Wednesday, February 29, 2012

An Alpha Wolf Kills Another Alpha Wolf???


What?

An "alpha" wolf kills another alpha wolf? But that never happens!

But, of course, it happens all the time.

Wolf-on-wolf violence is one of the most common reasons wolves die in the wild.

From today's edition of The New York Times:

[T]oday, the alpha wolf of the Chippewa Harbor Pack and I are most likely recalling memories of the same event, even if we experienced it from wildly different perspectives....

One year ago, minus four days, I hiked over this same ridge and then just a quarter of a mile beyond. It was warm and sunny, like today. On a sled behind me, I hauled the 85-pound carcass of the alpha male of the Middle Pack; two days earlier, he had been killed by the alpha male of the Chippewa Harbor Pack.

In the year since, the Chippewa Harbor wolves have not had to defend their territory, as they are the only surviving pack on Isle Royale....

Grave-robbing Badgers Dig Up Cemetery


We very occasionally have the the same problem in the U.S. with badgers, groundhogs, prairie dogs and groundsquirrels.   I always give a wide birth to a rural cemetery tucked into the edge of a farm I hunt, despite the number of groundhog and fox settes located along the edge.  No reason for me to face a false charge of grave robbing! 

From the BBC comes this badger story from Swindon in the U.K.:

Badgers have burrowed under graves bringing bones to the surface at Swindon's Victorian Radnor Street Cemetery.

Frances Bevan, of the cemetery's preservation group, said the situation was "very distressing" for relatives.

Swindon Borough Council said: "Licences to move badgers are only granted in exceptional circumstances."

A spokesman said: "There have been occasions over the years where human remains have been found above the ground in the cemetery and we have reverently re-interred these as close to their original graves as possible."

Ms Bevan, from the Friends of Radnor Street Cemetery group, added: "It is quite a worry because the cemetery is pretty much left to its own devices and you just feel that there isn't anything you can do.

"The badgers are left to breed. I've no idea how many are up there but there are a couple of huge setts."

The site was designated a Local Nature Reserve in 2005, and under the Protection of Badgers Act 1992 it is illegal to interfere with a sett.
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Important Link

or how to give yourself a headache pondering moral societal dilemas

So I deleted my FB page last year for personal 
moral reasons about their privacy policies.

I have never downloaded music illegally.

I boycott Walmart and not because of their pay scale
 or lack of promotion for women and some ethnic groups, 
lack of health care for employees, etc. 
but for the owner family's minuscule amount of philanthropy.
I support the employees however, and damn I miss
my favorite scala rolls, and I do succumb 
maybe 2 times a year, just for the rolls... I'm weak that way.
anyway..where the heck am I leading you?
to beloved Pinterest.

yes, the world is abuzz about the copyright infringement issue,
and I was on my high horse just tonight saying to a dear friend
 "but I conscientiously pin and look how we promote others..."
and then I read this.
So many valid points plunked right into my lap, 
and up my nose.

so shucks, dang it all, I guess Pinterest has got to go for me.
I'll have to go back to my old way of bookmarking
 a zillion spots and then never organizing them, 
so I never do find them again,
and spend hours cussing at the screen in exasperation.

But I like to look in the mirror and know I am
 being honest and true, and doing the right thing, 
and I'm not sure anymore that I am.
Of course I can just pin my own personal stuff I suppose, 
but that will not excuse my looking 
at other stuff that is illegally pinned.
The point here is quite valid.
Even giving appropriate credit, we do not have permission from
these sources to use/share their work.. not even a little... 
much like a "little lie", a 'little cheating", a "little stealing" or 
a "little pregnant" whoops, off topic...

A quick test for me is always 
"What would Dad say?"
and damn, just now I got an email saying
"_____ just repinned your______"

I have to sit on this and 
slosh it around in my head a few days..
gosh that sounds like my head is up....
never mind

If my big red Pinterest widget disappears
well, you know....

Some days I hate being a grownup.

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Back to the Start... Back to the Garden of Eden


Willy Nelson sings Coldplay's "The Scientist"on this video.


Back to the start... back to the Garden of Eden, which was not crowded with two.

Remember, factory farms are not the problem -- they are a symptom of the problem.

The problem is human over-population.

No one woke up this morning trying to ruin the world.

They woke up trying to feed all the children.

And to do that, they cut down the forest, plowed up the land, pumped water from the aquifers, and tried to raise more crops and more animals with greater efficiency.

They tried to make a profit, which meant they raced to the basement in terms of pollution control, and they tried to keep up with their next door neighbors who boosted their farm yields with fertilizers while suppressing weeds and bugs with herbicides and pesticides.

No one set out to ruin the world. 

No one set out to be cruel or so far removed from nature.  But without family planning and self-restraint, this is what happens.
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Urban Fox and Coyotes


I got an email the other day from an outfit in the U.K. interested in doing a documentary on urban foxes. The were particularly interested in fox dens, and my description of den construction. How could they find a fox den, and perhaps take a cast of it?

I directed them to the work of David MacDonald who has tracked fox all over London, and suggested if they wanted to see a working fox den "any old gamekeeper should be able to help you but they are not going to be interested in wrecking the thing or in romanticizing the fox.  Fox are generally harmless, and are valued, but like any thing they can be a nuisance in the wrong place.  In short, fox are neither demons nor saint -- they are like feral cats, and in fact occupy that niche quite well."

I also noted that fox only den underground for a short part of the year, and that in an urban environment, that might not be in a dirt den, but in a crawl space under an outbuilding, under old roofing or detritus in a dump, under or inside an abandoned car, or inside a dry drain.

