Irish Times 2:59 narrated slide show of a recent day with the Waterford Hunt.

Huntsman Dennis Dowling and the Blue Ridge Hunt round a corner coming out of the woods earlier today at Pagebrook in Boyce, Virginia (Click on photo for larger version)

89-Year-Old Huntsman Melvin Poe leads the Bath County Hounds out on a beautiful November morning (click on image for larger picture)

The Bath County Hounds are a private pack, founded in 1992, after Melvin Poe’s retirement as huntsman of Orange County, by George L. Ohrstrom to hunt his 3000-acre Fassifern Farm at Warm Springs, Bath County, Virginia.

The rolling countryside of the foothills of the Blue Ridge near Poe’s home in Fauquier County, where the Bath County Hounds hunt in the intervals between trips to Warm Springs, was hunted in the decades before WWII by the Cobbler Hunt, whose master in the early 1930s was (then) Major George S. Patton, Jr.

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Who wouldn’t want to look like that and ride like that at 89?

7-week-old Tazy puppy Uhlan

I was away from the keyboard yesterday, driving nearly 200 miles each way to pick up a seven-week-old puppy.

Last month, the renowned Saluki authority Gail Goodman sent me an email telling me that a retired Russian zoologist (living very near me — only about 200 miles away!) had just bred a litter of the rare Kazakh Tazys, which the serious connoisseurs of aboriginal coursing dogs, people like Gail herself and Steve Bodio, particularly admire for their hunting instinct and drive.

The fact that I have no experience in coursing and live in the East where we lack the kind of open spaces suitable for sighthounds easily found in New Mexico did not deter my friends from getting behind the idea that I needed to own one of these.

Tazy (or Tazi) is just another Asian term for the breed originally referred to in the West as the Persian Greyhound, but these days known as the Saluki (or Saluqi).

Naturally, I had only to look at puppy photos in order to succumb and place a deposit on one of these.

Yesterday, the fatal day arrived. Karen insisted that we go and pick up our Tazy immediately upon the breeder announcing that he was ready to leave his mother.

We wound up taking the same fawn-colored male with the black mask (with a little white on the nose) that originally made an impression on us in the puppy photos. A brother with a darker color struck me as a possible candidate, too, but the darker puppy struggled and was unhappy when picked up. Our original choice was quite content to be handled, and actually never even whined or cried all the way back.

Our Basset Bleu de Gascogne arrived already named Cadet, so we decided to stick with the military theme. Since Tazys are slender and fast running dogs of Asian origin, we decided his name ought to describe him as a type of light cavalry of Asian origin, so we are going to name the puppy Uhlan.

Tired from a long drive

Predictably, the PSPCA supplemented their web-site’s announcement of new violations lavished on Wendy Willard to punish her for public questioning of their actions and for inquiries about the fate and whereabouts of the Murder Hollow bassets with an Inquirer “news report” from their faithful mouthpiece reporter Amy Worden.

PSPCA cites Basset breeder for lack of vet care, sanitation

A Philadelphia woman, whose illegal kennel was the subject of a raid last month, has been charged with failing to provide vet care and for poor sanitation.

Wendy Willard, owner of Murder Hollow Bassets in Roxborough, was issued 22 citations during a follow up inspection on Friday, according to the Pennsylvania SPCA.

Willard, who competed her hounds at prestigious sporting dog events around Philadelphia and in Virginia’s fox hunting region, surrendered 11 dogs to humane officers on July 27. The officers found filthy kennel conditions and dogs covered in feces and infested with parasites, the PSPCA said. The agency removed the animals because there were 23 dogs on the property, 11 more than are allowed under the city’s animal ordinance.

Willard was given two weeks to make improvements and get vet care for the remaining animals, but the PSPCA said in press release that when the officers returned last week “overall living conditions remained poor.”

Willard was issued 11 citations for unsanitary conditions, 11 citations for lack of veterinary care and two tickets for barking. Graphic photos of the dogs detailing their condition and their housing have been turned over to the district attorney’s office. Efforts to reach Willard were unsuccessful.

