Inbreeding

Inbreeding is becoming more of a concern for weredogs. Inbreeding is bad. Crossbreeding is good. Humans figured this out a long time ago. The larger or more robust a gene pool the better for that species. More genes, or alleles, in a species genome means more traits and tools for survival.

But people continue to inbreed dogs. Dog breeders are the worst inbreeders. It is criminal.

I have known of only 1 werebulldog in the past half-century. This is because of their physical limitations. He is just over 100 years old. He is furious with the Bulldog Club of American (BCA). He says they are destroying the very breed which they are supposed to be propagating and protecting.

Many people also love to engage in intellectual inbreeding, which has the same effect - logical and intellectual sterilization and defects. It has always been amazing to me how humans, capable of such staggering intellectual and artistic heights, can discount facts and believe what they want to believe. I don't understand it. Can anyone explain it to me?

In the woods, hunting, or on the battlefield, fighting, if you ignore the facts and see what you want to see, you're dead.

Can you find the weredog?

He's the one who looks mortified. Oops. That's all of them.

Weekend Alert

All hell broke loose this weekend. An alert was sent out to all KC packs based on reports of impending neo attacks on both weredogs. werewolves and people.

The alerts did not allow for much finesse or planning. Many weredogs just had to take off, from wherever they were at the time. I operated yesterday with a weredog who is currently a police dog with the KCPD. He had to jump out of his police car, while his handler was doing a routine stop, and take off. The cops are using helicopters to search for him. He shakes his head when he talks about it. What a mess it is going to be going back.

Caitlyn and the weregirls are becoming tight friends. They know what she is, have known. They can smell what she is. It took them some time to discern her scent. I don't allow myself to get too close to them. I don't want them to discern my scent. Not yet.

The dad is thick with PTSD. I can smell it on him. I can see it in the way he moves, the way he walks, the way he clenches his hands.

Nearly all combat vets return with some degree of PTSD. Dogs too. Weredogs too. Some are effected more than others. If it is a problem and how much of a problem depends on a lot of factors - if the soldier has family and support, if he or she turns to booze or drugs, if they do PT, exercise regularly, if they have something religious or spiritual to sustain them, something to heal their heart, mind and soul. Some need counseling. Some don't.

The Army and rest of the military is more treating and recognizing PTSD in military dogs. Dogs are being diagnosed with PTSD, in Afghanistan and Iraq, and treated and retired based on their PTSD. It was not too long ago that military dogs were simply "destroyed" for being defective when they exhibited signs of stress and strain, symptoms now known to be PTSD.

The fact that more people, in particular the military, are recognizing PTSD in dogs is good. It requires that people recognize the emotional life of dogs.

Dogs having emotions has long been trigger issue for a lot of people, people who claim that only mankind has emotions, and to say that dogs and other animals have emotions is to unbalance the order of the world. But I am told that the opposite is true to any person who has ever looked into the eyes of a dog.

Tracking Skills

We were tracking neos last night through some woods that were not all that dense. But the ground was heavily layered with leaves and decay. Makes tracking a bit more challenging.

At one point Caitlyn, who was lead tracker at the time, said, "Shit," then said, "Sorry," then, "Look at this." I and Warin went forward to her and looked down to where she pointed.

The paw tracks she had bee following turned abruptly into boot tracks. "What the hell?" she said, shaking her head at me.

It's an old trick, switching from paws to boots to feet, and back to paws. It can throw off an inexperienced weretracker, but not one who knows what he or she is looking for.

I showed her where they, two of them, had stopped, shifted, and put on boots. I told her it was likely that they would switch to feet at some point up ahead, if we did not lose their trail, and to stay alert.

"I know, I know," she said, beating me to the punch, "The world needs more lerts."

"We've been spending too much time together," I said. She pouted at me.

We kept on, going slower, listening intently. I had my .40 out. I was watching her almost as much as I was watching the ground. She has learned well. Her skills are mounting. But she has yet to kill. There is no way to know how she will handle that when it happens, and it will happen, given our increased tempo of ops against neos. No contacts lately. But there will be.

The tracks terminated at a dirt road and tire tracks. A truck had picked them up.

On the drive back Caitlyn started talking about the weregirls. 2 in particular she likes, Lena and Wilda. Caitlyn asked if we could bring them into the pack.

"We don't even bring adult werewolves into the pack, girl, only for special visits and meetings," I said. Besides, I told her, we don't even know their situation, especially with the man, their "father."

Figuring out that situation, especially the dad, is another thing to add to my ToDo list, which is already overloaded.

I hope Caitlyn does OK in school today. I had her out late last night. But she seems tireless.

Wolves Off ESA

Wolves are off the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Many werewolves are worked up about this, howling about it, asking why they should be working and fighting alongside weredogs to fight a new species bent on erasing homo sapiens, the species that seem bent on wiping out all other species.

A dog spoke to our pack recently about the concept of "Wildlife Trust Doctrine." I had a hard time following her, but the jist of it seems to be that any state has a duty to protect it people and its resources and common heritage. Wildlife has no owners but belongs in trust to all citizens, in common. The state also cannot abrogate this duty, or it breaks trust with its people.

The broader fear of weredogs, and many people, is that if this common duty and trust is broken with wildlife, then it will be also with wilderness. Weres agree with many people that human culture is suffering from a "nature deficit disorder" (Richard Louv), being more and more disconnected with nature, and that it is having very damaging effects on humanity.

Kids are playing outside less and staying indoors more to play at video games and other types of computers. This is having negative effects on their health, physiologically and psychologically.

People who have a connection with nature better understand biodiversity, which is tied to the survival of everything, every species, the entire planet.

Being in and connecting with nature is essential for our health. The key benefit for all hunters, fishermen, climbers, hikers, paddlers, you name it, is being in nature. Nature is a tonic. It soothes our savage spirits.

So, ironically, all those ranchers and other wolf haters that compare the wolf to a modern T Rex (which is almost as funny as it is ridiculous) are vilifying more than just wolves, but the entirety of the wilderness upon which they stake their lives.

Werewolves are getting riled about this and that is another thing to worry about.

Weregirls

Caitlyn introduced me to a family of weregirls that lives not far from me, here in suburbia. One of the more odd things about this family is that their father is not a were. He is fully human. They have no mother, which is good, because she would be a werewomyn. Werewomyn are a distinct sect of werewolves, all females and adamantly anti-male, and females who consort with males. They do not interact with other werewolves, or anyone, for that matter, except to breed, usually with humans. They tend to live in remotes wilderness areas.

There are five of these weregirls, all in high school. I think they all are the same grade and age. I told Caitlyn to keep a nose on them, to let me know if she smells any trouble hanging around them that might require us to intervene and help them out.

The father is also an Special Forces vet. I cannot let him know that I am also or problems will arise. If we start sharing service dates and places we've been to and names of guys were served with, he will figure out that I am too young for it to make sense. This is why I have never joined the SFA, and have always wished I could.

I have never heard of a human raising, or even living with, werewolves. Need to find out what the story is with these pups and this guy.

Ancient Were Tactics

Humans have no idea how many other species they owe for ideas they claim as their own, tactics in particular.

In the 2nd Great Were War, a little over 2 million years ago, weredogs and werewolves, in armies of hundreds of thousands, just hurled themselves at each other and had at it. It was simply a matter of getting into the thick of it, killing as many of the enemy as you could and not getting killed yourself.

Weredogs somehow stumbled upon an edge in these battles. They started going into these fights as small packs, 3 to 4 weredogs, and fighting together, cover each other's backs, creating small redoubts from where they fought until the fighting was done. It was not long before the werewolves countered and started using the same tactic.

