Great writing about dogs: An NY Times Obituary and a chapter from Mary Poppins (Also: We’re 4!)

How To Train Your Dog With Love + Science - Dog Training with Annie Grossman + Anamarie Johnson PhD

In celebration of School For The Dogs' recent ten year anniversary, this podcast's fourth anniversary, and Annie's birthday last week, she shares two gems for anyone who loves dogs and loves reading, or writing, about them. One is an obituary for Finn, a Manhattan-based dog who died last month. He belonged to Dr. Alexandra Horowitz of Barnard's Dog Cognition Lab. The other is a fictional piece about a pampered dog, yearning to break free from an overbearing woman who insists on treating him like a child. It is a chapter from the first Mary Poppins book, written by P.L. Travers in 1934. Special guest: Magnolia Pedicone

Finnegan, Dog Known for His Exemplary Nose, Dies at 14 https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/21/opinion/dogs-animals-obituaries.html

Books by Dr. Alexandra Horowitz https://www.simonandschuster.com/authors/Alexandra-Horowitz/46971319

Miss Lark's Andrew https://lingualeo.com/en/jungle/p-l-travers-mary-poppins-chapter-four-miss-larks-andrew-165704

Mary Poppins https://www.amazon.com/Mary-Poppins-Dr-P-Travers/dp/0544439562

Liked this episode? Here are some others that may be of interest:

Dog training with Mary Poppins, Professor Harold Hill and Little Orphan Annie https://www.schoolforthedogs.com/podcasts/episode-104-dog-training-with-mary-poppins-professor-harold-hill-and-little-orphan-annie/

Episode 1: Meet Annie and learn how School For The Dogs came to be https://anniegrossman.com/2018/03/podcast/school-dogs-podcast-episode-1/9222/

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Partial Transcript:

Annie:

Hello, human listeners. Thank you for being here. Today I got a little reminder on Facebook that 10 years ago, I had put a t-shirt on my late wonderful dog Amos that said “The Dogs: Dog Training near Union Square.” And it made me remember that School For The Dogs just turned 10. Kate and I met in 2011 and started training together in 2011. So I guess it's actually a little bit more than 10 years.

But I think it was about February, 2012 that we really started training out of my apartment, which is where we were located at the time. We converted my living room into a dog training center. And at first we called it the dogs, cause I had a blog called The Dogs and then we changed it to School For The Dogs to make it a little bit more descriptive, so people understood what we were doing and we've come a long way in the last 10 years. It went from being just me and Kate to now we have a staff of, I don't even know 15 people.

And we're certainly still figuring it out. I had no idea what it meant to run a small business. Neither did Kate. And we're working hard at it, trying to make it work, learning all the time. And I'm really proud of our team and what we've created. And I'm honored that this podcast has listeners. And this podcast also is having a kind of birthday. I posted the first episode four years ago next week, and I had a birthday last week.

So to celebrate all these birthdays today, I wanted to just share a couple things I've read lately that really touched me. So these are gifts that I want to give you or share with you these little gems.

The first one is a piece that was written by Dr. Alexandra Horowitz last week for the New York Times. It's an obituary for her dog. She is the head of the Dog Cognition Lab at Barnard College. The author of several really wonderful books about dogs including Inside of a Dog and Our Dogs Ourselves. And totally a superstar celebrity in this field.

Full transcript at SchoolForTheDogs.com/podcast

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