The Tribe of the Dogue

I live on land that was once owned by Lord Fairfax, about 12 miles down river from George Washington's Mount Vernon, less than 5 miles from the Pentagon, and about 5 miles from the CIA.

If I head out my driveway, I can be at the Whitehouse in about 15 minutes. Robert E. Lee's former house, is about 3 miles away, and is now Arlington Cemetery.

The fall line of the Potomac River is a short walk below my house -- the reason for the port of Georgetown across, the river.

I mention all this because the rich forested land around my house was once inhabited by native Americans who fished the Potomac River and hunted the forest for deer and wild turkey, but they are rarely mentioned in the historical record of the area.

Above the fall line were the start of the Siouan people, whose reach extended into Ohio, and below the fall line were the Algonquian whose tribes, at the time of the first white men in the region, were organized under the aegis of Powhatan, aka Wahunsunacawh (1545 – 1618).

The native Americans of this region were almost entirely wiped out by disease, war, and murder long before Washington was a town, much less a city.

The Alonquians in this area were Nanticoke, and among them were the Dogues people, who were also know as the Taux or Tacci.

The Dogue lived from above Aquia Creek up to the fall line, and they were fisherman and small-plot farmers as well as hunters, living in barrel houses covered by reed and bark mats.

Dogue Creek, which enters the Potomac at George Washington's Mount Vernon estate, is named after the tribe.

It was attacks by the Dogue that, in July of 1675 launched Bacon's Rebellion, the first uprising in the Colonies, which was sparked by the refusal of the British-governor to retaliate against the Indians (who were retaliating for being waylaid by the Colonials) and seizing land that was wanted by white and black settlers.

Bacon's Rebellion terrified the British, as poor white indentured servants, free blacks, and slaves, were, for the first time, operating in economic and political solidarity. In order to make sure that kind of thing never happened again, apartheid-like laws and rules were put into place and formally codified in 1705 as the Virginia Slave Code, which served to help entrench racial division in Virginia for the next 250 years.

The Dogue are no longer a tribe. They were made extinct by disease and warfare.  What few stragglers remained into the mid 1700s were assimilated into other tribes, and their records washed away by the racist policies of Virginia's 20th Century legislature which systematically sought to force people into black and white boxes without any recognition of native tribes or mixed race people.

Today, there is a very small little town located in the heart of what was once Dogue territory. Clifton, Virginia has a population of about 300 people and, due to efforts to preserve the watershed, houses in the area all sit on 5-acre or larger lots. which means there is a good deal of forest and field with most folks living in homes worth a million dollars or more.    

Clifton has a truly excellent ice cream place, a good restaurant, a wine store, a general store, and two places for coffee, as well as an old railroad crossing that was central to Union forces during the the Civil War.  

The town has put up a lot of markers on their small collection of old houses in the tiny history district, noting houses visited by Presidents, where movies were written, and where a crew man on the Titanic once lived.

What is not mentioned on any sign in the town are the original settlers -- the Dogue. They had disappeared 200 years before the town was founded and now are not even a memory.

Ghost :: Parekh & Singh

The Birth of a Digger

I Would Like These Socks for Christmas

Order them here.

Game of Thrones, Terrierman

I wanted Dire Wolves and Dragons. I got working terriers and dragon flies. Perfect!

The Evil Coward Clown Anthony Scaramucci

Anthony Scaramucci. Sometimes the name tells you what's in the tin:

From Wikipedia:

Scaramouche: also known as Scaramouch, is a stock clown character of the Italian commedia dell'arte (comic theatrical arts). The role combined characteristics of the zanni (servant) and the Capitano (masked henchman). Usually attired in black Spanish dress and burlesquing a don, he was often beaten by Harlequin for his boasting and cowardice.... Scaramouche entertains the audience by his "grimaces and affected language". Salvator Rosa says that Coviello (like Scaramouche) is "sly, adroit, supple, and conceited". In Molière's The Bourgeois Gentleman, Coviello disguises his master as a Turk and pretends to speak Turkish. Both Scaramouche and Coviello can be clever or stupid—as the actor sees fit to portray him.

.
Anthony Scaramucci is not on the White House payroll and may never be, as his company cannot be sold until August 15, and there is only one prospective buyer -- a Chinese company that is paying far more for his company than it is worth -- a point that departing White House Chief of Staff Reince Preibus pointed out back in January as a clear indication that this was a kickback deal of some kind.

