How to Save Money on Pets

so we're gonna do it. Yeah. There's two parts, saving money and pets, and we are definitely qualified to talk about saving money. And we have had pets in the pasture, so I mean, let's wing it. I have I have friends who have pets. Yeah, and we're going to turn to the internet, right And sometimes it's the people on the outside that no very little um that have the strongest opinions. And and that's where we're at. So let's get into this by starting with our sponsors. This episode

is brought to you by Not Moving. By the time you hear this, I'll hopefully have completed my first half marathon in seven years. Hopefully we'll see who knows there's still time. I'm much older than I was then, roughly seven years older, so I have relied on not moving this week to recuperate. And there is nothing I like to do more when I'm not moving than read a book. If you'd like to try not moving and need a book to read, We've got a free one for you.

Head to Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash e book to get modern frugal living. That's our book with over two heard ways to save money. Again. That's Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash e book, also brought to you by doggie Bags. Disturbingly, the phrase used for both what you carry your leftover food from a restaurant in and what you pick up your dog's feces with. Doggie Bags. Aren't concerned about the room for error and misunderstanding. They trust us to get it right. Doggie bags for grown

adults cleaning up after their dogs or your restaurant leftovers. Yep, that is quite the word. Quite the room for misunderstanding. I get that. It's almost like Costco's Kirkland brand making chicken and boxers. Yeah, why because they can't. They can, That's exactly people buy it well, if you are interested in saving money on pets, we have zero more pet apt like, not even in the realm of pets, so I'm so sorry, but we have some other ways to

save money on things you love. So episode how to save money on coffee, because we I mean we love coffee, and then lesser known one, episode nine, how to save money on raising your kids because usually you love those two. Um, and that's with our good friend Caroline Pencil. Will probably be a lot of overlaps between episode, I believe, so this is kind of like, you know, raising kids, your

furry your furry children. Yeah, if you don't get everything you need from this episode, go back to episode and I'm sure that will will finish you off. So let's get into our first article that taught me a lot about saving money on pets, and that is from BuzzFeed and it's fourteen money saving tips that pet owners swear by. I like this one because the first article when you google like how to save money on pets, the very first thing on the list was try training your dog yourself,

and I was like, that's the world. That's horrible advice. I think the list can only go downhill from here, so I just clicked out of it, Like I don't have a dog, but if I did, I don't like this advice. It's I mean, unless you are gift a gifted dog trainer, then I mean that's something you should at least hire out. And but the article did say, like you can, you can get a course and how

to train a dog. But I still feel like that after I had dogs growing up and there was no way, like even with a course, I could have trained those things. So that is something I would leave to a professional, at least partly, unless you've grown up with dogs and you know what they need in the structure that they need. But still, ultimately everyone knows that like either you're going to train your own dog or you're going to hire

someone to train your dog. That's a very obvious. People that I know who have tried to train their own dogs have always regretted it. In my circle of friends, it is funny. I don't know that I put much thought to it, but anytime I hear somebody like, oh, he's still in training and they're training their dog, it's

like two years in ye, like he's still a bobby. Yeah, So that is not on this list, but it is something we are starting out with, but there are a lot of good tips in this one, like real life, real life owners, not just like writers trying to right the article that shows up at the top of Google.

So we probably won't go through all fourteen on here, and some of them are overlap, but I do like the first one on this list, and I feel like, being a non pet owner at this point in life, it is the one I can speak most confidently too. And it's just first things first if you're thinking about adopting a pet. So this is for those of you who don't have any pets yet, but it's a strong desire of yours to pause and take a good look at your budget and your lifestyle to make sure you're

actually really ready to make the commitment. Yeah, people look at their budget, but they don't always look at their lifestyle. Oh. I have so many things to say about this. I am I'm not a pet person, so full disclosure, but so so Yes, I could have a biased view of this, but I do think one of the greatest disservices that we can give to pets in our home is not actually having the time or money for them. I see so many people adopting specifically dogs who do need a

lot of care and attention. They need to go out, they need to be fed. They can't self feed like some other pets. And so if you're gone all of the time and it's important to you to be out on the weekend or out at night, your lifestyle just may not be it up to have specifically a dog. And I think that's the greatest disservice we can do, is when we adopt that dog, then our lifestyle doesn't match up with it, and then they're trying to re home the dog. And that's just I have I do

have some strong opinions about that. And then I also see people trying to take on pets to prepare themselves for children, and I just have like an unpopular opinion about that too, because I'm like, first of all, nothing is going to prepare you for that. Second of all, and enjoy what life is bring introduce the pet afterwards when your life is already set up for a dog, not stopping your life now to prepare for the eventual child.

