Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

I desperately hope that, yet again, i am wrong.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

If America since Jan 2025 hasn’t broken your heart, you haven’t loved her enough.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

“I was told there would be no fact checking.”

Innocent people do not delay justice.

Dumb motherfuckers cannot understand a consequence that most 4 year olds have fully sorted out.

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

T R E 4 5 O N

The republican ‘Pastor’ of the House is an odious authoritarian little creep.

If you don’t believe freedom is for everybody, then the thing you love isn’t freedom, it is privilege.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

The desire to stay informed is directly at odds with the need to not be constantly enraged.

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” was supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it is not glory.

You are here: Home / Pet Blogging / Dog Blogging / Pet Rescue Open Thread

Pet Rescue Open Thread

by | 103 Comments

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Been a while since we had a nice rescue story, so I dug one out of the email vault:

On Sunday Brad walked by that pet place on 81st and Amsterdam and asked them if they had any dogs (there were lots of cats up for adoption). Doug, the dog guy, said that he would have one in a few minutes when she came back from her walk. Brad called us and said come and see. So we did. They told us she answers to Bella. She was rescued from a kill shelter 9 days or something before and she’d just been spayed.

I thought Bella was cute and sweet but Brad wasn’t quite convinced and Rosie [our 8-y.o. daughter] was just a little shy with her (Bella is young, 8 months, and still in that puppy chewing on the hand stage and she is about 35 pounds of puppy muscle).

We thought about it and then went to visit another dog rescue place on Broadway (they had small, older dogs). Then we talked about it and went back. We took Bella to Riverside Park with Shelly, a woman from the rescue organization. Bella did very well, no dog conflicts, no barking like crazy at squirrels or birds, etc. A larger aggressive dog approached and she turned around, so that’s a good sign.

As luck would have it, Rosie was walking her when Bella ran up to a little white dog and started to play a little. I was jumping in the middle since we didn’t really know how Bella would do with dogs yet, especially little dogs, and I said, “Sorry!” without even looking. The other dog’s owner said, “it’s okay,” and we went our separate ways. Then Shelly said, “Wasn’t that Gloria Steinem?” I looked back and sure enough, it was her (and she looked really good for being about 75 years old!)

Of course we thought about Bella Abzug! A good Upper West Side connection for sure, so I’m liking the name more and more (aside from the fact that it’s quite beautiful!)

By the time we got back, Doug was asking us to foster Bella for the week, with his normal dog kennel place in Brooklyn full. Bella seems fairly civilized, although she did pee in the house a few times. No poop though. Life with a little one. She’s ours!

I’m off to rot my mind in front of the television. No cable news, though!

Reader Interactions

103Comments

  4. 4.

    demkat620

    That’s a cutie. What a nice way to end the day after all the Sturm and Drang here.

    Love ya John and the rest of the front pagers.

  7. 7.

    JCT

    @Cat Lady: Our rescue beagle mix (looks like a black and white version of Lily) has the same ears and when she jumps up and down begging for a snack I usually comment that she will soon take off like Sister Bertrille.

    Of course, the fact that I am the only one around my house who is old enough to get the joke is somewhat depressing.

  9. 9.

    Lesley

    If you embiggen the picture of that cuteastic dog, her teeny teeth are smiling. Oh my God, I love that dog. (Ok, I love most dogs, I’m a sucker for dogs, dogs dogs dogs…)

  10. 10.

    beltane

    Well, that is a nice story. And it does not mention she-who-shall-not-be-named which makes it even better. For some reason most of my town was without internet service today, which saved me from experiencing all the sturm and drang. I’ll have to go work up a little outrage to complete my day.

  14. 14.

    Joshua Norton

    No cable news for me – ever. I currently have “Gray’s Anatomy” reruns on in the background while I work on the PC. (I still don’t get how Dr. McSexy is supposed to be all hot for a high maintenance drama queen like Meridith).

  16. 16.

    Bad Horse's Filly

    @arguingwithsignposts: I have been meaning to tell you for days (but I get to the threads so late) that Lady Smudge is looking very grown-up and beautiful in her latest glamor shots. She seems very happy (and in charge).

    OH, and Bella is stunning, who could resist those ears?

  18. 18.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @Bad Horse’s Filly:

    She seems very happy (and in charge)

    yep, she is very much in charge, and very vocal when she’s not getting the attention she feels she deserves. :)

    I get the feeling she’s going to be a very “big” cat, too – not Tunch big, but very loooonnngg!

  19. 19.

    John O

    Listening to Bernstein’s Bolero cover, and waiting for some friends, Maria Isabel (Bella) among them, to visit.

    Reading a good pet story.

