Closed Minds Let Nothing In

It never fails to amaze me, really. This is the situation. I saw a posting on FB from Cesar Millan's page that Massachusetts banned debarking surgery. I don't agree with the surgery myself, even though sometimes I've considered it for Dalila but I don't think I'll ever do it. I've got a better handle on her bark these days so I know I can manage her. I also don't agree with it out of convenience; if you get a dog, train it. Simple. But I also understand that sometimes it can be the lesser of evils. For example my breeder has usually 7 shelties in her home at once. Now one sheltie is loud - imagine 7. And I don't care what anyone says, when one gets going the others will follow. That's just the way they are. And they are hard to calm down. It can be done, but it's hard. And she's now experiencing health problems, which compounds the issue. One of her seven (Dalila's great grandmother to be precise) is debarked. The bark isn't gone, it just sounds really raspy like she has a cold. She has neighbours and doesn't want to trouble them, and having one less loud barker helps. Okay, her dogs her decision. Maddie doesn't seem to notice, she barks alongside everyone else. But everyone on this page considered every dog owner who did this surgery to be horrible people. I threw in my two cents pretty much saying that while I don't agree with the surgery, I don't agree with judging people either. Of course I got jumped on (anticipated that) but I stood my ground. I'm not ashamed of my opinions, and I'm not ashamed of speaking them even when 90% of the people are being a little close-minded in their passion. People don't listen when they're on that high.

One lady saw fit to tell me that I and my sister were bad dog owners because I wasn't agreeing with the masses and pointing out a few real realities. I was also called stupid.

Haha, I'm a writer honey. You want to take a hit at my feelings you're going to have to hit a lot harder than that!

She gave up, I guess she didn't want to admit that she wasn't reading what I was writing properly. I guess it's hard to admit that things aren't always fair to dog owners and some people have to make ugly decisions. I'm not saying that shouldn't be changed, because it should, but it's stupid to ignore the reality here and now. If any of those dog owners commenting there could honestly say that if they were ever faced with the decision of getting their dog debarked or removed from them, they would let their dog go they're stronger people than I am. I hope never to be in that situation, but I'd rather debark Dalila than lose her. If that makes me stupid fine, but I knew what I was getting into when I got a sheltie. I know what a barker she can be and I know I have to work to curb that. And I just can't bring myself to give her up and then someone who's unaware of that adopts her only to get rid of her. She'd get euthanized. And she is just far too happy and far too wonderful of a dog to have that happen to her. Not everyone is lucky like me to have neighbours and a super who would work with me if she was ever a problem. Some people have neighbours who complain over the simplest, stupidest things and sometimes the law sides with them instead of resolving it. That's reality. It's not always fair, and there's not always happy endings and rainbows. I'm all for people being more responsible dog owners, but I'm also for people not being so anal retentive about a dog just because they bark on occasion.

And I'm also for people not being so damn judgemental when they haven't been there and done that.

Dalila (P.S. - She's not a Miniature!)

Thought I'd do a post about her, since she's just too cute not to :)

Dalila is a purebred Shetland Sheepdog. Her father is Ch. Highledge Irish Cream ROMC and her mother is Can Ch Bonnyville's Prismatic CGN, and I got her from her father's breeder. I met with the breeder 3 times before I brought her home, and it was worth it - just to see her beautiful dogs if nothing else! I totally advocate adoption from shelters, but if you're going to go for a purebred, make sure you at least get them from a quality breeder.

Things you have to know about Shelties:

-They're loud. I don't say that because she's my dog, they really are that loud. Coming from the Shetland Islands they had to develop a bark that could be heard over the high winds and crashing waves. They succeeded.

-Shelties are a herding breed, so expect lots of energy. Dalila can most definitely be calm, but when she goes she really goes! Good ways to channel their instincts are herding classes or agility classes. Dalila seems to show more of a natural tendancy towards agility (she loves jumping off things, weaving through dining room chairs, etc.) so we're going to go that way once she's 100% obedience trained.

