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It started when two canine scientists decide to become pen pals in an era of digital media...

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Do you believe in dog? 2016

14 August 2012

I like your basics and approve this pen pal union

I like your basics and approve this pen pal union

Barcelona! So pretty! http://traveldk.com/barcelona
What was I doing before we sat next to each other in Barcelona? Wishing I had a pen pal. Really. I’m always looking for daily, back-and-forth, shooting the &*%$!@ banter about anything and everything dog, animal behavior, animal welfare or cute-koala-related that comes across my desk.

So about me and what comes across my desk... While I am originally from NYC (Greenwich Village and Westchester), I often stick a “u” in the word behaviour (which is different from most people in the USA who do not know that flavor and color have another side).

I did my Masters in Applied Animal BehavioUr and Animal Welfare (10 mouthfuls) at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. I recently published my first scientific article on the “guilty look” in dogs in the journal of Applied Animal BehavioUr Science so the “u” is definitely my friend!

Where I did my Masters. Weird ( ).
Reason #456 why this pen pal union is great: We have guide dogs in common. When I was in high school, I did an internship with the veterinarian at Guiding Eyes for the Blind in Yorktown Heights, NY. I shaved dogs for speuters (spay/neuters), roused them post-surgery and held them for routine procedures. What I remember most was that electric razors are quite effective, hip dyspasia sucks, Labs can have stinky ears and speuters can be quick and easy! While the inside of the dog was nifty, I was more drawn to what I could see on the outside. Why did some dogs have the appropriate personalities for guide work? What were dogs communicating to one another, and what was all that sniffing about?

During senior year of college at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, many light bulbs went off. I enrolled in Dr. Patricia McConnell’s class, The Biology and Philosophy of Human-Animal Relationships. Watching Trisha, all I could think was, “Please, can I be you!?!?!” Trisha used Ethology, the study of animal behavior, to scientifically explore dogs and the dog-human relationship. That was a big A-HA! for me.

Since then, I’ve been all over the field of Applied Animal Behavior:
Researched for this book. Yay Research!
My life is mostly divided between dog behavior research, writing, teaching, behavior consulting and lecturing.

Horowitz Dog Cognition Lab
I manage Alexandra Horowitz’s Dog Cognition Lab here in NYC where we’re currently investigating dog olfactory experiences and anthropomorphisms. Companion dogs and their owners join us for treat-based behavior studies.

I’m not a dog. I can write!
I also write about all things canine behavior and cognition for the magazine The Bark, based out of Berkeley, CA.
Humping piece in The Bark
I cover everything from humping and crotch sniffing to attachment behavior in dogs. This blog will be an awesome place to toss around ideas!

Teaching
I teach Applied Animal Behavior for an online Masters Program in Anthrozoology at Canisius College in Buffalo, NY. Each semester has 4 days up in Buffalo where it is very very cold.

Behavior consulting
My website www.dogspies.com
Organizations and owners bring me in to help with animal behavior, environmental enrichment good stuff like that. Cats like me.

 Megaphone time for research!
It's awesome that one of my/our goals is to discuss all this research outside the academic arena. I hold talks for dog organizations, pet owners, the general public and student groups, and I blog about the latest canine behavior studies on Dog Spies. I know we have the education angle in common, and I particularly want kids to have the tools to appreciate and understand this unique, non-human species.

 The goal is that everyone, not just academics, can join the conversation on dog behavior and cognition research. 
 
Lots of great stuff comes across my desk (sometimes even about unicorns!), and I’m looking forward to talking about it all with you!!

 JULIE!

© Julie Hecht 2012
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welfare

10 August 2012

Back to basics - let me introduce myself...

Back to basics - let me introduce myself...

Hey Julie!

I'm pretty excited to revisit the whole penpal concept too! I had one when I was 10yrs old who lived in the USA (just like you!) and was named Mia (just like me!).

So how about I start by telling you a bit about me?

I live near the Yarra Valley in outer Melbourne, Australia. I have always been fascinated by animal behaviour (yes, a U in behaviour, it’s how we Australian’s roll). I studied a Bachelor of Science at Monash University, majoring in Zoology/Biological Sciences with a minor in Psychology. I continued to a fourth Honours year researching the ‘Feeding ecology and interspecific interactions of the Pied Currawong, Strepera graculina’. Basically I chased birds around watching what they ate and how they interacted with other birds.

