Obviously I want you to take care of your pets and make sure they get food and fresh water on a regular basis, but cats being huge drama queens and screaming hysterically at you and acting like they’re tragic famine victims who haven’t eaten in weeks and are about to drop dead from starvation right mcfuckin now, because you’re 10 minutes late feeding them is always going to be one of the funniest things to me
the cat who lives at the vet clinic i volunteer at was mad yesterday because his dinner was half an hour late due to a busy day. he proceeded to go to all the (empty dw) garbage cans and tried to knock them over and started desperately scavenging for scraps of food because obviously no one loves him or cares about him and if he must eat garbage to survive then so be it
not food related, but one time my cat cried at me for 20 minutes before i worked out that the reason why she was upset was because there was a coat hanger on her favourite cushion
This is absolutely beautiful and changed my life, thank you so much. Please protect her from hangers at all costs
wow. am STORVING and humaines here making joke laugh at cate honger ?!
My cat is a social eater who is not food motivated at all, so I was baffled when I first got him because he didn’t seem to care about food but he would SCREAM at me for hours when I knew his bowl was full. Any time I went to double check that he did indeed have food, he’d book it to the bowl and snarf like his life depended on it, but as soon as I walked away he’d follow me screaming again.
Eventually I figured out that he just wanted a dining companion and was screaming about how we’re a family and families eat together, god damnit! I moved his food bowl under my computer desk and it fixed the problem. But if I’m ever out for more than 12 hours I’ll come home to find him in a passive-aggressive kitty huff because dinner has been ready for hours but he’s been trying to be considerate (unlike some humans) and waiting for me to eat it.
On of my kitties starts begging about 2 hours before his actual soft food feeding time (hard food is available 24 hours for my babies). He will cry about how unloved he is and we’ll just joke back like “oh you tragic creature, I know, we beat you every day and threaten you constantly life is just HORRIBLE”. Cats, man.
idk, man… as a cat it would be pretty frightening when you realize that you’re at the mercy of a really big dumb cat for all your food. Because like 90% of the food around the house isn’t things you can eat. Not that some cats don’t try. My cat ate broccoli once.
My female will sit ever so patiently waiting for her dish to be filled. Occasionally she’ll cry sweetly (she actually has a little question mark at the end of her cries), but then when we go to feed her, her bowl is full save for one little spot at the bottom. She will sit there for hours and will refuse to eat because as far as she’s concerned her bowl is empty if she can see so much as a millimeter of the bottom.
That stupid post about why women and queer people love cats has still got me all fucked up because like a cat is a small animal that is wholly reliant on you it can’t live in your home without your permission and you have to actively and willingly keep it there and this chucklefuck is mad that this animal, that has no decision making power over its own life, doesn’t adequately return the “emotional labor” of being cared for as if the cat understands feminist theory or philosophy in general.
Like the cat weighs seven pounds, you can cut his balls off, and you literally legally own him. If you don’t like having him around you can easily remove him. You aren’t in an abusive financially dependant relationship with him because he’s not a grown human man its a CAT
This woman makes it embarassingly obvious she doesnt have any friends
This woman has obviously never had a cat that actually liked her.
(ps: it’s been proven that cats like humans. Also, they won’t eat your corpse unless they’re starving, and they only pee on things when something is wrong- they don’t think “I am angry and will punish the human by peeing here”, they’re cats.)
in high school, I was part of a group of art kids who essentially rented an empty classroom one weekend for a costumed photography session. there were no supervising adults anywhere to be found. we were all known as respectable nerds who did well in class, got along with our teachers, and never really did anything objectionable (beyond submitting portraits of Patrick Stewart with large naked breasts for our semester projects… ahem). so I guess administration figured we could be trusted with full reign of the empty school – the fact that several students were kids of board members didn’t hurt.
the photo shoot went well and we had lots of fun posing for and taking hipster portraits and eating snacks. I was just flattered to be considered attractive enough to photograph, since it wasn’t really my clique.
soon, though, we realized the limitless possibilities of an abandoned school where security cameras had not yet been installed. we ran up and down hallways in our underwear, breaking into classrooms to dance upon the desks. we did topless cartwheels across the cafeteria and just… clowned around while doing absolutely zero damage to any school property, until we heard the front door unlock as the janitor came to work. cue a MAD SCRAMBLE across the school to get back to our clothes without getting caught – I swear it was like a level in a video game.
Lotf? Breakdown of civilisation when there is lack of supervising authority
Oh, civilization didn’t break down. We didn’t cause any harm. We just became less clothed and more silly.
Text RACE to 73822 to tell Jack Daniels to stop supporting this abusive race
i think light n brief sledding is ok but many work these poor beautiful dogs to death!..I couldn’t let them sleep outside in the cold either, they would be in the tent with me..lol..I wish they could get rescued..I would love to save one!
