Gala & Green Bird

Gala & Green Bird

A glass bird along side a gala apple. One cold and hard the other has a

faint sweet scent. It feels round and familier in the hands of the owner.

Big Sky and Blue Dots

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A Canine Rorschach Test

Do not think of a Pit Bull!

Puppy euthanized in Vancouver after three biting incidents

"As a result, the eight-month-old puppy, a Korean breed of hunting dog called a Jindo, had to be euthanized last Friday, after the 30-day appeal period ..."

Read the court record here.

This case is like a Rorschach ink blot test for dogs.

Who or what is to blame for the death of this dog? Various (often conflicting) lines of thought:

• This is a known fighting breed ("There's the problem!" or conversely, "There is no such thing as a known fighting breed, that's just bigotry!")
  
  
• This dog may have been mentally ill ("Yes that can happen!" or conversely, "There are no bad dogs")
  
  
• This dog was taken to a puppy class ("The canine equivalent of trying to train a 3-year old to drive a car while giving him instruction at an amusement park" or conversely "Well, at least they did that right, because you know you can never start a dog too young, especially a dominant and aggressive breed like a Jindo, which really needs all the socialization it can get."
  
  
• This dog was not exercised enough by its 10-year old owner who needed to have his non-English speaking adult Mother with him to take the dog out. ("That's speculative" or conversely "Speculative, but no doubt true as two people can rarely coordinate schedules, and recent immigrants tend to work long hours and rarely jog much as a consequence.")
  
  
• The dog trainer at the puppy class was using "harsh methods" to gain the dog's attention ("This shows you the danger of Cesar Millan," or conversely "Cesar Millan would have exercised the hell out of that animal first, and he would not have brought an unknown dominant breed dog like a Jindo into a group of unknown dogs and people.")
  
  
• This dog came from a "backyard breeder" ("The best dogs come from commercial puppy mills because they have AKC papers" or conversely "The best breeders are small places and all raise their dogs in backyards, so this phrase is meaningless parrot-talk from a Kennel Club theorist.")
  
  
• It was a communication problem because the 10-year old kid was a just kid, and the dog trainer only spoke English, and the adult owner only spoke a little English (Canada needs to make sure every dog trainer and owner speaks both English and French and that only adults are allowed to own dogs).
  
  
• I could have fixed it because .... (No dogs are bad, I am a better dog trainer, I would have used a muzzle, after that first bite they should have...)

I would call particular attention to the cast of dog experts here:

• The puppy class trainer without too much of a clue (which is pretty typical of puppy class dog trainer);
  
  
• The wannabe "dog whisperer" for whom I can find no reference or credentials;
  
  
• The Kennel Club expert with her potted breed histories and colorful phrasing;
  
  
• The Animal Control folks who saw a dog far outside the bell curve of normal canine behavior;
  
  
• The "dog behaviourist" who the court noted was "not a dog trainer" and who had "never in her career or personal life dealt with the Jindo breed before" and who had "done no reading whatsoever in the literature about characteristics of the Jindo breed" and who "dismissed the stereotyping of dogs based on their breed" but who also said "some dogs are actually hardwired to hunt and chase."

Click to enlarge.

Little Glass Bottle

Little Glass Bottle

I sit on the dresser day after day. Normally I would be collecting dust. But not me, I am

special. I was her gift from him, a husband deeply loved. I was bought in a land far away. He searched through the market and out of a table full of other shiny bottles he picked me. He wrapped me safely in his clothes and placed me in his foot locker so I would make it back to the states unharmed. I traveled by boat and air until I made it home. Each day she passes by, picks me up and thinks of him. I am a reminder of the love she has. The man of her dreams and how blessed her live is now. I am just a

Little Glass Bottle but I am special.
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DogTreasures.com

For those who are interested in canine history, book, photographs, and collectables, I recommend >> DogTreasures.com

I met the owner, Leonard Brook, at an antique sale in Middleburg, Virginia a while back, and it turns out he bought out the entire dog library of one Francis P. Fretwell who, did indeed, have quite a collection!

Mr. Brook does indeed have some hard to get books and the prices are fair enough. Mr. Brook is also a pretty nice and interesting fellow; he used to train dogs for the stage in New York. Check out his site!

The Cat Piss Made Me Do It

In a previous post, I discuss how Curiosity Kills the Rat.

The short story is that toxoplasmosis, a protozoan parasite carried by cats and some other critters (but almost never by dogs), changes rat behavior and makes them more susceptible to predation by domestic cats, which are the parasite's definitive host.

Now it turns out that toxoplasmosis is not the ony parasite that shapes animal behavior, and it also turns out that motorcycles and fast cars are involved.

Yes motorcycles and fast cars.

Watch the video.

This is Stanford primatologist and neurobiologicst Dr. Robert Sopalsky explaining how research about "toxo" has given us (maybe) a new window into human behavior.
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Earthdog Ins & Outs

A second edition of Earthdog Ins & Outs by Jo Ann Frier Murza is now available. If you want to do AKC Earthdog trials, this is an excellent resource and reference, complete with earthdog trial history, breed descriptions, practical training and practice techniques, details about exhibiting and sponsoring earthdog tests, and an introduction to natural hunting. Jo An says it has "New pictures, more international trials, updated training and trial information, expanded directions for building earthdog equipment, complete coverage of the new Canadian earthdog testing, and much more." I wrote a review of the first edition, a decade or so ago, which you can read here.

• Related Links:
  ** Tips for Tunnel Training Terriers
  ** Terrier Go-to-Ground 101 (Dog World)
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The Other Side of The Rainbow

The Other Side of The Rainbow

Yesterday 6/28/2010 at 5:30 pm my dad made the journey to the other side of the rainbow.

James Elisher Johnson  10/26/1923-6/28/2010

We are sad yet we did not want him to linger in suffering or pain.

