Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, Welcome to Creature Feature, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. I'm your host of Many Parasites, Katie Golden.
Speaker 1: I studied psychology and evolutionary biology. And we're according this
Speaker 1: podcast at spooky night times. And wait, what day is it?
Speaker 1: Is it a full moon? Wait it's it's not it's
Speaker 1: a waning crescent. Oh god, no, not a waning crescent.
Speaker 1: I turned into oh where podcaster? I feel the need
Speaker 1: to talk to you about random anecdotes and Hello Fresh
Speaker 1: And on today's episode, we're talking about werewolves. Where are they?
Speaker 1: What are they? And is there any truth behind the
Speaker 1: werewolf legends? Discover this and more as we answer the
Speaker 1: age old question does your dog want to eat your face?
Speaker 1: So in the Principality of Ansbach, where is now an
Speaker 1: area in modern day Germany, had a bit of a
Speaker 1: werewolf problem. You see, the townsfolk of Ansbach were once
Speaker 1: ruled by a despicable mayor whom everyone hated. And fortunately
Speaker 1: nature took its course and the mayor died. Unfortunately, the
Speaker 1: mayor came back as an undead werewolf. This werewolf terrorized
Speaker 1: the town, killing livestock and was even said to devour people.
Speaker 1: The townsfolk, fed up of this well fed wolf, gathered
Speaker 1: in a hunting party along with their faithful dogs, and
Speaker 1: chased the wolf into a well where it was easily killed.
Speaker 1: To make certain that their ex mayor turned werewolf could
Speaker 1: not rise from the grave again, they clothed the wolf
Speaker 1: and a man's garments, chopped off its nose, and put
Speaker 1: a human mask on its face. This grizzly man wolf
Speaker 1: cadaver was then hung on a pole in the town square. Now,
Speaker 1: of course, this wasn't a real werewolf, just a very
Speaker 1: unfortunate loner wolf who got a little greedy ate some
Speaker 1: sheep and got killed and dressed up by a bunch
Speaker 1: of angry and upsettingly creative townsfolk. But where does the
Speaker 1: werewolf story come from? And are there any wolves that
Speaker 1: match up with the legends? Joining me today to talk
Speaker 1: about the myth and reality? Is comedian human and definitely
Speaker 1: not a werewolf? Nick Turner, Yeah, young, Does that have
Speaker 1: like a connection to werewolves or No? I'm just just
Speaker 1: trying to trying to get him nominated, get him the
Speaker 1: Democratic nomination. Well I'll talk about um. So I have
Speaker 1: some questions. Where did they get the human face? The
Speaker 1: what do you mean, oh, and the townspeople. It was
Speaker 1: a mask. It was just a mask then't like I
Speaker 1: mean it was in my head one of these like
Speaker 1: take my face. Yeah, yeah, No, it wasn't quite that
Speaker 1: Jigsaw nightmare. Just a little bit of Jigsaw nightmare. Okay,
Speaker 1: I so, um, I wanted to guess on the spelling
Speaker 1: of a go for it, okay, um, okay, yeah, now
Speaker 1: here's where it gets difficult. Okay, you out. Okay, it's
Speaker 1: a N, S, B A C H. Now, full disclosure,
Speaker 1: I don't speak German. I have no idea if I
Speaker 1: pronounced that right, I was probably spelling the way. And
Speaker 1: if German listeners you can definitely correct me, but I
Speaker 1: probably won't bring it up again. I think you're right.
Speaker 1: So you know we're we're wolves. They're wolves, get it anyways,
Speaker 1: I don't. This is gonna be this is gonna be rough.
Speaker 1: I'm all right. That was my only joke I wrote
Speaker 1: for this whole episode. So already off to a great
Speaker 1: There are actually were wolves all over the world in
Speaker 1: different cultures. So in Greek mythology, Zeus turned a wicked
Speaker 1: man named like kon lice on probably like on like
Speaker 1: like it. Oh, yeah, maybe Lichen that actually no, no,
Speaker 1: you want you know what? That's probably right. So he
Speaker 1: turned a wicked man named Lichen into a wolf. Lichan
Speaker 1: had tried to serve Zeus a meal made of his
Speaker 1: own son. So Lichan killed his own son and tried
Speaker 1: to serve it to Zeus as I guess, like a
Speaker 1: bit of like a prank or like are you really
Speaker 1: a god? If you're yeah, like, if you're a god,
Speaker 1: you would know that this meal I'm serving you as
Speaker 1: my dead boy. M Maybe it would be a prank
Speaker 1: to serve Zeus's son to him. Yeah, but I don't
Speaker 1: see it. No, it's I don't know. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: also not a great prank the other way you got pumped.
Speaker 1: Zeus was not a fan of this stunt, and he
Speaker 1: turned Likan into a wolf man creature. And this is
Speaker 1: where the word like canther he comes from. Uh and
Speaker 1: like anthropy is turning the condition in which you turn
Speaker 1: into a wolf? I guess, yes, that is it? Straight
Speaker 1: from Webster, Yes, yes, straight from web m d Um.
Speaker 1: In Armenian folklore, women who are sinful are cursed to
Speaker 1: spend seven years in wolf form, and they go out
Speaker 1: and eat children okay it could I know, right, Like
Speaker 1: it's like you're cursed, okay to be a wolf? Right
Speaker 1: then nobody knows it's you because you're a wolf and
Speaker 1: then you turn back into a human. Why don't more
Speaker 1: people utilize the chain me up once a once a month?
Speaker 1: You know? I mean that was Did you ever see
Speaker 1: that movie What we Do in the Shadows? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what they would do that I love. I love
Speaker 1: the attention to detail in that renowned film what we
Speaker 1: do with the Shadows where they turns change. But then
Speaker 1: what about the so like there's a group of werewolves
Speaker 1: who change them sells up to prevent themselves from like
Speaker 1: killing people. But what about the last guy? Like how
Speaker 1: does he? You know, how do they do that? Well?
Speaker 1: You change your chain yourself up? Because you can't you
Speaker 1: do you do? Like a day earlier, you know, like
Speaker 1: you're just a dude. You're like, all right, it's time
Speaker 1: to get my Netflix. Yeah, get my you know stack
Speaker 1: of pizzas here next to Mike. Chain yourself up? And
Speaker 1: then Netflix stops and it's like are you still watching?
Speaker 1: And you're like halfway and my plods, no, MYX just
Speaker 1: kicked me off of my Netflix. In Haitian legends, uh,
Speaker 1: their werewolves are actually called the rouges, are similar to
Speaker 1: zombies or vampires, who try to spread their werewolf condition
Speaker 1: to others, either by kidnapping children or possession, and relatedly
Speaker 1: another sort of like uh, I guess I think this
Speaker 1: one also works a little bit like a vampire. So
Speaker 1: in New York, in New Orleans there's the rue grew Um.
Speaker 1: I want to send out a thanks to a very
Speaker 1: young listener named Laney from Memphis who gave me this suggestion.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Laney. She's afraid of the ruguru, but she's
Speaker 1: fascinated by it, which I think is also how I
Speaker 1: got into spiders and creepy animals. It's like, at first
Speaker 1: it's scary, and then you're like, you know what, I'm
Speaker 1: going to buy a whole book on it because I
Speaker 1: want to be scared all the time. You know, this
Speaker 1: thing that could kill me? It's fine now, well it's
Speaker 1: it's empowering. It's like I'm afraid of spider's being in
Speaker 1: my bed, which is a real fear I had as
Speaker 1: a kid. It's like, you know what, I want to
Speaker 1: learn about all the spiders? Give give me all the
Speaker 1: spiders I'm just moved to Echo Park and there are
Speaker 1: a bunch of black widow spiders everywhere. And then the
Speaker 1: first day I moved in, someone showed me a spider.
Speaker 1: You're like, oh, yeah, look, I can find one here,
Speaker 1: and then it took you maybe ten seconds. Black widow.
Speaker 1: Then there's a black widow, Like, Okay, how is everyone living?
Speaker 1: I can't. They can't. They don't typically kill adults. The
Speaker 1: bite just really really sucks. It's not you don't want
Speaker 1: to get bitten by a black widow. You'll probably have
Speaker 1: to go to the hospital because you'll get a big
Speaker 1: old welt. So I won't die. But I have Speaking
Speaker 1: of creatures, I have one. I have a little mini
Speaker 1: poodle mix and uh what about that? What about if
Speaker 1: little cheetah gets I would say that would be an
Speaker 1: emergency trip to the vet. I think they seem a
Speaker 1: lot more menacing than they actually actually are. For yeah,
Speaker 1: they don't. First of all, they don't. They're shy. They
Speaker 1: don't want to tangle with you. The worst. The way
Speaker 1: you get bitten by a black widow is essentially you
Speaker 1: trap it against your skin and then it reacts and
Speaker 1: fear it's not going to like track you down and
Speaker 1: bite you. Okay, that's yeah. So the Ruguru, which is
Speaker 1: uh mythical creature in Cajun folklore, is a kind of
Speaker 1: It's a big man dog wolf creature that and there
Speaker 1: are a few different versions of the Ruguru. One will
Speaker 1: hunt down naughty children, So careful, lady, my, my young listener,
Speaker 1: you better be good or else the ruguru will get you.
