tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58100334294617917442024-03-16T12:45:12.409-04:00Raised By WolvesDogs. Dawgs. Other critters. Life as Oliver Wendell Douglas. Live heirlooms, both flora and fauna. Self-sufficiency. Suffering not a fool to live. Land stewardship. Turnip trucks, and those who have not fallen therefrom. Training things. Growing things. Search and rescue. What is this bug and what is it doing under my desk light?
Embracing the reality that Nature Bats Last.Heather Houlahanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13891198124130533198noreply@blogger.comBlogger391125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5810033429461791744.post-27909060457346272532024-03-08T01:52:00.000-05:002024-03-08T01:52:23.758-05:00Expertise<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The very least of the rolling disaster that was our spring and summer, 2023, was the escape of Sneaky Fucker from the designated Pasture of Testicles, his breach of several layers of both woven wire and electrically-charged security, and the subsequent impregnation of the Wrong Goats at the Wrong Time by the Wrong Guy.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">But here we are, trying to keep 2# kids alive in the middle of winter. And here the Nigerian does are, doing their goat kegels to keep those tailhead ligaments nice and tight every day until I have checked them and walked away, at which point they skulk off and look for a nice ice crevasse or maybe a lava pit where they can give birth and then immediately forget what they were doing and go out for sushi with their friends.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">On Tuesday it was We Broke the Planet warm, dry, sunny. Nobody was birthin’ no babies, they <i>swore</i>. The lambs were romping, the ewes and does were sunbathing.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">At hay time and last pasture check, the black clouds were starting to roll in.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And <i>this </i>absolute ding-dong comes shuffling down from the rise in the big pasture with a tiny strawberry blond babby alongside.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbOpuu_xOGRlZ9XoBaQ_RDSBdS2RVNKcR79R_2te19GD1cLuFAgmR7LAEes344NghlUXYiruUazJOCHv1X-KBqHLCKJnT4oCfpM7zZrET-9dCrJWorelw3SzayflpUw48Cm3ZgSbJ1hMsARIU8aJh-v2KKIkWj2h6LkgY2zQl0ikwud_QCbu9g4mPeayh1/s798/IMG_1926.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="798" data-original-width="779" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbOpuu_xOGRlZ9XoBaQ_RDSBdS2RVNKcR79R_2te19GD1cLuFAgmR7LAEes344NghlUXYiruUazJOCHv1X-KBqHLCKJnT4oCfpM7zZrET-9dCrJWorelw3SzayflpUw48Cm3ZgSbJ1hMsARIU8aJh-v2KKIkWj2h6LkgY2zQl0ikwud_QCbu9g4mPeayh1/s320/IMG_1926.jpeg" width="312" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Mug shot vibe? So be it.</i></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Huh.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Picked up the little buckling and reached for his normally — well, <i>compliant</i> is not a word generally applied to goats, but at least <i>tame</i> — mother.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">She decided to play wyld gôte, Absolutely not, she was not going to cooperate in the project of going into a safe warm dry stall with a heat plate for her child, with all the hay and alfalfa pellets and grain she could nom.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">So we played greased pig for 25 minutes with her kid stuffed into my shirt, and boy those clouds were ominous and wind was picking up.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Another 15 to get a stall freed up and the two of them installed, and now the rain was starting and the temperature was dropping.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I did a circuit of the 8 acre pasture and decided everyone was accounted for,</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Then I decided I had better be sure and that rain was coming nasty now.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Went into the house to get a raincoat and an expert.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Sammie looked outside and told me to go to Hell Kemosabi.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">“Sam, I need your help.”</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Oh, if you put it <i>that</i> way.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">She levitated and started chortling, because <i>I’m your dog</i>, so what is it we are doing in this now sideways rain and fuck is this <i>hail</i>?</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">She’d seen and smelled the doe, Cait, and the wee buckling, when I brought them out.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">She is all about context.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">As I started on the perimeter of the pasture fence near where I had first seen the two, she started casting into the wind, then shot straight and started examining the ground about 20 meters away.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I caught up with her, and there was the placenta. A favorite dog treat here, but she had no interest in eating it; it was more data for the mysterious logic engine under her skull.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">What the placenta told her was that not everyone was accounted for. It smelled of Cait, and of the buckling, and also someone else. But I didn’t understand that yet. Just that she was insistent that we keep going.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Don’t bring in an expert and then disregard what they tell you.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">It was getting pretty dark.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">She started casting really aggressively now. I walked the perimeter to get all the way downwind and then we turned to work into it. The hail was driving into the elderly rain jacket I had grabbed. Was that lightning? Is the middle of a hilltop field next to a long high-tensile fence the ideal place to be?</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I still didn’t really believe in another kid. I expected to perhaps find another spot in the pasture with birth slime.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Sam looked so pretty, searching into that squall, that I pulled my phone out to record her pattern of low casting, get some video of how she worked in unreasonable conditions, and just as I looked up:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='441' height='367' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dwu74pWAc6wZ8GFPq9hRtgMo2etyNMZN0gESHH4qyx7QGHJaOUHEydLjsO6kkL9DS1RqsbNzIuJfpD7RZ8IQQ' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><br /> <i>I’m not crying you’re crying.</i><p></p><p>For our troubles, we got accusatory huffing from The Ding-Dong. How very <i>dare</i> we maliciously snatch her darling daughter from her? If that’s not what happened, then how is that we had her? What were we implying about her famously excellent maternal qualities? She knew <i>exactly</i> where she had put the child!</p><p>I wasn’t about to leave that stall until I saw Baby Girl get a nice drink of fresh bewb juice, and Cait was still indignant and pissy. Maybe she would just dance and kick a little when the prodigal tried to nurse?</p><p>Maybe I have no compunction about cold-cocking a goat?</p><p>Oh, you didn’t explain it like that <i>before</i>.</p><p>Baby got her bewbie.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMUpKEdfVy-QO-9J1a6eSkzwqzm24v1cDV34gaTE25VEdLKs7l3HnYP327ADbOiQkDHiUuthZOsKYyGj0WP1sUXFv0bY8R4yBfMBbM4US3t8F6j4Jz5_PRAqAC-MoSvOcnK-8FKpHdLWPmvITF3s31xW5g1n6JOkR84dHmbinutmliJytLnooJqJpjCf_H/s4032/IMG_1930.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMUpKEdfVy-QO-9J1a6eSkzwqzm24v1cDV34gaTE25VEdLKs7l3HnYP327ADbOiQkDHiUuthZOsKYyGj0WP1sUXFv0bY8R4yBfMBbM4US3t8F6j4Jz5_PRAqAC-MoSvOcnK-8FKpHdLWPmvITF3s31xW5g1n6JOkR84dHmbinutmliJytLnooJqJpjCf_H/s320/IMG_1930.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Heather Houlahanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13891198124130533198noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5810033429461791744.post-46003653525784431902022-06-06T15:04:00.000-04:002022-06-06T15:04:08.966-04:00Nae king! Nae quin! Nai laird! Nai master! We willnae be fooled again!<p> Brandywine Farm is currently occupied by a brawling, rolling, apparently drunken mob of <a href="https://www.terrypratchettbooks.com/books/the-wee-free-men/" target="_blank">Wee Free Men</a>.<br /><br />Welcome to the Nac Mac Feegle, Clay-Over-Limestone Clan.</p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZdmPHAcCZcoyrq-NW3cG9ObIj5sBvkDBZIxJHzDqctw9Sj_NyVaZNOulbHUs3MNjX9TKwF2OiHsyJ_ZNOVTNJ-IlBsaEkGj3-0_t83SSJ8Gq7g7zFYMnGIsRUF3y1UlHsBjfGm1LRwkquw3Xa9tytCiQYQgHZhwZ-LVZxc9LOdY2MTdQYodsCS9L7ZA/s369/rob%20anybody%203wk.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="361" data-original-width="369" height="391" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZdmPHAcCZcoyrq-NW3cG9ObIj5sBvkDBZIxJHzDqctw9Sj_NyVaZNOulbHUs3MNjX9TKwF2OiHsyJ_ZNOVTNJ-IlBsaEkGj3-0_t83SSJ8Gq7g7zFYMnGIsRUF3y1UlHsBjfGm1LRwkquw3Xa9tytCiQYQgHZhwZ-LVZxc9LOdY2MTdQYodsCS9L7ZA/w400-h391/rob%20anybody%203wk.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rob Anybody is the Big Man. No one knows why.</td></tr></tbody></table><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcaq_0f8XfkC2xT-qIzMAcPSAuSTfxr0t8XkbM27TOatuMjwVlaGni1W4x586cIo-V9wzOzISkY12_1wiYCijZvUmsV6dhV2Gq7XIelLu-2qeii59KRSdo4WwQL7nRQXkGtmMG4o8OVFtlwmc_RErKL5yUo1DMOd2c602-Af7yl18yLX9Cp8wV3AMW5w/s335/angus%203wk.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="335" data-original-width="335" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcaq_0f8XfkC2xT-qIzMAcPSAuSTfxr0t8XkbM27TOatuMjwVlaGni1W4x586cIo-V9wzOzISkY12_1wiYCijZvUmsV6dhV2Gq7XIelLu-2qeii59KRSdo4WwQL7nRQXkGtmMG4o8OVFtlwmc_RErKL5yUo1DMOd2c602-Af7yl18yLX9Cp8wV3AMW5w/w400-h400/angus%203wk.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nearly Big Angus. He's nearly big. Unlike his brother William the Gonnagle, his white blaze meets his collar over his head.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPaNRanfgrpLpJlj2QpdoZGcc_P-28z1SUpfbHRPwcIATdqxpn9DBUiViBkesRWZlB2b2_MRAc5qvN6to253Jamc8KAPVkBn6V-YCQk-kN_Qnb-2ovR6doYGQl5MKR7rWmMmRGCe2yYR-9Az1XE6Jve8LK089ZRynUe52ZyNZGv45JoV4UadwjwPhCuw/s284/big%20yan%203wk.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="284" data-original-width="275" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPaNRanfgrpLpJlj2QpdoZGcc_P-28z1SUpfbHRPwcIATdqxpn9DBUiViBkesRWZlB2b2_MRAc5qvN6to253Jamc8KAPVkBn6V-YCQk-kN_Qnb-2ovR6doYGQl5MKR7rWmMmRGCe2yYR-9Az1XE6Jve8LK089ZRynUe52ZyNZGv45JoV4UadwjwPhCuw/w387-h400/big%20yan%203wk.jpeg" width="387" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It is not, as far as we can determine, true that Big Yan consumed an entire brother. But Big Yan is <i>big.</i> He identifies as a Saint Bernard Puppy.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik5jK8jP19kXQsTrqIW1ohLPUIt-uXXyZ_BJkvlmv2tqy74SwmtkZqxaPY1O5voVhrQkuN-PGiem0KUracVyextthm6VWPDK5CFrxMksQ4Ij5NBqw8hTuNY09VlFVLeA1RloXJ2pUQ4yI31wtPSC6gQgwg2vEhy6jl8OMazYo07gJXQ0QZE1_JMHgrtA/s393/daft%20wullie%203wk.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="393" data-original-width="372" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik5jK8jP19kXQsTrqIW1ohLPUIt-uXXyZ_BJkvlmv2tqy74SwmtkZqxaPY1O5voVhrQkuN-PGiem0KUracVyextthm6VWPDK5CFrxMksQ4Ij5NBqw8hTuNY09VlFVLeA1RloXJ2pUQ4yI31wtPSC6gQgwg2vEhy6jl8OMazYo07gJXQ0QZE1_JMHgrtA/w379-h400/daft%20wullie%203wk.jpeg" width="379" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Daft Wullie is not noticeably more daft than his brothers, but he is certainly Wullie.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWAIE8ENWlR1Q9eVFZTfqjqDcBzpFR8oQ86F87yKQizhEW3aI3p44eNTrLsHAcNVr1E1QaSZfvonCCwWvMzTiw3JGyrNQvoUs3-nocH8Y8lwtkyDvnhoDCMexroS_285iP3hAAaWrDZAGjZr23agBRCKDw1jsgvl9bsk1VOV9wvIVMIHaBdU_F46n0mw/s474/wm%20gonnagle%203wk.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="474" data-original-width="401" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWAIE8ENWlR1Q9eVFZTfqjqDcBzpFR8oQ86F87yKQizhEW3aI3p44eNTrLsHAcNVr1E1QaSZfvonCCwWvMzTiw3JGyrNQvoUs3-nocH8Y8lwtkyDvnhoDCMexroS_285iP3hAAaWrDZAGjZr23agBRCKDw1jsgvl9bsk1VOV9wvIVMIHaBdU_F46n0mw/w339-h400/wm%20gonnagle%203wk.jpeg" width="339" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">William the Gonnagle has had something to say since he was about ten days old. He keeps saying it.</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><p><br /></p>Heather Houlahanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13891198124130533198noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5810033429461791744.post-55327496823608452932022-04-01T01:29:00.000-04:002022-04-01T01:29:00.506-04:00Photo Phriday: Phinally Phound a Use Phor a Phlexi<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpL7we9a-j5RNQscjaFZIMDZRrcTylY0Ba4DTiXu4iCxHW0Vqz_l_7Yy7S-5cdvQwGj5RAfBT4aNAUHymp5s806V3Eb_7SUTqODS7-WtyCrsjYRTOAdRXCGx2fPOUOVE6MNsHdd9ltJybeLt77ovYWdazJvmG24RnOmry_lyG7UnPCNeltuEUsAMsYyA/s4032/0DEF8225-105A-477A-A83B-BA8312198287.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpL7we9a-j5RNQscjaFZIMDZRrcTylY0Ba4DTiXu4iCxHW0Vqz_l_7Yy7S-5cdvQwGj5RAfBT4aNAUHymp5s806V3Eb_7SUTqODS7-WtyCrsjYRTOAdRXCGx2fPOUOVE6MNsHdd9ltJybeLt77ovYWdazJvmG24RnOmry_lyG7UnPCNeltuEUsAMsYyA/s320/0DEF8225-105A-477A-A83B-BA8312198287.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div><br /> It’s working pretty great, thanks.<p></p><p><br /></p>Heather Houlahanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13891198124130533198noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5810033429461791744.post-75457806816182192332022-03-15T23:00:00.000-04:002022-03-15T23:00:18.109-04:00Zuckerberg, You Ignorant Slut<p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh-R5mkBQ9f34hoH0L_0YH49PXskPIMdziOJpSM5eQAe5SGfSdYn1sZ8MoUZArpMFvYB5Ygw9e7oG6PqZl5BeqruywC1KaAK1ROqLm9vk5zpvmjVTFkcSinVhkjkJdbGWCXWt08UKwiKJAEUXTJt5Dz6q3T3xV3JdxbD9PuOUHj1eVpCzlmjQf_Mwee_g=s904" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="490" data-original-width="904" height="173" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh-R5mkBQ9f34hoH0L_0YH49PXskPIMdziOJpSM5eQAe5SGfSdYn1sZ8MoUZArpMFvYB5Ygw9e7oG6PqZl5BeqruywC1KaAK1ROqLm9vk5zpvmjVTFkcSinVhkjkJdbGWCXWt08UKwiKJAEUXTJt5Dz6q3T3xV3JdxbD9PuOUHj1eVpCzlmjQf_Mwee_g=s320" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p> It's time to get the old blogging gang back together.</p><p>Like, well,<i> practically everyone</i>, I have fallen for the tempting grift of "less friction."</p><p><br />Going into blogger, writing and editing a worthwhile post, formatting it, monitoring and moderating comments (because oh my Dog, the spam, the spam, and also the weirdos, the weirdos), visiting other blogs of interest, maybe needing yet another account to comment there if I am so moved, signing in, remembering passwords -- all of them are points of friction and annoyance. Yahoo Groups took over the listserv game a couple decades ago, got everyone in one place, and then, a few years back, just POOFED away years and years of conversations and files and whole online communities. Just <i>gone.</i><br /><br />And The Zuck made it ever eeeeasier to interact. Schedule events. Conduct business. Sell your shit. <br /><br />Until Zuckworld had sucked all the air out of the rest of God's internet while, you know, also sucking the tit of Putin's fascist trolls, that sweet sweet Kremlin troll money.<br /><br />It's all great until you find that your now-predominant means of communication and <i>commerce</i> is capriciously cut off by a bloody-minded literalist imbecile algorithm that cannot detect irony or hyperbolic metaphor, and flags a pleasant conversation among consenting friends about interesting science, or a real pretty vintage kitchen set, as "inciting violence."</p><p>That literally confuses a straightforward statement that hunting Mike Pence with a noose is a, you know, <i>bad thing,</i> with advocating Pence-hunting.<br /><br />Meanwhile, same day, classic Holocaust denial on a news story public comment thread -- eh, it's fine. Didn't hit any of the <i>secret no-no words.<br /></i><br />The automation is about as competent at grokking the hoo-mans as the Zuck itself.<br /><br /><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Story time.</span></b><br /><br />It's junior high speech class. The teacher is Mr. Stanton. Mr. Stanton is kinda a dick, but by no means the worst asshole teaching at Roehm Junior High, mainly only because of the stiff competition. The thing to know is that in 1979, the dicks and assholes babysitting the hormonal adolescents at Roehm Junior High school were empowered to <i>beat</i> the students who annoyed them. Literally take them into the hallway and hit them in the ass with a wooden paddle. "Swats." Some liked to brandish their beating paddles as threats, and the legendary ones had paddles with <i>holes</i> drilled into them for, allegedly, extra pain. The good teachers did not employ beatings or threats of beatings .But any of them were allowed to. Good times! The students who regularly received beatings for being little shits considered it a badge of honor, so the deterrence power of beatings was pretty openly understood to be zilch.<br /><br />So we kids learning public speaking had to choose a topic, some political or social issue, take a side, and research, prepare, and deliver a "speech to convince." Nobody could take the same side of the same topic as anyone else, but we could take different sides. Mr. Stanton polled us alphabetically for our topics, with students lower in the alphabet getting dibs.<br /><br />I announced my topic and position. Topic doesn't matter, I'm not entirely sure I remember what it was.<br /><br />A few students later, one of the boys calls dibs on the opposing side of the issue. <br /><br />I remember who it was, but won't embarrass him here. A popular kid who wasn't particularly my buddy, but definitely not one of the legions of junior high shithead bullies.<br /><br />When he called dibs for a speech opposing my position, the kids started invoking a favorite Saturday Night Live sketch. <i>We gonna have a Point/Counterpoint!</i><br /><br />My classmate snapped out in a fair Dan Akroyd twang <i>Heather, you ignorant slut</i>. And we all roared.<br /><br />You know, the way people do, when bantering, and invoking in-group <i>memes</i>, references that show that we all get the joke.<br /><br />Stanton, that dick, did not get the joke.<br /><br />We tried to explain the joke.<br /><br />He did not want to get the joke.<br /><br />I especially was anxious that he understand that this was a good joke that <i>did not offend me</i> and that my classmate was not bullying me. Plenty of nasty little shits doing that and never, ever being punished for it, but this was not that. And I particularly did not want my classmate to sustain a beating in the hallway <i>because of me</i>. <br /><br />Nope.<br /><br />Random hallway beating it was.<br /><br />Seriously, fuck that guy.<br /><br />Aaaanyway.<br /><br />That's Zuckerworld, and also The House That Jack Built.<br /><br />Hallway assault? Didn't see it. Vile, obscene provocation from the back row? Better not respond, you're gonna be the one that gets it. The useless little shits don't fear the <i>random</i> punishment, because they aren't doing anything worthwhile in the space, the beating just raised their status among the other useless little shits, and punishment isn't linked to conduct or its harm anyway, so they can just watch the kid who made an innocent SNL reference get whaled on for giggles.</p><p>So I am diversifying my communication channels. More blog entries, either here on blogger or possibly moved to a different platform at some point. Back to a stand-alone website for the training and farm businesses.<br /><br />And I encourage everyone else who has got sumthin' to say to do the same. Unzuck yourself, despite the friction and some expense.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhb_Qauq4OpZcDKYo78uM8zhIZksPo--pgjcKjuLLhcvdTF_DfcWnMhXTDHqtOjZvpnmo6AIh4jxVvl1C_THUoV04FKBO0KL4ixx6hyIVRqg_lYWMvmPzYSTB-UqykbPIxYOQPa9S1iR2yNosWDtmc6t1oPbjawYRN68VJ7xcBIW7aj2kSZM1LUpI-g5w=s683" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="505" data-original-width="683" height="237" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhb_Qauq4OpZcDKYo78uM8zhIZksPo--pgjcKjuLLhcvdTF_DfcWnMhXTDHqtOjZvpnmo6AIh4jxVvl1C_THUoV04FKBO0KL4ixx6hyIVRqg_lYWMvmPzYSTB-UqykbPIxYOQPa9S1iR2yNosWDtmc6t1oPbjawYRN68VJ7xcBIW7aj2kSZM1LUpI-g5w=s320" width="320" /></a></div><p><br /></p>Heather Houlahanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13891198124130533198noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5810033429461791744.post-84065707834904473062020-05-14T23:49:00.000-04:002020-05-14T23:49:25.405-04:00Wideo Wednesday: Rules about RulesEnglish shepherds love rules.<br />
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The love being your goon and enforcing your rules -- whether or not you have asked them to do so -- and they love inventing rules of their own and then making it so.<br />
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While border collies move and control stock out of an obsession with geometry in four dimensions, ES dogs crack kneecaps in the service of How Things Are To Be.<br />
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You have to be very careful that your ES doesn't go all "Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?" on you. There are certain things we do with livestock that we don't let the dogs see, or perhaps don't let immature dogs see, and others that we are careful to introduce in a very deliberate and controlled manner, so that nobody gets the wrong idea or promotes herself to a job above her paygrade.<br />
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As every stockdog and livestock guardian trainer knows, adolescence is fraught with peril even when a pup comes from genetics that are totally appropriate to the job she is doing. Pure stockdog trainers would never leave a teen pup unsupervised or only lightly supervised around stock or poultry the way we have done with six of our own dogs and dozens of young fosters.<br />
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But ES are not pure stockdogs by nature; they have a strong guardian impulse as well, deriving from the notion that the animals are <i>ours*</i> rather than the true LGD's conviction that he is <i>theirs. </i>Raising an ES puppy on a diversified farm involves some of the same risks that raising a guardian pup does; the pup will have some unsupervised time with the stock in the ordinary course of things, and teenagers can make bad decisions about <i>fun</i>. Once bad decisions yield satisfying results, they can escalate and become habit. There's a fine balance between too much and too little management of a developing pup.<br />
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Sammie has decided that the chickens belong in the coop.<br />
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I'm not sure where she got this idea; it has been a mild winter with very little snow, so the chooks have been free-ranging almost every day of her life. But there it is, she is much happier if they stay in the coop; barring that ideal state of stasis, they should definitely not range far away from the safety of the barnyard.<br />
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That's not how any of this works.<br />
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Frustrating her impulse for World Poultry Domination, the barnyard is partly bordered by cattle panel fences that chickens can easily slip through, but puppies over five months of age cannot.<br />
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She generally lets them be except when Perfesser Chaos or I are working in the barn or barnyard, or when she is with me as I return from the south pasture, where I have been doing a lot of maintenance work this year.<br />
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When we tested the litter for raw, incipient stock sense at the tender age of seven weeks, using tiny, ridiculous, dog-broke ducks, some of the pups already showed real power and balance. The Peanut's sister Bess was gobsmackingly precocious -- not exactly conscious of her power, but displaying it anyway. She turned the very flocky ducks by just turning her head at the proper moment. <i>Whut did I just see?!?</i><br />
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My little nut wanted to play with the duckies. Sproing sproing<i> pounce</i>. She was a silly puppy being silly. Duckies are fun!<br />
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No worries. I've raised both precocious pups and slow-maturing ones from her family line. I was sure that it would come.<br />
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And it has.<br />
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When we approach the barnyard from the pasture and her boxy little mind decides <i>poultry must be safe in the box, </i>she begins to <i>work</i> them, showing balance and intelligence. When hens pile up in a corner, she stays off of them, gives them space to escape, but only towards the pop-door of safety. Gradually they flow in there; she has them pretty well trained that this is the best course of action.<br />
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This is what it looks like when everybody goes along quiet-like and I don't stop her on her quest for World Poultry Containment:<br />
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I have good roosters and territorial dim-bulb guinea cocks who are always the last outside. The roos take their hen-protecting jobs very seriously. That leaves them exposed as single, non-compliant chickens instead of a flock that can be managed with 4-D geometry, so they get <i>chased</i>. I am pretty sure that they run and squawk to distract the puppy from the hens as well, as I have seen a couple of them do once when the fox came shopping in the poultry yard. (Difference is, they then turned around and beat the fox like an old rug. This is why I have a few more roosters than I had been planning to keep. That kind of heroics earns a sinecure.)<br />
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Not chased with any intent to catch, but chased out of balance, with excessive excitement on both ends.<br />
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And that's where her big sister Verity comes in.<br />
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Verity is not at all sure about this new rule. She does not remember <i>Momma</i> announcing such a rule. <i>Daddy</i> opens the pop door every morning and lets the chickens out, so that carries the strong implication that there is no such rule.And there is <i>definitely</i> a rule about getting too excited chasing poultry; she and her brother Finch got their adolescent asses kicked <i>one time</i> on the matter of squishing a dumb turkey and pulling out feathers, and that was all it took for both of them to remember.<br />
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So Verity enforces the rule about sparking poultry. Very subtly when she can, with precisely-calibrated shoulder blocks, distraction, redirection.<br />
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More forcefully when she must -- in the form of wrestling play, but escalating to serious discipline as necessary.<br />
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It's not yet clear to me to what extent this is entirely about Respect the Rules and to what extent it may contain elements of Respect Mah Authoritah. V. is a soft, sensitive dog who feels pressure very acutely and does not attempt to social-climb; she is also a young adult English shepherd bitch looking at her more brash up-and-coming younger sister and thinking about her future.<br />
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Momma Chuck seems to be taking a very deliberate paws-off approach to this whole thing. Same with Grandma Rosie and, mostly, Uncle Cole. But if you watch the personified negative space that is Chuck, you may perceive the neutral calm that she radiates. That is itself an opinion and an influence.<br />
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I'm being a little bit more involved day-to-day. I generally tell Sammie that'll do when I see her starting to haze the birds towards the coop; the videos are to show what happens if I am not there to provide guidance. She needs to learn that they are actually allowed to play outside, and that only a few places are off-limits to them. Cooping them when there's a predator threat is obviously right on. But I also appreciate that she is practicing self-control and learning balance of the literally flightiest of livestock, and that's a useful thing for her to be developing. So I don't squash it reflexively every time. She calls off well even when things get very exciting, and that's a very good skill to work on during her adolescence, one that generalizes to so many situation where safety is at stake.<br />
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And I'm so pleased with V.'s sense of the meta-rules, and her willingness to educate her sister, that I will gently encourage her when she's unsure whether she's supposed to take action, especially when she literally looks to me for guidance. V. takes a <i>very</i> light touch, something that can be hard to provide amidst a family of harder characters.<br />
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I shot this as we returned from checking the south pasture growth (me) and trying to flush bunnies from the brush piles there (them), so energies were high. The hen drama as they are rousted from the lilac bush by the house has more to do with the thumping V. is giving Peanut than any overkill by Peanut. Cole participates here.<br /><br />Notice that the birds have the option of just slipping through the cattle panels and stock fence to avoid the puppy prefect, but they just resign themselves and head for the pop door.<br />
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If you have trouble telling very similar-looking dogs apart here, these are their field marks:<br />
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Chuck: Two completely white front legs, minimal white collar.<br />
Verity: Two completely white front legs, lots of full white collar, legs up to <i>here</i>, rather pointy<br />
Sam Peanut: One white front leg, one mostly black, a small white neck splash, no collar<br />Cole: Exact same markings as Sammie. Go figure. Stumpy little shit.<br />
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* "We" are the humans, the pack dogs, and sometimes other privileged animals, such as our farm cats. "Ours" is the stock that belongs -- "we" care for it and protect it, but also push it around and control it. "Them" is a range of beings ranging from the mail carrier who we welcome and the hummingbirds that the humans feed all the way up to threats that are neutralized, the human miscreant at the window and the fox running off with a mouthful of feathers, the raccoons that Cole habitually murders, even the mice in the house -- not "prey" exactly, the neutral way that a cottontail is, but "intruder" to be removed or repelled.<br />
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New livestock and new dog fosters have a brief period during which the humans have to establish that they are "ours" and not "them," especially with the young dogs who don't know the drill. I'm currently teaching peanut that the new piglets are ours. She's unfamiliar with the species, but is starting to grok them after an initial bad reaction to a surprise pig-scream from an unseen monster in a barrel at the breeder's farm.Heather Houlahanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13891198124130533198noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5810033429461791744.post-43235531371528716862020-03-20T11:55:00.001-04:002020-03-20T11:55:26.683-04:00Fear Must Remain Secondary<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4h0S5B8AxDqEo8Ddh3iogUj8DVTRUPo7X_dGKUpCo35JofWtIQzH3Jqw-5RnAEpCcG52WpIs8_BrBDr0LvAKAc564aHW5AwcXrdEKGDdeyKiROMj776bRMdZGSuA8QPXPeewLL2RsIaGb/s1600/B0DB9830-AA1B-476A-8E88-DB831CEEC327.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="736" data-original-width="635" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4h0S5B8AxDqEo8Ddh3iogUj8DVTRUPo7X_dGKUpCo35JofWtIQzH3Jqw-5RnAEpCcG52WpIs8_BrBDr0LvAKAc564aHW5AwcXrdEKGDdeyKiROMj776bRMdZGSuA8QPXPeewLL2RsIaGb/s400/B0DB9830-AA1B-476A-8E88-DB831CEEC327.jpeg" width="345" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Motivated bold puppy is motivated and bold.<br />Handler shit-eating grin is genuine.<br />Chicken hat is awesome. Nobody slags on the chicken hat.<br />Photo credit Michelle Silka-Eaton.</td></tr>
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<br />For nearly three decades, I have given every wannabe SAR handler who starts with a pup, and every puppy-owning client, the same explicit, unambiguous warning that I got when I was training Lilly.<br />
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Your bold, friendly, people-loving puppy who has no environmental sensitivities will one day lose her damned mind.<br />
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At one or more points during adolescence she will go through a developmental stage called the secondary fear imprint period. This is natural. It is normal. All puppies* experience this. For some puppies, it's a week of woofing at balloons and lawn gnomes and done. For others it's full-on panic at seeing a stranger on the street, and it may pulse in and out of her consciousness for over a month.<br />
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For SAR puppies, it almost always plays out this way:<br />
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Puppy who is advancing well in her work, ranging out independently and finding boldly, starting to do longer big-dog training tasks, and trusting herself and her marvelous nose will happen to approach a search subject (or possibly an incidental person in her search area) in such a way that she <i>sees</i> the person when she cannot <i>smell</i> the person. The person may be sitting very still, in camouflage, in shadow, or just appear from an unusual angle. The important thing is, puppy believes in her nose, and her nose is saying that there is no person there.<i> Q.E.D. it is a<b> monster</b></i><b>.</b><br />
