Brachy Breed Registrations Plummet

From VetTimes >> https://www.vettimes.com/news/vet-nursing/small-animal-vets/is-message-finally-hitting-home-brachy-dog-registrations-plummet

Fresh figures show that registrations of English bulldogs, pugs and French bulldogs have plummeted in the past year.

The UK Brachycephalic Working Group (BWG) welcomed newly released data from the Royal Kennel Club (RKC) showing registration of the three key brachycephalic breeds respectively declined by 30%, 37% and 44% between 2024 and 2025.

The drop is well above the underlying reduction in overall RKC registrations in that time – which fell 15% from 187,772 to 158,901 – said to indicate a disproportionate reduction in their popularity within the registered population.

Amid extensive BWG campaigning to raise awareness of the health issues caused by extreme conformations including flat faces, excessive skin folds, spinal abnormalities and congenital short tails, RKC figures also demonstrated a decade-long fall in registrations of the three breeds.

The RKC revealed a 92% drop in pug registrations between 2016 and 2025 (10,408 to 834), while French bulldog registrations fell by 64% from 21,470 to 7,750 and English bulldog registrations dropped by 65% from 7,785 to 2,711.

The decreases are said to have continued year-on-year over that period.

BWG chair and RVC professor of companion animal epidemiology Dan O’Neill said: ‘After a decade of BWG campaigning, it is heartening to see signs that the British public as a nation of animal lovers are recognising and taking action to ensure no dog suffers due to selective breeding for a flat-faced look.

We urge the British public to continue to ‘Stop and think before buying a flat-faced dog’ whether RKC registered or not.’

Last year, Prof O’Neill co-authored a study that indicated public preference for less extreme body shapes among brachycephalic dogs.

But veterinary and animal welfare organisations insist there is still more work to be done, with a ‘new normal’ emerging among younger owners driven by social media.

BVA senior vice-president Elizabeth Mullineaux added: ‘These new figures are an encouraging sign that campaigns such as BVA’s #BreedToBreathe and collaborative work by the BWG are beginning to have a positive impact on demand.”

“Of course, we know that there’s a large population of flat-faced dogs who aren’t RKC registered who’re being bred and brought across the UK, or being imported from abroad, so there’s still work to be done to tackle irresponsible breeding and to improve the overall welfare of these breeds.

“Our advice to anyone looking to get a puppy continues to be to prioritise health over looks.

Battersea recently launched a new ‘Cost of Cute’ campaign seeking to raise awareness of the significant financial, emotional and welfare tolls that extreme physical aesthetics can carry with them for owners and their pets.

Caroline Jenkins, Battersea’s head of campaigns, said: “The registration data is a promising sign that the public demand for flat-faced dogs may be decreasing; however, among younger owners our research shows that expectations of how animals should look, behave and be treated are changing with a ‘new normal’ emerging.

“‘Pets that have exaggerated features remain incredibly popular on social media and online sales platforms – yet our social media feeds rarely show the full picture.”

New From F-Elon Musk?

My New Business Venture

I will sell you a real one for less. Mine are made in America, organic, fair trade, ethically-sourced, foraged by an artisanal craftsman. See >> https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09HKLLB7J?

Two Truths and AI

Racist Oregon

“The Oregon black exclusion laws were a series of measures enacted in the 19th century to prevent black people from settling within the borders of the settlement and eventual U.S. state of Oregon. The first such law took effect in 1844, when the Provisional Government of Oregon voted to exclude black settlers from Oregon's borders. The law authorized a punishment for any Black settler remaining in the territory to be whipped with "not less than twenty nor more than thirty-nine stripes" for every six months they remained. Although the 1844 law authorized whipping as a penalty for Black residents who remained in Oregon beyond the prescribed period, there are no documented cases of anyone being whipped under the law. The whipping provision was replaced later in 1844, before the prescribed removal periods had resulted in its enforcement. 

“Additional laws aimed at African Americans entering Oregon were ratified in 1849 and 1857. The last of these laws was repealed in 1926. The laws, born of anti-slavery and anti-black beliefs, were often justified as a reaction to fears of black people instigating Native American uprisings.”

See >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_black_exclusion_laws

The Radical Notion of Direct Consequences.