Speaker 1: I'm just kidding, It's fine, she seems like. Also, it
Speaker 1: will hunt down Catholics who don't respect the rules of
Speaker 1: lent um. Happened in other legends. The ruguru is a
Speaker 1: blood sucker, and if you've had your blood sucked by ruguru,
Speaker 1: you'll turn into one as well. So that's sort of
Speaker 1: the vampire. It's weird that the Catholics needed to make
Speaker 1: something up because they've got the devil and they've got
Speaker 1: like the wrath of God. I can't really think of,
Speaker 1: like what scared It's like if eternal damnation doesn't scare
Speaker 1: you a dog man, what if he's a big old
Speaker 1: dog man. There have been some theories about like why
Speaker 1: werewolves are so I guess you bbiquitous throughout all human cultures.
Speaker 1: We have werewolves here in America, you know, there's werewolf
Speaker 1: in London, there's the teen Wolf, all sorts of wolves
Speaker 1: everywhere all over the world. I'll tell you why, oh
Speaker 1: go for it already. I'm sorry. You don't even need
Speaker 1: to do the rest of all, right, because they're sexy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's true. Who does that? Harry is the most testosterone right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I I've been wanting like a sexy heartthrob
Speaker 1: werewolf for a while. We keep getting vampires, which to me,
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, give me an anemic looking guy. It's like, no,
Speaker 1: give me a guy who is her suit. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: isn't that Twilight team team not Jacob jab Jacob is
Speaker 1: the werewolf bad boy? Yeah? Maybe not the best actor
Speaker 1: for to represent as a whole, right, I mean, look, well,
Speaker 1: you can't generalize werewolves as a wholes No. Also, Michael J. Fox,
Speaker 1: I mean we only know wimpy well Michael J. Fox, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm going to come to the defense of my called
Speaker 1: Jay Fox, because it's more about like pre transformation. You
Speaker 1: can look like whatever, but it's the fortitude, right, It's
Speaker 1: it's if you're a wolf at heart, that's what matters,
Speaker 1: because like after the transformation, then you're just like a
Speaker 1: big old Harry wolf. It doesn't matter what you look
Speaker 1: like before. You could be the due vious guy, as
Speaker 1: long as you have that intention to kill a bunch
Speaker 1: of innocent people. That's what counts. That's what I always say.
Speaker 1: And the puberty aspect, right right, yeah? Yeah, Well so
Speaker 1: there's some other theories not as good as your own. Um.
Speaker 1: So there is a book called it's I think it's
Speaker 1: more of a like journal. I'm not really sure. It's
Speaker 1: a short book. It's called The Book of were Wolves.
Speaker 1: It's by Sabine Baring Gould. And this was actually written
Speaker 1: back in nineteen oh something. Yeah, it's a it's an
Speaker 1: old book. Uh. And it claims that oh wait, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: here this is a different Sorry I got confused. So
Speaker 1: the Book of Werewolves was actually published a long time ago.
Speaker 1: This was in eighteen sixty five, and it says that
Speaker 1: the werewolf was a way for humans to describe unexplained
Speaker 1: killings or serial killers. So you've got a serial killer
Speaker 1: on your hand. And before, like pretty recently, we didn't
Speaker 1: have this concept of the serial killer. This was before
Speaker 1: true crime podcasts broke through. And you know, this was
Speaker 1: during the Civil War. I'm gonna say, yes, I don't
Speaker 1: know any literally anything about history. I am an alien.
Speaker 1: Worried about someone commenting on the fact everybody's dying sense Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I do. And we've talked about this on
Speaker 1: the show before. But I think that monsters that become
Speaker 1: popular often express the main anxiety of a culture at
Speaker 1: the time. So vampires were super popular back when there
Speaker 1: was like a lot of consumption, which is like tuberculosis,
Speaker 1: where like a disease, they didn't really know what it was.
Speaker 1: They didn't know how to stop at people coughing up
Speaker 1: blood and suddenly looking like anemic and like they were
Speaker 1: being drained of their life force. And vampires were really
Speaker 1: popular because it was like kind of a way to
Speaker 1: I guess, conceptualize the fear, give a shape to the fear.
Speaker 1: The zombie was came about, you know, as we started
Speaker 1: to worry more about pandemics and like we became more interconnected,
Speaker 1: and then all of these things about like stars and
Speaker 1: these pandemic fear came into view. And my guess would
Speaker 1: be that now we're going to have monsters that have
Speaker 1: something to do with climate change. Although if you look
Speaker 1: at like the horror movies now it could also have
Speaker 1: to do with wealth and equality, like I think parasite,
Speaker 1: you know, and get out and these these other movies,
Speaker 1: like horror movies are becoming a way to express I guess,
Speaker 1: cultural problems and fear years and anxieties and and I
Speaker 1: think it's but I think it's always been that way.
Speaker 1: I think horror has always been an expression of societal
Speaker 1: fears everyone. It was just so simple, just someone running
Speaker 1: out of the woods and grabbing you. A beautiful time.
Speaker 1: That was a good time, just when the metaphor didn't
Speaker 1: go beyond like I don't know a wolfman that feat
Speaker 1: your face? Yeah, the ba guy has to be like
Speaker 1: riding a comment. Well, so in terms of this theory,
Speaker 1: that it is that the werewolf is used to explain
Speaker 1: serial killers. Okay, so Laney, my young listener, maybe you
Speaker 1: shouldn't listen to this party or have your dad listened
Speaker 1: first and just tell you about it. But I wanted
Speaker 1: to exactly exactly. I've had to change the whole show
Speaker 1: so many can listen to it. So there was a
Speaker 1: man named Peter Stump who was a German farmer who
Speaker 1: lived in the late fifteen hundreds, who was also known
Speaker 1: as the werewolf of bed Berg, and he was a
Speaker 1: serial killer who confessed confessed to killing and eating people,
Speaker 1: including their hearts. He also claimed to use a magical
Speaker 1: belt to transform into a wolf, but the belt was
Speaker 1: never actually found. He was probably just a liar and
Speaker 1: a murderer, but people were really it's a magical girdle
Speaker 1: that turns me into a wolf. And you see, that
Speaker 1: is why I ate all those women's hearts. It's again again,
Speaker 1: he's a liar and a murderer. And but unlike today
Speaker 1: where people will be like uh huh yeah, like back
Speaker 1: then they're like, oh a belt, you'll say we are
Speaker 1: in fifteen hundreds Germany in a week, no more belts.
Speaker 1: There's also something known and this is just I don't
Speaker 1: want to make the connection between this and crazy cannibalistic murdering,
Speaker 1: but this is as were wolves are used to explore
Speaker 1: lane serial killers. It's also when you get into the
Speaker 1: realm of psychology. If you are suffering from a psychological illness,
Speaker 1: sometimes cultural fears will be reflected in the mental illness
Speaker 1: that you have, so clinical like caanthropy is a form
Speaker 1: of psychosis that involves being in an altered state of
Speaker 1: mind where you believe you transform into typically a wolf,
Speaker 1: but it can be other animals and it's a not like, um,
Speaker 1: you know, this isn't like putting furries on blast here,
Speaker 1: this is not about this isn't like about a fun
Speaker 1: kind of thing that you do putting furries on blast. No, no,
Speaker 1: furries are great, But now this is it's more that
Speaker 1: it's like a distressing delusion that you turn into other animals. Um.
Speaker 1: And uh, there was like and sometimes it's not wolves.
Speaker 1: Like there was a case in which someone thought that
Speaker 1: they would go through through a series of transformations into
Speaker 1: animals before being finally able to return to their human form.
Speaker 1: This is kind of related to we've talked about Cotard delusion,
Speaker 1: which is the delusion that you don't exist, like either
Speaker 1: your body is a corpse or you just aren't physically there.
Speaker 1: And it's it's a interesting thing. Where are you know,
Speaker 1: in our in our brains, we have neural networks that
Speaker 1: basically tell us like you exist and your body is
Speaker 1: corporeal and like that there's reminding me. But for some
Speaker 1: people that gets like a little bit messed up, and
Speaker 1: then you're like okay with the Cotard delusion, it's like okay,
Speaker 1: I don't exist or my body is decaying. With clinical
Speaker 1: like canthropy, it's this, I guess, almost like a dissociation
Speaker 1: where you think your body is transforming into these animals.