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Cogitate on the truth that in a dog's cognitive world, a thing that looks like a thing but does not smell like that thing is a monster.<br />
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Puppy barks, hackles, cowers, runs back to Momma. She may machine-gun bark. She's not gonna go anywhere near that enchanted stump, that vaguely human-shaped smell-less illusion.<br />
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And the handler who has been told about this exact scenario, nine times out of ten,<i> loses her shit </i>and forgets what to do, forgets that she was even told that this would happen, fixates on what the puppy is doing and not on what the puppy is experiencing. <i>Oh wailie wailie my puppy is vicious and schizy and unstable!</i><br />
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Sigh.<br />
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That's when we hope that there's an experienced handler on the task to run the intervention, which is very simple.<br />
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<i>Stop it!<br /><br />Act like a damned grownup!<br /><br />Show some leadership to your puppy! Not forcefulness. Not anger. Not cooing. Leadership.<br /><br />Get the puppy downwind of the monster so that her nose can tell her what the reality is.</i><br />
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That's why I was stoked when I happened to get the first footage I've ever captured of a pup doing that thing they all do.<br />
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The setup of this task is simple. I wanted to use the wide-open agricultural field for young Sammie to practice ranging. There's a swale that gives enough cover for a person, and I'd sent Perfesser Chaos to hide in it somewhere. I thought I might catch some nice footage of her hitting the scent cone and working it. The wind had been shifty all day, even more erratic than usual for our part of the world.<br />
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I am walking west towards the swale while Peanut ranges. Initially the wind is coming from the north-northwest. You can see her hit the scent at about 0:32 and move directly into it, not casting across a scent cone. The topography is making the scent move directly towards her rather than disperse into a cone. At about 0:45 the wind shifts to north-northeast. At 0:49 she runs up a little bit, entirely out of the scent, and simultaneously sees PC at the bottom of the swale -- hatted, camouflaged, with a lumpy pack next to him, outline distorted by sharp shadows. (We don't <i>do</i> bright sun and sharp shadows in Pittsburgh. Has Sam ever seen one of us in sunglasses, even?)<br />
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<i>A moment ago I smelled my Daddy and now there is a monster! Monster musta eated Daddy!</i><br />
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The background on Sam-Peanut-Horrible-Brandywine --<br />
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She's in training to be a fourth-generation search and rescue dog. Her genetic selection has been for boldness, friendliness, resilience, and a balance between cooperation and independent action, and she has displayed all of these from the time she could toddle. Her upbringing has supported those genetics. She is just turning seven months old at the time of the video.<br />
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The owner of her sire gave all the owners of the litter this heads-up -- bold, friendly, calm, chill, self-possessed Sid had experienced an acute, short-lived, and absolutely hellacious secondary fear imprint period when he was about six months old, from which he recovered fully without any lingering aftereffects or rebound episodes. So we were all watching for these transient emotional changes and prepared to understand and respond to them.<br />
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This is the kind of intel that one gets when one's dog comes from a community of breeders who pay attention, understand what they are seeing, care, and communicate. Don't expect that insight from onlinedoodlesdotcom or the retail rescue that ships wormy pitahoulas to a highway rest stop near you twice a month.<br />
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So Sammie is standing at the top of a rise in a standoff with a monster.<br />
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She considers running back to Momma, but Sammie is a brave puppy. She's a <i>scared</i> puppy, but constitutionally <i>brave</i>, and learning from her dog family about guarding the farm and livestock from raccoons and chupacabra. It would be perfectly okay for her to run back to Momma. Most puppies in this scenario -- yes, even your Rottweiler pup -- do exactly that. But she can see that I am coming, and chooses to hold off the the threat from her high vantage point. She's a bit of a Momma's girl, but that heavy attachment has more to do with FOMO than with insecurity, and she showed that to me in the moment.<br />
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It would <i>not</i> be okay for Sammy to flee back to the refuge of the van (across a country road from this field) or just hightail it for the hills in a panic, and this is one of a hundred reasons why dogs with weak nerves, those who are fearful as a baseline, are not suitable candidates for search and rescue training. There is no training patch that can cover that kind of temperament and make the dog safe and effective at work in a complex world where wind shifts are the least of the challenges. If the puppy enters her secondary fear imprint period with fear and flight already her baseline, any untoward events are going to be orders of magnitude more traumatic, possibly permanently scarring, however mild the trigger appears to be. The shy puppy's brain is already primed to uniformly process<i> new</i> as<i> bad</i>, and to hold on to any lesson that supports that view of the world. A pup with a weak attachment to her handler, or a handler who she fears, or a handler who is weak and fearful himself, might also flee, because the handler has not been a reliable source of authoritative safety in the past.✚<br />
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So Sam holds off the scary monster from her high position while her handler approaches, and then the wind shifts again, and just like that <i>it's Daddy! It is a human and it is my human Daddy down there in the swale! I am so embarrassed! I am so relieved! I have found Daddy and saved him from monsters! Woo hoo!</i><br />
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I have observed wannabe handlers remain distressed and upset over their puppy's "aggressive" episode during what should be a collective burst of joy and relief. It's important to model good humor and happiness for the puppy. She's feeling sheepish about her mistake and has a lot of explosive emotional energy to dispel, and it should be dispelled in lap-rolling and love and play and laughter.<br />
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What to do if the wind hadn't shifted?<br />
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Ideally, if the puppy has some of her wits about her, the handler invites the puppy to walk with her and circles downwind of the monster without coming in any closer. When the puppy hits the human scent, she recovers exactly as Sam has done on her own here.<br />
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If the pup has become so overwrought that a faceful of human scent does not overcome her fear-fire-foe-flood mindset, or if some obstacle prevents the team from getting downwind, the handler should ask the subject to call the puppy in a calm, happy voice. Just talk to her.<br />
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Dogs believe their noses first, their ears second, their eyes last of everything.<br />
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If you<i> are</i> the monster, don't suddenly stand up and <i>fordogssake do not move towards the puppy</i>, but sometimes slowly removing a hat or the hood of a camo jacket or straightening up can change the picture for the tyke.✝<br />
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This may be a good time to reflect on the importance of using intelligent, fully-briefed, fully-committed helpers to hide for our SAR dogs, people who need not be experts, but who enjoy dogs and are capable of following instructions, even instructions shouted at 50' over the sound of a barking puppy.<br />
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What do handlers who have never been briefed and don't understand developmental periods and canine sensory processing do?<br />
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I've watched them attempt to force a puppy to march straight at the scentless monster.<br />
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This does not go well.<br />
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<i>Don't do that.</i><br />
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Similarly, attempting to "lure" a puppy who is in a state of terror towards the terrifying thing is a disastrous shitshow. It's a good way to convince a puppy that you are a born idiot and inherently untrustworthy. The thing has to first stop being terrifying and resolve into something familiar and comprehensible, and then, if the puppy has decent resilience, you won't need any damned bribe.Nothing beyond the monster-turned-human's friendly invitation to contact and fun, <i>all is forgiven, it was just a mistake, aren't we all silly, let's be silly here together as befits a puppy and a human</i>.<br />
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I'm not a pollyanna, but I also tend to the point of view that Nature conserves most traits for a functional reason, and if we can understand that function we can work with it instead of at odds with Nature.<br />
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The secondary fear imprint period in canine cognitive development is there because throughout evolution, pups who go through this experience at this time were more likely to survive. It's a potential brake on the coming heedlessness of social adolescence. A few scary experiences fueled by endogenous emotions teach appropriate skepticism; recovery from the well-managed scary experiences and a resolution of the conflict that the puppy feels becomes an emotional skill, a resource for managing risk and her own emotions later in life. The apparent crisis really<i> is</i> an opportunity for emotional growth.<br /><br />Peanut has processed her experience, and next time she sees and does not smell, she will have knowledge that is deeper and more unshakable because of the emotional charge that gaining it required of her.<br />
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___________________<br />
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* Except Mel. Mel is always the exception to every rule. She didn't have a primary fear imprint period, or a secondary fear imprint period, because she didn't know what fear was. She wasn't courageous, except morally courageous, she was fearless, confident in not only her own invulnerability, but in the power of her aegis to spread over everyone in her orbit.<br />
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It's funny how much you can learn about the mold from the one who shattered it when she was born.<br /><br />✚ If you have acquired an adolescent or just pre-adolescent puppy for SAR, no matter the pup's genetic temperament and upbringing, work for several months on building up a strong attachment and relationship with the handler in safe circumstances where the chance of untoward surprises is as minimal as possible. Nobody wants to spend the next two weeks setting live traps for a teenage puppy with gazelle-speed who has gone feral <i>because away from here</i> felt safer than <i>with that guy</i>.<br /><br />✝ Do not have your subject use a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghillie_suit">ghillie suit</a> when hiding for puppies or adolescents. Those things make ya look like Swamp Thing to<i> everyone</i>. That's the point. Expect even well-seasoned adult dogs to react strongly the first time they encounter a subject or anyone else who is wearing a ghillie suit, even if they can smell them perfectly well. Don't spring the ghillie-suited subject on a team the first time without briefing the handler. Seriously, that is a dick move.<br />
<br />Heather Houlahanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13891198124130533198noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5810033429461791744.post-28106923912777093452019-09-07T13:39:00.000-04:002019-09-07T13:39:31.381-04:00What's That?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
It's fun to mess with Our Friend Nancy. She's Minnesota Nice, a retired middle school teacher, and in the eighth grade I would have been the <i>end</i> of her. Douglas and I nearly were in Billings in 2009, because the only thing worse than Douglas and me unsupervised is attempting to supervise Douglas and me.<br /><br />One of the things that vexes Nancy is when we call our quite feminine Brandywine Charlotte by her preferred name.<br /><br />Why the hell shouldn't a girl dog answer to Chuck?<br /><br />Anyway, Nancy probably shouldn't have let on that this bugs her. I mean, she has a decade of <i>experience</i> with me.<br /><br />Chuck Chuck Chuck Chuck Chuck <i>Chuckeeeeee</i>.<br /><br />Forget the rules, Olds. It's a new day. The gender binary is being relegated to something more like a fuzzy suggestion. A kind Millennial explained to me why it's polite for an obvious cis human to declare preferred pronouns in certain social and professional contexts and <i>oh, that makes sense, got it</i>. Cis is a vocabulary word. Absolutely no one is hurt by any of this change, and many people are helped a great deal. Even our understanding of biological sex is getting all shook up, that is, biologists are sharing the things they've long known with the lay world . I've personally watched a mature hen stop laying, grow spurs and hackle feathers, and start crowing. No one in the flock batted an ... well, chickens do not have eyelashes, but still. Turkeys can reproduce <i>parthenogenically</i> and it was <i>not</i> someone taking the piss out of me.<br /><br />So you can see where we <i>had to go</i> when Chuck partnered with the similarly name-neutral Sydney to make a pile of seven little creatures who will be empowered to self-define.<br /><br />But I'm still a GenXer, demography's middle child, so my cultural reference for people squirming over someone else's ambiguity in both gender and biological sex is a<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_(Saturday_Night_Live)"> recurring SNL skit </a>from 1990*, when I was young and impressionable.<br /><br />Here are the It's Pat babies, in all their unique individual glory.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVwX6ZXrCaEV-oUfkiMaa4kdy45j2Mi70LhQv7sdWIYGMAquV6kdv4ptHz84yukaY_Tk-UzJ3c3rpXqK0PyUjGWbCS3MgsUG5BPKyfAzRCX9O6zOiMq4KbFSsG36jlMiuQtalmTo0iGLdE/s1600/peanut+female.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1321" data-original-width="1233" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVwX6ZXrCaEV-oUfkiMaa4kdy45j2Mi70LhQv7sdWIYGMAquV6kdv4ptHz84yukaY_Tk-UzJ3c3rpXqK0PyUjGWbCS3MgsUG5BPKyfAzRCX9O6zOiMq4KbFSsG36jlMiuQtalmTo0iGLdE/s400/peanut+female.jpg" width="372" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Sam is the tiniest Pat, half the size of the largest puppies. Smol but fierce. <br />Also known as Peanut. <br />The only Pat with a face blaze. Additional ambiguity: seal or black? Can't quite tell yet.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH6C-wpGdJqGKbsZ5v-VCiEOElZURGZkSN5h3L3wT1-SPCSpvWwkaLj1TfnwafncaqYie1jaa7OYZAfvThHUgnRWz193koW7A4aY-143pQGaCNJEm0wG5Pp6j9zLg5CQxbDq6hKAFU6h_k/s1600/sable+male+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1017" data-original-width="1055" height="385" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH6C-wpGdJqGKbsZ5v-VCiEOElZURGZkSN5h3L3wT1-SPCSpvWwkaLj1TfnwafncaqYie1jaa7OYZAfvThHUgnRWz193koW7A4aY-143pQGaCNJEm0wG5Pp6j9zLg5CQxbDq6hKAFU6h_k/s400/sable+male+1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Robin is a big, vigorous, adventurous dark sable who will be the image of Daddy Sidney.. <br />Robin so closely resembles Kim that I have to flip puppies over to tell them apart. <br />Their white chest markings are slightly different.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlfRF24ZDaZbWCPiZv0ejzIlCP-A1MFb46gRm6LC4sM5n5FqYP3pWAlwZrr-k7SQE3hpCBQ1SPMfI9i-s4MnKvPBlR2E1uJjKQN3pXFnbbKm8xSK6rALE1G-3bkMfbvfiY5mWY1kAl7or5/s1600/bt+female.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="864" data-original-width="1136" height="303" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlfRF24ZDaZbWCPiZv0ejzIlCP-A1MFb46gRm6LC4sM5n5FqYP3pWAlwZrr-k7SQE3hpCBQ1SPMfI9i-s4MnKvPBlR2E1uJjKQN3pXFnbbKm8xSK6rALE1G-3bkMfbvfiY5mWY1kAl7or5/s400/bt+female.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Is Riley black and tan with minor white, or tricolor? <br />The ambiguity in what should be a clear binary is killing me, let me tell ya.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA3PJRvm7edQU4WGmbJqi0AG-1S96Hry8MhmNVDSFK3DwtfK0IQSLKLmf9lRI8CEK07noOG8zkKY__KnL7vE6RxmXHsZcCcU2zO2SZC16GL7X2D2jXjQrY5NZR5GyatVm68wsYFKC1Ro_f/s1600/sable+male+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="971" data-original-width="1006" height="385" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA3PJRvm7edQU4WGmbJqi0AG-1S96Hry8MhmNVDSFK3DwtfK0IQSLKLmf9lRI8CEK07noOG8zkKY__KnL7vE6RxmXHsZcCcU2zO2SZC16GL7X2D2jXjQrY5NZR5GyatVm68wsYFKC1Ro_f/s400/sable+male+2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Kim looks like Robin, Robin looks like Kim, you got that, right?<br /> It's like that with siblings sometimes.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLoNs-tl9c4wiv8eFaJeOxjE8xktDBiuMQyGUwVYTAhBdT2bYpnN9YJytWGHz4iyrFsm5SDNEgtZFkM4qRukqou4_YSXNPrvY3y-FS215c6TAilhjbEigukE-lQOzNCDmq9LtJKAkus0Sm/s1600/seal+female.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="970" data-original-width="936" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLoNs-tl9c4wiv8eFaJeOxjE8xktDBiuMQyGUwVYTAhBdT2bYpnN9YJytWGHz4iyrFsm5SDNEgtZFkM4qRukqou4_YSXNPrvY3y-FS215c6TAilhjbEigukE-lQOzNCDmq9LtJKAkus0Sm/s400/seal+female.jpg" width="385" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Billy is seal and was the first Pat to make a big deal out of finding the newspapers to wee.<br /> Remember, everypuppy squats.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMHkIuML6hEqeYK0ScJZ8y3aWp9Lsjo4DsohoU-6J3ksVwYrH7k4BAluAdYKff1Es200Bo_YhH0h5BNdK_ZvEMs-Iu-cGJeGNnsX03YULvUZEkCHzki1kl5fGWH_lPdMbh6cQXE3imDK1Z/s1600/seal+male+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1149" data-original-width="775" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMHkIuML6hEqeYK0ScJZ8y3aWp9Lsjo4DsohoU-6J3ksVwYrH7k4BAluAdYKff1Es200Bo_YhH0h5BNdK_ZvEMs-Iu-cGJeGNnsX03YULvUZEkCHzki1kl5fGWH_lPdMbh6cQXE3imDK1Z/s400/seal+male+1.jpg" width="268" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Jamie is the firstborn, and can be distinguished among the seal puppies by a white nose smutch. <br />The firstborn thing doesn't matter because inheritance laws have changed.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPuM9_JtW01wdm44wAJJF68ZV8RAoC3id5XHnXUKFckJ6SwWl2yZPL1BWLfHJov0vkhalt1ZT0AaG_uc5uUdvmh6d1RgCZA0s5fl5aroFtWFm659QYAKVW1Ijqt4gp-6F3aXJU7G3wtjKl/s1600/seal+male+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="938" data-original-width="686" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPuM9_JtW01wdm44wAJJF68ZV8RAoC3id5XHnXUKFckJ6SwWl2yZPL1BWLfHJov0vkhalt1ZT0AaG_uc5uUdvmh6d1RgCZA0s5fl5aroFtWFm659QYAKVW1Ijqt4gp-6F3aXJU7G3wtjKl/s400/seal+male+2.jpg" width="292" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Val is seal. You can tell Val from Billy by the shape of their chest markings, but it's otherwise hard.<br /> Val is short for Vaaaaaal.<br /><br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">* Also a feature-length film that garnered a coveted 0% on Rotten Tomatoes, of which we will not speak.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Pat portraits are by <a href="mailto:mary@cvetan.com">Mary Cvetan</a>. If you would like to schedule a photo shoot for your animal(s) in the Greater Pittsburgh, PA area, contact her directly.</i></span>Heather Houlahanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13891198124130533198noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5810033429461791744.post-39763784896524034572017-04-26T19:21:00.000-04:002017-04-26T19:21:31.707-04:00The Historians Bypass the MuseumThis week I've been head-desking over one of the latest self-justifications of decorative dog-fanciers, their claim that they are "preservation breeders." Been a lot of argle-bargle about the important public service the ribbon-hoarders perform by perpetuating "pure" breeds of "heritage" dogs in the run-up to "National Purebred Dog Day," designated for May Day, because that's apparently not a calendar date that freights any meaning already, so why not?<br />
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Aside from describing the role that highly-inbred animals from artificially closed gene pools play as a model for tragic human genetic diseases as a god-damned <i>feature</i> -- like "oh yeah, we've been breeding these year-old bitch puppies to their own daddies for eight generations running because <i>science</i> and <i>help humanity</i> and not in any way to make sure that their ears stand up or flop over or whatever they are supposed to do in exactly the way that makes them crush the competition at the pageants" -- aside from <i>that,</i> the gormless website promoting this advanced codswallop describes the objects of their fancy hobby this way:<br />
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<b><a href="https://nationalpurebreddogday.com/about/" rel="nofollow">"Museum pieces with a pulse."</a></b></div>
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I'll just let yinz roll that around for a while. Really take it in. That designation was <i>not</i> presented as a pejorative, as snark, as criticism or satire. <i>They</i> said that about their own, um, let's call them <i>dogs. </i>I've screencapped it in case someone realizes what they've just said and takes it down.<i> </i>We are meant to admire these people for keeping and perpetuating <i>museum pieces with a pulse.</i></div>
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Let's consider the <i>external</i> justifications for the "preservation," at some considerable expense and time and trouble, of inbred outlier populations of domestic animals and plants. Because there <i>are</i> some.<br />
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One good reason is preservation of specific, identified traits that might not be what a preponderance of users (farmers, pastoralists, working-animal handlers, pet owners, gardeners, orchardists, etc.) currently need or want, but that people in outlier circumstances do currently need, and/or that changing circumstances may require in the future.<br />
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Simple example, an apple cultivar that is resistant to a plant virus that is not currently a major problem in most apple-growing regions, but that in ten years may start sweeping orchards and wiping out crops because of an introduced insect vector, or, oh yeah, we broke the goddamned planet and <i>now what</i>?<br />
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We need the eccentric heritage orchardist who has preserved fifty varieties of eighteenth-century apples to unhoist our petards. And we have no way of knowing which bit of genetics is going to be crucial tomorrow, so <i>save all the useful things</i>.<br />
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And meanwhile, buy and eat them apples, so that eccentric apple guy can make a living or at least keep up his hobby.</div>
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Other circumstances can be social and economic changes that create demand for old genetics in and of themselves. People who reject the miserable lives of industrial pigs and want to eat pork from animals who lived on pasture as if they were real animals have an interest in livestock conservators who have maintained rare genetic lines of pigs that thrive on pasture -- whether those are inbred, "pure" lines of old breeds and landraces, or populations that mix those lines and breeds and continue to select for the traits that make a pasture pig happy, healthy, and productive.</div>
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But here's the rub when conserving the functional genetics of domestic animals and plants.<br />
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Use it or lose it.</div>
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With some plants, one can literally maintain germ plasm virtually unchanged via low-tech traditional cloning. A scion from a hundred-year-old apple tree, grafted onto suitable rootstock, will have functionally identical properties to the parent plant. So as long as the parent plant is <i>alive</i>, a century of neglect can be undone in a few years by a suitably educated and skilled conservator.<br />
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With some other plants and all animals, there is no "preservation." Genes gotta recombine to make babbies. In order to prevent genetic loss, the steward must make sound selection decisions <i>every generation</i>.<br />
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She must ask herself "What am I conserving?" and ensure that those traits are the ones she selects on. One cannot select for <i>everything</i> equally. There has to be a list of priorities. There has to be compromise on the frills.</div>
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Even with a uniformly smart, informed, diligent community of conservators, there will be drift over time. Hidden traits that the environment does not challenge -- say, resistance to an animal disease that was once widely troublesome but is now controlled by vaccination -- will fade away, unbeknownst to the conservators. The selection environment will change subtlely or dramatically, and the animals will change with it. And in isolated populations -- whether formally locked down in closed studbooks, geographically isolated, or just <i>mostly</i> closed to outside genetics, there will be genetic drift, the island effect. Some genes will be lost, some will come to predominate, and heterozygosity will decrease. Decreases in overall heterozygosity will inevitably decrease the overall fitness of the individuals in the population (of animals, not always with plants).<br />
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By decreasing overall fitness, I mean, the animals will start suffering from punkish immune systems, enzootic cancers at a young age, infertility, high infant mortality, and birth defects. Not to mention, though one should, specific genetic disorders associated with specific defective alleles widespread (or universal) in the population. In short, they live tenuously and die easy.<br />
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Part of conservation is always ensuring that there is enough gene transfer <i>in</i> to mitigate the deleterious effects of both drift and selection. It's not enough to try to slow down genetic loss by avoiding new genetic bottlenecks and selecting for basic biological fitness before distinct traits or fancy points; that can be, at most, a holding action until people get their shit together and rocket forward all the way to the mid-20th century.<br />
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Which is why the term and concept "purebred" is shear nineteenth-century hokum, the <a href="http://hoaxes.org/archive/permalink/the_feejee_mermaid">Feeji Mermaid</a> of genetic selection. An idea that needs to die before it kills again.</div>
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So what of the new line that purebred dog fanciers are "preservationists" on par with museum curators, only their exhibits posses the <strike>bug</strike> feature of "a pulse?"<br />
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Is there a case to be made for maintaining many genetically isolated populations of morphologically diverse dogs? In other words, is there any overall, independent, externally-referenced, big-picture utility to producing great Danes and Dandie Dinmont terriers? In other words, should anyone other than the die-hard fancy hobbyist care?<br />
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Might we need the unique genetics of the Dane or the Dandie for some purpose in the future? (With "need" broadly defined to embrace many human desires and priorities, and "unique" granted for the purpose of discussion.)</div>
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Maybe? Let's be conservative and assume yes, without asking for evidence. Lots of people do weirder things, have weird hobbies and priorities, without having to justify them to the larger culture. We <i>should</i> as a culture care about maintaining diverse populations of domestic dogs, and not consider it purely a vanity project for weird hobbyists.<br />
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Then what happened to four core considerations of genetic conservation:<br />
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• Prevent genetic loss from new bottlenecks<br />
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• Maintain biological fitness through controlled genetic infusions</div>
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• Select in every generation for relevant, useful, traits</div>
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• Use it or lose it</div>
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The fancy breeding of "purebred" dogs violates all of these considerations in a congruence of stupid that may be unique in the animal world.</div>
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Popular (show-winning) sires, inbreed and purge practices, panic-discards of animals who carry identified deleterious recessives, and ever-narrower criteria for "type" (the confusion of extreme specificity for high standards) continue to bottleneck fancy populations. If anything, the diversity loss is accelerating with the advent of genetic testing for identified deleterious recessives. Instead of using the results of a DNA test for a deleterious allele to breed carriers <i>more intelligently</i>, the carrier, the whole damned dog, gets tossed out of the gene pool by those who feel shame over <i>contamination.</i></div>
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DNA parentage verification gives self-styled museum curators a new tool to accelerate breed death. Some breeds have limped along for this long only because of the mongrel in the woodpile in past decades -- uncontrolled, sometimes unintentional, infusions of desperately-needed novel genetics. The kennel clubs' closed studbooks remain closed and, now, effectively policed. Fanciers clutch their pearls over the appearance of a novel <i>color</i> that may or may not indicate crossbreeding on the down-low some generations back, while wondering why their specials bitch won't conceive, their BIS dog is shooting blanks, and the typey sister of the above just barely managed to squeeze out two live, if fragile, puppies on the third attempt, and damn, one of them has a white spot where it's not allowed per the new "standard," so that one is going to be spayed. An inbreeding coefficient of .8 is just linebreeding for good type, right? If fancy-dog breeders did literally <i>nothing else</i> wrong, they'd still be killing the breeds they profess to love via the enforcement of the Victorian closed studbook in the name of "purity."</div>
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Selection, each generation, is primarily for those traits that advance the owner's success at her hobby, which is entering dog pageants, but the <i>justification</i> for what they imagine to be "preservation" is couched in romantic stories about the <i>historical function </i>of the breed. Our museum exhibit is meant to represent boar hunting or bullbaiting or the lapwarmer of royalty. Sometimes the progenitors of the contemporary animal actually once did those things, sometimes, <i>often</i>, it's just so much fantasy hokum. Sometimes the ancestors' job is no more -- and often we have reason to be thankful for that -- and sometimes there are dogs still, or once again, performing that job, whether they are another branch of the same lineage (even, sometimes, sharing a breed name if not a recent genetic history or much resemblance) or an entirely different lineage.<br />
<br />
But, we sez to the "preservation" breeder, your dog does not herd sheep, battle boars, guard the estate with lethal force, draft sledges, patrol the mountain pass, retrieve a hundred ducks a day from icy water ...<br />
<br />
<i>But he could if I wanted him to.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
Yeah, no. That's not how this works. That's not how any of this works.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
To whit, Great Danes do not hunt boars anywhere in the world of which I am aware, but curs and bandogs and other kinds of badass dogs do, and are selected rather harshly for their ability to do so. The hyena-backed show shepherd doesn't patrol with the soldier, but his working-bred distant cousin -- whether called a "German shepherd" or a "Malinois" -- does. I am aware of no Scottie that goes to ground after ill-natured burrowing prey, but plenty of muttly Jack Russells do it.<br />
<br />
