Dog Talk ® (and Kitties Too!)
DOG TALK® (and Kitties, Too!) originated on the only NPR station on Long Island, WLIW-88.3, where it has been on the air for 13 years and numerous consecutive shows. This Gracie® Award-winning show (for “Best entertainment and information program on local public radio”), is produced and hosted by pet wellness advocate Tracie Hotchner. Each show features Tracie’s interviews with authors and pet experts from around the world, discussing far-ranging topics involving practical and philosophical issues regarding our relationships with dogs and cats.The show broadcasts from the East End and reaches all across Long Island, into Southern Connecticut and Westchester.The show's theme song is "Mmm My Best Friend" by Sophie B. Hawkins from her album TIMBRE.Podcast also available on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon podcasts, and Audible.
Episodes
808 episodes
Words Matter: Don’t Just Tell Someone Their Pet is “Fat”!
#931B: Dr. Ernie Ward’s own non-profit — the Association for Pet Obesity Prevention (APOP) discusses the importance of using non-shaming vocabulary when speaking about overweight pets; and that veterinarians unconsciously have a bias (as ...
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29:24
The Horrors of the “American XL Bully Breed”
#931A: Annie Phenix (author of Positive Training for Reactive & Aggressive Dogs) discusses the horrible phenomenon in England of dogs with the moniker American XL Bully (a “breed’ not recognized as such in the U.S.), a type of dog which is ...
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28:44
Brooklyn Kitty Plays Matchmaker to Humans
#930B: Tanya Guerrero (who now lives on a hillside outside Manila in a home constructed of shipping containers with her husband, their daughter and a clowder of cats) reads from her Brooklyn-based novel “Cat’s People,” the heroine of whic...
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25:44
Fast-Track to a “Pet Shrink” for You & Your Pet
#930A: Brandy Kuentzel talks about her Ease Pet Vet (winner of an Innovation prize at the VMX veterinary conference) a platform that gives pet owners and their own veterinarians access to one of the hard-to-reach Board Certified Veterinary Beha...
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31:06
A British Look at Our Relationship With Dogs
#929B: Suzanne Rogers, co-director of the non-profit Human Behaviour Change for Animals, talks about the book she edited: "Canine Behaviour in Mind: Applying Behavioural Science to Our Lives with Dogs.”
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29:07
The 1,000 Dogs Left Behind at Chernobyl
#929A: NYC cat behaviorist Stephen Quandt (Cat BehaviorHelp.com) talks about how he was part of a delegation many years ago to help manage and study the 1,000 dogs left behind when the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded in 1986. What has be...
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28:58
Black Dogs Deserve Love and Happy Homes, Too
#928B: Fred Levy wrote and took the photos for his book “Black Dogs - Stories of Love and Friendship,” because of the “black dog syndrome” at shelters — where they get overlooked and euthanized at a higher rate — and explains why it is hard to ...
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14:33
Are "Button-Pushing" Dogs Really "Saying" Anything?
#928A: Federico Rossano — Associate Professor of Cognitive Science at UCSD — conducted an international study of people using the "buttons" to communicate with their dogs — and took a lot of professional flak for doing the study, and the conclu...
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44:54
Is Your Dog Happy? How Do You Know?
#926B: Emma Grigg — who is an Assistant Professor at the University of Arizona, focused on Companion Animal Behavior and Comparative Biomedical Sciences — discusses her book “The Science Behind a Happy Dog.”
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28:34
An Explorer's Guide to the World’s Living Wonders
#927A: Cara Giaimo discusses her book “Atlas Obscura: Wild Life: An Explorer's Guide to the World’s Living Wonders” and how she managed to collect such a cornucopia of information and beautiful images about flora and fauna around the world.
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27:51
Furlanthropy Helps You Raise Money for Veterinary Costs
#926B: Adam Spencer explains how www.Furlanthropy.org is the first not-for-profit platform for crowd funding to help with veterinary costs, eliminating fake appeals, making sure it is a legitimate fundraiser so the money raised goes directly to...
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27:56
Who Loves Cats More? Americans or the Japanese?
#926A: Kristyn Vitale (of www.maueyes.com, Cat Behavior, Science & Training) has been studying cat sociability — how much is influenced by how social the humans are towards the cats?
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27:13
Darwin’s Dogs...and Cats
#925B: Elinor Karlsson (who holds the Chair in Biomedical Research Genomics and Computational Biology at University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School and is Director of Vertebrate Genomics at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT) talks abo...
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27:38
"Itching to Love" from NPR Story Teller
#925A: Shelley Fraser Mickle's memoir “Itching to Love” explores why she and her dog developed such a deep bond.
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26:56
To Make Rescue Successful “Sell the Sizzle, Not the Steak”
#924B: Michael Schneider founded and flies the plane for Pilots to the Rescue, flying dogs and cats to new homes, along with social media influencers onboard to keep “telling the story” because keeping a nonprofit financially healthy depends on...
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27:17
Toxic Masculinity at the End of the Leash
#924A: Annie Phenix, author of “Positive Training for Aggressive and Reactive Dogs” discusses dangerous dogs bred for aggression, who are then encouraged on that path by dangerous owners, like the college professor who wrote a book unapologetic...
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27:26
Who Will Let the Dogs Out?
#923B: Cara Achterberg started a non-profit called “Who Will Let the Dogs Out” and has written a book of that title about the challenges facing animal shelters in the South, with innovative solutions to solve the geographic challenges around un...
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27:38
If Dogs Use Tools, Are They as Smart as Chimps?
#923A: Marc Bekoff talks about the many ways dogs can use tools to achieve their goals, not unlike chimpanzees studied by his colleague, Jane Goodall, and described under “tool behavior” in his book “Dogs Demystified: An A to Z Guide to All Thi...
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27:45
It’s a Partnership with Your Vet
#922BA: Dr. Christopher Little in Scotland talks about his book “The Dog Care Handbook — Things I Wish My Vet Had Told Me” and how after forty years in practice he hopes people will communicate and collaborate better with their dog’s veterinari...
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27:53
Award Winning Dog Finds People Dead or Alive
#922A: Sarah Gentry’s German Shepherd “Besa” won the ACE Award from the AKC in the “Search & Rescue Dog” category because she is a rare multipurpose search & rescue dog certified in human remains searches both on land and in water, live...
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28:15
Kissable Katie Service Dog Extraordinaire!
#921B: Jill Dempsey needed a seeing-eye guide dog and a seizure alert dog and got both with her black Standard Poodle Kissable Katie, who has helped her get back out in the world — to the point that Katie also stands by her side at Western reen...
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28:23
The Cruelty of Crating Your Dog
#921A: Jessica Pierce — the author of “Who’s a Good Dog? and How to Be a Better Human” and “Run, Spot, Run: The Ethics of Keeping Pets” discusses the need for dog owners to recognize the harm of a “profound level of constraint” and asks “When d...
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29:30
The Therapy Dog Who Jumped in To Save Her Life
#920B: Allison LaField and her Old English Sheepdog Wallace won an AKC ACE award in the “Therapy Dog” category, not just because they volunteer at Brook Army Medical Center and the Natatorium where the military veteran community and amputees sw...
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28:34
Meet the Westminster Kennel Club’s New Resident Vet
#920A: Dr. Treyton Diggs talks about the honor of being the WKC’s Veterinarian of the Year in 2024 and the added privilege now of being the first Westminster Kennel Club Resident Vet, and how he hopes to inspire children — especially children o...
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27:26