How to Tell if Your Dog was Raised by Cats

This is my dog, Joe. Now, to the untutored eye of the ignorant layman (Calvin and Hobbes reference, yay!) Joe may look like an ordinary chocolate lab. But I'm here to let you in on the secret: he isn't. 

For one thing, Joe is the biggest wuss of a dog this side of the Mississipi, but that's (mostly) irrelevant. The BIG secret is that Joe was raised by cats. 

At least, that's my theory. It may sound crazy, but there's proof. Here's a handy questionaire/psuedo-advice-column to explain the proof and help you determine if YOUR dog was also raised by cats. 

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Question #1: Help, my dog is purring!

Don't worry! This is a perfectly normal, if unorthodox, function of your dog's vocal chords. To most, this sound will appear to be a low growl. Your dog will probably make this sound over and over as he receives attention if he truly intends to purr. 

Clearly, this sound is/was meant as an imitation of a cat's purr, which is what your dog would have grown up hearing if he really was raised by cats. 

Question #2: My dog is afraid of cats and other dogs! Why?

If you've ever studied the behavior of a cat, you've seen that they tend to be aloof around other cats, and wary if not outright afraid of dogs. If your dog was raised by cats, he would naturally have picked up some of these behaviors. This is completely normal. 

Question #3: My dog keeps licking himself, all over his body. Why does he do this?

This, of course, is a behavior your dog would have learned from his foster mother, a cat. Cats are well-known for their ability to clean themselves; any dog raised as a cat would attempt to replicate this behavior. Unfortunately, most dogs don't really have the ability to clean themselves this way; but since most dogs also don't have the mental capacity to realize this fact, it's kind of a moot point. 

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Of course, these are just a few of the many odd behaviors a dog raised by cats would express. These are the three cat-like traits that my dog Joe tends to exhibit; of course, your dog may be totally different. The point is, if your dog was an orphan raised by cats, you'll find out one way or the other. 

So what do your think? Was your dog raised by cats? Was your cat raised by dogs? Was your fish raised by hamsters? How can you tell? Any quirky pet stories are fine by me!

Until next time—ciao!

It's That Time of Year Again...

...And believe me, I wish I was talking about election season.

Well, you know how it is. School has started up again. I'm in the thick of Logic, Latin, Algebra (urgh), Science History... you know, all the fun stuff.

In all seriousness, I'm not really complaing. (Well, not too much, anyway.) I like school. (Sort of.) But it is taking up a lot of my time. Most of my morning, really, and two or three hours of my afternoon. In addition, I have a rather horrendous-looking backlog of Things I Need to Write, and an even worse backlog of Things I Need to Read (That Aren't School-Related So I Can't Do It Then).

So, yeah, blogging will probably be a bit scarce through the rest of September, and maybe October. (I'm not sure yet, though.) I will, if it's any consolation, try to get out a post around Halloween (because why not?), but that's the only promise I'm making for now. So, yes.

(Wish me luck on algebra. Bleh.)

My Sister Disapproves of the New Activia Packaging

OLD Activia yogurt packaging

NEW Activia yogurt packaging

As you may or may not be able to tell from the above pictures, Activia has apparently changed the font on its packaging label. I, personally, can only just barely tell the difference between the old font and the new font. My sister, on the other hand, is incensed that Activia has dared to alter THEIR packaging with a font that is almost literally no different from the previous font. 

As you almost may or may not be able to tell, I could not possibly care less that this has happened. I don't even eat Activia yogurt. Usually. 

I partly think it's funny that my sister cares so much about the font on a yogurt package. But I also think it's something of a comment on American society. I mean, a lot of people to day feel validated, or try to feel validated, by the purchases they make. And, a lot of people today are perfectly comfortable with starting fights over inconsequential things, or so it would seem. My question is, when there are plenty of serious, life-or-death issues to talk about, why do we start discussions about yogurt packaging (being facetious here, but not that facetious). 

This is called a report button, boys and girls.
This is generally the thing you try to avoid
when navigating the internet. 

It's true that I've had really only a cursory experience of the Internet, but even that has shown me that people are perfectly capable of starting trivial and/or nasty discussions here. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that if a discussion on the Internet isn't trivial, it's almost always disproportionately nasty. There are exceptions, of course, but I don't think there are actually that many. 

(And then there are the rarer, but still existant, Internet discussions that are trivial AND nasty. There are certain forum threads I could link to to prove this, but I will restrain myself.)

So, all this having been said, what do YOU think? Is the new font on the Activia package good? Bad? Horrendously offensive? Does the Internet encourage nasty and/or trivial discussions, or are those just side effects? And finally, did I or did I not use way too many all-caps words in this post? 

(Please, do try to keep these discussions from turning nasty.) 

Thank you and goodbye!