The Snack Stalker and the 40-Year Grudge
On this week’s Animal Party with Deborah Wolfe, Deb tackles a hilarious listener question about a dog who constantly stalks snacks like a casino blackjack dealer—and shares smart training tips to stop treat obsession for good. Then she dives into the fascinating world of animal memory, loyalty, and grudges: from the legendary Hachikō to crows, elephants, orcas, and chimps who never forget being wronged. Deb also clears up a surprising myth about wolves reacting to leather, spotlights the urgent need to protect endangered Manatee populations in Florida, and applauds a heroic recycling worker who saved abandoned kittens just in time. Funny, heartfelt, and packed with animal insight, this episode is classic Animal Party
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Transcript:
Hello, you're listening to Animal Party on Pet Life Radio. And I have an email which I thought was really interesting, which we're going to cover today later in the show. The guy writes, Deb, I hate having to show my empty hands to my perpetually hungry dog like I'm some Vegas blackjack dealer.
I love this. This is John Menzies. And that's what he writes.
And he sent it at the end of March. So he wants to know what can you do to make him dog stop tracking him all the time, all the time. Please feed me.
Please feed me. Do you have a treat? Do you have a treat? Oh, I'm going to fix that in today's show. Yes, I am.
And I'm also going to talk about cats and dogs and pets in the news. And I'm going to ask you my trivia question today. So trivia questions have gotten harder and harder for me to come up with because of Google and Gemini and all these AI features that allow you to get my answers.
So I can't just ask a question anymore. I have to make it something Google can't figure out. So here's one.
What animal do you think holds a grudge the longest? And you can't say your mother-in-law because that's not an animal, although technically yes. But no, you can't say that. No, it has to be an animal.
So like, what do you think, dogs, cats, wildlife? Think about it. I will tell you later in the show. And there are some other ways we know about animal memory, which are really cool.
And sometimes we think about the dog in Japan, which has wrongly been stated. And I think I've also participated in this myth. Wrongly been stated as a Shiba Inu, but was actually an Akita.
This dog who went and waited at the train station every day. Now he did that for his owner while his owner was alive. And the professor, the owner, would come home from the university and the dog would meet him at the train station, walk home with him.
But then the man died. And the dog still went to the train station every day for nine years. So there's a statue of him at that train station in Japan to commemorate this tremendous loyalty of this Akita dog.
That's kind of interesting. Similarly, in our own Greek myths that we study in school, Odysseus, in the story of Homer, the poet, Odysseus leaves and he goes off to war and he's gone for like 10 years fighting the Trojan War. And then it takes him like, I don't know, seven or 10 or some long, long, long time to travel a very short distance to get home again because he made the gods mad and he's cursed and he's sent to an island for years.
Anyway, he finally gets back some 20 years later and he's disguised as a beggar and he shows up in town and nobody recognizes him except his dog. It's actually really sad because then his dog dies right there. But his dog recognizes him and wags his tail.
And that's how everyone knows it's him. So powerful stories that are actually accurate. And I was thinking about this and, you know, even though there's a species thing and I've asked you to consider that for the riddle of the day, which animal do you think holds a grudge the longest? Well, you might think it's your cat or somebody else's cat who just hates your kid because your kid once stepped on his tail or something like that, right? Well, in dogs, breeds are very different.
There's a very, very big range in this behavior between breeds. So, for example, if I had Professor Dr. Stanley Korn on the show and someone called in or when we used to travel together touring with the books, someone would ask, you know, I have a Down syndrome child who's sometimes too rough but loves dogs. What dog would you recommend for me? And he'd always say the same thing.
And I'd be like, are you sure? Because it's a very high energy dog, right? And they like to escape and you need a really solid fence and you don't want fence running. So you need some kind of visual barrier between you and neighbors or passersby. I mean, there's a few things with beagles and they're extremely food motivated.
So you've got to watch out for that. That kind of ties in with our email of the day. I hate having to show my empty hands to my perpetually hungry dog like I'm some Vegas blackjack dealer.
I wonder what kind of dog that is. It might be a beagle. So anyway, he always recommends beagles because they will forgive and forget.
Maybe they remember because I've noticed a beagle will remember that a squirrel was in a tree here at Camp Good Dog last year when he was here at Easter, comes back this year at Easter and the same dog is barking at the same tree and the scent is long gone and the squirrel is long gone. But the dog thinks it's still there because he remembers finding a squirrel there. So I do think, I do think they remember, but they have a forgive and forget attitude about it.
Beagles do. Now pugs on the other hand, I would suggest don't even remember. Okay.
Now I'm not slighting the pug. I love a good cuddle with a pug. I've never met a pug I didn't want to greet and I've never had a bad greeting with a pug ever, even in the hospital, even in the vet hospital when they're not in such good shape, right? When I was a vet tech, even then, all the pugs are always friendly.
