Charles Town, West Virginia
Friday, January 17, 2025
Deer on the Edge
These deer were jungled up a few hundred yards down the road from the house.
Deer are edge creatures — you can walk a 1,000 miles in the deep woods and you will be lucky to see one (though you may hear them running off).
This Maryland county is full of small and large woods next to orchards and farms with big pastures as well as scores of thousands of acres in corn, soy, and winter wheat. There’s no shortage of water either. Really ideal deer habitat.
Frederick County has over 16,000 acres of public hunting grounds, most of which is rocky upland woods. Of the approximately 7,500 deer harvested im the county every year, only about 350 deer are harvested on public land.
Thursday, January 16, 2025
More Snow
Wednesday, January 15, 2025
Shadow Weirdness
Swarm
Chase any problem on this planet around, from global warming to water pollution, from species loss to fisheries collapse, and you will find too many people is the root of the problem.
When bees get too crowded, a hive will make a second or third queen and split off a swarm to find a new location.
But where will we humans swarm off to? Mars?
Hell, we can’t even manage this planet!
Behind every vegetarian is a vegan asking “how can you wear shoes,” and behind every vegan is me, asking them — and everyone else — to have fewer kids.
Tuesday, January 14, 2025
The Gold In Golden Doodles
Railing against “doodle” crosses seems to be a full time sport for some, but I have never engaged in it.
Crosses are how all “breeds” were created, and if a religion is simply a “cult” that has lasted, then a breed can be described as a mutt that has done the same.
All good and carry on.
That said, a Golden Doodle breeder sailed into the comments with her amusing instant expertise.
Long story short, I googled “Golden Doodle rescue” and came up with this rather amazing site >> https://www.puppyspot.com/puppies-for-sale/breed/goldendoodle?
What the actual fuck??
Look at the personnel! Look at the prices!
And I defy anyone to tell me where this thing is located.
And it’s “AKC Approved and authorized”?
Really?
I sort of doubt that!
All breeds!
We bring the puppy to you!
“Only Responsible breeders”.
Oh yes. I’m sure that last point is absolutely true.
Spinning My Wheels on a Monday
Monday, January 13, 2025
Ireland Uses a Monkey to Craft Hunting Legislation
Over in Northern Ireland, John Blair, a Member of the Legislative Assembly, plans to use a Private Members’ Bill to ban the hunting of mammals with dogs, including trail hunting.
The proposed legislation would effectively
outlaw flushing with dogs for pest control (i.e. terrier work), and would push licensed hunting out of existence and affect shooting and gun dog trials.
In 2021, Mr Blair brought forward a similar Private Members’ Bill, which was narrowly defeated at the Second Stage.
The first stage of setting in motion a revised Private Members Bill (PMB) in Northern Ireland is to launch an “online consultation” in the form of a loaded questionnaire on “Survey Monkey” — written to trigger intended answers.
Yes, “Survey Monkey” 🤦♂️
The mind reels.
Blair has already circulated the questionnaire to ANTI hunting groups around the world to gin up skewed results.
➡️ So what can anyone do now?
Well, sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
Every supporter of basic hunting rights (to say nothing of sensible deliberative processes) can complete the “Survey Monkey” questionnaire.
➡️ A completed sample of the ANTI Hunting “Survey Monkey” poll (they’re calling it a “Consultation Process”) can be read here >> https://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com/2025/01/irish-working-terrier-commentary.html? with commentary from the Irish Working Terrier Federation.
➡️ To complete the “Survey Monkey” questionnaire, click on this link >> https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/JBHuntingPMB
Any internet-connected device can be used to complete the survey before the January 20th deadline (extended from Jan. 13th).
Irish Working Terrier Commentary
This is completed sample of the ANTI Hunting “Survey Monkey” poll (they’re calling it a “Consultation Process”) being used to start the process of outlawing hunting with dogs in Northern Ireland, with commentary from the Irish Working Terrier Federation. ⬇️
Importing Deer Meat to the US
Due to peculiarities of US history and law (the Lacey Act of 1900), domestic wild harvested meat cannot be sold in commercial establishments. The Lacey Act banned the commercial hunting of wildlife, which is why the US now has far more deer, elk, bear, duck, geese, and turkey than it did 125 years ago.
This Red Deer (elk) venison was imported from New Zealand. Red Deer are not native to New Zealand, but they were imported numerous times after 1851, and in the absence of predators, wild populations have skyrocketed to the point they are a serious environmental threat requiring regular culling by helicopter in high mountain areas.
