Random bits and thoughts

The upside to having my mother now on Facebook is I no longer need to send her photos and what not separately, she can see them and show them with my dad and it’s much easier.

The downside to having my mother now on Facebook is that she freaks out every time I gripe about getting sick, and every time I gripe about work, and…..

*sigh*

 

Speaking of Facebook, there’s a video going around of a Comcast worker doing work on the side of the road and a bunch of cars almost hitting him.  The general FB opinion is that the Comcast worker is EVIL and why didn’t he put out more cones, and OMG!!!  GONNA BOYCOTT COMCAST!!!!  Meanwhile I’m looking at this video thinking those morons are going WAY TOO FAST for road conditions and they better hope their insurance companies never see this video……

 

A few months ago I ordered custom muzzles for both dogs.  Arty needs one for vet visits, and I’d been trying to train Apollo to wear one just in case but hadn’t been able to find a premade one I liked.  The company offered the option of matching leashes (both leashes and muzzles made out of biothane), so I ordered one for Arty (we’re really picky about the leashes we use on Apollo).  Everything arrived, and I love the muzzles.  The leash….well, the biothane is awesome, but the clip they used is cheap crap (one reason we’re picky about Apollo’s leashes).  Since its technically a custom piece I decided it wasn’t worth griping at the company, I’d just replace the clip at some point with something heavier.  But I figured the cheap one would last the winter at least……

I was wrong.  Last Saturday, while I was at work and Husband was taking the dogs out for one last potty before he left for work, the clip on Arty’s leash somehow popped open (I suspect ice in the spring, and the cheap spring not being enough to keep it closed anyway), resulting in him taking off in mad-cap zoomies down the road.

Apollo saw him taking off, got all excited, and bounced off the end of HIS leash (another reason why we’re picky about his leashes), at which point HIS COLLAR CLOSURE popped open and he took off after Arty.  They were easy enough to catch, they only got a couple houses down the road before the excitement wore off, so everyone’s home and safe.

We’re not quite sure what happened with Apollo’s collar, in theory it’s possible that we just caught a large enough chunk of fur in the closure, resulting in it not closing properly.  However this collar is 4yrs old and I’m having a hard time believing that we’ve never gotten large chunks of his fur caught in it before.  Which makes me think that even if we DID get fur caught in it the closure itself is failing.  Which wouldn’t be a huge shock since it IS 4yrs old and gets put on him and taken off him multiple times a day.  But it is frustrating.  So until I can find a new collar I like for him we’re double collaring him.  His current collar (which, when closed, can’t slip over his head) and his old martingale (which, even when fitted properly, he’s proved he can slip out of if he really wants), in hopes that the double collar will be enough to keep him restrained.

And no, neither dog has all that great of a recall.  Normally we do have a GREAT emergency recall.  But Arty was in psycho zoomie mode cause he’d been cooped up in the house due to the cold, and Apollo wasn’t letting him go by himself.  We’re back to using Arty’s old leash, not the end of the world, but annoying.  Lotsa fun….

 

My work has been typical Christmas madness.  This is the time of year when I tend to really hate people in general.

And then I had to explain to a casual acquaintance that the use of “frenzied beasts” (by a mutual acquaintance) when referring to Black Friday/weekend crowds was not racist.  Her argument consisted of “but it’s OFTEN racist!!”.  I pointed out that context matters.  She asked if there were any terms that I thought were ALWAYS racist.  I said I always consider “nigger” to be racist, but if the community as a whole really wanted it taken that way they needed to stop using it in media.  To which she responded that it’s alright if black people call each other “nigger”, cause context mattered!  To which I responded “so why are we having this conversation again?  Cause you just proved my point”.  She hasn’t spoken to me since.

 

Speaking of retail, and people in general.  Please take some thought as to how you treat people in front of your kids (or grandkids or random children around you).  A while back I had a lady approach me looking for a particular product.  She was pushing a cart with a kid in it, probably less than 5yrs old, though I suck at guessing ages.  Kid called her gramma.  She told me that she was looking for two specific products, either of which would work for her project.  I told her that I wasn’t familiar with the one, but the other is right over here if you’ll follow me.  As I turned to lead the way I hear the kid say “you must be new here if you don’t know….” at which point gramma shushed him.  I pretended to not hear, though I’ll admit that what I wanted to do was snap at the kid about manners (which wouldn’t have been useful, but yah).

But someone in this kid’s life has said that to people who are trying to help him/her.  And not just once, likely it’s been said multiple times.  The kid rattled it off word for word.  5 yrs old or less and he already thinks that’s how you treat people who’re trying to assist you.  Oh sure, he doesn’t understand the context of it.  Doesn’t matter.  With that as his guide how do you think he’s going to grow up?

4 thoughts on “Random bits and thoughts”

  1. Boy, do you ever have my sympathies on the leash/collar/loose dog business. We have had so many problems with various tack failing and dogs getting loose and wreaking havoc. Finn is full of burs right now because he snapped a cable day before yesterday. He is not too keen on me pulling them out either.

    • Thankfully Apollo doesn’t usually pick up burrs (don’t ask me how, but his fur doesn’t usually hold them, now grass seed…..).

      I might just go buy some quality leather and the various hardware and make my own collars from here on out, especially for Apollo. I think it’d be cheaper in the long run than dealing with cheap hardware from pieces I special order, and when 130+lbs of dog bounces off the end of the leash the hardware matters. His current one is awesome, I shouldn’t complain really, it lasted 4yrs of hard abuse.

  2. I only used a wide (I’m thinking at least 1″ wide), heavy leather leashes with heavy hardware for our huskies and shepherds. I never liked nylon leashes and the biothane seems like it would tend to stretch and weaken – but I’ve never used it so don’t know. I do know that even the heavy hardware on the leather leashes would sometime get ice/snow caught up in it and make it so the closure wasn’t perfect (not at the spring, but either at the closure or the top of the catch release). Yeah, sure the leather will eventually stretch, but I used ours for 25 years.

    Hope you can find something you’re happy with, and the meantime the dogs don’t go in a madcap rush at anything else!

    • Yah, that was another reason why we only got the one biothane leash. To see how it holds up. SO FAR, the biothane itself is holding up well. So we’ll see!

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