And then not to mention, a lot of times when you have a pet first and then a child, sometimes they don't get along. It I have seen observationally it is easier to introduce a pet to a child than vice versa. Of course, I'm gonna have plenty of stories out there, but I had a pet first and then I had a child and everything went fine. Sure, if you're the person without a pet or without a child yet, just you know number one on this buzzfeedlist, think twice. Yeah,

I do. So. I have seen a lot of pets acclimate really well to babies, So that's I think it's I would say more on the they'll get there. I'm speaking observationally with my own friends. I'm not like trying

to make broad strokes, but I would. I would say, if you really want a dog and your life, and you still want to have a life, then this is where your budget comes in, because you're going to need to even though you don't think or you don't want to, you're gonna need to budget in daycare and boarding quite frequently throughout the year, more than you think you need to. And then if you spend less on it, great, but you need to have a sinking fund set up for I mean, just look at what you did in the

past well two years. Let's combine the last two years into one year and then save that much in a sinking fund for boarding and daycare. Of course, the last two years were COVID and everyone was at home, he said. Combined the last you probably lived one year of life over the last two years. So that's that can be your gaugeh we stood out to you on this list, Jen. So the second one obviously make sure you have the essentials covered like food and medicine before you drop cash

on toys, beds and treats. And so this is another one that comes down to checking your budget and pet owners. We will get into practical ways to save, but like, let's just think that we're just gonna for foundationally for people thinking about getting a pet, this is where we're starting. But so think about the breed you want. If you're going with a rescue, this may not be as important because from my experience, rescues use far less in in

medicine and high cost food. But if you want a specific breed, then doing research into the medicines that they're going to need later on in life or even upfront the foods that are best for them because purebreads tend to have more restrictions. UM and health concerns in that area.

So not only is it more expensive to get a particular type of breed, but you also need to make sure you can cover everything else, because, like what we're gonna say later on, it is not a great idea to skip out on food and medicine and then think about the toys and the treats. Because I mean also depending on the breed you get, you you could have a dog that destroys toys in thirty seconds, or you could have one that you know keeps them for a month there longer. And and so breed has a lot

to do with how you're thinking about your budget. So it's not just like oh yeah, I think I can afford a dog now, it's like okay, but like which breed of dog? You have to think hard about that. Continuing with this trajectory of becoming a pet parent, number three talks about the fact that sometimes pets are going to enjoy playing with or sleeping on the things that you already own versus maybe some of the new or more expensive things that you might buy for them. This

is where I see some overlap with having children. I remember you, John, when you had kai your approach because others had advised you in this way was I'm gonna have the essentials and then I'll see what I need as I go. And so I think that that's a decent approach for pet ownership. And coming into pet ownership is let's have the essentials, let's make sure that the food and the medical costs are covered, and then see what they acclimate to see what they're most interested in.

This article highlights how they had a cat who was more interested in sleeping on an old sweater than a new a new bed that they had bought for it. And I'm not advocating like we give all all of the like awful sloppy seconds to a pet, but it might be that they find most comfort and like their owner's old clothing. So I think that that's worth looking at. And I get it that it can be hard when you really care for a pet so much, like I want to give them the new things, but if they're

not interested in it, then that's just money wasted. So I like that tip to to just see what are they what are they acclimating to, what are they interested in? Yeah, because unlike humans, it's it's harder to buy secondhand stuff for pets because they really do destroy the like things, so like beds and toys and all this stuff, they'll use it till it's destroyed. So there are some things like unless you're gonna d I y your own thing out of used fabric or clothing, a lot of this

