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Hello everyone, welcome to America under the microscope, advanced episode. Hi, Lulu.

Hi James.

Let's continue our talk about pets. I wanted to start this off with the term that we have in America and, I think probably other countries now, is this idea of emotional support animals.

Emotional support animals. So basically pets or certain your furry friends offer you emotional sports.

Right, it's the idea for people who have like depression, anxiety, and things like that, they have pets, animals that help them cope with this problem. Some people choose really awkward things to be these support animals like a duck or a goose. So just some random animal.

Or maybe a turtle?

Maybe a turtle.

If you listen to our last episode, James has a turtle now. I think according to research, animals do help, especially furry ones, they do help with things like depression and anxiety.

They definitely do, and they can also be trained to help people deal with those issues as well.

But does that make them like service animals for example, like seeing eye dogs, like Guide dog.

No sadly, emotional support animals are not seen the same way as service animals because a service animal is trained to help people with mobility issues, the blind or disabled or something like this to help them with that. Now I think some people lied and think this is my emotional support animal which maybe it’s just actually a pet and they're trying to get special treatment.

Special treatment like getting it into certain restaurants and places.

But legitimate emotional support animals, people who need these animals and they are trained to help them in with anxiety, depression or whatever other issue they have should be given same protection as service animals.

Which is what... protection from the law, right?

Because for example, a lot of restaurants can forbid pets, but they cannot forbid a service animal from entering a restaurant.

Like a Guide dog.

A guide dog cannot be forbidden. So guide dogs are given special privileges to go places, but a guide dog has to wear like a harness that actually says service animal on them, black and yellow. That will let people knows it's a service animal, not a pet.

Yeah, but I think it's very different though because the emotional support animals it doesn't sound like they really need to get special training. They just need to be furry and cute. And by being furry and cute, they already released the stress level, anxiety level. But Guide dog for example they have to go through really strict training.

It's pretty rigorous training.

I do agree with you. I think some people are just like BS-ing, just calling all of their pets emotional support animals. But having said that, I forgot which country or where, but they have the scheme of bringing the cats and dogs into old folks home, so that the elderly can stroke them and that.

We do that in places in America too, but we do that also in prisons.

Yeah, I've read about that.

So some prisons have like cats and dogs for usually low level medium level prisons because they actually helped the inmates in the prisons cope...they learn skills related to taking care of something...

To have emotional bonds as well, probably.

It seems to help a lot, I 'm taking care the animals. Yes, so we have that too, there are animals that are trained to go to hospitals to make children feel better, animals are there to help elderly in retirement homes cope better, yes, that is very much a thing.

They are lovely those furry friends, but let's then get into something that's a lot more controversial to say the least. Last time we were talking about how do you get pets? One of the ways is to actually buy them. And to buy them, I guess it's the same everywhere. There are people who don't really care about the breed of the animal like me, my cat is a rescue, equally cute. But some people they perhaps want a pure breed.

Yeah, there are a lot of people out there they want...

So they’re breeding of animals...

It’s called a pedigree dog, a purebred. And in this case, in order to get purebred, you need the papers that shows like the parentage to prove that is purebred. And really, there's only two ways to get purebreds. There's more than two, but the two basic ways are buy it from a reputable breeder which a reputable breeder is a person who...just careful about the animals that are bred to produce the new one.

These are the legit ones.

These are the legit ones make sure to avoid in breeding at all cost and animals are well taken care of. They have a good home and then there's puppy mills.

Puppy mill is not a good thing so.

No. They are just trying to pump out as many purebred babies as they can.

Are they the ones that basically, if there's a purebred female dog and they would just really use her and exhaust her, to a point that she can no longer puppies and then they just choke her to the curb?

Yes, that's true. So most Americans are tend to try to be pretty good about avoiding puppy mills, and it's illegal in a lot of places now because of animal cruelty. But for pets, for a lot of Americans, the pets they don't actually care about pedigree. They don't care whether it's purebred or not. So if you don't care about that, getting a dog or a cat is easy, just go get a rescue or something like that, but some people actually want to take part in competitions.

Competitions I understand because those people are really hard core about it, but just being general average American, for example, you know someone who has a cat or a dog, would you ask them oh what breed and is it pure? Is that something common to ask?

For dogs, yes. So it's like what kind of dog is it? So Americans will say things like, for most Americans, it's an AB mix. So like a poodle or labrador mix, a Labradoodle.