I have been working with and running sled dogs in various aspects of the sport for a number of years and got into it because I love the dogs and the sheer delight they have for running in harness. I am always disappointed when it is misrepresented, which does happen from time to time. The Iditarod specifically has been targeted in this instance, although it’s only one of numerous races – albeit the one that is most commercialized and therefore in the public eye more.
Some days I’m content to let the misconceptions be and ignore them, secure in the knowledge that I am striving to take the best care possible for my dogs and give them a well-rounded, happy life with lots of attention, playtime, and mental and physical enrichment. Other days the misconceptions get to me and, being a musher who loves her dogs dearly and knows the amount of work and dedication that goes into a sled dog team, I just get overly frustrated and have to say something.
Today is one of the latter days.
Training sled dogs to run a marathon race is a matter of both dogs and conditioning. The dogs are huskies with both the genetic desire and the physical capability to run for long distances – and to do so happily. They have a thick double-coat like a wolf and, like their wild cousins, thrive in subzero Winters.
Conditioning starts with small training runs and gradually builds up miles so that the dogs don’t have difficulty running these longer distances. Last Winter the team was running 40-milers but this Fall we didn’t start with that. We didn’t even start with a 20-miler. Could they do it? Sure, but it would take a toll physically on them since they wouldn’t be conditioned to routinely run that distance. That would be working them too hard. So we started small, doing 3-mile runs with frequent breaks. After that we built up to 5-milers, then 7-milers, then 9. We did two back-to-back 9-milers this weekend and are now taking a few days break before our first 12-miler of the season.
As the dogs become more conditioned and in shape, doing 100-150-mile races in January and February will be no hardship for them. I’m not training for anything like the Iditarod this year (my race team, at eight dogs, is half the size of an Iditarod team) but those mushers who are have their own training and conditioning program to make sure their dogs are fit enough to run a mushing marathon like that.
In addition to a complete physical exam, any dog that is entered in the Iditarod must be microchipped, undergo an EKG as well as have blood drawn for a CBC, full chemistry and electrolyte panel before being allowed to race. This is more screening than the average “pet” dog undergoes before a surgical proceedure. The race’s veterinary crew is stationed at checkpoints along the trail during the race itself – and this hold true for any modern sled dog race, not just the Iditarod. Mushers are required to have a vet book with exam information on each dog in the team with them at all times in every mid-distance race I have been to and, at many races (including the Iditarod), this book must be signed before the team can leave a checkpoint.
Ironically, in the PETA video from the original post, there is actually footage of either mushers or veterinarians checking the health of the dogs. It’s not something someone unfamiliar with sled dogs would pick up on because you wouldn’t even know to look for it, but it definitely made me do a double-take since it’s so contradictory to the message the video clip is trying to push.
And I’m not just talking about the clip where we see a musher putting a protective coat on their dog.
The two things that really stand out to me are actually after the dog-jacket clip. First we see someone extending a forelimb of a dog.
This is something we do a lot, both on sled dogs and on any patient where we want to check flexion and range of motion. With sled dogs, it’s very important to make sure they have good range of motion and that their legs aren’t painful when extended or flexed – especially after a rest.
In the very next clip, there’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment where the musher or veterinarian lifts up a dog’s lip and checks the gum. This is a common method of checking hydration by making sure the gums do not appear tacky, and you can check CRT (Capilary Refill Time) by pressing on the gums and seeing how quickly the pink color returns. Checking the color of the gums is also important as abnormal coloration could be indicitive of a problem.
Veterinary care in all walks of life has improved over the past decades, and sled dog racing is no exception. Understanding of conditioning and the physiology of working dogs has lead to massive improvements in the Iditarod, whereas in the early 1970s when the race began, knowledge of distance racing was scant and resulted in a high number of dog fatalities – especially in the first two years of the race.
There’s a general rule of thumb in sled dog racing that you rest your team for approximately the same length of time you run them, so they are able to recuperate and continue. Every musher’s philosophy and schedule is a bit different of course and each race is different. The Iditarod requires designated amounts of rest time at certain checkpoints but most of it is left up to the musher and team since some might choose to rest at a checkpoint but others prefer to camp along the trail as it’s quieter for the dogs. This is why the amount of “required” rest (ie. rest at checkpoints) seems low.
“My dogs didn’t eat literally the one time when they were filmed in Rainy pass. Because it was warm. And they literally ate 15000 calories 5 hours previous and snacks 2 hours previous. Do you show that? No. Matt filmed me feeding once the whole Iditarod! Now I know why. Dogs don’t eat sometimes. Even house pets.”
It’s also worth noting that the Rainy Pass checkpoint is less than two hundred miles into the Iditarod, teams usually reach it on the second day of the race. No team has been racing for nine days when they reach that checkpoint.
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