The Pawsitive Post in Conversation by Companion Animal Psychology

• Loving and Losing Pets with E.B. Bartels, Rev. Sarah Bowen, and Karen Fine DVM at Bark! Fest

  Living with pets sadly means losing them too. There wasn't a dry eye in the house (in a good way) at this event.Loving pets means thinking of them both in life and after their loss. In the poignant and personal Good Grief: On Loving Pets, Here and Hereafter, E.B. Bartels takes us on a global tour of how we love and mourn our pets. Sarah Bowen shares her deep insights on the lives and loss of all animals—pets and wildlife—in Sacred Sendoffs: An Animal Chaplain’s Advice for Surviving Animal Loss, Making Life Meaningful, and Trying to Heal the Planet. And Karen Fine DVM’s heartwarming memoir about becoming a veterinarian, The Other Family Doctor: A Veterinarian Explores What Animals Can Teach Us About Love, Life, and Mortality, is full of tales about what we can learn from the animals in our lives.We talked about:Why E.B. Bartels wrote her book and what she learned about how people memorialize their pets, including taxidermy and mummificationThe way that grief for a lost pet is often disenfranchisedWhat an animal chaplain is and why Sarah Bowen wrote her bookBlending science with spirituality, and practical tips to help when someone loses a petWhat it's like being a veterinarian, and how Dr. Karen Fine was influenced by her grandfatherThe value of making home visits as a veterinarian, and helping other pets cope when one of their fellow pets has passedPlus each author did an amazing reading from their bookThe quote by Irving Townsend can be found here: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/37516-we-who-choose-to-surround-ourselves-with-lives-even-moreLearn more about the authors:E.B. Bartels: https://www.ebbartels.com/ Rev. Sarah Bowen: https://www.sacredsendoffs.com/ Karen Fine DVM: https://karenfinedvm.com/ Send us a text to say hello!About the co-hosts: Kristi Benson is an honours graduate of, and now on staff with, the prestigious Academy for Dog Trainers and has her PCBC-A from the Pet Professional Accreditation Board. She lives in beautiful northern British Columbia, where she helps dog guardians through online classes. She is also a northern anthropologist. Kristi Benson's website Facebook Zazie Todd, PhD, is the award-winning author of Wag: The Science of Making Your Dog Happy and Purr: The Science of Making Your Cat Happy. She is the creator of the popular blog, Companion Animal Psychology, and also has a column at Psychology Today. Todd lives in Maple Ridge, BC, with her husband, one dog, and one cat. Facebook Instagram BlueSky

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• Animal Emotions with Marc Bekoff, PhD, at Bark! Fest

  When The Emotional Lives of Animals was first published in 2007, it was a gamechanger for its exploration of animal emotions and cognition. Now, a second edition has been published to bring us up to date on all the new science of animal emotions. Marc Bekoff joins us in this webinar to talk about animals’ experiences of joy, empathy, grief, anger, and embarrassment. You’ll never see animals the same way again. We talked about: What Marc Bekoff was hoping to do when he wrote the first edition of this book in 2007, and why he wrote a second edition Bekoff says, "It is no longer radical to recognize, respect, and want to protect the emotional lives of animals.” We talk about how people can recognize, respect, and protect animal emotions What he looks out for when he watches dogs run around and play at the dog park Examples of sorrow and empathy in non-human animals Bekoff's research on wild canids including wolves What it was like to create the book, Jane Goodall at 90 Plus Marc did a reading from the book and we were all captivated! The books are available from all good bookstores. To learn more about Marc Bekoff, visit his website: https://marcbekoff.com/ You can contact him via the website to ask to join his email list, which is mentioned in the recording.Also mentioned in this episode is Thinking Like a Wolf by Rick McIntyre.Send us a text to say hello!About the co-hosts: Kristi Benson is an honours graduate of, and now on staff with, the prestigious Academy for Dog Trainers and has her PCBC-A from the Pet Professional Accreditation Board. She lives in beautiful northern British Columbia, where she helps dog guardians through online classes. She is also a northern anthropologist. Kristi Benson's website Facebook Zazie Todd, PhD, is the award-winning author of Wag: The Science of Making Your Dog Happy and Purr: The Science of Making Your Cat Happy. She is the creator of the popular blog, Companion Animal Psychology, and also has a column at Psychology Today. Todd lives in Maple Ridge, BC, with her husband, one dog, and one cat. Facebook Instagram BlueSky

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• Our Bond with Cats with Sarah Chauncey, Sassafras Patterdale, and Rachel Wells at Bark! Fest

