Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I swear, each month of 2025 will have its own history degree.

Everybody saw this coming.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

Giving up is unforgivable.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. keep building.

Jesus watching the most hateful people claiming to be his followers

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

They want us to be overwhelmed and exhausted. Focus. Resist. Oppose.

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

President Musk and Trump are both poorly raised, coddled 8 year old boys.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

You are here: Home / Elections / Biden-Harris 2020 / Saturday Morning Open Thread: The Good Fight Continues

Saturday Morning Open Thread: The Good Fight Continues

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Saturday Morning Open Thread 1

(Mike Luckovich via GoComics.com)
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132Comments

  3. 3.

    raven

    Input? Lil Bit has had a bad cough for quite a while. We took her in for X-rays (heart ultrasound a month ago was fine). The X-ray didn’t show pneumonia which is a big concern with her tie-back surgery. We decided to try antibiotics to see if maybe the root cause was viral. It has helped her a good bit but yesterday she started refusing her food. We were sprinkling probiotics on it and think maybe that’s what turned her off. I intstantpotted a bunch of chicken breasts and she seems to like that. I’m about to make a batch of chicken,brown rice and veggies and bag them up. Any experience with this?

  4. 4.

    NotMax

    Seems somehow germane to drop in a link to my second favorite bit performed by Taylor Negron, about the scream.

    Link should be queued up to the start of the specific segment, which is past the part setting it up as taking place at a Denny’s in Dallas.

    :)

  5. 5.

    Anne Laurie

    @raven: White rice and chicken, or if that fails ground beef & white rice, have been our go-to recipes for aging dogs with picky palates.   Some dogs don’t like the texture of brown rice, or the flavor of particular vegetables, but what the Spousal Unit calls ‘chicken rice’ is usually acceptable.  (That’s why we finally got around to buying a proper Japanese rice cooker!)

    Our last surviving dog of the moment has an ongoing problem with pancreatitis, which makes him even pickier than he’s always been as a high-reactivity adult rescue.  S.U. sometimes makes a pot of chicken rice & shares it with Sydney — dogs love company at dinner.

  8. 8.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @raven: Woof started coughing quite a bit a couple months ago. Took him to the vet and chest x-rays etc showed his heart is still OK and his lungs are clear. Mrs OHB has been giving him a couple tablespoons of honey in the AM and PM and it helps reduce the coughing to reasonable levels.

  14. 14.

    NotMax

    Unanticipated giggle of the week was a short scene included in a documentary of film shot at the time of a team of 16 horses pulling a brand spanking new steam locomotive through the streets of a town in late 19th century Saxony.

    Because there was no rail connection to the factory which built locomotives.

  15. 15.

    MazeDancer

    We are almost at 100 Illustrated Voting Plans now. Please Retweet and evil FaceBook post your favorites to inspire others.

    Special attention must be drawn to SaltySam and Spouse, who are making quite the effort to make sure their votes are counted. Props to them and everyone out there fighting the good fight, even if it is from your armchair.

    Every tweet, FB, and email encouraging voting  counts, too. And so does every $5 donation.

  17. 17.

    Betty Cracker

    A new thing to add to our collection of political sign anecdata! Our county is SUPER Trumpy — I think he got around 70% of the vote here, and there are tons of Trump flags, signs, etc. But earlier this week, in a yard on the main highway into town, I saw a handmade poster that read: “America! We can’t go on like this! Please consider:” and under that was a Biden Harris sign! I wanted to pull over, ring the doorbell and kiss whoever answered the door, but I restrained myself.

  19. 19.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @raven: If she ate the chicken just fine, it sounds like her loss of appetite isn’t physical. I suspect chicken and rice will go down like a treat. I don’t know about the veggies. Our dog could delicately flick her tongue around them and leave them in the dish.

  25. 25.

    debbie

    Mr. Mealy Mouth speaks:

    Thank you for contacting me regarding the Supreme Court vacancy left by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I appreciate your thoughts on the matter and the opportunity to respond.