Barn hunt doesn't qualify, guys. If a pet golden retriever wins the same merit badge, it's not a breed selection test for a professional ratting terrier. Your carting title is cute, but it does not make your Bernese mountain dog a working draft animal. A working draft animal shouldn't drop dead from cardiomyopathy on a brisk unburdened walk at the age of four.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
While <i>looking different</i> from the functional ancestors -- being much larger, much smaller, much fluffier, much shorter in the leg or longer in the back, possessing a convex face and painfully dwarfed body, a banana-back, a needle-nose and vestigial-appearing eyes -- is not the only measure of divergence from the functional ancestors that we could apply to a fancy breed, it is a pretty easily appreciated neon sign. A sign that <i>nothing</i> has been "preserved" over prior decades except folklore and self-deception, and even those have been bred up larger.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
To be sure, a dog can <i>look</i> just like a functional ancestor and fail the test of actual function. Because the drive and instinct and heart and desire, the difficulties and opinions of a motivated being, were bred out in the successful quest for a compliant show dog who would sit quietly in a crate in a hired handler's Winnebago until his performance in the circle-jerk was required. Or because the bones and heart are no longer strong, the spine does not flex and surge, the cancer comes at six and the job takes seven years to master; the spirit is sometimes willing while the flesh is weak, and that's the worst. The worst.<br />
<br />
But a visually obvious transformation (and usually exaggeration) of body hardly ever belies the persistence of the brain and drive and heart and desire. One <i>cannot</i> select for "everything," and hard selection that changes the appearance of the body according to fad and fashion is wedded to null selection for the traits of function.<br />
<br />
The trait is not used. It is lost. Nothing historically used or useful has been preserved, conserved, stewarded or adapted to new demands. There may be <i>diversity</i> in the sense of alleles that don't exist, or exist widely, in the larger canine population, but are prevalent or universal in these isolated gene pools -- alleles for tiny eyes, color dilution, short limbs, a coat that can grow 3' long if kept wrapped in tissue and off the dirty floor, giant or miniature stature, dime-sized round spots and ears that drag the ground. Alleles for kidney stones or seizures or various flavors of vision defects, flabby hearts, constricted airways, Hapsburg-bleedouts, predictable cancer-bombs or explosions of unreasoned rage. Those useful genetic models for medical tragedy that are a <i>feature</i> to the brain trust behind "National Purebred Dog Day."</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
So, I bet you already know, although I breed a "rare" kind of dog, I am not a "preservation" breeder. Like most English shepherd breeders who put any thought at all into the matter, I identify with many (not all) of the goals and values of livestock <i>conservation</i> breeders, and am informed by the science behind that conservation and the practical techniques used to perform it. I want to practice the right kind of selection, keep the gene pool large and diverse, value healthy variation even when I am not enamored of the specific variant, welcome new genetics into the pool.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I try to be skeptical and rigorous about how much, and how, our muttly, practical farm collies have been <i>conserved </i>from the diverse genetic foundation of their humble and ubiquitous ancestors on colonial American farms, and before that, mostly British crofters. I try not to be too impressed by photographs of Victorian-era dogs who look <i>exactly</i> like modern ES, right down to their tolerant or bemused or dutiful expressions as they stand beside owners who clearly worked hard and valued them very much -- other than to smirk a little about how it is that the "look" has actually been "preserved" unaltered for centuries without any formal systems in place to attempt to do that.<br />
<br />
But when I read some seemingly fanciful account of some Ohio farm dog's sagacity in 1911 and see the <i>exact same quality of mind</i> in one of my own canine partners, watch them perform some task or reach some insight that Official Dog proclaims Not Possible, empiricism wins over skepticism, and I just say fuckit and go with my lyin' eyes. And cultivate an attitude of humble gratitude for what prior generations passed down to me, a determination to convey it forward in my turn.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i>Why</i> conserve traditional multipurpose farm shepherds? It only makes sense if your values drive you to want to conserve traditional small agriculture and pastoral practices; if you think agriculture practice and policy reached its apex with the odious Earl Butz, you won't give a good god-damn. Enjoy your antibiotic chicken and e.coli-beef. Well, it might make sense if you acknowledge that there are "modern" jobs for which those traits once selected on the homestead especially suit a practical collie-dog. Those will fade out, though, once the selection environment ceases to be at least partly the small diversified farm. We have to keep going back to that well. Preserving the well and drinking the water are the same task.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
As I contemplated the little beans who compose our fifth litter of English shepherds, and my reasons for making <i>more like this, </i>I thought a lot about that history, the mandate to be realistic, and skeptical, and rigorous about the past that we are bringing forward into the future, not as museum objects, but as full participants in a worthwhile community. These babies would each be, not an exhibit, but a <i>historian.</i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
The historians I envy are not the worthy Hank Commagers and Barbara Tuchmans, but the fictional ones who move between past and present, who participate in both worlds as acting beings, who become of both times through technology in much the way these tiny creatures piled among my feet do automatically through their persistent, lovingly-conserved genetics.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Also, Connie Willis is just a god-damned spectacular writer, and merits the homage. If you haven't read her Oxford time-travel novels yet, you need to go do that.*</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
So, introducing <a href="http://cynography.blogspot.com/p/english-shepherd-litter-2017.html">The Historians</a>. May they take the past bestowed on them by their genes and carry it forward into a future that is humane and sustainable and scaled for Nature, and for human beings and their best friends and partners.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
The girls:</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<b>Kivrin</b></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
You can call her Catherine, that's okay too. Her devotion may make you mistake her for a Saint, and who is to say that it is really a mistake?<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyl2G4kz7s0aEkz2mrdq7BjoA6EfBVMd5v08Xg2mrd34kwereER6DHHSX8cJKqp4QQKANoWttpwVeVTygbcSc14kK4duCDlaLYwPsGSitPoUW_yJlSfbUkOmrl0xNFENZqDcVEg7NTlLJe/s1600/kivrin+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyl2G4kz7s0aEkz2mrdq7BjoA6EfBVMd5v08Xg2mrd34kwereER6DHHSX8cJKqp4QQKANoWttpwVeVTygbcSc14kK4duCDlaLYwPsGSitPoUW_yJlSfbUkOmrl0xNFENZqDcVEg7NTlLJe/s400/kivrin+1.jpg" width="315" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kivrin field marks: I am black. My blaze does not meet my wide collar.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<b>Verity</b></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Her instinct is to do the right thing, even though it's impossible. It all turns out better than you could have ever expected.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOSyyP_Yed2wd0H6mZbYXEzAeqOmLDxfGQjQRsfaJtEnkIA57OSNBGs66_hBYf3U7NjvyJQrU60EBWci4GZbgQSbijMbvHrvOndjED5ASNhg-bj7L43nHapoBYhsAl3pOG_VSeiQWHdoCH/s1600/Verity+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOSyyP_Yed2wd0H6mZbYXEzAeqOmLDxfGQjQRsfaJtEnkIA57OSNBGs66_hBYf3U7NjvyJQrU60EBWci4GZbgQSbijMbvHrvOndjED5ASNhg-bj7L43nHapoBYhsAl3pOG_VSeiQWHdoCH/s400/Verity+1.jpg" width="375" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Verity field marks: I am seal. My narrow blaze meets my broken collar over the top of my head.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<b>Merope</b></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
She'll sacrifice everything to take care of you, even if you are impossible to love. You will become good as a result.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4dsLt6qGUPGOvLP59S5UQVofXB_sIjJGp_FMZ9Se9ODS86jOyu_azAcVEWE52Svje0j3Jg-r7JHJx62tJPrR-L3IN03jBEJidqGOXvQQ94aKoaJNGL4MiVbfKfcKMV_87GpyiNSET5KyW/s1600/Merope+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4dsLt6qGUPGOvLP59S5UQVofXB_sIjJGp_FMZ9Se9ODS86jOyu_azAcVEWE52Svje0j3Jg-r7JHJx62tJPrR-L3IN03jBEJidqGOXvQQ94aKoaJNGL4MiVbfKfcKMV_87GpyiNSET5KyW/s400/Merope+1.jpg" width="381" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Merope field marks: I am seal. My wide blaze meets my broken collar over the top of my head.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
The boys:</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<b>Mike</b></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Is he American Mike or British Michael? This historian contains both personae. He'll do big things because the circumstances demand it.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOhLV81mDFpzaw3uHXTOkph3x-q62M5HDbAXQ3yKK_e6p0GJyw70yytdyNbzFs7tI88NDr9AR5N2rIkMWINsop4ayfHc0SFDgd_LLrGMliKT_5MCItl0nXPtgWTXvKbx2DNjQCTNApdQiy/s1600/Mike+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="390" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOhLV81mDFpzaw3uHXTOkph3x-q62M5HDbAXQ3yKK_e6p0GJyw70yytdyNbzFs7tI88NDr9AR5N2rIkMWINsop4ayfHc0SFDgd_LLrGMliKT_5MCItl0nXPtgWTXvKbx2DNjQCTNApdQiy/s400/Mike+1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mike field marks: I am tricolor like my Daddy.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<b>Dunworthy</b></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Will never, <i>ever</i>, abandon his charges. If only everyone could be watched over by a Dunworthy.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0qWkzl6drnsLMz6qbKh-VkYAcQZ8iqduQtwHQMFnfppdFNIWtspkD2oQ9a1rMVjxZo_ECbTEACNAjtnV5nXNMSXyzBSbMuixVqDMxA4ujbLJ5l9_CaTiSNkkLKWw7pbZzDsVSHXYorR1g/s1600/Dunworthy+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0qWkzl6drnsLMz6qbKh-VkYAcQZ8iqduQtwHQMFnfppdFNIWtspkD2oQ9a1rMVjxZo_ECbTEACNAjtnV5nXNMSXyzBSbMuixVqDMxA4ujbLJ5l9_CaTiSNkkLKWw7pbZzDsVSHXYorR1g/s400/Dunworthy+1.jpg" width="295" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dunworthy field marks: I am black. I have a mostly dark face and look a lot like Badri, but I still have a little spit-splash of white on my forehead. This will probably disappear shortly. I have a black on my left front leg where Badri does not.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<b>Finch</b></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Despite a rather formal veneer, Finch lives to serve, and finds surprising and spectacular ways to do so.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik5AyVJKfencVXhYWN5TAv5Pa-GYmoRFP4AifJS2g0Q-JmqxmBvLYOoYG0e-cBQFdROznSBCuFJt_4erpqS_1VfduTizdwqKnZVeBQ7-E2lAtAIogoJxf-ML_LMCWSPSzk4rUBtO1J4ET-/s1600/finch+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik5AyVJKfencVXhYWN5TAv5Pa-GYmoRFP4AifJS2g0Q-JmqxmBvLYOoYG0e-cBQFdROznSBCuFJt_4erpqS_1VfduTizdwqKnZVeBQ7-E2lAtAIogoJxf-ML_LMCWSPSzk4rUBtO1J4ET-/s400/finch+1.jpg" width="362" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I am sable like my Ebil Gramma Rosie</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<b>Colin</b></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Colin does not respect walls, boundaries, quarantines prohibitions or impediments of any kind. He's got stuff to do, mostly involving saving your ass. Best get out of his way, he's gonna do it. You are welcome.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKlkJExt78xD6hilo27sLR1DhAnAIhlZseT_dPDz-agiTBIo3dYz4A1138nds0eBNrB9YvU5Hj2Twt0M1EYnX4W6lfM__L-sBGp07m0VC137z1oAxNd7rUXWj1LM3OYle0spKt2Y4LsFkV/s1600/Colin+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="245" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKlkJExt78xD6hilo27sLR1DhAnAIhlZseT_dPDz-agiTBIo3dYz4A1138nds0eBNrB9YvU5Hj2Twt0M1EYnX4W6lfM__L-sBGp07m0VC137z1oAxNd7rUXWj1LM3OYle0spKt2Y4LsFkV/s400/Colin+1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I am seal. I have a wide blaze and a neck spot instead of a collar, and I am built like a bear cub, like my great-uncle Moe.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<b>Badri</b></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Badri will get you there and bring you back. You want Badri on your team.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHu4T3aoD6a3tlPojqGsKLLgrPmdJqI9Y-Fdz_6BReApx-xBLGTyi5QdR5C6aRUCcDmTlrDYQNKcv_bc5RljM999wNOJYsTgjoH4h9V4r_nMHfV6fj8YNSzk7F-c9mSsON9c2l45oEg7Sp/s1600/Badri+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="363" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHu4T3aoD6a3tlPojqGsKLLgrPmdJqI9Y-Fdz_6BReApx-xBLGTyi5QdR5C6aRUCcDmTlrDYQNKcv_bc5RljM999wNOJYsTgjoH4h9V4r_nMHfV6fj8YNSzk7F-c9mSsON9c2l45oEg7Sp/s400/Badri+1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Badri field marks: I am black. I have a no blaze. I look a lot like Dunworthy, but my left arm is all white.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br />
____________________________________</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
* <i>To Say Nothing of the Dog</i> for lighthearted farce, mostly, a silly fun romp. <i>Blackout</i> and <i>All Clear</i> (must read in that order and together) for existential suspense. <i>The Doomsday Book </i>for when you are up for having your heart probed and prodded and then deftly ripped from your thorax by the author's crochet hook. <i>I'm not crying, you're crying.</i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
Heather Houlahanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13891198124130533198noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5810033429461791744.post-49815445500890048932017-01-03T13:22:00.000-05:002017-01-03T14:39:02.742-05:00The Necessity of Naughty<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhbbWJyPmu1lUzTXJVV9ixY-KhkON2GNZmD-abkLERnDBQ3K-dTg0NBs5iqbheJ1trulG6EnQba2pasPETczColfbKz-VIY1Qv_VnpsqLjCRBubXSPcvSSTS_s3CNB396pwOJNsxgPnCB8/s1600/magic+joins+in.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhbbWJyPmu1lUzTXJVV9ixY-KhkON2GNZmD-abkLERnDBQ3K-dTg0NBs5iqbheJ1trulG6EnQba2pasPETczColfbKz-VIY1Qv_VnpsqLjCRBubXSPcvSSTS_s3CNB396pwOJNsxgPnCB8/s400/magic+joins+in.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nice cavaletti you got there. Be a shame if somethin' were to <i>happen </i>to it.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
I had briefly met <a href="http://www.azdoggyduderanch.com/">Maryna's</a> two Arabian geldings when Pip and I arrived to help set up the seminar at her Arizona ranch.<br />
<br />
That night, as we took all the dogs for a walk in the desert darkness, both horses tagged along unbidden, a companionable three-species packwalk.<br />
<br />
As I followed along in one narrow spot, I was surprised by a firm Vulcan nerve-pinch on my right shoulder.<br />
<br />
<i>Hey! </i><bop></bop><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Who me?</i><br />
<br />
If Majyk could have stuck his hands in his pockets and whistled, he'd have done so.<br />
<br />
"What did he do?"<br />
<br />
"Grabbed my shoulder. Not hard. I bopped his nose. Punk."<br />
<br />
"This may sound weird, but I'm glad. That's the first really extroverted thing he's done."<br />
<br />
What I didn't know about little Majyk when he impishly mouthed me was that he was not -- yet -- a normal horse.<br />
<br />
You've seen the cable animal pain porn shows, of course. Every other episode, you'll be treated to the sight of a dog who kept growing while his never-changed puppy collar didn't. Embedded collar -- bloody dog-girdling. How do they <i>live</i> when that happens?!<br />
<br />
Now make the puppy a foal.<br />
<br />
And make the collar a little nylon foal halter.<br />
<br />
And turn that foal out into the open range and leave him there for a year while his skull and face grow and grow, and the halter doesn't.<br />
<br />
When Maryna agreed to take him on as a rehab case, the bones of his head had grown around the halter. The nylon fiber had been <i>incorporated into his skeleton</i>. His short life after being rescued from the range had been surgeries and wound irrigation, antibiotic lavage and manipulation. Pain beyond the telling of it.<br />
<br />
So the woman whose dogs and horses were flawlessly well-mannered was thrilled when her young horse did something terribly <i>naughty. </i>He was telling us that he wasn't a victim or an object of pity; Majyk had something to say. (Also, he liked me, and soon I adored him. He wasn't quite compact enough to fit into the overhead compartment, but I was tempted.)<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
✦ ✦ ✦</div>
<br />
Most of the time, my criteria for offering a foster dog for adoption is "Has this guy learned enough manners here?"<br />
<br />
They come in with all sorts of behavior deficits and flavors of pig-ignorance, and we whip them into shape.<br />
<br />
Failed pets who have been cooed over by indulgent, anxious doggie-mommies develop self-control, and as they do they shed insecurity-based rudeness and entitlement and become the good citizens they were meant to be.<br />
<br />
Wild, neglected youngsters sprung from the pound learn that there are these things called <i>rules</i>, and that there are previously unimagined privileges that derive from mastering and following them.<br />
<br />
There are other things that happen during their time as foster dogs, but some version of learning self-control is usually the biggest part of it.<br />
<br />
And then there are the others, the ones who have nothing <i>but</i> self-control, whose approach to everything is "Why try? It could be dangerous. I could fail. I better not."<br />
<br />
The Operation New Beginnings dogs had various behavioral needs, depending on how old they were at the time they were all seized from their abuser. In general, the older they were, the less the program was about self-control, and the more it was about self-confidence, trust, and resilience.<br />
<br />
Foster puppy <a href="http://cynography.blogspot.com/2009/06/no-talk-no-touch-no-eye-contact.html">Spike</a> came from the same shithole as his relatives, but was removed just prior to the raid and confiscation. He was spared eight months of confinement as criminal evidence, but still had a lot of deficits from his first couple months of life. His first adopters were not prepared to build him up in the no-nonsense way that he needed, and got quite overwrought at his experiments in reactive behavior. So he came to me to foster, appearing to be shy, but really a pup with some genetic boldness and drive who was in conflict with himself. One favorite way of expressing that conflict was by retreating under the table and barking maniacally at whatever person he decided was a "threat."<br />
<br />
So Spike needed to learn self-control, but also confidence so that he didn't experience the conflict between his desire to express himself inappropriately and his conviction that doing so was maybe dangerous. Neither idea was reality-based.<br />
<br />
On the other end of the severity spectrum in the Linda Kapsa canine shitstorm was<a href="http://cynography.blogspot.com/2009/10/consent-and-compulsion.html"> Mr. Barry White</a>.<br />
<br />
Everything I did with Barry White was aimed at convincing him that the world and the humans in it were safe, and could even be pleasant.<br />
<br />
I'd have no more told him "no" than chew off my left thumb.<br />
<br />
Our normal rules for foster dogs include no furniture privileges. We can't know whether each dog's new owners will approve of dogs on the sofa, so why set him up for conflict when he is starting his new life? If they do approve, they get to be the heroes who invite him up for a snuggle, and he can tell the cat the heartbreaking story of the mean foster humans who made him lie on a dog bed on the floor.<br />
<br />
But one of the first <i>extroverted things</i> that Barry White did once I'd convinced him that the house would not swallow him whole was hop up on the end of the couch while Perfesser Chaos was lying there watching television. He looked shocked with himself and sort of froze in place there.<br />
<br />
One slightly disapproving grunt would have sent him skittering out to the foster kennel in horror.<br />
<br />
So the couch became part of his rehab program. He liked it up there. It was a soft, comfortable place after a hard, spartan life. He'd hold his position even when horrified by the company of human creatures on the same cushions. Eventually, couch surfing became companionable.<br />
<br />
Seven years later, enter Morty.<br />
<br />
Morty came into rescue with his littermate, Rick, right around his four-month birthday.<br />
<br />
Both boys, and another sibling, and who knows how many others, had been born to a dog and a bitch owned by a dirtbag. I won't dignify him with the label breeder. When the dirtbag couldn't sell the last pups, he gave them to a Craigslist dog-flipper who pretends to be a "rescue." When the dog-flipper couldn't <strike>sell </strike>adopt them because no one wants to pay money for puppies who run from all humans and pile up in the back of a filthy pen shivering and cowering, she advertised them for free. A nice lady and her boyfriend took them all, and had the good judgement to get two of them to breed rescue immediately.<br />
<br />
When I met them to take in the two boys, all three were in a shaking heap on the rear footwell of a sedan. They'd ridden a couple hours that way without moving around or making a peep.<br />
<br />
Mull that. Three four-month-old puppies loose in a car and they <i>never moved</i>.<br />
<br />
This is convenient in the moment, but Not Good.<br />
<br />
I trundled the two I was taking into a crate in my van and drove home. Several hours, with two stops. Not a peep. They plastered against the back wall of the crate and stared out in round-eyed horror.<br />
<br />
You've seen the awful pictures of meat dogs in some east Asian market, crammed into wire and wood crates? I'm not going to put one here; you can google it if you have a masochistic bent.<br />
<br />
Well, those dogs look more outgoing and relaxed than these pups did.<br />
<br />
You know the videos of <a href="http://cynography.blogspot.com/2010/05/falling-through-when-whole-damned-thing.html">puppymill</a> raids, the rows and rows of filthy wire hutches full of little fluffy puppy factories that jump at the cage and beg for the attention and touch that they so crave?<br />
<br />
Yeah, guess what, those dogs have actually been handled enough that that the prospect of it doesn't send them catatonic. They get picked up by a total stranger, a lot of them shower him with kisses. Years -- whole lifetimes -- of hutch-life have left them with that much dogness.<br />
<br />
Not these guys.†<br />
<br />
Well, catatonic puppies are easy to manage. On their first day I bathed them both, trimmed their nails, and took them to the vet*, and I may as well have been sprucing up a couple of Gund stuffies. Pancake puppies. Set them on the ground and they try to become part of it.<br />
<br />
We had both pups for ten days, while I got an initial handle on their relative characters.<br />
<br />
Every morsel of food they got came from my hand. They had to approach me to get it; these were pups who, gated into my office, would run <i>away</i> from the gate when a person entered the adjoining room. They went from crate -- later crates, when I separated them over voluble objections -- to outdoors on a leash for potty breaks, exercise, and some hand-feeding, to a period of liberty in the office, which would usually find them diving back into the refuge of a crate. After a few days we started pack walks in the south pasture, first on long lines, then dragging the lines as they modeled their movement on the other dogs.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN3LUh2c1zk_Un5aq9m4nlZvcB7Nbt1hPLXhgEsVpWM4x2H3UFWy4XkGLB4uc-0dQE4jYJlX3tMdVm5HsXEExj7UlTA1zoeca34PcYzbqOaEt7dLC__Iq5lKJ8NaqurKhRNS4JukTVhnmi/s1600/DSC_0027+%25282%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN3LUh2c1zk_Un5aq9m4nlZvcB7Nbt1hPLXhgEsVpWM4x2H3UFWy4XkGLB4uc-0dQE4jYJlX3tMdVm5HsXEExj7UlTA1zoeca34PcYzbqOaEt7dLC__Iq5lKJ8NaqurKhRNS4JukTVhnmi/s640/DSC_0027+%25282%2529.JPG" width="404" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rick was <i>always</i> first. The boys came running because I hadn't tried to kill them yet, and that's the only way they got fed -- not because they were normal English shepherd pups who want to know what they can do for me today, ma'am.<br />
<br />
A perfect illustration of the fake it 'til you make it principle. Just remember that Stockholm Syndrome is a temporary tool of desperation for a creature in dire circumstances, not a proper training regimen. Move on as soon as possible.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
It's crucial that well-reared pups be<a href="http://cynography.blogspot.com/2011/02/take-two-theyre-small.html"> separated from their littermates</a> by about 11 weeks, if they are to develop normally and bond primarily to humans. It is mandatory that co-dependent, terrified feral puppies be pried apart. So Rick, the stronger and more resilient of the brothers, moved on to a new foster home, one with confident dogs to show him the ropes and humans who adore him and are committed to converting his "old man eyes" to the open, innocent expression that is proper to a baby.<br />
<br />
And Morty didn't come out of the crate without physical compulsion for the next two days. He mourned the latest loss in his life, and he had no interest in the people and animals who populated this space. The fact of his depression was the strongest evidence that dependency on Rick had been holding him back.<br />
<br />
Bringing Morty towards normalcy, sifting out insight about who Morty really<i> is</i> vs. the transient presentation of a puppy demonstrating the wages of neglect, is a slow and uneven process. He's young enough that we can still work on him developmentally; the window for socialization is still open a crack, and we can slide it a little further and prune his young synapses into a healthier pattern, one that doesn't rely on flight and evasion, isn't dominated by fear and suspicion. But I think his core temperament is a bit tender, prone to bruising, and requires ample time for rest and cogitation after a new achievement or any time he must stand up to an uncomfortable amount of pressure. He takes many repetitions to learn a new fragment of courage, not because he is a dumb puppy -- he's typical ES bright -- but because we are still building the frame for boldness, self-confidence, and security that a normal puppy has constructed by the time his eyes open.<br />
<br />
One month in, Morty has the freedom of the farm while I'm out working, albeit with a trailing drag line just in case. He's got the freedom of the house and dog yard most of the time; he has housebroken himself, conquered the dog door, mastered stairs, cataloged the foibles of the other animals. He doesn't chew or steal stuff or get into trouble.<br />
<br />
And that's why he's not ready for adoption just yet.<br />
<br />
Because Morty will now cuddle on the sofa and bed with me, wiggle and give puppy kisses, because we've applied Barry White Rules to furniture access, and his adopters are going to have to be down with that. He'll come roaring in with his stub-tail whirring like a rotor when he's called, even though I no longer reliably carry a pocketful of kibble. He's mostly mastered that bogey of feral dogs, the doorways into and out of the house. He walks nicely on a leash. The typical feral issue with a human approaching him "the last ten feet" is almost gone. He will sleep stretched out in the open, puppy-belly and puppy-junk exposed to the breezes, rather than always huddled in a ball.<br />
<br />
This weekend I brought him to a class where boring humans sat at boring tables and talked and moved papers around, and sometimes had to step over him. Where boring humans ate fascinating lunches right there in range. Where nice juicy wires and computer cables were free for the nomming.<br />
<br />
And this is what he did for the entire day, less potty breaks:<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAYf6nZSjrg7AFc7ZMHMIv-2tcMJ_DiQ6EyOkg1f6_RCG4Vqmd0bqRjcoyN-glra0Rj4pwy0CHo0os5DEZm-G2R28FOUmtmIfvHblTaG9ELj-yw6dYgrAPSrDHBlVTGUFcQeAawNgvcVVl/s1600/15823051_10211954576283704_3746873713065104165_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAYf6nZSjrg7AFc7ZMHMIv-2tcMJ_DiQ6EyOkg1f6_RCG4Vqmd0bqRjcoyN-glra0Rj4pwy0CHo0os5DEZm-G2R28FOUmtmIfvHblTaG9ELj-yw6dYgrAPSrDHBlVTGUFcQeAawNgvcVVl/s400/15823051_10211954576283704_3746873713065104165_n.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">No, he's not tied to anything.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
For the record, that is not okay.<br />
<br />
Because Morty is not a precociously well-trained puppy. He's not our Lilly, presiding over sophomore tutorials at five months of age courtesy of great obedience and natural self-assurance. Morty stayed put because he could not for the life of him think of what else to do. The option of raising some hell was not on the table.<br />
<br />
My house is not puppy-proofed. There are shoes and gloves and all manner of great stuff in puppy range <i>everywhere</i>. Unmolested. And he's <i>teething </i>now, and clearly in a lot of discomfort sometimes.<br />
<br />
He doesn't feel safe enough to be naughty. Not even at home, where his comfort bubble is largest, though there are hopeful signs here.<br />
<br />
Naughty means that the little critter knows what is permitted and what is forbidden.<br />
<br />
Has figured out that what is forbidden is more fun than what is permitted.<br />
<br />
Is aware that there are likely consequences for indulging in the forbidden.<br />
<br />
And also knows for sure that those consequences, while possibly unpleasant,<i> are in no way a genuine danger to him.</i><br />
<br />
Foster Mommy might chase him down, grab him by the scruff, and pry what's left of her sammitch out of his mouth, but there is no prospect of her eating him instead.<br />
<br />
The adrenaline surge when one is making off with the goods or nomming the leg of the chair or sparking the livestock is a little giddy belly thrill, rather than earnest fuel for a panic terror.<br />
<br />
Sure, I'm locked in my crate (aka protective custody) now, but it was <i>so worth it</i>.<br />
<br />
Naughty is high spirits, testing boundaries, angling for attention from a mostly innocent dependent critter who trusts his world.<br />
<br />
Morty is occasionally testing Charlie's patience lately, and she has lightly thumped him for chomping too hard in play. He has nommed a bit too hard on my arm, as teething babies are wont to do, and responds immediately to a mild, <i>nope, that's me</i>. He is finally brave enough to pick up a toy and carry it around a little bit -- but fetch or tug are just out of the question so far. He's fearless with other animals, and kind of teased Jake the bloodhound about how semi-wild ES puppehs are allowed to run free with a drag line while great big hounddogs aren't. He's flirting with normalcy on a few fronts this way.<br />
<br />
But I won't be satisfied that he's ready to go to his permanent home and grow into the dog he's meant to be until I'm chasing him around our circular floor plan while he prances off with my underwear, tiny stub wagging and a gleam in his eye. I want to see him bomb through a bunch of chickens and laugh while they scatter outwards and upwards in a flutter of indignation. He should, once in a great while, bite Charlie in the ass and run off. (This flavor of naughtiness not compatible with Rosie. Don't try this at home, kids. Some beetches <i>will</i> keel you.) He should sass me when his dinner is slow in coming. He should find my irritation a little bit scary, but more funny, because no one in his life is genuinely dangerous.<br />
<br />
Come on Morty. Be a little shit.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKu8p0jpQXRZCySeOBEMSb-5IHHASxG_D2Eta9JX66gf6ftoZVJvsmIWenB-0rV9IeywF_4AFZC5X4LKvH1z-i7YjzO3Tk5f4J1JUgOFTxgKpkatITtwg19R-al5fF32esA9CwW9HX-eYK/s1600/DSC_0151+%25282%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKu8p0jpQXRZCySeOBEMSb-5IHHASxG_D2Eta9JX66gf6ftoZVJvsmIWenB-0rV9IeywF_4AFZC5X4LKvH1z-i7YjzO3Tk5f4J1JUgOFTxgKpkatITtwg19R-al5fF32esA9CwW9HX-eYK/s640/DSC_0151+%25282%2529.JPG" width="522" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Who, me?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
--------------------------<br />
<br />
† Why I don't believe all the hype around Belyaev's "domesticated" foxes. Reports allege that the fox kits will automatically approach a human and make "friendly" gestures after weaning age even if they have never been handled.<br />
<br />
Bullshit.<br />
<br />
And I can show you several score domestic dog puppies that were never touched, or never touched kindly, as babies, who ran screaming and cowered in terror when facing a human at twelve weeks to demonstrate what actually happens with that kind of neglect.<br />
<br />
* If you have a truly feral, unsocialized animal that you've just gotten physical control of, you should do <i>all the things</i> to him <i>right away</i> -- bathe, worm, vaccinate, trim nails, pull blood, shave down, even neuter surgery if feasible. Don't dick around letting him "settle in," much less do things he's gonna hate in dribs and drabs, because all that's going to do is reverse the progress you make in gaining his trust and building him up. He's freaked-out catatonic <i>today</i> and it ain't gonna get worse. In fact, he may not even remember half the ordeal if it happens while he's clocked out.<br />