Weredogs countered by making the small packs larger, squad-sized, 10 to 12 dogs. And they came up with other variations that allowed them to move, to fight and drive like a wedge into the enemy. The wolves countered. So the dogs countered, increasing the size of these battle-packs to 25 to 30. Soon it was 100. Then flanking attacks became all the rage.

Eventually mankind imitated these tactics. Of course, that has all been forgotten, who first taught mankind about squad-sized and company-sized battle field tactics.

The wedge formation came from birds.

Just setting the record straight. Again.

Brits Killing Pets for Payouts

Weredogs in Britain are a bit riled up. A new British fad is people killing their pets for pet insurance payouts. The insurance industry reports that pet insurance fraud was over $30 million last year, in 2010, up from $670,000 in 2009. Many Brit weredogs are pissed, and I don't mean inebriated.

Mankind Less Violent

Recently, I went to hear a lecture by a man named Steven Pinker who published a book recently wherein he claims that mankind has been getting progressively less violent over the past 15,000 years.

Pinker's book is titled: "Better Angels of Our Nature." In this book he uses data and evidence, going back 15,000 years, to support his claim that man has gotten less violent over that time.

I think Prof. Pinker needs to get out more.

I, as one who has lived over 200 years, and has lived throughout many wars, and periods of peace, can assure anyone who is curious that mankind is not becoming less violent.

Any other opinions?

Yonatan

An old friend is in town, staying with me. He is much older than me. I love to hear his stories, has fought in many wars and battles, large and small. But few stay with him still as much as the day Yonatan Netanyahu died.

Yonatan was the only casualty of the Israeli commando rescue force that on June 27, 1976, pulled off the classic Entebbe Raid and rescued over 100 hostages, 83 of whom were Israelis. It is a classic in the annals of special operations. Yonatan was also the commander of Operation Entebbe.

My friend, Marek, was on that raid. He had a strong bond with Yonatan and faults himself for Yonatan's death. This is odd and uncommon amongst weredogs, especially one who has seen so many centuries and wars.

Marek, being a weredog, is not Jewish. But he is very comfortable around  Jews and like to play the role of Jew and has done so in several of his human phases. He wishes he had been at Massada and claims to have once known a weredog who was there. I don't have all the details of that dog but suspect there are deeper issues that have to do with his attachment to Judaism and his guilt over Yonatan's death.

Each, regardless of where he is or which phase he is in, he goes to a synagogue and grieves for Yonatan. Several times, during human phases, he has traveled to Jerusalem for this grieving.

I have known, and know, many weredogs who identify with one human religion or another. This is odd when you consider that weredogs are not religious. We are not naturally drawn to religion on our own, but only through human associations. And you could never get two weredogs to agree on anything having to do with religion. However, such discussions do not much involve disagreements about doctrine and digressions and as they do the smells of churches, how the people and spaces feel to them, and the timbre of truth in the voices of pastors and priests. I wonder if it is any different with people.

Werewolves despise human religion. They believe that churches and clergy screw up man's search for higher power, and that the best place to connect with any higher power is anywhere that you can see the full moon at night.

Marek is joining Caitlyn and I this week for some patrols and surveillances, and a pack meeting that has promised road-kill BBQ, one of my few weaknesses. Ever wonder what happens to all the roadkill that you see on the sides of roads, and then you don't? Probably it winds up in the belly of weredogs, or werewolves.

Loneliness and Solitude

I am smelling and seeing more isolated people. I see them on streets and in offices and in stores. Their scent is distinct, the sour smell of isolation and apathy.

Dogs are good with solitude. Wolves are even better. But both can die from loneliness. Both need a pack to survive. People need a pack or family or tribe.

Most people have lost the ability to be alone, in solitude. But many people are dreadfully and desperately alone. There is a difference between solitude and loneliness.

Solitude, for a person, means being away from people. Loneliness means being disconnected from people. One can be lonely in a crowd. For solitude one must be away from people.

Every pack has side-projects, such as trying to bring a rogue or lone weredog back into the fold, into their pack. My pack currently has 2 it is trying to bring back in. 1 is a weredog who I have known several times in my centuries, but who I have never really known at all.

Loneliness is different from solitude. Extended loneliness wounds and carves the soul. Solitude nourishes the soul. One can be in solitude and not be lonely. And one can be lonely within a crowd or large city.

Loneliness goes against the survival instinct. 50,000 years ago being alone meant death. In today’s over-populated world solitude seems to be the opposite, people fear it, but they need it on a subconscious level. This a main reason why people fish, hunt, climb, do things that get them out of cities and into the woods, deserts and mountains, places that remind their primal selves that they can survive outside cities, that cities are relatively new and modern constructs.

Neos are the exception. We are finding that they are incapable of loneliness, that they crave isolation, that they are repelled by connection with others, even of their own kind, other neos. This is a weakness we can exploit.

Weredog Killed

A weredog was shot yesterday, killed in a park in Olathe. The shooter is unknown, not a were, but possibly a neo. The weredog who was shot and killed was a well known and well liked dog in the KC packs. His name was Jerod.

We are looking into it. Much of the factors of this don't make sense. It was in broad daylight. The shooter is an unknown, but had a gun while walking a dog. The other dog is a non-were mastiff. And the police report claims that Jerod was running around loose and attacking people and other dogs in the area. Jerod would never have done that. This was a set-up.

But there have been concerns about Jerod lately, over the past year. Last time I saw and spoke to him at a grand pack meeting he did not seem himself. Over a year ago he left his family with whom he had been with for 8 years. It was time for him to switch to human phase. He had hard times this time around as human, for some reason I could not ascertain. He bounced between a few jobs and, worse, lived alone.

Living alone can be a blessing or a curse. But weredogs generally need companionship, to have someone or someones in the same house, or whatever, when they lay down to sleep at night. Loneliness was wearing Jerod down. But he seems to have chose it. And we have no idea why.

Samhain

Samhain is about here, upon us again. It is that time of year, nearly Halloween. The Celts and neopagans celebrate it as a sort of mystical pagan festival of the dead at the start of winter. It also ties in with the Catholic All Souls Day. But all of that is horseshit. Samhain has been around since the last of the great werewars. It celebrated the end of that war and the pledge of all weres to never let things go to that edge ever again, to where all were, dogs and wolves, nearly wiped each other out.

Samhain was celebrated in the 8th century as an end of harvest, but became popular in the modern era in the 19th century in Britain, and then spread to other parts of Northern Europe and America. But it had been observed by weres for many thousands of years before the Irish, Scots, Celts and neopagans got on board. No one can say for certain, but most certainly it had to have been some weredogs that let it slip and led all those late-comers to it.

Samhain is the one night of the year that weredogs and werewolves have traditionally come together to celebrate. All weres in any area come together for a massive wereparty. Some I have been to over the centuries have been very out of control, very memorable. Ironic that some I do not much remember.

What are they like? Think of raves with meat. Sure, there's booze. Beer goes with BBQ even for weres. But alcoholism is rare amongst weres. But there weredog counselors everywhere for meataholism.

There are several Samhain celebrations that I will be attending in the next week, all with weredogs and werewolves, most of whom will be falling off the wagon and gorging themselves on every conceivable type of meat. The Bourbon, scotch and ale will also flow, you can be certain. Fluufy, you owe me a bottle of Lagavulin.

I need a break, a week of night play and abandon. I have been out every night for weeks, patrolling and planning, checking up on and keeping tabs on Sven and Rick, Jack and Sherry too, and my large crew of dog friends, who are telling me amazing things, good and bad, about their families and neighborhoods. You humans would be screwed without all your dogs to watch you backs.

Details to follow. Been napping most days, after being out most and all nights. So blogging and investments have gone to the back burner. Nothing better than a fall dog nap, especially after being out all night stalking bad dogs.

Yes, in ensuing centuries after the armistice that created Samnhain weredogs nearly hunted and pursued werewolves into extinction. Some habits are just hard to give up.