    As the second woman in history confirmed to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court, Justice Ginsburg served our country in this important role for 27 years. Her death on September 18, 2020 created a vacancy on the Court. The U.S. Constitution provides that the President “shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint… Judges of the supreme Court.” Considering we are less than two months from a presidential election, there is controversy regarding whether the Senate should take up a nomination before the election. The Senate’s historical precedent demonstrates that when the same party controls the presidency and the Senate and a vacancy arises during a presidential election year, the Senate almost always confirms a nominee.

    In the more than two dozen vacancies on the U.S. Supreme Court that have arisen during a presidential election year in our nation’s history, the sitting president made a nomination in every single case. Leader McConnell has said that he will hold a vote on any nominee President Trump sends to the Senate, and I intend to fulfill my role as a U.S. Senator and judge that nominee based on his or her merits. The president was elected in 2016, in part, based on a commitment to nominate men and women to the judiciary who would fairly and impartially apply the law and protect the rights guaranteed by the Constitution, not advance public policy goals by legislating from the bench. Likewise, in both 2016 and 2018, the American people have re-elected a Republican Senate majority to help President Trump fulfill that commitment.

    In 2016, when the vacancy occurred following the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, I said “the president has every right to nominate a Supreme Court justice … But the founders also gave the Senate the exclusive right to decide whether to move forward on that nominee.” Since the 1880s, no Senate has confirmed an opposing-party president’s Supreme Court choice when the vacancy occurred in a presidential election year. In contrast, when the presidency and the Senate are controlled by the same party – as it is today –the precedent is for the president’s nominees to get confirmed. In the occasions that a vacancy has occurred when the President and the Senate are of the same party in a presidential election year, the Senate has confirmed the nominee and filled the seat in every instance but one where there was a bipartisan ethics concern. I look forward to seeing who President Trump plans to nominate and thoroughly assessing his or her qualifications for this important role.

    Once again, thank you for taking the time to contact me. For more information, I encourage you to visit my website at portman.senate.gov . Thank you, and please keep in touch.

    ?

  28. 28.

    NotMax

    @Dorothy A. Winsor

    Last dog I had developed a ritual all her own for the once or twice a year I’d splurge to bring her a plain cheeseburger as an extraordinary treat.

    1) Nudge it around on the floor until it was placed just so
    2) Carefully remove the top bun and gently place it down two spaces to the left
    3) Carefully remove the meat patty and place it one space to the left
    4) Move over and eat the top bun
    5) Move to the right and eat the bottom bun
    6) Eat the meat
    .

    Also had a deal with a local delicatessen. They would bag up and freeze all the ends of the meats which weren’t suitable worth bothering with slicing and bring them over to my shop in exchange for store credit. I’d defrost them and mix them in with the dog’s food. Pooch ate better than I did some days. She had a particular love for the pastrami.

  29. 29.

    zhena gogolia

    @debbie:

    It’s the ones after that that I’m worried about. I can’t survive another Trump term.

    Then I look at my poor friends in Russia who have had 20 years of Putin and counting . . . .

  31. 31.

    Nicole

    @Anne Laurie:

    even pickier than he’s always been as a high-reactivity adult rescue

    Oh my God, you just explained our dog’s pickiness to me.  Also a high-reactivity adult rescue.  Kindest, gentlest and smartest dog ever, but other dogs send her into panics and the second things are not-the-usual at home she stops eating.  Rescue dogs, I tell ya.

    I am waiting for the vet to open at 9 so I can call and take her in and figure out if she’s got a UTI or if it’s something more serious.  She is so desperate to do the right thing that she has been getting me up every 3 hours to take her outside so she won’t mess in the apartment.  I’m exhausted; it’s been a long night.  She had one accident in the stairwell at 2AM, which was actually a net positive as it let me see there was blood in her urine.

  34. 34.

    martha

    @Betty Cracker: I’m impressed at your self control :-)

    question for you about your governor’s dumb edict yesterday: does he think this decision will encourage snow birds to come and enjoy their winter vacations? I mean, it’s the old folks who travel to warm weather in the winter! If Canada let’s their residents out, they might not let them back in… It just doesn’t make sense to me.

