BERNOULLI CAN ACTUALLY SWIM
And Bunsen Turns Eight!
Hi all!
We hope you are happy and healthy out there!
The dogs and cat had a great week!
We’re continuing to see steady improvements in Bunsen following his slipped disc. In fact, you’d be hard-pressed to notice anything wrong with him at all. He’s now been on a dozen “normal” walks through the creek and hasn’t shown any setbacks. His other harness is fitting a bit tighter now, so it looks like the big guy packed on a few winter pounds during his recovery! He’s super content to be on leash as long as he gets to come along, and he’s even been wading into the creek for slurps of cold spring water.
This week also marked Bunsen’s 8th birthday! We hosted a live show, and thousands of people tuned in live or watched the replay. It’s so heartwarming to see how our big guy has connected with people. After the pupcake inhalation, we shared a slideshow full of fun and touching memories. It was hilarious when we played the “Bunsen vs. Lemon” video — tons of our newer Instagram followers (who’ve joined because of Bernoulli and Ginger) realized they had already seen that viral clip! It was interesting reminiscing about how we started Bunsen’s social media journey — we didn’t even begin until he was nearly a year old. Our terrible rural internet made Twitter the best platform back then since we could post photos and short texts quickly. We barely have any baby Bunsen videos — mostly just pictures
!
Later in the week, we explored the creek while Bernoulli and Beaker played in the lake behind Norbert’s dam. Bernoulli went for a swim — and actually kept his paws in the water! It was like a lightbulb turned on in his head as he realized how much easier it is to swim without thrashing. Hilariously, he started doing circles in the pond to show off his new swimming skills.
It wasn’t a fluke either — he repeated his improved techniques the next day and again at Waggles (this time with his lifejacket on)!
No major updates on Beaker — she continues to be our goodest girl both at daycare and at home. She’s the calm between the Berners, which we’re grateful for, especially as Bunsen gets more shouty during his recovery. We’ve started a hybrid training program with her since her obedience training was cut short due to COVID. We’re revisiting it now and it’s going great!
On Saturday, we had a wonderful guest on Pet Chat — Dr. Sebastiaan Bol, the founder of Cowboy Cat Ranch, joined us to talk about cats. We’ve partnered with him to promote science-based cat health, and in a super exciting twist, Ginger will be the social media face of some of their upcoming work! It's such a great opportunity — and good news for cats everywhere.
As I’ve mentioned before, the second half of May and the first week of June are hellishly busy for Kris and me. We’re in full-on push mode, helping our students finish the curriculum and prepare for finals. On top of that, I’ve been asked to emcee the Science Olympics in Calgary, and I’m doing a science show for some Grade 2 kids at the end of the month. We also have fun partnerships coming up — I just finished some B-roll for Pretty Litter and we’ve teamed up with Canada Pooch as well. So yes — it’s busy!
Finally, we just want to take a moment to celebrate the growth of the Bunsen, Beaker, Bernoulli, and Ginger accounts on Meta!
It’s May now, and back in February of last year, Kris and I made the decision to try expanding our presence beyond Twitter/X. While we still have a home there with many wonderful longtime followers, the platform has changed, and many people have moved on.
At the time, our Instagram had stalled at around 20,000 followers, and our Facebook had just 1,200. It took a lot of work — learning how to create short-form content (something I’m still learning and improving at!) — but our efforts have paid off in a big way. Our Instagram has grown to an incredible 187,000 followers, and Facebook is now at 87,000!
I fully expect our Instagram to surpass our Twitter following within a month, and we may even hit 200,000 by end of summer.
We truly couldn’t have done this without an amazing new community of kind, supportive people who leave uplifting comments and give us the energy to keep going. It honestly feels like we’ve found a second and third team to join the family we built on Twitter.
Thank you, everyone — this is very cool! 🙌
Okay, on to the rest of the newsletter!
The Science Pawdcast
Our show this week has a really important break down on Fluoride which hits close to home. Calgary, the city just south of us in Alberta removed fluoride from water via public vote, only to vote it back in a decade later after the data and people’s lived experiences clearly showed a significant rise in tooth decay in children. Our guest this week has a really fun chat about teaching science, and sometimes teaching science to those who won’t use it within their career. It’s a fun chat!
Two of our BIG posts this week!
Bunsen’s Birthday Video (omg putting this together made me cry!)
Deals of the Week!
Grab the Bunsen Stuffie, Texts From Bunsen Volume 3 (and the ebook and audiobook) all for one low price!
Sadly, American customers, part of the Bunsen stuffie is subject to tariffs imposed on you by your own government and the tariff rate is currently 124% which will be paid by you upon delivery. (which is roughly 37USD for this item).
It was so much fun watching Bunsen's Birthday party 🥳🎉
It was great to see part of the Baby Bunsen vs The Lemon video. The whole video is hilarious 😁
Swimanoulli is great to see. I'm sure everyone is glad the shrimp got together to help him figure it out. I'm with you on keeping Bernoulli's PFD on in deeper and larger waters. He is still learning.
So many of us longtime Bunsen fans also got teary-eyed watching the wonderful video on his birthday. Time does fly by, doesn't it? As always, thank you for all your posts and videos across all the social media sites, and for sharing your pets' lives and also your family's humor, smarts, and heart with us.