Meanwhile, Scaramucci's wife has just given birth to a baby AND filed for divorce this week.

Scaramucci was not there to see his baby and still had not seen it two or three days later -- he was too busy blowing into the deflated President Trump in an effort to size him up and make him look substantial. Total failure there!

Of course, the late Freddie Mercury knew it would all come to this. Don't believe it?  If you have an iPhone, tell Siri: "I see a little silhouetto of a man" and see what happens!  Amazing!

Where You Stand Depends on Where You Sit

Current Mood

How to Motivate the Horse

Leave a copy of this on top of a bale of hay in the barn.

New Gear After 40 Years

After 40 years, I am repurchasing backpacking gear. My old Kelty BB5 pack has been consigned to the dust bin of history, and in its place has arrived a new Kelty RedCloud90 which was had for almost 50 percent off from Cabelas.  The total was $112.48.

In 1971, the Kelty BB5 pack and frame were sold separately for a total of $54.  Running that through a CPI calculator, that's the equivalent of $332 in today's dollars.

First impression of the new pack is that the quality of the thing is higher than the old Kelty BB5, and the engineering is in a different league too. Evolution is a real thing? Who knew?

The pack looked small when it came out of the box because all the straps were cinched all the way down. When I started loosening those, it started to look like the volume I need. The internal volume on this pack is 5300-5500 cubic inches.

There is a nice grow-bag sleeve extension at the top of the pack to help keep things dry even without a rain fly, and a very good hip belt (with pockets!) that is so different from my old BB5 belt that's it's like going from a blanket palett to a Sealy Posturepedic mattress.

The BIG deal, which might not be obvious to all, is that all those straps means the load can be cinched tight to the body which means you are less likely to get levered backward or sideways -- a big deal when you are pulling 50-60 pounds up and down a mountain.

The top of the pack floats upward to accommodate the main grow-bag, and also comes off to make a sling pack for day trips. There is a space for an internal hydration bladder, big and deep side pockets, a "stuff it" area for quick storage of shed clothes, internal pockets for the daily stuff (chew bars and sprays). Daisy chain attachments points on the outside are the for strap ons (ice ax, fishing rod, rifle).

All in all it looks pretty great, and like it was actually designed by someone who has walked a few hundred miles.

This is my first internal frame pack.  These new packs are narrower than my old box external frame pack, with the sleeping bag compartment integral to the bag and the frame. That said, there are straps below for an ensolite pad, which I prefer to the new-fangled blow up mattresses.

The new 4 pound 12 oz. MountainSmith Morrison tent (two doors, two vestibules) came yesterday evening, and it fits like a fire plug at the bottom of the pack.  I will set up the tent tomorrow when it's dry and the lawn is cut (it's two weeks past due because of rain), but a tent will be a huge tech leap forward too, as I have been been a rain fly-alone kind of guy in the past. As weights have come down on other things, however, I figure I can afford to get dry and spend nights more-or-less bug free.

You Would Make a Very Good Goldfish Trainer

Clicker training and rewards-based shaping works great for prey animals like chickens and pigeons. It works fairly well in closed-cage situations, and it works well for teaching tricks for which there is no oppositional internal code. Where it fails is when it is used, alone, in trying to get a solid performance from a predator in an open field situation where self rewards (squirrels, deer, birds, rabbits, other dogs) are everywhere.

The failure of clicker training and food alone as a tool to stop internally self-rewarding behaviors such as prey drive is why B.F. Skinner and Marian and Keller Breland never made money training dogs, and it's why Karen Pryor could not take her own terrier off-leash in the woods and why she relied on an Invisible Fence to keep her own dogs in the yard.

An Enlightening Little Purchase

These were recommended somewhere, and I ordered two of them from Amazon for a total cost of $8.99 with free Prime shipping.

Wow! These small LED flashlights take a single AA battery and throw an AMAZING amount of light (300 lumens, whatever that is). They also have a solid metal clip to mount on hat, bike, pack, or pocket, a solid metal body, and 3 light settings (bright / dim / strobe). There is also a "zoom"feature which allows you to adjustable focus range to concentrate the beam or widen it to light up a big area.

