Tasmanian Tiger

The thylacine is not seen anymore, but was found on the island of Tasmania, and was called the Tasmanian Wolf because it looked like a dog, and a Tasmanian Tiger because it was striped like a Tiger.

Thylacines were actually a marsupial like the kangaroo, and did, in an even earlier time, live in Australia. Today, the are found in Museums, where they are taxidermied (stuffed mounted skins).

Although some people place them in with UFOs, bigfoot, cupracabra, Nessie the Loch Ness Monster, and wild panthers in the British countryside, thylacines were real, and unlike the dinosaurs, thylacines were around running wild and in zoos until the 1930s and there are black & white photos of them.

One of my favorite books was one about jungles by Ivan T. Sanderson - Sanderson was quite the explorer and walked long distances through jungles studying the plants and animals.

Ivan T. Sanderson was a tropical backpacker before they had backpacks.

His travel adventures were at a time when travel was travel! Not like today, when you go to the other end of the Earth and they have the same type of buildings, the same brands of cars, the very same fast food restaurants.

He was also a good writer, and I loved his book. I was aghast to find that he also wrote on topics that I did NOT believe in, cryptozoology, the paranormal, alternate planes of existence (a religious belief to some), and things like that.

But since Sanderson, my hero at that time, had written them, I read them. And like many another person who eases into a new topic, I became interested.

I am still much the sceptic.

But I had enjoyed Edgar Rice Burroughs (Author of: Tarzan, Pellucidar, the Barsoom series -John Carter of Mars, and what was the one on Venus?) and I read crypotozoology the same way -

- like History as Fantasy for people who don't like fantasy, I view crypotozoology as Fantasy For Those Who Must Call It Science - until the subject of the Thylacine comes up.

The thylacine was real, it could still be real, and therefor, could other primitive animals lurk about? An occasional sterile cross between a deer and a horse, whose gametes usually don't unite? (unicorn).

A rare take between wild cat and rabbit, which drops out genes not common to them both, thereby producing a primitive beast?

A Lake Monster? ("Loch Ness Monster" - "Loch" is just Scottish for "Lake", and they name their lakes like we do, Lake Erie, Lake Superior, etc. So it just means: Monster of Lake Ness.)

Could two fish that can not normally be interfertile, be under the influence of a virus, and produce an occasional throw back? (A "throw back" to an earlier point in evolution.)? Sure.

Most of our old genes are NOT deleted, which is why some mammal fetuses have gill slits. The unneeded genes are simply turned off.

A "throw back" is a lay term for an animal whose old genes fail to turn off.

So, a "monster" need not even be an interspecies cross, just where a virus slips into an egg or embryo and 'opens a long closed genetic file'.

Thylacine:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tasmanian_tiger

Cryptozoology:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_T._Sanderson

Edgar Rice Burroughs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Rice_Burroughs
At the bottom of the Burroughs entry, you will find the pot of gold - The Gutenberg Project.

tip - Disney is said to be making one of the Barsoom novels - John Carter of Mars? A Princess of Mars?

The whole Barsoom series ("Barsoom is Martian for their planet, Mars) is very good, and as a series you might want to start with the first one.

Great stuff, would make great action comics or Manga. Full of other worlds. Much like Avatar?

Barf Dog Food

Can you think of a less appealing name for a dog food diet than "barf"?

When I first heard about the "barf diet" for dogs, I thought it was a joke.

It sounds like anorexic girls puking up their food to try to look like a bean pole.

Actually, puppies like to eat puke, it is what wolves feed their young cubs.

But the image of feeding your kids good food and them having them puke it up for the dog - it's just gross.

I'm not sure if wolves have some way of not puking up digestive juices too. That would not be good for the puppy's mouths. Would they have to really wolf the chunks down quickly to not mess up more delicate tissues?

But that is not what the barf diet is about - read below, several posts earlier, where I explain my reasons why, even though the barf diet MIGHT be good for your particular dog -

I wouldn't buy a puppy from from a breeder whose dogs needed a special diet -

And I don't think that breeding dogs with deficient digestive systems is a good idea.

Vampire Dogs

Did you ever think of vampires as nutritionally challenged individuals living in an era without nutritional supplements?

