I'm An Animal Science Major So Part Of My Classes Is Getting Hands-on Experience With Livestock. Holstein

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I originally took Basil the coydog in as a foster when his owners moved to an urban apartment in Seattle.

I couldn’t touch him at all for the first few days. We operated on a hands-off basis using a slip lead to get from his kennel, out to potty, and then into the outdoor pen to play with Zephyr. When inside the house, I left drag line on him so I could move him around without contact, but during that time, it was very clear that he was always watching and assessing, trying to figure out who I was and why he was here and how I’d react to him setting a boundary.

On the third day, I was in the outdoor pen with him and Zephyr, working with her on some training and ignoring him, when he came up to me and offered a “sit”, all on his own, the tip of his tail wagging and a look in his eye that told me he’d figured out the game and was ready to play.

On the fourth day, I was tussling with Zephyr and suddenly there was a second dog bumping against my knees and swinging his butt over to ask for attention. He was cautious and would occasionally pause and draw away, at which point I would stop petting him, and after a moment of consideration, he’d lean back in for more attention.

Two years later, Basil is my most reliable dog off leash. He loves to play games such as throwing himself into my arms at top speed so I can shake him around a bit and then toss him away so he can zoom around and jump into my arms again. He’s over most of his car anxiety for travel. He knows countless tricks and cues. During winter, he burrows under the blankets and grumbles and grouches if he’s disturbed, but once I get settled he tucks right up against me and is the best cuddler.

He’s painfully shy of strangers, but underneath it, there’s a deep desire to engage with people and make friends if they’ll give him the time to work through his initial uncertainty. With the company of one of his dog friends for support, a patient stranger can have him standing in their lap giving kisses to their face and presenting his thighs for scratches within ten minutes.

His incredible love for his dog housemates and new canine friends is tempered only by his awkwardly possessive nature — as much as he adores them, he’ll posture and threat gape and act like a big tough guy ready to throw down over a particularly smelly dirty sock.

Calling Your Congresspersons

Not my post but please feel free to copy and paste to share with others

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FOR THOSE OF YOU LOOKING TO TURN YOUR ANGER INTO ACTION, here's some advice from a high-level staffer for a Senator. Re-posting from a friend of mine:

There are two things that we should be doing all the time right now, and they're by far the most important things.

You should NOT be bothering with online petitions or emailing.

1) The best thing you can do to be heard and get your congressperson to pay attention is to have face-to-face time — if they have town halls, go to them. Go to their local offices. If you're in DC, try to find a way to go to an event of theirs. Go to the "mobile offices" that their staff hold periodically (all these times are located on each congressperson's website). When you go, ask questions. A lot of them. And push for answers. The louder and more vocal and present you can be at those the better.

2) But those in-person events don't happen every day. So, the absolute most important thing that people should be doing every day is calling.

YOU SHOULD MAKE 6 CALLS A DAY:

2 each (DC office and your local office) to your 2 Senators & your 1 Representative.

The staffer was very clear that any sort of online contact basically gets immediately ignored, and letters pretty much get thrown in the trash (unless you have a particularly strong emotional story — but even then it's not worth the time it took you to craft that letter).

Calls are what all the congresspeople pay attention to. Every single day, the Senior Staff and the Senator get a report of the 3 most-called-about topics for that day at each of their offices (in DC and local offices), and exactly how many people said what about each of those topics. They're also sorted by zip code and area code. She said that Republican callers generally outnumber Democrat callers 4-1, and when it's a particular issue that single-issue-voters pay attention to (like gun control, or planned parenthood funding, etc...), it's often closer to 11-1, and that's recently pushed Republican congressmen on the fence to vote with the Republicans. In the last 8 years, Republicans have called, and Democrats haven't.

So, when you call:

A) When calling the DC office, ask for the Staff member in charge of whatever you're calling about ("Hi, I'd like to speak with the staffer in charge of Healthcare, please") — local offices won't always have specific ones, but they might. If you get transferred to that person, awesome. If you don't, that's ok — ask for that person's name, and then just keep talking to whoever answered the phone. Don't leave a message (unless the office doesn't pick up at all — then you can — but it's better to talk to the staffer who first answered than leave a message for the specific staffer in charge of your topic).

B) Give them your zip code. They won't always ask for it, but make sure you give it to them, so they can mark it down. Extra points if you live in a zip code that traditionally votes for them, since they'll want to make sure they get/keep your vote.

C) If you can make it personal, make it personal. "I voted for you in the last election and I'm worried/happy/whatever" or "I'm a teacher, and I am appalled by Betsy DeVos," or "as a single mother" or "as a white, middle class woman," or whatever.

D) Pick 1-2 specific things per day to focus on. Don't rattle off everything you're concerned about — they're figuring out what 1-2 topics to mark you down for on their lists. So, focus on 1-2 per day. Ideally something that will be voted on/taken up in the next few days, but it doesn't really matter — even if there's not a vote coming up in the next week, call anyway. It's important that they just keep getting calls.

E) Be clear on what you want — "I'm disappointed that the Senator..." or "I want to thank the Senator for their vote on... " or "I want the Senator to know that voting in _____ way is the wrong decision for our state because... " Don't leave any ambiguity.

F) They may get to know your voice/get sick of you — it doesn't matter. The people answering the phones generally turn over every 6 weeks anyway, so even if they're really sick of you, they'll be gone in 6 weeks.

From experience since the election: If you hate being on the phone & feel awkward (which is a lot of people) don't worry about it — there are a bunch of scripts (Indivisible.org has some, there are lots of others floating around these day). After a few days of calling, it starts to feel a lot more natural.

Put the 6 numbers in your phone (all under P – Politician.) An example is McCaskill MO, Politician McCaskill DC, Politician Blunt MO, etc., which makes it really easy to click down the list each day.

**If you want to share this, please copy and paste so it goes beyond our mutual friends.**

I have added the following websites:

1. Find your federal and state legislators: Use reps.fyi (directs you to https://www.commoncause.org/find-your-representative/ )

2. Use scripts from 5Calls.org

3. Use scripts from the Americans of Conscience Checklist (updates every 2 weeks) https://americansofconscience.com/checklist/

4. Join a local or virtual group at https://indivisible.org/

ITS MARCH YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS

New gender-neutral bathroom just dropped

Rough day.

Svalbard Fox | Sergey Gorshkov

I love me some ki-yotes.