Dog Behavior Explained: Scientist Alexandra Horowitz Reveals Your Dog's Mind to Oprah

One of the great joys of Oprah’s life has been her dogs – she’s loved 21 one of them! For all the dog lovers, have you ever wondered what’s really happening inside the mind of your dog or how they experience the world? Oprah talks with canine cognitive scientist and New York Times bestselling author Alexandra Horowitz, whose groundbreaking book Inside of a Dog has transformed how we understand our dog companions. From the astonishing power of a dog’s nose to how they interpret our words, emotions and intentions Dr. Horowitz reveals what life looks like from a dog’s point of view. She also explores how dogs form memories, how they learn and solve problems and why their low-to-the-ground perspective influences everything, from how they experience sound and scent, to how they navigate the concept of time in a human world. Oprah and Alexandra also take questions from our listeners like: Do dogs feel anxious when we leave them alone? Can they form deep soul bonds with their humans? What do they understand about aging, illness and the end of life? The episode also checks in with a passionate dog lover whose social media mission has helped rescue hundreds of senior dogs, giving senior pups a second chance with a family. This episode is presented by our fantastic partners at The Farmer’s Dog. Their real, human-grade food has been clinically shown to help dogs age well, so you can have more good years together. Visit https://www.thefarmersdog.com/oprahpodcast for more. BUY THE BOOK! https://amzn.to/4fEXjzG 00:00:00 - Welcome Alexandra Horowitz, author of “Inside of a Dog” 00:05:22 - Do dogs have intelligence like humans? 00:06:50 - Their most important sense 00:08:40 - Detecting diseases and emotions 00:11:50 - Dogs track our movements 00:13:10 - What your dog remembers 00:17:30 - Do dogs feel a soul connection? 00:21:40 - Having a dog changed her life 00:22:30 - Do dogs have a concept of time? 00:27:00 - Showing your dog you are boss is harmful 00:30:30 - Do dogs get bored? 00:32:40 - Do dogs understand when it's their time? 00:34:40 - How do humans know when it's time? 00:37:28 - Meet Steve who adopts senior dogs 00:39:00 - Do dogs know their name? 00:48:23 - Adopting older dogs 00:49:38 - What Alexandra wishes people knew about dogs Follow Oprah Winfrey on Social: https://www.instagram.com/oprahpodcast/ https://www.facebook.com/oprahwinfrey/ Listen to the full podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/0tEVrfNp92a7lbjDe6GMLI https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-oprah-podcast/id1782960381

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Oprah Winfrey?

  This episode of the Oprah Podcast is presented by our fantastic partners at The Farmer's Dog. So you say that a dog's sense of smell is so powerful that they can detect, listen to you all, a teaspoon of sugar dissolved in a million gallons of water. That would be two Olympic-sized swimming pools.

• 0:24Speaker 01

  There are dogs who can detect a picogram of explosive, which is a trillionth of a gram. So they can be trained to detect drugs, or COVID, or the smell of cancerous cells.

• 0:37Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 0:37Speaker 01

  But even the dog we live with, they can smell all those things.

• 0:42Oprah Winfrey?

  And they can smell emotions. They smell our emotions. So everything that's happening in our body emotionally and physically, biologically, health-wise, creates its own scent.

• 0:54Speaker 01

  They can sense the change.

• 0:57Oprah Winfrey?

  Hi, everybody. A warm, warm welcome to you. Thanks for hanging out with me here on the Oprah Podcast. I have to say, one of the great, great joys of my life has been that I've been able to share my life with dogs since I was an adult. I think that they make life so much sweeter and richer in all the ways. Every single one of my dogs has been a teacher for me. I've had 21 dogs.

• 1:25Oprah Winfrey?

  Sadie is my 21st dog. And I've, before Sadie, I had 11 dogs at one time. And that was the happiest I ever was in my life, was when I had, was living in Chicago and had a farm in Indiana. And we'd drive to the farm in Indiana on Fridays. And I had two dogs, Sophie and Solomon, who lived with me in Chicago. And the other nine dogs would be waiting at the farm. Just the best, best, best days of my life, walking through the woods with my dogs. And I've often wondered what is really happening inside their minds. And I know those of you who are dog lovers, as I am, have wondered the same thing about your dogs.

• 2:08Oprah Winfrey?

  How do dogs experience the world? Well, my guest today has spent her career trying to answer that question. And she's not just a dog lover, like all of us. She's actually a dog lover and a scientist who studies their cognition.

• 2:25Oprah Winfrey?

  And their behavior. And she's the author of the number one New York Times bestseller, Inside of a Dog, and director of the Dog Cognition Lab at Barnard College, Dr. Alexander Horowitz. Welcome to the podcast.

• 2:41Speaker 01

  Thank you so much.

• 2:42Oprah Winfrey?

  Thanks for coming to this front porch.

• 2:44Speaker 01

  It is my pleasure.

• 2:46Oprah Winfrey?

  I've been on the porch here with many a dog. I've roamed these fields with many a dog.

• 2:51Speaker 01

  I feel their presence.

• 2:53Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. And now I know why they love being out here so much because I learned so much about what smells mean to the dog. So when we let the dogs out here, it is like, wow.

• 3:08Speaker 01

  A whole different universe than we experience.

• 3:10Oprah Winfrey?

  It's a whole different universe, yes, yes. So when you started writing about dogs, there really wasn't, I don't know if there was there, a lot of scientific research. How did you understand what's going on inside a dog, inside of a dog?

• 3:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:24Oprah Winfrey?

  Every dog owner, you should have this book. So you know what your dog is really thinking.

• 3:29Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 3:30Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 3:31Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, I ask the dogs, really. I became a scientist of dog cognition, which is really just looking at their behavior in a scientific way.

• 3:40Oprah Winfrey?

  And how do you do this? You have bunches of dogs in a space?

• 3:43Speaker 01

  Sometimes I have dogs. I'll bring dogs into a laboratory space, which is just a boring room with nothing in it and just the one thing I want to show them. Or I'm observing dogs in the wild, as it were, which is just interacting with each other or interacting with people and coding their behavior for certain patterns to see what do they need to know in order to be able to do that? Do they anticipate someone else's behavior? And so when I started this, yeah, there weren't a lot of people studying dogs at all. I lived with a dog, but it never occurred to me to study dogs. But once I started turning my gaze toward them, I never looked back.

• 4:18Oprah Winfrey?

  Once you started studying and you turned your gaze toward your own dog, who has since passed, that first dog, you saw and experienced them differently, correct?

• 4:28Speaker 01

  Completely, completely. And when I started studying them, it's very different because living with dogs... You sort of feel like you know what their experience is like.

• 4:37Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 4:38Speaker 01

  I mean, it's a little bit analogous to our experience, we figure.

• 4:41Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 4:41Speaker 01

  But then when I-

• 4:42Oprah Winfrey?

  But I realize from reading Inside of a Dog that I have been projecting what I think onto what I think they're thinking.

• 4:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, the very natural thing to do, right? We all anthropomorphize. That's how we make sense of the world, is we sort of imagine that others are thinking of the world the way we are. And so, too, with those furry little faces looking at us, and as it turns out, when you start to understand it from their point of view, right, it's a completely different world, it's a smelly universe, they have a different understanding of the world. What's amazing is that they're also able to understand the human world and live so smoothly with us nonetheless.