Okay. So puggy puggy, lovely. But part of that is they really lack in memory.
And honestly, I mean, you can love pugs and admit this, that your pug took a long time to learn its name. You can admit that and you can admit that it took a long time to learn to sit and all the other things that a Jack Russell would learn in less than 15 minutes and need only one review to have permanently locked in its brain, sit, come, its name, that sort of thing, right? Pug might take six months to learn that. And if you didn't review it, it might forget.
So, um, so there's a dog who forgives and forgets, but can't handle the same kind of pummeling that a beagle can handle. A beagle is a really sturdy dog. So if the kid steps on it by accident, it's probably going to be okay.
Smaller dogs might break something, right? If a kid is handling it, the dog is rough and tumble like the kid, but he would never recommend a poodle for this type of situation. Even though poodles a wonderful dog and super sensitive and able to sense a child's needs, very good for certain kinds of kids and certain service requirements, particularly autistic kids. A poodle has, um, ability to understand and intuit human needs and fit into the human family like a pack in a very eloquent way without much training.
So any training you give it is just extra. And so I've trained dogs where they ended up being placed with kids with seizures to detect seizures, things like that. Poodles are great for that kind of precision work, especially when they're respected.
But if a poodle is ever disrespected and a poodle who is mishandled by a rough child will think it's been disrespected, it will never forget that. It's whole life. So when we talk about animals holding grudges, it's not really a grudge.
It's a safety memory. You hurt me. I put a fence between me and you.
I keep distance. You hurt me. I remember.
So it's not so much a grudge. On the other hand, some of these examples I have where we're going to talk about later when we solve the riddle. The reason we know the animal remembered is because it attacked.
Someone wronged it. And a long time later, karma. Yeah.
The animal struck back. So we'll talk about that later in the show. We're going to go to a break and when we come back, I'll solve that dog problem for John Menzies.
Stay tuned on Animal Party Pet Life Radio. Hello, we're back on Animal Party on Pet Life Radio with me, Deb Wolf. And I love it when you send me your emails and your messages, whether it's at YouTube or Facebook or here, Deb at Pet Life Radio.
It doesn't matter. I always get them. And I love it when you ask me a solid question like this.
I hate having to show my empty hands to my perpetually hungry dog like I'm some Vegas blackjack dealer. John. Okay, John, here's the thing.
Bunch of things going on here. First of all, the dog's not perpetually hungry. Just in case he is, get some deworm medicine, deworm him.
If it's the mild stuff, do it once, do it 10 days later. If it's a pill, follow your vet's instructions. Now you've ruled that out.
He should not be hungry when he's eaten the proper amount. Okay. I have no photograph of this dog, but I'm guessing, I'm guessing it's a portly fella.
I'm guessing he's not trim. But anyway. Okay.
So we ruled out the hungry thing, not hungry. Why is he acting hungry? Perhaps it's the only trick you've taught him. Okay.
So we need other tricks. So step it up when you're watching TV, when you're doing something, playing music, whatever it is you're doing. Maybe you're on your phone posting videos and sending emails to people like me.
In between, force yourself to take a break. Whether it's when you go to get a drink or a snack, or when you go to use the washroom, there's natural breaks, but force yourself to take a break. And when you take a break, make your dog do something.
It doesn't even matter what, anything. Just call him over, by his name, tell him to sit, tell him to lie down, tell him to shake paw, make him do it. It doesn't matter if he doesn't even know what you're asking.
Just make him do the thing and then tell him how good he is. If you choose that for the evening, say you choose shake paw as your trick for tonight, and I'm assuming he already knows that because that's one that dogs pull out to get food rewards, but let's say he doesn't. So today, every time tonight, while you're watching TV, every time there's a commercial, instead of fast forwarding through it, you take that time to make him sit and shake paw, and each time you just tell him how good he is and you give him a little kiss and a cuddle, and then you ignore him until the next break.
And you do it again. You know, and the whole time the commercial's running, sit, paw, good boy, shake paw, good boy, good boy. Okay.
And maybe at the end of the evening, you give him a treat for that. Maybe. But before you give him the treat, say the word, you're getting a cookie or whatever it is you call it.
You're getting a picky. It's treat time. Whatever it is, give it an introduction.
And then you go get that treat. And then you give the treat. Now he is signaled.
Okay. That means treat. So we've just done a few things here.
We've given him lots to do because tomorrow you're going to give him a lie down command and the next day you're going to give him a rollover command. And the next day you're going to give him a get your toy command. And before long, your dog's going to have a whole boatload of tricks to show you to have some interaction with you, or he does something and he gets told how good he is.
