~Canis-Equus~

Its partitioned for two GSDs or similar in the back as all the police vans seem to be, with a couple of drawers under the floor of the cages for stuff.

Its likely there wont always be an even vaguely ethical meat industry in this country in the fairly near future. The land we do have is 'fairly' suitable for animals. Much of it is absolutely NOT suitable for raising crops for human food. You can feed sheep on a welsh hillside, but you'll grow bugger all up there that a human could eat. To make those parts of our land suitable for growing human food crops, you have to destroy massive amounts of natural habitat... hedgerows in east anglia anyone? Ah yes.... you wont find many. Crops ARE intensively farmed just like animals, and just like animals its not good for us, or for the environment. So... no one buys ethical meat because its expensive. So everyone buys intensively produced meat such as the vast majority of whats available in your local supermarket. That is intensively produced here, which is bad. Or overseas which is about a billion times worse, our standards for intensively farmed animals may not be that great in comparison to waht they really NEED and deserve... but it is STREETS ahead of their treatment in other countries. We all stop eating meat... we intensively farm crops instead. And then we have a summer like this, but it rains for approx 2 weeks longer. This summer we saw what would happen if we produced only vegetable crops.... that is a warning to us all, if it had rained for a couple more weeks, there would be virtually NO crops viable in the UK this year. Fortunately we had a few weeks of sunshine back in may, and we had a few weeks of sunshine at the end of august. That saved some of the crops, but prices will rise to take into account the demand compared to the supply. So I agree farming standards need improving. I vehemently disagree that this will be changed by boycotting ALL meat. The way its going this country will NEVER be able to sustain itself on vegetable/cereal production alone, another summer like this with no meat (and even WITH meat, animals need crops to, so far this summer we have only achieved grass!), production and we WOULD be on our knees. We would be at the mercy of those countries exporting grains and meat (we already are), and food prices would be astronomical.

I am coming to the conclusion that until I have a house where building a run or keeping them inside is practical, i wont have another cat. Technically i do have a cat now... i havent seen him now for approx 2 weeks and consider him officiall AWOL. Ive searched the roads, nothing, rung highways/council no tabbies with mucho scars noted lately, ive called and shaken biscuits andwalked the dogs in his favourite hidey places..... nada, nothing. He may reappear, fat as butter as he did last time.... and the time before and the time before that. Or he may not, and thats something I have to live with, because he WONT be an indoor cat, he made the decision to be an outdoor cat some 6 years ago when he jumped out of my first floor flat window, he can dematerialise and pass through locked doors. As someone else said, to keep him in would require keeping all windows closed and doors closed permanently. Well as a soon to be five dog household and 2 out of three adults here smoke...... that just isnt practical. So as long as he lives here (IF he still lives here and hasnt decided the old lady with the tuna is nicer ), I have to accept he is an outdoor cat. If he is not smart enough to avoid the road, horrible vicious kids with stones, other peoples free range dogs, my OWN dogs in the garden, etc. Sad as it is, heartless as it may sound, so be it. I wont do this again, no way, I cannot stand any more the constant thought that he may be dead somewhere and I dont know, so when he is gone for good and i know that for a fact, there will be no more cats Chez Ems. As the muzzling issue has been raised... forgive me if someone else has raised this point but... If i muzzle my four and they corner a cat in my garden, they will kill it anyway, just instead of biting it they would bash it to death attempting to. So no, I wouldnt muzzle my dogs, if a cat isnt smart enough to avoid the garden with the dogs in it, tis probably 'deserving' of the Darwin Award (Feline). Of course if i saw a cat in my garden i would make sure it was gone before the dogs went out, if i saw them chasing a cat i would attempt to stop it/remove cat. But no i dont routinely check and i wont start leaving the doors all closed on the off chance a cat is out there.

Heehee.... Mummy and Daddy and their 1 year old cousins are hyoooge..... not that anyone has ever told them, the first thing they do when i go to visit is try to get either round my neck (deerhound fur stole anyone?), or in my lap.... Im sure they think they are only yorkie sized!

are you suggesting i have gone on and on about it at all dear??? ROFL.

Fee wins...... and the prize is..... ill post you a puppy snog. They are 4 1/2 week old Deerhound Poopies, they are from a responsible breeder, not a rescue. (and are 'sold out' before they were born!). I am sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo excited, its been something like 6 years I've waited for this puppy and ive not allowed myself to get excited yet in case anything goes wrong. One more hurdle to go, which is the liver shunt testing (cant be done for a few more weeks), and then i really will be bouncing off the walls like a big kid!

