Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
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Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Dax Shepard and I'm joined by Monica Padman. Hi. Animal attacks. These are scary. They're always good. Yeah. They're always good. Animals are not to be fucked with, you guys. Yeah. In the past, the two stories that I'll always end up telling at a dinner party is the grizzly bear attack and the grizzly bear attack.

And the shark attack that we've heard. And I'm proud to say there's now a third attack that I've been repeating a lot that comes from this episode. Animal attack goes hard. I know. I mean, you can't. What do we expect? Hard, yeah. Really good. You can't listen, but it's great. Yeah, no. It shan't ever be listened to. Please enjoy Animal Attack's Part Something. Oh, just two. Oh, just two. All right.

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I'ma keep on shining. Kyle? That's me. What an eclectic group of shirts you have behind you. Yeah, that's my crawfish collection. Okay, and you're wearing those, what, on the weekend or for a specific event? I do a crawfish boil usually a couple times a year in spring. Are you in Louisiana? No, we're a little bit north of Austin.

Oh, and you're doing a crawfish boil. Is that a popular event down there? Yeah, a lot of it's brought in from Louisiana. They're like shrimp or like lobster or neither? Neither. They live in swamps. I think they burrow into the ground for most of the winter and then they come up this time of year and that's when they catch them. It's like a mud shrimp. I've been.

Tell me about it. They do them in the South a lot. They put it all on newspaper and then you eat it. Oh. Yeah, we'll usually put down metal trays. Oh, yours is fancier than the one I went to then. So Kyle, you have an animal attack story. I do. This starts mid-90s. My grandparents found a baby deer on the side of the road, a fawn, and it's covered in fire ants. Not doing well. It's abandoned.

They take it home. We live around the Austin area in the hill country. They've got 80 acres. They nurse it back to health. They build a high fence enclosure for this deer and his name becomes Bucky. Fast forward four years, Bucky's still there. I'm about seven. My sister's 11. And so we've grown up with Bucky around. He's a family pet. And is he very docile? Would you go out and pet him and interact with him? Yeah, we never go into the enclosure with him, but you could go feed him. He'd come eat out of your hand.

Also important in these four years, my parents had just gotten divorced. This is a combination of my dad and my grandparents live on the same property. So when me and my sister at my dad's house, he's outnumbered. He sends us to go feed Bucky. His enclosure is about 150 yards away from the house. So me and my sister walk up there and we're throwing bread through there. And as we'd walked up there, the family dog's in tow, Jasmine. And can I quickly ask, has Bucky now got

antlers and is he 200 pounds like how big is bucky and how formidable has he become he's got an eight point rack he's pretty good size yeah okay we're feeding him through the fence we kind of toss him through it's just like a six inch metal square fence and as we're throwing one it hits the fence and falls jasmine the family dog she runs up there to grab a piece and i lean down to stop her this is the end of october and so that's important because deer are in rut

Uh-oh. They're baiting, and that's when they're all fired up. So as I go down to stop the dog, I don't know if he thinks I'm an opponent or he's not happy with the dog, but he leans forward and hits the fence. So I stand up, and I touch my head. My hand comes down. It's solid red. Oh.

Oh, no. Oh, boy. I'm seven years old. So I have these bright, vivid memories of sections of this. And I look at my sister and she just lets out this scream that I can still hear today. We go running to the house. And so I know my dad's working in the driveway. Tears are in my face and I can barely see the house. He comes out. He meets us halfway, grabs me, throws me in the truck, and he gives me a hand towel full of ice to hold on there.

And it's about 25 minutes to the emergency room. I've hit my head a lot growing up. There was one memory where I said, Dad, am I going to die? And he had this running joke where he would say yes. But not today. And I remember asking him in the truck. He just said no. Oh, no.

Oh, yeah. They accidentally give themselves away sometimes, parents, when they're trying to play it cool. Yeah, yeah. It was obvious. It was serious. And by the time we get to the emergency room, you know, I'm covered in blood. I remember being very calm. I'm talking with the doctor there. He's saying, OK, I have to give you a shot to numb it. We're going to have to staple this shot. To give you an idea of the wound, he was showing my dad. He's got gloved hands on, and he puts his finger up to my dad, says the middle knuckle. Oh!

Oh, my God. Under the skin. It didn't puncture your skull, though? No, thankfully. Oh, I thought he put his finger fucking knuckle deep into your brain. Now I'd be talking like Frito. Likely, yeah. What's amazing about it is how close that could have been to my eye. I could be blind. I ended up doing five staples and I had to go to school and tell my teacher and everybody, oh, I got attacked by the pet deer. Sure looked pretty gnarly with medals stapled in my eye.

bringing up the divorce. What quickly happened after is Texas Parks and Wildlife shows up with my parents and grandparents' house asking where the deer is. Oh,

Oh, because someone at the hospital reported it? Or your mom did? I asked my mom. I said, was it you? And she said, I'm not going to say. Oh, okay. She goes, I can guarantee you I told the divorce attorney because I'm sure there was custody going on. When I interviewed my grandma this week trying to piece together some things, she goes, well, that officer told us it was your mother. Well, in her defense, if my child, while I'm not around, gets gored by a deer, I'm like, fuck that. Get that deer out of there. Why do they have a buck rutting in the backyard? Yeah.

