July 15, 2025 • 53 mins
The hosts spent some time talking about current news stories in the dog world. From dog robots to Korean dog meat farms, they covered a large variety of stories. Tune in and enjoy!
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Episode Transcript
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(00:10):
Sit, stay, press playing. Let's begin.
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name. Hi everyone.
(00:32):
This is Jason Ferguson and I'm the President of the
International Association of Canine Professionals.
Our organization is focused on three pillars, education,
certification and legislation. What that means is we help
educate our members to ensure that they're the best dog
trainers they can be. We also offer certifications so
that clients know that the trainers are true professional.
(00:53):
Our legislative efforts are focused on ensuring that
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that work best for the dogs and clients that they work with.
Join the ICP today for yourself and to protect the industry.
Our friends on the Balanced Dog Training Podcast support the ICP
and we hope you will as well. Welcome to Balanced Training,
(01:15):
your number one source for dog related news.
How are you guys do? You guys like that intro?
I did. I did.
It was pretty solid. We can only do that on episodes
like this where we're actually talking about the news, but I
think it's a thing. I think so too.
I think we should run with it for sure.
We are the number one source fordog related news.
(01:37):
We have not. What are the What are the other
dog news sources? I don't know, but we are.
So today we each have two news stories.
Except for Vloss, he only has one.
Most of us have. The majority of us found 2 news
stories that we're going to talkthrough and we're just going to
see how it goes. Yeah.
OK. And we have a 62nd solution
(01:59):
phone call set up right? Yeah, I didn't even see what it
is. This is going to be just so much
fun for me as it is for whoever answers.
Well, let's dive right in, Nelson, lead us off.
Give us our first news story. What do you got?
So I, I have a, a crazy one thatI was reading about, which
(02:19):
includes South Korea. And I, I guess what happened is
that there's a new law banning dog meat, you know, dog meat
being sold and traded and, and all of that stuff in regular
markets and then in, in and of itself is pretty cool just
because I'm American. So, you know, we're not used to
(02:41):
necessarily eating dog meat, butthere is kind of a crazy aspect
to it more more of an aspect to it that I'm worried about as
opposed to just being pumped that the fact that it's now
banned and there's a new law, which is the fact that the
(03:02):
industry is incredibly large forfor dog meat in South Korea,
right? So there's a lot of farms that
are breeding dogs specifically for meat and stuff like that,
which is kind of pretty crazy. It seems to be some kind of
mixed breed that I've never heard of.
Seems particular for South Korea.
(03:23):
I always want to say North Koreafor some reason.
So I got to make sure not to to switch those up.
They would probably kill for a few more dogs in their diet.
And they might. So for a fact, it's only South
Korea. North Korea doesn't do it.
From what I read out of this article, the article is specific
to South Korea, so I don't, I don't actually know, but that's
(03:47):
what I'm able to talk on, I guess.
So that's what I've confirmed. Let's go with that.
I like that one better. Well, North Korea has a large
percentage of their population in a gulag style prison system,
so something tells me if eating dogs is something that the
government can can produce to give to people that they
probably do it there. I don't think they're squeamish
(04:09):
about much. Yeah, but also, like, how hard
could it be? You know what I mean?
Like backyard, people do it in America all the time.
It's just seems like if that wasa missing industry, it'd be an
easy one to fix, you know? Well, do we know?
I mean, I had never heard of this before.
We had a dog from South Korea intraining.
Which how long ago was that? That was like 7 years ago.
(04:33):
Cover you think? Was it really?
I thought it was much sooner than that.
I thought it was like 9 years ago.
We had one a lot of time. I thought it was like 3 years
ago. No, this was, yeah, I was still
living in Illinois. This was years and years ago, so
I would guess 10. We've had at least one more
sense. So I know of two that we've had
(04:53):
come through that were like fresh off the boat from South
Korea, needed help training witheverything.
But I mean, we could have had more over the years, but I know
of two for a fact. And one of them was, like I
said, at least like 7 years ago and before that, I had never
even heard that this was a thing.
And I was absolutely shocked that it was.
A house call with 1 so that's three dogs that we've trained.
(05:17):
You know, one was was a house called though not a board and
trained. And so I mean that that is, it's
a thing. It's pretty.
Do either one of you know is it a thing anywhere else?
Because the ones I've heard of are just South Korea.
Is this the only place it's a thing?
I don't think so. I I've heard it to be somewhat
common, not not necessarily a staple, but you know, common
(05:38):
enough that people talk about itin Southeast Asia all together.
So, you know, I've heard about it in China and you know, Laos
and that kind of stuff too. So I don't know how a.
Landlocked Laos is a landlocked country.
I did not know that, did not know that that's.
The only reason I know it is. King of the hill.
(06:00):
Yeah, King. Of the hill.
Teaching people facts. No.
I'm looking up right now if theyeat dogs in North Korea and
this, the first story says yes. And it's a common dish eaten in
the summer called Dan Dan Gogi. Oh, so I, I think that's what
(06:23):
what these, which I, I guess I wouldn't make sense if they
still have somewhat of a similarculture, right.
But yeah, there's like a Stew. So Baz and Tang is a dog meat
Stew for South Korea. But yeah, I don't know.
Anyways, your question, I've never heard of it anywhere
(06:44):
besides South Korea, and I don'tknow why I find it hard to
believe that no other countries eat it at all.
I wonder if it's just they have the, they eat it the most.
It's a traditional thing there. So they have, you know, maybe
they eat more than every other country combined or, you know,
at least some big percentage of it.
Yeah, maybe. OK, so that's your story.
(07:04):
So they have created a ban. They've created a ban, OK, on
selling and trading the dog meat.
And I guess that the crazy part is that they have, you know what
the notes I have here is like 11156 dog meat farms and they
(07:27):
produce 500,000, you know, dogs a year, you know, or yeah.
And 388,000 dogs are consumed every year, 1600 restaurants, I
guess make it, you know, that whole kind of deal.
So like that's, that's a lot of dogs.
You know, we're, we're talking aton of dogs.
(07:50):
And I remember we were kind of worried about the, the beagles
that were getting tested on. I don't quite remember the story
was an older story, but you know, we're worried about what
happens when those dogs are released.
My worry is what happens with these dogs just simply for the
fact that, I mean, like, they have to go somewhere, I'm
(08:12):
assuming. And there's an estimated 570,000
dogs that are still on farms. And there's a lot of places, I
guess a couple that are noted here as like Humane Society
International is trying to rehome them out of South Korea
and into other countries. Again, we've already seen a
(08:36):
couple. But now with the ban, are we
going to see some kind of major influx of these meat dogs that
are kind of more, I mean, they're not pets, They're not
raised like pets. So they're it's already going to
be really, really tough for themto kind of adapt.
But also that, I don't know, feral would be the right way to
(08:58):
put it. But I mean, there's, there's
going to be some psychological differences between these dogs
and normal dogs. And I guess my biggest worry is
typically the people who like tochase a story, you know, and
like adopt A dog with a really sad story are also not always
the best trainers. They, you know, they tend to do
(09:19):
things. I don't want to say rash, but
impulsively, you know, it's like, Oh my goodness, this dog
is so sad. I can't believe I heard the
story. Let's take it home.
Let's give it a better life. But you know, that's a it's a
huge worry on my end. Now, again, they don't know
about how many dogs are actuallygoing to be rehomed versus
(09:40):
euthanized. And you know, there's obviously
moral implications there, but HSI has rehomed 2800 dogs since
2015. So, you know, like, it's not a
crazy amount every year, but it certainly adds up.
What do you guys think? I've got a a few thoughts here.
(10:01):
One, just to throw this out there, the dog that Vloss
brought up earlier, we've got a video on Facebook that will tell
us when this was. So if anyone's interested,
scroll back in our timeline a decade and you'll find it's a
little white dog. And I remember when we were
getting it, my warning was this dog, because we were getting it
straight from Korea, was this dog is going to be messed up.
(10:23):
So we're going to get a lot better excited to work with it,
but it's going to be messed up. And this dog was so freaking and
happy. And the video, it's like it's
running around my yard and the video like wagging its tail.
It was so bizarre to me how welladjusted this dog was because I
was expecting just a nightmare scenario based on what I've seen
from puppy mills exactly. Breeding stock from a puppy mill
(10:46):
in the US and just the behavioral nightmare they are.
I was thinking that times 10 andit wasn't like that.
But to your point about what happens to the dogs, Nelson, I
looked this up just now because I hadn't heard about this law.
It's being phased in until 2027 is when it becomes truly
illegal. So I wonder, and for anyone, as
(11:08):
I say this, like don't take thisas me being callous.
I think eating dogs is, you know, I can't, I, I couldn't do
it. I think it's crazy, but.
I was going to ask you guys if you could do it or?
Not no, but you know, I also have trouble judging other
people's culture, right where I think it's crazy.
I could not eat a dog, but thinkabout eating an egg, how weird
that is. You're cracking this thing open.
(11:30):
And then we eat pigs. They're smart animals and people
love bacon. So I hate, I hate to judge
someone else's culture, but overall, there's a chance that
just Economics and Business prevents some of the worries.
Because if they have until 2027,each dog you breed as a, if
you're a breeder or a farmer, whatever they call themselves,
(11:53):
you have a cost associated with that feeding that dog, getting
it ready, you know, to be slaughtered.
If they know they can't sell them, presumably they're going
to stop breeding them at some point.
So I would think the stock like the stock.
And once again, don't anyone getpissy with my choice of words
here like Cullen dogs stock or breeding stock or food or
whatever. But the stock they have is
(12:17):
likely going to go down right where if you were a rational dog
breeder and farmer and you look at you're like, wow, I can't
sell these starting January 1 next year.
I better not have as breed as many because I can't feed them.
Now that might end up being theykill some puppies.
Like I'm not saying it's all going to be perfect and
everything's great, but I think there's a chance that you don't
(12:39):
end up with 500,000 dogs that need rehomed.
I think you end up with a much smaller number and maybe the
path to that number is still notpretty and not ethical, but I
don't think we'll end up with just 500,000 being dumped on the
market because it's not being shut down tomorrow.
Right, right. And I agree, definitely phasing
it in was a smarter move for sure.
(13:01):
But you know, that's also a lifechange for for the farmers too,
right? And so yes, they're probably not
breeding as many, but they also need money to come in in order
to be able to shift lanes. And who knows what they're going
to shift to, right? Like do they import a bunch of
pigs, right, and start start farming pigs now all of a sudden
(13:22):
because, you know, people have to eat.
So something new is going to come along.
Yeah, I mean, they're going to have to.
