asal

Except breeders have been well trained to keep their campfires low and stay off the track - say too much get too obvious about who you are and what you do and you are likely to be wallopped. Those who have more than one or two dogs who have a genuine interest in seeing it stay as it is are the least likely to make waves and shout about it . We are divided -where are the dog related groups who have stood up for the greyhound people where are the dog related groups who join with us to fight crap legislation - where are we if they need us. How many dog related people and groups are going to go in and shout and donate money to help the people who compete in lure work? They are in the same place as they were when the docking ban was being fought or the BSL fight or so many other issues. The "dog world" is so fragmented and wrapped up in individual opinions that they will never support each other and soon it will be too late. Yep. Another yes from me except when is the dog world going to get real. a pet is a living thing. there are NO guarantees come home with your own baby when you go out the hospital door with your next generation. When the life time guarantees began to be touted as the the must do for every "ETHICAL" breeder, I thought, hey no one guaranteed my parents a heath guarantee when they brought me, my brothers or my sister home? No one said my children would come home with a lifetime health guarantee? When my babies died, one after the other,most of them about the ten to 12 week mark and I kept asking the doctors whats going wrong? To be told don't you realise every time a new life begins each and every one is a miracle that makes it to term, so many things can go wrong while the cells are dividing, one mistake and the embryo is nonviable and in the majority of instances are aborted early. all these assumptions that ethical breeders can produce universally healthy animals and life guarantee them is expecting something we cannot even do for even our own children? Surely if it is not only impossible for parents to achieve for their children, why? and how did pet breeders blindly without question accept responsibility for so many thousands of things that can go wrong which aren't genetic without asking questions first? two of my babies were identical twins. IDENTICAL GENES PEOPLES! SO if my babies were puppies their breeder would have been off the ethical list in one swipe, since one of them had only one kidney and part of his diaphragm was missing. pardon the pun but pet breeders "have been sold a pup" when they fell for that without looking further into the facts. there are thousands if not tens of thousands of things that can go wrong that are not genetic from the parents, there are many mutations that neither parent has, eg Down. XXY, the list is staggering and thats before we get to the inherited genes for which there is only an infinitesimal number with DNA tests for. Decades ago birth defects that didn't have a known genetic cause were referred to as congenital as in defect occurring during embryonic development, these days most of the newbie vets call every defect genetic with no knowledge or investigation if such is really the case the easy stuff to eliminate is the dominant, but the recessives? lord save us, the list is long and the DNA test list is short. for decades breeders have been held to ransom to eliminate HD, yet rumour has it perhaps? diet is part of the problem. its a minefield, who wants to be the first to put their toe in anymore? cant find the one with the hip displastic lines sepearate into three groups, one control, one ad lib fed one diet restricted and the difference in hip displacia percentages was astonishing considering the puppies were siblings from known hip displastic percentage producing parents. still looking for it so far, this one is just the difference in life span obviously this too is not so genetic after all folks http://www.2ndchance.info/homemadediets-Kealy2002dietaryrestriction.pdf my question is it arrogance or stupidity to accept responsibility for things which in fact, really are actually beyond your control?

What problems have sighthound breeders created? Right now its damn wise to be defensive. Their dogs are in the cross hairs . everything is in the crosshairs, all your left to argue is in which order are they lined up for target. had a dream last night, quite odd but maybe time will see it to be true, regardless of the order all domesticated species are marked for elimination, people are just a bit slow to realise that, the name today should be Royal Society for the Elimination of Domesticated Breeds. or RSEDB or? Perhaps, Royal Society for the Elimination of Domesticated Species may be more appropriate, does RSEDS have a better, more realistic ring to it? Of course, breeders, such as those who sold litters to McDougall for that pet shop in Hawaii wouldn't have had anything to do with the bad PR problem. many breeders sold to the company who was exporting to McDougal the Hawaii Pet shop, I saw many of the litters sold and they were stunning puppies, one of the conditions was they had to be on Main Register and I was so tempted to buy a ticket and fly there to buy some of the puppies I saw. Many were from breeders who would never sell on main register in Australia. scotched the idea when I found how complicated it would be to reimport but it was tempting to daydream, international pedigrees denied to the rest of australia.

