¿Por qué los perros son los mejores amigos del humano?

0:01 The day to day is full of urgent news, noise, polemics and fanfare. But for peace of mind, analysis and what we like to call slow - cooking journalism are my questions, a program of medium haste made by KFAM inspiring smiles, dogs, actors, dogs, guides, dogs, bomb and disease detectors. Dogs have perhaps been the closest animal species to humans for millennia. Today, more than questions, I want to tell you three stories of dogs that have saved lives for this chapter. We spoke with journalist Diego Guauque, dentist Manuel Duque and musician Andrés Jaramillo. I' m Roberto Pombo, and this is chapter eighty- one of my welcome questions. A few weeks ago it was the ceremony of the oscar plenary sessions, the most anticipated awards in the world film industry. As usual, the ceremony generated several headlines and social media discussions. The message of the former president and again candidate for the presidency of the United States, Donald Trump, to the master of ceremonies, Jimmy Kimmel, the appearance of actor John sena nude on stage, the speech of director Jonathan Glazer, in which he called for the cease- fire in Palestine, the musical show with the song of Kennel Barbie character. Anyway,

1:34 it was full of remarkable moments for the pop culture and Batis. What he liked, what he didn' t like, what was right and what wasn ' t. Almost everything is subject to discussion, but one moment that caused widespread joy was the appearance of Messi, not the Argentine footballer but the actor or better, the dog of breed border collit actor who made part of the cast of the French film Anatomy of a fall that and that was or was not nothing five awards And the truth is that he deserved to be there to judge by his role in the film, which is not minor in case you have not seen anatomy of a fall, I tell him briefly and without ruining the story. Messi plays Snoh Daniel' s guide dog, a blind child who, after a walk, finds his father' s body on the floor outside the house. Throughout the film, the real dog acts in a moment he plays dead, but he returns his life in another scene, comforts the protagonist and so the performance Messi does is better than many made by humans and if that night Messi did not win a prize, it is because there is no category of better Canina performance. But where he did win an award for his performance was at the Cannes Festival. It is not a dog festival, but the Cide festival in the city of the French Ribera, where he was awarded the Palm Dog, an alternative award that is awarded to the canines featured in the cinema. He' s not the first dog in the film industry.

3:02 You will remember classic characters like Commissioner Rex, the German pastor who helps solve homicide cases, the olazi police, the acoli of the television series and the films that risk your life to save your masters or owners or family. As you wish, Orrin Tintin, the famous assistant dog of the United States Army, when the war against the Indians. But the dogs have always been there beside the human and I say it without taking my word lightly. It is always estimated that dogs were domesticated about twelve thousand years ago and since then it has been one of the longest evolutionary and symbiotic relationships we know. It is said that it all began when wolf herds moved closer to the camps of humans who left remains of food like bones and benefited more from this than from attacking them. Since then, like every 12- year relationship, things have changed radically to the point where it is now said that the dog is the human' s best friend and makes sense. All these hero dogs that we see in cinema and television are the product of the reality of real cases in which these animals have always been close to each other faithfully, even in sad cases in which love is not reciprocal. So, today I want to tell you three stories of dogs who have saved lives in various ways, moved by love and loyalty to their owners Amos or relatives. When we think of dogs

4:32 that save lives, we almost always come to mind a large one usually of breeds like German shepherd or farmer, athletic dogs that can drag a human out of the reach of a bomb or that stands in the way of a bullet to avoid a gunshot. We resemble them to human heroes, always muscular and with physical powers that exceed those of the average. Rarely do we think that a creature about six inches tall, short legs and stubble like corks can save a life. Martin' s case is one of those exceptions to those unexpected miracles. Dash Hand is the real name of the breed that we know as sausage dogs, a breed of small dogs, short, elongated ducks and large ears and eyes. It was the final months of two thousand twelve in Medellín, when Martin was born in an eight- dog litter. Of course at that time, his name was not yet Martin or any other form of harsh sorrow. She was a tiny, tender creature who spent her first few days in the world looking for one of her mother' s tits, the warm herd, runched in a knot of hair and short paws and sleeping. If you see a picture of that tender puppy about ten centimeters tall, you can ' t imagine that it can save a human' s life by itself.

