What's up y'all?
Thanks for joining the Travel Tales and Talk podcast with Derek and Makayla.
I'm Derek.
I'm Makayla.
Thanks for listening and enjoy the show.
What's up?
Welcome back for another episode of Travel Tales and Talk with Derek and Makayla.
And I've noticed something, honey, with Travel Tales and Talk, but we haven't introduced
anyone to the tales portion of this, which are our fur babies.
So let's talk about our fur babies a little bit.
And the question is, we get from our neighbors all the time, friends and family, why do we
have four beagles, a rabbit, and a cat?
Yeah, sounds like a whole lot, but it's really not.
It's not.
They're sweet.
All right.
So we have the beagles because Derek likes to hunt.
Yes, I do.
Anyone knows me?
I love to hunt, rabbit hunt.
Yes.
And we have the rabbit because Derek thought it would be a good idea to go purchase a rabbit.
Where'd you get this rabbit from?
From a farm.
From a farm somewhere here in Kentucky.
He went and bought this rabbit so he could train our dogs how to hunt.
Yes, yes.
Now let me tell you about our rabbit.
Our rabbit is beautiful, okay?
He looks- He's a handsome rabbit.
He looks just like the rabbit emoji on the iPhone.
He is gray, he is fluffy, he is beautiful.
And I looked at Derek like, oh, heck no, we're not finna take this rabbit.
He reminds me of Bugs Bunny with his grayness.
Oh yeah, when I tell you he's beautiful, he is beautiful, he's stunning.
I was like, we're not finna use this rabbit.
But let me interject.
What?
When you have young dogs, young beagles, you need to find you a domestic rabbit so they
can learn how to track with their nose and use their sight.
So it's a introduction to rabbit hunting 101 for the beagle.
Why didn't you buy an ugly rabbit?
I don't think there is an ugly rabbit.
Okay.
No, think about it.
There are no ugly rabbits.
All rabbits are cute.
Okay.
And then the cat, we actually rescued the cat.
He's been with us for a couple of months.
We actually rescued him like a week or so before Halloween 2023.
I think the cat was a trap because you wanted the cat so bad.
I didn't.
But somehow I come home, there's a cat at the house.
I didn't.
I wasn't looking for a cat.
We'll tell you a little bit more about how he became a part of our family in a little
bit.
But let's talk about the beagles and we'll introduce all the rabbits, not rabbits, all
the pets.
First, we got Tracker and Chase.
So how Tracker and Chase came about was my dad has beagles.
Okay.
He didn't want any more beagles, but he bred Nancy who is their mother to Max who's their
father.
And it's like, if you don't want any more dogs, why would you breed more beagles?
Doesn't make sense to me.
So on August 10th of 2019, Tracker and Chase were born along with their siblings.
This was Nancy's first litter.
She had six females, which were all tri-colors and the two black and tans, which are now
Tracker and Chase.
And that's crazy.
She had all these tri-colors and these two black and tans.
So I wanted beagles because I love to hunt.
So I decided to take, hey, let's take these two.
That's all we need.
And we'll take these two black and tan males.
We get them home, I think they what?
Four months old when they came?
Yeah, I don't know.
I felt that they were too old.
Derek didn't want them to come home right away.
So- Well, we were staying in an apartment at
the time.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
This is right before we bought the house.
Yeah, we had just moved from Atlanta.
We were in- Stop throwing me under the bus.
Hey, whatever.
All I know is by the time these little things came to the house, they were quite old and
they were hard to train.
No.
Them little jokers were hard headed.
No.
They got here in what?
January, February?
Yes.
So it was six months maybe.
But anywho, we decided to let Lana Rose name them.
And this is when she was in her Paw Patrol phase.
So she came up with Tracker and Chase.
I know Chase is a Paw Patrol member.
I don't believe Tracker is.
Can you help me out with that?
I don't know.
I thought Tracker would be a good name because it was dealing with hunting.
Right.
I agree.
You know, and you can track animals and you chase animals.
Yeah, that's good.
That's where I was thinking.
I'm glad she came up with those names.
I didn't think she would come up with very creative names.
She stole one name, Chase, which is a Paw Patrol member.
He's the police dog.
And then Tracker is a great name because he is a beagle, which tracks rabbits.
They are their names.
Yeah.
And then we have Tracker.
I think he's a little bit weird.
Just some of the things he does.
So we'll be in the backyard throwing the tennis ball around.
And for the first five minutes, he's all into it.
And then this light bulb goes off like, I'm not supposed to be doing this.
I'm not really a dog, am I?
And he'll just go sit off and just stare at the stars.
