A Quick History of Dogs

Ever wonder how a four-legged friend can shape a life? Bill Handel opens up his world, sharing the quirky, heartwarming, and sometimes costly adventures of living with dogs—from his earliest memories to the present day. 

Through a blend of humor and history, Bill recounts his family's escapades with pets, including a $28,000 service dog, and unravels the incredible journey of dogs from wild wolves to our closest companions. Along the way, he tackles the growing trend of treating pets as family, the booming pet food market, and the ethical dilemmas of modern pet ownership.

If you’ve ever had a wagging tail turn your day around, this one’s for you.

Episode Highlights:
(00:00) Introduction and Personal Stories
(08:13) The History and Domestication of Dogs
(14:54) Assistant dogs aid the deaf and hard of hearing.(
19:24) The Rise of Gourmet Dog Food and Pet-Friendly Hotels
(30:47) The Ethical Implications of Humanizing Dogs

You can find Bill online at:
Website: https://www.thebillhandelshowpodcast 
Instagram: https://instagram.com/billhandelshow 
Facebook: https://facebook.com/billhandelshow 
Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/billhandelshow 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
This is the Bill Handle Show podcast. For over thirty years,
I've been the voice of Morning Drive in Los Angeles,
bringing you content that defies categorization. Join me as I
share personal stories of a life lived hard and discuss history, politics,
current events, and my view on the landscape of human experience,
whatever the hell that means. Each episode promises a fresh

(00:25):
perspective and a whole lot of analysis, and when it
comes to understanding the world around us, there is no
limit to what we could explore together. I don't know
what that means either. I'm a dog person. I don't
understand cat people. My daughter is a cat fanatic, and
I just don't get it. I really don't. And I've

(00:48):
been a dog person since I've been a little one.
I started, I think my first dog when I was eight,
and then I spent obviously in college, not many years
with a dog. And then I got married and my
wife just didn't like dogs, but my kids always wanted
a dog. My kids couldn't have a dog because my

(01:09):
wife didn't grow up with a dog, And the answer
was no. And considering the fact that I have been
pussy whipped by virtually every woman I've ever been involved with,
in my life, there was no dog. Now, my daughter Pamela,
who had wanted a dog, bagged for a dog. The
answer was always no. So when she was at nine

(01:31):
ten years old, I was driving her around and she
was somewhat introverted and was not particularly social, and she
said to me one day when we were driving, and Dad,
can I have a dog? And I go, no, you cannot.
Mom does not want you to have a dog, and
it's just not going to happen in this house. And
she said, but Dad, I have no friends and I'd
like a dog so I could tell it my secrets

(01:52):
and we can be friends. And so I came home
that afternoon and turned to my wife and said, we're
getting a dog. And she said, no, we're not. And
I said, we're getting a dog. I'm telling you. And
of course this is one time when I actually stood
up for myself and my daughter and the dog. And
she said, Bill, let me make it absolutely clear. It's

(02:13):
either me or a dog. It's that simple. And I said,
we're getting a dog. So within a half an hour
she jumps in the van and drives off. And so
here I am with my two daughters, Pamela, who of
course wanted the dog, and she said Mom's not here.

(02:34):
I go, that's correct, and she knew what was happening,
and she said, do you ever think Mom's coming home again?
And I said, I really don't know. I really don't know.
And then Pamela said, but we're still getting a dog,
aren't we. I said yes. So we got a dog,
and this little, tiny, fluffy, wonderful dog a strange read.

(03:00):
It was called a CATANDU tulier. It's a French breed.
It's a little puffball of a dog. It looks like
any gay guy who has slippers at home, you know,
those little puffball slippers. That's what the dog looked like.
And gay guys couldn't tell the difference between their slippers
and the dog, and it got very confusing. That's what
it looked like. Cutest little dog and sharp as attack.

