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The Two Parachutes Podcast is a collaboration, well, more like a conversation, between a CEO and an FBI Agent. Shawn Baker-Garcia and Scott Olson first met when they were working at US Embassy Baghdad; Scott for the FBI and Shawn for the US State Department. Over the years they’ve worked together, given advice and assistance to each other, and now see that the synergy which comes from open, civil, and thoughtful discussion is very much needed in the modern discourse. Join them as they dive into everything interesting to humanity. The goal of 2PP is to recreate the experience most people have had when they stumble into an insightful conversation with a new acquaintance at a conference or a dinner party. The kind of conversation that makes the rest of the room stop talking and listen. The kind of conversation that gets your mind working as new thoughts tumble out. Let the 2 Parachutes Podcast drop into your world!
Okay. Hey, Sean.
Shawn:Hey, Scott. Good doing well. How are you?
Scott:I'm doing good. I don't know what's at top of your mind, but top of my mind is you. How things are going for you. I understand you've got a sort of pet issue going on at home, and I'm interested to know how you're doing, how Greg's doing, and how your little critters doing.
Shawn:Yeah, so we do. We have three at home, one dog and two cats. And I appreciate you asking about it because one of the things that I thought we might address here in our series is, you know, just these sort of generally the impact that animals and pets have in our lives, I think in the twenty first century. The last, I think fifty years, a lot has changed about how humans interact with their domestic pets and things like that. And there's like a whole social commentary spectrum that you could discuss, but the orange one, so both our cats are 11 and Chucky is our little orange menace.
Shawn:He is absolutely amazing creature, super lovable, super communicative and expressive, which I love. And he is definitely the alpha in the house. He is in charge and everybody works for him. So including all my employees and they all know it. So we tease and call him the great leader.
Shawn:But yeah, so he has got a pretty significant carcinoma mass and this is sort of a reprisal. He went into a little bit of a remission last December. We had a lung lobe removed, which had a carcinoma mass. So it came back in May this year, and now it's inoperable, it's just too big and they wouldn't be able to take out enough to actually prevent it from future spread and growth. So nature's gonna take its course and we're of course devastated, probably me mostly.
Shawn:Know, there have been times because I had my two cats before I got married. And so Greg inherited those two cats as did Sadie. He always referenced in the early years, it was the orange devil, because he's a little bitey and he's a lot territorial over me, so he didn't want any other male influence in my life, they've since become great friends. Greg is an acceptable spare human and and Sadie just loves him. She's always loved him, but she's just had to be kind of gentle around him because he is a little bit bitey.
Shawn:He had some nerve damage from when he was about a year old that makes, I think, him a little nervous about people getting too close to him because I think that nerve damage can spark pain signals, know, kind of arbitrarily and it's probably pretty upsetting for him. But the house loves him and he's a total guardian of the newest member of the family, which we got now six years ago, the puppy. So Lottie, who's no longer a puppy, well, she'll always be a puppy, but we were really worried about that because he was so aggressive to the other cat who preceded him, but nope, he took that little puppy under his wing and he's never shown an ounce of aggression towards her and does nothing but protect her. So, yeah, so we're sad. That's where we're at.
Shawn:We're just a little sad, but I don't know what your experience has been in your life with pets, but they have played a huge, huge role in mine my whole life.
Scott:Yeah. It's it's a it's a funny thing. I I guess I'm curious, did you get him when he was a kitten?
Shawn:Oh yeah, we adopted him from a well, say we. I was with my buddy Dale, who, you know, he and I had both just come out of Baghdad. Him, you know, a Air Force colonel and me, a Department of State contractor. So we were, there was like that whole, well, you were there, the whole ISIL meltdown of June, twenty So '14, yeah, that was it. And we got non evac, evac back to The States.
Shawn:And it was that summer that I was back, I moved into an apartment in Alexandria and Dale ended up moving into the same place, not my apartment, but just in the same So he hates cats, or at least he said he hated it. He was not a cat person, but he's like, Oh, I'm gonna go with you to go look at these dumb animals. So we went and it was so funny because you imagine this tall air force You might even have known Colonel Sinnett. Dale Sinnett, he was with Colonel Pfaff, Tony Pfaff in the DIA office.
Scott:Remember that name. Remember Sinnett, yeah.
Shawn:Really tall brunette guy. Anyway, so they have different rooms to the SVCAs and so I'm looking in one area and he's over another and he's like, Sean, he's like, Get in here. And like I walk in the room and it's kind of a route the size of this room that I'm currently in, and it had all the metal kennels and cages and everything. And there was not a cat to be found except for at Dale's Oak Tree eye level, there was this one crate up there and it had the world's tiniest little ball of orange fluff. And he was so little, he fit in the palm of my hand and Dale just looked miserable.
Shawn:He's like, you just have to adopt this cat. He was just like, because it was pathetic. He looked pathetic, and, you know, here is Dale, the non cat lover, and he's like, you know, I was like, is that a tear in your eye, sir? Like, you
Scott:know, I'm like Yeah.
Shawn:You know?
Scott:It it's funny. I my my experience with with cats and with dogs really and both my personal experience and what I've learned from people who have gone and brought dogs and cats into their house is they, you know, the animals choose you. You don't really
Shawn:Yeah.
Scott:Choose them. And it's I grew up with cats and it was it it's funny to look back on your childhood, but we had we had multiple cats. We we had three adult cats at one point and then, two of them mated and we had another four cats. And so, you know, the way it worked, we were all my my brothers and sisters, there are four of us, and we're within about four and a half years of each other, maybe five years. My brother was born in my older brother was born in '59, and my younger brother was born in '63.
