Welcome to the Listening Time Podcast.
Hey everybody, this is Connor and you're listening to episode 148 of the Listening Time Podcast.
Thank you all for listening.
Today I want to talk about a topic that I've already talked about, but a long time ago in one of the first episodes, and and I also talked a little bit about it in a bonus episode, if I'm not mistaken and that is the topic of dogs.
I think in the normal episode that I recorded a long time ago, I talked about pets in general, but today I want to talk about dogs specifically.
When I was trying to think of ideas for this episode, I saw a dog walk by my window.
And so that's the topic that came to mind.
So we're gonna talk about it today.
And I know a lot of you are dog lovers.
I'm gonna give you a spoiler alert.
A spoiler alert is an alert that you give people when you're gonna already reveal some important information to them at the very beginning, and so it might kind of ruin the story because you already know what i'm gonna say.
So people say this when they are gonna talk about a new movie that they saw recently.
They might say hey, this is a spoiler alert, so don't listen if you don't want me to ruin the movie for you, and then they'll talk about something in the movie.
So just a spoiler alert.
I don't really like dogs that much, but I'll explain myself, and I know that most of you probably like dogs, so you're gonna want to hear my explanation.
But we'll talk about that soon.
And if you feel like these episodes have become a little bit easy for you, then make sure to sign up for my advanced podcast episodes.
The link is in the episode description below this episode.
You can click on it to sign up to become a Listening Time family member and you'll receive my advanced episodes immediately.
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All right, let's get started.
Are your ears ready?
You know what time it is.
It's listening time.
Alright, let's talk about dogs.
Now that I'm recording this, I can see that this is the perfect episode for today, because my neighbor's dog is barking.
He just stopped, but he might start again and normally I would just edit that out, but today, since the topic is dogs, If he barks, I'm probably just gonna leave that in and you can just enjoy the background barking as I talk about dogs.
So, let me talk very briefly about my history with dogs.
My family had a lot of dogs when I was growing up.
I think we had a total of seven different dogs.
So, I have a lot of history with dogs and I've had some interesting dogs.
One of them, he's not mine, he's my sister's but he used to live with us and he's still alive.
He's a pretty interesting dog because we're pretty sure that he's part coyote.
He's half coyote, I think.
The word coyote refers to the animal that kind of looks like a wolf, but it's smaller and lives in desert areas.
So this dog that is still alive is...
He was rescued from an area where it's very common for dogs to breed with coyotes.
The word breed, when used as a verb like this, refers to animals having babies.
Okay, so in that area many coyotes and dogs breed, and so there are these hybrid dogs that are part dog and part coyote.
And I can't say for sure, but I would guess that this dog that my sister has is part coyote.
It looks like a coyote.
It acts like a coyote sometimes.
A coyote dog hybrid expert once told us that he was sure that our dog was part coyote.
So we assume that he's part coyote.
So that's pretty interesting.
And another interesting dog that we had for many years was an Australian shepherd named, which are sometimes just called Aussies.
This Aussie was really smart.
She was an extremely intelligent dog and sometimes that was a problem.
She was too intelligent and she was able to do certain things that we didn't think she could do, and so that, once in a while, was a problem for us.
I remember a couple instances of that.
And the same thing has happened with the coyote dog.
He's really smart and he's also used his intelligence to get into trouble before.
But that Australian shepherd that we had was one of the smartest dogs I've ever encountered.
By the way, we can say that you encounter something or someone, to say that you have had an experience with that thing.
So that dog we had was one of the smartest that I've ever encountered.
And one other interesting one.
Another interesting dog that we had was this really small white mutt.
The word mutt is kind of a not very nice term to describe a mixed breed dog.
So it's not purebred, meaning its two parents weren't of the same breed, as we say, the same type.
So this dog was a mutt and not a very beautiful mutt.
And she was really small.
And what was interesting about her was that she was very portable, I'll say.
Portable means that something can be taken and transported very easily.
So I remember...
My dad just carrying her on his shoulder almost like a scarf.
He would throw her over his shoulder and walk around the city with her and she would just chill there on his shoulder.
We can use the verb chill like this to mean that someone just hangs out in a peaceful way.
They're not really doing a lot.
They're just sitting there or whatever.
So she would just chill on his shoulder as he would walk around and go different places.
And one time I took her on a stand-up paddleboard with me on the water here in San Diego.
I was doing this stand-up paddle sport where you stand on that paddleboard and you go out onto the water.
I did that with this dog with me.
So she was standing on this board with me in the bay on the water.
So that was probably my best memory of her doing that stand-up paddling with her.
So she was very portable.
So it was interesting to take her to some different places.
So that's my history with dogs in terms of dogs that I've had.
And I need to say that throughout my childhood and early adulthood, I never liked cats and I always thought that dogs were better.
However, recently, in the last five years or so, my opinion has changed a little bit.
I actually appreciate cats a lot more now than I used to, and I'm allergic to cats.
I can't spend time in an area where there's a cat.
However, when I see that my neighbor has a cat instead of a dog, I actually prefer that more now.
And let me tell you why.
So when I lived in Mexico for some years, I had to deal with a lot of dogs barking.
And it's funny.
I say that because, as I mentioned, my neighbor's dog was just barking earlier when I was recording.
I don't think he'll bark anymore now, hopefully.
But yeah, it's funny that that happened because this is what I dealt with for years in Mexico.