Of course, here in the U.S. we have urban and suburban fox almost everywhere, and I can get photos of them almost any night.

We now also have growing numbers of suburban and even urban coyotes.

In an essay called New Dog in Town, Christopher Ketcham writes that:

Wild Coyotes have settled in or around every major city in the United States, thriving as never before, and in New York they have taken to golf. I'm told that the New Yorker coyotes spend a good deal of time near the tenth hole on the Van Cortlandt Park Golf Course in the Bronx. They apparently like to watch the players tee off among the Canada geese. They hunt squirrels and rabbits and wild turkeys along the edge of the forest surrounding the course, where there are big old hardwoods and ivy that looks like it could strangle a man—good habitat in which to den, skulk, plan. Sometimes in summer the coyotes emerge from the steam of the woods to chew golf balls and spit them onto the grass in disgust.

Until recently, I couldn't quite believe that coyotes were established New Yorkers. Among neophyte naturalists it's an anomaly, a bizarrerie, something like a miracle. Coyotes, after all, are natives of the high plains and deserts two thousand miles to the west. But for anyone who takes the time to get to know coyotes, their coming to the city is a development as natural as water finding a way downhill. It is also a lesson in evolution that has gone largely unheralded. Not in pristine wilderness, but here, amid the splendor of garbage cans filthy with food, the golf carts crawling on the fairway like alien bugs, in a park full of rats and feral cats and dullard chipmunks and thin rabbits and used condoms and bums camping out and drunks pissing in the brush, a park ringed by arguably the most urbanized ingathering of Homo sapiens in America—here the coyote thrives. It seemed to me good news....

From California to Maine, there are more coyotes than at any time since records have been kept, their territorial expansion unprecedented in speed and scope....

That the coyote has expanded his range does not surprise biologists. What does confound is the suggestion, hotly debated, that the coyotes now taking over the eastern United States in fact represent a new subspecies of wild dog on the continent, the Canis latrans varietas. The western coyote is a smaller creature than the eastern cousin. The westerner weighs in at perhaps thirty pounds, looking somewhat like a fat fox. The eastern coyote grows as big as sixty pounds at his heftiest.... Chuck Jones, the animator, pegged the Trickster, in cartoon Latin, as Eatibus anythingus. Which is true: coyotes eat garbage, darkness, rats, air — they'd lap my beer if I let them.
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How to Diaper a Chicken



Your whiskey-tango-foxtrot of the day.
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Digging on the Dogs

Clitter of shale dig out by groundhog.

Recycling deer.

My digging pal with the catch of the day and two white dogs.
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Monday, February 27, 2012

When You Need Smart and Tough



When you need smart and tough, you need a Jack Russell.


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Badger Theremin


What the hell is a Theremin?

A Theremin is an odd electronic musical instrument that makes eery undulating noises without any apparent contact from the "player" who changes the tones of the instrument by simply moving his or her hands closer or father away from two antenna receivers. Named after Russian inventor Léon Theremin, the machine was patented in 1928 and it has never been very popular as sounds cannot be well controlled. Think "playing the saw" in electronic form, and you have the right idea.

Below we see a Theremin placed in the echo chamber of a taxidermy badger.

Why? Why not!

Today in Melbourne

Sorry I've been so slow in getting this information to you but it's been very busy here. Today we'll be here:

1:30pm Dymocks Melbourne, Lower Ground, 234 Collins Street, Melbourne

3:30pm Readings Carlton 309 Lygon Street, Carlton

WEDNESDAY11:00am  Book City Ballarat, 222 Sturt Street, Ballarat 1:00pm Stoneman’s Book Castlemaine, 101 Mostyn

Pedigree Dogs Exposed: Three Years On



Pedigree Dogs Exposed 2, aka Pedigree Dogs Exposed: Three Years On is scheduled for airing in the U.K. tonight at 9 pm.

It's the Pick of the Day in today's Guardian:

"Three years ago, Jemima Harrison exposed pedigree breeding practices that left many dogs with severe health problems. Since then, she's become a campaigner for canine welfare and now she revisits the issue to see if anything has really changed. Although there have been some improvements, she uncovers a depressing lack of progress. Flat-faced breeds such as pugs and bulldogs may look good enough to win prizes in dog shows, but sadly they're struggling to breathe."

Check it out!
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Saturday, February 25, 2012

FLOPPIN Ta-Tas

I am not a complicated person.
I love my kids, my friends, my home.
I have had my ups and downs.
I have been blessed.

Simple things make me happy.

Yesterday I watched a vintage horse race
arcade game operate
with mexican jumping beans.
I squealed out loud and scared Larry, the guy
I was working with.
He laughed out loud, and said that "tickled you huh?"
I said oh yes, and promptly played it again! 

I ran into two old friends, a married couple,
 at the bank yesterday.
Our kids used to play together, and the Mom and I
volunteered at the kids elementary school together
for 5 years. They are such a lovely couple and we 
played catch up in the parking lot of the bank.
It made me so happy to see them again.

My friend Tanya took some of my leftovers from
 the garage sale and put them in her etsy shop
 to try and sell for me. Now how sweet is that?!


SARAH                    TANYA

My SIL, the one who wears the weird hats from class?
She brought over to my work three stuffed bags of clothes
for me. She is now a skinny minny and gifted me 
some new duds. Since I have not bought any in years!
 Again..How sweet is that?!!!

