This is an All Ears English podcast, episode 116, Why Americans Are Pet Crazy.
Welcome to the All Ears English podcast where you'll finally get real native English conversation and fluency for business and life.
We believe in connection, not perfection, when it comes to learning English.
Now here are your hosts Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer, and Aubrey Carter, the IELTS whiz, coming to you from Arizona and Boston, USA.
USA.
Americans are crazy about their pets.
In this episode, learn all about designer dog culture and how Americans view their animals.
Listen in to compare this with your culture today.
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Hey there, Aubrey.
How's it going today?
Hi, great.
How are you?
We just got back from Mexico a couple of days ago.
That's right.
How was your trip to Mexico?
It was amazing.
It's the best place to go with kids because you've got the beach right there.
There are so many resorts in Mexico where you're right on the water.
And it's quite inexpensive, at least compared to California, which is our other option.
And then you're just immersed in the culture.
And I had some amazing opportunities to speak Spanish.
I was going to ask, yeah.
I think for the first time, you know, people were responding to me in Spanish and I was able to have these great conversations instead of responding in English, because their English was so much better than my Spanish.
It was.
It felt amazing.
That's fantastic.
Wow.
You sound very refreshed and you sound like you've been traveling.
So that's a really good feeling, right?
It is, right?
Some trips you come back and you're like oh, I need a vacation from that, especially if you take kids with you.
This wasn't that way because we could just relax on the beach while the kids play.
It was ideal.
Oh, that's fantastic.
I love it.
Well, when you were in Mexico, did you see any street dogs?
Yes.
When you first crossed the border in Senoita, there were so many dogs everywhere.
Yeah, I saw a lot of street dogs in Nicaragua.
I've seen them in Cambodia a little bit, but a lot in Central and South America, actually. yeah for sure that's calm every time we go down there we'll we notice a bunch of dogs that they all they look pretty mangy and wild that's a great expression what does that mean mangy just you know a dog who's a pet in a home usually has like a nice shiny coat looks like they've had a bath recently these dogs on the street that usually don't have an owner they're just kind of you know making do um haven't had a bath in a while have you know could use a cut so their hair kind of looks crazy they look pretty dirty and yeah we use that word mangy even though i think mange is an actual like disease that dogs i think so too right where they're losing their fur but we use it more generally for any dog that looks like it needs a bath It's kind of interesting in English, just as a bonus for our listeners, when we use a word that actually means something more serious, but we use it more more casually.
Right.
So that is true.
I would say that, too, about a street dog.
They look mangy, like their hair is all messed up.
Their fur is all messed up.
They look like maybe they have some sores or some problems, some health issues.
Right.
And they're just begging for food, probably.
Yeah.
And this would be interesting if you hear a dog described as mangy and you know the word mange means an actual disease that dogs suffer from.
Yeah.
You would likely think that that person is saying this dog has mange.
Right.
We just use it to mean they look kind of sorry.
You're so confusing.
They look a little scruffy.
We're so confusing.
In today's episode, though, I'm excited about this.
Such a good topic is why are Americans so obsessed with their pets?
Did you have pets when you were growing up?
We did.
I wouldn't call them pets.
I always said I never had a pet because I lived on a farm and we had a bunch of animals outside dogs and lots of cats.
But they were wild.
They were feral.
They were like mousers.
Feral.
They would go and get mice.
They weren't tame.
They would never be allowed in the house.
They wouldn't allow us to hold them or pet them.
So they're basically like the street dogs in Mexico on the farm.
So we didn't really think of them as pets.
And that's a great bonus word.
Again, we're getting a lot of good bonuses today here, Aubrey.
Feral.
A feral is just a wild.
It just kind of means wild, right?
Just a wild animal, a wild cat that's never been domesticated, right?
That's the word.
Yeah.
That reminds me a little bit of my grandmother, because my grandmother lived with us from the time I was like 10 to 18.
And we had cats and we loved our cats.
And every time the cats would walk into her room, she would say, get those barn animals out of here.
Yeah.
Funny.