5:54 Thirty days later, a hand pulled him out of his litter, from that idyllic and pleasant life of puppy ons, Martin who was not Martin yet, almost fit in the palm of anyone' s hand he wore a blue lace, the favorite color of who today owns him, tied on his neck to differentiate him from his brothers, because daily the weight was out of control to verify that they were healthy. The hands that received it were those of Manuela, the woman with whom she would spend the rest of her life. Manuela asked her neighbor, the owner of the litter, if she sold to one of the puppies and how she was the first person to ask that question. She told her neighbor she was giving it to her. Take him to spend the day with you and return him to me later. He told her he was only a month old, she had to give him back so he could still breastfeed. He was too young to take it from his mom or wean it as it is normally said. So, thinking about returning him at night, Manuela took him home. There was her mother, Maria Teresa, who had never liked animals. They had tried to have pets before, but ended up giving them away. But Martin wasn' t an animal, he wasn ' t a pet. Any Martin had given all the signs of being different from his seven brothers and any other dog.“ That is my grandson, ” said Doña Maria Teresa when she saw that little elongated, black- eyed creature come into the house in the hands of her daughter. One would think that tearing him out of that paradise with his mother and litter would make Martin

7:25 cry, make him despair. But it wasn' t like that. On the contrary, it was a kind of love. At first glance, Martin, since I arrived I have had many dogs really in life and since he arrived, the connection was very different. Martin was never the typical puppy that when they come to the house they cry the first nights infinitely because the mother needs it. Or that they are difficult, as if to train or to drive. I didn' t have a connection with Martin too big from the beginning since the first night he arrived. He slept all night next to me, if he didn' t wake up asleep once here. I have to return a little The reason why, at last, Mrs Maria Teresa agreed to have a pet in her house. It wasn' t a mere whim or a sudden change of mind about pets. It happened because Manuela had been diagnosed with dysautonomy, a disease of the nervous system that alters and also alters the heart and respiratory rate, blood pressure, widening or narrowing of the blood vessels and the response to stress. Manuela had been having recurrent faintings because her blood pressure had dropped very much until then she had not passed to adults. As he told me, he passed out just a few minutes later and came back to himself with some discomfort for those days. Doña María, Teresa spent her time between Peru and Colombia, so her daughter spent a lot of time alone and in her condition, that was not desirable. Upon your daughter' s

8:58 request for a masque thing, Doña Maria' s first idea was a fish but we all know that they are not pets that can give much companionship. The fact is that that same night Manuela took Martin back, next to her litter, to her neighbor' s house. Already Manuela knew that once Martin showed up Tara would be welcome in her new home, but the addition was faster than expected. When I told you that he wasn' t the typical dog who stayed, because Martin was crying and began to share with me the raticos. I went and visited him almost every day. He took it away for a while, half a horita, a horita, one day, and Martin was only forty days old. It was too small for this tarlo.

9:39 She told me it' s been a while and I took it to my house. When I owe it to myself at the time, she called me and gave me come for this dog is stuck under the washing machine squealing since you left it here. He doesn' t want to live here anymore and I went for him and I barely carried him. He kept quiet. Then it was that night that it became official that Martin had a new family. And that' s when Martin was finally baptized like this by San Martín de Porres, a Peruvian saint recognized, among other things, for being able to communicate with animals, never had a name been so well put. Several months later, when he was four months old, that little Sanchicha dog named Santo did his miracle. On that day, Doña María Teresa, who is a doctor, was at home and Manuela was in the bathroom of her room when she gave her one of the usual studies for her autonomy, Only this time it was not just a normal fainting, but the pressure so strong that she entered a cardiorespiratory arrest, that is, her heart, interrupted all her activities.

