June 13, 2017 • 49 mins
If you've ever been to an international airport, you've probably seen one of the keenest spotters of illegal contraband - The Beagle Brigade! These cute dogs aren't after drugs or bombs, they're carefully trained to sniff out agricultural products. Learn all about this furry group of crime stoppers in today's episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Attention anyone with access to an airplane. We're going to
be in North America for our North American two thousand
seventeen Stuff you Should Know Live tour, and we're kicking
it off in Toronto August eight, in Chicago August nine.
Then we're gonna take a little break and hit Vancouver
on September and Minneapolis on September. Yep. Then we're doing
(00:25):
Austin October and Lawrence, Kansas October eleven, and then finally
we're gonna finish up October at the Three Nights Stand
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Home in Atlanta for a special benefit charity show on
November four at the Bucket Theater. YEP. You can get
all the info you need and buy tickets at our
(00:47):
other live show home on the web s y s
K live dot com. Go check it out and we'll
see you guys starting in August. Welcome to Stuff you
Should Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and
(01:08):
welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh close Ark, There's Charles W.
Chuck Bryant, Jerry, Jerome Roland's over there. So this is
Stuff you Should Know. The Beagle Brigade edition. Yes, and
another I guess we covered drug sniffers. Yeah, but not
(01:33):
or did we do Seeing Eye dogs as well? We did, remember,
because Seeing Eye Dogs is actually a brand name. It's
one of those, uh like a band aid, yeah, Kleenex
or something. That one was that was a great one. Yeah.
So I mean, is this the last job that dogs have?
You know? We we didn't cover dogs that service pack
(01:54):
animals yet. So oh that's right. Yeah, like Herder's Yeah,
they'd be good, or Lumbarde act dogs. Oh that's true,
that's right, or dogs that are sous chefs. Right. So yeah,
we've got a big, big, long sweet coming. I thought
it was done. Sorry, no, no, but this one might
be the most adorable of all of them. Yeah, and
(02:16):
this one was. I was always confused. I always thought
the beagles at the airport, because as you will learn,
Atlanta is they're they're trained here outside of Atlanta. But
I thought that that the beagles were. I just thought
they were drug sniffers everything sniffers. Oh I see No,
(02:38):
you could have a big old suitcase full of cocaine
and walk right past that dog and be like, um,
well that's good to know, you know, sure for the
next time you're smuggling cocaine. Yeah, once you once you
make a pest of beagle, you're home free. But don't
have a head of lettus, no, because those beagles will
pounce on your neck and chew your throat it out.
(03:01):
Don't have a whole hog. Can you believe that story? Totally?
So this one was I think it was in Atlanta,
that Hartsfield Jackson Airport and there was a woman traveling
from Peru to the United States with a roasted pig,
(03:22):
an entire roasted pig in her bag. And I mean
it was very sweet. You know, she was just trying
to bring home a holiday meal for her family. It
was Thanksgiving, I think, right, Yes, she smuggled in the
roasted big yeah. And it wasn't a little little you know,
it was big. Well, they have pigs tend to be.
I mean, it didn't say a suckling pig, a pig.
(03:44):
I assumed it was a big old pig. It was
a picture of it. Oh yeah, that's right, but it was.
It was a good sized pig. Yeah. The guy. Rob Brisley,
public affairs officer, said the right steps had to be
taken to confiscate and destroy the item and then the
Senate stop. But I imagine he said with our mouths
right with with extreme vengeance. So anyway, I mean that's
(04:08):
just one example. Yeah, and we should we should probably
say exactly what we're talking about for those people who
haven't been to an international airport in the United States.
But there is a group of working dogs that are
exclusively beagles, hence the name the Beagle Brigade from what
I understand, although I did see reference that they do
use labs sometimes, but I'm pretty sure it's almost exclusively beagles,
(04:32):
if not exclusively beagles. And these dogs have a job.
They're actually federal agents with the U s d A,
the Department of Agriculture, no or not the d e
A either, but their federal their federal agents, and they
are Their whole job is to sniff out agricultural products UM.
(04:54):
And the whole point of all of this is that
the US UM has a pretty densive agriculture infrastructure, right,
and if something comes through, Say that's a a pest, right,
like a bug that eats um, what do we grow here? Cotton?
(05:15):
Cotton we evil? But from another country? Right, So a
non native pest or non native plant or a diseased bat. Okay,
it could wreak havoc not just on our agriculture system,
but if if the wrong kind of thing comes through,
Like there's there's procedures in place for for food to
(05:36):
come into the United States, you're not supposed to carry
it in your luggage because it has to be inspected.
It has to come from a trusted source. We have
to know that it doesn't have something like hoofing math
disease or a bowl or something like that. Right, Yeah,
I mean it says in't here are in our own
article that it's a one trillion dollar industry, our own
(05:57):
agricultural agricultural product industry, and that's import export, eating it,
producing it. Um an invasive species can be a hundred
says about a hundred thirty six billion dollars in agricultural
lost revenue um IS that annually, I believe, so man, So,
(06:18):
I mean that's that's a lot of economy at stake here.
So they take it very seriously. Right. So there's this
group um so the U s t A, the Department
of Agriculture here in the US. Um IS has a
subgroup called APHIS, which is the um animal plant Animal
and Plant Health Inspection Service, and they're the ones who
(06:40):
are casket with basically creating this virtual border, this virtual
barrier um to stuff coming in the US to protect
agriculture in the US, right, like the notorious Romanian cotton weevil, right, exactly,
exactly the most insidious of all, and specifically at international airports,
(07:03):
working in conjunction with the Customs Bureau CPD customers and
no CBP right, Customs and Border Patrol. You've got these cute,
adorable little beagles who are trained to sniff this stuff
out from people who are trying to smuggle whole pigs
into the into the country when they're not supposed to.
Bless that lady. I felt bad for you know, yeah,
(07:27):
I mean I get it, sure, but I mean there's
no way she did not cry when when the agriculture
inspector took her whole pig she's going to feed to
her family with a waste of food. She works so
hard on that chuck. It might have been like her
favorite family pig that she was waiting, but it was babe.
(07:51):
Babe gave his life. Uh So you want to talk
a little bit about these the history here, because it
did not UM agricultural agriculture dogs or agricultural detection did
not start in the US. It actually started in Mexico. Yeah,
I guess was probably the early seventies. I did. I
(08:14):
could not find when it started, but yeah, we know
it's definitely prior to the seventies because based on this,
I guess it was a U s d A training
manual that was referencing it. It picks up then in
the late seventies that the U s d A started this. Yeah,
and then up until three we use UM. We use
big dogs, you know, like typically, and I think we
(08:37):
covered this and a lot of the other like drug
sniffers like German shepherds and UM labs are certainly good,
but they are UH labs aren't so intimidating, but German
shepherds can be. Even though I love them, I grew
up with them. UM, A lot of people the side
of a German shepherd coming at them in an airport
is a little scary. Yeah, I mean, and some people
(08:58):
have sinophobia, which is a fear of dogs specifically, and
in which case even the smallest dogs going to scare you.
But even people who don't have an actual phobia of
dogs are going to be scared of certain breeds and
that definitely includes German shepherds for sure. So it started
in Mexico and then uh, finally in nine four, uh,
the U s d A U s d A started
(09:20):
at l A x UM started, which is probably a
pretty good airport to pick for a for a pilot program,
not a airplane pilot program, although I'm sure they had those.
Did you hear about the King of the Netherlands. They
found out that he has been secretly undercover moonlighting as
(09:41):
a KLM airline pilot for fun for like the last
like once a week, um, for like the last twentysomething years,
and has been flying. Yeah he's yeah, that's what I'm saying.
Like he's been undercover flying, uh, not as the King
of the Netherlands, just trying to have a life of
his own. I thought you met like Leo DiCaprio, didn't
(10:01):
catch me if you can, he just pretended to be
a pilot to get based and fake checks. You're a king,
you can't be a pilot. Wow. So was he was
did he come clean or was he outed? I guess
he was outed. And he said from time to time
somebody would recognize him, but he'd just have them um kidnapped,
kidnaps and killed rendered. That's pretty crazy. Yeah, well, good
(10:26):
for him. Yeah they should just let him fly, you know,
I think, I think so they're gonna work it out, probably,
I hope. So. If not, that guy's one outlet has
been taken away from well, so his pilot program is
maybe failing. But the pilot program in l A X
worked great, and they m this was a big deal
(10:48):
at the time too. It was a big change from
any kind of detection programs that they had at the time.
I don't know why it took that long, but because
dogs are, you know, obviously well known snow first to
the tune of I mean, compared to humans, how many
millions of olfactory nerves the dogs have? I know it varies.
(11:10):
So somewhere somewhere in the middle is the docks and
I didn't see the beagles specifically, but supposedly beagles are
about average as far as scenting goes, which is surprising
to me. But the docks and has a hundred and
twenty five million olfactory receptors amazing, and humans have five
million on average. And I know the dogs even there
(11:31):
the size of their nose can make a difference. So
I was a little surprised they picked beagles. But one
of the big reasons is a the Navy had used
them previously, uh to great success. And be like you said,
you know, they're they're little, they're cute, so they're not
gonna scare anyone at the airport. Uh. And they can
they're agile. There's because they're small, and they can jump
(11:53):
around on a conveyor belt like nobody's business to find
that Romanian cotton weevil. Right. Sometimes they'll find just enough
fruit that they'll make a little head dress out of it,
like Carmen Miranda. Nothing cure, that's a bagle in one
of those Um. Well. The other cool thing about the
dogs and their their sniffing abilities is uh, it's like
(12:18):
you can't disguise something like if you if you have
of course uh. I was about to say drugs again.
