The World’s Greatest Mentalist Shares His Secrets & The Surprising Science of Pets

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Speaker 1 Listen or watch on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you're listening to this podcast.

Speaker 1 Today, on something you should know, why information you look up on the internet is sometimes hard to recall later.

Speaker 1 Then, the world's greatest mentalist tells me something about my childhood he could never possibly know. How does he do it?

Speaker 2 Some of it's grounded in magic, some of it's grounded in misdirection, deception, some of it is grounded in reading people, and most communication is non-verbal.

Speaker 2 You know, it's not what they say sometimes, it's how they say it or even what they don't say.

Speaker 1 Also, how to optimize the way you walk to burn more calories. And humans and their pets.
It's quite a bond.

Speaker 3 97% of pet owners think of their pets as a member of the family. About 80% said they'd move if they thought moving would make the pet happier.
75% said they'd change their job. So it's pretty extreme.

Speaker 1 All this today on something you should know.

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Speaker 1 Something you should know, fascinating intel, the world's top experts, and practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers.

Speaker 1 I cannot wait for you to hear my guest in the next segment. I've already recorded that segment, so I already know what's in it.

Speaker 1 He tells me in that segment something about my childhood that he could have never possibly known. It literally sent chills up my spine.
You have to hear it.

Speaker 1 Hi, and welcome to something you should know. I'm Mike Carruthers.
So we start today with this. Have you ever looked up an answer online to a question that pops into your mind?

Speaker 1 And then a day later completely forget the answer you looked up. It happens a lot.

Speaker 1 Research shows that when we assume that we'll always have access to a device to find that information, our brains are less likely to store the information itself and instead focus more on where to find it.

Speaker 1 In fact, a 2024 meta-analysis found that frequent internet search behavior, especially on mobile devices, correlates with reduced memory retention in some cases.

Speaker 1 This phenomenon is often called the Google effect or digital amnesia. So the next time you reach for your phone to get an answer to something, pause and try to actually remember the answer yourself.

Speaker 1 That moment of mental effort can help the information stick, so you remember. And that is something you should know.

Speaker 1 No matter how good you think you are at reading people, you're about to meet someone who's on another level entirely.

Speaker 1 Oz Perlman has built an extraordinary career, first as a magician and now as a mentalist. Someone who reads people so well,

Speaker 1 it almost feels supernatural. But he's the first to tell you, he doesn't read minds.
He reads people.

Speaker 1 He was recently profiled on 60 Minutes, and in that segment, they show a clip of him when he appeared on Joe Rogan's podcast.

Speaker 1 And Oz Perlman somehow guessed Joe Rogan's ATM PIN code just by talking to him.

Speaker 1 And when I sat down and spoke with him, he told me something about my own childhood that he could not have possibly known. It literally gave me a chill.

Speaker 1 Oz Perlman is a fascinating guy, and he is here to share how anyone can use these skills to be more perceptive and successful.

Speaker 1 His new book is called Read Your Mind: Proven Habits for Success from the World's Greatest Mentalist. Hi, Os, welcome.
Thanks for taking the time.

Speaker 2 Hey, Mike, thanks for having me on.

Speaker 1 So you have become,

Speaker 1 in these last several weeks, I mean, kind of a phenomenon. You've been on 60 Minutes, you've been,

Speaker 1 your book's going through the roof. But you started off basically as a magician, right?

Speaker 2 Yeah, absolutely. That's as a teenager.
I was doing magic tricks semi-professionally at restaurants, at kids' birthday parties.

Speaker 2 And for most people, what is a passing hobby for me became a vocation, a passion, and a profession. So

Speaker 2 I never knew this would happen. It wasn't my long-term goal, but life has a funny way of working out.

Speaker 1 And at some point, you stopped being a magician and became a mentalist,

Speaker 1 which I would like you to explain what that transition is from magician to mentalist and what a mentalist actually is.

Speaker 1 The only mentalist I can remember is from many years ago, the amazing Crescent was a mentalist.

Speaker 1 that's the only one I remember. So

Speaker 1 you're now the second one.

Speaker 2 Well, a true legend, Creskin. I stand on the shoulders of giants.
He is one of them.

Speaker 2 The funny thing is, depending on what age you are, other people will say Simon Baker from the mentalist on CBS, he is far more handsome, taller, and with a better accent than myself.

Speaker 2 And he solved crimes. I just entertain millions of people.

Speaker 1 And what is a mentalist?

Speaker 2 A mentalist is kind of a magician, but of the mind. So it's very, very different than when you think of a psychic or somebody with supernatural or telepathic powers.
I don't claim to have any of that.

Speaker 2 This is a learnable skill that I've trained at for almost three decades. And whereas a magician in your mind, you see this archetype of someone who does a card trick, right? They do sleight of hand.

