Tag Archives: opinions

“I’m thinking about breeding my 2 cattledogs….”

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Think again, please.

Unless both dogs are registered with either the AKC and or the UKC (preferably both) and have had all their health tests (BAER, CERF, PRA, etc. etc = around $800-1000 per dog) and you have 3 times as many people (with deposits) as you might have puppies (8 puppies = 24 owners with deposits) and are willing to take back any puppy you produce throughout its entire lifetime (and that can be 15+ years) and will guarantee the health of all your puppies and microchip them etc etc. Can you provide and have the money for pre-natal care, vet visits for mommy dog, ultrasounds, a possible Cesarean delivery etc. etc…..If you can’t or even balk at doing this because well, you might think it’s unnecessary…..I would strongly advise you not to breed. 

A good breeder, a responsible one spends hundreds if not thousands of dollars on both the stud and bitch. It wouldn’t be fair to the puppies if mom and dad weren’t in the peak of health and had all their eye, ear, hip, elbow, heart tested. If you can’t or won’t do the health testing or you think it’s unnecessary, I would strongly advise you not to breed.

Are you willing to find the perfect home for your deaf puppy (and that happens more than you’d think)? Are willing to do home checks or have a trusted dog friend do them for you? If you don’t think you need to check references or are unwilling to do so, I would strongly advise you not to breed.

Are you financially prepared for seeing the puppies get all their puppy health exams and shots? Will you have a mandatory spay-neuter contract with a held deposit until they new owners have proof of it? Will you get all the puppies microchipped so if (god forbid) at some point in its life that puppy ends up dumped at a shelter, you can go and get it, anywhere? If not, or you think that’s a waste of time or money, I would strongly advise you not to breed.

Are you going to be there for the new puppy owners 24/7 for the rest of that puppy’s life? Or yours? Phone calls in the middle of the night?  Helping them find a good, kind trainer, urging them to take their puppy to class?  Are you willing to keep track of all your puppies for the rest of their lives?  Are you willing to track down them down? Are you willing to deal with the owner who is embarrassed, ashamed, avoids you? If you’re not willing to be your new puppy owner’s mentor I would strongly advise you not to breed.

If you are unwilling or unable to do all of the above: Please Don’t Breed Your Two Dogs.  Please. 

Folks with intact dogs have to be extra vigilant. You can’t depend on your dogs to “be good” when Nature comes calling her siren song.

You have to look at the big picture here. 

 

You breed a litter and you haven’t done all your homework.  Your puppies make puppies. Your puppies end up in shelters.

Too many cattledogs end up in shelters and are tragically euthanized every WEEK. Rescues are overloaded and many good cattledogs die. I volunteer at a very low kill shelter, visit a high kill one. Everyone who is thinking of breeding should visit a “regular” shelter at least once in their life. If it doesn’t affect you at your very core, and make you swear you’ll do damn near ANYTHING to avoid having any of your babies end up there, Please Don’t Breed Your Two Dogs.  Please. 

We need to be the guardians of our dogs and this breed in particular. A lot of people might want a cattledog for a wide variety of reasons but most people don’t “get” cattledogs. The see a smart one, a loving one, a well-trained one, a good worker with a cool “look” to them and they think, “Cool dog! I want one!” The don’t see endless hours of devotion, work, frustration, worry on that dog’s owner’s part.

A Good Cattledog takes some doing.  Nature and Nurture.

There are tons of cool, fun things to do with your dogs that don’t involve breeding!  The options for fun with your dog are endless. Puppies are undeniably cute but the breeder MUST be responsible about bringing these new lives into an often cruel world. They are noisy, messy, need to be raised with love, kindness, socialized properly.  Etc. etc.

This isn’t being mean; it’s being real, fair and honest. You are your dogs’ guardian, now and for always, until the day, old and gray, their bodies leave this world for the Rainbow Bridge. That goes for any offspring you produce.

Of any breed or type.

Please Don’t Breed Your Two Dogs.  Please. 

Sorry about the color of the text. Stupid Word Press won’t let you change it.

