About Dr. Marty Becker, DV -- Brief bio or speaker introduction

Through education and entertainment, Dr. Marty Becker strengthens that special relationship between pets and people he calls, "The Bond."

As a veterinarian, media personality, author, lecturer, educator, contributor, influencer and recipient of many prestigious awards, Dr. Marty Becker has become known as the "best loved family doctor for pets." Despite his demanding writing, speaking and television schedule, Dr. Becker still enjoys his work as a practicing veterinarian, at the North Idaho Animal Hospital.

For more than ten years, Dr. Becker has been the popular veterinary contributor to ABC-TV's "Good Morning America." More recently, he has started appearing on the new "Good Morning America Weekend." He has also taped special features called the GMA Pet Clinic which are one minute vignettes on topics such as giving medications, stopping bleeding and taking a pet's temperature. Dr. Becker has also hosted a nationwide PBS pledge special produced by Detroit Public Television called, "The Pet Doctor with Marty Becker." Additionally, he has appeared on Animal Planet, and is a frequent guest on many national network and cable TV and radio shows

Dr. Becker's syndicated column, Pet Connection is carried internationally by the Universal Press Syndicate. He produces the weekly feature along with his writing partner, Gina Spadafori, and a team of top animal-care experts including Susan and Dr. Rolan Tripp of AnimalBehavior.net. Dr. Becker previously wrote for McClatchy-Tribune Information Services (formerly Knight-Ridder Tribune Services). Dr. Becker has been a contributing editor for Cat Fancy, Dog Fancy and has written for Reader's Digest. He was the Chief Veterinary Correspondent for Amazon.com.

Dr. Becker serves as an adjunct professor at is alma mater, the Washington State University College of Veterinary Medicine, and at the Colorado State University College of Veterinary Medicine. He also served as the Practice Leadership Editor for Veterinary Economics magazine, a position he held for almost 15 years.

As an author, Dr. Becker has a record few can match. He is co-author of the fastest-selling pet book in history, "Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover's Soul." With famed human obesity expert, Dr. Robert Kushner of Northwestern University, Dr. Becker wrote the top-selling "Fitness Unleashed: A Dog and Owner's Guide To Losing Weight and Gaining Health Together!" Teaming up with Gina Spadafori, he authored two best-sellers, "Why Do Dogs Drink Out of the Toilet" (a New York Times best-seller) and "Do Cats Always Land on Their Feet." Most recently, Becker and Spadafori released three new books: "Why Do Horses Sleep Standing Up," "bowWOW" and "meowWOW" (HCI). In addition, his "The Healing Power of Pets: Harnessing the Amazing Ability Of Pets To Make and Keep People Happy And Healthy" was awarded the prestigious Silver Award in the National Health Information Awards.

Dr. Becker has been featured on ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, PBS, BBC, Unsolved Mysteries and in USA Today, USA Weekend, The New York Times, The New York Daily News, Washington Post, Reader's Digest, Life, Newsweek, Forbes, Better Homes & Gardens, People, Parade, Prevention, Christian Science Monitor, Woman's Day, Woman's World, National Geographic Kids, National Geographic Traveler, Nickelodeon, Nick Jr., Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Redbook, Parents, Shape, Star, Men's Health, US Weekly, National Inquirer, Cooking Light, Bottom Line, Natural Health and major Web sites such as ABCNews.com, Amazon.com, Prevention.com, Forbes.com and iVillage.

He has lectured at the Smithsonian Institution and at every veterinary school in America. On six continents and in dozens of countries, Dr. Becker has been a leader in changing the way we interact with and take responsibility for our pet companions. Dr. Becker is the recipient of several professional honors and awards including the American Veterinary Medical Association's prestigious Bustad Award, as the Companion Animal Veterinarian of the Year. Dr. Becker served as as the National Spokesperson for the AVMA's inaugural National Pet Wellness Month (NPWM), a duty he repeated the next year.

Dr. Becker devotes his life to his family, which includes his beloved wife of 29 years, Teresa, daughter Mikkel and son Lex, along with the dogs, horses and cats of the family's Almost Heaven Ranch in Northern Idaho.