Scott:So I guess that's four years, four years and a couple of months. And so the cats came out and it was boy, girl, boy, boy for the cats, which is what we are as, you know, children. And so you got your assigned kitten. Oh. To take care of and to name and and to do that.
Scott:And growing up and it it's I live in the house next over now, but it's we have a couple of acres of of just raw land. It's it's sort of forest land. Yeah. And so the cats were indoor outdoor cats, they would, you know, go out and, you know, bring home mice and rats and look at us with pride and we're like, oh, crap. I gotta throw away another rat, you know, when you're 12 years old and it's, yeah, it's it's a hassle.
Scott:But
Shawn:Were they always dead or did they ever bring them in alive?
Scott:Oh, no. They they were out hunting, and they would bring dead ones. And Uh-huh. And I you know, just the you could tell this look of pride. Like, they would sit there and they'd be like, see?
Scott:I did good, didn't I?
Shawn:Gift.
Scott:Great, you did good. Don't do this again. And then, yeah, it was, and so that was my experience. Then, you know, with cats and cats for some reason, if I go into a house where there's a cat, about half the time, you know, the owner will say, oh, don't worry about the cat. The cat doesn't like anybody and I'll sit down and the cat will come and sit on my lap.
Scott:And when I was in my sort of mid thirties, and moved back to New York, I was one of these guys that had adult onset allergies, and I'd never had And now I am really allergic to both cats and dogs. Oh. And it's it's the kind of thing where I pet a dog and then rub my eye and my eye.
Shawn:It's just
Scott:a vampire red eye. But cats for some reason will just and and I I I don't enjoy sort of taking care of animals, but, you know, cats are just wonderful because and and maybe it's my personality. This sort of, you know, grumpy standoffish things that are gonna do what they want. And if they like you, you you can't get rid of them. And that's kind of Scott Olsen.
Scott:If I like you, it's gonna suck for you because.
Shawn:Yeah. That's amazing. Yeah.
Scott:It's funny. And then, you know, dogs, you know, pretty much my my wives and, you know, serious girlfriends have have all had dogs. And, you know, I remember my my second wife, we're living in Pennsylvania, and she loved dogs to the point where, you know, she went and became a certified dog trainer Oh. I wanted to get a dog and went down. We were living about a half an hour away from where the US Humane Society started.
Scott:That first location that was, you know, saving animals from, you know, being killed because there were too many of them was was where she volunteered. And one day she calls me and says, gotta you gotta come over here and and I think I found the one. It was this this beautiful, fawn colored bulldog that, an English bulldog that looked like it had been, it looked like she had been bred and then abandoned. And she was beautiful, but just her her normal body weight after we brought her home was, like, sixty one, sixty two pounds.
Shawn:The big girl.
Scott:Low rider.
Shawn:Yeah.
Scott:Bulldog. But when we got her, she was forty pounds.
Shawn:Oh. So she was overweight then.
Scott:No. No. No. She was her normal weight was sixty. We got her when she was 40.
Shawn:Oh, I see. Got it.
Scott:She was she was emaciated.
Shawn:She was like. Poor thing.
Scott:You could see her ribs and and what got me was they they brought her out so that, you know, I I could meet her and she looked up at me and she went like this. Oh. At me.
Shawn:At me.
Scott:Like, yeah. Okay, we're done here. She's coming.
Shawn:Yeah. Oh.
Scott:And the poor thing. I mean, we brought her home. She slept for two days. Just
Shawn:slept, got out. Stressed.
Scott:Slept and it was just like, okay, I'm safe now. And, yeah, she was wonderful.
Shawn:What was her name?
Scott:Emma. Mother bulldog. Yeah. So when the relationship ended, she went with, she was my soon to be ex wife, which is where she
Shawn:grew up. Yeah.
Scott:But then, you know, I came here to Seattle and, reconnected with, an old, old friend. And, you know, we dated for a number of years, and she had a Weimar on her. And it was an emotional support dog. And she tells this amazing story of, how she found this dog with her husband at the time. And it was the runt with the hernia and the floppy ears.
Scott:And I just crawled out of the bottom of the pile and crawled into her lap and said, I'm not leaving. You have to take me home.
Shawn:They'll do that. They'll do that.
Scott:And it was it was one of those things as I'm just sort of telling animal stories. It was a bit of an event when I first met the Weimaraner. Her name is Bella.
Shawn:Yeah.
Scott:And and I knew that the relationship with with who became my girlfriend was going to be difficult if if the dog didn't like me.
Shawn:Sure.
Scott:It was the most wonderful thing because we we met at a park to to take her for a walk. And, you know, she's a Weimaraner, so she's a runner and she's leggy and she's full of energy. And so she jumps out of the car, looks around, sees me, comes running over, looks at me, turns around, runs right back to her, and basically starts wagging her tail and saying, yeah, he's good.
Shawn:Okay. It's good. Aw.
Scott:Yeah. And, you know, I miss the relationship and I I
Shawn:yeah.
Scott:My old girlfriend, but I I miss the dog too. I mean, yeah. So that's my I mean, my my interaction with, you know, having animals at home in my my first marriage, you know, we had a dog, so, you know, mom, dad, three kids and a dog, you know, packing up the car to go on vacation to Maine because, you know, we lived in New York and that's just what you do and we love doing it and yeah. But I've never as an adult, I've never had animals on my own. But it's it's it's heartbreaking when, you know, they get old and they get sick.