The Fundamentalist Invasion

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Those damn Pro-lifers fundamentalists.  

I have maintained for years, whether you are a Christian, Jew, whatever, that the Religious Right (MOST of whom, alas, call themselves Christians) are the most dangerous political group out there and they have made severe inroads into our government on ALL levels. 

Do you still not believe me?  Look at these blasted anti-abortion laws.  Look at how these so-called “men” have done to women’s rights.  I tell you what: when every single one of those pro-lifers has adopted a crack, disabled, bi-racial baby and one need homes, maybe then I’ll be impressed that your so-called “faith” is genuine. 

This nonsense will trickle to affect men as well.  

Women’s rights and suffrage in Ohio has just gone back a century.  

What’s next, women are property?

I know the Spousal Unit has disagreed with me when I have said this, but damn, I’m right and this latest Ohio bill debacle proves it. 

These (mostly) white males sure as heck have given true Christians and Good People of Faith a really bad taste in the mouth. 

And ya’all wonder why I don’t go to church.

I think Jesus would be/is severely pissed off.

It’s Not Just a “Pit Bull” Thing. Cattledogs Get It Too.

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OK, OK, I know. A lot of my friends have or work with or volunteer for Pitbull type dogs.  Two of Artie’s bestest friends are pit-type dogs.

The Spousal Unit with Kinners: two guys hangin’ out.

 

Oreo: he’s down with that!  Artie loves him!

 

The boys check out Co
usin Artie

So yes, we have contact with many “big heads.”  And we love our pit-type friends.  We hear the stories, the misconceptions, the comments about them.

 

I’ve been a lot of places where there are dogs and now because of my exposure to pit-types, I don’t have any pre-conceived notions.  It’s a dog with a (usually) square head, period. I ask if I can pet etc. just as I would with any dog.  And I’ve done events with a pit-type on my arm, so to speak, and have educated and advocated for them for years now.

 

I think I’ve heard darn near every comments a person can make about pit-type dogs and I’m here to tell you, it runs the gamut from “Awesome” to “Satanic.”

 

I’ve heard, “You can’t trust ’em, not one of ’em,” to “Best damn dog my family ever had!”

 

What is fascinating to ME, personally, is for as many bad or  fearful stories that people tell, I’ve heard an almost equal amount of curious, respectful questions to misty-eyed memoirs to powerful stories of love and loyalty.

 

I can honestly say (if the locale is pretty neutral) that the nice comments or questions run about anywhere from 40-75% of what I’ve heard if the dog I’m with is a nice, mellow dog or goofy, happy dog.

 

The negatives just seem louder than the neutrals and positives.

 

Now folks who have pit types wail and gnash (rightly so) about how misunderstood their dogs are.  They are.  I’m not saying they’re NOT!  BSL, extreme prejudice, unnecessary killings and incarcerations. Pit type owners have every right to feel, nay, be paranoid, vigilant and on guard. If you’re on a Pit Group on Facebook or you know folks who have them or work with them, this is nothing new. It’s an exhausting round of educating John Q. Stupid-Public.

 

However, you’re not the only ones.

 

We have (for those of you who don’t know us) a lovely female mix and an Australian Cattledog (ACD). He will be 2 in Sept. 2013 and his name is Artie or “Blooby” as he is most often known.  (Blame the S.U. on that.)

 

Artie is my 7th (including fosters) ACD. This is my 20th year with cattledogs.

 

Brief synopsis for the uninitiated: An ACD (sometimes known as a Blue Heeler, Queensland Heeler or Heeler) is a medium sized herding dog breed, originating in (who’d a-thunk?) Australia!  They come in blue or red (plus blue or red speckle).  They were bred to herd and guard feral cattle in the outback.  They are also used on sheep and other stock, including reindeer! They are very smart, pretty biddable (I think) and tough. They have teeth (scissor bite) which they use to herd stock with, often nipping at the heels of recalcitrant cows. Thus the name “heelers.” They are often called “velcro” dogs because they want to know what you’re up to at any given moment.

