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PBurns

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Everything posted by PBurns

  1. PBurns
    Sounds like someone has a dog with undershot dogs and wants to breed them and will rationalize that outcome, no matter what is said. Nothing to be done under such a situation -- people will do what they will. Keep practicing the sales pitch One is born every minute. As to the little matter of history, the greyhound did not originate in England, and neither did the use of dogs to catch cattle and pigs. This is basic history and can be seen on the walls of Rome and the tombs of the pharaoh's. By the same token, no one using catch dogs today (or then) considers a shot jaw a positive th
  2. PBurns
    Sorry Buster, you need to go somewhere other than a Pet site for information on catch dogs. The british bull dog is nothing more than a non-working family pet that is so bow legged it can barely move (I cannot walk slowly enough to walk a british bulldog). 100% of them are caesarian births, which means the breed would be extinct within 10 years without veterinary care. These dogs have terrible bites and can barely breathe because their faces are so short. British bulldogs fart teribly due to the fact that they are achondroplastic dwarves and their bowels are not formed properly. Many of
  3. PBurns
    Actually, no, neither the British bulldog nor the boxer have been bred for a hell of a long time (almost no breed has been) and neither breed is a working dog or has been related to a working dog in the last 170 years or so (i.e. since the creation of these breeds as we know them today). Both the British bulldog and the boxer were entirely created by the show ring crowd -- they essentially have nothing to do with the working catch dogs dogs of the late 18th and early 19th Century. Both breeds have pushed-in faces (the boxer is better, but still too short in the jaw) making it difficult
  4. PBurns
    American roundpoint standard next to American two-piece shovel made from water pipe handle. The two-piece was still unused in this photo, but it has stood up. A tip -- where the thread connectors cut into the pipe handle, fill the pipe solid with epoxy to strengthen that area. That is where structural failure will occur if it occurs anywhere. Patrick
  5. PBurns
    Some people think cows are sacred and pigs are filthy and never to be eaten. No one thinks twice about eating a bit of mutton or a nice rabbit or chicken, but most recoil at a bit of dog. I have eaten snake (quite good) but shudder at eating eel, though everyone tells me it is excellent, especially if smoked. Squirrel and groundhog? No problem. Possum? Not on a bet. In every culture, one man's rat is another man's ratatouille, and the rules of cuisine do not always make perfect sense. Food for thought as you read this entertaining New Yorker article with wonderfull full-color pictures fro
  6. PBurns
    Ok. I'm from the US and could give a rat's ass about the law anywhere. If some young one has some questions about basic terrier work, they can go to this site and read a bit >> http://www.terrierman.com/homepageterrierman.htm . It's free. When they have read it all, I will send them a test Patrick
  7. PBurns
    Beaver are another of those great wildlife conservation stories we have here in America. Like most of the others, it starts with a sadness that turns to gladdness. The short story is that we killed out almost every beaver East of the Mississippi (and a lot West of it too) by 1903. This was the fur trade gone wild -- hats, coats, muffs, etc. A fair amount was for export too. In 1903, we began to turn things around in this country thanks to people like Teddy Roosevelt (one of our greatest Presidents, and a die-hard hunter). The U.S. imported some beaver from Canada and moved a
  8. PBurns
    Eating beaver (real beaver) is actually a bit of a problem if it's in the far north where it's a sometimes food delicacy (up there on a par with Crisco and Berries, aka "Eskimo Ice Cream"). The reason: botulism in pickled beaver tail. The botulism is caused by beaver tail packed away in plastic tupper ware containers. More than a few folks have died of pickled beaver tail. See >> http://iier.isciii.es/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5032a2.htm for the Center for Disease Control report. So when in Alaska, don't eat the yellow snow from where the Huskies go, and if you eat beaver tail, make
  9. PBurns
    Pretty sure the bird being eaten is a starling -- same as yours. It's an import and not too well like over here. A bit of a story to the starling's introduction to the U.S. if you are interested >> http://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com/2005/...re-in-park.html Ah toads. Funny story. About 10 years ago or so, I wrote a small book on street drug markets and as a consequence I was up at Harvard talking to an aged drug expert there (he had smoked marijuana once, I think). We got into a conversation about the differences between peyote, psilocybin, amanitas, LSD, marijuana, datura,
  10. PBurns
    Excellent bobcat shot These things are amazingly fast and stealthy -- hard to see them, much less photograph them.
  11. PBurns
    Stories older than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and just as real as Sherlock Holmes. See >> http://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com/2005/...r-nonsense.html
  12. PBurns
    Truely amazing things. Think about a frog for a minute. They start off with FINS and GILLS and sucking mouths. They are, for all practical purposes, a kind of primative fish. And then the weather gets warmer, and they go through this amazing transformation in the space of about two weeks -- the sucking mouth is transformed into a JAW with a huge tongue and tiny teeth . . . the fins are transformed into some of the most powerful LEGS on the planet . . . and the gills are transformed into air-breathing LUNGS and an air sac that would make a bag piper proud. It's as likely as a carp tur
  13. PBurns
    I am have no doubt there is a way to snare coyote without getting 10 to 25 percent of the catch jelly-heads, but that's what the study by the professional wildlife managers showed was actually happening in Maine during the brief period when Maine was paying people a bounty to snare coyote. Let's face it -- a lot of snare folks are doing it on the cheap and the way they learned it 20 years ago. The reason people snare rather than trap (at least in this country) is that snares are very cheap -- 100 snares is not too expensive, while 100 modern legholds is going to cost you quite a lot more.