But what has me really excited?
I slept for 11 hours last night!
In two sections, but who cares? ELEVEN hours...

cornelius bisschop

and then
there is the ultimate
simple pleasure that begins
for me this Sunday.

Roomie will be with his family for a week,
so I can walk around with ta-tas a floppin'.
You just have no idea how
deliriously happy this makes me.
What - you expect a picture?

Now, I have me some large,
unfortunately pendulous, pair of 
ta-tas and they like to swing free 
and unencumbered.
So imagine tube socks with a tennis ball in the toe. 


OK? Happy now?

So watch out world.
I am ready for the weekend
and the ta-tas are free falling...

Happy weekend all!

Friday, February 24, 2012

Melbourne and Bathurst book shops

I'll be at Dymocks, Readings and The Avenue in Melbourne next Tuesday afternoon. I'll have more details about times on Monday.On Friday 2 March at 12 noon, we'll be at Bathurst, Books Plus at 157 Howick St.. I hope our western friends can come in to meet us.

Oops. There Really IS Dominance in Wolves


We all make mistakes.  I make 'em every once in a while, and you do too.

The true test is not whether you make a mistake, but whether you own it, and by that test Lee Charles Kelley comes out alright.

I don't know Kelley.  Never read him before.  We might disagree on nothing, or disagree on almost everything.  I have no idea.  That said, I give him a small nod for cowboying up for a serious error.  It would be nice if other dog trainers would follow suit. 

Kelley writes in Psychology Today online:

A Mea Culpa to Mech, an Apology to Bekoff

When it comes to understanding canine behavior, Dr. David Mech — the world's leading expert on wolves — and Dr. Mark Bekoff — the world's leading expert on coyotes and canine play — are two of my biggest heroes. So imagine my chagrin to discover that they're both irritated with me....

I wrote a piece last week titled "Deconstructing the Dominance Myth (Again...)," which was a response to a personal blog post written by Dr. Roger Abrantes, posted on another part of the internet, far, far away. The main thrust of my article wasn't that dominant behaviors don't exist, but that the terms we're using to describe them are anthropomorphic, and that saddling dogs with these labels is harmful to any dogs whose behaviors may, in fact, be the result of stress or anxiety, not dominance. I now realize, and freely admit, that I made mistakes in my article, mistakes I wasn't aware of until Dr. Bekoff pointed them out to me here.

My first mistake was referring to the concept of dominance as a myth. That's a charged word, one that carries with it the implication that scientists who have dedicated their lives to understanding animal behavior are all operating under some kind of mass delusion. I deeply regret making that insinuation, however unintentionally. In recent years, it's become fairly common in the dog training world for some of us to talk about "the myth of dominance" in a somewhat cavalier way. What's generally meant by this is that the idea of dominating a dog, as the basis for a training system, isn't based on real science and can be harmful to the human-canine bond.

Dr. Bekoff also took me to task for the following passage:

"Dr. David Mech, the world's leading expert on wolves, says that in 13 years of studying the wolves on Isle Royale in Michigan he never saw any displays of dominance. In other packs Mech says that dominance displays are so rare as to be almost nonexistent."

I turns out that this isn't exactly true. I was basing what I said on the following passage from a 1999 paper ("Alpha Status, Dominance, and Division of Labor in Wolf Packs," Canadian Journal of Zoology.): "In natural wolf packs, the alpha male or female are merely the breeding animals, the parents of the pack, and dominance contests with other wolves are rare, if they exist at all. During my 13 summers observing the Ellesmere Island pack, I saw none." (I made another mistake by getting the geographical location of Mech's studies wrong.)

Dr. Bekoff apparently sent a copy of my post to Dr. Mech, who responded with the following: "A quick scan of the Kelley article reveals much misinformation attributed to me. This misinterpretation and total misinformation like Kelley's has plagued me for years now. I do not in any way reject the notion of dominance."

In his post, Dr. Bekoff pointed me (and other readers) to a 2010 paper written by Dr. Mech and H. Dean Cluff ("Prolonged Intensive Dominance Behavior Between Gray Wolves, Canis lupus") in which they write: "Dominance is among the most pervasive and important behaviors of wolves in a pack."

Clearly, I'm not keeping up on my research. So I was wrong to insinuate, here and in other pieces I've written on dominance, that Mech believes dominance is rare or doesn't exist at all in wild wolf packs. I apologize for my mistake and will attempt to make corrections to all the pieces I've written that contain this outdated view (there are a lot of them).

But wait. It gets worse!

My thesis about the cause of dominance and submission—as outlined briefly in my post—is that they're primarily the result of a wolf's internal tension and stress. But in the comments section of Dr. Bekoff's post, Simon Gadbois, from the Canid Behaviour Laboratory at Dalhousie University in Halifax, wrote: "My PhD thesis was on social stress in wolves... Jane Packard, that had done the stress studies with Mech in the 80's was on my committee. Here I can tell you that your interpretation is wrong because you are over-generalizing. We simply do not have enough data to jump to the conclusions that you get to."

Read the whole thing, but let me be clear that I am applauding Kelley for owning up to his error, setting the record right, and putting it in print.

Contrast that to another person who will remain unnamed, but who was the subject of a blog post about dominance (in which David Mech weighs in -- see the comments) authored by Dr. Mark Johnson.  Read that post here: Is Dominance Always Bad?  And, of course, the answer is NO. I featured excerpts from Dr. Johnson's post on this blog two years ago (see here) and even featured video of wolf dominance filmed by Dr. David Mech and Dean Cluff (see here).  For those who like video-enhanced story, I put up a post entitled Dominance Creates and Maintains Wolf Packs which told the story of the rise and fall of the Druid Wolf pack -- the largest wolf pack in the world at the time it was being filmed. 