Well if you must look, don't blame me if your eyes fall right out of your head... these are seriously horrible puppies and i cannot be held responsible. One of these little girlies will be coming home with me in around a months time.... when they will be 9 weeks old... Thats the only clue other than the pics....... so..... Guess the breed! (and GSDFan and Katie and Helly and Melp and KathyM and Fi are not allowed to guess!!! cos you lot already know wot breed). Em

On the basis of the information given..... i would want more information. Id want to know what they are breeding, obviously if they were breeding from unpapered mares with no performance record, or mares with poor conformation with no real market for the foals, then no... If they were breeding top performance horses, rare breeds such as Dales or in demand breeds such as Friesians.... thats different. Id want to see their premises, land, fencing, stabling etc.. I cant honestly see any way in which hanging up on them or being rude can help rescues.

Thats a very good point Penny....... i dont ever see kids round here or hear of them, interacting with adults, other than being told to fcuk off.. When I was a kid, well no my upbringing wasnt a bed of roses, both parents had their flaws and in Mothers case she was at times verbally and physically abusive... What we DID get however, was mixing with a very wide range of people of all ages and backgrounds, I and my sister were expected to behave politely and courteously around other people, and encouraged to talk to anyone we liked. And those people we did mix with did not treat children like thickies, but listened and talked as equals. I learned a helluva a lot from some of those people (like how if you stay really quiet in the pub you get to see your first all off stripper at the age of 9..... rofl, how to explode things, how not to drown in a cave, how to take landrovers apart, why used sump oil is not a plaything, ditto builders sand, how to cook, why boys get drunk and take most of their clothes off at parties, that beer doesnt taste that nice, how to put up a tent, how to scuba dive, rock climb, abseil, swear in a variety of languages -where and when its appropriate to swear in a variety of languages, how to be utterly angelic to all adults except your parents.......... joking aside by the age of 11 thats a huge range of skills most kids these days just dont have!) As an adult myself (allegedly), at 27 i have friends ranging from around 16 to 70 odd and i do mean they are friends,not acquaintences. Today i was very concerned about a group of around 9 kids playing outside in the street. Whilst yeah,they were doing things i did, running around declaring they hate the opposite sex cos they smell (age range 7 to 9), very VERY worryingly, this gang of kids were flocking round a man i have never seen on this estate in 6 years, and nor have either of my immediate neighbours. Nor had two of these kids parents ever met this man and when he was pointed out (laughing and joking and playing in the woods with these kids where barely anyone can see..........!!!!!!!!), the parents just said 'oh they are with their mates they are ok'........ Now yes, i mixed iwth a huge group of adults as a young child, i could count 20 or 30 honourary Aunties and Uncles, ALL of whom my parents knew extremely well. Yes i got to see adult nudity and as a small kid ran around nekkid as a nekkid thing quite a lot (hippy parents, ish)...... but my GOD they would never have just allowed any of us, or anyone ELSES kids to go off out of sight with a stranger!!!!!! I was going to say that i dont think its true that these kids at around 9/10 dont know right from wrong, ie dont know that shooting someone is wrong, dont know that beating the cr*p out of someone is wrong..... and i still think that IS true.... But worryingly i DO believe they havent a CLUE how, not just to talk to anyone older or younger than themselves, but how to relate that their intentions and motives/agendas are different too. They have no experience of interacting with anyone but their own peer group, and that i think is very unhealthy and dangerous, and i also think a lot of kids are encouraged to make adult decisions too soon, or if not encouraged, left to do so with no other choice..... (rambling now.... bedtime!)