• 5:19Oprah Winfrey?

  Is it true that they have human-like intelligence? That's what dog lovers already want to believe?

• 5:24Speaker 01

  I mean, certainly, in many respects, they do, right? Their brains work in the same way that ours do. They have memories, they learn like we do, they solve problems like we do. They can even, even though it's not their first language, understand some of our language, which is pretty impressive, I think. But I think the most interesting thing about their intelligence is the way it also differs from ours, and that has to do with their perceptual experience.

• 5:50Oprah Winfrey?

  I think, I think it's interesting how you talk in the book, Inside of a Dog, you talk about how legally we are all dog owners, but because they are property. But how would you describe your relationship with your dog?

• 6:04Speaker 01

  I say I'm my dog's person.

• 6:07Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 6:07Speaker 01

  Right?

• 6:07Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 6:07Speaker 01

  They're my dog in a way, but I'm their person, right? We are family. Sometimes people use the word guardian, I think that also works. Property, ownership, that's legal, it doesn't represent how we feel about each other.

• 6:19Oprah Winfrey?

  I know, and I think, you know, when I see a dog tied up in the backyard somewhere, I always feel like, oh, that dog owner thinks he is the owner in, in, in the way that he controls completely that dog.

• 6:33Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 6:33Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 6:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:34Oprah Winfrey?

  Is there anything worse than seeing a dog being tied up in the backyard?

• 6:38Speaker 01

  Captive to that moment in time, right?

• 6:41Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 6:41Speaker 01

  Not in a relationship with someone at, at every moment, which is what they want and should be.

• 6:47Oprah Winfrey?

  So you say that a dog's sense of smell, this is what I learned from reading Inside of a Dog, y'all, that the nose is everything to the dog. And it made me understand how, over the years, having had 21 dogs, I've had every kind of illnesses. I had five golden retrievers who all had a strain of cancer. I have had dogs who lost their sight and dogs who lost their, you know, ability to hear. You know, Sadie can no longer hear. But as long as that nose is working, the sense of smell is so powerful, you say, that they can detect, listen to you all, a teaspoon of sugar dissolved in a million gallons of water, that would be two Olympic-sized swimming pools. So how is that possible?

• 7:31Oprah Winfrey?

  They can detect the smell of a teaspoon of sugar in a million gallons of water? That's how, how they're...

• 7:39Speaker 01

  I might notice if some sugar is in my coffee.

• 7:41Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 7:42Speaker 01

  But...

• 7:43Oprah Winfrey?

  I would notice if there is a teaspoon of sugar in this glass.

• 7:45Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 7:46Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 7:46Speaker 01

  Right.

• 7:47Oprah Winfrey?

  But in a million gallons of water?

• 7:48Speaker 01

  Their whole anatomy is set up to be such strong smellers. Everything about how they sniff, their nose, their brain, is set up to be smellers. So yeah, there are dogs who can detect a picogram of explosive, which is a trillionth of a gram, you know, unimaginably small amount.

• 8:07Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. That's why they're so great for drug detection.

• 8:10Speaker 01

  Absolutely, right? But they could be, and these are dogs who are trained.

• 8:14Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 8:14Speaker 01

  So they can be trained to detect drugs or COVID or the smell of cancerous cells.

• 8:20Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 8:21Speaker 01

  But even the dog we live with, even untrained, right? They can smell all those things.

• 8:27Oprah Winfrey?

  And they can smell emotions. They smell our emotions. But you say it goes even further than that in smelling emotions. As you just said, they can detect cancer, they can detect COVID and even PTSD. How is that? How are they smelling cancer? How are they smelling COVID?

• 8:44Speaker 01

  These bodily changes have an odor. Really, almost everything has an odor.

• 8:49Oprah Winfrey?

  Oh.

• 8:50Speaker 01

  It's just we're not sticking our nose up to it and detecting it.

• 8:54Oprah Winfrey?

  And also don't have the ability to detect it.

• 8:56Speaker 01

  Our noses are pretty good, but nothing like theirs. And they also behaviorally.

• 9:00Oprah Winfrey?

  Because I couldn't smell if someone had cancer.

• 9:02Speaker 01

  Hmm, no, but there is a woman who smelled Parkinson's disease and her husband. And doctors did use to smell people's breath, their bodies, for certain kinds of illnesses.

• 9:14Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 9:14Speaker 01

  And dogs are just on that all the time.

• 9:17Oprah Winfrey?

  So everything that's happening in our body emotionally and physically, biologically, health-wise, creates its own scent, is what you're saying.

• 9:27Speaker 01

  There are changes in cells, and then there are things like perspiration or hormones in our sweat.

• 9:32Oprah Winfrey?

  And the dog smells that and senses that.

• 9:34Speaker 01

  They can sense the change, yeah.

• 9:35Oprah Winfrey?

  That's how they know you're sad. They're not just looking at your face.

• 9:38Speaker 01

  That's right. I mean, they do look at our face as well, right? Which is neat, they can read our emotions.

• 9:43Oprah Winfrey?

  I love the fact that it's the one animal that actually gives you eye contact.

• 9:46Speaker 01

  Right, right. You can, you can look at a dog and they're looking back at you and you feel that understanding, right?

• 9:52Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 9:52Speaker 01

  And that intimacy.

• 9:53Oprah Winfrey?

  And for other animals, that is like aggressive behavior.

• 9:56Speaker 01

  I wouldn't do it with a wolf.

• 9:57Oprah Winfrey?

  I wouldn't do it with a wolf, yes, yes.

• 10:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a threat to a wolf.

• 10:03Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 10:03Speaker 01

  And, I mean, for us, it's part of what it's like to have a conversation with somebody. It's part of what it's like to have an intimate relationship with somebody. And they kind of bootstrap on that.

• 10:14Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. So do they understand language? I've always heard that they can understand words as well as a toddler. Is that true?

• 10:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, in some ways.

• 10:23Oprah Winfrey?

  Do they have a vocabulary?

• 10:24Speaker 01

  I mean, they're not speaking, they're not producing words, but their perception is actually surprisingly good. If we talk to them clearly, most dogs will learn dozens of words. And there are some amazing dogs who have learned hundreds of words.

• 10:41Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay, so do they understand "let's go for a walk" because they understand the word "walk"? Or do they understand "let's go for a walk" because usually when you say "let's go for a walk", you get the leash and you're headed out the door?

• 10:52Speaker 01

  They see both those things, but also the prosody of the sentence, or the sing-songiness of the sentence. When I say "let's go for a walk", Finnegan, that's a certain sound that they associate with the thing that's going to happen.

• 11:05Oprah Winfrey?

  So are they like toddlers in that they... Because I notice babies, and we all notice this, that babies react to your sing-songy voice. That's why people talk in your baby talk voice. And they react to the vibration, they act to the energy of your words, as well as the words.

• 11:25Speaker 01

  We use something called "dog-directed speech" with dogs typically, women more than men, but it's like a kind of baby talk. And it lets the dog know that of all this bubbling speech around them, some of it is directed to them. And that's the part they should pay attention to.

