Transcript

Armchair Anonymous: Pets | Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard

From Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 49 min · 10,193 words · 225 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "Armchair Anonymous: Pets | Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard", an episode of Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard published January 23, 2026 (49 min, about 10,193 words). It mentions 6 people, works and ideas, including Hannah Banana, Dawson, Harley, Tiki Ranger, McKver.

What this episode is about

The discussion centers around humorous and heartwarming pet stories shared by the hosts, highlighting the quirky and often unpredictable behavior of pets while acknowledging the emotional challenges that can accompany pet ownership, including loss and difficult experiences. The conversation also touches on personal anecdotes and playful digressions related to names and childhood memories.

Key takeaways

  • Horses: the only pets that can turn a simple joyride into a rodeo-style emergency.
  • Pet-related injuries remind us: even the cutest creatures have a wild side waiting to unleash chaos.
  • Naming trends evolve faster than pets; 'Bean' and 'Hannah Banana' are case studies in identity evolution.
  • Parents: expert negotiators, proving you can go from 'no horse' to hype in just one Rose Parade.
  • Drag races aren’t just for cars; bean-shaped kids have their own thrilling version on dirt, courtesy of horses.

Who speaks in this episode?

  • Dan Rather (Host) · 15 min speaking
  • Tiki Ranger (Guest) · 12 min speaking
  • Bean (Guest) · 10 min speaking
  • Jill (Guest) · 7 min speaking
  • Eric (Guest) · 10 min speaking
  • Rose (Guest) · 10 min speaking

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 5:00: Hannah Banana, Tiki Ranger
  2. – 10:00: Hannah Banana, McKver, Chalk Orange County
  3. – 15:00: Harley, Hannah Banana, McKver
  4. – 20:00: Harley
  5. – 25:00: Harley
  6. – 40:00: Dawson
  7. – 45:00: Dawson
  8. – 49:11: Dawson

Notable quotes from "Armchair Anonymous: Pets | Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard"

  • She's come to your town to clean up all the filth.
    about Tiki Ranger · at
  • In the lake bed and we start to walk and she immediately just starts bucking. So I get flown off. All I see is Hannah Banana jumping over me in slow motion.
    about Hannah Banana · at
  • Internal bleeding. She was in the hospital, I'm pretty sure, for a week.
    about Chalk Orange County · at
  • They got divorced. Yeah. And my father's working theory is that the neighbors poisoned him, but he ended up dying a couple years old [groaning] outside. Yes. Yes. And I hate it. Feel like I need to get a new fool.
    about McKver · at
  • A runner. She's skinny. It's just who she is. He said, I know. I understand. So anyways, yeah, I walked out into the driveway and got my dog.
    about Harley · at
  • Good for him. Ice fisherman waiting to happen. Okay. So Rose, you have a pet story. So, on behalf of my loving dog, Dawson, it was July 19th, 2020. I had just graduated my MERS…
    about Dawson · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Tiki Ranger — Person · Co-host / sidekick (in-episode; likely comedic/incorrect attribution) · 1 mention · first at
    Introduced as being 'joined by Tiki Ranger' and participates in banter (e.g., 'sheriff' bit). The name does not clearly map to a known public figure and may be a playful alias, mis-transcription, or extraction artifact.

Products & tech

  • Hannah Banana — Product · Case study · 6 mentions · first at
    A horse owned by the guest, involved in multiple incidents leading to its eventual euthanasia.
  • Dawson — Product · Case study · 6 mentions · first at
    Guest's dog that experienced a rectal prolapse during a road trip.
  • Harley — Product · Case study · 5 mentions · first at
    Guest's beloved dog that was almost stolen during a high-speed chase.
  • McKver — Product · Case study · 3 mentions · first at
    Guest's father's neglected Newfoundland dog that died young.

Places & events

  • Chalk Orange County — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at
    Hospital where the guest's friend was treated after being kicked by a horse.

Full transcript with timestamps

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Dan Rather and I'm joined by Tiki Ranger.

Oh my. She's come to your town to clean up all the filth. Oh my gosh. I love You're a sheriff.

I [snorts] am. Yeah. Original sheriff. Okay. Today is crazy pet stories. M. And [clears throat] these pets get they well they say the darnest things and they do the darnest things and they take their owners along with them.

Yeah, they do. They also bite people. So, spoiler. Yeah. So, I don't know if this deserves a warning or not. Uh oh, you know, it does. It does. It does. There's some pet death.

Oh, sure. And that's hard for some people. That's hard. So, yeah. But if that doesn't bother you, please enjoy Crazy Pet Stories.

Hard times come and go. Good times take them slow. My life I had them both. Remember one thing you got to know. I'mma keep on shining.

Hello. Hello. Hello. Now is being an acronym or someone's name? Everybody calls me Bean. That's crazy.

I used to call Delta Bean and beans. Remember? Yeah. And now I'm like, how do we get there?

How you get there? And then how do these things drop off? Cuz Yeah. There's been a bunch. Fine. Was Feny forever.

So long. It was delta to Deltafina to Fina to Feni. To fiends to beans. Oh, there we go.

This started when I was like a baby. Always jelly bean. And then my nieces and nephews all call me Auntie Bean. Even clients call me Bean.

That's wonderful. So cute. And then we call you Bean. And now you call me Bean. Exactly.

I love it. Sorry, we're on the topic of my kid and I just get obsessed. Remember also she rejected her name. Remember when she's like a baby. She didn't like Delta. She'd go, "No, Dy."

That was me. I didn't like my name and I wanted to change it to Pura from the 101 donations.

Wow. That's a mouthful. That would have been rough for your kindergarten classmates.

Pura. I was five. And my mom's like, "Okay, when you're 18, you can do that." Yeah. Where are you in the country?

I'm in San Diego. I spent a lot of time in LA, though. I lived there for a while. So, I lived near Abbott Kenny before it was what it is now when it was very seedy

back when I was smoking crack in ghost town there. Yeah. Yes. And we saw you like amongst the streets, you know.

