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jjaynes's journal
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A research survey of clinical trials comparing Health at Every Size with reducing diet/exercise. http://www.nutritionj.com/content/1 It tackles so many fallacies: that overweight people die younger, that diet and exercise can be effective long tern *and* that the changes made by diet and exercise for the purpose of losing weight will also produce health benefits, etc. I love this article! Admission: I have skimmed it. I have to work in 30 min and have not read it cover to cover. I will once I'm home. I was just too excited to wait to share it. |
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What the heck? Is it very common for people's hobbies to be "I play a few video games, watch sports, and go to bars?" I ask new acquaintances what they do for fun, and I get some variation on that. Am I spoiled by the SCA and nerdery? How can people not have anything interactive that they do for fun? Okay, video games can be interactive and can be an intense hobby depending how you play them... Come on people, model trains, woodworking, macrame, breeding parakeets, there must be something you do for fun! What the heck do I talk about with these people? I don't like beer, I don't follow sports or movies. I suck at small talk! |
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Just now I went in to give Snorri some more food, as they've actually eaten most of their AM meal and he was staring pathetically at me (this is one of his two major hobbies, the other being creating the largest possible mess). I put the bone-in chicken in the dish, and then the weirdest thing happened: Snorri started chewing it and then carried a piece off to the feeding den! Someone has replaced my weasel with Folgers' Crystals! Standard behavior would be trotting off disdainfully, possibly after a few halfhearted licks at the chicken, or taking a piece behind the couch to abandon for 6 hours. They've also acquired more nicknames. Snorri the Viking Ferret, Destroyer of Worlds, is also now "Fur Collar." First, because he's got the most amazing, soft, lush white winter coat ever and I want to make a collar out of him, and second because he continues to be a royal pain in the ass and a force of chaos and destruction and I want to make a collar out of him. Dominique the Chew Toy is also now known as "Nibbles." The poor little thing just cannot figure out how to fight properly, no matter how much Will and Snorri beat the snot out of him. I think maybe he was an only ferret, and learned never to open his mouth wide to bite. He's great at playing with human hands because of that- no chance of a bite. He just nibbles. But he doesn't seem to realize that he is allowed to bite other ferrets, he just nibbles at them and they try to eat his head. |
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The first 6 months we had Snorri the Viking Ferret, I tried to train him. But it was like his tiny brain short circuited at the smell of treats and the only thing he could do was climb me to get to the treat hand, and beg. And not even a decent "beg on hind paws," which was one of the tricks, just a plain old stand there on all 4s and look pathetic. Apparently he's matured. Last week he learned "go through the ring" after being led through twice using a treat, and was every single time going right through the ring and looking at me after for a treat. Tonight I wanted to capture a behavior I've seen him do before: when the cage door is closed, he puts his front paws high up on the wire door and leans backward, opening the door by pulling on it. In maybe 4 steps I got him reliably doing the behavior when led to it by a treat. He clearly knew what I wanted. But he still had to be led through- if I just said "what do you do to get a treat?" he just tried other random behaviors like climbing me, looking at me sideways, going through a tube, and running back and forth in front of me. As soon as I made any gesture of leading, he'd do the trick. Lazy bastard. Oh, I almost forgot. As I had the treats open and was breaking them into small pieces before starting to train, he found the ring from last week leaning against something, nearly horizontal but one end propped up an inch or two. He shoved his way underneath it and squeezed his fat but up through it, and looked at me for his treat. I was pretty impressed he remembered something we did once, more than 4 days ago. Although it does pertain to treats, so... |
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Minnie is a pretty princess of a ferret. She does not tolerate food that is the incorrect texture or temperature, or soup on her chin. Or being held, or being fed if she's decided she's full. Or other ferrets playing rough if she doesn't want to. Or other ferrets not playing rough when she *does* want to. She's a pretty princess, is what I'm saying. [IMG]http://i436.photobucket.com/albums/q [IMG]http://i436.photobucket.com/albums/q And now she needs meds twice a day, every day, for the rest of her life. Whee! Here is our method: 1. Put ferret soup in bowl 2. Add exactly correct amount of water to reach her desired consistency 3. Warm soup, but not too warm, in microwave 4. Put 2 Tbsp soup into smaller bowl, add meds and delicious Ferretone oil for bribery, stir 5. Carry all the bowls of soup to the ferret room 6. Find Minnie, trying the carrier, the couch, the tent, the carrier, the bed by the door, the blanket under the cage, and finally the carrier again where she's hiding under Snorri's fat butt. 7. Extract Minnie from under Snorri, laugh at how her every appendage goes rigid with rage at your intrusion. 