unless its been changed, a friend was told the law is now that you cannot keep a bitch and her litter within 50 mt rs of a food preparation area. ie kitchen. She kept hers on the veranda beside the kitchen and on very cold days in the kitchen. unless the distance has been reduced there are few homes that have rooms 50 meters from the kitchen? Another kept hers in the lounge room, she too was warned she could not do this anymore as they were too close to the kitchen area. Both were told to build concrete kennels and house them there. in both cases their blocks were too small to built anything inside their residential block outside this perimeter. Is this still the case? I remember a chap once told his wife, anyone who does not raise their puppies in the home is a puppy farmer. yet read the Companion Animal Manual for breeders? http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/299803/Breeding-dogs-and-cats-code-of-practice.pdf That's exactly what they list and recommend. concrete kennels?

Heres how I see it then. You are stakling every thing on a reality that exists only in the K.Cs. You won't recognize any other possible reality. Its got to be Pedgirees all the way. You will risk every thing, for every one on your belief the pedigree system alone has a future. Pedigree dogs, Or no dogs. If your faith is so great you better pray. I'll be looking for a more favorable response to DOGS else where. Theres no time for this. Looks like this is the best response I can hope for here ("Academic weasel words") I tried. Dog help you. this doesnt bode well either, interesting it notes the rise of manufactured dog food may be a contributing factor as well http://healthypets.mercola.com/sites/healthypets/archive/2016/07/13/pedigree-dog-lifespan.aspx?utm_source=petsnl&utm_medium=email&utm_content=art1&utm_campaign=20160713Z3&et_cid=DM110747&et_rid=1569357715

Yes. Sheridan's is an accurate precis. FFS I'm trying to save your sorry 'victim' butts, poor you and poor my my breed. Guess you are on your own. Suggest you start by explaining how you are saving poor us in language we can comprehend. With you there. I find it incredibly difficult to read mm's posts. I can comprehend basically everyone else's posts, even the longer ones, but there is another language in mm's posts which just don't seem to sink in. I've even read a so-called explanation and it made no sense. I don't really have much to add to this conversation but I would suggest the reason the owners of Greyhounds are suggesting they'll have to put their dogs down is because the money they were getting in prize money etc. was going toward feeding their dogs. Maybe I'm just a farmer's daughter but if I don't have a use for an animal (including enjoying their company), it has to go. With the tide of Greyhounds being out of a job, there will most likely be many needing homes & not enough homes - would it be better if people end up on the street just so they can feed their dogs?? Or perhaps it's a sensible choice to put the dogs to sleep rather than risk it ending up in a bad position due to a rushed rehoming process. If it were me and they really do take it to a ban I would simply put them all to sleep if the only other option was the RSPCA. Think they have overlooked the fact that having a vet kill your dogs is still perfectly legal and just because the bleeding hearts will feel better if there are RSPCA "helping" doesn't mean the owners are going to let them take the bow for taking them on. Agreed. I saw somewhere that the RSPCA has put down the same number of dogs as the greyhound industry in NSW. It works out to about 5000 dogs per year. So you noticed it too eh? dont think you are supposed too though

interesting article. its non dog topic yet isnt the topic scarily familiar re the training arguments? https://annablakeblog.com/2016/07/15/defending-horses-with-words-and-money/

What problems have sighthound breeders created? Right now its damn wise to be defensive. Their dogs are in the cross hairs . everything is in the crosshairs, all your left to argue is in which order are they lined up for target. had a dream last night, quite odd but maybe time will see it to be true, regardless of the order all domesticated species are marked for elimination, people are just a bit slow to realise that, the name today should be Royal Society for the Elimination of Domesticated Breeds. or RSEDB or? Perhaps, Royal Society for the Elimination of Domesticated Species may be more appropriate, does RSEDS have a better, more realistic ring to it?