Speaker 1: And I think it is informed by what you learn
Speaker 1: from your culture. So if werewolves are a big thing
Speaker 1: in your culture, you may think I'm a werewolf and
Speaker 1: have these these delusions that are quite distressing that you
Speaker 1: are you actually transform into these wolves. Okay yeah, Um,
Speaker 1: so does that mean that you think that that that
Speaker 1: liar from before maybe he wasn't lying. Well, so yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know, because nobody that's true. I mean, it
Speaker 1: was in the hundreds, so it's like I'm going off
Speaker 1: of basically Zulch direct evidence. But yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: think it's definitely possible for I don't think. I want
Speaker 1: to make it very clear that clinical like caanthropy is
Speaker 1: not associated with people being violent or anything like that,
Speaker 1: but it is possible that he had something like that
Speaker 1: in addition to his bath salts that he was right
Speaker 1: hundreds bath salts. It's just dirt, people, Um, I just
Speaker 1: took a bath, That's why you're freaking out. And there's
Speaker 1: another theory about why where will legends are so widespread
Speaker 1: over every culture. Uh and also used to explain serial
Speaker 1: killers or danger. And this was in a short book
Speaker 1: called The Origin of the Werewolf Superstition written in nineteen
Speaker 1: o nine by Caroline Taylor Stewart, and she argues that
Speaker 1: early humans would skin wolves and wear their skins, which
Speaker 1: was like sort of a form of camouflage, and you
Speaker 1: would go and hunt wolves. And she also contended that
Speaker 1: people would also wear these wolf skins to I guess
Speaker 1: mess with other groups of people, Like it could be
Speaker 1: a way to get close to like a rival group
Speaker 1: without them realizing your people until you're close up and
Speaker 1: then suddenly it's not a wolf. It's like a man
Speaker 1: in wolves clothing. Uh. And I mean this book was
Speaker 1: written in nineteen o nine, not not to disparage nine,
Speaker 1: but again it's I don't know that there's like a
Speaker 1: lot of really hard evidence for these theories, yet they're
Speaker 1: just Um, there could be a deep seated fear of
Speaker 1: a human disguised as a wolf or I guess any
Speaker 1: animal that means to do you harm, because maybe like
Speaker 1: in early humans, that would be the case like that, uh,
Speaker 1: And I think that could be true. Like again, this
Speaker 1: was a this is an old book. We had a
Speaker 1: lot of goofy ideas back in that really just like
Speaker 1: or like when you look at the there are these
Speaker 1: pictures of these dogs that have quote unquote human faces
Speaker 1: because they're they're I guess the proportions of their faces
Speaker 1: are just a little bit human like. And it's really
Speaker 1: it's it's very like if you google it, you can
Speaker 1: find like human face dogs. Its basically. What is so
Speaker 1: funny to me about that whole thing is like every
Speaker 1: one of these dogs is like, oh, it's a dog
Speaker 1: with a human face. It's a dog that just looks
Speaker 1: like it's got a secret, Like and you know that
Speaker 1: dogs like pooped in somebody's shoe, and it's like, I
Speaker 1: got a secret. I have a friend that has a
Speaker 1: dog with a very human face, and it definitely has
Speaker 1: a secret, and it also has a disturbingly large and
Speaker 1: so it's it's very distracting. You barely noticed the face.
Speaker 1: Well that's I mean, that's I think, like you pan
Speaker 1: up from from the bottom of the dog to its face,
Speaker 1: and that's that's that's that's where the smugness is coming from.
Speaker 1: He doesn't have a secret, he's just let it out.
Speaker 1: He knows rocking out with my young listeners. That's getting
Speaker 1: completely ducked duck bleeped out. The fear of wolves inspire
Speaker 1: makes a good amount of sense, but as humans living
Speaker 1: in modern society, we have little to fear from wolves
Speaker 1: as long as you're not Liam Neeson. In North America,
Speaker 1: in the past century, there have only been six people
Speaker 1: killed by healthy while wolves, and including captive or rabid wolves,
Speaker 1: that brings the total only up to eleven. So while
Speaker 1: if fear of wolves doesn't make much sense for modern humans,
Speaker 1: it's something that comes in handy when managing dear populations.
Speaker 1: Because humans have pushed wolves out of their habitat, their
Speaker 1: numbers have declined. In North America. This has led to
Speaker 1: unhealthy booms and dear populations, causing disease, starvation, and damage
Speaker 1: to the ecosystem where vegetation has no chance to regrow.
Speaker 1: There have been programs repopulating wolves in North America, and
Speaker 1: researchers have found that not only do wolves help control
Speaker 1: the dear population through those sort of obvious method of
Speaker 1: eating them, it turns out that a deer's fear of
Speaker 1: wolves is very eco friendly. When a deer of voids
Speaker 1: areas where they know wolves are lurking, those areas are
Speaker 1: spared from their dear appetites, allowing new growth of vegetation
Speaker 1: to occur. So, in a way, wolves are gardeners, adorable
Speaker 1: murder gardeners. When return, we'll talk more about real life
Speaker 1: wolf facts, including dire wolves. Calm down, John Snow, Our
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Speaker 1: I'm gonna take you on a trip to Imagination Station.
Speaker 1: Imagine you've moved to l A to make it big.
Speaker 1: Oh around twenty years ago. You see, you're a mastodon
Speaker 1: with a dream to become the first ever mastodon to
Speaker 1: get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which
Speaker 1: back then was made out of logs and twigs and
Speaker 1: stones and stuff. You're practicing your monologue for The Godfather
Speaker 1: where you play Massa don Corleone. It's a corleon. How
Speaker 1: do you cor Leona? Okay, yeah, you can tell him
Speaker 1: a cultured individual malony Corleoni. You're practicing your monologue for
Speaker 1: the Godfather where you play Massa don Corleone, when suddenly
Speaker 1: you feel a weird stickiness under your foot. While you
Speaker 1: were studiously rehearsing your lines, you didn't notice where you
Speaker 1: were going, and your feet are standing in a puddle
Speaker 1: of strange, black tar like substance. You struggle to get out,
Speaker 1: but every step you take seems to pull you in
Speaker 1: deeper into this stigy and tar pit. I hate place
Speaker 1: to see. Earra Monday's you trumpet and mast did on language.
Speaker 1: But as soon as your words leave your trunk, you
Speaker 1: realize your problems are even greater than slowly sinking into
Speaker 1: the pit. You realize you're surrounded by dozens of pairs
Speaker 1: of bright yellow eyes and the soft sound of excited growling.
Speaker 1: Twenty thousand years later, paleontologists drag up a group of
Speaker 1: fossils from the LaBrea tar pits, finding not only parts
Speaker 1: of the mastodon skeleton, but dozens of dire wolf skulls. So, Nick,
Speaker 1: you're you're You're from l A. You live in l A.
Speaker 1: I have been to Lebrea tar pits a number of times.
Speaker 1: I've also paid the money. Baby, I have a picture.
Speaker 1: I'm very proud of me standing in front of all
Speaker 1: those dire wolves called a beautiful walls. It's up, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a big old wall of wolf skulls. It's it's
Speaker 1: really awesome. Highly recommend. Yeah. Yeah, so, as you know,
Speaker 1: we have a bunch of these dire wolf skulls. Dar
Speaker 1: Wolves used to roam around the l a area and
Speaker 1: sitting atop it's like a prequel to Godfather. But but
Speaker 1: his name is Corleone and it's before before he became
Speaker 1: the Dawn. Yeah. So dire wolves lived from about a
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty five thousand years ago and when extinct
Speaker 1: around nine thousand, five hundred years ago. Uh, just about
Speaker 1: when humans appeared in North America. So they were round
Speaker 1: at the same time as humans, but not for long
Speaker 1: he did. They hunted much of the mega fauna that
Speaker 1: roamed North America. So that included the large ground sloths
Speaker 1: that used to be around Mastodon's bison, and an extinct
Speaker 1: species of horse that was native to North America. So
Speaker 1: to be clear, the horses that we have now are
Speaker 1: actually not the native species of horses that used to
Speaker 1: live here. The current modern day horses are domesticated iberia
Speaker 1: In horses which were brought by Spanish invaders. Uh you know,
Speaker 1: back in our twisted, twisted little history. So dire wolves
Speaker 1: were actually they were more powerful than today's wolves, but
Speaker 1: they weren't giant compared to them. So the biggest wolves
Speaker 1: today are the Northwestern wolf also known as the Mackenzy
Speaker 1: Valley wolf. The average male weighs around a hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty pounds, whereas the dire wolf on average weight around
Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty pounds. So they're a little little
Speaker 1: chunk here heavy as me ver No put in a
Speaker 1: puzzle way, you could take on a dire walk. Yes,
Speaker 1: I could take on two baby three. So they also
Speaker 1: had fearsome jaws with a bite force greater than any
Speaker 1: living species of wolves. So they were they were bidy
Speaker 1: boys and girls. So yeah, like we were saying, you
Speaker 1: can visit a dar wolf if you live in l A.
