ABSTRACT
It all started with the need to euthanize 10,000 animals at a metropolitan county Humane Society. My best friend and working colleague was interviewing for the Executive Director position and was asked by a board member if she would have any problem making these decisions. She quickly excused herself from candidacy and hurried to my home to debrief and develop a plan for our future. The plan we developed combined the three things that were (and still are) most important to us. We wanted to work with each other—knowing our approaches to research would complement each other (she has a Ph.D. in social work and is very detail oriented, and I have an M.S. in Animal Science and a Ph.D. in Public Health and like to develop the conceptual framework of researchable questions). We wanted to work with biopsychosocial aspects of aging and we wanted to involve animals. By the time my friend left that day, we had outlined an approach to develop a state-of-the art review of CAs and the elderly. Little did we know that our plan would evolve into a professional collaboration that would last for more than 44 years.
