National English Shepherd Rescue Volunteer Roles

 National English Shepherd Rescue needs more than just fosters to rescue dogs! These are our volunteer roles, and how they help English Shepherds get adopted:

• Evaluator volunteers meet a candidate for intake and work off a scripted interview form to develop an sense of who the dog is, and whether they might be viable. This role is generally pretty infrequently called on, and is a low-cost way to stay involved with us.

• Transporters help move a dog from one place to another. As a general matter, we limit transporters to a three hour one-way drive unless they specify otherwise. Transport volunteers are especially critical in southern states, and the mountain west.

• Fosters take a dog into their home and care for it until a permanent adoption can be made. Often this is a foster-to-adopt scenario, where the foster takes on a dog that they might be interested in, with the option of moving the dog on if it is not a good fit. This requires a lot of commitment: introductions to the house pack (if any), time spent working with the foster on deficiencies (such as leash manners, counter cruising, etc.), trips to the vet for intake care, etc. We cannot operate without our network of fosters, and they are the biggest single key to our success.

• After a dog has passed evaluation, coordinators oversee every step of a dog's journey to an adoptive home. They

  • find someone to pull the dog from a shelter (if in a shelter) or get the dog from a surrendering owner

  • arrange for a foster and transport to the foster

  • find a suitable adoptive home, or

  • market the dog if no such homes exist or are interested.

  This is a potentially significant time commitment; it can be very close to zero once a dog is in a foster-to-adopt situation, or a part-time job if a dog is a hard placement in need of a very particular foster or adoptive home. Coordinators start as the assistant to an existing coordinator, and then with experience become a coordinator themselves.
  
  Our ability to rehome dogs is determined partly by the number of foster homes we have, but a lack of coordinators can stop the process cold. We sometimes have to "close the doors" because of too many dogs and not enough coordinators.

• Contact volunteer: A lot of coordinating is contacting people by email, text, and phone. To reduce the workload on coordinators, minimize dead ends, and get dogs into adoptive homes quicker, we need someone to contact

  • adopters as their applications age out (after a year)

  • fosters on break at such time as they are eligible to return to active service (people return from vacations, have personal emergencies, etc.)

  • foster and transport volunteers on a periodic basis to see if they are still available for those roles

  • references on adopter, transport, and foster volunteer applications.

Because transporters and fosters both have physical custody of a dog, we require them to sign a contract with us outlining responsibility in those respective roles. Coordinators require a signed confidentiality agreement as well.

If you can help in any capacity other than fostering, please apply at our online volunteer application form. (Fostering has its own application.) Thank you so much for thinking of us, and more importantly, the dogs we serve.

Live Animal Air Transport For Dummies (And Rescues)

Air transport of live animals is a recurring subject for rescues. As it seems I keep rewriting some version of this post, usually to would-be adopters considering how to get a potential dog from where she is to them, I'm finally breaking down and publishing it here.

A New Era In Parvovirus Treatment

 I've had an interest in canine parvovirus ever since we got our Libby in 2009. She was born to a Montana hoarder whose "merchandise" was free-breeding, and whose property was riddled with that virus. A serial killer of puppies caught between the waning of maternal antibodies and the maturation of the pup's own immune system, death rates among untreated dogs is 71%, a horrifying figure. (Others cite a number of 91%.)

There's no real treatment for pups infected before they can get a vaccination. Or more accurately, there wasn't until fairly recently, when Kindred Biosciences announced a monoclonal antibody treatment with a claimed 100% efficacy. The drug was approved earlier this year on a "conditional license" by the USDA. It will be interesting to see whether the claimed 100% figure holds up over time, but this is almost unalloyed good news.

The Senator From East Virginia Takes On Licensing Of PetSmart Groomers

 Shoshana Weissmann’s Twitter persona as the Senator from East Virginia is the cover story for her advocacy on a number of subjects with the R Street Institute: DMCA Section 230, social media regulation, and especially, occupational licensing. Charming, smart, and funny despite the numerous trolls she attracts daily, she gets to a lot of stories that would otherwise miss my attention. One such that escaped me from 2018 was a tawdry story of New Jersey PetSmart groomers actually killing dogs in their custody — and PetSmart immediately turning this into an opportunity to pretend that licensing dog groomers would have fixed this situation!

PetSmart should absolutely be held accountable for these losses. Harming dogs in this way is both unconscionable and illegal. The state of New Jersey ought to step in and investigate. However, a pet grooming license will do little to help protect dogs from negligent or reckless groomers.

The New Jersey bill would require individuals to pass an exam, be at least 18 years of age and “of good moral character” to obtain a groomer license. The problem, however, is that large corporations like PetSmart will have no trouble getting licenses for their groomers. PetSmart is a major company with the financial means to train its staff and ensure that its groomers have licenses. In fact, PetSmart already trains its groomers.