Yes, certainly did. And did you grow up in San Diego? No, I grew up in Orange County where the story took place.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Walk us through it. When I was seven, we moved to Yorb Belinda and it was horse country Yorb Belalinda. So, we moved to a house with a barn and a corral. We were like a half a mile from an equestrian center. So, as a seven-year-old, naturally, I'm like, "Hey guys, we need a horse now."

So, beans, it's not that your parents had any equestrian aspirations. No, this is just a beautiful house. But, so it backed up to a lake bed and that lake bed is where everybody rode their horses, did a lot of dirt bike, BMX stuff. And when I was seven, I asked for a horse. They were like, "No, that's not happening." And then fast forward, I made a lot of friends with horses. I had the experience. I was taking care of horses. I was riding them. I was riding them bearback. I was doing it all. Fast forward to I think I was 10 or 11.

Nobody can really know because I think that everybody blocked out this information. By the way, my mom also said, "We can't get a horse cuz I'm allergic." But one day they sat me down. They're like, "Your mom was watching the Rose Parade and she saw there's a hypoallergenic breed of a horse called a basher curly." And we bought one. Oh my gosh.

And so, as you can imagine, as an 11-year-old, I'm like elated. I'm having a hard time moving on from she told you you have an allergy. Did you not noticed you had allergies when you were around these horses?

I was always fine. I think it was an excuse like we're not getting a horse because I'm allergic.

That's what I'm going for. Munchousins. Wow. Jumping already. I just want to throw that out there. Hannah Banana. She was a basher curly out of New York and she's having to take a very long journey across the country and so my parents are like she'll be here in a few weeks. So she gets there. She's very young. Young horses are basically puppies. We didn't have a saddle or a bridal or the rains just yet, but Hannah Banana is there. This is not a name I gave her, by the way. This is the name she came with. And I'm like, "Dad, I have to get on her. I need to like do the first ride." And so he's like, "Sure." He knows I'm experienced at this point. I've had years of riding experience. I've ridden bearback a lot.

And so he gets some rope, gets some makeshift drains. I jump on her and I'm in the lake bed and we start to walk and she immediately just starts bucking. So I get flown off. All I see is Hannah Banana jumping over me in slow motion. But what happens is that rope get caught around my calf.

Yep. And I start being dragged. And so next thing you know, little beans being dragged across the dirt,

probably like 50 yards. All I hear is my mother's piercing scream. And as a mother of two now, I like can't even imagine what she was going through at that point. And my dad was also in a state of shock. I'm covered in blood.

Oh, no broken bones. It's not a sandy bed, full dirt and rocks. I'm scraped up beyond belief. So fast forward. That's our intro into Hannah Banana. That was totally our fault. that's not the horse's fault. We were not being responsible. A few days later, we're like, "Well, we still have to exercise her and make sure that she's getting up to speed with her new house." And my friend down the street, she had horses and she's like, "Well, why don't I come to the equestrian center with you and I'll help lead her and get her some exercise since I still am like bruised and I can't really walk much." So, she's with Hannah and she's walking her, turns into a jog next to Hannah. Hannah turns around and donkey kicks [gasps] my friend in the ribs.

No, this is how people die. I literally have this core memory of her flying. Oh my gosh.

She's alive and well, guys. She's a vet now to this day. And not her first time getting kicked by a horse. Imagine if you're around them all growing up.

I don't think she was ever kicked besides when Hannah kicked her. Like ambulance showed up. Parents were involved. The whole city knew about it. Internal bleeding. She was in the hospital, I'm pretty sure, for a week.

Oh my. Yeah. and at a children's hospital. I think she was at Chalk Orange County.

Oh my god. Okay, so so Hannah Banana's two for two now. Let's see if she gets a third.

One week of having her. Oh boy. Fast forward. We're getting a trainer. We invested in her. We're going to do whatever we can to like keep her and save her. She bucks everybody off in my family. Like I was bucked off again multiple times. One was on Christmas Eve. I bruised my tailbone. Couldn't walk on Christmas. Another one my mom was bucked off. She bruised ribs. Another time my dad got home from riding her. He was like bruised. The trainer was like, "She spooks very easily. This is hard." But like I was also having a lot of fun with her. I was barrel racing at the equestrian center just for fun. I was having a grand old time on Hannah until one night my dad took her out for a sunset cruise and she got spooked and she bucked him off. And when she bucked him off, she started taking off running.

And I don't know if she either tripped or if her rain fell down and she tripped, but she fell down and broke her hip.

Oh my god. Something like that large, like a horse. When that happens, it's catastrophic. And you have to literally put them down.

A year and a half after getting Hannah a banana, we actually had to put her down IN MY BACKYARD.

OH. NOW, IS IT A COWBOY put down or you call a vet? You have to call a vet and they come with the whole trailer. I didn't even get to say bye. My dad was like, "Stay inside." I literally think I blacked out this entire time of my life because even thinking about this story, it was hard to remember the details.

Yeah. Yeah. I texted my mom, I text my dad, I texted my sister. They're like, "We think it was 1998. It might have been 99. We might have had her for a year and a half. We don't know."

Oh, Hannah Banana. Hannah banana man. RIP. I feel really bad cuz I'm like animal rights activists are probably really bad.

What do we do? Like this goes along with the territory of owning horses, right? This

happen. It does. Like you expect to be bucked. You don't expect to be donkey kicked, I wouldn't say, but

it could happen. To be fair, it wasn't like you were like, "We're going to put her down because she keeps hurting people." She hurt your dad and then hurt herself.

You're pretty tolerant. Actually, you were extra tolerant. But I know what you're saying cuz I live with great shame. Although I don't know what I would have done at 10 years old to alter this. But my father had gotten this dog because he had gotten married and he bought a house finally and it was all happening. He was going to be domestic and he got this Newfaland dog McKver.

