SPEAKER_03 0:00

Hello, this is Ross, the host of Smells Like Humans. This will be our last new episode as we take a much needed break. But don't despair, we've recorded about 85 or 90 of these suckers. And if you go back through the catalog, there's probably many that you haven't heard before that'll tide you over. And we hope you enjoy those. If you find that you're missing us, please drop us a note via email. Our email is in the show notes. Or you can reach out to us on Instagram and message us that way. Let us know if you're missing us and are anxious to have us come back, and maybe some topics you hope we'll cover. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this next episode. We certainly appreciate all of our listeners and the people who look forward to this podcast every week. We wish you a wonderful and healthy, happy holiday season. And thank you again so much for being part of this family. By the way, a cockroach can stay alive for about a month with no head.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

What?

SPEAKER_03 1:14

So if you are trying to kill a cockroach and you're just guillotining them, you better get the rest of them. Because they will run around. They eventually get hungry and die.

SPEAKER_02 1:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:23

They can't eat without a head. No mouth. Can't eat without a head. But they can hang out.

SPEAKER_02 1:28

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_03 1:29

They can still watch Netflix.

SPEAKER_02 1:30

Don't care for that.

SPEAKER_03 1:32

Welcome to another episode of Smells Like Humans. This is the podcast where we explore the curious things that people do, the very human things that grab our attention and cause us to wonder what and why. I'm Ross, your host. My guest for this episode is an utterly lovely human, dog lover, true crime aficionado, and all-around genetic masterpiece. It's Jamie. Hey there, Jamie.

SPEAKER_02 1:59

Hi Ross.

SPEAKER_03 2:00

And welcome to everyone. We really appreciate that you listen to the show. We hope that you enjoy it. If you want to support us, please share the show, help us grow the community. If you want to make us feel good, reach out to us and tell us what you like about the show. We're independent. We're little. We need encouragement. We're needy. We're love starved. So please help us any way you can. We're also on Patreon. There are many, many ways you can get involved. And if you do reach out to us, we promise to reach back. Also, if you uh write us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, we will likely read it on an upcoming episode. You can be famous that way. Now we know that we humans like the idea of a pet. Would you agree with that?

SPEAKER_04 2:53

I agree.

SPEAKER_03 2:54

A dog, a cat, a bird, not in our case.

SPEAKER_04 2:56

Not a bird, no birds.

SPEAKER_03 2:58

We also know that sometimes we don't really know what we're getting into when we bring a pet into our home. Sometimes it can be more than we bargain for. During the pandemic, apparently, people were grabbing pets left and right. Yes. Anything.

SPEAKER_02 3:15

Anything.

SPEAKER_03 3:15

Grabbing anything off the shelves. I remember in my own neighborhood suddenly seeing people walking dogs I'd never seen.

SPEAKER_02 3:22

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:23

I'm a dog person, so I knew all the dogs in town. All of a sudden there's all these new dogs and new people wandering around because they got jacked to do.

SPEAKER_02 3:30

Yeah, I have an apartment on the first floor and it overlooks like the dog relief area. And I was like, oh, who's this puppy? Who's this puppy? There's like 25 new puppies.

SPEAKER_03 3:38

Please send all your donations to dog relief. So a lot of people knew themselves well enough to know that they couldn't handle a dog or a cat. Yes. So they reached for the little fuzzy guys, like a guinea pig, or a chinchilla, or a hamster, or even a mouse. Yep. Well, apparently I was reading. No, I was actually reading that apparently apparently I was reading. And then the police showed up. No. I was reading that apparently a number of folks, now that the pandemic, at least the current phase of the pandemic, is to be a little bit on low in many places, including here. People are giving back these little fuzzballs that they had adopted, or they're just abandoning them.

SPEAKER_02 4:27

Terrible.

SPEAKER_03 4:29

Which sucks. There's nothing sadder than an abandoned hamster. You know, with the little stick and sack over the shoulder walking down the railroad tracks.

SPEAKER_02 4:38

Also, do hamsters just like exist in the wild?

SPEAKER_03 4:40

Like they are all over, they're everywhere. You know, a hamster.

SPEAKER_02 4:45

Okay. I just can't picture it.

SPEAKER_03 4:47

You gotta start picturing hamsters like pets only. There are hamster cruises, there's hamster like communities. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:56

Don't you know this? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:58

So anyway, people are turning in these little fuzzies, and why they got busy again, and then they're like this little fuzzball. Like, it's like, what why do I have this? Yeah. Why do I have this chinchilla? You know, they're cute. Yeah, they're they would, but this uh, I mean, it's hard to flush a big, big like a chinchilla. That's not gonna flush easily. I couldn't do that anyhow. Not like you. They um that's a true crime episode. So people people uh I got busy again, but also I think um, and it's been reported that people will get rid of these guys when they realize that you they don't really have a relationship with them like they do with a dog or a cat. It's like when you have like a hamster, I mean He doesn't care about you at all. Well, it's just not the same.

