The Science Pawdcast

Episode 33 Season 7: Cancer Clues, Dog Socialization, and Interview with Author Melanie Kaplan on Lab Dogs

• Jason and Kris Zackowski • Season 7 • Episode 33

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A vaccine built for a virus might be whispering a powerful message to cancer care. We dig into a new Nature paper suggesting that mRNA COVID shots could enhance the effectiveness of checkpoint inhibitor immunotherapy—especially in non‑small cell lung cancer and melanoma—by acting as an immune alarm that sharpens anti‑tumor responses. The data is retrospective, not causal, so we break down why the signal is exciting, where confounders can hide, and what the next generation of trials must test: timing, vaccine type, biomarkers, and who stands to benefit most.

From there, we switch gears to the first weeks of a dog’s life. A small but detailed study of Australian breeders maps nine practical socialization steps—novel objects, varied surfaces, calibrated sound exposure, hands‑on handling, human visitors, other animals, off‑site trips, car rides, and rotating environments—that build confident, adaptable companions. We compare three rearing strategies, from uniform protocols to individual puppy plans, and connect these choices to fewer fear issues, better training outcomes, and smoother vet and grooming visits down the line.

Journalist and author Melanie Kaplan joins us to share Hammy’s story—a beagle rescued from a research lab—and the deeper reporting behind her book, Lab Dog: A Beagle and His Human Investigate the Surprising World of Animal Research. We talk about why beagles became the default lab dog, the emotional toll and resilience of retired animals, and the promising rise of non‑animal alternatives like organs‑on‑chips, human cell models, and computational toxicology. With FDA and NIH signaling support for methods that are more humane and more predictive, there’s a real path to better science with less harm.

If this conversation moved you or made you think, follow the show, share it with a friend who loves science and animals, and leave a quick review to help others find us.


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SPEAKER_00:

Hello, science enthusiasts. I'm Jason Zakowski.

SPEAKER_01:

And I'm Chris Zakoski.

SPEAKER_00:

We're the pet parents of Bunsen, Beaker, Bernoulli, and Ginger.

SPEAKER_01:

The science animals on social media. If you love science and you love pets, you've come to the right spot. So put on your safety glasses and hold on to your tail.

SPEAKER_00:

This is the Science Podcast. And welcome back to the Science Podcast. We hope you're happy and healthy out there. This is episode 33 of season seven. There's snow on the ground, and Lil Kitty has been with us for three, is it three weeks now we've had bricks?

SPEAKER_01:

No. No, we've had him for two weeks.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_01:

He's doubled in size, it feels like he has a little pot belly because he loves food. Does he? Oh no. I know. I've I'm like, is this just a pot belly, or is it because you've just had some food and your belly is full and you need to go to the bathroom?

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, he does love food. He yells at me when you're not around for food, but I have to know. I think we have to write down what we're feeding him. Um it's not like he's not like he's obese anything. He's doing fine.

SPEAKER_01:

He's growing. Yeah, he's a healthy little boy. He's so cute.

SPEAKER_00:

It's very cool seeing his interaction with the dogs, too, because Bernoulli is infatuated with him, follows him around everywhere, and Bunsen just at him, and sometimes Bunsen comes up to say hello, which is really cool. Because he didn't really do that with ginger. I think he was a little ginger shy.

SPEAKER_01:

To be fair, ginger is terrifying.

SPEAKER_00:

She is, she is, she's got mean girl energy. And Beaker has been accepting of the little guy. Like he bricks has gotten really close to her, and she hasn't really cared, which is cool.

SPEAKER_01:

I like that part, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So it was been a fun two weeks, very busy, but fun two weeks. Let's get on with that. Let's get on with what's happening on the podcast this week. So, in science news, we're going to talk about some unintended consequences of the mRNA COVID vaccines for the good. If you've been following the news on health and wellness, you've probably already seen this study because it came out in October. But I figured we would talk about it today as we're heading, at least in Alberta, into cold and flu season. In pet science, a really cool study from, I believe it's Australia, that looked at dog breeders and what they do to socialize the little puppies before they're sent on their way. Um, because that is perhaps one of the things that breeders who you get a dog from do a really good job of, or where they could do a better job of, or something to think about for the dogs that maybe come from a shelter that don't have that same kind of socialization as a puppy.

SPEAKER_01:

Exactly. That's a really important point to consider when you're looking at getting a new puppy.

SPEAKER_00:

And our guests and ask an expert is called Lab Dog, which her beagle was one of the dogs that she her dog is a beagle that she rescued from being a lab dog that would be tested on. And she went down the rabbit hole of researching the whole that whole side of science using dogs and other animals for testing. It's a really good discussion, the goods and the bads, and the uglies and the hope for the future. All right, let's get on with the show. There's no time like Science Time. This week in Science News, as I mentioned, a cool study was a cool study was published in October 22nd in Nature that looked at an unintended consequence of those mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. Now, if you want to think back to the pandemic, Chris, we got our COVID vaccines to do our part and um stop the spread. Do you remember I do?

SPEAKER_01:

I remember it was frustrating because we were not eligible to receive them. And we had to wait, I guess, until the second or third round in order to be able to have them.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I just remember it was like a different COVID-19 vaccine every time. And I made the joke, I made the joke I was trying to collect all of them like Thanos was collecting his infinity stones. I did not collect all of them, which is too bad.

unknown:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

So what is the study looking at? Then this new research suggested that mRNA COVID vaccines enhances the effectiveness of certain cancer treatments, especially immunotherapy. Lung cancer patients who received the COVID vaccine within a few months of immunotherapy lived, this is shocking, twice as long as those who did not.

