Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: And welcome back to Coast to Coast George Norri back
Speaker 2: with paulkud Dinars along with his book Faithful On to Death.
Speaker 2: Paul tell us about the rainbow Bridge. What is that?
Speaker 3: Well, the rainbow Bridge is something that a lot of
Speaker 3: your listeners who have had pets probably have heard of
Speaker 3: a social as they've passed on. The rainbow Bridge is
Speaker 3: a fictional place where the animals wait for us, kind
Speaker 3: of in a pre paradise, and the animals pass on
Speaker 3: and they wait there, and then they wait for our
Speaker 3: spirit to come and join them. The animals have you know,
Speaker 3: they've died through illness or old age, but in this
Speaker 3: paradisical place they are they're renewed to new vigor and youth.
Speaker 3: And then our spirit meets up with them, and then
Speaker 3: we cross over the rainbow bridge together into eternal paradise.
Speaker 3: So we're with them forever.
Speaker 2: Now, how do people get a hold of this rainbow bridge?
Speaker 2: How do we tap into it?
Speaker 3: Well, the rainbow bridge is kind of like I compare
Speaker 3: it to a theological plug in. One of the problems
Speaker 3: in Christianity is that there's been some bad, bad theology
Speaker 3: which has led a lot of people to believe that
Speaker 3: animals don't have souls, or they're not supposed to be,
Speaker 3: they're not supposed to be offered eternal life the human
Speaker 3: beings are. In fact, if you go back and you
Speaker 3: look at the very earliest Christian scholars and the very
Speaker 3: earliest Christian writings, no one ever denied souls to animals. Ever,
Speaker 3: the question was just whether they had a soul that
Speaker 3: was of the same nature as a human being, But
Speaker 3: no one denied them a soul. When you think about this,
Speaker 3: the idea that an animal would be denied paradise eternally
Speaker 3: is bizarre because they were in paradise to begin with, right,
Speaker 3: they were in the Garden of Eden. And who got
Speaker 3: everyone kicked out of the Garden of Eden? The animals, no,
Speaker 3: the humans did. If anyone deserves to be denied paradise,
Speaker 3: it should be us. It was our transgression. The animals
Speaker 3: made no transgression. They were in paradise to begin with.
Speaker 3: They should be restored to paradise in the end. But
Speaker 3: over time people have decided that human beings against this
Speaker 3: kind of speciesism, that human beings have this superior soul,
Speaker 3: and that animals somehow don't have a soul at all,
Speaker 3: and this kind of bad theology has been passed down
Speaker 3: and as they said, leading a lot of people to
Speaker 3: believe that they won't meet up with their animals again.
Speaker 3: And so the rainbow Bridge kind of came along as
Speaker 3: a theological plug in that you could kind of put
Speaker 3: into your belief system to allow you to regain your
Speaker 3: pets company and to regain the company of your petaternally.
Speaker 2: Now you covered a lot of burial sites in your book,
Speaker 2: Faithful unto Death, tell us about that.
Speaker 3: While I spent over a decade traveling around the world
Speaker 3: looking at pet cemeteries and burial practices, from the very
Speaker 3: very first urban pet cemeteries to temples in Asia, for instance,
Speaker 3: where perform funerals for animals, some very beautiful rituals which
Speaker 3: I was allowed to see, to these kind of specialty
Speaker 3: cemeteries for animals I've already discussed. Some of my favorite
Speaker 3: pet cemeteries wound up being, for instance, one in Helsinki.
Speaker 3: It's beautiful, these hand painted blocks of wood with pictures
Speaker 3: of the animals and notes from the owners out in
Speaker 3: the forest. Looks like a pet Cemetery from the Lord
Speaker 3: of the Rings down into South America where I was
Speaker 3: finding glass dog houses for past on pets with little
Speaker 3: mannikins of the dogs inside of them. Really any number
Speaker 3: of variations, but all dedicated to this one, this one
Speaker 3: main truth, which is that animals that have given us
Speaker 3: our love in the end, in the end, they deserve
Speaker 3: that love returned to them at the time of their
Speaker 3: greatest need when they're passing. And it's something that is
Speaker 3: different as we are no matter where we are, there
Speaker 3: may be a different way of expressing it, but people
Speaker 3: universally believe this.
Speaker 2: Do Most people who bury a pet out of pet
Speaker 2: Harry go back and visit the yearly you have twice
Speaker 2: a year. How often.
Speaker 3: That depends. It certainly depends on the person. I've met
Speaker 3: people who are coming every day. I've met people who
Speaker 3: are still coming once a week after twenty or thirty years.
Speaker 3: And I've met some people who just bury them and
Speaker 3: they might go back once a year, they might not
Speaker 3: go back at all. It really depends on the individual.
Speaker 2: Obviously, what's it costs for a funeral, again.