You love those types of dogs. It's because of McKver. And yeah, my dad was an alcoholic and worked all the time and we were only there every other weekend. And this dog just got really was so neglected. Oh, what about the wife?

They got divorced. Yeah. And my father's working theory is that the neighbors poisoned him,

but he ended up dying a couple years old [groaning] outside. Yes. Yes. And I hate it. Feel like I need to get a new fool in at some point in my life and like really spoil the new foolin to make up for the McKver thing. But to your point, I think about it once a month. I'm like, "That poor dog deserved a better."

That's sad. I'm pretty sure my mom has some of her tail hair in a bag. Oh, and was that your last horse? Did they try it again?

Last horse? I have ridden since though. But my daughter got on a few years ago when she was two and I felt myself having like a panic. Not that many people have said this to me, but people have definitely been concerned when like I taught Lincoln to ride a motorcycle right before her fourth birthday, and people are like, "What?" And I'm like, "Y'all, they're way safer than horses. They do at least the exact thing you tell it to do every time. It doesn't have a temper."

Exactly. I feel like we have so much in common. So, I'm J2C. No. July. July. Cancer.

I could tell right away. Monica, you and I. K2C87. Also a former gymnast in a Tumblr and went to school for PR. Still do it.

Do some flips. Show us. Prove it. I actually did a cartwheel the other day at the park with my daughter and I was like, I felt like cement. That was very cementy.

I know it hurts now. And then Dax, I have a very much adrenaline thrillseeking husband. All tattooed, loves weightlifting, loves cars, loves motorcycles. So I basically have my own Dax, but his name is Adam.

Oh, Adam. Well done. Look at all this crossover. Yeah, keep it going. Well, lovely meeting you. Thanks for telling us that story.

You guys and Hannah Banana, rest in peace. Rest in peace. RIP. I hope she and McKver are running through a field right now.

Oh, that's nice. They're having a lovely time. They're in a Budweiser commercial in heaven.

All right, take care. Bye. Do you remember one time when we were sitting at the kitchen table and Delta was just doing something so cute? She was so little, probably like three or four, and you were like, "Who are you?" And she said, "It's me, Deltafina."

There's so many ways to use a time machine. I know. And one of them would be, "I'd love to go back, grab her, and put her and Vinnie in a room together and let him let him hash it out."

That would be so cute. Well, it's your daddy's name. What's your mama's name? I would go back to hang out with little Delta.

Yeah. Jill, you're our second Jill in a row. No. Isn't that weird? That is weird because I feel like you don't ever have Jill's.

I agree. I agree, too. So, this is Smi. I also feel like I could build an entire fantasy about your life based solely on the door behind you, which is a solid wood, beautiful door.

It is a nice door. You know what? It has very similar hardware to your old house. In fact, that's exactly what all the doors in our old house look like. Are you in our old house?

I wish. No, I'm not. But we did just do a remodel. I guess now it's been probably about two years and so new doors in the house.

Fun. Where you at, Jill? I am in Alaska. [gasps] No [ __ ] I think that's our first. Is it?

And I'm going to take just a random guess. I haven't looked in a long time. Is the sun coming up around 12:45 p.m.? When does it come up?

We're about 9:30, 10. starting to come up and then we get about 3 hours of daylightish.

Monica would not make it. I would honestly not. It's dusk, you know, a lot, but it's okay. We're hanging in there right now. What brought you there?

Yeah. Are you from there or did you move there? Born and raised. I'm intimidated by you and I'm impressed by you.

You're scared of her cuz you could handle something I could never handle. We travel so we're lucky in that area, but yes, it is intense sometimes. But then the summer time we never sleep. It's light all the time and we just party.

Talk about a bipolar existence. I know. Okay. You have a pet story. I do. This story took place in October of 2017. I have my notes cuz I have like text stuff that I'm going to read as well as we get going. But back then we had a dog named Harley. You know, they say like you maybe have a dog in your life that is the one dog that no other dog will ever compare to. And she was that dog. She was a mut, so she was part husky, so therefore she just loved to run a lot. And so sometimes when it was windy or when she felt like it, I would let her outside to go to the bathroom and she would just take off. And I'm like, "Oh, here we go. Okay." But she always knew her way home.

Oh, good. We live next to a huge park and woods all around. So she would just go gallivant and sometimes she'd be gone for a day or two and she would come back. And are there any predators for her there?

Yeah, but she was pretty scrappy and pretty savvy. So if we get bears in the yard, she would fight them off.

Wow. She was just a really cool dog. I can't even say enough about her. She was the love of my life. A So anyways, this particular day, I let her outside. She took off. I'm like, "Okay, here we go again." But we had plans. We were going to lunch. I'm like, "She's fine. She'll come back." So, we go to lunch and then as we're kind of wrapping up, I get a phone call and it's an unknown number. I'm like, "That's definitely Harley. Someone picked her up." They call, they say, "Hey, we have your dog." And I said, "Okay, great." This is what I told everyone. Not the smartest, but I was like, "She knows her way home. If you just leave her, like she knows how to get home. If you don't feel comfortable doing that, totally fine. I understand.

I will come grab her as soon as we come home." About 30 minutes. Okay. we don't feel comfortable just letting her go, but we'll wait for you. No problem. So, as we're leaving the restaurant, I said, "Hey, can you please text me your address?" Heading home. I just want to come grab my dog. Thanks. 4 minutes later, I get a text as we're driving. My girlfriend and I have been looking for a dog and we fell in love with yours.

No. We are at a friend's house right now. It is 1.6 miles from your home. We were wondering if we would just be able to keep her. She is precious and seems easy to train. We want a dog that we can walk outside all the time to go adventuring and to take care of. If you do not have the time, we would love to take her. Please consider this. We would love to have her. She would be in a good home with undivided attention.