stuff you you will have to buy new, unfortunately. But if there are secondhand pet thing options that we don't know about, we would love tear about them in the Frugal Friends committee on Facebook. But yeah, in my experience, you will pay a little bit more of a premium because you're kind of forced to buy things new. I mean, I would imagine that at the thrift store you could buy at least things to make a bed out of

our children's toys that could also double as pet toys. No, like rubber duckies, so they're not made super well yeah I guess rubber duckies, but like kids, stuffed animals are not made super well. Really sturdy pet toys like certain

breeds can destroy instantaneously. Well. Speaking of that, though, there are some thrift stores that are particularly they support rescue shelters like animal shelters, and a lot of times you will have that will attract pet owners to donate something so that and some throw stores that I've gone into that yes it's clothing. And then it's also like a strong pet section as well, so that would be worth

looking into. And I'm sure a lot of rescues in the area would even know of drift stores that support them and then have maybe a stronger selection of second hand pets. That's a great idea. So my next one is kind of a combination of four and five. So it's number five, feeding your pet a healthy diet and taking care of their teeth can prevent costly problems down

the road. And then four is like make your pets meals or treats yourself to just check with your veterinarian first to make sure you're using only safe and healthy ingredients. So this is actually like a twofold. When you are feeding your pet good nutritious food, you save money down the road on healthcare costs. We know this even in our own lives, but it can actually be cheaper. Um some of these like things like sweet potatoes, carrots, these things for dogs like are way cheaper than like treats

you would get from a store. And obviously every dog is unique and what they will and won't eat. But I have I see very few dogs that won't eat anything that you give them except lettuce. I have seen dogs turn down lettuce. There are certain things. Yeah, so it's not everything, but consider looking at the asking your veterinarian looking at the lists and seeing, Okay, what's super cheap that I can purchase for my pet. One of

the ideas I think it was on this list. But um, this guy just took sweet potatoes, cut him up like he normally would for himself, and I guess probably cooked some for him and then took part and just baked them at I guess like two D degrees, kind of dried them and made treats for his dog out of sweetpota does he already had and they already sell them in like huge bags that it's so hard to finish.

So what a great idea? Yeah, I think pet treats in general can fall under that category of elusive mysterious. We don't quite know how it's done, what it's native. And for me, that's beef jerky. Like I just thought, home man, beef jerky, How how would I even make that myself? And then I realized how a food dehydrator. Okay, yeah, and that made beef jerky. It's great. Anyhow, once we learn how to do something, it can be really simple and then a nice treat for your pets. So I

do love that tip making your own. It's not intimidating. The picture on the article has this like gourmet cupcake, like for a dog, and that's the opposite of what the article is actually saying. It doesn't have to be like complicated it is. They're very like simple. You don't need to give them fancy cupcakes. Yeah. Generally pet treats do not have a lot of ingredients, and it's a very snap diet and they should not have a lot

of ingredients in them. Yeah, this one I found interesting and so certainly we love to hear it feedback on what works for you all in caring for your pets. The community voices are necessary. But number six talks about dental care. I imagine that this says they're mostly talking about dog dental care, but they suggest seeing a specialist who can offer these services oftentimes less than a regular vet.

So their experience was that a vet was going to charge a lot of money to clean two teeth versus what a dental specialist was able to quote them at it was like sixty savings, which is interesting. I think that's a little bit opposite of what I'm accustomed to for like human healthcare, that going to a specialist would

be specialized prices. But on the flip side, I guess I could see that where if that's not typically what of engages in they kind of have their more generalist types of care that they provide, then they might hike up a price on something that is seemingly more specialized. So I like that tip. I like I mean any time that there's prompts to shop around, get quotes, see where your best price is on the needs of your

specific pet, I think that's great. Yeah. So seven on this list is if your pet needs regular grooming, see if you can do some of it yourself. So trimming nails, giving baths, I mean, maybe doing a little shaving. A lot of that is manageable yourself. I know we had big dogs growing up, and we would definitely do the baths. We would go have somebody else cut their hair because

they were hairy dogs Harry Docks. But yeah, my my parents would clip the nails and do the baths and just get them groomed, maybe like twice a year, and that saved a lot. But you can also see if you can negotiate that in their wellness visit if that's something you you physically can't. I mean there was two of them, so they could, you know, tag team it. But if you cannot, you can see if you can roll it up into another service. I guess maybe you can.