SPEAKER_02 5:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:46

You know, it's not you know, they don't come, they don't come running up to the curl up on your lap. I mean, I've seen videos of people like with rabbits that are super involved with them, but you have to spend a lot of time with you know with these creatures. So a lot of people just feel like I'm not getting anything out of this, I'm busy, I don't want to clean the cage anymore. They get lazy and they get rid of them. So in New York City, so many guinea pigs have flooded the city's animal shelter system. 600 so far, that's more than double pre-pandemic time, that the city council is considering a bill that would ban their sale in pet shops. You won't be able to buy a guinea pig. You know what that's gonna cause. Black market guinea pigs. But the population spike has forced the shelters to invest in a new $20,000 guinea pig tower.

SPEAKER_02 6:36

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_03 6:37

Where the animals live stacked in sliding trays. This is not where they should be. On Wednesday, a box containing twenty-two guinea pigs of all ages was found abandoned in the lobby of a Staten Island apartment building. The situation has become untenable, said this one person. We are at our wit's end. Have you noticed that in some towns they now have places like remember those video return things, boxes? Yeah. When we had hard videos that we would rent and we'd have to put them back and blockbuster, yeah. Yeah, the blockbuster return window. And they have those now for babies in some towns.

SPEAKER_02 7:12

What? Babies?

SPEAKER_03 7:13

Yeah, babies. Human babies? Yeah. You drop them in the box, an alarm comes up, comes off, and somebody comes and gets it. I kid you not.

SPEAKER_02 7:22

Surely you jest.

SPEAKER_03 7:23

No, it's like it's like a little deposit slot for actual babies that you don't want.

SPEAKER_02 7:29

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 7:30

So people get these I'm telling you gotta look that up.

SPEAKER_02 7:34

I'm going to, because that can't be true.

SPEAKER_03 7:37

I know you think it's not true, but they're and they're becoming more and more frequent. So people get these pets, they look adorable and cute, but you know, they don't get the real, they don't get the action they're looking for. They don't get the love they're seeing. They don't get the affection, the loyalty, the interest. So the animal ends up paying the price for that. And it's no good. And so I'm I was thinking about that, and I think you know, we needed to start rethinking our relationship with these other creatures in our world because we tend to like discount their feelings. Well, I think we should think about how we can share the space with them a little better. These little squeezers are part of the ecosystem, too, you know. We all depend on them in some way. Like even the lowest, the lowliest critter in the animal kingdom is playing a role of some kind.

SPEAKER_02 8:29

Those wild guinea pigs roaming around in fields.

SPEAKER_03 8:33

I think it's easier. There's like a uh Coyotes eat them? It's like a there's a sandals all-inclusive hamster vacation you can take. Yeah. I think it's easier for us to sell other animals short just because they can't talk or use chopsticks. You know what I mean? It's like, oh, well, good are you. You're not valuable. And I think it's tempting to regard them as kind of dumb creatures. They're fuzzy and dumb. And once you start thinking somebody's fuzzy and dumb, man, it's just a short walk until you stick them in a return slot.

SPEAKER_02 9:04

Man, fuzzy and dumb is my MO for getting dogs. Oh, I thought I would give me all the fuzzy, dumb dogs.

SPEAKER_03 9:13

I really thought you were gonna say boyfriend. I really, really did. I really, I'm not kidding. I know you think I'm doing a joke, but I it's like, oh, that's how you pick your mates. Fuzzy and dumb, that's how I like them.

SPEAKER_02 9:25

I just go to the Humane Society and I pick the most pitiful creature.

SPEAKER_03 9:28

Right.

SPEAKER_02 9:29

That's the one I want.

SPEAKER_03 9:30

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 9:30

That's it.

SPEAKER_03 9:31

But the thing is, you keep them.

SPEAKER_02 9:33

Yes, I will keep them. You take care of them. You're not. No matter how pitiful and terrible they are, they stay with me forever.

SPEAKER_03 9:40

No matter how many teeth they don't have. Because I know your one dog has no teeth.

SPEAKER_02 9:46

Zero teeth. But a lot of tongue hanging out.

SPEAKER_03 9:49

Then who wouldn't want who wouldn't want that?

SPEAKER_02 9:52

Who wouldn't want fuzzy, dumb with a lot of tongue. I'm gonna poster in our stories when this episode airs. So people know how fuzzy and how fuzzy and dumb.

SPEAKER_03 10:03

It really is. Yes. Well, speaking of dumb, you know, we don't I I think we sell a lot of animals short, including their little dogs.

