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Rick LeCouteur
Inviting young readers to marvel at the wonder of nature's creatures
Rick's Blog
#bunyipsbooksbeyond
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Dopamine Demystified: Movement, motivation, meaning (#393)
If you’ve heard that dopamine is the brain’s feel-good molecule , you’ve only got the movie trailer, not the full film. Dopamine is less...
Rick LeCouteur
44 minutes ago3 min read
Teaching Vet Med Like It’s 2025: Why 2010's methods don’t belong (#392)
Vet school lectures are seldom attended by Gen Zers, who prefer to learn via digital platforms in their own time Fifteen years ago, I...
Rick LeCouteur
1 day ago3 min read
From Data to Wisdom: A veterinarian’s guide to smarter decisions (#391)
Modern tools and timeless judgment shape better patient care. In veterinary medicine, clinical decision-making is rarely about a single...
Rick LeCouteur
4 days ago4 min read
Street Photography: Presence, permission, and the unscripted moment (#390)
Street photography is the making of unstaged photographs of everyday life in public spaces , using observation and timing to reveal a...
Rick LeCouteur
5 days ago2 min read
Contextualized Veterinary Care: Matching medicine to context (#389)
Conceptual diagram of the complex iterative processes involved in practicing contextualized care, acknowledging the involvement of...
Rick LeCouteur
6 days ago4 min read
When Veterinary Teams Fracture: Mistreated allies become foes (#388)
In veterinary medicine, as in all professions, the strength of a leader is measured not by the title on the door or the number of...
Rick LeCouteur
Aug 103 min read
Mr. Tom Puss: The ship’s cat of the First Fleet (#387)
In 1787–88 the First Fleet , eleven ships under Captain Arthur Phillip (two naval escorts, six convict transports, and three store...
Rick LeCouteur
Aug 94 min read
Veterinary Leadership: The Peter Principle explained (#386)
In 1969, Dr. Laurence J. Peter introduced a painfully humorous yet alarmingly accurate concept in his book The Peter Principle: Why...
Rick LeCouteur
Aug 83 min read
How Vets Make Decisions: It’s not just about logic (#385)
When the day gets busy, or fatigue sets in, the first casualty in a veterinarian’s schedule is often thinking time . To stay afloat, we...
Rick LeCouteur
Aug 54 min read
The Spoils System: Mark Twain’s perspective (#384)
The term spoils system often conjures images of a bygone era in American politics, a time when public offices were distributed as...
Rick LeCouteur
Aug 53 min read
The Fragility of Freedom: Lessons from 1933 (#383)
Burning of The Reichstag, 1933 “To know your future, you must know your past” George Santayana (1863-1952) Adolf Hitler’s rapid...
Rick LeCouteur
Aug 44 min read
Silent Stories: Rethinking narrative medicine for animals (#382)
In human healthcare, narrative medicine emerged in the early 2000s as a response to the increasing depersonalization of modern medical...
Rick LeCouteur
Aug 33 min read
The Great Hedge of India: How empires enforce borders (#381)
Long before the Berlin Wall or the US–Mexico border fence, the British built a living barrier across the heart of India. A hedge so vast...
Rick LeCouteur
Aug 23 min read
Obesogens: What veterinarians should know (#380)
While diet and exercise are often blamed for rising obesity rates, accumulating evidence points to a less visible culprit—...
Rick LeCouteur
Jul 283 min read
Rethinking Outdoor Cats: The invisible toll on Nature (#379)
Cats are among the most cherished companions in the modern world. Their independence, elegance, and comforting purrs have earned them a...
Rick LeCouteur
Jul 274 min read
Rethinking Willpower: Understanding obesity in a new era (#378)
The rise of weight-loss medications— GLP-1 receptor agonists like semaglutide and tirzepatide —has ignited a storm of admiration, hope,...
Rick LeCouteur
Jul 274 min read
Infuse, Don’t Impose: A model for sustainable change in veterinary culture (#377)
There is no exact match in existing leadership literature that mirrors the biomedical precision and internal diffusion principles of...
Rick LeCouteur
Jul 212 min read
Convection-Enhanced Leadership: Deliver change where it matters (#376)
A conceptual illustration of convection-enhanced leadership in a veterinary hospital setting, translating a clinical metaphor into an...
Rick LeCouteur
Jul 213 min read
Managing Problems from Within: Convection-enhanced leadership (#375)
What can the treatment of brain tumors teach us about leadership in veterinary medicine? In the mid-1970s (Yes – 50 years ago!), I found...
Rick LeCouteur
Jul 214 min read
Evolution Explained: Separating fact from fiction (#374)
Giraffes didn’t evolve long necks just to reach high leaves – though that may play a role. The more compelling evolutionary explanation...
Rick LeCouteur
Jul 204 min read
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