Salamander
Fire Walking

i think any responsible reporting (editorials aside) should be non-biased. Give me the available information and allow me to make my own judgement. i hate papers with an agenda. Everyone has an agenda.

I'm afraid objective journalism isn't going to happen. As a matter of fact, I recall reading how students today study "advocacy journalism" in college which teaches how to suffuse an article with the writer's agenda and omit facts which counter their point of view.

Not that slanted journalism hasn't been around forever, but it's aggravating and maybe even couterproductive to a free society to have the news organizations pushing a particular ideology all the time when what I really want are the unvarnished facts.

I skimmed through the overview of the PPA fact sheet, and can see areas that could create huge holes in it. The first paragraph refers to "the approximately 3000 dog dealers licensed", which could be interpreded as Pet Stores, not breeders. While it does mention that this would open up "thousands more facilities (including private homes) to inspect and regulate the conditions", how can they propose this? I don't see how they would even have any way of knowing about the Smith family down the road who took their bitch to the neighbors dog of the same breed just so their children could witness the miracle of life (a practice I personally STRONGLY am against).

How can they govern and guarantee that dogs being bred have undergone the appropriate testing for their breed to ensure that certain genetic anomolies are not propogated in that breed? (This is what is currently keeping my dog from being used as a stud)

Does this in any way support individual breed standards? How can they ensure that a bitch with weak withers is not being bred to a dog with an incorrect jaw set?

Me being someone who takes the US breed standards for my dogs quite seriously, I just don't see how this can benefit the serious purebred breeders who have a goal of bettering their breed.

I also don't see where they can succeed in governing the socialization portion. How can they ensure that the Great Dane breeder is giving the same quality and quantity of personal socialization to it's litter of 13 pups, as the Doxie breeder is giving it's litter of 3 pups?

While I personally don't agree with breeding a dog more than once a year, I fail to see how this proposition of less than 3 times in a 24 month period could be controlled.

While I have only skimmed most of it, I haven't come across anything relating to unlicensed breeders.

It seems that it would be more effective to have legislation against Puppy millers than governing Dog breeders. I think everyone can tell the difference between the two. A serious Dog breeder is not doing it for the money, has a plan in place outlining their goal for strengthing the breed.

OK, I will get down off my soap box, my BP is getting too high thinking about this!
Alli

Whoa! Take a deep breath Alli! I'm on your side! I wasn't about to get into all that in my journal entry though, since it flies wide of my intended target of irresponsible reporting.

it's hot in here this morning!

Recantations are never very interesting. If I was the editor, I would have put it right in the back along with the ads for the fish that say 'Darwin' and the small black and white photos showing the benefits of Tilley(sp) Hats.

My #1 was Hackers, which said I was slightly geeky (!) but I liked #2 better which was Daylight:
You didn't make a big enough impression on anybody, but enough people like you to give you a following. You are just kind of...there.

I took the quiz and guess what? My name is Gu-ump, Forrest Gump! :D I love that movie.

cur

i came to that conclusion long ago, sal :)

I don't believe in online tests that use "everybodies" instead of "everybody's" and say "except" instead of "accept."

;)

xo
Boo

i caught the 'except' and changed it to 'accept' in my journal.

they're still inexplicably fun to take, though :(