Lonely and Hungry

I was visiting a friend of the family one time and I was just casually watching tv when I thought I heard the water running. I go into the kitchen but everything’s fine. the parrot looks at me and says “gotcha”.

He likes to scream and mimic the sounds of things falling off the shelf and when we run into the room to see what’s happening he says “The cat did it! Bad Sammy!” and laughs.

Whenever he gets mad at me he flies away from me, but since he can’t fly very well, he always crash lands. And the first thing he says when I go to pick him up, without fail, is always “You need to vacuum,” in a very bitter grumble. 

Loki likes to call our cat to him. He’ll sit there for minutes saying “here kitty kitty kitty.” The cat will come, walk up to the bird, get bit and then Loki will laugh as the cat screams and runs away. This goes on for hours. 

If it’s late at night and he’s tired, but I’m still up with the lights on, he’ll say “Loki go night night.” It’s starts of in a normal tone and then gets louder and louder until he’s screaming “LOKI GO NIGHT NIGHT!” 

If he sees my dad fall asleep, he screams like a little girl to scare my dad awake. And then laughs. He’s kind of perfected that evil laugh.

We decided jokingly that the room was haunted and named the ghost Jeff and even made it a door tag. 

Me and my roommate began to notice a trend it the activity of “Jeff” He always seemed to act up most when I talked shit about Thomas Jefferson or James Madison’s personality/policies/etc. 

We began to joke that it was Thomas Jefferson or James Madison (hell we even joked it might be Dolley)

Well the other day, our ghost confirmed himself as “Thomas Jefferson.” 

After a particularly rude attack on Thomas Jefferson character (I claimed the best thing he ever did was die.) A fucking giant ass jumbo size box of Mac and Cheese fell off of the tallest shelf in our dorm room. 

I’m talking one of these babies but it’s like a 20 pack. To me it’s obviously that this is obviously proof that “inventor” of mac and cheese, 3rd President of the United States who was born and died in Virginia travelled to Upstate New York in an area he never even came close to in his life to haunt my dorm 

My roommate is not convinced though: She still thinks it could be James Madison. 

But a Madison-sized ghost couldn’t have reached the mac and cheese (We conducted an experiment to see if Madison would have been able to reach it when he was only 5′4″ and being 5′4″, I couldn’t even reach it jumping up and down.)

So yes, me and my roommate have proved undeniable that Thomas Jefferson haunts our dorm room.

Tears fill my eyes as I read the words on my screen. The world seems to stop spinning for the slightest second as I re-read the anonymous message over and over again, gripping on to the hope that the words will magically disappear. But they didn’t. Anon had done it; they’d figured out that the only way to make me take off my hijab was to call my hair ugly. My one weakness.

A tear streams down my left cheek.

Eight years of academy hijab training…wasted. I had to prove this extremely relevant and good-looking anonymous person wrong, I cared too much about what they thought. How could I live my life knowing that there is one person out there who thinks probably my hair is ugly maybe? How could I look myself in the mirror? How could I face my family? My shoulders shook as I cried silently, and my chair squeaked ever so slightly at the vibrations; as if it, too, was crying in sorrow.

It wasn’t until that moment that the second part of the message dawned on me… how would I prove them wrong without breaking the rules? Was it really against the rules? I reach into my hijab and pull out a scroll. At the very top, in cursive jet-black inked letters, the word ‘Rules’ stares back at me. My heart is racing as my eyes frantically read the scroll.

‘Rule #1: no killing people,’ it reads. I let out a whimper. There go my evening plans. 

Suddenly, my eye catches the next words. The scroll is rustling in my trembling hands as I turn my face away, tears spraying out of my eyes like the spit of a white person as they try to justify racism. The cursive words felt more like a curse of words, vivid and refusing to disappear as if I were still staring at them even through my closed eyes.

The transplant could be conducted on a woman ‘born without a uterus, or who had it removed or have uterine damage’ – this would make trans women eligible for the procedure.

A 26-year-old woman who is undergoing the screening process told The Times: ‘I crave that experience.

‘I want the morning sickness, the backaches, the feet swelling. I want to feel the baby move. That is something I’ve wanted for as long as I can remember.’

Dr Christine McGinn, a plastic surgeon, told Yahoo News: ‘The human drive to be a mother for a woman is a very serious thing.

He’d want me to thank you, so here is a photo of him synchronized sleeping with his sister, French Toast.

The third kitty is Hash Brown. She is very small.

Can’t go over it.

Can’t go under it.

Can’t go around it.

Gotta go through it.

This is AMAZING!

For those who can’t go to the link, the following is what it says:

FYI, none of this is mine. It was posted by Bilton veterinary centre, the same one as in the picture. All credit goes to them but I felt it was important to get word out about some of the breeds of dogs that are riddled with health problems. If you own a pug that’s perfectly healthy that’s cool, but it’s doesn’t change the fact that an alarming number of short nosed (almost no nosed at this point) dogs have extreme difficulty with tasks like breathing and blinking.