  37. 37.

    Nicole

    @raven: I will sixth or seventh everyone else with the chicken and rice.  Brown rice can be dicey with gastro issues, so you may want to stick to white, unless your pooch has blood sugar problems.

    I was the dumb bunny who bought into all the woo-woo trends going on with dog food when we first got our rescue, and ended up with a grain-free, high protein, $70 a bag food that gave her the runs and gas that left me wondering if we’d be able to keep her.  As the vet was in the process of figuring out it was the fancy food that was the problem, I had her on a died of boiled chicken and white rice and I think for her it was the best month of her life.  It’s magic for their tummies AND they love it.

    Our vet also recommended unsweetened canned pumpkin, which she also liked.

  39. 39.

    artem1s

    @Betty Cracker:

    I decided to take a road trip vacation and took my mom down to see the Serpent Mound in southern Ohio.  Very Trumpy out in the sticks.  One reason I doubt the polls that say OH can be flipped.  But there were signs sitting in front of cornfields in the middle of nowhere that seem to suggest the deplorables are placing dozens where there are really only a few votes.  I see this a lot in NEOH cities where there are empty lots, brown fields, or boarded up houses.  But it was just weird to see it in places that normally don’t have any political signs at all because of the lack of traffic.  I saw quite a few giant trump/pence signs, blue line and trump flags.  And one really weird picture of Rambo’s body with a Trump head.  It was a bit scary, out there in the corn and soybean fields. Driving thru the little towns there tended to be at least a few Biden signs and almost always there was at least cranky lefty sign like the one you describe.  One house had a dozen yard signs with pandemic numbers crossed off and updated with ever higher numbers of casualties along with one giant sign with the latest 200K number and an admonishment of the WH idiot. So there are blue voters out there in rural Ohio but I suspect they are mostly still in hiding as they were in 2016.  They are watching their more Trumpy neighbors fly their freak flags and making note of who they should avoid when they go shopping at the local grocery. And which are likely to have guns in the house and who to keep their kids away from. Again, I have my doubts about Ohio flipping anytime in the near future, but who knows, maybe some of those rural blues might decide get involved in local politics and keep their cray-cray neighbors from taking over the local school board.  As I said, at least we know for sure who the enemy is now.

  41. 41.

    PST

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Funny, but our dog has started eating a can of green beans every morning with enormous enthusiasm. Our vet had advised cutting her food ration to lose a little weight, and my wife swears that all her prior dogs loved green beans as low-cal filler when dieting. I was very skeptical, especially since these are soggy, overcooked, dull, store-brand beans of the cheapest sort. That doesn’t seem to matter. Bernie picks at her nutritious feed for hours and usually finishes the bowl by morning, but she gobbles the beans like they were liver or bacon.

  42. 42.

    Nicole

    Oh my fucking God.  I called the vet’s office and the soonest they would see us is October 2.    They’re worse than human offices, where, with blood in one’s urine, you can usually count on being seen the same day.

    I think I need a new vet.  Looks like today may be spent at pet emergency.  Ugh.

  49. 49.

    Kay

    @artem1s:

    Ohio political people think he’s solidified and even strengthened his support in the Appalachian counties while losing support in the northern half of the state and city suburbs. It’s a more polarized and more defined version of the map Democrats have always had in Ohio- there’s nothing new about it. That’s why they’re encouraged- they don’t think he changed any of the fundamentals, where immediately after 2016 it looked like he might have. They wanted a reversion to the mean- a 50/50 state that leans Right.

  50. 50.

    SiubhanDuinne

    I must be exceptionally slow this morning. Stared and stared at the Luckovich cartoon. “What’s the significance of 310? Some reference to the Electoral College? Trump got only 304 EVs in 2016. Maybe there’s a recent poll forecasting he’ll get 310 EVs this year, but that makes no sense for a painting-himself-into-a-corner cartoon. Why 310? Maybe there’s a prediction that we’ll have 310,000 Covid deaths by Election Day, but that’s a pretty obscure way to illustrate it. And anyway, why is the corner of the room such an acute angle? Luckovich is usually a far better draftsman than that…” Round and round I went until it occurred to me to, uh, shift my perspective.