And he does something and he gets told how good he is. It's so fun. You can introduce find, you can hide things.
That's fun too. All right. So now your dog's got some purpose besides just give me a treat.
Thank you. Give me a treat. Thank you.
Which is just going to lead to obesity. Okay. So you got something else going on and you're signaling when it's treat time.
So he's not spending his whole waking life watching your hands going. Is it, is it time? Is it time? Is it, is it time? I wonder if it's time. Is it time? Now, if he's a Beagle or a Basset or a Hound Dog of any kind, he's very food motivated anyway, and he's also motivated for that initial spark, that rabbit popping out of the hole, that squirrels chattering in the tree, that initial spot, that bird, bird dogs are like this too, the initial flash of wings or the initial sound of a bird, and then they flush it out for you.
Okay. So he's, he's waiting for the moment, waiting for the moment, waiting for the moment, and that's why the signal is what you want. So he stops watching your hands.
At the moment, the signal is your hand with a treat. And some dogs will take this a little far and be kind of snappy. You definitely don't want that.
If he ever snaps, no treat, walk away. Don't get a treat when they're snapping. Try again later.
They have to be polite. Okay, John, I hope that helps. If you got any more problems, and I kind of think you might, send me another follow-up question, I'd love to hear it.
And I'd love a picture of the dog. If you're sending me questions, it's always great to see a photograph of the dog, and if you'll let us post it, we will. And just some, some information, you know, how long have you had it? How old is it? Is it spayed or neutered? What's the story? Was it a rescue? Was it a, you know, pampered? What do I need to know if it's doing something like this? Like maybe John has other people in the house who feed the dog all the time.
I don't know. I'm not getting a lot of background here. Maybe there's toddlers with Cheerios on playthings and the dog is just constantly the cleanup crew.
I really don't know. So I need more information, everybody. Okay.
But, but for now, I think we've solved that. Now I was watching TV and I saw an interview with Michelle Pfeiffer and she was, normally I might not watch that. I'm not really interested in celebrities and their projects when they do these talk shows and they just sort of, I guess they're obligated to promote the project, so they just plug it.
I never really, I usually fast forward through that part, but she started talking about wolves on a set she was working on, so wait a minute. Okay. Pause.
Stop fast forwarding. Rewind. Listen to this.
All right. So here's what she said, which is like so wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
Sorry, Michelle, but you are wrong. They were wrong. They told you wrong.
All right. So Michelle Pfeiffer said she was on this set where they work with wolves and the wolves are a little bit dog, but mostly wolf and they train them and they, they're big, tall, sort of look like big, tall huskies or big, tall German shepherds, but very, very big, very tall. Anyway, so she wanted to meet one of the ones that she's working with on set.
And she said, she asked the trainer, can I go, can I go pet it? Can I go talk to it? And the trainer said, yes, but you're not wearing leather, are you? And so Michelle Pfeiffer asked, well, what would be the problem with leather? And the trainer said, oh, it makes him sad. Okay. So this made the conversation that I overheard that was played on TV, steer toward why a wolf would be sad about the killing of another animal and why he might think Michelle Pfeiffer or anyone wearing leather was perhaps a killer.
If they were wearing leather, some kind of vegan idea of animal behavior that doesn't really match up. So here's why that's wrong. The reason a dog or a wolf or any animal would react to something like that, any carnivorous animal who also hunts and doesn't mind cows being killed or, or squirrels or rats or whatever a wolf might, a deer, whatever they might eat.
It doesn't mind this. It doesn't mind the smells of hides and other things associated with its main source of food and how it survives. Obviously, right? Why would it be upset by a person wearing leather? Well, because somebody somewhere wearing leather did that animal wrong or did a wrong to an animal while it witnessed it or it heard about it or it saw it or it felt it, or it was in the same area and the vibes were all there.
Yeah, that's what happens. It's not a grudge. It's not the fear of a hunter.
No, respect for a hunter would be a wolf's attitude. No, no, no. What it is, is somebody wasn't right with that animal and that person wore leather.
So I've had this before. I had a German shepherd who was afraid of anyone with a hat because a trainer had used an electric shock collar on him improperly while wearing a baseball hat. Well, you can imagine trying to walk that dog if you're the new owner and you're in a park and he's scared and reacting and aggressive and cagey with every person you meet wearing a baseball hat.
Good Lord, that's tough. So they hire someone like me to put the hats all around the ground and train the dog to be chill around hats and wear the hat myself and even have the dog wear the hat and have its favorite people wear the hat until it gets it through its head that hats aren't the problem. That particular man was the problem.
People with hats are all right. So that's what I did with that dog and many, many others. All right, Michelle.