They are athletic and sturdy with a weather-resistant coat. They should have upright ears and tight “cat feet.”

They are loyal to their humans but often diffident to down-right suspicious of strangers. They often are not tolerant of other dogs.  They need a ton of positive socialization. They have a lot of energy, although I have had a few that were pretty laid back. (That’s not the norm.) They are a “busy” dog but I think there are many dogs that are far busier.  They love brain and/or body work and excel in a wide variety of dog sports.  At 17-20 inches, it’s an easy size to live and travel with.

 

Artie has some of the best qualities of his breed and of a companion dog in general.  We’re very, very blessed.

 

ACDs are also an extremely unusual LOOKING dog. Once you know what a cattledog looks like (or SHOULD look like) you can honestly say, “Yep, that’s a cattledog!”   They are pretty unforgettable!

 

(I have to preface this by telling you I live in the Midwest.)

 

Here are some of the “usual” comments who someone has met Artie (or any of my other cattledogs.)

 

“Wow, what kind of mix is THAT?”

“Man, how old IS your dog?” (This only seems to happen with blues; must be the grey hairs in the coat.)

“Does that dog have WOLF in him?”

“Is that a little German Shepherd?” (I never know where people get that from.)

And startlingly close to the truth) “Is that a (part) Dingo?”

 

Once in a while (and it’s getting to be more commonplace than it was 20 years ago) you hear:

 

“Is that one of them blue heelers?”  This is often said in the same semi-suspicious tone as many a pit type owner has heard.  “Is that one of them pit bulls?”

 

Now, OK, all right, call me grammatically biased but the minute someone (no matter what city or state I’m in) says “them heelers” or “them there heelers” or even ‘them cattledogs,” (yes Virginia, some people DO get it right), my intellectual-snobbery-hackles start rising up.  Even when someone say “those cattledogs” with the emphasis on “those,” I inwardly cringe.  I’m sure pit type folks do too.

 

“Oh, God, here we go. And it’s not going to good.”

 

Here’s where the pit type folks and the cattledog folks diverge. With a pit type on the other end of your leash, you COULD ostensibly B.S. your way through that query especially if your dog is black, brindle or fawn colored.  I’ve heard lab-boxer mix, hound-boxer mix, poodle-terrier mix (yes, we had one of those of the Humane Society) etc. etc.  John Q. Stupid couldn’t pick out a pure-bred American Pit Bull Terrier out of a line-up!  Many experts can’t either!

 

But if they’ve identified your ACD as a heeler or cattledog, yeah, you’re pretty much sunk.  Here it comes, I think.  The Bad Cattledog Story. And it almost always begins with “My cousin” or “My friend had one of them.”

 

It’s usually a cousin. If it’s a cousin, you know (9 out of 10 times) it’s going to be bad.

 

Let’s say, on a good week, you and your friendly, social dog meet 20 pretty neutral-to-nice people, all men.  In a good week, the pit type folks  might get 40% – 60%  neutral to positive reactions.  The rest, admittedly, are going to suck.

 

In that same week, the cattledog owner, meets 20 people (men) who guess (correctly) what he is. 17-19 of those people will say the following:

 

“Cool looking dog. You know….my cousin (insert other friend or relation) had one of them (there) dogs.  Meanest damn dog you ever saw. Bit everybody.  Loyal as hell but damn, was he ever mean!”  

 

Your heart does a little downward spiral because you know that yet another jerk owns an out-of-control, untrained (or badly trained) cattledog and is doing a huge disservice to the breed. Your brain goes slightly postal and you think with in inward sigh:

 

Educate. Again. It’s a training exercise for my dog, meeting new people. Again.  I bet Lab/Pug/Fluffy Dog people don’t go through this sh*t.

 

So, Pit type dog owners and lovers, you are not the only ones.  If you’re out in public, cattledog people get this all the time.  All. The. Tine.

 

So do Rottweiler people.  And Doberman people. And German Shepherd people.

