Nobody Panic - How to Get a Puppy

Episode Date: June 23, 2020

Stevie and Tessa dream about getting a puppy. Actor, writer, performer and their very good friend Liz Kingsman (Borderline, Parlement, King Gary) just bought Emmett the Cockapoo. She shares what she��s learned, what to prep, how much they wee and the weird thing about chew toys you didn’t know about. Genuinely fascinating stuff and also visit Stevie's Instagram for some top pictures of Emmet being adorable during the recording. Recorded by Ben Williams and edited by Naomi Parnell for Plosive Productions.Photos by Marco Vittur, jingle by David Dobson.Follow Nobody Panic on Twitter @NobodyPanicPodSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/nobodypanic. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, I'm Carriad. I'm Sarah. And we are the Weirdo's Book Club podcast. We are doing a very special live show as part of the London Podcast Festival. The date is Thursday, 11th of September. The time is 7pm and our special guest is the brilliant Alan Davies. Tickets from kingsplace.com. Single ladies, it's coming to London.

True on Saturday, the 13th of September. At the London Podcast Festival. The rumours are true, Saturday the 13th of September. At King's Place. Oh, that sounds like a date to me, Harriet. Yes. You can't have a dog and a tortoise. So it's...

Opinions are very split. So a lot of people that do go, oh, yeah, you can. And then you go on the internet and every single expert says, absolutely not unless you've got a massive house because you leave a dog alone with the tortoise and they seem to be friends.

And then all it takes is one second for the dog to go, what the hell is that? And then use it as a chew toy. So it's very, very dangerous unless you have a big place that you can definitely separate them. And I have a one bed flat,

which I don't think is helpful. for a dog. But before we get into it, we've asked Liz to bring her adult thing, apart from the father she has a dog, which obviously it trumps all. What is your adult thing this week, Liz? So my adult thing is,

was born of having the dog, but since I've bought them, I've realised I should have had them for years. I bought can lids. I'm on, someone sucks tend to look. I said it now. So you can relieve that tension. Can lids.

So there's three, Three, three for one pound 20. And then they just go snug on the top of an open can. So you've used half your chopped tomatoes. A little snug little can lid snaps on. It's very difficult to describe how satisfying it is less, unless, what? I own them. I've had them for years. I've got them in varying different sizes so I can put it over a bowl if I wanted.

Sometimes I'm like, I don't want it to keep it in the can. I don't know why I do that because I could just. just put it into the bowl. Just put it into the ball and then put the covering on. Hang on. Yeah, so the reason was to get rid of the cling film. But previously I would not see a need for, if I had a half-opened can of tomatoes,

I would just put that in the fridge without, not more on that. I just eat it. That's fine. Just drink that straight down. Just say it on waste. That's what I do, genuinely. Yes, that is what you do. But I know, I just would put it in the fridge

and then I'd think about it next time. but dog food is really smelly. So I was like using cling film, which made me feel bad for the environment, but then also having to find a hair tie to keep the cling film onto the can. And then I was like, there must be something out there.

There's got to be another way. And there is. Where are you getting them from? I wish it was a better answer, but it's the devil. But it's, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He comes around and all right.

you summoned him. I'm going to buy one right now. Yes. I would encourage anyone to not get it from the devil. But in lockdown, we've had to deal with some, we've had to throw some principles out the window in favour of not having smelly fridges. Fridges, 100%. Well done, Liz. Well done. That's really, really, really good. And what's yours, Tessa? Mine is that I have put up, I was going to say, I was going to lie and say it's a shelf.

not a shelf, it's a lamp attached to the wall. And it's an old outdoor lamp that shouldn't need to go inside. Too bright, if anything. No, it's quite pleasant. It's circular and it's called, it, just imagine whatever you fancy. But there's no space for a bedside lamp. So I put one on the wall. I thought, this is quite smart. Nice little click on and off. And then to attach it to the wall, I was going to use those like command hooks and obviously it just toppled off immediately and I was like right okay I have to screw it in you're trying to attach a street lamp to your wall with a command hook

yes yes and it didn't work so I had to screw it in and I got my drill out and then this is the adult part here it comes is I used raw plugs because normally I just look at them in the packet and I think what are those and throw them away And then I just think, well, boring, I'll just use the screws. And then everything I attach the wall falls out of the wall. So as a raw plug, the thing that looks like very colourful bit of like a barbed plastic. A knobbly boy.