Speaker 1: I mean it's bones, I guess, not not alive. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're body but what else? What were there other options?
Speaker 1: You know, using their well developed paws too, well they
Speaker 1: would actually so, so they're hunting techniques typically were probably
Speaker 1: packed structures like wolves are today. And I know it's
Speaker 1: tempting to think of them as like the Game of
Speaker 1: Thrones wolves that made these majestic leaps and like tore
Speaker 1: off someone's face, but they would actually leap at the
Speaker 1: prey item's feet and legs and drag them and pull
Speaker 1: them sort of like a like dirty fighting where they
Speaker 1: would like trip them, and then once you're on the ground,
Speaker 1: that's when the pack descends upon you. So they're they're sneaky. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I like that. That's smart. That's like the what are
Speaker 1: the little the little veloci raptors in uh the ones,
Speaker 1: uh a little bird like veloscar raptors. Yeah, they get
Speaker 1: thee yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean velociraptors, Yeah,
Speaker 1: are very much respect to the technique. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: if you think about like you think about like back
Speaker 1: before I mean this was dinosaurs were not around at
Speaker 1: the same time as dar wolves, but back before mammals
Speaker 1: rose to prominence, you would have very similar kinds of animals,
Speaker 1: So velociraptors, you know, may and in these other I also,
Speaker 1: I'm not great on dinosaurs, so I also don't remember
Speaker 1: the names of the little tiny ones, but yeah, they
Speaker 1: probably hunted as packs as well, and probably employed similar
Speaker 1: tactics some of the species. There's actually someone who is
Speaker 1: trying to resurrect the dire wolf and uh This is
Speaker 1: not Jurassic Park stuff. Like they're not taking a dire
Speaker 1: wolf skull finding like a little scrap of DNA meat
Speaker 1: on it, and they should, but they they're not. They
Speaker 1: do love that stuff, but they're actually this is a
Speaker 1: dog breeding project, and I want to preface it with
Speaker 1: I often kind of take issue with dog breeding because
Speaker 1: I think that, well, first of all, there's obviously sort
Speaker 1: of the irresponsible breeding where it's like puppy mills are
Speaker 1: just like you know, bad breeders who create really unhealthy
Speaker 1: dogs and really cruel conditions. But beyond that, even in
Speaker 1: sort of the responsible breeding world, I would say that
Speaker 1: breeding dogs based on superficial aesthetics kind of creates a
Speaker 1: It ignores factors like behavioral health and physical health, and
Speaker 1: so you get dogs that either have physical health problems
Speaker 1: or they can also have mental health problems, and that's
Speaker 1: from essentially in breeding them, or even if you're not
Speaker 1: in breeding them, you are breeding them based on this
Speaker 1: superficial quality of aesthetics, and that can have a bad
Speaker 1: effect on their health. But this project, I'm still not
Speaker 1: completely convinced this is a good idea. But of these
Speaker 1: sort of like projects that I've read this is not not.
Speaker 1: This seems like if if you want to do this,
Speaker 1: this is the way to go about it. I'm still
Speaker 1: gonna make some people mad, and I apologize. I'm like
Speaker 1: already out here being like I have to say it's evil,
Speaker 1: but okay, Well, So the Dire Wolf Project was started
Speaker 1: in eight by Louis Schwartz, and she said she was
Speaker 1: motivated by the fact that people were interested in wolf dogs.
Speaker 1: And this was like, probably especially after that movie Balto
Speaker 1: came out, like people wanted dogs who were like a
Speaker 1: wolf dog because it's rare to have a wolf. We're
Speaker 1: gonna go on adventures in the mountains exactly, And I
Speaker 1: mean like Game of Thrones probably reinspired, reinvigorated that want
Speaker 1: for her, Like I want a wolf as a pet.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say it. I'm going to say it all
Speaker 1: the time. Exotic animals are not pets. They've never made
Speaker 1: good pets. Wolves are not pets. They are they are
Speaker 1: terrible pets. Nobody's going to be happy in that situation.
Speaker 1: You can't breed a dog with wolf, have that that
Speaker 1: hybrid and be like, oh, this is essentially going to
Speaker 1: be a dog. Nope, it is not. It is not
Speaker 1: a good idea. No could I mean, well yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean all of the above could happen. Yeah, all of
Speaker 1: the above could happen. And it's just they wolves are
Speaker 1: and we'll talk about this a little later. That wolves
Speaker 1: are not just dogs that are untamed. That's not not true.
Speaker 1: And so people want these wolf dogs, but they are
Speaker 1: so unequipped to have a wolf as a pet. Even
Speaker 1: if you have a wolf dog hybrid, it's still going
Speaker 1: to have that extremely wild element to it. And you know,
Speaker 1: not dogs have had hundreds of thousands of years with
Speaker 1: humans and it's taken that long for them to do
Speaker 1: what we say, essentially without going berserve. And they still
Speaker 1: sometimes go berserk. I mean, talk to my dog. She
Speaker 1: she's a little fire cracker. But yeah, so you so,
Speaker 1: instead of having a an actual wolf dog, her goal
Speaker 1: was to create a dog that looks like a wolf,
Speaker 1: looks like actually a dire wolf, but is not, you know,
Speaker 1: made out of wolf parts. I guess. So she she's
Speaker 1: bred the I think it's pronounced al sat Alsatian, maybe
Speaker 1: American Alsatian. It's intended to not just look like a wolf,
Speaker 1: but to be a good companion dog. So she says
Speaker 1: that she prioritizes behavior over the aesthetics of the dogs.
Speaker 1: So again, I'm still skeptical of any dog breeding program
Speaker 1: that is like has some kind of aesthetic goal, because
Speaker 1: I think that's it's just not important to me what
Speaker 1: a dog looks like. All the most popular dogs on
Speaker 1: Instagram have horrible medical conditions and are dying. I need
Speaker 1: to be dragged around. I mean, it's it's not too
Speaker 1: much of an exaggeration. Like he as an example, I
Speaker 1: absolutely adore pugs. I think they're adorable. I love them.
Speaker 1: They do often have a lot of medicals. You need
Speaker 1: a nose turns out. Yeah, yeah, like that's what I hear.
Speaker 1: Any any dog without a snout, it's going to have.
Speaker 1: It's hard to have, like having those compact nasal passageways
Speaker 1: and and that's not you know again, like I love dogs,
Speaker 1: I love all you know that they're adorable and I
Speaker 1: love them, and the dogs themselves are not at all
Speaker 1: to be blamed for this, But yeah, I think that
Speaker 1: it's I don't know, but I don't want anyone to
Speaker 1: think I am get out of this. What are you doing?
Speaker 1: What are you doing? You? Okay, let me get this straight.
Speaker 1: You turned your your face into just a wrinkly raisin,
Speaker 1: which no, know what what what I want to talk
Speaker 1: to your great great great great great great grandfather. When
Speaker 1: you sneeze, your eyeballs pop out. Really you thought that
Speaker 1: was a good idea? Yeah, So I guess she's using
Speaker 1: German shepherd's, Alaska Mala mutes, the Great Pyrenees Akitas, and
Speaker 1: Irish wolf hounds, and then she's choosing the ones that
Speaker 1: I guess are the most gentle and nicest and then
Speaker 1: trying to I guess, like create a super friendly, huge wolf,
Speaker 1: And in terms of the looks of it, it's very convincing.
Speaker 1: I would not want to mess with that guy. Again,
Speaker 1: I don't know enough about this actual program to say like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: like no, this was a good one because like she
Speaker 1: factored in all the health and stuff. I don't know.
Speaker 1: So I'm still like, again, I would never necessarily recommend
Speaker 1: breeding just for aesthetics, but I do, on the other hand,
Speaker 1: I do like the idea of like, hey, you know,
Speaker 1: instead of having these, you know, just a few of
Speaker 1: these like a c K like breeds that you keep doing,
Speaker 1: Like why don't we diversify the genetic pool of dog
Speaker 1: and start like you know, allowing you to breed all
Speaker 1: these dogs, like creating mutts essentially, so that part is good.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't know enough about it to say
Speaker 1: whether that would be cool, that would be cool. I
Speaker 1: don't know if they would do that. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: coming from the perspective of I've got a little dog
Speaker 1: who is a mutt of I have no idea what
Speaker 1: she is. Um, she's got some health problems and behavioral problems,
Speaker 1: like her knees are loose is the medical term, and
Speaker 1: she gets night terrors and uh, which seemed to again
Speaker 1: not you know, I don't know, maybe she was something
Speaker 1: in her past like upset and that's why she has nightmares.