You Pay More So They Don’t Pay At All

Fines Are Permission for the Rich

Trust, Built Over Years, Is Shattered In An Instance

No Small Thing

Election Work

This is what Tuesday was about for my wife and I — 17 hours as poll workers and judges. Democracy is a participatory sport. Thanks to all who participated.

You Get More of Whatever You Tolerate

One Giant Leap for Mankind

Attack of the Killer Monkeys

The only thing more absurd that women’s magazines are men’s magazines

It seems “monkeys on a raft” was a  popular cover story for men's pulp magazines in the 1950s for some reason. 

Calling Sigmund Freud!

Of course, for all I know this may be the very few times there is a small element of truth behind the story (perhaps a sinking boat with a load of monkeys for the laboratory and pet store trade?), and so it was picked up and repeated by the pulp magazine purveyors of shlock and fantasy.  

Call Dr. Jung too.  This may be a TWO psychiatrist situation!

——-

And no, *none of us* want our daughter to marry an American… but what are you gonna do? 

Space, the Final Frontier

My son-in-law built a Space Shuttle for the kids, Milo and Leo, who are going trick-or-treating as astronauts.  My daughter and SIL are going as aliens. Isn’t that a terrific Space Shuttle? 😀❤️

Big Mushroom On Top of Beehive

Two Truths and AI

Oregon’s Shameful History

From Wikipedia (link):

“The Oregon black exclusion laws were a series of measures enacted in the 19th century to prevent black people from settling within the borders of the settlement and eventual U.S. state of Oregon. The first such law took effect in 1844, when the Provisional Government of Oregon voted to exclude black settlers from Oregon's borders. The law authorized a punishment for any Black settler remaining in the territory to be whipped with ‘not less than twenty nor more than thirty-nine stripes’ for every six months they remained. Although the 1844 law authorized whipping as a penalty for Black residents who remained in Oregon beyond the prescribed period, there are no documented cases of anyone being whipped under the law. The whipping provision was replaced later in 1844, before the prescribed removal periods had resulted in its enforcement. 

“Additional laws aimed at African Americans entering Oregon were ratified in 1849 and 1857. The last of these laws was repealed in 1926. The laws, born of anti-slavery and anti-black beliefs, were often justified as a reaction to fears of black people instigating Native American uprisings.”

Not Careless… Sociopathic Predators

“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

Whiter Shade of Pale

Every Halloween I dress up as a serial killer.  They look just like everyone else – only whiter.

Patti Smith :: People Have the Power

Tortured Trees

Most downtown street trees are hammered by road salt and dog urine, shoe-horned into too small a space, with neither enough soil or enough water, and buffeted by pollution.  It’s a miracle that any survive to age 10.

Shit to Gold and Back to Shit

American politics is like driving: "D" for driving forward, and "R" for reverse.

Austin Running the Marine Corps Marathon

My son ran his second Marathon today — 26.219 miles with a total elevation gain of approximately 699 to 787 feet (213 to 240 meters).

His time (including 15 minutes not running due to leg cramps) was 3.32, which put him near the top 10 percent of all runners in the Marine Corps Marathon, and near the top 13 percent of all men, and for his age group (he’s 38) despite the sit-out.

His splits for the first 20 miles were fantastic.  

His next Marathon is November 15th in Richmond, Virginia and then it’s the Los Angeles Marathon on March 7th.

Make Average People the Metric

Jack O’Lantern Mushrooms In the Yard

Reading the Labels

My “27 grain” bagel this morning was made of fine Whole Wheat Flour, Oat Flakes, Brown Flax Seed, Sunflower Seeds, Sesame Seeds, Pumpkin Seeds, White Buckwheat, Golden Flax, Millet, Hemp Seeds, Corn, Triticale, Rye, Long Grain Brown Rice, Einkorn Wheat, Emmer, Durum, Spelt, Barley Flakes, Organic Khorasan Flakes, Wheat Flakes, Red Fife, Chia Seeds, White Quinoa, Amaranth, Sorghum, Poppy Seed, Teff Seed, Sugar, Vital Wheat Gluten, Molasses, Salt, Yeast, Cultured Wheat Flour, Vinegar, Degerminated Yellow Corn Meal, Inactivated Dry Yeast, Ascorbic Acid, Enzymes, and Gum Acacia.