------------------------------------

Marty Becker: Crusader for The Bond- "HIS"-story

For truly, our pets lend a touch of grace to our lives. They teach us the real meaning of unconditional love and bring out the kindest and most generous impulses of humanity.

—Dr. Marty Becker, Introduction: Chicken Soup for the Cat & Dog Lover's Soul

Marty Becker still remembers the September evening he addressed the East Platte Nebraska Veterinary Association. He had driven through 250 miles of cornfield to deliver the speech. His audience? Seven veterinarians in hunting camouflage, straight from the goose blind.

Today, the veterinarian known world-wide for two words - The Bond - delivers in-person keynote addresses to audiences as large as seven-thousand, while reaching millions over the airwaves through his regular segments on ABC-TV's "Good Morning America." Although the size of the crowd and their attire may have changed over the past 20 years, the message remains the same: pets are good for your body and soul.

"Sharing your life fully with a pet is life enhancing for both parties," Dr. Becker says. "I value my role in celebrating, protecting, nurturing and sharing that special relationship we call The Bond; being an evangelist for its magical properties."

Marty Becker began talking about the strength and healing power of the human-animal bond before he left the Washington State University School of Veterinary Medicine in 1980. It was here that he studied under the tutelage of the late Professor Leo Bustad, a pioneer in the battle to recognize the positive link between pets and people. As a young practitioner, Marty put The Bond first. A creative crusader, he carried the message in a thousand different guises, and he began to amass an army of followers. As co-author of Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover's Soul, Dr. Marty Becker has now reached an estimated 10 million readers, testament to both the power of his message and the tireless enthusiasm of his delivery.

His message in Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover's Soul went beyond a collection of stories that made readers feel good about animals. Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover's Soul opened a conduit to millions by acknowledging the sacred relationship between humans and animals. The carefully chosen stories also emphasize one of Dr. Becker's key objectives- responsible pet ownership. The work of unsung heroes like the American Veterinary Medical Association and the Delta Society found the spotlight in Chicken Soup. Most of all, whether small country doctor in a mixed practice or high-tech urban specialist, the veterinarians' star caught the light. "My aim," Dr. Becker says, "was to inspire readers to join all of us already in the trenches, from veterinarians, to professional organizations, to humane and rescue groups in marching for the health and welfare of the animals in their midst and The Bond we hold to be sacred."

The victories in his crusade for animals continue to pile up. His second Chicken Soup book, Chicken Soup for the Cat & Dog Lover's Soul, published October 1999, rose to number five on the New York Times Bestseller List. Nearly one in four stories in the second book are about homeless pets adopted from animal shelters, an issue close to Dr. Becker's heart. The book also contains a behavior resource section to help people learn how to keep pets out of shelters. "The vast majority of pets end up in shelters because of behavioral problems." Dr. Becker explains. "We wanted to use the tremendous popularity of Chicken Soup as a platform for our Million Pet Mission, whose main goals are to promote early spay-neuter thereby protecting the lives of the unborn, solve behavior problems early on before they become life-threatening, encourage pet buddies, and promote high tech veterinary care.

"With a platform such as Chicken Soup," Dr. Becker says, "we can't lose. Millions will become empowered and millions of pets will be saved. Woven through the tapestry of these stories is the amazing power of The Bond."

Today, he's taking his message about the precious bond between humans and animals to the world through regular appearances on ABC-TV's "Good Morning America" as well as the next frontier-cyberspace. As the cofounder and vice president of the Association of Veterinary Communicators, Dr. Becker has been instrumental in creating a unified voice in the media for his fellow veterinarians and veterinary animal behaviorists.

In addition to GMA, Dr. Becker is a popular guest on many top national network and cable TV and radio shows including Animal Planet's "Petsburgh USA." His highly acclaimed weekly newspaper column "The Bond," premiered in the nationally recognized Spokesman-Review and is now nationally distributed by Knight-Ridder where it will have an estimated audience of over 13 million readers per week.

Dr. Becker's has consulted with TV Guide on the importance of pets in the media. His growing list of newspaper, magazine contributions and feature articles reads like a who's who of the industry and include The New York Times, USA Today, The Los Angeles Times, The Dallas Morning News, The Chicago Tribune, The Wall Street Journal, McCall's, Redbook, Parents, Good Housekeeping, National Enquirer, National Geographic Traveler, Women's Day, Men's Health, Prevention Guide to Dogs and Cats, Pets; part of the family, PetLife, Dog Fancy, Cat Fancy, and more.