Instead, adding licensing requirements will prevent smaller groomers from practicing — including struggling small businesses, teens who have learned to groom to earn some extra money, and other individual groomers of poorer means who have been grooming pets for years but cannot afford the training.

Now, it should also be mentioned that among the dogs that died, 20 of 47 were brachycephalic breeds — in other words, dogs with congenital breathing disorders bred into them. This is not an excuse, of course, but it does help to understand why some of them died, anyway. It in no way excuses PetSmart’s absurd reaction, which would kick people out of the business who had not killed any dogs.

California's Dreadful AB 485 Masks And Exacerbates The Problem Of Puppymills

My friend Linda Kaim pointed me at an AKC complaint that California's AB 485 would cost people the "freedom to choose your own dog". As usual, it pays to be skeptical of anything from the AKC, and a quick read of the text of the bill shows that the circumstances behind it are anything but benign:

122354.5.  (a) A pet store operator shall not sell a live dog, cat, or rabbit in a pet store unless the dog, cat, or rabbit was obtained from a public animal control agency or shelter, society for the prevention of cruelty to animals shelter, humane society shelter, or rescue group that is in a cooperative agreement with at least one private or public shelter pursuant to Section 31108, 31752, or 31753 of the Food and Agricultural Code.

(b) All sales of dogs and cats authorized by this section shall be in compliance with paragraph (1) of subdivision (a) of Section 30503 of, subdivision (b) of Section 30520 of, paragraph (1) of subdivision (a) of Section 31751.3 of, and subdivision (b) of Section 31760 of, the Food and Agricultural Code.

(c) Each pet store shall maintain records sufficient to document the source of each dog, cat, or rabbit the pet store sells or provides space for, for at least one year. Additionally, each pet store shall post, in a conspicuous location on the cage or enclosure of each animal, a sign listing the name of the public animal control agency or shelter, society for the prevention of cruelty to animals shelter, humane society shelter, or nonprofit from which each dog, cat, or rabbit was obtained. Public animal control agencies or shelters may periodically require pet stores engaged in sales of dogs, cats, or rabbits to provide access to these records.

(d) A pet store operator who is subject to this section is exempt from the requirements set forth in Article 2 (commencing with Section 122125) of Chapter 5, except for the requirements set forth in Section 122135, paragraphs (3) and (4) of subdivision (a) of, and paragraphs (5) and (6) of subdivision (b) of, Section 122140, and Sections 122145 and 122155.

(e) A pet store operator who violates this section shall be subject to a civil penalty of five hundred dollars ($500). Each animal offered for sale in violation of this section shall constitute a separate violation.

(f) For purposes of this section, a “rescue group” is an organization that is tax exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, and that does not obtain animals from breeders or brokers for compensation.

 As we've already seen, there's a lot of ways to hide revenue in 990s, including as executive salaries and other compensation. The way this bill is written would appear to permit puppy mills to rebrand themselves as "rescues" (or to create new intermediary "rescues") who would launder the dogs, shifting the actual profit center. Because of the perverse way USDA APHIS rules regulate commercial dog breeders, ironically it would be small-scale breeders (PDF) who would be most affected by the new language:

Q. Under the final rule, what is the new definition of a retail pet store?

A. In the final rule, “retail pet store” means a place of business or residence at which the seller, buyer, and the animal available for sale are physically present so that every buyer may personally observe the animal prior to purchasing and/or taking custody of it after purchase. [Emboldening in the passage above is mine. - RM] By personally observing the animal, the buyer is exercising public oversight over the animal and in this way is helping to ensure its health and humane treatment. Retailers who sell their pet animals to customers in face- to-face transactions do not have to obtain an AWA license because their animals are subject to such public oversight. Under the AWA regulations, a “retail pet store” is also a place where only the following animals are sold or offered for sale as pets: dogs, cats, rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters, gerbils, rats, mice, gophers, chinchillas, domestic ferrets, domestic farm animals, birds, and coldblooded species.

Essentially, this eliminates small-scale breeders from selling in California, because their puppies are not from a "rescue", and because they meet the APHIS definition of "retail pet store". That this is approximately insane is par for the course; it is, after all, California.

Presumably, They Don't Teach At A Veterinary Med School

"Don't Gender Your Pets". Author "Christie's" other stories are just as funny.

The Frauds at PUPscan

I forgot to mention Carol Beuchat's excellent two-part series on PUPscan (part 1, part 2). Mostly, what they appear to be doing is taking the public's money and playing with an ultrasound imaging device. As Carol writes in her second piece, "A published, peer-reviewed study failed to find any evidence that ultrasound examination of young puppies was predictive of the development of hip dysplasia as adults."