It's probably more expensive at the VET, but I am not sure just from hearing, Like I didn't know that thing about the dental stuff, but hearing that, I was like, Okay, maybe it's like premium there, but compare the prices to something with a like a mobile groomer or a VET or something. Compare prices and see what works for you.

That's a little bit more of an obvious one. And I know oftentimes the reasons that people will choose to pay is because your pet just might respond better to someone else than do you trying to clip their nails. So if if this is an area where you're deeming this is valuable for me to spend money in this area, then then that great too. But ultimately it's going to come down to that budget. Again, what have you budgeted for where can you learn to d I y things?

And then what's worth paying Actually, definitely something else to include in that budget to make sure you're ready. And I liked the comment from the pet owners that they try, um, they can use you can use Rover. I'm don't know what they're using Rover for, but I anticipate if you hire somebody on Rover, maybe they can help you like whole you know, if you want to if you need help grooming your pet and it's not unsafe for the Rover employee, they could probably help you with something like that.

So that might be another thing to try if you need another set of hands. They also mentioned considering different places that would provide shipping, like auto shipping on things that you regularly need, food, flee prevention, meds, litter places Chewy or Amazon or pet Co often will provide discounts, so consider taking advantage of those discounts as needed. Even switching around. We're never going to be people who advocate for loyalty if it doesn't get a discount because of it.

And then they also mentioned tract or supply. If you have a local tract or supply around, they often have affordable pet items. I know a lot of times they cater to maybe the people more so with horses or larger animals, but you can find some of the necessities for having pets. They do, and they're I would consider a dog the dog a larger animal. Okay, so I

learned recently and this kind of ties on. There's another one in here that further down that says like get like stuff in bulk from like tractor supply type places. Are recently learned about rural king And I don't know, you've probably never heard of this, Jill, I haven't. It's just a few hours away. But apparently it's a big thing in rural communities. I guess. But I wouldn't even think we're the city that it's. It's not superal. I

don't know rural King. I met a girl and apparently this place is like tractor supply, but she goes into rural King. She bought a pig. Yeah, so you can buy your your tractor supplies, you can buy your dog food, and you can also buy live stock at rural King. Yeah, and I'm now it's my desire to find a rural king, assuming that the treatment of animals not a king of the rural but I want to see it for myself. Uh, they don't advertise like you can't buy livestock online. I

looked at the website. I'm glad she bought a pig there, and this pig is her pet. It So, now that you're saying that the tractor Supply mirror where I used to live in Pennsylvania would have chickens certain times of the year, little little baby chicks under a lamp and you could Yeah, you could buy chicks from Tractor Supply. Yeah. So these places love pets and you can buy big bulk, especially because you're going you want to be buying better food,

so buy it in bulk. It costs you a little more upfront, but your budget has you know, you've worked out your annual budget to make sure you can afford it, so it shouldn't be a problem. That's a great way to like save is like buying that stuff in bulk from places like Tractor Supply and Rural King. Well, I don't have much more to say about this article except for number eleven because it's just so funny to me. Uh, starting a social media account for your pet to pretend

actually get discounted products for that same pet. So I think that the end goal with this tip is that you would become a social media sensation with your with your pets photos and videos, so much so to the point where you'd get enough followers to be able to get sponsorships and ads for pet things for pet things, Yeah, we can actually do that as podcasters like they don't care about your they don't necessarily care about pets like that you have them, but that you're following is big enough.

So if we ever get advertising for a pet company, will definitely give away all of the pet things we acquire. You let us know what you need, then will get it for you. Ah. Granted, you might have better chances of getting quite a following by posting your pet over yourself, so maybe that's probably true. Maybe that's what we should do.

