RIGHTS?

We live in strange times. People seem to think we have an innate human right to live. We do not. Those of us alive are lucky, though even that is completely subjective. We do have the right to live without others interfering either in the quality or ending it, but we do not have the right to life itself. Also, it seems common now for people to say that children dying before their parents is outside the natural order. what planet have these people been living on? Did they never go to school? Ever heard of history? It is only in recent times that children could be expected live beyond childhood. Most died before their parents.

It seems that denial has become the drug of choice. We deny that we can get ill and die. We deny that we might get killed in accident. We deny, deny, deny. And we also have this arrogant assumption that it is unfair if we do not live forever or at least until our 90's well and then to die in our sleep. We are so into denial that people, doctors included, blame us for our ills and our deaths. If you die then it is your fault. It is because you ate the wrong foods, smoked, drank coffee or didn't, drank tea or didn't, exercised too little or too much. Whatever you die of, it was your fault. And heaven forbid your thinking is so negative that not only do you get cancer but if you die from it, it is your fault because you did not do your visualization exercises, you harboured resentments, your thinking was too negative. In short it was YOUR FAULT for not being good enough. we all know that bad things only happen to bad people right? Be good, be nice, say your prayers accept Jesus into your life and nothing bad will happen to you. If it does, well then you are a liar aren't you? You couldn't possibly have been a good person.

Oh speaking of life and death, how can any country still call itself civilised and still kill people by law? Capital Punishment is an evil that only adds to the evil. It does nothing for the good. It is state controlled vengeance. Funny how it's supporters also insist they have the right to tell a woman that she must stay pregnant when she wishes not to. It is not their business and is only the business of the woman who is pregnant. As unpalatable as abortion is, the only person who has any say in the matter is the woman who is pregnant. So what if we don't like abortion, if we think it is murder, we do not have the right to force another human being to live according to our idea. I think TV evangelism is evil but I don't have the right to stop it or force others to think as I do.

We do need to protect the born. they have a right to not be corrupted by us. We corrupt them on a daily basis. By teaching them the lie about being good and nothing bad will happen. By indoctrinating them with religion under the guise of 'saving' them when in fact we are merely controlling how they think and corrupting their ability to think. By moulding them into what we want them to be, into how a boy should be, how a girl should be, instead if just letting our children be. Far from that resulting in anarchy and a world populated with out of control self centred people,it would produce the opposite. In fact the world is already populated by self centred out of control people. So much for our efforts at control!

If only we truly trusted that babies can grow into loving, empathetic adults because that is what is in them. Instead we start with the premise that babies harbour evil that must be vanquished or controlled. Far from babies being tainted by Original Sin, the Original Sin is believing that they are sinful in the beginning. How sad and yet ridiculous.



I finished watching the entire second series of Brothers and Sisters and am now watching series 4 of Grey's Anatomy. I have the first series of the spin off from this series but can't recall what it is called! I then have Primeval to watch and Spooks Code 9.

I am awaiting the 5th series of Desperate Housewives. I did not find out it was on TV until it had been on for weeks so have waited for the DVD. There are so many channels and they swap and change dates and times so that it is hard to keep track. At least with DVD I do not have to watch bloody ads. We are becoming, though not quite, like the USA with the ads. When I was there in 97 I was appalled at the TV and the ads. How on earth does anyone manage to follow or concentrate? And no warning either. One minute Bobby Ewing was talking and the next someone was yelling excitedly about a toilet cleaner. I hope we don't go that far.

I have almost completed a stocking stitch pair of socks using a yarn that was custom dyed for me by my German friend, Nana. I really like these and the way the colour has distributed.

I was in bed and asleep by 10.15pm last night, I awoke with the alarm at 5am and knew I wasn't going to get up and go swimming. I thought I would go later but did not awake again until 7am.Then I had much trouble just trying to get out of bed. So today I have the hump. I took my normal heart drugs and pain killers but they not done a complete job. Not enough to resort to morphine and anyway I can't until a minimum of 4 hours after the others. I will do nothing today.

The photographs are all on the Pest side of the Danube.

BARKING UP THE WRONG TREE

Just a question ... doesn't it wear out your dog when you breed her every season? Doesn't that eventually affect the quality of the puppies? I know that "in the wild" the females most likely breed every season, but their life-expectancy is also much lower. Anyway, I'm not goading you, just asking.

I am not often really offended by comments left on my blog but this one really did just that. What on earth makes this person think I breed my girls until they wear out? Or that I breed every season? I assumed this person was a regular reader of my blog and if so I am even more offended that they would think this of me. It is this type of inflammatory nonsense that causes so much bad feeling.

For starters, my girls are not bred every season. Most are bred just once in their life. Sometimes, like Shameless, they are bred twice in succession and then not again.

I only have two bitches of breeding age. One is unbred and Shameless is done.

I do not make any money out of puppy sales. If that was my concern, I would not spend £100 for a dog show, which I attend regularly, and where a win gains nothing but satisfaction. I would not have spent approximately £20,000 driving around Europe and Scandinavia choosing two females and using studs that I thought exemplified the natural qualities of my wonderful breed that I wish to preserve. I would sell my puppies to anyone who flashes the cash. I don't. You don't get one from me easily.

I'm not an activist, but I think it would be better to have no homeless animals, and therefore get a new pet from a shelter (as the first choice) rather than buying one from a breeder.

This is ignorant. Many dogs are in shelters because they do not make fit pets. Too many charities say they never put a healthy dog down. A bad tempered dog is not healthy. Many people want a pure bred dog because they like their chosen breed and if they buy one from a reputable breeder, they know it is highly unlikely they will get a puppy with a serious defect or a bad temper.