Speaker 1: But I also read like that, you know a lot
Speaker 1: of Spaniels, which I think she's part Spaniel, that we're
Speaker 1: sort of bread irresponsible in these puppy meals, Like there's
Speaker 1: like this trend of these dogs getting night terrors, and
Speaker 1: you know, I just it really break my heart because
Speaker 1: I think that dogs are so much more valuable than
Speaker 1: just what they look like they're We've literally almost co
Speaker 1: evolved with them as our companions, and you know, I
Speaker 1: think maybe naturally selected. I mean, there is a theory
Speaker 1: that they've self domesticated, uh, to be like the ones
Speaker 1: that are well, yeah, the ones that are friendlier essentially
Speaker 1: to humans and less afraid of humans and more friendly
Speaker 1: and able to communicate better with humans were the ones
Speaker 1: that humans are like, all right, you can hang out
Speaker 1: with us. And then they really benefited. I mean right now,
Speaker 1: dog the dog population vastly out numbers the wild wolf populations,
Speaker 1: so they bet on humans and that was a pretty
Speaker 1: good bet because we're basically assholes, you know. I I
Speaker 1: think it's an it's an interesting project. I don't I
Speaker 1: wouldn't say a percent approve, although I do think that
Speaker 1: one thing that's interesting is as dogs d domesticate, So
Speaker 1: in Russia you have this huge population of stray wolves
Speaker 1: or sorry that's not true, stray dogs. The other one
Speaker 1: is a slightly worse problem if that were true. No, no,
Speaker 1: a bunch of stray dogs. And as they basically go
Speaker 1: out on their own away from human intervention and and
Speaker 1: have their own little stray dog families, and uh, they
Speaker 1: become more I would say wolf like like they're There
Speaker 1: are a few signs of a domesticated dog, like patchy fur,
Speaker 1: the ear ears folding down, which has to do with
Speaker 1: sort of the same genes that seem to select for
Speaker 1: like a more calm disposition, less aggression, and certainly less
Speaker 1: fear of humans. Also seems to be associated with the
Speaker 1: kind of puppy dog looks like the full the ears,
Speaker 1: the patchy for the shortened muzzle. And these stray dogs
Speaker 1: in Russia are starting to get back these sort of
Speaker 1: more like wolf aspects, like their ears are more pointed,
Speaker 1: their muzzles are getting longer, and they are deaf, only
Speaker 1: more fearful of humans and less trusting of humans. Is that?
Speaker 1: Do you think that's because the more afraid we are
Speaker 1: of it, the more terrifying it looks, the more likely
Speaker 1: it is to survive. No, I actually, I mean that's
Speaker 1: a that's an interesting idea, and I don't want to
Speaker 1: dismiss it completely because but you're wrong and stupid. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: but I think I mean, I just have a slightly
Speaker 1: different theory, which is, without human intervention of us, basically
Speaker 1: rewarding the dogs that don't fear us, are friendly or
Speaker 1: are less aggressive. The reading selection for these these wild
Speaker 1: dogs or sorry, the stray dogs are different, so they
Speaker 1: aren't necessarily going to be doing like their sexual selection
Speaker 1: process isn't going to be rewarding the ones that are
Speaker 1: more gentle or less afraid of humans or less aggressive,
Speaker 1: So then it just basically runs whichever way it goes.
Speaker 1: So it's sort of the opposite of It's like d domestication.
Speaker 1: It's the opposite direction. Yeah, the scary wolf. That is
Speaker 1: definitely the feminist lesson. I want people to learn from
Speaker 1: this pot of which are all your listeners great? Great, Alpha,
Speaker 1: You've got to be alpha again. That whole alpha wolf
Speaker 1: structure has been debunked. So, yeah, are wolves just dogs
Speaker 1: waiting to be trained? Why don't you go find a
Speaker 1: wolf and find out? Just kidding, don't do that, Please,
Speaker 1: don't do that. You'll get torn to shreds. While wolves
Speaker 1: can be tamed, a tamed wolf is certainly not the
Speaker 1: same as a dog. A wolf raised as a puppy
Speaker 1: by humans may certainly form a bond with their caretakers
Speaker 1: and may even tolerate other humans, although they're also likely
Speaker 1: to fear anyone other than the ones who raise them,
Speaker 1: and they're more likely to show aggression. However, wolves are
Speaker 1: much more independent. They're happy on their own or with
Speaker 1: other members of their own species. While research suggests that
Speaker 1: dogs are extremely jazzed about seeing humans. Brain scan studies
Speaker 1: show that dogs brains respond to seeing a familiar human
Speaker 1: in the same way as they respond to getting a reward.
Speaker 1: In fact, this is a response dogs don't even have
Speaker 1: to one of their dog pals, suggesting that they see
Speaker 1: humans as extra special or maybe extra special suckers. Another
Speaker 1: difference is how wolves and dogs regard their working relationship
Speaker 1: with humans. When presented with a puzzle in which food
Speaker 1: can be obtained by pulling a rope, tamed wolves are
Speaker 1: more independent, often trying to solve the puzzle on their own.
Speaker 1: Sometimes these wolves can and do work with humans, but
Speaker 1: only after they've given it the old wolf college try,
Speaker 1: whereas dogs eye the puzzle, give it a quick try,
Speaker 1: and then look over at a human begging for their
Speaker 1: help far more often and far more pathetically than their
Speaker 1: wolf counterparts. So who's smarter in this scenario, the owth
Speaker 1: that can solve the puzzle on their own, or the
Speaker 1: dog who's figured out that all they have to do
Speaker 1: is stare up with those big puppy eyes to get
Speaker 1: humans to do their bidding. When we return, we'll talk
Speaker 1: about the myths and legends surrounding dogs, and when that
Speaker 1: human dog partnership gets a little too well, let's say, gustatory.
Speaker 1: In nature, dogs have been by our sides since the
Speaker 1: very beginnings of human society, either as their wolfish ancestors
Speaker 1: awaiting table scraps, as our companions, or inner legends. Dogs
Speaker 1: have long been in folklore and myth But before I
Speaker 1: delve into the history of dog lore, I want to
Speaker 1: talk about some modern day myths about dogs. First of all,
Speaker 1: your dogs not color blind. While a dog's perception of
Speaker 1: color is different than a human, studies have shown that
Speaker 1: they can see a variety of colors, including shades of
Speaker 1: yellow and blue. Another myth is that dog's mouth is
Speaker 1: cleaner than a humans. Sadly no, dog's mouths have just
Speaker 1: as much bacteria as our own mouths, and probably a
Speaker 1: bit of that good old butthole waiver. While dogs and
Speaker 1: humans don't always share the same bacteria, we both have
Speaker 1: around six hundred types of bacteria in our pie holes.
Speaker 1: Another myth is that you should rub your dog's nose
Speaker 1: in any little accidents they leave around the house. Dogs
Speaker 1: probably won't make the connection between the little pie spot
Speaker 1: they've made in your frustration they'll just get confused and upset,
Speaker 1: or maybe think you're trying to brag about the threadcount
Speaker 1: of your Persian carpet. Now we'll talk about some of
Speaker 1: the mythical legends that surround dogs and what if any
Speaker 1: truth lies behind them. So, Nick, did you grow up
Speaker 1: owning a dog or did you get in a dog
Speaker 1: as an adult? You know, I don't think you could
Speaker 1: ever own a dog, Okay, alright, alright, okay, I I've
Speaker 1: never been shut down so hard. I did grow up
Speaker 1: with um, the world's most beautiful beagle. He looked exactly
Speaker 1: like the beagle on the Mighty Dog Box. He was
Speaker 1: astray um and uh. And then our neighbors got a
Speaker 1: beagle because they left our dogs so much, and he
Speaker 1: had papers. Okay, so I got a pure bred dog.
Speaker 1: Sucked so it was like fat. It couldn't walk right,
Speaker 1: It's all the colors were. And that's what happens when
Speaker 1: you're breathing. You get you, let you know, a couple
Speaker 1: of beagles out in the world to do a little
Speaker 1: do a little whatever, and then you come out with
Speaker 1: a beautiful, beautiful, perfect um. But yeah, Benjamin, Benjamin the beagle,
Speaker 1: I actually did not grow up with a dog as well.
Speaker 1: I grew up with cats. I still love cats. This
Speaker 1: is not this is not like a cat person versus
Speaker 1: Dog person podcast. Um, but I I as soon as
Speaker 1: I was an adult, uh, and I had my own place,
Speaker 1: I was like, I need a dog right now, and
Speaker 1: I got one. And I was kind of surprised learning
Speaker 1: about dogs and how their brains work. I mean, my
Speaker 1: dog is maybe an outlier because she's kind of insane, um,
Speaker 1: but she's um. But just like seeing how intelligent she
Speaker 1: was and how she can pick up on such subtle cues,
Speaker 1: it was really surprising to me and I I learned
Speaker 1: a lot about dogs, and I was surprised by some things,
Speaker 1: Like I thought they were color blind and it turns
Speaker 1: out no, they're not. Yeah, I think that it is.
