Speaker 1: Now really now really, Bill comin bienvenue. Welcome and hello
Speaker 1: to another episode of Really No Really, the podcast that
Speaker 1: explores things that make you go really really really really
Speaker 1: really really really. I am Jason Alexander. You may know
Speaker 1: me as an actor from stage screen television, which is
Speaker 1: also a screen. I don't understand why they differentiate the
Speaker 1: movie screen of TV screen. I don't understand things. That's
Speaker 1: why I am joined by my good friend, a producer,
Speaker 1: a writer, a long running radio personality here in Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: Mr Peter Tilt and say Hello, good to see you,
Speaker 1: Nice to see you as well. And in today's episode,
Speaker 1: we're going to explore talking dogs really no really, because
Speaker 1: they are all over the Internet and they are pressing
Speaker 1: these recorded buttons and apparently expressing themselves to their owners,
Speaker 1: but really because they're taught to use the soundboard, which
Speaker 1: has these circular buttons. That these large recular buttons, they
Speaker 1: are prerecorded words on them, so when they paw the button,
Speaker 1: you can hear the word, and when they paw several
Speaker 1: buttons to putting together these loosely structured sentences that may
Speaker 1: be open to multiple interpretations if you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So We're gonna talk to the pet parents of Stella,
Speaker 1: Stella the dog who kicked off this whole talking dog explosion.
Speaker 1: And we're also going to talk to Bunny and her
Speaker 1: own Bunny is the sheepadoodle who is immediate superstar. She
Speaker 1: knows over ninety words and may have demonstrated self recognition
Speaker 1: or self awareness. We're also going to find out if
Speaker 1: cats can and will communicate the same way. And we're
Speaker 1: going to meet a pirate that solved the murder. And
Speaker 1: you're ready for this, an animal with no arms or
Speaker 1: legs that was taught to drive. Really the big question,
Speaker 1: oh Jay, because are we guilty of intentional ignorance where
Speaker 1: we really don't want to know what animals were thinking
Speaker 1: of feeling. Because if you were able to have an
Speaker 1: actual dialogue with an animal, it would change a lot
Speaker 1: of people's mind as far as their ability to look
Speaker 1: at animals as food. So, keeping on with that in mind,
Speaker 1: we had to find out from being a hunger tell
Speaker 1: his mom where she got the idea to teach Stella
Speaker 1: to start communicating. This all started out. I'm a speech
Speaker 1: therapist and I worked with a lot of kids with
Speaker 1: different disabilities who couldn't talk with verbal speech, and when
Speaker 1: that happens, it's my job to find a different way
Speaker 1: for them to say words. Because verbal speech isn't the
Speaker 1: only way that we talk. It's just one form of language.
Speaker 1: So there's all sorts of ways that we can say
Speaker 1: words that people could potentially say words. And so when
Speaker 1: I brought my dogs sell A home as a puppy,
Speaker 1: I just saw how much she was already communicating like
Speaker 1: any typical dog. Would you know, She's wagging her tail,
Speaker 1: she's whining, she's barking, she's standing by the door, she's
Speaker 1: using her eye contact to direct us towards something. And
Speaker 1: I just kept thinking, you know, this is what kids
Speaker 1: do right before they start saying words. And we know
Speaker 1: that dogs understand words, they just don't have a way
Speaker 1: to say them. So I wanted to give her the
Speaker 1: opportunity to say words as well, just a different way.
Speaker 1: And so when this started out, it was really simple.
Speaker 1: I thought, you know, maybe she can just use a
Speaker 1: few different buttons that say words to say things like outside,
Speaker 1: she has to the bathroom, play and she wants us
Speaker 1: to play or water if her dish is empty. But
Speaker 1: that happened, but then it's taken off way more than that.
Speaker 1: So now she's using words to to say our names,
Speaker 1: to say how she's feeling, to say exactly what she
Speaker 1: wants to tell us. When we're doing something wrong, she'll
Speaker 1: tell us no, we're all done, or later. And so
Speaker 1: they started off as just a really simple idea and
Speaker 1: now it's this this insane relationship of my dog has
Speaker 1: a say in what we do every single day and
Speaker 1: she is really an equal part of our household now,
Speaker 1: which is it really has taken off in that way.
Speaker 1: But Christina, can you Instella on a quiet evening at
Speaker 1: the dinner table and go deep and have a meaningful
Speaker 1: conversations about important stuff like politics or science or the Kardashians.
Speaker 1: You know, we're not having these like philosophical conversators or anything.