The knobbly boy. Yeah, yeah. Okay. A tiny phallus. Yeah. Can you imagine a tiny plastic thing? I know what it is now. Fantastic.

The barbed plastic really opened up a whole window of imagination. That sold it to you. and you think they always are in the packet when you buy things and then you're always like chuck it out what's the chuck that out obviously that's unnecessary and then I thought there's probably a reason that the entire DIY community insist on these things so I did it I did it correctly and to my enormous disgruntlement it works perfectly yeah very very quickly mine is that I've had the same bookmark for a year I think that's incredibly impressive somebody once bought me a box of bookmarks for Christmas and I still, that was like 10 years ago and I still used them.

That's really good. But was it one though? No. Exactly. Okay, great. So dogs, dog town. Dogtown. Let's start with. May I say that I'm, may I say that I'm very proud of you because this has been your

dream for as long as I've known you and you've been making an Excel spreadsheet called dog for that many years. Seven years. And you really, really prepped this. And I'm really proud that he's here. Oh, thank you so much. I mean, I definitely, yeah, wasn't there a time that I had, like, I was saving for it for ages. And then I didn't save for my, I was saving for a dog over my taxes.

Then I had to use the dog fund for my taxes. That was a sad moment. I really wanted to have a dog by the time I was 30. That was a sort of, like, weird thing I'd added into my life. Just a pressure to, anyway, didn't it. Yeah, pointless pressure. But he's here now. he's here and if I had achieved it I wouldn't have had this dog so you know again you're not an expert at

all um but uh you very much have an idea of how much a dog might cost and how much so how much like money would you save do you think before you get a dog and should you even have money saved i think you should obviously if you're really rich then fucking yeah obviously i'm really rich so yeah um no i think you should definitely have money saved i um uh some strange situation where Edinburgh got cancelled. So the dog is paid for through Edinburgh refunds, which is fun. Is the Edinburgh Fringe Festival?

There's sadly not happening and there's been a great show that was going there. Got it. So this dog is thankful for the cancellation of the Edinburgh Fringe. But yes, I think definitely save money because you have to buy like insurance, dog food. Emergency vets.

Can lids. Can lids. Yeah. So maybe have a look and do like a little dog budget before you, so to sort of see how much, like look at the food that you would buy and, you know, Google how much food they need to eat would be a one piece of advice I've been done because then you could work out how much it's going to cost. I definitely think save money, but also dogs have some very expensive to

buy. And I also think in lockdown, like bikes, they've become super expensive. Yeah. And I remember I went to, every year I go to discover dogs at the custom Excel Centre. That's what I do every just to torture myself. And they always say, I think it's the Kennel Club recommended breeders. They're the ones that you should always look for. And the other thing is you should also always never buy a puppy from a breeder where you can't see the mum. Because that implies that there's some dad she should going on. So always make sure.

Ideally the dad as well. You want to see them, you want to see both the parents because they might say like, oh, the dad's a toy poodle. And then you see the dad and it's, you know, it's a house. An elephant. It's a rat king. It's a rat king. And the dad is a rat king. Yes.

Yeah. Great. It's locked down. Yes. But then on the other side, this is something that I definitely don't have any expertise, but I'm going to say anyway, is some of the most juggie breeders online that have, like, the fanciest websites. Because I didn't just do this completely rashy.

I had, like, actually been to a couple of breeders, like, over the past few years. Just like, maybe like, once every six months, I would just go and visit a breeder. Hello. Me too brows. And the ones that seem, sometimes the ones that seem the best on the internet, you go there and they feel like puppy farms. Like they've got a very nice website

and they're all very like nice sort of customer facing. But it's like you can sense that they are producing like so. And like everything they're doing is probably correct. It just doesn't feel good. Like your gut is like there are too many puppies coming out of these dogs. Understand. Yeah. That's a really good thing to.

Yeah. Trust your gut with that. Trust your gut with that. It feels dodgy. It is dodgy. Yeah. So I went to a couple and I was just like, feels a bit too commercial.

