This is the down labor part, sure, we've still got Sparkasse. Are you guys questioning or doubting whether or not Ron McGill could pull off a 360 dunk of what he's saying at one point, like he's he just admitted that he hasn't played?

No, I can't even dunk it now with one hand, really. It's pathetic now. It's really pathetic.

It's a little rude. A Dan, to be laid here eight minutes late to your segment is very typical, very typical.

Very typical day is that way.

You only planned his trip where he got engaged, like the best trip of his life, like and then he's just out late for your. And that was about actually.

Ron, I do have a question for you. Can you take us through the day? I watched the video of you naming the hippo after dad and it was fantastic. And Dan did it with a minimal amount of of sweat, like he seemed very, very relaxed, which is odd because when he's done that, he's not used to God.

You can you can you got to take us through that day to explain to the audience what exactly happened, because the video is fantastic. But I'm not certain how many people in our audience have seen that video.

Well, it was a pivotal day. I mean, this was something, you know, how long have we wanted to name this? This hippo, Dan LeBreton, the hippo wanted to be named Daniel, but it was like things work for the hippo itself. And then all of a sudden we get this this corporate block that made everything impossible, made everything so difficult and it was frustrating. So we ended up naming the head of some naming contest, but they ended up naming the thing about Gene, which means the eggplant in some foreign language.

And everyone was like, oh, John, Yongbyon. The thing could have been named Dan. I got a million people hitting me on social media. I can't believe you didn't name it. Dan Lieberthal. And then finally here, hear the door opens up. So I invited Dan out. I got with the staff. I said, listen. And they go, well, it's been officially named Gene and people paid online to have the opportunity to go.

Listen, what about the stage name? What about the real name? I mean, stage names are much more important. That's what, you know, people about. Will the stage name could be Dan Levitan. And I said and we can maybe raise some money for conservation anyway. OK, so that's what we did. So we went out there and we met. You know, the thing that was special for me was to introduce Dan to see them when Dan meets Dan.

That's a special thing. It's a special thing because you saw that it opened his mouth, those big tusks. And I was proud of Dan because Dan did not flinch. Now, I think it's probably because Bo was there and he didn't want to seem like some spineless weenie ass in front of Valve, but he was really very good. And I think he actually he grew an affinity for this thing. He he looked at its eyes, its eyes looked at him, and all of a sudden the two dads became one.

And it was it was a beautiful moment.

It really was it was love at first sight. It seems like it was it was great. Go ahead. Hey, Ron, how you doing? I'm good.

How are you? I'm well, thank you. In the state of Florida and across America, it seems as if the sport of greyhound racing is on its last legs. What do you think about that?

I'm all for it being on its last legs. You know, I I've known the industry too long. I've been around some people in the industry. First of all, these are very high strung dogs. These dogs should not be put into that situation where they've got to do these these runs in such a way that it really just adds to their excitability. Anybody who's adopted greyhounds will tell you that this is a very delicate high-Strung dog. It should not be put in that situation.

But more importantly, what happens is they have a very short life in that that arena. And once that life is over, so many of those dogs end up getting euthanized, end up being abused. It is really a horrific thing. It's like throw out throw out the animal when it's no longer useful to you instead of really loving. So I'm so happy that it's finally come to an end run.

Somebody decided to scrape the algae off the back of a manatee to actually read the word Trump on the back of it.

Now saying, setting aside the the amount of evil that that actually is. Right. What exactly is the penalty for somebody actually touching a wild manatee?

I forget I think it's a five hundred dollar minimum penalty. It's not necessary to find this touching. Simply just harassing is the definition. So you don't have to touch it, just get into its personal space and affect its natural behavior. And that can be listed as harassment. And that, I think, has a minimum penalty of five hundred dollars. But it is a it is a federal offense as a as an endangered species, the protected species, federally protected species.

So I'm not sure what the coexisting jail sentence may be.

But but it's a serious offense, Brian, in terms of like a documentary that you'd like to see or a book that you'd like to read, what are the three animals that you, even with all your knowledge, are the most curious about?

