Steve Martorano 
Hey everybody, how are you doing? Steve Martorano here. A moment before we get into the nitty-gritty here. Now I gotta remind you again. You will have our eternal gratitude if you just click that subscription button. We need your support in that fashion. Hit the button, and subscribe. We'll love you long time here on the Behavioral Corner

The Behavioral Corner 
Hi, and welcome. I'm Steve Martorano, and this is the Behavioral Corner; you're invited to hang with us as we've discussed the ways we live today, the choices we make, the things we do, and how they affect our health and wellbeing. So you're on the corner, the Behavioral Corner. Please hang around a while. 

Steve Martorano 
Hi, everybody. Welcome to the Behavioral Corner. It's me again, Steve Martorano. I hope you found this by now. I hope you're enjoying it. For those of you who may just stumble upon it, what we do at the Behavioral Corner, we talk about everything. It is a podcast about everything. Because our purview is behavioral health, and I can't think of many things that you're doing or thinking are involved in that don't somehow or another wind up affecting your behavioral health. And so that's what we do on the corner. And we're real fortunate because we run into very interesting people hanging out here. Behavioral Corner is brought to us with the great cooperation of our underwriting partners Retreat Behavioral Health, you'll hear more about them straight ahead. I can't think of a better time of the year than the "dog days of August" to talk about our topic. Because if this were a Jerry Seinfeld episode, first of all, more people will be watching. But he would begin by going, "What's a big deal with people in their pets?" We're going to take a look at what we are generally calling the psychology of human-animal relationship. I'm fascinated by it. Not a pet owner, I confess that upfront I have been but not currently. I have no prejudices against them, although I do observe their behavior. And I'm fascinated by it. I'm fascinated about that whole intersection. So that's the topic on this Behavioral Corner, and we hope you'll stick around. By the way, if you are a pet owner, you may want to bring the animal into the room. And is there some way they can let the animal listen to this while you do, I think they might benefit as well, our guest, and we're so glad to have her. Dr. Beth Daly. Dr. Daly is an Associate Professor of Anthrozoology at the University of Windsor. She has taught many classes, some of which we'll talk about in this field of animals that humans and society, animals and sport and entertainment, I'm interested in that, as well as educational psychology. Like I said, we meet interesting people here on the Behavioral Corner, we have our first anthrozoology. Dr. Daly, thanks for joining us.

Dr. Beth Daly 
Well, thank you very much for having me. And my favorite course to teach, which I'm doing in the fall, is called...is on the...on the development of the dog-human relationship, the history of canines and humans. And that's a really popular course as well. And we did one on zoos recently. So that's a lot of fun as well.

Steve Martorano 
Can I audit that course online? I love....that's the most obvious example of this intersection. Right? Dogs and...that's where I think most humans who come in contact with any kind of animal probably come in contact with dogs with cats a close second, more than any others. That sounds like a great, great course. Can we begin...can we begin with you telling us about anthrozoology, which is a field of study I wasn't familiar with? What are we talking about?

Dr. Beth Daly 
Yeah. Anthrozoology is the study of human-animal relationships. And as I think I mentioned to you, in my note to you, it's relatively new in that it's become a really significant field, we have a group called the International Society of Anthrozoology, and that's a very active research organization made up of, you know, mainly academics, who are interested in studying all aspects of the human-animal relationship. And that organization has been around for about 30 years now. So I mean, I say relatively new is sort of like religion, you know, that would be considered really new. And it really has gained in not only popularity but in respect as a research field. And one of the areas that is really lacking and I've developed I've been very fortunate to have the support of my university, the University of Windsor, to develop a program because there are very few programs in which people can study anthrozoology. It's extremely interdisciplinary...multidisciplinary. So most of the anthrozoologists you meet have different backgrounds. I did a background in education...oh, look who's here to visit my little Paddington. My little Labrador has just come up to me. I did. My background is in educational psychology. Many, many colleagues are our veterinarians, psychologists, and biologists, we have we've, I've come across several nurses who started off being interested in the field because of health and animals. So it's...it's really an interesting range of people. And so the challenge has been students come up to us and say, you know, "Where can I study anthrozoology?" And so we really need to develop this as a...as a...as a teaching topic. And I've been very fortunate to be able to do that at my university. As I said, we have a certificate program at the University of Windsor in Ontario, Canada, and it's become really popular over the last few years since we started this.

