StClair confirms that Monica’s ruminant roomie is not your usual run-of-the-pasture goat, but it turns out she isn’t the only one who knows that.
Read more →A baggie of goat droppings, a piece of fur-covered tissue, a few blood-spattered petals: what more evidence could the police possibly need to realize that Harley didn’t kill Monica?
Read more →What could these two topics possibly have in common? As it turns out, a lot more than you might think.
Read more →One minute everything is going great and the next, your new client’s very mangled and very dead body is discovered with her bloody dog standing over it. Boy, does that ever change things in a hurry!
Read more →Welcome to Chapter One of Beastly Business, my first behavoiral/bond mystery written for those who share my fascination of animal behavior and the human-animal bond–from the very best to the very worst. This week we meet the somewhat reclusive and, to some, somewhat strange veterinary ethologist StClair Upton, her diminutive and timid new client Monica Sonco, and Monica’s dog, a brawny pitbull named Harley. We also get a few hints about the unusual the human-canine problem that will change all of their lives forever.
Read more →No, this isn’t a morose podcast. Just some thoughts related Whit’s surgery and recovery and my emotions’ effect on it. One thing that occurred to me after-the-fact is that I used the word “crate” which might be confusing to some. The term is now used to refer to those small enclosures that were designed to transport dogs and cats, usually by plane. Originally these were called dog or cat carriers, but then soft enclosures were added to the line-up and given the same name. To avoid confusion, the original carriers were then referred to as crates. This is a
Read more →This was a difficult podcast for me because I don’t like to rant and it is extremely difficult for me not to do so when I mentally link these three subjects. One good thing is that it’s hard to put much energy into ranting when you’re trying to stay away from dogs with clinking tags and the surprisingly loud noise of such tags clanking on a stainless steel water bowl. Sometimes I’m not sure what’s worse: the pet-related noise or the sound of me huffing and puffing trying to get away from it.This podcast would have been longer if
Read more →What do denial, squash, and the the human-animal bond have in common? Find out in this podcast. But before you do, check out these pictures. Can you tell a squash from a melon?
Read more →In the process of recording this podcast just about everything that could do wrong did: multiple thunderstorms that caused power outages, animals stir-crazy from being stuck inside so often thanks to the lousy weather, and the discovery that the speech center of my brain is apparently sensitive to humidity. What else could explain the tongue-tripping errors? I would have started over for the gazillioneth time, but the weather was getting worse. So here it is in all its stormy, animal-laden, tongue-twisted glory. In the podcast I mention two great books, the Secret Life of Lobsters by Trevor Corson and
Read more →This podcast is about a study I consider a virtual Rosetta Stone relative to understanding the relationship between physiology, behavior, and domestication: the Russian Farm Fox Study. While recording it, I managed to stay out of range of the playing dogs most of the time and edited out most of the “ums” and breathiness that occurred when I tried to outrun or outsmart them. I’m beginning to get the feeling that they’ve made the connection between my using the voice recorder and canine party time. Simultaneously I was trying to outrun a storm because I didn’t think crashing thunder
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