sandgrubber

We have three cats here: mountain lions, bobcats, and the domestic sort. I like the first two . . . not so fond of little cats.

I don't mind a few kisses, but my old broody girl seems to think bare skin of any sort needs licking.. . .like a puppy's nose and bum. She would lick for hours. Despite discouragement, she still succeeds in landing kisses from time to time. Strangely, her daughter licks bed sheets . . . she will systematically lick a spot near my pillows for 10 minutes straight. As for the wound licking literature . . . seems to be a popular topic for science fair projects but hasn't drawn much formal science. http://syntheticsali...searchpaper.htm gives an excellent high school research experiment, including a bibliography (unfortunately, little peer reviewed literature). . . the student extracted histidine, lysozyme, and amylase and lactoferrin from dog saliva and looked at its effect on bacterial growth (Strep, Staph, and E. coli) . . .

A few details from a breeder's perspective. Think twice before you say "Bring it on for Australia"! source: www.kennelspotlight.com/the_sky_is_falling_in_pasco_county.pdf The Sky is falling in Pasco County, Florida by Brian Amble For years breeders have said that I am like Chicken Little claiming the sky is going to fall when I would talk about the animal rights activists and their goal to shut down breeders. If I have your attention, you might want to read on. This is for those dog or even cat breeders that are thinking about making your kennel/cattery legal. Maybe you are thinking that if you go to the local governing body and get a business license and permits to make your breeding operation legal you will be safe. After all, you take really good care of your animals and no one can fault the cleanliness of your facility. Right? Let me tell you about what is happening in Pasco County, Florida. Approximately 100 dog breeders that have long established kennels are being shut down. One breeder in particular that I have spoken to has had her license and permits in place for 16 years. She has never had any complaints or any type of citations. She runs a model kennel with glowing comments about the great care she provides to her dogs. Much to her dismay, two weeks ago she was issued a citation that states it has been determined that the county now plans to enforce their 9 dog pet limit law and it will apply to all breeders as well. She felt this must be a mistake since her permit was for numbers up to 49 dogs. Her permit is current!!!! County officials assured her that they fully intend for her to reduce her numbers and to do it within 90 days. She was given a possible option of applying for a variance for her property which would cost her approximately $1,000 but there was no guarantee that she will be approved. She was then told that this would affect all kennels in the county and that includes about 100 dog breeders. You can do your own math to see what kind of money that might net to the county. Their reasoning was that it was costing the county $2.3 million each year to address the overpopulation of dogs and cats, and it seemed contradictory to give incentives to breeders via breeding permits. So here they are with 90 days to place roughly 40 dogs each. If the breeders don't get them all placed in that time they have already been told there will be a large daily fine to pay. After a certain number of days, the county will more than likely remove the dogs and take them to the already over crowded shelters. But never fear, these dogs will probably be the lucky ones and find homes right away because they came from reputable breeders. The county will of course have to charge the breeder for the care of these dogs while in their care, but I'm sure they will give any excess cash over to the kennel. Right? My personal question is, how can a county issue business licenses and permits for that many years AND THEN determine that your zoning does not qualify for the permits that they have issued to you and charged you to get for the past 16 years? Let's not forget that these are established breeders that invested heavily in dog runs, pens, grooming supplies, medications, cages, carriers etc. These are also breeders that are claiming their businesses on their income taxes. In this one particular case, it is the bulk of her income. The county wishes to take away her business and livelihood. By the way, in searching the county ordinances, we have been unable to find the so called 9 dog limit. However that is not slowing down the county from enforcing it. All of these breeders are faced with 3 possible options. 1- Attempt to get the variance. And what are the odds that they will approve ANY, much less all of the 100 kennels? 2-Reduce their numbers to only 9 dogs within the 90 days. 3-Hire an attorney and start a class action law suit. Moral of the story . . . . making your kennel/cattery legal pretty much places a bulls eye on your forehead. Makes it just that much easier for the animal control to know where you live. Was that a brick or a shingle that just hit you in the head? Maybe just a little part of the sky is breaking loose in a neighborhood near you. Once this action is completed here in Pasco County, it will most assuredly be appearing in your own neighborhood. That is how case law is set and then it spreads like wildfire. ~~~~ Longtime breeder in Florida, Supporter of WethePeoplePets Please cross-post this news far & wide. If you wish to protect your animals, please support the efforts of We the People Pets. We now have a 501 c (3) & (4) and you will be able to take your tax deduction. We have a No-Kill PSA starring Laddie, (the dog actor that played Lassie ) that came to the Capitol helping to defeat AB 1634 on a crucial vote day. Laddie & the Weatherwax Group have agreed to spearhead the No-Kill movement & initiatives in CA. We believe that solving the shelter mismanagement is critical at this point in time. We intend to lead the way for animal welfare reform. WE NEED YOUR DONATIONS for the post production costs for the PSA (Public Service Announcement) for our No-Kill statewide initiative. This is a top shelf production utilizing award winning talent from the Director, Director of Photography, Grammy winning sound-mix, etc. I have already paid out many thousands of dollars toward this production OF MY OWN monies, and now I am pleading for your financial support to finish these three PSAs and get these up on every TV station in CA. PSAs will run free of charge on television stations. Let's EDUCATE the public. What better spokesman could we have than Laddie? We expect to do a series addressing the issues at hand. Hollywood talent is on board to support the No-Kill initiative. The door has opened. Now it is up to YOU! The first three PSAs are awaiting your help. All contributors will be noted on the official No- Kill site: www.nokillbill.com These PSAs will be available to ALL PARTIES in all states, countries for broadcast purposes. THANK YOU