But if you have, Let's say you want to sneak
in that cotton weevil and you think I'm gonna hide
in and a can of coffee. Actually that might be
you might not be able to bring in coffee either,
now that I think about it. I was just trying
to think of something with a strong odor um a
bottle of perfume. The dog will be able to pick
(12:42):
that out of that perfume, right, we'll be able to
almost geo locate it. Uh, because they don't, they don't
get confused like we do. Yeah, so you know how
like a dog can when you when you watch a
dog on a scent, it's just kind of like sniffing
back and forth in the air is as So what
it's doing is it's it's basically the same thing with
(13:03):
our vision, right, the information is getting from one nostril
and the other nostril. It's brain is putting together to
create basically like a three D map of where that
smell is coming from. Just like the the information from
one eye compared to the information coming into our other
eye gives us an idea of like depth, right, or perspective,
(13:25):
that kind of thing. So it's basically the same thing,
but with their old factory sense um and the put
on top of that is the fact that they can
distinguish sense. Like this article, this U S d A
manual said, when you walk into a kitchen and you
smell chili, you smell chili, right, Chili's cooking. Put it
(13:47):
all together. It's chili. That's what you smell is the
sum of all the parts. Yeah, you know, if you're good,
you might be able to pick out a thing or
two maybe like you know, like do I detect Yeah,
some cumans, But um, a dog will walk in there
and smell every single one of the ingredients separately, right,
which is why you can't just take something and try
(14:08):
to overpower the smell of it with something else. The
dog will smell the thing that you're using to try
to overpower with, but it will also smell the other scent.
Apparently they can smell this thing says they can smell
table salt in a dilution of one part to ten
million parts. That's amazing, Isn't that crazy? That is crazy.
(14:28):
That's also why if you've ever taken your dog to
a new um, like a new really new environment that
they've never been to, like the beach. For instance, when
I took I think a couple of years ago, we
did a beach vacation and took our dogs and uh,
they were going crazy, Like they walk them down to
the beach and it was just nose in the air.
(14:49):
Because you know, there's always a good breeze or usually
a good breeze on the beach. And I can imagine
they were just they were smelling these just hundreds and
hundreds of things that they've never smelled before. Yeah. Uh,
And it's pretty neat to see, and you kind of
wonder what's going on. And that lunkhead of theirs, you know,
ca'se one luckhead and one smart one. I've seen before.
(15:10):
Um that when a dog is sniffing out a tree,
what you're watching them do is sniff you know, the
tree itself, but also every single insect in that tree,
every bird in that tree, everything that's in that tree.
Right then that dog is smelling that. Yeah. And and
and I think it definitely varies because obviously some dogs
are better, like hunting dogs and such. And the my
(15:32):
new dog, Nico, we think maybe part plothound. What's there
just like a you know, a hound. Okay, I mean
you can look up platound and it looks like my dog. Okay, alright,
but like a mix of a plathound. But I think
that they're like really good um sent dogs too, because she,
more so than other dogs I've had, is really driven
(15:53):
by her nose and when you let her out, she's
got her nose to the ground like for quite a while.
I was reading today about scent tracking, and apparently it's
something like some people like to do agility stuff with
their dog, or other people do like obedience like competitions
and stuff, and then other people and apparently this also
is a really good thing to do. If you found
(16:14):
your your dog is like no good at obedience, they
might actually love scent tracking because unlike the obedience stuff
or the agility stuff, when you're when you're scent tracking,
the dog is totally in charge, like you're basically following
the dog, but you're doing it together, especially during training
as well. Well, you know, they say if your dog
(16:36):
has behavioral problems, and a lot of times that means
they have a job that they're not being they're not
allowed to do. Oh yeah, that makes sense. You know,
Like if you have a herding dog that doesn't have
a herd, then that might be a big pain in
your butt until you can find a way to kind
of let them. I don't know, they can not necessarily
(16:56):
part time as a hurter, but do something that acts
as a hurder, you know, might as well make some
money off of it. Uh, you wanna take a little break.
M all right, We're gonna take a break and get
back to the beagles right after this. M alright, chuck,
(17:25):
So we're back. So we were talking basically about dogs
in general, but since the U. S d A has
been training beagles for its Beagle Brigade, right, which is
this frontline covering America's agricultural infrastructure. That is correct. So
um I was very heartened to learn from researching this
(17:47):
that the beagle Brigades, specifically with the U. S d A,
all of them come from shelters. They're all shelter animals. Yeah,
and you know what, it kind of makes sense. At first,
I just thought it was out of the kind of
of their heart that they wouldn't like support the dog
buying industry, but they they a lot of times just
get problem dogs, these beagles that are so like you know,
(18:11):
up in the business in your pantry or your refrigerator,
or sniffing out your shoes so they can chew them up.
People will you know, uh, well, I have opinions on this,
but people will turn that dog back in or whatever
to be adopted, hopefully from a no kill shelter. Very
so then that's a that's a big point that this
(18:32):
um USD a spokesperson makes in the House to Works
article is like a lot of people are saying, I'm
not quite sure how I feel about this. You guys
are using these dogs as tools basically, UM, and I
don't know. I don't think dogs should be used that way.
And the the u s d's responses what a lot
of these dogs would would basically be put down if
(18:54):
it weren't for us. You know, they would be euthanized
because they can't they're too hyper to to live with
a family. But there's exactly the kind of temperament we
need for what we're having them do. So actually it's
win win for everybody. Well yeah, and and as much
as I love my dogs laying around in bed with me,
(19:15):
um a happy dog, it's a dog that's working and exercising, um.
And then at the end of the night they get
to relax. But you know, it's easy to and we
we cover some of this and uh and seeing eye
dogs and stuff, it's easy to be like, oh man,
that dog doesn't get to have fun all day, and
that's just not true at all. These dogs have a
purpose and they Uh, they're good at what they do.
(19:36):
Is so I don't don't think of it as like
using this dog as a tool UM in a bad way,
you know, right. And then on the other end of it,
if the dog is brought into the program and they
find out that the dog doesn't have what it takes, UM,
maybe it doesn't work very well amidst chaos that like
an airport always has, or um, perhaps the the the
(20:02):
dog just seems unhappy. They say, if the dog seems unhappy,
they'll retire it early. Uh. At any rate, they have
apparently a record of adopting out their beagles and there's
a waitlist right now, UM to adopt these beagles that
have have worked for you know, several years or or
(20:23):
didn't work, didn't make it, but you know, entered into
the program. They don't return them to shelters, they don't
euthanize them. They adopt them out. And apparently the USDA
has a hundred percent adoption record on that, which is
pretty outstanding. Yeah. And as with a lot of service dogs, UM,
their first uh, their handlers given first right of refusal
for adoption, UM, which they do, so you know, but yeah,
(20:47):
I would guess so too, because apparently when the dog
and the handler are paired up together as a team, um,
they they stay a team for the dog's whole career.
It's like like Riggs and Myrtal, right, or Turner and Hooch.
Actually it's not like Ricks and Murtalk because they were
prepared at the very end of Danny Glover's career. So
(21:10):
that was a bad announce. Oh that's right, that's true
because he's too old for that crap. Yes, that was
a big line. Yeah, that was a great line, and
that a TV show. Now, I don't think it is anymore.
Jerry's nodding, but that probably means you're both right short lived.
I think so. I haven't seen any ads for it lately.
(21:31):
What a dumb idea, like, hey, let's dust this thing off.
They do that with everything like twin Peaks even it's like, how,
how come on, how are you going to pick that
back up? Let's just I don't mind that, because that's
just more greatness from David Lynch. Is it any good
I've heard? Not necessarily. I think it's great. I mean
(21:51):
it's uh, I mean, I'm a fan of anything David
Lynch does. It doesn't I didn't expect it to be
exactly what Twin Peaks was. It just feels like a
new TV show from David Lynch to me. Really okay,
you know, yeah, I could be down with that. UM.
All right, so let's get into this. You mentioned handlers.
(22:11):
We've been dancing around this the whole time. You mentioned handlers,
And uh, this, like we said earlier, this takes place
at a place called the National Detector Dog Training Center
the ind d TC, right here in Lovely Noon in Georgia, which,
uh is that west? I think it's south Atlanta, west southwest,
(22:34):
like just down eighty five after it splits off. My
knowledge of my own home state is pretty poor. If
I haven't camped there and it's outside of Atlanta, I
probably don't know exactly where it is. I'm pretty sure
I'm right, okay, southwest. Then let's go with that, um.
And they start training. Like with most service dogs, they
do that initial testing to just sort of see are
(22:57):
they healthy, do they have the right temperament, how's their
behavior here? And that initial screening is where the first
lot gets weeded out. And one of the biggest parts
of that initial weeding out is they have to have
a high food drive. And that's not that doesn't mean
how hungry are they? That means your dog has just
been fed. Those little beagles just eaten, they still have
(23:19):
a high desire to get to where the food is
like bacon, bacon. Basically that's what you're looking for. And
you make a lot of noise and you have crowds
around and you just you're testing their focus. And this
is all just the like I said, the initial screening
to say, all right, little Henry the beagle here has
what it takes, right, we think, yeah, well, yeah, that's
(23:42):
just the start. Can he also learn to differentiate? That's
the big one. That's the next big step, right, So
I think there's like a one or two week like
evaluation UM process. They also like give the dog a
full like veterinarian inspection UM. I believe they spay and
or neuter. I guess not and or specifically not and
(24:05):
or in that case, or they they spay or newter
to the dog. UM. A lot of times the dogs
come in not very good shape because they're shelter dogs.
They probably weren't taken very good care of UM early
in their life, so they may need some sort of
treatment or checkups or whatever. But then after that happens,
(24:26):
the training actually starts and the dogs are trained to scent.
I guess, starting out from what I saw five basic
restricted sense that didn't expect these? Would you know it's
it's rando? Oh is it? No? No, it's random. Oh
I thought they were. I thought there were five cents. No,
(24:48):
there are, And I'm saying that's a pretty random assemblage.
I got you, man, you'd think after nine years together.
But I mean, if you were to have picked five cents,
I probably would have definitely picked beef, pork and citrus.
