06 Aug 2006
Farm Dogs

A lot of bloggers have a feature they call "Friday Pet Blogging". Well, it's not Friday, but it dawned on me that I've never really posted any good pictures of our dogs. Well, OK, I posted once about Willie, and talked about his singing ability. Which, incidentally, he still has. But I've never posted anything about Boo - and we just got Cubby two weeks ago. So without further ado...

Willie

Willie, 6 Aug 2006

Willie's grown just a bit in the three plus years we've had him. He's a Sheltie-Corgi mix, and the only dog we've ever purchased from a pet shop. Sharp as a tack, and still sings (as mentioned above). In fact, it turns out that Willie will sing along with any choral music - Yuletide gets a bit noisy around here, what with Willie joining in every carol he hears! He's kinda neurotic, though, but that's OK - fits right with the rest of us!

Boo

Boo, 6 Aug 2006

Boo is not exactly our dog - technically he belongs to my youngest daughter, Hilary, and will allegedly be going home with her, once she moves back to Indiana (she's currently in Minnesota). He was always understood to be a temporary addition - from the time he got here, in July of 2004! She still hasn't paid me for the dog food he's eaten, and at 125 pounds, he can do some serious eating! He's about 8 years old, according to the vet, and a Great Dane/Dalmatian mix.

He also has a bit of an interesting history: Hilary found him wandering Camp Lejeune. North Carolina, after the Marine units there deployed to Kuwait (and eventually, of course, to Iraq) in January of 2003. Somebody left Boo behind - just turned him loose and let him go.

Hilary takes a good deal after me, including a real soft spot for abandoned animals. She took him in and and tried to no avail to find his owner. So she claimed him. He's really gentle, great with the kids and remarkably well trained. He's not the brightest light bulb in the chandelier, though, and our other critters will use this to their advantage on occasion!

Cubby

Cubby Behind the tree, 6 Aug 2006

Cubby, a pure bred Border Collie bitch, is our newest addition to the pack. We got her two weeks ago yesterday. She's not hiding in this picture - she's herding chickens!

Cubby herding a chicken, 6 Aug 2006

She came from from Crowded Byre, as payment for watching their farm while they were on vacation. She's a little over a year old. Tim had sold her once, to a lady who returned her as a completely broken dog. She wouldn't tell Tim what happened, but Cubby was useless for herding, and so frightened of nearly everything that she was almost unworkable at all. Tim kept her around because he was out of his two favorite dogs, and because she'd been very "stylish" when he was training her. The first couple of days we took care of the dogs down there, Cubby hid, and was a real pain in the butt for us. But on the third day, a pop up storm came up, completely freaked her out, and she ran to Kris for protection. After that, she'd hardly leave our side when we were down there.

We mentioned this to Tim, and he offered her to us immediately, saying he couldn't sell her again as she would never be a herding dog - she'd lost the "eye", he thought, and would never herd anything again. Kris said no, two dogs were plenty for us, but when I went down to get eggs the following weekend he offered me $50 to take her, as he didn't want to put her in a shelter and see her destroyed. So, old softie that I am, I brought her home. And the extra $50.

She's doing really well, too, despite Tim's prediction and that of every other Border Collie breeder we talked with. We just brought her in the house and treated her like one of our house dogs, and within a few days she was creeping after the chickens and running them into the hen house. She's starting to respond to the commands, and has been eying the sheep...

So not only do we have another house pet, we're getting a herding dog out of the deal, too. It's really useful to have some help getting the hens back in at dusk, and hopefully she'll be able to help get the flock in the paddocks by this winter. She's really sweet, and has warmed up to people immensely. We've taken her in the truck with us practically everywhere - she loves to ride - and have been introducing her to new situations daily. The therapy seems to be working well, and she'll be here for the rest of her life.

So there's the tale of our dogs: maybe I'll get energetic and do a bit on the barn cats next week. If I can find all of them to get photos, that is ...

22:43 /Home | 2 comments | permanent link

Americans should shake salty food habit

I'm calling Bullshit!

And I'm not alone ... Stossel's report highlights the many studies showing absolutely no correlation between salt intake and high blood pressure or heart disease. And I must regale you with a personal tale at this point - because I have a bit of a dog in this fight.

I say a bit of a dog because, while I have no economic interest in salt whatsoever, I was a participant in a salt study. It was conducted in 1982, at IU Hospital in Indianapolis. And it was pretty comprehensive.

Our salt "input/output" was measured for three weeks, while the hospital varied the amount of sale in our diets. The measured the salt in our blood, and we carried plastic liter bottles which we used for urination 24 hours a day. Every meal was taken at the hospital. I was selected because I have "naturally" high blood pressure, others in the study had naturally low and normal blood pressures. There were over a thousand participants, if I recall correctly, of all races and from all walks of life.

The food was miserable, too. The first week was a no salt diet. Miserable doesn't describe this. The second week was a "normal" salt diet, and was by far the best of the bunch. The third week had so much salt in the diet that they gave us glasses of veggie juice to help wash it down. I was peeing over nine liters a day that week, and had to carry the bottles in buckets.

A year later the results were released - unfortunately they're not on the web - but they showed no relationship whatsoever between blood pressure (which we had measured before and after every meal) and salt intake.

In fact, the Salt Institute, who admittedly do have a real dog in this fight, have a link page on their site with eight studies showing no relationship between salt and hypertension.

I'm not a big fan of iodized, industrial salt: I think it lacks many of the trace minerals that are most easily delivered in salt, and I eat kosher or sea salt myself, but nonetheless I find the evidence clear and compelling that there is no link between salt and high blood pressure. None at all.

So why do we keep seeing articles like this? Stossel's observation seems most likely:

Scientific communication is very stilted, as if to convey impartiality. Scientists are happy to have non-scientists view them as uniquely unbiased, and reporters fall into the trap of believing them. But supposedly "dispassionate" scientists are as passionate about their ideas as any entrepreneur. They have all sorts of reasons to lose perspective and get carried away with hope and excitement. If they discover something, they may be famous. If they don't, they may have spent years in some windowless laboratory for little good. So if they can convince themselves their theory is right, they are eager for the public to hear about it.

This whole phenomena is the reason I was skeptical on global warming for so long: but I've reviewed the evidence myself, and rather carefully, and now think there's a good deal to the theory. Salt intake, on the other hand, is politically correct "science" run amok. Which is why this article is posted to my "Politics" section - because that's all it is...take it with a grain of salt!

AP - When it comes to seasoning food, there's no shortage of salt options. But when it comes to health, it doesn't matter if it was mined in Kansas, solar-evaporated from the Mediterranean Sea or hand-harvested in French marshes. Salt is salt, the experts say, and it's bad for your health. Chances are you're eating way too much of it.

(link) [Yahoo! News: Top Stories]

11:47 /Politics | 7 comments | permanent link