Labradoodles are cute.

Yeah，all that I say is it's a mix，but some people really do pride themselves in purebreds. So my mom is actually a breeder. My mom breeds dachshunds，basically small wiener dogs.

The very long ones?

Yeah，those ones, weenie dogs，腊肠狗。

All right, and professional dog breeders, legit ones I suppose they do make quite okay money.

Yeah, so my mom can sell a puppy for $5,000.

Wow, a wiener dog? Is that very popular in the States.

Actually for some people that is extremely popular and that's actually kind of on the lower end for purebred dogs. So certain pure breads are really expensive.

What are some of the more popular ones in the States?

Purebred Labradors.

Labrador seems to be one of the very popular animals.

Very expensive if you get a purebred. That's a hard dog to take care of because Labradors they need to be able to run.

But they do have very good temperament.

They tend to be very good dogs, but they are a very active dog, you have to provide them space, they love swimming, love swimming.

Yeah, and back to the earlier topic about puppy mill and then the animal cruelty, I understand that in many countries, animal cruelty or animal abuse is considered really serious crime.

America is one of those countries.

Is it like a felony?

It is a felony, so animal abuse is a felony you will go to prison for it, there are people who have been sent to prison for things related to like organizing dog fights and abusing animals. Most Americans do look way down upon that. They look so down upon it that they judge other cultures who don't have the same views on animals as their own.

I see, if you mistreat your pet, then your neighbors, anyone who know will

Judge you, they will judge you

Moving on to the last bit of this pet topic, we have been talking about dogs and cats and your turtle, but what about some of the more exotic pets because lately there is this TV show called tiger king.

Classic trashy American television.

Tiger king, if those of you who have never watched it, check it out, it's pretty... it's an eye opener.

I apologize for other Americans for that show, it shows a pretty trashy side of America

But that’s real?

It is 100% real. Yes. There are people with tigers and lions in America.

That can't be legal.

It is perfectly legal. You can get to... actually depend on which state you live because this is a state issue, some states it is legal. Iin those states if you have the proper license, you can have a pet tiger or other exotic pets. So there are people in America that pet tiger, pet lion, bears, alligators, crocodiles, and even for smaller ones to people with pet snakes and so on. We do have them.

So essentially in America, as long as your state allows, as long as you get a license as long as it's not, I'm assuming endangered species, you are able to have whatever exotic animals as long as you...

Tigers are endangered species.

I’m thinking not all tigers, some tigers…

Tigers are an endangered species; the difference is in America they cannot be caught animals. They have to be bred animals. The pet tigers in America are bread. They're likely from other owners or from zoos. So they were never wild.

But still why would you... the only time that I really see people with for example big cats as pets, I immediately think about all these super rich people in the Middle East.

For the most part people with exotic big cats tend to have money because it's an expensive animal.

You have to feed it, god knows how much meat every day...

you also have to provide an enclosure because they can't let them in free-range.

Free-range tiger.

So don't worry about the tiger, he is free ranged, he doesn't need a cage. He's not going to eat your cat.

Or you. I don't think your neighbor would like it.

And the TV show tiger king really shine the spotlight on this whole big cats.

So if you're interested, check that out. Before we finish I'm going to ask you, so if you don't think about any laws or regulations or money restraints, what is your dream pet?

Honestly, kind of boring, still be a dog.

Any particular breed?

No particular breed, I prefer mixed breed. I would like part of the dog to be Border Collie because I had a dog that was part of Border Collie growing up, and they're just really smart dogs, soft fur, black and white, just very loyal friendly dogs. But other than that, dog medium sized.

Because that's very attainable.

Ask me ask me.

What kind of animal would it be for you?

If there are no money restraints or any of the other restraints, sea otter.

Sea otter, so you want the cat of the sea.

I don't know if there're cats of the sea, I just want to see them hold hands and swim on their backs.

You can go to the Sea otter aquarium. They have a Sea otter display there, they have lots of sea otters playing in there.

I would love to see them. I watch a lot of videos about them. So leave us a comment in the comment section you guys, what is your favorite or what is your dream pet or animal companion? Let us know if there are no money restraints or any other restraints, what is your dream pet?

We'll see you next time. Thank you, James.

Thank you, everyone. Bye~

Bye~