Stuff You Should Know - Selects: How Pet Psychics Work

Episode Date: August 21, 2021

In the early 21st century a trend of people who claim to be able to telepathically and clairvoyantly communicate with animals has grown. Today, the concept of visiting a pet psychic to find a lost pet, find out why a pet is behaving badly or even to learn if a pet is ready to be put to sleep is becoming more commonplace, but is there any basis to pet psychics' abilities? Join Josh and Chuck as they investigate the pet psychic phenomenon, in this classic episode. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Find out how much at Airbnb.ca slash host. I'm Munga Shatikler, and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to believe. You can find it in Major League Baseball, International Banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me, and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes, because I think your ideas are about to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive on the iHeart Radio app,

Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Everybody, I'm throwing back all the way to January 16th, 2014 on this one, How Pet Psychics Work. Boy, oh boy, this one was not great, but sometimes I like to pick those, just as a reminder of the peaks and valleys of this show over the years. So here we go with How Pet Psychics Work. It's really not that bad. You'll probably enjoy it.

Just give it a listen, and then give us a review on Yelp. Three stars, please. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. That's me. I mentioned myself already.

Have I mentioned Jerry? Yeah, I think so. These just keep getting worse and worse, don't they? Jerry's over there. We're all in the Christmas spirit. I think this is the last show we're recording this year, right? Yeah. We're ahead of the game a little bit.

Yeah. So we can have a cushy couple of weeks. Yeah. So we're hammered. Not true. No. Not yet. You got your coffee.

I got my soda water. La Croix. La Croix soda water. Yeah, my coffee is neither Spanish nor Irish nor anything like that. No. What is Spanish coffee? Oh, it's the better of the two. What is it?

You get a little... Well, it depends on your recipe, but you get a little bit of rum. Okay. You get a little bit of triple sec or... I can't remember the other name for it, but good triple sec. Yeah. Put them together in a like a tempered snifter or an Irish coffee glass. Fire tempered.

Make sure it's tempered or else you're about to hurt yourself. Yeah, it'll bust on it. You light it. You light the... It's got to be high proof rum. You light the rum triple sec combo. Just let it burn out for a second. Or you could blow it off.

You don't want to burn off too much of the alcohol. Yeah. Then you add some espresso, some Kahlua, and then top it off with a little whipped cream and nutmeg. Man. It's good stuff. And that's just one version. There's plenty of other versions of Spanish coffee.

That makes Irish coffee look silly. There's like... I don't put down Irish coffee. Pour some whiskey in the coffee and drink. Pretty much. It's also called the eye opener. Yeah. I love the simplicity of the Irish just doing that.

I love that. Have you seen... What a great country. I don't know if it was a new one last week. I started watching The Simpsons again after like years off. Oh yeah? And it is awesome. Is it back?

Man, it is back. There was one... I don't know if it was new or not, but Krusty syndicated himself around the world. So we could make a lot more money. So there's like a Jamaican Krusty. There's like a... Oh, great idea. And then the Irish one was just like this depressed alcoholic who would sit at a table

on a chair in the spare room. Didn't even do that. Really? Yeah. And would just drink and say like these really bleak, depressing things was perfect. And he ended up with his own stage show on Broadway and everything. As the Irish Krusty? Yeah.

Oh, awesome. That's a good one. I'll have to check that out. Yeah. That was my intro to pet psychics. All right. You know, that cat sitting over there knew everything I was about to say. Oh yeah?

Mm-hmm. Not many people know we have a studio cat. No. Man, I wish we did. How awesome would that be? A studio cat? Yeah, that'd be great. You'd get gamey in here, wouldn't it?

No. It's already pretty warm in here as it is. A cat would love that. Yeah. All right, so pet psychics. Factor fiction. They're fiction. Are we debunking right out of the thing? Well, you know, I am of the Forty and Elk, all right?

Like I think that using science as a means of avoiding scientific investigation of something is a slap in the face of science. Yeah. And that science should be used to exhaust all avenues. And just because we can't currently explain something using science doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Sure. I think that there's a whole echelon of stuff out there that does exist that we can't quite explain yet.

Yeah, sure. I don't know if pet psychics fall into that one, but I'm not one to just overtly poo poo something out of hand. Okay. That said, I had a hard time like taking this entire article seriously. Yeah. Well, you want to know something? Yeah.

