By the by, I read The Dog Who Loved Too Much and Dogs Behaving Badly back when I adopted my first born, Ralphie, and both are excellent – I can’t recommend them enough!

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From: DawnWatch – news [at] dawnwatch.com
Date: May 14, 2007 9:00 PM
Subject: DawnWatch: Terri Gross guests on NPR cover animal cruelty, puppies, and pet rats — 5/14/07

Today, Monday May 14, NPR’s Fresh Air with Terri Gross had two terrific interviews with animal experts. You can listen to them on line here or tinyurl.com/25w4tk.

The first interview is with Veterinary Forensics Pioneer Melinda Merck. The website promotional blurb says:

“Melinda Merck literally wrote the book on investigating animal cruelty — a crime that’s increasingly understood to be linked to domestic violence. Merck is co-author of Forensic Investigation of Animal Cruelty: A Guide for Veterinarians and Law Enforcement, and in June she will publish a textbook, Veterinary Forensics: Animal Cruelty Investigations. (A warning: Parts of this interview are disturbing).”

“Disturbing” is a euphemism in this case. Merck describes in nauseating detail a crime in which two teenagers broke into a community center, tied up and roasted a live puppy to death in the oven, and forced children to watch the puppy bake. The interview with Merck was hard to listen to, but it no doubt brought home to the NPR audience the importance of animal cruelty being taken with the utmost seriousness and charged as a felony.

The second interview, with animal behaviorist Nicholas Dodman, was delightful. Fresh Air promoted it as follows:

“Wondering what your pet is trying to tell you with that bizarre habit or that pleading look? Dodman is the best-selling author of The Dog Who Loved Too Much and The Cat Who Cried for Help. His latest is Puppy’s First Steps: The Whole-Dog Approach to Raising a Happy Healthy, Well-Behaved Puppy.”

Dodman gave good advice on temperament testing puppies — not to decide if they should live or die but to find out who will work best in your home — and on training. For me, the only downside of the interview was that Dodman did not stress the joys of adopting older animals.

The highlight of the piece is at the end, when Dodman describes the pet rats his wife brought home. She had been studying for a PHD but quit because she was uncomfortable with the treatment of the animals. She smuggled out a couple of lab rats when she left the university. Dodman tells us the rats became her best friends, running to the door and squeaking every day when she got home. Years later, when their kids wanted rats, the Dodmans were delighted. He explains that because rats chew things, including electrical wires, they must be confined to their (large amusement-filled) cage when they are home alone, but that they come out to play and have free reign of the living room couch, and everybody’s shoulders, when the family is watching television.

Positive feedback for animal friendly shows encourages more of them, so please listen to the show on line and then take a moment to thank Fresh Air with Terry Gross for today’s terrific programming.

www.npr.org/contact/

Select NPR Program, and then select Fresh Air with Terry Gross from the pull-down menu.

I send a big thank you to NPR fan and wonderful animal advocate Elaine Livesay Fassel who made sure we knew about today’s show.

Yours and the animals’,
Karen Dawn

(DawnWatch is an animal advocacy media watch that looks at animal issues in the media and facilitates one-click responses to the relevant media outlets. You can learn more about it, and sign up for alerts at www.DawnWatch.com. You may forward or reprint DawnWatch alerts if you do so unedited — leave DawnWatch in the title and include this parenthesized tag line. If somebody forwards DawnWatch alerts to you, which you enjoy, please help the list grow by signing up. It is free.)

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Tagged: animals animal rights animal welfare action alerts dawnwatch npr national public radio Veterinary Forensics Melinda Merck Fresh Air Terri Gross animal abuse animal cruelty felony Nicholas Dodman rats pets companion animals animal behavior

This entry was posted on Monday, May 14th, 2007 at 8:20 pm and is filed under Action Alerts, Animal Abuse, Animals as..., In the News, from DawnWatch, pets. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.