Dog Talk ® (and Kitties Too!)

#932B: Harry Eckman, internationally known animal welfare advocate, discusses population control of dogs and acts worldwide to protect them and the people they live amongst.

#931A: Annie Phenix (author of Positive Training for Reactive & Aggressive Dogs) discusses the horrible phenomenon in England of dogs with the moniker American XL Bully (a “breed’ not recognized as such in the U.S.), a type of dog which is now banned in the UK because of maulings of people by these massive powerful dog.

#931B: Dr. Ernie Ward’s own non-profit — the  Association for Pet Obesity Prevention (APOP) discusses the importance of using non-shaming vocabulary when speaking about overweight pets; and that veterinarians unconsciously have a bias (as do doctors in human medicine) towards patients that “have obesity” — which is a clinical condition requiring medical intervention.

#930A: Brandy Kuentzel talks about her Ease Pet Vet (winner of an Innovation prize at the VMX veterinary conference) a platform that gives pet owners and their own veterinarians access to one of the hard-to-reach Board Certified Veterinary Behaviorist doctors to get a treatment plan for their dog's or cat’s behavior issues. 

#930B: Tanya Guerrero (who now lives on a hillside outside Manila in a home constructed of shipping containers with her husband, their daughter and a clowder of cats) reads from her Brooklyn-based novel “Cat’s People,”  the heroine of which is a stray cat who works to bring disconnected people together.

#929A: NYC cat behaviorist Stephen Quandt (Cat BehaviorHelp.com) talks about how he was part of a delegation many years ago to help manage and study the 1,000 dogs left behind when the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded in 1986. What has become of them? 

#929B: Suzanne Rogers, co-director of the non-profit Human Behaviour Change for Animals, talks about the book she edited: "Canine Behaviour in Mind: Applying Behavioural Science to Our Lives with Dogs.” 

#928A: Federico Rossano — Associate Professor of Cognitive Science at UCSD — conducted an international study of people using the "buttons" to communicate with their dogs — and took a lot of professional flak for doing the study, and the conclusion that the dogs do seem to be "saying" something, despite Tracie's unwavering skepticism about the whole concept!

#928B: Fred Levy wrote and took the photos for his book “Black Dogs - Stories of Love and Friendship,” because of the “black dog syndrome” at shelters — where they get overlooked and euthanized at a higher rate — and explains why it is hard to photograph a black dog.

#927A: Cara Giaimo discusses her book “Atlas Obscura: Wild Life: An Explorer's Guide to the World’s Living Wonders” and how she managed to collect such a cornucopia of information and beautiful images about flora and fauna around the world.

#926B: Emma Grigg — who is an Assistant Professor at the University of Arizona, focused on Companion Animal Behavior and Comparative Biomedical Sciences — discusses her book “The Science Behind a Happy Dog.”

#926A: Kristyn Vitale (of www.maueyes.com, Cat Behavior, Science & Training) has been studying cat sociability — how much is influenced by how social the humans are towards the cats?

#926B: Adam Spencer explains how www. Furlanthropy.org is the first not-for-profit platform for crowd funding to help with veterinary costs, eliminating fake appeals, making sure it is a legitimate fundraiser so the money raised goes directly to the vet, and providing charitable tax receipts for donors.  

#925A: Shelley Fraser Mickle's memoir “Itching to Love” explores why she and her dog developed such a deep bond.

#925B: Elinor Karlsson (who holds the Chair in Biomedical Research Genomics and Computational Biology at University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School and is Director of Vertebrate Genomics at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT) talks about her big "citizen science" project called Darwin’s Dogs — with Darwin's Cats soon to follow.

#924A: Annie Phenix, author of “Positive Training for Aggressive and Reactive Dogs” discusses dangerous dogs bred for aggression, who are then encouraged on that path by dangerous owners, like the college professor who wrote a book unapologetically describing how he used his students to practice his obedience skills with his vicious German Shepherd who wanted to “attack to kill.”

#924B: Michael Schneider founded and flies the plane for Pilots to the Rescue, flying dogs and cats to new homes, along with social media influencers onboard to keep “telling the story” because keeping a nonprofit financially healthy depends on engaging with an audience — “Sell the sizzle, not the steak” as his father taught him and he hopes shelters will do.

#923A: Marc Bekoff talks about the many ways dogs can use tools to achieve their goals, not unlike chimpanzees studied by his colleague, Jane Goodall, and described under “tool behavior” in his book “Dogs Demystified: An A to Z Guide to All Things Canine.” 

#923B: Cara Achterberg started a non-profit called “Who Will Let the Dogs Out” and has written a book of that title about the challenges facing animal shelters in the South, with innovative solutions to solve the geographic challenges around unwanted dogs.

#922A: Sarah Gentry’s German Shepherd “Besa” won the ACE Award from the AKC in the “Search & Rescue Dog” category because she is a rare multipurpose search & rescue dog certified in human remains searches both on land and in water, live persons searches through area search and trailing, and is the first dog in the USA to test and receive USPCA Human Scent/Human Trafficking certification.

#922BA: Dr. Christopher Little in Scotland talks about his book “The Dog Care Handbook — Things I Wish My Vet Had Told Me” and how after forty years in practice he hopes people will communicate and collaborate better with their dog’s veterinarian and that his book will help.

#921A: Jessica Pierce — the author of “Who’s a Good Dog? and How to Be a Better Human” and “Run, Spot, Run: The Ethics of Keeping Pets” discusses the need for dog owners to recognize the harm of a “profound level of constraint” and asks “When did ‘crating’ become a verb? And an acceptable way to manage a dog’s life?”

#921B: Jill Dempsey needed a seeing-eye guide dog and a seizure alert dog and got both with her black Standard Poodle Kissable Katie, who has helped her get back out in the world — to the point that Katie also stands by her side at Western reenactments, including the Cowboy Fast Draw competition (that Jill actually won in 2017, despite being nearly blind!) 

#920A: Dr. Treyton Diggs talks about the honor of being the WKC’s Veterinarian of the Year in 2024 and the added privilege now of being the first Westminster Kennel Club Resident Vet, and how he hopes to inspire children — especially children of color — to reach for the stars in their own lives.

#920B: Allison LaField and her Old English Sheepdog Wallace won an AKC ACE award in the “Therapy Dog” category, not just because they volunteer at Brook Army Medical Center and the Natatorium where the military veteran community and amputees swim — but because Wallace jumped in to save Allison’s life when she accidentally fell to the bottom of her own pool at home.