When does your pet start owning you?

WEBVTT
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Here's a question that might upset the dog people.
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How much of your life are you prepared to organise around an animal?
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We love dogs.
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Most of our friends have them.
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But we also love being able to say, shall we go away and just go?
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So today, are pets worth what they cost you in freedom?
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Hello, I'm Sharon Jones with Straight Up Talk.
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And I'm Pete Johnson.
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Hello, Pete Johnson.
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Hello, Sharon Jones.
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How are you diddling?
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I'm good.
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Excellent.
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So kind of appropriate given that we have just spent an evening with some wonderful friends.
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And a lot of them have dogs, and we've never had pets.
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No.
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And it's a conscious decision.
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So between us, I've had cats in my life.
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You've had cats.
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Every now and again when they get drunk, I say let's get dark.
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Yeah, you say that quite often.
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Yeah, we were going to get a couple of cats a few years ago, weren't we?
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And then yeah.
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But why don't we?
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Why don't we have pets?
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Well, because it'll affect our lifestyle.
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We like to travel and we like to just be able to decide to go somewhere one day and just pack pack the truck up and off we go.
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And then if you've got pets, it stops all that you can't you just can't do it.
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Yeah, we were away earlier on this year for six weeks.
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Six and a half weeks, yeah.
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If we'd have had pets, it would have been really challenging.
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Cost a fortune as well.
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It's not fair to the pet, I don't think, either.
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No.
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Especially dogs that I think get really attached to their owners.
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Yeah, and dogs are very expensive if you put them in kennels for six weeks.
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So that's one of the one of the key things for us about not having a pet.
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Having said that, of course, we have a horse, and we've had in our past, we've had one horse, we've had two horses, we even had three horses.
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The good thing about having a horse though is that somebody else keeps it.
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Takes care of them, yeah.
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So we can go on our vacation, and the difference as well is it's not a pet, it's a sports partner for me.
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They are, but ask a dog owner, would you sell your dog?
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And they'd probably sooner chop their hand off.
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Yeah.
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Whereas with a horse, when my horse was lame earlier on this year, and I'm my barn is over an hour away, I didn't have the desire to go up and just a brush her.
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Nah.
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I love my horse.
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Oh, yeah.
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But I like to be able to ride her, I want to be able to compete, I want to do what I do with the horse.
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Yeah.
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But if the horse isn't fit for the job that I want it to do, then you sell them.
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So that there's a it's a different relationship.
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So tell me, you just told me a really good story.
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Tell me your story.
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Well, in I mean, I'm 65 and I've only ever owned one cat in my whole life.
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That's the only pet I've ever had.
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Wow.
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I think I might have had a couple of goldfish, but I don't take the pet.
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They don't count, no.
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So yeah, well, I had a I had a cat called Charlie.
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My mum bought it for me when I was about I don't think she bought it for me, she bought it for the family.
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I was about 12 or 13, and he was he was he was a nice little white cat, and then um he he he ended up getting run over by a London bus.
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So well in for yeah, we had we had him a few years, we had him like oh your daughter had a cat too, Daisy.
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Daisy, yeah, that was Rosanna's cat, yeah.
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Weren't my cat, yeah.
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But tell me the story that you just told me about your sisters.
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Okay, so yeah, as a family growing up, we we didn't have many pets, but my sister had this bright idea one day.
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My elder sister, Lorraine, she she she fancied this guy down the park.
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She was over the park one day after school and she saw this guy playing football.
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She thought, oh, I like him.
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Well, I've got to think of a reason to come to the park more often.
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I know what I do.
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I go and buy a dog.
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So she went down to the pet shop and she bought a dog and she called him Dougal from the magic roundabout.
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And she had this dog for a couple of years, and it gave her an excuse to go to the park.
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And she used to go down and walk the dog and see this, see this guy, and then it went anyway.
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The funny thing is, the end of the story is that the guy ended up marrying my other sister, Jacqueline, and they had three kids together.
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That's funny.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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So what a story.
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That's an extreme thing though to do.
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But you you've all I've also come to mind of I think I've told you this experience before when many years ago I was on holiday and uh there was a there was a a talent competition.
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So I said, I'm gonna get up on stage and tell a joke.
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And I told this joke, I love this joke.
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Nobody else thinks it's funny, but I do.
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This man goes.
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Oh, of course you have, you're grown.
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A man goes into a pet shop and he goes, I'd like a wasp, please.
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And the pet store owner says, What do you mean you want a wasp?
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We don't sell wasps.
