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Voice 1: There's nothing like a shaggy dog, baby. They're shagadelic! And this is the place to find out how to achieve harmony in the household with your pets, yeah! Peace. Harmony. Pet power! Holy Shih Tzu, baby! You're going to learn how to keep your pets from chewing your shoes, or eating your cat! It's all about relationships, baby. You and your pet. So tune in, turn on, and get ready for the positively grooviest pet podcast on the planet. Oh, that's a lot of p's, baby, yeah, isn't it?

Voice 2: What's this show called?

Voice 1: Oh Behave!

Voice 2: No, really?

Voice 1: Oh Behave !! With your shagadelic host Arden Moore. What's happening Arden? Yeah, baby, yeah! Tell us!

Arden Moore: Welcome to the Oh Behave !! Show on Pet Life Radio. I'm your host Arden Moore. Thank you all for joining us. Today actually marks the debut of this show and we're very honored to kick off the show with a very special guest and friend, Dr. Marty Becker. Hi Marty, how're you doing?

Dr. Marty Becker: Who's your doggie daddy? Who's your doggie daddy? Who's your doggie daddy?

Arden Moore: (laughs) He's a very calm, quiet veterinarian. But he's also been called the best loved family doctor for pets, and as you can tell, for a zillion reasons. Dr. Marty Becker has championed the people pet bond all over the globe. You might have seen him on TV, radio, he's got some best-selling books, and he always gives his message with determination, knowledge, and as you can just hear, a little bit of humor. We'll be right back to chat with Dr. Marty Becker on some quirky dog behaviors, right after these messages.

Voice 1: Would you like to go out? (bark) (bark) Actually I was talking to your owner. I meant on a date, baby, yeah, you and me. (whine) Oh Behave !! will be right back after these groovy, shagadelic messages. Oh, yeah.

(commercial break)

Voice 3: Let's talk pets. On PetLifeRadio.com.

Voice 1: We are switched back on, baby, yeah! So let's talk pets with our smashing host pet-edu-tainer Arden Moore, and the groovy show that's cool, baby, really shagadelic, Oh Behave !!

Arden Moore: Welcome back to the Oh Behave !! Show on Pet Life Radio. I'm your host Arden Moore. For our very first show, we welcome Dr. Marty Becker. The best-selling author and resident veterinarian on ABC's Good Morning America show. Welcome, Marty.

Dr. Marty Becker: Now I'll slip into my professional mode.

Arden Moore: Okay.

Dr. Marty Becker: When I see clients, or when I'm on TV.

(both laugh)

Dr. Marty Becker: Arden, I love the name of this show. I just see Austin Powers, Oh Behave !! I just hear him saying that.

Arden Moore: Well, we'll try to get him. Well, the show's all about us, and our two, and three, and four leggers. After all, it's sometimes what we think are cat and dog mis-deeds or just us being human and tripping them up, if you will.

Dr. Marty Becker: Well, you know what I've found out? You know, being a practicing veterinarian, or being on TV, or radio, or talking to people, you know, in groups of eight to eight thousand, people like to have fun. And so I hope my edu-tainment style, that's the way we wrote a lot of our books, and that's the way I like to teach, and it's memorable, so hope to have some fun with you guys today, and maybe some people will learn some new things about their pets.

Arden Moore: Well that's very important, and folks we’re in for a special treat, and I’m not talking a dog bone here. Dr. Marty Becker has graciously accepted actually to appear on two shows. He’s back to back. So today our show is going to the dogs, as Dr. Becker is going to talk about some quirky canine behaviors that he captured in his New York Times best-selling book, I love this title, “Why do dogs drink out of the toilet?”. He co-authored this book with his writing partner, Gina Spadafori. Now next week, Dr. Becker’s going to come back and he’s going to turn his focus on felines. He’s going to share some insights from his other New York Times best-selling book, “Do cats always land on their feet?”. Again, this one was written with Gina Spadafori. So Marty, I just got to ask you, this is the most important question of the day, why do dogs drink out of the toilet?

Dr. Marty Becker: All right, we just had a party at our house, and we have a little dog named Quixote.