Like it felt a bit like this was a business for them. And so in the end I went with a breeder who was like a one man shop and he was, it was a passion of his and he had like a couple of litters a year, but not like 10,000. What you, what things? Did you feel like you? you needed to get ready and what things are you glad that you got sorted before dog time that you didn't realise you'd have to? Well, I thought I was really prepared.

I left the house to go and get the dog and I was like, yeah, everything is ready here. That's all you did. You didn't do everything else. Didn't do anything. I was just like, turn off the light, lock the door. May I just pop in and say that Liz is so like, so Liz, when she wants to like buy a bag, awesome shoes, awesome truss, we'll do research for months beforehand, research all the different outlets, look on eBay, get the exact, she has the exact fit she wants.

And in contrast, I would just buy 17 cheap ones and just break all of them. And then I'd be like, I need to be more like Liz with her preparation. So I very much trust that you did a lot of prep. I did a lot of prep, and it was meaningless. It was like, what sort of prep was meaningless? So, just, I mean, it was meaningless in that, like, the stuff that I, the stuff that I prepped for was like great that I had like everything I thought I needed and then as soon as the dog arrived I was like oh you need so much more I need to buy you more I need to know more I need nothing that I did is what what did so what I had so about when I decided to get the dog I'd learn how to lay some turf so I have like a little courtyard in the in our flat has a little courtyard area and and there's like a sort of

there was a dirty sort of I don't know a plinth a dirty plinth at the top and I was like tell you what I'm going to do with that dirty plinth is I'm going to lay some turf and this is like beginning of lockdowns this was peak everyone's doing some DIY and

no one's considering anything else other than like oh get some framing done great and then I so I lay some turf and I was like perfect that's where the dog will go to the toilet everything's sorted then I got I got him a bed I got him a crate

crate is like a huge area of dog that is like basically like how you're talking to train them and where they sleep everything so I got crate Oh is that the sort of like almost like a fence thing that you put across

and you bisect your room Oh see that we didn't get that and that was the thing I don't need that because I've got the crate So the crate was like a little it's like a little essentially like a cage

And my boyfriend Jim just keep calling the cage I'm like please stop calling the area That is a cage they are cages yeah so they are like but we because say what you see say you got a cage for your tiny pet um but i got one that was not didn't look like a cage because i didn't want it to look like a cage so i got one that was like made of fabric and had a zip and stuff isn't this based on the the sort of theory of like that's your dog feel

safe going into a box thing it's not like lizards didn't buy a cage because she was like i hate dogs. No. But like when, I think like a lot of people our age will have had dogs when they're kids and don't remember putting them in a cage. Like they're just like, you just got a dog and then the dog was fine. But actually what's happening is your parents were probably doing a lot of the stuff and you were just like, you were going to bed at like 8pm and getting up in the morning meals and puppy there. So I, yeah, it's because they want like an area that's like, that's like snug and theirs and that they can go into. But also they

are less likely to, like all of us, we don't like to wee where we sleep. So if you can have an area that is for them to sleep in, then that will help them toilet train because they won't just like wee. Every five minutes, they'll be like, well, I'm in my bed, so I'll wait until I'm on that grass that you've laid. And then we're we.

That's the logic. Yeah. So I got like a couple of toys, some treats, some food. And I was like, I'm ready. Dogtown. Dogtown. Dog arrives. None of that matters. Okay. Take us through why? You can't put the dog in the cage slash crate without it getting upset.

Of course. But you know that. You know that's going to happen. Everyone knows that's going to happen. So all the articles say, and there's a thousand million articles on the internet and books and the YouTube videos and stuff. Have you found a useful website? Yeah, so my key, you don't have to go to this one, but I would say find one that is your guy, or your woman that you like on the internet, and only listen to that one person because otherwise you just have like a conflicting advice.

We've gone with this McCann Dogs, which is a Canadian woman. She's got a border collie lover. She's great. I trust her. She's very trustworthy. So like loads of them like, they just don't there's like all these gaps in the information that you can't like so it'll be like how do I describe it it's like it will say just put them in their crate and let them sleep through

the night and then another one will be like make sure you get them up every two hours and let them wait it's just so much so many conflicting things but the main thing is that like you all the articles say it takes them like several days or weeks to get them used to going into this crate and making it they're a special place. So where are they sleeping for those first few weeks while they're terrified of their sleeping place? And where are they sleeping? Well, they've got to sleep in the thing.