Speaker 2 They make a girl disappear and reappear. And you're aware of misdirection and that the eye is being fooled, right? You're fooling someone's eyes due to speed or misdirection.
So here's the difference.

Speaker 2 Mentalism, there are no props.

Speaker 2 The closer you get, it's the more pure approach where in lieu of props, in lieu of a deck of cards, I will just ask you to think of a card and I will try to deduce and decipher what you're thinking of.

Speaker 2 So it looks like mind reading. And that's what the experience should feel like when done really, really exceptionally well.
But the truth is, I'm not really reading your mind. I'm reading you.

Speaker 2 It's not supernatural. That's the key.

Speaker 1 When you say that what you do is a subset of magic, it makes me want to dismiss it a little bit. Like, well, I can't use that because I'm not a magician, but I think what you do,

Speaker 1 we could learn from.

Speaker 2 100%.

Speaker 2 Here's the key.

Speaker 2 Anyone who's achieved a level of success where they are at the top of their field in the world or near the top of their field, I want to know what makes them tick and what made them exceptionally well at what they do, whether it's business, whether it's yodeling, whether it's anything.

Speaker 2 If you've attained the top level, you've done something different than everyone else or better than everyone else who's taken up the same craft, vocation, or industry.

Speaker 2 So within my world, what's fascinating is that I have literally studied the way people behave, the way their minds work when making decisions more than probably anyone you've ever interviewed.

Speaker 2 And I've done it under the guise of entertainment so that I can fool and entertain you as well as create memorable moments.

Speaker 2 Now, all of those things I just said are, you should think about it because if you're able to create a memorable moment for someone, that is useful in every part of your life.

Speaker 2 Every time you meet someone and interact, if they remember you and you give them a great feeling when they leave, that is the ultimate cheat code of life because your relationships determine your success.

Speaker 2 And when I say success, again, that could be financial, that could be romantic, that could be within your family or friends.

Speaker 2 Just the way you make other people feel and the way they remember you is one of the most important things in life.

Speaker 1 Well, when I watched you on 60 Minutes and

Speaker 1 saw other appearances, videos of you,

Speaker 1 it's very striking how you make people feel. You're a very up positive guy.
You have a lot of energy. And you can see that energy transfer to other people in the room.

Speaker 1 And when you look for it, it's not hard to spot that you have that ability that,

Speaker 1 frankly, I wish I had.

Speaker 2 Well, so that ability was not innate. It's not, you know,

Speaker 2 so to speak, God-given. I would have been more introverted, nerdy as a kid.

Speaker 2 I think that what happened and what my book is all about truly is taking all of the things I've distilled about what I do, which is what you just said, which is how does it feel when you watch my performance?

Speaker 2 But not just the tricks, because there's other people that can do similar tricks in the world.

Speaker 2 I'm not the only mentalist, but what do you do when you meet someone that you can utilize that isn't the tricks of what I do? It's how do I approach them? What's my body language, right?

Speaker 2 What ways do I listen to people in a very effective manner? So much of what I get from people has nothing to do with magic or mentalism.

Speaker 2 It's simply observing and listening in a way that most people don't, especially nowadays with AI, with your phones. People barely know anyone's phone number, including their spouse or mother.

Speaker 2 So in an era where nobody remembers things, just remembering things about people is a superpower. I take copious notes after every performance, after I meet you, and I will keep that information.

Speaker 2 And it's like a coupon that never expires. In fact, it becomes more valuable the longer you hold on to it.

Speaker 2 Because if I see you in a month or a year or a decade and I'm able to access that information, then it feels, you know what it feels like? You care about me. You remembered me.

Speaker 2 And it's not done under the guise of a trick. I'm not trying to fool you, but you feel amazing.

Speaker 1 I want to know, because if you watch that 60-minute segment, or yeah, I think it was that one, where you guess people's ATM codes. And

Speaker 1 what I want to understand, because I think it helps to define what you do,

Speaker 1 is that something

Speaker 1 not telling me how you do it, but

Speaker 1 is that a trick that you could teach somebody? Or is that from years of learning how to read people?

Speaker 2 Oh,

Speaker 2 I could absolutely teach someone how to do it, but it will take you quite a while to perfect it. So, I mean, it's taken me many years.
And again, it's not a surefire thing.

Speaker 2 If you've watched me at enough shows, you've seen I don't get it right every time, but my hit rate is high enough that it's become very notable.

Speaker 2 So that's a combination of all different skills.

Speaker 2 Some of it's grounded in magic, some of it's grounded in misdirection, deception, some of it is grounded in reading people. And again,

Speaker 2 most communication is nonverbal. Anybody knows that, where, you know, it's not what they say sometimes, it's how they say it or even what they don't say.

Speaker 1 There are plenty of people.

Speaker 1 We've all met people, or maybe you're one of these people who says, I'm very good at reading people. I'm very good with people.
I can read people.