This past summer we went to Idaho to visit and my poor daughter.
She's seven.
She would love to hold the cats and play with them.
She would try and they would like hiss and scratch at her.
We're like, well, these aren't the kittens you can play with.
I'm sorry.
So clearly there are two pet cultures or two cultures around animals in the United States.
There's the wild barn animal type of thing.
If you live on a farm, they are your animals.
But did you consider them your animals?
Would you say?
I mean, yes.
You know, we fed them.
We put food out for them.
And it was a symbiotic relationship, especially with the cats.
Because if you don't have mousers, then we would have mice in the house there on the farm.
So we fed them.
And there's some loyalty there.
It's not the pet you would hold and pet.
Yeah.
Yeah, interesting.
Okay.
And then the other side of American pet culture is the polar opposite of that, where dogs are literally being taken to the hairstylist and getting their fur poofed up and carry them around in a purse.
Oh, this is an industry and it's insane.
I mean, we're kind of on that end.
We're not that crazy with our dog, Kiefer, but he's about a year and a half, and I love him so much.
We take him to Camp Bow Wow, which is daycare doggy daycare because you can't leave a dog in a house for two days.
He has to be fed and taken outside.
Yeah, what do you think about the general attitude towards Americans and their pets in this side of things?
Aubrey?
Yeah, it is interesting, having grown up the way I did, where it was a different mentality toward animals and they didn't come in the home.
That has sort of stuck with me.
My poor kids would love to have a pet that we have in the house that they can love and hold.
And it's just not in me.
But we have neighbors and they all, just like you with Kiefer, they have dogs that are part of the family.
They're just like a family member.
They're in the home all the time.
If you have a pet in Arizona, they have to live in your home.
It's too hot.
Oh, really for them to survive outside.
So all pets here are indoor.
And they do, they love them.
And luckily, my kids can go visit their pets and play with them.
Oh, that's good.
That's good.
It is fun.
I always wanted a dog so badly when I was a kid.
We had cats and that was great.
But there's something about dogs.
It's just so special because when you get home, they are ecstatic to see you.
Yes.
Whereas the cat's like, oh, you were gone.
I don't care.
Right.
It's so cool to watch your dog.
Kiefer, he'll wiggle his butt.
He'll run around the house and wiggle his little butt and run.
He'll just be so excited to see me, which is amazing.
It's this unconditional love, you know.
Your dog loves you, no matter what, no matter what happens, no matter who doesn't like you at that moment, your dog loves you.
They don't know the difference.
And that's refreshing.
It's a very special kind of relationship, I think.
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And I think that is why people start feeling like they're a part of the family, because there is that unconditional love.
It's like a baby, right?
They can't take care of themselves.
So there's that too.
You're putting in time and And that creates the bond as well.
But for them to have this loyalty.
And I think it depends on the breed, too.
I've heard some breeds of dogs are especially loyal that way.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I can see where that just really creates a bond.
Yeah, different breeds are different, but dogs have needs, right?
I know my dog needs to play with another dog at least once a day.
So when we go for a walk and if, for whatever reason, he can't stop and play with a dog, he wants to wrestle the dog, he wants to bite its neck and just play biting right.
If he can't, he's kind of a little neurotic during the day right, because he's lonely.
It's almost like a human being, like he needs interaction, he needs that social interaction And that depends on the dog.
I have a good friend who has a dog that loves humans and needs humans to hold them and pet them, but hates every dog.
This dog will just bark and you have to keep them on a leash because it would attack every other dog.
Just hates other dogs.
That's the worst.
Well, what do you think about this concept of the designer dog?
Aubrey, have you heard about this concept?
So do you mean like someone who cares a lot what their dog looks like, taking them to the spa, that kind of thing?
No, I don't know what that is then breed specific breeds together to create a mix of of a dog.
So, for example, my brother had this.
He had a mix of a pug and a beagle and they call it a puggle.
There are Labradoodles, a mix of a Labrador and a poodle.
I could go on and on and on.
It's a big trend in the United States.
But I think we're actually moving away from this.
