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Pets & Animals Podcasts
372 shows and 42,509 episodes sit under Pets & Animals.
Hear rescue guidance, horse care, dog-show talk, and reptile hobby chat with Rescue Tails, The Hoofcare Companion, and Trap Talk Reptile Network.
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Inside the world of Pets & Animals podcasts
A dog spots another dog across the park and drops flat onto the grass, eyes fixed, as if waiting for a signal. Most owners would shrug and keep walking. A good animal podcast explains what that crouch means. Animal Party Episode 238 Why Dogs Lie Down to Say Hello — and How to Teach Go Find!, from Animal Party - Dog & Cat News, Animal Facts, does exactly that. The best of these shows answer the question you actually have. They also keep you company in a life already organised around feeding times and walks.
The range is wider than the shelf label suggests. It includes training audio that sets out its method step by step, rescue conversations about a dog's first nervous days, and breeders comparing progesterone readings. There is a French educator sitting with grief, a radio segment with a zoo frog in the studio, and speakers taking apart dog gadgets. On 25 April 2026 the directory Grep.FM counted 7,918 indexed Pets & Animals podcasts, 3,057 of them actively publishing.
The argument worth knowing about is method. Some trainers build everything on an animal's choice and cooperation. Others defend corrections and tools as a way of managing risk. A show's place on that line should shape how you hear its advice. Specialist listeners also split between those who want behavioural theory and those who want something to try on tomorrow's walk. Sponsorship raises a quieter question: when does friendly pet chat become advice about products or health?
Training: hear the method before the tips
The Perfect Pup lays out its thinking most clearly. In LIMA Dog Training and The Humane Hierarchy, Explained with Examples, the host takes one household nuisance, a dog barking at things outside, and walks it down the hierarchy. The first step is to check health, diet and whether exercise needs are met. Then come positive reinforcement and reinforcing alternative behaviours, with positive punishment described as the very last stop. The host admits these principles are geared towards professionals. The episode stays usable because of the single barking example. The show's most recent listed episode, from June 2023, is billed as its final one, so treat it as an archive rather than a weekly habit.
Pup Talk The Podcast, hosted by the games-based trainer Niki French, approaches behaviour through play. Nosework - the missing piece with Jack Fenton, The Dorset Dog Trainer argues that hiding cheese on a bookshelf counts as nose work, just as searching an industrial estate for a coin does. It suggests a rhythm for anxious dogs: 30 seconds of searching, then a longer stretch of simply taking in the world. That is generous news for anyone told their kitchen games aren't proper training. What the boys got up to with Chris "Ash" Ashworth explains agency as letting the dog choose the route, and it offers a line worth keeping: "It's the dog's walk, it's not mine."
Other shows speak in other vocabularies. On Animal House w/Deborah Roberts, the trainer Darryl Payne of Pawfection Dog Training allows that a dog may need correcting, but says it must be "something that isn't painful". Rescue Tails talks in terms of drives, such as "defense flight" and "pack drive". These are different traditions, and it helps to hear them as such.
Rescue and the first weeks home
Rescue Tails pairs the trainer Dr. Robert Forto with Robin Lucas of Rebel Rescue South Korea. Its strength is the unglamorous work of matching dogs to homes. Why Rescue Dogs Test You (And How to Succeed Anyway) reveals a small, telling detail. In the show's view, an adoption application answered "yes" to tolerating every difficult behaviour is less reassuring than one with an honest "no", because the "no" suggests the adopter has thought about it. Rescue Intake from a Training Perspective: How to Evaluate Behavior Without Failing Dogs explains why the rescue's quarantined dogs meet only volunteers trained in the protocols, and insists that "Dogs have behavioral needs too." Building Trust With Your Rescue Dog: From Chaos to Confidence is plainer still: walk in any weather, keep routines, and let small wins on both sides add up to trust.
All My Children Wear Fur Coats with Peggy Hoyt, hosted by someone who promotes pet trusts, widens the picture of rescue. In Cindy Ojczyk - All My Children Wear Fur Coats "Paw-Cast", the guest describes respite fostering, which means minding an animal while its regular foster travels. For the guest, it is an easier way in, with no responsibility for finding a home.
A dog in the household, including the hard parts
Dans La Niche is in French. It is hosted by Claire, an educator and canine behaviour coach, and it mixes personal testimonies, conversations with professionals and short practical episodes. The three episodes discussed here run from 54 to 83 minutes.
In EP73 : Loélie Delas (Ustache) - L'arrivée d'un bébé avec un chien, Delas, a behaviourist and new mother, reassures an owner whose dog leaves the room whenever the baby comes near. That exit, she argues, is a good decision, better than staying somewhere uncomfortable until things go wrong. She also advises firmly against getting a puppy during pregnancy so the two can grow up together.
Dans La Niche's TEM12 - Marie Flore et Halva : Continuer d'aimer quand tout s’arrête brutalement is about a dog's sudden death and an autopsy that couldn't identify a cause. It handles that loss with care. What makes the episode worth hearing is its account of how love continues alongside a new dog. TEM11 - Kerry et Pixel : La vie avec mon chien a révélé ma neuroatypie traces how Kerry found that her dog grew calmer once she herself was less exhausted.