Oh, so there's some shame. Well, did you take on shame? I mean, [clears throat] did you feel judged?

Judgement. Yeah. I mean, it's kind of one of those things. I was like, probably shouldn't have said she knows her way home. You can just let her find her way.

She does. Sure. But it does sound maybe a little bit like whatever, man. That's an outdoor dog. What are you [ __ ] worried about?

100%. They probably were like, "She doesn't even care about this dog. She doesn't care if she gets hit by a car." You know, I get that. But my husband's driving. I'm in the passenger seat and our two boys are in the back seat. And I'm kind of in a panic at this point. And I'm like, I don't have a good feeling about this. So, I text back and I said, "Is this a joke? She's almost 14 and a huge part of our family. I can assure you she's well cared for and loved. She's an indoor dog with husky in her, so she likes to run. Please give me your address."

Yes. No response. So then I'm calling the phone number. No answer. They've totally ghosted me at this point. I'm like, "Now what? There goes my dog."

Other than really quick, I'm clutching for straws. I'm like, "Well, she's going to get out again.

They don't know what they're in for. They're going to take her to pee and she's going to run right back home."

But they are like, "We're at a friend's house." So, if they take her to the other side of town, I don't know where she's going to end up. My husband's driving. I'm like, I don't have a good feeling about this. I don't know. He said, "Okay, well, here's the deal. Like, we know the area where she usually is. She goes through our backyard into this other neighborhood and then cuts into the park. We're just going to drive over to the neighborhood and see if we can see her or see what's going on." I'm like, "Okay." So, we're driving in the neighborhood and I [ __ ] you not, another car passes us going the other direction and she's hanging out the back window.

Oh, thank God. No, but also they're on the run with her and I completely not thinking open my door and I'm like, Harley, but then they see me. So now they know we're on to them. My husband's like, get in the car. I'm like, okay, okay. So I jump back in the car. I shut the door. He whips around. We start chasing them, following them at this point, but they are so hellbent on stealing my dog. They are blowing through people's yards.

Stop it. They almost took out a mailbox. They start driving like a crazy person.

Like they've robbed a bank. They're on the run. My husband is not one to let this go lightly. So, keep in mind, we do have our two children in the back seat and we now start chasing them and we blow through this neighborhood. They don't care. They're not stopping for stop signs. They're not stopping for anything.

And you've not called 911. You've not involved the cops yet. This is the first time you've asked about 911.

Well, my first thought would be like, I'm definitely tailing them, but I got to get the police involved immediately.

That is a great point. No, we have not done that yet. Yeah. And honestly, I guess I didn't really think it would go this far. I kind of just thought like, well, once we saw her in the car, they would pull over and be like, "Oh, okay. I don't know what we were thinking." No, that didn't happen. So, my husband is at least slowing down, kind of stopping for stop signs just to make sure no one's coming and then we'll like hight tail it after him. So, we're going down this main road in Anchorage and the speed limit is 45 and we're going over 100.

Oh, wow. And I'm like gripping the door, but also it's my dog. We got to get her. I would say we're probably in a high-speed chase for about 5 miles. And finally then I'm like, "Okay, I'm calling the cops." I'm like, "Hey, this is what's going on." They had already received numerous phone calls at this point. They said, "You're the one chasing?" I said, "Yes, they have my dog." She said, "No, this is not okay. You need to pull over. You have to stop." I'm like, "Okay." So, I said to my husband, I was like, "Hey, you got to pull over." So, we pull over into a gas station and the car had a personalized license plate. So, we knew, it wasn't hard to remember. And my husband, who is in the automotive industry for years and years, he calls in a favor to a friend and he's like, "Hey, run this plate for me." So, we get the info on the guy. We have the address, the full name, everything. So, my husband calls the

phone number that we've been texting with. Of course, they don't answer, but he calls the number and he said,

"Here's the deal, [ __ ] I know where you live. I have your address. I have your full name. I know everything about you. If you don't give my wife her dog back, I will hunt you down and kill you." I Ryan, you can't say that. He's like, "I don't care." Yes, I love

I'm an Alaskan. Yes. I'm like, I want a dog. Really quick, I'm like trying to weigh out what one's a felony, what one's a misdemeanor. Dognapping versus threatening someone's life.

I know. Exactly. The cops are like, "Just go home. We'll send someone to talk to you." The cops show up about 2 hours later and they read my husband, the riot act. And he's like, "Well, they stole her dog." And he's like, "That's not a kid. You can't do this. You can't be on a high-speed chase down the road.

I just got to flag one thing. He's such a husband. He keeps referring to it as your dog, which is how I refer to our dogs. I'm like, that's impressive.

THE HUSBAND DOESN'T CARE ABOUT THE DOG. NO, HE'S GOT TO KEEP HIS wife happy. That's all his job is.

He puts up with the dogs, but he doesn't care about the dog like ever. You know, he's like, "Whatever, it's your dog."

But also, he's like, "No, I'm not going to let someone [ __ ] with you." Yeah. So, basically after them standing in our entryway for probably 30 minutes, just giving it to him, they kind of stopped and they didn't arrest him and then they said, "Well, do you have any questions?" And I'm like, "Yeah, where's my dog?"

Exactly. Yeah. And the cop said, "She's in the back of our squad car in the driveway." I'm like, "They said, you can come outside and get her." And it was really sweet, too, cuz the cop said, "I understand. She's a runner. She's a skinny dog. So their defense was she's malnutrition. They don't take care of her. And he's like, "No, she's just athletic." I said, "You can look, she free eats. Her food and water are out all the time. She has access to whatever she wants, but she's a runner. She's skinny. It's just who she is." He said, "I know. I understand." So anyways, yeah, I walked out into the driveway and got my dog.

So the folks didn't get in any trouble. No. Isn't that crazy? So, I wonder if he wouldn't have threatened them on their voicemail if it would have been more that they would have gotten in trouble. We got the dog back and in the end that was all we really cared about. But I was funny because he does have a personalized license plate. I've seen him driving around town like three times and I always pull up next to him and roll my window down. I'm like, "You stole my dog."

