And this is a conversational lesson about pets and animals.

And today we have our favorite guest,

- Kate.

- Kate, who is going to bring some American flair

to this conversation.

And, yeah, we're just gonna have

a conversation about pets.

We're gonna talk about pets that we've had,

common command for dogs.

We're gonna talk about going to the zoo,

extinct animals.

We'll think about talking about strange animals

we've eaten before, but we might not go there.

We'll see where this conversation goes,

and stay to the end because we'll have a question for you.

Kate's question.

Okay. And,

and just one last thing,

we're going to have this natural conversation,

but I'll leave some of the key phrases in the description,

and also turn on subtitles.

If you want to follow along with the conversation.

Let's just start with, pets that we had growing up.

We'll keep this segment a little bit short.

We won't go into too much depth,

but what animals, what pets did you have growing up

in Connecticut, United States of America?

- I had,

dogs.

- Uh huh. - So when I was born,

my parents had a golden retriever.

And then when I was a little bit older, we had a poodle,

We had a cat who was a rescue cat,

and she stayed a little bit feral,

a little bit wild,

- Hmm. Spider.

- Spider. Her name was Spider,

because she had a habit of eating spiders.

- I didn't know That's why you called her Spider.

- Yeah, we didn't.

She had that reputation in the animal shelter.

And so that became her name.

And I also had,

parakeets,

and betta fish,

and horses.

- (laughs) and horses.

- and horses.

- Yeah.

- I was very lucky.

- Yeah.

- So, a lot of, a lot of,

kids want a pony,

but I,

I had a pony,

in my backyard.

- Yeah, we, so we never had dogs,

but we, I always wanted a dog as a kid,

but my parents were more interested in cats.

So we had a cat which died when I was around four.

So my parents had that before I was born.

And then we had two cats called Tiger and Pepper.

We had a bunny called Fluffy,

and Flooffy.

- Flooffy. (Jack laughs)

and then, I think that's it, really, growing up.

I don't think we had any other pets, growing up,

but and, let's just talk about the horse briefly,

because that's,

I imagine people are interested in that.

'Cause not a lot of people have a horse.

Was it a lot of work involved,

- Yes. - with the horse?

- Yes.

So I did all of, when the horse came to live at our house,

I did all of the work for the horse and when it was boarded,

other places, I would also go and help out.

So that was hauling water,

making sure that there were hay bales,

which are big,

rectangles of hay, up in the loft.

And you know, and every morning you have to do barn chores.

So I would put on my boots and go out to the barn

and just muck out, (laughs)

every day.

- Muck out - Uh-huh.

- It's a phrasal verb.

- Is is a phrasal verb, and it's one

that you might not have heard before.

- No.

- No, so, - I can understand it

from the context, probably that it means let's clean,

- Yep. - clean it out.

- Uh-huh. - 'Cause horses,

create a lot of waste.

- They do.

- Right.

- So,

- And combing, brushing the horse.

- Uh-huh. A little grooming,

- Grooming, grooming.

- So usually I wouldn't groom,

my horse unless I was planning to ride.

But well, before I rode,

I had different brushes,

and a special tool

called a hoof pick to scoop out the dirt.

- Hoof pick.

- A hoof pick.

- H-O-O-F.

- Yeah, 'cause horses have hooves,

and then sometimes they get dirt

caked in their feet and you have to scoop it out.

- Wow. So a lot of upkeep.

- A lot of upkeep. Uh-huh.

- And yeah, I think that's a good thing to talk about,

Which pets need the most amount of maintenance,

the fish, least amount.

- Least amount.

- Cats next.

- Yes.

- Dogs.

- Uh-huh. - Then the horse.

- Yes.

- Yeah.

- I would almost say, that,

a cat might even be easier than a fish, in some senses,

- Hmm.

because you can go away

for a few days and leave food for a cat,

and a fish, you have to feed them every day.

- Oh, yeah.

- Uh-huh.

- I wonder if they have like, automatic

fish food dispensers now.

- You would think so.

- If not, that's an idea, for somebody to introduce.

