So the chihuahua as a dog, how much of it is a bred creature that has been genetically kind of played with to be this certain size, to be this scrappy, big eyed, tiny creature?

That's a great question.

I mean, the easy answer is if we look at any modern day dog breed, they have been very heavily selectively bred by us, by humans, because we very much wanted to have dogs that looked a particular way or behaved a particular way.

So we were very good at sort of saying, I like that dog, how that dog looks, I'll breed it with a dog that looks similar, or I like how that dog behaves, I'm going to breed it with another dog that behaves similarly.

So they very much are a product of our desires.

However, We know, even nowadays, that you can get hybridization between dogs and wolves, so dogs that are under human care.

And interestingly, there's some evidence about dogs and coyotes occasionally even breeding together and hybridizing together.

But in reality, would the amount of coyote DNA that's been left over from hundreds or thousands of years ago, would that be enough to explain why they can be so mean?

My dog doesn't care how clean they are and what they have on their undercarriage.

Yeah, and I think this is exactly it.

It's a little bit about knowing your pet, knowing yourself.

knowing how clean your pet is, maybe what they've been in, where they've been walked, how they live, their coat type, their fur type, what they might bring into your bed that you might not want there.

I mean, there's always a risk that they bring in things like fleas, ticks.

They always carry bacteria in the same way that we carry bacteria on our skin.

So they will bring things into the bed.

So does that translate to the bed?

What is the biological basis behind these conditions in humans?

They're very much viewed as, as neurodevelopmental conditions, neurodevel- developmental disorders, or, as I would prefer, neurodevelo- developmental differences.

Um, there's definitely evidence that there are subtle differences in brain structures.

Um, funnily enough, I was actually speaking to a colleague just this morning, um, about equine brain structure, and this question is, has been floating around in the equine world.

And there was, or there is definitely some evidence that there are subtle differences in the size of certain brain structures and brain regions that could be potentially linked [laughs] to, to neurotype differences as well.

We definitely see that in some of the human literature, and there's bits and pieces that are floating out in terms of literature relating to other animal species and particularly animal models for these human situations as well.

Um, we also have some really interesting genetic aspects that are popping out, and there's actually quite a lot published about, um, genetic variants in the human population that seem to have some linkage to some of these neurodevelopmental differences.

Practically speaking, how could someone who's listening in today learn or take something home if they feel their dog or one of their cats has neurodivergence? What's the practical thing that you would give them today and arm them in this, this journey of understanding them?

It boils down to one theme I heard repeatedly in these interviews.

You can't assume that things are going to go well without a plan.

Jacqueline Boyd in Chicago leads the care plan, which helps families to navigate through the maze of elder care.

Aging is the only place in our adult lives and making adult decisions that we don't do our research, right? If I'm going to buy a house, I'm going to spend a lot of time preparing to buy that house.

With aging, we look away from it and then we're unprepared.

So staying at home is absolutely possible, but you got to have a plan and the people that love you and care about you need to know what it is so they can support you.

So if I'm somebody who's aging and I want to stay at home and I have moderate means, I will spend the money that I need to spend on care and home.

I may consider moving in with a son or daughter or a close friend to share costs and to be sure that there's somebody there with me if I need them.

So is it their natural instinct maybe that they just don't like each other? Or is there something else going on why they might feel a bit iffy at times?

Yeah, it's partly because of their sort of natural instincts.

Dogs tend to be... quite group focused in terms of how they would hunt, for example, or how they actually would predate other species, whereas cats tend to be quite solitary.

What we also see is that dogs will be much more likely to chase, whereas cats would be much more likely to stalk.

Now, what that means is if a cat is just pottering around, but then runs suddenly, a dog is much more likely to chase that cat.

What then unfortunately sometimes happens for both cat and dog is if a cat gets cornered, they become defensive.

And the cat's classic way of being defensive is to get their claws out and give a dog or even a person a very good swipe with their feet.

Those traditional views of how they are, is that the case? And maybe that's why they might not get on because they both don't really understand their relationship.