Arden Moore: Okay.

Dr. Marty Becker: Now this is a true story. And our neighbor brought Misty, their little Bichon up here.

Arden Moore: Okay.

Dr. Marty Becker: So you can just see Quixote going “Hey, Misty, come over here! You can’t believe what my Mom and Dad installed in this room in our house. There’s a spring in there, Misty, come here and I’ll show you.” And they go in there, and Quixote says, “Hey Misty, if you cock your head and you listen you can hear the sound of running water. Now maybe my Mom and Dad can’t hear it but with our hearing we hear that water running and ah, running water, now that means health in the world to us...”

Arden Moore: Ah.

Dr. Marty Becker:  “…cause it’s not stagnant. So there’s not pond scum in it, or other things that aren’t healthy. And even if it doesn’t leak a little, which most of them do, this is magically refreshed several times a day. It has a larger evaporative surface, so it stays cooler than my dog dish. And you know what, if my dog dish is made out of metal or plastic there’s a certain taste that is imparted to it, that we can taste with our sensitive taste buds.”

Arden Moore: Uh-huh.

Dr. Marty Becker:  And if you think about it, Arden, you know, when we drink champagne, we drink it out of a champagne flute.

Arden Moore: That’s right.

Dr. Marty Becker: When I like a nice cold beer at the pub it’s in a frosty mug. Well for a dog, that’s the perfect vessel to have a great drink of water, is out of that toilet.

Arden Moore: So I guess this is sort of, you’ve got a flushing success on your hands here with this book, huh?

Dr. Marty Becker: (laughs)

Arden Moore: You know I couldn’t resist.

Dr. Marty Becker: Well you know what to do.

Arden Moore: What?

Dr. Marty Becker: That was good.

Arden Moore: (laughs) I’m sorry. (laughs)

Dr. Marty Becker: The thing with the toilet, too, I always look at real threats. There are certain things that I get alarmed about, and I tell my clients about, that they need to be very careful about. We just don’t see problems with dogs drinking out of the toilets, as far as a medical condition. I know there’s cleaners and stuff in there. I know it’s not ideal. If you’re really worried about it just keep the lid shut. You know, they don’t have an opposable thumb. They’re not going to lift the lid up, or just keep the bathroom door shut. But, you know, except for the occasional gross thing they could get into, or something, it really doesn’t pose a health risk to them.

Arden Moore: Well that’s good. I’m glad you cleared the air on that. And now, we’re talking again to Dr. Marty Becker, he has co-authored a very fun, but informative book called “Why do dogs drink out of the toilet?”. I love the sub-title, “101 of the most perplexing questions answered about canine conundrums, medical mysteries, and befuddling behaviors”. I mean, you’ve written a lot of great books. I just wanted to ask you, what inspired you to write this book, and even more importantly, how did you get the questions and dig up the answers for some of these really cool things in your book?

Dr. Marty Becker: Well we had, you know, you mentioned my co-author Gina Spadafori. Gina and I are both columnists, newspaper columnists, and so we get the same questions over and over again. I get them when I’m out in public, I get them when I’m doing live radio interviews, I get them when, for people that are interviewing for magazines, I get them one on one, and Gina does as well. So we just took the most common questions that we get, and then when you get to the… We wrote it in a different style. And I’m going to shamelessly tell you where we got the idea, I was going through an airport.

Arden Moore: Okay.

Dr. Marty Becker: And there was a number-one New York Times best-selling book called “Why do men have nipples?”, and I read through this book…

Arden Moore: (laughs) I missed that book, sorry.

Dr. Marty Becker: Oh, that book is fantastic, but it’s written in a sassy, irreverent, edu-tainment-style, and I thought, gosh, it’s so memorable the way they answered these questions. So we reached out to, you know, fifty of the world’s top experts in medicine and behavior.

Arden Moore: Okay.

Dr. Marty Becker: And so when you get to the back and the acknowledgements section you’ll realize that the answers are authentic, that we really did our homework, but, you know, if you just read the answers to these questions, you know, you’re going to laugh while you learn.