8. Place Minnie on footstool 1.5" from soup bowl and release immediately. If you placed and released correctly, she will eat some soup. 9. Fend other ferrets off from stealing soup. 10. Catch Minnie just before she leaps off the footstool sideways because she's decided she's done soup and must fling herself bodily as far away from the bowl as possible. 11. Repeat steps 8-10 one to two times. 12. Decide she's eaten enough soup to cushion her stomach from the meds. Put the bowl of medicated soup in front of her. 13. Repeat step 11. Several times. Try holding the bowl at different angles, placing her closer and further, adding more Ferretone. 14. Minnie has eaten 1.5 slurps of medicated soup. Try holding her on your lap, since Will loves to be held while eating soup. 15. Remove Minnie from the top of your head. How did she even get up there? 16. Try holding again. 17. Barely catch her as she flings herself over backwards to try to escape your clutches. 18. Try putting your finger in the soup and offering it to her to lick off. Successfully get her to eat 4 fingerfuls of soup between repetitions of step 17. Half the soup remains. 19. Realize you are never getting the rest of the soup into her. Go to kitchen and draw up a half dose of her meds in an oral syringe, bring it back to ferret room. Get some ferretone in a bowl and place it within arm's reach. 20. Repeat step 6 (find Minnie). 21. Remove other ferrets from bowl of ferretone, refill ferretone, find another place to put it that is within arm's reach but not within ferret reach. 22. Hold her by the scruff of her neck, no more than 1 foot from the floor (in case she wriggles free and falls), and squeeze the meds into the side of her mouth. DO NOT release her neck. Wait until she starts making cat-with-a-hairball noises, that means she's actually got the meds in her mouth and hasn't successfully drooled them out. 23. Lower her so her hind legs are on the floor, front are still dangling. STILL HOLDING SCRUFF, put the ferretone .25 inches from her nose. Don't touch her nose to it, don't put it too far away or she'll ignore it. She'll lick in the general direction and resume gakking. Move bowl 2 inches or more away. 24. Repeat moving bowl closer and further away, until she actually eats the ferretone. 25. Slowly lower her front legs to the floor, maintaining relative position of her nose and bowl. 26. Release scruff quickly. If it's too slow, she'll remember she hates you and your ferretone, run off, and paw at her mouth until she vomits. 27. Watch to make sure she doesn't run off and paw at her mouth until she vomits. If she strolls off to wipe her face all over the couch, you've succeeded. You have 12 hours until the next meds are due. |
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I regularly receive donation appeals with stories about animals rescued from cruel or neglectful people, rehabbed and adopted out. They always include something vague and unsatisfying like "the owner was charged with animal cruelty." They never include anything satisfying like "the owner was found guilty and forced to pay a fine of a bajillion dollars and spend the rest of his natural life washing dishes at an animal shelter." Are there nonprofits or groups out there that work on prosecuting people who harm animals, and toughening up laws against animal cruelty? Because I want some damn vengeance, and I'm willing to pay money for it. |
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I never remember to check LJ any more. Maybe if I put it in the laptop's bookmarks... Anyway, the point of this was vague antecedents! I just left a voicemail for the veterinary pharmacy about Minnie's meds, but due to a wee bit of voicemail anxiety, part of the message came out, "Dr. So-n-so called in a prescription, but the thing is she's terribly fussy about flavors. Um, Minnie, that is, not Dr So-n-so." :-/ |
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Will is the smartest ferret! Tonight I let the weasels out in the hall to play. Most of them put themselves away in the living room as they tired out. I closed the gate but could only verify 3 of the 4 definitely in there. So I left the hall doors closed in case someone was still in the hall. Just now, Will came up to the door to the kitchen, where I am. I picked him up and put him in the weasel (formerly living) room, and he promptly walked off to eat the food he couldn't reach when he was locked out of the room. Usually if he's in the room and I'm outside, he stands by the gate and looks pathetic, but apparently he was ready to be away with his food and litter pans. So he came to find me so I'd put him away! We also sometimes let him loose in other rooms for playtime. These are rooms without litter boxes. When he has to go, he will walk over to the door and refuse to leave it. Once I took him to the living room, put him in, and he went to the box and pooped then walked back over to me. I was so impressed that I brought him back to the other room to keep playing. Standard weasel behavior would be to poop in whatever corner was handy without thinking twice. |
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Interviewee: ...or it will all go horribly pear shaped. Host: Pear shaped? What does that mean? Interviewee: Wrong. I dunno, it was just something about the deadpan delivery of "wrong" that cracked me up. |
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N: what dat? Posted via LiveJournal app for Android. |
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