Shawn:Yep. It's weird too because they're in this perpetual state of like baby ness, like they're your little fur babies and, you know, some people can take that to kind of an extreme, I guess. And in today's day and age, I think we're seeing a lot of people not having actual babies and just kind of like raising these little, like, you know, fur babies all the time, which I, you know, to me is a little sad. I think that, you know, it should never serve as a replacement for an actual family. Like, I would hope that people would still strive to go out and have families and, you know, but insofar as they become part of your family, it is it is a really tough thing because you give them your heart for these, you know, however many years you're blessed enough to have them.
Shawn:And, you know, on average, I'd assume probably between cats and dogs, you're looking at like between ten and fifteen years, you know, somewhere in there. And they become a fully integrated part of your lives. And then it's like having to say goodbye to this creature that is just so foundational to who your family unit is. I think that's going to be aside from what you described is like watching the decline, which is really going to be tough, you know, that that is going to be really tough. It's also just going to be I told Greg, I said, I think the harder part is going to be when it's when, you know, he's gone and it's like we feel like a different configuration, you know, that's how that's how fundamental they are and whether they have their own personalities and, you know, so, but yeah, but no, I love all of the stories you're describing.
Shawn:It reminds me, so my first cat as an adult where it's like I had full ownership and that was my responsibility was back in 1995. And so I had a cat, my ex husband and I, his name was Morpheus Tiberius after James Tiberius Kirk of the enterprise.
Scott:That's the name of your?
Shawn:The former cat. No, no, no, no, my ex husband, no. He had a normal name, although James T. Kirk, his name was James. But James T.
Shawn:Kirk, Tiberius, if you remember the old Star Trek series, yeah, his middle name was Tiberius and I always thought that was too cool. So more if we just shortened it to M O R P H and people would also used to ask us because at that time people didn't realize it but it proceeded the, what do you call those Keanu Reeves movies in the nineties? It precedes so he was Morpheus before the Morpheus character in the matrix. But, you
Scott:know Lawrence Fishburne. Yeah.
Shawn:Popularized that. So, you know, but we always joke. We're like, no. No. We came first.
Shawn:It was you know? But he was like, your cats, you were describing that were indoor, outdoor.
Scott:Yeah.
Shawn:Only he very unsophisticatedly wouldn't kill his prey. He would just bring them all in alive and he thought that was the greatest game on Earth. He was just He like
Scott:would bring live roaches.
Shawn:He would bring and birds and birds, FYI. So it was phenomenal. Like, you know, so annoying, but also you have to be a little impressed. I'm like, you managed to keep it alive. And so like, he would jump through our bedroom window and he would have, I remember one day he came in and he jumps up in the, because I'd leave it open for him.
Shawn:He would jump up to it and I looked over and all I see is this bird body and his head sticking out the left and his feet are sticking out the right and the bird and the cat are just looking at me like, what next? We don't even know what's happening right now. And I was like, oh no. And I kind of yelped. I was like, no, no, no.
Shawn:I said out. And he took out to mean in. So he jumped onto our bed and then like a magical wedding ceremony released the bird, you know, and now I've got this bird flying around my bedroom and I'm just like Oh
Scott:my God.
Shawn:And it was, oh, he thought it was the greatest thing on earth. He was, his, I think his whole thing was not only did I bring you a gift, I brought you a show.
Scott:He's like,
Shawn:so now you get to watch me try to catch it again. How great
Scott:am I?
Shawn:Yeah, yeah, how great am I? And then one time he did it with a little mouse. He had this tiny little mouse and this was a different place we lived in, it was an apartment. And he ran through the door before I had a chance to get a good look at him. And the next thing I know, was like scuffling over in the living room area.
Shawn:I'm like, what are you doing over there? And then here it comes just like, and it zipped down the hallway and took off. And I'm like, oh my God. I was like, go get it. Like, go get it.
Shawn:Look, he did. He went and he got it and then he shot me a resentful look and went outside with it. But they're just so funny, you know?
Scott:Yeah. And they do have those expressions and they really, to me at least they're real. They're resentful or they're proud and they then they they're confused like, no, this is good. You you have to see how good this is. Like, it's not good.
Scott:Yeah. But no, it's good. And you're having this talk looking at that.
Shawn:Yeah. So, well, that's
Scott:Yeah, I mean, it's an interesting, you know, the cat mom, cat dog mom thing. I've actually kind of changed my opinion on that over the years as I've interacted with more people. And it's and it's what's interesting to me is in my experience I've seen dog mom, but not too many dog dads. I'm getting ready to sneeze. Just have the last bits of them hold them trying to shake off.
Scott:Yeah. There we go. They come in twos for me for some reason.
Shawn:For me, it's three, so you're lucky. You got off easy.
Scott:And and so I'm I'm not I'm not certain why my experience is that. And I mean, there's this whole, you know, the cat lady thing maybe is a separate thing. I don't know that dog lady is the same sort of pejority.
Shawn:Stereotype. Yeah.
Scott:Yeah. As a cat lady is. But, you know, I I remember, you know, when I was in my my thirties, you know, looking at people that, you know, I'm a dog mom and it made no sense to me and I thought, you know, particularly as I was having kids at that age, you know, when you have children, you understand that children are not like animals. And part of it is what you said. I mean, that animals very quickly become adults.
Scott:They're no longer puppies and they're no longer kittens. And then that's what they're going to be and you need to take care of them. And it it will not end until they pass. Yeah. And with children, it is it's it's different.
