Position Wanted

Name: Reese

Age: 9-10 months

Position Desired: Entry-level position with room for unlimited advancement as Bestest Dog You Will Ever Own, full-time working partner, right-hand dog in a challenging SAR, farm, competition or other productivity-oriented environment.

Strengths: Will follow you anywhere if you will really lead. Will do anything you ask if you explain it and are open to feedback. I am told that I have good Hunt Drive and great resilience. I'm a people person and have excellent communication skills.

Challenges: I am willing to fight with other dogs if allowed, so will need firm direction in order to reform this habit.

Education: Yellowstone County Montana public dog schools.

Current Location: Billings Montana. Will relocate for the right position.

Contact: National English Shepherd Rescue and this blogger. ASAP.

Project Next Steps

Despite the sustained efforts of United Airlines, I am back in Billings. This time we have a team of four NESR volunteers hard at work for the wind-down of Operation New Beginnings and the rollout of Project Next Steps.

One of the first sights that greeted me when I came back to the much-expanded dog campus at the Metrapark was this:


Can anyone guess who this guy is?

Does anyone remember this dog? From this post?

Harry. Harry who had clocked out so far that he wouldn't -- maybe couldn't -- take his head out of the corner. Harry outside, smiling in the Montana sun.

It's time for the Montana English shepherds to be Good Dogs and Go Home.

One high priority is smoothing the way for volunteers who have applied to adopt or foster one of the dogs they've cared for to move through the adoption process, so "their" dogs will become simply their dogs -- no scare quotes indicating the contingency or legal irrelevance of their sense of responsibility and attachment.

Yes, the volunteers have to apply and have their references checked, be interviewed, have home checks and reality checks -- just like any other adopter.

Unlike other adopters, the volunteers have already paid their adoption fees many times over. We agreed seven months ago -- no adoption fee for volunteers.

While two of our team members numb their brains with paperwork and peoplework, I am partnered with Douglas to evaluate the dogs themselves.

We take each dog to a place she has never been before, and ask her to tell us something about herself.

We do this by challenging her with mild stresses, and giving her an opportunity to show us whether she is bothered by them, how much, and whether she thinks looking to a human is a good way of getting through that. And we see how the dog progresses in confidence as she confronts these mild challenges.

Combined with the absolutely crucial written reports from each dogs' handler, the results of these evaluations help us sort dogs into categories depending on how much experience and dog chops a potential adopter or foster volunteer might need, as well as any special talents or qualities that the dog has to offer.

No, this is not "poke it until it bites" temperament testing. We Don't Do That Shit.

One of the most important things we assess is the dog's ability to recover from something it finds stressful. This capacity, while it can be built and developed, is highly intrinsic to each unique temperament. Good bounceback can take a dog far.

Here's young Jersey vanquishing the rather ominous Stairs to Nowhere, with the help of Nice Strange Man Who Has My Leash.


At the end of an exhausting day of evaluations, it's time for some de-stressing exercises.

The puppies born in custody may have had to do without some necessities because of their status as living articles of evidence -- but they are rather well-socialized to people.

Rochester Speaketh With Forked Tongue

Sioux City pit-bull hater and vicious dog owner Aaron Rochester, author of that city's gormless breed ban, is going to let the city kill his biting Labrador as a way of

reciprocating the loyalty and devotion of man's best friend

humbly acknowledging that even councilors aren't above the law

keeping the streets of Sioux City safe for jogging

recognizing that the Constitution does not permit ex post facto laws

Oh wait, no he's not. Yes he is. No he's not. WTF? Hey jagoff, you gonna kill your dog or not?

Oh hell, I don't know. And apparently, neither does the newspaper reporter who covered the latest Council meeting:

Rochester continues to say he will not appeal to Woodbury County District Court, but he said last week he wanted changes to the city's one-strike vicious-animal law, which says an animal that bites someone and is ruled vicious must be put down.

So instead of suing the government of which he is a part over a law that he may in fact have written, he's going to try to rewrite the law to issue his vicious biter a get-out-of-jail-free card?

Rochester said he will wait out the 30-day appeal window before having his dog put down.

Rochester seems, incredibly, to argue that he should be able to write an ex post facto law that will majickally render his unprovoked biter not vicious because the council previously extended the deadline for citizens subjects of Sioux City to register their Communists pit bulls, after having already stolen and killed some other people's pets.

The logic appears to be that, since we didn't kill everyone's harmless pets, only some people's harmless pets, I get to legislate my vicious biter back onto the front porch. Only killing some people's harmless pets is precedent, see.

Can someone who is more fluent than me in Jenyoowine Frontier Gibberish make some sense of what the mayor, Mike Hobart, is reported to have said?

Hobart seemed sympathetic to Rochester's plight when he said, "The Supreme Court often has set aside judgements (sic) on capital punishment -- on cruel and unusual punishment."

However, he said, "I agree with Jim. I think the perception would be out there if we do something for a councilman" that the council members were giving special treatment to one of their own.

"What I'm most uncomfortable with is my own stupidity in not understanding the law -- that it was a one-bite issue," Hobart said. "I thought we would weed out a good dog who does something stupid."

Dick Williams said the animal ordinance is flawed. His comments prompted Hobart to say, "I have represented murderers and those who have done heinous crimes. They are docile. Anybody, including a dog, can act docile."

Sioux City Council. I wouldn't kick a dog in the ass with them.

Photo Phriday: You Should Be So Lucky

So you fell out of your hunting stand and broke your damn leg.

It's been a long, cold night, but as day breaks, you hope someone has started looking for you.

You hear something crashing through the fall leaf litter. It is wearing orange, so you don't shoot it.

Oh, there you are.

My, you look a fright.

Hang on, I gotta do somethin.

Ah, I see you didn't get far on foot. Bwaa haa haa haa. Is leetle rescue joke.

He is always so slow. Freakin' bipeds.

Daaaad ... c'mon

Hold on a sec, we'll be right with ya.

Frisbee. Now.

Least Likely News Quote EVER

“Sometimes, you just gotta say: ‘OK, I still have nine live, two-headed animals,' and move on.”

The Charlotte Observer

Gaia and Luna

I was three years old.

In the living room of my mother's cousin's home in Canada -- family vacation.

How often did a toddler's parents park her in front of a television set and command: Watch! Remember!

I remember it more vividly than I remember my high school graduation, my own wedding, the morning of September 11.

Of all the generations of homo sapiens who have lived on this planet, of all the generations who are yet to come, we are the ones who experienced this singular moment.

Our planet became no longer The World. Never just A World. Our World. A whole thing, one among many, and the only home for all of us.

In 2009 dollars, the entire Apollo program cost about 20% of what we've spent waging war against a country that never attacked us, and hunting for one contemptible criminal who remains free.

I have a secret ambition. In sixty years, I want to be that crochety old broad, that ornery centarian to whom reporters flock for The Interview.

The old woman on her nineteenth-century farm who remembers The Day of the twentieth. Of the millenium.

Will one of those reporters drop in by video link from her home on Mars?

Do we have the greatness of will to make that happen?

Photo Phriday: Trollcat Dave

I give up; the photo sequence I've been trying to load all day just won't.

Instead:



moar funny pictures

There really is a third cat here.

He is older than dirt.

Since Mel's death almost two years ago, he hasn't come out of the laundry room (old house) or basement (new house) on his own power. He will come forth with a list of grievances when you are down there, though.

He spent over thirteen years hating Mel. It fueled him, 24/7/365, asleep, awake, while practicing out-of-body trances. When his raisin dirt disappeared, it just wasn't worth putting in the effort. Now he's just annoyed by everyone, and that's not the same as an epic hatred.