WEBVTT - Are Dogs Really Man's Best Friend?

0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:02.840
<v Speaker 1>Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:07.960
<v Speaker 1>It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know

0:00:08.400 --> 0:00:12.080
<v Speaker 1>from how stuff works dot com? Welcome to the How

0:00:12.119 --> 0:00:16.160
<v Speaker 1>Stuff Works Podcast. I'm editor Candice Giftson, joined today by

0:00:16.560 --> 0:00:19.760
<v Speaker 1>two of my best friends in the office, Brior Josh Clark,

0:00:19.960 --> 0:00:26.079
<v Speaker 1>and editors. Hello. So we're talking today about whether or

0:00:26.079 --> 0:00:29.160
<v Speaker 1>not a dog is really a man's best friend or

0:00:29.200 --> 0:00:32.800
<v Speaker 1>a woman's true Short answer to this is yes, of course,

0:00:32.840 --> 0:00:35.600
<v Speaker 1>but illustraining this concept with the story of a Japanese

0:00:35.640 --> 0:00:40.920
<v Speaker 1>dog and a key to new named We're all big

0:00:40.960 --> 0:00:43.240
<v Speaker 1>fans of how Chico here at how stuff works dot com.

0:00:43.440 --> 0:00:47.720
<v Speaker 1>A little background around the office. Candice wept openly when

0:00:47.760 --> 0:00:51.040
<v Speaker 1>she read this article. Um, it was amazing. It was

0:00:51.040 --> 0:00:54.040
<v Speaker 1>an amazing site. Uh and we now use it as

0:00:54.040 --> 0:00:57.120
<v Speaker 1>a measuring stick to determine whether, well how much humanity

0:00:57.200 --> 0:01:00.920
<v Speaker 1>one of our coworkers has. And a long story short, Um,

0:01:00.920 --> 0:01:03.080
<v Speaker 1>this one of our one of our poor coworkers, is

0:01:03.120 --> 0:01:06.800
<v Speaker 1>now considered a robot because she did not actually Uma

0:01:07.560 --> 0:01:10.800
<v Speaker 1>will cry at this article. So, um, we're all big

0:01:10.840 --> 0:01:13.000
<v Speaker 1>fans of hu Chiko. Somebody want to give some Chiko

0:01:13.080 --> 0:01:16.480
<v Speaker 1>background A Chico. I'd love to give some background on hachik.

0:01:16.680 --> 0:01:21.480
<v Speaker 1>His nickname was Hatchi. Essentially, he was a professor's dog

0:01:21.680 --> 0:01:24.800
<v Speaker 1>at a Japanese university and they were very close, so

0:01:24.880 --> 0:01:27.319
<v Speaker 1>close in fact, that Hitchiki would walk the professor to

0:01:27.440 --> 0:01:30.160
<v Speaker 1>work every day at the train station and then wait

0:01:30.240 --> 0:01:31.800
<v Speaker 1>for him at the train station when he came home

0:01:31.840 --> 0:01:35.160
<v Speaker 1>at night. And this continued for say ten twelve years,

0:01:35.200 --> 0:01:37.480
<v Speaker 1>Is that right? Yeah, I'd say about that. And then

0:01:37.560 --> 0:01:41.399
<v Speaker 1>one day, very tragically, the professor actually died while he

0:01:41.520 --> 0:01:45.479
<v Speaker 1>was at school and never returned, but Hichiko, undaunted waited

0:01:45.520 --> 0:01:48.360
<v Speaker 1>for him at the train station. He continued to come

0:01:48.400 --> 0:01:50.960
<v Speaker 1>every day and look for the professor even though he

0:01:51.000 --> 0:01:53.560
<v Speaker 1>wasn't coming home. And it got to the point that

0:01:53.560 --> 0:01:58.000
<v Speaker 1>people started to notice that the professor's dog clearly needed

0:01:58.040 --> 0:01:59.960
<v Speaker 1>a human being to belong to, so they gave the

0:02:00.000 --> 0:02:03.280
<v Speaker 1>dog to another family, but he routinely escaped from home

0:02:03.680 --> 0:02:05.880
<v Speaker 1>and returned every day to the train station in a

0:02:06.000 --> 0:02:10.239
<v Speaker 1>very um sad, Victorian orphan kind of way. He contracted

0:02:10.360 --> 0:02:16.240
<v Speaker 1>all sorts of diseases. Yeah, he he got the mange.

0:02:16.000 --> 0:02:20.200
<v Speaker 1>He became a little, uh, little street warren. I guess

0:02:20.200 --> 0:02:23.280
<v Speaker 1>you could possibly say, although they cleaned him up pretty well,

0:02:23.320 --> 0:02:26.600
<v Speaker 1>he's now stuffed at the Museum of Nature and Science

0:02:26.639 --> 0:02:30.880
<v Speaker 1>in Tokyo. Um. Even what they did, he's white as

0:02:31.000 --> 0:02:37.000
<v Speaker 1>a whistle here. Um that they buried his bones next

0:02:37.000 --> 0:02:40.760
<v Speaker 1>to the owner. Yeah, so had she goes in two

0:02:40.760 --> 0:02:46.320
<v Speaker 1>places at once. Um, we're here around here on the office.

