Monday, December 02, 2013

What Declawing Your Cat Says About You

1. You're lazy
When you get any pet you need to understand that there is a lot of work involved. If you can't put that work forth than you shouldn't have a pet. Teaching your cat not to claw everything takes work. He/she isn't going to understand immediately what you don't want clawed and what you do. You have to teach them. We have four cats in our house, and although they occasionally find something to claw we would rather they didn't, they only really do it once because we teach them not to. Plus, we have something they can scratch. If you get a cat, and choose not to make or buy something they can scratch than you deserve every clawed up piece of furniture they give you. Don't amputate a digit from your cat because you can't get off your lazy ass. Your laziness and irresponsibility is YOUR problem, not your cats.

2. Your pet is a pet
I am a firm believer that a household pet is family. You wouldn't cut a body part of a family member off just because what they did with it bugged you. If you are prone to such behavior please don't have a pet... or children and seek immediate medical help.

3. I care more about my house than my cat
First of all, you should really research something like declawing before you decide to do it to your cat. If you do, you'd know that it isn't just taking off a nail, it is amputating part of a digit. See here. It is a very painful experience for the cat. What it comes down to is you willingly crippling a creature who has no say in the matter and relies on you because your couch is more important. Once again, don't get a cat. If you would put your STUFF over your companion, a living creature, then don't fuckin' get a cat. I can't stress this enough. Furthermore, if you have a cat or plan on getting one, you have to understand that even if it's not an outdoor cat it will at some point get outside. They are curious and pretty crafty and they will need their claws once they get out. Declawing is taking away a natural defense for cats. You will be rendering your cat unable to protect itself against other cats and animals. But hey what's a few scratches or worse on your cat, at least there aren't any on the furniture.

Since I can't think of a category to put this in, I'm just going to write the rest as I usually would. I have met quite a few cats that develop an 'attitude' of sorts. I have met several cats that once declawed have taken up biting when they don't like something. Think about it, if your hands are tied and someone is holding you against your will, what would you do? You sure as hell would bite them at any given opportunity. So you declawed your cat and now he bites you. If you couldn't teach your cat not to claw stuff, than I doubt you care to teach him or her not to bite stuff. So what happens? You get rid of the cat and now not many will take it because it has a biting problem. So now you've crippled an animal, now you've abandoned it, and the likely hood of it finding a new home are significantly less. Good job asshole. Or the other classic favorite, the cat comes home after being declawed, the cat litter hurts, so it goes to the bathroom outside it. You don't care enough to figure out why, or funnier yet think it's doing it on purpose or to be spiteful and get rid of the cat and once again good job asshole. I really hate declawing... as you can see. If you need to mutilate your pet, don't get one, it's that simple.


Now, let it be noted that SOMETIMES declawing is necessary. My sisters cat Seven is a polydactyl, meaning that she has more toes than normal. Unfortunately she also has a problem with her claws growing into the pads of her paws and they also get caught a lot on fabrics when she's trying to walk which hurts her or causes her to fall awkwardly. In-order to help with this my sister has to trim her claws regularly, which she does. Doing this requires two people and is very stressful for Seven. In this case it might be more beneficial for Seven to have her declawed.

Friday, November 29, 2013

Pet Moms Are Not Moms

I recently fell victim to creating my cat Gideon his own facebook page. Yeah, I'm one of those. But I felt bad for posting picture on my facebook profile because not everyone wants their news-feed filled with pictures of my cat, so he has his own page for those that want to see that. Also, he and I are working towards making him a therapy cat and having a facebook page might be helpful once he's certified. But enough with my justifications, I do have something to address. Upon looking through my Gideon's news-feed I found this:

Pet Parents are NOT Moms by Susan Maushart

Now, I'm not going to go off on a rant about how moronic I find one Susan Maushart, because frankly it's a blog post and she's going off on her own tangent on the sanctity of motherhood. She's sick of hearing people fawning over their pets, and I have to admit sometimes we pet parents cross a line. I know I do, did I not just state my cat has a facebook page? Susan is ranting. I get that, and if you are familiar with my work, you know I get that. But personally, I would rather watch people fawn over their pets than their child that took their first big girl or big boy dump this morning. I'm sure I'll do the same when I have kids and all the people around me will be irritated about my enthusiasm over babies first doodoo.