What would a person, a count with wealth eat, if he was dieing of malnutrition?

Might a person who found that he could not digest solid food, switch to blood?

Cattle or horse blood makes more sense.

There is a tribe in Africa, said to only swallow, water, cows milk, and the blood of cattle - which they get from nicking a bull and catching the blood in a gourd, and then stemming the flow from the bull.

The bull doesn't die - he is 'milked' for blood.

Many people could not live on this diet, as they loose the ability to make the enzymes to digest milk after childhood.

But what if a person lost the ability to make other enzymes?

The yuck feeling that people usually get from the idea of eating other people, might be a form of self protection - it is not safe to eat your own species, because their diseases become your diseases.

better dog foods

I once had two dogs of almost the same age. One was a purebred, the other was from the same father dog, but from a mutt mother, so the puppies were half brother and sister.

They were raised in the same environment, I kept them in the same environment.

I noticed that the purebred had looser bowel movements. The veterinarian said that some dogs are just looser than others.

I switched one of the most expensive brands of dog food. The purebred's dropping became firm like the mixed breed dog's always had been.

But the mix breed dog became so constipated, that I had to go out and get him a sack of regular dog food.

I like to free feed my dogs, and let them go in and out the doggie door as they please, so feeding each dog a different food would be difficult.

I tried feeding them separate, and mixing the new food in with the old food for the mixed breed dog.

The end result was that the purebred dog did great on the expensive food, she was lively to the point of being annoying, she had plenty of energy, she was vibrant and active, she seemed much more alive.

But the cute mixed breed dog, seemed depressed, less focused, less active, less happy.

I tried going back to the regular dog food. The mix breed dog perked up, became energetic, and happy.

The purebred did better on a diet high in fats. The mixed breed dog did better on a diet of high in carbs.

They needed different foods.

Barf diet.

Sometimes a person will find an amazing fact, and use it to jump to amazing conclusions.

Sometimes the jump to conclusions is more like transporting into solid rock.

People have made both good and bad out of the study of Pottenger's cats.

I found the link on wikipedia, while searching about the barf diet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_M._Pottenger,_Jr.
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raw_feeding#Pottenger.27s_cats

I understand that there is a book on it, but I have not read it.

I have heard lots of people talk about the barf diet - unlike what wikipedia says, I was told it stood for "Bones And Raw Foods" - but wikipedia is probably right.

The 'information' gleaned by some breeders from reading about this is that raw meat and raw foods are good and cooked foods are bad. Which then begs the question of why people have been cooking meat since ancient times?

History buffs, is there a recorded time, when people ate their meat raw?

Cooking kill germs. Pasteurizing milk helped end terrible diseases. You don't want to even think about eating raw pork.

On the other side of the coin, cooking does denature (kill or mess up) some proteins and nutrients.

Your body, and that of your animals, SHOULD be able to extract the nutrition that it needs from a variety of sources, including cooked foods.

But "should" is often just another word for "wasn't, didn't, can't".

We have grown crops that are bigger, more plump with starch or sugar, and who yield more per acre - but we have not increased nutrition, and have sometimes decreased nutrition of crops.

We have depleted soils, then 'replenished' them with chemicals that might lack nutrients, especially those not yet named, and those that MOST people or animals don't need.

If you read the links above, you will know that Pottenger removed the adrenal glands of cats.

Normally, such cats would die. But he got too many cats, and so did not bother to cook the food for some of the cats - and those cats did better. The raw food fad was born.

Does it have merit? Yes.
Can it be dangerous or deadly? Yes.

From Pottenger's findings, what would I conclude?
If your cat has had it's adrenal glands cut out, feed it raw meat and raw milk.

(And from common sense, don't exhaust a female cat without adrenal glands, by letting her get pregnant!)

His study has helped people with adrenal disease.

But, it has allowed purebred dogs, who would have normally died before being old enough to mate, to live, and pass their mutations to the next generation.

This is NOT to say, that the generation of dogs with ill health thrived, or lived more than a few years - just that they lived long enough to multiply their problem.

Would I buy a puppy from a breeder who fed her dogs raw foods? NO!

