Episode 99 – Minds, Animals, and Phones

Ideas for my podcasts often come from strange places. The seed for this one was planted by several reports I read or heard about the ingenious way the Youth Safety Council of Vermont came up with to convince kids that driving while texting really isn’t a good idea.  (Click here for a video of teens taking the texting-while-driving test, and here for more about the campaign.)

This got me thinking about how much better some animals, and especially dogs, grasp what happens to human minds when we’re talking on the phone. And sometimes we can use our distracted mental state to our animal’s advantage, too.