We're going to move away from this in the future because it's so expensive.
And actually, these dogs are not that healthy.
Oh, really?
I didn't know that.
My neighbors have a Labradoodle, the sweetest dog.
But is it because of the sort of mixed breed makes it less healthy?
It's because of the intentional breeding.
I don't know. about labradoodles they may be different they may be okay but i know a lot of like a friend of a friend of mine has a she is a mix of a i think a lab or a golden and something else i can't remember but anyway she has this like weird tooth and she always drools and she makes noise it's because she's so it's like overbreeding it's the overbreeding interesting Whereas the other trend in pet ownership in the US is really just adopting rescuing.
Right now, that's kind of got more respect from most people.
If you adopt, you rescue a pet, it's respectable.
It's what people want to be seen as.
Well, and it makes sense because there's so many dogs that need homes.
Yeah.
And so to go and intentionally breed a new dog so that you have this fancy, expensive dog, it's the same, you know as Yeah.
There's so many things we can compare it to, like buying expensive fashions just to show that you have the money to buy these expensive fashions right yeah, it feels a little bit like that's why you're doing it, whereas someone who rescues a dog that's very altruistic, like clearly yes, you want a dog, but also you care about creating a home for this dog that didn't have one Exactly.
And you also end up with a healthier dog.
I mean, my dog is a mix.
My dog is a mix of, I think, like eight different breeds.
He's got Lab, he's got Aussie, he's got Border Collie, he's got even a little German Shepherd.
But he's healthy because you have all that intermixing and actually makes a healthier dog.
It's really interesting.
Or you adopted him.
How did that work?
He was a rescue, actually.
So we did.
We rescued him As an actual puppy.
He had been fostered, He had been found in Oklahoma in a barn Actually Someone's barn And then he was rescued, brought to the rescue in Colorado and then with his mom for the first eight weeks and then taken to a foster care.
And then we came and we saw him online.
We put some money down and went and met him and all the red flags went up.
He was a little bit of a shy dog, but they kind of were like, do you want him or not?
And we're like, okay, I guess we want him.
I love that because some of us, me included, I think, would be very hesitant.
It would have to be the perfect situation.
So I love that you were like even though this is going to take some work and it's not the perfect situation, we can do this.
We can provide a home for this dog.
That's awesome.
Exactly.
And the last thing I'll just say about American dog culture is that there really aren't any wild dogs in the US.
We talked about wild dogs that you see when you travel abroad.
It's weird in the US if there is a dog wandering around that's wild or doesn't seem to belong to anyone.
That's true.
Right?
Yeah.
Even in Idaho, on our farm right our cats and our dogs if they just wouldn't go to someone else's home like they still, even though they're feral or they're just kind of farm dogs, they're not as much of a pet.
They very much were ours.
They wouldn't just like wander the streets.
You know so.
It just doesn't happen.
Because if you're feeding them and creating them home for them, even if they don't come inside, they're still not going to like wander to someone else's house or wander in the road.
Yeah, exactly.
That's why I think this is a great topic for our listeners.
Guys, we want to encourage you to come back to our blog and search for this episode.
This is episode 116.
And leave a comment on the blog about the pet culture in your country.
Are there wild dogs, wild animals?
Do you have a pet?
Did you have a pet?
Tell us about all this through the lens of your culture.
I would really love to know about that, Aubrey.
Yes, I would be so interested.
We had an interesting experience in Idaho.
My daughter wanted to play with those feral cats.
And so we thought about getting a kitten.
And I could not.
It was just like you're saying with the dogs that cats are also bred and very expensive.
They were like these rare breeds was all you could buy.
It's just fascinating.
There's so much that goes into... pet culture in a country.
And I would love to know from our listeners, is it the same where you live?
I know.
I mean, we got to wrap up this episode.
Honestly, I feel like I could talk about dogs and pets for an hour, but we'll finish it up right here.
And Aubrey, thanks for hanging out with me on the show today.
Always good to have you on the podcast.
Yes, you too.
I'll see you next time.
All right.
Take care.
Bye.
Bye.
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