It was better than I had expected. Turns out birds are quite cool and these birds were especially neat because they were acting like an invasive species (moving into urban areas when the food ran low in their normal mountain habitat to exploit introduced plants that were fruiting in residential gardens in Autumn and Winter), even though they’re natives. They were super smart and able to utilise many (like seven!) different behaviours to find food, where most other birds just have one or two techniques. There was also this guy who fed a bunch of 30 birds 20kg (that’s 44lbs!) of chicken mince meat every week. Why bother searching for bugs and beetles when you can have gourmet mince served up every day at 4pm? The way humans and animals interact is interesting stuff!

I'm no dog whisperer... but I am a dog researcher!
After my degree I worked at the uni as a research assistant helping find out how leaf-cutter ants from Venezuela move. Turns out ants are really cool too. Some people think that nature optimises systems so there were a whole lot of traffic engineers interested in how wide the ants would make their path to accommodate the colony members carting fragments of leaves to the nest. There were some physicists who thought the ant colony acted like gas particles expanding and contracting which turned out to be relevant to planning how people can evacuate buildings in emergencies. My piece of the story was looking at how the ants carried their load. Sadly I didn’t go to Venezuela, but spent hours watching videos of these ants in a lab, measuring the triangles formed by their legs when they walked and how the triangles varied depending on load and speed. Somehow, it was still really fun!

I took some time off and travelled for most of a year, visiting a fair bit of Europe, a little bit of India and a bit more of Nepal.

I came home with a maxed out credit card and started working at the first place who took me, which turned out to be RSPCA Victoria. I worked in the admissions and processing area of their Shelter, seeing all of the stray, injured, surrendered and cruelty case animals coming in. Part of my duties was to assist in the euthanasia of animals that were too unwell or otherwise unable to be rehomed. It was a tough job emotionally for someone who adores animals, but one that lit a real passion in me to help make life better for the animals around us. There were days I was convinced we should have been desexing and euthanasing some people instead of the animals!

I was recruited to be part of a new RSPCA Education Centre and then moved on to working as an Education Officer talking to school children and community groups about the five freedoms of animal welfare and other topics like 'how to choose the right dog for you'. I was involved in leading ‘Puppy Preschool’ classes through the RSPCA vet clinic and took my own two dogs through obedience training levels as well. My cat even attended ‘Kitty Kinder’ and can come, sit and high-5 when asked – awesome, right?! But not quite as awesome as this:

In 2003 I moved into the role of Training Kennel and Vet Clinic Manager at Guide Dogs Victoria – a job that I absolutely adored the entire time I was there. I supervised an amazing team of staff dedicated to the care of the physical and mental wellbeing of the puppies, dogs in training and working GD’s. While I was working there I was lucky to meet and work with people from lots of other working dog sectors like Quarantine and Customs detector dogs; Police dog squads and even the greyhound racing industry. I became very interested in the welfare of workings dogs, especially those housed in kennel facilities and how we could maximise their wellbeing and how that might relate to their ‘work performance’ for us humans. 

I made some great friends at Melbourne Zoo learning how they utilise enrichment to improve animal welfare. I started my PhD (part time as I was working full time) with Pauleen Bennett and the Anthrozoology Research Group, looking into the effects of a structured enrichment program of the welfare and performance of young guide dogs. I’m still plugging away at that but look forward to telling you about the project in more detail in later posts. I’ve also been involved with the Australian Animal Welfare Strategy working group for working dog welfare (say that eight times fast!) since 2005, but I might save details about that until later too as I seem to have rambled on for far too long here!

So anyway – tell me about you!

What were you doing before we sat next to each other in Barcelona?
Was it always going to be canine science for you?

p.s. My Mum is originally from Denmark, so I am totally all over the advent calendar scene - they rock!
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working dogs

9 August 2012

Passing notes across the sea

Passing notes across the sea

Your pen pal!
Hi Mia!!

It was beyond awesome meeting you in Barcelona. Grathiath por invitarme a be your pen pal!

I used to be the queen of passing notes and having pen pals. When my best friend moved back to Germany in high school, we would write epic letters detailing our latest crushes or why we were angry at so-and-so. More importantly, she would send yearly Advent Calenders (feel free to send chocolate whenever). In math class, I would pass notes like, "If Johnny ate 3/4 of the apple pie and Sue ate 1/18, what time did the apple truck leave Scranton, Ohio?"

Somewhere along the way, passing notes and pen pals died out. Maybe I "grew up." Maybe it's the fault of the internet. But no more! Pen pals are important! Pen pals are key! Especially when it comes to talking about dogs!

Bring it!

Julie
AKA: YOUR PEN PAL

© Julie Hecht 2012
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Pen Pal

30 July 2012

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