Trump Is the Anti-Christ

How Do You Know That?

Most people have walked past a lot of gold mines because they were, essentially, lazy. 

“That’s just a pile if dirt,” they sniffed. 

And that was exactly what it was until someone who had the fire called desire produced a deep dish and began carefully washing the dirt.

It was slow work, and it took months, but in the end, there was a small vial of gold dust, and that gold was forever. It was gold that could neither be created nor destroyed. But could it be found? Oh yes. But not by everyone. Only by those with the fire called desire. 

And the lesson is this: If you truly want Gold, there is nothing I can say or do that will stop you. And if you don’t truly want Gold, there is nothing I can say or do that will help you, because all you well ever see is the dirt. You will never look at a pile of dirt as opportunity to find gold.

This is why I hate the question so often directed at me:  How do you know that?  

People ask as if knowing stuff is some sort of magic trick.  As if there’s some secret stash or magic URL.

The question is to trivialize the mining of the gold — to minimize the effort to know stuff and to be right more often than not.

Insatiable curiosity is both a blessing and a disease.  What it is most assuredly **not** is a magic trick.

When mining for information, you never stop at the flash.  You keep washing and reducing, separating the stones from the black sand and then the black sand from what appears to be gold.

But is it really gold?  

You test it, weigh it, fire it, treat it with mercury, and then — after thousands of hours — you reconstitute it as a small ingot, perhaps no larger than a little finger.

How did you get that you are asked, as if it must be an accidental or easy thing.  Where can I casually find gold like that?  Surely it’s some sort of alchemy, the kissing cousin of magic?

You point to the dirt and the pan.

It’s never the answer they are looking for, and it’s rarely one they even understand.

Surely there must be some trick? You can’t possibly have panned 40 tons of dirt to get what you got. Tell me the trick.

But there is no trick beyond sitting at river’s edge and shoveling tons of dirt into a sluce, followed by swirling the pan over whatever settles in the traps.

There is no magic.  It’s all suspiciously like work. 

———————-

Related Post:  Magical Thinking.

The New Patriotism Needs Grit

Fifty Years Ago

1976. This is equivalent to $34,800 today.  

My cell phone has 256 gigabytes — 256,000 megabytes.

Marine Corps Marathon Coming Up

 Austin running the Army 10-Miler in the pouring rain, October 11th. Marine Corps Marathon is on Sunday.

Get Rich in Farming?

According to Lord Google:

▪️To net $150,000 a year from a dairy farm, you generally need between 120 and 750 milk cows, depending heavily on your net profit per cow, region, and whether you sell commodity milk or value-added/direct-to-consumer products.

▪️To net $150,000 a year in profit from sheep farming, you will generally need a flock of 625 to 1,500 breeding ewes, depending entirely on your production system, land access, and marketing strategy.

▪️To net $150,000 per year from selling eggs, you need roughly 2,880 laying hens.

▪️To net $150,000 a year from meat chickens, you need to raise and sell approximately 22,400 to 22,500 meat chickens annually (assuming small-to-mid scale pasture-raised or direct-market economics).

All of this seems to assume you have free land, free equipment, and labor and access to markets without middlemen, and you are selling at peak prices.

Rage Should Be Expected

So much of what is wrong, broken, and evil in Anerica is a white man’s disease. 

Rage against that should be EXPECTED.

For more refreshing honesty and self-awareness from the blue grass hollers of Kentucky, see below, from Tyler Childers.

The Ghosts of the Rockies

A HERD OF PRONGHORN mingling with beef cattle today in Colorado. Pronghorn Antelope are the fastest animal in North America, and can hit speeds of 45-55 mph.  

That kind of speed, of course, presupposes a predator capable of running that fast.  

But where is that predator?

Gone for thousands of years, but not forgotten: the North American Cheetah, or Miracinonyx, which disappeared about 16,000 years ago — a blink of an eye in evolutionary terms.

There are ghosts all around us if you know what questions to ask, and where to look.  

Every Pronghorn has the ghost of a Miracinonyx following it. It is invisible, but only just out of sight.

Austin Refueling After 30 Miles

Austin ran 30 miles in a day — 10 miles in the morning, and 20 miles in the afternoon. Amazing!