<br />Heather Houlahanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13891198124130533198noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5810033429461791744.post-50922332887942700912017-01-01T21:55:00.001-05:002017-01-01T21:55:45.522-05:00Snapshots Sunday: Sorting<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Before I put the new buck goat in with the does, I needed to sort out some doelings who are too small to breed and transfer them to the getting swole pen with Ameera to babysit. My go-to guy for this kind of thing is Cole.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrOSZNS70PKKbYvdCei09Jrwy8smmz-9R9V1vCTFbjJOarHjvjhcRo3s7UnyKZMoPWvl9CaxxpyD-x91HK_IcQ46xCpQQdFl18oicnwEnRdGVnBrVEvf_BAx8l-VmqCQwOquRDTAeAkUot/s1600/DSC_0223+%25283%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="126" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrOSZNS70PKKbYvdCei09Jrwy8smmz-9R9V1vCTFbjJOarHjvjhcRo3s7UnyKZMoPWvl9CaxxpyD-x91HK_IcQ46xCpQQdFl18oicnwEnRdGVnBrVEvf_BAx8l-VmqCQwOquRDTAeAkUot/s400/DSC_0223+%25283%2529.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Goats. They don't get with the program.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXjrpbbrFCVn09szenMMhRqxPWPA7X7xYxUBhwX4yh5ZYamTXalFiwUYmKPU417bI4nlxMrDtLSpXtTs8KAcUP9UV8kLijEhpn9X7GbMjr9NioH_9nnkWdLoUNPrm6J6kozhDhKwlYQH5V/s1600/DSC_0248+%25282%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="313" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXjrpbbrFCVn09szenMMhRqxPWPA7X7xYxUBhwX4yh5ZYamTXalFiwUYmKPU417bI4nlxMrDtLSpXtTs8KAcUP9UV8kLijEhpn9X7GbMjr9NioH_9nnkWdLoUNPrm6J6kozhDhKwlYQH5V/s400/DSC_0248+%25282%2529.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">There's always mopping up with so many individualistic contrarians.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibNX7PKsf4NnhnFW6_Vdlgy7DB5p3I5PR7rQStolKpT2R9lbo0ki0tCEsIs2jfDK_g92VwS6dZqFHpoMY7Emi892f6kPkqZmc-BqYew9y97QUhtwAbmhN4ULbPe2r9RnKMcmtp_nwuOtr1/s1600/DSC_0292+%25282%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="217" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibNX7PKsf4NnhnFW6_Vdlgy7DB5p3I5PR7rQStolKpT2R9lbo0ki0tCEsIs2jfDK_g92VwS6dZqFHpoMY7Emi892f6kPkqZmc-BqYew9y97QUhtwAbmhN4ULbPe2r9RnKMcmtp_nwuOtr1/s400/DSC_0292+%25282%2529.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">R-E-S-P-E-C-T</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Eight years and two days ago, my Little Dude was shivering in the shit of a felon's insane puppy-production plant, waiting to be rescued.<br />
<br />
So much for that bullshit.Heather Houlahanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13891198124130533198noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5810033429461791744.post-24666522245553824432015-10-28T01:46:00.000-04:002015-10-29T21:57:10.984-04:00Bad Apples<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ0ttHmW79xXUm7DYAUCFnPlxHQFKUTH54NVebpxdJYejGxe4qVXIEyyCcFd1XrIrYT32Du-cqocZ1AbiW1cowpX67PPuLwMtct-tuZVh6faCnaGZAWXRHxr7PfIgxbS209fRf8Hseu_cQ/s1600/bad+apples.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ0ttHmW79xXUm7DYAUCFnPlxHQFKUTH54NVebpxdJYejGxe4qVXIEyyCcFd1XrIrYT32Du-cqocZ1AbiW1cowpX67PPuLwMtct-tuZVh6faCnaGZAWXRHxr7PfIgxbS209fRf8Hseu_cQ/s400/bad+apples.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Find the good apples in this big crate.<br />Careful of the yellowjackets.</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
I think it was early this summer that I started hearing it everywhere: someone in authority, someone who is entrusted with the responsibility to keep other people right, minimizing institutionalized misconduct.<br />
<br />
<i>It was just a couple of bad apples.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>One bad apple.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>This was the act of a few bad apples.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
I started getting twitchy whenever I heard it.<br />
<br />
<b><i>Do they not know how that sentence about bad apples ends?!</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
<b><i>What does "one bad apple" DO, chief?</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
Most of the bad apple apologetics were coming from police chiefs/commissioners/public safety directors who were attempting to deflect blame after men in their employ had committed an atrocity. Murdered a citizen, say, and then lied about it until (and even after) the video evidence revealed the crime. Or maybe just beat the shit out of someone or shot a pet dog while raiding the wrong house. (Ha ha. I kid. Shooting a harmless dog is not the act of a bad apple. Those guys get a medal.) With clear impunity, no expectation of any consequences, all evidence pointing to business as usual.<br />
<br />
Because if your institution allows rot at its center, then it has made a decision to nurture it there, grow it in the dark, and let it corrupt every apple in the barrel, while relying on the visible halves of the pretty-looking ones on top to hide the putrescence beneath. <i>Pay no attention to that nauseating smell.</i><br />
<br />
When an institution presents itself as an authority, a responsible entity, with jurisdiction over quality, competence, ethics, professionalism, and <i>just one</i> of the people under its aegis abrogates the professed standards without consequence, then the institution is revealed as a liar, as a system for enabling, as answerable to the wrong set of interests.<br />
<br />
If your caucus, church, association, or "ministry" professes to hew to a strict fundamentalist "morality" and your ranks are rife with baby-rapers, whoremongers, wide-stancers, serial divorce, and abortion-on-the-down-low, then we know you.<br />
<br />
If your professional association, SAR unit, or certifying agency has one set of standards on paper and maybe for regular dues-paying schlubs and another for friends of the Star Chamber or the commandante for life, the self-dealing outs itself, eventually.<br />
<br />
And if your dog breed club says it stands for conserving healthy, functional working dogs, but what it actually does is help just about anybody sell puppies whose parents are none of the above, then what you have is a low-rent marketing firm, not an ethical steward.<br />
<br />
So let's talk about them apples.<br />
<br />
If you go to the English Shepherd Club's website at the moment I am writing this and click through to "puppies for sale," you'll see 17 litters listed. Click on any listing, and you'll see information about the parents of the pups and contact information for the breeder. Each listing is free; the sellers have to be members of the Club, but they don't pay any more than a member who is not a breeder, and one seller can list any number of litters for sale any year. The ESC litter listings are a primary sales tool for some breeders. I've probably gotten about one buyer from the litter listing from each of the four ES litters I've bred, but some sellers absolutely rely on it.<br />
<br />
In order to qualify for the free ad, the seller must be a member of the Club, have signed the toothless and unenforceably vague <a href="http://www.englishshepherd.org/code-of-ethics.html">Code of Ethics</a>, and the parent dogs must meet, if I recall correctly, three criteria -- be each over <i>one</i> year of age, not be first-degree relatives, and in the case of the bitch, not be on her third or more litter from a consecutive heat cycle.<br />
<br />
Got that?<br />
<br />
If you want to start breeding a dog to his granddaughter the day she turns 12 months old, and breed her two out of three estrus cycles until she's 15 and gives out, that's hunky dory. Every one of those litters is eligible for a free ad.<br />
<br />
As to the rest of the things you might want to make breeding decisions about -- the dogs' genetic health, their demonstrated working ability, their temperaments -- meh, that's up to you. Whatever you think. We're not going to have any pesky rules and criteria, set norms and enforce them, or in any way be <i>prescriptive</i> about what we agree are legitimate ways to conserve a working breed.<br />
<br />
So just a ferinstance.<br />
<br />
ES are pretty healthy dogs, overall. Not many genetic diseases to be concerned about, at least, not that occur above the background rate of all dogs. Conscientious people are looking carefully at certain eye defects, allergies, epilepsy, but there seems to be no cause for panic. The MDR1 mutation occurs in the breed, and that is a thing to know about a dog before breeding him.<br />
<br />
Then there's their hips. I'm going to use this one as the ferinstance because there's hard data, and because <i>transparency</i> and <i>due diligence</i> are a bit easier to pin down on this one metric. Keep in mind that my screaming fantods are not about hips. Hips are just a bellwether for all the ethical indolence on display.<br />
<br />
The dysplasia rate is<i> <a href="http://www.offa.org/stats_hip.html">unacceptable</a>.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
Worse hips than German shepherds. Than Rottweilers. Worse hips than friggin Labradoodles.<br />
<br />
How the hell is that the case with a medium-sized, mesomorphic, non-dwarfed, athletic dog selected for work?<br />
<br />
I don't know, but I do know that if you've got a breed where one-fifth of the radiographs that are <i>not </i>"pre-screened" and quietly shoved in a drawer show malformed, arthritis-prone joints, the ethically and genetically sound response is <i>not</i> to fling one's hands into the air and shout <i>Thank God for pugs and bulldogs</i> and then mildly kind of sort of suggest, in a way that never shames or judges, you know, that <i>best practices</i> just might possibly perhaps include conducting a phenotype test on dogs you intend to breed <i>before</i> you make More Like This*, or maybe whenever you get around to it, and then mayhaps just consider <i>sharing</i> those results as well as culling physically unsound animals from what I am going to generously refer to as "the breeding program," if said sharing doesn't make you feel sad or open you up to questions that are icky and not conducive to a blessed day.<br />
<br />
Now, a genetic sophisticate would point out that there are circumstances under which an animal with non-normal hips can be included in an overall breed conservation program, with great care and rigorous selection in the next couple generations, and that, after all, we breed dogs, not hip joints.<br />
<br />
Ayuh. Not what we're talking about here. Not in the least, part of incorporating outstanding individuals with one or two major flaws in a conservation or improvement breeding scheme involves identifying the flaw followed by full and open disclosure. Neither chanting <i>la la la I can't heeeeear youuu</i> and never having the dog tested, nor furtively burying the envelope with the bad news while lying to your customer's face meets that standard.<br />
<br />
So back to the litter listings.<br />
<br />
As of tonight, there are seventeen litters up on the listings.<br />
<br />
For only five of them have both parents had hip radiographs taken, evaluated by either PennHIP or OFA, and the results shared by the person selling their puppies.<br />
<br />
That's an improvement, or a momentary glitch -- at nearly 30% of the litters listed, the apex of my observations. Recently that number has been lower, at one point two listings out of 18, or 11% of the litters being marketed by the 501(c)3 dedicated to breed conservation.†<br />
<br />
(Also, do not assume the set of "breeders who have two dogs with hip scores listed tonight" and "breeders from whom I would consider purchasing a pup in the absence of a grenade launcher pointed at at my left ear" overlap by much, because you would be mistaken in that assumption. That's why the hip example is just one ferinstance. Repeat one more time <i>this is not a rant about bad hips, this is a rant about institutionally promoting feckless breeding practices and used car dealer ethics.</i>)<br />
<br />
Remember, it's not 11-29% of the promoted litters that have two parents with great hips, and great hip genetics as shown by their relatives' scores.<br />
<br />
It's 11-29% of litters for which the sellers have disclosed <i>any results at all</i> on just the two parents.<br />
<br />
So let's talk for a moment about that 71-89% of "guess what you'll get" litters.<br />
<br />
Some of them, neither parent has, according the sellers, had any kind of hip phenotype evaluation.<br />
<br />
Let us, for the sake of argument, take them at their words. They never bothered to nip down to their veterinarian and drop perhaps $100 for a single radiograph and evaluation by OFA.<br />
<br />
Remember, background rate for radiographic dysplasia in the population is a <i>minimum </i>one out of five dogs. In truth, much higher in light of the common practice of screening out the worst-looking films and never sending them in for what the veterinary GP knows will be a failing score.<br />
<br />
Why wouldn't you do this? Why wouldn't you check whether your dog was at risk of middle-aged crippling, and at elevated risk of passing that disability on to his offspring?<br />
<br />
When I started looking at English shepherds in about 1997 the usual story was, hey, this is a <i>new idea</i> for these old farmers, and they will take a while to get caught up.<br />
<br />
This shiny new idea that has actually been around since the 60's has reached voting age since then. There's this thing called the internet, and <i>everydamnone of them uses it. </i>On this internet thing is <i>all the knowledge</i>. Not just cat videos and efficient ways to sell your puppies without paying for ads, but decades of edjimicashun about genetics and health for dogs in general and this breed in particular.<br />
<br />
I call bullshit. Farmers are fast as hell to adopt a new idea when it serves their interests.<br />
<br />
And while many of these breeders live in rural areas, calling some of them "farmers" is a tenuous stretch.<br />
<br />
<i>Grandpa</i> milked fifty cows every morning. You work at Auto Zone.<br />
<br />
I think it's a safe generalization in this breed that pups whose parents have health clearances command a higher price than pups from unknown genetics. The cost of OFA evaluation for both parents would be erased by the enhanced value of their first progeny.<br />
<br />
But that's assuming that the results are good.<br />
<br />
If the results are bad, and published, the value of the pups decreases, and suddenly there you are in front of WalMart with a cardboard box. Also meanies say mean things to you about making the puppies.<br />
<br />
So with, say, about a quarter chance that Shep's hips are gonna suck, isn't it a better gamble to remain in blissful ignorance? <i>Breeder MsFancyPants does PennHIP on all her dogs, and publishes the results, and gets $600 a puppy. But she spayed two bitches with poor scores who never made her any puppy money, and I can still get $400 without any uppity x-rays, especially with the help of this free ad on the internet machine.</i><br />
<br />
Of course, there's always the slight gamble called Have Your Cake and Eat It.<br />
<br />
Both OFA and PennHIP will obligingly hide your shame if your dog's radiographs don't look great.<br />
<br />
Of course, a disappointing result on a medical test is not grounds for shame. It is what it is. Data. Culpability comes with what you do with that data.<br />
<br />
Our Seller is about to behave shamefully, and these institutions know it and are happy to collude. They've stuffed that rotten apple right into the middle of the barrel.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>"Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk."</b><br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
<b>--HD Thoreau</b></div>
</blockquote>
<br />
Just radiograph them all. Use the good scores as advertising copy. Shitty score? Say you never did it. Be a lying liar. Nobody at OFA or PennHIP will fink you out.<br />
<br />
But, thing is, when a puppy-seller has a two-year-old bitch who is OFA Good, a four-year-old bitch who is OFA Good, and a four-year-old stud who has "no" hip score listed (and of course she is using her own stud because <i>of course), </i>well, who does she think she's fooling?<br />
<br />
<i>Oh, we just never got around to doing the x-rays on Banjo.</i><br />
<br />
Of course you didn't. Because that makes perfect sense. <i>We believe you.</i><br />
<br />
Now, in a few cases, someone owns a male that has been hip scored -- because by doing so, he could sell that dog's stud services to more bitch owners and/or for a higher price upon receipt of a favorable score -- and bitches who have not been.<br />
<br />
But mostly -- mostly this is telltale trout in the bucket of milk. The visible tip of the iceberg of silence.<br />
<br />
So what to do, what to do, if you are the sole institution charged with the genetic and cultural conservation of this population of agricultural assets?<br />
<br />
Here's a suggestion: stop enabling the exact people who are destroying it. Stop helping them to screw over their <strike>suckers</strike> buyers, who I assure you, <i>remember</i> that it was the English Shepherd Club who endorsed the seller who was <i>sooo nice</i> right up until Daisy started limping and you sent him that copy of the radiograph and then he wouldn't return your calls. Stop helping them to screw over Daisy, who gets to live a short, painful life as a cripple, just like her Dad, who sired her at the age of 13 months and couldn't get up from his bed of straw in the barn a year later.<br />
<br />
Don't enable that. Require everyone who wants their free ad to have both parents' hips evaluated and provide the documentation. Easy-peasy.<br />
<br />
The Club has no special obligation to puppy sellers. Someone who breeds ten litters a year pays the same membership dues as the owner of a single spayed ES from Rescue. I submit that the Club <i>does</i> have a special obligation to potential puppy buyers. It has a positive duty not to mislead a buyer, who is at a disadvantage <i>vis a vis</i> a seller, into thinking that a puppy has been bred and raised with care because it is being sold with the assistance of the Club.<br />
<br />
You want free advertising, with the implied endorsement of the Club?<br />
<br />
Prove that you are conserving the breed.<br />
<br />
Meet some goddamned standards.<br />
<br />
Show some respect for the community.<br />
<br />
Knock it off with the aw shucks I'm just a simple farmer bullshit.<br />
<br />
Earlier this year, a committee member asked me for input into revising the Club's Code of Ethics.<br />
<br />
I've ridden in this exact rodeo before, and have limited patience for it. It's demoralizing to put months of work into trying to improve things, only to have all the results shot down because it would be too mean, too snobby,‡ too exclusive to ask anyone to do anydamnthing in order to earn something in return.<br />
<br />
Even small things that are of direct benefit to the Club. Why the <i>hell</i> should the Club give free advertising to sellers who refuse to register their breeding stock and litters with the Club registry -- which is the primary tool of breed conservation? These freeloaders are sending money to one or more of the commercial registries, maybe one of the fake puppymill registries, and refusing to pay the small registration fees of the ESCR.<br />
<br />
So I whipped out a one-off nuclear critique in about twenty minutes, using the old COE as a template, though it would be more productive to start from scratch.<br />
<br />
I believe it was received unfavorably by the Board of Directors. I believe I failed to be shocked.<br />
<br />
In any event, there has been no revision to the Code of Ethics, nor any further conditions placed on those who demand free advertising.<br />
<br />
But here's what I humbly suggested. My additions are in <b><span style="color: red;">bold red</span></b>, deletions are in <strike>strikethrough</strike>. My commentary on each item for this blog is in <span style="color: #6aa84f;">green. </span>Spacing and font freakouts are courtesy of the blogger software, which pitches tantrums when you cut and paste text into it.<br />
<br />
<div align="center" class="yiv3075419563MsoNormal" id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_5713" style="background-color: white; font-family: HelveticaNeue, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; text-align: center;">
<span id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_5714" style="font-size: 12pt;"><br clear="none" /><br clear="none" />I, ______________________ , hereby agree to abide by all of the terms in this code to the best of my ability.</span></div>
<ul dir="ltr" id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_6202" style="background-color: white; font-family: HelveticaNeue, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 2px 0px 0in; padding: 0px 40px;" type="disc">
<li class="yiv3075419563MsoNormal" id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_5716" style="font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_5715" style="font-size: 12pt;">I will not knowingly misrepresent the characteristics of the breed, nor falsely advertise, or mislead any person regarding the performance of any dogs or puppies for sale </span><b id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_5740" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px;"><span style="color: red;">including by omitting any information regarding the health of the animals or their relatives, their behavior history, or their ancestry.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: #6aa84f;">Lies of omission are very popular in this crowd. "Why didn't you tell me this puppy's sire was dysplastic?" "Well you never <i>asked."</i> True quote. Breeder is an exhibitionist God-botherer, natch.</span></b></li>
<li class="yiv3075419563MsoNormal" id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_5719" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_5718" style="font-size: 12pt;">I will provide an honest representation of my animals and all of their progeny to anyone who inquires about my dogs <b id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_5795"><span style="color: red;">not limited to potential purchasers</span><br /><span style="color: #6aa84f;"><i>"I'll provide that information if you put down a deposit."</i></span></b></span></li>
<li class="yiv3075419563MsoNormal" id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_5748" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_5747" style="font-size: 12pt;">I will <span id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_6258" style="color: grey;"><strike>make every effort to</strike></span> provide each of my dogs and puppies proper socialization, care, nutrition, and exercise<br /><br /><span style="color: #6aa84f;"><b>Do or do not. There is no "try."</b></span></span></li>
<li class="yiv3075419563MsoNormal" id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_5750" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_5749" style="font-size: 12pt;">I will maintain a safe, clean, <b id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_7360"><span style="color: red;">spacious</span> </b>and sanitary facility for all my dogs and puppies</span></li>
<li class="yiv3075419563MsoNormal" id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_5755" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_5754" style="font-size: 12pt;">I will only breed dogs with the <b><span style="color: red;">demonstrated</span> </b>potential to contribute positively to the breed. I will conscientiously plan each litter of puppies, selecting a stud dog and bitch to be mated based on their pedigrees, working ability, temperament, and conformation. <b id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_6230"><span style="color: red;">I will not breed a litter only to produce puppies for sale.</span></b></span></li>
<li class="yiv3075419563MsoNormal" id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_5755" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_7277" style="font-size: 12pt;"><b id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_7276"><span style="color: red;">I will register my breeding stock and litters with the ESCR. I will provide buyers with the paperwork to individually register their dogs. I will not charge any buyer an extra fee for registration paperwork.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: #6aa84f;">Seems pretty straightforward. You want free stuff from the Club, you use the Club's registry and facilitate your buyers doing likewise.</span></b></span></li>
<li class="yiv3075419563MsoNormal" id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_5755" style="font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_6456" style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_6455" style="font-size: 16px;"><b id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_6513"><span style="color: red;">I will test all breeding stock for hip dysplasia prior to breeding, and have the results scored by the Orthopedic Foundation For Animals after age two and/or PennHIP and will publish all scores by providing documentation to the ESCR</span><br /><br /><span style="color: #6aa84f;"><i>Omigawd did she really say that people will have to OFA or PennHIP their dogs and send the results to the registry?! Even if the results say their hips suck?!</i></span><br /><span style="color: #6aa84f;">You bet your sweet ass she did.<br /><br />Notice that there's no rule against breeding a dysplastic dog here.<br /><br />Because yes, the market <i>will</i> sort that out, provided that all sellers are on an equal footing with one another, and all buyers have the relevant information, and "normal" is not the vast majority of listings being OFA-free.</span></b></span></span></li>
<li class="yiv3075419563MsoNormal" id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_5755" style="font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_7281" style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_7280" style="font-size: 16px;"><b id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_7279"><span style="color: red;">If a dog's MDR1 mutation status is not known, I will test for the mutation and provide the documentation of the results to the ESCR prior to breeding.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: #6aa84f;">I mean, why would a puppy buyer want to know whether eating sheep shit after they are wormed could kill her dog?</span></b></span></span></li>
<li class="yiv3075419563MsoNormal" id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_5755" style="font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_7490" style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_7489" style="font-size: 16px;"><b id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_7488"><span style="color: red;">If I choose to perform any additional testing for heritable disease, I will publish all results by providing documentation to the ESCR.</span></b></span></span></li>
<li class="yiv3075419563MsoNormal" id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_6115" style="font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_6116" style="font-size: 12pt;"><span id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_6257" style="color: grey;"><strike>If I choose to do screening for genetic problems</strike> </span>I will honestly represent the results of <span style="color: red;"><b id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_6294">all genetic and phenotypical health</b> </span><b id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_6289"><span id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_6288" style="color: grey;"><strike>these</strike></span></b> tests and make copies of all pertinent health clearances available to buyers of adult dogs and puppies for sale. <b id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_6354"><span style="color: red;">I will provide documentation of the results of all genetic and phenotype health tests to the ESCR for all English shepherds tested that are owned or bred by me, whether or not they are to be used for breeding.<br /><br /><b id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_7488" style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="color: #6aa84f;">No more using the good stuff as marketing copy and hiding the bad stuff.</span></b></span></b></span></li>
</ul>
<ul id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_6551" style="background-color: white; font-family: HelveticaNeue, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 2px 0px 0in; padding: 0px 40px;" type="disc">
<li class="yiv3075419563MsoNormal" id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_6114" style="font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">I will not breed any male or female until they are both physically and mentally mature,</span><b id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_6642" style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: red;">two years of age minimum</span></b><span style="font-size: 12pt;">, nor breed any bitch</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><b style="color: red; font-size: 12pt;">on</b><b id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_6555" style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: red;"> two consecutive heat cycles, nor breed a bitch eight years of age or older, nor cause any bitch to produce more than four litters</span><br /><br /><span style="color: #6aa84f;">Stop breeding fucking puppies. No, you are <i>not</i> such a transcendent judge of dogflesh that you can just <i>know</i> that this adolescent is going to turn out just great when he's mature. You are full of shit if you think this; you are in the main exhibit hall of the Dunning-Kruger Museum. More likely, you claim this, but you just don't care as long as you can sell the pups by December 20. The kids all want a trampoline.<br /><br />Stop using your female dogs as puppy factories. Brood bitch is NOT a job description.</span></b></li>
<li class="yiv3075419563MsoNormal" id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_6133" style="font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_6132" style="font-size: 12pt;">I will <span id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_6625" style="color: grey;"><strike>show discrimination in the sale of my puppies</strike></span> <b id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_6650"><span style="color: red;">screen potential puppy-buyers with rigor and discernment</span></b><b id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_6748"><span style="color: red;"> and will refuse sales to individuals who are unsuited to provide for the needs of an English shepherd</span> </b><span id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_6648" style="color: grey;"><strike>and be concerned with the type of homes in which they are placed. I will make buyers aware of their responsibilities as dog owners</strike></span></span></li>
</ul>
<ul dir="ltr" id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_6861" style="background-color: white; font-family: HelveticaNeue, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 2px 0px 0in; padding: 0px 40px;" type="disc">
<li class="yiv3075419563MsoNormal" id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_6536" style="font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_6535" style="font-size: 12pt;">I will<span style="color: grey;"> <strike>try to</strike></span> educate potential owners of the potential challenges of the breed in order to foster an understanding of their innate character and prevent training problems<br /><br /><span style="color: #6aa84f;"><b>Frankly, rescue is tired of picking up your mess.</b></span></span></li>
<li class="yiv3075419563MsoNormal" id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_6607" style="font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_6606" style="font-size: 12pt;">I will not sell or donate dogs to commercial dog wholesalers, dealers, brokers, retailers, pet shops, or any other person or organization, for resale give-away to the public <b id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_6733"><span style="color: red;">including any raffle, auction, or contest, for any cause</span><br /><br /><span style="color: #6aa84f;">Don't care that your raffle was to help spastic Christian babies persecuted by heathens in sunbaked lands. Raffle a puppy, get kicked out. The ESC has actually been great, very proactive about the pet store rule. They need to apply it to <i>all</i> brokering.</span></b></span></li>
<li class="yiv3075419563MsoNormal" id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_6700" style="font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_6701" style="font-size: 12pt;">I will be a resource for buyers of puppies or older dogs that I have sold for the life of the dog. <b id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_6816"><span style="color: red;">I will maintain records of the names and contact information of all puppy buyers for fifteen years after their purchase. I will provide all puppy buyers with my up-to-date contact information whenever it changes.</span></b></span></li>
<li class="yiv3075419563MsoNormal" id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_6700" style="font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_6842" style="font-size: 12pt;"><b id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_6841"><span style="color: red;">I will sell puppies and dogs under a written contract that clearly delineates my responsibilities and rights, and those of the buyer. All potential buyers will be provided with a copy of the contract to review before committing to a purchase.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: #6aa84f;">No, your "handshake" agreements are not good enough. We've seen you weasel out of them a million times. And no springing a contract that gives everything to you, nothing to the buyer, while the buyer has a cute puppy in her lap and money in her teeth.</span></b></span></li>
