The Penguin Speakers Bureau

Biography

Speaking Topics

• Are You a Dog Person or a Cat Person?

  How pet parents define themselves and their relationship with one species or the other. My evaluation of the differences between the two types as host of two weekly live call-in shows and how the species you feel most comfortable with says something about you.

• Serving the Two-Legged Client

  For professionals in the pet service business, from vets and vet techs, pet sitters, doggy day care operators to dog walkers. Managing the human element when trying to care for dogs and cats—and how to engage even the most neurotic or anxious pet owners so that their own emotional needs do not get in the way of what is best for their pet.

• The Animal-Human Bond: How’s It Working for the Dogs and Cats?

  Are human neuroses, anxieties and intense attachments to their pets putting expectations on companion animals that are burdensome to them? Pets are sponges for human emotion, so what price are they paying for absorbing their owners’ intense needs and worries? Is the way we lean on them robbing them of some basic animal qualities and compromising their wellness? Ways to assure you have boundaries in place so that you remain aware of some basic needs and instincts of the animals that share your world.

• Fur Babies: When Did Chihuahuas Become the New Children?

  Has our world gone mad? Or does it make perfect sense that dogs would become trusted and satisfying family members? In the modern world, with fewer people having children, with nuclear families dispersed both geographically and emotionally, and with the inherent stress and fast pace of daily life, sometimes a four-legged, fur-covered baby is all people have to make them feel whole. How has this impacted our society? What does it do to the dogs? Do we have an obligation to respect and protect the essential “doggishness” of lap dogs doted on by people, or are the human emotional needs paramount?

• Kitty Crack: How Dry Food is Addictive and Harmful to Your Cat

  The most sit-up-and-listen message I give on my call-in shows is that cats are obligate carnivores and are unable to digest any highly processed carbohydrate, which is what all dry food is, essentially. My phrase, “kitty crack,” has entered pet owners’ vocabulary and thousands of people a week are getting their cats off this harmful substance sprayed with an addictive coating. They are all reporting staggering improvements in their cats’ coat, weight, energy, and friendliness once they feed their cats wet food only. This talk is a ground-breaking explanation of how all the reasons given for feeding dry food to cats are lies (for example, it does not clean teeth) and that many vets still seem unaware that dry food is the main cause of the epidemic of Type II diabetes in cats and is implicated in urinary tract stones, digestive upset, lethargy, and personality disorders.

• What’s For Dinner, Bailey?

  Are we making our pets ill and shortening their lives with the highly processed commercial foods we have been browbeaten into giving them as their sole nourishment? How did we get in this position, of being manipulated by vets who are in turn manipulated by the large pet food manufacturers and by their sweeping and often entirely untrue claims for what is in the food? What are the dangers of feeding commercial kibble—even the finest—as a sole source of nourishment for dogs, and what should we be feeding them instead?

• How to Become a Great Radio Host

  As an author often interviewed by others, and a radio host who interviews dozens of people a month, I will give tips and live demonstrations on how to make the most of the time you have on a radio show, plus become such an effective and engaging guest that you’ll be asked back.

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Media

• Tracie Hotchner is featured on the President & CEO of The Humane Society of the United States' blog, A Humane Nation