Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard - Flightless Bird: Dog Shows

Episode Date: June 14, 2022

This week on Flightless Bird, David sets out to understand his favorite American mockumentary "Best in Show" by attempting to immerse himself in the world of competitive dog shows. Joined by Monica, David shares his unusual history in the animal-showing world, before meeting happy animal owners who love nothing more than selectively breeding an animal that is superior to all others. We discover the story of a dog assassination attempt and look at how ethics and boundless enthusiasm collide in the world of competitive animal showing. Warning: This episode also contains a lot of cats. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm David Farrier, a New Zealander who ended up accidentally marooned in America, and I want to grasp what makes this country tick. Like a lot of kids, I grew up loving American movies, from Beverly Hills Cop to Die Hard, The Goonies to Free Willy. As I got older, I realized that most of what I understood about America, I'd learned from American films and TV shows. I mean, at one point in the 90s, I called my cat Chandler Bing. That says all you need to know.

And there's probably one American movie that stuck with me more than most. It came out during my last year of high school, Form 7, what Americans would call my senior year. And it really left a mark on what I thought of American culture. Best in Show was a mockumentary about dog shows, you know, competitive dog shows. Even though the film wasn't real, it was a glimpse into a world I didn't know existed. The world of competitively showing animals. It felt very real, which is the magic ingredient in all of Christopher Guest's films, I suppose. The competition and the egos captivated me,

not to mention the complex politics of breeding pets that are meant to be genetically superior to your average mutt. The film stuck with me, and now that I find myself marooned in America, I decided it was time to step out of the world of the mockumentary I knew so well and go to a real dog show. And there are a lot of dog shows in the United States, about 3,500 every year, which makes sense when you consider over 63 million American households own a dog, spending a total of $5.3 billion a year on dog food. So grab your ribbons and get ready to blow dry that pooch. This is the dog show episode.

Have you been to a dog show before? No, my closest connection to the dog show is the puppy bowl. Oh, yeah. It's like a side dish to the Super Bowl. It is. Right? It is. But it's puppies. It's very cute. But of course, you're talking to someone who's not the biggest animal lover.

Now, that was part of my joy in thinking about this episode. It's so animal-centric and it's so specific. I'm curious what your gut reaction is. I do feel bad for them. When I see Puppy Bowl, it's very reminiscent of watching a kid's beauty pageant. Thank you. It feels like that. It feels like they are living vicariously by their owners. I agree. I feel like whenever I see competitive dog shows, it's such a similar thing because it's adults that sort of have this weird hobby and there's underlings, whether they're children or animals that they're making do what they please. It's just odd.

It is. I know you don't like animals. I'm learning this more and more about you. I've had to cut some stuff out because I'm afraid PETA will come after me. Where are dogs on your acceptable companion list? They're the highest. Oh, okay. You're least repulsed by dogs out of all the pets.

I should clarify. When I say, oh, dogs, dogs in my coffee line, it's not the dogs that I'm upset with. It's the people. It's the way the people act around animals. They think the animal should have free reign. They think the animal is more important than the humans around them. I already told the story about this really, really, really nice Asian man. So he walked by the coffee line and this big, huge dog jumped up at him and was barking in his face. The owner could barely wrangle the dog back down and the man looked so scared and I got so furious. It like really enraged my justice levels. There's a reason why I had to say that that man was Asian.

I don't like that I had to say that, that I kind of equate all Asian people to my dad who seemed like nice and a little meek and like would never stick up for himself in a situation like that. And I'm very protective of him. And suddenly he's got a pooch like leaping all over him. Yeah, mean, mean dog trying to attack my dad. Yeah, that's not okay. I'll kill that dog. You're different to like the rock standing in line and like having a dog jumping up on him. Well, and then this is also relevant because dog culture is so different across the world. I could be very wrong about this. I don't think dogs are pets as much in India, or maybe they are, but my dad surely did not grow up.

God, now that I'm saying this, I think they had a dog. This is good to learn. This might be your road to loving animals. I'm now having a memory that my dad said they had a dog. But no, there's different attitudes to dogs, obviously, all over the world. And I just feel in America, especially in LA, they're just treated with such reverence. And people don't just have one, they have 10. It blows my mind.