Scott:I mean, they they grow, they're growing for twenty years. They go to college or they start being financially independent, physically independent, but there's there's still your children even though adult, they're adults, they're still growing, you know, as they, I mean, minor in their almost all my three my youngest is 29, so they're almost all in their 30s now and they remind me that I'm still growing, you
Shawn:know,
Scott:63 and it's good to have that reminder, but that fundamentally different than it is with pets. But what I see, particularly with women, who bring dogs into their lives, most of them don't have children and they're heartbroken. The women that I know that have children, almost all of them, not all of them, but almost all of them wish they did. And very few of them decided early they weren't going to have children and then when they, you know, were in their thirties or late thirties, changed their mind and couldn't. Most women that I know that have been heartbroken just couldn't have children.
Scott:And I don't don't know what it's like to to miscarry, and I don't know what it's like to be a woman and not have sort of scratched that procreation itch. And I remember when my first child was born, gone through, you know, I was glad to be a dad. I mean, knew when I was about six that I was I was gonna be a father. It was just a a component of my personality was was dad. And so when I got married, it part of it was, I love this woman, but part of it was I thought she was going to be a good mom.
Scott:She was. And I wanted to raise children with her. All the pregnancy classes and we're going to have dads involved and all that kind of stuff. And this is now the late 80s. My oldest was born in February of 'ninety.
Scott:So this is the late 80s. And, you know, I'm going to these classes and I'm learning all this stuff. And then when, you know, when she was born, we're going through the birthing process. I mean, I was in the room, I cut her umbilical cord. I was the first person to hold her.
Scott:I mean, the doctor picked her up and handed her to me. And it was during that sort of couple hour process that I realized that I had no idea what this was like, and I never would have any idea what it was like to to be a mom and to, you know, to have a child. And it it didn't make me sad and it didn't make me wish that I could. It made me understand that I'm a male. Yeah.
Scott:And the idea that a male can understand what a female goes through is it's just not true. The idea that a female can understand, you know, what it's like for a man to be a father. It it's not true. And very quickly, I think it goes down the road of children need parents. They need both parents.
Scott:Boys and girls need moms and dads. Regardless of what gender you are as a child, you're going to learn different and very important things from your mom and from your dad. But wanting that, particularly as a woman and being denied that through miscarriage or One of the most heartbreaking things that has ever been shared with me in my life is a very good friend, who miscarried three times. And it turned out later she learned that there's a known issue in her body chemistry that makes it so it's almost impossible for her to carry a child to term. And this woman, who I love very much, Yeah.
Scott:She wanted children, and she feels alone in the world now.
Shawn:Yeah. So hard.
Scott:Because she she doesn't have that. And there were, you know, other issues related to her husband at the time. But the bottom line is that that level of heartbreak is it's unimaginable.
Shawn:Yeah.
Scott:Other than, you know, sitting next to her and and listening to her talk about it and crying with her through that. And so she is finding her way through that. And one of the things that she's brought into her life is her dog. And so it changed my appreciation for what that means. It's not a substitute.
Scott:It is a, you know, something that that helps. Yeah. But it's
Shawn:it fills a bit of a gap, you know, it's not the entire solution, obviously, but I feel the same way as somebody who's never had a biological, you know, child of my own. I'm raising a stepdaughter. But, you know, it's it does help. You know, it gives you a little bit of the mom instincts that, you know, you're allowed to nurture and indulge yourself in a little bit. But yeah, if things had been different with Greg and I, I mean, there were just so many different things that prevented us from being able.
Shawn:We did try in the beginning, you know, as hard as we could because I was still, you know, technically in childbearing capability condition. But, you know, and I don't mind sharing stuff like this on on this forum at all. You know, we suspect I probably had two miscarriages like, you know, but we knew it was always going to be risky because of my age. Was over 40 and, you know, that was, you know, but we had thought about adoption. But it was it's just a lot, you know, at our age, like especially I was trying to get a new business off the ground and, you know, he was just retiring from the military and wasn't really, you know, I mean, I think he wanted to get a little stability under his, you know, under his his new professional self.
Shawn:And then and then COVID hit and, you know, it's just all this stuff, it gets in the way. Then, you know, seven years now we've been married, we look up and we're like, we're probably too old. Well, to be fair, I was like, I'm not too old. I could still adopt, grandpa Baker over here, I don't know.
Scott:Yeah, that's like I'm laughing with you on that. Yeah, and that's another funny thing, right? And this is part of why we're the 2 Parachutes Podcast. We're starting with a cat and an old friend that has cancer and going to the difference between having your own child and adopting a child. And there are the obvious two schools of thought, that one that it's the same and the other that it's different.
Scott:And I've never been in a position where I seriously considered adopting, because I have three wonderful children, had them in my late 20s, early 30s. And I was old enough when that marriage ended that For me, it was I don't want to be, you know, grandpa at high school. And at high school graduation for for a child. But it just it seems to me that there's there's a different I'm in the school that there's a different emotional connection if you are as a man, if you are with a woman who's carrying your child and that child is born and the two of you are now caring for this child, it's not better or worse necessarily, but it is different than if you are taking somebody else's child and giving them a wonderful life and caring for them. It's just somehow different.
Scott:And I'm happy to be disabused of that because I've never been a part of an adoption. And I know that that has solved the yearnings for many people. I think it's worthwhile.
Shawn:Yeah, I don't know because I've never adopted, so I don't know. Right. You know, I have all these surrogates running around, whether it's my fur family or whether it's Sadie or whether it's like my professional baby birds that, you know, like I nurture and then they are how do you do it? They fly away. But like but I've been on the other side of it as a kid, you know, where I I wasn't officially or legally adopted by my by who I call my dad.