SPEAKER_02 10:12

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 10:12

The main markers of intelligence in the animal kingdom, and by the way, we're animals. I don't know if you knew that. Okay, so the ability to learn from experience, use knowledge to manipulate your surroundings, adapt to new situations, and then understand and handle abstract concepts. These are the broad areas that represent a whole bunch of different types of skills and abilities, like the ability to learn and remember, memorize, reason, perceive, solve problems, all those things. It's interesting to think about what other animals have these intellectual features. And I'm gonna ask you, I've done some exhaustive research. Okay, can you name any animals in the top ten? And I'll give you one for free. Humans.

SPEAKER_02 11:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 11:01

So what other animals are in the top ten most intelligent in the entire animal kingdom?

SPEAKER_02 11:06

Uh go. I think maybe like a gorilla.

SPEAKER_03 11:09

Uh chimpanzee. Chimpanzee, yes.

SPEAKER_02 11:12

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_03 11:12

That's one.

SPEAKER_02 11:13

Coco, I feel like Coco the gorilla. He was so smart.

SPEAKER_03 11:16

Nope.

SPEAKER_02 11:16

Um, okay, no. Um not in the top ten. Not in the top ten.

SPEAKER_03 11:20

Chim chimps are though.

SPEAKER_02 11:21

Dolphins. What about dolphins?

SPEAKER_03 11:23

Dolphins, yes. That's another one. Good job.

SPEAKER_02 11:25

Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 11:26

Any other thing jump into mine? Top ten, smartest. Smartest.

SPEAKER_02 11:33

Um birds probably are in there.

SPEAKER_03 11:36

Yeah, but it's a particular bird. Parrot. Yes, African gray parrot. Very good.

SPEAKER_02 11:41

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 11:42

There's another great ape that's on the list. That's not um not a chimpanzee. Chimpanzees on the list.

SPEAKER_02 11:49

An orangutan?

SPEAKER_03 11:50

No, a bonobo. Oh, a bonobos. Bonobos are very smart. And by the way, they have a matriarchal society. Good for you. The women bonobos. Oh yeah. The female bonobos in charge. Girl power. That's right. Bonobo power. Any other guesses that's on this list? So you got humans, you got dolphins, you have chimpanzees, bonobos. Bonobos, African gray parrot. There's just a couple more. I'll give you like the top 12, any of those. Any others pop into your head?

unknown 12:23

Tick tick tick tick.

SPEAKER_02 12:24

I know.

SPEAKER_03 12:25

Would you have guessed elephants?

SPEAKER_02 12:27

Oh, elephants.

SPEAKER_00 12:28

Elephants are very smart. They're very smart.

SPEAKER_03 12:30

They're very smart. Empathetic. They are. They're very smart. Octopuses. Yes. Extremely intelligent. Pigeons.

SPEAKER_02 12:40

No. Yep. Don't believe it. Crows. Crows. Ravens. All those birds.

SPEAKER_03 12:46

Ravens, crows, and pigeons, very smart. And in the number, the top ten, because I gave you a few over ten, but the actual number ten is rats. Rats are in the top ten most intelligent animals on the planet.

SPEAKER_02 13:00

I do believe that because I watched a thing about uh bomb sniffing rats.

SPEAKER_03 13:04

Yes! They are trained to smell bombs and TNTs. They smell out the explosives.

SPEAKER_02 13:12

Yes, they go in those fields with where there's like mines buried and sniff out the bombs. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_03 13:18

Now, places big cities are always dealing with rats because rats, you know, they eat trash. That's one of their functions, by the way. But one of the benefits of rats is they eat trash the trash that we throw out.

SPEAKER_02 13:30

They love trash.

SPEAKER_03 13:31

In big cities like New York, when their people stacked their trash on the sidewalk for two days, you know, the rats are like, I mean, if we were rats and somebody put out a buffet that was free, we'd be like, Well, I guess this is for me. So the rats see those sacks of trash and they hang out. So they're trying to do all these things to take care of rats, and they're finding rats now that people are driving more in New York because they during the pandemic they tried to stay away from public transportation. Now people are finding rats in their cars, and rats like being in the engine and they build nests. So you could open your car starts running bad, you open the hood, and there's like a bunch of rats, rats, and chicken bones, and you're like, Oh, this is not good. Also, they'll chew the wiring. Oh, this really happened. I was driving doing like a like 500-mile trip, and about halfway, my car just started like stopped. Rats had chewed through the ignition wires on my car.

SPEAKER_04 14:26

Why?

SPEAKER_03 14:27

Yeah, well, they like chewing. Oh, and some of these wires, by the way, have like soy, they have a soy base, and so they think they're eating. Oh, they think it's chow time, but also in cold climates, they'll after you pull your car in, the engine's warm stays warm for a long time. So they're like, ooh, what a lovely place to live.

SPEAKER_02 14:44

It's a spa day.

SPEAKER_03 14:45

So check your engine every once in a while for rats and mice. But um, yeah, they've had a lot of problems with people um with their check engine light coming on, and then you know, they find like an egg and cheese sandwich inside because you know, um, and you we all we know rats for it through the garbage. I don't know if you remember a few years ago there was a big thing online with pizza rat.

