WEBVTT - Short Stuff: Dog Suicide Bridge 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:07.440 Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh arf Clark, 0:00:07.520 --> 0:00:12.719 and there's Charles rough Bryant and Jerry. Oh no, Roland 0:00:13.160 --> 0:00:16.000 is out there somewhere too. You put us all together. 0:00:16.720 --> 0:00:20.599 You have a really weird Scottish type mystery for this 0:00:20.720 --> 0:00:26.440 short stuff. That's right, the mystery of the Overton Bridge. 0:00:28.320 --> 0:00:30.640 That was great. You suddenly turned into like a character 0:00:30.720 --> 0:00:33.680 that the Scooby Doo gang would meet towards the beginning 0:00:33.680 --> 0:00:36.760 of the episode. Who set everything up for him? You know, 0:00:36.800 --> 0:00:43.720 when we did our tour of Edinburgh, I met a 0:00:44.000 --> 0:00:45.760 I met a dog there. I met a very kind 0:00:45.840 --> 0:00:48.680 lady on a walk through town and she was walking 0:00:48.960 --> 0:00:53.159 her dog that looked sort of pit bullish and she 0:00:53.280 --> 0:00:54.960 was just so friendly and I love that accent, so 0:00:55.000 --> 0:00:56.760 I'll do anything to get them to talk to me. 0:00:57.280 --> 0:00:59.400 And so I engaged her and her dog and I went, oh, 0:00:59.440 --> 0:01:05.559 what's the breeze? And oh, just a wee stuffy. It's great. 0:01:06.000 --> 0:01:08.320 I remember you telling that story because you're saying that 0:01:08.360 --> 0:01:11.320 you were missing your dogs, because that was towards the 0:01:11.480 --> 0:01:16.399 end of that tour. Remember hearing about that dog. But 0:01:16.560 --> 0:01:19.120 this dog did not leap to its death, no, which 0:01:19.160 --> 0:01:23.360 is good. Probably because it was nowhere near Dumbarton, Scotland, 0:01:24.040 --> 0:01:30.000 or maybe Dumbarton. Let's go with Dumberley, Dumbarton, not Dumbarton. Um, 0:01:30.240 --> 0:01:35.360 dumb American is more like it dumb Dumbarton, Scotland. That's 0:01:35.400 --> 0:01:38.679 way better. Um. There is a bridge there, the Overton Bridge, 0:01:38.680 --> 0:01:41.160 like you were saying, and it's really beautiful. It's made 0:01:41.200 --> 0:01:45.880 of stone, very ornate. It's not the longest bridge you'll 0:01:45.880 --> 0:01:50.200 ever see. It's pretty short actually, and it's fairly low um. 0:01:50.240 --> 0:01:54.720 But it does cross a substantial um gap, something like 0:01:54.760 --> 0:01:58.120 twelve meters or about fifty ft drop into a ravine, 0:01:58.160 --> 0:02:00.920 a little stream with rocks and all sorts of stuff 0:02:00.960 --> 0:02:03.480 below it. So there's a good reason for that bridge. 0:02:03.560 --> 0:02:05.240 And it's also not the oldest bridge in the world. 0:02:05.280 --> 0:02:08.280 I think in the mid nineteenth century. It was built 0:02:08.680 --> 0:02:11.720 to connect this estate that had just been built, their 0:02:11.800 --> 0:02:15.880 Overton House UM, to the rest of the town. So 0:02:15.919 --> 0:02:18.800 it was a pretty useful bridge too. But it is 0:02:18.840 --> 0:02:25.280 now considered widely considered a haunted supernatural death bridge um 0:02:25.440 --> 0:02:31.079 by the locals in Dumbarton. Yeah, and namely because of 0:02:31.200 --> 0:02:35.160 the weird thing that has happened dating back to the 0:02:35.240 --> 0:02:38.200 nineteen fifties, at least as far as we know. There 0:02:38.200 --> 0:02:40.840 have been many cases, and we don't know how many. 0:02:40.880 --> 0:02:44.360 I've seen. There was a terrible website that said six hundred. 