Steve Martorano 
What you know, it's interesting, because if we're what we're talking about is the psychology or the intersection of human-animal relationships. That's something that's a very long, long history. And the idea that we would that academia would just get around to make it a field of study is...is kind of interesting, I guess, people just take it for granted that you love your pets, right?

Dr. Beth Daly 
Yes. You know, I'm glad you said that. Because the truth is going back, for instance, I'm a board member of the Detroit Zoo, which is a fabulous zoo. They are mostly animal rescues. And they really believe strongly in animal welfare first, which is not the case of all zoos. But if you were to research zoos, for instance, the first ones existed as far back as 1500 BC, I think I bet you're right. But BC, and about 1500, where there were people in Egypt, the royals, of course, who loved animals, and also they were a sign of power and wealth, and they would send their people on animal collecting expeditions. And it wasn't uncommon for people in Egypt to have a menagerie of elephants, and giraffes, and any other kind of animals that could collect in that as far as down as they could go across Africa,

Steve Martorano 
It must have been an extraordinary experience that we'll never know when a civilization that long ago set out to trade with other parts of the world that have never been discovered before. And people came back with stories of these beasts that they had never seen. And so naturally, if you're a person of influence like the Pharaoh would be, he'd say, well bring them back."

Dr. Beth Daly 
Right. Imagine trying to describe what an elephant looks like to somebody I know there's that there's a myth about that. But there was the I think it was in about 300 AD that A...A. Where are we know, BCE? You can tell my age, right? And be secret current and current era? Is that... 

Steve Martorano 
Yes. For the current error, right? 

Dr. Beth Daly 
Yeah. And the first person drew an elephant. And that drawing is the first picture of an elephant, and he went and never seen him again, we're going back 1000s of years. 

Steve Martorano 
Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Beth Daly 
And now going into my favorite animal, that dog, boy, that relationship if you're to jump over to the study of biology and canine genetics, the research going on right now to try and trace humans back to the first development of canines or domesticated dogs, the research field is blowing up right now. There is so much hardcore, serious research going on debating when dogs first existed. What the original origins was. Was it in Asia? Was it in Europe? Did they split off? It's fascinating.

Steve Martorano 
It really is. Before we get into some of the different categories and of relationships that you and I've talked about before the show here, I want to just take a moment to talk about domestication. What were the first animals domesticated?

Dr. Beth Daly 
The first animals domesticated were...was it the dog? Oh, now you're putting me on the spot. I always want to say the dog, but no farm animals would have come first. But I haven't studied farm animals much except because I've studied the dog. The dog has been around for 15,000 years. And the dog is the first domesticated pet that we've had that obviously, that's...

Steve Martorano 
That's...that's a different category, because...

Dr. Beth Daly 
It's a different category. 

Steve Martorano 
Yeah. Yeah. 

Dr. Beth Daly 
And but I stress this because people forget that farm animals are considered domestic, and it's anything that we have that wouldn't be around if it weren't for humans.

Steve Martorano 
A chicken is not domesticated. It's easily controlled, right?

Dr. Beth Daly 
There are domesticated chickens because they're the ones that we raise. And there are certain types of chickens that are wild. There are certain types of chickens that are domesticated. A broiler is a domesticated chicken. But then, if you go back to the question that you asked me, the debate about dog domestication is that if humans hadn't settled and they settled as a result of being able to farm. And that's when they started domesticating pigs and cows, dogs by the dominant theory that dogs started hanging around and you and I share stories about that the other day, dogs wouldn't exist. So the very idea that also and my joke is when horses and cows kind of catch on and they're bigger than us, it's game over.