I'm like, what is wrong with this dude?
So he's been here before.
The way he interacts with people, the way he does things, like playing with the tennis
ball, that's out.
Chasing a squirrel, sometimes that's in, sometimes it's out.
Dude has been here before, Tracker.
And then we have, oh, and also about Tracker, he's a nonviolent rabbit hunter.
Oh my goodness.
So when we're out hunting and someone shoots, he's done.
He's like, look, we're not doing this.
We're not doing this.
I'll track him all day.
But the moment you start shooting at that rabbit, I'm done.
So.
And what does he do?
He just sits beside me all day.
The whole hunt, he just sits there and stares.
He doesn't move.
He doesn't run off.
He doesn't chase.
He just sits there and then he's done.
But his brothers on the other hand, they keep going, especially like Chase.
You forgot something about Tracker.
Talk about out of all four Beagles, we decided to send him to obedience school.
So we haven't talked about the second two Beagles.
We got our dogs in sets.
So the first set is Tracker and Chase.
And then we got their other brothers from another litter.
We're going to introduce them in a second, but let me tell you about Tracker.
Tell them about Tracker, baby.
Tracker out of all four, we decided to send him to obedience school because he was the
only one just not with the program.
No, this is why you wanted to send him to obedience school because he's an attractive
dog and you thought he'll rake in millions on TV commercials.
I did not say that.
I love how you try to inflate a whole bunch of stuff.
But he is a handsome dog.
He's a very attractive dog.
Very handsome.
I had started them an Instagram page and he was the only one that would not sit and take
the pictures or do anything that I need.
He was the only one that was not listening.
Or he'll take a picture and the moment you snap the camera, he'll turn his head.
He would.
Like, oh purpose, like nope.
Because our dogs, they would wear costumes and they'll have on little wigs and they'll
be good.
I'll get about a good 10 minutes out of each of them.
So I had to work real quick but Tracker?
I couldn't even get a good 30 seconds out of that one.
So I was like, you know what, maybe I need to take him to obedience school so he can
learn how to sit, come and all that stuff.
Do you not realize homeboy flunked out of obedience school?
He went to all six sessions and we get to the last day when they're having the little
graduation promotion ceremony and talking about, okay, we'll see you next, at the next
session you're in level two.
She comes to me, Mrs. Sellers, I think we might need to have Tracker repeat the course.
And I'm looking like, are you flipping kidding me?
This dog failed obedience school.
And didn't miss a class.
No, he was there on time every session.
And the killer part about it, when the trainer would try to show a skill and she was like,
oh, well let me see if I can get him.
Tracker would do it on the first time for her, but me?
And I took him one time and she asked me to do these things with Tracker and he did them.
I'm like, my wife said he won't do this.
Well, maybe he works harder for you.
I don't know, but he won't do it when he's with her.
And I thought it was strange.
At one point in time she would say, sit, and he would stand up.
It was always like he was doing the opposite of what she was saying on purpose.
I'm like, this dude is doing it on purpose.
He is.
I was like, dude, sit.
And he looked at me and he sat down.
But she would come over and say, he'll stand up.
I'm like, he's doing this on purpose.
He's being a real jerk right about now.
That was intentional on his part.
And then his littermate that we brought home, Chase, Chase is a pleaser.
Yes.
Chase loves hugs.
He loves to hug you.
And of course he loves to run a rabbit.
Oh, that dog can run a rabbit.
He's amazing.
And then also, if you want to look up unconditional love, that's Chase.
You can be mad at Chase.
You can yell at Chase.
You can do, you can, I hate to say, what's the word I'm looking for?
Not punish, but say, hey, don't do that.
And he'll give you those sad eyes.
And I'm sorry.
I just want to please you.
Yes.
Because our dogs, for the most part, we let them stay outside and they run and do beagle
things, but every night we'll bring them in.
And it's a whole thing.
They all sleep in the room with us, et cetera, et cetera.
But sometimes we have to split them up at night.
And we always split them up two, two by two, right?
And Chase, because he's so...
Lovable.
Lovable and compliant, listens.
He's always one of the ones that gets put out to go to the other room.
Go with London Rose.
Because he listens.
And the other ones, he goes right away.
You can see it on his face.
He does not want to go sleep with our daughter.
He does not.
But because we said do it, he'll get up and go, but he'll be looking sad the whole time.
And not only would he get up and go, he will run in there because he knows that's what
he's supposed to do.
Right.
Now we always pair him with...
Ranger.
Another one, Ranger.
And we got to go hunt that little thing down.
He's under the bed.
He's in a different room.
He runs downstairs.
We got to carry him into the room.