Agents first went to the property on July 21 in response to neighbor complaints about noise and order. When they found no one at home they left a card telling the owner to contact them. When Willard failed to contact them, they returned on July 27 to inspect the property. Willard refused and threw stones at the officers’ vehicles as they left, said George Bengal, the PSPCA director of law enforcement. They returned later that day with a warrant to search the property.

The dogs were turned over to Basset hound rescue groups, the PSPCA said.

It is perfectly obvious that they lied previously in promising that hounds surrendered to them could be reclaimed.

They have lied repeatedly about the bassets being moved from their holding center and delivered to a basset rescue organization.

They have misused their authority to threaten, harass, and opportunistically level charges against Ms. Willard. Either those kennels were unsanitary and the hounds lacking veterinary care, or they were not. When the PSPCA is applying the law in Philadelphia, every animal owner is in the position of the cafe owner being shaken down by the crooked cop. The cop looks around and spies a speck of dust, bam! he writes a health code violation. The cop throws a plate on the floor and smashes it, bam! he writes a safety violation.

It is also obvious that if Mrs. Parks had never phoned PSPCA, if people on the Internet had never reported what happened on July 27th, and Ms. Willard surrendered 11 dogs to be sold for $200 apiece and neutered most of the rest (in compliance with international Animal Rights philosophy, which desires to eliminate pet reproduction as a step toward eliminating pet ownership) and kept silent, none of those 22 violations would ever have existed. Nor would Ms. Willard’s remaining bassets have been ticketed for barking at PSPCA intruders.

Here’s due process PSPCA style.

The PSPCA arrives in a massive raid expecting to find what?… an illegal puppy mill? A ring of illegal immigrant bassets importing cocaine in their collars? a group of fanatical Islamist basset hounds plotting terrorist acts?

Whatever it was, they don’t find it. But the PSPCA is never wrong. They do find a grievous breach of public order actively underway.

A middle-aged, retired school teacher residing at a home located on a 340-acre nature center, the largest privately-owned tract of land within the city limits of Philadelphia, is found to be housing 11 basset hounds possibly in excess of the residential dwelling limit prescribed in the Philadelphia Code Animal section § 10-103(8).

Whether, in fact, a kennel attached to a barn on the property is “a residential dwelling unit” is open to question and interpretation.

There is also some question about whether the City of Philadelphia by accepting fees and licensing Ms. Willard’s basset hounds for all those years, since 1986 when the 12 animal limit was imposed, and in which same year Ms. Willard founded the Murder Hill Bassets, without demurral over the number of licenses it was issuing, had not implicitly authorized her possession of those hounds.

But, let’s leave all that aside. Suppose Ms. Willard was guilty, caught red-handed in possession of eleven more basset hounds than the Phildelphia Code permits? What does the Law say?

It says § 10-105(8a):

The penalty for the first violation of any provision of this Section shall be a minimum fine of $100.

As I read over the law, I see nothing about confiscation. I see nothing in this provision specifying forfeiture of animals as a penalty for this kind of violation.

As the new PSPCA release demonstrates quite vividly, Wendy Willard is not in trouble for the basically trivial offense of (perhaps) violating a number of hounds limit. She is in trouble for failing to adequately and unconditionally surrender and grovel before the authority of the thugs and bozos of the PSPCA.

The scope of the tyranny we’re looking at here can be seen in reference to the reality of the situation. Wendy Willard actually did surrender completely. She signed the papers they intimidated her into signing (giving away 11 hounds). She agreed to neuter all but 4 of her carefully-bred, twenty-year-old pack. She kept silence.

What got Wendy into more trouble, and what is causing her bassets to be kept locked in tiny cages, is PSPCA retaliation for that anonymous person posting the original story of the raid on the Internet, and other people, Betsy Parks, me, all the people discussing this on bulletin boards, email lists, and blogs. We questioned PSPCA behavior and authority. We asked about those basset hounds, and here is the result.

PSPCA news release, August 10, 2009, Murder Hollow Basset Hound Update:

On Friday, August 7, 2009, Humane Law Enforcement officers from the Pennsylvania SPCA conducted a pre-arranged follow-up inspection of Murder Hollow, the location of an illegal basset hound kennel in the Roxborough section of Philadelphia, PA. The owner had previously surrendered 11 dogs during the officers’ visit on Monday, July 27, 2009, due to unsanitary conditions, lack of veterinary care and more dogs than allowed by law.