10:41 His breathing stopped. Manuel was on the verge of death. Martin, who was with her, started barking already, but barking from such a small dog and getting lost in the walls and nobody listened to them. Then he ran as fast as four four- inch legs and an elongated, small body allow. He looked for Maria Teresa on the balcony of the house and began barking at her. Of course, she didn' t understand what was going on and she just threw in to ask him to shut up, but Martin didn' t stop. He was forced to bite her pants and take her to the bathroom. Maria Teresa, who is a doctor, found her daughter collapsed on the unconscious floor, took her vital signs and realized that she had no pulse and did not breathe. I would say that luckily he could revive her and bring her back to life, but it was actually because of Martin who knew what was going on and came to his aid. Since then, Manuela must use a pacemaker and Martina is trashed. It' s been twelve years and Martin' s sick and old now, but he keeps taking care of her. He really did He loved company all the time. I feel like when I' m bad at myself, I don' t need him to be next to me. And it' s kind of like feeling safe.

11:56 Sometimes when, before I had the sea capped, I felt like I was going to get connected. That feeling that you lose control of your body and you don' t know what' s going to happen. It' s very hard to handle. Then my tears came out, like when I felt like I was already fainting, and he was just lying down from over my chest and starting to lick my face. So he' s always made me feel that security, that company with him. He' s a very small mud, but still, he' s too brave, he' s too quiet, he' s too strong for how old Martin' s story is. It' s the smallest superhero I' ve ever met and still fascinates me, and it' s believed that dogs can detect disease even before humans know it. In fact, the use and potential of biomedical detection dogs for disease outbreaks has been studied for some time. A study published in the magazine Fronquius in Medicine in two thousand twenty- two concludes, among other things, that, unlike the other traditional tools of detection or diagnosis agrocomillas, biomedical detection dogs are able to locate the target smell to find the infected person, obtain the unique volatiloma signature, that is, that the smell is actively releases or alerts to the slightest sign of a specific biological odor among the wide range of biological noise present in the operating environment. This search function, combined with the ability of biomedical detection dogs to quickly eliminate patients from non- ill areas,

13:31 makes the potential of biomedical detection dogs incomparable in a disease outbreak scenario. I close quotes better said, as well as today, millions of dogs are able to find alert when they feel the smell of drugs and explosives. They can do the same with some diseases. The organization Dogs medical detection dedicated to training dogs for disease detection. In his research of two thousand fourteen he found that his dogs were able to detect small traces around one part per billion, the equivalent of a teaspoon of sugar in two Olympic pools of smell created by different diseases. These dogs are trained to detect diseases such as cancer, neurological diseases such as parkinson, diseases caused by bacteria and malaria. This reminded me of a story that recently became well known and is that of brown, the chocolate farmer, of journalist Diego Wauke. Several years ago, when Diego and Alejandra Rodriguez, his current wife, decided to live together, he told her that he had a daughter of whom he had custody and that he would live with them and she that had a son, dog, a chocolate farmer named Brown. So they formed a family of four, but Marro didn' t want much anymore. I met him when Arrosito was four, an absolutely spectacular dog. I knew him obviously when we were boyfriends with Aleja and he came to me because obviously he already lived in the apartment. And so the amount

15:03 of memories and adventures, because it is incomparable. It was the first time Diego was going to live with a dog, and not because he didn' t want to, but because, although he always wanted one as a child, his parents never gave him the desire to have a dog. However, the relationship at first was careful and he had to earn it. So the relationship with Brown was the best. Anyone who likes dogs. If you have had one, you will feel identified how to walk, favorite food toys and cear places to make the body. All these intimate details of the animal become part of one' s life. For example, from Brown, it can be said that he was a farmer who liked bread very much and even if he was forbidden to go to bed, it was sometimes impossible to resist his gaze and let him sleep with them. Even at his eleven and a half years old, Brown didn' t grow up. He always looked like a child dying to run in the park, until a veterinarian detected a tumor in his belly and due to his advanced age. Operating it had a very high risk. A veterinarian made a comment that did not like much in the family to Brown Comillas bro. You must be sucking bad energy here, something bad Locking Comillas. Despite being ill, Brown did not give in to the terany of the years and remained as active as he could. Diego and Alejandra tried to make him understand that now life could not be the same as it had to lighten his pace. Then his diet and habits changed, but in his

