by Michelle Harrington
[From the Summer 2007 Canaan Club of Ontario Newsletter]
As a teenager I was the classic water rat. I worked in the evenings and on weekends as a swimming instructor and lifeguard and competed on the swim team. H20 was my life!I was always on the hunt for the latest hair and skin product to help alleviate the dryness caused from both pool and lake water.
One day my mother led me into the kitchen. Not one who was interested in baking, I was wondering if it was now the time I was to learn how to bake a pie. My mother handed me a big bottle of olive oil and told me to go to the sink. There, she drizzled the oil on my hair, massaged it thoroughly, and wrapped it in plastic wrap. She soothed oil on my hands and face and told me to go enjoy a book. Although the pages in my book became a bit saturated and the once a week wash cycle was less than pleasureable, the oil had restored brightness and comfort to my hair and skin the natural way.
Why "Oil up" your Canaan?
Essential fatty acids (EFAs) are vital nutrients that have an impact on both human and animals' bodies. EFAs aid in the functioning of the brain, cardiovascular and immune systems, gastro-intestional, and wound healing. From olive oil to flax seed oil, we can enhance the health of our canine companions inside and out, by introducing EFAs into their diets.
The following recipe is sure to bring a beautiful, soft and shiny coat on your Canaan. It does with ours. The recipe is from Andi Brown, author of the "The Whole Pet Diet: Eight Weeks to Great Health for Dogs and Cats.
Ingredients
5 ounces olive oil
1 ounce cod liver oil
1 ounce wheat germ oil
1 ounce flax seed oil
1 garlic clove, or 1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary
Instructions
Combine all ingredients in a blender and pulse for 30 seconds. Pour into a dark glass bottle or jar. Store in the refrigerator for freshness. Mix 2 teaspoons into your Canaan's diet. The mixture will keep for two months.
Friday, May 15, 2009
The Raw Deal - A Look At Raw Feeding
by Michelle Harrington
This article is based on interviews with the following Canaan owners who feed their Canaans a raw diet. Dionna and Robert Begg (Ontario); Cathey Dunn (Colorado); Jill Hillman (Indiana); Renee and Evan Kent (Rhode Island), Christina Miller (Australia); Larry Myers and Michelle Harrington (Ontario); Wendy and Victor Sanchez (Minnesota)
Feeding a raw diet is hardly a new concept. Well before the recent pet food recalls, there have been owners who feed their canines an alternative to commercial food products. Cathey Dunn has been feeding her dogs a raw diet for over 16 years. Although the raw diet is much more visible these days in terms of discussion, it is still viewed, for the most part, as controversial with much debate centred on the different “approaches”.
Why “Go Raw”
For some Canaan owners their decision to go raw is encouraged by the breeder of their new puppy while others are motivated by articles or books they have read. Renee and Evan Kent were in search of “ a food that agreed with all of the dogs that allowed them to maintain a healthy weight, clean teeth, and normal stool.” At that time the Kents had a dog who always had gas, greenish smelly stools, and looked thin no matter how much they fed him. In January 2001, the Kents switched to a raw diet and never looked back. Wendy and Victor Sanchez feel fortunate that they have obtained their dogs from breeders who also feed raw, “all of our dogs have been raw feed since birth.” Michelle and Larry’s Maccabee was on kibble for a year. Their decision to investigate an alternative to commercial pet food was borne from the fact of wanting his environment as natural as possible. “We had moved away from vaccinations and felt a raw diet was the next step.”
Illness has also inspired other owners to explore alternative diets for their dogs. Dionna and Robert Begg resisted the raw diet for a long while because they were afraid it was too complex. Then when “Tiffy” suffered from an autoimmune disease when she was about 2 ½ years of age, they decided to research an alternative to her diet and have been feeding her raw ever since. Chris Miller’s “Spock” was the catalyst that drew her to a natural diet:
“Spock was diagnosed with Lymphosarcoma early in his life. I wasn’t going to go the chemo therapy route, as Lymphosarcoma had a very high reoccurrence rate after treatment. I couldn’t change the diagnosis, but I could change the way I looked at a lot of my animal husbandry. This was the point that I completely changed the dogs’ diet to a raw meat based diet. I also became more firm on my stand of limited vaccinations for puppies and basically no vaccinations for adult dogs – only titer testing.”
Where does One Start?
Jill Hillman was inspired by her breeders Wendy and Victor Sanchez of MidSummer’s Canaan Dogs. Jill owns two Canaans, “Raizel” and “Shani” who thrive on a raw diet, which includes “BARF Burgers!” Working together with friends who are interested in exploring different lifestyle choices for their canines can also be very beneficial. Cathey and a group of her friends compared research and diets and purchased food together in larger quantities to reduce the cost. She like others also found inspiration in reading books, articles, and attending seminars by raw food practitioners. To further increase their knowledge, Wendy and Victor subscribed to different raw feeding groups: “As soon as we felt comfortable with the ins and outs, we began to make our own modifications.”
Different philosophies - Where do we go from here?
Some people follow the “BARF” diet by Billinghurst or other raw practitioners, like Volhard, Pitcairin, or Schultze. Not unlike humans, dogs are individuals and sensitive to certain foods. Most of the Canaan owners interviewed have followed a particular practitioner from the onset but overtime have modified the diet according to how their dogs adapt. Chris had started with the Vollhard diet, which later she modified into what worked best for her and her dogs. She prefers “a 70% meat to 30% bone ratio, but that doesn’t happen at every meal.” She also tries to implement offal at least 4 times a week into their diet, and likes to keep the meat sources as varied as possible.
This article is based on interviews with the following Canaan owners who feed their Canaans a raw diet. Dionna and Robert Begg (Ontario); Cathey Dunn (Colorado); Jill Hillman (Indiana); Renee and Evan Kent (Rhode Island), Christina Miller (Australia); Larry Myers and Michelle Harrington (Ontario); Wendy and Victor Sanchez (Minnesota)
Feeding a raw diet is hardly a new concept. Well before the recent pet food recalls, there have been owners who feed their canines an alternative to commercial food products. Cathey Dunn has been feeding her dogs a raw diet for over 16 years. Although the raw diet is much more visible these days in terms of discussion, it is still viewed, for the most part, as controversial with much debate centred on the different “approaches”.
Why “Go Raw”
For some Canaan owners their decision to go raw is encouraged by the breeder of their new puppy while others are motivated by articles or books they have read. Renee and Evan Kent were in search of “ a food that agreed with all of the dogs that allowed them to maintain a healthy weight, clean teeth, and normal stool.” At that time the Kents had a dog who always had gas, greenish smelly stools, and looked thin no matter how much they fed him. In January 2001, the Kents switched to a raw diet and never looked back. Wendy and Victor Sanchez feel fortunate that they have obtained their dogs from breeders who also feed raw, “all of our dogs have been raw feed since birth.” Michelle and Larry’s Maccabee was on kibble for a year. Their decision to investigate an alternative to commercial pet food was borne from the fact of wanting his environment as natural as possible. “We had moved away from vaccinations and felt a raw diet was the next step.”
Illness has also inspired other owners to explore alternative diets for their dogs. Dionna and Robert Begg resisted the raw diet for a long while because they were afraid it was too complex. Then when “Tiffy” suffered from an autoimmune disease when she was about 2 ½ years of age, they decided to research an alternative to her diet and have been feeding her raw ever since. Chris Miller’s “Spock” was the catalyst that drew her to a natural diet:
“Spock was diagnosed with Lymphosarcoma early in his life. I wasn’t going to go the chemo therapy route, as Lymphosarcoma had a very high reoccurrence rate after treatment. I couldn’t change the diagnosis, but I could change the way I looked at a lot of my animal husbandry. This was the point that I completely changed the dogs’ diet to a raw meat based diet. I also became more firm on my stand of limited vaccinations for puppies and basically no vaccinations for adult dogs – only titer testing.”
Where does One Start?
Jill Hillman was inspired by her breeders Wendy and Victor Sanchez of MidSummer’s Canaan Dogs. Jill owns two Canaans, “Raizel” and “Shani” who thrive on a raw diet, which includes “BARF Burgers!” Working together with friends who are interested in exploring different lifestyle choices for their canines can also be very beneficial. Cathey and a group of her friends compared research and diets and purchased food together in larger quantities to reduce the cost. She like others also found inspiration in reading books, articles, and attending seminars by raw food practitioners. To further increase their knowledge, Wendy and Victor subscribed to different raw feeding groups: “As soon as we felt comfortable with the ins and outs, we began to make our own modifications.”
Different philosophies - Where do we go from here?
Some people follow the “BARF” diet by Billinghurst or other raw practitioners, like Volhard, Pitcairin, or Schultze. Not unlike humans, dogs are individuals and sensitive to certain foods. Most of the Canaan owners interviewed have followed a particular practitioner from the onset but overtime have modified the diet according to how their dogs adapt. Chris had started with the Vollhard diet, which later she modified into what worked best for her and her dogs. She prefers “a 70% meat to 30% bone ratio, but that doesn’t happen at every meal.” She also tries to implement offal at least 4 times a week into their diet, and likes to keep the meat sources as varied as possible.
Michelle and Larry’s basis was also founded on the Volhard approach. Although more complicated (i.e. more ingredients) than a BARF diet, the concept of a “complete kill” meal made sense. The ingredients are to encompass the complete feeding of a killed animal. They too have since modified the diets of their Canaans according to how they look, feel, and react throughout the seasons. “Macc had demonstrated a habit of licking his rear leg during the winter months. He also resisted eating the raw beef. A section in the Volhard book suggested that he was reluctant with the beef as it was a “cold” meat. We switched him to a “warm” meat, chicken, and he eagerly ate it all. He also stopped licking his leg. We moved back to beef when the warm weather returned.”
Wendy and Victor Sanchez’s initial approach to raw feeding was based on the BARF diet but they also introduced modifications: “Over time we realized that our style of feeding evolved so much over the years that what, and how, we fed our dogs no longer fell in line with the Billinghurst model. After some research we made a more complete transition to the Prey Model approach which more closely resembled the style of feeding that we have graduated to over the years.” Dionna and Robert continue to stick with the diet suggested in Wendy Volhard’s book, but have also made some slight adjustments such as “feeding only one meal, reducing the amount of meat, and adding pumpkin for bulk.” These adjustments were made on the advice of their veterinarian as Tiffy needed to lose significant weight that she had put on taking steroid medication when she was ill.
Renee digested several approaches and decided not to follow one specific diet: “Being bogged down in details is overwhelming for me and can certainly intimidate someone new to the diet. I just feed mostly raw meat and bone and throw in extras and veggies when I think of it or when the condition of the dog warrants it.” While being educated on the different approaches, Cathey adopted her own diet based on the concept that “your dog should eat what he/she would have eaten in the dog’s country of origin.”. She believes that one should customize the diet to the dog. Each dog is different and has different dietary needs. Some of her Akitas love fruit cantaloupe, blueberries, bing cherries, and raw eggs, while her Canaan will not touch fruit or raw eggs. However, her Canaan will gobble up the fruit if it is ground up in the meat. “My Canaan Dog can be a very picky eater, and I will often switch her from one food to another, i.e. raw beef to chicken or turkey, more frequently than I switch the Akita’s food.”
Benefits of Raw
“Softer shiny coats”, “smaller non-smelly stools”, and “clean white teeth” are the top three observations that these Canaan Dog owners notice when they implement a natural diet. Since the stools are generally much harder and more compact on a raw diet, anal gland secretion is also more effective. For many, the introduction of chicken necks and backs helps polish up teeth nicely, and picking up less poop is always a welcome reward! “Enhanced energy levels”, “improved muscle tone”, and an “overall solidness of the dog” are other notable improvements that these owners proudly admit. Michelle and Larry need their Canaans to be in top shape for herding lessons, trials, and events so overall conditioning is very important: “herding requires a well-conditioned dog to perform outruns and cover great distances in the pastures.” They maintain that the raw approach aids in stamina and overall performance – and the proof is always in the pudding!
Owners also comment on the “reduced vet visits”, “minimal shedding”, “decrease in water consumption”, and the “eagerness of the dog to eat their food”. Cathey says she witnesses her dogs having “ a contentment when finished eating.” Chris loves the fact that her dogs have “better smelling breath, larger litter size and larger puppy birth weight and just an overall better wellbeing.” Wendy and Victor are enjoying the advantages of “increased strength of immunity, and vigorous puppies.”