Just so you know, I accept no free product ever, will endorse no product for money, buy stuff with my own cash, and never give an endorsement unless I think it's worth it.  And yes, I am cheaper than anyone you will ever meet.  If I like it and say so, that's a hard endorsement to win.  I've only tried this flashlight out last night while working on a pump problem, but I am sold.

Deeper Is Better

Gone To Ground Do It Yourself

Order yours.

Thank You John Dingell

52 years ago today, Congressman John Dingell (D-MI) gaveled Medicare into law.

In 1995, I was the point person putting together the 30th Anniversary celebration of Medicare on the Hill with Pres. Clinton, Al Gore, Donna Shalala, and 120 Dem. members of the House. It was big deal, as Newt Gingrich was trying to gut Medicare and Medicaid. As the crowd filtered in, and the stage filled up, I showed a film of the young John Dingell and "the pocket dyamo" Carl Albert leading the charge for Medicare 30 years earlier. Later I saw Congressman Dingell at another Clinton event in Chicago, and we hung out for an hour talking about Iran-Contra and Ollie North and the Korean connection, and what you had to do to survive getting hunted by your political enemies in Washington (My advice: keep your wallet in your pocket and your zipper up). Dingell was on the board of the NRA, and he actually believes in ALL of the U.S. Constitution.

John Dingell is now 91 years old, but he still rocking, still smart, and cool enough to be on Twitter (along with Carl Reiner!).

John Dingell not only remembers when America was great -- he was one of the guys making it great.

Breeders Have Broken the German Shepherd

Over at Canine Genetics and Epidemiology, published by BioMed Central, they review German Shepherd Dogs under primary veterinary care and in the VetCompass Programme data base in the UK.

The study found that the most common causes of death for GSDs were joint disorders (16.3%), inability to stand (14.9%), spinal cord disorder (13.6%).

To put it another way, nearly half of all German Shepherds are dying from structural problems.

Fish on Friday

What Would Andy Griffith Do?

This post was written in 2012. If you want it to be about Donald Trump, I understand.

If you were looking for a community leader, would you look to Andy Griffith or Barney Fife?

If you were looking for a dog trainer, would you look to Andy Griffith or Barney Fife?

Why?

The reason I ask this question, is that these two television characters are a shared American experience, and therefore a kind of "totem" we can talk about.  They also reflect, to some degree, two very different types of people to whom dogs and people react quite similarly.

Does a person who talks a lot, shouts on occasion, and who is generally a bit manic and insecure (i.e. Barney Fife) create respect in you and a desire to follow?

Not generally!  Instead, most of us tend to follow those who are calm, who walk with square shoulders, and who actually say something when they do talk (Andy Griffith).

We are attracted to those who talk slow and low and who are fair in their dealing. We are looking for signals of strength, calmness, power and leadership. We are looking for the relaxed movement and calm face that signals a nonthreatening clarity of purpose. And when we find those, what is generally triggered within us is some degree of followship -- the willingness to take and follow direction from that person.

What about the obverse?  Do we feel secure in the presence of the manic person with flailing arms and a loud and rising voice who talks a little too much?  Do we feel secure when someone is sending us too many signals all at once, or when they stand with a slouched body or move too aggressively and without calm intent?  Do we feel secure, and do we naturally want to follow this person?  Not generally!

What's my point? 

My point is that all of us read people all the time, and most of us are instinctively attracted to people like Andy Griffith, and most of us are instinctively suspect of people like Barney Fife.

Andy Griffith, of course, is a true dominant.  He threatens no one, but we feel his calm clarity of purpose.  Square shoulders, sparse body movement, clear signals, and a generally friendly and solicitous maner are paired with a low, slow voice. 

Barney Fife, on the other hand is a true submissive. This is not to say that he does not want to be dominant, only that he is incapable of actually shouldering the role for very long.

Barney is quick to brag and he frequently threatens others such as Otis, the town drunk.  That said, no one takes him too seriously because he is all wind, braggadocio, and fluttering hands.  When Barney gets wound up, his face become extremely animated and his voice gets a little louder and it rises in pitch.  When he stands, his shoulders are narrow, and he often advances with a scuttling walk that he fancies to be a swagger. Every movement and sound betrays him. There is no real leadership here, only a thundering insecurity worn on the sleeve.

Now think about dogs. 

Do you think they are any different from people when it comes to what they are looking for in leadership?