Despite the time allotted to the owner to make improvements, overall living conditions remained poor at the second inspection, resulting in 11 citations for unsanitary conditions, 11 citations for lack of veterinary care and two tickets for barking. Graphic photos of the dogs detailing their condition and their housing have been turned over to the district attorney’s office.

We appreciate the continued outpouring of support for these dogs from the Bassett community.

These dog cages are empty, but the PSPCA’s are full

What is the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals?

Like you, yesterday I assumed that the PSPCA was a private humanitarian organization. I kept wondering why its representatives kept talking like they were law enforcement officers. How does a private humanitarian society, funded by donations from foundations and animal lovers, get to invade homes, seize pets, and ignore requests for explanations and information from the public?

Well, it’s like this… the PSPCA is not only funded by dollars provided by private cat-and-dog lovers. It is also a business. The PSPCA is really in essence an animal prison and execution facility, which manages to help write laws in its own favor, while successfully posing as a charity.

PSPCA contracts its services, consisting of locking pets in cages (or chaining them to cages when the cages are full, as is not infrequently the case) in loud, smelly rooms, then euthanizing many of them, to the city of Philadelphia.

Philly.com:

Pennsylvania requires shelters to hold stray dogs for 48 hours before euthanasia, to allow time for owners to find them. ACCT (the Animal Care and Control Team division of PSPCA – jdz) recently extended the “hold” time from 48 to 72 hours. On the surface, this sounds like a good thing. But it has bad consequences. It means animals cannot be adopted out or released to rescue groups for an extra day, which ties up cage space. Insiders told of dogs tethered to the outside of cages, and cats stacked up in carriers.

If all cage space is filled with stray “holds” and an owner surrenders an animal, that animal will be put to death immediately because there is no mandatory “hold” on surrendered pets. (The Murder Hollow Bassets were surrendered just that way. Are they really still alive? Who knows? -jdz) Health got complaints that that was happening to these adoptable pets – just as in 2004, when I first wrote about tragic PACCA practices. Who turned the clock back to a dark past?

PSPCA competed successfully earlier this year against a rival similar organization for the city animal control contract, but then experienced a lot of internal turmoil.

ACCT, a division of PSPCA, took over the city animal-control contract Jan. 1. Chaos ensued a mere six weeks later, when PSPCA CEO Howard Nelson, who had sought the contract, quit in a huff. Board member Beth Ann White, a former banking executive with no kennel experience, was thrust into the breach, with almost predictable results.

I’m glad that the Health Department, which oversees the contract, responded quickly to complaints. I’m less glad that Melhem says that he is again satisfied by reassurances. What did Ronald Reagan say – trust, but verify?

With almost 3 million taxpayer dollars funding the contract, the public has a right to expect better – not worse – performance from PSPCA than it got from the Philadelphia Animal Care and Control Association, from which it wrested the contract.

Stu Bykovsky:

Cosby is the third PSPCA CEO in four months, following Howard Nelson, who fled under fire in February, and interim CEO Beth Anne White, who spent three months in the free-fire zone battling accusations of fudged “save” rates and botched medical protocols that resulted in vast numbers of sick dogs and cats.

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Is PSPCA an honorable steward of animals? Can its allegations about unsanitary kennels be relied upon?

Or does PSPCA have a proven record of lying and a shamefully deficient animal care record of its own?

The same way the PSPCA would not answer questions about the fate or whereabouts of the Murder Hollow Bassets yesterday, the PSPCA has used a closed database to conceal the numbers and percentages of animals euthanized.

Philadelphia Weekly reported in May:

The PSCPA runs two shelters within a couple of miles of one another. The larger shelter, called ACCT (Animal Care and Control Team) on Hunting Park Ave. in North Philadelphia, is where roughly 31,000 homeless animals funnel into after being saved from the streets or given up by their owners. The animals are processed at Hunting Park, then either pulled by rescue partners, euthanized or sent to the second shelter, on Erie Ave., where PSCPA’s statistics had categorized such animals as “adopted.”

