Well, that was descriptive!

I’m trying to tame a feral puppy. It’s a very happy feral puppy who is impeccably clean and loves other dogs, but I can’t touch her for love nor treats.

I just used the term, “Elmer-Fudding” to describe how I was moving around the house trying to touch a Sally.

“Elmer-fudding” might be the best descriptor I have ever written.

Overheard: Nipples

The other day was a fairly quiet day, and there I was a’ tippy tappy-ing on my ‘puter trying to learn how to do my new job whilst allowing my subconscious to deal with the ongoing anxiety about insurance costs and how not to lose medical coverage and figuring out how to quit my old job when I realize I am over-hearing a man attempting to explain to the vet tech that the cat he has at home is a female because it has nipples.

*****Record scratch*****

…..say what now?

It was like beautiful theater. I couldn’t look away. A very small part of my brain was SUPER excited to see where this was going to go.

Vet Tech explains that male cats have nipples. Man agrees, but counters that they don’t have as many nipples as female cats. Vet Tech asks a volunteer go and grab friendly male cat.

Vet Tech showed him the male cat’s nipples and counted them one at a time (he was a VERY friendly cat). CatNippleMan still seemed to think this was malarkey, but you could tell he had started to think.

I couldn’t help it, I had to ask, “Sir, do female humans have more nipples than male humans?”

After everyone giggled and chatted for a while about mammalian nipple counts, it all finally clicked for him, and for a beautiful few minutes much happy laughter was had by all, including the poor man who will always be thought of (to me, anyway) as CatNippleMan.

Be Your Own Hero!

There is a LOT to unpack in this story, but I am stressed, so please forgive me for the excessive stream of consciousness that is about to vomit into this post.

So, while trying to fight the never ending entropy of mess that is the front porch, I saw the pathetic kitchen knife that the festering pustule on the taint of society brought to stab me or Darrin or whomever laying on the tile. I realized I needed to write this down.

I know, there’s a LOT more story to be told.

I have a neighbor, her name shall be J. J has a BF/ExBF who beats her. He is a festering pustule on the taint of society, but for the sake of brevity, his name shall be Pustule. J has issues and has a history of an abusive exs. And, like many people trapped in this shitty cycle, an unwillingness to press charges. I made it very clear that she has to save herself, to be her own hero. That she is worth saving, but that she HAS to be the one to do it.

Honestly, I don’t think it would have affected me so strongly if I hadn’t heard from an acquaintance that he beat one of their dogs to death. I do NOT like bullies.

I’ve learned a lot in just a few short days, I’ve learned:

I still become incredibly clear and calm during emergencies.
I have no hesitation when attempting to defend/avenge an animal. I was doing the whole smart safe we stay inside and call police approach. He came to the door and screamed and ranted and I did the whole, “you are unwelcome and need to leave. I’m calling police and if you refuse to leave I’m releasing the dogs (who were going batshit at that point).” He left, heading towards their home saying J would pay and she cried saying he was going to kill her dogs. To which I said, “okay, let’s go get the dogs.”
He went in their house and came back out with a knife (pathetic kitchen knife). I finally got dog loose (fucking rope fought me). He didn’t come after me, went towards vehicle and husband. He punched awkwardly at husband’s head and hit his ear (?!). I called police, he snatched and threw my phone fully destroying it and stomped back towards our house. I suggested hitting him with vehicle…..husband said no (he really *is* better than me in many ways).
Backing up my phone to a Gmail account and saving NOTHING locally just saves so much frustration. [Aside, I was making the mistake of saving web links on my homepage. Now I save everything as a bookmark.]
Once home, while the Pustule dragged his girlfriend back and forth demanding the keys to her vehicle, Darrin went in to call police. She had left the keys on the porch. I had hid them in the grill.
I really hate bullies and taunting that little shit to get his attention off J as he dragged that abused woman down my driveway by asking as to whether these were the keys the the pathetic little man wanted while jingling said keys was WAY more satisfying than it should have been.
I tried to remove the vehicle keys from the rest of the keys and he snatched them from me so I punched him. Seeing that Pustule’s absolutely stunned expression that someone would dare to hit back was soul-restoringly beautiful.
I’m still clutzy! That gods-forsaken bunched up rug on my front porch tripped me, but I took the Pustule down with me. ::grin::
My husband LOVES me. I mean like, WOWSA loves me. I know this because of his deep rage voice shaking the rafters with a “GET OFF MY WIFE!!!” right before the Pustule flew. (Husband was inside locating his phone and calling police; that stopped when he saw I was fighting.)
I know I’m my mother’s daughter because as I tripped over that muddaskunt rug on my front porch (that must be burned) and dragged Pustule down with me I thought, “right thumb in eye socket” and did it.
I know I’m an overthinker because I also thought, probably shouldn’t blind him permanently (hindsight: should have) and just slid right thumb into medial canthus instead.
My left hand was heading towards his testicles for destruction when the husband made him fly. I find it just a little disturbing that I had a very clear moment of regret when he flew that I didn’t get to maim him.
I know I LOVE my husband. I mean like, WOWSA love him. I know this because when Pustule attacked him post flight, I got close and bit the Pustule on the forehead (no, I don’t know why. But I couldn’t get to any other part of him and it seemed the thing to do. SMH). While they continued tussling I punched Pustule repeatedly in the kidneys. I’ve never claimed to fight fairly and cheap shots are acceptable while fighting a coked out abusive asshole.
I didn’t use my dogs. Could have, maybe should have… but I secured them in the bedroom because I didn’t want them to get hurt.

