When we’re younger, it’s easy to believe that what we do to pet dogs and cats animals represents what we’ve done for ages because it reflects the most logical way to do them. Only as we get older and experienced enough to take a longer view do we realize that procedures we accepted as the norm in our youth may claim suspect and even bizarre historical roots. Another such example  of how the adoption of the human medical model affected the practice of companion animal medicine relates to the removal of reproductive organs as a function of sex. Can you guess what it is?

How easily could you ask your veterinarian about your dog or cat’s sexual behavior or  some concern about your pet’s penis, vulva, or vagina? How easily could your veterinarian discuss such subjects with you?  Strange as it may seem to anyone with any knowledge of biology, many physicians still maintain an almost Victorian prudishness when it comes to addressing any topic related to the nether regions.  While no veterinarian who would adopt such an attitude would last 2 minutes in a farm animal setting, it’s may be surprisingly easy for companion animal practitioners to do so—unless their clients bring the subject up.

This podcast is the first of a series of meanderings about what affect the choice of veterinary medicine to pattern itself on human medicine has had on animal health, behavior, and the human-animal bond. I named the series the Animal X-Files for two reasons that I consider valid. Can you guess what they are? I also made one grossly erroneous anatomical reference in this podcast. If you pick it up, feel free to let me know about that too.

Sometimes after successfully implementing the changes that eliminate their animal’s problem behavior, my clients comment that doing so ranked among the most difficult but most fulfilling work they’ve ever done. And no doubt their animals felt the same way. One possible reason why mental changes may strike us that way takes us back to that bane and blessing of reality: our perceptions. We live in a society that equates hard work with hard physical labor such as splitting and stacking wood, hiking, pumping iron, or doing anything that gets us hot and sweaty. Within this realm, making mental changes in ourselves and consistently implementing those that make it easy for our animals to do likewise seem about as challenging as contemplating one’s pudgy abdomen.

As it turns out though, learning is anything but a benign process.

Learn more here.

Have no idea what contranyms, the subject of this week’s podcast, are? Here are three hints to help you:

1.  All of these words share a special property.
2. More likely than not you’re familiar with such words, but didn’t realize they rated a special name.
3. Some non-behavioral examples include second-guess, impregnate, and secrete.

Now that you know what contranyms are, can you think of any terms related to our interactions with animals that could fall into that category?

I suppose that some and even many might consider the subject of this podcast ludicrous. However how the quality of the learning opportunities we offer more intelligent than average animals, and especially dogs, has practical repercussions for our society today.  While we may roll our eyes at problems those animals who possess less than average mental capacity might get themselves into, these pale when compared to those of more mentally gifted ones.

Until I came across this article I never really gave the human-Bigfoot bond much thought. But one of the advantages of being an independent scholar is that I’m free to think about things that it might be imprudent to ponder in more formal settings. And when I thought about Bigfoot and what his/her DNA analysis might reveal, it reminded me the scientific community tizzy that occurred when some suggested that Neanderthals and early humans might have interbred. In that particular scenario, the conclusion seems to boil down not so much to whether they did or didn’t, but now many were involved if they did. I wonder if the polar and grizzly bears debate the reality of the polar-grizzly bear hybrid (in their own polar and grizzly bear ways) so earnestly.

When I read the studies regarding the effects of free-roaming cats  and the far fewer and less publicized studies regarding the effects of artificial bird food supplies, i.e. feeders, on the wild bird population, I see so many variables it makes my brain ache. Once again what we need is someone with creativity, knowledge, and expertise to see the whole picture. Until that lucky day, join me in not letting emotions generated by singular studies blind us to the bigger picture.

Here’s the article about gorilla surrogate moms that triggered these meanderings. Relative to what this teaches us about the way we treat the young of species we claim to cherish as members of our families… What can I say? The old saying, “Familiarity breeds contempt.” kept floating through my mind.

And in that serendipitous way things sometimes cross my desk, here’s a video of another human attempt to raise orphan domestic animals that arrived about the same time as the gorilla article. I wonder how this solution would stack up against what we typically offer orphan puppies and kittens.

In an interesting about face, researchers increasingly turn their attention to the placebo effect. Nor do they approach the subject as science-based myth-busters seeking to prove such responses reside all in the patient’s head. Or rather, they do hope to prove this by proving that placebos can and do cause beneficial changes in the brain and, by extension, in the body. The difference now is that instead of associating those brain changes with easily duped feeble minds, they see these effects as a way to decrease and in some cases eliminate the need for more physiologically and financially costly conventional treatments.

Although I never felt comfortable admitting this in the past, I’ve always linked the human-animal bond and the placebo effect. I didn’t feel uncomfortable because I viewed any perceived bond effects as evidence of sloppy science or a phenomenon limited to the weak-minded. Quite the contrary, I saw both as long ignored concepts that play a critical role (for good or ill) in human and animal health and behavior.  Read more…

The intersection of two superficially unrelated events triggered this podcast. One took the form of a series of stories involving animals engaged in various forms of human therapy or salvation and the responses of some in the animal care community about these. The second involved the development of robots for military use that attempt to mimic the movement of horses. Or at least that’s what the result looked like to me. Well, actually more like a cross between a horse and a rabbit.