And yet we still have this nonsense about dominance in wolves and dogs as a "myth."  Why is that?

Mostly it's because a small slice of dog trainers have decided that in order to differentiate themselves in the world of dog training they need to brand what everyone else is doing as "abusive" while proclaiming "their" method (click-and-treat) as the only one that is "scientific."  

This is the Internet School of Dog Training where Lee Charles Kelley has apparently been hanging out and drinking the Koolaid, and it seems he has simply not bothered (up to now) to actually read the sources that he and others have been referencing. 

Even now he cannot quite let go of the nonsense, writing that what he meant "is that the idea of dominating a dog, as the basis for a training system, isn't based on real science and can be harmful to the human-canine bond."

Um.  Mr. Kelley, you still don't get it.  Dominance is not violent.  It is not bad.  It is simply taking control and establishing respect and leadership on your part and establishing respect and followship on the part of the dog. It is not a threat to the human-canine bond, it is the essence of it.  And, to be clear, dominance occurs every day and not only with wolves, but also with dogs, people, elk, bison, and pretty much every other animal that lives in social groups (as well as many that do not). Dominance makes the world go around.

Kelley, describes himself as as a "neo-Freudian" dog trainer. I have no idea what that means, but he seems to think it has something to do with prey drive. I guess I know a little about prey drive in dogs since I have working terriers with the scars to prove it, but I have never felt any need to quote Freud. Let us remember that the real experts on dogs have tails. 

I have to say I find it amusing that Kelley says words like "dominance" and "submission" are "anthropomorphic" and then turns around and calls himself a "neo-Freudian" dog trainer.  Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot.  Not too much self-awareness there!

So what is this contrived and entirely fake controversy about dominance in dogs about? 

It is about marketing. 

Remember that dog trainers are trying to sell a service and so they are trying to differentiate themselves.

In order to differentiate themselves, a dog trainer may claim to be neo-Freudian or "gentle" or "natural" or "positive" or "holistic" or "balanced." 

Casting about for a rationale for why people should choose their training methods as opposed to their competitors, many of these folks have done two things simultaneously:

  1. Mis-characterized scientific work on wolves and dogs, including and perhaps especially the work of David Mech, and;
    .
  2. Mis-characterized the training methods of thousands of years of dogs trainers, including and perhaps especially the work of Cesar Millan, who happens to be the most famous dog training personality on television these days (a spot previously held by Barbara Woodhouse).

Since the previous text straightens out much of this mis-characterization of Mech, let me address the second one -- the mischaracterization of Cesar Millan. 

In Cesar's Rules, Millan and co-author Melissa Jo Peltier write about what Millan actually does and what he has actually written:

My co-author tells me that on occasion someone will say to her, “I don’t approve of Cesar’s training methods.” When she tells the person that what I’m doing isn’t dog training but dog rehabilitation, he or she often grudgingly admits to having watched only one or two episodes of the show or a one-minute clip on YouTube and typically has not read any of my books or seen my videos. When my co-author asks, “What do you think his methods are?” the answer invariably is something like, “Oh, all the choke chains and the e-collars and the alpha rolls.”

Well, any regular viewer of Dog Whisperer knows that these tools don’t fairly represent what such a critic would call “my methods.” Curious about this, our producers did a show-by-show breakdown, watching hundreds of hours of television and counting when a particular technique was used in any given episode. At the time the breakdown was done, we’d filmed 140 shows, covering over 317 separate cases of problem dog behavior.

The person who doesn’t approve of my “methods” might be surprised to learn that the number one thing I advocate nearly every show is simply leadership (in 98 percent of the episodes), which I teach as the calm-assertive energy that any leader, teacher, parent, or other positive authority figure projects to her followers. I’ve used the word dominance to describe the energy of leadership, but in the animal world dominance doesn’t mean “brutality,” and assertive certainly doesn’t mean “aggressive.” I believe that good leadership never involves bullying or intimidating; instead, it depends on confidence, knowing what you want, and sending clear, consistent messages about what you want.

The number two method I advocate, according to the producers’ breakdown, is body language (91 percent), which is a primary way in which leadership is projected in most animal species. My third top “method” is exercise — walk your dog properly at least twice a day (72 percent). And what is the fourth most common “method” I’ve used on Dog Whisperer episodes?

This one may shock a few people. I used positive reinforcement in one form or another 67 percent of the time in the first 140 shows. As Barbara De Groodt reminds us, positive reinforcement doesn’t have to mean cookies. It can mean anything that a dog likes and that becomes a motivator or reward for the dog.

Personally, I don’t think I have a specific “method” or “system” that I apply in order to change or improve a dog’s behavior. For me, there is no magic formula. I believe in trusting my instincts and in treating each dog as an individual.

So there you go: those are Millan's "methods," and if you oppose them, then you are telling me and the world that you oppose leadership, exercise, body language, and positive reinforcement.

There is much more in the book of course, but you will have to actually buy the book and read it.  Since a quick glance through Lee Charles Kelley's previous writings tells me he has not actually read Cesar Millan either, he might take a hint and do a little reading there too. 

Does reading books (and not just Internet bulletin boards and Facebook posts) make me an "old school" dog trainer?  