Speaker 1 And when they say that, they usually mean they have this innate ability that they've never really worked on it or anything like you do.

Speaker 1 They just have this belief that they can tell a lot about somebody by reading them or talking to them. That's not what you do.
So what is it you do specifically?

Speaker 1 Like if you were going to teach a class in this and this is day one, class one, what are the things that you push people towards doing to get there?

Speaker 2 So if we break this down, when you interact with somebody, what are the things that you would love to know? And I think that a lot of the things we really want to know is, are they interested?

Speaker 2 Now, interested could be in a different variety of ways. That could be if you're dating someone.
That could be if you just met someone and you're trying to sell them on something.

Speaker 2 Now, you don't have to be a salesperson. A third grade teacher is trying to sell their students on paying attention, right?

Speaker 2 You're trying to sell someone right this very moment to listen to your podcast, as am I. So how do you know if someone's really interested?

Speaker 2 How do you, when you meet them, make a tremendous first impression? And that's one of those things that a lot of people hesitate, right? Where is confidence?

Speaker 2 Because if you walk into a room tremendously confident, people can sense it. Even without speaking to you, you can feel confidence.
And most of us aren't inherently confident.

Speaker 2 It has to be developed over time. And some people never feel confident, right? So what I do is, as a mentalist who studies your mind, what I've set out to do is show you how to fast track that.

Speaker 2 Rewire your brain in such a way that there's a bit of a fake it till you make make it approach where here are step one, step two, step three on how to walk into a room, approach somebody with utter confidence and become very memorable.

Speaker 2 And I'm going to give you a few very easy steps.

Speaker 2 It goes way more in depth in my book, but just the way you walk up to someone, I learned this as a 14-year-old at restaurants, going up and trying to do card tricks to strangers.

Speaker 2 If I approach you head-on, I walk right up to you, both my eyes looking into your eyes, people see it as a signal of danger. It's hardwired in our brain where you get a little bit panicked and tense.

Speaker 2 If I walk up to you, just this simple thing at a slight angle, call it a 30-degree angle with only one eye showing at a profile, and I create a time constraint when I meet you, I go, you know, I only have a minute, but it's so wonderful to meet you.

Speaker 2 Right away, I've done a few things. I've taken a few of your moments of what I describe as

Speaker 2 like moments of tension, things that you you don't know exactly what's about to happen.

Speaker 2 So you don't know how long this person's approaching you for so you don't know that when they walk up to you again You're a little bit tense if you can take away all of their paths of resistance for me as a restaurant magician I didn't want to ever give someone a yes or no answer upon meeting them because if I say hey you want to see some magic and you go no it's like slamming a door in my face.

Speaker 2 It's very it is and it hurts that fear of rejection is another huge thing I teach. How do you overcome it? Fear of rejection, fear of failure has blown up more dreams than anything else.

Speaker 2 Not even your own circumstances in life. I truly believe this.
It's your fear of what will happen if this goes wrong.

Speaker 1 So, before you talk about overcoming your fear of rejection, which I think a lot of people would like to hear your thoughts on that, I need to take a quick break. I'm talking with Oz Perlman.

Speaker 1 He is author of the book, Read Your Mind, Proven Habits for Success from the World's Greatest Mentalist.

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Speaker 2 so Oz you were talking about the fear of rejection and how that stops a lot of people from moving forward so pick it up there so staying on the confidence bandwagon I realized that if I could ask you a question that didn't have a yes or no answer and that moved you out of autopilot.

Speaker 2 Now you as an interviewer have to do this all the time. So it's your muscle memory.

Speaker 2 But if you walk up to someone and you ask them the same question a hundred other people have asked, like, hey, oh, great to meet you. What's your name? Where are you from? What do you do for a living?

Speaker 2 Boring, no offense, but everyone asks the same questions. If you want to stand out, then you need to do something that other people don't do.

Speaker 2 And so a good indicator is matching someone's energy, being at the same level as them. The same way speaking to a child, a toddler, get down to their level.

Speaker 2 Any child psychologist will tell you and look them in the eye. It's less intimidating.

Speaker 2 And think of what's a question you could ask that's going to shift them out of autopilot, that someone hasn't asked them before, that shows forethought, that shows interest, that shows depth.

Speaker 2 And right away, you will set yourself apart from 95% of people they have met. And that's something that, again, it's not a mentalist trick.
It's a human trick.

Speaker 2 It's some way to know how people are thinking and how to connect with them on a deeper level.

Speaker 1 Give me an example of a question that you've used that you often use when you walk into a room and go up to somebody?

Speaker 2 I always think to myself, I always start with this question, who cares about me? And you should do the same thing. You should never think from an ego perspective, they should be interested in me.

Speaker 2 You should start with an opposite approach. What's interesting to them? And how can I find a way to get inside of their head and attach myself to what they're interested in?