SPEAKER_01:

A similar pattern was also observed in melanoma patients, but that hinted at a broader effect. And so these results are considered compelling. These vaccines traditionally teach the immune system by encoding proteins, very similar, exactly like the COVID uh spike protein that the body learns to recognize. And so cancer-targeted mRNA vaccines normally encode tumor protein fragments, which trains the immune system to attack cancer. But the breakthrough finding found that the cancer vaccine did not contain tumor mRNA. Their experimental mRNA cancer vaccine actually did not contain tumor mRNA. But when it was combined with their immunotherapy drugs, the mRNA itself actually triggered a strong antitumor immune response. So, what does that suggest? This suggests that mRNA molecules may act as a molecular alarm signal, like a 911 call prompting the immune system to fight the cancer. So someone call 911, we need to prompt the immune system, which is actually really cool.

SPEAKER_00:

So they got the data from reviewing electronic health records of a thousand patients with non-small cell lung cancer who had received a checkpoint inhibitor immunotherapy. So that's the drug that you're talking about, Chris. Uh 200 patients had received an mRNA COVID vaccine within 100 days of starting the immunotherapy. When they looked at three-year survival comparison, 56% of vaccinated patients were still alive compared to 31% of unvaccinated patients. And a very similar pattern was observed in melanoma patients. As you said, this hints at potentially many different types of cancers that were tackled in much the same way. This is very cool.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, Jason, this has such huge implications for cancer treatment. Now, one of the cautions is it's not, it hasn't been through clinical trials, but if it's confirmed in clinical trials, the findings could actually represent a major shift in what we do or how cancer is treated or shift in cancer therapy. Okay, as we know, mRNA COVID vaccines are already widely available and they have been proven safe, and they could be an additional tool to boost the effects of immunotherapy. So, what does that do? That potentially opens a pathway for using mRNA platforms beyond an infectious disease, and it could have implications in oncology.

SPEAKER_00:

So we should, as you said, Chris, it has been through clinical trials, and this study published by the researchers emphasized that this is correlation, not causation. They have to actually do the study and work through the science to see if it does cause a huge boost in the alarm system to fight off cancer in your body.

SPEAKER_01:

So before they're going to begin enrolling patients by the end of the year, they're hoping to prepare a trial. So they're trying to block so what the hope is to begin enrolling patients by the end of the year by preparing a trial. And until that's available, let's just use strong caution until those controlled results are available.

SPEAKER_00:

This is interesting because there's a lot of misinformation out there from a very small number of people about how the COVID vaccines were unsafe and millions upon millions of people died, or everybody who got the shot is going to die soon. And of course, that hasn't happened. The pandemic was a long time ago. Um, so there is a relatively small group of people with a large megaphone spreading a lot of misinformation and skepticism about those mRNA vaccines. And this is an unbelievably good side effect of those of us who have taken it. It may help you fight cancer. And as you said, Chris, we just got to wait and see and wait for the science to come through to see if that's actually if it's cause and effect. It's very cool.

SPEAKER_01:

It is very cool. It's a very good outlook, a positive outlook in terms of cancer research and cancer treatment.

SPEAKER_00:

All right, that's science news for this week in Pet Science. Let's talk about why puppy breeders matter for puppy development. Now, Bricks is a rescue, but in a way, Bricks did come from a situation where he had a lot of socialization. We don't know a lot about beaker because we got beaker during COVID. So that was a whole very weird situation, meaning that like we didn't really see much of anything of the people. We just showed up and got beaker. I think she scampered out of the door because we had to maintain social distancing.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, they basically pushed her out the door. Yeah, that was such a weird thing and then Adam caught her.

SPEAKER_00:

And then I cried. I had a huge cry when I picked her up that little dog. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh my goodness, she was such a music.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, but Bunsen came from a Swiss family, and they didn't have a big outfit, they just had a male and female dog, and I think they had one or two litters a year, if that. And Bernoulli, Bernoulli came from an oopsie way up north. I don't I think they were eventually planning to breed the male and female they have, but it was just happened unexpectedly.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, but it was good for us because we love Bernoulli.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, yeah, what a stroke of luck getting that dog. So here's the here's the background for the study. Um, historically, dogs, of course, are bred for functional traits, and they have a bunch of physical traits that we've picked out as humans for the dogs that we want. There's over 350 recognized dog breeds, and dogs increasingly serve as companions now instead of perhaps what they were bred for. Like back in the day, of course, some dogs were bred as companions, but they were definitely bred for more physical tasks. They really help with hunting and herding and guarding. So most owners now want dogs that are friendly and affectionate. They listen and you can train them. And of course, they're safe with kids. Now, because many pet dogs are dissexed and don't breed, most new pet dogs acquired are directly from breeders or pet shops or rescues or shelters. So this is made a pretty big breeding industry for large commercial breeders and small breeders. Now, I would say where we got Bunsen, Beaker, and Berilli from were very small because they just had a male and female dog. That's it.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that's true. So they just had one to two litters per year. It wasn't maybe less, or it wasn't just a that large commercial organization producing hundreds of litters annually. And I loved that for us because then we were able to talk about the parents and other things like that and be more on a an intimate basis with the knowledge that we got.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I remember Bunsen's dad. What his name was Benny? Is he still he might still be alive? But Benny, I think.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, Benny.