Shawn:But he was the present parent in my play. I didn't know I he was. I did not know he was not my biological father until I was seven, which seems doesn't seem I don't know how people will receive that or how they'll think about that, but that's actually a long time when you think about it because that's your formative childhood years. And, you know, so in a lot of ways, like my relationship with my dad, meaning this person that I'm referencing, because I didn't know my biological father until later in life, you know, and even then, you know, my dad's my dad and like that that part for me. So I know what I feel going bottom up.
Shawn:What I hear from him top down is I think he would agree with that sentiment as a parent. Now, my half sister, which is his biological daughter, obviously they have a really terrific bond, but it doesn't feel different. Like it doesn't feel like a half sibling because my sister and I have never, we've never seen ourselves as half siblings. You know, this is, we're scissors, this is our parents. And, you know, unfortunately our parents have never gotten on with each other even when they were married.
Shawn:You know, so we've never known them to be super compatible or harmonious. But yeah, and I think it also just depends on how early, at least some of it may have, it may be that it just depends on how early the child is brought into the family because I was brought in so early, it's like around probably one and a half, two years old. You know, I immediately got just integrated into that side of his family. And like, that is my family now. You know, and I mean, I have cousins and aunts and uncles and, you know, and it's all very passable, right?
Shawn:Like you would never know. Unless I told people, you wouldn't know that that wasn't my biological family. And so I think that adoption can be very natural. Now, nothing can ever change the chemical reactions and synapses that fire as when you are present for the birth of your biological child, you know, for sure. But I think that, luckily for so many of us who find ourselves, you know, in a situation where that reality is not a possibility, it produces every bit as good of an outcome, you know, every bit as good of an outcome as long as the parents are committed to it.
Shawn:But yeah, but I think it, you know, I don't know, but you're right. There's this, you know, and I don't know if I'll go into this right now. I might need to warm up to my platform a little bit before I start talking about my myself as a stepparent, although I think probably in our early episodes I might have like blabbed on at the mouth on it. But it is different. Being a step parent is different.
Shawn:And for all intents and purposes, you have adopted that child because legally you are their guardian and I have all the rights and privileges associated with that and responsibilities, you know, certainly, with the exception of certain things. You know, and is my bond the same as Sadie's biological mom's bond with her? Absolutely not. Is even the same as Greg's? Absolutely not.
Shawn:But but I think that's Okay, too. I think it's also just about right sizing what the expectation is. And again, also, here's the thing I think a lot of people just don't think about. It's like we as human beings all have such distinct, unique personalities. And regardless of what the formal relationship is, blood or otherwise or, you know, legal or otherwise, there's just personalities.
Shawn:Some people are just not going to automatically click and have chemistry and get along even if they're supposed to. And that's okay. So I think that people sometimes, I know I did for a long time, I was like, Man, I really wish I had a closer relationship with my stepdaughter. And I think we're actually getting there. I think as she gets older, it's a little bit every day or every year, every month it improves.
Shawn:It wasn't always like that. I I had a fondness and an affection for her, but I wouldn't say it was like this overwhelming maternal kind of driven instinct. It was on a very primitive level. Like with the time we lost her for three minutes at Circus Circus in Las Vegas and she was like eight. And I was like, trust and believe, Scott, like I have never had that level of panic on anything in my entire life.
Shawn:I say I didn't have that, but when it actually came down, pushed to shove, that was as mama bear as it gets because I mean, I was like, I can't describe the feeling. It was horrible.
Scott:Yeah.
Shawn:It was horrible.
Scott:Yeah. And that's that's such a a fascinating perspective because it's it's all there and.
Shawn:Oh, yeah.
Scott:Yeah. You know, when you're, you know, when you when you want to have children and you don't and you're you're adopting, you know, at it's and and again, I I have never faced this and so I I I don't know what the feelings are and what it is to sort out but you want to have children or a child. And so there's something primitive in that and it's the continuation of the species, but there's also something selfish in that. I want this. But at the same time, you know, you're giving a life to a little being that otherwise wouldn't have it.
Shawn:Yeah.
Scott:And that's not, you know, you can debate if a child and rescue dog, have the same value. But I think the mindset of this living thing is going to be better off if I take care of him or her or it Then if I don't, that is a legitimate way of thinking about it. And then, you know, understanding what it's like for the child. I mean, you not knowing anything else. It sounds like your mom had you and then married into your your dad's family and everybody welcomed you.
Scott:Welcomed her and welcomed you and you were a part of it. I'm I'm sure that there are plenty of instances, none that I'm particularly aware of, where that you know didn't work as possible.
Shawn:Oh I'm sure yeah.
Scott:I've heard of you know friends of mine that are, you know, dating somebody and, you know, there are kids involved. So this one buddy of mine was dating a woman who was going through a divorce And the daughter thought it was great that mommy had a boyfriend and the daughter was probably six or seven and the son was eight. And my buddy, all he got from the the son was, you're not my dad. You can't tell me anything to do and you know, and you you could just tell that, you know, the kid is angry because he doesn't want his parents being divorced. He doesn't want them to fight.
Shawn:That was me. Yeah. I was not the nicest person in my step parent relationship, I can tell you when I was little. So it's, you know, yeah.
Scott:Yeah. And that's and and so it's it's the complexity of human relationships. But you know, what what I'm what I'm beginning to get from our conversation is that all, you know, all the perspectives matter. You know, if we go back to this, I date a liberal girl who thinks I'm conservative and I date a conservative girl who thinks I'm liberal, know, gonna adopt some child and it's all gonna be great. It's like, no, everybody has good days and bad days.