(03:24):
The dog lasted nine months before we gave it away,
because as soon as Pamela got the dog, she ignored
the dog. She just liked the idea of getting a dog.
And my wife ended up taking care of the dog
and she didn't want the dog. So we gave away
the dog. Okay, so there we go, no dog and
now we fast forward to the next dog incident. G. Dad,

(03:48):
I want a dog, and I said no. Now my
kids are in their twenties, still living at home, and
G I want a dog. It's not going to happen. Pamela,
You've already had a dog. Look what happened with the dog.
She goes, No, I want a dog. It's that time.
So I said, it's not going to happen. Now, my
entire family is on anti anxiety drugs. Just to let
you know, we just were handles, and so what ended

(04:12):
up happening is my daughter, who is a lot smarter
than I am. The only way we belong to an HMO,
and the only way to get these anti anxiety drugs
is through a psychiatrist. And so a psychiatrist writes the
script and I see mine every what six months, to
see we're going to keep my anti anxiety drug going.
And it's like fifteen minutes and it's the same questions, everything, okay, Yeah,

(04:35):
everything's okay. Any changes in your life? No, No changes
in my life. Have you had any strange thoughts that
I said, other than wanting to run over kittens? No?
And she would really no, No. So I get my
anti anxiety drugs. So what Pamela did is she got
her shrink to write a prescription for an anti anxiety drug.

(05:00):
I mean a service anti anxiety dog. I mean a
full service dog, not one of these bullshit emotional support dogs.
I'm talking about the full Maguila here, right, the full range,
highly trained, six hundred hours of training, spending weeks with

(05:24):
the dog, training and connecting, and I mean it's just
crazy stuff. So she ends up getting her dog. By
the way, it took two years to get the dog,
and it costs me, and I am not exaggerating now
twenty eight thousand dollars for a full service dog, anti
anxiety dog for my daughter. She got it. She got

(05:45):
exactly what she wanted, Kindle her dog, which is the
sweetest dog on the planet. By the way, for those
of you that are not aware of how service dogs
are and how they work, you have to keep on
working with them. They put their vest on and they're
very interesting. When they have their vests ons, they're at work,
you don't pet them, you don't do anything, and then

(06:06):
when the vest comes off, they're just happy, playful dogs. Well,
Pamela didn't really keep up with the training of the dog.
So now we have, or she has at home, a
twenty eight thousand dollars dog, the most expensive dog you've
ever seen in your life. But it's the greatest dog
in the world. Oh, by the way, since my daughter

(06:28):
is very heavily invested in her training as a computer engineer,
she's not able to spend as much time with Kendall.
So Kendall got lonely. So we ended up buying Kendle
a dog. So her dog now has a dog, and
the two of them, Vinnie runs around and Vinnie is

(06:50):
cost I think three hundred and fifty bucks, and that
was to a shelter for the shots, et cetera. So
we've got a twenty eight thousand dollars dog. We have
a three hundred and fifty dollars dog. So I guess
between them we have what about a fourteen thousand dollars
average cost for the dog. And I love that dog.
And so now I've got two little dogs. I've got
a Doxy, this the sweetest little dog in the world.

(07:12):
And then I have and Bright. Doxies are smart little
dogs and they're so affectionate. And I also have a
little Gucci, who because I think the dogs have to
have company when I'm gone. So I got little Gucci,
sort of a rat terrier Chihuahua shelter dog, who is
quite conceivably the dumbest dog that has ever lived. I mean,

(07:34):
truly an idiot, moronic dog, very sweet, but really stupid.
Anne has a propensity to put on weight, so she's
like a bowling ball with four lakes. It's just you know,
both dogs eat the same amount of food. Go figure,
all right, So anyway, I thought I would do a
little history of dogs because we were talking about how
crazy people are about their dogs, and so I started

(07:58):
looking at this and first a little bit of history
and where the dogs came from. Well, you know, they
came from wolves, and wolves were domesticated very early on.
So you've got evidence, archaeological evidence, DNA analysis, and it
looks like the first undisputed example of a dog not
a wolf is called the bon Opper Castle dog that

(08:23):
was just literally a jaw discovered in Upper Costle, Germany
in nineteen fourteen. First thought it was a wolf, but no,
the science has said this is a dog. And there
are other theories that suggests dogs may be way older
than that. Walder By the way. The Bonn Upper Castle
dog was buried with two humans around fourteen thousand years ago.