Speaker 1: But what happens if she says, you know, Stella, go
Speaker 1: out now play and you have to go. No. If
Speaker 1: I know that she's been in the bathroom and she
Speaker 1: doesn't have to go and she just wants to go
Speaker 1: out or go to the park, but we're not able
Speaker 1: to go or something, so I'll either say, um, like
Speaker 1: no park or park later. If we're planning I go
Speaker 1: into the park later. Then normally she'll ask for this
Speaker 1: same thing in a different way, so she'll say something
Speaker 1: like play outside, ball like a different way to or
Speaker 1: come play outside. Have you ever recorded her when she's
Speaker 1: alone in the house to see if she's communicating when
Speaker 1: you're not there? Um, it was actually really heartbreaking. We
Speaker 1: did record her when we left, and Stella has some
Speaker 1: separation anxiety too, and so back thought everything was fine,
Speaker 1: and we watched the video. Stella was pacing around our
Speaker 1: apartment back and forth. She said where, and then how
Speaker 1: old this heartbreaking noise? I've never heard her sound like before,
Speaker 1: and just waited by the door. So the only thing
Speaker 1: she said when we were gone was where, and sat
Speaker 1: right by the door waiting for us to come back.
Speaker 1: So that a bush heart breaking because it was it
Speaker 1: was That was one of the moments that really got
Speaker 1: to me and my husband of yeah, I mean we
Speaker 1: felt terrible obviously when we came back and saw that
Speaker 1: that's what she did when we were gone. Oh, it's fantastic. Wow,
Speaker 1: that's great. More and more guilt. That's what I needed,
Speaker 1: more guilt. Thank you by by now, thank you for
Speaker 1: the technology, and with guilt, I have more guilt now,
Speaker 1: all right, Great, someone gave me a puppy for Christmas.
Speaker 1: And now I'm sure and I can believe because the guilt.
Speaker 1: I can't handle the guilt. Oh my god, can you believe?
Speaker 1: What are we doing? What are we doing? Buttons? What else?
Speaker 1: What else? Yeah? This is this is what I feared.
Speaker 1: That that now you know, you're you're now you're aware.
Speaker 1: So what happened? You never leave the house. You always
Speaker 1: take the dog. You're going to a Broadway show, you
Speaker 1: take the dog? What is the what are what are
Speaker 1: you doing? This is? This is a look at the
Speaker 1: road we're down already. You're doing a couple of things.
Speaker 1: Even you're paying either you're paying dog walkers or people
Speaker 1: to come to the house for a tremendous amount of
Speaker 1: money to keep the dog company. And then of course
Speaker 1: the dog that pressed the button saying don't like dog walker,
Speaker 1: get another person. I mean, if you're you're in hell.
Speaker 1: Actually is lovely and he are we. So this begs
Speaker 1: the question are we absolutely sure that this isn't some
Speaker 1: random thing. I'm glad you're smart for bringing that up,
Speaker 1: because the disclaiming asterisk is as nice as she is,
Speaker 1: and she's launched this whole button pushing epidemic. Whenever this
Speaker 1: kind of stuff has talked about, it's clever Hans, who's
Speaker 1: who could do math and division and multiplication, who invertently,
Speaker 1: inadvertently was given cues by his owner who wasn't even
Speaker 1: aware that he was doing it. Really so, Jason, keeping
Speaker 1: in mind, let's take this animal communication thing to the
Speaker 1: next level and meet Bunny the sheepa doodle who actually
Speaker 1: pressed buttons that said what dog is when she saw
Speaker 1: herself in the mirror, asking the existential question about I'm
Speaker 1: seeing me? What am I next? This whole next level stuff,
Speaker 1: which is why Bunny has a million followers eighteen million
Speaker 1: hits on one video, much more pompulent than you. This
Speaker 1: is an amazing superstar, doug Um. She knows over a
Speaker 1: hundred two words. According to alexis divine her pet parents.
Speaker 1: And as I said, Alexus divine her parents. She s
Speaker 1: thought Bunny how to speak using the Fitzgerald Key method.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, yes, of course, the Fitzgerald Key method. The
Speaker 1: alexis For those who may not be, you know, fully
Speaker 1: aware of the Fitzgerald Key method, perhaps you could introduce
Speaker 1: the concept to our listeners the Fitzgerald Key meth Okay, okay. So.
Speaker 1: Edith Fitzgerald Um was a deaf woman and teacher in
Speaker 1: the early nineteen hundreds who wanted to develop a method
Speaker 1: by which deaf children could learn syntax and m so um. Sensibly,
Speaker 1: the buttons are organized by sentence parts right, s vo
Speaker 1: subject for objects, so that she could, in theory, move
Speaker 1: from left to right and create a sentence. Really, how
Speaker 1: do you get through a hundred buttons? And how do
Speaker 1: you decide what a button says? How do you decide
Speaker 1: to prioritize with the languages? Yeah, well, it's a lot
Speaker 1: of getting getting to know your learner, right. Um, All
Speaker 1: dogs are gonna be interested in different things. Um. Some
Speaker 1: dogs are really interested in humping. Some dogs are really
Speaker 1: interested in doing plants. Some dogs are really interested in
Speaker 1: like a specific toy. So you want to get to
Speaker 1: know them and m add words to the board that
Speaker 1: you think they might be interested in communicating about. Do
Speaker 1: you see what I see? Oh? Well, whoa, whoa? Excuse me?
