Cute pics

Well, except our kids and dogs.

Random conversation at my house.

We got new neighbors. I met them a bit ago and they have three dogs. They were telling me about their dogs, of which they are quite proud. Seems their dogs are a cross between a Pomeranian and a Chihuahua. I was telling my wife about the dogs and what they were a cross between. But, as I told her, I couldn’t recall what they were called (other than mutt). And then I said: If I were naming them, they’d be called Pomerhuahuas because that’s just fun to say. And Chimeranian, in addition to not being fun to say, sounds like a mythical beast.

Turns out, I was wrong on both counts and they’re called Pomchis.

Meet the Ninja Dognapper.

Heh.

Over at Countertop’s, he’s got pics.

Look at the signs!

Seriously though, the dogs had a history of attacking people and it’s owners like that who give the owners of other politically incorrect dogs a bad name.

Dog control and gun control. Note, they’re going after assault dogs first!

Today’s odd and disturbing story: A man and his son walking their dog saw the animal decapitated when it put its head in a trap baited with bacon.

Kilby’s bill to ban the ownership of Politically Incorrect Dogs will not make it out of committee:

Senator Kilby thanks all those who have contacted his office to oppose the legislation. He very much appreciates the information that has been shared with him and the fact that our fanciers, enthusiasts, and concerned dog owners did so in a polite and respectful manner.

Cool. We were heard. And hats off to Kilby!

Via Aunt B.

Lots of bloggers react. MKS has a round up. So does AC.

Most people seem unhappy. It’s like Kilby did something stupid or something.

TN Senator Tommy Kilby (BTW, you look over the age of 8 shouldn’t it be Tom or Thomas?) has proposed a bill to make the possession of pit bulls (as very loosely defined in the bill) unlawful:

It is an offense for any person to knowingly own a pit bull dog in this state.

And this is awesome:

This act shall take effect July 1, 2008, the public welfare requiring it.

We seem to have gotten along without it thus far. You can contact Tommy and let him know that breed specific legislation is pointless at:

District Address
118 Henry Heidel Lane
Wartburg, TN 37887

Nashville Address
10A Legislative Plaza
Nashville, TN 37243-0212
Phone (615) 741-1449
Fax (615) 253-0237
Staff Contact: Nadine Korby, Jeremy Davis, Research Analyst

Or email him here Sen. Tommy Kilby

The bill would, specifically, ban Politically Incorrect Dog.

Update: The AKC is on it:

It is imperative that Tennessee dog owners contact both their State Senator and State Representative and voice their strong opposition to SB 2738.

To find your Tennessee State Senator, go to the Tennessee General Assembly home page. On the left side of the page, click “Senate”, then click “Members”.

To find your Tennessee State Representative, go to the Tennessee General Assembly home page. On the left side of the page, click “House”, then click “Members”.

Aunt B.:

I don’t know how we ensure this never gets out of committee, but we’ve got to do it. Tell me, folks what can be done and I’ll be at the capitol doing it.

Pit bull foils home robbery:

A pit bull stopped five people from robbing a home and may have saved his owners life.

Christopher Payne told Bibb County sheriff’s deputies when a group of people tried to rob him his dog Dino attacked and scared off intruders.

120 pounds is awful big for a pit bull.

Over at Atomic Nerds, a former vet tech talks about breed tendencies.

Get them some armor.

Two, actually. Me and the kids were at Petsmart while the Mrs. finished up some stuff. The kids like to go look at fish, vermin, birds (but I repeat myself) and other critters they have there. We’re watching the rats when Junior says Those two are jumping. I look down and see two mice in a cage (BTW, per the sign, these were fancy mice, whatever that means) and they are jumping. Each mouse is jumping to the water dispenser thingie because they can’t reach it. I tell Junior that it looks like the mice are thirsty. About that time, an employee walks by and I point out that these two mice can’t reach the water. The employee opens the cage and lowers the water dispenser thingy. Then, both mice drink water for five minutes straight. Who knows how long they’d gone without water.

A blog chronicling someone who has raised a coyote pup found in the wild. Nice pics.

Via Ben.

Good:

An animal shelter board today refused to recommend changes in Knoxville and Knox County ordinances that would treat pit bull dogs different from other breeds.

Ten members of the board of directors for the Young-Williams Animal Shelter met for more than two hours today to review possible recommended changes in ordinances concerning dogs to city and county legislative bodies. While the board unanimously agreed that the city and county ordinances concerning dogs should be similar, they rejected the concept of a breed specific regulation.

