Speaker 1: Everybody. I'm throwing back all the way to January. This one,
Speaker 1: How Pet Psychics Worked. Boy oh boy, this one was
Speaker 1: not great, But sometimes I like to pick those just
Speaker 1: as a reminder of the peaks and valleys of this
Speaker 1: show over the years. So here we go with How
Speaker 1: Pet Psychics Work. It's really not that bad. You'll probably
Speaker 1: enjoy it. Just give it a listen and then give
Speaker 1: us a review on yelp. Three stars. Please. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey,
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles w. Chuck. Right,
Speaker 1: it's me. I mentioned myself already. Have I mentioned Jerry? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think so these just keep getting worse and worse.
Speaker 1: Not the cheery's over there. We're all in the Christmas spirit.
Speaker 1: I think this is the last show we're recording this year, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're ahead of the game a little bit. Yea, So
Speaker 1: we can have a cooshy couple of weeks. So, um,
Speaker 1: we're hammered. Not true, No, not yet. You got your
Speaker 1: coffee and I got my uh soda water laqua loquis
Speaker 1: soda water. Yeah, my coffee is neither Spanish nor Irish.
Speaker 1: Nor anything like that. What a Spanish coffee. Oh, it's
Speaker 1: the better of the two. What is it? Um? You
Speaker 1: get a little well, it depends on your on your recipe,
Speaker 1: but you get a little bit of rum. You get
Speaker 1: a little bit of triple sec or I can't remember
Speaker 1: the other name for it, um, but good triple sec.
Speaker 1: Put them together in a like a tempered sniff ter
Speaker 1: or an Irish coffee class fire tempered. Make sure it's
Speaker 1: tempered or else you're about to hurt yourself. Bust on't
Speaker 1: you light it? Um? You light the it's got to
Speaker 1: be high proof from you like the rum uh triple
Speaker 1: sec combo. Just let it burn out for a second,
Speaker 1: or you could blow it up if you don't want
Speaker 1: to burn off too much of the alcohol. And you
Speaker 1: had some espresso, some kalua, and then top it off
Speaker 1: with a little whip cream and nut. Mike, man, it's
Speaker 1: good stuff. And that's just one version. There's plenty of
Speaker 1: other versions of Spanish coffee that makes Irish coffee look silly.
Speaker 1: They're just like I don't put down Irish coffee, coffee
Speaker 1: and drinking pretty much. It's also called the eye opener. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love the simplicity of the Irish just doing that
Speaker 1: and I love that. Have you seen that country? I
Speaker 1: don't know if it was a new one. Last week
Speaker 1: I started watching The Simpsons again after like years off,
Speaker 1: and it is. It's awesome back man, it is back.
Speaker 1: There was one. I don't know if it was new
Speaker 1: or not, but Crusty Um syndicated himself around the world
Speaker 1: so he could make a lot more money. So there's
Speaker 1: like a Jamaican Crusty. There's like a like all these
Speaker 1: and then the Irish one. It was just like this
Speaker 1: depressed alcoholic who would like sit at a at a
Speaker 1: table on a chair and like the spare Room didn't
Speaker 1: even do that really yeah, and like we just drink
Speaker 1: and say like these you know, really bleak depressing things.
Speaker 1: Is perfect and he ended up with his own like
Speaker 1: stage show on Broadway and everything as the Irish Rusty. Yeah. Awesome,
Speaker 1: that's a good one. Have to check that out. Yeah, uh,
Speaker 1: that was my intro to pet psychics. Alright, you know
Speaker 1: that cat sitting over there knew everything. I was about
Speaker 1: to say, Oh yeah, not many people know we have
Speaker 1: a studio. Cat, No, man, I wish we did. How
Speaker 1: awesome would that be? Studio CA. Yeah, it'd be great
Speaker 1: to get game in here, wouldn't I it's already pretty
Speaker 1: warm in here as it is. A cat would love that. Yeah, um, alright,
Speaker 1: So pet psychics factor fiction? Uh their fiction? Are we
Speaker 1: debunking right out of the thing? Well, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: I am of the forty and ilk alright, Like, I
Speaker 1: think that using science as a means of avoiding scientific
Speaker 1: investigation of something is a slap in the face of science,
Speaker 1: and that science should be used to exhaust all avenues.
Speaker 1: And just because we can't currently explain something using science
Speaker 1: doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I think that there's a
Speaker 1: whole echelon of stuff out there that does exist that
Speaker 1: we can't quite explain yet. Yeah. Sure, I don't know
Speaker 1: if pet psychics fall into that one, but I'm not
Speaker 1: one to just overtly poo pooh something out of hand.