Because the dogs don't always want to go in a room with our daughter.
I don't know what goes on in that room, but it's like...
You can see it on their face.
They be like, no.
No.
Don't split up the pack.
We don't want to go.
We'll be good tonight.
We won't be under the bed all night coughing and stuff.
We won't.
But we want to talk about our bunny, Dr. Speedy Hops.
That is his name.
We call him Speedy for short.
I just still don't know how you came up with that name, Dr. Speedy Hops.
I don't know.
I just had it in my head that I already knew he was going to wear clothes.
I just knew.
And I just picture him with the spectacles on, little bunny spectacles.
And I have yet to get these spectacles.
He's been with us four years now.
No, you put clothing on him.
He chews them up.
He doesn't chew up his clothes.
He just...
He chewed up his leash.
You know, I don't know.
He chewed up his leash.
You know, I try to teach him how to walk on the leash and he chewed his way out of it.
That's my fault because I left him in it too long and I walked away.
I should have been monitoring him.
And he tried to escape.
But he has Mickey Mouse ears.
He has Christmas sweaters.
He has a business...
Bow tie.
It's a dress shirt with a vest.
He's an elegant bunny rabbit.
Well, it's a half vest.
But you get...
He looks so cute in it.
He has a farmer's hat.
He has a top hat.
He has his own backpack to travel in.
He has his own bubble backpack.
Where'd you find that?
Amazon.
Was that for the cat or you bought it from him?
It was for the cat.
Okay.
So it got converted to a bunny carrier.
Yep.
The cat don't want to be in it.
No, the cat does not want to be in it.
But owning a cat has been an eye-opening experience.
You kind of learn the body language of the rabbit.
So when he's honking, honking is a sign of love.
Oh, they love you.
And then also, I'll never forget one day he's just running circles around me.
I'm like, what is wrong with this rabbit?
He just kept running circles, kept running circles.
I thought he was exercising, but that's a sign of affection as well.
So when a rabbit circles your body, like runs around your feet, like ring around the rosies,
that's a sign that they love you.
Yeah, sign of affection.
I don't know because I've actually experienced Speedy running around my feet one minute and
two minutes later, he's biting my finger.
I don't know what that's about.
He likes the way you taste.
He's a vampire bunny rabbit.
He's always drawing blood.
I'm like, come on, man.
I'm the one that go to the store and buy all of your snack donuts.
What are we doing?
Snack donuts.
Yeah, yeah.
He's just fickle like that.
He's a fickle rabbit.
And then sometimes you'll pay attention.
We call it his sexy pose.
This is when he lays like he's modeling for Playboy or something.
He stretches out.
It's like when a rabbit lays out long and their legs are to the side.
His sexy pose.
That means he's relaxed.
He's comfortable in his environment.
He doesn't feel stressed.
He feels safe.
And then there are times when he's in this ball.
And for some reason, that means he's uncomfortable.
He doesn't want to be bothered.
And then, I didn't know this until we owned a rabbit.
Rabbits growl.
It's not a real loud growl like a dog.
That means leave me alone.
I don't feel like being bothered right now.
And I think he bit me a couple of times.
He warned me.
He gave me the growl.
And I still reached in and boom, he bit me.
Because he didn't want to be bothered.
But you know, in Speedy's defense, for the first couple of years of his life, and I feel
really bad about this, is that he wasn't really part, part of the family.
So what I mean was he spent most of the time kind of isolated.
He was in his own.
He has a rather large pen.
But his pen is like in a corner in the basement.
And we would only let him out to run like once a day.
In breakfast time, he would run upstairs to get his food.
We were afraid he would chew the house down.
Yeah, because he was chewing.
But that was because we didn't know what we were doing.
So after I joined a couple of bunny groups on Facebook, I learned that rabbits can be
trained just like a dog.
And I was like, why is my rabbit not behaving like this?
I can't leave my rabbit out all day.
Because he chewed up all four of our chairs in our kitchen.
So if you come over and sit on our chairs, you might crash.
He done chewed the legs up.
He done chewed, like we painted in certain rooms so that we hadn't put the socket plates
back on.
He done chewed the wall.
And I'm like, I don't know what to do.
And then on top of that, because Derek bought him to train the dogs how to hunt him, a couple
of times our dogs not necessarily attacked him.
Because if they had a full blown attack speed, he would have been dead.
But they did run him.
And running was chasing them.
And lick him to death or nose him to death.
Just imagine being this little small thing and you got all these noses pushing on you.
It's scary.
So that happened for a couple of years.
But then recently, in the past four or five months, I decided, hey, I'm going to watch
the videos.