I would posit that they are not.

What dogs want to see in their canine leaders, as well as their human owners, is a little more Andy Griffith and a little less Barney Fife.

And yes, all of this has something to with dominance and submission.  "Dominance" is not about pain or coercion, any more than submission" is about cowering or humiliation.

Dominance is about leadership. 

Submission is about followship. 

In the old television segment below, Barney Fife explains to Opie (the young Ron Howard) the essential difference between dogs and giraffes.

Watch Opie's face.

He's listening to all of Barney's words, but he's not really caring what Barney has to say because, at age seven, he already knows it's mindless yapping from "the little trembling" dog in the room.



Now watch who Opie does turn to.  

He turns to the "big dog," Andy Griffith, for the definitive signal about what is actually going to be done about the problem before them. 

Opie knows it's Andy that really calls the shots and that it is Andy who will actually take care of the little ones in the pack -- himself, Aunt Bea, Miss Ellie, and even the trembling and yappy Barney Fife.

In the very last few seconds of this clip we see Barney Fife change his position in response to emotional "extinguishing" from both Opie and Andy.

Yes, flashes of lightning and the sound of rain play a role here too, but watch how quickly both Opie and Andy turn a dead flat non-response to Barney's "incorrect" answer into a beaming smile for a "correct" one.

Click and treat.

Barney Fife, full of himself and with his own noise ringing in his ears, may think he drove this decision train, but if you are looking at this clip through the lens of dominance and submission, extinguishing and reward, the true tale is revealed.

• Related Post:
  ** Calm and Assertive Clicker Training
  ** Dominance, Submission and Evolution

The Weak, Blubbery and Limp Mr. Trump

Ronald Reagan speech writer, and now Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan writes in that paper today that "Trump Is Woody Allen Without the Humor."

The president’s primary problem as a leader is not that he is impetuous, brash or naive. It’s not that he is inexperienced, crude, an outsider. It is that he is weak and sniveling. It is that he undermines himself almost daily by ignoring traditional norms and forms of American masculinity.

He’s not strong and self-controlled, not cool and tough, not low-key and determined; he’s whiny, weepy and self-pitying. He throws himself, sobbing, on the body politic. He’s a drama queen. It was once said, sarcastically, of George H.W. Bush that he reminded everyone of her first husband. Trump must remind people of their first wife. Actually his wife, Melania, is tougher than he is with her stoicism and grace, her self-discipline and desire to show the world respect by presenting herself with dignity.

Half the president’s tweets show utter weakness. They are plaintive, shrill little cries, usually just after dawn....

It’s all whimpering accusation and finger-pointing: Nobody’s nice to me. Why don’t they appreciate me?

His public brutalizing of Attorney General Jeff Sessions isn’t strong, cool and deadly; it’s limp, lame and blubbery....

The way American men used to like seeing themselves, the template they most admired, was the strong silent type celebrated in classic mid-20th century films — Gary Cooper, John Wayne, Henry Fonda. In time the style shifted, and we wound up with the nervous and chattery. More than a decade ago the producer and writer David Chase had his Tony Soprano mourn the disappearance of the old style: “What they didn’t know is once they got Gary Cooper in touch with his feelings they wouldn’t be able to shut him up!” The new style was more like that of Woody Allen. His characters couldn’t stop talking about their emotions, their resentments and needs. They were self-justifying as they acted out their cowardice and anger....

His inability — not his refusal, but his inability — to embrace the public and rhetorical role of the presidency consistently and constructively is weak.

“It’s so easy to act presidential but that’s not gonna get it done,” Mr. Trump said the other night at a rally in Youngstown, Ohio. That is the opposite of the truth. The truth, six months in, is that he is not presidential and is not getting it done. His mad, blubbery petulance isn’t working for him but against him. If he were presidential he’d be getting it done — building momentum, gaining support. He’d be over 50%, not under 40%. He’d have health care, and more.