• 11:40Oprah Winfrey?

  And they get that?

• 11:41Speaker 01

  And they get that, right? That's what they're... They're little anthropologists watching us all the time, looking for cues from us. So if we use language carefully with them, they can pick up on it.

• 11:52Oprah Winfrey?

  Time for a break. Do you ever wonder how your dog seems to know they're going to the vet? Why do they love sticking their heads out the car window? And what is a soul dog? I have so many questions for Dr. Alexander Horowitz, and our listeners do too. So stay with us, dog lovers. Hello, listeners. I always say that one of the great joys of my life has been my dogs. So I am deeply committed to their well-being, just like our friends at The Farmer's Dog, from my golden retrievers to my cocker spaniels. I've had 21 dogs over the years. Their smiles, they do smile, you know. Their snuggles, their spirits remind me to slow down, to be present, and to appreciate the small comforts in life. Listen to this.

• 12:35Oprah Winfrey?

  The Farmer's Dog makes human-grade food for our dogs with real ingredients and minimal processing. So I've been feeding The Farmer's Dog to my cocker spaniel Sadie for a while now. Sadie's 17 and 1/2, because it supports healthy aging. And I think- I think it's giving us more good days together because every time I feed her the Farmer's Dog, I know I'm giving her safe, quality food. To all my fellow dog lovers, you know, our beloved companions give us so much, and that is why the Farmer's Dog helps us do our best for them. Welcome back to the Oprah Podcast. I have had 21 dogs in my life, so I wanted to talk with cognitive scientist and bestselling author of Inside of a Dog, Dr. Alexander Horowitz.

• 13:20Oprah Winfrey?

  We're learning about what's really going on inside the mind of your dog and how they experience the world. I find this so fascinating. Let's get back to it. I read in Inside of a Dog that they track our movements. How are they doing that?

• 13:38Speaker 01

  They're really attuned to us all the time. I mean, think of what's happening ordinarily. If you're sitting in a room with your dog, nothing is happening for them. So they notice all the associations between when you get up and you're going to the refrigerator versus when you get up and you're going to get the leash and go for a walk. We're moving differently, right? As anyone who sat in the corner of your room and studied you could start to tell.

• 14:04Oprah Winfrey?

  That you move differently when you're going to the refrigerator?

• 14:06Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 14:06Oprah Winfrey?

  Or you're going to get something out of the closet than you do when you're going to get ready to go for a walk?

• 14:11Speaker 01

  Right. Our intentions are in our movement, right?

• 14:14Oprah Winfrey?

  And the dog senses that?

• 14:15Speaker 01

  Yes. They're great observers.

• 14:18Oprah Winfrey?

  Ah.

• 14:19Speaker 01

  I wish we'd be better observers of them, but they're great observers of us.

• 14:22Oprah Winfrey?

  And aren't they great observers because they're so fully present?

• 14:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yes. They, I mean, sometimes people like to say, well, dogs just live in the moment. I mean, I do think they have a real feeling of their past. They have memories and they think about the future, but they're great observers of the moment.

• 14:42Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay. Okay. You just said you do think they have. So do they have memories of their past? Do they think about the future?

• 14:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, they absolutely do. It's very tricky in animal cognition research to try to ask an animal who's not answering your questions in language, you know, what do you remember? But all of their behavior indicates that they remember episodes, they remember people.

• 15:04Oprah Winfrey?

  Tell me how. Tell me how.

• 15:05Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, does a dog recognize someone when they return home after being absent for a month? Absolutely. They might not recognize them by sight right away, but they'll recognize their smell.

• 15:14Oprah Winfrey?

  Their smell.

• 15:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, so they're thinking about and know about things that happened in the past.

• 15:18Oprah Winfrey?

  That's right. And if you have ever hit a dog, the dog will, or like I've bought many dogs from the shelter. You raise your hand, the dog, you know, cowers because the dog remembers being hit.

• 15:30Speaker 01

  That's how they learn anything, is learn associations and remember it. So, yeah, they'll, they'll remember who hit them, that it happens, what preceded it, and how they felt afterward.

• 15:41Oprah Winfrey?

  They remember, you took me to the beach and we had a good time, me going in the water.

• 15:45Speaker 01

  That's right. Or, I don't want to go to the vet, and this is the route to the vet.

• 15:48Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. And one of the reasons they don't want to go to the vet is because they remember the route to the vet because of the way it smells.

• 15:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. Exactly right. They remember the way it smells. And the vet smells a certain way, too, right? The veterinary office smells like stressed dogs who've been there before.

• 16:05Oprah Winfrey?

  Right. And they're smelling all the stress of all the dogs who've been there.

• 16:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:08Oprah Winfrey?

  Unbelievable. And is that why when we get off the freeway, just even when we're exiting the freeway, I notice, and Sadie's in the backseat, she stands up and she, is she smelling things? Or does she, or does she recognize this is our road?

• 16:23Speaker 01

  I think all the cues, right? If you turn off the main road, you're slowing down, it's, it's slower. The road might be different, under the tires. Suddenly, the air comes in, the windows slightly different, and the smell of every place is distinct. And dogs are good observers of that.

• 16:40Oprah Winfrey?

  You say that simply being closer to the ground, the fact that the dogs are closer to the ground, changes how dogs experience sound, how they experience smell, and even their personal space. I, I just never thought of it that way before, before.

• 16:56Speaker 01

  I think one of the great ways to start thinking about what it's like to be a dog is to just get down on their level, right? Where they're among human knees and ankles and, and clanking shoes, and sound travels differently down there, right? Bounces more, the rumbling of a fan you put on the floor will be felt. And then, of course, there are all sorts of smells on the ground. Most smells are in the air and they land on the ground over time. And so it's full of information about who's been there.

• 17:27Oprah Winfrey?

  So when the dogs, when the dogs are walking, you see these people pulling their dogs along when their dogs are trying to, you know, sniff, sniff, sniff, sniff.

• 17:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:35Oprah Winfrey?

  You're doing the antithesis of what that dog really is going for the walk for. After reading Inside a Dog, I thought, oh, the dogs aren't walking to get exercise. Everybody's trying to get the dogs out to exercise. The dogs are walking for the smell sensation. It's a smelling universe for them.

• 17:55Speaker 01

  Exactly, right. The walk is for them, right?

• 17:57Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 17:57Speaker 01

  And we think, oh, we have to make good time. We have to exercise you. You have to go relieve yourself. But as soon as you walk outside and the world has changed, the scent has changed a little bit. There's evidence who's been there in the past. That's what the dogs want to notice. If there's another dog, they want to sniff that dog, see who they are, where they've been, if they're healthy. So I love to take my dogs on smell walks, where one of the walks just is me letting them sniff whatever they want to sniff for as long as they want.

• 18:27Oprah Winfrey?

  Why do dogs love this? We've all seen this, and my dog does too. When Sadie puts her head out the window, she looks like Farrah Fawcett, I have to say. Why do dogs love sticking their head out the car window? Because when humans do it, we can't breathe, all that. Why do they love it?

• 18:42Speaker 01

  I think it's like olfactory fireworks, right? Every smell at once, all at once, which is just like a delicious experience.