I want to learn how to be a better bunny mom.
And now Speedy free roams.
He free roams our house.
Now granted, he only has access to a couple of rooms without us being in it.
Because we have bunny proof those rooms.
So you'll walk in our house and we'll have socks on all the legs of the tables and all
the chairs.
He loves to chew no matter what.
Yeah, but now that I know that I've given him other things to chew on, like our daughters
in Taekwondo, she has the wood.
You know when they break wood with their fists and stuff, we save those pieces and we bring
them home for the rabbit to chew on.
And he has to chew because his teeth are always growing.
Yes.
Didn't know that.
Fun fact.
So rabbits have to run.
They have to run for their digestion.
So them being in a cage all day is not good for them.
It's unhealthy.
And their teeth will grow until the day that they die.
So they have to chew to keep their teeth down.
Because if their teeth get too long, they could die from that as well.
Right.
And then also they need to claw and scratch on things because that's how they keep their
nails short.
Yep.
So yeah.
Everything's done for a reason.
Yeah.
And so Speedy now, like I said, you could train him like a dog.
Speedy knows his name.
We have these little snacks that we get at Walmart.
They look like little cookies.
They're frosted.
Look, they look like cookies so much.
They're called donuts.
They're bunny donuts.
They're called donuts.
And I keep them safe in a nice little candy jar.
And they sit.
On the table.
Well, they sit on, yeah, they sit on the table.
They're on display.
Next to the cake dish.
Anyway, Derek thought that they were cookies.
He ate one.
I didn't pay attention.
I was like, oh, we got some new snacks.
He said, baby, these don't taste very good.
And I looked at him like, are you serious right now?
I said, yeah, it tastes like cardboard or something.
And I was like, look at this.
I'm like, what?
You don't recognize those?
Those are Speedy's donuts.
I was hungry.
I needed a snack.
He ate the rabbit's donuts.
I was like, why did you put these here?
They're usually in the bag on the counter.
You just put them in that dish.
I'm like, oh, we got some new snacks.
No, but the thing is I love to decorate.
And I was doing something new in the kitchen.
I had his little treats on display.
But let me tell you guys, that rabbit, you can say, hey, Speedy, you want a donut?
And wherever he is, he'll come and run it.
So a couple of times, he'll get away from us.
And we don't know where he's going.
What room is this little thing in?
What is he hiding under?
And we'll call him.
He can't hear us.
But the moment he either hear the bag or hear the clanking of the candy dish now or hear
us say, Speedy, donuts, come get donuts.
He comes and runs.
Are you hearing his little feet on the wood floors?
He's coming and running.
He's coming and running from the little donuts.
I don't know what Walmart put in them things, but they are so delicious to him.
We call them rabbit crackers.
Yep.
That and carrots.
You say, Speedy, you want a carrot?
He'll come running for those too.
Yep.
So we have, we've introduced Chasen, Tracker, and then the bunny.
We put in an order how they arrive to the house.
So the next, we have Ranger and Scout.
Once again, my dad breeds Nancy.
He doesn't want any more dogs, but he's still breeding the dogs.
Like, what are you doing, dude?
Stop.
And this time, Nancy has a litter of eight as well.
You have four Tracos, which is black, white, and tan.
Then you had four black and tan.
Crazy.
Crazy how nature works.
So they were born on August 9th of 2020.
Remember Chasen, Tracker were born August 10th of 2019.
So for one day out the year, they're all the same age, which is pretty cool.
Pretty cool.
And they're all brothers.
People don't realize that.
Yeah, they're all brothers.
Just different litters.
Because Scout is the only tricolored male that we have.
And then Ranger is the only black and tan.
Black and tan from that litter we kept.
And about that litter, we brought home two of their sisters who were both black and tan.
They were beautiful.
Yes.
McCollum meets some guy at PetSmart talking about beagles.
I think you might have Tracker up there that day.
Yeah, when I tell you guys, Tracker is beautiful.
We get stopped about Tracker all the time.
He's a beautiful beagle.
If you Google a beagle on the internet, you will see Tracker except his body is all brown
and black.
So black and tan.
And his brown is like not even a...
It's like a coppery...
I can't describe his brown, but because their dad is copper.
He's like he's all...
He looks like a penny.
If you ever see a beagle that is the color of a penny through and through, that's their
dad.
I don't know what kind of genetic anomaly it happens.
That's why we got him, because he didn't match his siblings.
Yeah, but he's beautiful though.
He's like the most beautiful beagle I've ever seen.
He has a genetic defect, and the guy didn't like it.
Some people like all their dogs that look the same.
