Specific Set of Skills

[00:06] Do we know why Dalmatians are firedogs, why they're associated with firefighters, why
[00:34] they're trained to be firedogs?
[00:38] Very good question.
[00:39] Do they have a specific set of skills?
[00:42] Short answer, no.
[00:45] What else do we know about Dalmatians, there's 101 of them.
[00:49] They're black and white.
[00:50] They have a human nemesis.
[00:52] They're very inbred.
[00:53] Yeah, they're currently very stupid, but I suspect they were once smart.
[00:58] Are they real stupid?
[01:00] They aren't, yeah, they're just super inbred, right?
[01:03] They're very inbred at this point.
[01:05] Because we're just trying to get the spots right?
[01:08] Because they were desirable breed.
[01:10] Yeah, okay.
[01:15] If they were such a desirable breed, why did they become so inbred, I guess?
[01:21] Or is it just the nature of any breed?
[01:24] Because yeah, you're not spreading out as super inbred.
[01:28] I mean, people are trying to turn a quick buck in an age before, now, probably a higher
[01:36] risk.
[01:37] Getting 101 pups out of the same breeding pair is probably some inbred.
[01:44] They all definitely had sex with each other, for sure.
[01:48] That was just like an orgy up in there.
[01:51] But the problem was it wasn't an orgy, it was just two people, two dogs.
[02:00] I mean, I suspect that there's probably climbers, are they good jumpers, are they good breathing
[02:08] and smoke?
[02:09] Well, let's think about what you would need, because it's not like they needed the dogs
[02:15] to find the fire or something.
[02:19] It's not like a hunting dog, where you need a dog to go out and find the quail or whatever
[02:24] so that you can then shoot the quail.
[02:26] Is it not?
[02:28] Is that definitive?
[02:30] I mean, how did we find fires?
[02:32] I mean, yeah, what if they can smell smoke or whatever and they're like, can you start
[02:37] barking and run off?
[02:39] Smell smoke before a human has time to find the fire, run to the fire station, alert
[02:46] someone.
[02:47] Yeah, I mean, it seems like an inefficient way to everything was inefficient in eighteen
[02:51] hundred.
[02:52] Right.
[02:53] Right.
[02:54] What's there?
[02:55] But I mean, but it wasn't as if like the firehouse would like go and give a dalmatian to every
[03:01] house in the in the town.
[03:04] That would make sense.
[03:06] It was more that the dog was localized to the fire station wouldn't make that much
[03:10] sense.
[03:11] Maybe.
[03:12] But if it was for detection purposes, well, it was like the entire town, train them to
[03:22] run to the fire station and then bring the firefighters back to watch a bunch of
[03:28] episodes of Lassie.
[03:32] No, I think they they they hung around at the fire station and what do they what is
[03:37] it like the dog can smell like two hundred times better than a human?
[03:40] Like they just start barking way more than that.
[03:43] OK, two thousand or whatever it is.
[03:44] And they start barking and they're like, oh, shit, something's in towns on fire.
[03:48] Potentially.
[03:49] Maybe.
[03:50] But then, like, when they throw them in the in the wagon and like let the dog direct them
[03:54] like, how's that going to work?
[03:55] They just start driving around.
[03:58] I mean, really, right?
[04:01] Burke once for left.
[04:07] I mean, when there are like so in popular media, like the the images that I'm conjuring
[04:12] in my head are the dog riding on the truck.
[04:14] Right. Yeah.
[04:16] Wearing the fire, maybe that maybe they acted as a siren pre siren.
[04:21] They were like, how maybe they had a good howl.
[04:24] But see, we did the fire engine one and they were big on the bells.
[04:27] Remember, why are fire trucks red?
[04:29] And the answer was that they were the bells were a really important part of the
[04:33] whole thing.
[04:35] So you wouldn't need it.
[04:37] You know, they came up with bells a long time before they came up with dogs.
[04:40] Right. I have no idea how to answer that.
[04:47] I don't know. That's another one.
[04:48] I don't know when bells came out.
[04:50] That's the whole thing.
[04:52] I think bells have been around for a really long time.
[04:54] So so getting back to your your
[04:57] wire fire engines, red thing, it was a very symbolic sort of thing.
[05:01] It was like every fire station wanted to make a name for themselves or whatever.
[05:06] And so my guess is that.
[05:09] Some buddy had a Dalmatian.
[05:13] And it was their mascot.
[05:14] And then all the other fire stations were like, mmm.