Speaker 3: It depends on the pet cemetery. It might cost five
Speaker 3: hundred dollars might cost more. Remember alike with a human being,
Speaker 3: it's going to depend on the accouterments, right, whether you
Speaker 3: want a very grand stone or whether you want a
Speaker 3: small stone covering it or a stone at all.
Speaker 2: Well, that's a good point, and it's all optional, isn't it.
Speaker 3: That's right. And remember, as I already said, there's a
Speaker 3: great variation on the kinds of pet cemeteries. I live
Speaker 3: out in the Mohave Desert. Now Here there are any
Speaker 3: number of pet cemeteries on public land where you can
Speaker 3: go and bury your pet for free. They're just off
Speaker 3: the grid pet cemeteries. People go bury their pet for
Speaker 3: free and they make their own handmade memorial. They're very
Speaker 3: touching places, and there's no cost at all.
Speaker 2: Outside of the United States, how do they react with
Speaker 2: their own pets that have passed.
Speaker 3: On, Well, again, it depends on the culture. Any number
Speaker 3: of variations. Pretty much anywhere you go, you're gonna find
Speaker 3: the standard pet cemetery model that looks like a miniature
Speaker 3: version of a human cemetery. But it's in the local
Speaker 3: variations that you get the real difference. You get the
Speaker 3: really interesting stuff. So I mentioned some ceremonies that they
Speaker 3: had gone to for pets. In Asia, there is, for instance,
Speaker 3: a temple in Bangkok, and there every Buddhist temple kind
Speaker 3: of has a charitable program or charitable outreach, and this
Speaker 3: temple's charitable program is pet funerals. And so every morning
Speaker 3: you can go there and you'll see people lined up
Speaker 3: whose pets have passed on the night before, and they'll
Speaker 3: come in and the monks will come out and they'll
Speaker 3: take the pet and they'll lay it out in a
Speaker 3: coffin and they'll sit the owners down and they'll formst ceremony.
Speaker 3: They'll say it. They'll you know that monks will read
Speaker 3: an oration and they'll stand over the animal's death, rub
Speaker 3: the animal's body with flowers, and say an oration over
Speaker 3: the animal. And then they'll they'll take the pet's body
Speaker 3: to a crematory that's right there on the temple grounds.
Speaker 3: They'll cremate it there, and then the owner has a
Speaker 3: choice of taking the ashes back or going down to
Speaker 3: the river with one of the monks and releasing the
Speaker 3: ashes to the rivers. Very beautiful and I think it's
Speaker 3: much more healthy than what we do in the United States,
Speaker 3: because it helps them. That kind of ceremony, helps provide
Speaker 3: a means of closure.
Speaker 2: Do you have some strange stories you want to share
Speaker 2: with us about pet cemeteries.
Speaker 3: I have as many strange stories as you have time.
Speaker 3: You want the strangest one, well you want, okay, you
Speaker 3: want one of the strangest ones of all with involving
Speaker 3: a very famous animal, rent in Tin, Yeah, why not? Okay?
Speaker 3: So you know who rent in ten is, right?
Speaker 2: The famous movie, the German shepherd movie Dog.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the actor, yeah, Rin Tintin. For those who aren't familiar,
Speaker 3: I'm sure most people are, but he is probably still
Speaker 3: the most famous dog in history, the most iconic dog
Speaker 3: in history. In fact, the story is that I don't
Speaker 3: know if you know this. George, he won the first oscar.
Speaker 3: He actually got the most votes, but the Motion Picture
Speaker 3: Academy sent its accountants back and said, well, retabulate and
Speaker 3: figure out which human being got the most votes, because
Speaker 3: we don't want the oscars to not be taken seriously
Speaker 3: in the future if we give the first one to
Speaker 3: a dog. Anyway, he was that biggest star. He dies
Speaker 3: in the nineteen thirties. He was owned by a guy
Speaker 3: named Lee Duncan. Lee Duncan had been a soldier and
Speaker 3: he had found Rentintin as a puppy in France because
Speaker 3: he had been he had been born in a German
Speaker 3: kennel in France. And so this American gi finds this dog,
Speaker 3: smuggles them back to the United States, trains them for
Speaker 3: the movies. He becomes the biggest star in Hollywood. Then
Speaker 3: he dies in the early nineteen thirties. He's buried in
Speaker 3: Duncan's backyard in Beverly Hills. Okay, pretty normal story. Now, well,
Speaker 3: his grave happens to be in Paris, which is okay.
