The following articles and comments are intended to be informational and inspire discussion

CARTOONS AND CRISTIANS
A great teacher once told me that man's condition can be clearly seen in his children and his dogs. As we seem bent on drugging both and confusing the importance of each, his words reveal a deep truth. Perhaps our condition can also be seen in our collective reaction to what is going on around us.

We have stood in obedient silence as fires raged over a cartoon in a foreign newspaper. Somehow we have become twisted enough to accept such things. Now the very community that so violently objected to a cartoon sits silent while a Christian convert is sentenced to death. There are no protests. There are no riots. There is no outcry for a human life that is Christian. Perhaps it is time for us to reach down between our legs and feel for our collective balls. That is if we still have balls.

As the world buries more and more of a generation that fought for freedom. We who have basked in that freedom owe a great debt. The largest payment is due to the common man, common sense and common decency. All of which are becoming as extinct as those who stood for them. Well boys this is one Christian who has no intention of placing my head comely upon your chopping board. In fact piss off.
©03/25/06 Mike McConnery/Baden K9 Incorporated

GIVING IN..GIVING UP
The late John Fitzgerald Kennedy showed us a dream. It was a dream that we all shared. When he was murdered, in our sorrow we let go of the dream. Martin Luther King led us through the darkness. He told us of a place called, "The promised land". When he was murdered we lost direction. Many seek a new leader...a new prophet. Someone, anyone, to lift us up and out of this place we have become trapped in.

Our leaders seem to take us in the direction of higher taxes and less freedom. The pharmaceutical companies keep us drugged, in fear of death, and in search of eternal youth. The news continually warns us of terrorist attacks, a world of looming diseases and natural disasters. The weather channel makes a summer rain appear to be a typhoon of too much, too little or too late. We awake, sleep feel, touch, taste and believe a well placed propaganda. Yet we remember a time that fades into a past of common sense.

To us our children, our elders are the responsibility of the state. Even though we are not certain exactly who or what the state is. We need, we long for a hero. One who will make us believe in ourselves. There are steps that once taken will lead us to that hero. They are simply questions to be posed. Questions such as "Why"? Why are our families our faith, our America fading? If we simply ask "Why" we may well discover that everything including our America and our hero lives inside of ourselves. It depends upon us to discover that because we have given in, does not mean we must give up. Stand up for "You"; stand up for "Us"; stand up for "America". Ask "Why?"
©03/21/06 Mike McConnery/Baden K9 Incorporated

SO WHAT IF THERE IS NO GOD
Every now and then someone writes me and tells me to leave GOD out of my dog work and articles. I can't do that and no I am not sorry. In fact I am not even sorry that I am not sorry. Now I am not going to protest and burn down the local hot dog stands because they write me and try to argue with me about GOD. My GOD is very much apart of my life and my Work. In fact I would give up my life and my Work before I would deny my GOD. Believe it or not that's why my dogs track so well are so agile and bite so very hard. However, that being said this is really what I wanted to say to sort of ease your minds and to put things into perspective.

If as you say there is no GOD, then you can assume that I and others like me are wasting our time in proclaiming that there is. The world just sort of came from somewhere and I suppose it will eventually go to somewhere. Each child has only the hope of growing from laughter to taxes and providing other children through birth to do the same in their lives. The feelings of love and the endless wonder of life can be attributed to gas or boredom I suppose. Then one could say that even death is a senseless ending to a senseless beginning.

There is, if we go with your assumptions, really no purpose for anything. In fact there is, if we believe as you do, no real purpose to deny that there is a GOD. It really doesn't matter. Now on the other hand if as I believe there is a GOD, we both have much to consider and my writings have little to do about that. At any rate, I am certain that you would agree I never write you to try and convince you of anything.
©02/18/06 Mike McConnery/Baden K9 Incorporated

ONLY IN CANADA
When one stops to think about it, we no longer live in a free country. That is unless you realize that everything about us is free, free to the government to take at will.

In Ontario the slippery province of give and take (we give and they take) it is law that you cannot own a Pitt Bull, Firearm, Smoke (unless it is marijuana) and soon TOY GUNS and your own BODY. That's right they are talking about giving the rights to the government to take your body parts when you die. The "YOUR" in body has no matter in this great late country Canada. We should not worry too much however, we still have the right to give all but about one third of our earnings to a government that uses it for whatever they desire.

We have the right to drive on highways we originally paid for and then the government sold it, so that now we have to pay to drive on them again. We have the right to have our lives constantly interfered with by bureaucratic bullshit. We have the right to stand and wait in hospitals that look like third world M.A.S.H Units on a bad day. We have the right to have the age of consent for sexual activity for our children to be fourteen years of age and have no say over it. Soon however we will not have the right to have obese cats, but they have not yet mentioned dogs in that proposal.

You know when you stop and think about it even our rights are not that right and that just ain't right……is it?
©02/16/06 Mike McConnery/Baden K9 Incorporated

REMEMBER WHEN..
Remember when cold was cold and hot was hot? When warm meant not too hot and cool meant not too cold? Today I heard it was ninety-two degrees outside but it felt like ninety-eight. How, I thought, could that be possible. What would ninety-eight feel like? Well over a hundred or perhaps like ninety-two. The same theory applies to the cold weather. Thirty-two degrees feels like fifteen degrees.

We really should change our entire temperature system around. Who thought this “drama weather,” up? I am certain the last generation would of just told these people to, “shut up.” Not us. We even sweat more when they tell us eighty is like ninety. The fact it is impossible means nothing. Facts are forsaken when nonsense is the norm. How many times have we waited for earthquakes and thunder storms that never show until the all clear is given? I love the weather. It spits in man’s face.

Just think…I am six foot, two inches, but to a child that looks like twenty feet. Maybe that’s it. We are being treated like gullible little children. We can take the heat if we just refuse the B.S that goes with it. Step outside..the weather awaits your forecast.
©06/27/05 Mike McConnery/Baden K9 Incorporated

LESSONS FROM THE MORNING COFFEE SHOP DRIVETHROUGH
One can learn several lessons each day if they are open to them. The handling of dogs is really a continuous study of human nature; an advancement of our understanding of each other and ourselves.

This morning I awoke to an email from our guys in Iraq. They were preparing to go to the airport in Baghdad, a ride which is very dangerous. To be at the airport is also becoming very dangerous. They were not complaining, they were simply letting us know they were beginning the home plate gauntlet run.

After I read the email, I got into my car and went for a morning coffee. As the road opened before me I realized how safe we are and how ignorant of the price of maintaining that safety most of us are. I pulled into the long line of people waiting to place and receive their orders and again I thought how very dangerous this bunching up of cars would be overseas, yet here it was simply an inconvience that was testing some of the people’s nerves. Even the privilege to complain was a gift that few would ever imagine.

When I got to the window two of the girls inside were arguing over the reason for an extra double-double coffee being made. I heard them very clearly as one said loudly, “I can’t take this stress, get someone else on the window.”

I drove away thinking of the long stressful and treacherous drive to the Baghdad Airport. The conversation between comrades in arms that would be taking place inside of the transport cars. The unknown of what may rest ahead. The knowledge of what lies behind. There is no one to exchange the places with those men upon that ride in Iraq. Those who take it would never ask it if there was.

Then my thoughts drifted to the many that stood out on Memorial Day and how very proud Old Glory waved that day. Perhaps for the first time in a long time my coffee took on a different meaning.

As I write this I hope you can feel what I am about to say as deeply and sincerely as I mean it.
May God Bless America and May God Bless our Troops, and the many freedoms they provide us.
©06/03/05 Mike McConnery/Baden K9 Incorporated

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