We don't know what they are measuring. We don't know if they have any evidence that these mystery measurements tell us anything about hip dysplasia. We don't know how measurements of a structure that is cartilage in a puppy can tell us something useful about what to expect in the adult dog after it has been converted to bone. We don't know why they think they can ascribe to genetics any problems they see in their ultrasound examination.

As far as I can tell, they have no data that link whatever they are measuring to a diagnosis of or predisposition to hip dysplasia. If that's the case, then this is essentially a research project (and note that they call it the "PUPscan Project") in which the owners of the dogs will pay for collection of data that may or may not be useful, and at best it will be several years before they will even be able to say.

What I find especially disturbing is the fact that they are leading people to believe that they are providing useful information and "new hope for breeders of 'dysplastic' dogs", as in the title of their published article. Unless they can provide answers to the very basic questions I have asked them, I don't see that they have anything useful to offer.

But they still want your money, I'm sure.

The Protestant Reformation Of Dogs Is Missing Its Martin Luther

Jemima Harrison, whose Pedigree Dogs Exposed blog through some oversight was missing from my sidebar, has a new post up today regarding the death of her friend Gina Spadafori's Flat Coated Retriever Faith (Faybee) at the absurdly young age of seven. For anyone not keeping up, FCRs have an impossibly large genetic predisposition to cancer (50% of all such dogs will succumb); it was thus a huge gamble when Ms. Spadafori purchased bred Faith, even despite her considerable due diligence on the parents' health. [Thanks for the correction in the comments, Jemima.]

What I found utterly puzzling about Ms. Harrison's post is that it fails to link to a 2013 entry on that same blog mentioning Ms. Spadafori's admirable Mackenzie Project, an attempt to outcross FCRs with other breeds in an effort to reduce the incidence of cancer. But looking for that website today will yield you nothing; the only trace of it is that post at Jemima's blog now.

I will not here speculate on the reasons Ms. Spadafori removed that from circulation, having not asked her. But what I will say is that it is painfully obvious that dog culture generally needs to change. The ribbon society members who can write this wretched treacle eliding their dogs' short, painful lives as having "chosen well" have surrendered any claim to "improving" their breed whatsoever.  Kennel blindness even among those who ought to be knowledgeable enough to understand the danger of genetic bottlenecks is so rampant that even Niels C. Pedersen at UC Davis recently appears to have pussyfooted around the real hazards facing FCRs in a report on that breed's genetic diversity: "... the Flat-Coated Retriever is increasingly recognized for its comparatively good health...." Compared to what, exactly? Pedersen's report comes off sounding like the gag, "But other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?": so much whistling past the graveyard.

Patrick Burns sounds the right note: "So how do you avoid cancer in a Flat-coated Retriever?  You stop buying Flat-coated Retrievers. It's just that simple." The reason for this is obvious: dog culture is itself debased by people who lack even a rudimentary knowledge of population genetics, and in fact are hostile to this knowledge. If the AKC vaguely resembles a "Stalinist Switzerland", the broad public is having none of that (less and less, in fact). We desperately need new, sound ideas about dogs and how to breed them, based on demonstrated genetic principles. Dogdom is ripe for a sort of Protestant Reformation; all that is missing is its Martin Luther.

UC Davis' Crawl Into Infamy, Or, It's Hard To Find What You Don't Look For

Okay, this:

A new study by researchers at the University of California, Davis, indicates that mixed breeds don’t necessarily have an advantage when it comes to inherited canine disorders.

Oh? Whatever did the study say?

“Overall, the study showed that the prevalence of these genetic disorders among purebred and mixed-breed dogs depends on the specific condition,” said animal physiologist Anita Oberbauer, professor and chair of the Department of Animal Science at UC Davis and lead author of the study.

Tell us more!

The researchers evaluated records for more than 90,000 purebred and mixed-breed dogs that were examined at UC Davis’ veterinary medical teaching hospital between 1995 and 2010.

From this group, 27,254 dogs were identified as having one or more of 24 genetic disorders, including various types of cancers, heart diseases, endocrine-system ailments and orthopedic problems, as well as allergies, bloat, cataracts, epilepsy, an eye lens problem and a liver condition.

The 24 disorders were selected for the study because they can be diagnosed accurately, are highly prevalent in the overall dog population and are debilitating to the extent that owners would seek veterinary care for the animal. In addition, the selected disorders represent a variety of different locations and physiologic systems in the dog’s body.

Oh, so in other words, genetic disorders common among all dogs were not more common in purebred dogs. Wow, color me surprised.

This crap has circulated for three years now, and has been used as an excuse for failing to look for certain problems (cough, cancer) within well-known populations. UC Davis' pussyfooting here is both true and embarrassing, in that the AKC could be guaranteed to slobber on anyone pointing away from their institutional rot.