Arden Moore: Yeah, I think that’s right on, and you know, I’d like to paw through some more pages from the book “Why do dogs drink out of the toilet?” because, you know, there was one that really did draw me to laugh and to learn. And the question, a lot of people see it… they go to a dog park and this neutered male will go up to another neutered male and all of a sudden they are doing the hump. And then you go and see a female doing the same, so I guess, you know, not that there’s anything wrong with that but the question is, are some dogs gay? Is that what they’re doing when they’re humping?

Dr. Marty Becker: Now I think of another song. Da Hump. Hump. Hump. Da Hump. Hump. Hump. I always think of these songs that my son listens to. Well, well, there are, there are animals, I actually have a book on my shelf that talks about homosexuality in the animal world, so, you know, let’s be real, there’s homosexuality everywhere.

Arden Moore: Do they wear rainbow bandanas, or what?

Dr. Marty Becker: (laughs) You know, the one thing I love about you, I love to have fun, so I don’t know who can out-corny the other one, but…

Arden Moore: It’s a tie. But you’re the honored guest so go for it

Dr. Marty Becker: I love your spirit. Well, you know, humping is a… humping is a dominance or submission behavior. So, if you watch dogs come together there’s a whole orchestration, some of which includes humping, like for example, when a dog cocks it’s leg to urinate, what they’re trying to do is, the higher they, you know, you’ll see these little, tiny dogs that’ll do almost… can’t stand to urinate…

Arden Moore: Oh, yeah. (laughs)

Dr. Marty Becker: They’re trying to get their urine higher up on a vertical surface so that the air can catch it and spread it further.

Arden Moore: Oh, wow.

Dr. Marty Becker: I call it checking your pee-mail. They go over to this tree or this sign post or some vertical surface and they log on and check their pee-mail and some days they go over and I’m like God, how many messages do I have?

Arden Moore: Oh my gosh. (laughs)

Dr. Marty Becker: And they can tell the sex of the dog, they can tell if it’s been spayed or neutered, they can tell if it’s in heat, they can tell if it’s been stressed. So they’re kind of like googling each other. It’s kind of like Facebook for dogs. They are checking this information. Sometimes we get frustrated with our dogs when they take a long time to go number two.

Arden Moore: Yeah.
Dr. Marty Becker: When you’re up here in an Idaho winter thinking “God, Quixote, do you business. Be quick! Be quick! (unintelligible) Be quick! Be quick! And he doesn’t want to be quick.

Arden Moore: A friend of mine calls it “go five seconds, go five seconds” and I’m like whatever.

Dr. Marty Becker: I call it a fecal flag, but it’s like gang signs. Not only is it something that has an odor to it, but it is visually marking their territory and you’ll see dogs go from quite a distance over to check out this gang flag that’s been put there. When they finally meet, there’s this whole ballet of body language. One dog, usually the more dominant dog smells the other one first and will allow the other one to… the submissive dog will lick the one’s face. The dog that’s submissive will sometimes submissively urinate. The submissive dog will sometimes roll over on its back and expose its belly. And that humping thing is a dominance issue, of them wanting to show that they’re exerting dominance over another dog, over your leg, over the couch, over a stuffed bunny. And for some dogs it actually is pleasurable, too. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen those dogs but some of them have their special little toy, you know, my signs up special toy? (laughs)

Arden Moore: (laughs) So do you have any advice? Any advice, if you’re at the dog park and your dog is either the humper or the humpee, on how to tactfully divert this behavior to something more, I guess humanly acceptable?

Dr. Marty Becker: Well, you know what’s funny about that? You see, there are certain things that we just don’t like as humans. Like dogs love to snack out of the litter box. To them it’s undigested protein. Let’s face it, they don’t have the most discriminating palate. Dirty diaper, the cat box, empty garbage can, it just seems repulsive to us, but to them it all just seems like a protein source, and the thing of a dog going up and humping another one, to us, especially in front of a new visit to the dog park or other company, it’s like, oh my gosh this is embarrassing. What the behaviorists will tell you to do is to redirect the behavior. So if a dog is doing that you need to take the dog away from the source if he’s on a leash and walk him away from that. And also you scold them verbally and redirect their attention. But the best thing is to just take them away from the source of the activity.