(08:44):
That's the first recorded instance of a dog buried with people.
And then there are other theories that suggest dogs may
be in fact way older. A lot of experts agree
that dogs actually started to separate from wolves about sixteen
thousand years ago in southeastern Asia. The dogs we know
in love today may have first appeared in Napaul, Mongolia

(09:08):
at a time when hunter gatherers were what we were,
at a time when humans were still hunter gathers. And
that's then the two sort of were connected in a
very powerful way. Additional evidence suggested around fifteen thousand years ago,
early dogs moved out of southern and Central Asia and

(09:29):
then dispersed around the world, primarily for hunting. Hunting camps
in Europe were thought to be really the first known
use of dogs. Also, even more dispute about the timeline
of the history of dogs and humans. It looks like
in the scientists agree that the first team dogs were

(09:51):
by hunter gatherers. Now, let me tell you how useful
this statistic is, because scientists think that these first hunter
gatherer dogs became used between nine and thirty four thousand
years ago. Doesn't that help? Well, now you go more
recent science. Maybe the first domesticated dogs sixty six thousand

(10:13):
years ago to fourteen thousand years ago when the wolf
population split and we now have dogs which almost instantly
became domesticated. As a matter of fact, domestication of dogs
may have created the wolf population split. And so it
was the dawn of agriculture where dogs came more into being.
At first they were the hunter dogs, and then agriculture

(10:36):
came in, and that's where there was a real connection
between humans and dogs. So why would it be in
that era and because of hunter gatherers? Well, think about this.
These ancestors of the modern dog enjoyed plenty of benefits
from living around humans. Improved safety, steady supply of food,

(10:57):
more chances to breed. And how's this for synergy? Dogs
are protection, Humans are protection for dogs. Why humans stand upright?
They have better color vision, they can stop predators easier,
they have prey over a larger range, and it just
made sense for dogs to hang out with people and

(11:19):
he people to hang out with dogs. Also, think of this.
Dogs are useful because they cleaned up the leftover food
and they huddled with humans to provide warmth. Here is
a story where did the expression three dog night come from? Well,
it is traced in one story and this makes sense

(11:40):
to Australian Aborigines because there were some nights that it
was so cold that three dogs would be needed to
huddle to keep people from freezing. That's where they think
three dog night night came from. So dogs are warm.
I mean, how many people sleep with dogs? I sleep
with my dogs. People sleep with their dogs. They're warm,

(12:01):
they're cuddly. Dogs were used as pack animals. When you
look at dogs, they are inherent part of just our
human development. I mean, dogs just are neat, neat notice
cats are not. You know, when's the last time you
saw a hunting cat or a cat? How about this
the service cat, right, Yeah, like a seeing eye cat

(12:25):
for blind people. You'll see seeing eye chickens before you
see seeing eye cats. In Europe, Middle East North America,
walls on tombs, scrolls, you have depictions of dogs hunting
game that was big back back in those days. The
Chinese have also placed very important The Chinese have also
placed great importance on dogs, the first animals that they domesticated.