<li class="yiv3075419563MsoNormal" id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_6700" style="font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_6895" style="font-size: 12pt;"><b id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_6894"><span style="color: red;">I will accept return of a puppy or dog that I have bred at any time during the dog's lifetime. I will make every effort to redeem any dog that I have bred should he or she ever be in the custody of a dog pound or animal shelter.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: #6aa84f;">Again, Rescue is tired of cleaning up your messes. You don't know how much it thrills us to be pouring money and time into some effed-up animal that you sold a year ago, while your latest litter (full siblings of NESR Sir Twitchy McLimpsalot) is listed on the Club website, for sale, sooo kyoot, buy one now for Mother's Day.<br /><br />This <i>single</i> <i>provision, </i>relentlessly adhered to, would eliminate 95% of breeder-originated dog problems, whether that problem is genetic disease, crappy buyer screening, overproduction, or just thoughtless breeding.</span></b></span></li>
<li class="yiv3075419563MsoNormal" id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_6700" style="font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_7030" style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: red;">I will permanently identify every puppy or dog I sell with a registered microchip or registered tattoo that includes my contact information as a primary or secondary contact.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: #6aa84f;">This provision puts teeth into the one above. I forgot to add that this chip or tattoo number must be included in the dog's entry in the ESCR database.</span></b></li>
<li class="yiv3075419563MsoNormal" id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_6699" style="font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_6698" style="font-size: 12pt;"><span id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_6868"><span style="color: grey; text-decoration: line-through;">I will not deliberately degrade another breeder, their dogs, or their kennel</span><br /><br /><span style="color: #6aa84f;"><b>In about October of 2008, I had a phone conversation with a breeder who was concerned because some potential puppy buyers had told her they were going to go ahead and buy from a different breeder, one that we both knew to be -- let's say, suboptimal.<br /><br />She was distraught because she felt she should warn them, but was afraid of running afoul of this ridiculous clause in the COE.<br /><br />That other breeder, who she was afraid of "deliberately degrading," was named <a href="http://cynography.blogspot.com/2009/07/convicted-felony-animal-cruelty.html">Linda Kapsa</a>.<br /><br />Oh, and that pup ended up relinquished to National English Shepherd Rescue because of her extreme shyness and reactivity.<br /><br /><i>Who could have predicted the levees would fail?</i><br /><br />Fuck this clause. Tell the truth, people. Just tell the damned truth. Did you tell the truth about another breeder only because you are a malicious bitch? Don't care. It was the truth.</b></span></span></span></li>
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<ul dir="ltr" id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_6897" style="background-color: white; font-family: HelveticaNeue, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 2px 0px 0in; padding: 0px 40px;" type="disc">
<li class="yiv3075419563MsoNormal" id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_6697" style="font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_6696" style="font-size: 12pt;">I will conduct myself at all times in such a manner as a credit to the breed and the Club <b id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_7221"><span style="color: red;">and will be truthful and transparent in all my dealings with the Club, its members, and members of the public.</span></b><br /><span style="color: #6aa84f;"><b>Did I mention, <i>just tell the damned truth.</i></b></span></span></li>
<li class="yiv3075419563MsoNormal" id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_6695" style="font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_6694" style="font-size: 12pt;">I will comply with all <span style="color: red;"><b>applicable</b> </span>federal, state or provincial and local government laws and regulations concerning the keeping of dogs<div class="yiv3075419563yqt9438054998" id="yiv3075419563yqtfd72342">
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<span id="yiv3075419563yui_3_16_0_1_1430416644062_6715" style="font-size: 12pt;">By my signature I confirm that I have read, understood, and agree to all aspects of the English Shepherd Club's Code of Ethics. Furthermore, I understand if I choose to violate any part of this agreement I may be suspended from the English Shepherd Club as a listed breeder or member. signature and date As we work together for the betterment of this breed, we are taking part in preserving history. Let us work with each other, not against. Let our goal be to dedicate ourselves for the betterment of the breed not for profit. <br clear="none" /><br clear="none" />Signature______________________________________________ Date__________________<br /><br /><br /><span style="color: #6aa84f;"><b>Yeah, I sure should have done some red-penciling of the blah blah blah in this last paragraph.</b></span></span></div>
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<br />
So, what do y'all think? Would you have more confidence about buying a puppy if the seller had to meet these modest criteria in order to have that pup promoted to you?<br />
<br />
Would you be more or less likely to join a Club that put these conditions on members who are breeders?<br />
<br />
What else would you want to see? I wouldn't mind kicking their asses out if they enter their dogs in UKC beauty pageants or make any overtures to the AKC.<br />
<br />
When I ranted about the litter listings on Facebook, just to my friends and "friends," lit it up about the puppies having puppies and the unemployed parents and the claims of no hip screening -- either true or untrue -- both damning, the next thing that lit up was my private message inbox. Boiled down, the messages said:<br />
<br />
<i>You have to say this in public. I'm so disgusted with the listings. I don't want to be associated with this. Why can't we do better?</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
(Optional: Insert personal story about dysplastic/shy/reactive/heavily parasitized/rickety pup purchased from breeder found on Club listing years ago, along with subsequent discovery that breeder had lied about a great many things.)<br />
<br />
And today, looking over my drafts folder for blog posts, I found an unfinished post about the "caveat emptor" of buying an ES puppy, left behind over three years ago.<br />
<br />
It included a quote from an email I received from a stranger looking for advice with her dog's health and emotional problems -- a dog she'd bought based on a listing on the ESC's website.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">"Naively I never suspected that an ES might come from disreputable breeders as they are so uncommon and not shown."</span><br />
<span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span>
And that's the crux of it. A first-time buyer is, almost by definition, naive. How could she be otherwise? A breeder and seller ought to be, by definition, an expert. The relationship is not equal.<br />
<br />
If the Club that is incorporated to conserve the breed and serve the community enables experts to swindle naive people, then it is complicit in that swindling. If it treats an activity, breeding working dogs, that ought to be the domain of experts as an appropriate pastime for people who show by their negligence that they are <i>at best</i> ignorant and careless, then it degrades the activity, and degrades the dogs and the people who take it seriously.<br />
<br />
The breeders who stand to lose a lot of money if they can't advertise for free at the expense of every other Club member are <i>vocal</i> about keeping that endorsement. Will the ordinary Club members, the puppy buyers seeking guidance, and the breeders who hold themselves to high standards be just as vocal in demanding that breed conservation not be trumped by puppy propagation?<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>Edit: 10-29-15<br />There's been some lively discussion of the COE and this post on disparate Facebook threads.</b> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>I'd love it if everyone who is comfortable doing so would share their contributions here, where everyone can see it.</b> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>Even more important, share your opinion about the code of ethics and litter listings with the ESC board before their next meeting on November 2, 2015.<br />If you are --</b> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>• A breeder who has high personal standards and does not wish to be associated with those who do not<br />• An ordinary Club member who is embarrassed by the predominance of indifferently bred puppies-for-profit sold through the litter listings with the support of your dues<br />• A former ESC member who has left because you were disgusted about these issues, or a former active volunteer who has reduced your involvement for the same reason<br />• Someone who found a puppy via the litter listings and found that the seller was not what you expected from someone whose dogs are promoted by the breed club<br />• Someone who consulted the litter listings and was all "What the HELL" when you saw litter after litter that you would not ever consider<br />• A prospective English shepherd owner who needs help finding a pup from an ethical, competent breeder<br />• Anyone concerned with the preservation of working breeds, whether or not you own an ES or plan to</b> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>Then <i>please</i> let the BoD members know what you think is important in a Code of Ethics and a breeder whose litters are endorsed and promoted on the Club website.</b> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>I don't expect anyone to agree completely with my priorities or my solutions. But I hope that most of us agree that we <i>must</i> do better, and that we <i>can.</i><br />The board members' email addresses are all on <a href="http://www.englishshepherd.org/club-info1.html">this page</a>.</b></blockquote>
<b><br /></b>
<b><br /></b>
<b><br /></b>
<span style="font-size: 18px; white-space: nowrap;"><b>----------</b>--</span><br />
* We will not be entertaining any tinfoil-hat theories that canine hip dysplasia -- or, for that matter, a disinclination to work, a shitty, snappy, fearful temperament, the MDR1 mutation, testicular angst, ** missing premolars -- are "not genetic" but completely caused by feeding Kibbles 'n' Bits.<br />
<br />
Just because a mode of inheritance is complex doesn't get you off the hook in the due diligence department.<br />
<br />
† As of the time I <i>finish</i> writing this, there are 19 listings, still only five for which both parents have hip evaluations. I think maybe the same five as before. And, since I was going through again, I counted <i>six</i> litters in which at least one parent was under two years of age.<br />
<br />
‡ I'm a fucking snob and I <i>own</i> it. Use that word as a pejorative towards me, and you'll get a blank stare in return. <i>So? </i>Know what I'm a snob about? I'm a snob about not using your cultivated ignorance as a shield to avoid being accountable for the horrible consequences of the things you freely chose to do for your own selfish gain. I'm also fucking profane and I don't care. I know <i>all</i> the words and I like the ones that I use.<br />
<br />
------------<br />
**This is a made-up thing that does not exist. However, it <i>is </i>genetic.<br />
<br />
<br />Heather Houlahanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13891198124130533198noreply@blogger.com31tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5810033429461791744.post-36842358739714150932015-09-30T03:12:00.000-04:002015-09-30T03:12:35.973-04:00Wideo Wednesday: HellpigsI am fully appreciating why swine have so often been associated with the very mouth of Hell.<br />
<br />
When I bring the pigs their dinner, I first call them into their pasture for a bucket or two of both salad and desert -- veggies and fruit from the farm markets, the garden, under the apple trees, the cider press, kitchen scraps.<br />
<br />
While they are hogging that stuff down, I close the small door in the back of their shed so that I can fill their troughs with mash at my leisure, check the emergency backup water nipple, rake the shed, etc.<br />
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They finish quickly and come to the door, bang on it, and make ... <i>sounds.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
If I were to open the door to five barging, screaming hogs, they'd sooner or later make a main course of me. They're big enough, and willing to do it.<br />
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That's why I have dogs.<br />
<br />
And that's why the pigs understand the sentence, "Pigs! I have <i>dogs</i>!" (Don't <i>make</i> me <i>use</i> them again, because they like that a lot, and if you'll recall, you do not.)<br />
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This recording has terrible video quality -- it was rainy and gloomy, and I was making it one-handed as I did the chores, because every time I hand a video camera to someone else, they <i>will not shut up</i> and talk over what I want to record -- but it captured the sounds pretty well.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0XoJ1kr3tgY?rel=0" width="560"></iframe>Heather Houlahanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13891198124130533198noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5810033429461791744.post-36206229531036957692015-07-13T19:37:00.001-04:002015-07-13T19:37:05.921-04:00Puppy Probation<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR_XdvgSEcR_qx2m9mH2btpI_YJupiuYiQDeLBysZMoz3EFZsD_hb6Pwugd5G9BwcRgAgVVsOQRCV99eCWkUmTtBofWjc66pVh37qw-cYkK5Re_JLUZxORIfBV2YvKnQIaXlLRsXHls5x-/s1600/landscape+with+chuckie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="245" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR_XdvgSEcR_qx2m9mH2btpI_YJupiuYiQDeLBysZMoz3EFZsD_hb6Pwugd5G9BwcRgAgVVsOQRCV99eCWkUmTtBofWjc66pVh37qw-cYkK5Re_JLUZxORIfBV2YvKnQIaXlLRsXHls5x-/s400/landscape+with+chuckie.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">What's it got to do with Puppy Probation?<br />From structure comes respect.<br /> With respect, Chuckie earns freedom. <br />Even the freedom to shamelessly pose in the landscape like friggin Lassie.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: serif;">I've recently recently received so many requests for my Puppy Probation handout that I decided to put it here for easy access.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: serif;">If you have been in dogs for any length of time, you have seen various flavors of this kind of protocol -- "Nothing in Life is Free" is a popular title, though that title is slapped onto many different sets of instructions. Job Evans called his</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> a "Radical Regime For </span>Recalcitrant Rovers," which, Dude, just, <i>no</i>. Most credible trainers have some sort of shot-gun approach to dogs who are generally pills, and it is very similar to the new dog burn-in program that each recommends. This one is mine. I tweak it about once every ten years, which seems about right.</div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The thing about shot-gun approaches is, they aren't very scientific. When Puppy Probation "works" (which it almost always does when the dog owners actually follow through and get the whole family on-board), we have no way of knowing <i>what</i> worked for a given dog. Items 1, 5, and 7? Items 2 and 10 only? Every item was totally necessary? The gestalt of each item interacting? The simple fact of a change? The owner's expectations?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Science-bitch dog trainer wants to tease apart all the variables and find the golden thread at the core, discard the unnecessary, reduce the problem and the solution to evidence-based, coherent purity.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Neandertal dog trainer tells her to STFU. Don't care. Just trying to fix dog. Something worked. Don't matter if it was the one pellet at the edge of the grouping or all 30 of them. Keep doing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">If you would like a copy of Puppy Probation to print out on two pages and tape to your fridge -- recommended -- you can print a PDF from <a href="https://www.scribd.com/doc/271494880/Puppy-Probation">here</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I do not offer specific dog training advice to strangers online, so specific questions about applications will probably be ignored.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: serif; font-size: large;"><b>P</b><b>UPPY
</b><b>P</b><b>ROBATION</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Puppy
Probation is a re-ordering and rehabilitation program for dogs who are dominant,
unruly, aggressive, </span></span><span style="font-family: serif;">wild, unfocused, derpy and destructive, or who are showing any apparently isolated undesired behavior. It is also a very suitable regimen for newly-adopted
untrained dogs. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Its aim is </span></span><span style="font-family: serif;">to
change your dog's attitude by reducing his choices to a very clear set of simple options and requiring him
to work for the things </span><span style="font-family: serif;">that
he wants. It is not punishment. You must not have a "gotcha"
attitude during the </span><span style="font-family: serif;">probation
period; rather, you should think of it as a time to re-order the
dog's world so that he </span><span style="font-family: serif;">can
learn to respond by being pleasant and cooperative instead of wild
and bossy. He will </span><span style="font-family: serif;">begin
to see you as a credible, competent leader, and will love and respect you for it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Many
of the Puppy Probation provisions involve changing your behavior, not
your dog's. If</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">you
do not consistently follow through on the protocol, even though the rules seem unrelated
to the problem at </span></span><span style="font-family: serif;">hand,
you are unlikely to achieve the desired change</span><span style="font-family: serif;"> If you start Probation and then apply it
inconsistently, or back off </span><span style="font-family: serif;">when
your dog's behavior worsens, you will have done more damage than no
training at all -- </span><span style="font-family: serif;">you
will have taught your dog that you are unreliable, and that
he can succeed at </span><span style="font-family: serif;">getting
what he wants in the moment by resisting you.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Puppy
Probation lasts a minimum of one month, and is applied along with obedience training and other interventions to address </span></span><span style="font-family: serif;">the
specific behavior problems that your dog is exhibiting. Items that
are underlined are </span><span style="font-family: serif;">habits
and rituals that you should apply to your dog for his whole life.</span></div>
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<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>(1)
The dog is confined to his crate (in your bedroom) at night, and</b></span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>confined
when you are away.</b></span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">He
is not allowed to choose his own sleeping place or roam the house
unsupervised.</span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">But
he is allowed to be near you while you sleep. Remember, isolation is
punishment,</span></span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">and
he will feel resentful if you isolate him every night.</span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>(2)
Two obedience sessions every day.</b></span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Work
your dog on the obedience commands that he knows and introduce new </span></span><span style="font-family: serif;">commands
in structured ten-minute sessions twice a day. Be absolutely firm and consistent </span><span style="font-family: serif;">during
these sessions, and ask your dog to progress each day. Do not use
treats in </span><span style="font-family: serif;">obedience
sessions beyond the teaching phase of new commands, but praise lavishly.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>(3)
The long down</b></span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">If
your dog knows how to down and stay, he must do it once a day for a
half-hour </span></span><span style="font-family: serif;">(minimum).
If he does not know the down-stay, start teaching it now, and immediately begin the "Sit on the Dog" exercise every day.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>(4)
Nothing is free</b></span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">When
your dog comes to you for petting, play, or attention, he must obey a
command </span></span><span style="font-family: serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">before
he gets it (sit, down, heel). He must sit while you put his dinner
down and wait to eat </span></span><span style="font-family: serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">until
you tell him okay. He must not be free-fed; dinner bowl comes up five minutes after you put it down. There should be no prolonged or absent-minded
petting </span></span><span style="font-family: serif;">sessions, and absolutely NO nudging, pawing, barking or whining to get attention.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>(5)
Time out</b></span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">When
your dog is being a pest, he goes to his crate for ten minutes to a
half-hour of </span></span><span style="font-family: serif;">time
out. Don't inject a lot of drama in this, just quietly get him out of
your hair. (Or </span><span style="font-family: serif;">require
a down for the same period, if you can watch him and enforce it.)</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>(6)
You control the space</b></span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Your
dog gets no furniture privileges. If he is in your way, he must yield -- don't step </span></span></span><span style="font-family: serif;">around
or over him. He must wait at the door for your permission to go
through, and </span><span style="font-family: serif;">for
permission to jump out of or into the car.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>(7)
Get a grip</b></span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The
dog wears a martingale training collar with a tab or four-foot
leash all the time </span></span><span style="font-family: serif;">when
someone is home or he is at liberty, so that you able to easily catch and correct him. </span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>(8)
Hit the dirt</b></span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Command
him to down whenever the mood strikes you, and enforce each command. </span></span></span><span style="font-family: serif;">He
should perform a minimum of fifty downs a day. Have him do "situps"
-- a sitdown- </span><span style="font-family: serif;">sit-down
sequence. At least ten times a day, roll him belly-up. Reassure or </span><span style="font-family: serif;">center
him with a quiet "nose hug" or scruff tug whenever he needs it.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>(9)
Run it off</b></span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Your
dog needs exercise to vent off his energy if he is to pay attention.
Give him one </span></span><span style="font-family: serif;">hour
of solid exercise a day -- chasing a ball, structured play, swimming, or </span><span style="font-family: serif;">jogging
with you. </span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>(10)
Tone it down</b></span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">You
have probably been yelling at your little canine terrorist when he
acts up, which </span></span><span style="font-family: serif;">may
be all the time. You are probably unaware of this. Stop it now. Practice silent physical corrections.
Hold daily near-silent </span><span style="font-family: serif;">eye
contact sessions, and reward him quietly for looking to you. All
commands </span><span style="font-family: serif;">are
to be given in a normal tone of voice. Praise and correction should be titrated to the dog's temperament and the circumstances, with the goal never to get the dog either hyped-up or cowed.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: serif;"><i>Copyright 1995, 2005, 2015 by Heather Houlahan.</i></span></div>
Heather Houlahanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13891198124130533198noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5810033429461791744.post-9789565105712558822015-04-24T07:00:00.000-04:002015-04-24T07:00:04.690-04:00Photo Phriday: Sheephouette<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUrn1Acavn4X1MAvWmq1wWiWnXgwlWrYS6_gIT7ep2MC3aT1b4oDXWALcpnHdFmrd8U3buu2GpqbE5Zb8gPxcoj9CAaKZ65tl1TsPdPLDGb1HJzq4SWi2nYgjGmvx0A5KeXVmV_oGrKTyK/s1600/sheephouettes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUrn1Acavn4X1MAvWmq1wWiWnXgwlWrYS6_gIT7ep2MC3aT1b4oDXWALcpnHdFmrd8U3buu2GpqbE5Zb8gPxcoj9CAaKZ65tl1TsPdPLDGb1HJzq4SWi2nYgjGmvx0A5KeXVmV_oGrKTyK/s1600/sheephouettes.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />Heather Houlahanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13891198124130533198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5810033429461791744.post-59267748008865726592015-04-21T14:10:00.000-04:002015-04-21T14:10:30.719-04:00Nobody Here But Us Peppers<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtMuC-1yLLcS2s63vS3Vpvzj38jKRTjasOH6N1D5NTOgs1yZSHjzI8T2CQ31QBpjN9XqPE9aVEvkfHDyVbeWF1M4iGk4VgP62R4JXI4cFVhxBZGiLwUu8QcZoDf5aPZZjt1pi9mwkXi6b8/s1600/IMG_9032.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtMuC-1yLLcS2s63vS3Vpvzj38jKRTjasOH6N1D5NTOgs1yZSHjzI8T2CQ31QBpjN9XqPE9aVEvkfHDyVbeWF1M4iGk4VgP62R4JXI4cFVhxBZGiLwUu8QcZoDf5aPZZjt1pi9mwkXi6b8/s1600/IMG_9032.jpg" height="400" width="300" /></a></div>
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</div>
When we lived on a half-acre in sprawlburbia*, the garden ran the show.<br />
<br />
I had productive dwarf heirloom apple, cherry and peach trees. Thornless canes grew blackberries as big as a kitten's head. Raised beds produced improbable amounts of asparagus and the usual annual vegetables, including, at the peak of obsession, tomatoes from over fifty plants of thirty-five heirloom cultivars. All started from seed under shoplights in my sewing room, along with plenty of hot peppers and basil because how else am I going to can gallons of marinara and salsa every fall?<br />
<br />
Perfesser Chaos seemed to think I had some sort of <i>problem</i>.<br />
<br />
Pshaw.<br />
<br />
Doesn't <i>everybody</i> collapse into stuttering fangirl squee when <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Smith-Hawken-Heirloom-Tomatoes-American/dp/0761114009/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8">Dr. Carolyn Male</a> offers to trade seeds?<br />
<br />
(Okay, <i>maybe</i> it was eighty tomato plants some years. <i>I didn't see him refusing to eat the marinara sauce.)</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
Down on the farm, there are creatures that can scream to be fed. Lots of them. They demand time more effectively than the quietly vegetative beings. The garden, though on a larger footprint than my prior spread, has never been nearly as populous or as productive.<br />
<br />
One bottleneck has been seedlings. It has not gone well here most years.<br />
<br />
Heat cable failure. Bad seed-starting mix. Procrastination. Out-of-sight, out-of-mind because the seed-starting rack was set up in the warm basement. I've ended up buying plants every year, and am barely keeping up with our marinara habit.<br />
<br />
So this year, I changed things up.<br />
<br />
I have two warm-chambers for germination. The heat source is a couple of rope lights. The old-fashioned incandescent kind, obviously, and good luck finding them these days. (Curse you, you cool, energy-efficient LEDs!).With the lid or a plastic cover on, the lights keep the bottom heat going and the temperature in the bins about 20 degrees higher than the room temps.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHeL9nSFPYTvDAq9z8CL2P_4vJwK6mu_yBiIRtWa6o4Kxduo_DJya-IUppMF_PP3uCCgY4TptSd4HKYeR3ntBsfPfPR1cPc492kOEWzMgNqOG9C_e-me5vBALbRf34Pp_95qyQrcNnK-ze/s1600/IMG_8993.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHeL9nSFPYTvDAq9z8CL2P_4vJwK6mu_yBiIRtWa6o4Kxduo_DJya-IUppMF_PP3uCCgY4TptSd4HKYeR3ntBsfPfPR1cPc492kOEWzMgNqOG9C_e-me5vBALbRf34Pp_95qyQrcNnK-ze/s1600/IMG_8993.JPG" height="243" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sweater box. Incandescent rope light secured to hardware cloth on bottom. Germinating chambers on top.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
As each little tomato or pepper seed sprouts in its space-efficient high-tech germination chamber, I gently slip it out and into a plastic-pack. Later most of them will be transplanted one more time into roomy individual pots, for garden planting at our leisure or for sale at <a href="http://www.ciderhousemarket.com/about-us.html">Cider House Farm Market</a>.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUKVj03KPCfyCARZNA_aK6ItpwHPPubp8M46LlU6nAlt7zoLFp50gNy-omV-LbU_WhpA4qokNc6FWjmgZI2Sxxg7FCj7ia_gYKSHIoC-lAnmv23hityuLijoTccYZ73SNOsuUeKqErwYLU/s1600/IMG_8994.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUKVj03KPCfyCARZNA_aK6ItpwHPPubp8M46LlU6nAlt7zoLFp50gNy-omV-LbU_WhpA4qokNc6FWjmgZI2Sxxg7FCj7ia_gYKSHIoC-lAnmv23hityuLijoTccYZ73SNOsuUeKqErwYLU/s1600/IMG_8994.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Substrate is cocoa-hull planting mix or pro-mix, with seeds covered in vermiculite and kept damp. I plant germinated seedlings in little plastic starter packs every night as they pop up.<br />
<br />
If you are local and buy berries or tomatoes, etc. in these little plastic boxes and don't mind saving them, I'm planning to use a LOT more of them next year, and would be pleased to save them from the trash stream.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
And I slapped together a seed-starting greenhouse on the deck, mostly with materials I had at hand.<br />
<br />
For the main frame, two cattle panels (4' x 16') anchored to the wall of the house with long roofing screws and pipe hangers. I was going to anchor them to the deck rail, but they fit so nice and snug it isn't necessary<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipx5a0OKXYMl9XqzBr5Aje166PNgfuhCbcbObIvf46WvZ68nvrtXoqvBzkmTPGmb5QM95DGGJ2ARTPY8vNN_wzWQoDiPC40LONqw0w3HtsHWcIPJJa4Zlz6DBY6fQR7XErgqNoY7WlEA6x/s1600/IMG_8991.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipx5a0OKXYMl9XqzBr5Aje166PNgfuhCbcbObIvf46WvZ68nvrtXoqvBzkmTPGmb5QM95DGGJ2ARTPY8vNN_wzWQoDiPC40LONqw0w3HtsHWcIPJJa4Zlz6DBY6fQR7XErgqNoY7WlEA6x/s1600/IMG_8991.jpg" height="400" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I planned to use plastic conduit for this frame, but the cattle panels work <i>much</i> better.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Part of a roll of clear 6-mil plastic from Home Labyrinth wrangled over the top, and secured with binder clips. Lots and lots of binder clips. The plastic is not crystal clear, which is actually better given the southeast orientation of the greenhouse walls.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2ljtNqRCbAk-1nIKoFS15iXFVeIo_qtrZAcctR9e22MPbgyVNcVqoT726rASPsjHgLictXcFDcI7GYDAy2ZnYSvM4i4qMN88b2OMeTZBBNFa6W1dM2p23vER49m0_9imGis3BagtxSM-H/s1600/IMG_9025.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2ljtNqRCbAk-1nIKoFS15iXFVeIo_qtrZAcctR9e22MPbgyVNcVqoT726rASPsjHgLictXcFDcI7GYDAy2ZnYSvM4i4qMN88b2OMeTZBBNFa6W1dM2p23vER49m0_9imGis3BagtxSM-H/s1600/IMG_9025.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I found a bag of shittons of binder clips in the bulk section of the <a href="http://pccr.org/">Pittsburgh Center for Creative Reuse</a>. Thought "I bet I'll find a use for these bad boys ..."</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Then I framed up the end with leftover 2x4s and deck hardware. All this will easily break down with just a screwdriver.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL6VCCIs359R7YOhtzJAf-PoWn1tq8ZpZ1f7Tl1POJRx9YxXQkN2IEN59aPX33RCNsA1Dzrf_f7WOp_QKa9SFV4BH9KVin1XgTF_9wLGGg88guz2eZl0OMmVHp4L7HnzL_vZcgQif9r0O6/s1600/IMG_9028.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL6VCCIs359R7YOhtzJAf-PoWn1tq8ZpZ1f7Tl1POJRx9YxXQkN2IEN59aPX33RCNsA1Dzrf_f7WOp_QKa9SFV4BH9KVin1XgTF_9wLGGg88guz2eZl0OMmVHp4L7HnzL_vZcgQif9r0O6/s1600/IMG_9028.jpg" height="400" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Secured at top with just pipe hangers hooked over the wire and screwed down to the end of the 2x4s. But very solidly anchored to deck and rail.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
At first I was going to just have a flap for a door to the rest of the deck, but that did not work well, so I bought some 2x3 lumber and used some old door hinges to make a proper door. The plastic above the door can be moved aside to make a vent. I secured the end plastic to the top with the same binder clips as the main roll, and with screwed-down tack strips to the framing pieces.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmkMoBa3mO1otJdBj11sSM32gibYIL9cHA1YKN3LfqLPuSZvjnttYDZObYPzMvEn6Gt97e2jblEONZOc7KT0hhmvsgfjuawH4GtJCBH76FyFGnbdyiqVzZUEMNx-4N_ZsBplTnkKGmkjKv/s1600/IMG_9078.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmkMoBa3mO1otJdBj11sSM32gibYIL9cHA1YKN3LfqLPuSZvjnttYDZObYPzMvEn6Gt97e2jblEONZOc7KT0hhmvsgfjuawH4GtJCBH76FyFGnbdyiqVzZUEMNx-4N_ZsBplTnkKGmkjKv/s1600/IMG_9078.jpg" height="400" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I had some wire shelves/racks from Construction Junction that <br />