Dog walkers are a thing here. I walk up to Griffith Observatory sometimes and there's these people with like 20 dogs on leashes. That's a whole career here that doesn't exist in New Zealand at all. That's wild. And then a coffee line, you've just got someone, an animal licking your leg for the entire time. And the owner doesn't care. And like, I don't want my leg licked. Like that's not what I signed up for, Doesn't care. And like, I don't want my leg licked.

Like, that's not what I signed up for, but it's acceptable here. You know why? They think it's a favor to you that the dog likes you. Like, oh my gosh, you should feel so lucky. What a privilege. That's right. It's been like licking its butt. Tell me about it.

And people are always talking about how smart dogs are. I love dogs. They're wonderful. I love animals. Yes. But people talk about how smart they are. They're not. They're all. I love animals. Yes. But people talk about how smart they are. They're not. They're all essentially the same. They all like to chase a ball.

They all like lick their own butts. And they're not smart at all. Yeah. What do they mean when they say they're smart? Their bar for intelligence is low. I think it's because they adore people. They adore the owner. And so people think, of course, if my dog loves me when I come home every day, they

must be smart. It's that love. It's what cats don't give you. Well, that's right. I also don't like cats. Although I'm starting to appreciate them a little bit more because they do kind of leave you alone. The other thing that there's so much of here in Los Angeles in particular is just people obviously having to pick up their dog's poops on walks. And I find it so funny because it's such a leveler.

You can be anyone and your dog shits and you're suddenly got a plastic bagger and you're picking up poop and somehow that's okay. It's just a strange thing. You should pick it up. I just think it's such a weird thing to see everywhere. Just people walking around with shit in a bag. Anyway, Best in Show was the reason that sort of got me intrigued in this in the first place. I went out just to talk to some other Americans to see if I was the only one.

And it does turn out it wasn't just me. You, sir, are a dog walker, I understand. I am. I feel like Americans love dogs, everything about dogs. What is it about them? For the most part, they don't talk back. One dog gave me a black eye two weeks ago. What happened?

It was an accident. This is Rocky. She's a rescuer from Mexico. She's about 14 pounds, a year and a half. She wants to tell you herself, I guess. Man's best friend. We've been hanging out with dogs since we started playing with fire. I assume you have pet dogs? We had a beautiful little Matilda Niswa, a little Jack Russell Terrier,

who died, what, six months ago? In October, yeah. I'm sorry. Yeah, we really loved her. The fact that you know your dog's not lying to you or bullshitting you, and it's true love. What's the most extreme thing you did for your dog? She slept with me for her entire life in my arms.

I let her sleep with her bottom on my face because I loved her so much I didn't want to upset her. I like dogs better than people. It's a relationship that is completely pure. You love the dog and everything, but apparently they say that actually dogs don't love you. Oh my God, this is so terrible. Maybe this is it, that you can project your ultimate fantasy of love onto a dog and it's just like this mirror and it doesn't love you at all.

And you're just getting your dream relationship and it's all a goddamn fucking lie. relationship and it's all a goddamn fucking lie okay one thing that we should talk about rescue dogs versus bread dogs oh yeah it's hard for me to know if this is so very la or if this is america or if this is worldwide which i'm very very grateful for the rescue dog phenomenon is everywhere. They're two opposite worlds. You've got this world of paying thousands of dollars for an animal and selectively breeding them with quite a small genetic pool. So they're getting more and more walked.

Sort of a form of eugenics in a weird way. That's the extreme of it. Yeah, exactly. And then you've got all these, I picked up a dog off the side of the road and took it to a dog rescue since I've been here. And it's this whole other world where you've got these dogs that have been abused and they bounce back incredibly quickly and be incredible pets. My point is they could not be more opposite. Design a dog world and dog shows

versus your unbred, just normal old dogs that aren't being pushed down this weird genetic line. Yeah. In New Zealand, are rescue dogs prevalent? It is. Okay. Yeah, it's a thing. Good. It's more so here. I mean, it depends where you are in the States, obviously. Do the designer dog, they live much shorter lives, right? A lot of them do, yeah, because they are essentially inbreeding. And I'm sure that's