Speaker 1: It's interesting to find out the science behind dogs. But
Speaker 1: I also want to talk about how dogs have insinuated
Speaker 1: themselves into our folklore and mythology, and interestingly, not always
Speaker 1: in a positive way. So have you heard of the
Speaker 1: Black Dogs of Death? Um? I mean like it was
Speaker 1: in Harry Potter. I think, like the grim in Harry Potter,
Speaker 1: And then it turned out it was Harry Potter's uncle
Speaker 1: or something. Oh yeah, yeah, but he was like a
Speaker 1: black blood uncle, right godfather. Did you know God spelled
Speaker 1: the backwards dog? I didn't. That is very interesting. It's
Speaker 1: all coming together. But yeah, so, so the black dog
Speaker 1: of Death is not just a Harry Potter thing. Um.
Speaker 1: It is a legend in Celtic, British and Germanic folklore.
Speaker 1: It's typically a large black dog with glowing eyes who
Speaker 1: is a portent of death. It's got a few fun
Speaker 1: names here, so it's well, actually think cats more in folklore.
Speaker 1: Was like black cats are like a witch is familiar,
Speaker 1: or even the transformed state of a twitch. Something is coming,
Speaker 1: that's it could Yeah, yeah, like a cat crossing your
Speaker 1: path is unlucky. I think in that it's like unlucky.
Speaker 1: It's an ill omen of, like a witch nearby or something. Back. Essentially,
Speaker 1: there's actually if you want to check it out, we
Speaker 1: have a whole episode on black cats called Superstition that
Speaker 1: goes into sort of the background of of black cats
Speaker 1: and how but then real cat facts, all the cat
Speaker 1: facts you care to learn about, but this one's dog facts.
Speaker 1: So let's get back to that. Sorry, people out there,
Speaker 1: not today, so I won't be back for that episode.
Speaker 1: So here are some of the names of the Black Dog,
Speaker 1: Dog of Death, the barg Whist, the Grim, the guy trash.
Speaker 1: These sound like pokemon names as a as a nice
Speaker 1: roasted um pad foot, which again I think that was
Speaker 1: like a Harry Potter thing. Pad Foot was one of them,
Speaker 1: shag striker or free bug, which makes so much sense. Uh,
Speaker 1: thank you ancient Europeans for inventing dog pokemon. Uh. So,
Speaker 1: in some tales, the black dog actually just kills people directly,
Speaker 1: but for the most part it is a ghostly dog,
Speaker 1: and when you see it it is an omen of
Speaker 1: death or danger. So you'll just see this spooky dog,
Speaker 1: this shadowy dog, and I'll pop up and he's like, hey,
Speaker 1: hey man, you're you're gonna die later days for purpose?
Speaker 1: Can you can you then change your face? I mean,
Speaker 1: I think it again. It varies like maybe you can
Speaker 1: change your face. Get all your ducks in a row,
Speaker 1: right right? Maybe though, like you try to change your
Speaker 1: fate and that's what ends up killing you. Oh that's
Speaker 1: such a good idea for a story. Has has anyone
Speaker 1: written that story before? But sometimes the black dog is benevolent.
Speaker 1: The Church Grim is a black, ghostly dog who protects
Speaker 1: Christian yards from which is warlocks and grave robbers. Um,
Speaker 1: which is a fun, heartwarming story until you here this part.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. Unfortunately some people thought this meant you should
Speaker 1: bury a dog as a sacrifice because the dog spirit
Speaker 1: will come back as this church grim. And I don't
Speaker 1: understand the logic of that, because I feel like the
Speaker 1: dog would come back and would be pretty pretty past
Speaker 1: a dead dog or a live dog. Oh why did
Speaker 1: you have to make me clarify? I think it was
Speaker 1: sometimes a live dog. Yeah, it seems like that's how
Speaker 1: you that's what. Yeah, the dog comes back and it's
Speaker 1: just like, you know what, I'm pooping on these graves,
Speaker 1: try cleaning up these ghostly turns. Hey, that's not what
Speaker 1: my assign meant. It did not mean kill me. So um.
Speaker 1: I actually wonder if this myth of the these dogs
Speaker 1: of death or like the church grim, is because dogs
Speaker 1: are attracted to the smells of graveyards, like to the
Speaker 1: smells probably all that upturned dirt, dirt, maybe a bit
Speaker 1: of the smell of dead bodies or interesting to them,
Speaker 1: you know, like just in human activity in general. So
Speaker 1: you're digging up a grave, you've got a stinky human
Speaker 1: corpse you're putting in the grave, and a dog's going
Speaker 1: like these are some cool smells, and like come over
Speaker 1: and hang out. Oh yeah. They also they already got
Speaker 1: to be pretty close to the graveyard before they can
Speaker 1: smell all that stuff. I mean, dogs have pretty since
Speaker 1: you think like it is like a shadowy caball of
Speaker 1: dogs just waiting. I don't think my dogs like sniffing
Speaker 1: around and then like you know, walking blocks, so you
Speaker 1: think they're like they have well there maybe like one
Speaker 1: of the dogs, like Doug real deep and found a
Speaker 1: bunch of bones and told all his dog friends like, hey,
Speaker 1: this is free bones. You can get cool bones. I
Speaker 1: mean you gotta dig real deep, or you know, they're
Speaker 1: just digging a regular grave. And then they open a
Speaker 1: you know, portal to hell. Okay, yeah, and then hellhounds
Speaker 1: counting of course, of course, of course, sir sure, speaking
Speaker 1: of hellhounds. Cerberus is the dog in Greek mythology that
Speaker 1: guards the underworld and stops souls from leaving. And it's
Speaker 1: got three heads, and it is a dog. I wonder
Speaker 1: if it's got no, no, no, it's Cerberus. Hydra also
Speaker 1: has three heads, but it's different animal. The Greeks were
Speaker 1: really into because there's the hydra. There's what's the one.
Speaker 1: There's the hydra is like a serpent with three heads,
Speaker 1: and then there's the other one that's got like the
Speaker 1: head of a goat. That that's the chimera. You know,
Speaker 1: something that could swim a hydra okay jokes o no, no.
Speaker 1: So then there's the the chimera, which is the head
Speaker 1: of a goat, head of like a lion, and then
Speaker 1: it also it's dragon I think too. They were really
Speaker 1: into animals with a bunch of different parts, just kind
Speaker 1: of a you know, click the randomizer button and have
Speaker 1: an animal with like seven heads and five butts. I
Speaker 1: don't even know. But the going back, it's really cool.
Speaker 1: There's one of each three heads different animals. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: the camara. Yeah, there's a very popular like, yeah, last name,
Speaker 1: I really think you should be utilizing this. Yeah, or
Speaker 1: maybe he's he's a crypted yeah, in disguise. But the
Speaker 1: theory is that dogs like to scavenge dead things, and
Speaker 1: so they're associated with death. So a dog basically like
Speaker 1: like when something does and dog. This tracks with like
Speaker 1: dog's history. They're scavengers. Wolves are even scavengers. Most animals
Speaker 1: who are going to eat meat will not look a
Speaker 1: gift body in the mouth, so they will um one
Speaker 1: down on them bones if they find a dead body.
Speaker 1: And dogs are no exception. I know, we love them
Speaker 1: and they we cherish them, and they seem really cute,
Speaker 1: but they will definitely eat a dead body, no joke,
Speaker 1: even the cute ones, even yours. And I want to
Speaker 1: get to another sort of this is like, um, I
Speaker 1: think it's a old wives tail or something where we're
Speaker 1: like a kind of legendary thing Internet rumor what have you,
Speaker 1: which is do dogs eat their dead owners? And this
Speaker 1: actually is completely true? Um so, I mean not invariably.
Speaker 1: It's not like the dog's got little watch and like
Speaker 1: is watching you and you keel over and diets. He's like, well,
Speaker 1: puts on like a little bib with like a human
Speaker 1: shape on. It's like it's it's lunchtime. Fallen out of
Speaker 1: love with you, and now I like, like, you know,
Speaker 1: like clearly departed, really delicious because my dog does not
Speaker 1: have much of it, doesn't have a very strong jaw,
Speaker 1: and we play a lot, you know what. He likes
Speaker 1: to bite, play very soft. He's also got plush toys
Speaker 1: that he's had since the day we got him. He
Speaker 1: does not bite through anything. Uh can he even do it?
