Archive for the Audio Updates Category

 Animal Laughter You can see what I consider a likely example of a laughing dog here and read an article about the increased scientific interest in ticklish animals here. As always when it comes to the subject of animal emotion, some of us are more open to the idea than others. Naturally I felt obligated [...]

 Dognapping Baboons Dognapping baboons? If you don’t believe me, check out this  video clip. Aside from being fascinating, this is the kind of clip that makes me glad I’m an independent scholar in the realm of the human-animal bond. That way I have access to academics like bond scholar Hal Herzog who pointed me to [...]

Meditation on Animal Play When you listen to this podcast, you’ll notice that there’s no mention of Bamboo the cat’s behavior during these intervals. This is because from the first instant that he made the connection between the woodstove, and warmth, and my clawably comfortable yoga mats, he decided that no interactive toy could compel [...]

Rewriting the Rules Even though I recognize the need for rules in order for a society to function (regardless of species) I also recognize that, like all behavior their meaning depends on their context. In spite of what we may like to believe, nothing is written in stone. This doesn’t mean that I’m one of [...]

Behavioral Webs Sometimes when I listen to these podcasts after I’ve recorded and edited them, it strikes me that I may have meandered a little bit more off the path than I usually do. This time, I could say that I detected an annoying clunk in the recording, the origin of which I couldn’t determine [...]

Triple Resolutions 2012 I have a love-hate relationship with New Year’s. Because I’m a morning person who doesn’t enjoy late night events during which people get louder and more inebriated and suffer from Football Fatigue Syndrome (FFS) after being inundated by it during 9 years in Ohio, few of the traditional holiday activities appeal to [...]

Holiday Greetings, 2011 Right after I recorded this, I heard a linguist talking about how often we forget the source of the words we use every day. One of the  examples given was creature which comes from the same root as create and creator. Not only do we rank as creatures among other creatures relative [...]

Human-Avian Encounters For those who never heard of parahawking (which I’ve since discovered has been demoted to a sport), here’s a trailer for a film on the subject. Frankly I much prefer the encounters that occur spontaneously. To me, there’s something extremely special about a close encounter with any wild animals in their natural environments. [...]

Treatment Obesity My guess is that once you listen to this podcast, you’ll be able to think of other trends that occur in physical health that have parallels in behavioral health and vice versa. Whether we seek to fulfill our animals’ physical or behavioral needs, we always need to beware of the Iago Effect. Never [...]

Unifying Challenges For those who have never read any of Edward O. Wilson’s groundbreaking books about nature and the environment, you can find them here. Although I mentioned Consilience in this podcast, Biophilia is another great one, but there are many others. Wilson is one of those people about whom I can truly and humbly [...]