I've always been very curious about the snow. Look, I mean, we've talked about that on the show. This is an animal that is one of the most beautiful big cats in the world. It is found in one of the most remote places on earth in this most inhospitable habia. That I'd love to know more about that animals, I've watched them hunt. I think I talked to I shared a video with you guys and you do with this one grabbing a freaking mountain goat at the top of a mountain.

I mean, plummeting all the way down the mountain.

Never let it go that we can go hit the bottom and still survive. I mean, this is an animal just absolutely cute.

And so little is known about a guy named George Shabwah really doing the original studies many years ago. But I think that's something I really love to see more about. You know, I'm really fascinated about whales. I mean, I'd love to know more about the sperm whales. The thing is that those animals can dive so deep that we can't follow them. So we don't know what's happening down there in the deep. We really don't know how they're catching these giant squid.

Everybody's seen the Moby Dick film with a huge giant squid. You see these sperm whales that have these pockmarks, scars on their face in these battles with these monstrous squids underneath the surface. I mean, miles down beneath the surface. Can you imagine seeing a video of this freaking huge whale a hundred feet long and is massive squid?

This ADP report that would be epic mantlepiece run if the zoo, for whatever reason, took all of the animals except one type of animal. And that animal then goes to every single exhibit, which animal which you build a zoo around that's just exclusive to one animal.

That's a good question. That's a tough question. Yeah, that is a tough question. You know, this is going to sound probably boring to a lot of people, but I've always got to look at what people see when they see you going to see activity. You want to see something that's engaging, right? So if I was going to do one animal, I'd have a huge mob of meerkats because it is. Stop, brother. You got your cats doing central to the screen.

You got them. You've got two breeding. You've got to take care of the babies. There's something is going on. People say, what about a tiger? It's beautiful. Yeah, but a tiger is going to be sleeping under a tree for about 80 percent of the time. Same thing with mine. Same thing with almost all the cat. What about giraffe? Well, yeah, giraffe. You can see them walk around. They may be eating, but they're beautiful.

But where's the excitement? Where is the people want to look at animals and see some of themselves. So you might say, well, what about chimps, chimps, gorillas, people of primates, right? Yeah, but primates like us and a lot of ways they don't have to do anything to get food. If they don't have to work for things, they've going to be laying down being lazy. So in the long run, if you're going to have every exhibit full of the same animal, it's going to be just boring to see a bunch of animal sleep.

Whereas Bearcats but remember, guys, they made a whole successful television series for five years on Animal Planet called Meerkat Man, which is basically that it's going to do with a bunch of animals just totally interchanging, fighting, breeding, looking out. They're a blast to watch. So I'd have to go with your tennis rod.

I am I am deeply concerned because because we've all been home so much, I have never had a stronger bond with my dog Finnie, in fact, my entire family. It's all I'm wondering that once we get back to some sort of normalcy, is there going to be like how would you advise people? Because I feel like my pets are going to be devastated once we're no longer home all the time because Finnie has gotten used to it. What's the best way for people to transition once we get back to some sort of normalcy as it relates to their pets?

I'm proud of you to be so proud of you for having that kind of perspective, because that's that's kind of rare for me to have some kind of passion. But but you know what?

You're very right. There's so many people that have been working from home, that have been home so much, and animals, especially pets like dogs and cats, have become accustomed to that. And that is a bond that now is going to have to be reversed. So the best thing I can tell you folks, is it possible do not do that cold turkey, you know, if possible, if you can work it out with your employer to say, OK, listen, OK, I'm working from home every day this week, can I work from home twice a week?

Can I work from home once a week? You've got to try to ease into it. To go cold turkey is going to be stressful for a lot of animals. And if there's a problem, there's no there's no clear cut answer to it, you guys. But the best thing I can tell you is to to wean it off of them as slowly as possible, as slowly as your employer will allow you to do.

What kind of damage could that stress do to an animal? Because I I've heard of dogs and other animals that have anxiety, separation anxiety. What can it actually do to them?