In the litter's bed. And that's the one thing you can't do is be like, oh, just having you come into my bed. Why can't you put them in the bed with you? Because then there's no boundaries. Yeah, then you're on a, then you're a slippery slope, aren't you? I remember, like, when my parents got our dog, we didn't have a crate, but we had like a little kitchen and she had like a little thing aside and she would howl for the first two nights and it was really upsetting and me and genia would like come down stairs and be crying and my parents would like pick us

up and like take us like no she's learning she misses her mum we're like she miss but then it meant that like she oh she knew where to go but i suppose it wasn't a crate it was a kitchen so it's slightly bigger but that's just because actually we found so for the first three nights we just couldn't put them in the kate slash kate because it was just too sad so we had to So we ordered off the devil a, you know, like a pen area thing. So we had like a box in a area. Or you might say a cage in a cage. So we had like, and we're like, therefore he can like be sleeping there if he wants.

But he's also got like a bit of room. And then I slept on the sofa because you're meant to like just let them know that they haven't been taken away from their mum and their brothers and sisters and then abandoned. So I was like sleeping on the sofa. and then when he would whine, I would like, just like basically be like, you're okay, say soothing things, uh, until he went to sleep. And then, but that didn't work either because you guys probably aware, I'm a very deep sleeper.

So even with a howling puppy, two meters away from me, I slept through it. And so like one morning, this is like the second morning I woke up. He'd been, he'd shat himself. He'd been sick. And he was just like, everything was a mess. And he was like, it was just very sad. And then like my boyfriend came down. I was like, well, at least he didn't howl.

He was like, are you joking? He howled all night and you just slept through it. So. You so piously being like, I'm here with you. I'm here. And they're just unconscious for 12 hours. Yeah. So unhelpful.

Yeah. And so that, so the first three nights were held. And then we're like, we're just going to have to put him properly in the crate. Put him down. put, I'm just going to, I'm sorry, this hasn't worked out. I can't really joke about it because it hurts my heart too much. But yes, it is a fun joke to make. Sorry, I'm so sorry.

Interestingly about the first three nights being hard, so that is something that everyone has to keep in mind. And also, I don't know, we've got another friend who has a dog who you called and were like, Emmett's shot himself and been sick, is he dying? And Claudia was like, oh no, Heidi did that constantly. Yeah. It's just like a thing. It was, yes, I rang two of our dog-rearing friends, and one of them said it took them

four months to get their dog to stop whining in the cray. And I was like, and they were just like, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's going to be hell. And then on the flip side, our other dog-rearing friend said that she was just very much like, you're going in there, deal with it. And she went for a shower the first morning that she had this puppy, and she came out the shower, and he'd shat and vomited it just in the time that she was in the shower. And she was like, Jesus Christ. So anyway, the point is, after like three days, and you're not sleeping at all, apart from me, I'm getting a good night.

Fantastic night. 12, perfect hours. But none of your neighbours and your partner are sleeping. Or the dog. Or the dog, crucially. Anyway, the point is, having got off the phone call with the friend who was like, it took us four months. It took him four months to stop whining the crate. It's like my dog heard that conversation.

I was like, oh, no, no, no, I won't be. it'll be okay and then that night we blocked him in his thing proper and he hasn't since then made and sound at night that's amazing and he's alive crucially so sticking to your guns with it and not because the thing is it's like oh but that's cruel but i suppose it's not cruel he needs to adjust for a few days and then the joy happens and now he like it's like very pleasing because he just like at 11 o'clock p.m every night on the dot he just takes himself to bed into his crate and then just gets in, no, doesn't wine or anything. So you're like, oh, wow. And that was unfathomable those first few days. What was the transition bit that he knows that he just goes,

that you just locked him in the thing and said, goodbye now, you go in there? I think he just like, got used to the space. And so I think like he understood that we were upstairs. Because he shot and then walked in his, in his poo and then vomited, we gave him a bath. And I think bringing him upstairs and like showing him that upstairs wasn't outside and we weren't leaving him It was like, oh, okay, I understand the space now. Yeah. I'm inventing his thoughts here. No, but I think that's hugely important to be it.