 "So I am going to have a rant now and I apologise in advance if this upsets anyone, but here goes.

   Last week, I managed to reduce a lovely family to floods of tears.  They had brought their new dog in to come and see me.  There was a young lady, her husband and their two children of about 8 or 9 years old and they were all already absolutely besotted with their new pet - their first dog, and they had been planning it for several years.

   The dog was a 5-month-old French Bulldog that they had picked up from a breeder about 4 weeks previously.  They were concerned that their new dog may have “a chill” as the dog had sore runny eyes,  difficulty in eating and kept making a choking sound.  They had also noticed the dog had a “funny smell” about him. As I examined the dog it became quickly apparent what was occurring and my heart sank.

  This dog was yet another increasingly popular “short-nosed” breed that was suffering horribly from a myriad of problems - all related to its poor breeding and its unfortunate anatomy. After the examination, I found that this dog had: 

 - Eyeballs too big for its eye sockets. So much so, that when he blinked, the eyelids didn’t fully cover the eyeballs.  (Imagine going out on a windy day and not being able to blink!) This had resulted in deep painful ulcers forming on both eyes that in the short term would require intensive treatment and could feasibly result in the rupture of one or both eyeballs. 

  - The bones forming the front of his face (the maxilla) were so squashed by virtue of this style of this breed (called the brachycephalics), that the soft-tissue structures of the throat are compressed and forced backwards -  obstructing his larynx.  Amongst other things, his soft palate was so elongated (relative to his skull) that it kept getting trapped over his wind-pipe.

 -His nostrils were completely occluded, so absolutely no airflow was possible through his nose.  All of his breathing had to take place through his open mouth.  This meant that whilst he was eating/sleeping he was going through bouts of asphyxiation and so would have to spit the food out or wake up and open his mouth - purely so he would be able to breathe.  This explained the “choking” sound that there were hearing all the time.  He could just manage to breathe with his mouth open, but this then exacerbated the problems with his soft palate.

 - The skin fold over the top of the nose (caused by the squashed face involuting the skin) had caused a crevice of around 2-3 cms deep, where the skin was rubbing against its self.  In this area, the skin was ulcerated and was full of liquid pus.  It was this that the owners were smelling.  This was incredibly painful for the animal and he cried every time I tried to clean it.

 -The skin around his feet, ears, armpits and groin was red raw and inflamed.   He clearly was very itchy and had been licking at these areas repeatedly - which had, in turn, made them more sore and painful.  This is very typical of a condition called “atopy” which is very common in many breeds, particularly the Bulldogs (French and English). So at this point, the shocked owners asked what needed to be done to sort him out.

  So I had to explain that he would need: 

 - Bilateral eyelid shortening surgery that would allow the dog to blink properly and prevent further ulcers from forming.  As well as long-term medication to improve the quality of his tears.

 - Complex soft tissue surgery of the back of the throat to, (amongst other things) shorten his soft palate to facilitate his breathing.

 - He would need both of his nostrils opening up so as to allow adequate air flow to be possible to allow him to breathe/exercise/eat/sleep properly.

 -He would need a “face-lift” to remove a large amount of excess skin on the front of his face, to try and open up the fold that was causing so much infection and pain.

 -He may need allergy testing, food trials, anti-inflammatories etc to try and manage the atopic skin disease that he has. 

 *He needs all of this fairly urgently.  

 *He can’t have all of this done at once and so will require several anaesthetics and complex procedures to be done over a period of time.   

*He is only 5 months old. 

*He needs all of this doing - just so that he can live a vaguely normal life.   

*HE IS SUFFERING. 

 Also - he is not insured.  It transpired that the new owners looked into insurance but the premium was so high for this breed, that they felt they couldn’t afford it.  To move forward, he would have to go to a specialist veterinary unit (sadly recently set up to deal with the increasing number of very poorly brachycephalic dogs with extreme conformational issues) and this treatment could cost upwards of £8,000 to correct.

 Once I had discussed all this with the owners - they were understandably distraught.  They had hoped for a “cute” and “cuddly” family pet that they had seen examples of spread throughout popular media.  They had no idea that these problems even existed.  Instead, they now have a much-loved dog that is miserable, has a long journey ahead of it and one that they cannot afford to have fixed.

 The family left the room in floods of tears, armed with medication that would temporarily alleviate some of the symptoms and try to make the poor little dog more comfortable.  From what I have later found out, this dog has gone to a rescue centre to be rehomed.  It may have moved away, but its problems most certainly will not have done.

