Is this a metaphor or what?
Sign on a local manger. pic.twitter.com/iDtneq4Y82
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) December 20, 2019
Note: the above manger is in a police station parking lot. Kid you not.
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) December 20, 2019
BUT THEN AGAIN…
There are two random citizens sitting outside the jail today at a table giving out coffee, donuts, and bus passes to people as they are released. For Christmas, ostensibly.
My heart is warm.
— Kevin Horne (@KevinHornePSU) December 20, 2019
This is a bullshit charge and it was his pal Sully who was stayin' over from Lower Allston who got him to do it https://t.co/kOYPN2N34k
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) December 21, 2019
(He’s a professional! That baby was frozen with terror!)
And a happy thought for the year to come:
It used to be I'd check Twitter at 7AM west coast, and Twitter would be buzzing about whatever Trump's 7AM east coast insane tweets were. Now I can scroll for a good five minutes before I find anyone talking about his tweets. He's done it. He's worn out Twitter.
— Schooley (@Rschooley) December 20, 2019
opiejeanne
Schooley’s right. Many of us are worn out by his idiotic tweets and it’s probably better for our sanity to ignore most of them. Someone will draw our attention to any that are worth noting.
WaterGirl
Don’t listen to them, Ben. You are a good boy! Santa will bring you extra toys this year because those mean people took your toys away.
mapaghimagsik
I segment of Twitter has gotten smarter and doesn’t see the need to follow Orangeymandias.
zhena gogolia
What has happened to Paul Bronks? He’s disappeared again. I can’t live without his tweets.
Jay
Robert Sneddon
That manger thing… A long time back Glasgow City Council had an Advent manger display set up in George Square next to the Xmas tree donated by Norway. The Baby Jesus was not a doll but a sculpted bronze figure dressed in swaddling clothes. Left unattended, it got nicked one night and probably ended up getting melted down for scrap.
After that any poor PC from N Division who was in bad with his sergeant got to stand around the windswept freezing rain-soaked cold desolate square all night to make sure the replacement Baby Jesus didn’t suffer the same fate.
Jay
Fun, fun, fun.
Took Axl out for a walk/run. Axl is a Lab/X, stub tail, adopted by my neice, out of the Houston floods, and flown up to YVR.
Heading home, Axl was attacked by a German Shepard, from across the street, who broke the stupid retractable lead, faceplanted his owner, got a lock on Axl’s throat and took him down. I immediately took the Shepard down, pinned it’s neck so it couldn’t shake, jammed my thumbs into the back of the dog’s jaws, and after about 30 seconds, ( it seemed like minutes) got the dog to release.
Axl’s okay.
So much for a nice, stress releasing walk.
raven
@Jay: Not many people know that move.
NotMax
@Jay
Good to hear that Axl rose.
JPL
@Jay: Phew.. That is so scary.
FelonyGovt
Yes, I’m seeing a lot less of Shitgibbon’s tweets, even though he’s certainly not tweeting less. It would be nice if we could just ignore him altogether, because it would make him crazy(er). Unfortunately, we can’t ignore him altogether because he’s the *President.
SFAW
@raven:
Me being one of them. Good thing to know, if I ever have a dog, and if it ever gets attacked that way. [Not likely, but still a good thing to know.]
Glad Axl pup is OK.
SFAW
@NotMax:
FSM will smite you for that one.
JPL
@WaterGirl: The late Miss Moxie would search my closet for her gift. She never bothered with the other packages, but knew that there was a new toy or stuffed animal just for her. Finch doesn’t really care. He assumes that if the baby gets something good, he’ll share.
Martin
@raven: That’s an important one to learn. I’ve had to do that a few times. I have a (usually drunk) neighbor who would let his dogs run off leash and one (german shepherd mix) was occasionally aggressive. Charged for my corgi from across the street and I intercepted it with my knee on it’s neck. Owner from nearly a block away comes lazily over upset at me because of course his dog would never hurt my dog. I told him his dog can’t breathe, and I’m not getting up until he on leash, so he might want to shut the fuck up and start running with that leash. Still took the asshole a while to get there, and his dog didn’t get back on his feet until I turned the corner at the end of the block – so it was a while. Haven’t seen that dog off leash since.
NotMax
Awaiting the ringing of the phone to catch hell* from Mom for the small gift I sent her which USPS informs me was delivered today. It’s a small, inexpensive something she mentioned in passing recently that she needed to go out searching for.
*”I wish you wouldn’t spend your money on ME!”
SFAW
@Martin:
I was kinda hoping that story ended with your knee on the owner’s neck, not letting up until he got the fucking point. Still a good story, of course.
mrmoshpotato
@Jay: Damn. Glad you and your pooch are ok.
Jay
Mary G
@Jay: Wow. bet that was an adrenaline rush. I wouldn’t know how to do that, not that I could. Glad you did and were able to protect Axl.
Can you report the dog & owner to the authorities to make sure it doesn’t happen to anyone else?
eclare
@Jay: How terrifying! Glad Axl is ok.
raven
@Martin: Not many people know how to tie an injured dogs mouth shut either. It’s pretty important if the critter is hurt.
Jay
@mrmoshpotato:
Funny thing, not my dog, although I love him to bits.
My neices dog, so now I have to tell/warn my neices and my Sister in Law, ( Axl’s her favorite child of the 6) about the Shepard in the neighborhood.
JPL
@Jay: uhoh Good luck and do mention that it’s not necessary to call 911.
