Ellie Laks —the founder of The Gentle Barn, a Southern California sanctuary that houses more than 170 animals that have been rescued from abuse, neglect or slaughter—discusses the ideas and impulses that propelled her to create the facility, some of which can be...
Colleen Patrick-Goudreau —a nationally-recognized speaker, author (of seven books) and podcaster whose milieu is espousing the virtues of vegan living—describes her earliest efforts as an advocate, the better part of three decades ago, when even then a driving...
Lori Shepler—an award-winning former Los Angeles Times photographer who now presides over CityTheKitty.com, among the most informative and influential websites dealing with feline declaw surgery--traces that unlikely path. Shepler recalls how the cat who later...
Kristie Middleton—the Senior Director of Food Policy for the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), and author of the new book “Meatless: Transform the Way You Eat and Live—One Meal at a Time”--discusses her job at HSUS, and what the duties entail. Middleton,...
Robert Grillo —an activist and writer who is the founder of Free from Harm, and just published his first book, “Farm to Fable: The Fictions of Our Animal-Consuming Culture”—recounts how his work in advertising, particularly handling food accounts (like working on...
Dr. Tim Caro —a professor at UC Davis and wildlife biologist whose new book is “Zebra Stripes”—traces some of the arc of his academic career, including how he became interested in researching animal coloration. Caro goes on to explain how this focus led to...
For today’s edition of Talking Animals, I jettisoned the usual format and convened a panel discussion about the end of the Ringling Bros. circus. I was inspired to present the panel because I was struck by the array of reactions in the wake of the announcement by...
Bruce Cameron and Cathryn Michon—the husband-wife team who wrote the screenplay for A Dog’s Purpose, a film starring Dennis Quaid, based on Cameron’s bestselling novel of the same name—discuss how the book has yet again become a New York Times bestseller (this...
Paul Solotaroff—Rolling Stone contributing editor who wrote a wide-ranging, high-profile exposé about the netherworld of puppy mills in the then-new issue of the magazine—discusses how he came to write the piece, sort of goaded into it by Humane Society of The...
Dr. Alexandra Horowitz—the scientist, professor at Barnard College, and bestselling author of books about dogs, most recently, “Being A Dog: Following The Dog Into A World of Smell”—discusses Tucker, the dog trained to detect the scat of orcas who live in Puget...