0:02:44.840 --> 0:02:47.280 But um, and I was going to read some of 0:02:47.320 --> 0:02:49.280 it actually, but then I felt bad because it was 0:02:49.320 --> 0:02:53.560 in very broken English. It was either a bot writing 0:02:53.600 --> 0:02:55.840 it or it was someone who doesn't speak good English. Well, 0:02:55.880 --> 0:02:58.160 we have a good twenty or thirty years before you 0:02:58.200 --> 0:03:02.800 need to empathize with bots. Okay, it was pretty funny though, 0:03:03.080 --> 0:03:06.560 but um, they reckoned about six hundred. Other people have 0:03:06.639 --> 0:03:10.320 said in the hundreds. Some people say fewer. But dogs 0:03:11.000 --> 0:03:17.079 leaping off of this bridge evidently unleashed. I mean, this 0:03:17.480 --> 0:03:19.120 is a very easy way to stop this. I mean, 0:03:19.120 --> 0:03:21.880 that's kind of the elephant in the room. But um, 0:03:21.919 --> 0:03:23.840 I guess you know, it's it's a quaint bridge, and 0:03:23.880 --> 0:03:27.320 it looks like a pretty lovely small town, so maybe 0:03:27.320 --> 0:03:29.240 people can just walk around with their dogs off leash. 0:03:29.280 --> 0:03:33.480 But these dogs leaping that fifty ft and many of 0:03:33.480 --> 0:03:37.279 them dying, many of them suffering bad injuries. Uh. Supposedly 0:03:37.320 --> 0:03:40.440 one of them jumped from the bridge, survived and ran 0:03:40.680 --> 0:03:43.640 up and jumped off again. Man, which is just crazy. 0:03:44.240 --> 0:03:47.720 That's second times on the owner. If you ask me, yeah, 0:03:47.800 --> 0:03:52.120 you know from bridge. Once shame on you, second time, 0:03:52.240 --> 0:03:55.360 shame on me the dog go owner. That's right. UM. 0:03:55.400 --> 0:03:58.080 I saw in the New York Times article on this that, UM, 0:03:58.160 --> 0:04:00.400 they seem to think that there is at least fifty 0:04:00.520 --> 0:04:03.400 that have been definitely documented. So this isn't just like 0:04:03.880 --> 0:04:07.000 local legend like this is this is known to happen. 0:04:07.040 --> 0:04:10.040 This actually happens. These dogs are jumping to their deaths 0:04:10.120 --> 0:04:14.200 off of this bridge. Um. And it's a really weird 0:04:14.360 --> 0:04:16.760 thing that no one has been able to explain, and 0:04:16.800 --> 0:04:19.640 we're we won't be able to explain it. But um. 0:04:19.640 --> 0:04:23.200 In two thousand and ten, the Dumbarton Council, the city, 0:04:23.279 --> 0:04:27.280 the town council UM contacted a behaviorist to animal behaviorist 0:04:27.320 --> 0:04:30.239 named David Sands and said, hey, can you come help 0:04:30.400 --> 0:04:33.800 figure this out because we're actually a fairly superstitious town. 0:04:34.400 --> 0:04:37.840 And right now, the prevailing theory is that it's the 0:04:37.880 --> 0:04:41.440 White Lady of Overton, the ghost of the widow of 0:04:41.480 --> 0:04:44.599 the son of the guy who built Overton House, that's 0:04:44.640 --> 0:04:47.600 causing these dogs jump, and it's giving the White Lady 0:04:47.640 --> 0:04:50.360 of Overton a bad name, because why would she want 0:04:50.360 --> 0:04:52.599 to do that. Yeah, why don't you want to have 0:04:52.720 --> 0:04:55.160 all these dogs die by their own Paul? I don't know. 0:04:55.279 --> 0:04:57.839 Maybe she she just always thought dogs were just so stupid, 0:04:57.839 --> 0:05:01.000 so now in death she's amusing herself by making them jump. 0:05:01.839 --> 0:05:03.680 All right, well, let's take a quick break here and 0:05:04.800 --> 0:05:10.000 terrible cliffhanger. Let's say something happy and positive instead. Rainbow bright, 0:05:10.080 --> 0:05:14.200 rainbow bright. Okay, go ahead, right back and talk about 0:05:14.240 --> 0:05:29.839 David Sands right after this. Alrighty, so they bring this 0:05:29.880 --> 0:05:33.799 animal expert over there, David Sands, he visits this bridge. 