Emily just went to a pet psychic. I thought that there was probably like an 85 to 90% chance that something like that was going to come up. Yeah. You know, we had to put old Lucy down and Emily went in the following week. We have a local pet psychic in Avondale State. I'm surprised there's just one. There probably is. Yeah.

But one near our house and she went and talked to this lady. Was it comforting? It was. She said it was really interesting and there was less talk about Lucy and more talk about like me and our other animals. And she wouldn't tell me a whole lot because she didn't want me to poke fun at it. You know? And I tried to be super supportive and I was.

Sure, of course. I thought every instinct I had to... You're like, that sounds like a great time. Neat. How much was it? But Emily and she asked me not to say this. So of course I'm going to say it. She is getting books now herself to read because she feels like she is very intuitive with animals

and she is very intuitive with animals. And so she's going to poke around there and not to do it for a living or anything. Right. Just to do it with your own dogs at home. Yeah. Just to see if she can become more in tune with our animals. And they are called animal intuitives sometime or communicators, not necessarily pet psychics. Right.

Because that makes you sound a little crazy. There seems to be like a whole gamut of people that would fall under the umbrella of pet psychics. Yeah, like a horse whisperer or Caesar Milan, some people might say is an animal communicator. Right. That they're just maybe more in tune with the signals that animals send out and they can send signals to animals. Yeah. That I fully believe.

Okay, so that's totally different from what a person who claims to be a pet psychic says is going on. Well, yeah, but not always. Like this lady Emily went to was sounded more like an animal intuitive and communicator than like a medium saying, I'm talking to Lucy, she's in a better place. Right. She's playing with your grandfather in heaven. Right. But there are pet psychics that claim to do that.

Yeah. And charge people money for that. Yeah, just like real psychics. Sure. All right, so let's get into it. Well, I thought we already had. Well, I guess we have. I just wanted to go ahead and drop that bomb about Emily.

I think you're in trouble. So pet psychics, nah, she doesn't listen. They claim, depending on who they are, there is a spectrum of pet psychics, like you said, that claim certain abilities. But some claim that they can actually telepathically communicate with animals with their mind. Right. And like one step beyond intuition, like we're actually talking. Right.

Not only are we talking, we're transferring images from one mind to another. Yeah. In some cases, they are talking like there's a pet psychic who claims that when she speaks to animals, they respond to her in a childlike voice. The animals have childlike voices. Yeah. They speak like children. They do in Disney movies.

Yeah. So why not? But basically at its most supernatural, I guess, its most extrasensory. Pet psychics, what they're claiming to do is a convergence of clairvoyance, which is farsight. And telepathy, which is mind reading. And they're putting these together. And then if you already have a hard enough time swallowing that, you may have an even a harder time swallowing it when you realize that they're saying they're doing this with

animals, which may or may not even be self aware. Yeah. Like it's tough to, it's hard with humans to believe that someone might have ESP and telepathy. And we speak the same language. Yeah. So it might be even a deeper reach to say that you can do that with a dog, let's say. Yeah. So, okay, Emily went to a pet psychic.

She went after Lucy, passed on, basically to find out how Lucy was doing. Yeah. I think she was just curious about the, she had been curious for a while and this afforded her an opportunity to go see a pet psychic. I think it gave her a good reason. Okay. So that's one reason people go see pet psychics after the death of a pet. Sure. Another one is when a pet is sick or injured or ailing.

Tell me if it's time to go. Right. Yeah. Which man, that's got to be a lot to put on a pet psychic. That's a lot to put on a vet. Sure. Yeah. You know, although I think vets are kind of like, yeah, let's just go ahead and do it.

No, that's not true. And then what if the pet is acting like a jerk all of a sudden? Yeah. That's another reason people go to pet psychics. Why is my dog acting out? Or maybe my pet is lost. Can you tell me where my pet is? Right.

That's a little more of a niche thing. Not all pet psychics will take on those cases. My guess is because the success rate might not be great and they don't want to, you know, charge somebody for something and not provide the service that they said they can. Yeah, because I mean, unless you can talk somebody into giving up their bread, for you just to say, yeah, your dog will be home in a couple of weeks, yeah. Then, you know, how are you going to work that?

Yeah. You can't. But there are anecdotal success stories of locating pets this way. If there weren't, this wouldn't be around. And a skeptic will say that's just luck and coincidence. Yeah. Like the dog was on its way home anyway. Exactly.

