Animal Jobs

Please note that this transcript is automatically generated and contains many inaccuracies

Disclaimer

Flora: The Zooier Than Thou podcast contains adult concepts and language, and is intended for a mature audience. So if your Tinder developing mind was the target audience for Paw Patrol’s fascist messaging, you might want to sit this one out.

Theme

Kynophile: Hey, what can I say? You’ve got me howlin’ at the moon! Whoa, don’t you know that love is wild when you’re a zoo? We’re Zooier Than Thou! Oh yeah!

Intro/Emails

Aqua: Greetings, fellow zoos, and welcome to the penultimate episode of Zooier Than Thou in 2024.

Steeeeeve: That’s just a fancy way to say it’s November, right?

Aqua: Yep, second to last. Month of year, that is.

Steeeeeve: So not even the second to last episode of the season.

Aqua: Right. Season 6 ends in, February.

Steeeeeve: Sounds like you just wanted to say penultimate.

Aqua: Mm hmm. Penultimate. Penultimate.

Steeeeeve: Very dramatic.

Aqua: Yeah, it just means next to last, but people use it wrong all the time. The more you know. Anyway, I’m Aqua, your mostly round, slightly dented host.

Steeeeeve: And I’m Steve, and I’ve still got all my E’s.

Aqua: In your lane, full of vowels.

Steeeeeve: Thriving.

Aqua: Glad to hear it. We’re full of emails, too. Ready to knock some out?

Steeeeeve: Well, we’re certainly full of something, but yes.

Aqua: All right. First up, we heard from two blackbirds and the beast. Writing in with just a thank you. They write, Heya, just wanted to say we appreciate what you’re doing. The last few years have been absolutely saturated with our self acceptance in many other ways, and after finding this podcast relatively recently, accepting our zoosexuality feels like the natural continuation of that.

We’re nervous about what our current friends will think, but we’re also tentatively hopeful that they’ve walked a similar path before. Either way, thanks for the laughs and the discussions so far. Thanks for any to come, and thanks for whatever the future might hold.

Steeeeeve: All right. We’ve all been there, nervous about coming out to our friends.

Aqua: Yep, that sounds pretty familiar.

Steeeeeve: Yeah. So what happened?

Aqua: to me? I’m batting a thousand.

Steeeeeve: Yeah.

Aqua: I’ve been pretty careful about who I’ve told, but, it hasn’t gone wrong for me yet.

Steeeeeve: Oh man. It has gone wrong for me occasionally, but the wrong thing turned out to be the right thing.

Aqua: How so?

Steeeeeve: Well, I came out to people who were not accepting, and then I learned who my real friends were.

Aqua: Mm hmm.

Steeeeeve: if you do that enough, eventually, you’re just surrounded by people who like you.

Aqua: I guess that’s how it’s gone for me too. It just happens first. Like, automatically, you know? Like, I’m pretty good at spotting someone that I don’t think can handle it, and, if they’re a really close friend and they mean a lot to me, then I just won’t ever go there. But if it’s an acquaintance, then pretty good chance they just won’t stick around much longer.

You I’ll just, I won’t be mean about it. I’ll just let the friendship degrade and we go on our separate paths and then it’s

Steeeeeve: Yeah, it kind of feels like playing Minesweeper.

Aqua: A little bit, but without the benefit of numbers telling you where not to step.

Steeeeeve: Just an educated guess, but in the end, if you model authentic behavior, it’s always your best chance for having a strong, healthy relationship. Thanks for writing it, guys.

Aqua: Yeah, Anil. We have fun making the show and it’s great to know you’re out there.

Steeeeeve: Next up we have Cecil, who wrote in with appreciation for the podcast and to help with fully coming out. Cecil writes, Good morning slash afternoon. I wanted to write in and say how much I appreciate everyone contributing to the Zooier Than Thou podcast for helping me finally accept myself for who I am and even kind of come out to two of my friends.

I’ve been struggling to suppress my identity as a zoo for about 10 years now, only in the past few weeks realizing that suppressing it Won’t help me, and listening to your podcast every day has really helped in letting me stop that habit and making a change in my life. I have a problem that I need some advice for, though.

When I came out to my closest two friends as a zoo, and they already heavily suspected it, and weren’t angry, I couldn’t be happier. Until they told me they could only accept me if I didn’t have any sort of romantic or sexual relationship with an animal and, quote, recovered from being a zoo. I lied on instinct and for my safety and said I would never, which is only partially true.

I’d love to have a romantic relationship with a horse at some point in my life, likely without sex. Not because it’s wrong, but just because I’m not interested. How do I explain that to them? Is it a good idea to do in the first place? Even from a non zoo, quote, animals can’t consent perspective, being in a romantic relationship is literally no potential for harm, but I’m not sure to explain that.

Without being shut down and possibly outed to my other friends. I’m sorry for the long message, but this podcast has been a great resource for me. And I know you guys have likely seen a similar situation and might have some advice. Thank you again.

Aqua: All right. Yeah, there’s a couple of things in there, that we should get to. Immediately. so, there really is no such thing as recovering from zoosexuality. I’m not a sexologist, so, maybe somebody will correct me if I’m wrong, but From where I sit and from everything I’ve read and all the discussions I’ve had with therapists and with other sexologists that I, do know, your sexual orientation it’s a product of your environment and, some genetic factors in some combination we don’t really know.

but it’s

immutable.

Steeeeeve: don’t recover from your sexuality, it’s just, that’s what it is, man.

Aqua: Yep. where it gets a little bit squishy is the mode of expression for your sexuality. that is fluid and, you might find over time that, the importance of your zoosexual side, is in the foreground for some time and then maybe a few years later it, is kind of off over there and there’s other stuff you want to focus on.

I think that’s probably normal. that’s kind of what I experienced, but there’s no recovery. so when I hear recovering zoo or recovered zoo, really that to me that just sounds like abstinence or an oath of non contact or non practicing. And once you go down that rabbit hole, now you’re into language from, other groups with other sexual attractions and orientations, that are not really all that closely related to zoophilia, other than perhaps around it.

we gotta be really careful not to do that. So, there is no recovery. there is, learning to live your best life with it. And, that’s what we focus on here all the time anyway.

Steeeeeve: So I’m hearing something super familiar, having grown up in the south, and this It was pretty common in, the Baptist playbook, but it’s by no means a Baptist only feature or a South only feature. This just seems to happen whenever humans are grappling with something new, and it takes some form of, love the sinner, hate the sin.

And it’s, that’s just a passive aggressive way of saying, like, I hate you, and I’m pretending to love you, so that I don’t look as bad, right? And it took forms of, like, hey, I don’t have any problem with gay people, as long as they don’t have sex with each other, get married, get in my face about it, have pride parades, have rights, have spousal benefits, or anything else that would lend them some kind of a livable life, right? and it’s, you know, you’re, it’s okay if you’re a zoo theoretically, but as long as you don’t have any romantic attraction to animals, ever have sex with an animal, look at an animal with a longing glance, as long as you’re not within 500 feet of any animals ever for the rest of your life, and as long as, you know, your rights end where my sensitivities begin.

Then, then under those circumstances, I’m totally cool with you being a zoo. That’s bullshit. And if you acquiesce to those kind of conditional acceptances from people that purport to care for you, I think that what you’re saying is like, yes, I agree. I’m horrible. You think I’m horrible. And I also think I’m horrible.

We all agree. And the natural consequence of all that is that you. Fucking hate yourself. So, please don’t, you know. Anything that takes the form of that kind of conditional like, well, we’ll only support you if, uh, and like, The fact that you’re not even interested in animals sexually, you don’t want to have a sexual relationship with an animal ever, you know, that makes it extra egregious, I think.

Just even the mere suggestion that you might have a romantic feeling just exclusively in the domain of your own private thoughts is abhorrent to these people, tells me that their acceptance for you is basically non existent. So, my hot take on this is you should probably find some better friends who will support you when you do model authentic behavior as opposed to those that will only do so on the condition that you agree with their assessment of you as a bad person.

And then suppress yourself even in your thoughts. Privately? Like, what kind of dystopian bullshit is that? No. No thank you. Unacceptable. What do you think, Aqua?

Aqua: Yeah, I kind of agree.

Steeeeeve: Well, you know, there’s 8. 1 billion human beings on the planet. You know, that’s just two of them. Like, there’s more people you can be friends with. And I speak from a lot of experience when I say that There’s a lot of zoos out there, there’s a lot of zoo allies out there, they’re easier to find than non zoos, they’re easier to find than people who hate you and only conditionally accept you, and once your life is full of them, And by them, I mean people who accept you.

Then everything changes for you. Everything is supported. You feel like you can be your most authentic self. Your stress goes down, your risk of stroke goes down. Like, it can have a very real effect in your life, my man. Apart from, you know, decreasing depression and whatnot. It can literally extend your lifespan.

So, yeah, you gotta be In a supportive peer group, man, that’s, that’s just basic health.

Aqua: yeah, and it kind of makes me wonder, because these are Cecil’s two closest friends, and Cecil says that they heavily suspected, his zoosexuality already, That was their opportunity to confront you, Cecil, or to leave, and they didn’t. So, it makes me question how committed they are to that position. maybe this is your chance to moderate their attitude a little bit. But, Steve is right. they said what they I didn’t hear them thank you for your trust. So, this might be a condition on the friendship that

you just

Steeeeeve: worst case scenario, you come out, you model your most authentic behavior, you share yourself authentically, and genuinely, and Invite them to understand you as a zoo. And you know, one of two things will happen. They either will or they won’t. And if they do, maybe you can forge a new understanding together.

But if they don’t, then maybe that’s a sign that you should find some more accepting friends.

Aqua: yeah, and Cecil, I agree with you that, the risk of harm in a romantic only zoo

relationship is basically zero.

Steeeeeve: are they mad about thought crimes? Like, come on, man.

Aqua: and it makes me wonder, like, what does it even mean to not have a romantic relationship with an animal? that line gets super blurry with just normal human animal interactions.

Already, and, you know, what is a normal amount to

love an

Steeeeeve: who gets to say, and like, if I had a, yet another What dream about Balto, you know? who’s to say that that’s right or wrong or that I should or shouldn’t do that? I mean, come on dude, that’s pretty intrusive.

Aqua: Yeah, so, I think if I were you, I would probably not say anything else. you know, I understand that you kind of half lied on instinct. That’s unfortunate, but, it happened. so that ship has already sailed. I don’t think it’s gonna really gain you anything to revisit this. With those friends, unless they bring it up first, I would just let it sit and see how your relationship with them changes.

then maybe you’re going to

be the one to change it.

Steeeeeve: Well, and also, I mean, if your first instinct was to

lie to these people, maybe that’s a sign that you don’t really trust these people and don’t want to make yourself more vulnerable to them. So, I don’t know. It could be that that’s your instinct. Instinct and it’s correct. And you’re protecting yourself by hiding from these folks.

but only you can say, man, you got to find your own truth. But Regardless of all that, we appreciate you writing in, Cecil, and wish you the very best of luck.

Aqua: Yeah. One last thing. we’ve talked about it before, coming out as a zoo takes a long time and a lot of patience and it takes some bravery. And I don’t believe it’s necessary for everybody in your life to know, but I have found that the more people in my life who do know, the safer and easier it is for me to continue.

coming out is not something that you do once, it’s every day all the time.

Steeeeeve: Totally agree.

Aqua: next we have a pair of emails that raise the stakes. Wireless Coyote and Ghost Politics both write in about coming out to their spouses. Wireless writes, I recently had what will be the first of a series of discussions with my wife regarding my zoophilia and trying to make her comfortable with it and she had a few requests. One of these was she wanted to know if there was an online support group somewhere for the spouses of zoophiles where she could talk to some others and not feel so isolated since she obviously can’t discuss this with anyone locally. I was hoping you guys might have some

suggestions. Thanks for everything you

do.

Steeeeeve: And Ghost Politics writes,

I am a full time working American slash Texan with a dog that’s the love of my life. But I have a question. How do I bring this up safely to my wife? Mrs. Ghost and I have been married for over 20 years, and we’ve never talked about anything even remotely related to this. Ever since my dog died, I’ve been heartbroken, but my new dog I got a few years ago has been the love of my life.

What should I do? Anyways, your show has helped the spark start in my heart for me again. Cheers, baby, cheers to all of y’all.

Aqua: Okay, so these two letters are pretty closely related, but Ghost Politics and Wireless they’re at slightly different stages here. so for Wireless, for your spouse, , there is ZooCommunity, which is a small forum. and it’s porn free, and from what I’ve seen, it’s pretty cozy.

we’ve had, zoos parents and relatives, hang out on there, to learn about zoophilia. Uh, so that could work for her. We’ve talked about this in past episodes, but, zoo non zoo couples have some pretty major challenges.