Speaker 1: That said, I had a hard time like taking this
Speaker 1: entire article seriously. Well, you want to know something, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Emily just went to a pet psychic. I I thought
Speaker 1: that there's probably like a nine chance that something like
Speaker 1: that was going to come up. Yeah. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: we had to put Old Lucy down and Emily went
Speaker 1: in the following week. We have a local pet psychic
Speaker 1: and I'm there probably is, but um one near our house.
Speaker 1: And she went and talk to this lady. Was it comforting?
Speaker 1: It was? She said it was really interesting and um,
Speaker 1: there was less talk about Lucy and more talk about
Speaker 1: like me and our other animals. And um, she wouldn't
Speaker 1: tell me a whole lot because she didn't want me
Speaker 1: to poke fun at it, you know. And I tried
Speaker 1: to be super supportive, and I was, Um, I thought
Speaker 1: every instinct I had two. Uh, You're like, that sounds
Speaker 1: like a great neat. How much was it? Um? But Emily,
Speaker 1: and she asked me not to say this, so of
Speaker 1: course I'm going to say it. She is getting books
Speaker 1: now herself to read and because she feels like she
Speaker 1: is very intuitive with animals and and she is very
Speaker 1: intuitive with animals, and so she's gonna poke around there
Speaker 1: and not to do it for a living or anything,
Speaker 1: just do with your own at home, Yeah, just to
Speaker 1: see if she can become more in tune with our animals. Uh.
Speaker 1: And they are called animal intuitives sometimes or communicators, not
Speaker 1: necessarily pet psychics, because that makes you sound a little crazy.
Speaker 1: It seems to be like a whole gamut of people
Speaker 1: that would fall under the umbrella of pet psychics. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like a horse whisper or Caesar Milan. Some people might
Speaker 1: say as an animal communicator that they're just maybe more
Speaker 1: in tune with the signals that animals send out, and
Speaker 1: they can send signals to animals. Um, but that I
Speaker 1: fully believe. Okay, So that's totally different from what a
Speaker 1: person who claims to be a pet psychic says is
Speaker 1: going on. Well, yeah, but not always like this lady
Speaker 1: Emily went to was sounded more like an animal intuitive
Speaker 1: and communicator than uh, like a medium saying I'm talking
Speaker 1: to Lucy. She's in a better place. She's playing with
Speaker 1: your grandfather in heaven. Right. But there are pet psychics
Speaker 1: that claim to do that, yeah, and charge people money
Speaker 1: for that, Yeah, just like real psychics. Um, all right,
Speaker 1: so let's get into it. Well I thought we already had,
Speaker 1: Well I guess we have. Um. I just wanted to
Speaker 1: go ahead and drop that bomb about Emily. Um, I
Speaker 1: think you're in trouble. So pet psychics, now, she didn't listen.
Speaker 1: They they claim, Depending on who they are, there is
Speaker 1: a spectrum of pet psychics like you said that claim
Speaker 1: certain abilities, but some claim that they can actually telepathically
Speaker 1: communicate with animals in mind and like one step beyond intuition,
Speaker 1: Like we're actually talking, right, Not only are we talking,
Speaker 1: we're transferring images from one mind to another. UM. In
Speaker 1: some cases they are talking like there's a pet psychic
Speaker 1: UM who claims that when she speaks to animals, UM,
Speaker 1: they respond to her in a childlike voice. That animals
Speaker 1: have childlike voices, they speak like children, they do in
Speaker 1: Disney movies, So why not UM? But the basically at
Speaker 1: its most supernatural, I guess it's most extrasensory UM, pet psychics.
Speaker 1: What they're claiming to do is a convergence of clairvoyance,
Speaker 1: which is far sighte UM and telepathy, which is mind reading.
Speaker 1: And they're putting these together. And then if you already
Speaker 1: have a hard enough time swallowing that, you may have
Speaker 1: an even harder time swallowing it when you realize that
Speaker 1: they're saying they're doing this with animals, which may or
Speaker 1: may not even be self aware. Yeah, Like it's tough too.
Speaker 1: It's hard with humans to believe that someone might have
Speaker 1: esp and telepathy and we speak the same language, so
Speaker 1: it might be even a deeper reach to say that
Speaker 1: you can do that with a dog. Let's say so,
Speaker 1: kay Emily went to a pet psychic. Um. She went
Speaker 1: after Lucy um passed on UM basically to find out
Speaker 1: how Lucy was doing. Yeah. I think she was just
Speaker 1: curious about the She had been curious for a while,
Speaker 1: and this afforded her an opportunity to go see a
Speaker 1: pet psychic. I think like it gave her a good reason. Okay,
Speaker 1: so that's one reason people go see pet psychics UM
Speaker 1: after the death of a pet. Another one is when
Speaker 1: a pet is sick or injured or ailing. Tell me
Speaker 1: if it's time to go. Um, which, man, that's gotta
Speaker 1: be a lot to put on a pet psychic. That's
Speaker 1: a lot to put on a vet, you know, although
Speaker 1: I think vets are kind of like, yeah, let's just
Speaker 1: go ahead and do it. No, that's not true. Um.
