Hey, A.D.Z. listeners. This is Jack here. And if you would like to become an
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extra episodes. Now let's get on with the show. Welcome to the A.D.Z. English
podcast. My name is Jack and I'm here with my co-host, Sochil. And today we have a
topic talk episode. And today's topic is dogs and like dog ownership in
different cultures, like how people think about their dogs and treat their
dogs. And so Sochil, why don't you pick it off here for us. And like what is
your generation people your age? How do they feel about their dogs? Okay, so I
would say I kind of grew up in a culture where dogs are dogs and people are
people. And this is a very Mexican thing and it's also a very real staple of
older American culture. My dad is a boomer. And in those days, you know, dog
culture was similar to how it is in Mexico. You kind of let your dog roam free.
In the streets, he like has his own pack of friends. Right. If there's if there's
like an order, it's like the dog is the last. You know, there's no there's no
babying the dog and stuff like. And they're their own independent life. Like they
go out kind of independently. That's still a thing in Mexico. And also it used to
be a thing in the US and my dad was a kid in the 16 and set. And they they're
very independent. They're not really babyed. And they're kind of seen as like the
lowest caste working member of a family because you have them for protection
or sometimes you have farm dogs. Just or you know, it's a companion animal, but
most of the time it has a job to do. And it has a plate on the pecking order as
we say in the US, which is like the top dog is, you know, maybe the mom and dad of
the household and the kids and then the dog at the bottom. And I would say that was
very, very true for the older generations. But now my younger generation, I see I've
seen as a global phenomenon in Korea and the US in Mexico that people treat their
dogs kind of like babies. I'm a little cute. When I first had Duanday, I swore I
wouldn't be one of these people. I didn't even want to sleep in the same bed as me.
But he's so cute. It was like hard to resist. He worked his way into the bedroom up on the bed.
Yeah. Yeah. Cause he got big enough to be able to jump onto the bed. And then after that,
it's kind of game over because I couldn't keep him off. I tried to keep him off. And he was smarter than
me and found out how to get through every obstacle course that I've placed for him. So that's how a
day like four pound dog outsmarted me. I feel like Americans now and maybe Canadians to our
dogs are like their four-legged children. You know, yeah. I think it's sorry, Jack, I didn't
mean to cut you off. Go ahead. Go ahead. Because a lot of people are having kids later or choosing
not to have kids at all. Yeah. And I really effects the way that we see dogs. And for me,
I kind of people only say the older you get, the more sure you are that you're going to want kids.
And actually the opposite has happened now that I'm well into my 27 year on this planet. I have
started to become pretty sure that I don't want kids actually. And due to that, Dwayne is basically my
kid. And he plays the part of my child. You know, I he feels that the void or whatever that maybe
not that void, but like if you were if you're thinking that you want to take care of a child,
you're like, well, if I take care of this dog, it kind of feels like I'm taking care of something.
I'm not sure if I'm going to take care of a child. In fact, I really never have desire to take
care of a dog, but Dwayne kind of fell into my life and decided to take him in. So then I became
responsible for him. I've never had a desire to take care of a kid. So for me, it's kind of more like
if I barely have the energy and financial resources to take care of this dog, not barely, but like it's
somewhere in my mid range of possibilities, I'm definitely not having a kid. If I can put him in a room,
I can leave him at home alone. I can go party for a few hours. You can't put a kid.
You cannot leave a toddler at home alone and just with a bowl of food and water and be like
very good. Enjoy yourself. Take care of yourself. Yeah. Or like if he gets really annoying, I give him
a time out by just I put him in the bathroom and close the door and he just chills out in there
and stops barking like crazy. If a kid is crying and screaming, you can't lock them in a bathroom.
That's like a child abuse and you can but you may go to prison. You may end up locked in a room
where you shouldn't and you yeah, you probably will rightfully go to jail. So you know, it's kind of,
it's like that. It's like this is the most I'm willing to expend energy on taking care of
something else. And he already limits my possibilities a little bit as far as traveling stuff.
