August 21, 2021 • 36 mins
In the early 21st century a trend of people who claim to be able to telepathically and clairvoyantly communicate with animals has grown. Today, the concept of visiting a pet psychic to find a lost pet, find out why a pet is behaving badly or even to learn if a pet is ready to be put to sleep is becoming more commonplace, but is there any basis to pet psychics' abilities? Join Josh and Chuck as they investigate the pet psychic phenomenon, in this classic episode.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Everybody. I'm throwing back all the way to January. This one,
How Pet Psychics Worked. Boy oh boy, this one was
not great, But sometimes I like to pick those just
as a reminder of the peaks and valleys of this
show over the years. So here we go with How
Pet Psychics Work. It's really not that bad. You'll probably
enjoy it. Just give it a listen and then give
(00:23):
us a review on yelp. Three stars. Please. Welcome to
Stuff you Should Know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey,
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles w. Chuck. Right,
it's me. I mentioned myself already. Have I mentioned Jerry? Yeah?
(00:48):
I think so these just keep getting worse and worse.
Not the cheery's over there. We're all in the Christmas spirit.
I think this is the last show we're recording this year, right, Yeah,
we're ahead of the game a little bit. Yea, So
we can have a cooshy couple of weeks. So, um,
we're hammered. Not true, No, not yet. You got your
(01:08):
coffee and I got my uh soda water laqua loquis
soda water. Yeah, my coffee is neither Spanish nor Irish.
Nor anything like that. What a Spanish coffee. Oh, it's
the better of the two. What is it? Um? You
get a little well, it depends on your on your recipe,
but you get a little bit of rum. You get
a little bit of triple sec or I can't remember
(01:34):
the other name for it, um, but good triple sec.
Put them together in a like a tempered sniff ter
or an Irish coffee class fire tempered. Make sure it's
tempered or else you're about to hurt yourself. Bust on't
you light it? Um? You light the it's got to
be high proof from you like the rum uh triple
(01:55):
sec combo. Just let it burn out for a second,
or you could blow it up if you don't want
to burn off too much of the alcohol. And you
had some espresso, some kalua, and then top it off
with a little whip cream and nut. Mike, man, it's
good stuff. And that's just one version. There's plenty of
other versions of Spanish coffee that makes Irish coffee look silly.
(02:16):
They're just like I don't put down Irish coffee, coffee
and drinking pretty much. It's also called the eye opener. Yeah,
I love the simplicity of the Irish just doing that
and I love that. Have you seen that country? I
don't know if it was a new one. Last week
I started watching The Simpsons again after like years off,
and it is. It's awesome back man, it is back.
(02:38):
There was one. I don't know if it was new
or not, but Crusty Um syndicated himself around the world
so he could make a lot more money. So there's
like a Jamaican Crusty. There's like a like all these
and then the Irish one. It was just like this
depressed alcoholic who would like sit at a at a
(02:58):
table on a chair and like the spare Room didn't
even do that really yeah, and like we just drink
and say like these you know, really bleak depressing things.
Is perfect and he ended up with his own like
stage show on Broadway and everything as the Irish Rusty. Yeah. Awesome,
that's a good one. Have to check that out. Yeah, uh,
(03:20):
that was my intro to pet psychics. Alright, you know
that cat sitting over there knew everything. I was about
to say, Oh yeah, not many people know we have
a studio. Cat, No, man, I wish we did. How
awesome would that be? Studio CA. Yeah, it'd be great
to get game in here, wouldn't I it's already pretty
warm in here as it is. A cat would love that. Yeah, um, alright,
(03:45):
So pet psychics factor fiction? Uh their fiction? Are we
debunking right out of the thing? Well, you know, I'm
I am of the forty and ilk alright, Like, I
think that using science as a means of avoiding scientific
investigation of something is a slap in the face of science,
(04:09):
and that science should be used to exhaust all avenues.
And just because we can't currently explain something using science
doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I think that there's a
whole echelon of stuff out there that does exist that
we can't quite explain yet. Yeah. Sure, I don't know
if pet psychics fall into that one, but I'm not
one to just overtly poo pooh something out of hand.
(04:31):
That said, I had a hard time like taking this
entire article seriously. Well, you want to know something, Yeah,
Emily just went to a pet psychic. I I thought
that there's probably like a nine chance that something like
that was going to come up. Yeah. Uh, you know,
(04:52):
we had to put Old Lucy down and Emily went
in the following week. We have a local pet psychic
and I'm there probably is, but um one near our house.
And she went and talk to this lady. Was it comforting?
It was? She said it was really interesting and um,
(05:13):
there was less talk about Lucy and more talk about
like me and our other animals. And um, she wouldn't
tell me a whole lot because she didn't want me
to poke fun at it, you know. And I tried
to be super supportive, and I was, Um, I thought
every instinct I had two. Uh, You're like, that sounds
(05:35):
like a great neat. How much was it? Um? But Emily,
and she asked me not to say this, so of
course I'm going to say it. She is getting books
now herself to read and because she feels like she
is very intuitive with animals and and she is very
intuitive with animals, and so she's gonna poke around there
(05:57):
and not to do it for a living or anything,
just do with your own at home, Yeah, just to
see if she can become more in tune with our animals. Uh.
And they are called animal intuitives sometimes or communicators, not
necessarily pet psychics, because that makes you sound a little crazy.
It seems to be like a whole gamut of people
that would fall under the umbrella of pet psychics. Yeah,
(06:20):
like a horse whisper or Caesar Milan. Some people might
say as an animal communicator that they're just maybe more
in tune with the signals that animals send out, and
they can send signals to animals. Um, but that I
fully believe. Okay, So that's totally different from what a
person who claims to be a pet psychic says is
(06:43):
going on. Well, yeah, but not always like this lady
Emily went to was sounded more like an animal intuitive
and communicator than uh, like a medium saying I'm talking
to Lucy. She's in a better place. She's playing with
your grandfather in heaven. Right. But there are pet psychics
that claim to do that, yeah, and charge people money
(07:05):
for that, Yeah, just like real psychics. Um, all right,
so let's get into it. Well I thought we already had,
Well I guess we have. Um. I just wanted to
go ahead and drop that bomb about Emily. Um, I
think you're in trouble. So pet psychics, now, she didn't listen.
They they claim, Depending on who they are, there is
(07:26):
a spectrum of pet psychics like you said that claim
certain abilities, but some claim that they can actually telepathically
communicate with animals in mind and like one step beyond intuition,
Like we're actually talking, right, Not only are we talking,
we're transferring images from one mind to another. UM. In
(07:47):
some cases they are talking like there's a pet psychic
UM who claims that when she speaks to animals, UM,
they respond to her in a childlike voice. That animals
have childlike voices, they speak like children, they do in
Disney movies, So why not UM? But the basically at
(08:10):
its most supernatural, I guess it's most extrasensory UM, pet psychics.
What they're claiming to do is a convergence of clairvoyance,
which is far sighte UM and telepathy, which is mind reading.
And they're putting these together. And then if you already
(08:31):
have a hard enough time swallowing that, you may have
an even harder time swallowing it when you realize that
they're saying they're doing this with animals, which may or
may not even be self aware. Yeah, Like it's tough too.