OT, but I hardly think watching a 16 week old Peke pup run a little in Winter is proof it has no problems. The sheep, for instance, isn't puffing at all from that little run. The Peke is running by bunny hopping from hind legs to front, signs that it's back is too long for its leg length. Stenotic nares and, in particular, elongated soft palate, are definitely progressive and likely to be worse in older dogs than in pups. Show me an adult Peke working in hot weather without curling its tongue out to clear its airway, and I'll be more convinced. The Crufts winner needed ice bricks after its little step out. I'll point out (again) that the 'job' of the peke was sitting in someone's lap. It doesn't run around hills and herd sheep or catch vermin for a living. That is not its job. I have read its movement may have been deliberately bred in to stop it running off. If I was wearing a cost like that - a breed trait - and going around under those lights if probably need an ice pack, too, and so would you. I wish people would stop assuming every dog is supposed to be whizzing around a ring like a hyper springer spaniel because they're not. well sadly I doubt that will be enough to give a tick to those who breed them. Im pretty sure that what they were intended for and how that impacts on their health might be part of the case they try to make against them - but apart from that when you look at a champ back when showing dogs began and you could argue the type was designed to sit on a lap etc one now Im not sure thats a good defence. Feb 2016 vets in sweden have called for them to be banned as well. source perfect example of why the show scene has become a danger to the breeds, they cant seem to help them selves from "improving" a breed until its originators wouldn't have a snowflakes chance in hell of recognising the now "improved" morphed version.

I certainly know a greyhound who would never do anything to upset either her owners cat or the neighbors cats she was very respectful not only of her owners cat but the neighbors as well.. She not only raced but won every one of her races and was retired because her vet warned she tried so hard to win finished more exhausted each race, when athletes talk about the pain barrier she simply kept on, determined to win and did, it was decided she was too keen to win . her most famous win the mechanical hare malfunctioned and stopped, the race couldn't be declared a rerun because only 3 dogs in the field stopped when the "hare" did, and they were at the tail of the field and out of contention, she and the rest of the field didn't even give it a glance as they raced to the finish line and their trainers waiting at the catching pen. which rather begs the question are the mechanical hares necessary if trained to simply run to their trainer as she was? There was never any doubt she knew she was racing the other dogs as she threw her all at getting in front and staying there.

that is the difference today compared to 50 - 60 years ago. All breeders culled any that fell below a minimum quality of life standard, be it canine, bovine, ovine, equine, porcine or Caprine just to name a few. I well remember the lady who phoned me to ask could she get her bitch mated as she hoped it would improve her attitude to her new baby. It wanted to attack her child as soon as she and her husband came home from hospital with their newborn baby. Warning bells went off immediately, the bitch in question being a breed that is famous for its love of family, all its owners family, babies in particular. This individual was most definitely not displaying true to her breed behavior. Last thing she should be doing is breeding from it. She was pretty shocked when I told her my dad would have shot it, on the proviso that although it looked like its breed it had completely failed the temperament test. In that instance compromise was reached in that the bitch was desexed AND most importantly never kept where it or their child could gain access to each other.

Add my vote to that, the surgery involves cutting a groove into the bone, that alone can give the dog arthritis where it did not have it before. many dogs live long happy lives without surgery, BUT that includes making sure it never gets overweight. some vets make a great living operating on dogs that never needed surgery according to my vet. boarded some dogs for a friend and had never seen the funny skip and leg stretch one of her dogs would do at times. rushed her to my vet thinking something awful was wrong and he laughed and explained she had learned how to unlock her legs herself with the stretch she was doing and explained what she had. that dog made it to 18 arthritis free. some years later a puppy I bred the new owner rang me furious that her 10 months old pup had needed surgery on both patellas and wanted me to pay for it. The surgery had already been done without even contacting me or my vet prior to it being done. my vet was furious, he had found no hint of a problem and added a dog that young should never have been operated on as it was still growing. definitely get second opinions. another breeder was phoned and told she would have to pay for the op as the puppy was obviously defective and requested a second opinion and the second vet discovered the problem was fractures, questioning revealed the puppy having jumped off the new owners verandah another cause is the same as the puppy above, a friend bought a new bed much higher from the floor. her 4 and 5 year old chihuahuas began to limp in the hindlegs and it was discovered they had damaged their patellas jumping off the bed. their vet was on of the best in the state and had been their vet all their lives so asked what has been changed at home as their patellas had been perfect at all previous checkups. a set of stairs were installed beside the bed.

suspect he is right, racing of all kinds are on the agenda as will be riding of all kinds, be it dressage, sporting or jumping . as for the livestock industries they are on the agenda as is obvious after reading a PETA site. the mandate IS the elimination of all livestock of any form, pets were first on the hit list and look at how many places are no longer pet friendly compared to 40 - 50 years ago. The changes are dramatic for those born before Peta began. Every home had a pet in our area both home owners and renters, not today.