SPEAKER_00:

Benny and Masha. Masha was the mom, and Masha was so sweet. Do you remember how sweet she was? So sweet. So I think Bunsen got that sweetness, but Benny was also on point. Like watching over everybody making sure nobody messed with the little puppies. So Bunsen got that as well.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

But, anyways, so for puppies of three to twelve weeks of age, that's a critical socialization period where their experiences have a very long-lasting effect on their behavior. And in a lot of countries, breeders are legally required to keep them up until eight weeks of age. So this means that the breeder controls most of the socialization period. And not a lot of good information has been done about what happens during that time. So that's where the study comes in. That's a long preamble because the study was looking to see in Australian dog breeders, a very small, like a relatively small sample, but in detail, how the puppies developed and if there were any socialization practices, and then how the breeders made decisions about rearing and socialization for those litters and the personalities of individual puppies. So I thought that was cool.

SPEAKER_01:

So they, you're right. The sample size is 14 dog breeders in Australia, and they were from multiple areas in Australia. So like Victoria and New South Wales, Queensland, Tasmania, and Western Australia. And of those breeders were approved commercial breeders. And the recruitment for the study, they did uh puppy advertisement on websites. And then what they did is interviews in semi-structured format. And those interviews were conducted either by the phone or in person in 2019. And what happened was this is the part I like because this is the research that I did in my master's where there was audio recorded and then transcribed verbatim, and then using like an inductive content analysis part. So that's the part that I like talking about is like coding and getting the data into categories and subcategories. So I can get really excited about that, but I think it's best if we basically get to the findings of what they found.

SPEAKER_00:

So one of the first big findings was that they found all breeders did some socialization. And there was nine different types. I don't know if we have time to go through all of them, but they seem to remind me of what uh Char at Waggles does in those puppy training classes. Like she does, she seems to nail a lot of these, like exposure to novel objects. So new toys, and that's like to increase exploration, make sure that dogs or the puppies feel safe when something new comes along.

SPEAKER_01:

And it also prevents the environment from becoming boring. And so, like when we're doing our puppy training, it's hey, make it fun. Who wants to be like sit in your seat and do work? Not the dogs. They want to have a fun time on their mat and roll around and run around with their friends, etc., etc. An example of that is like puppy activity gyms with PVC and hanging toys and objects and rotating the objects in the environment, which is what I've been doing with bricks. I don't know, he's a cat, but I'm like, I think he's a little tired of this toy, so I'm gonna switch it out.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, keeping it fresh and new. Uh, they found that breeders expose the puppies to different surfaces, and we did that actually with uh puppy training with Shar. Um, like I think she had ice packs on the ground, so it felt cold because we were doing this in the summer, obviously, but different textures too, like rocks, carpet, floorboards, and whatever. Uh, they exposed the puppies to different sounds. A lot of the breeders had soundtracks that played thunderstorms, crowds, children laughing, and zooming airplane sounds. That's cool. They started when the puppies were really little at low volume, and then they gradually increased the noise. Isn't that interesting? That's cool.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I think that's really cool. It reduces their sensitivity to noise for later in life.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. They handled them quite a bit and physically manipulated their body. So you don't want a puppy to never have somebody touch their feet or their ears. So they did that with the puppies. They bathed and blow dried them, they nail clipped them and filed them. They used toys that vibrated or made noise. So that simulated like those grinders, the Dremel that you might use on their nails. And of course, this prepares puppies for veterinarian exams, getting groomed and general human contact. There was a video, I don't know if you saw it, Chris. I reposted it to our story of these little Bernice Mountain Dog puppies getting a bath and then getting blow dried. So when you give a when Bernice Mountain Dog gets wet, they're all their fur clings to their body and they're not floofy anymore. And these little puppies look like little kind of drowned rats, but they were big because they're Bernice Mountain Dogs. And then they got blow dried and they turned into these sharks that were fluffy and so happy. So it was very cute. And the puppies seemed to be, yeah. So obviously, they were doing the this lots with the puppies because they could they didn't care they were getting a bath and they didn't care they were getting blow dried. That's good to have that kind of desensitization.

SPEAKER_01:

I just remember picking up Bunsen and he was like so fluffy because they had given him a bath and blow dried him, and he smelled so good. So fluffy. Oh my god, so cute. I know.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, love him. Bernoulli was too, and we got him. He was so soft. Oh my god. Anyway, soft.

SPEAKER_01:

Another thing they do is socialize with humans. So the breeders actively expose puppies to people beyond their main family, including children, as well as staff, like school volunteers or after school careers. They all, if the visitor came, people are keen to see the puppies. So that would be a good opportunity to socialize with humans. Now, the visiting happened from about three to four weeks onwards, generally done in the home environment. They were sometimes supplemented by trips outside the home. And what that does is build positive associations with people of different ages and appearances, so the puppy is more confident in the world.

SPEAKER_00:

And then some of the other categories are ones you'd probably think of socialization with other dogs and other animals. Maybe that's why Bernoulli loves cats so much, because they had cats. Didn't they? Oh, they did.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, they did. They did.