Speaker 1: You want me to get like like opening up? Yeah,
Speaker 1: well he would probably go for and this is this
Speaker 1: is kind of a typical scavenging tactic for the soft
Speaker 1: bits tissues. So your eyeballs, your tongue in your lips first,
Speaker 1: and the face is usually the first first thing to
Speaker 1: get munched on. So he loves licking mouths already. I mean,
Speaker 1: like in the nightmare scenario of like you you die
Speaker 1: and your dog goes after you, probably at first like there,
Speaker 1: I mean, look, I'm not right right, Like its right exactly,
Speaker 1: you know, like you want you want him to survive too.
Speaker 1: It's like you know, hey, you know, eat and eat
Speaker 1: my dead body. Maybe it'll help you more. I mean,
Speaker 1: dogs do. I do think dogs probably more in people
Speaker 1: when they kind of understand that they're gone. I don't
Speaker 1: know if they understand death, but they will probably be
Speaker 1: very upset that you're gone and very confused that you're
Speaker 1: there but not moving, and it would probably be pretty upset.
Speaker 1: But at a set yeah, like give him a couple
Speaker 1: of days and then they're gonna be like, but you know,
Speaker 1: I think you'd want me to eat them exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: see what I know, right, Like Donner party situation, you
Speaker 1: do eat the dog, and I would not besmirch begrudge
Speaker 1: the dogs for doing the same to us. Uh. So
Speaker 1: there there's a case of this where like a whole
Speaker 1: group of these like small cute dogs ate their owners. Um.
Speaker 1: In Saskatoon, Canada, couple died. Authorities said there was like
Speaker 1: no foul play. So I guess the dogs didn't murder them,
Speaker 1: is what the police. I mean, Like, you know, I
Speaker 1: don't know how police determine that. But um, dogs did
Speaker 1: eat their owners to survive. And here's the happy ending
Speaker 1: to the story. All the dogs were adopted to new families.
Speaker 1: They did die and we're but and again the police
Speaker 1: said there's no connection. Yes, And then the policeman took
Speaker 1: off his hat and it was you know, infrestgating burgers
Speaker 1: are rough. Uh. In fact, dogs eating people has been
Speaker 1: a fear in our culture for a while. Um in
Speaker 1: the Bible, in the bibble, Um in the Bible. Um
Speaker 1: dogs ate the body of Jezebel after she was thrown
Speaker 1: out a window. I am not a religious scholar, so
Speaker 1: I don't really know this story, but that's pretty crazy
Speaker 1: that It's like and then they threw her out to
Speaker 1: the wind window, and yay, did dogs eat her face off?
Speaker 1: That's fun. That's everybody loves that. That's Kim jong un um,
Speaker 1: you know, supposedly fed his own dogs. I'm always skeptical.
Speaker 1: I'm all always skeptical of like, you know, crazy North
Speaker 1: Korean news because I think that like a lot of
Speaker 1: things are like, you know, how do you get actually
Speaker 1: good sources to what happens there? And then I feel like, well,
Speaker 1: and also because I think our our media is like
Speaker 1: super eager to be like this just in Korea, like
Speaker 1: replaced all the people with robots and like everyone has
Speaker 1: to have the haircut, and I think like a lot
Speaker 1: of those stories get debunked because it's like no, like
Speaker 1: because you know a Korean guy and well, I mean
Speaker 1: it's just like like there was a thing where it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: everyone has to wear like the Kim Jong UN's hairstyle
Speaker 1: or something, and that turned out not to be true.
Speaker 1: I think it's kind of this thing of like it's
Speaker 1: a little bit icky, that whole thing of like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, North Korea, it's weird and foreign and they
Speaker 1: do weird crazy things. And I mean it's true the government,
Speaker 1: it's horrible and oppressive, but I also think it's a
Speaker 1: little sometimes our media like gets a little out of
Speaker 1: control with like, oh they're they're weird and for look,
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not like coming to bat for kids.
Speaker 1: Show us what you're doing over there. We need more information. Wow,
Speaker 1: So you are a North Korea and I stand. I
Speaker 1: stand North Korean dictators. Sorry for South Korea. No, I don't,
Speaker 1: I don't, please, don't take that. I don't believe. I
Speaker 1: can't believe I have to defend this. So um. It
Speaker 1: was also said that Romans would have short crucifixes to
Speaker 1: allow dogs to eat the bodies of recently deceased conflicts, which,
Speaker 1: you know, Romans interesting folks. They were with all their
Speaker 1: torks stuff, had it all, and they did not do
Speaker 1: a good job with him. Yeah. Yeah, that that Caligula fellow.
Speaker 1: He was a he was a who Yeah only it
Speaker 1: was just him. But yeah, I mean, Nick, do you
Speaker 1: have any any questions about dogs now that I've brought
Speaker 1: you on this journey of werewolves and dogs eating your face? Um?
Speaker 1: I mean I do. Here's my here's my question. I
Speaker 1: moved recently. My dog doesn't have a good way to
Speaker 1: tell me that he wants to go outside, my dog
Speaker 1: if he wants anything. Also, my dog is a girl.
Speaker 1: But uh, she would just look at me, just look
Speaker 1: at me, like hey, yeah, what's good? Where's my anything? Right?
Speaker 1: And so then I have to like do four or
Speaker 1: five different things. What's the one said? It's like like
Speaker 1: two words, like the first word kibble, no, no, kill me?
Speaker 1: What my body? Oh god? So it is a black
Speaker 1: dog with glowing eyes, and so how if eventually she
Speaker 1: figures out? But I just moved, you know, and so
Speaker 1: it's it's tough now. But eventually she figures out what
Speaker 1: door she needs to stand next to to go out.
Speaker 1: But we haven't even gotten there yet. But I wanted
Speaker 1: more sophisticated, more sophisticated system, more sophisticated system. What what
Speaker 1: what system do you would play? Well? I mean, first
Speaker 1: of all, I guess like just make sure you're taking
Speaker 1: her out, um at least three times a day, like
Speaker 1: way more. Because well we just moved from a place
Speaker 1: where a with a backyard, I see, so she would
Speaker 1: go out maybe times a day? Okay, okay, she's getting
Speaker 1: out plenty of times now, you know, I'll do three
Speaker 1: in the morning, because I know she liked three in
Speaker 1: the morning. Yeah, yeah, you know, and I'm trying to
Speaker 1: that many times. Yeah. Well that that's that's over. Any look,
Speaker 1: I'm like time to go out, well, sep. I tried
Speaker 1: to kind of figure this out with my dog, and
Speaker 1: one thing I did, and this did not turn out
Speaker 1: good for me, was I hung a little bell by
Speaker 1: a string by the door and had her like boop
Speaker 1: the bell to go outside. That bell was going off
Speaker 1: every second of the whole day, just constant ringing, and
Speaker 1: then I'd lit her out and she'd come back in
Speaker 1: and get a drink of water and ding ding ding
Speaker 1: ing ing inginging. My dog has a cool method of
Speaker 1: letting me know she wants to go outside, which is like, uh,
Speaker 1: pacing around a little circle anxiously until the anxiety overwhelms
Speaker 1: me as well, and then I go and have to
Speaker 1: take her out. I don't know. I think that every
Speaker 1: dog is going to be different. You seem to have
Speaker 1: worked out a communication kind of thing with with your dog.
Speaker 1: I think if you're taking her out eight times a
Speaker 1: day's one thing when you know probably have a door
Speaker 1: to the outside and you can open it up, and
Speaker 1: she does every time, every time, she gets water every
Speaker 1: time out right, you know, it's just like all these routines.
Speaker 1: I mean again, I think that like if you're taking
Speaker 1: her out a few times a day, like you know,
Speaker 1: she's probably fine if you want to take her out,
Speaker 1: like when she wants to go out, I think she'll
Speaker 1: she'll let you know. Like like is your question, like
Speaker 1: how do you know when it's like a false at
Speaker 1: I just want to know, like what's a good system?
Speaker 1: You know. It's like that because I have heard the
Speaker 1: bell thing, but I did not hear the part where
Speaker 1: I've not heard that yet where they just keep not
Speaker 1: all dogs do that, but mine certainly did. That has
Speaker 1: intrigued me. I guess that if you want to create
Speaker 1: a system where you were having your dog give you
Speaker 1: a clear communication that she wants to go outside, is
Speaker 1: you look for some behavior I guess that she kind
Speaker 1: of does naturally, maybe like maybe it's sitting by the door.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's like, you know, moving in a certain way,
Speaker 1: and then you have her associate that with you taking
Speaker 1: her out, so she like sits near the door and
Speaker 1: you're like Okay, let's go outside. She's gonna be like huh.