Yeah, for sure. I'm sure there's a lot of
people. He's had 1000 farms and about
500 dogs per farm. So these aren't, if you know,
average. So that's not massive, massive,
massive operations, but they're also not tiny, it doesn't sound
(13:43):
like. So there's a lot of people
making a living from doing this.Yeah.
And people have to eat, so that food has to be replaced with
something, right? Regardless of what it is, those
calories have to be replaced with some other calories.
Right. And so, you know, there's that,
but then also the the thing thatpops into my head too is simply
the fact that pet dogs, the dogsthat we have as pets and South
(14:07):
Korea has pet dogs as well. You know, we treat them
differently medically. They have way more antibiotics
and they have way more medicinesand stuff associated with them,
dewormers and, and what not thatyou wouldn't want to consume.
And so is there going to be a potential health risk, you know,
to American pet dogs if we start, you know, adopting a ton
(14:31):
of these dogs, you know, not only from the behavioral
standpoint, but again, there's also going to be medicines that
we're not necessarily used to, medical problems that we're not
necessarily used to. There's going to be a crazy
readjustment, I would assume. Now they've been doing it since
2015, bringing dogs, you know, back in.
But so maybe they know more thanI do because just like you guys,
(14:55):
I mean, when I was reading the story, it was kind of blowing my
mind. I hadn't heard much about it.
But there's there's questions. There's questions for sure.
Lost any thoughts on this one before we move on.
I think you guys cover a lot of it.
I do remember the dog that you had being more well adjusted
than we would have thought, and I seem to recall the more recent
(15:19):
one was also not that bad. I'm curious if Nelson, the one
that you dealt with, had extremeissues.
I mean, I saw a lot worse issuesout of like former greyhound
racing dogs and that kind of stuff.
I was shocked at how well the dogs acted that that I remember
from this. So maybe they're raising them.
(15:40):
Maybe they're raising them different than we think they
are. The the white dog.
For the record, Lenny was the trainer, so I'm not going to
steal his Thunder. Did a great job.
And you know, to be fair, the dog that I was training was a
little sketchy of people, but way more I would say not even as
(16:01):
bad as kind of puppy mill dogs, right, Just sketchy to be around
new people. So there was some work there,
but nothing significant, nothingthat I would have thought was
like, whoa, man, hopefully I never see another one of these
guys, you know, in this kind of condition.
So that is, and just like we seehere, you know, there's a lot of
(16:23):
farms that are farming the same type of biomass and doing it
completely different. There's industrial farming with
the big buildings and all of that stuff.
And then there are much more, I don't know if eco friendly,
animal friendly, I would say farms that are, you know, just
letting their cows eat grass andrun free and chickens, you know,
(16:48):
free range chickens and stuff like that.
So maybe what we've seen so far has been the easier dogs to
rehome just because they have had a better life than an
industrial farm kind of situation.
I don't know. So I love the idea that they're
being treated better than we think they are.
I find that hard to believe, though.
(17:08):
That's fair, and I agree with you, Nelson.
There's a lot of farms in the USthat are starting to a better
job. But the way the average chicken
that's laying eggs is kept is horrendous.
Right? They have a cage the size of a
piece of paper and they're then on top of another one with
another one on top of them, and they're all going to the
bathroom on each other and like they live their whole life
there. You know, it's horrendous
conditions. Grinding their beaks down and
(17:30):
everything. Yeah, I mean.
It's terrible, it's crazy. And there are obviously farms
that do better, but their stuff costs way more and you know, so
a lot of the majority of the food sold here is not like that.
And I mean, maybe there's peoplethat pay more for dog meat there
for the dogs have a slightly better life, but something tells
me the vast majority are in pretty horrendous conditions.
(17:52):
Now the other thing too, for sure, we, you know, everything
is speculation at this point. But the, I guess the a question
that I have, I don't know if it,if anybody else would find this
interesting or not, but it's from what I've read, no longer
(18:13):
being sold or traded. But I wonder if there are going
to be home farms, you know, if you just have two dogs that you
breed every now and then for, for meat, just like any other
farm animal. I wonder if there's going to be
a tradition kept alive in South Korea.
Maybe it doesn't change dramatically.
(18:34):
So I did. When I did my quick Google
search Nelson it one of the previews said that consumption
is not illegal, raising them andselling them for food.
And I have of course haven't read the law.
This is all new to me, but I'd say you're right on that if
there's no penalty for consumption.
Right. So interesting.
I do have a a somewhat similar question for you guys.
(18:56):
So, Vloss, I haven't heard whether you'd eat a dog or not,
but no. I would not.
How do you guys feel about predator versus prey?
You know, would you eat a predator or would you only eat
prey? Some people are weird.
(19:16):
About this, I don't know that I fully get the question.
Well, how many predator animals do you eat?
I can't think of any. Well, like so normally a bird
probably eats insects like any bird.
So is a. Well, I guess chickens probably
don't though. No, they eat a lot of insects.
(19:39):
They do eat a lot of insects. So chickens are a predator, so
right? All right, fine.
I didn't know we're the lawyer. Answer comes from a non lawyer
who figured I don't know I just.I guess I don't really get the
question. We did eat that alligator,
right? And so I guess it's good.
I'm not opposed to eating predators, but I've never eaten
(19:59):
the coyote. And generally still in the
United States that. Seems to be I like, can you say
that? Like maybe you would have like,
I've never eaten a coyote. Like have any of our listeners?
Do people eat coyotes? Some people will eat them.
Apparently it's it's not widely accepted, but eating cougar is
(20:19):
somewhat accepted. It's a it's a cultural thing out
West. So, but again, a lot of people,
you know, what's more significant would be bear,
right? So a lot of people do hunt black
bear and some people hunt grizzly bear.
And there's always that questionof could you eat a predator?
Or do you just is there some kind of weird moral implication
(20:42):
there? Or or maybe you think they're
gross. I don't know.
I mean, morally, wouldn't it be nicer to eat the predator?
That's what I was just. Going to say.
Even in the world where it's. Backwards right you guys have?
This backwards. It's not their fault.
They're predators, OK? They got to eat, too.
Zootopia does make a pretty compelling argument about this.
About the predators. Yeah, have you watched Zootopia?
(21:04):
Yeah, it's it's a really good movie.
I think there's definitely some weird political draws to to that
movie, of course, so. Utopia is loaded.
It's loaded different ways that you could read.
That so I eat chicken predator like that predator.
(21:25):
You know, I think overall the idea of eating dogs is bizarre
to us. And like I said earlier, like to
me, I just there's no way I could do it.
But it's hard to judge someone else's culture because of what
we eat, right? You know, in the US, think of
all the pigs we eat, and they'reintelligent animals, so it's
hard to make that judgment call,but I know I wouldn't eat a dog.
(21:47):
But again, around your neck of the woods, black bear is very
common to hunt, and they're eating them.
So would you? Would I eat a black bear?
Yeah, I wouldn't be opposed to it.
I will say for the record, talking to what you said about
farms earlier, the decision we made as a family, I don't know
(22:08):
how many years ago was we were only going to eat meat when we
felt comfortable. And and that applies to eggs as
well. We felt comfortable with its
source. And the idea was if we have to
eat much less meat because of the price, that's fine.
And we do eat way less meat thanwe used to and you know, like to
get steaks where you're comfortable with the source.
(22:29):
It's at least twice as expensiveand maybe more, right, to get
like locally grass fed beef thathas been in a pasture to get,
you know, pasture raised eggs and all of that.
And you know, some listeners might say a lot of that's a feel
good product and it's not actually what you think it is.
And there's a chance some of that's true.
But that was the decision that we made was just if we can't
(22:51):
afford to eat it in a way that we feel good about, then we just
shouldn't be eating it right then.
And that's worked out pretty well for us overall.
I think, you know, there's nothing wrong inherently with
the feel good products so long as the results are good, you
know, So it is a feel good product to know or to at least
feel like my meat is coming froma reputable source that you
(23:11):
know, place that I'm comfortablewith.
But no matter what, the result is good because I ate it.
So the arguments though, are things like to say free range
chickens just means they have tohave access to outdoors, but
they might never go out there and they have to be given some
freedom. But that supposedly there's a
lot of, you know, legalese type tricks that make it not exact.
(23:34):
There's a difference between pasture raised and free range.
And you know, and so I think there's a lot of little things
you have to look into there. So I think that's what people
mean. And they say it's just a feel
good thing that some of the chickens are not being treated
better, even though it sounds like they are.
Even though the packaging is super cute and has like a
cartoon chicken and a Pasteur onit.
(23:54):
And I start my own farm. That's what I've decided.
All right, we've lost. Do you want to do this this
question now, this 62nd or? Yeah, let's do it.
OK, so it's. Time for 62nd questions.
Do do it. Do it.
Do it. Boom boom boom.
(24:16):
See now. Everybody's going to be
expecting that sound before we. Do it from now on, then we're
going to get sued. Sued by who?
ESPN is still a thing. Oh, I don't that was I I did a
Dutt instead of a I'm. Here with Christy training,
what's? Up.
Well that's perfect. I'm here with Vloss and Nelson
(24:38):
live on balance training with suburban K9.
What up, Hi. How are you good?
How? About.
Yourself. Good.
Are you up for answering a question on the air?
Yeah. OK.
You have 60 seconds, and any questions you ask are part of
that 60 seconds. I did not tell this to Sam last
(24:58):
week. And she spent half her time
asking questions. So you get you can ask 60
seconds of questions if you want, but then your your answer
will not be good. All right.
Are you ready? OK, We'll start the timer after
I finish reading. A client just adopted a dog that
was rescued from a South Korean food farm.
It was going to be food, meat. They have yet to receive the
(25:22):
dog, but it has no socializationtraining and has never lived in
a home in 60 seconds. What would be your advice for
their first day in the house? OK, how old is the dog?
Eight months. Eight months, OK.
I mean, I would definitely say day one, I would want to see how
(25:45):
the dog does interact with them.I guess would be how do how does
the dog do with other people, other dogs?
Do we have answers to those? No, it's been in a farm.
OK. And then I would say, you know,
leash manners, getting the dog on leash if there any amount of.
(26:06):
30 seconds. Work with the dog also if the
dog is not aggressive or and or doing well, I would try to do
like hand feeding. Try to build a relationship with
the dog. So if they're food motivated,
try to do some like tree training or build that bond in
relationship in the house and build trust with the dog and try
(26:27):
to build some confidence and call me techniques because I
think the dog would definitely need it.
I would also throw in some mental enrichment to try to get
the dog a little bit mentally and physically exhausted, as
well as build that bond too. Oh, I've lost called time on ya.
So we have to strike half that last sentence.
We're going to, Oh no, we're going to bleep that out.
So the audience it's. Pretty darn good though for only
(26:47):
6 seconds I bet. It is.