Scott:And part of getting through it is finding a way to have the conversation to understand what another human being is going through. Even if you disagree with that person, you you should be happy because you're, you know, you're you're you're being fed and clothed and without me, you know, you wouldn't have those things. But I'm sick and my life sucks. I don't have the right shoes or because I hate my homework or whatever. And having adults in that environment who understand without you know trying to make it okay is I think part of what produces balanced human beings, and it's it's a big ask.
Shawn:Absolutely. I my kind of, I guess, closing perspective on all of it is just that, you know, pets are great, and you should cherish them, and you should value them, and integrate them into your life. They can be great. They're great for kids. Like, know, one of the things I think the best decisions we ever made was to get a dog at the time that we did because we thought Sadie should have that experience, you know, because she was an only child and because, you know, she was naturally introverted.
Shawn:And sometimes when you bring a puppy into the situation, it can help open them up a little bit and it can give them some responsibility to start caring for another little creature and, you know, in a more substantive way than feeding your goldfish, which we did betas for a very long time, probably longer than we should have. The damn thing dies so easily and it's so heartbreaking every time. And the cats were great. She's always had cats, whether it was at her mom's house or our house. But, you know, there's just something really different in my experience, having had dogs and cats about having a dog and having a puppy specifically.
Shawn:And it was funny because for a few years, many years actually, what did I say? Lottie turned six in February this year. I'd say for the first five years, we weren't sure that having Lottie made the impact that we had been hoping for in Sadie's experience growing up. But then all of a sudden, like last year, something shifted shifted and she all of a sudden was sort of demonstrating a much more urgent sense of like, I miss my dog. I want to come see my dog.
Shawn:Like so when she would spend her time at her mom's because we're like week on week off, you know, she started more frequently saying things like, I'd like to come see Lottie, like during her mom's weeks or like, you know what I mean? Or like when we pick her up for our weekly dinner because that's the deal is like we get a weekly dinner and she gets a weekly dinner and she'd be like, you know, if Greg and Sadie just, you know, because a lot of time there's not, know, on a school night, it's hard to make a lot of time to hang out because, you know, they have homework, they got to get back and have a decent bedtime. So sometimes Greg might suggest going to restaurant, like just by her house, like at her mom's and just say, let's pop into McDonald's or let's go to a, you know, noodles and company or something. But she started more frequently saying like, no, I want to go home. I want to see Lottie Specifically, I want to see Lottie and stuff like that.
Shawn:So that actually I thought was so interesting because, again, there is something there that there is a bond that I cannot describe it or defend it from a scientific perspective. Like, I don't understand why it is the case. But there was and she loves the cats, you know, for sure. But like, she really misses the dog.
Scott:Yeah.
Shawn:You know what I mean? So, you know, it did do something positive for her, I think. So we would have gotten the dog anyway because I'm just a dog lover. I love all animals and I'd have a zoo if I frankly could get away with it, but I can't. So here we are.
Shawn:But yeah, but I do think it helped her on some level growing up. And I'll be curious to touch base with her in five, seven years and ask her about that, you know.
Scott:But I think that's a really crucial observation. Know, so many times we say, well, you know, here's an issue and we're going to do this and see how it goes. And we don't give it enough time. You know, we want and it's not necessarily that it's a modern thing. It may be a somewhat modern thing just because as communication has gotten quicker, our expectations for communications and other results have gotten quicker.
Scott:And so it may be a modern thing, but, you know, the notion that you could bring a dog into the environment to make an improvement, and the improvement takes, you know, sort of three or four years to surface, it's worth being patient. And I'm not a I haven't been a patient person most of my life. And one of the great things about living for a while is learning patience, understanding that, let's just sleep on it and it'll be okay. And I think that's a wonderful observation, is that it finds its way. But I think you have an issue coming too because the dog is how old is Lottie now?
Shawn:Six. Yeah.
Scott:She's six. So she's probably about halfway through. The question then becomes in anticipation, and this is a horrible thing, right? But it's coming. Yeah.
Scott:In anticipation of that, what do you do? And I'm more and more firmly in the camp because I talk to my most recent girlfriend who has the Weimaran or Bella. She has this wonderful relationship with her dog. And it's five, seven years maybe, and it'll end. And the question becomes, how do you manage that?
Scott:And as we talked about it and worked through it, the best solution really is to get another dog way in advance of the passing of your first one. Because the other animals are going to get lonely. Your your cats are gonna miss it when your dog isn't here. Your dog and your other cat are gonna miss it. You know, miss miss Chucky when he's gone.
Shawn:That's right.
Scott:And and I think a lot of people, you know, talk in terms of, well, when this dog dies, we'll get another one. I'm pretty firmly in the camp of if you intend to maintain animals, it's kind of important to midway through an animal's life, bring a young one in. And then when the older one passes, you have a middle aged one who's lonely, bring another young one in. And sort of understanding that animals aren't going to hold back. If they don't like another animal, it's not going to work.
Scott:And so they need to be a part of that decision making process. But having the gaps are what hurts you.
Shawn:Oh, have. And the reason when you first said it, and I realized that might have come off as insensitive to the viewing audience, I laughed. It wasn't because I'm looking forward to that day or I think it's funny at all. It's because I in the context of what are we going to do when her time comes. I was thinking about I think probably the top of your mind was Sadie, but the person that's going to really level is Greg.
Shawn:You know? I mean, that's his dog. And it is, you know, in trust and belief, Scott, I am already thinking in my brain, like, you know, what does that look like? Because he is not somebody that is super emotional. He's also not somebody who bonds easily with anything or anyone.