This is not an easy thing to do. I think if I were in your place, the first thing I would do is be very, very attentive to your spouse’s concerns and worries. some things that are likely to come up are personal safety, how you plan to divide your time.

Thank you. you know, if there’s an element of, intimacy or romance, if you have non humans, ghost politics, I know you do, Wylis, I’m not so sure, but you should be ready to make concessions, just like you would with, any other challenge or unmet need that your partner has, and try to pay attention to, like, what is your spouse going to gain from this?

for you, it’s a chance to really live authentically and openly, which is very important, but it’s potentially a burden to your spouse, if there isn’t anything for them to do with it, or if it makes it difficult to relate with you, so, what I would do, I think, is, I think I would start looking for a therapist who specializes in queer sexuality, so that you have somebody who can help both of you, protect what you’ve already built together.

and, my past experience with other couples in this situation tells me you, there’s a pretty good chance you’re going to need that kind of support and expertise. And, it’s better to have that lined up before

you need it. You know, sooner is

better than later.

Steeeeeve: I might slightly disagree with you a little, Aqua, and I’ll tell you why. you’re saying that for you, the zoo coming out to your partner is a chance for you to live more authentically, but it’s more than that. It’s also reducing your risk of suicide, because if you are forced to be closeted, we don’t have to look hard for statistics to show us that that is true.

is a leading contributing cause to premature death. So, that’s one thing, and I don’t think it’s hard to extrapolate from there that your wife probably wants you to not kill yourself, right? But then, there’s something else there, you say, well, what’s in it for your partner? Well, there’s a lot in it for your partner, apart from your health and safety.

Which, you know, does benefit them. If you’re closeted and repressed, you’re not going to be as open to being a good partner to your wife as you would be if you were fully accepted and living authentically. But then there’s another thing there. That if you Our zoo exclusive, you, might not have really encountered so much.

and that is that when you come out to your partner and you guys are already really close and have a, a long history, it’s an opportunity for your partner to accept another part of you and deepen the intimacy that you both have together. It’s a chance for you to be vulnerable to your partner and to extend that trust in a way that is.

It’s absolutely precious

Aqua: Yeah, agreed.

Steeeeeve: and it’s so impactful and meaningful and it could be

the best thing that happened to you guys, you know, because it’s their chance to totally destroy you. And instead of doing that, they could totally accept you in a way that you’ve never felt before and deepen your intimacy in a way that could last you both the rest of your lives.

But to speak to ghost politics is, hope, let’s say. That, they wanna come out to their wife safely. Ha ha ha ha ha. Safety is a matter of relative terms. Let’s not make any mistake. And as you indicated, Aqua, we’ve discussed this coming out topic many times before. And, what one person might consider a perfectly acceptable managed risk and feel like it’s well within their capability to handle, someone else might consider it to be a total disaster.

Like, there’s, plenty of people that make a habit of jumping out of perfectly good airplanes. Right? And to them, skydiving is a perfectly acceptable risk. They do it all the time. If, you know, if they break an ankle here and there, it’s, part of the cost of business. But, there’s a lot of people who would never get in an airplane to begin with, much less jump out of it if they had other options.

So, we can’t decide that for you. So, your question of what should I do is, you know, It’s, it’s relatable, but it’s frustratingly something that we cannot for you. we’re neither capable nor inclined. You just got to listen to your conscience and listen to your reason and look at , the cost and benefit.

Analysis here and, take your best guess and just hope that the people that you care about are ready and willing to support you when, it’s hard and it might be hard for them. It might be so hard that the relationship doesn’t work. Neither of you mentioned whether your marriages include children, but it’s definitely the kind of thing where if your spouse was so inclined, they could bring that up in a family court and take your kids away.

It’s the kind of thing where if they went to the police and they had, I don’t know, porn that you made or something, right? They could use that as justification to bring criminal charges against you in most states and jurisdictions. So, is it safe? Relative to playing golf in a thunderstorm or relative to, bungee jumping in a volcano?

Like, I don’t know, man. It could be relatively super safe, depending on the people involved, or it could be relatively super dangerous and your whole life could blow up. But I will say this, in defense of blowing up your life, if the cost of living authentically and living your dearest truth is changing the people around you out for people who accept you as you are, then maybe That’s something worth considering, but again, we cannot and will not decide that for you.

Speaking here Not just as the host of, one of many zoo podcasts, but as someone who is a zoo, who is married to a zoo and has been in relationships with non zoos who are various degrees of accepting, it can be done and it can be immensely helpful. Rewarding, and enriching, and supportive, and nurturing, and it could be the best thing ever.

Or, maybe it doesn’t work out. Maybe that’s because of zooness, maybe that’s because of other things, maybe it’s a factor, maybe it’s the factor. I don’t know, man, your circumstances will vary. But, in general, the best advice I can give anyone is to live your truth, you know, model authentic behavior, empathize with people, and if you find someone who nurtures and supports you as you nurture and support them, I think you found something really special.

I hope it super works out

Aqua: Mm hmm.

Thanks,

Wylus and Ghost. We’re rooting for you both. You can do it.

Steeeeeve: for our penultimate email.

Aqua: Aha, see? See?

Steeeeeve: We heard from RiverDog about our

Taboo Science interview. RiverDog writes, I just finished listening to the Taboo Science episode about zoophilia, which some of your members were on, including me, and Yeah, and you, and Toggle, I think, right?

Aqua: Yeah.

both of us.

Steeeeeve: RiverDog goes on to say, I just wanted to say how great it was. I put off listening to it at first because I’m so scared of how non zoos usually discuss us, and I was anticipating a painful listening experience, but I’m so glad I finally gave it a shot. It gave me a lot of hope hearing people from outside the community speak about us in such a positive and rational manner.

I’m definitely saving the episode for If I ever need to introduce the topic to non zoos in the future, Zooier Than Thou is also great, of course, and a regular program in my home. Keep up the good work for visibility and acceptance. It means a lot to me, and I hope one day soon we’ll live in a world that accepts us.

Thank you. You know what? You’re welcome. And also, Ashley Hamer was a positive delight to talk to. We ended up talking a lot. for a good hour beyond the stuff that made it into the episode, she was a treat. What a class act, and

super smart, really empathic, just a, you could tell she’s like a, a caring individual.

And, I feel like we were treated very fairly. I don’t have any regrets about participating in that episode. What about you, Aqua?

Aqua: I don’t think there’s anything more I can ask for. she took, it must have been close to four hours, maybe more than that, of material from all three of us, and compressed all of that down into a handful of soundbites. Yeah, okay, she didn’t pick the ones I would have, that’s fine, that’s the point, if we did it, it would have been our show and not hers, but yeah, she was very successful, I think, in, humanizing us in a way that is, really challenging outside of, zoo podcasts and zoo projects in general, she brought the same care and attention to zoosexuality, as she did to all of her other topics, it was

very clear that she tried hard and she, meant

well, and

I’m delighted with it.

Ashley is awesome.

Steeeeeve: yeah, she was so great, and you know, anyone who doesn’t

try to drag us out in public for, using us as target practice and ridicule and cheap laughs and whatever, is sticking their neck out. And you know what? She got some backlash, for featuring us in an even handed way, just for not attacking us.

She got a bunch of shit, but also it was one of the most popular episodes in terms of listener numbers and whatnot

Aqua: yeah, on her Twitter, she posted a, subscription graph of her YouTube channel, and there’s a very clear inflection point.

That is lined up release date of the zoophilia episode. I will smile every time I see that.

and since then, you know, the ABDL episode has exploded.

So, the zoo episode was pretty close to the top. I think, the

asexuality episode was, is

still in first place, I believe.

Steeeeeve: Well, and if memory serves she did a Q& A after the whole Taboo

Series

Aqua: yeah, the last episode was, , reverse interview.

Steeeeeve: Right, exactly! And she was

interviewed about her whole experience with this, and I think you had something about the feedback she got?

Aqua: Yeah, so Riverdog, if you haven’t listened to the rest of the miniseries, you should. They’re all great, but the last episode was pretty revealing. you know, I mentioned that I was frustrated that so little of what we discussed made it into the show. That’s just how it works. When the show was a half hour long, but I was impressed by her ability to humanize us without taking anything away from adjacent queer groups.

That was a really important thing, to get right and

she did it, but she paid for it. There was a lot of negative feedback,

Steeeeeve: Specifically, uniquely, about the zoo episode.

Aqua: yeah, the zoo episode was the only one that generated any

significant

negative feedback and it’s ongoing. It was on every platform that she uses.

Steeeeeve: Yeah, but you know what? She didn’t pull the episode.

Aqua: No. , and when she was asked about it, she had a really great way of explaining it. Like, she doesn’t necessarily think that those people writing in to tell her that she did a bad job. She doesn’t think that they’re wrong, necessarily, just that they probably haven’t spent enough time with the subject like she has, to get past the initial ick.

she almost said no to us. you know, when we pitched the idea for the episode, there was a, a pretty long period where we didn’t hear anything back, but then she, said, yeah, let’s do it. This sounds like a really great idea. It makes me uncomfortable. That means it’s important. What had happened in the, time between then was she had gone and done a bunch of research on her own and, took that initiative and then realized that actually there is a, an awful lot to discuss here.

It’s not, it’s not a straightforward. topic. It’s complicated. It ties very neatly into all of these other subjects that she’s covered in the past, so definitely worth

it. so yeah, give the last episode a

listen if you haven’t already.

Steeeeeve: Yeah, and if you’re privy to a comment section under some stuff she’s posted,

, a supportive word goes a long way for creative professionals. I mean, no one paid her to do this. So, yeah, it’s, I, I hope she does. Maybe, maybe Epiphany Pipeworks

will express an interest.

Aqua: Ah, but she does have sponsors now.

what was her first sponsor? so like the

zoo episode and the ABDL, episode together, uh, put her above a thousand subs on YouTube, which made her eligible for monetization. So, now there’s an adroll in front of the video version, and yeah, at least one sponsor signed on before the

miniseries ended, and that was for,

Steeeeeve: sheath lube,

Aqua: it was some kind of edible,

Steeeeeve: anyhow,

Aqua: if only.

Steeeeeve: thanks Riverdog. It means a lot to us that it means a lot to you.

Aqua: ultimately, we have an email from a creature of the night, who writes about keeping the online personas separate when you’re an artist. Creature writes, Hey guys, thanks for making this podcast. I’m not super far into the episodes yet, new listener here, but I enjoy the positive and casual energy of it.

It makes me feel a lot less, like there’s something wrong with me, but as for why I’m reaching out, there is something about privacy and online personas you brought up in one of the very early episodes that has been a roadblock for me and I’d appreciate any advice you might have.

I’m a furry artist, and I would love to share my zooier drawings and stories online with others who enjoy this kind of content. I don’t have a huge online presence or a big following. The internet presence I do have is spread out across different communities, and in some cases, even my real life contacts.

My style is also pretty recognizable, unfortunately. And after one of my Side art accounts on Tumblr got found by online friends of mine after one of the drawings got put in front of a large audience by some popular blogger ridiculing it. I become quite paranoid about this kind of stuff. Now secret side account was, luckily, just about a subject more socially acceptable, but I still didn’t want it associated with my casual, more serious accounts. The stigma around zoo art would absolutely get me in trouble and damage many social relationships I value, and depend on if someone happened to stumble upon this content in some way and traced it back to me.

Basically, I love making art, I love drawing and writing, and I want to share my art with the people who appreciate it, but I don’t want to be crucified because of social stigma. Is there any advice you have for me to build a less recognizable online persona, especially in regards to my art? I tried to change the style I write or draw, but I feel it’s not really working. It still seems very recognizable to me. What’s your experiences with this? Any tips? Or am I just being too paranoid about an

extremely

unlikely event ever to

happen again?

Signed, a Creature of the Night.

Steeeeeve: so, I happen to be a creative professional.

I am

a full time professional. Like, pay all my bills. I get to eat because I do this. You know, creative professional. I own a studio. This is my whole thing that I do, right? And I’ll tell you something, I’m formally trained, formally educated in art, and I’ll tell you what one of my professors told me, which is, if you want to be an exhibitor, right, it kind of bears considering what the hell that word even means.

Ex, Latin, outside, hibitus is the same root word of inhabit or habitat, so basically an exhibitor is, someone who makes things. Live outside or take on a life outside the studio. And there are some artists who I think probably are friendless and mentally ill, who believe that their work begins and ends when they make it and it’s just for them and it’s not for the public and they don’t need to show it.

