106. Conservation Dogs, Spotted Lanternflies, and Horrifying Elevators w/ Melissa McCue-McGrath

Ever find yourself marveling at the uncanny connection you share with your furry best friend? Our latest podcast episode takes us on an expedition into the heart of human-canine relationships, with Melissa McCue-McGrath, a true trailblazer in dog training and conservation, leading the way. Celebrating Melissa's birthday, we tap into her wealth of knowledge, from the psychological bonds we forge with our dogs to their astonishing roles in ecological conservation.

Navigate the bustling world of urban canines with us as we examine the sensory challenges these city dwellers face and the importance of fulfilling their intrinsic needs. Discover how the power of scent enriches a dog's life and strengthens our bond with them. Then, we shift to the open fields, where working dogs like border collies find joy and purpose in tasks that tap into their natural instincts. These stories are not just about companionship; they're about acknowledging and harnessing the innate drives that make our dogs feel most alive.

Turning the focus beyond companionship, this episode also shines a light on the critical environmental work dogs are carrying out. From tracking down invasive species like the spotted lanternfly to assisting in marine biology research, our four-legged friends are on the front lines, aiding in the protection of our ecosystems. As we wrap up, we touch on the cozy debate about dogs sharing our beds and the warmth of the bonds we share. Join me, Vikram Baliga, for an enlightening journey through the remarkable world where humans and dogs meet, work, and thrive together.

Find all things Melissa, book her for dog training, and pick up her book on her website, and follow her on Instagram!

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:10

What is up? Plant people it's time once again for the Plantthropology podcast, the show where we dive into the lives and careers of some very cool plant people to figure out why they do what they do and what keeps them coming back for more. I'm Vikram Baliga, your host and your humble guide in this journey through the sciences and, as always, my friends. I am so excited to be with you today, and even more excited to be with you today because I get to talk to my friend on this episode, my friend whose birthday it was, as we recorded, so I say this several times during the episode, but happy birthday, melissa.

Speaker 1: 0:39

Melissa McHugh-McGrath is a podcaster, a science communicator, an educator and a dog trainer, an author as well, and so many other things that we'll talk about through this episode. Melissa's background is in psychology, the human side, but that translated well into how we relate to our canine friends, and in this conversation we talk about everything from what a dog does and why a dog does what it does, whether it's in your home or in a city environment or out in the field working, because a big part of what Melissa has done over the past couple of years is trained dogs for conservation, which is just the coolest thing, and whether they are planting trees or looking for invasive species or detecting spotted lanternflies or so many other things, dogs work hard for us and they enjoy doing it. So this is such a fun conversation about dog training and what your dog is doing, and does your dog love you? It does Spoilers, and how hard they work, and I think you're really going to enjoy this.

Speaker 1: 1:41

So again, I'm not going to stop saying it Happy birthday, melissa. It was so cool that you spent your birthday with me. So grab a nice comfy chair, put on your headphones, turn up your car stereo. Give your dog a nice little scratch on the head on your headphones, turn up your Melissa. Happy birthday.

Speaker 2: 2:27

Cheers To me With you, yeah.

Speaker 1: 2:32

Like, I'm honored that you're willing to spend part of your birthday with me talking about plants and insects and dogs and whatever else comes up.

Speaker 2: 2:42

The Niners, whatever comes up. I am just so happy to be here with my friend Fit Room and I poured myself a whiskey, even though it's a little too early, because it is my birthday and I just wanted to celebrate and hang out with a really cool person and just have a really good day. And so far, so good.

Speaker 1: 2:59

That's awesome, and I'm pretty sure there's no actual rules on your birthday. I think you can just do whatever you want. I don't know if that's true, but I'm going with that.

Speaker 2: 3:06

I'm not going to run any red lights because that's dangerous. But barring that, I'm going to have a fun afternoon no good for you.

Speaker 1: 3:16

Well afternoon, no good for you. Great well, melissa, we've known each other for a little while through the podfix network and just podcasting and the internet interwebs and all that twitter that was oh, whatever rip. Yeah, I know smoking crater on the internet, now some people wallowing around in the bottom of it. That's what it feels like.

Speaker 2: 3:32

I don't know I can't even get back in, like I'm locked out of Twitter and I'm like I'm not even going to try, Like I can't get back in and I'm like you know it's better. This way it's fine, I'm fine yeah.

Speaker 1: 3:44

Yeah, it's worth it. It's not worth it.

Speaker 2: 3:45

It's not worth it.

Speaker 1: 3:48

So why don't you introduce yourself? Tell us about you. Where'd you grow up, what do you do? How'd you get there? Just whatever you want to know about you.

Speaker 2: 3:56

Okay, so my name's Melissa Mickey McGrath.

Speaker 2: 3:58

I grew up in Midcoast Maine, which is about halfway between the only two cities that anybody's ever heard of here, portland and Bangor, and we had what I affectionately call an accidental sled dog team. These dogs actually ran the Iditarod, like the big race that they now, because of global warming, have to truck snow into for the official start. But at the time they didn't, because it was the 80s. The 80s had different troubles and snow was not one of them. Those dogs were kind of gifted to my dad when his friend ran the Iditarod, came back, I think he decided he was too cold, gave my dad 10 dogs and then disappeared and we never heard from him again. So my brother, sister and I got off the bus and we discovered we had 10 dogs. We're like that was the best day ever.

Speaker 2: 4:47

So I grew up in what I affectionately call an accidental sled dog family. We were not prepared to have those dogs. They were working dogs. They were different dogs than what I had envisioned as a kid, like a golden retriever, where you like throw a ball, they bring it back. You throw a ball for a husky, they give you a middle finger if they had them, and so I like growing up in that part of Maine. You would have to drive an hour and a half to get to the nearest highway the only highway in our state and I couldn't wait to get out, so I left. I went to college in Ohio, lake Erie College. It used to be an all men's school, I'm sorry, an all women's school, and in 1986, they started inviting men.

Speaker 2: 5:23

So then they called it Lake College for Erie Women for a while, which I really wish I had that shirt. It really does, and you have no idea how truthful that was. So I graduated from there, moved to Boston for 20 years and then spent like the last three years before COVID and then COVID year trying to get back to Maine. I tried so hard to get out of it that I wanted to go back because it was so quiet and like the nature and everything and give my daughter a nice place to explore and run around and smell fresh air. Because being in Boston like we didn't have, you know, the moon or stars, because it was so light, polluted, we didn't have quiet, there was no. Like she couldn't just go outside like I could, she would have to. Like it was all sidewalks and scary and people were constantly hit by cars in our area so we couldn't just go outside.

Speaker 2: 6:20

So we moved back to Maine and we've been here for the last three years and I'm a dog trainer. I've been doing dog training and animal behavior work for the last 20 years pretty much my entire time in Boston. Animal behavior work for the last 20 years pretty much my entire time in Boston. I've done everything from competitive Frisbee dogs to now invasive species detection and everything in between.

Speaker 1: 6:41

That is so cool.

Speaker 2: 6:42

Yeah, that's so cool, and I didn't mean to. I went to that college Lake Erie College because I really wanted to teach people how to ride horses therapeutically. This was at the time of like the just before 9-11, the Iraq war was still in full swing, we had not yet gone to Afghanistan to screw things up over there and I my dad being in the military, my sister being in the military I was like I want to help people coming back from the military with PTSD and I can use horses to do it. So I've always wanted to work with animals, specifically horses. And then, two months into the pony program at this college, I got bucked off and broke my spine and decided you know what, maybe I'll get my psychology degree instead, because couches don't buck you off. So I gave up on animals in college.

Speaker 2: 7:33

The thing that brought me to Ohio, the thing that I loved dearly, that I thought I would be teaching and I would be working with animals, I thought, was off the table two months, like by October of my freshman year of college. And at the time, if you wanted to work with animals, all you had was be a police canine handler, which I was certainly not built for, be a veterinarian, which I didn't think that was quite right for me, or to be a farmer. Those were the only three options, and now there are so many and I kind of haphazardly fell into dog training and behavior, which is where I think I should have been all along.

Speaker 1: 8:09

Yeah that's so cool.

Speaker 2: 8:10

Yeah, so, cool.