Speaker 1: And then what if the what if the pet is
Speaker 1: acting like a jerk all of a sudden. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: another reason people pets. My dog acting out, or maybe
Speaker 1: my pet is lost. Can you tell me where my
Speaker 1: pet is? Right? That's a little more of a niche thing.
Speaker 1: Not all pet psychics will take on those cases, my
Speaker 1: guess is because the success rate might not be great
Speaker 1: and they don't want to you know, charge somebody for
Speaker 1: something and not provide the service that they said they can. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because I mean, unless you can talk to somebody into
Speaker 1: giving up their bread for you just to say, yeah,
Speaker 1: your dog will be home in a couple of weeks, yeah,
Speaker 1: then you know, how are you gonna work that? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can't. But there are anecdotal success stories of locating
Speaker 1: pets this way. If there weren't, this wouldn't be yeah
Speaker 1: around and a skeptic will say that's just luck and coincidence,
Speaker 1: like the dog was on its way home anyway, exactly,
Speaker 1: This pet psychic didn't called to it with her mind,
Speaker 1: that's right, Uh, psychics. Pet psychics say they UM use
Speaker 1: electromagnetic energy to accomplish this, that there's this energy field
Speaker 1: in the universe that science hasn't quite figured out yet,
Speaker 1: but it exists, and we are able to pick up
Speaker 1: on that energy and use that energy to speak to
Speaker 1: your animals. UM, whether it's a childlike voice or like
Speaker 1: I think most of them generally do it, and like
Speaker 1: in pictures, which makes a little more sense to me. UM.
Speaker 1: And this this this thing, this electromagnetic energy. There's this
Speaker 1: guy who wrote a book. His name is Jay Alan Boone,
Speaker 1: and he wrote a book called Kinship with All Life
Speaker 1: and it apparently is the pet psychics Bible, and it's
Speaker 1: um kind of his relationship with this German shepherd named Strongheart,
Speaker 1: which was a Hollywood dog that he cared for starting
Speaker 1: I think the nineteen thirties, um and who he became
Speaker 1: uh telepathically linked with intuitively linked to um. And basically,
Speaker 1: Jay Alan Boone wrote this book on how to communicate
Speaker 1: with animals and and it he mentions that all things
Speaker 1: are connected by this thing called the primal cause midi
Speaker 1: Chlorean's right, and um, I think that's what the pet
Speaker 1: psychic would say, Well, that's the electromagnetic energy. The point
Speaker 1: is that since it binds all things, we can just
Speaker 1: kind of use that too to connect to the mind
Speaker 1: of another thing, human or animal. Right, because we're all
Speaker 1: connected by this, right, It's a lovely thought. Uh. Animal
Speaker 1: Planet actually had a show, yeah, for a little while
Speaker 1: about ten years ago called the Pet Psychic and the
Speaker 1: lady on there, what's her name, Fitzpatrick. Yes, she claimed
Speaker 1: that she picked up this in childhood as a result
Speaker 1: of a hearing loss um, although other people say they
Speaker 1: pick it up as adults after studying it and not
Speaker 1: necessarily born with a gift. But they just studied how
Speaker 1: to be more in tune with animals, right, and apparently
Speaker 1: a lot of them discovered that they had this gift
Speaker 1: after they saw the pet psychic on Animal Planet. I
Speaker 1: was that right, That's what Tracy says in this article. Okay,
Speaker 1: I wonder what that sounds like one of those statements
Speaker 1: the cheaty research on that. I don't know she do
Speaker 1: a pole. Well, I think they definitely did kick off
Speaker 1: a trend. If it didn't capitalize on it, it definitely
Speaker 1: kicked it off. All right. So you go to your
Speaker 1: pet psychic. You're gonna go into a room and they're
Speaker 1: gonna do something like this, Uh, not exactly like this,
Speaker 1: depending on their methods, but they're probably gonna like just
Speaker 1: relax until you to calm down, and they will make
Speaker 1: contact with the energy of the animal and then they
Speaker 1: will actually try and contact the said animal telepathically, right,
Speaker 1: like ask a question of the animal, or they'll they'll
Speaker 1: they'll call its name or something and get its attention
Speaker 1: to yeah, or have a picture a lot of times, like,
Speaker 1: you don't need the animal there necessarily. In fact, a
Speaker 1: lot of times I think the animal is not there
Speaker 1: because why do you need the animal? Now you don't.