Im afraid it doesnt surprise me that people have been assaulted and even killed by 'young people'/yobs/youths... On my estate there have been in the past gangs of kids ranging from 10 to 15ish....and on more than a few occasions i hve been left in absolutely no doubt that they WOULD go as far as killing a person. I was assaulted by a group of five kids, the eldest being 15, the youngest ones ran away when instead of walking on by (to a barrage of abuse and thrown rocks), i turned around and went at them. The 15 year old smirked in my face, all 6ft + of him, and said i couldnt do anything to him, he was only a kid. I said hes old enough to start a fight hes old enough to finish one, and punched him hard enough that he fell off his bike. I am actually lucky that because he has such a bad record with the police already (despite the fact they cannot actually DO anything about his behaviour) that he didnt report ME for assault.... adult attacks child.....mm. The fact is though that this 15 year old and his mates are all sufficiently big and scary enough to attack, rape a woman or kill someone and they just have NO boundaries at all, there IS no line that they feel they mustnt cross. This is why Joe Geeling died, this is why these kids drop concrete blocks off motorway bridges, set fire to wheelybins with a cat inside..... and all the rest. I had a much younger lad on my estate invite himself into my garden and to a barbeque i was having with friends. He was 11, and just showed up and wouldnt leave. There was absolutely NO concept that wandering into someone elses garden, walking around the garden breaking plants and trying to kick dogs was unacceptable, he was actually surprised when i said 'dont kick my dog' and then even MORE surprised when he kicked my dog, and i walloped him for it. Then despite a big red handprint across his face (no i shouldnt have hit him, unfortunately i get a little bit unreasonable when someone boots my dog in the ribs hard to see what ill do about it), he still tried to resist being removed from my garden... so i evicted him by dragging him out by his actual ear and dropping him crying on the pavement. What was i supposed to do though, the local police were not interested, asking him politely to leave had no effect and he seemed hell bent on doing whatever it took to get some sort of a reaction from me (fortunately me, my OH would have done a LOT worse). I dont get much stick from kids on my estate now, most of them have gone because their families have been evicted, those that are left know i WILL beat teh sh!t out of them and call me 'psycho girl' (well i did chase one of them down the street whilst weilding a kitchen knife), but steer WELL clear.... I do wish i could just live here without having to resort to violence to protect myself and my dogs though!

I try to buy locally produced, or organic, or at the VERY least, british and do so most of the time. I do agree that these things can work out (especially if bought from a supermarket), expensive, but take the view that until more people buy them and there is more of a demand for them, prices cannot drop. Ii think we do have a responsiblity to do this, if we continue to accept cheap meat imported from other countries, not only are we saying effectively 'yes its fine to raise this meat with welfare standards below those of the UK', but also, we are saying 'i dont mind if the UK loses its beef/dairy/poultry/lamb industry'. And i DO mind, very much so.

Wot a t0sser...... did he have a bad day or summat? I dont think he has a leg to stand on there really, if they arent barking during the night and if during the ady they only bark for a minute or two, tough luck on him really! In dog barking cases, things that set a dog off ARE taken into account, or at least in my case they are, and my neighbour was found to be making my dogs bark on purpose. The fact that a previous complaint was unfounded will go in your favour, but as these are new people they may, IF he fills out his little 'i spy on my neighbour' diary, come and record your dogs again, and will find theres nothing going on. I would check with the police re the videoing, and i would check wtih the council re the complaint, adn ask if possigbly your other neighbours can complete a diary as well, so you can see how they match up.... Em x

Im worse Kaffy...... I HATE the harnesses i see on staffies...... because i CRINGE seeing cheap leather, rivetted together, unfinished edges, chapes and turns not skived smooth.... machine stitching. And then still hear that they paid over £80 for it! My harnesses come in any colour you like, trad staffie knots, heads, daisies, clenchers, dots..... or non trad hearts, roses, stars, suns, moons..... swarovski crystal if you like! Melf - you must be nicer than me, i charge around £95 for a plain harness, going up for padding, more decoration, different design, and leads START at £25! Ive had staffy people spend HUNDREDS, and no, these are not chavs with a 'hard dog', these are normal nice people (well i say normal... yanno, dog owner normal), who take pride in their dog and the breed and like the tradition. Would it not be weird and sad if say, those into traditional heavy working horses, did not dress them up in their finery, plait manes and tails with straw and flights? Why should the minority be allowed to turn what is a tradition and means NOTHING about a dogs temperament, any more than being tattooed means a person is a thug or wearing a hoodie means they are a mugger...... into a sign that says an animal is dangerous? Staffy people, go forth and retake the right to use leather harnesess, in whatever style you choose!

I look most times i come on here, and i look at the transport runs too, although i dont drive i do now own a van so if we ARE ever going somewhere (my mate drives so i cant ask him to do transport runs just because, he has his own life to lead), i can offer to do part of the run.

Ingrid could you record that for me????? Pretty please with sugar and cherries?

