Showing posts with label doggies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label doggies. Show all posts

Thursday, July 07, 2016

Things They Should Invent: dog-in-car thermometer

An article about a law in Massachusetts that would allow people to break into hot cars to rescue pets turned up in my social media, and I was surprised to see some commenters complaining about this law. Their complaint was that passers-by might not realize when a dog is perfectly safe and comfortable in an air-conditioned car and break windows unnecessarily.

This made me think of a simple solution: a thermometer inside the car, positioned in such a way that it's easily visible to passers-by through the window.  That way anyone who's concerned about the dog can easily check the temperature. If it's safe, the window won't be broken unnecessarily. If it's dangerous, the dog will be rescued.

If someone wanted to manufacture this as a new product distinctive from ordinary thermometers, they could make thermometers marked with the temperature range that's safe for dogs (and humans), similar to how some fridge thermometers have coloured markings showing the temperature range that's safe for food storage.

They could also enhance the simple window thermometer with smartphone integration.  If the temperature in the car exceeds a certain threshold or rises at a certain rate, you get an alert on your phone telling you that the temperature in the car is becoming unsafe.

Now, I have heard some people say that is absolutely always 100% of the time unsafe to leave a dog in the car no matter what the conditions, and, since I don't have a car, I've never had to become knowledgeable enough to confirm or refute that statement myself.  But the fact remains that there are people who do think it can be safe.  If there was a visible thermometer in the car along with the dog, it would confirm or refute whatever dog owners or car owners or concerned passers-by or meddling internet people might believe about the safety of the situation.  Then we could all take comfort in the fact that passers-by and owners with smartphones will be immediately alerted when dogs are unsafe, and dogs who are safe can be left to enjoy the musical stylings of Steely Dan in peace.

Monday, October 19, 2015

Voted

I dressed in my usual black and purple election day outfit, but then decided to violate my "no party colours" rule by wearing my late grandmother's birthstone ring.  She was a huge fan of voting (and of dogs), so I thought it would be appropriate to bring her with me.

As in previous years, I planned the longest justifiable route, with some errands along the way, to maximize my opportunity to pet dogs.  (For those of you just tuning in, the more dogs I pet on the way to vote, the better the election outcome.)

But zero dog-petting opportunities presented themselves!  The dogs kept being led away from the sidewalk onto the grass, or across the street from me, or otherwise on trajectories that I couldn't reasonably intercept.  The only interceptable dog I encountered was in the middle of pooing! 

I began to wonder if I'd thrown off equilibrium with the ring, so I went home (perfectly justifiable! I was carrying groceries and there was a line-up outside my polling station!), put the groceries in the fridge, and took off the ring. I'm still not sure if that was the right decision. Then I proceeded to the polling station by a perfectly reasonable route that happens to have high dog potential.

It did have high dog potential, but, again, none of them were interceptable. I saw like 20 dogs in 2 short blocks, and I couldn't reasonably pet any of them. In desperation, I passed a shade too close to a large dog that was part of a family with a crying baby, trailing my fingers a shade lower than natural in the hopes of getting a quick pet in even though they clearly didn't want to stop because they wanted to get home and take care of their baby.  But I misestimated our respective heights and missed.

The line to enter the polling station reached outside, which I've never seen before.  I had a voter's card, so once I was inside I was directed straight to my poll.  There was no one else waiting for that poll, so I was in and out in two minutes.  However, there was a very long line-up for people who didn't have voter's cards.

This means lots of new people are voting.  I hope that's enough to outweight the back lock of zero dog pettings.

Monday, October 27, 2014

Voted

A non-descript fall day for a very descript municipal election.

As I've blogged about before, I have a superstition that I need to pet a dog on the way to vote in order to get a good election outcome.  I had a couple of errands to do on my lunch hour, so I tucked my voting card into my purse just in case I met any auspicious doggies.  But, to my surprise, I only even saw one dog, and it wasn't in a place where I could pet it!

Worried by this uncharacteristic shortage of dogs (I usually see 2 or 3 dogs at any time of the day or night), I started planning the route I'd take to the polling station after work, to maximize the chance of encountering a pettable doggie.  The polling station is extremely close to my home - just a couple of buildings down the street, and then through a pedestrian pathway to the other side of the block.  But surely walking down the actual street rather than along the pedestrian pathway is a perfectly reasonable act, right?  Even if it increases the distance I had to walk by 50%?  And when I worked in the office I'd always do my after-work errands before voting, so it's perfectly justified to do that today, right? And so on and so on until I'd justified walking at least three times the distance, possibly meandering through some side streets, in the hope that I'd encounter a pettable dog.