Now to what I really want to rant about! My problem with this blog post is it's clear lack of facts and the obvious problem the author has with picking up a book or animal intelligence study. But who can blame her, she's much too busy taking care of her human offspring and treating her pets like pincushions that inhale food to read anything other than her own published books and praising reviews. And in case you didn't read the astounding literature piece, this is the quote that made me mad:
"It's become ideologically unsound to say so in public, but you and I both know that pets are stupid. Not just "slow" or "differently intelligent" -- just plain stupid. (When we say a poodle is intelligent, we forget that we are speaking in purely relative terms. Compared to a pincushion, sure.) That's not a moral failing. It's not something we love them in spite of. It's something we love them because of."
This isn't as bad as the viral video by Trisha Paytas asking if dogs have brains because they can't talk, but it's in the same neighborhood of stupidity, just a few blocks down from being a neighbor. Animals are in fact smart. When scientists have studied the intelligence of animals they often COMPARE them to toddlers. For instance Chaser. If you don't know who Chaser is look her up. She's a border collie that knows a thousand words. And like a toddler would, she learned them through play and paying attention. If Susan wanted to she wouldn't even need to read, she could go watch Dogs Decoded, a youtube video by Amaze World Wide and she would understand that dogs are smarter than she is giving them credit for. I could go into detail about this video, but it would be way too long, so you should really go check it out. There are also dogs that are trained to assist their owners with just about everything. There are seeing eye dogs for crying out loud! Yes, lets put blind people in the hands of "dumb" animals, sounds legit. I thought intelligence was in part the ability to learn, but what do I know, Susan has a PhD in Media Ecology so obviously she is an expert in all things animal and in all things motherhood.

What I am saying is this post by Susan Maushart should be taken with a very small grain of thought. It is something rather distasteful for someone who has published several books and is a columnist for a magazine. Now, if this isn't some sort of satirical post than I think Susan shouldn't own pets. She obviously doesn't posses the heart nor time to properly take care of them or understand them. Perhaps she would better benefit from a stuffed animal. And I hate to be the barer of bad news but children aren't booming with intelligent. I was in daycare and if you think no toddler has rubbed their own poo on themselves you are delusional Susan. She even makes a comment about kids not humping the furniture, I babysat a boy that humped a pillow once and told me that's what he would do to me... real profound that one. I know you most likely look with the eyes of a proud mother Susan, but as someone that isn't a mother of human babies I can tell you with untainted and unbiased eyes that not everything your kids say and do is an intellectual gem. In fact, on occasion, I've met animals that have the intellectual high ground over a toddler... and even over a grown adult. But hey Susan, I give you mad props, you finally made a blog post that has over eleven comments and twenty-one tweets. So what if it has over six-hundred comments and only five likes on facebook I still say kudos. Sometimes the best publicity is bad publicity and I think since quite a large percentage of people own pets you must have known you'd get all the attention by writing this blog post of yours.