16:36 case the disease was relentless, until he simply one day did not want to get up and did not want to eat. One day he didn' t want to eat that for me that was a very sad sign, because he was an absolutely gluttonous dog and he didn' t even want to eat for example, the bread he loved. We were forbidden to do so, but in the end we told him to grind bread, to grind the things he wants. I didn' t eat bread, I didn' t want to eat meat, I didn' t want to eat chicken. I mean, in a dog that says no, he turns his five away. I was saying it shouldn' t be hurting him enough to get him out on the street. I was playing the tsarlo. He loved being in the park and those last days of it he went out on the street and he was a little bit quiet and boom fell flat. It was my turn to pick him up. We put him in the elevator. It wasn' t very sad and we knew that he was suffering and especially because he was rejecting the food.

17:22 That' s what I said, Cimarrón rejects food. It' s because it probably hurts so much. The disease contrasts more vital things that seem no longer to be them. That day they knew that all that was left was pain and that it was better to end their suffering. That day, Brown received autanasia. Two years later, several media reported the news that the colleague Caracol channel, Diego Wauke, diagnosed a cancer a zarcoma that affected his pancreas the doubter, the vein on horseback a kidney, was found at a stage of the cancer in which it could still be treated. So on the 24th of May he underwent surgery in which he was removed from the cercoma and then came thirty- four sessions of radiation therapy, a long process when I get cancer too, as we remember the story of Brown, who Brown died of cancer. We found out it was a coincidence that it was also the same place he gave me. So, when we evoked that veterinarian, we said, well, what that veterinarian wanted to tell us was not a bad energy, a dark shadow that was here in the apartment, but really what was going on was that Brown was sucking off a disease suddenly, my illness.

18:36 And now, because we try to interpret it so maybe he, because he sucked some of my illness, did not let it mature. And because she didn' t let her grow up, because my tumor, when it was discovered, was still treatable. I can' t stop thinking about the classic image of the escort that goes between the bullet and its protégé only deferred. If we stick to scientific research, there' s no evidence that Marron has absorbed much of a disease I die had. But there are moments in life when it makes more sense to stick to the mysticism of our relationship with dogs. I know it' s not the same, but there are studies that suggest that dogs have the ability to feel empathy towards humans. An experiment found a connection between empathy and contagious yawning. That phenomenon when someone in a yawny room and that in turn makes you yawn, so the dogs started yawning when a human yawned nearby. Dr Brian Hear, founder of Duke University' s Canine Commission Center, said that canines have learned to bond with us and, to some extent, to read our minds like no other animal can.

19:48 Diego reflects on this in his book Love against Cancer, which he co- wrote with Alejandra Rodríguez, and in which he collects a kind of diary of his sick days. This says a frangin. Today I don' t feel it' s crazy that a pet has the power to do that for its loved ones. So, today, when I close my eyes and pray, I also ask for help in the Perrón sky. We have no way of knowing if Brown really helped make diego cancer less intense. However, Diego his family and many people choose every day to believe in the magical and inexplicable power that dogs have and is that these animals help in mysterious ways, but for a long time, early twentieth century, dogs have also been guides, and I say it in the most literal sense, assistance dogs or Rosarillo, as they are also known, has been one of the ways that these best friends have saved lives or at least have prevented accidents or better, have improved lives.

20:48 Just ask him. Andrés Caramillo, a thirty- nine- year- old musician, told me about his story. For the blind. The acronyms A six of c do not mean before Christ and after Christ, but those letters have a translation if you want deeper, before you are blind and after you are blind. The life made of Andrew was until the 11th of January of two thousand and ten, when by an eye glaucoma he lost his sight. A memory like this is not erased, even if you want. I went blind on January 11, two thousand and ten. I remember it clearly because it was a crucial time for me, a very strong stage where I had to start from scratch, especially that I had very high economic responsibilities, because I was the father of three very small daughters, My youngest daughter had seven days of birth and so, well, I still have a little trouble remembering. However, I thank life, God, of course, the people who have been with me so that I can carry out my life project.