And I thought it was ridiculous.
What?
At first, we wanted all the black and tans, but then when we saw Scout, Scout was the only
tricolor male of his litter, and we just couldn't let him go like that.
So we brought him home.
He's a handsome dog too.
So once again, we let London Rose name these two.
Oh boy.
Ranger and Scout.
Good names.
I think they fit.
So Scout, Scout is like a genius dog.
He's a tricolor.
He's a genius dog.
This dog can open doors.
He can open his own pen.
None of the other dogs can do it.
He can open his own pen.
I've witnessed this on several occasions where he lifts the latch and slides it over.
I'm like, what are you doing?
Because he watches.
He does.
He watches what you're doing, and he's like, hmm, I think I can do that.
There are some things that I don't do in front of him because he'll figure it out.
Yeah.
I told you I caught him bird watching for like 10 minutes.
He didn't move.
Yeah, because I watched him for literally about 10 minutes.
And I'd be gosh darn it if that night he didn't come bring a bird to us.
Yeah.
Yeah, he's a supreme predator.
He brings birds, bats.
I'm like, come on, dude.
And he's the most vocal of the four.
So when the other dogs are doing something they shouldn't be doing, we'll hear a howling
and that's Scout saying, hey, they're doing something they shouldn't be doing.
He's a tattletale.
He'd be snitching.
He is the snitch.
He'd be snitching.
And he's a greedy little dog too.
And then we have Ranger.
Ranger was the runt of the litter.
He was.
He was really tiny as a pup.
And he came to us cut up like he had a slice in his paw on his arm.
Yeah, I think that's where his older and bigger siblings kind of pushed him around and he
got hurt somehow.
Yeah.
And now he's the largest of the four.
And he's the bully.
And this little dude holds a grudge.
When he doesn't like something and you do something against him, he holds a grudge for
a couple of weeks.
I'm like, I didn't know dogs held grudges.
This dude would hold a grudge.
But most of the time he's nonchalant.
But when you do something to upset him, offend him, he's going to hold a grudge.
He's not going to let it go either.
How we find out is when they all come in the house for bedtime, whoever dog he's beefing
with, he won't let them in the room.
He's blocking their bed.
He won't let them.
He'll stand in front of me.
They can't get no hugs, no love, no pets.
Or he'll come get in the bed with them to force them out.
It's a whole thing.
I'm like, my goodness.
Unlike their brothers, unlike Chase and Tracker, I sent them to rabbit school.
Oh yeah.
Yeah, you remember that?
Yeah.
So they went to rabbit school for a week.
So they didn't have to train with Dr. Speedy Hobbs.
They should have.
I sent them to rabbit school where they train with other young beagles to track rabbits.
Explain how that was.
So I found this guy's phone number from a fellow rabbit hunter.
He said, hey, this guy has a starter pen.
So a starter pen is where you put young beagles to train to track rabbits.
I said, great.
So I called him up and he said, well, I can't get them this week.
I can get them at, I think it was the end of March.
So what happens, he has this massive pen, I think it's maybe two or three acres where
he stocks wild rabbits in.
And there were Scout, Ranger, and like three other young beagles.
And all day long, they just learn how to track rabbits.
So what he does, he puts an older dog in there during the day that can start the chase, the
hunt, and the beagle pups fall in line.
They learn how to track that way.
And I dropped them off on like a Monday.
He called me like on a Wednesday and said, hey, they're ready.
So if your dog doesn't have it in them, when you put them in a starter pen, they won't
get it.
So he's like, yeah, this is pretty quick.
It usually takes a little while longer.
But I could have called you on Tuesday.
They were ready.
Yeah.
And the beagles, the dogs, look, I want to call them my babies, my babies.
I went to go pick them up with Derrick and it was just, I felt like I was picking up
my child from sleepaway camp.
Because we went into the pen to get them.
Our two ran to us for loves and cuddles.
And then these other dogs came out of nowhere wanting loves and cuddles.
Yeah, loving cuddles too.
Hey.
And then our two licks us and they run off and keep chasing this rabbit.
So we couldn't leave right away.
But by the time we got them in the car, they slept like all day.
And I had to ask Derrick, like they don't go to sleep.
It's like, no, they run rabbits all day.
And I said they slept outside?
Yeah.
You mean a coyote or something?
Could have got my dog?
No, couldn't have got it.
No.
But yeah, because they have it in them, they're going to run all day, all night.
You would literally have to go out there and put them up.
But since they're in the environment where they can just go whenever they want, if you
have an older dog out there, their older dog is going to hunt all night too.
So they're not going to sleep until you put them in a pen or something.