And yeah, nobody likes them. Don’t go to their party. But for exhibitors, their work is only complete. Once they have given the public a chance to interact with it, right, that interactivity is the point. And that’s where so much of the richness and rewards of being a creative professional come from. For one, it’s a chance to get paid, which is pretty important when you go to buy art supplies, because they ain’t free.

And it’s a chance to get feedback, positive and negative, that’s where your criticism comes in, right? Discriminating judgments, both favorable and unfavorable, by the textbook definition, right? And if you’re Not modeling authentic behavior in your work, the public will see it. So that’s probably why you’re not really feeling like it’s working because it’s not, it’s not your truest expression.

if you feel like it’s too bad of a risk and it’s going to blow up your life, then I’d say Don’t publish it there. And if you feel like it’s too recognizable and it’s a security risk, then don’t do it. If you feel like the reward outweighs the risk, then maybe that’s something worth considering. Just come out and be a zoo artist.

But if you’re like so many of us, you’ve seen the fallout of just the accusation, even if somebody is in a zoo. Even if they just don’t condemn zoos hard enough, and they are visible in the furry space especially, which thrives on drama, you could have somebody just cancelled super hard because someone wanted someone to tear down, and they were bored, and they felt bad about their own life, and wanted to fuck you up in order to feel better, right?

That’s insanely common. Right? It’s not a furry only feature. It’s not an art only feature. That’s just a function of human behavior, I think. So, what I would say is, if you feel like the rewards outweigh the risks, then, what we do as creative professionals is public, by its nature. If you’re an exhibitor, your work must live outside your studio at some point.

It must get in front of people, it must be reacted to, it must be received, right? And you receive them receiving your work, and they receive you receiving them receiving your work. It’s a whole relationship. And if you’re lucky enough to make a living from doing this full time, as I have done for well over a decade now, What I can say is that the people whose money you’re taking to do your enjoyable, rewarding, challenging, comfortably seated, comfortably air conditioned, cozy studio artwork is generally a lot less pleasant than the work that you’re doing.

So, I would just take a long look at yourself and say, am I doing something that deserves this level of support from the public? Cause just think about it. Say you sell a drawing for only 50 bucks. The minimum wage is 50. What, 7. 25 or something?

Aqua: Yeah, in some parts of the country, yes, it is.

Steeeeeve: Not a living wage. So let’s just divide that, you know,

7 times 7 is 49. So, uh, 7 hours before taxes, say 8 hours including taxes. That’s an entire day’s work for one printed copy. Of one painting you did, right? A whole day of somebody’s life they spent so that they could have a piece of paper that a laser printer spit out with a copy of one of your pieces for 50 bucks. You might be thinking like, ah, man, it’s just 50 bucks.

It’s not an original. you no longer have human problems. If that’s the problem that you have. Oh no, I only sold one print for 50 bucks. Dude, someone had to work all day long at an awful slave driving, soul crushing job so that you could sit in a studio and print out copies of your fun paintings.

It’s Worth considering, I think, what the public is asking of you in return for supporting you so that you get to make art for a living or just to make art and share it at all. if they’re not paying you, then I feel like the pressure to pay them back something they want is a lot less. And if you’ve seen like a rich comedian get super canceled for something tacky they said in private.

It’s because the stakes are higher. The public is paying them a lot of money. They’re making their lavish lifestyle possible. this person is traveling in private jets between their gigs. We ask a lot of that person. We want them to be, maybe impossibly good, right? Whereas if you’re just making art for free, Like, what do you want, man?

A full refund? Like, it’s free. I’m just giving my art away. So I don’t know, maybe that would be something considering. Like, are you doing this for free? And then are you worried that people want you to not be a zoo because of it? Like, if they’re paying you a zillion dollars, if they’re paying you enough that you could travel on private jets, and then they don’t want you to be an out zoo,

then it’s like, well Which one do you like better, the private jets or the be in and out zoo? But if you’re just making art out of the goodness of your heart and sharing it freely for people to enjoy, just, I don’t know, for something to do, because it’s validating, but you’re not even getting paid for it, then on top of that, someone’s like, And also, I don’t want you to be an out zoo. It’s like, well, I don’t like the way your mom dresses you either.

Fuck off. You’re not paying me, so I don’t feel pressured to listen to you.

Aqua: Creature, I’m gonna just throw this out there first. you know, because you’re furry, there’s a A really good chance you know what’s going on with Fur Affinity and with queer expression more broadly, but, the main character for the last two months has been Fur Affinity.

Um, this isn’t really

the right place or time to weigh in on that whole dumpster fire, ,

Steeeeeve: Suffice it to say, we do consider it to be a fiery dumpster.

Aqua: Oh, yeah. it’s still on fire. There are still more things to come from that fire, but one of the lessons that I think furries are going to learn from this , , is not to let fear, dictate their creativity or policy. self censorship. if it really is a safety issue for you, I get it, but self censorship before somebody

makes it really explicit that this must happen or else, if you’re doing it voluntarily, you’re empowering people who wouldn’t have any power, you’re teaching them what

power they hold over you

and encouraging

them

to, expand on that

Steeeeeve: when we say, be defiant, fellow zoos, you know, we can’t say that that risk is worth it for you, but we can say that the reward is potentially pretty awesome, because you’re forcing them to show their true colors as an intolerant piece of shit, right? don’t do their bidding for them. Don’t treat yourself like shit.

Make them, you know,

work to treat you like shit, right? By being your authentic, cheery, zooey self. You know, it’s so rewarding to just be like, yeah, I’m going to flaunt my shit. I’m going to make you be an asshole about it. And then, maybe that’s a Pyrrhic victory for you, but, also, can I just say one thing about the Fur Affinity thing?

, this was somebody else on the production cast, and I forget who it was, it might have been you, Aqua, I forget, but somebody so accurately, succinctly, Named this particular evil and by naming an evil, our listeners, of course, understand that this takes away a lot of its power.

And the specific name for this specific evil from FurAffinity, it was this one mod who just kind of dropped into the community and asserted himself and was like, I’m going to make it the way I want it to be. And the, the specific terminology for this, if I’m not mistaken, was A. Shitty little fast climber.

Aqua: I like it, but that wasn’t me.

Steeeeeve: I mean, you’re, you’re super sharp. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was, it’s just some ambitious little fuck that shows up and tries to take over a community that they didn’t build and, predictably there’s some pushback.

From people who’ve made it their life’s work to build and support and nurture and volunteer for this community that they love. So when someone jumps in and says, UGH, that if you are welcome, UGH Then you should feel well within your rights to tell that person to go eat your whole ass. It’s just Shitty little fast climber just with a bunch of ambition and no empathy.

They just want to jump in your community that you built and tell you what’s what? No, fuck all the way off with that. Get the fuck out of here. That’s my best, honest response to this, fur affinity censorship spree that we’ve been seeing. Resentment’s the only thing that eats its own container, and if you’re defining yourself by who you hate, your life will be, it’s like you drank the unicorn blood from Harry Potter, it’ll just be cursed.

And I wish that I were a better person, that I didn’t take pleasure in seeing you destroy yourself with hatred, but You know, if someone’s going to destroy themselves, it’s hard to not enjoy that. The schadenfreude is real with this one.

Aqua: Yeah, the situation is pretty complicated, it turns out. It wasn’t just one mod. this was

a policy issue that dated all the way back to when Nier was struggling to find payment processors that would, That would work with FurAffinity after seeing examples of the

kind of artwork that they wanted to, host on the site.

Steeeeeve: was it that they technically had a policy on the book so that they didn’t anger their payment processors, but didn’t really enforce it,

and then once Dragoneer died, they were like, yeah, let’s, let’s enforce it now, or something?

Aqua: Something like that. I’m sure there will be some very well researched, very well produced post mortem videos about this, , before the end of the year, maybe, or in the spring. but that isn’t really changing the message here. any time some kind

of oppressive power

shows up, the power that it wields

is given to it.

So don’t give it to them.

Steeeeeve: Yeah, that, unnamed excellent zoo fursuit maker who got quote unquote cancelled

Is still getting a bunch of work You know why because they’re awesome and they didn’t concede to just disappear from existence They didn’t take their own life. They didn’t stop making fursuits. They didn’t hide.

They didn’t Take a shitty day job. They’re still making awesome fursuits and crushing it. You know what? The fact that they’re a zoo is incidental to the fact that they happen to be a badass fursuit maker. I hope they stay booked until the end of time. If you’re out there listening, a real one. We love you.

Aqua: Mhmm. okay. So there really isn’t one solution that’s gonna work for everybody here. I have an idea on the literature side, , something that I have seen my friends do, , that I’ve practiced, , for certain projects, , is just to try to reinforce the separation between my real self and the persona that I’m using for some project, , like just taking on a character and then building some kind of, it’s kind of a ritual, like just having a series of steps that you go through , and setting up an environment and all of these little details that don’t sound like they’re very important that just help you stay in this particular mode while you are working on that one thing.

So if you’re writing, you could try making up, , a character who is writing for you and just write through them instead of yourself. and then in order to get into that mode of thinking, you could set up a different, Corner to work in maybe a different chair,

Steeeeeve: That seems like a lot.

Aqua: different music, different beverages, snacks, and so on.

Uh, just to help you keep that separation.

Steeeeeve: Wow.

Aqua: I have seen that work.

it’s kind of similar to method acting, but, you know, sometimes it’s necessary and sometimes authors really enjoy it. They’ll create characters and then that character will write the book instead of them.

maybe that’s helpful here. But, if we’re talking about like constructing a bat cave,

then you start veering into like, okay, this might turn

into psychologically damaging.

Steeeeeve: compartmentalization, and self repression,

which we don’t recommend.

we’re, for the record, we’re, we’re not for it.

Aqua: Yeah. but it’s a thought.

Steeeeeve: we reached out anonymously to someone that we know on the podcast, who is familiar with this challenge.

They wrote a fantastic reply. So here it is. They say. Hey. I’m a closet zoo artist myself and absolutely understand what you mean. I’m so sorry about having your work ridiculed by a popular blogger.

That’s definitely one of the worst sides of the current internet world, right? Full of hecklers. I know what you mean by having difficulty changing your style. I’ve tried to vary my art style before and I thought I was doing well until I showed my friends and had them tell me it was totally recognizable.

I still went for it and haven’t had anyone call me out yet and I hope that the art’s just different enough that I have plausible deniability if I need it, but I know that’s partly down to luck. I wonder if it’s going to be easier to hide when it comes to writing with so many aspects that aren’t as instantly recognizable.

Well, and also plus the fact that a lot of people don’t read. I imagine That a second account for zoo writing could be a good, less risky outlet, right? So that’s the compartmentalization, I’ve never felt worried on the few times I’ve written for zooey projects, I can tell you that. But what if you really want to share more than just writing? It’s tricky for sure, but I have a few ideas. One is to try a completely different medium or style. If you’ve been doing digital art all this time, why not try traditional media? If you’re good at a realistic style, why not try bold, blocky colors with a binary pen?

Something with an entirely different skill set, and be sure to rethink how you do aspects like muzzles and fur, go nuts, try out whole new ways to draw animals, and see what fun you can have with that. Hell, you could even go further. Graphic design, making memes, use your artistic knowledge to make fun little graphics, I’ve done plenty with that.

You could even make stickers. As a final note, callouts are always a worry and one I with frequently. I have a fair following and have had a few small callouts, fortunately with no actual evidence, but the idea that someday someone might connect enough dots does worry me. However, thousands of followers and watchers under my belt, I have yet to have anything significant.

A similar experience to many of my fellow closet friends. Do callouts happen? Of course they do. As you know, and the worst can hurt, and I’ve had friends that have suffered too, but the truth is, it’s a lot rarer than it may seem, and even a low level of security, like never clicking a like on anything zoo related, never admitting anything over text, not replying to any blue sky or furfinity DMs that mention zoo can go a long way,

in the end, my advice is only minimal. Think outside the box, try some writing, and remember that callouts are far less common than they sometimes seem, and most of all, keep in mind, we love you. If you draw or write for the community, even if it’s only secretly for us, we’ll find it and we’ll appreciate it, and never forget to stay defiant.

Aww, that’s really sweet. Yeah, we know some good people.

Aqua: So, Creature, we’ll forward this to you in full,, just to make sure that you see that. but yeah, go nuts. I would treat this as an opportunity to do something absolutely completely unrelated to your comfort zone. The worst that can happen is you produce a bunch of work that maybe isn’t up to your standard and you don’t want to show anyone, that’s fine.