I get both because your dad's like, we're just living. It was an accident. Did they eat Bucky? Or you can't turn Bucky free at that point, can you? They told them he was going to be released into some kind of sanctuary. He's used to being around people. What's surprising is, as I've been queued up to be on here, I've told this story to a few people this week, and I think three people have told me they had a deer growing up. My wife had a deer, my barber's husband, and somebody I had lunch with today. Oh.

Oh, wow. No kidding. Is it kind of standard in Hill Country? Maybe. But you're the only one that got attacked. That I know of. Wow. Well, yikes. I'm glad you're okay. You got me on here. We like that. Okay, so Bucky left. Were the grandparents sad? Did everyone miss Bucky? Or in a week, they're like, oh, yeah, I forgot we even had that. Why did we have that? I'm sure they were just more mad at my mom. Yeah. They had bigger fish to fry. Divorce is kind of tainted. Yeah, they take over. Yeah.

Well, Kyle, pleasure meeting you. Yeah. Yeah. Nice to meet you. Is it okay if my wife hops on and say hello? Of course. Hello. How are you? Good. What's your name? Megan. Are you wearing a sweatshirt?

I am. Oh, look at you. Wonderful. Thank you for supporting us. Always. I appreciate the entertainment. Oh, good. And do you think you'll also get a t-shirt? It's on the way. While I was listening to the cookie boy disagreement. Oh!

That's when I purchased it while I'm walking the dogs. I bought it while you're disagreeing about who would or would not wear the shirt. I would encourage you to wear it. I will to make everyone happy. But what a clever marketing ploy that would be if we were that calculated. It was an accident. Because I think a lot of people came to your defense and bought it just to defend you. Yeah. Maybe they just like it and think everyone should wear it. That too. But also I think some people are like, I got to support Monica. Yeah.

All the comments, Monica, were, I bought the Cookie Boy shirt because of that. Oh, my God. We're here for you. Thank you. I'm excited to wear it so we can all match. All right. Well, lovely meeting both of you. Really nice meeting both of you. Thank you so much. All right. Take care. Little armchair family. Yeah. She had the merch. She bought Cookie Boy to stick up for her sister. She bought Cookie Boy because she loved it. Because it's such a good. It is good.

It is good. I never said it wasn't good. It was always a conversation about whether I thought I was false advertising. That's it. We need to put out to the arm cherries what they want to see on a shirt. We already decided. Oh, yeah. But we'll have more. Yeah. Okay. Great. So they should tell us what they want. Hit the comments of this episode and tell us what shirt you want. Because we forget. We forget a lot of stuff. We forget. We're forgetful. Yeah. I'll probably say it on the fact check, but for these listeners.

I did reach out to the person who I saw online. You did? I DM'd. Was there a response? Yes. A very, very kind response. But he does have a girlfriend. Oh!

Yeah, but it was very nice. Oh, I want to hear all the details. I'm not going to expose him. In your reach out, you made it clear you were interested romantically. Yeah. Right, because he had to say, I have a girlfriend. Yeah. Wow, I'm so proud of you. How did you phrase it? I don't want to say. Oh, you're like half in, half out. Well, it's very...

It's vulnerable, but I did it, and I'm proud I did it. I wish it had gone differently, obviously. But it affirmed that he is the type of person that I would like. Also, he would ignore most people sending that. Hello? Hello, can you hear me? Yeah, we can hear you, but... Can you turn your camera on? Oh, wait, you know what? Oh! There you are!

I had work mode on. Good. We can see you now. So Amanda, where are you? I am in Atlanta, Georgia. Where? What part? Currently, I'm in Brookhaven. I will say, Monica, I'm jealous of you because we graduated the same year of high school and I went to Brookwood and I was a competition cheerleader and we were failures compared to you. Wait, you and I competed against each other. That's wild.

We've never heard of a disgruntled competitor yet. This is a first. I won't be that disgruntled because I was more of the spirit hands on the floor. They didn't know what to do with me. I doubt that. Like more of a participation trophy type situation. Yeah. Wonderful. If you're on that competition squad, you had some skills.