 Pugs, Frenchies, English Bulldogs and Shar-Peis are amongst the breeds which are increasingly being abandoned in vast numbers as people cannot cope with their ongoing problems, illnesses and costs.  It upsets us all hugely when we see how many of the problems frequently associated with these breeds are now classed as “normal”. I will commonly hear “Oh it is normal for this breed to struggle with A, B or C”. NO IT ISN’T NORMAL!

 These trendy flat-faced breeds are some of the most expensive puppies to currently buy.  There is serious money for people who sell a litter of these puppies and so the incentive to breed is VERY high.  It must be said that there are responsible breeders who are trying to “back-breed” these types of dogs to have longer noses, smaller eyes, more open nostrils etc and try to reduce the incidence of these conditions, and these people should be applauded.  However, puppy farms and irresponsible owners are rife, and these “breeders” don’t seem to care a jot about the long-term prognosis and what the future holds for “their” breed. 

 It is also worth noting that many of these breeds are unable to give birth naturally now too (due to the shape of the puppy’s skulls) and so the mothers often go through multiple caesareans… 

 PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE STOP AND THINK before you buy.  Come and talk to US about the breeds that you are interested in - and we shall give you the whole picture.

 I am completely exhausted and totally demoralised seeing these type of problems on a daily basis.  There are enough horrible illnesses, diseases and potential accidents out there without being destined to be unwell before you are even born.

I was watching a video the other day of a service dog in training. He was heeling beautifully beside his handler in a department store, sitting on command, performing a long distance down stay, and just being a really good dog. The handler wrote a short bit about how proud she was for how well her puppy was doing with his public access training. However, my heart truly breaks for this dog.

What the handler failed to realize is how completely uncomfortable her dog was to be there. Despite him behaving near flawlessly, his body language was screaming he’d rather be anywhere but where he was right then. Unfortunately many dog owners fail to notice subtle, yet key, signs of stress for their dog. Without knowing how to read subtle changes in body language, you can easily cause your dog to go from mildly nervous or uncomfortable, to a full on panic or rage in a matter of seconds. This is what happens when people say their dog “just had a meltdown,” or even snapped at someone, for “no reason.”  Ignoring stress signals is incredibly dangerous for everyone involved.

When out training with your service dog (or your pet dog for that matter), it is important to get into the habit of carefully watching your dog’s body language. It helps to write down in a training log exactly how your dog reacts to different stimuli. This way, you will be able to clearly see where your dog is solid, where your dog is not, where you are improving, and where you need more work.

Below are signs of minor stress signals for dogs.

When I say minor, this doesn’t mean you should continue what you are doing in hopes he will just “get over it.”  What I DO mean is that these are the signals which are almost always overlooked… when key stress signals are overlooked by the handler, it can lead to much greater problems.

Lip licking when no food is present

Yawning when he didn’t just wake up

Rapid sniffing of the air or ground

Stiff movement or tense muscles

Slowed movement or a laggy heel

Lowered tail

Hyper vigilance (rapidly moving eyes trying to scan the environment)

Hardened facial features

Dog stops taking treats/food

Dog starts taking treats in a more hard/bitey manor

Hard eyes (fast/sharp blinking)

Weight shift changes

Panting when it’s not hot out

Slightly roached (curved) back

Ears back

Not responding to handler’s commands

Looking away from handler

Whiney and uneasy

Nibbling on treats but not actually eating them

Leaning on the handler

Scratching themselves

Now here are some major stress signals for dogs.

If your dog is experiencing any of these, it is not only time to remove him from the situation ASAP, but to also rethink your training plan. Many of these signals will occur just shortly before a complete panic and/or bite.

Tightly tucked tail

Whale eye (dog’s eyes go wide and you can see the white rim around them)

Pulling towards an exit

Pulling away from the handler

Spinning on the leash

Not responding to the handler’s commands

Not responding to the handler’s voice

Shaking

Urinating

Low/tucked body position with a roached (curved) back

Sweaty paws

Whining

Heavy breathing when it’s not hot out

Teeth chattering

Tense lips and incisors (front teeth) showing while licking at the air

Laying down on the ground with their chin down and not wanting to move

Your service dog depends on you JUST as much as you depend on him. As your dog’s handler, you are 100% responsible for his mental and physical well-being at all times. No matter what situation you find yourself in, your dog’s needs should always come first.

Pushing a nervous dog into a situation where he is uncomfortable is one of the absolute worst things you can do for your SDiT, and creates the potential for much greater behavioral issues further down the road. Thinking your dog can “just get over it” is an extremely outdated training tactic. Just because your dog appears to stop fighting does NOT mean he is comfortable in that situation… it simply means he has shut down.  He’s still anxious and afraid, but he’s decided there’s no point in fighting anymore. This is one of the most dangerous situations your dog may find himself in. He appears “calm,” but a second later has the potential to lash out and bite.