You still learned something. And that can inform other projects that do make it, to the internet to show us. but, , yeah, this is tough. There is a cost. and, uh, Steve and I have talked about this before, , , there is a personal cost to hiding and to disguising yourself and trying to work indirectly through different styles and other things.

It can be exhausting, if you have a support network around you, if you have friends that understand you, really, if you’ve been around the furries long enough to you. Realize that, if you’re discovered, some of them are going to care, but it’s probably not going to affect your bottom line.

It’s just

going to change your clientele a little bit. It might be okay,

Steeeeeve: Yeah, and again, just remember, if they’re not paying you,

They

don’t get to tell you what kind of work to make.

Aqua: start throwing stuff at the wall. See what sticks

Steeeeeve: thanks for writing in, Creature of the Night. We’re looking forward to what you make, even if we don’t know it’s you.

Aqua: right on. All right, that’s all the email we have for this episode, but there’s lots more to come. Big thanks to everybody who already

wrote in and anybody just

getting

around to it. You know how to find us.

Steeeeeve: After the break, we’ll be getting right into our topic for this episode, animals at work and all the ways they help humans for better or worse.

Aqua: So when you hear animals at work, what do you imagine? I mean like real life, not stud dogs wearing hard hats and high vis safety vests and nothing else. Okay, we’ll come back to that. We mean like service animals and search and rescue, bomb squad, law enforcement, therapy, battlefields, charities, activism, propaganda, research, testing. There’s so much. Where’s the line between work and exploitation? Like who

does it serve? do cute animals get better jobs? And accolades? Do animals like having jobs? Or is that bullshit?

Steeeeeve: It’s complicated, so we’re looking at a few examples and all the baggage and benefits, if any.

Aqua: I hope there’s benefits. That’s next on Zooier Than

Thou. Stick around.

Sponsors

Eggshell: Support for Zooier Than Thou comes from Epiphiny Pipeworks. Check out Epiphiny’s work on Bluesky at epiphiny.bsky.social. That’s E P I P H I N Y. E P I P H I N Y.

This episode is also brought to you by Shiv’s debut album Lieder über Liebe. Thirteen tracks including “A Werewolf in Reverse”

Shiv: I wanna feel like all around me every part of my body is covered in fur

Eggshell: “Anti-Me-Alliance”

Shiv: You backstabbing little freak of a mutt you stole my life my wife my drive, you dog!

Eggshell: Fire!

Shiv: Burning like fire

Eggshell: And more. Find the album, Lieder über Liebe, on Bandcamp, and stream it there on the site or pay what you want to download it. Zero euro, six hundred euro, five euro, and of those amounts will probably work. Anything the album does make will be going to ANINOVA, a verein which rescues animals from horrible living conditions and finances places for them to live out a better life. This zoo music from Shiv can be found at shiv950.bandcamp.com.

For Zooier Than Thou, visit us on the web at zoo.wtf, and subscribe using rss.zoo.wtf to get notified every time we’re on the air.

Topic - Animal Jobs

Aqua: Welcome back, fellow zoos. It’s Aqua and Steve back with you, and we’re joined by Kion,

Kyon: Hello?

Aqua: help us untangle Animals at Work, which is now that I’m thinking about it, pretty vague.

I think the idea here is to examine in some depth all of the different ways that humans use animals towards human ends and decide whether or not any of those uses are permissible or ethical or if any of them if there’s problems to be found there. Of course, ethicists like Peter Singer will have plenty to say about this and have written at least two books.

But for now, this is this is just us surveying what we can find and what we know and looking for some surprises.

Steeeeeve: I’m surprised already.

Aqua: why don’t we start out by thinking about a question like, what does it even mean to be a working animal? Because humans have used animals for millennia for one purpose or another but do we have a real definition for working animals now?

Steeeeeve: There’s a article from 2022 describing the chaotic environment of training and certification of surface dogs and the short answer is there is no certification. For service dogs, and they’re generally not covered by insurance, and organizations charge, according to the article, between 15, 000 to 40, 000 for a fully trained service dog, which they have bred, raised, and trained for a year and a half.

There’s long waiting lists, some of them won’t place dogs with young children. It’s totally chaotic and with rapid growth of that industry and very little oversight there’s huge financial barriers, poorly trained dogs and outright fraud. There’s some people just running a puppy mill from their backyard, quasi training them.

And then after tens of thousands of dollars, a profoundly disabled person could end up with a dog that’s not trained at all and totally unusable as a service animal. So they’re describing it as a Wild West environment and sometimes they’re great, there’s a group called Assistance Dogs International that has 80 accredited members and 25 candidate programs in North America But nobody knows how many unaccredited dog trainers are operating they’re just You know, getting money right and left, like in 2018, Virginia’s Attorney General filed a lawsuit alleging a company called Service Dogs by Warren Retrievers charged families 27, 000 per dog, but delivered poorly trained puppies with significant behavioral issues and inadequate skills or training.

It settled for 3 million. It just, it goes on and on, so it’s nightmarish, but I know a blind zoo with a CNI dog, who is not only his service animal, But his partner, so that’s a zooey twist to all of this.

they said when the vest is on, he’s at work. When the vest is off, he’s his mate. So I guess they found a work life balance.

Aqua: The rest of that sounds the usual fun and pitfalls of free market capitalism to me which really stinks. so there’s no certification, but the ADA does have rules who qualifies as a service animal, there are standards of behavior, I think they only recognize dogs, even though the the website and the documentation refers to service animals, they, only recognize dogs, as far as I can tell but we’ll talk a little bit more about that later are Obviously are going to be front of mind for a lot of us but the relationship between humans and animals for as long as humans have been humans has been some mix of cooperative and exploitative, and that’s, it gave rise to a bunch of domesticated.

Species that we still use today. Dogs, top of that list,

Kyon: it occurs to me there’s a level of why do we put forth the effort of our limited resources into the animal? And it’s almost always for some kind of work or value, right?

Steeeeeve: Oh yeah. Consider that to get any dog, you start with a gray wolf who happens to be friendly and then find characteristics that you would rather them have and then selectively breed them over several generations. And then there you go, you got yourself a dog. But genetically, a domesticated dog is.

What, 98 percent identical to a gray wolf, even like a Chinese crested dog that nobody would look at and think okay, that’s basically a gray wolf that is genetically compatible with a gray wolf that could bear viable hybrid offspring with a gray wolf, but all of that’s true for a Chihuahua for a pug, you could mix those with a gray wolf and get viable offspring. But, nobody would look at, the really specific behaviors of an English shorthaired pointer, where just every time they smell a bird, they lock up and lift one leg and freeze and point their snout at it. That’s so specific, but we did that. Humans did that.

Aqua: So then maybe the definition we can use for a working animal is any animal, probably domesticated that humans use to do tasks that humans either can’t do on their own, or won’t do on their own, because maybe it’s too dangerous, or maybe we could do, but We’re not as well suited to it, in our opinion, or maybe it’s too expensive for us to try or it could be there’s a profit motive there, often there is so perhaps animals can do it more efficiently, or, they have some physical trait that makes them better able to perform some task.

Steeeeeve: The

working group of the Westminster Dog Show is a good starting place for let’s see what. Animals with jobs look like, right?

Aqua: I can think of some goofy examples of how this is just everywhere. This measurement we call horsepower. It’s called horsepower for a reason. Some horse somewhere did some amount of work in some period of time, and was before the metric system or anything that made any kind of sense.

Horsepower.

Steeeeeve: Some, there’s a YouTuber that,

Kyon: 745

watts for no good yeah, there’s a YouTuber that actually connected horses to a dynamometer, like for measuring car horsepower and had them pull this pulley rig in conjunction with an engineering department. I think they found that horses actually generate about four horsepower, but it’s variable because if you have a huge draft horse, that would be different, et cetera, et But yeah.

Aqua: Yeah, giraffe

all Tork. but yeah, they actually did find a way to connect horses to a dino, and dinoed horses, and figured out they actually had about four horsepower.

There it is then. Humans are, as far as we know the most adept at making tools and inventing new ones and exploiting the environment and each other and animals to further some interest.

Steeeeeve: Right, just bending the whole planet to our will.

Aqua: Okay. what kinds of jobs then? I guess we can start with service animals since we did already. But let’s take a look at some of the jobs that animals do for us. There are service animals as we think of them. Again, note that the ADA’s website specifically, it only mentions dogs here, no other animals, so this is going to be dog centric as usual, but the list of capabilities that you can train a service dog to perform for someone is really long and some of this is really critical to improving somebody’s quality of life or enabling them to function in a society that is just not otherwise really able or willing to accommodate them.

Right away, we can think of mobility. Assistance. So whether that’s sight seeing eye dog hearing dogs exist. So if somebody has trouble hearing or is completely deaf there’s navigational aids, whether that’s opening and closing doors, pressing elevator buttons making sure you don’t leave the house without your car keys or your phone.

It starts to border on personal assistance. And then some other ones that it didn’t really occur to me right away but even something that we take for granted, like walking there are service dogs that can provide counterbalance if you have a traumatic brain injury or some other injury that makes it difficult for you to to walk and keep your balance.

There may be a dog that can help you do this and maybe a service animal can be more useful and more effective than a prosthetic.

Kyon: They’re certainly fuzzier and more appealing. There’s the dogs that help warn epileptics seizures and such too

Aqua: hours in advance, sometimes anyway, it’s a real thing. Seizure detection is something that dogs are very good with training at anticipating.

And it’s remarkable how much warning they can give you.

Steeeeeve: Something else you mentioned that the ADA only regulates working dogs, but actually they have a whole section about miniature horses.

Aqua: I was looking at ADA. gov slash topic slash service dash animals, and I did not see

Steeeeeve: I’m looking

at ADA. gov slash resources slash service dash animals dash 2010 dash requirements, but it’s really as of 2020. And they say, under a topic heading of miniature horses, in addition to the provisions about service dogs, the department’s ADA regulations have a separate provision about miniature horses that have been individually trained to do work or perform tasks for people with disabilities.

It says, entities covered by the ADA must modify their policies to permit miniature horses where reasonable. The regulations set out four assessment factors to assist entities in determining whether miniature horses can be accommodated in their facility.

Assessment factors are one, whether the miniature horse is housebroken, two, whether the miniature horse is under the owner’s control, three, whether the facility can accommodate the miniature horse’s type, size, and weight, and four, whether the miniature horse’s presence will not compromise legitimate safety requirements necessary for safe operation of the facility.

So theoretically, if you can get a horse in there, and they don’t poop everywhere, and they stay under your control, and they’re not a danger to anyone ADA requirements or regulations require that they admit the horse, if it’s performing tasks for people with disabilities, such as gait assistance or gait training children with autism spectrum disorders.

There’s a lot of information out there about horse therapy, equine therapy, but yeah it’s right here. It’s in the ADA. Something else that I think might be interesting to our listeners is that if you’re like so many people and home ownership is, Beyond reach, right?

Given our current economic climate of hyperinflation you may be renting an apartment and if you’re renting an apartment property managers have figured out that pet deposits and fees and charges related to that could be a lucrative sideline to just extract more income from their tenants.

However you may not realize that if you have a service animal. They are prohibited from charging you pet fees and cannot exclude you on the basis of your service animal’s presence in your living quarters. So if you’re wondering how that works, you get a prescription for a service animal and a lot of people can give you that prescription such as Oh, like a behavior therapist could, or a psychotherapist or a LPC could give you a prescription.

A prescription of a service animal that doesn’t expire and that’s for, I don’t know, PTSD, whatever. But once you have that prescription they can’t exclude your animal from any place that you are allowed to be. And that’s in public as well. So if you’re allowed to be in a restaurant, you can bring your service animal with you.

What service is that animal providing? Doesn’t say. And emotional support animals, it’s a different standard than for service animals. They just say they have to be trained, housebroken, and under your control, and not a danger to anyone. So even in a hospital, you could bring your service animal if you have that prescription and they can’t exclude them except from an operating theater where they feel like, sterility would be compromised, and they specifically call that out in the ADA.

But yeah, if you’re finding like, man, I can’t afford the pet deposit and pet fees and all this trying To shake us down for pet money at an apartment and you happen to have a prescription for a service animal for any reason, they can’t deny you access to that apartment and they can’t deny your animal either.

It’s illegal.

Kyon: Legitimate service animals only, please.

Aqua: Yeah, this isn’t a workaround for somebody who doesn’t actually need a service animal to have animals in their life. Someplace where. you know, it otherwise wouldn’t be allowed.

Steeeeeve: But our listeners might have a prescription for a service animal and might have a service animal and might not know that an apartment cannot legally charge them a pet deposit because it’s not a pet anymore. That’s a service animal. That’s two different things according to the law. And they definitely don’t want to face a federal housing administrative action.