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He said, You must do, you've got one in the window.
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Oh dear, oh dear.
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That is terrible.
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I know, I love it.
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So I told that joke on stage, and oh, oops, yeah, bike's going past very long.
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Yeah.
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I told that joke on stage and and and nobody laughed.
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The person I was with at the time was cringing away in embarrassment.
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I bet, yeah.
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I didn't win.
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So, what's your other pet story?
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You you've got a good pet story, ain't you?
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Which one?
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I thought you had another pet story that you had too you had a cat when you're living in Chawton.
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Oh, I've had I had two cats.
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You had a funny name, Brian.
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Brian and George.
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Brian and George.
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They're both female cats.
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Yeah, I know.
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And when when I lived in in Chawton, because when I was a little kid, my mum and dad bought a black cat for my sister, and the black cat ended up getting feline enteritis, which they get injected, you know, vaccinated against now.
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My mum would take it.
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I remember we came home and it was this little kitten was in the garage, it was only, I guess, two months old, and it it covered itself in urine.
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I don't know why they do that, but they do.
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Mum took it to the vet.
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Vet said it's got feline enteritis, had to put it down.
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Well, they had another cat which was black, white, and ginger Persian cat, and they brought it home.
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My mum brought it home, and my dad looked at the cat and said, Oh, it looks like a shish kebab.
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So that's what he named it.
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Shishabab, yeah.
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And they made a cardboard box home for it and wrote shishybab on it.
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When my sister came home that night and she was all excited because she was thinking about her little black kitten all day.
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She came running home and she was all excited, and then realised it it wasn't the little black kitten, it was a different kitten.
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So she was she was upset, but shish kebab was she was my mum's cat, really.
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She didn't like people, she only liked my mum.
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Then when I'm many years later, I wanted a I wanted a cat, went to a pet store, and I bought a cat and I called it monkey at first, but then somebody else came in and said, Oh, that cat looks like it's called Brian.
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So you named him Brian.
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So I named it Brian.
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Yeah, well, Rosanna's cat was named Daisy.
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Yes.
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And that was the what one of the old songs we used to sing the Daisy Daisy.
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Give me your answer dude.
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So we got her, she wanted yeah, she decided when she was about eight or nine, she wanted a cat.
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So we went down at the store, got this cat, 150 quid.
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Wow.
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Yeah, a lot of money for a cat.
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Lammy.
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And we had it, yeah, we we we had her about four days, five days, and she only went out like to the into the back garden, and she came back in one day with a serious wound to her stomach.
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We thought the fox had tried to get her.
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Wow.
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Or she jumped onto something sharp and it ripped her stomach.
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So of course it was a Sunday.
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We bought on like a Wednesday night after school.
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We went up there after school and went to the ranged vet up, said, Well, you know, our cat, like it's only tiny little thing.
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We we i it's the the got a stomach wound, and they said, Well, you can bring her in, but it's a Sunday, it's like double bubble.
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So of course, yeah.
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So I was like, Well, can we wait till Monday?
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He said, Well, if if it's got an open, an open wound, you've got you've got to bring it in now, or it could die.
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So I looked at her, and I thought, oh god, yeah, here we go.
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So we took it, we took Daisy in, and she, yeah, she the the vet said, Yeah, it's probably been attacked by a fox or something.
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So yeah, we had to she had to be stitched up straight away.
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So within her first, our first four days of having her, she had an injury, she'd been back to the vets, stitched up on a Sunday.
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I think it cost us like 400 quid, 500 quid to have her stitched up.
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And that what's that's the most expensive cat in the in the world.
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What people will do for their pets, yes, which is I think that's the angle I was aiming for, yeah.
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Yeah, what people will do for their pets, what kind of sacrifices they will make.
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Yeah.
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People spend thousands, don't they?
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Oh, absolutely.
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And some people treat them as part of the family, which they are.
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They are, yeah, yeah.
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They absolutely are.
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But but for us, again, we keep we always to and fro on this idea of getting cats, because we both like cats.
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When we get a bit older, maybe.
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We keep it.
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And we our travelling days are behind us, then we might get a couple of cats.
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Right, because our our idea of travel is okay, I've got some time off next week, let's just pick up and go.
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Which is what we like to do.
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Yeah.
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But yeah, all of our most of our friends, but what's interesting is that in the horse world, whenever we go to horse shows, there's always dogs there.
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Oh, everyone's got dogs, yeah.
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Everyone's got a dog.
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And the funny thing for me is that I'm doing a discipline which is western orientation.