Speaker 1: And then the second time you do that, she's gonna
Speaker 1: be like, that's interesting. It seems to mean he takes
Speaker 1: me outside. So if you kind of I don't know
Speaker 1: if the second time would do it. Well, it might
Speaker 1: take a few more, but yeah, if you if you
Speaker 1: keep associating sort of like you know, she has some
Speaker 1: gesture that is maybe unique, but that she it's not
Speaker 1: that she never does it, and then you start taking
Speaker 1: her out in response to that gesture, she'll start making
Speaker 1: it to get you to take it out. If it's
Speaker 1: a bell, it could get annoying. I'll just keep and
Speaker 1: if she doesn't do like any gesture, you can train
Speaker 1: her to do something like like have her come up
Speaker 1: to the door, have her like like paw the door
Speaker 1: or something, and then like take her outside. So she
Speaker 1: sees that that's kind of your que to take her out. Um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I mean I think that again, like usually
Speaker 1: you can work out some communication system with your dog. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm going to spend the time, so I want to
Speaker 1: cap off the episode actually with a sort of update,
Speaker 1: sort of correction to a episode we did way back.
Speaker 1: Uh during the New Year's Uh, the episode called Happy
Speaker 1: New Fear. We talked to um the Nightcall Girls and
Speaker 1: we talked about a lot of Again, it was sort
Speaker 1: of similar to this episode, so that's why I'm bringing
Speaker 1: it up now. It was like mythological creatures, cryptids and stuff,
Speaker 1: and I talked about the Boo Bach and the Baba
Speaker 1: Duke now the boo Box, which is a sort of
Speaker 1: boogeyman in check folklore, and Christina Stefanakova apologies if I
Speaker 1: did not get that pronunciation right. I trust me, I'm trying.
Speaker 1: Um she is check. She got in touch with me
Speaker 1: to clarify some things about the Boo Bach. I think
Speaker 1: in the podcast we talked about how the Boo Bach
Speaker 1: looked like a scarecrow or skeleton and had a cart
Speaker 1: pulled by cats, which I found from uh Wikipedia and
Speaker 1: online source. But apparently this is not really the case.
Speaker 1: And it's also I think the boot Back is more
Speaker 1: of a like boogeyman figure like in folklore rather than
Speaker 1: a cryptid where they're like boo box truthers out there. Um,
Speaker 1: So I want to read what she wrote about the
Speaker 1: boo Box. So she said, so the boo Box is
Speaker 1: used to scared children. They do not have any specific
Speaker 1: shape or look, and therefore children's imaginations have a free
Speaker 1: range to either give it a particular shape or just
Speaker 1: leave it vague and shapeless, shapeless, shapeless, which for me
Speaker 1: honestly up the spookiness level. They are often thought to
Speaker 1: live in dark and scary places. Dark rooms are sellers.
Speaker 1: If a child is frightened of someplace it can stay,
Speaker 1: it can say the reason is because there's a boo
Speaker 1: box in there. Some adults also like to scare children,
Speaker 1: telling them a boo bach lives somewhere close to where
Speaker 1: the child is because some adults find scaring children funny.
Speaker 1: For example, I used to work as a guide for
Speaker 1: tours through the town vaulted cellars and underground tunnels under
Speaker 1: the small town where I used to live. When I
Speaker 1: went down to the tunnels with a group that had
Speaker 1: children in it, one of the adults usually told the
Speaker 1: children to be careful because there are boo box in there.
Speaker 1: While the children got scared, the other adults laughed. I
Speaker 1: love that so much. I love the just trolling children,
Speaker 1: scaring them with There's nothing easier than scaring a child. Yeah,
Speaker 1: or or mystifying it. My dad was a great troll,
Speaker 1: like he didn't he didn't typically like scare me, but
Speaker 1: he would like he did a dictionary trick where he
Speaker 1: like got a picture of jack rabbit and an antelope
Speaker 1: and then he waved his hand over the book and
Speaker 1: then opened it up to the jackalope, and I was
Speaker 1: convinced my dad was a book magician. He knew book magic.
Speaker 1: I remember when I worked at the pool in high school.
Speaker 1: I found that if he told kids that that you
Speaker 1: would called the cops on them, they would stop doing whatever.
Speaker 1: So you were Karen back and I didn't call the cops. Christina,
Speaker 1: she has some great information on other Czech mythical creatures.
Speaker 1: I'll probably cover that in another one of these folklore episodes,
Speaker 1: which I hope you guys like, because I'm you know,
Speaker 1: I would say I'm a skeptic. I'm not necessarily thinking
Speaker 1: that there's a boo box or werewolves out there, But
Speaker 1: I do like the I like exploring sort of the
Speaker 1: legends and the science behind it and the real animals
Speaker 1: that I think are sometimes cooler than the actual legends.
Speaker 1: But you sound do you your pets don't let anything
Speaker 1: else happen Spain new to your werewolves? Would werewolves have
Speaker 1: to get Spader? Yes, oh god, that's yes, man. I
Speaker 1: don't want to think Bob Barker gonna have to think
Speaker 1: Bob Barker going like if you're a werewolf, you know,
Speaker 1: Spain new to yourself? Carry says it now to so
Speaker 1: um a funny story. I want a car on the
Speaker 1: prices right today? Really? What? Yeah? Today? Are you kidding me?
Speaker 1: The day were recorded this specious occasion so aired, I didn't.
Speaker 1: I was going to say, you had that new car
Speaker 1: glow about you? But yeah, I also it would not
Speaker 1: be here I was on the prices right that is wow?
Speaker 1: Well congratulations that everyone hut February one episode. Apparently if
Speaker 1: you come on the show, you you get that car.
Speaker 1: Car that that's what kind of car is it? It's
Speaker 1: a Honda hr v LX. I know so much about cars,
Speaker 1: and I'm very impressed. Okay, I didn't know what it was.
Speaker 1: That was a lie. Sometimes I couldn't. I couldn't. Perhaps
Speaker 1: you've been lying to me the whole time. That's why
Speaker 1: this isn't a cover up. From where we'll come on,
Speaker 1: who even would just such a thing? Well, Nick, Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for joining me. This was really fun.
Speaker 1: This is good. I know I learned a lot. Great.
Speaker 1: I'm going to take this great into my life and
Speaker 1: you're just going to try to train your dog, and
Speaker 1: I will have given you all of the wrong advice.
Speaker 1: That's gonna it's gonna be bells all day, the bills,
Speaker 1: the bills. Um, do you have anything to plus? I do.
Speaker 1: Also today started a new podcast at my Heart Radio
Speaker 1: ever heard of it called Deckheads with a super producers
Speaker 1: and I talk about every single episode of the Bravo
Speaker 1: reality show Below Deck. I don't know how much crossover
Speaker 1: there is between a very academic study of werewolves. Well,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Lucy's getting loose on a boat if
Speaker 1: you think about it as a metaphor or the masks
Speaker 1: we put off in society, but the wolves we hide
Speaker 1: inside or below deck. Well, everyone's got to put down
Speaker 1: the book at some point and watch some trash TV
Speaker 1: and you can watch it along with us. We put
Speaker 1: it an episode out every day. It's a lot. It
Speaker 1: is delight. Also, I have another podcast called Get Rich Nick,
Speaker 1: where my co host and I also named trand new
Speaker 1: way to make money quickly every week. The Knicks are
Speaker 1: giving you advice, yes, and this week you'll never guess,
Speaker 1: we're giving you advice on how to make money at
Speaker 1: the Prince's Vers So you're an expert. An expert although
Speaker 1: that is awesome. Please do check those shows out. I
Speaker 1: am especially excited about deck Heads. Anna's of course a
Speaker 1: wonderful causer here and I care for her very much. Yes. Uh,
Speaker 1: and you can find us on the internet at Creature
Speaker 1: Feature Pod on Instagram, at Creature feet Pod on Twitter.
Speaker 1: That is f E A T, not f E T.
Speaker 1: That is something very different. You can find me on
Speaker 1: the internet as well at Katie Golden on Twitter. I
Speaker 1: am also at pro Bird Rights, where I fight for
Speaker 1: the rights of birds to be president someday hopefully. If
Speaker 1: you're enjoying the show, if you want to subscribe, rate
Speaker 1: review download that actually like helps me a whole lot
Speaker 1: gets up in those algorithms, tells those robots to love
Speaker 1: us and treat us good. So please do that. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for listening. Unsubscribe and resubscribe. If every
Speaker 1: one of your subscribers unsubscribed and re subscribe, it would
Speaker 1: read like you had gotten all those new subscribes. That's true.
Speaker 1: That's true. That's true. Okay, well maybe to that, but
Speaker 1: then it would also say like you had just had
Speaker 1: a massive unsubscribed after a gentleman named Nick Turner came
Speaker 1: on the podcast Everyone Everyone on Subscribe thanks to the
Speaker 1: Space Costics for their super Wolfe song Exo Alumina. Creature
Speaker 1: features a production of I Heart Radio. To listen to
Speaker 1: more podcasts like the one you just heard, visit the
Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows. See you next Wednesday, oh next to Onday.