It's hard with humans to believe that someone might have
esp and telepathy and we speak the same language, so
(08:53):
it might be even a deeper reach to say that
you can do that with a dog. Let's say so,
kay Emily went to a pet psychic. Um. She went
after Lucy um passed on UM basically to find out
how Lucy was doing. Yeah. I think she was just
curious about the She had been curious for a while,
(09:15):
and this afforded her an opportunity to go see a
pet psychic. I think like it gave her a good reason. Okay,
so that's one reason people go see pet psychics UM
after the death of a pet. Another one is when
a pet is sick or injured or ailing. Tell me
if it's time to go. Um, which, man, that's gotta
be a lot to put on a pet psychic. That's
(09:37):
a lot to put on a vet, you know, although
I think vets are kind of like, yeah, let's just
go ahead and do it. No, that's not true. Um.
And then what if the what if the pet is
acting like a jerk all of a sudden. Yeah, that's
another reason people pets. My dog acting out, or maybe
my pet is lost. Can you tell me where my
pet is? Right? That's a little more of a niche thing.
(10:01):
Not all pet psychics will take on those cases, my
guess is because the success rate might not be great
and they don't want to you know, charge somebody for
something and not provide the service that they said they can. Yeah,
because I mean, unless you can talk to somebody into
giving up their bread for you just to say, yeah,
your dog will be home in a couple of weeks, yeah,
(10:23):
then you know, how are you gonna work that? Yeah,
you can't. But there are anecdotal success stories of locating
pets this way. If there weren't, this wouldn't be yeah
around and a skeptic will say that's just luck and coincidence,
like the dog was on its way home anyway, exactly,
This pet psychic didn't called to it with her mind,
(10:44):
that's right, Uh, psychics. Pet psychics say they UM use
electromagnetic energy to accomplish this, that there's this energy field
in the universe that science hasn't quite figured out yet,
but it exists, and we are able to pick up
on that energy and use that energy to speak to
your animals. UM, whether it's a childlike voice or like
(11:06):
I think most of them generally do it, and like
in pictures, which makes a little more sense to me. UM.
And this this this thing, this electromagnetic energy. There's this
guy who wrote a book. His name is Jay Alan Boone,
and he wrote a book called Kinship with All Life
and it apparently is the pet psychics Bible, and it's
(11:27):
um kind of his relationship with this German shepherd named Strongheart,
which was a Hollywood dog that he cared for starting
I think the nineteen thirties, um and who he became
uh telepathically linked with intuitively linked to um. And basically,
(11:48):
Jay Alan Boone wrote this book on how to communicate
with animals and and it he mentions that all things
are connected by this thing called the primal cause midi
Chlorean's right, and um, I think that's what the pet
psychic would say, Well, that's the electromagnetic energy. The point
is that since it binds all things, we can just
(12:09):
kind of use that too to connect to the mind
of another thing, human or animal. Right, because we're all
connected by this, right, It's a lovely thought. Uh. Animal
Planet actually had a show, yeah, for a little while
about ten years ago called the Pet Psychic and the
lady on there, what's her name, Fitzpatrick. Yes, she claimed
(12:31):
that she picked up this in childhood as a result
of a hearing loss um, although other people say they
pick it up as adults after studying it and not
necessarily born with a gift. But they just studied how
to be more in tune with animals, right, and apparently
a lot of them discovered that they had this gift
after they saw the pet psychic on Animal Planet. I
(12:53):
was that right, That's what Tracy says in this article. Okay,
I wonder what that sounds like one of those statements
the cheaty research on that. I don't know she do
a pole. Well, I think they definitely did kick off
a trend. If it didn't capitalize on it, it definitely
kicked it off. All right. So you go to your
pet psychic. You're gonna go into a room and they're
(13:14):
gonna do something like this, Uh, not exactly like this,
depending on their methods, but they're probably gonna like just
relax until you to calm down, and they will make
contact with the energy of the animal and then they
will actually try and contact the said animal telepathically, right,
(13:34):
like ask a question of the animal, or they'll they'll
they'll call its name or something and get its attention
to yeah, or have a picture a lot of times, like,
you don't need the animal there necessarily. In fact, a
lot of times I think the animal is not there
because why do you need the animal? Now you don't.
You've got the great cause, the primal cause exactly. So
they go like this with their mind. If they do,
(13:58):
and then they well, except whatever response they get, relay
that back to you, ask you some more questions or
if you have any more questions, and basically act as
the go between between you communicating with your pet. Like
just like you would think it goes down, your pet
is saying that there. Uh, they're not happy with the
new couch and that's why they're being on it or
(14:22):
ever since you uh took that promotion into middle management,
you've changed man. Yeah, and I'm not happy with this
new you. That's why I keep chewing your suits exactly. Um,
they are going to Uh. It's it's pretty controversial, as
we pointed out, because there isn't any hard science behind it.
(14:45):
There's no proof of this electromagnetic energy, and a lot
of people believe in energy. I mean, electromagnetic energy does exist, yeah,
not this kind of magnetic Yeah. I just fun to
make sure everyone knew that we believe in electro magnetic
but they haven't picked up they haven't proven that there's
any actual like sensory organ in people or animals that
allow them to tune into this energy. Does that make
(15:07):
more sense? Yeah, so so during these pet psychic sessions
(15:33):
when the when the the purpose of this normally is
to get to the bottom of a problem, say like
we said, or to get some sort of comfort, or
even for decision making. Um. The problem is when a
pet psychic asks an animal what's going on and the
(15:54):
animals thought to respond, well, this, I'm doing this because
of this. So beyond the telepathy, beyond the clairvoyance involved,
there's still the question of whether an animal is capable
of that higher level of reasoning and thought. Yeah, right,
that it would be aware of its own reasons for
(16:16):
its behavior. That in and of itself is a controversial
aspect of this whole topic. Yeah, that's self awareness. Like, Um,
a lot of animal intuitives believe that animals are basically
kind of like people. They just can't talk, they experience
the emotions there, they're self aware, um, and they're just
not trapped, but they're in an animal's body. Um. And
(16:40):
when you look at your pets. You may think they're
experiencing emotions, and it's a controversial subject because it's not
something you can prove. Well, it's been it's become more
and more proven over the years. Yeah, Like nowadays it
is accepted that animals can feel certain emotions. Yeah, especially
the basic ones like yeah, like stress, fear, fear, upsettedness. Yeah, um,
(17:05):
rage I think is one um lust, separation, distress. But
it's hard to define emotion period, much less than in
an animal. Right. But the the idea that um emotions
just belong to humans or even humans and higher primates
is is definitely faded. Um. We are aware that animals
(17:26):
can't experience basic emotions. They can probably experience even higher
emotions too. Like if you look at a dog and
your dog looks sad and it's sad because you're leaving,
you may be correct. You know your dog pretty well.
And we've reached the point where science is starting to
come to grips with the idea that yes, animals can
experience some higher emotions as well. Sure, And there was
(17:49):
actually a conference at Cambridge University in two thousand twelve,
and uh it was a pretty heavy hitting conference. Um,
like I mean, the people involved were no louches, and
they came up with the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness and
they basically said that, um, the the components that you
(18:10):
need to experience emotions and consciousness are not relegated to
the cortex, meaning it's not just humans that have that
are capable. They have the hardware for experiencing consciousness, right. Um.
