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.

Wyeth’s Fox In Winter

N.C. Wyeth's fox in winter "Men of Concord" endpaper illustration 1935

Darwin Cosplaying As a Lion

Broody Pair of Bald Eagles

Pair of Bald Eagles nesting about a mile from the house. I figure at least 3-4 weeks before they lay.

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

Over 15 years with these $10 brown boots.

Ordered them from Gemplers farm supply with a discount for buying something else I can no longer remember. I only use them in snow.

Vanilla Fudge

 When everyone in the band thinks they’re the main character.

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.

One Headlight, One Good Wiper Blade

Some Birds Stand Out, Some Don’t

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.

Tracks Below the Bird Feeders

Tracking a Fox

Down along the river this morning, tracking a fox through the snow to its pee spot.

Water And Ice on the Monocacy

A Snow-Cleared Driveway

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.

Zuckerberg Drops All Content Fact Checking

Elon Musk will play Melania in drag as part of Jeff Bezos’s Melania Trump documentary, for which Bezos paid a $40 million bribe to Trump’s most famous foreign worker visa hire. 

“There really are jobs no American will do,” said Mark Zuckerberg, “and getting banged by Donald Trump is one of them.”

Peter Thiel praised the casting, saying it was a landmark day for apartheid-loving South African supporters of Donald Trump.

AVMA On Breeding for Defect

“The AVMA encourages veterinarians, breeders, and breed associations to carefully consider the health and welfare implications of breed standards, breeding decisions, and the responsibilities involved with breeding, selecting, or owning companion animals.

“Since some companion animals have known genetic and inherited features that negatively impact the long-term health and welfare of the animal, the AVMA encourages veterinarians to advise the public and potential companion animal owners about the medical, behavioral, welfare, and financial concerns associated with ownership of these animals.

 “To improve quality of life of companion animals, the AVMA discourages breeding companion animals with deleterious characteristics, since these features often require surgical correction or lifelong medical or behavioral management.

“The AVMA supports research in genetic traits and deleterious physical and behavioral features to better educate the profession and breeders so as to optimize the health and welfare of companion animals.” 

Source

Murder?

I Urge Caution

The world of dogs is filled with instant experts of the type seen here.

If you think the world needs another doggy podcast, or another youtube channel of people talking into a camera while driving, I assure you it does not.

A word to the wise should be sufficient.

A Facebook commentor asked: "That's got to be a pisstake, surely?" 

  My reply:

"I hope so, but then I open the paper or the browser and find we are about to nominate a 14-year heroin addict and vaccine denier with no science, health, or management experience to run the US health care system. We are about to nominate a cult-following Assad apologist and Russian operative to run National Security. We are about to tap a drunk alcoholic white supremacist with no management or national security experience to run the US Department of Defense. We just re-elected a convicted rapist and 34-count felon with repeat fraud convictions as President, and he’s talking about taking over Canada, Panama, Greenland, and Mexico. So, yeah, I’m having a hard time separating the funny clowns from the John Wayne Gacy’s."

Shoot the Moon

Waxing gibbous moon tonight, straight overhead, taken from my driveway, with a hand-held Nikon P90.

The Mystery of the Red Ball

Went down with the Wee Wolves to feed the deer, and Miso showed up with a big red ball.

What?

And then I remembered that the evening before, I had tossed two old apples, starting to get wrinkly, out the front door and downhill towards the orchard and deer feed trough. Misto was *very* proud of his find and carried his frozen prize all the way back to the shed, where I split it in two for them both to share. 

No telling where the other apple is.

Ice In the River

The Height of Everest

Today was the first day in five weeks that my wife drove her own car following her knee replacement.  Big Day!

While she was running around to bank and drug store, I stopped by the river too see what that looked like. Oddly, there was a surveyor down there with three theodolites set up.

I chatted him up — he was calibrating his instruments, and needed the shade under a bridge for that.