Because if you've never seen outside the room that you're in, there's no point the human being like, it's fine out there. You're like, well, I don't know that. Like, I've never, I don't know what the hell goes on out there. It could be anything. It's like a video game where you like unlock new areas. It's like, I'm on level one and it's so restrictive. He's like, level two.

Is this meant for me? I'm a human sleep. But it was weird that like making his space smaller helped. So it was like, actually there was quite a big difference. The difference was we weren't putting him in a cage, so it was in a crate in an appended off area with the door open. It was like, you're in this thing now. You're not allowed out of this tiny, it's the thing that worked. Well, that's this case with like babies and cats and everybody wants to be like swaddled and be like, you're safe. You're in. This is a small. Yeah, you put a baby in a cot and then you don't go,

oh my God, but I've imprisoned the baby. You're like, the baby is safe and it's fine. So it's sort of like a dog But, yeah, the baby can't go and, like, chew something while you're not looking. A hundred percent. Classic baby behavior. When you first get a dog, the fear of when it's, when it throws up, did you not immediately want to take it to the vet? Oh, yeah. Absolutely. I rang the vet at 3 a.m. on the second night.

But that, I had a really weird situation where we know that there are foxes in our garden. So like you're not allowed to get them, you're not allowed to take them outside of the first three weeks. That's crucial. So like you can't put them down the ground outside at all for fear of disease. And we, like the second morning, I went outside and there was like a bag of raw meat scattered across the turf that I'd laid. Oh my God. And it's like red, raw, chewed up meat. And I was like, right, well, either the foxes have carried some meat that.

found and then abandoned it. Or a crazy neighbour has seen I've got a dog, this is where my mind was at. Put some meat on your turn. Poisons, hates dogs. Poisoned some meat, throwing some meat into our garden with the hope with dog will leave the meat and die.

That was where my brain went. You weren't sleeping. I wasn't sleeping. I wasn't sleeping my usual 20 hours. Yeah. And so I like rang the vet but because when he, and then he threw up like the next day.

So I was like, right, well, I've killed him instantly. And I'm going with that and sort of had to explain that scenario of like, I think possibly like a crazy person who's tried to kill my dog. Poisoned my dog with meat. With meat. And they were just like, oh, we don't think that. We don't think that's what's happened. But it could be anything, though.

It was just like sick from, you know, the water's different in London. or like I give him a treat that he's not, you know, you've got to remember they're like tiny, tiny, tiny, eight-week-old babies, so they eat anything. So you get to panic too much. Yeah, and also he had like a full stick in his sick. So you're like, well, that's probably it. Then if I ate a stick, I'd probably want to throw it up.

So, yeah, but I did panic. And I, that was, rather than the tiredness, the main thing that was hell for those first few weeks was like constant worry, which I'm sure any parent listening to this, Do you have a lot of parent listeners? Some. I've got a couple, yeah. They'll be like, this is insane.

Like, you're, it's just a dog. Wait till you have a human. It's like a low level. It's like a low level baby. Yeah. When, you know, it's not just, oh, I've got a dog and like now we're playing with the dog. It's like you are fully responsible for something that is completely defenseless. And it's just sicked up a stick.

And you can't fully communicate the things to be like, this is fine. And it can't tell you why it's not fine. Yeah. But that's as a baby. Sorry, I was talking about a baby then. Oh, I see. But the weeing, like, training it not to wee inside. How do you do that if it can't go outside?

That was, so after Meatgate, I didn't want to take him up onto that grass, the grass that I'd laid anymore because I was like, the foxes are here and there's all that meat there. So we made an even smaller area for him to we in, like, just outside the door. We basically, like, built him like a wee cage. for him to go out and we in this thing. But like people in the countryside would be like, oh, it's fine. It could just go in the garden.

It's absolutely fine. But in London or in any city, it's like really hard. I don't know. It was just constant taking, you have to just take them out. Like, there's like a list. If you Google like, how often do puppies we? And I googled everything. There's, um, it'll be like, after every meal, after playtime,

when they've woken up and also every 20 minutes. So, like, we'll just say every, every 20 minutes. Yeah, like take them outside to wee so often. Do you shout at him when he whee's inside? No, that's a crucial thing not to do. Good. Because then they just think that weing, the act of weeing is bad. And so they go off and then they're like, oh, I need to wee,

but I know the act of weeing is bad. So then they go and find a corner somewhere and we in a corner. And then you can't really tell them, then you can't really monitor it because they're just going and hiding and weeing somewhere. So you just have to accept that they're going to wee inside for a bit, but every time they're wee outside, a lot of praise. Which is the same for life, I guess. Like, when you do things wrong,

just have to be like, well, that's done that wrong. Everybody can do it right, celebrate. A lot of praise. So it's like, yeah, a dog tree. So, yeah, so that was it really. But if you actually catch them weeing inside, you're meant to like make a big loud noise, but not an angry noise.