So yeah, they’ll just be like, Oh shit. Okay. Service animal. My bad. And then that’s it. And also, if it’s for PTSD, apartment manager is probably wondering Oh shit, like what kind of trauma did you experience? And I don’t want to discriminate against, I don’t know, like a disabled vet with PTSD.

And then this is their service dog. Like every aspect of that would look really terrible optically. So yeah, no.

Kyon: I don’t know how many inveterate capitalists you’re familiar with, but

I don’t think they’d really have much of a

Steeeeeve: so something to know for our listeners.

Aqua: more you know. What else can they do? Similar to seizure detection, there’s blood glucose detection if you’re diabetic. That’s an easy one. There are service animals trained to get help in case you are in trouble, like after a fall. I have actually seen this happen. I was not approached, but people near me were approached by a service dog wearing a vest, had a little embroidered bit of text on the side of the harness that said, follow me. and somebody did. It was great. I don’t have any idea what happened after that, but I hope it wasn’t serious. But that’s another one. This this There may be, like, the get help training. I think that gets rolled into mobility training. It may not just be this one task that they’re focused on.

This is one of those capabilities that I think could easily be replaced by technology. But there may be a reason not to do that. There’s other factors to consider. If the service animal has other functions. Okay, great. An Apple Watch can’t do those, but this dog sure can. And maybe there’s an element of dignity also. I don’t know anybody who’s too excited about the thought of carrying around one of those life alert pendants or something so they have a button to push in case they fall down a flight of stairs. That’s a little grim. Oh, so another one that didn’t occur to me right away was harmful behavior interruption and redirection.

This would be a service animal that is trained to detect behavioral patterns or anxious responses or obsessive compulsive. And then do something to break that train of thought or that behavior like lick the person’s hand lay on them get their attention focused somewhere else so that they are now both aware of what’s happening and and the behavior stops. I actually really like this one as an alternative to like medication that, could have really unwanted side effects.

Kyon: Good doggies that snuggle you better. I love it.

Aqua: , we have entire breeds for this, like Samoyeds.

Kyon: I was thinking of St. Bernard’s, but sure.

Aqua: Also good. Maybe better. so as we were starting to get around to because of the legal protections afforded to service animals and to people this mechanism that we have for Living with service dogs and making sure that they can go almost everywhere that animals would otherwise not be welcome or permitted.

There is potential for abuse here and it really sucks. this is a real problem for people who need and have service animals because it invites all this negative attention and unless everybody is really familiar with their rights and with the law. And the limitations of each of those it’s a conflict point usually the way that this happens is somebody will they’ll have a pet dog who might be perfectly well behaved and well trained but then they’ll go on Amazon or eBay or something and they’ll get a little harness that says service animal even though they are not and because there is no formalized certification process As Steve mentioned early on it becomes a kind of shield for this person to just do whatever they feel like doing and like causing problems for a place of business or a sanitary issue or maybe worries about an allergic response for some other patron And this never goes well.

Anytime there’s a conflict like this pretty much everybody loses. I wonder, maybe we should talk about the role that Emotional support animals and therapy animals actually do have because there are legitimate roles for them, even if they don’t enjoy the recognition or protection by the ADA the same way that service animals do.

Kyon: Yeah, anxieties are pretty common. Disorders slash syndromes that people experience and big strong dogs do have a tendency to be comforting.

Aqua: Yeah because anxiety is a diagnosable disorder which I think would mean it falls under the category of Actual service animal prescription.

Kyon: Yeah.

It could.

Aqua: but maybe the difference then is a therapy animal that participates in some sort of treatment program guided by a therapist or some other human handler for the benefit of their patients, but it’s not necessarily a live in animal that goes home with the patient. It’s just a service provided.

Kyon: there are some that are like that, but, whole point of

the having it around all the time, isn’t it?

Steeeeeve: I was going to say it’s a zigzaggy line because the ADA’s definition of a service animal includes, of course, guide dogs, seeing eye dogs, hearing or signal dogs, service dogs which do things like Reminding the handler to take medicine, providing safety checks turning on lights for people with PTSD.

Someone with PTSD could be prescribed a psychiatric service dog, which would be legally protected under Title II and Title III of the ADA as a service animal. But, similarly, the same person could be prescribed an emotional support animal. Which one is which, right? The support animals which are not the same as service animals, I know it’s a zigzaggy line are not considered service animals under the ADA, but they may be protected by the Fair Housing Act and other laws.

Other regulations.

Aqua: Oh, interesting. Okay.

Steeeeeve: Okay, here we go. The Fair Housing Act, the FHA, in the U. S., protects a person with a disability from discrimination in obtaining housing. So they have to provide you with reasonable accommodation for people with disabilities. Emotional support animals that don’t qualify as service animals under the ADA may nevertheless qualify as reasonable accommodations under the FHA. That also means that they have to waive a no pet rule or pet deposit and the animal is not considered a pet. that’s where that can come in. So even if you

don’t have a legit trained service animal, if you have an emotional support animal you still have protections under the FHA.

There’s also protections for service animals in public schools with, heavy exceptions and regulations and whatnot, but that’s a thing. And for service animals and also emotional support and therapy animals on public transportation. So if they have a no, pets policy on a bus or a train or something, that does not apply to people with emotional support animals.

Same for air travel, although that can be pretty contentious because again, people have tried to abuse that and bring their emotional support boa constrictor on an aircraft and then people freak out. But if you actually read the regulations, they’re pretty broad.

Kyon: Emotional support, snakes on a plane.

Aqua: I’m waiting for Samuel L. Jackson.

Steeeeeve: It specifically says Allergies and fear of dogs are not valid reasons for denying access or refusing service to people using service animals. If employees, fellow travelers, or customers are afraid of service animals, a solution may be to allow enough space for that person to avoid getting close to the service animal.

Most allergies are caused by direct contact with an animal. Maybe a little more space is necessary. If a person is at risk of a significant allergic reaction to an animal, it’s the responsibility of the business or government entity to find a way to accommodate both the individual using the service animal and the individual with the allergy.

So that one is on the business or government agency.

Kyon: Screw you, figure it out.

Steeeeeve: Yeah, exactly. and if there’s a complaint, it goes straight to the U. S. Department of Justice, which, under our current administration, may just laugh in your face and set you on fire, but, theoretically, there’s a mechanism there for enforcement.

Pretty crazy, huh?

Aqua: I wonder how much cost is a contributing factor here. we already said that there isn’t a formal certification process. So it’s reputation and results based.

Kyon: All the definitions are results based, by the way. If it’s a service dog, it’s because it acts, quacks like a service dog. That’s why it’s a service dog, right?

Aqua: right. Which is interesting because if the ADA is now making accommodations for miniature horses, I didn’t hear anything in their explanation, it was identical to the rules for service dogs, other than it’s a horse, and therefore probably larger. It’s the same, they could have just had one sentence that said, oh by the way, horses are fine too, figure it out.

Steeeeeve: Can you imagine the Fair Housing Act? and then

you, apply for an apartment, you get in, you move in with your emotional support horse. the floor can safely support this horse, and the horse is house trained, and then they just can’t get rid of you, and you just have a horse living in your apartment.

Aqua: That’d be pretty great.

Steeeeeve: just get a ground floor apartment and call it good, I guess.

Aqua: You might have to take the service elevator with your

horse, but, a ground floor apartment, or, I don’t know, I think most suspended floors can take the weight of a Steinway Grand Piano, which is maybe about the same as a smallish horse?

Steeeeeve: They’re really small.

Kyon: Have you seen miniature horses? They’re actually smaller than some

Steeeeeve: No, they actually have a weight range on the ADA. Website.

Aqua: I know, but I’m expecting somebody is gonna push the envelope here and include ponies.

Steeeeeve: There’s a maximum horse weight. So you don’t, this is my emotional support draft horse. Deal with it.

Aqua: Okay, somebody thought about this. What, what is the maximum weight? I have to know.

Steeeeeve: Ah, man. I just I looked at

it, saw that it existed and then promptly did not memorize that I’m not like a horse ephemera type dude, but it does exist for people who care to look it up. That’s the thing.

Aqua: Okay, that’s fine. I’ll look it up later. All so that still leads me to wonder how much cost is a factor here because a well trained service dog, as we know, costs tens of thousands of dollars, but therapy animal or an emotional support animal doesn’t have any special requirements here other than must be housebroken, has to be under control of their handler So it’s not even limited to dogs and horses anymore.

It could be any number of other kinds of animals, right?

Kyon: Maybe even a parrot, or Something like that.

They can be

very smart.

Steeeeeve: Who knows, man?

Aqua: yeah, I can see that working.

Steeeeeve: Yeah.

Aqua: I know somebody has done it. Somebody must have.

Kyon: If, the cost is a real big factor, although much of the cost has to do with a certain degree of I’ve learned helplessness and rent seeking both, right? We’re used to being able to just buy a thing on the market and, go to a thing, person that’s selling this, but this is an actual pretty complex judgment thing that you’re buying.

So there’s a bunch of people are doing it. If you invest all the time to train a seeing eye dog, that’s a lot. That’s a big investment, right? If it was your job to do that, you’d be spending like a year per dog.

So you would expect the compensation to be like roughly, an average year salary and which apparently is more or less

what I guess I wanna say is you can train your own seeing eye dog. There’s nothing stopping you from doing that. You just have to be deliberate and like actually learn how to do it. I suppose

Aqua: Yep.

Kyon: even blind people can train their own ducks although that is definitely an outlier position.

Aqua: I think that covers the direct human assistance and quality of life issues that Everybody is going to be familiar with and thinking about there’s plenty of other places where animals serve humans I think that the next big one that will come to mind is animals in war and military duty and there’s lots and lots of places where animals show up in the armed forces and in supporting efforts so let’s talk about some of those. And I think there’s a connection here to agriculture, but also to law enforcement, so it exists in the middle. So first would be transportation and hauling, so this would be your usual beasts of burden, horses, oxen, mules basically anybody who can pull or lift or drag a heavier, or carry a heavier load than a human or a group of humans could do.

Especially over great distance. this is as old as time. As long as humans have been around, this is what we have been using large, strong animals for. Except now it’s in a conflict theater.

Steeeeeve: wherever humans go,

animals also go. And if humans are, just happen to be on a mission to murder each other, there’s no reason to conclude that they won’t bring animals into that and see if they can exploit them to facilitate their hostilities.

Kyon: I mean, war dogs are a thing.

Steeeeeve: Yeah, and warhorses. cavalry,

you know,

Kyon: Yeah.

Aqua: Yep. Fighting mounts. Or units that cover large amounts of ground, or are intended for use against other ground units or to have some kind of advantage. Sure. Now we get into some ugly ones and that’s using animals as weapons. So where have we seen this come up?

Steeeeeve: recently

a lot in the Middle East

with, basically donkey bombs, where they just strap a bunch of like suicide bomber explosives to a donkey and then send it toward a checkpoint and then it explodes. But more preposterously, even a donkey being used as a mount for an anti aircraft machine gun.

Kyon: Well, beast of burden, I guess.

Aqua: what did they run out of Toyotas?

Steeeeeve: There was a whole war called the Toyota War where both sides of the

conflict just used Toyota pickup trucks as their mechanized infantry, essentially.

Kyon: I’m sure there’s no multinational megacorps that would have profited greatly from that.

Aqua: But also put as much distance between them and the issue as humanly possible.

Steeeeeve: yeah, but also it’s like

free

press because they’re like, man, you know, you just want it to Run your pool cleaning business, but I mean look what it could do. is a great choice. What a great value

Kyon: look how cool this truck is.

Steeeeeve: yeah, but I mean there are people who can’t afford a Toyota

pickup

truck and You know, but if there’s donkeys around they’re like I do want to shoot enemy helicopters with a machine gun, so maybe this guy can carry this around for me.

Aqua: Okay, so we’re not even talking about like stationary guns are fired and then very quickly packed up you run away with it.

Steeeeeve: Yeah, a heavy machine gun, like

an anti aircraft placement, that were like, it would take like a team of people to carry it, but they’re like donkeys are strong, so they would just mount the machine gun to the back of a donkey and shoot at helicopters with it.

Aqua: oh that’s terrible.

Steeeeeve: Yeah no. Life

is really cheap. and a lot of places.

Aqua: And of course there’s no hearing protection for anybody, let alone the donkey.

Steeeeeve: Oh

Aqua: That’s great. It gets worse than that even.

Kyon: Yeah. Some of their uses literally kill the animal

when it attacks, like the.

Aqua: bat bombs.