If so, then I am very old school, and I have the T-shirt to prove it



Fish on Friday


A nice array of properly aged Striped Bass.
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Thursday, February 23, 2012

The GOP: Kicked in the Crystal Balls Again




The entire nation is laughing at the hysterical histrionics of the Republican hype machine.

But to review reality for those who like to keep score:

  • When Obama came into office, General Motors was dead and Osama Bin Laden was alive.
  • Today, Osama Bin Laden is dead and General Motors is the largest car maker in the world.
  • Yesterday the Dow hit 13,000 -- a 24% increase in the last 4 months.
  • Al-Qaeda is on life support.
  • Muammar Gaddafi  is dead and we did not lose a soldier thanks to Obama's correct leadership.
  • The war on fraud in Medicare and Medicaid is racking up record recoveries thanks to enforcement efforts we did not see under Bush.
  • Wall Street is terrified Dodd Frank will force them to not cheat.
  • A new proposed tax restructuring will end tax subsidies to companies that move manufacturing jobs overseas, even as it lowers tax rates on companies than manufacture here in America.
  • National health care legislation means that since everyone will get sick someday, everyone has to now pay for insurance, and the insurance industry has to treat us like a large group; no more cherry picking!
  • Illegal immigrant entries have cratered thanks to massive law enforcement at the border and increased enforcement of employer sanctions at the job site.
  • More oil and natural gas is being drilled in the U.S. now than before Obama came into office.
  • Obama has saluted the 2nd amendment as an individual right, has gone trout fishing on the Gallatin River (and he got a new fly rod for his birthday), and taken wolves off of the Endangered Species List.
  • Obama has not cheated on his wife, has not written many years of racists newsletters, and has not embraced a Taliban-like Big Government Program to patrol what goes on in your bedroom.
  • Compare and contrast.  Choose or lose.  Remember in November.
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Today and next week


Hello everyone! We're still in the Blue Mountains and yesterday Hanno, Tricia and I drove out to the little heritage town of Millthorpe. It is a beautiful town, untouched by modern development with many old homes and shops. We had lunch there and came back via Bathurst. A lovely drive.



Today I'll be on 2GB Sydney radio with Chris Smith, talking about the book. After that, we'll drive over to

How Much Is That Jack Russell in the Window?


I've happily plundered the web site of Embrace Pet Insurance in the past to write about the true cost of Golden Retrievers, German Shepherds, English Bulldogs, and Dachshunds.

Now it's time to talk about the Jack Russell Terrierl love this write up from Embrace Pet Insurance

Right at the top, Embrace Pet Insurance says most people  do not want one.  No you do not!  Please do NOT get this dog if all you want is a cute lap dog.  Jack Russell Terriers are prey-driven hunting dogs.  They bark, dig, and they are a complete pain-in-the-ass.  Or as Embrace Pet Insurance puts it in their opening paragraph:

No matter how enamored you were of Eddie on Fraser or PBS' Wishbone, the fact is this: The Jack Russell Terrier (or the Parson Russell, as he's known in AKC circles) is almost certainly not the breed for you. That's not because Jack Russells are bad dogs. He was created for active work, and it's what he loves and what he is driven to do. If you have a job in mind for him that will push his limits and engage his full and enthusiastic attention, then you may be that rare person who is right for one of these dogs.

Bingo. And, on behalf of the dogs, THANK YOU Embrace Pet Insurance. The description goes on:

If you're wondering why your Jack Russell isn't as well-behaved as Eddie or Wishbone, it's because the dogs that portray those characters have full-time trainers on staff to keep them in line. More to the point, those dogs had full-time jobs, which is what the JRT wants and needs. His endless desire to be digging, barking and investigating can't and shouldn't be squelched. It should be celebrated by someone who loves the very traits that drive many JRT owners insane.

Bingo again. And again, on behalf of the dogs, THANK YOU Embrace Pet Insurance.

So what about health? Embrace Pet Insurance gets it right there too:

If you look at the list of diseases on the Jack Russell Terrier Club of America website, you'll decide this has to be one of the unhealthiest breeds around. Not so; it's just that most breed clubs aren't as relentlessly thorough about even the rarest health conditions that can affect their dogs.

Yep. Bingo again.

In fact The Jack Russell Terrier is just about the healthiest and longest living "breed" around, but that's not something those of us who love the dog are going to tell everyone, because we do not want people rushing out to acquire a Jack Russell terrier before they have gone into a quiet room to take inventory about themselves -- not who they want to be, but who they really are.

A dog is not a hat to try on and discard with fashion and mood; it is a commitment for life.

Let me suggest to you a simple truth: most people who want a dog need a cat and deserve a gold fish. Damn few people need a Jack Russell Terrier.

The health care costs of a Jack Russell are going to be pretty low, but you might find the fencing costs staggering (this little dog both digs and climbs), and they may eat your furniture if they are bored.

Still thinking about getting one of these dogs? Then please visit Jack Russell Rescue after reading this article twice. And if you are thinking about breeding a Jack Russell (please do not!), be advised that JRTCA members routinely test their breeding dogs for vision, hearing and other health problems, and so should you if you ever hope to find a place for your dogs in the marketplace. And no, Jack Russells do not sell for much money, so there's no big dollar puppy business to be had here. If that's your dream, can I suggest AKC toy poodles rather than JRTCA Jack Russells?

The Jack Russell Terrier Club of America (JRTCA) stands for the dogs, it stands for canine health, and it stands against the puppy peddlers who oversell other breeds. The JRTCA runs ads in almost every all-breed magazine every month telling people NOT to buy a Jack Russell terrier, with links to the "Bad Dog" page.
This is what a breed club should be doing, but so far as I know, the JRTCA is the only dog breed club in the world that actually does it.