Hard it's I know you get no timeto think and not much time to
talk. That's the fun of it.
And then the I mean the most funpart is that everyone else later
can be like, well, I would have said it this way after they've
had 10 minutes to think. That's the beauty of it.
And we could answer for 10 minutes.
Interesting to see how that. Goes All right.
(27:09):
Well, thank you. And this was part of the
episode. We've been spending some time
talking about the dog meat tradeout of South Korea.
Oh wow. Yeah, I recently had a dog that
was, they just kind of called him like a China Village dog.
But so I don't know if he was rescued from any of those
conditions, but he came from Hong Kong and lived in
(27:31):
California with the family and then made their way to Austin.
Interesting. And something tells me that you
would not eat a dog, no. No.
Am I correct on that statement? Yes.
Well, I think. I think being vegan but also
just. You.
Know lifestyle lines I would I would never even imagine.
(27:53):
Well, that fits well, the the three of us have all agreed we
would not eat a dog either, justfor the record.
All right. Thank you, Amber.
Appreciate it. Thanks, Amber.
Thanks. Have a good.
Day you too. You see, so we don't know to be
fair, it's a legend, but that could have been a meat dog, you
(28:13):
know, a meat market dog from China.
So the chances of us seeing these dogs is it's not 0 right?
So it'll be interesting and hopefully it's with people who
kind of understand what it mightbe like to get a dog like this
and are willing to put in the work.
(28:35):
But that's that's going to be tough.
I don't see from from the limited interaction that I've
had with people who have gotten dogs from out of the country in
bad situations, it tends to be kind of a really, really tough
situation to make go right. You know what else is tough is
(28:56):
that we get we all have two newsstories.
We have 45 minutes for this episode and you Bogart 30
minutes of it with your news story.
Yeah, we're not really getting 2.
Everybody's getting one at this point.
We'll be lucky if we even get tothat.
Well, jump on it now. Go buddy.
Go no, I'd rather. The floor is yours.
Or I'd lost what you got. Yeah, I got it.
(29:18):
So researchers at North CarolinaState University have been
pioneering innovative sensor technologies and AI algorithms
to transform Guide Dogs or guidedog training and selection
process. So in their information, they
say that only 40% of dogs that are bred to be Guide Dogs make
it and graduate from guide dog school, which is something that
(29:42):
I've known for some time at thispoint.
So they're using sensors that they've built into a harness to
read information about puppies to determine if they're going to
be good for the program or not. So I really like the idea of
using sensors to help in training and that kind of thing.
I have some interesting feelingsabout, I guess what this
(30:04):
actually means because what it, what they're actually saying is
they're flunking dogs out of theprogram way quicker because they
aren't the right dog for the program and they're using the
sensors to determine that. And I don't know if I feel great
about that, right? Because that's like they're
basically judging a book before it's ever gotten a chance to be
trained or helped or anything. So what are your guys thoughts
(30:27):
about this? Do you like it?
Do you not like it? What do you think about AI
sensors in dog training? Crazy stuff.
I don't understand yet what the sensors are doing.
So you have a sensor in the harness.
How is it telling you if it's going to be a good guide dog?
In the video they showed like less than a half second clip
that showed what sensors that were in the harness and the only
(30:51):
one that I could read while it was on the screen was that they
have one for heart rate, right? So they're they're checking the
dog's heart rate as at least oneof the data points and it said
that. I was wondering, yeah.
It said that they have 4 sensors.
I don't know what the other onescould be.
What else could you read out of a harness?
I don't know. So I learned the idea of using
(31:12):
AI. I mean, I think it makes a lot
of sense, especially from, you know, like you track the dogs as
they go through and then you start to realize the puppies
that fail out, you know, 90% of failures have this trait
whatever. Like on the Vohart puppy
aptitude test, they scored this or they do this, whatever,
(31:34):
right? I think you feed enough data
into it. You know, there's some
correlations that are hard to see when you're working with
small sample sizes as one trainer.
And if you have 1000 trainers putting their data in there, I
could see dogs being able to be nicely flunked out sooner.
And those make amazing pets. It's not like these dogs are
getting euthanized or something.They're going to become an
(31:57):
amazing pet for somebody. And then you can put your energy
into the dogs that actually are going to graduate.
And hopefully the costs come down because we know how
expensive it is to get a guide dog.
Well, and so a couple of things,right?
One, that that was going to be my point.
I would love to see what the success rate of the Volhart
(32:19):
puppy aptitude test versus this is.
I think that that would be fascinating.
Likely AI would win, but I thinkit would be interesting to see
how close they actually come to each other.
But then if AI is as good as we presume it to be, it's only 40%
now. But then you start breeding only
(32:40):
within that 40%. And now you're to 60, you're to
80. You know, you're bumping up
because you're only breeding good Guide Dogs to other good
Guide Dogs. I mean, that number is going to
go up as well. And pretty soon you'll have a
specific breed, kind of kind of like the South Korea thing,
right? Like eventually you just end up
with whatever amalgamation is perfect for Guide Dogs, right?
(33:03):
And pretty soon you have a 90% success rate.
Yeah, I mean, that would be great.
And you know, you made a commentabout how about AI there about
it made me think people misunderstand a lot.
I think AI and they feel like AIthey'll say like, oh, it's not
that smart, right? Or it's not as smart as a
person. And it doesn't have to be that
(33:24):
smart to be really helpful because a lot of the things it's
doing a human could do if you put enough time into it, right?
So, and if it can do it faster. And when people say like, oh, it
can't think on its own, well, itdoesn't even need to be for most
things, right? If you could just put all the
data in there and say draw connections between these and
yeah, a human could do that. But does a human have two years
(33:47):
to dedicated to that? Who's paying their who's paying
for that? Right?
Something like Guide Dogs. There's not enough money on that
for, you know, for someone to spend that couple 100 grand to
fund that study. But if AI can do it, it makes a
lot of sense. And on on Dog Pro Radio, I did
an interview with Athena House the other day.
It hasn't gone live yet, but shedoes search and rescue and they
(34:08):
use a lot of drones as well. And I just broached that at the
end of the conversation is how long before drones are starting
to to track using AI what the dogs are doing.
Because we talked a little bit about intelligent disobedience
where the dog will know it's supposed to, like it'll say,
hey, someone's over here. The handler calls them back and
the dog will disobey, right? Because it knows it should.
(34:31):
And through sometimes, of course, handlers misread the
situation, right? And through time, AI should get
smart enough. If a drone's watching and you
see that when a dog slows down by 8% and then keeps going in
and picks up its speed again, maybe that's an indicator that
humans can't see. And through time, it realizes
there was a person there becauseit knows later on the results
(34:52):
and it has all the data. So I could see something like
this working really well and making connections we would just
never make. And it might be a dog that pulls
10% more as a puppy on its harness is way more likely to
flunk out. Or maybe it's the opposite, Who
knows? If someone is actually thinking
about that, I think we're one year out from that, you know, So
(35:15):
think about DJI already has AI tracking and their drones, so
you have half the equation rightthere.
And then think about the Dogtra Pathfinder.
It can tell you whether your dogis treeing, whether your dog is
laying down, what your dog is doing, whether it's barking.
So there's already physical recognitions of what your dog is
(35:38):
doing. Essentially, you're just kind of
pairing those two technologies. Well, Speaking of things that
they've said was right around the corner, I was just reading a
prediction from 2023 where an AIexpert had said we're a year
away from being able to communicate with our pets via
AI, and now it's 2025. So I guess we missed that, but
(36:01):
maybe we're still right around the corner from it, right?
Maybe it's just, you know, beta testing, you know, it's, it's
out there. I mean, maybe there's a good
chance that somebody's working on it.
So it sounds like neither one ofyou are worried that the AI
becomes AGI, takes over the guide dog program, and starts
(36:21):
euthanizing dogs that don't meetthe the criteria.
It sounds like neither one of you are worried about that, huh?
I do think that that could happen, especially like with the
robot dogs and everything like that, but I don't think the
dogs. That's my story, so shut your
mouth about robot dogs. I don't think the dogs are going
to get euthanized, right? I think they'll just become the.
(36:43):
AI doesn't care about life necessarily, right?
It's programmed to find the best.
Guide Dogs for sure, but also like when it recommends that
this dog gets euthanized the hopefully the human isn't just
like well the AI told me to do so, so pop goes the weasel you
know what I mean? But the human wouldn't have
(37:04):
anything to do with it anymore. The AI took over it's.
So you're saying we're we're full on Skynet?
You know, like John Connor stuff?
There's lots. Of people worried about that I'm
just. Seeing I'm worried about that
for sure. Absolutely 1000% not for the
don't. Worry about that.
Why wouldn't you be worried about this?
Wholeheartedly, for sure. Because you should be worried
about this. Wholeheartedly, I am worried
(37:26):
about AI, there's no doubt aboutthat.
But you know, that's not to say kind of like what Covey is
saying is AI is not what we are perceiving it to be right at the
moment. For what what general population
has access to. It's the world's greatest, you
know, word search, right? And they they can populate
(37:49):
trends and stuff like that, which is which is great.
You know, to me, that's as good as it needs to get.
Hopefully it never gets better. But as soon as it does get
better, I mean, it's already the, you know, the, the
experimenters told the AI to create problems itself and solve
them. And then it got to the point
where it was then deceiving, youknow, on, on purpose the, the
(38:13):
humans and stuff like that. Like realistically, things go
bad. We've been learning this since
the 60s that any time AI gets too too far, humans don't last
very long. All right, I can tell Covey's
getting edgy that we won't get to his robot dog, so we can wrap
this up. I did.
I did. Just want to throw out one more
thing. I'm not anti this at all.
I think it's cool that AI is getting involved.
(38:35):
I think it's cool that they're using these sensors, and I'm
really curious to see where thatgoes and what kind of stuff they
can learn from it. And I'd also like to see the
data and what other sensors they're using.
So I'll be watching this one andI'm excited to see where they go
with it. Yeah.
And what I think is cool is justto reiterate that last thing I
had said was about the dog's pulling.
I don't know the answer. If you said right now the
(38:57):
question, a dog that pulls 10% more than the rest of the group
as a puppy, is it going to make a better guide dog or a worse
guide dog or is that irrelevant?I, I have absolutely no idea and
I think you'd have to raise a lot, 10%.
It's hard to measure. So if, even if you ask a guide
dog trainer, they might not knowthe answer.
(39:19):
They might say a dog who pulls 50% more for sure is whatever
better or worse. So I think it's really cool and
I think we don't want to shortchange ideas like this,
right, and see what comes of it because it could hopefully drive
the cost down. Right.
Yeah, definitely. And for the record, I'm scared
of AI as well. But you know, as my main man.