Speaker 2 So for me as a mentalist, I realized early on that if I say, think of a card, Mike, and you pick the ace of spades, and I guess it, it's amazing, but it isn't a good story to tell because it has no emotional attachment.

Speaker 2 But what if instead I say, Mike, when you were a kid, is there anyone you played cards with?

Speaker 2 Think of their name and you go back to that memory and maybe it's with your uncle and see that person and have, imagine you're playing crazy eights and your uncle deals a card in front of you and you look him in the eyes and you go look at me and you guess that card and then I guess your uncle's name.

Speaker 2 Now

Speaker 2 it's the same trick. But now when you tell other people in the future about it, you're going to say, you're not going to believe what this guy always said.

Speaker 2 He guessed that my uncle's favorite card was the ace of hearts. How could he know that, right? You now have a story attached to emotion.
So I'm going to give you a great example.

Speaker 2 If you're going to meet someone and your question is going to be about what do they do for a living, shift gears. Don't ask them what they do for a living.
Ask them something about it.

Speaker 2 Say to yourself, what is the most fun thing you do every day at your job? I'm just so curious. Or tell me about the thing you absolutely hate at work, right?

Speaker 2 Something that's going to give them an emotional element that no one really asks them about. No one takes that level level of interest.
Again, these are just examples, but they're not yes or no.

Speaker 2 And my assumption is no one has thought to ask them these questions in their day-to-day life very often. So you will stand out from others.

Speaker 1 And what does that do for them in terms of how, generally, what's the response to that? Is there a kind of an uptick in energy? Like, oh, this guy's really interested in me?

Speaker 1 Or like, how do you, how do people react to what you do, what you just said you do?

Speaker 2 So again, within the guys,

Speaker 2 I've used a lot of these things just for my own usefulness because my job is to create memorable moments, to entertain you, and as a byproduct, to fool you, right?

Speaker 2 You don't know how I do what I do, even though I don't mind if you figure things out as long as it's still memorable. So I like to adapt this to, you know, Joe Public or Jane Public.

Speaker 2 Like if you're doing this in your life, what is it that you need? I think that most people want to be seen, want to be heard, and want to be remembered.

Speaker 2 If you have all of those three things, you're going to create that connection. So let's say you meet someone.

Speaker 2 When was the last time like you were at a social event, a work event, a party, let's call it that, where you've met new people.

Speaker 2 And when you leave the party, there's always that moment where you kind of look over. If you're with somebody else, you go, you have a good time.
And who, did you meet someone?

Speaker 2 You go, oh my God, did you meet him or her? You know, when you, you always, you met someone interesting and then you notice you're talking about them afterwards. Did you meet her?

Speaker 2 Oh my God, she was, she was great. What made that person great?

Speaker 2 I have spent years trying to understand that conversation when people leave an event with me or why do I have that conversation about somebody else when I leave an event where I just met them?

Speaker 2 And the common denominator I've found time and time again is this phrase, the most interesting person.

Speaker 2 is also the most interested person.

Speaker 2 The person isn't the one who talks about themselves and brags and does all these other things. It's the person who holds up a mirror to you and gets you to tell interesting stories.

Speaker 2 And you have a fascinating conversation where you not only hear about them, but you get to chime in and say things about yourself that you haven't spoken about before.

Speaker 2 And so again, you open yourself up and you connect on a level that you're not getting with all those other people.

Speaker 1 There's something about you that I see, well, I can tell from talking to you in this conversation, but also watching the videos of your performances there's never when they you know they show the audience watching you no one's looking at their phone no one's talking to anybody else everybody's riveted on you

Speaker 1 you have some sort of magnetism that

Speaker 2 i wish i you know i wish you could bottle that and sell it to me i mean how do you do that just fluffing my ego i love it how do you do that but sometimes don't don't you ever say you know i just don't have the energy for this today i just i'm not doing this so i'll have those feelings like anyone else but i really live in a in a place of gratitude where i feel like every single day i've won the lottery and i let myself even when i'm tired of feeling miserable like stop think about it and realize i get to do what i love for a living not very many people get to say that i get to be my own boss i've had not having that experience before i've worked very hard in the past but again if you can find a passion in life and then use that passion to also earn a living, I feel like you've won the lottery.

Speaker 2 So I have very little to complain about. You know, I'm not digging ditches or a funeral director.
I bring joy to people and that joy comes back on me. But how do you reframe your life?

Speaker 2 Because I was guilty for a long time of this compare and despair mentality, looking at others and saying, well, I don't have that. I wish I had that.

Speaker 2 And allowing people that had attained higher levels of success than I had to, instead of inspiring me, I would just say, well, they have this, they have that, and trying to talk down on them so that you feel better about yourself.

Speaker 2 And I changed that voice in my head. I said, this doesn't help me.
This isn't productive.

