You know, the sad thing is that I actually know people who think this way.

Hahaha.. yeah, if he'd have started licking his nads, you'd know you're up shit creek!

Al was right; it was a firmware upgrade issue.

Good boy!

As I've read in the thread, you obviously have no concept of pets at all. Around here, cats just show up. They show up, eat the food, sleep on the porch with all the other cats, come in the back door, sleep on the nice warm dryer, use the cat box, wander around the acerage, do as they please. I'd hardly call that slavery.

I've got a dog here too, actually two of them. One is an indoors dog, one is an outdoors dog. The outdoors dog sleeps in his house, eats his food, the gate's open, he can leave if he likes, and yet, oddly enough, he doesn't. He runs along side the car as its leaving until it gets to the end of the drive. He runs along the drive to follow the car when it gets back. And strangely enough, he still never leaves. He's never had lessons to "stay here". But still he doesn't go.

I wonder why that is? Must be the ball and chain and daily beatings for not hauling in the crops...

The indoors dog does the same. He bounces off the walls when I get home in happy greetings. Jumps on me and licks my face off. Gets his toy so I can throw it down the hall a few times. Then promptly curls up by the fire.

If that's slavery, sign me up. Fuck going to work. I want to run up and down the hall and sleep by the fire all day long.

[edit]
I have to make this quick, *I* have to go to bed and go to work on Thanksgiving day, talk about slavery...

Furthermore, most animals around now would be rounded up and executed for being on the street. So what's better? Wind up dog food, or sleep by the fire all day? And for whoever said the initial comment about dog food quality control is absolutely kidding themselves. Dog food is honestly made from dogs. Yes, it often is, look it up. People have found pieces of flea/dog collars in cans before.
[/edit]

Quzah.

Now that's snopesque.

I searched Urban Legends and Google...nothing.

You made the claim, quzah...back it up.

Perhaps they know that if they run away from home, they'll be rounded up and executed!

The bond between pets and humans is one of symbiosis. Both parties are gaining, and both parties are losing to some extent. I hesitate to call it slavery however, because it's missing a crucial element that I see as defining slavery. The pet lacks the emotional capacity to understand the concept of slavery. It knows only that if it is well fed, has acceptable surroundings, and sufficient mental stimulus it will remain where it is. Normally, the pet's enviroment meets all these standards and it lives out its days happily. Calling it slavery is overlooking the benefits to both parties.

I've been looking for the source, but I'm unable to find it. Probably usenet or a mag. I naturally found a source to the contrary, but let's face it, they feed cows to cows, and pigs to pigs, so why is it hard to believe they feed dogs to dogs? (I realize that you're just asking for a reference, but think about it. Like they really care what's in the food. It's all about the bottom line.) And really, the source to the contrary isn't really that. It's one man's speculation that it doesn't happen.

And that's what goes into food you eat, not just what a mere pet eats. What do you suppose they put in there?



Quzah.

Me too :P

Although I must report that I had as close to perfect a Thanksgiving shift as possible.

Phone hardly rang.

Nobody came to be admitted.

No police.

Usually thanksgiving SUCKS at the hospital.

You see, I have this theory.

Thanksgiving, more than any other holiday, if the transportation stats they tell us about on the news each year are true, brings families together.

Families that don't usually come together throughout the rest of the year.

Families that often don't get along very well.

Everything goes just fine ...

Until the damn bird hits the table.

And the wine flows.

And people stop being nice to each other.

And something goes *snap*! :angry:

And there is ready access to electric carving utensils.

But for some reason, this didn't happen this year.

And I got paid time-and-a-half (plus a day off to be named later) to surf the internet and play computer games. :thumb:

Gotta love it.

Wouldn't that be admitting that pets have a brain juju :).


And quzah I really doubt dog food ever contains dog. Not only would the animal rights activists be up in arms, but most dogs are buried somewhere. The only reason pigs or cows are ever fed there own kind is becuase the feed lot is too lazy to get rid of the dead animals in a legal fashion.

You may not want to hear it, however a large number of domestic pets are quite intelligent. They may not be 'vocally' intelligent, but they do express their intelligence in various ways - being mischevious, stubborn, or just being themselves. Put three dogs in a room together, and it's a constant dance of pack dominance, the same with cats, who stake out territory in a specific place in a house (a good example would be Hemmingway's 6 toed cats in Key West)

I won't tell you how brilliant my Maxwell kitty is....:D (He's taking dictation now tho)

Dagney

No thanks...
 

He drools a lot, but I'll stick with Maximus. Now tipping the scales at 280 lbs...

Good gawd, and the last 80 lbs are jowls.

yeah no kidding. he can actually store items in there like a chipmunk. occasionally a large rock or piece of bark will fall on the floor in front of the fireplace...

But to bring it back to the thread -- the strange thing is, if that 4 lb Petersburg Orchid were, uh, ok, artificially inseminated by 280 lb Maximus, and somehow a puppy lived to term without killing the mom, it would result in a dog.