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Of course, in Western, you need to be a cowboy, cowgirl, okay.
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Check, got that, got the cowboy hat, got the cowgirl boots.
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You need to be a guard believer, uh-survey says no.
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I don't.
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Next, you need to be a dog lover.
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Well, it's not that I don't love dogs, but I don't have a dog, so no.
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And a third thing is country music, which I'm not a fan of.
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So I love country.
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Yes, don't tell that joke.
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Glenn Campbell was the best country artist ever.
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He was actually very talented, very talented guy.
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I always imagine my want ad if ever you decided to go off into the sunset with somebody else.
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Oh.
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And then I think about what would my want ad look like.
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Yeah.
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It would be cowgirl, check, loves quarter horses, check, reigning, check, atheist, not a dog fan, yeah, hates coach music, crickets, crickets, yeah, yeah.
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But yeah, so can you think of anybody that you know who's who's done more for their dog than, in your opinion, you would do for a pet?
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I remember an old mate of mine from Norwood years ago, his dog was very ill, and they they had to have some treatment, and the the the the vet said it's gonna come to two grand.
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Oh, good.
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It was a British bulldog, yeah, and then with the squash faces and he loved this thing.
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I mean, uh I I went around his house a few times, and all all all that dog ever did was like slobber.
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Yeah, that's all they it's like they're struggling for breath all the time.
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Yeah, and he said, Yeah, he's got a particularly bad uh set of lungs or whatever, but we can correct it, but he could do an operation on it.
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It was gonna cost the company two grand.
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So I'm with him down the pub on a Sunday night saying, Well, you just gotta have him put down, then you're the big heart.
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I'm thinking two grand, you can do a lot with two grand.
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This I'm going back 20 odd years as well, so two grand is a lot of money.
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He said, Oh no, he says he's he's booked in for next Thursday.
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I'm taking him in.
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I was like, You must be mad, but people people do stuff for their animals, and me and you, because we don't have animals, we don't have pets like as such, you know, small pets.
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Right.
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We we we you know, we think that's crazy.
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But well, but I bet you if we did have, because we we both love cats, if we had cats, yeah, we'd love them and we would probably do the same thing.
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We've had chipmunks.
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We've got chipmunks in the garden, we've got mice and the grounds.
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We've got a groundhog who who seemingly is I don't we don't know where he's gone.
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But they're not ours, but they live with us, but we don't own them.
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No, although the chipmunks seem to think that he had a right to live here.
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But I think the whole thing about pets is is very curious to us.
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I don't know why certain people have have pets.
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And the thing is with dogs is mostly they don't they don't live that long.
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Yeah, but I think older people have them for comfort and right, yes.
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Get back on track to what the the uh we what we were saying about, you know, you know, where we started at we always go off topic.
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We always go off topic, yeah.
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But that's part of our charm.
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Yeah why do people have pets?
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Why do they choose them?
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Yeah, and I think everybody's got their own answer to that.
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They they have, and we may join that clan, as you said earlier, when we're older, when we've stopped travelling as much.
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And I'm sure the people that have all these pets and that they like especially with dogs, because dogs are very loyal.
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Yes, and you know, the people that we know that own dogs that they have a fantastic relationship.
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I mean, yeah, you know, they they you know, it's it's they're you know family member definitely because the diff difference is we we have a horse, we love her, but she doesn't live with us.
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That was another conscious decision that we made, not to have a place where we could keep the horse because you're even more tired, you've got to be there morning and and evening, and we made that conscious decision.
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People who have dogs, often the dog will sleep with them, they are part of the family, yeah.
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So and and we've consciously decided not to do that because so what's your take then then?
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Oh, my brutally honest takeaway of the week.
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Actually, I hadn't really thought of one, but eh, yeah, you got me on that.
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I'm stuck now, I am stuck now, yeah.
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I'll give you mine now.
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Go on then very brief.
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Go on.
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All the people that love animals, you know, I think it's a great thing to as you get older, maybe have a pet, if you you know, especially if you've lost your partner or something, which a lot of people do, and they end up buying going out and buying a cat or a dog.
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And I think it's a great thing, and I think we we you know, if ever uh anything happened to you, I think I'd go and get myself a little pussy cat.
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Oh, and I'd name him Charlie.
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Charlie.
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All right, so my brutally honest takeaway of the week is at what point does owning a pet become the pet owning you?
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Mmm, very good.
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Yes, so that would be that would be it because some people do get overtaken by it.
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So that is it.
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It is a good night from me, and it's good night from me.
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Good night, good night.