Speaker 1: You've got the great cause, the primal cause exactly. So
Speaker 1: they go like this with their mind. If they do,
Speaker 1: and then they well, except whatever response they get, relay
Speaker 1: that back to you, ask you some more questions or
Speaker 1: if you have any more questions, and basically act as
Speaker 1: the go between between you communicating with your pet. Like
Speaker 1: just like you would think it goes down, your pet
Speaker 1: is saying that there. Uh, they're not happy with the
Speaker 1: new couch and that's why they're being on it or
Speaker 1: ever since you uh took that promotion into middle management,
Speaker 1: you've changed man. Yeah, and I'm not happy with this
Speaker 1: new you. That's why I keep chewing your suits exactly. Um,
Speaker 1: they are going to Uh. It's it's pretty controversial, as
Speaker 1: we pointed out, because there isn't any hard science behind it.
Speaker 1: There's no proof of this electromagnetic energy, and a lot
Speaker 1: of people believe in energy. I mean, electromagnetic energy does exist, yeah,
Speaker 1: not this kind of magnetic Yeah. I just fun to
Speaker 1: make sure everyone knew that we believe in electro magnetic
Speaker 1: but they haven't picked up they haven't proven that there's
Speaker 1: any actual like sensory organ in people or animals that
Speaker 1: allow them to tune into this energy. Does that make
Speaker 1: more sense? Yeah, so so during these pet psychic sessions
Speaker 1: when the when the the purpose of this normally is
Speaker 1: to get to the bottom of a problem, say like
Speaker 1: we said, or to get some sort of comfort, or
Speaker 1: even for decision making. Um. The problem is when a
Speaker 1: pet psychic asks an animal what's going on and the
Speaker 1: animals thought to respond, well, this, I'm doing this because
Speaker 1: of this. So beyond the telepathy, beyond the clairvoyance involved,
Speaker 1: there's still the question of whether an animal is capable
Speaker 1: of that higher level of reasoning and thought. Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: that it would be aware of its own reasons for
Speaker 1: its behavior. That in and of itself is a controversial
Speaker 1: aspect of this whole topic. Yeah, that's self awareness. Like, Um,
Speaker 1: a lot of animal intuitives believe that animals are basically
Speaker 1: kind of like people. They just can't talk, they experience
Speaker 1: the emotions there, they're self aware, um, and they're just
Speaker 1: not trapped, but they're in an animal's body. Um. And
Speaker 1: when you look at your pets. You may think they're
Speaker 1: experiencing emotions, and it's a controversial subject because it's not
Speaker 1: something you can prove. Well, it's been it's become more
Speaker 1: and more proven over the years. Yeah, Like nowadays it
Speaker 1: is accepted that animals can feel certain emotions. Yeah, especially
Speaker 1: the basic ones like yeah, like stress, fear, fear, upsettedness. Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: rage I think is one um lust, separation, distress. But
Speaker 1: it's hard to define emotion period, much less than in
Speaker 1: an animal. Right. But the the idea that um emotions
Speaker 1: just belong to humans or even humans and higher primates
Speaker 1: is is definitely faded. Um. We are aware that animals
Speaker 1: can't experience basic emotions. They can probably experience even higher
Speaker 1: emotions too. Like if you look at a dog and
Speaker 1: your dog looks sad and it's sad because you're leaving,
Speaker 1: you may be correct. You know your dog pretty well.
Speaker 1: And we've reached the point where science is starting to
Speaker 1: come to grips with the idea that yes, animals can
Speaker 1: experience some higher emotions as well. Sure, And there was
Speaker 1: actually a conference at Cambridge University in two thousand twelve,
Speaker 1: and uh it was a pretty heavy hitting conference. Um,
Speaker 1: like I mean, the people involved were no louches, and
Speaker 1: they came up with the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness and
Speaker 1: they basically said that, um, the the components that you
Speaker 1: need to experience emotions and consciousness are not relegated to
Speaker 1: the cortex, meaning it's not just humans that have that
Speaker 1: are capable. They have the hardware for experiencing consciousness, right. Um.
Speaker 1: They also said that if you artificially stimulate um uh,
Speaker 1: the neural circuits that are responsible for different aspects of
Speaker 1: consciousness and humans, you can stimulate the same things in
Speaker 1: animals too, which suggests that they have the same equipment. Um,
Speaker 1: you can also disrupt those circuits using hallucinogens and humans
Speaker 1: and animals and since they have all the equipment all
Speaker 1: the science point to, said this group of neuroscientists and
Speaker 1: um other professionals. They said, there is a pretty good chain.