In addition to very large numbers of wild Red Deer (elk), New Zealand also had 1.3 million animals behind high fences on 3,200 commercial farms.
Sunday, January 12, 2025
Broody Pair of Bald Eagles
Saturday, January 11, 2025
The Miracle of Snow and Ice
Mother nature dropped another 2 inches of snow last night.
About two-thirds of the people in the world have never seen snow, and in the US about 25 percent of the population never sees snow where they live.
For a huge swath of the world prior to the 20th Century, snow and ice were a miracle beyond imagination.
Today of course, miracles occur on a daily occurrence. 
With the flick of a switch night becomes day, and with a small turn of the thermostat a cold house becomes warm.
People around the world can read this sentence faster than I can write it, and cars whizz down the road at speeds faster than a horse can run.
All of this to say that my new chest freezer was delivered today, and is currently plugged in and cooling-down in the garage.
A small miracle, but it came with a reminder that humans are not yet omnipotent.
You see, I have a very long and steep driveway.
When it snows, even after it is plowed, the last 150 feet tends to defeat trucks.
Last year, even a front end Kubota loader could not get up that last 150 icy feet, which is a few degrees steeper than the lower driveway.
History repeated itself today.
The big delivery truck backed up about 1,200 feet, and then it stopped 150 feet short of the top.
Gravity and traction won again, and so installing the miracle of endless frozen food required me to hoist the chest freezer on my back, and then hump it into the garage as if I were a jungle porter on the Stanley Expedition.
Mother Nature always bats last — a reminder to not get too comfortable or to rely too much on technological miracles. Apollo 13, after all, was fixed with Duct Tape.
Cults and Canine Crosses
Canine crosses are how all “breeds” were created.
If a religion is simply a “cult” that has lasted, then a breed can be described as a mutt that has done the same.
A Pet Shop Memory
This is the hand of a gorilla with vitiligo — a condition that strips pigment from parts of the body, and which can be quite dramatic on dark-skinned people.
The picture reminds me of when I was a very little kid, and living for a very few years in Washington, D.C.
Back then there was an old circus chimp living in a massive iron cage in a pet store on Pennsylvania avenue near Eastern Market.
This pet store sold puppies in the front window, and lizards and snakes in the back.
The chimp's cage was to the right of the narrow aisle in between these two features, and as you passed by his cage, he would reach through the bars with his hand, his fingers curled, gesturing for a cigarette. This poor old circus chip was addicted to cigarettes -- something he had gotten hooked on as a circus performer. Now it seemed to be his only pleasure.
I never saw that chimp let out of the cage. The thing I remember now, more than 58 years later, was how scary his hands were, with long cracked nails at the end of grasping digits.
Dying Stars and Limping Dogs
The pathogen that causes Lyme Disease -- Borrelia burgdorferi-- does not run on iron like every other life form on earth.
Instead, it depends on manganese, which means that when the liver produces hepcidin to fight the infection, that natural iron-inhibiting hormone does nothing to starve the pathogen, which is why Lyme disease is so robust absent a good dosing of Doxycline.
.
My theory is that Borrelia burgdorferi is an alien, non-terrestrial life-form seeded here from an asteroid or comet.
Crazy talk?
Maybe.
But as crazy as that sounds, remember that all the iron that forms the backbone of all other animal life on the planet, started as iron in the heart of a dying star.
Getting Value
Ordered them from Gemplers farm supply with a discount for buying something else I can no longer remember. I only use them in snow.
Friday, January 10, 2025
Animal Trainer Karen Pryor Has Died
Karen Pryor died on January 4th. She was 92.
Ms. Pryor was a marine mammal trainer who first trained porpoises and dolphins in Hawaii at a sea life park founded by her husband, Tap Pryor, using a 20-page manual written by Ron Turner, a student of B. F. Skinner. Turner was training dolphins at Marineland in California using bridging techniques pioneered by Marianne and Keller Breland, also former students of B.F. Skinner.
Though she had little experience training dogs, Ms. Pryor thought rewards-based reinforcement training could be used to train dogs in much the same way it was used to train dolphins.
Ms. Pryor’s 1984 book, “Don’t Shoot the Dog,” (a title created by the publisher) popularized rewards based reinforcement training though, in fact, it gave very little practical information about dog training and was more of a biography sprinkled with anecdote and theory.
Ironically, Karen Pryor, could not let her own Border Terrier off leash in the woods, and used an Invisible Fence to keep that same dog in the yard.
