Criminal - The Gargoyle Cat, the Taylor Swift Goat, and the Runaway Cow

Episode Date: December 22, 2023

Stories of animals really going for it. Criminal is going back on tour in February! We’ll be telling brand new stories, live on stage. You can even get meet and greet tickets to come and say hi before the show. Tickets are on sale now at thisiscriminal.com/live. We can’t wait to see you there! Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts: iTunes.com/CriminalShow. Sign up for Criminal Plus to get behind-the-scenes bonus episodes of Criminal, ad-free listening of all of our shows, members-only merch, and more. Learn more and sign up here. Listen back through our archives at youtube.com/criminalpodcast. We also make This is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery. Artwork by Julienne Alexander. Check out our online shop. Episode transcripts are posted on our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for Criminal comes from Apple Podcasts. Each month, Apple Podcasts highlights one series worth your attention, and they call these series essentials. This month, they recommend Wondery's Ghost Story, a seven-part series that follows journalist Tristan Redman as he tries to get to the bottom of a ghostly presence in his childhood home. His investigation takes him on a journey involving homicide detectives, ghost hunters, and even psychic mediums,

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That's BotoxCosmetic.com. That's BotoxCosmetic.com. Very soon, I get to do my favorite thing. Go on tour and meet so many of you. This month, Criminal is coming to Austin, Tucson, Boulder, Portland, Oregon, Detroit, Madison, Northampton, and Atlanta. If you didn't get to come and see our 10-year anniversary show earlier this year, this is your last chance. You'll get to hear seven brand new stories, most of which will probably make you laugh. I'll even try to come and say hi at the merch table. Get your tickets while they last at thisiscriminal.com slash live.

Last May, the Enid, Oklahoma, Police Department got a call from from a concerned citizen saying that they heard someone crying for help. Officer Neil Story responded. So as I start heading in that direction, you know, I'm thinking of every possible scenario that it could be. So I'm thinking it could be anything from kids playing out in the fields to something has happened to someone. I'm just trying to get my mind right and prepare for what I'm about to encounter. When he got there, he went to speak with the person who had called in. And we went through her house

and stood in her backyard where she first heard it. And she's kind of explained it to me that she was back there reading a book and she heard something what she felt like could be somebody yelling for help. And she said she heard it several times, and she didn't call the very first time she heard it, but after hearing it a few times, she decided she probably better call and have us come look at it. Standing in her backyard, Officer Story could hear the crying too. He began walking towards the sound, through her backyard, and then through a field behind it. Another officer joined

him. Here's audio from that day. That's a person. So that's when we take off running. We actually enter into the trees. And as we're in the trees, I hear it again. And at this point, I can see to the other side of the trees and I see a barn. And I pick up that it's coming from that barn. I mean, you're really running. I mean, yeah we we were we were moving um and i'm a i'm a larger fella so i tried not to run as as little as possible but we were we were getting we're getting after it and so now i'm thinking as i'm running out of this tree line okay somebody has

had an accident inside this barn you know of there in this barn? You know, of course, I start from the worst case scenario and work my way down. And so I'm thinking somebody's lost an arm and is bleeding out. So I start just skiing around the barn. And as I come back around to the west side of the barn, I see a man next to a trailer. And he's leaned over and he was messing with the tire on the trailer. What did you think? Did you think this could be a suspect? My initial thought was, okay, well, has this person done something to the person inside?

And then he looks up and starts to approach me, and about that time I hear the noise again, and it's coming directly from my right. I turned to look to see what the noise was, and it was a goat. Is that a goat? Is that a goat? Your goat sounds like a human yelling for help. Officer Story explained to the man by the barn that someone had called in worried that a human was crying for help.

The man said his goat was probably crying because he'd been separated from another goat, his friend. The man said he'd recently purchased a female goat and that this goat had been left alone while he tried to introduce the other two. He wasn't happy to not be included. I think so. I think he had FOMO, a little fear of missing out. What did you report back to the station? That it was an upset goat. Anyone make any goat jokes to you when you got back to the station? Well, Phoebe, to be honest with you, I haven't heard the end of the goat jokes.