The show ring and the whelping box
The Tack Box Podcast sits deep inside purebred showing and breeding. It is hosted by Dale Martenson and Tyson Wald. Japanese Chin are central to the episodes heard here. Dog Whelping 101: What to do | How to Do it EP. 66 compares progesterone readings that signal whelping is near. It also suggests asking the vet, during a C-section, for the placenta in a plastic bag to help the mother accept her puppies. The hosts swap medication tips from their own experience, which is breeders' practice and something to raise with your vet.
Episode 57: Show Grooming a Japanese Chin | Ring Prep | How to Keep your Dog Safe | Part 1 is precise in an appealing way. It uses distilled water in the spray bottle, and it allows scissors only in a few places, including between the foot pads, so a Chin doesn't go "ice skating" on tile. It also warns: "just don't fix it with product. Identify it, fix it for breeding." In Episode 56: Are We Killing Our Own Breeds? The Hidden Crisis in Toy Dogs, the hosts read falling Chin litter registrations as a warning for rare breeds. Readers who enjoy competitive hobbies can go further on the Hobbies page.
Company, comedy and animal news
What The Fluff?! is dog talk. In #34: Dog Kickstarters - Exactly what you expected, the speakers laugh at a smart collar sold with leather as the base model and a nylon reflective collar as the "upgrade". They briefly wonder whether the five-foot GPS accuracy means the dog has already escaped. The comedy carries real corrections. Their #28: Watch Dogs - Snow Dogs recap pauses to warn against biting a dog's ear to assert dominance, as the film's hero does.
Animal Party - Dog & Cat News, Animal Facts has Deb Wolf explaining behaviour in a brisk episode of 23 minutes. Herding breeds lie down as a casting position, she says: "It's like semaphore. It's like a giant signal." Animal Party Episode 265 The Snack Stalker and the 40-Year Grudge reports recent findings that crows hold grudges for 17 years and elephants for 30 to 40.
Animal House w/Deborah Roberts is a segment from a radio show on Real Radio 104.1, and the advertising comes with it. In JCS: Central Florida Zoo & Botanical Gardens, a 15-minute visit, the zoo guests explain why the White's tree frog is a bioindicator: it absorbs water through its skin. In the Darryl Payne phone-ins, a five-year-old Shorkie starts whimpering after a houseguest leaves. One of Payne's questions to returning clients is what has changed.
All My Children Wear Fur Coats with Peggy Hoyt also ranges beyond dogs. In Jennifer Ericson - All My Children Wear Fur Coats "Paw-Cast", the guest describes a snake that stayed calm only in the hands of people it liked. She suggests reptiles can suit families with allergies, though she adds, "I don't want to say they're easy."
Where to start
- A nervous or reactive dog: Pup Talk The Podcast, Nosework - the missing piece with Jack Fenton, The Dorset Dog Trainer, for games you can start in the living room.
- Just adopted: Rescue Tails, Building Trust With Your Rescue Dog: From Chaos to Confidence, 36 minutes on earning trust day by day.
- Expecting a baby, and fluent in French: Dans La Niche, EP73 : Loélie Delas (Ustache) - L'arrivée d'un bébé avec un chien, long and practical.
- Company rather than coaching: What The Fluff?!, #34: Dog Kickstarters - Exactly what you expected, best heard with a dog asleep nearby.
- Curious about the show ring: The Tack Box Podcast, Episode 57: Show Grooming a Japanese Chin | Ring Prep | How to Keep your Dog Safe | Part 1.
Begin with the animal already on your sofa. Leave room for a frog or a snake later. If walks are becoming the best part of your day, the Outdoor Activities page and the wider Leisure guide are waiting.
Featured shows below are part of the PlayNext catalog. Updated weekly.
Featured shows
8 shows, described rather than listed
A short write-up for each, plus the job it does in this guide.
A loose panel talks through the practical side of dog showing and breeding, from AKC policies and ring etiquette to vaccine protocols, whelping, weaning, and listener questions.
Miri and Rhi bring a rapid, chatty stable-side rhythm to horse care and equestrian sport, mixing catch-ups with guests on dressage, eventing, sustainability, and riding adventures.
Patient expert interviews turn equine health and riding questions into practical guidance on the microbiome, respiratory care, ulcers, safety equipment, performance nerves, and dressage.
A lightly chaotic group starts with affectionate pup updates, then follows dogs through Renaissance paintings, documentaries, television, travel, law, and college mascots.
This measured solo show treats hoofcare like spoken technical notes, covering anatomy, pathology, assessment, and corrective practice through topics such as navicular syndrome and sidebone.
A two-person conversation connects rescue experience to matching, adoption, body language, training, separation anxiety, family safety, and the emotional strain of rescue work.
Rotating live shows bring reptile keepers into informal, technically fluent conversations about ball python projects, collection strategy, breeding, husbandry, AI, and hobby media.
Trainer-to-trainer interviews and panels explain dog-sports behavior through concrete cases, including impulse control, arousal, resilience, fitness, diagnosis, bonding, and emergency stops.