While some people worry about a dog that is eating raw meat, passing on bacteria to people, my bigger worry would be:

If the breeder sees that her dogs are healthier on raw meat, than what they were on dry dog food - then isn't she saying that there is something wrong with her dogs that they can't thrive on dog food like other dogs do?

If you or your dog are sickly, then yes, find help finding a diet which helps you thrive.

But I would not encourage someone to breed dogs that can not live on dog food.

Dog Food

There's a load of stuff posted on dog food. Lots of people will tell you their opinion. But what you need to know WHY a breeder feeds or recommends a certain diet.

I was talking to an older breeder of purebred dogs about the health of her chosen breed.
She mentioned a few problems, so I asked her about a fatal inherited disease that I had read was common in her breed.

She didn't seem to want to answer at first, and asked me a few questions.
Then she said that that was an old dog book that I had read, and that the disease USE TO BE one in her breed.

I asked about the disease.
It was a disease which somehow prevented the puppy from getting the nutrition out of the food that it was eating.

So that, while all the other puppies would thrive on what they were fed, the affected puppies would slowly die of malnutrition -not because the food was bad, but because the dog's digestion was bad.

Shades of Pottenger's cats!

I asked her when the disease was last seen in the breed.
She said breeder's dogs didn't have it anymore, but sometimes a pet puppy would still die of it.

I asked if a person could look at a litter of puppies for sell, and know which were affected?
She said that regular people could not, but that the experienced breeders could, because they had watched it develop and knew what to look for.

I asked if she would be able to make sure that I didn't buy one of these affected puppies, and she said that she wouldn't go shopping for a puppy with me, but if I brought the puppy over to her house, she would tell me if it was affected or not.

She said, because it was a nutritional problem, the puppy slowly got sicker and sicker before dieing.

I could tell, that she didn't want to talk about it, so I didn't push - the conversation was spread out through several conversations. But I did understand, by what she had said, that she must have had dogs that had produced affected puppies.

I got up the nerve to ask: "What happened to the disease?"

She pretended not to understand. I reminded her that she had once said that the disease use to be common, and now was rare. (The disease was 'cured' before genetic testing for dogs.)

She finally said . . .

A dog food company had come out with a new brand of dry dog food. And that affected dogs, fed this food, did NOT die of malnourishment!

So, the disease was NOT cured. It was just controlled.

Although I will not mention a product name here, it is a dry dog food that you that you can buy in most stores that specialize in selling pet foods.

The dog food is NOT marketed for dogs with inherited digestive problems - if it were, could the breeder you bought your puppy from recommend it, without your knowing that she had sold you a puppy with an inherited health problem?

The breeder just says that it is a good dog food brand, and her health guarantee is void if you don't feed this one brand.

When I heard this, I knew that this wasn't the only breed with this problem, because I knew there had to be a reason, like some cover up, for so many breeders insisting that puppies they sell be fed certain foods.

I know that some of these show breeders do not like dogs - they would NOT be doing it out of concern for the future of the puppies that they sell. (To some dog show people, the dog show is a game they play to win, the dogs are just something they use to win the game.)

But then I talked to a dog owner, and she said, that she knew someone whose dog had died of this disease recently.

I mentioned the expensive dog food. She said the dog was fed this, and it still died.

I went back to the older breeder, who said that yes the dog food would save the puppy, but after awhile, the dog usually died of it, and they never were healthy, even on the expensive dog food.

It seems the dog food made up for some of the nutrients that the puppy was unable to extract from it's food, but that other trace elements were not in the food in quantities enough to save the dog. The dog just died slower.

One breeder, at a show, said that affected puppies only died if pregnant - the nutritional strain killed them. (Blame the victim).

Another breeder said that male dogs died of it too. And that spaying, with the stress of surgery, and the sickly dog's inability to recover from the operation, would often kill the female dog.

I tend to believe the last two, as the "Blame the victim" dog breeder once told me that she had little trouble selling affected puppies (with a different inherited disease) because the people who bought the puppy did not know what to look for - they interpreted the puppy's lack of energy and pleading looks as a gentle puppy, not a sick and dying puppy.

