Petropolis Super Highway

Still no word on the house yet. I won't hear anything now until at least Monday.

This weekend is going to be spent packing boxes, and cleaning out rooms and getting them ready to have the walls scrubbed down and stuff. I am so glad I have the time to do this slowly. This is a ton of work.

I hadn't been on Sheepdog-L in a while. I just spent the last two hours reading good working discussions and debate ... something I haven't found in a long time on the BC Boreds. It's sad because the Boreds used to be a really cool place to go to learn about stockdogs. Now you can sit there and learn how many people are breeding dogs that shouldn't even own them, shoving treats in dog's mouths for all the wrong reasons, whose dog needs its anal glands squeezed, see the 100th thread on the LED sheepdog video from the UK, talk yet again about how good of a dog trainer Cesar Milan is or isn't, or debate with puppymills about who has the "right" to breed dogs. No matter the topic, no matter the person, no matter how many useless litters the person continues to breed, no matter how much advertising they do on the site for the pay-per-month blog, no matter how much very poor information some of the members repeatedly give out, as long as they are nice, they are allowed to continue posting till death do they part.

There are a few exceptions to this ... a few people who actually put out good information. They are easy to spot and they know who I mean.

But for the most part, the Boreds have turned into Petropolis Super Highway, where dogs live without pressure, and owners wonder why they get bit - where posts discussing working dogs or photos thereof are largely ignored, save for the 3 or 4 people on the Boreds that actually work dogs and stick around. The resident "big hat" is there to answer questions posed by an individual, but no one is allowed to join in the discussion. Post a message about how "all positive" training is for the birds, and watch the fur fly! Many good handlers have disappeared from the Boreds because they are tired of being told how "mean" they are or because you get trounced if you're not politically correct to all of the ridiculousness all of the time. I can certainly see how it gets old. It's really too bad because, like I said, the Boreds used to be a great place where people who actually worked dogs would come and hang out. Not so much anymore. And every time someone mentions that fact on the Boreds, there is a quick flurry of working dog activity, but is always followed up by the crickets that showed up here earlier in the week.

Makes me wonder why the stark contrast between Sheepdog-L and the Boreds. Hmmmm. I don't need to wonder too long, I suppose.

Well, the temperature seems to have dropped from 103 to 102, so I'd better get back to packing.

Happy tails,
Jodi