I needn't have worried. Directly en route to the polling station, I saw an adorable little dog who stopped walking and sat down on the sidewalk.  "Awww, you don't want to go any more?" I squeed at him, and full-fledged petting ensued, with the doggie's enthusastic consent and the owner smiling.  So then, my mission accomplished, I walked straight to the polling station, only to discover there was another doggie tied up outside the polling station! When I said "Hi doggie!" he thumped his tail and smiled at me, so I gave him a pet too.

Two perfectly organic dog pets, not contrived at all, would totally have happened if I'd been walking the same route without a superstitious reason to pet dogs.  I hope that bodes well.


***

One actual election-related note: there are these security folders that we put the ballots in before they feed them into the ballot counting machine.  Problem: the ballot is longer than the folder, so if you voted for one of the bottom few people on the ballot, your vote will be visible despite the security folder!

The strange thing is the ballot is so long in the first place because there are so many mayoral candidates.  The mayoral candidates are divided into two columns, but there isn't an even number in each column - there's way more in the first column!  If they'd made the two columns even, the ballots would have fit in the folder.

Alternatively, if there was some compelling technical reason why they couldn't have adjusted the format of the ballot, why couldn't they get longer folders?

***

Despite my attempts to find my councillor candidates,  no platforms for any of the challengers ever emerged.  I got like a hundred hits a day on that post - far more than the rest of my blog combined - so I'm certainly not the only one looking for them. Their target audience is ready and waiting, but they still won't show themselves.  And so the question remains: why did they bother? 

***

Edit, since I always record the campaigning that reaches me:

Signs seen: 1, for the incumbent councillor, plus one bus shelter ad (unfortunately negative) for mayoral candidate Oliva Chow
Robocalls: 2, for mayoral candidate (and eventual victor) John Tory. I disapprove of robocalls
Flyer: 1 in my mailbox for mayoral candidate Doug Ford, 2 under my door for the challenger trustee candidate, 2 under my door for the incumbent councillor, one of which was accmpanied by a knock on the door (which I didn't answer, because I don't answer the door to strangers, which is yet another reason why people should announce themselves as they knock on the door)

Thursday, June 12, 2014

Voted

An uncomfortably hot day - normal summer temperatures, but early enough in the summer that I'm not used to them yet -  but a quick and easy vote.  I actually got my voter card in the mail (a first for an Ontario election, even though I've already voted six times provincially (including 2 by-elections) over the course of 15 years, and three of those times were at this address.  There was no line, the polling station people were friendly and cheerful, and everything went as smoothly as humanly possible.

Except that dogs are avoiding me today.

As I've blogged about in previous elections, good election outcomes correlate with me petting a doggie on my way to vote.  So I took the most roundabout route justifiable to my polling station, with the goal of petting a doggie along the way.

Unfortunately, the dogs just weren't buying it!

I greeted every opportune dog with "Hi puppy!" and a face full of love and enthusiasm, which usually gets them to try to jump up on me.  But none of them seemed interested.  I commented "Oh, what a cute/gorgeous dog!" to promising-looking dog owners, but got a lower response rate than usual, and, even when the human responded, the dog was uninterested and didn't engage with me at all.

I don't get why dogs aren't interested in me today! Do I smell?  Do I not smell? Can they tell I have an ulterior motive?

Ultimately, I gave three dogs a single tap on the back (while admiring them in a socially-appropriate manner, with their humans encouraging the interaction), but they didn't consent to more.  I hope that's enough to count as petting a dog for election outcome purposes.

Thursday, March 06, 2014

Saving face

Walking home today, I saw a lady walking two dogs on a patch of grass near my building, and another lady started yelling out the window at her to pick up her dogs' poo.

I have no horse in this race - I neither own a dog nor use the grass - but the way the lady was yelling out the window inspired in me a feeling of "I don't want her to win!" and my mind, unbidden, promptly started brainstorming ways to make window-yelling lady feel bad or to give dog-walking lady a perfectly good reason to walk away without picking up her dogs' poo. I pondered whether there was a way to make one of the dogs run away, and then Dog-Walking Lady would have to chase him.  I calculated whether I could lob a dog poo high enough that it would land in Window-Yelling Lady's stupid yelly face.  I contemplated yelling back at Window-Yelling Lady "The dogs aren't even finished pooing yet!" (Which was true.)  But I couldn't think of anything that would be effective, not escalate the situation, and not make me look crazier than Window-Yelling Lady.  So I just kept walking and didn't see how the situation ultimately played out