Shawn:And so when those bonds are established, it is all the more difficult when you have to face those moments of life transition. So, yeah, I'm on Team Scott. Like, think, yep, you've got to get another one. You know what I mean? You've got to keep it moving because as much as we'd like to attribute our family's unit success to this specific configuration of animals and humans that are currently in it, your family is your family and you create that dynamic because of who you are collectively as a family.
Shawn:It will just it'll just evolve. Won't, you know. So, you know, whatever pet you introduce is just going to find its own unique space in that family unit, you know? And
Scott:it really is it really is like kids. The the move from no children, no dogs, no cats.
Shawn:Yeah.
Scott:To one.
Shawn:Yeah. Is
Scott:is the biggest jump. Yeah. The easiest jump is going from one to two. Yeah. But then when you go beyond that, if you're gonna have three dogs or five dogs, you're gonna have a whole pack and you're going to have a herd of cats and kids screaming that there wasn't enough food for dinner across the board.
Scott:That's the volume piece. But bouncing between zero and one, I think, is the hardest thing. And there's a comedian that does this bit about getting a second dog and how his his partner, his wife was complaining. We we shouldn't get another dog. It's gonna be so much more work.
Scott:And he's like, yeah. So if I have to get up and let the dog out, I open the door and two dogs go.
Shawn:And two dogs go.
Scott:That's so much more work.
Shawn:Woo hoo. Like. Two balls
Scott:down instead of one. And you know and and and I get it. But it's it reminds me of a story that this old friend of mine and it's it's just it's funny knowing people for forty five or fifty years, and I'm I'm to that point now where I've this guy for forty five years. And we go day hiking together in the summer, so it's like two old 60 year old guys huffing and puffing our way up these mountains in the Olympics and the Cascades. And he just retired.
Scott:He was a construction loan officer at a bank. Really interesting guy. His wife is an attorney who works at she's the chief civil deputy or or somebody and one of the local prosecutor's offices here. And so he's retired but she's not. And they had always had dogs because she loved dogs.
Scott:And they had a dog. Dog got older, passed away, and his attitude was great. Now, you know, we can go on the month long skiing trip to Chamonix and you know, we can go to the Southern Desert in the winter and we don't have to, you know. Worry.
Shawn:Yeah.
Scott:Get coverage for the dog and I was sort of laughing at her because I'm like, no, she's going to want a dog. She's like, no. Yeah. Not happening and then, it happened and. Broke this whole contract about how he would have to pick up the poop and take the dog for a walk and stuff.
Scott:And I'm like, dude, that just that that never works. But it seems to me that if you are in the lifestyle where you're keeping pets, have to happiness. You don't have to, but happiness comes from paying attention to those transitions. You know, the difficult transitions are the most difficult ones.
Shawn:It
Scott:seems to me that having more than one is and having them staggered
Shawn:Yeah. It's key.
Scott:Keeps everything at a more even keel. It of softens the blow a little bit. But at the same time, I'm kind of with Greg. Just because he doesn't emote on the surface doesn't mean the emotion isn't there. It's it's funny.
Scott:And I you know, if his experience is like mine at all, it's you know, everything's fine. And then you wake up one day and you go, holy crap. I'm connected with this dog.
Shawn:Oh, that's that was him. He didn't wanna be. He fought the dog. He fought the dog in the beginning.
Scott:And I am not gonna love you.
Shawn:Oh, yeah. No. He was just like, no. This dog is, like, not my dog. It's like, you know, I'm somewhat under duress, or a protest rather.
Shawn:But you know, it's because he has a big deep heart and while he doesn't show things surfacely very often, when he does feel it, it's very, very deep. And you know, he still gets highly emotional about about his first dog, Snowball. And, like, I you know, and I just always feel bad about the whole Snowball situation. I'm like, well, that really hurt you. And, you know, and so I think he he knows that Lottie is gonna be a tough one and, that my tough one right now is gonna be Chucky because basically I was his person.
Shawn:So, yeah, it's just gonna be tough. It's gonna be tough, Scott, but I'm gonna power through. I've learned When we first started this podcast, you and I did like a personality kind of exercise, if you remember. And one of the things that I learned about myself, which probably should have been always self evident, but until that moment had not really clicked in my brain is a trait of mine is conflict avoidance. So even in the context of transition moments that are hard, like sadness, deep, deep sadness, I don't know what the word is.
Shawn:I want to minimize the pain. I want to minimize the struggle for myself very selfishly, you know? And so while I would never do this, you know, the first thing I thought when he got diagnosed is like, do we put him down while he's still feeling good? Because I don't ever want him to feel bad, first of all. But second of all, I don't know if I'm strong enough to push through the weeks and the months that are going to be hard because we're tending open wounds that won't heal because he's labored breathing, because he has, you know, still more good days than bad, but the bad is pretty bad.
Shawn:And, you know, so I'm wrestling with that right now. It's like, you know, am I being conflict avoidant and stress avoidant by just wanting to kind of, you know, curtail his end of life, you know, experience and make it sort of sanitary, like not, you know, or do I is the is the more noble thing to let nature take its course, love and keep him comfortable, but just have to push through weeks or months of sadness and ongoing sadness and, you know, stress.
Scott:Yeah. It's and, you know, we only have
Shawn:A few minutes. We have
Scott:about five minutes left. Yeah. And that that just brings this this whole flood of end of life issues. Yeah. Reminds me of of my first wife who is a hospice nurse.