They're still happening. They're still going on. As a matter of fact, I think I have a figurine of a goat that's in my mailbox right now. Somebody put a button like the, I don't know if you remember the old staple buttons that said easy. They put a button that makes a goat noise every time you hit it.

People answer the phone when I call making a goat noise. And so... It's never going to end. It's not going to end, and that's alright. They took quite a good amount of ribbing. Cass Raines is the public relations coordinator for the Enid Police Department. I think there was a little toy goat that screams that was purchased and left in the report room for him.

Of course, the Taylor Swift goat video got played quite a bit. Taylor Swift goat video got played quite a bit. Taylor Swift goat video? I mean, if you just search YouTube for Taylor Swift and goat, they replaced the vocals on one of her songs with a goat. Bleeding, it sounds like it's singing the lyrics or something. I have one last question. You bet. If you were to imitate the goat, what would it like oh that's a tough one and so i don't know that that my voice can go that high but

i would say it was something like uh let's see oh it does kind of sound like help if you go and watch the video you're probably thinking he was terribly off. You're a braver man than I. You did it. I wouldn't do it. Today, stories of animals really going for it. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. For the past two years, our last episode of the year has been stories about animals.

Last year, there was a story about a pig named Carlton, who snuck out of his yard to steal his neighbor's pumpkins, and a camel named Lucy, who escaped from a live nativity scene. There is also a story about a couple, Jimmy and Julie, that woke up in the middle of the night to find a dog in their bed. And it was not their dog. Did you wake Julie up? What was her first reaction? So I did. I think I hit her kind of in her ribs with an elbow and said,

Hey, Julie, whose dog is this? And Julie hopped up and slipped on the light, and there's laying a beautiful 80-pound pit bull with jowls the size of a tiger, just laying there in the bed with us. After last year's episode aired, we got an email from a listener, Allison Lewin, who told us her nine-year-old son really loved listening to these animal stories. And he became obsessed, obsessed with the pig that was stealing pumpkins. Carlton.

Yes. And we must have listened to that episode 50 times. And finally, I was like, I can't listen to it one more time. Like, I couldn't recite it by heart. So I went back and I looked for any others. And I found, I think, the first one you did that had the story about the dog that was pushing kids in the river. The story about the Newfoundland in France in 1908. It's a story we can't get enough of. People noticed that the Newfoundland was saving an awful lot of children

from drowning in the river. And each time he did, he was given a stake. It was later revealed that he was pushing the children into the river when no one was looking. One headline read, Dog, a fake hero. So we're spending weeks just listening to these two episodes over and over again. My kids are obsessed.

My older one, of course, gets his little brother involved because they do everything together. Allison's younger son was six at the time. We're listening to it in the car, in the kitchen while they're having breakfast, in their bedrooms while they're changing into their pajamas, like constant. And one day we're sitting at home and my husband has these two aquariums. They're like giant aquariums filled with fish. And so we're sitting there one day and our little one starts yelling from the living room, there's a fish, there's a fish, there's a fish, daddy, come. And so, you know, my husband goes running in and there's a fish on the floor. It jumped out of the tank. And so we, my husband picks it up and he puts it back in the tank and we're, oh, you know, congratulations.

You saved the fish. That was so great. Thank you for telling us. Da-da-da-da-da. The high praise for this child. And then it kept happening. Like the fish were jumping out of the tank. Like not constantly, but like every two or three days there would be a fish jumping out of the tank.

And I'm like, what is going on with your fish, honey? So you would never see it happening, though. We never saw it happening. And I've got my husband, I'm like, you have to figure out what's going on with your fish. They're insane. So he's testing the water chemistry, and he's adjusting their food, and he is cleaning the tanks and changing out the water and all this stuff. And then it finally occurs to me, it's only happening when my youngest is in the room. Nobody else has seen this happen. And I said to my husband, I don't really want to accuse my child of animal endangerment without proof. So I had my husband dig out our old baby monitor and I had him set it up aimed at the fish tank. And sure enough, the next night,

we saw our son go over to the fish tank, reach in, pull out a fish, and then start yelling to us that there was a fish on the floor. Because every time he found these fish, he was getting praised for saving fish. Was he going in with his hand or a little net? No, his hand, which I don't even know how he was catching them. This is the child I call determinado.

