Good week so far

At the risk of jinxing it...

Sunday - Hubby and I went to a BBQ for families of incoming freshman for college. We even though Anthony is in Taiwan, and had a lovely time. People were great, kids were polite, the games of volleyball was quite competitive. An excellent day.

Monday - All my kids at the jail passed their CGC tests! 100% pass rate, first attempt for each, I'm very proud of them. The past couple of months I have been working inside the maximum security facility, a population I haven't worked with before. All are felony-level offenders, now learning all-positive dog training methods. And they're doing great.

Monday night we got a brutal thunderstorm, a free-standing pot outside had over 3" of rain in it Tuesday morning. But the storm finally broke the back of the heat we've been having.

Tuesday - Got a nice e-mail update from Anthony on his far eastern adventures, here's an excerpt:

i think the last thing i mentioned was the barbeque this past weekend. well, turns out it wasn't actually a barbeque (at least not in the usual sense of the word); rather, it was more of a picnic. only, it wasn't just albert, his mom, aunt, uncle, and me--as i discovered once we got there, we were tagging along with a group of people who were doing this as part of their preparation for climbing the tallest mountain in taiwan. oh, i guess i forgot to mention: we were hiking up to a waterfall, where we would then make lunch. which meant two things: first, we were going to have to carry all of the food we were going to make; second, that i would be carrying a disproportionate amount of stuff. so, after assuming my role as pack mule, we hiked for roughly 45 minutes through tropical rainforest. that is to say, take the usual heat and humidity one finds in taiwan, and then make it about ten times stuffier--absolutely no hope of a cooling breeze. at least it looked really pretty?

anyway, we eventually got there (i want to emphasize the word "eventually" because it took about twice as long to get there as it should have. guess i'm spoiled hiking with New Mexico family) and it turned out to be well worth the trek. granted, it was kinda like the waterfall in canada we went to in that there were lots of people on slippery rocks where they probably shouldn't have been (i think it was sunshine falls or something like that?) but the waterfall itself was incredible. just waves of cool water cascading down that dropped the temperature about 15 degrees and created a nice cool breeze. made me wish i had a camera :-/ regardless, we spent about 2 hours just hanging out there, eating and relaxing, before we hiked back to the parking lot, where we sat around for another half hour or so drinking tea and talking. oh, which reminds me. remember that last email i sent you where i was complaining about taiwanese and how it makes my brain hurt? well, these people spoke in taiwanese at least 50% of the time, which meant i usually had no idea what was going on. fortunately, when they were talking to directly to me, they just used mandarin.

Tuesday afternoon I took my car into the shop; it had been running very poorly at low RPM's. They had it all fixed for just a few hundred dollars, so now I'm set for my trip to Colorado in 10 days. And finally overnight it was in the mid-50's - now THAT's what it's supposed to be!

Wednesday - Had a new client whose Jack Russell Terriers are from an ethical breeder and gave my first 20% discount. The client was happy and the dogs were lovely - just what I would expect.

Tomorrow is Thursday, I'm spending the day with my Dad. Friday has a morning appointment, and Saturday we're all off to see the new Harry Potter movie.

Barring a catastrophe, this entire week is turning out to be a great one.

Wild Side

Out the car window during morning roadwork...

Today we went 9 miles, my beasts are rock-hard and rarin' for more.

Crows and ravens are everywhere, and they are HUGE.

FINALLY I spotted a rabbit before the dogs did; this Eastern Cottontail (note distinctive eye ring) hit the deck and froze.

I'm crazy about this guy - and he's crazy about eating cholla. Ouch!


These two are new on our route; if they don't gain weight over the next week I'll be making a phone call:



And finally, an experiment with the camera and this blog: a video. Not very exciting stuff I suspect, but I'm trying to figure out how this works. And this bull is just magnificent.

Wings

Time flies.

Seems like just yesterday we moved back to New Mexico and Anthony started middle school - it was actually 2003. And in reality, yesterday he flew to Taiwan for 3 weeks... a little graduation vacation and opportunity to beef up his language skills (he has a placement test in 5 weeks). His plane landed about an hour ago, so I know he's there safe and sound.

I was asked by a relative if I didn't worry about him being a stupid teenager on the other side of the globe. Sure, of course. But if he doesn't know how to make good decisions by now, there's really not a lot I can do to help him regardless of geography. I'd never admit this to his face, but it's his life and he's a grown up.

Just wish he'd clean his room...

Dog Days of Summer

We're coping with the hottest couple of weeks of the summer; days like this I do begin to wish we had a swamp cooler on the house.

Our routine is pretty dull: up at 5:30 a.m. to roadwork a couple of dogs, laundry, watch le tour, a siesta during the worst of the afternoon heat, and preparing an evening meal that doesn't require a stove or oven.

Speaking of laundry, over birthday cake the other night we had a long and lively discussion of various clothesline configurations. Amazing the creativity of my relatives with something so essential. Among the tips: turn colored items inside out so they don't fade; bang jeans and towels in the dryer on "fluff" cycle to take the hardness out of them; topsheets get a crisp centerline if hung with that objective in mind; using the winter sun to enable year-round use; various center-support options. I envy those with south-side portals; retractable wheels were very popular.

