Stephen Bodio's Querencia

These two look sweet, but when we try to pet the puppies, they growl and act grumpy. The three pups now have their eyes open, and spend a good portion of the day wrestling and knocking each other over. They definitely have livestock guardian dog personalities. The two dark pups are boys and the white one is a female.

Labels: livestock guardian dogs

Says an Australian anthropologist. And he's absolutely correct - our species has been getting decreasingly robust over the last 10,000 years or so with changes in adaptive pressures. What I found new and interesting in this article was the analysis of running speed from some 20,000 year-old fossil footprints. Very cool.

One of the most famous archaeological finds of the 20th century, was the discovery of the royal cemetary at Ur. Leonard Woolley made the discovery of the 4,500 year-old tombs in the 1920s in southern Iraq. The burials showed fabulous sophistication in rich gold work and jewelry. One of the gold headdresses is shown in the picture. The buried kings and queens were accompanied by human sacrifices - handmaidens and warriors were put to death and buried in rows near the royal persons.

I remember reading about this in two of my early books on archaeology when I was eight or nine years old: The Wonderful World of Archaeology and All About Archaeology. They told the story of the sacrificed people drinking poison and lying down in neat rows to die and accompany their masters to the next world. Quite an image.

Well, as usual, a re-analysis of the remains shows that wasn't quite the case. They were really bashed in the head rather than poisoned. Some people insist on taking the romance out of everything.

Claude Levi-Strauss, a French cultural anthropologist, died earlier this week at the age of 100. He was a giant in cultural anthropology and was much in the mode of the stereotypical French intellectual. He was one of the founders of Structuralism, and did much to show that the sophistication and elaboration of the mythologies and religions of even the most "primitive" of societies, shows that all of us have similar intellectual abilities.

I remember reading his Tristes Tropiques my freshman year for the introduction to cultural anthropology class. I must admit it was a bit too subtle and theoretical for my 18 year-old brain to really grasp. My main take-away was his assertion that myths use human beings to reproduce themselves.

His work was so long ago and he lived so long, he really seems to belong to another age. Seeing his obituary was like picking up the paper and reading of the recent death of Franz Boas or Alfred Kroeber.

Late Sunday afternoon this fellow dropped by the house for a visit. I was on the deck and had to shoot through the trees, so you can see some of the limbs in the picture.

He brought his lady friends with him. We got 22 inches of snow earlier in the week, and I'm sure the remaining green grass in our patch of lawn must have looked pretty appetizing.

The kids got to tag along, too. These two fawns spent about 10 minutes staring at us while we were up on the deck. We must have looked so strange to them.

The respect of your peers is great. Writers crave that. Praise from a mentor is even better. But nothing beats a star in a national review.

Congratulations to our friend Rebecca O'Connor for the following starred review in Publisher's Weekly---and of course for penning the memoir that earned it.

From PW:

Lift: A Memoir Rebecca K. O’Connor. Red Hen, $18.95 (208p) ISBN 1597094603

Novelist and nature reference author O’Connor (Falcon’s Return) crafts a lyrical tribute to the spiritual connection between humans and birds in this memoir of the excruciating, transformative process of training a peregrine falcon: “Falconry is a religion, a way of thinking, a means of experiencing life.” Indeed, readers will find almost as much spiritual content as natural. Despite O’Connor’s icy-clear voice, her descriptions of training a young male falcon are fascinating for bird lovers and civilians alike: “when the falcon connects a high-speed dive… the duck remains a piece of the sky and only its body careens to earth.” Surprisingly, periodic flashbacks to a troubled childhood—an abusive stepfather, an absentee mother—bolster her story rather than distract, turning a falcon’s “serious and unmerciful” eye back on her own life, and discovering inexplicable wells of generosity and forgiveness for the family who wronged her. O’Connor packs a lot of intelligence, poise and feeling into a few pages, making this a consistently rewarding read. (Nov.)

Find out for yourself and buy Rebecca's book here!

A few weeks ago, Vega gave birth to puppies underneath a sheep camp out in the wide sagebrush of western Wyoming. She became fierce to anyone coming near the camp, and the temperatures started to get extremely cold at night, so last night my friend Pete braved the weather and her wrath enough to physically pick Vega up and throw her into the cab of his truck , along with her three puppies. He dropped the dog family off in my kennel last night, and here's the happy group in the morning sunshine.

Although we had placed the puppies in a wooden doghouse lined with wool last night, by this morning, Vega had taken all the wool, and the puppies, out of the doghouse and everything was laying in the hay. There are four possible dens in the kennel, so Vega has her choice where to move the puppies to.

