Remember the story about HSUS importing a not-quite-vegetarian dog food from Uruguay?
If you recall, the dog food is over-priced, low-standard stuff made in an un-named foreign factory, and it is wastefully packaged and shipped vast distances across the equator while burning up tons of fossil fuel on the journey.
Well guess what?
It seems agenda item #79 at the Humane Society Legislative Fund is "Pet Food Safety"
Here we are told HSUS wants to "increase enforcement" and "develop certification system for oversight in foreign countries or other mechanism for enforcement of U.S. standards in products imported to this country; support legislation for mandatory recall authority."
OK. I'll go along with that.
But first how about if HSUS tells us the name of the company that is actually making their dog food?
Real dog food has a real maker, and one suspects there might be a problem if no one wants to say where the factory is, or who is running it.
Ironic Update #2:
Remember the story about the Scottish Terrier, Sadie, winning Westminster?
We gave a detailed account of the health problems facing the breed (a higher than 45% rate of cancer!) and the shortened lifespan and increased ownership costs that result.
Lisa Paddock followed up noting that "The last Scottie to win Westminster did so in 1995. A little over a year later she was dead of liver cancer or lymphoma sited in that organ. She was 5 1/2 years old."
Anyone want to start a "dead pool" on Sadie? She'll be 5 years old on April 2nd, and her in-bred pedigree can be found here.
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And YES, I am probably using the term "ironic" improperly, but if Alanis Morisette can get away with it, I figure I can too!
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6 comments:
Wouldn't it be nice if, now and then, our cynical views weren't reinforced again and again?
I find always being right to be a real burden, as so many people begin to resent me for it ;)
Patrick
I have been looking for evidence of inbreeding in Scottish terrier pedigrees, and I'm having some fun with it.
Lots of inbreeding in the early days. The dogs have lost a lot of leg length, and their heads are very different from the originals.
Not only that, but Aberdeen terriers were not very long-haired, and some appear to be only slightly broken coated.
I think I've found that this breed is much like the bull terrier. The modern bull terrier didn't exist until one dog named Lord Gladiator was born in 1917. Before that, bull terriers looked very different from generation to generation.
I'm trying to pin down the first modern Scottish terrier in the same way, but it's a bit harder.
But it looks like the same situation.
Look at the old, old picturs of Scotties and look at a BAD Patterdale today or an old picture of a working Sealyham like Lucas had.
Same dogs, more or less. Ears up or down and coat color is the main difference.
Thd old Scottie coat was a slape coat that shed (excellent), the chest was smaller, the back longer. That's what you need if you HOPE to work these dogs.
Now look at the changes in the "standard" and you will find "the standard" is not standard. It changes.
And here's the thing: ALL the "standards" for ALL the dogs change all the time (about every 20 years). The "standards" are not, in fact, standard!
So, to get back to it, there are only three kinds of terier dogs: those that work to ground, those that work above ground, and those that do not work at all.
With retreivers, it's dogs that retrieve birds as consistent as a metonome, dogs that *might* retrieve a ball or frisbee, and dogs that do not do anything at all.
All the breeds are the same down the line: sheep collies, fly ball collies, and do nothing collies, etc.
The color of the dog, the ears, the nose, the "descended from Sir Pounce Alot," stuff is all mumble and misery. Useless.
A dog is what it does.
P.
Actually Ironic, a spoof
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrPqpY6tfgM
And yet, Scottie show breeders will swear up one side and down the other that beneath the haircoat, the dog is unchanged. The level of self-deception on this subject is indicative of the overall ostrich attitude.
Lisa in Cape May County, NJ
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