This pet psychic didn't call to it with her mind. That's right. Psychics, pet psychics say they use electromagnetic energy to accomplish this, that there's this energy field in the universe that science hasn't quite figured out yet, but it exists and we are able to pick up on that energy and use that energy to speak to your animals, whether it's a childlike voice or like, I think most of them generally do it in pictures. Yeah.

Which makes a little more sense to me. Yeah. And this thing, this electromagnetic energy, there's this guy who wrote a book. His name is Jay Allen Boone, and he wrote a book called Kinship with All Life. And it apparently is the pet psychics Bible. And it's kind of his relationship with this German shepherd named Strongheart, which was a Hollywood dog that he cared for starting in, I think, the 1930s. And who he became telepathically linked with, intuitively linked to.

Right. And basically Jay Allen Boone wrote this book on how to communicate with animals. And in it, he mentions that all things are connected by this thing called the primal cause. Midichlorians. Right. And I think that's what the pet psychic would say. Well, that's the electromagnetic energy. Right.

The point is, is since it binds all things, we can just kind of use that to connect to the mind of another thing, human or animal. Right. Because we're all connected by this. Right. It's a lovely thought. It is. Animal Planet actually had a show for a little while about 10 years ago called the pet psychic.

And the lady on there, what's her name? Fitzpatrick. Yes. She claimed that she picked up this in childhood as a result of a hearing loss. Although, other people say they pick it up as adults after studying it and not necessarily born with a gift, but they just studied how to be more in tune with animals. Right. And apparently a lot of them discovered that they had this gift after they saw the pet psychic

on Animal Planet. Oh, is that right? That's what Tracy says in this article. Okay. I wonder what, that sounds like one of those statements. Did she do research on that? I don't know. Did she do a poll?

Well, I think that it definitely did kick off a trend. A trend. Okay. If it didn't capitalize on it, it definitely kicked it off. All right. So you go to your pet psychic, you're going to go into a room and they're going to do something like this, not exactly like this, depending on their methods, but they're probably going to like just relax and tell you to calm down and they will make contact with the energy of the animal.

And then they will actually try and contact the said animal telepathically. Right. Like ask a question of the animal. Or they'll still call its name or something and get its attention to you. Yeah. Or have a picture a lot of times that like you don't need the animal there necessarily. In fact, a lot of times I think the animal is not there. Right.

Because why do you need the animal? No, you don't. You've got the great cause, the primal cause. Exactly. So they go like this with their mind. They do. And then they will accept whatever response they get, relay that back to you, ask you some more questions, or if you have any more questions,

and basically act as the go between you communicating with your pet. Like just like you would think it goes down, your pet is saying that they're not happy with the new couch and that's why they're peeing on it. Right. Right. Or ever since you took that promotion into middle management, you've changed man. Yeah. And I'm not happy with this new you. That's why I keep chewing your suits.

Exactly. They are going to, it's pretty controversial as we pointed out because there isn't any hard science behind it. There's no proof of this electromagnetic energy. I know a lot of people believe in energy. I mean, electromagnetic energy does exist. Yeah, not this kind of electromagnetic energy. Yeah.

I just wanted to make sure everyone knew that we believe in electromagnetic energy. But they haven't picked up, they haven't proven that there's any actual like sensory organ in people or animals that allow them to tune into this energy. Right. Did that make more sense? Yeah. Hey, everybody, when you're staying at an Airbnb, you might be like me wondering, could my place be an Airbnb?

And if it could, what could it earn? So I was pretty surprised to hear about Lauren and Nova Scotia who realized she could Airbnb her cozy backyard treehouse and the extra income helps cover her bills and pays for her travel. So yeah, you might not realize it, but you might have an Airbnb too. Find out what your place could be earning at airbnb.ca slash host. I'm Mangesh Atikular. And to be honest, I don't believe in astrology. But from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life.

In India, it's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get secondhand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention because maybe there is magic in the stars if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, major league baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world can crash down.

Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology? It changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Introducing The Biz Take, your all things music, business and media podcast. Join me, Joe Wasleski, and my co-host, Colin McKay, every Wednesday,

where we discuss the breaking news, changing the music industry. And what your favorite artists and creatives are up to. Colin, who's your favorite artist? Oh, you know, the trifecta, Demi Lovato, Ariana Grande, Captain Beefheart. Snap back to reality M&M style. Join music industry professionals Joe and I as we pull back the curtain of the successes and failures of The Biz. You guys have been hanging out a while.