The Importance of Supplements
For these Canaan owners the “complete” diet consists of various supplements added to the meat. Foods rich in Omega-3, which include flaxseed oil, safflower oil, salmon and other cold water fishes help maintain healthy coats, appropriate weight, and keep fluid in the joints. For digestive purposes, Michelle and Larry add apple cider vinegar and yoghurt to the meat. Vitamin B, C, and E in powder or capsule form along with Alfalfa and sea salts offer many minerals and essential vitamins. Cathey gives her dogs a tablespoon of cod liver oil, or a Thorne Super EPA (essential fatty acid supplement) capsule -alternating them, one day, the other the next. When the need arises, Wendy and Victor use probiotics and Vitamin C to balance the immune system in times of stress. Renee and Evan make sure their puppies get some Vitamin C to support ligament growth, and are “more vigilant on adding extras to a bitch about to be bred, in whelp, or nursing a litter.”
ON THE ROAD
Whether it is traveling for vacation, showing, or performance trials these owners try and carry out the same regiment that they would when their dogs are dining from home. Jill takes a cooler full of frozen chicken when boarding — she says, “It makes all the other dogs jealous!” Wendy and Victor take a lot of camping trips and find it easy to pack a cooler full of meaty beef bones and raw chicken. When traveling from Canada to the U.S, Larry and Michelle buy the raw meat in the supermarkets and pre-pack most of the supplements. They are still hoping that Customs won’t be too curious as to what the bags of dry herbs and white powders are. Chris tries to bring her own water from home or buy bottled water for the dogs. Being on well water, without all the added chemicals of city water, she finds it easier on the dogs to have their own water. To help out a nervous traveler, she also packs some slippery elm and/or yogurt in case they get a loose stool. Cathey travels with a plug-in “refrigerator,” which she can plug in to the van, or at the motel to keep everything cold.
When sending a bitch to be bred, Renee and Evan will send frozen raw food to the stud dog owners - if they don’t feed raw themselves. They believe it is tremendously important to their overall health and is one area they won’t bend on.
VET SUPPORT
Finding a vet that you are comfortable with and who is willing to work with you can be very beneficial. However, not all veterinarians are supportive of individuals who make the decision to go raw. Renee and Evan found themselves switching veterinarians. They found that their previous vet immediately blamed the diet for anything. They “mostly see the vet in the case of injuries or health testing for breeding and that’s it.” When Wendy and Victor lived in Colorado their vet was open to the idea of feeding raw, and in time he converted. Since moving to Minnesota they have found it more difficult to locate a good vet that supports raw but find it less necessary since they are comfortable with their choices and natural rearing philosophies.
Michelle and Larry actively sought out a holistic vet who has been great working with them to keep their Canaans “natural”. They also do annual titer testing to make sure of their immunity and to monitor any problems with their diet. Although Jill’s vet says he doesn’t’ like the bones - he would prefer that she ground them up – he hasn’t given her grief about the overall diet. He also says that her Canaans teeth are “picture perfect and clean as a whistle”. Chris’s vet in the Sstates was very open to her decision to feed a natural diet. Seeing the improvement in the overall wellbeing of her dogs motivated her vet to switch her own dogs and now recommends a natural diet to some of her clients! Cathey says she has two vets: one is the “scientific vet” and the other is the “holistic vet.” Neither vet has a problem with the raw food diet. She also freely states that the area she lives in is “very much into the natural and organic lifestyle and philosophy for themselves and their dogs (but of course not raw food, as in raw meat for humans!)”
“YOUR DOG EATS RAW MEAT?” - Reactions from the community and Family
When the supermarkets in Georgia had a sale on meat, Chris was there to stock up! The usual comment was “Gee, when is the party?” When Chris replied that it was for the dogs people either rolled their eyes or were genuinely curious. Since moving to Australia, Chris says that raw feeding is a natural way of life: “Every butcher has their own “pet section” with a variety of meat and bones. Many of the vets don’t even stock kibble in their practices. There are companies that will deliver fresh meat to your door for the pets. The kibble section in the grocery store is about ½ the size of what you would see in the states. It’s very refreshing to see a non-kibble driven pet society.”
Like Chris, other raw feeders have found people’s curiosity peeked, especially when they see the shape and condition of their dogs. At first, Michelle and Larry felt a need to justify their decision to go raw to others: “Since most people take the “tried and true” method of feeding kibble we thought we needed to show both why we were doing it and how well the dogs were responding. Now 3 years later, it really doesn’t matter what people think. We have a high level of confidence in our decision and the proof is in the dogs. Both are happy, lively and very fit.”
Dionna and Robert have found people in general to be quite curious but at the same time very nervous about dealing with raw meat. Their children, 12 and 10, think it’s gross! Wendy and Victor’s boys are becoming raw feeder savvy. Wendy mentions the story of when “one of our pups might not be fed raw in their new home, and the boys became noticeably upset. They asked me if I had explained to the new owners why feeding raw is better, and if I told them how easy it was to do. To this day they still worry about that puppy because they see how happy the pups are when they eat raw in our home.” Chris’s son Ethan has no problems with the natural diet for the dogs. However he was a little upset a few years ago when “Guinan” raided their chicken coop to bring back a fresh kill for her litter of puppies. When Chris explained, “that’s a natural Canaan Dog” he accepted the loss of the chicken.
Contemplating the Raw Way?
These owners will tell you that making the decision to go raw has been worth the research, time and effort. Dionna says “It’s not that difficult. Just get set up and go for it. It also helps to have a mentor that you can ask questions of.” The first thing to do is to determine what results you would like to see in your dog and decide if a raw diet would give this to feed in this manner have to be explored. This is not an exercise that can be done with half measures. If you want to keep your dog healthy you must look at the time, cost and dedication required.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Is Your Canaan Dog BSL Ready?
[This article was originally published in the Summer 2007 Canaan Club of Ontario newsletter. The newsletter can be found at: http://www.geocities.com/newsletter_summer2007/ ]
The rise in dog numbers has come with a price. Agendas are at work to take away rights from dog owners. These rights can be as simple as where we walk our dogs, or as oppressive as banning a breed from an area. And bans go hand-in-hand with death. Here in Canada we have had an example of this in Bill 132 in Ontario. Enacted in August 2005, this bill was to keep Ontarians safe from deadly “pit bulls”. Even though legislation already existed that would punish the owners of aggressive dogs, Michael Bryant and the rest of the torchbearers decided that the ultimate Frankensteins were the dogs. Caught up in the net of “pit bulls” were the American Staffordshire Terriers, the Staffordshire Bull Terrier, and the American Pit Bull Terrier.
Owners of these dogs were told to get them out of Dodge or there would be a reckonin’ at High Noon. Enforcement agents have been given KGB-like powers to seize dogs, and then force the owners to prove that they are not “pit bulls”. Of course, these agents of the State do not have an accurate description of what a Pit Bull looks like, they are working on the method of defining obscenity – you’ll know it when you see it. This has caused dogs to be taken from people’s homes and confined in Lubayanka-like facilities awaiting the hangman. And this scenario could play out for other breeds in the not to distant future.
Across Canada laws are already in place to restrict and contain vicious dogs. Only in a couple of cases is the definition of vicious actually spelled out. The area of Lakeshore has added Presa Canario to the list of banned dogs. Guysborough in Nova Scotia has banned “Pit Bulls” and Rottweilers, while Sherbrooke has enacted controls on Rottweilers and Mastiffs. And the new Sword of Damocles is in New Brunswick where the Restricted Dogs Act (Bill 55) pops up and down like a demented gopher depending on how the political winds are whistling at that moment. This stellar piece of legislation would place severe restrictions on the ownership of not only the dreaded “Pit Bull”, but also the Rottweiler and the Akita. A gentleman in Calgary had the renewal of his homeowner insurance policy denied “due to unacceptable dog breeds in the household". He had a Rott-mix and a GS-mix. A quick peek over the border finds bans on such breeds as Great Danes, Boxers, German Shepherds, Chow Chows, Dalmatians, and even Golden Retrievers. Dogs are being banned on the basis of what-if, not what they have done.
Even a cursory glance at the stats shows that the range of dogs that bite is wide. In Perth County, Ontario, dog bite statistics compiled since January 2002 show just 1% of bites attributed to 'pit bulls'. One third of reported bites were caused by mixed breed dogs, and the top five biting breeds were, in order: Chow Chow, Jack Russell Terrier, Labrador Retriever, Dachshund, and Rottweiler. Of the nearly 900 reports of bite incidents in Ottawa, Ontario for the last three years, only five were attributable to pit bulls. The largest number of bite incidents involved Black Labrador Retrievers and Golden Retrievers. Kitchener-Waterloo banned 'pit bulls' after 18 bites reported the previous year. During that same period, there were 85 bites attributed to German Shepherds. And yet the “Pit Bull” is the banned breed. In Winnipeg, after their breed ban came into effect, Winnipeg Humane Society Spokesperson Aileen White was quoted as saying, “It's certainly already proven within our province that if you ban a certain breed, the people that want to own this kind of tough looking dog, if you will, they're going to go on to the next breed," she says. "They'll just keep going down the list, until when do you stop? At what point do you actually stop banning breeds?”
It would seem that the “Pit Bull” is just a very convenient animal to ban. The image of them has been painted as the dog of choice for drug dealers and Atlanta Falcon quarterbacks. They show pictures of them chained up, snarling away, an obvious killing machine just waiting for the chance. They are supposedly genetically programmed to bite, maim and destroy. And with this Clintonian abstract of logic in place – I never had biting relations with that woman – all of the “Bully Breeds” can be compartmentalized and filed under BANNED.
What makes a dog vicious? Is it the breeding? Is it the environment? Is it age? Do the circumstances of the biting incident come into play? Ultimately there is no such thing as a specific vicious breed. In the United States, the Supreme Court has ruled that there was no genetic evidence that one breed of dog was more dangerous than another simply because of its breed. The fllowing organizations do not support Breed Bans:
The Canadian Kennel Club
The BCVMA (BC Veterinary Medical Association) and CVMA (Canadian Veterinary Medical Association)
The Canadian Safety Council
The Canadian Association of Pet Dog Trainers
The Canadian Federation of Humane Societies
The National Animal Coalition
Toronto Humane Society
Winnipeg Humane Society
Every provincial organization of the SPCA
The Pet Industry Advisory Council
The American Kennel Club
The American Veterinary Medical Association
"Singling out one or two breeds for control can result in a false sense of accomplishment and create a false sense of security. Of course, even dogs from small breeds can also bite and are absolutely capable of causing severe injury."
The American Veterinary Medical Association
If these organizations don’t know about dogs, who does? Oh yeah, the “Fiberals”. Dalton McGuinty and Michael “Dr. Death” Bryant have used BSL to deflect their litany of lies with the public once, they will do it again. After all, no new legislation needs to be enacted, just the old one modified. And they will look to breeds that are smaller in number, but have those qualities that can have them labeled as a killer. Prick ears are a good starting point. Those soft, snuggly Goldens have the floppy ears, and this makes them look so gall darn cuddly. Lean muscular bodies….all those teddy bear breeds have the nice fluffy coats just like a stuffed animal. An alert and watchful presence…not like those snuggly, wuggly Labs that follow you everywhere. So, essentially they will be looking at the watch-type dogs. We have already shown that neither the deeds nor the quantity of deeds is relevant when the Bryant Inquisition is on a roll.
Some people point to the breed standard for the Staffies as being part of their downfall. They talk about “Jaws well defined. Underjaw to be strong and have biting power…. should give the impression of great strength for his size, a well put-together dog, muscular”. In other words, traits that do not apply to a Caviler King Charles Spaniel. The Canaan Dog has in its breed description terms like “reserved and aloof with strangers, highly territorial, and natural guardian.” This could be interpreted as a defensive watchdog that will attack anyone coming into its territory. Of course similar things are written in many other breeds, but we are looking for those little needles in the 'Breed' haystack. What I would like to see is that no one gives them an excuse to think these things about the Canaan. Most of us want pets that are not a threat to visitors, other animals, children, or meter readers. So when we go out in public, we want dogs that will walk well in the park and socialize well at events without snarling at anyone who comes within 5 feet of them. The requirements of the Canine Good Neighbour programme are an excellent starting point for what we should expect from our dogs. You don’t have to take the test, but knowing that your dog could pass it should make all of us more comfortable.