These,  the colors of the rainbow in his blessed long life are as follows,

Red because red was his favorite color,

Orange because the colors of the sunset over the muddy river was beautiful to him,

Yellow because sunflowers are yellow and this represents all 4 of his sunny children,

Green is for the grass that was rich and green on the banks of the river, 

Blue is for the color of his eyes so bright and mischievous,

Indigo is for the deep richness of his love for my beautiful mother in their 68 years together,

Violet is for the place he is now , a place of peace and contentment on

The Other Side of The Rainbow

Adaptive Herbivores

I have written about why predators are careful not to do things that are maladaptive. Here's a nice little video clip about the flip side; how herbivores do things that are adaptive -- and the limits of their adaptive abilities (all things are trade offs).

• Related Links:
  ** Maladaptive Is a Two-Way Street
  ** The Battle Between Fur and Feather
  ** Why Do Dogs Eat Grass?
  ** Attack of the Flesh Eating Vegetarians!
  ** Maladaptive Pigeons at the Hand of Man
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Merry Berries

Merry Berries

Two red juicy strawberries just hanging

around doing what berries do.

Fine Things

Fine Things

Sometimes we get caught up in having the most fashionable and the best but sometimes the fine things are right before our eyes. An old pitcher and a few old fashioned roses remind me of home. A home from yester year. A home where I used to play with my doll Thumbelina and the items in my play house were old dishes mom let me play with.

All of these were of course the "Fine Things".
16x20 acrylic on stretched canvas
Unavailable

Button Batteries for Less

It's taken me awhile for me to run down my stock of button batteries for my Mark I Deben collar, but I'm about about out, so I went over to EBay and made a purchase -- $8.85 (including shipping!) for 150 AG13 button batteries, which are also commonly sold as LR44 SR44 or L1154.

Compare that to the price of the same battery sold at RadioShack (and also made in China): $5.49 each. Outrageous! And yes, I can get button batteries for about $2.40 a unit at HomeDepot, but why would I do that when they cost me less than 7 cents a unit delivered to my door?

And for the record, button batteries last about 5 years on the shelf, so there's no worries about them going "stale." I generally use the batteries twice (all day each time) and then toss them out so I never worry about losing juice in a locator collar.


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It's Not the Heat, It's the Humility

Doug came up from North Carolina to go digging. In theory, it was supposed to dip a few degrees under 90 on Thursday, which is my official break off point for digging.

Reality, of course, was something different...

On the way out to the farms, the D.J.'s on all three radio stations I normally listen to could not get off the topic of the heat.

"If you have pets, be sure to let them into the house today ... or at least set out out a kiddie pool full of water in the shade."

"Call your elderly neighbors today, or just stop by to make sure they are all right, as today the heat index is going to shoot over 104 degrees."

"Never leave your dog in a locked car. On a day like this, even with the windows cracked, a dog can die in just a few minutes."

Right. It was going to be a hot one. Got it.

By the fourth of fifth warning, I was starting to laugh. I was doomed.

Doug was exactly where we agreed to meet, and so too was Gordon, his Kill Devil Terrier.

I always laugh to see Gordon, as he is one of those dogs made for Hollywood -- a terrier with a very intelligent face and oversized ears that signal like a sailor on semaphore duty. He loves Doug, and he is both very good-looking and comical at the same time; a nice combination.

We parked our vehicles at the edge of the farm at 8 am and it was already creeping past 80 degrees.

I figured we would hunt the forest between the river and the fields of new corn and ripe, dry wheat. We might do all right. After all, I had not hunted this river bottom area before, but I had scouted it while out foxing this winter, and there were holes.

Of course, this was not winter! The nice trail and sparse forest which had been there in the cold of January had now fallen to thick jungle growth. It was an amazing transformation.

We found a lot of deer trails, but a deer only stands three feet tall at the shoulder and I am 6 feet. With a shovel and pack on my back, and a six-foot digging bar in my hand, it was not always easy going. Doug was carrying a pack full of water as well as the posthole diggers, which weigh 15-pounds. We were both tottering through some pretty thick stuff in some pretty opressive heat. But at least we were in partial shade. Walking the open fields was beyond consideration.

To make a long story short, we went over hill and dale, through dense breaks of multiflora rose, and over and under twisting hawser-thick vines of wild grape and bittersweet. We found a fair number of holes, but nothing at home.

Sweat was pouring out of me. Doug seemed to be fairing a bit better (he is 10-years younger and 20-years fitter and his pack was a little lighter), but he agreed that the heat was a killer, and the forest brush we were wading through was a monster.

We quit the river bottom forest, and hiked up to a field of uncut winter wheat that was brown and dry and probably should have already been cut. We ducked into a small stand of planted pine for a water break. I checked the time. It was only 9 am!

Jesus, it was hot. Sweat was pouring out of me like I was a boat that had sprung a leak. I pulled out an old bandanna and placed it under my hat in an effort to keep the rivulets of sweat out of my eyes. I tried to remember what the newspaper had said this morning. Was it going to be 90 degrees by 9 am? Something like that. I was pretty sure we had already hit that mark!

We walked around the wheat field, checking the forest edge for holes. We found hole after hole but still no one was home.

By now the bandanna on my head was soaked and my own sweat was dripping out of it. My forearms were pretty scratched up from the multiflora, and between the sweat and the blood, I was attracting flies. Nice.

The dogs, of course, were traveling farther than we were, looking into holes, ranging left and right, and having to wiggle through thick brush on eight inch legs. It was not easy, and all three dogs were panting like steam engines, but they kept going.

We watered up a few times, but we kept on slogging forward. We were putting in some miles and finding quite a few holes, but still nothing was home!

Somewhere along the way I lost my hat. It says something that I knew some stray bit of bramble had plucked it off my head only a 100 or 200 feet back, but I could not find it and I was really too hot to care. The bandanna would have to protect my chrome dome.

At last we swung up through a patch of forest I knew, and we descended down into a hedge that I have hunted before.

God it was hot! I was boiling inside, and my feet felt like lead. Doug was doing a bit better, but he too was soaked and starting to feel it.

Of course it was in this hedge that Mountain found. Yahoo! We downed tools and cleaned out a tight pipe where Mountain was digging -- a very solid mark.

This den pipe forked left and right, but Mountain clearly wanted the right fork and she slid in and disappeared. I boxed and marked her only two feet down. Thank you Jesus!

The ground was as hard as concrete, but our enthusiasm was great despite the fact we were both faded as boiled spaghetti.