My neighbor's dogs would bark all day long.
I'm exaggerating, of course, but sometimes it seemed like I would just hear barking all day, no matter where I lived.
It didn't matter which apartment I lived in.
I lived in multiple apartments, but there would always be barking dogs.
And when you have a podcast like mine, this can be very frustrating.
When you want to record and you need silence, but the dog next door won't be quiet.
You can imagine how many times I got frustrated when trying to record podcast episodes and I had to wait for the dog to stop barking And sometimes I would wake up really early to record before there was any noise from the dog or anyone else.
So that was always really frustrating for me.
And not only that, but I also lived the last year and a half of my time in Mexico with a baby boy.
And it was very frustrating, very annoying when dogs would bark loudly and wake my son up.
I hated that.
I would always get frustrated when that happened, because my son was just a baby and needed to sleep, but some dog or something would wake him up.
I definitely didn't like that.
And just in general, I would want to enjoy some peace and quiet, and just in general, these barking dogs would always interrupt the peace and quiet that we had for short periods of time, and then the barking would start, and not just barking.
There were motorcycles and car horns and things like that, of course, but you get my point.
I'm someone that appreciates the quiet when i'm trying to work or when my son is sleeping, and so it was always annoying to have to deal with that, And there were some other things that made me stop liking dogs as much when I lived in Mexico.
Another thing was that there was dog poop everywhere, all over the city, on the sidewalk.
It was annoying to always have to try to avoid stepping on it.
And I'm sure a lot of you agree with me that it's not very nice to see that on the ground all over the place.
So I didn't like that.
Another thing I didn't like was when we would be walking on the sidewalk.
And suddenly some vicious dog would poke its head out of the fence of some house and start barking at us and scare us like that.
That happened a lot.
By the way, we can use the phrase poke your head out.
This means that you stick your head out of some opening.
So these dogs would poke their head out of the fence and bark and growl at us, and it would always scare us when that happened.
That happened to me a lot when living in Mexico.
And I would just get a little bit nervous about my son too.
And now that my son can walk and he's there on the ground when other dogs come up to us, I get a little bit nervous and I kind of want to protect my son and make sure that he doesn't get bit by a dog, because that would be a disaster.
So, as you can see, there are some different reasons why I stopped liking dogs that much when I was living in Mexico.
And I know that these things are not the dog's fault.
They're the owner's fault.
I know that.
So don't accuse me of unfairly blaming these dogs.
I know that these are animals.
So I know that the owners are the ones responsible for this.
But still, because of this reality, I don't really like dogs that much nowadays.
And I know many of you love dogs, so don't get mad at me, okay?
This is just my personal preference.
And I know that dogs are fun and friendly, but They're just not for me.
Over the years, I've realized that I prefer not having a dog and I prefer when my neighbors have cats rather than dogs, simply because of the noise and because it makes it hard for me to work or for my son to sleep or whatever right.
And I do want to close the episode with some positive words about dogs.
I don't want you all to hate me now that you've realized that I'm not a big dog lover.
I do want to say that I like certain things about dogs.
For example, I like that dogs are very loyal.
I really admire that trait.
The word trait means characteristic.
I like that dogs are loyal to their owners.
That's cool.
So dogs will just follow their owners everywhere and they won't abandon them, hopefully.
And they will protect their owners.
That's really cool.
And dogs tend to be happy.
They're like happy animals, which is nice, because when your dog is in a good mood, it puts you in a good mood, right.
So I think that they have a good effect on their owner's mental health and their mood.
So that's a big advantage of having a dog.
And dogs are fun.
You can play with them, you can invent games, you can teach them different tricks.
Dogs are fun animals compared to some other pets, let's say.
And I even think it's good to raise them with kids.
It's good to have dogs and kids in the same house.
I think that that's a good thing in most cases.
However, I am not going to do that with my kids.
In the past, my wife and I talked about the possibility of getting a dog if we lived in a house with a backyard and space and all of that.
However, that was years ago when we talked about that.
Now we both realize that there are more complications that need to be considered.
And as I already mentioned, I'm not a big dog person anymore.
I liked dogs as a kid.
It was nice growing up with dogs, but I would prefer not to have one, especially because I don't like having the responsibility of taking care of these animals and feeding them, taking them out, doing all of the things that you need to do if you want to be a good dog owner.
So because I'm not able to assume that responsibility, I shouldn't have a dog.
And I'm sure you would agree with me that a person who isn't capable of being responsible for an animal shouldn't have that animal.
Right?
That's better for everyone.
So that's pretty much it for today.
I know that a lot of you probably like me less now because you know that I don't like dogs that much.
But really you and I both know that my problem is more with the dog owners who let all of these things happen that I didn't like, right.
So dogs are fine.
Dogs are cool animals.
But I prefer not to have dogs barking around me and all that kind of stuff.
All right, that's it for today.
I hope you enjoyed this episode.
And if you feel ready to practice with my advanced podcast episodes, Make sure to sign up to become a Listening Time family member.
The link is in the description below this episode.
That's patreon.com slash listening time.
And if you want my U.S.
Conversations podcast in which I talk to other English teachers from around the country about different topics, then you can also sign up for that.
The link is down below.
That's patreon.com slash usconversations.
And, as always, please share this podcast with any English learners you know and please give it a five-star rating and write a review.
All right, thank you for listening to this episode and I'll talk to you on the next episode of Listening Time.