 

Perhaps it might comfort you folks with pit type dogs to know you’re not alone.

 

 

Today’s Adventure & Five Crazy Words

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I decided to try this “take your bike on the bus” thing today. It’s really the only way I can get to the towpath without a car.  Akron Metro has a video on their website which I watched about 5 times.  I figured if it was really stupid, I wouldn’t do it.

There are a couple of reasons I wanted to go on the towpath.  For starters, it has rained the last few days and if I went on the Bike And Hike through Silver Lake and Munroe Falls, I’d have to bike THROUGH a lake as there are a few areas that flood like hell. I’m not that fabulous of a cyclist to get everything soaking wet including my shoes.

And sometimes I get tired of riding on the Bike and Hike, even though it’s a total blessing that we have it!!  We actually are rather blessed around here; there are tons of places to bike and walk and hike.  We have the Metroparks and the Cuyahoga Valley National Park (thank you, Bob Hunker).  Granted the CVNP can be a total nut house, especially on the weekends.  Parts of it (mostly between Szalay’s and Boston) is like the Oklahoma Land Rush.  It’s crazy town and you have to actually be very careful, especially the Peninsula to Boston leg. If I were truly an extremely brave little toaster, I’d bike on the road for that leg BUT I am not that brave.  I get freaked out riding in a CAR!

I get to the bus stop which is about 3/4 of a mile from my house.  It took a bit of jerry-rigging to get the bike on the bus bike rack but I managed.  I’m carrying my helmet, bike bag and water and trying to get on the bus as fast as I can.  Yikes, sometimes getting stuff out of pockets is a pain!

About a mile into the bus trip, a guy with a white cowboy hat puts his bike on the front of the bus and gets onto the bus announcing, in a loud voice for all the world to hear that our local bike shop sucks!!  Bad service, etc. He’s rambling on about something having to do with a debit card and phone number.  He keeps on yakking and I’m wishing I had headphones on.

I’m thinking, “Ah, the joys of public transport! God, is the rest of the day going to be this weird??  Sh*t! And who in the hell in Northeast Ohio where’s a white cowboy hat while riding a bike?  OK, maybe in TEXAS, but here???”

After several of his victims had disembarked the bus, he says to me, “You’re a cyclist, I can tell.”  (I guess the helmet and bike bag were a give-away, huh?)  I do my best Polite Nod.  The Queenly one.  The “yes I acknowledge you because it would be rude to not do so but really my tea is getting cold and this is my way of politely blowing you off because I wish you’d shut the  f— up about my bike shop” nod.

He rallies on, “Can you imagine such sh*tty customer service?  Has that ever happened to you?  Come on, it’s happened to you! What do you do about sh*t like that, huh?”

I then utter five words I never thought would ever come out of my mouth:


I choose not to comment.


Holy crap, what did I just do?  Did I have an out-of-body experience?  Channel my inner Queen Mum?  Suddenly become my sister or brother who are MUCH more tactful that I am? Decide the diplomatic corps is going to be my next career?

Have I really been watching way too many episodes of THE WEST WING?

Who the hell said that and what did they do with me?  Since I’ve turned 50, I’m rarely reluctant to get into a verbal duke-it-up especially when someone is dissing a friend, a policy I believe in or a place I really like and  have patronized for years.  Truly, I had an out of body experience because I would normally have said nothing and hope that the bus would absorb me.

I will say this for this extraordinarily rare moment of tact. It shut him up.  Damn. He went on to bother some young lady who was on her way to a 12 step thing.

When the bus arrived in downtown Akron, I managed to get my bike off the front of the bus and walk over to Lock 3, a public area in Akron where they have festivities etc.  I managed to get lost pretty quickly (no surprise) but with the help of two nice guys and after walking my bike up a huge flight of stairs, I see the bike bridge over the inner-belt. Phew!  OK, I have a pretty good idea of where I’m going!  Down a great big twisting hill!  Wheeee!!!!

