Junk it

The whole idea of breeds is silly. It is dog show stuff. It is belief inspired by purebred ideology.

Breed dogs for their use. Coat and size are a factor, but not breed.

Are your field bred working setters getting too inbred?
Why breed them to a bench setter?
Breed them to a field bred working pointer.

Do you hesitate because then the puppies would have no “purebred papers” and it would be easier to sell 1/2 working setter, 1/2 bench setter puppies, with papers, to the fools who would buy them, than to sell pure working field bred pointsetters?

Read Full Post »

1. Degree not pedigree.

Again it is working ability, health, and temperament!!! Degree not pedigree.

Do NOT let “looks” crepe into your posts.

Who, except dog show people, cares what the details of a dog are? Who cares what a German Shepherd Dog looks like vs what a Dobermann Pinscher looks like?

Make breeds by their profession!!

Make police dogs, military dogs, personal protection dogs, and shutzhund degreed dogs , all one breed.

Once the dog is two years old, can do the work, and is healthy, then he can trade his puppy papers for registration papers and can be bred.

Start the puppies in drill, obedience, scent matching, tracking, and other performance events to show that the dog is trainable, can work in public, and be around other dogs and still perform.

If one boxer X poodle can do the work, but one purebred German Shepherd Dog can not, then let the boxoodle win the event – that GSD doesn’t deserve it.

Only if your GSDs PROVE that they can win over the other breeds, should they be placed above the other breeds – otherwise we are just talking about our dogs being better.

Forget that “silly show stuff”. Looks don’t matter. Color doesn’t matter – so long as it is not linked to health problems.

What matters is the dog’s degree, his training and work – not his pedigree or how pretty his photo is.

A GSD is NOT his photo, he is his abilities, which are proven through his performance.

Degree not pedigree.
thank you for reading:
http://thepdkc.blogspot.com/
permission to cross-post.

Read Full Post »

What we had.

This is an older type of German Shepherd Dog.

Read Full Post »

Breed Friends

This is an old style Doberman Pincher.

Notice how much she looks like the old style German Shepherd Dog?

Read Full Post »

Double or Nothing.

It is easy to say “Just spay/neuter your show shepherds, and then buy working shepherds that aren’t so extreme”, but show breeders breed to win, don’t they? so the answer there is to change the judging – or just not have dog shows anymore, they are kind of silly, aren’t they?

But many dog breeders, who have been at it for a long time, know their personal dog’s ancestry like a soap opera fan knows the histories of the characters on their favorite soap opera.

It hurts these old timers to feel that their line of dogs, would come to an end, and not be bred anymore. Change is better than death, so maybe the answer is to outcross to Doberman Pinschers?

But to do that, the idea of “purebreds” has to go into the trash bin. Dog breeders need to understand how close “inbred” and “purebred” are, and to understand that neither needs to be their goal in breeding dogs – they can breed for genetic diversity, health, and temperament.

Read Full Post »

German Shepherd Dachshunds

There are some hybrid crossbreeds that make sense. But there are some that just don’t do it for me.

What would you get if you crossed the most popular dog breed in Germany, the German Shepherd Dog, with one of the other popular dogs in that area, the Dachshund (teckel)?

If you crossed a German Shepherd Dog that looked like Rin Tin Tin with a teckel, after back-crossing to the German Shepherd Dog, would you get a dog that looks like a modern American show type shepherd?

Read Full Post »

Masson & retrieverman

Have you had time to think about the colors over in the post on retrieverman about early German Shepherd Dogs?

Black, Grizzle, and reddish brown (solid colored or “with tan”) and
WHITE, white with patches of color, brindle (with or without “tan markings”).

NOT LISTED: sable, saddleback, mantle coated.

What is listed, can you see them one by one in your mind’s eye?

Can you write out the alleles?

Today, German Shepherd Dogs can be black, but I am told that it usually a recessive black.

So we have:
1. solid black
2. solid white
3. solid reddish brown
4. ‘solid’ grizzle

5. black with tan markings
6. grizzle with tan markings
7. reddish brown with tan markings

8. white with large patches of color
9. white with large patches of color, and tan markings
10. “white” with tan markings,

11. brindle
12. brindle with tan (just writing what it says – he might mean brindle long mantle and tan markings? a black and tan with brindle? – but I have seen dogs with both black & tan and tan markings, and the only brindle was in the tan markings. Merle will just work on the black mantle. Does Masson include Merle with brindle? Maybe this is something unique to breeds that I don’t know well?)

