Can Music Calm an Anxious Dog | Surviving the Loss of Three Dogs in A Year

Transcript

>> James Jacobson: [00:00:00] Hello, I'm James Jacobson

>> Pamela Lorence: [00:00:07] and I'm Pamela Lorence.

>> James Jacobson: [00:00:08] Welcome to Dog Edition, the first show designed for you to listen to while you walk your dogs.

>> Pamela Lorence: [00:00:16] Jim, did you hear the news?

>> James Jacobson: [00:00:18] What news?

>> Pamela Lorence: [00:00:19] Sad. Sad news about, uh, the Obama family dog, Bo.

>> James Jacobson: [00:00:24] I did see that. Bo passed this week.

>> Pamela Lorence: [00:00:27] Yeah. And this is a topic that we cover later on in the show. Pet grief. We hear from a woman who lost not one, not two but three dogs in the span of less than a year.

>> James Jacobson: [00:00:39] It is tough, but it's something that dog lovers eventually have to deal with. Uh, and, and as you hear in our segment later, um, she had to deal with three in the course of one year, which is really tough, but she has some good advice that is helpful for any dog lover.

>> Pamela Lorence: [00:00:56] But before we get to that, we're going to first take a detour to Muscle [00:01:00] Shoals, Alabama, to learn a little about how music can help anxious dogs calm down.

>> James Jacobson: [00:01:06] Sounds good. And as always at the end of the show, please stop by The Hydrant with us as we take a rundown on some of the doggy headlines that captured our attention this week.

So if you love dogs, as much as we do pause what you're doing, leash for your pup and let's take a walk. We've got a lot to talk about on today's episode of Dog Edition.

>> Pamela Lorence: [00:01:29] Hey Pepper, want to go for a walk?

>> James Jacobson: [00:01:34] Music can have some interesting effects on living creatures. Play classical music, for example, to dairy cows, and they produce more milk and show fewer signs of stress and music has been shown to enhance the immune function and anti tumor responses in lab rats. Humans exposed to music therapy, experience pain relief, and reduced blood [00:02:00] pressure and lower anxiety levels among other benefits.

And if you play rock and roll music for pigs, their daily growth rate decrease. Now there's growing interest in music therapy as a behavioral enrichment tool, for dogs. A whole industry has cropped up around the development of music, designed to relax dogs. Spotify, playlist, CDs, and TV channels have been specifically created for this purpose.

There aren't many studies to support the design of these tools. However, the National Institutes of Health, N I H in Washington site about nine specifically for dogs. The good news is you may not need to understand the science in order to be convinced. All you may need to do is listen to our first story. It starts in a recording studio in Muscle Shoals Alabama.

>> Terry Woodford: [00:03:02] The trick too producing hit records, of course, first of all, you got to have a hit song cause you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, but what's really critical is the singer has to deliver the emotion of that message. And it's your job as the producer-arranger, to make sure that music reinforces that feeling, that mood and help her or him deliver that message.

>> Pamela Lorence: [00:03:25] In the early 1970s hit songwriter and producer, Terry Woodford was working at the world renowned Muscle Shoals sound studios. Willie Nelson recorded there. So did Bob Dylan, Hank Williams, Jr, even the rolling stones.

>> Terry Woodford: [00:03:40] You know, here in Muscle Shoals, they didn't understand what was going on. You know, I remember when the rolling stones came in and, and nobody paid attention to them, you know, and they were kind of in shock. I think. You know, kind of disappointed.

>> Pamela Lorence: [00:03:54] After a falling out with a studio, Terry left to form a production company with his business partner, Clayton [00:04:00] Ivey.

>> Terry Woodford: [00:04:01] And we were fortunate enough within nine months to get an exclusive record producer and songwriter deal with Motown. And for me, that was unbelievable thrill because the Temptations and the Commodores and all those people, I grew up listening to that music.

And, uh, so for me to have a chance to actually produce records for them and write songs for them was really a thrill.

