simpleavarice

[simpleavarice]

The tape came down in our gale force winds yesterday so these two had a wonderful night gorging themselves. I was not popular when I put it back up this morning 😂 #horsesofinstagram #thoroughbred #ottb #horse #equestrian

[simpleavarice]

We are so lucky to have the nicest local dog park. Often they are just a fenced square but ours has water, a little nature walk, bridges, picnic spots, and a ball throwing spot out the back. We use it a couple of times a week #flynnthecollie #dogstagram #puppiesofinstagram #puppies #dogsofinstagram #bordercolliesofinstagram #bordercollie #instadog #bestwoof #wonderfulbordercollie #bordercollieworld #samoyed #goldenretriever (at Carterton Wairarapa New Zealand)

[simpleavarice]

I’m officially allergic to pineapple and banana and I miss them already D:

[simpleavarice]

My favourite part of this is:  The reality is that there are only enough spots (depending on resources/space/time) in your household for a certain number of dogs. You have a choice between giving that spot to (1) a purchased purebred puppy or (2) an adopted shelter dog.

Um, fuck you. I have space for either two purebred dogs, selected for carefully considered reasons, or for 0 shelter dogs, because I am hella unprepared for that potential shit show. Me having a purebred dog doesn’t take any spot away from a shelter dog, because if I didn’t have a purebred dog I wouldn’t have a dog. 

(People who take on shelter dogs are great, awesome people. I am not experienced enough and my heart cannot handle the unknown potential issues of a shelter dog at this point in my life. I just find it funny that this random person thinks they can casually slot a dog of THEIR choosing into any dog-owning home, as if most of us aren’t very specific about what we’re prepared for in a dog and would say hell no to a dog if the choice was a shelter dog or nothing). 

In regards to this post by @snootblr outlining why they are not “evil” for purchasing a purebred puppy

I sent them two asks on anon and they did not post them. This is a good opportunity to just outline my thoughts on the purebred vs. shelter dog debate. 

The reality is that there are only enough spots (depending on resources/space/time) in your household for a certain number of dogs. You have a choice between giving that spot to (1) a purchased purebred puppy or (2) an adopted shelter dog. As snootblr said in their post, “unwanted” dogs are the ones getting killed en masse in shelters and it is not their fault that people don’t want those dogs. The thing is…YOU are the one who can turn that “unwanted” dog into a WANTED dog. If enough people make the choice to open their homes to purebred puppies rather than shelter dogs as you did, that’s when we see a rise in high kill shelters. 

No one is calling you evil for buying a purebred whippet. No one is calling adopters saints for rescuing shelter dogs. I am not personally attacking snootblr for the purchase of a single whippet puppy, this is a callout post that is holding snootblr accountable for the role that they play in promoting hierarchy culture, in which the idea that some dogs are more desirable because they are more specialized (read: purebred) creates a hierarchy, and the ones at the bottom are the ones who are hurt the most. You are feeding this hierarchy culture by valuing purebred dogs over shelter dogs. 

And the fact that you’re more concerned over what accusations are hurled at you rather than the actual deaths of so-called “unwanted” dogs comes across as selfish, whether or not that was your intention

[simpleavarice]

[simpleavarice]

As much as a nearly 10 point difference between 1st and 2nd doesn’t make for the nail-biting competition I love, this man is an exquisite rider and  fischerRocana is gorgeous (and not even his first string)!

2016 Kentucky Three Day Event | © USEF Network

Michael Jung and FISCHERROCANA FST’s dressage test.