They also said that if you artificially stimulate um uh,
(18:31):
the neural circuits that are responsible for different aspects of
consciousness and humans, you can stimulate the same things in
animals too, which suggests that they have the same equipment. Um,
you can also disrupt those circuits using hallucinogens and humans
and animals and since they have all the equipment all
(18:51):
the science point to, said this group of neuroscientists and
um other professionals. They said, there is a pretty good chain.
It's that it's not just humans who are experiencing consciousness.
The things that the trappings of consciousness, like higher emotions,
self awareness, the things that make us human. Animals might
have that make them animals. But the people who think
(19:15):
that if your dog is sad, you're probably right, are right.
Dog likes you around and it might be happy when
you're home, yeah, and sad when you leave. And the
whole reason that this has been a thing is simply
because humans haven't been able to figure out how to
accurately test what is an emotion in an an animal.
(19:38):
Because animals can't say I'm feeling like this right now.
We can be like, that's love. You're feeling love. Yeah,
like when a mother cares for puppies, it's showing it
looks like it's showing love. Or is it oxytocin hormone
in the body that says you need to care for
your young Is it love or care? Or does animal
(19:58):
realize it's it's love or care? Well, that's the big one,
because you can say we have that same exact neural
circuit and we react to oxytocin the exact same way.
So you know, if it's love for us, why isn't
it love for the animal? Well, the key is is
we think about it. We're thinking, I feel so good
(20:19):
about taking care of my baby. That means I love
my baby. That makes me even happier. That's called metic cognition.
That's where most people are drawing the line with animals
these days. They might be able to experience some pretty
high um emotions. They may be self aware, but the
ability to think about their emotions and the implications of
(20:41):
their emotions or think about thinking, that's metic cognition. And
not everybody agrees on that one. That's the new threshold
that we're at. It seems like for animals, whether or
not they're capable of metic cognition. So if an animal
sees itself in the mirror, knowses itself, is that self awareness, Yeah,
which would be a form of metic cognition, But that's
that's not proven. That's where a lot of people. You'll
(21:03):
lose a lot of people now, whereas ten years ago,
even saying that an animal could experience happiness or joy
um would have lost a lot of people. So who knows.
In ten years from now, maybe everyone will agree that
animals experienced madiccognition. Yeah, grief is definitely one I've seen
firsthand a lot. Yeah, we talked about it in the
Grief episode. Yeah. Um, And when we put Lucy down,
(21:26):
they recommend that we did in our house, they recommend
that the pet not see that act, but then they
come in afterward so they see the body and so
they can understand what's going on, and so they don't
spend time looking for that animal. And uh, we did
that with Buckley and Charlie and let them back in,
and uh, Charlie was stressed. We didn't think about it.
(21:47):
She was a feral dogs, so she gets stressed when
other people are in the house. So we forgot this
vet lady was in there. So Charlie's just stressed running around.
Buckley goes up Sniff's Lucy and it was really sad,
I'm sure. And he was different for about four or
five days, seem depressed to me. And when we would
take him on walks and come back, he would still
(22:07):
run around to all the rooms, I think looking for
Lucy because he never had done that before. He usually
just walks in and lays down, but he literally would
go to each room. Um. So I definitely think there's
there are things like grief, whether or not the dog
realizes it's grief, Like who cares? You know, That's what
I think. Yeah, I mean, it's still experiencing on that
(22:29):
virtually the same level, right, Yeah, and at its most
profound level, that gut experience of grief. Yeah, And I
think the whole the fine line here with investigating or
talking about whether or not animals can experience these things.
Is you're walking this edge where on one side you
have anthropocentrism, where you're just like, no, they can't, only
(22:53):
humans can. Humans are the greatest ever, and you're forgetting
that we're animals as well. Then the other side you
have anthropomorphizing, where you're attributing you know, human attributes to
animals unduly. So it's kind of like you have to
so happy because we're putting up the Christmas tree exactly.
Buckley is happy because we're in there having a good
(23:14):
time and drinking some magnag and like the music so
onward dancing right exactly. So you have to resist both
of those temptations to just kind of keep plodding along
down the line scientifically. But I think ultimately, as we
go down that line, we're going to finally come to
as a species, hopefully the idea that like, animals should
not be in zoos or tested on or whatever, because
(23:36):
they are a lot closer to us consciousness wise than
we currently understand or want to admit right now. Agreed. Um,
All right, well we're gonna talk a little bit about
pet psychics and like contradictions between them, UM, and what
might be going on here right after this message break. Okay,
(24:11):
so there are some contradictions. UM. If you go to
tin pet psychics who are probably gonna have ten different,
eleven opinions, eleven different stories about what's going on, which
is one reason it makes it hard to swallow for
some people. UM. Again, I feel like since we went
to break and came back, it's this is a good
time to read it. Write like I'm not I'm not
(24:34):
poo pooing intuitiveness, No, I'm not poo pooing UM. And
some people's ability a greater ability than others to really
kind of connect to animals and and and understand them
or um deal with them however you want to put it.
It's when it strays into telepathy and clairvoyance that UM,
(24:55):
I start to become skeptical. Yeah, I know what you mean.
And I think I think some people are more in
tune with other humans than others. Some people have their
heads up their butts and are completely absorbed in their
own little universe. Other people, I think, seek out UM
input from other things, whether it's people or animals. They're
(25:16):
always looking for something. UM. Just you know justin his mom. Carrie,
one of my favorite people, is one of the most
in tune intuitive people I've ever met in my life
because she's she's a studier of people like you can
see her man when there's a party going on, she'll
be sitting back and watching. Yeah. Yeah she's weird. No,
(25:38):
she's not weird at all. She's awesome. But she's she
watches and she's you know, I don't I don't know
if it's a gift as much as it is something
you can work on. Yeah, I think it remove your
head from your butt and pay attention. UM. So some contradictions,
like you might see a Fitzpatrick that says, um, your
animal ratted you out about something. You might go to
(26:00):
another Pet Sidekick that says animals would never do that,
they're loyal. So the story supposedly according to um Sonja
Fitzpatrick from the Pet Sidekick show, UM, animals are very
gossipy and um, they like to tell one another all
your secrets. That's hilarious to me. And she told the story.
(26:23):
She wrote a book called UM What the Animals Tell Me?
And she told the story about a turtle that she
was communicating with and the turtle told her that it
would love to have a fish friend as a pet.
So Sonia Fitzpatrick introduced a fish to this turtles tank
and the turtle was like, thanks, chump, and ate the fish.
(26:45):
And so she said, why did you eat the fish?
And the turtle said, well, I knew that if I
asked you for a fish to eat, you wouldn't give
it to me, So I just tricked you. Basically, So
animals are gossipy and wiley and have the potential to lie. Yeah,
you should not trust animals. Uh. Debbie McGillivray, she wrote
(27:05):
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Pets like a Communication. Um,
she's the one that said no, no no, no, animals are loyal,
They're innocent. They would never write you out, they would
never lie to you like that or embarrass you. So um.