0:02:46.360 --> 0:02:50.040
<v Speaker 1>We actually had a pretty big debate over this article. Um.

0:02:50.400 --> 0:02:53.800
<v Speaker 1>I when I wrote it, Chris actually edited. Candice had

0:02:53.840 --> 0:02:57.520
<v Speaker 1>nothing to do with except for crying. Um. The some

0:02:57.600 --> 0:03:01.680
<v Speaker 1>of the wording got changed. Originally I that Chico waited patiently,

0:03:02.000 --> 0:03:05.760
<v Speaker 1>and we had something of a debate cannad dog wait patiently? Um?

0:03:05.880 --> 0:03:12.320
<v Speaker 1>Or was what was I just anthropogenizing it? Well, no,

0:03:12.440 --> 0:03:15.640
<v Speaker 1>anthropogenizing it. You have to say it with the hitch

0:03:15.840 --> 0:03:20.480
<v Speaker 1>right after. We'll see. The thing is at how stuff works.

0:03:21.000 --> 0:03:22.880
<v Speaker 1>You know. One of the big things that we strive

0:03:22.960 --> 0:03:26.079
<v Speaker 1>for is to be as as scientifically accurate as possible,

0:03:26.080 --> 0:03:28.400
<v Speaker 1>and you know, we don't want to attribute these feelings

0:03:28.440 --> 0:03:30.720
<v Speaker 1>to a dog. But this is one of those things

0:03:30.760 --> 0:03:33.000
<v Speaker 1>that I'm actually kind of glad that we had the

0:03:33.040 --> 0:03:36.760
<v Speaker 1>debate about, because this is uh, this you know, obviously

0:03:36.800 --> 0:03:39.240
<v Speaker 1>this can't be quantified scientifically. But if you look at

0:03:39.480 --> 0:03:42.120
<v Speaker 1>Chico coming back day after day and fighting with other

0:03:42.160 --> 0:03:46.240
<v Speaker 1>dogs and catching you know, doggy diseases on his way

0:03:46.280 --> 0:03:49.480
<v Speaker 1>to the train station. Um. You know you've got to

0:03:49.520 --> 0:03:51.720
<v Speaker 1>say that that's I mean, obviously, you know, he could

0:03:51.720 --> 0:03:53.600
<v Speaker 1>have been waiting for people to give it more treats.

0:03:53.600 --> 0:03:56.920
<v Speaker 1>It could have been something, you know, very survivalistic. But

0:03:57.000 --> 0:03:59.280
<v Speaker 1>it doesn't seem that way. It seems like he was loyal.

0:03:59.320 --> 0:04:02.160
<v Speaker 1>It seems like he was waiting patiently, so sure, And

0:04:02.240 --> 0:04:04.360
<v Speaker 1>I mean he was doing this long before people started

0:04:04.400 --> 0:04:08.440
<v Speaker 1>giving him treats as well. Um. And also, there's been

0:04:08.520 --> 0:04:11.839
<v Speaker 1>studies that have shown that dogs are capable of displaying

0:04:12.200 --> 0:04:18.799
<v Speaker 1>or at least exhibiting um secondary emotions like jealousy, shame, pride, guilt.

0:04:19.360 --> 0:04:21.720
<v Speaker 1>And I think any dog owner knows that, you know,

0:04:21.960 --> 0:04:26.479
<v Speaker 1>the dog can feel emotions, can show emotions, including ones

0:04:26.480 --> 0:04:30.000
<v Speaker 1>that are supposedly just relegated to humans and chimps um.

0:04:30.120 --> 0:04:32.599
<v Speaker 1>So I don't think saying that he was waiting patiently

0:04:32.800 --> 0:04:37.000
<v Speaker 1>was anthropomorphizing him. Well. I think it's just simply one

0:04:37.000 --> 0:04:40.560
<v Speaker 1>of those situations where you know, we were airing on

0:04:40.600 --> 0:04:42.839
<v Speaker 1>the side of caution. I think it's up to everybody

0:04:42.839 --> 0:04:44.720
<v Speaker 1>to make up their own minds, and you can make

0:04:44.800 --> 0:04:48.920
<v Speaker 1>up your own mind too, Candice when they read is

0:04:48.960 --> 0:04:51.640
<v Speaker 1>a Dog really a Man's Best Friend? On how stuff

0:04:51.640 --> 0:04:56.160
<v Speaker 1>works dot com Exactly. For more on this and thousands

0:04:56.160 --> 0:04:59.680
<v Speaker 1>of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com. Let

0:04:59.720 --> 0:05:02.320
<v Speaker 1>us know what you think. Send an email to podcast

0:05:02.440 --> 0:05:07.600
<v Speaker 1>that How stuff works dot Com brought to you by

0:05:07.640 --> 0:05:11.040
<v Speaker 1>the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you