Speaker 2 It reeks of jealousy. And you know what I want? I want to look at them as an inspiration.
If someone else has achieved that, then ask yourself, why can't you also? Literally, why can't you?

Speaker 2 And the answer shouldn't be a litany of excuses. It should be like, I can.

Speaker 1 So we're almost out of time, and I certainly want to get to this demonstration of mentalism that you and I discussed.

Speaker 1 You asked me, just to set this up, you asked me before the interview to think of a person who I knew in childhood whose name wasn't a real common name like Mike or Bob or David.

Speaker 1 And that's all you asked me. You asked me to think of that, and here we go.

Speaker 2 I wanted to try something with you, Mike, to prove it, even though we're voice only. So this is going to be a tremendous challenge.

Speaker 2 Let me ask you your phone your phone you keep it on silent um during during interviews is that correct yes yeah of course and so what i want to do i like to create a visual element for this so i don't just say to you like i said think of a card who cares about cards i want you to imagine that we could go back in time where did you grow up

Speaker 2 i grew up in connecticut So imagine that somehow.

Speaker 1 But one year I was in England.

Speaker 2 That works too. So I don't know if this person was in England, in Connecticut, but I'm going to have you visualize as if right now out of the blue, your phone rings.

Speaker 2 This is the visual element I like to do. Your phone rings.
You don't recognize the number and you ask yourself, should I answer? Should I not? And you answer the phone out of the blue.

Speaker 2 And when you answer it, a voice from your past joins you of someone you literally have not spoken to in years. And before me asking you to think of this person, you had not even thought of in years.

Speaker 2 Can you visualize? I don't know, you might not hear the voice, but can you visualize this happening at this very moment? Yes.

Speaker 2 I have a question for you. The person that you thought of that popped into your head when I asked you this question,

Speaker 2 when did you know them? How old were you roughly?

Speaker 1 12.

Speaker 2 Is there any way in the world that I could have done research, that I could have gone online or looked you up or found this out? Is there any infinitesimally small percentage chance or no way?

Speaker 1 There is no way.

Speaker 2 I want you to count. I think it's a guy.
The way I framed the question was, as a guy, it's a guy, right? I'm pretty sure of that.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 2 I want you to count the letters in his name. And when you're done counting, just say, I'm done.
Don't tell me the number, but say I'm done. Just the first name.

Speaker 1 I'm done.

Speaker 2 Okay. So

Speaker 2 it's very hard to do this without visual. So everybody that's hearing us audio, I can't see you.
And I'm telling you the truth. When if I get this wrong, I don't have all of my faculties.

Speaker 2 It felt like a middle-sized name. If the name was three or four letters,

Speaker 2 you would normally not count. You would just know if it was Mike, if it was Bob, if it was Bill, Dan.
But because it took you a little while, it felt like a five, six, or seven letter name.

Speaker 2 If it was longer than that, it takes longer because you sometimes recount.

Speaker 2 Say five, six, seven. Just say those numbers.
Just float them out for me. Say those numbers.

Speaker 1 Five, six, seven.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I'm going to say it's six letters, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. Yep, I think six letters.
I think I would have hedged it. Six letters names are more common, in fact, if you look it up.

Speaker 2 Think of any one of the letters in this name.

Speaker 2 Think, you know, mix up the letters and just grab a letter somewhere in the middle maybe and just grab out one letter and just focus on that letter and only that letter.

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 3 Have you done it? Yep.

Speaker 2 Say the alphabet as quickly as you can. Just rapid fire.

Speaker 1 A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K elemental P-Q-R-S-T-U-V-W-X-Y-Z.

Speaker 2 I don't think it's a vowel. You didn't do a vowel, did you? You're not thinking of a vowel in this guy's name, are you? No.

Speaker 2 I think that subconsciously, I don't know if you did on purpose,

Speaker 2 I said your name multiple times. Mike, Mike, Mike.
I already know your name. Why do I keep saying your name?

Speaker 2 I think that because I said that, it planted the thought and mmm, Mike, you're thinking of the letter M, aren't you?

Speaker 2 Yes. Is that right? Yes.
And then it's a nickname. And then I want you to imagine this person calls you the letter M and you thought of it and you debated between two letters.

Speaker 2 I think there's more than one M in the name. The two M's, there's two M's in the middle, something else.
It's like I thought it was going to be Tanner. It's something with an S, Samer.

Speaker 2 Is the guy's name Samer?

Speaker 1 Oh my God.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 3 Wow.

Speaker 2 And that's not even a common name. That's not even a top 500 name.
That is an out there name.

Speaker 1 Right. His real name was Sam, and people called him Samer.
That's, I don't know. I mean, that's just amazing.
That's really amazing. This has really been fun and very inspiring.