Because they want to hunt.
It's in their DNA.
So yeah, they probably didn't sleep for those three days they were out there.
I want to talk about their sisters, their beautiful sisters.
I'm so angry.
I met this guy, PetSmart, because he saw Tracker.
And he's like, oh, it's a beautiful dog.
Blah, blah, blah, blah.
I was like, yeah, my father-in-law just had some more.
And he was like, how much can I get him?
I was like, well, I think you can have him.
And Derek goes to Memphis and brings all the beagles back and the two girls.
When I tell y'all, they were so beautiful.
The shapes of their eyes, their snouts, they were beautiful dogs.
And this man gets the dogs for free, charge him nothing.
All Derek wanted to do was just hunt with them from time to time.
And the guy was like, oh, yeah, I'll let you know.
Do you not realize this guy ghosted us?
I called him two days after he did answer, but he didn't speak to us ever since.
Ever since.
So he ghosted us for real.
Yep.
I was like, look at this.
Because we wanted to know, you know.
I wanted to keep track of him.
I wanted to see them progress.
You know what I'm saying?
I wish I would have given him to my cousin now.
I didn't know anything about a cousin.
No.
And he blames me.
And I was like, well.
I don't blame you.
Well, had I known about a cousin, that would have been a no-brainer.
A no-brainer.
You give him to your cousin.
I don't blame you.
My cousin wasn't ready at the time.
He was about to get married, still living in an apartment, and didn't have a home for
him.
Because we didn't mind keeping them for a little while long.
We didn't want them to go.
Right.
So I would have been more than happy to keep them.
But from there, we got the cat.
The cat that showed up one day while I was at work.
Yeah.
And the reason why that happened is one day, I was waiting to pick up the youngest from
swim practice.
And in our neighborhood, they have this Facebook group thing.
And someone posted about a cat was abandoned at the park.
It was left in this little travel cage, locked in there.
Awful.
I don't know why.
Like I said, I never have a desire to get a cat.
And I don't know what it was.
And I showed London Rose, and I was like, you know, this was awful.
She's like, oh, Mom, we got to go get that cat.
Yeah.
And I was like, well, we can't have a cat.
We have four dogs.
And a rabbit.
And we have speedies.
It's not going to work out.
She's like, well, Mom, we can't let the cat just sit there overnight.
She was right.
And so we went to go pick, you know, see if the cat was there.
And we saw the pen, but the pen was wide open.
We didn't see a cat.
And then she's like, well, Mom, let me get out and go look.
And she went, walked around a little bit, and the cat was with some of the kids at the
park.
Right.
And, you know, and I asked them, I said, hey, are you guys going to take it?
No, we're just going to play with it for right now.
And I was like, well.
And the crazy part where the park is, there's so many houses around there.
I'm like, nobody thought to take this cat?
No, no.
And it's like woods, woods on one side and the houses in other places.
So I said, you know what, let me just get this cat because it's not safe for them to
be out here.
It's inhumane.
And the cat was clearly like, you know, sad and thin and, you know, and I got the cat
home and his, his pen was full of poop, just from the, from the big, the front to the back,
just full of old, dry poop.
And I cleaned out his pen.
I tried to wipe him off his, I bought some of those little kitty wipes to clean him up
because he had dry poop on him and stuff and then I put him in, you know, in one of the,
one of our dog's pens with my next door neighbor had a cat.
He gave me some food, you know, to get him through the night.
And I posted on our neighborhood chat that, hey, I have the cat.
I'm going to take him to the pound tomorrow.
The Humane Society.
And I got DMs.
Yeah, you get all these people saying, hey, I'll take the cat.
I got DMs.
One lady was like, my friend runs the Humane Society.
They said don't bring the cat because they don't have room for black cats.
They don't get adopted.
So I was like, okay, well there's my plan.
Then I had another person describe your cat because my friend's son is missing his cat
and I need to know, I was like, ooh, maybe this is, you know, ended up not being the
same cat.
But then when you think about it, that cat's not missing because someone put that cat there.
Yeah, somebody put him there.
And then I have one person who, you know, decided to take the cat.
She said, I'll take the cat, but I can't get the cat for two days.
So I'm like, okay, okay, well I can look after him for two days.
So I done went and bought the cat's kitty litter.
I done bought the little pan for the litter to go in.
You went all out.
I spent a grip just for his two nights stay.
And, you know, and I love pictures.
I took all these beautiful pictures of him because it was Halloween.
He's all on my pumpkins looking like a familiar, you know, familiar, is it a familiar, right?
And then so I'm sitting here two days later.
I was like, hey, the cat's ready for you to come one more time.
