One veterinarian’s musings
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Emotions
Today, I’m musing about emotions. Temple Grandin wrote, “My theory is that the environment animals live in should activate their positive emotions as much as possible, and not activate their negative emotions any more than necessary. If we get the animal’s emotions right, we will have fewer problem behaviors. … research in neuroscience has been […]
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Nature Deficit Disorder…continued
Today, I’m continuing to muse about Nature Deficit Disorder (NDD). First, full disclosure. I was introduced to the term NDD by the author Richard Louv’s book Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature Deficit Disorder, published in 2005. Second, I want to unpack something I mentioned in my last column, the medical […]
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Nature Deficit Disorder
Today, I’m musing about Nature Deficit Disorder (NDD). I have concluded that, while thankfully not as bad in Waupaca County East as it in the rest of the world, NDD underlies a lot of what ails us humans in the year 2011. As a veterinarian, I am book-trained regarding almost all aspects of farm animal […]
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Learning
Today, I’m musing about learning. I have concluded that there is no such thing as teaching, there is only learning. For example, if I were to raise my voice and angrily say to Sophie (pictured with me above), “I’m going to teach you a lesson!” no learning would occur. Sophie is at once a bad […]
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Maturity
Today, I’m musing about maturity. The most recent issue of National Geographic has an article about orphan elephants. I received two take-home lessons from the article: 1) Maturity is contagious. 2) Direct contact is required for the transmission of maturity. One incident that occurred in South Africa involved some traumatized orphaned elephants that grew up […]
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Age of Biology
Today, I’m musing about the Age of Biology. I want to digress at the outset. In my last column I wrote, “… think of all the words and numbers—abstractions—each of us is exposed to every day today in the Age of Information!” I misspoke. I should have written the Short-Human-Time of Information–the third Short-Human-Time; #1 was the Agricultural Age […]
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The differences between animals and humans
Today, I’m musing about the differences between animals and humans. As I was walking along side the onramp to highway 10 in Waupaca, looking for Erin’s—Nancy’s daughter’s—lost wallet, thoughts I rarely have came to me. I noticed I was thinking about how I am different from animals. Normally, I am thinking about the universality of […]
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Trust
Today, I’m musing about trust. I started writing this column last week. When I pondered trust, I opened a floodgate of so many thoughts and emotions that I chose to put away this musing for a bit. My goal was to make two points; 1) Any and all interactions we have with animals involve trust […]
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The death of one’s pet
Today, I’m musing about the death of one’s pet. Veterinarians devote a much higher percentage of their professional time and services to end-of-life issues than all the other healthcare professionals. Why is this? A number of factors come to mind. The most obvious one is that all the other healthcare professionals care for people and […]
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Cats and Plato’s Cave
Today, I’m musing about cats and Plato’s Cave. Don Nelson, our pastor’s father, wrote to me after reading my last column. “I have always been a ‘cat’ person, so I see dogs and cats in a different light than you do.” One Veterinarian’s Musing gave Don the impression I am a “dog person”? I love […]