(12:49):
They were considered gifts from heaven. They were thought to
have sacred blood. Canine blood was essential in oaths and allegiances,
and also in that part of the world. When you
talk about Korea and China and Vietnam, dogs double both
as human companions and when people are hungry their dinner.
Now that doesn't happen much around here. We don't eat

(13:11):
many dogs, but you can still go to Asia and
you can eat dogs. I mean, it's really crazy. You
go to Korea. In certain parts of Korea, either there
are pet dogs or there's dog food dogs and not
dog food in terms of feeding dogs in terms of
feeding humans. Very strange. Matter of fact, years ago, my

(13:34):
program director and I were talking about doing a radio
show actually going to Korea broadcasting and going from dog
restaurant to dog restaurant because people didn't believe that there
were actually dog restaurants in South Korea and then didn't
get very comfortable about eating Fido. And it's just the

(13:58):
whole concept. I'm sure they taste great. Dog collars and
pendons depicting dogs are found in ancient Egypt and ancient Greece.
They were regarded as protectors and hunters as well. By
the way, those spike collars that you see on dogs.
The Greeks came up with that to protect their dogs
necks from predators. I mean, the stuff that we do

(14:21):
goes back thousands of years. That's still with us. Distinct dogs,
by the way, when you talk about dog breeding, don't
really appear until three to four thousand years ago. The
majority of the dog types, the breeding of different dogs
started in the Roman period. The oldest dogs were bred
to be working dogs, dogs to hunt and herd and guards,

(14:42):
so it was very practical. It didn't really get into
what dogs are like for their looks and their cuteness
and their non aggressiveness until the seventeen fifties. And this
was the first service and assistant dogs actually because there
were people. There was one hospital, for example in Paris

(15:02):
that was a hospital for the blind, and the first
guide dogs were established there. German shepherds used during World
War One as ambulance and messenger dogs, and there was
so much blindness that was caused by the mustard gas
in World War One. Thousands of soldiers came home blind.

(15:23):
Then you had the industry of training guide dogs for
veterans came into being, and guide dogs are just one
type of assistant dogs. A lot of them helped the
deaf and heart of hearing. That's one of the assistant dogs.
They literally can help when the phone rings, they tell
their master when someone knocks on the door. It's not

(15:45):
just a question of barking. If someone is deaf, it's
a question of going over the master and poking him
and pawing and say there's someone at the door. In
cases where dogs where the master is just outright death,
the dogs are taught to do American sign language. It's

(16:05):
difficult for a German shepherd to actually sign, but they've
been able to do it. They don't have fingers, they
have paws, and it's just not the same. But they're
great dogs. And you've got seizure dogs, you've got emotional
support dogs. Not just emotional support. I'm talking about trained
assistant dogs. Like my daughter. You know, my daughter does

(16:26):
have anxiety. She also has a medical condition too, where
she has heart palpitations and Kendall, her dog can actually
notice that an episode is coming on. I have seen
videos of kids that were so distraught, that had such
high psychiatric issues that there's a video of a young

(16:50):
girl maybe ten to eleven years old. She's sitting cross leg
and on the floor and is pounding her head against
the floor, and her dog comes in and sits on
her lap to make sure that she can't do that.
And when my daughter Pamela is really upset has a
bad episode, here comes Kendall who will sit right next

(17:12):
to her. I mean, dogs are pretty neat emotional support
with people with mental disabilities. They use post traumatic stress disorder,
depression anxiety. How about canine dogs around the world searching
for explosives, for drugs, evidence at crime scenes, missing people,
cadaver dogs. When you have major tragedies, earthquakes and floods

(17:34):
and they're trying to find people under rubble or in
the mud, they bring cadaver dogs that are trained for that.
I always thought cadaver dogs were just dead dogs that
they grabbed on the leash and drag them. But no,
cadaver dogs actually look for cadavers. And by the way,
these dogs need such highly specific skills that only a

(17:55):
few breeds are used. The beagle search dogs, Belgian mallon on,
these huge dogs that if you want to have someone
you don't like eating, you have a Belgian malanwag, German shepherd,
Labrador retriever, and so it goes on and on. Then
we've got the late twentieth century the designer dogs. First

(18:15):
designer dog, the poodle, was crossed with other pure bred
dogs and out of it, for example, in the late
nineteen seventies in Australia came the labradoodle. Okay, the shepski
is a cross between a German shepherd and a Siberian husky.
My friend has a dog that is between what is