    ?

    Coffee time, I think.

  52. 52.

    Betty Cracker

    @martha: My theory is DeSantis knows Trump screwed Republicans by lying about mail-in votes. Dems are up 700K+ in mail-in ballot requests, which is a sea change as Rs usually dominate mail-in voting here. I think DeSantis is gambling with our lives by pretending the danger has passed so elderly Reps will show up to vote.

  53. 53.

    Anne Laurie

    @Nicole: She had one accident in the stairwell at 2AM, which was actually a net positive as it let me see there was blood in her urine.

    Poor baby (poor you)!  UTIs are the *worst*, not only are they painful but they make you crazy out of all proportion (at least that’s true of most of the people I know who’ve had them so I assume it’s true for dogs too).

    Been a few years, but… It may be ‘crystals’ in her bladder (bladder stones in development).  Treatment for that, short of surgery, is a special diet (joy). But it’s absolutely treatable — Flicker lived for another dozen-plus years after her first diagnosis.

  56. 56.

    Geminid

    @artem1s: I checked out the voting in Adam’s County OH, where the serpent mound is. Wow! That is one red county. In 2016, 76% trump, 20% Clinton. The good news is that Adam’s County has only 11,000 or so registered voters, and the total of votes cast in Ohio in 2016 was about 5.1 million.     I hope you and your mother had a good trip. I saw the serpent mound when I was a kid living in Dayton. It was smaller than I thought it would be, but was still really cool.

  57. 57.

    Yutsano

    @Betty Cracker: Call me crazy but…don’t most of the olds vote by mail so they don’t have to go down to the polling site? It’s not really laziness (although for some it is) it’s just way more convenient to fill out a ballot at home. I think this will indeed torpedo the senior vote and Florida might just be a get for the Democrats this year.

  58. 58.

    Anne Laurie

    @germy: Any opinions on adding an egg or two to the chicken or beef and brown rice recipe?

    Not without your vet’s approval.  Eggs can really do a number on some dogs’ digestive tracts… and you’re the one who’ll be gagging at the flatulence & cleaning up the diarrhea.

  61. 61.

    Nora

    @debbie: Which dickhead is this?

    Number one, it’s not true that the president always gets to nominate a justice in an election year.  President Obama and Merritt Garland?  Ring a bell?

    Second, I can’t believe how this guy twists history to make it seem as if McConnell’s blatant disrespect for President Obama is some kind of precedent — opposing party in the senate never confirms — show me ONE TIME when the opposing party refused to even CONSIDER the nominee of the other party, election year or no election year.

    Third, you have my deep sympathies for being “represented” by someone who’s such a twit.

  63. 63.

    Quinerly

    I’m reading that one of Amy Coney Barrett’s 7 children (2 are adopted from Haiti) has Downs Syndrome.

    I will never understand how these people want to deny people with pre existing conditions health insurance. It’s evil.

  64. 64.

    JMG

    My best guess for the election is that everybody is going to show up, the Trumpers and the Democrats alike, in very high numbers, one way or the other, even if it’s standing in line on Election Day. I’m gonna vote early, and Mass. is a high turnout state, but I think turnout will be record-setting in many places, like Texas, where it is traditionally low. This is no guarantee of victory, but telling people “we’re not going to count your vote” is likely to have a reaction of “oh, yeah?

    PS: In my Cape Cod town, the only Trump sign is on a vacant lot. This is something I have always considered a sign of a losing campaign, so those signs in fields and such are not a sign of enthusiasm, but of fear.

  66. 66.

    Anne Laurie

    @germy: I understand a raw egg, but a thoroughly cooked egg?

    You can certainly try it — most dogs *love* eggs, after all!