Doug starts a hole. Mountain is below ground.

Doug started to dig while I supervised from a sitting position while sweat poured off my head. I counted the number of flies I was killing while Doug did the tough work.

After Doug had taken a foot off the top, I used the posthole digger to knock another 6 inches or so into the pipe. Perfect! This was going to be an easy dig.

Famous last words.

We pulled Mountain and bored out the hole a bit more. Mountain went back in and started to dig. We pulled her again to see where the pipe went. Had the groundhog walled itself in? Hard to imagine with the ground this hard!

Doug poked around in the hole, and then I poked around in the hole, and then Doug poked around in the hole, and then I poked around in the hole. What the hell? This pipe went nowhere!

We let Mountain back in. Though she was dead tired and hot as a firecracker, she continued to dig like mad in an area spread over out over just six inches. A solid mark.

Right.

I have never won money betting against my own dogs, and Mountain has seen more than a few holes. I would trust her. If she says something is there, it is.

We jammed that bar left and right, up and down. We expanded the hole. We guessed the groundhog might have gone up the left pipe which might have circled around to the right pipe, but never connected. Maybe Mountain was following the sound. It was a theory.

We sank another hole about eight inches back from where Mountain was digging, and barred left and right. Nothing. We excavated the ground between the two holes, making a trench, and still Mountain marked hard . Pearl rolled in the dirt we were excavating. She smelled it, and a couple of times she walked around on top and seemed to give a tentative mark to something below. But we could not find the pipe.

What the hell?

We dug. We gave it all. Our holes did not look like much in the end because the ground was as hard as concrete, and we were soaked with sweat and as weak as old men when we started.

And then we both knew. We were done. We had been beaten.

It was 1 pm and we filled in the hole. We were both very hot, tired, and disappointed.

After we filled in the hole, I looked around for Mountain, but she had abandoned us.

Worthless humans.

We humped it back in the general direction of the truck, and after we had gone about a football field from the hole we had been digging, we downed tools in a thicket of small trees and tall brush in order to drink a little water and call Mountain to our side.

After about 10 minutes, Mountain trotted back to us from up ahead and to the right. She had been looking for more game while we filled in the last hole. She did not look like she had found.

We shouldered up the tools and headed back to the truck. We finally hit a clear trail about a half mile from the truck. It was only then that I realized Mountain was not with us.

No worries. We had just spent the last five hours walking without finding anything to ground. It was not likely she would find between where we last saw her and the truck. She would catch up with us at the truck.

By the time we go to the truck, I was not sure I could walk another 100 feet. I was smoked.

I put Pearl in a crate with water and tossed the tools into the truck. Doug followed up behind me, but there was no Mountain bringing up the rear.

I whistled and called, and we drank water and waited a few minutes, but sill nothing.

I told Doug to go on home, and I would head back and find Mountain, but he said "don't be ridiculous." He was going back with me.

Silly man.

Thank God!

I soaked a towel with water and laid it out over the top of Pearl's crate to make a "swamp cooler". I partially rolled down the front four windows while leaving the back top half of the tailgate entirely open. Air would draft through the truck and Pearl would be cooler than she had been in the forest.

We went back down the hedgeline next to the wheat field, with Gordon trailing Doug, and me calling and whistling for Mountain.

Nothing.

A half mile back down the path, I called it quits. This farm was 3,000 acres (more than four square miles). We had last seen Mountain within voice range of where I was now too pooped to stand, and she knew which way we were going.

If she could not hear me, it was because she had found, and she was underground. She would have to come out.

This was a waiting game, and in the shape I was in, I was not up to traveling through the brush listening. Not right then, at least. I felt like I was on the verge of a heat stroke.

Doug was better off than I was, and he roamed left and right up through the thicket of small trees and tall brush that we had come down earlier. Later, when we met up again, he said he knew how cooked I was when he spied me sprawled out like a dead man in the cool weeds, still calling and whistling, but with my head staring straight up at the sky.

Yeah, heat exhaustion will do that to you!

I laid down and tried not to move. I felt like I was going to go to sleep. Flies buzzed all around me, but I did not care. I was just waiting for the vultures!

After about 20 minutes, I got up and looked around. My temperature had dropped a bit. I called for Doug, but he was out of ear shot.

I ranged around, and then I heard a call from Doug. He had found Mountain! I followed his voice, and sure enough, he was just about where we had downed tools waiting for Mountain after that last futile dig.

And yes, Mountain was underground.

It says something about my condition that when I got up to Doug, I did not even look to see where Mountain had gone in. I could hear her baying a bit, and she seemed in fine fettle.

I sat down on the ground, scootched my back against a small tree, and pulled out my locator box. "Now's a good time to practice locating a dog to ground," I said to Doug.

And he did. She was only two feet down. Excellent.

Of course, we had no tools. Bummer.

I tried to call Mountain out, but she was not having any part of it. She had walked a hell of long way to be where she was right now, and she was not going to come off it easily.

We rested (did I mention that it was really hot?) and after about 15 minutes Doug suggested he go back to the truck for the shovel. Capital idea, I said, not offering to make the journey with him. Give me half an our or so, and I might be up for that run, but my internal temperature was still way off the grid, and I knew it.

Doug, the hero, headed off for a shovel. I sat very quietly back from the hole, hoping Mountain would come out on her own. But, of course, she didn't.

I closed my eyes and everything slowed down. I do not think I fell asleep, but I was not all there either. That said, I did hear the clang of metal on metal as Doug came back. I called, and he circled his way up through the jungle growth. He had my entire pack on, and the posthole diggers too. Everything but the bar.

Did I mention this man is a God? True!



The temperature had dropped at least 10 degrees since Doug left, and it was getting a bit overcast as well. I felt better. I could dig now, and so we both took turns doing that.

The ground was rock hard, and it took a half hour to drop a hole that was only 18 inches deep.

By now, Mountain had been underground since 1 pm and it was about 3:30, but she was right where we had bored a hole, and we pulled her out, still eager for battle.

We agreed that for story value we had to get this one.

Mountain had taken a bit of stick while underground -- a puncture just above her eye and another right along the bottom of her cheek. Nothing serious, but this critter was not going gentle into that good night, nor was it going to get away. Game on!