And, so yeah, pets that need the most attention.

I think a horse is up there. Right?

- Yes.

- Which means a horse has a great contender for a pet

that needs the most kind of maintenance and attention.

What other pets need attention more than a horse?

Can you think of anything?

I mean some, you probably need to pay attention to,

a little bit more. - Uh huh.

For example, we're going to talk about some exotic pets

that people have.

Which might be venomous spiders,

snakes.

- Okay.

- Like what's happened in Florida, with some snakes.

- Oh, this is a story that you clearly know more about.

I haven't been following it.

- So people had, boa constrictor pets,

- Uh huh.

and they got released into the wild.

- Oh no.

- And they're massive.

I think they're from,

somewhere in Asia,

I can't remember which country they're really prevalent in,

but people kept them in as pets in Florida,

they got too big,

And just oh, go to the wild and have taken over,

- Oh no. - The Everglades.

- Is that dangerous to humans?

- Not necessarily,

but to other animals that are more native to Florida,

they can take over territories, et cetera.

- So they're invasive species.

- Invasive, yes.

Yeah. And that just reminds me,

I think there's a stat that I think is really cool,

or maybe not cool, but interesting.

That the country with the most amount

of tigers in the world is the US.

- Wow.

- Think of Tiger King.

- Yeah.

- And people keep them as pets in certain states.

So, there there's a map I saw as well of where it's legal

or illegal to keep a kangaroo as a pet,

because in the US things are really,

a lot of laws are created state by state.

So in some states you can keep exotic animals, like tigers.

So people have tigers as pets.

And there are instances like in Knoxville,

where our friends live, where that tiger got loose.

Do you remember that story?

- I do.

- And someone created a fake Twitter account,

talking about, "I am the Knoxville tiger."

(Kate laughs)

Just like, someone, the authorities said,

we're leaving out chicken traps and stuff like that.

And the tiger would respond saying

like, "You can't fool me with that."

(Both laugh)

But it ended up, I think, being a false alarm.

- Oh, okay.

- 'Cause our friend who's a vet was part

of that mission to try and find it.

- Uh-huh. - He was in the helicopter

looking for the tiger

and going off leads.

- Uh huh.

- But this is real, like these pets

can escape.

- Uh huh.

- The thing with tigers,

it doesn't seem like if they escape,

they will breed and create more baby tigers.

But the boa constrictors seem to do that in Florida.

- I guess, unless you have a significant number

of tigers escape at the same time,

- Uh huh. - which is, unlikely.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- What was an animal like that,

that you would consider having as a pet.

If you had to have,

maybe like a,

tarantula, or,

- I was going to say, I'll take a koala. (laughs)

- Koala.

- You're talking about kangaroos,

That would be an exotic pet.

- Yeah.

Everyone loves a koala.

- Yes.

- They seem to be very chilled out, relaxed.

- Yes,

- There was some type of,

video where people at the zoo tricked

a British reporter about the dangers of koalas

and made up, like a massive armor suit.

- Oh no. - Do you remember that?

- No.

- And they just tricked her about like,

how dangerous they are,

and she put on this massive suit, just like, tricked her,

so she's reporting for news channel,

for the UK wearing this,

- Oh, no.

- That's a good prank. - Yeah.

- I'll leave a link to that in the description.

- So, was the tiger escape also a prank?

- No, I think it was like someone saw,

it might have been a coyote, or something like that.

I can't remember what it was. - Coyote, tiger. (laughs)

- Well,

I will tell a story,

- Okay. - When we got,

our first dog together, Lyle.

He was very small for a dog and he was a puppy as well,

- Yeah. - so he was tiny.

And we, I was with him for a few days,

and I hadn't really seen a cat in that time,

and we went out, do you remember?

- I do. - And I said,

"What is that down there?"

It's huge and it's feline.

And I was thinking, it was either like a tiger, baby tiger,

or maybe a coyote.

And it was just a house cat.

- Oh, But,

it wasn't just a house cat.

So there,

it wasn't any special kind of cat.

- It was,

a house cat, but it was huge.