Steve Martorano 
Here's what I've always thought, you know, I'm sure horses must sit around at night and go -- and when talking about dogs -- and say to themselves, "Man's best friend? How? Why God's name with they be man's best friend? I'm pulling plows. I'm carrying them around for 1000s of years and all they do is lay on the sunny side of the sidewalk and get fed." They must be very jealous. I didn't...I asked the question about domestication -- because just a sidebar for me -- do we know why some animals are resistant to domestication? And others are not?

Dr. Beth Daly 
That's another really good question. And I have joked with James Circle, Dr. James Circle, he's at the University of Pennsylvania. Why don't we domesticate squirrels as an experiment? It's been an amazing experiment going on in Siberia on domesticating silver foxes, but you have to start with a huge population. So if you read history books, the one animal that I have read about that has been resistant to domestication -- And to answer your question -- I'm not sure if how many failed experiments they've been other than the one I have read about is the zebra. Because when Europe was trying to conquer, say, England, it's fair, was trying to conquer Africa, importing horses, you know, was not an easy thing to do. Horses were not resistant like zebras were to the tsetse fly. Horses were, they would get sick, because they couldn't go long distances without water. Zebras, which were, of course, native to Africa, it made sense. Let's just domesticate them. There are similar to a horse. And I don't know. It's something that I've been meaning to read more about. Because I've only read some cursory articles, they don't know how intensively they tried to domesticate the zebra. But I have read a number of articles that said the attempts to domesticate the zebra have failed. So I mean, why would you domesticate certain animals? They...they show certain properties. They have to show some interest in humans. I would think the wolves certainly would have hung around, right? Cats just probably were fed. That...we humans, rats were around food, and humans were around food, and you could see why that relationship would happen. But, you know, when I joke about this, you know, why would we domesticate a squirrel? And my answer is, why not? I mean, why not? Humans seem to want everything, right?

Steve Martorano 
I think I don't know that, Professor. I think the world could do very nicely without domesticated squirrels.

Dr. Beth Daly 
Well, yeah, then maybe we could tell them, please don't keep running out in front of the car. 

Steve Martorano 
Oh, yeah. I'd be helpful. And that brings us to the dog and cat story. You just reminded me of something. One can see the utility here in this relationship. I guess in certain cultures, they viewed animals, dogs, and cats as maybe a food source, but not general. They were first companions. And then they had utilities as you just said, cats fought rats. So did some dogs, too. 

Dr. Beth Daly 
Yeah. 

Steve Martorano 
So they had a utility, but now they're members of the family. 

Dr. Beth Daly 
Yes.

Steve Martorano 
It would have a deep and serious sense. What do we know about that process? What I mean, I know what's going on with the animals they're being fed and taken care of must be wonderful. But what's going on for the owner? What's the transaction that's going on there?

Dr. Beth Daly 
That's a really good question. Now, first of all, you mentioned horses, and I always feel like a little shout-out to the horse. We owe everything to the horse. And they have really been not well rewarded, I think in some of the ways that we continue to treat and exploit them. But let's not forget that, you know, they horses, you're exactly right. Horses, cats, dogs, originally, we gave them jobs. And cats to this day are still not fully domesticated. Cats have a purpose. And that is typically to chase rats. And I mean, there's a reason we don't usually, although you do often the New York City see cats on a leash. But you know, what do we get out of any relationship? You know, we talk about different types of relationships, these commensal relationships and you know, negative kinds of relationships. And, you know, it's kind of win-win with dogs because they love us unconditionally. They will take care of us when we are feeling sad in our heads. And people say the same thing about cats. And we know with therapy, people say the same thing about horses. But that utility question is still a big one because there are some people that would argue that the dog relationship is one-sided either way. Some people feel that dogs should never have been domesticated or that dogs should be allowed to just live on the street. You know, the street dogs are happy dogs. But on the other hand, what do we get out of it? They get fed. We raise their children, But on the other hand, my dog is everything to me. I found a stray dog the other day in front of my house. And I posted in our neighborhood watch group or discussion group that I'd found this dog. And I mentioned this to you, his owner who just was just sent me a gorgeous bouquet of flowers. Oh, yes, she was. I mean, he was an old dog. And she was just terrified that when he was missing. But I'm still getting likes and "thank you" and "thank you" on the discussion group. Why? Because people who have dogs can't imagine what it would be like to lose a dog and not have somebody taking the dog who cares about the dog, especially when he's old, you know, the one neighbor that I saw that dog on the street, I just left them there. Who does that?