Killer Apes and .....

Had a pack meeting last night. One dog, a newby, has been referring to humans as "the killer apes." He got it from a werewolf. He and I have argued about it several times, last night and at other meetings.

There is a theory called "The Killer Ape Theory" that claims that homo sapiens clawed their way to the top of the human pile by means of the superior ability to kill, both prey and competitors.

This theory claims that fighting and hunting, to survive, of course, is what caused the enormous intelligence leap in the human brain, that led to homo sapiens learning the make tools and weapons and to figure out how to control and make fire, amongst other things.

There are other theories, of course.

But it is true that all predator species have to learn how to kill to survive, to eat, to defend themselves and their territory, to contest competition. Mankind is not any different.

It is also true that humans learned to fear the world, and still carry that with them. Humans learned over many millennia to fear the dark, to fear the forrest, to fear the water, to fear the night. The world was, and still is, a very scary and dangerous place. People have that fear hard-coded into them.

We weres see the world as a scarier place now than 50,000, or even 100,000 years ago, given all the institutionalized barbarity and corruption, the rhetoric that we have a hard time following and understanding. The scarcity facing the world, in terms of food, water an energy, could very soon make for very interesting, even scarier times.

This hard-coded fear is at the heart of all human commerce, all government, all religion. Fear of lacking, of not having enough, or running out, is what drives human greed and, hence, most human behavior.

That is not to say that all human behavior is barbaric. No. Examples of human love and compassion and creativity are everywhere. These sorts of things are the counter-balance to the barbarity. Both exist in the hearts of all humans - compassion and barbarity.

I told this dog that calling humans apes is like calling a weredog a werewolf. He didn't laugh. That worried me.

Calls to make. Clothes to wash. Guns to clean. I miss Sven and Rick, and Sherry and Jack. I'm a sucker for punishment.

Dognappers in Nam

This caught my eye in the paper this morning. Read the article here: Dognappers in Nam

Dogs have a different existence in the Asian and Arab cultures. Life in those cultures is generally much harder and dangerous. It can be bad enough in the U.S. and Europe, with dog fighting and puppy mills and those humans who like to take out their angst and anger on their dogs (and often their kids too). But dogs are not considered a delicacy or vermin in western cultures.

I have been to Vietnam, and other Asian countries. I have been in the Middle East. But I have always returned to and lived most of my life in North American, with some forays to Europe. But I was born an American dog and always have been an American dog.

Asian weredogs do not have the same lifestyles with their humans. They must remain always vigilant, for dog-nappers and other atrocities. Asian weredogs have a long history of rescuing the dogs they grow to care for from the butcher's knife. There is a much richers weredog and werewolf mythology in Asian folklore, much of which derives from the activities of weredogs.

Asian culture, to a great extent, sees pets in general, and pet dogs in particular, as frivolous and far too western. Arabs culture is the same, but more so. Iran has been confiscating pet dogs in recent years, claiming that pet dogs are much too western and a bad influence on the pure Muslim mind. For this reason, there has been an increase in dog rescues and exfiltrations of dogs and weredogs out of Iran, and other Arab countries, in recent years. These operations stay small, to avoid attention.

There are many weredogs who do not care for Asians and Arabs because of these issues. There are also some weredogs, more and more, who claim that it is all human, not just Arabs and Asians, that it is more about culture and economy and need that determines the human capacity for barbarity and BBQed dogs. Werelore, and even human history, makes it very clear that all humans will eat whatever they have to stay alive, including other humans. This is true for all species.

But that does not lessen the horror of seeing a dead dog hanging from a meat hook, which I have seen.

Recent Patrols and Updates

I love my new .40. It is a Sig Sauer and weights well in my hand, and rides well in its new holster while on patrol.

Warin and Caitlyn and I have been patrolling a lot inside and outside our AO. Lots of leads and rumors and strange scents to follow up on.

A scared werewolf came to our pack seeking refuge. He claimed he possesses much intel that we would like to hear. We put him up in a pack safe house and if half of what he is telling is true we are going to be doing double-duty following up on everything. And we are going to need more dogs, and wolves, to trace it all down.

One thing this wolf claims is that he knows who killed Rex, that it involved werewolves who were working with neos. I let it be known that I want to be involved in the hit when we take them down. I want to hear scream those who killed Rex. I won't need the .40 for that. It will be claw and blade only.

Dionna has disappeared. No one in Grand Lake knows where she is. I have to find her.

I have been sneaking in to see and smell everyone at home, but just during the day. I have been over twice in human form to say "Hi." But it is not the same. As a person I cannot just lay down on the floor and watch everyone. As a person there is a clock running and after a time they are waiting or you to leave.

Jack is depressed. Sherry is angry. Sven and Rick seem to be doing OK, all things considered, playing football and burying their heads in their phones and iPods most of the time. Jack won't say how or what he is doing. But I know.

I cannot find work. Even during the Great Depression I found work. Granted, it was on farms and ranches and small towns, but the country was much more rural then than now. I should leave, move again to some other part of the country, or even back to Canada. But I feel tied to Jack and Sherry and the boys. And to Braden and Tyler, who are having their own struggles lately.

I have been asked to be part of some more operations. But I cannot leave the country again so soon. I have even declined some puppy mill ops in Missouri. Caitlyn is giving me strange looks. Warin says I need to move again, to the mountains. I have always been a mountain dog at heart.

Hailey Died Yesterday

I spent most of the day yesterday back at the house, Jack and Sherry's. The other pets got word to me that Hailey was dying.

I am one of those rare weredogs who has a natural and strange affection for cats. Domestic house cats. I have no desire to get cozy with a tiger or lion, or even to mess with a cougar. But I always get tight with the cats with whom I share abodes. And Hailey was one special cat.

I let myself in and spent most of the day with Hailey. I knew the moment I smelled her that she was nearly done. She was down to 3 pounds, form her healthy weight of 10 pounds. She could barely move, had found a spot to die in the boys bathroom, on the floor, curled up on the damp towel dropped there that morning after a shower.

I sat by her most of the day, petting and touching her lightly. The other pets were nearby. Canines do this because for millions of years pack members kept guard for older or sick dying pack members, to keep predators at bay, so that they could die at their leisure, with some comfort and dignity.

 I put my nose to her and sniffed her a lot, knowing that after that I would never smell her again. I have a vast memory of smells from other my years, of those loved and less loved. Their faces always fade from my memory long before their scents.

I slipped out the back just as the boys were getting home from football practice. It would have been awkward for them to find me there. But part of me wanted that to happen.

I am thinking of going back, to live with Jack and Sherry and the boys. Stranger things have happened. They would just pass it off as another of those amazing dogs who travel amazing distances, or disappear and reappear, to regain their families.

Most of those dogs, by the way, are weredogs. Go figure.

Dogs and Bones

I got into the old argument the other night about whether dogs have suffered from civilizations, some say, "domestication." I got into it with a werewolf at a military reunion last week. Yes, werewolves do get into the military from time to time. Werewolves love the military in a combat AO. But they hate the military when in garrison. They are the worst peace-time and garrison troopers ever, always getting into trouble.

I told this guy that dogs are not wolves, that for one thing the diversity of dogs far out-spans that of wolves, in terms of size and color and numerous differences. Shepherds and huskies ad closer to the wolf archetype than the dachshund or chihuahua. But the difference between a chihuahua and a wolf is about the same as between Richard Simmons and a Special Forces operator.

This guy claimed that dogs cannot chew bones like a wolf. I told him that I have seen weredogs, in dog, were and human form, strip a bone and then make it disappear as if on-stage.

Vets say not to give dogs linear bones, like rib bones. One has to know the dog on that count, whether the dog is a fast eater, tends to eat too fast, and then is more likely to choke on bone fragments or to perforate some intestine. Flecka tended to eat too fast. Bella ate slow and methodical.