We chatted about zoning, city vs county workers, Baltimore’s lack of accountability to taxpayers, and taxes.

Then I asked if he knew about the great triangulation survey of India by Everest that established “sea level” at the ocean and, using towers, theodolites, and very long chains, surveyed all of India and established the height of Mount Everest and K2 with great precision?  

He did not, so I urged him to look it up because it was quite amazing for 1870 or so.  I think they got the height of Everest right within a few feet.

It turns out I was wrong on the date — the survey was started in 1802 and finished in 1871.

The native surveyors used on the project were called “pundits,” because the head native surveyor (much respected and now featured on an Indian postage stamp) had been a school teacher before becoming a surveyor.

I looked it up when I got home and it turns out several books have been written about the survey.  

I believe what I know came from reading Kipling’s “Kim”.  

What’s this have to do with dogs? Not a thing, though Rudyard’s poem, “The Fox Contemplates” is en entire canine and vulpine history lesson if you know how to read it.  See >> https://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com/2005/06/rudyard-kipling-fox-meditates.html?

Old Man Darwin

Darwin is 13 and a half. His eyes are clear, but he’s a bit slower. He was my mom’s dog, but now he is very much mine, and I talk to him as if he’s a direct channel to my mother, because that’s the kind of Juju I believe in.

In Maryland, Fox Chasing Is Not Hunting

Maryland law says:

"Unarmed fox chasing is not classified as hunting by law, and is therefore not subject to DNR hunting regulations. Permits may be required to chase foxes on certain public lands. All activities on DNR owned and managed properties are subject to DNR public land regulations. With the exception of unarmed fox chasing, fox hunting with the aid of dogs is prohibited during the deer firearms season."

Dressing Up and Looking Down

As Stephanie L. and I came in from scouting with her terrier, we heard hounds. Arriving at the vehicles we found several horse trailers and SUVs, mounted riders, and hounds still in a trailer.

Maryland and Virginia fox hunters almost never see, much less kill, a fox. This is  social riding in a group following hounds which are not expected to do much actual chasing.

Off-hand, I mentioned to a woman we were doing terrier work, and she made a distasteful  expression. She was engaged in social riding with a “season” that no doubt ended in a fancy dress-up ball. She had no idea what American terrier work was about, but we were clearly the unwashed and we were not wearing $700 riding outfits. My double-knee Carrharts had holes, as did my 30-year old canvas shirt which was fraying on every edge,  In the world of mounted fox hunting fashion is king, and looking down from a horse comes naturally. Ah well, I’m glad to be me, and not them, and no doubt they felt the same. In any case, one woman in the scrum did not speak for all.

A note about the mountain in the back of the picture. That's Sugarloaf.

Sugarloaf is a 3,200 acre private park in Frederick, Maryland, that is free admission, and open to all.

The mountain was bought around 1900 by Gordon Strong, a Chicago patent attorney and businessman.

Strong set up a trust fund in 1947 which maintains the trail system and other facilities. There is active deer control to preserve forest cover, but no other hunting that I know of. There are major cliffs and terrific views here, and it’s a popular near-DC hiking destination with nice well-maintained forest and lots of Mountain Laurel.

There are Black Bears and Eastern Timber Rattlesnakes on the mountain, but the only real danger is falling. That’s a real danger at spots — some steep trails and terrifying edges are patiently waiting for the young, stupid, and clumsy.

Of note: Gordon Strong tried to integrate schools around the mountain in 1912, and though unsuccessful, he made sure the black school was better, and with a better teacher.  

Gordon Strong was my kind of man; nature-centered, community-minded, looking down on no one, though he owned the largest mountain in the immediate area.

Time to Shoot the Dog

A few words about the fascist rioting by Q-Anon and racist insurrectionists in Washington, D.C. four years ago.

The problems we have with white racists in this country is a failure of PUNISHMENT.

Instead of jailing and hanging traitors and insurrectionists in 1865, at the end of the Civil War, we jailed no one.

