Memorial Day 2011

Never forget.

Never forget the sacrifice of the warriors who defend our freedom, tenuous as that freedom may be these days.

And never forget, as Tolkien said, that "those without swords can still die upon them," whether those swords be held by a foreign enemy or one's own government gone to ruin.

Selective Memory

I couldn't say anything better about 9-11 than what Michael Bane said here.

How soon the distractible masses with their short attention spans forget. So few years for the horror to fade so completely. Newsweek says the country "overreacted" and no major media outlet speaks up in opposition. Fortunately, there are still some who will.

Never forget.

Never Forget

Never forget the freedoms we enjoy in this country have been paid for in blood.

Never forget at election time that we must also fight to keep our freedom and regain that which an overreaching government has taken away.

And never forget that there are many spiritual symbols on the graves of the fallen.

© Rev. Selena Fox, Circle Sanctuary

Honor our military and never forget.

Bravo Zulu.

Irish Appreciation Day

My genetic heritage is pure Slavic, but over the years I've had many Greyhounds with Irish bloodlines. Ireland has so far resisted the demonization of all hunting, and the persistence of coursing is reflected in the quality of their hounds.

Irish Thoroughbreds are also legendary, and two of my current horses have Irish ancestors.

So in honor of Judge and Sarge, and in loving memory of Dubh, Jessie, Duke, Jolie, and all the others from great Irish breeding in the past, tonight we're having Irish stew made with Guinness. May Brigid forgive me.

09/11/2001

Never forget.

A Great One Passes

Via The Shooting Wire, we learn of the death at age 80 of retired Los Angeles County Deputy Jack Weaver, developer of the Weaver Stance.

It was a radical concept in the days when law enforcement officers typically fired one-handed from the shoulder or hip. It took Jeff Cooper three years of losing to Jack Weaver in pistol competition to convince him of the value of this new at the time concept. Ultimately he incorporated it into his Modern Technique.

I've heard people say the Weaver Stance is dated, and Isosceles is the only way to go. Maybe, but when actually shooting on the move, using cover, and especially when the targets are shooting back, I find it's nowhere near that clear-cut. What seems to get the best results is flowing smoothly between Weaver, Chapman, Isosceles, and Whatever's Working Right Now, as conditions demand.

No matter what two-handed stance we use, I think we all owe Jack Weaver a debt of gratitude.

UPDATE: Read Massad Ayoob's tribute to Jack Weaver here.

So Close

And yet so far.

In the two most recent top dog shows, a Scottish Deerhound has won the Hound Group . . . but alas, not Best in Show.

At the AKC/Eukanuba National Championship, Ray and Jana Brinlee's and Steve & Eileen Biles's CH Jaraluv Ouija took Group I. Gayle Bontecou's CH Gayleward's Tiger Woods got it done at Westminster.

CH Jaraluv Ouija
CH Jaraluv Michael - CH Jaraluv Keep The Faith

CH Gayleward's Tiger Woods
CH Chartwell Silver Run Vale Vu SC - CH Gayleward's Sullivan

Most folks have never heard of the Scottish Deerhound. Ranked 131st out of 156 in registrations in 2008, very few are born every year. Breeders tend to be very particular about who can have one of their precious puppies or adults.

I fell in love with the breed as a child, seeing them in the International Kennel Club of Chicago's benched show at the old McCormick Place. As an adult, I first started seriously looking for a Deerhound of my own in 1978, but it was twenty-five years before I finally had the pleasure of sharing my life with a member of the breed Sir Walter Scott called "the most perfect creature of heaven."

Ian Viktor Of Gladstone
CH Lyonhil Viktor - Dierscot Kilmore Kite

ETA -- Ian's sire was from Lyonhil, the oldest Scottish Deerhound kennel currently in operation in America. Kate Lyons has been well-respected in the breed for over fifty years. And if I'm not mistaken, a Lyonhil was the first American-bred BIS winning Deerhound.

Browning Firearms Design Meme

Expert Witness starts a meme here using Tam's list of John Moses Browning's achievements.

I think the list I posted here has a few more entries, and I had already bolded the ones I own. Thanks to Xavier, I learned my beloved Ithaca 37's have Browning DNA via the Remington 17, so I added that one.

Even so, I went back and added the "+" signs in case the bold font doesn't show up clearly enough. Enjoy.

National Holiday

Well, it SHOULD be.

On this date, January 23, in the year 1855, John Moses Browning was born.