The ACCT database is “open” to the Health Department, which oversees the contract, while Erie’s database remains closed. As PW recently reported [The (Scary) Truth about Cats and Dogs, April 21], critics were concerned that not all of the animals shipped from Hunting Park to Erie were actually being adopted. In fact, they worried that some animals were being euthanized at Erie and not being properly accounted for in the PSCPA’s official save rates.

They were right.

PSPCA board members say they are now working to calculate “more accurate” numbers and will adjust January and February’s statistics accordingly. Between January and February, 786 animals were shipped to Erie and counted as “adopted” and save rates—72.4 percent for January and 80.9 percent for February—were admirable, especially for an organization just transitioning into the municipal animal-control role. PSPCA was also besieged by problems such as CEO Howard Nelson’s abrupt resignation six weeks into the six-month animal-control contract—a contract the organization had feverishly pursued.

March’s statistics, published after PW’s story ran, were presented online with a new section called “Outcomes of PSPCA Transfers,” which itemizes what the PSCPA board says is the true outcome of those animals, though they do not admit that prior stats had been favorably skewed intentionally.

“The numbers were not broken out in that way [in January and February] because that’s not what the city had first requested,” said Beth Ann White in a recent interview at Hunting Park Ave. “Then we all decided to go to the new format to make it more transparent.”

The newly presented numbers assert that, counting euthanasia at Erie, March’s save rate is 62.3 percent and April’s—just published—is 59.6%.

White says there is a team currently working to “redress” January and February’s save rate statistics, and that the new numbers will be published online “soon.”

If January and February’s “Outcomes of PSPCA Transfers” follows March’s pattern, about 118—roughly 15 percent—of the 786 animals previously identified as “adopted” would have been euthanized at the Erie facility.

Yet with Erie’s database still closed, it’s unclear where these new numbers are coming from.

But not only cats and dogs being deliberately euthanized are dying at PSPCA shelters:

It’s been a bad year for the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals — but not as bad as for Philadelphia’s homeless animals.

After fighting tooth and nail for Philadelphia’s animal control contract, the PSPCA won a six-month contract that began January 1. Then, as controversy haunted the organization all over Pennsylvania, CEO Howard Nelson suddenly resigned and vanished into the ether, leaving the job in the hands of the part-time volunteer board. Then animals reportedly got so sick rescue partners began to refuse to accept more cats or dogs from the shelter.

PW reported on rescue organizations’ allegations of sick and dying animals, ongoing vaccination delays — and questioned the real outcome for cats and dogs shipped from the shelter on Hunting Park Avenue in North Philadelphia to one a couple miles away on Erie Avenue: Were all of those animals actually adopted? Or were some euthanized, then not calculated into the final save rate?

Barry Watson, a Philadelphia animal rescuer with experience dealing with PSPCA, also commented on the death rate last May.

The PSPCA has failed me miserably since January 1. Virtually every program that allowed me to pull high volumes of cats from Hunting Park is gone. Baby kittens have been dying by the dozens and virtually all adult pulls have come down with the calici virus or other serious upper URIs.

Going back over six years, to the day I pulled my first cat from Hunting Park, I have never experienced more widespread illness, infecting almost every cat pulled, than I’ve experienced in just the first four months of 2009. Had I experienced mortality rates like this in 2003, I would not have returned in 2004. It is important to point out that the ACCT Lifesaving Staff is fully aware of these problems and has made every effort to implement effective changes, but kittens continue to die and adults get terribly sick.

Tara Murtha reports:

(I)nsiders say, shelter conditions have gotten so bad that animals need to be saved from the very place they go for protection.

Since the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (PSPCA) reassumed Philadelphia’s animal control contract in January, reports of intake backlog, overcrowding, fuzzy numbers and infectious disease outbreaks have oozed out of the shelter in a steady stream.

Insiders allege that shelter conditions and protocol are crumbling. Rescue workers (who regularly pull animals out of the shelter and place them in homes) and volunteers say they’ve never seen so many sick animals come out of the Hunting Park shelter. One foster parent with more than 20 years experience says that in the last few months, all 18 of the kittens she rescued from ACCT have died.