Where you at, lady?
Oh, I'm so sorry.
I have COVID.
And I was like, what?
And you know what I said?
Okay, we just leave him on the porch and you just reach out and get him when you come downstairs
or whatever.
And I was like, okay.
That's no excuse.
So we ended up keeping him for that two week span and we ended up falling in love with
him.
And what's so crazy?
We named him Sylvester.
Well, Derek didn't like him, but he was because after that first night, I only let him sleep
outside that one night.
And then after that, he's been in the house ever since.
And I learned that he's a really clean cat.
Cats are clean.
He is the only animal that has never had an accident in the house.
And he's very particular.
I get side-eyed if I haven't cleaned out his litter box.
He's looking at me like, yo, woman, I don't touch something in here.
What's your problem?
Where your scoop?
Get this out so I can keep scooping around here.
I don't want to touch nothing.
That's when he meows really loud at you.
Yeah, he'll meow.
He yells at me.
He yells his commands.
I'm like, mondeur.
And it got me thinking, I tell Derek all the time, he's a clean cat.
He must have been miserable in that pen when we picked him up.
Because he wouldn't go back in.
It was probably torture to him.
He would not go back in that pen.
I've only seen him enter that pen once because now we use it for the rabbit.
There's blankets in there.
He didn't want to go into the pen even when you took him to the vet.
Yes.
Because that pen was torturing him.
He was traumatizing that pen.
I called him once, curious about the pen.
I see the rabbit laying in here and it doesn't stink.
He looked inquisitively and walked in.
He didn't stay long.
He laid down for a little bit and he came back out like, nah.
I remember this place.
Nope.
So.
But yeah, he's sly for sure.
He looks, he's a classic tuxedo cat.
He's a black cat and you named him Sylvester.
I named him Sylvester.
Because of Sylvester from Looney Tunes?
Yes.
He should have been called, I wish I would have had a chance to name him, T'Challa, the
black panther.
His full name is Sylvester Shade.
Oh Lord.
And we spell Sylvester as like he comes from Transylvania.
It's like T-R-E, the end, Sylvester.
But what's crazy, I do kind of think I manifested Sylvester because it was during Halloween
time.
You were talking about a cat.
And we had been talking about black cats and I had put a portrait of a black cat dressed
in a dress in our dining room, like a Victorian black cat.
And then I started making this black cat.
A black cat.
A Halloween basket, right?
A bucket, a candy bucket.
And I was literally making that when we brought him home.
And I was like, did I manifest this cat?
And now I can't imagine living without him because he's very intelligent as well.
It's funny, you know, I was singing the song when you met your basket.
Black cat, black cat, whoa.
Then all of a sudden the black cat pops up at my house.
I'm like, what are we doing?
I was out of town, right, for work and I come home like, whose cat is that?
And Derrick always talking about getting rid of this cat, getting rid of this cat.
And little do you know, the cat liked to sleep with Derrick at night.
He's always in Derrick's arms.
Oh, I have a ton of blackmail pictures of Derrick and this cat, the Derrick licking
Derrick on the lips, nose, cheeks, chin.
This cat has sexually harassed me ever since he's been in my house.
I don't like it.
Derrick love that cat and that cat loves him.
I do like that cat.
I ain't gonna say I love him.
I like him a lot, a lot.
So that's our, what you call them, fur babies in a nutshell.
Yes.
Four beagles, a rabbit, and a cat.
My only regret is that we gave the female puppies to that guy Pet Smart.
That's my only regret.
That's it.
Because I find myself thinking about them often.
I cannot stop thinking about them.
I don't know why.
I regret that too.
And also with Dr. Speedy Hopps, I kind of have a regret.
We should have been training him when he first got there.
Yes.
But we didn't know that you could train a rabbit.
Yes.
I feel-
I just thought rabbits were stupid, but they're not.
I feel really bad because he had a crappy first couple of years of his life.
If you think about it, he was okay.
We thought we were doing good.
He had clean food, water.
He had plenty of space to roam.
Plenty of space to roam.
But he was not free roaming.
And then rabbits are, they like to be in groups.
So we kept him out of the family group.
But now he's part of the family.
And now he's with us.
And I love to see his interests.
When he's tired of being, he'll go to the kitchen to get his food.
And he'll lay next- we have a water fountain that constantly runs for the animals.
Because this is the thing about cats, running water.
And he'll lay next to, we call it the watering hole.
The watering hole.
So he lays next to the watering hole.
And when he gets tired of there, and we can't find him, nine times out of ten, he has ran
upstairs to the classroom.
Ran upstairs to the classroom.