Steeeeeve: right. World War II. This is the U. S. Army. Trying to figure out how to burn down Japan before they just said, or we could just drop the atomic bomb and unleash a whole new suite of nuclear horror on the planet. So yeah, they had this canister full of Mexican free tailed bats, and each one had a tiny incendiary device.

And the idea was that you would just, you would drop them out of a, I don’t know, like a cluster munition, basically. The bats would fly all over the place and then roost under stuff and then catch fire. And they figured out that it worked because they accidentally released a bunch of these bats on their own base.

And then they roosted underneath a fuel tank and blew it up and set part of the base on fire. And then someone called it the fleeter mouse fiasco. Not reliable. similarly, we had the Skinner missile pigeons, right? So I’m a, trained as a behavior

analyst.

And,

B. F. Skinner is considered to

be the father of behaviorism as a science.

Aqua: oh, these might be near and dear to your heart.

Steeeeeve: And he personally trained a bunch of pigeons to act as a guidance system

Kyon: yay.

Steeeeeve: what, like a missile or

something?

Kyon: love it too.

Steeeeeve: And installed them in a mechanism to try to interpret their pigeon movements into course corrections for munitions.

And it was like an abysmal failure.

Aqua: As I recall Skinner had real difficulty getting anybody to take him seriously. and good thing too, because that’s an awful thing to imagine. Just develop optics and gyroscopes, please. We did, eventually, but it sounds again like this is another cost cutting measure.

Is it faster, cheaper, and easier to train an animal that we don’t care about to do something really gruesome instead of making these incredibly precise, machined instruments that are, at the time, they would have been purely

Steeeeeve: Yeah.

Aqua: and figuring out how to make that work.

Steeeeeve: there’s a lot of grossness.

and a lot of

this like animal related grossness is so absurd. And history just looks at it as like a fiasco or is like a. Just a weird blip in the historical map where somebody had just the dumbest idea ever. Okay in the mid 19th century, before the American Civil War, there was the establishment of the United States Camel Corps. And The US Army ran trials in 1836 that camels would be useful as beasts of burden, and convinced the War Department to run a trial. It was Totally unsuccessful. They thought hey, if U. S. forces are required to operate in desert regions like the Southwest U. S., against Native Americans or whatever, then maybe these camels will, be our salvation or whatever.

So Congress appropriated 30, 000, which is equivalent to 981, 000 in today’s dollars. Subsequent to a report entitled, Purchase of Camels for the Purpose of Military Transportation. And anyway, they ran this trial. It was dumb as hell. The camels were not happy with the purpose to which they were being put.

It was uncomfortable for people to ride them. It was just absolutely a fiasco. They ended up in Texas. It was a whole thing. And then What put a stop to it was the Civil War, and then early in the Civil War, an attempt was made to use the camels to carry mail between Fort Mojave in the New Mexico Territory on the Colorado River and New San Pedro, California, but it was unsuccessful after the commanders of both posts objected.

They’re like, man, we don’t want these camels around. This is awful. The confederates captured a camp that had the camels, and then they were like, what the hell? This is dumb. It was just,

Steeeeeve: again, fiasco.

Aqua: Okay yeah, so an attempt was made to find a suitable animal that was more specialized To that environment probably not to reduce the suffering of, the animal in question, but to make it easier to to actually use them in that

environment.

I think Sweden tried to do this with moose.

Yeah, they did. It was Sweden and and then the Soviet Union. But that was much later. Yeah, so they tried to use moose as deep snow cavalry. But discovered very quickly that moose were according to Wikipedia, unsuitable for warfare because they got sick too easily and they were too hard to feed and tended to flee the battleground.

How very sensible, moose. And then I guess the Soviets figured it out later. They managed to train moose not to be gun

shy, but never got to use this cavalry because, drum roll, World War II. So, you know, preparations for war once again ruined by actual war.

Steeeeeve: Yeah. if you look at the public facing, PR webpages for the various branches of various militaries, they’ll say, our mission is to defend and protect, da, but that’s not really the reality of being in the military. The reality is that your job is to kill people and break their stuff. And To wit, that’s why they have guns and bombs and tanks and F 16s and attack helicopters and attack dogs and everything else. Everything is designed to kill people and break their stuff. They’re not out there teaching kindergartners to square dance. It’s not a thing. The military is there to do two things, kill people and break their stuff.

So if you’re like how did animals get involved? Probably in killing people and breaking their stuff. That’s what they do. It’s atrocious.

Aqua: Yep. And how do we go about killing people and breaking stuff? Procurement. Really big contracts and, and I guess strange applications for animals that have no business being there.

Steeeeeve: well, and literal attack dogs

And I think

you,

we might not have mentioned the Soviet anti tank bomb dogs, where they just were like, Hey, let’s just strap bombs to dogs and then get them to run underneath

enemy tanks and then explode and blow up the bottom of the tank, right? Except that apparently they trained them.

On Soviet diesel tanks. And then when they went into battle in World War II, the German tanks were burning gasoline. And so they didn’t smell right. And so the dogs just ran underneath the Soviet tanks and blew up. And it was like, Oh man, this is just again, another fiasco.

Aqua: there were other problems.

Steeeeeve: Oh boy.

Aqua: Originally, I think, originally the goal was to hopefully have a reusable dog at the end of this. So the original training was here, put on this vest which has basically a timed explosive on it, and run over to this this target

of interest, and then pull on this little

strap to release the explosives, and then run away.

Steeeeeve: Yeah. It’s complicated.

Aqua: You can guess what happened. The dogs were not able to separate themselves from this bomb, and then they would dutifully run back to their handlers with the bomb still attached, And that did not go so well

Steeeeeve: Oh no.

Kyon: Oh

Aqua: for anybody. So eventually it did turn into, yeah now it’s a suicide mission. Here’s a trigger on top of your back just go dive under this tank or truck or whatever, and that’s the end.

But even that didn’t work out super well. And that was thankfully not that widely used but actually that’s related to another one which was it may not have been that effective, but the psychological element of it was pretty effective and terrible so again, World War II, the Allies figured out, hey, maybe if we Take these dead rats, so that, like when I was talking about bomb rats before,

Steeeeeve: Oh boy.

Aqua: there’s actually two kinds of bomb rats.

There are bomb rats that detect bombs, and then there are rat bombs which are literally just bombs. And this one’s a little different than the others because the rats were already deceased, so somebody had this awful idea to basically stuff their carcasses with plastic explosives and then just leave this dead rat around an enemy installation of some kind and wait for them to be discovered and burned with the hope that they would explode and cause damage to equipment and personnel.

Steeeeeve: Yeah, because

if they threw them

into a furnace and

they

exploded underneath a, like a steam boiler, then there was a real chance of an overpressure and then a boiler explosion. And if you’re wondering what that might have looked like in the days when steam was a thing look at a boiler explosion on a train.

It’s devastating. complete destruction.

Aqua: Yeah, I remember the first time I saw one of those It

reminded me of one of the RBMK

reactors at Chernobyl. just this tangled spaghetti of metal pipe.

Steeeeeve: the British did this

program with the rats that are bombs and they they made a hundred of them. And then a shipment of them was intercepted by the Germans who were like, Oh no, there’s going to be bomb rats now. And so then the Germans spent the rest of the war anxiously not throwing rats into the furnace and thinking that any rat might be a bomb, but then the British, after that shipment was intercepted, was like, ah, this is actually a dumb idea.

Let’s not do this. But the Germans didn’t get the memo that the British weren’t doing that anymore. So they just spent the whole rest of the war worrying about rat bombs.

Kyon: That’s a great story to share around the trenches,

Aqua: yeah here’s another one that isn’t as terrible and is much more modern. So now we have we have drones. And I’m not talking about like large UAVs operated by the Air Force and Space Force and whoever else. Very small ones like DJI Phantoms and other consumer grade equipment, which might find themselves on the battlefield anyway. Or present like a safety hazard for a major sporting event or a nearby airport. So like this is a major problem and there isn’t a really Elegant, effective, technology based solution for disabling these drones and taking them out of the sky, right? There’s a few ways to do it. You can use a laser, you can send up another drone that fires a net, or some sort of awful goop to try Gum up their blades so that they just fall. Or you can train birds of prey. And, it was it Finland? I think it might have been Finland that did this. And we’ve been using hawks and other birds of prey around airports anyway just to scare off other animals. Usually other birds because they’re a hazard to airplanes when they’re taking off and landing.

Okay, fine. But what would happen is these hawks would be trained from basically as a hatchling to expect that this little plastic toy was actually prey and that they should take it out of the sky and kill it and then wait for food. It works great.

The problem is those little rotor blades are really sharp and they’re moving really fast. The birds get injured and as far as I know, that program ended because of animal rights activists protesting the. This one is a little different in that it doesn’t really care about the risk of harm to these birds.

That they were demonstrably suffering, and it didn’t matter that they were trying to make like little gloves out of Kevlar or something to protect their to protect their bodies. but at least this one is non lethal.

Kyon: At least non directly lethal.

Aqua: But yeah, in general, this entire category is fucking awful and

we should not do this and it really sucks that we do

it.

Steeeeeve: are really bad.

Kyon: Down with the war dogs, yes.

Aqua: the end, What about some non violent

Steeeeeve: messaging? Like carrier pigeons?

Pony Express?

Aqua: Yep, carrier pigeons also sometimes dogs. Yeah, Pony Express. Okay, so there’s a non military application. Oh, and horses again. I was worried about this being too dog centric, but we’re already talking about rats, and pigeons, and bats, and and some others. Okay that’s a fairly obvious

thing.

Aqua: oh, did we talk about Staff Sergeant Reckless?

Steeeeeve: No. Tell us.

Kyon: don’t think we’ve mentioned,

Aqua: Okay,

Yeah, Staff Sergeant Reckless was a decorated warhorse who held official rank in the United States military. She was a mare. She was bought from a Korean stable boy for, I think, about 250. The boy needed the money to pay for a prosthetic for his sister. so the United States Marine Corps bought her.

Trained her to be a pack horse for the recoilless rifle platoon. And yeah. She just became completely integral and inseparable from her unit. There was this enormous morale boost just having her around. She had a huge amount of personality. She would insert herself in the conversations if she didn’t think she was getting the attention she deserved.

She Would eat like other marines did which is maybe not so great for the horse, but led to some funny moments like eating a bunch of poker chips yeah, she served during the Korean War and was so capable that she was running resupply missions on her own all it took was teaching her the delivery route once or twice, and then she did the rest unattended and and did it dozens and dozens of times in the course of a single day. what’s interesting about Sergeant Reckless is that she was minorly injured a couple of times and did receive a Purple Heart for it. But she was so infamous by the end of her service. That she is still being awarded accolades and other commendations to this day, like as recently as 2019. And that’s, we’ve got to

be 50 years now after her passing.

Kyon: A memorable horsey.

Aqua: So this is an interesting moment because it starts to bring in other uses for animals in armed services and law enforcement. And starts to hint at some of the ways that we try to recognize their contributions. So I think that’s a really convenient segue to get into the morale and propaganda elements.

the ways that animals serve there.

I don’t know, is this basically just mascots? This feels like mascots.

Kyon: Yeah, it’s the same kind of strategy,

Aqua: Yeah, so mostly ceremonial roles companionship for the other humans in the unit.

Steeeeeve: the police department in my

city, you can

book an appointment to bring your kids to go feed the police horses

at the police stable.

Aqua: oh yeah, public relations for sure. that’s relatively wholesome,

Steeeeeve: except that, then the mounted patrols are then used to crush,

you know, civil rights protests,

Aqua: except for the whole cop thing.

Steeeeeve: Yeah, exactly. Woof.

Aqua: So is this better or worse or just different than letting your kid watch

Paw Patrol? cause that is just fascist garbage. Who names a police dog Chase? Come on man. be subtle. Try. So on the morale and propaganda side then we have oh maybe there’s a chance if you’re an invading force, if you have animals and they’re well cared for, and, you are seen taking care of them and, showing some affection, maybe that’s a chance to show some humanity to any non combatants that are around that are afraid of you or suspicious.

I don’t know. Maybe that’s a stretch.

Kyon: interaction different cultures have with their animals varies widely. Americans would think, oh, they’re nice to their doggies, people in other places would be like, What are they doing to those dogs? What the hell?

I

wouldn’t do anything funny with a dog.

Aqua: Okay, so on the morale side, maybe having animal companions or mascots or members of the unit maybe that’s a more visceral reminder of why you are also there, right? So there’s your morale boost. I’m thinking about before we had iPads and global communications with family members and all of that, like in the Second World War, yeah, there were phones available if you were, stationed somewhere that, other than that and mail delivery and having some photographs of your sweetie maybe, maybe this

just defends

against disillusionment,

Steeeeeve: sure

Kyon: That is an important

factor for keeping the troops on task.