Frugal friends Instagram account should just be like little cats and dogs and birds, and he belonged to other people and just like their fruit, their little frugal lives, we should we should find a hamster that belongs to somebody else and give him his own frugal persona and just creating like a frugal story or the pig that you get from rural King can be like our piggy our frugal piggy bank. Oh it's happening, happening, Yikes. Where will the pig our own parody account. We'll figure it out.

Oh god, We'll have to check our budget, sure we can afford it and our lifestyle. Uh. And so I think the last one that I will say is to see if you can find it, says a cheaper vet through animal groups in your area. So most communities have low cost vet care clinic, usually run by the local Humane society. So definitely don't I would say, don't count these costs, like, don't rely on the Humane Society that

when you're thinking about your budget. Look at normal like compare normal vets because it can be difficult to get care at the Humane society clinic. I know my mom. That's where my mom would take her dog, and it was not always the best care. It was it took a long time to get in for emergency situations. Actually, when there was an emergency situation, she'd have to take him to like the to the like doggie hospital, which

was more expensive. So definitely look into it. And it's one of those things where it's like try it and if you get it, awesome, that's a bonus. But don't base your budget around like, don't rely on it, but only look for it in your area to see where it is and try to connect with maybe some of these animal groups to see if you can trade for things. If you maybe volunteer at the Humane Society or something, see what maybe trades you can get. I don't know.

I do know that the Humane Society is always looking for volunteers. I don't know if they have things to trade. I can't say that, but it is definitely something to look into. Like if you volunteer at the vet clinic, there can you get you know, free checkups or whatever. So see just see what happens. Yeah, and lastly, unconnected to that, but buy nothing groups they are good for

other things, including pet items. I see tons of pet items going up on the buy Nothing group, whether it's a toy that their particular pet didn't enjoy, or food that actually wasn't recommended for their particular animal, all of those things. So whatever you typically employ for any other area of your life, those tips are not out the window just because we're talking about pets. Like all of our frugal living problem solving d I Y is relevant here, Yeah, definitely.

So our next article is um three dog expenses you shouldn't skimp on to save money in the long run. Uh. And so this is not just dog, it's like really any pet. These three things can count forwards any and it's we've kind of mentioned them before, but we will reiterate them again here. And I will say the numbers are in Singapore dollars, so that's just like I looked it up and it's just like seventy five cents to

the US dollars. So it's like, you know, she said that there's an average cost of owning a dog over ten years. There's study going high as like twenty six thousand. We're in US dollars. That's like, which is still a lot. Yeah, yeah, annually. That's for some people that would require maybe a small side hustle to be able to afford pet care costs.

It's like nobody thinks you're going to be at the high end of the average, but like half of people studied are in the higher half of the average, essentially the median, not the average, like well the average. Yeah, I'm sorry, math, but you have to expect you have to at least plan that you're going to be in the higher half, and if you're in the lower half,

cool fantastic, roll it over for next year. Right, But so like look at the average and think, okay, if it's gonna cost me probably maybe twenty thousand over ten years, I have to budget two thousand dollars a year for this dog. And maybe you don't use it all two thousand in the first year, but maybe something happens to

that puppy. Like Alison, our friend Allison from Inspired Budget, they had a perfectly healthy dog who decided to jump a fence and got their leg cut in, got caught on the fence, and they had to amputate his little leg. Joey r I Joey. But he lived for three with three legs for a good part of his life. Okay, I remember that she had a three legged dog. I guess I didn't hear the origin story. So you never think your dog is going to be in the upper

half of that average. You have to plan for it though. Okay, Well, I love this perspective of this article where we're often talking about where can I cut, where can I skimp, where can I save? And just like other parts of life, there are areas where we need to be able to spend in order to see long term savings. But it is not always just about scarcity. Sometimes it's about values and value and this is one of them. So high

quality pet food they rest here. And I know that the other article mentioned that too, because when you're pet just like us, is getting quality food that lacks you know, fillers and preservatives, they are going to be healthier, which is going to lead to less health problems causing higher vet bills. So spending you know, those extra few dollars per food bag that you're purchasing food can whatever it is, is going to be really helpful in the long run.