[05:18] Bing. Yeah, I mean, they're very pretty dogs and they pop.
[05:21] But why the first red shows that to be its mascot?
[05:24] Because they pop against the red of the fire truck with that black and white.
[05:28] Exactly, exactly.
[05:29] I suspect that you're probably right.
[05:31] This purely likes like a probably fairly anecdotal and be.
[05:37] Yeah, no, there's no real purpose behind it.
[05:39] Aesthetic.
[05:41] They just are like firefighter buddies.
[05:43] Because I don't think like, I mean, why a Dalmatian went out of St.
[05:46] Bernard, like what a dog really do like it's not just going to run in there
[05:49] and drag out a human.
[05:52] Right, exactly. Yeah.
[05:55] Yeah, so what would be the service of the dog to the fire company?
[05:59] So, yeah, the St.
[06:00] Bernard could drag me out, waking them up or something.
[06:03] I mean, you think the bells would handle that.
[06:10] It's got to be smoke sniffing, right?
[06:13] Or aesthetic.
[06:14] But even if the even like
[06:16] even if the dog does smell the smoke, what then?
[06:19] They just start sparking.
[06:21] And then what?
[06:22] And they're all like, oh, there's a fire.
[06:24] We'll just sit around until somebody tells us where it's a square.
[06:28] Yeah, but at least they're like awake and they've had their coffee.
[06:31] OK, OK, fair enough.
[06:32] OK, that's actually pretty smart. Yeah.
[06:37] No, it gives it gives them time to put on their their jump suits
[06:41] and go down the pole and, you know,
[06:44] crank, they had to crank the engine back then, right?
[06:47] I don't know. Sure.
[06:54] So when do we know when Dalmatians came about like breed wise?
[07:00] Like most of this, most breeds were generated like during the Victorian era.
[07:05] Right. That's when we got most breedification of dogs.
[07:09] But yeah, like what were Dalmatians?
[07:11] But were they hunting dogs, I assume?
[07:15] They look similar to hounds to me.
[07:16] Yeah, like in build.
[07:18] I mean, I think they are like legitimately fast.
[07:22] Yeah. Hmm.
[07:23] So I would have thought they're relatively big, right?
[07:26] Yeah. Yeah. Decent size.
[07:29] So definitely some kind of sporting dog.
[07:35] So yeah, I buy, you know, Victorian not long after. Yeah.
[07:41] My suspicion, though, is that mass media is probably what you need
[07:45] in order for the dog to be branded as the
[07:51] official firehouse dog.
[07:54] OK, it was is there
[07:58] is there a fire truck scene in 101 Dalmatians?
[08:02] I don't I haven't seen that movie in so long.
[08:06] Like, I'm wondering if this is Disney.
[08:08] You know, that's really good.
[08:10] It's definitely a definite possibility.
[08:14] Yeah. All right.
[08:16] I'm going to guess
[08:17] 1880s and somebody just like had had a Dalmatian,
[08:24] but they were the best firefighters in the area.
[08:27] I like your idea, Jason, I'm stealing it.
[08:30] And I was like, Oh, yeah, cool. Let's do that.
[08:32] Or one company happened to have a Dalmatian and it like did something heroic.
[08:37] Yeah, that's what I'm thinking.
[08:38] Then everybody was like, OK.
[08:40] And it may or may not have been true, but it became more.
[08:44] But it became legend like it ran into a burning building
[08:47] and dragged out a kid or something like the rube of dogs.
[08:53] Right. Oh, that reminds me that you've heard about the the pig
[08:58] that went in and woke everybody up and with the houses on fire.
[09:05] Pig runs in, wakes everybody up, drags the kid out, saves his life.
[09:11] And he's got a peg leg.
[09:15] And so so the guy so that the guy asked, so is that how he got his
[09:20] how did he, you know, hurt his leg?
[09:21] If, you know, it didn't sound like in that story that he burnt his leg off or anything.
[09:26] And the farmer says, yeah, well, a pig that good, you don't eat it all at once.
[09:31] Right. Right.
[09:36] Kind of backed into that joke, so it wasn't a great setup.
[09:38] But, you know, you see where I'm going.
[09:39] I see. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[09:41] So I'm I'm I'm I thought the kid had a pig like the pig.
[09:46] Yeah, OK, that's even better, though.
[09:55] So I'm going to take something a little bit late.
[09:58] I'm going to go more Disneyish.
[09:59] I'm going to like 1930s, 1930s.
[10:01] I like that. I like that.
