Avatars

I find the Avatars are often a bit hard to see. How about an explanation of whatever yours is?

Mine's an alteration to a sign Stephan spotted in Gisborne on his last return there: Ruth St. []

Mine is some of our many many many ducks and geese

My dog Pippin, sadly deceased, in his prime at 7, from osteosarcoma.
Gentle, agile, strong, happy, beautiful and very smart. The best dog in the world, ever. Really. I am not biased. Others fell in love too, including several "I don't like dogs" people.
I still miss him. (Just don't tell Dot[]).

Had I fully researched the breed, I'd have known that they have a very high incidence of cancer. Their cancer rate is double that of other dogs.
I will now never buy a dog bred with a high likelihood of significant hereditary illness, or a trait that makes it prone to injury or weakness.
It simply isn't fair on the dog to support such breeding.

Mines my main man Henry. Only rooster I keep and he's a real Gentleman. Only unit of poultry with a name as well.

Hawkspur;453007 wrote: My dog Pippin, sadly deceased, in his prime at 7, from osteosarcoma.
Gentle, agile, strong, happy, beautiful and very smart. The best dog in the world, ever. Really. I am not biased. Others fell in love too, including several "I don't like dogs" people.
I still miss him. (Just don't tell Dot[]).

Had I fully researched the breed, I'd have known that they have a very high incidence of cancer. Their cancer rate is double that of other dogs.
I will now never buy a dog bred with a high likelihood of significant hereditary illness, or a trait that makes it prone to injury or weakness.
It simply isn't fair on the dog to support such breeding.

Friends had a Border Collie (Moss) who cost them a fortune in vets bills, but was very intelligent, he would try to round up the sheep on TV if they were watching something like country calender, they had a pre-recorded copy of country calender and would leave it playing on a loop play and he would sit and watch it for hours, and kept going behind the TV to see were the sheep were.

Our avatar is of Smokey our 1 year old cat, every one is fascinated by his long tail with the white tip, we think he might have been feral, he was found in what was the old railway reserve that runs at the bottom of our place, I fed him with an eye dropper for the first couple of days but he soon learnt what a saucer of milk was for, he hates being picked up but will fuss us and likes walks were he can show off climbing trees, and like all cats has the run of the house.

I figure I'm almost a two tooth at my stage in learning!!

John

Hawkspur;453007 wrote:

Had I fully researched the breed, I'd have known that they have a very high incidence of cancer. Their cancer rate is double that of other dogs.
I will now never buy a dog bred with a high likelihood of significant hereditary illness, or a trait that makes it prone to injury or weakness.
It simply isn't fair on the dog to support such breeding.

There is an interesting book just published called:
'Pukka's Promise - The quest for longer lived dogs' by Ted Kerasote. In it he talks about different breeds and why they suffer from certain illnesses such as cancer, how diet, exercise and environmental issues affect their health and well being. Why some dogs live longer than others. I think he did research for 5 years or so, travelled all over the world talking to veterinarians, breeders, petfood manufacturers etc.

My avatar is a recent pic of my dog Stanley on a local GAP -(greyhoundsaspets.org.nz) run emerging out of the Ashhurst river where he likes to 'submarine'.