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In this episode of The A to Z English Podcast, Xochitl and Jack talk about dog ownership in the United States, Mexico, and Korea.
Transcript:
00:00:55
Jack
Welcome to the A-Z English podcast. My name is Jack and I’m here with my co-host social. And today we have a topic talk episode and today’s topic is dogs and like dog ownership in different cultures, like how people think about their dogs and.
00:01:10
Xochitl
Yeah, yeah.
00:01:16
Jack
Treat their dogs and so soap. So why don’t you kick it off here for us? And UM, like, what is your generation people your age? How do they feel?
00:01:26
Jack
About their dogs.
00:01:28
Xochitl
OK, so I would say I kind of grew up in a culture where dogs are dogs and people are people.
00:01:35
Xochitl
And this is a very Mexican thing. And it’s also a very.
00:01:41
Xochitl
Real staple of older American culture. My dad is a boomer, and in those days, you know it. Dog culture was similar to how it is in Mexico. You kind of let your dog roam free.
00:01:54
Jack
Right.
00:01:56
Xochitl
In the streets, he like has his own pack of friends.
00:01:59
Jack
Right. And if there’s if there’s like an order, it’s like the dog is the last. You know, there’s no, there’s no babying the dog and stuff. Like it’s an animal.
00:02:04
Xochitl
Yes.
00:02:10
Xochitl
And they also kind of hold.
00:02:11
Xochitl
Their own independent life, like they go out kind of independently. That’s still a thing in Mexico. And also it used to be a thing in, in the US and my dad was a kid in the 60s and.
00:02:23
Jack
Hmm.
00:02:24
Xochitl
Yep.
00:02:25
Xochitl
And and they they’re very independent. They’re not really babied. And they’re kind of seen as like the lowest caste working member of a family because you have them for protection or sometimes you have farm dogs just or, you know, it’s a companion animal. But most of the time it it has a job to do.
00:02:46
Xochitl
And it has a plate on the pecking order, as we say in the US, which is like the top dog is, you know, maybe the mom and dad of the household and the kids and then the dogs at the box.
00:02:56
Xochitl
And and I would say that was very, very true for the older generations. But now my younger generation, I’ve see, I’ve seen it as a global phenomenon in Korea and the US in Mexico, that people treat their dogs kind of like babies. I’m.
00:03:12
Xochitl
I’m a little guilty of.
00:03:14
Xochitl
This when I first had Wendy, I swore I wouldn’t be one of these people. I didn’t even want to sleep in the same bed.
00:03:19
Xochitl
His.
00:03:20
Xochitl
But he’s so cute. It was like hard so.
00:03:24
Jack
He worked his way into the into the bedroom, up on the bed. Yeah.
00:03:26
Xochitl
He worked his way up into his then. Yeah, because he got big enough to be able to jump onto the bed. And then after that, just kind of game over because I couldn’t keep him off. I tried to keep him off and he was smarter than me and found out how to get through every obstacle course that I’ve placed for him. So that’s how a.
00:03:32
Jack
OK.
00:03:46
Xochitl
Like 4 LB. Dog outsmarted me my whole.
00:03:48
Jack
Yeah, I I feel.
00:03:50
Jack
Like Americans now, and maybe Canadians, too, are dogs are like their four legged children.
00:03:59
Jack
You know there’s.
00:03:59
Xochitl
Yeah, and I.
00:04:00
Xochitl
Think it it it? Sorry, Jack didn’t mean to cut you off. I was just going to think because a lot of people are having kids later or choosing not to have kids at all. And I think that really affects the way that we see.
00:04:02
Jack
No, no, no. Go ahead. Go ahead.
00:04:08
Jack
Yeah.
00:04:13
Xochitl
Dogs and for me, I kind of people only say the older you get, the more sure you are that you’re going to want kids and actually the opposite has happened. Now that I’m well into my 27 bear on this planet, I have started to become pretty sure that I don’t want kids actually and.
00:04:30
Jack
Hmm.
00:04:33
Xochitl
Due to that, Dwayne is basically my kid and.
00:04:38
Xochitl
He plays the part of my child, you.
00:04:41
Xochitl
Know I medical everything.
00:04:41
Jack
He feels that the void or whatever, that maybe not not void, but like if you were, if you’re thinking that you wanna take care of of a child, you’re like, well, if I take care of this dog, it it it kind.
00:04:54
Jack
Of feels.
00:04:55
Jack
Like I’m taking care of something.
00:04:56
Xochitl
I I never.
00:04:56
Xochitl
Have the desire to take care of a child. In fact, I’ve really never had a desire to take care of a dog. But when they kind of fell into my life and and I, you know, decided to take him in, so then I became responsible for him. I’ve never had a desire to take care of a kid. So for me it’s kind of more like.