21:52 It' s been a big effort. I' ve made it. I feel calm and among the things I should most appreciate, because it is the unconditional support of my guide dogs. That for me marked life one before and one after. It' s a ovity to say it, but of course, his life changed. One of the dominant senses is sight. We distinguished a known person. When we watch it we spend hours of our lives watching movies and series. The change was drastic, being he, as much of the adults, a person accustomed to solving his day to day independently. As he himself says, the world is made for those who see, so he practically had to learn again many routines we took for granted, but especially one the most difficult to move around the city. If being a pedathon in this city is quite difficult to be a blind pedestrian, it is the double or more, the bikes and cars badly parked, the flying, the aggressiveness of many drivers and the signals made for people who can see make it quite difficult for people like Andrés to walk peacefully. Capacitism was another barrier it encountered, i e it is a form of discrimination or prejudice towards persons with disabilities, in which trained persons are the norm in society and persons with disabilities must adapt to the norm or be excluded from the social system. Capacitist. It was

23:22 a few years after he learned of an association of assistance dogs, that his life changed again yaria gem, a farming bitch and a German shepherd his guides. The link then created between a blind user and his guide dog is absolute. It' s so different from what can happen to another kind of human relationship dog that it' s called binomial. According to Andrew, each dog is different to adapt. That' s the secret, getting to know each other, distinguishing emotions and reactions from each other. Their guide bitches have practically become their shadows and where he is they are in the Usually, the guide dogs are of breeds such as labrador or golden retreater. However,Ária is the only German pastor guide in the country and has been a challenge because it is a more active race that has worked for Andrés, who is an agile guy accustomed to walking fast the system as aria guide Andrés is quite peculiar, but let him explain it to us between that good relationship that there is.

24:27 Then you learn to identify nerves to area. For example, if a dog approaches him, I identify an era in the position he puts himself if suddenly he sees any danger in the change and that we normally carry and is not, for example, right now, they are in a house in a few hours. Then there' s a scaffolding. So his moves already indicate good batteries to me that it' s time to do something different here and we need to get down to the street. Keep an eye on it, then that alerts me. She also knows, as a human being, when I am sad, then either I am distressed or I am not stressed. It gets up to my legs and starts licking me and expressing its affection to me in a very nice dog way. Let' s also say I can perceive her needs. So, if I manage your schedules well done, then I already feel the need to get to the bathroom suddenly with a stomachache or something so that I can present the dog. It' s a way of expressing if you have any need. She comes to me, she starts to smell what mayaria has given her more than a guide to Andres. Already millions of people in the world have allowed him to be autonomous and move on. It ' s definitely a way to save life. Of course my little dogs have changed my life, some aspects have improved, such as independence in travel.

26:06 In this way, they have made support for my good work performance, to have an autonomous mobility and, of course, to take forward my life project, which is music, which is teaching in this way, because they are always present, so they have changed my life in a positive way. The question that gives title to this chapter is why dogs are the best friends of humans. Unlike other chapters, there are no figures, studies, or scientific publications to answer it, but these stories seemed to me the perfect argument to answer it. They are best friends, because it is an age- old friendship, because it has evolved and taught us that loyalty and selfless love exist.

26:57 I don' t want to finish the program without mentioning the hundreds, but thousands of armed forces dogs that each day help us to be safer and somehow save lives with their work. Sometimes I feel like we can do more for them, especially when I see cases of abuse or abandoned dogs on the street. Different institutions, foundations and agencies do what they can in the country. Sometimes, however, it seems insufficient. I wish, like Messi, more dogs could have the recognition and fame for their work, for saving lives like Martin Brown, Gema Aria and many more or at least they could have happier lives. I am Roberto Pombo and this was chapter eighty- one of my questions. See you in the next chapter from now on. This chapter of my questions is available on all podcast platforms. This episode was made possible by Kafam, inspiring Smiles. Dirección Roberto Pombo, Producción General, Juan Abel Gutiérrez, Asesor editorial, Daniel San Pedro Espina, scripts juan Abel Gutiérrez and Johnny Rodríguez. Field production, Marcela Salazar and Lucía Beltrán Audio production Carlos Bernar