But this provided a perfect example of something I learned back in my professional writing classes: you have to give your interlocutor an opportunity to save face.  The way Window-Yelling Lady was making a big scene, trying to embarrass Dog-Walking Lady, and just kept yelling and yelling in a way that suggested her intention was to keep yelling until Dog-Walking Lady picked up the poo, created a situation where picking up the poo would be appearing to let Window-Yelling Lady win.  If Dog-Walking Lady had waited until her dogs both finished their business and picked up their poo - even if this were here intention all along - it would look like she did it in response to Window-Yelling Lady's yelling.  There was no way for Dog-Walking Lady to give Window-Yelling Lady or any other random onlooker the impression that she was intending the whole time to pick up after her dogs as soon as they actually finished pooing.  As a result, because she has no way of not looking bad, the temptation increases to exact vengeance on the person who's making her look bad by leaving the poo behind.

However, if, instead of yelling through the window and publicly embarrassing Dog-Walking Lady, Window-Yelling Lady had instead chosen an approach that appeared to give Dog-Walking Lady the benefit of the doubt - for example, offer her a baggie and say "It's the worst when they just have to go and you don't have a baggie, isn't it?"  This not only saves face for Dog-Walking Lady by treating her like a perfectly reasonable dog owner, it creates a scenario where Dog-Walking Lady would have to introduce assholicness into the situation by walking away and leaving the poo behind even though the nice neighbour lady had just helped her out by giving her a baggie.

It also reminded me of something that comes up in advice column forums.  Sometimes, for letters dealing with fraught social situations where one party is not exhibiting the desired behaviour, the advice columnist or various commenters might suggest an approach that presents the desired behaviour as a pro tip (e.g. "We've found it helpful to respond actionable emails acknowledging that we've received them - just a quick "Thanks!" will do - so then the other person doesn't have to worry about whether we got it.") or by requesting it as a bit of a favour in response to a personal quirk or a one-off situation (e.g. "Could you do me a favour and let me know you got this email? The mail server has been erratic lately.") However, there are always people who always argue against these more subtle approaches, saying you should simply tell the person to engage in the desired behaviour ("Stop not answering your email!"), regardless of whether you have any authority over them, often even saying that you should tell them to engage in the desired behaviour pre-emptively (the email example doesn't work for this one, but it does apply to my mother's habit of telling me to hang up my coat before I've even taken off my coat, or telling me to say thank-you before I've even opened the present.)

I've been trying for some time to articulate why I don't think this approach would be productive, and Window-Yelling Lady showed me why.  It creates a win-lose situation, and labels the person you want to engage in the desired behaviour as Someone Who Won't Engage In The Desired Behaviour.  If they do it, it looks like they only did it just because you told them to, and therefore your nagging is necessary.  If they don't do it, it makes them look like Someone Who Won't Engage In The Desired Behaviour, and therefore your nagging is necessary.  It doesn't leave them any room to be seen as Being Good or give them any credit for their positive actions, so their only remaining incentive for the desired behaviour (other than the fact that it's right, which the nagger obviously doesn't believe is sufficient incentive) is to stop the nagger from nagging, which probably isn't going to work anyway because the nagger is going to think their nagging caused the desired behaviour.

But if you allow them to save face, it creates a win-win situation: you've extracted the desired behaviour from them, and they get to look like they're doing it on their own initiative.

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Why would you throw puppies in the garbage, even if you are cruel and heartless?

In the news today, some guy put a bunch of puppies in a suitcase and threw them in the garbage. (Happy ending, adorable pictures.)

I don't understand why a person would do this. And by that I don't mean that I can't imagine being cruel to puppies (although that's true too). What I mean is, even if you take disrespect or hatred for puppies as a given, I don't understand why you'd do it this particular way.

If you're too lazy to take them to a proper shelter and don't care if the dogs survive, why not put them outside and close the door, leaving them to their own devices?

If you want to kill them, why not kill them? Why abandon them somewhere where you won't be able to get whatever pleasure killers get of watching them die yourself?

If, for whatever reason, it is important to you to throw them in the garbage, why go to all the trouble of putting them in a suitcase first? Putting six puppies in a suitcase sounds difficult.

If you're trying to avoid other people finding out that you're getting rid of puppies, why not let them loose? They might wander off or chase a squirrel or be picked up by someone who's in the market for a puppy, and end up somewhere where they can't be traced back to you. Or, if they do hang out near your home even though you've let them loose, you can claim that they could have come from anywhere and chased a squirrel over here, and you don't know anything about them.

Or, as my co-worker pointed out, why not post an ad on Craigslist saying "Puppies for sale"? People actually pay significant money for dogs!

Putting them in a suitcase in the garbage is a sub-optimal way of achieving whatever the goal of someone who would do that sort of thing might be.