We tied Mountain up, and felt up the pipe with the long trowel until it hit fur. Right. Mountain had been about 6 inches back -- a sensible distance. We put Mountain back in to make sure the critter was still alive, and a massive squall told us it certainly was!

Just then there was thunder.

"Now we have some drama," said Doug, and of course he was right. A few drops of rain began to fall and the sky darkened.

We sank another hole about two feet back trying to get behind the critter, but that was about 6 inches too far, and so we had to expand the hole a bit.

And there it was!

I sat on the ground with the snare at the ready, while Doug poked it in the ass with a stick to get it to bolt out of the first hole that we had drilled on top of Mountain.

And sure enough it did bolt -- and almost into my lap!

It was a raccoon.

I thought I had heard a coon squal, but I still assumed it was a groundhog since raccoons in the ground are not too common in the middle of summer.

We sorted things out, gave Gordon a short "schooling lesson" with the coon, and then filled in the hole.

The raccoon changed the entire tenor of the day. We had fought the weather and, thanks to Mountain and Doug, we had not been beaten (though I certainly was!).

Doug and I got back to the truck where Pearl was fine. We drank water, checked over Mountain, and I told Doug that he was not driving back to North Carolina. He was coming home with me, we would order Chinese and throw down Slurpees on the way home.

We stopped at the nearest 7-Eleven for a cold drink. We were both covered in sweat and had dirt ground into our clothes. Our forearms were scratched and bleeding. I had had my boots off, and I walked into the store with just my socks on my feet. Adding to the picture, was the fact that I had an odd little limp where I had pulled a groin muscle earlier in the day.

With massive cold drinks in our hands, we sat outside the store with our legs splayed out over the sidewalk. I am sure we looked for all the world like homeless mental patients.

A man in a suit came over from the gas pumps.

"Should I ask him for a dollar," I asked. Doug thought not, but he agreed we both looked the part.

Of course, the drive back to my house was a nightmare as it was the middle of rush-hour and we had to negotiate the D.C. Beltway. What had taken thirty minutes at 7 in the morning, now took more than an hour.

But we did, eventually, get back home, and we got all three dogs bathed and bedded, and the Chinese was delivered with the speed of lighting, and there was a lot of it, which was exactly what was needed.

All's well that ends well.

For the record, Thursday was the hottest June 24th in the history. The previous record was set in 1894. The temperature at 2:30 pm was 100 degrees, and at 7 pm, it was still 90 degrees. With the "heat index" (a function of temperature and humidity) it was over 104% in the shade. No wonder we felt completely smoked after eight and a half ours of work in it!
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Thread Of Life

Threads of Life

We all start out the same in our mothers womb. We are born and then from there we change. A thread is started in shifts and turns, it weaves in and out. It entwines all in our path, holding on to some yet letting go of others. The thread continues until... And then another begins.

Balancing Points

A repost from 2005.

The ideal working terrier, if there is such a thing, represents a set of balancing points. Above all it must be small enough to easily negotiate an earth and follow the quarry wherever it goes. At the same time it has to be large enough and strong enough to spend an entire day in the field, often in miserable weather.

Balancing points do not end with size, of course. There is also the issue of temperament. A very hard dog is likely to come away from too many encounters with gashes to the muzzle. This is not only painful for the dog, it can also be expensive in terms of time and money spent on antibiotics and veterinary care.

Another factor with very hard dogs is that many of them are mute or nearly-mute. A dog without voice is a serious liability because you never know if it has found its quarry or is merely stuck in the pipe.

It is worth remembering that a fox, groundhog or raccoon can see nothing underground. Nada, zip, zilch. The darkness is complete and the picture for both dog and quarry is pure blackness. For an experienced dog, this is less of a liability than for the quarry. The dog, after all, knows what a groundhog is, what a fox is, and what a raccoon is. This is not the dog's first rodeo.

For the quarry, however, this is probably the first time it has encountered a dog in its den. It has no idea what to expect, and its first inclination is to flee -- a response that rises rapidly if the dog is barking and growling just a foot up the pipe.

It is very rare for a fox, groundhog, possum or raccoon not to flee from a baying dog, as standing to fight is a very maladaptive strategy for a small animal. Unless there are young in the den, there is nothing in the pipe to defend, and in most cases a fox, raccoon or groundhog will simply abandon their young to the dog since self-preservation is a genetically encoded response.

A dog that goes in silently and grips the quarry is not allowing the animal to flee, but forcing it to stand and fight. While some terriers do learn to grip a fox by the throat and push it to asphyxiation, most do not, and most dogs take a pounding if they try to grip in every situation -- a bit like a boxer who knows only how to slug. Such fighters do indeed have wins, but they do not have great careers.

A dog that approaches all quarry in every pipe as if it can muscle its way to success is a dog that is going to take a beating over time. Under most circumstances, a groundhog cannot be killed underground -- they have no necks and skulls as thick as a breakfast skillet.

A raccoon is another serious animal with very good canines and a crushing bite. A fox has a very light build, but sharp canines which can leave deep muzzle punctures and take out an eye. If the rip is particularly serious, it may be two or three weeks before a dog can see action in the field -- a lot of time away from work, especially in a foxing season that may last no more than eight weeks in its prime, and offer perfect weather conditions for just a fraction of that.

The baying dog, on the other hand, is like a boxer with a full array of skills. If the dog understands its job -- and the digger understands his -- it will use voice and grit (and yes, this means the occassional use of tooth) to move the quarry to a bolt or a stop end, at which point the owner will dig down and either release or dispatch the quarry as required.
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The Yellow Napkin

The Yellow Napkin

Resting on a table sits a yellow napkin. Supple and soft and made of cotton it was found in Grandma's chest. It has been handed down to a granddaughter who will cherish it forever. It is the only one remaining from Grandma's chest. A wedding gift from long ago. Now it is stained with age but treasured just the same. Who would know that this lone napkin could bring such joy and ignite warm memories from days gone by.