I know I said I wasn't going to rant about the rest of the 'article', but while I'm at it I can't help myself. There are a lot of definition of mother floating out there. One of which is 'to watch over, nourish, and protect maternally'. Who elected one Susan Maushart the expert on motherhood? What are the guidlines to get into that very selective society? Let me tell you about my cat Gideon, I adopted him from a rescue when his ears were much too big for his head. From there he's been a lot of work. And money. When I adopted him he still had ear mites he was being treated for along with worms. So right off the bat I had a to give him medication and fight with him over the ear drops he would rather shake out onto my shirt than let sit in his ears. Then he fell one day while sleeping and got a bump on his head. I was so concerned I tried to make a vet appointment... for a bump. Well, needless to say that fixed itself until he developed an ulcer under his lip. There was more medication and a vet visit. Later on he would have two emergency vet visits, one on a holiday and another at two in the morning. One emergency procedure and one surgery later and quite a bit of money and he's all good now. Sure, he has feline urinary tract disease and I had to learn to read food labels and his food is more pricey, but he's healthy now so long as I keep doing my job. My cats get meals twice a day, their food is measured out so they stay a healthy weight for their size. There is food they don't like and snub. If I don't feed him on time Gideon will jump onto a shelf and start slowly pushing items off it with his paw until I get up. I've had to both make and buy them toys because they get bored, and when Gideon gets bored he makes a point to do things I hate just to get my attention. My house mate once had a play mouse that made noise and finding it annoying he picked it up and dropped it into the water bowl, successfully killing it. He has a habit of putting his toys back into the toy box too. Gideon walks himself into the vet on a harness and leash as well as knowing basic commands that he has learned sometimes in only a day. You can't tell me he isn't smart nor can you tell me I am not his mom. I take care of him and protect him and in exchange he provides me with love and no small amount of amusement, amazement, and pride. I find it sad that we as humans are such 'superior species' activists. We are the only species that is so hell bent on denying motherhood based on species. There are cats that take in baby squirrels and dogs that treat human babies like their pups. Animals have the capacity to treat the babies of other species like their own... you can tell them they aren't the parents, but they care fuck-all what you say about that. Just like most pet parents. Because you can bitch about us not being parents all you want Susan. You can even nit pick on definitions of motherhood at us, but quite a few of those fall into pet parent categories too. You just don't like it. Being a parent is about loving and caring for someone or some creature and who are you to define the relationship between a pet and a person? The thing I think you're missing is that we know our fur child is not a human baby, even when Gideon is in his penguin outfit I know he's a cat. I am not using him as some sort of human baby replacement. Pet parents aren't taking anything from you. Take a deep breathe Susan. Oh, and watch that video, they found that the same hormone released that makes you bond with your child at birth is also released in a woman when in contact with animals... Funny that.



Gideon's Page

Friday, February 22, 2013

Jolly Good Night My Dear Old Self, Jolly Good

You know you had a good night when a friend is jumping your car at midnight after driving you back from a giant women oriented slumber party where you met a man in drag, ate penis chocolate, bought a perverted shirt, drank, danced like crazy, and txted a friend to force him to start singing Don't Stop Believing with you that spanned into face caterpillars and my inability to be a craycray latino for I have no ass. More tomorrow... err... later today, it's now 2am and I just got home maybe twenty minutes ago, so I'mma peace out now!

Thursday, February 21, 2013

Driving In A Winter Wond... Why Would You DO That?!

I know I've had a few rants about road rage, but with winter on it's, hopefully soon, way out I'd like to express my displeasure with the fact that winter makes people extra drive stupid. I'm going to re-cap one of my morning drives to work. First, I work roughly forty-five minutes to an hour away from where I live, and in-order to get to work I have to take the main highway of 481. Which is usually not an issue until the winter comes and ruins common sense for all. Between me and work there are varying levels of snow plow negligence I have to coast through. There is Fulton... and I don't think they plow... EVER. But either way driving in the winter sucks. On this particular morning there was a weather warning but it was all clear at my house, and when I called work they were fine too. So I shoveled off my car, my landlord plowed me out and off to work I went. I got to Fulton and regretted my choices that morning. But I was going to go to work because I shoveled my car... I was going to freakin' work. By the time I hit the wonder of a two lane highway my speed was reduced to fifteen miles an hour, very much slower than the sixty-five miles an hour speed limit, and passed five cars in the ditch. Courtesy of my slow speed I was able to get a good look at these poor unfortunates. One of which was an angry man in a suit in a beautiful car. This guy, I laughed at. In the summer I pass this guy with my lowly 2003 car while going the speed limit. Then in the winter, it's like some switch is clicked and, WHAM, he's forgotten how to drive and suddenly wants to be the next big stunt man! Here is a tip: If you are sliding on the road, don't start moving your car around like your trying to play that snake game where you have to move rapidly while avoiding the walls and your growing tail. You are going to worsen your situation. And for goodness sakes don't slam on your breaks, I know it's a common response, but don't do it. It wont help you, your car is out of control, you'll make it worse. And for the love of all things, if your nervous about driving in the winter, stay home. Do us all a favor. You make dumb choices when your nervous and you can seriously hurt someone. I don't want to be anywhere near you. Just stay home until winter is over or learn to drive in it.