Speaker 1 I really loved your message. I've been talking with Oz Perlman.
He is a mentalist and author of the book, Read Your Mind, Proven Habits for Success from the World's Greatest Mentalist.

Speaker 1 And there's a link to his book at Amazon in the show notes. Oz, thank you so much.

Speaker 2 Thanks so much for having me, Mike. Really, really enjoyed it.

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So, what happens when our passions become obsessions?

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Speaker 1 You'll hear David talk to comedian Tig Notaro about her complex passion for plant-based food. Actor David Arquette on his love of Bozo the Clown.
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Speaker 1 There's something that humans do that no other creature on earth does. We invite members of other species into our homes and call them pets.
It's kind of strange when you think about it.

Speaker 1 We feed them, talk to them, love them, and they become part of the family. But why? What makes this bond between humans and animals so powerful?

Speaker 1 It turns out there are real benefits, emotional, social, practical, even physical benefits to having pets. Still, not everyone's a pet person, and that's part of the story, too.

Speaker 1 Here to explain the fascinating science behind our connection to animals is Jay Ingram.

Speaker 1 He's a longtime science broadcaster who has hosted two national science programs in Canada, and he is author of 20 books, including his latest, The Science of Pets. Hi, Jay, welcome.

Speaker 3 Hi to you, Mike, and I'm glad to be here.

Speaker 1 So why do we have pets? I mean, when did this all begin? And who was it that said, you know, we should take these animals into our house and have them sleep on our beds? And

Speaker 1 what's the story there?

Speaker 3 Well, it's one of the key stories to try and figure out an answer to. And I don't think we have an answer yet.

Speaker 3 There are a couple of really striking things, though, that show that it's really deeply embedded in being human.

Speaker 3 One is that as far as we know wolves became tamed and eventually turned into dogs probably 30,000 years ago. So this is not a recent phenomenon.

Speaker 3 And the other thing is if you look honestly around the world Every culture that's ever been examined or that we even know anything about keeps pets. The range of pets is fantastic.

Speaker 3 I mean, the the pets that groups, cultural groups along the Amazon River that were looked at 20 or 200 years ago have an array of pets that we don't have in North America or in Europe or Asia for that matter.

Speaker 3 But pet keeping is

Speaker 3 somehow part of being human. And the other

Speaker 3 piece to add to this, even though I know I'm not actually telling you why, but I'm giving you the data that we have, is that there's no other species on Earth that keeps other species as pets.

Speaker 3 So what we know, you know, it's a human thing to do. We have no idea how far back it goes.
You know, I said 30 to 40,000 years. It could be 150,000 years.

Speaker 3 We just haven't found the, you know, the classic fossil grave of a human buried with some sort of animal and the human's got his or her arm around the animal. Just don't know.

Speaker 1 But it is weird, as you point out, that other creatures don't do it, but we do. And we can't even tell you why we do.

Speaker 3 No, and you know, people think, people see videos online of, let's say, an elephant in a zoo that has befriended a kitten. You know,

Speaker 3 those are unusual situations. Any case you see like that online, the situation is not natural.
It's not in nature. It's usually in a zoo or a shelter or someplace like that.

Speaker 3 So you can't really count those as being examples of other animals keeping pets.

Speaker 1 Are dogs the most predominant pet and the first real pet?

Speaker 3 Both the most predominant pet. I mean, you get wildly different estimates of how many dogs there are in the world because

Speaker 3 many dogs, just like many cats, and when I say many, I'm talking hundreds of millions, don't even live with people. They're feral.
They're wild.

Speaker 3 But, you know, the best estimates that I've seen are there are about 900 million dogs in the world and maybe 600 million cats.

Speaker 3 So dogs greatly outnumber not just cats, but other domestic animals like cows, horses, pigs, sheep, and so on.

Speaker 3 And the other thing about dogs is that the oldest,

Speaker 3 really demonstrably dog dog is about

Speaker 3 14,200 years old. And it's a burial of a human with a dog, but the dog

Speaker 3 when examined closely, the bones of the dog, looked like it had this disease called canine distemper and had survived a couple of bouts of that disease, which in the wild would have killed, you know, a dog that might have been a wolf.

Speaker 3 So it looks like the human had to be there to allow that dog to survive, and therefore it must have been a pet. That's 14,000 years old.

Speaker 3 And so as you and I talk today, that's considered the oldest dog. But, you know, it's just because we haven't found the older one.

Speaker 3 I mean, this was a full-fledged dog, but the transition from wolf to dog must have taken

Speaker 3 centuries at least. So I'm sure there are going to be older ones found.

Speaker 1 So how is a dog not a wolf? Like when they say dogs came from wolves, well, what does that mean? It mated with something else and that became the dog?

Speaker 1 What's the difference between a dog and a wolf?

Speaker 3 That's a really, really good question.

