Refusing an L at the Trauma Lottery Because a Pound Cat Cooked Your Tiger King Aura

Host 1: All right, guys. I just want you all to know and also girls, I just want you to know that we—we do this for you. It's a hard job, but someone's got to do it. You two listeners out there, you're really the reason because you know some mornings, you know you get up and you don't really want to talk into a microphone. You just don't. Some mornings, you know it's harder than others. But—we keep our—our two listeners in mind—I have an effigy of a listener on my wall and sometimes I look at them and I say, you know, you're the one I'm doing it for, you're the one I'm doing it for. And sometimes I tickle your tummy just a little bit.

Host 2: I'm glad somebody's doing it for—for them. I'm—I'm just doing it you and me and laughing, you know? Damn—damn the—damn the followers.

Host 1: Well, you know, future us, future us better appreciate this. I'm going to tickle my own tummy later today. That's what I'm going to do. It's for us. All right, you know what, that effigy, I'm going to burn it. So if you experience some sort of rash or something, it's probably because I'm burning your effigy later, so just be aware of potential health problems that might come from voodoo magic type—type spells. If you just contact your local witch or warlock or wizard in case you're experiencing like voodoo after effects, dear listener, but anyway, that's not what we're here to talk about. We're here to talk about, you know, a question, a quandary and that quandary is: how many pets are too many pets to own?

Host 2: Yeah, for me it's zero. Too many—too many pets already. I already have too many pets and I'm at zero right now. I'm already at zero.

Host 1: Okay, so we got—got pet hater here from the pet hating category. So is it that you don't like animals or is it that you don't like that people own animals?

Host 2: It's neither. It's—it's a I am incapable of taking care of an animal.

Host 1: You're incapable of taking care of an animal and yet you're on record here on the podcast as having children. So—

Host 2: They aren't pets. Very different creatures. They're very different creatures.

Host 1: Yeah, well they're—they're animals in a way. Okay, a baby—a baby's basically an animal, big dog, big homie.

Host 2: Yeah, but like let's go—let me go racist a little bit—and say that—and say and say that like that's my kid. It's a lot easier to take care of a thing that you kind of created versus a thing I bought at a pet store—for x dollars.

Host 1: You don't have to buy them, bro. You might be surprised to hear this, you might be surprised to hear this, they're giving pets out for free. You just have to fill out some paperwork because we got too many. We got too many out there.

Host 2: Yeah, and now you got the trauma of all—now you got the trauma, the trauma lottery—like you could very well have to like take care of a pet that is, you know, not in a good state and then you're, you know, what do you do? You give it back? Are you giving it back?

Host 1: Probably. I thought about getting a dog once and—this one dog we looked at, the guy kept mentioning stray behaviors over and over again and it very quickly alienated us to this dog because we were just constantly thinking like, is that something he did because he was like a homeless wild dog? I know people who have—who had dogs that were once like homeless wild dogs. Some of them are awesome. I don't think that means that they're bad, you know? It depends.

Host 2: No, I mean ultimately my thing with—with pets in general why I'm a zero pet owner is—it's the work I don't want to do. I don't want to clean up poop after a pet for a pet, you there's no chance of potty training a pet. The best thing you can do for potty training a pet is to tell it to go outside, which you still nowadays have to still clean up in general. Generally speaking, it's good—it's good neighborly duty to clean up your duty of your pet. It is, it's just—it's just good.

Host 1: Or you could be like my fuck ass shitty ass asshole ass neighbors and just have your dog shit everywhere and never pick it up. You can be like those dickheads. Or you can be like the—the weirdest people ever, who will pick up their dog's—put their dog's poop in a bag and then leave the bag there with the poop in it. And I'm just like, why could you not just throw this out? I don't understand.

Host 2: And those are bad neighborly behaviors that I—you should not do. Yeah, those people are terrible. Yeah, that—that you should not do as a pet owner. That's part of—being a pet owner. If you're one of those people, turn off this podcast and go fuck yourself. Oh—literally go fuck yourself. Like hard, like too hard. Like it'll hurt.

Host 1: Okay, well, you have—you have some traumas with dog poop and stepping in it, obviously. I'm tired of—of shitty dog owners. I'm just so tired of shitty dog owners. So I guess what you're saying is that too many pets depends on the person and that there are a lot of people out there who the number is zero. Point—point number one for the podcast is—point one, yeah. Point number one is: for a lot of people it should be zero. Today's Topic: you might be zero. And—and those people, you know, you just have to be more successful as a pet owner than you have to be for a—a parent. I just—that's just the way it is. You have to be more successful. To keep the—the pet, the—to keep the pet alive, that is, right? Like—

Host 1: Is training an animal like training a human?