Speaker 1: It's that it's not just humans who are experiencing consciousness.
Speaker 1: The things that the trappings of consciousness, like higher emotions,
Speaker 1: self awareness, the things that make us human. Animals might
Speaker 1: have that make them animals. But the people who think
Speaker 1: that if your dog is sad, you're probably right, are right.
Speaker 1: Dog likes you around and it might be happy when
Speaker 1: you're home, yeah, and sad when you leave. And the
Speaker 1: whole reason that this has been a thing is simply
Speaker 1: because humans haven't been able to figure out how to
Speaker 1: accurately test what is an emotion in an an animal.
Speaker 1: Because animals can't say I'm feeling like this right now.
Speaker 1: We can be like, that's love. You're feeling love. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like when a mother cares for puppies, it's showing it
Speaker 1: looks like it's showing love. Or is it oxytocin hormone
Speaker 1: in the body that says you need to care for
Speaker 1: your young Is it love or care? Or does animal
Speaker 1: realize it's it's love or care? Well, that's the big one,
Speaker 1: because you can say we have that same exact neural
Speaker 1: circuit and we react to oxytocin the exact same way.
Speaker 1: So you know, if it's love for us, why isn't
Speaker 1: it love for the animal? Well, the key is is
Speaker 1: we think about it. We're thinking, I feel so good
Speaker 1: about taking care of my baby. That means I love
Speaker 1: my baby. That makes me even happier. That's called metic cognition.
Speaker 1: That's where most people are drawing the line with animals
Speaker 1: these days. They might be able to experience some pretty
Speaker 1: high um emotions. They may be self aware, but the
Speaker 1: ability to think about their emotions and the implications of
Speaker 1: their emotions or think about thinking, that's metic cognition. And
Speaker 1: not everybody agrees on that one. That's the new threshold
Speaker 1: that we're at. It seems like for animals, whether or
Speaker 1: not they're capable of metic cognition. So if an animal
Speaker 1: sees itself in the mirror, knowses itself, is that self awareness, Yeah,
Speaker 1: which would be a form of metic cognition, But that's
Speaker 1: that's not proven. That's where a lot of people. You'll
Speaker 1: lose a lot of people now, whereas ten years ago,
Speaker 1: even saying that an animal could experience happiness or joy
Speaker 1: um would have lost a lot of people. So who knows.
Speaker 1: In ten years from now, maybe everyone will agree that
Speaker 1: animals experienced madiccognition. Yeah, grief is definitely one I've seen
Speaker 1: firsthand a lot. Yeah, we talked about it in the
Speaker 1: Grief episode. Yeah. Um, And when we put Lucy down,
Speaker 1: they recommend that we did in our house, they recommend
Speaker 1: that the pet not see that act, but then they
Speaker 1: come in afterward so they see the body and so
Speaker 1: they can understand what's going on, and so they don't
Speaker 1: spend time looking for that animal. And uh, we did
Speaker 1: that with Buckley and Charlie and let them back in,
Speaker 1: and uh, Charlie was stressed. We didn't think about it.
Speaker 1: She was a feral dogs, so she gets stressed when
Speaker 1: other people are in the house. So we forgot this
Speaker 1: vet lady was in there. So Charlie's just stressed running around.
Speaker 1: Buckley goes up Sniff's Lucy and it was really sad,
Speaker 1: I'm sure. And he was different for about four or
Speaker 1: five days, seem depressed to me. And when we would
Speaker 1: take him on walks and come back, he would still
Speaker 1: run around to all the rooms, I think looking for
Speaker 1: Lucy because he never had done that before. He usually
Speaker 1: just walks in and lays down, but he literally would
Speaker 1: go to each room. Um. So I definitely think there's
Speaker 1: there are things like grief, whether or not the dog
Speaker 1: realizes it's grief, Like who cares? You know, That's what
Speaker 1: I think. Yeah, I mean, it's still experiencing on that
Speaker 1: virtually the same level, right, Yeah, and at its most
Speaker 1: profound level, that gut experience of grief. Yeah, And I
Speaker 1: think the whole the fine line here with investigating or
Speaker 1: talking about whether or not animals can experience these things.
Speaker 1: Is you're walking this edge where on one side you
Speaker 1: have anthropocentrism, where you're just like, no, they can't, only
Speaker 1: humans can. Humans are the greatest ever, and you're forgetting
Speaker 1: that we're animals as well. Then the other side you
Speaker 1: have anthropomorphizing, where you're attributing you know, human attributes to
Speaker 1: animals unduly. So it's kind of like you have to
Speaker 1: so happy because we're putting up the Christmas tree exactly.