Oh, wow. Yeah. Good. Good. I'm not letting him get off easy. So, that was how we ended up in a high-speed chase with our dog being kidnapped.

That is a great story. I'm sorry about all the details, but glad we got to hear it.

This morning, our internet went out twice. Oh, boy. That's scary. What am I going to do? So, my husband went and set up Starlink outside and he was like, "It's fine. We're going to make this work."

That's like I do, too. Yeah, I'm kind of hot for this guy. He sounds great. Well, you're radical.

Yes. Thanks for chatting with us. I'm really glad it was a happy ending. Me, too.

Yeah. And we lost her in the very beginning of CO, but she was the best dog ever, so I'm really glad that I got to speak about her and give her a little shout out.

Yeah. All right, Jill, take care. Bye. Bye, Eric. Hi. Can you hear us? I can hear you. Can you hear me?

We can hear you wonderfully. And I'm so excited because I do see that we have some photographic evidence of whatever story you're about to tell us. And we don't know what it is yet, but I love when there's photos. We'll give a warning before we show them.

Okay. Where are you at, Eric? I'm in uh northwest Indiana. So, right between kind of Chicago and Michigan.

Garyish. A little bit south, like 20 minutes. Oh, okay. Great. And did you go up to the dunes ever when you're a kid?

Yeah, we love it there. I take my son there all the time. Yeah. Spectacular, isn't it?

One of our favorite places. So, you have a pet story? I do. This story takes place in Michigan. I was planning a family reunion, getting a bunch of the extended family together, and I decided to go to a place up along the coast. It was called Lington. I think you might be familiar with it.

Yeah, absolutely. We found a resort where we had been before and getting everyone together was always difficult. So, we had to make some concessions, bring pets along. I talked through with the owner, we paid the pet fee. Everybody's coming. Big family vacation. So, off to a good start.

What year is this? 2021. So, we do have chain text messages and I'm just trying to think of the logistical barriers here. But you chose an easy year to do this in.

Yeah, it was a year and a half postco in the summer. Everyone trying to go out and figure out what they can do for the first time. So, we picked a nice outdoor activity and a reason to get everyone together. So, the event happens on a night where we're a couple nights into the vacation. Everybody's having a good time. We have a nice tent set up, lights, we're having a party. I brought my eight-month old dog who was up in our cabin. And I want to tell you a little bit about the layout. There's two cabins up on a hill, big long stairs, and then on the main level is the grass and then there's a big main cabin. So, we're out there. We're having a good time. I'm having some drinks, catching up with cousins, and I have to pee. So, it's a long walk up the stairs. So, I decide to just go over behind a bush. And at that moment, my wife stops me. My wife, also eight months pregnant at the time, and

says, "You know, why don't you go inside?" And I'm like, "You're right." I go into the main cabin. I go to walk to the bathroom and a family member's dog is sitting on the couch. I decide to go up and pet it. Just sit on the couch and then bam, blood everywhere.

Oh boy. The dog just jumped on my face and bit me. Oh my goodness. What kind of dog?

It was a mut. I'm not really sure the kind. It's probably like 30, 40 lb. In that moment, I really didn't know what happened. It was so quick. I just jumped back and I really couldn't see much at all. There's just blood

everywhere. I know this cabin layout cuz we have been here before. So, I make my way over to the sink and I'm also a little afraid the dog's going to come back at me.

Sure. Sure. Didn't get its fill. Yeah. So, I find some paper towels, whatever I can. I put them on my face and then I see a little bit. I look down. The whole thing's just drenched with blood.

Oh my god. At this moment, I'm thinking I need to get back to my wife. The whole family's right around the corner. So, I stumble out the door and then they're about another 10 feet to where they could see me.

But Eric, you did not look in a mirror. No. God, I would have had to have looked at that. My first I was like, I got to get in front of a mirror.

It was so bad. Yeah. You knew it needed to be addressed so quickly. Okay. No time to gander.

Not at all. I could barely see. Okay. I make my way out of the cabin and I kind of fall to the ground and just get on my hands and knees cuz it feels better. I start to crawl towards the corner to where I can be seen and I get there and then I go to yell for help and nothing comes out.

Oh my god. What? I'm just pretty much choking on blood at this point anytime I try and talk.

Oh my god. Lord, Eric, pretty bad situation at this point. I kind of take a second and just start waving my hands, jumping up. And my wife sees me. And I talked to her before this and she said, "I hurdled a picnic table pregnant just to get over there as fast as I could." [snorts] Everyone just runs around for help. I tell him what happened. The first thing is there's a doctor in the family. They're like, "Let's get him." He's a cardiologist. There wasn't much he was going to do.

He's hammered, but let's get him in the mix. 90% of people are hammered at this point.

Well, you're going to pee in a bush, so we know the state of affairs. Yeah. So, my wife, obviously pregnant, was not hammered. So, she's kind of like, "Let's just get him immediately in the car and get to the hospital cuz I can tell how bad it is." At this point, they can't really see how bad it is.

Yeah. Cuz you have a paper towel on it still. Or is it so much blood? So much blood.

They pour some water on it. It's pretty much my nose is like hanging off. Oh my god. Oh,

no wonder you were choking on blood, too, because like draining down. Exactly. It's draining back into my throat. I say something and no words come out.

Oh, boy. M is really like roughed up right now. I liked dogs after the last story and now I back to hate dogs.

Well, how about yours just back to zero? No, I hate them. Okay. Okay. For the record, I still love dogs, but now we're kind of in this situation where I just need to get to the hospital. This is small Lake Town. There's like one place to go. It's about 25 minutes away. My wife is the only one who can drive me. We don't even bother calling an ambulance. We just throw me in the car. So, we get there. They get me in right away. But the doctor who was helping me did not inspire confidence. He pretty much said, "This is my first time doing something like this."