SPEAKER_00:

They had cats that were zooming around everywhere. That's maybe that's why Bernoulli has glommed on the cat so much. But not just cats, but like farm animals if they're on a farm, like sheep and horses and cows. Um, and then also socializing them on and off-site. So taking them to dog-friendly places, obviously keeping making sure the puppy is safe from getting infections, but car travel too. So these all are things that the breeders do, and they found that they do them, which is cool. Now, this brings us to the second main finding, which was how they approached to basically rearing the puppies. And there were three rearing strategies. One was they reared the puppies as a unit. Everybody was treated the same, and they were all exposed to the same things at the same time. It was very efficient and manageable, especially if you have a Bernice Mountain Dog litter that's got 13 little Bunsons or Bernoullies because that is chaos. And what were the other two rearing methods, Chris?

SPEAKER_01:

So they did a litter level flexibility cohort rearing where the breeders adjusted plans based on the development and behavior of each litter as a whole. So a change might be oh, you know what, you're ready to move outdoors a little earlier or a little later than you normally would, or modifying the timing of specific exposures depending on how confident or mature the litter seems. This recognizes that different litters or different breeds actually may develop at different speeds. And yeah, and then you know, it does it takes more work. But lastly, they did individual puppy rearing, which is that puppy level flexibility. So deliberately observing the individual differences within a litter and knowing if one of them needed extra support and handling for shy for being shy or reserved. Maybe they provided a more challenging and enriched environment for bold, curious puppies. And that the goal of that is to help each puppy reach its best outcome, not just the average of the litter. So, you know, they're not mutually exclusive, these frameworks or these approaches. The breeder may use a standard framework, they may adjust it for each litter, and they can still give special attention to particular puppies as needed.

SPEAKER_00:

We don't know much about Beaker, the families that raised Bunsen and Bernoulli before we got them, they had special little stories about Bunsen and Bernoulli, though they weren't called Bunsen and Bernoulli. They knew about their personalities, they knew about them as little puppies.

SPEAKER_01:

It was so cute how they knew them and being able to articulate. Yeah, he so Bernoulli wasn't like the number one out there getting into mischief, but he definitely went along with it. If mischief was happening, he was right in there like a dirty shirt.

SPEAKER_00:

A lady, I forget her name, the lady that the mom of Bunsen, she said he is kind and he is affectionate. That's I remember her telling me that. He is a kind and affectionate puppy. Yes. He's just a good boy. Yeah. All right. What are some big takeaways from this? Early experiences are crucial for shaping adult dog behavior and welfare. The breeders in the study all reported levels of socialization, some more than others, but they all were doing it and they used a variety of strategies and experiences. Some tailored it, as you said, Chris, to the litter and individual needs, or some were just like an all-encompassing everybody does the same thing kind of thing. They're doing what they should because they do play a central role in preparing puppies for life as companions.

SPEAKER_01:

It's so cute. I'm really grateful for the work that they that they do to prepare puppies for success in homes in their forever homes.

SPEAKER_00:

I don't know how you would do 10 Bernoullies. Like he was wild as a puppy and so fun. But like we were exhausted from a single puppy. I can't imagine 10.

SPEAKER_01:

Cannot imagine 10. But you know what? People have twins and people have triplets and they do it. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, they're not mauling the cat though. No, that's true. All right, that's pet science for this week. It's time for Ask an Expert on the Science Podcast, and I'm thrilled to have journalist and author Melanie Kaplan with us today. Melanie, how are you doing?

SPEAKER_02:

I am great, Jason. How are you?

SPEAKER_00:

I'm good. I always ask our guests if they are comfortable answering. Where are you in the world? Where are you calling into the show from?

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, yes, I am in Washington, DC, and I'm about nine blocks east of the U.S. Capitol. So it's a very exciting place in some ways. It's also just Capitol Hill is a very green neighborhood. Sometimes I travel to other parts of the country, and people are like, oh, what is it like living in the capital of the United States? And I'm like, we have our little dog parks and our Trader Joe's, and it's just like any other neighborhood. But today it's a kind of a gray day here.

SPEAKER_00:

I would imagine it's much the same living in Ottawa, Canada, our capital, too.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, it's it's nice because if I go out for a run, I can run around the Capitol and the Washington Monument and run by the Potomac River, and you can also be in Maryland and Virginia in a very short time. So it just feels like a good place for to live. And I love getting out on the water on my paddleboard, and it's a good place to bike. And of course, I also love getting out of town and traveling.

SPEAKER_00:

You get to jog by all those landmarks that we see in the movies that generally either get attacked by aliens or a nice backdrop.

SPEAKER_02:

That's right. Well, I'll keep an eye on them to make sure they don't get attacked.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so Hollywood says it's the first place they go. But, anyways, I mentioned you're a journalist before we get into the cool the big lead in that you've written a book about dogs, lab dogs. Could you tell us a little bit about your journalism and the writing you've done?

SPEAKER_02:

Sure. Yeah. I've I feel like I've been a writer all of my life. My mom encouraged me to write from the time I was very little. And then I ended up being editor of my high school newspaper. And yeah, it was called The Eagle. And then I when I went to college, I studied more television and radio, but because I just couldn't get, I couldn't stay away from the printed word, and ended up starting freelancing pretty early in my twenties and have been doing that ever since. And at the beginning, I would pretty much write for anybody who would pay me. And even sometimes for people who didn't pay me, there'd be some free publications you pick up at a restaurant, and I would do little restaurant reviews and write for trade magazines and write about real estate in different cities and literally everything under the sun. And the nice thing about sticking with it for a long time is that I've been able to really pick and choose a little bit more about what I want to cover and write things that are really of interest to me, or just assignments that are super fun. So I got into some travel writing and ended up writing quite a bit of travel stories for the Washington Post.