The Dangerman
One can only be a Shock Jock for so long before people tune you out when the act gets old; see Clay, Andrew Dice. At one time, he was selling out arenas; now, he couldn’t sell out one of the heads in an arena. Good riddance.
raven
@Jay: Zat is not my dog. . .
mrmoshpotato
@Jay: Ah. Missed that. Well, (ir)regardless…
raven
@The Dangerman: He was good in American Hot Wax!
JPL
The local church creches use actually folks, but do use a baby doll, so the camera probably isn’t necessary. At least I haven’t seen one with a real baby yet.
currants
@Jay: my word. Hope the dog (lab) is ok.
JPL
@The Dangerman: Rush is introducing trump at a turning points rally.
Martin
@SFAW: Don’t think I wasn’t considering it.
Jay
@Mary G:
the Shepard’s owners know that the dog has dog issues. The Shepard is also a rescue and they are working on the issues, ( some).
I talked to the owner who was horribly distraught, calmed her down, gave her some quick tips on keeping her dog under control, breaking and redirecting the dogs focus, etc.
here, because of breed laws and paranoia, reporting the attack will see the dog immediately seized and killed.
there are a lot of rescue dogs that have dog issues, for “reasons”.
One of the reasons why I have 0 fear of PittieX’s Rotties, Corso’s, etc is that 99.9% of their owners know before they get the dog, how powerful they are and know how to control the dog at all times. Sadly, many of the people with “pretty” dogs, Shepards, Goldens, Doodles, Labs, Collies, etc, have to learn the hard way that they are large powerful animals.
raven
@Martin: I had that happen when a lady friend of mine was bartending. I walked in and the tension was palpable. She sort of gave me the high sign and he swiped a couple of bottles across the bar. I got him in the death grip around his throat from behind and told him to relax or he’s regret it. She indicated he had a gun so I kept the pressure on till the cops came. Of course they got ugly with me too and as soon as I let him go he broke down in tears! He did have a gun so it was probably good I got him.
Jay
Jay
Sometimes, you just gotta love twitter:
JPL
@Jay: Will it matter? I was disappointed earlier whenI was streaming the news and there wasn’t any coverage of the story to speak of. In the olden days this would be the smoking gun. just sayin
Martin
@Jay: New Docs Show That White House Froze Ukraine Aid Two Hours After Zelensky Call
What a strange coincidence.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I sometimes copy Trump’s tweets here. Do people want me to stop? I don’t want to stress anyone out more than we already are. I read them less now too because he’s just worn me out.
We just got back from seeing Ford Vs Ferrari. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would, and even though it was long, it flew by. Mr DAW was driving SCCA when I met him. Mind you, he was an automotive engineering grad student too, so that was what he spent most of his time on.
Felanius Kootea
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Yes please. I try to avoid seeing his tweets as much as possible.
Thank you.
mrmoshpotato
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Did Dump just say something especially deserving of a one-way trip into the Sun?
raven
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Someone is going to do it.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@mrmoshpotato:
Possibly! I haven’t looked.
frosty
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
“Time is different at 7,000 RPM”
mrmoshpotato
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Now, now, we all know assuming makes you trust your instincts, and Dump is a POS.
Mary G
@Jay: Oh dear. Hope they get it together, or at least buy something better than a retractable leash to control the thing.
Mike in NC
It was reported today that our worthless scumbag ex-governor Pat McCrory will not try to challenge our current governor Roy Cooper, but he might consider running for US Senate, presumably by primarying goober Thom Tillis. If so, rooting for injuries.
JPL
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Nope. I would check Real Press Sec often but rarely do now. It’s important not to become complacent. We need to be fired up and ready to go.
JPL
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Also too … If you wouldn’t mind, please go see CATS next and let me know if it’s as bad as the reviews.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@JPL: No way.
Also no way I’d see any of the movies in the previews they showed us. They were universally terrible. I’ve wiped the names of the movies from my mind.
raven
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Midway was pretty good.
Omnes Omnibus
I went out around 1:00 pm today to do my X-mas shopping and got home around 5:00 with everything done. Just a couple of things from Amazon. And one that I ordered early – one of my uncle was in VN and it was a big thing in his life. He recently got on honor flight to DC which gave me an idea. I got my aunt to send me a copy of his DD-214, and I ordered him a set of his full sized medals from Marlow White.* I don’t think he will be expecting that.
*Marlow White did a great job. They were a bit pricey, but if you are interested in getting your medals or those of a loved one I would recommend them.
Jay
@Mary G:
the Husband walks the dog with a hard lead and a pinch collar. Because of her arthritis, she was walking the dog with a regular collar and a retractable.
I showed her the Halti method w/long lead, so maybe she will adopt it.
maybe, after today’s trauma, both her and her husband will make put more effort and concentration into getting the dog trained and socialized.
I hope so, dogs deserve far better people than most of them get.
Jay
@JPL:
eventually, it will matter, but for now it’s just another crime normalized.
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: Did you have them mounted?
Kristine
@Jay: How did you learn that takedown?
Gaby has been attacked a few times during out walks. Luckily, none of the culprits went for her throat
Glad Axl is okay. And that you didn’t get bitten.
Omnes Omnibus
@JPL: I am planning to see it. I have never seen the stage production and I only know the one song, but it sounds magnificently awful and the kind of thing that must be experienced on a big screen.
Jay
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I try to embed retweets of Doltus’s tweets so that people can get the ghist of it, from the retweeter’s comments, with out actually going to Doltus’s twats.
I guess if you are a front pager like Betty, you can go all 40 – 50 feral hog on his image to make up for his “words”.
Omnes Omnibus
@raven: Yes, I did. My aunt thinks that he will do a shadow box with them underneath a poster he has from his honor flight.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@JPL: Is there an Unreal Press Secretary?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@JPL: She’s seen the “Amazing Alexander” it was much better than Cats and she’s going to see it again and again!
