pet connection

What are you doing tomorrow? I hope you’ll be watching my dad, Dr. Marty Becker, as he goes live with a “Good Morning America” segment on how to protect you and your pets from diseases that can pass between animals and people. They’re called “zoonoses,” and as my dad will show, it’s pretty easy to protect everyone with some common-sense measures.

Not only will he be appearing live on “GMA” in the morning, but he will also be featured on the GMA Radio show on XM radio, Channel 155. In addition to all the live stuff, dad will be taped interviews: “The Top 10 Tips For Traveling With Your Pets” and “Breakthroughs in Feeding Your Pet,” both of which will later air on the ABC’s all digital GMA NOW program; which is an extended version of GMA offered to viewers through cable, broadband and cell phones. (For for more details go to GMA NOW.)

If you think that’s a lot of running around and talking about pets, you’re right. But my Dad always comes back from New York to our Idaho home tired but happy. Tired is obvious, but happy because he loves what he does and feels blessed to be given the opportunities to help people get the information they need to care for their pets the best way possible.

This time, I want to give you a behind the scenes look at what a day at “Good Morning America” is like for my dad, both what his taping schedule is like, and the observances I have made watching him the day of the show.

Going on the show takes weeks of preparation. Not only does Dad need to make sure he has the absolute latest and greatest information on the topic before the show and practice his delivery, but he also has to contact numerous manufacturers to have product samples sent to the studio. These products can range from a half-ton hydrotherapy treadmill to the Tootsie Rolls he’ll have on hand for the tomorrow’s show. Why Tootsie Rolls? They make excellent stand-ins for cat poop in litter box demonstrations. (Always one to coin something corny, Dad calls the fake doo “Cat Man-Made Doo,” like Katmandu. Get it? At first I didn’t either and I have 22 years of experience deciphering his “jokes.”)

Dad also needs animals to use for the show. For most shows, Dad uses “borrowed” dogs and cats from the Humane Society of New York. It’s good for the group and the pet, too: The HSNY gets airtime on national TV and the pets always end up with hundreds of people wanting to adopt them. The last time I went to watch Dad on GMA, the shelter animals that day were a Pug and a gray kitten. As Dad was practicing before the show aired, I was given the joyous job of being the official pet-sitter. I sat in the back corner of the studio on the opposite side of the live audience, as the two animals played happily on my lap. All the things I see when I am in New York, and these two pets remain one of my most precious memories.  I know they had no idea they were stars that day, and I love thinking they wenr to great forever homes.

On the the day of the show, Dad gets a wake-up call at about 5:15 a.m.  (the equivalent of 2:15 A.M. back home in Idaho). He has to be at the studio at 6 a.m.  to rehearse before the show starts at 7 a.m.  He’ll practice the segment in the area of the stage with the props set up. Someone, usually his producer, will play the part of the GMA hosts  — Diane Sawyer, Robin Roberts, Chris Cuomo — for the rehearsal. During the rehearsal, the camera angles are all practiced and assigned, lighting is adjusted if needed, props are rearranged, and the segment is timed to make sure it will fit within the time that has been allotted for it, usually between 4-5 minutes.  A few minutes before the segment goes live, the host will come down to do a quick run-through, with the camera operators and executive producer making the final adjustments.

The pet segments are so popular that they’re usually held for the end of the show, to help keep viewers all the way to the final credits. Because of this, there’s always a lot of waiting around, since Dad gets there at 6 a.m. and does go “live” until 8:30 a.m. The waiting time is spent in the Green Room with the guests, and that’s pretty interesting, too, since the guest list on any given day can range from the biggest names to everyday people who are in the news for some reason.  He’ll spend some of this waiting time in the radio room, where they broadcast   GMA on XM show. Usually the interview is around 10 minutes long, and both audio and video versions are prepared, so people can listen or watch on the Internet.

About an hour before Dad’s segment, GMA will begin showing what is called either “bumpers” or “teasers,” small clips they usually take before the commercial break to show what is coming up in the next hour and keep viewers wanting to watch. Usually the clips picture Dad handling one of the shelter pets of that day, with the host saying something like, “Coming up is Dr. Marty Becker talking about diseases you can catch from your pet.” Usually one to three bumpers are shown before Dad’s segment.

You’d think it would all be pretty calm after all the waiting, but there’s always a rush and scramble just before the pet segment to make sure everything is right: GMA staff make sure Dad’s hair and make-up. TV folks have to wear gobs of make-up, and with Dad, they have to work a little extra because of his squinty eyes!  While that’s going on, other folks are checking  the pets and props.