The rise in dog numbers has come with a price. Agendas are at work to take away rights from dog owners. These rights can be as simple as where we walk our dogs, or as oppressive as banning a breed from an area. And bans go hand-in-hand with death. Here in Canada we have had an example of this in Bill 132 in Ontario. Enacted in August 2005, this bill was to keep Ontarians safe from deadly “pit bulls”. Even though legislation already existed that would punish the owners of aggressive dogs, Michael Bryant and the rest of the torchbearers decided that the ultimate Frankensteins were the dogs. Caught up in the net of “pit bulls” were the American Staffordshire Terriers, the Staffordshire Bull Terrier, and the American Pit Bull Terrier.
Owners of these dogs were told to get them out of Dodge or there would be a reckonin’ at High Noon. Enforcement agents have been given KGB-like powers to seize dogs, and then force the owners to prove that they are not “pit bulls”. Of course, these agents of the State do not have an accurate description of what a Pit Bull looks like, they are working on the method of defining obscenity – you’ll know it when you see it. This has caused dogs to be taken from people’s homes and confined in Lubayanka-like facilities awaiting the hangman. And this scenario could play out for other breeds in the not to distant future.
Across Canada laws are already in place to restrict and contain vicious dogs. Only in a couple of cases is the definition of vicious actually spelled out. The area of Lakeshore has added Presa Canario to the list of banned dogs. Guysborough in Nova Scotia has banned “Pit Bulls” and Rottweilers, while Sherbrooke has enacted controls on Rottweilers and Mastiffs. And the new Sword of Damocles is in New Brunswick where the Restricted Dogs Act (Bill 55) pops up and down like a demented gopher depending on how the political winds are whistling at that moment. This stellar piece of legislation would place severe restrictions on the ownership of not only the dreaded “Pit Bull”, but also the Rottweiler and the Akita. A gentleman in Calgary had the renewal of his homeowner insurance policy denied “due to unacceptable dog breeds in the household". He had a Rott-mix and a GS-mix. A quick peek over the border finds bans on such breeds as Great Danes, Boxers, German Shepherds, Chow Chows, Dalmatians, and even Golden Retrievers. Dogs are being banned on the basis of what-if, not what they have done.
Even a cursory glance at the stats shows that the range of dogs that bite is wide. In Perth County, Ontario, dog bite statistics compiled since January 2002 show just 1% of bites attributed to 'pit bulls'. One third of reported bites were caused by mixed breed dogs, and the top five biting breeds were, in order: Chow Chow, Jack Russell Terrier, Labrador Retriever, Dachshund, and Rottweiler. Of the nearly 900 reports of bite incidents in Ottawa, Ontario for the last three years, only five were attributable to pit bulls. The largest number of bite incidents involved Black Labrador Retrievers and Golden Retrievers. Kitchener-Waterloo banned 'pit bulls' after 18 bites reported the previous year. During that same period, there were 85 bites attributed to German Shepherds. And yet the “Pit Bull” is the banned breed. In Winnipeg, after their breed ban came into effect, Winnipeg Humane Society Spokesperson Aileen White was quoted as saying, “It's certainly already proven within our province that if you ban a certain breed, the people that want to own this kind of tough looking dog, if you will, they're going to go on to the next breed," she says. "They'll just keep going down the list, until when do you stop? At what point do you actually stop banning breeds?”
It would seem that the “Pit Bull” is just a very convenient animal to ban. The image of them has been painted as the dog of choice for drug dealers and Atlanta Falcon quarterbacks. They show pictures of them chained up, snarling away, an obvious killing machine just waiting for the chance. They are supposedly genetically programmed to bite, maim and destroy. And with this Clintonian abstract of logic in place – I never had biting relations with that woman – all of the “Bully Breeds” can be compartmentalized and filed under BANNED.
What makes a dog vicious? Is it the breeding? Is it the environment? Is it age? Do the circumstances of the biting incident come into play? Ultimately there is no such thing as a specific vicious breed. In the United States, the Supreme Court has ruled that there was no genetic evidence that one breed of dog was more dangerous than another simply because of its breed. The fllowing organizations do not support Breed Bans:
The Canadian Kennel Club
The BCVMA (BC Veterinary Medical Association) and CVMA (Canadian Veterinary Medical Association)
The Canadian Safety Council
The Canadian Association of Pet Dog Trainers
The Canadian Federation of Humane Societies
The National Animal Coalition
Toronto Humane Society
Winnipeg Humane Society
Every provincial organization of the SPCA
The Pet Industry Advisory Council
The American Kennel Club
The American Veterinary Medical Association
"Singling out one or two breeds for control can result in a false sense of accomplishment and create a false sense of security. Of course, even dogs from small breeds can also bite and are absolutely capable of causing severe injury."
The American Veterinary Medical Association
If these organizations don’t know about dogs, who does? Oh yeah, the “Fiberals”. Dalton McGuinty and Michael “Dr. Death” Bryant have used BSL to deflect their litany of lies with the public once, they will do it again. After all, no new legislation needs to be enacted, just the old one modified. And they will look to breeds that are smaller in number, but have those qualities that can have them labeled as a killer. Prick ears are a good starting point. Those soft, snuggly Goldens have the floppy ears, and this makes them look so gall darn cuddly. Lean muscular bodies….all those teddy bear breeds have the nice fluffy coats just like a stuffed animal. An alert and watchful presence…not like those snuggly, wuggly Labs that follow you everywhere. So, essentially they will be looking at the watch-type dogs. We have already shown that neither the deeds nor the quantity of deeds is relevant when the Bryant Inquisition is on a roll.
Some people point to the breed standard for the Staffies as being part of their downfall. They talk about “Jaws well defined. Underjaw to be strong and have biting power…. should give the impression of great strength for his size, a well put-together dog, muscular”. In other words, traits that do not apply to a Caviler King Charles Spaniel. The Canaan Dog has in its breed description terms like “reserved and aloof with strangers, highly territorial, and natural guardian.” This could be interpreted as a defensive watchdog that will attack anyone coming into its territory. Of course similar things are written in many other breeds, but we are looking for those little needles in the 'Breed' haystack. What I would like to see is that no one gives them an excuse to think these things about the Canaan. Most of us want pets that are not a threat to visitors, other animals, children, or meter readers. So when we go out in public, we want dogs that will walk well in the park and socialize well at events without snarling at anyone who comes within 5 feet of them. The requirements of the Canine Good Neighbour programme are an excellent starting point for what we should expect from our dogs. You don’t have to take the test, but knowing that your dog could pass it should make all of us more comfortable.
Epigenetics - The Science of Change
This article first appeared in the Canaan Club of Ontario Summer 2007 newsletter. The link to the newsletter is:
http://www.geocities.com/sufatshelegcanaandogs/CCO_Newsletters.html
Epigenetics is a term found in biology to refer to alterations in chromatin and DNA after cell division but do not involve changes in the underlying DNA sequence of the organism. These modifications may explain why one individual may be struck with cancer while another is spared. These epigenetic changes play a role in the process of cellular differentiation, allowing cells to stably maintain different characteristics despite containing the same genomic material. Researchers in Spain focused on two biological mechanisms that influence gene activity. In one, called DNA methylation, enzymes inside a cell attach a miniscule molecular enhancement to a gene to deactivate it. In the other, called histone acetylation, a dormant gene is made active again.These altered genetic settings can last a lifetime and be important if, say, the gene turned off is the one that protects against cancer. Environmental factors, such as exposure to pollutants, consumption of certain foods, or even powerful emotional experiences can produce changes to a person’s DNA. These epigenetic features are inherited when the cells divide, and some of the features can be inherited from one generation to the next.
From a canine point of view, we can use this as a reference toward the factors that most intensely affect them. The true effects of vaccinations then may go beyond events like vaccinosis. Studies at Purdue showed that vaccinated dogs were developing autoantibodies to many of their own biochemicals, including fibronectin, laminin, cardiolipin, and collagen.
Fibronectin is involved in tissue repair, cell multiplication and growth, and differentiation between tissues and organs in a living organism. Laminin is a component of many cellular activities including the adhesion, spreading, differentiation, proliferation, and movement of cells. Anti-cardiolipin antibodies are associated with clots within the heart or blood vessels, in poor blood clotting, hemorrhaging, bleeding into the skin, fetal loss, and neurological conditions. Vaccinated dogs were also developing autoantibodies to their own collagen. About one quarter of all the protein in the body is collagen. It protects and supports the softer tissues and connects them to the skeleton to provide structure to bodies.
Vaccinations are at the top of the list of factors to affect a dog. But what about diet and quality of life? To say that kibble is bad for the dog would be an understatement. The ingredients in most kibble are so highly questionable that you may as well feed the dog sawdust. A lack of proper vitamins and minerals is only one problem with this type of diet.
As to the quality of life, we should be able to note in ourselves how we stagnate when we are inactive. A sedentary lifestyle affects our moods, motivation, drive and ambition. If a dog lives in a stressful environment with little exercise, does this turn on a marker in their DNA? And what about dogs that were bred for a specific purpose, but are never allowed to participate in that activity?
Cancer is the number one killer of dogs. The rate is much higher than for other mammals. There seems to be a cruel parallel between the rise in the incidence of canine cancers and the same trend in human cancers. Cancer in dogs was pretty rare not so long ago. Now Osteosarcoma and Lymphoma are becoming increasingly commonplace followed closely by a rise in Fibrosarcoma, Melanoma, Thyroid and Anal Gland Carcinoma.
In the case of domesticated dogs, cancer is on the rise, developmental disorders are commonplace, life expectancy is shortening and domestic dogs are more fragile and more expensive to maintain nowadays than ever before. There has also been a massive international industry built up around processed dog food, health treatments, and more recently 'snack foods' for our dogs, which is in very spooky juxtaposition to the same trends in our own lives.
Dogs nowadays don't get to eat much raw or ripening meat and don't get to eat many bones. They don't get to catch their own prey or scavenge for food. They don't eat the raw stomach contents of dead animals. Nowadays they only ever get to eat (gulp actually) cooked, commercial feeds, table scraps with a little raw meat, if they are lucky.
Are there correlations between the rise of vaccinations and the rise of hip dyplasia? As the studies at Purdue show, collagen is affected by vaccinations. Collagen is a component of joints. Maybe it is not just autoimmune systems that are affected.
As the Canaan is still such a natural dog, are we confusing their systems even more when we expose them to unnatural elements? When looking at causes, we must examine these elements in the context of a lifestyle measurement. Each piece can affect the whole.
References
Effects Of Vaccination On The Endocrine And Immune Systems of Dogs, Phase II
Drs. Harm HogenEsch and Larry T. Glickman, Purdue University, November 1, 1999
Epigenetic differences arise during the lifetime of monozygotic twins
Mario F. Fraga, Esteban Ballestar, et al., Spanish National Cancer Centre (CNIO), January 17, 2005
http://www.geocities.com/sufatshelegcanaandogs/CCO_Newsletters.html
Epigenetics is a term found in biology to refer to alterations in chromatin and DNA after cell division but do not involve changes in the underlying DNA sequence of the organism. These modifications may explain why one individual may be struck with cancer while another is spared. These epigenetic changes play a role in the process of cellular differentiation, allowing cells to stably maintain different characteristics despite containing the same genomic material. Researchers in Spain focused on two biological mechanisms that influence gene activity. In one, called DNA methylation, enzymes inside a cell attach a miniscule molecular enhancement to a gene to deactivate it. In the other, called histone acetylation, a dormant gene is made active again.These altered genetic settings can last a lifetime and be important if, say, the gene turned off is the one that protects against cancer. Environmental factors, such as exposure to pollutants, consumption of certain foods, or even powerful emotional experiences can produce changes to a person’s DNA. These epigenetic features are inherited when the cells divide, and some of the features can be inherited from one generation to the next.
From a canine point of view, we can use this as a reference toward the factors that most intensely affect them. The true effects of vaccinations then may go beyond events like vaccinosis. Studies at Purdue showed that vaccinated dogs were developing autoantibodies to many of their own biochemicals, including fibronectin, laminin, cardiolipin, and collagen.
Fibronectin is involved in tissue repair, cell multiplication and growth, and differentiation between tissues and organs in a living organism. Laminin is a component of many cellular activities including the adhesion, spreading, differentiation, proliferation, and movement of cells. Anti-cardiolipin antibodies are associated with clots within the heart or blood vessels, in poor blood clotting, hemorrhaging, bleeding into the skin, fetal loss, and neurological conditions. Vaccinated dogs were also developing autoantibodies to their own collagen. About one quarter of all the protein in the body is collagen. It protects and supports the softer tissues and connects them to the skeleton to provide structure to bodies.