“They might seem fine the day you pull them, but within two weeks, they’re gone,” she says. “My backyard is like a graveyard.”

So, tell me, Mr. Bengal, how clean are your kennels?

The Philadelphia Daily News responded to the Inquirer story with a more neutral article.

Unlike the Inquirer, the Daily News actually talked to Wendy Willard and quoted NYM.

(H)unting rabbits, in special dress, following a pack of howling basset hounds, isn’t exactly a pastime of the masses.

It has, however, stirred controversy on the Web after a recent raid on the quarters of Murder Hill Bassets in Roxborough, home to nearly two dozen bassets used in foot pursuit of cottontail rabbits on privately owned land.

The Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said on its Web site yesterday that late last month its agents visited the property on Hagys Mill Road where Wendy Willard lived with 23 bassets.

A PSPCA agent said they went in response to noise and odor complaints, and obtained warrants when they couldn’t get in.

Willard surrendered 11 of the dogs after the July 27 raid, said George Bengal, chief investigator of animal cruelty complaints for the PSPCA.

A long-standing Philadelphia statute forbids keeping more than 12 animals per household.

Although the PSPCA contended complainants drew them to the Hagys Mill property, critics charged that the animals were taken because many in the animal-rescue field frown on hunting.

Many basset clubs hunt rabbits, not to kill them but to test the dogs’ skills.

Willard didn’t want to talk about her troubles yesterday, but she did say that three of the animals surrendered actually belonged to a New York woman who has been unsuccessful in learning where the PSPCA placed them.

“They are my family,” a distraught Willard said of her dogs.

The Inquirer posted a photograph of the wrong house. That home’s owner contacted me by email today asking me to remove the copy I posted of the photo.

Stung by criticism on the Internet of their July 27th raid on the kennels of Wendy Willard’s Murder Hollow Basset pack, the confiscation of eleven basset hounds, and PSPCA’s refusal for ten days to provide information on the hounds’ whereabouts or fate to concerned friends, the Animal Care and Control organization began yesterday to defend itself, first (yesterday afternoon, by some coincidence, not very long after my phone conversation with PR officer Gail Luciani) releasing a seemingly conciliatory statement suggesting that PSPCA was “working with the hounds’ owner” and even thanking (!) the Basset community.

Murder Hollow Basset Hound Update

In response to complaints, Pennsylvania SPCA officers visited the location of Murder Hollow Kennels and left requests to be contacted. There was no response to these requests.

On a follow-up visit by a Pennsylvania SPCA officer and representatives from the Pennsylvania Department of Dog Law six days later, the owner was present but refused entry. Both Dog Law representatives and Pennsylvania SPCA officers returned later that evening with warrants to enter the property.

The dogs were found to be in unsanitary conditions, and the number of dogs present exceeded the City of Philadelphia limit of 12 animals allowed on a property.

In lieu of charges, Pennsylvania SPCA agents worked with the owner to reduce the number of dogs on the premises and allowed her time to clean and make improvements to the area in which the dogs were housed.

The owner surrendered some of the dogs and is working to clean and improve the kennels prior to a follow-up inspection. The Pennsylvania SPCA is encouraged by her efforts in providing and maintaining a more sanitary setting as well as veterinary care for the dogs that remain.

The dogs are safe in foster care with an independent, partner organization.

We appreciate the outpouring of support for these dogs from the Bassett community.

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Murder Hollow hounds last year. They’ve never looked covered with feces, or riddled with parasites, any time I saw them.

Most of us did not know then that, slightly earlier, PSPCA had planted a much more colorful story with a sympathetic reporter at the Inquirer, which appeared yesterday morning.

Philadelphia resident Wendy Willard ran in tony rabbit and fox hunting circles. Her pack, formed in 1986, was listed among a select handful from Virginia hunt country and elsewhere in the prestigious Chronicle of the Horse, the bible of the horse and hound crowd. The kennel’s Bassets won awards at the Bryn Mawr Hound Show.