offensive to dog breeders, but that's what it is. There's a reason some of these breeds struggle to breathe. It's because they're being bred in a really unnatural way. And when you take certain genes out of the pool, there's going to be problems. Now, I feel like I can speak freely about all this because we have a pod of friends and everyone has a gajillion dogs and they bring them to wherever we are. When I grew up in Georgia, if we're all at a friend's house, no one's bringing their dog with them. You're leaving your dog. No one's saying, oh shit, I got to go. It's six and oh my God, the dog hasn't eaten. No one's doing that. They just get home at midnight, feed the dog.

They're not tailoring their life around their animal. It's a little bit like when you invite someone to an event and they bring three dogs. Yeah. It's very limiting in what you can do and your reaction. And suddenly your legs are being licked. Well, yes. There's this arrogance that you think I'm just going to be okay with this. Maybe I'm not okay with it.

Maybe not everyone feels the exact same way you do about these animals. I know we're talking very up on our mountain about rescue dogs versus purebreds, but my family used to breed purebred cats. So I can't talk about any of this. And, you know, a lot of my friends have purebred animals and they love those pets and it's a thing. It is a thing. I don't have judgment. That sentence alone, what I just said is so controversial. A lot of people are going to be like, thank you for not having

judgment. And a lot of people are going to be mad that I just said that you should judge. You should be upset by that. And I understand both sides. It's very polarizing. Animals should be treated well. Let's go ahead and say that they need to be treated well. Whatever animal you have, you need to treat it well. But we treat animals very poorly in this country across the board. We eat them. Oh, it's just the exotic pet trade. And this will probably be another episode. The exotic pet trade in America is something like I've never seen before, whether it's like lizards or big cats or you can get everything here and that's the trouble once people are a bit obsessed with an animal and they have the animal got a couple of them they can just

breed them and no one's checking yeah there's no regulations and there's a little shame i came into this wanting to learn about the culture of dog shows. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a dog show the other weekend, so I ended up going to a cat show instead. So this is my experience. Same, same. Cats, dogs, you know. It was 11 a.m. on a Saturday morning, and I was off to the Glendale Civic Auditorium in L.A. in search of cats.

According to the official website the cat show was called Poor Prince on Our Heart and was presented by the Malibu Cat Club. Soon enough I saw a clue. A giant white sandwich board that simply read cat show. I was in the right place. Walking into the auditorium I was greeted by two attendants. I paid them six dollars and got a cat stamp on my wrist. It was like going to a club but instead of entering a room of dancing bodies it was a room full of cats in tiny cages ready to be judged. I was immediately struck by how much this was exactly like Best in Show. Sure these were cats cats and not dogs, but the atmosphere was the same. The buzz of excited voices and shuffling feet.

And the air absolutely thick with anticipation. Or cat pheromones, who knows. In front of me was an entire hall with rows of tables laid out across most of the floor space. On all the tables were various cat cages in rows. I'd estimate about 200 in total, each one containing one or two cats. Sitting next to most cages, the cat's proud owner. Oh my goodness, what kind of cat is this? He's a Persian, cream and white Persian, and his name is Remy. This place was a hive of activity. Some owners had their cats out of the

cage playing with them, keeping them entertained. That's his toys over there. Other owners were catching a late morning snack or talking to other competitors about the shape of their felines. And she's got a nice long body. I approached a group of women who were fawning over a particularly large cat. I'm recording here. Yes, I am. I'm from New Zealand. It's the accent. I can hear it. I was worried people might be cagey here, maybe not open to outsiders coming in with microphones.

But I couldn't have been more wrong. How's everything going down here? Very good. A lot of us have not been out showing since COVID. So a lot of us are coming back after being away for a while and missing our friends and all the fun. It must be like a nice reunion in a way. Yes, and we have friends that have kittens from us at cat shows today in Texas and Pennsylvania and Monterey, California, as well as here in Glendale. and Pennsylvania and Monterey, California, as well as here in Glendale. So we keep hearing news from our friends about how their cats and kittens are doing,

and we're sending them information on how ours are doing, and we're all excited to be back. I like the idea that right now, cat shows were happening all across the United States. It's not like this was some fringe Californian thing. All 50 states love competitive cat showing. And I have to let you into a secret here. It goes back to that cat I had, Chandler Bing, in New Zealand. I used to show cats back home for a short time. Back when I was about 13 or 14, my parents ended up with some Bermans.