I'm using to protect the dog/goat zone from incursions.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Shelving, an old banquet table, and finally, the original seed-starting rack that has been in the basement all this time.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcPdpRxGRjVKhsJeJYGg7PyH4kDmbL6Bi15aRanSG-vHg0uYFthiPE1u3EYu9C_gzBx8Bo7Oc5QWFIbWrgqDtq1taZKHOkzp__RyGZWmqSLHsIP6YrJjYvKae0hQEPvu2Vn0T6oZYOMQRA/s1600/IMG_9111.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcPdpRxGRjVKhsJeJYGg7PyH4kDmbL6Bi15aRanSG-vHg0uYFthiPE1u3EYu9C_gzBx8Bo7Oc5QWFIbWrgqDtq1taZKHOkzp__RyGZWmqSLHsIP6YrJjYvKae0hQEPvu2Vn0T6oZYOMQRA/s1600/IMG_9111.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Step into my office ...</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Conditions are staying temperate in there at night, though this week I will bring the tender ones in for several nights to keep them growing faster. The heathens on the top shelf in the picture above are kale and bok choy and cauliflower and such, and they can suck it. They're going into the ground pretty soon.<br />
<br />
Yesterday I was showing the masterpiece to a friend and speculating that, while it has stood up pretty well to recent high winds, a decent hailstorm could be my undoing.<br />
<br />
Not an hour later, as if summoned.<br />
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It's still fine, knock polyethylene. I had hailstones on my <i>bed</i>, blown in from the west-facing window 5' from its edge, but the greenhouse held up.<br />
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Also yesterday, I started some herbs, <i>because you can't have marinara without basil</i>. I labeled each little plastic box with the cultivar name and the date.<br />
<br />
4/20.<br />
<br />
It's <i>parsley</i>, man! And oh shit, <i>oregano</i>! <a href="http://www.ajc.com/news/news/national/okra-mistaken-pot-mans-garden/nhbNp/">No, really.</a><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>-------------</i><br />
<i>* </i>When I went by the old place over a year after moving, seeking a misdirected package, the young lackwits who bought it from us had bulldozed all the painstakingly enriched garden beds, <i>including the fully-mature asparagus patch</i> and were worshipping moar lawn.<br />
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Also, they stole my package. Larcenous lackwits.Heather Houlahanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13891198124130533198noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5810033429461791744.post-55473364861364175982015-02-14T20:49:00.000-05:002015-02-14T20:49:30.972-05:00Second WarmingIt has been a snowy but pretty normal winter up until today.<br />
<br />
I'm trying to replenish our depleted stock of firewood. We've replaced the never-satisfactory and now prematurely-dead Husqvarna chainsaw with a lighter-duty Stihl that I can actually start easily, and are working on cutting up the blown-down oak and cherry and pear trees, and the many ash trees killed by <a href="http://stopthebeetle.info/">emerald ash borers</a> in the past few years.<br />
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They say that firewood warms you three times -- first when you cut it, second when you split it, and third when you burn it. We're inefficient enough about stacking that all of ours gets in a fourth warming. I still need to finish a lean-to woodshed on the north end of the run-in shed that now houses our small stock of wood; when it's done, we won't have to go through a gate to get wood, and the livestock will have more shelter in that space. I'd like to move them back there next winter once the next run of fence is finished and they can get into the sheltered buttcrack and to the never-frozen spring in bad weather.<br />
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Today, while the northwest gale blew a whiteout, I pulled my wedges and sledgehammer down to a pile of bucked ash logs that were too big to haul up to the woodshed whole, and did my splitting on the south-facing slope of the buttcrack. Pleasant weather -- I ditched my hat and scarf for the second warming.<br />
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I use a <a href="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/31qgICaiilL.jpg">star wedge</a>, because it is easier, and occasionally it even produces a multiple split. Ash splits willingly and cleanly, unlike the accursed Bradford pear, which seems to have no grain at all, or the unbelievably dense hawthorn, which, I effing give up. The colder it is, the more easily a log splits; whatever residual moisture is in the wood becomes ice crystals which, as I understand the physics of it, <i>want</i> the wood to cleave apart along the grain. The more the mercury drops, the more fervently they desire this end.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh9X8s_13nBjmfONBh9js70_0kvtAPpRRlq4Ir2MlEzdLW_DD-CgAhNoIGz-Ay8GgyvZtW-OPfdP3BSGbXg4CTtTfOTKeqBRl6QwL0hGZr_OK0AV4TfEtJTFg_SOZdo1uUCmmjtizEdlZn/s1600/star+wedge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh9X8s_13nBjmfONBh9js70_0kvtAPpRRlq4Ir2MlEzdLW_DD-CgAhNoIGz-Ay8GgyvZtW-OPfdP3BSGbXg4CTtTfOTKeqBRl6QwL0hGZr_OK0AV4TfEtJTFg_SOZdo1uUCmmjtizEdlZn/s1600/star+wedge.jpg" height="400" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">When the wedge tip is <i>just</i> buried upright in the ground at the very center of the split, then you hit that sumbitch perfectly.</td></tr>
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I got the entire trunk of the ash split and stacked in a spot where we can easily load it into the tractor's cart later. The smaller rounds from the top of the tree are in a pile nearby, to be split in-place or loaded whole.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sorry, ash. You'll never be a Louisville Slugger.</td></tr>
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I asked Charlie to skid the tools back up the hill for me, her first time in-harness. She was dubious at first, but willing to put her back into it. I think she'll be a handy little draft doggy in time. The two wedges and single sledgehammer felt surprisingly heavy on the sled.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP6GoA67Xx0OhX_4GozbnN8Z0MKjHexkVvrwwp7BpvEq1d6ULTw1xjcrogn8oKg1KM9S_D443ZZ_bKyBMTEwpD_1Yf_c-9y4OdbKpdynipc5PNDeetK_r3lOLjt1uJdPtgH7DQoEvbVGqB/s1600/chuck+hauls.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP6GoA67Xx0OhX_4GozbnN8Z0MKjHexkVvrwwp7BpvEq1d6ULTw1xjcrogn8oKg1KM9S_D443ZZ_bKyBMTEwpD_1Yf_c-9y4OdbKpdynipc5PNDeetK_r3lOLjt1uJdPtgH7DQoEvbVGqB/s1600/chuck+hauls.jpg" height="400" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mom needs to get them oxen she keeps talking about.</td></tr>
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<br />
As we came up the hill, we could feel shit starting to get real, weather-wise.<br />
<br />
Also, my iPhone became a whiny little bitch and started crashing within five seconds of coming out of its inside pocket. So no more photos.<br />
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It took two hours to get all the animals battened down for the Yukon weather incursion.<br />
<br />
Hot water for everyone. Extra grain and hay for everyone. As I carried a half-bale of alfalfa to the hoofstock, wind blasts stopped me dead and tried to rip the fodder from my arms.<br />
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Stranger, the rooster who bunks with the sheep & goats in the pole barn, had been abandoned for the warm coop by his ladies and the guineas who normally roost with him, and was huddled under a milking stand. He felt really light when I picked him up. He's locked in a stall in the barn now, with hot water and grain and sunflower seeds, and he's staying there until he's fat again. I am fond of Stranger and his feral, gentlemanly ways; a rooster can only be <i>so</i> tough, and he's overreached himself.<br />
<br />
Lebowski was in the upper barn -- which the wind has shot through with snow all the way to the east wall -- and had much to say, but refused to go out into the wind. I had to grab him, stuff him in my coat, and drag his kitteh butt back to the house. (Gollum had already come in the dog door.)<br />
<br />
Still running through my mind -- did I get <i>everyone? </i>Did everyone get extra food and fresh hot water? Is every last critter accounted for and out of the wind?<br />
<br />
Instead of hibernating, a farmer gets driven out into the arctic blast many times a day. Water and fuel, fuel and water for the critters.<br />
<br />
<i>This</i> is why I don't lamb or kid in mid-winter.<br />
<br />
Wind chill is now -11, and it's going to stay that way until Monday.<br />
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The woodstove is cranking; if anything should go wrong with the furnace tonight, I want that sucker already hot.<br />
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<br />Heather Houlahanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13891198124130533198noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5810033429461791744.post-80831170956941037992015-02-11T10:37:00.000-05:002015-02-11T13:48:34.146-05:00The Pozzie Sally Hemings ProblemVideo from Marineland Mallorca. Play it a couple times, we'll wait ...<br />
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<br />
Here we see trainers at a corporate captivity-for-entertainment facility in Spain yelling at, kicking, and striking their captives.<br />
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The trainer's actions don't look like corrections to me. They look and sound like the angry, impatient, ineffective outbursts of men who are frustrated because they lack the skill to accomplish their goals within the constraints that have been placed on them. The trainers, grainy though they are, look like guys who are losing their shit.<br />
<br />
The pozzie mouthpieces, including <a href="https://positively.com/victorias-blog/dog-training-vs-dolphin-training-why-the-double-standard/" rel="nofollow">Ms. 50 Shades of Self-Promotion</a>, who have been holding up dolphin Stockholm syndrome as the gold standard of "humane" and (shit you not, <i>irony is dead</i>) "minimally-invasive" training protocols -- who have convinced thousands of clicking simpletons that a wild cetacean imprisoned in a bathtub is the perfect model for living with a pet dog -- are attempting a classic distraction technique by screaming <i>See! It's terrible if you do it to a dog, too! This is how all those cruel balanced trainers treat dogs. Where's the outrage when someone puts a collar on a dog?</i><br />
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Wait, I thought that it was <i>impossible</i> to train a dolphin with force and coercion?<br />
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What's that, you say?<br />
<br />
I'm sorry, <i>I didn't hear that?</i><br />
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Wait, were you wanting to say that Marineland Mallorca is an outlier? I bet their dolphins aren't even trained, and they are a pariah in the industry, right? No legitimate kind and gentle dolphin-bathtub facility would have anything to do with such a person. And he couldn't possibly come in under the radar, because the total lack of results would mean that he had no resume as a successful porpoise-manipulator.<br />
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<i>That </i>must be it.<br />
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<a href="http://www.myfoxatlanta.com/story/28054848/georgia-aquarium-responds-to-youtube-abuse-claims">Oh bother.</a><br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span id="WNStoryDateline" style="background-color: white; color: #575757; display: inline; float: left; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 5px 0px 0px;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">A</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">TLANTA -</span></i></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #575757;">The Georgia Aquarium stands by the man they hired to become Vice President of Dolphin Training, despite allegations that surfaced on YouTube that he abused animals.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #575757;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #575757;">"We think he deserves, after 37 years in a career and no indication in our vetting that this had happened, that we should stand by him until we can prove that this kind of behavior would take place," said aquarium CEO Mike Leven.</span></i></span></blockquote>
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<br />
Now, without being able to determine what it was that the men in wetsuits <i>wanted</i> from the dolphins they were yelling at, kicking, and striking -- I cannot make out verbal commands, and there's not enough context to guess at the point of each exercise -- I have to speculate on very little evidence.<br />
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It looks as if at least some of the "positive punishment" directed at the captives has to do with the animal horning in on other animals' sessions, and some <i>might</i> (again, I am reaching on thin evidence here) be elicited by the animal getting so pushy that the trainers are seeing it as a threat, or as behavior that will later become threatening.<br />
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Let's be clear here. Dolphins are powerful and potentially dangerous wild predators. They can ram, they can hold a person down underwater, they can and do bite and hold on, and they are rapists. Captive dolphins should be assumed to have neuroses and stresses that create novel pathological behavior <i>over and above </i>the perfectly normal aggression of their wild families.<br />
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I keep a mixed herd of medium-sized herbivores. None of my goats and sheep outweigh me, though the largest ones are close to my size. They nibble, but do not bite. They are not predators, they are both domesticated and tame, they are living a species-appropriate lifestyle in a stable social group, and so should be assumed to be sane examples of their respective kinds.<br />
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And you know what? I don't go in to the pasture with a bucket of grain without bringing a dog with me.<br />
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They really like grain, and they are perfectly happy to run me down and trample me to get it. They don't <i>mean</i> to flatten a person, they mean to get more grain than the next goat. Facing off against some credibly pinchy toothipegs reminds them of their manners.<br />
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A farmer who is without a useful dog will use a stock whip or an electric prod in the same circumstances. To maintain distance and respect.<br />
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I think it's possible that the kicking, yelling, hitting Marineland employees were getting a little fearful of the dolphins' pushiness and "testing" and were trying to instill respect and establish distance.<br />
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It did not appear to be working, for all that.<br />
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Now, it's very common in multiple-dog situations for one dog to try to horn in on another dog's interactions with the human -- whether those are just household interactions, affection and proximity, play, or training and work.<br />
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Most dog trainers solve this in the same way that the dolphin trainers ought to -- we train another exercise that prevents the undesired conduct. Normally, that means that one dog holds a stay, or goes to a designated place and holds a stay, while the other dog works, plays, trains or cuddles.<br />
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The stay and/or place command is taught first, then trained with consequences, proofed in the presence of high distraction, and then used at need. Animals who have not been proofed to a particular level are not expected to perform at that level during actual work. In other words, just because my puppy can "stay" in the living room doesn't mean that I would expect her to do it 50' away while I play fetch with a different dog.<br />
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No drama, no anger, no fear, no yelling, hitting, kicking. Corrections, absolutely, fair and effective ones, for disobeying a command that the dog has demonstrated that he understands robustly.<br />
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"Withholding positive reinforcement" is not effective in circumstances when the conduct is fun in itself or the expression of a primary instinctive need. The dolphin who is horning in on two other dolphin's training session (if that is what I am seeing, and I do not know that it is) is having a good time being a pill. Or he's feeling left-out and anxious. He may well know that he will <i>never</i> get chummed for interrupting, but he's still going to do it. He may well know that he'll get yelled at, kicked, and hit -- but why the hell would he care, it doesn't hurt much, and he's not a fucking domesticated animal who has been genetically programmed to give a rat's ass about what a human thinks.<br />
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It's possible that if the trainers -- performers who are themselves often rather poorly-trained, are rather, conditioned by rote to follow the handbook -- had been given a wider toolbox for interacting with their prisoners, they may have had the cognitive and emotional resources to <i>not lose their shit</i> at animals who hadn't read that handbook.<br />
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In other words, if the official liturgy of dolphin-bothering didn't insist that the state religion of Operant Conditioning is the only lens through which the animals' actions will be "understood," and that only one corner of the Holy Quadrity shall be employed, the trainers' frustration might not have broken through in this ugly, nasty, visible way.<br />
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But to me, the kerfuffle is more than a bit like someone expressing outrage that the lonely widower Thomas Jefferson fucked one of his slaves and made babies.<br />
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Really? <i>That's</i> the outrageous thing?<br />
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Not that the philosopher of freedom, equality and virtue <i>owned human beings</i>, bought and sold them, and helped create a nation that simultaneously proclaimed liberty throughout the land and trafficked in human chattel? You don't think <i>that </i>is a wee tetch more troublesome? What kind of treatment would make slavery okay, then? Kind masters who never whip, but only dole out cornmeal and pig's feet to the good, hardworking servants? Soft padding on the leg irons?<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtHM44jUUKgxd3AAiEr1ZR09PrCy3mgjSkRxyWNJZEwavDBD8znhvDqZhm_WM8Ut-sJjBMvPtx-i4cktqTXSY3Vsaajj2k932KEBJAl5jnfczv_PAtFozVdhg_Vy2vYJZVtrqiiO2Ufwl-/s1600/dolphin+in+sling.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtHM44jUUKgxd3AAiEr1ZR09PrCy3mgjSkRxyWNJZEwavDBD8znhvDqZhm_WM8Ut-sJjBMvPtx-i4cktqTXSY3Vsaajj2k932KEBJAl5jnfczv_PAtFozVdhg_Vy2vYJZVtrqiiO2Ufwl-/s1600/dolphin+in+sling.jpg" height="232" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It's okay, the sling is <i>ergonomic</i></td></tr>
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If you are outraged that a dolphin trainer kicked a captive, but okay with a corporation kidnapping them from their families, locking them in sensory deprivation tanks their entire lives, and throwing them frozen chum when they do tricks for the entertainment of the paying masses, then you have a Sally Hemings problem in your brain.Heather Houlahanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13891198124130533198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5810033429461791744.post-63278461914037978112014-11-12T10:32:00.001-05:002014-11-28T15:32:12.118-05:00Drunken Pigs<br />
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The pigs went on their first and last trailer ride yesterday.<br />
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Loading pigs into a trailer is a famously difficult, dangerous, shit-spattered, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XXhApIQ5NQ">squealing ball of stress</a>. Accomplishing this when the pigs roam a half-acre of lightly-fenced pasture generally involves three or more people with sorting boards and electric prods and one or more dogs with teeth. And lots of time. And, apparently traditionally, yelling. Also, it seems to be a prime opportunity for equipment suppliers to sell lots of special fencing and gates and chutes for many thousands of dollars.<br />
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Why would an animal walk peacefully into an obvious trap? Especially when being screamed at?<br />
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The butcher's schedule this time of year is non-negotiable, and meant that I would be loading the pigs by myself in mid-afternoon.<br />
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Our "stock trailer" is just our flatbed utility trailer topped by a repurposed city bicycle locker I bought at <a href="http://www.constructionjunction.org/">Construction Junction</a> and mounted on wooden skids. Two hogs <i>just</i> fit in there. This is good for the actual transport -- they are safer and calmer if they can't thrash around -- but makes it trickier to get them in there.<br />
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I took advice from three sources and made it happen.<br />
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At the 2013 <a href="http://www.motherearthnews.com/fair/pennsylvania.aspx">Mother Earth News Fair</a>, Perfesser Chaos and I sat in on a short class on pasturing pigs, and took away several priceless nuggets of advice from the experienced farmers who taught it.<br />
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One tip was to feed the pigs on the stock trailer.<br />
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Just roll it into the pasture a few weeks before butcher date, and start feeding them in there.<br />
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<a href="http://www.owensfarm.com/index.htm">The instructors</a> also started their little piglets on pasture by first housing them in the same trailer for a couple weeks. That wasn't an option for us, but I was pretty sure we could cut that corner.<br />
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We trialled this concept with the meat chickens. Rather than waiting for full dark to round up 50 or 100 birds that would have to be stuffed squawking into the trailer, I now feed them on the trailer for their last week or so. The evening before butcher day, 85%-90% of the birds load themselves; I close the gate when more are exiting than entering, and we wait until dark to scoop up the stragglers. The stragglers are typically the smallest, fastest, canniest chickens (in a flock of meat chickens, these are not very small, very fast, or very canny at all), but with only 5-10 birds to catch in their sleep, there is minimal work and no drama.<br />
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With two pigs, we need to be sure of 100% self-loading, and it needs to work the first time. Screw it up and make them scared, and we're back to a rodeo.<br />
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Our friend <a href="http://smartdogs.wordpress.com/">Janeen</a> had told me about her friends getting pigs drunk on vodka so that they were in a stupor when the on-farm slaughter truck arrived.<br />
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We don't have any on-farm slaughter services here, and I didn't have any of the vodka in the plastic bottle that I'd be willing to donate to porcine self-anesthesia.<br />
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But I did have about eight cans of cheap undrinkable beer that had been sitting in the basement for several years, against the day I'd need to trap slugs.<br />
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I emptied the skunky cans into the bucket about 30' from the pigs' pasture; by the time I opened the third can, they had gotten wind of the treat and were screaming for it. I poured the beer into their trough, and by the time I'd set the bucket down and grabbed my phone for a photo, there was only froth left, and they were fighting over that.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoI_hDankeS8z_OZ9xgnDl5V-UZSgsEYif8WTwMIf4H4SqBCnRFO9UMp6qShywHT4FMheoGGX6JVhXdYPBrvIFUF8mxLhhRDN4mdkiMjyZ7xpozex_B-JJ0zKnA0HhhdMlp0zSgofLyT6B/s1600/drunken+pigs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoI_hDankeS8z_OZ9xgnDl5V-UZSgsEYif8WTwMIf4H4SqBCnRFO9UMp6qShywHT4FMheoGGX6JVhXdYPBrvIFUF8mxLhhRDN4mdkiMjyZ7xpozex_B-JJ0zKnA0HhhdMlp0zSgofLyT6B/s400/drunken+pigs.jpg" width="275" /></a></div>
<br />
I had to spend a few minutes futzing around securing the bike locker to the trailer (I didn't strap it down earlier because the pigs will chew the straps); by the time I was finished, they were enjoying a mutual stupor in the sunshine. I had to wake them up with a hard nudge to the butt for phase three.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.kristinkimball.com/">Kristin Kimball</a>, who handles a much larger herd of free-ranging pigs, including huge sows and a breeding boar, told me "I wish I loved anything as much as pigs love mooshy apples."<br />
<br />
So I saved some of the bruised and past-it apples from <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Ciderhousefarmmarket">Cider House Farm Market</a> special for this day.<br />
<br />
Showed the drunken pigs the bucket of apples.<br />
<br />
Tossed the apples into the trailer.<br />
<br />
Waited while the hogs stumbled up the ramp.<br />
<br />
Closed and secured the door.<br />
<br />
Done.<br />
<br />
When I got to the butchers after a 40-minute drive, they were snoozing quietly. A couple more mooshy apples and they contentedly stumbled off the trailer into the holding pen.<br />
<br />
I don't have a special <a href="http://youtu.be/S2VZPdFuRa0">pig-loading white dress</a> like the one sported by Caroline Owens, and I didn't have anyone to document the non-ordeal with video (Cole was my standby dog for both loading and unloading, but he has trouble holding the iPhone) but I did grab one of PC's retired white dress shirts, which I wore all day, and get the butcher to take a snap when all the loading was done.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjHs0uRbQ03eeLUvT23kmKBTQuM5YhxuUJWt7ucvagH6er3uUdPKwqxUNezA0QMdiNRGZRqO-GJ0vQ-KCjE5Wr4xylrQSl3kSiStQ3hBrY8bOkTfdh0Kqy5w8u1FkWgTvDHF5mvBiFkOKW/s1600/clean+shirt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjHs0uRbQ03eeLUvT23kmKBTQuM5YhxuUJWt7ucvagH6er3uUdPKwqxUNezA0QMdiNRGZRqO-GJ0vQ-KCjE5Wr4xylrQSl3kSiStQ3hBrY8bOkTfdh0Kqy5w8u1FkWgTvDHF5mvBiFkOKW/s320/clean+shirt.jpg" width="256" /></a></div>
<br />
No yelling. No boards. No electric prods. One little dog and one pointy stick on standby, not employed. No squealing, balking, biting or fear.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Heather Houlahanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13891198124130533198noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5810033429461791744.post-41757009308879356652014-07-29T04:09:00.002-04:002014-07-29T04:09:20.378-04:00That Rug Really Does Not Tie the Room Together<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikxte2NqR7P0l_DCvQUkkedv9Cs1trSfUNaSlPup9GiwHJBnIYAmwR0zJTnVgLjqk1N27oQvpiylYEovlddVbOmfsN2CUI923ptUP2NWbajuHQD5x8klrGLQ76F1vX9_z7JH2WUD1PF9O_/s1600/lebowski+cole+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikxte2NqR7P0l_DCvQUkkedv9Cs1trSfUNaSlPup9GiwHJBnIYAmwR0zJTnVgLjqk1N27oQvpiylYEovlddVbOmfsN2CUI923ptUP2NWbajuHQD5x8klrGLQ76F1vX9_z7JH2WUD1PF9O_/s1600/lebowski+cole+1.jpg" height="400" width="388" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><i><span style="font-size: small;">We can haz traction?</span></i></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
There are three days left to help Lebowski out of his close second-place position in the quest to replace the abused floors in the Brandywine farmhouse.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://goo.gl/VLeKan">Vote here for Lebowski!</a><br />
<br />
The Dude got off to a commanding start in the voting, but late last week was passed by the sullen Australian shepherd who is pictured on a shiny new-looking floor.<br />
<br />
Boo.<br />
<br />
Perhaps it's just that the circles I run in are more, you know, <i>dog people</i>?<br />
<br />
Lebowski would like to point out that he is an apprentice dog, and as such, deserves the votes of dog people.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPdH-K6rzox6kmV8IjcscS6j54SwApXfbKi8xse9mDLRrVHNqmFZINt3Vns_GDr_q66No8x7KoSLbwEGeU2nfAcSqjPjO75ylBvp3tQLzbN4rvHrxSWySinPKWf8oFDo-Aql79YGXSvOtH/s1600/ken+chuckie+lebowski+nap.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPdH-K6rzox6kmV8IjcscS6j54SwApXfbKi8xse9mDLRrVHNqmFZINt3Vns_GDr_q66No8x7KoSLbwEGeU2nfAcSqjPjO75ylBvp3tQLzbN4rvHrxSWySinPKWf8oFDo-Aql79YGXSvOtH/s1600/ken+chuckie+lebowski+nap.jpg" height="197" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><i><span style="font-size: small;">Floors so awful we have to stack the animals</span></i></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Not just an apprentice dog, but an apprentice <i>English shepherd. </i>One of the more difficult sorts of dogs for a Dude born a cat to pull off. He's been working on the Family Yoga Pose.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWG5ZBN-VL18MXi5gSyn_Dn3Eyd3is5BSCC0lYVMerXevK8Yt_YrSrzi-b3vTLvzMmq9uCwB3-MuF0KHmhdtEIFP3XuSXqnqwC0pxn6e9cgcb18SsYwHV1bMntRwoSVKc2w8NtDPEG-bzv/s1600/lebowski+rosie+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWG5ZBN-VL18MXi5gSyn_Dn3Eyd3is5BSCC0lYVMerXevK8Yt_YrSrzi-b3vTLvzMmq9uCwB3-MuF0KHmhdtEIFP3XuSXqnqwC0pxn6e9cgcb18SsYwHV1bMntRwoSVKc2w8NtDPEG-bzv/s1600/lebowski+rosie+3.jpg" height="400" width="291" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><i><span style="font-size: small;">Don't judge.</span></i></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
At the emergency vet on Thursday I saw a poodle/Yorkie cross that I actually thought was a cat at first. She was a very nice little dog, of mature years, and not feeling too well. She sat so quietly in the chair next to her owner's chair, and had such dignity, that I mistook her for one of the clinic cats. Easy for her. Lebowski has a more challenging task before him.<br />
<br />
<br />
Wait, <i>what?</i><br />
<br />
The <i>emergency vet?</i><br />
<br />
What has Sophia done this time?<br />
<br />
Nope, not Sophie. Not this time. Though it's a very Sophie sort of thing to happen.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMkqk1iH-TzECNpxFAQ4CQNZopLcsUJZor4SiT5wYfR4kB2E2sIUgRF6iH0pjOBja0B1JFWjMbxZyQBAWxFvF6KW-F1kwBd5ELLL44_DWEtBLvtdQhKNFUNa4eC38uWTKiH4M6rtaZCPCT/s1600/rosie+turkey+leg+splint.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMkqk1iH-TzECNpxFAQ4CQNZopLcsUJZor4SiT5wYfR4kB2E2sIUgRF6iH0pjOBja0B1JFWjMbxZyQBAWxFvF6KW-F1kwBd5ELLL44_DWEtBLvtdQhKNFUNa4eC38uWTKiH4M6rtaZCPCT/s1600/rosie+turkey+leg+splint.jpg" height="296" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><i><span style="font-size: small;">You shoulda seen the other guy.</span></i></b></td></tr>
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Rosie was helping me to teach young Charlie to swim. Mission accomplished with the help of a retriever bumper and some social modeling/competitive spirit. But Rosie knows that she can get a head start on both Charlie and Cole by launching herself with great force from a dock, while the others prefer the less flamboyant shore entry.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLyzVFNPWBaM-bwUAacGEpM-_cHmNOHPUumTNa2mR4vw9XeEI1l8-ymVGGUKUhFjJrn2KzbFpQpYflDCgXV0Mn9h9jO0HMhluWK1xsXQB_bwSfvUdorkfmpo0mcOIUX6W2x1Qt7OueizJA/s1600/the+culprit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLyzVFNPWBaM-bwUAacGEpM-_cHmNOHPUumTNa2mR4vw9XeEI1l8-ymVGGUKUhFjJrn2KzbFpQpYflDCgXV0Mn9h9jO0HMhluWK1xsXQB_bwSfvUdorkfmpo0mcOIUX6W2x1Qt7OueizJA/s1600/the+culprit.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b><span style="font-size: small;">The other guy. Seemingly unaffected.</span></b></i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
I'm mindful of the danger to toes and toenails posed by the gaps in the decking on docks.<br />
<br />
Never occurred to me that an agile little dog could slip just as she launched and get a hock entrapped under the rope cleat. And then hang there. Screaming.<br />
<br />
I was certain her hock was broken. Things moved that are not supposed to move. I didn't diddle around after discovering that. Three wet dogs into the car and off to the emergency vet, as it was approximately four minutes after my real vet closed for the day. Since the emergency vet was Doogie Howser's prom date*, since the advice that seemed so counterintuitive when she gave it was also very wrong according to Doctor Google, since Rosie was completely tripoding and clearly in terror that something would <i>touch</i> her foot, and since (we later discovered) the radiograph I paid for did not cover the entire relevant section of dog, we followed up with a visit to our real vet, who corrected these deficiencies and fashioned a wondrous splint that appears to include in its engineered innards both a yogurt cup and a system of flying buttresses.<br />
<br />
The good news is that it isn't fractured. The bad news is that it isn't fractured. Hock sprains with this kind of dramatic mechanism of injury can be a nasty business. Lots of complicated ligaments down there. Putting them right can get ugly as well as uncertain.<br />
<br />
We will see whether conservative treatment -- rest and splinting -- gets Rosie back into fighting form. Meanwhile, we are bereft of our best and most versatile SAR dog, and hoping for no hairy deployments.<br />
<br />