Everyone seems healthy and content. Vega lured the pups into her chosen nest and soon they were belly-up, panting in the warmth. BTW, these pups will not be docked (ears or tails), since we're beyond the normal timeline for doing that (which is within about three days).

Labels: livestock guardian dogs

As I’ve mentioned before, livestock guardian dogs in this region have been taking a beating when it comes to wolves – actually more than a beating, since plenty of them have been getting killed as they actively engage in fights to protect their herds. Jim and I are re-assessing the breeds of LGDs that are being used in this area, and looking into acquiring bigger dog breeds that have a history of protecting livestock in countries with wolf populations. These wolf-fighting dogs include the Central Asian Ovcharka (Aziat or Tobet) and real Turkish Kangals, along with a few others. We need a big dog that is very canine-aggressive, but not human aggressive. We’re developing a plan to try more of these dogs, but with the dogs come somewhat of a dilemma: ear and tail docking.

In their countries of origin, the ears on these dogs are docked, and the tails are docked at the mid-way point. The reason is not cosmetic, but because these are areas where wolves will bite the dogs, scalping them by tearing their ears back. We’ve seen videos of LGD/wolf fights where there was tail-grabbing as well, and we’ve seen our dogs use this tactic in fights.

Share your views on this docking practice, but please, no rants about the practice of docking for cosmetic purposes, because that has nothing to do with the issue we’re considering. We're trying to decide if the benefits outweigh the general dislike of the idea of whittling on animals.

Labels: livestock guardian dogs

Trailhounds Part 4......When I had kept Notches, the Black-And-Tan hound for a year or so, I became curious as to whether she still had her "raccoon phobia". Though I probably would have found out eventually by happenstance--raccoons being common in the area--I decided to set up an encounter where I had some control of the situation. At my workplace in those days(I was fired from that job long ago!), I often caught "nuisance" animals in cage traps, and hauled them home to release in the extensive National Forest where I lived, to prevent their being shot by the trigger-happy bossman. I had already reprieved several 'possums, raccoons and two red foxes in this manner. About the time I decided I wanted to test Notches, we had a persistent and messy trash-raiding raccoon at work that I needed to remove if he was to live much longer. I set a trap, and soon had a sizable and quite belligerent boar coon to take home. I planned to release him on my property, which was also isolated, forested, and good raccoon habitat.....

Upon arriving home, I carried the snarling coon in the cage trap well up into the woods, out of sight of my other dogs--I wanted to get Notches' uninfluenced reaction to her phobia animal. Then I leashed her up, and walked her up towards the trap. She air-scented the raccoon well before it was in sight, and rather than cringe pitifully, which is what I was expecting, she burst forth in full cry, and began lunging on the leash towards the coon in the trap. As we got closer, and she actually saw the caged animal, she enthusiastically confronted the now thoroughly aroused boar coon. I allowed her to "bay it up" for a few minutes, encouraging her while shaking my head in disbelief--I had not expected this complete a turn-around so quickly in her former aversion to raccoons! Perhaps the previous year of good treatment and continuous praise during her hunting efforts had erased the traumatic experiences of her past.....

I decided to do a bit more, and see if she would trail and perhaps even tree this raccoon, so I tied her leash to a nearby tree, and released the raccoon, who lost no time skedaddling. I waited a bit to give the coon a good head start, and I hoped he would quickly climb a tree, which would have been likely under the circumstances. Notches was wild to get loose--baying and lunging against her leash like an old pro! At last I freed her, and she immediately took up the hot trail of the raccoon, her melodious voice echoing up the hollow. I followed, running as quickly as I could behind. Far up the mountainside, I heard Notches baying "treed" in only a few minutes, and as I came panting up beside her, I saw with some trepidation that the raccoon had climbed up a very small sapling, and he was barely ten feet off the ground, Notches leaping wildly beneath him. He was obviously dissatisfied with his choice of refuge, and was coming down as I approached. This is NOT what I wanted to happen! I did not want my formerly coon-phobic hound to get into an actual fight with a large, justifiably angry boar raccoon during her first rehabilitation session, so I rushed forward, hoping to scare the coon back up the tree. Too late! The grizzled boar coon leaped out the last few feet, and literally jumped right onto my hound! They rolled down the mountainside clinched in battle, and the fur flying! That coon was some bold fighter, but my little hound was not inclined to give an inch, and after a brief tussle, the coon broke away, and shot up a much larger, more appropriate tree, to refuge at the top. Notches was reared against the trunk, baying for all she was worth!