Does makes sense? I guess I would have picked like monkey,
bat and probably pig two. Yeah, but I mean those
(25:13):
are in there so well, the monkey and the bad aren't.
But um, beef, pork, citrus, the mango. Yeah, that's where
are you threw me? What was the other one? Apple? Apple?
With apple? I didn't even know they grew apples outside
of the United States. I was trying to smuggle an
apple into the US. I don't know. We got the
best ones here, buddy, Just leave him at home. Yeah,
(25:34):
I would love to know why those are the five
basic sense Um, if someone has more information that because
I could not find out. I could not either. There's
a real dearth of um of information on the stuff.
I even emailed the Customs and Border Protection today because
I could not, for the life of me find the
name of that first beagle that that started out at
(25:57):
L A X. Cannot find anywhere that somebody forgot to
write it down. So no one knows you're being tracked
now probably Oh yeah, I've been looking up like, you know,
restricted items, agriculture, invasive species, stuff like that. I'm sure
I'm on a list, all right. So they teach them
(26:18):
those uh, well, this is you know, towards the end,
is when they know this five basic sents. At first,
there just basically teaching them how to sniff through bags
and suitcases and boxes and making sure they can. You know,
they'll throw a they'll throw a goat head in a
suitcase and send it through in noon in and you laugh.
(26:39):
But one of them found a goat head not too
long ago. So it happens, um and they just make
sure they can do that, and they eventually and then
of course they have to differentiate, like there's a lot
of things that are scented, like those things that are
just fine, like an orange perfume. Right. Well, that's another
that's a gotta be kind of tough to learn for
a dog too. Is the difference between you know, orange
(27:01):
scented stuff for things that are made with like say,
orange essence, like a a candy or a lip bomb
or something like that, and an actual orange Because the
lip bomb, no problem. Actual orange you've got a problem,
that's right. And once they've done this, this is about
a oh, a few months, probably ten to thirteen weeks
(27:23):
UM and this is uh and they're being trained in
regular like how to paw that stuff and and alert
and uh sitting responses like all of this is one
big learning period and the handler is getting trained as
well obviously. But at the end of this is when
they finally do graduate to those five basic sense um.
(27:44):
And I guess see what I don't get it from
the basic senses? Is it from those sense that they
can smell anything? No, that's crazy. That's what I thought too. There,
That's that's what it implies. Like if you put together
apple and pig and the mango, you've got like bad.
But that's not the case. Like each thing has its
own scent. I don't know if those are like the
(28:07):
most commonly smuggled ones. Possibly maybe so those are the
ones they need to start out with. Maybe they're the
easiest ones. I don't know, but I yeah, if you
put those things together, especially if a dog smells in
layers right and differentiates between sins, it's not gonna smell
the combined sent of those things. That's gonna smell each thing.
So I'm not sure why those are the five basic ones.
(28:28):
Can't find out this one was a stone wall. I mean,
like we're professional researchers here, and like we really ran
into a wall. Who would have known that the beagle
brigade is what would throw us, it would break us.
Uh So they've learned all these sense they've learned how
to alert, they're getting treats, are getting positive reinforcement along
the way. Yeah, that's a big one to the entire
(28:50):
training is strictly positive reinforcement. Yeah, they don't they don't
beat these dogs down. They're not smelling correctly. They have
like they spend ten grand a month on newspaper to
roll up teach these dogs lessons puppy bounder. Uh So
once they once they've gone through all of that, um,
everyone knows I'm joking, right, yeah, And if you're new
(29:13):
to the podcast and don't just don't even bother emailing.
We're great animal lovers here. Um. So, once they've they've
gone through this whole training process, they finally graduate, they
get their little diploma, their little hat and their little robe,
and they graduate from noon In and they get to
move to the big city Atlanta or anywhere any international airport,
(29:36):
but Atlanta certainly is a large one for sure. Um.
And so once they get to their home base airport
that they're going to be working at, they're still evaluated
and trained for another sometimes ten to thirteen weeks. YEA.
Training is kind of ongoing from what I saw too
like career, you know, yeah, there's there's not like the okay,
(29:56):
stop learning dog, Yeah you know too much. UM. But
the I think the initial training period they're they're basic
training still can go on for another ten to thirteen
weeks after they get to the airport. And even once
they get to the airport, that doesn't necessarily mean that
they're going to, um stay in the program again. Once
(30:18):
they're finally introduced to the chaos of an international airport,
that dog might just be like this is not for me,
send me back to noon In. Yeah, you know, you
can try to duplicate that chaos and noon In, but yeah,
good luck, you just can't. I mean even you just can't.
There's nothing like a busy airport. You can't recreate that.
(30:39):
So some dogs are fine with it, some dogs are not.
But again, one of the main reasons why they're choosing
beagles is because it is so chaotic and these dogs
are their whole thing is they're not there like a
male processing facility. They're not there like a border crossing.
There there at a busy airport, and they're they're meant
to be able to kind know, weave in and out
(31:01):
of this the crowd while also being non threatening and
also being lovable too. Like that's not that's not by
accident that they chose these incredibly adorable dogs. The U
s d A says that the Beagle Brigade is basically
like a walking lovable advertiser for what they're trying to do,
which is protect agriculture here in the US. Yeah, they
have a little vest, says Beagle Brigade, And uh, everyone
(31:25):
using OZ and some people if you're not, this is
probably how they do it. If you're not actively ooing
and eyeing, and you're standing there sweating heavily. Then the
dog keys in on you. So I'd be in big trouble.
And I don't know if you said it or not,
if you did it and catch it. But the dogs
are trained, um to walk up to to locate a
(31:46):
contraband item and sit at the bag. Yeah, yeah, they.
I thought they attacked the person first. It's called the
passive indicating but rather than I saw in this article,
it says they pawed at the every awhere else I
saw that, they just sit and and kind of look
at the person like shame on you, exactly. It's very
(32:07):
passive aggressive way to out somebody for a goat head
in their two kids. Right, oh yeah, man, you read
my mom. All right, we're gonna do that and we're
gonna finish up here with a big o brigade. M
(32:35):
all right. So what happens at the end of a
long day, Josh the dog? Um? Most beagles enjoy a
good pipe, maybe a scotch in an easy chair, UM,
perhaps a cigar tip. They sure they tend to watch CNN.
I'll of if you watch Fox News, UM, and they
fall asleep a little drunk. That's what they do every night.
(32:59):
It's their routine, and that's what beagles like. Oh no,
that's our routine at our clubhouse where we live. Uh. Weirdly,
and this kind of surprised me. I guess it's not
weird now they've seen the explanation. But I was surprised
to learn that they're kindled. I thought that they I thought.
I guess I thought they lived with their handler. Yeah,
(33:19):
because canine police dogs live at their handlers. I thought
it was weird too. But they're kindled. Uh. They have
a facility near the airport. Um. Some people have asked, like,
can can I just keep this dog at night and
then take them to work every morning? Uh? And they
say no, They said this is actually best for everyone.
They need their rest. I imagine they have a good
(33:41):
play together. I doubt if they just like drive them
straight there and put them in the crate. You know,
it's probably a little social scene going on. I hope, So,
I hope they don't like get scolded from making eye
contact with the other working dogs they live with. No,
they put in their eight hours, they come home, they
probably play a bit, and then they're kindled. Overnight. Uh.
And they said that they you know, they need this
(34:04):
rest time, uh, in order to do their job successfully.
And like I said, a happy dog is the dog
that feels good about its work. And you said, Chuck,
some people ask if they can take them home, you
should specify, like that's not the agents actually like people
at the airport, I know, like, can I just take
him home for the night and you guys can come
be at on tomorrow or all. You can bring them back.
(34:25):
I don't only live like five minutes away. Yeah, sure
that we'll just get your give me your cell phone number.
That sounds great. So it does make sense, um that, Yeah,
they they are left to just kind of rest. And
I'm sure that they actually live at the airport, which
is funny. It's like that movie Terminal with Tom Hanks.
It says a nearby facility. You think it's actually there?
I'm sure. Yeah. Um, did you know that movie Terminal
(34:49):
with Tom Hanks is based on a real life thing. Yeah,
and the guy was like living there for a decade
or something like that. In Charles de Gaal, Yeah, did
you see that movie? No, I just read the article
of movies based on Yeah, it's not very good. Unfortunately
I got that impression. Yeah, it was a bummer. Oh
really it doesn't end well. Well, no, it was just
(35:10):
a bummer that it wasn't good because it was like
Spielberg and Tom Hanks and I think my hopes were high.
But yeah, I didn't care for it. No such luck, Charles. Uh. So,
the beagle brigade is it's a very closely guarded secret
just how many beagles are brigading. So, uh they can
(35:31):
say though that there are a hundred and sixteen CBP
agricultural canine teams with the dogs and the handlers, and
that every international report in the country has a beagle
brigade there doing their job. So they can tell you
a lot. Yeah, I mean you want to tell some
stories here. Yeah. So there was this one dog called Murray.
(35:53):
Murray was um. He was at a shelter in North
Georgia and apparently some dummies decided they wanted a hunting
dog and didn't want to spend any money, but they
wanted a dock tail and ears and everything, so they
tried it themselves and it didn't go very well for
(36:14):
poor Murray. So they dropped him off at a shelter
probably knowing, knowing the state, they probably dropped him off
on a dirt road and somebody else found him and
took him to a shelter, and Murray was rescued by
a group called alcove E Pet Rescue, And I guess
alcove has a direct pipeline to the Beagle Brigade handlers
(36:38):
at down in Noonan said, Hey, we think we got
one for you. This guy is so food driven it's crazy.
It's got a lot of love. He just needs a
little bit of attention. He's missing part of his ear,
but we can get past that. And uh at age
two or three, he became uh a an agent for
(36:59):
the USD at Atlanta Hartsfield Jacks International Airport. That's great.
The only way that story could into better is if
those original people had part of their ear cut off.