In 1997, Dr. Becker was invited to speak at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. The first speaker ever on a non-scientific topic, he has addressed five international conferences of the World Small Animal Veterinary Association; including WSAVA's 2000 conference in Holland. He will also speak at their 2001 meeting in Canada and the 2001 meeting in Thailand.

"I have observed him working on three continents to promote the benefits to animal of veterinarians providing excellent quality care and service," says Dr. Garth McGilvray, BVSc, MRCVS, president of the Australian Veterinary Association and councilor of the World Veterinary Association. "Marty Becker has contributed significantly to our understanding of the value of relationships between companion animals and humans. By his leadership and presentations he has made a major contribution to goodwill of mankind."

A typical day for Dr. Becker might include conversations with his GMA producer on his next segment, writers from the Associated Press and the Dallas Morning News, an on-line chat with CNN.com or AOL, then a few quiet moments at the computer as he puts the finishing touches on "The Bond," column, to go out later that day over the Knight-Ridder newswire. He may also be found writing articles for Veterinary Economics on the joys and challenges of establishing a "Bond-Centered" practice. "I'm always on the stump, campaigning for The Bond," he says, as climbs the stairs to his home office each morning - two at a time.

Celebrating The Bond:

Dr. Becker has become the spokesman for a new generation of animal lovers, a generation unafraid to treat their pets like children, proud of the birthday parties they throw for them, the premium health care they provide, the gravestones they have carved to mark their passing. As Dr. Becker says, this is a generation for whom the word "doghouse" has no meaning. "Dogs have gone from sleeping in the backyard to sleeping in the bedroom, from doghouses to three-bedroom, two-bath houses with widescreen television and a built-in spa," he says. He has been predicting for years that veterinarians and medical doctors would "prescribe" pets to heal or cure patients; he is now seeing that concept come to pass.

Dr. R.K. Anderson, one of the earliest voices in the movement for The Bond, describes Marty Becker as, "a great advocate for his profession and people everywhere to recognize the importance of animals in our lives and celebrate the human animal bond. His books and lectures have helped millions of us share wonderful stories of people and their pets. His work and communication skills have made a difference. His messages have had a major impact on veterinarians, as well as people and their pets."

Heady praise indeed from the man Dr. Becker describes as "the Moses" of the human-animal bond movement. Dr. Anderson, DVM, ACVPM, ACVB, professor emeritus and director of the Center to Study Human Animal Relationships and Environments at the University of Minnesota, received the important Bustad Award as Companion Animal Veterinarian of the Year in 1987.

But Marty Becker is not a man to rest on such praise or to look back too long on past triumphs. "I don't have many rear-view mirrors on me" he says. "I'm more like a jetliner, up there somewhere looking over the edge of the horizon." His next horizon, first conceived and presented in Chicken Soup for the Cat & Dog Lover's Soul, is a "bold and audacious" plan to save a million animals from euthanasia. He calls it the Million Pet Mission. Petopia.com, and Dr. Becker, have joined forces in an allied assault to bring a million animals begging for adoption to a million pet owners willing to offer life and love. His dream is also being co-sponsored by many passionate, pro-active, individuals, organizations and companies.

Dr. Becker's message is urgent. "If not now, when? If not for them, for whom?"

That's the kind of message veterinarians and others have come to expect from the hard-charging activist. As Veterinary Economics Editorial Director Rebecca Turner Chapman says, when you deal with Marty Becker, "hang onto your hat." Turner-Chapman first encountered the public Marty Becker a dozen years ago when he began writing for the magazine. His work flourished because it was "helpful, insightful, fresh, forward-thinking, inspiring and firsthand," she says. It was also radical. "His message went something like this," she explains: "As veterinarians we've got a lot more to offer than we're giving. And, we've got a lot more takers than we think. People really do want a long, easy life with happy and healthy pets."

Turner-Chapman says she was not surprised his message would thrust him onto the world stage. "His message about the connection between people and animals knows no boundaries - economical, geographical, emotional or otherwise - and is likely to be embraced by an international community of people who are, quite simply, nuts about their pets," she says.