Aqua: Yeah, or just giving them something to do that is not kill another human.

Steeeeeve: Yeah, I mean and you see that that story is like a feel good story where like a soldier is horribly traumatized and like

Adopts a stray local dog and then petitions at first unsuccessfully, but then eventually succeeds in being allowed to bring the dog home to the U.

S. and then they live happily ever after, that kind of thing. Except, with all the traumatic memories that they accumulated from killing other human beings. that’s how you get prescribed a PTSD dog.

Aqua: Nothing in the rules says a dog can’t play basketball. Okay, yeah and we see this in police work also. Where, oh, I have to go way back to when I was in grade school. We definitely got visits from our local police department canine unit I don’t know, I don’t remember if we were actually allowed to pet the dogs, but we were at least allowed to see a dog and maybe feed a dog a treat but it was pretty clear that was Like a very early recruiting effort by law enforcement to try to teach kids

that

cops are actually your friends.

They’re not cops are there to protect you. They’re not, especially if you’re not white

Kyon: Or rich.

Aqua: or rich.

Kyon: Preferably

yes.

Aqua: got an okay chance. The police canine had a day job, had an actual task that required rigorous training that probably made him, almost always a him, by the way unsuitable for domestic living, but it’s still a dog, they’re still very cute and familiar and we’ve got 30 something thousand years of co evolution that makes the happy brain chemicals. So we see dog and we forget what it is they’re actually doing.

Kyon: Doggie!

Aqua: so I want to come back to that a little bit later because that ties into the ritual that we construct around animals.

In these service roles and how we acknowledge them or okay, so what is what’s something that’s related to that? That would be like activism and charity drives, right? So that doesn’t sound horrible. That sounds like a worthwhile cause. Maybe not.

Kyon: Activism with doggies?

Aqua: Yeah, or just animals in general.

Kyon: Hmm.

Aqua: I’m not talking about petting zoos.

Kyon: I’m trying to imagine having a non profit event where you invite people to bring all their animals together and the potential for chaos is pretty fearsome.

Aqua: oh yeah, I don’t know if you would bring your

own, your own family members to this. This would be like, furry conventions will do this, where they’ll have a local animal shelter on site in the vendor area. And they’ll bring some some dogs with them, or cats, or some other animals.

And it’s a chance for the animals to do something, at least on the surface level, but really it’s to create that emotional connection with other people and elicit some sympathy and maybe a donation, right? And then there’s other I don’t remember.

If if there’s any conventions that have done this recently, but sanctuaries could do the same thing if there’s a zoo with a sanctuary program they could also bring in some more

exotic ones,

But that’s the idea, so it’s an outreach, educational, visibility, awareness effort that can be okay

Aqua: Do you want to just take us into hazard detection and search and rescue, which is objectively a good thing?

Kyon: Oh, sure, yeah, you could start with the use of, unfortunate use of canaries in the coal mines, right? That was an early one.

Steeeeeve: the literal canary in the coal mine.

Kyon: The gas comes along, the canary falls over, you know there’s a problem and you should get out, or at least increase the ventilation. The dogs are great at smelling using them to find bombs, not actually set them off. To find drugs anything that is of the smelly sorts. Heck, we have dogs that can sniff cancer or thyroid problems. and then you’ve got the search and rescue, which, there’s the St. Bernard for you right from the start. Up there in the Mountains finding travellers and keeping them warm until they can be rescued by the monks.

Aqua: What do you know about the little brandy barrel?

Kyon: Legendary, but not accurate.

Aqua: Okay that’s what I thought.

Steeeeeve: It’s cartoon accurate.

Kyon: It’s cute, it’s very cute, yes,

Aqua: yeah, so there was never any alcohol available to somebody lost in the frozen wilderness. It was like, here’s a large dog, they are very heavy and very fluffy, you will no longer freeze. At least a dog will try their hardest not to let you freeze.

Kyon: it’s hard not to be adequately covered by a Saint Bernard.

Aqua: All right, .

Kyon: Voice of experience,

Aqua: no comment

Okay yeah, so survivors locating victims I guess we’ll say cadavers yeah, unfortunately there’s no shortage of work there and, there, to a degree, there is technological response to this we have a wide array of robots and sensors and other equipment that we can use It doesn’t ever seem to replace search and rescue dogs.

They are simply too good at what they do.

Kyon: yes. And they’re able to spot things that don’t. You can’t really make mechanical sniffers for. It’s not a gas leak, right?

Aqua: Oh! earlier we were talking about the rat carcasses that were psychologically very effective against the Germans, but not actually widely deployed or all that useful or really a very good idea. It turns out that at least one species of giant

Steeeeeve: oh, the giant Gambian rats, the really huge ones.

Aqua: Yeah, so apparently they’ve seen some use and some pretty good success specializing in mind detection, and because they’re so small, relative to a human or a dog or a 300 pound robot they can locate buried explosives without tripping

Steeeeeve: Oh, there you go.

Aqua: Yeah, that sounds to me like, again, a time saver.

There’s plenty of other ways to sweep mines out of a field. depending on proximity if you’re in a crowded area or an urban setting, then, yeah you need some precision there. But if you’re just trying to clear a field, it’s really not that different from plowing it.

You just have an armored tractor with a bunch of flails and some other things. it doesn’t require much sophistication.

Kyon: You still have to have a system where you have a tractor. There’s parts of the world with a lot of mines and not many tractors.

Aqua: Yeah, or like if you need a little more precision.

Kyon: a rat is, that’s time. That’s a time investment rather than a bootleg

Aqua: Oh, anybody remember in the 2000s when airports used to have bootleg DVD sniffing

dogs?

Steeeeeve: I think I missed that one.

Aqua: Yeah, this was a real thing. Because it turns out recordable media has a very distinctive

smell.

Steeeeeve: Oh, cause it’s been like heated up with a laser

to burn the disc.

Aqua: It just has this weird sickly sweet chemical smell,

Steeeeeve: polycarbonate.

Aqua: yeah, it’s been a really long time since I’ve handled any of those things, but I still remember the

Steeeeeve: Yeah.

Aqua: and it turns out dogs are pretty good at detecting that

stink,

Steeeeeve: Wow.

Aqua: back 15 years ago when bootleg DVD and Blu ray pirated movies were a really big business and we didn’t have the bandwidth or the, Technology to just do it over the internet.

Was yet another piece of contraband that dogs could be trained to detect.

Steeeeeve: Oh, I think we also forgot maybe about truffle sniffing pigs.

Aqua: yes.

Kyon: pigs are great at sniffing things, too. Yeah. They use them for drug sniffing and stuff like that, too.

Aqua: Unrelated to pigs, I’ll mention that money has a smell.

so carrying around a huge amount of cash and trying to go through airport security. Eh, not a great idea, it turns out.

Kyon: Trying to subvert the rules when it’s generally a bad idea, yes.

Aqua: below a certain amount, there’s definitely nothing illegal. But above a certain amount, it becomes suspicious. And those two numbers are not the same.

Kyon: Yeah.

Aqua: But yeah, I forgot about truffle pigs. Finally, not just

Steeeeeve: there you go.

So to sum All this up. there’s a pattern here. The animals that are most familiar to humans are the ones that are cued and domesticated and easily trained, but it also makes them rife for potential abuse when you put them to work for humans, right?

Kyon: People always find something bad to do with everything.

Aqua: Yeah, I think that holds true most of the time.

I Can think of a couple. it reminds me of our selective empathy for animals in general. And how hard it is to get people to care about animals that are out of sight or are not aesthetically pleasing to us.

Kyon: Cows and such. Yeah.

Aqua: yeah save the cute animals. Okay, that’s great. But, there’s a reason why animal sanctuaries, zoos, charities why they tend to focus their public facing efforts using The really photogenic animals that everybody knows well and responds really well to even if the real work might need to be done somewhere else, urgently.

The worry here is maybe because we’re so used to thinking about animals at work and seeing animals at work that are familiar and cute to us, that makes it easier to dismiss mistreatment and cruelty and abused animals that we don’t have as much concern for that are still being used for different tasks.

I’m not even talking about the meat and dairy industry right now, I’m talking about just animals at work, not animals as food. know, what do you think about that?

Kyon: There’s people that are worried that shepherd dogs are being abused or exploited or something,

Aqua: Well, they’re definitely being overbred.

Kyon: They’re certainly enthusiastic about doing the shepherding, but how do you tell, determine what’s exploitative and what’s just, they were bred and have a predilection for doing

Steeeeeve: they have a predilection for doing it because we bred them to do that. Gray wolves aren’t trained to. Perfectly organized, flocks of animals. How far do you want to undo that? Should we just go back to okay, let’s just have gray wolves and no domesticated dogs.

And if you look at something,

Kyon: Let’s not take the PETA position here.

Steeeeeve: yeah, if you look at something like a pug that, may have difficulty breathing just because of the snout shape that’s required for the aesthetics of that breed or, any other number of ornamental animal. Animals that humans decided would be aesthetically pleasing, but have serious health complications as a result and suffer their entire lives because of their weird, inbreeding, how far do you want to go to undo that? And what job are they doing that we feel is so necessary that you need the animal to have those characteristics? I don’t know. It’s there’s a lot wrong with that and I’m not sorry that we have dogs, but I feel like their exploitation is pretty problematic and it’s hard to parse that out from what’s a healthy, positive relationship with dogs versus what is a icky, exploitative, Incestuous inbreeding type relationship with dogs.

I don’t know.

Kyon: There is that ethical view that we can’t ethically ask a dog or constrain a dog to do something just because we bred them to, right? At the same time, if you ask them about it, they’re all for it. But at the same time, we can also consider the similarity to humans. We like to contribute in groups and be social.

We’re bred for that. Is this a

problem?

Steeeeeve: I don’t know.

it becomes a problem when there’s 8. 1 billion of us and we destroy the entire ecosystem.

Kyon: It’s not our interest in Right. But that is how we took over the planet.

Yeah, if anything, it’s our interest in

connecting that’ll be the savior of all that.

Steeeeeve: we hope

for in the short term, it allowed us to proliferate over the whole planet and dominate every species and destroy our own biosphere. I guess there’s ups and downs to animal domestication and also just humans existing as a dominant species on this world.

Kyon: I think it comes down to a personal view. How do you interact with the animal, right? What choices do you allow the animal to have that he wouldn’t otherwise? Regardless of how he’s bred or what he’s, particularly interested in because he’s bred there’s still space in there.

They are

thinking

Steeeeeve: There’s something to be said for making decisions that by themselves don’t save the planet, but add to your peace of mind, like I’m reminded of this anecdote where before electricity was common in homes, but indoor plumbing was common, there was this thing called a water fan that was like a fan, like you would think of an electric fan, except instead of being powered by electricity, you would just hook up the water line to it.

And it just ran on a total loss system. So you just run the tap like on your sink and it would spin a, like a water wheel inside this fan. It would spit a fan blade before there was air conditioning before there was indoor electricity. And you could cool yourself by moving air across you to aid in.

Evaporation of your sweat. The predictable problem was that it wasted the entire municipal water supply when everyone had a water fan. And so there’s these hard, strict laws on the books They’re, antiquated laws, but they’re still there in a lot of jurisdictions that are like, Hey, man, you can’t have a water fan in this town.

It’s illegal.

Aqua: Yeah. Okay. Just to bring it back to some of the problems here with pattern that, It’s clear, I think in that we tend to focus our efforts and our exploitation on the cute, familiar, domesticated, easily trained animals.

Animals aren’t perfect, and neither are the humans training them. They are both fallible, and it seems like there are certain applications where a non human really should not be making a decision because the consequences of them being wrong is simply too high or they can be manipulated subtly through training in a way that’s difficult to prove. , measure empirically.

Steeeeeve: We’re talking about

like false positives from drug

dogs

the handler can say hey look here, and then just claim In an affidavit that the dog identified drugs, but then there’s actually nothing there and then they destroy people’s lives and get them enslaved in the criminal justice system on the basis of ambiguous behavior from a dog they trained to just appease their handler, essentially. Yeah, that’s not great.

Aqua: right. And that is a single opinion about something that the animal as far as we know, does not understand the full context around the importance of what they’re determining, but we have basically offloaded And that’s it. It was really interesting to see the responsibility on And depending on the result you either try again until the human handler gets the result that they want which is terribly invasive and dangerous potentially for whoever, is being stopped. It just seems like there are elements here where animals simply don’t belong. Like we could have come up with something better than this, and should have, but someone else somewhere has identified Like an advantage if your goal is oppression and not necessarily correctness or truth. Which brings me to bees as digital censors. I thought this one was fake. I I remember reading about this maybe a year or two ago. I don’t know. Time is fake when we get back into lockdown pandemic era. But. I remembered something about this idea that you can use honeybees as as chemical sensors, because just like dogs, they have unbelievable power.

