November 14, 2022

#28 - Dr. Jessica Hekman:
Does Dog Breed Affect Behavior?

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In this week’s interview episode, we are joined by Dr. Jessica Hekman, a  veterinary researcher, who has an amazing skill, among many others, of taking really complex topics and distilling them into digestible tidbits of information that the average non-sciency person can understand. And she does so with so much humility; she’s a great example that experts are comfortable saying, “I don’t know.” Currently, Jessica runs the Functional Dog Collaborative, a non-profit group, which supports ethical breeding of healthy and behaviorally solid dogs. 
 
In this episode, you’re going to hear Emily and Jessica talk about:
 
  • Undereducation overstates, especially when it comes to super complex topics like nature and nurture
  • Breed-specific enrichment, and why it may not be as important as you think it is
  • The nebulousness of science, and why pseudoscience is attractive
  • Emily & Jessica’s thoughts about long-term solutions for decreasing animal overpopulation

Links Mentioned in This Episode:

Meet the Guest

Dr. Jessica Hekman

Jessica is a veterinary researcher who is fascinated by dog behavior. After eleven years working as a computer programmer, she decided to go back to school to research the causes of behavior problems in dogs. She received her veterinary degree in 2012 from the Tufts Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine in Massachusetts, where she also received a Master’s degree for her work on stress behaviors in hospitalized dogs. After graduation, she completed a year-long internship specializing in shelter medicine at the University of Florida Maddie’s Shelter Medicine Program. She received her PhD in genetics at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, studying a group of foxes (often known as the “Siberian silver foxes”) which have been bred over many generations to be friendly to humans. She has worked at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard as a computational biologist, studying the genetics of behavior in pet dogs through the Darwin’s Ark project and the Working Dogs Project. Today, she runs the Functional Dog Collaborative, a non-profit group which supports ethical breeding of healthy and behaviorally solid dogs. She also frequently teaches online classes and webinars about canine genetics and behavior. Jessica lives in Raymond, NH with her husband and three dogs.

Meet the Hosts

Allie pic with Oso

Allie Bender, CDBC, CPDT-KA, SBA

Allie Bender is a Certified Dog Behavior Consultant, Certified Professional Dog Trainer- Knowledge Assessed, and a Shelter Behavior Affiliate. She has been in the animal welfare industry since 2006 and professionally training since 2012. She is the founder and co-owner of Pet Harmony, co-author of Canine Enrichment for the Real World, and a national speaker.

While in the animal sheltering industry, Allie realized that her passion lied in helping pets with maladaptive behaviors. Specifically, she wanted to help prevent animals with rehabilitatable problems from being euthanized. She loves working with dogs and cats displaying stranger danger, resource guarding, and leash reactivity. Her favorite thing about working with pets and their people is seeing relationships grow and seeing harmonious households develop.

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Emily Strong, CDBC, SBA

Emily Strong is a Certified Dog Behavior Consultant and Shelter Behavior Affiliate. She has been in the animal welfare industry since 1990 and has been a behavior consultant since 2008. She is the co-owner of Pet Harmony, co-author of Canine Enrichment for the Real World, and a national speaker. 

Emily started working with animals at a young age and struggled with the notion that you have to hurt, scare, or intimidate animals to help them. When she discovered the behavior sciences and learned that it wasn’t necessary to do so– that we can care for emotional, mental, and physical health simultaneously– she plunged headfirst into animal behavior. Emily loves helping current and prospective behavior professionals and working with pet parents through our in-depth services. She enjoys working with all species.

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