Andrew Campbell of The Regal Vizsla, who blogs on bird dogs and sometimes Mongolia, came through with his boys on the way to a training session in the mountains of Arizona. He brought good talk and a bottle of Applejack, something wonderful from New York state we had never tried. His boys were fascinated by …
Tag: Dogs
Prince Xanghui
I have seen black and white line drawings of a falconer with a tazi from Prince Xanghui’s tomb in Xian, on the far eastern end of the Silk Road. Though I used one on my letterhead, the hawk was unidentifiable. I assumed it was a Goshawk which is still flown in the area and throughout …
Dr John Burchard on Breed Standards
My friend John Burchard, PhD, postdoc at the Max Planck Institute under Konrad Lorenz, years in Arabia with saluki and falcon, formerly involved in shows and still a presence in open field coursing and an attendant at conferences on dog genetics, (and owner of two of my pups (;-), on the inherent deficiencies of standards. …
Johnny UK
Meet (“officially”) Johnny UK and his wonder dog Petra. John Hill is one of our most frequent commenters, an old friend (we met through Darne shotguns), an East Anglian, an honorary Magdalenian and frequent patron of the Golden Spur bar here. He plays blues saxophone and loves good shotguns, wine and French food. Here he …
Guest Post: Jess vs the Breed Box
Regular readers may know that I have long taken a stance against closed studbook breeding registries, which I consider to be unscientific Victorian relics that are causing actual harm to “breeds” by decreasing genetic diversity. Recently a perfect example has surfaced in salukis, where “traditionalists”— ie, people who want to limit the breed’s ancestry to …
Dog Rant
The Lady With the Black Dogs (who happen to be “real” fierce staunch old- fashioned Afghans, rare today) sent me a note and a link, knowing it would provoke me and push all my buttons on genetics, bombast, and bullshit, not to mention on the kind of dog commercialism that makes AR types try to …
Random Doggage– Our Pups and Lineage, in Part
I need a new pic of Irbis who has two more weeks to go as a house dog but is driving me nuts as he is in full active mode. Here, to scale, is the plate that saved his leg, now one of my myriad desk chotchkes. Hard to believe it was inside his leg, …
Bek Nazar Dor
Ataika’s father Dor, a great dog belonging to our friend Andrey Kovalenko, died in his native Almaty, Kazakhstan, last week. He was sixteen. He had a good long life, and his genes live on in New Mexico, Kazakhstan, and even Scotland. But condolences to Andrey for his loss of such an old friend.
Animal progress
Irb is better all the time and thinks he is 100%, though he still has a month on house arrest before he can run loose. (WE are a bit battered but that will be another story– he nearly broke Libby’s ribs the other night). When he is running we will give any benefactor who requests …
The Girls
Pennsylvania artist and pigeon man Hans Windgassen saw a pic of Ataika and Lashyn and wanted to paint them. I sent him more photos and this is the result. I think it captures Taik’s arrogance and Lashyn’s often worried look. He calls it “Les Girls”