Speaker 1: What's with the barking? Here? What's with the barking? A
Speaker 1: second ago she was a Rhodes scholar. Right, million jillion
Speaker 1: followers the buttons, Now we got barking? She still she
Speaker 1: she barks a lot. She still barks more than I'm
Speaker 1: comfortable with. If you could get these animals to do,
Speaker 1: one of the things besides sort of talking that they're doing,
Speaker 1: is if they had one other sort of people's skill,
Speaker 1: what would you trying? What would you want them to
Speaker 1: be able to do? I don't probably drive me around.
Speaker 1: I don't like anything. Right, Really, that's what you would want, Jason.
Speaker 1: If you're if you had a dog and you could
Speaker 1: get you want to just go out and talking? It
Speaker 1: would be driving? No, what would it be? Uh? Two
Speaker 1: things right now? I would say, make a huge living
Speaker 1: so I could retire. Uh. And in about twenty years
Speaker 1: from now, I would say, uh, you know, I'm infirmed.
Speaker 1: They do everything for me. Prepare a meal, give me
Speaker 1: my medication, uh called dial nine one one. You know
Speaker 1: these are the important things. You want your dog baiting you?
Speaker 1: Why not? Why did you go there? Don't want anybody
Speaker 1: bathing me. It's like I guess when I'm when I'm
Speaker 1: a hunter, rest soundly, you know what. No one wants
Speaker 1: to bathe you. By the way, you know what dog
Speaker 1: either invest wisely? Invest wise actually hawk so that I
Speaker 1: can get a lot of money for taking it if
Speaker 1: if she's at seven seven million TikTok follows, an actual
Speaker 1: talking dog would blow Bunny out of the water. Bunny
Speaker 1: would be unemployed. My luck, I'd have a dog that
Speaker 1: would get me fine because it wouldn't be politically correct.
Speaker 1: It would be either racist, misogynistic. Something horrible would happen
Speaker 1: and I'd be censored right away with the dog. One
Speaker 1: of my favorite moments with Bunny is when um Johnny
Speaker 1: left to go pick up some take out in the evening,
Speaker 1: and normally once he comes home after work, he's he's
Speaker 1: home for the night. But but he left and she
Speaker 1: walked over the board and looked at me and down
Speaker 1: the buttons and said, we love you. Why went um?
Speaker 1: So she's using like plural, she's using shared emotions, she's
Speaker 1: asking a question, she's using past tense. It just sort
Speaker 1: of blew my mind. And she did look in the mirror.
Speaker 1: It was like one of the first cases of a
Speaker 1: dog maybe self awareness. What did she say when she
Speaker 1: looked at the mirror herself? Because usually dogs they say
Speaker 1: they don't they have no self awareness and they don't
Speaker 1: know that they're looking at themselves. What did Bunny say? Yeah?
Speaker 1: So there were a couple of times where Um, she
Speaker 1: looked in the mirror. She could see me, and she
Speaker 1: could see herself, and I could see that she was
Speaker 1: looking at herself and I said who this? And she
Speaker 1: said hi, bunny or something like that, and then I
Speaker 1: pointed to myself. I could see that she was making
Speaker 1: eye contact with me, UM, and I said who this?
Speaker 1: And she said yes, mom, something like that. I remember
Speaker 1: the exact words, but it was it was pretty clear
Speaker 1: that she had an understanding UM, based on what she
Speaker 1: was communicating. And then there are times that I'll ask
Speaker 1: her who that is and she'll say Ball. So who knows?
Speaker 1: Is crazy? That's crazy because I look in the mirror frankly,
Speaker 1: and I go, you have lost a lot of hair,
Speaker 1: and I you know, that's what happens when I look
Speaker 1: in the mirrorless. It's funny. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: coming on. It was a pleasure out. Hey, j what
Speaker 1: do you think the dog started stuff in the mirror
Speaker 1: and recognized the stuff? Yes, said Ball, What are we doing?
Speaker 1: What are we doing here? What are we doing? All right?
Speaker 1: I can't say you're wrong, but I do love your
Speaker 1: greatest fear that your dog would talk and would say
Speaker 1: something that get you and the dog can immediate racist
Speaker 1: Where would where would the dog be picking up those notions?
Speaker 1: And you know I saw some specific you have to
Speaker 1: be carefully talk to. You know, it's that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying, So, wow, I didn't do it. Well,
Speaker 1: that's what I mean. The dog would go out on
Speaker 1: the huge Howie Mandel and you know whoever on America's
Speaker 1: got talent and they say, well, the whole episode tonight
Speaker 1: is Peter Tilden's dog, and the dog would say something
Speaker 1: completely horrible, right, and ay, they wouldn't believe the dogs
Speaker 1: the careers are over and be exactly. They go right to, well,
Speaker 1: he must have Yeah, I didn't tell him that, that's
Speaker 1: what he's actually talking. Also, you know, I love that
Speaker 1: she added buttons based on what she thought the dog
Speaker 1: was interested in. My my my dog. May God bless
Speaker 1: her and may she rest in peace. My dog went
Speaker 1: to her grave with over a dozen kills. Sandy would
Speaker 1: go out and kill, but she killed squirrel, she killed.
