What is wrong with people? There is a Facebook page called "Lost Pets of Omaha Area." People who have lost or found pets post photos and contact information. The ONE CONSISTENT factor on all these posts: no collars and no tags. Sometimes the pets have collars and no tags. WTF? Why have a collar and no tags? I said that out loud and hubby said, "So they have a place to attach the leash."
Here's my problem with this...it's irresponsible. Dogs dig under fences, people accidentally leave the gate open, cats charge the door whenever you open it, cats go outside but don't stay in the yard and get lost. These are totally normal, common events that you can expect to have happen. Some pets break their leash to take off after a squirrel. Some dogs, like pugs, wiggle out of their collars or harnesses. It happens - everywhere, every day. It is so common, that you should EXPECT it to happen at least once per pet.
So, what's the best preventative medicine: collars, tags and microchips. Even if you are a scofflaw and don't have your pet licensed, at least get one of those tags at the pet store with your name and phone number on it. They are not expensive. Both PetsMart and PetCo have the machines to engrave the tags right there in the store. How can people not take this one simple precaution?
To be fair, registering a microchip is actually a little pricey. I had cats for several years before I discovered that their microchips weren't registered with the Humane Society. I totally didn't hear, or didn't understand, the instructions when we adopted our cats. But tags...tags are easy. With a microchip, you have to take the animal to a vet or the Humane Society to be scanned, and then call the company to find out the contact information. There is an annual fee. There is more than one company. A tag is right there, right now. Call owner. Pet returned. Why, in a million years would you not have a collar/harness and tag on any pet that goes outdoors?
Excuse one: It bothers him/her. It does at first. Give them a week or two, and they'll get used to it.
Excuse two: They itch it constantly. Some pets are allergic to nylon collars. Use leather or other material.
Excuse three: The license and ID tag jingle and drive me crazy. My Dad used to put a piece of duct tape on the backs of the tags so they wouldn't jingle. Nowadays, the tags from PetsMart came with a little piece of rubber tape to put on the tag for exactly that reason. Excellent. :-)
Excuse four: The collar smashes down his/her beautiful fur. You are whining. Get over it. Isn't it worth it to have your pet returned to you safely?
Excuse five: He/she wiggles out of their collar. I've tried several types. This is a legitimate problem. You will need to use a harness instead of a neck collar.
Excuse six: My dog pulls at the leash when I walk him and chokes himself, so I took it off. You will need to use a harness instead of a neck collar. And a few classes at doggy obedience school (also PetsMart and PetCo) will solve that problem. I read about how to train my dog to walk on a leash from a book. Only cost a couple of bucks. You just have to do it.
Excuse seven: I don't allow my cat out of the house. Yeah, mine either - intentionally. But damn if she didn't charge the door every time I opened it. I don't believe for a second that I would have been able to catch her if she didn't want me to. Indoor cats know nothing of cars or navigating their way in the big, scary world. When they get lost, then hungry, they will go to the first door or people they find to get fed. "No tags? No microchip? Mine now." Or worse, they get abused by people who don't like cats, or attacked by dogs or other animals.
The first cat we ever owned, Princess, was listed as a "stray" at the Humane Society. Stray, my ass. She was somebody's spoiled house cat that got out and got lost. The third day we had her, we found out how she got out. She pushed on screens until she found a loose one. Hubby saw her do it. All the window screens were reinforced the next day.
Our boy kitty, Felix, wants nothing whatsoever to do with the outdoors. But when we moved to a new town, he got a collar and tags. My girl kitty, Mittens, greets people at the door, and tries to get out. She's had a collar from the start. They are both micro-chipped and registered at two places. I am in no condition to be trying to chase and capture a cat. They have each gotten out into the hallway of the apartment. Scared the hell out of me. Fortunately, they were able to be herded back to the apartment. I would be beside myself with grief if one of my babies got outside and got away.
My husband has a coworker whose little dog slipped her leash and got lost. She had tags and a chip. She was returned to her family by that evening. Why can't everyone else see that?
Sunday, December 14, 2014
Friday, December 5, 2014
Internet Advertising
This is one of those things in life that I'm just supposed to suck up and deal with because there's nothing that I can do about it.
When reading articles printed on paper, I could just turn the page and ignore the advertising. Now, with the internet, I click on an article that I want to read and I have to wait for almost 45 seconds (f-o-r-e-v-e-r!) for all the fucking video advertisements and commercials to load. The article that I want to read comes right up - 3 seconds, as it is just text. But the "Jake from State Farm" commercial, a survey, a car video, some sort of shock value article about some starlet's big boobs, and an ad about this "new skinny pill has doctors alarmed" bogs down my ability to scroll down the page (until after all this shit loads). Aaaaaand, there's at least one large size pop-up that blocks the article and has the little "x" to turn it off both very well hidden, and the last thing to load, so I can't just flick it away like a bug and get back to my article. I have to wait for the entire fucking thing to load before I can do anything. I can't close it, move it, see around it or see through it until it is damn good and ready to let me.