Speaker 1: Buckley is happy because we're in there having a good
Speaker 1: time and drinking some magnag and like the music so
Speaker 1: onward dancing right exactly. So you have to resist both
Speaker 1: of those temptations to just kind of keep plodding along
Speaker 1: down the line scientifically. But I think ultimately, as we
Speaker 1: go down that line, we're going to finally come to
Speaker 1: as a species, hopefully the idea that like, animals should
Speaker 1: not be in zoos or tested on or whatever, because
Speaker 1: they are a lot closer to us consciousness wise than
Speaker 1: we currently understand or want to admit right now. Agreed. Um,
Speaker 1: All right, well we're gonna talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: pet psychics and like contradictions between them, UM, and what
Speaker 1: might be going on here right after this message break. Okay,
Speaker 1: so there are some contradictions. UM. If you go to
Speaker 1: tin pet psychics who are probably gonna have ten different,
Speaker 1: eleven opinions, eleven different stories about what's going on, which
Speaker 1: is one reason it makes it hard to swallow for
Speaker 1: some people. UM. Again, I feel like since we went
Speaker 1: to break and came back, it's this is a good
Speaker 1: time to read it. Write like I'm not I'm not
Speaker 1: poo pooing intuitiveness, No, I'm not poo pooing UM. And
Speaker 1: some people's ability a greater ability than others to really
Speaker 1: kind of connect to animals and and and understand them
Speaker 1: or um deal with them however you want to put it.
Speaker 1: It's when it strays into telepathy and clairvoyance that UM,
Speaker 1: I start to become skeptical. Yeah, I know what you mean.
Speaker 1: And I think I think some people are more in
Speaker 1: tune with other humans than others. Some people have their
Speaker 1: heads up their butts and are completely absorbed in their
Speaker 1: own little universe. Other people, I think, seek out UM
Speaker 1: input from other things, whether it's people or animals. They're
Speaker 1: always looking for something. UM. Just you know justin his mom. Carrie,
Speaker 1: one of my favorite people, is one of the most
Speaker 1: in tune intuitive people I've ever met in my life
Speaker 1: because she's she's a studier of people like you can
Speaker 1: see her man when there's a party going on, she'll
Speaker 1: be sitting back and watching. Yeah. Yeah she's weird. No,
Speaker 1: she's not weird at all. She's awesome. But she's she
Speaker 1: watches and she's you know, I don't I don't know
Speaker 1: if it's a gift as much as it is something
Speaker 1: you can work on. Yeah, I think it remove your
Speaker 1: head from your butt and pay attention. UM. So some contradictions,
Speaker 1: like you might see a Fitzpatrick that says, um, your
Speaker 1: animal ratted you out about something. You might go to
Speaker 1: another Pet Sidekick that says animals would never do that,
Speaker 1: they're loyal. So the story supposedly according to um Sonja
Speaker 1: Fitzpatrick from the Pet Sidekick show, UM, animals are very
Speaker 1: gossipy and um, they like to tell one another all
Speaker 1: your secrets. That's hilarious to me. And she told the story.
Speaker 1: She wrote a book called UM What the Animals Tell Me?
Speaker 1: And she told the story about a turtle that she
Speaker 1: was communicating with and the turtle told her that it
Speaker 1: would love to have a fish friend as a pet.
Speaker 1: So Sonia Fitzpatrick introduced a fish to this turtles tank
Speaker 1: and the turtle was like, thanks, chump, and ate the fish.
Speaker 1: And so she said, why did you eat the fish?
Speaker 1: And the turtle said, well, I knew that if I
Speaker 1: asked you for a fish to eat, you wouldn't give
Speaker 1: it to me, So I just tricked you. Basically, So
Speaker 1: animals are gossipy and wiley and have the potential to lie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you should not trust animals. Uh. Debbie McGillivray, she wrote
Speaker 1: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Pets like a Communication. Um,
Speaker 1: she's the one that said no, no no, no, animals are loyal,
Speaker 1: They're innocent. They would never write you out, they would
Speaker 1: never lie to you like that or embarrass you. So um.
