Welcome to the Our Henhouse interview from Our Henhouse. I'm Jasmine Singer.

I'm Mary Ann Sullivan. This is from Our Handhouse, in case Jasmine hasn't said that enough.

You're so mean to me. It's Monday, and I'm Monday. That's why. Monday morning.

Jesus. We are so pleased today in just a moment. We're

going to be welcoming Melanie Kaplan, who's the author of Lab Dog. But before we do, just a quick reminder

about the Our Hen House podcast. Rising Anxieties comes out on Tuesdays, the hen report on Thursdays,

and the long form interview that's this on Fridays. And bonus for flock members comes out on Mondays. And don't forget we're a podcast and we're on YouTube. So hit subscribe and like wherever you listen. Yeah. And as Jasmine mentioned, our guest today, Melanie Kaplan, is the author of this wonderful new book, which I'm holding up. So if you're watching this on YouTube, you can see it.

Lab Dog. And she is also a long-time independent journalist, whose travel and science writing has

appeared in the Atlantic, The Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, National Parks Magazine.

And welcome, Melanie. I'm so excited to talk to you about this book. I was just saying before

we started that this is such a hard topic to talk about you about this book. I was just saying before we started that this is such a

hard topic to talk about and to write about. And centering it around this particular dog, I think,

really makes a big difference. And so the book covers a lot of territory, political and science and

whatever. But at the center, it's very much about this particular dog, Alexander Hamilton, aka Hammy.

So can you tell us, start the story where it begins and tell us a little bit about how Hammy came into your life?

Hi, yes. And Marianne and Jasmine, it's so nice to be here.

You know, Hammy came into my life in 2013. I adopted him from the Beagle Freedom

Project, and I really didn't know anything about dogs and labs, but a friend of mine gave me

one of BFP's calendars, and it was filled with dogs who'd been used in research, and immediately

I signed up to be a foster.

And so the day that this group of seven and they were they were all named after founding fathers,

the day that they got out of the lab, there were seven foster families that went to meet them

...