In article ,
Tara Green wrote:



That when its her, it constitutes "proof" and
when its someone she doesn;t agree with, it
constitutes "la la la la la la" (picture
fingers in her ears)

always so hard to decipher!

--
Janet Boss
www.bestfriendsdogobedience.com

sighthounds & siberians wrote:


I think genetics is just about everything when it comes to dogs'
teeth.

Yup. 11 1/2 year old Viva, never a dental in her life and no problems at
all. Seven year old Cala literally has the teeth of a 2 year old dog;
blinding white and absolutely no tartar.

Three year old Zipper has had two cleanings and will have to have one
each year. They are all kibble fed and have been all their lives. Zipper
doesn't have a lot of jaw power to clean teeth himself and toy dogs in
generally tend to have crappy teeth.

"Tara Green" wrote in message
...
.. And no one thing
is going to cure the world of both stink eye (behavioral....and kinda
funny),

OK, I gotta ask... What is "stink eye"?
--
Phyrie
Kiba the Cav's Pics:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/phyrie/...758930/detail/

If I'm going to
be able to speak intelligently about a raw diet to someone else, it has
to be based on more than just anecdotal evidence.

After awhile, after talking to thousands of people who feed like I do it
becomes more than "just anecdotal" evidence.


Unfortunately this isn't true. (It it were, it would make things *so* much
easier). The internet is a great way to create a selection bias. Like minded
people tend to stick together.

Lets say (for the sake of argument) that 1 in 10,000 (that is 0.01%) dogs
given a parvo vaccine develop a severe (we'll even say fatal, as we're
talking purely hypothetical here) reaction.

Lets say there are 50,000,000 dogs in the US. That means that we will have
5000 people in the US (in the course of a year) who can make a definite
claim that the vaccine killed there dog. (again we're talking totally
hypothetical here). Of these 5000, lets imagine that 75% of them are hopping
mad about it. So they get on the internet, and start looking around to see
if they are alone. They find each other, and it seems like *A LOT* of people
are finding the same thing.

This is a tragedy they say. The big pharmaceutical companies are *HIDING*
this information. He didn't need this vaccine anyways, and now he's dead,
and its all because of money grabbing vets and big pharmaceutical companies.

Now you might be asking yourself what's the problem with this? 5000 dogs is
a lot of dogs isn't it? If a vaccine is *KILLING* 5000 dogs every year, as a
concerned dog owner, I want to know about it.

Now, lets say all these 5000 people that year go out, and decide that decide
that they won't vaccinate their future dogs ever again, against anything.
Lets imagine that 1 in 1000 of these dogs gets infected with parvo (this is
a really rough number, but not totally out of thin air). This means that 5
out of our 5000 'anti-vaccination' people are potentially 'reformed'. We
have 4995 people left who say "Vaccinations are EVIL, they killed my dog".
They jump up and down, and scream about it, and try to get other people to
agree with them (and convince some of this 'fact'). The 'anecdotal evidence'
is that thousands of people are screaming, and no one is listening.

Assume these people are successful now. Lets say of the 50,000,000 dogs in
the US, none of them get vaccinated... against anything. Now lets imagine
that 1 in 1000 of these dogs get parvo. You still aren't very likely to get
parvo (although in a situation like this, the odds would likely go up, but
we'll assume it doesn't, at least initially increase). Now we have 50,000
sick dogs (many of whom will die) as opposed to 5000 without the vaccine.

Still, anecdotally, there are 49,950,000 happy dogs out there, but there are
more dead dogs. Anecdotally, there are still lots of happy dog owners out
there, who say that they have 'scored big against big pharmaceutical'.

But which is the better outcome?

Before you say anything, yes these numbers are totally made up (for the most
part), but I hope they illustrate why I need systematic, controlled research
as opposed to annecdotal evidence.

Dale

Dale Atkin wrote:

If I'm going to
be able to speak intelligently about a raw diet to someone else, it
has to be based on more than just anecdotal evidence.

After awhile, after talking to thousands of people who feed like I do
it becomes more than "just anecdotal" evidence.


Unfortunately this isn't true. (It it were, it would make things *so*
much easier). The internet is a great way to create a selection bias.
Like minded people tend to stick together.

Lets say (for the sake of argument) that 1 in 10,000 (that is 0.01%)
dogs given a parvo vaccine develop a severe (we'll even say fatal, as
we're talking purely hypothetical here) reaction.

Lets say there are 50,000,000 dogs in the US. That means that we will
have 5000 people in the US (in the course of a year) who can make a
definite claim that the vaccine killed there dog. (again we're talking
totally hypothetical here). Of these 5000, lets imagine that 75% of them
are hopping mad about it. So they get on the internet, and start looking
around to see if they are alone. They find each other, and it seems like
*A LOT* of people are finding the same thing.

This is a tragedy they say. The big pharmaceutical companies are
*HIDING* this information. He didn't need this vaccine anyways, and now
he's dead, and its all because of money grabbing vets and big
pharmaceutical companies.

Now you might be asking yourself what's the problem with this? 5000 dogs
is a lot of dogs isn't it? If a vaccine is *KILLING* 5000 dogs every
year, as a concerned dog owner, I want to know about it.

Now, lets say all these 5000 people that year go out, and decide that
decide that they won't vaccinate their future dogs ever again, against
anything. Lets imagine that 1 in 1000 of these dogs gets infected with
parvo (this is a really rough number, but not totally out of thin air).
This means that 5 out of our 5000 'anti-vaccination' people are
potentially 'reformed'. We have 4995 people left who say "Vaccinations
are EVIL, they killed my dog". They jump up and down, and scream about
it, and try to get other people to agree with them (and convince some of
this 'fact'). The 'anecdotal evidence' is that thousands of people are
screaming, and no one is listening.