Well, I just it's an extra step I have to think about and I can't even imagine with kids. It's
like a whole other obligation, especially when they're little, you know.
I feel like in America, the it's very strange. It's like the expectations for taking care of a dog
really increased in the last like 30 or 40 years. It's like if you don't walk your dog every
single day, twice a day, you know, you're a criminal. You're just you're a rotten human being.
And it's it's weird because like in in Korea that that doesn't they don't have that feeling.
I feel like this is a very kind of American thing because I'm assuming Mexico, you're not
going to get judged too badly. If you're if you're not like let's say you skip a date to take
your dog for a walk or you take your dog for a walk. I don't even walk blend here because it's
kind of dangerous because there's a lot of big dogs. But a lot of people let just open up the
gate and let their dog out into the street to wrong that's crazy because that means they're
going to think of bite somebody or and some people are aggressive. One dogs are really friendly
and at that point it's okay. But some are pretty aggressive and but it's kind of part of the culture
people just let their dogs out for a few hours. The dog comes back and they have like the owner
comes back. It's mine. If it doesn't come back, I guess it wasn't meant to be, you know.
On some streets or someone else picked it up. Any orega hit by a car and died. Sad but true.
They're animals. In Mexican culture and Korean culture, they are animals. And that's the
thing that I came to realize when we had a dog and then we had a kid. I was like, oh,
this is just a dog. This is not even close to the value of a human being, like a human life.
And I feel like that line is that distance is a little bit shorter in American culture. It's like,
no, it's still your child. You need to take care of it even though it's a dog. I can't get there.
You know, I'm like three. Sorry, dogs running out here. People sometimes treat
dogs better than they treat human children in the US. And sometimes they have like more
privileges in the US and people like them more than human children. And that is crazy. Another
thing I think is that's really different. And I don't know if it's the same way in Mexico in
Korea. I mean, in Mexico, it's still fairly like okay for I wouldn't say it's okay, but I would say
it's still commonplace for especially the older generation to hit their dogs. Nothing crazy.
Like people aren't beating like smack it on a snout with a newspaper or whatever. They're
smacking on in spot with a newspaper if it's in the house. And in the US, like even yelling at
your dog is like you're an abuser. I know. And here's the thing is like, okay, like animal abuse
is wrong. It's not good. I'm totally against animal abuse obviously. But abusing a human child
is worse than abusing an animal. Like I'm gonna I'm gonna level I'm gonna put those on different
levels, you know? And it's like I feel like it's getting all blurred together in American culture.
It's like it's to the point where almost people care about animals more than they care about
human beings. There's like, yeah, you know, a whole orphanage of kids that like don't have families.
And yet everyone's like, you know, you got to re-home this dog. You got to you got to adopt this dog.
People still have a criminal for re-homing a dog in the US now. It's like if you if you don't have
let's say you adopted a dog and then you realize it was more obligation than you had or something
came upon you and you no longer have the financial resources or the physical capacity to really care
for your dog the same way or something happened, whatever. And you have to re-home it and you're
trying to re-home it responsibly. People will eat you alive. Wow. I had a friend who her baby
her dog bit her baby. Yeah, that's it. I'm done. Yeah. And she she's like, I'm gonna re-home
them because I can't and I understand completely where she's coming from because you just don't feel
safe with your baby and your dog in the same home anymore. Even if you try to keep them separate
or whatever, it was kind of what she'd been trying to do up to that point. And it's just so hard
living in the same home in a smaller space. And she's getting eaten alive for wanting to
re-home the dog even though the dog bit her baby. That's crazy to me because of dog bites my baby.
That dog will find a new home on the moon. When I kick it all the way up there. No, I'm joking,
of course, but I mean, I don't know. It would be hard to silt your temper about it. It would be
so it would make me so angry. And it's my fault. I didn't train the dog properly or I left the
dog alone. I mean, I do think that we blame dogs for bad owners, for being bad owners. But at a
certain point, it's kind of like, well, yeah, maybe I didn't train this dog properly, but this dog
is bit my kid. I'm done. Like this dog is out of here because. Yeah. And they can be kind of
unpredictable. Like she adopted that dog. She was a second home. And I was actually, she was my
roommate when she first adopted the dog. And he was a menace like when he came from the first home.