Should also note that many gun dogs were bred as companion dogs for the landed gentry in a period where, at least in the UK, social mores were very repressive. I suspect some breeds were selected as much to provide affection and satisfy natural desires for warmth and contact as for the hunt: gentleness and intuitive sense of human emotion was highly valued. This selection for closeness, along with the requirement of steady energy for the hunt, is what has made the Labrador excel as a guide dog.

Good objective summary. Thanks for posting.

You may find Aloe works even better. It's good for soothing minor hurts and is extremely bitter. It grows well in most parts of Australia and seems to be regularly featured at flea markets, etc . . . or course regular nurseries as well . . . or pinch some from a neighbour. I always had a clump of it, and sliced off a little from the plant, using the goo inside the leaf as a dressing.

Not to be a wet blanket but . . . if this is victory, it bodes badly for the war. How did so much attention get focussed on one county (read shire) animal control agency's adoption policy (not even the Board of Supervisors, and a proposed ban only on adoption, not on ownership), while bigger targets, like the Vic ban on ownership, have a hard time mounting public support. No surprise that the agency buckled. It's like using a sledge hammer to kill an ant!

Still, beware of pyrethrin (sp) based flea remedies. They may cause seizures, sometime serious, in some dogs.

I think this is a grey area in which the law is evolving. Lots of people can be sued. The more important question is whether the suit will be successful. It's going to take decades to sort that out. Sigh. For safety sake, don't slander and don't propagate slander. Even if it seems like good fun and a little bit of an exaggeration. The RSPCA has done both good an bad things. If you're going to accuse them of 'bad', make sure you're accurate and have good evidence, cause they have strong backing from elite establishment groups . . . hence the 'R' (which dates back ~150 years). And if you get wild with your accusations, don't complain if your post disappears. DOL needs to protect its backside.

I know of several kennels where the person at the 'admissions' desk doesn't know the difference! Just ask the kennel/cattery in advance, or get it in writing. It's complicated. It's dynamic. It's a mess. Everyone has to make their own decisions. I've had vets tell me that the actual vaccination used in the one year stuff is exactly the same as the three year stuff, and that a few years of regular vaccination confers immunity for life (except for 'kennel cough'). It's going to cost me $30/hit to read the scientific journal articles on such subjects, and many of them will contain so much jargon that they'll do me no good. They keep developing new vaccines. Legislation gets written, and then gets interpreted through the courts. In most cases we're arguing about numbers of angels on the head of a pin. How many parvo or distemper epidemics have arisen in boarding kennels? Rapidly evolving viruses, like 'kennel cough' are a different question, but fortunately, none of them are lethal. Knock on wood.

I'm getting to be a grumpy old fart. But I remember a day when dogs worked things out for themselves. Puppies got disciplined by older dogs for too much bouncing up to their elders. They learned respect. Some elders were too vicious, or didn't get socialized enough when young, and had to be kept in back yards or on leash. There are zillions of places where dogs can be walked on lead. If your dog is intolerant of stupidity, walk it somewhere where 'stupids' are required to be on lead. The law is an ass, and legislators can't write in this kind of subtleties. But they're worth having. Can't dog parks be preserved as a place where puppies can play, make mistakes, get growled at and occasionally get an ear torn, and people be a bit forgiving of differences in temperament and the need to learn by trial and error? GRUMP GRUMP GRUMP GRUMP!!!! (no smileys)

There's something a little off, probably deliberately off, about a presenter making much of her clevage while saying male genitalia are gross. (I can't spell, sorry. You can figure out what I mean). I can buy it as a spoof for spoof's sake, I guess. But the practical implications aren't clear as dog's balls. If balls are disgusting, should we be advocating male castration in all species? That would solve a lot of problems. But it would create a few more problems :D. How about 'boobs are disgusting' ? While we're at it, let's get rid of 'pussy' and go for some good genital mutilation, all sexes treated equally. What fun! If you think this ad is a good way to promote desexing, I'd say you're pushing peer pressure. And I don't think it will work. There are other ways around looking at balls. My mother (b. 1923) always bought girl dogs for this reason.

