Humans Can Lick Too

"The Lick" and "The Choking Dog" are classic urban legends of being home alone. Even if you have a dog, it doesn't mean you are safe.....

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Hosted by Michelle Newman and Edwin Covarrubias. Episode edited & sound designed by Sarah Vorhees Wendel of VW Sound

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Episode Transcript

(00:01):
This burglar was hiding in the closetbut passed out after losing so much blood
from three fingers that were bitten off. Get ready for a campfire story.
I'm Edwin, I'm Michelle, andwe'll share spooky stories with playful banter that'll

(00:23):
keep you up at night. Sothrow some wood on the fire and put
a wiener on a stick. We'retelling you a campfire story tonight. Cacaw.
I guess that's not like a woodnoise. But there could be crows
out here. We don't know inthese woods. So we're out in the

(00:46):
woods. The fire's crackling, thatwiener's roasting, and we are ready.
We are ready to tell you acampfire story. I'm gonna tell a classic,
a story that takes place on anight much like this one. Edwin,

(01:08):
you have offered to dog sit mysweet Robert. Oh, sorry,
sidebar, I got his DNA back. What is he? What is he?
What is he? Oh? It'shorrible. He's not a pug at
all. He has no pug inhim. He's a poodle. He's a
Chihuahua poodle. Isn't that heartbreaking?He's a cheapoo? What about his hair?

(01:29):
His Uh, well, he's onlyeighteen percent poodle. Oh it is
all chihuahua. Yeah, it's allall chihuahua. I've been telling everyone,
everyone in America that he's a chug, and he's actually a cheap poo.
It's a tragedy anyway. It wasa dark and stormy night. You are
babysitting my sweet angel boy, Robert. You're home alone for the night,

(01:55):
and you curl up in bed.Everything's peaceful, Robert's settled down. You're
watching a rerun of The Big BangTheory. As it glows on the TV.
Suddenly a news bulletin breaks in breakingnews. Be on the lookout for
an escaped prisoner or lunatic. Ihaven't decided which word to use. He
recently escaped custody. Consider armed anddangerous and kind of a pervert. Your

(02:22):
show resumes. Thunder crashes and rainpelts against the window outside. The house
is all locked up. Plus Robert'shere. You're safe, so you start
to drift off to sleep. Aboutan hour later, there's a loud noise
in the house. The power's out, Robert. You call. As you

(02:44):
sleepily shift, you reach your handout for reassurance from Robert. The dog
gives you slobbery licks on your hand. Good boy, you murmur as you
fall back to sleep. The nextmorning, you wake up and head for
the back. The door is closed, which is odd since you basically we're
alone all night in the house.And then you open the door and you

(03:08):
find Robert locked in the standing shower, very unhappy he'd been there all night.
Did you guys really think I wasgonna kill my own dog in this
story? Like I'm gonna kill Robert? He's right here. But when you
look around the bathroom, you lookat the mirror, and on the mirror

(03:30):
someone has written humans can lick too. Geez, that is so disgusting.
This is actually my roundabout way ofasking you to dog sit Robert. So
can I get your scheduled? Iguess? But do you believe that someone
could sneak in and lick a hand? You know, there's enough weirdos out

(03:51):
there. Plus there's Abraham Lincoln,you know with this whole licking And then
what's that show now on Netflix that'slike Pretty Baby Range. I watched it
yet, but yeah, I've heardof it. There's been, you know,
weirdos that really stalk you, andI really bug you. I feel
like they'd be capable of sneaking intoyour house and doing something weird like that,
like licking your hand, no seelike that. So it makes it

(04:12):
out really hard because it's like youwould have to wait there for the hand
to droop over the side. Yeah. Well, I mean you're just hanging
out on the floor anyway. Ithink that's the whole point, is that
you're crawling around on the floor andyou're trying to not get caught, and
then the hand falls down and thenyou're like, oh, I guess I
am making noise, So I guessI do have to lick this hand that

(04:34):
just fell down, as opposed tosomeone who is just pretending to be the
dog and waiting to kiss your handin the middle of the night. Yeah.
But it's interesting because in the nineties, Snops fanned that this motif has
been around since the nineteenth century,and originally it was like first recorded in
eighteen seventy one in the diary ofVictorian Squia. His wife heard noises in

(05:00):
the middle of the night, toldhim to go look at what was happening,
urged him to go investigate. Soundedlike burglars, he told his wife
that it was only the dog reachingout his hand, and he felt the
dog licked his hand. But inthe morning all of his valuables were gone.
He had clearly been robbed, whichit doesn't really like spell it out.
I don't think that. I meanthat could have still been the dog
that licked his hand. I hopeso. But there's a similar theme in

