Golden retrievers are known (and loved) around the world – they’re friendly, fiercely loyal, excellent service dogs and good with kids.  But for all that they add to their owners’ lives, veterinarians and experts on canine health have long puzzled over a sad fact: a significant percentage of retrievers – believed to be larger than other breeds – contract certain cancers and die at relatively young ages. After years of speculation on why this happens, a foundation devoted to advancing the health of animals has launched the largest study ever on retrievers and cancer, modeled on the famous [...]

Rick Spalding, an ordained Pastor in the Presbyterian Church, USA, hasn’t spent a lot of time reading from a script behind a pulpit. Following graduate degrees from the Yale Divinity School, Union Theological Seminary and the Hartford Seminary, he served congregations in Boston, New York City and Albany, New York before he moved into campus ministry at a number of institutions of higher learning including Harvard. Most recently, he served for 18 years as the Chaplain of Williams College, a liberal arts college in the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts. He focused on the pastoral care of students and [...]