Yep.
And he'll lay in the classroom.
Just chill.
In front of the whiteboard.
Because there's another food tray thing there.
He'll lay by that.
And if he's not in the classroom, he's somewhere harassing the cat.
Yeah.
He has a couch.
He'll lounge on his couch.
Yep.
And it's just interesting to see- He lounges on the couch, but the dogs want
to take it sometimes.
Yeah.
And mind you, the couch is for a rabbit.
Rabbit.
And we got these big old beagles that squeeze their whole little body.
So they don't push the arms down to the side.
Everything's leaning over.
And then we get them a couch.
They don't even want to be on the couch.
Nope.
I'm like, what's wrong with y'all?
Nope.
They do.
They have their own couch.
In our bedroom, they have a nice one, too.
Yeah, a nice couch.
And they won't even sit on it.
You know what we forgot to mention?
What?
Ranger is- Oh.
Oh, how they look alike.
Okay.
So you know we have three black and tan, and we have the one tricolor, but they're faces.
Okay.
So Chase, he's from the first litter.
He looks like our tricolor beagle, Scout.
They have the same exact faces.
And Ranger, the runt from the second litter, and Tracker, the one that don't listen, they
have the same face.
So Ranger is quite attractive as well.
And there was a time, our youngest, Axe, and she did an audition with Tracker.
And she booked the job.
And then they were like, hey, we want to book your dog, too.
And we're like, yay.
Right.
But it just so happens that was during the time where Tracker had gotten into something.
He was losing fur.
Yes.
We didn't know what the heck was going on.
He still got his fungus on his face.
We were like, what is this?
And so we did a quick switch of rules, and we hired Rank.
We just took Ranger.
So Ranger had to go in for a fit in.
He had his own dressing room.
Because it was out of town.
The booking was in Nashville.
And then we had to leave and come back.
So Ranger is now going on trips with us.
And that changed his bond with us.
He formed a really tight bond with me in particular.
Because now I'm his person.
But let me tell y'all, he booked this job.
It was a U-Break I Fix, a Shurion commercial, which is actually showing in stores now.
Because we had a friend.
And mind you, they booked this back in 2021.
And we just saw it last week, 2024, July.
We were asking, hey, where can we see this commercial?
We wouldn't get a response.
No response.
And we're talking about years looking.
We're looking online.
We're talking about 2021.
Now it's 2024.
And we're looking on social media.
And it just so happens one of our friends said, hey, I saw your baby in this commercial.
And I was like, you did, girl?
What was it?
She described the commercial.
I was like, hold up.
We've been looking for that one.
I was like, where did you see it?
She was like, Tampa, Florida.
I'm like, Tampa, Florida.
I was in a U-Break I Fix store.
Right.
Getting my phone fixed.
I was like, that's not only our child.
That's our dog in that commercial.
And I was like, that's our dog.
That's Ranger.
And we did that commercial.
It was a whole thing.
They had to have a special person there working with him to make sure they were giving him
proper breaks.
I mean, it was a lot.
And we were on set by a good six hours.
And I be, gosh darn it.
Commercial is 19 seconds.
And the commercial, 19 seconds.
And you only see him for like two seconds.
And then you see his backside.
I was dying laughing when I saw that.
I was like, man, we were there for six, seven hours.
We get a 19 second commercial.
And so that was Ranger's first ever commercial.
And so lo and behold, I get a phone call from the agent.
Hey, I have this company, you know, this.
And they want to book your dog.
I'm like, oh, which one?
I got four.
Oh, we want this one.
Ranger.
Because, you know, he did the other commercial.
They knew he can perform on set.
So this was for Moxie Hotels.
And that was last year.
Yep.
Still haven't seen that.
And we still have not seen that commercial.
And I'm like, oh, man, I want to see it.
Because that commercial, he was the star.
You know what?
Now that I think about it, we have two actors in our house.
Ranger and London Rose.
We do.
Yeah.
We do.
Just dawned on me.
Yes.
Ranger and, yeah, you're right.
Ranger and London Rose.
So if you happen to see a black and tan beagle running through a Moxie Hotel, please let
me know.
That's Ranger.
That's our baby.
We want to see the commercial.
Save it for us.
Take screenshots.
We want to see screenshots.
Videos.
Send it our way, please.
Exactly.
Well, thank you, folks.
We'll talk to y'all next time.
If you made it this far, you are the true champion.
You could have been anywhere, doing anything, but you instead chose to spend your time with
us.
And for that, we say thank you.
I'm Derek.
I'm Akilah.
Rate, like and subscribe.
Do good, be good.
Until next time.