Fuck PETA

Finally a law getting things right. I don't know how these assholes became the moral authority on animal rights because their background of hypocrisy and attention whoring should have got someone's attention. But now - at least a real win for the animals. PETA's "shelter" policy of blanket killing of healthy critters has been revoked. Thanks Virginia.

The trouble with something having no value:

If you've ever heard the saying worked like a 50 cent mule you will understand that something with little value is disposable, usually readily replaced with another "50 cent mule." Which brings me to the topic of the most neglected animal in all of America. The cat. Cats are by in large worthless. They serve no value to humanity, all the touted benefits of cats are by in large lies told by cat ladies and shelter association ethicists. They tend to attract rats and mice rather than repel them. They are also next to humanity the biggest cause for extinction of wildlife than any other species on the planet. There is nothing a cat can do for humans that a guinea pig can't except perhaps spread more disease to humans.

To double up on it - cats are worthless. How worthless? Go to your paper, craigslist, or any other animal swap or shelter and try to find a free cat. How many did you find? Could you pick the free cat you wanted by color? size? age? At what point in the selection process did you actually have to pay money for a cat?

Here if I wanted a cat - I would never pay for one. I can get a free cat - contract free - any sex or color - any coat type - any age -spayed or not - microchipped - and vaccinated free of charge. There is literally no barrier to owning one because there are too damn many of them. As a result they are very typically treated as lower than goldfish and typically neglected as a norm. An animal which has value even if it's just a few dozen dollars tends to receive better care as a norm than an animal that is without value. This is evident in the surrender statistics at shelters and abandonment rates.

Where but in cats could I allow my free roaming pet to be killed in traffic, wholesale slaughter wildlife, be eaten by coyotes and raccoons, spread disease, and defecate all over my neighbor's property and still be an ok responsible pet owner who tells people I love my pet? It is a form of insanity which funny enough may actually be caused by cats.

Now before you accuse me of cat hate - I actually don't hate cats. I do have a fair amount of loathing for most cat owners.  I have compassion for feral and free roaming cats as in my opinion no domestic animal should live this way but there is not enough money in the universe to save them all. We continue to flush good money down a hole to attempt to appease insane feral and freeroaming cat lovers who think TNR is a solution when it has never solved the problem anywhere.

 So I have a solution for the cat problem -

Better confinement laws and mandatory ID laws.
Fine people for animal cruelty/neglect if their pet is killed on the public road.
Pet licensing/taxes based on dependence on the public dime.
Shoot loose cats preying on wildlife and encourage their take by trappers through a bounty system.
Poison feral cats with a species specific poison campaign.
Normalize cat habitats for those who insist on keeping them outdoors. It is after all the only responsible way to keep a cat outside.

Now I realize this post might not be popular among the cat lovers and TNR crazies but my solution results in less death and suffering in the long run than the continued cycle of abandonment and re-abandonment.  The life of a feral cat is a life spent dodging cars, disease, starvation, and coyotes and typically is a abbreviated one that ends poorly.

Why exactly are we here?

So another Westminster is behind us.

I find myself waxing philosophical about the topic as I place very little value overall in dog shows as the competition rarely has much to do with fair play, honoring good breeding, or even rewarding excellence. It does have a lot to do with income, posturing, and the pursuit of hollow rewards but that is a post for another day.

There was controversy in my breed. Seems the judge forgot to judge the bitches before deciding on Best of Breed. There are rumors of grumbling about this breech of etiquette and comments about demanding entry refunds.


Then there was apparently some surprise over the BIS choice. Once again a beagle wins- a beagle who has probably never seen a hare that wasn't stuffed and squeaked. She was handled by a handler and is co owned by three people. She is also from Canada.  A much made reference to Uno the previous Westminster winner who also probably has never hunted nor could produce get.Seems Uno is a decidedly sterile winner in a competition that is suppose to be for breeding animals for a purpose which seems to be breeding more show dogs.

So once again I ask myself, Why are we here? Is it to honor a dog who cannot hunt, who was decided best among dogs that have never hunted nor will ever be hunted over?

I frequently ask "why are we here?" among those who raise my breed which is a pet breed well known for being hard to house break, yappy, and brilliant in all training ways. You often see "reputable" breeders of these dogs with a household of dogs wearing diapers if they are allowed out of kennels at all but winning on the weekends. "Really? Why are we here?! What is this excellence and merit we're all blathering about?"