They're big, white, fluffy things with blue eyes and a super mellow personality. My parents probably liked Best in Show as much as I did. So for a short time, we showed our cats in cat shows. So yes, full disclosure, these are my people. Of course, the scene here in America is so much bigger than the one in New Zealand, which is why I'm over the moon to be here. I remember my parents used to show cats in New Zealand, actually, years ago, Burmans. Yeah, I think I once got a best in show, I think. But it's New Zealand, so it's a bit more low-key.

Right, it's hard to get kittens there. They have very, very strict entry requirements. The breeder has to hold on to the cat for probably a minimum of six months before they get everything done. I'm talking to Judy Friedman, who breeds cats. Her cats are so good, they're in demand all over the planet. So for instance, we sent a cat to the Grand Cayman Islands. So you have to give them a rabies shot

on a certain date, and then you have to wait a certain length of time, like three weeks or four weeks. Then they go back for a test to make sure they're really immune and they don't have it. And there are other requirements like that. Stay tuned for more Flightless Bird. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. Flightless Bird is sponsored by Helix Sleep. I just got my Helix mattress and when I opened it, it sort of exploded out into this beautiful giant mattress. That's exciting. And I can now sleep at night because when I first got to LA, I bought the cheapest mattress I could possibly imagine.

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betterhelp.com slash bird. That's betterhelp.com slash bird. This whole time I've been talking to Judy, her friend has been furiously combing a cat that's sitting behind her on the table. While I've been talking to you, you've been giving this cat here a lot of brushes. Can you just explain the process of what it takes to actually get a cat ready to show? How long do you have? How quick do you want this? You can have three minutes. Okay. First, they get a very, very elaborate bath. They get covered with a product that takes the grease out of their hair. Then they get one, two, or three shampoos, depending upon what color they are and how

good of a groomer you are. After each of which, they need to be rinsed and rinsed and rinsed and rinsed, because if you leave one molecule of soap in the coat, it will clump up. You don't want any two hairs to stick together, ever. And then most of us use a conditioner, some very, very diluted because you don't want to weigh down the fur, and some more concentrated depends on your experience and what you know about your cat and how the cat looks. Despite this being a cat show and not a dog show, I really did feel like I was in the world of best in show. I know I keep saying this, but it's true. One of my favorite characters in that mockumentary was a hairdresser who also showed dogs. I've been a hairdresser about 14 years and I went to a show. I asked my ex-wife, who's that? She says, that's Scott. And the man

I'm talking to right now, Tony Birkenstock, he's a hairdresser. You can't write this stuff. How does a cat's hair differ to human hair when you're dealing with it? Because you probably do have some really good advice. Well, they don't talk back. They just sit here and let you do it as much as you want. And they don't unload all their psychological problems on you. much as you want. And they don't unload all their psychological problems on you.

And how much of it comes down to the breeding of the cat and like its physical traits versus like the prep, which is what you're doing now? Well, a breeder's art is their kitten. So they choose which two cats to put together should be based on the desire to get a cat that meets the standard of perfection for that breed. There's a standard for every cat. This cat here is a Maine Coon. You want a long body. You want great big ears. You want a square muzzle. So you try to get that. A lot of it has to do with the breeding. And then the grooming, you can groom any cat, but you can only get them to look as good as you can get them to look. That makes sense. Totally. You can't work with a dud. You've got to have like a beautiful thing to start with. Correct. Absolutely correct. There are so many elements that will define

whether the giant Maine Coon in front of me will win a prize, including its personality. main coon in front of me will win a prize, including its personality. Like, an angry cat may get less points than a happy cat, but also it depends on what breed of cat you have. Some cats are expected to be angry and annoyed, so get away with it. Other breeds don't have this advantage. Other breeds can complain, and that's accepted. Like, for instance, a Siamese can... And that's okay. If a Maine Coon goes... The judge is like, whoop, and they put it away. It's such a big cat.