Patricia Dibsie is a veteran writer at the San Diego Union-Tribune. She claims Marty Becker's appeal is easy to describe: "We don't know people who talk as clearly and as simply as he talks," she says. "He speaks in stories which attract your attention and keep it. He's a great storyteller. But it is also obvious that he will go to any length to be sure his message is heard. He listens to the animals. If anything saves the world, it will be children and animals. He knows that."

Watching the gentleness of his father's touch on the Idaho farm where he was born and raised , Dr. Becker first learned to love and respect, if not listen to, the animals. "I guess it was imprinted on my DNA," he says.

From his first day of veterinary school in August, 1976, he was touched by the opening address delivered by Dr. Leo Bustad. In his lighted bow-tie, Dr. Bustad lit a fire under his charges with his vision of how animals enrich our lives, and affect our health and well-being. The Idaho farm boy listened spellbound. He emerged from that lecture more than energized; he emerged a true believer, a believer in the sacredness of The Bond between pets and people. He watched, studied, helped. The day he graduated, he put those ideas to work in the world.

To understand Dr. Becker's enthusiasm for the sacred nature of the human-animal bond, you have to look over his shoulder at one of his first experiences as a professional veterinarian. He was volunteering in an animal shelter in Twin Falls, Idaho. To his horror, the shelter was performing euthanasia by gassing its unlucky tenants with carbon monoxide, in essence, suffocating them. "Their only crime," he recalls, " was being unwanted." He quickly stopped that practice.

Bobbi Wolverton had just moved to Twin Falls where, as a volunteer at the shelter, she helped Marty change the euthanasia procedure. She recalls that when the two arrived, the shelter was saving about 25 dogs a year. With their efforts, the shelter saved 700 dogs a year. Dr. Becker was the first of eight veterinarians in Twin Falls to volunteer at the shelter, she says. Later, all but one veterinarian followed. "Once he helped, all the others but one came on board," she says. "He was not a person to do things with the norm. He was always going against the grain."

Unfortunately, even with their best efforts not all dogs brought into the shelter could be adopted. One eventful day, Dr. Becker's volunteer work involved injecting more humane, but equally lethal, T-61 into an emaciated family of puppies left with their mother beside the road in a burlap potato sack. The story of this galvanizing moment, "Killer Angels," is retold in Chicken Soup for the Cat & Dog Lover's Soul:

"As the assistant held the first puppy I guided the needle into its heart and injected a teaspoon of "blue juice," our nickname for T-61. She let out but a slight whimper and went limp in my hands. One down, I thought, and a little bit of me died, too.

"As I grabbed the next puppy, the mother's tail beat a sad rhythm on the hard steel table. And mom began to lick my hand. I looked into her eyes and saw deep into her soul: total trust, unconditional love, and to-die-for loyalty. I choked back my emotions. One-by-one, I killed the puppies. She licked my hand between the injections."

For a man who studied to become a veterinarian because he loved animals, this was a rarefied moment. He lifted the malnourished Heinz-57 mother onto the cold steel, soothed her with words and patted her head. The drum beat of her tail quickened.

"Looking into her eyes," Dr. Becker writes, "I saw total trust, unconditional love and absolute loyalty. I felt the cruel irony of what was taking place. God's precious creatures, embodying the kindest virtues on the planet, being killed for the crime of not being wanted. She held out her leg for me to inject and licked my hand. She was ready. I wasn't."

Dr. Becker made a promise at that moment. He would never again euthanize an animal for the convenience of society. To end terrible suffering, or in the face of incurable disease, yes; but never again because an animal was unwanted. He took the mother off the table and found her a loving family, where she became part of his history. The power of The Bond between humans and animals would be his rallying cry.

His weapons across the next two decades would be humor, a huge store of playful creativity, and a maverick personality. He made few friends among local veterinarians early in his career when he and his partner pioneered low-cost spay-neuter-vaccination clinics in Twin Falls, Idaho. His wife even received anonymous death threats. "It set off a storm of controversy from the veterinary community," he says, "but it received a hero's welcome from local pet lovers and animal rescue workers." In his "one-stop shopping" practice, he began looping bandannas around the necks of dogs who visited the clinic. Some colleagues snickered. Others bought boxes of bandannas and prospered. Word of Marty Becker's success, and the success of The Bond, spread.