Yeah by a dog. Yeah. What about Jasper? So Jasper
he worked at JFK. I think yeah he was. This
(37:21):
was late last year. Jasper retired after an eight year
career and during this career, Jasper seized over seventeen thousand items. Um.
The goats head was Jasper, like I mentioned, Yeah, whale meat, Yeah,
whale meat, rhinoceros skin, cooked bat really. Uh what else? Um,
(37:45):
anything else crazy like that? No, not that I saw.
And a lot of Romanian cotton weevils. UM and the
his handler Amanda Tipple or Triple is a Tipple or
Triple Triple. She said that. Um. She was interviewed with
Modern Farmer magazine, which I didn't realize existed until last week.
UM have a subscription. Yeah, they did an interview with
(38:08):
her and she was saying that, um, the that he
could very easily work longer, but that the mandatory age
of retirement is eight because they want the dogs to
have some years of just chilling out, not having to work. Um,
and that she's going to take him home. She's adopting him.
She did adopt him. I think the article was from
(38:30):
last year and he was on the verge of retirement
when they interviewed him. But um, he went and apparently
this is fairly normal, went from something like fifteen to
thirty hits, thirty hits a day, but they had declined
to about ten to fifteen. Yeah, everybody was very disappointed
in him. Well, I mean that's a good retirement age
(38:53):
of their eight, like barring some very sad health concern Uh,
you know, a dog that size can live to be
you know, thirteen, fourteen years old, so many years ahead
of them, hopefully in retirement. Yeah, and once she she
takes them home, you know, she gets another dog that
she's go a partner with. So I wonder how that'll
(39:15):
go over, you know, we'll we'll Jasper be like, I
know where you've been today, and I just want to
tell you again, I'm not happy with this. Well, I
bet Jasper, uh, I bet Jasper, and all retired dogs
have to deal with that transition, you know, like, imagine
there's something the handlers have to do with them on
a daily basis, like you know, probably a lot of
(39:38):
long walks. Imagine the dog isn't just like all right
and now I'm gonna rest like they're just to that activity.
Well yeah, yeah, I was wondering that as well. I
wondered too if they get them when they're young, so
they're super hyper, and then maybe by the time they're
eight they've mellowed a little bit, at least comparatively speaking. Yeah, yeah,
(39:59):
I think a mellow beagle is still pretty hyper compared
to a normal dog. You I've never been around beagles. Actually, Oh,
they they they'll pull. Yeah. Yeah, and they they bay
and everything. They're super cute, but they can be rambunctous
for sure. Yeah. I've never I've never known anyone with
a beagle, so I don't even know if I've ever
touched a beagle now that I I think about it, No,
(40:22):
but if you've been touched by a beagle, you will
never forget it. Chuck a couple of stats for you.
Last year alone, in sixteen, the brigade inspected twenty three
million passengers UH seven hundred and forty one thousand pieces
of freight and they alerted total in the United States
to more than one point seven seven million seizures of
(40:44):
illegal materials. That's a lot. That's about what like seven
eight percent of people bringing stuff in that have been caught. Yeah,
and I saw also that there's a um there's an
even more specialized group of dogs that are typically Jack
Russell terriers that work on Guam to root out specifically
(41:06):
brown tree snakes that's crazy, which are an invasive species
that got introduced to Guam and have killed off like
a lot of indigenous bird species. And they're basically trying
to protect Hawaii as much as they can. I didn't
know why I didn't have snakes until this article. Yeah,
it's like Ireland over there. Yeah, I mean it made sense,
of course, but I just figured, I mean, there's all
(41:26):
kinds of invasive species, so I just thought that I
just figured snakes would be one of them. Yeah. No,
Hawaii takes there. They're like the Agriculture Defense very serious. Yeah,
it's a felony. The snake thing is, yeah, well i'll
just beat you up before they even take you to jail.
They catch you. Well, I read an article because I
was like, what is that real? And which is uh?
(41:48):
I guess with great comfort to back country exploring and explorers, um,
if you're scared of snakes, but uh, I read an
article and there was there. There were a couple of
them f the last year that you know, people have
managed to sneak in. And one was a Boa constrictor
that was dead in the road like five ft long,
and the guy I saw it and said like, there's
(42:10):
a snake, And everyone in the car was like, there
are no snakes in Hawaii. They're like, no, that's a snake.
He's like, oh, I'm just a total idiot. I guess
I'm sure their legs under there just a big lizard
hate you guys. Um. Yeah, that was that was news
to me. So interesting. Supposedly the ever Glades down in
Florida have a huge problem with um Burmese pythons and
(42:35):
like a couple of different kinds of pythons that and
all of them were pets, and now they're just taking
over and getting to be like twenty ft long or
just crazy eating wild boares and things like that because
idiots get them and then they grow and they say
this snake is too big, and they just put it
out in the swamp. I just wanted a puppy snake. Uh.
(42:56):
So here's a good example to like, you know, it's
easy to the goat head and the cooked pig gets
a lot of attention. Uh. But usually this stuff is
it's not nefarious, you know, it's like this this one lady. Uh.
In February of this year, actually, there was a big
gold name gadget that sees and this is just one
(43:17):
seizure from one person. A potted tamarin plant, two live trees,
forty two packages of seeds, twenty pieces of palm tree plannings,
chickory seed, rice, millet, and fresh garlic, and a note
from God. I mean, that's a lot of stuff. But
this is what happens. Like someone goes to another country
(43:37):
and they want to bring back like seeds to plant something.
It's not like they're awful people, but it can. They
can innocently wreak havoc on agriculture here by doing so,
you know, right, So the process from what I gather
is that you declare anything you have on you um
and then if if they can let you bring it through,
(44:00):
then they'll let you bring it through. But if not,
they'll just take it and be like, sorry, we gotta
take this. Then they'll shoot it in front of you. UM.
If you don't declare it and they catch you with it.
Thanks to the Beagle Brigade, UM, you can be fined
up to something like a thousand dollars for your first offense,
and if it's clear you're like a straight up smuggler,
(44:22):
you will probably go to jail. Well, this person did
declare that had all that stuff, chocolate and an apple,
so as she thought, maybe if I declare something, I
won't be as suspicious. I don't know, right, but I mean,
if you're a CBP agent um and you're looking at
that and you have the discretion of whether to arrest
that person or not. You you may very well be like, no,
(44:44):
you're you were definitely trying to smuggle this stuff, so
you're I'm gonna I'm gonna make an example out of you, lady.
And then gadgets just sitting there just like judging, what
have I done? Yeah, And the lady as they're hauling
her off to jails, she's like, I would have gotten
away with it if annam for your meddling dogs. Uh,
you got anything else? I do? I have one more thing.
(45:06):
I ran across this article. I think it was on courts.
It said like bush meat, illegal bush meat could be
the cause of the next big global pandemic. There's apparently
a major market for bush meat, which is any wild
animal meat. Most people think of it as like monkey
or bat or something like that, but it also is
(45:26):
like elk or caribou, any illegal meat that's basically just
being smuggled around. Um. There's huge markets for it in
New York, in uh, London, in Mayland, Europe, um, And
people just smuggle it in and a lot of them
make it through And these things just get sold behind
the counter at butcher shops in some cities and all
(45:49):
what's gonna take is one of those things to have
a bola and uh, maybe a mutant strain that that
is transmitted a little more easily than a bowl of
light or whatever we have now, and uh, you got
a pandemic on your hands, and we can say thanks
a lot. I hope you really enjoyed that monkey leg
(46:11):
that killed off three quarters of the population of humanity.
Cross those two words. I don't like it. I know,
I know that's pretty rough. Uh so I guess you're
done then too. I'm done, sir. Okay, Well, if you
guys want to know more about bush meat or the
(46:31):
Beagle Brigade or anything like that, type those words in
the search bar how stuff works dot com. And since
I said search bar, it's time for listener mail. I'm
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my name is Sam. I want to send you an
email thanking you for your show. Uh. The podcast is
(46:53):
actually a rediscovery for me. My dad used to play
it back in two thousand nine when we would drive
up to the mountain to go skiing. Very fond memories
of laughing and nerding out with my dad and brothers
after a great day on the slopes. I can't believe
you guys are still going strong after eight plus years.
There is a little more to my rediscovery of your show, though,
that I wanted to share. It's been four and a
(47:13):
half years since one of my brothers, who was an
amazing skier, died tragically to suicide. Since I was in
college at the time, it didn't have enough time to
properly grieve. Recently, I've been mulling through many painful memories
that I ignored in those first three years. However, your
show unexpectedly brought back really happy ones. Uh. It is
reminded me of the fun, adventure and learning our family
(47:35):
enjoyed while listening to your show when we are skiing.
I remember laughing hysterically with my family your jokes, rolling
my eyes when my brothers and dad would try to
comment on your show to sound smart because it was
so creepy. One of your favorite episodes of ours was
the one on cannibalism. Being a high schooler at the time,
I also really liked the show on flirting because I
thought I could put it into practice. Needless to say,
(47:56):
it didn't really work. What this month, I went home
for a week to visit my parents and I went
skiing with my mom and dad, but the first time
since my brother died. It was very painful, but also
unimaginable special. When my family and I are on the mountain,
I feel like I can encounter my brother as he
was when he was healthy and full of life. I
could picture him diving down a slope that was way
(48:18):
too steep with the most enormous grin on his eager face.
All in all, it was a great day. So I
just want to say thank you for the hard work
and providing interesting topics to fill my time, making me laugh,
but also inadvertently helping me cherish a special time in
my life. That's heavy. That is from Sam, and she
sends hugs. Sam, that is fantastic. Thank you very much
(48:42):
for letting us know we appreciate that. Uh and UH
our best to your whole family. Absolutely. If you want
to get in touch with this, like Sam did, you
can tweet to us at s Y s K podcast.
You can hang out with me at joshuam Clark on Twitter.