Of all the critters there, I had to admit, I was most surprised at the outcome! I praised my hound lavishly, leashed her up, and we headed back home, leaving the raccoon to explore his new territory, and ruminate on the foolhardiness of jumping onto a baying hound's back. And from that day forward, Notches has had no further fear of raccoons!.... Next up--the ghost hounds of the Uwharries

Labels: Animal Behavior, Dogs, Hounds, Hunting

The intelligent subway dogs of Moscow. (English Russia is always fun).(HT Annie D).

This has a snowball's chance in hell of passing but I could sure use a $3500 tax break for my menagerie. I don't know though; if HSUS likes it there is probably a hidden bomb somewhere! (HT Reid).

Labels: Animal Behavior, Dogs

I have seen a few of these before, but these sets of mens' and womens' tattoos genuinely include the worst I have ever seen. ET AS THE VIRGIN MARY?? And there are some... well, vote your "favorites", please. Some mildly NSFW if you can see them well enough.

Labels: Ink

A prep school destroys its library.

"James Tracy, the current headmaster, finds the whole idea of a library, and the objects they traditionally contain, positively quaint. Speaking to The Boston Globe, he actually said, apparently without embarrassment, “When I look at books, I see an outdated technology, like scrolls before books.”"

They really did it:

"Cushing is disburdening itself of its library’s 20,000 books and spending $500,000 to establish a “learning center” — the name, the Globe reports, is tentative, but whatever they settle on you can be sure the scare quotes will be appropriate. Of course, once you dump a library’s books, you have a lot of extra space to fill, so Cushing . . . will be spending $42,000 for some large flat-screen monitors to display data from the Internet as well as $20,000 for “laptop-friendly” study carrels. In place of the reference desk, the Globe reports, Cushing is building “a $50,000 coffee shop that will include a $12,000 cappuccino machine.”

Meanwhile, in England, boy scouts can no longer use penknives. HT Tom Mcintyre.

John Derbyshire is right. We are DOOMED!

Labels: decline and Fall, Doom

Labels: Animal Breeding, Dogs

Almost old news now, but Ardipithecus is likely to be important-- she is so old (4 million years plus) and a forest creature, so we have to rethink bipedality. It isn't for running on the plains, looking over the grass etc. And we are not as close to chimps as we thought-- the split goes WAY back.

Another link here.

Dinos,very much including T. Rex, were close enough to birds to suffer some of the same pathogens. Lesions on Tyrannosaur jaws, including on the famous "Sue" were once thought to be wounds from battle. But they are apparently necrosis from the organism Trichomonas gallinae. I have seen it kill hawks, in which it bears the pleasant- sounding medieval name "frounce", and pigeons. Since the hawks catch it fom pigeons, it would seem logical that T. Rex prey species had it too. Bob Bakker's description of Tyrannosaurus as "the roadrunner from Hell" seems ever more apt. HT Eric Wilcox

Finally, a vegetarian spider, with the delightful (and rather carnivorous) Kiplingite name of Bagheera kiplingi. It is the only such spider known, and it lives in the already- rather- complicated ecology of acacias and ants.

Labels: Biology, Paleontology

Just busy and not feeling "bloggy", perhaps because I have written a long book review, a feature, tweaked and sent around two proposals, and am into another feature. I am now a contributing editor and regular reviewer at Living Bird magazine, where you can also see my article on Darwin's pigeons (and even one of mine). I am now working on another, an off- the - wall but serious one about Passenger pigeons. Watch this space and that one!

Also deep in animal training. The Barb- Taita is a sweetie and is coming along well-- would be faster if not for damn warm weather. The confused Gyr- Saker still hates the hood but is moving sllooooowwllyyy.

Pup Irbis is magnificent. Warm weather and low jack population hasn't helped but his littermate, Daniela's Shunkar, has caught his first-- pic later.

I will give a few links in the next couple of posts and try to get some photos up. But I thought I'd better emerge from my hiding places when "Max the Vax" at Life Beyond Falconry" wanted to know if it was mostly Cat's blog now. All I can say is thank God that Cat has so much interesting material when I am feeling so blogged out! More soon....

Labels: Excuses

Lane responded to an earlier post with an inquiry about the Koochee people of Afghanistan, and sounds as interested in that nomadic culture as I am. I don't really know anything about what is happening to these people now, but there is a great website about Koochee dogs, which are very much part of the Koochee way of life and culture.

Written by Rasaq Quadirie, the site has magnificent photos of the people with their guardian dogs.