>> Pamela Lorence: [00:04:24] Eventually Terry left Motown to open his own recording studio back in Muscle Shoals. A chance encounter and impromptu request at an arts festival started Terry down a whole new path in music.

>> Terry Woodford: [00:04:39] . And this woman said, you know, we need music for kids and daycares. Now at this particular time in my life, I'm thinking, so I'm a big time record producer. You kidding me? I started thinking about it and I said, well, why not? You know, uh, it's uh, it was in November, 1984. Nothing's [00:05:00] going on in recording studios.

All the artists are out on the road and so forth. So. Anyway, uh, I decided that maybe I could make music to help kids at nap time. And I thought there's no point in reinventing the wheel. I'll just use traditional nursery songs that have been around two, three, 400 years that have been calming babies. You know.

>> Pamela Lorence: [00:05:20] He added a twist to the traditional nursery song. He was acting on an instinct.

>> Terry Woodford: [00:05:26] But anyway, so I thought, well, why not record the human heart from the chest, right? Where a baby lays its head when you're holding them. And I'll use that as the rhythm or the drums. And I didn't realize what a technical challenge it would be. And I forgot that the heart doesn't beat in tempo.

And I thought, well, it's going to have to be played on these little cheap cassette players at the time. So will that real bassy sound reproduce very well on those players?

Anyway, after about a thousand hours in the studio, I ended up getting uh five songs. [00:06:00] And I took him to the local hospital here to the newborn nursery. It was Helen Keller Hospital. And so they tested it and found that 94% of crying babies was stopped crying in less than two minutes when he played the music. And I thought, well, that's an A.

>> Pamela Lorence: [00:06:20] 94% of crying babies calmed down while listening to the heartbeat lullabies. So what's going on here?

>> Joshua Leeds: [00:06:28] Terry Woodford is using a process that is the most elegant way that in my 40 years of studying therapeutic music and sound I've come across.

>> Pamela Lorence: [00:06:44] Joshua leads is a music producer, specializing in psycho and bioacoustics.

>> Joshua Leeds: [00:06:49] And that is the process of entrainment whereby our primary body pulses, brainwaves heart rate and breath, will speed up or slow [00:07:00] down based upon an external periodic tempo.

>> Pamela Lorence: [00:07:05] Think about how two people side by side in a rocking chair may involuntarily synchronize their rocking frequencies or how audiences in theaters tend to clap in unison. That's entrainment.

>> Joshua Leeds: [00:07:19] And that is one of the, and probably the primary reason why his musical soundtracks are so successful with human beings and with dogs and perhaps with other animals as well, because the human heart rate in a state of rest between 50 and 70 beats per minute, and for some of us even lower.

If we listened to it for a minute, two minutes through the process of entrainment, we will automatically go to match it.

>> Pamela Lorence: [00:07:58] By matching a resting [00:08:00] heart rate, the person, or as we'll learn, dog being entrained will start to calm. Terry Woodford.

>> Terry Woodford: [00:08:08] I did not intentionally create these for dogs. Right. I wouldn't even have thought of it, but I kept getting emails, phone calls of people who said that they used their grandbaby's CD and it calm their dog.

Right. And I'm thinking, come on. You know, you know, a lot of times, and I'm guilty of it myself, we'll portray human characteristics on a dog. That's not to say they don't have them, you know, because a two year old a dog is about has the intelligence of about a two year old baby in the sense of their behaviors and so forth.

But I thought, well, I'll, I'll see if it can be tested. So I got, I'd read an article for the American Boarding Kennels Association. Tell him what was going on. I was getting all these calls. It was really created for babies and on and on. Would you test it? So I sent him the CDs and I think it took about three months and I get these [00:09:00] comments back. 94 of these boarding kennels said it reduced separation, anxiety diary, and the kennels reduced the barking and I'm thinking, why would they lie? However, I must say I'm a skeptic when it comes to things that I can't understand. And so I still didn't believe it.