What really happens about half the time is I get pissed at being fished in, and I close the whole page without reading the article. I often get the feeling that I'm getting spam, spyware, malware or viruses loading themselves onto my computer by how much the computer sounds like it is laboring under the workload of trying to open the page.
If I were looking at Hollywood gossip or porn or some shit like that, I would deserve to get viruses and spyware, but this morning I was trying to read a legitimate newspaper article about some recent NASA satellite photos of Alaska, and what they revealed about global warming.
http://www.seattlepi.com/national/article/Why-NASA-s-latest-photo-of-Alaska-is-freaking-4612565.php but that newspaper is so bogged down with crap that I gave up.
Then, I Googled the subject and went to the source. Here is the NASA website link which includes the first part of the article and photo that was on the other site:
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_2534.html#.VIH3f9LF-So but it doesn't discuss the aspect of global warming.
And yes, I have pop-up blockers and virus protection that includes spyware/malware blockers. Modern advertising programmers have figured out how to get around them. Sometimes the ads are programmed in such a way that if your pop-up blocker gets in their way, they won't let you read the article at all.
Another one that pisses me off is the ad that pops up on EVERY YouTube video that I've ever tried to watch. It says "Update your Windows XP Drivers." It blocks part of the screen. I have to click the "X" but if the video has an embedded link to subscribe (or something) then trying to turn of the pop-up activates the link. Then I have to re-watch the first 5 or 10 seconds of the video to see what I missed while I was dicking around with the stupid banner ad.
And furthermore, anything that I look at or search for ends up being the "star" of all the pages that I normally go to FOR WEEKS. I bought a Bissell spot clean carpet scrubber. The ad for that is now EVERYWHERE I go. I was searching steering wheel covers on Amazon, now they are everywhere. There are advantages and disadvantages to the whole "Big Brother is Watching" thing, but this whole "Marketing is Following You" thing is starting to piss me off.
When reading articles printed on paper, I could just turn the page and ignore the advertising. Now, with the internet, I click on an article that I want to read and I have to wait for almost 45 seconds (f-o-r-e-v-e-r!) for all the fucking video advertisements and commercials to load. The article that I want to read comes right up - 3 seconds, as it is just text. But the "Jake from State Farm" commercial, a survey, a car video, some sort of shock value article about some starlet's big boobs, and an ad about this "new skinny pill has doctors alarmed" bogs down my ability to scroll down the page (until after all this shit loads). Aaaaaand, there's at least one large size pop-up that blocks the article and has the little "x" to turn it off both very well hidden, and the last thing to load, so I can't just flick it away like a bug and get back to my article. I have to wait for the entire fucking thing to load before I can do anything. I can't close it, move it, see around it or see through it until it is damn good and ready to let me.
What really happens about half the time is I get pissed at being fished in, and I close the whole page without reading the article. I often get the feeling that I'm getting spam, spyware, malware or viruses loading themselves onto my computer by how much the computer sounds like it is laboring under the workload of trying to open the page.
If I were looking at Hollywood gossip or porn or some shit like that, I would deserve to get viruses and spyware, but this morning I was trying to read a legitimate newspaper article about some recent NASA satellite photos of Alaska, and what they revealed about global warming.
http://www.seattlepi.com/national/article/Why-NASA-s-latest-photo-of-Alaska-is-freaking-4612565.php but that newspaper is so bogged down with crap that I gave up.
Then, I Googled the subject and went to the source. Here is the NASA website link which includes the first part of the article and photo that was on the other site:
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_2534.html#.VIH3f9LF-So but it doesn't discuss the aspect of global warming.
And yes, I have pop-up blockers and virus protection that includes spyware/malware blockers. Modern advertising programmers have figured out how to get around them. Sometimes the ads are programmed in such a way that if your pop-up blocker gets in their way, they won't let you read the article at all.
Another one that pisses me off is the ad that pops up on EVERY YouTube video that I've ever tried to watch. It says "Update your Windows XP Drivers." It blocks part of the screen. I have to click the "X" but if the video has an embedded link to subscribe (or something) then trying to turn of the pop-up activates the link. Then I have to re-watch the first 5 or 10 seconds of the video to see what I missed while I was dicking around with the stupid banner ad.
And furthermore, anything that I look at or search for ends up being the "star" of all the pages that I normally go to FOR WEEKS. I bought a Bissell spot clean carpet scrubber. The ad for that is now EVERYWHERE I go. I was searching steering wheel covers on Amazon, now they are everywhere. There are advantages and disadvantages to the whole "Big Brother is Watching" thing, but this whole "Marketing is Following You" thing is starting to piss me off.
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