SPEAKER_02 15:07

Pizza rat.

SPEAKER_03 15:08

Everybody liked watching pizza rat. Giant, he was dragging a legit New York slice down a drain. So we had to fold it and get it. I mean, it was fascinating to watch. They'll even a rat will even if they get hungry enough, they'll eat another rat. Yep. Or a pigeon. Yeah, whatever. They'll take out a pigeon.

SPEAKER_02 15:28

Yeah, you know, they they an African gray parrot, sure.

SPEAKER_03 15:31

We've talked about cannibalism. Well, rats, you know, people, rats, we have a lot in common. Um, these outdoor dining sheds that are all over Portland, they're a big attraction for rats. Yeah, because it's like, okay, food on the street. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the rats are like, yes, please.

SPEAKER_02 15:48

Yeah. I just was having lunch at a a restaurant in Portland, and there was the there's rat was your waiter. Well, there was a food cart pod across the street, and I was just like looking at the food cart pod, and this rat was just like going from cart to cart.

SPEAKER_03 16:01

Yeah, and they're like huge rats. They're like right on. Yeah. The um yeah, I think it's I if you look uh closely enough, it's not hard to see rats everywhere. Everywhere. Um now when I was a kid, I did have some pet mice. Yes, didn't we? You had pet mice?

SPEAKER_02 16:18

Yeah, I had mice, I had rats, I had guinea pigs, I had ducks, I wow I had hamsters, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:24

Any uh small oh you you were defin you were a small critter keeper.

SPEAKER_02 16:28

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:30

But you you love these animals. You took care of them. Yes, you didn't eat them or anything. How about the ducks? No, you didn't ducks.

SPEAKER_02 16:37

Yeah, the ducks we had to give away.

SPEAKER_03 16:40

Once they got tattoos, they just became uncontrollable. I had uh Ben and Herbie were my pet mites, a gray mouse named Ben and a white mouse named Herbie. Uh I also had a brother, Ben, I think was who thought that the mouse was named after him. And I didn't do anything to disabuse him of that because it looked like it made him feel good. Yeah. But it was actually named after a mouse in a scary movie called Ben. Oh was it called Ben?

SPEAKER_02 17:08

I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 17:08

Willard.

SPEAKER_02 17:09

Willard.

SPEAKER_03 17:10

Was that the name of it?

SPEAKER_02 17:11

That was the name of it.

SPEAKER_03 17:12

But the mouse in there was called Ben. Oh, okay. I named it after the scary mouse.

SPEAKER_02 17:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:17

I don't even know what that movie was about, but there were mice in it, and there was a weird kid, and people got eaten by mice. But you know, we were talking about it's just a second ago that it's easy to see rats if you just look for them. And I started thinking, like, well, how many rats are there, anyhow? Has that ever been estimated, their population? We how many would you guess? If you were just gonna throw it.

SPEAKER_01 17:36

Oh, rats in the whole world? Yeah, just the whole world. Oh man.

SPEAKER_03 17:38

Just oh, a number.

SPEAKER_01 17:40

Two billion.

SPEAKER_03 17:40

Yeah, so that's a pretty good guess. It's seven billion. There's almost a rat for every human on the planet. There's seven billion rats. We could all have our own pet, we could all have our own rat. But for me, I'm like when people say, Oh my god, I saw a rat, and actually surprise. We should be surprised we don't see rats all the time. I mean, you go outside right now, you're gonna see people.

SPEAKER_01 18:04

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 18:04

You you cannot go ten paces without seeing it. You know, we've got Derek here. Yeah, he's a people, you're a people, I'm a people, but we're inside a studio, but we go outside right now, you go anywhere, there's always people. Yeah, it's a surprise that there aren't also rats everywhere, yeah, like driving cars, taking subways, whatever.

SPEAKER_02 18:26

Yeah, eating pizza.

SPEAKER_03 18:27

Eating pizza. I mean, it's amazing that we don't see more of them. They're very, very good at hiding themselves.

SPEAKER_02 18:32

I had a pet rat named Bosco.

SPEAKER_03 18:35

That's a pretty good name.

SPEAKER_02 18:36

Thanks. It was a Seinfeld reference.

SPEAKER_03 18:39

Oh, that's right.

SPEAKER_02 18:40

George's pin number. Bosco!

unknown 18:42

Bosco!

SPEAKER_03 18:44

Yes, I remember the Bosco episode. I remember that was his yeah, he didn't want anyone to know. Yeah, but he had to finally give it up. Uh-huh. That was my rat. Speaking of trash, you ever hear of a trash panda?

SPEAKER_02 18:57

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 18:57

You know what a trash panda is?

SPEAKER_02 18:59

I surely do.

SPEAKER_03 19:00

What is it?

SPEAKER_02 19:00

It's a raccoon.