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: Cool, I had this lacquered photo album from Korea that had my name, unit crest, arty crest in raised brass lettering and it framed it and then made a shadow box for all the attendance ribbons I have. Do you have your KSDM?
sab
@Jay: I was wondering why anyone would be idiotic enough to walk a german shepherd on a retractible leash. My girl broke two nylon web leashes before I switched her to a thick leather one. No chance a retractible would have held her.
NotMax
One thumb plus a knuckle up for The Aeronauts on Prime.
Beautifully photographed and portrays the period more than adequately, although too skimpy and fragmented on backstory to flesh out the main characters to my satisfaction. Sure, plays fast and loose with the real history, but it’s not intended to be a documentary. Melodrama kept on low simmer, which is a plus.
(I suppose it may have been so but the use of “gift” as a verb in one scene grated.)
Would I pay to see it in a theater? No. But pleasant enough as a freebie.
Nicole
@Jay:
Haltis are great. I’m glad you suggested it. We have a pit mix rescue (very kind with people of all ages, but very, very dog fearful), and I use a harness with a front clip, although we also have a Halti. I don’t like clipping the harness on top; she’s strong and despite my best efforts I’ve never been able to completely break her of the pulling habit, but with the leash clipped in front of her chest I’ve got her right where her center of power is and she gives up on pulling pretty quickly. That might also be an option for your neighbors, although I imagine a harness could be more of a hassle to fit on a longer haired dog.
I hate retractable leashes with the heat of a thousand fiery suns.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@raven:
At the moment, I’m about ready for Mr Rogers.
OzarkHillbilly
@Dorothy A. Winsor: If I don’t want to read them I am free to ignore them.
HeleninEire
@raven: Dude. WTF? Damn.
chris
Happy Solstice to all!
Omnes Omnibus
@raven: I wasn’t there. VDE was though.
Jay
@Kristine:
I’ve had big dogs all my life, since I was 6. Once upon a time, people were a lot less considerate of dogs, often treating them as little more than alarm systems/lawn furnature on a chain so they could not escape.
pinning the attacking dogs head with your foot, leg, knee, body, so they can’t shake, ( the bite rarely does damage, it’s the shaking that does damage and kills) then forcing the bite to release with the thumbs pushing hard in the back corner of the jaw, is probably something I learned when I was 6-7?
When you grow up with an 80lb LabX, who was on parachute cord because he snapped chains up to 1”, tied to a 1,000 lb dog house, who would, when bored, take his doghouse for walks, up to 12 blocks away, often wedging it for a few hours between parked cars, you learn stuff,….
The most important thing I learned, was the best smell in the world is a warm wet dog, heading out on a “road trip”.
debbie
@Jay:
Dumb question: What’s the “/X” after “Lab” mean?
The Pale Scot
@zhena gogolia:
Bronks gave up the titter because of death threats etc, you can find him on instagram, I don’t have a link on this particular laptop but its searchable
debbie
@Omnes Omnibus:
Perfect for the holidays! ?
Ken
@Jay: Why is it that when something horrible happens, we always demand people who had nothing to do with it to “disavow” it? There are so many people more culpable for Cats than the furries.
Jay
@debbie:
X after a breed note means “cross”. PitX, RottieX and it’s used as shorthand or because you don’t know what the X’s are.
Tar was supposed to be a purebred, gun dog Black Cocker Spaniel, turned out to be Black Lab and some other breeds.
Sugar was a Lab/Shepard/Rottie cross who looked mostly 90% Lab.
Casey was a Pit Bull, Border Collie, ( spinner) mix that looked all Pit Bull,
Digger was a Belgian Groenendael, Border Collie, ( sprinter) cross who looked 99% Groenendael.
They were all Breed x’s.
BBA
The ICC is investigating Israel for war crimes.
Good.
Ken
@mrmoshpotato:
Energy requirements for that trajectory are prohibitive. Would a nice close-approach orbit using Venus gravity assist be acceptable?
Redshift
@FelonyGovt: I do my best to follow Rachel Maddow’s advice: cover the Trump Adminstration like a silent movie – what they say is rarely important, what they do is.
I’ve never followed Trump’s Twitter, and I agree I’m seeing less of it from other people than I used to. I think even the news media are doing less of the lazy “here’s a story about the outrageous thing he tweeted” than they used to, though I’m not sure about that. I think the fact that he’s repeating himself more and more helps there. Calling Christianity Today a left-wing socialist mag got quite a bit of coverage, calling the impeachment a hoax (again), not so much.
Ken
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
All of them since January 2017, when we first heard “largest inaugural crowd ever”.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ken: I don’t think anyone demanded it of them. I think that they are just preempting any blame that could be placed on them.
Jay
@sab:
@Nicole:
sadly, a lot of people who have large, powerful dogs, have no clue how powerful their dog is, until,…..
thus the retractable, until,…..
and thus the “but he/she has never,……..”
Redshift
@Ken: I don’t think anyone was demanding furries disavow Cats, I think it was just that people were connecting them and joking about it, prompting them to say “don’t pin that on us!”
raven
@HeleninEire: It was in Urbana a half a lifetime ago. I lived in bars back then when I was running the sports programs for the city.
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: Damn, the memory fails.
Juice Box
The neighbor lady was lucky. I’ve seen a couple of finger amputations from retractable leads. Those things aren’t safe. I hope the shepherd gets some training.