Arden Moore: Okay. Now speaking of, we’ve been talking about all these fun things, pee and poop, we have to continue on that because inquiring minds, Dr. Marty Becker, really want to know. What is the easiest way to scoop the poop? Now, you and I go to a lot of pet trade shows, we get bombarded with a lot of companies that have the newest, the latest gadget, pick up poop and all these things, but for our listeners, any tips on… all our dogs have to do the deed and what’s the best way to pick up the poop?

Dr. Marty Becker: Arden, we call that picking up where your dog left off. (laughs)

Arden Moore: (laughs) Very good. Very good.

Dr. Marty Becker: Well, I’m going to tell you several tips on that. Number one, the better quality food you feed the less feces you’re going to have to clean up. So better food going in means less waste products going out.

Arden Moore: Okay.

Dr. Marty Becker: And that’s whether you’re buying commercial food or home-cooking, which you wrote a very, very successful book on that.

Arden Moore: You can, like plug me shamelessly if you’d like. “Real Food For Dogs”. Thanks. That was a nice plug, thanks Marty. (laughs)

Dr. Marty Becker: You’re welcome. And the other thing that people don’t think of, there’s a compelling reason for whatever you pick the feces up with, to pick it up often because the internal parasites, the hook worms, the round worms, the whip worms, they have to go through a cycle in the yard before they come to the infective stage. So if you keep the feces picked up that they never get to the infective stage so it never seeds your lawn down with all these worms. And you can’t see the immature forms of them. You can’t go out there with your bare hands and part the grass and go “oh my gosh, they’re in there!” I mean they’re microscopic. So you want to keep them cleaned up often. I clean up our yard every two days. And what I do, there’s two things I do. I live up in the mountains of northern Idaho, but my mother-in-law lives in town, we just use the regular old pooper-scooper.

Arden Moore: Okay.

Dr. Marty Becker: The one with the little bin on the one side and the little thing that you put it in on the other side.

Arden Moore: Like the rake?

Dr. Marty Becker: A little rake, yeah. But one thing that we do do in town is we use a doggie septic tank, the Doggie Doolie?

Arden Moore: Oh, I don’t know this one.

Dr. Marty Becker: It works year round. It fits right in the ground so its inside the ground, it has a little lid that you lift up and you put the feces inside the little septic tank and then you add water to it and a little digestive enzymes every once in a while. But then you’re not putting the feces into, you’re not flushing it down the toilet where its going into the sewer system, and some of the problems with

Arden Moore: Yeah.

Dr. Marty Becker: (continuing) cat litter and other things that have been flushed, and those things don’t dissolve. So you’re not throwing it into the municipal garbage, or the garbage, or throwing it down the toilet. It’s just a little… called a Doggie Dooley.

Arden Moore: Okay. Well, now that we have the scoop on the poop, we’re going to take a break right now for some messages and we’ll be back with our guest Dr. Marty Becker.

Voice 1: Would you like to go out? (bark) (bark) Actually I was talking to your owner. I meant on a date, baby, yeah, you and me. (whine) Oh Behave !! will be right back after these groovy, shagadelic messages. Oh, yeah.

(commercial break)

Voice 3: Let's talk pets. On PetLifeRadio.com.

Voice 1: We are switched back on, baby, yeah! So let's talk pets with our smashing host pet-edu-tainer Arden Moore, and the groovy show that's cool, baby, really shagadelic, Oh Behave !!

Arden Moore: Welcome back. You’re listening to the Oh Behave !! Show on Pet Life Radio. I’m your host Arden Moore. We have been talking with the delightful Dr. Marty Becker, America’s best-loved vet and co-author of the New York Times best-seller called “Why do dogs drink out of the toilet?”. He wrote that with his writing partner Gina Spadafori. We just go the scoop on poop and now we want to move into some other fun doggie behaviors from the book he covers. For example, something about getting your ears and tummy rubbed, dogs just go ga-ga. What’s the deal with that? And even more perplexing, can you kind of solve the mystery why some dogs seem to like pump their leg when they’re getting a tummy rub? I’ve always been curious about that.