    Puppy passed out at my feet. Cats cuddling within eyeshot, a perfect weather day here in Chicagoland.

    Life is good.

  24. 24.

    Xenos

    @mr. whipple:

    Doesn’t a balloon explode?

    Not if the pressure increases enough. Say, by tying it to the rail of the Titanic, or by subjecting it to the wrath of Glennzilla. Or both at the same time.

  25. 25.

    cleek

    @mr. whipple:
    a normal balloon would. but not this one. it tried to eat itself.

    very exciting.

    so sad you missed it.

    it’s like a beautiful solar eclipse.

    a solar eclipse of snark.

    maybe you’ll catch the one i suspect will come around in October.

  26. 26.

    Betsy

    @arguingwithsignposts:
    Chompers is close to silent, but she is good at using body language to show us who’s boss.

    p.s. I posted this a second ago with several other pics, but there were too many links so I got thrown into the mod queue.

    p.p.s. That is the closet door she’s sitting on. She likes to get her head as far above ours as she possibly can.

  30. 30.

    mr. whipple

    @jeffreyw:

    We had a roofus-sided towhee come through yesterday, but it was too dark to get a pic.

    Probably should get the lettuce in and get the hummingbird feeders out.

  33. 33.

    sfinny

    So, I’m sitting out on my balcony having a smoke and see someone walking in from the parking lot. The guy glances up in my direction and actually recoils, and quickly moves on. I’m thinking ‘well that was weird’…until I remember that I’m sitting there in my Deep Cleansing Peat Mask.

    And yes, it certainly does look like blackface.

    Guess the neighbors will be talking.

  39. 39.

    Betsy

    @Pigs & Spiders:
    Ok, serious question:

    What is an ipad for? What is the point of it? It seems really inconvenient to me – no keyboard, but too big to fit conveniently into a pocket or purse. But maybe I’m just not sufficiently tech-oriented.

  41. 41.

    Pigs & Spiders

    @Betsy: Honestly, the iPad is a computer/appliance/media-player hybrid. It’s going to be for everything needs computational power but not a whole computer. It’s for everything that needs the internet, but not a computer. It’s for all the content you want to consume, without the heft of a computer and the limitations of a Kindle device. It’s also the perfect computer for the people who don’t get computers.

  42. 42.

    mr. whipple

    @Betsy:

    “Ha! Hilarious. Great minds, &ct. Has that been because of behavioral issues on his part?”

    No. He has gone through many name mutations and permutations. I was calling him Champ for a while, which became Chompers lately.

    He’s been known as Punky, Punkywhip, Orange whip, Whipywhip, stinkbutt, crunchbutt, Mr. Crunchy, Booj, etc etc.

  43. 43.

    Betsy

    @Pigs & Spiders:
    Gotcha. I have two things I use a computer for every single day, and one of those is writing. So the lack of a keyboard kind of cuts its relevance to me in half. But I do recognize that most people don’t need that.

  47. 47.

    rootless-e

    spring is here
    happiness on every face
    dance and sing
    and disrespect the base
    out in the fields
    the flowers are bunching
    and all of us obots
    are hippy punching
    [guitar break]
    [repeat]
    [explosion]

  50. 50.

    wonkie

    SJe’s a darling. And I am so glad you were willing to adopt a pitbull. They are great dogs, despite the hysteria.

  51. 51.

    Svensker

    And now for something completely different…

    Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga) worried that Guam might tip over and capsize if it gets overpopulated. He wasn’t kidding.

  54. 54.

    Mnemosyne

    @Betsy:

    At Christmas this year, my dad was totally fascinated by both the iPod Touch and the Kindle when G let him play with them, but neither of them on their own really did what he wanted, which was to have a device with a reasonably-sized screen that would let him watch movies and surf the Web.

    So, basically, their customer is my dad. Unfortunately for them, he’s not an early adopter of, well, anything.

  55. 55.

    Martin

    @Betsy: For me, it’d be my work have-everything device. I spend a lot of time in meetings where people are expecting me to be an expert on all kinds of things. I could keep all that crap in my head when I was younger, but I’m losing my touch. Being able to call up an email, load a spreadsheet, a web service, and so on is pretty appealing to me. The laptop can be pretty clunky to do this – and noisy. I think people forget how distracting someone typing can be, and how much people get distanced from a discussion sitting behind a screen. A PDA is simply too small.

    But to be truly useful for me, there needs to be a pen input for taking notes – I’m pretty visual, so there are usually a lot of little drawings and such. I don’t doubt there will be something in the app store for this before long.

