I've missed all of the bulk pickup times for garbage this year. Except now! I somehow managed to check today and collection starts tomorrow so all the big shit that I've wanted to get rid of (broken furniture mostly) is currently hanging out in the alley. Also, I finally figured out where the dogs shit the most (spoiler alert: behind where the pile of bulk trash was). And a bonus, I didn't get yelled at. Last time, the guy on the other side of the alley came out yelling to not put it on "his side of the alley." I kind of have to- we are on a corner and our "wall" is also our gate, and in front of our gate (that we use because we park one car & our camper in the backyard driveway) is a sewer manhole which requires something like 6 feet on each side to always remain unblocked. I feel a lot lighter now that my backyard is clean again.

Dh has been getting up a little bit after I do since I started working full time, around 6am, and he cleans up and makes coffee and lets the dogs out. He doesn't go to work until after 8 and he's been cleaning up the living room and kitchen and throwing in laundry before work. I guess he really did listen to me when I said I was worried he wouldn't be pulling his weight when I started working full time. I get off work earlier so I've been making dinner, so it's pretty good trade off.

My current doggo is the one I’ve loved most of all, partly because he’s my first that was fully my responsibility but partly because he has so much personality and he is so cuddly, he also thinks he’s a tiny lapdog but he’s huge and just climbs on you for hugs which is adorable. He’s still energetic and healthy but he’s starting to grey around the muzzle and it makes me so sad. If I could change one thing about the world (except world peace and all that other obvious shit) I would have dogs live longer.

Aww, I'm sorry. Dh isn't home often, but when he is, he'll give the dog scraps like that. Then the dog gets diarrhea. The dog would run to the basement and poop if we were in another room, so I started putting down pee pads, and he actually uses them! (He's an older rescue.) This has worked well, because apparently he sometimes has to go in the middle of the night, and he won't wake us then. Maybe next time you feed her scraps, you can try laying down some pads? And I didn't know you could give dogs Imodium, lol.

Today one of my nephew's friends made a really ignorant Facebook post with a diagram about what liberals think guns are, I guess the guy is a minor celebrity. I commented that now isn't the time for gun jokes, whatever your view, hold it, people just got shot. He was like, take your liberal crybaby self out of this thread. I replied, post what you want but there's a lot of raw feelings, people whose loved ones are dead. Then blocked him. I learned how to handle a shotgun when I was 12, by 13 I could hit the middle medallion on a Jack Daniels bottle about 8 out of 10. Learned how to shoot an AK at 16. I like guns, it's a fake-power-I'm-a-badass high. Not many people know that about me. But the US needs to put common sense above NRA $. I don't like guns enough that I think we shouldn't regulate them. Let's pull in the reins, we just had 58 innocent people die. What's our country's end game? We're approaching Reservoir Dogs territory, guns drawn on everyone.

I'm so sad. Two years ago we rescued an older dog. I've written here about how the three dogs across the street were allowed to roam the neighborhood, and one day they came barreling out of their house, charged us and attacked. My dog was fine with them before that. The first time they met they just happily barked at each other, but after the attack they became mortal enemies. Not only that, but he now hates all dogs. We've been working with our vet & local shelter recently, trying to adopt a hurricane rescue. But every dog he sees, he wants to basically kill. We're now going to be working with a trainer to re-socialize him with other dogs, but today broke my heart. There was the sweetest, cutest little girl from FL (the vet recommends a female) but it was a no go. I wanted to give her a loving home so badly.

I always thought my house didn't smell like dogs, like if I let people come over they wouldn't notice. I always notice the dog smell (not like pee or anything) at other people's houses so figured if my house smelled too, I'd know. But then I went on vacation for a few weeks and when I came home, even though I took my dogs with me, I could smell that dog smell. And that was the day I realized nose blindness is legit, haha.

OMG, people. If my dog is freaking out, pulling on her leash, barking like crazy at your dog and I say "Please stay back, she doesn't like other dogs", don't say "Oh, but she'll love little Chloe! Chloe is the sweetest dog ever!" Because no, she will NOT like little Chloe. She will try to attack your dog. Trust me, okay? And stay away from my dog with your dog, even if your dog is very nice. Because sometimes my dog isn't always nice to other dogs. She does love people, but dogs are another story.

If my dog "should" be eating BARF, why was so often unwell when he was on it? I feed him a homemade cooked diet after trying to get BARF to work for him. I agree kibbles are generally shit and most dogs do well on BARF, but there are a LOT of dogs it doesn't work for. The bones (even raw ones) can cause a lot of issues in certain dogs, especially a lot of the more extreme faced breeds. I think it's pretty dangerous to promote BARF as the thing all dogs should be eating when it doesn't work for all of them.

I honestly feel like vegans who want their dogs to be vegan are hypocrites. It seems those are the vegans who are always talking about how veganism was the original human diet and how it's natural for us. Then they wanna turn round and force a dog onto a diet that is clearly unnatural for it. You wanna feed yourself what you consider the optimum diet for your species, then you wanna feed your dog one it clearly is not evolved for? Hypocrisy. And don't even get me started on cats. Anyone who tries to make their cat vegan should have it taken away by the humane people IMO.