Dr. Marty Becker: The funny thing about this book, is we answer things like… Just today, I was out here and a siren went by. I live up in the mountains, and our two dogs, one dog started howling, then the other dog started howling, and then the neighbors dog who’s about, where I live, is about a half mile away started howling, and pretty soon…

Arden Moore: Yeah.

Dr. Marty Becker: (continuing) there was this whole chorus of dogs howling, and its like the thing in the school fight song, you know when the fight song starts up and everybody gets it…

Arden Moore: Da da da

Dr. Marty Becker: Da da da da da. Well its fun. It’s like a canine choral group singing or picking up the microphone at canine karaoke. These dogs scattered across the miles are separated by fences, they get in touch with their inner wolf and get to be part of something big, a pack is going on there. Like these things with the tummy rubs, we have a dog, we have these nicknames for your dog that you’re embarrassed for even you’re, you’re, to say around the house, let alone for the whole world to know.

Arden Moore: Oh, that’s okay, you can tell us, we won’t say anything, come on Marty, let’s hear some of your nicknames.

Dr. Marty Becker: We have Quixote. Quixote is short for Dog Quixote de la Rancha.

Arden Moore: Okay.

Dr. Marty Becker: My wife calls it her little man and she sings these songs to him and she gets up there, “nobody knows the troubles I’ve seen, nobody knows your pain”.

Arden Moore: Aw.

Dr. Marty Becker: Then she rubs his ears and he does this thing and she goes, “open-close, open-close, open-close” and he opens his mouth a little bit, a little bit, a little bit, and then all of a sudden “arrr, arrr” and he lets this big exaggerated dog yawn. Well, the reason he does that is there are nerves in his ear and there’s nerves on their tummy that when you rub that your stimulating those nerves and its very pleasurable.

Arden Moore: Okay.

Dr. Marty Becker: And dogs are a little different than cats. When cats on their back that is a defensive posture. Many of us have found out when you rub a cat on the stomach they go from delight to bite in about two seconds.

Arden Moore: Yeah.

Dr. Marty Becker: But for a dog, when a dog is really happy, you’ll often see them laying out in the yard with their belly up in the air getting some sun on their belly, but when you rub their ears or rub their belly you are rubbing nerves that are very pleasurable for a dog.

Arden Moore: Well, that’s good, and then I guess I really want to clear the air, doggie farts. You know what? You could be in a big household and all of a sudden everybody’s like talking and then the dog walks by, and everybody’s like, closing their, you know, putting their shirts up to their noses, you know? I really want to know. You know what, it’s kind of an easy wrap to blame the dog for the fart I guess. So I just want to get your thoughts on doggie farts and why do we find it okay to blame the dog when maybe it’s our SPD?

Dr. Marty Becker: My favorite… SPD! I like that. I got that.

Arden Moore: (laughs)

Dr. Marty Becker: SPD. My favorite redneck, I’m a big redneck fan of Jeff Foxworthy.
Arden Moore: Oh, I love that show! Yeah.

Dr. Marty Becker: One of my favorite ones, “If a dog passes gas and you claim it, you might be a redneck!”

Arden Moore: Oh, no! You wonder if that question’s going to be on his show, “Are you smarter than a 5th Grader?” I bet the 5th graders would know that answer better.

Dr. Marty Becker: There are certain foods that make dogs pass more gas, like some dogs are lactose intolerant, for example. They have certain dietary indiscretions. There are certain things they are allergic to. That’s one of the things, if a dog does have excessive gas I always tell them to talk to the veterinarian…

Arden Moore: Okay.

Dr. Marty Becker: (continuing) because it may be the sign of a medical problem. But dogs out in the wild, I live up here in the mountains where there’s wolves and coyotes, and they can mark their territory all they want, they can chew all they want, they have these anal glands back there that are used to put a certain scent on their feces that is very distinctive to them. They are used to marking territory. I don’t know if you’ve ever watched the show Meercat Manor, and you watch those busy little people always marking territory.