Update 2016-05-31: How could I omit Carol Beuchat's rejoinder? She lays out the cases much more convincingly using graphs. Also, Christopher Landauer's playful retort.

The Futility — And Danger — Of Yellow Ribbons On Dog Leashes

It's been a while since I read anything about the Yellow Dog Project, an effort in public education to make people understand the meaning of a yellow ribbon tied to a dog's leash:

The Yellow Dog Project is a global movement for owners of dogs that need space. It hopes to educate the public and dog owners to identify dogs needing space, promote appropriate contact of dogs and assist dog parents to identify their dog as needing space.

Yellow Dogs are dogs who need space - they are not necessarily aggressive dogs but more often are dogs who have issues of fear; pain from recent surgery; are a rescue or shelter dog who has not yet had sufficient training or mastered obedience; are in training for work or service; are in service; or other reasons specific to the dog. 

While I don't know for certain, it seems likely this arose from the practice of tying a red ribbon to the tail of a horse that doesn't like to be crowded from behind. As that article observes,

What horseback rider doesn't know the telltale sign of a red ribbon tied in a horse's tail? I learned at a VERY young age – most likely as soon as I climbed on my pony and went for a trail ride at the age of 7 – that a red ribbon tied into a horse tail signifies a horse that kicks.

Which is to say, this is a deeply embedded part of horse culture. It has a built-in way to transmit it: horse people tend to know other horse people, and hang out at stables. There is no such mechanism for the yellow ribbon, save large-scale public advertising campaigns, which cost money. Which is to say,

The message the yellow ribbon seeks to transmit is unlikely to be understood by the intended audience.

 It fails at a very basic level. There I left it until I found myself reminded of it once again by a Facebook friend, who posted a link to a Care2 article about the project. That got me Googling around the Interwebs,  whereupon I found this excellent essay by Deb McAlister about why you shouldn't use the yellow ribbon:

American juries (urged on by plaintiff’s attorneys) are using the yellow ribbon the same way they’ve been using the “Beware of Dog” signs for years: as an admission that the dog owner knows he has a dangerous dog. And your dog could pay with its life if it’s labelled as a “known dangerous dog”. The dog doesn’t even have to bite anyone. In Texas and a number of other states, it’s legal to shoot a dog if someone is “reasonably” afraid of it.

George Bernard Shaw said, "The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place." This is a first-rate illustration of that problem. Despite the Yellow Dog Project's efforts to uncouple the yellow ribbon from problematic dogs, the world outside will come to its own conclusions, something DogKnobit wrote about:

... I think we presume too much “dog savviness” on the part of the general public. I’ve been a dog fancier for thirty years, but if I’d never seen this poster on Facebook today, I wouldn’t have known the significance of a yellow ribbon on a dog leash. Because I am a dog fancier, however, I also know there are better ways to deal with the situations listed on this poster than using a ribbon to ask for “space.” Responsible dog owners have control over the environment  to which their dogs are exposed, as well as the degree of “saturation” in that setting. If a dog has health issues that require minimal contact with other dogs,  should the dog even be in such an environment?  And is it me, but if a dog doesn’t do well with other dogs, should he even be around them until he’s become trustworthy in a controlled setting? And finally, isn’t it just plain common sense and courtesy to keep one’s dog from getting in another dog’s face?  Rather than rely on a yellow ribbon to signal any number of issues a dog has, I’d rather see this fabulous article by Susan Clothier make the rounds on Facebook, Twitter, and be included in material handed out to new dog owners.

My final thought on using a yellow ribbon to indicate a dog’s need for space goes back to the Cane Corso story at the beginning of my blog. We live not only in a litigious society, but at a time when animal rights zealots are gunning for us. Is it really smart to telegraph with a yellow ribbon (or “do not touch” signs) that our dog may have “issues?”

The yellow ribbon campaign fails as a communication mechanism, and potentially transmits damaging and false messages even among people who should know what it says. No, just, no. Don't do that.

The Dog Fancy Steals A Page From The "Rape Crisis" Hoaxers

I've previously written about the various bogus surveys of rape and its much broader sister charge, sexual assault, and how political motivation has expanded that to include clumsy attempts at hand-holding. With its engineered results that turn virtually any unwanted advance or gaffe into sexual assault, it's little wonder those trying to prove there's a huge sexual assault problem on college campuses come up with numbers vastly higher than actual rape statistics, which latter have been in decline for decades — unlike the static "1-in-5" factoid. File under "figures don't lie, but liars can figure".

