sunnibel, I absolutely agree. If I had to eat commercial beef I'd give it up altogether, I don't like the greasy mouth feel from the overly fat beef and the conditions those poor animals live in offends me. My animals get 40 acres of pasture to roam about on, they're born on the place and I have a man come here for slaughter. They are never kept in holding pens, trailered, chased or hurt. They follow a bucket of treats everywhere and every bite of food they eat is raised on the farm, other than an occasional Hershey's kiss, which they love, and sometimes part of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, shared by the Grandkids. No hormones, no antibiotics, no chemicals at all. They're healthy and happy just being cattle. Of course, I only have five of them, so it's easier. I'm in a very rural area and no one around me seems to raise meat chickens either, other than me. It's too expensive, the grocery store birds can be purchased for less than it costs me to raise them, and many people are happy with a lesser quality product at a lesser price. I know my Blue Slate turkeys costs me $34.00 each to raise, and that didn't include any labor. A Butterball would have been much cheaper, but not nearly as delicious, IMO. I like Marans, BTW, and when I replace this batch of laying hens with young ones, I plan to get a couple of Marans, only because they lay those dark chocolate brown eggs which make a nice contrast in the egg carton. Yeah, I know, but the kids get such a charge out of getting blue and green eggs from the Aracaunas, dark chocolate eggs from the Marans, reddish eggs from the Welsummers, so I choose heritage breeds based on their cold hardiness, their docile nature and the color of eggs they lay. Annie

"I was kind of surprised that so many owners let their dogs come over and sniff and interact. Cricket was happy about this but I wasn't that pleased to have several dogs come over to her after her experience. She, in turn, wanted to go over and see any other animal that was brought in. Does that mean she is ok about other dogs? Should I be watching for some behavior that would indicate a problem?" Cricket is young yet but still she was attacked and it was a pretty aggressive attack from the wounds she suffered. I would watch her very carefully. If another dog shows any aggression or even alerts, perked ears and direct eye contact, I bet Cricket will react and how she will react is unknown and this can change with maturing too. She could react with aggression or maybe lay down or maybe go between your legs or try to run away. But you will have to be aware of her behavior around other dogs. Cricket's body language will tell you what she is going to do, but you will have to recognize her signals and either comfort her fear or correct her. You must always praise for good behavior, not okay behavior but correct behavior. If she is fearful, not aggessive but just a bit fearful, just pat her head and when she looks up to you for assurance say "Good girl"! And when you have to correct her, say a collar correction and a "NO" and she obeys by stopping whatever she is doing always, ALWAYS, ALWAYS, reward with "Good Girl"! My dogs would rather have 1 "Good girl/boy" then an entire prime rib!! If you, the owner, are afraid of the situation, Cricket is going to pick up your fear and react to that. Again, this can be a touchy situation. It is hard to hide our own feelings as the dog will pick up everything in our body language. For instance, when we lived in the city I walked my dog 3 times a day. It was the weirdest thing but he would grumbled at illegally parked cars and it did not matter if they were in the alley or on the street. I always thought this was so funny that he recognized illegally parked cars until I figured out that he was picking up on my own disgust at the strange cars and the total disregard for our neighborhood! I can tell from the wounds that Cricket was submitting when she was attacked. She was on her back and had turned her hind end towards the other dogs. This is submissive behavior and usually the dominant dog will only sniff then and not attack. Something else was going on during the attack or maybe prior to it and I am just not experienced enough to see it. I have a friend that can tell by the wound what drive the biter was in, but this takes years and years of observation. Another interesting point is that the aggressor usually has head wounds only, as they are going into a fight head first and it is the submissive dog that suffers body wounds usually neck, hind area, feet and stomach. Drives are so interesting and a dog can go from 1 drive to another very fluidly. For instance if you throw a ball and the dog runs after it, this is Prey Drive. But when he returns it to you, as a fetch, this is Pack Drive. Herding is just a fetch, so usually done in Prey Drive, and again when the dog brings the sheep in to the owner, this is Pack Drive. Fight is not hard to understand and any dog no matter how submissive and loving does have Fight Drive, it might be very low, but it is always there. Flight is the one drive, I've seen only a few times, and mostly with a young dog or pup. But any animal fleeing for his life is scared and therefore the behavior is unpredictable and many bites occur during Flight Drive. For instance, I had a friend that I trained with for a time. She had her dog strapped into his seat belt next to her when she came to class. One time, a fire truck passed them and the dog was startled by the siren and lights and bit the owner right on the face. The dog could not flee and so bite out of fear. This was not the dog's fault as he was just scared and did not know what to do. The owner should have had the dog in the car more often so the dog was socialized to traffic situations. And the dog should not have been in the front seat. Each individual dog can vary in the level of pack, prey, fight or flight drive. Personally, I've never had a dog high in fight or flight drive and I don't think I would want a dog high in flight or fight. Cricket will be fine, but I do think you should be aware of her behavior when interacting with other dogs. Personally, because of what happened to my own pup and her dog aggression that I've never been able to work out of her, I am very careful with strange dogs approaching my puppies. Other puppies or young dogs are generally no problem, but mature dogs could cause another negative situation. Don't avoid other dogs, keep your dog on lead and watch carefully the dogs, all the dogs, body language. If you see anything you are hesitant about don't let Cricket make any decisions, put Cricket in a heel and walk away from the situation. The more you work with your dog, especially in obedience, the more confident the dog will be in you and in turn, in himself. Michelle

Ugh, your post is so upsetting! I don't think I could have took all the baiting going on all day like that. Plus it was your party that your MIL chose to crash & act up at. But, that's not the real issue. I've followed your life story on the other board. I feel so bad that this is happening to you when it seems your were pretty much expected to parent SD and deal with all the tough stuff and get not even basic respect in return. It seems like it is just not worth it. It's too hard in situations like this. If your DH won't nix his dear mothers nasty behaviors & insist she treat you with respect, you're stuck with her & her reign of terror. I know how awful that can be. I wondered how things would have went down if you insisted she leave your home/the party. Try confronting her on her nastiness every time to her face no matter who is there and see what happens. Bullies hate to be confronted. Bleh.. I'm so sorry. ~Cat

Look up sociopath/narcissistic. Fritzel is a textbook definition, to the extreme. He has no regard for anyone, only uses to fufill his needs. I think alot of hardcore criminals would fall under the same catagory as him. He could have killed them and then no one would know. True definition of a sociopath. How do we know he hasn't killed anyone, probably has. There seems, according to him, not a big deal to kill someone if it gets him out of trouble. He will probably use a mental defect as a defense, he knew that it was wrong, just didn't care.