I’m a pet product specialist for a pet food manufacturer. I respond to customer emails, calls, and chats about our products. This could mean assisting pet owners in selecting products based on their pets’ unique medical or physiological needs, answering nutritional questions, handling complaints, and more. In my downtime I work on reference materials for the rest of the team, continuing education on animal nutrition (my last class was on avian flu in pet foods), and prepare promotional materials for expos and trade shows.

On light days we do a lot of sharing memes, shit talking in group chat, dicking around on the Internet, and finding other creative ways to fuck off.

American IV was a powerful album of covers. We’ll Meet Again makes me cry every time. He’s talking directly to his wife, and you can feel the fear and despair behind his words as he’s comforting and reassuring her as she’s dying. Ugh, feels for Christmas this year it is.

Bish, bye.

She’s dead, so this only deepens my curiosity.

Who in the sweet fuck is boning to Barry Manilow?!

I would agree with this sentiment, but that doesn’t make this advice less valuable. If we want things to change, we have to be willing to change ourselves. Advice on how to make those changes is bound to make us uncomfortable.

Good on you, my friend. This is inspirational.

This is great advice. My partner does this, and he surprised me with an alexandrite ring I was drooling over. I was so delighted when he gave it to me, and it was such a thoughtful thing to do.

Etsy has lots of unique and affordable options when it comes to jewelry. You can use keywords about her style and whichever type of jewelry you are considering.

I took a quick look for autumn witchy earrings, and I found a ton of cute options. I will share some of what I liked below, but of course you know her tastes best!

Dangling autumn earrings

Woodland leaf earrings

Raindrop moonstone earrings

Solar system earrings

Depending on the company, you often have the option of either a group or a private cremation. Group cremation is what you described, but private cremation ensures you only get your pet’s ashes returned. The company my vet uses even offers the option for you to be present and view the cremation.

I saw the South Park Bigger, Longer, and Uncut movie in theaters as a kid. I lived in a small town adjacent to a small city, and there weren’t many other people in the theater. During the scene where the boys are watching the Terrace and Phillip movie and the theater-goers walk out, so did everyone else in our real life theater. It was surreal. We had a great time watching the rest of the movie by ourselves.

I’m sorry to be this person, but that’s an albatross chick. They are struggling to reproduce because of this problem. 😞

One of the freed hostages talked about that in the article. Her husband is still being held. They appear to know.

This isn’t entirely accurate. Unless it’s a repeat offender when it comes to biting or the animal is exhibiting symptoms of illness, the general practice is for the animal to be quarantined for ten days either at home or a veterinary clinic or shelter. The animal must have exams performed by a veterinarian every few days to check for signs of illness. At the end of the ten day period, the animal must have one final exam to be released from quarantine. After each exam a report must be sent to the county humane officer.

This is the protocol in the state of Wisconsin. I’ve worked in shelters and veterinary clinics in the state, so this is something we deal with regularly. Last year we even had a dog bite another person while they were supposed to be quarantining at home. That dog was not euthanized.

What a shame your mother missed her opportunity to experience it

Agreed. On a sad note, when puppies come in to a veterinarian for tail cropping and dewclaw removal procedures they are not anesthetized. While it’s done in a sterile, more safe way, it’s still torture. The puppies scream. I hate being in the building for those appointments. Ear and tail cropping, declawing, de-barking, and all physical modifications for nonmedical reasons should be outlawed everywhere.

I work in veterinary medicine, and it’s alarming how many calls we get like this. Just last night a potential new client called saying their breeder told them Ragdoll cats can’t get the rabies vaccine without later developing cancer. The client point-blank told us the breeder was more knowledgeable than our doctors. What do you even say that wouldn’t get you fired?

As I said, dog bite and behavioral euthanasia reports are murky at best, and rely upon nonexpert information. I’m sorry, but a picture graph with no information on how the information was obtained, what verification was involved, etc. is no better than a Facebook share. That’s my point. Information is hard to qualify, quantify, and assess. Trying to oversimplify such a complicated issue is not going to get to the root of the problem.

It’s really disheartening to see Reddit’s irrational pit bull venom is just as present here. Notice how rarely you see comments from animal industry professionals chiming in with these opinions. It’s not because professionals don’t have their own breed biases, and they don’t typically keep quiet about them, either. It’s that most people with a lot of day-to-day experience with dogs don’t share this opinion. Their experiences don’t match public perception.

Bite statistics and behavioral euthanasias both in private and public spheres are anything but transparent. They also often rely upon witness statement accuracy, which is not reliable nor scientific. There simply isn’t enough accurate information available to support such a vitriolic, knee-jerk reaction to a dog’s breed in and of itself. There are too many variables to consider to accept that mindset as rational.

I encourage anyone who cares about these issues and who loves animals and people to consider volunteering. There are a lot of opportunities out there that you might be surprised are available. It’s not just shelters who need volunteers, either, and you can find opportunities in an array of different settings and ways of helping. You might find that experience will give you a broader understanding of how complex these problems are, and how we can work to solve them.