If there's something he wants to do, he will find a way to make it happen. How many times do you think this happened? Somewhere between half a dozen and a dozen, I think, over the course of like two or three weeks. When you saw the footage, what did you think? I thought the kid was brilliant. I was like, oh my God, he is the splendid Newfoundland. He is endangering these fish to get praise for saving them. What did you say to him? We explained to him that we

saw he was pulling them out. We explained to him that even though it was really, really funny in the podcast episode, it was just like it was dangerous for the kids to be pushed in the river. It was also dangerous for the fish to be out of the water and that this was not an acceptable activity for him to engage in. And he accepted that. He was like, okay, I'm caught. I'm done. You know, sometimes I wonder if this podcast is really, really touching anyone, really making any difference, if anyone's ever listening. And I think that you have confirmed someone is. Some, well, my children are listening to me.

I'm just waiting for the older one to go out and start stealing pumpkins. That's right. We've got some new ideas for Allison's kids coming up next. We'll be right back. series Essentials. This month they recommend Wondery's Ghost Story, a seven-part series that follows journalist Tristan Redman as he tries to get to the bottom of a ghostly presence in his childhood home. His investigation takes him on a journey

involving homicide detectives, ghost hunters, and even psychic mediums, and leads him to a dark secret about his own family. Check out Ghost Story, a series essential pick, completely ad-free on Apple Podcasts. about the work we do can be radically changed by the tools we use to do it. So what is enterprise software anyway? What is productivity software?

How will AI affect both? And how are these tools changing the way we use our computers to make stuff, communicate, and plan for the future? In this three-part special series, Decoder is surveying the IT landscape presented by AWS. Check it out wherever you get your podcasts. There was a man in Waterville, Maine, named Bill Exner, who could hear a mouse running around his house. He said the mouse would stare at him. After a few days of this, Bill knew he had to catch it.

He decided to use a very large pickle jar. And he did get the mouse into the pickle jar. But then it jumped back out and got away. He said the mouse was very small, no bigger than his thumb. The smartest little thing I've ever seen in my life. I've never seen a mouse that smart. The next morning, Bill woke up and realized his dentures were missing from his bedside table. I'm telling you, that mouse took my teeth. I just know it. Bill got serious. His wife Shirley tried to help, and their daughter and her fiancé.

They used a crowbar to open up the wall where they thought the mouse had been hiding. And there, a few feet behind the wall where they thought the mouse had been hiding. And there, a few feet behind the heater, they found Bill's teeth. And you sterilized him for about an hour before. Oh yeah. A little stinker. Bill did end up catching the mouse. Then I caught his partner, you know, the next day. He set them up in a cage on his dining room table with wood shavings and toys. When I heard this story, it reminded me of my

hamster, Judy, Judy Judge. In these animals episodes, I've talked about some of the animals I've known in my life, like my cat Jim, who liked to ride in the car so much that he would jump in any chance he got, without us even knowing. Once, Jim rode along with my father to the airport. And then, when my father realized the cat was in the car, he put him in a cab home so he wouldn't miss his flight. But I haven't talked about Judy Judge. I got her at a pet store in Chicago. Lots of times I would put a little piece of lettuce in my pocket and carry her around places.

But then one day when I went to get Judy, she was gone. We looked everywhere, but the odds of finding a little hamster in a big old house were not good. I'd almost given up hope. There may have been a little funeral in the backyard with a very formal ceremony. Whenever we had a pet funeral, we'd always make little bouquets. I can't remember whether we had refreshments. But then, one day I heard scratching coming from behind the wall in our dining room.