We close with the observation that it’s all nonstop drama and queen-for-a-day inside this hothouse of a White House. Staffers speak in their common yet somehow colorful language of their wants, their complaints. The new communications chief, Anthony Scaramucci, who in his debut came across as affable and in control of himself, went on CNN Thursday to show he’ll fit right in. He’s surrounded by “nefarious, backstabbing” leakers. “The fish stinks from the head down. But I can tell you two fish that don’t stink, and that’s me and the president.” He’s strong and well connected: “I’ve got buddies of mine in the FBI”; “ Sean Hannity is one of my closest friends.” He is constantly with the president, at dinner, on the phone, in the sauna snapping towels. I made that up. “The president and I would like to tell everybody we have a very, very good idea of who the leakers are.” Chief of Staff Reince Priebus better watch it. There are people in the White House who “think it is their job to save America from this president, okay?” So they leak. But we know who they are.

He seemed to think this diarrheic diatribe was professional, the kind of thing the big boys do with their media bros. But he came across as just another drama queen for this warring, riven, incontinent White House. As Scaramucci spoke, the historian Joshua Zeitz observed wonderingly, on Twitter: “It’s Team of Rivals but for morons.”

It is. And it stinks from the top.

Meanwhile the whole world is watching, a world that contains predators. How could they not be seeing this weakness, confusion and chaos and thinking it’s a good time to cause some trouble?

How to Dig a Hole

An instruction piece on how to dig a hole?

I would not write such a piece if I had not seen it done poorly often enough.

Let's start at the beginning: Slow down.

As odd a piece of advice as that sounds, that's where to start when it comes to digging holes. Most people are too quick to dig, and don't give their dog enough time to push quarry to a stop end or a bolt hole. If you've dug to your dog only to find it has moved farther down the pipe, you are probably guilty of digging too soon -- welcome to the club!

Once you think the dog has worked the quarry to a stop end, and you've located the spot with the locator box, drive the bar into the ground a foot or two, and give it a good rattle. Stomp on the ground. Then wait a few seconds and box again. If the dog and the quarry are still in the same place, you're ready to dig.

If the box suggests the den pipe may be only two to three feet down, I would recommend using the bar to make sure you have the exact location of the den pipe fixed.

Using a digging bar as a probe is not difficult, but it’s not quite as obvious as it sounds either. The trick to getting a bar through two, three or even four feet of dirt and small stones is to repeatedly slam the bar into the first bar hole you create, and then widen that hole with a strong stirring motion, after which you slam deeper into the soil.

SLAM, slam, stir, stir. SLAM, slam, stir, stir.

Sideways pressure on the bar should put strong pressure on the bottom side, and top edge, of the hole. The goal is to use repeated strong persuasion, and not brute sideways force. You do not want to ruin a good bar by bending it!

As you get close to the depth of where the dog is located, bar more slowly and methodically -- you do not want to slam the bar into the dog, which can kill it. Slower beats faster at this stage!

In normal soil, you should be able to tell when the bar breaks through, as the bar will suddenly pass through a 6- to 12-inch void. Bang -- you found the den pipe! It's not quite so easy if the soil is as soft as cake batter.

Digging a hole sounds simple enough, but sometimes it isn't. In the U.S., most holes are shallow, which is why we can get away with posthole diggers much of the time. They are a nicety in the dense roots and brush of a hedgerow, but many still prefer to dig with a shovel alone, and on a dig deeper than three feet, shovel excavation is always required.

If your box shows a depth of up to three feet, the quickest way to get to the dog, and still have the room you will need to work, is to trench across the pipe about 3 feet long and a shovel-head-and-a-half wide. When you get down to within a foot of the pipe, use your bar to locate it, and then use a posthole digger or the shovel to carefully cut down into the pipe. A posthole digger is excellent here because it will remove the dirt cleanly. You will have to overlap the cutting circle of the posthole digger to cut an earth hole that is 10 to 12 inches across or more. I recommend digging deeper than the pipe and allowing the dog to push any extra dirt into the small "well" that results. Your final result should be a clean hole that is large enough that you can easily pull the dog when it is time to do that.

In truth, most digs require two holes. Often the terrier and the quarry move a bit farther up the pipe just as you break through. This is not a case of the dog moving backwards, but of the dog moving forwards -- often past a turn in the pipe where it had been stymied by the slashing teeth of the quarry.

If you find you need to dig another hole, do so, but again wait until the dog has pushed the quarry as far as it can. Pound on the ground one more time before you dig; you want to avoid a third hole if you possibly can.