(39:43):
Have you guys ever read Stephen Covey's book?
Nope. Oh my gosh.
Plus. No, but I'd like to be the one
who puts it on the record. I'm not scared of AII.
Encourage AI in all of its forms.
Love you AI, don't come after me, I'm on your side.
I can understand that when you get a pacemaker or something,
(40:03):
don't hook it up to the Skynet. So overall, what I was going to
say is you have to have think about just your circle of
influence and what influence youcan really have on the world.
And if it's something that you can't influence in the
slightest, you probably shouldn't let it consume you and
ruin your day. Where you know, like if we slow
down AI development, you know, China is not going to and that's
(40:25):
not a knock on China. They're going to do what's in
their self, you know, their country self.
Interest and. If it wasn't them, it'd be
someone else. So slowing down I don't think is
a realistic option. So then we can't really get
ourselves up in arms about it when we can't affect it.
Didn't change anything. Just go with the flow, hope for
the best. Oh.
(40:46):
Yeah, it's the best way for sure.
OK, so my my real story for the day was the Boston Dynamics
robot dog named Spot. I watched some videos of this
thing. It is insane.
First of all, it was on America's Got Talent.
It was like 10 or 12 of them dancing together and they're
like dancing into formation and they they can jump straight up
(41:08):
in the air. It's pretty amazing.
They've got this long neck with a head on the end of it.
But then I watched some trainingvideos.
Well, I shouldn't say training some like show off promo videos
of it in the lab of what it can do.
This thing can open doors. It'll grab a door handle in its
mouth with its long neck and like it's almost like a neck of
like a swan or something. It's really long.
(41:29):
It'll reach out, use its mouth, open a door, pull it open and
then scoot through. And they've got a video of like
a dude with a hockey stick interfering with it and like
pushing the head away or slamming the door shut.
And the dog thing just keeps at it and it just gets the door
open and gets through. It's really amazing.
You know what this will turn into?
Who knows? I mean, it seems, I think some
(41:52):
of the obvious ones would be search and rescue.
I mean, that would be a good usefor it for sure.
Maybe a less good use where you know there's going to be guns
mounted to them. Without a doubt.
Those things are going to be running on the battlefield
shooting people. Just it is what it is, I don't
think. There are already images of.
I don't think it's the. Chinese war dogs.
Yeah, the Chinese one, yeah. Well, Americans already strapped
(42:15):
an AK47 to 1:00 and had it run around, so that was that was
cool. It's going to be something.
And then I saw videos of a slightly different version being
used as like a pack mule basically.
So carrying things, and this wasfor soldiers, but it could be
used for a lot of scenarios where it'd be sick.
You wouldn't have to have an animal do it, but it'd be way
(42:38):
safer, way less likely to get hurt.
I think from what I read, it cango into places that even horses
and mules have trouble. So there's some big advantages
there. Can carry a ton of weight.
You know, I don't know how you handle the batteries, how you
charge it. I don't know any of that stuff.
But really interesting. And it seems like we're not far
off from seeing these a little bit in day-to-day life.
(43:01):
I think it'll be cool for peopleto be able to have these.
And I think some people would look at it as almost a
replacement for a pet dog, whichI don't think I would ever feel
the same about a robot as as a dog.
Like, I don't know that there'd be that level of like love, but
maybe I'm wrong. And as you know, as time goes on
(43:22):
and robots can interact with us more, we will start to feel that
love for them. I don't want to, like, I don't
want to jump too far off a topic.
But if we go back to that warfare thing you listed as a
negative, you could also potentially see it as a positive
where maybe we get to a world where nobody dies in war.
It's like robot on robot war. And like, once your robots die,
(43:46):
you're just like, OK, we give in.
Like, it's over. Do you guys remember the news
story from I just looked it up to get a date.
It was from 2016 when the Dallaspolice used that robot to kill a
sniper that they were in a shootout with.
Dang, no. So they strapped explosives to
(44:06):
it. And this guy, I don't know all
the details anymore. I think, I think he'd killed
people. But he was in a shootout with
police. And instead of going in and, you
know, risking dying, they send this robot in with explosives
and blew the dude up, which is when you hear it, you're like,
this doesn't even sound real. It's crazy.
But think about what this would allow.
You know, I mean, and I'm just thinking on the fly here, but it
(44:28):
doesn't have to be an explosive.But I'm what if you had this
thing set with trank darts and all those times where someone's
mentally ill, mentally unstable,and they get into an issue with
police and someone gets killed. If you could have a robot who
can't, you know there's no humanlife involved with a
tranquilizer dart that could go knock them out and then figure
(44:48):
it out afterwards seems like. Fast, pretty big win.
How fast would a tranquilizer dart have to be effective
though? So based upon movies I've seen,
they're very good. I have no, I have no idea,
couldn't even guess. I think like you know, the non
lethal shotgun rounds, I think you can strap those up for sure
(45:10):
and that would incapacitate someone pretty quickly.
Yeah, or like sneak up behind them with a rag, like when they
sew Krag and the rags and whatever and like put it over
their face so they're. Like spin it out that.
Would be more like a humanoid robot wouldn't?
It so this was the videos are amazing.
(45:31):
I would encourage everyone to watch them, even just Boston
Dynamics is the company spot is the robot, but you'll very
quickly get down a path of seeing more and more robots and
it's a deep, deep hole on the Internet.
So have fun. Do you guys think you can
connect with them and love a robot?
No. No, I see how I treat my car and
(45:54):
so, you know, I'm like probably not best for me, so.
Nelsons robot is going to be stinky.
It's going to need oil changed. Up.
And. The warning I'm at -10% oil
life. It's like I need to charge my
(46:15):
battery. Like you got a couple more days
buddy. Don't worry about it, you're
good. Well, let me throw out my second
story real quick. We can spend all of 10 seconds
on it. Although our last episode we
talked about I'm very pro firework.
I am not pro idiots with fireworks.
And I don't remember if I said that or not, but there was a
story out of I think the Tampa area of people that were
(46:36):
throwing fireworks. A dog went and grabbed the
firework. It blew up in the dog's mouth
and killed it. So that obviously is, I think,
something people need to think about.
And I mean, throwing fireworks is pretty nuts to me, especially
in an uncontrolled environment. They're in an alley and the dog
ran up. So to expand on my comments from
(46:58):
last week, I'm very pro fireworkwhen you're not an idiot.
And this isn't, I'm not pro firework in a neighborhood where
you burn down your neighbor's house or throw them and a dog
grabs them in its mouth. And I think from what I read,
the information is a little bit scarce.
I couldn't find the breed of thedog.
And it sounds like it was a loose dog, not a pet dog that
(47:18):
well, I'm sure someone's pet, but I don't think it was a pet
dog like that they brought to hang out.
I think it was a dog that was running loose.
So the people throwing it didn'texpect a dog to be there.
But I think throwing fireworks in an alley is a pretty dumb ass
thing to do because a kid could have come running out from
wherever if it was big enough tokill a dog.
This is not a black cat. Sure, I don't know what it was,
(47:42):
but. If it's a small dog, I think a
black cat could maybe kill it. I don't think so.
I think it would hurt it though.Yeah, I've I've held the black
cat in my hand when I went off once and I'm still around so.
Would you be willing to do that on camera?
For enough money, sure. I mean, I think, I think you
(48:02):
should. I think the ratings for our show
will be worth it. You also have to bail me out
because, you know, I don't thinkcops are typically looking for
people with fireworks in Illinois.
But if you just present them like, well, you put it on video,
it probably wouldn't be that badto just go pick this guy up.
Well, I think you get rid of themetadata on the video and before
(48:25):
you do it, you say coming to youfrom the great state of Indiana.
Of Indiana. But to your point, I don't think
that I don't know you either have to be for fireworks or or
against because though I agree with you, you know, you
shouldn't be dumb and playing with fireworks.
It's going to happen and you can't control for that kind of
(48:46):
stuff. Again, this was a loose dog.
You can't control for that kind of stuff.
It's it's similar to well, because other people are
irresponsible with their dogs. You're not allowed to do this
thing and you know, same kind ofargument could be you're not
allowed to have a kind of corso because it could get out and
kill someone, which we've seen happen.
(49:09):
Obviously I'm from Chicago, so lighting fireworks off in the
alleys is as children is completely normal.
I don't know. I think personally there, there
should be a little more penalty for people that make mistake,
these kind of dumb mistakes withfireworks because it's not
something you could easily say, I mean, it's just an accident,
(49:31):
accidents happen, but you're assuming a higher level of risk
when you have fireworks. So if you know you're throwing
it in an alley, I think most people would know that's a
higher level of risk. Something bad is more likely to
happen doing that than lighting them off in a field and having
everyone keep their distance. So.
(49:54):
More sure, but similar. Who gets in trouble there?
So the person who lit it and threw it in an area where nobody
was, he probably told everybody.And I'm assuming because
obviously I don't know this person, but you know, it's like,
hey, everybody, step back, step behind me, because I'm going to
toss it that way. Or the person whose dog got
loose and went to go grab it, right?
(50:15):
Or do both of them get in trouble?
No charges have been filed. And sure, overall though, I
think I'm envisioning that it wasn't like what you're
describing, Nelson. I'm envisioning it was not.
We know it was a guy, first of all.
It's always a guy. We don't have to look that up,
but he's throwing it and I don'tenvision him saying, all right,
everybody, I'm going to throw itthat way.
Get behind me, everyone, keep your distance.
(50:36):
I'm going to toss it. You know, there was alcohol
involved and you know, he's justtossing this thing and like
there's no way he was taking thethe precautions he should have.
For the record, I actually don'tknow any of this.
I'm just assuming. Right.
I'm somewhere between the two ofyou.
So much like Nelson, I've lit off a lot of fireworks and
(50:57):
alleys as a as a child. So I can't say that that I've
never done it right. And if you asked me, were you
doing it responsibly, the answeris no, right?
Because much like you also said,we were drinking and and having
a good time, right? So I'm.
Sure. For the record, I was not
(51:18):
drinking so. I mean.
I was probably. I was.
Probably 21, how about that? But I don't know, I just feel
like I'm sure some responsibility is on the person
with the fireworks. But I also agree with Nelson,
(51:39):
where I feel like a lot of responsibility is also probably
on that dog owner who allowed their dog to be loose on the 4th
of July and go out in that area where somebody probably already
had been blowing off fireworks. So I think it's a really bad
situation. I feel bad for the person who
lit the firework because I'm sure they're upset about what
(52:00):
happened. And I feel bad for the person
whose dog it was because I'm sure they're even more upset
that their dog got injured, or Ishould say, passed away.
Wow, but you don't feel bad for the dog, just the two people
heartless. Certainly, I certainly feel bad
for the dog. Good catch.