Perfect

Dog vitamins recalled, infected with salmonella

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Fishing Buddies

Fishing Buddies

I can remember a time not so long ago when I went fishing with my best friend Benny who is also my husband. We would go down to the lake in our little boat with fishing poles and cold drinks in hand. Our bait was live crickets. I would stick my hand down in the cricket cage and they would climb my fingers with their scratchy little legs. I would bait them on the hook and if we were lucky would go home with supper.

There is no better place or time than spending the evening fishing with

your best friend down on the lake.

"The Promise of Spring"....a new piece

A new piece......."The Promise of Spring".

A tree with a door that opens and closes and within....a little fae holding a beaded branch of springtime.

Created with 2 gourds, tempered glass mosaic, French handwritten letters,
antique beadwork on a base of an old rusted iron lamp base.

Oranges on Green

Oranges on Green

Orange slices scattered on a clear glass plate. A single leaf rest nearby.

The crystal clear plate is all that keep the succulent juices off the green table cloth.

Yum Yummy!

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All Opinion is Not Equal

Fun and true.
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Underground Skunk Spray and Its Aftermath

If your dog is hit by skunk spray underground you may be in very serious trouble! Get your dog out of the ground as fast as possible. If the dog is not breathing when you get it out of the ground, do mouth-to-snout CPR as explained here.

Even if your dog recovers, he or she may still end up having issues. The reason for this is that skunk spray explodes red blood cells, and can cause serious persistent anemia in your dog.

Skunk toxic shock seems, in part, to be genetic, with certain lines more susceptible to this problem than others, perhaps due to overally weaker kidney or liver function. If your dog has been skunked several times underground and lived to tell the tale (all my dogs) count yourself lucky!

After your dog has been sprayed underground, check your dog's gums regularly for at least a two or three hours. If the dog's gums become very pale (almost white), rush your dog to a vet. A pale pink gum is normal, but white is not.

Most dogs that are skunked underground get out of the ground on their own or with help, and most dogs recover from an underground skunking provided they get out quickly. Time is of the essence, however, and a dog can lapse into a comma after only a few minutes if it is unable to exit a tight earth.

If your dog has pale gums or seems to be in shock, rush it to a vet and make sure your dog is seen immediately. Explain that the problem is MORE than stink: skunk-related shock and anemia can kill a dog.

The best course of therapy for a dog suffering from skunk toxic shick is to fully hydrate the dog (an IV will be needed) to speed the flushing of toxins, as well as to dose the dog with Acetycistein (sold as Mucomyst, Fluimucil, Mucolator, or Tixair).

Acetycistein seems to help the dog cough mucous out of the lungs, and it also strengthens blood cells and the vascular system in general, while working to maintain renal function -- a big issue with skunk toxic shock syndrome.

Since acetylcystein is cheap, easily available, and a well-tolerated drug, starting a dog on this drug is always a good idea if skunk toxic shock seems to be setting in.

If your dogs gets out from underground and skunk toxic shock does not seem to be an issue (this is the situation most of the time), your next issue is the stench. What to do about it?

The short story here is that nothing will completely get rid of the smell of skunk spray except time. And yes, I have tried it all.

"Nature's Miracle Skunk Odor Remover" is a commercial product that works well for a few days at a time. I have tried other commercial skunk-odor removers (such as Skunk Off), and I do not think they work quite as well as Nature's Miracle.

You will need a quart of Nature's Miracle Skunk Odor Remover to dose a 12-pound terrier, but buy two quarts (about $10 a bottle) and keep a spare quart in the wheel well of your car or truck for emergenices. The main ingredient in this stuff appears to be alcohol, but the important ingredients are various enzymes that break down the stink.

What about masengill douche, tomato juice, and vinegar? I have tried them all -- forget it.

What about home-made skunk-odor reduction recipies?

The good news is that they work and they will save you a few dollars over time, as you are going to have to wash your dog every four or five days for a month as the skunk stink leaches out.

Here's the recipie for home-made skunk stink remover:

• 1 Quart of 3% Hydrogen Peroxide


• 1/4 cup of Baking Soda


• 1 teaspoon of Liquid Soap
  
  Mix it all together in a pan, and wash the dog in in while the mixture is bubbling... let is sit for a few minutes, and then rinse off with tap water.
  
  Do not get the mixture in the dog's eyes!!
  
  The quantities described here are for a small Jack Russell. Scale up as necessary.
  
  Be sure to use FRESH Hydrogen Peroxide... H2O2 will eventually turn into water.

Why does this hydrogen-peroxide, baking soda, and squirt-soap recipie work, and why will your dog have to be rewashed in four or five days all over again?

The short story is that skunk spray contains several kinds of thiols.

The oxygen in the Hydrogen Peroxide releases the Thiols (the odor part) as it foams up, and the detergent removes the oily part that holds the odor in the animal's fur. The baking soda provides a little texture against the fur (thiols are sticky) and also helps deodorize the dog a bit.

The reason that the skunk spray keeps coming back is that the thioacetates absorbed in the skin and fur of the dog, continue to break down over time, turning into stinky thiols. This process is speeded up a bit if your dog gets wet again, but NO, you cannot speed it up too much as it is partially time-released.

If your dog is hit straight-on with skunk spray, either underground or above ground, your dog may get some small blistering around the muzzle and may get some caustic burning of the cornea as well. This occurs because one of the ingredients of skunk spray is hydrochloric acid, created when different skunks two glands mix chemicals together as they exit the skunk's rear end.

It is a myth that skunk spray can cause permanent blindness. When gotten into the eyes the spray often causes temporary blindness, and burns like crazy, but there are no documented cases of skunk spray causing permanent blindness in a dog.

If you dog does end up with ulcerations of the cornea, crate the dog for several days and load it up on antibiotics (cephalexin is fine). The only thing to fear is infection. The important thing is to let the eye rest and heal.

Feed and water your dog well and keep it warm and rested for at least a week after a skunk encounter.

Road flares placed in a skunk den are said to kill the animal, but if your dog has just been sprayed, and stink is pouring out of the hole, you may just want to get the hell out of there and take care of your dog. First thing's first!

Dog Dealers on the Boards

Someone on a bulldog board posted a link to this post.

No harm.

The post is somewhat illuminating about the speed of collapse at the AKC, but it is hardly controversial, as the graph is from the DVM News.