Vaccinations are at the top of the list of factors to affect a dog. But what about diet and quality of life? To say that kibble is bad for the dog would be an understatement. The ingredients in most kibble are so highly questionable that you may as well feed the dog sawdust. A lack of proper vitamins and minerals is only one problem with this type of diet.
As to the quality of life, we should be able to note in ourselves how we stagnate when we are inactive. A sedentary lifestyle affects our moods, motivation, drive and ambition. If a dog lives in a stressful environment with little exercise, does this turn on a marker in their DNA? And what about dogs that were bred for a specific purpose, but are never allowed to participate in that activity?
Cancer is the number one killer of dogs. The rate is much higher than for other mammals. There seems to be a cruel parallel between the rise in the incidence of canine cancers and the same trend in human cancers. Cancer in dogs was pretty rare not so long ago. Now Osteosarcoma and Lymphoma are becoming increasingly commonplace followed closely by a rise in Fibrosarcoma, Melanoma, Thyroid and Anal Gland Carcinoma.
In the case of domesticated dogs, cancer is on the rise, developmental disorders are commonplace, life expectancy is shortening and domestic dogs are more fragile and more expensive to maintain nowadays than ever before. There has also been a massive international industry built up around processed dog food, health treatments, and more recently 'snack foods' for our dogs, which is in very spooky juxtaposition to the same trends in our own lives.
Dogs nowadays don't get to eat much raw or ripening meat and don't get to eat many bones. They don't get to catch their own prey or scavenge for food. They don't eat the raw stomach contents of dead animals. Nowadays they only ever get to eat (gulp actually) cooked, commercial feeds, table scraps with a little raw meat, if they are lucky.
Are there correlations between the rise of vaccinations and the rise of hip dyplasia? As the studies at Purdue show, collagen is affected by vaccinations. Collagen is a component of joints. Maybe it is not just autoimmune systems that are affected.
As the Canaan is still such a natural dog, are we confusing their systems even more when we expose them to unnatural elements? When looking at causes, we must examine these elements in the context of a lifestyle measurement. Each piece can affect the whole.
References
Effects Of Vaccination On The Endocrine And Immune Systems of Dogs, Phase II
Drs. Harm HogenEsch and Larry T. Glickman, Purdue University, November 1, 1999
Epigenetic differences arise during the lifetime of monozygotic twins
Mario F. Fraga, Esteban Ballestar, et al., Spanish National Cancer Centre (CNIO), January 17, 2005
ILPs – The Diminishing Value of Pedigrees
[This article was first printed in the Canaan Club of Ontario Winter 2007 newsletter - copies of the newsletter are available by contacting Michelle at sufat.sheleg@gmail.com ]
Talk about losing focus…or is it just a sign of the times. It would appear that what a dog does is nowhere near as important as how pretty they are. We have all seen how the AKC is quite content to sell out its small breeders, as demonstrated by the infamous PAWS legislation. Without the board’s support this obsequious piece of “law” would have died an ignoble death and maybe helped quicken the departure of Senator Santorum. On one hand they are “saving” dogs from the hands of all those evil puppy-millers, much the same way that our past government was saving all of us from illegal guns. PAWS requires the onerous registration of litters from the very heart-and-soul breeders of each type of dog, and by focusing the light on them they will be able to stamp out the mills. And this works how? Well, the same way that by registering lawful gun owners in Canada, the criminals will stop using guns. Gives logic an entirely new meaning.
But back to Form over Function, the AKC way. Our canine chums have been enduring our clumsy attempts at civilization for thousands of years. Talk about patience. They probably discuss among themselves how different things would be if they were the ones with opposable thumbs. But we have stumbled along on our hind legs and somehow managed to get ourselves to a point of time where we have lawyers setting our standards and 15-second TV soundbites setting our agendas. Are we off base!!
And all the way along Fido has been there to perform whatever task we have asked of them. Of course this was never enough for us. Despite Fido’s ability to outperform our senses at every turn, we decided that we needed to improve him. So we shortened him; we made him bigger; we grew his nose, or shrunk his face. And if breeding new “qualities” into him wasn’t enough, we then performed surgery on him by chopping off his tail or forcing his ears to stand up…. the floppy ears were also our contribution to him. So in the name of improving his performance in some specified task we make Fido shape-shift. All well and good, right? We now have dedicated dogs for smelling, guarding, running, herding, or being stuck in some Hollywierdo’s purse. But Fido has a job. He has a purpose, right? Well, back to that sign-of-the-times thing. Yes, we do still need some dogs to perform tasks, but we are also in a boom period of having dogs that don’t do anything. Of course there are those pesky tennis balls in the park that keep getting away, but Fido has become little more that a four-legged lawn jockey in most households.
Well, the AKC recognized that it needed to change its original mandate, that of being a Registry for certain approved breeds. People meticulously kept records of sires and dams through the years so that AKC could put a stamp of pur laine on the descendants. That is what a Registry is for, is it not? And people pay good money for a dog that is part of that Registry. It gives the dog legitimacy in the breed, and this verification comes from having some sort of identification on their bodies. By and large tattoos have been replaced by microchips, and dogs are still grateful to us for not implementing branding.
So there is the AKC with all of these dogs registered, and people are examining the registry so that they know whom to breed with whom. And why is this important? Well, in the 1880s when the first meetings of the AKC occurred, shows were set up to represent various breeds that had jobs! The organizers wanted the dogs that were tops in their performance fields to show. This is where the conformation side came in. The dog with the best conformation of his breed would be the one to best perform the task for which they were bred. Thus, breeders sought out the owners of the top male to stud to their females, and hopefully produce litters of future field champions or herding experts.
Back to that sign-of-the-times thing. Fido no longer has a job. Most people do not keep sheep. Hunting is not as prevalent as it once was, primarily because we now forage at supermarkets. Guard dogs are replaced by home security systems. And bull baiting is an absolute no-no. So the reason for the conformation shows shifts. It evolves. And Fido is again not good enough. We start to make him different colours; we make his coat grow; we even start to increase the number of recognized breeds because the North American ones are not unique enough. But suffice it to say that the focus has shifted, and what Fido can do plays second fiddle to how he looks.
And with their $35 You-Name-It-We-Will-Register-It program the AKC confirms this position. They, of course, have a fancier name for it, complete with the requisite acronym. It is the Indefinite Listing Privilege, or ILP. Now for a $35 nonrefundable fee and some good lighting, you can send in photographic proof to the AKC that that little pound-puppy you picked up is a purebred something-or-other. And their skilled judges of canine flesh will give you the big old Nero-ish thumb up or down. Now you say, well surely the people in employ of the Venerable Ole’ Registry will not want to bring recognition to any dogs that will cast aspersions on a certain breed. They will debate, analyze, debate some more, and in the end come up with the correct decision. Yeah right…. for $35 we are lucky if they deign to open the envelope. The AKC wants lots of these ILPs to come aboard. And why is this a good thing for the AKC…money!!!
First off, let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that their coin does have a pass side and a fail side. So let’s make the big assumption (you know what assuming does for you) that they reject 50% of the applications. In 2001, the AKC granted divine-right-of-breed-name to over 2000 dogs. At $35 a crack that’s over $70,000. But wait…didn’t we say that 50% of the potential heirs-to-the-throne would be rejected. And their fee was nonrefundable. So the AKC would have added over $140,000 to the coffers just for telling people that the $50 puppy in the pound window was or was not descended from kings. Makes one almost happy to get mail. Ok, so why does this population explosion of the AKC registry make the board members do their happy dances? Because the AKC is also making money from giving out titles to sports that dogs perform. So they have dogs jump and run and chase and herd, and other things that dogs are very good at, and some are better at than others because of, you guessed it, their conformation. Now greyhounds can get recognition from the Venerable Ole’ Registry for chasing simulated rabbits in real fields and GSDs can be titled for herding real sheep in simulated pastures. And the AKC gets money from all of the registrations for these trials.
They are quick to note on the promo page for ILPs that in 2001, the same year they registered over 2000 new “purebred” dogs, they also issued over 2000 new titles to ILP bluebloods. Rough math on that, with 3 legs needed for each title, and maybe 4 attempts to succeed 3 times (these ILPs are quick learning social climbers), those 2000 titles would have generated in the neighbourhood of $240,000. Not bad chunk of change so that these nouveau canine elites could put a letter or 3 after their names.
So now that we have shown that the AKC is really in the business of printing money we can understand their motivation for swelling the ranks. But what do the various breed clubs get out of all this. And more importantly, how does this benefit the Canaan Dog? You were wondering if there was a Canaan Dog angle to all of this, weren’t you?
In the history of the Canaan Dog in North America, there have been a small, but dedicated number that have received the royal tap on the shoulder from the AKC for performing tasks. And the handlers of these dogs are rightly proud of their accomplishments. They have raised the profile and the stakes for the breed in these events. And we are not going to get into things about temperament and aloofness and other such nonsense. We are talking about flat out being the best dogs and handlers in the Canaan Dog breed. Others have made these claims for GSDs, for Golden Retrievers, for Whippets, for Jack Russell Terriers, for Border Collies. Ah yes, Border Collies. The nebulous BCs. The Do-All breed that rises to the top in so many of the sports. It would be so difficult to climb that mountain, to be even in the Top 100 of Border Collies in Agility, in Obedience, in Herding, etc. You could train your brains out and still not be on the first page of accomplishments. But what if you had an unregistered dog from the pound or rescue that they think is a BC-cross, a medium sized black-and-white dog with a relatively wedged head, and ears that were up most of the time. And you come across this ILP program from the Venerable Ole’ Registry and think that getting your pup into this would do him some good. But you are a competitive so-and-so and are looking for an edge. Having him ILP’d as a Border Collie would mean that he would likely never get any recognition, and you want those placement ribbons. But wait….look at this breed….the Canaan Dog. Hmmm, similar physical attributes…fix the lighting a bit….have the pup gaze off in an aloof-ish manner….and those pics and $35 go on into the AKC for their expert approval. And, lo and behold, their wheel of chance that day lands on an affirmative as a Canaan Dog for you! You have sidestepped all of those breeder interviews, the waiting for a litter, the purchase fee, and of course, the proof positive that your dog is a Canaan Dog. All of those suckers with the pedigrees and microchips and purchase receipts are now on the same level as you.
Now I am not saying that this dog is a definite to excel above and beyond other competing Canaan Dogs. I don’t believe for a second that with proper training that the Canaan is inferior to any other breed, and their great versatility makes them competitors in a wide variety of sports.
All I am pointing out is that fair is fair. AKC, CKC, UKC events are for purebred dogs…. ones that can PROVE their lineage. There are a great many venues for “uncertain” dogs to compete. But if you are bound and determined to compete in PUREBRED trials then you must prove that you have a PUREBRED dog. The second that doubt enters the equation the dog should not be eligible. There is a pride that goes with completing a title with your dog. And to have the added benefit of being unique within your breed makes it extra special. But to have it sullied because an ILP dog also gains recognition for that title is just plain wrong.
The Canaan Dog Club of America (CDCA) is no help in this manner. The vast bulk of their "leadership" are only inclined to breed their Canaans and occasionally allow them out of their crates long enough to flinch at the first judge who has the audacity to require the dog to conform to the same standards to which all other breeds are held.
The CDCA even acknowledges these CD-wannabees by putting them up on their performance page!!!!! This is such an insult to anyone who has taken the trouble to learn how to train their Canaan Dog!!
Of course this saves most of them the trouble of actually learning how to train a dog to do something and gives them more time to come up with new ways to blame the dogs for their own insecurities.
Shouldn’t there be some sort of protest vote for this ham-handed programme that the AKC has foisted on the clubs. I see no benefit to a club nor to its legitimate membership by this action. Why would this entice an individual to get a “real” Canaan in the future, as some suggest. If you have sidestepped the system once, surely there are other candidates to be found at the pound. Snap a couple of new Polaroid’s and write a cheque and play the AKC Wheel-Of-Breeds again. To me the great missing demographic of future Canaan Dog owners are the ones that favour performance events. Too much is made of difficulties and too little of the Canaan’s attributes. This is a well-built athletic breed that loves to do things, and I read more articles making them sound like special children that are in need of remedial studies. If the clubs are to be so forgiving of this ILP money grab, then they should vote out the spade/neutered portion and allow these prodigals the chance to compete in the Conformation ring. It is such a sad state of irony that the venue that once showcased the top of the breeds based on their superior working abilities now is the one that is a sacrosanct temple that insists on Proof-Of-Breed. But as a sign-of-the-times, it doesn’t matter what you do, it is how you look.