Speaker 1: 8:12

Yeah, that's such a fascinating thing to me and maybe it is because, like my dog how do I say this? No, I shouldn't blame my dog. Oh no, not good at at training a dog. We tried, we took her to classes and I think it's the reinforcement that that like we were not good at, like she did great in the class and then we got, we got home and we were just like I do whatever you want and she's a good dog.

Speaker 2: 8:38

She's a good dog, so that's fine, she's fine.

Speaker 1: 8:41

And at this point she's like 12 and we're like you know you're okay, she's doing great yeah. She's doing great, but it's such like a specific way that you have to go about it, to do it.

Speaker 2: 9:00

I think it's just such a cool field. Well, the the best science is artistic. Like you can't. Like you, you can do. Like. The thing that you do with plants is you make it into an art that people appreciate, whether it's the and here are two of us in two very different fields, and and we're not going to be able to use the same like but like you, you make them pretty and like not look dead and wilty, and you sell them and people are happy, right and like. Cultivate, like, like. What do you do with a bonsai? Like you, you shape it like.

Speaker 1: 9:30

Yeah, or is that a different? It's not a bad word, okay, sure so you do that.

Speaker 2: 9:35

But what your art is is you make that interesting to other people and you use common language.

Speaker 2: 9:41

You don't speak over anybody's head, you are relatable and you make that and that piece of it is art and that is what makes you a brilliant teacher and that's why your podcast is so good and I think you are very welcome.

Speaker 2: 9:55

And I think there is an art to teaching the science, whether it's learning theory, which is what I got, which is what I do every day whether it's to the animal in front of me or to the person. Now, I'm two degrees of teaching. I'm teaching a human to teach this animal, which is a different species who has different instincts and different motivations and things like that, but the neural pathways the exact same neural pathways in your brain, in my brain learning theories, learning theories, learning theory across every mammalian species on the planet. And so if I know how to use reinforcement and timing and know what's going to motivate that individual, I can teach a spider to hide, I can teach a dolphin to jump, I can teach a goldfish to jump over my finger and I can teach a dog to find invasive species. Tools that you have, just like you have tools in the greenhouse and and doing juju, true magic stuff and make it look easy and then communicate that to a population yeah, that's really cool and it's such a cool marriage.

Speaker 1: 11:04

I feel like of your you know love of animals, you know you said you grew up with sled dogs, which that's such a cool thing it was so weird yeah but like I feel like some of the coolest, like most interesting things are like are the things that get you shoved in a locker when you're eight, but are really cool when you're an adult, looking back oh, listen, I, I relate to that so much like even when I was going through college.

Speaker 1: 11:27

So I, I graduated college in 2009, right? So this is pre-aesthetic social media right, we had facebook, but yeah, you know, yeah, I remember 2009. Yeah, barely like yeah, yeah, yeah, no me too, and like you know this, this nerd studying plants like that wasn't cool yeah like. But then since then, like plant plant Instagram, plant, tiktok plant yeah, it is so like popular right now. Like, oh, plant guy is cool. I'm like I didn't. I never saw that coming. No, that came out of left field for me.

Speaker 2: 12:03

Yeah, I didn't know I could fit into a locker until somebody shoved me in it because we had a sled dog team. Get in there, nerd. Like. It was not cool at the time, but now, like the nerds unite, we are having our moment and I am here for it.

Speaker 1: 12:21

Yeah, I'm going to enjoy it as much as I can while I can. I think it's great.

Speaker 2: 12:25

I agree.

Speaker 1: 12:26

Yeah. So I want to dive into, I guess, that or the idea of what you do in terms of dog training and animal behavior and all that a little bit more. So sort of two questions, and we can take them however we want. So the first one is like what does that look like on a day-to-day Sure?

Speaker 2: 12:45

And the other is more specifically now you wrote a book about dog behavior, correct, yeah, living in the city with dogs specifically because there were no resources for my students in Boston because they're like, okay, if your dog is barking, let them bark it out. Well, you can't do that if you live in an apartment and your landlord can evict you.

Speaker 2: 13:07

You can't, and also not even taking into consideration remember how I was talking about, how different we all functionally learn the same. Humans are a very front facing species. So if I saw you, I'd walk up to you straight on and try to give you a hug. If it was, if you were cool with it, I'd be cool, but I you know, chest to chest, face to face, very direct, coming at each other.

Speaker 2: 13:30

That is how humans connect Dogs. If you see them, they do like that butt to nose circle thing. Head on means fight, and so if you look at a hallway, if you look at a sidewalk, if you look at straight lines that we build in cities, that are grids and we put dogs on them and then just start walking at other dogs, every dog your dog is passing is basically functionally setting them up to say fight me, fight me, fight me, wow. And we don't. And some dogs override it and think, okay, this is just my environment, but some dogs are super sensitive to that and they do not do well in that kind of environment. Pardon, that's the whiskey Happy birthday to me. But when you have these dogs going in straight lines, I always say that a straight line is the third circle of hell for your dog. Elevators are circles one and two.

Speaker 1: 14:23

Straight lines are the third I can. Yeah, you know I'm sorry just to. I'm sorry to interrupt.

Speaker 2: 14:28

No, no, no Please.

Speaker 1: 14:30

But I thought of how a dog would like. I've never taken my dog on an elevator. How a dog would like. I've never taken my dog on an elevator. But I'm imagining now what that experience would be like trying to get my stubby little corgi mix into an elevator and deal with her through the whole process. I can't imagine that's good.

Speaker 2: 14:43

The wall opens up and if your dog is on the outside, the wall closes and eats all the people. So that's a good start. And then so keep in mind, your dog can smell way better than we can right. That's why they're so good at invasive species detection and detecting cocaine and dead bodies and narcotics and all the other things they go into they can smell actually. Let's put it in this context If your corgi was on the fifth floor apartment like in a fifth floor apartment they could smell what deodorant or not the guy in the first floor is wearing. That's how sensitive their nose is. They can smell.

Speaker 2: 15:16

40 feet under your feet that's four basketball nets straight into the earth. They can smell that right, so you take that idea of like their entire world is olfactory. And then you put them in an elevator, a closed moving box, after the teen who has just recently discovered Axe body spray.

Speaker 1: 15:37

Oh God.

Speaker 2: 15:38

That poor dog, that poor dog, and they can smell backwards in time up to 3,000 years. They have found bodies and civilizations in Croatia buried in the rock from 3,000 years ago. So they're basically smelling backwards in time the same way that our telescopes, like the James Webb telescope, can see backwards in time to the first black holes, to the Big Bang and I hear a lot about it because my in-laws are both astronomy professors working exactly on this. So that is the extent of the James Webb telescope that I know of. But your dog can smell backwards in time. So anytime your dog walks into a room, they're smelling the last two to three weeks of people, dogs, food, everything that has gone through that room. They can smell those like little.

Speaker 2: 16:25

I had one plugged in here like those, like little plug-in things Glade plug-ins. That gives more dogs headaches. And when I go in to do behavior work and dogs are a little funky, I ask them to remove that and see if that helps a little headaches. And when I go in to do behavior work and dogs are a little funky, I ask them to remove that and see if that helps a little bit. And it does frequently help because they're just so overwhelmed. It would be like if I was just blasting EDM music on, but like for your nose, for your dog.

Speaker 2: 16:49

Yeah, so we just don't tend to think of.

Speaker 2: 16:52

And they can also hear electricity in the walls, so like that's torturous. So there's so many things that we just don't tend to think of, and they can also hear electricity in the walls, so like that's torturous. So there are so many things that we just can't quite perceive in the same way or appreciate in the same way, because these cities and these buildings and these environments are built for humans and the dogs are invited to live with us and if they do a good job and they're not a nuisance and they're not barking and they're not pulling and they're not biting people, then they're fine and they're great and they live a great life with us. But when they're struggling, that's when I get called in. I'm never called in to watch somebody's dog have a good day.

Speaker 1: 17:31

I'm not getting paid to be like hey can you just watch my dog frolic in the field while, like, tchaikovsky is playing'll be like, yeah, great thanks if that was a job that sounds like the dream, right that's anyone out there, please, I will.

Speaker 2: 17:39

I volunteer as tribute, like happy dogs so I interrupted you.