Speaker 1: So you know, I'm afraid I'm like aiding and abetting
Speaker 1: a serial killer. If I just put buttons on the
Speaker 1: floor by the way her interests, you could put there
Speaker 1: a bird, a squirrel, the kid next door with the
Speaker 1: drum set. I'm already upset over this because you know
Speaker 1: what this is. There's another opinion in the house. There's
Speaker 1: somebody else weighing in. It's already this is my ass.
Speaker 1: Look fat in this shirt. Now I got to ask
Speaker 1: the dog, by the way, and what if the dog
Speaker 1: is your mother? You're gonna go out in those pants?
Speaker 1: Can you imagine under the breath commenting and remark and
Speaker 1: that's just a dog, that's just from a dog. Thank
Speaker 1: God that I only had a dug. Can you imagine
Speaker 1: if I have cat? I mean I can't because I'm
Speaker 1: allergic to cats. But they look opinionated. I think you're
Speaker 1: different from dog because they're going, hey, if you're going out,
Speaker 1: I need a couple of things. That's what it cats like.
Speaker 1: So now we asked the question can a cat be
Speaker 1: taught to use the button word system? And the answer
Speaker 1: will go to Billy, who's a thirteen year old domestic
Speaker 1: cat lives in Florida with her cat parent. Kendra Baker,
Speaker 1: a veterinarian who during the COVID lockdown, was inspired by
Speaker 1: Christina Hunger and her dog Stella, and like Bunny is
Speaker 1: part of the ongoing research project called They Can Talk.
Speaker 1: The goal is to understand if animals can communicate with
Speaker 1: humans through these A A C devices, these button devices.
Speaker 1: And yes, it's true this that he is mostly made
Speaker 1: up of dogs, but about five percent of the animals
Speaker 1: using A A C devices are now felines. Kendra Billy
Speaker 1: has a fifty word board now. But when you began,
Speaker 1: what were her first words? I mean, truly, it was
Speaker 1: the food one. Um, you know, the first button that
Speaker 1: we used. I would pair it every single time that
Speaker 1: we would feed her, and I would press the button
Speaker 1: and I would give her some food, and she very
Speaker 1: very quickly, Billy is incredibly food motivated. She very quickly
Speaker 1: was like, I know something that this button does, but
Speaker 1: I'm not quite sure exactly how I do it. And
Speaker 1: so that was the next stage where she was kind of,
Speaker 1: you know, playing the drums around it and um. And
Speaker 1: then three and a half weeks in she pressed it
Speaker 1: for the first time and I just showered her in
Speaker 1: food and a little the bathroom. Right now, I'm going
Speaker 1: to put on the food shower and perfect. Everyone needs it.
Speaker 1: So after that, you know, we focused more on the
Speaker 1: concrete words, the ones that are a lot easier for
Speaker 1: me to say, like if I press this button, you
Speaker 1: get this thing. So we moved on to pets. Every
Speaker 1: time I press the button, she'd get some pets, and
Speaker 1: she's she's a very tactile cat, so she really enjoys
Speaker 1: that a lot of cats are not. So it may
Speaker 1: not be the most rewarding. Are there abstract words or
Speaker 1: emotional words that Billy uses? I guess the first abstract
Speaker 1: word that we landed on was mad because cat right. Um.
Speaker 1: So she got that in about three modeling times. Um.
Speaker 1: So there were three instances, one when I told her
Speaker 1: she could have food later, and two where I moved
Speaker 1: her off my lap when we were cuddling. And the
Speaker 1: fourth time that I moved her off my lap, she
Speaker 1: marked right over that mad button and she smacked it
Speaker 1: and it was like I had given her this thing
Speaker 1: that she had been wanting to tell me for her
Speaker 1: entire life. And she uses that button with so much emotion. Wow.
Speaker 1: What when did she use it? By the way, now?
Speaker 1: What other Well, the most recent one was when she
Speaker 1: asked me to come. So she has a come button, um,
Speaker 1: which I kind of thought that I would use for her,
Speaker 1: but it turns out she uses it for me. Um
Speaker 1: and um. I was washing the dishes and um. She
Speaker 1: pressed the come button and I told her I'd be
Speaker 1: right there, and I said I'd come soon, And when
Speaker 1: I walked over, she pressed mad, mad, and then she
Speaker 1: pressed before where, And I basically had to explain to
Speaker 1: my cat my actions and why I did not answer immediately.
Speaker 1: So that's an interesting thing that I do now one
Speaker 1: a nightmare. Does Billy actually understand what you answer back?
Speaker 1: Using non button words to answer? This is a foreign
Speaker 1: language to Billy write English? What what's going on? So
Speaker 1: I imagine, because I've learned a couple of foreign languages
Speaker 1: where I can sit in the conversation and understand the
Speaker 1: gist of what's going on, but I can't participate in it.
Speaker 1: So I feel like that's maybe where we're at right now,
Speaker 1: where she potentially understands more than what she is able
Speaker 1: to press. That being said, I'm a scientist at heart,
Speaker 1: and I am still skeptical about the entire thing. Is there?
Speaker 1: If you don't mind me asking, is there a significant other?
