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GeorgiaBC, thank you for allowing as how I'm probably of above average intelligence. (Sigh). Since you think that that might be true, perhaps you can do me the courtesy of allowing as how maybe I didn't make my statements without both due consideration, and legitimate reason.

 

I have not read Katz's books - in their entirety. I HAVE read excerpts AND I have listened to his words on NPR. Perhaps not all of them (I don't know how many interviews he's done there), but enough to stand by what I said. Let me repeat: Mr. Katz is not qualified to expound on matters biological or medical, and yet he does so incorrectly, at the potential detriement to both dogs and dog owners. Yes, I AM in fact a real doctor, so I DO know that his biological information is just flat out wrong. Additionally, I have the opportunity every single week to try to correct and counteract the effects of just the sort of misinformation as Mr. Katz is spouting IN PUBLIC FORA. He makes my job harder - and trust me, it's hard enough already. Moreover, he has the opportunity to reach many THOUSANDS of people, to whom he perpetuates his nonsense, and I (and others of my profession) do not have equal power to correct it - so there's no telling how many animals and owners do NOT get the right information, and labor under the misapprehension that he knows what he is talking about, to their harm or that of their dogs. I'll say it yet again: having his books in print, and having guest spots on respected fora such as NPR, lends him an air of legitimacy that is unwarranted. A great many people do not know any better than to believe him, since he's famous for his "work" with BCs. They think surely he must know what he's talking about or NPR would not be interviewing him, and he would not be published or be having his books made into movies. Not everyone is knowledgable about what it takes to train a stockdog - or ANY dog, for that matter - and having more misinformation out there, particularly if it is robed in the mantle of respectability that comes of being published and popular, is not going to improve that situation.

 

The thing about encouraging his dog to chase cars through the fence is beyond useless as a training method, and is in fact potentially lethal to the dog - and again, I get the chance to see the consequences of this kind of stupidity EVERY WEEK. It is the DOGS who pay for this, in their broken bones, their punctured lungs, their skull fractures and ruptured organs and lacerations and contusions, their proptosed eyes and broken teeth and their shock and their desperate groaning pain and their deaths, which I often have the privelege of presiding over, helpless to reverse the damage, no matter how I try. There's only so much medicine can do - but allowing (or worse, encouraging) your dog to chase cars is COMPLETELY AVOIDABLE - so those painful, violent, thrashing deaths are unnecessary. Do I resent having some public figure talking about how car-chasing is a good training method? Oh, my, yes - you bet your a$$ I do. It makes me sick with rage to think of the dogs he is endangering with this suggestion.

 

The thing about letting his BC spend several hours a day alone with the sheep is equally ludicrous and harmful (potentially to both the sheep and the dog). He claims he was told to do this by a "respected" trainer, further legitimizing this fallacy. It is not only detrimental to the dog's training, it can harm them (and the sheep) physically and psychologically. Do I have a problem with someone suggesting actions that stand the potential (or perhaps liklihood) of doing harm to animals? You bet. All the more so if they do it under the auspices of an expertise which they do not posess.

 

Perhaps you did not intend the remark "For a board about sheep-herding dogs, there sure seem to be a lot of sheep on here" as a personal insult to me, although it certainly sounds as if there is an insult contained in that remark, and since it closes a paragraph directed at me, it sounds as if you intend that remark to be directed at me specifically. If you think it is sheep-like to resist, vigorously, the perpetuation and propagation of ignorance, and particularly of HARMFUL ignorance, then you and I have a different idea of what sheep-like means. I have chosen to make a career of animal medicine, a path which I assure you cannot be successfully completed by someone incapable of thinking for themsleves. Moreover, I have chosen to take on the responsibility to speak for and act as an advocate for those who cannot speak for themselves. That means I have to get up every day and fight for what is right, for what is best for the animals in my care, and hence for what is best for those to whom the animals matter. Sorry, but that's not the role of a follower, either. If you think it's sheeplike to take exception to a layperson publically spouting untruths about medicine (my area of expertise) and to speak up against it when it happens, then I'm sorry, but I disagree.