Good catch. So overall, I I do think people
(52:20):
need to be held a little more responsible for some of the dumb
things they do with fireworks. I can get behind that.
All right. Thanks for tuning in, everybody.
This episode was brought to us by Boston Dynamics, the makers
of Spot. Nice.
All right, let's see you guys. See ya.
(52:48):
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(00:32):
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Our friends on the Balanced Dog Training Podcast support the ICP
and we hope you will as well. Welcome to Balanced Training,
(01:15):
your number one source for dog related news.
How are you guys do? You guys like that intro?
I did. I did.
It was pretty solid. We can only do that on episodes
like this where we're actually talking about the news, but I
think it's a thing. I think so too.
I think we should run with it for sure.
We are the number one source fordog related news.
(01:37):
We have not. What are the What are the other
dog news sources? I don't know, but we are.
So today we each have two news stories.
Except for Vloss, he only has one.
Most of us have. The majority of us found 2 news
stories that we're going to talkthrough and we're just going to
see how it goes. Yeah.
OK. And we have a 62nd solution
(01:59):
phone call set up right? Yeah, I didn't even see what it
is. This is going to be just so much
fun for me as it is for whoever answers.
Well, let's dive right in, Nelson, lead us off.
Give us our first news story. What do you got?
So I, I have a, a crazy one thatI was reading about, which
(02:19):
includes South Korea. And I, I guess what happened is
that there's a new law banning dog meat, you know, dog meat
being sold and traded and, and all of that stuff in regular
markets and then in, in and of itself is pretty cool just
because I'm American. So, you know, we're not used to
(02:41):
necessarily eating dog meat, butthere is kind of a crazy aspect
to it more more of an aspect to it that I'm worried about as
opposed to just being pumped that the fact that it's now
banned and there's a new law, which is the fact that the
(03:02):
industry is incredibly large forfor dog meat in South Korea,
right? So there's a lot of farms that
are breeding dogs specifically for meat and stuff like that,
which is kind of pretty crazy. It seems to be some kind of
mixed breed that I've never heard of.
Seems particular for South Korea.
(03:23):
I always want to say North Koreafor some reason.
So I got to make sure not to to switch those up.
They would probably kill for a few more dogs in their diet.
And they might. So for a fact, it's only South
Korea. North Korea doesn't do it.
From what I read out of this article, the article is specific
to South Korea, so I don't, I don't actually know, but that's
(03:47):
what I'm able to talk on, I guess.
So that's what I've confirmed. Let's go with that.
I like that one better. Well, North Korea has a large
percentage of their population in a gulag style prison system,
so something tells me if eating dogs is something that the
government can can produce to give to people that they
probably do it there. I don't think they're squeamish
(04:09):
about much. Yeah, but also, like, how hard
could it be? You know what I mean?
Like backyard, people do it in America all the time.
It's just seems like if that wasa missing industry, it'd be an
easy one to fix, you know? Well, do we know?
I mean, I had never heard of this before.
We had a dog from South Korea intraining.
Which how long ago was that? That was like 7 years ago.
(04:33):
Cover you think? Was it really?
I thought it was much sooner than that.
I thought it was like 9 years ago.
We had one a lot of time. I thought it was like 3 years
ago. No, this was, yeah, I was still
living in Illinois. This was years and years ago, so
I would guess 10. We've had at least one more
sense. So I know of two that we've had
(04:53):
come through that were like fresh off the boat from South
Korea, needed help training witheverything.
But I mean, we could have had more over the years, but I know
of two for a fact. And one of them was, like I
said, at least like 7 years ago and before that, I had never
even heard that this was a thing.
And I was absolutely shocked that it was.
A house call with 1 so that's three dogs that we've trained.
(05:17):
You know, one was was a house called though not a board and
trained. And so I mean that that is, it's
a thing. It's pretty.
Do either one of you know is it a thing anywhere else?
Because the ones I've heard of are just South Korea.
Is this the only place it's a thing?
I don't think so. I I've heard it to be somewhat
common, not not necessarily a staple, but you know, common
(05:38):
enough that people talk about itin Southeast Asia all together.
So, you know, I've heard about it in China and you know, Laos
and that kind of stuff too. So I don't know how a.
Landlocked Laos is a landlocked country.
I did not know that, did not know that that's.
The only reason I know it is. King of the hill.
(06:00):
Yeah, King. Of the hill.
Teaching people facts. No.
I'm looking up right now if theyeat dogs in North Korea and
this, the first story says yes. And it's a common dish eaten in
the summer called Dan Dan Gogi. Oh, so I, I think that's what
(06:23):
what these, which I, I guess I wouldn't make sense if they
still have somewhat of a similarculture, right.
But yeah, there's like a Stew. So Baz and Tang is a dog meat
Stew for South Korea. But yeah, I don't know.
Anyways, your question, I've never heard of it anywhere
(06:44):
besides South Korea, and I don'tknow why I find it hard to
believe that no other countries eat it at all.
I wonder if it's just they have the, they eat it the most.
It's a traditional thing there. So they have, you know, maybe
they eat more than every other country combined or, you know,
at least some big percentage of it.
Yeah, maybe. OK, so that's your story.
(07:04):
So they have created a ban. They've created a ban, OK, on
selling and trading the dog meat.
And I guess that the crazy part is that they have, you know what
the notes I have here is like 11156 dog meat farms and they
(07:27):
produce 500,000, you know, dogs a year, you know, or yeah.
And 388,000 dogs are consumed every year, 1600 restaurants, I
guess make it, you know, that whole kind of deal.
So like that's, that's a lot of dogs.
You know, we're, we're talking aton of dogs.
(07:50):
And I remember we were kind of worried about the, the beagles
that were getting tested on. I don't quite remember the story
was an older story, but you know, we're worried about what
happens when those dogs are released.
My worry is what happens with these dogs just simply for the
fact that, I mean, like, they have to go somewhere, I'm
(08:12):
assuming. And there's an estimated 570,000
dogs that are still on farms. And there's a lot of places, I
guess a couple that are noted here as like Humane Society
International is trying to rehome them out of South Korea
and into other countries. Again, we've already seen a
(08:36):
couple. But now with the ban, are we
going to see some kind of major influx of these meat dogs that
are kind of more, I mean, they're not pets, They're not
raised like pets. So they're it's already going to
be really, really tough for themto kind of adapt.
But also that, I don't know, feral would be the right way to
(08:58):
put it. But I mean, there's, there's
going to be some psychological differences between these dogs
and normal dogs. And I guess my biggest worry is
typically the people who like tochase a story, you know, and
like adopt A dog with a really sad story are also not always
the best trainers. They, you know, they tend to do
(09:19):
things. I don't want to say rash, but
impulsively, you know, it's like, Oh my goodness, this dog
is so sad. I can't believe I heard the
story. Let's take it home.
Let's give it a better life. But you know, that's a it's a
huge worry on my end. Now, again, they don't know
about how many dogs are actuallygoing to be rehomed versus
(09:40):
euthanized. And you know, there's obviously
moral implications there, but HSI has rehomed 2800 dogs since
2015. So, you know, like, it's not a
crazy amount every year, but it certainly adds up.
What do you guys think? I've got a a few thoughts here.
(10:01):
One, just to throw this out there, the dog that Vloss
brought up earlier, we've got a video on Facebook that will tell
us when this was. So if anyone's interested,
scroll back in our timeline a decade and you'll find it's a
little white dog. And I remember when we were
getting it, my warning was this dog, because we were getting it
straight from Korea, was this dog is going to be messed up.
(10:23):
So we're going to get a lot better excited to work with it,
but it's going to be messed up. And this dog was so freaking and
happy. And the video, it's like it's
running around my yard and the video like wagging its tail.
It was so bizarre to me how welladjusted this dog was because I
was expecting just a nightmare scenario based on what I've seen
from puppy mills exactly. Breeding stock from a puppy mill
(10:46):
in the US and just the behavioral nightmare they are.
I was thinking that times 10 andit wasn't like that.
But to your point about what happens to the dogs, Nelson, I
looked this up just now because I hadn't heard about this law.
It's being phased in until 2027 is when it becomes truly
illegal. So I wonder, and for anyone, as
(11:08):
I say this, like don't take thisas me being callous.
I think eating dogs is, you know, I can't, I, I couldn't do
it. I think it's crazy, but.
I was going to ask you guys if you could do it or?
Not no, but you know, I also have trouble judging other
people's culture, right where I think it's crazy.
I could not eat a dog, but thinkabout eating an egg, how weird
that is. You're cracking this thing open.
(11:30):
And then we eat pigs. They're smart animals and people
love bacon. So I hate, I hate to judge
someone else's culture, but overall, there's a chance that
just Economics and Business prevents some of the worries.
Because if they have until 2027,each dog you breed as a, if
you're a breeder or a farmer, whatever they call themselves,
(11:53):
you have a cost associated with that feeding that dog, getting
it ready, you know, to be slaughtered.
If they know they can't sell them, presumably they're going
to stop breeding them at some point.
So I would think the stock like the stock.
And once again, don't anyone getpissy with my choice of words
here like Cullen dogs stock or breeding stock or food or
whatever. But the stock they have is
(12:17):
likely going to go down right where if you were a rational dog
breeder and farmer and you look at you're like, wow, I can't
sell these starting January 1 next year.
I better not have as breed as many because I can't feed them.
Now that might end up being theykill some puppies.
Like I'm not saying it's all going to be perfect and
everything's great, but I think there's a chance that you don't
(12:39):
end up with 500,000 dogs that need rehomed.
I think you end up with a much smaller number and maybe the
path to that number is still notpretty and not ethical, but I
don't think we'll end up with just 500,000 being dumped on the
market because it's not being shut down tomorrow.
Right, right. And I agree, definitely phasing
it in was a smarter move for sure.
(13:01):
But you know, that's also a lifechange for for the farmers too,
right? And so yes, they're probably not
breeding as many, but they also need money to come in in order
to be able to shift lanes. And who knows what they're going
to shift to, right? Like do they import a bunch of
pigs, right, and start start farming pigs now all of a sudden
(13:22):
because, you know, people have to eat.
So something new is going to come along.
Yeah, I mean, they're going to have to.
Yeah, for sure. I'm sure there's a lot of
people. He's had 1000 farms and about
500 dogs per farm. So these aren't, if you know,
average. So that's not massive, massive,
massive operations, but they're also not tiny, it doesn't sound
(13:43):
like. So there's a lot of people
making a living from doing this.Yeah.
And people have to eat, so that food has to be replaced with
something, right? Regardless of what it is, those
calories have to be replaced with some other calories.