I wend my way down the towpath from Mustill Store to Botzum Trail Head.  The only part that got really dicey was (alas) around the sewage plant. The trail became bumpy and slippery.  I’ve been trying to use all my gears on this new bike and I must have heard or read somewhere that being in a low gear (what I’d call low, which is probably wrong) gives you stability and I needed it. Badly!

When I stopped at Botzum (pictured above) I toyed with going a bit further but wisely decided to turn around.  One mile (after 2 slight rest stops) before I got back to Mustill Store, I met up with 2 nice ladies and walked back with them, chatting.  Hermione and Florence.  Ageless women of color. (What is it with black folks?  Those ladies were anywhere from 35 to 70 and you can’t tell!)

Now I figured there might be a bus stop near here. I could have sworn I saw the parking lot for Mustill go by.  I start walking looking for a bus stop sign. I’ve turned off my RunKeeper app and taken the odometer off my bike.

And I’m still walking. Things look familar but….

And I walk up this HUGE hill.  I get to the top.  I don’t know how to get there from here.  I’m not so much lost as disoriented.

“Well, this is stupid.  I’ll just go back and go over to Lock 3.” Yes, after I go around several deceptive corners over lovely streams and water falls only to discover I have to ride up two hills with a 5% grade.  The same ones I went merrily down.  The bike performed well but my legs and arms and hands and a** were screaming!!  I finally get near Lock 3 and take a lovely detour (and it is lovely) ending up going past Akron General Hospital.  I KNOW I’m not in the right place but it was interesting nonetheless.

Finally I struggle up the hill at Lock 3 and finally I find a bus stop on Main Street.  I finally get my bike on the proper bus to head home and finally sit down in the air conditioning, which almost made my tummy go nuts. I get off by the aforementioned bike shop so I can ask them a question or two and rest for a few minutes.

I ride home, decided to clean my bike as it was crusted with dirt, dust, mud, sand.

Before I had flipped it, I looked at my odometer:

2+ hours

20.5 miles

8.8 average MPH

Highest speed 18 MPH

Then I flipped my bike over and erased my odometer.  Well, sh*t.

I am sore but I’m glad I did it.

Today’s Adventure & 5 Crazy Words

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I decided to try this “take your bike on the bus” thing today. It’s really the only way I can get to the towpath without a car.  Akron Metro has a video on their website which I watched about 5 times.  I figured if it was really stupid, I wouldn’t do it.

There are a couple of reasons I wanted to go on the towpath.  For starters, it has rained the last few days and if I went on the Bike And Hike through Silver Lake and Munroe Falls, I’d have to bike THROUGH a lake as there are a few areas that flood like hell. I’m not that fabulous of a cyclist to get everything soaking wet including my shoes.

And sometimes I get tired of riding on the Bike and Hike, even though it’s a total blessing that we have it!!  We actually are rather blessed around here; there are tons of places to bike and walk and hike.  We have the Metroparks and the Cuyahoga Valley National Park (thank you, Bob Hunker).  Granted the CVNP can be a total nut house, especially on the weekends.  Parts of it (mostly between Szalay’s and Boston) is like the Oklahoma Land Rush.  It’s crazy town and you have to actually be very careful, especially the Peninsula to Boston leg. If I were truly an extremely brave little toaster, I’d bike on the road for that leg BUT I am not that brave.  I get freaked out riding in a CAR!

I get to the bus stop which is about 3/4 of a mile from my house.  It took a bit of jerry-rigging to get the bike on the bus bike rack but I managed.  I’m carrying my helmet, bike bag and water and trying to get on the bus as fast as I can.  Yikes, sometimes getting stuff out of pockets is a pain!

About a mile into the bus trip, a guy with a white cowboy hat puts his bike on the front of the bus and gets onto the bus announcing, in a loud voice for all the world to hear that our local bike shop sucks!!  Bad service, etc. He’s rambling on about something having to do with a debit card and phone number.  He keeps on yakking and I’m wishing I had headphones on.

I’m thinking, “Ah, the joys of public transport! God, is the rest of the day going to be this weird??  Sh*t! And who in the hell in Northeast Ohio where’s a white cowboy hat while riding a bike?  OK, maybe in TEXAS, but here???”

