Okay...some of my friends are a bit eccentric. What does that tell you about me? Numero uno.....I don't look for approval and I don't care if you are Alasdair McCrae (other than watch you run your dogs) What do I want out of life?....simple...joy. I don't care what people think when Jet carries his lunch box around or puts our dishes away in the dishwasher. My dogs have free range of the house and sleep on the furniture. Life's too short. Who cares? Not me.
What about Bob? Bob is my eccentric Malibu dog friend. I have mentioned before that he makes me think so hard my brain hurts. That's why I love him. He keeps me in the game. We like to train our dogs together once in awhile. I give him a ton of sh#t and he is still my friend. The way I look at it is "One who looks for a friend without faults will have none." :0)
Bob has me rereading Eminent Dogs, Dangerous Men by Donald McCaig. It's one of Bob's most favorite "dog" books. Even though Donald won't talk to Bob, because I think he feels Bob is a nutcase, Bob is one of his biggest fans. How so you might wonder? Different topics we discuss are how the dog now is being bred to selectively do what man wants, not what they were bred for without man's interference. The embarrassment of teaching dogs "tricks" when they are so highly more intelligent in different ways than their human. How man has relegated the dog to being a pet, in so, ruining them, not understanding them in using their uncanny non-human abilities. What is a trick and what isn't a trick. Making your dog "think" versus perform to your expectation. The list goes on and on. See...my brain is already hurting.
A few quotes from Eminent Dogs, Dangerous men:
"Wild" animals are animals unscrewed up by man or, in a different mood, creatures we can slaughter to our heart's content. Wilderness is the place where the centuries-old limits on human conduct no longer apply, where a man is a man and a dog is a wolf."
"The designers of the sheepdog trials created a model of the work the dog does at home. As in all sports, the model is more precise elegant, and difficult than the mundane activity it represents. Many competitive sports are mock-ups of warfare. The highest praise a Scot will give a collie is, "Aye, yin's a useful beast."
"Western thought patterns have separated man from animals as surely as subject from verb and body from mind."
"Learning a dog's worldview, altering it (without bounds) accepting a dog's understanding as sometimes more reliable than a man's...these common place tools of dog training are a mild cultural treason. The rare dog handlers who, by gift or necessity, become truly dangerous inhabit a reality most of us can scarcely imagine....every day they share the thoughts, habits, tics, aspirations, of a genuinely alien mind."
If you get on Amazon, you can find this used paperback by Donald McCaig for less than $10.00. It's an interesting read.
What about Bob? Bob is my eccentric Malibu dog friend. I have mentioned before that he makes me think so hard my brain hurts. That's why I love him. He keeps me in the game. We like to train our dogs together once in awhile. I give him a ton of sh#t and he is still my friend. The way I look at it is "One who looks for a friend without faults will have none." :0)
Bob has me rereading Eminent Dogs, Dangerous Men by Donald McCaig. It's one of Bob's most favorite "dog" books. Even though Donald won't talk to Bob, because I think he feels Bob is a nutcase, Bob is one of his biggest fans. How so you might wonder? Different topics we discuss are how the dog now is being bred to selectively do what man wants, not what they were bred for without man's interference. The embarrassment of teaching dogs "tricks" when they are so highly more intelligent in different ways than their human. How man has relegated the dog to being a pet, in so, ruining them, not understanding them in using their uncanny non-human abilities. What is a trick and what isn't a trick. Making your dog "think" versus perform to your expectation. The list goes on and on. See...my brain is already hurting.
A few quotes from Eminent Dogs, Dangerous men:
"Wild" animals are animals unscrewed up by man or, in a different mood, creatures we can slaughter to our heart's content. Wilderness is the place where the centuries-old limits on human conduct no longer apply, where a man is a man and a dog is a wolf."
"The designers of the sheepdog trials created a model of the work the dog does at home. As in all sports, the model is more precise elegant, and difficult than the mundane activity it represents. Many competitive sports are mock-ups of warfare. The highest praise a Scot will give a collie is, "Aye, yin's a useful beast."
"Western thought patterns have separated man from animals as surely as subject from verb and body from mind."
"Learning a dog's worldview, altering it (without bounds) accepting a dog's understanding as sometimes more reliable than a man's...these common place tools of dog training are a mild cultural treason. The rare dog handlers who, by gift or necessity, become truly dangerous inhabit a reality most of us can scarcely imagine....every day they share the thoughts, habits, tics, aspirations, of a genuinely alien mind."
If you get on Amazon, you can find this used paperback by Donald McCaig for less than $10.00. It's an interesting read.
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