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(49:03):
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Attention anyone with access to an airplane. We're going to
be in North America for our North American two thousand
seventeen Stuff you Should Know Live tour, and we're kicking
it off in Toronto August eight, in Chicago August nine.
Then we're gonna take a little break and hit Vancouver
on September and Minneapolis on September. Yep. Then we're doing
(00:25):
Austin October and Lawrence, Kansas October eleven, and then finally
we're gonna finish up October at the Three Nights Stand
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Home in Atlanta for a special benefit charity show on
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all the info you need and buy tickets at our
(00:47):
other live show home on the web s y s
K live dot com. Go check it out and we'll
see you guys starting in August. Welcome to Stuff you
Should Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and
(01:08):
welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh close Ark, There's Charles W.
Chuck Bryant, Jerry, Jerome Roland's over there. So this is
Stuff you Should Know. The Beagle Brigade edition. Yes, and
another I guess we covered drug sniffers. Yeah, but not
(01:33):
or did we do Seeing Eye dogs as well? We did, remember,
because Seeing Eye Dogs is actually a brand name. It's
one of those, uh like a band aid, yeah, Kleenex
or something. That one was that was a great one. Yeah.
So I mean, is this the last job that dogs have?
You know? We we didn't cover dogs that service pack
(01:54):
animals yet. So oh that's right. Yeah, like Herder's Yeah,
they'd be good, or Lumbarde act dogs. Oh that's true,
that's right, or dogs that are sous chefs. Right. So yeah,
we've got a big, big, long sweet coming. I thought
it was done. Sorry, no, no, but this one might
be the most adorable of all of them. Yeah, and
(02:16):
this one was. I was always confused. I always thought
the beagles at the airport, because as you will learn,
Atlanta is they're they're trained here outside of Atlanta. But
I thought that that the beagles were. I just thought
they were drug sniffers everything sniffers. Oh I see No,
(02:38):
you could have a big old suitcase full of cocaine
and walk right past that dog and be like, um,
well that's good to know, you know, sure for the
next time you're smuggling cocaine. Yeah, once you once you
make a pest of beagle, you're home free. But don't
have a head of lettus, no, because those beagles will
pounce on your neck and chew your throat it out.
(03:01):
Don't have a whole hog. Can you believe that story? Totally?
So this one was I think it was in Atlanta,
that Hartsfield Jackson Airport and there was a woman traveling
from Peru to the United States with a roasted pig,
(03:22):
an entire roasted pig in her bag. And I mean
it was very sweet. You know, she was just trying
to bring home a holiday meal for her family. It
was Thanksgiving, I think, right, Yes, she smuggled in the
roasted big yeah. And it wasn't a little little you know,
it was big. Well, they have pigs tend to be.
I mean, it didn't say a suckling pig, a pig.
(03:44):
I assumed it was a big old pig. It was
a picture of it. Oh yeah, that's right, but it was.
It was a good sized pig. Yeah. The guy. Rob Brisley,
public affairs officer, said the right steps had to be
taken to confiscate and destroy the item and then the
Senate stop. But I imagine he said with our mouths
right with with extreme vengeance. So anyway, I mean that's
(04:08):
just one example. Yeah, and we should we should probably
say exactly what we're talking about for those people who
haven't been to an international airport in the United States.
But there is a group of working dogs that are
exclusively beagles, hence the name the Beagle Brigade from what
I understand, although I did see reference that they do
use labs sometimes, but I'm pretty sure it's almost exclusively beagles,
(04:32):
if not exclusively beagles. And these dogs have a job.
They're actually federal agents with the U s d A,
the Department of Agriculture, no or not the d e
A either, but their federal their federal agents, and they
are Their whole job is to sniff out agricultural products UM.
(04:54):
And the whole point of all of this is that
the US UM has a pretty densive agriculture infrastructure, right,
and if something comes through, Say that's a a pest, right,
like a bug that eats um, what do we grow here? Cotton?
(05:15):
Cotton we evil? But from another country? Right, So a
non native pest or non native plant or a diseased bat. Okay,
it could wreak havoc not just on our agriculture system,
but if if the wrong kind of thing comes through,
Like there's there's procedures in place for for food to
(05:36):
come into the United States, you're not supposed to carry
it in your luggage because it has to be inspected.
It has to come from a trusted source. We have
to know that it doesn't have something like hoofing math
disease or a bowl or something like that. Right, Yeah,
I mean it says in't here are in our own
article that it's a one trillion dollar industry, our own
(05:57):
agricultural agricultural product industry, and that's import export, eating it,
producing it. Um an invasive species can be a hundred
says about a hundred thirty six billion dollars in agricultural
lost revenue um IS that annually, I believe, so man, So,
(06:18):
I mean that's that's a lot of economy at stake here.
So they take it very seriously. Right. So there's this
group um so the U s t A, the Department
of Agriculture here in the US. Um IS has a
subgroup called APHIS, which is the um animal plant Animal
and Plant Health Inspection Service, and they're the ones who
(06:40):
are casket with basically creating this virtual border, this virtual
barrier um to stuff coming in the US to protect
agriculture in the US, right, like the notorious Romanian cotton weevil, right, exactly,
exactly the most insidious of all, and specifically at international airports,
(07:03):
working in conjunction with the Customs Bureau CPD customers and
no CBP right, Customs and Border Patrol. You've got these cute,
adorable little beagles who are trained to sniff this stuff
out from people who are trying to smuggle whole pigs
into the into the country when they're not supposed to.
Bless that lady. I felt bad for you know, yeah,
(07:27):
I mean I get it, sure, but I mean there's
no way she did not cry when when the agriculture
inspector took her whole pig she's going to feed to
her family with a waste of food. She works so
hard on that chuck. It might have been like her
favorite family pig that she was waiting, but it was babe.
(07:51):
Babe gave his life. Uh So you want to talk
a little bit about these the history here, because it
did not UM agricultural agriculture dogs or agricultural detection did
not start in the US. It actually started in Mexico. Yeah,
I guess was probably the early seventies. I did. I
(08:14):
could not find when it started, but yeah, we know
it's definitely prior to the seventies because based on this,
I guess it was a U s d A training
manual that was referencing it. It picks up then in
the late seventies that the U s d A started this. Yeah,
and then up until three we use UM. We use
big dogs, you know, like typically, and I think we
(08:37):
covered this and a lot of the other like drug
sniffers like German shepherds and UM labs are certainly good,
but they are UH labs aren't so intimidating, but German
shepherds can be. Even though I love them, I grew
up with them. UM, A lot of people the side
of a German shepherd coming at them in an airport
is a little scary. Yeah, I mean, and some people
(08:58):
have sinophobia, which is a fear of dogs specifically, and
in which case even the smallest dogs going to scare you.
But even people who don't have an actual phobia of
dogs are going to be scared of certain breeds and
that definitely includes German shepherds for sure. So it started
in Mexico and then uh, finally in nine four, uh,
the U s d A U s d A started
(09:20):
at l A x UM started, which is probably a
pretty good airport to pick for a for a pilot program,
not a airplane pilot program, although I'm sure they had those.
Did you hear about the King of the Netherlands. They
found out that he has been secretly undercover moonlighting as
(09:41):
a KLM airline pilot for fun for like the last
like once a week, um, for like the last twentysomething years,
and has been flying. Yeah he's yeah, that's what I'm saying.
Like he's been undercover flying, uh, not as the King
of the Netherlands, just trying to have a life of
his own. I thought you met like Leo DiCaprio, didn't
(10:01):
catch me if you can, he just pretended to be
a pilot to get based and fake checks. You're a king,
you can't be a pilot. Wow. So was he was
did he come clean or was he outed? I guess
he was outed. And he said from time to time
somebody would recognize him, but he'd just have them um kidnapped,
kidnaps and killed rendered. That's pretty crazy. Yeah, well, good
(10:26):
for him. Yeah they should just let him fly, you know,
I think, I think so they're gonna work it out, probably,
I hope. So. If not, that guy's one outlet has
been taken away from well, so his pilot program is
maybe failing. But the pilot program in l A X
worked great, and they m this was a big deal
(10:48):
at the time too. It was a big change from
any kind of detection programs that they had at the time.
I don't know why it took that long, but because
dogs are, you know, obviously well known snow first to
the tune of I mean, compared to humans, how many
millions of olfactory nerves the dogs have? I know it varies.
(11:10):
So somewhere somewhere in the middle is the docks and
I didn't see the beagles specifically, but supposedly beagles are
about average as far as scenting goes, which is surprising
to me. But the docks and has a hundred and
twenty five million olfactory receptors amazing, and humans have five
million on average. And I know the dogs even there
(11:31):
the size of their nose can make a difference. So
I was a little surprised they picked beagles. But one
of the big reasons is a the Navy had used
them previously, uh to great success. And be like you said,
you know, they're they're little, they're cute, so they're not
gonna scare anyone at the airport. Uh. And they can
they're agile. There's because they're small, and they can jump
(11:53):
around on a conveyor belt like nobody's business to find
that Romanian cotton weevil. Right. Sometimes they'll find just enough
fruit that they'll make a little head dress out of it,
like Carmen Miranda. Nothing cure, that's a bagle in one
of those Um. Well. The other cool thing about the
dogs and their their sniffing abilities is uh, it's like
(12:18):
you can't disguise something like if you if you have
of course uh. I was about to say drugs again.