We've met before. This is so crazy. It is. Okay. Well, most importantly, you were attacked by an animal. Unless you were the animal that attacked. I don't know. Big twist. Could go either way. Humans are animals. So this is November of 2020. I had just recently been working in an emergency department. I loved it, but I was trying to figure out what my path would be in my career. And so I ended up getting my master's degree and

taking some time off. My master's degree was in basically emergency preparedness. Then I tried to apply for jobs with that in the heart of the pandemic. And they were like, well, we need some people with some experience. I ended up being unemployed for a little while. I was also going through a divorce. But COVID was really something for you. Yeah, that's a lot. Yeah, it was a lot. But I started working as a wine cook and

trying to be the most outdoorsy version of myself as I could be because I had time. I was single. So I was about to try and go on this run and I needed directions. And so I pulled over to look for directions. And I saw this woman and her daughter. They were hysterical and like kind of pointing across this five, six lane road. I saw that they had lost control of their dogs and they were on leashes, but just hysterical.

I've had big pit bulls my entire life. And so it was like, I got this. I'm going to be a good Samaritan and go help them. You have a master's in emergency preparedness. This has to fall under that umbrella. It should. So I get out and I'm doing that kind of like slapping my knee motion. Come to me. And they do.

But one of the dogs just immediately latches onto my arm. Oh, wow. What kind of dog? It was a pit. And I've had pits my entire adult life. You know, when you rescue a pit, there's some innate distrust from the community. Understandably, they've got big teeth.

even when you train them and raise them right you don't really know what they're gonna do well just the bottom line is if it goes sideways they have the physical ability to really harm somebody that's what all of us non-pit people on the outside are going it's like yeah tigers could be great but fuck one goes sideways they can kill a human so this thing fucking latched onto your arm yeah and i know the listeners can't see and you might not be able to either

Oh, yeah. You got some real. Oh, both sides punctures. Yeah. So the dog latched on and did one of those like. You were its chew toy. Yeah. I'm bleeding through my favorite sweatshirt. Her daughter, who I find out is 10 years old, and she is just hysterical. I feel so bad for her. But at the same time, I kind of feel bad for myself. Yeah. Yeah. You're getting mauled by a vicious animal.

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It's probably like six seconds. It's not that long, but she grabs hold of the leash and she tosses her phone and her wallet on the ground because they're on this walk. She was like, it's collateral. And she leaves with the dog because they live like right down the street. So she was like, I'm going to take my dog away. And that's my collateral. You have my daughter and my information. Oh, my take of it because they lived in the apartment complex right near where it happened. I think that she let her daughter hold the leashes while she was locking the door or something. Sure. Yeah.

Yeah, it's a strong dog. And then they were out trying to find them, I guess. Yeah, so...

The daughter, I'm trying not to yell at her because I don't want to yell at a 10-year-old. I was like, can you call 911, please? She was like, I don't have a phone. I was like, that's my phone. Meanwhile, I'm like up on the hood of my car. Even though the other dog is gone, there's a chihuahua there. I'm like, it's going to bite my ankles. I'm just being super irrational at that point. No, chihuahuas are also vicious. They wish they were pit bulls. So she calls 911 and puts the phone in between my shoulder and my ear.

As I'm holding my arm. Monica, I'm sure you know the level one trauma hospital in Atlanta. Grady was right down the street. They came within like three minutes and the police showed up and they're like, do you want to press charges? I said, no. The woman didn't bite me. People are going to be so mad at me right now. But does it cross your mind? Maybe I got to press charges because they don't have control of the dog. Is someone else going to get their arm bit? It gets a little murky for me. It didn't in the moment. It did later.

much later, but only because the bill wasn't paid. What Grady ended up doing was they charged me what's called indigent care. It's what they charge for like homeless populations. So I paid like 300 bucks for the ambulance. Whoever coded it the way that they coded it, they knew that I was not going to be paid. And it's not to say that this family is bad people, but they never followed up.

I get to the hospital and I'm deemed very stable. I mean, the bleeding has stopped. I do have a significant enough wound that they have to debris it with like sterile water, which is terrible. But I was sitting there with the person in front of me who was laid on his front side because he had been shot in the butt. So he's stable enough to be out there. I'm like, I'm just

chillin yeah but it does paint a picture of where you're at there's gunshot wounds in the lobby there's a fair amount of gunshots that come through grady the fact that i was brought in the ambulance and i got to kind of see that process and then got to sit in the er for a while and listen to the emergency room process i was like you know i know i can't go back to work for a while because i've got this open wound they don't close a lot of animal wounds because of bacteria and stuff so i can't go

work in a kitchen. So I was going to go home and do what? Just sit? So no, I studied and became an EMT instead. Wow. Pivot. And then I worked on an ambulance and then I started working for Grady. Whoa. Three shifts in, I met this guy. Meet Q.