State Sen. Tim Burchett wants to enact breed specific legislation mandating that pit bulls be spayed or neutered. The senator was also on the talk radio this morning saying that such programs in California have been successful. Unfortunately, such programs don’t exist in California as state law there prohibits breed specific legislation. It’s one area that Cali actually does correctly.

And breed specific laws are generally pointless for a variety of reasons, including:

Some breeds are hard to identify (pit bulls, for instance, refers to a class of dog and not a specific breed)

If a breed is regulated, people will just switch breeds

Pit bulls have a temperament rating similar to a Golden Retriever.

The factors that contribute to dog attacks occur irrespective of breed (see here and here). Those factors are, generally, the reproductive status of the animal (at least Burchett gets that part right); an animal that is not properly restrained; chained animals become defensive; and unsupervised pets and kids.

Update: Turns out, Cali does allow for spaying/neutering based on breed. I forgot about that. Cali still prohibits bans based on breeds, though.

Tragic. I’ll miss that little guy.

He weeps for he has but one small tongue with which to taste an entire world.

So, a man walks by a police car. A K9 barks at him and startles him. He hurls expletives. The man is arrested and on $100,000 straight bond:

But at King’s arraignment, District Justice Gene Ricciardi put him in jail and set the bond.

“A police dog is a police officer. There is no difference under the law,” Ricciardi tells KDKA.

Well, the law probably wasn’t written with the fact that you’re a fucking retard in mind.

Yeah, PGP, tell me about it. Meanwhile, Aunt B. is conducting a one woman boycott.

Well, I’m not surprised that Ivy’s dog is homophobic. After all, mine are racists.

In an update to my conflict with the neighbor’s dog, I went for a ride again last night with The Second. The dog is still running loose. But, since I kicked him in the face, he just chases the bike now from a safe distance and doesn’t get close enough to be a danger. He’s smarter than his owners.

Readers of this site know that I’m a fairly animal/dog friendly kinda guy. And that I advocate responsible dog ownership. However, I do not tolerate from any dog (mine or yours) aggression toward people.

A few nights a week, I go for a bike ride for some exercise. I have one of those carriers so that Junior or The Second can make my ride much harder tag along. Last night, the wife was running errands and I got home before her and the kids. I figured I’d run into them in the subdivision, so I grabbed Junior’s helmet so that if I did run into them, she could ride with me. On my ride, one of the neighbor’s dogs was (as it always is) running loose (midsized mutt probably about 35-40 pounds). And he comes running up to my bike and acting aggressively. He was pretty close and looked as though he’d do what dogs do which is bite the tires. I still haven’t figured out why dogs bite tires. And as he does, the bike kinda weaves out into the main street. So, I kicked him real hard in the face. And he tumbled.

I make a lap and here comes the Mrs. Mobile. I stop and show Junior I brought her helmet and she’s excited about the ride. The Mrs. gets out to strap Junior in and sees the dog in the field by the car leering at us. She says: That dog looks mean. I don’t like him staring at us. And I say: He’s much more agreeable since I kicked him in the face.

If that dog had done that while I had one of the kids on the bike, I’d have been livid. It’s one thing to endanger me (I’m a big boy) but if my kids are threatened, I get a little grumpy.

People, please restrain your dogs. It’s safer for other people and for the dog.

Against assault dogs.

So, the other night at a little bit after dark (say a bit past 8:00), The Second was in his bed sawing toothpicks, the Mrs. was at the gym, and me and Junior were downstairs watching Little Bear for 1,483rd time that day when Politically Incorrect Dog starts raising utter Hell. Now Politically Incorrect Dog makes very distinct sounds. He has a low groan which translates as I want that thing. Please give it to me. He has a high pitched groan which translates as I’m serious, I want that thing. Why haven’t you given it to me yet and it follows the aforementioned groan. He has a mid-ranged woof that indicates hey, there’s someone here who I happen to like. He has a half-hearted bark which translates as Someone’s at the door. You may want to check it out but otherwise I’m mostly unconcerned. And he has his OMG. Do something now or I’m gonna kill it bark. That bark, I’d only heard once before and I heard it again the other night.

I thought someone was in my house. I told Junior to stay put. Retrieved El Nino* from the safe (whole process took about five seconds). And went upstairs. Politically Incorrect Dog continued his hell-raising, ear-splitting barking. He was staring at the door. I set El Nino down by the banister and looked out the door. Two Jehovah’s Witnesses. At night. Repeatedly knocking and ringing the doorbell where there is a sleeping child. While an obviously angry dog kept barking at them. I guess they’re persistent. I looked at them through the door, shook my head, and walked away. You might get more converts if you weren’t such pricks.