So friendly helps. I feel like you've surely got a winner here. Come on. Thank you so much. Your mouth to the judge's ears. I decided to approach the judging tables, or rings as they're called in the business. The rings were on the far side of the hall, a little raised platform on each table,

where the cat is placed to be patted, poked, prodded, and stretched out like a slinky by the judge. Cat owners are sitting down watching, waiting for their cats to be brought up. I'm sitting next to Dee Johnson. She's been breeding Siamese, those classic Egyptian-looking cats with triangular heads, for years. The Siamese have four colors, the chocolate point, seal point, lilac point, and blue point. They judge basically on the length of the cat, the hardness of the body. They should be long and slender. You know, wide-set ears that follow the wedge, they must follow the wedge.

What's the wedge? The wedge is the shape of the head. Like if you look at there, she should look like a piece of pie if you were to cut out. And the ears should just follow right in line with the wedge. And now all I can see is like a little piece of pie when I look at their heads. Dee has a pretty great head herself. Her hair is dyed various rainbow colors. She's been coming to cat shows for decades. I've been doing it for over 60 years, actually. They probably have more Siamese national wins than anybody does to date. How many, roughly? Just a second, and I'll ask. How many Siamese grams do we have? Can you remember? Total grams right now, I think we're up to 288. That's total brand champions of all our breeds. And that's more than anybody in CFA has right now today.

We're number one. The judging table in front of us is adorned with a purple tablecloth. And there's an archway over each table decorated by streamers and ribbons. From the top hang two purple tinsel hearts. I'm reminded the name of this cat show is Poor Prince on Our Heart. I approach the balding judge huddled under one of the hearts, Brian Moser. He looks incredibly stressed out. It's a lot of cats, it's a good size show and everyone's kind of in a hurry today to get it done. How many cats do you have to get through today?

194. I step away from the judging area. It's way too tense and I feel like I'm in the way. I wander past row after row of cats, ragdolls, Scottish foals, persians. I almost trip over Cindy Rogers who has her cat out of its cage and is playing with it, flicking around a toy that her cat is attempting to catch. Well if they've been sleeping in their tent and they're going to go up in a ring to be judged, you want them to be alert and willing to engage with the judge. Because it's a long day, right? Like these cats are in here for hours. Yes, all day. Yes. The prep and then the drive here. I've noticed since I've been in America, like there's a lot of politics always in everything

American. Is there a lot of politics in the world of cat showing? Oh yes. To be more politics the bigger the animal. There's a lot of politics going on in cats but there's more in dogs and it's ridiculous in horses. The amount of money invested in what you're doing in the hobby increases I think with the size of the animal as well. Around the edges of the hallway, something very American. Commerce. People are selling cat food and toys. There's a clothing section where I spot a denim jacket embroidered with jewels

in the shape of a cat. And then I walk past what looks like a little microwave. But it's not a microwave, it's a cat dryer. Because after all that shampooing and conditioning and rinsing you heard about before

well you've got to try and dry your cat afterwards don't you this is definitely the innovative design for the cat owner and also the breeder as well that will definitely save them a lot of time to blow the cat off the bed so basically you just wrap them in a little bit and put them in the dryers. So instead of a hair dryer, do these sort of blow on them? Is it like an air-based system? So it has a different airflow for different kitties. So for these two, they have the lightest weight, 22 pounds, and very easy to move around. That's the most portable one.

As I walked along the line of kitty dryers, they got more and more intense. One looked like a space age pod of some kind. It was about $650. Next to that one was one that looked literally like a little oven you'd have in your kitchen. And then this little oven here. It's not a oven, I'm not sure. I move away from the oven slash cat dryer and meet Tim Murphy. Tim was there showing a kitten. I didn't even realize you could show kittens. I guess it's like the equivalent of a kid's beauty pageant. How long have you been showing cats for?

