker 1: canine to have pulled off a podcast recording. But I
Speaker 1: guess we'll see now. I know we've forgotten probably several
Speaker 1: terrific facts about the history of dog first, so we
Speaker 1: love to hear those from you. As as we always do.
Speaker 1: You can email us part Time Genius and how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com or hit us up on Facebook or Twitter.
Speaker 1: But thanks so much for listening that all of our
Speaker 1: listeners could see this, because it's a pretty adorable scene. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, this little guy keeps putting his paws up
Speaker 1: on the soundboard and he's got Chris and McNeil does
Speaker 1: the editing thing, but like this really focused look. It
Speaker 1: seems like he actually Garry Roland does the exact producer
Speaker 1: thing m and Eves Jeff Cook gets the show to
Speaker 1: your ears. Good job, Eves. Oh this is not even
Speaker 1: Tristan's dog? Do we do we forget Jason? Okay, all right,
Speaker 1: well