talk herdy to me

humans are a weird, opportunistic, hyper-adaptable and variable primate and we have evolved to have a LOT of variety in size, shape, metabolism, and weight retention. this has been essential to survival in hard times and easy times. you know the thing people talk about sometimes how about half the population are night people and about half are morning people so we'd be better able to watch at night as a group? yeah, weight variation is like that: there's a lot of latent variation in human populations because as a community we survive significantly better if some of us are fuckin ready to not die during the longass winter of death and some of us can eat their weight in fish and then run a mile immediately after. this is also why some people gain muscle crazy fast and some people don't: muscle requires a lot of energy, so some people are built to gain a lot during a plentiful season and be really efficient then and some people are built to use less energy over time and be more useful during a long hungry period. cats and almost all other vertebrates simply don't have this kind of complex community variation built in, and tend to be much more uniform in build and weight. humans tend to be really variable in body and brain, and that's one of the biggest factors that's made us so successful! there are just a LOT of ways to be a human being.

He keeps his animals in enclosures that are far too small for them, participates in mass breeding without care for the health or well-being of the animals involved, including creating morbidly obsese animals to have the "biggest" ones for clout and so that he can breed them as fast and often as possible since they don't get too skinny from being bred too often while being massively overfed. He's also well known for cutting eggs (which by itself is.... eh but-) where he removes the entire top, pulling live babies out, and putting them back in, which is ridiculously dangerous to the baby.

This year he's going to be getting his own television show. I don't know the name of it yet, but given his behavior on youtube - where he purposely elicits stress responses, defensive behaviors, and bite attempts from large reptiles purely for views, with no interest in whether these actions are in the interest of the animal's best welfare - I doubt he is going to improve any. The producers are GOING to try to sensationalize it a la Tiger King.

Please, I am asking you to not support this man or his new show. He represents the worst side of the hobby, the people that have no business being in business, no business keeping the animals he does. Don't spite watch, don't curiosity watch; pirate it someplace if you must, but any views that count toward success of his show only puts more into his pockets to continue doing things he shouldn't, and it's his animals (and the animals his popularity convince others to buy thinking they can do the same as him) that pay the price for it.

in between humans, i don't always speak the language either. love has always been hard for me. i don't trust it. i can't read it easily on people's faces - i'm usually trying to read past it; to the "other parts", the ones that make sense to me.

but my mom always offers me food as soon as i get through the door. my brother calls me at weird hours, just to be talking. my sister has a nightmare; asks me to please drive safe in the morning. i throw my friends random parties, just to celebrate something. she drives 45 minutes to spend 3 hours with me. amelia holds my hand while we both cross the street.

no, my dog and i don't have the same language. so what? this is not the same thing as communication. my dog is a good study in how trauma can heal - a rescue from the racetrack; i've been watching his personality develop slowly. in the last year, he's gotten so comfortable with me that he'll ask me to sit down on the grass so he can use my body as a seat. (it's important to note: he is huge. he squishes me. i don't complain. i find it lovely.)

love for us is also just endorphins and behavioral response. i'm a poet, the number of sad men that have tried to "teach me" how stupid it is to be a hopeless romantic is ... not a low one. i cannot count how many times someone has argued - it's all chemical stimulus - as if the fact of it makes it less magical. we're just electrical signals reading the universe! that's fucked up. that's so beautiful.

i find it hard to believe that in the spectrum of evolution we are the only species to feel like this - we already know that dogs and cats also have endorphins. why wouldn't they experience joy? love? companionship? in what world is it a new thing that i had to earn it? in every relationship, both individuals have to work to learn the language. i had to teach my dog what trust is. it's okay that it took time for him to learn it.

in the human world, when i love someone, it's hard for me to speak it. i write them poems or make them food or give them a cool rock i found on the beach.

i don't know how to tell goblin i love him, so i tell him through treats. through a new collar, fancy mattresses, a little bow on his leash. i tell him with long walks and petting him and sitting down on the wet ground so my 70 pound sharp noodle of a dog can prance on my thigh bones and take an awkward - if loving - seat.

if you can please share this to help spread the word i would be forever grateful. here are some ridiculously cute pictures of the babies as payment.

06.21.22 fennec fox requested by @bogfox !

it’s probably best to keep this specific border collie on your side.

YOU can help Punch get dinner! Starting February 1st 💕

Everyday Punch the Border Collie suffers from waiting-for-kibble disease :(

This is a terminal illness that he will never recover from; each day his condition grows more annoying. He is waiting-for-kibble now and he will be waiting-for-kibble tomorrow. You can help him by purchasing a tee shirt or hoodie that directly funds his Purina Pro Plan (20/30 sport) addiction, while also supporting a really good cause! Which is cultivating cooperation, between people and Punch, but other dogs too I guess. If that’s what you want.

bonfire.com/cultivate-cooperation-with-punch

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