I always use natural yoghurt as a probiotic, and cheese for treats, and i have some very allergic dogs... Not all can eat it granted, but although dogs are lactose intolerant, cheese and yoghurt contain much less lactose than milk, so it *shouldnt?* cause any problems. And yoghurt is a cheaper probiotic than others !

Im not in cambridge, sowwy and my dawgs dont need grooming, but i do run a small business from home... Do you have insurance? Im not saying you are daft but its something people may want to know (well its something they SHOULD be concerned about but not everyone thinks of it). Also, do you do dogs to their traditional breed look, ie hand stripping (which a spaniel like the one in the pics should be), or do you just do clipping? I ask because there are a lot of groomers who just clip and dont actually appear to know what the individual breeds look like - did you get taught this at college (its something id LOVE to do, i hand strip my own and friends dogs but we only have crossbreeds so of course i dont have to stick to a particular style) - my point being if you can offer people the proper stuff as well as easy maintenance puppy type 'do's' its something you will have over the competition. Get yerself a flash pic of a dog properly looking like its breed..... and one of it like its been dragged through a hedge backwards and youll get loads of offers Good luck!

Tis probably done by AI i would think, as live covering is quite risky even in normal horses (although it is commonly done over here i think its more common to use AI in hte US). I wonder what actually causes the massive muscle growth in the whippets. In horses the HyPP causes rapid muscle twitches which is what builds up huge amounts of muscle without the horse really working (whic is why some traniers like them, all you need do is fill them full of high octane fuel and shut them in a stable 23 hours a day, and the disease does the rest). I cant see how a mutant gene would make the large muscles, just cause the dog to be ABLE to build up more muscle, so i wonder if it does have a similar method of working, where the muscles spasm a lot and can cause paralysis?

Ugh... There is a similar thing though its an inherited disease, HyPP, found in American Quarter Horses and spreading fast.... People are breeding these horses specifically, unlikely with the whippets where they are a by product of breeding for speed (which in the UK is going to be extremely small scale considering the status of whippet racing here thank god), in QH there are people proudly breeding FOR HyPP, because it gives that grotesque musclature... This is a HyPP positive stallion, Kid Classic Style In comparison this is a normal QH.... http://www.bringinglighttohypp.org/RoyaleKingLeoBars.jpg I do hope the bully whippets dont have the same issues the HyPP quarter horses do, because HyPP is a disease, it has some fairly nasty consequences, which can involve a horse suddenly becoming paralysed and then suffering violent muscle spasms. Things people do to animals..... Kid Classic Styles owners PROUDLY advertise him as guaranteeing you a HyPP positive foal should you breed your mare to him! :vomit:

Ive never heard of that one in 7 years of raw feeding... Yes if you reguarly fed something like wild rabbit, that would be wormy. My dogs only get a vetinary wormer once a YEAR unless they have had wild rabbit, they get a herbal wormer once a month which is far less harmful to their insides (and if they do have worms BOY does it work) - i cant actually recall the last time any of mine showed signs of having worms (although id be surprised if they didnt have the odd one, but then it is in the nature of dogs and worms for dogs to naturally carry a small worm burden, its the way parasites and hosts work).

In Pteppic-world..... WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO going downstairs, WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO breakfast, WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO garden for a wee WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO going upstairs back to bed, WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO going downstairs when mum gets up, WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO going in the garden again, WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO daddys home WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO tea time WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO walkies, WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO going home from walkies...... Basically, Pteppic is a bizarre little dog and each and everyone of these experiences are SO exciting he must let the entire street know about it. Each thing happens so veryu rarely to him (i mean he only goes up and down the stairs about twenty times a day but must yell each time because each time is a new and novel experiencfe for him), that he must celebrate its occurrence..... Its a flipping orrible noise....

look slike a bichon frise or bichon x dyed....

Cor, arent they both stunning! Logan has matured velly much since i saw him in the fur!

LOL....... OMG Logan is the sensible one! *faints* THey both look gorgeous Lisa!

Like GSDFan.... i do TRY to be tactful and i am far FAR more tactful on forums such as this than i am in real life. That often isnt taken the way it is intended but that is the nature of text based communication (for instance how many of you realise im not shouting when i capitalise words, im just too idle to stop and type [i ] and [/i ] brackets around everything i wish to emphasise). Honesty and integrity come first - ill pretty it up if i can, but i wont NOT say something that i think needs saying if to say it will be unpretty.... if that makes sense?