The accidental scientist

I’m not a natural-born scientist. I didn’t come into this world wanting to titrate anything, wasn’t dying to understand why fireflies light up (they just did) and was an expert in breaking microscope cover slips.

This was very delicious Green Soup...

On the other hand, I did come into this world wanting to touch dogs. My mom comments that she in no way encouraged this behavior, and if anything, pressured me to avoid these creatures, proclaiming they were dirty (I’ll share my mom’s transformation at another time).

But that’s who I was, the kid who made a beeline to any jingle jangle I heard in the hope it would be a dog attached to a collar. Whenever I saw an outstretched arm that had the potential to be holding a leash, I was there asking, “Can I say hi to your dog?” 

As I continued in the land of school, I thought you had to be a veterinarian to work with animals. Why would I think anything different? So that's what I went for. In high school, I interned with the veterinarian at Guiding Eyes for the Blind in Yorktown Heights, NY; I shaved dogs to prep them for surgery (pretty fun!) and learned to locate hip dysplasia on x-rays. At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I tried to stay in this area, watching necropsies at the vet School (not my favorite smell) and taking classes in chemistry and biology (my bio teacher’s prized possession was a whale’s penis bone. Who can forget that). 

As a young person finding her way in the world, I had no idea where I would fit in. I quickly realized that failure seemed inevitable in the “hard” sciences -- especially chemistry -- and that the social sciences offered more potential for academic success. So that's the direction I initially went, taking classes in English, Spanish and Sociology.

But towards the end of college, many light bulbs went off! I enrolled in Patricia McConnell’s class, The Biology and Philosophy of Human-Animal Relationships. 

I sat in the class watching Patricia and thinking, “Please can I be you!”

On top of being charismatic, passionate and engaging, she used ethology, the study of animal behavior, to investigate dogs and the dog-human relationship.

Notable ethologists Patricia McConnell

and Konrad Lorenz

Here was someone making real use of science. She pulled together evolution, biology, psychology, physiology, genetics and ethics to examine domestic dogs and their unique relationship with humans.

Science finally resonated with me! I started to get involved in behavioral science and research:

• Research assistant for Patricia’s McConnell's book on canine emotions: For the Love of a Dog Understanding Emotion in You and Your Best Friend
• Volunteered with Patricia McConnell's Dog training school, Dog’s Best Friend
• Volunteered with NYC animal shelter - Animal Care and Control
• Masters in Applied Animal Behaviour and Animal Welfare at the University of Edinburgh
• Dissertation research on the "guilty look" at the Family Dog Project in Budapest, Hungary

Which brings us to today! I hold public lectures for Homo sapiens on recent findings in dog behavior and cognition and the dog/human relationship and of course, blog about it!

80% of this blog will cover science (but of course, in an incredibly fun manner). The other 20%, fine, maybe 30%, will cover daily happenings, either dog or non-dog related. I'm bound to mention what it was like doing a Masters program and research in Edinburgh and Budapest. One thing that stands out, there wasn’t much time for clean underwear.