With the latest couple of announcements, one wag at National Review said the House majority has lost the will to live. It’s down to what, 1-2 votes? The 2024 prospects for the GOP seem much better for the Senate than the House.
With the latest couple of announcements, one wag at National Review said the House majority has lost the will to live. It’s down to what, 1-2 votes? The 2024 prospects for the GOP seem much better for the Senate than the House.
I sure hope Kristi Noem doesn’t have other dogs.
Years ago, I was the Controller for a county government about 50 miles north of Madison, WI. One of the stormiest board meetings I ever attended was a debate on building an animal shelter. On one side, we had farmers who took an unsentimental view about the way to deal with sick, destructive or superfluous animals. On the other, we had members of our little arts and boutiques community, and university types from Madison, some of whom actually wept during the debate. It was quite the dramatic evening.
As for myself, if I had a dog that attacked people and killed my neighbors’ chickens, I would have no problem putting it down. That would seem to be the responsible thing to do. But I wouldn’t brag about it in a campaign biography. That strikes me as politically tone deaf.
Besides being politically tome deaf it also strikes me that it’s an admission that one has no clue how to train a dog.
Yeah, I don’t think it is that simple in the world of hunting dogs.Originally Posted by jp1
I am not a serious person.
Leashes and muzzles are a thing that can be used if someone knows their dog is poorly trained.
For decades now, I have adopted "troublesome" dogs. Usually large scent hounds that some halfwit purchased, who had no idea how to properly train and work such animals. Generally with focused training I have been able to turn the dogs into productive members of society. This is not a project for the inept.
I grew up around such dogs. When I was a child my grandparents took care of me during the day, and my grandfather maintained a pack of black & tan Coonhounds, and a pack of beagles. He *never* let those dogs inside the house, though he was very kind and caring and attentive to the animals. He used them for their purpose, and spent a lot of time and effort training them and breeding them to his requirements.
I have a 150lb Bloodhound sleeping on my feet as I type this. A neighbor got the cute little male puppy. She was a first-time dog owner, and a single Mom of two toddlers. Living in a two story home with wooden floors. She came to me when the dog was about 1.5 years old begging me to take the dog - it was knocking over the children, eating the food off their dinner table, dancing on the kitchen counters and furniture, and resource-guarding. And was about 120 lbs and still growing. It took me months of work to turn him into a perfect gentleman (for a Bloodhound(*)). This dog was well on his way to being destroyed, but now he's both a great working dog, and a fine companion for my life. I use him for search and rescue work, and one day he arguably saved a few dozen lives when he alerted to a fire in the village in our senior housing apartment building as I was walking him nearby. After I called it in, we went in and knocked down the fire with a water extinguisher before the fire truck managed to arrive from the station down the street. Good dog.
(*) Some of the scent hounds are the hardest dogs to "train" to perform traditional tasks, they aren't quite like regular dogs. A "smart" dog may be able to learn a new behaviour with a handful of repetitions. These hounds may take hundreds and hundreds of trials, and constant reinforcement will be required ongoing.
that’s great, bae. Those houndDogs are so silly looking, they are like cartoon dogs, but I know they’re not silly dogs.
100s of repetitions? I am inept for sure.
this is why we’ve had foster dogs who were so well-behaved we took them on vacation, and we put our own dogs in the kennel because our dogs would not behave in a hotel.
I am not a serious person.
I think that's how I end up with them. They look so cute, especially as puppies, that people get them as pets and don't realize what they are getting into. I had Bassets for years and years, nearly everyone had the same origin story "We got this cute puppy, now it is a monster". A Basset, cute and cartoonlike as it is, is just a dwarf-form Bloodhound, but with extra deviousness thrown in. My last 3 at full adulthood weighed 80lbs, 75lbs, and 65lbs. I usually try to have at least a pair of hounds (they work better in the field that way), and the Bassets were capable of coming up with complex schemes to accomplish their evil ends. I had a pair that would move several pieces of furniture around in my kitchen so that they could end up atop the counters and kitchen pass-through, working as a team. Devils.
I think a lot of people give up early because they don't know that success is quite likely, as long as you commit to consistency and the correct sort of reinforcement. (Negative conditioning doesn't seem to work well at all with the sorts of dogs I end up with, for example).100s of repetitions? I am inept for sure.
I am of the opinion that most people should not have dogs. I shudder when I hear people baby-talking their "fur babies" and see them letting the dogs run the household.
Son-in-law has an obsession with a certain breed - Cane Corso - and they are now on their third one. First was a gentle giant and died from cancer, second was a terror that attacked DD unprovoked several times and having small children, they were advised by their vet to have it put down which they begrudgingly did. They learned later that had it been bred and raised by a woman later arrested for animal cruelty. The third - we shall see. I wish they would just get a sweet-natured mutt.
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