Our little crew of scientists, artists, eccentrics, and breeders is always doing something interesting– crossing, putting in new colors, developing flying traits. As we begin the season here are few of our odd birds. Jake’s Bagdad (I may cross this bird on homers to improve its lost flying ability.) His “Chinese owls”, neither Chinese nor …
Tag: Animal Breeding
Flock Protectors
We have been talking a lot on our private lists lately about another loose group of working dogs now being minutely divided into “breeds”, the great flock- protecting dogs of the middle east and Asia, with some historical extensions into parts of Europe that had the “transhumance” or flock migration. I have seen working examples …
The Dangers of Inbreeding
Patrick and I tend to go on about how the closed- studbook model of breeding and breeds, a relict of the 19th century’s imperfect understanding of genetics, is deleterious and dysfunctional, but I haven’t said much on it here. Reader Mike spies and I recently had an interesting discussion on this matter,and he gave me …
Dog Breeding– Again
Patrick once again documents the damage that the AKC, dog shows, and the idea of closed studbooks do to dogs, with many links. He quotes Donald McCaig: “Throughout the fight [with the Kennel Club], I kept stumbling over a simple truth without quite seeing it: dog fanciers and their creature, the AKC, really do believe …
More Dogs n’ Birds
Paul’s Zoltar, son of Kyran and Ataika, pensive… … and in the field: A fresh- trapped NM Gos, sadly not mine: The late tazi “Gos” from Kurdistan– those eyes are appropriate! And Vladimir’s new “Sanct Petersburg” tazi pup Timur– new genes,and beautiful!
Links
Animal Rights proponents demand that those who want a dog go only to the “overpopulated” shelters. So why are shelters going out of the country to get thousands more dogs? “When animal shelters started going overseas to fill their emptying kennels, some worried the imported strays would bring foreign diseases and even rabies into the …
A Few from Almaty
I couldn’t make it to the Primitive Breeds Conference in Almaty Kazakhstan this year, which is too bad because many of my friends did. Here are two friends, saluki man and Arabist Sir Terence Clark and Vladimir Beregovoy, who is now based in Virginia. He is a biologist, an expert on primitive breeds, and a …
“And if California slides into the ocean…”
.. it may be better for the rest of us! A debate in the LA Times begins by framing the issues thus: “There’s wide agreement that most dogs should be spayed and neutered.” Really? But worse is to come. “I am a volunteer humane advocate going against you, Bill, a paid lobbyist and profiteering dog …
A Real Afghan
I have been trying to get over 100 illos for the Eagle so have been very busy but visual images are pouring in. So it’s time for Photoblogging! First: a real hunting Afghan from Afghanistan. According to our friend Jutta Ruebesam: “She was found in the streets of Kabul by a member of a German …
John Burchard on Mule Birth
Dr. John Burchard puts in a scientific perspective on the mule birth below: “Not exactly my area of expertise, but … “Mule sterility results AFAIK from mismatched chromosome sets. I don’t know thedetails in this particular case, but in general any considerable difference inthe arrangement of homologous genes on the chromosomes causes problems atmeiosis because …