as a chipper since its inception, I am constantly astonished how many puppies owners contact me to get their new pet chipped and in just about every case it came from a friend of a friend of, but they have friends with purebred chipped dogs and want theirs safe and traceable if they get lost. How many millions don't might make interesting figures. no amount of legislation is going to filter through this network and i suspect its huge. just ask anyone who knows the stats of dogs that end up in pounds with no chip. as usual is only a control of the people who are honest enough to sign up for persecution as the supposed cause of the oversupply at rescues. the nameless faceless are still invisible. be interesting what the real numbers are but do not see how that can be achieved

According to info Ive received The RSPCA raided her years ago but she came up clean.She was suspended by the ANKC but that was because she didnt submit paper work to explain when it was demanded not because of her treatment of her dogs The photos of her property in the media recently were 10 years old. It would be pretty easy to have some minor breaches of the code if they got picky with that many dogs and we dont know how serious they were. The photo of the dog in poor condition was one of the neighbours dogs - it just smells a bit and I still dont think the RSPCA should make public statements and give details when its in such an early phase. Naughty, your not supposed to notice things like that. the whole idea is trial by media and where animals are concerned there is no such thing as innocent until proven guilty. Even if down the track there is no fire found, the smoke it is hoped will have done sufficient damage and there will be another one less "horrible breeder" if it works and they give up under the stress. I suspect down the track the opportunity will be offered to pay a fee to become "officially approved" like the chook farms and so on. no tick, smoked

Any one miss Catalyst on the ABC. very interesting and well worth watching. a lot of it can be useful in selecting for the best genes Catalyst Live Long Die Young. http://iview.abc.net.au/programs/catalyst/SC1502H019S00

mine aren't a popular breed so you just never know I was scanning the net for a friend who wanted one a few months ago and checked all sites, realised one add had the same photos as a breeder on another site, except one had 3 photos and the other half a dozen of mum dad and the pups from all different angles. figured the one with so many would be the real owner and sent them the link to the other one with different prefix and contact no and suggested they call the police. happened to me some 9 years ago and they caught the offender who was in another state and apparently had fleeced something like $6,000 from unsuspecting people before she was caught and charged

I think names should be removed, un less you have permission to share them . good point, thanks

or is this a subject not for discussion and I should delete ASAP?