 

One last thing: to call my objections (or those of other members of this board) "hen-pecking" suggests that you think them trivial and petty. It may be that you could stand over a hit-by-car dog who is flailing and staining to breathe as she drowns in her own blood, see the desperation and panic in her eyes, listen to the heartbroken sobs of the 10-year-old boy to whom she belongs as he watches her die, and feel the helplessness of knowing that no act in your power is enough to reverse it, and yet still feel like it is all trivial - but I assure you I do NOT conisder that trivial. It is not a matter of petty sniping to say that I abhor and denounce ANYTHING which increases the liklihood of that happening ever again. Nor is it exaggeration to say that the popular media (including movies, radio and books, all of which Mr. Katz now enjoys a presence in) influences people's choices. The problem is that Mr. Katz's influence is one that increases the net ignorance (and the harm that arises from it) in the world. So am I going to stand passively by - sheeplike - and let him do his worst, or am I going to pipe up about it? What do you think?

 

At any rate, I hope you are not still surprised that I have objections to Mr. Katz's books, radio spots, and (now) moive deals, or think that I am just band-wagoning it. I would prefer it if you would in future refrain from implying that I would behave so irresponsibly, or so completely without thought or consideration.

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Originally posted by AK dog doc:

The thing about encouraging his dog to chase cars through the fence is beyond useless as a training method, and is in fact potentially lethal to the dog - and again, I get the chance to see the consequences of this kind of stupidity EVERY WEEK.

I guess the incredible ignorance of some dog owners shouldn't shock me, but have you had clients tell you they let their dogs chase cars based on A Dog Year? Really, I shouldn't be surprised. The other day I was in a pet store and a woman went up the the check-out clerk to ask her what she could buy for her new puppy's "cold." Fortunately for other dogs who go into that store, she didn't bring the poor thing in with her but she seemed totally unaware that her new pet might have something seriously wrong with it and instead of talking to a pet store clerk, she should be calling a vet, even if it was after hours for advice.

 

Katz always claimed that the car chasing was done in a "safe" manner behind a fence, for instance. It was one of many mistakes he made as a first time BC owner which he does admit to. Either at the end of A Dog Year or in Bedlam Farm, he states that he finally realized the car chasing was too dangerous and had put a stop to it. I bet some sort of incident/near miss made him realize this. He also mentioned that the dog's breeder argued with him against letting the dog chase cars. When I read the book, I knew nothing about the controversy of BC breeding, but I remember being generally NOT impressed with his breeder. She did take Devon/Orson back from the first owner, but it was obvious that she bred way too many dogs, certainly more than she had time to give proper attention to.

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AKC DOG DOC -thanks for a well-written, though heartrending, description of the type of damage which can and does occur as a result of car chasing which some people, like Katz, encourage through carelessness - if he recognized it was a bad idea, why did he leave/put it in the book.

 

And Doc, I respect the courage it takes for a dog lover to constantly have to see dogs hurt/dying from carelessness such as the type of actions/mentality described by Katz. Your post shows that you find it personally painful yet you do it week after week. I don't know how you do it but I am sure glad to have vets who feel the way you do.

 

(And nothing in this post is meant to imply that every hit-by-car dog happened as a result of carelessness - unfortunately sometimes accidents do happen)

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I went over to the Vox Pop website and listened to two Dog Talk programs. In one of them, Katz talks about his growing interest in shamanism.

 

I also learned that Katz has a new book due out in September about Devon/Orson.

 

Lovely rant, AK dog doc. Well done.

