New Freakonomics Podcast "Off Leash" About Dogs and Your Dog's Life

 According to the American Veterinary Medical Association, there are 77 million dogs that are household pets in the U.S. Dogs as pets outnumber cats as pets by almost 20 million. (NOTE: My cat resents this statistic and calls it fake news). Dogs are wonderful companions. I love my dog, a lab mix, because he doesn't care about Biden or Trump, doesn't care if you're white, black, gay, religious, non-binary or play Wordle. Dogs love people, and clearly the feeling is reciprocated.

That's why it's not a stretch that the Freakonomics Radio Podcast Network has released a new podcast in its network called Off Leash. To be clear, there are as many dog podcasts out there as are buried dog bones, but Off Leash is different in a good way.

 It's hosted by Alexandra Horowitz, who is a professor at Barnard College, Columbia University where she teaches, among other subjects, dog cognition. Horowitz has authored several books about dogs, including my favorite, Inside Of A Dog. 

Horowitz is a dog expert, but her suitability as podcast host is rooted more in her ability to make complex information immediately accessible, and her unique ability to look at "dog culture" in ways we'd never think of. For example, the third episode is called Property, and asks if everything that is not a person is a thing, then where does that leave dogs? In a nation currently embroiled in philosophical rock throwing over the rights of a human fetus, how about the rights of a dog. 

Not every subject-matter expert and professor will be a good podcast host. Hear that Masterclass? But Horowitz is exceptional. I knew she'd be terrific because I listened to Inside Of A Dog as an audiobook, and she excelled as a narrator.

Moreover, Horowitz is driving the subject matter and the content of the five episodes that have been released so far. 

In episode two, Horowitz discusses what dogs know about their name. Some people name a dog as an expression of their lifestyle. That's where we get Farrah Pawcett, Yeti Sphagetti, Tango Mango, and, my favorite, a Golden Retriever named Dick Anderson. (Note: Anderson is not the owner's last name, so go figure.)

In episode four, Horowitz explores how Hollywood loves stories of canine heroism. But can ordinary dogs really be heroes? To find out, Horowitz talks to a dog-cognition researcher and to Susan Orlean, author of the book Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend.

In the fifth episode of  Off Leash, Horowitz takes a hard look at stray dogs.

The dogs we know best live as pets: indoors, wearing bespoke collars, and sleeping on our sofas. But the majority of the world’s dogs are stray, or “free-ranging” dogs. What are their lives like?

In this latest episode, host Horowitz talks to filmmaker Elizabeth Lo about her documentary Stray, which follows street dogs in Istanbul, and a behavioral scientist who studies a community of stray dogs in a Moroccan beach town. Plus, she follows the tale of a free-ranging dog who became a global celebrity for his love of public transport.

Next week's episode will look at dog breeds on a walk with Soledad O'Brien, and ask the question: How much do a dog's genes really tell us about who they are? 

Check out Off Leash. When you take your dogs for a ride (not to the vet), play Off Leash for your pooch. Put the volume up high, so your dog can hear the podcast, since their head will be hanging out the window.