I don’t claim to be into color – it seems to be the craze – but not my thing. I have a simple answer: so long as the color doesn’t hurt or disadvantage the dog, whatever the color is, is okay with me.

But this is a bit of a different case. This is really about: What happened to the German Shepherd Dog?

I do NOT know about the inheritance of grizzle – so I am going to leave that out, there is plenty to chew on without it.

We have tan markings on: black, reddish brown, (grizzle), “white”, white piebald, and brindle. Masson mentions it twice, once as “with tan” and once as “tan markings”.

So what colors and patterns do we have?

Read Full Post »

Not another pit bull attack.

For those of you who are tired of reading about yet another pit bull attacking people (http://www.dogsbite.org/) here is a read about someone being attack by a non-pit bull dog – but it was another molosser (parent category to which pit bulls belong).

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/unleashed/2009/11/colorado-sheepherder-guard-dogs-bicyclist.html

Flockbonders are suppose to emotionally bond to the sheep and protect them – they don’t herd the sheep – they just live with the sheep and protect them from coyotes.

But, as the article points out, if the sheep are grazed in a public recreational area with people in it – than the dogs should have been removed from the flock.

These are very large dogs. The show type males had big heads like mastiffs, not regular heads like Kuvaz.

If people have mean dogs, then the people must kept the dogs fenced in, or under control – you just can’t blame the dog.

Dogs can be bred to be more aggressive, and to hang on when they bite – that is the dog breeder’s fault.

Dogs can be loose when they bite people, or guests may be improperly protected from the owner’s dog – that’s the owners fault.

Read Full Post »

Irish Setters with no red hairs.

Just as adults often go for the unusual, children very very often will ignore the normal puppies in a litter and only play with the odd colored puppy or kitten.

This is because children have a very hard time learning to distinguish between one puppy and another. Children often look at patched colored puppies and just see them as a bunch of patched colored puppies – they don’t remember the shapes of the patches.

Even if you say “The puppy’s name a pupy after his markings, the child wont recognise the puppy when they see the other side of the puppy. And most children lack the patience to stand there and wait and look – they just want to run up and grab a puppy.

It is the same with kittens. I knew people who bred purebred cats, the children got use to there always being kittens around – but then, one of the kittens was born an off color (for that breed of cat) and the kids adored it. Why? Because they could recognise it from the other kittens.

The reverse happens in laboratories. The company deliberately uses mice, rats, guinea pigs, and rabbits that are all the same color albino. Because if the animals were distinctive then the experimenters would identify with the animals as individuals and the experimenters would feel sorry for a favored animal.

I knew of a litter of kittens where all the kittens were the same color but one. The children played most with the one different kitten – the other kittens had names – but which name went to which kitten? Only the odd colored kitten could be properly labeled.

The boy in this family was cruel and he would pick on the kittens who look alike. Worse, in my opinion is when you find a child who seeks out the unique puppy or kitten t pick on.

The unique or identifiable animal is one that the child can have a personal bond with. The other animals, like flocks of purebred chickens, or kennels of many purebred dogs and cats, are too similar for a child (and often adults) to tell apart.

Seeking out, and favoring, the distinctive animal is normal. Being more able to harm an animal when they all look alike is more normal. But hurting, especially seeking out to hurt, an identifiable animal is not a good moral sign.

Why some people want to breed dogs and cats to get groups where they all look so such alike, I don’t know.

Read Full Post »

German Shepherd Dogs

Over on retrieverman today, he did a very good post on the early German Shepherd dogs. According to the text he quotes, the early German Shepherd Dogs could be:

Black, reddish brown, grizzle, or brindle (solid colored or with tan),
White, or white with patches of color.

What have we got here in genes?

Today’s German Shepherds come in tan with black saddle or black mantle (and other colors), so the “with tan” must mean the the author is not being very specific and is clumping both of those patterns into “with tan” along with the usual “with tan”,

which make me guess that some of the other color descriptions might be parent categories, not specifics –

unless German Shepherd Dogs back then did not come in both saddle/mantle AND tan points –

and since “with tan” would more imply tan points, that would be saying that the most common color in German Shepherd Dogs today (the tan with black saddle/mantle) was NOT an original breed color – it was not even listed!