So that's not the place to skimp. Yeah, so it's saying that you should look for brands that list meat as one of the first three ingredients. There are some people that say meat should be the first, but you don't have to, like unless your pet truly needs meat as the first ingredient. Just making sure it's one of the first ingredients should be good enough, and then you

can look for lower cost dog food from there. As long as you have that parameter um, you can become a member at different like pet chains or sign up for recurring payments, and those can save you a little bit more than like five percent or something, but they say that can save you between ninety and sixty dollars per year depending on the food you're getting, And so this will just prevent you from having to do those refrigerated like raw food diets later on, like when your

dog potentially gets kidney disease or diabetes. So looking at those first three ingredients, and then there's a ton of high quality pet foods that also have a generic brand. So if there is a brand that you like, look to see if the same maker has its own generic brands, so not just like a store brand, but like these makers will have their own lower cost food as well.

I remember growing up we had a German shepherd and very specific diet that that we wanted to have them on to keep them healthy, and I remember my parents would go to a wholesale supplier of the very pet food that our dog needed. So I think that that depends on your location, but we happen to have a wholesale supplier in our area, so that's something to consider

as well. If you can go straight to the source, yeah, you can probably reach out to the company whoever is in charge of distributing their wholesale orders, or you can maybe give it a Google search in your area. I don't know if you'll find it there, but if there is a food you like or or several, you can call up their wholesale department and say, hey, do you sell wholesale to any suppliers in my area and then reach out to the wholesale distributor to see if that

is an option. Awesome. So the next one is the annual check up. So just because your pet seems healthy doesn't mean it's wise to skip the annual check up, and those typically cost around this article says three hundred, but includes blood work, your analysis, fecal analysis, checks of the pets major organs, and just like with checkups for us, it just keeps something that is mild from becoming an emergency.

So when you catch something early, then you it saves you a lot more money in dealing with it then if you catch it late. So and that's this annual checkup is where people catch those things and you can get it at This is something you can get at your the vet clinic because it's not kind of like an emergency thing. You can schedule this out with enough notice to be able to get in. Or you can

try to trade services with a VET. So if you have a service you could do for a VET professionally, or maybe just provide some volunteer hours if they do that, so this you can, or maybe you work the front desk, like you know, once a month or or something for them, or or do um marketing or outreach like at an event where they have a booth. So just get creative and thinking, like where do you see the vets around town?

What do you see happening at their offices? And see if there's something you could do that you could trade services. And number three comprehensive pet insurance. We hear this all the time. I wanted to say that at the same time, I'm so many people advocate and have lived experiences of pet insurance being a life saver, a money saver, a

pet saver. It's not mandatory to have pet insurance, but by spending maybe an extra few hundred dollars a year on equality policy, it can cover expenses like if your pet ever needs chemotherapy or search of procedures. Some would even cover room and board if your pet needs surgery after an accident, illnesses, any type of thing. We've heard so many people say, what an amazing value and investment having pet insurance has been so as it relates to

areas not to skimp on. Absolutely this is this seems worth it. Yeah, and you can absolutely compare pet insures. There's several that are listed here, so compare rates. But the earlier you get it, the more you save, the cheaper it's going to be annually. So that's going to be your biggest saving is just starting early, especially with breeds that are known to have more health problems. It becomes the longer you wait, the less affordable it becomes.

And so it doesn't always make sense. But when you start as soon as you get the dog, the dog is a puppy, it can really be affordable, like a couple of bucks a week or something. So yeah, do you know what does make sense? And can happen early or late anytime, and you'll always get through the bill of the week. That's right, it's time for the best minute of your entire week. Maybe a baby was born and his name is William. Maybe you've paid off your mortgage.

Maybe your car died and you're happy to not have to pay that bill anymore. Duck bills, Buffalo bills, Bill Clinton, this is the bill of the weekend. Hey John and Jel, thank you so much for your podcast. It's been eye opening. I literally just discovered you guys just a couple of days ago. My name is Sheila. I'm from the Chicago Land area, and I have an uncle Bill, so that's

awesome and he's awesome. But the main thing is that after listening literally to your first episode that I listened to, which was the one with Cassie Joy, I cut my spending of my first grocery bill like uh, samurai sword. So I'm excited to try all of your tips and tricks from all of you and your cohort sitcom on the show, and just thank you for doing this and making us not feel foolish and stupid for getting ourselves in this situation, but giving us ways to get ourselves out.

