All Around the Internet Friday!

October 31, 2008 by Christine
Filed under Geek Girl and Gadgetry

New to the Store

October 30, 2008 by Christine
Filed under Jewelry

100 Words to Make You Sound Smart (Free! for two more days)

October 30, 2008 by Christine
Filed under Geek Girl and Gadgetry

Rescue Pets - 6 Rules for Choosing the Right One

October 28, 2008 by Christine
Filed under Musings, Rants and Raves

I was looking for information this morning about what to feed our precious Fiona so that her flatulence doesn’t require me to outfit my family with gas masks. (Seriously dog, what is the problem?)

As usual, I got sidetracked.
I started reading about the breed and rescue animals in general when I came across a FAQ for a rescue place that specializes in Irish Wolfhounds and Great Danes. Thankfully they’re in Tennessee which will discourage me from adopting any of them. I can’t look at rescue centers close by - that’s how we wound up with Riley, Fiona and Chloe.

(Have I mentioned that I’m allergic to cats?)

So, anyway - I was reading the FAQ and I saw a section devoted to questions from people concerned that the recue dog won’t bond with the family. Apparently, this is a pretty persistent myth and it makes me really sad. Throughout my life, I’ve had and been around many, many, many pets. Pure breed and mutt, pampered and working, bred and rescued and while I have loved almost all of them (I can’t abide a yappy dog or one who bites me), it is the rescue dogs that I feel have been most loyal, most loving, most grateful dogs. I swear they know that you rescued them. Additionally, I have become very good at picking dogs that were right for us (I’m not a cat person, you’ll have to talk to my daughter for that information) and I thought I’d share here the guidelines I use for dog adoption.

Always insist on an open area to get to know the dog
You, as the adult should always go in first, without your children. If the dog can’t handle you, they definitely won’t be able to handle your kids.
Bring all family members to the meet and greet (see the story of Radar* below)
Ideally, the dog should come to you tail up, mouth open, looking you in the face - this isn’t always possible as sometimes the dogs have literally been through hell and are not trusting of humans, but having children, I wouldn’t adopt a dog who couldn’t warm up to us and at least play with us, tail up and wagging after a reasonable amount of time.
Let the dog really smell you, your hands, your legs, these are animals who rely completely on intuition - they know who mean them well and who doesn’t.
The one thing I look for, that has no scientific basis (as far as I know), is the dog has to sit on someone’s foot. Yep. If the dog, after getting to know you, picks a member of the family, turns around and calmly sits on their foot, that’s your Huckleberry. It’s worked every time, except with Radar* (but you’ll see why below)

So, there is my handy dandy list of rules for dog rescue. Please don’t let the myth perpetuate. Rescue animals rock.

*Radar was the one rescue dog that just didn’t work out. We met him through a rescue event, walked him, fed him, played with him and he sat on my son’s foot. He was an adorable three year old Border Collie and he was a delight. No one knew his history. One day the woman who ran the rescue center left for work after she did a head count on the 22 dogs she was caring for; when she came home, the head count was 23. Someone had dropped Radar over the fence. No note, no nothing. We bought a ton of supplies and brought him home. He happily ran all over the house, all over the yard, he was delightful. That night, when my husband came home from work, Radar crouched behind the chair and wouldn’t come out. My husband is 6′6″ and has a very deep voice; we just assumed that Radar needed to get used to him. We tried everything. Jim got on the floor with him, fed him treats, approached him in the pool even! Radar was miserable. I called the woman who ran the rescue and told her what was going on. She gave us some suggestions, most of which we had already tried. She suggested that maybe she should come over and see what was going on. When she got there, Radar jumped 4 feet off the floor at the front door over and over until I was able to get past him to let her in. She came in and sat down and he crawled into her lap and cried and cried and cried. It was heartbreaking. She pet him for a while, looked at me and said, I think I should take him back, do you agree? I did. We cried and gave her all of the supplies we had bought (hundreds of dollars worth of toys, food, treats, leashes, crate, a bed. Her theory was that he had been abused by a tall man and was so frightened by Jim’s size that he couldn’t get past it. I was so upset that it took me three years before I would consider trying again. Last I heard, the rescuer had decided to adopt Radar herself. I can’t stress enough, bring all the members of your family before adopting a dog.

**Update: About.com has an entire channel devoted to dogs and a section in particular about choosing the right dog for your family.

And it goes without saying that you don’t ever get a pet for someone as a surprise gift, right?
And spaying/neutering is really, really a good idea. We don’t need to talk about those points, do we?

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An Open Letter to Blockbuster

October 24, 2008 by Christine
Filed under Musings, Rants and Raves

5 Comments

Dear Blockbuster,
Are you nuts? Do you really think that in this economy, with the myriad entertainment delivery systems at my fingertips, that there is a chance in hell that I would pay you $20 to upgrade my account so that I can keep any movie, new or old for more than the two day rental that you’re switching to? Dream on.

When you felt the sting of choices such as NetFlix crowding in on the monopoly you created, you changed the business model to eliminate late fees and that is why I continue to have a membership. I understand that the elimination of said late fees caused more loss than you were expecting and I recognize and appreciate your need to rethink that. But if you think I’m going to help you recoup your losses by digging into my pocket for an extra $20 so that my daughter can rent the live action Bratz movie, you sir/madam are buggin’.

In speaking to your employees this afternoon, I was shocked to hear that you’re not doing this nationwide yet, but that you’re using the Orlando market as your guinea pig and while I realize that most of the nation thinks that Florida is too stupid even to vote in a presidential election, we are not so stupid as to voluntarily pay off your loss. We’re far too busy paying off that other bad debt situation and I just don’t have the inclination to write off your stupidity and pay for it out of my pocket in addition to all of the other financial concern that I have these days.

My advice to you is to get rid of this ridiculous idea and go back to the drawing board. Maybe, I don’t know, provide a better product, or more service and you’ll earn back the market share that you have successfully driven away due to ridiculous borrowing schedules that no one can follow, fees that don’t make any sense and general suckiness. Try maybe having a really good snack area, carry more than two kinds of soda, and different flavors of popcorn by the bag instead of the box. Stop moving the entire store around once a month, so that when I come in, I can find what I’m looking for. Conversely, have employees accessible so that I might ask a question without herding my entire group all the way across the store to the front desk where I may, or may not find someone.

And if, dear Blockbuster, you can’t seem to find your way around this dilemma, maybe it’s time to finally shut your doors and give way to the business models that make us feel (true or not) that the company taking our money actually gives a crap about our business.

Please consider my membership cancelled until such time as you can convince me to ever set foot in your establishment again.

Sincerely,

The woman who was surprised to find out that her children were not going to whinge and whine about this, but actually agreed with their mother about shelling out another $20 in order to rent some crappy movie.

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