Well, hold on. It is a meet cute. But he's a serial killer. Within 10 minutes, he's talking about his wife, who's awesome. And I was like, OK, cool. Not going to happen. And then within three hours, he was like, you got to meet my friend, Ted.

you know like the female version of him i was like no one wants to date that and then i met him and i was like i think he's really cool amazing even though we don't have the same exact things in common that he thought we get along so now we're married oh wonderful you and ted tied the knot this

The same partner from Grady introduced me to my now boss, who completely changed my career trajectory. So I'm working in local government doing emergency preparedness work. This dog bite was the best thing that's happened to me. Oh, that's a really positive. That is. Yeah. Now I feel bad. And I guess I owe the pit bull a thank you. Oh, last thing. I was told under threat of death if I don't call out the vortex in Atlanta. Oh.

that's the restaurant I worked at. I went in this morning because I was stopping by a couple of places in Atlanta and particularly my friend Shannon was like, if you don't tell Dax and Monica that I am their number one fan, I will not be your friend anymore. What kind of cuisine do we have at Vortex? Should we eat there, Monica? Oh,

Burgers, old fries, stuff. It's kind of an institution. Oh, I love a burg. You'll have a sodium headache, but it's great. Oh, I'll take it. How fun. Well, shout out Vortex. Shout out Pitbulls. Shout out Grady Hospital. Grady Hospital. Making dreams come true. Shout out Ted. Yeah, Ted. Way to get it, Ted. We love this. Congratulations. Yeah, that's a great story.

Very rarely do the animal tech stories have a silver lining, and this one really does. Well, lovely meeting you, Amanda. Have a great day. It was lovely meeting you, too. Take care. Bye.

Hi. Is this Brittany? Hi. Yes. Oh, wonderful. Are you married to Matt? I am. Yeah. And this is his account? This is his account. He's done literally everything for me today. Where are you at? I'm in Boulder, Colorado. Oh, lovely. Okay. I'm trying to think what animal you could have been attacked by in Boulder. I guess this guy's the limit. You really have a lot of stuff, right? You got mountain lion and bear. Yep.

All the good stuff. So we actually live two doors down from where this happened. I am neighbors with my parents. So this happened summer of 2009. It was the day after my mom's birthday and we had

had all gone to sleep. It was like two o'clock in the morning. How old were you at the time? I was 17 at the time. So it was my last summer before senior year. I was over it already. And then this happened. I was like, I'm out of here. Now I'm back. So the layout of our

house is my dad built it and the first floor is the main floor. So it has a kitchen and there's a room off the side of it. And then there's two bedrooms and then he added on to it later. And so there's the master bedroom downstairs and then another bedroom. My brother got the bedroom downstairs. I got the bedroom upstairs. And then obviously my parents are down in the basement. So we had a 40 pound Jack Russell Terrier German Shepherd make super smart, super spunky, too much energy, a lot.

of energy. She was gruffing at my mom in the middle of the night and my mom was trying to ignore it and still sleep. She would smell stuff either from outside or through our swamp cooler. She would catch whiffs of stuff sometimes. So my mom was just ignoring it. And then she got a little bit more agitated and was like barking at my mom. So she was like, okay, I'll go check it out. My dad is

now totally deaf. Back then he was very close. So he's dead to the world. Has no idea anything's going on. But hearing it do the trick. So my mom headed upstairs and we had this cut out window from our living room that you could see through into the kitchen. And so my mom peered through there and there was a bear charging at her. Oh! In the home. In the home. Oh my God. Oh boy. And so this little

40-pound dog starts to go to take care of the bear, and my mom is hysterically screaming. Yeah. What color bear? We have black bears here, so thankfully no grizzlies. But still, it could be a 300, 400-pound. He had actually gotten into my car the same week. I had left like this much in a Starbucks cup. That was a small amount for the listener. Yeah, she just held up an inch between her index and her thumb. Yeah, and I don't know how much you know about bears, but they are nasty, greasy bears.

So he left lots of grease all over my car. From going through trash and stuff? They never wash their hair. They don't like to shower. They don't have good hygiene. Stinky, greasy, all that good stuff. So my mom's screaming bloody murder. She hightails it back into the bathroom that's right by my bedroom and is still screaming.

My mom used to like ridicule me. I'm like, Brittany, you can't just sleep in your underwear. You have to sleep in clothes because what if something terrible happens in the middle of the night? You need to be ready. That stuff never happens. Yeah. I was leaping out of my bunk bed, just in my underwear, eating some humble pie. And I like step out there. I'm like, what's going on? And she's like, there's a bear in the house. And then book shit down the stairs and left me. Oh, wow.

I'm assuming she thought I was following her, but the dog was still upstairs. The dog was going bananas near our kitchen. Now, hold on. I got to pause to just say we just kind of shit on dogs for a dog attack story a little bit ago. Now, this is where dogs rock. Dogs will fucking take on a bear to protect you. This is true. This is good. We're getting both sides. They rock. Bye.

Dog would not give up. Do I stop trying to cover myself up and try and save my dog? Do I just hightail it and hope that she makes it? So I free the titties, run after, grab the dog by the tip of her tail and drag her back. And the bear is still following us at this point. Oh my God. Pick her up, book it down the stairs. And we don't know where it is at this point. And so we get down there. My brother is also just in his underwear, putting his contact lenses in.