After several of his victims had disembarked the bus, he says to me, “You’re a cyclist, I can tell.”  (I guess the helmet and bike bag were a give-away, huh?)  I do my best Polite Nod.  The Queenly one.  The “yes I acknowledge you because it would be rude to not do so but really my tea is getting cold and this is my way of politely blowing you off because I wish you’d shut the  f— up about my bike shop” nod.

He rallies on, “Can you imagine such sh*tty customer service?  Has that ever happened to you?  Come on, it’s happened to you! What do you do about sh*t like that, huh?”

I then utter five words I never thought would ever come out of my mouth:

 

I choose not to comment.


Holy crap, what did I just do?  Did I have an out-of-body experience?  Channel my inner Queen Mum?  Suddenly become my sister or brother who are MUCH more tactful that I am? Decide the diplomatic corps is going to be my next career?

Have I really been watching way too many episodes of THE WEST WING?

Who the hell said that and what did they do with me?  Since I’ve turned 50, I’m rarely reluctant to get into a verbal duke-it-up especially when someone is dissing a friend, a policy I believe in or a place I really like and  have patronized for years.  Truly, I had an out of body experience because I would normally have said nothing and hope that the bus would absorb me.

I will say this for this extraordinarily rare moment of tact. It shut him up.  Damn. He went on to bother some young lady who was on her way to a 12 step thing.

When the bus arrived in downtown Akron, I managed to get my bike off the front of the bus and walk over to Lock 3, a public area in Akron where they have festivities etc.  I managed to get lost pretty quickly (no surprise) but with the help of two nice guys and after walking my bike up a huge flight of stairs, I see the bike bridge over the inner-belt. Phew!  OK, I have a pretty good idea of where I’m going!  Down a great big twisting hill!  Wheeee!!!!

I wend my way down the towpath from Mustill Store to Botzum Trail Head.  The only part that got really dicey was (alas) around the sewage plant. The trail became bumpy and slippery.  I’ve been trying to use all my gears on this new bike and I must have heard or read somewhere that being in a low gear (what I’d call low, which is probably wrong) gives you stability and I needed it. Badly!

When I stopped at Botzum (pictured above) I toyed with going a bit further but wisely decided to turn around.  One mile (after 2 slight rest stops) before I got back to Mustill Store, I met up with 2 nice ladies and walked back with them, chatting.  Hermione and Florence.  Ageless women of color. (What is it with black folks?  Those ladies were anywhere from 35 to 70 and you can’t tell!)

Now I figured there might be a bus stop near here. I could have sworn I saw the parking lot for Mustill go by.  I start walking looking for a bus stop sign. I’ve turned off my RunKeeper app and taken the odometer off my bike.

And I’m still walking. Things look familar but….

And I walk up this HUGE hill.  I get to the top.  I don’t know how to get there from here.  I’m not so much lost as disoriented.

Well, this is stupid.  I’ll just go back and go over to Lock 3.” Yes, after I go around several deceptive corners over lovely streams and water falls only to discover I have to ride up two hills with a 5% grade.  The same ones I went merrily down.  The bike performed well but my legs and arms and hands and a** were screaming!!  I finally get near Lock 3 and take a lovely detour (and it is lovely) ending up going past Akron General Hospital.  I KNOW I’m not in the right place but it was interesting nonetheless.

Finally I struggle up the hill at Lock 3 and finally I find a bus stop on Main Street.  I finally get my bike on the proper bus to head home and finally sit down in the air conditioning, which almost made my tummy go nuts. I get off by the aforementioned bike shop so I can ask them a question or two and rest for a few minutes.

I ride home, decided to clean my bike as it was crusted with dirt, dust, mud, sand.

Before I had flipped it, I looked at my odometer:

2+ hours

20.5 miles

8.8 average MPH

Highest speed 18 MPH

Then I flipped my bike over and erased my odometer.  Well, sh*t.

I am sore but I’m glad I did it.