might even lead to less pillaring of breeders if this was understood better, or is that daydreaming? photo. https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xal1/v/t1.0-9/11223814_1174068439274649_1735211167372470899_n.jpg?oh=49f411c5995e7bd4b14a5ae81f09c832&oe=5806569C&__gda__=1476025776_efc303965b18d92aeebae8db1bd2ddf9 25 September 2015 There was a farmer who grew excellent quality corn. Every year he won the award for the best grown corn. One year a newspaper reporter interviewed him and learned something interesting about how he grew it. The reporter discovered that the farmer shared his seed corn with his neighbors. “How can you afford to share your best seed corn with your neighbors when they are entering corn in competition with yours each year?” the reporter asked. “Why sir,” said the farmer, “Didn’t you know? The wind picks up pollen from the ripening corn and swirls it from field to field. If my neighbors grow inferior corn, cross-pollination will steadily degrade the quality of my corn. If I am to grow good corn, I must help my neighbors grow good corn.” So is with our lives... Those who want to live meaningfully and well must help enrich the lives of others, for the value of a life is measured by the lives it touches. And those who choose to be happy must help others find happiness, for the welfare of each is bound up with the welfare of all... -Call it power of collectivity... -Call it a principle of success... -Call it a law of life. The fact is, none of us truly wins, until we all win!! Like Comment Comments We need more farming around Mount Garnet Area. Like · Reply · 13 June at 09:12 That's great quality control! Like · Reply · 1 · 13 June at 09:22 I wish Baxter and Marsh in Kojonup could get hold of this. Like · Reply · 1 · 13 June at 10:05 This is outstandingly good. · 13 June at 10:29 exactly why breeders should work together and share but most of todays dog breeders have lost the plot Like · Reply · 1 · 13 June at 12:50 That's how inbreeding happens. All the families of the world's ruling elite are inbred, and that is their greatest weakness. If we are to defeat them, we have to learn to co-operate. Like · Reply · 13 June at 17:23 Inbreeding has crippled our dog breeds... and our registered heavy horses. Like · Reply · 17 hrs thats the easy catchphrase. I know the majority of breeders NEVER inbreed. Yet constant outcross kennels have produced more rubbish and deformaties than I ever saw at P B E.....a Kennels. she did was the old time legendary breeders did, crosses mother to son and father to daughter and only kept the stock that didnt produce faults.line and inbreeding used properly finds the animals carrying faults and then can be eliminated from the gene pool. dominate genes show with just one pattern. recessives are hidden unless the youngster gets a copy from each parent. you cant get two defective copies if you had already screened at least one parent by in or line breeding it first to ensure it doesnt carry hidden defects. in or line breeding has been used for dna tested across the entire gentetic spectrum for thousands of years before dna tests arrived on the scene only a few years ago. they test for a few dozen of the tens of thousands that are sitting waiting to say SUPRISE ! you can inbreed or line breed and a faulty gene cant show if it wasnt there in the first place. you can constantly outcross and still get disasters and its not because it was inbred, it was because both parents have a gene thats been there for generations and no one knew. but hey why learn genetics when its easier to say hey some mongred has inbred Like · Reply · 10 hrs then there are the faulty genes that just mutated at conception. not anything to do with inbreeding. neither parent had a faulty gene. google down syndrome for starters, its not restricted to humans , my sister gave me a medical book listing and photos of just a few hundred abnormalities that occur at conception babies with xxx, yxx yyx and that's just the mix-ups that can occurr on the sex chromosomes... and photos of the poor babies born. happens in humans and animals and not an inbred parent in sight. not a book to read before or during pregnancy Like · Reply · 10 hrs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XYY_syndrome XYY syndrome - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia en.wikipedia.org Like · Reply · Remove Preview · 10 hrs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XYY_syndrome XYY syndrome - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia en.wikipedia.org Like · Reply · Remove Preview · 10 hrs http://www.rarechromo.org/.../Chro.../Tetrasomy_X%20FTNW.pdf Like · Reply · 10 hrs what crippled our dog breeds is breeding to exagerate features to the degree that the result either has no face to breathe normally, a mouth big enough for its tongue to fit inside. eyes so big they can fall out, lids can hardly cover to keep dirt and dust out of them, skin so loose the eyelids droop so low they only function seems to be as dirt catchers? or the other extreme skull so short or so long and narrow there's hardly room for the brain. just look at what sooo many breeds looked like, some as little as 50 years ago and what is to me laughingly described as the "improved" version. to my eye its the destroyed version. to achieve it they inbred and line bred all right but nothing to do with genetically related parents they put shorter face to shorter face till there is no face. and ditto for every other feature it was decided to exaggerate to the point of destruction of comfort, health ...u name it Like · Reply · 1 · 10 hrs · Edited look at the halter quarter horse? hocks so straight they have bog and bone spavin before they are in their teens let alone arthritis. feet too small to carry the massive weight above them, so if arthritis doesn't get them navicular will Like · Reply · 1 · 10 hrs · Edited Your points are excellent Sy. I was referring to registered clydesdales who are now very light in the bone as there are so few clydesdales left in Australia that the available gene pool has shrunk. Like · Reply · 4 hrs

There is a family of kelpies near Penrith used to win most of the high jumps year in year out hvnt been to the shows for while . its a really fun event

what astonishes me is if you had a child would you leave it alone with things it can destroy? why do it with a dog? set aside an area for her with access only things she can have,not run of the whole place and I know a friend whose dog hated being left alone, although in the case of yours she isnt alone she has the other dog. my friend bought those treatballs and put bits of food in them and she spent hours winkling them out.