Well, what it usually does is it just it incites bad behaviour. In the end, they'll start maybe defecating in the house when they never used to do that before. They'll start tearing apart things in the house, going into the trash can, ripping out things out of drawers and start tearing it up. You'll come home to this explosion of a mess the dog created or it might start urinating on the wall. I mean, there's different things that the dogs do that are a product of stress.

It really is not just dogs. Cats will do the same thing in many ways. They'll stop using the litter box to start going into the bed. They'll start going where your scent is most prevalent and they'll start marking their scent on it. Maybe in an attempt to bring you back. I'm being anthropomorphic in that sense. But the bottom line is, yeah, they go through a. Separation anxiety, and because of that, it leads them to bad behavior, and that can kind of become doubly negative because then you come home, you get mad at them for having the negative behavior, it's having the negative behavior because you left it.

And so people have to have a more open mind with that and understand that you have to generally ease animals into this change in mindset.

Ron, I wanted to circle back for a second to my Greyhound question because neighbors of mine used to have a couple of whippets, which looks like right now. Yeah, exactly. And I'm wondering, would you recommend a retired racing greyhound as a pet? You know, for a person who has the patience and time, yes, I've known people who have adopted those animals and they have turned out to be incredible, incredible animals. I mean, you know, one of my dearest friends, a very, very strong radio personality in my dad, Alexander is one of the greatest Greyhound advocates you'll ever speak to.

And she'll tell you what incredible loving animals they can be. It is not a Labrador retriever. This is not an animal you will adopt for your three year old to come play with in the house because they're fairly high strung. You need some patience with them. But if it's a retiree who has the patience, has the time, I think you could find them to be really amazing animals.

Ron, dog owners tend to do a bad job in breeding the dogs, as you can see with the English bulldog. What's the proper way to actually breed a dog? Well, you know, if you're if you're trying to breed a dog, to keep a bloodline, to keep a pedigree, the best thing is to look at the pedigree, to understand that, you know, if your dog's mother or father had pretty bad hip dysplasia, you know, I wouldn't breed that dog.

There's a gene there and people have a hard time with that. You know, people get their animals say, oh, my God, I love them so much, he's going to get old and I want to breed it because I want to make sure that the same dog is passed on. First of all, there's no guarantee that whatever puppies, the dog that you have has is going to be like the dog that you have. I've said this over and over again.

You certainly can breed dogs with temperament, but the overwhelming majority of the temperament of the behavior of a dog is a direct reflection on how that dog is raised. So if you raise the dog properly, if you give it compassion, give it love, it will give you that back. It's these dogs that have been mistreated, that have been abused many times. They're picked up on they're put into a rescue facility and then adopted right away. And they still have this horrific fear, this horrific memory of the abuse.

And then the people bring it home and it might snap at or might not be very friendly. And people go, oh, no, I don't want this dog. I want to breed for dogs. No, these are all dogs that are victims of their previous life. So if you're going to breed of dog, which I really don't suggest you do, unless you are going to do that for a living, people who just want to say, oh, I want to have puppies, I want to breed the dog, guys, we have so many animals that are looking for homes.

I cannot overstress this. I paint. I had a schnauzer that I paid a tremendous amount of money for. That would have been a great animal. And the first thing I did when I got home with him as I had him neutered, OK, because I knew that there were enough animals out there. My my wife always wanted to. Sure. It was probably one of the best decisions I made. We had a 15, almost 16 years.

And I got a taste of it was just it was beautiful. It hurts so much when we lost and that I don't know if I can have another dog. But having said that, I needed him because it was the responsible thing to do. Unless that is your profession, unless that's how you're making a living by contributing to a read and not just trying to create pets for other people. Don't do that. Don't read your animals, you know, spay neuter them.

It's better for their own behavior. It's really better for their health and it's better for the overall population of so many cats and dogs that just don't have forever homes. All right. He is Bob Barker. He is sixty year old Cuban and tall.

