The Individual Animal

"Pound." "Stray." "Abandoned." "Problem." "Kill shelter." "Dogs nobody wants." These are not simply words and phrases. They are value judgments we place on dogs and people. Words have meaning and often, they have an impact that is greater than our intent.  Cynthia Bathurst once said "Language reflects habit, not thought," meaning that we often choose terms that are easy, familiar, and comfortable...

In this episode of the Individual Animal, we dive deep into the process of shelter transports. We talk about how to get the process rolling, why it's safer than you might think it is, and why it's good for dogs and people. A few months back, we did an episode of the Individual Animal where we spoke with Chris Bender about his experiences doing shelter transports. The response to that was mixed, wi...

In 2018, My Pit Bull Is Family volunteers called over 300 supposedly dog friendly apartments in the Twin Cities. What they found was that only 12 of them accepted dogs regardless of what they looked like. The reality is that when people surrender their dogs because they've moved, it's not necessarily because they are heartless. It's more than likely because they have nowhere to go that will accept...

For this episode of the Individual Animal, we spoke with Dr. Kelsea Brown from the National Canine Research Council. Kelsea recently relocated to Chicago and what she encountered while looking for housing surprised us. First, she had some rules:   Unless a place specifically said "no pets," she applied, even if it said there were breed restrictions. She had her facts about canine science and behav...

Hi and welcome to the latest episode of the Individual Animal a podcast about dogs, people, and discrimination. Nikki and Regina discuss animal welfare, canine science, discrimination, and other issues facing dogs and people. There's often witty banter and sarcasm, even for the serious subjects - because that's who we are and how we cope. After a brief hiatus, we're back! After some banter, we get...

One of the things that we do at Animal Farm Foundation is to provide the resources to pay for attorney's fees for individuals who are suing their municipality over breed-specific legislation. Right now, in Sioux City, Iowa, there is a lawsuit alleging that the city's breed-specific ban violates their rights to due process and equal protection and that no rational basis exists for the ordinance's e...

We've expanded our grant focus to include more community-based programs that help keeps dogs out of shelters and with their people. We address things like housing/insurance, human shelters that allow dogs of all shapes and sizes, programs fighting discrimination against people with service dogs, innovative foster programs that pair people and dogs in need, etc... In this episode, we interview Mela...

Trish McMillian joins Nikki, Regina, and Bernice to discuss the controversial, sometimes divisive, and always emotional topic of behavioral euthanasia.  Because this is such a heavy topic, we'll forgo a lengthy description here and let the podcast speak for itself.   "Trish McMillian  is a certified professional dog trainer (through CCPDT),  certified dog behavior consultant and associate certifie...

We know lots of people have opinions on transporting dogs from southern states up north, well, Nikki has a lot of opinions too and she shares them on this episode of the Individual Animal. Chris Bender, the former Adoption and Shelter Manager from the Dutchess County SPCA, chimes in with his experiences, as does AFF's Executive Director, Stacey Coleman. There are some organizations that will not t...

We've written on our blog about the mandatory spay/neuter legislation that was proposed in South Carolina. The legislation never came to be, but we felt it was important that we open up a larger conversation about mandatory spay/neuter and how it really isn't an answer to the issues facing communities.  We decided to visit various communities in South Carolina to look at the individual issues they...

We give you a behind the scenes look at a day in the life of a detection dog and what it takes to bring communities together. Officer Dave Contreras talks about his partner K9 Coco and the work they do.  We grant funds to Sector K9, a dog training facility in Texas. Wes Keeling and his team train former shelter dogs as drug and gun detection dogs. Some dogs are work in their general community, but...

Rehoming a pet is a complicated situation and one rarely ever taken lightly. In this episode of the Individual Animal, AFF's Director of Behavior and Training, Bernice Clifford, discusses her personal connection with this issue. One of her dogs, Mowgli has picked several fights with her much smaller, elderly dog. She considered rehoming. We talk about the many reasons people consider rehoming, res...

A few months ago, Scientific American published an article titled, "Your Dog May Not Be A Genius After All." The article went viral on Twitter, with thousands of people having an intense emotional reaction to the headline. Most everyone had a humorous reaction, but the feeling behind it was almost one of betrayal. For this episode of the Individual Animal podcast, Arin Greenwood joins us to discus...

Veterinary geneticist Jessica Hekman joins us for this episode of the Individual Animal to talk about breed traits and how they affect a dog's personality. She answers the question of whether or not they dictate personality (spoiler: they don't). We cover a lot of things in the episode. We talk about the role things like a dog's early environment play in who the dog becomes, the role of responsibl...

We know this is a sensitive and emotional subject for a lot of people, in fact, it was a difficult topic for one of our podcast hosts to deal with, but it's an important one to talk about. What's the problem with saying "pit bull" when we refer to our dogs? For starters, they don't actually exist - at least not in the way the  majority of modern society thinks they do. Janis Bradley , Director of...

We need to get honest about what happens when we demonize free adoptions and holiday shelter promotions due to our desire to protect animals from potential cruelty. We also need to get honest about whether or not these emotional responses to potential cruelty are really based in reality. Author and animal advocate Arin Greenwood joins us as we talk through what's really behind the negativity surro...

In Sioux City, Iowa, officials can take your dog regardless of how well behaved your dog is. In Sioux City, someone can decide your dog is a "pit bull" and take it from you and kill it. And you have no recourse. We not only call that unscientific bullshit, we also call it unconstitutional. We've taken this case to court. This isn't the only time we've worked to end breed-discriminatory laws or pol...

It's that time of year again! TIme for Jingle Paw Rock! Never heard of Jingle Paw Rock? We haven't either. Literally just made it up. We make up a lot of wacko ideas for adoption promotions in this podcast. We even got some inspiration from 1960s/1970s key parties - Yes, we're talking about swingers. Confused and possibly disturbed? Listen to the episode to find out what we mean! We also chat abou...

Dogs are individuals and so are their people. The new book by Ken Foster, City of Dogs,  explores the unique relationship between dozens of New York City dog owners and their best friends.  The stories have heart, but also give us a glimpse of the realities of life in the big city. There's poverty, privilege, loss - but most importantly there is love. We talk with Ken about what it means to build...

Welcome to episode 3 of the Individual Animal, a podcast about animal welfare and discrimination. Today, we talk with Donald Cleary about how social constructs affect how we relate to dogs and in turn, how that affects how we relate to each other. Some of you might be surprised by a few things, including that moral panics about dogs extend beyond dogs labeled "pit bull." Don has an impressive bio,...

Special awareness days for dogs typically targeted by breed-discriminatory policies send the unintended message that there's something different about those dogs. According to canine biology and behavior science, there's nothing different about them. Awareness events served their purpose a long time ago. Nikki and Regina talk about what happens when dog advocacy doesn't evolve with society. FACT C...

The Individual Animal is a podcast about animal welfare and discrimination co-hosted by Nicole Juchem and Regina Lizik. In this podcast, we'll talk about the socio-political implications of how we treat dogs and what that says about how we treat each other. Racism, classism, ableism and all other forms of human injustice are at the root of canine discrimination. We can't change things for animals...