>> Pamela Lorence: [00:09:20] Joshua Leeds helps us understand.

>> Joshua Leeds: [00:09:23] If you have an animal that is a mammal, then they're going to be receptive to the same sonic influences that affect us.

>> Pamela Lorence: [00:09:36] These Sonic influences, Joshua refers to are the tone, tempo and simple patterns.

>> Joshua Leeds: [00:09:44] And when you use those three pieces that then Terry Woodford was clear enough in his recognition to just go lullabies are perfect because the lullabies are not [00:10:00] high. They don't have high electric guitars screeching over the top of, they don't have high violins. They're kind of mid range. And they're slow when we think about tone and tempo, they're slow in tempo and they're very easy patterns to recognize. The brain doesn't have to work hard to find the pattern.

And so when you put those three things together, then that helps you to be able to have, come up with basically the winning formula.

>> Pamela Lorence: [00:10:27] Terry took this winning formula to an animal shelter in Colorado to see if his music would work in an extremely stressful environment.

>> Terry Woodford: [00:10:35] Here we are in this place where all these dogs are caged.

They're like in prison, right? They're displaced. Uh, they don't go to the bathroom where they normally go to the bathroom. Everything has been changed. They get upset and the more upset they get, what, the harder it is to get them adopted. And you walk down the aisle and the dogs are all barking and jumping and they want you to pet them and they want you to [00:11:00] take them home with you and all that.

So down at the end of this room then they had this CD player boombox, right. And she already had a queued up and she started playing first song, London Bridge. And within 15 seconds, every one of those dogs laid down in their cage. I freaked out. I said, you gotta be kidding me. I said, let it keep playing because I want to walk down the middle of the aisle again, to see if they'll get up and start barking because you know, maybe they were just calming down because we weren't walking in front of me and, you know, So I walked down the, on that one dog paid attention to me. I knew then this really does work on dogs.

>> Pamela Lorence: [00:11:51] The science is catching up to what Terry stumbled on when he first made his Heartbeat Lullaby music back in the eighties.

>> Joshua Leeds: [00:11:58] Not only do we have this [00:12:00] physics principle that is taking place. It's fully verified in highly studied scientific study. But we also have got our primal psychological relationship to it. So how could it not work.

>> Pamela Lorence: [00:12:16] Capturing the psychological or emotional piece to this is how Terry approached this project.

>> Terry Woodford: [00:12:22] I took it seriously. It was just like, I was going to make a hit record. I mean, you know, why would I do anything less? That's what I did for a living, you know, is to make, try to make hit records that people liked that moved them emotionally, you know?

And, uh, yeah. And I knew I had had to capture that emotion, calming, you know, to calm somebody, how are her to calm them? You know? Well, there's all kinds of music that people think is calming to them and instrumentals and stuff, but it's different strokes for different folks. Right? And so in this case, it's so generic, you know, that was the other idea.

Don't make it RNB. Don't make it country. Don't make it, you know, whatever. And, uh, just try to embellish [00:13:00] traditional nursery songs.

>> Pamela Lorence: [00:13:01] Joshua leads.

>> Joshua Leeds: [00:13:03] And so Terry is using wonderful, primal, emotional impact, and then he's using slow or slowing tempos and the combination of those and easy patterns. And the combination of those is what makes his lullaby music, heartbeat music wonderfully effective. My hats off to the guy.

>> Pamela Lorence: [00:13:30] This is a growing area of research. Studies are now being funded on music therapy and animals. Is there species specific preferences in music? How do animals perceive and process rhythm? That sort of thing. But if you can't wait for the results from this myriad of studies, here are some final thoughts from Terry.

>> Terry Woodford: [00:13:52] In something like this, it's not big deal. It either works or it doesn't.

>> James Jacobson: [00:13:57] The proof is in the pudding. I know that it [00:14:00] works for my dogs because like when we go out, we play some of the, we tell the smart, the smart speakers. I won't do that right now. That's why I don't want to activate your speakers, but the smart speakers to play one of those playlist for dogs to keep them calm and relaxed.