• 18:50Oprah Winfrey?

  All those smells at once. That's why they're all grinning when their heads are out the window. It's like, oh, come on, baby. Bring it to me, baby, yeah. We have a few dog lovers joining us with questions for Dr. Horowitz. Rachel, hi.

• 19:06Speaker 02

  Hi, thank you so much for having me. I enjoyed this conversation thoroughly. So I have never been a dog person. I am married to a man who rolls around on the floor with every dog that he sees. And about two years ago, our daughter came to us and begged us to rescue the sweet Saddest, most scared, but very sick dog. I reluctantly agreed to adopt him and I spent the next year and a half going to every vet, every specialist, hospitalized him to try to help and make him feel better. And his name is Bo. So Bo has been on his health journey now.

• 19:51Speaker 02

  He's doing much better for the past six months. But what I've come to realize is that I love him like he is my part of my soul. Like he is my soul dog.

• 20:01Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 20:01Speaker 02

  The same way that I feel about my husband. Like my husband is my soulmate. So my question is, is this Bo think that I'm his soulmate or soul person also? And Oprah, I know that you've had 21 dogs. Have you ever had this feeling?

• 20:17Oprah Winfrey?

  Oh, my God, yes.

• 20:19Speaker 02

  Soul knows.

• 20:20Oprah Winfrey?

  Oh, my God, yes, Rachel, I've had this feeling. But so, yes, I don't know if. And my soul dog also knew that he was my soul dog. I could start crying right now.

• 20:32Oprah Winfrey?

  I really could.

• 20:35Oprah Winfrey?

  My soul dog was Luke. And I still, I still think of him. And I think when I transition, Luke will be there to greet me on the other side. That's what I think. So, yeah, that's, that's, that's what I feel. And I, and I knew he knew. I knew he knew. He knew.

• 20:55Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. So Dr. Harrell, what do you want to say?

• 20:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I've also had, I think, more than one soul dog, actually, for different times in my life.

• 21:03Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 21:03Speaker 01

  And for different me's, in a way, different ways that I was being in the world. And this, this is, there's a real basis to this, right? Just, it's analogous to the child parent relationship in that dogs feel attachment, just like children feel attachment to their caregivers. And they attach to a person or persons.

• 21:23Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 21:24Speaker 01

  And that connection is the basis of this dog-human bond. And it's a real physical connection, you know? People and dogs, when they are bonded like this, they'll sit together and their heart rhythms synchronize with each other, right? By just looking at each other in the eyes, they, their oxytocin levels rise. So this is a real experience that you're having. It's not just something that you're concocting, right? And it's the basis of why dogs are so great with people.

• 21:54Oprah Winfrey?

  And how is Bo now? You said he's going through health issues.

• 21:58Speaker 02

  So for the past six months, he's healthy. People come up to me all the time to tell me they can't believe he's the same dog. So knocking on every veterinarian's door in our town worked.

• 22:08Oprah Winfrey?

  Really? Yeah.

• 22:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:10Oprah Winfrey?

  Well, we're going through it with Sadie. I mean, I think we're in the last days of Sadie. And I would have to say, I was on tour in Australia in December, and my dog caregiver was like, we don't think, you know, she's gonna make it. So I rushed home. I thought I was gonna have to put her down. And then when I got here, she was, she perked up, you know? But I would have to say that nearing the end, and knowing it's the end, because Sadie is 17, so we know we don't have a whole long time, that there's something really quite precious about these days, too. Because you know you're in the, in the, in the final days. So it's a thing.

• 22:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, enjoy, enjoy all those years of Bo that you have ahead of you.

• 22:56Oprah Winfrey?

  I want to know, how has Bo enhanced your life? How has he changed you?

• 23:01Speaker 02

  I'm a different person. I am not the same person that you would have met two years ago.

• 23:07Oprah Winfrey?

  How? How so? How so?

• 23:09Speaker 02

  I joined my husband rolling around on the floor with all the other dogs.

• 23:13Oprah Winfrey?

  Yay.

• 23:14Speaker 02

  I actually think it's made my marriage even stronger. Because it was a love that he had that I didn't understand. And now I understand how you can love from the bottom of your heart, like really love an animal more than yourself.

• 23:29Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, yeah. Well, God bless you for that. I think that's a wonderful thing to have that as, as another soulmate in the world. Thank you, Rachel.

• 23:37Speaker 02

  Yes, thank you.

• 23:38Oprah Winfrey?

  Thank you. Marissa, dog mom to 10-year-old Harvey is joining us from Texas. Hi, Marissa.

• 23:44Speaker 03

  Well, I'm so glad to be here. So, yes, I am the lucky mom to Harvey. He will be 10 later this year. Harvey and I actually met 10 years ago, but I'm quite positive we were family in a past life. I just know it.

• 24:03Speaker 03

  But we met. We met in San Diego. Back when I lived in California, I was volunteering for a foster organization. I was his foster mother and as the story goes, of course, I meet him and I know instantly that I've known him for many times.

• 24:20Speaker 01

  You're his person. You're his person.

• 24:21Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. He is my person. So, yes, I was a foster win, as I like to call it. So Harvey and I have now spent the last nine years traveling the United States together. We've lived in California. We lived for a little bit in Minneapolis. We were in Chicago for four years. And now we're down here in Dallas, Texas. So I swear he has more airline miles than most people do. But it's been really fun to just travel this country with him and kind of explore with him. But my question for you, so we've been together a long time. And whenever I get ready to leave or head out the door,

• 25:03Speaker 03

  Harvey seems to do the same thing. So whether I'm going out to the mailbox for a minute or maybe I'm going for some errands that I'm running for the day, Harvey will get anxious. So my question for you is more on the concept of time. So do dogs understand the concept of time? Does he understand that when I'm gone for five minutes or the full day, does he know how long I've been gone? Because it seems like either way, it has the same emotional impact on him. When he sees me getting ready to leave out the door, he seems to get that same emotional reaction. So I'm curious just what he's thinking about as I'm getting ready to leave out the door.

• 25:45Speaker 01

  Great observation. You know, the flip side of that attachment we were talking about is that in separation, dogs are stressed. They're anxious, right? And that's part of the bond. Actually, it's the kind of negative side of the bond, which is that when you're attached to someone, you don't want to see them go. And I do.

• 26:04Oprah Winfrey?

  And when you're gone, they're stressed.

• 26:05Speaker 01

  And when you're gone, there's some stress involved, probably why Sadie perked up when you returned, right? There's the relief of that. And it is a really cool question to say, well, does that mean they don't have a sense of how long you're gone? And there actually was research that looked at this question. What they did was they looked at the greeting behavior that you get when you come back in the door, right? That great enthusiastic reply. And they had people leave their dogs for a few minutes, or a half an hour, or several hours, and they looked at the intensity of the greeting. And they found that the longer the people were gone, the more tail wagging, licking, shaking, intensive greeting they got.

• 26:46Speaker 01

  So dogs, in their behavior, look like they do appreciate the distant, the time you've been gone from them. And in that way, they're kind of marking time. Yeah, it's definitely different, even though they're, whatever, excited every time you come back in the door.