Even if it's true, just don't say it. Yes. Yeah. Well, it gets worse cuz then he said it looked like hamburger meat.

It was a small town dog. He doesn't need to say that. Especially now we need to stitch it up back together. So, the first like tooth bite was up in my forehead and then it came down and it got like the top side of my nose where my eyebrow meets my nose and then it went in through like the side and then went through and tore through the septum down to this bottom part of the nose.

Oh my god. Whole face. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like Jack the Ripper got you pretty much. So they start stitching me up. I get like a local anesthetic. I'm still have a lot of blood and there's not really an assistant. So it ends up being my wife. She's just like helping him out and I'm just spitting into a rag.

It's like a cash only doctor off. We get like one or two stitches in and I start to feel it a little bit. I shouldn't be feeling it. So, we're going to do a quick flashback here, but I had had some dental work in the past. I've never had a major surgery, but it turns out that I metabolized anesthesia a little bit faster. My dad's a redhead. I was going to say he don't have red hair. I've since had surgery and they told me it took about like two and a half times the amount of anesthesia. So, we get two stitches in and then we need another shot. And now it makes me a little queasy to think about cuz I'm like, what are you putting the shot into?

Yeah. Yeah. We pretty much just go through this process of like every three to four stitches I get another shot.

Oh my god. I end up getting 40 to 45 stitches throughout the whole nose. And towards the end when he did kind of the nostril, he looped it a little too tight and he had to take it out and do it again.

Okay. You need to misfire a little. Well, it was his first time. Honestly, the fact that it only happened once is kind of pretty good. For the listener, I'm staring at your nose and I'm shocked. It looks great. Yeah, there's no residual.

I don't even see any scars. I don't even see your nose. For the listener, he doesn't have a nose.

And it looks great. After this, I would get with friends and they're like, "No, it kind of doesn't look too bad." And I'm like, "No, it was very, very bad." And no one really understood how bad it was. And you know, I've talked to a few people. They still don't really get My nose was pretty much not attached to my face for for a while.

And are we to now look at these photos? Oh, I forgot there are photos. Are we at that point of the experience?

There's the day of when I got out of Okay. For it was off. This is when they put it back, but it is barely on.

It's barely on. What feels lucky is your septum seems really disfigured in one of the photos, but it does seem later that it did end up getting vertical again, but it looks like it's on an angle.

Completely. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yes. All it was was stitching. Like I didn't have any plastic surgery, no like deviated septum surgery afterwards. I could show you here, but you might be able to see it's a little crooked on one side. any bit.

Yeah. Only when you did that and really pointed it out, we would never have noticed that.

What was the reaction of the owner of the dog? Was it an immediate close relative or was it like uh very extended

close relative? And I don't want to get into it too much. Just air the dirty laundry. But

it didn't go well. We had some back and forth. You just want to minimally warn everyone the dog bites. This probably would have been my thing. Those

this kind Yes. I think actually by law I'm serious. I know. This kind of attack that dog can't be around people.

The doctor when we got there was just like, "Where was the bite?" Cuz it's a different story if it's like the leg versus the face. I guess they categorize it differently if it's attacking your face. So, we went rounds on that and we're good now.

Okay. The family reunion to end all family reunions. But, you made it through. That's good. I do want to know is it your family or your wife's family?

Oh, good question. My family. Okay, that's better. If it was a wife's family, he coordinated the whole thing, which you would have been like husband of the century if you coordinated your wife's family reunion. Wow. And are you at all gunshy around dogs now? Do it have any residual effect or no?

I'm more careful. I'm not really shy around them for a while afterwards. I'm thinking twice as I lean down to like pet a dog. I'm not doing that anymore. No no

but I've got a golden retriever. We're always out on walks and you know, you see all these dogs barking. It is a little scary.

My fear of dogs started by getting attacked by two Dobermans when I was like 9 years old walking down the street and [ __ ] me was that scary I've ever been.

My wife, she's also been bit by Doberman. I've been bit too. A lot of people have been bit by dogs.

Oh yeah, they bite a lot. Not good. And then people are like, why do you hate dogs? It's like they kill people.

Well, you know what it is? I totally get it. As I was hearing the story, I was forcing myself to recognize a parallel with me, which is like I ride dirt bikes and I ride motorcycles and you get hurt on them. And if you love motorcycles and dirt bikes, you just don't care. You're like, "Yeah, whatever. That's part of it." And if you just love dogs, you're like, "Yeah, sometimes they bite." And that's part of it. If you love the outcome, which is owning a dog, it's very easy to file it as just like the same way I file these injuries that are inevitable when you ride motorcycles as a hobby. Or if you ride horses, you're going to get bucked and all these things are going to happen.

You're hurting yourself. True. For me, it's about what if your motorcycle just randomly ran over your kid's foot? Like, you probably wouldn't have it.

But I do understand when you love something, you just file things much differently.

I mean, that's true. I mean, it's different if it's your dog versus someone else's dog. And we bought a golden retriever. You know, they're not biting very many people and that was part of it. We got two little kids, so we were like, well, let's get a very chill dog.

Let's get a non. I'm so sorry that happened. Yikes. Thanks. Every day I look in the mirror, I'm astounded it looks like the way it does.

Well, Eric, that was delightful. As miserable as it was, I enjoyed it just the same.

Yeah. Thanks for sharing. Yeah, absolutely. Nice talking to you guys. Take care.

Bye. Hi. Hi. Oh my god, you're in a soundproof box. I am. It's part of my work. We take a lot of interviews and calls, so I was able to actually have a soundproof box, which is pretty nice.

My goodness, I love it. And we're going by Rose, but we're not really Rose. Is that what I'm understanding?

I am going by Rose because I work in education and so I figure just best practice to have a pseudonym, but I will have my dog's name be her actual name because she's the star of the story.