And we have it like throughout our house on the Sonos. And so wherever the dogs go, they're listening to it. And I think it works.

>> Pamela Lorence: [00:14:22] Yeah, it worked in my house. Terry sent me a track, uh, off the CD and you know, my Velcro dog. Pepper. He's been barking since day one of the pandemic and I put it on and he actually curled up and went to sleep within seconds of hearing this music. So I'm, I'm a believer I'm convinced.

>> James Jacobson: [00:14:40] Yeah, we don't need a lot of scientific data. We just see it for their own dogs and that didn't work or it doesn't work and it works for our dogs. So therefore must work with all dogs. Check it out. Right. We're going to take a quick break right here, but we'll be right back.

>> Pamela Lorence: [00:14:55] You're listening to Dog Edition.

Welcome back to Dog Edition. [00:15:00] Earlier in the show, we talked about how certain music can ease anxious feelings. Well, it can also be a balm to soothe the pain of grief. Grief is a normal response to the death of a loved one. And that absolutely includes the death of a dog.

>> James Jacobson: [00:15:17] Sometimes it can seem like the universe is doling out tragedies in a predestined sequence. You may have heard the saying bad things happen in threes. Well, for Lori Levine, it's all too familiar maxim. She experienced the loss of three family dogs within the span of a year.

>> Lori Levine: [00:15:41] There's there's been so much loss in, in, uh, in 2020 in general.

And so many things happened, um, that it just, it put me in a place where I was like, okay, that, that needs to be it now universe, like you did it.

>> James Jacobson: [00:15:55] To you understand that kind of loss you'll have to know about the [00:16:00] love. This story begins in happier times when Lori and her husband Jan first met on the dating app Tinder in 2013.

>> Lori Levine: [00:16:11] Apparently we were the first people willing to go on record that we met online. And I was like, how is that possible? But apparently people were embarrassed to say that they met online. I was like, oh my God, I am loud and proud. I want everybody to find love.

>> James Jacobson: [00:16:24] Lori brought her dog Suki to the relationship.

>> Lori Levine: [00:16:27] He was my responsibility for the minute I got her and I got her on a whim, by the way. I like PA I was buying cheese and bagels next door to where she was. And I walked in and I said, oh, I'm moving. And the woman said, well, go buy your cheese and bagels, come back. I'll pack her up. And I was like, what happened?

And, but I got her home. I thought, oh, that's 20 years of keeping this thing alive. I don't know what I'm doing. I haven't had my own dog. I never had my own daughter. I only had family dogs from when I was a kid.

>> James Jacobson: [00:16:56] Jan brought four children and two [00:17:00] dogs.

>> Lori Levine: [00:17:00] I met the dogs and the kids simultaneously, and they were great.

Casey's a yellow lab. So she came to me immediately with a shoe in her mouth and I didn't a hundred percent understand that that was like an offering. So I thought isn't that very cute, and then I remember I came to pick up the kids once and I see Kipper. And he keeps jumping up cause he's six feet on his hind legs.

And I was like, oh my God. I'm like, what is that? And I was like, okay, there's Kipper.

>> James Jacobson: [00:17:27] This wonderfully blended family navigated years together in relative harmony until 2020, the pandemic had most of the world's population sheltering in place. And Lori was running her company, flying television from home in Connecticut, the kids and Jan were there too.

Their three dogs now, very geriatric began showing signs of their age.

>> Lori Levine: [00:17:54] It wasn't enough that, you know, we had to deal with the pandemic, but then we had three [00:18:00] very geriatric dogs that we had to take care of. They had 24 seven care because I have four stepchildren who are all adults now. And there was always someone in the house and suddenly we got to see everything that was happening with them.

Oh, are you having trouble with steps? Let's build a ramp. Oh, is it hard for you to get around the block? Casey, the yellow lab let's build a fence. You could just walk around the yard all day, you know, are you losing a little weight Kippur? Okay. So then let's change out your diet. I mean, we, they were so covered.