On her web site Ms. Pryor explained her success with a low prey drive Poodle, but her failure with her own high prey drive Border Terrier:
“Going from that collie to terriers in the woods is just a shaping staircase; if you want to do it, it can be done, but it involves a lot of steps. For me, that's too much like work. My practical solution is a mix of training and management. The backyard is fenced, and there the dogs can bark and chase squirrels all they want. Outside the front door, on the sidewalk, we enjoy a shaped behavior of stalking squirrels, with an occasional brief 'chase' reinforcer. In the woods, my poodle, whose lust for squirrels is mitigated by his general timidity, can be off-leash, because he was quite easily shaped to come when called, even from squirrels. My 17-year-old border terrier, however, stays on-leash in the woods. From her standpoint, it's a lot better than no woods at all."
In “Don't Shoot the Dog” Ms. Pryor noted that she relied on an Invisible Fence to keep her Border Terrier in the yard:
"I used [a high voltage ‘Invisible Fence’ shock collar] when my terrier and I lived in a house in the woods. An actual fence would have been a perpetual invitation to try to dig under it or escape through an open gate; the conditioned warning signal and the Invisible Fence were far more secure."
In 1992 Ms. Pryor teamed up with dog trainer Gary Wilkes to demonstrate “clicker training“ for dogs, which proved to be a powerful tool for shaping uncoded tricks, but which was far less effective at suppressing or stopping self-rewarding or instinctive behavior.
Mr. Wilkes had, up to that point, trained over a 1,000 dogs using clicker training, and brought that practical tool and term into Ms. Pryor’s world of theory. “Clickers” were not mentioned at all in Ms. Pryor’s 1984 book.
Acolytes of Ms. Pryor tended to ignore her self-admitted dog training failures and to prosletyze “pure positive” and “force free” dog trainjng as a differentiating marketing gimmick, often incorrectly crediting Ms. Pryor with inventing clicker and rewards-based training.
In 2007 Ms. Pryor developed an on-line dog training franchise called the “Karen Pryor Academy”.
Ms. Pryor’s second husband was Jon Lindbergh, son of aviator Charles Lindbergh and writer Anne Morrow Lindbergh.
In recent years, Ms. Pryor suffered from age-related dementia.
Fencing In the Good and Fencing Out the Bad
THE WEE WOLVES have access to a warm basement and inside dog beds, and can exit to this fenced area (30 feet by 30 feet).
The arches support a large deck off the living room, and that deck provides shade in summer and an ice-and snow-free area in winter.
The edge of an elevated “loafing bench” can be seen at right. There are also two outside dog houses that the dogs can bench up on (dogs like elevated perches), or they can lie inside them with their nose out if they prefer.
The snow-covered area is gravel over lawn stapled-down yard fabric. Around the inside perimeter is an additional layer of stapled wire mesh topped with concrete, and then gravel on top of that.
Occasional kitchen leftovers and snacks fall from the porch to the waiting wolves below — carrots, a bit of omlette, a dog biscuit, etc. As far as the dogs are concerned, it’s manna from heaven.
Outside of the hard fence is about three-quarters of an acre in an invisible fence. Within that area is a shed, lots of trees, and five or six bird feeders. The dogs follow me about the yard when I work outside, but are behind the hard fence when I am inside or away. A coyote attack is unlikely, but it’s not unimaginable, and though I’ve seen no stray dogs about, that too is a problem best avoided with a hard fence.
The orchard area and the forest area below the house are not fenced, and the dogs follow me down there at least twice a day as I feed the deer, pick up fallen branches, etc.
The dogs sleep inside at night and in crates to prevent them from getting activated by all the wildlife maneuvering through the yard at night.
There’s outside furniture and an overhead sun screen on the deck above the dog yard, as well as a large hot tub, and a gate that can be opened to allow the dog’s access to whatever’s going on up there.
The one downside to this arrangement is that leaves will blow into the dog yard, and have to be blown out. We have a lot of big trees, and so a lot of leaves, but the problem is seasonal and not too bad.
Thursday, January 09, 2025
The Fire This Time
Huge swaths of Los Angeles County are on fire.
There’s more than enough water in the reservoirs to drown this fire in acre-feet of water, but the fires are localized and local water tanks are too small to quench the blaze using hydrants. Neighborhood hydrants are built for internal house fires, not external conflagrations.
A huge portion of the firefighters risking their lives to fight this blaze are inmates working to reduce their incarceration time.
Folks losing their homes are desperate to find housing for their pets, from dogs and cats to horses, goats, and tortoises.
The four photos after the first fire-context post from Will Bunch, are pictures taken by Ethan Swope, an LA-based photojournalist working for the Associated Press.
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