• 27:03Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, I noticed this with Sadie, that, especially when she was really well, that if you're gone for a few minutes, I remember coming saying, look, I've only been gone for a few minutes, and you're this excited. But if you're gone for a long time, she would like go around in circles and bark and yelp and do all the things like-

• 27:23Speaker 01

  Pull out all the stops.

• 27:24Oprah Winfrey?

  Pull out all the stops.

• 27:25Speaker 03

  The toys, yes.

• 27:27Oprah Winfrey?

  Run and get a toy and all that.

• 27:29Speaker 03

  He wants to run and go grab something and bring it back to me and show me right when I get back.

• 27:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I also think they mark time through smell, right? Smells change over time. And our spaces smell like us, right? The longer you're gone, everybody has a smell, it's a perfectly normal thing, and our dogs know it, they'll recognize us by our smell alone. The longer you're gone, the less your space smells of you being there. So time is kind of marked in the passage of odor during the day.

• 28:01Oprah Winfrey?

  Everything is, when you read this book, Marissa, everything is through the nose, everything, everything is about the smell.

• 28:09Speaker 01

  I mean, because it's how they see the world, right?

• 28:12Oprah Winfrey?

  They see the world through their nose.

• 28:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. And that's how their brain works, olfactory cognition, yeah.

• 28:18Oprah Winfrey?

  Thank you, Marissa.

• 28:20Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 28:21Oprah Winfrey?

  All the best to you and Harvey. You and Harvey, 10 years together. That's beautiful. Listeners, is your dog sitting in the window waiting for you to get home before you even pull in the driveway? How do they know to do that? For older dogs, do they know their time is coming to an end? More dog questions for Dr. Alexandra Horowitz after a quick break. Hello, listeners. I always say that one of the great joys of my life has been my dogs. So I am deeply committed to their well-being, just like our friends at The Farmer's Dog. From my golden Retrievers to my Cocker Spaniels, I've had 21 dogs over the years. Their smiles, they do smile, you know? Their snuggles, their spirits remind me to slow down,

• 29:04Oprah Winfrey?

  to be present, and to appreciate the small comforts in life. Listen to this. The Farmer's Dog makes human-grade food for our dogs with real ingredients and minimal processing. So I've been feeding The Farmer's Dog to my Cocker Spaniel Sadie for a while now, Sadie 17 and 1/2, because it supports healthy aging, and I think it's giving us more good days together. Because every time I feed her The Farmer's Dog, I know I'm giving her safe, quality food. To all my fellow dog lovers, you know, our beloved companions give us so much, and that is why The Farmer's Dog helps us do our best for them. Thank you for joining me here on the Oprah Podcast for my conversation with dog expert and bestselling author Alexandra Horowitz.

• 29:49Oprah Winfrey?

  We're having so many "I never thought of it that way" dog moments, so go ahead and share this episode with the fellow dog lovers in your life. And while you're at it, hit subscribe to the Oprah Podcast. Won't cost you a thing. So you believe that trying to show your dog that you're the boss can be harmful?

• 30:08Oprah Winfrey?

  And we know that there are lots of trainers who do that, you know, like you're "I'm the one in charge." Right. Why do you not condone that?

• 30:15Speaker 01

  Well, again, I look at the science. You know, people are looking at wolf behavior to try to explain how you should be with your dog. And there's very old science that said, oh, when you look at wolves in a captive environment, they establish a dominance hierarchy and there are leaders or alphas who have access to all the resource. But then when people could actually study how wolves behave naturally in the wild.

• 30:37Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 30:37Speaker 01

  It turned out they live in family packs. And there are leaders of the group. It's the parents who live with their offspring, and their offspring's offspring. And so they're not maintaining their leadership by force, by being bossy. They're not bullying, right? They just know more, and so they tend to be in charge. And we are also in that kind of situation. Dogs are our family. They view us as parents, essentially, in that pack. And we control all aspects of their life already, right? We don't need to worry that they're going to try to threaten our leadership and boss them or bully them around for it.

• 31:15Oprah Winfrey?

  I notice that sometimes your dog knows that you're coming even before the car pulls up, or if the car's in the driveway. Or we've seen these stories on social media of the dog waiting in the window for the kids to come home, or the dog knows that the school bus is coming long before the school bus comes. How do they know that? Are they smelling it? Or are they, they just know it's this time of day?

• 31:38Speaker 01

  I think both things are true, right? Again, they're great. They understand our habits. So if we create a habit, they learn that perfectly right away. That's how you can train a dog, just by creating relationships.

• 31:50Oprah Winfrey?

  That's how Pavlov trained the dogs.

• 31:52Speaker 01

  That's right, right? Like, they learn associations. So if you come and go at the same time every day, they know when that time is, and they're ready for you.

• 31:59Oprah Winfrey?

  And if you feed them at the same time every day.

• 32:01Speaker 01

  They know that as well, right? Even if we don't think we're doing it, you know, the dog will show up, ready to be fed.

• 32:06Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 32:07Speaker 01

  But also, I do think the smells of the room change over the course of the day, and they're attuned to that, just like it gets dark outside and we notice that the day is ending, right? It's a totally normal thing for us to notice. They're also noticing the day in odors.

• 32:23Oprah Winfrey?

  I think, I think this is so interesting, because, you know, for years, we were told that your dog doesn't know the difference between five minutes or five hours. So what you were saying to Marissa. Really changes all that. That your dog does, your dog isn't saying, oh, well, 7:07. Or it's been 25 minutes.

• 32:42Speaker 01

  No.

• 32:43Oprah Winfrey?

  Or it's been an hour.

• 32:43Speaker 01

  Right.

• 32:44Oprah Winfrey?

  That's, that's.

• 32:45Speaker 01

  That's a human concept.

• 32:46Oprah Winfrey?

  That's a human concept.

• 32:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:47Oprah Winfrey?

  They do know the difference between it's been five hours, or it's been five minutes, or it's been five days.

• 32:54Speaker 01

  That's right, right.

• 32:55Oprah Winfrey?

  They do.

• 32:55Speaker 01

  They feel that, and they're noting all those changes of the day and as, as we'd expect, right?

• 33:01Oprah Winfrey?

  And when you're not there, they're stressed.

• 33:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's stressful to be a part, right? But they also can calm from that stress.

• 33:07Oprah Winfrey?

  And for some dogs, it's more stressful than others. I had a dog, Sophie, who just literally, you couldn't, I couldn't leave her anywhere. She had such anxiety.

• 33:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, in children.

• 33:15Oprah Winfrey?

  Howling in the hotel rooms.

• 33:17Speaker 01

  It's like an insecure attachment, right?

• 33:19Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 33:19Speaker 01

  But with a dog who has a secure attachment, when you come, they calm, right? The stress is transient. It's just they want to be back in that relationship with you.

• 33:28Oprah Winfrey?

  What are they doing all day? So there's so many people who are listening to us right now, who have pets and they obviously have to leave home. And what are those dogs doing all day?

