There are some things I will never understand. Here are ten of them:
- Why do people think a dog can be judged in the show ring?
Do folks think a beauty pageant is how you find a friend, an employee, an athlete, or a paragon of genetic health? - Why is breeding dogs a "sport"?
Is star-gazing a sport? How about stamp collecting? Crochet? Nintendo? Writing?\ - Why do people think poodles were once found in the wild?
Has it escaped their notice that feral dogs do not devolve to wolves? It is too much to think that a dog might simply be a dog, just as a coyote is a coyote, and a pigeon is a pigeon? - Why do some people think the natural diet of dogs is frozen chicken and cubed beef?
Are they unaware that the "natural diet" of the dog is rotten food on a garbage heap? Do they not know that the preferred diet of the wolf is the torn rectum of a sick and dying animal? Have they not seen their own dogs delight in eating green grass and excrement? Is it too shocking an idea that bagged kibble might be fine? - Why do so many people buy carefully bred hunting dogs, and then not hunt them?
Do these people buy expensive wines in order to read the labels? Do they buy racing cars to park them in the driveway? - Why do some people inbreed dogs in order to express genetic defects?
Are these folks having children with their siblings in order to see if their own family carries the genes for diabetes, epilepsy, cancer, or hemophilia? - Why is a lap dog invented in 1863 called an "important breed," while today's cross bred is described as "just another designer mutt"?
Do people really believe the potted histories printed in all-breed books? Do they not know that dog dealers have always been with us? - Why is a suburban rosette chaser a "canine hobbyist" but everyone else is a "backyard breeder?"
When push comes to shove, how many of either group health test their dogs, work their dogs, or track the health and work history of their progeny over multiple generations? - Why do people ignore the emotional needs of animals?
How is it OK to keep dogs in Kennels or cages for weeks on end without letting them out? Convicted murderers get more yard time that many of the dogs found in large kennels. - Why do Kennel Club breeders think anyone should listen to them?
Their animals are not healthier than random-bred dogs, and almost no Kennel Club dog can be found at the race track, on the farm, in the field, or pulling a sled. So why is anyone listening to them?
Have to disagree as usual with your statement in # 3. Dogs absolutely do devolve into wolves given a few thousand years or even less- witness the dogs of Australia- dingos are feral dogs become wolves and there are even literal feral dogs on the other side of the Dingo Fence which live exactly as wolves do- the howl, live in the same type familial groups and hunt large animals (rheas and kangaroos) in packs. Also- those famous feral dogs of Moscow have a a group which is pretty much independent of humans and hunts at night in packs. I could go on (as you know)...
ReplyDeleteWould a 250 pound TV-addicted beer-swilling white "average" American devolve back into those amazing super-capable Bushmen of the Attenborough film? I think not! Even more than with dogs and wolves- genetically almost the same- most modern American people are far removed from their hunter-gatherer ancestors~!
ReplyDeleteHumans, as a race, would devolve. Those individuals that couldn't would die; those that could would survive.
ReplyDeletePut 50 pigeon varieties together on an island, and they will revert back to the Rock Dove in three generations.
ReplyDeletePut 50 types of chickens together in the same conditions, and they will revert back to the south east asian game cock in about the same period of time.
Put 50 breeds of dogs together and in a 1,000 years you will still not have a wolf.
A dingo is not a wolf; it is a type of primitive-dog. It is smaller than a wolf, is socially organized differently, marks differently, and communicates differently. Not a wolf. The example given confirms the exact point being made.
"Why do so many people buy carefully bred hunting dogs, and then not hunt them?"
ReplyDeleteI assume that at least some of them do this for the same reason I will buy a working-bred Border Collie for my next dog (or get a rescue dog).
Working dogs should be bred for work, and only for work. Otherwise the breed loses its ability, and the sense and soundness that go with it. I would not pick a Border Collie from show lines, sport lines or color/pet lines. That would be, to me, a heresy.
My Border Collies may never see sheep. I can't afford the whole sheepdogging thing. But I will not undermine the quality of the breed I like best by buying an ersatz Border Collie from an AKC breeder, a hyped-up, clueless-around-sheep "sporter collie" or the candy-colored junk dogs of a money-grubbing backyard breeder.