And speaking of roadwork, more wildlife for you. Driving along at 8 MPH makes for great viewing.

Mourning Dove

Turkey Vulture

no idea

Red-tailed Hawk

This young mule deer buck was a joy to behold.


This elk had been poached and dumped; despite calls to NM Game & Fish the carcass has been rotting for the better part of two weeks. I can not begin to describe the stench.

No pictures of roadrunners, cottontails or jackrabbits - the dogs go bonkers when one is sighted and I can't manage a camera at the same time. The jacks are in peak breeding season... hope they are making lots of babies.

Believe it or not

This is my very sweet and very white pony:

She loves mud as much as I hate it. I suspect her expression reflects her perspective of how much grooming will be involved to restore her to a presentable state.

Guess what expression is on MY face.

Google is a mother's best friend

Anthony's roommate and dorm assignment arrived via e-mail last night. So naturally, I checked the new roommate out.

Gotta say, while I treasure my privacy, it satisfies my maternal paranoia to be able to read up on Anthony's roommate in advance. As an only child, the only roomate he's ever had is Jake, his 8 year old border collie. This will be a big change, in a lot of ways.

Jesse's Facebook and MySpace pages are public, so I know a lot more about him than he may realize. I learned that he is from a small town in northern Illinois, got a 35 on his ACT, GPA of 4.71, and was his class valedictorian. Um, wow. And he has eclectic taste in music. Several pictures from his high school paper show a lanky kid with messy hair and an easy smile. Sounds good so far.

I have to wonder if Jesse's parents have googled my kid...

Cesar Millan

I was wrong: he's not dangerous - he's a criminal.

Hear me now, this is evil footage. Pay attention to the first 5 seconds - what the dog does to provoke the kick from Millan is subtle. And absolutely, the dog's reaction to the kick is extreme - we can only speculate as to the reasons. But it pales in comparison to the deliberate cruelty Millan then inflicts on the dog.

Strangling a dog until it is unconscious is right out of Koehler (don't buy the soft-pedaled approach of the website; get the book from the library and read the recommendations on when to "hang" a dog). And the rationalizations Millan gives afterward are so misinformed it would be laughable if it weren't so damn stupid.

Even the description "like a wolf" hammers home Millan's incompetence. Anybody the least bit familiar with the research coming out of Wolf Park knows what a steaming pile of BS that phrase is.

I'm going to go throw up now.

The last straw

OK, fair warning: I'm on a bender. Either settle in or move on now...

There are lots of businesses that offer discounts to dogs "adopted" from shelters or all-breed rescue organizations, no doubt to encourage people with typically older dogs to get a veterinarian's exam or some training or whatever product is on offer. (I say "adopted" because money changes hands; it's a purchase and let's be honest about that.) I'm a libertarian, a big fan of the free market; this is a capitalist society and there's no upside to being coy about cash. All of which is by way of saying: businesses can charge whatever the market will bear, and offer discounts as they please.

Here's my problem: Discounts available only to people that purchase dogs from a shelter or rescue organization is a reward for that purchase - and that reward drives demand, and demand drives supply. And the suppliers to shelters are not the ethical breeders of this world.

What set me off on this particular rant was the explicit message recently delivered to my face by a local rescue person, that - quote - rescued** dogs are better.

I was rendered temporarily speechless; when I recovered my senses I asked: Can you define "better"? And, what's the data source you're referring to?

It was her turn to sputter. Something about fewer health problems (which is bunk - even Hutchinson has reported higher hypothyroidism rates in mutts). I pointed out that the dogs I've gotten from responsible breeders come from parents with health testing, and a lifetime of support and information is just a phone call away. She had no counter. As she walked away I overheard her mutter to her friend that I was "that woman" with all the big dogs. WTF???

"All"? What quantity is that? And I suppose that there's a presumption that some arbitrary quantity automatically results in compromised quality of life. One dog in the wrong hands can be abused and neglected. A hundred in the right hands can be healthy and pampered. Numbers and size aren't the issue, and never will be.

It's about judging others by our own narrow definition of "right." And I resent the hell out of it.

If you want a random-bred dog with no health or behavioral history and no lifetime of support, then by all means go ahead and buy one. While doing so, remember that you are providing the market for the irresponsible and/or greedy bastards that produce them - which makes you part of the problem and not the solution. You may feel good for "saving" a life, and it's probably true. But it's also true that it's a free market, and how you spend your money rewards the behavior of the people who get your money.

So what behavior are you trying to reward? Ethical? Responsible? Or something else.

What am I going to do about it? Simple; put my money where my mouth is:

Starting now, I offer a discount to new clients that purchased their dog from an ethical breeder. All I need to see is a copy of their breeder's contract, stating they require the return of the dog at any time if the buyer can't or won't keep it, and the client will get 20% off.

Does that mean I'll never again own a shelter dog? History predicts that I will... and I recognize the additional burden that comes with that choice.

**Clarification: I'm not referring to breed-specific rescue organizations, or parent-club affiliated breed rescue. This particular person is part of a local all-dog rescue that tends toward random & cross bred dogs.

Duh

The Terrierman does it again, better than I could. Read it for yourself.