(18:39):
it a husky and this little tiny dog, and it
looks like a really tiny husky. And I don't know,
how do you breed a big husky with a little, tiny,
twelve pound dog. I mean, doesn't that dog explode when
you try to breed it. I don't know how that works.
Probably artificial dissemination. And then as family members, and this

(19:04):
isn't just Americans, it's really crazy. First of all, majority
of Americans have dogs or they own a pet. Sixty
two own a pet, virtually a huge number, and almost
one hundred percent say the pet is part of their family.
Mostly dog owners but also cat owners are pretty close.
They're a human member of the family, even to the

(19:27):
point where they're more important than kids. It is. I
know people legitimately where the dog is as important. It's
unmarried pet owners, you would think, and those who don't
have kids are most likely to consider their pets as
well their kids. Matter of fact, how many times have
you seen dog owners who don't have children or the

(19:51):
children have left. We got to go home and feed
the kids. I have that situation. I have that situation
with Lindsay at home, it's the kids. No, it's the dogs. No, No,
it's the kids. They're the kids. That's how people react.
I don't. I don't. I mean, I love my dogs.

(20:11):
There was my girlfriend, and this was before I got married,
obviously a bunch of years ago. We had this little,
tiny dog, another little puffball of a dog, and this
one is live with us. Then we broke up and
I didn't want the dog. She didn't want the dog,
So I took the dog home with my parents and

(20:32):
they love this dog. Dog had just the greatest life.
And then there was my brother at the time, broke
up with his girlfriend and his dog went to my parents.
So we had the two dogs. My little one was
I don't even remember what the hell breed she was.
I don't know what's the little breeds that are all
white and puffy. You know. Again, all I can think

(20:52):
of is slippers on gay guys. No, it wasn't a poodle.
It wasn't a poodle and a little tiny puffball of
of thing. Anyway, it was also stupid, I mean really stupid.
As a matter of fact. At one point, her name
was Suki, and at one point, when she was eight
or nine years old, we were outside and she ran
out in the street and got hit by a car.

(21:12):
We had let her go for a moment and she
got hit by a car and it went flying, and
I mean probably flew twenty feet, And of course we
immediately went to the vet. She was bleeding, and the
vet said, there, she's gonna live, She's gonna be okay,
but just to let you know she has some brain trauma. Well,
she was so stupid it didn't matter. The only difference

(21:33):
was she'd walk and fall down, lose her balance or
walk into walls. Other than that, it was the same dog,
so little Suki. I mean, she lasted a while. She
was twelve years old and she got cancer and it
was it was got awful and my parents witnessed my
she's living with my parents, and they wouldn't go to
the vet to put her down, would not go to

(21:55):
the vet. Bill, You've got to do it. So okay,
So I go to the vet and I knew it
was to be rough because I really love this dog.
And so I walk into the vet's office and the
text says do you want to come in and be
with Suki? As the doctor puts her down? I go, yeah,
I'll do that. And so the nicest doctor in the world, too,

(22:15):
very gracious, understood the gravity, very warm, loving doctor, and
he said, do you want to hold her? When I
put in the phoeno barbitoal and I said, yeah, I'll
do that. And so he has the stethoscope of course
that he's reading, monitoring her heart rate, and the phoene

(22:37):
barbital goes in and little Suki is actually looking at
me as her eyes close. After a couple of minutes,
the doctor said she's gone, and as I said, very
warm doctor, and in very warm tones, he says, so,
mister Handel, do you want us tate to cake take

(22:59):
care of Suki or do you want to take her
with you? And I looked at him and go, what
am I going to do with a dead dog. No,
you take care of the dog. And that, by the way,
was exactly the tone I used the tech on my
way out because I left Suki. You know, I don't
know what you do with a dead dog. They were
going to do something, you know, make soap out of it.