SPEAKER_03 19:01

That's right. It's another fuzzy creature, but they're also attracted to trash. Yep. Anyway, we don't like rats. Humans don't like rats. It's no secret. And why? Well, they carry disease. So, I mean, there's that. Except for Bosco. Yeah. Well, pet rats, if you get them checked out by your vet, you can and as long as you keep them away from wild rats, they're they're probably pretty safe to have. But a wild rat, you know, they have disease, they carry disease. And yeah, I mean, we just don't like them.

SPEAKER_00 19:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:35

We just don't like them, but I feel like we need to think about our relationship with them a little bit. First of all, rats are smart, as I said. They can learn tricks, they're social, they love company. If you have one as an owner, they bond with you. They like they like stimulation, they like playing games, they talk to each other in rats speak. Oh it's too high frequency for us to hear.

SPEAKER_01 19:58

Okay, that's fun.

SPEAKER_03 19:59

They like to cuddle. They engage in bruxing. Uh uh what? Bruxing. They engage in it. Would you like to know what it is?

SPEAKER_02 20:10

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 20:11

It's uh purring.

SPEAKER_02 20:14

Oh, okay. It's like a purring.

SPEAKER_03 20:15

Okay, I thought I let that hang as long as I could. Watch the movie going in your mind.

SPEAKER_02 20:20

Yeah, like, oh no, it's gonna be bad.

SPEAKER_03 20:23

Uh their uh studies show they're altruistic, they are concerned for the welfare of their fellow rat. They make great pets. They don't smell, the cage will smell. But if you clean your cage, the rat is the pet rat does not smell.

SPEAKER_00 20:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:37

And if you have a dog, you know that dogs get smelly. They get smelly. I mean, they're just they stink.

SPEAKER_02 20:44

Not my precious angel.

SPEAKER_03 20:46

No, yours. Yours are constantly a bubble bath. Beautiful dog. I just imagine that weirdo-looking dog floating in a bathtub.

SPEAKER_02 20:53

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 20:54

Just all bubbles on its head, just like some kind of perfume.

SPEAKER_00 20:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:00

Also, rats, by the way, and they expect this to happen anytime the next few hundred years, there's gonna be another mass extinction event, you know, like what got the dinosaurs.

SPEAKER_04 21:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:09

And we always forget that that we used to not be here and there were dinosaurs, and then what did we have? Me, mass extinction event. Yes, meteor hit, and boom, no more dinosaurs. But you know who's gonna stick around? Will be rats.

SPEAKER_02 21:24

The rats and the cockroaches.

SPEAKER_03 21:26

And the cockroaches. By the way, a cockroach can stay alive for about a month with no head.

SPEAKER_00 21:33

What?

SPEAKER_03 21:33

So if you were trying to kill a cockroach and you're just guillotining them, you better get the rest of them. Okay. Because they will run around. They eventually get hungry and die. Yeah. Because they can't eat without a head. No mouth. Can't eat without a head. But they can hang out.

SPEAKER_02 21:48

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_03 21:48

They can still watch Netflix.

SPEAKER_02 21:50

Don't care for that.

SPEAKER_03 21:51

I want to tell you that there are uh 350 cockroaches per person in the world. No. So we Can each have 350 friends if we want. So if we have one of these extinction events, not only will will rats survive, but the experts say they'll get really large because small mammals tend to grow, grow, grow in size when there's no predators around.

SPEAKER_02 22:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 22:18

They are gonna get big. So we'll have big ass rats running the world. And maybe that would be better.

SPEAKER_02 22:26

Princess Bride style.

SPEAKER_03 22:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:28

Rats of unusual size.

SPEAKER_03 22:30

We'll be long gone, but the rats will be here and they will be living large, literally. Yep. So I've probably read about 50 articles on rats and counting. But I just started thinking like, you know, these rats that we hate, we hate them. But like, are they really that different than us? I mean, they spread the disease. We spread disease. Hello, COVID. Yeah. It's like, uh, what? We're doing that. They destroy the, you know, they destroy things, they chew them up, they're very destructive. Hello, humans.

SPEAKER_02 23:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:02

Same.

SPEAKER_02 23:02

Same, same.

SPEAKER_03 23:04

Um, and why are they, you know, they've evolved, they were here before us, but they've evolved to like totally like be around us because we keep providing them with scraps.