It's the same with people. Seems to me there are more poodle-people, chihuahua-people, and cocker-people these days. What would a cocker-spaniel do if you gave him or her an elk thigh bone? What would it do if let loose in the wild?

Dont get me wrong. I aint got a bone to chew here. But after spending last week with a bunch of old and young Special Forces guys, my perceptions of people is a little askew.

I told this werewolf that the real question is not who is softer from civilization, but "Who can fight?" He said, "How about arm wrestle?" I said OK.

In no time there was a crowd around our table. I'd drank about five beers. I hoped he'd had at least as many. He was about my size.

I beat him 2 out of 3. The wolves all howled in lament. Wolves howl over everything. They would have never stopped had there not been only 5 of them in there.

Later, as we all were leaving, that same werewolf leaned into me and said, with a grin, "I'll be wanting a rematch." I said, "You need to trim your claws. I know a good vet for that."

Stonehenge and Missing Links

During my recent travels I went through Britain, stayed with some weredogs I know there, have not seen in some time. Had some great beer and learned some things.

Weredogs and werewolves made Stonehenge and all the other megaliths. It's true. They all were constructed during a time when all weres were trying to come together. According to recent findings by werescientists this was at a time so long ago that the missing link weres were involved in the building.

We still do not know when dogs and weredogs split, or if it was earlier canines and weres that split, some earlier species of canine that split into weres and non-weres. That is why werescientists have been searching, for many years, for the missing link, that common ancestor that would tell us when dogs and weredogs, wolves and werewolves, first diverged, and if it was canines or werecanines who came first.

Gotta go. Patrol tonight.

Lona - New Pack Member

Caitlyn has a new friend and mentor - Lona. I am both glad of this and worried.

Lona joined the pack while I was gone, shortly before I returned. She is burned out from her time spent in doing covert and overt puppy mill rescues. She says she lost count how many she got out. The covert operations were easier, sneak in under cover of darkness, grab usually one, sometimes two, puppies and slip back out. Then do it again the next week. But the overt operations, involving the SPCA, law enforcement, sometimes the FDA, was usually a total mess.

She is in dog phase now, living with an old lady in Olathe.

Lona is one of the growing numbers of weredogs who are giving up the old rules and faiths and saying that we need to save man from himself, if that is even possible. For traditionalists, talk like that is treasonous, and very dangerous.

At the same time, more and more werewolves are adopting the ways of man, feeding their robust appetites and predatory natures within the cities and excesses of man.

But not all. Some werewolves still cleave to their old ways, to the werelore, to the belief that wild living is the best living, that wilderness feeds the soul and civilization corrupts it.

The only thing we all agree on is that the neos must be stopped, or they will destroy everything. If they are the next homo and canis manifestations, then we all, and the entire world, is doomed.

Lona, however, has good howl, as well as excellent rhetorical and hunting skills. I like her, in spite of the fact that she is giving Caitlyn a problematic education.

The War of the Stray Dog

One of the wars started by canines was the War of the Stray Dog in 1925 between Greece and Bulgaria. It is little known outside of Greece and Bulgaria, probably not even known anymore in those two countries. It is also well known amongst weres.

The common explanation for the war is that a young Greek troop ran out into the no-mans-land between the two lines and Bulgarian sentries shot him. One version also claims that a Greek captain was shot. Greece sent troops just over the border, into Bulgaria, and demanded compensation, 6 million drachmas, an official apology and punishment of the soldiers who shot the Greeks.

The real reason was a lovers' spat. The young Greek soldier who was shot was a weredog, as was the so-called stray dog. They had been defying weredog law by staying together, alternating and offsetting their human and dog phases, for quite a long time. No one is sure how long.

The troop, the male, was killed, but the dog, the female, was not. And she disappeared. No one knows where she went or what happened to her. Some weres say she died of a broken heart. But she didn't. I know now because I met her this weekend. She is Oliva and she is still not fond of Bulgarians.

The Benandanti and Malendanti

Fighting broke out in our pack AO for which we have to broker a cease fire. It is between old foes.

The benandanti were a secret society of common folk magicians who lived in Italy, the northeast area called Friuli. They did mainly good magic to help in harvests, heal the locals, lift curses, etc.

The malendanti were the other side of the coin, evil sorcerers with whom the benandanti regularly fought, especially at harvest times.

Both groups were said to be able to assume animal forms. You guessed it, they were weres, dogs and wolves.

Benandanti means “good walkers” and were of course a clan of weredogs. Malendanti means “evil walkers” and of course were a clan of werewolves.

These 2 clans had been at each others throats, in this same area, since the ancient war between weredogs and werewolves. Now they are here, in Missouri, and causing problems for our mill surveillance teams.

We met with the elders of the Benandanti pack. Wolves of our pack met with the Malendanti pack. I can't say things went well. But we did get an opening.

I met a female of that Ben pack while there. Her name is Oliva and is the first weredog or person who I have met who has started a war.

Search and Rescue

One of these dogs is a very old friend of mine.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/08/14/magazine/14Mag-rescue-dogs.html?emc=eta1#1

Bobby the Dog

My old friend, Bobby, sent me this painting recently, a link to it, actually.

Bobby was one of the few survivors of the Battle of Maiwand, 2nd Afghan War, 27 July, 1880

Bobby was owned at the time by Sgt Kelly of the 66th Foot, who perished as 1 of the 11 who held out to cover the retreat of the survivors of that disaster. All of those galliant 11 were killed. Bobby survived with the small force of survivors. That survival haunts him to this day, that he did not go off somewhere, shift, and return to the fight as man or were. It wouldn't have mattered in the end as he would have died with the rest.

Bobby returned to England, spent some time recovering, as dog and man, but eventually found himself back in war, this time in France, at the carnage of the Somme, Loos and Passchendaele. After that war he fled to Canada, found a remote cabin and has been there ever since, living a quite and shifting life ever since. I visited him on my recent travels, to get some critical information that only he possesses.

Bobby is like no other weredog I have ever known. Sometimes he seems more like a wise werewolf, sometimes a mangled man, sometimes a damaged weredog, and sometimes he is something entirely differently, for which I cannot find words.

Note: The above painting is by an artist named Rod McIver who paints and writes, and who has helped Bobby very much in overcoming and dealing with his demons. Rod's web site is here: http://www.herondance.org.

Talking Dog

This is not quite how it works with weres, but still it is funny.

A weredog would just sit there and act dumb, then get into the fridge that night, and blame it on the cat, or maybe one of the kids, if need be.

Need a Global Catastrophe

Went to a packing meeting last night. New meeting place. Not sure I like it. Too much exposure, but lots of meat. I went with Caitlyn, who has become very well known in the pack, despite her youth and size. She, I and Warin are going east this weekend to meet with surveillance teams on Missouri who are watching puppy mills.

There was some growling at the meeting last night, disagreements over how certain things should be handled, such as the mills, JSOWTs and regular patrol teams, and overall views on the world and on humans.

Some weredogs think that what mankind needs is a global catastrophe that would shake humans out of their collective self-absorption and corruption, not to wipe out the species, but to get you all back on track. This attitude is based on the belief that things have gotten too easy for humans, who have become way too numerous.

I don't, myself, subscribe to this belief. but I know some weredogs, and a whole lot of werewolves, who do. It is a fantasy that goes way back for werewolves, that an asteroid or geological event would slam the legs out from under mankind, forcing them to reexamine their priorities and pack perceptions. And you have to admit, humans seems to harbor this same fantasy. Look at all the books and movies about the demise of man, zombies and asteroids and aliens and viruses that wipe out the human race or come close to it. Waterworld is one of Jack's favorite movies. When he and the boys watch it I can always tells they think it would be a glamorous adventure, staying alive in a Waterworld future. Yeah. Right.