00:05:12
Xochitl
Like.
00:05:13
Xochitl
If I barely have the energy and financial resources to take care of this dog, not barely. But like it’s somewhere in my mid range of possibilities, I’m definitely not having kids. Like, if I can, at least I can put Glenn in back or I can put him in a room. I can leave him at home alone. I can go party for a few hours.
00:05:27
Jack
See.
00:05:28
Jack
OK.
00:05:33
Xochitl
You can.
00:05:35
Xochitl
Put a kid if you did.
00:05:35
Jack
You cannot leave a toddler at home alone and just with a bowl of food and water and be like alright, enjoy yourself, you know, take care of yourself.
00:05:40
Xochitl
Yeah, hours.
00:05:44
Xochitl
Actually, yeah. Or like if he gets really annoying, I give him the timeout by just. I put him in the bathroom and close the door and he just chills out in there and stops barking like crazy. If the kid is crying and screaming, he can’t walk them in the bathroom. That’s like a child abuse and but so.
00:06:02
Jack
You can, but you may go to prison. You may end up locked in a room yourself.
00:06:06
Xochitl
You care, but you shouldn’t. And you? Yeah. You probably will rightfully go to jail. So, you know, it’s kind of.
00:06:13
Xochitl
It’s like that. It’s like this is the the most I’m willing to expend energy on taking care of something else. And he already limits my possibilities a little bit as far as travel and stuff.
00:06:25
Xochitl
Well, I just it’s an extra step I have to think about and I can’t even imagine with kids. It’s like a whole other obligation, especially when they’re little, you know.
00:06:33
Jack
Hmm I I feel like in America the the.
00:06:36
발표자
The.
00:06:38
Jack
It’s very strange. It’s like the, UM, expectations for taking care of a dog really increased in the last like 30 or 40 years. It’s like if you don’t walk your dog every single day twice a day, you know, yeah, you’re a criminal. You’re just you’re a rotten human being.
00:06:47
발표자
Yeah, yeah.
00:06:52
Xochitl
They’re a criminal animal.
00:06:58
Jack
And not and it’s. It’s weird because like in in Korea that that doesn’t.
00:07:03
Jack
They don’t have that feeling. I I feel like this is a very kind of American thing, cause I’m I’m assuming Mexico. You’re not gonna get judged too badly if you’re if you’re not like, let’s say you skip a day to take your dog for a walk or you.
00:07:16
Jack
Take your dog for a walk. Couple times.
00:07:17
Xochitl
I don’t even walk blending here because it’s kind of dangerous because there’s a lot of big dogs, but a lot of people let just open up the gate and let their dog out into the street to rob kind of freak.
00:07:26
Jack
That’s crazy, because that means they’re gonna. They could bite somebody or hit by a car.
00:07:28
발표자
Yeah.
00:07:30
Xochitl
Yeah. And some people go to recipe. These dogs are really friendly and at that point it’s OK, but some are pretty aggressive and but it’s kind of part of the culture. People just let their dogs out for a few hours. The dog comes.
00:07:41
Xochitl
Back and they have like their own intention life.
00:07:43
발표자
If it comes.
00:07:44
Jack
Back. It’s mine. If it doesn’t come back, I guess it wasn’t meant to be.
00:07:48
Jack
You know, yeah.
00:07:48
Xochitl
Go on to the streets or someone else picked it up any already got hit by a car and died. Sad but true. So it’s.
00:07:55
Jack
Yeah.
00:07:58
Jack
They’re animals living in, in, in, in Mexican culture and Korean culture. They are animals and and and that that’s the thing that I came to realize when we had a dog and then.
00:08:08
Jack
We had a kid.
00:08:09
Jack
And I was like ohh this is just a dog. Like this is not even you know close to the value of a human being like a human life. And I feel like that line is that that distance is a little bit shorter in American culture. It’s like, no.
00:08:29
Jack
It’s still, it’s still your child. You need to take care of it, even though it’s a dog. And I’m like, I just. I can’t get there. You know? I’m like, no, it’s.
00:08:35
Xochitl
1 * 3.
00:08:38
Xochitl
Sorry, my dogs running out here. People sometimes treat.
00:08:44
Xochitl
Dogs better than they treat human children in the US, and sometimes they have like more privileges than the US and people like like them more than human children. And that is crazy. Another thing I think is that’s really different. And I don’t know if it’s the same way in Mexico and Korea. I mean, in Mexico, it’s still fairly like.
00:08:47
Jack
Yes.
00:09:04
Xochitl
OK. For I wouldn’t say it’s OK, but I would say it’s still commonplace for especially the older generations to hit their dogs. Nothing crazy like people aren’t beating.