Speaker 1: Because I always wonder about these animals you talk about, mad,
Speaker 1: if this cat, if cat sees you having sex with
Speaker 1: a significant other. You don't have a button for that.
Speaker 1: My significant other is going to kill me for this.
Speaker 1: But when we have sex, he says inside pets to
Speaker 1: Billy and then walks into the bedroom. So, UM, I
Speaker 1: don't know, you have to edit. He's gonna kill me.
Speaker 1: So honestly no. To back up, my significant other is
Speaker 1: incredibly supportive. Um, he truly believes do you have a button?
Speaker 1: This inside? And with this demand that you yes? No.
Speaker 1: Data is a family show. Let's let's veer from the
Speaker 1: Prairian interests. Kendra, how is your relationship to Billy change?
Speaker 1: Do you do you as a result of this? Do
Speaker 1: you feel closer? Um? I mean she's a very social
Speaker 1: cats so we always kind of have done things together.
Speaker 1: But I will say that the buttons have kind of,
Speaker 1: um deepened her interest level more than anything. So now
Speaker 1: instead of just kind of like doing her own thing
Speaker 1: while we're in the house together, she's constantly buy me
Speaker 1: and she's always looking at what I'm doing. Now. Um,
Speaker 1: it's it's very different behavior. Have you ever left a camera,
Speaker 1: a video camera running when when the house is empty
Speaker 1: to see if she's interacting with the buttons? And if so,
Speaker 1: what does she say, yeah, she does not use them
Speaker 1: when no one's in the house. Really, she uses them
Speaker 1: if we're in another room, um, and she knows we're here.
Speaker 1: But the motion we have motion sense in cameras and
Speaker 1: it has never picked up her using the buttons when
Speaker 1: she is alone these things. And I am curious. I
Speaker 1: hate to go there with you. But you know, in
Speaker 1: the thirteen year old cat, I wonder what the last
Speaker 1: words of all these talking animals on the internet. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, it's interesting. There's a I don't know if
Speaker 1: you've seen Bastion and Bruce. Um, he's a little terrier
Speaker 1: that uses buttons. And they have two cats where they
Speaker 1: had two cats and one of the cats who never
Speaker 1: used buttons, but her her last word was goodbye, and
Speaker 1: then she died. No time that she ever used the buttons.
Speaker 1: I want to blame. That's not random because other button
Speaker 1: it has been hit. Billy's gonna say mad, and then
Speaker 1: she's just going to piece out it's gonna be fine.
Speaker 1: This was a dog or captain said goodbye the cat.
Speaker 1: The cat never never used the button, never used about
Speaker 1: your fault, your fault, it's my entire family would be
Speaker 1: pressing your for your your fault, your fault. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: blame you, so kay. Speaking of last words and how
Speaker 1: we project and the human communication and stories getting bellished.
Speaker 1: Cocoa the Gorilla who lived to Santa Cruz Mountains Preserve
Speaker 1: for the Gorilla Foundation and new a new American sign
Speaker 1: language and that signed over a thousand words and understand
Speaker 1: two thousand, did a final message right before she died
Speaker 1: about the planet Earth is going and man is stupid
Speaker 1: and it's time hurry fixed Earth, help Earth, hurry protector Earth,
Speaker 1: thank you, and then through a seven that didn't happen.
Speaker 1: Those one of her final words. It was a p S.
Speaker 1: A that she filmed three years before she died that
Speaker 1: was totally edited. And I'm sure there are a lot
Speaker 1: of banata streets of banana chifts and streets involved. So
Speaker 1: it was it was not her final words. It became
Speaker 1: it was. It was an urban lantern. She was doing
Speaker 1: this edited highly edited p s. A. Wait a minute,
Speaker 1: Coco the Gorilla did a public service announcement. Yeah, look,
Speaker 1: it took a job away from the sponsor. First of all, Yes,
Speaker 1: took a job away. Jason. I'm the I'm the face
Speaker 1: of the blue of the flu vaccine by I don't
Speaker 1: need a rabbit replacing me on that it's gone. I
Speaker 1: think it was the organization that that they said, hey,
Speaker 1: you know what, we need a spokesperson and went to
Speaker 1: Coco the girlas think. I think it was like World
Speaker 1: Peace Day. And by the way, Coco apparently he's a
Speaker 1: really good agent. Okay, can we did your d find
Speaker 1: out who is representing Coco? Did your guy? And by
Speaker 1: the way, this apparent is gonna be your favorite thing.
Speaker 1: Witness witness murder in Michigan, Glenna Dorham shot, shot her husband,
Speaker 1: shoot your husband, Martin, and then shoots yourself in a suicide.
Speaker 1: That failed. Problem was there was one witness, and that
Speaker 1: was Bud. They're African great parents. And here's what Bud said,
Speaker 1: and he imitated the voice during the fight, don't shoot,
Speaker 1: and then this is what he said he saw unbelievable.
Speaker 1: So what was what just happened there? What did I hear?