That would be like IF today’s German Shepherd Dogs were usually all white, but white was NOT an original color –

but wait, white IS listed as an original color – but saddle/mantle is NOT!

Could it be that breeders have been breeding what was the rejected color?

Not only that, but that they have rejected most of the original colors, in favor of a rare breed color?

Thanks for reading:
http://thepdkc.blogspot.com/

and if you want to read the post that I am commenting on, it is:
http://retrieverman.wordpress.com/

more on “Masson and retrieverman” post, here.

permission to cross post.

Read Full Post »

Jose’s Barn Cat – the new breed to have!

While cat breeds often have the names of fanciful places, they often come from cat breeders, who often keep their cats in cages, basements, garages, barns, or extra rooms. But “Jane Smith’s basement cats” doesn’t sound like as charming as a tropical isle.

As far as I am concerned, dividing cats into separate breeds is ridiculous. They are all one species – the domestic cat. They come in various colors, some have a bit longer hair, a few have some mutation that makes them unique (unless someone reproduces the unique cats – then they are no longer unique).

AFAIAC, a person might as well gather up a bunch of orange tabbies from a barn, breed them, and call them King Jose’s Palace Cats.

Are the histories of dog breeds any better?

Read Full Post »

Mesteno Photo

Read Full Post »

BLM Mustang Horses

Although many like to think that all the horses on BLM lands are purebred mustangs, SOME of them are half some other breed of horse.

This is because some purebred horses were allowed to run loose on BLM lands, like ranchers let cattle run with the horses. Except that other kinds of horses can interbred with mustangs – cattle can not.

Myself, I believe that a mix of different genes makes for a healthier animal – and science backs me up on that.

Not every herd of wild horses is the same. If you look at different herds of (up for adoption, and on sale) horses and burros, you might find what you want.
http://blm.gov/adoptahorse

If not you can still check out the nice horse photos.

Read Full Post »

Mustang

FOR SALE CHEAP throught the BLM: two tone Mustang with lots of extras.
Very fuel efficient, makes its own gas from weeds.

Read Full Post »

BLM horses & burros

Yes, I know that today, horses are NOT being shot on BLM land – who I was addressing are the people who think we should return to shooting wild horses and burros.

Although such people might say “Shoot horses so that the plants can grow better, or so that deer will have more food; the reality is, that if the horses are on land that is leased to cattle ranchers, then the more horses that are gone, only means that more cattle can be run there.

Read Full Post »

BLM horses? photo

Read Full Post »

Doing Dogs Right

I was browsing through retrieverman’s blogroll, when I came to a link to something in terrierman’s archives. I followed the link to this:

http://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com/2005/04/guide-to-breeding-old-fashioned.html

Why would anyone want to breed “old-fashioned html”?

Jokes aside, this is a good article, although I haven’t ordered the book.

At first, I read it, thought it had good points, but was not what I was looking for, and clicked to go back to the blogroll on retrieverman, but while waiting for the connection, it dawned on me that this actually was what I was looking for.

What I thought at first was “This is about breeding better working dogs, and right now, I am looking for something to help breeders of showdogs to understand how to breed better pets”.

But then I realized that breeding for the right instincts in working dogs, is about the same thing as breeding to delete wolf and hunting/guarding/activity traits in pet housedogs!

Thanks for the link retrieverman, thanks for the article terrierman, and thanks to the author (Guy Gregory Ormiston) who wrote the book, and all the people between.

But I disagree with his idea on inbreeding. Instead of inbreeding because nobody near you has a purebred dog who looks like yours AND works like yours – be willing to travel far away to find what you want, or cross breed to a dog that doesn’t look like yours but works like yours.

I do agree with him that most people lack what it takes to train a dog, so breeders MUST breed dogs who already have the necessary instincts included and the unwanted instincts deleted.

It is even more true for housedogs than working dogs, because people who work their dogs often know something about training behaviors in, and suppressing unwanted instincts, but most people buying a pet do not understand. And they should not have to learn, because the breeder, who sells puppies as pets, should have bred them to be pets – dogs with the unwanted instincts deleted.

Which is exactly the point I was trying to make, that if you keep your dogs in concrete kennels, keep them all chained to dog houses, stack them in crates against a wall, or keep your dogs in cages in the basement or garage, then you don’t even know which dogs would be good housedogs, because the dogs don’t live free in the house.

You are raising dogs in one environment, and breeding them for that environment, but then advertising and selling the puppies as being good in an different environment that you don’t keep them in, and don’t know if they would be good in that environment or not.