(05:24):
the short story A Diary of MisterPointer, and this was published in nineteen
nineteen. This guy falls asleep inhis armchair and drops his hand, thinking
he's petting his dog, and here'san excerpt of it. He felt on
the back of it, just theslightest touch of a surface of hair stretching
it out in that direction. Hestoked and patted around something. But the

(05:48):
feel of it, and still more, the fact that, instead of a
responsive moment, absolute stillness greeted histouch made him look over the arm What
he had been touching rose to meethim. It was the attitude of one
that had crept along the floor onits belly, and it was so far

(06:10):
as could be collected a human figure. After discovering the person crawling along his
floor, Denton runs as fast ashe can, and the person gives chase.
He barely makes it to a secureroom with his life intact. It
doesn't seem like there's a real instanceof this. It has. The story
of the licked hand has appeared inmovies all sorts of things, but in

(06:32):
real life the only story that comesa little close to it would probably be
Dennis Raider known as BTK. Hewould hide in a bedroom closet and wait
patiently for hours in a bedroom closet, and then he strangled be a victim.
He didn't lick a hand, Sothere is a missed opportunity for perverts

(06:53):
out there. So there's a nichethat could be filled. That's nasty,
you know. It's a cautionary tillabout living away from home. We fear
being vulnerable in an unsafe world,and the more unsafe we perceive the world
to be around us, the morethese tales will probably get told. And
frankly, there could always be aman under your bed waiting to lick your

(07:16):
hand. So I used to havethis book on urban legends, and your
story right now reminds me a lotof the one I'm about to tell you.
Let me know if this rings abell. You're out with your friends.
One night, Michelle. Everything isgoing well. It's a healthy going

(07:36):
out, right. You go tothe bowling alley and you go get to
my ice cream. Everyone starts goinghome. Eventually it's late. It's nine
o'clock. I would have never leftthe house, and we didn't leave before
like six, So it's fine.Nine o'clock. I'm ready to go home.

(07:57):
You pull up to your driveway,right, but something feels you can't
really put your finger on it.Something's just a little bit different. You're
not quite sure what it is.You shrug it off and you instead just
keep going well. To the frontdoor. You open it, and then
you notice your dog, Robbie.He's trying to breathe. You freak out.

(08:18):
You carry him to your car.Something's up right, You can't breathe.
So you get on the phone withthe emergency VET and you're still driving.
You're like, oh my god,like something's happening. Your dog is
basically choking. You can't figure itout. Fortunately, do you make it.
Carry him inside. The VET takesa look at him and says,
okay, look, he'll be allright, but why don't you go home

(08:39):
right now. I'll call you assoon as I have news. Right,
so you agree and you go home. I'd never agree to that, but
okay, for the story's sake.Sure, Just as you get home,
your phone rings right as you're pullingup right, it's the Vet and you're
like, oh, you have news. Okay, like what happened? And
then the Vet tells you that youneed to leave the house right now.

(09:05):
Startled, you're like, wait,wait, what are you talking about?
And then she begins to tell youto shut up and leave that She'll tell
you as soon as you're out ofthe house. You just somebody your way
out. You're back in the car, you close the door, locking the
doors, and that's when she's like, are you safe now? It's like,
yeah, what turns out Robbie hadbeen choking on three human fingers.

(09:28):
You hang up the phone, youcall the police and they come to your
place right away. You give thempermission to search. They search the house,
and eventually they find that this burglarwas hiding in the closet but passed
out after losing so much blood fromthree fingers that were bitten off. Oh

(09:50):
my god, Robert the hero,my little cheepoo. But of course there
are a ton of variations. Thisis actually one of these really famous urban
legends when we talk about like thevanishing hitchhiker or the babysitter or all these
other urban legends. This one ispopping up. Including there's some versions of

(10:11):
this that are of course racist becausethey talk about the fingers being black or
Mexican fingers, which I mean,how do you know they're Mexican? I
learned about this show, Canadian showcalled Freaky Stories. Awesome name by the
way, Yeah, that when theytold this story, they used the poodle
instead of this doberman, which ishow the original legend goes. It's a

(10:33):
doberman. Eventually in the nineties it'schanged to like a pitbull. In another
version that it thinks makes more senseof this legend, the burglar escapes,
but he starts bleeding out, sohe's forced to go to the hospital,
where they end up matching the missingfingers to the ones in the dog's throat,
which, yeah, it makes alot of sense. But let's hear
some arguments here. Here's how thestory could not be true. Right,

(10:56):
first off, you said it.The vet usually doesn't ask you to go
home, no, and they'd belike, this was five thousand dollars you're
just bringing just worse. They'd askyou for your insurance. But this urban
legend is actually called the choking Doberman, which later turned into choking Pitbull,
then too the you know a dogchoking dog. And I also went on

(11:20):
Snopes because I found that they lookedinto it to see how what the earliest
record of it could be. Itlooks to be this article written by Phoenix
New Times on June twenty fourth,nineteen eighty one. Oh really, the
article is called gagging dog story bafflespolice. This is from the article that
I found. Snopes had it,so I guess they had a source for

(11:43):
it. According to the story,police arrived at her house and found an
unconscious intruder without fingers, lying ina closet. New Times learned of the
story from an employee of a largeindustrial plant in the valley. He said
he had gotten the story third handfrom an employee who in turn had heard
it from a woman whose relatives LasVegas you the dog's owner as a Friday.