(23:19):
I have no idea. And the tech said to me,
you know, mister Handel, the doctor has been practicing veterinary
medicine for twenty five years. He has never seen anybody
as callous as you are. So I don't know where
Suki is today. I'm assuming she's Lindsey, on the other hand,

(23:39):
who has had four or five dogs. They're all sitting
on a shelf, the ashes of the dogs. You know why?
All right? So much for that. I just don't get it.
I don't, but I'll tell you what I do get, which,
on the other hand I don't get is the way
we feed our dogs. And we're right up there. There

(24:01):
are dog foods now where that are so expensive they're
human grade and they're actually gour may dog foods where
it costs more to feed the dog than people do,
and they go out to good restaurants. It is completely crazy,
you know. It used to be just you grab a
bag of dog food. I remember when I was a kid,

(24:22):
you'd buy dog food. It was a bag of it.
And then you had a really neat technology. I remember
gravy train where you put some hot water in the
dog food and then there was gravy and then the
dog loved that. And then there was wet dog food
and come on, really, guys, and then you have the
gour may dog food. It's completely crazy. There is a

(24:48):
story that was written in the Atlantic about a couple
of different dog foods. And there is a Michelin starred
chef Jose Andriz. Of course everybody knows one of the
great chefs, and I love his food and he has
and this is a dry dog food chicken and vegetable

(25:09):
asado recipe Mediterranean inspired dog food real MESA that was
last fall. It was introduced. Sometimes dog owners cook for
the dogs. I mean just completely insane. I mean real food.
You know a lot of the dog foods today you
can eat. I mean they are human grade food. It's

(25:30):
not like it's not like the old days when even
protein and meat, you know, when you look at you
know has real meat. Let me tell you the kind
of meat they have there's cow's assholes there, you know, pigs,
ears and guts and just stuff that's still real meat.
Oh no, no, not today, not anymore. The market for

(25:52):
fresh food, human grade fresh food shipped to your door
on ice that's expanded more than thirty percent since twenty nineteen.
Per year, there is a company called Mayev Flash frozen
uncooked USDA grade meat and vegetable mixes about one hundred
and fifty bucks a month for a medium sized dog.
That company sales quadrupled in twenty twenty two. The Farmer's Dog,

(26:17):
which is we feed ourt two dogs embarrassingly enough, became
one of the highest valued startups selling products or services
to pet owners. Increased from twenty twenty two to sixty percent.
That's twenty twenty two to twenty twenty three, eight hundred
million dollars last year worth of blended, minimally processed vegetables

(26:39):
and meat regulated exactly to the same levels as the
food that you and I do, except it is healthier.
For example, you got the Farmer's Dog turkey dinner and
it comes customized with your dog's name on it. Of course,
this is food for in our case, Gucci or Tom.

(27:00):
It looks like this giant freezer pop and it's sort
of dark brown, except there's little flecks of green and
orange and yellow. And it contains chickpeas and spinach and
carrots and parsnips and fish oil and vitamins and minerals.
And you know, it's about as good as anything we eat,

(27:23):
except it's more expensive. Now, think of this, and these
are studies that have done Why do we buy this
dog food? Why do we spend so much on dogs? Well,
you argue love, because we love our dogs. But anxiety
is the other half of love, and anxiety makes us
very good at making us buy things. There was a

(27:45):
twenty nineteen study. Researchers found it ninety six percent of
survey respondents prioritize buying healthy food for their pets as
much as or more than buying healthy food for themselves.
I eat jung food, I love it. I buy Costco
frozen burritos. I'll buy anything at Costco, Trader Joe's all
their Indian food, frozen, fantastic. Won't feed the dog that stuff.

(28:09):
I like it, not for the dog. And the other
thing about dog food or anything, the more expensive it is,
the better it is, right, That's what we think. And
so you have pet food advertising tugs at the same
health related worries as selling human food, whole ingredients, natural flavors, superfoods, probiotics.