She didnt know there were 4 dead dogs on her property - Id love to know what reason she comes up with to get out of that one. I saw an interview with the unnamed unidentified neighbour and if I heard correctly the dead ones were there not the chi breeder and one of the dead was not known to the property owner , had no idea where it came from and not of the breeds either had? stray? too little information and much what we have been told is distorted, dangerous trying to make assumptions with so much shaky info to go on

The page is no longer showing up. The club is not at all happy. It might also pay for everyone to remember Ms Healey is not the only person involved. 2 properties were raided, at least 2 women involved. I think it sounds better for the press release to have a nice BIG round figure, if the truth isnt even in that what else is distorted? the video I saw was chi's on paper with some 3 or 4 pieces of dog do which could have been done just before the video was filmed? not a sign of the heaps of feces reported and the matted dogs belonged to the other breeder who is not named and shamed? CORRECTION, I rewatched the video and what I did see was black dots on the base of a food bowl not a dog too in sight in every shot? every dog in screen was in excellent condition. shocking as the in little pens looks, many breeders have these pens in the home and they spend the night in them and let out to play in the yard. we really dont know the truth of the matter from whats on those links

Good question but its going to take an essay to address all of the issues and variables I've got a meeting tonight but will come back. short answer is any breeder with 10 to 16 a litter breeds can achieve 100 easily. with a nice representative group to select from for the next generation if its a toy breed many so called litters contain 1 to 2 pups thats a pretty sparse number of pups to select from as any genetic tome will tell you to get a mininum chance of genetic variation to select from one set of parents you need a MINIMUM of 16 offspring but hey who wants to learn about genetics dogs these days are fur children so be happy with the child you get even it its a down syndrome affected puppy, (http://dogsaholic.com/care/dog-with-down-syndrome.html) well if you bred it, if you buy it it has to be perfect with a lifetime guarantee or the breeder isn't 'ethical' I have bad news for the all things bright and beautiful brigade, genes, dna and reproduction glitces aren't ethical, they don't even care about the breeders reputation or the affected youngster either so many such problems are no fault of the breeder or even the parents, but hey who wants to know the truth Although one truth the ANKC is responsible for. as the article states "Geneticists, scientists who study genes, do know what causes nondisjunction; however, they have found a common link between the age of the mother and the frequency of cases. Basically, the older a mother is, the more likely she is to give birth to a child with Down." The actions of the ANKC's to pandering to the Peta and animal rights brigade along with the fur kid brigade brought in the one litter per year rule to "stop puppy farming" by registered breeders. ask any vet who has been in practice over 30 years (not the PETA brainwashed coming out of the vet schools since) dogs (women included too) gynecologists too will tell you (there's reams of research available out there) are least likely to have reproduction problems or genetic abnormalities in their offspring as young mums . Aging genes means increased pregnancy and genetic problems. before litters were bred before the mum turned 4 or 5 ad pensioned off as a young dog.

goodness, here is one clipped out as a bedlington terrier https://www.google.com.au/search?q=lamb+clip+poodle&client=firefox-b&tbm=isch&imgil=fDTBIqjpBFoQpM%253A%253B3ngORkKqaTb6oM%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Ffancypawsgrooming.angelfire.com%25252Fphotos%25252Findex.album%25252Fminiature-poodle%25253Fi%2525253D3&source=iu&pf=m&fir=fDTBIqjpBFoQpM%253A%252C3ngORkKqaTb6oM%252C_&usg=__5cYhjJBxnaTHZbgaAD4kbSWfA1Q%3D&biw=1920&bih=971&ved=0ahUKEwijnb6N0YrNAhVHW5QKHRQZBpgQyjcINQ&ei=qdNQV-OkCMe20QSUspjACQ#imgrc=L8bWEgUgemiHnM%3A or even a Schnauzer clip possibilities are endless https://www.google.com.au/search?q=lamb+clip+poodle&client=firefox-b&tbm=isch&imgil=fDTBIqjpBFoQpM%253A%253B3ngORkKqaTb6oM%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Ffancypawsgrooming.angelfire.com%25252Fphotos%25252Findex.album%25252Fminiature-poodle%25253Fi%2525253D3&source=iu&pf=m&fir=fDTBIqjpBFoQpM%253A%252C3ngORkKqaTb6oM%252C_&usg=__5cYhjJBxnaTHZbgaAD4kbSWfA1Q%3D&biw=1920&bih=971&ved=0ahUKEwijnb6N0YrNAhVHW5QKHRQZBpgQyjcINQ&ei=qdNQV-OkCMe20QSUspjACQ#imgrc=WTXwlhgwpNgUSM%3A