Bloomers blowing in the wind? Some people apparently don’t like that. Read about those fighting the good fight – the “right to hang.” Two California cities have voted to ban the declawing of cats. They took this action ahead of start of the new year, when state law forbidding municipalities and counties from regulating veterinary …
Author: Cat Urbigkit
Take a lesson from the dog
Some things simply aren’t worth getting excited about.
Happy Friday
These two look sweet, but when we try to pet the puppies, they growl and act grumpy. The three pups now have their eyes open, and spend a good portion of the day wrestling and knocking each other over. They definitely have livestock guardian dog personalities. The two dark pups are boys and the white …
Vega had puppies
A few weeks ago, Vega gave birth to puppies underneath a sheep camp out in the wide sagebrush of western Wyoming. She became fierce to anyone coming near the camp, and the temperatures started to get extremely cold at night, so last night my friend Pete braved the weather and her wrath enough to physically …
Docking dogs
As I’ve mentioned before, livestock guardian dogs in this region have been taking a beating when it comes to wolves – actually more than a beating, since plenty of them have been getting killed as they actively engage in fights to protect their herds. Jim and I are re-assessing the breeds of LGDs that are …
Koochee
Lane responded to an earlier post with an inquiry about the Koochee people of Afghanistan, and sounds as interested in that nomadic culture as I am. I don’t really know anything about what is happening to these people now, but there is a great website about Koochee dogs, which are very much part of the …
Mind of the Raven
A black bird sits atop the power pole near the highway, and I can hear its persistent call: quork … quork … quork. It’s a raven. What is this call, who is it to, what does it mean? I recently read Bernd Heinrich’s Mind of the Raven: Investigations and Adventures with Wolf-Birds, a superb read …
Afghanistan
Rory Stewart’s walk across Afghanistan three months after the Taliban’s exit from power is described in his book The Places in Between, an engrossing read that I devoured over a recent weekend. I agree with the Christian Science Monitor’s characterization of the book as “wryly humorous, intensely observant, and humanely unsentimental.” I am interested in …
Dogs at work
Whenever you put a herd of sheep into a set of pens or corrals to work them, that means that there are grumpy guard dogs hanging around outside the pens, and happy working herding dogs inside the pens. The photo above shows a young male dog trying to suck up to Vega, top dog.The photo …
Fall migration
Jim and I once again had the pleasure of being at the right place at the right time today, as part of the Sublette pronghorn antelope herd came through in its major fall migration. This bunch had just swam the New Fork River, and came through the meadow next to our sheep herd. The burros …