Anyway, I'm going down this highway at a crawl, which is perfectly fine, the roads are shit and there are a bunch of other cars going the same speed. There is literally one lane to go down anyway because the fast lane is still covered in so much snow you can't tell where it is and the ditch starts... you can of course see the deep tracks from the cars currently in the ditch because they tried to use the fast lane in their haste. I laughed at them, because, they deserve it. Unfortunately for me there is a big tractor trailer a car behind me that doesn't like the slow speed. He keeps trying to get in the fast lane but can't quite make it all the way over, so when he speeds up he is still too close to the car behind me which in turn makes them super nervous so they speed up and almost succeed in becoming one with my car. The tractor trailer does this three times before giving up. If you're going to drive a giant vehicle that can potentially be the most lethal thing to a lot of people, you should be more cautious than anyone else on the damn road. You should be the embodiment of all things good driving. So I've got Optimus Prime a car down from me on an obviously important mission and mister driving challenged behind me. And have now passed a total of nine cars that have good off the road. It was great. By the time the roads clear just a little, Optimus has decided he's had enough and all others be damned he's going and shoots into the fast lane. He still can't get completely over so the car behind me is moving closer to the shoulder to avoid him, and me, I stay put. I don't care if he has to go save the world from a decepticon, I'm not moving. I am not swerving and loosing control of my car so he can be on time to rescue Megan Fox and Witwicky. If I'm getting in an accident it's because he hit me, not because I'm getting out of his way. I want him to pay for my bills and my student loans and my new car.

Finally, by the end, the roads are super clear and I can finally go the speed limit... only to be trapped by people that want to go forty-five. At which case, if any of them looked into their rear view mirrors they would see an angry woman in a silver car screaming. And they may have been able to hear the symphony of swear words and the long over used phrase "learn to drive!" drifting towards them.

David Of The Blog

So I was checking out the regions that read my blog, and it's the United States and Germany. I am the bad blogging version of David Hasselhoff.

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Some Nights Are Worth The Pounds

I  think I just depression/stress/frustration ate myself out of all the chocolate in the house and out of my diet.

I Hate The Word 'Understand'

Not really, but kinda I really do. It depends on how it's being used, but I have a moderate hate for that word. I'll tell you why, like you had any doubt I would. A lot of people say 'I understand' when your explaining how you feel or what's happening to you, I've even done it, because on some level for some things you can get a basic understanding of what someone is going through, especially if you've had a similar experience. However, you can't understand all situations, you just bloody well can't. For instance, say someone has some mental disease, and that makes their emotions and thoughts rather irrational. Things you consider small take on a more important role to them.  You can't understand that. You can kinda grasp what they're saying, but you're not going to understand it. Their emotions are being irrational, you're not thinking irrational, therefore your not going to understand. Telling someone you understand and then trying to tell them what you think about the situation and what they should do in no way helps. It's going to piss a lot of them off or just make them further upset. It's honestly okay to acknowledge you don't understand. Or at least in my case. I know you don't understand. And that is truly okay. I will react better and respect you better if you tell me you don't understand. Telling me you do when you don't is patronizing to something I've spent years dealing with and learning to understand myself, you can't understand it in five minutes or even five days. I don't tell you 'I understand' as you describe to me how you feel about your mother's death, I wouldn't understand, my mother is alive and she will live forever. I can maybe imagine it, but I wont know how it feels until it actually happens... which it wont... because like I said she'll live forever.


P.S. - I'm actually writing a book, and there is a chapter devoted to this.