Things NOBODY told me about being an adult that I wish they had:
When you get to the top of the river you're going to want to find a shallow stretch of riverbed with relatively calm water and sediment pieces that are gravel sized, not cobble, sand or mud. This is critical; test it with your nose if you're not sure! when you have this, you're going to want to flip on your side and slap the gravel as hard as you can with your tail to dislodge it; you're gonna want to alternate between digging the spot out and doing some more slapping until you've got a nice little cone shaped depression for the eggs.
not to have a Hot Take this fine morning but if you breed M/M knowingly, you are not a reputable breeder. Period. Done. there isn’t a debate over this. if you knowingly put puppies at high risk for health issues, you are not reputable.
Reblog with the furthest off breed a stranger has called your dog.
My brindle greyhound got Rhodesian ridgeback and my podenco got, and I cannot make this up, fennec fox. They asked me if I had to have a license to own a fox, 100% genuine
Molly has gotten Rhodesian Ridgeback before (as a puppy), GSD mix, and Black Mouth Cur mix. At this point I don’t count ‘Malinois’ ‘those Dutch dogs’ or ‘the German ones, not the Alsatians the other ones.’ because no one I meet has ever seen a Malinois in person before.
Bella gets a lot of ‘is she ahh……..’ but forever points to the man that went ‘oh is that a fox terrier!!!!!’ very excitedly at her and not Nell.
Dogs and cats are so horribly over populated and there’s so many fucking feral cats that just get fixed and released its insane
Like humans are responsible for this mess and instead of dealing with it people cry about their own personal feelings before considering how many dogs and cats are out there already.
Like yes it’s sad. I wish it didn’t have to be like that. But it’s our responsibility to clean up the mess
And maybe if people didn’t treat cats and dogs like throw away toys. Or collectibles. Or like something they can just run around ravaging the local ecosystem then maybe it wouldn’t have to be this way
Hi Tumblr, I'm just a lurker here and I don't really post. But today I want to. I want to inform the Tumblr community of the COVID-19 situation in Nepal. The health system of the country has collapsed (no cap, fr). Yesterday was difficult for Nepal, most of the hospitals faced an acute shortage of oxygen, worsening the crisis. This morning, I read a heartbreaking tweet by a doctor who said most of the patients' oxygen tank could only last for two hours. The next few weeks are gonna be tough for the country and us, the citizens.
There are fewer than 600 ventilators for the entire country (32 million people). The University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation predicts that Nepal will need well over 10,000 ventilators by 24 May. Nepal's infection rate and the cases per million are the highest in the world (Yes, faster than India). The Indian variant B.1.617 COVID-19, which has taken its toll in Nepal, has far higher death rates than any other variants. And only 1% of the total population is vaccinated.
Kathmandu, the capital and the country's most populous city, is the hardest-hit region of Nepal. All of Kathmandu's hospital beds have been fully occupied for the last 4 weeks. The only way a patient can get a bed is after the occupant dies. Even worse, people are dying in home isolation without getting a chance to get proper health services.
Nepali students worldwide have collectively come under the banner of Student Coalition for Nepal to collect funds for organizations working tirelessly to ensure a timely supply of medical necessities in Nepal.
And they need YOUR help. WE need your help. What can you do?DONATE. Every penny, each cent, and each dollar counts.
Here are some news articles about the situation in the international media:
1. The Guardian
2. CNN
3. The Washington Post
4. The Washington Post, again
5. The New York Times
6. The New York Times, again
Almost everyone here knows someone who died of covid. I lost my two relatives and an uncle a week ago. All of my friends have someone in their family circle who's currently fighting covid.
I know many lives will be lost in the coming weeks. But, we have to try our best. We have to give what we got. And we can't do this without your help.
Nepal is on the brink of collapse as covid ravages the country (much like India, e… Student Coalition for Nepal needs your support for Help
Getting the word out at this time of crisis matters.
Needs to ALWAYS be on your lap, super annoying if you're tired of playing the "I'm gonna tell you I want up but stay out of reach when you lean down to bring me up" game
FDSA is raising their class prices in order to (from what i gather) pay for adding better accessibility to videos. and they’re doing a 25% price hike on bronze. so of course, a lot of disabled and poor people are upset. so there’s a thread about it.
