Malcolm Gladwell

To get started, I did a little homework.

Sent out a tweet, asked listeners for feedback, scoured some Reddit threads, talked with people who'd been involved in the show over the years, trying to generate a highlight reel for the big birthday party.

What was her favorite moment, memory?

First thing I got back was from my colleague Ben-Nadaf Hafri, who talked to my old producer Eloise Linton about a reporting trip we took back in 2021 for the episode, The Dog Will See You Now.

Let me just butt in here and say that no one loves doing Alabama stories more than me.

Back in season two, we did The Foot Soldier of Birmingham.

Season 8, we did an episode called Footnote, remember?

For our Guns series, about a guy living on an old plantation outside of Tuskegee.

Season 10, we went to Scottsboro, Alabama for an episode of our 1936 Olympic series.

And we just did the Alabama Murders, a seven-part series about crime and punishment and redemption set in a little town in northwestern Alabama.

Ben and I went twice.

Ben went a third time on his own.

No one loves Alabama.

more than I love Alabama.

So in the middle of COVID, I want to do a story about how dogs are much better at detecting COVID than even the most sophisticated molecular bioassay.

And I find out that one of the biggest COVID canine training centers is an hour's drive from Birmingham, way up in the hills.

Alabama.

Cute puppies.

Viral epidemics.

My feeling was that this might be the perfect revisionist history story.