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BadDogNews: Last night as I was being dragged around the neighborhood, we came across a big yellow Lab on a leash. As you may recall, both my dogs, and especially the big boy, have been over-reacting to dogs on leashes recently, going into a full-fledged stupid fit every time they see a dog on a leash. So they reacted the usual way. I've been working on breaking this habit with lots of "sit-stay" practice. The added element here was the person on the other end of the Lab's leash was a tiny girl on a pink Barbie bike with training wheels. The Lab reacted in a fashion equally idiotic to my two morons, and began DRAGGING THE LITTLE GIRL ACROSS THE STREET on her bike. She countered this action by falling off the bike, thereby tipping it over. The drag coefficient went way up (or down - I'm just making it up) due to the increased friction of girl + bike versus asphalt. That didn't stop the dog, though. The child managed to untangle herself, leaving the dog dragging just the bike. By now, Mom was finally done with her martini and came and got the dog out of the street. But here's the impressive part: that little girl was scraped across asphalt by a big dog and she. never. cried. Did you hear that, Andy? She didn't cry even though she was exfoliated by dirt and a big dog. I'm just saying.
Next topic: My new template isn't very doggy, but I think it's real purty. That Francey does good work.
On, Wisconsin: So, now I'm not quite so enthusiastic about my adopted home state. But if I can be rational and adult for a moment, -- nope, I can't. I can't defend my fellow cheeseheads. They're making us all look like those Wrong Turn inbred critters, or like we're from Michigan. I completely understand the rationale for protecting indigenous species, especially threatened and endangered ones. However, I would like someone to explain whether or not bird predation has always been at the level it is now, and whether or not feral cats are taking the place of some other indigenous predator whose population has fallen. Wolves used to live in Wisconsin, for example (according to the Little House books, anyway), and now they don't. If the same balance is being achieved even though the feral cats don't really belong there, then what's the problem? It's also true that other medium-sized predators that used to be common are no longer found in Wisconsin.
There are other ways of keeping the feral population down, as well. Trap, neuter, and release has been very successful in a lot of places -- it doesn't remove the animals completely, but it keeps the populations low and manageable.
Plus - here's the big soapbox - why the hell are so many feral cats living in Wisconsin or anywhere else? These are domestic animals and are therefore a human-caused problem. Why should these cats be SHOT because several generations ago, an irresponsible human dumped an ancestor in the woods?
But on the other hand, I did laugh at a couple of the people CNN showed at public hearings on the issue -- crying because their cat is too fluffy to see the collar and it's so fullll of looove. I know, it was sincere emotion, but it didn't help -- I'm sympathetic to the cause, and I wanted to smack a few of those people.
Oh, shit. Now I've gone and been serious. Poop! Fart! Booger!
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