But if you have, Let's say you want to sneak
in that cotton weevil and you think I'm gonna hide
in and a can of coffee. Actually that might be
you might not be able to bring in coffee either,
now that I think about it. I was just trying
to think of something with a strong odor um a
bottle of perfume. The dog will be able to pick
(12:42):
that out of that perfume, right, we'll be able to
almost geo locate it. Uh, because they don't, they don't
get confused like we do. Yeah, so you know how
like a dog can when you when you watch a
dog on a scent, it's just kind of like sniffing
back and forth in the air is as So what
it's doing is it's it's basically the same thing with
(13:03):
our vision, right, the information is getting from one nostril
and the other nostril. It's brain is putting together to
create basically like a three D map of where that
smell is coming from. Just like the the information from
one eye compared to the information coming into our other
eye gives us an idea of like depth, right, or perspective,
(13:25):
that kind of thing. So it's basically the same thing,
but with their old factory sense um and the put
on top of that is the fact that they can
distinguish sense. Like this article, this U S d A
manual said, when you walk into a kitchen and you
smell chili, you smell chili, right, Chili's cooking. Put it
(13:47):
all together. It's chili. That's what you smell is the
sum of all the parts. Yeah, you know, if you're good,
you might be able to pick out a thing or
two maybe like you know, like do I detect Yeah,
some cumans, But um, a dog will walk in there
and smell every single one of the ingredients separately, right,
which is why you can't just take something and try
(14:08):
to overpower the smell of it with something else. The
dog will smell the thing that you're using to try
to overpower with, but it will also smell the other scent.
Apparently they can smell this thing says they can smell
table salt in a dilution of one part to ten
million parts. That's amazing, Isn't that crazy? That is crazy.
(14:28):
That's also why if you've ever taken your dog to
a new um, like a new really new environment that
they've never been to, like the beach. For instance, when
I took I think a couple of years ago, we
did a beach vacation and took our dogs and uh,
they were going crazy, Like they walk them down to
the beach and it was just nose in the air.
(14:49):
Because you know, there's always a good breeze or usually
a good breeze on the beach. And I can imagine
they were just they were smelling these just hundreds and
hundreds of things that they've never smelled before. Yeah. Uh,
And it's pretty neat to see, and you kind of
wonder what's going on. And that lunkhead of theirs, you know,
ca'se one luckhead and one smart one. I've seen before.
(15:10):
Um that when a dog is sniffing out a tree,
what you're watching them do is sniff you know, the
tree itself, but also every single insect in that tree,
every bird in that tree, everything that's in that tree.
Right then that dog is smelling that. Yeah. And and
and I think it definitely varies because obviously some dogs
are better, like hunting dogs and such. And the my
(15:32):
new dog, Nico, we think maybe part plothound. What's there
just like a you know, a hound. Okay, I mean
you can look up platound and it looks like my dog. Okay, alright,
but like a mix of a plathound. But I think
that they're like really good um sent dogs too, because she,
more so than other dogs I've had, is really driven
(15:53):
by her nose and when you let her out, she's
got her nose to the ground like for quite a while.
I was reading today about scent tracking, and apparently it's
something like some people like to do agility stuff with
their dog, or other people do like obedience like competitions
and stuff, and then other people and apparently this also
is a really good thing to do. If you found
(16:14):
your your dog is like no good at obedience, they
might actually love scent tracking because unlike the obedience stuff
or the agility stuff, when you're when you're scent tracking,
the dog is totally in charge, like you're basically following
the dog, but you're doing it together, especially during training
as well. Well, you know, they say if your dog
(16:36):
has behavioral problems, and a lot of times that means
they have a job that they're not being they're not
allowed to do. Oh yeah, that makes sense. You know,
Like if you have a herding dog that doesn't have
a herd, then that might be a big pain in
your butt until you can find a way to kind
of let them. I don't know, they can not necessarily
(16:56):
part time as a hurter, but do something that acts
as a hurder, you know, might as well make some
money off of it. Uh, you wanna take a little break.
M all right, We're gonna take a break and get
back to the beagles right after this. M alright, chuck,
(17:25):
So we're back. So we were talking basically about dogs
in general, but since the U. S d A has
been training beagles for its Beagle Brigade, right, which is
this frontline covering America's agricultural infrastructure. That is correct. So
um I was very heartened to learn from researching this
(17:47):
that the beagle Brigades, specifically with the U. S d A,
all of them come from shelters. They're all shelter animals. Yeah,
and you know what, it kind of makes sense. At first,
I just thought it was out of the kind of
of their heart that they wouldn't like support the dog
buying industry, but they they a lot of times just
get problem dogs, these beagles that are so like you know,
(18:11):
up in the business in your pantry or your refrigerator,
or sniffing out your shoes so they can chew them up.
People will you know, uh, well, I have opinions on this,
but people will turn that dog back in or whatever
to be adopted, hopefully from a no kill shelter. Very
so then that's a that's a big point that this
(18:32):
um USD a spokesperson makes in the House to Works
article is like a lot of people are saying, I'm
not quite sure how I feel about this. You guys
are using these dogs as tools basically, UM, and I
don't know. I don't think dogs should be used that way.
And the the u s d's responses what a lot
of these dogs would would basically be put down if
(18:54):
it weren't for us. You know, they would be euthanized
because they can't they're too hyper to to live with
a family. But there's exactly the kind of temperament we
need for what we're having them do. So actually it's
win win for everybody. Well yeah, and and as much
as I love my dogs laying around in bed with me,
(19:15):
um a happy dog, it's a dog that's working and exercising, um.
And then at the end of the night they get
to relax. But you know, it's easy to and we
we cover some of this and uh and seeing eye
dogs and stuff, it's easy to be like, oh man,
that dog doesn't get to have fun all day, and
that's just not true at all. These dogs have a
purpose and they Uh, they're good at what they do.
(19:36):
Is so I don't don't think of it as like
using this dog as a tool UM in a bad way,
you know, right. And then on the other end of it,
if the dog is brought into the program and they
find out that the dog doesn't have what it takes, UM,
maybe it doesn't work very well amidst chaos that like
an airport always has, or um, perhaps the the the
(20:02):
dog just seems unhappy. They say, if the dog seems unhappy,
they'll retire it early. Uh. At any rate, they have
apparently a record of adopting out their beagles and there's
a waitlist right now, UM to adopt these beagles that
have have worked for you know, several years or or
(20:23):
didn't work, didn't make it, but you know, entered into
the program. They don't return them to shelters, they don't
euthanize them. They adopt them out. And apparently the USDA
has a hundred percent adoption record on that, which is
pretty outstanding. Yeah. And as with a lot of service dogs, UM,
their first uh, their handlers given first right of refusal
for adoption, UM, which they do, so you know, but yeah,
(20:47):
I would guess so too, because apparently when the dog
and the handler are paired up together as a team, um,
they they stay a team for the dog's whole career.
It's like like Riggs and Myrtal, right, or Turner and Hooch.
Actually it's not like Ricks and Murtalk because they were
prepared at the very end of Danny Glover's career. So
(21:10):
that was a bad announce. Oh that's right, that's true
because he's too old for that crap. Yes, that was
a big line. Yeah, that was a great line, and
that a TV show. Now, I don't think it is anymore.
Jerry's nodding, but that probably means you're both right short lived.
I think so. I haven't seen any ads for it lately.
(21:31):
What a dumb idea, like, hey, let's dust this thing off.
They do that with everything like twin Peaks even it's like, how,
how come on, how are you going to pick that
back up? Let's just I don't mind that, because that's
just more greatness from David Lynch. Is it any good
I've heard? Not necessarily. I think it's great. I mean
(21:51):
it's uh, I mean, I'm a fan of anything David
Lynch does. It doesn't I didn't expect it to be
exactly what Twin Peaks was. It just feels like a
new TV show from David Lynch to me. Really okay,
you know, yeah, I could be down with that. UM.
All right, so let's get into this. You mentioned handlers.
(22:11):
We've been dancing around this the whole time. You mentioned handlers,
And uh, this, like we said earlier, this takes place
at a place called the National Detector Dog Training Center
the ind d TC, right here in Lovely Noon in Georgia, which,
uh is that west? I think it's south Atlanta, west southwest,
(22:34):
like just down eighty five after it splits off. My
knowledge of my own home state is pretty poor. If
I haven't camped there and it's outside of Atlanta, I
probably don't know exactly where it is. I'm pretty sure
I'm right, okay, southwest. Then let's go with that, um.
And they start training. Like with most service dogs, they
do that initial testing to just sort of see are
(22:57):
they healthy, do they have the right temperament, how's their
behavior here? And that initial screening is where the first
lot gets weeded out. And one of the biggest parts
of that initial weeding out is they have to have
a high food drive. And that's not that doesn't mean
how hungry are they? That means your dog has just
been fed. Those little beagles just eaten, they still have
(23:19):
a high desire to get to where the food is
like bacon, bacon. Basically that's what you're looking for. And
you make a lot of noise and you have crowds
around and you just you're testing their focus. And this
is all just the like I said, the initial screening
to say, all right, little Henry the beagle here has
what it takes, right, we think, yeah, well, yeah, that's
(23:42):
just the start. Can he also learn to differentiate? That's
the big one. That's the next big step, right, So
I think there's like a one or two week like
evaluation UM process. They also like give the dog a
full like veterinarian inspection UM. I believe they spay and
or neuter. I guess not and or specifically not and
(24:05):
or in that case, or they they spay or newter
to the dog. UM. A lot of times the dogs
come in not very good shape because they're shelter dogs.
They probably weren't taken very good care of UM early
in their life, so they may need some sort of
treatment or checkups or whatever. But then after that happens,
(24:26):
the training actually starts and the dogs are trained to scent.
I guess, starting out from what I saw five basic
restricted sense that didn't expect these? Would you know it's
it's rando? Oh is it? No? No, it's random. Oh
I thought they were. I thought there were five cents. No,
(24:48):
there are, And I'm saying that's a pretty random assemblage.
I got you, man, you'd think after nine years together.
But I mean, if you were to have picked five cents,
I probably would have definitely picked beef, pork and citrus.
Does makes sense? I guess I would have picked like monkey,
bat and probably pig two. Yeah, but I mean those
(25:13):
are in there so well, the monkey and the bad aren't.
But um, beef, pork, citrus, the mango. Yeah, that's where
are you threw me? What was the other one? Apple? Apple?