FDSA is raising their class prices in order to (from what i gather) pay for adding better accessibility to videos. and they’re doing a 25% price hike on bronze. so of course, a lot of disabled and poor people are upset. so there’s a thread about it.
Tristan started learning to "go find" with carrot chunks hidden around the house.
Then he started volunteering to bring the Supper Dishes at mealtimes, and we encouraged this with "go find the Supper Dish, bring the Supper Dish," and "okay, we have this one, where's the other one? Go find the other Supper Dish, bring the Supper Dish."
This was expanded to "go find the Good Candy" and "the other Good Candy" for some extremely stinky cow hooves that I sealed into ziplock bags when they were done chewing. Tristan handled the generalization of "go find" really well.
But I was honestly not expecting that when he stole one of my gloves, and I was walking around holding one and jokingly asked, "Tristan, where is the other one?" that he would bring it to me. That would have been a bit much to ask, I was just talking to him because, well, we talk to the pups fairly often. But he DID bring me my other glove. I was astounded. And it rained good candies on the excellent good boy, let me tell you.
Now it's another one of Tristan's games. I show him one half of a pair of gloves or socks; "Tristan, where is the other one? Go find the other one!" He's very good at finding it. And when he brings it, he wags his whole body so much that the cloth sways in his mouth.
Oh, yes: Guinevere has been trying to figure out this game but doesn't have all the steps down yet. So after Tristan found a hidden sock and was heavily rewarded... Gwyn stole a sock from the clean laundry, and brought it to me very proudly.
UK followers, the government is doing a review into getting rid of gender neutral toilets.
Obviously this would be a nightmare for many people, but it’s obviously meant to hurt trans people.
There’s an email template to send with comments supporting the need for gender neutral toilets here.
I’ve said a bunch of times here how much I struggle with emails, but the template is very simple to use and has clear instructions. The only steps are copy/pasting the email text, adding minor customisation (e.g. your name), copy/pasting the email address, and adding a subject line.
So, if you have the spoons, this would be a real help.
i think my main question to people who are against outcrossing is just “why”
because what are the real risks for the breed as a whole? you’re going to get some wonky individuals for a bit, sure. that’s what conformation shows and critiques are for. and you’ll be keeping track of the bloodline anyway because… we do that. have been. for a minute.
like obvs there’s the ~purity aspect~ which is bullshit in regards to the vast majority of breeds, and there’s the cultural and meddling aspect which imo is actually legitimate.
but most of the time when i see anti outcross comments in breed groups it’s either about ~purity~ or about losing significant unique characteristics which. i mean. the only breed weird enough to warrant that sort of protection, off the top of my head, is the lundehund. and they’re already outcrossing that. so.
In horses, goats, cattle, and even purebred cats careful crossing is allowed… because it’s literally necessary to keep populations viable for hundreds of years.
Ask anyone involved in endangered wildlife conservation. I’ve taken a class in it and if I had gone to my professor with the effective population size, average coefficient of inbreeding, rates of genetic disease, etc of MOST modern breeds (not just rare breeds! Collies and German shepherds are incredibly inbred)… she would wish me luck.
People managing actual endangered populations would be thrilled to have the resources we have.
After a couple of generations of careful selection, an outcross absolutely is its breed. If you disagree, ok. let’s let shows, sports, and work decide that :) as they have for literally the entirety of our history with dogs beyond the last 200 years. Even during the first ~50 years of kennel clubs, crossing was publically discussed and accepted
‘You’re going to get some wonky individuals’ is a very disingenuous way to say ‘you’re going to get some dogs suffering’. It’s not about purity, it’s about not knowing which genetic diseases your dog will end up with. If you breed two dogs of known heritage and the same breed, you know what you need to screen for and your chances of getting a healthy puppy. If you’re breeding two dogs of different breeds, even if you know their genetic health backgrounds you can’t accurately predict how those genetics will interact - you can do your best, but you have to do a ridiculously high number of health screenings, and you still won’t be sure that the puppies will end up healthy because there’s just too much that could happen.