What's funny is that someone who signed her name "Bev" then chipped in to say:

If one reads his blog for any amount of time you will begin to wonder how he can support the AR's, bash the AKC and yet still breed and hunt with purebred dogs?? I e-mailed him last year and asked him what his logic was in supporting both sides..... still waiting for an answer.

Eh?

Now here's the thing: I keep all my emails. All of them. I have no email from this person. None.

And yes I checked.

You see, "Bev," it turns out, is someone by the name of Bev Hale who, along with her husband Kirk, breeds "Olde English Bulldogges."

No, I have never heard of them either. More on that in a minute.

First you may ask: What's an Olde English Bulldogge?

Well, to make it simple, it's a breed invented in America by dog dealers selling romance and nonsense.

Sadly, we have lots of this stuff over here.

Look through the back of any dog magazine, and you will find dog dealers hawking "testosterone" dogs to young men.

The list of dogs includes the "Olde English Bulldogge" along with the Old English Bulldog, the Original English Bulldogge, Olde Bulldogge, the Campeiro Bulldog, Leavitt Bulldog, the Catahoula Bulldog, the Alapaha Blue Blood Bulldog, the Aussie Bulldog, the Victorian Bulldog, the Valley Bulldog, the Olde Boston Bulldogge, the Dorset Old Tyme Bulldog, the Ca de Bou, the Banter Bulldog, and the Johnson Bulldog, to say nothing of the Alana Espanol, Cane Corso, Bully Kutta, and the recreated "Alaunt."

These new-age molosser breeds are sandwiched between the English, Neopolitan, and Bull Mastiffs, the Rottweilers, the Dogue de Bordeaux, the Dogo Argentino, the Fila Brasileriro and, of course, the English Bulldog.

Now here's a question: Do we really need pretend bulldogs in America?

What's wrong with American Pit Bulls?

We have them everywhere. In fact, over 45 million pounds of Pit Bulls are killed in U.S. shelters every year.

And unlike the dogs being sold by the Hales, most of these American Pit Bulls can actually work feral pig or move a rangey cow if they need to.

The dogs Bev and Kirk Hale are breeding, however, look like cartoons. These aren't true working dogs. These are "show off" dogs bred for intimidation and designed to be paraded around on heavy chains by men who need that kind of thing. John D. Johnson created these kind of dogs back in the 1970s -- "kegs on legs" which are too heavy in the body, and too short in the face to really move in hot country.

Of course, there is no stopping dog dealers, is there?

The Hales tell us on their web site that their dogs are registered with the Continental Kennel Club, which is the favorite registry of puppy millers and order-by-mail dog breeders.

Caveat emptor!

On the home page of their web site, the Hales tell us that "The Olde English Bulldogges are a new venture for us," and in almost the same breath they tell us that "After much thought we have decided to let the chickens go."

Right.

Trading one short-term hobby for another. At least you can eat the chickens. But the dogs??

I have fired off an email to Ms. Hale. It will be interesting to see if I get answer. I write:

• You claim you contacted me last year. Please send me that email. I have never heard of you and recall no emails.
  
  
• You claim I breed dogs. When was that?
  
  
• You claim I "support the AR's." When was that?
  
  
• You claim I hunt with pure breed dogs. Which ones are those?

For the record, as regular readers of this blog know, I do not breed dogs. I have said this many times, and it is not closely held information.

Nor do I hunt with "pure bred" dogs." I hunt with working Jack Russell terriers which are a type of dog, not a breed. This is Working Terrier 101.

If I have ever "supported the ARs" I am sure it is news to them! The Humane Society of the U.S., PeTA, and a few others I can tick off (such as the RSPCA and LACS) have all felt withering fire from me at one time or another.

So what are we to learn here?

Nothing more than what I have said many times before; the boards are full of anonymous cowards, trolling pretenders, and fantasy flakes and fakes.

Caveat emptor.

If you are looking for a dog, do your research and stay away from people who clearly fit the puppy peddler and dog dealer mold.

If you are looking for a molosser breed, please consider going to a shelter and rescuing a Pit Bull. There are a lot of beautiful, sweet dogs to be found there. One is at my feet right now, and I assure you she does not look like a cartoon and she can move like the wind. She is a dog you can be proud of -- my son's pride in his dog is evidence of that!

Before you get a molosser breed, however, make sure you know what you are doing and that you are a forever owner. Make sure you have a stable housing situation, a fenced yard, and are willing to excercise and train this dog which is not a Labrador Retriever.

Molosser breeds are too often victimized by get-rich-quick dog dealers who are only too willing to sell to anyone who comes along.

Dogs bought in haste are too often dumped in leisure, and a million dead molosser dogs a year is the legacy of that.

The molosser world does not need more of this. In fact, it needs a great deal less.

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You Will Know It By ... Her Master's Voice

In a world of 6.7 billion people, it seems only a trusted and much-loved member of the Kennel Club could chair the new Advisory Council on Welfare Issues of Dog Breeding in the U.K.

The new chair, Sheila Crispin, is a veterinary opthamologist who has spent decades in dogs and yet has never been vocal in criticizing the Kennel Club about it practices, and never mind the obvious pain and misery caused by those practices.

Is this opthamologist blind? We shall see.

Here's what I suspect will happen: a lot of movement and not much action.

Look for Crispin to tackle everything but the real issues of contrived standards leading to deformed dogs in misery, and inbreeding practices leading to jaw-dropping rates of disease.

Open the registries? Require working dogs to work in order to win rosettes? Those are words that will never pass her lips.

Instead, look for her to launch off on a campaign against puppy mills, and perhaps to initiate a drive to mandate microchipping.

Those are worthy problems deserving attention, but they are not why this Advisory Council was created.

They will be within her comfort zone, however.

Her comfort zone, after all, has always been close to the Kennel Club's hierarchy which has given her an honorary membership and tapped her as a member of its own "Breed Health and Welfare Strategy Group" which, you will remember, is the cause of the current mess.

Will I be wrong?

Nothing would make me happier if I am! But when it comes to dogs, I have learned to keep my expectations low, and this is a good example.

