Episode 09: Pets

This show originally aired in June 2002.  The theme was “pets” though in reality this should have been called the “dead pets” show.  It includes some B-Side classics and some really touching stories about pets – how they’re loved and how they’re lost.

Liner Notes:

Pet Cemetery: Lyssa Mudd
There are those who flush Goldie the goldfish down the toilet, and those who bury Fido the mutt under a shrub in the backyard without a marker. Others opt for pet cemeteries. For generations, San Franciscans have been burying their beloved family pets in a small, weedy plot at the Presidio, the city’s old army base.  B-Side’s Lyssa Mudd brings us this tour.

Losing Quincy: Emelie Gunnison
What happens when a pet runs away – or is lost without a trace, with no chance for a final goodbye.  B-Side’s Emelie Gunnison knows this experience all too well.

Pet Loss Hotline: Tamara Keith
When a pet dies, the grief can be just as extreme as with loss of a human relative.  As B-Side’s Tamara Keith found out, for people having trouble dealing with those emotions, help is just a phone call away.

Pet Sitting: Dave Gilson
There’s this theory that if people spend enough time with their pets they actually start to resemble their animals – or is it the other way around? Whichever it is, it can be amusing – and sometimes disturbing – to see how much pet owners have in common with their charges. B-Side commentator Dave Gilson recalls a pet-sitting job that revealed the stranger side of this symbiotic relationship.

Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill: Mia Lobel
What if your pet escaped, found others of its kind, bred, and formed a whole new colony of wild animals? Believe it or not, it’s happened before, and Mark Bittner of San Francisco has proof.  Host Mia Lobel has his story.