Host 2: No. No. Not at all. Training an animal's not the same as training a human child. You—hard hitting facts from—from Today's Topic. Most training—most training, right? Most training of animals or pets—let's—let's be specific about it—most training of pets requires some sort of—harsh tones and, you know, maybe some hitting, some aggressive behavior from the owner to the pet in order to train the pet not to do the thing, right? I mean am I wrong with that? Hit your pets to get them to do what you want. You heard it here first.

Host 1: Oh my God. Okay, we're not going to have you descend into this—into this guy again. Do you have an opinion? Do you have an opinion? You're the one who said it, but all right, all right.

Host 1: What's my opinion on too many pets? I mean you make a good point. It—it really depends on the person. I feel like there's a lot of people out there—God, now I can't stop thinking there's just so many people out there who I see them own pets and I just think you should not own a pet. I had a roommate a while ago who was just really spreading herself way too thin. She did school and had a job—and so she—but she still like really wanted a cat. You know, just like dumb young people's stuff. She also really wanted a cat, but then she would never be around to hang out with the cat or look after the cat because for the other roommates, wasn't our cat. And also the cat was like fresh out of the pound—like it was skittish, you know? It was getting adjusted to a new home. And so it never really got along with anybody and eventually like—and the—the thing that made it really bad though was that the cat would freak out in her room at night so she would kick it out of her room, but after screaming at the cat. So the cat would come home and just be like, oh my god, I have energy I want someone to play with me I want someone to hang out with me and she would just be gassed from doing way too much all day and would just be like, shut up cat—like stop—like scream—like literally screaming at the top of her lungs at this cat in the middle of the night. And so all the cat ever got was like negative behavior towards it so it started biting people and then she had to give the cat up and she was a zero pet person. She should never own another pet for the rest of her life she clearly doesn't have the common sense for it honestly. I think it's—it's a real cruel dick move to be that mean to like a creature, you know? To just not even have the basic level of empathy where like oh yeah this living creature probably wants some attention and care at some point. She just thought the cat was like a statue or something that would just kind of hang out, you know? Like all she had to do was refill its batteries and that the one or two times a month she wanted to hang out with the cat it would just be there. And that the cat would have no needs other than that like it was just so stupid man, just so dumb. I mean there's other cat owners I've seen who like they'll just like not empty their cat's litter box timely so the cat will just start pissing on the floor and that sort of stuff and it's just like come on people. So basically this is just turned into bitching about bad pet owners is what it's turned about. What it's turned into.

Host 2: Wow. No, I—no I can continue with another point if you need me to. I don't want you to feel like this is just about bad pet owners though.

Host 1: Go off king, go off king.

Host 2: I—I think that everyone should attempt to own a pet at some point even if it's like a hermit crab, you know? I think you should try. I don't think you should say oh I'm a zero pet owner because I've had pets throughout my entire life. I'm just right now pet ownership is not in my cards. I don't have the—I don't have the space to walk—walk a dog every day, which is what I would want.

Host 1: That's fair. That's—that's totally fair I get that. You know, you don't always have to have a pet. There's a lot of people who they always feel the need to have a dog and that's cool too. We're not here to judge anyone except for people who maltreat animals. It's the only people we're here to judge.

Host 2: There's—there's a lot of harsh judgment on—you getting a pet and—and then not—not making the pet happy for sure—for sure. But then again what if you have like—like farm animals as pets? How many farm animals is too many farm animals?

Host 1: Oh isn't there like—that's the other—that's the other level of this too is isn't there aren't there like county and city legal requirements like if you're in the city limits you can't own a cow. Like you can't even own—you couldn't even cre—you couldn't even have a cow if you wanted to in certain regions of the US. I don't think you can have a cow in New York City, right?

Host 2: I bet you there's at least one cow in New York City. Some mad person has got a cow in their apartment or something. That—that has happened at some point or that is currently happening. There's so many people there's got to be at least one crazy who's just like you know what I need fresh milk I need it like that I need it that bad. Do you think—what's more likely is a goat. Do you think there's—do you think there's lots of city goats? Do you think there's a lot of city goats? A goat that doesn't yell a lot that would be—city goats. I've seen people with like chickens in their backyards in the middle of cities. It depends—I mean it depends on the city, you know? Like—some cities are just like yeah fuck it. Look you can have a pretty decent backyard in the middle of a city like in a residential neighborhood like enough for a chicken that's for sure. I mean—if you went back—like what—what city size are you talking about?