Just because a dog is a good show dog or sheep herder, does NOT mean, that it is a good pet.

How do you know if your dogs are really good with children if you have 24 dogs in cages in the basement, and 8 more in the garage, and the dogs basically live in the cages?

A dog might be aggressive, but not bite when he is first let out of his cage because it is so rare for him. Or a usually friendly dog might bite when rarely let out of his cage – because everything is so new to him.

To judge if a dog is good with children, and if he would be a good house dog, the dog needs to be part of your family.

You say, you can’t let your dogs loose in the house because they try to kill each other, can’t be housebroke, tear up the furniture the moment you turn your back on them, and are not safe around guests or children? Then how can you sell their puppies as “pet quality”?

Maybe, although you have 20 or 30 something dogs, you don’t have any pet dogs, and don’t even know what a house dog is?

If you are looking for retrieverman’s blogroll, it is here:
http://retrieverman.wordpress.com/

Read Full Post »

Wild Horses 2

There was an issue sometime back on one of the list that I sometimes read, about horse meat. You might remember that the US used to have slaughter houses that turned horses into meat for both people and animals to eat.

Some people saw nothing wrong with that, other people were upset, but what got my attention was which people were upset by it. Not who I would expect, so I read up on it a little.

There are issues other than the obvious, involved in the horse meat argument:

1. Many slaughtered horses are race horses whose have been given chemicals which made their meat unfit to enter the human food chain. If they are turned into meat meal they could be fed to hogs or chickens, and that would be unhealthy for people.

2. There was a case of dogs who became ill after being fed horse meat, and it was feared that this diseases could be spread from sick dogs to people. It seems strange that dead race horses would be fed to live greyhound racing dogs, but I guess it happens.

3. Americans don’t eat horses. What happens is that tax money is used to regulate and inspect the horse meat industry but then the horse meat is exported. So the horse meat company is getting government workers to do some of the work, but Americans aren’t profiting from it – our food inspection process are set up to protect us, not to protect the whole world, free of charge.

It is to this last item, that I address the issue of cattle on public land, and do these cattle benefit Americans?

If the rancher pays a token sum (less than what a hiking club would pay) for use of public land, then I expect his cattle should feed America.

If his cattle are sold, or fattened and then sold, overseas, then the American public is not profiting from American lands, and our public paid food inspection process is being used by business for a foreign country.

If that were the case, then the rancher is getting the lease, but the end result is a foreign country getting cheaper beef. IF that were the case, then I would say that the rancher should have to bid for the lease and the hiking club should get to bid too.

But, it is never that simple, is it? While ranchers out west get to use public lands, small land owners who run a few cattle on their property each year to keep down the weeds and make a little money, have complained that letting the western ranchers graze cattle on public lands, brings down the price of their cattle, and they feel this is unfair.

Cattle raiser can be divided. Many western ranches do not produce ready-for-market beef. They run cows and a few bulls. What they sell are weaned calves, or not-finished steers. The calves are bought by feed lots and fattened up.

If you are a person who buys calves from western ranchers, you might like getting a good deal on calves, but if you are an eastern rancher who sells calves for fattening, then you are going to feel that the western ranchers get favors.

Back and forth, back and forth the debate continues.

Now about horses and burros on public lands. Don’t waste my time trying to tell me that they graze harder than cattle.

If the equines are in Public Park lands, where no cattle are allowed, then the equines are destroying natural habitat.

But if the horses are on land, where after they are shot, the only change is that now more cattle can be grazed there, then why shoot the horses?

So that a business man can make more money running more cattle on public land, at a lease price of less than what a hiking club would pay to lease the land?

Read Full Post »

Wild Horses 1

I found myself not in complete agreement with terrierman on the subject of feral horses and burros on government lands.

http://www.terriermandotcom.blogspot.com/
Sat. Nov 21, 2009 – “Sheryl Crow is an Idiot”

Not that I am going to comment on Sheryl – she can speak for herself – but I do want to speak about animals on public lands.

I love natural lands, but life just isn’t that simple, and neither is the “multiple use policy” of the BLM (Bureau of Land Management). BLM lands aren’t meant to just be for animals, trees, miners, or recreation – it is meant to have multiple uses.

I am NOT an authority, but here it is, as I understand it to be, with my opinion added.