• 33:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, often not a lot. We don't usually give them a lot to do. So they'll try to make work. Yeah, dogs get, absolutely get bored during the day, right? I think it's a great, they'll, they'll rest. So it's not that they have to be at work all day, doing something. But if we give them nothing to do, they'll find things to do. I think a lot of what we think of as misbehavior, pulling out our, our shoes and chewing on them and so forth, that's because they were bored, they didn't have anything to do.

• 34:03Oprah Winfrey?

  Nothing to do. Is it better to have, as I said, at one point, I had 11 dogs at one time. That's too much, unless you do have a farm. But I've always thought that having at least another dog is good for the dog.

• 34:20Speaker 01

  I think it depends on the dog and, and the person, the type of relationship you want to have. I mean, now you live with one dog.

• 34:25Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 34:26Speaker 01

  You know, that's a very specific relationship. When you have many dogs, they get to have relationships with each other, right? Which is great.

• 34:34Oprah Winfrey?

  Right.

• 34:34Speaker 01

  Companionship.

• 34:35Oprah Winfrey?

  So if you're a working person, is it better to have two dogs? Because that dog has a relationship with something, that dog has something to do during the day.

• 34:41Speaker 01

  Right, it does give them social companion. So for a lot of dogs, that's great. I mean, some dogs don't want to be with any other dogs. So I would, you have to know your dog. But yeah, social companionship during the day. Come over, bother me, come over, play with me. That's much better than being left alone if you're a social creature.

• 34:59Oprah Winfrey?

  Mm-hmm. Jaime is zooming in from Houston. Welcome Jaime. Hi there.

• 35:04Speaker 04

  Hi. Thank you so much for having me. This has been a wonderful conversation. Um, my dog Lennox was 14. He died on December 10th of 2025. And, sorry, I'm gonna try to get through my question without crying.

• 35:18Oprah Winfrey?

  I know.

• 35:18Speaker 04

  Um, he was, um, the most amazing dog. And he was with me through every life milestone, the birth of my children, my wedding, um. And, um, when he passed, we had a week of time before we were going to have to euthanize him. Um, he was deteriorating and the vet said that that was the best decision. Um, and my question is just, did he understand that that was his time? Because obviously, we made the decision for him. And I feel a lot of guilt that I took time away from him. So I just want to understand if he understood that it was his time and that it's okay.

• 36:01Speaker 01

  Hmm, that's so hard. You know, and I think, you know, what you're experiencing, we experience, right? And this is a normal, grief is a normal part of, of a strong relationship ending. Um, and I think a lot of people do have to unfortunately be in that situation where they're making a decision about the end of their animal's life, right? Um, I, I think that's very hard. So don't make yourself feel guilty about it. Now, your dog, Lennox, probably knew that he was aging, right? He could feel, I can't jump up. I don't hear as well. I can't run as fast as I used to. So they're experiencing their own aging process.

• 36:42Speaker 01

  Um, as we've said before, you know, I don't think that they really live in the moment. I think they're thinking ahead and they're remembering the past. But they're such great observers of that moment and the things you were doing for him in his final week. He would have been completely gladdened by those things, right? Those were terrific things. And having you there and being with him, that's what he would have noticed. Not felt suspicious or worried or anticipating something horrible happening, right? So he knew where he was and what he wanted was to be in that space with you and that's what you gave him.

• 37:18Oprah Winfrey?

  So don't feel the guilt, you know, Jaime. Uh, if you've been listening, I was sharing, I'm going through this right now. And, you know, I was just asking myself the question this morning. If we didn't have all of these medications trying to keep her from having pain, would she have already gone on her own? And so I'm wrestling with this question right now. When is it time? How did you all come to the decision that it was time?

• 37:49Speaker 04

  Um, when we went to the vet, he was just like having a lot of trouble, like holding on to his bowels and just like having a regular, normal life.

• 37:59Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 37:59Speaker 04

  And, um, we basically like tried to explore other options. And the veterinarian said that regardless of the other options, he would never be the same Lennox he was when he was like running and jumping and doing all the things. And so it was just the decision of we can keep him on this medication regimen, but he still could not have the best quality of life. Um, so that that was the choice to make to give him peace.

• 38:24Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, it's the quality of life that matters.

• 38:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, and the spirit, when you say this not going to be the same Lennox, right? When you see that this person, this dog you know, is, is lost themselves at some level, right? They're not the same spirit. That's when you know it's time, right? And it's so horrible that we have to oversee this part of their life. Um, but it sounds like you did as much as you could for Lennox.

• 38:53Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 38:53Speaker 01

  And he would have looked in your face and known that.

• 38:55Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 38:56Speaker 01

  Smelled it.

• 38:57Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 38:57Oprah Winfrey?

  We would have looked in your face and smelled it, yes, yeah.

• 39:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 39:01Oprah Winfrey?

  How are your family and your kids doing?

• 39:04Speaker 04

  They're doing well. There's a really awesome book about dogs going to heaven. And my son loves to read it. He's four years old and he loves to read it at bedtime during his prayers. He still prays for him every night. Um, so he's still very much with us, um, even though he's not with us physically. Um, but he's, he's always going to be a constant, I'm sure. Um, even if and when we do decide to adopt another dog, um, he'll always be a part of our family.

• 39:32Oprah Winfrey?

  I was going to say, are you, will you, will you be adopting another dog?

• 39:36Speaker 04

  It's such a hard choice, Oprah, because we, before, my husband and I said, like, oh, I can't believe people like lose a dog and then immediately adopt. But now that we're in this position, we're like, the house is way too quiet. We need a dog immediately. So we're thinking about it. We just, we don't want to rush into it, but we're definitely thinking about it.

• 39:58Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay.

• 39:59Speaker 01

  You'll get to meet a totally new person, you know?

• 40:02Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 40:03Speaker 01

  That's the thing. It's not the same one, again. It's a new, it's a new relationship.

• 40:08Oprah Winfrey?

  It's a new energy and new relationship.

• 40:10Speaker 01

  But it does fill that space and that silence.

• 40:13Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 40:14Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 40:14Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. Well, thank you. Thank you so much, Jaime. Thanks for sharing. Thank you.

• 40:19Speaker 04

  Thank you for having me.

• 40:20Oprah Winfrey?

  While we were working on this show, my team came across an Instagram that caught our eye. Listen to Steve's story.

• 40:26Speaker 05

  I had a little dog named Wolfgang. He just went everywhere with me. When Wolfgang died, I think he was 12, it was just devastating.

• 40:38Speaker 05

  So I thought, well, if something good could come out of these deaths, maybe it would make it better. I decided I would go to the shelter. I would find the oldest dog that wasn't going to get adopted. So I adopted a 13-year-old Chihuahua. And he was so happy. It was immediately healing. I had plenty of room, so I adopted another one and another one, and I ended up at nine. I started an Instagram called Wolfgang2242. It wasn't started out as a senior rescue page. It just grew organically. I realized what I was doing with these dogs was very fulfilling to people because people get to see this dog come from the shelter with its final few years left and get to live out a happy life.

• 41:24Speaker 05

  What I found out after adopting senior dogs is it's just the best situation. They have settled into the best version of themselves and you get to enjoy that. If you're reading, they want to be right there by your feet. They're great for movie nights. They want to be with you. It's always hard on me when one goes. A lot of people say, how do you keep doing this? But I bring it back to being about the pet. I made sure that they were in a safe, happy, love home. It's a win. Every time is a win.