He would just like attack. Rendling. He had serious issues and aggression. And she worked with him
and trained him really well over a number of years. But when she had her baby, he kind of regressed,
which is can be normal because they get jealous and stuff. Right. He's like, he's now he's different
on a different pecking order, you know, down. Yeah. And he bit her and bit her baby. And that was it
for him while she re-homed him. But she got pretty sick of that. And I think that's absolutely insane.
I just can't fathom that. No, they're, you know, ultimately at the end of the day,
they're animals to me. It's like, I love my dog. My dog is very sweet, but it's an animal.
And it's not it's not human. So I'm okay with that. You know, if my daughter needed, you know,
a $5,000 life-saving surgery without even batting an eye, I'm paying for that surgery. You know what
I mean? Like whatever it takes. But if my dog needs a $5,000 surgery, my wife and I are having a
conversation, you know, it's like you've had a good life and you know, like let's, you know,
maybe it's it's a. It takes its course, you know, because I think people will spend a lot of money
to just keep their dogs limping along. And I'm like, you know, it's a it's a dog. It's an animal. So
and their quality of life really decreases. And it's different than for a human because they don't
have like that capacity to rationalize and find new ways to enjoy their quality of life either.
Right. So it really affects them negatively too, but a lot of people just keep them
trotting along for the sake of it. Yeah. I don't know. I hope I don't get a lot of hate mail
from this episode. I don't think we will because I think the US culture is really unique about it.
About how we think about like dogs and you know, animal abuse and the culture around dogs
are just completely different than it is like anywhere else in the world. And again, my generation
is getting more we're becoming more kind of like dog and cat parents because we don't have children.
Yeah. That's an interesting insight. I think you're right about that. I think you I think you nailed it.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like most of us don't want to have children. I do end this pretty much. He's
my maximum capacity for what I can take care of. And I didn't I didn't set out to take care of him.
It was like he kind of fell on my doorstep. And at that point, you know, I'm still going to do
everything I can. I cover his medical expenses, his travel expenses and everything. But when I
see him running around barking in a circle and grabbing shoes and chewing on them and stuff, I'm like,
can you imagine having a kid do this for like six years or eight years? I mean, essentially,
I know that I'm too old. Now my kids 15. So I'm done. I'm through, you know, the gauntlet. But,
you know, yeah, it was tough. It's a thing though. It's like your dog is like in your home with you
all the time. And when it passes, it passes. And with a kid, like they're going to outlive you.
And you're going to worry about that kid for the rest of your natural life until you die.
Yeah. And that's something I don't think I'm ever going to be prepared for because I don't want
to sound like a person as the world can be such a horrible place. And, and I'm so scared to have kids
and them to go out into the world and potentially suffer, especially women, all the horrible things that
can happen. Yeah, no, I don't believe you. You're not exempt, you know, but. No, these are these are
things that keep me up at night, you know, so. Yes, yeah, you have a daughter not, you know, not trying
to scare you. No, no, no, no, you couldn't scare me more. I again, you know, I, I, a lot of the
real estate in my brain is dedicated just to worrying about my daughter. So, and very little is
is worrying about my dog. So yeah, it's the difference. All right, listeners, well, let us know what
is the culture around dogs in your home country? I'm very interested to hear. And also for your
generation, does your generation or does your country treat dogs differently based on which generation
the person or the owner might be? Because for me, I do notice a difference in between probably people
millennials and Gen Z, I would say, which are our generations like 35 and under I would say in the US,
people mostly like in their 20s to very early 30s. It's kind of a different breed of
line of thinking, cultural thinking. So yeah, I'm curious. Let us know in a comment down below
at a to Z English podcast.com, shoot us an email at a to Z English podcast at gmail.com or join
the conversation on our WeChat WhatsApp groups. And we'll see you guys next time. Bye bye.