Readying himself for battle. Speaking of which, my dad was in the process of loading up his shotgun. He kept things separately, so he wasn't as quick as could be, but it was safe. Thank God he finally heard. I know, yeah. My mom at that point had gotten down there and let him know what was going on. So he put two rubber pellets in the gun and then had a regular slug shot ready to go. Again, super deft.

didn't put in his hearing aids before he went up there, which was a foul choice. And his idea was to go up and open one of the doors to let the bear escape. So he went back up there, flipped on a light to open the side door and the bear was charging him. Oh my God. So he like shot the rubber around

And it just beyond pissed it off. And it got like really aggressive. And so we're downstairs. My mom is rightfully so freaking out. I called 911 to get them on the phone. So I was giving them details while they can hear shotgun shells going off in the background. And we hear shooting and then a scuffle. And then we hear another shot and then another scuffle. And then my dad...

did his third real round, which turned out to be another rubber pellet round and he grabbed the wrong color. So he had no actual real protection. He shot it. And for some reason, that three rounds of rubber pellets to the face disoriented him enough. So we all of a sudden just hear my dad barreling down the stairs. And my mom was like, open the door to my brother. So

My brother let him in really quick and we slammed the door shut because we didn't know if the bear was going to follow. The 911 operator told us to go out of the house and get in our car and wait at the bottom of our driveway for the sheriff to come. So we did that and the sheriff came and kind of poking around asking us questions, visibly shaking. And he's like, I would rather deal with any armed criminal

then a bear. They're my biggest fear. Oh, jeez. They sent the wrong guy. He was the only one at that time, too. So he went up and quickly got to action. And so we heard another couple rounds go off. And then more sheriffs showed up. So he had backup finally. But what happened is he went in the house and the bear was at the back of that side room, clawing at a window, clearly trying to get out. It turned around, started to charge him.

He shot it. And again, I don't know how much you know about bears, but they have really thick skulls. And so it is extremely hard to shoot a bear in the head. Yeah, you can kill a bear, but it's going to be 10 minutes after you shoot it. You got to deal with this bear that doesn't even fucking feel that it got shot. Or you luck out enough to go through the ribs or something like that. But if it's charging you, you don't have that shot. He actually shot the bear five times.

and it did nothing but piss it off and it continued to charge at it. The next sheriff came and had a bigger gun and it took actually three more rounds from that gun to put this bear down. Wow, so a bear was killed in your living room. The way that he was charging, he technically died outside. The way he would have wanted it. Yes, exactly. Back into the wild. He died doing what he loved, being outside.

At 24, I lost my narrative, or rather it was stolen from me. And the Monica Lewinsky that my friends and family knew was usurped by false narratives, callous jokes, and politics. I

I would define reclaiming as to take back what was yours. Something you possess is lost or stolen, and ultimately you triumph in finding it again. So I think listeners can expect me to be chatting with folks, both recognizable and unrecognizable names, about the way that people have navigated roads to triumph.

My hope is that people will finish an episode of Reclaiming and feel like they filled their tank up. They connected with the people that I'm talking to and leave with maybe some nuggets that help them feel a little more hopeful. Follow Reclaiming with Monica Lewinsky on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Reclaiming early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.

He definitely got vengeance on us, though, because he smeared his body over every surface that was in our house. Oh.

So they brought us back up. They showed us the bear. He was like a two-year-old, only 120-pound bear. He had somehow learned that if you push on the side of a door threshold, you can kind of warp it enough. And that just swung the door wide open. Oh, my goodness. He was brilliant. This is like, yeah, he should have been in the circus. No kidding. So that's how he got in without us hearing a big bang. One of the rounds that they shot at him...

hit him in the forehead and ricocheted off and went through one of our windows and smashed our windows. We went in the house and it was like a massacre. There was blood everywhere.

And my dad was dealing with the sheriff, going over everything. And my mom is calling the insurance agent and claiming this with homeowners insurance. He's like, I don't even know how to enter this. This is my first bear in the house. They told us that they would cover everything and that they could send a cleaning crew up the next day or we could do it and we would get a check. And my mom was like, put some gloves on and get going.

going. Oh, sure. We had to buck up and get it done. And then shortly after that, for some reason, the sheriff had to report it nationally. They probably tracked bear attacks around the country. Probably. Yeah. So then that meant that the news crews got all of our information. So they were calling and calling. And my dad didn't want to do it because we are in Boulder and it's a pretty liberal city. And he was really worried that he was going to be tagged as the bear murderer. Oh, it's

not his fault. Oh my God. We kept telling him that. We're like, Dad, you literally saved our family. You should have let the bear eat you. I mean. I know, right? So, yeah. Everyone except for my brother got charged by a black bear. That is wild. And the doggy made it. She lived a long, happy, healthy life. She was never the same after that. Always on high alert. We called her the bear dog after that. And