• 41:57Speaker 05

  To know that the Instagram is having an effect on people and more senior dogs are getting adopted, that gives me purpose.

• 42:04Oprah Winfrey?

  Wow. I hear because of Steve's Instagram page, hundreds of senior dogs have been adopted. That's really incredible. Steve is joining us from Ohio. Hi, Steve.

• 42:15Speaker 05

  Hello, hi Oprah.

• 42:17Oprah Winfrey?

  I'm so glad to hear your story because I have a friend, Sally Jordan, in Santa Barbara, who's done the same thing over the years. She's adopted, you know, disabled dogs and senior dogs and you go to her house and dogs are like in their little wheelchair carts and they, yeah, it's really, it takes a magnanimous heart to do that. Really wonderful. And why do you, because everybody loves the puppies. Everybody loves the puppies. And why are you attracted to the seniors, do you think?

• 42:50Speaker 05

  Well, I think I wasn't originally because, you know, I've had dogs my whole life. So I've had puppies and that whole experience. But I specifically adopted the senior, you know, to give my dog's death meaning. Another dog would get to live because he died. And then I found out how incredible they are. They're so grateful. And as I said in that piece, I think, you know, as we get older, we become, hopefully, the best versions of ourselves. And I think that's what happens with dogs. You know, they just settle into who they are and they're just so easy. It's just so easy and they're so grateful.

• 43:30Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, you know what I've noticed too? I realized the reason, one of the reasons why I have such peace about getting older myself is because I've watched so many dogs go through that process. Do you find the same thing?

• 43:45Speaker 05

  I do. And something you'd said earlier that I thought was so important. You know, you said, understanding that you don't have that much time left with Sadie.

• 43:55Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 43:55Speaker 05

  And that it's, it's special.

• 43:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:58Speaker 05

  And I believe that. I believe it's, you know, it's an honor. You are, you get to guard this, you know, living being through the end of their days. And I think that's just a terrific honor and there's some beauty in that. I really do believe that.

• 44:12Speaker 01

  Do you have a question for Dr. Horowitz?

• 44:14Speaker 05

  Actually, it's kind of a two parter. Um, I've been, as I said, rescuing senior dogs for almost 15 years now. And when they come to me, um, they either don't have a name or they've got their name from, you know, their previous life and I always change it, almost always change it. There's been one or two that I kept. Um, my thought was, you know, new life, new name. But I read once that a dog associates their name with you, not with themselves. So, you know, like, like Moira here would be like, okay, this tall, skinny old man calls me Moira. And therefore it has no ill effect on them by renaming them because they associate it with you.

• 44:58Speaker 05

  Um, and I wondered what your thoughts were on that.

• 45:00Speaker 01

  I mean, I think that's a really great, cool observation. There is something to it in that, you know, who is saying their name and how they are saying it? I think it's part of what their name is to a dog. In other words, it's not words on a page to them.

• 45:17Oprah Winfrey?

  Say it again. Who is saying their name?

• 45:19Speaker 01

  Who is saying their name and how they're saying it is what their name is. Right? And we know this actually kind of intuitively because if you've lived with dogs, you give your dogs nicknames, right? My Pumpernickel, who is in Inside of a Dog, she's Pinnacle and, and Nick and Pump and Kiddo. And, you know, and she came to all those names, right? And just dogs learn their names really quickly, but they're also very much associating it with who's saying it to them and how they're saying it to them. And so, yeah, they can pick up on this new name, which means a new life.

• 45:53Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 45:53Speaker 05

  Yeah, that makes sense. Um, the, the second part of the question is, I have never, in all the years I've been doing this, I have never once had trouble bringing a dog into the group. I've never had my group not accept a dog, and I've never had the new dog not accept the group. My, I don't know whether that's because they're all seniors and they're just kind of laid back and chill, or is it because that there's so many dogs, they're not as territorial over me as if I just had one dog.

• 46:25Speaker 01

  Hmm, I think they probably do establish their own social group, which includes you, right? But includes each other, and they're seeing that when they come in. But I think probably my speculation would be the main part of it is that when we mostly meet dogs, they're puppies or adolescents. And at that time in their life, you know, their body has far outpaced the development of their brain. They have not grown into their brains yet. And as adult and senior dogs, their, their brain has caught up, right? And they can just be the flexible social companions to each other that they're so good at being and the reason we domesticated them.

• 47:04Oprah Winfrey?

  Every time I was introducing a new dog, I remember introducing Sunny and Lauren to Luke and Leila and Sadie and that, and that group. And I would put my T-shirt on the new dogs, let my, let the new dogs sleep in my T-shirt overnight and introduce the new dogs to the old dogs in my T-shirt. So there would be my scent combined with the, combined with the scent of the dogs.

• 47:30Speaker 01

  So you were all, already a smell scientist. I knew.

• 47:33Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, there was something about my scent.

• 47:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:37Speaker 05

  That's interesting. I'd also heard that if you take them for a walk.

• 47:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:42Speaker 05

  Together, immediately. That, that establishes they're in the same pack. And that gets rid of any, you know, I, I've never had that issue, but when people have asked me about it, you know, and they're probably got two dogs and bringing a third one in, that's usually what I tell them to do.

• 47:58Speaker 01

  That's a great, that's great advice, right? Like, it's like having a conversation with, a hard conversation with a child. You want to sit both in the car and face the same direction. You know, go on a walk together, let the dogs kind of experience the world in parallel for a moment before they come back into the space where somebody has their special bed, or someone likes a certain spot and doesn't want to have it, someone else be in there.

• 48:22Oprah Winfrey?

  How many dogs do you have right now? How many dogs? Who's on the couch?

• 48:26Speaker 05

  It's funny because I laughed when you said that you had 11.

• 48:28Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 48:29Speaker 05

  At one point. I, I keep nine. That's my number. That's the number I can deal with the best. And having said that, um, there's a rescue group that I work with in Florida a lot, and, and they just talked me into taking another one. So right now I have 10, although my normal number is nine.

• 48:45Oprah Winfrey?

  And you feed?

• 48:46Speaker 05

  And it is different.

• 48:47Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 48:48Speaker 05

  Because they're seniors. So it's, you know, it's a different, their, their activity level is different.

• 48:51Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. Well, yeah, I had no seniors. It was crazy all the time and feeding time was always, was always crazy. And, you know, I, I have to say this, for, for years, I was making all the food for my dogs. And for years, Sadie has had homemade, fresh food, and now she only eats the farmer's dog.

• 49:11Speaker 05

  Oh, that's, that's exactly what I feed too.

• 49:14Oprah Winfrey?

  You feed, you feed your dogs the farmer's dog?

• 49:16Speaker 05

  Yeah, and I just, I tried to do with my dogs what I do with myself, you know, the, the more, the less processed the food is.

• 49:25Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 49:26Speaker 05

  You know, the fresher the food is.

• 49:27Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 49:28Speaker 05

  And I've seen dogs come to me from a bad situation and they start eating, you know, less processed, fresh food, and they just come to life. It makes such a difference.