The dog fancy has taken a similar approach to dealing with their flawed product. Two years ago, UC Davis published a study finding some genetic diseases common to all dogs apparently occur at the same rates in mutts and purebreds. AKC apologists rapidly seized on this finding, even though it didn't actually say what they thought it did. In fact, for 10 of the 27 diseases surveyed, purebred dogs had notably higher incidence rates than mutts. Yesterday, I encountered a similar study (original at PLOS One) with even brighter news for the KC (or so they would have you believe). Originating from a survey of English veterinary records and paid for by the RSPCA, the press release version claims "purebreds are no more likely than crossbreeds to suffer the most common disorders", i.e. the diseases they studied had equal incidence in both purebreds and mutts, based on reviews of veterinary practice data throughout that country. In fact,

• For three of the most common 20 diseases (otitis externa [ear infections], obesity, and skin masses), the incidence in purebreds was materially higher (p<0.05) than in "crossbred" dogs (in fact, dogs of unknown provenance).
• Four of the 20 "mid-level" diseases (musculoskeletal issues, aural, opthamological, and again obesity, though not sure why that latter is counted in this group again) again have materially higher incidences in purebreds than mutts; none were higher in mutts than the general population.
• For specific breeds, some problems were more frequent and some were less than the general population. This is to be expected.

So rather than a rigged study, the Telegraph article simply fails to note the cases where there were in fact more problems among purebreds; but ignoring those cases does not make them go away. Likewise, the survey doesn't attempt to address breed-specific genetic or genetically-linked diseases (hip dysplasia, cancer, collie eye anomaly, Leonberger polyneuropathy, high uric acid in Dalmatians, inability to whelp vaginally, etc.) that are much more likely in certain breeds and contribute to overall health problems. I eagerly await more detailed studies that include such conditions.

The English Shepherd Club's Open Registry: Doing Studbooks Better

The breed club for my own dogs, the English Shepherd Club, recently launched a new website for breeders, which includes my friend Heather Houlahan's impassioned jeremiad for the (then-new) ESC open registry. Unlike the AKC and virtually all other registries, the ESC is open because it satisfies two particular requirements:

1. The data is openly visible to all.
2. Dogs not in the registry may be registered based on consensus. That is, does the dog appear to satisfy knowledgeable individuals that it is an English Shepherd?

The post, of course, is worth reading in its entirety, but I wanted to focus on the final graf because of its importance:

...[W]e need to step away from the weird “pedigree as a valuable secret” attitude that has been deliberately fostered by IESR and UKC — especially the former. The only way to break their stranglehold on information is to give it away en masse to those who will make it available for free. Breeders who jealously guard the information that they have picked your pocket for is exactly what allows them to charge hundreds of dollars for a few names on a sheet of paper. It’s a liberating act to make that information free. (Remember that urban legend about the Neiman-Marcus cookie recipe? There’s a reason that people take such glee in freely passing around a recipe that they believe someone was “robbed” — or at least overcharged — to acquire. Now the Neiman-Marcus story is made up — but there’s a greater truth behind the legend, which is that the empowering response to being ripped off is not to rip someone else off in turn, but to deny the holdup artist the ability to do it to someone else.) But more than individually liberating — sharing pedigree information is a cost-free way to conserve the future of the breed.

 I hasten to add that this is by no means a complete solution; a closed studbook is ultimately fatal, whether by good intentions or not. And with the kind of holes that the ESC has in its studbook (speaking from experience, as I have extensively examined them), there are a lot of potential problems, up to and including misleading coefficient of inbreeding (COI) calculations. But the relatively promiscuous approach of the ESC, compared to its AKC brethren, put them head and shoulders above most other breed clubs (and not a few arrogant ignoramuses) in this regard.

Breeding Right: Genetic Diversity Among The Jack Russell Terriers And Collie Dogs

In my many transactions with dog folk, it is received wisdom that the AKC is evil, stupid, and willfully ignorant, refusing even the most basic precepts of genetics. I recently had cause to read some correspondence with Dr. Niels C. Pedersen of UC Davis on the subject of genetic diversity; one part of the discussion ran to the business of prior studies done on other breeds, and in particular, landrace dogs — in which group he included the village dogs of Southeast Asia and Africa, but also, amazingly, the Jack Russell Terrier.

Wait, what?

Yup.

When comparing the heterogeneity of the BSD to that observed within the AKC breeds some caveats should be addressed. One may initially expect long established, well-defined dog breeds to be much less heterogeneous than reported here. While some breeds do have a low H_E, such as the Boxer with a H_E of 0.320, breeds like the Jack Russell Terrier have a high H_E of 0.713 and overall their H_E is higher than that of the dingo.