She lived to tell the tale. Wow. I wonder if you didn't have a dog and this bear is rutting around the kitchen, finds a bunch of peanut butter and yummy stuff, and then just ate 50,000 calories and then just went to sleep. If you guys would have woken up and found like a snoozing full bear in the living room. Do you think the bear would have left after it ate its dinner? Why would it? It's inside. There's a couch. But they don't really want to interact with people.

people, right? They will if there are people there. They tend to avoid people, but if there's yummy food and they'll eat till they are, you know, nearly. Ironically, he ate a ton of Crystal Light of my mom. Oh,

Oh, he loved it with locale. Crystal light was exploded everywhere around our kitchen. If you've only been eating leaves and bark and berries and you get your hands on some crystal light, I can't imagine what an explosion of flavor that was. Maybe that's just what amped him up. Yeah, I think maybe if he hadn't gotten into that, he might have been more docile.

This is why Monica doesn't live in Boulder. Well, I was about to say people are scared of L.A. because of the fires. And they're like, I'm going to move. Everywhere has something that's going to get you. We have bears and fires. Okay. Double whammy. We have earthquakes and fires and mudslides and mountain lions and bears. And pedophiles and criminals. Just like everywhere. Gangs. Just like everywhere. Gangs.

Well, Brittany, wow, what a thrilling story. What a thing to witness. Thanks for telling us that. That was hairy. And harrowing. Yes. And if I can quickly shout out my friend, Nicole. She is my beloved boss. Shout out to Nicole. Thanks for being a great boss. Yes, definitely. All right. Take care.

That is a weird sim because the other day we had an earthquake. Yeah, we haven't even talked about it. You were in your bedroom. Yeah, I was in my bed. The earthquake happened and I was just wearing underwear and I was like, I'm putting pants on. If there's going to be more tonight and I got to like run outside or something, I can't be in my undies. I was in the basement watching a guest movie and the whole house started shaking above me and I was like, oh my God.

Oh, my God. The house is going to fucking collapse on me. I do not want to be in this basement right now. I want to fall down on shit. Okay. So every time there's a little earthquake, I think I need to double check again about what you're supposed to do. Go on a doorframe. I know it's the doorframe, but being on the first floor, I'm like, is that going to do anything? The whole thing is going to go outside, right? Also, I've heard that. And I'm like, do you just run outside? Yeah.

Well, you got to make a game day decision. Is it more dangerous? I mean, ideally, yes. Being away from the falling buildings is the best. But if you think you're going to be mid-run when the building falls down, you could have stood in a doorway, which will protect you. Get on a boat if you can. Yeah, you want to get on a boat as quick as possible. That's a good plan. And wait for the tsunami to take you. Yeah. Oh, God. Okay, last one. Wobby Wob is calling. Hey, guys.

Tell us about the time you were attacked, Rob. Rob never told us he was attacked by a lion. Hello. Is this Rob? It sure is. You have a half of a moose rack behind you. So this promises to be. This is foreshadowing. Yeah, maybe. I have so many moose things because of this attack. Everybody's in something from a moose. Oh,

Oh, my God. Okay, I don't think we've heard a moose story. Oh, we're excited. Yeah, wow. Well, first of all, Rob, where are you? Sellersville, Pennsylvania, Bucks County. Okay, Bucks County, that's on brand. And I used to travel to Alaska every winter with our sled dogs. I did that for 20 winters. Oh, my God, you're in Adirondack. What is it called? Adidarod. Adidarod? No, the Adidarod is a distance race where they go about five to seven miles an hour.

We do sprint mushing, so our average speed is over 20 miles an hour. Wow. And the advantage is it's only 10 to 20 miles, so I get to sleep in a warm bed at night, as do my dogs. Oh, wonderful, wonderful. Really quick, how do you travel up to Alaska with that many dogs? With a truck and trailer? Yeah, big truck. They got to be let out about...

six times a day. It's about an eight to 10 day drive. And we do it in the winter. We go up around Thanksgiving and come home around Easter. Wow. Oh my goodness. Boy, you got to be into it, man. That's a lot of commitment. I look back on it now and I wonder what was I thinking? Right. Okay. Let's hear your story. I don't know what you know about moose, but if you travel out to the parks out West, they will tell you the single most dangerous animal you'll see out here is

isn't a grizzly bear, it isn't a timber wolf, it's a cow moose with a calf. And so in Alaska, it's always a concern because if you run into one with a calf, I've had friends that have had dogs that were stomped and killed. Typical in the winter, a moose eats about 40 pounds of willows a day, which fills a 55 gallon trash can. - Oh my God. - Wow. - Yeah. - And on cold winters, of course the caloric needs are up, so they eat even more. So they tend to be more irritable

and a little more aggressive. So it adds a whole new layer to the word hangry. - Yeah. We should add too, right, moose have terrible eyesight. Isn't that part of the reason they're aggressive? They don't see you and then all of a sudden they see you and it's a little shocking to them. - But they don't necessarily want to get out of the way 'cause they're six foot at the shoulder and they weigh about 1400 pounds. - Yeah, there's males they've shot that are 2000 pounds. - So when I'm out with a sled dog team,

you don't have reins on them. So your leaders are your steering wheel and your lead dogs might be between 40 and 70 feet in front of you depending on how big a team you're driving. So they don't always see what you see and so