I knew it was Judy. We had no clue how we were going to get her out. So we called our neighbor, who was a paramedic. He cut into the dining room wall. I was right there on the floor and had lined up all of her favorite foods. And then, Judy popped her head out. Saved. Judy Judge wasn't long for this world.

But she left behind that hole in the wall of the dining room to remember her by. A few years ago, Michelle Causey's pet bird, Harry, got into some trouble. So Harry's actually a girl, short for Harriet. Michelle lives in Brisbane, a city on the east coast of Australia. Harry is a galah, a type of Australian cockatoo with pink feathers. Beautiful. Stunning bird. Michelle's family has raised Harry since she was a chick. She's 15 years old, but they can live to be about 85. What?

Yeah, they live a super long time. Like, you have to actually put them in your wills, like who's going to care for them and everything like that. Do you already know who's going to care for her? My daughter. Yeah. Does she know that? Yes. She's happy to. A few years ago, Michelle's family thought they'd lost Harry. She got out of her cage one day, and they couldn't find her anywhere. Straight away, doing up flyers, searching through the, you know, local streets and things like that. Because they can fly up to, like, 30 k's a day.

That's almost 20 miles. Yeah, they can get quite far. To make matters worse, the family was supposed to leave on vacation in a few days. They were planning to take a cruise up the Australian coast. We had almost given up hope because it was getting to a few days past when she'd gone. And so we were pretty much just kind of getting ready to go away. And we were out and about on the day before we left, and I got a phone call. It was their vet, who told Michelle that someone from the government wanted to talk to her about Harry.

The bird had been found on a cruise ship on its way to New Zealand. About one day into the cruise, some passengers had notified a crew that they had seen a galah. And basically the crew was able to capture her and put her in a cage. And then they put her in her own room on the cruise ship. Galahs aren't native to New Zealand and are strictly forbidden from entering the country. But because Harry had a leg band and was microchipped, the ship's crew could see that she had a family and decided to try to get her home. She was going to make the whole round trip and come home to us.

It sounds like she didn't just get to come home. I mean, she had her own cabin. Oh, yeah, she had, like, a state cabin, like, top of the line, you know, access to all of the crew. And finally, she arrived back in Australia. She had to have one last biosecurity health check before she was allowed back in, all of which, actually actually we had to pay

for in the end. So Harry's, you know, New Zealand cruise actually cost us like $1,200 in health checks along the way. When Michelle and her family went to the port to pick up Harry, she was glad to see them. You know, she was super excited and chirping and tweeting and carrying on as she does. And all of her, you know, little words came up when she saw us. It was hello and scratch and kiss and all of those cute little idiosyncrasies that she has. Maybe she was trying to say, hey, don't try to go on a cruise again without me. Absolutely.

I think she must have, you know, heard us talking about ours and said, that sounds like a great idea. I want to do that too. Was her cabin nicer than yours? Yes, it was. It was absolutely better than ours. Well, let's just start with you introducing yourself. I am Ricky Littlejohn. What do you do? I am a rodeo cowboy and a cow catcher.

So I catch loose cattle for people. When they get out, I've got a team of horses, a team of dogs, and I've got a few guys that I hired to help me catch loose cattle. So when I'm not rodeoing, I'm usually catching cattle, and when I'm not catching cattle, I'm usually rodeoing. Earlier this year, Ricky Littlejohn got a call asking him to find and catch a cow that had been on the loose for weeks near Detroit. The cow's name was Lester, and they'd met before.

I got called six weeks before that. I went and caught Lester and three other of his pasture mates. The four cows had escaped from a farm animal sanctuary. It took Ricky two days to round them all up. He put them in a trailer and pulled up to the gate of the field where they live. So I back up to the gate to let Lester off the trailer. And he comes right off the trailer, run right by his buddies and jumped over the fence. And he took off.

So I called and checked in. I ended up going home and I called and checked in on them guys. I don't know, once a week or so. And nobody had heard or seen him whatsoever. And come to find out, when June kind of rolled around, I got a phone call, and by golly, it was Lester. And he made it 13 miles from where I dropped him off at. The next day, Ricky drove up to the area where Lester had been spotted. He was grazing on the grass right next to the highway on I-75.