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you. Douglas. Wow, Sho, I have goose bumps. This is such an amazing bill. You gave us both your uncle Bill a person named Bill, because you know we love that, and then you talked about samurai swords. That was my sound for Samurai sworting. I love that. That's the episode we did with cast and Joy Garcia is so good that she is so fun. But yeah, man, and we are so glad that you feel supported and how to change and not shamed for

being where you're at. That is our goal, and I mean thank you for letting us know that that's what we're doing number one priority, just to help support and letting you know we're learning along the way too. So glad you sliced and dice that grocery bill, and hoping to just give you more ways to slice and dice

your bills. Yes. Absolutely. If you want to submit your bill of the week, if it has anything to do with swords or uncles, visit Frugal Friends podcast dot com, slash bill, leave us your bill, we'll get to it. And now it's time for Wow. It gets so much scarier every time you do it. You you you were on another level, Jillian. So today we're gonna talk about funny pet stories because I couldn't come up with anything vulnerable. Well, so maybe mine's a little vulnerable. Yes, you go first.

So this is the reason I don't have pets. So we grew up. I always had dogs, and they were never well trained, and they would always escape the house and then we would have to go like drive around the neighborhood looking for them to bring them back. And so much, like I just so much of my memories of like growing up was trying to escape my house, like in the smallest slit of the door as possible

so my dog wouldn't also escape. And it was so difficult when I have my backpack or like I was an ice skater, so I'd have my my suitcase with my skates or so many things I had to get out of the house. But it just had to be through the tiniest slit possible. But that wasn't enough. I also I got a dog for free in college. I don't talk about it. I had a dog for a week because I got her free. Like the Humane Society just like gave me this dog. I didn't. They didn't

ask questions or anything. I spun this How how crazy? I spun a wheel and I want a dog from the Humane Sciety? Where were you? What is this scenario? So I'm at school and there's like a Humane Society fundraiser going on in this bus, like maybe a betrayal er or something with all these dogs and you just like spin a wheel to win a prize. You had a free dog, and I'm like, and then they picked the dog and just like I got a dog. The dog because the dogs were there, that's on them. How

long ago was this? Holy smokes? Because how how are they going to expect that a college kid spinning a wheel and a trailer is gonna be able to adequately care for this animal? Wasn't It was like it was grad school, so it was like not on a main college campus, so they weren't on They weren't actually on the college campus. It was just like walkable from where my class right, but it was like a Starbucks parking lot or something that I have so many more questions,

but this is the lightning round. I had a dog for a week that destroyed everything it touched, and ultimately my roommate was super allergic to it and she's like, you have to get rid of this, and so I had to bring it back and it was like a really it was. It was a one week, but it was super traumatic time. This feels vulnerable, sure, okay, And so I don't have any I haven't had any pets since then. That was probably like two thousand ten, two

thousand eleven. I hope that that pet found a good home. It did so somebody actually, um, somebody who came over to my house to see the dog and I and then I brought him back and he's like, wait, why did you do that? I had taken him and then he went to the Humane Society to pick him up, and um, he was already gone. Oh someone else said yeah, and it was enough. It was short enough time where it was not like he's gone, you know inven right, yeah, right, So somebody else won him at a in a bus

hopefully not Hopefully you found it good forever home. Human society is not spinning wheels and passing out puppies. Looking back on the scenario now, it's like, yeah, that was not good. Yeah, uh well mine is nothing like that. My story I do. I've got a lot of run ins with animals. I'm trying to keep this short. Eric and I did have a bird that was that was fun. Yeah, pickenyo. Eric taught him how to beat box. That was super. He was a little parakey. He still is a little

paa key. We gave him when we moved. We gave him to neighbors who were bird people in the past, and they are just like loving bird people in the past. Well, they sorry were birds. They did not currently have any birds, but previously they had been like bird judges. I'm not saying the right thing. They would go to bird shows and they would like judge birds and like the good kind of way and give out prizes. And then they didn't have birds for a really long time, and so