Right. And so, you know, there's that,
but then also the the thing thatpops into my head too is simply
the fact that pet dogs, the dogsthat we have as pets and South
(14:07):
Korea has pet dogs as well. You know, we treat them
differently medically. They have way more antibiotics
and they have way more medicinesand stuff associated with them,
dewormers and, and what not thatyou wouldn't want to consume.
And so is there going to be a potential health risk, you know,
to American pet dogs if we start, you know, adopting a ton
(14:31):
of these dogs, you know, not only from the behavioral
standpoint, but again, there's also going to be medicines that
we're not necessarily used to, medical problems that we're not
necessarily used to. There's going to be a crazy
readjustment, I would assume. Now they've been doing it since
2015, bringing dogs, you know, back in.
But so maybe they know more thanI do because just like you guys,
(14:55):
I mean, when I was reading the story, it was kind of blowing my
mind. I hadn't heard much about it.
But there's there's questions. There's questions for sure.
Lost any thoughts on this one before we move on.
I think you guys cover a lot of it.
I do remember the dog that you had being more well adjusted
than we would have thought, and I seem to recall the more recent
(15:19):
one was also not that bad. I'm curious if Nelson, the one
that you dealt with, had extremeissues.
I mean, I saw a lot worse issuesout of like former greyhound
racing dogs and that kind of stuff.
I was shocked at how well the dogs acted that that I remember
from this. So maybe they're raising them.
(15:40):
Maybe they're raising them different than we think they
are. The the white dog.
For the record, Lenny was the trainer, so I'm not going to
steal his Thunder. Did a great job.
And you know, to be fair, the dog that I was training was a
little sketchy of people, but way more I would say not even as
(16:01):
bad as kind of puppy mill dogs, right, Just sketchy to be around
new people. So there was some work there,
but nothing significant, nothingthat I would have thought was
like, whoa, man, hopefully I never see another one of these
guys, you know, in this kind of condition.
So that is, and just like we seehere, you know, there's a lot of
(16:23):
farms that are farming the same type of biomass and doing it
completely different. There's industrial farming with
the big buildings and all of that stuff.
And then there are much more, I don't know if eco friendly,
animal friendly, I would say farms that are, you know, just
letting their cows eat grass andrun free and chickens, you know,
(16:48):
free range chickens and stuff like that.
So maybe what we've seen so far has been the easier dogs to
rehome just because they have had a better life than an
industrial farm kind of situation.
I don't know. So I love the idea that they're
being treated better than we think they are.
I find that hard to believe, though.
(17:08):
That's fair, and I agree with you, Nelson.
There's a lot of farms in the USthat are starting to a better
job. But the way the average chicken
that's laying eggs is kept is horrendous.
Right? They have a cage the size of a
piece of paper and they're then on top of another one with
another one on top of them, and they're all going to the
bathroom on each other and like they live their whole life
there. You know, it's horrendous
conditions. Grinding their beaks down and
(17:30):
everything. Yeah, I mean.
It's terrible, it's crazy. And there are obviously farms
that do better, but their stuff costs way more and you know, so
a lot of the majority of the food sold here is not like that.
And I mean, maybe there's peoplethat pay more for dog meat there
for the dogs have a slightly better life, but something tells
me the vast majority are in pretty horrendous conditions.
(17:52):
Now the other thing too, for sure, we, you know, everything
is speculation at this point. But the, I guess the a question
that I have, I don't know if it,if anybody else would find this
interesting or not, but it's from what I've read, no longer
(18:13):
being sold or traded. But I wonder if there are going
to be home farms, you know, if you just have two dogs that you
breed every now and then for, for meat, just like any other
farm animal. I wonder if there's going to be
a tradition kept alive in South Korea.
Maybe it doesn't change dramatically.
(18:34):
So I did. When I did my quick Google
search Nelson it one of the previews said that consumption
is not illegal, raising them andselling them for food.
And I have of course haven't read the law.
This is all new to me, but I'd say you're right on that if
there's no penalty for consumption.
Right. So interesting.
I do have a a somewhat similar question for you guys.
(18:56):
So, Vloss, I haven't heard whether you'd eat a dog or not,
but no. I would not.
How do you guys feel about predator versus prey?
You know, would you eat a predator or would you only eat
prey? Some people are weird.
(19:16):
About this, I don't know that I fully get the question.
Well, how many predator animals do you eat?
I can't think of any. Well, like so normally a bird
probably eats insects like any bird.
So is a. Well, I guess chickens probably
don't though. No, they eat a lot of insects.
(19:39):
They do eat a lot of insects. So chickens are a predator, so
right? All right, fine.
I didn't know we're the lawyer. Answer comes from a non lawyer
who figured I don't know I just.I guess I don't really get the
question. We did eat that alligator,
right? And so I guess it's good.
I'm not opposed to eating predators, but I've never eaten
(19:59):
the coyote. And generally still in the
United States that. Seems to be I like, can you say
that? Like maybe you would have like,
I've never eaten a coyote. Like have any of our listeners?
Do people eat coyotes? Some people will eat them.
Apparently it's it's not widely accepted, but eating cougar is
(20:19):
somewhat accepted. It's a it's a cultural thing out
West. So, but again, a lot of people,
you know, what's more significant would be bear,
right? So a lot of people do hunt black
bear and some people hunt grizzly bear.
And there's always that questionof could you eat a predator?
Or do you just is there some kind of weird moral implication
(20:42):
there? Or or maybe you think they're
gross. I don't know.
I mean, morally, wouldn't it be nicer to eat the predator?
That's what I was just. Going to say.
Even in the world where it's. Backwards right you guys have?
This backwards. It's not their fault.
They're predators, OK? They got to eat, too.
Zootopia does make a pretty compelling argument about this.
About the predators. Yeah, have you watched Zootopia?
(21:04):
Yeah, it's it's a really good movie.
I think there's definitely some weird political draws to to that
movie, of course, so. Utopia is loaded.
It's loaded different ways that you could read.
That so I eat chicken predator like that predator.
(21:25):
You know, I think overall the idea of eating dogs is bizarre
to us. And like I said earlier, like to
me, I just there's no way I could do it.
But it's hard to judge someone else's culture because of what
we eat, right? You know, in the US, think of
all the pigs we eat, and they'reintelligent animals, so it's
hard to make that judgment call,but I know I wouldn't eat a dog.
(21:47):
But again, around your neck of the woods, black bear is very
common to hunt, and they're eating them.
So would you? Would I eat a black bear?
Yeah, I wouldn't be opposed to it.
I will say for the record, talking to what you said about
farms earlier, the decision we made as a family, I don't know
(22:08):
how many years ago was we were only going to eat meat when we
felt comfortable. And and that applies to eggs as
well. We felt comfortable with its
source. And the idea was if we have to
eat much less meat because of the price, that's fine.
And we do eat way less meat thanwe used to and you know, like to
get steaks where you're comfortable with the source.
(22:29):
It's at least twice as expensiveand maybe more, right, to get
like locally grass fed beef thathas been in a pasture to get,
you know, pasture raised eggs and all of that.
And you know, some listeners might say a lot of that's a feel
good product and it's not actually what you think it is.
And there's a chance some of that's true.
But that was the decision that we made was just if we can't
(22:51):
afford to eat it in a way that we feel good about, then we just
shouldn't be eating it right then.
And that's worked out pretty well for us overall.
I think, you know, there's nothing wrong inherently with
the feel good products so long as the results are good, you
know, So it is a feel good product to know or to at least
feel like my meat is coming froma reputable source that you
(23:11):
know, place that I'm comfortablewith.
But no matter what, the result is good because I ate it.
So the arguments though, are things like to say free range
chickens just means they have tohave access to outdoors, but
they might never go out there and they have to be given some
freedom. But that supposedly there's a
lot of, you know, legalese type tricks that make it not exact.
(23:34):
There's a difference between pasture raised and free range.
And you know, and so I think there's a lot of little things
you have to look into there. So I think that's what people
mean. And they say it's just a feel
good thing that some of the chickens are not being treated
better, even though it sounds like they are.
Even though the packaging is super cute and has like a
cartoon chicken and a Pasteur onit.
(23:54):
And I start my own farm. That's what I've decided.
All right, we've lost. Do you want to do this this
question now, this 62nd or? Yeah, let's do it.
OK, so it's. Time for 62nd questions.
Do do it. Do it.
Do it. Boom boom boom.
(24:16):
See now. Everybody's going to be
expecting that sound before we. Do it from now on, then we're
going to get sued. Sued by who?
ESPN is still a thing. Oh, I don't that was I I did a
Dutt instead of a I'm. Here with Christy training,
what's? Up.
Well that's perfect. I'm here with Vloss and Nelson
(24:38):
live on balance training with suburban K9.
What up, Hi. How are you good?
How? About.
Yourself. Good.
Are you up for answering a question on the air?
Yeah. OK.
You have 60 seconds, and any questions you ask are part of
that 60 seconds. I did not tell this to Sam last
(24:58):
week. And she spent half her time
asking questions. So you get you can ask 60
seconds of questions if you want, but then your your answer
will not be good. All right.
Are you ready? OK, We'll start the timer after
I finish reading. A client just adopted a dog that
was rescued from a South Korean food farm.
It was going to be food, meat. They have yet to receive the
(25:22):
dog, but it has no socializationtraining and has never lived in
a home in 60 seconds. What would be your advice for
their first day in the house? OK, how old is the dog?
Eight months. Eight months, OK.
I mean, I would definitely say day one, I would want to see how
(25:45):
the dog does interact with them.I guess would be how do how does
the dog do with other people, other dogs?
Do we have answers to those? No, it's been in a farm.
OK. And then I would say, you know,
leash manners, getting the dog on leash if there any amount of.
(26:06):
30 seconds. Work with the dog also if the
dog is not aggressive or and or doing well, I would try to do
like hand feeding. Try to build a relationship with
the dog. So if they're food motivated,
try to do some like tree training or build that bond in
relationship in the house and build trust with the dog and try
(26:27):
to build some confidence and call me techniques because I
think the dog would definitely need it.
I would also throw in some mental enrichment to try to get
the dog a little bit mentally and physically exhausted, as
well as build that bond too. Oh, I've lost called time on ya.
So we have to strike half that last sentence.
We're going to, Oh no, we're going to bleep that out.
So the audience it's. Pretty darn good though for only
(26:47):
6 seconds I bet. It is.
Hard it's I know you get no timeto think and not much time to
talk. That's the fun of it.
And then the I mean the most funpart is that everyone else later
can be like, well, I would have said it this way after they've
had 10 minutes to think. That's the beauty of it.
And we could answer for 10 minutes.
Interesting to see how that. Goes All right.
(27:09):
Well, thank you. And this was part of the
episode. We've been spending some time
talking about the dog meat tradeout of South Korea.