It makes it tougher to swallow when you have people
saying these wildly different things, not about what they're picking up,
but the fact that no animals do this, No animals
(27:28):
do this, like, which is it right? But you could
say the same thing about humans, you know, like if
you hang out with certain humans, you can be like
some humans like humans gossip they'll they'll tell other people
all of your terrible secrets. Other people might have hung
out with the Waltons and they're like, no, humans are
all loyal, it's all. It's all about your perception and
your experience. That's right. So what might be going on
(27:50):
here is what's known as a cold reading. Yeah, the
actual any success or what appears to be success, Yeah,
telepathically among pet psychics, cold readings. Yeah. Esp people use
cold readings to explain that fortune telling, tarot card palm reading,
crystal balls, you name it. Uh. A skeptic will say
(28:12):
that what a cold reading is is the following. They
are maybe stating the obvious. Your cat loves to your cats,
telling me it loves to lay in the window and
look at the world outside. And the person goes, oh
my god, the wizard loves that. All cats love that exactly,
So that might happen in your reading. Um. They might
(28:35):
also use very vague language like, um, so he says,
your dog says something has changed around here, and you go, oh, yeah,
I just accepted this middle management promotion. And the pet
psychics says, yes, that's it. That that exactly, that's the
this new thing that's changed. And you said earlier that
your dog was chewing up your new shoes, and that's
(28:58):
why your dog is not happy with this change, so
he's chewing your shoes. I am a psychic. That's that's
how they finish every reading too. But they throw their
arms up in the area and shout that, Well, it's
interesting because what might be happening there is is your
dog might be chewing up your shoes because you did
get that job because you're working in extra fifteen hours
(29:19):
a week and your dog has separation anxiety, So ironically
it might be actually on the money. But uh, the
disconnect comes in when the psychic says that your dog
told him that exactly, Um what else? Um? Or about this?
Here's another way to state the obvious, your dog. I'm
(29:40):
looking at a picture of your dog and they chew
on their paws all the time, and say they itch
And that's because in the picture they have like a
bandage on their pall. Or you went in and I
forgot you said, my dog is chewing their paws all
the time. What's the deal with that? Like they'll they'll glean.
These bits have been formation without you maybe even necessarily
(30:02):
recognizing that by asking you questions and then they make
that part of their cold reading. But then asking questions
is another one too. It's fishing for details. It's like
I see that your dog is wearing a green and
then you say blue blue collar. Your dog is wearing
a blue collar. Um, So every time something is that
(30:27):
that you indicate something is correct, it'll be restated, rephrased,
respoken as if the psychic is saying it, and you're
you're so unwrapped in this whole thing that you're just
missing the fact that you're feeding them the information that
they're giving to you as a psychic reading. Because this
isn't just pet psychics. No, Like generally, if you go
(30:49):
into a psychic, you are there because you want to
believe and you are seeking an answer. Um, if a
dude like you or I went into a pet psychic,
we probably wouldn't have much luck because we would go
in there looking to shoot holes in it. And uh,
I did encourage Emily. I was like going there with
an open mind. You know, I would go in there
with an open mind. I see, I don't think I could.
I would, I wasn't invited. I would try at the
(31:11):
very least, I don't. I would if I were going
to go in there just to poop poo. I just
wouldn't go. Well, yeah, you know, because I mean, who
wants to do that? Jerks? There are plenty of them
out there too. No, that's true. Um, But Emily did
say that she was she made a point to not
reveal too much and to sort of watch out for
those cold reading tricks. And she said, I didn't reveal
(31:35):
a whole lot, and she she gave me back something,
So she's a believer. Well, um that that whatever she
spent on that so dropping the bucket. Compared to what
people spend on their pets these days, it's a little
crazy these days, not just for pet psychics but just
in general. Yeah. Um, Americans spent sixty one billion dollars
(31:57):
billion with a B dollars in two thousand on their pets.
Sixty one billion dollars and that was up from thirty
six billion in two thousand five and seventeen billion. What's
the current number, sixty one billion? Boy? I mean things
have really, I don't want to they gotten out of hand,
(32:20):
but you definitely notice in the past decade more uh,
doggy spas and stuff like that around. Well, there's supposedly
more disposable income. Yeah. Uh, and there are more people
who are not having kids. Oh so they're just dumping
their money into their pets. Well, good get them off
the street people, That's what I say. The point is
(32:41):
for spending sixty one billion dollars on our pets, and
it keeps increasing, almost doubling every few years, now every
eight nine years. Um, petsichkicks are not going anywhere. No,
they're not there. Here is stay. I've got one more
um stat for you. There was a poll in two
thousand eight that found that sixty seven of pet owners
say they understand their animals purrs or barks or other noises,
(33:04):
and said that when they speak, their pet understands them
or at least they're intent. Um. And one in five
owners claim they their pets understand each other completely like
the two pets do. And one quarter of cat owners
say they completely understood their pet sounds. Only dog owners
(33:25):
said they were fluting barks. So I guess those are
two different poles that are wildly different in their numbers.
I think people can and animals since a lot of
subtle micro expressions and body language, and that is just
I mean, that is communication. So don't you think that's
(33:46):
just a result of proximity around another living being, you know,
just living with something, whether it's a person or an animal,
like you get to know them in their mannerisms and
like you can read them. And that is, like I said,
micro expressions is a form of communication, I think. So
it's not like I think, Sure you can communicate with
your dog. Uh, but it may not be telepathically like
(34:09):
a conversation. But if it feels as easy as a
telepathic conversation, then you you've got it going on with
your pet. Yeah. And again, if you want to go
out and drop your dough on a pet psychic, more
power to you. You probably get something out of it.
Same here. Uh. If you want to know more about
pet psychics, type those words into the search bar at
how stuff works dot com. And since I said search parts,
(34:30):
time for a listener mail. I'm gonna call this uh
go Figgi Puddings remember that in our alive Probably well,
I'll just go and read it the semester. Guys, I'm
studying abroad in the UK at the University of Hertfordshire.
During my travel exactly during my travels, your podcasts help
me pass the time of plane and train rides while
(34:53):
learning new things and hearing the American accent I miss
so much. I just listened to a zero scientific for me.
For funny, you mentioned Richard Wiseman from the University of
Hertforshire and Josh said, go figgy Puddings, which was very funny.
I couldn't have thought of that. You could not that quick.
I was a little taken aback guy, since you're always
(35:14):
dead on with your university team names, I regret to
inform you that u H does not have a team
called the Figgy Pudding Zo. They're actually the University of
Hertfordshire Hurricanes. It was this guy's joking right now, I
was joking. Oh yeah, well yeah, I think so boy,
I think so Andrew he knew Josh's joking, right, please
the Andrew. I think so. Um, we are the Hurricanes,
(35:36):
which is a little weird since they have more figgy
Puddings here than hurricanes. There's not a lot of hurricanes
over there and there. No, I don't think so they
tend to come this way. Yeah. The h Hurricanes are
actually one of the best British American football teams around,
with four national championships, but I think he corrected himself
in a subsequent email. I think there were five and
twelve division titles. Since just want to set the record straight.
(36:00):
Also wanted to thank you guys for such a consistently
great show, and that is Andrew Million, go Kaine, and Um.
I think he I hope he knows you're joking. Well,
he said he was taken aback. I think he was kidding.
I hope I don't know that he was joking. Go
with that. If you want to pull one over on
(36:22):
me and Chuck, that's fine, we'll see what you got.
You can tweet to us at s y SK podcast.