SPEAKER_04 23:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:15

All the trash that we generate, all that food that gets thrown out. They're like, okay, if you're gonna do it, I mean that's how dogs adapted to us. They hung around the wolf, they were the wolves that hung around the campfire, yeah, and got the scraps that we were throwing out. And they figured out, okay, well, we'll just figure out a way to hang with you in a way that you'll actually feed us on purpose. And the rats are the same way. They're like, You're gonna keep setting out chow for us, so we're gonna hang with you. And we're smart, remember, and we're talking to each other and we're cuddling, so don't kill us so much. Yeah, but that's all we try to do. We're always trying to kill them. We don't think about them. So then I start thinking about what are some other critters that have been around a long time and the crocs and the gators. Yeah, they've been around for those are dinosaurs, a couple hundred million years, the the variation, you know, the variations over time, but they they have been around a long time. And uh as we know, they're still snacking humans off banks all over the world. They they're like, okay, it's the same thing with the rats. Like you're gonna put you know, an 80-year-old woman out by a lake. I guess that's that's a you know, invitation to eat. It's like ringing the dinner bell. So, yeah, it sucks that that happens, but they do that. They've been around, they are looking for food. But here's the good news. I was excited about this a few episodes ago. We talked about uh Amy and I were talking about wild pigs and how they're destroying, doing all this destructive stuff in this country and other countries like Australia. Wild pigs are kicking ass. Yeah, they're like ripping up golf courses, they're chewing up all kinds of they make a they're a huge problem. And a wild pig, they can be kind of mean.

SPEAKER_02 24:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 24:57

Uh also pigs, very smart.

SPEAKER_02 25:00

Very smart.

SPEAKER_03 25:01

They're extremely smart. Were they in the top ten? Did I say pigs?

SPEAKER_02 25:06

I remember saying pigs.

SPEAKER_03 25:07

I I'm going to check now. Did I say pigs? Top ten. Pigs. Pigs. Pigs are in the top 10 or 12 smartest animals, so they're super smart. And we look at them and all we think about is bacobits. Bacon. Yeah. But they're really smart, and it makes me think differently about eating them, actually. Yeah. But these wild hogs can be a nuisance, and they're rampaging the countryside. And what they started noticing in places like Australia, where the uh crocs, croc population had been decreasing to dangerous near extinction levels, the croc population started coming up, started increasing. Why? Because they're sucking down the feral pigs, they're eating the pigs. So it's kind of like bad news, they're feral pigs. Good news, the crocs are coming back. Yeah. And then even here, um, wild hogs may have saved the Florida panther population. There's a panther that lives in Florida and it was dying out, and now with pigs running around, they're like, hello. Yeah, we're not dead yet. Not dead yet. Um, I thought that was cool. And and here, alligators, you ever seen this thing called a nutria?

SPEAKER_02 26:28

I was literally thinking about the nutria. I was gonna bring it up. Yes, they're insane.

SPEAKER_03 26:34

They're huge.

SPEAKER_02 26:34

Giant rats with the orange teeth.

SPEAKER_03 26:36

They look like giant rats.

SPEAKER_02 26:38

They look like giant rats.

SPEAKER_03 26:39

You'll see them sometimes here in this country, depending on where you are, different parts of the country, but they'll be right by the highway and they're waiting for something. Yeah. Roadkill. I don't know what they're waiting for.

SPEAKER_02 26:50

They're in like ponds and stuff, too. Yeah, they're I actually saw one in the Willamette when I was walking to work the other day.

SPEAKER_03 26:56

They're big. You kind of you kind of think like maybe they're a beaver or something, but they're not. Anyway, alligators alligators are pigging out on nutria now in this country.

SPEAKER_02 27:06

Get rid of them. They're terrifying.

SPEAKER_03 27:08

It's a large semi-aquatic rodent from Argentina. That's what it is. Nightmare fuel. It was introduced onto uh fur farms in Louisiana many years ago. Okay. But still, the point is the alligator population is starting to thrive because they can suck down the nutria. Yeah. So let's talk about some good things about rats.

SPEAKER_02 27:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 27:31

Okay, you already talked about them being TNT sniffers, the explosive sniffers or clear landmines. They're also being used to help screen for tuberculosis. They can smell TB in a patient's sputum sample.

SPEAKER_02 27:46

Is a sputum.

SPEAKER_03 27:47

Yeah. That's you know, you cough up a little something.

SPEAKER_02 27:51

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_03 27:53

They can do drug enforcement.

SPEAKER_01 27:56

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03 27:57

They are scavengers. They eat a lot of the trash. I mean, that's one good thing they're doing for us.

SPEAKER_04 28:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:04

I mean, we think it's like, oh, we gotta get rid of the rats, we shouldn't have any trash, but that's kind of what they're eating. They're taking care of it for us. They're very opportunistic, they'll eat anything. They also make great food for other predators. Mm-hmm. You know, and like there's urban coyotes that come into cities to eat the rats. Yeah. That's why they're there. When they have a rat, please.

SPEAKER_02 28:26

One rat, please.

SPEAKER_03 28:27

One rat with the side of pigeon. So I mean, you know, they're good and bad, just like we are. I just feel like I mean, I get it that we don't like them and we don't want them around. We don't want them hanging out in our food. Huh? I think they're cute. Well, they are cute. There are invasive donkeys in Death Valley. What? They're invasive. There's too many of them. They're bothering everyone. All right. Nothing worse than a donkey that's not been invited. You know what I mean? Well, now they're being eaten by mountain lions, and that's helping them the mountain lion population.