Oh, and the vet bills <i>so far</i> have et up what I'd scraped aside to replace the worst floor, the stinking old carpet in my office, with the cheapest vinyl planking I could get. A visitation of <a href="http://cynography.blogspot.com/2011/02/rural-gods-i-budget-gremlin.html">The Budget Gremlin</a>.<br />
<br />
So now we really, really <i>need</i> Lebowski to win us some damn floor. I'm more determined than before to get rid of the slippery laminate in the living room, too. I feel it lurking there, ready to throw a search dog into a skid and wreck a knee or ten.<br />
<br />
And I need all who wish well to Lebowski and his adopted transpecial pack to vote for him, tell your friends to vote for him, bribe your co-workers to vote for him, harangue your Twitter followers and Facebook friends and blog readers and Yahoo groups and whatever happens on Instagram and Pinterest and MySpace and LiveJournal.<br />
<br />
Apparently the mechanism for voting limits you to one vote per <i>device </i>(phone or computer or tablet). Which has been a bummer for the families we know who all use one computer.<br />
<br />
The link: <a href="http://goo.gl/VLeKan" rel="nofollow nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">http://goo.gl/VLeKan</a><br />
<br />
Maybe you'll win floors yourself. Someone will. Two thousand dollars can get you some pretty nice hardwood.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://goo.gl/VLeKan">Lumber Liquidators Cutest Pet, Ugliest Floor Contest</a>. Lebowski. Certainly cuter than the sullen Aussie. The floors on which he romps certainly uglier than the shiny new one on which the Aussie is being sullen.**<br />
<br />
The Dude will thank you.<br />
<br />
Voting ends Thursday, July 31. Not much time left.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcD7W4lWoXW8TRUZm00EhBGE8kOeDTlG9lo5nQjqikQDi-SaOkuwZgd77p2wwnTbiS99n2oL7VwzSjE-kaZWa_QO2Cp4A144J2RlzDRDOK_EaLD9egQLTC7Ji46S59AT6da83LGcv_iMBh/s1600/Lebowski+jazz+hands.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcD7W4lWoXW8TRUZm00EhBGE8kOeDTlG9lo5nQjqikQDi-SaOkuwZgd77p2wwnTbiS99n2oL7VwzSjE-kaZWa_QO2Cp4A144J2RlzDRDOK_EaLD9egQLTC7Ji46S59AT6da83LGcv_iMBh/s1600/Lebowski+jazz+hands.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><i>I shouldna have started measuring it before the contest was over. That jinxed it</i></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
------<br />
<br />
*Yay! Baby-talk for both animal and owner! We <i>love</i> that shit. Especially from someone who is younger than some of the stuff in the back of my fridge.<br />
<br />
** I freely admit that Lucy the puppy with the dork ears is hella-cute, and the floor on which she is lying is heinous. But Lucy is out of the running. She's the Ralph Nader of cute pets on ugly floors. Do not be distracted by the puppy with the dork ears. Lebowski is your candidate!Heather Houlahanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13891198124130533198noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5810033429461791744.post-47740222809822988362014-07-24T04:58:00.001-04:002014-07-24T05:10:03.657-04:00Porceinstein<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTMWK0mlmMBrDE5TN4fu6fXT9ANcTGucH2tLpqQhwnX5Dp2x2M8KOYM9rqAMm_N1ByKAXCBFU-314Zwlv4CiEjEThjYpOW7POsvWLLGIHFP6vK4UpNGzEe8b2NMqaQXiuFk8fCKMRz85YJ/s1600/beanpod+pigz.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTMWK0mlmMBrDE5TN4fu6fXT9ANcTGucH2tLpqQhwnX5Dp2x2M8KOYM9rqAMm_N1ByKAXCBFU-314Zwlv4CiEjEThjYpOW7POsvWLLGIHFP6vK4UpNGzEe8b2NMqaQXiuFk8fCKMRz85YJ/s1600/beanpod+pigz.JPG" height="400" width="311" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Pigs are new to the farm this year.<br />
<br />
I was warned that I would find them very charming and clever and would get attached and cry into my bacon.<br />
<br />
So far, notsomuch, which is fine by me.<br />
<br />
They like to eat -- like to be <i>fed -- </i>and are prepping to be dangerous assholes about food. So I take at least one, and usually two, dogs in with me when I'm messing with their food trough. When they try to slip by a dog while my back is to them, they <i>always</i> get bit. And they <i>always</i> try to do it, and they always scream when it works out exactly the same way it did that morning, and the night before, and yesterday morning.<br />
<br />
Their mastery of the electric fence is similar.<br />
<br />
Not even a turkey tests electronet a second time after the first jolt.<br />
<br />
But these two porceinsteins had to check it each for himself with a wet, snotty nose, about every three feet along its length, and scream in indignation every time it did exactly what it had done five seconds earlier.<br />
<br />
I'm trying to learn about pig behavior generally, and finding it a bit of a conundrum.<br />
<br />
I totally <i>get</i> predators. A dog's mind makes intuitive sense to me. I grok why the kitten stalks moths and plays games in which he puffs up into a GIANT MONSTER GONNA GETCHA.<br />
<br />
And I've learned a lot about what makes the hoofstock tick, how they see the world and how to manipulate them into cooperating with my plans.<br />
<br />
The hogs are neither fish nor fowl. It makes total sense to me that swine aren't kosher. They are in a really confusing space that isn't really even "in-between" the carnivore mind and the grazer's quiet consciousness. They are their own thing, and that thing is kind of weird.<br />
<br />
Ken Ham, the smaller pig, will lose his opportunity to eat in order to stick his head right next to the larger Francis Bacon's at the trough, or when they were smaller, into FB's bowl while his own bowl sat untouched.<br />
<br />
Then FB will just beat the shit out of KH between bites, finish what he has, and take KH's portion too. KH is not going to catch up with FB on growth by following this brilliant diet plan. The bigger the difference in their sizes, the more he's going to get beat up.<br />
<br />
But if one were to separate them for feeding, neither would eat.<br />
<br />
They were cohabiting with Buck Rodgers, the goat herdsire, and his companion wether for a couple weeks.<br />
<br />
At first the two species seemed to ignore one another while sharing a pasture and shed, and that seemed fine.<br />
<br />
Then I noticed that the damn pigs -- commercial crossbreeds, definitely not the droids I was looking for -- were following the goats around the pasture and apparently learning to forage from them. That was better than fine.<br />
<br />
<i>Then</i> I saw Rodgers bite Francis Bacon's ear and realized he'd learned this uncaprine martial art from the pigs -- not so fine.<br />
<br />
The next day I observed Rodgers, coming into the rut rather early, teaching an uncooperative Ken Ham to <a href="http://static.rogerebert.com/redactor_assets/pictures/far-flung-correspondents/slapped-by-the-hand-of-mother-nature/Deliverence_squeal.jpg">squeal like a pig</a>.<br />
<br />
No, it was not a dominance thing. I moved the goats to new pasture the next morning. I accept that barnyard animals will comport themselves like barnyard animals, but there is a <i>limit</i>.<br />
<br />
Tuesday, when it was hot, I dumped out a couple of extra water troughs behind their shed, creating a glorious mud mire for their entertainment. This seemed to get them excited in a way I'd never seen before.<br />
<br />
Francis Bacon was biting off (inedible, or in any event, never-eaten) weed stalks and shaking them in as doglike a way as a pig might do, even carrying them around.<br />
<br />
And Ken Ham was nuzzling Francis Bacon and then performing a ritualized jaw gape.<br />
<br />
I seriously have <i>no idea.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/YdXdMPbG6hg?rel=0" width="560"></iframe>Heather Houlahanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13891198124130533198noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5810033429461791744.post-57048286371732886312014-07-18T02:33:00.000-04:002014-07-18T02:33:04.448-04:00Banish the Ghosts of (Other People's) Pets Past<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG3JaFnzo28l-x37eXV0Pg5JJi0cIjDL_8QYm_vydiBC2IyfowUFKxoPTBd2UveTfyo1XUaEOofMg5nlfzTYDs17nPllPvhAV0Vo6qxLIwXZQk3JmJvp6NtwJEWhqq4K2BOdK5aqVg4dij/s1600/charlie+lebowski+pinto+beans.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG3JaFnzo28l-x37eXV0Pg5JJi0cIjDL_8QYm_vydiBC2IyfowUFKxoPTBd2UveTfyo1XUaEOofMg5nlfzTYDs17nPllPvhAV0Vo6qxLIwXZQk3JmJvp6NtwJEWhqq4K2BOdK5aqVg4dij/s1600/charlie+lebowski+pinto+beans.jpg" height="640" width="456" /></a></div>
<br />
Meet Lebowski.<br />
<br />
He's the new assistant "barn cat," by which we mean, cat whose food bowl is on top of the fridge in the barn well out of scamming dog range and who has whatever house privileges he chooses to avail himself of.<br />
<br />
As he's currently snack-sized and naive, he lives in protective custody in the house, mostly occupying whatever keyboard I'm trying to use, until he has enough mass to start apprenticing with Gollum.<br />
<br />
But we've already put him to work. He wants to live in the farmhouse, by gum he needs to <i>contribute</i>.<br />
<br />
Currently his only talent is absurd cuteness. As it happens, there was an opening for someone with his exact qualifications.<br />
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<img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV7PB06DPHHxLzXL0Kg0BzUxRBsJv_a5P0JtRIB4QsTcvZdKSDh5tCG0y9MFQlrfRSPfcqS01fssenW2jLY0UGtiAAylhyphenhyphenGhWD84hpE6Q-N5Bl4dlSVYKXhtSCqLDuQ-ilXHMwOTEYMGSS/s1600/cute+pet+contest+image.tiff" height="152" width="400" /></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: large;">And The Dude has qualified as a finalist!</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></i>
<a href="http://goo.gl/VLeKan">Voting</a> runs from today to July 31.<br />
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One random voter will also win $2K worth of flooring*<br />
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The ugly floor in the photo?<br />
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Not the farmhouse's worst floor. Not even third-worst. I'm currently de-booking my office so that I can remove the carpet that resurrects the spirit of some previous house owners' incontinent pets whenever the ambient humidity goes over the stank threshold. I'd assumed that there was an old pine floor under it, but have found only a particleboard subfloor. So this is not going to be addressed with a rented sander and a can of floor paint.<br />
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Then there's the hallway, and the aged bordello-red carpet in the bedroom. And the cheap-azz slippery laminate in the living room that I worry will cause a dog to skid out and blow a knee one day.<br />
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Every time I start fixin to do something about these floors, the <a href="http://cynography.blogspot.com/2011/02/rural-gods-i-budget-gremlin.html">Budget Gremlin</a> knocks a hole in something that is supposed to be waterproof, or in the bottom of the well, or in a Subaru transmission, and <i>No floor for you!</i><br />
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If you feel moved to allow Momma to floor her office in something other than the cheapest vinyl planks that fall off the back of a truck and end up at Ollie's, you can do so at the link:<br />
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<a href="http://goo.gl/VLeKan" style="background-color: white; color: darkblue; cursor: pointer; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">http://goo.gl/VLeKan</a><br />
<br />
Do it for the search dogs' kneecaps. Do it to cleanse the lingering spirits of someone else's pets. Do it to erase the interior design crimes perpetrated against this 116-year-old house's dignity in the past 30 years. Do it for the chance to win your own new floors.<br />
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Do it for The Dude.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd1bq-hcENiThoUITFakcTqUB-8346qnUiPSqt2wfVVZO_6fqwxc0RBzTy8lyoqjeBrbc9zOHrIwc2vFEzV7FIy58JZkqbjDNK1t-kr92YD_UG8JpnrGxrsXgNRoN0CbHNyrGunTKGubLJ/s1600/Lebowski+jazz+hands.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd1bq-hcENiThoUITFakcTqUB-8346qnUiPSqt2wfVVZO_6fqwxc0RBzTy8lyoqjeBrbc9zOHrIwc2vFEzV7FIy58JZkqbjDNK1t-kr92YD_UG8JpnrGxrsXgNRoN0CbHNyrGunTKGubLJ/s1600/Lebowski+jazz+hands.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
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* But Houlie, sez you, I dunna haz a house! Or I haz a house, but it is outfitted with floors already!<br />
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Dude, donate that shit to Habitat for Humanity. Or your local equivalent. 2K Karma points.Heather Houlahanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13891198124130533198noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5810033429461791744.post-60445844128592647852014-07-16T02:42:00.001-04:002014-07-16T12:45:14.273-04:00A Field Guide to Ethical Breeders<b>First published in the August 2013 <i>Whole Dog Journal.</i></b><br />
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<b><i>Why, you ask, are all the subheads huge and a weird color, and also there are some errors in line spacing?</i></b><br />
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<b><i>Because Blogger says so, and </i>swears<i> that there is no extra strange code in there to make it like that. And I'm sick of messing with it.</i></b><br />
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<b><i>Why no cute puppy pictures in a post about puppies?</i></b><br />
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<b><i>Because Blogger is also being a douche about pictures.</i></b><br />
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You are a conscientious and skeptical consumer. Whenever you have a choice, you buy quality products that are made to last by manufacturers who take good care of their workers and the environment, who are mindful of safety, who stand behind their products, and generally follow best practices to produce them sustainably and ethically. Since you invest more in each purchase, you also invest more in caring for that purchase, whether it is maintaining a pricey hand-crafted tool or carefully cooking that expensive local grass-fed steak. You know that by taking extra care, you not only meet high ethical standards, you get a better product for <i>you</i>. Who wants a bunch of shiny junk that will break and end up in a landfill, with the seller gone as soon as your payment clears? Not you.<br />
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You also know that there are costs to being conscientious. You will pay more up-front, sometimes a lot more. You have to put in a lot more effort to get the product; it isn’t waiting for you on the shelf at Walmart 24 hours a day. You have to research and weigh values against one another. You may have to wait a long time to get just the product you want. And you must hone your radar for advertising claims that mean nothing (cholesterol-free apples?) and scrutinize various allegedly independent seals of approval that serve as marketing smokescreens for sellers who want to exploit your conscientiousness.<br />
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Here’s a challenge, though: Can you apply that smart, honed, skeptical consumer consciousness to the next dog or puppy that you buy or adopt? Can you resist the first adorable puppy that is plopped into your arms, or the desperate sad story on a Petfinder entry?
Not only can it be done, it must be done, if you are deeply involved with your own dogs and care a great deal about the welfare and future of dogs in general. This is the acquisition that most demands a restrained, educated, skeptical approach that serves your own self-interest as well as supporting practices that are good for dogs. For no other purchase does intelligent self-interest mesh so closely with good social ethics, whether you are buying a purpose-bred puppy or selecting the best-for-you “used” dog from a shelter or rescue.<br />
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Here’s how to identify an ethical breeder – one whose concern for the welfare of her dogs and devotion to the future of her breed extends to the well-being of those dogs’ owners. In a followup post, I’ll describe how to identify legitimate, top-quality rescues, and avoid those that apply more sentiment than expertise, as well as frank swindlers who prey on animals and kind-hearted people.<br />
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Finding Ethical Breeders</h3>
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It can be difficult to give useful generic advice about many aspects of buying a purpose-bred puppy. The husbandry practices, selection criteria, and to some extent the attitudes that make a great Bichon breeder would be anathema to someone breeding Belgian Malinois. Different breeds have different cultures. I can’t tell you the fair price for a puppy – what is highway robbery and what is alarmingly cheap. I don’t know what health conditions beset the breed of your choice. I don’t know whether the breed club offers transparent guidance or is purely a marketing smokescreen. (I can tell you with reasonable certainty that the search terms “ puppies for sale” or “ puppies ” will bring you almost exclusively the new marketing-savvy Internet-based puppymillers, who now know how to work search engine optimization.) I don’t know which Yahoo list or Facebook group offers the best discussion and the most honest direction. You are going to have to find out the specifics for the kind of dog you seek; I recommend that you find guides and mentors who know the breed well and have nothing to sell you.
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That said, some field marks of the ethical breeder are general in nature. Her opposite number is the puppymilling profiteer. Both self-interest and social responsibility depend on you avoiding that puppymiller.
Here are some feathers and crests to look for as you winnow through the information overload:<br />
<h4>
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THE BREEDER DOES SOMETHING WITH HER DOGS.</h4>
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I mean, other than make puppies with them. She’s part of a community of dog-lovers, hobbyists, and professionals who compete or perform service with their own dogs. Their dogs are seen and assessed by other experts, and there are thresholds – a working title or certificate, a conformation championship, breed-survey rating, temperament tests, qualifying in a trial – that dogs achieve before being bred.<br />
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Veteran French Bulldog breeder and rescuer Carol Gravestock and I come from radically different tribes of the dog nation (that’s why I asked her for input). For the two working breeds that I own, a conformation (show ring) championship is a clear signal to avoid the dog’s progeny and the breeder, because of health, temperament, and breed conservation considerations. In Carol’s world, with a breed designed from the outset purely as house pets, “You <i>have to</i> show. It’s how you earn the right to breed a litter.”<br />
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As you scrutinize the performance claims about the breeder’s sires and dams, though, beware of “champion lines.” How many of those champions – or obedience-titled dogs, police canines, hunt-tested retrievers, etc. – are or were owned by the seller? Do the pup’s parents number among them? Alas, it is not difficult to buy the grandson of champions to spruce up the ol’ pedigree charts on the website. Your questions about a pup’s ancestry should be guided by the principle, “What have you done for me lately?”<br />
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THE BREEDER HAS AS MANY, OR MORE, QUESTIONS FOR YOU THAN YOU DO FOR HER. </h4>
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She’s nosy. All up in your underwear drawer. Seems judgmental. Probably has an application that you must fill out, sometimes before she will talk to you or correspond at any length. You feel a bit violated. Like you have to prove to her that you are worthy of one of her pups. Because you do.
(Please refrain from snorting, “This is worse than adopting a child!”
People who have adopted a human child, or who have tried to adopt and been unable to do so, don’t find it a bit funny.)<br />
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In contrast, says Gravestock, “With puppymills, the dogs are their job, and they work that job. That means answering the phone and returning emails in 30 seconds flat, and being charming. <i>They have a product to sell; their product is a puppy, and they are salesmen. </i><br />
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“Ethical breeders work to support their dogs; their dogs do not support them,” says Gravestock. They may not get back to you the day you call, and they will not be charming and aggressive in their eagerness to sell you a puppy, because that breeder’s number one goal is to ensure that every puppy goes to a lifetime excellent home, not getting every puppy paid for and out the door the moment he is weaned.<br />
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“Good breeders are paranoid – we are downright afraid of you, puppy buyers of the universe! Those of us who do rescue have seen the worst-case scenarios.”<br />
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The benefit to you of cultivating a relationship with someone this cautious? A breeder who is very careful about where her puppies go is the same breeder who is there for the life of the dog, to answer your questions, help you with any problems, cheer you on in your endeavors, and take away the worry of what would happen if you could no longer keep your dog. Every one of her puppy-buyers is a dog-in-law.<br />
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<h3>
What to Look For </h3>
<h4>
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A GOOD BREEDER CHECKS REFERENCES </h4>
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You provide personal and veterinary references, and she calls those people and grills them about you, your character, your experience as an animal owner, and even your personality. She may also insist on visiting your home, or sending someone she designates who is near you.
Note that puppymills are increasingly sophisticated about aping the surface plumage of good breeders. Many now have applications on their “click & buy” websites, and some of those applications ask for references. But they will not actually call the references you provide. When you provide references to a breeder, let those people know you have done so (that’s just polite), and ask them to call you after they speak to the breeder so you can find out what the conversation was about. I’ve found conversations with personal references to be extremely valuable in matching pups to new families.<br />
<h4>
<br />THE BREEDER IS ALSO VERY HAPPY TO PROVIDE REFERENCES </h4>
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Call and question the breeder’s references! For example: “Would you buy another puppy from this breeder? Why?”
I always advise puppy-buyers, and dog owners looking for a trainer, to ask for references. In 20 years of professional training and nine years of breeding, I have never had anyone ask me for a reference.<br />
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Not one person.<br />
<h4>
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THE BREEDER USES A SALES CONTRACT THAT PROTECTS THE PUPPY’S WELFARE, THE BREED’S WELFARE, YOUR INTERESTS, AND HER INTERESTS – IN ABOUT THAT ORDER.</h4>
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Review the contract. What does the “health guarantee” cover? Puppymillers have discovered that written contracts not only make them look legit, they can be used to weasel out of obligations that would otherwise be presumptive under law.
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Carol Gravestock cautions buyers to look for the “dead dog clause” in any health guarantee. If the breeder requires you to return the puppy to her in order to receive anything back, she is using the “health guarantee” to guarantee that you will not invoke the contract and she can keep your money. Who would send back his beloved ill pet to a breeder who will have the dog put down, and then accept another puppy from the same person as “replacement?” Not you, right? The profiteering puppymiller is counting on that.<br />
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Also, if you live in Florida and have the pup shipped from Missouri, you won’t be able to return the pup with parvo to the seller because no vet will sign a travel health certificate for him. Catch-22.
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Good breeders' contracts are well-meaning, if not always well-written. (If you are a lawyer, paralegal, or just good with contracts, do your new dog-in-law a kindness and offer to help her with her puppy contract. There is a 98% probability that hers is vague, unenforceable, and generally terrible, concealing rather than advancing her best intentions. In contract law, the thought does not count.)<br />
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Talk with the breeder about the terms of the contract, and what is guaranteed by the breeder, as well as the obligations you take on. The best breeders will want you to agree to provide good husbandry to the pup, to accept limits on the circumstances under which the pup might be bred, to perform specific health tests, and share the health test results when the pup is of the appropriate age. And every ethical breeder obliges herself to take back your puppy if you ever cannot keep him, often requiring that you give her the right of first refusal before the dog ever changes hands.
If the contract does not include an RTB – a “return to breeder” clause – walk away. It is your dog’s ultimate safety net, and the surest field mark of a breeder who puts dogs before her own profit and convenience.
If every dog breeder enforced an RTB, there would be no followup post on ethical rescue groups and shelters.<br />
<h4>
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THE BREEDER SPEAKS MORE ABOUT HER ADULT DOGS, THEIR ACCOMPLISHMENTS, BACKGROUNDS, QUALITIES, AND SHORTCOMINGS, THAN ABOUT ANY PUPPIES FOR SALE, PRESENT OR FUTURE. </h4>
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Your poor brain will throb as the breeder spins out a story of ancestors and relatives in a pedigree that you cannot hope to parse; this is a sign that the breeder is more concerned with the character of her dogs than with the perishable marketability of a puppy.
In contrast, a puppymill’s website will almost invariably consist of pages of individual mugshot photos of each freshly bathed, shell-shocked pup, showing color and markings, with a draped background or sofa cushions, and often with adorable props. There may be a payment button next to each photo. Adult dogs, if present at all, are relegated to the background of the marketing efforts. (Betsy and Ranger had eight darling puppies, ready for adoption just in time for Christmas!) When you speak to this breeder, she will have a lot to say about the pups that she currently has for sale, but little that is insightful about their parents, older siblings, ancestors, uncles, and aunts.<br />
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GOOD BREEDERS PERFORM THE APPROPRIATE HEALTH TESTS FOR THE BREED, SHARE THE RESULTS OPENLY, PROVIDE DOCUMENTATION OF THOSE RESULTS, AND CAN JUSTIFY THEIR DECISIONS TO BREED EACH INDIVIDUAL DOG. </h4>
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Don’t fall for claims that the pups are “health tested” and “DNA verified.” So? What health tests? Some puppymillers market pups as “health tested” because they have the federally required health certificate for shipping before they board the airplane! (We have now entered the realm of certified low-sodium broccoli.) And yes, all animals have DNA; I can verify that for you right now.
And what of the results? A breeder who has her dogs’ hips radiographed and rated by OFA or PennHIP, and then breeds each dog regardless of the results of the test, is not performing due diligence. (The good hip scores become marketing fodder, while the bad ones are buried in silence and denial.)
The appropriate health tests vary widely by breed; this is why you must research the breed or type of dog thoroughly before contacting breeders. A Saluki breeder who doesn’t check hips is normal, because Salukis do not have an issue with poor hips in their gene pool; it would be an expensive diagnostic test performed for no purpose. But a Labrador breeder who skips this test “because my dogs have never had a problem,” or who spins a tale about how it’s all feeding them right and keeping them off slippery floors, is selling snake oil.<br />
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If a breeder doesn’t health test, doesn’t share the results, won’t give you documentation unless you buy a puppy or put down a deposit, or is any way cagey, walk away.
Most health tests do not guarantee that your pup will be unaffected by the problem that the test evaluates. Only a few tests for simple genetic mutations can determine that. However, good test results increase your odds of getting a pup who is free of that issue – and you support someone who follows best practices.
Once you have the results of the parents’ health data (and, ideally, grandparents, uncles and aunts, and any older siblings if applicable), you should ask someone who is an expert in the breed and has nothing to sell you to explain them, ideally without letting on who the dogs or breeder are. This is likely not your veterinarian – unless she owns that breed and has an interest in breeding and genetics. Another breeder, or a trainer, dog sports competitor, or other professional who has a lot of experience with the breed, is often your best source for disinterested information.
And no matter how many Good Housekeeping Seals a pup’s parents can present, you still need to inquire pointedly about overall health in his family. Who cares if the parents have fantastic hips, eyes, elbows, knees, and cardiac function if all four grandparents died of cancer by age six, Dad has epilepsy, and Mom has a running bar tab at the vet?<br />
<h4>
<br />
THE BREEDER BREEDS ONE BREED OF DOGS. MAYBE TWO. PROBABLY JUST ONE. </h4>
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It takes years to become an expert in just one breed of dog; a breeder may own one or two dogs of other breeds, but she’s a specialist in just one.
Puppymillers know that buyers will encounter this advice, so they now separate the websites of their different breeds. Google is your friend; check phone numbers, business names, individual names, and any other keywords you can glean for signs that the breeder has multiple websites for different breeds of dog. Hiding these parallel websites is a sign that there is something to hide.<br />
<h4>
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THE BREEDER BREEDS ONLY MATURE DOGS, AND EACH FEMALE IS BRED INFREQUENTLY. (CERTAINLY NO MORE THAN ONCE A YEAR.) </h4>
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No puppies having puppies. That means, at minimum, that each dog is two years old before being bred. Older is better, especially in slow-maturing breeds. Males, in particular, may be quite mature before siring puppies. If your pup’s parents are mature, ask about their reproductive history. If Momma, or any other bitch the breeder owns, is on her fourth litter at age five, you have your answer. If the breeder is cagey about answering, walk away.<br />
<h4>
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THE BREEDER HAS LITTERS INFREQUENTLY, ONE AT A TIME. YOU ARE LIKELY TO HAVE TO WAIT, POSSIBLY A CONSIDERABLE TIME, FOR A PUP TO BE AVAILABLE TO YOU. </h4>
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Puppies take a lot of care, and it’s not just constant feeding and cleaning. A good breeder spends hours every day observing and interacting with the pups to learn as much as possible about each one and to socialize them thoroughly. They have puppy socialization parties with friends, take the tykes on field trips, and lose countless hours to puppy reverie.
Even a house full of highly disciplined home-schooled children can’t properly socialize, much less assess, 20 or 30 pups at a time. And there is no way that a breeder can effectively screen potential homes with diligence with so many pups at once. Ethical breeders all report being drained and exhausted after raising a litter, mostly due to the hours spent screening potential buyers and agonizing over puppy matches. Puppymillers like to produce in big batches for efficiency.
Occasionally a breeder plans two litters in a year for compelling reasons, and her bitches synchronize so that the only way to manage it is to have them close together. But the breeder should present this as an exception without prompting. Most who try it once swear “never again” while lying in a dark room with a cold compress on their foreheads.<br />
<h4>
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YOU ARE ENCOURAGED, IN SOME CASES REQUIRED, TO VISIT THE BREEDER’S HOME TO PICK UP YOUR PUPPY.</h4>
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(This is always where the puppies and their mother live, by the way.)<br />
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Preferably, you visit before picking up the puppy – perhaps even before pups are born or conceived. This can vary depending on how common the breed is and how far you have to go, but you are always welcome to visit with polite notice at a mutually convenient time.
If the breeder offers to meet you somewhere off-site “to save you driving time” or to deliver the puppy to you, proceed with great caution. Sometimes these offers are sincere; say, the breeder is traveling for a dog show to your area anyway. Tell her that you’d rather come to her and meet the pup’s mother and other relatives. If she is resistant, walk away.
If you get as far as visiting the breeder’s home and the pups or adult dogs are dirty, crowded, stinky, isolated, caged, scary, fearful or in any way not what you would wish for every puppy, everywhere, <i>walk away</i>.
If you can’t meet the adult dogs, <i>walk away</i>.
If you would not wish to own the puppies’ dam, <i>walk away</i>.