SPEAKER_00:

So when you become a like a travel writer slash journalist, do you get to go to those places or do you live vicariously through Google or something like that?

SPEAKER_02:

Generally, I would go to those places. Of course, the pandemic was an exception because I ended up writing about things. I remember once the pandemic started, the editors wanted ideas of things we could pitch without going anywhere. So I was pitching stories like the best travel books to read or travel shows to watch. That was interesting. But generally I would go to the places and because of the way newspapers, because of their budgets and the trajectory of them the last decade or so, I started off getting expenses paid, and then I had no expenses paid. So people would say, Oh, get them to send you here and here. And I'm like, I pay for myself to get there. And then I sell them a travel story, and it really didn't make me a lot of money. So I ended up writing some other things that paid better, but maybe weren't quite as much fun. So it's always a balance.

SPEAKER_00:

Just a quick follow-up question. We have we have a lot of people that listen to our show that love traveling. Where have you been that you've you thought was cool if you've if you could tell somebody to go to that place?

SPEAKER_02:

I always recommend national parks and actually write for National Parks magazine too. So I've been bird watching in Big Bend National Park and sledding down sand dunes in Great Sand Dunes National Park, which I didn't even know that existed. You literally get on a sled, or if you're really brave, you get on it's like a snowboard and you go down standing up, which I did not trust myself doing that. And oh my gosh, it's just so much fun. Each park really is unique and has so much to offer. And I just I hope that we can keep our parks and keep them safe and clean and keep all the natural things protected because it's such an amazing thing about this country. And I actually drove across Canada this summer and visited some of the national parks in Canada that that have been on my bucket list. So I got to camp in Banff, and it was just as magical as I had dreamed.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, we are we have a very large social media account with our dogs, and we take them to the mountains, which is just a hop, skip, and a jump from our house, right? Because we live, you know, a couple hours from Banff. And it never gets old driving up to the mountains. And we have hikes that we love that are in the mountains there that are just like little secret hikes, and there's a little secret mountain lake in in just above Canmore that we go to all the time. So yeah, it's a really pretty place.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh my gosh. Does it so is it that color of Lake Louise?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it's aquamarine, and nobody nobody goes there. It's just a little bit of drive. I'll tell you, people have asked, it's called Goat Lake, and generally you're the only person on the entire lake.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, that is amazing.

SPEAKER_00:

I go swimming in it if because I don't mind the cold and paddleboarding and kayaking. It's pretty fun. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. I went paddleboarding on Lake Louise and got there to the parking lot at 5 30 in the morning because I know. That parking lot fills up quickly and just thought I gotta do this. I'm here once, and I was there with my partner. We put our paddle boards on the lake, and we were the only ones out there, and it was just it was unbelievable. I will never forget being out there and seeing the mountains and the color of the water, and it truly was like a dream.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm glad you got to experience a little bit of Canada there. Very cool.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. I will say I'm gonna talk a little bit more about travel. You can tell I don't enjoy this at all. I also love driving cross country, whether it's yours or mine. And I did take a train across the U.S. once, and that was definitely a highlight of all of my travel stories. This particular one went from Washington to Chicago and then went through the Rockies to San Francisco. You can also take one that goes up through Glacier National Park in Montana and ends up in Seattle, and then there's another one that goes south and ends up, I think, in LA. Going through the Rockies, you are on this on the tracks that the cars are nowhere near. Nobody ever sees this unless you're on a train. And it was just as in January, so everything was covered in snow. And I remember bringing all these books to read on the train. I never cracked one of them open because I was just looking out the window the whole time.

SPEAKER_00:

Is watching hay? Yeah. Very pretty. Very cool. That's and it's good to know a little bit more about you. I appreciate you sharing a bit about that, Melanie. So let's get to the lead, the reason why you're on the science podcast, and that's about your book, Lab Dog. And I was wondering, are authors don't generally want to tell everything about the book because you'd like people to read it. But in simple terms, what's it about?

SPEAKER_02:

So, Lab Dog, and I'll just say the subtitle because that tells a little bit, it's called A Beagle and His Human Investigate the Surprising World of Animal Research. And the part about a Beagle and His Human is really the key because the Beagle is Hammy. And I adopted Hammy when he was almost four, and he'd spent the previous years in some kind of research lab. And I didn't know anything about his background. I adopted him in 2013, and it was many years later when I just realized I have a lot of questions about this. Like, why are we breeding dogs for research? And what was his background like? And is this changing? Are we kind of phasing out dogs and other animals and using more modern technologies? And so being a journalist and just being super curious, I decided to set off on an adventure. And I think I actually used the whole road trip as a platform for this. And Hammy and I hopped in the car, and over several years we met a number of researchers and ethicists and animal activists. And I really tried to get a better picture of what this looks like. What is dog research like today? What have we learned from dogs? And what's it look like in the future?

SPEAKER_00:

And beagles, of course, are like one of the go-to dogs in the animal research that that whole world, which is tough to hear for sure.