Oh wow. Yeah, I recently had a dog that
was, they just kind of called him like a China Village dog.
But so I don't know if he was rescued from any of those
conditions, but he came from Hong Kong and lived in
(27:31):
California with the family and then made their way to Austin.
Interesting. And something tells me that you
would not eat a dog, no. No.
Am I correct on that statement? Yes.
Well, I think. I think being vegan but also
just. You.
Know lifestyle lines I would I would never even imagine.
(27:53):
Well, that fits well, the the three of us have all agreed we
would not eat a dog either, justfor the record.
All right. Thank you, Amber.
Appreciate it. Thanks, Amber.
Thanks. Have a good.
Day you too. You see, so we don't know to be
fair, it's a legend, but that could have been a meat dog, you
(28:13):
know, a meat market dog from China.
So the chances of us seeing these dogs is it's not 0 right?
So it'll be interesting and hopefully it's with people who
kind of understand what it mightbe like to get a dog like this
and are willing to put in the work.
(28:35):
But that's that's going to be tough.
I don't see from from the limited interaction that I've
had with people who have gotten dogs from out of the country in
bad situations, it tends to be kind of a really, really tough
situation to make go right. You know what else is tough is
(28:56):
that we get we all have two newsstories.
We have 45 minutes for this episode and you Bogart 30
minutes of it with your news story.
Yeah, we're not really getting 2.
Everybody's getting one at this point.
We'll be lucky if we even get tothat.
Well, jump on it now. Go buddy.
Go no, I'd rather. The floor is yours.
Or I'd lost what you got. Yeah, I got it.
(29:18):
So researchers at North CarolinaState University have been
pioneering innovative sensor technologies and AI algorithms
to transform Guide Dogs or guidedog training and selection
process. So in their information, they
say that only 40% of dogs that are bred to be Guide Dogs make
it and graduate from guide dog school, which is something that
(29:42):
I've known for some time at thispoint.
So they're using sensors that they've built into a harness to
read information about puppies to determine if they're going to
be good for the program or not. So I really like the idea of
using sensors to help in training and that kind of thing.
I have some interesting feelingsabout, I guess what this
(30:04):
actually means because what it, what they're actually saying is
they're flunking dogs out of theprogram way quicker because they
aren't the right dog for the program and they're using the
sensors to determine that. And I don't know if I feel great
about that, right? Because that's like they're
basically judging a book before it's ever gotten a chance to be
trained or helped or anything. So what are your guys thoughts
(30:27):
about this? Do you like it?
Do you not like it? What do you think about AI
sensors in dog training? Crazy stuff.
I don't understand yet what the sensors are doing.
So you have a sensor in the harness.
How is it telling you if it's going to be a good guide dog?
In the video they showed like less than a half second clip
that showed what sensors that were in the harness and the only
(30:51):
one that I could read while it was on the screen was that they
have one for heart rate, right? So they're they're checking the
dog's heart rate as at least oneof the data points and it said
that. I was wondering, yeah.
It said that they have 4 sensors.
I don't know what the other onescould be.
What else could you read out of a harness?
I don't know. So I learned the idea of using
(31:12):
AI. I mean, I think it makes a lot
of sense, especially from, you know, like you track the dogs as
they go through and then you start to realize the puppies
that fail out, you know, 90% of failures have this trait
whatever. Like on the Vohart puppy
aptitude test, they scored this or they do this, whatever,
(31:34):
right? I think you feed enough data
into it. You know, there's some
correlations that are hard to see when you're working with
small sample sizes as one trainer.
And if you have 1000 trainers putting their data in there, I
could see dogs being able to be nicely flunked out sooner.
And those make amazing pets. It's not like these dogs are
getting euthanized or something.They're going to become an
(31:57):
amazing pet for somebody. And then you can put your energy
into the dogs that actually are going to graduate.
And hopefully the costs come down because we know how
expensive it is to get a guide dog.
Well, and so a couple of things,right?
One, that that was going to be my point.
I would love to see what the success rate of the Volhart
(32:19):
puppy aptitude test versus this is.
I think that that would be fascinating.
Likely AI would win, but I thinkit would be interesting to see
how close they actually come to each other.
But then if AI is as good as we presume it to be, it's only 40%
now. But then you start breeding only
(32:40):
within that 40%. And now you're to 60, you're to
80. You know, you're bumping up
because you're only breeding good Guide Dogs to other good
Guide Dogs. I mean, that number is going to
go up as well. And pretty soon you'll have a
specific breed, kind of kind of like the South Korea thing,
right? Like eventually you just end up
with whatever amalgamation is perfect for Guide Dogs, right?
(33:03):
And pretty soon you have a 90% success rate.
Yeah, I mean, that would be great.
And you know, you made a commentabout how about AI there about
it made me think people misunderstand a lot.
I think AI and they feel like AIthey'll say like, oh, it's not
that smart, right? Or it's not as smart as a
person. And it doesn't have to be that
(33:24):
smart to be really helpful because a lot of the things it's
doing a human could do if you put enough time into it, right?
So, and if it can do it faster. And when people say like, oh, it
can't think on its own, well, itdoesn't even need to be for most
things, right? If you could just put all the
data in there and say draw connections between these and
yeah, a human could do that. But does a human have two years
(33:47):
to dedicated to that? Who's paying their who's paying
for that? Right?
Something like Guide Dogs. There's not enough money on that
for, you know, for someone to spend that couple 100 grand to
fund that study. But if AI can do it, it makes a
lot of sense. And on on Dog Pro Radio, I did
an interview with Athena House the other day.
It hasn't gone live yet, but shedoes search and rescue and they
(34:08):
use a lot of drones as well. And I just broached that at the
end of the conversation is how long before drones are starting
to to track using AI what the dogs are doing.
Because we talked a little bit about intelligent disobedience
where the dog will know it's supposed to, like it'll say,
hey, someone's over here. The handler calls them back and
the dog will disobey, right? Because it knows it should.
(34:31):
And through sometimes, of course, handlers misread the
situation, right? And through time, AI should get
smart enough. If a drone's watching and you
see that when a dog slows down by 8% and then keeps going in
and picks up its speed again, maybe that's an indicator that
humans can't see. And through time, it realizes
there was a person there becauseit knows later on the results
(34:52):
and it has all the data. So I could see something like
this working really well and making connections we would just
never make. And it might be a dog that pulls
10% more as a puppy on its harness is way more likely to
flunk out. Or maybe it's the opposite, Who
knows? If someone is actually thinking
about that, I think we're one year out from that, you know, So
(35:15):
think about DJI already has AI tracking and their drones, so
you have half the equation rightthere.
And then think about the Dogtra Pathfinder.
It can tell you whether your dogis treeing, whether your dog is
laying down, what your dog is doing, whether it's barking.
So there's already physical recognitions of what your dog is
(35:38):
doing. Essentially, you're just kind of
pairing those two technologies. Well, Speaking of things that
they've said was right around the corner, I was just reading a
prediction from 2023 where an AIexpert had said we're a year
away from being able to communicate with our pets via
AI, and now it's 2025. So I guess we missed that, but
(36:01):
maybe we're still right around the corner from it, right?
Maybe it's just, you know, beta testing, you know, it's, it's
out there. I mean, maybe there's a good
chance that somebody's working on it.
So it sounds like neither one ofyou are worried that the AI
becomes AGI, takes over the guide dog program, and starts
(36:21):
euthanizing dogs that don't meetthe the criteria.
It sounds like neither one of you are worried about that, huh?
I do think that that could happen, especially like with the
robot dogs and everything like that, but I don't think the
dogs. That's my story, so shut your
mouth about robot dogs. I don't think the dogs are going
to get euthanized, right? I think they'll just become the.
(36:43):
AI doesn't care about life necessarily, right?
It's programmed to find the best.
Guide Dogs for sure, but also like when it recommends that
this dog gets euthanized the hopefully the human isn't just
like well the AI told me to do so, so pop goes the weasel you
know what I mean? But the human wouldn't have
(37:04):
anything to do with it anymore. The AI took over it's.
So you're saying we're we're full on Skynet?
You know, like John Connor stuff?
There's lots. Of people worried about that I'm
just. Seeing I'm worried about that
for sure. Absolutely 1000% not for the
don't. Worry about that.
Why wouldn't you be worried about this?
Wholeheartedly, for sure. Because you should be worried
about this. Wholeheartedly, I am worried
(37:26):
about AI, there's no doubt aboutthat.
But you know, that's not to say kind of like what Covey is
saying is AI is not what we are perceiving it to be right at the
moment. For what what general population
has access to. It's the world's greatest, you
know, word search, right? And they they can populate
(37:49):
trends and stuff like that, which is which is great.
You know, to me, that's as good as it needs to get.
Hopefully it never gets better. But as soon as it does get
better, I mean, it's already the, you know, the, the
experimenters told the AI to create problems itself and solve
them. And then it got to the point
where it was then deceiving, youknow, on, on purpose the, the
(38:13):
humans and stuff like that. Like realistically, things go
bad. We've been learning this since
the 60s that any time AI gets too too far, humans don't last
very long. All right, I can tell Covey's
getting edgy that we won't get to his robot dog, so we can wrap
this up. I did.
I did. Just want to throw out one more
thing. I'm not anti this at all.
I think it's cool that AI is getting involved.
(38:35):
I think it's cool that they're using these sensors, and I'm
really curious to see where thatgoes and what kind of stuff they
can learn from it. And I'd also like to see the
data and what other sensors they're using.
So I'll be watching this one andI'm excited to see where they go
with it. Yeah.
And what I think is cool is justto reiterate that last thing I
had said was about the dog's pulling.
I don't know the answer. If you said right now the
(38:57):
question, a dog that pulls 10% more than the rest of the group
as a puppy, is it going to make a better guide dog or a worse
guide dog or is that irrelevant?I, I have absolutely no idea and
I think you'd have to raise a lot, 10%.
It's hard to measure. So if, even if you ask a guide
dog trainer, they might not knowthe answer.
(39:19):
They might say a dog who pulls 50% more for sure is whatever
better or worse. So I think it's really cool and
I think we don't want to shortchange ideas like this,
right, and see what comes of it because it could hopefully drive
the cost down. Right.
Yeah, definitely. And for the record, I'm scared
of AI as well. But you know, as my main man.
(39:43):
Have you guys ever read Stephen Covey's book?
Nope. Oh my gosh.
Plus. No, but I'd like to be the one
who puts it on the record. I'm not scared of AII.
Encourage AI in all of its forms.
Love you AI, don't come after me, I'm on your side.