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Shetlander, I have not (YET) had anyone specifically reference A Dog Year as the reason we're in on emergency to see their hit-by-car dog. I have, however, had people tell me (more than once) that the reason their dogs were running loose (and were hit by cars, kicked by moose, run over by four-wheelers, shot, etc) is because they wanted their dog to live a "natural" life "like in that book" - in this case referring to The Hidden Life of Dogs (I think that's the title.) I should point out that The Hidden Life of Dogs didn't ADVOCATE letting the dog run loose - it was more a study of what the dog did while running loose - but even without it ADVISING people to do it, people did it. I have also had people ask me what I thought of the car-chasing thing in A Dog Year, in the context of wondering if it was something to try with their dog, as well as the thing about leaving the untrained young dog in with the sheep (and sorry, I should have referenced that it was the young untrained dog which he was leaving alone with the sheep as a training method to which I was specifically objecting). And you're right, it seems unbelieveable that people could be so ignorant as to do something so idiotic after having read about it in a book or seen it on a movie - but I promise you, it does happen and we do see it not infrequently - as well as other bits of apparent temporary insanity or failure of common sense that they gathered from friends, family, breeders or other "dog expert" sources which are not experts. This is extremely common. I probably have to correct something like this at least once a week, and sometimes several times a day. Luckily, much of it is not as immediately life-threatening as the hit-by-car thing.

 

You're also correct that not every hit-by-car is as a result of allowing or encouraging car-chasing behavior, or of allowing the dog to run loose indiscriminately - some really ARE accidents, and had Mr. Katz written "It was an unfortunate accident that on that particular day the wind blew the door of my old farmhouse off the latch, allowing my dog(s) to escape; even more unfortunately one of them happened in the road and was hit by a truck", I would instead be posting: "Well. These things happen. Even the best-run household in the world will have an accident now and again." It's the ENCOURAGEMENT of his dog to chase cars (a deadly game) and then his writing about it as a training method that I think is a Really Bad Idea.

 

BC friend, thank you for recognizing that it is personally painful for me to be in the circumstances I described relating to the bit-by-car animals - it's extremely difficult sometimes to maintain a professional demeanor, and sometimes it's hard to sleep at night after such events - I go home completely jangled and deeply unsettled by the events of the day, both emotionally and physically (I am undfortunately all too familliar with the physical aftermath of the adrenaline hangover.) Thank you for pointing out that it takes some courage to let myself in for it again and again, to gird up my loins and step back into the trenches no matter how tired I am. Part of what makes it possible is the gratitude of the animals and the owners for the help I can give them - sometimes just for having cared enough to show up, even when it turns out there's noting I can do. And, very fortunately, not every day is like that. On balance, the good guys win; every day I have the opportunity to do something to prevent harm, to correct things that are going wrong, and to generally make the world a better place. That is deeply satisfying, and to my vast good fortune there's a lot more of that than there is of the horror show of violent injury. If there was not, I doubt I could do it; the impotent rage would be unbearable for me. As it is, I DO feel I have the power to do something about pain and suffering in the majority of cases, and a fair amount of my time in medicine is spent preventing harm, dispelling ignorance, and educating the client to dodge the bullet. I just really hate it that people like Jon Katz can so quickly dismantle what I and others like me have struggled to build.

 

So, at any rate, I'll apologize if I'm too hot under the collar about this and am being unreasonably harsh in my condemnation of the propogation of Ignorance and Bad Ideas For Dogs. But sometimes I just can't stand it.

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Oh, and thank you to all who have offered support and encouragement. It makes a difference. That's part of what helps us scrape ourselves up off the road after our day-o-disasters has run us down like a freight train. But I'm not trying to hijack the Katz thread, so I'll shut up now. :rolleyes:

 

Penny, do you know what tradition Mr. Katz was interested in in terms of the shamanism? Was it First Nations, or something else? (Being part native, I'm now half-dreading what damage he might end up doing to that part of my culture).... sigh.

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Oh, I'll bet it's going to be his own invention of shamanism. I see lots of that.

 

Had a son-in-law for a while who considered himself Lakota. Despite the fact that he looked like on of the elves in the the council in Rivendel in Lord of the Rings and was of German and Scottish ancestry. Oh well, his folks paid for the marriage; we paid for the divorce. Anyhow, he sort of made up his shamanism as he went along. With some Celtic mysticsm and New Age Duridism. None of which had any basis in h8storical or archaeological fact.