With apple? I didn't even know they grew apples outside
of the United States. I was trying to smuggle an
apple into the US. I don't know. We got the
best ones here, buddy, Just leave him at home. Yeah,
(25:34):
I would love to know why those are the five
basic sense Um, if someone has more information that because
I could not find out. I could not either. There's
a real dearth of um of information on the stuff.
I even emailed the Customs and Border Protection today because
I could not, for the life of me find the
name of that first beagle that that started out at
(25:57):
L A X. Cannot find anywhere that somebody forgot to
write it down. So no one knows you're being tracked
now probably Oh yeah, I've been looking up like, you know,
restricted items, agriculture, invasive species, stuff like that. I'm sure
I'm on a list, all right. So they teach them
(26:18):
those uh, well, this is you know, towards the end,
is when they know this five basic sents. At first,
there just basically teaching them how to sniff through bags
and suitcases and boxes and making sure they can. You know,
they'll throw a they'll throw a goat head in a
suitcase and send it through in noon in and you laugh.
(26:39):
But one of them found a goat head not too
long ago. So it happens, um and they just make
sure they can do that, and they eventually and then
of course they have to differentiate, like there's a lot
of things that are scented, like those things that are
just fine, like an orange perfume. Right. Well, that's another
that's a gotta be kind of tough to learn for
a dog too. Is the difference between you know, orange
(27:01):
scented stuff for things that are made with like say,
orange essence, like a a candy or a lip bomb
or something like that, and an actual orange Because the
lip bomb, no problem. Actual orange you've got a problem,
that's right. And once they've done this, this is about
a oh, a few months, probably ten to thirteen weeks
(27:23):
UM and this is uh and they're being trained in
regular like how to paw that stuff and and alert
and uh sitting responses like all of this is one
big learning period and the handler is getting trained as
well obviously. But at the end of this is when
they finally do graduate to those five basic sense um.
(27:44):
And I guess see what I don't get it from
the basic senses? Is it from those sense that they
can smell anything? No, that's crazy. That's what I thought too. There,
That's that's what it implies. Like if you put together
apple and pig and the mango, you've got like bad.
But that's not the case. Like each thing has its
own scent. I don't know if those are like the
(28:07):
most commonly smuggled ones. Possibly maybe so those are the
ones they need to start out with. Maybe they're the
easiest ones. I don't know, but I yeah, if you
put those things together, especially if a dog smells in
layers right and differentiates between sins, it's not gonna smell
the combined sent of those things. That's gonna smell each thing.
So I'm not sure why those are the five basic ones.
(28:28):
Can't find out this one was a stone wall. I mean,
like we're professional researchers here, and like we really ran
into a wall. Who would have known that the beagle
brigade is what would throw us, it would break us.
Uh So they've learned all these sense they've learned how
to alert, they're getting treats, are getting positive reinforcement along
the way. Yeah, that's a big one to the entire
(28:50):
training is strictly positive reinforcement. Yeah, they don't they don't
beat these dogs down. They're not smelling correctly. They have
like they spend ten grand a month on newspaper to
roll up teach these dogs lessons puppy bounder. Uh So
once they once they've gone through all of that, um,
everyone knows I'm joking, right, yeah, And if you're new
(29:13):
to the podcast and don't just don't even bother emailing.
We're great animal lovers here. Um. So, once they've they've
gone through this whole training process, they finally graduate, they
get their little diploma, their little hat and their little robe,
and they graduate from noon In and they get to
move to the big city Atlanta or anywhere any international airport,
(29:36):
but Atlanta certainly is a large one for sure. Um.
And so once they get to their home base airport
that they're going to be working at, they're still evaluated
and trained for another sometimes ten to thirteen weeks. YEA.
Training is kind of ongoing from what I saw too
like career, you know, yeah, there's there's not like the okay,
(29:56):
stop learning dog, Yeah you know too much. UM. But
the I think the initial training period they're they're basic
training still can go on for another ten to thirteen
weeks after they get to the airport. And even once
they get to the airport, that doesn't necessarily mean that
they're going to, um stay in the program again. Once
(30:18):
they're finally introduced to the chaos of an international airport,
that dog might just be like this is not for me,
send me back to noon In. Yeah, you know, you
can try to duplicate that chaos and noon In, but yeah,
good luck, you just can't. I mean even you just can't.
There's nothing like a busy airport. You can't recreate that.
(30:39):
So some dogs are fine with it, some dogs are not.
But again, one of the main reasons why they're choosing
beagles is because it is so chaotic and these dogs
are their whole thing is they're not there like a
male processing facility. They're not there like a border crossing.
There there at a busy airport, and they're they're meant
to be able to kind know, weave in and out
(31:01):
of this the crowd while also being non threatening and
also being lovable too. Like that's not that's not by
accident that they chose these incredibly adorable dogs. The U
s d A says that the Beagle Brigade is basically
like a walking lovable advertiser for what they're trying to do,
which is protect agriculture here in the US. Yeah, they
have a little vest, says Beagle Brigade, And uh, everyone
(31:25):
using OZ and some people if you're not, this is
probably how they do it. If you're not actively ooing
and eyeing, and you're standing there sweating heavily. Then the
dog keys in on you. So I'd be in big trouble.
And I don't know if you said it or not,
if you did it and catch it. But the dogs
are trained, um to walk up to to locate a
(31:46):
contraband item and sit at the bag. Yeah, yeah, they.
I thought they attacked the person first. It's called the
passive indicating but rather than I saw in this article,
it says they pawed at the every awhere else I
saw that, they just sit and and kind of look
at the person like shame on you, exactly. It's very
(32:07):
passive aggressive way to out somebody for a goat head
in their two kids. Right, oh yeah, man, you read
my mom. All right, we're gonna do that and we're
gonna finish up here with a big o brigade. M
(32:35):
all right. So what happens at the end of a
long day, Josh the dog? Um? Most beagles enjoy a
good pipe, maybe a scotch in an easy chair, UM,
perhaps a cigar tip. They sure they tend to watch CNN.
I'll of if you watch Fox News, UM, and they
fall asleep a little drunk. That's what they do every night.
(32:59):
It's their routine, and that's what beagles like. Oh no,
that's our routine at our clubhouse where we live. Uh. Weirdly,
and this kind of surprised me. I guess it's not
weird now they've seen the explanation. But I was surprised
to learn that they're kindled. I thought that they I thought.
I guess I thought they lived with their handler. Yeah,
(33:19):
because canine police dogs live at their handlers. I thought
it was weird too. But they're kindled. Uh. They have
a facility near the airport. Um. Some people have asked, like,
can can I just keep this dog at night and
then take them to work every morning? Uh? And they
say no, They said this is actually best for everyone.
They need their rest. I imagine they have a good
(33:41):
play together. I doubt if they just like drive them
straight there and put them in the crate. You know,
it's probably a little social scene going on. I hope, So,
I hope they don't like get scolded from making eye
contact with the other working dogs they live with. No,
they put in their eight hours, they come home, they
probably play a bit, and then they're kindled. Overnight. Uh.
And they said that they you know, they need this
(34:04):
rest time, uh, in order to do their job successfully.
And like I said, a happy dog is the dog
that feels good about its work. And you said, Chuck,
some people ask if they can take them home, you
should specify, like that's not the agents actually like people
at the airport, I know, like, can I just take
him home for the night and you guys can come
be at on tomorrow or all. You can bring them back.
(34:25):
I don't only live like five minutes away. Yeah, sure
that we'll just get your give me your cell phone number.
That sounds great. So it does make sense, um that, Yeah,
they they are left to just kind of rest. And
I'm sure that they actually live at the airport, which
is funny. It's like that movie Terminal with Tom Hanks.
It says a nearby facility. You think it's actually there?
I'm sure. Yeah. Um, did you know that movie Terminal
(34:49):
with Tom Hanks is based on a real life thing. Yeah,
and the guy was like living there for a decade
or something like that. In Charles de Gaal, Yeah, did
you see that movie? No, I just read the article
of movies based on Yeah, it's not very good. Unfortunately
I got that impression. Yeah, it was a bummer. Oh
really it doesn't end well. Well, no, it was just
(35:10):
a bummer that it wasn't good because it was like
Spielberg and Tom Hanks and I think my hopes were high.
But yeah, I didn't care for it. No such luck, Charles. Uh. So,
the beagle brigade is it's a very closely guarded secret
just how many beagles are brigading. So, uh they can
(35:31):
say though that there are a hundred and sixteen CBP
agricultural canine teams with the dogs and the handlers, and
that every international report in the country has a beagle
brigade there doing their job. So they can tell you
a lot. Yeah, I mean you want to tell some
stories here. Yeah. So there was this one dog called Murray.
(35:53):
Murray was um. He was at a shelter in North
Georgia and apparently some dummies decided they wanted a hunting
dog and didn't want to spend any money, but they
wanted a dock tail and ears and everything, so they
tried it themselves and it didn't go very well for
(36:14):
poor Murray. So they dropped him off at a shelter
probably knowing, knowing the state, they probably dropped him off
on a dirt road and somebody else found him and
took him to a shelter, and Murray was rescued by
a group called alcove E Pet Rescue, And I guess
alcove has a direct pipeline to the Beagle Brigade handlers
(36:38):
at down in Noonan said, Hey, we think we got
one for you. This guy is so food driven it's crazy.
It's got a lot of love. He just needs a
little bit of attention. He's missing part of his ear,
but we can get past that. And uh at age
two or three, he became uh a an agent for
(36:59):
the USD at Atlanta Hartsfield Jacks International Airport. That's great.
The only way that story could into better is if
those original people had part of their ear cut off.
Yeah by a dog. Yeah. What about Jasper? So Jasper
he worked at JFK. I think yeah he was. This
(37:21):
was late last year. Jasper retired after an eight year
career and during this career, Jasper seized over seventeen thousand items. Um.
The goats head was Jasper, like I mentioned, Yeah, whale meat, Yeah,
whale meat, rhinoceros skin, cooked bat really. Uh what else? Um,
(37:45):
anything else crazy like that? No, not that I saw.
