Blog Notes
I’m back from my annual trek to Pennsylvania for the Montgomery County weekend – this time by air.
Did I tell you I hate flying with dogs? No? Well, I hate flying with dogs. I really hate flying with dogs when nobody at Air Canada can give me a straight answer, the flight is delayed and we lose an hour to make our connection, and it culminates with a flight attendant bending over our seats to advise “you’re not going to like this but your dog is still at Customs” just as the doors of the plane are about to close; followed by a subsequent last moment deplaning and an all-nighter at Toronto Pearson trying to scrounge food for a hungry dog and some sleep for myself in the wretched torture chairs they acquired from East German government surplus.
We did some good winning. Not as much as we wanted, but enough.
I need some rest, but I should be back into some sort of blogging routine tomorrow.
In the meantime, here’s a picture of “Roadie” (CanCh.Minuteman Boardwalk) when he’s not lying in a crate being hand fed a egg and cheese breakfast biscuit from Tim Horton’s.
This Is Not Your Grandma’s Humane Society
A former Royal Marine trying to evacuate 200 dogs and cats alongside his animal shelter staff out of Afghanistan has been given fresh hope by the defence secretary.
This Is Not Your Grandma’s Humane Society
Surely the foreign rescue dog racket was suspended due to the pandemic, yes?
A rabid dog imported into the United States this month has sparked a public health investigation across several states.
Health officials say a dog brought to the U.S. from Azerbaijan that ended up with a family in Chester County, Pennsylvania began acting strangely. It later tested positive for rabies and was euthanized. At least 12 people were exposed to the animal.
The dog was one of 34 animals — 33 dogs and one cat — imported by an animal rescue organization from Azerbaijan to O’Hare International Airport in Chicago on June 10.
That’s not a typo — Azerbaijan.
Life Outside The Gulag Trudeaupia
My friends in the US are back at the dog shows — and have been for months in a number of states.
Just a glimpse of a world CTV doesn’t show you.
This Is Not Your Grandma’s Humane Society
Rescue That Saves Dogs From Chinese Meat Trade Opening First U.S. Shelter In Jersey City
This Is Not Your Grandma’s Humane Society
Nearly 50 dogs from China were in Great Falls on Wednesday as they waited to go to a rescue facility in Canada. The dogs are currently being housed at Happy Tails Lodge.
They were flown from China to Los Angeles, California, and then driven to the Canadian border to cross into Canada.
But when they got to the border no vet was available to check them out, so the organization transporting the dogs asked Happy Tails to take the dogs in temporarily. […]
The dogs are not available for adoption here; they are contractually obligated to be delivered to the agency in Canada. Duncan did not know the name of the Canadian facility.
Most of the dogs appear to be strays or stolen pets.
Honey, I Finished The Internet
So this is awesome…
— Ryan Hodgson (@Ryanintheus) July 3, 2020
This Is Not Your Grandma’s Humane Society
I thought the border was closed to “non-essential” travel.
Two people, driving a rented box truck carrying 48 dogs, died in a crash in Eastern Idaho Friday. Sadly, 14 of those dogs also died in the crash.
Idaho State Police says the man and woman were from Arizona and were driving the truck for a nonprofit animal rescue. The dogs were being taken to Canada for adoption when the truck crashed on Interstate 15, west of Shelley.
48 dogs can be trafficked across multiple states in an un-ventilated box van into Canada to profit from the exploding “pandemic puppy” market, but if you need to cross into North Dakota as an individual to put your client’s show dog on a flight home to California — you’re out of luck.
This Is Not Your Grandma’s Humane Society
[Marc Ching is] a Los Angeles-based activist who got international headlines – and lots of
donations – claiming to save dogs from the dog meat trade. Except, as a Daily Mail investigation revealed, the dogs actually perished in Asia: “Ching’s high-profile operation deteriorated into farce, and ended with hundreds of dogs suffering slow and excruciatingly painful deaths within days of being rescued.”
“Many of the dogs died after being locked in cages and denied basic treatment and injections that might have saved them,” the report continued. “Up to two-thirds of the dogs are now believed to be dead, with the British head of an animal charity involved in dealing with the pitiful aftermath saying: ‘Those poor dogs just went from one hell to another.’” Ching, meanwhile, went back to L.A.