I understand that some people want a certain look or certain characteristics, and that there are good and bad breeders - I have no problem with breeders who keep their animals in a suitable environment and who love them, and don't just see them as a way to make some easy bucks.

But I have a problem with people such as yourself making these assumptions about people you do not know.

The vats majority of breeders in the show world are like me: they care about their breed, their dogs and do their very best by them.

On the other hand, there are foolish people who go and buy puppies form back yard breeders -who ARE in it for the money- or from pet shops or from large kennels where they breed many different breeds-i.e. puppy farms. It is these places that produce most of the problem dogs.

Yes there is a minority of show breeders who only see their dogs as a means to an end, don't care about them, will do whatever to win, even harm the dog. They are few and far between and those of us who do care isolate them.

The harm done to people like me, the majority of caring loving dog exhibitors and breeders, by people like you who say such ignorant and inflammatory things, is great. There are plenty of people out there who believe whatever they hear or read, clearly, and this is why my beloved hobby is endangered. My life revolves around my dogs, they bring me so much pleasure and they have excellent lives and I will continue to do all I can to prevent the ignorant and selfish form trying to stop me enjoying my life and giving my dogs an exemplary life.

I understand that some people want a certain look or certain characteristics, and that there are good and bad breeders - I have no problem with breeders who keep their animals in a suitable environment and who love them, and don't just see them as a way to make some easy bucks.

I have a big problem though with people such as yourself who clearly have little knowledge of dogs yet seem to think you know what is a good environment for them. The easy bucks question has been answered and the blame for that lies first and foremost with the ignorant public who are not selective about where they buy from, and the the puppy farmers, pet shops and back yard breeders to supply an endless stream of unhealthy, defective, bad tempered dogs to any fool who wants one.

Just look at the adverts fro crossbreeds (mutts) where the puppies are often being sold for more money than the purebreds and there are idiots out there buying them!

You and the animal rights liars are blaming the wrong people.

EDIT: thank you for explaining , at least partly, that you misunderstood. I don't know where you got the idea that I am about to breed Whitney. NO WAY. Or how that made brought you to ask why I breed my girls every season. You didn't ask if I did, you assumed I did. That is why I was offended. Whitney is doing too well in the ring to pull her now. The reason for not attending Cruft's if she is indeed in season is because she would be ripe on the day and therefore unlikely to behave well and I couldn't take Micah, a male, a she would be rampant and next to her in the show trolley so that would not be fair. And yes, of course, peace. We just agree to differ.

WATCH YOUR BACK

I have a service to take on the 15th of March. This is a new church so I called the medium's secretary just to check that I had the details correct in my book. A man answered the phone and I asked to speak to ******* please. His rely was 'no you can't, she died.' I was very tempted to reply 'I could give it a go' but I resisted.

I have broken my no sock yarn buying fast. Not bad. It's been six months since I last bought any. I have bought about 12 hanks.

There are also two new pairs of DM's on their way in Scarlet and Royal Blue.

CRUFT'S

It might well be an event to be remembered this year. First of all the BBC are not filming it for the first t time in 40 years. Too long a story to go into but it seems the animal rights liars are behind it all. They, the animal rights lot, are planning a demonstration of some sort too.

I may not be going but for entirely different reasons. It looks as if Whitney is coming into season and this means she will be ripe on the day of Cruft's which will make it somewhat difficult a sit may well affect her behaviour and will surely affect Micah's behaviour also. Time will tell. I'll decide the day before.

Anyone who treats people with such malice in the name of compassion for animals is a liar and is acting out from a far more personal agenda. They be far better off dealing with their inner turmoil instead of acting out in this way. Compassion, I think, is fake if it does not encompass all.

They display a certain ignorance about dogs, abotu pure bred dogs, and about breeding practices. They clearly don't know about how nature handles breeding, how packs of animals in the wild are all closely related etc.

Their ultimate aim is to ban all companion animals: that is no cats, dogs, or any form of pet. They also want us all to be vegan.(The vociferous anti Atkins Diet commenter were so called animal rights activists. I assume they would prefer I die than eat the diet I must in order to live and live well) The mind set of these people is no different to the mind set of all other fundamentalists. They want to control us.

That is not to say that their is cruelty heaped upon animals, of coruse there is, and some of it by so called dog lovers who also breed and show. We need to stop it. Tarring us all with the same brush will not work.

The RSPCA need to stick to dealing with this, cruelty and rescue. I stopped donating to them many years ago when they wasted millions on a campaign to have the dog licence, which most of us did not have, retained! A dog licence will not mean the owner is fit to care for a dog and is a waste of money. The RSPCA need to stay of politics and do what it's remit was originally about-stop cruelty to animal NOT wage a war against people such as myself. I was sent a missive from a 'concerned' twat,(who was bewildered that I was not charmingly grateful to her) written by Dr Jane Goodall regarding the horrors of pedigree dogs. Considering that woman is a scientist, I was horrified to read this article and all it's errors re pedigree dogs, and most especially because under my breed, the Lhasa Apso, she couldn't even get the correct photograph of the breed, instead using another breed's picture!

FEAR is really gaining a foothold in our world. I do believe it is this fear that is behind the modern day obsession people have with wanting to control every aspect of the lives of others. (note: not theirs, yours and mine, because they of course know better. they are right and wouldn't even consider that they were not.) I tell you, the trouble in this world is caused by those who believe they are absolutely correct in their judgement and because of this belief in their own infallibility it is very very difficult to stand up to them and show them their fallibility. It is like bashing one's head against a brick wall. But fight them we must. There is too much darkness already in this world and if we allow the self righteous to hold sway, we will be swamped. Nothing will grow in the dark and we all wither and die.

SWIMMING

My swim went very well. I think I am going to cut back to Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday and see how that goes.