It has happened before.

Another big change is that the pack now includes werewolves. This is a result of the new and recent era or collaboration and alliance between weres in the interest of fighting the neos. Even though I am in love with a were, I still get edgy around them, strange werewolves, and tend not to trust them.

Joppa Road

I have a respectable portfolio which is the result of two and a half centuries of living and learning and investing. My portfolio is divided amongst numerous accounts and aliases. They are held in various investment companies and financial institutions. But they are all plugged into the weredog network.

The weredog network is global and provides for the support and cohesion of al packs and dogs, which both contribute funds and time and passion. If something were to happen to me my funds would not languish and be eaten up by a gluttonous brokerage house. They would be accessed by the weredog network and transfered into the network. And if a dog finds him or herself in a bad situation and without funds, anywhere in the world, that dog is a call or a howl away form support. I had reason to tap into this support several times on my recent travels.

Weredog financial networks are based on very old models which derive from before man, when managing resources for large packs, such as food, also from Ancient Greece, a time greatly loved by werelore, and from the Crusades.

Joppa Road was the 40 mile stretch between the port city of Joppa and Jerusalem. During the Crusades it was considered the most dangerous 40 miles of road in the known world, known to Europeans, of course. Most Christian pilgrims landed at Joppa and traveled those 40 miles to Jerusalem. And many of them perished on that road.

The Templar Knights first formed to provide protection to pilgrims along Joppa Road. They were just 10 in the beginning, 10 men wanting to make a difference (and maybe a little bored). There were always at least 3 of them on that road, running security patrols.

5 of those 10 original knights were weredogs.

The ranks grew, then swelled. Crusaders joined the Templars, and the Hopitalers and Teutonic orders also, by the thousands. Weredogs were part of that throng.

Many weredogs started cycling through their dog-man phases without ever leaving the Templars. They fought on as man, then dog, then man, etc, without leaving the order. The Templars and Teutonic Knights have a very strong tradition and legacy within werelore. It is said that there were even a number of werewolves who joined clandestinely.

When the Crusades ended the Templars and the other orders returned to Europe to find new religious wars. The Templars were spread out all over Europe. The Templar financial system covered Europe and was the first international banking system. Templars were advisers and financiers to the kings and queens of Europe.

When Philip IV of France conducted his Templar pogrom in 1307, and seized all Templar assets in France, most of the Templar system survived, as other kings gave sanctuary to their Templars. Templar weredogs took note of that experience, of Philip's treachery and of how Templar assets, even some within France, survived.

We still run our network on that basic model, and it works well. I have not had to call on that support very often in my life, but I did, 5 times, over the past year, in my travels, and I can tell you the network extends everywhere, not just in Europe, but also in the Middle East and Asia.

Some people would say this sounds like socialism. But we weredogs are just following the laws of the pack, our survival instincts and the modern logics for networking and support. It is the same in all armies or any tightly-knit group that has a mission.

Dog vs. Rooster

This is interesting, mostly because the handler feared a rooster would, or could, hurt his dog.

http://www.michaelyon-online.com/war-dogs-veloci-chickens-in-afghanistan.htm

Paroled Pups

I saw Jared this week. He had to get scarce and lay low, due to pressures from neos and law enforcement. The fact that he is not a weredog is making things more difficult, in terms of his safety.

Anyway, he found a job in prison. Not as an inmate, but as a dog trainer, coordinator, actually. It fits his needs and personality for numerous reasons. He says he does more people training than of dogs.

Back in 2002 Missouri prisons started a program that allows prisoners to adopt and train dogs with behavioral problems or impairments that make their adoption difficult or impossible.

Pups for Parole is the name of the program.

He says they are effective, that close to 300 dogs have been given a second, or third or forth, chance and been adopted because of the program. And all of the prisoners in the program say that it has helped them, restored something in them.

2 cases that Jared told me stick in my mind. One is lifer for multiple murders, former carer criminal, biker gangs, scourge on society and all that, but is incredible with the dogs, especially puppies. He is large and menacing and covered in scary tattoos, but when he gets around dogs he is kind and gentle. With Puppies he talks baby-talk, acts more like a hair dresser. But he is dangerous to any of the other inmates or trainers who he thinks are not kind or gentler enough with the dogs. Last month he nearly ripped some guys head off for holding a puppy up high and playing with it like it was a toy airplane. He got solitary for a few days. But Jared says it is unlikely that there will be anymore flying puppies.

A blind female yellow lab arrived at the prison about 2 months ago. Jared did not give it much chance, tried not to get too attached to it, because he did not to take the emotional plummet when the dog failed. But that lab has become a star pupil, even helps to train and care for the other dogs, especially the puppies. She became surrogate mother for a litter of shepherd-mix puppies who came in who all were too young, and thus at risk. She immediately adopted them, started producing milk, miraculously, and nursing them. They are all fine now, out of the woods, and still run to her when scared or happy. But Jared fears the lab will never get adopted because she is blind.

Since Jared is laying low in prison, others have stepped up to take over the puppy mill teams. More on that later.

Full Moon

I get tired of hearing about werewolves and full moons. So much crap. Weres, wovles and dogs alike, can shift at any time, day or night. We are not restricted to full moons. The whole full moon thing is based on mankind's fear of and respect for full moons, which derives from other reasons.

Mankind has feared full moons since he first came down out of the trees and starting walking around in 2 legs. The reason is that large predators, those who tended to find men and women somewhat tasty, tend to hunt more aggressively in the week after a full moon. The increased illumination from a full moon makes hunting more difficult, prey can see predators in the brighter night, especially on nights of clear skies. Predators then get hungry, more ambitious, and take greater chances and go greater distances to find prey.

Mankind figured this out, and thus moon fear was born, for most, but not all. Some men, and women, live for the night. But they are the exception, not the fool.

For some of the same reasons, I love the night. Night is your friend. There is no need to fear the night, of the dark, of the forest at night, or even the moon. Fear is all in your head. You can acclimate yourself to the night just like you can acclimate yourself to water, or heights, or violence. The more domesticated a species becomes the more it forgets that.

Armor Sucks

In my recent travels I had the opportunity to run with some troops and get to know them and their gear. The M4 is basically an M16 with rails and bells and whistles added, the digitals cammies are being replaced with new cammies, Multicams, and body armor is as well loved and effective as it was in the Middle Ages.

Body armor makes up a big part of the modern warrior's kit. The only problem is that armor is crap. I weights you down, saps your energy and limits your range of motion. The troops I talked to in Afghanistan hate it, but wear it because they are ordered to do so.

One of the key factors in the English victory at the Battle of Agincourt was that the French, who outnumbered the English _ to _, and were attacking downhill, were attacking in armor. By the time the French knights crossed the distance between them and the English, and came into range of the English long bowmen, they had to have been exhausted, and could not fight as fluidly when they met the English.

Lesson: Do not carry or weight more than is necessary. Do not help your enemy. Do not be your own enemy.

I know of no telling of a werewolf ever wearing armor. Weredogs did, but under stiff protest and when they could not get out of it. Werewolves, however, did, supposedly, wear faux armor, leathers made to look like armor, but which were lighter and allowed greater movement. I have also heard telling of special cloth faux armor.

Suits are often just that, faux clothe armor, intended to impress friends and foe alike, to gain advantage on certain fields of battle, of both business and bedrooms. Me, I like to run beneath a full moon or hot sun with as little as possible to encumber me.

At the pack meeting tonight new guidelines were issues concerning body armor, new designs for weredogs, and werewolves. Never saw that coming.

Fenian Weredog

In my recent travels I was able to see an old friend, Sean, an Irish Wolf Hound by breed, weredog by species, Irish by God. Sean has an interesting past, and present.