Just sort of like, whoa there, buddy, that's a wee. noise to like snap them out of the wee and then take them outside where they can carry on wheeing and then when they do it outside you're like yes correct and also if you find a we inside you shouldn't but you didn't see it happen you can't retrospectively like be like that's wrong they don't understand that no you're just a woman pointing at the carpet what's the what do you think the biggest thing that you did not know what's the like the number If you could go back in time, what's the one thing you'd whisper to yourself through the window? If I could whisper through time, I would, it would be the mental exhaustion of having to watch something constantly.

So, because you can, like, we could pop him in an area with this pen that we bought from the devil. But then still, like, he's in there for, like, a couple of minutes and then he's getting agitated or, like, being like, where are you? why I've kind of to be with you. So you're just like constantly watching this thing. And that really, that was definitely, I definitely had some cries. Oh, for sure. Well, it's good to be prepared for that because I like,

I wouldn't have, I mean, now you say I'm like, of course. And when I was FaceTimed you and it was like every 10 seconds, you're like, oh, I'm, I miss, oh, no, Emma's. And because it's just constantly, it was very new. Yeah. But it did make me go, oh, God, of course, you don't think about that element. You think about like the, in my head, I'm watching. TV and the puppies asleep or like gently playing the toy and I'm like what a great image but it's

shat everywhere and it's also yeah I'm also crying because I've yeah I've had to just watch my dog watch it for like watch it and do nothing else yeah like everyone just has this sort of like attitude of like I'm me and that's my dog and I don't have to think about it as like having a puppy is like you don't have any personal identity you're just concerned what's in their mouth a lot of the time Has it got better? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, like, this podcast would have been absolutely unpathomable. Is that him has calmed down, or you have just calmed down a bit more about what's in his mouth

or there is actually less crazy stuff in his mouth? This is crucial. He can put a lot more in his mouth safely. So, like, first month, there doesn't, like, exist. And please, if anyone has something, please send in for me personally. There doesn't exist anything that they can chew on or eat. that doesn't make them sick because they're so tiny. So like,

wow. So like all the chew toys, if you Google like chew toys for puppies, which is probably the thing that I've Googled every morning for the past eight weeks, is like loads of reviews being like, this is incredible, this kept my dog amused for hours,

because dogs need to chew. But like, then you'll go on the product and you'll look at it and it'll be like, only give to your dog over six months. Or like, the best one that we could find was four months. So there's like a two-month. month gap where none of the products, you can't give them any of the products that are

designed for the chewing. And I really feel like I should start a business in that niche market. Because like, there's nothing. People say that you can give them like antler chews, but that's literally like antlers off a deer that have fallen in the woods. I don't know if the dears have fallen or if the antlers have fallen. And people have taken them up and like chop them up. and then they have like puppy ones which is where they've like cut them in half so they're like full of marrow and they're like really good for dogs to chew on

don't worry I don't think they're killing dears for this I think no no no antlers just drop off of their own accord in the season but they are like eco there's a company called like wild and green or something that make like sort of like eco dog things anyway but what about a bone

could you give them a bone? No no absolutely not bone splinters in their throat this is what I mean about what's in their mouth is like nothing it's not so if you get like a product that's made for dogs that's not like a natural thing like a bone or an animal thing then that's probably going to have stuff in it that will make them sick or if you give them something that's from the wild like a bone or a thing it will probably splinter their little

tiny puppy teeth or their puppy teeth aren't big enough to chew it so there's like nothing in that gap when you're going crazy for like the first few months where they can safely chew that I was trying to eat your hair during that face time. Yeah, yeah. And like, our friend Ben, who was the person I called being like, why won't he sleep? He was like, we gave him frozen carrots. And so we started giving him frozen carrots. I was going to suggest a carrot.