00:09:15
Jack
Like smack it on the snout, it was a.
00:09:16
Xochitl
Their dogs up.
00:09:17
Xochitl
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, or snacking on his **** with the newspaper if it pees in the house and in the US, like, you’ve been yelling at your dog is like you’re an abuser.
00:09:17
Jack
Newspaper or whatever, yeah.
00:09:25
발표자
Like you.
00:09:26
Jack
I know.
00:09:27
Xochitl
Yeah, and.
00:09:29
Jack
And here’s the thing. It’s like, OK, like animal abuse is wrong. It’s it’s it’s not good. I I’m. I’m totally against animal abuse, obviously, but abusing a a human child is worse than abusing an animal. Like I’m gonna. I’m gonna level. I’m gonna put those on different levels, you know? And it’s like, I feel like it’s getting all blurred.
00:09:29
Xochitl
Yeah, go ahead.
00:09:47
Xochitl
Right.
00:09:49
Jack
Together in American culture, it’s like it’s to the point where almost people care about animals more than they care about human beings. There’s like, yeah, you know, a whole orphanage of of kids that, like, don’t have.
00:10:00
Jack
Emily’s and yet everyone’s like, you know, you gotta rehome this dog, you gotta, you gotta.
00:10:06
Jack
Adopt this dog.
00:10:06
Xochitl
People say the criminals are rehoming a dog in the US Now. It’s like if you if you don’t have, let’s say you adopted a dog and then you realize it was more obligation than you had or or something came upon you and you no longer have the financial resources or the physical capacity to really care for your dog the same way or something happen, whatever.
00:10:26
Xochitl
And you have to rehome it and you’re trying to rehome it responsibly. People will eat you alive.
00:10:31
Jack
Wow.
00:10:31
Xochitl
Uhm, I had a friend. Who?
00:10:33
Xochitl
To her baby, her dog bit her baby.
00:10:38
Jack
Yeah, that’s it. I’m done.
00:10:40
Xochitl
Yeah. And she she’s like I I’m going to rehome him because I can’t. And I understand completely where she’s coming from because you just don’t feel safe with your baby and your dog in the same home anymore. Even if you try to keep them separate or whatever. It was kind of what she’d been trying to do up to that point. And it’s just so hard living in the same home in a smaller space.
00:10:59
Xochitl
And UM.
00:11:01
Xochitl
She was getting.
00:11:02
Xochitl
Eaten alive for lying to rehome the dog, even though the dog bit her baby.
00:11:06
Jack
That’s crazy to me, because a dog bites my baby that that dog will find a new home on the moon when I.
00:11:17
Jack
Like kick it.
00:11:20
Jack
All the way up there. No, I’m. I’m joking, of course. But I mean.
00:11:25
Xochitl
It would be hard to.
00:11:25
Jack
I don’t know. I just.
00:11:27
Xochitl
Temper about it, it would.
00:11:28
Jack
It would be so it would make me so angry. And it’s it’s my fault. I didn’t train the dog properly or I left the dog alone.
00:11:37
Jack
I mean, I mean, I do think that we blame dogs for for bad owners, you know, for being bad owners. But at a certain point, it’s kind of like, well, yeah, maybe I didn’t train this dog properly, but this dog is bit my kid. I’m done like this dog is out of here because.
00:11:51
발표자
Hmm.
00:11:56
Xochitl
Yeah, and they can be kind of unpredictable like she adopted that dog. She was the second home and he I was actually, she was my roommate when she first adopted the dog, and he was a menace. Like when he came from the first home, he would just, like, attack randomly. He had serious issues.
00:12:14
Xochitl
And aggression. And she worked with him and trained him really well over a number of years. But when she had her baby, he kind of regressed, which is can be normal because they get jealous and.
00:12:25
Jack
Stuff, but he’s like he’s now. He’s different on a different pecking order, you know. Down. Yeah.
00:12:30
Xochitl
Yeah.
00:12:31
Xochitl
And he bit her and bit her baby. And that was it for him. Well, she rehomed him, but she got rid of that and I think that’s absolutely insane.
00:12:34
Jack
Wolf.
00:12:37
Jack
Yeah.
00:12:43
Xochitl
I just can’t fathom that.
00:12:44
Jack
No, they’re, you know, ultimately at the end of the day, they’re animals to. To me, it’s like, I love my dog. My dog is very sweet, but it’s an animal, and it’s not a it’s not a human. So I’m I’m OK with that. You know, if my daughter needed, you know, a $5000.
00:13:03
Jack
Life saving surgery without even batting an eye. I’m getting. I’m paying for that surgery. You know what I mean? Like, whatever it.