Jay
@Ken:
@Omnes Omnibus:
there is a bunch of “pundits” who don’t know furries, furry culture, but pundit about furries as if they are how they imagine them to be,
who were punditing for weeks that “furries” would love Cats, as a pre-release dis on both Furries and Cats.
zhena gogolia
@Omnes Omnibus:
I was planning to see it. I’m an ALW fan (not Cats, though) and I thought it looked amusing from the trailer. But the NYT review has kind of discouraged me. It centers around a poor homeless kitty, and even though it isn’t real cats, I’m afraid it will be depressing.
WaterGirl
@JPL: My Mellon would do that, too! Only I kept my gifts under the tree, not in a closet.
She only got it wrong once, when my roommate had gotten her dad some rubber bottle stoppers, but I didn’t blame Mellon for that because they were rubber, the right size for a toy, and chewable, after all!
One year at Christmas at my mom’s (3 dogs: mine and my sister’s) I went into the living room after Christmas dinner, and there she was right by the tree, with every single dog toy around her in a semi-circle. There had to have been at least 15 toys. It was a riot, and I got a picture. Pre-digital, though, so I have no idea where it is!
Redshift
@Ken: oh, I suppose, as long as drag from the corona and such results in eventually falling into the sun.
I didn’t realize actually falling into the sun was so hard.
zhena gogolia
@The Pale Scot:
Oh, that sucks. I’m not on Instagram. I assume it’s not like Twitter — don’t you have to sign up for it in order to see it?
debbie
@Jay:
Got it, thanks. I thought people had become too lazy to even try to combine names (as in, Labradoodle).
Jay
debbie
@BBA:
Bibi is mightily offended. //
Omnes Omnibus
@zhena gogolia: I don’t like ALW and I am allergic to actual cats. I do like TSE though.
zhena gogolia
@Omnes Omnibus:
Then I hope they do a good job of Mr Mistoffelees. The poetry comes through very beautifully in that one.
Martin
Cats looks creepy as fuck.
That is all.
zhena gogolia
@Omnes Omnibus:
I love it. He’s being played by somebody I never heard of, Laurie Davidson. Not much chance he’ll be a seasoned musical theater professional, which is what you need.
HeleninEire
@raven: Yeah. I was wondering about that too. You haven’t had a drink in 30??? years. Besides all the other stuff I was thinking WTF you were doing in a bar.
Good on ‘ya. Great life story.
Patricia Kayden
sab
@Jay: I am not a real fan of prong collars. I don’t think they are cruel. I do think they can be unreliable because if one link is fastened wrong ( easy to do when putting it on an excited dog) the whole thing falls off and you have no collar at all.
raven
@HeleninEire: 27 years. You know that midwestern tavern life is unique. The place was basically my office at night. I had 187 softball teams playing on 4 fields 7 nights a week. If something happened my scorekeepers would call the bar. Bars sponsored teams and mine had at least 3 a night. It was pretty unhealthy but I didn’t care and my director was worse that me. If I knew then what I know now.
eta My wife was working on her PhD at the time and it was a perfect setup for and absentee husband.
Jay
Nicole
@Jay:
I don’t like them for any dogs, and especially not here in NYC where the law is that dogs (except in designated areas) must be leashed and the leash can’t be longer than 6 feet. It’s not the sort of thing the cops are likely to write a citation for, though, so us dog owners who do follow the law just have to grit our teeth and hope the owner is paying attention and not going to allow their barking, shrieking, six-pound Yorkie who’s desperate to show the bigger dog who’s boss to get too close.
I love big dogs, too, but yeah, you’re right; they are a responsibility, simply because they can physically do more damage than a small dog.
raven
@HeleninEire: When I went back to school I got a part time job bartending. One day a guy I’d never seen walked in, sat down and ordered a beer. We talked for about 5 minutes and he said “man, you are really in trouble, you better get help soon”. I was really pissed, I’d never seen this guy and I though “who the fuck are you”? It turned out he worked on a mental ward in a VA hospital and he saw something pretty clearly. It wasn’t 2 weeks that I hit the wall and fucked up my entire life. Lucky for me I did get help and was able to put it down. I lost my marriage but gained my life
still workin on that book!
Jay
@sab:
yup, chokechains too.
Regular collars, halti’s or the lift harness only.
When SWIMBO and I first started walking Axl, he would pull, ( drag, to be all technical about it) my SIL, one neice and two nephews, down the road.
10 minutes on a halti doing the body swerve sashay, twice, stopped him pulling, even on a regular collar and lead.
but then, a lot of the time, I am pretty sure Axl is smarter than all of us combined.
Mary G
@zhena gogolia: I don’t have an Instagram account, because they are owned by the evil FB, but you don’t have to join to see his account there.
JPL
@WaterGirl: aah
mrmoshpotato
@Ken: Will a close-approach melt his fucking orange fascist face like the Nazi trash in Indiana Jones?
I think yes.
Jay
@Nicole:
yeah, retractable leads, even for small dogs, are bad for both the owner and the dog. It leads to a bad dynamic of control/not control/ focus/attention between the dog and owner and a lot of “dragging”.
the little dog, forepaws in the air, scrabbling at the end of the retractable while the owner thumbs on the brake, seems to be the norm. The dogs are never on “heel” or under control, and the owner is never paying attention to the dog’s “survey” of the world,
akin to two old married people talking past each other, with two different “not conversations” going on.
raven
@Jay: easy with that
smedley the uncertain
@Martin: it’s not.