While I recorded the last half of this podcast, my distinctly non-robotic dogs and cat either succumbed to cabin or early spring fever. Without warning, they suddenly started  zooming around the center chimney, tackling each other and rolling by in a flurry of canine and feline pounding and batting paws, grunts, growls, and barks. Were I more technologically competent, I would have deleted all that from the final recording. But I’m not and, besides, it made me laugh.

This podcast is about what these have in common:

Can you guess what it is?

Moving with animals poses some of the same challenges as moving with kids. And as with moving with kids, the same caveats hold. The more thoroughly we do our homework before the move, the more pleasant the move and the new home will be for us and our animals

Here’s a favorite picture of Lumpy, my favorite lovable lump who just made yet another major move like a trooper.

If you periodically hear some rustling noises in this podcast, it isn’t because I was wearing my prom dress when I recorded it. I honestly don’t know what caused the sound because I recorded another podcast during that same session and nothing rustles in that one. Perhaps it was a ghost in this old house making a ghostly comment.

The subject of this podcast causes me to ask the obvious question if this was a ghost: Which one of us—ghost or human—would adapt the most in response to the other’s presence?

Don’t Sell the Bond Short

What do you think of when you hear or read the words, “human-animal bond”? For many people, images of animals involved in some sort of animal-assisted therapy that improves a disabled person’s quality of life immediately come to mind. Others think of coping with the pain of pet loss, or heroic tales of animals rescuing their owners from burning homes, or search and rescue or military animals performing amazing feats within and beyond the call of duty.

While all of these activities most certainly fall into the realm of the human-animal bond, they also may create the illusion that the bond is something special that can only be experienced only by a relatively small number of people under very specific circumstances. Many of these activities also support the impression that the human-animal bond functions unilaterally and is universally positive in nature; it focuses on the benefits animals bestow on us instead of the good and not so good that we inadvertently or deliberately and routinely bestow on each other in the course of any interaction.

To me such a limited view of the human-animal bond (HAB) sells the bond short.

To learn more, click here.

First the singing “kookaberry” I remember from my childhood is actually a kookaburra. But while the kookaburra does laugh I don’t think it sounds anything like the way my dogs’ koala toy laughs. Nor does the sound a real koala makes sound like my dogs’ koala either.

Having disproven my theory that perhaps it got there by mistake because someone confused it with a kookaburra, I’m at a loss regarding how what sounds to me like a distinctly young human’s laughter  wound up in the toy. Be that as it may, the fact that it did served as the inspiration for this podcast.

The point to keep in mind about the phenomenon discussed in this podcast is that most of these animals not faking their physical and behavioral issues. In their minds, they really can’t use that limb or not be afraid of this or that. Because of that, in order to help these animals we need to get the whole picture. We can’t just focus on eliminating the behavior that troubles us instead of dealing with the underlying cause.

Or rather we could limit our focus like that and eliminate the effects and ignore the underlying cause as long as we were willing to accept the risks associated with this approach. Specifically, the risks of making the behavior worse, or eliminating it only to have it replaced by another display that’s more problematic.  In my experience most who take what they at first considered this “easier” approach come to regret it later.

I’m a big fan of contrast, whether it be in animal behavior, the human-animal bond, photography, food, scientific findings, music, literature, you-name-it. If I had to guess why I’d say because experience has taught me that the more unrelated two concepts superficially appear to be, the more they likely have something in common. And many times more or common with each other than those who appear more like.

As a result, the day I happened to read two articles that appeared in two different publications on two seemingly  unrelated subjects I immediately started thinking about how the two were related.  One was about the melting polar ice cap and the other was about the amazing Ashfall Fossil beds in Nebraska. Can you guess the connection

Also one error to ‘fess up on. I mentioned using melted polar ice to make beer and referred to Iceland. While Icelanders may be making beer while their landmass melts, the concept originated in Greenland in 2006. Six years later the residents may need that beer as they face the results of a massive melt in 2012.

Do you ever experience one of those days when you need a new perspective on life with animals and especially cats and perhaps even your very own particular cat?  Because the invasive Bamboo decided that going outside in cold weather no longer appealed to him, I found the book that serves as the subject of this week’s podcast especially helpful. Not only did it help me perceive Bam in a badly needed new light on a day when I found his cat hair floating on my coffee because he stuck his whole head in my mug again. It also causes me to laugh out loud on days when the world is way too much with me in far more troublesome ways.

Were Bamboo a book critic—and I can’t imagine he wouldn’t be because he criticizes everything else—I’m sure he’d give this book his two paws up for excellence as he did my old dictionary.

Most certainly, he wouldn’t pee on it.

Were you ever stuck at home because of lousy weather or an illness or injury grounded you and left you feeling utterly bored and useless? You didn’t want to watch yet another movie or play another video game; you had no desire to read another book, even one by your favorite author. You wanted to feel capable, not entertained.

Fortunately help is now available for those of all ages who almost certainly will encounter this dilemma as least once in their lifetimes.

To find out what that help is, click here.