Talk about losing focus…or is it just a sign of the times. It would appear that what a dog does is nowhere near as important as how pretty they are. We have all seen how the AKC is quite content to sell out its small breeders, as demonstrated by the infamous PAWS legislation. Without the board’s support this obsequious piece of “law” would have died an ignoble death and maybe helped quicken the departure of Senator Santorum. On one hand they are “saving” dogs from the hands of all those evil puppy-millers, much the same way that our past government was saving all of us from illegal guns. PAWS requires the onerous registration of litters from the very heart-and-soul breeders of each type of dog, and by focusing the light on them they will be able to stamp out the mills. And this works how? Well, the same way that by registering lawful gun owners in Canada, the criminals will stop using guns. Gives logic an entirely new meaning.
But back to Form over Function, the AKC way. Our canine chums have been enduring our clumsy attempts at civilization for thousands of years. Talk about patience. They probably discuss among themselves how different things would be if they were the ones with opposable thumbs. But we have stumbled along on our hind legs and somehow managed to get ourselves to a point of time where we have lawyers setting our standards and 15-second TV soundbites setting our agendas. Are we off base!!
And all the way along Fido has been there to perform whatever task we have asked of them. Of course this was never enough for us. Despite Fido’s ability to outperform our senses at every turn, we decided that we needed to improve him. So we shortened him; we made him bigger; we grew his nose, or shrunk his face. And if breeding new “qualities” into him wasn’t enough, we then performed surgery on him by chopping off his tail or forcing his ears to stand up…. the floppy ears were also our contribution to him. So in the name of improving his performance in some specified task we make Fido shape-shift. All well and good, right? We now have dedicated dogs for smelling, guarding, running, herding, or being stuck in some Hollywierdo’s purse. But Fido has a job. He has a purpose, right? Well, back to that sign-of-the-times thing. Yes, we do still need some dogs to perform tasks, but we are also in a boom period of having dogs that don’t do anything. Of course there are those pesky tennis balls in the park that keep getting away, but Fido has become little more that a four-legged lawn jockey in most households.
Well, the AKC recognized that it needed to change its original mandate, that of being a Registry for certain approved breeds. People meticulously kept records of sires and dams through the years so that AKC could put a stamp of pur laine on the descendants. That is what a Registry is for, is it not? And people pay good money for a dog that is part of that Registry. It gives the dog legitimacy in the breed, and this verification comes from having some sort of identification on their bodies. By and large tattoos have been replaced by microchips, and dogs are still grateful to us for not implementing branding.
So there is the AKC with all of these dogs registered, and people are examining the registry so that they know whom to breed with whom. And why is this important? Well, in the 1880s when the first meetings of the AKC occurred, shows were set up to represent various breeds that had jobs! The organizers wanted the dogs that were tops in their performance fields to show. This is where the conformation side came in. The dog with the best conformation of his breed would be the one to best perform the task for which they were bred. Thus, breeders sought out the owners of the top male to stud to their females, and hopefully produce litters of future field champions or herding experts.
Back to that sign-of-the-times thing. Fido no longer has a job. Most people do not keep sheep. Hunting is not as prevalent as it once was, primarily because we now forage at supermarkets. Guard dogs are replaced by home security systems. And bull baiting is an absolute no-no. So the reason for the conformation shows shifts. It evolves. And Fido is again not good enough. We start to make him different colours; we make his coat grow; we even start to increase the number of recognized breeds because the North American ones are not unique enough. But suffice it to say that the focus has shifted, and what Fido can do plays second fiddle to how he looks.
And with their $35 You-Name-It-We-Will-Register-It program the AKC confirms this position. They, of course, have a fancier name for it, complete with the requisite acronym. It is the Indefinite Listing Privilege, or ILP. Now for a $35 nonrefundable fee and some good lighting, you can send in photographic proof to the AKC that that little pound-puppy you picked up is a purebred something-or-other. And their skilled judges of canine flesh will give you the big old Nero-ish thumb up or down. Now you say, well surely the people in employ of the Venerable Ole’ Registry will not want to bring recognition to any dogs that will cast aspersions on a certain breed. They will debate, analyze, debate some more, and in the end come up with the correct decision. Yeah right…. for $35 we are lucky if they deign to open the envelope. The AKC wants lots of these ILPs to come aboard. And why is this a good thing for the AKC…money!!!
First off, let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that their coin does have a pass side and a fail side. So let’s make the big assumption (you know what assuming does for you) that they reject 50% of the applications. In 2001, the AKC granted divine-right-of-breed-name to over 2000 dogs. At $35 a crack that’s over $70,000. But wait…didn’t we say that 50% of the potential heirs-to-the-throne would be rejected. And their fee was nonrefundable. So the AKC would have added over $140,000 to the coffers just for telling people that the $50 puppy in the pound window was or was not descended from kings. Makes one almost happy to get mail. Ok, so why does this population explosion of the AKC registry make the board members do their happy dances? Because the AKC is also making money from giving out titles to sports that dogs perform. So they have dogs jump and run and chase and herd, and other things that dogs are very good at, and some are better at than others because of, you guessed it, their conformation. Now greyhounds can get recognition from the Venerable Ole’ Registry for chasing simulated rabbits in real fields and GSDs can be titled for herding real sheep in simulated pastures. And the AKC gets money from all of the registrations for these trials.
They are quick to note on the promo page for ILPs that in 2001, the same year they registered over 2000 new “purebred” dogs, they also issued over 2000 new titles to ILP bluebloods. Rough math on that, with 3 legs needed for each title, and maybe 4 attempts to succeed 3 times (these ILPs are quick learning social climbers), those 2000 titles would have generated in the neighbourhood of $240,000. Not bad chunk of change so that these nouveau canine elites could put a letter or 3 after their names.
So now that we have shown that the AKC is really in the business of printing money we can understand their motivation for swelling the ranks. But what do the various breed clubs get out of all this. And more importantly, how does this benefit the Canaan Dog? You were wondering if there was a Canaan Dog angle to all of this, weren’t you?
In the history of the Canaan Dog in North America, there have been a small, but dedicated number that have received the royal tap on the shoulder from the AKC for performing tasks. And the handlers of these dogs are rightly proud of their accomplishments. They have raised the profile and the stakes for the breed in these events. And we are not going to get into things about temperament and aloofness and other such nonsense. We are talking about flat out being the best dogs and handlers in the Canaan Dog breed. Others have made these claims for GSDs, for Golden Retrievers, for Whippets, for Jack Russell Terriers, for Border Collies. Ah yes, Border Collies. The nebulous BCs. The Do-All breed that rises to the top in so many of the sports. It would be so difficult to climb that mountain, to be even in the Top 100 of Border Collies in Agility, in Obedience, in Herding, etc. You could train your brains out and still not be on the first page of accomplishments. But what if you had an unregistered dog from the pound or rescue that they think is a BC-cross, a medium sized black-and-white dog with a relatively wedged head, and ears that were up most of the time. And you come across this ILP program from the Venerable Ole’ Registry and think that getting your pup into this would do him some good. But you are a competitive so-and-so and are looking for an edge. Having him ILP’d as a Border Collie would mean that he would likely never get any recognition, and you want those placement ribbons. But wait….look at this breed….the Canaan Dog. Hmmm, similar physical attributes…fix the lighting a bit….have the pup gaze off in an aloof-ish manner….and those pics and $35 go on into the AKC for their expert approval. And, lo and behold, their wheel of chance that day lands on an affirmative as a Canaan Dog for you! You have sidestepped all of those breeder interviews, the waiting for a litter, the purchase fee, and of course, the proof positive that your dog is a Canaan Dog. All of those suckers with the pedigrees and microchips and purchase receipts are now on the same level as you.
Now I am not saying that this dog is a definite to excel above and beyond other competing Canaan Dogs. I don’t believe for a second that with proper training that the Canaan is inferior to any other breed, and their great versatility makes them competitors in a wide variety of sports.
All I am pointing out is that fair is fair. AKC, CKC, UKC events are for purebred dogs…. ones that can PROVE their lineage. There are a great many venues for “uncertain” dogs to compete. But if you are bound and determined to compete in PUREBRED trials then you must prove that you have a PUREBRED dog. The second that doubt enters the equation the dog should not be eligible. There is a pride that goes with completing a title with your dog. And to have the added benefit of being unique within your breed makes it extra special. But to have it sullied because an ILP dog also gains recognition for that title is just plain wrong.
The Canaan Dog Club of America (CDCA) is no help in this manner. The vast bulk of their "leadership" are only inclined to breed their Canaans and occasionally allow them out of their crates long enough to flinch at the first judge who has the audacity to require the dog to conform to the same standards to which all other breeds are held.
The CDCA even acknowledges these CD-wannabees by putting them up on their performance page!!!!! This is such an insult to anyone who has taken the trouble to learn how to train their Canaan Dog!!
Of course this saves most of them the trouble of actually learning how to train a dog to do something and gives them more time to come up with new ways to blame the dogs for their own insecurities.
Shouldn’t there be some sort of protest vote for this ham-handed programme that the AKC has foisted on the clubs. I see no benefit to a club nor to its legitimate membership by this action. Why would this entice an individual to get a “real” Canaan in the future, as some suggest. If you have sidestepped the system once, surely there are other candidates to be found at the pound. Snap a couple of new Polaroid’s and write a cheque and play the AKC Wheel-Of-Breeds again. To me the great missing demographic of future Canaan Dog owners are the ones that favour performance events. Too much is made of difficulties and too little of the Canaan’s attributes. This is a well-built athletic breed that loves to do things, and I read more articles making them sound like special children that are in need of remedial studies. If the clubs are to be so forgiving of this ILP money grab, then they should vote out the spade/neutered portion and allow these prodigals the chance to compete in the Conformation ring. It is such a sad state of irony that the venue that once showcased the top of the breeds based on their superior working abilities now is the one that is a sacrosanct temple that insists on Proof-Of-Breed. But as a sign-of-the-times, it doesn’t matter what you do, it is how you look.
Warm-mongers & Other Hot Air Prophets
[This article was originally published in the Spring 2007 Canaan Club of Ontario newsletter. The newsletter can be found at: http://www.geocities.com/newsletter_spring2007/ ]
False prophets, doomsayers, snakeoil salesmen and Chicken Littles. They have been around for as long as man has learned to be paranoid. Their messages are frantic, with no provable information, spreading their “truths” that all is forsaken and mankind is doomed. And th[This article was originally published in the Spring 2007 Canaan Club of Ontario newsletter. The newsletter can be found at: http://www.geocities.com/newsletter_spring2007/ ]
False prophets, doomsayers, snakeoil salesmen and Chicken Littles. They have been around for as long as man has learned to be paranoid. Their messages are frantic, with no provable information, spreading their “truths” that all is forsaken and mankind is doomed. And they all have an agenda. An agenda that benefits very few even though they are preaching the salvation of many. Because the masses that they preach to are either looking for a savior, or that they are too lazy to go and learn the truths themselves, these charlatans are able to spread fear and anarchy with absolutely no accountability. We are all to follow blindly based simply on trust.
Canadians have listened to one such paranoid little gnome for several decades now. His longevity can be directly linked to his association with the socialists that run our State-sponsored television network, the CBC. Most people refer to it as the Corpse because the broadcasts on it have been dead for years. But back to the little high school teacher that made a name for himself preaching about how we are all destroying the planet, despite all the evidence to the contrary. The nice little Foundation that has developed around him…. that had many large Corporations as significant contributors…. is one of the perks that has others looking for a slice of the lucrative Green pie.
Global Warming is the latest Dire Strait for mankind. And to really make it really fun it has gone Hollywood. Albert Arnold Gore took his little Sony video camera and went out there to bring us the Truth. His Truth. Some would call this science fiction. Some would call Albert Arnold Gore science fiction. Somewhere he fit saving the planet into his busy schedule of inventing the Internet and cleaning up the Love Canal. At first I just assumed this was his new stunt to join the nomination process for the Democrats. He is not ethnic enough to compete with Obama, don’t call me Osama, and not manly enough to compete with Hillary, so on a warm jet stream of world saving he was going to coast into 1600 Pennsylvania. But then a bio on a small investment firm called Generation Investment showed up. Generation Investment provides businesses with assessments of “risks and opportunities presented by climate change”. And the founding director is none other than AAG. Hmmm…. in order to be able to advise one must first have these opportunities. And if they don’t exist then a little “the world is ending” campaign should help create them. And while lecturing the rest of us to leave as small of a “CO2 footprint” as possible, Al is leaving a large assprint on one of the director chairs at Lehman Brothers. I only mention this because Lehman Brothers is trying to be the lead brokerage for the trading of Greenhouse Gas Emission credits. The valuation of this new security is in the trillions. So I would say that the term “conflict of interest” should be explained to Good Ole’ Al and the rest of the warm-mongerers.