>> James Jacobson: [00:18:32] In early may, 2020, things began to fall apart. It began with Suki.

>> Lori Levine: [00:18:39] Fine on Monday. Fine on Tuesday. She stopped eating on Wednesday and now she's drinking, but she's not eating. Thursday morning we take her to the animal hospital to drop her off and say, we don't understand what she's not eating. Um, can you let us know?

[00:19:00] She was struggling for air and she was struggling in general. So, you know, I, but I promised her, I would keep looking at her eyes. I will be the last thing you see, because you know, that mama is what always kept you safe. And I could see her, you know, like, but even before they gave her the, um, the sedative, I could see her kind of going like, okay, mama's here and it killed me.

It just killed me. I mean, she died in my arms, but that was what I had to give her. And it was rough. It was rough. Had I known that it was coming again? Nothing would have changed, but it prepared me for when Casey went. And then for when Kipper went.

>> James Jacobson: [00:19:42] Suki died on Mother's Day in 2020 in an animal hospital, the very same animal hospital that Lori had said goodbye to her dog, Baxter years earlier. She recalls.

>> Lori Levine: [00:19:54] So I had it in my head what happens when they go and I remembered that I made a [00:20:00] mistake with Baxter because they put them in a room and they let the, and I let them turn on the overhead light. And it really stuck with me that that fluorescent lighting should not have been the last thing he saw.

It should have been, it should have been dusty in there. It should have been softer for him. We should have played music for him. Like there could have been other things we did.

>> James Jacobson: [00:20:21] That experience never left Lori. It was front of mind when it came time to say goodbye to Suki. She would do what she could to remove stress and create a soothing environment.

>> Lori Levine: [00:20:34] We go in, you know, it's COVID now. So we have to put on all the PPE and we have to, you know, get temperature checks and they weren't really letting people into the animal hospital. So we had to wait until they could bring Suki into a private room. I said, I need a room that has a dimmer or I need a light bulb or something.

They said, no, no, we have a room with a dimmer and you walk in and the room is like, it is, it is the room that they say goodbye to everybody. There's tissues and dim [00:21:00] lighting and, you know, the, the blankets. So we had Suki and she, we hold, I held her in my arms and I played her. Um, Warren Zevon's Keep Me In Your Heart For Awhile.

>> James Jacobson: [00:21:14] Rituals can be an important part of the grieving process. They can be comforting, help express feelings and bring about a sense of closure. Lori found that in comforting Suki during her final moments, by looking in her eyes, dimming the lights and playing the Warren Zevon song, she was also creating a ritual that would carry the family's other two dogs through the experience when it was their time.

>> Lori Levine: [00:21:41] Casey, the yellow lab started to get sick or just not sick, she was getting older and it was showing right. Her face was turning white. She was blind in one eye. Um, she went deaf. But it wasn't until [00:22:00] she got dementia that we realized that things got really bad for her. Jan was holding her and she would not stop crying for any reason.

And that point there's no more quality of life. Keeping her alive was torture because she really was sad. You know? I mean, imagine your entire waking life, all you did was cry and scream. And then the only time you were still was when you were sleeping

>> James Jacobson: [00:22:25] So Casey, the yellow lab who had brought Lori a shoe as an offering when they first met now needed something in return.

This is the hardest decision a dog owner has to face. Lori, Jan and the four kids talked it over and came to the same conclusion. It was time to say goodbye to Casey. They contacted Final Journey, a team of veterinarians who provide compassionate in-home pet euthanasia.

>> Lori Levine: [00:22:56] And, you know, we played Warren Zevon, and [00:23:00] then we lowered the lights and we, and it wasn't until they gave her the sedative that we saw casey finally relaxed for the first time, her muscles in her, you know, her upper body relaxed, a little. And we said, oh, okay. She's not in pain anymore. And then we did the same thing we always did. We all held a paw, we all, I looked into our eyes, we said goodbye. And then, and we covered her with a sheet.

