Are You Serious Jo

Labor may be out, but you can't get complacent, still a lot of work to do stopping the libs bringing in equally damaging legislation.

This is the key point and should be quoted every time someone starts in on the you just hate crossbreds speech.

SCWT's are on my wish list to own one day. I fell in love with them when I was a groomer. Same for scotties.

To get someone on the not vaccinating every year law?

Scary, all it takes is someone with a grudge and you can be done.

DNA studies to find genes responsible for disease are really useful, resistant to bias, but unfortunately expensive due to the to apparatus involved. One way of sorting through the already published studies is do a comprehensive literature review on relevant topics. Minimal cost, but time consuming.

That is why some projects will never get done, there just isn't the money available to pay for the research. Good research is very time consuming and people need to pay their rent so they can't take on large unpaid projects at the expense of their paying jobs. The researcher also has to have a professional affiliation, so you can't just get anyone to do it either. You can get smaller projects done for less, we won two $18,000 grants for two dog projects that were a year in duration each. But as I said, I'm happy to consult and narrow down the focus and explore viability of ideas.

Breeders say outcrossing, but the non-layman term is opening a closed studbook or population. To be honest there are fanatical pure breeders who would be just as dangerous as those who advocate cross breeding without evidence for its benefits. The problem lies with stakeholders who have a financial or personal interest in an area, doubly when it is a researcher. If you have a researcher who all along supports cross breeding and stands a cross breed dog at stud doing research, is that a conflict of interest? Say for example I opened up a theme park based on the amazing cognitive abilities of apes, and I made a living out of those claims, would you trust me to come up with research that contradicted what I was pushing otherwise? I've been in academia long enough to see what happens in reality and there are plenty of researchers who let their personal biases or industry/funding pressure sway their findings. That is the reason I am so aware of it, and in this case I'd be wary of either side having too much vested interest in the findings. Throw a scientist who isn't great at research into the mix and you have a disaster. I've lost so many of my research heros in the ape world after being involved, it makes me wanna cry

Well, no, I wasn't hinting it. Not everything is about you, as it happens. But now that you mention it, you did attempt to sabotage my project before you even knew what I was planning to do. Folks are encouraged to make their own decisions on what looks silly or impartial when it comes to it. Just hope it's an impartial and informed decision. And I think that's the first time you've ever intentionally agreed with me and you still have to be nasty about it. I didn't attempt to sabotage your project, this is a discussion board, and I gave an opinion. You credit me with too much power Plenty of people on here have discussed your supervisor at length, I didn't say anything new, and they'll continue to discuss him, if you don't like it then start a blog and edit the comments. I had proof to back up my argument so it's not like I was spreading lies, truth is a lot of breeders don't like some of the researchers because of their stance on registered breeders. When the winkie eyes come out you can read between the lines, I just thought it funny that you contradicted what you were saying the other day Back on topic, I do have genuine concerns about the current push to have tighter restrictions placed on breeders based on either no research or flawed research. It isn't easy to get interest in dog projects therefore the pool of researchers available is small to start with. See McGreevy and Nicolas, 1999, they advocate solving welfare problems in dogs by crossbreeding and opening up closed stud books. Not something that purebred breeders really want to do.

Weren't you the same person that said that biases weren't an issue because of transparency and had a go at me for suggesting a certain person I mentioned had one Yes, it is an issue with some but if you are hinting I might not be able to be impartial then you'd be the one looking silly. My biggest gripe is people/researchers who make claims based on no evidence. I don't care what the outcome is, as long as it is derived from rigorous methodology and careful data collection. My publication record backs me up and a project I did on the side at the same time as my own honours project was given an international award for best paper of the year in a high impact journal. So I'm pretty confident I don't let bias affect my work But I agree, be careful of who you trust, as some do have an agenda to push.

I've supervised them and well, less said about some the better But you are right in that some of the most important questions don't attract funding, thanks to government cutbacks pure research is lost. I'm happy to advise on projects though, methodology is my strong point so don't mind helping with that.

The trouble with honours students is they are not all created equal, some are great, some should be working at McDonalds instead. Plus you also have a very limited time frame for data collection, so you can only do a brief project. The study that I wanted to do on probabilities of genetic disorders occurring between health tested and non-health tested dogs was going to be done on my own time, and I'd like to do that once I get back on track.

Can you send me a list of what you think are research priorities and I'll think about them before calling.

I'll call later, phone is being used. I can at least advise on the process for experimental, surveys and theoretical research. All very different approaches and makes a big difference on funding offered and who can do the research.

The reason people don't like him is because the whole show is fake, he used other vet's surgeries and everything is set up and he appears to be ignorant on a lot of issues. It wouldn't matter if he looked and acted like George Clooney, his fakeness shines through and some people can see that.

Sorry Victorians, looked you are going to be thoroughly screwed no matter what. The rest of the states will follow. I have given up the idea of going back into showing/breeding, now I am not even sure it will be worth the potential drama to even own a dog. I was a lifelong labour voter via my greens and independent preferences. How bad have things gotten when Family First looks to be the best of them

Generally you need to offer a grant for a research project distribute among all unis, then open it for students/researchers to compete by writing a proposal. You then judge who is best to run the project based on their proposal and their academic CV. Or employ me

The inspectors will probably start trawling shows and look for dew claws, so everyone had better be able to prove their pups were done at a vets. Don't think it won't happen.

You are my hero

My partner commented on this very issue yesterday, after seeing an inconsiderate Ahole dog owner walk away from the poop. I told him what I'd like to do, if in a bad enough mood. I'd grab that poop, run up to the owner and throw it at them while saying here, you forgot something. If in a not so grumpy mood I'd follow them home, then come back with their now sloppy wet down poo and deposit it in their letterbox with a note, also saying you left something behind. The DNA profiling is probably a more civilised solution though.

What part of me saying it was in his published paper don't you understand? I don't know how to say it any clearer than that. I have the paper, I didn't hallucinate it, or hear it from anyone else, I read it myself. IT IS FROM A PUBLISHED PAPER HE AUTHORED. So unless he has changed his mind since then I have a good source for my assertion. I am sure you would already have this paper considering you are his student, or are you trying some form of damage control?

You can rolly eye all you want, it doesn't change the fact McGreevy is anti purebred breeder, as per his own published words. McGreevy himself is far from scary, it is the power he has managed to get that is of concern, along with the other people who use incorrect information to push their own agenda. But people are free to do what they want, the purebred dog world is going down the gurgler anyway.

You should know that you can massage data to suit the outcome you want, everyone in academia knows this happens, well, maybe you don't Note I did not say falsify, just massage, which is selective data analysis. There have been plenty of people here who have read his work and seen his interpretation of results. He is on record as stating that he thinks we should be crossbreeding and purebreds aren't healthy. Not sure if he still does, but he was standing a dog at stud of unknown parentage. There is plenty of proof of his agenda, so I'm quite happy to post what I did. Why would a registered breeder add data to a research group that is headed by a person who has a pre-existing bias against them?

Your supervisor is McGreevy right? Good luck getting registered breeders to give that man any data he can skew against them.

Of course it was more than a debark issue, it was yet another attack on a registered breeder who was also a soft target and a PR opportunity. There was a vendetta by a vet, they used their influence to harass and intimidate via the rspca.