What are they doing, Colin? I guess listening to an ad. Sorry. Listen to new episodes of The Biz Take every Wednesday on the Nashville Podcast Network, available on iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. So during these pet psychic sessions, when the purpose of this normally is to get to the bottom of a problem, say, like we said, or to get some sort of comfort, or even for decision making, the problem is when a pet psychic asks an animal what's going on, and the animal is

thought to respond, well, this I'm doing this because of this. So beyond the telepathy, beyond the clairvoyance involved, there's still the question of whether an animal is capable of that higher level of reasoning and thought. That it would be aware of its own reasons for its behavior. That in and of itself is a controversial aspect of this whole topic. Yeah, that self-awareness, like a lot of animal intuitives believe that animals are basically kind of like people that just can't talk. They experience the emotions, they're self-aware, and they're just not trapped,

but they're in an animal's body. And when you look at your pets, you may think they're experiencing emotions, and it's a controversial subject because it's not something you can prove. Well, it's become more and more proven over the years. Yeah, like nowadays it is accepted that animals can feel certain emotions. Yeah, especially the basic ones. Yeah, like stress, fear, upsetness. Yeah, rage I think is one, lust, separation to stress.

Yeah, but it's hard to define an emotion period much less than an animal. Right, but the idea that emotions just belong to humans, or even humans in higher primates, is definitely faded. We are aware that animals can't experience basic emotions. They can probably experience even higher emotions too. Like if you look at a dog and your dog looks sad, and it's sad because you're leaving, you may be correct. You know your dog pretty well, and we've reached the point where science is starting to come to grips

with the idea that yes, animals can experience some higher emotions as well. Sure. And there was actually a conference at Cambridge University in 2012, and it was a pretty heavy hit in conference, like I mean the people involved were no slouches, and they came up with the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness, and they basically said that the components that you need to experience emotions and consciousness are not relegated to the cortex, meaning it's not just humans that are capable to have the hardware for experiencing consciousness. That's right.

They also said that if you artificially stimulate the neural circuits that are responsible for different aspects of consciousness in humans, you can stimulate the same things in animals too, which suggests that they have the same equipment. You can also disrupt those circuits using hallucinogens in humans and animals, and since they have all the equipment, all the science points who said this group of neuroscientists and other professionals, they said there is a pretty good chance that it's not just humans who are experiencing consciousness, the things that the trappings of consciousness like higher emotions, self-awareness, the things that make us human, animals might have, that make them animals,

right, but the people who think that if your dog is sad, you're probably right, yeah, because your dog likes you around, and it might be happy when you're home, yeah, and sad when you leave, and the whole reason that this has been a thing is simply because humans haven't been able to figure out how to accurately test what is an emotion in an animal, right, because animals can't say I'm feeling like this right now. We can be like, that's love, you're feeling love. Yeah, like when a mother cares for her puppies, it looks like it's showing love, or is it oxytocin, a hormone in the body that says you need to care for your young,

is it love or care, or does the animal realize it's love or care? Well, that's the big one, because you can say we have that same exact neural circuit, yeah, and we react to oxytocin the exact same way, so if it's love for us, why isn't it love for the animal? Well, the key is, is we think about it, we're thinking, I feel so good about taking care of my baby, that means I love my baby, that makes me even happier, that's called metacognition, that's where most people are drawing the line with animals these days, they might be able to experience some pretty high emotions, they may be self-aware, but the ability to think about their emotions,

the implications of their emotions, or think about thinking, that's metacognition, and not everybody agrees on that one, that's the new threshold that we're at, it seems like, for animals, whether or not they're capable of metacognition. So if an animal sees itself in the mirror and notices itself, is that self-awareness? Yeah, which would be a form of metacognition, but that's not proven, that's where a lot of people, you'll lose a lot of people now, whereas 10 years ago, even saying that an animal could experience happiness or joy, would have lost a lot of people, so who knows in 10 years from now, maybe everyone will agree that animals experience metacognition.