Steve Martorano 
So it enhances our self-esteem, our sense of being decent people if we're kind of these animals. And I think that's basically understandable. You said that cats are only partially domesticated. Yeah, Cats seem more tolerant. They seem to tolerate their interaction with humans rather than embrace it the way dogs are really into it, right?

Dr. Beth Daly 
That's right. Now there is a biological. Let's get into the real stuff, though. There is a biological rationale for this. And it's called neyotnee. The cuteness effect. I do this all the time with my students. I hold up...I put pictures of big round fat babies with great big eyes, and you know, heads too big for their body. And then you put up a puppy, and they look the same. There is something in our makeup that we are drawn to cute things. And this isn't mine. This is Stephen Jay Gould's argument, but it's a good one, you know? We are inherently programmed to raise babies and to take care of babies. I have a yellow lab, and she just turned a year old the other day. And I mean, you could stare at her for hours. I also have grandchildren.

Steve Martorano 
That's fascinating. And so what is the term you used to...

Dr. Beth Daly 
Neyotnee. Neyotnee.

Steve Martorano 
Neyotnee?

Dr. Beth Daly 
Yeah, with the cuteness effect that...big eyes. Mickey Mouse. Mickey Mouse is the example that Stephen Jay Gould uses. Mickey Mouse started off being very mousy. 

Steve Martorano 
Yeah. 

Dr. Beth Daly 
He had a skinny nose and skin...and little ears. And over the years, his ears got bigger, and his eyes got wider. And you know, he got much cuter. And there's a reason for that. You know, most people aren't going to think how adorable a little rat is driving around a boat. You know, Steamboat Willie.

Steve Martorano 
Well, I certainly explain why the internet, in its very early days, was basically the province of people posting cute cat pictures. I had no idea what was really going on. There was training for humans to be good parents and love their children by posting pictures of cute cats. 

Dr. Beth Daly 
That's right.

Steve Martorano 
You know what, maybe I'm not giving cats enough credit here.

Dr. Beth Daly 
My...my students tell me I don't either. So don't worry. I mean, cats also are a bit of a bum's rush. But then again, they decide when they feel like being nice to us. So you know, the cats we really haven't worked out with, you know, that's pretty. You know, I'll play with you when I feel like it. And you know, you just do what I tell you.

Steve Martorano 
In our earlier conversations, you mentioned a couple of things about which I want to know more. One is cross-species adoption. What is that? Is it real?

Dr. Beth Daly 
Well, it's real in our culture. But Hal Herzog has done some research on this, and he writes a column for Psychology Today. And we've talked about this, and this is not a normal thing. There are one-off stories of, you know, a monkey adopting a baby possum that he found and raising it, but most species don't go outside their species. Why do we? What is it about them? And again, I would say to anybody, if you are walking down the street, how often do you ignore somebody who walks by you with a new puppy? Oh, what are your puppies' names? I just went through a year with a new puppy. And if you want to feel like a beaming, proud parent, bring your puppy out. So this idea of cross-species adoption is innately human. I don't happen to have children, but there are people with children who still love dogs. But we did a research paper several years ago on replacing the exact same scenario. If you discovered a baby is being abused, you discover a puppy is being abused, who responded more people with parents were more enraged about the baby being abused. People who had dogs were more enraged about the puppy being abused. There's something about that animal that is a surrogate, and this idea of crosspieces adoption is something that is our genetic makeup is we maybe seek that more than animals which do it just biologically by instinct.

