Archive for the Audio Updates Category

When On Isn’t Really On Near the top of my ever growing list of advantages of getting older is how much easier it is to admit I’m wrong. For those of you who have yet to see this quality in me, this podcast should convince you. Granted I probably don’t like being wrong any more [...]

Minding My Pees and Qs Some people can go on and on about wine or cheese whereas I find cat pee an fascinating subject. No kidding. I returned home after a seminar on various urinary tract conditions in cats (and a few dogs) and was so wound up with new thoughts and ideas that they [...]

Parental Discretion Advised This podcast reflects some thoughts about parents, kids, and animals that have been wandering around in my brain in one form or another for years. In a way, that makes sense because so many companion animals belong to folks who have kids. What intrigued me though was the usual: how changes in [...]

When Seeing Isn’t Believing Fortunately, this second of the outdoor recordings lacks the worst of the snaps, crackles and pops that showed up in the first one. Perhaps the wildlife figured out what I was doing and decided to cut this poor human some slack. Relative to animals, we humans typically have taken the “If [...]

Meandering With Myrn: Little Changes, Big Rewards Because the weather was so unseasonably hot and beautiful, I decided to record this podcast outdoors. The good news is that technically the result is a good example of habituation. The not so good news is that during part of this you’ll hear the drone of a small [...]

The Changing Dilemma It seems like all of the world’s major religions recognize something comparable to Christianity’s Golden Rule. It reminds us that we humans, like other animals, learn by modeling. If we want another person to behave in a way we find nonthreatening and even enjoyable, we need to display that same behavior first. [...]

Forever Blackmail This podcast discusses one example of a type of communication that’s becoming disturbingly common in the animal-related arena: emotional blackmail. Those with products or services to sell try to convince us that purchasing these expresses love for our animals. And if we refuse, some even may try to make us feel guilty or [...]

Animals, Sex, and Politics Even though it didn’t occur to me when I recorded this, I wonder if so many politicians succumb to sexual indiscretions because, like some animals, they haven’t been able to make the transition from competitor to leader either. Makes sense to me.

Genes and the Holy Grail If  some consider the unraveling the genome as the Holy Grail of genetics, it’s probably the discovery of genes associated with specific behaviors more so than those associated with any specific disease. Unfortunately why this is so may have more to do with imperfect human nature than any quest for [...]

Guilty ‘Til Proven Innocent Even though I was careful not to record the example in this podcast in such a way that it would upset the sleeping Ollie, I fear I wasn’t so aware of his feelings when I edited it later. Sad to say that unfit humanoid that I am, I thought he was [...]