More random stuff

Only a little bit about bears. I'm almost done with bears for now. Next up researching fundraising and how to start a nonprofit.

I think if you go to this parade you get sacrificed and/or eaten. http://plixi.com/p/59376974

I can't remember if I posted these. Waterspouts in Siberia. I have some Siberia stories but they have to wait until after I finish NaNoWriMo (which should be today as I have less than a thousand words to go.) http://englishrussia.com/index.php/2008/09/07/tornado-in-siberia/

This one especially looks like something out of War of the Worlds.



I got to wondering about Native American dogs. I've always heard about dogs and Native Americans working together but wasn't sure if the dogs came over on the land bridge or were domesticated seperately. On the land bridge made the most sense to me as that's how Japanese dogs got to Japan; came when the humans did. My dog is descended from an ancient breed that has been with man for a very long time. He's a "primitive breed." He's also super awesome but I digress. I found this nice round up of the Native dogs. http://www.native-languages.org/dogs.htm

I was most intrigued by this little dog that hunts bears.

The Tahl Tan Bear Dog

This little bear dog was from 12 to 18 inches tall and weighed from 10- to 18lbs. Amazingly, It survived into the late 1960's or early 70's. This dog of the Tlingits, Tahltans, Kaska, and Sekani was used for hunting bears in British Columbia, Canada. The hunters carried the dog inside a pouch until bear tracks were discovered, where upon the dogs tracked the bear. These small dogs could run on top of crusty snow and bark and worry the bear until hunters arrived. These little dogs were black with white markings, or white with black markings, not much bigger that today's Schipperke. On examining a photograph from Atlin, B.C., of a bear dog, I noticed its resemblance to the New Guinea Singing Dog, an extremely rare dingo type dog from Papua New Guinea. In another photograph, the dog resembled a Papillon.

I'm intrigued that a dog so tiny could hunt bears but then if they were hunting black bears, which will run from a cat, I guess it's not so surprising. Their eradication is depressing.

From a site on how to live with black hears:

By comparison, a person is about 180 times more likely to be killed by a bee than by a black bear and 160,000 times more likely to die in a traffic accident. Each year there are many thousands of encounters between black bears and people, often unknown to the people because the bears slip away so quietly. Menstrual odors have been shown to be attractive to bears, but there is no record of a black bear attacking a menstruating woman.

Dozens of minor injuries, some requiring stitches, have occurred across North America when people petted or crowded black bears they were feeding or photographing. Under those circumstances, black bears may react to people as they do to bears with bad manners, by nipping or cuffing with little or no warning. Also, people who tease bears with food have been accidentally injured when the bear quickly tried to take it. Fortunately, black bears usually use at least as much restraint with people as they do with each other. Unlike domestic dogs, which often are territorial and aggressive toward strangers, black bears typically behave as the subordinate toward people when escape is possible.

I just wonder where these people are growing up that they didn't learn "Don't feed or tease the bears." Isn't that a given? Don't we learn that right after don't get in the car or take candy from strangers? Baffling.

So poor Cullen cooked Thanksgiving dinner and did a nice job on the turkey, which looked beautiful. Unfortunately I couldn't eat it. I take this medicine for intracranial pressure and it makes food and carbonated beverages taste "peculiar", as it says on the insert. By peculiar they mean poisonous and not like food at all. I took a bite of the turkey and it tasted like bitter oil, if there is such a thing, and had to spit it out. That's the last reaction someone wants when they just cooked their very first turkey...