Speaker 3: Why is this dog's grave in Paris when he was
Speaker 3: buried in Duncan's backyard. The story has always been because
Speaker 3: Rentinton was born in France, Duncan must have sent him
Speaker 3: back to France at some point in time as an
Speaker 3: ode to French patrimony to be buried in Paris, even
Speaker 3: though he may have been born in France. But it
Speaker 3: was a German war dog. It sounds a little suspicious. Plus,
Speaker 3: remember I have a background in death studies. You can't,
Speaker 3: I know, you can't just send a body of a
Speaker 3: dog in the mail to another country. There is no
Speaker 3: record of that body ever being mailed to France, no
Speaker 3: record of it ever being sent out of the United States,
Speaker 3: no record of it ever being received in Paris, and
Speaker 3: no record at the cemetery of any correspondence with Lee Duncan.
Speaker 3: So there's absolutely no record of how this dog's body
Speaker 3: got there. All anybody knows is Rentinton's there. And for me,
Speaker 3: this was you know, this is a story. It's got
Speaker 3: to be research, right if I'm writing about pet cemetery.
Speaker 3: This is a pet cemetery in Paris. The world's most
Speaker 3: famous dog. What I found? You wanted a weird story.
Speaker 3: This is absolutely fascinating. Yeah, yea, So how does he
Speaker 3: get to Paris? I looked into this story for years
Speaker 3: and years, researched this thing. I finally found the answer
Speaker 3: to the story in a French movie magazine in the
Speaker 3: early nineteen forties. In the early nineteen forties in France,
Speaker 3: there was an article in a movie magazine about the
Speaker 3: death of Rin Tin Tin and it had a picture
Speaker 3: of a dog which is a German shepherd, which is
Speaker 3: not the American Rin Tin Tin. It turned out that
Speaker 3: a French actor by the name of Teddy Michau, who
Speaker 3: was kind of b rate movie actor, had gotten himself
Speaker 3: a German shepherd started training him for the screen and
Speaker 3: named him Rin Tin Tin. They had actually gotten him
Speaker 3: a couple couple of minor roles in movies. Obviously, this
Speaker 3: guy is trying to you know, blur the lines between
Speaker 3: you know, his dog and the already deceased rent In Tin.
Speaker 3: He claimed that his rent In Tin was the son
Speaker 3: of the original Tin rent In Tin made it with
Speaker 3: a Brazilian wolf. So this guy's a little bit of
Speaker 3: a con men to begin with. Right, What this story
Speaker 3: that I found in the French movie magazine explained was
Speaker 3: that this dog had just died and he was being
Speaker 3: buried in exactly that pet cemetery. So I went back
Speaker 3: and I looked at all the old photos. The gravestone
Speaker 3: for rent Tin Tin in Paris. Is now this grand
Speaker 3: thing that says rent In Tin started the screen. Originally
Speaker 3: it was just a little plaque that said here lies
Speaker 3: the good rent Tin Tin. It was Teddy me Show's
Speaker 3: dog that was buried in Paris, not the American rent Intent.
Speaker 3: That's why there's no record of Rentinton having been sent
Speaker 3: to France. Never was. But all these tourist guides to
Speaker 3: Paris talk about go visit rent Tin Tin. You know,
Speaker 3: it's like all these websites about sites to see in
Speaker 3: Paris will tell you can go to the Old Dog
Speaker 3: Cemetery and see the grave the most famous dog in
Speaker 3: the world. And all these dog lovers and these movie
Speaker 3: fans go to that cemetery and they leave flowers on
Speaker 3: this grave for the wrong dog, because all anybody knew
Speaker 3: is it's saying, you know, here lies rent In Tin,
Speaker 3: the good dog, and people are like, hey, did you
Speaker 3: know Rentin Tin's buried in that cemetery. And so eventually
Speaker 3: rent and Tin lovers got together enough money to make
Speaker 3: a gravestone that looked convincingly like it belonged to the
Speaker 3: world's most famous dog. In fact, it's the completely wrong dog,
Speaker 3: and the real rent Tin Tin is still buried in
Speaker 3: someone's backyard in Beverly Hills. Who ever bought that house,
Speaker 3: They've got the most famous dog in the entire world
Speaker 3: buried in their yard and they probably don't even know it.
Speaker 2: I was going to say, they probably took the gravestone
Speaker 2: away and the markers and everything else if they were there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because Duncan lost the house through for foreclosure the
Speaker 3: same year Rentin ten died. I found a photo taken
Speaker 3: in his backyard before he lost the house. That shows
Speaker 3: and it's in the book. There's a little close up
Speaker 3: of a white cross in a white rose bush, which
Speaker 3: is exactly the way Renton Tin's grave is described. It
Speaker 3: was a white wooden cross. It was a white cross
Speaker 3: covered in a cross covered in white fabric and a
Speaker 3: white rose bush with one of Rin Tin Tin's own
Speaker 3: puppies sitting with his paw on the cross. That was
Speaker 3: Rin Tin Tin's original grave. But it wasn't marked by
Speaker 3: a piece of stone. It was marked by a piece
Speaker 3: of wood.
Speaker 2: Paul, what about Lassie great television dog?