Speaker 3 Somehow, prolonged exposure of a group of wolves and a group of humans might have led the wolves to gain a little confidence, come in closer, maybe grab some scraps of food

Speaker 3 left behind by the humans. On the other hand, it might have, maybe the humans had a hand in that, in realizing that

Speaker 3 Being with wolves, the other apex predator on the landscape at the time, might have helped. You know, wolves

Speaker 3 know what prey is around and they're alert and they have a fantastic sense of smell. So it was really a social force, like gradually getting accustomed to each other.
Now,

Speaker 3 your question is good because that's not enough, right?

Speaker 3 You can quote unquote, make friends with a wolf. It's still going to be a wolf.
It's not a dog.

Speaker 3 But if humans and wolves actually started living so close together that some newborn wolves stayed with the humans, grew up with the humans, and the humans allowed them to breed, humans in that position would only have allowed friendly wolves to breed together, wolves that were approachable or would be willing to approach humans.

Speaker 3 And if you selectively breed like that over several generations, you're going to get an animal that starts to have genetic changes.

Speaker 3 But mostly the key changes are in its behavior. It's no longer afraid of humans.
It can live with humans comfortably. It won't attack humans.
And eventually, physical changes follow that.

Speaker 1 And what's a cat?

Speaker 1 Where did a cat come from? Because you could certainly see the similarity between say a bobcat or a leopard or something that kind of has that cat look to it, but it's not a cat.

Speaker 1 So where did the cat come from?

Speaker 3 Well, the funny thing is that the wild cat of the Middle East is the ancestor of today's house cat, and they're practically indistinguishable.

Speaker 3 In other words, physically, the house cat, and they were probably domesticated

Speaker 3 little later than dogs, let's say 9,000 years ago instead of 14.

Speaker 3 They look the same as their wild ancestor. And the wild ancestor hasn't changed much.

Speaker 3 And the domestic cat of today looks just like domestic cats in ancient Egypt, domestic cats even a few thousand years before that.

Speaker 3 And I, you know, I think you can sort of see that there's that very close similarity between today's house cat and the wild ancestor that is different from dogs and wolves. And

Speaker 3 you see it in the behavior, too. Dogs have become so socialized to humans that many dogs, my dog included, prefers human company to dog company.
I mean, he really does.

Speaker 3 And cats, on the other hand, they still have that little sense of wildness.

Speaker 3 So, you know, you leave the back door open, your dog may not leave, but your cat may well leave and may be gone for two weeks. Who knows?

Speaker 1 I would assume that farming had a lot to do in promoting pets, because when you have cows and, you know, horses around, how do you not create a bond with them?

Speaker 3 So farming was the

Speaker 3 event in the domestication of the cat. As soon as farming started, Farmers started to store grain.
As soon as they started to store grain, rats and mice found that a fantastic source of food.

Speaker 3 Cats, the wild cats of the Middle East where agriculture started, loved an accumulation of rats and mice that were attracted by grain, so they started to hang around farms.

Speaker 3 And they were tolerated by the humans because they didn't interfere with the humans. In fact, they were a benefit.
They

Speaker 3 kept the level, the number of rodents down.

Speaker 1 How has the relationship between pet owner and pet changed? Because it seems like people overall dote on their pets more than they used to.

Speaker 3 Some of the surveys done in the last 10 years have shown that basically 97% of pet owners in the U.S.

Speaker 3 think of their pets as a member of the family. About 80% said they'd move if they thought moving from wherever they were living to a new place would make the pet happier.
Some

Speaker 3 70 or 75% said they'd change their job. And 62%

Speaker 3 said they would change their relationship with their closest huma. So, you know, it's pretty extreme.

Speaker 1 Well, certainly in the U.S., dogs and cats are, I imagine, the most popular pets, but you do see people with some very unusual pets, snakes and exotic birds and

Speaker 1 really strange

Speaker 1 iguana kind of pets. And I wonder what it is about the exotic pets that appeal to those people.

Speaker 3 They appeal to certain different kinds of people. And the suspicion has always been people with particularly showy pets.
And I think of all the videos I've seen of some guy on the subway with a giant

Speaker 3 constrictor snake around his neck and I think okay that's really not about the pet that's about the guy the guy wants to be seen as being an unusual person who has an unusual pet and there is some of that but sometimes people just have motives that are really hard to pin down as to why they prefer or say a parrot instead of a cat.

Speaker 3 Now, I don't own a parrot, but I kind of wish I had got one when I was young because because they're so smart and it's fun to talk to a parrot, even though it ends up cursing most of the time. But,

Speaker 3 you know, the problem with owning a parrot is, is that it might outlive you. And this creates a problem if, you know, if you die and your parrot's only 50 years old,

Speaker 3 who's going to take a 50-year-old parrot?

Speaker 3 And so A lot of them end up being unclaimed, and that's kind of sad.