If your take-away message from reading this little post is that Jack Russell terriers owners are fierce about protecting their dogs as healthy working dogs and keeping them out of rescue, then I have only two words to say to you: Damn right.
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This Obit Is Better Than Yours Will Ever Be

John Fairfax

This obituary is better than yours will ever be unless you lie very, very convincingly.  From The New York Times:

John Fairfax, Who Rowed Across Oceans, Dies at 74

He crossed the Atlantic because it was there, and the Pacific because it was also there.

He made both crossings in a rowboat because it, too, was there, and because the lure of sea, spray and sinew, and the history-making chance to traverse two oceans without steam or sail, proved irresistible....

At 9, he settled a dispute with a pistol. At 13, he lit out for the Amazon jungle.

At 20, he attempted suicide-by-jaguar. Afterward he was apprenticed to a pirate. To please his mother, who did not take kindly to his being a pirate, he briefly managed a mink farm, one of the few truly dull entries on his otherwise crackling résumé, which lately included a career as a professional gambler.

Mr. Fairfax was among the last avatars of a centuries-old figure: the lone-wolf explorer, whose exploits are conceived to satisfy few but himself. His was a solitary, contemplative art that has been all but lost amid the contrived derring-do of adventure-based reality television.... In recent years, Mr. Fairfax made his living playing baccarat, the card game also favored by James Bond.

Perfect, but there's actually more as this is the cut down version suitable for church goers.

New York Times obit writer Margalit Fox told Jim Romenesko that her published piece was actually a condensed and conservative version of the original, and that the bio on the Ocean Rowing Society website, which provided nice details about Fairfaxes' many whorehouse dalliances, was a little too much for modest Times readers. 

All the better!   A life too much for family newspapers? Let us aspire to that.

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Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Kill It With Fire


Hat tip to Heather Houlahan for finding this one. Best comment so far: "It's harvest time at the Donald Trump toupee orchard."
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You're Not an Abusive Dog Trainer, Are You?

My column from the March issue of Dogs Today.

Have you noticed that the "instant experts" have decided that every kind of dog collar is the wrong one?

A flat collar, after all, does not stop the dog from pulling, while a slip collar can choke! Surely no one would greenlight either one!

A pinch collar pinches, while an e-collar shocks. Surely no one would greenlight either one!

What about a constriction harness or a head halter?

Good lord NO! The former squeezes the dogs insides and does nothing to stop the dog from pulling, while the later can scrape against the eye and cause corneal damage and neck injury.

After hearing this, if you are terrified that you might "do it wrong," with your new dog, then the message has worked.

You see, so much of this nonsense comes from dog trainers who are intent on selling their services, their books, and their CD-roms.

Their main message is that you are probably incapable of training your own dog without their input.

If you go it alone with a book from the library, you might injure your dog!

Never mind that hundreds of millions of dogs have been trained for thousands of years on six continents without the advice of professional dog trainers.

Modern professional dog trainers want you to know they are here to Save the Day ... provided, of course, you have a credit card.

Part of their pitch is fear.

You aren't an ABUSIVE owner are you? Because they want you to know they do not believe in ABUSIVE dog training.

You don't believe in OUTDATED training methods do you? Because they want you to know they believe in only the LATEST, MODERN methods.

Surely you want to be modern and non-abusive?

All right then -- sign up with any of the trainers to be found in the directory!

Now there is nothing wrong with going to a dog trainer (I am all for it), and there is nothing wrong with click-and-treat dog training (I am all for that too).

But do me a favor eh? Don't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining!

Example one is the simple slip collar. It's been used for a thousand years and it works. I am past 50 years old and I have never seen a dog injured by one, and I bet you haven't either.

I have seen dogs injured by cars, fences, broken glass, hot tar, excess body weight, and roofing nails, but never by a slip collar.

Have you not noticed that your own vet puts a plastic slip lead on your dog before leading it out to the waiting room?

True! Is your vet an “abusive” veterinarian? Probably not!

Now to be clear, I am not advocating one kind of dog training over another, or one kind of collar over another.

I am all for click-and-treat dog training, and I have no hesitation saying that it works, and that it works well for most dogs in most situations. If you want to proceed with clicker training, then do so by all means and with my full encouragement!

That said, I would be very wary of any dog trainer who shows too little respect for the very real on-the-ground succcesss of thousands of other dog trainers who have employed dozens of other diverse techniques over hundreds of years. Konrad Most, Barbara Woodhouse, William Koehler, Cesar Millan, and very fine dog trainers training police dogs, military dog, search-and-rescue dogs, herding dogs, bird dogs, and fox hounds all over the world are proof that obedient and enthusiastically happy dogs can be had using a wide variety of methods.

I would also be wary of any dog trainer that says compulsion has no place in the world of dog training.

At its simplest, dog training is simply getting a dog to do what it will not do naturally and on your schedule, whether that is an entirely artificial act such as running weave poles or retrieving a shot bird to hand, or not chasing a cat or barking at the mailman.

Yes, earned reward and praise is core to training.

Yes dogs and children need love, support and praise. But both dogs and children also need time outs and an occasional jerk back to the straight and narrow as well. Leashes and collars exist for a reason, same as curfews and police stations. Anyone who tells you otherwise, is deluded.

Yes, by all means, teach your dog what it needs to do in order to get a reward.

