Yes Mazer, thank you for posting this. I would like to think I know more than a little bit about this subject, and for me, it's very well put. But for someone with a 4 month old pee and poop factory, not to mention chewing, running all over the house, cooking, kids, running around, etc. etc. it is probably going to be to much to take in. All the person with the peeing, pooping puppy wants is to fix things and have a pleasant experience with their dog. The very bottom line I see in this, is: Relationship with your dog = success. If you don't have a positive relationship AND assert your authority, you have problems in all potty areas. I can't tell you how many people I have encountered who: #1. Don't research the subject before they get started and just dont know what they are getting themselves in to. #2. Think they know how to deal with it, but just don't. #3. Proceed to quickly, expecting way to much from their dog to fast, thereby confusing the dog and making things worse. #4. Are not successful, get frustrated, don't know what to do, and the dog winds up back at a pound or worse. #5. Fail to realize from the very beginning, that the training and work that goes into it, is temporary. All of these are very important things to consider, unfortunately, lots of people don't. Making the potty correction properly also helps with other negative behaviors, instills confidence in the dog (and human) and should eventually lead to the dogs unsupervised freedom, assuming chewing and teething are under control. Potty issues can be difficult to correct. Enter a medical issue such as a UTI, and if it's not recognized, the experience can be absolute hell. Ask me, I should know and I had all of the experience, and a wonderful vet completely on top of the situation. *I spent 6 months getting the job done. (long story, dog was 4 months and traumatized before I came along). The key is to be able to target what is not going well, including medical issues, backing up and starting over, and proceed, making corrections along the way, in a way that is not to much for the dog or human doing the training. Then, building on success. SG

Noocha, you wrote: 'All the articles (or nearly all) were written by Rick Ross! Who is this guy?' .......... No, 'all the articles' about the FLDS were NOT written by Rick Ross. It clearly states at the top of the linked section: 'This page contains information The Rick A. Ross Institute has GATHERED about Polygamist Groups.' When looking at the list of collected articles regarding the FLDS, the source document and its author are clearly provided in large print from the oldest: 'Deliverance Day for One Group of Polygamists, Salt Lake Tribune/November 29, 1998, By Tom Zoellner and Greg Burton' to the most recent: 'Sect Children Will Undergo Genetic Tests Next Week Houston Chronicle/April 20, 2008, By Lindsay Wise' A quick check of the section on FLDS by anyone not having a reading comprehension problem will reveal that each document provides the source whether it be The Gazette newspaper, Canada; CBS 8 TV in Las Vegas; the Associated Press; the New York Times; the Deseret Morning News and the Salt Lake Tribune in Utah, etc., etc., etc. Noocha, you asked 'Who is this guy?' Well, if you had bothered to click on the 'home' page as I suggested you would have read the following: 'Welcome to the Rick A. Ross Institute of New Jersey An Internet archive of information about cults, destructive cults, controversial groups and movements. The Rick A. Ross Institute of New Jersey (RI) is a nonprofit public resource with a vast archive that contains thousands of individual documents. RI on-line files include news stories, research papers, reports, court documents, book excerpts, personal testimonies and hundreds of links to additional relevant resources. This Internet archive is well-organized for easy access and reference.' As I earlier stated some of us have no little or no prior knowledge of the FLDS prior to the current happenings in El Dorado, Texas. In wanting to read more about the FLDS I came across the referenced Institute via Google and decided to share it as a source of information with other interested persons reading here. So, Noocha, if you want to dismiss over 400 articles about the FLDS spanning almost 10 years as all being 'yellow journalism' feel free to do so. ............ Children Health Issues / Severe Birth Defect in FLDS: As for the referenced document by RONM80, here is a partial quote from Part II of the lengthy article... "More than half the worlds cases of a severe birth defect called fumarase deficiency have been found in the twin towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colo­rado City, Arizona, controlled by the polygamous Fundamentalist Latter-Day Saints Church. The towns have a total population of under 10,000, yet Dr. Theodore Tarby has seen twenty children with fumarase deficiency in these towns since 1990. By comparison, only thirteen cases have been reported elsewhere in the entire world. The actual total in the FLDS may be much higher than twenty since babies may have died before they were diagnosed with the condition by a medical doctor. None of the FLDS children with fumarase defi­ciency has an IQ above 25. Many cannot sit up. Some can barely even move their head and eyes. Frequent and powerful seizures are common. Por­tions of brain matter are replaced by water. An MRI of the brain of one fumarase-deficient child showed that more than half the brain was missing."

thank you for your input! It's nice to know I'm still "alive." Last year I wrote a note on this forum called "stopped dating." I really thought I had lost interest, then I met someone but that went to hell in a handbasket very quickly ...the "I dont get it, what happened" entry on this forum I wrote about 6 months ago. It's interesting, looking back now, at the personal growth progress I've made since that first entry. That is not to say that starting to date again is necessarily a "great personal growth" but rather all that happened inbetween then and now. I am not a fan of hidden agendas either. life is interesting, and is even more interesting when one realizes it really has a purpose rather than to simply endure the mundane daily routines.