So with his gold-plated bobblehead Oscar riding on the dashboard of his stretch limo, Al the Environmentalist is off promoting his view of how the world should be. This, of course, is how he perceives that you and I live, not the Alster and his ilk. Homes that use more electricity in a week than we use in a year, or jetting into Toronto to be feted by the silver spooned Socialists in his private jet and SUV motorcade are the world for this new hierarchy of the Loopey Left. Of course privilege and extra powers has always been the trademark of the Demo-lition-crats and their “Brothers”. Their favourite ideologue Lenin perverted Marxism in order to add a vanguard that would better guide socialism. This was just an excuse to keep him and his buddies in power. Al may even be off to Sweden to have those meatballs at the Institute “nobelize” him. Hell, if they will give it to a terrorist like Arafat then what is to them to bestow the medal on someone like Al who is, after all, only looking out for the shareholders of Lehman Brothers. Ooops, I mean, the general public….the great unwashed….the ones that will have to foot the bill for saving the planet from this toxic and deadly gas, CO2. Of course the fact Greenhouse gases only occupy a small portion of our atmosphere, about 3% by volume, and that the vast majority (about 97%) is water vapour and clouds, just adds facts to the equation and “clouds” the hyperbole.
Imagine, water vapour and clouds on a planet that is 70% water……I wonder where it all comes from. Must be an anthropogenic reaction. Quick, put water on the list of toxic substances! CO2 actually only constitutes about 0.037% of the atmosphere. Now if we are this fragile, and I am using the collective “we” here – plants, animals, and those hypersensitive bipedal carbon-based life forms – then maybe we should let natural evolution take its course. After all, it took a freaking meteor the size of Manhattan to bring the dinosaurs to their knees. We apparently are having a tough time with less than a 1 degree Celsius temperature increase. Wow, aren’t we the little hothouse flowers. But then again maybe there is more to this than just protecting us from a few gas molecules.
The IPCC panel just released their Executive Synopsis for 2007 to show us where we stand. True to form, the version that was released already has raised the seas, dropped the glaciers and developed a new occupation for polar bears as the After models for Jenny Craig. Plus we are all slow roasting while all those cataclysmic hurricanes lay waste to our homes. Oh woe be mankind….these are truly the darkest days!! With all of those superegos telling us that we must repent or else, how can we even think of starting our cars or turning on our furnaces.
So with all this credibility, why aren’t we at the Edge gulping down the Kool-Aid of GW with all the rest of the Jonestowners? The Evidence is all around, the effects are evident…just look at New York City….they have never had temps this high….at least not this high when scientists started looking at it. And then there is Boulder, CO….no wait, their average temp decreased. OK, how about Ann Arbor, MI. Nope, cooler temps are prevailing there. Hmmmm, some places have shown an increase, many others a decrease. And the national average for the U.S. shows an up-and-down trend, with the 1930s leading the way as the warmest decade. Must be an anomaly. Just ask the Europeans….those Americans are always screwing things up. Remember, the only time that the French like the Americans is when the Germans are drinking coffee on the Champs-Élysées. Ok, GW is after all a Global phenomenon, so how about Paris, France, and Stuttgart, Germany, and Alice Springs, Australia. Nope, all decreased. Well, those ones should be ignored. For Pete’s sake, Puntas Arenas, the closest city to Antarctica has shown a drop of 0.75 Celsius since 1888. OK, look at Tokyo, Japan!!! There!!! Higher average temps!!! Clear evidence that those pesky greenhouse gases have us stewing in our own juices!!
What this comes down to is man’s unquenchable desire to control everything about his environment. Or even worse, to think that all events are attributable to him. Well, as wonderful as we may think we are, not all events are anthropogenic. The earth, the universe, continues to spin with little regard for the gnat bites that we inflict upon it. This GW event is just the latest crisis that we are being fed. We had just stopped bemoaning the next coming Ice Age when the deep-thinkers began beating the drums about GW. We have suffered through Killer Bees, Noise Pollution, and Y2K. And yet we persevere. Of course those that lived through the Black Plague would probably call us a bunch of wimps, seeing as that was just one of the times in history when the End was Nigh. In a bit of subtle irony a polar expedition to prove GW had to be scrapped because one of the members became frostbitten. Who says Mother Nature doesn’t have a sense of humour. But we egocentrics have to bring it all back to ourselves. Has no one considered that an external event, like the fact the Sun is getting hotter, might account for any temperature shift?
Even our furry canine companions are not exempt from plagues of locusts and rivers of blood. Someone makes a comment about a specific event and it gets repeated, and before you know it the one incident has become the norm. People take as gospel the reports of others and it changes the way that they perceive situations. Take for example a recent email we received from someone in Vancouver that thinks that she has “rescued” a Canaan Dog from the shelter. Even a cursory look shows the dog to be a Border Collie mix, but this woman based her assessment on reading that Canaan Dogs were dog aggressive, and this dog is dog aggressive, so it must be a Canaan Dog. I should send her pics of Macc playing with little white dogs, but I guess she would dismiss this as an exception. After all, don’t you know, the Canaan Dog is dog aggressive.
Many of the recognized breeds have developed health issues over time. Some like the Doberman have dilated cardiomyopathy. Dachshunds and Bassets have cervical issues. Labs and Retrievers are prone to hip dysplasia. Bulldogs are a complete mess…AI to get pregnant and caesarian to whelp the young. That is why when we were searching for a new breed, health was a major main concern. I have yet to open a breed book and find more than epilepsy listed as a possible affliction of the Canaan Dog. Most say that there are no long or short-term health concerns. And I say this is rightly so. This is the model of evolution…. an animal that has survived for thousands of years in one of the harshest environments on the planet. Well, there were some good years in the Levant also. Recent studies have shown six major climate changes since the beginning of the Holocene Period. They had some lush tropical conditions for a while, then some very dry barren ones. Yet through this whole time they were able to adapt and survive. And to look at them this should come as no surprise. They are built so well…strong limbs, well balanced body, and well developed senses. This was the noble beast that Dr. Menzel found in the 1930s and helped mold into such a versatile creature.
I was looking up facts listed on the OFA site. Did you know that the Canaan Dog is seventh best when it comes to being diagnosed with hip dysplasia? With all other measurements, like patella luxation, elbow dysplasia, thyroid, and cardiac the numbers are statistically insignificant. There have been five deaf Canaans reported….at least one of them was born without eardrums. Others became deaf through disease. I would not consider this a significant health concern.
This is not to say that we should take their health for granted. All dogs deserve the best care and protection that we can give them. I am all for being proactive when it comes to the health of my Canaans. They receive a well-balanced raw diet, lots of exercise, and much personal time where we play and train. Challenging them this way keeps them alert and ready to perform in whatever activity they are participating. And this socialization has developed two Canaans that love to play with other dogs.
My point is that we need to understand the issues, be they health, training, or performance, and we can only do this by making the choices ourselves. The same goes for this current Environmental Catastrophe. If they had come out and said that they were going to combat NOX and SOX, then I would have been behind them 100% because these are the pollutants that cause smog, acid rain, etc. But this card had been played before and they needed a new scapegoat. So CO2 becomes a toxic, Earth-threatening substance, rather than one of the building blocks of nature. I’m all for alternative forms of power, but if you are supporting it please do it for the right reasons. Go solar, Go wind, Go microhydro, so that you can be off of the grid. Do it so that you have the peace of mind of managing your own resources. Don’t do it because some clown in telling you to reduce your CO2 footprint. The only way to get any truth out there is to examine the facts and make the decisions ourselves. Create your own agenda. Then the warm-mongers are only blowing hot air at each other. ey all have an agenda. An agenda that benefits very few even though they are preaching the salvation of many. Because the masses that they preach to are either looking for a savior, or that they are too lazy to go and learn the truths themselves, these charlatans are able to spread fear and anarchy with absolutely no accountability. We are all to follow blindly based simply on trust.
Canadians have listened to one such paranoid little gnome for several decades now. His longevity can be directly linked to his association with the socialists that run our State-sponsored television network, the CBC. Most people refer to it as the Corpse because the broadcasts on it have been dead for years. But back to the little high school teacher that made a name for himself preaching about how we are all destroying the planet, despite all the evidence to the contrary. The nice little Foundation that has developed around him…. that had many large Corporations as significant contributors…. is one of the perks that has others looking for a slice of the lucrative Green pie.
Global Warming is the latest Dire Strait for mankind. And to really make it really fun it has gone Hollywood. Albert Arnold Gore took his little Sony video camera and went out there to bring us the Truth. His Truth. Some would call this science fiction. Some would call Albert Arnold Gore science fiction. Somewhere he fit saving the planet into his busy schedule of inventing the Internet and cleaning up the Love Canal. At first I just assumed this was his new stunt to join the nomination process for the Democrats. He is not ethnic enough to compete with Obama, don’t call me Osama, and not manly enough to compete with Hillary, so on a warm jet stream of world saving he was going to coast into 1600 Pennsylvania. But then a bio on a small investment firm called Generation Investment showed up. Generation Investment provides businesses with assessments of “risks and opportunities presented by climate change”. And the founding director is none other than AAG. Hmmm…. in order to be able to advise one must first have these opportunities. And if they don’t exist then a little “the world is ending” campaign should help create them. And while lecturing the rest of us to leave as small of a “CO2 footprint” as possible, Al is leaving a large assprint on one of the director chairs at Lehman Brothers. I only mention this because Lehman Brothers is trying to be the lead brokerage for the trading of Greenhouse Gas Emission credits. The valuation of this new security is in the trillions. So I would say that the term “conflict of interest” should be explained to Good Ole’ Al and the rest of the warm-mongerers.
So with his gold-plated bobblehead Oscar riding on the dashboard of his stretch limo, Al the Environmentalist is off promoting his view of how the world should be. This, of course, is how he perceives that you and I live, not the Alster and his ilk. Homes that use more electricity in a week than we use in a year, or jetting into Toronto to be feted by the silver spooned Socialists in his private jet and SUV motorcade are the world for this new hierarchy of the Loopey Left. Of course privilege and extra powers has always been the trademark of the Demo-lition-crats and their “Brothers”. Their favourite ideologue Lenin perverted Marxism in order to add a vanguard that would better guide socialism. This was just an excuse to keep him and his buddies in power. Al may even be off to Sweden to have those meatballs at the Institute “nobelize” him. Hell, if they will give it to a terrorist like Arafat then what is to them to bestow the medal on someone like Al who is, after all, only looking out for the shareholders of Lehman Brothers. Ooops, I mean, the general public….the great unwashed….the ones that will have to foot the bill for saving the planet from this toxic and deadly gas, CO2. Of course the fact Greenhouse gases only occupy a small portion of our atmosphere, about 3% by volume, and that the vast majority (about 97%) is water vapour and clouds, just adds facts to the equation and “clouds” the hyperbole.
Imagine, water vapour and clouds on a planet that is 70% water……I wonder where it all comes from. Must be an anthropogenic reaction. Quick, put water on the list of toxic substances! CO2 actually only constitutes about 0.037% of the atmosphere. Now if we are this fragile, and I am using the collective “we” here – plants, animals, and those hypersensitive bipedal carbon-based life forms – then maybe we should let natural evolution take its course. After all, it took a freaking meteor the size of Manhattan to bring the dinosaurs to their knees. We apparently are having a tough time with less than a 1 degree Celsius temperature increase. Wow, aren’t we the little hothouse flowers. But then again maybe there is more to this than just protecting us from a few gas molecules.
The IPCC panel just released their Executive Synopsis for 2007 to show us where we stand. True to form, the version that was released already has raised the seas, dropped the glaciers and developed a new occupation for polar bears as the After models for Jenny Craig. Plus we are all slow roasting while all those cataclysmic hurricanes lay waste to our homes. Oh woe be mankind….these are truly the darkest days!! With all of those superegos telling us that we must repent or else, how can we even think of starting our cars or turning on our furnaces.