SPEAKER_02 29:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 29:04

They'll eat a whole donkey, no problem.

SPEAKER_02 29:05

Yeah, whole ass.

SPEAKER_03 29:08

Just gonna let that sit there. Pun intended. Yeah. Now they don't know how many snakes there are. Because I know you were wondering, but I do know there is an estimate of ants. 2.5 million ants per person.

SPEAKER_02 29:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 29:26

Everybody gets two and a half million ants.

SPEAKER_02 29:29

Also, have you seen there's like a new like viral thing right now of a close-up of an ant's face?

SPEAKER_03 29:36

No, is it uh it's horrifying?

SPEAKER_02 29:38

I'm gonna show you as soon as we're done here. Yeah, that's nightmare fuel.

SPEAKER_03 29:42

That's gross.

SPEAKER_02 29:43

Yeah, it's horrifying. How do you love that?

SPEAKER_03 29:45

It looks like an orc. No, you can't love that face. But that's what make that was what made that movie like a giant ant would be horrifying. It would be one of the scariest things you've ever seen. So yeah, if you get you look at a lot of bug faces, a lot of bugs are not good looking. No, ugmos. Um, there's very few insects that I have seen close up where I haven't thought, man, that face is busted. That broke.

SPEAKER_02 30:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:15

That is that thing is broke. No, take that joint down the road. You cannot sell that here. This is ug. Oh man. So yeah. But then again, all of these creatures, you know, an ant's not very smart.

SPEAKER_02 30:33

No, but I don't know why I thought ants would be smart.

SPEAKER_03 30:36

They're strong. They don't know anything. They're just like they just they just have one idea from birth to death.

SPEAKER_02 30:41

They carry a leaf from one point to another point.

SPEAKER_03 30:45

Carry the leaf, carry the leaf, carry the leaf. That's how they do. That's just a one's thought. But but all of these creatures on the planet, they're all interacting, and nobody wants to die. Everybody's trying to stay alive. That's what we have in common, I think, is this urge to survive. And to me, it's fascinating, you know, what we think is like aggressive behavior in a lot of these little critters is just they're just trying to get by. And they we freak them out. We come chasing after them with traps and glue traps and poison and pitchforks, guns. We're like constantly trying to kill everything. I mean, no wonder they're freaked out. But yeah, a living thing, even a weed tries really hard to survive. You know those hard, those weeds that are hard to pull out? You ever try to pull out a weed? Yeah, the ones that hurt your hands, or they leave some kind of weird uh stuff, some grease on your hand, and it gives you a rash. Or they have the roots, you know, they like the the top breaks off.

SPEAKER_02 31:48

Yeah, you gotta really dig them up.

SPEAKER_03 31:50

But you yeah, and they're just they're but that's that's that's life. People, everything is just trying to get by, and there's certain majesty in the way it's all symbiotically connected. And I still, if a rat shows up at my house, I'm gonna get rid of try to get rid of it.

SPEAKER_01 32:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:11

But I also now have a little more empathy knowing how smart they are and how much they really want to cuddle after they bite me and give me the bubonic plague. They also think some of the worst uh what was it, the black plague? Yeah, it was blamed on rats. They think maybe now it wasn't rats. But rats got a bad rep, you know. They yeah. Because everyone's, you know, they think they're disgusting and dirty. But really, have you like a lot of people like chipmunks and squirrels, and they're just so close to being a rat.

SPEAKER_02 32:40

Watch Ratatouille. He's a little shit he's adorable.

SPEAKER_03 32:46

I like a rat chef.

SPEAKER_02 32:47

Yeah, a little rat chef. Well, if put a good spin on the rats.

SPEAKER_03 32:51

If he wears a chef's hat, it makes it better. Yes, I have a whole philosophy that anything is better in a chef's hat. Yep. Okay, and anytime I say this, people will pull out the worst example. Have I told you this already? Oh, I've always said everything's better in a chef's hat. And so so, you know, like if you're getting fired, yeah, that sucks. Yeah, but if your boss is wearing a chef's hat, when they fire you, it makes it a little better. It's a little better. Um, if you're in a breakup situation, so you go home today and your partner's like, We've Jamie, we gotta break up, and you're like, totally sad, or maybe we're happy, but you have feelings. But if he's doing it with a chef's hat on, it's a little better.

SPEAKER_02 33:35

You're like, yeah, I get it.

SPEAKER_03 33:36

So people, I can't even talk about some of the examples they give. I'll just give a uh I'll give a sanitized version of where people go to test this theory, and they say, What if you stumble across a person on the street who's been beat up and they're bruised and bleeding?