Yeah, a grief is definitely one I've seen firsthand a lot. Yeah, we talked about it in the grief episode. Yeah, and when we put Lucy down, they recommend that, we did it at our house, they recommend that the pet not see that act, but then they come in afterward, so they see the body, and so they can understand what's going on, and so they don't spend time looking for that animal, and we did that with Buckley and Charlie, and let them back in, and Charlie was stressed, we didn't even think about it, she was a feral dog, so she gets stressed when other people are in the house, so we forgot this vet lady was in there,

so Charlie's just stressed running around, Buckley goes up, sniffs Lucy, and it was really sad. I'm sure. And he was different for about four or five days, seemed depressed to me, and when we would take him on walks and come back, he would still run around to all the rooms, I think looking for Lucy, because he never had done that before, he usually just walks in and lays down, but he literally would go to each room, so I definitely think there are things like grief, whether or not the dog realizes it's grief, like who cares, you know, that's what I think. Yeah, I mean it's still experiencing on that virtually the same level, right?

Yeah. And it's most profound level, that gut experience of grief, and I think the whole, the fine line here with investigating or talking about whether or not animals can experience these things is you're walking this edge where on one side you have anthropocentrism, where you're just like, no they can't, only humans can, humans are the greatest ever, and you're forgetting that we're animals as well, then the other side you have anthropomorphizing, where you're attributing, you know, human attributes to animals unduly, so it's kind of like you have to resist both. Like Buckley's so happy because we're putting up the Christmas tree.

Exactly. Yeah, Buckley's happy because we're in there having a good time and drinking some eggnog, and like the music's on, we're dancing. Right, exactly. So you have to resist both of those temptations to just kind of keep plotting along down the line scientifically, but I think ultimately as we go down that line, we're going to finally come to, as a species, hopefully, the idea that like animals should not be in zoos or tested on or whatever because they are a lot closer to us consciousness-wise than we currently understand

or want to admit right now. Agreed. All right, well we're going to talk a little bit about pet psychics and like contradictions between them and what might be going on here right after this message break. Hey everybody, when you're staying at an Airbnb, you might be like me wondering, could my place be an Airbnb? And if it could, what could it earn? So I was pretty surprised to hear about Lauren in Nova Scotia who realized she could Airbnb

her cozy backyard treehouse and the extra income helps cover her bills and pays for her travel. So yeah, you might not realize it, but you might have an Airbnb too. Find out what your place could be earning at airbnb.ca slash host. I'm Mangesh Atikular and to be honest, I don't believe in astrology, but from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life. In India, it's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get secondhand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop

running and pay attention because maybe there is magic in the stars if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, major league baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down. Situation doesn't look good. There is a risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too.

Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Introducing The Biz Take, your all things music, business and media podcast. Join me, Joe Wasleski, and my co-host, Colin McKay, every Wednesday, where we discuss the breaking news, changing the music industry. And what your favorite artists and creatives are up to. Colin, who's your favorite artist? Oh, you know, the trifecta, Demi Lovato, Rana Grande, Captain Beefheart.

Snap back to reality M&M style. Join music industry professionals Joe and I as we pull back the curtain of the successes and failures of The Biz. You guys have been hanging out a while. What are they doing, Colin? I guess listening to an ad. Sorry. Listen to new episodes of The Biz Tape every Wednesday on the Nashville Podcast Network, available on iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Okay, so there are some contradictions. If you go to 10 PetPsychics,

you're probably going to have 10 different... 11 opinions. Yeah, 11 different stories about what's going on, which is one reason it makes it hard to swallow for some people. Again, I feel like since we went to break and came back, this is a good time to reiterate. Like, I'm not poo-pooing intuitiveness. No. I'm not poo-pooing some people's ability, a greater ability than others,

to really connect to animals and understand them or deal with them, however you want to put it. It's when it strays into telepathy and clairvoyance that I start to become skeptical. Yeah, I know what you mean. And I think some people are more in tune with other humans than others. Sure. Some people have their heads up their butts and are completely absorbed in their own little universe. Right. Other people, I think, seek out input from other things, whether it's people or animals.

They're always looking for something. Right. Justin, you know Justin, his mom, Carrie, one of my favorite people, is one of the most in tune, intuitive people I've ever met in my life, because she's a studier of people. Yeah. Like, you can see her, man, when there's a party going on, she'll be sitting back and watching. Oh, yeah? Yeah.

Is she weird? No, she's not weird at all. She's awesome, but she watches. And she's, you know, I don't know if it's a gift as much as it is something you can work on. Yeah, I think it is. Like, remove your head from your butt and pay attention. So some contradictions, like, you might see a Fitzpatrick that says your animal ratted you out about something. You might go to another pet psychic that says animals would never do that.