Extremely careful outbreeding programmes for breeds that are already prone to a specific genetic disease, like the one with Dalmatians to reduce uric acid levels, do take place and are helpful. But just breeding in other dogs when the breed already has a sustainable number of healthy individuals isn’t just unnecessary, it’s creating dogs for whom their health and wellbeing comes down to a dice roll.
EDIT: I don’t know where you’re getting the information on collies and German shepherds from but that just isn’t true. They’re hugely popular breeds for dog sports, with a massive genetic pool and many different lines, including European and American lines. They certainly aren’t massively inbred on a breed level.
Actually, ‘you’re going to get some wonky individuals’ was a fairly colloquial way of saying ‘you’re going to get some dogs that don’t conform to standard.’ But by all means, go ahead with your story 😘
Here’s a fun graphic for you, showing COI values in different breeds:
And here’s a link to the source, where you can get a better look at the data: https://www.instituteofcaninebiology.org/blog/inbreeding-of-purebred-dogs-determined-from-dna
Which is based on this article: Dreger DL, M Rimbault, BW Davis, A Bhatnagar, HG Parker, & EA Ostrander. 2016. Whole genome sequence, SNP chips and pedigree structure: building demographic profiles in domestic dog breeds to optimize genetic trait mapping. http://dmm.biologists.org/lookup/doi/10.1242/dmm.027037
Notice how collies are number 5? And GSDs, while lower, are still well above 25% (= full sibling mating)? Not too difficult to explain that, once you distinguish between population size and effective population size. It doesn’t matter that there’s a whole lot collies in the world or that there’s different lines in GSDs, if every single dog in the breed population is more closely related to every other dog than the offspring of two full siblings. You can’t create any more diversity there, except by outcrossing. So do you have any hard data to back your statement about inbreeding not being a problem in these breeds?
And I’m not really sure what exactly you were suggesting by “you still won’t be sure that the puppies will end up healthy because there’s just too much that could happen”. Assuming, of course, that you test all your purebred stock for the genetic diseases they are at risk for and that you test all your crossbred stock for the genetic diseases that their foundation breeds are at risk for. What’s going to happen? Where’s all this ‘suffering’ coming from in your scenario? Again, do you have some data to back your statement? And I mean it, too. I genuinely want to see the research, if you have it.
Finally, I really really don’t want to speak for tumblr user fjordfolk who is more than capable of speaking for themselves, but jfc your tone is shit. Might want to give respectful discussion a go one of these days.
Cool so anyway don’t cite US Kennel club data as if it accurately represents the world situation of dog breeds, particularly since kennel club includes all ‘purebred’ dogs including puppy mills and backyard breeders. And, you know, some of the most popular dog breeds out there will inevitably have a higher demand, and thus more unethical breeders. The pool of responsibly and ethically bred dogs who actually conform to breed standard are genetically healthy, and responsible breeders take great care to ensure that they aren’t mating closely related individuals.
Unethical breeders behaving unethically and operating puppy mills doesn’t mean that irresponsible crossing will improve the situation.
And, yes, purebred stock by responsible breeders is tested for their breed specific genetic problems? And breeding, for example, a poodle (usually tested for hip dysplasia and other joint problems specific to that breed) and a cavalier king Charles spaniel (usually tested for congenital heart problems) means that you may end up with unexpected health problems - responsible breeders don’t make health decisions based on the individual genetic tests of the parents only, you need to take into account the profiles of as many relatives as possible. So if you’re trying to find, for example, heart screening data for that poodle’s line, it won’t be there. So your puppies can be born with heart defects, because they’re ridiculously common in those spaniels and you don’t have the right information for the other line.
Anyway, responsible breeders won’t let you purchase a dog knowing you’re going to breed mixes with it, so 99% of the time you’re starting from bad stock anyway. Which again, isn’t gonna help.
As for attitude, frankly I don’t particularly care how happy you are with mine :) breed standards are there for a reason, and it’s so that people can know what they’re getting into. There are a ridiculous number of crossbreeds out there in pounds because they inherited some truly unfortunate combinations of characteristics, and actively adding to that supply is actively immoral. As is breeding unhealthy dogs.