Where the FTC has just nailed him for peddling fake cancer treatments.
March 28, 2020: Reader Tips
Thread’s up.
March 19, 2020: Reader Tips
Pluto is here with important tips.
Yours in the comments.
Malinois Of The Month: K9 Bo
🚨 K9 Takedown 🚨
Amazing video of K9 Bo of the San Diego County Sheriff’s. The suspect fled in a stolen vehicle and started hitting K9 Bo with an umbrella. But K9 Bo refused to give up that easy. Great Job K9 Bo 🐾💙#BluePawsMatter 🐾#LivePDNation 🇺🇸#LivePD 🚨 pic.twitter.com/P1872vERUV— #LivePDNation (@LivePDNation) February 13, 2020
This may very well become a series.
This Is Not Your Grandma’s Humane Society
This Is Not Your Grandma’s Humane Society
This Is Not Your Grandma’s Humane Society
What could possibly go wrong?
A growing number of livestock veterinarians are raising concerns that dogs rescued from Chinese meat markets could bring African swine fever virus to the United States.
Rescue groups regularly save dogs from slaughter in China and transport them to this country to be adopted as pets. But because such dogs are considered food animals in China, they often are kept in close quarters with other livestock. [..]
“These dogs are rescued from meat markets,” said Lisa Becton, director of swine health information and research at the National Pork Board. “And, unfortunately, at these markets there are a lot of other species, like pigs, chickens and cows. There is a risk that the animal, the crate or the bedding could become contaminated.”
The “retail rescue” fraud is importing tens of thousands of dogs into North America each year for both resale and donation drives — along with a growing number of foreign disease variants and parasites.
Smart Dogs
Dear Kate and others quite familiar with dogs, do you think this is true?
While we’ve all met dogs who are clearly smarter than say … trolls on SDA … I still am not convinced that “Stella” is able to “talk” as is portrayed in the story.
h/t Marc from Calgary
Montgomery County 2019
Waiting for awards presentation in the rain at Montgomery County KC.
There is only one dog show in America that challenges the prestige of the Westminster Kennel Club show in New York, and that’s the terrier-only event known as “Montgomery County”, held every year on the first weekend of October near Philadelphia, PA.
I made my first trip to Montgomery in 1981 with my mother, won my first class, and have returned nearly every year since. For Terrier enthusiasts, it’s our Superbowl. We work all year developing puppies and older dogs with the goal of peaking on that weekend.
In recent years “Minuteman” Mini Schnauzers have enjoyed very good success on the weekend, with several different dogs winning major awards. However, with every top winning Mini Schnauzer in America in attendance, along with others flying in from around the world, just getting to the main ring to compete with the 31 other breeds for one of the four group placements is considered the most difficult task in our breed.
This year we not only won the breed at the American Miniature Schnauzer National Specialty, but placed fourth in the group with my new young dog, AmCanCh.Minuteman Colder Weather. Colder’s win could be considered a genuine upset — it was just his third weekend competing as a finished champion.
I don’t know what the next year holds for us yet, but for now I’m just content to bask in what is by far, the pinnacle in my many years of breeding and showing purebred dogs.
Now, I must get busy finding out what happened in the world while we were having fun.
Appalling
And entirely predictable: U.S. Spends Millions to Train Bomb-Sniffing Dogs Gifted to Arab Nations that Abuse Them (sorry, link fixed)
It is a heartbreaking story involving the taxpayer-funded Explosive Detection Canine Program (EDCP), which also provides specially trained dogs to foreign nations—mostly Arabic—under an antiterrorism assistance project operated by the State Department. The goal is to enhance the ability of their law enforcement agencies to deter and counter terrorism. The State Department doesn’t bother following up to assure that the recipient nations are keeping their end of the agreement to adequately care for the precious animals. The sordid details resulting from the government’s negligence are only public because the State Department Inspector General received an anonymous complain on its hotline. The watchdog launched an investigation and published the findings in a lengthy report that includes agonizing pictures of the victims in the custody of their foreign handlers.
The Sound Of Settled Science
Just when they thought they had it all figured out: Researchers into canine eye disorders discover an “unprecedented mode of inheritance”