Latest Blog Posts

Are We Ignoring Gifted Animals?

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.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 6:49 — 6.3MB)

Meandering With Bigfoot

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.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 5:49 — 5.4MB)

The Bird Wars

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.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 7:37 — 7.0MB)

The High Cost of Motherhood

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.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 6:07 — 5.6MB)

The Placebo Effect and the Human-Animal Bond: When Nothing is Something

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…

Robotic Pets

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.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 5:50 — 5.4MB)

Remotes, Symbols, and Animal Communication

This podcast is about what these have in common:

Can you guess what it is?

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 7:00 — 6.4MB)

 Move Along Little Doggies and Kitties

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.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 7:16 — 6.7MB)

More Bottom Up Changes

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?

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 5:14 — 4.8MB)

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.

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