 

Hey, this guy invented his stature as geek and invented his method of dog training. Why wouldn't he invent your religion?

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I don't know exactly or inexactly either. The gist of what Katz said was that someone named Leslie who lives in Vermont and was recommended to Katz by veterinarians came to his farm to enter the spirits of dogs belonging to Katz and some of his friends. Katz is skeptical of animal communicators and psychics but not of shamanism when taken (applied? used?) in moderation. About one Labrador (I don't think it was Katz's but maybe), the shaman said the dog's purpose was to nurture and that the dog had nothing going on behind her eyes.

 

I was hoping that some of the radio callers would ask about the shaman. I didn't hear anyone do so.

 

How this fits in with the statement in Katz On Dogs "I'm not among those who believe dogs have souls" is anyone's guess.

 

I googled some strings of things like "shamanic dog vermont." There must be as many shamans in Vermont as in California. I had no idea. I found a coming event calendar with charmingly quotidian entries for a Pagan Potluck and a Belated Beltane. I found endless websites for shamans in Vermont. I found directories state by state. Without a last name, I got tired of looking for a Leslie.

 

For the moment, your heritage seems to be safe. Katz did not mention First Nations.

 

[i just got off the phone with my neighbor. He's a retired labor lawyer (management labor lawyer) who in what I sometimes think of as karmic compensation is also a shaman. He has been to South America and a few other places to study shamanism. I asked him about shamans entering the spirits of dogs to heal or reveal. He thought the whole idea was odd because in the shamanic traditions he is familiar with shamans would not chose to enter the spirits of domestic animals. A shaman might enter the spirit of a wild animal but not a domestic one. My neighbor thought the type of shamanism on that radio show was probably some blend of Reiki with shamanism.]

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I do know one man who had a young bc that he did not consider tough enough. He decided to leave him out unsupervised with some sheep. I don't know why he thought this would be a good idea. When he got back to check on the dog it was seizing. Of course, the dog may have ended up having problems any way, but I consider it more than likely the dog was injured by the sheep. The dog was later euthanised. I've often wondered if he got the idea from Katz.

 

Katz does believe that he is more than qualified to answer people's doggie questions. After all, he did take a year of study at the U of Kentucky on human animal attatchment. He has a whole six years experience with sheepdogs. I want to know WHY, since he says he has never considered himself an expert, does he think it is not irresponsible to go on the radio and pass out his opinions.

 

I went to school for a year to learn my trade, apprenticed and have been practicing for thirteen years. I have only scratched the surface. If I had a couple of lifetimes maybe I

could really learn the intricacies of my trade. I feel the same about people handing out advice about dogs on the radio. They should have a hell of a lot more experience than he does. He is an insult to anyone that has ever tried to make a life's work out of their passion and learn all the intricacies af their trade with humility.

 

There is no such thing as a useless person. One can always serve as a bad example.

 

Muddy

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Muddy Bob,

 

You say that Katz has six years' experience with sheepdogs, and I think he has none whatsoever. The Border collies he has had, as best I can ascertain, come from sport or show lines, and no one that I know in the sheepdog world in the Northeast has ever seen him at any NEBCA or USBCHA sanctioned event, nor even a clinic for that matter.

 

I remember the first time I heard him recount the story of leaving Rose for "a few hours" unsupervised with sheep so that she could "get to know them." He introduced his comments by saying that he is no a real farmer and that he "stands in awe" of real farmers.

 

I thought that perhaps that was an opening to help him understand what "real farmers" want to see from Border collies and why he should learn to keep his mouth shut. I had just put ear tag number 1254 into one of the last straggling lambs to be born, so I figured I was pretty well qualified to speak to him as a "real farmer," at least by Northeastern US standards. (I can hear the Aussies now -- Twelve hundred lambs? What are their names?)

 

In fact, he had no interest in what I was saying, immediately condemned me as a Border collie snob, and told me that because I didn't know Rose I couldn't possibly comment on his training methods with her. This is also the rocket scientist who throws treats to the dog when she's doing the right thing. I told him that we need dogs that wouldn't notice if you were throwing anvils at them if there were sheep in the picture, but again, he wasn't interested.