So with all this credibility, why aren’t we at the Edge gulping down the Kool-Aid of GW with all the rest of the Jonestowners? The Evidence is all around, the effects are evident…just look at New York City….they have never had temps this high….at least not this high when scientists started looking at it. And then there is Boulder, CO….no wait, their average temp decreased. OK, how about Ann Arbor, MI. Nope, cooler temps are prevailing there. Hmmmm, some places have shown an increase, many others a decrease. And the national average for the U.S. shows an up-and-down trend, with the 1930s leading the way as the warmest decade. Must be an anomaly. Just ask the Europeans….those Americans are always screwing things up. Remember, the only time that the French like the Americans is when the Germans are drinking coffee on the Champs-Élysées. Ok, GW is after all a Global phenomenon, so how about Paris, France, and Stuttgart, Germany, and Alice Springs, Australia. Nope, all decreased. Well, those ones should be ignored. For Pete’s sake, Puntas Arenas, the closest city to Antarctica has shown a drop of 0.75 Celsius since 1888. OK, look at Tokyo, Japan!!! There!!! Higher average temps!!! Clear evidence that those pesky greenhouse gases have us stewing in our own juices!!
What this comes down to is man’s unquenchable desire to control everything about his environment. Or even worse, to think that all events are attributable to him. Well, as wonderful as we may think we are, not all events are anthropogenic. The earth, the universe, continues to spin with little regard for the gnat bites that we inflict upon it. This GW event is just the latest crisis that we are being fed. We had just stopped bemoaning the next coming Ice Age when the deep-thinkers began beating the drums about GW. We have suffered through Killer Bees, Noise Pollution, and Y2K. And yet we persevere. Of course those that lived through the Black Plague would probably call us a bunch of wimps, seeing as that was just one of the times in history when the End was Nigh. In a bit of subtle irony a polar expedition to prove GW had to be scrapped because one of the members became frostbitten. Who says Mother Nature doesn’t have a sense of humour. But we egocentrics have to bring it all back to ourselves. Has no one considered that an external event, like the fact the Sun is getting hotter, might account for any temperature shift?
Even our furry canine companions are not exempt from plagues of locusts and rivers of blood. Someone makes a comment about a specific event and it gets repeated, and before you know it the one incident has become the norm. People take as gospel the reports of others and it changes the way that they perceive situations. Take for example a recent email we received from someone in Vancouver that thinks that she has “rescued” a Canaan Dog from the shelter. Even a cursory look shows the dog to be a Border Collie mix, but this woman based her assessment on reading that Canaan Dogs were dog aggressive, and this dog is dog aggressive, so it must be a Canaan Dog. I should send her pics of Macc playing with little white dogs, but I guess she would dismiss this as an exception. After all, don’t you know, the Canaan Dog is dog aggressive.
Many of the recognized breeds have developed health issues over time. Some like the Doberman have dilated cardiomyopathy. Dachshunds and Bassets have cervical issues. Labs and Retrievers are prone to hip dysplasia. Bulldogs are a complete mess…AI to get pregnant and caesarian to whelp the young. That is why when we were searching for a new breed, health was a major main concern. I have yet to open a breed book and find more than epilepsy listed as a possible affliction of the Canaan Dog. Most say that there are no long or short-term health concerns. And I say this is rightly so. This is the model of evolution…. an animal that has survived for thousands of years in one of the harshest environments on the planet. Well, there were some good years in the Levant also. Recent studies have shown six major climate changes since the beginning of the Holocene Period. They had some lush tropical conditions for a while, then some very dry barren ones. Yet through this whole time they were able to adapt and survive. And to look at them this should come as no surprise. They are built so well…strong limbs, well balanced body, and well developed senses. This was the noble beast that Dr. Menzel found in the 1930s and helped mold into such a versatile creature.
I was looking up facts listed on the OFA site. Did you know that the Canaan Dog is seventh best when it comes to being diagnosed with hip dysplasia? With all other measurements, like patella luxation, elbow dysplasia, thyroid, and cardiac the numbers are statistically insignificant. There have been five deaf Canaans reported….at least one of them was born without eardrums. Others became deaf through disease. I would not consider this a significant health concern.
This is not to say that we should take their health for granted. All dogs deserve the best care and protection that we can give them. I am all for being proactive when it comes to the health of my Canaans. They receive a well-balanced raw diet, lots of exercise, and much personal time where we play and train. Challenging them this way keeps them alert and ready to perform in whatever activity they are participating. And this socialization has developed two Canaans that love to play with other dogs.
My point is that we need to understand the issues, be they health, training, or performance, and we can only do this by making the choices ourselves. The same goes for this current Environmental Catastrophe. If they had come out and said that they were going to combat NOX and SOX, then I would have been behind them 100% because these are the pollutants that cause smog, acid rain, etc. But this card had been played before and they needed a new scapegoat. So CO2 becomes a toxic, Earth-threatening substance, rather than one of the building blocks of nature. I’m all for alternative forms of power, but if you are supporting it please do it for the right reasons. Go solar, Go wind, Go microhydro, so that you can be off of the grid. Do it so that you have the peace of mind of managing your own resources. Don’t do it because some clown in telling you to reduce your CO2 footprint. The only way to get any truth out there is to examine the facts and make the decisions ourselves. Create your own agenda. Then the warm-mongers are only blowing hot air at each other.
False prophets, doomsayers, snakeoil salesmen and Chicken Littles. They have been around for as long as man has learned to be paranoid. Their messages are frantic, with no provable information, spreading their “truths” that all is forsaken and mankind is doomed. And th[This article was originally published in the Spring 2007 Canaan Club of Ontario newsletter. The newsletter can be found at: http://www.geocities.com/newsletter_spring2007/ ]
False prophets, doomsayers, snakeoil salesmen and Chicken Littles. They have been around for as long as man has learned to be paranoid. Their messages are frantic, with no provable information, spreading their “truths” that all is forsaken and mankind is doomed. And they all have an agenda. An agenda that benefits very few even though they are preaching the salvation of many. Because the masses that they preach to are either looking for a savior, or that they are too lazy to go and learn the truths themselves, these charlatans are able to spread fear and anarchy with absolutely no accountability. We are all to follow blindly based simply on trust.
Canadians have listened to one such paranoid little gnome for several decades now. His longevity can be directly linked to his association with the socialists that run our State-sponsored television network, the CBC. Most people refer to it as the Corpse because the broadcasts on it have been dead for years. But back to the little high school teacher that made a name for himself preaching about how we are all destroying the planet, despite all the evidence to the contrary. The nice little Foundation that has developed around him…. that had many large Corporations as significant contributors…. is one of the perks that has others looking for a slice of the lucrative Green pie.
Global Warming is the latest Dire Strait for mankind. And to really make it really fun it has gone Hollywood. Albert Arnold Gore took his little Sony video camera and went out there to bring us the Truth. His Truth. Some would call this science fiction. Some would call Albert Arnold Gore science fiction. Somewhere he fit saving the planet into his busy schedule of inventing the Internet and cleaning up the Love Canal. At first I just assumed this was his new stunt to join the nomination process for the Democrats. He is not ethnic enough to compete with Obama, don’t call me Osama, and not manly enough to compete with Hillary, so on a warm jet stream of world saving he was going to coast into 1600 Pennsylvania. But then a bio on a small investment firm called Generation Investment showed up. Generation Investment provides businesses with assessments of “risks and opportunities presented by climate change”. And the founding director is none other than AAG. Hmmm…. in order to be able to advise one must first have these opportunities. And if they don’t exist then a little “the world is ending” campaign should help create them. And while lecturing the rest of us to leave as small of a “CO2 footprint” as possible, Al is leaving a large assprint on one of the director chairs at Lehman Brothers. I only mention this because Lehman Brothers is trying to be the lead brokerage for the trading of Greenhouse Gas Emission credits. The valuation of this new security is in the trillions. So I would say that the term “conflict of interest” should be explained to Good Ole’ Al and the rest of the warm-mongerers.
So with his gold-plated bobblehead Oscar riding on the dashboard of his stretch limo, Al the Environmentalist is off promoting his view of how the world should be. This, of course, is how he perceives that you and I live, not the Alster and his ilk. Homes that use more electricity in a week than we use in a year, or jetting into Toronto to be feted by the silver spooned Socialists in his private jet and SUV motorcade are the world for this new hierarchy of the Loopey Left. Of course privilege and extra powers has always been the trademark of the Demo-lition-crats and their “Brothers”. Their favourite ideologue Lenin perverted Marxism in order to add a vanguard that would better guide socialism. This was just an excuse to keep him and his buddies in power. Al may even be off to Sweden to have those meatballs at the Institute “nobelize” him. Hell, if they will give it to a terrorist like Arafat then what is to them to bestow the medal on someone like Al who is, after all, only looking out for the shareholders of Lehman Brothers. Ooops, I mean, the general public….the great unwashed….the ones that will have to foot the bill for saving the planet from this toxic and deadly gas, CO2. Of course the fact Greenhouse gases only occupy a small portion of our atmosphere, about 3% by volume, and that the vast majority (about 97%) is water vapour and clouds, just adds facts to the equation and “clouds” the hyperbole.
Imagine, water vapour and clouds on a planet that is 70% water……I wonder where it all comes from. Must be an anthropogenic reaction. Quick, put water on the list of toxic substances! CO2 actually only constitutes about 0.037% of the atmosphere. Now if we are this fragile, and I am using the collective “we” here – plants, animals, and those hypersensitive bipedal carbon-based life forms – then maybe we should let natural evolution take its course. After all, it took a freaking meteor the size of Manhattan to bring the dinosaurs to their knees. We apparently are having a tough time with less than a 1 degree Celsius temperature increase. Wow, aren’t we the little hothouse flowers. But then again maybe there is more to this than just protecting us from a few gas molecules.
The IPCC panel just released their Executive Synopsis for 2007 to show us where we stand. True to form, the version that was released already has raised the seas, dropped the glaciers and developed a new occupation for polar bears as the After models for Jenny Craig. Plus we are all slow roasting while all those cataclysmic hurricanes lay waste to our homes. Oh woe be mankind….these are truly the darkest days!! With all of those superegos telling us that we must repent or else, how can we even think of starting our cars or turning on our furnaces.
So with all this credibility, why aren’t we at the Edge gulping down the Kool-Aid of GW with all the rest of the Jonestowners? The Evidence is all around, the effects are evident…just look at New York City….they have never had temps this high….at least not this high when scientists started looking at it. And then there is Boulder, CO….no wait, their average temp decreased. OK, how about Ann Arbor, MI. Nope, cooler temps are prevailing there. Hmmmm, some places have shown an increase, many others a decrease. And the national average for the U.S. shows an up-and-down trend, with the 1930s leading the way as the warmest decade. Must be an anomaly. Just ask the Europeans….those Americans are always screwing things up. Remember, the only time that the French like the Americans is when the Germans are drinking coffee on the Champs-Élysées. Ok, GW is after all a Global phenomenon, so how about Paris, France, and Stuttgart, Germany, and Alice Springs, Australia. Nope, all decreased. Well, those ones should be ignored. For Pete’s sake, Puntas Arenas, the closest city to Antarctica has shown a drop of 0.75 Celsius since 1888. OK, look at Tokyo, Japan!!! There!!! Higher average temps!!! Clear evidence that those pesky greenhouse gases have us stewing in our own juices!!
What this comes down to is man’s unquenchable desire to control everything about his environment. Or even worse, to think that all events are attributable to him. Well, as wonderful as we may think we are, not all events are anthropogenic. The earth, the universe, continues to spin with little regard for the gnat bites that we inflict upon it. This GW event is just the latest crisis that we are being fed. We had just stopped bemoaning the next coming Ice Age when the deep-thinkers began beating the drums about GW. We have suffered through Killer Bees, Noise Pollution, and Y2K. And yet we persevere. Of course those that lived through the Black Plague would probably call us a bunch of wimps, seeing as that was just one of the times in history when the End was Nigh. In a bit of subtle irony a polar expedition to prove GW had to be scrapped because one of the members became frostbitten. Who says Mother Nature doesn’t have a sense of humour. But we egocentrics have to bring it all back to ourselves. Has no one considered that an external event, like the fact the Sun is getting hotter, might account for any temperature shift?
Even our furry canine companions are not exempt from plagues of locusts and rivers of blood. Someone makes a comment about a specific event and it gets repeated, and before you know it the one incident has become the norm. People take as gospel the reports of others and it changes the way that they perceive situations. Take for example a recent email we received from someone in Vancouver that thinks that she has “rescued” a Canaan Dog from the shelter. Even a cursory look shows the dog to be a Border Collie mix, but this woman based her assessment on reading that Canaan Dogs were dog aggressive, and this dog is dog aggressive, so it must be a Canaan Dog. I should send her pics of Macc playing with little white dogs, but I guess she would dismiss this as an exception. After all, don’t you know, the Canaan Dog is dog aggressive.