So, a breed that's got more genetic diversity than a wild canid with a large population and distribution? I leave for others to decide how that might have happened, but consider that the collie-descended dogs appear similarly situated; the Australian Shepherd is fourth (H_E=.696) and the Border Collie is seventh (H_E=.669) on this list, and both are in the top third (Table 1). It speaks to the surprising diversity of the breeds, and while it does raise my hopes for the English Shepherd, only an actual study will tell us about genetic diversity there. It certainly makes me wonder what the JRT people do to arrive at that result. Genetic diversity, of course, isn't a panacea for genetic disease (coff hip dysplasia coff collie eye anomaly coff), but it is vastly better than a dozen or more breeds I could name.

Update 4/11/2015: Patrick Burns has more to say about this.

Why Craft Beer Is Like Dog Food

My friend Scott Templeman today mentioned that Yuengling is now the top craft beer in the US, which can be the case thanks to a relaxing of standards for what qualifies as "beer". Yuengling, which is still privately owned, cracked the top spot despite using corn and other "fillers" thanks to a relaxed definition from the Brewers Association. That got me going on a discussion about the relevance of ownership; Anheuser-Busch, whose signature Budweiser has never appealed to me (except in relation to even worse beers, e.g. Iron City), is now a part of the InBev monster based in Belgium. Thereupon I found this excellent rant on the topic from I Think About Beer, which I wanted highlight for an odd parallel in the dog world. It's no secret that Budweiser's market share is in decline, possibly terminally; last year, more Americans drank craft beer than Budweiser, and wine and spirits are eroding beer's popularity. To fight back, InBev has been obliged to buy every craft brewer it can get its mitts on. The hook for the independent craft beer brewer, as ever, is the ease of distribution once they get bought by the powerhouse, but ...

Elysian and co. will see some increased distribution to fuel their volume growth. But where does this come from? With 3,000 breweries in operation and 2,000 more coming on line, available store and bar space certainly isn’t keeping pace. AB-InBev isn’t acquiring craft brands because it believes in the segment’s quality. They’re buying out craft breweries to capture shelf space and profits. Big Red is down and continuing to slide in sales. Coors Light is gaining market share on Bud Light and even out sells it in Oregon. AB-InBev’s former imports are in a steep decline. AB-InBev is losing valuable shelf real-estate. It needs some way to stem the flow; so they’re picking up brands they can take to stores and bars to capture their lost business. That business has to come from somewhere: the competition.

The more brands AB-InBev has to take before retailers; the easier it is for them to decide against smaller and independent brands. And let’s face it, retailers don’t really want to deal with a million different vendors so if someone can bring them a whole host of products that will fulfill their needs, why should they care if they’re only supplied by one mega-conglomeration. Each brand AB-InBev can present is tap or shelf space they’re denying an independent competitor. Distributors and breweries are in a state of constant war when it comes to beer sets and tap handles; and the more weapons you have the more territory you can conquer.

The problem, of course, is that over the long term, the only way the new owners can keep such duplicative efforts rolling is to eventually slash staff and cut corners, with long-term consequences for the quality of the suds. (The author points to Goose Island's mainline product as an example of lowered standards.) And it's here that the comparison to dog food kicks in, because Mars alone is responsible for no fewer than eighteen brands of pet food (and rumored last December to be finalizing a purchase of Blue Buffalo), many of which were purchased for exactly the same reasons: the demand for shelf space. Of course, the arguments about quality are probably less compelling in this space — it's broadly lower to begin with, with the Friday night recall dump aimed at suppressing broad dissemination among the target PR outlets that might not get to it until Monday. But the pressures driving reduced cost and quality ingredients are identical.

The Overuse Of "Hater": No, It's Not "Cool" To Hate Breeders

One of the most pernicious tendencies in recent years has been that of inserting "hater" and all its variants into various kinds of discourse. Google gives it as "a negative or critical person", but I incline to add "for irrational reasons"; that is, a "hater" is someone who doesn't actually have an argument or evidence or facts behind them; they merely hate, for whatever reason. I bring this up because of this blog post about how "Hating Dog Breeders Is Cool Now", by which I infer that even small-time breeders are terrible humans (never mind apparent puppy millers that the GoDaddy ad actually lampoons as insensitive and commercial). In case my comment gets eaten or rejected, I cut and paste it below in its entirety.

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The feud to define “reputable breeder” is a long way from over, and probably never will be, but it is utterly inconceivable that any such would ever agree to sell to a third party. I cannot discern the author’s position on this matter, but the lack of condemnation of the practice comes very close to at least tolerating it.

This is a conversation that the AKC has been decidedly absent from. The biggest name in purebred and well-bred dogs in the United States seems reluctant to campaign for the people that support them. Yes, the AKC has a part in fighting legislation occasionally. But a group with so much reach should be doing so much more, in my humble opinion. Let’s figure out a way to help them do it, or just do it ourselves if they are unwilling to.