What a feeding frenzy!!!!

I find stuff like this quite incendiary. "gene which caused dysfunction" What dysfunction? "is a net-increase in disease, infertility, and disorder in the breed". And the diseases are? What exactly is "disorder"? Infertility? I seem to see breedings of bobtails with large viable litters. I think the boxers are fortunate to have someone like Dr Cattenach to introduce the gene. Not everyone wants bobtails, but it does mean that those who want a boxer, but not a longtail, can still have one. I personally think this is a positive in a hobby where ownership is decreasing, breeding is decreasing, and showing is decreasing Animal Rights doesn't have to do anything to sink the hobby, fanciers are doing it themselves while they tear everything down - simply because they can. I find statements like this incindiary . . . maintaining standards and being cautionary about deliberately altering a breed's gene pool is not tearing things down (SG) I find Cattenack's work fascinating and I'm not against outcrossing, carefully done, for good reason. Voluntarily introducing a lethal gene is playing with fire, and I think Cattenack soft-peddles that aspect of his otherwise quite-respectable work. I would call anything that causes one in four pups to die in the womb or soon after birth a dysfunction. I think 'lethal dysfunction' is the correct technical term. Technically, 'reduced fertility' is more correct than 'infertility', but that is a semantic distinction . . . and I think you'd find that population biology uses these words differently than reproductive biology. If a bitch was going to have 12 pups and ends out having only nine, the litter is still large and the reduction in surviving offspring may be a godsend, but it's still a dysfunction. The word 'disease' shouldn't be in there. But hell, we all make mistakes with words. . . . you opened your post saying you said 'a' when you meant 'b'. Not everyone wants bobtails, but some breeders seem to be setting themselves up as superior because they offer the new 'bobtail' variety. I would prefer to see outcrossing reserved for health reasons. Accepting it for cosmetic reasons could lead to purebred 'designer' movements that will further fragment the dog world. What if someone found a way to produce, say, an apricot Labrador, at the cost of introducing a lethal semi-dominant gene? I don't think they would be well received. With boxers, the problem is social: it's either non-acceptance of natural tails among breed fanciers, or increasing social intolerance of tail docking. It is not some genetic defect in the breed. I don't much like manipulating genes to try to get around social problems. In the Crestie, a lethal semi-dominant gene with major cosmetic ramifications came into bloodlines long ago. I'd love to hear some Crestie breeders join in the conversation. But I'd bet that most of them wish they didn't have to cope with the presence of a lethal semi-dominant gene. If lethal semi-dominants are ok, what about sub-lethal semi-dominants? Do we want to start introducing the merle gene into new breeds, so more breeders can have the joy of working around the 'double merle' problem?

If one sees the CC's primary role as one of keeping records, I'd say this is a good step. . . . gentle coercion to get breeders to do more to keep records. Don't know if that's what it is . . . just a guess. As someone who finds record keeping tedious, and who hates filing cabinets, I wish they'd move into the digital age and move all this stuff onto a good, transparent database with a user-friendly interface.

<br><br>I find stuff like this quite incendiary. <br><br><b>"gene which caused dysfunction"</b> What dysfunction?<br><br>"<b>is a net-increase in disease, infertility, and disorder in the breed"</b>. And the diseases are? What exactly is "disorder"? Infertility? I seem to see breedings of bobtails with large viable litters.<br><br>I think the boxers are fortunate to have someone like Dr Cattenach to introduce the gene. <br>Not everyone wants bobtails, but it does mean that those who want a boxer, but not a longtail, can still have one. I personally think this is a positive in a hobby where ownership is decreasing, breeding is decreasing, and showing is decreasing<br> <br><br>Animal Rights doesn't have to do anything to sink the hobby, fanciers are doing it themselves while they tear everything down - simply because they can.<br><br>bloody software!!!!! Does anyone else have this happen to them? How do you avoid it. Trying again, next post.