The segment only lasts a few minutes which always seems kinda odd when you consider all the weeks of work that go into those few minutes. It’s pretty exciting, though, because it’s live!

Even after the airing, my Dad’s job is rarely done. The GMA staff has a one hour break, and then they come back to tape longer pieces (about 7 minutes), which will air on the GMA NOW show. These are usually taped pieces, which are more in depth, longer, and more casual than those on the live show.

One more aspect of the show Dad does is a written piece with more information on his topic, and that gets posted on ABCNews.com after GMA has been seen in all four  time zones. The written piece is a combination of Dad’s own expertise on the topic, in-depth interviews with experts, and is co-written by both my Dad and a writer from ABC.

Jeez, that’s a breath full just trying to explain what one day for my Dad with GMA involves. I hope I’ve shed some light as to what goes on behind the camera!

(Pictured: Dr. Marty Becker on the GMA set, top, and Mikkel Becker Shannon pet-sitting with a kitten who later got adopted.)

No, it’s not a joke. Or if it is, I don’t know the punch line. But I do know my dad, the Pet Connection’s Dr. Marty Becker (seems so weird to spell out your dad’s name like that) is in New York now, preparing for a bunch of meetings and upcoming appearances.

Gina has asked me to keep track of him so she doesn’t have to. Later in the month, he’ll be on a bunch of TV shows, including, of course, his regular appearance on “Good Morning America” to talk about pets and summer hazards. I’ll write about that more then.

This trip, though, he’s meeting with magazine editors. Dad says phone calls are like Internet dating — hey, what does my dad know about internet dating? My folks have been happily, lovingly and devotedly married for 26 years!– and he’d rather meet people in person any time. (Those are my parents, on our family’s Idaho ranch.) (more…)

Book Expo America is the nation’s biggest publishing industry trade show, second largest in the world. This year it’s in Los Angeles, and it starts today. Our publisher, Health Communications, Inc./HCI, has a big booth, of course, and the focus of their efforts this year is the “Ultimate” book series, which include the three books Dr. Becker and I have been working so hard on this spring, along with our co-authors. (The publisher has a bound galley of the dog book ready for the show, along with “samplers” of the other books.)

I was planning to fly down this morning, but I am fried. (We finished the books around 6 a.m. on Tuesday.) So I’m going to spend today hanging with the pets and leisurely doing a little laundry and then pack to go.

With my flight canceled, I’m choosing to drive tomorrow instead of fly today. Maybe crazy, but I wanted to switch. I’ve logged a lot of sky time in the last couple years, and it’s ugly up there. Volkswagen gave me permission to take this week’s DogCars.com test car, the Jetta SportWagen, on the road trip. (Usually reviewers have the vehicle for a week, and are not to put more than 500 miles on it.) I’m hoping the drive will be a little mental “reset” button for my tired mind, and I’m grateful the Jetta is pretty fuel-efficient.

It’s six hours door to door, which means eight hours with traffic, probably. I’m having lunch Friday with my college buddy Russ Stanton, who’s now the editor of the Los Angeles Times. (I still have a hard time wrapping my brain around that. I mean, he was always smart, hard-working and talented, but Editor of the Los Angeles Times? Wow.) Then I have to run to the first of the book-signings in the L.A. Convention Center, one on Friday and two on Saturday.

This is just for the industry … like everyone else, we’ll be trying to impress the buyers from bookstores and from the big retailers like Target and Costco.

Signings late Saturday afternoon, and then if I have any energy left, I’m going to drive home Saturday night. More realistically, I’ll crash in the hotel room the publisher has provided and drive back early Sunday morning.

And then … I swear … no travel for a long, long time. I wanna stay home with my pets and my garden!

Pupdate: I just found out that my friend Teresa is competing all weekend at an agility competition in Pasadena (Teresa has Jazz, written about here, and also Sprint, the fastest agility dog in the world and sister to my girl McKenzie.) So … looks as if I’ll be spending Sunday morning at the park next to the Rose Bowl!

I don’t have a problem with PETA advocating for animal rights, although I do not agree with their agenda which, if followed to its simple, logical conclusion, would mean the eventual end of all domestic animals, including pets.

This is America, after all, and you can advocate for any point of view you want. What I have long had a problem with is PETA jumping into every animal-related issue and neglecting to mention that agenda, which is, in PETA’s words, that “animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on or use for entertainment.”