You can join us on Facebook dot com slash Stuff
you Should Know. You can send us an email to
stuff podcast how Stuff works dot com. Stuff you Should
Know is a production of I Heart Radio. For more
podcasts my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
(36:44):
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Everybody. I'm throwing back all the way to January. This one,
How Pet Psychics Worked. Boy oh boy, this one was
not great, But sometimes I like to pick those just
as a reminder of the peaks and valleys of this
show over the years. So here we go with How
Pet Psychics Work. It's really not that bad. You'll probably
enjoy it. Just give it a listen and then give
(00:23):
us a review on yelp. Three stars. Please. Welcome to
Stuff you Should Know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey,
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles w. Chuck. Right,
it's me. I mentioned myself already. Have I mentioned Jerry? Yeah?
(00:48):
I think so these just keep getting worse and worse.
Not the cheery's over there. We're all in the Christmas spirit.
I think this is the last show we're recording this year, right, Yeah,
we're ahead of the game a little bit. Yea, So
we can have a cooshy couple of weeks. So, um,
we're hammered. Not true, No, not yet. You got your
(01:08):
coffee and I got my uh soda water laqua loquis
soda water. Yeah, my coffee is neither Spanish nor Irish.
Nor anything like that. What a Spanish coffee. Oh, it's
the better of the two. What is it? Um? You
get a little well, it depends on your on your recipe,
but you get a little bit of rum. You get
a little bit of triple sec or I can't remember
(01:34):
the other name for it, um, but good triple sec.
Put them together in a like a tempered sniff ter
or an Irish coffee class fire tempered. Make sure it's
tempered or else you're about to hurt yourself. Bust on't
you light it? Um? You light the it's got to
be high proof from you like the rum uh triple
(01:55):
sec combo. Just let it burn out for a second,
or you could blow it up if you don't want
to burn off too much of the alcohol. And you
had some espresso, some kalua, and then top it off
with a little whip cream and nut. Mike, man, it's
good stuff. And that's just one version. There's plenty of
other versions of Spanish coffee that makes Irish coffee look silly.
(02:16):
They're just like I don't put down Irish coffee, coffee
and drinking pretty much. It's also called the eye opener. Yeah,
I love the simplicity of the Irish just doing that
and I love that. Have you seen that country? I
don't know if it was a new one. Last week
I started watching The Simpsons again after like years off,
and it is. It's awesome back man, it is back.
(02:38):
There was one. I don't know if it was new
or not, but Crusty Um syndicated himself around the world
so he could make a lot more money. So there's
like a Jamaican Crusty. There's like a like all these
and then the Irish one. It was just like this
depressed alcoholic who would like sit at a at a
(02:58):
table on a chair and like the spare Room didn't
even do that really yeah, and like we just drink
and say like these you know, really bleak depressing things.
Is perfect and he ended up with his own like
stage show on Broadway and everything as the Irish Rusty. Yeah. Awesome,
that's a good one. Have to check that out. Yeah, uh,
(03:20):
that was my intro to pet psychics. Alright, you know
that cat sitting over there knew everything. I was about
to say, Oh yeah, not many people know we have
a studio. Cat, No, man, I wish we did. How
awesome would that be? Studio CA. Yeah, it'd be great
to get game in here, wouldn't I it's already pretty
warm in here as it is. A cat would love that. Yeah, um, alright,
(03:45):
So pet psychics factor fiction? Uh their fiction? Are we
debunking right out of the thing? Well, you know, I'm
I am of the forty and ilk alright, Like, I
think that using science as a means of avoiding scientific
investigation of something is a slap in the face of science,
(04:09):
and that science should be used to exhaust all avenues.
And just because we can't currently explain something using science
doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I think that there's a
whole echelon of stuff out there that does exist that
we can't quite explain yet. Yeah. Sure, I don't know
if pet psychics fall into that one, but I'm not
one to just overtly poo pooh something out of hand.
(04:31):
That said, I had a hard time like taking this
entire article seriously. Well, you want to know something, Yeah,
Emily just went to a pet psychic. I I thought
that there's probably like a nine chance that something like
that was going to come up. Yeah. Uh, you know,
(04:52):
we had to put Old Lucy down and Emily went
in the following week. We have a local pet psychic
and I'm there probably is, but um one near our house.
And she went and talk to this lady. Was it comforting?
It was? She said it was really interesting and um,
(05:13):
there was less talk about Lucy and more talk about
like me and our other animals. And um, she wouldn't
tell me a whole lot because she didn't want me
to poke fun at it, you know. And I tried
to be super supportive, and I was, Um, I thought
every instinct I had two. Uh, You're like, that sounds
(05:35):
like a great neat. How much was it? Um? But Emily,
and she asked me not to say this, so of
course I'm going to say it. She is getting books
now herself to read and because she feels like she
is very intuitive with animals and and she is very
intuitive with animals, and so she's gonna poke around there
(05:57):
and not to do it for a living or anything,
just do with your own at home, Yeah, just to
see if she can become more in tune with our animals. Uh.
And they are called animal intuitives sometimes or communicators, not
necessarily pet psychics, because that makes you sound a little crazy.
It seems to be like a whole gamut of people
that would fall under the umbrella of pet psychics. Yeah,
(06:20):
like a horse whisper or Caesar Milan. Some people might
say as an animal communicator that they're just maybe more
in tune with the signals that animals send out, and
they can send signals to animals. Um, but that I
fully believe. Okay, So that's totally different from what a
person who claims to be a pet psychic says is
(06:43):
going on. Well, yeah, but not always like this lady
Emily went to was sounded more like an animal intuitive
and communicator than uh, like a medium saying I'm talking
to Lucy. She's in a better place. She's playing with
your grandfather in heaven. Right. But there are pet psychics
that claim to do that, yeah, and charge people money
(07:05):
for that, Yeah, just like real psychics. Um, all right,
so let's get into it. Well I thought we already had,
Well I guess we have. Um. I just wanted to
go ahead and drop that bomb about Emily. Um, I
think you're in trouble. So pet psychics, now, she didn't listen.
They they claim, Depending on who they are, there is
(07:26):
a spectrum of pet psychics like you said that claim
certain abilities, but some claim that they can actually telepathically
communicate with animals in mind and like one step beyond intuition,
Like we're actually talking, right, Not only are we talking,
we're transferring images from one mind to another. UM. In
(07:47):
some cases they are talking like there's a pet psychic
UM who claims that when she speaks to animals, UM,
they respond to her in a childlike voice. That animals
have childlike voices, they speak like children, they do in
Disney movies, So why not UM? But the basically at
(08:10):
its most supernatural, I guess it's most extrasensory UM, pet psychics.
What they're claiming to do is a convergence of clairvoyance,
which is far sighte UM and telepathy, which is mind reading.
And they're putting these together. And then if you already
(08:31):
have a hard enough time swallowing that, you may have
an even harder time swallowing it when you realize that
they're saying they're doing this with animals, which may or
may not even be self aware. Yeah, Like it's tough too.