Speaker 1: What was that? A fight? A fight cursing and in
Speaker 1: the person's voice, don't eff and shoot. So meanwhile, really,
Speaker 1: Mrs ms Durham was not guilty your first degree murder
Speaker 1: after only one day of dry deliberation. Of course, they
Speaker 1: couldn't use his testimony, because how did the birds swear
Speaker 1: and raise your right wing? Well? Can I ask a
Speaker 1: stupid question? She's willing to take out her husband. She
Speaker 1: didn't think. Maybe she bird disappears. She's you know, not
Speaker 1: everybody thinks of everything. It was a murder suicide. She
Speaker 1: didn't think. What kind of a murderer is? This leaves
Speaker 1: behind an eye, witnesses screaming all over the room. Birds
Speaker 1: are are obviously brilliant. But I think you're gonna be
Speaker 1: blown away by other animals. And you can play along
Speaker 1: with the Squisite Home. Oh, here we go here, this
Speaker 1: will be great, Ladies and gentlemen, no doubt, a regular
Speaker 1: feature the highly relevant really no really quiz designed to
Speaker 1: make me look like a moron. Oh please, don't be
Speaker 1: so negative by yourself. Probably right, but don't be so negative.
Speaker 1: And you can play along with the Squisite Home other
Speaker 1: animals to do things that will have you look at
Speaker 1: them completely different when you find out how intelligent there?
Speaker 1: You want to play? All right? Currently, Currently, according to
Speaker 1: quite a few studies, how many animals are thought to
Speaker 1: be able to pass the miracust, which means they can
Speaker 1: recognize themselves in the mirror to five or eight. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna say five, eight, eight animals names free, Okay, I'm bad,
Speaker 1: name three, I'm already eight. I don't a cat, and
Speaker 1: orangutan okay, Asian elephants, chimpanzees, Orangutan's guerrillas, bottlenose dolphins, or
Speaker 1: the whales, Eurasian magpies, which are the first non mammal species,
Speaker 1: and and ants according to a published research. No, when
Speaker 1: they're looking at themselves in the mirror. Did you not
Speaker 1: say to me moments ago that one of these dogs
Speaker 1: of the cat looked at itself in the mirror and
Speaker 1: wand what color? But that was me one off? That
Speaker 1: was a one off. That's bunny and he and Bunny
Speaker 1: doesn't do it all the time. You're very confusing. I
Speaker 1: think you set me up for chimpanzeese, orangutans, groas botting,
Speaker 1: those dolphins and bunny bunnies one off. So let's move right.
Speaker 1: People hate bats. People hate bats, but they're useful. They
Speaker 1: can eat up to how many insects per d eight
Speaker 1: hundred or a thousand. Let me tell you something. My
Speaker 1: family took a trip in the Grand Canyon. The bats
Speaker 1: come out every night. And you, you, you are so
Speaker 1: grateful to them because the flies and the mosquitoes, I
Speaker 1: think a single bat. I don't want to go for
Speaker 1: the biggest number. I'll go for the second biggest number,
Speaker 1: eight hundred, eight hundred insects and then thousand. How about that?
Speaker 1: I should have gone for the biggest number, the biggest
Speaker 1: one I hate. But the first two questions you have
Speaker 1: indicated to me. Always go for the biggest number. All right,
Speaker 1: I'm ready for the third question. Elephants have a specific
Speaker 1: alarm call just for humans. True or false? I need
Speaker 1: the biggest number. I need numbers. You changed it up. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's true, It's true. It is right, very true. They've
Speaker 1: been known to go that's the guy from sim A
Speaker 1: Pig's Orgasm last thirty minutes two or false? Oh that boy,
Speaker 1: that was such a Paul Lynn to set up for
Speaker 1: that question A Pig's Orgasm last. But the first thing
Speaker 1: I thought of. The first thing I thought of when
Speaker 1: I came up with this is how did they time it?
Speaker 1: And then the next thing I thought of is, so
Speaker 1: my nephew Jake finally got a job. Last nummer, let's
Speaker 1: send you know, Mr Rowan from Dirty Jobs, Mike, go
Speaker 1: go figure it out. Time, Hey, pig, pig, Well, you
Speaker 1: know what, they've been given such a a rural deal
Speaker 1: everywhere else. Let's say, yes, the nature gave them. It's true,
Speaker 1: it's true, and that's not necessarily an intelligence test. But
Speaker 1: you know what, no pigs are considered Pigs are considered
Speaker 1: the fourth most intelligent animal after chimp's, dolphins and elephants.
Speaker 1: How about that? Really, isn't that that? DEEA? I know,
Speaker 1: I know, I have a friend who has a train
Speaker 1: pig at home, sleeps in the bed. The whole bit.
Speaker 1: Dolphins used toxic pupper fish to get high true or false.
Speaker 1: Not just dolphins. It's not just dolphins. Boy, all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, we hit here specially pretty amazing. My, my,
Speaker 1: my cousin Lewis, you have constantly looking up bustle pufferfish.
Speaker 1: Dolphins actually get them to release the toxins as a defense.