Speaker 1: It makes it tougher to swallow when you have people
Speaker 1: saying these wildly different things, not about what they're picking up,
Speaker 1: but the fact that no animals do this, No animals
Speaker 1: do this, like, which is it right? But you could
Speaker 1: say the same thing about humans, you know, like if
Speaker 1: you hang out with certain humans, you can be like
Speaker 1: some humans like humans gossip they'll they'll tell other people
Speaker 1: all of your terrible secrets. Other people might have hung
Speaker 1: out with the Waltons and they're like, no, humans are
Speaker 1: all loyal, it's all. It's all about your perception and
Speaker 1: your experience. That's right. So what might be going on
Speaker 1: here is what's known as a cold reading. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: actual any success or what appears to be success, Yeah,
Speaker 1: telepathically among pet psychics, cold readings. Yeah. Esp people use
Speaker 1: cold readings to explain that fortune telling, tarot card palm reading,
Speaker 1: crystal balls, you name it. Uh. A skeptic will say
Speaker 1: that what a cold reading is is the following. They
Speaker 1: are maybe stating the obvious. Your cat loves to your cats,
Speaker 1: telling me it loves to lay in the window and
Speaker 1: look at the world outside. And the person goes, oh
Speaker 1: my god, the wizard loves that. All cats love that exactly,
Speaker 1: So that might happen in your reading. Um. They might
Speaker 1: also use very vague language like, um, so he says,
Speaker 1: your dog says something has changed around here, and you go, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I just accepted this middle management promotion. And the pet
Speaker 1: psychics says, yes, that's it. That that exactly, that's the
Speaker 1: this new thing that's changed. And you said earlier that
Speaker 1: your dog was chewing up your new shoes, and that's
Speaker 1: why your dog is not happy with this change, so
Speaker 1: he's chewing your shoes. I am a psychic. That's that's
Speaker 1: how they finish every reading too. But they throw their
Speaker 1: arms up in the area and shout that, Well, it's
Speaker 1: interesting because what might be happening there is is your
Speaker 1: dog might be chewing up your shoes because you did
Speaker 1: get that job because you're working in extra fifteen hours
Speaker 1: a week and your dog has separation anxiety, So ironically
Speaker 1: it might be actually on the money. But uh, the
Speaker 1: disconnect comes in when the psychic says that your dog
Speaker 1: told him that exactly, Um what else? Um? Or about this?
Speaker 1: Here's another way to state the obvious, your dog. I'm
Speaker 1: looking at a picture of your dog and they chew
Speaker 1: on their paws all the time, and say they itch
Speaker 1: And that's because in the picture they have like a
Speaker 1: bandage on their pall. Or you went in and I
Speaker 1: forgot you said, my dog is chewing their paws all
Speaker 1: the time. What's the deal with that? Like they'll they'll glean.
Speaker 1: These bits have been formation without you maybe even necessarily
Speaker 1: recognizing that by asking you questions and then they make
Speaker 1: that part of their cold reading. But then asking questions
Speaker 1: is another one too. It's fishing for details. It's like
Speaker 1: I see that your dog is wearing a green and
Speaker 1: then you say blue blue collar. Your dog is wearing
Speaker 1: a blue collar. Um, So every time something is that
Speaker 1: that you indicate something is correct, it'll be restated, rephrased,
Speaker 1: respoken as if the psychic is saying it, and you're
Speaker 1: you're so unwrapped in this whole thing that you're just
Speaker 1: missing the fact that you're feeding them the information that
Speaker 1: they're giving to you as a psychic reading. Because this
Speaker 1: isn't just pet psychics. No, Like generally, if you go
Speaker 1: into a psychic, you are there because you want to
Speaker 1: believe and you are seeking an answer. Um, if a
Speaker 1: dude like you or I went into a pet psychic,
Speaker 1: we probably wouldn't have much luck because we would go
Speaker 1: in there looking to shoot holes in it. And uh,
Speaker 1: I did encourage Emily. I was like going there with
Speaker 1: an open mind. You know, I would go in there
Speaker 1: with an open mind. I see, I don't think I could.
Speaker 1: I would, I wasn't invited. I would try at the
Speaker 1: very least, I don't. I would if I were going
Speaker 1: to go in there just to poop poo. I just
Speaker 1: wouldn't go. Well, yeah, you know, because I mean, who
Speaker 1: wants to do that? Jerks? There are plenty of them
Speaker 1: out there too. No, that's true. Um, But Emily did
Speaker 1: say that she was she made a point to not
Speaker 1: reveal too much and to sort of watch out for
Speaker 1: those cold reading tricks. And she said, I didn't reveal
Speaker 1: a whole lot, and she she gave me back something,
Speaker 1: So she's a believer. Well, um that that whatever she
Speaker 1: spent on that so dropping the bucket. Compared to what
Speaker 1: people spend on their pets these days, it's a little
Speaker 1: crazy these days, not just for pet psychics but just
Speaker 1: in general. Yeah. Um, Americans spent sixty one billion dollars
Speaker 1: billion with a B dollars in two thousand on their pets.