This is a futile pursuit. The AKC is dying, slowly, a victim of its own “success”, which mostly is opposite of any rational and scientific concern for dogs, a subject I wrote about some months ago. (An even better source is my friend Heather Houlahan in 2010 in her essay, “The Emperor’s Striptease”.) The AKC is at war with itself; it cannot tell the puppy millers to get lost, as they generate so many registrations. Neither can it blow off the Westminster participants and their multi-thousand-dollar campaigns. But the two have fundamentally different and opposing interests. The question therefore becomes, which breeders?

4) Advertise: Advertise your puppies absolutely everywhere that will allow you to do so. Facebook, Kijiji, Puppyfind, Ebay, Hoobly.

My question is, why are you creating puppies for which you had not ascertained qualified homes long before the prospective pairing? My background is in working dogs — herding dogs, particularly — and no breeder of my acquaintance with any repute would sell their dogs in such a manner.

Repost: Response To The Dog Snobs "That's Not How That Actually Works..."

Note: originally posted here, reposting because it fits the scheme better in this space, with minor edits for style.

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Recently, The Dog Snobs ran a story entitled "That's not how that actually works you know a.k.a. The AKC is not the enemy and why you sound stupid when you say so.". I normally love the Snobs, but it is exactly when they start talking about the AKC that they end up making really dumb comments. Having been a sometime observer of the AKC and its defenders, I now understand why they write this sort of apologetic -- but refuse in the strongest possible terms to excuse it. And if you presume to lead with the provocative headline that "you sound stupid" when decrying the AKC as an enemy of dogs, you either clearly haven't done your homework, you cling to prejudice about an organization whose real flaws you do not wish to address, or both. Neither prospect reflects well on the Snobs.

The myriad institutionalized failings of the AKC should come as no surprise to anyone who has befriended me on Facebook for any substantial period of time. I have had the great good fortune to acquire a number of knowledgeable friends of long history with dogs and vastly more detailed understanding of genetics. My friend Heather Houlahan back in 2010 penned a fantastic analysis of the AKC's dysfunction and decline, "The Emperor's Striptease". While there is a great deal there worthy of discussion, I want to focus first on her synopsis of Donald McCaig's excellent book, The Dog Wars. The short version is that the AKC mounted a hostile takeover of the Australian Shepherd Club of America, except

... the Aussie owners' club had no interest in being so honored. It was doing just fine by itself, with a registry, pageant shows (there was their mistake -- a topic for another day), and open-to-all obedience and working trials.

But AKC was in an acquisitive mood. It cobbled together a little group of Aussie owners who wanted to enter the big pageants, declared them the official club, and to Hell with the studbook -- they'd just take your word for it on the pedigree.

Most of the Aussie people I knew at the time took a fatalistic view -- they didn't like it, but basically rolled over and peed themselves. "I guess I have to double-register, or else lose puppy sales. They're going to close the studbook." (Edit: I do not mean to imply that all Aussie owners went this way; I was just shocked and disappointed about the ones I knew at the time, who all did.)

The AKC next tried to absorb the Border Collie, which effort was marginally successful, in that there are now BC's registered with the AKC, but as Heather notes,

The ABCA continues to register over 20,000 border collies a year -- more than ten times as many as the AKC. Most of those latter are "captured" agility and obedience dogs, and many of those are dual-registered.

So when the Snobs tell us that "The AKC is first and foremost a registry business", what they omit is that it has done so against the wishes of Aussie owners and breeders, and as well of the Coton de Tulear, Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, and Leonberger, in varying degrees. But this transgression amounts to petty larceny compared to the felony assault that the AKC commits on the canine genome. And it is here, at the Snobs' item (3) -- "The Breed Clubs are not the AKC" -- that the bulk of their argument collapses in a heap. It takes either willful blindness or a refusal to comprehend how the AKC being a mere "registry" (their item 1) drives the operation of their constituent breed clubs.

The AKC is a closed registry. This, really, is in two dimensions:

1. It is closed to outside review, that is, outside of the AKC. Breeders and buyers alike have but limited visibility at the contents.
2. It is closed to new dogs, i.e. there is no such thing, as in the Border Collie registries, as a "Registered on Merit".

So when the Snobs say that "the breed clubs are not the AKC", what they're really trying to imply is that the AKC has no responsibility for the actions of the breed clubs. This is disingenuous in the extreme. And the reason why is that breed clubs must use the closed registry, without exception.