Ok, so for others to think it is weird to read it, imagine how I felt when I first met them. I get that it may sound off the wall, but who could honestly make this up? I have to laugh, my gosh, I WISH it were all a joke. I was so absolutely confused when I met them, not only am I in the beginning stage of my relationship with my now husband, but the confusion with the fact that I AM A GOOD PERSON, and yet, everything I did in their eyes was wrong, and after so much of that you begin to question yourself. It's difficult enough to learn the dynamics of a family, but a family like this is just overwhelming. Like I said, I never met a family like this before. I recently made the cult analogy to my husband as a joke, then I started thinking that their behavior really is cultish. Sylvia, one thing I noticed about the Grandma is she does back down when the other "outsider" (I'll call her "Suzy") in the family stands up to her, but it's short lived. That marriage had years of problems because of the Grandma, and they finally moved out of state. When I first met the family, they'd all talk about the Suzy and bash her constantly, behind her back of course. And I thought, oh my gosh she must be a terrible person. Then, I met her, and she was totally nice to me, and I could tell she felt uncomfortable around the family. That's when things started to click, and I slowly began to realize that Grandma feeds everyone with her negativity, and I think the daughters learned this from the Grandma. So when I finally had the blow up with the sisters, and the family came back to me faulting me and blaming me for how I communicated with them by email, I was so completely frustrated and I went off on a tangent about all the nasty things I felt about this family, and told them how I think they treat people with such disrespect, especially Suzy. My husband grew up with it his whole life, and was so used to it that he never realized it until I started pointing it out. He knew his sisters were rude and warned me, so I don't mean it like he's completely oblivious, but when I asked him if Suzy had ever been rude to him, he said no, and then I started to point out how your family always bashes her, but it never seems justified, then he started to pay attention, and realized much of it was a fabrication from Grandma's negative attitude. Suzy is like me, she isn't really one to conform, though she's not rude either, but everyone has a breaking point. From what I hear, they've had a lot of marital problems and I suspect it's because of Grandma and the family. I mean, come on, anytime you are in the presence of people who whisper when your back is turned, you CAN tell, you can sense it. That's what the sisters have done to me, and I suspect they've learned that from Grandma. I get what everyone is saying about be nice and gently disagree, but they are so persistent it's irritating. And, you can't have a conversation with one person, they all have to chime in together, so it's like you against all of them. When I get frustrated, you can see that I'm frustrated. And they get defensive. I've learned to start walking away, when I can, but sometimes I regret not saying something, and at the same time I don't want to be "that person" at the party who crashed it because she blew her stack. LOL. Lonepiper, I do agree - I'll never be good enough, and my attitude is changing to the idea that if you don't like me for who I am, too bad, get over it. I suppose my distancing myself from them is my way of rebelling. If I get visibly angry with them, I get the "well EXCUSE me" attitude, and then they won't come over for a year, which frustrates my husband that they ostracize us. So, it's a viscious circle. If my husband didn't have a close bond with his family, I could care less, but again, I also have to think of his needs, so I try to be the bigger person. Txnursing, it's not that we let the guilt trip get to us, it's the anger that follows it that I can't stand. It's like dealing with a five year old. The Uncle is the worst. It'll be like this - he'll ask us to come over. My husband will say that we have plans with my family. Then he'll insist on my family coming over. THAT appalls me, as if my whole family is supposed to change their plans because what Uncle has going on is more important or better than what my family could possibly be doing. Seriously, that's his attitude, and he's very pretentious, everything is about "image" and he acts like people want to live his lifestyle of entertaining everyone all the time. Sometimes we just want to sit home and watch a movie. Screw your image if you are a nasty person, right? He doesn't ask us much anymore, but now it's like we've been ostracized. We get invited to family functions, more or less like it's expected of him, but that's it. And, he's given me the cold shoulder since I didn't go up during a holiday and kiss his family's butt after the sister incident - they wanted me to "brush it under the carpet" and swallow my pride once again (oh, and this was an "intervention" that took place at a mutual friends house). I stood my ground, refused to spend the holiday with the family, and this is the end result. My husbands friend said to me at that time, why do you always have to swallow your pride and they just keep treating you like crap and it's supposed to be ok? Honestly, it's reached a point where I'm bordering on despising them, but I think that's a good thing because a healthy attitude in this situation can only be one of, "I don't give a crap" what they think. silversword, your response made me laugh. I wonder what they'd do if I plugged my ears and did the, "la la la la la la la la" as I walk away. *Chuckle*