Cougars versus Dogs

Previously, on the Dog Scoop, Ms. X had published a series of Dog versus Wolf posts showing what happened when man's best friend came face to face or canine to canine with his ancestors. Well, wolves aren't the only predators we face. In Oregon, the human and canine inhabitants are increasingly coming face to face with... cougars.

According to the story from KOIN News, the state's cougar population has risen to 6,000. Now I'm not a wildlife biologists, but I can do a little math. The entire state of Oregon is 97,052 square miles.

A typical cougar has a range of 50 to 150 square miles. If we're even conservative, 6,000 times 50 is 300,000 square miles. In fact, according the to Columbus Zoo fact sheet, "Except for mothers and their young, adult cougars like to live alone" and "a male cougar is very protective of his territory". So if even half of those cougars are adult males, we're still talking about 150,000 square miles to support all those cats.

Overpopulated?

Ms. X is not a wildlife biologist. According to the news articles, the cougar population has risen substantially since hunting with dogs was banned in 1994.

What a shame. Too bad the legislature that approved the ban couldn't ban the cougars from hunting the dogs.

From Here to There

Well I promised you the fascinating road from here to "Biting the Hand that Pets the Dog", and you shall have it.

It started yesterday when I clicked over to Nathan Winograds' blog to see what the No-Kill guru was up to. Mr. Winograd has a great blog, and I have listed it in my "Cures for Ennui". He brings a heck of a lot of common sense and rational thinking to a novel thought - No Kill Shelters can be successful. No Kill shelters really can contribute to reducing the unwanted pet population even further, without any anti-human petamongering or Nazi animal control laws. In other words, a win-win.

So, once at The No Kill Blog, the top post was his interview of The Dog Man of Kansas City. Brent Toellner has his own blog, the KC Dog Blog, another site that is, you guess it, hitting the "Cures for Ennui".

At first glance, the Kansas City Dog Man appears to be another welcome voice of common sense and rational (though hardly libertarian) thought. (So rare in dogdom these days). And the Kansas City Dog Man (ok, so I like typing Kansas City Dog Man. Wonder if he's a star? ;-) ) highlighted the Chicago Tribune story "No Pets for You!" Now this story is a great read too; don't stay up past your bedtime with all this reading, but do have a gander at the comments while you are over in the Tribune land.

Because in the comments, someone linked to, (you guessed it) "Biting the Hand that Pets the Dog".

A lot of times comments are more interesting than the actual story. It's one thing I love about the internet, you could find the most obscure news story in the world, and SOMEBODY will post in the comments that they personally know the victim (villan) and the whole story is a gross misrepresentation. The victim (villan) is actually Mother Theresa back from the dead.

Sometimes the comment section is good to gauge the tone of the general populace, and sometimes its just full of idiots clinging with religious fervor to their pet neurosis and psychosis. And sometimes, the comments section will be full of links and information that enhance the story. The Tribune article comments were mostly the latter.

MUST SEE TV!

Yes, I'm shouting it. You simply HAVE to watch this program. Informative, captivating and tragic.

The BBC did a series on Pedigree Dogs, exposing the dark side of the showring. Let's just say they got an awful lot right.

It was troubling though, to read some of the comments the videos got on YouTube. So many people jumped up right away to blame "irresponsible" breeders who wouldn't do genetic testing / health screening. One thing I am sure of, the readers of this blog were not the ones equating genetic testing with good health.

The readers of this blog would know if there was a simple, concise solution to the morbidity of dogdom, it is the open registry.

Property Rights and Rescue Wrongs

A blogger from Illinois wrote an instant classic in 2005 about dog rescues.

Regrettably it has taken 3 years for Biting the Hand that Pets the Dog to travel the internet to Ms. X's attention, or I surely would have posted it years ago.

But now that we have it, READ it! And soon I will post the path I took to find it. That to, will be worth reading.