Speaker 1: They're deadly if they're released in high doses, but they
Speaker 1: have an narcotic effect and are strong hallucinogenic, and they
Speaker 1: seem to dig it. This one is one of my favorite.
Speaker 1: Wombats poop in cubes. When they poop, it comes out
Speaker 1: in a cube. That's not an intellient din not how
Speaker 1: did we get into this is not intelligence. They're not
Speaker 1: sitting there going you know what. You know what if
Speaker 1: a certain way I can get a pyramid, then you
Speaker 1: got me. The fact that any animal poops to fit
Speaker 1: in the Young Fisher Price Toy Shapes game. It was
Speaker 1: so stunned to me because you encoded it. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: just in an animal intelligence squizz. Okay, you got you
Speaker 1: got me? All right, all right, all right, obviously humans
Speaker 1: aren't that smart. Alright, j question, you know what time
Speaker 1: it is. It's time to reveal, at least to me,
Speaker 1: the animal with no arms or legs that can drive
Speaker 1: a car. Researchers Sasher give On isn't Israel At the
Speaker 1: Being Green University where he is a professor and taught
Speaker 1: a goldfish how to drive, he placed the tank really
Speaker 1: really no, no, really really, it's so unstven. If you
Speaker 1: put a fish on a robotic platform and target to
Speaker 1: navigate to a target. Fish don't drive cars. So we
Speaker 1: had to train them to understand what we want them
Speaker 1: to do. The fish had to get accustomed to visual
Speaker 1: target that is placed in the arena which it sees
Speaker 1: through the walls of the water tank. The fish had
Speaker 1: to understand that this is the target it needs to
Speaker 1: navigate too. Every time it gets to the target, we
Speaker 1: award it with a food pellet. Wow. Wow. Go ahead,
Speaker 1: let me tell you my conclusion from telling them to
Speaker 1: do something really insightful. Here we go. I believe conclusively
Speaker 1: we have proven the professor Chahar Givon of Israel has
Speaker 1: a lot of time on his hands. Thing is what
Speaker 1: we have learned. It took him ten days. It took
Speaker 1: him ten days ten days. Both fairly took both of them.
Speaker 1: It took both of them ten days. It took a
Speaker 1: goldfish ten days to learn how to drive the tank.
Speaker 1: What is the lifespan of a fish? Because anecdotally from
Speaker 1: in my home, it's it's about thirteen days. So for
Speaker 1: ten days, for of his working life, this fish is
Speaker 1: learning how to drive. On day ten, he goes, unbelievable.
Speaker 1: I have such what's lies ahead of me now with
Speaker 1: this ability to drive, I am gonna with the things
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do. Book belly up, I mean, excuse me.
Speaker 1: Goldfish on average lived ten to fifteen years, and according
Speaker 1: to Adam Jones, the editor of the Goldfish Tank website,
Speaker 1: given adequate housing and air, goldfish can live up to
Speaker 1: thirty years. We can't determine animals intelligence when you think
Speaker 1: that a goldfish can do that, can figure out how
Speaker 1: to navigate. And by the way, rats are People hate rats,
Speaker 1: their vermin the lowest, the lowest grade category we can do.
Speaker 1: And yet they're clean, they're smart, they get friendships. We
Speaker 1: use them in labs because two reasons. Number one, they're
Speaker 1: really smart, and number two, you don't get a whole
Speaker 1: lot of pushback from people. Go and save the rats
Speaker 1: marching with signs, especially in New York. So we really
Speaker 1: it makes me we're joking a lot, but it makes
Speaker 1: me look at these animals really differently about how we
Speaker 1: classify them, why we classify them, because then you got
Speaker 1: to treat them differently. I mean, this takes us into
Speaker 1: we teet it up at the beginning. It takes us
Speaker 1: into all kinds of ethical questions about how we treat
Speaker 1: our animals, the assumptions that we make, even our pet
Speaker 1: animals who we love in the door and think that
Speaker 1: we're treating right, but they are subservient to our whims
Speaker 1: and wishes exactly different perception. Quote and brendan comedian to us,
Speaker 1: Marley and me heartwarming movie to our dogs. It's the
Speaker 1: movie taken with Liam Neeson and it's not showing up
Speaker 1: ever or any kind. You've hit a dog for how
Speaker 1: many years? Okay you've heard you heard your dog bark
Speaker 1: all the time. Yeah, how smart a we can you
Speaker 1: identify barks? Would? We asked them to figure out what
Speaker 1: we're doing? Play the smart play on the bark, can
Speaker 1: see if they're chasing us? What the dog saying? Good?
Speaker 1: What's you're saying? Oh, that one's actually pretty simple. That
Speaker 1: dog is it's going up, Get up, Get up. You
Speaker 1: can hear it. Get up. I actually happen to know
Speaker 1: from its owner was saying, please don't take me to
Speaker 1: be neutered. To play the next one. Play the next clip.
Speaker 1: See that that sounds a bit more like please don't
Speaker 1: take me to be neutered. In fact, there's a veiled
Speaker 1: threat behind that one that says, if you take me
Speaker 1: to be neutered, I'm not the only one losing my
Speaker 1: my genitals today. So that's all. We'll save time because
Speaker 1: we have the ten clips. They're all saying please don't.
