nothorses

[nothorses]

aw your blog is lovely, i just got an 11 week old collie mix and my mate sent me your way. any puppy tips or wisdom to impart? 😊

congrats on the new baby!

collie tips: try to think of the barking as communication - it's easy to get annoyed by it, but i promise they're barking for a reason. even if that reason is just "i'm happy!" "i'm bored!" "there's a person on the sidewalk!" "i want this!" etc... you'll have a much better mental state if you treat it as a conversation instead of a nuisance.

not sure what type of coat your puppy has, but brush them at least 2x a week and shower them with treats during it. do nails weekly too! few things are more obnoxious than a grown-ass dog that throws a tantrum about basic grooming. and long-haired dogs need grooming, so they don't get the option to be fussy about it.

puppy tips in general: now that i'm on my second puppy, i think the entire concept of socialization/exposure training can be boiled down into thus:

put that beast in situations

make the situations fun

and that's really it. just take your puppy out and look for Situations to put them in. visiting the hardware store? boom, you've been placed on a wooden pallet. you are now 1 foot off the ground. yes, kind of weird. here's some treats for being on the pallet. yay! ok moving on. walking past an (empty) playground? i am now walking under a bridge, please follow me. yay, treats for going under low object. there is a scary object (e.g. traffic cone tipped on its side) outside? we are investigating the object. yay, here's some treats for sniffing the object. etc etc etc just over and over ad over. even at home you can make Situations like a cardboard box, or loud noises playing from a speaker, or relaxing in different parts of the house, etc. put your fingers in their nose. toss them in a puddle. i've come to realize that your job as a puppy owner is to just mildly inconvenience your puppy so much that they become totally unphased by it. and that's a much easier to swallow concept for me than anything else lol.

also: Situations can be passive too. make sure they learn how to be bored. chill in a room together by quietly ignoring them. let them learn to figure out how to entertain themselves peacefully. leave them alone regularly. etc.

also @purplesaline is a font of wisdom and has given me very good advice about puppy raising. several times i have asked her about a problem i'm having and been reassured that "yes it's fine, X thing will happen soon" and i think "well surely that can't be right" and then every. time. it does happen and she is correct.

[nothorses]

If a worker who isn't the owner says ANYTHING similar to "I'm not really supposed to do this but-" and then does something that helps you, under no circumstances inform the business, including through reviews. You tell them that the worker was polite, professional, the very model of customer service and why you like to go there. You do not breathe a word of the rulebreaking.

[nothorses]

call it what u will, identifying with an animal is one of the most ancient and universal human experiences. the oldest known depiction of a human has a lions head. i am being dead serious when i say there are few things in this world more normal than being a furry

#I MUST find an opportunity to work this into a conversation with my coworkers

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[nothorses]

[nothorses]

i watched one (1) video on how to draw hands that changed my life forever. like. i can suddenly draw hands again

these were all drawn without reference btw. i can just. Understand Hands now (for the most part, im sure theres definitely inaccuracies). im a little baffled

[nothorses]

[nothorses]

I am once again thinking about digging holes

It's so fucked up that digging a bunch of holes works so well at reversing desertification

I hate that so much discourse into fighting climate change is talking about bioenginerring a special kind of seaweed that removes microplastics or whatever other venture-capital-viable startup idea when we have known for forever about shit like digging crescent shaped holes to catch rainwater and turning barren land hospitable

#local indigenous knowledge of land stewardship is the best resource in. land stewardship. #more news at 11

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[nothorses]

A long-time Free Palestine mural in Montreal, which was belonged to an NGO, was vandalized by zionists this week. December 16th 2023.

- Hussein

#if it was first put up in 2014 it was a decade old #not 20 years #but that's still a long ass time!!

[nothorses]

Mean Girls (2004) House MD (2009)

[nothorses]

It should be a bigger scandal that J.K. Rowling is threatening to sue small accounts for accurately calling her a Holocaust denier. So glad the Streisand effect exists. Now we can all rebuke her reprehensible views more than ever.

[nothorses]

As a kid, when your parents are poor, you're poor. If they don't have money, that means none of you have money. But if someone's parents are rich, that doesn't necessarily mean the kid is. Sometimes rich peoples' kids aren't rich kids, they're just some rich freak's exotic pets that can talk but aren't allowed to.

#no for real though. #i have a complicated relationship with class at this point because like #my mom was raised rich. my grandparents have MONEY. and i do benefit from that to an extent #don't get me wrong- a pretty significant one. college is paid for #i do not have student loans and that's MASSIVE #but i was not raised rich; my mom didn't have money when we were growing up (and my dad even less so) #like we were homeless for a few months- we lived in a motel and it was not the same as like. what i would consider to be #a much more real experience of homelessness #but food insecurity? check. housing insecurity? check. #then you factor in the abuse and neglect in that relationship; school was paid for but living expenses very much were not #bc even though my that point my mom was making BANK she was not giving me a cent #to this day she lives in a million dollar ranch that her parents bought for her and insists that she and they both #shouldn't leave any money for anyone to inheret #if I'm struggling I'm SOL as far as she's concerned #idk it's just odd.

[nothorses]

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help girl i drifted out to sea [x]

[nothorses]

thank you WA state department of natural resources for not only providing valuable bear safety information, but also for providing valuable reaction pictures.

#wa mentioned!!!!

[nothorses]

Dungeon Meshi - Humans and Demi-Humans