Sean came over to America in 1856 in the flood of Irish that came over then. He fought through the entire Civil War. That is where we met, actually. After the war he was part of the Fenian invasion which in 1866 tried to provoke a popular uprising against the British in Canada. They were a bunch of Irish Civil War veterans, still drunk with the glory of that war and bored and eager to start another. Add to all that Irish anger and desire for a free and unified Ireland and it nows seems amazing to me that there were not thousands more involved in that ill-fated invasion.

A force of 1,000 Fenians attacked across the US-Canadian border and seized the town of St. Armand. They were veterans of war but did not have the numbers or the skills to achieve their goals. Civil War battles involved many thousands of troops hurling themselves at each other and artillery and cavalry and all the rest. What the Fenians needed to conduct was an unconventional warfare campaign. But none of them knew of that, had an inkling of those skills. I do now, but did not then, and did not until the following century, the one just passed, during my 2 stints in Army Special Forces, who are all about UW, born and bred for it.

Anyway, Sean and all the Fenians were put down and run off quickly by Canadian troops. Sean went west, like many of us.

I went to see him about funding for some projects. He is working now in finance, and has access to creative financing. But he has ben having problems at work. The rest of the suits with whom he works somehow got the idea that he is gay. He isn't. But in some way he gave the wrong impression, and he does not know how to fix it.

Weredogs, like dogs, and all canines, do not get the whole homophobia thing. Hell, I love to lick my balls, in dog form of course. I can't reach in human form. And don't even get me going on leg humping. True, usually dogs do that as a show of dominance. But not always.

Anyway, many packs depend on Sean and his position in finance. He is early in his current human phase and cannot lose this position. But he is not certain how to fix the situation. So I put him in touch with a werewolf I know who is very adept at figuring out and fixing tangled human webs. That was five months ago. Talked to him today. She and he are living together and shedding allot of fur together.

I don't know what to think of this trend which I see growing and spreading. It worries me. But I can hardly criticize, due to Dionna.

Technical Difficulties

I just figured out that many messages never posted that were supposed to have, and going back many months, especially prior to Xmas. Rectifying.

Ruminations on Humans

Chester - Ruminations on Humans

I do not understand humans. I have been living with humans for well over 200 years now and I still do not understand humans.

It’s not a Republican or a Democrat thing, or a conservative or a liberal thing. It is a survival thing.

All actions derive, ultimately, from the survival instinct.

First there was pack alphas, then tribal chiefs, then clans, villages, families, houses, bands, kingdoms, kings, nations, generals, dynasties, republics, presidents, companies, corporations, CEOs, consortiums, to the point we are at now where humans are barely and possibly not at all even in control of the impetus generated by the corrupted greed that is driving .....

Republics and democracy was a real game changer, there is no denying that. Some weres feared, still fear, that humans are not ready for such sharing of power. Representation is not natural, say a lot of weres, dogs and wolves. For primates and canines, for millions of years, survival was about strong leadership, stability and loyalty to the pack.

But things have changed. Nations are not packs.

One of the key changes is inequality of resources. The pooling of wealth by small groups and the scarcity of resources for large groups is a recently phenomenon, starting back only about 10,000 years ago, when mankind began farming.

Before agriculture it was impossible for large groups of any species to form. Large groups were too hard to feed, required large amounts of food.

The only exception to this was when large groups of weredogs and werewolves came together for large battles. This was fairly common, according to werelore, for several millennia.

With agriculture came cities, then kingdoms, the ability to feed large numbers of people. City dwellers no longer needed to hunt or gather. They only needed to go to the dining hall or market.

Larger farms meant larger cities, and larger armies, and then kingdoms, and monarchs. And kings used the same logic that pack alphas used to justify their leadership - divine selection, that they were chosen by the gods.

All leaders are tempted to abuse their power, for themselves and their families and friends, their tribe, their pack. Few can withstand that temptation, often to the detriment of their own pack, tribe, or nation.

This is what mystifies all us weres. All weres know that there is nothing above the good of the pack, the many, the collective. Greed, corruption and dishonor hurts the pack and ruins the legacy of the transgressor. But somehow you humans have turned greed into a virtue. How did you do that? We were watching you, living with you, fighting and loving with you, and we still don’t know how you did it.

Politics does not interest us . . . most of us. All the talk of conservatism and liberalism, capitalists and communists, labor and management, debt and taxes, states and federals, I have tried to follow it, to understand it. But I can’t. And I have come to a deeper understanding of it, one that every weredog and werewolf who I have ever told this to agrees. Politics is not about governing. It might have been in the beginning. But not now. Now it is about the human love of conflict. And conflict has been the key to human evolution ad survival.

But that is for another post and night. And besides, what could a simple weredog possibly know?

Dog Orthos, Amazing

A littermate of a member of my pack works for this outfit:

OrthoPet

Amazing outfit/company. I suspect that Patrice Mich is werefolk, dog or wolf I cannot be certain. But that has been neither confirmed nor denied.

Some of these animals benefited from OrthoPet prowess:

Bionic Animals

Many weredogs worry that mankind has become too violent and destructive and greedy. And on the other hand we see people doing these kinds of things, for creatures that many critics say have no right to receive such gifts and sustain such costs, not when there are people who need prosthetics. But the people who do these things, see these efforts which allow a two-legged dog to walk, these people truly understand the nature of cost and benefit. And that is a nice counter-point to have in your holster when arguing with wolves, and even dogs, who claim mankind is over the edge.

Just such a dog joined out pack recently. She has been very involved in the whole puppy mill mess in Missouri. She is not real happy with humans right now. More on her later.

Nazi Werewolves

My recent travels got me back into an old mess that I had hoped I would never again have to dirty my paws with.

In the days right after the end of World War 2 I got involved with a campaign in Germany to put down an insurgency in post-war Germany involving what was call the "Werwolves." They were a network of former Nazis who had gone underground to conduct an insurgency against Allied forces. Their intent was to kill US and other Allied soldiers through means of bombs and guns, but also a slew of other absurd methods which included a slew of poisons, some of which were not even very potent, it turned out. Often the delivery system was the problem. These included cigarettes, aspirins and coffee, and various other foods, as well as glass pellets. They were not very effective, mostly because of the Allied, mostly U.S., counter-measures, which we launched as soon as U.S. intelligence got wind of the rumors of these werewolves.

There were actual werewolves involved. Many werewolves got involved in the Third Reich, some rising to high ranks. They saw it as the best opportunity that had come along in many centuries to knock mankind down a a few notches, possibly even put them back on their heels. A werewolf told me many years later that the best part, which was lost on none of them, was the irony that humans were going to be the driving force in their own downfall.

I was contacted by an M.I. officer who I knew, a weredog, who wanted me involved. I have to tell you that at first I was very concerned, due to the reports I read about their preparations and plans. But we wiped them out and scarfed them all up in a little over 2 years, mostly due to 2 things. One, we went after them very aggressively, with "extreme prejudice," a nice little phrase we used later, in Vietnam. We were very war weary and had no intentions of messing around, wanted to stamp out any residual Nazi nastiness as quickly as possible. Two, the rumors were exaggerated and the werewolves were overconfident, a fatal German flaw. Halfway through 1946 most of the werewolves involved saw this and bailed, made themselves scarce. This was a disappointment to all weredogs involved as we thought we might bag a lot of werewolves, get a high body count.

One of the werewolves involved was named Lothar. He fought in and barely managed to get out of Russia, then spent the final days of the war as Hitler's body guard. During that time Lothar fell in love with Blondi. Now it gets good. Hitler loved dogs, particularly German Shepherds. Go figure. He had two females, in particular, who he loved most of all - Blondi and Bella. Blondi was a werewolf. Bella was a weredog.