Patrick Bateson promised that this new Advisory Council on Welfare Issues of Dog Breeding would be appointed on the Nolan Principles. I am not sure how appointing a Kennel Club member and insider to "reform" the world of dog breeding fits those principles. In fact, let me say quite clearly that I think it does not.

Job One for Crispin, if she is serious (and I hope she is!), is to repudiate the nonsense put out by the Kennel Club which says that "the vast majority of breeds and dogs are healthy." This is demonstrably not true as even the most cursory examination of the Kennel Club's own health surveys make clear.

Truth and reform cannot start with lies and distraction. Let us see which way Crispin heads...
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The First "International Pageant of Pulchritude"

Did you know that organized annual doggie beauty pageants are older than human ones?

Apparently true.

Wikipedia gives the history of the human beauty contest:

In May 1920 promoter C.E. Barfield of Galveston organized a new event known as "Splash Day" on the island. The event featured a "Bathing Girl Revue" competition as the centerpiece of its attractions. The event was the kick-off of the summer tourist season in the city and was carried forward annually. The event quickly became known outside of Texas and, beginning in 1926, the world's first international contest was added, known as the "International Pageant of Pulchritude." This contest is said to have served as a model for modern pageants.

Circus and freak show promoter P.T. Barnum apparently tried to hold a human beauty pageant in 1854, but his beauty contest was closed down by public protest and he substituted dogs instead.

"Fitter Family" beauty contests were started at the 1920 Kansas State Fair, and grew out of a confluence of the dog show world and the eugenic movement, as I note in The Eugenics Man and the Kennel Club.

A formal system of beauty pageants started shortly after that.
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Daisy Cup

Daisy Cup

A blue cup sitting on the counter just waiting for a nice warm cup of coffee. Then a little girl rushes in ,out of breath from her trek outside. With her skin warm and moist and her breathing heavy from running in the fields she calls her mom. Mom! look what I picked for you. A single daisy, what can we put it in? Then she spied it. The blue cup a perfect place for the delicate flower. A gift of love.

The Ground is Tough, The Dog Is Experienced

American Badger and Raccoon skulls

One of the questions most frequently asked is whether a groundhog or a raccoon is tougher than a fox?

It is a common question, but how do you compare apples and eggs?

Groundhogs are simply different. For the dog, they can be tough to locate in a large sette with soft earth, as a groundhog can dig away quite rapidly, and tunnel pipes can be very tight.

If a larger dog tries to dig to a groundhog in a tight pipe, the dog can easily bottle itself front and back with an earth plug behind and an earth plug in front. This does not happen too often, but suffocation underground still kills more dogs than anything else.

Groundhogs have no necks and cannot be throttled underground and can only rarely be pulled — and then only if they are very close to the entrance or you have broken away most of the pipe at the end of a dig.


Small Possum and Fox skulls

A groundhog’s teeth are like small chisels, and their bite can leave a kerf of flesh missing from a dog’s lip. A groundhog’s jaws are extremely powerful, and they can crush a dog’s sinuses, but their jaw is not very long, and so they have a hard time getting a good grip. Most groundhog injuries are pretty superficial and will granulate on their own, but if a large dog gets it into its head that it can “horse” a groundhog out of a den pipe, it is likely to take a serious amount of punishment for its efforts.

A fox has canines that can create deep puncture wounds but the bite of a fox is not as powerful as that of a groundhog. Infection and eye damage are the main worry.

I consider groundhogs tough for the totality of the package, raccoons tough for their crushing bite potential, and fox third in line, with possum a distant fourth. Other folks would rank them differently (possum would always be fourth), and I would not argue.

Of course the real truth is that with an experienced dog, the quarry is generally not too tough, even if the ground almost always is!
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The Coming Storm

The Coming Storm

I painted this today while feeling quite sad. My 86 year old dad who had an accident about three weeks ago was diagnosed with probable spinal cord cancer. He is now paralyzed from the waist down. We visited with him on Fathers day in the hospital. He was so happy to see us and knew everyone. Before that and since, he has been confused and doesn't  know anyone. I guess the day we visited him was just one  more little gift from God. My mom is so sad, and as our lives change each day I can feel

 "The Coming Storm."

Painted with a palette knife on panel board.

2+2=4

2+2=4

One coffee cup teeters inside the other. A point of imperfection in both.Treasures to someone. One with brown tones the other with blue. Left alone for moments in time they remain like memories form the past. Two cherries have been gently placed by the gentle hands of the woman who lives here. Untouched and uneaten, thus 2+2=4.    UNAVAILABLE

Down a Country Road

Down a Country Road

Two houses on a simple dirt road which leads to home. A road less traveled, A place where few have been before. Out in the country where wild flowers bloom and butterflys dance in the breeze, Where dogs bark at rabbits in the field and where life is good, A place called home. 

Paranoia

After two bouts with cancer it's tremendously difficult not to worry about it coming back again. And maybe "worry" is even putting it too lightly. More like obsess over, dwell on, let it encompass everything.

I'm still in that awful waiting period – post-treatment/pre-PET Scan. The period of uncertainty as right now I have no hard evidence proving to me that the cancer is completely gone, that everything that was thrown at me worked. Until July 6 comes I remain in limbo and limbo can be a ruthless place if I let it get that way.

I'm doing my best to keep control of the situation and to keep my mind in check but it is certainly not an easy feat. Complicating this is the fact that I have a couple lymph nodes that have swelled to abnormal sizes above my right collar bone. They wax to the size of a ping pong ball and wane to the size of a red kidney bean. One is malleable while the other is smaller but more solid. There is also another familiar gumball presence in my left armpit. They all ache and pulse at times which is how I discovered them in the first place. I don't have to explain how this sends my paranoia aflutter and brings back horrible recollections of my original diagnosis.

Dr. Dailey palpated them last week and didn't seem too concerned noting that lymph nodes can swell for many reasons and that mine are going to be swollen and stretched for a long time after what they've been through. I've also been feeling pretty off with a lot of fatigue, some chest tightness, gland swelling and just overall fullness in my upper respiratory area. Plus, a lot of phlegm-like junk floating around. This makes me feel better keeping the hope alive that I just have normal person allergies or a little sinus irritation which would be causing my lymph nodes to flare up as they send out white blood cells to work to fight it. I also have to remember that I'm not even a month out of transplant. I'm coming back from being at absolute zero and have to keep reminding myself that it's not going to be a quick and easy healing process. These things take time.

