Lab-O-Cob

RECEIVER DOES IT AGAIN

        BAILEY'S as we fondly call him won a couple of Reserve Winners ribbon. However, we decided to retire him early since he developed a dislike for dog show judges. After a show where a judge must have gripped his balls too hard, he never wanted to be touched & inspected inside the show ring. Too bad, he was a promising hunk line bred out of American Champion Receiver of Cranspire. He now stands at stud passing his genes to his get. His offspring likely to be endowed with his strong natural instinct to retrieve for he is trained for drug sniffing & detection. Out of the conformation and obedience rings, he performs a vital role in the operations of our entertainment club checking out the premises, employees and entertainers randomly. We like to keep the ART's VENUE drug-free.

        I am just a dog lover. I simply just wanted dogs at the start. I bought Cali with a promise from her breeder that she will do well in the rings. I was very impressed when Cali's breeder showed of Cali's dam's skills in carrying baskets & retrieving newspapers. Because I was made to believe Cali as a qualified representative of the breed, I showed her. I bumped into Cali's breeder in a show at San Lorenzo Village, Makati and to his surprise, one can not deny his facial expressions when he saw me with Cali holding an entry number. From then one, every time I saw him at shows in 1995, he walked in the opposite direction. As for Cali, I had her trained for obedience trials and finished her Companion Dog Graduate Certificate. I decided to end her show career. The exercises in the CDX level would be too much for Cali's hips, she is mildly dysplastic. I have managed to place her in a new home and I do miss her carrying baskets for us.

ReCOHllections

With the advent of high-technology and lightning speed communications media, it is quite disturbing that with such wealth of information within reach, people still end up uneducated.  Oftentimes, simply reading and drowning ourselves in tons of books, magazine articles, videos or whatever the medium may be just does not cut it for the majority.  I remember while in school, a lot of the subjects never really made sense until I was out of school and practicing all the darn principles in dealing with life.  There were of course subjects in college that I avoided but later on realized that had I paid attention, it would have probably gotten me out of situations easier.  Now, if only I paid attention during my economics class, maybe I would understand the hard times we are going through this Bin-Ladened times.  But of course, I am veering away from the subject matter.

Marshall Macluhan, if I may recall taught me that the medium is the message.  I suppose that what he meant is choosing the correct medium to convey the message.  Man, being a social creature interacts with his surroundings and by doing so, he learns.  And learning is process without no end.  It evolves, from one idea to another, we become learned.  These ideas we pick up from whatever is within reach, we assimilate and what we think makes us what we are.  If we block our minds and free it of streaming thoughts, we are left with nothing and yet, subconsciously the mind wills it way.  We feel the inner recesses of our being and come face to face with our own reality.  Some may feel an inner remorse, others totally depressed while the lucky ones may feel bliss, content ... peace and oh, what a pleasure it is to be alive!  I am truly blessed!

And this I share with you.

Live each day of your life like your dog would.

They know nothing of what their masters' ethics are and they probably don't care if they are bitches if they are bred every heat.  More so if they are studs, they can go on and on for all they care. They also know nothing of what the trophies, ribbons and rosettes mean.  And after you have given them a bath, dried them off with a huge blower, cleaned their eyes and ears ...  it never fails if you let them run lose in the garden, they always roll around their back preferably if there's poo that you forgot to pick up.

They know nothing of the the web, laptops, cellular phones and crap.

In Mr. McGinnis' article, he writes

"It never ceases to amaze me how many people involved in this sport will tell you they do not sell pups. Well, a guy cannot blame them; we have all been conditioned to believe that high numbers of dogs automatically signifies low ethics. We have even come to believe that providing pets to the general population is beneath our dignity. Yet most of us have derived benefit from the work done, in the early years, by those mammoth kennels and breeding programs that cemented type and soundness and promoted chosen breeds to the rest of the world. Those breeders were not only respected, they were encouraged to produce enough good dogs to provide for the homes and apartments into which their chosen breeds best fit. They were, without a doubt, the source. Yet if those same breeders were around today, I bet they'd get thrown out of the kennel club. Or at least be whispered-about in a nasty fashion."

And as Mr. McGinnis continues,

"We, who if we do what we say we do, should be providing the dogs that will grace the lives of the people for whom they were intended at the start, have divorced ourselves from the process. That wide line would split into a yawning chasm could not have been foreseen - it's become a deep gorge into which have happily plunged other purveyors of purebred dogs. To this day I find myself surprised if I see a good representative of a breed prancing in a backyard with some kids. By any measurement it is a rarity - the average household dog is below average by our standards. We console ourselves with the thought that, had that owner turned to us, the dog we could have provided through ethical breeding or a network of like-minded friends, would have been much, much better. And yet we continue to discourage new owners by being too quick to pronounce them unfit. I often hear horror stories from good people, willing to be responsible owners, about having been rebuffed by a breeder of purebred dogs: some are interrogated; many are insulted, and some simply sloughed-off. They then ask themselves a legitimate question: 'Why submit to a rigorous vetting when one can go down the street, or to the mall, and buy a dog with no greater qualification than the ability to write a check?' By too-zealously 'protecting' our breeds, we're promoting those who wish to exploit them. And they're not only usurping our job, they're doing it bigger and better. That their allure is strong is understandable; that their product is inferior, widely known. That their prices are, in many cases, higher is enough to boggle the mind."