And that veterinarians usually didn't know what to look for (like the rare disorders that Dr. House treats - the veterinarian might only see pets with this disease once or twice in his lifetime).

She also said when their puppy's disease got advanced enough and the puppy died, the owners usually thought the dog died from being poisoned.

And that veterinarians sometimes guessed this too, as the symptoms mimicked some kind of poisoning. (Veterinarians are not trained to do the advanced medical tests that hospitals can do for people).

I didn't think that was very nice. But to some people, it's great, they unload a sickly dieing puppy for good money, and then get off free. And nobody can use a dead dog for breeding, and thereby take customers away from them. Grrrrr.

If you think that is a rare case, then you have no idea just how many inherited diseases are in purebred inbred dogs.

Remember the experienced breeder might sell puppies/dogs nearly every weekend - the people buying a puppy might have never bought a puppy before, and might only buy a few dogs ever.

When a breeder recommends a special diet for a puppy, ask "Why?".

Know that breeders may wait until you have bought the puppy, and are leaving before mentioning the special diet the puppy should have.

If you say that you have changed your mind, that with this new information, you don't want the puppy, be prepared to hear the breeder say that she doesn't use regular a receipt, where she can refund your money and sell the puppy to someone else;

-she uses "papers" that only arrive one per puppy, and that she can't take the puppy back because it would take weeks to straighten out the paper work,

-and to get new papers for the puppy that you decided NOT to buy -

-and by that time the puppy would be too old to sell, and she doesn't want to babysit the puppy for another month before selling it - just waiting on the papers.

Might be best to ask the breeder what they feed their dogs, and why? Expect smaller breeds to often be fed more expensive dog food.

Just my opinion, but I'd question large breeds who have to be fed dog food that costs more than steak, or who can not be fed dog food and still survive.

How many?

According to factoidz 1,012,472 animals were used in research laboratories in 2006, this number did NOT include mice rats, and birds.

Although I had thought that AWA covered them all, factoidz says no.

Factoids also says the 2 biggest funders for this are the National Institute of Health and the Department of Defense.

http://factoidz.com/animal-experimentation-is-it-really-neccessary

I have heard that universities use animals. and that cosmetic companies do too.

I don't know if religion is doing it's job. I thought the idea of religion was to make people more compassionate. Guess I was wrong; it often seems to make people angrier and less tolerant.

Look where these breeders/dealers are: in the bible belt.
http://www.okpuppymilltruth.org/comparison.php

(you might want to look up you know which kennel club here too)

I thought that animals were only supposed to be used once, for one experiment, then found homes for - but without positive ID, those animals can be sold down the river again and again.

What? You think that the sort of person who sells dogs and cats into torture, wont re-use them?

This is a different civilization than what it was. It is harder to hide things, now that there is an internet. I think it would be best for this sort of thing to be more transparent.

There are people who would adopt a used animal after it has been experimented on - what was the survival rate for dogs?

And the companies could help by directing breeders to only produce dogs that would be re-home-able.

As for completely shutting down such things - you just about have to find an alternative first.

Where's my doggie?

Well, I wouldn't want a pet FROM at "class A" dealer/breeder.

But your pet doesn't want to go TO a "class B" dealer. Better off dead with a quick injection, than living the life of a 'lab rat'. Dogs are often used as 'lab rats' or 'guinea pigs'.

People have been trying to stop vivisection from the beginning:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_Dog_affair

If you have been reading, you know that one of PETA's latest is a months long infiltration of a University in Utah - one of the few states that still have pound seizure laws - a law which says that if a shelter receives public money, then it MUST provide animals to experiment type places.

http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_13861593

I am saddened that lost pets can be sold into places of torture and hell.

There are suppose to be laws. But who is enforcing these laws? The gov? Or does it look like PETA is doing the work?

And I have been around dog show breeders far too many times to be trusting. I just read that class B dealers are suppose to get dogs only from certain types of sources and under certain conditions - one of those is from the person who bred the dog.

Isn't that nice, not? And who would have the paper work that says that they are the breeder of your dog? Might it be the person who you bought the dog from?