38 years. You must have seen a lot of shit in that time. Yes. What's the craziest thing you've seen? I mean, I've been amazed at how calm and in control everything is. I haven't seen any cats like running away or fighting, but some stuff must happen at times. There must be some crazy stories. There's definitely crazy stories. I mean, there's cats that poop in the ring, you know, they can't hold it and they just have to let it go. And the owner has to run up and clean up. Have there been any big scandals with paying off judges or cheating in some way,

like maybe like giving the cats a bit of like weed or something to chill them out? Rumors of things that do happen in that way. Pot brownies to the judges. Look, as far as a scandal goes, there's not exactly going to be a hard-hitting Netflix true crime doco series about it, is there? With all my hard-hitting questions out of the way, I seek advice from my friend's cat, who suffers from a greasy coat. Whenever I see it, it looks like a total mess. The friend I came here with today, they've got a cat called Winker, and its

fur is often like quite matted and oily. What would you do for Winker to get rid of that horrible oily fur? Is Winker used to being groomed? Winker's had some baths and can cope with a bath. Okay, so I would use goop to get rid of the grease. And you can buy a groomer's goop. Not to be confused with Gwyneth Paltrow's line of... No.

No. I've been here for a few hours now. I've bought myself a fleece jacket covered in images of cats. And it's about time for me to leave. As I step towards the exit, I'm approached by Barb. She's seen me there with a microphone and wants to show me her cat before I go. She brings a little sachet of something out of her bag. It looks like one of those packs of paste you feed toddlers. You want another one? So what's this feeding him?

This is called a churu. And what's in it is like parade chicken. Come here. Come here. Come on. Watch this. Ready ready he will sit up on his hind he loves it i'm watching this cat get up on its hind legs sucking back the gunk that's been squeezed out i've never seen a cat's tongue move so fast it's like cat crack he's a ham he is an absolute ham as I look at this absolute ham, it occurred to me that despite this being a cat competition, I had no idea what prizes were involved. I'd been here for ages and hadn't even managed to answer a fundamental question. What is the kind of prize money involved in the cat show scene in the United States? No prize money. There is just all ribbons. I'll be right with you

guys. I'll be right with you. Okay. And there's no money, just ribbons and recognition. As I padded Barb's cat, I realized American cat shows are about one thing, friendship. Okay, maybe two things, cats and friendship. People coming together to celebrate their shared love of felines. Most people at Catshoes are so super friendly. Everybody's willing to help each other and it's just so nice. I have so many good friends here. I love this place. Stay tuned for more Flightless Bird. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. Flightless Bird is sponsored by Article.

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I mean, they love their cats. Is that clear? Was that clear from that little documentary? It is so sweet to hear people love something that much. And the big reveal that it is for no money, only recognition. I almost walked out of there not putting that question to anyone, like, why are you all here? And I assumed it was for the money.

Yeah, prize money. But I think that's what that person was saying earlier about the politics of it. As the animal gets bigger, dogs and horses, the money comes into it. And that's why the politics starts to get out of control. So I think there is a certain purity to cat shows that doesn't exist in some of the other dog shows and horse, I guess, horse shows.

I don't know. The politics in cat shows comes in because a lot of these people are breeders. And so there was that one that was sending cats all over the world. And I hadn't quite clocked that probably the Burman I had in New Zealand, it would have been sent in from somewhere or its parents would have been sent in at some point. Like it's an industry. So if you're at a cat show and you invest in show at this Glendale show that I was at and then other cat shows all around America, the more you win is an ad for your cattery. And those cats are selling for like a lot of money.

Yeah. So there, I mean, there is money then. There is money. for like a lot of money yeah so there i mean there is money then there is money yeah essentially there is money in it even if you're not getting given a thousand dollar prize but you're getting given a ribbon instead we need to take a tiny detour into your personal relationship with this i did this to myself every episode you do not disappoint we learned something insane about you and this is it we've arrived it's up there yeah i wasn't a cool kid i had a saxophone and that wasn't good yeah i was carrying around that case all day and then yeah on weekends for

a while i would show cats so with your parents just you yeah me and my parents would hit the road we'd put chandler bing and his little cat carry cage i didn't know you loved friends so much we have so much in common. I was obsessed with Friends. And nothing in common. It's so true. I loved Friends so much, mainly because of Ross, because he was a paleontologist. And I loved dinosaurs. And I was so obsessed with Friends at one point.