They're loyal. Right. So what's the story? Supposedly, according to Sonya Fitzpatrick from the pet psychic show, animals are very gossipy, and they like to tell one another all your secrets. That's hilarious to me. And she told a story. She wrote a book called What the Animals Tell Me, and she told the story about a turtle that she was communicating with. And the turtle told her that it would love to have a fish friend as a pet.

Right. So Sonya Fitzpatrick introduced a fish to this turtle's tank, and the turtle was like, thanks, chump, and ate the fish. And so she said, why did you eat the fish? And the turtle said, well, I knew that if I asked you for a fish to eat, you wouldn't give it to me. So I just tricked you, basically. So animals are gossipy and wily. And have the potential to lie. Yeah, you should not trust animals.

Debbie McGillivray, she wrote the complete idiot's guide to pet psychic communication. She's the one that said, no, no, no, animals are loyal. They're innocent. They would never rat you out. They would never lie to you like that or embarrass you. Sure. So it makes it tougher to swallow when you have people saying these wildly different things. Not about what they're picking up, but the fact that, no, animals do this. No, animals do this. Like, which is it? Right. But you could say the same thing about humans, you know?

Like, if you hang out with certain humans, you can be like some human, like humans gossip. They'll tell other people all of your terrible secrets. True. Other people might have hung out with the Waltons, and they're like, no, humans are all loyal. It's all about your perception and your experience. That's right. So what might be going on here is what's known as a cold reading. Yeah, the actual, any success or what appears to be success?

Yeah. Telepathically among pet psychics, cold readings? Yeah, ESP, people use cold readings to explain that. Fortune telling, tarot card, palm reading, crystal balls, you name it. A skeptic will say that what a cold reading is, is the following. They are maybe stating the obvious. Your cat loves to, your cat's telling me it loves to lay in the window and look at the world outside. Right.

And the person goes, oh my God, the wizard loves that. Right. All cats love that. Exactly. So that might happen in your reading. They might also use very vague language. Like he says, your dog says something has changed around here. And you go, oh yeah, I just accepted this middle management promotion.

Yeah. And the pet psychic says, yes. That's it. Exactly. That's this new thing that's changed. And you said earlier that your dog was chewing up your new shoes and that's why your dog is not happy with this change. So he's chewing your shoes. I am a psychic.

That's how they finish every reading too, by the way. They say that. They throw their arms up in the air and shout that. Well, it's interesting because what might be happening there is, is your dog might be chewing up your shoes because you did get that job. Because you're working an extra 15 hours a week and your dog has separation anxiety. Yeah. So ironically, it might be actually on the money. The disconnect comes in when the psychic says that your dog told them that.

Exactly. What else? Or how about this? Here's another way to state the obvious. Okay. Your dog, I'm looking at a picture of your dog and they chew on their paws all the time and say they itch. And that's because in the picture, they have like a bandage on their paw or you went in and forgot you said my dog is chewing their paws all the time. What's the deal with that?

They'll glean these bits of information without you maybe even necessarily recognizing that by asking you questions. And then they make that part of their cold reading. But then asking questions is another one too. It's fishing for details. Like I see that your dog is wearing a red and green and then you say blue, blue collar. Your dog is wearing a blue collar. Yeah. So every time something is, that you indicate something is correct, it'll be restated, rephrased,

re-spoken as if the psychic is saying it and you're so unwrapped in this whole thing that you're just missing the fact that you're feeding them the information that they're giving to you as a psychic reading. This isn't just pet psychics. No, like generally if you go into a psychic, you are there because you want to believe and you are seeking an answer. If a dude like your eye went into a pet psychic, we probably wouldn't have much luck because we would go in there looking to shoot holes in it. And I did encourage Emily. I was like, go in there with an open mind. I would go in there with an open mind. I see.

I don't think I could. I would. That's why I wasn't invited. I would try at the very least. If I were going to go in there, just a poo poo, I just wouldn't go. Well, yeah. Exactly. Because I mean, who wants to do that?

Jerks. There are plenty of them out there too. No, that's true. But Emily did say that she made a point to not reveal too much and to sort of watch out for those cold reading tricks. And she said, I didn't reveal a whole lot and she gave me back something. So she's a believer. Well, whatever she spent on that, it's a drop in the bucket compared to what people spend on their pets these days. It's a little crazy these days.

