Dog Owners of the Granite State

The American Kennel Club has a new poster available for downloading.

There’s a great article about numbers and statistics written by Christie Keith.  How often have you seen the following statistic?

The offspring of a single unspayed cat will, within five years, add up to 420,000 cats.

Well, it turns out to be wrong.  According to Carl Bialik, the Wall Street Journal’s “Numbers Guy” who has degree in mathematics and physics from Yale University, the real number is somewhere between 98 and 5000.

The article also discusses  a major study that has often been cited about the number of birds killed by free-roaming rural cats.  It seems that number isn’t correct either according to one of the studies authors.

“The media has had a field day with this since we started. Those figures were from our proposal. They aren’t actual data; that was just our projection to show how bad it might be.”

Read the article, please.

Wednesday,  2/17/10 -

• The House will vote on  HB1417 – allowing companion dogs in certain areas of restaurants. Committee recommendation: Ought to Pass.
  

• The House will vote on HB1596 – relative to the civil forfeiture of unlicensed dogs. Committee recommendation: Inexpedient to Legislate.

Thursday, 2/18/10

• The Governor’s Commission on the Humane Treatment of Animals will be meeting.  The public may attend and listen. When: 1:30 – 4  p.m. Where: Senate Room 100 of the State House, Concord.
  

The Spaniel Journal has a new article by Loretta Baughan up.  It is definitely worth reading.  Here’s a taste -

“It always amazes me to see how many people fall prey to the slick photos of puppies and kittens national animal rights groups use to solicit donations.  Too often, people who support these organizations are misled into thinking they are actually helping animals or their local humane societies. Despite having a name that suggests an active role in overseeing or operating local humane societies, in reality the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) is little more than a $200-million dollar lobbying organization tirelessly working to ramrod their anti-animal, anti-people agenda into law…”

Foster’s Daily Democrat has a commentary up entitled “Be careful what you ask for when it comes to neutering your pet.“  It talks about the push being made in California and other states to pass bills requiring the  mandatory neutering of all dogs and cats and lists some of the down sides to legislation like this.  The author brings up some good points, one of which is where will the next generation of pet dogs and cats come from if all the present ones are neutered?  Go read the column, it is thought-provoking.

Hat tip to Dan at the Hare-Brained Express Tour – 2009.

Anyone who wants to do their own graph can visit GraphJam.

Sometimes people ask us why we do what we do.  The answer is simple.  Contrary to what the ‘animal rights’ fanatics believe, responsible breeders are not the “bad guys.”   This year alone, HSUS has introduced bills in over 30 states that would restrict the right to breed dogs.  New Hampshire was one of them.  Thanks to the wonderful testimony by breeders, HB 337 was defeated.  In an attempt to gain support for their bills, the animal rights extremists have labeled anyone who breeds dogs a puppy mill.  Here’s an article about the harassment the breeder of Joe Biden’s puppy has suffered.

What they don’t talk about is the good that breeders do.  Without them, there would be no Search and Rescue dogs, no ‘seizure dogs,’ no guide dogs. Thanks to research funded by the American Kennel Club, there are better treatments for dogs with renal failure, earlier diagnostic tests for cancer and other diseases in dogs and there’s even hope for people with Lou Gehrig’s Disease.