[10:03] Big Disney. Big Disney.
[10:09] Oh, A.K.C., A.K.C. dot org has got us covered here. Nice. OK.
[10:15] Dalmatians have a history as stable guards and carriage dogs dating back to the 1700s.
[10:23] The FDNY began utilizing Dalmatians as fire dogs to accompany carriages
[10:28] as early as the 1870s.
[10:33] Apparently dogs don't form some function with things that don't have motors.
[10:37] What is happening?
[10:39] So apparently Dalmatians are really good with horses.
[10:44] They're like, keep them calm and like defend them from other things
[10:48] and like we'll run alongside horses.
[10:50] And so the the earlier
[10:54] firehouses had horse drawn carriages, basically.
[10:58] OK, so the horses, horses weigh like a ton.
[11:02] Yeah, but they're they spook easily.
[11:04] Ah, so the dogs is like there is their emotional support animal.
[11:09] So it was happening, kind of.
[11:10] Yeah, it said that they said they usually had a pair of Dalmatians
[11:13] that would run on either side of the coach.
[11:16] You know, when the fire lamp sounded,
[11:18] the Dalmatians would run out of the firehouse barking to let bystanders know
[11:21] that they should get out of the way because the wagon would be coming soon.
[11:26] And then once the wagon was on the street, Dalmatians would run beside it.
[11:30] The brave loyal dogs also served an important purpose
[11:33] once the wagon approached a fire.
[11:36] Horses are afraid of fire
[11:38] and the Dalmatians present could distract and comfort the horses
[11:41] as they pulled the wagon closer to a blaze.
[11:44] Interesting. Good job, Dalmatians.
[11:47] All right. OK, yeah.
[11:50] It sounds like that this is there.
[11:51] It's mainly their skill with horses that got them the job.
[11:56] That's really cool.
[11:58] So I'm kind of curious
[12:01] when Dalmatians became a train wreck.
[12:05] Yeah. And did we know when the breed came about?
[12:10] I mean, OK, 1600s, apparently
[12:14] named after the Adriatic coastal region of Dalmatia, Croatia.
[12:18] Did you go there, Coalson, when you were in?
[12:20] I was not in Dalmatia.
[12:22] If only I had known. Are they were are they born there?
[12:26] Well, they're named after that area.
[12:28] The origin of the breed is unknown.
[12:32] Yeah, it seems like they were bred to hang out with horses.
[12:36] It's pretty cool.
[12:37] Among its nicknames are the English coach dog,
[12:40] firehouse dog and plum pudding dog.
[12:44] Dalmatians clearly no longer need to
[12:47] keep the horses from spooking, but
[12:50] they're often used to teach kids about fire safety
[12:55] going along with the firefighters
[12:57] and often stay in the firehouses
[13:00] to catch and kill rats.
[13:03] And they go dogs.
[13:06] Having trouble figuring out when the inbreeding happened,
[13:08] but it seems to be just like everything else,
[13:11] they were just a super popular dog and probably valuable.
[13:15] But it's unclear when it became a huge problem.
[13:19] So, I mean, are they so dumb now that they can't help me with the fire?
[13:21] Is that what's going on?
[13:23] Well, I mean, you just don't have horses now.
[13:26] So it's really not much purpose. Right.
[13:29] But their problems are more varied.
[13:32] It's not just that they're dumb.
[13:33] They're also meaner now and have lots of health problems.
[13:37] Mm hmm. It's a thing called Dalmatian rage.
[13:39] Apparently could lower it.
[13:44] They're deaf, commonly.
[13:46] The first known written information about Dalmatian dogs is from 1374.
[13:51] Ooh. Wow. Hmm.
[13:53] Dalmatian puppies are downright adorable. Mm hmm.
[13:56] Hmm. Yeah, they're born without spots.
[13:59] And then they develop spots around 10 days old
[14:03] and they're like super sparse and they
[14:07] just super cute.
[14:09] And then they get bigger and more numerous.
[14:14] As they grow up now, I'm just looking at dog pictures.
[14:19] All right.
[14:20] I'm reading.
[14:21] I'm reading a scientific paper on Dalmatian inbreeding,
[14:24] and it's it's it's a little too deep.
[14:26] Yeah, you're going to be on our values real quick.
[14:34] Do you guys know that 101 Dalmatians was a novel originally?
[14:38] I think I knew that 56 by British author Dodie Smith.
[14:43] Well, I feel like we learned something.
[14:47] We did learn something.
[14:49] Dalmatians go way back.