Steve Martorano 
So when we see those cute pictures of the gorilla with his pet llama, it's you. It's just ...it's just a quirk. Obviously, we have a monopoly on cross-species adoption. So let's move into a couple of other areas, by the way, backing up, Gould reminded me of the reference to...Gould reminded me of that. I don't know whether it's his work or others, where they put the bunny model of a bunny, cute bunny on the road and then recorded drivers swerving to avoid hitting it. Uniformly. And then they will put a snake out under the same circumstances and watch people deliberately try to run the snake over. This leads me to the question of why we eat some animals and other animals we find it inconceivable to eat.

Dr. Beth Daly 
This is the other strange thing. That seems to be mainly cultural, in some ancient people...my dog dropped her bone.

Steve Martorano 
He heard "eat animals" and got excited.

Dr. Beth Daly 
And then, of course, he stretched out on the sofa where we said he would never be. So in Asia, they eat cat dogs. In India, the idea of eating cows in many parts of India is abhorrent. Coming here, I think the idea of eating a dog and cat is alarmingly disturbing to most people. Yet there's a history of eating a horse, and your horse is spread across many countries. To this day, you can still buy horses in Quebec supermarkets. But there are certain cultures that never eat horses in Europe. England would need horses, whereas in France, it was the delicacy. And so this seems to be largely cultural, and there are things ...yes, yes, thank you, culture and religion. But I mean, this new thing of eating crickets. I mean, ew, you can buy crickets now in health food stores, and it's in dog food. It's not high on my list either. 

Steve Martorano 
But that's that crowd that won't eat meat. So they're looking to eat anything else they can get their hands.

Dr. Beth Daly 
That doesn't count. It's cricket. 

Steve Martorano 
So this prohibition on eating certain animals and others is it's just a learned and shared trait among...among cultures?

Dr. Beth Daly 
Probably I think it is. And the other question I'm asked all the time, any vegetarian will tell you we're not supposed to eat meat. Well, we probably are, you know, our, our teeth would indicate that we are. But you know, if we go back to our ancestors, some, the man or the hunter would go out for a hunt, come back with maybe a little rabbit or a little piece of meat that was sustained the family for a week. And the rest of the time, the women were probably all picking and growing in the garden. And so we probably ate meat, you know, as my parents did once a week. And we've now become a culture that is eating meat three times a day, and we're destroying the environment because, as I'm sure you know, the environment is related to the way we're raising large animals. And if you look at that number of how many large animals are going to be consumed by developing nations, the global south becomes more wealthy. It's alarming. And we have a real problem with meat eating. And not because I object to the abuse of animals, which I do. I would call myself a humane vegetarian. But we need to really reconsider what...you know what we're doing and how much meat we're eating. We don't need it three times a day but...

Steve Martorano 
Yeah, it's interesting when you're talking about the evolution of that process, early man, before agriculture anyway, still, I mean, if we were inclined not to eat meat, why were they chasing the hardest animals to catch when they could have been eating, you know, berries and fruit hanging from trees or grass? But I may. I mean, obviously, we need protein and large brains so that we could invent the wheel and then farm. Well, yeah, but I do understand what you're talking about is, you know, industrial food production. There's a cost to that. Just like there is industrial power. You know, we want electricity, and there's a price to pay for that. But this notion of, you know, it's okay to eat. I'm surprised there are any chickens left in the world, given how many chickens are consumed just on Super Bowl weekend. It's unbelievable.

Dr. Beth Daly 
Oh, yeah, you and I talked about this the other day, and I have a different take on it. You know, there are so many chickens if they should be free because they're almost one of those, you know, the invasion of the locusts. There are so many chickens; they are so easy to breed that we're practically growing fake animals. And it is so disturbing because chickens are sentient animals. Chickens feel pain. And it's so disturbing to me when I read that Super Bowl Sunday. I think that should be, you know, 750 million chicken wings consumed on Super Bowl Sunday. And I think that's supposed to be a negative, but no, they're like, that's kind of this fun story. And I'm thinking, okay, so double that that's 1.5 billion chickens one day, the idea that there are any left tells you that there must be something to them that they must be really easy to grow. Chicken is the first meat that I stopped eating ethically. I just couldn't do it. It would I would literally be staring at that plate, and as soon as I started, Jeremy Bentham in the 1700s said, you know, "The question is not whether they can suffer. The question is, can they feel" And that is the most important question we have to ask ourselves. If these animals can feel pain, why is it okay that they suffer? That really hit home for me that if these animals can feel pain, then I have an absolute moral obligation that they don't feel pain. I've done a 180. I grew up an animal lover. Oh, hunters must be horrible people. Actually, if we love me, we hunt ourselves. Animals have a great life, they have one bad day boom, and it's over. But they're free. They're doing what they should do. If we all did that, when we think about eating meat, I think we'd see a real change if we just get our heads around what it is we're doing to these animals. And I try and say that really objectively. I don't want to sound like an animal rights nut. You know, I had a horrible accident a number of years ago. So I understand, you know, and I'm fine. No, but I understand suffering, and many people understand suffering. Why? If an animal suffers the same way we do, why is that? Okay to inflict that?