SPEAKER_02:

They are. And beagles became the go-to breed because they're small and they don't eat as much as a Great Dane. So you can keep them in a kennel for cheaper. Um goes back to close to a hundred years ago, we had brought beagles over to this country for hunting. And so there are all these kennels, and they were trying to breed a better beagle for to be a hunting dog. And then when pharmaceutical companies wanted to start testing drugs, I think it was a pretty easy pivot for them to start breeding a better beagle for medical testing and research. So they are the vast majority of dogs used. There are other dogs. There are there have been Irish setters and dachshunds and golden retrievers, uh, greyhounds. They've all been used for research, but it's mostly beagles. And of course, there's many other animals. The majority of animals used in research are mice and rats.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Not to jump around too much, but so Hammy spent, I think you said four years in a research lab. Is that correct? Did I get the time right?

SPEAKER_02:

Almost four years, that's right.

SPEAKER_00:

Almost four years, yeah. Did you notice any ill effects of that? What is he okay? Was he okay when you adopted him?

SPEAKER_02:

So he seemed okay physically. He had a little bit of a limp. So maybe his leg got stuck in a door of a kennel at some point, or something else happened. So he had a bit of a limp his whole life on his back leg when whenever he started to run. But mostly he was scared. He, I assume, had never been out in the real world. He was living in confinement. And so the sounds of the city and just really seeing things out in the world or even in the house would really terrify him, and he'd end up just trembling a lot. And it was months and months before we even got past that first initial fear and trauma. And, you know, I think that stuck with him his whole life. He got way more confident and comfortable in the house, and he started howling, and he got more comfortable going to new places. But there were still some sounds that set him off and unusual things that would trigger him. And so I just did my best to make sure he felt comfortable and safe and spoiled. I just figured whatever the first years of his life were like, I wanted to make the rest of his life just awesome.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Man, like we have the people who listen to our show, they love their pets, right? Family members, really. And I can't even begin to imagine like our dogs being in a research facility, and just it's wonderful that you got Hammy out of that. When you worked sorry, yeah. I'm just trying to, I'm just trying to process this because it's awful, but I'm so glad that he's with you. I guess before we got into even more my questions about the book, I'm just more curious about Hammy. How did you adopt him? How did you rescue him out of that situation?

SPEAKER_02:

So I adopted him through an organization that works specifically with labs to get dogs out and then get them into homes. It's a very small percentage of dogs that can get out because for most of them, you can imagine if they're testing drugs or a pesticide, they're giving them very high doses, way more than we would take. And then they have to euthanize them and locate their tissues and organs. So there are some that don't go through that and that can be adopted out. And so I was lucky enough to, you know, I volunteered to foster one of these dogs. And then, of course, once he came into my life and I got to know him a little bit, I realized that this was gonna be a very short foster situation. But to your point, it was just incredibly hard thinking about him in a lab. And I had to do that just as part of the writing process and thinking about what his background might have been like, and I had so many questions. But when I had to actually think about this one individual being that who I loved so much in that situation, it was just it was really difficult and painful every time.

SPEAKER_00:

I've always said I I don't know if you've seen the John Wick movies, but I totally understand that if something happened to one of my dogs, many Russian goons would have a bad day.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes. Exactly. They're absolutely family, and they in some ways they know us better than anybody. They spend so much time with us more than any of my friends. Like Hammy was by my side all the time.

SPEAKER_00:

Now, we have probably people listening who are just like furious and angry. Um, when you when you talk to the researchers, they're I don't want to say that it's a hundred percent justified, but there's a reason for this. What did you learn anything surprising behind it? That's my question, because that's honestly something I don't know anything about.

SPEAKER_02:

I set out to I really wanted to find the people who researched on Hammy. And my dream was to talk to them and introduce them to Hammy, and then they would fall in love with him and apologize. And I don't think I'm giving away too much by saying that did not happen. I went on a journey and got different answers than the ones I was expecting. But what I did learn from them is that they feel good about their work, they don't have regrets, they didn't apologize for it, and they feel like they are making the world a better place. There are a lot of people out there, adults and children, that have rare diseases and they are just desperate for a cure. And the way we've been doing research for centuries is by using animals as models. And that's we've learned a lot from them, right? I've taken drugs, I've had surgeries, like that many of those things might not have happened in the way they happened without this animal research. But we also have all these modern things now. We've got computer modeling and AI and little organs on chips, which are these tiny little silicone things that you can put organ cells into, human cells, and then you put the drugs in and you see how the cells react. And these things are just exploding in popularity, and we're continuing to develop new things. And so I think what's really important to look at is are we doing the best we can now? And are we really justified in harming these animals that tens of millions every year that are still being harmed?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it's a it's is a very tough subject. I'm my day job, I teach high school chemistry and science. And in our curriculum, I have to talk about LD50, which is lethal dose 50. Right, that's part of the curriculum, and of course, that's with these grade nine kids. And that it's all about animal testing. Like usually I don't bring up that it's beagles, but it's mice or rats, and that is a very tough kind of thing to tell kids that in the past and maybe even today we have a better quality of life at the expense of these animals. And that was the decision society made. And it's a tough, it is a tough thing to talk about with kids because um they would gladly, and many people would gladly have a worse, they would say they would have a worse quality of life if the animal wouldn't suffer. But perhaps when it comes down to push to shove, you would make a different decision. But that is uh I you do talk about in the book the big developments of the promising areas in non-human, non-animal testing. So that's cool. We should go that route if we can, obviously.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, yes, for sure. And I think there's been such a long history of the animal activists on one side and the biomedical researchers on the other side. And I'm seeing little glimpses of the sides coming together and they all want to move forward with this. And the researchers say, oh, if we didn't have to test on animals, we wouldn't. Um, but what is that line? And for the animals, maybe we change some things in the labs. We say that there's going to be an upper limit to the pain they can experience. Right now, that limit doesn't exist. If a researcher can justify it, they can do it. There's certainly many things that can change in the labs. And that's interesting you mentioned the LD50 because I researched that a little bit and found out that it's used, it's still used maybe among other ways, but with Botox, because I guess each batch has to be tested. And I was really surprised to find out about that. I know there's an organization in the UK that is fighting to have all LD50 tests stopped by, I think it's the 100-year anniversary, which is I want to say coming up in the next few years.