Speaker 1 I don't know if anybody's ever studied this, but my guess would be that if you had pets, if you had a dog when you were a kid, you're much more likely to have one when you're an adult.

Speaker 1 And if you never had pets growing up, you're much less likely.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I think that's true. I can't cite a particular study that says that, but yes, I think that's inevitable because,

Speaker 3 you know, whatever it is that

Speaker 3 binds people, and let's talk about dogs and cats here, that it creates that bond between you and an animal if you've experienced that when you're a kid and you know it seems pretty clear that dogs often cats too love kids and kids love cats and dogs it would be a surprise for you to abandon that in your adult life unless like i said earlier circumstances make it very difficult for you to own a pet but yeah i think that's absolutely true there are people that try and argue that it also is a kind of training ground for having kids.

Speaker 3 But gathering evidence that would actually support that has been pretty difficult.

Speaker 3 There has been some data that shows that young girls are particularly responsive to pets in the ages like 8 to 12.

Speaker 3 And some people have interpreted that as somehow linking to future childbearing, but it's a pretty tenuous link.

Speaker 1 What's one thing that you have found to be surprising in this relationship between pets and pet owners?

Speaker 3 I think the thing that surprised me most

Speaker 3 was

Speaker 3 how much people think they know about what their pet is thinking and

Speaker 3 how much it became clear to me that most of the time they have no idea. And I'll give you a very quick example.

Speaker 3 There are lots of dog owners who think their dog looks guilty when it does something wrong so they did a setup where they left they had an owner and a dog and a bowl of food and an experimenter in a kitchen and the owner said to the dog don't touch that food and then the owner left the kitchen While the owner was out of the kitchen, the experimenter encouraged the dog to eat the food.

Speaker 3 So when the owner came back in, looked looked at the dog, looked, the food was gone,

Speaker 3 and said, look, my dog looks guilty. But what was really happening was the dog immediately sensed disapproval on behalf of his or her owner.
And so it reacted to the potential disapproval.

Speaker 3 And the owner interpreted that look as guilt. The dog wasn't guilty.

Speaker 3 The dog, you know, in some cases, the experimenter actually took the food away, just emptied it out out of the bowl the dog didn't even eat it and put the empty bowl down on the floor so the how could the dog feel guilty it didn't do anything so this is very widespread and people become convinced their dogs know all kinds of things and what i found is that we're a long way from really understanding what goes on in the minds of our pets So I remember hearing a while ago, and so I checked this out with my own dog, that when a dog basically goes outside to poop, it lines itself up north-south or south-north or whatever,

Speaker 1 you know, beforehand.

Speaker 1 In my experiment with my dog, that turned out to not be true. I mean, it was true some of the time, but so were the other directions.
So what is that and where did it start? And

Speaker 1 what is that?

Speaker 3 I'm so glad you did that experiment. You know, most people read these things and then don't bother to check it out.

Speaker 3 But I was hosting a TV science program and we did the very same test you did with a variety of dogs. And it was completely random.

Speaker 3 I mean, one dog, as you said, did hit the north-south axis, but one dog was still turning when he pooped. So that was kind of hard to evaluate.
And the other two were just all over the place.

Speaker 3 And so I've watched my dog carefully.

Speaker 3 There is no north-south.

Speaker 3 But, you know, somebody did, a pair of scientists did an extensive experiment in a dog park you know videotaping every dog comparing it to compass direction concluded that it was along the magnetic north-south and then another team did it and didn't find that at all so i would think that at this point

Speaker 3 the evidence that at least was gathered once hasn't stood the test of time. And then you have to ask,

Speaker 3 what would be the point of that? I mean, you know, people don't really even know why dogs spin around before they poop

Speaker 3 some people say it's because they want to check out the surroundings to make sure it's safe but i've watched my dog very carefully and he's not looking anywhere except on the ground about a foot in front of him so i don't think that's the case and

Speaker 3 there is no other reasonable uh answer and if you know some people have said well you know maybe certain maybe the wind carries the odor. No, I don't think so.

Speaker 1 Well, as we were discussing in the very beginning of this conversation, no other species does this. No other species keeps pets.
This is uniquely human. And boy, do humans love their pets.

Speaker 1 So it's great to get a little bit of the science behind all this. I've been talking with Jay Ingram.
He is a science broadcaster, author of 20 books. His latest is called The Science of Pets.

Speaker 1 And there's a link to that book at Amazon in the show notes. Jay, thank you for coming on.

Speaker 3 Thanks, Mike. Those were good questions.

Speaker 1 One of the reasons people walk is to burn calories. But you may not know this, you can burn more calories by changing the way you walk.

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Speaker 1 We have a great team of people who put this show together three times a week. Our producers are Jennifer Brennan and Jeff Havison.
My son Owen Carruthers, he handles the website.

Speaker 1 And our executive producer is Ken Williams. I'm Mike Carruthers.
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