Steve Martorano 
It's not okay. But because they don't speak.

Dr. Beth Daly 
That's exactly it. They don't speak Yeah,

Steve Martorano 
They have no language. I guess it's Dr. Beth Daly, Associate Professor of Anthrozoology at the University of Windsor. And we're talking a lot about animals and our relationship with them. Her field of study is anthrozoology, which is the psychology of human-animal relationships. We've now moved into the kind of ethical realm, and we are surrounded by a lot of very strong feelings about the ethics of eating animals for one thing, the ethics of mass producing them for consumption. You said you're on the board of directors of the zoo in Detroit. Do you have no ethical problems with animals in captivity for exhibition?

Dr. Beth Daly 
I have huge, huge problems with animals in captivity for exhibition. And I will tell you. I was very reluctant to go to the zoo. I contacted the director because my university is a 15-minute drive. And I was teaching a zoo course. And he came and spoke to my students. And I said, I have to tell you, I haven't been back to the zoo, because when I taught elementary school, I saw somebody making the elephant do tricks for peanuts. I wouldn't let my students watch. I taught grade two. And he said, No, you need to come back. The Detroit Zoo was the first zoo in the country to realize that there is no evidence that shows elephants should not be in captivity. And they were under great scrutiny negatively. They almost lost their accreditation with the Association of Zoos and Aquariums because they decided they were going to surrender their elephants to a sanctuary. So they did that. And their attendance skyrocketed. And they've consistently done that. Most of the animals at the Detroit zoo are rescues. They can't be re-homed. They were nuisance bears, for instance, that was going to be euthanized. So they were sent to the zoo. And their philosophy is they will not have any animal in captivity that does not thrive in captivity. They also have a huge animal welfare center. Most zoos are not like that. And so, I never would be on the board of a zoo that I was not so proud of. And I really say that with sincerity because, you know, I really believe that, you know, I need to walk the walk and talk the talk. So I try and be really open and consistent about that. I'm so impressed with what I see with the ethics of the zoo; there's now talk of no longer having birds because we have birds that can't fly, obviously, because their wings are pinned. They're clipped. It looks like now the decision has been made that when these birds are gone, they're not going to be any more birds unless somebody says this bird is injured, which is what they do with the seals all the seals that couldn't be released or they maybe have i infections, they I've seen them line up for them to eye drops, so they need to be in captivity to thrive. And so it's...I'm very proud of the work Detroit zoo has done on that. And there are probably other zoos, but I'll tell you I've seen, and I will certainly not go into the other extreme. There are a lot of zoos that are not good zoos. Roadside zoos. Forget about it.

Steve Martorano 
We do this program in the Philadelphia area. We have, I think, the oldest zoo in the country.

Dr. Beth Daly 
Yeah, the first year was in Philadelphia. Yes, I taught a zoo course.

Steve Martorano 
Yes. Finally, let's I want to take some time here at the end here because I was going to keep you much longer. We're talking about animals in a therapeutic context. We know all about....well, the first time you see a seeing eye dog, you understand that there's a real benefit as in service for that person who's sightless for this animal to help them around. But we've gone well beyond that. We'll the first time I really began to take a hard look at support animals was when it became apparent that people were taking advantage of this on airplanes. And is it because of the ADA Act, the Disability Act. Well, this and I heard...I have you heard the stories about miniature horses?