It's hard with humans to believe that someone might have
esp and telepathy and we speak the same language, so
(08:53):
it might be even a deeper reach to say that
you can do that with a dog. Let's say so,
kay Emily went to a pet psychic. Um. She went
after Lucy um passed on UM basically to find out
how Lucy was doing. Yeah. I think she was just
curious about the She had been curious for a while,
(09:15):
and this afforded her an opportunity to go see a
pet psychic. I think like it gave her a good reason. Okay,
so that's one reason people go see pet psychics UM
after the death of a pet. Another one is when
a pet is sick or injured or ailing. Tell me
if it's time to go. Um, which, man, that's gotta
be a lot to put on a pet psychic. That's
(09:37):
a lot to put on a vet, you know, although
I think vets are kind of like, yeah, let's just
go ahead and do it. No, that's not true. Um.
And then what if the what if the pet is
acting like a jerk all of a sudden. Yeah, that's
another reason people pets. My dog acting out, or maybe
my pet is lost. Can you tell me where my
pet is? Right? That's a little more of a niche thing.
(10:01):
Not all pet psychics will take on those cases, my
guess is because the success rate might not be great
and they don't want to you know, charge somebody for
something and not provide the service that they said they can. Yeah,
because I mean, unless you can talk to somebody into
giving up their bread for you just to say, yeah,
your dog will be home in a couple of weeks, yeah,
(10:23):
then you know, how are you gonna work that? Yeah,
you can't. But there are anecdotal success stories of locating
pets this way. If there weren't, this wouldn't be yeah
around and a skeptic will say that's just luck and coincidence,
like the dog was on its way home anyway, exactly,
This pet psychic didn't called to it with her mind,
(10:44):
that's right, Uh, psychics. Pet psychics say they UM use
electromagnetic energy to accomplish this, that there's this energy field
in the universe that science hasn't quite figured out yet,
but it exists, and we are able to pick up
on that energy and use that energy to speak to
your animals. UM, whether it's a childlike voice or like
(11:06):
I think most of them generally do it, and like
in pictures, which makes a little more sense to me. UM.
And this this this thing, this electromagnetic energy. There's this
guy who wrote a book. His name is Jay Alan Boone,
and he wrote a book called Kinship with All Life
and it apparently is the pet psychics Bible, and it's
(11:27):
um kind of his relationship with this German shepherd named Strongheart,
which was a Hollywood dog that he cared for starting
I think the nineteen thirties, um and who he became
uh telepathically linked with intuitively linked to um. And basically,
(11:48):
Jay Alan Boone wrote this book on how to communicate
with animals and and it he mentions that all things
are connected by this thing called the primal cause midi
Chlorean's right, and um, I think that's what the pet
psychic would say, Well, that's the electromagnetic energy. The point
is that since it binds all things, we can just
(12:09):
kind of use that too to connect to the mind
of another thing, human or animal. Right, because we're all
connected by this, right, It's a lovely thought. Uh. Animal
Planet actually had a show, yeah, for a little while
about ten years ago called the Pet Psychic and the
lady on there, what's her name, Fitzpatrick. Yes, she claimed
(12:31):
that she picked up this in childhood as a result
of a hearing loss um, although other people say they
pick it up as adults after studying it and not
necessarily born with a gift. But they just studied how
to be more in tune with animals, right, and apparently
a lot of them discovered that they had this gift
after they saw the pet psychic on Animal Planet. I
(12:53):
was that right, That's what Tracy says in this article. Okay,
I wonder what that sounds like one of those statements
the cheaty research on that. I don't know she do
a pole. Well, I think they definitely did kick off
a trend. If it didn't capitalize on it, it definitely
kicked it off. All right. So you go to your
pet psychic. You're gonna go into a room and they're
(13:14):
gonna do something like this, Uh, not exactly like this,
depending on their methods, but they're probably gonna like just
relax until you to calm down, and they will make
contact with the energy of the animal and then they
will actually try and contact the said animal telepathically, right,
(13:34):
like ask a question of the animal, or they'll they'll
they'll call its name or something and get its attention
to yeah, or have a picture a lot of times, like,
you don't need the animal there necessarily. In fact, a
lot of times I think the animal is not there
because why do you need the animal? Now you don't.
You've got the great cause, the primal cause exactly. So
they go like this with their mind. If they do,
(13:58):
and then they well, except whatever response they get, relay
that back to you, ask you some more questions or
if you have any more questions, and basically act as
the go between between you communicating with your pet. Like
just like you would think it goes down, your pet
is saying that there. Uh, they're not happy with the
new couch and that's why they're being on it or
(14:22):
ever since you uh took that promotion into middle management,
you've changed man. Yeah, and I'm not happy with this
new you. That's why I keep chewing your suits exactly. Um,
they are going to Uh. It's it's pretty controversial, as
we pointed out, because there isn't any hard science behind it.
(14:45):
There's no proof of this electromagnetic energy, and a lot
of people believe in energy. I mean, electromagnetic energy does exist, yeah,
not this kind of magnetic Yeah. I just fun to
make sure everyone knew that we believe in electro magnetic
but they haven't picked up they haven't proven that there's
any actual like sensory organ in people or animals that
allow them to tune into this energy. Does that make
(15:07):
more sense? Yeah, so so during these pet psychic sessions
(15:33):
when the when the the purpose of this normally is
to get to the bottom of a problem, say like
we said, or to get some sort of comfort, or
even for decision making. Um. The problem is when a
pet psychic asks an animal what's going on and the
(15:54):
animals thought to respond, well, this, I'm doing this because
of this. So beyond the telepathy, beyond the clairvoyance involved,
there's still the question of whether an animal is capable
of that higher level of reasoning and thought. Yeah, right,
that it would be aware of its own reasons for
(16:16):
its behavior. That in and of itself is a controversial
aspect of this whole topic. Yeah, that's self awareness. Like, Um,
a lot of animal intuitives believe that animals are basically
kind of like people. They just can't talk, they experience
the emotions there, they're self aware, um, and they're just
not trapped, but they're in an animal's body. Um. And
(16:40):
when you look at your pets. You may think they're
experiencing emotions, and it's a controversial subject because it's not
something you can prove. Well, it's been it's become more
and more proven over the years. Yeah, Like nowadays it
is accepted that animals can feel certain emotions. Yeah, especially
the basic ones like yeah, like stress, fear, fear, upsettedness. Yeah, um,
(17:05):
rage I think is one um lust, separation, distress. But
it's hard to define emotion period, much less than in
an animal. Right. But the the idea that um emotions
just belong to humans or even humans and higher primates
is is definitely faded. Um. We are aware that animals
(17:26):
can't experience basic emotions. They can probably experience even higher
emotions too. Like if you look at a dog and
your dog looks sad and it's sad because you're leaving,
you may be correct. You know your dog pretty well.
And we've reached the point where science is starting to
come to grips with the idea that yes, animals can
experience some higher emotions as well. Sure, And there was
(17:49):
actually a conference at Cambridge University in two thousand twelve,
and uh it was a pretty heavy hitting conference. Um,
like I mean, the people involved were no louches, and
they came up with the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness and
they basically said that, um, the the components that you
(18:10):
need to experience emotions and consciousness are not relegated to
the cortex, meaning it's not just humans that have that
are capable. They have the hardware for experiencing consciousness, right. Um.