Assume these people are successful now. Lets say of the 50,000,000 dogs
in the US, none of them get vaccinated... against anything. Now lets
imagine that 1 in 1000 of these dogs get parvo. You still aren't very
likely to get parvo (although in a situation like this, the odds would
likely go up, but we'll assume it doesn't, at least initially increase).
Now we have 50,000 sick dogs (many of whom will die) as opposed to 5000
without the vaccine.

Still, anecdotally, there are 49,950,000 happy dogs out there, but there
are more dead dogs. Anecdotally, there are still lots of happy dog
owners out there, who say that they have 'scored big against big
pharmaceutical'.

But which is the better outcome?

Before you say anything, yes these numbers are totally made up (for the
most part), but I hope they illustrate why I need systematic, controlled
research as opposed to annecdotal evidence.


Dale,

I say this as a person who is firmly against
over vaccinating (and still searching for
what that *actually* means as opposed to just
assuming I know what that means)....

I say this as a person who respects your
ability ti apply critical thought to ideas
both within and outside of your own already
held beliefs...

I say this as a fellow rpdh-er and a fellow
human being....

.....you know the only thing Chard will get
out of your thoughtful post is that Parvo
vaccines directly kill dogs, right?

I bet she's starting a yahoo group right this
second.

Dale,

I say this as a person who is firmly against over vaccinating (and still
searching for what that *actually* means as opposed to just assuming I
know what that means)....


I'm with you there. Just have to figure out what over vaccinating actually
means. The tough part in defining this, is there will be some fraction of
animals that don't develop an adequate long term immune response. I have
little to no doubt (although no evidence), that at least some dogs will be
protected for life based on a single rabies shot, but there will also be
some fraction of dogs that for what ever reason don't have immunity last a
single year. Where do you put the recommended vaccine guidelines based on
this? That's a pretty tough call, without a *lot* of data.

I say this as a person who respects your ability ti apply critical thought
to ideas both within and outside of your own already held beliefs...

I say this as a fellow rpdh-er and a fellow human being....

....you know the only thing Chard will get out of your thoughtful post is
that Parvo vaccines directly kill dogs, right?

Quite possibly, but I like to think if I present rational arguments often
enough, maybe one of them will get through. I'm not out to change her ideas
(for all I know she may be right), what I'm trying to do is stimulate
critical thought to at least some degree on her part. Have her evaluate the
evidence that she does have, and decide from there how much weight to put on
it (maybe I'm dreaming). *Maybe*, just *maybe* one day she'll come up with a
truly interesting article to defend her hypothesis. That is when I'll start
listening.

I don't think that Chardonnay is stupid, by any means. I think she is highly
dedicated to her cause. She advocates for what she believes to be the right
way to do things. I can only hope that when I have an unpopular opinion that
I will defend it as adamently as she does, *but* that I'll be willing to
re-evaluate my own beliefs given new evidence.

Dale

"chardonnay9" wrote in message
m...
Dale Atkin wrote:

There definitely seems to be a propensity in smaller breed dogs towards
'pirate mouth'

What is 'pirate mouth'?

Should have defined that I guess.

Basically, really bad, really stinky, gross teeth.

Dale

"Dale Atkin" wrote in message
news:M7MGl.23066$Db2.11527@edtnps83...

"chardonnay9" wrote in message
m...
Dale Atkin wrote:

There definitely seems to be a propensity in smaller breed dogs towards
'pirate mouth'

What is 'pirate mouth'?

Should have defined that I guess.

Basically, really bad, really stinky, gross teeth.

"Aarrghhh!"

Paul and Muttley

Dale Atkin wrote:

Dale,

I say this as a person who is firmly against over vaccinating (and
still searching for what that *actually* means as opposed to just
assuming I know what that means)....


I'm with you there. Just have to figure out what over vaccinating
actually means. The tough part in defining this, is there will be some
fraction of animals that don't develop an adequate long term immune
response. I have little to no doubt (although no evidence), that at
least some dogs will be protected for life based on a single rabies
shot, but there will also be some fraction of dogs that for what ever
reason don't have immunity last a single year. Where do you put the
recommended vaccine guidelines based on this? That's a pretty tough
call, without a *lot* of data.

You are assuming that dogs can't develop immunity without vaccines which
is not true.

And finally there is some research being done on how long immunity
lasts, and of course it wasn't done by the companies that make vaccines.
There will be a lot of data soon!
http://www.rabieschallengefund.org/

If we knew how long a vaccine lasted the vaccine companies would lose a
great deal of money because of the huge drop in how many are given.




I say this as a person who respects your ability ti apply critical
thought to ideas both within and outside of your own already held
beliefs...

I say this as a fellow rpdh-er and a fellow human being....

....you know the only thing Chard will get out of your thoughtful post
is that Parvo vaccines directly kill dogs, right?

Quite possibly, but I like to think if I present rational arguments
often enough, maybe one of them will get through. I'm not out to change
her ideas (for all I know she may be right), what I'm trying to do is
stimulate critical thought to at least some degree on her part. Have her
evaluate the evidence that she does have, and decide from there how much
weight to put on it (maybe I'm dreaming). *Maybe*, just *maybe* one day
she'll come up with a truly interesting article to defend her
hypothesis. That is when I'll start listening.

I don't think that Chardonnay is stupid, by any means. I think she is
highly dedicated to her cause. She advocates for what she believes to be
the right way to do things. I can only hope that when I have an
unpopular opinion that I will defend it as adamently as she does, *but*
that I'll be willing to re-evaluate my own beliefs given new evidence.

Dale