Last week the Pennsylvania SPCA raided her farmhouse in the Schuylkill Valley Nature Preserve and found 23 dogs covered in feces and riddled with parasites, said George Bengal, the PSPCA’s director of law enforcement.

“The kennel was a mess,” he said.

Humane agents first went to the house on July 21 in response to neighbor complaints about noise and odor, said Bengal. Finding no one home, they left cards asking the property owner to contact them. When no one responded, an agent and two state dog wardens returned on July 27. Willard refused them entry and as they left the property she threw stones at the officers’ vehicles, said Bengal.

They returned later that day with a search warrant and found dogs living in what Bengal described as unsanitary conditions and in need of veterinary care. Willard voluntarily surrendered 11 dogs and agreed to comply with certain conditions for keeping the rest, including inspections, he said.

“We could have charged her, but we didn’t yet,” said Bengal. “We could have seized the dogs, but she agreed to get medical care for the remaining dogs and spay or neuter eight of the 12 dogs” – the limit allowed under the city’s decades old animal ordinance.

Since there were fewer than 26 dogs on the property (the number required for a state kennel license) there were no citations issued by the state, said Chris Ryder, spokesman for the Department of Agriculture.

The dogs that were removed were placed with Basset hound rescue groups, the PSPCA said.

The PSPCA’s executive director Sue Cosby said they did not initially release any information about the incident because they thought they could resolve the issue amicably with the owner.

“The officer heading the case really went out of her way to work with the owner in an effort to have the kennels cleaned up and the dogs cared for rather than file charges and take all of the dogs,'” said Cosby in an email.

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So if you believe the PSPCA, this is one of those cases of a disturbed and arrogant society woman who belligerently defies law enforcement officers and throws rocks at them, while keeping a kennel full of neglected, filthy, and disease-ridden basset hounds, which hounds nevertheless, despite their pitiable condition, qualify for inclusion as a listed pack under the strict standards of the National Beagle Club, compete successfully at pack trials, and win prizes at the prestigious and highly competitive Bryn Mawr Hound Show.

Those of us familiar with basset packs have a couple of basic problems with the eccentric-woman-neglected-animals story line.

Although Wendy Willard as Master, is sole owner and supreme authority over the Murder Hollow Bassets, no basset pack operates single-handedly and in isolation. There is a staff, in this case of no less than ten Whippers-in: First Whipper-in: Lidie Peace. Hon. Whippers-in: Ginny Hofmann, Judy Hohmann, Pat West, Mary Bentley, Roy Feldman, Becky Forry, Philip Hofmann Sr., Trey Norris, Pat Renner.

The Murder Hollow pack has, listed publicly, all together, eleven active hunt staff members, all obviously drawn from the same “tony rabbit and fox hunting circles,” referred to ironically by the Inquirer.

Now while it is not difficult to believe that one single aging woman alone might possibly, because of circumstances of health, emotional stability, or even poverty, come to neglect so grievously a kennel full of dogs, in this case, we are expected to believe that 11 residents of the most exclusive neighborhoods in Philadelphia, all active and enthusiastic members of the horse and hound community, have all participated in a systematic pattern of animal neglect, failing to clean kennels, to deal with parasites, to monitor hounds’ health or to provide veterinary care.

These would be the same people who, as photos like this one show, don green woolen jackets and wear ironed white stock ties to run through the tick-infested woods at Aldie on warm days. Yet the lazy scoundrels cannot be bothered to clean their kennels. They will spend money on travel to pack trials in other states or on hunt uniforms, but won’t pay for vets. Sure.

Allegations about unsanitary kennels are pretty easy to come up with. Hounds do defecate. Nobody polices every pile of dog poop from the kennel floor the minute it arrives 24/7.

Riddled with parasites? What does that mean, I wonder. Did they see one hound scratching, and infer fleas?

Crediting the PSPCA’s good faith on allegations of this kind requires knowing a bit more about the role, character, and standard operations of that organization. I was confused myself yesterday about how it was that what I thought to be only a private humanitarian organization kept talking about violations, as if it were a branch of the government. I did not understand. They are.

I’m going to take a look at the PSPCA, who they are, what they do, and how they do business in another post. Soon.