The AKC promotes breeds with terrible health. The most visible example I can think of here is the blog entry Patrick Burns wrote in 2010, in the case of Ch. Roundtown Mercedes of Maryscot, the Scottish Terrier that won Westminster that year. Not only was it the Westminster winner, it was a triple crown winner, also winning the 2009 National Dog Show and the AKC/Eukanuba National Championship that same year. And yet, as Burns points out,

• This is a breed in which 45 percent of all dogs die of cancer.
• This is a small breed dog where the average lifespan of the dog is just 10.15 years -- not the 15 years it should be.
• This is a breed where a person buying a professionally-bred Scottish Terrier is twice as likely to have that well-bred dog die at two years of age as they are to have that Scottie live to age 16.
• This is a breed where AKC show breeders have demonstrably less healthy dogs. As Joesph Harvill, editor of Great Scots Magazine notes, professionally bred Scotties are more expensive than casually-bred dogs, but they are not healthier. He concludes that "The empirical evidence indicates that the best shot -- even if a long shot -- at a long-lived Scottie is from a non-professional breeder."
• This is a breed in which the health of the dog is in rapid decline. When Joseph Harvill, the editor of Great Scots Magazine compared health survey results between 1995 and 2005, he found "an alarming trend" that "may signal the rapid declension in a gene pool which can happen when inbreeding depression reaches critical mass in a small, closed population."
• This is a breed where owners spent an average of $492 per dog per year on medical bills -- and 12.9% spent between $1,000-$5,000 per dog per year.

This is the result of the AKC's idea of "improving" dogs. It is a direct consequence of the closed studbook. While it is true that closed studbooks are a consequence of the actions of the breed clubs themselves, how many exceptions can you name? I personally am aware of only one, the low-uric acid Dalmatian project, which backcrossed Pointers to reintroduce the normal uric acid gene into the Dalmatian gene pool. (AKC Dalmatians often cannot convert uric acid to purines, which frequently results in kidney stones.) And even still, the Dalmatian Club of America (the AKC's subsidiary breed club) voted against inclusion. In the face of a known and serious health problem, the DCA clung to its closed stud book rather than attempt a fix. This brings me to my next issue: their proposed solution, one pillar of which includes

Some tighter reins on the breed clubs who are being deliberately ridiculous (I know, dog people being insane? Say it ain't so!) would be nice. We're not saying they have to shove modifications of the standard to reduce extremity and mandatory health testing down the breed clubs' throats, but holding them down and making them chew on it a little isn't the worst idea.

If mere "education" and "modifications of the standard" were all it took to repair the damage wrought by supposed renegade or ignorant breed clubs, why did it take so long to garner any measure of acceptance for the LUA Dalmatian? And why is the LUA Dalmatian an apparent anomaly? To answer that question, you'd have to have an understanding of the social aspects of the AKC and its breed clubs. As the estimable Ms. Houlahan put it,

The AKC cannot make up its mind whether it is a Most Anciente and Exclusive Order that has charged itself with governing a small, fanatical, and timorously obedient cadre of social-climbing dog-pageant addicts, or the divinely-ordained Government of Dogs in all of America.

One identity is primarily insular and snobbish. The other is primarily totalitarian and expansionist. They commingle gracelessly into something resembling a Stalinist Switzerland.

The AKC is fundamentally at war with itself, as can be seen by its imperious treatment of its own internal delegates. And here, the point that the breed clubs are not the same thing as the AKC proper is largely a copout, and ultimately meaningless. The problem isn't simply the many breeds ruined by extreme standards -- think, for example, of Pugs and Bulldogs, brachycephalic breeds that have overheating problems, as well as the many breeds that can no longer deliver puppies vaginally, such as the Scottish Terrier. Such degradation is widespread across multiple breeds, and exists in the European fancy as well; see, for instance, this pictorial history of European German Shepherd Dog champions, which feature the increasingly misshapen hindquarters common in the US. It also ignores the consequences of closed gene pools, which stem from the itch to "breed the best to the best". The "popular sire syndrome" is both nearly irresistible and all too common, as is the urge to deliver "typy" looks.

The problem, really, is this pre-Mendel ideal that ignores genetic diversity, that pretends nothing aside from immediate, known traits will be transmitted to the descendants of the proposed parents. As John W. Campbell observed, you can't do just one thing. Genetics are nothing if not tricky, and the AKC and its constituent clubs routinely ignore the real-world complications that inevitably follow from those flawed assumptions. If you are going to lecture others about "sound[ing] stupid", if you are going to claim you "don't just know better; we are better", you had damned well better have a rudimentary understanding of the subject of which you discuss. And it is crystal clear the Snobs, for reasons political and emotional, do not, and are not even slightly interested.

Happy Dogs

And now, for a change of pace: here's Sun Dog



Sun Dog: The Happiest Dog on Earth by OutsideTelevision

Which reminds me of this unembeddable video of Lily at Trailside, only with snow, and in Patagonia. Gorgeous.

Dogs are meant to be with us.