Coffee and Provocation

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Next time you hear that the economy is in the crapper (and never mind that the stock market is at a record high, housing prices are rising, and unemployment is falling), you might remind the merchants of gloom that Americans spent over $53 billion on pet products and services last year.  That's not a country on the verge of economic collapse!

 

A nice profile of Stewart Brand who has always been looking for more input, a new way of thinking, and who does not necessarily follow the crowd -- more likely the crowd follows him 10 years later.

 

The best lie ever told by a salesman is that "you get what you pay for." It's rarely true, and less true in medicine (human or animal) than anywhere else.  And yet, people act as idiots because they are buying a sense of themselves every bit as much as they are actually buying a thing or a service.  Even education is not curative, as The New York Times notes: "Even when the focus group leaders reminded participants that the differences between proposed options were nearly negligible, participants continued to choose the more expensive options as if it were beyond question that they must be more efficacious or foolproof."

 

You do not see too many farmers running off to veterinarians for every little thing, and the same is true for dog men who simply order veterinary antibiotics without a prescription and treat common ailments themselves.  I give doses and basic advice on the main Terrierman.com web site, but there are more sources than those named, and W. Cane has sent me a note that even Clavamox is available.  The same source also sells Cephalexin (what I use for most everything), Doxycycline (used to treat Lyme and also heartworm).  Look around and compare prices, however.  And always check Amazon!

 

Is the U.K. ready to shoot 750,000 deer a year?  That's what's needed to control population numbers, according to an article in the Journal of Wildlife Management which says a 50% annual cull is needed every year to keep numbers in check.

 

Here's a summary of the comments section of every article ever written about the media-whore organization known as PeTA.  It's been years since anyone took that organization seriously; it has moved from being a joke to being a bore.

After a 199-year absence, there is now a wolf in Denmark.  It's in Jutland, the part of Denmark that connected to Germany, and there's a Facebook page which you can run through Google translator if you want to keep up.  Thanks to Erika M. for the heads up!