They brought in a stretcher and my husband and my, my husband's six, three, and my stepson six, six. So they were carrying her out, but we were able to cover her like Cleopatra in her shroud and then, you know, we had her cremated and they, they, they sent us, um, her ashes, you know, a few days later.

>> James Jacobson: [00:23:45] Their ritual carried them through the pain of that decision.

>> Lori Levine: [00:23:48] And then we were like, okay, Kipper, he has all our attention and he was great for four days.

And the next [00:24:00] thing we knew Kipper couldn't wasn't walking and he had lost like 12 pounds and we were like, what is going on? We had just brought him in for a wellness check. What? No, we had changed his diet. We were giving him special meals.

>> James Jacobson: [00:24:16] Lori and Jan were on their way to a Seder at a friend's home when they got the call from the veterinary hospital, where Kipper was under observation.

>> Lori Levine: [00:24:26] Kipper couldn't breathe. We said, what are you? Huh? So we had brought him in because he was having a little stumble and they said, Kipper can't breathe. You need to come here. And I'm like, come on, come on. It was eight days. Now at this point.

>> James Jacobson: [00:24:44] Eight days after Casey's death, the family was facing yet another loss. They rallied together to say goodbye. Some in-person and some over FaceTime.

>> Lori Levine: [00:24:55] Then I, you know, I do what I always do. Can we shut these lights off? I need a lamp. [00:25:00] I don't care if it's, if it's a reading lamp, just face it towards the wall so that it's a softer light.

They did it. They were amazing. Played the song. I mean, here we are, you know, the, keep me in your heart for a while. There we go playing this song and then Jan said goodbye. And then I went in front and Kipper and I were, uh, forehead to forehead. Like we always were. And I said, okay, buddy, you know, mama's boy.

We'll look into your eyes and you just stay with mama. Mama's boy, and then

>> James Jacobson: [00:25:37] Kipper's death completed this triad of tragedy. And again, their ritual carried them through. There's a lesson for us in this family's awful year.

>> Lori Levine: [00:25:49] You've got a dog for life, their life, not your life, their life, the whole thing from beginning to end.

>> James Jacobson: [00:25:57] For some welcoming, a new dog into the [00:26:00] home soon after another dog's death might help distract from the pain. But for Lori the idea seems unimaginable after so much loss.

>> Lori Levine: [00:26:10] Talking to my husband, I'm like, should we get ducks? Because we're not getting dogs, not for awhile.

>> James Jacobson: [00:26:15] And when you have to face your dogs death, a ritual may help you find comfort. It doesn't have to be complicated or lengthy. It can be as simple and as beautiful as a song by Warren Zevon.

>> Lori Levine: [00:26:29] I don't even think I play it for them. I play it for me because I need, I just need it for them to know that I love them and I'll keep them in my heart forever. But it's also really beautiful song.

>> James Jacobson: [00:26:47] Or maybe you can find comfort in visualizing your dog crossing the Rainbow Bridge.

>> Lori Levine: [00:26:56] You know, frolicking and doing what they want and you know, not feeling [00:27:00] no pain.

You know, Kipper's his entire life would be if he could chase a killer rabbit every day, that would be heaven to him. So perhaps that's what he's doing. Casey. She just wants to shoe a pick up and she just wants to wag her tail and greet people. Maybe she's like the concierge at heaven's gate. Hi, are you here? Here's a shoe.

>> Pamela Lorence: [00:27:20] Whew. That one hits hard.

>> James Jacobson: [00:27:24] It is. But as I said earlier in the show, dog lovers and dog owners probably all have to deal with it at one point in their life. Well, let's change things up a little bit. Let's go visit The Hydrant. Talk about stories that have caught our attention that are in the news this week.