[simpleavarice]

Classifying dogs and humans as omnivores is massively oversimplistic when you’re trying to decide what diet your dog should eat. Here’s how you should think about it instead:

Yes, technically, dogs and humans are both omnivores. This simply means an organism has the ability to digest both plant and animal sources of nutrition. In contrast, a cat is a carnivore, and is UNABLE to digest plant nutrition. When your cat eats grass it does so to obtain indigestible fibre. It gets a positive effect from that, but it is not achieving any meaningful nutrient absorption from the grass. Not only this, but it is an OBLIGATE carnivore, meaning it is unable to synthesise some necessary-for-life proteins without ingesting meat. Given enough time, a cat will die if fed a plant-based diet. A horse, on the other hand, is a herbivore. It obtains nutrition from plant sources. A horse can (and sometimes will) eat animal sources of nutrition (they often ingest bugs in the course of their grazing, and some people feed their horses ham sandwiches and laugh because their horse seems to love it). But remember, a herbivore lacks the digestive capabilities to safely consume most animal products, and certainly any high level of them. You put a herbivore at risk of digestive upset and disease if you feed it animal sources of nutrition. That ham sandwich is at best worthless to the horse, and at worst a serious risk to his health. Stop feeding them to him.

Omnivores exist in the middle of the spectrum and regularly eat both animal and plant sources of nutrition. When an animal is classified as an omnivore many people think that means they can eat like humans do. This is untrue. Omnivory exists on a spectrum too. At one end is humans, which are properly classified as “opportunistic scavengers”. While meat is a massive part of the current human diet in my places, when modern humans evolved it was a rare and highly valued supplement to a primarily vegetarian diet. What came after (agriculture and hunting) is not connected to the EVOLVED human diet. At the most basic biological level humans are scavenger/gatherers, designed to move slowly (walking) for a large part of the day and exist primarily on plant-based nutrition, with the occasional highly valued addition of animal protein. Contrary to popular belief early humans were probably not effective hunters. While some hunting, especially of small animals, was possible, they were more likely to scavenge animal proteins than actually track and take down large prey like deer. Because of this, humans can survive and even thrive on a vegetarian diet. This in fact most closely mimics what evolution designed us to eat - a primarily plant-based diet with some animal products. Note, however, that it is probably not the perfect diet - the perfect diet is one with small amounts of meat/fish every now and then, rather than eggs and dairy. But I digress. Most vegetarians aren’t vegetarian because they’re trying to mimic the perfect diet. A vegan diet is possible but only with modern supplementation products, because humans are NOT herbivores - but omnivores at the plant-based end of the spectrum. 

A dog is an omnivore at the other end of the spectrum. Wolves can and do eat some plant sources of nutrition, and some are even beneficial to their health. However, they primarily eat animal sources of nutrition. Their teeth and digestive systems indicate animal sources of nutrition should be their primary source of nutrition, with plant-based supplementation as their own digestive and environmental needs dictate. Can a wolf, at a pinch, survive with no meat? Yes. But he will lose muscle tone, become more susceptible to illness, will struggle to maintain a healthy weight, and may even struggle with fertility. His digestive system is simply not good enough at extracting nutrition from plant-based sources to allow him to thrive and be healthy on this alone. His intestines are not long enough and he lacks the appropriate bacteria in his gut. He will scrape by, but he will really struggle.

Dogs are not wolves, but they retain both the teeth and digestive structure of wolves. In their evolution dogs have actually gained an improved ability to digest carbohydrates compared to wolves, but not to the extent that they can exist healthy on carbohydrates alone. For dogs to reasonably be fed a plant-based diet we would have needed to see a massive structural change in their digestive systems, and we haven’t. Humans can do a lot to make up for some of the deficiencies in their dogs that would eventually kill the vegan wolf. Our high calorie carbohydrate based dog food will make up a caloric shortfall whereas that kind of calorie dense food is not available to a meat-free wolf, who would probably eventually be too weak to hunt and therefore survive. But, dogs are still not built to manage high calorie vegan food, and over time their health WILL suffer if you try to feed them this way. If you want a pet that fits your vegan lifestyle, get a herbivore - not an omnivore on the high animal sources of nutrition end of the spectrum.

- me, a nearly lifelong vegetarian and owner of a dog, cat, and two horses, all of which are fed biologically appropriate diets. 

[simpleavarice]

Breeder B, but then I’m a border collie person and working lines have always, always been bred for function over form. Obviously a dog with good form is going to function better, but colour is utterly irrelevant to function. It’s funny that people can be v superstitious and unscientific about the outward appearance of an animal, though - because even in working line borders a primarily white dog was considered “incorrect” on the erroneous assumption that sheep wouldn’t respect a white dog. So an intriguing example where people tried to claim that colour significantly impacted function.