• 49:38Oprah Winfrey?

  Do senior dogs need a special diet?

• 49:39Speaker 05

  Um, only if they, like, I have one that's in kidney failure too.

• 49:45Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 49:46Speaker 05

  And that one needs a, a special diet.

• 49:48Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 49:49Speaker 05

  Um, generally speaking, the rest of them all eat the same thing.

• 49:51Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. And your dog that's in kidney failure, what are you doing special for that dog?

• 49:57Speaker 05

  We do fluids.

• 49:58Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 49:59Speaker 05

  Um, and then I have a renal diet because it's, it's lower in protein and it's lower in, um, a salt, I believe. Um, so, you know, she has to be on that. Um, and then I have to do the fluids like three times a week. And then we just found out that she's got a low-grade heart disease now, which is Really tough because what you do for heart disease, it conflicts with what they've got with kidney disease. So the heart disease does not want fluids. And yet I have to do the fluids. So I just have to back off the fluids and do less of them.

• 50:36Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 50:36Speaker 05

  But maybe more often.

• 50:38Oprah Winfrey?

  I don't want to see your vet bill. I don't want to see your vet bill. Oh, honey chow.

• 50:43Speaker 05

  It's funny, I was just there today and I have to go back in the morning. It's just, yeah, it's. And then, but to be fair, there will be months and months where I don't have to go at all. And everybody's great, you know, and then sometimes it rains.

• 50:56Oprah Winfrey?

  That's what I was gonna say, Steve. I think a lot of people fear adopting a senior dog because they'll be set, number one, set in their behaviors. Or you think that the dog is gonna soon die. Or you think you're gonna have all kinds of medical problems. What do you want people to know about what it's like to adopt an older dog?

• 51:13Speaker 05

  Yeah, to me, it's really just, it's that they're so easy. They fit into your lifestyle very easily. And then as far as the vet, I mean, if you're not crazy like me and you don't have nine of them, then, you know, it's affordable to get insurance.

• 51:28Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 51:28Speaker 05

  You know, so if you've only got one or two, then you can get insurance to prevent that. But I had a dog recently die at seventeen. She was only at the vet a couple of times and it was for teeth cleaning. So you just, you know, it's luck of the draw and that's true with a puppy as well.

• 51:44Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, yeah. Wonderful to talk to you. Thank you so much. We love your Instagram. It's so great. It's so great. Thank you, Steve.

• 51:52Speaker 05

  Oh, thank you. I appreciate that.

• 51:53Oprah Winfrey?

  And all ten dogs now.

• 51:56Speaker 05

  Ten dogs now.

• 51:56Oprah Winfrey?

  You don't make it to eleven. It'll happen.

• 52:00Speaker 05

  Two of them are seventeen, so I think we're walking a tight rope right now, too.

• 52:05Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, I understand. Thank you so much, Steve. Thank you.

• 52:09Speaker 05

  You bet. Thank you.

• 52:10Oprah Winfrey?

  What do you most want people to, you wish they knew about? The inside of a dog?

• 52:17Speaker 01

  I mean, I want people to let dogs be dogs, realize that they're not little furry humans, right? They're not stuffed things.

• 52:24Oprah Winfrey?

  They don't care about being dressed up.

• 52:26Speaker 01

  They don't care about being dressed up, except for maybe if they don't love it, or if you give them a lot of attention. And, you know, the reason we love them is because they're different than us. And so I think we should celebrate those differences and let them be themselves.

• 52:39Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay, when I first started reading this book, I was fascinated because I've seen people out with their dogs with raincoats. When I lived in Chicago, I had a raincoat. And reading this book, I know that's the last thing the dog wanted, was a raincoat.

• 52:57Speaker 01

  The only thing interesting about the raincoat is if it means they're being taken out, right?

• 53:02Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 53:03Speaker 01

  But other than that, right, it feels like someone pressing on their back. They don't need a raincoat. Their body is suited for that.

• 53:09Oprah Winfrey?

  Say that to everybody. We're thinking you're putting the coat on them because it's going to keep them warm, or keep them dry, or keep them that. And for them, it feels like pressure.

• 53:17Speaker 01

  For the dog, it's like someone is pressing on their back to have a raincoat on, right? And in wolves, we know that that's done when they're being scolded, maybe.

• 53:26Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 53:27Speaker 01

  For misbehavior by an adult, an older dog. And so your dog is accepting the raincoat, but no dog is like, putting it on themselves.

• 53:36Oprah Winfrey?

  It's really glad to get it off, right?

• 53:37Speaker 01

  They're glad to get them off. And they'll deal with it like they deal with a lot of nonsense from us, right? Dogs put up with a lot. And they're flexible, and they can. But if we were really interested in what they want, you know, I think we'd look at their behavior, instead of just assuming that they're little furry humans.

• 53:54Oprah Winfrey?

  Well, I think when they get together, they must say, can you believe what my human did today? She had me dressed up in a Halloween costume, and I look ridiculous. Yes. I think that, do they also, it seems like as soon as I would give the dogs a bath, they would go find, especially out here, some cow dung to roll in.

• 54:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. They don't want to smell like, you know, your coconut shampoo. They want to smell like where they've been and who they are. And that's actually how they recognize each other, right? They can smell who Who someone is, a person or another dog by their scent. So they'd rather not be perfumed, right? They'd rather smell like something fantastic.

• 54:35Oprah Winfrey?

  So even if you, obviously, we have to bathe our dogs. But if you're gonna bathe your dog, you should bathe your dog in a scentless shampoo.

• 54:41Speaker 01

  I think that would be better, yeah. And just put up with, you know, their being unshowered once in a while, right?

• 54:49Oprah Winfrey?

  Because they don't like to get bathed.

• 54:51Speaker 01

  They don't tend to, right?

• 54:53Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 54:54Speaker 01

  You know, if your dog is hopping in the bath, then go for it. Otherwise, I think they would rather not.

• 55:03Oprah Winfrey?

  But we want them to be clean. We want them to be clean coming in the house.

• 55:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. If they're rolling in cow dung, you have my permission.

• 55:11Oprah Winfrey?

  Cow dung is where it ends. Thank you. Dr. Horowitz's book, Inside of a Dog, is now fully revised and updated and available everywhere books are sold. It's gonna change the way you take your dog on their next walk. A big thank you to The Farmer's Dog for partnering with us on this episode. Their fresh food has been clinically shown to help dogs age well, so you can have more good years together. And as I said, for years, I made all of my dogs' food. And I ran into somebody from Farmer's Dog, and they said, "Have you tried Farmer's Dog?" And I was like, "No, never tried that, because we make our dog food fresh from scratch." And I can tell you that we put a bowl

• 55:55Oprah Winfrey?

  of the freshly made food that we had done, and the fresh food from Farmer's Dog. And now that's all Sadie's eating. Pretty amazing. Thank you, Dr. Horowitz, and Rachel, and Marissa, for being with us here in Jaime, and Steve for joining us today. Inside of a Dog. If you have a dog, you need this book. Or give it to a friend. It's a great gift for a friend who has a dog. Go well, everybody. You can subscribe to the Oprah Podcast on YouTube and follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. I'll see you next week. Thanks, everybody.