The Second, thankfully, is a sound sleeper and slept through it. Of course, he slept through the alarm one night when I accidentally set it off.

To add to the story, the Mrs. was pulling into the subdivision and noticed the Jehovah’s Witnesses at our door. She did another lap to avoid them. She had the same reaction as I did. Seriously, it was night time you twits.

* Why El Nino? Because at close range, I can put 10 in an eyeball.

What is it with gun nuts and Politically Incorrect Dogs?

In Knoxville, the police shot a dog. Over at KnoxViews, CBT says:

This matter seems to warrant some discussion. It involves pit bulls, which have been the subject in a number of cities. I sometimes feel sorry for responsible pit bull breeders and owners who treat their dogs with proper care. These dogs are more aggressive by nature, but so are other breeds.

Sorta yes, mostly no. Dogs commonly referred to as pit bulls (pit bull is not a breed but a class of dogs) have it in their nature to more aggressive to other dogs. They are less inclined to be aggressive toward humans unless such aggression is encouraged in the animal. The dogs have a history in dog fighting (hence their aggression to dogs) and, in a fight, the humans had to maintain control so the dogs were bred to be tolerant of humans.

Also, and I hate to break it to folks, but bully type dogs often make horrible watchdogs. Their curiosity will probably get the better of them (assuming they awake from their slumber) and they’ll often sneak around to investigate things. That’s what my dog does. True story from a friend is that someone was trying to come through the window of his house. The dog, apparently, sat patiently and quietly by the window waiting for the intruder to enter. Once the intruder did enter, there wasn’t a sound other than the intruder trying to get out and cussing because a dog had clamped on his heiny. Said burglar was later caught at a hospital when he was getting his tail stitched up. The dog never barked. Watchdogs alert by barking more than defending their castle with force. A poodle makes a fine watch dog.

My politically incorrect dog is probably scary looking:

And he’s got big gnarly teeth. But watchdog, he is not. That’s what the alarm is for. However, if there was any escalation of violence in my home, rest-assured he’d be there doing his damnedest to put an end to it. I have no doubt he’d take a bullet for anyone in the family but, barring a physical altercation, he’d probably just watch. Anyway, enough of that. A few things of note about the incident:

Unsurprisingly, the dog was an unaltered male (which is the case in most dog bites, particularly fatal ones)

The dog was tethered, which, in addition to being bad pet ownership, also tends to make dogs more aggressive.

Why did the police get so close to the restrained dog? Seems to me it could have been avoided by simply not going near the dog. Other than that, I tend to concur with Aunt B:

If your dog bites a police officer, chances are that your dog is going to get shot. That’s unfortunate, but that’s a fact of life. If you don’t want your dog to get shot by the police or you want to have a credible way to dispute the police officer’s account of what happened, keep your dogs in the house where you can control them and witness the police’s behavior.

This weekend’s lesson that Junior learned: Don’t squeeze kitties.

So, how do you suppose that I knew the dogs involved were not pit bulls? Nope, no bias there.

Update: Not so fast. Aunt B. says in comments:

Did you notice, though, that there was a brief moment when “pit bulls” had killed that poor guy? The first reports that I saw all said that he’d been killed by “pit bulls” or “pit bull type dogs.” Granted, it only took about a half an hour for everyone to catch on, but dang, that makes me wonder how often we hear “pit bull” attacks that actually end up being other dogs, but the clarification never makes it to the general public.

Impressive police dog video:

I used to train such dogs. Great fun. Problematic is the one that bit the handler. Bad dog.

From here, via KDT.

I’m kinda worried about dogs. It seems lately there have been a few dogs that have figured out how to shoot people. In Memphis, there was another case of that. Via Mike.

It hurts more than the dogs. There is a lot of crime associated with it. Joe has some interesting figures on it.

Pretty dog. In other news, Joe lives in the town I spent my formative years in.

A whole 2.8 seconds? Bitch, please.

A to the men:

First off, if you feel that chaining a dog to a tree is acceptable and responsible pet ownership, you don’t need to have a dog. Go breed yourself another ugly kid if you need something to tie to a tree.

Conversely, don’t let your dog run loose in the neighborhood. Have a fence or a house dog or don’t have one.

In other news, notice how when a pit bull does some good, the headline mentions it’s a pooch and not a pit bull.