But no matter what, those bad cancer thoughts creep in and that takes a physical toll. I've been very tired and achey and I've come to realize that it's stress. Over the weekend I was with friends and family doing fun things and anytime that is happening I don't feel it. It's when I'm alone and my mind can wander and my hand keeps reaching up to palpate those nodes that the tension sets in. And that's no good for anyone.

So, the only logical solution? Take a cruise. As the emotions of everything that we've been through – from embryo freezing to days upon days in the hospital – started to set in, we realized that we needed to get away to a place where we could relax, be entertained, explore ... not have to worry about cooking, cleaning, bills, doctor's appointments, lymph nodes. So I got the go-ahead from both my oncologists and we're off to the Eastern Caribbean for eight days. San Juan, St. Thomas and Turks & Caicos here we come! We have so much to celebrate and so much to be grateful for so Craig and I are taking this together as a 28th birthday present to each other and a post-transplant extravaganza. The week after we return I'll be going back to work, at least part-time, and Craig will begin his summer job so this was the perfect time to take advantage of the downtime that we both had.

It'll put us both in a good place to be able to face whatever the PET Scan may reveal. For now, rather than letting that worry control us, we're going to make the most of this time that I am here and am feeling good (enough) and most importantly, not tethered to an IV pole. Freedom for the first time in many, many months.

I'm so looking forward to snorkeling among the fishes and smiling into the Caribbean sun.

A Walk Through The Kitchen

A Walk Through The Kitchen

I walk into the kitchen and the first thing I think of is the warmth of my first cup of Joe. I reach in the cabinet among the cups of yellow, gold, red, green and blue. I pick the yellow one of course my favorite. I got it years ago from my daughter. It has missed disaster several times. As I sit drinking my coffee I notice the old jar. A jar also dear to me, my mom used to can fruit and she gave me this one. As I start to go about my daily routine I grab an apple ,red and delicious and think about the sweetness of its ware. Another beautiful day started by A Walk Through the Kitchen.
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Lemon Tang

                                                      Lemon Tang

This lemon rest next to a cool blue cup. Cool in color and value yet warm

with the temp of the lucious sweet liquid it contains. A tall cup of tea. Soon

the tartness of the lemon will surely add a nice surprise. A little flavor of Lemon Tang.
UNAVAILABLE

Orange Slices

Orange Slices

Beside the two tea cups long emptied of their wares these orange slices sit on the

tabletop waiting for what? Picked at the peak of their prime they still have

much to give. Sweet and tart they are full of fresh sweet juice. Gone for now

is the person who put them here. The person who will surely return and

enjoy them later. But will they savor all that they have to give, these two orange

slices simply waiting on the table.
UNAVAILABLE

The Humane Society did WHAT?

Has Hell frozen over?

You might think so.

You see, the Humane Society of the U.S. (HSUS) is quoting this blog in the cover story of All Animals magazine, which is HSUS's full-color bimonthly membership magazine which goes out to their 10 million members.

In a long, well-written, and fair piece, author Carrie Allan lays out The Purebred Paradox whose strap line is "Is the quest for the 'perfect dog' driving a genetic health crisis?"

Once upon a time, people believed that purebred dogs were naturally healthier than mixed breeds. How have we arrived at a point where it may be safer to presume the opposite? ....

.... The more limited the number of mates, the greater the chance a dog will be bred with a relative who shares similar genes. Genetic diseases are caused by recessive genes, so a good gene from one parent will trump a bad gene from the other. But if both parents have a bad gene—such as one that predisposes them to hip dysplasia or blindness—the likelihood of a sick puppy increases.

“What happens when you have a small and inbreeding population is that the probability of two negative recessive genes finding each other increases as the gene pool chokes down to a smaller and smaller pool,” says Patrick Burns, a Dogs Today columnist who frequently writes about genetic health issues on his blog, Terrierman’s Daily Dose.

A closed registry that allows no “new blood” into the mix exacerbates the problem, he argues: “In many AKC dogs, the founding gene pool was less than 50 dogs. For some breeds, it was less than 20 dogs.”

This year’s Westminster champion, a Scottish terrier named Sadie, hails from one of these tiny gene pools and is “very heavily inbred,” says Burns. The limited ancestry for AKC-registered Scotties, he adds, helps explain why 45 percent die of cancer.

“We do not need to have a closed registry to keep a breed,” Burns says, pointing out that breeds existed long before there was an organization to track them. “We did not create the dogs we love in a closed registry system—we have only ruined them there.”

Read the whole thing. The HTML version (multiple jump pages) is here, and the PDF version (8 pages) is here.

This is one of the longest and best articles done so far on the American "dog mess" that is a confluence between disease, deformity and defect caused by inbreeding and contrived and twisted breed standards, and the sick internacine economic relationships that exist between puppy mills and the AKC.

This article also details what has been going on in the United Kingdom since the advent of Pedigree Dogs Exposed. As Carrie Allan writes:

[I]in the United Kingdom, at least, there seems to be momentum for change. Whether that momentum will gather steam in the U.S. remains to be seen

Spread this article around!

Remember that if you want the Humane Society of the U.S. to move in the right direction, you need to click and treat.

I assure you this is the right direction. They have not taken any gratuitous swipes at pedigree dogs or dog breeders. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Take this line for example. Anyone think this is not fair and well-said?

At The HSUS, we’re big fans of adoption. By going to a local shelter or rescue group, you stand a good chance of both saving a life and finding a purebred — after all, they make up an estimated 25 percent of dogs in shelters.

When you can’t find the dog you’re looking for, however, responsible breeders are another option; they are devoted to their animals’ well-being and committed to placing them in loving homes. And if every shelter dog were adopted and every puppy mill were shuttered, there would still be a need for good breeders to supply dogs to American households.

Full applause to HSUS for this article, and to author Carrie Allan in particular. This is a big subject, and she has done an extraordinarily good job of wrapping herself around it and presenting it in a cogent and fair manner.

• Related Article:** Who Speaks for Dogs?
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