If you are up to the quarry, it's important to block off the back end of the pipe before you pull the dog. If you fail to do so, the critter will bolt back into the rest of the sette as soon as the dog is pulled clear. Blocking off the back of the sette can be accomplished by either collapsing the pipe or by blocking it with dirt, rocks, shovel, or posthole digger.

Once you pull the dog, be careful the critter does not bolt out right over your foot and up your pants leg! Put in a shovel head if you have to step out of the hole for a minute.

Once you have pulled the dog, you may realize you have to cut the pipe back another 8 or 10 inches to get right up to the quarry in order to either see it for dispatch, to get a snare on it, or to encourage it to bolt.

One way to encourage a bolt is to drive a bar down behind the animal, and give the bar a good rattle. This is often enough to startle the quarry considerably. If the quarry is right there, simply place a branch or shovel handle in the hole, and give it a few minutes to gather its courage for the dash to freedom.

One thing I find distasteful are people who allow a dog to “work” quarry once the animal is firmly fixed in a stop end and has nowhere to go. This is baiting, and morally wrong, as well as dangerous to the dog. The job of the terrierman is to locate the quarry and dig down to it, not to “test” the dog by allowing it to subject a scared animal to more stress, or to allow the dog to become over-adrenalized to the point it may end up taking foolish risks and harming itself. There is a place to slip in the shovel and put up the dog, and that point is as soon as the quarry is firmly bottled in a short stop end.

Holes deeper than three and a half feet require a different approach, as you will need to be able to get into the hole to pull the dog and dispatch the quarry, otherwise you will find, at the end of the dig, that your arms are too short to reach.

At a depth of four feet, you should be digging a hole that is at least four feet around. When digging deeper than five feet, I recommend a square hole that is at least five feet on each side, as you will have to get the shovel sideways in the hole in order to toss out the dirt. You may want to make the hole a little bit longer than it is wide so that you have room to stand on one side of the hole while digging out the other side.

The deeper the hole, the more important it is to keep the sides square, and to level off the bottom of the hole as you dig. At depths greater than five feet, the danger of collapse has to be paid attention to, as does the logistics of clearing the hole with the dirt. Having someone topside to move spoil back from the edge is an excellent idea.

In holes that are deeper than six feet, you will want to cut footholes into the wall in order to be able to get out. In addition, you will need to cut a deep bench in one side of the hole so that the primary digger, at the bottom of the hole, can toss dirt up to a halfway point. Another digger will then stand on this bench and toss dirt clear of the hole.

If you are unlucky enough to hit running sand, you will need to put in a stick to keep track of the den pipe as you dig, and it will help if you come in from the side, rather than straight on top of the dog.

After a dig, take time to fill in holes, and in hedgerows or forest settes, jam sticks and branches crosswise into the hole so the den pipe is not packed solid with dirt when refilled.

Most dens will eventually be reoccupied, and the more dens that remain intact, the more likely your farms will remain productive for seasons to come.

Fish on Friday

Small Trailer Camping In Style

Hog Wild in Texas

From The Texas Observer:

Feral pigs are large: Adult females average 175 pounds and males reach 300 pounds or more. They breed often and in good times can raise three litters of up to 12 piglets apiece in a year. Their senses are sharp. They happily feed on anything from nuts and tubers to carrion and small animals. As anyone who has ever hunted one will tell you, they are adaptable, formidable and not easily fooled. Hogs are exciting game for sport hunting, and their ability to ingratiate themselves into human systems makes them the perfect invader.

Beginning in the 1970s, Texas sportsmen illegally — and unwisely — released wild pigs onto hunting ranches across the state. It was not the first time pigs colonized Texas — a batch had come with explorer Hernando de Soto in 1539 — but this time, for reasons that still aren’t entirely clear, the population exploded. They spread out from the ranches, sometimes foraging on supplemental feed left out for deer and pheasant, sometimes methodically working over farmland, sometimes mating with other escaped pigs. Crops of melon and rice, potato and soybean vanished. The agriculture industry reported thousands of dollars in losses, then millions. Hogs began disrupting fragile habitats in state parks. And still more arrived — trapped, trailered in and released as game. By the time state officials managed to put a stop to the practice in the ’90s, it was too late.

According to conservative estimates, there are now around 2.6 million hogs in Texas, more than anywhere else in the United States. Their foraging causes about $52 million in annual agricultural damage, and as their numbers increase they have pushed into suburban and urban areas.

