Dog Talk ® (and Kitties Too!)

#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. 

#919A: Dr Doug Mader talks about the sea turtles that are “cold stunned” in the waters of Cape Cod and flown by volunteer pilots down to The Turtle Hospital in the Florida Keys to be rehabilitated.

#919B: Winner of the AKC ACE Award in the “Uniformed Services K-9” division, Lt. John Haning of the Claremont Oklahoma Sheriff’s department talks about his Labrador Retriever Rosco, who works on the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force (ICAC) and is on the Homeland Security Investigation Human Trafficking and Child Exploitation Task Force — finding the hidden electronic devices which will put the perpetrators of these crimes behind bars. Rosco is also a family dog who sleeps with Haning’s 13-year-old daughter, who pampers him with “spa days” she chronicles on Tik Tok.

#918A: Dr. Rick LeCouteur and Tracie discuss the history of pet foods formulated to help manage medical conditions but are often based on less-than-optimal ingredients for long term use — for which they were not intended anyway.  

#918B: Dr. Renee Schmid — senior veterinary toxicologist at the Pet Poison Helpline — discusses the many instances when pets ingest something they should not, which is where their specialized service comes in, to support the owner, the vet and the specialty hospital if they need to go there. 

#917A: Don Sturz, who is President of the Westminster Kennel Club [which has put on America’s most prestigious dog show every February for 149 years!] discusses what it takes to become a Best in Show judge at Westminster Dog Show — as he was in 2022, and how to make that decision. He talks about the three dogs who share his life currently, only one of whom has the “It Factor" to be a show dog — his champion Pekingese Fiona.

#917B: Vanessa Woods, co-author with her husband Brian Hare of the delightful book “Puppy Kindergarten: The New Science of Raising a Great Dog,” immersed herself in the litters of service dog puppies from Canine Companions that they raised and studied — bringing them to life on the page as individuals you come to know and love — funny, annoying, delightful and sometimes baffling. 

#916A: In his book “Puppy Kindergarten: the New Science of Raising a Great Dog,” co-authored with his wife, Vanessa Woods, Brian Hare talks about how they helped to raise potential service dogs at their Canine Cognition lab at Duke University in order to discover how early a puppy will reveal his/her proclivity for becoming a successful service dog. They also ask the question of whether the way “regular people” raise their own puppies is good enough...or is there something more we should be doing?

#916B: A philosophical discussion about how much sacrifice we “should” make for our pets. Tracie asks whether Dr. Doug’s desire to stay in Florida to keep his Tortoise Taxi going, outweighs the safety benefits of moving away from extreme weather with his wife and animal entourage to Oregon where the tortoises would have to live in an indoor herpetarium. 

#915A: Dr. Carlo Siracusa, Chief of the Animal Behavior Service at Penn Vet at the University of Pennsylvania, discusses their study of geriatric cats, the role of inflammation in aging, and how this information might translate to human aging.

#915B: Dr. Rick LeCouteur — a veterinary neurologist and surgeon — agrees with Tracie’s long-standing credo that dry foods for cats are “kitty crack” because the ingredients are biologically inappropriate for an obligate carnivore. So why do vets keep recommending them — and feeding them to their own kitty cats — when the facts and science show the harm of kibble for cats? (Rick is also the author of the beautiful children’s book “Nasty Names Are Hurtful” about the Australian white Ibis.)