That is all…
sab
@Nicole: My husband is one of those oblivious dog walkers, and he walks the rottmix. I always considered dog walking sort of ongoing training for the dog. He considers it a walk that happens to have a dog at the other end of a six foot leash. So he used to be so surprised when she misbehaved. I walk ahead with the cocker, and yell back at him “dog ahead” so he can wake up and control his dog. He has gotten better lately, so she has figured out that he doesn’t approve of her challenging other dogs
I should be walking the rottmix, and he should be walking the cocker, but the rottmix is his little girl. Also he thinks he should handle the bigger dog, even though I am better at it. Sigh.
Jay
One nice thing about living in the real world in the days of the intertubes, is how much fun looking back a little bit can be at times, because the intertubes almost always remember,
Jay
Nothing to see
redacthere,…..sab
@Jay: Wow. Two months old and already ridiculously out of date.
JPL
@Jay: haha I use both types depending on the occasion. For walks we use a hard leash, but the retractable comes in handy at potty time. Finch is 18 lbs but walks on front paws when peeing. He can walk and relieve himself and I don’t have to keep up with him. It’s handy at five or six in the morning. My backyard is fenced but he won’t go out alone in the dark.
Nicole
@sab:
Yeah, six years now with our pit mix rescue has taught me that my job on walks is to pay attention to the surroundings at all times. It’s not just making sure she avoids contact with other dogs. It’s also the goddamn grabbing food off the sidewalk before I can say LEAVE IT (and in my neighborhood, there’s ALWAYS food on the sidewalk). I don’t ever mind walking her, but I don’t know that it’s particularly fun for me (she’s also one of those who wants to sniff EVERYTHING, probably as a way of dealing with anxiety. Super tedious).
It’s good you and your husband have a system so he can get focused in time for your girl. And I’m glad she’s making progress. It’s a lifelong process with them, for sure.
Jager
@Jay:
The shepherd’s owner should be wearing a shock collar. I’ve seen assholes with 2 pit bulls on one retractable leash
Jay
@Nicole:
I’ve learned a lot over the years “seeing” stuff through a dogs eyes, ears, nose,
Ruckus
@Jay:
When dad bought his shop it came with a GS watchdog. Had his own house 4’x6′ made out of 4×4 lumber and corrugated steel. Poison was half my height at the time and could pull that dog house where ever he wanted. He had broken his chain a few times, lifting chain that could easily lift 1000lbs. Dad was about 5’8″ and Poison could put his paws on dad’s shoulders and rest his chin on top of dad’s head.
schrodingers_cat
Modi and Shah have finally brought the Gujarat model to the rest of India. This time in Uttar Pradesh.
CarolPW
My pup is just over a year old, and she would rather do anything else than go for a walk. She also strongly objects to having her nails trimmed. We only go for walks when her nails are getting too long. She tries to run but I am much heavier than she is, so she pretty much swims down the sidewalk wearing her nails down. Only takes a short walk, and is less traumatic for us both than a nail trim.
Ruckus
@Redshift:
I blocked trump on twitter. I have no need of seeing a totally crazy old racist fuck rant and rave, I’ve seen some of them in real life. But by blocking him he doesn’t even show up when someone shows his stupid crap.
sab
@Nicole: It would have helped if she got early training. We got her from my step-daughter when she was about nine months old, with no training at all. I used to walk her and didn’t have much trouble, but I kept her leash short and interacted with her always. It was our walk, not her walk.
I used to have a 125 pound german shepherd. Not fat, just big. For several years she outweighed me. We went through a LOT of obedience classes.
We did best with the rottweiler connected trainers. They understood big, bright dogs with work drive.
When she got her canine good citizen certificate I was as proud as if she had graduated from college. But it was worth it. She was a wonderful dog after her second birthday, and she could be relied on to run the household.
Right now I have a house full of untrained animals. That’s okay with cats. The cocker begs like a fiend and barks like a maniac. The rottmix jumps up and down and barks when she wants anything. I wish I had been around to train her ( she is nine now) when she was young. She is such a bright, attentive dog. She would like to have projects and responsibilities. She could have been amazing. Instead she is often just annoying.
HeleninEire
@raven: But you gained your most beautiful wife.
Jay
Erin’s going on vacay, and is leaving y’all with New Years Wishes,
Jay
@sab:
It’s never too late.
Buff was a Golden we got ownership of at 10 from a family member. Never been trained, lived outside in a fenced yard, never allowed inside, agression issues, throat cancer.
Beautiful dog, smart as a whip. We took him in, got his cancer treated, trained him up, had 7 wonderful years with him. Nobody who knew him before, could believe he was the same dog.
sab
My first lab was an abandoned stray in Las Vegas. Judging by his teeth he was about five. Judging by his behavior, he had spent his whole life penned up in the little side yard space between the house and the five foot cinderblock wall that every house in Vegas has.
The first time I walked him, he actually crawled on his belly around the block because he has so scared. Three days later he was trotting beside me and sniffing everything.
Some owners are monsters.
Martin
@Jay: My concern about impeachment is that Trump has nothing to lose now. Democrats have already played their strongest hand. Trump might as well openly invite Russia to interfere with the election, block every oversight effort, ignore the federal courts, and ignore FOIA requests.
The GOP clearly has his back no matter what he does, and there’s no other agency willing to step in. He’s broken NY state law, but they aren’t about to arrest him.
Jay
Universal notifies theatres that there’s a new cut of Cats coming out.
sab
@Jay: I think that will be next summer’s project. Issue is she is husband’s little girl, and he is a cat guy.
He loves dogs but I don’t think he understands them. I think they need structure and activities. He treats them like cats. Cats live in their own world, and hope your interactions with theirs aren’t unpleasant. Dogs want to live in your world.
raven
@HeleninEire: I ain’t complaining. I’m one lucky mofo.
sab
@CarolPW: Curious. What breed is she? I have big dogs and they can’t wait to go outside.