But here we go. He's Bob Barker. Let me. I want that. I want to. I want to. Before we get you out of here, I just want to say a couple of things here about our relationship over the years with Ron McGill, which has been a really super magical thing in so many spiritual, emotional and wonderful, wonderful ways. Because Ron McGill, honest to God when I say that for this show, weirdly, he has been his mustache has been a lighthouse, fighting for his sensibilities, caring for animals and doing stuff outside of sports that was about animals, even if it piss people off.

It was a great delight to have over many years this be a really popular segment, even though it's weird for ESPN Radio to have this televised for ten years. And they did so reluctantly as we enumerated any number of times. So Ron has repaid that with the following. And this is why it's a love story. I'm going to make everyone a little uncomfortable here, but I'm going to do it for a reason. Ron has repaid that by allowing my family to see his zoo with a personal tour from a modern day Tarzan who talks to the animals, you know, talks to them.

I know you just put down Draugr with whom you had a Pungo, right? Was it Pango as Bonga? You just put that. You put the giraffe down. And I'm sorry to make it a sad story, but I want to talk to you about the emotion of that as well. But before I do any of that, I want to explain. Ron set up my engagement, my proposal to my wife, Ron, my first date or one of my first dates with my wife was getting that zoo.

I was trying to wow her and Tarzan showed her the animals and that's it. She was done after that. It's the only way that she was conquered. And so Ron has been involved in every step of the way with taking great care because he's a romantic at heart. And what I want to tell the audience, Ron, because you just you know, again, you've got a hippo named after me, Dan Levitan, you're always doing right there.

You're there, you're selling little you're selling hippo hard wax things that you're going to sell those at the zoo.

No, there's only ten ten of them. There are very limited edition. Why they say Dan Laboratoire on the front. But one of those are incredibly historic wax, which it was made as a very limited series of and a pen. All right. Well, I'm yammering. Maybe we'll give them away to the audience as a reward for this pirate radio phase. They'll enjoy having that. But what I wanted to ask the audience, Ron, because they've been supporting us and you and this weird thing that we do tell the people beyond taking care of their pets and neutering them, tell them how they can help your endowment if they want to care about the animals.

And you've done all of this for years for free for us, Ron. And you're always saying I can never repay you because everywhere I go. People said, Ron McGill, you've done this for free, if they want to help something that you care about, my favorite charity is your charity. So please tell the people how it is that they can help you so that the audience can support this thing that I love. That is very much a love story.

Well, I appreciate your words, Dan. I really haven't done it for free because people would pay a tremendous amount of money to have been part of this family with you. It's been a real pleasure. So I want to get the sports on the side. But let me tell you this, guys. I didn't come to work for the zoo over 40 years ago to work for an attraction contrary to popular belief. I'm not a huge fan at all of taking any animal out of the wild, but even in captivity.

And by the way, we're not allowed to stay in captivity when that we say under human care because it sounds less of a threat. But let's face it, it's in captivity. So here's the deal. I started here over 40 years ago, and I firmly believe that zoos are going to be the conservation organization they're supposed to be. They should be contributing significant amounts of money to protect animals in the wild. We spend millions of dollars here at the zoo building these state of the art exhibits to house these animals with people to come to the zoo and see them.

And yet we haven't really put aside the right amount of money or really, in many cases, no amount of money to help protect those animals in the wild. And I've always felt that was hypocrisy. And quite frankly, I was almost to the point where I was getting ready to leave the zoo because I just didn't believe in that. I believe that. Listen, folks, if the zoo is the last place that you can safely see an animal, then we as an institution have been an epic failure.

So after getting fed up with the fact that I didn't think we're putting enough money into conservation in the field itself, I said I'm going to start an endowment here under the umbrella of the Zoo Foundation. And people laughed at me. This said you can be able to raise the money because to start an endowment, that was another thing. Guys, I always felt that, listen, we have to have sustainability. You can't raise money every year and just you have to have a corpus of money that produces money.

So, you know, every year you're able to do something about it. So that was my point, to raise an endowment. They laughed at me and said, well, I have an endowment enough to raise a minimum of a million dollars. So whatever it takes, I'll work till I can't take my last breath and more. And I'll try to know. I've never been able to ask people for money. I just try to be able to tell a story and hopefully care about it, say, how can I help?