Speaker 1: 17:43

Earlier. We were talking about how the first and second circle of hell was a, the, the box of smells and terror, and then the second one was straight lines on it. Yeah, the second one is the straight lines on city streets.

Speaker 2: 17:55

City, streets and hallways. So like if, let's say, I'm in an apartment building and if you've ever lived in a city we tend to think of, well, let me put it this way, if you've never lived in a city, you only really can see a city from like what Hollywood presents.

Speaker 2: 18:11

So like only murders in the building. That is not a real apartment building. Right, that is not a real apartment building. Right, that is not real. Like that is seven apartments in one, like that is not a real building. But we do tend to think of grids little wall, like little rooms off the side, almost more like a hotel setup. That's not always the case. Sometimes there are two family or three family apartments that were one house, that were chopped up and redivided.

Speaker 2: 18:36

But when you bring your dog into these environments you're walking down one of those kind of more typical hallways. They're walking by every apartment. They can hear toddlers running or the baby who just pooped in their diaper, whatever food they're cooking or burning, whatever cigarettes are being smoked, every room tells a different story. Every building is telling. Every apartment Apartment, I guess, is telling its own story as a dog is walking by. So it's like a flipbook of like new thing, new thing, new thing. It's basically us like scrolling on TikTok New thing, new thing, new thing, right. Plus they're also smelling up and down on TikTok New thing, new thing, new thing, right. Plus they're also smelling up and down.

Speaker 2: 19:15

So if another dog comes out of one of those apartments and starts walking towards your dog, and your dog is what we would call reactive. I don't like that other dog, or I don't like other dogs in general, or other people are scary, or ooh, you're a little too close and I'm sensitive to that. It might not even be that anything ever happened to this dog. That dog is just being a dog, and they happen to be in a very narrow hallway with another group walking right at them. You could continue to walk while your dog is barking, lunging and acting a fool rightfully so or you could turn and go back into your apartment.

Speaker 2: 19:50

But if somebody else comes out behind you, now you're stuck right and now you have nowhere to go. And you've got this barking, lunging dog and everyone is looking at you saying, ooh, there's no bad dogs, only bad owners. And now you feel like a beep and you're holding back on this dog. Who's barking, who's just? Basically, I'm scared and everyone's looking at you and then you feel like a jerk. So cities are just really hard. Whether it's an apartment building or a sidewalk, it's kind of functionally the same.

Speaker 1: 20:25

Wow, yeah, and that you know that explains so much as someone who this is all, like you know, I've lived with dogs my whole life, but like, I never thought about it in all. Like you know, I've lived with dogs my whole life but like, yeah, thought about it in, and I'm even someone who's, like my wife, is very into like animals and like has always been her degrees in animals. Well, not in animal science, in wildlife science. Yeah, yeah, we're, we're sort of I don't want to say in it, but like we're maybe more knowledgeable than some people. Right, like all of this is so new to me. Yeah, it's, I think, the kind of thing that people just never talk about. So, like when you're out walking your dog, like even in your neighborhood, in your park, in every two seconds, yeah, like, oh, what's that, oh, what's that, oh, I'm going to pull.

Speaker 2: 21:04

They're checking their pee mail, yeah.

Speaker 1: 21:09

That's really good. But that's like such good context then for, like, when your dog is not doing those things. Yeah, like how good they're being. Like just the fact that they can walk straight with this luxury like overload, bombarding them all the time.

Speaker 2: 21:22

You should be throwing a party for that dog, or you should recognize that that dog may have been trained or conditioned to just be like. I guess I'm not allowed to smell that thing, I guess I just have to fall in line. So like it depends on the specific animal. I think with older dogs they're just like I'm just happy to be with you and they're fine. But when it's a younger dog, when I see a two-year-old dog or younger just kind of walking obediently next to their owner, it actually kind of makes me a little sad because I'm like why isn't that dog sniffing? Why isn't that dog like this walk is for the dog? Why, I'm like why isn't that dog sniffing? Why isn't that dog like this walk is for the dog? Why aren't they experiencing the world to that Like this dog is going to go for a walk at a human pace and we are slow to a dog like we're bipeds.

Speaker 2: 22:03

They've got four legs, like they have to slow way down to match our pace and then they go into a building and they're there for eight hours by themselves. So they're social animals and they don't get to have, they don't get to read the world in the way that they're supposed to and they're in a building by themselves and then they're so excited to see us. We're like, stop jumping on us, like. We are so like. When you look at it from that context, it's like, okay, it doesn't hurt me any to say, okay, we've got 20 minutes, we're not going to walk as far, but you can sniff all you want. And now we're going to go home and instead of feeding you breakfast in a bowl, I could give you a puzzle toy like a Kong that's filled with food that's frozen, and then you can work on that for the first part of the morning. So you have something to do while you wait for us to come home.

Speaker 2: 22:53

Maybe get a dog walker, let the dog out for a few minutes and they get a little bit of a social interaction, get a second calm. And then you come home and you're like hey, buddy, like let's go for a walk, like. And then you get to sniff again, like just that little. Letting them sniff is honestly the number one thing that I can recommend to any person who has a dog and you are in need of calling a dog trainer. Just let your dog sniff and see if anything changes, and for I would say, about 40 to 50 percent of the cases that's going to just fix everything, because you're just letting them be themselves and then everything else should fall into place. The other 50 to 60 percent you might actually need some help, but like Sure sure, but just letting them sniff is a huge piece of it.

Speaker 2: 23:40

And it enriches their life. They don't get Insta, facebook, twitter, things, like they're just sitting in our living rooms just like do I get to go for a walk now? Okay, I guess I'll go later. How about now? Okay, I guess I'll go later, because they don't have these. We've got these magic thumbs. We have two things that dogs don't have thumbs and middle fingers. And I swear if dogs had both, we would be in a lot of trouble.

Speaker 1: 24:08

Oh well, and we get this look from our dog every now and then. That's more or less like I mean the dog, what I feel like is the dog version of a middle finger.

Speaker 1: 24:18

Oh yeah, like, like, they're so expressive oh yeah, and, and our dog has these little brown eyebrows and they're really cute, I love it, like, like, and you know, and I read it, I read a, an article somewhere at some point that dogs over time and then you can probably correct me on this if I'm wrong but they evolved more expressive faces. Yes, because of us.

Speaker 2: 24:38

Because of us. So they have what's called. That's so crazy. Going back to psychology, it's all neoteny, which is like these juvenile characteristics. So if you look at something, poor Paul Chomo, also on our network, volunteered to do a dog show viewing with me and I think I ruined dogs for Paul Chomo. I will both apologize and not apologize for it. And so he.

Speaker 2: 25:02

We had talked about how certain dogs like let's just take a French bulldog, for example Like they used to have a thing called a snout and we have bred them to look like they ran face first into a cement wall and now they have no snout, which is physically deeply problematic because now they can't breathe, they can't regulate temperature because they can't sweat. So the only way they can cool off is by panting, and if you have less snout there's less air that can get in to cool off your body. Their head is too big for the birth canal, so they have to be born via cesarean section, and in many French bulldogs and all English bulldogs they tab A and slap E don't fit, so they also have to be produced by artificial insemination, like yeah you know the other ai.

Speaker 2: 25:54

And so these dogs like that we, we produce them. If you look at a french bulldog, they have no muzzle, like a human. They have big eyes like a baby human. They have a round face like a baby human.

Speaker 2: 26:10

We have selectively bred yeah, bred for these neoteny-like features to look more cute for us and they developed in response to us, like if I look at this person and have sad puppy dog eyes, maybe I can goer or had a little bit more social grace and like would approach us, they would get a french fry or they would get like a hamburger. If they were like street dogs, if they behaved or looked a certain way and could get close enough, they would get resources and maybe even protection, and so those genes get to go forward.

Speaker 1: 26:53

Yeah, that's so fascinating. And so those genes get to go forward. Yeah, that's so fascinating. And what pops into my mind is there's this concept in plant science that we talk about sometimes, about how domestication is never a one-way street.

Speaker 2: 27:05

Oh.

