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Recent Battles
Queen Victoria
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Juicing The Sheep
09 April 2009 11:11 AM | No CommentsThe Journal of Queen Victoria Thursday, October 21, 1868 “Juicing the Sheep“ At a quarter to twelve I drove off with Louise and Leopold in the waggonette up to near the “Bush” (the residence of William Brown, the farmer) to see them “juice the sheep.”...
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Queen Victoria’s Border Collies
26 January 2009 4:40 AM | 18 CommentsFor well over a century the “Collie” name has been co-opted by show breeders who have created a monster whose face looks like a door stop with beady eyes set in triangular slits. These same people have co-opted the notion that Queen Victoria was deeply...
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Show Me the Collie
22 January 2009 3:38 AM | 1 CommentHaving established that Queen Victoria’s direct influence on the proliferation of the show Collie is insubstantial at best, let’s explore what impact the Monarchy may have, in fact, had on the culture of dogs during her reign. Five. If the show Collie owes more to...
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The Queen and the Collie
20 January 2009 2:57 AM | 2 CommentsThe old wisdom on the rise of the show Collie is that Queen Victoria met them on a trip to Scotland in the 1860s, became infatuated, acquired them, sponsored them in shows, bred them, and her abundant trend-setting prowess lead to their bountiful rise to...
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The Victorian Collie Myth
19 January 2009 8:03 PM | 5 CommentsThe prevailing creation myth among show Collie enthusiasts is that Queen Victoria’s infatuation with the breed set the ball in motion, elevating the humble farm dog to aristocratic splendor. Queen Victoria saw her first Collies in the 1860′s, and she enthusiastically began to sponsor them,...
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Juicing The Sheep
breed rescue Archive
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Killing for a Myth
Posted on December 25, 2008 | 1 Commentreprint from 2/24/2008 In my recent correspondence with a pet rescuer who has yet to embrace No-Kill, I saw firsthand the phenomenon that Nathan Winograd discusses in Redemption: that we hear so much about pet overpopulation, but has anyone seen it? The e-mailer wrote: [Shelters]... -
A Pup-e-Mill
Posted on December 15, 2008 | 1 CommentIf you want to see what a “Pup-e-Mill” looks like, here’s a great example of one that has just been exposed in Montana. First, let’s look at the breeder’s website: Well, someone has spent some time with photoshop and made a nice logo. And it... -
Only Five Percent
Posted on December 14, 2008 | 5 CommentsHere at the beginning of the twenty-first century, over fifty million household dogs live in the United States. Europe houses an estimated thirty-five million. … If I add Canadian dogs to these populations, I get one hundred million household dogs in the industrial West. In... -
Garbage In, Garbage Out
Posted on December 2, 2008 | 3 CommentsStella on Snow There’s plenty of elitism in the dog world and where you get your dog is as much of a potential status symbol as the breed you’ve chosen or any titles that might appear on a pedigree. Much of the cachet built in... -
The Myth of Christmas Puppies
Posted on November 28, 2008 | 5 CommentsIt’s the day after Thanksgiving, so it’s time to think about Christmas! And, like clockwork, the dogblogosphere is again abuzz about “Christmas Puppies.” Much ado about next to nothing, I say. Caveat does a nice recap of several other dog blogs covering the issue with... -
Killing for a Myth
Posted on February 25, 2008 | 9 CommentsIn my recent correspondence with a pet rescuer who has yet to embrace No-Kill, I saw firsthand the phenomenon that Nathan Winograd discusses in Redemption: that we hear so much about pet overpopulation, but has anyone seen it? The e-mailer wrote: [Shelters] only kill the... -
Parroting PeTA
Posted on February 22, 2008 | 13 CommentsHere’s an e-mail I got today from a horse and dog rescuer (Help A Horse Organization) who is rather miffed at my “Buy From a Breeder” rhetoric. I think she missed the point. She also failed to appreciate the elements of my post that were... -
Buy From A Breeder
Posted on February 13, 2008 | 4 CommentsThe New York Times is a little slow on the uptake and is just now reporting on PeTA’s disgraceful advertising campaign featuring dead dogs in body bags and the message that if you buy your dog you are directly killing a dog in a shelter.... -
The Myth of Christmas Puppies
Posted on January 9, 2008 | 1 CommentThe second most popular Christmas meme in the dogblogosphere was discussing Saturnalia and the pagan roots of the holiday celebration; I wrote one, Terrierman wrote two, and Christie kicked off the trend last year with hers. The common message was to expose the weak foundations... -
BC/R&F: Ellen DeGeneres
Posted on December 28, 2007 | 1 CommentFor the inaugural Border Collies of the Rich and Famous, I’d like to start with perhaps the most infamous and disastrous (and thankfully former) Border Collie owner: Ellen DeGeneresThere are many reasons to dislike Ellen DeGeneres, and most people do so for all of the...
Queen Victoria's Border Collies