Pekenyo kind of like rekindled there. They're bird affection. Pekenya would do that. I know, so great. Yeah, we never cut his feathers because I think that that's not the way to have a bird. And we let him fly around our house and land on us, and I just freaking loved him. And he ran up, he ran, he flew away and came back. Yeah. Well that's not the story I want to tell. Okay, I'm sorry, I'm taking a hard left turn. This is a story about not

not my pet. One time I was babysitting and it was the summertime, so I was wearing shorts, and the family they had like three kids and a dog, and so my focus was primarily on the children. But Okay, So this dog it was I don't know, maybe some sort of like pug kind of smaller. Yeah, I might get be getting that wrong, but something along those lines as far as breed of animal. This dog could not stop licking my legs. I was wearing shorts. There's nothing

I could do. I would, you know, I would sit on the floor with the kids, and this dog was like snarling, like laughing me up up and down my legs just like couldn't like just slobbering everywhere. I don't. I was like, what is on me? And it like it wasn't just like one spot. It was just like all over my legs like I was some tasty treat. But I was so grossed out. I'm just like, oh, I don't, like, I'm not trying to have like my legs wet all all all of all of my legs

wet from dog slabber. So then I put the dog in the kitchen like they had a baby gate, and so I'm like, all right, maybe if I'm just like away from the dog. The alternative was the dog was just like feverishly barking and jumping because it was like ravenous to try and get out my legs again. So in the end, I had to make the decision do I let the dog bark jump just be at its very wits end, or do I let the dog just keep licking my legs like he wasn't. It wasn't being

like mean about he wasn't biting. It never turned into like maybe I'll eat you. It was just always just let me keep licking your legs because this is the best thing that he's ever done in his whole like that, and that is why women stay in unhealthy relationships right there. And so unfortunately, Jen, here's your vulnerability. I chose let the dog lick my wife. It was better than the dog barking, but I still left feeling a little bit violated and changed forever of course, of course. Yeah, and

so I don't have any dogs now right. Thanks so much for listening. Uh stay tuned for another story. But if you gotta go, we want to thank you for listening and for your kind reviews on Apple podcast, like this one from Girl Quick It Happens to Be five Stars It's called must Listen, says I absolutely love these ladies. I look forward to all of their new episodes. My husband and I found ourselves in thirty seven thousand dollars

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For Friends is produced by Eric Syrian. Okay, let's get into it. What's your dog babysitting story? Okay? This is also why I didn't know if I was going to have kids, because I definitely didn't babysit after this, that's for sure. So I was babysitting and I had done so I had babysat for this family before, like overnight,

and it went well. And I was in college. I was a young college student though, so I was like seventeen eighteen, and it was I think one child and one dog, maybe two children a time is a blur, But so I had done this before, it had been fine. So um, I was babysitting for the family again, just on a random afternoon. The parents were at like some

kind of training. So somehow, in like this perfect storm of events, the child poops it's diaper, and the poop ends up outside of the diaper, on the floor, on the baby whatever. And then also in the same ten minutes, the dog escapes, like the door is open. I'm dealing with this kid, and maybe that's why I don't and maybe there were two kids and I don't remember. And then the doors open and the dogs gone, and there's poop and and and it was in that moment that

I was like, this life is not for me. And I had to call the mom to come home and be like, there is there, your dog's gone to your child has pooped everything. What was the parents reaction? Um, they never called me again. Yeah, that lines up. That checks out. That checks out for sure. And I never babysat again, and I and and when anybody asked me to, I'd just be like, I can't, Like here's the story, here's this story, and I'm not qualified. And after almost

three years of parenting, I still wouldn't babysit. I was gonna say, I mean, the story kind of lines up with some of your experience of motherhood. So far, there is there's a lot of poop, a lot of poop. Um. It mostly stays inside the diaper though, um because legally I have more skin in the game on this one. But there in the bathtub. Oh god. But I'm not going to add a dog to the equation. I'm traumatized by so many things.