Speaker 1: 27:05

God. No, we co -evolve with the things around us to use wheat and how to breed wheat and different plants. Like it was, like domesticating us back, like our society and the way we structure everything from agriculture to food supply, and everything is based on how the plants operate right. So it was definitely a co-evolution and a co-demonstration.

Speaker 2: 27:32

Oh yeah, Same here.

Speaker 1: 27:33

And I'm sure there's some of that that has to do with good dogs too right Like absolutely A hundred percent yes, they here. And I'm sure there's some of that. That has to do with good dogs too. Right 100 percent. Yes, they're domesticating us right back.

Speaker 2: 27:38

Oh yeah, like the number of people that come into my classes, like I can see it on the daily, like they come in and they're like he won't stop pulling me the dog is 12 pounds and the owner is not and they're being quote pulled into the classroom and they're being quote pulled into the classroom. It's like you could just not move and the pulling will not be effective. There's certainly an element of human being human on top of it that is feeding into the cute dog Absolutely.

Speaker 1: 28:12

Yeah, I'm going to think about this for a while, just because it's such an interesting way, and I have to think about the way I relate to my little old dog and all of that let the dog sniff oh, yeah, well, yeah, and you know there's so much like a part of our families and a part of our lives.

Speaker 1: 28:30

We want to take good care of them and I think this is actually a good time to take a quick break. And when we come back, I want to talk about one dogs with jobs Two dogs with jobs in conservation and ecology work, and I'm so excited to talk about this. So we'll go run a quick mid-roll. I'll say whatever words pop into my head when I voice this over and then we'll be right back. Well, hey there, welcome to the mid-roll.

Speaker 1: 28:56

I hope you're enjoying this episode and I hope you'll tell your dog hi from me. Hey, thanks for being a part of Plantthropology. Thanks for listening. It is because of you that we get to do this and you know I enjoy doing this. If you'd like to connect with Plantthropology, you can find us all over the interwebs on Facebook, instagram, whatever, twitter is now, tiktok, youtube, and you can find me as plantthropology or plant thropology pod or the plant prof, depending on where you're looking. Just search all of them, connect with all of them.

Speaker 1: 29:23

I love to hear from you and I like to be friends. I need more friends if you have feedback on the show. Please drop me a rating and review wherever you can, whether that's Spotify or Apple podcasts or pod chaser or wherever else. I really like to hear what you think, and I do love five-star reviews. They look great. In my room I put them up on the walls and I print them all out.

Speaker 1: 29:43

I don't that might be a little creepy, I don't know. Um, it's, it's not a thing that I wouldn't do and now that I'm thinking about it, it's a thing that that I might do. Anyway, thanks for being a part of it and if you want to tell a friend about planthropology because you love it, I would appreciate that as well. You can email me at planthropologypod at gmailcom with questions, comments, ideas for future guests or episode topics or really anything else. I would love to chat with you.

Speaker 1: 30:09

If you would like to support the show again, tell a friend that's the best way to do it Leave a rating or review, or you can go to buymeacoffeecom slash planthropology and for the price of a coffee, you can literally buy me a coffee. That's what I do with that and sometimes pay for. But once again, thanks so much to you, the listener. Go check out the PodFix Network where Melissa and I have both been for quite some time as affiliate affiliate, that's not right. As member shows on the PodFix Network Great shows, artist owned and created and just educational and funny and wonderful. So I hope you'll stick around for the second half of this episode, where we talk more about dog training but we talk a lot about conservation. So buckle up and let's do the thing in five, four, three, two, one. Okay, here it goes. All right, we are back.

Speaker 2: 31:17

That was so long it was I know and I'm sure it was very educational and I learned so much. Listen to it.

Speaker 1: 31:24

Yeah, yeah uh, it wasn't just me rambling for about two and a half minutes about whatever, uh, so, okay, I want to to talk about the things that dogs help us do, and where I want to start with this a little bit is there are a lot of accounts on social media right now that talk about dog behavior and dog training, and there's one that comes to mind, not in terms of that, but in terms of working dogs, and it's this. The account's called Sean the Sheep man. I don't know if you've seen this.

Speaker 2: 31:54

I haven't, but I'm interested.

Speaker 1: 31:56

You need to check it out. So this guy's a shepherd and I don't remember where, I want to say in the US, but I could be making that up. But he has a number of border collies, okay, which I think when we think working dog, a lot of times in my mind at least borders or healers or whatever pop up. You, at least borders or healers or whatever pop up. You know bluey's family and friends and he'll post videos of, like you know he's out in this like picturesque, I think, european countryside or american countryside with rolling hills and grass, and he's got these three borders on his atv with them and he'll slow down and they'll jump off and, like you know, they're rocket ships with feet, yeah. And then the comments sometimes are like, oh, you're being so cruel to those dogs, making them do this or that or whatever. Or he'll put post videos of them like working a herd of sheep and yeah, they're so smart and they're so like in tune to just like body language and stuff from the, the trainer, and the, the owner.

Speaker 1: 32:49

Um, so so the first question I have is do dogs like having jobs? Is it something? That and that's maybe a complicated question I have is do dogs like having jobs? Is it something that and that's maybe a complicated question, but like are these dogs happy doing what they're doing? Because they sure look happy doing what they're doing?

Speaker 2: 33:03

Yeah, they are. Well, let me preface this by saying stress is stress, is stress right? So like, if you won, it's going to date me, much older than you, but Ed McMahon coming to the door with the check for $5 million?

Speaker 2: 33:21

right, that is stress. It's good stress. Somebody rings the doorbell and gives you a check for $5 million. Your heart, you get that kick of adrenaline. Your heart starts to thump and you're like whoa, right, you get that kick of adrenaline. Your heart starts to thump and you're like whoa, right You're. If you hear the ding dong and you open the door and it's Freddy Krueger with the knife, that adrenaline is prepping you for something different.

Speaker 2: 33:51

But it all starts the same, whether it's super excitement or fear. So both fear and overexcitement are two sides of the exact same coin. It all starts with a kick of adrenaline, and that's actually the very crux of the work that I do in behavior is like how is the body processing something? Is this really something that you should be worried about or not? So with things like border collies, with dogs like border collies, who are bred for centuries to work in dog training, in domesticated dogs, there's this whole sequence. I think it's called the predatory sequence. There are seven steps in it. I'm not going to remember all of them off the top of my head.

Speaker 2: 34:25

Thank you, jameson.

Speaker 2: 34:27

But they're basically like in a Border Collie.

Speaker 2: 34:30

Specifically it's stalk where they get down low and they kind of crawl on their front feet, eye, so they're staring and they're trying to like get their work done with their eyes and then they chase, run, grab, shake, kill and consume.

Speaker 2: 34:46

So that is the predatory sequence and every dog, every domesticated dog, has that whole sequence in them, except for a couple pieces are taken out. So for pointers, we get the crawl, the stalk and they'll point and they'll eye, but they won't chase and they won't grab, they won't shake, they won't consume. When you're dealing with a terrier, they will grab, they will do the whole sequence up to grab and shake, but they won't consume. They will do the whole sequence up to grab and shake, but they won't consume. So like we basically have, like if you look at a wild dog, whether it's a wolf or a coyote, a dingo that may or may not have eaten your baby, all of these dogs, all of these wild dogs, have that full predatory sequence and in being domesticated we have pulled out pieces of that line, so it's not a full sequence.

Speaker 1: 35:37

In herding.

Speaker 2: 35:38

We have taken out grab, shake, consume. So they stalk like a wolf. This is their instinct. This is what they are supposed to do. In place of it, we have taught them to work with a human.

Speaker 2: 35:51

So when I'm working with Border Collies German Shepherds, dutch Shepherds, belgian Malinois, dogs like that, working, herding, guarding dogs they tend to be more eyeball-y and less scent-y than the other dogs that I work with. They're staring at things. So when they see these border collies, the border collies see the sheep, something in their brain goes ah. Something in their brain goes ah. So it's up to us to like funnel that into their natural drive, which is please don't hurt the sheep. Right, the ones that do hurt sheep are no longer working. So either they are culled and taken out of the gene pool, or they are honed and given a job in Frisbee dogs or agility, or they're given something else to do. The dogs I would wager on that account are very happy, very driven, and my god they would drive, they. They would be on so many pharmaceuticals if they did not have that job. These dogs run, if they're moving sheep, 10 miles. The, the Border Collies, are working 100. And they have the stamina and endurance to do so Up and over rocky mountains and fields in Wales, in Scotland, in England and in the US. In the fields of the US.