Scott:And it's it's one of these things where it took her a while over the course of her life to find this. But it it it's wonderful. It's wonderful to see and it's wonderful for her because it's it's not what she does. It's it's who she is. But the the the end of life issues and if you know anyone who's had an older relative who's gone through that hospice process, they're they're remarkable people that are assisting others through their end of life and assisting families through their end of life.
Scott:But I remember being horrified at the beginning, you know, listening to her talk about families who would come in and they would want to know that, you know, their grandma is still alive and grandma is comatose and on a respirator and on a feeding tube and she's not living. She's, you know, she's breathing because they're breathing for her, and they're, you know, feeding her through a tube into her stomach. But the the people that came in want her to still be alive so that they will not have to deal with the pain of her dying. Right.
Shawn:Right. That's not great.
Scott:She is so selfish. Yeah. I think that it's and and it's it's a hard thing to be in. I mean, my my dad passed earlier this year and, you know, keeping him in a place where he was comfortable and he he wasn't on any of that support his body gave out and he he died in his sleep, which was fortunate. It's it's very similar to, you know, I love my dog and I love my cat and I just want you to keep them alive.
Scott:And it's you feel like you're deciding whether you're killing them or not. And it's it's not that. It's really bound balancing the the selfishness of it's good for me if you're alive. Against you know what really is good for your dog or your cat or you know for your relative. Dogs and cats can't tell us what they want.
Scott:Right. Relatives certainly can, as long as dementia isn't there. But it's worth having that conversation and you get to the point where, you know, you're the one in the hot seat and you're starting to think about, you know, what do I want when I can't express what I want anymore? And sometimes, you know, sometimes you think, you know, and sometimes you don't know. But it's something that you probably can't figure out on your own.
Scott:Need to discuss and understand and recognize the selfishness. It's not that selfishness is good or bad. It is. And I think, you know, part of the way people cope with things is, well, I'm going to push it off in the future so I don't have to deal with it. And I actually learned a productive way of dealing with feelings like that from my youngest daughter.
Scott:And this was when she was a teenager, She's 29 now. And, you know, I would, you know, she would call or, you know, I'd walk in the door and she would be crying because she was, you know, upset about something. And we'd sit and talk or, you know, talk on the phone. And then, you know, like I would come in and she's upset and we'd sit and talk for ten minutes and I would say, well, I'm gonna go up stairs and get changed out of my workload and I'd come I'd come down in a half hour and she's baking something in the kitchen. I'm like, Abs, how are you?
Scott:Said, oh, I'm fine, dad. I'm like, twenty minutes ago, you were you were crying and. Yeah. And I remembered on several occasions, she would just look at me and she would go, yeah, dad. I I cried but I'm better now.
Scott:And what I learned from her is that she instinctively would allow whatever the emotion was to come.
Shawn:Mhmm.
Scott:And it would come and it wasn't like it would come and she would deal with it. It would come and it would go. It's like this meditation thing where you're letting a thought come in and you're also letting it go so the next thought can come in. And she was just naturally highly effective. And it's hard when you know an emotion that's coming is gonna hurt you.
Scott:It's hard to accept that pain. But what accepting the pain allows you to do is to get through it and to let it go. Yeah. And once you some of us have to learn how to do that. I've had to learn how to do that.
Scott:Yeah. But you know, you you sit and you watch a movie and I'm finally to the point where I don't try and hold back the tears. I, you know, I feel the emotion that's being presented to me. I let it come. I let it pass through me and I try even if I don't enjoy the experience.
Scott:Try and value the experience
Shawn:and awesome.
Scott:It's a remarkable level of maturity that a teenage girl showed me. Took me fifteen years to really internalize it, but it made it And I think that that's part of all of this. And I think it's part of grieving. That's what we're talking about. Absolutely.
Scott:And part of grieving is allowing yourself to grieve and not putting a value judgment on how it feels bad, but trusting that if you let the emotion come, it will pass through you. Again, you see it everywhere. It's funny. I remember years ago reading the Dune novels by Frank Herbert. Yeah.
Scott:There's a new series of the movies that are coming out. And there's this thought process that some of the characters have where they're dealing with fear and the mantra is I will face my fear. I will let my fear pass over me or come over me and pass through me and I will fear no more. And it takes strength to allow yourself to be overwhelmed with fear trusting that it'll pass through you. And it's just it's another version of this.
Scott:And I think we're we're more productive and more human if, if we allow the motions to come. We're dynamic beings. We're not static beings. And pain comes from being static, from holding on to things. But you have to be a fully formed, mature, courageous person to allow it to happen, or you have to be in state of 100%.
Scott:And
Shawn:I think that's such a strong place to close. It's like we've gone through the different variations of love that we can experience in our life through children and pets and family, through things that can cause us pain, which in some cases are those very same things we love. Where there's great love, there's great pain, you know, in the end, usually, and on some level. So just honoring that life sort of like experience because it all plays a part in how we live our lives as human beings. And, you know, in my world, it's, you know, kind of God's divine gift to us.
Shawn:Love is. But with that comes, you know, kind of the promise of suffering and pain a little bit with it. So how you engage in that, whether it's the fear or the actual pain that washes over you that you were describing, I think is, you know, feel that as much as honorably as you do the love, and that's probably you're in a good place if you can do that.
Scott:I love that. Yeah. And I love talking with you, Sean.
Shawn:Me too. Thanks for getting on the line again today.
Scott:Yeah. Absolutely. Alright. Well, goodbye everybody, and, we'll see you all next time.
Shawn:Till the next jump. Thanks, guys.
Scott:Alright. Bye now.