The work of working dogs

In the upper echelons of the dog culture in this country is the notion of working dogs.  These animals are spoken of as proof of their breeding program's success and further proof of the novelty that form meets function. This of course for most "working" programs is a load of hooey - their programs rarely meets the sniff test. There are thousands of people in this country who claim to breed working dogs - the grand majority of them rarely work their dogs and fewer yet select their dogs based upon that work.

For those uninitiated a working dog is an animal that performs a function in exchange for it's keep. Anything short of this is a pet with a hobby. The depth of the level of that hobby is entirely dependent on the owner.

If one sees a police dog - it is a dog trained to a task. If the dog cannot perform that task it is typically sold, retrained, retired, or euthanized. It is a true working dog with all the selection pressures that should apply to a working dog. Perform or perish

A dog running agility is rarely a working dog - unless it's ability to run agility is how it keeps it's home. It is a more often than not a pet with a hobby.

A dog that herds domesticated sheep around a round pen two days a month is not a working dog. It's feed bill is not paid as a result of the work it does. The dog that does this task day in day out in exchange for a spot on the farm is the working dog.

A therapy dog is almost never a working dog. It is almost always a pet with a hobby. If the dog fails at being a service dog it is rarely if ever a deal breaker on it's home.


If you do not select for a trait it is lost - typically within 2 or 3 generations. This means that dogs who are primarily bred for show are more often than not worthless in their professed fields. One only need looks at what is winning in labs to see a fat dog who has never seen a live bird let alone a freshly dead one. Probably has never heard a gun shot either or sat silently tucked under a soggy bench in a blind waiting for the ducks to answer the call. Most photos with show labs on a bird are labs with frozen dead chukars or quail - which are easily purchased as snake food at any pet store.

So my answer to where to find a working dog for you dear reader is to find someone who actually does with their dog what you are wanting to do and has a breeding program at least partially based on that function and preferably with a side of health testing. Use breed as a footnote to the decision because more often than not the right dog is the right dog irregardless of breed or how many ribbons that breeder has.

Mother Nature is a Cruel Bitch

Internet wildlife ethicist seem to like to dictate that mother nature knows best because she loves us. Reality is mother nature typically is a cruel bitch that snuffs the life out of most things in this world that is whelped, hatched, pollinated, or fertilized usually long before it has much of a chance at life. She doesn't love you or anyone for that matter - you and all other life exist in spite of best efforts to squelch out your life through starvation, exposure, disease, and pure raw competition for finite resources. There is no woods vet nor morphine for most wildlife big or small and most of these lives end out of sight of human eyes as even the car struck possum tends to die in the ditch.

This is the true way of the world. We all owe a death that we will pay if we want to or not so it creates some questions about how we choose to live and how we choose to die. It also creates some questions of what we kill and in what quantities. Vegetarians - you don't get off free in this regard. Habitat loss due to human population and the ever needing expansion of agricultural land is the #1 wholesale killer of wildlife in this world. This means every acre of farm land dedicated solely to the mass production of a single crop invariably destroys a habitat.

So if you care about wildlife and care about people there are a few things you can do. One is reduce the distance between yourself and your food. If you live in Colorado and your eggs come from California produced on corn from Ohio please reconsider your choice. Either raise your own or find a more local source. You can create one to two days worth of meals easily at home and a minimal of expense and space. Join a co-op and share your wealth if you have more space. For goodness sake - HUNT!, eat all over the food chain, and eat locally. Wild animals are one of our greatest renewable resources if they are managed sanely.

Second is to eliminate excesses and monoculture in your own life. Do you really need six acres of fescue? Do you really need a four bedroom three bathroom house for just you and the SO in your life. Build some wild areas of easy to keep wild hedge and productive borders. Enjoy the show of wild creatures.

Declare war on the killers of wildlife that really serve no purpose ie, feral and freeroaming cats and wild hogs. Next to humanity and pavement the largest killers of wildlife and diversity. Strong leash laws and confinement laws would be a great step followed by the outlawing of the failed policy of Trap - Neuter - and release and feeding of feral cats. Wild hogs can devastate deer, underbrush, bird and small animal populations and are best given no quarter.

The Cult of the Positive sets it's sights on a new Goal

I find myself with an eyeroll reading about the pure positive trainers touting the newest thing in gun dog training. The positive bird dog.