Not just for pet psychics, but just in general. Yeah. Americans spent $61 billion, billion with a B dollars in 2013 on their pets. Yeah. $61 billion. And that was up from $36 billion in 2005 and $17 billion in 1996. Wait, what's the current number? $61 billion.

Wow. Boy, I mean, things have really, I don't want to say gotten out of hand, but you definitely noticed in the past decade more doggie spas and stuff like that around. Well, there's supposedly more disposable income. Yeah. And there are more people who are not having kids. Oh, so they're just dumping their money into their pets? Uh-huh.

Well, good. Get them off the street, people. That's what I say. The point is for spending $61 billion on our pets and it keeps increasing, almost doubling every few years now, every 8, 9, 10 years. Pets like kicks are not going anywhere. No, they're not. They are here to stay. I've got one more stat for you.

There was a poll in 2008 that found that 67% of pet owners say they understand their animal's purrs or barks or other noises. And 62% said that when they speak, their pet understands them or at least their intent. And one in five owners claim their pets understand each other completely, like the two pets do. And one quarter of cat owners, they completely understood their pet sounds while only 16% of dog owners said they were fluent in barks. So I guess those were two different polls that are wildly different in their numbers. Yeah. I think people can, and animals, sense a lot of subtle micro expressions in body language. Yeah.

And that is just, I mean, that is communication. And don't you think that's just a result of proximity around another living being? You know, just living with something, whether it's a person or an animal, like you get to know them and their mannerisms. Yeah, absolutely. You can read them. And that is, like I said, micro expressions is a form of communication, I think. So it's not like, I think, sure, you can communicate with your dog. Sure.

But it may not be telepathically like a conversation. But if it feels as easy as a telepathic conversation, then you got it going on with your pet. Yeah. And again, if you want to go out and drop your dough on a pet psychic, more power to you. You'll probably get something out of it. Same here. If you want to know more about pet psychics, type those words into the search bar at HowStuffWorks.com. And since I said search bar, it's time for a listener mail.

I'm going to call this GoFiggy Puddings. Remember that? Yeah. In our live, well, I'll just go ahead and read it. This semester, guys, I'm studying abroad in the UK at the University of Hertfordshire. GoFiggy Puddings. Exactly. During my travels, your podcast has helped me pass the time of playing in train rides

while learning new things and hearing the American accent I miss so much. I just listened to, is there a scientific formula for funny? You mentioned Richard Wiseman from the University of Hertfordshire and Josh said. GoFiggy Puddings. Which was very funny. I couldn't have thought of that. You could have. Not that quick.

I was a little taken aback, guys, since you're always dead on with your university team names. I regret to inform you that UH does not have a team called the Figgy Puddings, though. They're actually the University of Hertfordshire Hurricanes. This guy's joking, right? No. I knew I was joking. Oh, yeah. Well, yeah, I think so.

Okay. Boy, I think so. Andrew, you knew Josh was joking, right? Please, Andrew. I think so. We're the Hurricanes, which is a little weird since they have more Figgy Puddings here than Hurricanes. Yeah, there's not a lot of Hurricanes over there, isn't there?

No, I don't think so. They tend to come this way. Yeah, the UH Hurricanes are actually one of the best British American football teams around with four national championships, but I think he corrected himself in a subsequent email. I think there were five. And 12 division titles since 1997. I just want to set the record straight. I just wanted to thank you guys for such a consistently great show.

And that is Andrew Millian. Go Canes. And I think he knows you're joking. Well, I said he was taking them back. I think he was kidding. I hope I don't know that he was joking. We'll go with that. Yeah.

If you want to pull one over on me and Chuck, that's fine. We'll see what you got. You can tweet to us at SYSK Podcast. You can join us on Facebook.com slash Stuff You Should Know. You can send us an email to StuffPodcast at HowStuffWorks.com. Stuff You Should Know is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts on My Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

I'm Munga Chauticular and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to believe. You can find in Major League Baseball, International Banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me. And my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, I'm Kaylee Shore. On my podcast too much to say, I share my thoughts on everything from music to martinis, social media, social anxiety, regrets, to risky texts, and so much more. I have been known to read my literal diary entries on my show and sometimes I do interviews with my crazy group of friends.

So if you guys want to tune in, you can hear new episodes of Too Much to Say every Wednesday on the National Podcast Network, available on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to them.