Also, I have no problem with Breeder A up until the point where the breed standard specifically advocates for a health-impaired dog. Ridgebacks are a good example of this. My understanding of the breed history is that a ridge was perceived to be correlated with a better drive and hunting instinct, so this was incorporated into the breed standard. I don’t know of any historical data that indicates whether this truly was the case, however, and the ridge is in fact a mild deformity which can be associated with rare but significant health problems. I strongly feel that anything in the breed standard which negatively impacts a dog’s health needs to be eliminated from the breed standard, and the original function of the dog always prioritised over common but irrelevant phenotypic features - like ridges (unless someone can point me in the direction of research that shows ridged dogs are better at hunting lions). 

Discussion : To Colour or Not to Colour?

I seen a discussion a long time ago about frenchies and people breeding them off standard colours. Someone said “Colours are the least of our problems”. Of course, breeding solely for colour is indeed foolish. 

So, which prompts me to think every now and again, what would you think of a breeder who breeds off standard colour animals but not solely for the colour? What if they even did everything else correctly? I don’t mean these lethal or unethical traits like double merles or albino dobes. I mean the colours that are harmless, they’re just not desirable to a breed standard. Like black and tan labs, piebald mastiffs or liver GSDs? 

We seen with many examples colour breeding can end up horrific! But there’s some breeders who get off colours pop up beyond their control - normally it’s pet homed and altered.

So, imagine this fake situation :

Breeder A does it all right, but pet homes any off coloured pups even if they had potential for their intended purpose. The breeder says that off colours should never be promoted because it grabs the attention of shady BYBs and it breaks standard anyways. The breed should not be this colour and altering them and pet homing them is the right practice. Only dogs fitting the standard should be used for their intended purposes. 

Breeder A’s comment on the matter : “Off standard colours or excessive certain/off markings on *insert breed* should never be promoted as a working and/or show dog because the dog’s colour is faulty and off colours entice the urges of unethical breeders and mills. This is important we alter and pet home these types of dogs and allow the correct ones to maintain the purposes of the breed.”

Breeder B also does it all right, but doesn’t care about colour. They will intentionally breed an off colour dog if it proven worthy for whatever it’s purpose is. They say that colour is irrelevant and it’s the guts that matter. 

Breeder B’s comment on the matter : “If my dog has excessive white markings or is not the colour standard calls, I don’t care. It’s the purpose the dog does well that matters entirely. I don’t care if my dog is green with pink polka dots! I’ll breed him if he brings something to the table that’s worthy. It’s silly to fret so much over the colour of a dog’s fur. You may be skipping out on so much potential on a dog just because he isn’t the right colour to some words on a piece of paper.”

So Mr. B here doesn’t give a flying flip about colour standards and Mr.A says it should matter because it could plummet the breed into fad breeders and it’s just simply not correct. 

What are YOUR thoughts on the matter? If you were a breeder who would you agree with more? 

Reblog or reply below. I may reblog some people’s answers. 

[simpleavarice]

This is so interesting to me because I think the massive difference is actually in animal ownership standards, over anything else. I’ve been reading a lot on this lately and my understanding is in Germany responsible dog ownership is a huge thing, whereas in many countries owning a dog is literally as easy as going to the pet shop and impulsively picking up a cute puppy with literally zero planning. In New Zealand the only requirement for a dog owner is that you register them (costs about $60 per dog per year) from 3 months of age. That’s it. In that registration process you don’t need to prove any standard of care. You don’t need to provide proof of breed, proof of vaccination or that the dog has ever seen the inside of a vet clinic in its life, nothing. You just rock up, pay your $60, write whatever the heck you want on the form (yes my pitbull is totally 100% a staffordshire terrier so no I don’t need to neuter it or muzzle it in public, despite this actually being the law for owners of registered pitbulls). 