The same occurred for the next 125 years as racists used police fascism to enforce Jim Crow laws, and as police actively winked at lynchings and cross burnings, while manufacturing crimes and escalating confrontations with people of color.

Cops were never punished and Klansmen were almost never jailed.

What’s this have to do with dogs?

Quite a lot.

Training is going on all around us all the time.

So too is bad behavior.

Most of the time, however, bad behavior is put in check, not by rewards but by aversive consequences.

Two men raining blows on each other will stop fighting pretty quickly once the police come, and they will not be quick to fight again after the police haul them to the station, book them, and they have to explain to their spouse, children, and boss why they have to go to court, pay a fine, and spend three weeks in jail.

No policeman ever said:  "We have to know why they are fighting in order to change their behavior" 

No policeman ever said: "It will take a long time to teach them not to fight."

Police and the criminal justice systems know something; Fighting is a self-rewarding behavior.  

Sometimes it feels good to get the adrenaline up and pop someone in the nose.  

The Proud Boys and Q-Anon yahoos are mostly in this to feel important and to swagger with impunity.

The impunity is the problem.

Most of us color within the lines of civility because time and experience has shown us that staying calm, engaging in rational discussion, and walking away when mad results in a better long-term outcome almost every time.

When did we learn that? Was it second grade when we were pulled down to the principals office and our parents were mortified because we were suspended for a day?

That didn't take? Then the penalties got higher until they did. How much do you want to lose? Your allowance? The car? Your freedom? Your job? Your future?

Our entire legal system swings on penalties to stop self-rewarding behavior, whether they are penalties for simple assault or robbery, sexual assault or embezzlement.

Why is our legal system focused on penalties?

Because they work.

Rewards are great for encouraging people to show up early, study hard, and help paint the gym, but none of those behaviors are internally self-rewarding, which is why they have to be externally self-rewarding.

How do you stop internally self-rewarding behavior, and how do you stop it pretty damn quick?

Punishment.  The "P" word.

And does punishment work? 

Like new money.  

So, to bring it back to the craziness and violence in Washington:  all of it is due to lack of punishment.

Senator Susan Collins said she thought Donald Trump “learned his lesson” when he was impeached by the House but not convicted by the Senate.

Trump DID learn a lesson, but not the one Susan Collins imagined.  

He learned he could engage in treason and open theft without consequence.

He learned that the politicians and the press corps are confused, divided, tentative, and WEAK.

So how do we fix things now that Trump has been elected President a second time and is nominating disease spreaders. poisoners, and foreign operatives to key posts overseeing health, environment, national security, and defense?

What do we do with a violent animal that has only been rewarded for rape, theft, threats, and violence?  

What do we do with an old animal that threatens us all?

We shoot the dog

At this late date, nothing else will work. 

You don’t “click and treat” when the pit bull is coming up your arm.  You shoot the dog.

First Snow For the Ladies

Scoot in the Snow

This headstone is is my backyard, and I noticed it peeking out of the snow this morning.

Scoot was our first family dog, acquired by my mother from a Pennsylvania pet store on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. I was five years old, Scoot was the runt of the litter, and she sold for $5, which would be $50 with inflation.

Back then, most pet shop dogs were puppy mill products, and those that die not die from distemper or vehicle impact, had a very high chance of ending up in a kill shelter.

In 1965, about 20 percent of all dogs in the US were euthanized every year, with 90 percent of dogs in shelters euthanized within 5 days of being admitted. 

Scoot lived and was much loved. She traveled to Morocco, Algeria, Kansas, and Virginia before dying at age 15 in Washington, DC.

Scoot’s name fit perfectly in Morocco and Algeria where “a-scoot” means “shut-up” in Arabic.

Winter Wonderland at the House

Dig Your Own Grave

Wee Mushrooms In the Snow

We’re supposed to get 5-8 inches of snow overnight and into tomorrow.

Beaver Along the Monocacy