Yeah. Giving him frozen carrots, which he likes. I didn't do it publicly so I can't have the praise, but in my mind, that's what I'm going to suggest. I believe me. And then the cheapest one of all, ice cubes. Although, if you Google it, there'll be a lot of people saying, don't give your dog. ice cubes and I'm like oh I just have to ignore those people because he seems to really like an ice cube what's wrong with an ice cube what's what what do they say is wrong with an ice cube they'll choke they'll

it will it's bad for them it'll melt water melt okay wow frozen carrots a great idea it's very cute yeah that is cute yeah that is cute when he does it uh but before that there's nothing like there you get there's a brand called nilobone and they make lots of dog chews and Kong as well. But like, they don't, unless they're edible, it doesn't interest them for very long because they're like, this is a bit of plastic that you've given me to chew on.

And I'm like, fair enough, mate. I'm bored looking at it. Yeah. I wanted to ask about in terms of space, I think a lot of people, especially in cities, can be like, oh, I'll get a puppy and they don't realize how small their flat is in relation to the puppy, or how,

you don't know what, like, is it good, is it necessary to have, to make sure that you have enough space? And if not, do you definitely need a garden? I think that's just a breed thing because you definitely wouldn't get a big old dog in a flat it's just the toilet training that's so hard. Yeah, if you live in a flat, you're like take it downstairs to outside. You really have to take them outside like every half hour, every like two hour

when they're young. And if you lived in like up the top of the flat, not even in like the top of the building, like if you just lived in the top of your flat. Yeah. You have to get down to the bottom of your flat. And then the bottom of the building. The building.

And that's half an hour just saying it. Do you have anything else that you'd like to add? Because I thought that was really helpful and really, that's really interesting. Like all that I didn't know half of those things. I don't, I mean, obviously I'm not an expert. I think people should know that all the advice I've given is nonsense. Oh, no, that's good.

No, you're just a person trying to make your way with a, dog and we're, that's what, that's why it's better. And also I think your thing is like you, though it was tougher than you thought it was going to be, but also you're sailing through it. Yeah, it was like tougher, as in I was prepared for it to be tough, but I was, I thought I could just prep and therefore it would be less tough, but the prep is nonsense. And also they do play a lot of Frasier between 8 and 9.30 a.m. So I've watched a lot of that. So that's quite good. So have some background TV ready. to go. Great. I think you did

fantastic. Yeah, and also I think it's very easy to listen to a dog expert talk about all these things, but it's really nice to listen to somebody who's in the middle of it, who is just, it was learning, and it's a lot more relatable, and you're going to say a lot more sort of truth.

Yeah. You're speaking truth to dog power. Thank you so much. That was really helpful and really, really interesting. And I hope it helps you listening be like, oh, I don't know more about getting a dog now. I feel I feel like I could never be prepped. There's a lot of weeing.

And if there's meat on your turf, call the vet. If there's meat on your turf, call the vet. Thank you so much, Liz. Do you want to give your Twitter, Instagram or anything? Yeah, I mean, if you're interested in me just posting dog pictures from now on forevermore, I'm at Liz Kingsman. Great. You can find her on borderline on Netflix, on Palomte, on...

the famously fictional French TV. And when live comedy eventually gently resurfaces, Liz has a phenomenal show called One Woman Show. Oh, very good. I'd thoroughly recommend seeing when it's legal.

When it's legal to do so. Please don't watch it illegally, guys. Come on, guys. We've got to stop this. And please do get in touch with us. If you have any episodes that you'd like us to do in the future, we're at Nobody Panic Pod,

and I'm at Stevie M. The S is a 5. Blah. I'm at So Coates, the Twitter is a Nobody Panic Pod and what we really want to see is the pictures of your puppies. Yeah, that's kind of all that you should do really. Just

send us pictures of your dogs. Have you got one in lockdown? Have you always had one? Are you thinking of it? Send them. Or have you not got one and you've just seen a good one? Do you, does anyone know what they can chew when they're young? Does anyone know what they can do they are? Yes. Or if you just want to tell Liz that you back her new business

idea, write in with that as well. Yeah. If you're an angel investor, please. yes thank you so much and I guess we will see you next week for more of this thank you so much Liz thank you Stevie thanks for joining us

we'll see you next time bye