Dr. Dave Kroeger, DVM, practiced with Dr. Becker in Twin Fall, Idaho, in 1985 and 1986, fresh from veterinary school. "I felt really fortunate to have Dr. Becker as a mentor," he says. "He was a good vet. He was dedicated. He had an innate understanding of people.

Dr. Scott VandeGriend, DVM, is another veterinarian who began his career under Dr. Becker's tutelage. He practiced eight of his first 10 years with Dr. Becker, then joined Hill's Pet Nutrition in 1995, where he currently develops educational programs and acts as liaison to the firm's consulting veterinarians.

"When I got out of school I was looking for a progressive practice so, of course, I wound up with Marty," Dr. VandeGriend recalls. "The clients loved him. Marty just has that quality as a practitioner. He'd get down on the floor on his hands and knees and let the puppies lick his face. He went beyond treating illness. He went the extra mile in his practice, saying, 'Let's make sure your pet stays healthy.' He treated the clients' pets like their kids. That's a powerful and fun way to practice."

From Twin Falls, Dr. Becker branched out to practices in Boise, Idaho, and Salt Lake City, Utah. No matter how big and busy his practices got, no matter how hectic his speaking schedule became as veterinarians everywhere clamored for the secret to his success, he continued to volunteer his time to local shelters and national organizations, just like he did his first week out of college. Those who heard him speak could always hear the sorrow in his sunny voice when the subject came to unwanted pets. One minute he'd be telling a funny story about a client and her cat, or a touching story about a golden retriever who ruled a family of four, the next his voice would drop an octave as he spoke about how many pets a year were put to death because nobody wanted them.

One of the key reasons animals lost their homes or were not adopted, he said, was behavior problems. For a dog or a cat, the crime of misbehavior is often death, he would say. In 1986, in Sandy, Utah, he was one of the first to incorporate a behavioral training facility and a behavior program into a veterinary practice. Marty Becker has always known how to get things done. Once he invited all the behavioral trainers and shelter personnel from a two-county region, nearly 100 people, to his practice for a day of education by the most respected behaviorists in the nation. He treated them all to dinner at La Caille, one of the finest restaurants in Salt Lake City. "We wanted a nice dinner to be our chance to pamper these heroes a little bit and show our profound gratitude for their daily contributions on behalf of our precious pets," he explains.

Next, Dr. Becker opened an adoption center in his Salt Lake City veterinary hospital. The adoption center was allied with Salt Lake County Animal Services. The idea was revolutionary at the time; many veterinarians looked on humane societies as the enemy, and the feeling was often returned. An average of two pets a day, 365 days a year, were adopted from his facility. He also offered free puppy and kitten behavior and housetraining classes for all adopted pets in the two-county region. Today a host of veterinarians nationwide have followed this example or work hand-in-hand with shelters.

Peggy Raddon, community relations coordinator for Salt Lake County Animal Services, recalls Dr. Becker's adoption efforts. "He essentially rebuilt his practice to meet our standards so he could showcase our animals," she says. "It really means something when someone rebuilds a practice to meet our needs. No one is willing to do that today, even though attitudes have changed in the past 10 years. When Dr. Becker arrived on the scene, he made a genuine difference in the way our staff related to veterinarians from then, on. And veterinarians have been a lot more willing to volunteer since Dr. Becker's example."

Lynn Bradak remembers Dr. Becker as "the first domino" in the process of bringing veterinarians to the rescue work she was spearheading in the Salt Lake City area. In the mid-1980s, she was saving strays around Davis County in a dusty pick-up with a trailer hooked on back, sometimes hauling 20 dogs at a time. She hauled them right into Dr. Becker's hospital, where Marty and his staff provided low cost spay-neuters. "When I'd drive up, he'd tell the staff, 'This is just how it is. These people are coming in and we do our best to help them.'"

Bradak describes Dr. Becker as a ray of light coming through the rafters of the old milk barn where the Wasatch Humane Society animal shelter was then housed.

