Archive for June, 2010

Credit Where Credit Is Due You may notice that I don’t say anything about the quality of the shelter I provide for Bamboo the cat. This was not because it slipped my mind that he’s part of the household. Unlike as is the case with the dogs, I can’t point to a particular location—highly valued [...]

Pained Expressions As so often happens when I discuss behaviors in animals and humans, I realize after-the-fact, that I used the  same word to refer to opposite states of mind. Come of think of it, that’s the way behaviors are, too. The same behavior can have two completely opposite meanings depending on the context in [...]

How Much Proof Do We Need? How much of what does your pet have to do to prove to you that he or she loves you? And how much of what must you do to prove the same to  your pet?  Even though most of us may not consciously think about the answers to these [...]

Guilty Pleasures Normally when I think of guilty pleasures, I think of something like chocolate or reading when I should be mowing or weeding. But this podcast explores another kind of guilty pleasure: the ability to sometimes interact in a less-than-perfect way with our animals without succumbing to guilt. This isn’t to say that we [...]

Laughing Matters If this podcast doesn’t convince you to lighten up, here’s another good reason. According to researchers at Loma Linda University (CA), repeated bouts of laughter offer some of the same benefits as moderate exercise, among them lower blood pressure and lower cholesterol. Laughter also affects levels of ghrelin and leptin, two hormones that [...]

  The Bond: More Than What We Want Last month I attended a seminar on the human-equine bond held at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University. The attraction for me was two speakers from the United Kingdom. Because a sub-theme of the meeting was equine rescue, I knew it was possible that [...]