0:05:35.040 --> 0:05:39.240 I love how this article says he concluded first that 0:05:39.320 --> 0:05:42.240 the dogs weren't doing this on purpose. It's like, yeah, 0:05:42.279 --> 0:05:46.679 I think suicide is uniquely human. He mistaken. He earned 0:05:46.720 --> 0:05:49.559 his money right out of the gate. Someone will probably 0:05:49.560 --> 0:05:51.400 prove me wrong. There's probably some animal that does this, 0:05:51.480 --> 0:05:53.800 but certainly not dogs. Well, don't even bother writing in 0:05:53.880 --> 0:05:57.440 with Lemmings, everybody, because we debunked that years ago. That's right. 0:05:58.080 --> 0:06:00.919 Uh So he had a couple of things to say, 0:06:01.160 --> 0:06:04.360 one of which was that the way the bridge is built, 0:06:05.080 --> 0:06:07.839 and the part of it has to do the tapered 0:06:07.920 --> 0:06:11.200 edges of the bridge. Um part of it has to do. 0:06:11.240 --> 0:06:15.080 Apparently I saw somewhere else that the foliage around it 0:06:15.120 --> 0:06:17.600 creates a little bit of an optical illusion that looks 0:06:17.600 --> 0:06:19.280 like you may be able to just run right off 0:06:19.320 --> 0:06:22.840 this bridge on the ground. Um. I was surprised when 0:06:22.839 --> 0:06:24.400 I looked at the bridge. I thought they were slipping 0:06:24.400 --> 0:06:28.320 through a trestle or something on ground level. But it's, 0:06:28.560 --> 0:06:30.240 you know, it's a wall, like they have to jump 0:06:30.320 --> 0:06:35.360 up and over, which is totally on the owner. No, totally. 0:06:36.000 --> 0:06:38.560 It is like you said, like the dogs that are um, 0:06:39.240 --> 0:06:41.279 that are the victims of this are the same dogs 0:06:41.279 --> 0:06:43.080 that belong to people who like to show off how 0:06:43.080 --> 0:06:44.840 cool their dogs are that they don't need to be 0:06:44.880 --> 0:06:47.279 on the leash, that kind of thing. But the dogs 0:06:47.360 --> 0:06:50.480 like inevitably go up and like approach another dog or 0:06:50.520 --> 0:06:52.640 get too close to somebody who's scared dogs. It never 0:06:52.760 --> 0:06:55.120 ends very well. But yeah, the the dog does have 0:06:55.200 --> 0:06:59.839 to jump over this wall into a fifty ft drop below. Right. 0:07:00.520 --> 0:07:02.839 The second thing that he came up with was he said, 0:07:02.880 --> 0:07:05.800 I think that it could be possibly just some of 0:07:05.839 --> 0:07:09.320 these smells down there driving these dogs crazy. Of these 0:07:09.360 --> 0:07:14.560 animals he reckoned it was mink urine. Um. I did 0:07:14.560 --> 0:07:18.040 see where one local hunter said, you know, there's there's 0:07:18.080 --> 0:07:22.240 no mink around here. That's what one local hunter said. 0:07:22.240 --> 0:07:25.360 But then an official like an animal I don't know 0:07:25.360 --> 0:07:28.000 who the official body for animal. I don't know if 0:07:28.000 --> 0:07:31.720 it was rescue or just preservation or something that's oh 0:07:31.840 --> 0:07:35.280 is it? Uhuh? The Scottish all right, well, I think 0:07:35.280 --> 0:07:37.960 it was an official from there did say that where 0:07:38.000 --> 0:07:41.160 these dogs are jumping, specifically on the bridge, he said, 0:07:41.160 --> 0:07:44.680 there