Ten years. Seven hundred and fifty episodes. One woman who had absolutely no idea what a podcast was when someone told her she was going to host one.
We sat down with Laura Reeves, host of Pure Dog Talk and the OG of dog podcasts, to get the story behind the microphone. Fair warning: it starts with a Hollywood stunt coordinator ambushing her at a dining room table.
She had never heard of a podcast. Someone told her she was hosting one anyway.
Laura calls it serendipity, which she’ll tell you is one of her favorite words in the language. What it actually looked like was getting set up next to the same random person at a Southern California show three weeks running. That person turned out to be Mary Alby, a stunt coordinator in Hollywood, who was, in Laura’s words, way further ahead of the game than she was.
Mary wanted Laura to host a podcast. Laura wanted to know what a podcast was. She fought it for a while.
Mary flew to Southern Oregon anyway.
The dog that ran your rotisserie
Ask Laura for a story and you might get the Glen of Imaal Terrier, a breed built low, sturdy, and strong for one very specific reason. Hundreds of years ago, before electricity, somebody had to turn the spit over the fire.
That somebody was a dog. Walking. Like a gerbil in a wheel.
“Purebred dogs are literally living history,” Laura says. Every breed is a specific place, a specific moment, and the specific people who needed a dog to do a specific job. Which makes the rest of us, as she puts it, curators of a living history museum. She’d love to see kids taught geography and history through dogs, and honestly, after ten minutes with her, so would we.
Her favorite episode? “It’s like picking a favorite child.”
She picked one anyway. It involves a breeder in Australia, corded Pulis, and a conversation about line breeding and temperament that Laura says she could have stayed on the phone for hours. You’ll have to dig back in the archives for that one, or just watch, because she names names.
What’s next for Pure Dog Talk
Plenty. There’s the 10th Anniversary Rewind dropping a classic episode every Friday, the club partnership program for preserving legendary breeders’ voices, and Pedigrees to Pups, a full circle dog breeding seminar with Dr. Marty Greer that Laura says has genuinely never been done before, now available as streaming video.
Oh, and there’s a spin-off: The Marty and Laura Show, covering all pets, not just dogs. It’s built for people who aren’t in the show or breeding world and just have questions about the animals living in their house. They’re always looking for listener questions, so send one in.
Watch the full interview below!