Okay, great. Anna Rose by any other name. Oh, I like that. There's something to be said there.

Are you allowed to tell us where you're at in the world or some general sense? Yes. So, I'm actually in Los Angeles, California.

And did you move here or you born here? I moved here. So, this story will actually take place on my road trip whilst moving out to California in 2020.

Okay. Cuz you strike me as a Midwesterner just right off the bat for some reason. Where are you from originally?

Minnesota. Okay. You nailed it. I'll take that. Good people. Good people like Michiganers.

I think so. Have you done some ice fishing and snowmmoiling? Absolutely. That was a lot of my childhood sitting in a box with a little heater.

Yeah. Drinking schnobs. Maybe not at 10, but a little bit later in life. Okay. Okay. We would agree, right? It's an excuse to drink. Ice fishing,

I would say. So, I'd say there would be a lot of like Coors Light in those boxes. A lot of whiskey.

In Michigan, for whatever reason, what was customary, I guess you got like mint jeulips at the Kentucky Derby. You got signature drinks. And for whatever reason in Michigan when you went ice fishing it was schnobs time.

Oh yeah. Just nipping on that cinnamon schnops. Nipping cuz it's cozy and it like warms you up a little bit.

It's funny you say that because my brother, one of the things we found in his room after he left for college was peppermint schnaps under his bed.

Good for him. Ice fisherman waiting to happen. Okay. So Rose, you have a pet story. So, on behalf of my loving dog, Dawson, it was July 19th, 2020. I had just graduated my MERS in education program and I got a job out in Northern California. My brother's been in Los Angeles for like 20 years.

The Schnob sound. Yes, the Schnob sound. Okay. I always wanted to be closer to him and I got a job in Northern California. And of course, July 2020, interesting times, we decided to drive me out here. And it was me and my dog Dawson. And then my mom was driving with us in our car to help keep company. So my Toyota Camry, it did me very well. And Dawson was in the back seat, my mom and I were in the front. We were driving cross country. Everything was going well. We planned a couple of days. So we made our first track, went really well. Second day, we're driving through Wyoming, specifically between, I want to say, the interstates were the 80 and the 25. And we'd stop every once in a while to, of course, take a break ourselves and then also to let Dawson run around, play, and use the bathroom. One of the stops that we came up on in Wyoming was when we were in the middle of nowhere in Wyoming, we were at least 30 minutes

from the last place we had stopped. And then a good probably hour and a half from the next potential pit stop area. So we get out, my mom went to get snacks. I took Dawson for her bathroom break.

Tinkle time. Duty. Oh, okay. Duty time. Yeah. Good. Number two. Let's just say it was taking a while. It was taking a lot longer than it typically did. And when she seemed like she was done, she kept rubbing her backside on the ground. And I checked to see, you know, sometimes there's something dangling, we need a paper towel, except for instead of seeing a dangling piece of poop or anything else or grass, I see a red bulb the size of a miniature plum.

Oh, I have a picture that I did send to Rob if he has it. Oh, we have it. I have Now the time to look.

Now's the time to look at it. You have a guess, dude. Well, I think some of his intestine has come out, but maybe there's an object. Foreign object. Let's see.

Very startling photo to open. Oh, wow. Okay. Great, great, great, great. It appears to be like a play ball.

That's what it looked like. It is large. Okay. Okay. Also, it's completely hemispherical. So, how you're going to find purchase on this thing with your fingers and get a good grip on it.

But maybe you're right about intestines. And I'm also glad you guys had the wherewithal to photograph this as it was happening. Yeah, I applaud that. So often things happen and like two hours later I'm like, why on earth did I not take a picture?

I did have to contact my mom because I couldn't find any photos on my camera and I was asking her. I'm like, there must be a photo somewhere of this and she of course had it on her phone because I was holding Dawson as this was happening to try to figure out WTF what is happening because nothing would help wipe it off. Oh, you were trying to wipe it off.

That's very sweet. Some hope at first. I can't stop staring that. I know. Me, too. It's kind of weird

cuz it's so foreign. It almost looks like the planet of Saturn is coming out of your dog's ass.

The color is bright. Yeah, it's bright red. I will say when I was speaking to my mom yesterday to get some reminders, she did say, "Oh, yeah. It looks like a clown's nose coming out of her butt." And I was like, "That's a good one, too."

Yeah. Really spot on. nothing was helping. She kept trying to rub it off and it became soon apparent that it was in fact a part of her, but we didn't know what part of her it was. So, we called around. It was July 19th. It was a Sunday and we were in the middle of nowhere in Wyoming. So, we were working really hard to find a vet hospital that was nearby. The only one that we could find was 30 minutes backtracking in the direction we just came. And so we're like, "All right, we're going to drive there." We describe what happened. They gave us no resolve as to what it could be. They just said, "Make sure she doesn't bite at it. Come here as soon as you can." And so we drove straight there and we get to this small town vet, really small office, one vette, very sweet lady. I don't remember her name, but I feel like it must have been like Kimberly or Deb. She was just like, "Oh, hi. Welcome. y'all are the

people who called. And the vet came out, who's probably in his mid to late 70s, and he took one look at her and he said, "Oh, bring her to the back table." And then he looked at the nurse and all he says is, "Bring the gloves and the sugar."

M sugar. Okay. Sugar. Strange. Still no indication of what's going on. No talking to us. He just tells us, "Oh, yeah. Walk back here." He proceeds to put the gloves on, like, "Please get her up on the table." Oh, yeah. You can just hold her. Maybe help hold up her tail. Still zero explanation as to what he's doing or what is happening. And he has the gloves on. He takes a gigantic handful of sugar.