Multiple use means the land does get used a lot – it isn’t treated the same way that National PARKS are. Traditionally public lands have been logged, mined, and had cattle grazing on them.
Today, the old policies die hard, but other people than the usual users of land are interested in it. People like to hike, hunt, fish, and play on public land, and some of those people don’t want the trees cut down, the land tore up, and they don’t want it turned into a feed lot.

That is part of what multiple use is. That is what land management is about. Ranchers are allowed to graze cattle, but not so many that the land becomes a feed lot.

Rules vary from state to state and depend on which agency controls that piece of land. There is federal land, state land, and various agencies control different hunks of land.

Hikers have said that they are legally permitted to hike a piece of land but have been kept off it by the person who only leases the right to run cattle on the land – not the land itself. And that those ranchers run many more cattle than what they are allowed and what they pay to graze there.

Ranchers have said they pay the full amount, never run extra cattle, and the hikers are a problem because they leave gates open.

I’m sure that there are bad ranchers and bad hikers, as well as good ranchers and good hikers.

Back to policy. There have been people who have wanted to pay more than what the ranchers pay to run cattle on public land, just to let the land lay fallow.

In other words, a hiking group might say that for every $100 a rancher will pay to be permitted to run cattle on that piece of pulic land, we will pay $101 to lease it, but we won’t run any cattle, we will just let the land recover.

It sounds like a good deal – but not to the rancher. The ranchers have said that being out of business for a year would be too hard on them.

People wanting the land to revert to it’s natural state view the rancher as selfishly standing in the way of a whole group of people who would have been able to enjoy the land for generations to come.

From the rancher’s point of view: he provides meat for the whole country, and a small group of hikers are selfishly standing in front of Americans and their food supply.

Read Full Post »

Meat

When I first got out of high school, I went to hear a Holy man speak. He talked about, how just by breathing, we killed tiny living things, that every step squashed tiny living things. I wanted to know how I could avoid killing these tiny living beings without dieing or being miserable.

He said “You can’t, but you are automatically forgiven for killing them, because you must do so to survive.” At the time, that seemed so wise and kind. But, as he pointed out, there was nothing I could do about it – so what was the point of his talking about it?

But I did know one thing that I could do, I could become a vegetarian. So I quit eating meat.

I never knew that I was an obligate carnivore until I actually tried giving up meat.

I had dieted to lose weight before, but this was nothing like that. It was a hunger that changed how I felt. Like a hungry hawk in yauk, I become more alert.

I could feel myself paying more attention to the physical world. Books did not hold my attention, walking and watching the world were the things that I felt like doing.

To just say “I became more alert” does not tell it like it really is. If you do not feed a lion, he does not become a sheep – what you get is a hungry lion.

And you can often see, just by looking, if an animal is hunting or when it is full and content. I did not feel content even when I ate extra potatoes and bread.

I felt restless, I felt like roaming, I felt a craving.

Not just like “Oh, I could go for an ice cream, or I’d really like Chinese Food.” But a hunger with direction that I could not dismiss. The smell of a roast cooking – I just could not ignore it.

It was a very unpleasant feeling – unless you like going through life feeling hungry.

Some people have said that they gave up meat, and it never bothered them. But later, I read in a book on anthropology about a man who lived with a tribe in Africa, and wrote about it. He said they have two words for hunger, regular hunger for calories, and another word for craving meat. I decided that I was not alone.

I decided that, although I love animals, I was not made to be a vegetarian. You can not fault the tiger for needing meat to eat, no more than you can fault a deer for eating leaves. Each does what they can. Each lives as they were meant to.

I don’t think I could have survived without meat. I think I would have become malnourished if I had not realized that I could not continue on the meatless path.

I do know this: Without meat I feel more like a carnivore, than I had with meat.

That may sound strange, but how many of you have tried giving up meat?

To both those who think that there is no such thing as a craving for protein, and those who think that a carnivore can be content without meat, I ask why so many Americans would not think of giving up meat? Is it because they have felt a touch of malnourishment before?

Other might say, that in their country there are people who do not eat meat. And I have a relative who was a vegetarian for years – but gave it up to get married. And another relative who was a vegetarian for much of her adult life.

But, for me it did not work out.

So am I less for having tried but failed, than what I would have been had I not tried at all?

Or am I less for having tried at all? Depends on your point of view doesn’t it?

I respect the deer, but I respect the tiger too.

Read Full Post »