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<h4>
<br />
THE CHANCE THAT A BREEDER WHO IS USDA-LICENSED IS NOT A PUPPYMILLER IS ESSENTIALLY NIL. </h4>
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Ethical breeders do not produce enough puppies to require this licensure.<br />
<h4>
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IF THERE IS ANY INDICATION THAT THE SALE OF PUPPIES IS PAYING THE MORTGAGE, THAT THE DOGS ARE SUPPORTING THE BREEDER, <i>WALK AWAY</i>.</h4>
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You can be sure that the dogs’ dependent is making compromises about the dogs’ welfare: whether to breed that bitch who had a litter six months ago, what brand of dog food to buy, does this pup really need to see a vet? And if you find that you must return your puppy a year or 10 after bringing him home, you will also find that that charming aw shucks farm lady who just loved all her li’l puppies to death when they were ripe and shiny and for sale is not returning your calls; if you catch her, you can expect, at best, a referral to a breed rescue.<br />
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An ethical breeder, a great breeder, doesn’t just take her own puppies back at any age, for any reason, she supports breed rescue and other animal welfare causes. She may pull, evaluate, transport, and foster dogs that puppymillers forgot about the minute the check cleared. She might sit on the board, fundraise, or just cut a check at Christmas. She helps salvage the mess created by those “other” breeders.<br />
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<h4>
RELATED POST (COMING SOON, WHEN I HAVE SCRUBBED AWAY THE PENTAGRAM ON THE KITCHEN FLOOR WITHIN WHICH I HAVE SUMMONED SOMETHING BLACK AND ELDRITCH AND OOZING ICHOR TO UNLEASH UPON BLOGGER): <a href="http://www.whole-dog-journal.com/issues/16_9/features/finding-best-animal-shelters_20818-1.html" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1px; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black;">Finding The Best Animal Shelters: How to starve the scammers and support the bonefide heroes in animal rescue</span></a></h4>
Heather Houlahanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13891198124130533198noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5810033429461791744.post-43157793207679638982014-04-10T02:27:00.001-04:002014-04-10T02:47:28.166-04:00Purebred Polar Bear<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Dad, are you sure I'm </span><i style="font-size: small;">all</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> polar bear?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Yes, son, what else would you be?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">You -- you're a polar bear?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Yes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">And Mom, she's all polar bear?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Of course.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Grandma and grandpa, they are 100% polar bears?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Polar bears.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">And Mom's mother and father, are they pure polar bears?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Naturally!</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">So you are certain that I am a </span><i style="font-size: small;">purebred</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> polar bear?</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">What the hell, son?! Why would you think that you are not all polar bear?</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<i><b>Because I'm fucking freezing!</b></i></div>
<i><br /></i>
So, early this winter I was pretty sure I was not even a polar beardoodle. It got cold early in November; I showed up to an <a href="http://www.mra.org/">MRA</a> vertical training in normal attire for the conditions, and found that I quickly became completely useless -- fingers like Jimmy Dean links still in the freezer box, feet that would qualify as wood if wood could transmit excruciating pain, shivering and huddled and fuzzy-brained and pathetic and whiny.<br />
<br />
I started understanding about snowbirds. Seriously considered recusing myself from the upcoming recertification weekend on the grounds that I would not be any kind of asset.<br />
<br />
But before I conceded defeat, I took some steps.<br />
<br />
Started suiting up and working outside for at least four hours a day every day that it was cold.<br />
<br />
Admitted that my 22-year-old all-leather spring mountaineering boots were not going to cut it. Not because they aren't still great boots -- they are quality Italian footwear in fine condition -- but because it's not just asses that spread out in the decades between mid-20's and late-40's. Suckers are just too tight for winter use on my middle-aged feet. The sloppsy-woppsy Sorels that I had been using for farm chores and hunting are out of the question for mountaineering, and modern plastic mountaineering boots substitute blood and bruises for frostbite. So I bought a pair of insulated Columbia winter boots that kind of split the difference, and, astonishingly, with push of a button will draw on rechargeable batteries to heat my toes. (I have worn virtually nothing else outdoors since Thanksgiving.)<br />
<br />
At our MRA regional team recert in Vermont in December we started the first morning with dead car batteries and -10°F. Out all day doing rope work, it never got above 10°F, there were periods of inactivity, and all of us were fine. Just <i>fine</i>. No cinderblock feet or stupid fingers or hypothermia stumbles. Even <i>me</i>. In a month I'd gone from a<span style="font-family: inherit;"> patheti<span style="line-height: 19px;">c equatorial </span>poikilothermic lizard-woman to a fucking purebred polar bear.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEts-5AGNP2Qy_BcZPmWe6lbs_IVBaZi2rKWAOJ9BT0iIv2x-fEyXjswKiQvO2o-4g6m1Esdwp3I3QX2qdt39g0izM2M55a38MXIERHSSSsI6-4MHRyotsddfChNSue0hovO2psBuBfzCf/s1600/1518821_10100483217455167_658248196_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEts-5AGNP2Qy_BcZPmWe6lbs_IVBaZi2rKWAOJ9BT0iIv2x-fEyXjswKiQvO2o-4g6m1Esdwp3I3QX2qdt39g0izM2M55a38MXIERHSSSsI6-4MHRyotsddfChNSue0hovO2psBuBfzCf/s1600/1518821_10100483217455167_658248196_o.jpg" height="265" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">That all ya got, Green Mountains?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It's been the consistently coldest winter in years, and there I am outside in my Carhartts during the day and then later doing my night chores and looking for more little jobs that need doing (and can be done in single-digit temperatures and significant snow cover*) so I can stay out longer. Maybe I could bring some more firewood from the shed to the front porch? Prune something? Shovel this walk again?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Indoors, the Thermostat Wars rage.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">55°F at the thermostat (which is a few feet from the back door and its integral dog door, thus the coldest part of the house) makes for <i>perfectly comfortable </i>indoor temperatures. And we have the woodstove insert in the living room for sitting of an evening and baking like iguanas with a red lightbulb.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="line-height: 19px;">Nevertheless, I catch Perfesser Chaos turning the thermostat to a shvitzing 65° while he is sitting in the room next to Vulcan's forge and the weather station ten feet from the stove says 78°.</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 19px;"><br /></span>
<span style="line-height: 19px;"><i>Ferchrissakesputasweateron</i>. The oil bill this winter is already more than double last year's, and a man could have died in the effort to keep our pipes from freezing. There is no need to burn more money. At any given time there are no fewer than five rooms of the house occupied only by torpid stink bugs and Asian ladybeetles. Although they enjoy the heat, <i>they contribute nothing towards the oil bill.</i></span><br />
<span style="line-height: 19px;"><br /></span>
<span style="line-height: 19px;">I might be, for this year at least, a born-again <i>Ursus maritimus</i>, but I am not alone.</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 19px;"><br /></span>
<span style="line-height: 19px;">Moe's health makes him miserable in the damp cold of fall, or during mild winters like last year's mudfest, but when things get really frigid he and his excessive not-fat-fluffiness are at home in the snowdrifts. It has always been thus, since he went on his first frosty mountaintop bivouac at the tender age of four months, and instead of emulating his mother and serving as my sleeping bag hot water bottle, he </span><span style="line-height: 19px;">declared himself a timberwolf, </span><span style="line-height: 19px;">scratched a nest in the leaves, curled up in a ball and denned solo.</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 19px;"><br /></span>
<span style="line-height: 19px;">Now, Moe looks the part. Really, <i>look at him. </i>You just know that when John Thornton dies he's ready to go lead the wild brothers.</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 19px;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibf2J7FerBJEat8idmUdZ6sQ2hvLC3VZ0LwBz5IKYsQ-ilJG1EwtySkCK-QSyDcjb_LEVObv1ZbGPFBlSbMEs7a610f4_CY3KfRr8JaOmIHsPwCeU33YEUOi1aqgHGWn-Z68hdXuCPCI0V/s1600/5+snow+dogs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibf2J7FerBJEat8idmUdZ6sQ2hvLC3VZ0LwBz5IKYsQ-ilJG1EwtySkCK-QSyDcjb_LEVObv1ZbGPFBlSbMEs7a610f4_CY3KfRr8JaOmIHsPwCeU33YEUOi1aqgHGWn-Z68hdXuCPCI0V/s1600/5+snow+dogs.jpg" height="400" width="287" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 19px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">He's the guy in the middle. </span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
But Charlie?<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Baby girl Charlie?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="line-height: 19px;">Little fur-less Charlie?</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 19px;"><br /></span>
<span style="line-height: 19px;">Charlie whose mother tucks in under the bedpillows every night? The scion of the little bitch who rides home from SAR training in the passenger's lap so she can have a heated seat and the full blast of the car blower?</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 19px;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_FpPnMhvIY1pmrIM4NViJ7U3jB9AR0s4WxeI62hMbBIjaYX3dsdjz2aqgK7SYdFIh_vfJArPSJUIILccoJKUtvK0EAdWmUWQg0C8sKklGhj-YSEzBI2pL0BXMqlHLf05DJ5egMa6zUdKc/s1600/charlie+phhhttt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_FpPnMhvIY1pmrIM4NViJ7U3jB9AR0s4WxeI62hMbBIjaYX3dsdjz2aqgK7SYdFIh_vfJArPSJUIILccoJKUtvK0EAdWmUWQg0C8sKklGhj-YSEzBI2pL0BXMqlHLf05DJ5egMa6zUdKc/s1600/charlie+phhhttt.jpg" height="400" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pphhhttt</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="line-height: 19px;"><br /></span>
<span style="line-height: 19px;">Yes, somehow Charlie pup turned out purebred polar bear. Runs all day in snow up to her puppy wazoo, wants more. Breaks through the creek and comes out bejeweled with instant ice, whatevs. Takes her bones and kongs and stolen ski boots out the dog door so she can enjoy them in a snowdrift. Waits in a frigid car sprawled out tits up. Spurns our blankets and offers to cuddle. Has grown a thick polar bear pelt on her puppy belly, contrary to the family tradition of nekkid bellies.</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 19px;"><br /></span>
<span style="line-height: 19px;">Her siblings apparently agree. Her brother in Louisiana has the fewest options, so he just lives in the pond.</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 19px;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWZ1wDstT34EGRu-cznWE0lUY2bKUoehwkYNIylwgAfPb4pP0RXBbFqYVSMZQuD1nwDhnCB-U-8vSGxzDj_E2JIuwon0Z-Srm6dDoyKYqsKf4Dr1ifQFde8NX60dptmKZensIy9n7Nyx52/s1600/1801217_10201593808191055_779482739_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWZ1wDstT34EGRu-cznWE0lUY2bKUoehwkYNIylwgAfPb4pP0RXBbFqYVSMZQuD1nwDhnCB-U-8vSGxzDj_E2JIuwon0Z-Srm6dDoyKYqsKf4Dr1ifQFde8NX60dptmKZensIy9n7Nyx52/s1600/1801217_10201593808191055_779482739_o.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Not a nutria.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="line-height: 19px;"><br /></span>
<span style="line-height: 19px;">Her sister up in Ultima Thule has embraced her heritage</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 19px;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV8px4WR8B8cuB_RDDWedex-_mGYQ7qhFaObh8WXZ94AzFhS8y2YaJZ5khplr5B0hQxNU3jkoD6PwCkw5Y7bqpNCoxQP9onF2brs0nnrpc14dIIaWQgNd08DTc8NYa-cwkAhDqzCl8OUB4/s1600/1932792_10202328830275908_1819356578_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV8px4WR8B8cuB_RDDWedex-_mGYQ7qhFaObh8WXZ94AzFhS8y2YaJZ5khplr5B0hQxNU3jkoD6PwCkw5Y7bqpNCoxQP9onF2brs0nnrpc14dIIaWQgNd08DTc8NYa-cwkAhDqzCl8OUB4/s1600/1932792_10202328830275908_1819356578_o.jpg" height="298" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The elusive Loch Ness Mary</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="line-height: 19px;"><br /></span>
Last summer, when Charlie was born, was the coolest in a long time.<br />
<br />
I have some bad news for her about this thing called "July."<br />
_____________________<br />
<br />
* This eliminates all fence-building, any manipulation of shatterable plastics or glass or splitable lumber, power tool use, pasture maintenance, garden clean-up, fence-line clearing, manure management, energy-sapping stockwork -- in short, farming.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Heather Houlahanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13891198124130533198noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5810033429461791744.post-91596580512179829132014-03-23T23:43:00.003-04:002015-10-27T12:07:45.486-04:00Career Change DogThis week <a href="http://cynography.blogspot.com/p/our-work-in-sar.html">AMRG</a> welcomed a new canine teammate to our roster.<br />
<br />
Teddy, nee Tad, is a career-change dog. Meticulously purpose-bred* and carefully raised to have the traits of a <a href="http://www.cci.org/site/c.cdKGIRNqEmG/b.3978475/k.3F1C/Canine_Companions_for_Independence.htm">CCI</a> "program dog," destined for a life serving a disabled master, he had just a bit too much exuberance to keep damped down for that job. Add a touch of possessiveness with objects, and the trainers at CCI knew that they needed to find him different work.<br />
<br />
Exuberance and a touch of possessiveness are unalloyed assets in a search dog.<br />
<br />
We drove to Long Island last week, toured the lovely training facility and kennels, and ran a brief evaluation; he exceeded our expectations for a prospect in each of the little exercises we asked of him.<br />
<br />
So here he is, Rebecca's new partner.<br />
<br />
His primary function will be as a Human Remains Detection dog.<br />
<br />
Here he is encountering his target odor for the first time, less than a week after coming to live with his new handler.<br />
<br />
My aim had been to walk him downwind of it so that we saw a small head shift to the right on the first pass, and then make a second pass during which the sample would be in range. Instead, he caught a whiff and went for the sample just as we started the first grid. The wind was good for long-range finds today. But it was still a surprise to see that he was that motivated to the odor.<br />
<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/iXYrPIPGlRQ?rel=0" width="560"></iframe>
<br />
<br />
The scent sample is a placenta, frozen, and safely encased inside a capped PVC pipe. We never use artificial odors to simulate the real thing in training.**<br />
<br />
When he hesitates to approach the container a second time, I think that's because he thought that, since he was rewarded a little ways away from the sample the first time, that maybe he wasn't supposed to go over there. So we'll reward him with his beloved toy right on top of the sample for a while.<br />
<br />
--------------------------------------------<br />
* Not purebred. Teddy is a golden retriever x Labrador, a now-common cross for service and guide dogs. An excellent example of the difference between fancy breeding and purposeful breeding. One of the CCI reps mentioned that, while most of their service dogs are Labradors or Labrador crosses that were originally derived from field-line dogs, they have been selected for different traits for so long that one may as well consider them a separate breed.<br />
<br />
** And I cannot overemphasize -- all materials that are <i>legal</i> and <i>ethical</i> to possess.<br />
<br />Heather Houlahanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13891198124130533198noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5810033429461791744.post-84671546825850676242014-03-02T15:25:00.000-05:002014-03-02T15:25:07.528-05:00Guest Post: All That Glitter Cost Your GoldOne of the many things for which I am indebted to my friend Rob
McMillin is the education he has given me in the art and science of
vetting charities based on their fiscal practices.<br />
<br />
For example, I am willing to
bet folding money that the number of <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/US/florida-lt-gov-jennifer-carroll-resigns-amid-300/story?id=18728228">predatory and fraudulent veteran's charities</a> outnumbers those that are credible
and effective.<br />
<br />
I've developed fairly high-gain bullshit radar for uncharitable
charities – especially animal and public safety/SAR charities,
which is the world in which I typically move. By bullshit charities,
I have always meant people who don't do what they say they do, don't
stand for what they say they stand for, and aren't who they claim to
be.<br />
<br />
Some notable offenders have been the <a href="https://landofpuregold.wordpress.com/tag/bear-search-and-rescue/">Bear Search and RescueFoundation</a>, People for the ethical (sic) Treatment of Animals, and an
assortment of <a href="http://www.pitt.edu/~kconover/psarc/1997-06%20PSARC%20Minutes.htm">fake</a>, <a href="http://www.10news.com/news/less-than-heroic-">fraudulent</a>, <a href="http://www.k9sardog.com/missions.html">confabulous</a>, <a href="http://old.post-gazette.com/regionstate/19990212dog6.asp">evil</a> and <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/an-eagle-eyed-investigation/">felonious</a> SAR poobahs
and dog handlers. New cynical schemes involving
animals – a popular one now is <a href="http://www.bigcountryhomepage.com/story/d/story/abilene-family-says-virginia-service-dog-company-i/12611/9naMj6AE90C7-sCJMnlKrQ">“service dogs” for disabled(often autistic, diabetic, or seizing) young children</a>,
another is “<a href="http://www.deserthorseinc.com/scamrescue.html">horse rescue</a>” that is merely a <a href="http://www.insidebainbridge.com/2012/02/04/wa-horse-rescue-operation-suspected-of-fraud-with-kill-buy-horses-destined-for-slaughter/">meatman's ransom scam</a> – pop up all the time, and are transparent to the trustworthy
subject-matter experts in my circles.<br />
<br />
Learn enough field marks for
the new species, and even a relative neophyte can spot them. Wherever
popular sentiment (or the strong loyalties of some discrete minority
or interest group) rests, reason and skepticism flee, and shysters
see the cavitation and rush in.<br />
<br />
But bad intentions and incompetence at performing the stated
mission are not the only, nor even the primary, mode of charitable
failure.<br />
<br />
When you are thinking about giving – money, time, your own
reputation – to a charitable cause, part of due diligence is
ensuring that what you give will be <i>spent</i> honestly, effectively, and
sensibly.<br />
When in doubt, check it out.<br />
<br />
When you are sure, check it out anyway.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Disclaimer: Blogger is being a real douche about properly formatting this piece. It is choosing spacing, line breaks, fonts, sizes and styles as it wishes and contrary to my instructions. I give up. I <i>think</i> the links are working now.</span><br />
<br />
<h2 style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-large;">A Cynic's Guide To Reading Nonprofit (501©3)</span></i><i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-large;"> IRS 990 Forms</span></i></h2>
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">By <a href="http://6-4-2.blogspot.com/">Rob McMillin</a></span></i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<br />
<h3>
Introduction</h3>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">We
live in an age of frauds, but that in no way changes the need or
desire to alleviate suffering. If anything, it amplifies the need to
do due diligence on those who would claim our charity, to ensure it
accomplishes the ends they say they seek. I confess a prejudice
against large charities, as such tend to have more ratholes in which
to hide revenue than smaller charities (and also, more overhead).
Part of the reason to engage in charity is the psychic benefits of
having helped someone in need, and large charities insulate the giver
from the act. So in some wise, the extremely short version of this
article may be summarized as,</span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> <i>Don't
give money to large charities.</i></span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Failing
that, we may at least learn something about how to avoid pitfalls in
giving, even with relatively small charities. This is not easy to do,
as organizations like <a href="http://www.charitynavigator.org/">CharityNavigator</a> have discovered when they attempted to build an
automated scoring system to filter out some of the worst performers.
As we shall see, it is all too easy to game such systems – and
indeed, some of the most egregiously self-serving charities score
deplorably well there.</span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I
should add that this is really the Cliff Notes version. The long form
course is at the <a href="http://www.npccny.org/new990/new990.htm">NonprofitCoordinating Council of New York</a> website.</span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<h3>
The IRS 990, And How To Find It</h3>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, serif;">The
IRS Form 990 is a form most 501(c)3 nonprofits are required to fill
out annually. (Small charities may use the 990-N, which is a
postcard-sized variant available to organizations with $50,000 or
less in income. Religious charities, such as the Salvation Army,
churches, and certain other organizations are not required to file at
all.) All evaluation must start with this form, as it provides a
limited but valuable window into the operation of the charity, giving
information about who is involved, the types of activity the charity
engages in, and most importantly for the purposes of this discussion,
income, assets, and expenditures.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">990
forms can be found at a number of sites online:</span></span></div>
<ul>
<li><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.charitynavigator.org/">Charity
Navigator</a> has 990 forms as part of their scoring system. It is a
reasonable first stop in evaluating a charity, but only in the sense
that if a charity has a bad rating, it is probably because the
operators are too lazy to bother beautifying their IRS 990 form to
score better. Charity Navigator does not claim to be comprehensive
(at present, “<a href="http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=content.view&cpid=484#.UftDWVN8D7c">over
6,000</a>”, which I take to mean “less than 7,000”, and the
acknowledge they do not analyze foundations or charities filing
990-EZ forms), but they will certainly cover the larger charities.
(They have lately <a href="http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=content.view&cpid=1533#.UgvAiFN8D7c">increased
this number to 1.6 million</a>, which they claim covers </span></span><span style="font-family: Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>all</i></span></span><span style="font-family: Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
501(c)3 entities.)</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
</li>
<li><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The
<a href="http://foundationcenter.org/findfunders/990finder/">Foundation
Center's 990 finder</a> is vastly more comprehensive, but often
enough has search issues if the same charity is listed under
multiple names. Often, it is necessary to do a separate Google
search to find the same filing under a different name. (One example
of this came up recently when I was looking for the Associated
Humane Societies of New Jersey, which uses the Popcorn Park Zoo as
its 501(c)3.)</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
</li>
<li><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">More
recently, I've been using <a href="http://www.guidestar.org/">GuideStar</a>,
which seems to be at least as extensive as the Foundation Center
(they <a href="http://www.guidestar.org/rxg/analyze-nonprofit-data/index.aspx">claim</a>
1.8 million organizations and 5.4 million 990's, with 3.2 million
digitized). Their search seems to be a bit more flexible (they got
the Associated Humane Societies of New Jersey search correct, but
that's nothing like comprehensive).</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<h3>
What's Inside? What To Look For</h3>
<i style="font-family: Times, serif;">The
Doggie Stylish Blog</i><span style="font-family: Times, serif;"> gave a useful synopsis of </span><a href="http://www.doggiestylish.com/blog/2012/10/what-the-hsus-aspca-charity-navigator-dont-tell-you-about-fundraising-costs/" style="font-family: Times, serif;">what
to look for in 990's</a><span style="font-family: Times, serif;">:</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><rob a="" and="" can="" each="" explanation="" flags="" for="" give="" items="" line="" maybe="" obvious="" of="" one-two="" red="" see="" sentence="" some="" someone="" thes="" what="" will="" you=""></rob></span></span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-left: 0.49in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>IRS
990 Part One</b></span></span><br />
<i>Summary</i><br />
Line 12 – <i>Total revenue.</i>
Obviously, how much they took in for this fiscal year.</div>
<div style="margin-left: 0.49in;">
Line 13 – <i>Grants & similar
amounts paid out.</i> This can mask some of the trickier means to
hide self-dealing, especially if the entities receiving grants
include the same executives or their relatives.
</div>
<div style="margin-left: 0.49in;">
Line 14 – <i>Benefits paid to or for
members. </i>
</div>
<div style="margin-left: 0.49in;">
Line 15 - <i>Salaries, other
compensation, employee benefits.</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
Along with Line 14 above, gives an idea of official compensation.</span></div>
<div style="margin-left: 0.49in;">
Line 16b - <i>Total fundraising
expenses</i><span style="font-style: normal;">. This, of course, is
the gamed figure.</span></div>
<div style="margin-left: 0.49in;">
Line 18 - <i>Total expenses</i><span style="font-style: normal;">.
How much it costs to operate the charity.</span><br />
<span style="font-style: normal;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-left: 0.49in;">
<b>IRS 990 Part 3</b></div>
<div style="margin-left: 0.49in;">
<em>Statement of Program Service
Accomplishments</em></div>
<div style="margin-left: 0.49in;">
This section details the
organization’s three largest program services by expenses.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-left: 0.49in;">
<b>IRS 990 Part 7</b></div>
<div style="margin-left: 0.49in;">
<em>Compensation of Officers,
Directors, Trustees, Key Employees, Highest Compensated Employees,
and Independent Contractors.</em><em><span style="font-style: normal;">
This is a list of everyone who officially matters at the charity (or
their heavily-used contractors), and what they got paid.</span></em><br />
<em><span style="font-style: normal;"><br /></span></em></div>
<div style="margin-left: 0.49in;">
<b>IRS 990 Part 9</b></div>
<div style="margin-left: 0.49in;">
<em>Statement of Functional Expenses</em></div>
<div style="margin-left: 0.49in;">
Pretty much the whole thing is
important, but Line 26 - Joint Costs. IS VERY IMPORTANT. <em>“Complete
this line only if the organization reported in column (B) joint costs
from a combined educational JSA campaign and fundraising
solicitation”</em> More on that later.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-left: 0.49in;">
<b>IRS 990 Schedule C - Political
Campaign and Lobbying Activities</b></div>
<div style="margin-left: 0.49in;">
Depending on your reason for donating,
you may or many not agree with a charity using your donation for
political or lobbying purposes.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-left: 0.49in;">
<b>IRS 990 Schedule F - Statement
of Activities Outside the United States</b></div>
<div style="margin-left: 0.49in;">
Details of grants or activities of a
charity outside the U.S.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-left: 0.49in;">
<b>IRS 990 Schedule I - Grants
and Other Assistance to Organizations, Governments, and
Individuals in the United States</b></div>
<div style="margin-left: 0.49in;">
Details of grants or activities of a
charity inside the U.S.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-left: 0.49in;">
<b>IRS 990 Schedule J -
Compensation Information For Certain Officers, Directors, Trustees,
Key Employees, and Highest Compensated Employees</b></div>
<div style="margin-left: 0.49in;">
Look at Part Two, Column E. This is
the total dollar amount that key employees have received in salary
compensation.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-left: 0.49in;">
<b>IRS 990 Schedule O</b></div>
<div style="margin-left: 0.49in;">
A detailed explanation of how the
charity spent its donations from Part Three.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<h3>
Examples Of Flawed 990's</h3>
<span style="font-family: Times, serif;">And
while these are all important, what's most important is to </span><i style="font-family: Times, serif;">read
the form with a critical eye</i><span style="font-family: Times, serif;">. In
my own reviews of 990's, the most important issues I have encountered
are</span></div>
<ul>
<li><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Fundraising
expenses moved into program expenses</i></span></span></div>
</li>
<li><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Excessive
salaries</i></span></span></div>
</li>
<li><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Large
unexplained expenses</i></span></span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, serif;">Now to find good examples of
bad charities.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, serif;"><br /></span>
<h3>
Humane Society Of The United States</h3>
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, serif;">To
see why you wouldn't want to give money to a particular charity, it's
necessary to review some 990's out there from some of the more
egregious charities. We'll start with the </span><a href="http://www.humanesociety.org/" style="font-family: Times, serif;">Humane
Society of the United States</a><span style="font-family: Times, serif;">, axiomatic as a money mill and a
self-serving charity. Patrick Burns back in 2007 gave a fairly
</span><a href="http://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com/2007/11/direct-mail-economics-of-humane.html" style="font-family: Times, serif;">devastating
critique of their 990</a><span style="font-family: Times, serif;"> that, basically, boils down to one
thing: HSUS moves their large </span><span style="color: red; font-family: Times, serif;">direct </span><span style="font-family: Times, serif;">mail
costs into “program expenses”, which is obvious nonsense. (In
addition, Burns engages in some informed speculation about the venal
mechanics of their operation.) </span><i style="font-family: Times, serif;">Worth</i><span style="font-family: Times, serif;">
magazine in 2002 declared them <a href="http://www.humanewatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/WorthMag_HSUS.pdf">“questionable”</a>
(PDF) thanks to high mailing costs. But once the direct mail costs
were shuffled into program expenses, suddenly Charity Navigator gave
it its highest rating of four stars. This of course is bogus. Let's
start by taking <a href="http://990s.foundationcenter.org/990_pdf_archive/530/530225390/530225390_201112_990.pdf">HSUS's
most recent 990, for tax year 2011</a>.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<ul>
<li><div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">On line 12, they claim
$133,577,658 in revenue, most of which ($123M) came from grants.</span></span></div>
</li>
<li><div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">On line 15, $37,788,110 in
salaries paid, and $4,343,746 in professional fundraising.</span></span></div>
</li>
<li><div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Skipping ahead to Part IX
(page 9 of the PDF), we learn there was $13,457,363 in “Other”
expenses (line 11g), and $11,915,496 in advertising and promotion
fees (line 13). But the real kickers are line 24: $24,137,976 for
“Education material” (line 24a) and $10,116,669 for “Direct
response costs” (line 24b). Adding all these expenses together
with the professional fundraising – and I do not believe it is
unreasonable to view these as laundered mailing list costs – it
totals to $63,971,250, or about 47% of revenue dedicated to mail
operations before anything else.</span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
</li>
</ul>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">If
we add salaries to the totals in the last bullet above, you arrive at
$101,759,360, which means salaries plus overhead – and here I am
not counting a lot of things overhead, such as legal fees (which
really are) – this means <i>76% of revenues are tied up in salaries
and overhead before a nickel gets spent on actual program</i>. The
reality, of course, is that it is much worse than that, and while the
<i>Worth</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> article from 2001 cited
53% overhead, it's certainly much higher now.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><br /></span></span></span>
<h3>
National Disaster Search Dog Foundation</h3>
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, serif;">The
National Disaster Search Dog Foundation originally came to light
</span><a href="http://cynography.blogspot.com/2011/03/nine-questions-i-would-ask.html" style="font-family: Times, serif;">here</a><span style="font-family: Times, serif;">,
and while that blog post gives a fine, detailed look at their
operations, their </span><a href="http://990s.foundationcenter.org/990_pdf_archive/770/770412509/770412509_201112_990.pdf" style="font-family: Times, serif;">2011
990</a><span style="font-family: Times, serif;"> opens a different set of questions. Unlike HSUS, NDSDF does
not appear to be </span><i style="font-family: Times, serif;">especially</i><span style="font-family: Times, serif;">
self-dealing, but they are poorly run – an important distinction.</span><span style="font-family: Times, serif;">
Particularly:</span></div>
<ul>
<li><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Self-dealing
via no-bid work, so the kennel in which the dogs reside and are
trained are also owned by the principal, Kate Davern.</span></span></div>
</li>
<li><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Trainer's
fees ($203,622 in this, $210,333 from 2009), also presumably paid to
herself or her friends.<span style="color: red;"><didnt daughter="" determine="" her="" is="" it="" kate="" kennel="" mom="" much="" of="" or="" owned="" pluvis="" taht="" that="" the="" this="" to="" was="" we="" went="" whatever="">
<rlm: and="" believe="" comments.="" daughter="" earlier="" her="" here="" i="" in="" kennel.="" my="" on="" owned="" relied="" remarks="" that="" the="" yes="" your=""></rlm:></didnt></span></span></span></div>
</li>
<li><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">New
for 2011 (relative to 2009): three-quarters of a million dollars in
“ADP employee salary” ($775,393, line 24a)</span></span></div>
</li>
<li><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Silly
amounts of rubble pile charges ($600,000 exactly, line 24b; and why
is it such a shiny, zero-filled number?)</span></span></div>
</li>
<li><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Something
called “campaign costs” (line 24d, $127,771)</span></span></div>
</li>
<li><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">On
page 11, line 24, a $3,000,000 unsecured loan – which, on page 19
(of the PDF), part X, line 2, we discover $357,469 in accrued
interest. (Paid to whom or what, it does not say.) As I noted at the
time, this is something like you or me taking out a payroll loan <i>for
the entire value of our annual salary</i><span style="font-style: normal;">.</span></span></span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, serif;">NDSDF
has a lot of other red flags, and I'll leave you to read Heather's
post to detail those objections, but this is a case where the
headline does not match the output, not by a long shot. For what it's
worth, </span><a href="http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=9203#.UgJrDVN8D7c" style="font-family: Times, serif;">Charity
Navigator dings them for a high fundraising costs</a><span style="font-family: Times, serif;"> and failing to
list their CEO, but the problems here are ones of circular outside
payments that are not exactly obvious.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<h3>
Eyes, Ears, Nose, And Paws</h3>
<span style="font-family: Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.eenp.org/">This
smallish charity</a> came to light recently in the wake of a news
report that one of its principals had <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com/news/x1568238052/Service-dog-left-in-car-dies-from-heatstroke">left
a dog trainee in a car to bake to death</a>, and appears, as with
NDSDF, to be more a case of a badly-run charity rather than a
self-serving one. My major concern in reading <a href="http://990s.foundationcenter.org/990_pdf_archive/611/611436221/611436221_201112_990EZ.pdf">their
2011 990</a> is that of the $128,058 in revenue, $77,000 of it –
more than half – goes to the salaries of the two executive
directors, Maria Ikenberry and Deb Cunningham (page 12 of the PDF).
Also, in the form 4562 on page 10, there is a $2,000,000 cost of
property with $500,000 of that expensed for that tax year. This to me
bears more investigation; are they using this charity to launder some
other personal expense, perhaps a house or a commercial property?</span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Service
dog charities are one of the more egregious frauds in this space
these days, and while I don't intrinsically see anything wrong with
paying yourself, at some point it ceases to be real charity and
becomes a business. This organization looks very much on the cusp of
such a descent.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<h3>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Worst-Case Scenario: YWCA USA</span></h3>
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, serif;">While
running through some of these examples, it's useful to note one so
bad even Charity Navigator spits them out for wastefulness. One such
(which made their </span><a href="http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=topten.detail&listid=8#.UgvEuVN8D7d" style="font-family: Times, serif;">top
ten list of poor-performing charities with highly paid CEOs</a><span style="font-family: Times, serif;">) is
</span><a href="http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=4796#.UgvE_VN8D7d" style="font-family: Times, serif;">YWCA
USA</a><span style="font-family: Times, serif;">, which rates zero stars, Charity Navigator's lowest possible
score. While there are a lot of reasons for this, a review of their
</span><a href="http://990s.foundationcenter.org/990_pdf_archive/131/131624103/131624103_201208_990.pdf" style="font-family: Times, serif;">2012
990</a><span style="font-family: Times, serif;"> is kind of a tour through the pathologies entrenched and old
charities can accumulate over time:</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<ul>
<li><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Their
CEO, Gloria Lau, earned $200,920, including a $52,000 housing
allowance while she was working in Washington, D.C. (page 29).</span></span></div>
</li>
<li><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">As
a consequence of spending faster than receipts are coming in, YWCA
USA actually spent $2.7 million more than it took in despite
slightly increasing its investment income on $58 million of assets
(page 1).</span></span></div>
</li>
<li><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">On
$2.4 million in revenue, $1,147,587 went to salaries of officers and
other employees, of which it is claimed that $434,212 actually went
into program expenses. That means less than half of their employee
costs (and here I'm being generous and not even including things
like pension contributions, benefits, and payroll taxes) are
actually going toward program activities!</span></span></div>
</li>
<li><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">In
addition, there are $518,019 in accounting and legal expenses,
$308,559 in investment management fees, and a huge black hole called
“Other” (page 10, line 11g) to the tune of $767,123. <i>Nearly a
third of revenue goes toward unaccounted-for expenses.</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
Even if you take their word for it that $489,487 of that figure goes
to program expenses, overhead is still </span><i>no less than 36%.</i></span></span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, serif;">In
short, this is an organization with substantial resources that is
unbelievably badly managed.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, serif;"><br /></span>
<h3>
In Conclusion</h3>
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
It's not straightforward to read 990's,
because even when you can make sense of them, they tend to obscure
more than they enlighten. Large charities tend to be the worst at
this, for the simple reason that bureaucracies develop habits, the
same as the people who staff them. Waste, venality, and incompetence
are all enemies, yet ones such organizations tend to succumb to. If
you must give to large charities, <i>read their IRS Form 990
carefully.</i></div>
Heather Houlahanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13891198124130533198noreply@blogger.com4