Many of the recognized breeds have developed health issues over time. Some like the Doberman have dilated cardiomyopathy. Dachshunds and Bassets have cervical issues. Labs and Retrievers are prone to hip dysplasia. Bulldogs are a complete mess…AI to get pregnant and caesarian to whelp the young. That is why when we were searching for a new breed, health was a major main concern. I have yet to open a breed book and find more than epilepsy listed as a possible affliction of the Canaan Dog. Most say that there are no long or short-term health concerns. And I say this is rightly so. This is the model of evolution…. an animal that has survived for thousands of years in one of the harshest environments on the planet. Well, there were some good years in the Levant also. Recent studies have shown six major climate changes since the beginning of the Holocene Period. They had some lush tropical conditions for a while, then some very dry barren ones. Yet through this whole time they were able to adapt and survive. And to look at them this should come as no surprise. They are built so well…strong limbs, well balanced body, and well developed senses. This was the noble beast that Dr. Menzel found in the 1930s and helped mold into such a versatile creature.
I was looking up facts listed on the OFA site. Did you know that the Canaan Dog is seventh best when it comes to being diagnosed with hip dysplasia? With all other measurements, like patella luxation, elbow dysplasia, thyroid, and cardiac the numbers are statistically insignificant. There have been five deaf Canaans reported….at least one of them was born without eardrums. Others became deaf through disease. I would not consider this a significant health concern.
This is not to say that we should take their health for granted. All dogs deserve the best care and protection that we can give them. I am all for being proactive when it comes to the health of my Canaans. They receive a well-balanced raw diet, lots of exercise, and much personal time where we play and train. Challenging them this way keeps them alert and ready to perform in whatever activity they are participating. And this socialization has developed two Canaans that love to play with other dogs.
My point is that we need to understand the issues, be they health, training, or performance, and we can only do this by making the choices ourselves. The same goes for this current Environmental Catastrophe. If they had come out and said that they were going to combat NOX and SOX, then I would have been behind them 100% because these are the pollutants that cause smog, acid rain, etc. But this card had been played before and they needed a new scapegoat. So CO2 becomes a toxic, Earth-threatening substance, rather than one of the building blocks of nature. I’m all for alternative forms of power, but if you are supporting it please do it for the right reasons. Go solar, Go wind, Go microhydro, so that you can be off of the grid. Do it so that you have the peace of mind of managing your own resources. Don’t do it because some clown in telling you to reduce your CO2 footprint. The only way to get any truth out there is to examine the facts and make the decisions ourselves. Create your own agenda. Then the warm-mongers are only blowing hot air at each other. ey all have an agenda. An agenda that benefits very few even though they are preaching the salvation of many. Because the masses that they preach to are either looking for a savior, or that they are too lazy to go and learn the truths themselves, these charlatans are able to spread fear and anarchy with absolutely no accountability. We are all to follow blindly based simply on trust.
Canadians have listened to one such paranoid little gnome for several decades now. His longevity can be directly linked to his association with the socialists that run our State-sponsored television network, the CBC. Most people refer to it as the Corpse because the broadcasts on it have been dead for years. But back to the little high school teacher that made a name for himself preaching about how we are all destroying the planet, despite all the evidence to the contrary. The nice little Foundation that has developed around him…. that had many large Corporations as significant contributors…. is one of the perks that has others looking for a slice of the lucrative Green pie.
Global Warming is the latest Dire Strait for mankind. And to really make it really fun it has gone Hollywood. Albert Arnold Gore took his little Sony video camera and went out there to bring us the Truth. His Truth. Some would call this science fiction. Some would call Albert Arnold Gore science fiction. Somewhere he fit saving the planet into his busy schedule of inventing the Internet and cleaning up the Love Canal. At first I just assumed this was his new stunt to join the nomination process for the Democrats. He is not ethnic enough to compete with Obama, don’t call me Osama, and not manly enough to compete with Hillary, so on a warm jet stream of world saving he was going to coast into 1600 Pennsylvania. But then a bio on a small investment firm called Generation Investment showed up. Generation Investment provides businesses with assessments of “risks and opportunities presented by climate change”. And the founding director is none other than AAG. Hmmm…. in order to be able to advise one must first have these opportunities. And if they don’t exist then a little “the world is ending” campaign should help create them. And while lecturing the rest of us to leave as small of a “CO2 footprint” as possible, Al is leaving a large assprint on one of the director chairs at Lehman Brothers. I only mention this because Lehman Brothers is trying to be the lead brokerage for the trading of Greenhouse Gas Emission credits. The valuation of this new security is in the trillions. So I would say that the term “conflict of interest” should be explained to Good Ole’ Al and the rest of the warm-mongerers.
So with his gold-plated bobblehead Oscar riding on the dashboard of his stretch limo, Al the Environmentalist is off promoting his view of how the world should be. This, of course, is how he perceives that you and I live, not the Alster and his ilk. Homes that use more electricity in a week than we use in a year, or jetting into Toronto to be feted by the silver spooned Socialists in his private jet and SUV motorcade are the world for this new hierarchy of the Loopey Left. Of course privilege and extra powers has always been the trademark of the Demo-lition-crats and their “Brothers”. Their favourite ideologue Lenin perverted Marxism in order to add a vanguard that would better guide socialism. This was just an excuse to keep him and his buddies in power. Al may even be off to Sweden to have those meatballs at the Institute “nobelize” him. Hell, if they will give it to a terrorist like Arafat then what is to them to bestow the medal on someone like Al who is, after all, only looking out for the shareholders of Lehman Brothers. Ooops, I mean, the general public….the great unwashed….the ones that will have to foot the bill for saving the planet from this toxic and deadly gas, CO2. Of course the fact Greenhouse gases only occupy a small portion of our atmosphere, about 3% by volume, and that the vast majority (about 97%) is water vapour and clouds, just adds facts to the equation and “clouds” the hyperbole.
Imagine, water vapour and clouds on a planet that is 70% water……I wonder where it all comes from. Must be an anthropogenic reaction. Quick, put water on the list of toxic substances! CO2 actually only constitutes about 0.037% of the atmosphere. Now if we are this fragile, and I am using the collective “we” here – plants, animals, and those hypersensitive bipedal carbon-based life forms – then maybe we should let natural evolution take its course. After all, it took a freaking meteor the size of Manhattan to bring the dinosaurs to their knees. We apparently are having a tough time with less than a 1 degree Celsius temperature increase. Wow, aren’t we the little hothouse flowers. But then again maybe there is more to this than just protecting us from a few gas molecules.
The IPCC panel just released their Executive Synopsis for 2007 to show us where we stand. True to form, the version that was released already has raised the seas, dropped the glaciers and developed a new occupation for polar bears as the After models for Jenny Craig. Plus we are all slow roasting while all those cataclysmic hurricanes lay waste to our homes. Oh woe be mankind….these are truly the darkest days!! With all of those superegos telling us that we must repent or else, how can we even think of starting our cars or turning on our furnaces.
So with all this credibility, why aren’t we at the Edge gulping down the Kool-Aid of GW with all the rest of the Jonestowners? The Evidence is all around, the effects are evident…just look at New York City….they have never had temps this high….at least not this high when scientists started looking at it. And then there is Boulder, CO….no wait, their average temp decreased. OK, how about Ann Arbor, MI. Nope, cooler temps are prevailing there. Hmmmm, some places have shown an increase, many others a decrease. And the national average for the U.S. shows an up-and-down trend, with the 1930s leading the way as the warmest decade. Must be an anomaly. Just ask the Europeans….those Americans are always screwing things up. Remember, the only time that the French like the Americans is when the Germans are drinking coffee on the Champs-Élysées. Ok, GW is after all a Global phenomenon, so how about Paris, France, and Stuttgart, Germany, and Alice Springs, Australia. Nope, all decreased. Well, those ones should be ignored. For Pete’s sake, Puntas Arenas, the closest city to Antarctica has shown a drop of 0.75 Celsius since 1888. OK, look at Tokyo, Japan!!! There!!! Higher average temps!!! Clear evidence that those pesky greenhouse gases have us stewing in our own juices!!
What this comes down to is man’s unquenchable desire to control everything about his environment. Or even worse, to think that all events are attributable to him. Well, as wonderful as we may think we are, not all events are anthropogenic. The earth, the universe, continues to spin with little regard for the gnat bites that we inflict upon it. This GW event is just the latest crisis that we are being fed. We had just stopped bemoaning the next coming Ice Age when the deep-thinkers began beating the drums about GW. We have suffered through Killer Bees, Noise Pollution, and Y2K. And yet we persevere. Of course those that lived through the Black Plague would probably call us a bunch of wimps, seeing as that was just one of the times in history when the End was Nigh. In a bit of subtle irony a polar expedition to prove GW had to be scrapped because one of the members became frostbitten. Who says Mother Nature doesn’t have a sense of humour. But we egocentrics have to bring it all back to ourselves. Has no one considered that an external event, like the fact the Sun is getting hotter, might account for any temperature shift?
Even our furry canine companions are not exempt from plagues of locusts and rivers of blood. Someone makes a comment about a specific event and it gets repeated, and before you know it the one incident has become the norm. People take as gospel the reports of others and it changes the way that they perceive situations. Take for example a recent email we received from someone in Vancouver that thinks that she has “rescued” a Canaan Dog from the shelter. Even a cursory look shows the dog to be a Border Collie mix, but this woman based her assessment on reading that Canaan Dogs were dog aggressive, and this dog is dog aggressive, so it must be a Canaan Dog. I should send her pics of Macc playing with little white dogs, but I guess she would dismiss this as an exception. After all, don’t you know, the Canaan Dog is dog aggressive.
Many of the recognized breeds have developed health issues over time. Some like the Doberman have dilated cardiomyopathy. Dachshunds and Bassets have cervical issues. Labs and Retrievers are prone to hip dysplasia. Bulldogs are a complete mess…AI to get pregnant and caesarian to whelp the young. That is why when we were searching for a new breed, health was a major main concern. I have yet to open a breed book and find more than epilepsy listed as a possible affliction of the Canaan Dog. Most say that there are no long or short-term health concerns. And I say this is rightly so. This is the model of evolution…. an animal that has survived for thousands of years in one of the harshest environments on the planet. Well, there were some good years in the Levant also. Recent studies have shown six major climate changes since the beginning of the Holocene Period. They had some lush tropical conditions for a while, then some very dry barren ones. Yet through this whole time they were able to adapt and survive. And to look at them this should come as no surprise. They are built so well…strong limbs, well balanced body, and well developed senses. This was the noble beast that Dr. Menzel found in the 1930s and helped mold into such a versatile creature.
I was looking up facts listed on the OFA site. Did you know that the Canaan Dog is seventh best when it comes to being diagnosed with hip dysplasia? With all other measurements, like patella luxation, elbow dysplasia, thyroid, and cardiac the numbers are statistically insignificant. There have been five deaf Canaans reported….at least one of them was born without eardrums. Others became deaf through disease. I would not consider this a significant health concern.
This is not to say that we should take their health for granted. All dogs deserve the best care and protection that we can give them. I am all for being proactive when it comes to the health of my Canaans. They receive a well-balanced raw diet, lots of exercise, and much personal time where we play and train. Challenging them this way keeps them alert and ready to perform in whatever activity they are participating. And this socialization has developed two Canaans that love to play with other dogs.
My point is that we need to understand the issues, be they health, training, or performance, and we can only do this by making the choices ourselves. The same goes for this current Environmental Catastrophe. If they had come out and said that they were going to combat NOX and SOX, then I would have been behind them 100% because these are the pollutants that cause smog, acid rain, etc. But this card had been played before and they needed a new scapegoat. So CO2 becomes a toxic, Earth-threatening substance, rather than one of the building blocks of nature. I’m all for alternative forms of power, but if you are supporting it please do it for the right reasons. Go solar, Go wind, Go microhydro, so that you can be off of the grid. Do it so that you have the peace of mind of managing your own resources. Don’t do it because some clown in telling you to reduce your CO2 footprint. The only way to get any truth out there is to examine the facts and make the decisions ourselves. Create your own agenda. Then the warm-mongers are only blowing hot air at each other.
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