 

From what he told me, I have formed a pretty clear picture of Rose as the kind of dog that can do most of what needs to be done on a little farm as long as she gets to do it her way, and as long as it's not too hard. I'm sure that she's a pretty useful dog for a guy with 30 sheep and no realy clue as to what management they might need, and who is not too concerned with running a sheep farm. Something doesn't happen today, maybe it can happen next week, or whenever we get to it.

 

Katz's philosophy about dogs is as schizophrenic as his statements about their souls or lack thereof. He decries rescue (and, incidentally, I happen to agree with many of his criticisms of rescue, at least as it applies in the urban and suburban environments in this part of the world) but it's clear that he has his dogs for his own jollies and to make himself feel important. That's one of the main critiques he lays at the feet of the rescue movement.

 

Until reading this threat, I didn't realize that he has a history of attempting to appropriate a culture that he doesn't understand or belong to and to capitalize on it until he finds the next thing to move on to. Let's just hope that we can run him out of dog town as well as the geeks ran him off slashdot.

 

The difference, of course, is that at slashdot he left behind only bad feelings; when he leaves dog town, as AK Dog Doc has pointed out, he will leave behind a body of work that includes a lot of ill-considered, fiction-based, and downright dangerous misinformation about dogs that will live on after his interest wanes.

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Julie, I wish I'd had Bill for a writer when I was an editor!

 

BTW, Bill, I think Muddy Bob was being scarcastic about Katz's experience.

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Hey, some of us editors catch on.

 

I'd have loved to get my green pen (I was never allowed a red one - it "hurt the writers' feelings) on what little I've seen of Katz's writing.

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Just out of curiosity, I did a Google search on dog+katz and got this:

dog problems

 

Is this the guy who now says he never claimed to be a dog training expert?

 

Or is it this guy:

dog training

 

Either one look like he thinks he's an expert.

 

I have a cookbook online. I don't claim to be the ultimate expert. But I do know that I have fed a family of 5, who have survived. And that their friends ask for our recipes. But, if anyone told me that there was something dangerous in my directions, I'll at least admit interest and do some research.

 

If it's other than stuff like no runny egg yolks (all 5 and kids-in-law are doing fine anyhow) or that you must add salt to bread for the yeast to work (hmm, been doing fine without salt in all our breakfast and dinner breads for at least 25 years).

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"Let's just hope that we can run him out of dog town as well as the geeks ran him off slashdot."

 

How is an interesting question. The Baltimore Sun (10/10/2005 or so) told Katz that Katz on Dogs may be the best book on dog training ever written.

 

He can't be driven out of the pack. He has to be turned around.

 

Katz is a loyal fellow. Orson's breeder, who is obviously no fool regardless of her treatment of Devon/Orson, probably corresponded enough with Katz to assure him that Devon/Orson was book material. Sure enough. Later border collies as a breed in this country suffered a media misfortune when Katz moved close to an AKC trainer and not to a border collie trainer.

 

What's more, and this is the really bad part that Heather indicated, Katz always takes the low road. He will never come up to speed on border collies as a breed because he likes to think of himself as a victim of bullies and snobbery. If AKC border collie breeders are looked down on, Katz wants to embrace them and wants to defend them and to believe anyone saying otherwise is a snob. It's his MO. In addition, he now has an owner ego investment and a huge income investment in not changing his mind.

 

However mind changing has never hurt sales so....

 

Katz needs to understand that it is not the genius level, brilliant handlers and trainers of border collies who will suffer most from AKC border collie breeding; it's the little guy...the rest of us...the ones who need a dog to be better at stock work than we are at training who are going to suffer.

 

The person who decides to take on the project has to go to Katz's farm. Talk to him. Make friends. He's clearly personable, bright, articulate, and driven.

 

Now for candidates.

 

I think the best choice is Heather Nadelman. She is all of the above. In addition and importantly, her AKC background is beyond reproach and that's important.

 

Penny

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