Speaker 1: Sixty one billion dollars and that was up from thirty
Speaker 1: six billion in two thousand five and seventeen billion. What's
Speaker 1: the current number, sixty one billion? Boy? I mean things
Speaker 1: have really, I don't want to they gotten out of hand,
Speaker 1: but you definitely notice in the past decade more uh,
Speaker 1: doggy spas and stuff like that around. Well, there's supposedly
Speaker 1: more disposable income. Yeah. Uh, and there are more people
Speaker 1: who are not having kids. Oh so they're just dumping
Speaker 1: their money into their pets. Well, good get them off
Speaker 1: the street people, That's what I say. The point is
Speaker 1: for spending sixty one billion dollars on our pets, and
Speaker 1: it keeps increasing, almost doubling every few years, now every
Speaker 1: eight nine years. Um, petsichkicks are not going anywhere. No,
Speaker 1: they're not there. Here is stay. I've got one more
Speaker 1: um stat for you. There was a poll in two
Speaker 1: thousand eight that found that sixty seven of pet owners
Speaker 1: say they understand their animals purrs or barks or other noises,
Speaker 1: and said that when they speak, their pet understands them
Speaker 1: or at least they're intent. Um. And one in five
Speaker 1: owners claim they their pets understand each other completely like
Speaker 1: the two pets do. And one quarter of cat owners
Speaker 1: say they completely understood their pet sounds. Only dog owners
Speaker 1: said they were fluting barks. So I guess those are
Speaker 1: two different poles that are wildly different in their numbers.
Speaker 1: I think people can and animals since a lot of
Speaker 1: subtle micro expressions and body language, and that is just
Speaker 1: I mean, that is communication. So don't you think that's
Speaker 1: just a result of proximity around another living being, you know,
Speaker 1: just living with something, whether it's a person or an animal,
Speaker 1: like you get to know them in their mannerisms and
Speaker 1: like you can read them. And that is, like I said,
Speaker 1: micro expressions is a form of communication, I think. So
Speaker 1: it's not like I think, Sure you can communicate with
Speaker 1: your dog. Uh, but it may not be telepathically like
Speaker 1: a conversation. But if it feels as easy as a
Speaker 1: telepathic conversation, then you you've got it going on with
Speaker 1: your pet. Yeah. And again, if you want to go
Speaker 1: out and drop your dough on a pet psychic, more
Speaker 1: power to you. You probably get something out of it.
Speaker 1: Same here. Uh. If you want to know more about
Speaker 1: pet psychics, type those words into the search bar at
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. And since I said search parts,
Speaker 1: time for a listener mail. I'm gonna call this uh
Speaker 1: go Figgi Puddings remember that in our alive Probably well,
Speaker 1: I'll just go and read it the semester. Guys, I'm
Speaker 1: studying abroad in the UK at the University of Hertfordshire.
Speaker 1: During my travel exactly during my travels, your podcasts help
Speaker 1: me pass the time of plane and train rides while
Speaker 1: learning new things and hearing the American accent I miss
Speaker 1: so much. I just listened to a zero scientific for me.
Speaker 1: For funny, you mentioned Richard Wiseman from the University of
Speaker 1: Hertforshire and Josh said, go figgy Puddings, which was very funny.
Speaker 1: I couldn't have thought of that. You could not that quick.
Speaker 1: I was a little taken aback guy, since you're always
Speaker 1: dead on with your university team names, I regret to
Speaker 1: inform you that u H does not have a team
Speaker 1: called the Figgy Pudding Zo. They're actually the University of
Speaker 1: Hertfordshire Hurricanes. It was this guy's joking right now, I
Speaker 1: was joking. Oh yeah, well yeah, I think so boy,
Speaker 1: I think so Andrew he knew Josh's joking, right, please
Speaker 1: the Andrew. I think so. Um, we are the Hurricanes,
Speaker 1: which is a little weird since they have more figgy
Speaker 1: Puddings here than hurricanes. There's not a lot of hurricanes
Speaker 1: over there and there. No, I don't think so they
Speaker 1: tend to come this way. Yeah. The h Hurricanes are
Speaker 1: actually one of the best British American football teams around,
Speaker 1: with four national championships, but I think he corrected himself
Speaker 1: in a subsequent email. I think there were five and
Speaker 1: twelve division titles. Since just want to set the record straight.
Speaker 1: Also wanted to thank you guys for such a consistently
Speaker 1: great show, and that is Andrew Million, go Kaine, and Um.
Speaker 1: I think he I hope he knows you're joking. Well,
Speaker 1: he said he was taken aback. I think he was kidding.
Speaker 1: I hope I don't know that he was joking. Go
Speaker 1: with that. If you want to pull one over on
Speaker 1: me and Chuck, that's fine, we'll see what you got.
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