Labels: livestock guardian dogs

A black bird sits atop the power pole near the highway, and I can hear its persistent call: quork … quork … quork. It’s a raven. What is this call, who is it to, what does it mean?

I recently read Bernd Heinrich’s Mind of the Raven: Investigations and Adventures with Wolf-Birds, a superb read with one style of writing I enjoy a great deal, but rarely encounter. Heinrich’s book provides detailed encounters of specific animals, and while also including assumptions and conclusions, provides enough detail that I can come to my own assumptions and conclusions as well. Detailed nature study (as in, “I saw this once, and these were the circumstances”) of individual animals, as well as for the population/species as a whole, make for fascinating reading, and provide fodder for debate and discussion about context.

David Quammen’s review in the New York Times book review took issue with the things I love about the book, describing it as “an amiable, disorderly book that for all its charm often seems too directly derived from field notes and daily journal entries of the working scientist. Some of the minute-by-minute detail is engaging, some presents meaningful data and some is just noise.”

I can’t help it; I want the noise too, just to put everything in perspective.

Heinrich explains that his quest is to find out what ravens do, “which to me is more important than deciding how to label it.”

In the preface to the book, Heinrich drew me in with his list of reported raven behaviors he found both intelligent and strange: “ravens hanging by their feet, sliding in snow, snow-bathing, aerial bathing, flying upside down, doing barrel-rolls, social flying, and using objects to displace gulls from nests, using rocks in nest defense.”

Other reported behavior included carrying food in the foot rather than the bill, foot-paddling, rolling on the ground to avoid a peregrine falcon, catching doves in midair (Wow!) and attacking reindeer.

While I did not enjoy Heinrich’s Raven in Winter, Mind of the Raven is a book that will remain on my bookshelf.

Labels: raven

Rory Stewart’s walk across Afghanistan three months after the Taliban’s exit from power is described in his book The Places in Between, an engrossing read that I devoured over a recent weekend. I agree with the Christian Science Monitor’s characterization of the book as “wryly humorous, intensely observant, and humanely unsentimental.”

I am interested in the people of Afghanistan, and was fascinated by Stewarts’s encounters with them, but I was even more intrigued with this book for several side issues that I have a keen interest in: primitive guard dogs and wolves.

Not long into his journey, Stewart was given a dog to accompany him – a mastiff-type guardian animal, similar in looks to what we recognize as a Turkish Kangal, with docked ears and tail, seemingly about the size of a small pony. Throughout the book, Stewart dribbles little anecdotes about the dog that I found typical of these guardian dogs and their temperament, and these finds only increased my enjoyment of the book.

Villages keep these guard dogs to protect their herds, and their people. The dogs are known as fighting dogs, because they fight wolves.

A local man who escorted Stewart through a mountainous region of Afghanistan carried a gun on the journey. When Stewart asked why, he was told: “Six months ago on that slope on my way to vaccinate some of the sheep on that hill, I came across the clothes and then the leg of a friend who had just been eaten by a wolf in the middle of the day. Two years ago, five wolves killed my neighbor at eleven in the morning.”

Our continued legal morass of wolf management in the United States is incredibly so far removed from other people, other cultures, who live with wolves.

This is the best book I’ve read in a long time.

Whenever you put a herd of sheep into a set of pens or corrals to work them, that means that there are grumpy guard dogs hanging around outside the pens, and happy working herding dogs inside the pens. The photo above shows a young male dog trying to suck up to Vega, top dog.
The photo below is Vega's sister Helga, who is very grumpy that someone is messing with her sheep. She sulked around outside the pens all morning last week as we sorted and loaded lambs.

Helga did come to me to be comforted. What a pretty face. You can see the frost on the vegetation covering the ground around her.


This cutie is a bearded collie, and he is desperately looking for his friend, the Nepalese herder Ramu. The dog quickly jumped over two fences to get back with his work partner.

This is a border collie/bearded collie pup, working with Prem. This pup lives to work, and barks with excitement as he works the herd.

These two dogs are in a stand-off and staring contest with the ewes. The dog won. The dog with lots of white is another bearded collie cross. They are great dogs for working sheep since they are rather "soft mouthed" with sheep, something I appreciate.

Labels: herding dogs, livestock guardian dogs, Ranching

Jim and I once again had the pleasure of being at the right place at the right time today, as part of the Sublette pronghorn antelope herd came through in its major fall migration. This bunch had just swam the New Fork River, and came through the meadow next to our sheep herd. The burros bunched the sheep into one group and started moving them out of the way, while the dogs stayed between the two herds.

Beautiful animals - click on the photo for a larger view.

Labels: Pronghorn antelope, Ranching