I can understand that when you get a pacemaker or something,
(40:03):
don't hook it up to the Skynet. So overall, what I was going to
say is you have to have think about just your circle of
influence and what influence youcan really have on the world.
And if it's something that you can't influence in the
slightest, you probably shouldn't let it consume you and
ruin your day. Where you know, like if we slow
down AI development, you know, China is not going to and that's
(40:25):
not a knock on China. They're going to do what's in
their self, you know, their country self.
Interest and. If it wasn't them, it'd be
someone else. So slowing down I don't think is
a realistic option. So then we can't really get
ourselves up in arms about it when we can't affect it.
Didn't change anything. Just go with the flow, hope for
the best. Oh.
(40:46):
Yeah, it's the best way for sure.
OK, so my my real story for the day was the Boston Dynamics
robot dog named Spot. I watched some videos of this
thing. It is insane.
First of all, it was on America's Got Talent.
It was like 10 or 12 of them dancing together and they're
like dancing into formation and they they can jump straight up
(41:08):
in the air. It's pretty amazing.
They've got this long neck with a head on the end of it.
But then I watched some trainingvideos.
Well, I shouldn't say training some like show off promo videos
of it in the lab of what it can do.
This thing can open doors. It'll grab a door handle in its
mouth with its long neck and like it's almost like a neck of
like a swan or something. It's really long.
(41:29):
It'll reach out, use its mouth, open a door, pull it open and
then scoot through. And they've got a video of like
a dude with a hockey stick interfering with it and like
pushing the head away or slamming the door shut.
And the dog thing just keeps at it and it just gets the door
open and gets through. It's really amazing.
You know what this will turn into?
Who knows? I mean, it seems, I think some
(41:52):
of the obvious ones would be search and rescue.
I mean, that would be a good usefor it for sure.
Maybe a less good use where you know there's going to be guns
mounted to them. Without a doubt.
Those things are going to be running on the battlefield
shooting people. Just it is what it is, I don't
think. There are already images of.
I don't think it's the. Chinese war dogs.
Yeah, the Chinese one, yeah. Well, Americans already strapped
(42:15):
an AK47 to 1:00 and had it run around, so that was that was
cool. It's going to be something.
And then I saw videos of a slightly different version being
used as like a pack mule basically.
So carrying things, and this wasfor soldiers, but it could be
used for a lot of scenarios where it'd be sick.
You wouldn't have to have an animal do it, but it'd be way
(42:38):
safer, way less likely to get hurt.
I think from what I read, it cango into places that even horses
and mules have trouble. So there's some big advantages
there. Can carry a ton of weight.
You know, I don't know how you handle the batteries, how you
charge it. I don't know any of that stuff.
But really interesting. And it seems like we're not far
off from seeing these a little bit in day-to-day life.
(43:01):
I think it'll be cool for peopleto be able to have these.
And I think some people would look at it as almost a
replacement for a pet dog, whichI don't think I would ever feel
the same about a robot as as a dog.
Like, I don't know that there'd be that level of like love, but
maybe I'm wrong. And as you know, as time goes on
(43:22):
and robots can interact with us more, we will start to feel that
love for them. I don't want to, like, I don't
want to jump too far off a topic.
But if we go back to that warfare thing you listed as a
negative, you could also potentially see it as a positive
where maybe we get to a world where nobody dies in war.
It's like robot on robot war. And like, once your robots die,
(43:46):
you're just like, OK, we give in.
Like, it's over. Do you guys remember the news
story from I just looked it up to get a date.
It was from 2016 when the Dallaspolice used that robot to kill a
sniper that they were in a shootout with.
Dang, no. So they strapped explosives to
(44:06):
it. And this guy, I don't know all
the details anymore. I think, I think he'd killed
people. But he was in a shootout with
police. And instead of going in and, you
know, risking dying, they send this robot in with explosives
and blew the dude up, which is when you hear it, you're like,
this doesn't even sound real. It's crazy.
But think about what this would allow.
You know, I mean, and I'm just thinking on the fly here, but it
(44:28):
doesn't have to be an explosive.But I'm what if you had this
thing set with trank darts and all those times where someone's
mentally ill, mentally unstable,and they get into an issue with
police and someone gets killed. If you could have a robot who
can't, you know there's no humanlife involved with a
tranquilizer dart that could go knock them out and then figure
(44:48):
it out afterwards seems like. Fast, pretty big win.
How fast would a tranquilizer dart have to be effective
though? So based upon movies I've seen,
they're very good. I have no, I have no idea,
couldn't even guess. I think like you know, the non
lethal shotgun rounds, I think you can strap those up for sure
(45:10):
and that would incapacitate someone pretty quickly.
Yeah, or like sneak up behind them with a rag, like when they
sew Krag and the rags and whatever and like put it over
their face so they're. Like spin it out that.
Would be more like a humanoid robot wouldn't?
It so this was the videos are amazing.
(45:31):
I would encourage everyone to watch them, even just Boston
Dynamics is the company spot is the robot, but you'll very
quickly get down a path of seeing more and more robots and
it's a deep, deep hole on the Internet.
So have fun. Do you guys think you can
connect with them and love a robot?
No. No, I see how I treat my car and
(45:54):
so, you know, I'm like probably not best for me, so.
Nelsons robot is going to be stinky.
It's going to need oil changed. Up.
And. The warning I'm at -10% oil
life. It's like I need to charge my
(46:15):
battery. Like you got a couple more days
buddy. Don't worry about it, you're
good. Well, let me throw out my second
story real quick. We can spend all of 10 seconds
on it. Although our last episode we
talked about I'm very pro firework.
I am not pro idiots with fireworks.
And I don't remember if I said that or not, but there was a
story out of I think the Tampa area of people that were
(46:36):
throwing fireworks. A dog went and grabbed the
firework. It blew up in the dog's mouth
and killed it. So that obviously is, I think,
something people need to think about.
And I mean, throwing fireworks is pretty nuts to me, especially
in an uncontrolled environment. They're in an alley and the dog
ran up. So to expand on my comments from
(46:58):
last week, I'm very pro fireworkwhen you're not an idiot.
And this isn't, I'm not pro firework in a neighborhood where
you burn down your neighbor's house or throw them and a dog
grabs them in its mouth. And I think from what I read,
the information is a little bit scarce.
I couldn't find the breed of thedog.
And it sounds like it was a loose dog, not a pet dog that
(47:18):
well, I'm sure someone's pet, but I don't think it was a pet
dog like that they brought to hang out.
I think it was a dog that was running loose.
So the people throwing it didn'texpect a dog to be there.
But I think throwing fireworks in an alley is a pretty dumb ass
thing to do because a kid could have come running out from
wherever if it was big enough tokill a dog.
This is not a black cat. Sure, I don't know what it was,
(47:42):
but. If it's a small dog, I think a
black cat could maybe kill it. I don't think so.
I think it would hurt it though.Yeah, I've I've held the black
cat in my hand when I went off once and I'm still around so.
Would you be willing to do that on camera?
For enough money, sure. I mean, I think, I think you
(48:02):
should. I think the ratings for our show
will be worth it. You also have to bail me out
because, you know, I don't thinkcops are typically looking for
people with fireworks in Illinois.
But if you just present them like, well, you put it on video,
it probably wouldn't be that badto just go pick this guy up.
Well, I think you get rid of themetadata on the video and before
(48:25):
you do it, you say coming to youfrom the great state of Indiana.
Of Indiana. But to your point, I don't think
that I don't know you either have to be for fireworks or or
against because though I agree with you, you know, you
shouldn't be dumb and playing with fireworks.
It's going to happen and you can't control for that kind of
(48:46):
stuff. Again, this was a loose dog.
You can't control for that kind of stuff.
It's it's similar to well, because other people are
irresponsible with their dogs. You're not allowed to do this
thing and you know, same kind ofargument could be you're not
allowed to have a kind of corso because it could get out and
kill someone, which we've seen happen.
(49:09):
Obviously I'm from Chicago, so lighting fireworks off in the
alleys is as children is completely normal.
I don't know. I think personally there, there
should be a little more penalty for people that make mistake,
these kind of dumb mistakes withfireworks because it's not
something you could easily say, I mean, it's just an accident,
(49:31):
accidents happen, but you're assuming a higher level of risk
when you have fireworks. So if you know you're throwing
it in an alley, I think most people would know that's a
higher level of risk. Something bad is more likely to
happen doing that than lighting them off in a field and having
everyone keep their distance. So.
(49:54):
More sure, but similar. Who gets in trouble there?
So the person who lit it and threw it in an area where nobody
was, he probably told everybody.And I'm assuming because
obviously I don't know this person, but you know, it's like,
hey, everybody, step back, step behind me, because I'm going to
toss it that way. Or the person whose dog got
loose and went to go grab it, right?
(50:15):
Or do both of them get in trouble?
No charges have been filed. And sure, overall though, I
think I'm envisioning that it wasn't like what you're
describing, Nelson. I'm envisioning it was not.
We know it was a guy, first of all.
It's always a guy. We don't have to look that up,
but he's throwing it and I don'tenvision him saying, all right,
everybody, I'm going to throw itthat way.
Get behind me, everyone, keep your distance.
(50:36):
I'm going to toss it. You know, there was alcohol
involved and you know, he's justtossing this thing and like
there's no way he was taking thethe precautions he should have.
For the record, I actually don'tknow any of this.
I'm just assuming. Right.
I'm somewhere between the two ofyou.
So much like Nelson, I've lit off a lot of fireworks and
(50:57):
alleys as a as a child. So I can't say that that I've
never done it right. And if you asked me, were you
doing it responsibly, the answeris no, right?
Because much like you also said,we were drinking and and having
a good time, right? So I'm.
Sure. For the record, I was not
(51:18):
drinking so. I mean.
I was probably. I was.
Probably 21, how about that? But I don't know, I just feel
like I'm sure some responsibility is on the person
with the fireworks. But I also agree with Nelson,
(51:39):
where I feel like a lot of responsibility is also probably
on that dog owner who allowed their dog to be loose on the 4th
of July and go out in that area where somebody probably already
had been blowing off fireworks. So I think it's a really bad
situation. I feel bad for the person who
lit the firework because I'm sure they're upset about what
(52:00):
happened. And I feel bad for the person
whose dog it was because I'm sure they're even more upset
that their dog got injured, or Ishould say, passed away.
Wow, but you don't feel bad for the dog, just the two people
heartless. Certainly, I certainly feel bad
for the dog. Good catch.
Good catch. So overall, I I do think people
(52:20):
need to be held a little more responsible for some of the dumb
things they do with fireworks. I can get behind that.
All right. Thanks for tuning in, everybody.
This episode was brought to us by Boston Dynamics, the makers
of Spot. Nice.
All right, let's see you guys. See ya.
(52:48):
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