Dog search team expert Cat Warren’s current work focuses on historical research, specifically: searching for abandoned or hidden burial grounds. This fascinating branch of search work combines history, racism, grief, and social reckoning. 

In this episode we cover: 

• How dogs let us talk about historical acts of violence in ways that seem impossible otherwise
• Are there bones in the highway you’re driving? Probably yes. 
• Where to even start looking for burial grounds someone wanted to keep hidden
• How Cat’s atheism intersects with searching for remains
• Cat’s version of hope: is it ugly, or is it beautiful? Hard to say. 

About our guest:

Cat Warren is the New York Times bestselling author of What the Dog Knows: Scent, Science, and the Amazing Ways Dogs Perceive the World. The book tells the story of learning to work with her impossible young shepherd as a cadaver dog to find the missing and dead. It won critical acclaim and was long listed for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award. She taught science writing, journalism, and creative nonfiction at North Carolina State University for 26 years before retiring in 2021.

Additional resources

All of Cat’s information is at her website 

dogs-archaeology.html">NY Times article on cadaver dogs and archaeology 

African American burial grounds & cadaver dogs

Get in touch:

Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of Here After with Megan Devine. Tune in, subscribe, leave a review, send in your questions, and share the show with everyone you know. Together, we can make things better, even when they can’t be made right. 

Have a question, comment, or a topic you’d like us to cover? call us at (323) 643-3768 or visit megandevine.co

For more information, including clinical training and consulting, visit us at www.Megandevine.co

For grief support & education, follow us at @refugeingrief on IG, FB, TW, and @hereafterpod on TT

Check out Megan’s best-selling books - It’s Okay That You're Not Okay and How to Carry What Can’t Be Fixed  

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.