    And Pigs & Spiders has it right. For most people that are just surfing the web, doing Facebook, Quicken – this could be a pretty compelling device. It’s relatively cheap and throw on the 3G option and you have a nice go-everywhere, do almost-anything item. No risk of malware. Apps are cheap and dead-simple to install.

  58. 58.

    ellaesther

    Hey, I found out today that my mom was born in Adrian, Michigan, home to the Hutaree insanity.

    Apparently, Adrian produces both radical secular humanists AND radical Christianist terrorists. Huh!

  61. 61.

    Martin

    @Betsy: The big barrier for many strong computer users is the keyboard. If you are a fast touch typist (I clock in around 100wpm) then the on-screen keyboard will be a world of suck. But most people can’t touch-type. For them, the on screen keyboard is likely to be no slower than a regular one. We tend to forget that.

  62. 62.

    ellaesther

    @Martin: “I don’t believe in God and you can’t make me! No, I mean it!”

    That’s kind of my mom’s approach to the notion of God. And she is many things, but white toast? She is not.

  63. 63.

    IndyLib

    @Martin:
    Are there really that many people who don’t touch type? Typing was a requirement in my high school in the 80’s.

  66. 66.

    Martin

    @IndyLib: Yeah, actually there are. Lots of people learned in school, but unless you needed to do it a lot, it tends to lapse.

  70. 70.

    Betsy

    @burnspbesq:
    Although I would never, ever buy this one, because I am not actually this much of a jerk about religion, I secretly love the one that says, “Jesus loves you. Everyone else thinks you’re an asshole.”

  71. 71.

    IndyLib

    @Martin:
    I guess for me it was timing then. When I started college in ’85 computers were starting to be used instead of typewriters to do papers for classes, we had a huge computer lab on campus and I used a Mac for my journalism classes. It just stuck I guess, because by the time I got a PC in ’94 I could still type about 100wpm.

  72. 72.

    Anya

    I was on the road all day and my iPhone was sleep so I had no access. Am I too late to register my disappointment with dear leader for this ill advised offshore drilling?

  74. 74.

    Mark S.

    @Anya:

    Yes, it’s already been determined by the Committee of O-bots that this was brilliant 11th dimensional chess.

  75. 75.

    Martin

    @Mark S.: Actually, this member of the committee disagrees. The oil is going to get drilled eventually, and I’m not sure that particular patch is going to be economically viable for quite some time. If there’s a political upside to doing it, then why not?

    In the meantime, nobody seemed to notice that at the same time, Obama cancelled a whole mess of leases up around Alaska citing environmental concerns. I guess nobody cared about that.

  76. 76.

    General Egali Tarian Stuck

    Our Obotness is spreading throughout the netroot realm. From a commenter at Open left concerning Obama’s drilling prop.

    I wonder … (4.00 / 2)
    what the so called O-bots(at TGOS and Balloon-Juice) will say to these latest words .. Obama really is Third Way/DLC

    I didn’t know TGOS was an obot haven, but I never read them.

  77. 77.

    binzinerator

    OT but I got an email from Connie Saltonstall with the subject of ‘I need a favor’. The email was as follows:

    I decided to run against Stupak because someone had to. He crossed the line. Unfortunately the timing means my brand new campaign has to pass its first major test re: viability in just a few days. (Wednesday at midnight is the end of our first fundraising quarter — and we barely had 3 weeks.)
    ….
    I know you just gave, but can you do me a big favor and give another 20 before the deadline? (Please!)
    …
    I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t so important.
    …
    Connie
    …
    secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/conniesaltonstall
    …
    Sent from my iPhone

    I was thinking she ought to give a better reason why she’s running against him other than because he is a fucking asshole. I thought she should have stated what she was running for, not what she’s running against. Plus, it sounds way too last-minute desperate, which ain’t a good thing.

    I’m not very reassured by that email that she’s got what it takes to challenge Stupak.

    Still, giving 20 bucks to make Stupak sweat was worth every penny. That fucker.

    Did any of you Juicers who gave to her campaign get an email like that?

    [edit to try to fix blockquoting fail]

    [edited the edit to fix extra fail of blockquote fail]

  81. 81.

    binzinerator

    Geez, it just occurred to me that if it hadn’t been for that stupid laughing black helicopter guy I would have never thought of using ellipses to fix blockquote fail.

    Wingnut freaks aren’t always 100% worthlessness 100% of the time. Sometimes while blundering in their enormity of stoopit they accidentally fail into discovering something useful.

    Imagine that.

  82. 82.

    Mark S.

    @Martin:

    And if I understand correctly, the individual states can veto any drilling. My best guess is that this is a mating call to Lindsay Graham, so maybe Obama already has assurances from Huckleberry isn’t going to torpedo this like Grassley did on HCR.