(12:09):
New Times was not able to naildown the identity of the doberman's mistress.
According to a spokeswoman at Las VegasSun, that paper, too,
was very interested in breaking the story. Unfortunately, even though the story was
all over Vegas last Thursday, thepaper and police weren't able to dig up
one shred of evidence to prove theincident ever occurred. The police are baffled.

(12:31):
The Sun spokesman said, that's hilarious. The fact that that made a
newspaper is the funniest thing. Itdoesn't take a lot, I guess,
to end up on the news localnewspapers, but like an internet article,
sure, but a newspaper article onlike the eighties. Really it's funny because
I feel like they spent resources tryingto dig it up that they just couldn't
find one. So they're just like, I guess our story is just trying

(12:54):
to find it and we couldn't,so that's our story. And then they
wrote that article. Also, thefreaky thing here isn't the miss right,
Like really, it's that someone wasat your house. We had a prowler
on my property and my neighbor's cargot rifled through. Nothing was taken.
Someone was wandering the property in themiddle of the night, so it's a
little unnerving to know. And Ismelled cigar smoke outside my window, which

(13:18):
is also unnerving, So needless tosay, I will be shutting all windows,
locking all doors, and all curtainsgo down when it gets dark,
and leaving my porch light on.No we're dark parking lot. Does Robbie
detect people outside? Yeah, heloves to bark at the neighbors, but
he well, a lot of thetime he'll bark at nothing, So it's

(13:41):
like I can't. He's not thebest detector. But if someone came to
the door at night, or likeif he heard someone out in the bushes,
I think he'd go off fingers crossed. So this legend reminds me a
lot of the babysitter one that ever, Yes, it does somebody sneaking into
house. It's called the babysitter andthe man upstairs. Everybody's probably heard it.

(14:03):
Basically, this babysitter is watching TVlate at night and then the phone
rings and the caller says, checkthe children, and then she ignores it,
goes back to watching TV, andthen the caller does it again.
Then she gets freaked out, soshe calls a police. The police says
they're going to trace the call.Caller calls again. They trace the call,
and then the police call a lotof calls. Turns out that the

(14:26):
unidentified caller was calling from inside thehouse. They tell her to get out.
Turns out that the actual legend goesthat there was calling her after killing
the children upstairs. Is that theversion you heard? I've heard that version
before. Yeah, he's killed thechildren already. A woman babysitting kids,
you have every scenario going there.Did a man crawl in and lick her

(14:50):
hand in the middle of the night. H No, But imagine somebody in
your house is always going to bea source of anxiety because you're so posted
to be safe. It's the ultimateanxiety is it's a safe zone and someone's
violated your safety. More of thestory. Get a dog, I think,
get a Robert. Yeah, besure to adopt and not shot.

(15:13):
Yeah, adopt adopt fan corner wherewe give you a seat at the campfire
fan corner. I like that.Okay, Well, let's read some reviews
from our listeners. Okay, thisone comes from Julie Girl eighty six left
the review on Apple Podcasts best show. This show is awesome, amazing,

(15:37):
and spooky. Also, this showis super funny and the host put me
in a better mood. The oneabout the Hook is my favorite so far.
Woo, all right the hook wasthe hook was mentioned? I think
it'll be mentioned for the rest ofeternity. It's an iconic story, very
representative of modern Americana. This isnow an NPR podcast anyway. Next comment,

(16:00):
Jack Wilin says, I listen alot to True Crime ETTC, but
these two always make me smile.I enjoy their harmony together. Great team
seems genuine. I hope they keepit up. Yeah awesome. Yeah,
we hope to as well. Somake sure you tell your friends to follow,
like and subscribe. Text the showto one of your friends. Let

(16:22):
us know what you think of thenew way we're doing the show, and
reach out. If you want tobe in fan corner, write us a
little email at Hello at campfirestory dotcom. Always remember to put your fire
out and stir your ashes only youcan prevent forest fires. Campfire Story is

(16:42):
hosted by Michelle Newman and Edwin Kovarubias. This podcast was edited and sound designed
by Sarah Worhez Wendel, a VWsound