SPEAKER_04 33:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 33:55

If you're saying a chef's hat's gonna make that better if they're wearing a chef's hat? And I said it makes it a little better. It doesn't make it good. See, they misunderstand what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_02 34:04

It doesn't make it good, but it makes it better.

SPEAKER_03 34:06

Better than hat no chef's hat. Exactly. It's better than no chef's hat.

SPEAKER_02 34:10

Yes. If a it's less bleak if there's a chef's hat.

SPEAKER_03 34:14

If a horror movie slasher is chasing me down a dark alley and they're wearing a chef's hat, it's a little better. I mean, it's like, okay, this is not good.

SPEAKER_02 34:23

We couldn't agree more.

SPEAKER_03 34:24

It's not good, but it's a little better. So everything's better in a chef's hat, including a rat. Yes. I think that's what we've established.

SPEAKER_02 34:30

That's the moral of this story.

SPEAKER_03 34:31

The moral of the story. And if you think about it, I think you'll see that I'm right. A mass extinction event would be better in a chef's hat. In a chef's hat.

SPEAKER_04 34:39

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 34:40

Rats, true, truly, they're good and bad, but so are we. So maybe we have a lot more in common with our fellow little fuzzy creatures. And stop giving them back through the return slot.

SPEAKER_02 34:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 34:50

Stop dropping them.

SPEAKER_02 34:52

Or if you're going to, at least put a little chef's hat on them.

SPEAKER_03 34:55

Because it'll be better.

SPEAKER_02 34:56

It'll be better.

SPEAKER_03 34:57

It'll be a little better. A little bit better. I would like to see rats with chef's hats. It would be adorable. I think if rats wore chef's hats on the regular, they would be more welcome in our homes.

SPEAKER_02 35:06

Remember uh it wasn't that long ago where there was like a they were trying to like catch this person. I think it was in New York, but someone was gluing tiny little cowboy hats onto pigeons. But like super glueing them onto the pigeons.

SPEAKER_03 35:19

That's like really mean and also strangely like and if you can compartmentalize those two things, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:28

People were really like mad about it, but also sick.

SPEAKER_03 35:33

It's a sick, you're probably killing them somehow. But but it was adorable. And pigeons, another thing that people hate. You know, they call them the flying. I think um, you know, I like seeing animals wear clothes.

SPEAKER_02 35:49

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 35:50

I I would never do it. I saw a really fluffy white dog the other day walking with those little shoes.

SPEAKER_02 35:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 35:56

And it just looks so fussy and stupid. I wanted to somehow like talk the dog, like tell the dog that I understood.

SPEAKER_02 36:04

Yeah, like I'm so sorry.

SPEAKER_03 36:05

I'm sorry that you have to wear these your masters having you wear stupid shoes. And the reason for that is they don't want the dirty feet in the house, right? Is that the deal? Yeah, and I think once you decide to have a dog, just forget about having a clean house, okay? It's like having kids.

SPEAKER_02 36:23

Your dog licks you and licks its butthole. Like your dog's dirty feet are the least of your concerns.

SPEAKER_03 36:28

Yeah, and a lot of times that happens in the wrong order.

SPEAKER_02 36:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 36:33

And there's so many dirty things about them.

SPEAKER_02 36:36

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 36:36

You put a UV light on your dog, it's like spending a night at the Ramada Inn. You don't want to see what's on there. You don't, you don't want to know you don't want to see how the sausage is made. Yes. Yes, you because they they will make some sausage. Yep. And they will drop it off anytime. I um, yes, so um, if you have a dog or a kid, a little kid, forget about the clean house thing.

SPEAKER_02 37:04

Yeah, it's germ fest.

SPEAKER_03 37:05

Rip out your carpets, throw out your furniture, and just get a hose out situation. Yep. Like that's what that's where you just need to be for the next 10 years. It's just some kind of hose out plastic thing. Well, thank you for talking about this. I don't know where we ended up, and I don't know where we've been.

SPEAKER_02 37:22

Me either, but I had a great time on this journey.

SPEAKER_03 37:25

I feel like I think I just want people to think about these little critters differently and give them give them a break and understand that we're kind of all in the same boat. We're all trying to survive, we're all carrying around disease and we're all ruining stuff. So just you know, give everybody a little space and maybe adopt a rat. If we every person in the world right now went out and adopted a rat, we would not have a rat problem in our streets anymore. Plus, everybody would probably die from some sort of disease. We're starting over. Two birds with one stone and two pigeons, maybe, and also giant rats in the future. That's kind of fun to look forward to, just that or not. Thanks for joining us for this episode. If you like what we're doing, for some reason, we would love your help. Please share the show, follow us on Instagram, do all things, connect with us, talk to us, reach out, give us a fantastic review. All of that would help us. And we hope you will tune in to another episode because whether you're just watching your pet rat solve a Ruby Scoobe, or you're feeding feral pigs to a local croc near you, just remember that we all smell like humans. And that. Bye everybody.