And the cops kind of got called multiple times on him, and they would show up, but every time they would show up, he'd be gone. Ricky tried to steer the cow away from the highway, but Lester had another idea. He got ahead of me and ended up jumping up on the highway, and he started running down the highway. But Lester had another idea. He got ahead of me and ended up jumping up on the highway, and he started running down the highway. And so I ended up running my horse down the middle of I-75. Wait a second. How fast was he going? I bet you he was running 20 to 30 mile an hour down the middle of the road. And it was hard hard it was really hard for me to stay

with him and that's that my horse can't run that fast but uh I have four shoes on my horse horses and I was and and like horseshoes were there sparks yeah yeah horseshoes on blacktop is like a skating rink so we were sliding all over the place. What were people doing on the other side of the road? I mean, this must have been quite a sight. Yeah, it was quite a scene. The first three cars actually drove by us while we were running down the road, which I'm not sure why they thought that was a good idea. But really, I don't even know why I ran out there,

but I just knew I could potentially save someone's life if I just did. So that's what I did. But on the other side of the road, they finally got traffic stopped. Once the first couple of cars got stopped, the cops had their sirens on. They shut down both sides of the road. And people were out of their cars videoing me and all sorts of stuff. Ricky managed to get his lasso around Lester and tried to steer him to the partition between the two sides of the highway. And then the fight was on after that. So you lassoed him on the road?

Yep, I roped him right in the middle of the road. Ricky managed to get Lester safely in his trailer and return him to the animal sanctuary. A couple of months ago, Lester's owner sent Ricky some pictures of Lester out in the pasture. So for the moment, as far as we know, he's still there. Do you use the lasso often? Every day. Almost every day. I'm either roping the dummy, practicing, or I'm roping a horse to catch him to go work my day job or to go rodeo or something like that. But yes, I'm usually horse-related or cow-related every day. You know, I've always thought that any human should have certain skills.

You should know how to drive a manual transmission car. You should know how to drive a stick. You should know how to have a basic. You should know how to have a basic sense of kind of if you were in a boat, how would you catch the wind and sail? And the other thing I've always really thought is you should know how to lasso. Absolutely. You know, I've given a lasso as a present before, but I've never received one. And I really hope I get one for Christmas this year. I just decided that that's what I really want. Maybe I'll send you one.

Okay. We'll be right back. Thank you. Answering all your questions, what should you use it for, what tools are right for you, and what privacy issues should you ultimately watch out for? And to help us out, we are joined by Kylie Robeson, the senior AI reporter for The Verge, to give you a primer on how to integrate AI into your life. So, tune into AI Basics, How and When to Use AI, a special series from Pivot sponsored by AWS, wherever you get your podcasts. Losing weight has less to do with discipline and more to do with psychology. Noom is the weight loss management program that focuses on the science behind food cravings and building sustainable eating habits. Noom wants to help you stay focused on what's important to you with their psychology and biology-based approach. Noom takes into account your unique biological factors, which also affect weight loss success.

The program can also help you understand the science behind your eating choices and why you have those specific cravings, and it can help you build new habits for a healthier lifestyle. And since everyone's journey is different, so are your daily lessons. They're personalized to help you reach your goal. Stay focused on what's important to you with Noom's psychology and biology-based approach. Sign up for your trial today at Noom.com. I mean, if you had to describe Onion to someone, what would you say? Have you ever seen, I think it's an illustration for John Milton's Paradise Lost, like that painting, the really dramatic, I want to say Baroque painting of Lucifer with like the blue eyes. He's like crying. He's just been cast out of heaven. Onion's like that. He's so beautiful. And he's the devil.

What does he look like? I mean, besides Lucifer? I mean, how else would you describe what Onion looks like? He is, I learned when I picked him up from the shelter, he is a flame point Siamese. When I met him, I thought he was just, you know, like a rescue cat mutt. This is Jian Shim. He's got really adorable, like, orange tabby color points on his face and his ears. His ears stay toasty no matter how cold or warm it gets. And his adorable stripy tail.