    Just time the experiment so you’re not gonna have to get up in the middle of the night… or be greeted first thing the next morning with a nasty mess.

  67. 67.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Puddinhead: I don’t know about dog food but when I was a kid I loved Purina dog bone treats. I must have gotten yelled at for eating them because I have a clear memory of hiding behind a bush so I could nibble on one.

  69. 69.

    John S.

    @germy: My dog LOVES scrambled eggs in his homemade chicken and rice. Whenever we have breakfast for dinner, he goes bonkers because he knows he’s going to get eggs too.

  70. 70.

    Kay

    @JMG:

    If nothing else the (polling) closeness in so many states will drive turnout. These states are not usually competitive. It’s really different. Any one of the states where they’re within 2 could decide the election. If you’re an ordinary voter in Texas (as compared to people who talk about “crosstabs” and “tipping point states”) all you hear is it’s tied. That’s new for a lot of them.

  71. 71.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @NotMax: That dog had a good sense of spatial relationships! Also it could delay gratification. My dog would have gone for the burger first.

    My brother occasionally took his dogs through the drive-thru at McDonald’s and bought them burgers. They used to get very excited at toll booths because they thought they were going to get burgers there too.

  72. 72.

    Nicole

    @Anne Laurie: Thanks, Anne Laurie; that’s really helpful.  That’s the frustrating bit- the doctors won’t prescribe antibiotics without knowing what it is, and yet no one seems available today to find out what it is and having been awake all night I’m so freaking tired right now I’m in tears.  I had lots of UTIs myself in my youth, so I’m aware they aren’t life-threatening, but I’m exhausted from a night without sleep and man, I’m like a toddler when I’m tired- I cry.

    We just found a different practice that will see her this afternoon. We may have a new vet, if we like them.

  74. 74.

    Fair Economist

    @Betty Cracker: DeSantis should have waited another two weeks if he wanted people happy and voting Nov. 3. We’ve seen over and over in places like Spain, England, and Israel that open schools + open bars fuel COVID like dry tinder fuels a wildfire. In 5 weeks people will be screaming for a lockdown again.

  81. 81.

    Puddinhead

    @OzarkHillbilly: that’s awesome! I can just picture your parents running out to buy candy as a decoy to keep you away from the dog treats.

    I ate a piece of cat food on a dare as a kid. It was unpleasant.

  82. 82.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Our regular mail carrier carries milk bones in his bag which he tosses to dogs on his route. As a result our dog stops dead whenever he sees a mail truck or someone delivering mail and goes into a full nose-quivering point.

  83. 83.

    John S.

    @Fair Economist: Deathsantis is mini-Trump, so he’s running the same exact science-free playbook. And for the majority of Floridians who aren’t moved by his antics or part of the Trump Death Cult, we’re already bracing for the inevitable impact of his stupidity.

  84. 84.

    prostratedragon

    I’m excited: got word from the Board of Election Commissioners that my ballot is on the way. Per the tracking, I should get it later today.

  86. 86.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Puddinhead: I can’t imagine that. They did not believe in bribery. I did what I was told or else. For some reason or other, I got an awful lot of “or else”.

  89. 89.

    Nicole

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    Our regular mail carrier carries milk bones in his bag which he tosses to dogs on his route.

    Brilliant for a postal worker to carry them.  Talk about your positive reinforcement; the mail becomes the canine version of a kid seeing the ice cream truck.

  90. 90.

    Nicole

    @WaterGirl:

    Crystals will do the same thing.  You’re doing the right thing by getting you pup in right away.

    I’m so glad we found a place to see her.  The vet office we’ve used since we got her recently changed hands and I have been very unimpressed with the new management in all of my interactions with them so far.  I hate losing the convenience, as they are a block away, but it’s definitely a step down in quality from what they were.

  91. 91.

    prostratedragon

    @zhena gogolia:  Sometimes when things really clear up for a moment I just pause to wonder why in the eternal fuck do some such banal people think they should impose themselves on the world at length like that. That audacity is the only thing about them that is, well, awesome.