Speaker 2: 37:10

It is important for working bred dogs to do their job. Important for working bred dogs to do their job. Now, if you want a Border Collie and don't want that, you could get what's called a bench bred Border Collie, which are the ones that are more for show. They still have a lot of the same instincts and they still need a lot of exercise. But you don't need to buy that dog its own personal flock of sheep and I still highly recommend that you don't have one in this city. Speaking from experience, I had one in Boston for 10 years. I should have gone on pharmaceuticals sooner for myself. It was hard and I loved her to death. She's tattooed on my arm. She is. I would not be doing my job if it wasn't for her, but it did. It was a nice wake-up call to realize, nope, this dog needed a job and throwing a disc wasn't cutting it for her.

Speaker 1: 38:04

That wasn't it. Well, I have a friend that has a couple of roadies, rhodesian Ridgebacks, oh, and like she'll literally go like run them with her horse. Like, because like she's like these dogs will run literally forever.

Speaker 2: 38:21

Like they've got all the energy. Do you know what they were bred to do?

Speaker 2: 38:23

Hunt lions right Hunt lions in the Sahara, crazy Simba. No, these dogs are massive and they're athletic. They are physically beautiful and we bred them for that. They're called a Rhodesian Ridgeback because they have a line of hair that goes down their spine that actually grows the wrong way. It's a reverse growth and in showing these dogs it's a quote fault to have a dog that doesn't have that genetic mutation. So, like you could like if you were really into the showing of these dogs and this is where I have a hard time with dog shows is that you like a quote good breeder would cull that or neuter it so it can't produce offspring, no matter how nice that dog is and no matter how well it does its job or not, it is no longer a dog. That is quote beneficial to the breed standard, even though you're breeding for that mutation of just hair growing the wrong direction. But yeah, these guys were bred to move lions on the Sahara. They're so cool, so cool.

Speaker 1: 39:34

Well, you know, we're're not at least in the central us we're not doing a lot of lion hunting, but we not a lot, not a lot, you know, just just occasional. But we do have things like invasive species.

Speaker 2: 39:47

Oh, good segue, I thought so.

Speaker 1: 39:50

Thank you well done from from the spotter spotted lanternfly to probably a bunch of other things. This was one thing that you brought up as we were talking about this episode is that there are dogs that help with the spotted lanternfly. What's that about? How does that work?

Speaker 2: 40:04

So just a quick primer on the spotted lanternfly. It is considered one of the most invasive insects in America right now and if you are in a state, there are 14, I believe, presently that are infected by the spotted lanternfly. It leaves behind every crop, it touches what looks like scorched earth without the fire. This lanternfly, it's a beautiful moth-like looking insect. It's got these big white wings with black spots. The lower part of the wing, the smaller wingy part I'm in animal science the smaller part of the wing of a traditional moth, is bright red and it's got these beautiful white spots.

Speaker 2: 40:49

Gorgeous little invasive bugger that is killing everything. And so what it'll do is it will lay its eggs. Well, first, it'll feed on anything. It'll feed on. In Maine it's particularly dangerous if it gets here because it'll feed on maple trees, apple trees, vineyards, if mommy like her vino hops, so if you like, craft beer, hardwood and lumber is already expensive. It'll lay on pretty much anything. It is an indiscriminate layer. It will feed on pretty much anything, although its choice, its choice food is the tree of heaven. Do you know about this?

Speaker 2: 41:27

tree, it's an invasive, it is also an invasive, very invasive yeah yeah, so two problems for the price of one.

Speaker 2: 41:34

But that's its choice food. But in absence of that, it'll just sure I'll go to the all-day buffet on anything else and then it'll lay. It'll like suck it dry, and because the honeydew that is sucked from these living plants comes out and the spit grossness that goes in causes a weird chemical reaction, that's that attracts black mold. That black mold is a thing that kills all the crops eventually, and then what's left, like I said before, looks like scorched earth without the fire. This is already in new jersey, connecticut, massachusetts, as of this year, indiana, ohio, new York. It's basically taking over, like the whole mid, the mid-Atlantic states, and going west. The worry is that it's going south as well because, hey, climate change, and within three years they expect it to hit Maine, maine.

Speaker 2: 42:26

We are the only state that has one border. You can only get into Maine via New Hampshire or Canada. So we only have one border with the contiguous US and we have one bridge. It's not the Passamaquoddy, that's a different bridge, but there's one bridge. That, basically, is the main route in from New Hampshire into Maine. And we are called Vacation Land. We are a tourist destination all summer and with millions of cars coming in from all of these states. The spotted lanternfly will also lay their eggs on cars and it millions of cars coming in from all of these states.

Speaker 1: 43:01

the spotted lanternfly will also lay their eggs on cars and it looks like mud spatter.

Speaker 2: 43:04

So you never know, you can't see it, you're like that's just a dirty car, lucky us. So it'll just take one of these cars to be here for more than two weeks for those eggs to hatch, and then it's in Maine. And so one thing that is going on is Virginia Tech and Texas Tech have teamed up on an invasive species proof of concept idea, which was can we get trainers like me to teach our students, who are already in classes called scent work, which we're teaching them, to find things like birch oil, clove oil, like stuff on a Q-tip? Can they find this thing for fun? If we're already teaching these dogs this sport, could we also train them to find this spotted lanternfly egg? And if we can find the egg in the wild, we can get ahead of the invasion before it becomes a problem.

Speaker 2: 43:57

And in a state like Maine that is incredibly important because almost all of our productive industry, aside from tourism, is natural, almost all of it. I mean excluding Dunkin' Donuts, but excluding Dunkin' Donuts, almost all of our industry is natural. So, like most of our exports are fishing, which doesn't really count towards, like spotted lanternfly, but hardwood, we have millions of acres that are just dedicated for the lumber industry. And then, like I said, hops and wine, and all of that stuff is here in Maine. And maple if you like maple syrup and you want to buy American, you're getting it from Maine and Minnesota.

Speaker 2: 44:38

And so if you can't get those things here because of spotted lanternfly, it's really going to decimate a lot of industry here, and we're already one of the poorest states in the union, so it could be really devastating on not just our industry but on people being able to survive. So it's kind of a big deal, yeah, and so I was one of so when VT and TT got together. I don't know if they go by that, but I'm going by it If VT and TT got together.

Speaker 1: 45:10

Usually TTU down here at Texas Tech. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 45:13

Oh, okay, ttu. Usually TTU down here at Texas Tech. Yeah, oh, okay, ttu. So they get together and they put out a call for people who are interested to maybe learn a little bit more about spotted lanternfly. I had already done a story about spotted lanternfly at this time for Bewilderbeasts, about how this place in Philadelphia had discovered that their honeybees were producing this really dark honey that tasted smoky, and they couldn't figure out why. It was because the honeybees in philadelphia were picking up on the honeydew from the spotted lanternfly and it was changing their honey, and so I ended up buying some of this honey.

Speaker 2: 45:49

It was called doom bloom. It was actually kind of amazing, and so I did this story. And then one of my students happened to be affiliated with Virginia Tech and was like, hey, I just heard your story on this. These two universities are doing a proof of concept. You should listen. And I'm like, ok, so I signed up. I watched their webinar. They were expecting maybe 20 to 30 trainers from across the country to sign up. There were some technical difficulties because they had to scramble. 2,000 people signed up to watch this webinar. Wow.

Speaker 1: 46:24

They were not expecting OK.

Speaker 2: 46:26

You get dog people, pet dog people who might be able to help with anything, and they're in my little Sparky could do this. Even if Sparky can't, we're watching that video, and so I watched it and applied as a trainer. They selected trainers from all over the country to head up the effort and then each trainer was assigned five to six students and all of my students happened to already be under my wing, so they took me, which I was really surprised because it's not in Maine yet and it's not predicted to be here for the next three years. But I already had six students ready to go, so I'm guessing that's why I was picked. So we've been working on getting our what's called ORT, the odor recognition test.