Wow. And he just slowly just puts the giant handful of sugar onto her [ __ ] Yes, exactly. Onto her [ __ ] Is that [clears throat] the first time you've said [ __ ] in your life? Cuz that was such a cute Minnesota. Oh, I got to say [ __ ]

I'm pretty used to not swearing in certain settings for so long. And yep, he's very slowly putting on there. And then he finally starts to explain, oh, you know, this happens. This is her butt lining. She might just be stressed. He goes in for a second handful of sugar. It was a prolapse. But the sugar, I've never heard of this whole sugar thing. Did he explain why that was the mechanism?

Yeah. So, he said there's something about the sugar reduces the inflammation because he did it three times slowly but surely and it went back in. We told him that we were still traveling across the country. What should we do? I didn't have a vet yet in California. And he just said, "You can just do this again." He gave us gloves. He said, "Go to the store, buy a bag of sugar." Wow. If it happens again, do the same thing. You just take a giant scoop full of sugar slowly on there a couple of times, and then it would go back in. We ended up taking his advice. He gave us some gloves. We paid our vet bill, got her a cone, which I think I shared a second picture.

She looks very happy in her comb. Her tongue is nice and pink. That means healthy.

Her nose is damp. Yeah, she's happy. She no longer had her butt hanging out of her backside, which was nice.

Did you guys have to pack it back in at any point? We absolutely did. So, we got through the salt flats. We got to Nevada. And the first gas station stop that we stopped at in Nevada, we were taking her out to go to the bathroom again, she had been pretty calm. She was happy in her cone. She took a nap. Take her out, goes to poop again. Happens again. And we followed the vets's instructions and used the gloves and the sugar about three times. three giant scoopfuls of sugar and it went right back in.

That's so wild. Very wild. Though it did give her the nickname sugar butt. You know what I was thinking this whole time? I was like, I've always heard this term he's a candy ass or they're a candy ass. And I've always thought, what on earth does that even mean, that term? It could be someone who's so regularly prolapsing Uranus that their ass is covered in sugar. Candy ass. Yeah.

Wow. That's what I guess it I'm going to assume that means. That's what we can assume it means. Wait a minute. It's strange because sugar I feel like normally would irritate and cause inflamation.

Think of it as causing inflammation. Yeah. But that might be society telling us a lot. What I was going to say is there are many times where you might not be thrilled that you have an older person helping you like something requiring great prowess of vision or quick reflexes, you know, like you might not want your surgeon,

but this is exactly in fact the older the vet the better because they have seen every goddamn thing. Like that whole sugar thing might not be in a medical book at all. It might be over the years he's packed enough cow's asses back in in this small farm town and he figured [ __ ] out along the way. He's like one look. Yeah. Get my sugar.

Yeah. What if it's proprietary to just him? Well, what if you go into his medical cabinet like there's WD40, there's sugar, there's like all these bizarre things that work.

It makes me think of there was a Michael J. Fox movie where he he went to a small town to be a doctor. this kid got really ill and he came into the office and he thought he was having appendicitis and then the old man came in and he's like get him a can of Coca-Cola and they get in a big fight about he makes him drink the Coca-Cola kid feels better and he goes you get into your old man's chewing tobacco and he's like yeah and it's like that's what you're looking for in that sitch.

That's such a trope of the old doctor. I love it. We've just found out it's true at least in the vet community.

Yeah. Apparently, it's a tried and true. And at least hopefully this can be a cautionary tale. If anyone comes across this now, you know, you could just get gloves and a spoonful of sugar.

Hell, screw the gloves. I might use a Snickers bar. I just rub a Snickers bar. E,

that sounds like a probe. Oh my gosh. A caramel treat for Oh yeah. Caramelized apple.

Oh wow. Well, Rose, this is weirdly heartwarming. rose. It kind of looks like a rose.

Yeah. Coming out of its sure we didn't say that. It turns sweet. If it had more folds and convolutions.

I hate that. I really want to like Well, cuz it's not gross. It does look like a clown's nose coming out.

It looks very smooth. Or like those little orange balls you play rollerblade hockey with. It looks like he or she ate a ball.

I want to give a quick shout out, if that's okay, to my brother. He's the person who initially got me put on to Armchair Expert and I've been listening ever since.

Oh, lovely. I love how much you like your brother. Me, too. I was thinking that, too. You wanted to be near him.

All right, Rose. Lovely meeting you. Thank you. All right, take care. Bye. These teachers, they're 100 out of a hundred. Sweet.

They're in a two-way tie with nurses for the best of the best. Yeah, but nurses are a little kinky.

Yeah, they're pervy. They're a little pervy. That's why I like them. They're nasty.

But the teachers are like they're wholesome. Yeah, they're good. Good. Good. Not all. No, there's there's some bad apples in there. Like that apple coming out of launches. What's his name? Dawson's butt. I do wish people could see it.

Yeah, me too. All right. Well, I love you. That was fun. Yeah, it was. Pets. Yeah, pets. Get them.

Do you want to sing a tune or something? We have a theme song. Oh, okay. Great. We don't have a theme song for this new show. So, here I go. Go. We're going to ask some random questions and with [singing] the help of our cherries, we'll get some suggestions on the fly rind dish. On the fly rhyme dish. Enjoy.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Armchair Anonymous: Pets | Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard"?

Dan Rather (Host), Tiki Ranger (Guest), Bean (Guest), Jill (Guest), Eric (Guest), Rose (Guest).

What is "Armchair Anonymous: Pets | Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard" about?

The discussion centers around humorous and heartwarming pet stories shared by the hosts, highlighting the quirky and often unpredictable behavior of pets while acknowledging the emotional challenges that can accompany pet ownership, including loss and difficult experiences. The conversation also touches on personal anecdotes and playful digressions related to names and childhood memories.

What is mentioned in this Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard episode?

6 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Hannah Banana, Dawson, Harley, Tiki Ranger, McKver, Chalk Orange County. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Armchair Anonymous: Pets | Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard"?

The episode runs 49 min; the transcript is about 10,193 words in 225 timestamped sections.

More from Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated January 24, 2026.