Life is always messy, even for weredogs. There were weredogs in the Third Reich. They were attracted by the order and discipline, the martial attitude. The story of what happened to them all, during and after the war, is an epic story in itself. Many lost faith in the Nazis, and the Germans, when saw or heard of some of the horrors that were SOP for the Nazis. Bella stayed with Hitler until the end. She told me once, the only time we ever spoke of this topic, that yes, her master was a bit insane, but that also he was a wounded and damaged man. Yeah, whatever.

Anyway, with Blondi dead and Lothar and Bella on the run and underground he joined the werewolves. He told me that at first it seemed brilliant and plausible. But he soon realized that it was futile and not fully baked.

Seeing the writing on the wall, so to speak, Lothar decided to become scarce. But what to do with Bella, who was very much a broken dog and, Lothar feared, unwilling to go on living. She was past her shift time and needed to phase over to human. So Lothar contacted me, in the midst of all this werewolf mess, and managed to convince me that he was not setting a trap and convinced me to try to smuggle Bella out of Germany. I agreed. We got her out. She was, after all, a weredog. What choice did I have?

I never thought that I would ever again lay eyes on Bella. I was wrong.

My Family

I am back, but not with Jack and Sherri and the boys. I am undecided as to whether I will show back up there or not. I have let myself in 2 different nights, to check for bad scents and to look in on them, just stick my nose in their rooms while they are sleeping. Jack awoke one of those nights and got up with a .40 in-hand. But he saw Duchess, who was moving about the house with me, and just figured it was her being restless.

One of the new developments is that they have a new dogs, Duchess. She is a large shepherd-husky mix with a luxurious all white coat. She says that this summer heat it kicking her tail. She is a dog, but would make a goo weredog. I might nominate her to the pack.

Through Duchess I hear how they all are doing, which is about the same. The big change is the boys, who at soon both to be 16 and are going through all the phases of trials of teen angst. No matter how many generations I watch it I still cannot quite understand it. It scares and intrigues me.

In my recent travels I covered a lot of ground, went all over the U.S., then to Canada, and then over to Europe and eventually over to the Middle East, Afghanistan and even Iran. It is sometimes easier to move about as a dog in the Middle East. But, damn, life is hard in that part of the world for dogs. Keeping dogs as pets in Iran ranks right up there on the no-no list with teaching girls to read. Muslim clerics claim it is to western and anger Allah. Whatever.

I met and stayed for a while with a woman in Iran who runs a secret girl's school. In A-stan I saw the female battalions that the U.S. is trying to get trained and in the field, as well as did a lot of sneaking in and out of Taliban enclaves.

Raunch Fem and Humping Legs

Female dogs, some, will hump legs, even other dogs, sometimes males. Not many do this, but some. Obviously it is for show, because they do not have the equipment to actually do anything with the humping. At least not the same thing that male dogs have in mind. They do it as a dominance play, to gain more dominance within their pack.

It is the same thing with "raunch feminism," that newer iteration of feminism which strives to achieve true equality with males through females acting as raunchy, or more raunchy, than males. This amounts to girls and young women seeking fights with other girls, dressing like prostitutes, and being sexually predatory, allowing males to sit back and be pursued.

This is not all that new. History is full of women who have fought or fucked as aggressively as males. In history there was Boudicca, Joan of Arc, Mary Read, and more recently in Afghanistan, Bibi Ayesha, a woman and a warlord. In movies and TV there has been Sarah Connor, Beatrix Kiddo, Ellen Ripley and Xena.

The difference now is that never before has this occurred in such numbers. The current fashion and trend is for girls and young women to play the toughy and raunch games. In the last few years I have seen numerous fights between young women, usually in bars and public places, and I'm not talking cat fights. (Sorry, Bailey and Rooster.) I'm talking fist fights with real punches. Well, mostly real punches.

So what is the outcome of this? Will this be good for human societies or bad? Will one side or the other in this current war have an advantage if it can double its potential pool of warriors, or is that where this leads? Is Xena a fantasy or an inevitability? I can tell you this, you do not want to tangle with the females in my pack, or piss any of them off by implying that they are lesser warriors because she does not sport a penis sheath. But maybe werefolk are different than humans.

Chester

chester.weredog@gmail.com

A New Leader

Caitlyn and Warin have been busy while I've been gone. They have built a coalition of weredogs and werewolves in KC and ben hitting hard at the neos and their operations, so hard in fact that they have been hard to find and hit over the past several months.

Caitlyn has proven a hell of a leader. Some say she fulfills a prophecy. She is a ferocious fighter and a born and passionate leader. She has matured beyond her actual years, physically. This is not uncommon, but somewhat rare. She will be attending a local high school, and since her appearance has changed and looks different no problems are anticipated with other kids recognizing her. If that becomes a problems then either she or she and Warin will relocate to somewhere else.

Warin, the half-breed that he is, has gotten dogs and wolves in our AO to come together for planning and operations on a scope not seen in many millennia. I have been going out with them nearly every night on patrols and pow-wows, meetings with other weredog packs and with werewolves, who have been organizing in ways not seen in many millennia.

It is good to be back with my pack. I have missed them. All.

Dogs and Wolves

I have learned a lot, in my recent travels, about dogs and wolves, canines in general.

Dogs and wolves are not the same. Dog is canis familiaris and wolves are canis lupus. Both are also, of course, of the canis genus - canines, which also includes foxes, coyotes, dingoes, etc.

Dogs started hanging out with man anywhere from 10,000 to 20,000 years ago, depending on who you listen to. Some say earlier. Some say more recently. A recent Swedish-Chinese study claims to have proof that dogs were first domesticated 16,500 years ago in what is now China.

The familiaris qualifier has only been established for dogs in the past 20 years. It has been debated as to whether it was necessary. It stood because it simply cannot be debated that dogs, due to their centuries of affiliation with men, now have a psychology and physiology distinct from wolves. Yes, they are still more similar than dissimilar. But they are different. Dogs rarely survive the wild. And wolves never make good pets, or adapt to domestication well.

Yes, there is that Russian project, started in the 1950s, that shows that foxes can be domesticated in just a few generations, as few as three. But those are foxes, not wolves. Their smaller size and tendency to live alone makes them more apt candidates for domestication.

Dogs did not derive just from wolves. They also derived from the other wild canines, such as foxes and coyotes. Think that chihuahua derived from a wolf? Think again. And there are likely numerous canine species that are now extinct that were original sources for dogs.

One of the big debates amongst dog-focused archeologists is whether dogs were first attracted to and drawn to man by fire or by the trash dumps. I favor the trash dump theory. Canines are equal hunters and scavengers. Once they got used to eating man's leftovers, near man, it was a done deal. Lassie was not far behind.

When turned out, dogs can revert to their wild nature, which, like humans, is right under their domestic veneer. Success also depends on the breed. Shepherds and pit bulls have a better chance of surviving on their own. Cocker spaniels and bassett hounds, not so much.

Dogs can kill. They can adapt. But it takes generations for a dog line to become truly wild again. A wild dog, if rescued, will be just that, rescued. He will prefer the domesticated life. A wolf will not. He prefers the wild. Domestication for him means death. Cats, of course, are very different. They can go feral in one generation, hell, one lifetime. But those are cats, not dogs.

Dingos are indeed an example of dogs gone wild (not to be confused with Girls Gone Wild). But it did not happen over night. (In the case of GGW it usually does happen over night.)

One thing I find interesting is that even though dog is man's best friend, being called a dog is an insult, in most cultures. The wolf, on the other hand, which humans have long feared and have tried to hunt to global extinction, is held in high regard. I used to work with a smallish and roundish programmer who had "Lobo Solo" tattooed on his left pec. He was very proud of that tat, would show it off for any request. I also have known quite a few people who were into Native American traditions and claimed to have a wolf spirit guide. I have never known, or heard of, anyone who claimed to have a poodle spirit guide. Go figure.