There are perhaps $20 million worth of hog traps scattered throughout the state, Herring says, with the more expensive, remotely operated models going for anywhere from $2,000 to $6,000. Trapped hogs are sold first to meat processing companies, which buy only hogs over 150 pounds at 25 to 30 cents per extra pound. From there, they’re sold to restaurants and wholesalers in America, Europe and Asia. The number of hogs slaughtered annually in Texas is upward of 700,000, Herring says. Assuming all of them are about 200 pounds, a rough estimate means that companies are buying an annual $10.5 million worth of live hogs.

Recreational hunting is another moneymaker. The very industry that helped kick-start the problem has rebranded itself — accurately — as a conservation necessity, and the chance to fight the porcine hordes with dogs, bows and guns draws hunters from across the country. The state encourages this: Pigs can be taken year-round and without limits, though a license is required.

One result of a surplus of feral hogs in Texas and elsewhere, is the rise of pig hunting dogs -- rangy Pit Bull and hound crosses of various permutations.

Training the Pigs and the Hounds

This is classic animal training, with the snap of the finger as the positive marker for the food, and the voice as the negative marker for the tap of the stick. Keeping the pigs a little hungry is part of the training -- it keeps motivation up, same as it does for a dog or a hawk.

Below is much the same scene played out with 120 hounds and a whip. The marker here is not sound, but the placement of the whip.  Down and swinging is "no," and up and still is "go".

Why not use a leash on 120 hounds and five pigs? Reasons! Not only would it be unworkable, but the timing would be horrendous.

Vets Invested in Defect, Deformity and Disease

A while back, in a post entitled For Veterinarians, Silence Has Been Golden, I noted the complicity vets have in the diseased, deformed and defective pedigree dogs that we see today:

Pencil it out, and the big money in veterinary care is not in once-a-lifetime vaccines, but in the big stuff: shot hips, wrecked eyes, recurring skin conditions, Cesarean births, and mounting rates of cancer.... The vets are nearly silent about the litany of pain, suffering, shortened life, and rising expense...

For those who think my post was too cynical, I recommend going over to the Purina Care blog, where veterinarian Larry McDaniel writes about the recent New York Times piece on English Bulldogs (for my take on that, see here).  McDaniel writes: 

I vividly remember a conversation I had with an established Veterinarian when I was starting out in practice in Montana. He told me that one sure fire way to get my practice going was to help establish the Bulldog as a breed in Western Montana. I thought he was joking, but he was serious. All the Bulldog people in the Western Part of the state saw him as the expert and brought their dogs to him. He told me that much of his success was based on the Bulldog.

Is this kind of advice rare in the veterinary field?

Apparently, not at all.   Veterinarian Emma Milne, in the U.K., once gave a presentation about health problems in pedigree dogs to the British Veterinary Association when an opthamological veterinarian stood up and said, point blank:  Why would I want a healthier dog when it's the wrecked Kennel Club dogs that bring in the money? 

Was this being said as a joke?  At the time, some thought so, but maybe not! 

One things for sure, as I noted in my earlier piece:

Just go to your vet and ask if he or she has a written list of breeds they actively caution against.

It's not going to be there.

Fact sheets on heartworm? Check. Even vets in Maine will have that in hope of maybe making a sale to a gullible customer.

But a fact sheet that says "avoid these breeds which are walking cancer bombs?"

A brochure that says "just say no to anchondroplastic dogs and brachycephalic breeds?"

Not there.

Nope.  Still not there.  Some things never change.

A re-post from November, 2011.

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A Dog Breeding Program That Al Qaeda Loves

If Al Qaeda ran its own dog breeding program to craft a symbolic mockery of Great Britain and the U.S. Marine Corps, they could not have done better than the English Bulldog.

This is a dog that gets winded walking to the end of the driveway, has shot hips, cannot mate or give birth on its own, and has a mouth so dysfunctional it can barely eat food out of a bowl.

Al Qaeda bonus feature:  A significant percentage of British Bulldogs are, effectively, water-boarded every moment of their lives thanks to their too-short face structure and too-tight nostrils.

Special deal for Al Qaeda buyers:  Bulldogs will fold up and die on their own in the heat.  How perfect is that?

A Young Running Dog and His Marxist

The young Fidel Castro hunting with his dog.