So, consequently, our animal welfare agencies promote spay and neuter with great enthusiasm. If more was required of owners when they purchased an animal, if there was an owner licensing system, if at the very least you had to goddamn take proof of breed and basic care to your registration, you might feel more confident that people owning these animals may know not to take a bitch in heat to the fucking dog park. But nine time out of ten they don’t know that, so it’s easier for everyone involved - government, welfare agencies, owners, vets - to promote neuter and spay and at least minimise the behavioural problems and unwanted litters that result from unsuitable people handling entire dogs. This is such an issue in NZ that you cannot adopt an entire animal from any legitimate rescue. Like, the SPCA routinely and without expection performs paediatric spay and neuter on every single animal leaving their shelters. Every. Single. One. As they should, because there’s a huge overpopulation problem in NZ and we don’t need any more people deciding their shepherd/staffy/pitbull/lab/poodle would make delightful puppies with their neighbours rescued, traumatised, aggressive mutt but look at him he has such a pretty coat!

It’s a sad and backwards way of doing it though. Far better to focus on responsible pet ownership to ensure there are less problems later down the track, rather than trying to mitigate the consequences once irresponsible owners have their hands on an animal. But, animal welfare agencies have no power to enact things like owner licensing, and currently the New Zealand government is apathetic about making any changes to animal ownership laws. So, too bad for the dogs that research suggests delaying spay and neuter til at least a year old, preferably 18 months, is best for the long term health of the animal. 

I've seen you post recently about spaying/neutering. I noticed when I went to Europe a few months ago that most no one has their males neutered, and it shocked me. Why the huge difference from the American view of "always spay and neuter?"

The short answer is simply:

1) vets make money off it. It’s the same reason declawing is so popular in the U.S. and banned in Germany. Which is why vets in America talk a whole different story than vets in Germany.

2) American owners tend to be less equipped to handle intact dogs. Germans don’t have nearly the amount of “oops litters” that Americans do.

Like, that’s not to shit talk Americans or put them down; there are a lot of Americans who are very equipped and experienced dog handlers. But statistically speaking… yea.

[simpleavarice]

You are the first dog that is really mine. I chose you when my heart was broken, when my soul cat had been taken by a driver who went too fast and didn’t care about what he or she mowed down. It probably wasn’t the best time to find another pet but I was lonely, and I couldn’t face the idea of another cat so soon. You were the same colour as him, and your Dad’s nickname was his name too. It felt right. I told the breeder yes, yes, please yes. Maybe he sent you to me. 

I’ve had family dogs my whole life. I’ve had cats, and I have horses. All these animals are part of my heart, and I am the one that gives them everything they need. But this is different. My dog. You need so much more than a cat, or even a horse. They are independent animals. They have their own lives most of the time. The cat that I still have deigns to visit me once or twice a day. He is dignified, a fierce hunter, a wild roamer. He is beautiful, but he belongs to himself. The horses I trade an hour or two of work a day in exchange for the best life I can provide them, and that means at least 22 hours a day where they make their own choices and don’t answer to a human. It’s only fair. I don’t begrudge them that freedom - what else could a horse possibly be born for?

You, though, choose to be at my side. When you have the choice to sleep anywhere in the house you choose under my feet while I work. When we walk and you’re not on a leash, you choose to orbit me, always looking back, always checking in. You would go anywhere I asked, as long as I came along too. You’re terrified of cars, but when one goes past you run to me instead of away from it. I am your world, and now you’re mine too. I will never take that loyalty for granted. 

I promise that you will never know harsh training, physical punishment, or force. I promise that anything I teach you will come to you in ways that are fun, puzzling, interesting, intriguing. I promise not to let my inexperience with training harm you in any way. I promise to get help when I need it. I promise to give you a life that is as full as possible. You will not be a dog left in an empty backyard for 8 hours a day. I promise you all the experiences in the world that I can give you. I promise you new places to sniff and explore. I promise you the best food and care I can afford. I promise careful training and support to help you overcome the things that scare you. I promise that your world will be a happy one, as often as possible. 

You are my first dog, Flynn. I’ve only known you for a few weeks and you’ve already stolen my heart, as battered and bruised as it was. You can’t heal the scars that are already there, but you can help me live with them. 

I am responsible. 