All this is distinct from werefolk, of course. Weredogs and werewolves split off from other canines a long time, several million years, before homo sapiens ever even stood up on two legs and started strutting their stuff. Ah ha! you might say. How did weredogs precede dogs? Good question. There is an even better answer, and it is quite simple. But that will have to wait.

The Story of Tank

This is a good story, but have heard many just like it over the years.

http://fortheloveofthedogblog.com/article/just-a-dog-story/the-story-of-tank

War Dogs Remembered

Another pictorial tribute to war dogs, RVN days.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/02/12/war.dogs/index.html?hpt=C1

SF Film, early days

This film, a PR piece, is of early Special Forces, around 1962 or so. Brings back memories. SF has changed a lot, in some ways, and in others hasn't.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyL8N14sak8

Dogs Have Bigger Brains

Dogs are smarter than cats. 'Nuff said.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101127105348.htm

Dogs in Hospitals

More and more weredogs are doing this. I know a weredog who is doing this now and has been a physician in human phase, twice. She says she is learning things about disease, but is finding very difficult to share that with the other doctors, who see her just as a dog.

http://www.mayoclinic.org/physicalmedicine-rst/jack-the-dog.html?mc-emref=y.

6th Mass Extinction?

This ties in with much of my investigations and fears of late.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110302131844.htm

Dog rescued from floating debris

This vid got a lot of attention, on TV and internet. It is of Japanese Coast Guard crew rescuing a dog from a floating pile of debris after the March 2011 tsunami.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/42375828#42375828

Dog Loyalty

This was shot in Japan after the tidal wave.

http://videos2view.net/loyalty.htm

War Dog Tribute

This is an outstanding tribute to war dogs.

http://www.southeuclidpolice.com/K-9Presentation.html

SF Dog Found After 14 Months

An Aussie SF dog told me about this story. I then looked it up. Amazing.

http://www.fadedtribune.com/2009/11/australian-special-forces-dog-sarbi-found-alive-after-14-months-in-afghanistan/

Saved a Human, A Shelter Story

This was told to me by a small Terrier mix, and it is how many dogs think about such situations.


I RESCUED A HUMAN TODAY

Her eyes met mine as she walked down the corridor peering apprehensively
into the kennels.
I felt her need instantly and knew I had to help her.
I wagged my tail, not too exuberantly, so she wouldn't be afraid.

As she stopped at my kennel I blocked her view from a little accident I
had in the back of my cage.
I didn't want her to know that I hadn't been walked today.
Sometimes the shelter keepers get too busy and I didn't want her to
think poorly of them.

As she read my kennel card I hoped that she wouldn't feel sad about my
past. I only have the future to look forward to and want to make a
difference in someone's life.

She got down on her knees and made little kissy sounds at me. I shoved
my shoulder and side of my head up against the bars to comfort her.
Gentle fingertips caressed my neck; she was desperate for companionship.

A tear fell down her cheek and I raised my paw to assure her that all
would be well.

Soon my kennel door opened and her smile was so bright that I instantly
jumped into her arms.
I would promise to keep her safe. I would promise to always be by her side.
I would promise to do everything I could to see that radiant smile and
sparkle in her eyes.
I was so fortunate that she came down my corridor.
So many more are out there who haven't walked the corridors.
So many more to be saved. At least I could save one.

I rescued a human today.

Dog and Dolphin

I will get back to telling of my escapes and escapades of the last 9 months after I catch up on things, posts I have been collecting to put out on the blog.

This is something not even I have ever seen before.

PTSD Service Dogs

A friend of mine is involved in this, as a trainer, not a dog.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/04/03/us/04dogs/index.html

I'm Back

I am back and I don't even know where to begin, or pick up, or even where I left off. So much has happened. I should be dead. I am back in KC, but not with Jack, Sherry, Sven and Rick. I look in on them from time to time, but can never live with them again. I check in on them from time to time. I am friends on Facebook with Rick and Sven and they of course have no idea who I am.

I had to leave KC, then had to leave North America. I have traveled a lot since last fall. I had to plead for my life with the elders, when I learned that the Waerwulfas AND the Varans had been tasked to silence me. "Silence" means "kill" to Varans and Waerwulfas, and usually to elders.

Europe is much the same, from the last time I was there (a long time), yet very different. Afghanistan is worse than I expected. Sri Lanka is a nice place to visit, but wouldn't want to live there.

I found out who killed Rex, and who Warin's mother is. I hid out with Dionna. Caitlyn has expelled any concerns any one of us, in the pack, might have had about her not being ready or a good pick for weredom.

I have lots of updates, and lots to tell from my recent travels.

Dogs Enemies of Iran

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2065873,00.html?artId=2065873?contType=article?chn=world


It's hard being a dog in most of the Middle East.

Special Teams - Mill Surveylance

There are teams, of weres and people, keeping a close watch on the Missouri puppy mills. Weres have taken a greater recent interest in the Missouri puppy mills, especially after that legislation was passed that struck down the new regulations voted to by popular vote across the state. The mills and their corporate sponsors bought that law, much to the chagrin of many weres and people.

There are weredogs in he SPCA, but it is somewhat frowned upon, and has only been talked about in the past 10 years. Before that it was strictly verbotten for weredogs to get involved in dog shelters or charities.

Caitlyn has been working with these teams. She has turned into a remarkable weredog, leader and tracker. She can track across any ground, even streams, and moves through trees like a chimp, even in weredog form.

Her fighting skills have improved faster than I have ever seen in a new were, with claw, blade and gun. She is passable with rifles but outstanding with pistols, in particular with .40 cals. I still prefer my 9mm and .45 and have not yet got on board the .40 cal bandwagon.

Caitlyn told me the other night, over BBQ and beer, that they are finding a lot less neo scent in and around the mills. She asked me what I thought of that. I said I think it means the neos have shifted their operations elsewhere.

She also has a new boyfriend, a human she has class with in her high school. She will not tell me his name. She will not even tell Warin. But I am not worried and am curious how this will go. Warin and I both reminded her that romance with this boy is fine but that it can never go too far. She says she knows.

Matter of fact, I have to go now to link-up with Caitlyn and Warin to conduct a short patrol. Should only take a few hours. Neos, if you're out there, se you soon.

Dogs and Wolves

The thawing of relations between dogs and wolves has propagated a lot of dialogue and discussion about dogs and wolves and their differences.

Big debate: Are dogs categorized as "Canis lupus domsticatus" or are they "Canis domsticatus"? Biologists and "canine experts" have been tearing this issue up in years recent. This has had a bearing also on many of the issues between weredogs and werewolves.

There are now so many werewolves living in civilization. True, most are living in very lupine and predatory capacities, as lawyers, financial advisors and others. But the question that begs to be pondered is this: If a wolf spends enough time in civilization, does not that wolf become a dog, or dog-like? How long would this take? When would that happen? And if a dog lives in the wild, alone or in a pack, when does he or she become wild, and therefore a wolf?

If a collie, let's call her Lassie, goes to and lives in the wildness, away from men and civilization, and breeds, with a dog or wolf, and her pups survive, and their pups survive, at what point are they wolves? Or are they ever?

If a wolf pup is taken to live with people, no matter how long he or she lives with people, or how well he or she adapts and behaves, he is always a domesticated wolf, as are his or her pups. How many generations until they are no longer wolves?

If a werewolf goes to live in the city and over time changes his coat and becomes a priest, and is indeed a very good priest, ad protects his flock with a divinely primal determination, he is still a werewolf. (I know of such a case. Very irregular.)

So the common wisdom is that a dog cannot become a wolf and a wolf cannot become a dog. Ironically, it is not so with people. People seem to be able to switch and flip and go back and forth, becoming more dogish or wolfish, then doggish again, back and forth. This is one of the traits of humans that mystifies and terrifies us weres.