Get a Dog, Get a Life

ASPCA poster at PAWS. "Get a dog, get a life."

The wonderful joy of a dog companion, member of the family, treated like the prince of the property, your loyal ally and protector!

When you realize in your heart how much you sincerely LOVE your dog, it is kind of scary.

You realize that this creature with the intelligence of a 2 year old human child has captured your innermost being with an extreme positive attachment.

He seems to be an actual part of you, not a separate being.

He is your son in every sense of the word, aside from how he was born.

You have adopted him, chosen him, and learned how to be nice to him, patient, soft, gentle, and always encouraging him, praising him, talking to him like a human pal.

You sing songs to him, use repeated phrases at specific times, making his world reassured and regular.

You do your utmost to give him a paradise on earth, making his life full of happiness and positive expectations.

Every day is a good day for your dog as long as you're there, with your dog, and cheerfully greeting him upon returning from an absence. He shows his contentment and fondness, just in the way he looks at you or the way he smiles as he takes a nap on your pillow.

Inter-species companionship, mutual love and kindness, a strong emotional bonding, delight in each other's company -- are an amazing gift to both pet and parent-owner.

Training your dog. Protecting him from unleashed dogs. Giving him medical care and a good diet. Buying him toys and jackets and hoodies.

Going off on wild adventures and explorations. From forests to bright city lights. To rivers and fountains and parks.

Taking your little guy along with you, as an equal partner, inside various homes, stores, offices, festivals, visits with neighbors who also have a dog or cat.

Putting him on a parked motorcycle for a photo opp.

Providing varied sensory stimulation by transporting him to new locales and including him on every household activity, whenever possible.

Teaching your dog words, commands, maneuvers, games.

Talking intimately as he looks at you with attempted understanding.

Being surprised at all the words he recognizes and responds to: go for a walk, go see mommy, go see daddy, doggie doctor, bone, dog toy, go night night on the big bed, poo poo pee pee outside, water, doggie treat, yes, no, go home, get on the sidewalk, cars, icky, good boy, whoo whoo whoo (for a remarkable achievement), okay, sorry, go bye bye in the car, go to the bridge (Schmoeger Park), names of other dogs in the neighborhood.

Bonding with a good dog, whose personality meshes with your own in surprising ways, is one of the greatest satisfactions in life.

If you have the opportunity to comfortably accommodate, pay the bills for, and lovingly care for a dog, please go to PAWS and rescue one today.

Buddy Streight the Minpin, we love you with all our hearts,

Mommy and Daddy

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Troll Check List

How can you spot, destroy, and delete an internet troll?

Reddit CEO says trolls are winning and taking over debate forums and social platforms.

 No. That's not true.

Trolls can be defined, identified, monitored, and dealt with via blogocombat, banning, and blocking.

What are the characteristics and behaviors that brand someone an internet troll, a griefer, a trouble-maker?

I compiled the following facts to guide your understanding of trollish activity.

 Troll Check List 

 * rarely links to substantiating resources

 * copies and pastes lengthy chunks of articles he found online, scholarly text you're pretty certain he didn't write himself (since it's free of hysteria and cuss words)

 * anonymous or near-anonymous, has obviously fake name, no photo of face for avatar, or no updates on his own profile, so he clearly joined a social platform just to annoy and disrupt conversations

 * gets angry quickly and betrays his paranoia when he misinterprets even your smiley faces as "condescending" and treating him "like a child."

 * launches into personal attacks like that's what they were leading up to

 * is quick to start calling anybody who disagrees with him an "idiot" or "moron" or "watch too much Faux News" or "read too much Huffington Post"

 * uses filthy language

* quick to put you into some ideological group, then attack that group, e.g., "you church people are all the same" or "you atheists never make sense" or "I bet you voted for Bush" or "here comes another libtard."

 * often sexist or racist

* has a teenage immaturity, very sensitive, extremely brutal in unreasonable retaliations, a delicate ego based on pampering, resulting in severely limited logic skills and self-absorbed grandiosity

 * will argue as hatefully against a woman or child as against a male or a peer, thus: has no personal standards of what is socially appropriate

 * thinks he's the only one with all the right answers, similar to a garden variety cult leader or brainwashed group member

* may even tell you his IQ number or list his college degrees, or jobs supposedly held, or make similar insecure, pompously funny assertions of being smarter than everybody else, especially you

 * rushes to conclusions that he can then get angry about

* won't chill out because he's putting on a show for his Red Bulled buddies

 * likes to twist what you say, as though you have bad intentions, or puts words in your mouth, making absurd allegations of what you imply or what you "must also believe"

 * frequently blames everything on the Jews or Muslims or Republicans or Democrats or capitalism or socialism

 * makes wild accusations like they've had too much lucid dreaming, bath salts, and fake pot

 * relentlessly keeps hammering away at an argument, even after you've stopped responding and have moved on

 * will, if you annoy the troll enough, turning the tables on him, eventually get exasperated, and instead of saying something like "well, let's just agree to disagree" says "you're all a bunch of retards. I'm done with this conversation." -- thus you de-fanged the troll and caused him to kick himself out of the online discussion, when his whole point was to be sadistic and hurt people's feelings and mock their opinions.

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