00:13:12
Jack
Takes, but if my dog needs a $5000 surgery, my wife and I are having a conversation. You know, it’s like you’ve had a good life and you know, like, let’s, you know, maybe it’s it’s, you know, nature takes its course, you know, cuz I think people will spend a lot of money to just keep their.
00:13:20
Xochitl
It’s like what?
00:13:27
Xochitl
Maybe it’s time to go.
00:13:33
Jack
Dogs limping along.
00:13:35
Jack
And I’m like, you know, it’s a it’s a dog. It’s an animal, so.
00:13:39
Xochitl
And their quality of life really decreases and it’s different than for a human because they don’t have like that capacity to rationalize and find new ways to enjoy the quality of life either. So it really affects them negatively too. But a lot of people just keep them.
00:13:50
Jack
Reddit.
00:13:56
Xochitl
Trotting along for the sake of it.
00:14:00
Jack
Yeah, I don’t know. I hope I don’t get a lot of hate mail from this this episode.
00:14:01
Xochitl
Alright.
00:14:04
Xochitl
I don’t. We will. I I I don’t think we will cause I think the US culture is really unique about it, about how we think about like dogs and you know animal abuse and.
00:14:16
Xochitl
The culture around dogs is just completely different than it is like anywhere else in the world. And again, my generation is getting more.
00:14:25
Xochitl
We’re becoming more kind of like dog and cat parents because we don’t have children.
00:14:31
Jack
Yeah, that’s an interesting insight. I think you’re right about that. I think you, I think you.
00:14:31
Xochitl
And most of the.
00:14:36
Jack
Nailed it, yeah.
00:14:37
Xochitl
Yeah. It’s like most of us don’t want to have children. I blend is pretty much the the He’s the my maximum capacity for what I can take care of and I didn’t. I didn’t set out to take care of him. It was like he kind of fell on my doorstep and at that point, you know, I’m still going to do everything I can. I I cover his medical expenses, his travel expenses and everything but.
00:14:57
Xochitl
When I see him running around barking in a circle and grabbing shoes and chewing on them and stuff, I’m like.
00:15:04
Xochitl
Can you imagine having a kid do this for like 6 years or eight years? And essentially I know they don’t chew on shoes.
00:15:10
Jack
Welcome to my but.
00:15:13
Jack
Now my kid’s 15, so I’m done. I’m through. You know, the gauntlet. But you know, yeah, it was.
00:15:18
Xochitl
Yeah. And that’s the thing though. It’s like your dog is like in your home with you all the time. And when it passes, it passes. And with a kid, like, they’re gonna outlive you, and you’re going to worry about that kid for the rest of your natural life until you die. And that’s something I don’t think I’m ever going to be prepared for because.
00:15:20
Jack
It was tough.
00:15:33
Jack
Yeah.
00:15:38
Xochitl
I don’t want to sound like a pessimist. The world can be such a a horrible place.
00:15:43
Xochitl
And.
00:15:44
Xochitl
And I’m so scared to have kids and them to go out into the world and potentially suffer, especially women, all the horrible things that can happen and and are not exempt, you know, but.
00:15:55
Jack
Yeah. No, I don’t. I don’t blame you. Yeah. No, these are these are things that keep me up at night, you know?
00:16:00
Jack
So just the parent.
00:16:01
Xochitl
Yes. Yeah. You have a daughter, not, you know, not trying to scare you.
00:16:04
Xochitl
Anything but.
00:16:04
Jack
No, no, no. I’ve you. You couldn’t scare me more. I’ve I again. You know, I my my a lot of the real estate in my brain is dedicated just to worrying about my daughter.
00:16:06
발표자
But.
00:16:08
Xochitl
Yeah, you’re right.
00:16:16
Jack
So and very little is is worrying about my dog, so.
00:16:22
Xochitl
Yeah, it shows the difference. Alright, listeners, we’ll let us know what is the culture around dogs in your home country. I’m very interested to hear. And also for your generation, does your generation or does your country treat dogs differently based on which?
00:16:37
Xochitl
Generation the person or the owner might be because for me I do notice a difference in in between probably people, millennials and Gen. ZI would say, which are our generations like 35 and under. I would say in the US people mostly like in their 20s to very early 30s.
00:16:58
Xochitl
It’s kind of a different.
00:17:01
Xochitl
Breed of.
00:17:03
Xochitl
Line of thinking. Cultural thinking. So yeah, I’m curious. Let us know in a comment down below at A-Z englishpodcast.com shoot us an e-mail at AZ English podcast at Gmail.
00:17:13
Xochitl
Com or join the conversation? Or we chat. What’s up groups and we’ll see you guys next time. Bye bye.
00:17:18
Jack
Bye bye.
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