  92. 92.

    WaterGirl

    @Nicole: That’s ridiculous – 6 days away.  Yes, find a vet that can get you in today, or the emergency vet is the way to go.

    If they did not tell you that your pet needs to be seen for this, somewhere, ASAP, then you double-definitely need a new vet.

    My boy kitty has had issues with crystals, which will result in blood in the urine, and you have to act fast with crystals or you can be in big trouble.

  95. 95.

    Nicole

    @WaterGirl: It was really infuriating.  Their only suggestion was take the dog to the ER- and of course they have an ER they recommend that is not the closest animal hospital to where I live and it’s on the $$$ side, even for NYC.

    It was super satisfying to call them back and say we’d found a practice that would see her today and could I please have a copy of her vaccination record to take with me?  They sent it, but they weren’t very chipper about it. ;)  Sometimes I can be petty.

  96. 96.

    jeffreyw

    Years ago, while visiting a local tavern’s drive up window, our black lab launched herself over me, out of the driver’s side window, and through the order window because she was overcome by the aroma from the grilling of the best burgers in the county, totally losing any sense of manners she may have had. I must admit that these sizzling thin patties had much the same effect on me.

  97. 97.

    WaterGirl

    @Nicole: Makes you wonder if they get a cut of the ER fees?

    Let us know what you find out.

    If it’s crystals, there are things you can do rather than the special food.  I did that for a couple of years with Mr. Bear before we had to move to the special food.  Smaller meals, more often, lots of water, etc.

    Also, if it’s crystals… I believe there may be different kinds of crystals, so maybe ask your vet about that?  Apparently if you know the type of crystals, that affects what you do to help prevent them.

  99. 99.

    Puddinhead

    @OzarkHillbilly: I wasn’t thinking of a bribe, more of subtle subterfuge. Put the candy someplace easily accessible and the dog treats someplace less so and thereby break the dog treat habit. Bribes often backfire and make the kid want the forbidden item more. I have teenage boys, so we employ the decoy strategy quite often to make sure our treats don’t disappear before we’ve had some.

  100. 100.

    SFAW

    @germy:

    I would not take any vaccine manufactured in Russia.

    Trump is planning to give the Vlad-approved vaccine to his loyal supporters. However, said vaccine has the minor side effect of turning people into mindless zombies, so it will be difficult to easily tell if a Trumpista has been vaccinated.

  101. 101.

    MomSense

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: 
    There is an attendant who works the late shift at the Hampton tolls and he keeps dog treats. The catch is he makes the dogs take them from his hand. The first few times, my dog struggled with wanting the treat but being anxious about a new person. She got over it though and gets really excited to go through any tollbooth. The problem is that most tollbooth attendants do not give out dog treats and she will bark her annoyed where’s my fucking treat bark at them.

  104. 104.

    jeffreyw

    @WaterGirl:

    That was 40-45 years ago.  I remember it as being rather embarrassing at the time.  I had to find a place to park, get out and grab that slobbering black beast from under the disapproving stares of everyone involved, drag her back to the truck, and then return to the window to pick up my order because I wasn’t leaving without it.

  105. 105.

    Nicole

    @WaterGirl: Thank you; I’ll be sure to ask lots of questions.

    She’s eating and drinking plenty of water, so I’m hopeful it’s going to be antibiotics and keep an eye on her.  Having had my share of UTIs in days past, I know the drugs work really quick to make you feel better.

    I just feel so bad we yelled at her for waking us up at 2AM.  But she was a good girl to do it.  Whoever house trained her did a bang-up job, because she does everything she can to avoid messing in the apartment.  We let her sleep on the bed in between trips outside to make it up to her.

  108. 108.

    dexwood

    @raven: Late to the party, as usual, but I’ll echo those who say white rice over brown rice. Our dog’s vet told me once that brown rice is often difficult for a dog to digest. Hope you can get it figured out and turned around.

  109. 109.

    Nicole

    @Raven:

    Update, she ate the hell out of chicken and white rice and a few green beans.