(28:30):
This is for a dog, I mean, this is for
a dog. We have taken dog ownerships to levels. Well
how about this, which is fairly new luxury hotels, right
It used to be years ago you couldn't bring a dog.
Can you imagine going to a major hotel with a dog?
Not a chance? Well, not only do we have now
most major hotels are dog friendly. Bring your dog, but

(28:54):
there are hotels for dogs. We used to call them kennels.
We used to call them boarding facilities. Now they are hotels.
And by the way, they are closer to hotels than
they are for than they are kennels. Four poster dog beds,
tasting menus, Poppaccinos for breakfast, Poopa Chinos for breakfast. Yeah, hotels,

(29:20):
more and more. In the Telegraph, which is a British newspaper,
there was an art article. There was an article written
by a writer who owns a dog and tells us
that almost a third of British households owning a dog
and fifty six percent of dog owners are now choosing

(29:42):
to travel with the pets, and hotels are jumping on
this bandwagon. Euro Monitor International, the World Travel Market Global
Trends report says that hotels becoming pet friendly increase revenues
by about thirty percent a year. Now we're talking some
serious stuff and hotels want to make sure they cater

(30:03):
for as many people as possible. And so many people
are traveling with dogs. Guess what they are now? Pet friendly?
But think about it. When I travel and I got
my two dogs. We need a dog sitter. Can't just
lock up the house. You need a dog sitter. Do
you have any idea what dog sitters cost? Any idea
what a cost for a couple of weeks of a
dog sitter? How about one thousand dollars a week to

(30:26):
have someone come in and take care of the dog.
And that's their job. Obviously the house sit also, But
if it weren't for the dogs, there wouldn't be house sitting.
That's why God invented locks. Are we that crazy? Are
we getting crazier? Yeah? We are we are. Let's finish
it up with are we loving our pets to absolute death?

(30:51):
There are animal welfare ethicists. I didn't even know that existed.
Animal welfare ethesis and veterans veterinary scientists are wondering, and
they're now starting to think, have we gone too far
in our efforts to humanize our dogs? Because they are human,
they're not dogs. We don't treat dogs like dogs. They

(31:12):
sleep in our beds, they eat with us, they go
to restaurants. You feed them, No, you eat the scraps,
you feed them the main meal. Have we gone too far?
And here's an interesting, interesting argument they make. The more
we treat pets like people, the more dependent they become

(31:35):
on us, clearly, and the more health and behavioral issues
they develop. Interesting view, we now view pets not only
as family members, but as equivalent to children. I'll tell
you that I told you that before. James Sparrow. James Sirple,
a professor of ethics and animal welfare at University of
Pennsylvania that school, says animals are not able to express

(31:59):
their own doggy and caddy natures as freely as they
might because they they're no longer animals. They're not people.
They're members of the family. And then you have all
the health risks. And you've heard of this. It begins
with breeding. The French bulldog, for example, which is now
one of the hottest dogs out there. You steal them
and there were thirty five hundred dollars. It bonds terrifically

(32:20):
with people, but it has trouble breathing. Docxins have trouble
with their discs. You've got sharpais, for example, one of
my favorite dogs. So ugly. They are beautiful. They have
no hair, they're just skin, and they're such loose skin
that the skin just sort of flops all over them.

(32:42):
You can actually grab some skin and pull it and
you're now two feet above the dog and it's still
the four feet are still on the ground. I mean,
that's a great dog, all kinds of skin problems. It's
bred that way. And there's a bioethesis in Colorado who
spent time looking at this. The unleashed and loose dog

(33:05):
today is considered against the natural order of things. So
we have this huge growing market. The pet confinement sector
creates indoor fencing, head harnesses, electronic collars, and dogs were
freer to run. We don't do that anymore, you know.
Just like we have helicopter moms, helicopter parents, we have

(33:26):
helicopter pet owners, and you protect the dogs so much
they can't be dogs. They're allowed in restaurants and offices
and stores and hotels and more parks with dog runs,
dog parks, and so what ends up happening confinement and isolation.
That has bred an increase in animals, animal separation, anxiety,