This is of course nonsense and people seeking to push their culture on a population that really isn't looking for help. These people never speak of conservation of the hedge and other areas where birds exist, they never speak of ammo, the gun, or the responsibilities of the shooter as a sportsman and a conservationist. They speak of the dog and pushing their philosophy on dog training above all else.

This all over one part of the normal training of gun dogs called the forced fetch or compulsion training. Without a doubt this topic is one of the most misunderstood in the dog training arena and seems to be the dividing line for trainers who work and those who internet philosophize to the masses.

So anytime you are getting advice from someone about these topics I would ask you to give their credentials and advice a sniff test.

 First sign you are sniffing bullshit is that they don't actually hunt with a dog, some don't even own a gun but they're going to tell you all about how to hunt with a dog. 

Second sign of sniffing bullshit is that their biggest fans and page spreaders are those that don't actually hunt with a dog. Most of them seem to own shelties and run agility or also are offering R+ gun dog training.

The third sign is that their proof of superiority is a non witnessed trial anecdote about the performance of some dogs at trial and how you can just tell who is training what style. A trial is not a hunt - and a hunt typically isn't about the dog in the blind.

The fourth sign is that they form their own trade club to espouse their moral superiority but lack any endorsements from any hunting related clubs, associations, or speak to their dedication to outdoor sports.

They promise the world. A dog ready to start earlier. A dog performing more reliably. A dog who slices and dices, calls ducks and shoots them too, all for the cost of a clicker.

The final sign is that they can't produce a video with an actual finished gun trial dog, a dog on a actual hunt, or a list of clients that tout the reliability of the dogs they produce in the field. Even a picture of a dog holding a bumper correctly and giving a proper controlled retrieve would be fantastic.

What exactly is a humane death?

So the topic comes up from time to time on a death being inhumane. One notable charge came about after public outcry after some crazy asshole blew up his dog. Now one could make the argument that this is a horrible needless death that deserves to be punished but I will ask the question what exactly are we punishing? What should this punishment look like in a just society?

Without a doubt this lab died nearly instantly. That is without dispute. This dog died in a shorter span than the average dog being blue juiced at the vet or gassed at a crappy southern shelter. Which begs the question of what is a humane death and what is cruelty?

My state is pretty clear that first degree animal cruelty is causing the death of an animal with undue suffering or screwing one or being a party to either of those actions.

The humane slaughter act requires either an instantaneous death or some kind of stunning before being killed except as religious exemptions are applied.This dog was not being slaughtered but again, instant death.

I'm not saying that this was a good thing  but our laws are pretty clear on what is legal and what is illegal. You do have the right to kill your own dog except as exempted by law as long as you use a method that doesn't cause undue suffering.  For the better part of the history of mankind this was done with a axehandle or a bullet. Hard pill to swallow for many but let's examine this pill.

Death makes people uncomfortable. A not pretty death or sterile death makes people very uncomfortable. This is the aesthetics of being in the first world where the best way to die seems to be in an opium induced coma in a clean music filled room. If death could be nearly instant and if you didn't understand it was coming is it really cruel?

I think the true objection is twofold - people abhor a waste of life. We can easily accept the mass slaughter of chickens, pigs, and cows because it serves a purpose. We go out of our way now to make the slaughter process neat and tidy and most importantly out of sight. Second is the idea of a messy death - even if instant is somehow more wrong than a sterile one even if it is out of the sight of someone else. Even if in a bed - the end is almost never as nice and neat as one would hope for someone they care about.

I am glad to say the loon in the story above plead out. I assume because he had either a lawyer who was either incompetent or thought the greater social good would be served if this guy never had a pet again. I don't say this because I think he did the right thing or did nothing wrong.  There is a ton wrong with this story from explosives to the end of what was described as a very sweet dog but the justice system is not a popularity contest.

Little white lies - aka the service dog dilemmia

In the course of my job every single day I encounter at least one maybe up to five dogs whose handlers identify as service dogs. Most of these dogs are more than likely fraudulent - fewer yet are well trained and most of their owners are not well enough versed in service dog laws to know what their dog must do to be considered a service dog. No I cannot tell just by looking - many disabilities are hidden and this is where the difficulties lie and the little white lies begin.

A person does not have to be diagnosed as disabled to claim to be disabled enough to need a service dog. This means that someone can suddenly come down with an arbitrary case of the disableds any time they feel like it to claim this "benefit" so long as they have their scripted cues in line.