    Yay!  That’s great news.  Easy on her tummy and an excellent treat.  Win-win.

  111. 111.

    frosty

    @artem1s: i’m one of those people in hiding. Next door neighbor has the Trump “No More Bullshit” flag. I’ve gone back and forth on a Biden sign but the family voted thumbs down. Fine with me. At the very least, 1) it’s going to get stolen or 2) somebody will key my car.

  114. 114.

    chopper

    @Quinerly: 

    she doesn’t want to deny everyone coverage for preexisting conditions. she has great insurance. she just wants to deny *regular people* that coverage.

  115. 115.

    scribbler

    @Nicole:   It’s great that she’s drinking water – that’s so important!  We have a kitty with bladder/crystal issues and we’ve done everything we can to encourage him to drink more water, including having several water dishes around the house and a special one with a water drip that keeps the water in motion, which he loves.

  116. 116.

    Old Dan and Little Ann

    @jeffreyw: That’s Fucking hysterical.  We will have had our black lab 2 years next month.  He has avoided people food to this point.

  117. 117.

    CarolPW

    @Nicole: @OzarkHillbilly: My first dog got a disk-shaped kidney stone, and the sharp edges scraped the inside of his bladder resulting in bloody pee and a UTI. He had surgery to remove it, and never had that problem again.

  118. 118.

    Goku (Amerikan Baka)

    @debbie:

    I mean, he puts forward a convincing argument. And I mean that. I don’t like it, but precedent is on their side, sadly

  119. 119.

    J R in WV

    We have done the white rice and a chicken breast diet in the distant past, and plain canned pumpkin is also good, esp if you need to get a hungry critter to lose weight. Mix in a big gob of pumpkin into a small portion of their favorite kibble, the pumpkin is very filling but has almost no calories at all.

    Punkin, our black tortie kitty was named for her spherical shape. She was starved as an abandoned kitten, and so was desperate to eat as much as possible. So finally we went to a mostly pumpkin diet, with a small spoon of canned and a tiny scoop of kibble, so she would feel really full on a low cal diet.

    Also good for cats with digestive problems, one fearless hunter cat ate a whole rabbit one afternoon, everything but some fuzz and the tail, it stopped him up totally! Enemas at the ER vet fixed him w/o surgery, but he needed mild laxative added to his diet the rest of his long life. Either pumpkin with kibble or Metamucil with canned.

    Punkin has aged into regular twice a day kibble and canned feedings, knows there will be dinner coming up soon. She is beginning to really like sleeping in bed with us, much less hassle than a 45 pound puppy. Old cats. Love ’em. So confident that you really do love on them.

    Glad you can get you furbaby seen soonest; it’s hard to worry about them once you know they’re sick.

  121. 121.

    SFAW

    @debbie:

    “The Senate has a long history, going back to the very first Congress, of refusing to vote on potential Supreme Court justices nominated by blackity-black Black usurpers ‘presidents’ during those years when REAL (IYKWIMAITYD) Americans controlled the Senate.”

     

    FOAD, Portman, you traitorous weasel.

  123. 123.

    Aleta

    @raven:  My dog had a bad cough for months (lungs and heart OK).  Vets never pinpointed a cause.    [Oddly he’s now  been on daily antibiotics and an anti-inflamm for months (because of a tumor) and he almost never coughs.  Hard to say why, b/c of other factors.]

    For the cough, I came  to consider things like  dust/pollen allergies  (see if it gets better after a benedril) or stomach related,  like acid reflux into the throat  (which could be either anxiety or digestive system).   For not eating, I guess it depends on whether it’s nausea, or diminished smell,  or stomach/gut temporarily out of whack.

    For stomach upset I used to boil Japanese white rice with lots of water (a remedy in Japan).  At one point the vet told me that too much rice can be a problem for their gut mobility.  I switched to oatmeal, made with lots of extra water and cooked lowest heat for long time.  Easy to digest and it gets lots of water into the intestine.  It’s easy to shape into balls, which he seems to think are a treat.