I started sort of getting a little American accent because I watched it so often. And a few Friends even said I talked a bit like ross at times just in the way i'd phrase things so i was like a weird kid who idolizes ross geller i love you so much because no one except a true fan would ever admit that that they like friends for ross i mean i love ross too because i'm also a die hard and a ride or die for friends do you you know that about me? I do know that about you. And I was curious how you would respond to the Chandler Bing reference. You're fascinating because you hear stories about people and you don't say, oh, I also was obsessed.

You just wait for- No, I hold on to it. I hold on to the facts I learned about people and then exploit it in a big reveal. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. I would show Chandler Bing. So that was like his first name was chan the bing because you have these certificates that you have to put in that show its whole lineage when you go into the cat show so it was like chan the bing and then it was rothschild something

because it had some fancy name from its original parentage oh you had to keep its last you had to keep its last name but yeah it was a scene and he won best in show perhaps maybe once i think it was a best in show it was very close to it i remember being like very excited about it i'm still in new zealand in a box got the ribbon that i won and the certificate and again much like america no prize money we just got some cat food what a prize what a. The other thing I was really excited about, I met a woman that had an American short hair cat. And that is the American cat. That's where it all started because when Europeans came over to settle here, that's the cat they bought on the boats to kill the rats and the mice. Okay.

Ding, ding, ding. Yep. And so the American shortair is the American cat. And that was a beautiful one sitting there. Like I've never thought about that cat as a breed. But that if you want like an American cat, it's the American Shorthair. That's the one.

But do you think they have children? Really good question. To me, there is a nurturing quality to all these people. They need an outlet for their love and care. I think it's totally fair. I mean, I can speak to this personally. I don't have children. I think I am probably one of those people that has the potential to go into that territory of having animals instead of children. And I was also in New Zealand, I was a big parrot guy. I had a lot of birds as well as cats, complicated life. But a lot of the parrot breeders that I would meet would definitely not have children.

Bird people are obsessive to the point where in the bird community, they will call their birds fids, feathered kids. Oh, wow. So they lean into it. So I don't think that's too much of a stretch. A lot of people that show cats do have kids and same with dog breeders but no there's definitely some really obsessive breeders that don't have kids and i think it completely does marry up oh my god i mean another very offensive question i kept thinking like how much trauma have these people had what are their ACE scores? Because I feel it.

I feel. It's so brutal. I know. I know. But not in a judgmental way. In a really like I'm trying to understand them. If you have a lot of trauma or just trouble in social interactions. You're just overwhelmed by people.

Overwhelmed by life or people. This is a very good outlet for you. Because like she said, it's a built-in community and a built-in friendship group. Like you don't have to go seek out humans. You have a common denominator. And it's like the hairdresser I met who blew my mind. Did you mean, I was confused by that. That's a cat hairdresser.

No, he's a human hairdresser. So in Best in Show, one of my favorite characters was a hairdresser who would cut human hair, and he also showed dogs. And then I was walking around this cat show in Glendale, and I just said to this guy, oh, what are you doing? He's like, I'm a hairdresser. I'm like, you could not write this. I see.

And he also looks after cat hair. So he does both. Wow. He was involved with this large group of people around this giant cat who were just furiously like combing it and like fluffing it and like getting it already a lot of brushes i laughed so hard oh the whole time i was talking like people are just so much movement in that show there's people playing with their cats to hype them up there's people brushing constantly there's so much prep because when the judge calls for your cat to come up your your cat has to be like ready. Okay.