SPEAKER_00:

And for people that are listening that maybe don't know what LD50 is, that's the dose you give a population to kill basically half of them. So that's what LD50 stands for, in in the simplest terms. Which is a spooky, awful term for sure. Yeah. Yeah. As you were writing your book, did you hit parts of it that were either tough to research or tough to you you did the research and then it was time to write about it? Were there parts that were hard there? Because you do love your dog Hammy so much. I'd imagine some parts of it were just like oof, like just a gut punch.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, many times it was difficult. And I just felt so strongly about telling this story. And I would look at Hammy, and I just knew that I had to keep going. But certainly I had to take breaks from the reading. I had so many books and scientific papers, and there was just so much material. My brain felt like it was going to explode, and some of it was difficult to read. I think part of the challenge in any storytelling is learning what to put in and what to leave out. I obviously didn't need every detail in the book, and I need to needed to bring Hammy into the story and weave him through enough to keep the narrative flowing and remind people why this has become so important to me is because of the one I fell in love with. And he was always a good reminder, and he was always a good therapy dog when I needed it.

SPEAKER_00:

So your book has recently come out, and I know sometimes real life catches up to uh what perhaps you had started to research, and there were in the future laws or changes to state laws or na national laws about animal testing. I know it reached Canadian news that there was some musing uh by the American administration to look at banning testing on dogs. And I'm wondering if that popped up on your book research.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, my manuscript was finished last December, which in some ways was just a very tidy wrapping up of that story. And then so much began to change really after January because the new administration has talked in a number of ways about reducing animal testing and devoting more resources to these non-animal methods. Both the Food and Drug Administration and the NIH have said that animal testing is not effective. There's a crazy statistic that more than 90% of drugs that are successful in animal tests end up failing in human clinical trials because either they're toxic or they just don't work. So that's a huge amount of time and money that these drug companies are spending to not be able to get a drug to market. So, of course, they would like to have something more effective. And that's not even talking about the ethics part of it. So, anyway, it's really encouraging that the administration is talking about this because previous administrations have not said it that bluntly that we need to move away from animal research and develop these modern methods. And so that's exciting. I'll also add there's a whole class of drugs that the FDA is now saying they don't require animal tests for, which is a huge step. And I think we're all just waiting to see what else is going to happen. There's been really no change in policy, no change in the laws. The Animal Welfare Act, which was passed in 1966, still only covers some animals. Like it doesn't cover any mice or rats or fish or birds. And so that's very limiting in terms of the reg regulation. So there's a lot more we can do to protect animals and to make sure that we're just being most efficient with all of this research and testing.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, sounds like that could use an update. I'm I'm probably I'm pretty certain Canada is very similar to whatever's whatever's on the books in the States. I you piqued my interest to check into my own country about what's what our laws and rules are. So I have no idea.

SPEAKER_02:

You guys, you guys have had some news on dogs and research this year.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, more than me. Oh, okay. I must have missed that.

SPEAKER_02:

I don't know enough to talk about, but there was something I can't remember. It wasn't yeah, it was like St. Joseph's Hospital, maybe in Ontario, but there was several months ago, there were a lot of news stories about some dogs and research there. So that's all I can tell you.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh yeah, 20 September and September of this year.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Strategy to reduce animal testing affect the number of test chemicals, drugs, or minimal. So yeah, I'll have to look into that.

SPEAKER_02:

I do have a chapter, it's what I call the good research. And this is research with dogs who are pets. And just like human clinical trials, there are such things as clinical trials with dogs. So if your dog has a type of cancer, you can actually go in the United States at least and see if there are ongoing trials and sign your dog up. And in many cases, all of the, if you're accepted in the trial, all of the costs of the treatment are covered, and they might be using an experimental drug or repurposing a human drug. But the idea is that they learn something from this. Either it helps your dog or it helps future generations of dogs. Maybe it also helps humans, but it's a very dog-focused thing. And the dogs, of course, are going back and living in their homes and not confined in a laboratory. So that's interesting, I think. And the other thing I'll say is that I spoke to a number of scientists at PETA, and I don't know how active they are in Canada, but I think their reputation has generally been just really radical, and that's been their way since they were founded. And that still is the way in a lot of cases. But what I discovered is that they have such a robust science division. They've got something called science advancement and outreach, and they've got PhDs and so many scientists working on the alternatives. And they literally go to these companies that are testing on animals, and they they try to talk them into using some of the non-animal alternatives. Sometimes they donate expensive machines. As a science teacher, you might still have dissection in your school that they donate these very lifelike-looking frogs to schools across the country that are made by Cyndaver. And they're just incredibly active in a way that I had no idea. So that was that was really an eye-opener and hope that more people get to learn about their the just the robustness of their science breadth and depth.

