Hey there, it's Martine. So as we take a pause from news during the holidays, I wanted to share a couple of my favorite episodes from this year. Today, that's an episode from our resident optimist, Maggie Penman. She reported a story about the power of dogs to make us calmer, happier, and maybe even more trusting. I hope you

enjoy this episode. Or if you've already heard it, maybe share it with a friend. Okay, here's Maggie.

There's a question audio producers always ask in sound checks.

What did you have for breakfast today?

I made like really fluffy pancakes, bacon, eggs.

No. I'm sure he did not eat breakfast.

I haven't eaten anything today.

I'm Maggie Penman and that is my colleague, Kyle Melnick.

Kyle and I are both reporters for The Optimist, the section here at the post that brings you inspiring, hopeful news, stories about things that are going right in the world.

But Kyle approaches the beat from a very different angle than I do.

Depending on your outlook, I'm a pessimist or a realist.

I would describe myself as a cynic.

Do you ever think about the irony that you work for the optimist?

Yeah, when I got hired on the optimist, a lot of people thought it was humorous. To me, Kyle is one of those classic kind of old school news reporter types.

He's really smart and funny, but super deadpan.

He has a very dry sense of humor.

And he's skeptical of everything.

As the journalism saying goes, if your mother says she loves you, check it out. And that is

basically Kyle's worldview. He doesn't take things at face value. If his mother says she loves him,

he checks it out, which makes him really good at his job. But it's also maybe sometimes a little

bit isolating. Why do you think it's hard for you to trust people?

I think it's been like a gradual decline over my reporting career.

...