On this particular training run, I was out several miles from our cabin and I went to make a right hand turn into the bush to go around a big loop. And as I told them to turn right, the leaders backed off like they saw something. I thought it was a squirrel or a rabbit. And then we turned behind and went around this big looper about 300 yards back in the bush. I come around to bend

And it wasn't a rabbit or a squirrel, it was a cow moose with a calf. - Oh. - Oh, yeah. - I don't blame the moose 'cause think about what she's thinking. We went by her once, now we're turning around, she sees it as aggression. So I slam on the brakes,

I have to make a split-second decision. I'm a dog lover. I've been in dogs my entire life. I started screaming, waving my arms, trying to make myself big, hoping that she would leave the dogs alone and maybe wander off. But she did something that nobody expected, and certainly I didn't. She ignored the dog team. Oh.

and comes charging at me. So she leaves the dog team right next to her calf. I want the dogs out of there. I let go of the dog team, told them to go home. And they take off and they're like, "See ya." - Oh God. - And I stupidly thought I could get to a birch tree behind me, climb the birch tree. Once the moose calmed down,

Then I could walk those miles back to the cabin. Bad idea. Yeah, not a great game plan, but I understand you're under a lot of stress. And aren't these dogs protective of you? Weren't they inclined to go after the moose? They were very afraid of the moose. They just sort of laid down. When I let them go, they're saying, I agree. Let's go. Yeah, let's get the fuck away. Luckily for me, it turned out that the snow was pretty deep. I didn't get halfway to the birch tree and the moose rammed me. Oh my.

I fell down in the snow and the last thing I remember was her hooves pounding on my chest. No. Oh, my God. So she knocked me unconscious and left me for dead. I laid there. It was 20 below, which is another problem. Oh.

- Oh boy. - And we figured based on timeframe, I was unconscious for about 30 minutes, which as you can imagine is really dangerous. When I came to, I honestly didn't know where I was or what happened. And then I started to realize that I'd been stomped. So my next thought is she's still here. I literally laid there, just rolled my eyes

to see if I could see her and she was gone and I tried to move and the pain was excruciating. It turned out she had broken all my ribs. She tore the cartilage in my sternum. She fractured my elbow. In fact, I still have a steel bolt and wire that

Reminds me every day of this. But the real problem was I couldn't breathe. And now I realize there's no way I can make my way back to the cabin. So my right hand was swollen like a boxer's glove. The surgeon figured I was trying to block her blows. Right.

But you know these wildlife biologists tell you if you're ever attacked by a wild animal that just played dead? Trust me, they've never been attacked. It's humanly impossible not to defend yourself. The only part of me that was exposed was my left hand because what saved me was as she's pounding me, the snow's so deep.

she's actually pushing me down in the snow. It was absorbing some of that impact. So like an old native told me, if she would have caught you on the hard pack trail, she'd have ripped you to shreds. But now I realize the only chance I had to get back to the cabin was the dog team because I realize I can't walk back with these injuries. The other thing is that I'm hypothermic.

So when you become hypothermic, your body temperature gets so low, you get really sleepy. And that's how people die from hypothermia. I lay there and I really just wanted to go to sleep. And I realized that if I do this, I'll never wake up. The problem was my dog team's heading back to the cabin.

But my family is still in Bucks County. They won't arrive for another two weeks. So nobody's going to know that I'm missing. My wife and I try and talk every day. But, you know, for our time change, there's

So she wouldn't even worry about it till the next day. Now I realize I'm in deep trouble and I'm starting to fall asleep. And I think I got to make it back to the main trail. It was about 300 yards because if I die here, which I knew I was going to die, it'll be maybe two weeks before they find my body.

If I can make it out to the main trail and die there, a snowmobile or a trap or another dog team, they'll find my body. So I focused on my wife and kids and just started crawling back out to the main trails. Oh, my God.

- Oh my God. - I cover that 300 yards. Miracle, I don't know how it happened, but there was the dog team. It turned out when the dog team turned back onto the main trail, the sled tipped over. We have in the sled what's called a snow hook. It's like a boat anchor. That fell out and caught in the snow.

and held the dog team there. Oh, my God. This is like so often it's like the worst luck on earth happens simultaneously to the impossibly good luck. I make my way back. I stand up the sled. The dogs are perfectly quiet. They're scared. But now they see me. So they went from being scared

to I'm there, okay, let's go, let's get out of here. So I stand up the sled. I kick the snow hook loose with my foot because I have no use of this arm. It turned out the two bones in my elbow were an inch and a half apart, which I didn't even think was possible. I get back on the sled. They start taking me back to the cabin. Wow.