And a lot of Romanian cotton weevils. UM and the
his handler Amanda Tipple or Triple is a Tipple or
Triple Triple. She said that. Um. She was interviewed with
Modern Farmer magazine, which I didn't realize existed until last week.
UM have a subscription. Yeah, they did an interview with
(38:08):
her and she was saying that, um, the that he
could very easily work longer, but that the mandatory age
of retirement is eight because they want the dogs to
have some years of just chilling out, not having to work. Um,
and that she's going to take him home. She's adopting him.
She did adopt him. I think the article was from
(38:30):
last year and he was on the verge of retirement
when they interviewed him. But um, he went and apparently
this is fairly normal, went from something like fifteen to
thirty hits, thirty hits a day, but they had declined
to about ten to fifteen. Yeah, everybody was very disappointed
in him. Well, I mean that's a good retirement age
(38:53):
of their eight, like barring some very sad health concern Uh,
you know, a dog that size can live to be
you know, thirteen, fourteen years old, so many years ahead
of them, hopefully in retirement. Yeah, and once she she
takes them home, you know, she gets another dog that
she's go a partner with. So I wonder how that'll
(39:15):
go over, you know, we'll we'll Jasper be like, I
know where you've been today, and I just want to
tell you again, I'm not happy with this. Well, I
bet Jasper, uh, I bet Jasper, and all retired dogs
have to deal with that transition, you know, like, imagine
there's something the handlers have to do with them on
a daily basis, like you know, probably a lot of
(39:38):
long walks. Imagine the dog isn't just like all right
and now I'm gonna rest like they're just to that activity.
Well yeah, yeah, I was wondering that as well. I
wondered too if they get them when they're young, so
they're super hyper, and then maybe by the time they're
eight they've mellowed a little bit, at least comparatively speaking. Yeah, yeah,
(39:59):
I think a mellow beagle is still pretty hyper compared
to a normal dog. You I've never been around beagles. Actually, Oh,
they they they'll pull. Yeah. Yeah, and they they bay
and everything. They're super cute, but they can be rambunctous
for sure. Yeah. I've never I've never known anyone with
a beagle, so I don't even know if I've ever
touched a beagle now that I I think about it, No,
(40:22):
but if you've been touched by a beagle, you will
never forget it. Chuck a couple of stats for you.
Last year alone, in sixteen, the brigade inspected twenty three
million passengers UH seven hundred and forty one thousand pieces
of freight and they alerted total in the United States
to more than one point seven seven million seizures of
(40:44):
illegal materials. That's a lot. That's about what like seven
eight percent of people bringing stuff in that have been caught. Yeah,
and I saw also that there's a um there's an
even more specialized group of dogs that are typically Jack
Russell terriers that work on Guam to root out specifically
(41:06):
brown tree snakes that's crazy, which are an invasive species
that got introduced to Guam and have killed off like
a lot of indigenous bird species. And they're basically trying
to protect Hawaii as much as they can. I didn't
know why I didn't have snakes until this article. Yeah,
it's like Ireland over there. Yeah, I mean it made sense,
of course, but I just figured, I mean, there's all
(41:26):
kinds of invasive species, so I just thought that I
just figured snakes would be one of them. Yeah. No,
Hawaii takes there. They're like the Agriculture Defense very serious. Yeah,
it's a felony. The snake thing is, yeah, well i'll
just beat you up before they even take you to jail.
They catch you. Well, I read an article because I
was like, what is that real? And which is uh?
(41:48):
I guess with great comfort to back country exploring and explorers, um,
if you're scared of snakes, but uh, I read an
article and there was there. There were a couple of
them f the last year that you know, people have
managed to sneak in. And one was a Boa constrictor
that was dead in the road like five ft long,
and the guy I saw it and said like, there's
(42:10):
a snake, And everyone in the car was like, there
are no snakes in Hawaii. They're like, no, that's a snake.
He's like, oh, I'm just a total idiot. I guess
I'm sure their legs under there just a big lizard
hate you guys. Um. Yeah, that was that was news
to me. So interesting. Supposedly the ever Glades down in
Florida have a huge problem with um Burmese pythons and
(42:35):
like a couple of different kinds of pythons that and
all of them were pets, and now they're just taking
over and getting to be like twenty ft long or
just crazy eating wild boares and things like that because
idiots get them and then they grow and they say
this snake is too big, and they just put it
out in the swamp. I just wanted a puppy snake. Uh.
(42:56):
So here's a good example to like, you know, it's
easy to the goat head and the cooked pig gets
a lot of attention. Uh. But usually this stuff is
it's not nefarious, you know, it's like this this one lady. Uh.
In February of this year, actually, there was a big
gold name gadget that sees and this is just one
(43:17):
seizure from one person. A potted tamarin plant, two live trees,
forty two packages of seeds, twenty pieces of palm tree plannings,
chickory seed, rice, millet, and fresh garlic, and a note
from God. I mean, that's a lot of stuff. But
this is what happens. Like someone goes to another country
(43:37):
and they want to bring back like seeds to plant something.
It's not like they're awful people, but it can. They
can innocently wreak havoc on agriculture here by doing so,
you know, right, So the process from what I gather
is that you declare anything you have on you um
and then if if they can let you bring it through,
(44:00):
then they'll let you bring it through. But if not,
they'll just take it and be like, sorry, we gotta
take this. Then they'll shoot it in front of you. UM.
If you don't declare it and they catch you with it.
Thanks to the Beagle Brigade, UM, you can be fined
up to something like a thousand dollars for your first offense,
and if it's clear you're like a straight up smuggler,
(44:22):
you will probably go to jail. Well, this person did
declare that had all that stuff, chocolate and an apple,
so as she thought, maybe if I declare something, I
won't be as suspicious. I don't know, right, but I mean,
if you're a CBP agent um and you're looking at
that and you have the discretion of whether to arrest
that person or not. You you may very well be like, no,
(44:44):
you're you were definitely trying to smuggle this stuff, so
you're I'm gonna I'm gonna make an example out of you, lady.
And then gadgets just sitting there just like judging, what
have I done? Yeah, And the lady as they're hauling
her off to jails, she's like, I would have gotten
away with it if annam for your meddling dogs. Uh,
you got anything else? I do? I have one more thing.
(45:06):
I ran across this article. I think it was on courts.
It said like bush meat, illegal bush meat could be
the cause of the next big global pandemic. There's apparently
a major market for bush meat, which is any wild
animal meat. Most people think of it as like monkey
or bat or something like that, but it also is
(45:26):
like elk or caribou, any illegal meat that's basically just
being smuggled around. Um. There's huge markets for it in
New York, in uh, London, in Mayland, Europe, um, And
people just smuggle it in and a lot of them
make it through And these things just get sold behind
the counter at butcher shops in some cities and all
(45:49):
what's gonna take is one of those things to have
a bola and uh, maybe a mutant strain that that
is transmitted a little more easily than a bowl of
light or whatever we have now, and uh, you got
a pandemic on your hands, and we can say thanks
a lot. I hope you really enjoyed that monkey leg
(46:11):
that killed off three quarters of the population of humanity.
Cross those two words. I don't like it. I know,
I know that's pretty rough. Uh so I guess you're
done then too. I'm done, sir. Okay, Well, if you
guys want to know more about bush meat or the
(46:31):
Beagle Brigade or anything like that, type those words in
the search bar how stuff works dot com. And since
I said search bar, it's time for listener mail. I'm
gonna call this one sad yet happy email. Hey guys,
my name is Sam. I want to send you an
email thanking you for your show. Uh. The podcast is
(46:53):
actually a rediscovery for me. My dad used to play
it back in two thousand nine when we would drive
up to the mountain to go skiing. Very fond memories
of laughing and nerding out with my dad and brothers
after a great day on the slopes. I can't believe
you guys are still going strong after eight plus years.
There is a little more to my rediscovery of your show, though,
that I wanted to share. It's been four and a
(47:13):
half years since one of my brothers, who was an
amazing skier, died tragically to suicide. Since I was in
college at the time, it didn't have enough time to
properly grieve. Recently, I've been mulling through many painful memories
that I ignored in those first three years. However, your
show unexpectedly brought back really happy ones. Uh. It is
reminded me of the fun, adventure and learning our family
(47:35):
enjoyed while listening to your show when we are skiing.
I remember laughing hysterically with my family your jokes, rolling
my eyes when my brothers and dad would try to
comment on your show to sound smart because it was
so creepy. One of your favorite episodes of ours was
the one on cannibalism. Being a high schooler at the time,
I also really liked the show on flirting because I
thought I could put it into practice. Needless to say,
(47:56):
it didn't really work. What this month, I went home
for a week to visit my parents and I went
skiing with my mom and dad, but the first time
since my brother died. It was very painful, but also
unimaginable special. When my family and I are on the mountain,
I feel like I can encounter my brother as he
was when he was healthy and full of life. I
could picture him diving down a slope that was way
(48:18):
too steep with the most enormous grin on his eager face.
All in all, it was a great day. So I
just want to say thank you for the hard work
and providing interesting topics to fill my time, making me laugh,
but also inadvertently helping me cherish a special time in
my life. That's heavy. That is from Sam, and she
sends hugs. Sam, that is fantastic. Thank you very much
(48:42):
for letting us know we appreciate that. Uh and UH
our best to your whole family. Absolutely. If you want
to get in touch with this, like Sam did, you
can tweet to us at s Y s K podcast.
You can hang out with me at joshuam Clark on Twitter.
You can hang out with Chuck on Facebook at Facebook
dot com slash Charles W. Chuck Bryant. You can also
(49:03):
see us at Facebook dot com, slash stuff you Should Know.
You can send us an email. The Stuff podcast at
how stuff works dot com has always joined us at
our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot
com For more on this and thousands of other topics.
Is it how stuff works dot com.
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