Host 1: Like—not like New York City. I mean like the suburbs of New York you'd probably get a house with a decent backyard. But I mean what like 20 square feet maybe? 30, 40 square feet? I'm not—I don't really know how to measure square feet by the eye of a backyard that I saw like 10 years ago. But I've seen it done. And you know what they had plenty of space. They probably could have fit like way more chickens back there honestly. I mean if you have a backyard that's big enough for a dog you can fit a couple of chickens back there. They don't need that much space honestly. Like most chicken enclosures are pretty small. So like how many pets is too many pets? That also depends on the type of pet. Is it like the mass of the pet or is it how hard the pet is to look after? I think there's a lot of factors in here. I feel like if you are spending—there's a certain percentage of income spent on pet food probably or pet products. There's probably a certain percentage of space taken up by—by pet stuff I would imagine. But then again Ace Ventura pulls it off in Pet Detective. He pulls it off because like he's living a pretty comfortable life and he's—he's really concerned about making enough money for pet food and yet he just seems to pull it off effortlessly he just seems to need that many pets he seems to be cool with that.

Host 2: Well—there's another part of it with—with Ace Ventura, right? Didn't he live in like southern Florida or something? Wasn't he like in the south south? So—you know I think his—his birds, his animals could be outdoors where if you do it in let's say, you know, Green Bay Wisconsin, you know, there's—there's a lot of indoor time with your pets, you know? Not—not a—he had his pets hidden inside his apartment from the landlord. And I feel like—I mean that's part of the—that's part of what's so funny about it because it's like all these animals would go insane being locked inside all the time. But he's just so chill and good with animals they're somehow just cool with it. Like I feel like if anyone actually tried to do that that would be—it'd be a shitshow. And then there's like—a people like the Tiger King, right? Aren't they technically pet owners?

Host 1: But did he own too many tigers? He had a lot of room for it. I mean I would consider that pets. Pets is now all animal ownership. All animal ownership is pets now. So like—I mean they were—they were basically pets for profit. That's—that's what everything else pets for profit. That's how they all started honestly for profit then they just became friends, companions.

Host 2: Yeah, I mean let's—let's break down there's two—right there's two reasons why you get a pet yeah to one—one to show it off, other for companionship just general you're lonely you need whatever other why else would you buy a pet other than to show it off or—companionship?

Host 1: To make—to make stuff? Milk? Wool? Since we're including farm animals and that sort of stuff eggs, that sort of thing. I know multiple people who just own chickens because they want eggs and they also—but also they do think hanging out with chickens is fun. So—you know little column A little column B. They—they dote on their chickens so—you know.

Host 2: Yeah, I guess that's true I guess, you know, but I think I guess yeah my—pet ownership is a little limited because I thought oh just you know you're getting a cat or a dog, right? So you're either getting this like really cool cat or really cool dog. My neighbors are so horrible with their dogs they're starting to make me not like dogs. Like they're—so many poorly trained dogs around here am making me just be like oh God a dog like oh—is this one of the ones that's going to randomly bark at me or is this the one that poops on the sidewalk? You know, great a dog.

Host 2: They all poop on the sidewalk. Actually they all poop on the sidewalk.

Host 1: Yeah I know but it's like the one that poops on the sidewalk and their—terrible owner doesn't pick it up, you know? Anyway. But yeah normally you think cat or dog. Or maybe like fish or like a rabbit maybe? I knew someone who had a pet rabbit. Did not seem very entertaining to have a pet rabbit. Reptiles, reptiles, true. Insects, insects, spiders. Spiders, yeah. Because you could have a lot of spiders. You could have like a thousand spiders in like your attic and that wouldn't be too many pets.

Host 2: What is the Guinness Book of World Records for like the most pet spiders in by one person like there's got to be a record for that, right? Like there's got to be—you think about a thousand spiders I would—I just automatically just visualize because what I think of a pet spider I automatically think of a tarantula and thinking about a thousand tarantulas for me is—that's—that's actually a little—scary I'm not going to lie I I can't imagine a thousand spiders tarantula spiders specifically—feels—feels kind of—feels kind of scary.

me that an Australian man in: 2005

Host 2: I don't.

Host 1: And—that's our final word.