Speaker 2: 47:13

So I have in my little kid's lunchbox a whole bunch of dead lantern flags, in mesh bags in my freezer and I take those out and I'm training these dogs so they sniff and then they get food.

Speaker 2: 47:30

Sniff food, sniff food, and then I throw it somewhere and if they can find it they get their food. So for many of them it's like cheese whiz, because it's a new food for them and it's really exciting for them. Some of them are just using regular kibble, some are using hot dogs, whatever that is going to motivate that dog, but if I find this mesh with the eggs, I get my cheese whiz. And so these dogs have already learned through these other classes that if I sit next to this odor or if I stare at it or, like my dog, shred the box that has the odor like he's a frat boy, then he gets the thing that he wants. In the same way, the identical way that police dogs are trained to find narcotics and cadaver dogs are trained to find dead bodies I am not allowed to have dead bodies or cocaine at work anymore, so this is what we're doing instead. I like the anymore.

Speaker 1: 48:24

That's fun.

Speaker 2: 48:28

Like this is my dead guy. We're going to be looking for him today.

Speaker 1: 48:31

This was Dave.

Speaker 2: 48:34

This was Dave and let's see if we can find him. So I've been working really hard to train these dogs 240 teams Some of them happen to be trainers, some were not but 240 teams from that original 2,000 were selected for this proof of concept and so hopefully by April we will have six teams ready to be deployed in. Five teams to be ready to be deployed in Maine, because I had to pull my own dog from the study but which sucked, yeah, but he had a medical issue. He he's going in in a couple of days for a scan for nasal cancer. The horrible assault in the wound of having a scent detection dog who's done this and got me into this to maybe be facing nasal cancer is the worst. But the other five dogs are this close to getting their odor recognition test and once they get it we get to find a field and hide all these dead eggs and then see if they can find them in like a vineyard or an apple, orchard or somebody's warehouse, yeah yeah sure.

Speaker 2: 49:41

And then if they can do it there, then they are deployable and then we'll be able to actually take them out and look in like shipping containers at the border.

Speaker 1: 49:49

We could go anywhere, we're sent yeah wow, isn't that cool, that is so cool I don't, and I'm just thinking about, like you know, take, you know, extrapolating this out of the, the battle against invasive species in general yes what was it a couple years ago? What were they calling them?

Speaker 2: 50:09

murder hornets, the, the japanese, oh yeah, the murder hornet, yeah whatever that never really like.

Speaker 1: 50:14

Everyone was like they're gonna be everywhere and then I was like, yeah yeah, it was just like a little spice on the 2020 cake. Yeah like it really was just like a 2020, like blip, but yeah yeah, you're that kept on giving like yeah or meth alligators, and then yeah, no, it was, it was meth alligators, cocaine hippos, get it right yeah that's right, yeah, objectively scarier, by the way.

Speaker 2: 50:39

It is my favorite story that, like Pablo Escobar, had these four hippos after he was assassinated. They were like we don't know what to do with these hippos. They escaped and now they are the world's largest invasive species and they're just like we don't know what to do with these hippos. And so, after they shut down his 80 mile compound, they had flown out all of the other animals on his compound because he basically had a zoo. They flew them out and in recent history they have turned his compound into an amusement park and zoo and flew back some of the same animals that used to live there it's so wild, it's so it's the weirdest story.

Speaker 2: 51:26

Come on, kids, let's see where he counted his blood money like yeah, like you can't make this stuff up. That's crazy and hippos are terrifying, by the way absolutely terrifying yeah, they're vegetarian, but they will beep you up but oh so, but okay.

Speaker 1: 51:40

So sorry I I got distracted by you know murder hornets and stuff, but like just thinking about for everything from you know I I posted a video recently, or at least at the time of this, recording about bradford pear trees and how they're coming up all over the place, like we could maybe train dogs to smell specific types of trees and plants yeah, we're already doing it, so like in Australia also.

Speaker 2: 52:02

Speaking of 2020, the year that kept on giving, remember when all of Australia was on fire.

Speaker 1: 52:09

Yeah, like the whole country.

Speaker 2: 52:10

Yeah, we have dogs that were trained at that point to find very rare trees and plants that were able to go out after the fires and detect them, so that way, like horticulturalists, could go out and harvest the seeds for protection, like, so also like koala scats.

Speaker 2: 52:31

So not just endangered animals, but also plants.

Speaker 2: 52:32

This is why I was so excited to talk to you about this because, like you've got, like, all these different trees and all these different plants that are only found in very specific areas, in the same way that animals are only found in very specific areas sometimes, and those areas are at risk due to climate change and by teaching these dogs many of them are shelter dogs that were too much for their family, they needed a, a real job are now being adopted by people who volunteer their time to go out in the middle of the night and traipse through the death area that is australia for funsies and find koala scat and then look up and there's a baby koala that has been burned by this fire, like, so like, and to be able to save it because of these dogs. They also have trained dogs to wear like little backpacks with holes punched in them to reseed areas like australia and in the american west after forest fires, so they can reseed these areas after fires in the hopes to try to repopulate the plant population.

Speaker 1: 53:41

That's so cool. That is just cool. I don't know, like if there weren't enough reasons to love dogs, right they're just so cute, well, and I think like kind of from what we were talking about earlier, the fact that not only like can they do these things, but they often like enjoy doing these things.

Speaker 2: 54:01

They love it.

Speaker 1: 54:03

That's just. That's the coolest thing to me.

Speaker 2: 54:05

It's. Most dogs are perfectly happy being at home on our couch, but they're almost always enriched by doing something else. Almost always enriched by doing something else, and so if we can get them out and teach them like okay, you can find like there are people here in Maine. It's a hunting state. Blaze orange is the color of choice for everyone, from like October through like December. It's not the most flattering color. Actually, after I moved back, I was Googling on Etsy safety orange, but cute.

Speaker 1: 54:41

Did you find anything?

Speaker 2: 54:44

Nothing. So maybe there's a market. But there are people who train their pet dogs to find deer shed or elk shed, which are like the antlers or the horns when they fall off the antlers, because horns are embedded in the skull, but when the antlers fall off, like you teach your dog to go and find that, Like they can smell a mile over open water. One of the very first stories I did on Bewilderbeast was about a dog named Tucker who was an aquaphobic Labrador retriever. Oh yeah, Bred to do one thing go in the water. What does that dog hate? The water Aquaphobic Labrador Retriever who is owned by a marine biologist at the University of Washington in the Pacific Northwest.

Speaker 2: 55:29

They were studying at the time whale populations and how whale populations were decimating and they couldn't figure out what was going on. All of these female whales were becoming pregnant. All these orca whales were falling pregnant, but they were not coming to term and they couldn't figure out why the females were miscarrying at an exorbitant rate, at such a high rate. So the guy decided OK, I have this dog. He's afraid of water but I'm pretty sure I can do something with this. He taught his dog to smell whale scat, which you wouldn't think would be that hard to find. It's a whale, but I guess it sinks like egg drop soup. So once the whale poops it out I broke Vicarum it sinks really fast and so you only have a finite amount of time to collect that liquid gold, to do your research, and if you can't see the whale pod, you're basically hosed and they need to collect this poop because they thought they could get hormone levels out of it.

Speaker 1: 56:32

Okay.

Speaker 2: 56:33

And so he trained his dog in the same way that I'm teaching for invasive species how to do conservation work with this dog. So if you can find the whale poop, you get your ball, which was this dog's favorite thing. So they put the dog on a direction the dog would basically like a compass do north, and then he would just look over the boat and they would just take their technical term scoopy thingy and get whale poop because science is so glamorous, and then the dog would get his ball. So they taught an aquaphobic Labrador retriever to work for marine biology research to save orca whales, and that conservation work is still being done. Through the University of Washington they still have dogs that are going out on boats and collecting whale poop. So whale poop for science.

Speaker 1: 57:30

That is so cool, Coolest thing, yeah, yeah. No, that's so fascinating and I just you know that opens up so many possibilities of you know, I think, when we're looking for tools to better manage the environment, better manage, you know, the things that we need to be caring for out there. You know our planet in general and it's always like, oh, what, like technology thing can we do? Like, what can we build? What?

