Best Pet Ever: Katya Lidsky, host of The Animal That Changed You, on writing love letters to her dying dog. Also: Jonathan Safran Foer's case for eating... dogs.

Annie interviews Katya Lidsky, a writer, podcaster and frequent dog fosterer who lives in Austin, TX. She recently started a podcast called The Animal That Changed You, and interviewed Annie about an animal that changed her (head over and check out the episode ! https://www.katyalidsky.com/podcast ). Katya, who refers to herself as a "soft core" animal activist, tells Annie about loving and losing a dog who helped her heal from her longtime struggle with an eating disorder. In her dog Ophelia's final days, Katya wrote her love letters daily. Annie lends her some advice on introducing a foster dog to her current dog, and the two discuss their thoughts on how vegetarianism relates to being a dog lover -- Katya doesn't eat meat, but Annie does and... has complicated feelings about that fact. That point in their conversation moved Annie to share a section from the 2010 book by Jonathan Safran Foer Eating Animals : The Case For Eating Dogs. Learn more about Katya at https://www.katyalidsky.com/ Find our on-demand courses (including Body Language Basics ) at http://schoolforthedogs.com/courses Get Safran Foer's Eating Animals at https://www.amazon.com/Eating-Animals-Jonathan-Safran-Foer/dp/0316069884 Rate, review and subscribe to this podcast at http://schoolforthedogs.com/podcast Book a session with us at http://schoolforthedogs.com --- Partial Transcript: Annie: So I recently started a series on School For The Dogs Podcast that is really just an excuse to talk to interesting people about their interesting pets and inspired in part by Betty White, who had a show in the seventies called The Pet Set, where she basically just got her famous friends to go on TV with her to talk about their pets. And I was pleased to see that I'm not the only person who's had this clearly genius idea because shortly after I started this series, I got an email with a subject line, The Animal That Changed You, and it was from Katya Litsky, who is joining me right now. Katya, thank you for being here. You are the host of the podcast, The Animal That Changed You. Tell me a little bit about yourself. Katya Lidsky: Oh gosh. I like the way you put – I like any sentence that says Betty White in it at all, but it's a podcast about talking to extraordinary people about the extraordinary animal or animals who have changed their lives. I look forward to having you on there Annie. And you know, it's kind of like a community for people who cannot watch what happens to a horse in a war scene in a movie, but have no problem seeing what happens to the human on the horse. Even if the horse tramples that human. That's fair game, but please spare the animal. And I have this theory that if we can identify with something, if we can identify as being animal lovers, I think we can grow into it. And even if we grow 2% more, that is really good for animals and for people, for everyone involved. So I'm all about, you know, if you love an animal, you have a space in that community. Annie: I know that you describe yourself on your website as a self-described, or you call yourself a self-described softcore animal activist. Full Transcript at SchoolForTheDogs.com/podcast Get full access to Don't Be a Dick to Your Dog at dogtraining.substack.com/subscribe