Part of training, however, is also to train your dog what NOT to do.

Not every signal you send will be positive, and on rare occassion your signal may not be entirely gentle. There is no place for cruelty or anger in the world of dog training, but there is most certainly a place for clarity and some high-drive dogs are, truth be told, a little tone-deaf to mere suggestion.

If your goal is to take your dog off leash, your NO signal has to be every bit as strong as your dog’s GO signal when it comes to prey drive, sex drive, play drive, and food.

Who among us wants to become an international YouTube sensation for screaming out our dog’s name (“Fennnntttton!”) as it bounds over four lanes of traffic chasing a herd of deer? No one!

In short, collars and leashes have a place in every training regime, as does both positive reward and certain level of compulsion.

If someone comes along and tells you otherwise, be extremely wary.

And if that same someone tells you everyone else has been doing it wrong for 2,000 years, walk away in the opposite direction.

Nothing good ever started with a lie.


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Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Are You Throwing Money Down the Drain?


Most of the common antibiotics prescribed for humans are exactly the same as the ones used for dogs, and the pill, capsule and gel-caps versions of these antibiotics are good for many years past their expiration date.

The fact that expiration dates on pill antibiotics are a marketing fraud has been widely know for years. In an article entitled "Drug Expiration Dates - Do They Mean Anything?", The Harvard Heath Letter summarizes a 20-year study done by the FDA for the U.S. military:

It turns out that the expiration date on a drug does stand for something, but probably not what you think it does. Since a law was passed in 1979, drug manufacturers are required to stamp an expiration date on their products. This is the date at which the manufacturer can still guarantee the full potency and safety of the drug.

Most of what is known about drug expiration dates comes from a study conducted by the Food and Drug Administration at the request of the military. With a large and expensive stockpile of drugs, the military faced tossing out and replacing its drugs every few years. What they found from the study is 90% of more than 100 drugs, both prescription and over-the-counter, were perfectly good to use even 15 years after the expiration date.... So the expiration date doesn't really indicate a point at which the medication is no longer effective or has become unsafe to use.... Is the expiration date a marketing ploy by drug manufacturers, to keep you restocking your medicine cabinet and their pockets regularly? You can look at it that way.

The Wall Street Journal put this story on their front page a few years back. But don't take my word for it: You can read the article, in its entirety, right here.

Do drugs really stop working after the date stamped on the bottle? Fifteen years ago, the U.S. military decided to find out. Sitting on a $1 billion stockpile of drugs and facing the daunting process of destroying and replacing its supply every two to three years, the military began a testing program to see if it could extend the life of its inventory. The testing, conducted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, ultimately covered more than 100 drugs, prescription and over-the-counter. The results, never before reported, show that about 90% of them were safe and effective far past their original expiration date, at least one for 15 years past it.

In light of these results, a former director of the testing program, Francis Flaherty, says he has concluded that expiration dates put on by manufacturers typically have no bearing on whether a drug is usable for longer. Mr. Flaherty notes that a drug maker is required to prove only that a drug is still good on whatever expiration date the company chooses to set. The expiration date doesn't mean, or even suggest, that the drug will stop being effective after that, nor that it will become harmful.

Medscape has posts here and here (PDF).

The U.S. Department of Defense has a post here.

The AMA has noted that antibiotics are good for years past their shelf life and has raised questions about how much medicine is being tossed down the sink.

So how come so few veterinarians seem to know this?

The answer, I think, is illuminating.

You see, on some important issues, veterinarians are often taught very little. The entire "course" given on canine nutrition, for example, may be a single lecture from a dog food salesman. The lecture on flea and tick remedies may be a lecture from a Merial salesperson who will detail "the spread" to be made from selling non-prescription Frontline as if it were a prescription drug (hint: it's not).

As for antibiotics, vets will learn by heart the branded and generic names of various drugs, and what they treat, but they may not learn other essential information.

And, as alarming as it may sound, that's true for many human doctors too.

Pharmacist and U.S. Army Colonel George Crawford, who used to be in charge of the Department of Defense's pharmaceutical Shelf Life Extension Program (SLEP) notes :

"Nobody tells you in pharmacy school that shelf life is about marketing, turnover and profits."

Right. Apparently no one does in veterinary school either.

You would think veterinarians and doctors might learn about this stuff in a Continuing Medical Education (CME) course, right?

Except there is a little joker in the deck.

You see, those CME courses are heavily subsidized by drug and vaccine makers, who help pay the speaker fees and travel costs for many of the lecturers.

Drug and vaccine makers make money when people throw good medicine down the drain, and they make money when dogs are over-vaccinated.

The business of canine health care is business, and good health and integrity often take the hind post.

Everyone in the system -- vets, pharmacies, and manufacturers -- profit when dogs are over-vaccinated and non-expired medicines are thrown down the drain.

Billions of dollars are wasted every year as a consequence.

The problem with over-vaccination and flushing good medicines down the drain is more than money, of course.

Throwing good antibiotics down the drain unnecessarily adds to the antibiotic load in our sewers, streams and rivers -- the very kind of thing that can help establish a beach head for real pathology in our own communities.

For those looking for information on antibiotic type and dosage to treat simple flesh wounds, urinary tract infections, and ear infection on your dogs, see this link on the main web site.

For those looking to obtain antibiotics without prescription, simply look in almost any dog supply catalogue in the country (see here, here, here, here for example) or simply go to Amazon.com (see here) and order. 