Among his many achievements:

M1895 Colt-Browning machine gun
Colt Model 1897
FN Browning M1899/M1900
Colt Model 1900
Colt Model 1902
Colt Model 1903 Pocket Hammer (.38 ACP)
Colt Model 1903 Pocket Hammerless (.32 ACP)
Colt Model 1905, the first .45 ACP
Remington Model 8 (1906), a long recoil semi-automatic rifle
Colt Model 1908 Vest Pocket (.25 ACP)
Colt Model 1908 Pocket Hammerless (.380 ACP)
FN Model 1910
+ U.S. Model 1911 pistol
Winchester Model 1885 falling block single shot rifle
Winchester Model 1886 lever-action repeating rifle
Winchester Model 1887 lever-action repeating shotgun
Winchester Model 1890 slide-action repeating rifle (.22)
Winchester Model 1892 lever-action repeating rifle
Winchester Model 1894 lever-action repeating rifle
Winchester Model 1895 lever-action repeating rifle
Winchester Model 1897 pump-action repeating shotgun
+ Remington Model 17 pump-action repeating shotgun (later the Ithaca 37)
Browning Auto-5 long recoil semi-automatic shotgun
U.S. Model 1917 water-cooled machine gun
Model 1919 air-cooled machine gun
Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) of 1917
Browning M2 .50-caliber heavy machine gun of 1921
Remington Model 24 semi-auto rifle (.22) Also produced by Browning Firearms and several others
+ The Browning Hi-Power, completed after his death by Dieudonne Saive
The Browning Superposed over/under shotgun, designed by John Browning in 1922 and entered production in 1931

Among the cartridges he developed:

.25 ACP
.32 ACP
.38 ACP
9mm Browning Long
.380 ACP
.45 ACP
.50 BMG

Among his many patents:

U.S. Patent 220,271 Winchester 1885 single-shot, his first patent
U.S. Patent 306,577 Winchester 1886 and Model 71 lever action rifles
U.S. Patent 336,287 Winchester Model 1887/1901 lever action shotgun
U.S. Patent 385,238 Winchester 1890 pump action rifle
U.S. Patent 441,390 Winchester 1893 and 1897 pump action shotguns
U.S. Patent 465,339 Winchester 1892 lever action rifle
U.S. Patent 524,702 Winchester 1894 lever action rifle
U.S. Patent 544,657 Colt-Browning Model 1895 machine gun
U.S. Patent 549,345 Winchester 1895 lever action rifle
U.S. Patent 580,924 Colt 1900 automatic pistol
U.S. Patent 632,094 Winchester 1900 bolt action single shot .22 rifle
U.S. Patent 659,507 FN/Browning Auto-5 shotgun, also Remington Model 11
U.S. Patent 659,786 Remington Model 8 semi-automatic rifle.
U.S. Patent 678,937 M1917 Browning machine gun
U.S. Patent 747,585 Colt Model 1903 Pocket Hammerless automatic pistol
U.S. Patent 781,765 Stevens 520 pump action shotgun
U.S. Patent 808,003 Colt Model 1905 in .45 ACP (predecessor to the M1911)
U.S. Patent 947,478 FN Model 1906 and Colt 1908 Vest Pocket in .25 ACP
U.S. Patent 984,519 Colt 1911
U.S. Patent 1,065,341 Browning 22 Semi-Auto rifle and Remington model 24
U.S. Patent 1,143,170 Remington Model 17 and Ithaca 37 pump action shotguns
U.S. Patent 1,276,716 Colt Woodsman
U.S. Patent 1,293,022 Browning Automatic Rifle Model of 1918
U.S. Patent 1,424,553 FN "Trombone" pump action .22 caliber repeater (Rare in USA)
U.S. Patent 1,525,065 37 mm automatic cannon
U.S. Patent 1,578,638 Browning Superposed over/under shotgun
U.S. Patent 1,618,510 FN and Browning Hi-Power pistol
U.S. Patent 1,628,226 M2 Browning machine gun in .50 caliber

Praise Be Upon Him.

Small But Mighty

Rhennie

(P's Raising Cain - AY's Dana)

July 9, 1997 - November 12, 2008

About ten and a half years ago, a local racing Greyhound breeder called me about a puppy who needed a home. The puppy had been less than half normal size at birth, and the breeders had gone to extraordinary lengths to keep her alive even though they knew she could never race. Now, at ten months of age, it was obvious the little dog was going to stay too small and fragile to stay on the Greyhound farm. I agreed to take her.

About the size of a tall Whippet and weighing less than twenty-five pounds when her littermates grew to weigh in the eighties, she was a very large dog in a tiny package. So the name that suited her the best, of Celtic origin, was "Rhennie" meaning "Small but mighty."

Dwarfism is essentially undocumented in the racing Greyhound since most breeders cull them at birth. She had structural abnormalities but never let them slow her down. We had doubts about how long she might survive, but she had her own ideas.

Life with Rhennie was never boring. When she was younger, she loved to chase feet, trying to grab your ankles with her front paws. Her bone structure was abnormal, and she once snapped a front leg like a carrot just stepping out of the back seat of the car. She was too fragile for a conventional cast so external fixation was recommended. Nothing a board-certified orthopedic surgeon and about $1,600 couldn't fix.