are lots of mice, squirrel and mink nests. So 0:07:45.080 --> 0:07:49.080 they refuted this hunter at least. Yeah. Um, so the 0:07:49.080 --> 0:07:52.559 the I guess. The theory from Sands and Sands also 0:07:52.600 --> 0:07:56.200 points out that the dogs um that are jumping are 0:07:56.280 --> 0:08:00.600 buying log buying large jugs with a long nose, that 0:08:00.680 --> 0:08:04.400 are um scent dogs, scenting dogs, hunting dogs, that they 0:08:04.440 --> 0:08:07.080 would be more prone to pick up on a bunch 0:08:07.120 --> 0:08:09.960 of sents or respond to a bunch of sense like mink, 0:08:10.120 --> 0:08:14.800 especially mink urine, and that that combined with this potential 0:08:14.880 --> 0:08:19.120 optical illusion, uh that there is flat ground right on 0:08:19.160 --> 0:08:22.000 the other side of this wall, is what's causing these 0:08:22.040 --> 0:08:25.160 dogs to jump. That's probably what it is. Apparently they 0:08:25.160 --> 0:08:29.480 even did a little testing and mink urine just makes 0:08:29.560 --> 0:08:32.520 these dogs crazy. So here's the thing, Like, yeah, that 0:08:32.559 --> 0:08:36.120 would seem like the most logical, reasonable explanation. But then 0:08:36.720 --> 0:08:40.960 the next question you have is why is it just 0:08:41.080 --> 0:08:43.640 this one bridge? Why is that not a thing all 0:08:43.640 --> 0:08:46.720 over Scotland or all over the world wherever there's mink 0:08:47.280 --> 0:08:50.280 or there's um, you know, whatever kind of animals going 0:08:50.320 --> 0:08:52.240 to set off a certain kind of dog, Like, what 0:08:52.440 --> 0:08:55.920 is it about this one bridge that that that kind 0:08:55.920 --> 0:08:59.760 of It doesn't fully like dismiss sands theory. It just 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:03.560 suggests that there's some weird combination of things here that 0:09:03.600 --> 0:09:08.280 we haven't quite put our finger on yet. Yeah, totally. 0:09:08.320 --> 0:09:12.160 You did mention the White Lady of Overton haunting the place. Um. 0:09:12.200 --> 0:09:16.480 There is also another kind of story slash theory that 0:09:17.600 --> 0:09:20.199 there was a man, and this is just terrible, thirty 0:09:20.240 --> 0:09:23.080 two year old father threw his baby off of this 0:09:23.200 --> 0:09:27.040 bridge because he thought his baby was the anti Christ. Um. 0:09:27.080 --> 0:09:29.640 The baby died the next day, and the father was 0:09:29.720 --> 0:09:34.920 committed to an institution obviously mentally ill. And some people 0:09:34.960 --> 0:09:37.959 say that they're jumping from the same spot that this 0:09:38.040 --> 0:09:41.200 man threw his baby from. But this was It's been 0:09:41.200 --> 0:09:44.400 happening since the fifties. Yeah, yeah, it's it's just kind 0:09:44.400 --> 0:09:47.319 of like an eerie addendum almost, you know, I think so, 0:09:47.480 --> 0:09:49.719 you know, or some people I think think like, oh, 0:09:49.760 --> 0:09:51.920 it is supernatural. And this man was responding to the 0:09:51.960 --> 0:09:55.679 same thing. The dogs are um and that the Celts actually, 0:09:55.760 --> 0:09:57.560 who used to live in the area, actually had a 0:09:57.640 --> 0:09:59.400 name for this kind of thing. They called it a 0:09:59.480 --> 0:10:02.480 thin ace, which is where the spirit world in our 0:10:02.520 --> 0:10:05.800 world kind of overlapped, where the fabric between the two 0:10:05.880 --> 0:10:10.319 was thinnest, which is pretty interesting. And then there's um 0:10:10.360 --> 0:10:14.239 in that supernatural