That’s why, like Pet Connection BFF Dr. Patty Khuly, I have a problem with PETA demanding the reform of horse-racing, when in fact what they surely want is abolition. I felt the same way when PETA showed up in support for the Michael Vick dogs, even though PETA’s Ingrid Newkirk has written in favor of pit bull bans. Again, she’s entitled to her opinion, but her organization needs to be consistently open about these views in their outreach to animal lovers, especially the majority of us who don’t share them. This is even more important when fund-raising is involved.

As it stands, what PETA has put out regarding horse-racing is disingenuous.

On Dolittler, Dr. Khuly writes in response to a PETA e-mail (which she reproduces in her post):

1-How does sanctioning the jockey fit into this? Since Sunday when this news broke (sans e-mail), I’ve been marveling at PETA’s dumbfoudingly ridiculous jab at the jockey. What’s that all about? Almost all those jockeys whipped their horses. Why not call for a uniform suspension of all jockeys?

2-And the trainer? Show me one that bests Big Brown’s for his well-documented, disgusting, horse-doping behavior. After examining this guy’s pedigree, you’ll never convince me that Eight Belles’ trainer deserves a special sanction over all the other guys in his field—just because his horse was the one to go down.

3-And finally, am I really to believe that PETA seeks to reform the sport? If their approach to pets is any measure, it’s clear to me they’d love nothing better than to see the entire shebang shut down overnight and its animals summarily dispatched by a bevy of vets wielding pink juice.

But they don’t say so. Nope—they won’t. They’d rather have you believe their aims are to make the sport safer. Their target? The average animal lover who wants to believe they’re helping animals wherever they can…even if it takes sending PETA a few bucks to help make it happen.

Look, horse-racing has had years — decades, really — to work on its downward spiral, and it hasn’t. Let’s take it all the way back to the first time it lost lots of fans: The day Ruffian died. And then … Go For Wand in the Breeders Cup (worst catatrophic breakdown I’ve ever seen) … more fans gone, unable to stomach the carnage. Barbaro, of course, and now Eight Belles. Plus thousands and thousands of cheap claimers no one ever paid attention to, dying on the days when you could count track attendance in the hundreds, not the hundreds of thousands as on Derby Day.

Instead of reforming, American horse-racing chose to look the other way on rampant drug use that keeps horses who shouldn’t be running on the track. It chose to embrace and accelerate the “quick return on investment” trends by concentrating faster, more fragile breeding lines, and by pushing young horses to the breaking point, literally. It stuck to its BS traditions instead of actively seeking changes that would make the sport safer for horses and jockeys alike, such as moving away from fast, hard dirt tracks towards more racing on turf and synthetic tracks.

Instead of working to keep or even grow a base of fans, racing decided to double-down on a losing bet, chasing a smaller and smaller pool of dying off horse-racing gamblers (younger gamblers play online poker or go to casinos) and demanding of state legislatures that racetracks be allowed to put in slot machines to prop up the falling profits.

Much as I loathe PETA’s opportunistic concern for race horses — where were they the day before the Derby, when I was writing about these issues? — horse-racing brought this on itself. They had a chance to make changes after Barbaro, but they haven’t done much. (Especially with regard to drug use … nada.)

Horse-racing is not getting it even yet, but they’d damn well better, and soon.

Unlike PETA, Dr. Khuly and I truly are calling for reform, not secretly hoping for an end to horse-racing. You can start by refusing to watch any more Triple Crown races. And letting the tracks, the networks and the sponsors know why.

Lisa McCormick of ConsumerAffairs.com is another of those reporters who did super work during last year’s pet-food recall. Today she’s reporting that many people who lost pets aren’t too thrilled with the Menu Foods settlement:

Grieving pet owners say it’s too early to applaud a tentative settlement the company behind the largest pet food recall in United States history — one blamed for the deaths and illnesses of thousands of dogs and cats nationwide — announced earlier this week.

The Canadian-based company said it could not disclose terms of the agreement, which is subject to the approval of U.S. and Canadian courts.

“It’s a comprehensive settlement,” Amy W. Schulman, a lawyer for Menu Foods, told MSNBC. “It would resolve all the claims.”

The lead attorney for pet owners agreed and said she’s confident a final agreement will be reached.

The settlement comes a little more than a year after Menu Foods recalled 60 million containers of tainted dog and cat food.

Thousands of pet nationwide suffered kidney problems or died after eating the food contaminated with the chemicals melamine and cyanuric acid.

Thanks for the pointer, Nadine.

I’m busy frantically trying to get ready for my road trip. Christie has a miserable cold. So we’re around, just not as much today.