I'm going to go back to the trauma real quick. And maybe this isn't trauma. This is just a sad byproduct of life for some people, myself included. If you don't feel worthy on your own or that you're not enough, your cat might be enough. enough, but your cat might be enough. And you can really put a lot of energy into that cat representing you and making you feel validated. And I kind of feel it's that jump into kids' beauty pageants as well, which again is another episode I want to explore because that whole culture here, it doesn't exist in New Zealand and it's such an American thing. But I feel like beauty pageants are a way for parents to like put all the things they couldn't necessarily do on their kids. And I feel

it's absolutely valid in the cat world, having success in that way. And it validates. Our friend Audra, who's incredible, she just turned 30 and her husband posted a picture of her on Instagram of her as an eight-year-old or something and it she's in cowgirl gear and she's holding a trophy and and it's like best dressed cowgirl in 1982 or whatever and it is it's adorable and then i was like oh my god they like woke up and she put on a cowgirl gear and then entered some sort of contest. Totally normal. These 200 people at this cat show all got up that morning, put their cat in a little cage, drove into this auditorium and spent a day there.

It's pretty extraordinary. And because there are so many people, you do feel normal. You feel seen and accepted and normal when maybe you don't always. And so many people talked about how rough it's been over the last couple of years not being able to see each other this was like i can finally see my friend in person again and that's kind of amazing as well what a hoot yeah it's a lot in researching this i stumbled onto some other amazing stories of how intense the dog scene gets okay and it's more in the UK where it gets super intense. There's been cases over there where dogs have been like assassinated and stuff before shows.

And there was like a big show back in 2015 where a dog was a winner and it was poisoned and they did an autopsy and found bits of beef with like poison wrapped deep inside them. And that turned into this huge scandal. And then a woman was walking her prize dog through the woods and there was a gunshot. Oh my God. And it hit the dog and the dog was literally assassinated. No. So that's a complete freak show story. But there are examples of where people do get really passionate about this stuff. Like it is a fun pastime, but I guess like sport, people get really intense and really serious and it's a big thing.

It can have dangerous consequences. How did you get out of the cat world? Just teasing mainly at school. Yeah, like people got stuck into me and it just became, I realized socially it wasn't doing me any favors you know I had these ribbons and I'll be really proud of them and it just it didn't go across well so I sort of backed away from the showing and also at the same time my parents aren't intense cat people they kind of did it for like I don't know why I should talk to them yeah just for like

a bit of fun so it's not like it was their life. So they probably stepped away from it. By that time, I was happy to sort of step away from that world as well. Wow. Yeah, you know, kids are brutal. I'm going to use my time machine to go back and watch your childhood. Oh, man. Yeah.

And also something else I pulled up that I found talking about, especially breeding these animals. And I think there's levels of it. I think some cats or dogs that are bred specifically within their little genetic grouping, some are fine and some do really have health problems. There was this Pekingese dog that won a British dog show in 2003, and it got a big photo taken at the end, and it was lying on ice packs because it physically couldn't breathe because it was so overheated oh my god and so some of the selective breeding is super bad there are restrictions in the united states around certain types of breeding i also found out that the american border collie association and the jack russell terrier club of of America have put a huge amount of effort into keeping those breeds

out of competitive dog showing. They're boycotting the designer. Yeah, as opposed to being taken over by the dog breeding world for dog shows and literally the whole genetic line slowly changing. Also, do you think they just weren't winning and then they're like, I'm going to take a stand. I'm not doing this thing. Yeah, just some angry dog show is stepping out.

Well, I loved this very much. Thank you. I loved everyone I met and I want to go back. I want to go to a bigger cat show and I do want to go to a proper dog show because obviously what cat shows don't have, they don't have that element where you put the little collar on them and walk them around the ring. Yeah.

It's just literally a judge grabbing the cat and like stretching it out and like looking at its body and like feeling how hard the body is, which is such a weird phrase. It's also disgusting. How hard is your cat's bod? So awful. So it's a big difference. I really want to go to a dog show to see that side of things.

Yeah. I want you to. You'll report back. You taught me a lot about America today. You learned a lot about America today you learned a lot about America you're an absolute ham and I think you're 25% more American so oh thank you yeah I mean we're in the plus but yeah I'm still I'm still trying to get my head around the scoring system but 25% more American I feel really proud of that yeah but remember you were negative i was negative i'd really gone down yeah so you know it's and i feel like you've opened your heart

to animals maybe five percent i need to get back to you on whether or not my dad had a dog it's gonna change my life it's gonna change my whole life i think there's some repressed memories there that we need to get out all righty thank you