Major Major Major Major
@zhena gogolia: I follow Bronks on twitter at @slendersherbet
He hasn’t been active the last few weeks, but that happens sometimes. He hasn’t been active on insta either ??♂️
West of the Rockies
I hope we reach a point where a SOLID 60% of Americans are just absolutely sick of and burnt out on Trump. If 40% still enjoying huffing his farts, good for them. There has to be some kind of event horizon, yes, where people are just so bored with his face/voice/repetitive gestures, etc., that they just want him gone. Please tell me that can happen.
Major Major Major Major
Apparently in addition to formalizing the Space Force, the big spending bill also raised the nicotine-product-buying age to 21. https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/12/20/health/tobacco-age-21-trump-spending-bill-bn/index.html?__twitter_impression=true
Bill Arnold
@Jay:
Full reproduction of the email:
This shit is so incoherently inept.
A funny bit is that “or” (without a preceding ‘”either”) is a commonly a logical (inclusive) or in English, so
(1) Yes, in fact I am both an American and a Democrat, are you a member of the Destroy America Party AkA GOP?
(2) Are you seriously asking me as a loyal American and member of the Democratic Party to fund the D.J. Trump campaign?
Or, if the intended audience reads it as an exclusive or (because they’re Republicans and selectively illiterate), how exactly does paying Brad relate to making Democrats pay?
phdesmond
@zhena gogolia:
a review of “Cats” in verse
sab
@Major Major Major Major: Nicotine to 21. That’s good. My dad’s baby sister died of lung cancer when she was 54. He taught her to smoke when she was 16. He never inhaled. Obviously she did. She was an amazing person. Everyone who ever knew her has missed ever since.
sab
@CarolPW: We have our rottmix from my stepdaughter. Currently my stepdaughter has a pittmix, a chihuahua, and some sort of tiny terrier mix.
The pittmix runs around the yard with the tiny terriermix attached to her ear. They are both okay with this.
Major Major Major Major
@sab: I agree! I just feel like under ordinary circumstances it would’ve been a major political fight. Or at least you would’ve heard of it at all before it was signed.
Bill Arnold
@schrodingers_cat:
That is terrifying, especially as a possible precursor to massive street violence to break the protests.
So basically, brownshirts with police support? (I’m assuming accurate reporting, which is a mildly risky assumption.)
The Pale Scot
@zhena gogolia:
Here it is; Boring Enormous
Search “Boring Enormous Instagram” should bring it up.
That something like Bronk’s schtick attracts hate mail gets me shading into the pro asteroid camp
LivinginExile
Any opinions on slip leads for hard to control dogs? I like them a lot better than a choke chain with a leash.
StringOnAStick
@Bill Arnold: Brad’s plan is for the MAGATS to read that and understand that people who aren’t real Murikans shouldn’t BE here. Time to water the tree of liberty and all that. Nothing subtle there; this stuff is going to get some people killed by some of the less stable followers of their emperor. Shit, that campaign ad is seriously scary.
CarolPW
@sab: Husky/terrier (32 pounds, blue eyes, terrier part looks mostly Jack Russel [and she has that fuck-you attitude]). She is the first dog of the many I’ve had that hates to go out for walks, but she is also quite fearful of anything odd. And odd includes putting a roll of bubble wrap on the stove while I was packing some boxes. She barked frantically at it until I moved it.
She was removed from her mother very young, and probably had a hard time before that. The mom’s owner had died, and no one was taking care of them. The mom was away from the litter (looking for food maybe) and got hit by a car. A nice guy saw her running along the road on three legs, followed her home, and collected her and the pups. He brought them to a rescue and her leg had to be amputated. That was it for the puppies being with her.
She enjoys going to the feed store though, so I’ll keep working on baby steps. She is very loving and attentive, but as might be expected has really terrible separation anxiety. I work mostly at home, and when working away from home she gets to come with me and run around like an idiot on the open range while I do environmental surveys on a wind park. She is absolutely fearless there unless I try to take her into the O&M building.
sab
@Major Major Major Major: What is worse is that he was a pathologist. He taught the lung (pulmononary) pathology course at our local medical school. He saw her xray (unrelated, she fell out of a barn loft and broke her ccollar bone) and saw the lung mass. After he diagnosed her he quit teaching. He couldn’t look at and talk about lung cancer slides afterwards.
BBA
@StringOnAStick: Goes back to the ’80s at least. One of Reagan’s chuds said “It’s not about Democrats and Republicans, it’s about liberals and Americans.”
zhena gogolia
@phdesmond:
Funny, but it doesn’t scan at all.
sab
@CarolPW: My 130 pound german shepherd only hated two breeds. Everything else she wanted to bring home to be in her pack,
The no-goes were greyhounds, too tall, with disrespectful bug-eyes, and jack russells, with an overall bad attitude.
Jay
@LivinginExile:
Anything that can do a throat grab, can go wrong, or in the case of choke chains, can be put on “backwards”.
Halti’s slip over the nose, held in place around the head, and the lead clips to the underside, under the chin. When a dog goes to pull or lunge, using the physics that where the head goes, the body follows, ( it’s the same for everbody) the pull causes the dog to just circle to the right.
with the Halti, you do the s-swerve and random circles with the dog on heel a few times, and the dog learns very quickly, that it is to follow the human from slightly behind, and always pay attention to what the human is doing.