camp. There's an author named Paul Owens 0:10:14.760 --> 0:10:18.160 who wrote The Baron of Rainbow Bridge, And from what 0:10:18.200 --> 0:10:21.120 I can tell, Owen's book basically says and also you 0:10:21.160 --> 0:10:24.640 have to see the cover of this thing. It's adorable 0:10:25.000 --> 0:10:29.320 but also like insane. Like he photoshop dogs jumping like 0:10:29.360 --> 0:10:31.440 in mid air and made it look like they're jumping 0:10:31.480 --> 0:10:34.360 off the bridge. And for some reason, Vladimir Putin is 0:10:34.440 --> 0:10:37.559 dressed like a stage musician and the magician in the background. 0:10:37.800 --> 0:10:42.040 It's a very odd cover of a book. I'm looking now, 0:10:42.120 --> 0:10:46.839 that's weird. So doesn't that guy look like Putin? He's 0:10:46.960 --> 0:10:50.319 sort of, But from what I can surmise, Paul Owens 0:10:50.360 --> 0:10:53.360 thing is he's kind of mashed up the Rainbow Bridge thing. 0:10:54.080 --> 0:10:57.200 Yeah with um, which is, I guess what what pets 0:10:57.320 --> 0:11:03.400 follow into the afterlife with like real life and um 0:11:03.559 --> 0:11:06.120 somehow suicide Like he, I guess he thinks like the 0:11:06.120 --> 0:11:08.960 dogs are actually purposely taking their lives, and like you said, 0:11:08.960 --> 0:11:11.040 at the outside, that's just not that's a human thing 0:11:11.080 --> 0:11:14.640 that's exclusively human because from what we know, we're the 0:11:14.679 --> 0:11:16.920 only ones who can conceive of what a life is, 0:11:17.559 --> 0:11:19.560 and so therefore we're the only ones who can think 0:11:19.559 --> 0:11:22.640 of like ending that life, you know, and saying like dogs, 0:11:23.200 --> 0:11:25.439 as far as we know, dogs and other animals are 0:11:25.480 --> 0:11:28.520 not capable of that. What do you think of the 0:11:28.520 --> 0:11:30.840 whole rainbow Bridge thing? I don't know anything about it. 0:11:30.880 --> 0:11:34.080 You've mentioned it before. Um it ended up in the 0:11:34.080 --> 0:11:36.960 book I think was where I first ever saw it, 0:11:37.000 --> 0:11:38.720 and I haven't seen it. Is it a book a 0:11:38.800 --> 0:11:42.160 kid's book? Now? I actually don't know the origin. I 0:11:42.240 --> 0:11:46.240 just know that that's something that some people say, like 0:11:46.559 --> 0:11:48.480 your pet has gone over the rainbow bridge or whatever. 0:11:48.520 --> 0:11:53.480 I I don't subscribe. Um, obviously they don't. It's not 0:11:53.520 --> 0:11:57.040 supposed to be real. But I'm just don't. It's a 0:11:57.040 --> 0:11:59.120 little kind of goofy and who who for me? But 0:11:59.160 --> 0:12:01.240 if if that's your thing and that makes you feel 0:12:01.240 --> 0:12:02.960 better and stuff, I'm certainly not making fun of it. 0:12:02.960 --> 0:12:05.960 It's just it's not for us. I got you, so, yeah, 0:12:06.160 --> 0:12:09.120 I have no opinion about Rainbow Bridge, but don't get 0:12:09.120 --> 0:12:14.200 me started on Rainbow Bright. You got anything else? Yeah, 0:12:14.240 --> 0:12:16.880 nothing else. So the mystery remains, which is our kind 0:12:16.920 --> 0:12:20.280 of thing. We love that. Hopefully you do too, and 0:12:20.720 --> 0:12:26.400 that means everybody that short stuff is out. Stuff you 0:12:26.400 --> 0:12:28.880 Should Know is a production of I Heart Radio for 0:12:28.960 --> 0:12:31.160 more podcasts for my heart Radio because at the iHeart 0:12:31.240 --> 0:12:33.880 Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your 0:12:33.920 --> 0:12:34.600 favorite shows.