Dr. Beth Daly 
They're actually...they're actually excellent service animals because they live for 25 years. So the horses are the one area that I think I'm a big advocate of the horses because they are...

Steve Martorano 
Until you...until you sit in the middle of getting on an airplane with one of them. We all know we've all seen the not evidence, example of dogs and the joy they bring to elderly people in nursing facilities. They're used across a wide range of psychiatric treatments. They use a lot of animals in this. My question to you is, is there evidence that this stuff is working? Or is this all just a kind of feel-good myth that animals can be therapeutic?

Dr. Beth Daly 
Yeah, there's not really hard evidence. And let's separate there are working dogs, which are service dogs. There are therapeutic dogs, which are the dogs that you're describing when we visit people in hospitals or they bring joy to people. And then we have the emotional support dogs, which is the one that we abused the practice so badly that airlines have all changed their policies in the last year...

Steve Martorano 
Yeah. 

Dr. Beth Daly 
...because it was getting ridiculous. And I think that's a good thing. But it's too bad for people who, I guess, felt like they needed it. But yeah, let's talk about the research because, especially in the area of PTSD, then I'm glad you mentioned that the ADA, the Americans with Disability Act, has changed so that they added veterans who have PTSD. It may have their support animals. And I will say that I think sometimes just being in a certain position should afford you a little bit of a break. So I think anybody, who served their country and wants to take an animal on a plane, can be allowed to take an animal on the plane. If it makes them feel better that I will say I think that veterans should always be afforded a little bit extra courtesy. But that being said, you know, think of Linus in his blanket, you know, think of people who eat for when they get stressed out, there are things that make us feel better. So this idea of an emotional support dog makes logical sense or any kind of animal. But if you look at the research, and I was doing that this week, there still are no, if I want to say no, but I'll say there are very few because I've not been able to find any other than a recent one that Maggie O'Hara did at Purdue University. There are very few if no longitudinal studies that show that the effects are lasting. They're doing a lot of research right now with veterans who are working with horses to help alleviate their PTSD. This was after a six-week program. Yes, there was an improvement in some of the cases. But what happened two years later, when they were no longer working with the horses, so they do a six-week intervention, then they go home, they feel better? Well, and I think I said this to you, what if you gave them a convertible to drive? What if you gave them a month at a condo in Hawaii or on the beach or something? So sometimes we don't know what the cause is, you know, is it the change of the situation? So the problem with a lot of these studies is that they share intuitively. We know we think animals are great for us because we feel good. But there's a lot of evidence that Dr. Herzog has done this. There's a lot of research that shows that we can have negative effects to me, I had a very debilitating accident on my horse. So I fell off my horse and had a terrible accident when I just had pleasure writing. You know, people worry a great deal about their animals when their animals are sick. The people anthropomorphize so much meaning that things like the animal, sometimes people who have some, they're stressed out themselves, they will now associate that stress with the animal and worry so much that it becomes a debilitating worry the same way you might worry about your children. So you could always find anecdotal research, and it usually is anecdotal. It's usually newspapers or pet food companies. We know pets are great for us. Well, we do. But if we were to delve into the research, this is why it feels like anthrozoology is so important. We need to see real research right now more than ever. Boy, we need...we need science to show what it really does. You know, there is truth. You know...

Steve Martorano 
That's why I'm so glad that you were recommended to me, Beth Daly. I appreciate that a lot. Anthrozoologists -- my first experience with anthrozoology...

Dr. Beth Daly 
It was really fun.

Steve Martorano 
It was great fun, and I thank you so much for your time.

Dr. Beth Daly 
I always love talking about it. Thank you.

Steve Martorano 
I hope we can have you back again.

Dr. Beth Daly 
Anytime I love it. I love talking about animals. 

Steve Martorano 
Well, thank you, and thank you guys for listening and sharing and subscribing. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast. We appreciate that you follow us on Facebook and all those other places. We'll catch you next time on the Behavior Corner. Take care.

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