The “lift harness” on a short lead, causes the dogs front legs to lift off the ground, losing power and traction, teaching it not to lunge or pull.
raven
@Jay: I have just the opposite problem. The Bohdi’s rear legs are going with all the usual ramifications. They slip on the hardwood floors and anything soft outside. I can’t find any of the gripper socks that will fit him so I just try to be aware and help him as much as I can.
Major Major Major Major
@sab: oh, how awful. I lost an older friend of mine to lung cancer recently; she’d gone in with a cough, got an X-ray, died not too long after they found the massive tumor. Unfiltered Luckies.
Great woman.
CarolPW
@sab: Fortunately Biket’s mom was a terrier mix, so I don’t get the full Jack Russel orneryness,
Bill Arnold
@BBA:
I haven’t yet tried it in person; has anyone here responded to the verbal equivalent of that rhetoric with something like “Oh, you’re one of those Party before Country Republicans?”
or “Destroy America Republicans”.
Because lamely replying by saying “not true, I am an American just like you” is playing weak defense.
sab
@CarolPW: I had a husky boxer mix I adopted from Humane Society. Huskys do bring interesting psychology to dog mix. He was wonderful dog. Used to break out of the yard and run down the street waiting for us to rescue ( capture) him. He would gallop slowly, and when we drove up and opened the door he would jump inside.
Often he got to go to McDonalds and get a burger for lunch.
Probably that was bad training. I always thought that was the point of the jailbreak.
Eric S.
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I loved F vs F but I am a car nut. Happy to hear you enjoyed it to.
CarolPW
@sab: LOL,that’s great. I had a husky/terrier, big hairy terrier evidently. Some husky markings, but a full beard. She was a strawberry blond and had golden eyes, and was one of the oddest looking dogs I’ve had. We would be driving down the street, and I would notice kids in the next car pointing at her and laughing while she laughed back. A very joyous dog.
sab
@Eric S.: I am not a car nut, but I do know a lot of engineers. This was their kind of movie.
I do love Caitriona Balfe. I thought they did well with Milly Miles. She wasn’t just a bimbo. She knew her guy and understood him, and probably knew how it would turn out. This was who he was.
sab
@CarolPW: Huskies are, in my experience, utterly joyous.
Jay
@Martin:
fortunately, the Doltus isn’t The Government yet. There is push back coming from inside the Government and while some branches have done way better than others, there are some things that Doltus can’t call for and places he can’t yet go.
Both he and the ReThugs can “dogwhistle” Kill the Libs, Daddy Putin Save Us, but they can’t say it loud and plain, yet.
Jay
@raven:
have you tried any of the shoes, not the socks?
they make dog running shoes, rainboots and snowboots now.
when Casey and Digger got old and started having issues with the hardwood and tile, we got a bunch of cheap rubber backed traction mats, the kind you put beside your bed, and made pathways through the house.
Dan B
@schrodingers_cat: Horrible news. Does the BJP believe they can drive Muslims from India? Do they have a goal short of making a couple hundred people refugees?
sab
@CarolPW: Decades ago, when I was in law school ( bad move, that) I was at a party in the apartment of a classmate. He had a husky, named after some Finnish motorcross guy I have never heard of. Some guy spilled his cheap beer on the carpet. Heiki the husky got one whiff and knew it was dog piss. So he pissed back. His owner picked him up to take hom outside. Heiki sprayed the room as he was hauled off in disgrace.
That has always been my impression of huskies. Answering to their own values, phuck everyone else.
Mary G
@schrodingers_cat: Sounds like a repeat of Kristallnacht. Very scary stuff.
Jay
Jay
@Dan B:
part of choosing to live in the bigot bubble, is that there are none of “those people” in your life, your media, your world view, your experiences,
”they” are always fewer than actual, weaker than actual, passive “victims” rather than their own actors with their own allies.
the BJP doesn’t “believe” that there are 201 million Muslims in India or that they “matter”.
it’s a basic flaw in all the flavours of “supremacy”.
CarolPW
@sab: Exactly. Iris, my blond girl, thought everything in the world was put there for her amusement. I came home from school once and found that she had brought in a pigeon and eaten it on the hardwood floor, had eaten half my husband’s wallet, and had also eaten a whole cube of butter (she had apparently learned how to take the lid off the butter dish). And she was very pleased with herself!
Jay
Jay
Your elected ReThugs,…..
J R in WV
Refresh got the two tabs, but my comment in progress went away. Dammit!
Now, who was I replying to?.?.?…
sab
@CarolPW: Huskies are always pleased with themselves. That is what makes them joyous. Mostly they deserrve it, except when they have been hanging around the house eating stuff they shouldn’t have eaten.
Omnes Omnibus
@CarolPW: Well, a pigeon without butter would just be wrong.
J R in WV
@Major Major Major Major:
Everyone in my mom’s family who smoked tobacco died young, mostly by about 60. Those who never smoked seem to make it til about 95 or so.
So glad I never wanted to pick up that habit… never could stand the smell… that smell~!~ My mom got hooked in college, at the football games, hired students would pass out small packs of free Pall Malls, and she thought it looked so sophisticated. She died of COPD.
sab
@CarolPW: My ( not husky) Labmix ate two pies off the counter one Christmas. Ate the first pie off the counter. I baked a new one. She ate that of the stove ( back burner). Third one I put on the fridge. She couldn’t reach it.
Rescues are always hungry, and never trust us to provide the next meal. Human rescues and dog rescues. I have had both, and always the same. They don’t trust the world at all anymore.
Jay
phdesmond
@Jay: gracias, jay.
sab
@Major Major Major Major: My sister in law was acting goofy a couple of years ago. Turns out she was acting goofy from oxygen deprivation. Died abut a week later of lung cancer. She never smoked. Her husband of fifty years did, like a chimney.