She ran around the house for four months with a tinkertoy on her leg, healed flawlessly, and I never let her go up or down anything remotely resembling a step under her own power ever again.

Rhennie remained oblivious to her congenital defects, helping herself to anything I was foolish enough to try to eat while sitting on the couch, and sleeping on my feet every night. She would only play with raw food, but loved Merrick's many flavors of gourmet canned dog diets. She ate from two to four cans a day without ever gaining an ounce. We joked at the vet's office that if they could bottle her metabolism and sell it, they'd be millionaires.

Her spinal structure was never normal, and over the last few months she developed a severely calcified disc in her lower back. Medication kept her hindquarters more or less working, but last weekend she got much worse. The verdict at the vet on Monday was a probable stroke.

I took her home and we spent Tuesday on the couch together, wrapped up in a comforter, watching DVD's: Rhennie's very favorite activity. She had all her favorite foods, roast chicken, poached salmon, boiled shrimp. When she needed her litter box, I carried her over and held her until she was done. It was increasingly difficult to move her at all without pain.

Then Wednesday morning, I wrapped her in Godiva's blanket from Circle Of Grey and took her in to the vet so she could be free of the body that had become a prison.

Goddess-speed, Rhennie, until we meet again.

Another Hound Joins The Wild Hunt

The wind shakes the house in the darkness, branches lashing the windows. The Wild Hunt is running tonight. And tonight, the Hunt has one more hound in the race.

Gable Godiva
(Gable Dodge - Franks Scootem)
July 28, 1999 - January 24, 2008

Gable Godiva was a retired racing Greyhound. She was really too good on the track to be "petted out." Her last race at Corpus Christie was Grade A, and she won it box-to-wire. Harlyn and Janna Goebel, though, are committed to doing what's right for their dogs, so Godiva was placed in an adoptive home by Heart of Texas Greyhound Adoption.

Family circumstances changed, and they didn't want her any more, saying she was aggressive. Since she was no longer in Texas, I got the referral and found myself with another Greyhound. She turned out to have an extremely strong personality, and with a history of "aggression," I figured it was safest to keep her.

We all come from the Goddess
And to Her we shall return
Like a drop of rain
Flowing to the ocean

In my group of misfits and rejects, she took being an Alpha Bitch to a whole new level. She was my door guarder, sleeping next to the dog door so she could terrorize the other dogs as they came in the house. My three-foot-tall, hundred-plus-pound Scottish Deerhound is still afraid to come in by himself.

I ducked out the dog door once just to fix the rubber mat on the steps. Once out there, of course I got distracted, picking up poop and destroyed dog toys. When I stuck my head through the door to crawl back in, Godiva had forgotten I was outside.

I heard a roar -- not a bark, a roar -- and felt canine teeth on either side of my cheekbones. Fortunately, Godiva was paying attention by then, and realized her error before I needed a plastic surgeon.

Never the spirit was born
The spirit shall cease to be never
Never was time it was not
Ending and beginning are dreams
Birthless and deathless and changeless
Remains the spirit forever
Death has not touched you at all
Death though the house of you seems

When she came in limping on an icy day, I took her to the vet figuring she'd probably slipped and torqued something. Her radiographs were clean, so we thought it was a strained brachial plexus. But a week later it was worse.

New radiographs left no doubt. There was cancer present, and we knew amputation was necessary. Her lungs were still apparently clear, so she came home a tripod to wait until it was safe to start chemotherapy.

On January 24, she had an appointment for her first chemo treatment. But at 1:30 in the morning, she woke me in distress. I gave her a tramadol and stayed with her until the vet's office opened. I carried her to the car, because every time she tried to walk she would cry and fall down.

They radiographed her again. There was a new primary tumor in the distal radius of her only remaining front leg. Her lungs were full of metastases.

Do you know who I am, she said
I'm the one who taps you on the shoulder
When it's your time
Do not be afraid
I promise that she will awake
Tomorrow somewhere
Tomorrow somewhere
(Tori Amos, "The Beekeeper")

The only consolation I have about having to make The Decision is that when life is no longer possible, freeing them from that life is the last gift I can give them. So I held Godiva while she received the injection, saw her last breath, felt her last heartbeat. She is now buried at the pet cemetery with all of my others who have preceded her, dogs, cats, two amazing horses, and where I will eventually be buried.

My tradition sees all souls as the same, whether they choose to inhabit a human or a Greyhound on any given turn of the Wheel. We have all been here before, and we will be here again. Many times, we travel through our many lives in groups. Two of my current dogs have been with me before in other bodies. Others drop in from time to time, often during ritual, just for a visit. And when the wind howls at night, many of them run riot with the Wild Hunt.

So until we meet again . . .

I call the Wild Hunt
By Herne and Hecate
By horn and hound
By wind and storm
And wreck of winter
I call us home
(apologies to Laurell K. Hamilton, "Mistral's Kiss")