And this is how they can help. Make a long story short, we established the Romario Conservation Endowment is the only conservation endowment at the zoo and we were able to raise a significant amount of money, thanks in part to Dan, to a lot of the listeners, I can't tell you how many listeners have contributed. It's been amazing that money is going into a corpus. The proudest thing in my life, in my professional life is that endowment. It is what I hope will be my legacy.

It is the only reason I continue to work here at the zoo. We now have close to two million dollars in that that endowment and we're able to provide tens of thousands of dollars every year to people on the ground. We buy vehicles for research in Kenya. We buy vehicles for research, for rescue and rehabilitation. And in Panama, we're buying radio collars to track down those bikes, all kinds of equipment to help these researchers and conservationists help keep those animals alive in the wild where they belong, not in the zoo.

So that's the reason I started that. It's a totally tax-deductible. I want to raise it as much as I can because the more money that's in there, the more that we can give away. We also give away scholarships to students who have chosen a career path in wildlife conservation. So to answer that question, the best way you can donate and you can go to Zoo Miami, Doug, you'll go into the conservation area. There is the Romney go conservation endowment.

You can hit the donate, but it's a totally tax deductible donation. Your money will never actually get spent. Your money gets into the corpus that can't get touched. It just produces more and more money every year. So like I tell people, it's not like you're making a donation, you're making an investment. And that investment will continue to give money year after year after year to help keep animals in the wild where they belong, which is what I think the number one purpose of is.

You should be.

All right, Ron. So before we get out of here very quickly, because I want you to give me numbers later today about how strong our audience supported what has been really ten years.

No lie. This has been ten years of free work from Ron McGill and he represents Chris. You thought that you represented the greatest fight in our family on behalf of something we have had to fight for the Ron McGill segment across a decade. In a way, the super easy for us, because we told you the show would not change when it left Miami. And the first order of business was to try and take away one of our most popular features and we would not let them.

And so I think you're going to be surprised by what the audience does today. But as you did that moving thing and it was moving, Chris Coady, son of Greg Cody, wanted to get in here with his joke to punctuate the segments. Go ahead, Chris.

I mean, it's just clear with everybody donating to Ron's endowment, Ron will be well endowed.

Yeah.

Oh, what is it? We still have that sound effect. It's kind of a clunky setup. He was put on a stage. He had to deliver it. That didn't happen organically. I mean, even I liked.

It has been a slice of heaven. That's all I can tell you, is that I told down from the first time I remember the first time when I went national, I said, Dan, I really thank you for the update because I know you're going with. No, Dan, come on now. Are you going with this? You guys show that? I know. Dan, it was you. I was so scared. I said, my God, Dan, you're going to put your your whole thing in jeopardy of this incredible opportunity with ESPN and then just said, no, you're going to be on the show.

And I cannot tell you, at the risk of sounding overly patronising, how much respect I have for you for just doing what you believe in. I hope that.

I know that's why you have incredible fans, very moving. Ron, thank you for being on with us. We were all touched by your appearance. Thank you, sir. Maybe I did my best. Thank you, IRA. We love you, Cody. I don't feel like this has been enough of a Cody to his day. I wish we had more. Cool. Do you have a back in my day? Do you have one? Oh, yes, sir.

I should do it, please. What's it about? Are you excited about it? Well, we're going to see about that. All right. He got it out of your system there, Dan, rolling down as a good joke, and now it is time to take a trip down memory lane. Here's your guy, Greg Cody, with Back in My Day. Brain cells. So in the next minute or so, while I'm doing this, almost two million neurons, 14 billion synapses and seven and a half miles of myelinated fibres will be destroyed inside my skull.

Don't worry for me, probably happening to you, too.

We lose brain cells by the bush and by degrees gradually.

It's a residue of aging attacks, our ability to remember and to store and process more and more information. It's that that makes life more and more difficult as rampant technology gallops without relend, the latest fad seeming to last about a minute and a half before it's replaced by the new hot thing. Whatever happened to three local channels?