They also said that if you artificially stimulate um uh,
(18:31):
the neural circuits that are responsible for different aspects of
consciousness and humans, you can stimulate the same things in
animals too, which suggests that they have the same equipment. Um,
you can also disrupt those circuits using hallucinogens and humans
and animals and since they have all the equipment all
(18:51):
the science point to, said this group of neuroscientists and
um other professionals. They said, there is a pretty good chain.
It's that it's not just humans who are experiencing consciousness.
The things that the trappings of consciousness, like higher emotions,
self awareness, the things that make us human. Animals might
have that make them animals. But the people who think
(19:15):
that if your dog is sad, you're probably right, are right.
Dog likes you around and it might be happy when
you're home, yeah, and sad when you leave. And the
whole reason that this has been a thing is simply
because humans haven't been able to figure out how to
accurately test what is an emotion in an an animal.
(19:38):
Because animals can't say I'm feeling like this right now.
We can be like, that's love. You're feeling love. Yeah,
like when a mother cares for puppies, it's showing it
looks like it's showing love. Or is it oxytocin hormone
in the body that says you need to care for
your young Is it love or care? Or does animal
(19:58):
realize it's it's love or care? Well, that's the big one,
because you can say we have that same exact neural
circuit and we react to oxytocin the exact same way.
So you know, if it's love for us, why isn't
it love for the animal? Well, the key is is
we think about it. We're thinking, I feel so good
(20:19):
about taking care of my baby. That means I love
my baby. That makes me even happier. That's called metic cognition.
That's where most people are drawing the line with animals
these days. They might be able to experience some pretty
high um emotions. They may be self aware, but the
ability to think about their emotions and the implications of
(20:41):
their emotions or think about thinking, that's metic cognition. And
not everybody agrees on that one. That's the new threshold
that we're at. It seems like for animals, whether or
not they're capable of metic cognition. So if an animal
sees itself in the mirror, knowses itself, is that self awareness, Yeah,
which would be a form of metic cognition, But that's
that's not proven. That's where a lot of people. You'll
(21:03):
lose a lot of people now, whereas ten years ago,
even saying that an animal could experience happiness or joy
um would have lost a lot of people. So who knows.
In ten years from now, maybe everyone will agree that
animals experienced madiccognition. Yeah, grief is definitely one I've seen
firsthand a lot. Yeah, we talked about it in the
Grief episode. Yeah. Um, And when we put Lucy down,
(21:26):
they recommend that we did in our house, they recommend
that the pet not see that act, but then they
come in afterward so they see the body and so
they can understand what's going on, and so they don't
spend time looking for that animal. And uh, we did
that with Buckley and Charlie and let them back in,
and uh, Charlie was stressed. We didn't think about it.
(21:47):
She was a feral dogs, so she gets stressed when
other people are in the house. So we forgot this
vet lady was in there. So Charlie's just stressed running around.
Buckley goes up Sniff's Lucy and it was really sad,
I'm sure. And he was different for about four or
five days, seem depressed to me. And when we would
take him on walks and come back, he would still
(22:07):
run around to all the rooms, I think looking for
Lucy because he never had done that before. He usually
just walks in and lays down, but he literally would
go to each room. Um. So I definitely think there's
there are things like grief, whether or not the dog
realizes it's grief, Like who cares? You know, That's what
I think. Yeah, I mean, it's still experiencing on that
(22:29):
virtually the same level, right, Yeah, and at its most
profound level, that gut experience of grief. Yeah, And I
think the whole the fine line here with investigating or
talking about whether or not animals can experience these things.
Is you're walking this edge where on one side you
have anthropocentrism, where you're just like, no, they can't, only
(22:53):
humans can. Humans are the greatest ever, and you're forgetting
that we're animals as well. Then the other side you
have anthropomorphizing, where you're attributing you know, human attributes to
animals unduly. So it's kind of like you have to
so happy because we're putting up the Christmas tree exactly.
Buckley is happy because we're in there having a good
(23:14):
time and drinking some magnag and like the music so
onward dancing right exactly. So you have to resist both
of those temptations to just kind of keep plodding along
down the line scientifically. But I think ultimately, as we
go down that line, we're going to finally come to
as a species, hopefully the idea that like, animals should
not be in zoos or tested on or whatever, because
(23:36):
they are a lot closer to us consciousness wise than
we currently understand or want to admit right now. Agreed. Um,
All right, well we're gonna talk a little bit about
pet psychics and like contradictions between them, UM, and what
might be going on here right after this message break. Okay,
(24:11):
so there are some contradictions. UM. If you go to
tin pet psychics who are probably gonna have ten different,
eleven opinions, eleven different stories about what's going on, which
is one reason it makes it hard to swallow for
some people. UM. Again, I feel like since we went
to break and came back, it's this is a good
time to read it. Write like I'm not I'm not
(24:34):
poo pooing intuitiveness, No, I'm not poo pooing UM. And
some people's ability a greater ability than others to really
kind of connect to animals and and and understand them
or um deal with them however you want to put it.
It's when it strays into telepathy and clairvoyance that UM,
(24:55):
I start to become skeptical. Yeah, I know what you mean.
And I think I think some people are more in
tune with other humans than others. Some people have their
heads up their butts and are completely absorbed in their
own little universe. Other people, I think, seek out UM
input from other things, whether it's people or animals. They're
(25:16):
always looking for something. UM. Just you know justin his mom. Carrie,
one of my favorite people, is one of the most
in tune intuitive people I've ever met in my life
because she's she's a studier of people like you can
see her man when there's a party going on, she'll
be sitting back and watching. Yeah. Yeah she's weird. No,
(25:38):
she's not weird at all. She's awesome. But she's she
watches and she's you know, I don't I don't know
if it's a gift as much as it is something
you can work on. Yeah, I think it remove your
head from your butt and pay attention. UM. So some contradictions,
like you might see a Fitzpatrick that says, um, your
animal ratted you out about something. You might go to
(26:00):
another Pet Sidekick that says animals would never do that,
they're loyal. So the story supposedly according to um Sonja
Fitzpatrick from the Pet Sidekick show, UM, animals are very
gossipy and um, they like to tell one another all
your secrets. That's hilarious to me. And she told the story.
(26:23):
She wrote a book called UM What the Animals Tell Me?
And she told the story about a turtle that she
was communicating with and the turtle told her that it
would love to have a fish friend as a pet.
So Sonia Fitzpatrick introduced a fish to this turtles tank
and the turtle was like, thanks, chump, and ate the fish.
(26:45):
And so she said, why did you eat the fish?
And the turtle said, well, I knew that if I
asked you for a fish to eat, you wouldn't give
it to me, So I just tricked you. Basically, So
animals are gossipy and wiley and have the potential to lie. Yeah,
you should not trust animals. Uh. Debbie McGillivray, she wrote
(27:05):
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Pets like a Communication. Um,
she's the one that said no, no no, no, animals are loyal,
They're innocent. They would never write you out, they would
never lie to you like that or embarrass you. So um.