Speaker 2: 57:56

AI can we use?

Speaker 1: 57:58

Like we have so many of those tools, like we spend so much of our lives with dogs anyway, like they're our buddies anyway and they want to have something to do, like I just I think of so many applications in plant science and in ecological recreation and so many avenues that could open up because of work like what you're doing and what Texas Tech and Virginia Tech are doing. It's so cool.

Speaker 2: 58:22

And we're already outside walking our dogs, so why not put them to work? I mean, jesus, those freeloaders like for 12 to 15 years all they do is like eat and poop and lay on our couch and fart. Yeah, like we could at least put them to work. But the coolest thing is and this is the thing that I keep telling people is like this is a proof of concept and the people doing the work already know that these dogs can do it because it's been proven thousands of times in every industry Arson detection, police work, military work and I have big concerns with some of these, but for the most part we know we can. So I know I can do it because I know learning theory and I know that my dogs that I selected to do this, can do it. Will every dog be happy doing this? No, some of them are going to just really want to watch old reruns of Bob Barker talking about getting your pets spayed and neutered, and that's fine. But for the dogs who really want to watch old reruns of Bob Barker talking about getting your pets baited and neutered, and that's fine. But for the dogs who really want to do something and for the people who are already out in the woods walking their dogs, and for the people who actually want to help, I would much rather see them put their effort in this way than trying to take their doodle that is like Tigger the Tiger and amphetamines and say my dog wants a job, I'm going to take him to a nursing home. Like that dog does not want to be in a nursing home. That dog wants to do something. So let's give them something to do, and nothing calms a dog down more and focuses them more than scent work.

Speaker 2: 59:49

I have a dog in this study His name is Woody, speaking of trees. His name is Woody, he's a Britney Spaniel and his owners were actually seeing me for behavior work based on separation anxiety. The dog is really high energy. He's a lot of dog, he is a working dog and I looked at him and I'm like your dog needs to do cadaver dog work. Your dog literally needs a legitimate dog like not just like throw a ball for 20 minutes. Your dog needs a job. He will drive you crazy and he was. And as soon as this came up, I'm like you want to bring Woody in for a test. This dog, he cannot sit still if he doesn't have something to do when he's searching. He is focused and quiet and he does his job and he is 100% accurate. He is the most accurate dog in this study. He's been doing it for two months. I have dogs who have been doing this for three years who are not hitting that accuracy level Like these dogs can do it.

Speaker 2: 1:00:48

I believe these dogs can do it. I know they can do it. I am so proud of these handlers for volunteering their time to help their environment. They all said they wanted to do it because they love their dog. They think their dog can do it. It's fun for their dog and they help the environment. And that just warmed the cold, cold cockles of my heart and seeing them volunteer. I volunteered.

Speaker 2: 1:01:14

The place that I work donated the space because they believe in this project and we already know what the outcome is going to be. Sometimes you don't need science to prove it, sometimes you just need to have it on paper so you can move forward. And there are so many other invasive species here that we do need to figure out how we can conquer, like the brown tailed moth. That is not something these dogs are going to be able to find, because the brown-tailed moth, when they shed their like little spiky, spiny things. It causes a rash and it can hospitalize people. My nephew was hospitalized by it. Like you get touched by it, it just rashes you and it's awful. So we can't send dogs with sensitive noses in to sniff something that's going to go up their nose and cause a rush. That's a bad day. So there are certainly limitations, but there are other things that these dogs can find the Asian boring beetle Like. There are other trees Like the Bradford pear, like all of the.

Speaker 2: 1:02:08

That is the extent of the horticultural knowledge I have, and you will laugh at this. Both of my grandparents were horticulturalists and you will laugh at this. Both of my grandparents were horticulturalists and I was the one with the black thumb, but I got to animals, so it worked out fine. Yeah, but having these dogs be able to help the environment in a very significant way, improving that concept, I'm just so happy to be a part of it. But I already know the answer and it's pretty cool because I'm like all right, we can do this. It's not an unknown, it's not like if we could do it. It's like, yeah, we can do this and it's so fun to watch them try.

Speaker 1: 1:02:50

Just have to go through the steps. That's so cool, yeah, and.

Speaker 2: 1:02:53

I have to keep going around with my Pokemon lunchbox for at least another two months before we can be deployed.

Speaker 1: 1:03:01

No, that's awesome and I can't wait to hear more about like.

Speaker 2: 1:03:04

Oh, you will.

Speaker 1: 1:03:07

Yeah, that's great.

Speaker 2: 1:03:07

It's going to be all, it'll be ad nauseum.

Speaker 1: 1:03:09

You're not going to get away Well, and as you get deeper into this project, we may have to have you back on to talk about how it's going and what that looks like and all that.

Speaker 2: 1:03:16

Yeah, hopefully they will field test in April. Like the hard thing was like they wanted us to do most of our testing or our training in Maine in winter. Everyone, the first cohort it was summer and the second cohort was winter and they picked us in Maine. I'm like we can't get outside and like two thirds of our training days, like the very first training day, was a blizzard so we had to do it on Zoom and I was driving around the state of Maine with a lunchbox depositing, like the dead fly egg ferry to these handlers before the storm so we could do it on Zoom because Maine and winter, so to be able to do our field test we have to have decent conditions. That's safe for the dogs, safe for the handlers. So we're hoping for April, but that is not a given. It might be May, but we're hoping for April.

Speaker 1: 1:04:05

Okay, well, that's cool. As we wrap up here, I have okay, I have a specific question and then I have a question that I ask all my guests. So the specific question is again kind of going back to all the dog stuff on social media, because there's a billion things, right. So many Do this with your dog. Don't do this with your dog, whatever. There was a woman a while back that made this video like sort of like super aggressive of like you know, do not let your dog sleep in the bed.

Speaker 2: 1:04:30

And then all the stitches were like.

Speaker 1: 1:04:35

no, no, all the stitches of it were like this dog tucked in, like laying on a pole, like a little dachshund with an overbite and little teeth.

Speaker 2: 1:04:43

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:04:43

You just see the little teeth. Is it fine for dogs to sleep in the bed? What do you think?

Speaker 2: 1:04:50

Yes, here's what I tell my students. Actually, I'll give the professional answer, which is, if you are consistent, if you do not want your dog in the bed, that is fine. Give them a safe place to go, a comfortable place to go. But if they're in your bed, it's not because they want to take over the world, it's because your bed is comfortable. That's why we're not sleeping on the floor and they also probably want to be close to you, which is actually kind of a term of endearment.

Speaker 2: 1:05:20

However, asterisks, there is a population of dogs who cannot be in the bed because they resource guard the territory or the person in the bed. Right, ok, right. Or you may have a dog who is prone to seizures and those dogs wake up biting, like not on purpose, but like wake up violently, and if you're in the way, you could get hurt. So for those dogs, I would recommend big cushy bed on the floor. If you still want your dog in the bed but not in the bed, you can get like all those side sleepers that you use for babies. I've had so many students use these's, so funny, it's a choice. So you could do that. You could put them in the crate like your dog. Will be okay as long as everyone is consistent. But I consistently let my dog on all the furniture, except for our brand new couch for at least a couple more weeks.

Speaker 2: 1:06:20

Oh, yeah, yeah, no, I we have we have another old couch upstairs and so when we want to snuggle with the dog we he's already on the couch. So we snuggle in next to him and watch TV, so like he's fine.

Speaker 1: 1:06:30

Yeah, my dog Jesse is, is she? She pretty much just has run of everything, and the biggest perfect we find from her at night is that she snores and uh, that's, that's that's better than the farts oh well, no, we get that too. No, we get that too. Oh okay, it's like a bioweapon, right? Yeah, okay, so no, thank you for clearing that up, because I saw that and I'm always just like one, I don't care, like, I'm not, like we're, we're sticking with this, but two like it didn't sound right, so I appreciate.