  Reflect on what cats mean to us and the many ways they influence our lives with these 3 feline authors. Sarah Chauncey’s heartfelt P.S. I Love You More Than Tuna is a touching celebration of our bond with our cats, illustrated by Francis Tremblay. Claw This Journal: An Activity Book for Cats and Their Humans by Sassafras Patterdale (Lowrey) is packed with crafts, training, and activities and a deep understanding of cats’ emotional wellbeing. In the latest in the Sunday Times bestselling series, Alfie the cat is preparing for a purrfect festive show when things go wrong, in Alfie the Christmas Cat by Rachel Wells. We talked about:The story of how PS I Love You More Than Tuna came about (and the Easter eggs in the book)How this book is designed to be given away, and how giving became part of Sarah's processThe role that a Muse Medallion from the Cat Writer's Association for an article by Sassafras played in making Claw This Journal come aboutThe range of activities in the book (and which ones are Sassafras's favourites)Why Rachel started writing the Alfie the Cat series, and the themes behind Alfie the Christmas CatWhat it's like to sustain a feline character and their supporting cast over so many booksAnd you can listen to each author do a readingLearn more about the authors:Sarah Chauncey https://www.sarahchauncey.com/Sassafras Patterdale https://sassafraspatterdale.com/ Rachel Wells https://itsacatslifebyrachelwells.substack.com/ Send us a text to say hello!About the co-hosts: Kristi Benson is an honours graduate of, and now on staff with, the prestigious Academy for Dog Trainers and has her PCBC-A from the Pet Professional Accreditation Board. She lives in beautiful northern British Columbia, where she helps dog guardians through online classes. She is also a northern anthropologist. Kristi Benson's website Facebook Zazie Todd, PhD, is the award-winning author of Wag: The Science of Making Your Dog Happy and Purr: The Science of Making Your Cat Happy. She is the creator of the popular blog, Companion Animal Psychology, and also has a column at Psychology Today. Todd lives in Maple Ridge, BC, with her husband, one dog, and one cat. Facebook Instagram BlueSky

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• Puppy Brain, early socialization, and what to ask a breeder with Kerry Nichols

  Zazie chats with Kerry Nichols, bestselling author of Puppy Brain: How Our Dogs Learn, Think, and Love. We talk about:How Kerry got into breeding dogsWhy we both love Golden RetrieversHow the book, Puppy Brain, came aboutWhat puppies are like when they are bornExamples of the socialization that Kerry does with puppiesHer favourite part of the first 8 weeks of a puppy's lifeAdvice on finding a responsible breeder (for any breed)And Kerry reads from Puppy Brain for us!Puppy Brain: How Our Dogs Learn, Think, and Love is out now in hardback. The paperback will be out on April 29th and can be pre-ordered now from all good bookstores.The books we recommend in this episode are:Dog Poems: An Anthology by Various and Christopher WaitThe Kindest Lie by Nancy JohnsonOFA - The Canine Health Information Center is at https://ofa.org/.Kerry Nichols is a former attorney turned canine educator and advocate whose journey into the world of dogs began nearly fifteen years ago. With the founding of Nicholberry Goldens, she devoted herself to raising the healthiest Golden Retrievers possible. This evolved into a mission to instill emotional resilience and agency in her own puppies, a pursuit she now shares with an audience of hundreds of thousands of followers across social media. Her methods continue to garner support from leading veterinarians, trainers, and psychologists, and notable owners of her Goldens include executives from Facebook, Microsoft, and Tinder. Kerry's website: https://www.kerrynichols.com/home Send us a text to say hello!About the co-hosts: Kristi Benson is an honours graduate of, and now on staff with, the prestigious Academy for Dog Trainers and has her PCBC-A from the Pet Professional Accreditation Board. She lives in beautiful northern British Columbia, where she helps dog guardians through online classes. She is also a northern anthropologist. Kristi Benson's website Facebook Zazie Todd, PhD, is the award-winning author of Wag: The Science of Making Your Dog Happy and Purr: The Science of Making Your Cat Happy. She is the creator of the popular blog, Companion Animal Psychology, and also has a column at Psychology Today. Todd lives in Maple Ridge, BC, with her husband, one dog, and one cat. Facebook Instagram BlueSky

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• Canine Crime and Mystery with Antony Johnston, Louisa Scarr, & Dr. Philipp Schott at Bark! Fest

  If you love crime and mystery novels, you’re in for a treat as dogs help solve crimes in these remarkable books. When a singer dies in mysterious circumstances, dog sitter Gwinny Tuffel and the singer’s Border Collie investigate in Antony Johnston’s cosy and witty The Dog Sitter Detective Takes the Lead. In Louisa Scarr’s dark and compelling Gallows Wood, PC Lucy Halliday and her dog Moss search for the body after a severed hand is found in the woods. And when veterinarian (and amateur detective) Dr. Bannerman and his champion sniffer dog Pippin holiday near a remote lake, he has to try to save some poisoned sled dogs and figure out why a float plane crashed in Eleven Huskies by Philipp Schott DVM. We talked about: How Antony Johnston came up with the idea of Gwinny Tuffel, the pet sitter who is the amateur detective in his Dog Sitter Detective books Why Johnston especially enjoys writing cozy crime The story of PC Lucy Halliday, the human remains detection dog handler, who is the main character in Louisa Scarr's Gallow's Wood How Scarr did the research for this book which is a police procedural How Dr. Bannerman and his pet dog work together in Dr. Philipp Schott's Eleven Huskies Schott's love of the northern Canadian landscape and how it plays out in his books and more, plus readings from each of the books! Learn more about the authors: Antony Johnston: https://antonyjohnston.com/ Louisa Scarr: https://www.instagram.com/louisascarrwriter/ Dr. Philipp Schott: https://www.philippschott.com/ The books are available wherever books are sold.Send us a text to say hello!About the co-hosts: Kristi Benson is an honours graduate of, and now on staff with, the prestigious Academy for Dog Trainers and has her PCBC-A from the Pet Professional Accreditation Board. She lives in beautiful northern British Columbia, where she helps dog guardians through online classes. She is also a northern anthropologist. Kristi Benson's website Facebook Zazie Todd, PhD, is the award-winning author of Wag: The Science of Making Your Dog Happy and Purr: The Science of Making Your Cat Happy. She is the creator of the popular blog, Companion Animal Psychology, and also has a column at Psychology Today. Todd lives in Maple Ridge, BC, with her husband, one dog, and one cat. Facebook Instagram BlueSky

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