Which are:

Knowing to identify their dog as a service dog and not a pet when asked. A service animal is not a pet.
Knowing that if asked they should be able to name the "tasks" their dog performs for them. The dog does not have to demonstrate these tasks for any idiot asking. Most places of business will not ask this - because their employees cannot judge if a task is real or bogus.

That said a service animal can only be a dog or a miniature horse. All other animals DO NOT qualify for special access no matter how much their owner insists on it.

Businesses are in the business of selling stuff to anyone who offers more money than they take away from their business. This is true of any rational businessman. Please remember this as you read along.

This is where things become a gnashing of teeth as service dog advocates like to bitch and moan about the fake service dog problem ruining it for the rest of "them" and businesses who just want to sell stuff and not have to deal with the bullshit that comes with service dogs real, fake, and the guy on the end of it's leash disrupting and harming their business.

This is the unpopular part where I tell you that some of the loudest service dog advocates for the most part of full of shit who want the attention of the drama of victim-hood, fake service dogs, and want to draw attention of their club/cause-whatever. Very little of it is advocating for real people who truly need help with access - if it was you would see a great amount more of help being offered for the things that truly limit access and more community outreach rather than focus on the dog, the businesses, and fraud. Instead you see howls of bad service dog behavior with accompanying cel phone video, pissing and moaning about the responsibility of businesses to enforce a perceived code of ethics, and what people perceive to be fake service dogs. Again, no one can just look at any handler dog combo and know they are fakes - being disabled doesn't give anyone disabled radar just as needing a service dog doesn't mean you are a better than average dog trainer or owner.

For businesses this service dog business is a real pain in the ass because you just can't win. Most of them probably wouldn't give a crap about a dog being in their store as long as the dog was well behaved, non threatening, and not damaging merchandise. The problem is when you mix food into your store you have these government types that will tell you that suddenly no animals allowed for health reasons despite their food being very well packaged to prevent contamination. So you tell your customers no pets in the store. Which means your customer suddenly has an incentive to claim Farkle the dog is a service dog so he doesn't have to linger in the car. Which means the store can continue to not care about these special "service animals" being in the store because the government is satisfied because they can't ask for proof anymore than the store can.

Which leads service dog advocates to get pissy about:
Dogs being in carts
Dogs sitting on chairs 
Dogs eating something
Dogs being poorly controlled on/off lead.
Dogs approaching other people (specifically them)
Fake service dogs

Just because the store doesn't HAVE to let you have your dog in a cart or on a chair and your dog should be able to navigate the floor in a reasonable manner it doesn't mean they are prohibited from doing so because most stores espouse good customer service above all else which means you bend yourself into a knot to supply comfort, information, and direction to customers. This means that if the store does not mind that service dogs can indeed be accommodated most of the time. Brace yourselves accordingly - they accommodate most meth addicts and dirty children too which are far more dangerous to public health than the average halfway groomed dog. So again, while it's bad manners- it is also not illegal and I would caution anyone taking a cel phone video for youtube it is also exceptionally rude to do that. Especially when there is no real harm happening directly to you. 


So lets deal with the harm issue which is mostly characterized by people or other dogs screwing with your dog. Yep, this can be a real problem.Worse yet is when they have a strange dog who just wants to be "friends." My advise is to treat this like someone walking up and personally groping you. Dirty looks and scorn along with a What is Wrong with YOU! can tend to get people moving. Telling someone to get their dog under control is another way to let it be known that they are invading your bubble.  Be your own ass kicker because the guy you scorn today will think twice tomorrow and a better world it will be. In the horrid event your dog is actually attacked by another person's dog. Step 2 after getting your dog and yourself to a safe spot is to call the police and ask them to treat this as a personal attack on you and if the law in your state allows insist that the person is cited for an attack on a service dog Step 3 is the sue the shit out of them for the damage and needed retraining of your service dog.


Finally the perceived harm of someone ruining this access for you. No, it doesn't except in the mind and there is no legal protection for being uncomfortable - unless it is to the point of disability. You are protected by law (period, no buts) therefore as long as you assert your right to access to public areas, reasonable access should be available on a case by case basis which means one guys assholery doesn't reflect on you nor can a store owner bring that restriction upon you based on what the last guy did. I realize that this is not a one size fits all solution as there are truly souls in this world who cannot advocate for themselves easily but again if a solution or mitigation is sought one will be found that can work for most people.