Speaker 2: 1:07:01

Well, the hard thing is, like this industry dog training in specific, specifically dog training is not regulated. There are no licensing. There are certifications, but there's no licensing, there's no regulations in my field, and so it's really hard to get quality information out there that's backed by evidence and science, and so some of the certifications out there do point to evidence, science, learning theory, stuff like that and others are promoted on television by people who've never taken an animal behavior class. Popularity and being on the internet does not make an expert. So I would beg people to look for reputable certifications, and if they need guidance in that, they are more than welcome to reach out. I can point them in the right direction. But your dog is not trying to take over the world. They're just trying to get comfortable, dude, like we're on couches, they want to be on the couch too. They're not trying to like, they're not gunning for world domination. They are probably gunning for your meatball sub, though.

Speaker 1: 1:08:00

Oh, yeah, oh yes, 100. Yeah, don't, don't leave the sub on the side table, like that's oh god no, no, even the best dog has its limits, right. The best trained dog is like uh okay, captain, took two.

Speaker 2: 1:08:13

My husband makes sandwich bread, and twice he's like. The first time that was on my husband for having it too close. The second time was on him for not pushing it further back. Twice. It's a day-long process for him to make it, and then the dog was so fat and happy. Okay, so I do have one more story.

Speaker 1: 1:08:35

Okay, yeah, before I ask the last question and I don't, this has just got to be some specific behavior my dog, if we give her a treat, that is like too big and it's an. It's an arbitrary thing, right, it's okay, like, sometimes we'll give her like a I don't know like a, I don't want to say like a meat stick, but it's like a doggy Slim, jim, or whatever. Oh, okay, she'll be like I have to hide this before I can eat it. Okay, so she'll walk around the house like losing her mind, like whining and just like, and it's like we can literally lift up a blanket on the floor and she'll put it over there and we put it back, hide it, yeah, and then she'll eat the whole thing and sometimes it's just like I'm going to eat this all right now. What is that? Why is she doing that?

Speaker 2: 1:09:26

It's a weird vestigial thing from domestication. So if you think about wolves, coyotes, they will take some of their kill, dig a big hole and hide it for later or to bring the rest of the pack over. Now, pack theory has been widely debunked scientifically in domesticated dogs. Your dog is no more a chimp than we are. Sorry, your dog is no more a chimp either, but your dog is no more a wolf than we are. Chimpanzee, right, right, and I'm not a wolf. So your dog has some of those like processing, processing, processing, redirect and like kind of like little misfires to their old genetic programming where it's like, ok, I need to hide it, I need to hide it, like this kind of frenetic hide, and then they're like, oh wait, I could just eat it, yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:10:19

It's so funny. And then like, one time she did get a loaf of bread off the counter. But we found that if she ever like gets something that she can't eat like you know that she's not supposed to have and she knows she's not supposed to have it, she'll hide up and like. So I was sitting there one day and I'm like what is this and it's like half a loaf of bread. I'm like what did you do?

Speaker 2: 1:10:42

And she's just like I don't know, but it's always the left corner.

Speaker 1: 1:10:46

It's so weird, that's so funny.

Speaker 2: 1:10:49

Yeah, dogs are also creatures of habit.

Speaker 1: 1:10:52

Yeah, so that's awesome. I appreciate this so much. This has been so fascinating to me. I've enjoyed this conversation, but what I want to leave with this question I ask all my guests is if you had a piece of advice that you'd like our listeners to take home with them and it could be about dog training, you'd be about just life in general. Whatever it is, what would that be? What would you like for them to remember from this episode?

Speaker 2: 1:11:15

Always more garlic, unless it's your coffee, no wait.

Speaker 1: 1:11:21

I actually love that, yeah, anyway.

Speaker 2: 1:11:23

I think truly, as far as my industry is concerned, I think if it feels your dog genuinely loves you, they do. Your dog might be a hot mess, but you're all they have and if you can find a way to advocate for your dog and to truly help your dog see the world in a way that they're created to see it, I think your dog will be a lot happier. You don't have to do a whole lot, you don't have to buy all the things like F capitalism, but you could just like take their dog food and throw it out into the side yard and let them sniff for their food. And now they're satisfied and they got to work their nose, they got a little exercise, they got to work for their food and then they can go to bed Like. You don't have to make things harder for yourself to make your dog a little happier and then just give them a belly rub because they're awesome.

Speaker 1: 1:12:32

That's great. I love that. Yeah, well, melissa, this has been so much fun. Again, happy birthday. Thanks for hanging out on your birthday.

Speaker 2: 1:12:39

Thank you.

Speaker 1: 1:12:40

And where can people find you? What projects are you working on, like, where Plug your stuff?

Speaker 2: 1:12:45

Sure. So I joined the PodFix Network last year and then told them two weeks later I'm ending my show. So they took me on kind of during the last season, which was very kind that they continued to keep me on. That last episode aired on actually last Monday. However, all the Patreon episodes the Patreon supporters were like please release these to the general public, we don't need to squirrel them away. And so they all agreed to release them, so they will be the Patreon. I know I love them so much, and actually the one that I released today is called Luck of the Irish Setter. It's about the time that Ireland had banned drinking on St Patrick's Day and that the only place in Ireland that you could get a pint on St Patrick's Day was the National Dog Show. So people were renting dogs or pretending they had dogs to go to the National Dog Show and got completely hammered.

Speaker 1: 1:13:45

Oh, that's so funny.

Speaker 2: 1:13:47

So, like Bewilderbeast was and is a real stories of animals intersecting at humanity. And in the last season I had a story about cadaver dogs that are digging up historical remains from the biggest African-American slave graveyards in Virginia that were built over by a highway that had gone completely. Yeah so these dogs that are doing the work of finding the dead to give answers to their ancestors. And then these vultures that do sky burials like if it's too hard to dig into the earth to actually have a burial, you use vultures for your green burials.

Speaker 2: 1:14:27

And, yeah, so like it's all about the ways that animals intersect at humanity and there's a lot of stories in there about dogs and vultures and moths that look like poop and evolution and a little slug that photosynthesizes and like.

Speaker 2: 1:14:41

There's so many, so many cool things and feminism and racism and all the isms I was. I was so shocked to see how many ways animals intersected at the very core of everything that makes us human, and there's a hundred episodes ready to go Bewilder, bees, pod, and I wrote a book called Considerations for the City Dog and I'm under contract to write another one about all the things they don't tell you if you want to work with animals, including the number of times you have to clean up bodily functions that are not yours, and what happens if you have to explain humping to second graders, but also like behavioral euthanasia and like court cases with dog bites. So it's like the whole gamut of like. If you end up doing a job like mine because it's not regulated, they don't tell you what to expect, and so it's 20 years of a career of this is what happens. There's so much poop though man, so much.

Speaker 1: 1:15:34

I have no doubt, I have no doubt. Well, no doubt. Well, that is so awesome. Well, I will put links to your socials and the podcast and everything else you could just not with the twitter, because I can't get in there anyway.

Speaker 2: 1:15:45

But, like my, facebook is fine and then instagram is fine, okay and then I also have like. If you're into weird chicken stuff, like I do I. I got a flock of chickens and I'm completely obsessed and I did not expect to be so. I actually have an Instagram just for my chickens and I don't apologize for it no, you shouldn't.

Speaker 1: 1:16:05

It's great, it's wonderful. Yeah, but, melissa, I hope you have a wonderful rest of your birthday and thank you for having me.

Speaker 2: 1:16:13

I couldn't have expect I couldn't. I mean, I did expect this to be a lot of fun, but I am so pleased to have spent today with you, with a friend, and to just be able to chat and be nerdy about dogs. It truly made my week. Thank you.

Speaker 1: 1:16:25

You heard it here, folks your dog loves you and they love having a job. These are both very good things, and that's really what I want to leave you with today, because those things are important to me and I hope they're important to you. Planthropology is written, recorded, produced all of the things by me, vikram Baliga. Our music is by the award-winning composer, nick Scout. We're supported by Texas Tech University and the Plant and Soil Science Department and the Davis College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, which is such a mouthful. And thank you most of all to you, the listener being a part of Planthropology, for giving me a reason to do this. You know I love you because I do, I do, I love you and I hope you're having a great day. I hope you're being kind to one another. If you have not, to date, been kind to one another, you should probably give that a try. It's a good way to be.

Speaker 1: 1:17:14

Come back in two weeks for another episode of Plantapology. We'll be talking about communications in a time of crisis. Be good, be safe and keep being really cool. Plant people, thank you.