It makes it tougher to swallow when you have people
saying these wildly different things, not about what they're picking up,
but the fact that no animals do this, No animals
(27:28):
do this, like, which is it right? But you could
say the same thing about humans, you know, like if
you hang out with certain humans, you can be like
some humans like humans gossip they'll they'll tell other people
all of your terrible secrets. Other people might have hung
out with the Waltons and they're like, no, humans are
all loyal, it's all. It's all about your perception and
your experience. That's right. So what might be going on
(27:50):
here is what's known as a cold reading. Yeah, the
actual any success or what appears to be success, Yeah,
telepathically among pet psychics, cold readings. Yeah. Esp people use
cold readings to explain that fortune telling, tarot card palm reading,
crystal balls, you name it. Uh. A skeptic will say
(28:12):
that what a cold reading is is the following. They
are maybe stating the obvious. Your cat loves to your cats,
telling me it loves to lay in the window and
look at the world outside. And the person goes, oh
my god, the wizard loves that. All cats love that exactly,
So that might happen in your reading. Um. They might
(28:35):
also use very vague language like, um, so he says,
your dog says something has changed around here, and you go, oh, yeah,
I just accepted this middle management promotion. And the pet
psychics says, yes, that's it. That that exactly, that's the
this new thing that's changed. And you said earlier that
your dog was chewing up your new shoes, and that's
(28:58):
why your dog is not happy with this change, so
he's chewing your shoes. I am a psychic. That's that's
how they finish every reading too. But they throw their
arms up in the area and shout that, Well, it's
interesting because what might be happening there is is your
dog might be chewing up your shoes because you did
get that job because you're working in extra fifteen hours
(29:19):
a week and your dog has separation anxiety, So ironically
it might be actually on the money. But uh, the
disconnect comes in when the psychic says that your dog
told him that exactly, Um what else? Um? Or about this?
Here's another way to state the obvious, your dog. I'm
(29:40):
looking at a picture of your dog and they chew
on their paws all the time, and say they itch
And that's because in the picture they have like a
bandage on their pall. Or you went in and I
forgot you said, my dog is chewing their paws all
the time. What's the deal with that? Like they'll they'll glean.
These bits have been formation without you maybe even necessarily
(30:02):
recognizing that by asking you questions and then they make
that part of their cold reading. But then asking questions
is another one too. It's fishing for details. It's like
I see that your dog is wearing a green and
then you say blue blue collar. Your dog is wearing
a blue collar. Um, So every time something is that
(30:27):
that you indicate something is correct, it'll be restated, rephrased,
respoken as if the psychic is saying it, and you're
you're so unwrapped in this whole thing that you're just
missing the fact that you're feeding them the information that
they're giving to you as a psychic reading. Because this
isn't just pet psychics. No, Like generally, if you go
(30:49):
into a psychic, you are there because you want to
believe and you are seeking an answer. Um, if a
dude like you or I went into a pet psychic,
we probably wouldn't have much luck because we would go
in there looking to shoot holes in it. And uh,
I did encourage Emily. I was like going there with
an open mind. You know, I would go in there
with an open mind. I see, I don't think I could.
I would, I wasn't invited. I would try at the
(31:11):
very least, I don't. I would if I were going
to go in there just to poop poo. I just
wouldn't go. Well, yeah, you know, because I mean, who
wants to do that? Jerks? There are plenty of them
out there too. No, that's true. Um, But Emily did
say that she was she made a point to not
reveal too much and to sort of watch out for
those cold reading tricks. And she said, I didn't reveal
(31:35):
a whole lot, and she she gave me back something,
So she's a believer. Well, um that that whatever she
spent on that so dropping the bucket. Compared to what
people spend on their pets these days, it's a little
crazy these days, not just for pet psychics but just
in general. Yeah. Um, Americans spent sixty one billion dollars
(31:57):
billion with a B dollars in two thousand on their pets.
Sixty one billion dollars and that was up from thirty
six billion in two thousand five and seventeen billion. What's
the current number, sixty one billion? Boy? I mean things
have really, I don't want to they gotten out of hand,
(32:20):
but you definitely notice in the past decade more uh,
doggy spas and stuff like that around. Well, there's supposedly
more disposable income. Yeah. Uh, and there are more people
who are not having kids. Oh so they're just dumping
their money into their pets. Well, good get them off
the street people, That's what I say. The point is
(32:41):
for spending sixty one billion dollars on our pets, and
it keeps increasing, almost doubling every few years, now every
eight nine years. Um, petsichkicks are not going anywhere. No,
they're not there. Here is stay. I've got one more
um stat for you. There was a poll in two
thousand eight that found that sixty seven of pet owners
say they understand their animals purrs or barks or other noises,
(33:04):
and said that when they speak, their pet understands them
or at least they're intent. Um. And one in five
owners claim they their pets understand each other completely like
the two pets do. And one quarter of cat owners
say they completely understood their pet sounds. Only dog owners
(33:25):
said they were fluting barks. So I guess those are
two different poles that are wildly different in their numbers.
I think people can and animals since a lot of
subtle micro expressions and body language, and that is just
I mean, that is communication. So don't you think that's
(33:46):
just a result of proximity around another living being, you know,
just living with something, whether it's a person or an animal,
like you get to know them in their mannerisms and
like you can read them. And that is, like I said,
micro expressions is a form of communication, I think. So
it's not like I think, Sure you can communicate with
your dog. Uh, but it may not be telepathically like
(34:09):
a conversation. But if it feels as easy as a
telepathic conversation, then you you've got it going on with
your pet. Yeah. And again, if you want to go
out and drop your dough on a pet psychic, more
power to you. You probably get something out of it.
Same here. Uh. If you want to know more about
pet psychics, type those words into the search bar at
how stuff works dot com. And since I said search parts,
(34:30):
time for a listener mail. I'm gonna call this uh
go Figgi Puddings remember that in our alive Probably well,
I'll just go and read it the semester. Guys, I'm
studying abroad in the UK at the University of Hertfordshire.
During my travel exactly during my travels, your podcasts help
me pass the time of plane and train rides while
(34:53):
learning new things and hearing the American accent I miss
so much. I just listened to a zero scientific for me.
For funny, you mentioned Richard Wiseman from the University of
Hertforshire and Josh said, go figgy Puddings, which was very funny.
I couldn't have thought of that. You could not that quick.
I was a little taken aback guy, since you're always
(35:14):
dead on with your university team names, I regret to
inform you that u H does not have a team
called the Figgy Pudding Zo. They're actually the University of
Hertfordshire Hurricanes. It was this guy's joking right now, I
was joking. Oh yeah, well yeah, I think so boy,
I think so Andrew he knew Josh's joking, right, please
the Andrew. I think so. Um, we are the Hurricanes,
(35:36):
which is a little weird since they have more figgy
Puddings here than hurricanes. There's not a lot of hurricanes
over there and there. No, I don't think so they
tend to come this way. Yeah. The h Hurricanes are
actually one of the best British American football teams around,
with four national championships, but I think he corrected himself
in a subsequent email. I think there were five and
twelve division titles. Since just want to set the record straight.
(36:00):
Also wanted to thank you guys for such a consistently
great show, and that is Andrew Million, go Kaine, and Um.
I think he I hope he knows you're joking. Well,
he said he was taken aback. I think he was kidding.
I hope I don't know that he was joking. Go
with that. If you want to pull one over on
(36:22):
me and Chuck, that's fine, we'll see what you got.
You can tweet to us at s y SK podcast.
You can join us on Facebook dot com slash Stuff
you Should Know. You can send us an email to
stuff podcast how Stuff works dot com. Stuff you Should
Know is a production of I Heart Radio. For more
podcasts my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
(36:44):
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