Gretchen Primack--the poet, teacher, and animal activist who first appeared on “Talking Animals” a dozen years ago, discussing her animal-focused collection of poetry, Kind—catches me up on her undertakings in recent years, including the prison education program...
Elizabeth Olson--who lives in Palm Harbor, and is the founder of not one, but two animal organizations, with intersecting missions—recalls even as a toddler, making a beeline for any animal she’d see. Over the ensuing years, her passion for animals has remained...
Ron King, co-founder of Oscar’s Place—a California-based nonprofit which rescues, rehabilitates, and rehomes donkeys—discusses not being an animal fan earlier in his life, but having transformed into a veritable donkey zealot, a point underscored by King nuzzling a...
Marc Bekoff--professor emeritus of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder, who’s written or co-written more than 30 books; his latest, “Love in Their Hearts: A Celebration of Animal Emotions and a Guide to Compassionate Action,”...
As we’ve done 17 times before—spanning five-plus years–today’s program involved setting aside the usual “Talking Animals” format in order to present the show-length feature, “Ask The Trainer.” In each session of ATT, listeners are invited to call or email (or...
Laurie Sumiye--the artist-filmmaker who directed the striking documentary “A Paradise Lost,” a live action/animation hybrid telling the story of the Palila, a small, yellow bird, found only on the Mauna Kea volcano in Hawaii, and for whom a landmark lawsuit was...
Dr. Edie Dopking--founder of Quantum Leap Farm, an Odessa, FL-based facility that, for 25 years, has offered an array of equestrian therapy programs, addressing a wide range of conditions, serving constituents who “range from age 2 to 92”—describes her lifelong...
Bill Berloni--renowned for training rescue animals for stage, film, and television in a storied career spanning 50 years—recounts how, as a teenage aspiring theater kid in Connecticut, he was given the opportunity to prepare the dog as the Goodspeed Opera House...
Owing primarily to Holiday weekend-related snags in booking guests—and retaining guests that had seemed booked--we set aside our typical format, operating guest-free in something of a throwback to the earlier days of “Talking Animals,” when Animal News segments and...
Deni Elliott--author of the new memoir, “Catching Sight: How A Guide Dog Helped Me See Myself,” and writer or editor of ten previous books—explains the impetus for penning the new one. Befitting a longtime teacher—she’s professor emerita in the Department of...