    Obot sanctuary needs to be in the lexicon.

  83. 83.

    Anya

    @Mark S.: I am a member of the committee, yet this decision is upsetting to me.

    Maybe I should check Sarah Palin’s facebook to see how real Americans feel about this.

  85. 85.

    Steeplejack

    @binzinerator:

    Best blockquote practices:

    Last line of “regular” text above blockquote.
    &#060blockquote&#062
    Paragraph 1
    &#095&#095
    Paragraph 2
    &#095&#095
    Paragraph 3, etc.
    &#060/blockquote&#062
    Resume normal text.

    (h/t Monkeyboy © 2009)

    The underscores do not show up in the final blockquote, unlike the ellipses. Don’t leave a blank line between the “normal” text and the blockquote, else the blockquote will come out in bold. Typographical “eww.”

  86. 86.

    Martin

    @Mark S.: Even if there’s nothing like that going on, he’s blunted the GOP attacks on energy and let’s face it, it’s not going to have any impact one way or another on other energy initiatives as so many on the left are trying to claim.

  87. 87.

    binzinerator

    @sfinny:

    So, I’m sitting out on my balcony having a smoke and see someone walking in from the parking lot. The guy glances up in my direction and actually recoils, and quickly moves on. I’m thinking ‘well that was weird’…until I remember that I’m sitting there in my Deep Cleansing Peat Mask.

    Naw, he prolly thought you were into some sort of scat fetish. Wet pulpy peat looks a lot like excrement. No wonder he scrammed.

  88. 88.

    RJ

    (The open thread’s probably the best place to put this )

    I was just on LGF, which has a link to some teabagger photostream. In a fit of masochism, I clicked on it, which includes people promoting a joyfully wingnut site – one that allows you to create your own bumper stickers.

    The abbreviation they’ve chosen for this allows you to imagine your car with “Your BS” on the bumper.

    Fitting for winguts.

  90. 90.

    trollhattan

    Gracie, typically camera-shy, tolerated my taking a few shots in the park last Sunday. We adopted her about four years ago in a Denny’s parking lot off I-5, brought there from Fresno by a Crazy Dog Lady. She’d been surrendered at least twice: once by the original owner and again by the folks who first adopted her (something about considering the cat to be a pursuit item). CDL rescued her from the shelter for her erstwhile Dalmatian rescue. She hauled her and several other dogs north for our meet-n-greet. Oh intertubes, is there no limit to the troubles you bring us?

    Long story short, we’d been morose and dogless for a couple months after losing our first Dal and took Gracie home after a scant 15-minute “interview.” She’s a remarkably good house dog and Mr. Hyde outside, in the real world. We’re still sorting through all that. Good thing for her she’s dang cute.

    farm3.static.flickr.com/2731/4480954446_9612971e24_o.jpg

    farm5.static.flickr.com/4034/4480306155_4cab1bcd09_o.jpg

  98. 98.

    trollhattan

    @ General Egali Tarian Stuck

    Thank you! She’s so darn photogenic, it’s ironic she’s bloody terrified of cameras (and fireworks and thunder and the garbage truck and….).

    I’m looking for a camera made of meat and squirrels.

  99. 99.

    Yutsano

    @General Egali Tarian Stuck: One big thing holding me back: I’m thinking about changing jobs in my company to one where I would be traveling for half the year. Not exactly conducive to building a bond with a puppy. I’d have to leave him on my parents’ ranch to grow up. It would kind of defeat the purpose, even if he would have my folks and a border collie to romp around with.

  100. 100.

    Betsy

    @jeffreyw:
    Why must you torment me thus?

    @trollhattan:
    Wow, that is gorgeous color saturation. Very very nice. Woke me right up. And what a great pooch!! That 2nd pic is happiness distilled.

  101. 101.

    Linkmeister

    @Svensker: Aside from the physics, he could be right. When I lived there my father was in charge of the Public Works Dept. and struggled mightily to keep power up and running and sewers working. And that was 1969-1970, when there were about 50K people on that island.

  102. 102.

    asiangrrlMN

    Thank you for the adorable pic of Bella (and the heartwarming story), Cole. Much appreciated.

    And, thanks to the commentariat for pics of Lady Smudge, Chompers, Willie (the shelter pup), and Gracie. Nothing soothes me like pictures of happy animals.

    Oh, and my boys don’t chatter much, but they are definitely in charge!

  103. 103.

    Ruckus

    @burnspbesq:
    lexdysic agnostic is uncertain about the existence of dog.

    How can you be a proper dyslexic if you can’t spell it like it should be? Know one to takes one.

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