So, here I am one week and one day later, I believe Pustule is still un-captured. J posted two days ago that someone broke her windshield and she didn’t know who would have done such a thing (I have a guess ::eyeroll::). My phone has been replaced (yay insurance!) and my life appears to have gotten back to normal.

But a small part of me is sure this isn’t done, so if it isn’t and Pustule tries something stupid please know I will use every skill I have to protect me and mine while doing my damnedest to make that little pathetic bully pays some karmic debt.

Love y’all,

Unexpectedly Wonderful Chow Chow

I am incredibly blessed to know some wonderful people, but it is naieve to forget as often as I do that there are people that think casual cruelty is acceptable.
This is yesterday’s example of casual cruelty.
A fine handsome boy who is incredibly self-assured, confident, and just nice – these are all rare traits for any breed of dog (or human!), but to have them all in a Chow Chow that someone, either out of stupidity or with deliberate malice, put a rubber band around his neck until it ate into the skin causing a horrible infection? Frankly, it’s almost unbelievable.
I brought him to the animal shelter yesterday afternoon and he will be sedated and his injury cleaned and stitched today.

Pretty Birds

Dear Jane,

Yes, you now weigh a whopping 20.8lbs which is SUPER big and SUPER impressive. However, even with all that heft and your intimidating hopping and oofing (referred to as her hop-en-de-oof), I’m still going to recommend that you not get into a standoff with that red-tailed hawk. Kthanks!

I don’t know what she was thinking but I heard the (loud as hell) song birds sending out their ALERT! ALERT! PREDATOR NEAR! which sounds more like a frantic cheepcheepcheepcheep.

Then I heard screech of the hawk up high, which led to me hearing the “oof!”. I go outside and there’s Jane, up on her back feet, full on Hop-en-de-oof-ing at the sky.

I know that in theory she is now out of prey-size range, but not gonna chance it.

Just finished belly-laughing!

FoodLady Chronicles – that time Dobby farted:

Good morning all,

I thought very little in this world could be funnier than a dog audibly farting; I was wrong. I was watching Dobby and Jane playing tug with an old hair tie and debating whether it was worth redirecting them to another toy (as I had already done with a roll of toilet paper, a shoe, and a fork; they were in rare puppy zoomy form this morning!), or just let it go to the graveyard of destroyed hair ties (disclaimer – never let dogs play with hair ties cause they can swallow them, etc. etc.). Whilst mid internal hair tie rescue/recovery debate, Dobby, who was sitting at an odd angle while Jane tugged her hardest, farted. I only know this because he was sitting on the tile at such an angle that his booty made a sound kind of like a fog-horn blew on a blade of grass to make a squeaky whistle.

All. Play. Immediately. Stopped.
Other dogs ran over. And then all of the dogs, including Dobby, spent time investigating Dobby’s butt and the tile trying to figure out where the sound came from. I was bent over silently laughing and shoulders shaking and while I can’t exactly explain why, the canine fart investigation looked a lot like a construction safety incident investigation where everyone kept looking (sniffing) at the incident (butthole) and then looking (sniffing) at the location of the incident (tile). At that thought I honked in a gasping breath from laughing so hard which distracted everyone away from the butt-tile-squeak investigation and into the why-lady-honk investigation.

All dogs have returned to their regularly scheduled state of sloth, it was a lot of investigat’n for one morning. 🤣🤣🤣

Diabetic Randomness

So, sitting here working and if I had to swear to it, I would say my blood sugar was going low. I came to this conclusion using logic. I felt a little woobly and sweaty and added that to taking a big bolus of breakfast insulin because I was planning to eat a big plate of leftover Chinese food (ALL THE CARBS) but only ate about a third. Seems logical, right?

Oh, that’s right!? Diabetes is not a logical fucker. It’s an asshole.

Nope. Blood sugar was 171 mg/dL. So, I took another 2 units to knock it down a bit more.

But all I could say was, jeeeeebus! I really have NO FRIGGIN CLUE what’s going on with my blood glucose. None.

I’m a SENSITIVE person. I can usually tell things about my body pretty darn well. I guess that’s why not being able to tell where the fuck my blood sugar is makes me crazy (-ier).

Do y’all know (of course you don’t, why would you?) I spent about 4 months of my life horrifically depressed because I was trying to live with my blood sugar too low? Did I know that’s what caused it? Nope. That sucked.

So, I’m now off of what I think of as the “easy” meds, and I’m back on the insulin fun. It actually works much better for me, except for this pesky not knowing if I’m high, low, or okay.

That’s kind of a bitch.

I’ve begun training the wee Janelet puppy to eventually become a service dog. I had to order new freezer tubes and cotton, so right now we are working on basic manners and obedience. Wish me luck! ❤️

Oh, that’s right!? Diabetes is not a logical fucker. It’s an asshole.

Nope. Blood sugar was 171 mg/dL. So, I took another 2 units to knock it down a bit more.

But all I could say was, jeeeeebus! I really have NO FRIGGIN CLUE what’s going on with my blood glucose. None.

I’m a SENSITIVE person. I can usually tell things about my body pretty darn well. I guess that’s why not being able to tell where the fuck my blood sugar is makes me crazy (-ier).

So, I’m now off of what I think of as the “easy” meds, and I’m back on the insulin fun. It actually works much better for me, except for this pesky not knowing if I’m high, low, or okay.

That’s kind of a bitch.

I’ll just find other people’s videos…

Good morning y’all!
So, you know how some people have a natural talent as a videographer?
I am *not* one of them.
I attempted one flirt pole training video where the dog was only in the video about 20% of the time and, at one point, I dropped the phone. Basically it was a lot of video of the grass. This morning I attempted a pull/push training video where Ziesa, as soon as the camera was on, immediately stopped doing the normal dog thing and turned into playdough as well as me accidentally blocking the microphone with a pillow so you just see my mouth moving but no words.
Not my skill set.
But I did make myself belly laugh when I watched them, so that’s a win.
❤️

There’s a woman…

Morning all,

I’m trying to get back into writing here first, instead of just posting randomly on Facebook. It’s very easy for me to put writing off to do other things, but writing gives me clarity.

Yesterday was quite the clusterf*uck of random crap, but for the sake of brevity (and the point of this post) I had to drop and zoom my butt over to the animal welfare clinic to get a dog I’m watching for a family a health certificate so she can fly out on today’s rescue flight to Miami to get her closer to her forever home in South Carolina (holy crap that was a long sentence!). One of my favorite people at the clinic is a vet tech that I have been acquainted with for years and the best way I can describe her is that her soul makes me smile. Don’t get me wrong, she has a shit job. But she cares and she tries, and that’s all anyone could ever want. Yesterday she looked wilted and when she saw me she reached for a hug. Not a, “hey, hi, nice to see you” hug, but a “help, I hurt” hug. A little while later she told me the story and while my initial feeling was more HULK SMASH MEAN LADY WHO MADE GOOD PERSON SAD, my brain overrode the impulse.

There has to be a better way to communicate to the general public that the clinic is open 6 days a week and every day that they are open 11+ animals are dropped off. There are not 60+ homes per week looking to adopt pets. The math sucks. Let me tell you all, these people FIGHT to not have to euthanize any animals. Today a flight full of adoptable animals is heading to Miami and then the animals will be heading on to various partner (no kill) shelters throughout the states. Unfortunately, just a few days after that, the shelter will again be over capacity.

I reached out to the master of risk communication, Peter Sandman (via email), in the hopes that maybe he will have suggestions of an effective way to communicate to the people who bring in litters of puppies again and again that everyone does their best to help them find homes, but PLEASE let us spay/neuter your pets. Here’s what I wrote:

Good day,

For lack of a better introduction, I’m a long time listener, first time caller. 😉 I have been studying your excellent risk communication trainings in my career as an industrial hygienist and I find the field of risk communication fascinating.

In addition to IH work, I volunteer with the local St. Croix Virgin Islands local animal shelter and I have noticed there doesn’t seem to be a good way for workers to explain to people that are surrendering animals (over 11 animals are relinquished daily) that the shelter will provide veterinary care and will do their very best to re-home healthy animals, however as a last resort, some animals will end up euthanized.

No one that works there ever wants to euthanize healthy animals but because of shelter size constraints and the never ending influx of animals, there is occasionally no choice.

The spaying and neutering of pets would be a good step towards a reduction of surrendered animals, unfortunately there seems to be a cultural trend against spaying and neutering here in the Virgin Islands.

Would you be able to suggest any communication guidelines I could share with the shelter staff to help increase public awareness and understanding of the importance of spaying and neutering?

Or a better way to inform people that are bringing in yet another litter of puppies or kittens that they are adorable, but that finding homes is an ongoing and exhausting struggle and that there just aren’t 60+ homes looking for pets every week.

Thank you so much for your time and consideration!

All the best,

So, to the mean lady who called one of my favorite people a puppy killer which made her hurt, please remember that people do not work at an animal shelter to become rich and famous (because glamorous it is not); they work there to try to help make a positive difference in the lives of animals and while slogging through both literal and metaphorical crap every. single. day., they also need to be treated kindly.

All my love,

FoodLady

(I’ll update this post if I hear back from Peter Sandman!)

Well, quandary….

So, thoroughly enmeshed in my first “mid-life” crisis, but there is one issue I have to think through, decide, and resolve pretty much now:

Jane.

She’s confident, intelligent, strong-willed, and just frakking adorable. And about two weeks ago I said,

“yes, I will train this well adjusted little monster to be my next diabetic alert dog. She will be short-legged and not intimidating, so this should work!”

And the universe said,

“Bwahahahaha! Foolish mortal! You have the audacity to make a plan!? Look what I can do!!”

*cue explosion of Foodlady’s life*

I mean, nothing really horrible has happened to me, it was just brought to my recent attention that it is officially time to begin looking into a career change; mostly because my friend/coworker has decided it is almost time for her to leave this program because of our horrible soul-crushing manager (and seriously, if my friend and I aren’t working together, dealing with this horrible manager just isn’t worth it).

So, finding new employment? Not easy at the best of times, and extra not easy with a service dog in training.

And then there is the big scary question: do I stay with my career in health & safety (which I do love) or, do I try working in dog behavior/pet care industry (which I obviously love)? And there are more questions too – if I stay in Health & Safety do I want to go back to work inside the refinery? Part of me misses the excitement, the sense of urgency, and just learning the new and glorious ways in which humans can really frak things up. But a rational part of me also remembers the incredibly annoying, inefficient, and downright stupid belief in that place that quantity of time spent inside equals quality of work being done (it doesn’t), and that I never really fit in (although this is usually true, regardless of where I am and what I’m doing), and that my entire life while working there was that refinery and when it closed, I was left with nothing and nobody and I remember going through some of the toughest times of my life. Conversely though, working in the pet care/training business *really* means working with a lot of people who generally don’t want to learn, listen, or pay.

Ugh. Anyway. Right now, the only decision I have to make is do I begin taking better care of myself by putting in extra effort towards training Jane as my future service dog? Because I am having a tough time thinking about letting her go to just anyone.