Um, and I think the first one that I want to talk about is a new study that shows that laughing is not just something that humans do. Animals laugh too, including dogs. It's a it's yes. It's an article. Yep. Published in the, uh, Academic Journal Bio Acoustics [00:28:00] by a primatologist at UCLA who, who says that, who has been studying this and it looks like dogs as well as other animals have been laughing all along. Really cool. And I, know that, you know, again, because the entire universe is based on my knowledge of my dogs. One of my dogs does, if she smiles, she can just kind of like make it, she has a sense of humor and she laughs.

>> Pamela Lorence: [00:28:27] My dogs do not laugh. They don't laugh. I don't think they laugh. I, this is mind blowing.

>> James Jacobson: [00:28:33] Humor. I do. It's very cool. We'll put, I'll put a, we'll put a link to this article in the notes for today's episode. What have you caught? What have you seen?

>> Pamela Lorence: [00:28:41] Well, I, I heard about a breed of dog that I never even knew existed. This is a dog back in the 16th century Britain, and it's called a turn spit dog. Turn spit. So what does that like when you hear the word turn spit?

>> James Jacobson: [00:28:58] What, well, I think of, I think of like, uh, [00:29:00] a bird roasting over

>> Pamela Lorence: [00:29:03] Exactly. This dog was basically like the first kitchen appliance. It was a small dog and they put it, yeah, it was a kitchen appliance. They would put this dog in a wheel, like a hamster wheel and the dog would run.

And there was a chain attached from the wheel to the spit where they roast, you know, a pig or whatever. And as the dog would run, the spit would turn. And that was the purpose of the dog.

>> James Jacobson: [00:29:30] Hamster wheel. But then they had a whole breed of dogs dedicated to running in place.

>> Pamela Lorence: [00:29:35] The turn spit dog is a tiny little dog. The first kitchen appliance. Who knew.

>> James Jacobson: [00:29:40] Wow. That is interesting. Uh, do we have any pictures of this that we can share with our listeners?

>> Pamela Lorence: [00:29:45] Oh, definitely.

>> James Jacobson: [00:29:47] Okay. That'll be in the show notes as well. New breeds or old breeds, doing important things in the kitchen. I like it. That is all we have time for today.

However, but I want to thank you for bringing [00:30:00] Dog Edition along with you on your walk. We will be back next week with another episode, but chances are that you and your dog will be taking a walk between now and then, and we have something else for you to listen to.

>> Pamela Lorence: [00:30:14] If you're interested in hearing more from some of our guests, please check out DPN sister show The Long Leash for Jim's extended conversations.

>> James Jacobson: [00:30:23] This week, you can hear my extended conversation with Lori Levine. She has a lot to say, and it's really powerful. Um, that's on The Long Leash.

>> Pamela Lorence: [00:30:33] And follow Dog Edition in your favorite podcast app, so you can take us along on your dog walk next time.

>> James Jacobson: [00:30:39] And all our next episode, we will learn what it takes to be a pet influencer on social media.

>> Pamela Lorence: [00:30:47] We also dig into a story about why dogs love those little squeaky toys so much.

>> James Jacobson: [00:30:53] They do, and we'll find out. The science behind that visit Dog Edition.com. There is a button on the bottom, right of [00:31:00] every episode page. So you can easily leave us a voicemail and share your stories and check the show notes for links and information about the guests on this episode.

We are looking for correspondants as we grow this podcast. And so if you're a content producer or a journalist or a podcast, or an audio storyteller who loves dogs, check out our Hundred And One Dog Stories Contest over $15,000 in prize money. Just go to our main website at Dog Podcast Network dot com.

>> Pamela Lorence: [00:31:34] And join our pack.

Be sure to follow Dog Edition in your favorite podcast app. And tell a friend about the show. I'm Pamela Lorence and I'll see you at the dog park.

>> James Jacobson: [00:31:42] And I'm James Jacobson. I really want to thank you for listening today. On behalf of all of us here at Dog Podcast Network, we wish you and your dog, a very warm Aloha.