Amusing note

Muscle memory is funny. I'm making a saddle for a toy horse and the cinch is modeled off a western saddle. It's the type I'm most familiar with. So familiar, apparently, that just now when I went to test out the newly finished girth, I started tightening it way tighter than a toy saddle needs to be. 'Oh, right,' I thought to myself, 'this horse isn't real.'

Pedigree Dogs Exposed

Retrieverman reminds me that this needs as much exposure as possible.





Every time I see this, I think of Alien: Resurrection. Especially the scene where Ripley confronts the alien-human hybrid while the scientist in the background goes on and on about his wonderful, beautiful butterfly.



You don't need laboratories and fancy equipment to create crippled monsters.

Just because you can create something, doesn't mean you should.

Whippet sled dogs

!

Happy Halloween!

Animals as food

Wow, that seems to be the theme this week in my blog roll.

First Gina Spadafori says everything I want to say, and more.

A great essay from Dr. Khuly about DIY slaughter and the ethics of eating animals.

Skepchick asks what species people won't eat, and why.

Slightly related: Fugly Horse of the Day with (yet more) about horse slaughter.

And in my own life: I bought my hunting license, my dad got a deer (and said he'll share! Yay!), I discovered a farm within walking distance that sells cheap free-range eggs, and I made a delicious stew from the lamb that I helped my dad slaughter, skin, clean and butcher.

Interesting

This new Animal Planet show looks pretty good.

Hunting

Once again, Gina Spadafori is more succinct and elegant than I could be:

"Because if you’re going to eat meat — and I do, and so do my dogs and cats — you’re going to kill or have something killed on your behalf. (Actually, that’s even true of vegans: Countless numbers of small birds and animals are killed when those soy fields are harvested. It’s a fact: It you live, something will die. It’s the circle of life, folks, and one day you, yes you and me, too, will be the food for maggots, beetles and bacteria.)"

There's not many people I find myself agreeing with all the time, but she appears to be one of them.



(Dad got a black tail yesterday. In his words, "We eat good this winter")