  14. PBurns
    Well, I did a bit of a look-see at the hisory of coyoye snaring in Maine, and it seems it was outlawed because the law that liberalized coyote snaring in Maine a few years back was poorly written and it created some stuff that was pretty grizzly in the field. To be precise, the Maine law allowed folks to check their snares only every three days, and folks could actually get permission to check them only every seven days. The result of this long lag-time between putting out a locking snare and checking it is that a lot of snared coyotes apparently ended up as "jellyheads" -- a situation
  15. PBurns
    Don't worry too much about coyote populations over here in the U.S. and Canada. Though there may be individuals that trap or shoot a CRAP load of coyote (see truly amazing pictures, above), they are rare and getting rarer. The reason for that is pretty simple: time, energy and economics. Setting out a trap or snare line, bringing in the catch, skinning and fleshing it, etc. is a dizzying proposition in terms of labor and it is messy and dangeous work to boot. There is almost no market for the pelts, and working a McDonald's job is probably going to pay better. The same is true for
  16. PBurns
    Nice snaring Hornhunter! Quite an impressive haul! In the U.S., all hunting laws vary from state to state (and sometimes even within states). In Virginia, where I live, for example, they have a bounty on coyote -- it was put it in 3 or 4 years ago. Maryland has no bounty, but has open season. Every state is different. Across the U.S. we shoot and trap about 500,000 coyote a year, and yet the population numbers keep going up as they spread East. They are still not very dense, in terms of numbers, across most of the East south of NY, but the numbers are risising very rapidly a
  17. PBurns
    Rats can transmit at least 35 diseases to humans, including leptospirosis (very, very common) and the plague (very, very rare). Other diseases transmittable by rats include: typhus, rabies, tularemia, trichinosis, leishmaniasis, spirilary rat bite fever, and spirochetal jaundice. In fact, lepto is the main concern (but obviously not the only one!) Keeping yourself and your dog disease-free is relatively easy, provided you use common sense: Innoculate your dog. Nothing is more important than a full innoculation (a 7-way shot, not just a 5-way). An innoculation for leptospiral jaundi
  18. PBurns
    The picture is a thing of beauty as well. Amazing. Keep the location quiet or the board of health will close that place down. Hanging out on farms is amazing some times. Spend enough time ratting a dairy, knee dip in liquid manure, and you wonder where white milk comes from. Now I will be looking for tails in every bucket of chicken Patrick
  19. PBurns
    Amazing ratting pictures from Keeps, Mol and others. Love the mounted head I have great admiration for people who are truly artful with a camera. Excellent.
  20. PBurns
    Leon, You can subscribe and pay by credit card (it all goes directly to D. Harcmobe) at >> http://www.terrierman.com/harcombe.htm Patrick
  21. PBurns
    Agree with Mik -- the parents. Get 'em out of working stock and get 'em the size of the people that dig a lot (not the one-and-done crowd) in your area are actually using. As for training, you won't have to worry about that for a while -- just take the dog walking in the woods a lot and get is used to being around other dogs, loud noises, farm stock, etc. When the dog gets to about 10 months, take it out with someone on a dig. Above all, go slow. Dogs are never entered too late, but often too soonn P
  22. PBurns
    Very nice pics. Rabbit and hares out west are great stuff -- lots of them and open ground too. Visit Kansas sometime, Kye -- a rabbit man's dream. Bunnies from the sky. Porcupines are a serious thing. Hope the dog is allright after that. Be careful of those things around camp too -- they love salt and if you leave your boots out a porcupine will eat them down to the soles. Had it happen to me once As for terriers and lurchers in America, the law is no different than for any other type of hunting. If you have a state hunting license and are in season, you are good to go. O
  23. PBurns
    A small border out of working lines is an excellent thing, but hard to find. Borders are the #10 dog in popularity in the UK, but it's hard to find real workers who have done more than a few digs, and even harder to find a history of serious workers on both sides of a pedigree. Also, many borders are slower to enter -- not all, but it's the way to bet. Add to that the generally higher expense of the dogs, and you see why patt and jacks are more common and popular. I have always had a border, but they are a different acquisition equation and quite a different dog. You can easily feed a bor
  24. PBurns
    Some other maintenance and fix-it things on ears: Trim the hair inside the ear. Some pluck, but a little battery trimmer is easier on the dog and very cheap. Also, swab the inside of the ears with vinegar -- changing the PH balance discourages infection and stips off any wax buildup. If a dog has serious buildup of matter in the ear, a waterpic with warm water will help break it up (a good tool for cleaning wounds too, expecially punctures), and cephelaxin antibiotic will knock down infection. Treat for mites as ready recommended. Patrick
  25. PBurns
    Wild animals never die in hospital beds with a morphine drip and soft music playing in the background. Vehicle impact, as Rudyard Kipling so famously wrote, is the true blood sport of the world (see: The Fox Meditates), followed by disease, starvation, infection, and parasites overwhelming the system. The best any fox, deer or rabbit can hope for is to meet an experienced hunter on its last day. A solid to the ethical hunters on this board who simply say what is right and who represent the best in the field. Patrick
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