    Another thing that’s worked (for old cats and now this dog) is feeding out of  the hand.   My partner makes two small balls of canned food w/ a pill inside, brings them to the dog on a plate, tells him they’re  “bon bons.”   Gives them one by one out of his hand.  Dog thinks it’s special.  Same old food he is ignoring  in his dish, but every night he waits for the luxury of bon bons brought to him by the manservant on a plate,  and he eats them up.   Silly old dog.

    ****

    His cancer tumor is not the spreading kind,   but lately I worry he’s turning  downhill.  For what I imagine must be painful,  I’m giving him Lyrica and CBD oil and they’re working well.  He still goes to the park and hops around with his friends, and goes wild for his usual treats of green beans, small round potatoes, biscuits.  I would welcome advice (cancer or end of dog life) or experience from anyone.  Here or at  twosawhorses at g m dot c

  125. 125.

    WaterGirl

    @Aleta:  My policy is simple.  If they’re in it, I’m in it.

    As long as they still like to do their regular stuff and they are eating and drinking and pooping, and they are happy, I’m in it for as long as they are in it.

    They always tell me when it’s time.  Sometimes it’s sooner than I would have expected, sometimes it’s later.

  126. 126.

    J R in WV

    @scribbler:

    Cats and water… We always have a pan of water out, and it gets emptied twice a day or more, with 3 dogs and 2 cats and two people…wait, I’m gonna start again ;~)

    Anyway, one of the cats pretends to be feral, spends a lot of time outdoor, comes in late for dinner, sometimes pushing midnight. She eats a whole lot right off, and then would really prefer to be able to nibble fir another hour or two. Is very active, hunts a lot, mostly rodents: mice, moles, shrews, chipmunks are serious — occasional squirrel is OMG so proud.

    So, very fit, slender, an athletic 10 pounds, after dinner she will nap for a couple of hours inside the house, drink her fill (there are tiny wet weather creeks and springs and seeps on the hillside) and then pester someone to go outside. If the weather is OK, not blowing rain or mist, sometimes out all night.

    When she drinks from the 1.5 gallon pan, though, she is the only cat I recall watching drink from her right hand paw. She dips her paw just barely into the water, and licks it dry. This can go on for quite a while, and she’s happy to pause and step away if someone else comes to the watering hole for a drink.

    ETA: we would welcome any guesses as to the cause, physical or mental at the root of the behavior. Maybe she just likes the flavor of her feet.     ;~)

  127. 127.

    Another Scott

    @Nicole: Nearly dead thread, but I wanted to throw my $0.02 in.

    We were told that our first dog, Colleen, was a very picky and delicate eater and would only eat chicken and rice.  We were able to slowly wean her off it without much trouble at all and she was fine on IAMS dry for years.  Though she looked longingly at chicken and rice whenever we had it.  ;-)

    Our present dog, Ellie, does great with Nutro dry and is a vacuum cleaner on walks (she loves going by a neighbor’s cherry tree and eating the drops, no matter how old they are; she eats acorns; she eats white paper; she eats fox poop; she eats certain kinds of grasses; she eats just about anything) seems to have problems with chicken and rice (yellowy pudding-like poop) and even chicken-flavored treats.  It’s strange.

    Doggies tummies are weird!

    Good luck to you, raven, and all the other doggie and kitty parents out there.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  129. 129.

    Another Scott

    @frosty: A neighbor down the street has a couple of signs:

    1. OMG – Please Make it Stop – 2020
    2. Biden – He Won’t Inject You With Bleach – 2020

    I understand the sentiment!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  130. 130.

    Chris T.

    @Nicole: Didn’t see this until just now, but: blood in urine is a pretty strong indicator of UTI or something worse. Definitely a Vet Thing.

  132. 132.

    Chris T.

    @WaterGirl: Boy kitties have an extra-big problem with crystals, because they have narrow urethrae. I’ve been lucky in that all my kidney / bladder / crystal issue kitties have been girls…

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