Speaker 3: Well, those dogs and there there was last and then
Speaker 3: there were several that came after. Those dogs were buried
Speaker 3: on the ranch of the guy who trained them, Rud Weatherwax,
Speaker 3: So they were buried on his ranch. But there is
Speaker 3: a Lassy story in my book. There was a famous
Speaker 3: war dog that had been buried in Los Angeles, and
Speaker 3: they sent one of Lassie's puppies down with this little
Speaker 3: metal that they embedded into the war dog's plaque, that
Speaker 3: something like a Lassy gold medal, because apparently Weatherwax didn't
Speaker 3: want his own dogs buried in a pet cemetery. But
Speaker 3: he was okay with advertising in a pet cemetery and
Speaker 3: inserting this plaque into another famous dog's grave.
Speaker 2: Fascinating and it surely is remarkable, isn't it.
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, is it humane to put down an animal?
Speaker 3: Oh? I think so, George. I mean to be honest,
Speaker 3: I believe it's humane to to oh, you know, allow
Speaker 3: was to suicide. I think if a person is really
Speaker 3: suffering and doesn't want to live, I think I think
Speaker 3: that's okay for people too. So I don't I don't
Speaker 3: have a problem with euse in Asia with an animal,
Speaker 3: there is there is a periodic issue in this. Recently,
Speaker 3: I don't know if you this news story it was.
Speaker 3: It was recent with the famous French actor who had
Speaker 3: died and he wanted his dog to be euthanized and
Speaker 3: buried with him. This happens about every five years. There's
Speaker 3: a big to do about. You know, someone in their
Speaker 3: will says, when I pass on, I want my dog
Speaker 3: killed and buried next to me. First of all, it's
Speaker 3: very hard to bury your dog next to you. Anyway,
Speaker 3: in the human cemetery they're not allowed, so it's probably
Speaker 3: not gonna happen, And it's extremely inhumane to take up,
Speaker 3: you know, an otherwise healthy animal and ask for them
Speaker 3: to be euthanized just because you have died, you know.
Speaker 3: I guess it's this fantasy that it's like, no one
Speaker 3: can love that pet the way I did. That pet's
Speaker 3: going to be miserable without me. Well, I think that
Speaker 3: pet should have a chance to live on and make
Speaker 3: up its own mind whether it's miserable or not.
Speaker 2: What about the paranormal aspects of pet cemeteries.
Speaker 3: Oh, there are a lot of stories about that, George
Speaker 3: and I have experienced one myself which I can talk
Speaker 3: to you about. But the most famous canine ghost in
Speaker 3: the world in the Los Angeles Memorial Pet Cemetery. It
Speaker 3: is the ghost of Valentino's dog, Cabar. The story with Cabar,
Speaker 3: he had so Valentino probably he would go everywhere with
Speaker 3: his dog, and he loved loved this dog dearly. It
Speaker 3: was a gift of a Belgian diplomat. It was a shepherd,
Speaker 3: and Valentino went to New York. It was a short
Speaker 3: trip and he went without the dog. In nineteen twenty six. Well,
Speaker 3: that's where Valentino, That's where Valentino died. He winds up
Speaker 3: getting sick on this trip to New York and he dies.
Speaker 3: Valentino's brother is at home. Word has not come that
Speaker 3: Valentino has died. The dog starts to cry at howl,
Speaker 3: this blood curdling howl that could be heard out on
Speaker 3: the street and almost made an actress who was driving
Speaker 3: by crash. And suddenly the call comes in that Valentino
Speaker 3: has died. So the dog knew that Valentino had died
Speaker 3: before Valentino's brother had even gotten word anyway, so the
Speaker 3: dog winds up to survived. The dog is a shell
Speaker 3: of its elf after this time, you know, because it's
Speaker 3: lost its favorite human because they were very bonded. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and the dog winds up running away, apparently searching for Valentino.
Speaker 3: It eventually comes home, you know, very tired and very rough,
Speaker 3: winds up dying, and they buried in the Los Angeles
Speaker 3: Memorial Pet Cemeterium. That dog has not stopped looking for Valentino.
Speaker 3: Many people who have performed seances at Valentino's oldest state Falconlare,
Speaker 3: has talked about seeing that dog jump through the window
Speaker 3: or walk through the room. And there are all kinds
Speaker 3: of stories at the pet Cemetery in Los Angeles about
Speaker 3: people who have said they've been they don't know anything
Speaker 3: about the story of Valentino and his dog. They just
Speaker 3: happened to be standing somewhere near that grave, and they'll
Speaker 3: talk about you know, I thought I felt a dog
Speaker 3: rush against me. You know, I thought I had the
Speaker 3: sensation of being licked, or you know, I thought I
Speaker 3: heard a whipper and I turned around. There was nothing there.
Speaker 3: And it turns out they were standing next to Valentino's
Speaker 3: dog's grave.
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