Funny, I have heard dog breeders say that they only sell puppies with a contract that says the buyer must return the dog if the owner can't keep it anymore, BECAUSE, the breeder doesn't want the dog sold into research.

But if the class B dealer, is suppose to get dogs from breeders . . . just what do breeder do with returned dogs? There are plenty of dogs for sell on petfinders. Not many grown dogs for sell in the newspaper. Where are these dogs ending up?

A list of dog bunchers is good, but it doesn't tell you who is gathering up and selling dogs and cats to the bunchers.
http://fortheloveofthedogblog.com/animal-advocacy/dealing-in-dogs

A list of states that have laws that force shelters to sell dogs into research, and a list of states that forbid pounds from selling pet dogs into research, yields interesting results.

Look at how many are in North Carolina? Didn't know NC was that populated! North Carolina? that rings a bell. What is in North Carolina, something that cares about dogs?

Bigger Taboo than Dog Sex

Do you know what is a bigger taboo than exposing those purebred dog breeders like Pedigree Dogs Exposed did?

What is more taboo then showing breeding dogs with skulls too small for their brains?

What is more taboo than showing English Bulldogs that can't mate without a person helping them?

What is more taboo than showing bitches tied in rape stands?

Did you learn anything from watching Pedigree Dogs Exposed? If you missed Pedigree Dogs Exposed, it is online, in 6 parts, Terrierman has the links.
http://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com

I just read about an expose done by HBO, called "Dealing Dogs" - it's about Class B dog dealers, bunchers, people who sometimes steal dogs and sell them into laboratories.

http://www.hbo.com
(enter "dealing dogs" in the search - it has links to articles, the video itself, etc.

Would you rather buy a dog from a "Class A" breeder, or a "Class B" dealer?

Ignorant fool. Trusting naive puppy person. Learn and be ignorant no more.

Class A ("A" like in A$$?01ez) are people who breed animals to sell them to research facilities, experimental places, and Frankensteinish laboratories. Their animals are sold to be in the lab, on the slab.

It is worse than you think it is. Pedigree Dogs Exposed did not prepare you for the whole truth.

The truth is that the dogs are bought for experiments, and that the laboratories pay more for some types of dogs than for others.

Class A breeders supply animals bred for laboratories.

If a scientist in studying a condition, he wants animals that are bred to suffer from that condition.

If it is a lethal condition, affected animals sometimes can't be used for breeding, especially the females, because they don't always live long enough.

When two carriers are bred, only 1 out of 4 offspring will suffer from the condition.
What do you think the for-profit animal breeder does with the other 75% of the offspring?

What about when the lab only pays $25 for unaffected animals, but the public pays $350 for the unaffected animals? But 2 of every 3 of those unaffected animals, carry the mutant gene.

Everybody is welcome to their own opinion, many people believe that the unhealthy mutations in purebred dogs got there by accident, and spread through the breeds accidentally;

I believe in following the money trail, and I believe that when an industry pays more for mutant dogs than for normal ones, there will be people who deliberately breed for mutations, and middlemen who encourage people to reproduce animals with the desired mutation. It's what I believe, based on a few conversations, and slips of the tongue by show dog breeders.

Every notice how when you enter "Class A breeders", you get hits about type B breeders? Even Wikipedia. Taboo?

Is there any law anywhere that says that a Class A breeder can ONLY sell to industry? That they CAN'T sell extras as pets?

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2000/07/reitman.htm

http://wildwend.blogspot.com/2006/02/sir-maam-your-special-corner-of-hell.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laboratory_animal_sources

NBC today show, pedigree dogs exposed

For those of you not on the east coast, I can give you a heads up, If you want to watch a bit of pedigree dogs exposed and hear what it being said, there is a piece on it towards the very beginning of the today show in NBC.

I don't usually watch morning TV, figured that if it was advertised, it would probably be at the very tail of the show, turned it on after getting coffee, and the pedigree dogs exposed part was almost over.

Still, I heard enough to say that they are telling the truth, the guy talking seems to know the dog problems and speaks well, and they did have some high quality clips - but I don't know what I missed, apparently whatever was in: the video we just saw.

Remember tonight, Dec 10, 2009, pedigree dogs exposed on TV in America.