It might not LOOK like a dog, but they are the same species! The genetics of the dog allow it to vary from 2 lbs (the tiniest teacup chihuahua) up to your 280 lb defensive tackle there.

I go back to a teacher of mine waaay back who said that an awful lot of evolution can happen without even any genetic mutations.

The next question: are there genes present in the human genome that are so recessive that they have basically never been activated?

on that note, we had a little Basset Hound that SOMEHOW got impregnated by the neighbors Irish Wolfhound mix. It was proabably a 145 lb dog. Don't ask me how that happened, but they ended up having to abort the pregnancy, or our dog wouldn't have survived (or so my dad said at the time). She was carrying 11 puppies. That would have been a strange mutt.

Fair enough. My dog Molly is dumb, dumber than a box of rocks, D-U-M dumb. No kidding. Really dumb.

But she's also a giant ball of love. Her favorite thing in the entire world is to climb onto the couch and lay her gigantic head in my lap. She likes it even more than food - sometimes she doesn't eat, but she never misses an opportunity to flop on the couch with me.

Do I feel that she is inferior? Well, yeah, I guess so. She'd be lost on her own in the wild, I imagine. No mighty huntress is Molly the Big Dumb Saint Bernard. We didn't get her to be an equal partner in our house, we got her because we like dogs.

And that's what she is - she's our dog and our friend and the source of lots of laughter and love. And maybe I just can't see it the way you do, but that doesn't sound like slavery to me.

Besides, my GOD, what a cute puppy she was:

Well, this thread has degenerate into something bizarre now.

My dog is also totally dumb. I used to think that four legged animals wouldn't trip and fall like us humans sometimes do, but alas, she proved me wrong.

shes a cutie tho. im thinking of getting a beagle or a mutt that gets to be about the same size (as a beagle). dont want too big of a dog, but i dont want a lapdog either.

~james

BTW, I'm loving the dog shots, folks. Some people say pics of pets on the internet are dumb, but for some reason, I like seeing all these puppies that people are happy to share their homes with. It's comforting.

My dog is getting ornory in her old age. When I went home for thanksgiving I ended up sleeping on the couch in the living room which my dog usually sleeps on during the night. She slept on the floor that night and seemed content. Now you have to realize that she rarely gets on the couch when anyone is around, but the next night she got up long before everyone went to bed. Obviously claiming her spot. After I had moved her(I felt terrible) she decided to climb onto my moms good couch. Luckily my mom understood and my dog didn't get yelled at so it was okay for us to laugh.

Stupid Dog Email that Showed up at an Opportune Time
 

How many dogs does it take to change a lightbulb? Just one, but if it's a:

Golden Retriever: "The sun is shining, the air is fresh, the day is
young. We've got our whole lives ahead of us -- and you're inside worrying about a burned-out lightbulb??"

Border Collie: "Done. And by the way, your wiring is not up to code."

Lab: "Oh, me, meeeeeeeee! Pleeeeeeeze choose-me-choose-me-choose-me!"

German Shepherd: "Back off. That's MY lightbulb."

Dachshund: "Can I get a little boost here?"

Toy Poodle: "I'm sorry, I can't help -- my nails are still wet."

Rottweiler: "You talkin' to me? Are YOU...talkin' to...ME?"

Shi-tzu: "Puh-leeeze! We have people to do that, you know."

Jack Russell terrier: "I just KNOW I can reach it! Another twenty
jumps..."

Hound Dog: "zzzzzzzzzz"

Pointer: "The new bulb is riiiiight over there..."

Chihuahua: "Hey! Watch where you're walking!"

Greyhound: "If it isn't moving, I don't care."

Kelpie: "LOOK! I put all the light bulbs in a little circle!"

Chow: "Does this mean dinner will be late?"

Sheepdog: "It doesn't look any darker to me..."

Weimeraner: "That light bulb you threw away? I brought it back."

Re: Stupid Dog Email that Showed up at an Opportune Time
 

That was great wolf, I loved the lab one. Though the german Shepard one I don't agree with, I had a German Shepard once she was the gentlest dog you could find. Wouldn't hurt a soul.

Me too! That's Al all the way... if he's been in his kennel for five hours, and has to piss like a racehorse when I get home, the first thing he does when I let him out is give me about ten seconds of hyper-excited puppy lovin' before making a mad dash for the back door.

This was a SteveDallas Random Thread Picker pick. It's interesting to read in light of the recent chimp attack (though I only read about the first 30 and last 10 posts - the dinner bell is ringing).

All that animal talk and not a single recipe?? WTF????

There's not enough meat on a Petersburg Orchid to make anything useful out of it.

Well, I suppose you could zip up some sort of stew if you slaughtered a whole herd of them, but that's a lot of skinning and deboning for one bowl of stew. Screw it. Open up a can of Dinty Moore. That pretty much tastes like dog anyway.

Hey ... what ever happened to Tobiasly? Anybody know?

Jeez, I'd forgotten how twisted juju is. :lol2:
No wonder he ended up at walmart.