(33:46):
and aggression. In other words, we've got separation anxiety. The
dogs have it too. I've always wondered by the way
you leave the house and you come back and the
dogs are jumping up and down and jumping all over you.
In our case with our doxy runs and circles and peas,
he's so excited. And it almost doesn't matter how long

(34:09):
you've been If you've been gone an hour, it almost
doesn't matter how long you've been gone. You've been gone
an hour, they react exactly the same as you've been
gone a week. Do they have a concept of time?
I wonder if they keep time. I don't know the
answer to that. Dogs are now overweight or obese. How
about sixty percent of them cats and dogs? And then

(34:31):
the real downside of this, you had COVID and a
lot of people got dogs because they were by themselves.
They were at home trapped, and so they got these
wonderful dogs that did a great job, and then veterinary fees,
pet sitters, boarding costs okay, too much money, and more
people are abandoning animals to animal shelters, much higher rates

(34:53):
of euthanasia. Now, no kill shelters are the rage, right,
but he no one wants to kill a dog, so
they've established no kill shelters. So with that and the
number of no kill shelters, I think there are far
more no kill shelters and kill shelters. With the number
of no kill shelters we have. In twenty twenty three,

(35:16):
more than three hundred and fifty nine thousand dogs were
euthanized as shelters, a five year high. More dogs are
getting killed even with the no kill shelter people. Dogs
are just too expensive. That's the problem. What I spend
on our dogs is ridiculous. Oh, by the way, First
of all, dog insurance is a waste of time. It
is so expensive there, the deductible is crazy, and it

(35:40):
doesn't cover anything that a dog might possibly get. Oh,
we don't cover that. No, no, we don't cover that. No, No,
not that one either. But my dog was hit by
a car. No, no, not covered. So that's a waste
of time. And let me tell you, if you're in medicine,
if you're thinking of going to med school, go to

(36:01):
vet school. You want to make a good living, become
a veterinarian. Walking in the door is hundreds of dollars
just for the vet to say hello to your dog.
Scandinavian countries have started to ban the breeding of dog
breeds that are particularly prone to disease. Cavalier King Charles Spaniels,
for example, gorgeous dogs can't have him in Sweden. Illegal

(36:26):
to leave pets alone at home for extended periods of
time in Sweden and is Finland. Creating animals you know
how dogs are trained, can't do that in a lot
of European countries. There is a great story about one
of the more well known professors who has written a

(36:46):
lot about this at Western Carolina University, who studies animal
human relations, and he says, the more we view dogs
and cats as autonomous creatures, the less we justify owning
them as pats and justify owning them as pets. Let
me explain you what he did. He was a few
years ago. He was vacationing on the island of Tobago,

(37:07):
and he spent a lot of his time watching stray
dogs that were roaming the landscape by the way first
World countries, the dogs were at home any place else,
and they're what, I don't know how many dogs there
are out there, nine hundred million or whatever the figure is.
Most of them just run around outside, you know. Not
many people around the world will keep their dogs inside.
We do. So he is watching these stray dogs roaming

(37:30):
the landscape, and he said, I asked myself, would I
rather live in Manhattan as a pamper dog or when
I rather be a dog in Tobago hanging out with
my friends? Said, what do you think dogs last longer
when they're confined when they're home, but a price they pay? Yeah,
ask a dog. Would you rather be free and running

(37:54):
around and not have to answer to us? And what'll
the dog tell you? I'd rather be taken care of
and have good food and be a couch potato dog.
But it's just incredible, the world of dogs and pets.
It's how we deal with our pets, particularly our dogs,
say a whole lot about what we are as Americans

(38:17):
and as people. Thanks for listening, and I hope you
got something of value from this podcast. I'll be back
with the next episode to give you a bit more humor,
history analysis, and a bit of mayhem. Catch you next time.
This is the Bill Handle Show podcast