On this day in 1953, Fidel Castro lead a ragtag group of 160 rebels in an attack against the Moncada barracks in Santiago de Cuba, starting what eventually became the Cuban Revolution of 1959.

Let Them Eat Cake

People say we don't make anything in this country anymore.  WRONG! We make diabetes. And now we're making dog diabetes too.

This "Grain-Free Cheesecake Mix for Dogs with Coconut Crumble Crust" is only $23 for a single box.

The Continuing Crisis

Schrödinger's Terrier

I have good news and bad new about your terrier Mr. Schrödinger.

I get good news and bad news from time to time.

The bad news is that a friend's 8-year old terrier is very sick due to poisoning from a Trifexis flea and worm pill which has lead to the start of liver failure. The dog may yet come out of it (the kidneys are still working), but I have warned folks about this particular flea and tick treatment before. It has already killed thousands of dogs. Stay away from it. Use what you want, but I am happy with a pyrethrin-based shampoo. As a general rule of thumb, use outside drugs for outside bugs and inside drugs for inside bugs.

The good news is that a reader writes to say that her heart worm-infected German Shepherd is now clear and healthy after 3 cycles of the Doxycycline and many doses of Ivermectin. She writes that she got the Doxycycline off-shore as I suggested, and that the Ivermectin was dirt cheap following my directions. "The blood tests were the most expensive part of the whole deal."

Young Wood Duck

The consensus is that this is a juvenile female wood duck whose white eye ring has not yet come in. Makes sense as there were wood duck nest boxes all around.

Wolves in the Greenhouse

The pups in the greenhouse after a rousing game of grab-ass and bitey-face in the kitchen. It's not all work.

Father of 61 Dies

From The State House File comes this story about the unnatural death of a father of 61:

INDIANAPOLIS – A peregrine falcon that researchers and downtown Indianapolis workers have been watching for years was found dead Friday outside the 29th floor of Market Tower.

Kinney, a 19-year-old peregrine falcon, was found dead Friday in downtown Indianapolis. In this photo, he flies from his nest box 31 floors above Indianapolis’ Monument Circle. Kinney’s mate, Kathy Q, flies along the horizon. Photo courtesy of IDNR/Outdoor Indiana magazine.
Kinney – which Department of Natural Resources officials called “Indianapolis’s favorite peregrine falcon” – was 19 years old.

DNR nongame bird biologist John Castrale said Kinney appeared to have suffered injuries consistent with colliding into the building. He was identified by his leg band....

Kinney was hatched in captivity and released in Lexington, Ky., by the Kentucky Department of Fish & Wildlife Resources in 1993. One year later he showed up in Indianapolis, where he went on to father 61 young with two females beginning in 1995.

Kinney in life, and in action.

This is How We Rolled

This is the 1917 Autoped Manufactured in New York and Germany by Krupps.

The US postal service tested the Autoped for special delivery service, and other companies soon followed with their own version, such as the ABC Motorcycle Skootamota, which had a top speed of 15 mph, and the Gloster Aircraft Company's Reynolds Runabout and Unibus.

Amelia Earhart on an Autoped 

Green Heron

This little lady was fishing with us yesterday.

Back When Kids Went Outside and Did Stuff

It was as hot as the devil's oven yesterday, and so to we visited Occoquan (population 759) for lunch. They have put in a new park at the end of the main street, and after walking it, I noticed a small sign across from the old mill house, next to a small hole cut into the side of what looked like  a concrete bunker,

Apparently the bunker was to house carbide rock during that small window of time between the death of coal oil (kersosene), and the arrival of piped natural gas and electricity.

In my day, we strapped carbide bunkers to our heads. We were tough and fearless, and used carbide lamps for caving. This was the era before electric lights and battery packs, when most of the gear was repurposed from mining and rock climbing. We were that transitional generation that started with Goldline ropes and ended with the new synthetics. The carabiners of my generation did not have locking gates. Yvon Chouinard had invented the aluminum chock and bong only a few years before, and I was a cutting edge hiker with a Kelty BB5 pack, an Optimus 111b stove, and Vasque boots.

The woods and mountains are still the same, but the stuff they make now is much better, though the big caves in West Virginia that we used to explore -- School House, Hell Hole, etc. -- are now closed to young rabble willing to risk life and limb to explore. We were the last of the Mohicans.