Acuity and sensitivity for certain chemical compounds. It turns out it’s not fake, it’s real, and it’s a product already. I’m sure it’s very expensive, but it takes the form of a 90s dust buster lookin thing. And, this machine is a cartridge with a few dozen Different live bees that are arranged into, it almost looks like little ice cube trays. but it’s a chemical detector, so it samples the air from whatever like a duffel bag or a box or whatever is interesting or suspicious. And after about five or six seconds of this air sample. There’s an electronic readout that shows you the consensus from all the bees. And the way that this is done is just basic operant conditioning.

You go get a bunch of bees, isolate them for a short time, and then you can train them with sugar water and repeated exposure to the chemical of interest. And, eventually just like conditioning a dog to drool whenever a bell rings because you feed them dinner right after that happens the bees will basically stick out their tongues if the chemical that they’re trained to detect is present.

They just blem. And then you can see that with infrared sensors or with cameras. It sounds ridiculous, right? But it’s real and I have really strong feelings about this one because honeybees are in that category of animals that we really need to be caring about and we don’t, and honeybee colonies are in serious trouble, they’re recovering a little bit, but there was a few years there where it looked like we were not gonna have honeybees anymore but, interestingly, this is non lethal.

You have a colony, and you collect bees carefully and then you use a low temperature to slow down their movements, and keep them calm while you very carefully install the bees in this machine and prepare them for training, which is mostly automated. And then for a few days, the bees are just Living chemical detectors, and at the end of a few days of service, they’re released back to the colony, and they go back to being normal bees. so this compared to a canine unit this seems like an improvement. It could be more accurate it’s not one creature determining whether something is true or not true. It’s a whole group of them together, and the result needs to be statistically accurate. Significant. That’s the expense side, it’s it’s way less expensive and way faster to train bees.

You can do this in an afternoon. And other than capturing bees and then installing them and confining them to this uncomfortable looking little box with just their heads poking out for a few days at a time, which, I’m certain bees would not enjoy, and if they had a choice between doing that and rolling around a little marble for fun, they would rather do that.

This is a really strange ethical dilemma here. I travel enough that I wonder whether or not any of my belongings have been subjected to the bee test. This was totally invisible to me. And, and now I know it exists. And I can’t decide if I hate it.

Steeeeeve: Yeah. Who knows? maybe it’s a matter of reduced harm, these bees are being used to detect something that’s dangerous and it prevents a bunch of people from being harmed, then it’s it’s harder to ignore the benefit your plane didn’t explode because bees detected an explosive on board, then it’s Oh, thanks bees.

Aqua: Yeah. and just to give you an idea we’re talking about,

parts per trillion. Like, super, super, super tiny amounts of whatever we’re interested in detecting.

Steeeeeve: Well, cause you think like they have to be sensitive enough to be able to detect flowers,

So that’s how they’ve adapted.

Aqua: Do we have do we have a

mechanical or an electronic substitute that’s as accurate and

reliable?

Steeeeeve: A lot of times I think it comes down to expense. ,

Animal is doing a Humans could do, maybe, but don’t want to. Or, that humans can’t do, because the dog’s nose is a hundred times more sensitive than ours. Or, that we could do with a machine, but it’s too expensive, right? And so then it’s it’s cheaper to do this with bees than it is to do with a gas

Setup, and this is more portable or, I don’t know, I’m sure they got their reasons.

Kyon: And faster, too. it’s not like a gas

chromatography is very quick. It’s a deliberate process.

Steeeeeve: Yeah, exactly. So you’re like, Hey man, we just need a quick yes or no indicator. Is there a bomb in this? And if the bees are like, most of us say no, then you’re like, okay, cool. Thanks bees.

Aqua: Oh yeah, And the bees live they get to go be regular bees, theoretically. if we’re trying to find the line between work and exploitation I think it’s pretty easy to justify something like service dogs. From the perspective of minimizing harm and maximizing somebody’s ability to exist in an environment that is not necessarily hospitable to them.

And the reason I think that is yeah, service dogs have really challenging jobs and that requires, A lot of training it’s exhausting work, and it does mean that there are environments that are particularly awful for them, but they also have some legal protections and the owners the caretakers, and the providers the businesses that train them Everybody is, I hope, motivated to make sure that the animals are cared for really well and I wonder if because they are so costly and so important and so essential to their patient or their human I kind of wonder if, on the whole, service animals enjoy a better standard of living than like, pets do, on average.

Steeeeeve: if they cost tens of thousands of dollars and humans are financially motivated, you would think if

they, insurance doesn’t cover that and they had to cover that out of pocket, they would make every effort to protect their investment. If for no other reason than they needed that asset so that they’re.

Disabled child could have a better standard of living,

Aqua: do know that in a lot of cases when a service animal retires, they remain with the family. There’s, there will be some overlap. Just because your service dog is is nearing their retirement age doesn’t mean you stop needing a service dog, means you have to acquire another one, and while that relationship is being built you have two, and that, helps with training and with integration, but then your retired service dog just lives with you, , until the end of their natural life, , and they become a family member.

Steeeeeve: Yeah, it’s the same with military working dogs have that

as well it’s always like a press release kind of situation where they have a retirement ceremony for military working dogs and There was a, I think it was called Robbie’s Law. It was signed into law under the Clinton administration that says that the I think it’s the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff or whatever has to give an annual report at least every year to Congress detailing The disposition of retired military working dogs, it doesn’t say that they have to do anything in particular with them, but it says you do have to report what happened to them.

A lot of them are euthanized because they either got so injured, they couldn’t work anymore, or they were too aggressive to, be released into the public. But a lot of them, Get adopted often by their former handler as like a personal pet or depending on the disposition of the dog they could just be adopted by a regular family.

Just depends, but anyway, that. At least it’s reported. So there’s some effort at accountability there under Robbie’s law. But yeah you see that pretty frequently with retired police dogs. Oh, and incidentally, a lot of the military working dogs retire from the military and end up getting adopted by police departments for their use.

And either way retirement ceremonies for those dogs. Which, who knows if that has any effect

on the dog’s well being, but it’s clearly more for us than for them, in the same way that a funeral is more for the living than for the dead person.

Aqua: Okay, so there’s the ritual part.

okay, so this is part of how

As humans, we resolve or maybe make

peace with

Steeeeeve: Our exploitation of these animals.

Aqua: Right? We just recognize the risk and the effort and I guess find like, find some way to like acknowledge that contribution.

Steeeeeve: and there’s a lot of anthropomorphization as a coping mechanism.

I, I recall seeing a Air Force. career pamphlet that one of the careers that you could apply to was military working dog trainer and handler. And they described the military working dogs as patriotic canine citizens.

Yeah. Ascribing tribalistic nationalism to a dog, I think, is like asking a lot in terms of abstraction.

Aqua: oh, okay, so another example of anthropomorphism, not being acceptable except when it is. yeah, that’s, that’s beyond anthropomorphizing, that’s anthropocentrism.

Steeeeeve: Yeah, or that’s just, us deluding ourselves. It’s like, uh, The anthropomorphic characters in a Disney film dogs are not sharing a single strand

of spaghetti together and romantically kissing at a candlelit, bistro table in the alley behind a restaurant. That’s, we’re just, we’re putting that out there so that we feel better about these characters.

It’s for us.

Aqua: right. Yeah, it’s, more than just projecting human qualities onto a non human, now you’re projecting human motivation and reasoning onto a non human.

Steeeeeve: human nationalism. Like

I’m pretty sure the dog doesn’t have patriotic stirrings,

That’s simple reinforcement and their own gray wolf instincts that are being marshaled to some human purpose and then painted over with a human rationalization so that we feel better about what we’ve done to these poor animals.

Aqua: I don’t know, we could ask, President Biden,

,

Because one of his dogs kept biting Secret Service agents, right?

Steeeeeve: Yeah. Like a lot.

Aqua: He knew. so we erect a bronze statue or a commemorative plaque, or create like a, an award that we can give posthumously or even to living animals there’s a few of those. Yeah so like we have the Animals in War and Peace Medal of Bravery.

That’s actually very new. That’s from 2019. So far, as you can imagine, almost all of the recipients have been dogs. There are a couple of horses and I think two pigeons. No, three pigeons, my mistake. and some of these are awarded very late. We’re going back almost a hundred years of of service for some of these individuals. I think this is like the American equivalent of Dickin Medal which has existed in the UK for quite a while. But ultimately, it’s yeah, it’s to make us feel better give

us fuzzies. I don’t know, does it do anything else?

Steeeeeve: Well, I, I hope that it

enables us to see how these animals have served and sacrificed. And so when you see another member of their species, then maybe there’s an increased valuation of them and maybe an appreciation. And I hope that translates to better treatment. For these animals, because the power differential is just, really lopsided in the favor of humans.

We have so dominated, all the non human animals on the planet and caused a bunch of them to go extinct. And so if there’s something we can do in terms of making our own species aware of the value and contributions to these animals, even exploitative though, those relationships.

Almost certainly may have been then, and that translates into, awareness and then modified behavior on the, on the behalf of humans so that we, treat these animals with more dignity and respect and, and better care, then it’s okay mission accomplished. I hope it works that way as opposed to like using that as we were nice to these certain animals.

And so that justifies us that gives us credit that we can then spend, horrifically abusing others. We can hope,

Aqua: I agree. I don’t think there’s any doubt. Yeah, we can hope. I would love it if this eventually led to a discussion about personhood. maybe Someday, but that really, that can’t happen without visibility. And so I don’t think there’s any question that the animal handlers and and some animal rights activists they may not love that the Animals in War and Peace Medal of Bravery was so late to be created or that most of its recipients had really dreadful, shitty jobs it doesn’t necessarily honor service animals that made one human being’s life bearable and easier for a decade or maybe longer but it’s something and if we’re not talking about this, then we’re not really, we’re not aware of it, if we’re not talking about it, we’re not processing an emotion about it, and whether somebody, After learning about all of this or watching one of these ceremonies gets the warm fuzzy feeling and then goes about their day or

starts to really reflect on it and gets

angry.

I don’t know. That’s up to the individual.

Steeeeeve: Yeah. We hope it turns into better treatment for dogs though. and all animals.

Aqua: So the question then is what does that person do next?

Steeeeeve: Hopefully something good. Me personally treating animals humanely doesn’t fix the overwhelming cruelty perpetrated against non human animals. But. It helps a little, and that idea of better is good that, former president Barack Obama would.

Repeat is like a mantra Hey man, we didn’t get the stuff done. We wanted to get that, but we made it better. Better is good is, focusing on that keeps you going forward and keeps you helping. And any harm reduction that, that we can be a part of is, we’re leaving. The situation better than it was, so I think that’s, it’s important to look at the goal as opposed to looking at the, shortcomings, just so that we can keep going and keep helping.

Aqua: Alright I think that is an excellent place to leave the discussion. There’s so much more to this we barely even scratched the surface. I think we might add some links in the show notes for further reading. I can’t promise they’re going to be the most fun things to read ever, but we’ll try to find some that are

Aqua: But, yeah, this is a good start. I’m glad we got to do this one. Steve, Kion, thank you both so much for being here to talk about

this with me.

Kyon: My pleasure.

Aqua: And…

Outro

Steeeeeve: Thanks, friends, for listening to Zooier Than Thou.

Aqua: Our holiday episode is next month and our 12 foot skeletons ready to go.

Steeeeeve: It’s bound to be jolly, so don’t miss it. And bring snacks.

Aqua: You can subscribe to the podcast via rzu RSS feed. Just point your favorite podcast client at rss dot zoo dot wt. content at bonus. zoo. wtf. If you want to show your support financially, head on over to donate. zoo. wtf and find us on Blue Sky at, you guessed it, at zoo.

wtf.

Steeeeeve: Our podcast’s website hasn’t changed and you can find a form there that enables anonymous submissions to the podcast. You can also simply email us at mail at zoo. wtf.

Aqua: Share this podcast with someone you know who’s interested in all the ways that animals work around them that they don’t really see.

Steeeeeve: I’m Steve the Pigeon who guides stickers and love, not bombs.

Aqua: And I’m Aqua, happily retired from skee ball to run a pondering business, and you’ve almost finished listening to Zooier Than Thou. Stay defiant, fellow zoos. We’ll see you next time you feel like howling at the moon.

Both Awooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!