He's got gorgeous blue eyes, like two beautiful sapphires. He's a really cute cat. He also has extra toes because he is a polydactyl, which is a genetic mutation where cats just sprout extra toes. Sprout extra fingers and toes? Yeah, Hemingway had a polydactyl, and his estate, I think, currently shelters like 60 of them. It's one of those genetic mutations that doesn't necessarily pair up with bad health,

so it's pretty benign as well. And his extra toes happen to look like thumbs. I thought it was like, oh, look at his like hands. They look like a kid's hands and mittens. That's so cute. I didn't realize that they're like effective and mobile. So we're talking about an extra toe equating to kind of like an opposable thumb on a chimpanzee, that this really changes everything. Yeah. It's not fine motor control to the extent where like you or I could like pick up a pencil, right?

He can't pick up a pencil, but he can squeeze and he can grip. So he can, for example, pry the top off of a yogurt tub, and he can, like, hold on to something when he pulls it. For example, like, my refrigerator door or the bathroom door. Doors in general. He's not a fan of closed doors of any kind. The thumb really helps with that. One day, Gian was at a gaming convention she's a game designer and was gone for the whole day so this is the thing about onion is you know i can joke call

him the devil he's a really loving cat like he literally leapt into my arms when i got home to check on him like we snuggled but he smelled funny like he smelled like beef like not like cooked beef like raw raw beef and he was kind of Like, he smelled like beef. Like, not like cooked beef. Like, raw beef. And he was kind of greasy. And I was like, that's kind of weird. And when I got further into my apartment, that's when I saw the kitchen floor just strewn with the remnants of most of a stick of butter. Or just the wrapper.

He'd eaten most of a stick of butter, or just the wrapper. He'd eaten most of a stick of butter. He had managed to knock the yogurt tub off the top shelf, so it just exploded like a Jackson Pollock everywhere with his little paw prints and a couple like lick marks in it. There was a big hunk of Parmesan Reggiano that he just chewed a hole through the middle of like a beaver. And there was a steak, the remains of a really beautiful ribeye steak that I had in my freezer that he managed to pull out. And I don't know how much of it he ate. I think he ate most of it.

There were just little scraps and chunks in random corners of the kitchen. I mean, did you, when you saw that he had basically consumed his body weight and food, did you think to yourself, I better get him to the vet? I called them, like, immediately. I called the emergency vet because it was also like four or five in the morning at this point. And they basically were like, well, monitor him if he doesn't see him uncomfortable, if he's acting normally, if he's eating and drinking as he should, just keep an eye on his litter box. And if there's any unusual behavior, maybe bring him in. But otherwise, it just sounds like he had a really great day, is what they said. And yeah, yeah, no repercussions as far as I can tell, other than he did gain a little weight, like visibly gained weight.

Had he ever gotten into your refrigerator before? Yes. Yeah. I actually, I had to start duct taping my fridge shut about a month after I adopted him. It's, you know, like an old fridge from the 90s. I guess the gasket on the door doesn't have a lot of suction. But also, I feel like a cat shouldn't be able to open it either. But he can. And, you know, just one incident too many. And I put a child lock on there. He managed to open it. I got a different design of child lock. He opened that one.

So after that, it was just duct tape, three or four strips every day. What does he normally eat when he gets in there? I mean, sometimes he doesn't eat anything. Sometimes he just likes knocking things off the shelves to, like, investigate them. But if there's dairy, he'll eat it. And he really loves lettuce and any kind of meat. He really loves cut fruit. You know, it's funny. It's funny you said cut fruit because my cat, Jim, that I had when I was growing up. Jim. Jim's favorite food in the world was melon, cut melon. Yeah, Onion loves cut melon. Like, as soon as he sees the tub, he's just all over me. Once, Onion woke Gian up in the middle of the night. It was like 3 a.m. I woke up because I heard a demon screaming in the kitchen. It was just like this very alarming

screaming. And I wish I had a more specific word for it because it sounds like I'm hyper, like making a hyperbole of it. No, it was just like a human screaming. And like I ran into the kitchen to make sure everything was okay. And he was just perched, like kind of half on, half off the rice cooker, like a gargoyle and like scooping rice into his mouth. But it was really hot, you know, because it was like fresh rice. But he didn't, you know, he wouldn't stop eating it. So he was like complaining that it was hot while continuing to do it, which like honestly relatable. Like we've all been there, I feel like, with something or other.