"I felt I had been banging my head against a brick wall for a long time," she recalls. "Then I finally made contact with this guy who was so open, so energetic, so successful at what he did. As one person said, 'He's all grown up, but he acts like he's about 12.'"

Alice Miller is president of Second Chance Animal Adoptions, in Bonners Ferry, where Dr. Becker and his family now live. She describes Dr. Becker as, "a very compassionate man who definitely cares about animals." For the past two years he has donated $6,000 and free vaccine to Second Chance. His financial support and donated medicines have been important, she says, but so has his voice on the other end of the telephone. "He calls sometimes just to talk," she says. "He asks how things are going. That kind of verbal support is really encouraging to us."

Darrell Kerby, mayor of Bonners Ferry, says Dr. Becker has made a difference in the town of 3,000 on the Canadian border.

"He hit town like a whirlwind and hasn't quit yet," Mayor Kerby says. "The man has energy you can't believe. He's had an effect on our children, our church programs and our humane society. He's made a significant difference in the school system raising money. I don't think the guy sleeps."

Kerby says he's witnessed Dr. Becker's persuasive skills first hand. "He has the ability to immediately disarm you," the mayor explains. "Then you're open to his suggestions. He's gracious, unassuming, sincere. Idahoans are grown with a combination of common sense and openness. How can you turn that down?" Especially, Mayor Kerby chuckles, when that Idahoan is calling you from airports around the globe with new ideas for the tiny city he calls home.

And it is not only Bonners Ferry which benefits from Marty's largesse. With co-authors Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen and Carol Kline and publisher Health Communications, Inc., almost half a million dollars from the proceeds of his two Chicken Soup books have been donated to organizations. large and small, assisting pets.

Marty Becker originally planned to spend the first year of the new century traveling the world with his beloved family of four. No one could have blamed him. His name was legion among veterinarians, he had published two wildly popular books, spoken at every veterinary school, he had been the first practice management speaker to address the World Small Animal Veterinary Conference, and he had been invited back five times. He could have retired to the pasture at Almost Heaven Ranch with his four horses and two dogs, and nobody would have thought to criticize. Then came the idea for the Million Pet Mission.

"Basically, I was feeling flush with the success of the first book, Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover's Soul, in terms of how wide and powerful its impact had been," he says. "It was the fastest selling, best selling, pet book in history and was, in spite of being out just seven months at the time, the 34th best-selling book in the country in 1998, according to USA Today. I thought, 'What could we do with the opportunity and responsibility that was before us with the incredible success of Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover's Soul?' How could we, in fact, 'give back to the future?'

"After consulting many experts and colleagues, I thought, 'What is the biggest goal, that's still do-able, that we could shoot for in the year 2000 as a big start against the problem of six million pets euthanized annually, a problem that has gone on, and on, for years?' That's where the idea of saving the lives of a million pets originated."

Petopia.com president and co-founder of the Million Pet Mission, Andrea Reisman, says only about 15 percent of the six million animals destroyed every year in the United States are dangerous, or suffer from intolerable pain or illness. "They wind up in shelters that do not have the resources to house, feed and care for the incredible flood of unwanted pets coming through their doors," she says. "The shelters often have no choice but to euthanize them. I can think of no service to the pet community more vital than helping to bring an end to this tragedy."

The Million Pet Mission is tackling the problem from three directions:

• First, it is working with the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and with Petfinder.org to create a giant on-line shelter to find good homes for a million unwanted animals. Six hundred shelters are now listed; the goal is to have 3,000 on line soon. "People want to find love on the Internet," Dr. Becker says. "Have we got the answer for them!"
  
  
• Second, the mission will utilize the media to promote awareness of pet behavior, the main reason animals are abandoned. Dr. Becker's role on "Good Morning America," "Animal Planet" and leading talk shows, combined with his global speaking engagements, will fuel this effort. His role as spokesman for Hallmark Cards Pet Love Greetings, where program coordinator David Welty says Marty has already helped steer the greeting giant to better understand the appropriate sending occasions for the line, will also further the message. His communication efforts will occur in concert with other high profile experts like Dr. Rolan Tripp.
  
  
• Third, the mission will support the work of the Doris Day Animal Foundation and other organizations in creating far-reaching spay-neuter programs to slow the tide of new animals into shelters.