Arden Moore: Right.

Dr. Marty Becker: All these things are normal in their world that they evolved over millennia in, but its only when we integrate them within the human family that dogs that are chewing on a piece of furniture or not using the appropriate toilet facilities, is where we run into trouble.

Arden Moore: Well, the next time Chipper, or my dog Cleo, happens to go gaseous on me I am actually going to not blame the dog, I am going to applaud the dog, how’s that?

Dr. Marty Becker: There you go.

Arden Moore: And then I’ll pay attention to what’s in the diet, so I’ll make sure, ‘cause one of my friends Flo, she’s eighty-three going on forty, she says, “You know what?” If she actually exits a little gas, she’ll say, “You know what? There’s more air in the world outside than inside me.” (laughs)

Dr. Marty Becker: (laughs)

Arden Moore: So I guess I’ve learned a lot. Now there’s another popular myth, we’re talking again to Dr. Marty Becker and his book “Why do dogs drink out of the toilet?” Hopefully you can set the record straight. You’re a veterinarian. You know a lot. And I always here people say that a dog’s mouth is really clean, in fact cleaner than a person’s, but is that really true?

Dr. Marty Becker: Well, let me give you a glimpse into our dog Quixote.

Arden Moore: Okay.

Dr. Marty Becker: He goes up to the horse barn with me every day when we go up to do the chores in the morning. He first of all, stops and he gets into the litter box for some Kitty-Roca.

Arden Moore: (laughs)

Dr. Marty Becker: And then he goes out into the corral with me and he comes out of the corral with a green grin and then he stops and excavates a petrified gopher he cached about three months ago and gnaws on that for a while and…

Arden Moore: Oh, my God, gopher-marinade, huh?

Dr. Marty Becker: Stops and licks himself for about five minutes in hard to reach places. You can’t tell me that that dog’s mouth is clean as any human’s mouth. But here’s where the myth…

Arden Moore: So when you get the big kiss? (laughs)

Dr. Marty Becker: That’s the crazy thing about it, is even after you see the dog eat out of the litter box, go through the corral, do all these things, half hour later, “Oh, you Daddy’s princess! Come give Daddy sugars!” and you give this thing the equivalent of, he gives you the equivalent of a canine tonsil-swab.

Arden Moore: Oh, my gosh.

Dr. Marty Becker: Now, I did a 20-20 segment on this very subject, besides…

Arden Moore: Oh, you’re kidding! Okay, great, okay.

Dr. Marty Becker: Besides answering this in “Why do dogs drink out of the toilet?”, we did a 20-20 segment and they tear down some myths and one of the, I was the second to the last myth.

Arden Moore: Okay.

Dr. Marty Becker: And is a dog’s mouth cleaner than a human mouth? So the short answer is no. But here’s where it got started at, you see dog’s wounds and they’re very pink, and it was thought that dog’s saliva had some kind of antiseptic property in it. But actually the reason the wounds look pink when a dog licks it is because, is one their tongue acts like, it surgically debrides the wound, like a rasp and it takes the dead skin off. So, where a surgeon would debride something with scissors or a scalpel or something, they debride it with their tongue. And number two, because of that action, that licking action, it actually increases circulation to that area. So that’s how the myth got started, but a dog’s mouth is definitely not cleaner than a human’s mouth.

Arden Moore: Well that’s good because my newest dog is a little one, Cleo, that we call, T-T, for torpedo-tongue, and we actually have to warn people she’s a little, we think, I call her a little “Who’s your Momma? Who’s your Daddy?-dog”. Not really sure of her background. But about 12 pounds of love. And we say to people, “Really, be careful. Cleo will French-kiss you.” “Oh, no! No!” (dismissive gulp sound) She just did. So…

Dr. Marty Becker: (laughs)

Arden Moore: I have never seen a little dog with such strategic placement of a tongue that I swear must be longer than her entire body. So I really do appreciate that, ‘cause we want to set the record straight. Marty, I want to ask you, you’re up to a lot of things, and I wanted to see if there’s any parting comments you’d care to make? People really want to know what’s up with Marty Becker. So you have a wonderful website, DrMartyBecker.com, but I was hoping you could share a few things that you have up on your slate, or maybe even a couple books you’ve got ready to unveil that our listeners can start planning to either see, hear, or read about you?

