stewart.tb

I'm a bit late with the congratulations, but congratulations! That's great news for you guys!

Seems like there are two types of what we know as rubbing alcohol: the blue type that is apparently medicinal, and the clear one that is "multipurpose" and also used for firing up the old barbecue grill. I did a side-by-side comparison a couple of years ago, and decided I didn't want to buy the firestarter stuff to use on my skin -- can't remember exactly, but there was a difference in the ingredients. The esposo thinks the firestarter stuff is just fine, and that it's perfectly normal to fire up the grill and then go disinfect a wound or attack some zits. The blue one is harder to find though, and is it just me, or does rubbing alcohol smell gross here? That smell doesn't sit well with me. Never thought I'd miss the smell of US/Euro style rubbing alcohol! Weird.

Bwaaajaja, Lucybelle! I need more pachuco practice ... being married to a librarian is great for grammar but not so great for el lenguage del pueblo, jjaja.

Oh, I totally meant it as a compliment.

Qué hijueputa wrote that piece of mierda?!

So nice to have an update, and wonderful to hear that you guys are doing well and your lives are on a good path. And as always: Yay, Perlita!

And remember, birthday cancels out any calories, scientific fact. So seconds on cake, extra frosting. Ice cream.

I did the happy happy wishes on another e-format, but just wanted to comment that her crazy workout and running schedule keep her looking way too young to be a mom to that herd of teenagers!

That eye thing must be why I misspelled "anchovy". That or the fine wine.

I just want to point out that although David may, as he says, be an overweight, long in the tooth, anchovie-eating, liver hater, bygawd he's got fabulous gams.

So this came up in my FB feed today, going back (sort of) to the original subject: http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/watch-hundreds-gnat-larvae-slither-together-snake

That's pretty impressive, a Mastiff catching a monkey! Gorgeous dogs, but not known for being particularly fleet of foot. Wow, Buster! I'm glad the monkey made it back to the trees. Tonka is coming along really well with "drop it" so far, considering he just hit 5 months of age, but "leave it" (don't approach something at all) is always a little more difficult. The good thing (well, not really good, but just in this context ...) is that we don't have our own yard, we're in an apartment, so whenever he's out, he's on the leash with me, or in a small fenced park with cut grass on our street with me, so the chances that he'll get something dangerous before he's very reliably trained are pretty small. (Knock wood) Paul, yeah, a lot of people do share that opinion, and someone using it in a specific limited "danger" circumstance to protect the dog from extreme danger is obviously different than lazy, uninformed owners who just use it across the board as the chief method for getting their dog to do what they want. For me personally, I hope I never need to use that method. My opinion is actually based less on the "shock" itself, which as you said, is often mild enough to be not much more than a vibration, and more on the way the dog actually ends up learning/processing in his mind, and the effect that has. But I hear what you're saying, and lots of folks are in agreement with it. I'm actually really interested to see how things will go with Tonka, as he will be my first puppy since I've (re)developed my training methods. Batman and Mason were rescues, as is Tonka, but they were rescued as adults ... Mason was probably 10 already and with a history of abuse. Batman was a genius, jaja, easy to train, and was pretty amazing. Mason required some serious patience and work, but I was really proud of and happy with the results for both of them. Tonka though, as a puppy, has a clean(er) slate -- though he did have some bad experiences as a little guy, during the important socialization time for puppies -- so I'm really interested to see what he can do. Dog training has actually undergone a huge shift away from the old César Millan methods in recent years, and I find it fascinating, the whole field of animal behavior. Anyway, like I said, I could blather on about dogs for days, so I'll stop now. (I heard that collective sigh of relief, y'all ...)

Legs, no, he hunts them after they've been knocked to the floor by my wildly flailing limbs, and stunned by my screeching. Paul: Dog training is such an interesting topic, and one I could yammer on about until you'd probably want to give me an aversion jolt, jaja. Yeah, I actually am against aversion training. I'm a fairly experienced dog trainer, and use positive reinforcement methods. My daughter, however, trains gun dogs (GSDs), and she does use a mild buzz collar (I hate even writing "shock collar") for that. We've talked a lot about it, and I can understand the reasoning behind some of what she says in relation to hunting dogs, although a well known guy in that field did come out with an article saying PR training does work with gun dogs, and that's all he uses now, so there's change happening even in that arena. In order to teach a dog not to mess with snakes etc. in a place like this, I could definitely see why people might go the route of a shock collar in the interest of protecting their dogs in the big picture. I'm actually going to look into this a little bit more, the whole snake-etc. thing. I have trained a really reliable "leave it" command with my dogs, but with something live and moving, that prey-chase instinct can easily overtake reason or training ... further research needed! CRF: Interesting -- have any of them had any type of experience with the toads that would've taught them to avoid them, or do they seem to just do it naturally? Oddly enough, a toad hopped right onto my foot tonight -- first time that's happened -- and somehow Tonka didn't see it. I may have to trade in my flip-flops for some stylish crocs to walk the dog in. Is it only a certain type of toad with the poisonous secretions? Seaturtlewoman: Yes. A June bug attack generally leads to a good bit of frenzied flailing about.

I sure wish there were a way to instill the Fear of Toads-etc. in dogs. You can explain it in big scary detail to a child, and teach them respect and caution, but dogs ... I love it when Tonka hunts and kills the June bugs whose ridiculous bumbling flight patterns always end with being tangled in my hair, but he unfortunately can't discriminate, and is a natural bug hunter. He'll just as easily snap up a beautiful butterfly, or a scorpion, or a nest of fire ants, or a poisonous spider as he will a June bug or a fly. He hasn't yet seen a toad or even a lizard, but I'm not looking forward to it.

This has been such an interesting post!