-They're fast learners. Dalila was learning sit when she was like 8 weeks old - and got it too. She picked up potty training well too, as well as crate training and it took around a week to nail those. Now she knows sit, come, off, up and she's starting to get come and lie down. I say starting because she only does it about half the time - but we're getting there.

-And lastly, they're not miniatures! I have to rant a bit, I am so sick of people asking/saying 'oh so she's a miniature'. She's not a miniature anything! Collies are large dogs, shelties are small. There are no such things as miniature collies or miniature shelties - it's just people trying to pass on very small dogs as something they're not. So if you ever see a sheltie on the street, please don't call it a miniature. Think of my sanity :)

Disappointment

Rain storm? HAH! Some rain storm. Sunny all day, got a little cloudy in the afternoon, and didn't start spitting until late evening. I waited all day for that darn storm, it didn't even last that long. I was so looking forward to opening the windows and letting some nice rain-washed air in, but no such luck. So I changed around the furniture in my bedroom, since it underwent a spring cleaning (washed the walls and the carpet) I figured it was as good a time as any. And I like it much better this way. Everything seems nicely spaced out, not so cramped. Later I'll put my room back together and maybe take some pictures. I'm planning another picspam post tomorrow :)

Speaking of disappointments, I watched Avatar a few weeks ago. James Cameron, What. The. Hell. He spent ten years on this story and that's what came of it?! Don't get me wrong, the graphics were amazing and I was totally impressed, but that's the only good thing I can say about the movie. The storyline was completely unoriginal. Granted the basic premise isn't new, it's been done at least three times over that I can think of. But still, it didn't seem like he tried much on the storyline side. Ridiculously predictable. It was just original enough that he wasn't blatantly ripping off from someone else. I expected better. It was hard to keep watching because the cliches just made me so angry I couldn't stand it. Plus as I was watching, I kept feeling like there was a prequel to it that I had missed. I don't know if there actually is one, if there is then that would make some sense. Really a damn shame, because those graphics are just cool. Avatar perfectly illustrates the problem with a great deal of movies today though; too much emphasis on effects, not enough emphasis on story. There needs to be a nice balance. Kind of glad I didn't spend the money seeing it in theatres; I don't think even seeing it in 3D could have made up for that poor excuse for a storyline.

Past is Past

This is probably going to turn into a mini-rant, but here it is :)

Lately on Facebook I've started getting friend requests from people from my past. Ordinarily one would think this isn't bad, sometimes it's nice to catch up with people you lose touch with. But there's a few people who I never expected to hear from again, and in all honesty didn't want to. Without going into too much detail, my parents split up several years ago. It was pretty ugly for a few years. The thing though is that all these people I had known pretty much all my life, some family and some really close family friends, seem to suddenly become completely non-existant after my parents split. Nobody ever came to either my sister or I and asked us how we were doing. There was no neutral party to rant to, to get away from the stress of the split, to have a shoulder to cry on. It was like all those years didn't matter anymore, and they didn't give a damn about us. Some I tried to keep in touch with, but one clearly had ulterior motives and another clearly wanted nothing to do with me, so eventually I moved on. I stopped thinking and caring about all of them and quite frankly, my life is just fine without them. So I don't know why all of a sudden they care so much about what I'm up to that they're looking me up on FB to try and add me. Maybe I'm a little bitter, but I can honestly say I really don't care what they're up to, and I have no desire to find out. If they couldn't make time for me then, they have no place in my life now.

So if they ever read this (they know exactly who they are) I have only this to say: I don't care about you. I have no desire to re-connect. Trying to get back into my life will only be a waste of your time, because I am perfectly happy without you in it. Stay in my past where you belong, because I only have time for the people who truly care about me. But thanks for showing me what a person who doesn't care about me look like, so I can tell the difference :)