Sunday, July 03, 2011

Analogy for everything

This comes from an article on why dogs bite, but it applies to everything in the world:

Bites are usually caused by an accumulation of stressors. Each time a dog is exposed to a stressor, stress hormones are dumped into the brain. These stress hormones are like the puzzle pieces in Tetris. They build up over time. You have to actively reduce the stress (like a Tetris player clearing lines) through management, desensitization, counter conditioning, and general stress reduction techniques. If you are not taking steps to reduce the stress, it begins to accumulate. The dumping of stress hormones into the brain leaves the dog increasingly sensitized to stressors, which replicates the puzzle pieces dropping faster and faster until you eventually reach the threshold. Soon, the dog bites. The game is over.

Stressors vary in individual dogs. One dog may be stressed by loud noises, nail trimming, men with beards, wearing a shock collar, foul weather, and a bad diet. Another dog may not seemingly respond to these factors but is sensitive to visits to the vet’s office, small children, cats, people that smell like beer, dogs walking past the fenced in yard, and people approaching or entering the home. Every dog has stressors (commonly called “triggers”) and a big part of effective behavioral modification strategies is identifying these as accurately and thoroughly as possible, which allows behavior consultants and handlers to focus their efforts most efficiently. Stressors, like Tetris pieces, accumulate over time.


This explains introvert brain. The more time you have to spend in the company of other people without a moment of privacy, the more stressors (Tetris pieces) accumulate until you melt down.

This explains how phobias work. The more you're exposed to triggers (or the threat thereof) without having time to reset, the jumpier and edgier you get, and the more susceptible you get to future triggers. (Among other problems, this is why desensitization therapy is problematic when you're likely to have uncontrollable exposure to your triggers in everyday life.)

This explains why, when I was a kid, I often had trouble just being nice and putting up with stuff that grownups thought I should be able to just be nice and put up with. After being bullied all day in school, and having my sister get all up in my business when I got home, and being subject to whatever lectures and judgement external factors had made my grownups feel like delivering regardless of whether I needed to hear them, and having no control whatsoever over when I arrived and left and went to bed and woke up and ate (or even what I ate), I had very little room left to just fake being nice so we can all get along. It's not that I've matured, it's that I can now go home or eat potato chips whenever I damn well please, which clears a lot of Tetris lines.

It's the most multi-purpose analogy I've ever met. I think if you're lacking an analogy for anything, this one just might do the trick.

Sunday, June 27, 2010

In loving memory of the dog next door

His ears were pointy, his tail was curly, and he was unwaveringly diligent in fulfilling what he saw as his sworn duties: to warn the neighbourhood of impending squirrels and to catch any frisbees that may pass his way.

He came into my parents' neighbours' household as a companion for an elderly lady, whom he brought much joy and ended up outliving. When I was in high school (which I guess shows how old he was!), when I came home from school he'd trot up to the fence to investigate and stick his snout underneath. I'd give him my hand and he'd give me a sniff and a lick. Then I'd go inside with a smile on my face.

I just received word that he was put down, following an illness that made eating and breathing difficult. He must have been at the very least 13 years old.

We didn't really have much of a relationship beyond our daily encounter at the fence. I don't even know if I ever even had a chance to pet him face to face. But he made me smile every single day, sometimes the only smile I'd get that day. For that alone, he will never be forgotten.

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Things They Should Invent: do not disturb signs for dogs

Some people like it when random people pay attention to their dog while walking down the street. Others don't - maybe it interferes with the dog's training, maybe the dog doesn't deal well with strangers, maybe they're in a hurry and don't want to have to stop for every squeeing idiot. The problem is, as a squeeing idiot, I have no way of knowing which dogs are which. I don't want to annoy anyone or ruin anyone's training, but at the same time I love your dog and don't want to miss a chance to interact if it will make everyone happy.

So what we need is some kind of standardized, easily-visible convention for leashes or collars or something that indicates to the onlooker that the dog does not want to be disturbed, similar to how service dogs have a distinctive harness. Perhaps it could be something temporary that you could add to an existing leash setup, in case your dog is okay with being disturbed sometimes but not always.

Random idea that came to me while typing: neckerchiefs. Sometimes people put neckerchiefs on dogs (which has always baffled me - it seems random and arbitrary - but whenever I ask dog people about it they say "It looks nice!" as though it's completely self-evident). Maybe a kerchief on the dog's neck or tied to the collar could mean do not disturb.

Friday, March 19, 2010

This is harder than I thought

The loss of this little dog, who isn't even mine, is really kicking my ass. I've been trying to figure out why (I've known dogs who have died before, I've known people who have died too) and I think it's because a) it was unexpected, b) this is the first bereavement I've had as an adult, and c) I don't actually have any claim to this dog.

My previous bereavement was nearly 10 years ago (which is a hella long time to go without bereavement!), when my grandfather passed away. (I know some people aren't going to like that I'm comparing a dog and a grandfather, but this is the emotional frame of reference I have available.) He spent the better part of a year dying, so by the time it actually happened we were ready. We'd grieved months ago. In comparison, it only took a day or two for the little dog to start acting not entirely well, go to the vet, get diagnosed, and get put down. Even though he was nearly 15, I wasn't expecting this.

When my grandfather passed away, I was still a teenager and had only just moved out of my parents' house. While intellectually I felt like I should be fulfilling an adult role, functionally I wasn't yet expected to. It was okay to just go hide in my room for a while. If I did anything to help out, the grownups saw that as a bonus. But here I can't go hide in my room and leave the condolences and the business of everyday life to the grownups. I have to hold my own, pull my weight on my team at work, plus keep food in the fridge and get my taxes done, and on top of all this do right by the dog's human.

And that's the other problem. He's not my dog, he's someone else's dog. When my grandfather died, he was my grandfather. Yes, he a husband and a father to other members of my family, but our grandparent-grandchild relationship was perfectly valid, so I was perfectly entitled to grieve however I needed to. But this little dog is not mine, so the grief belongs to his human. I have to be supportive of his human. I can't give the impression that I think the decision to have him put down was incorrect (and intellectually I don't think it was incorrect - intellectually I know we're bearing the pain so this poor little doggie doesn't have to - but emotionally I'm still sobbing "But he's just a little dog! He barked and wagged and ran and played and never hurt anyone!"). You can skip out on obligations because your grandfather just died, but you can't skip out on obligations because a dog you've never even lived with just died.

So it's not just the grief, it's that I don't feel like I'm allowed to have this grief, and that I'm supposed to be strong for the person who is allowed to have this grief.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

:(

I just found out that one of the dogs in my life passed away. He was a tiny little bundle of energy who was just so excited and thrilled about everything and anything. The first time I met him (nearly 15 years ago) he tried to eat the buttons off my clothes. The last time I saw him (a few months ago) he licked my face so excitedly his tongue went up my nose.

I was never by any remote definition his human, I have no claim to him, technically I'm not the one bereaved.

But I'm still grieving. I can't help it.

(PS: if anyone posts rainbow bridge, I'll kick their ass)

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Parenting FAIL

In the mall, there's a big gorgeous doggie (kind of weimaranerish) tied to a railing, presumably while his humans stepped into a store. A couple pushing a toddler in a stroller comes up, squees at the doggie, and stops to pet it. But they park the stroller off to the side, as though it's an unimportant shopping cart, and don't involve the kid in the doggie interaction at all!

Aren't you supposed to show interesting animals to your small child whenever the opportunity presents itself? Shouldn't you be saying to your kid "LOOK! It's a DOGGIE! Look at the DOGGIE!" and taking him out of the stroller to interact with the doggie under your careful supervision? Even if you don't want to have your kid pet the dog since the dog is taller than your kid and the dog's humans aren't around, shouldn't you turn the stroller so your kid can watch and learn from the doggie interaction rather than turning him towards the wall?

Saturday, November 07, 2009

Things They Should Invent: car seats for dogs

Based on the people I know who have both cars and dogs (a small sample), it seems standard operating procedure is either to put your dog in the car, perhaps tell him to sit, and leave him to his own devices, or to put your dog in the crate and put the crate in the car, perhaps securing it with the seat belt.

They really should invent either a car seat-type device for dogs, or a crate-specific way of securing the crate (similar to how baby seats attach to the car), or something so that Mr. Puppyface doesn't get hurt if there's a car accident.

Saturday, October 31, 2009

Astronauts and dogs and Twitter

1. Astronaut Leland Melvin appears to have had a formal astronaut portrait taken with his big gorgeous dogs! I'd love to have been behind the scenes in that photo session.

2. Astronauts Scott Kelly and Ron Garan, currently in Moscow, found a stray dog...on a train!

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Dog etiquette question

If a dog clearly consents to me petting him - like it was totally Mr. Puppyface's idea in the first place - should I still be asking his human's permission?

Monday, October 05, 2009

I love Improv Everywhere

Invisible dogs!

This would actually be interesting as an acting/improv training exercise, because you have to get in character as the dog. You see a pigeon or some garbage or another dog, what would your dog do? I think it would be a good way to practise committing to a character without the complexity of a human character that you don't know everything about.

Sunday, September 20, 2009