You know, you're not supposed to do it, but like, you can't stop. So I feel it, but I just really wish he hadn't done that. Because then I had to like, you know, cat's paws aren't sanitary. I had to like carve out around like where he'd scooped from the rice. And then I realized I couldn't actually know how much he'd eaten. So I just had to compost all of it. I now duct tape the rice cooker as well. I mean, when you walk in and see the destruction in your kitchen and just see Onion sitting there on the chair, is there any sense that Onion feels guilty or knows that this is a problem? No. He feels zero guilt. He knows he's not supposed to do it. Doesn't care. Have you ever witnessed Onion opening a cabinet or a door? Yeah, yeah. Because he'll do it while making eye contact with me. He doesn't care.

He doesn't. I think, like, on some level, he doesn't understand why I don't want him to do it. Because it's just, like, a cool thing in the apartment. Like, you open you open it and there's like stuff in there that you can play with and rest around with. And so when I like tell him not to or try to like verbally kind of scold him, he just looks at me like, what? Like as he does the thing. Once, Onion turned the air conditioner on all by himself. He spilled a whole bottle of sesame oil in Jian's kitchen. He can get into the medicine cabinet. Which luckily, in spite of being able to open child locks, he can't open pill bottles, thank God. But what that means is he does think pill bottles are

like a cool rattle toy. So like I lose my meds routinely because he will knock a bottle down and then think it's awesome and play with it. And then like, I have no idea where it is. When she adopted Onion from the shelter, his name was Angelo. She said that didn't feel quite right. She had two ideas for new names, Onion and Turnip. And I went with Onion because I'm Korean and my parents do speak English fluently, but they're more comfortable speaking in Korean, like when we catch up on the phone and what have you. And in Korean, the name structure is like usually a one syllable family name or last name and then a two syllable first name. And turnip is only one syllable, but onion is two syllables. So it went out so I can just smoothly translate his name into Korean.

And it works out perfectly. She did keep Angelo as his middle name. Have you ever had any regrets? No. No, I know that that sounds nuts, given how I've just kind of like complained about him for half an hour. But like, no, I have zero regrets. I love him so much. You know what game I just came up with for Onion? Oh my God, what? You have a board and you have your little chip, your little player, and you move because you're answering problems or

getting cards, you move it around the board. And then the problem is that when someone picks the onion card, then you kind of wind up a little explosive cat and it just for 15 seconds goes around the board and you just pray that your player chip doesn't get knocked off. I would play this game constantly. And that's the onion game. Maybe you need someone to collaborate on the next, you know, I've got some time on my hands. Yeah, Michigan, was passing through the nursing home's lobby when she was startled by a large dog sleeping on the couch. They then called the sheriff's department because the animal shelter wasn't open at those hours, and the police department contacted the animal shelter and had them come get him.

Jenny Martinick works at Meadowbrook Medical Care Facility. It turned out the dog had escaped from the nearby animal shelter by jumping over several tall fences, one inside and one outside. And then outside they have another fence and he jumped that fence, which is 10 feet tall. 10 feet tall? 10 feet tall, yeah. Yes. Yep, how he got a hold and made it up that fence, we're not quite sure. And cleared that and then went across the street, let himself in our automatic doors and jumped up onto the couch and took a nap. Someone picked up the dog and brought him back to the shelter. But then, a few days later, it happened again.

Same exact scenario. He showed up, took a nap on the couch. And then it happened a third time. The dog had been named Scout at the shelter, and no one knew much about his life before he ended up there. Jenny Martinick says one member of the nursing home staff wanted to adopt Scout, but he didn't like being home alone while she was at work. So they figured out something else. We decided to adopt him.