Everyone was mad at everyone else for not noticing, but everyone was was ready to challenge everyone else for challenging her protestations of good health.
Familes are always families, and thus complicated.
Jay
@sab:
Sugar, a LabX that I raised from a puppy, discovered one Christmas, that the ex and I had bought boxes of Purdy’s chocolates for a bunch of people’s gifts, ranging from Truffles, through Sweet Georgia Browns, Snowballs to dried fruit/nuts/chocolate mixes for “hostess gifts” in case we got last minuite party invites. We left them under the tree.
She started with the most expensive/best, worked her way down, but only made it through 15 of the 20. There was copious puking. Then more eating, then more puking. Luckily she didn’t die, but she never ate chocolate again.
A couple of years later, she ate 9/17 semi frozen prime rib steaks I had left thawing in the sink. Again, sickness, but she didn’t give up on steak.
It’s funny, but the two dogs I raised from pups had occasional food incidents, ( stories) and the one cat from a kitten, but other than Pablo, the cat who had to steal salad, none of the other rescues, cats or dogs, had any food issues or obsessions.
Nicole
Oh man, I loved all the dog stories in this thread so much.
Off to bed- spouse and I just watched “Parasite,” which critics have been calling the best film of the year. I can’t say, but it sure is the best one I’ve seen this year. I thought it was brilliant.
CarolPW
@Omnes Omnibus: Yes, but is a driver’s necessary for a good sauce?
@sab: Iris got a bunch of Christmas cookies.
The best (most awful) one was when my husband and I went down to the Bay Area to visit his mom and grandmother. When we got there only his grandmother was home, and we let the dogs in (Iris and my husbands dog Zoe ) and visited with her for a while. We all went into the kitchen and Zoe was standing on the kitchen table eating pistachio nuts. I’m pretty sure I got her off the table before his grandmother saw (I hope).
CarolPW
@Jay: Bisket, despite all her neuroses, is not a food idiot. When she is hungry she bangs her bowl, I feed her, and it lasts 3 or 4 hours. However, woe to any other animal that wants any of it, it is hers!
One of the oddest was my Iraq cat Hek. He was a thief – food, pens, ear buds, sunglasses, wallets, whatever. But early on when he was still pretty little he came trotting through the living room carrying (with some difficulty) an entire hamburger bun. No meat or condiments on it yet, just a plain bun.
Jay
@CarolPW:
Bitsey, ‘lil Bit, a cat from a kitten, is a carb hound. We give her salad, treats, bits of chips, popcorn,
She doesn’t lack,….. if you know what I mean,
but one night she decided to steal a zip lock bag containing a dozen fresh baked orange/poppyseed muffins. She took it down to the basement, hid it behind the furnace, and over the next few days, until I found it, sucked carbs out like a vampire, ( thousands of tiny fang holes, bag and seal semi intact).
CarolPW
@Jay: Hek was straight carnivore. If it wasn’t meat, everything else he stole went directly into his cat box.
sab
@Jay: My stepdaughter, born in Akron Ohio of a mother also born in Akron Ohio got into an altercation with police. She was reporting an assault. They told her: “Phuck off we don’t deal with Mexican whores.” She is not Mexican, she is not a whore, and since when did Mexicanwhores in our country not have protection.
My local cops want all tax increases separated from their demands.
If they got theirs only on the ballot, they might be unpleasantly surprised.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Omnes Omnibus:
That sounds great. Your uncle will probably be flabbergasted.
Ruckus
@sab:
My rescue cocker, Bud, was always acting hungry and would eat anything that even hinted it might be food. All anyone knew about him was that he had been living on the street in a semi rural county, picked up by animal control and he sure acted like his life depended on his eating when he could and whatever he could. He had to have been someone’s pet at one time, he was really a great companion, once he trusted me to feed him.
WaterGirl
@J R in WV:
Yeah, there’s no getting around that. That’s the way it works. So you either notice that you don’t have the tabs and click the link before you start, or you copy what you have, click the link, and paste it back in.
Uncle Cosmo
@WaterGirl: Found that out the hard way as well.
Another PITA is that when I’m looking at a post & click on the linked nym to see the previous post referenced, the back arrow will take me back to the original post viewed – but if I try to go farther back via the nym links, back arrow tosses me to “Leave a Comment” at the bottom. I have to note what number post I was at before I start going backwards to unravel the skein of comments. This never happened with the old site. (:p) As I said, PITA.
raven
@Jay: Thanks
WaterGirl
@Uncle Cosmo: Yep, that one is on the list.
The back arrow worked perfectly before the rollout, with the only change being that we added cache on rollout, which we need for speed. As I said, it’s on the list.
WaterGirl
@raven:
My house is all hardwood floors, with the exception of one room. I did the rubber backed runners, too, when my cocker got old, and it worked great.
StringOnAStick
@raven: Hey Raven, we have a bunch of that rubber backed carpet runner stuff from a similar situation, and I’d be happy to ship it to you for your good doggies. We’re planning on moving several states away in the next year so you’d be doing us and the planet a favor by finding a use for it. It’s one of the things we’ll be getting rid of to move. Tamara has My email or you can contact me at kitcoh at the gmail .com address.
Shakti
@opiejeanne: Blocking Trump the minute he won the election has been great for my sanity. When I discovered how to turn off notifications for the news three months ago I was even happier. I did not need, for example, breaking notifications about Jim Acosta’s press pass.
Miss Bianca
@sab:
Yeah, that’s Huskies. If you love ’em, (and I do), you love that about them, even when it drives you crazy.