Dr. Marty Becker: Well, one thing I want to say real quick on licking, our dog actually wears a shirt, custom embroidered shirts that say, “CAUTION, I can’t hold my licker.”

Arden Moore: (laughs) That’s very good. That’s great.

Dr. Marty Becker: They get it exactly, ‘cause we have exactly the same kind of dog you have, it just loves to lick, and man, he’ll give you a tonsil-swab. I’ll tell you!

Arden Moore: I love that. I think I’m going to get Cleo that for Christmas. Close your ears, Cleo!

Dr. Marty Becker: You’ll want to do it in big block yellow letters. “CAUTION, I can’t hold my licker.” It’s perfect!

Arden Moore: Thank you. That’ll be perfect.

Dr. Marty Becker: You know what? I, like you, have been blessed to communicate about animals and I was born and raised on a farm in southern Idado. Our dairy cows had names. I was there when that dogs made that migration of biblical proportions from the barnyard to the backdoor to the bedroom to sleep. I’m in my 11th year as the Good Morning America-veterinarian, I’ll be on October 26th is the next date.

Arden Moore: Oh, that’s great.

Dr. Marty Becker: Have new books out, one called “bowwow” and another one called “meowWow” and also “Why do horses sleep standing up?” which is the companion to “Why do dogs drink out of the toilet?” Working on a new problem, new PBS show.

Arden Moore: Oh, good.

Dr. Marty Becker: The Healing Power of Pets.

Arden Moore: I know you did one before. That was a special. A PBS special, right?

Dr. Marty Becker: Yeah, it was a special called “The Pet Doctor with Marty Becker”. But I just feel blessed. I love my life. I love my wife. I love where I live. I love the fact that I can help, help be part of a group that looks after pets, people, and my profession, and so every day I can’t wait to run up the stairs and see what the day’s going to bring.

Arden Moore: And you also have a couple of two-leggers now, too? We forgot about your children. We should mention… any of them following in your footsteps?

Dr. Marty Becker: My daughter Mikkel is actually going to follow in my footsteps. She’s a senior journalism major at the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication at Washington State University and is going to be my co-author on a couple new books, along with Gina.

Arden Moore: I can’t believe she’s a senior in college already. You’re so young.

Dr. Marty Becker: She’s a senior, and my son Lex, he’s a senior in high school, and also we have a nice website called PetConnection.com which is one Gina and I have together. Gina is a very popular blogger, and people can see all the books that we have for sale on the bookstore on PetConnection.com.

Arden Moore: That’s very good to know. That’s it for today folks. You are listening to the Oh Behave !! Show on Pet Life Radio. I again want to thank my guest, Dr. Marty Becker, and our show producer Adam Winter for making this show possible. Thank you again, Marty. As always, it’s a pleasure, and I’m very excited that you’re going to come back next week to be a little catty with me, to talk about your next book, “Do cats always land on their feet?” that you also co-wrote with Gina Spadafori. If you’d like more information about today’s show, or transcripts of this show, or any other show on Pet Life Radio Network, I ask you just to go to the website. It’s very easy, www.PetLifeRadio.com. Click on the Oh Behave !! Show and if you have any questions or comments or ideas for a show, unleash these ideas, please, I’m looking for them. You can email me at Arden@ArdenMoore.com. You can also visit my website, ArdenMoore.com. So until next time, this is your flea-free host, Arden Moore, delivering just two words for all of you out there, all you two-, three-, and four-leggers, Oh Behave!!

Voice 1: There’s nothing like a shaggy dog, baby! They’re shagadelic, and this is the place to find out how to have harmony in the household with your pets. Oh, yeah! So stop by our pad every week and get switched on, baby! Switched on to the show that’s all about attitude! Oh Behave !! With your groovy host, pet-edu-tainer, Arden Moore. Yeah, baby, yeah! Every week, on demand, on PetLifeRadio.com