Seems we have all kinds of lists. Terror lists, sex offender lists, etc. Now (via reader JKB), your dog might be on one:

If you reside in the Commonwealth of Virginia, be advised–Big Brother is extending his watch beyond the usual range of monitored activities. Not satisfied with simply tracking the routine stuff: your driving record, tax compliance, payment of child support, etc., Virginia state government is now expanding its purview, creating one of the nation’s first “Dangerous Dogs Registry.”

According to the Associated Press and WAVY-TV in Norfolk, the registry is in its early stages, so you won’t find many dangerous pooches listed–at least, not yet. However, the database is patterned on those established for sex offenders, allowing residents to search for canine threats by location or zip code.

Already in the registry is a dog that bit a bicyclist and another that killed a Persian cat that wandered into the dog’s back yard. Under Virginia’s Dangerous Dog Law (passed by the General Assembly last year), the designation can be applied to any canine if it bites, attacks or causes any type of injury to a person or an animal, provided the dog is not protecting its owner. Police dogs are exempt from the new statute, according to the state’s Chief Veterinarian, Dr. Richard Wilkes.

And if you’re dog is on the list:

Under the new law, owners of dangerous dogs must enter them into the statewide registry; confine the animal to a fenced run or other, secure shelter; obtain at least $100,000 in liability insurance for their property, and place the dog on a leash or muzzle when taking the dog off their property.

They always shoot the dog:

This whole area strikes me as a perfect scenario for a law school question. Under what circumstances do the police have a right to shoot dogs? Obviously, they’ll always say that the dogs were attacking, but if the police have invaded private property without a warrant, and the owner of the dogs is given no notice that they were there, how is the dog supposed to know that they were “good guys” and not the bad guys it is their job to protect against? Nothing is more dangerous than police in hot pursuit or police acting under a mistake, as unlike criminals, they’re acting under legal authority, and if you don’t know they are there, anything might happen.

There’s a lot more.

We heard the stories about rampant gun confiscations in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. Now, a suit alleges:

For nearly two years, pet owners from the low-lying Louisiana parish of St. Bernard have accused sheriff’s deputies of having wantonly killed dozens of dogs they forced evacuees to leave behind during Hurricane Katrina in 2005, without regard to the dogs’ size or the potential threat they might pose.

One owner said her family was forced at gunpoint to leave its dog behind. Another owner said residents became frantic when, they said, they overheard one deputy claim that “once everybody’s gone, we’re going to have target practice tonight.” They claim in court papers that deputies were under ” authorization…of their superiors and employers.

Two deputies have already been indicted by a grand jury in New Orleans on charges of felony, aggravated cruelty to animals. The Louisiana attorney general’s office is investigating and this morning lawyers for a group of owners will file a comprehensive complaint in federal court in Louisiana seeking class action status for their clients.

When the shit hits the fan, the law should act like the law and not a bunch of goons.

Mixed breed genocide in Cali:

“Unbelievable” was the reaction from PetPAC today after Members of the California State Assembly voted 41-38 to outlaw the existence of mixed-breed dogs and cats in the Golden State.

Assembly Bill 1634, authored by Los Angeles Assemblyman Lloyd Levine, will allow only select purebred dogs and cats to breed. Pet owners who don’t sterilize their mixed breed pets by four months of age will face a $500 fine and possible criminal penalties.

“This crazy measure will end up costing families heartache and taxpayers billions,” said Bill Hemby, Chairman of PetPAC, an organization dedicated to the rights of pets and owners. “California will be the poster child for an invasive and overreaching government mandate that is impossible to fund, administer or enforce.”

AB 1634 will blanket all 58 counties in California with an expensive forced spay/neuter law that not all shelters want - or need. According to the State of California, dog impounds have fallen 86% over last 30 years. Puppies and kittens are already being transferred between counties to alleviate a shortage of adoptable pets: San Francisco and Marin Counties need to bring pets in from other areas to be adopted locally. In San Diego County - which has no mandatory spay/neuter law - only one adoptable animal was euthanized in 2004-05.

All dogs share about 99% of their genes:

a few distinct differences account for the different breeds. However, some supposedly different breeds have been found to be genetically identical. And some dogs are genetically closer to wolves than other dogs.

And the wolf kept locked in its genome everything that was necessary to make a Pekingese to a Great Dane.

But then given how politicians typically deal with dog issues, I don’t find this sort of stupidity surprising.

Update: And who exactly determines pure breds? There’s only about two dozen registering entities.