Antibiotics without prescription have been sold to treat common farm and kennel ailments for years, and they work fine with a few caveats:  know what you are dosing for, know how what you should be dosing with, know how much to dose, and know how long to maintain the dosing regime.   A barbed-wire flesh wound or cut foot is a pretty simple thing to diagnose, but some others are not.  If you are in doubt about what is going on with your dog, go to a vet.
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Monday, February 20, 2012

Some book review links


Most Australians know Wendy Harmer - she's a crazy-mad comedian who has made us laugh on various programs on TV and radio for many years. Just between you and me, I think she and I would get on very well; I have my crazy-mad moments too.  In addition to all the other things she does, Wendy has a great web site called The Hoopla. Megan from The Byron Life has written a review about my book on The

Digging on the Dogs

I've had some shoulder problems which, combined with the warm weather, has kept me out of the field. Two weeks ago I got out to one of my farms to find a mounted hunt pack with about 40 hounds and a number of horses unloading and an ambulance blocking the road as one of the riders had fallen and broken his shoulder. I stopped and talked to the huntsman a bit, and then crossed over the river to hunt the other side.

It was supposed to snow yesterday, but by the time morning showed up, that was pretty clear nonsense. I loaded the dogs and hit the farms, and was about half way out when I realized I had no coat, no vest, nothing but a long-sleeve shirt over a T-shirt. Oh well, at least I had a decent hat! I checked the temperature, and it was 33 degrees, so it would not be too bad.  Serious walking at 30 degrees and a shirt is about perfect. If there was going to be much wind or standing around I would be in trouble, but that would be a problem I would deal with if it came up (though I was not too sure how).

The dogs bounced out of the truck, and very quickly it became apparent that the groundhogs were moving about. This is mating season for them, and the males will roam looking to find as many females as they can. The females will clean out their dens a bit, evacuate their bowels, and then bunker back down with a dirt plug in the mouth of the den to keep out intruders and water.  I like this time of year, as I can find new dens before they disappear under the vegetation that starts to spring out in early April.


I was headed to a fox sette I have worked a few times in years past. The huntsman I talked to a few weeks ago asked me if I had seen coyotes on the farm. I had not, but he said they were there (no surprise) and that he had found a vixen with her throat torn out by one a few weeks earlier.   Yow!

As I headed to the fox den, Mountain and Gideon crowned over a slight rise and disappeared. When I got to the sette, I stopped and listened. Nothing. I waited and then I heard a barking below. The sound was a bit illusive, but I eventually found the dogs about 30 feet from the fox den, and down a wooded slope thick with multiflora rose. Gideon was inside baying up a storm, and Mountain was working two different holes trying to get in along an alternate route.


I leashed up Mountain and put her at a hole that she was interested in, but I thought an unlikely pipe to support an exit. It was probably where Gideon had entered.

I downed tools and boxed for Gideon. He was not deep, and very near another exit. Looking good. Ten inches down I hit solid rock. A bit of soil removal and I ascertained that it was an enormous rock that had cracked into three pieces, with the edges still firmly together. I got out the smaller one, which was about the size of my head, with some difficulty. Then using the the bar and and post hole handles as a lever, along with the shovel, I managed to get out the second stone which was about as big as a sofa cushion.


Things moved quickly and easily after that. I managed to snare the groundhog, take his picture, and let him go for another day ("and now with your third hand...") while keeping Gideon underground by kicking a blocking rock into the hole.


Once I was sure the groundhog was good and gone, I let Gideon out, but leashed him up immediately, as I was not interested in him going to ground on the same animal again. I packed up, and with the dogs on lead, headed back to the truck. It was going to be a short day. No need to push the shoulder early in the season.



It looks like the farmer is repairing the old barn, which makes me happy as it is a massive structure and I hate to see old barns left to fall in on themselves.

I got back home in time to see my son off to college.  It's a four-hour drive down to Blacksburg, and he located the snow that never reach us on his way up the valley, sending me this picture from his cell phone along the way.

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Sunday, February 19, 2012

FINAL/LAST EVER/ NO/ I MEAN IT!

What do you see?
I see a heavenly sight.




That's right...
It's just the garage...
(and you gals know I dig a clean garage)
No piles of collectibles and finials
old windows and Christmas trees, 
 clothing and books,
and dishes, bar stools and globes
and the myriad mountains of other 
STUFF
that we (6 of us) unloaded,
sold to our lovely
customers on Saturday at my
FINAL< LAST EVER< NO, 
I REALLY MEAN IT!
GARAGE SALE.
I EVEN TOSSED ALL MY
FLOWER STREWN SIGNS I HAVE USED
FOR EIGHT YEARS.
'CAUSE I MEAN IT
DAGNABIT!

 I have asked several friends to 
hit me upside the head with an iron skillet 
if I EVER suggest we have another one here at 
my house. Between friends dropping off stuff for weeks
and friends shopping early almost every night
it is 2 weeks of pure hell, trying to make it all fit,
and show it off to it's best advantage....
BUT
we hauled in the dough. YAY!

So today to celebrate, I finally upgraded my cell phone
because they gave me a coupon for a free android
(WoOt! joining the big leagues)
and spent 3 hours trying to navigate the 
blessed thing.

Did anyone else actually enjoy 
their weekend?
I hope so...
I have to wait another 5 days to try 
and enjoy the next one....

To my crazy buds who spent Saturday with me
Thank you, I love you, and let's NEVER


do this again.. <3
Justice and Eisenhower agree.
They were locked up in house all day long
and they were NOT happy.