Speaker 1: But it is the point being you live with a dog.
Speaker 1: You never took the time other than looking at the
Speaker 1: dog standy like on the door. You never discerned what
Speaker 1: the dog's world was about. What are you saying? Often
Speaker 1: I would actually, I would have now, this is how
Speaker 1: crazy this is. She was a puppy right after nine
Speaker 1: eleven happened, and I would come home. You and I
Speaker 1: were working on our show Bob Patterson, and I'd come
Speaker 1: home after a late night and I'd be in the
Speaker 1: kitchen with her and we would talk about the world,
Speaker 1: and we would talk about I would I would actually say, there,
Speaker 1: how how does it seem to you? Are we gonna
Speaker 1: be okay? Is everything gonna be okay? And uh? She
Speaker 1: was very comforting. She also assured me that our show
Speaker 1: would be a success and would run for nine seasons.
Speaker 1: And she didn't know everything, you know, she's no buddy. Oddly,
Speaker 1: when I'd work at your house and we'd sit at
Speaker 1: the armor in the dining room working, when you went
Speaker 1: to the bathroom something, Sandy would pull me aside and go, oh,
Speaker 1: he talked, and don't shut up at night in a downer.
Speaker 1: It's just all negative. He can't find any positive to
Speaker 1: say about the world. I remember being in high school
Speaker 1: and hearing about the studies where they put two plants
Speaker 1: next to each other and they hooked up electrodes to
Speaker 1: the plants so they could get the energy, you know,
Speaker 1: whatever was coming off. And then they took one plant
Speaker 1: and they ripped it apart, and the plant next to
Speaker 1: it freaked out. So there's no good we there's nothing
Speaker 1: we can do. Every time we plow a we field,
Speaker 1: there are hundreds of What the hell did I I
Speaker 1: have a right to live, Let me live. We do
Speaker 1: have a definitive close though. We do have a proof
Speaker 1: the dogs talk because we just didn't want to go
Speaker 1: out and leave your hanging. No, we would never do
Speaker 1: that to our audience. And by the way, we're not
Speaker 1: talking about buttons. Lower forms of animals can communicate with buttons.
Speaker 1: We have an actual talking animal, right there is Yeah,
Speaker 1: he said Lord Jason and Peter. This is triumph the
Speaker 1: insult comic dog saying no, of course dogs can't talk.
Speaker 1: What a ridiculous notion. And thank God for that, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, don't we have enough crappy podcast already? Whoops
Speaker 1: said apparently not I kid. I gave Jason You're the
Speaker 1: best you act, you seeing you dance, you starting TV shows,
Speaker 1: and now you have a podcast. Is there anything you
Speaker 1: can't fail at? Again A Keith, There it is Triumph
Speaker 1: the Talking Dog defended, the proof of the dog and Talk.
Speaker 1: Thanks to our guests, Triumph, the comic insult Dog and
Speaker 1: the hand up Triumph if you know what I'm saying
Speaker 1: to Controls Triumph, Robert Smigo, thank you so much. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and of course a thanks to the woman who kicked
Speaker 1: this whole talking dog thing on the internet off, Christina
Speaker 1: Hunger and her dog Stella. You can find more about
Speaker 1: how all of this happened to group at Hunger for
Speaker 1: Words dot com or find her book How Stella Learned
Speaker 1: to Talk, The groundbreaking story of the world's first Talking Dog.
Speaker 1: And also a very big thank you to Electras Divine
Speaker 1: and her wonderful dog Buddy. You can find them on
Speaker 1: TikTok and YouTube at what About Bunny. A huge thank
Speaker 1: you also to zoom law La veterinarian Kindred Baker and
Speaker 1: her amazing cat Billy. You can find them on Instagram
Speaker 1: and YouTube at Billy Speaks and Billy is with than
Speaker 1: I B I L L I. To learn more about
Speaker 1: the science by the way underlying all this talking, check
Speaker 1: out that they can talk, study that they can Talk
Speaker 1: dot org special shoutout also to comedian Neil brand and
Speaker 1: I used one of his jokes. I gave him credit
Speaker 1: for it, but his special is wonderful. It's called Blocks
Speaker 1: and it's on Netflix. And to check out the clip
Speaker 1: of scientists teaching the golds to show to drive, go
Speaker 1: to Science Focus dot com, Backs Blast, News Back Flash,
Speaker 1: Goldfish Thought to Drive. We use a clip and we
Speaker 1: wanted to give them credit for that. And the article's
Speaker 1: great too. And as always, a thank you to our
Speaker 1: producers Lorie Crime and David Guggenheim a k a. David
Speaker 1: Google I'm and thank you to our writer researchers Zach Williams.
Speaker 1: Find out more about really No related podcast go to
Speaker 1: Really No Really dot com or check us out on Instagram,
Speaker 1: TikTok and Facebook. That Really No Really podcast and we
Speaker 1: released new episodes every single Tuesday. Used to follow us
Speaker 1: on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast or wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcast