Get a Grip, 1913

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The man on the right is Adolph Kline who was, very briefly, the unelected mayor of New York.
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Scottie and Owners, Washington, D.C., 1917

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Camp Life with Terrier, 1916

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This picture comes from that period when the Fox Terrier was being rapidly wrecked by the show ring, and more and more ads in hunt publications were beginning to offer "Jack Russell terriers" for sale, in order to differentiate honest working dogs from their Kennel Club brethren.
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Westminster: Hair Dressers and Amputees

Picture source:  Boston Globe

And the Winner is .... a Scottish Deerhound, a dog that is likely to be dead by age eight and a half. 

If one is looking for an iconic breed to represent the history of the Kennel Club, the Scottish Deerhound is not a bad one for the job. 

After all, it was a debate about what to do with the declining health of this breed that led the U.K. Kennel Club to formally choose to close all registries rather than evince the slightest concern for breed health.

But don't take my word for it. 

In the 1905 publication The Kennel Club: Its History and Record of Its Work, Edward William Jaquet, secretary of the Kennel Club, writes about the 1897 debate that resulted in all the registries being slammed shut:

Health or purity? 

Well purity of course!  

A dead dog is not a liability, after all; it's an opportunity for dog dealers to sell more dogs, and for wannabe rosette winners to try again with new stock. 

Perfect!

Of course, it should be pointed out that Scottish Deerhounds ARE living longer now than they did only a few years ago.

Excellent!

So did the Kennel Club change its tune and decide to embrace a little outcrossing?

No, of course not!

Instead, they now suggest that all AKC dog owners buy veterinary insurance, which comes in so very handy when it comes time to pay for the chemotherapy!

Over at... Embrace Pet Insurance, a $100 a year deductible policy for a dog like Hickory would cost almost $83 a month — or nearly $1,000 a year....

.... According to Embrace, pet insurance for purebred Scottish Deerhounds costs more than for mixed-breed dogs. That’s because Scottish Deerhounds are much more likely than mixed-breed dogs to have hereditary conditions that are expensive to treat. For instance, a dog like Hickory has a high incidence of bone cancer, usually found in one of the legs. Veterinary expenses for bone cancer treatment, including leg amputation and chemotherapy, can exceed $8,000.

Oh, and did I tell you that the AKC is now pushing its own brand of veterinary insurance?

Sure, and why not?   Why not turn a little more profit on the pain and misery of pedigree dogs?  No reason to change the tune now, right?.

Hairspray suggests this dog is pretty far from the hedge.
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Welcome to the Westminster Dog Show

Flash located here (right click on link to copy) Youtube link here


For those that want to put this up on their own blog, simply go to this Youtube link.

Want to help spread the file to other file-sharing sites? Simply download the flash file which can be found here, by right clicking the link in order to copy it to your hard-drive.
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The Canine Neo-Nazis Have Their Panties in a Twist

Jemima Harrison sent me, and a few others, a link and a very brief note:

http://www.bnpcrufts.co.uk/

Absolutely nothing to do with me. Wonder who, though?  Patrick, they've used your "Darwin's Nightmare" image.

Curious, I took a look.

It seems a PeTA clone (PeTA claims it is not them) is having a go at the Kennel Club and Crufts, comparing it to the British National Party.

Wonderful!

Now, as anyone with a search engine knows, I am hardly a PeTA supporter. They are morons, direct mail con artists, and flim-flam operators of the first order.

That said, even a blind and brain-damaged pig can find an acorn of truth if they spend enough time in the woods.

I wrote back to Jemima:

They lifted the Darwin's Nightmare bit AND the picture of Nick Griffin wearing a rosette, AND the picture of the blonds with the Afghans.

No problem.

My only complaint is that they missed actually getting in the real history of dogs and the Nazis and Leon F. Whitney.

If anyone asks, I would be glad to give an interview ;-)   Might as well REALLY piss the KC off, as I know the history and it's not quite as pure as driven snow is it?

No, the KC did not make the Nazis (or vice versa), but it's the same roots to rotten thinking... and the same solutions in the end -- sterilization, gas chambers, and not a drop of foreign blood!

I thought that was the end of it, but just now I have been sent a link to a twitter post from Nick Griffin himself!  

No, I am not making this up.  Amazing! 

You will notice two things right away -- the first being that Nick Griffin cannot read, and the second that he cannot write a simple sentence without engaging in race-baiting.

We know Nick Griffin cannot read, because the web site that seems to have his over-tight panties in a twist is actually NOT anti-pet ownership at all; it's pro-rescue and pound dog.

It's PRO-dog.  It simply celebrates rescue and diversity.

And guess what?

So do I!

Am I an "animal liberationist"? Ha!   Not exactly.  

I not only eat meat and wear leather shoes, but I hunt with terriers (barbarian!), and I not only kill animals (troglodyte!), but I do it up close (sadist!) and personal (ectoplasm!) and I make no apologies for it (Visigoth!).   Hell, I have even written a book to tell others how to hunt with terriers (propagandist!)

But, of course, when you have losing arguments you want to change the subject, and here too we find the Kennel Club, the AKC, and the British National Party have much in common.

Anyone who would dare point out the intellectual and even historical connections between these two must be "anti-pet" (and never mind if they own and rehome dogs), or "animal liberation nuts" (and never mind if they hunt for sport, and eat meat as well).  

What's next?   Perhaps someone would like to accuse me of homosexuality and necrophilia?   I assure you it's all been done before, and I have to say my wife is much amused!  Go ahead and visit the Captain Haddock insult generator.  Say anything to change the subject, which is that the British National Party, the Ku Klux Klan, the Kennel Club, and the American Kennel Club all spring from the same intellectual roots.

Don't believe it?

Read my article in Dog's Today on the subject:

Today, most of the world has renounced the idea that people are better or worse based on skin color.

No thinking person salutes sterilization or infanticide as a way to improve the human race, nor do they honor the notion that we should have centralized control of breeding in order to achieve racial purity.

"Fitter family" contests have gone the way of the buggy whip. The "one drop of foreign blood" test of racial identity has faded into obscurity.

Even on our farms cattle, chickens and sheep are more likely to be hybrids than not.

Everywhere, except in the world of dogs.

In the world of dogs, The Kennel Club and the AKC still hold "breed purity" as the be-all and end-all of their existence.

Here coat color and texture still matter more than physical health or performance in the field.

If some of the puppies in your litter are not quite up to show quality, sterilization is the answer. A "spay-neuter contract” is the term of art in the Kennel Club.

Change "the standard" of some breeds to get rid of dapple or merle coats associated with congenital deafness?

Never!

Outcross to improve health?

No!

Coat color matters. Breed purity matters. Sterilization and euthanasia are the solution.

And if anyone asks about the history of all this, express outrage.

The Kennel Club did not invade the Sudetenland!

For more information, visit my posts on The Eugenics Man and the Kennel Club and From Bassets to Auschwitz in 50 Years: What the Eugenics Movement Learned from Dog Breeders, and Vice Versa.

And for those who want a few cherrys on top, I offer this and this.

I have no idea who created this BNP-Crufts web site.  Though I do think he or she should have added a bit about the true history that connects the Kennel Club and the eugenics movement (how about a link to the Dog's Today article?),  I have to tip my hat to them for an excellent job of pure Black Belt Kung Fu public relations.

Now if only the Kennel Club's crack-shot incompetents will "pull a Barbara Streisand," this little campaign may yet go viral.  

Let's put it on TV.   Let's make Crufts, the Kennel Club, the AKC, and Westminster toxic brands.

And NO, while I had nothing to do with this web site (never talked or emailed with anyone about it ever and I have no idea who created it), I am more than willing to talk about how they got it exactly right if anyone wants to "teach the controversy" over at ABC or the BBC or in the print press.

May I suggest Kennel Club spokesperson Caroline Kisko as my opposite in a debate? She's perfect -- the right person in the right job, and no doubt it will help that her husband is a BNP member, so she can get her talking points right on that score too.
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Darwin Day is February 12th

Evolution Made Us All from Ben Hillman on Vimeo.

Let us prey.

This little ditty will be featured in the hymnal of the First Church of Field and Stream, as soon as we get around to writing a hymnal.
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