So hopefully you'll be better informed. And I wish these trainers understood the animals they were working with just a little better. We're going to go away to break, but when we come back, I will solve the riddle.
And also I want to talk about manatee. Okay. Stay tuned on Animal Party, Pet Life Radio.
Hello, we're back on Animal Party, Pet Life Radio. Manatee. Do you know what a manatee is? It's a sea cow.
Sort of looks like a walrus, no tusks, big fat thing that kind of swims roly-poly turning over in the water. They're super cool. They're chill.
They're like the most laid back, easy going thing. And they eat seagrass. That's what they do.
They lumber around slowly in the shallows and eat seagrass. They're incredible creatures and they're all over Florida. So I've had a lot of encounters with them.
Actually, I've, I've touched them. I've used brushes to clean them. I've given them water.
All these encounters happened before the public was told not to do those things before we knew that we should not encounter them and not make them more tame with people, but they on the West coast of Florida, off the island of Captiva, they are extremely tame and it's quite hard to resist. They come in at night to the coves and they just all in a big group and you can hear them breathing at night. It's just so rhythmic.
They'll, you can hear them breathing and it's just, it's just beautiful. So one night my sister and I, when we were, I guess, tweens, young, walked over there to see the manatee at night and, uh, heard this beautiful music coming from a tiki hut on the, near a parking lot by some trailers and we walked over and there was a crowd of people and it turned out Willie Nelson was sitting there playing music. So we got to hear a little bit of Willie Nelson while we listened to the manatees in the background.
It was a beautiful moment, but why am I mentioning all this? Well, they are an endangered species and they get hit by boats all the time. And the fertilizer runoff kills the seagrass they depend on. So like 1200 were lost in one go because of that last year.
And what's happening now with the change in the laws and the Endangered Species Act in the United States is it raises the burden of proof on pollution. And so the economic impact is now considered more important than the value of animals, whereas before this, this law is about the absolute opposite. So we've spent 50 years struggling to bring back the manatee and now it looks like they're going to be really in danger if they allow everybody to pollute the water and run off the golf courses and not worry about restrictions to boating and marine life that we need.
So Florida, if you're listening, you got to act to protect the manatee. There were 1200 remaining in the seventies and the population's grown. But like I say, they lost 1200 in one go.
So it's really dire and they're a beautiful animal. If you ever get a chance to go somewhere where you know you're going to see manatee, it's totally worth it. It's totally worth it.
Give it a shot. Okay. So I want to give a shout out to a recycling worker here in my neck of the woods, a little town called Abbotsford.
It's a city, has an airport and I fly out of there actually when I go to Florida, but it's, um, it's a small place with a lot of farms and a lot of suburban areas and some big giant malls, you know, pretty typical, it's flatlands and it borders with the United States, the Sumas Prairie and a little further along would be Bellingham. So it gives you an idea of what it's like. You can see Mount Baker and you're on Prairie Flatland and there's a beautiful Fraser River winding through it.
Lovely place. Okay. So there's a guy there working at the recycling depot and lucky for everyone, he wasn't wearing earbuds because he heard two tiny kittens in cardboard and in the big cardboard giant bin that was about to get squashed.
So he stopped everything and he rescued them. And then he found a third later and then three days later, two more. So all of them went to a shelter and they all had respiratory infections.
And once they're two pounds, they're so small. Oh my gosh. Once they're two pounds at about six weeks, if they're healthy, they'll be available.
So if you're listening, check out the SPCA in Abbotsford. But, but this was, this was such a lucky break for those kittens. If you're getting rid of animals and you can't afford them anymore, don't drown them, don't kill them, don't put them in the garbage, take them to a shelter and walk in the door.
If you tell them you can't afford them and you leave the animal and you walk out, they will take them. If you leave them at the front door before they open, they are not going to do well. There are a lot of predators who wait just for that.
Plus there's heat and starvation and dehydration and all the many things that can befall an animal if it's not tended to. So please don't do that. So before we end this show, I got to tell you who holds the grudge the longest.
Well, recently they found that crows, 17 years, crows hold a grudge. So they'll attack a person who was mean to them 17 years later. That's a very long time.
Now, orcas and chimps also will attack a person who was mean to them 10 years later and 20 years later. So decades later, but elephants, elephants take the cake. 30 to 40 years later, they will attack someone who wronged them.
Now, when I think of this though, and I take in the standard poodle example, if a standard poodle only lives to the age of 11 or 12 and he will still remember the wrong at 11 or 12. I mean, that's a lifelong memory. That's a lifelong memory.
And I would suggest these animals, if you're mean enough to them, they'll remember it for life. So be good to your animals, everybody. From Animal Party and Pet Life Radio and me, Jabba Wolf.
Ciao Meow.