Scout moved into Meadowbrook. He was a little timid at first. You know, we were all new faces. He didn't know us. It was a readjustment, trying to find out, you know, how he belonged in this household. How did the residents take to him? They definitely welcomed him with open arms. When you come to a nursing home, sometimes it's awfully scary.

You leave your home behind, you leave your family, your animals, your way of life. And so when you have a pet in the household, whether you had one at home before here or not. It's just a sense of home. Nancy Raby is a resident at Meadowbrook. When she moved in, Skett was already living at the nursing home. Well, to me, he seems to be very, very friendly and open to meeting people and communicating with them and finding his own way to talk to them. And that's how he reacted with me, but I love animals. And so all I had to do was look into his eyes and I just melted. And he came over and we bonded with petting and nose kissing and all this.

What a nice thing, huh, to have the dog living there. I feel that way. It makes it feel like home, doesn't it? Yeah, it does. Scout is mostly black, although Jenny says he's starting to go gray a little. He's around nine years old now. He's a mix of a lot of different breeds, like Black Lab, English Setter, and Rottweiler. Jenny and Nancy were talking to us from Jenny's office at Meadowbrook.

Oh, I'm sorry. We had somebody interrupt. That was Scout. So Scout is there with you right now. He is in here with us, yes. And somebody knocked on my door, and he protects, as always, and has to check to see who's here. Scout has now lived at Meadowbrook for over six years. So tell me, what is a day like for Scout? He is busy, busy, busy.

He has friends here 24 seven. So if he feels like getting up and going to get a dog biscuit, he just goes to a residence room that he knows keeps dog biscuits in their bedside table and he'll go in. He's able to open doors. He's pretty tricky that way. Um, he can open the doors. If we could just teach him how to close it would be would be another thing. He does love string cheese. He loves Ritz crackers. And so the residents will keep them from their lunchtime or ask for them and they have a little stash. Like Nancy. Oh yes. I have a little stash in my room. So if he comes by and it's well after lunch, I'll figure that he's probably already eaten lunch. So I will give him one or two. Sounds pretty good, huh?

It's not a rough life for him. He's got it pretty good. When he's not on his dog bed, you can find them stretched out on the couch or in a resident's bed. If they're in the bed, he'll sit in their easy boy recliners. And actually, one of the residents once said that she woke up to snoring and couldn't figure out what was going on. And in the bed next to her was Scout stretched out underneath the covers, snoring away. Jenny Martinick says one resident at Meadowbrook carries dog biscuits in his walker. Scout gets excited whenever he sees him in the hallway. He'll bark and wag his tail. The man's wife had been living with him at Meadowbrook, but she passed away a few years ago. Now, when he gets up in the morning, the first thing he does is look for Scout.

And then he does it again, right before he goes to bed. Nancy, what's your favorite way to interact with Scout? What do you like best? Well, with me, first it's talking, talking to him softly, petting him, saying his name over and telling him what a great dog he is. And he eats that up. I mean, you could just see his shoulders perking up and everything. He is a part of everything that we do, being a part of each and everybody's day. And just animals make people happy. We've had a very good time making these shows for you this year,

and we're very grateful for your support. Happy New Year, and we'll see you soon. Criminal is created by Lauren Spohr and me. Nadia Wilson is our senior producer. Katie Bishop is our supervising producer. Our producers are Susanna Robertson, Jackie Sajico, Lily Clark, Lena Sillison, and Megan Kinane. The show is engineered and mixed by Veronica Simonetti. Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal.

You can see them at thisiscriminal.com. Special thanks to Elliot Midson and Erica Scott. And to the pets of Criminal. Eight, Ardell, Robespierre, Coco, Tina, Jack Burton, Disco, Bean, and Tookie. You can sign up for our newsletter at thisiscriminal.com slash newsletter. If you like the show, tell a friend or leave us a review. It means a lot. We hope you'll join our new membership program, Criminal Plus.

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