I don't even remember much about the trip other than every once in a while they'd hit a bump. And you can imagine the pain. I was in and out of consciousness. And then trying to go around these curves at 20 plus miles an hour with one arm. They'd bring me all the way back to the cabin.

I stagger into the cabin and I picked up the phone and I called a friend. All he heard was that I'd been stomped and the phone went dead. And he rushed over. He helped me out to the truck and they hauled me 50 miles to the hospital where they started to do surgery. So the dogs literally saved my life. And so I'm in passion to them for sure. But an interesting thing happened after I get out of the hospital. I find out that that actually wasn't my first call.

My first call was to my neighbor who lived across the slew in a cabin, and I asked her to come over and take care of the dogs. Oh, wow. Rob, this will seem off topic, but what on earth did you do for a living that you could leave at Thanksgiving and come home at Easter? I'm a little hung up on how the fuck you made all this work. It's all about the dogs. I went to college in northern Minnesota. I was bored to death. I went to the sled dog race, and I thought, wow, this is really cool.

And so I started to rescue sled dogs, dogs that nobody wanted. Started training them. And then I started to beat some of the people that had given me, including one guy who refused to believe it was the same dog. Right, right, right. Well, one day, one of the dogs couldn't get out of her doghouse because she was paralyzed. Rushed her to the vet.

And they determined she was selenium deficient. So I changed her diet. Not only did she get better, but the whole dog team performed better. It changed my life. I decided this is what I'm going to do the rest of my life. I'm going to study nutrition. So I changed my major, went to Ohio State where I'm originally from Ohio.

studied nutrition, and then from there was invited to be a grad student at Penn at the vet school, studied nutrition for seven years. So I published work that helped define how working dogs should be fed. And I started a pet food company. Oh.

So I'm a canine nutritionist and I design diets for dogs and cats. Now you can buy our food in 18 different countries. So cool. Wow. So yeah, I guess that's in keeping if you're disappearing for several months. Yeah, it's part of the job. Well, you know what? People didn't realize that when I was in Pennsylvania or Alaska, we actually formulated some of the diets individually.

in a little cabin with no running water in the interior of Alaska. We're testing them on our dogs, so there's no better way to find out how good a food is than on a performance animal. Wow, Rob, that's a crazy story. Last question, it's unrelated. Are you a listener or do you have like a daughter or somebody who said, dad, you got to call her? My daughter-in-law who's sitting here is the one that turned me on to you. And I told her she should come and say hello. Yeah, we would love to meet her. Come on, Madison. Hi.

Hi. You turned your father-in-law onto the show? Yeah. I said, I don't have a good enough story, but I know someone. This sometimes happens. That is a good enough story. I'll tell you that. Oh, yeah. It's going up there with the grizzly bear and the shark. Incredible. Oh, man. Well, Madison, so nice meeting you. Rob, thank you for telling that. I will be a listener now. Okay, good. That's so nice. We'd love to have you. All right. Bye. Take care, guys. All right. Thanks.

Wow. So people send him moose stuff because he had a big half of a moose antler. It's kind of throwing it in your face. Yeah, it's a little bit like, I don't know if I'd want to see moose stuff around me all the time. He's taking it in stride. That is scary as hell. But I've been around moose. Well, I saw an enormous one in Alaska on a trip to Alaska, but I have seen them in Jackson Hole a bunch.

And they're so fucking big. I just can't imagine laying on your back and looking up at one. That would be insane. Do you think if they saw me, they'd be like, she's too small. It's a waste of our energy. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, you know, Tom Hanson almost died in front of my eyes. From a moose? Yes. Oh, God. So I'm at Tom Hanson's house. I think we had taken the dogs in the backyard. That's why we were outside. But it was nighttime. And he was standing with his back to the lake that's in the backyard. And Monica, for real, there was only 20 feet between Tom Hanson's back and the lake.

And we're just chatting, and all of a sudden, I hear stomping, and then this fucking bull moose that's running full tilt crosses frame behind Tom Hanson. In this 20-fit gap, it's running as fast as it could, and it's an 1,800, 2,000-pound moose. Oof.

And it like blows by and Tom spins around. He's like, oh my God. I'm like, oh my God, dude, a fucking moose just wiped frame. If you were standing four feet back, you would have been plastered. It was wild. Scary. We're just little humans. We're pretty defenseless against a moose. Oh, all right. Well, animal attacks, that works. That's the keeper. Yeah, we like it. We like it. All right. Love you. Love you. Do you want to sing a tune or something? We know a theme song.

Okay, great. We don't have a theme song for this new show, so here I go, go, go. We're gonna ask some random questions, and with the help of our cherries, we'll get some suggestions. On the fly, I rhyme-ish. On the fly, I rhyme-ish. Enjoy. Enjoy.

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