SPEAKER_00:

That is interesting. That's not something I knew about. Okay, cool. Yeah. Yeah, and to your point, the dissections we've done in my career, they've changed quite a bit, for sure.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, that's good. So are you using simulated or animal models there?

SPEAKER_00:

No, but what we've, for example, when we do animal dissections, there is it's you it might be grizzly, but there is a massive pig processing plant in the same city. So the parts that would not be used for human consumption, they are set aside for the dissections that the schools would use. So that's not the animals are going to be dead anyways, due to for the meat industry. So instead of, I guess, seeking them out, that's one way the school has changed a bit.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, yeah. No, that's a step in the right direction.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and I have seen the like they do, we don't do frog dissections anymore. They're all done, they're done virtually too. So that's one one way. And I know there's like the lifelike ones, which are also very cool. I've seen those at teachers' conventions.

SPEAKER_02:

So yeah, that's where I first saw one. It was it really blew me away. It was so like jiggly, and you cut it open, and there's a whole set of organs, and you can reuse parts of it when you do another dissection. And because of course they're not cheap, none of this stuff is at the beginning, but hopefully more and more people in classrooms will use it. And um, that just seems like an obvious step toward being kinder to animals.

SPEAKER_00:

I agree. Yeah. So the thanks, thanks for talking to us a little bit about your book. And the I apologize, I did not get the full name of the book. That's Lab Dog, a Beagle and His Human Investigate the Surprising World of Animal Research. And folks can pick that up basically anywhere that sells books.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, anywhere in the US and Canada, if your bookstore doesn't have it, please ask them to carry it. And they should be able to order it for you and also anywhere online.

SPEAKER_00:

You betcha. We'll have some links in our show notes, everybody. So you can just click away and get that book that Melanie wrote. We do have a standard question we ask all our guests about, and that's for a pet story. And we have been talking about your your dog Hammy. Do you have any pet stories from your life you could share with us?

SPEAKER_02:

I'll just say that I started my life with Dachshunds because my parents were in Germany. My dad was stationed there in the army, and they came home and had a Dachshund, and then I was born, and so this Dachshund was like my, I guess, my older sister, and then that Dachshund had puppies, and so then we had a couple Dachshunds, and they were just they were around me as I grew up. I remember being a toddler and having them there, and just they just were always in my life. So I think that's where I really began to love hounds. They did always have back problems though, so that's why when I sought out another hound, I started looking at beagles. But Dachshunds certainly have a soft spot in my heart.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, they're cute little things. Thanks for sharing. All right, Melanie, thanks for being a guest on the Science Podcast. Do you have your own website that folks can go to or be directed to a little bit more about yourself?

SPEAKER_02:

I do. It's Melanie D. G. Kaplan. And on Instagram, it's lab underscore dog underscore hammy. And I'm also on all the other social medias.

SPEAKER_00:

All right. Well, make sure we got your website and then one of your socials in the show notes so folks can take a look further. And I do have to, I do have to say, you do have uh some somebody fairly big in the animal world did a little review of your book. Uh sadly, pass away recently, but that's Dr. Jane Goodall. That's very cool.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh my gosh, I still to this day I'm pinching myself and I'm so grateful. It was just an amazing thing that she did that. And I remember hearing her interviewed in some podcasts, and several times she said that dogs were her favorite animal. And so I said, I've just got to reach out and see what it what happens.

SPEAKER_00:

Very, very lucky. On our socials, we did a post to honor her. And yeah, I you, you know, there's you can use audios of different interviews that are on Instagram. We use that audio of her. I believe she was talking to one of the late-night talk show hosts about how monkeys aren't her favorite or apes aren't her favorite animal because they're too much like people.

SPEAKER_02:

I love that.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, there's some there's there's some monkeys that she really likes, and there's some monkeys that are absolute jerks, but it's the dogs that are the best animal because of their unconditional love for us.

SPEAKER_02:

And because they're not jerks, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And if we are, and if they ever are jerks, it's our own fault. We've made them that way.

SPEAKER_02:

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. All right. Thank you for being a guest and talking about your book lab dog. Make sure you pick it up, people.

SPEAKER_02:

Thanks so much for the conversation. This was great.

SPEAKER_00:

That's it for this week's show. Thanks for coming back week after week to listen to the Science Podcast. And a shout out to all the top dogs. That's the top tier of our Patreon community, the Pop Pack. You can sign up in our show notes. All right, Chris, let's hear those names that are part of the Top Dogs.

SPEAKER_01:

Amelia Fettig, Ree Oda, Carol Hanel, Jennifer Challen, Linnea Janet, Karen Cronister, Vicki Oteiro, Christy Walker, Sarah Brown, Wendy, Diane, Mason and Luke, Helen Chin, Elizabeth Goujois, Marianne McNally, Katherine Jordan, Shelly Smith, Laura Steffenson, Tracy Leinbaugh, Ann Uchida, Heather Burbach, Kelly, Tracy Halbert, Ben Rather, Debbie Anderson, Sandy Brimer, Mary Rader, Bianca Hyde, Andrew Lynn, Brenda Clark, Brianne Hobbs, Peggy McKeel, Holly Birch, Kathy Zirker, Susan Wagner, and Liz Button.

SPEAKER_00:

For science, empathy, and cuteness.