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PBBurns, of Terrierman’s Daily Dose, took one look at NYM’s righthand column (Michelle Malkin, Charlton Heston, Islamaphobia, oh my!) and, naturally, decided I’m insane.

His observation that in blog coverage of stories one typically wants to compare a variety of news accounts is perfectly correct. However, in this case, I have a modest level of personal acquaintance with Wendy Willard and the Murder Hollow Bassets, as I’m member of the same “tony rabbit and fox hunting circles” myself. The incident came to my attention via reports circulated on hunting email lists, and repeated on the Border Collie board. The Inquirer story only appeared yesterday morning, and was not being found by Google the same day. I’ve done lots of Google searches. I’ve talked to people from basset circles who have tried to reclaim, visit, or obtain information about the confiscated hounds, and who are familiar with the detailed circumstances of the case. I also talked to the PSPCA people myself. Thank you for your advice, PB.

If I was not acquainted personally with basseting, or if I had first read that Inquirer story, I might not have thought very seriously about any of this myself, and simply shrugged and assumed that the PSPCA was telling the truth and acting properly myself.

Let me give you a tip on blogging, PB. One news story obviously supplied by one side to a pet reporter is not really a whole lot better than an informal account found in emails or bulletin boards. Evaluating either is likely require more than the testimony of a single source.

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Original story

We’re probably getting the red male with the black mask

A friend from the sporting literature community got in touch with me to inform me that a retired Russian zoologist who is a keen aficionado of aboriginal dogs had bred his first litter of Kazakh Tazis.

Tazis are hounds used for coursing, the pursuit of game using swift hounds which hunt by sight rather than by scent.

He will look like his mother as an adult

Tazi is really just one regional term for the saluki, probably the oldest type of domesticated dog.

Kazakhstan is renowned in coursing circles as the last refuge of native-bred saluki of first-rate hunting ability, unmixed with Western or show dog strains. A few enthusiasts have actually traveled to Central Asia in recent years in search of the canine equivalent of the Holy Grail.

Looking at photos of those puppies had the inevitable result, I succumbed and mailed in a deposit. The opportunity to own so rare and exotic a hunting dog is very unusual. Of course, house-breaking and trying to bring up a fierce aboriginal hunter from the steppes of Central Asia in a house full of cats and antiques is probably going to be a lot like trying to establish peace and order in the neighborhood of the Khyber Pass.

Kazakhstan looks upon tazis as an important cultural treasure

Nesting Canada Goose, Copley Fine Arts Auctions, Sporting Sale, July 15-16, 2009, sold for $661,250

Maine Antique Digest thoughtfully informs us that, too bad! we’ve already missed major Massachusetts events devoted to the work of the renowned Cape Cod decoy carver A. Elmer Crowell (1862-1951) whose carvings have repeatedly set new records for auction prices.

Running curlew, sold at Copley in 2007 for $186,500, setting a decorative bird record

The Massachusetts Audubon Visual Arts Center in Canton had a symposium, Elmer Crowell & Beyond: A Gathering of Collectors & Enthusiasts, alas! on May 2nd, associated with a tremendous (now concluded) Crowell exhibition titled A. Elmer Crowell: Master of Decoys & More.

The good news is that an exhibition catalogue is in the works which will be available from Mass Audubon in the Fall sometime. The title will be A. Elmer Crowell: Master of Decoys. Contact Amy Montague at Mass Audubon.

Meanwhile, another Crowell exhibition A Bird in the Hand: The Carvings of Elmer and Cleon Crowell at the Heritage Museum & Gardens in Sandwich, Massachusetts began in April and will be running through the end of October. MAD thinks it is likely to prove very popular and run longer.

Cleon Crowell and his father A(nthony). Elmer Crowell

11 Year old Jessica Wanstall of Sittingbourne, Kent, on vacation with her father in Spain, set a new world record for a freshwater fish caught by an angler aged 16 and under, by landing a nearly 9′ (2.74 m), 13 stone 8lb (193lb – 87.7 k) Wels catfish (Silurus glanis) from the Ebro River. The catfish was considerably larger than the young angler, but was defeated in 20 minutes.

Daily Mail

Telegraph