[simpleavarice]

[simpleavarice]

Lol @ people who don’t understand the defensive cross country seat. 

Bonus fun fact, pretty sure he has a broken leg at the time of this round (hence the segway on the coursewalk).  

Pau 2015 | Cross-country | © FEI

Michael Jung completed his course on HALUNKE with only a 0.4 point time penalty. The pair is still leading the competition ahead of the stadium jumping phase.

+ bonus Michi on the course

[simpleavarice]

English Springer Spaniels have a very distinct show and working line split, with the working line more typically referred to as field line or field dogs. They look different, have extremely different coats and builds, and behave differently. Some lines of show English Springer Spaniels have even developed a distinct genetic fault known as “rage syndrome” where the dog becomes dangerously aggressive with no warning or provocation. Show lines are also docked while field lines often aren’t. We had a show line with rage syndrome. She was also dog aggressive towards certain breeds and had significant resource guarding issues. These are apparently not issues considered prevalent in field lines. Top - field line. Bottom - show line. 

Could you list the dog breeds that don't have working and show type?(aka just on type dogs)

I might miss a few on this list, but here’s some that are just one type altogether. I went through a breed list and tried to find evidence of line splits on them or the lack of. 

Affinpincher 

Airedale (I think. Some say there is a “working” version that’s different, while some don’t. Ill leave this to debate.)

Akita (there is however an American vs Japanese split but that’s it)

Alaskan Malamute

American English Coonhound

Fox Hound

Staffordshire ( I think - there may be debate on this)

Water Spaniel

Anatolian Shepherd

Australian Cattle Dog

Australian Shepherd

Azawakh

Beauceron

Malinois

Coonhound (all breeds)

Borzoi

Bouvier de Flades (I think, I have not found any subject of a line split)

Boykin Spaniel

Brittany

Canaan Dog

Cane Corso

Catahoula

Chesapeake Bay

Chinook

Curly Coated Retriever

Dalmatian

English Setter

Springer Spaniel

Estrela

Flat Coated Retriever

German Pincer

German SH/WH Pointer

Great Dane

Hovawart

Ibizian

Icelandic Sheepdog

Irish Wolfhound

Jadgterrier

Jindo 

Karelian Bear Dog

Leonberger

Manchester Terrier (Maybe, someone please correct me)

Miniature Pincher

Norwegian Lundehund

Norwich Terrier

Tollers (maybe, someone please correct if wrong)

Otterhound

Papillon

Inca Orchid

Patterdale

Pharaoh Hound

Plott

Pointer

Poodle

Pug (considered only line, but other lines like Retro Mops are not widely recognized)

Rat Terrier

Rhodesian

Saluki (Please correct if wrong)

Samoyed

schipperke

Scottish Deerhound

Shetland Sheepdog

Shiba Inu

Fox Terrier

Swedish Vallund

Vizsla

Wiemeraner

Kelpie

Xolo

[simpleavarice]

[simpleavarice]

This is a very shallow and incomplete interpretation of what CBT is. CBT doesn’t work for everyone, that much is true, but this description is not, in fact, what CBT actually is. (aka the reason psychologists have to train for so long, because this is the exact interpretation someone might make of CBT if they’re read a text book or two but haven’t actually grasped the subject well yet). 

CBT (and all its derivations) operate(s) under the premise you can change your thoughts in order to change how you feel. Depression would then be “nothing” but habitual negative thinking, under control of the “host". That’s cute… /sarcasm. If that were universally true for patients with depression, Treatment Resistant Depression wouldn’t exist. That makes CBT’s premise  questionable. I have way more objections to CBT but no space to list them.

[simpleavarice]

Went to the Dreamworks Animation exhibition at Te Papa (Wellington, New Zealand) on the weekend. An art enthusiast’s dream! It was so interesting, and I learned a lot about animation - especially in the early character and world development stages. Pictures, clockwise from top left: 

1. City concept from Shark Tale

2. Character development for Alex, Madagascar

3. Early character concept for Shrek

4. City concept from Shark Tale

5. Character emotion sketches of Tigress from Kung Fu Panda

6. Character description for Marty, Madagascar

[simpleavarice]