If only someone could design a such a scam so that it only catches people who shouldn't own a dog anyway :D.

Hey come on guys. We've all heard this 'some breeds more aggressive than others' discussion up the yin yang. Only individual dogs are aggressive. A breed is a category, an abstraction. It can do nothing, it can't be trained, it can't be owned. Anyone who denies that there is a stronger tendency for aggression in some breeds than others is an idiot. But so is anyone who thinks all members of a breed are true to the reputation of their breed is just as stupid. And anyone who denies that behaviour is influenced by training and upbringing has closed eyes and a closed mind.

How about a nice long walk at the beach!

Phone the cattery. As I know from having run a kennel/cattery, such decisions are complicated, and each operator has to set their rules according to the best information they can find and stick by them. It's always safer for the cattery to say 'no' than 'yes', from a liability perspective. From a customer perspective, it's always safer to do a little more than required than try and skimp by with the minimum. If you are in a pinch and your vet will stick up for you, some operators will accept a note from the vet. Mostly they need to have their backside covered.

The board sounds like a good, cheap, and efficient solution. Good luck.

The OP was like it? hate it? Surprise. Some people liked it, others didn't. I don't see why people who liked it need to put down people who didn't. Tastes differ.

Thanks Jed, that's really interesting. It would be great if somebody with the time, the inclination and the resources was prepared to come up with some properly researched results on this issue, although as Cattanach says "it's a daunting task"! Sylvia It would also be good if people check sources before dismissing them. Retrieverman (not Terrierman, whom Retrieverman often derides for lack of veracity) was the source. Retrieverman's Blog post follows a well referenced article by Christopher Landauer (Border Wars) which contrasts the outcrossing of Dalmatians for health reasons to the outcrossing of boxers, for cosmetic reasons. see http://www.astraean....-to-sit-on.html . Landauer concludes: " I think it's advisable to retire Dr. Cattanach as a spokesman for the moral implications and justifications for outcross breeding. It must be noted that despite claiming that he persevered criticism of his program to one day help others who would outcross for health reasons, his Steynmere Boxer x Corgi program is exactly the opposite of this ideal. He purposely inserted a gene which causes dysfunction into a breed which did not have this gene and he did so for the explicit purpose of evading a ban on manual tail docking. This is a net-increase in disease, infertility, and disorder in the breed and I don't think this action squares ethically." The negative outcome he describes (source cited below) is that, in contradiction to Cattanach's claims, not all homozygous pups are born dead. Some result in nonviable live births. This is not the (generally proven false) claim of viable offspring with spinal defects. I guess being born without an anus is no more horrid than a severe cleft palete, which we know happens once in awhile. As stated, the information on litter size reduction is contradictory, and more research is required: However, as would be expected if homozygous foetuses were rejected, roughly 25% littersize reduction has been found for both Swedish Vallhund and Australian shephards. Boxerunderground and Cattanach are on one side of a debate . . . you will find as many people attacking Cattanach as defending him. True, some of the attacks are unsubstantiated. But it would be unfortunate if people undertook outcrossing in Rottis or Dobes (or other breeds) without understanding that they risk decreased litter size and increased numbers of pups who must be pts. An analogous situation occurs in the Chinese crested. Homozygous for hairlessness in this breed is lethal. Breeders must always accept the fact that, on average, a third of the viable pups they produce will be coated. See, eg., http://www.ragglerock.ca/breeding.asp. p.s. I posted the primary source, Cattanach (posted at http://www.steynmere.com/GENETICS.html) in the General Forum under Studies about Dogs. Cattanach's work is fascinating, but I think breeders need to know the pros and cons before they seriously consider outcrossing to change a cosmetic trait. It should be noted that Steynmere and Boxerunderground are breeders, justifying the fact that they have taken a controversial stand in their breeding program. reference for live deformed births in NBT's: Indrebø A, Langeland M, Juul HM, Skogmo HK, Rengmark AH, Lingaas F. A study of inherited short tail and taillessness in Pembroke Welsh corgi. J Small Anim Pract. 2008 May;49(5):220-4.

Some organic vintners use flame torches. Some councils use them to weed sidewalks. They work, but it's laborious if you have a large area.

I don't think there's a single answer to this question. Morally, we should hold ourselves to the same standard as we hold others. If I expect a breeder to compensate me for a genetic defect for which mode of inheritance is unknown, and which was unexpected given the pedigree, then I must in turn be ready to compensate those to whom I sell pups who turn out to have similar defects. At least that's how I understand right and wrong.