In the Beginning

On the weirdness and whimsy of being an animal welfarist and "dog person".

Somewhat Dogs

Welcome to my new Substack. I gather it’s something like a blog… but I am new here myself.

I will be using this space to post stuff vaguely adjacent to my life as an animal welfare scientist cohabitating with four dogs and one cockatiel, as well as assorted fish, Cuban tree frogs, and a gang of Madagascar hissing cockroaches.

Broadly speaking speaking, the topics will fall into two areas. 1) The rather serious business of how science plays a role in understanding and improving animal welfare, and 2) the much more whimsical experience of working from home with my animals, especially my four dogs, and the cartoons I draw about them. Probably also some other stuff based on my extant hyper-fixations.

1. Animal Welfare Science

I have worked professionally in animal welfare since graduating with a PhD in animal psychology in 1999. If you feel inclined, you can get a feel for my work from my Google Scholar profile, which lists various publications. Most of these are peer-reviewed scientific publications from different times when I worked on subjects such as the housing needs of domestic rats, methods for humane animal euthanasia, and different ways we can assess the welfare of pigs.

One recent example is a book I co-authored on the American Animal Rights Movement (pictured below). This reflects some of my more recent work to understand animal welfare and animal rights activities in the United States from a more historical perspective. Much of what I post here will spin off from my different writing and contemplation of animal welfare-related subjects. I am also currently working on an undergraduate textbook on Animal Welfare Science, but more about that later.

2. Mostly Dogs Cartoons

If all of that sounds a bit serious, well, I am not planning to get all that serious in my Substack. I am a big believer in relaxing and the power of whimsy. I started the Mostly Dogs Facebook page over two years ago to share the lighter side of life, especially life with dogs. There is sometimes a little more that I could say about the topic of a cartoon, and so I might post and “annotate” them here. As well as diving a little deeper into various topics loosely to do with animals and the people who engage with them.

3. That’s All for Now

I plan to post here at least once weekly to see where it leads. Please join me!

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