Dr. Sophia Yin: Her Legacy

Dr. Sophia Yin, applied animal behaviorist, who died as a result of a suicide at 48 on September 28 , was brilliant. Positively brilliant.

Brilliance is sometimes difficult to explain and difficult to understand.

We produced this video to shine a spotlight on Dr. Yin’s messages regarding animal handling and positive reinforcement, rather than focus on her tragic loss. These are clips from video interviews I did with Dr. Yin over the course of the past few years. Her enthusiasm for her topic is as apparent as is that smile always on her face. She thinks fast, and without hesitation those words – which mean a lot – just fall from her mouth.

Over the years, I also interviewed Dr. Yin more times that I can count on the radio. Here are a few from my national radio show, Steve Dale’s Pet World. 

• Listen HERE as Dr. Sophia Yin and I talk about her then newly released book, “Perfect Puppy in 7 Days: How to Start Your Puppy Off Right.” Start what you DO want instead of stressing what you don’t want. What you do, for example, if the puppy is chewing on the wrong thing. (from October, 2011)
• Listen HERE as we talked about why play is so important to puppies, and which toys might be better than others, and her book, “Perfect Puppy in 7 Days: How to Start Your Puppy Off Right” (from June, 2012)
• I had been out talking about kitten socialization classes at this juncture for a few years, and Dr. Yin joined in – starting to teach these classes too. Listen HERE, as we talked about kindergarten for cats. And she describes how to teach a cat to accept taking pills. Oh, and you can teach a kitten to “come.” (from May, 2010)

 (Produced by Matt Bubala and Jim Donato, Black Dog Radio Productions)