One thing about advances in technology is that nobody ever actually asks for them.

They just happen pretty much against our will. Quite frankly, Amazon, I remember when someone said that word and it probably meant the rainforest covering almost three million square miles of South America.

Google, that used to mean Barny Google, you know, Snuffy Smith's sidekick and.

Oh, God. Oh my. Read it. What the hell is read it and why. Oh, back in my day read. It was something you did to a Greg Koti column in my ma got to a book.

Although the book you actually held by the way not one swallowed up inside the Kindle. I can't keep up with apps.

Whatever happened to mine, it died on the is Snapchat. Snapchat still a thing that was Twitch. Let's all meet on MySpace and solve the world's problems. I need a full time personal assistant just to help me navigate and provide it.

Running Bluffer. So Tick Tock is a video sharing service. We wait like YouTube. Why do we need another one? Oh no. Somebody the other day mentioned to me WhatsApp.

I said, Oh, not much with you. Oh no. Oh no services. No, sorry. I keep hearing more.

I'm not positive what that's all about.

I thought live streaming is what I did standing over a urinal, Netflix, Hulu, Peacocke, YouTube, TV, Amazon Prime, Disney, Plus Crackle.

What about SNAP and Pop.

Oh no HBO well Lubow TV. Oh Apple plus somebody suggested I try sling TV. What's that for viewers with broken arms.

No, no, no. There's a brand new startup everybody's talking about Leba Tube.

Oh yes, Anami.

It's trampling my brain cells like motorcycles tearing through a Rose Garden. No, somebody told me they're investing with Robin Hood.

No idea what that means. What wouldn't have known bad money if he hopped right up next.

Me told me he's invented Bitcoin.

Christopher, why don't you tell me that was the cryptocurrency. Oh, my God. Yeah, it's like that answers everything. Crypto crypto. Sounds like a little too close to the mausoleum with my name on it. Nowadays, I hear there's even an app. I forget what it's called it. Lets see. And Delice celebrities charge fans for money for personalized.

Oh no. Oh no, no. That actually sounds like a great idea. Oh, let you know what I do to get away from you or to try.

I close my eyes. I'm transported to the wood paneled shag carpeted den of fourteen forty. It's nineteen sixty five.

I walk to the zenith, console TV, adjust the tin foil on the left, ravid here and turn the channel knob by hand. Click, click, click to the number four and drift away.

Oh, let's see what Marshal Matt Dillon, Festus and Miss Khidir up to done at the Long Branch because the clock says it's time for Gunsmoke.

My wife nudges me from my reverie. I tell you what I dreamed. She scoffs. She says, Don't you know you can watch old Gunsmoke episodes anytime you want. All you have to do is pay to subscribe to CBS.

All access. I start to softly weep as another million neurons disappear. I'm great.

You gentlemen scratch faculty of the Miami Herald. Masire shamed, shamed over the course of the last few years because he would not try on back in my day. That is him trying inexplicably. Ron McGill is still in the Zoome chat. Ron, how did you feel about seeing like a Greg Codi Muste back in my day that basically railed against every single technological development in the last thirty years? It was epic.

I got to have it in print so I can frame.

Thank you. It won't make that happen for you. It was a masterful guy. Radio. OK, Ron, thank you. Actually, Ron, would you be kind enough to settle? Actually, you know what we should do? We should get her lean in here to settle a dispute as as the litigator on me and Cody stuff in our post game. Ron. Thank you, sir. It's been a great voyage and it's about to get a lot better because you've done some stuff.

What my brother likes to do videos with you. They made some ridiculous sounds with a world of Stewy Dotcom. What did you do? What did Angel Resto do with you in that section on World of Sui Dotcom?

Oh, my God. I'm looking at all these clips. I didn't realize you guys saved all that stuff. I'm an. Absolutely, oh, it's just you making animal sounds, that's what's on the website, just you impersonating all sorts of animals. It's me that all the clips here with a lot of we're making animal sounds and be doing a lot of the videos for the videos and stuff. I'm an idiot. I guess, in that stuff I'm cringing.