THIS WEEK...
A proposed 'law' in the ACT would require all dogs to have a minimum of three hours of human contact daily! But how would it be monitored?
Plus...
Remember the movie '101 Dalmatians? Well 'Krypto The Superdog' has re-ignighted dog adoptions!
Also this week... It's coming up to Pawgust 2025. Find out how you can help Guide Dogs AU raise some more valuable funds for future traing..
And...
Imagine a parrot chatting with Alexa... What could possibly go wrong!!?
Full transcript below...
CHAPTERS:
00'00" - Welcome Tim Webster and Kaye Browne
00'09" - Proposed Law Re Minimum Time To Spend With Dogs!
02'05" - Dog Adoptions Increase Due to Krypto The 'Super-dog'
03'53" - Guide Dogs - PawGust 2025 - How To Get Involved
05'28" - Rocco The Parrot Loves Using Alexa!
TRANSCRIPT:
TIM: Time for our regular chat about our best friends, our pets, our pets. Here's Kaye Browne. Hi Kaye. KAYE: Good morning Tim.
TIM: Now I had to ask you about this because I thought, really? How much is enough time to spend with your dog on a daily basis? Now is that three hours? A new law, yes I said law, being proposed by authorities in the ACT, and I don't mind being authoritarian, often we follow that in the other states and territories. So really? That's extraordinary. KAYE: That's the proposal. The ACT has always been a little bit out there in terms of its animal welfare laws, and in fact in the ACT they consider that dogs are sentient animals, and this draft bill recognises that dogs can experience pleasure and pain, and that these feelings actually matter a lot.
So the aim of it is to encourage people who perhaps aren't spending as much time as they should be with their dog, perhaps leaving them alone for too long, that they actually think about what they're doing so that the dog doesn't get stressed. Now there's a lady called Associate Professor Susan Hazel from the School of Animal Veterinary Science at the University of Adelaide, who's really right across this kind of thing, who says, three hours when you factor in walks, pats, feeding time, some attention time, you know, maybe three hours would be enough.
TIM: Well, yeah. But a law, I mean for goodness sake, who's going to police a law of how much time you spend with your dog? I mean, I'm going to say as much as you can, and in some days at our house it's a lot more than three hours, and some days it's less. Anyway, that's bizarre.
KAYE: Absolutely true. It's quite bizarre because right around the world, countries are taking more notice of the needs of dogs. You know, we've been genetically breeding dogs to want to be around us more, and of course now they are around us more. So in places like Germany, for example, they actually have a law that requires owners to walk their dogs twice a day for at least an hour each time. Goodness me. I don't know how they police that one either.
TIM: No, of course, yeah. I mean, talk about government in your life. Heavens above. Okay, now I haven't seen the new Superman movie yet. It looks interesting to me, but it's prompted this increase in people wanting to adopt a pooch, which is what we've done, a rescue pooch, just like Krypto. Sounds like a good thing, but is there a downside to that?
KAYE: There could be. If we go back a step, if you think way back to 101 Dalmatians, and I'm sure your listeners remember that, everyone wanted a Dalmatian, not realizing that they stay teenagers for most of their life. So unfortunately, a lot of people that jumped on that bandwagon ended up returning the Dalmatians.
But in that case, they're actually looking at it very seriously because the director and writer of the Superman movie, he actually based Krypto, the adorable mutt in the movie who saved Superman's life, he actually based it on his own rescue dog. You know, he was beginning to regret it when his rescue dog, when he started writing the movie, started eating his shoes, even chewing up his laptop, his furniture. And he apparently said, this is James Gunn, the director, oh, how awful would it be if Ozu had superpowers? So then he started writing the part of Krypto.
So Krypto in the movie is actually CGI, but based on a terrier cross schnauzer. And apparently, that's the kind of breed that people are asking for. You know, this is happening all around the world, not just Australia but also in the United States, a huge amount of interest in people wanting to get a little dog, just like Krypto.
TIM: Just like Krypto. I was saying the other day, I don't think I've watched a Superman movie after the first one, which had Christopher Reeve, and I think Marlon Brando was in that, or he might have been in the second one. But this one sounds interesting. So I'm going to have a look at that. Now, we should say to our beautiful guide dogs of Australia, their annual fundraiser is on next month. And it is next month, Pawgust. Lovely way to put it. 2025, yeah?
KAYE: It is indeed. And this is a great one, because Guide Dogs Australia do wonderful things for people that otherwise would be basically trapped at home. So there's lots of puns on their website, and I'll give you the name of the site shortly, and people can go there and sign up. You don't have to wait till next month to get started. But the whole idea is that it's a free thing to enter. You don't even need to have a paw.. sorry a dog to participate.
You literally sign up, register online, and choose to walk or run your target distance. 50 Kilometres 100, 125, share your fundraising page, and ask your friends and family to help sponsor you. The idea is that it helps with the cost. It costs $50,000 and more for each individual guide dog. And they have hundreds of them that not churn out, but they get out and about each year. So if you're particularly interested, I'd suggest you go there because you can also win prizes. They've got three lucky participants who will win a year's worth of Blackhawk dog food. That's about $1,500 each.
And there are other bonus things like beanies, t-shirts, drink bottles, things like that. So it's a good place to go, and all you have to do is go to pawgust.com.au. TIM: pawgust.com.au Now, this is a funny story. Tell us about Rocco the parrot that listened very carefully to his parents and was able to copy their voices completely, because they're very clever parrots.
KAYE: African grey parrots are amongst the cleverest in the world. I think there was a YouTube video of a parrot that really had a vocabulary of a young child. This particular one called Rocco was listening to his owners who happened to be carers from a sanctuary where Rocco was banned from because he had choice language. What Rocco did in his new home was he went, I can see what they're doing. So he started calling up Alexa.
And the owners didn't know that this was happening until packages started turning up at their doorstep. Oh, fantastic. You know, we haven't been buying all these things. And they said, yes, you have. Yes, you know, we have the voice recording.
TIM: That's great. That's priceless. Rocco, God bless you. By the way, where did Rocco pick up the bad language from his parents?
KAYE: Well, presumably the parents who then rented him to the sanctuary in the first place. But, you know, he got his snacks coming along very nicely. He had favourite strawberries, broccoli, watermelon, even ice cream. He was ordering through Alexa. TIM: That's just fantastic. Oh, Rocco. God bless you, son. We should we should do it. Do you want to do the Alexa voice?
KAYE: Okay. Okay. TIM: Let's do it. Hello, Alexa.
KAYE: Yes, Rocco. How can I help you?
TIM: It's snack time. The usual.
KAYE: Okay, Rocco. Will, you have your usual snacks of strawberries and broccoli. What about raisins this week?
TIM: How about pate and yes, truffles? Let's really rack this bill up. I think that, okay, I just think that's one of the most priceless things I've ever heard. That's brilliant.
KAYE: Well, the owners now have a pin code and they're just hoping and praying.
TIM: For God's sake, don't mention the pin code at home because you'll learn that too. That's that's just fantastic. Lovely to talk to you. Now, if you'd like Kaye to solve a pet problem for you, by all means to send it to us, send it on the, you can send it to me if you like, tim@2sm.com.au or just 2sm.com.au and we'll discuss it with you next week. That was lovely, Kaye. Thank you. Great fun as always. KAYE: Thank you.
TIM: Kaye Browne.
