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Every year I look forward to the Lyttle Lytton contest, where people submit the worst opening lines to a fake novel that, god willing, will never actually be written. My favorites from this year:

AND my personal favorite:

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Still been obsessing over fishing lures lately but like, look at them

Blind cave gummi man

Jar of space virus

Don’t bully him :(

a family of honkulating dwimpuses

“Uhh this is how a duck swims right? Hoo boy. At least I remembered that they’re about two and a half inches long.”

Jeremy

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THE GREATEST SAGA OF OUR TIME

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This is the reason why you should hire an artist! 😍😍😍

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Happy Birthday Chibi-Usa!

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For those of you who don’t know, I have been working at a raptor center for the last four years, and this is where I learned everything I know about animal training. We use a contemporary, stress-free and force-free method of training that is used by many other professional animal trainers, which follows an “A-B-C” guideline. I’ve gone on to use this method on the lab chickens and turkeys I study as a poultry welfare and behaviour researcher, and I also spend nearly all of my spare time at home training my personal backyard chickens to perform a lot of the same behaviours I’ve trained on other groups like falcons and hawks. This is a very short clip of me training Arty, one of the hens I adopted from my lab to do “hops”, or short, horizontal flights. Here’s how the A-B-C method is broken down:

Antecedents: This is anything and everything that precedes a behaviour. The most obvious example in here is the double-tap I do on my forearm, which I shaped Arty to respond to in less than a day. Before she learned this “cue”, however, the antecedent was me waving a treat, or reinforcer, above my forearm. Eventually, I was able to incorporate the double-tap, and fade out having the reinforcer in plain view. There are many other different types of antecedents, though, and some may cause a behaviour that you don’t desire/intend to train. For example, any disturbance like a loud noise or a more dominant hen pushing Arty out of the way would have been antecedents for a different behaviour, such as walking or flying away from me. When training an animal, it’s important to be aware of all possible antecedents, and “arrange” them in a way that sets the animal up for success.

Bridge: This is a signal, such as a click, whistle, “good boy/girl”, etc., that acts as a line of communication with the animal, letting it know that he/she has successfully done the behaviour you asked for, and that a nice treat is coming. Timing is very important here, as you want to make sure that you are reinforcing the specific behaviour that you want, and nothing else. Bridge immediately, but only once the behaviour is completed (e.g. I only click as soon as both Arty’s feet are in contact with my arm or the perch), and deliver the reinforcer as soon as you can afterward. Note: Some facilities/trainers say that the B stands for Behaviour, which is anything that an animal does - whether it’s a desired (flying to the trainer) behaviour, or undesired.

Consequence: At its simplest, this is what happens after the behaviour. The most successful (and ethical) type of training is through operant conditioning with positive reinforcement. Here, Arty gets rewarded, or positively reinforced, as soon as both feet land on my arm, after I’ve given the cue. Use reinforcers that you know the individual you’re training loves (I literally share my meals with my chickens, but here I’m just using whole-wheat tortilla bits), and the process becomes much easier for both the trainer and the animal, and trust is built up quickly! What are the consequences of “undesired” behaviours, for example, if Arty became startled and took off? This means she gets to avoid and escape from whatever threats she perceives, whether it was the loud noise or punishment from a dominant hen. In any case, it is important for the animal’s welfare that they have the choice to do so. Whether she comes to my arm or not is up to her, and if at any point she decides she is no longer interested, or feels unsafe, she is free to go. This also helps develop trust between the trainer and the animal, and almost guarantees positive sessions.

It honestly hurts me a bit when I see or hear about chicken owners chasing their birds into their coop at the end of the day. This is totally not necessary. All it takes is just a few minutes every day building trust with them. This is usually done with food - again, take the time to figure out which reinforcer works best with each individual. Some of my hens love (whole-wheat) pasta, some don’t, my rooster would inhale blackberries whole, half of the hens don’t care for it at all, and (unfortunately) cuddles/petting don’t work as well with chickens as they do with dogs, parrots, etc., as primary reinforcers. Bridge every time before you present a reinforcer, and you’ll be surprised how quickly they learn to pay attention to it, even when they can’t see any treats. In a pinch, I get my flock to recall (come to me from wherever they are) or follow me around when I click, because they know for sure that I’ll give them the good stuff soon. Ideally, there should be a separate cue for calling them over, then bridging and reinforcing once they’re where you want them to be, but this way still works. I start clicking as soon as I get out of the car after a long day at school/work, and I can’t tell you how wonderful it feels to see them literally fly and run to me from an acre away just to greet me. I haven’t had to chase them anywhere in years, and doing so does not give them a choice and causes fear. This way is so much easier, and entertaining!

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Guys I-

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Lando's Un-censored Team Radio from Austria

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a reminder that on this blog we love and respect sebastian vettel, a four-time world champion and one of the greatest drivers of all time :)

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LANDO NORRIS P3 for @suckmyballshoney

like/reblog if you use!

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i’m sorry but i just have to say this. i do not think that any of the drivers that didn’t take a knee are racists and i’m not going to accuse someone of that without prove, however, i am very disappointed with their decision.

look, i understand that everyone is entitled to their own way of showing support or whatever but i also think it’s fucking unbelievable that lewis, who’s arguably the only one suffering from this issue, was the one asking for their support and solidarity, which is really the least they could do, and still all he got from some of them were some half-assed tweets. i just don’t understand how fucking hard can it be to just kneel for a few seconds? and don’t come and say shit about sponsors and whatnot cause i’m sure dan, lando, george, kevin, seb and everyone else also have sponsors to worry about and they still did it. also, i really just didn’t understand charles’ reasoning at all. like he said that racism should be fought with daily actions and not formal gestures but how is holding up that shirt in the podium not a formal gesture? i mean, what else is it then? i just don’t get it

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“thanks mum” ❤️

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3.

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I’m still very fucking happy formula 1 is back and I’m so proud of Lando and the others but damn, this part of tumblr reached a new level of fucked up today.  Nobody should get hate anons for simply supporting or liking a driver. You can still like or support a driver while also acknowledging they’re not perfect and do things wrong in their lives. 

Today people have gotten hate anons whom told them to “go kill yourself” if they still supported/liked Charles, Max or any of the others whom they thought were(are) problematic and that shit is just too fucked up. You have a serious problem if you think sending people stuff like that is okay or justified because they like a certain driver. I love formula 1 and I love being on tumblr with everyone but those hate anons really ain’t it. If you want someone to change their mind try speaking like a decent human being instead of attacking them in one of the worst ways possible.

I can take it when somebody tries to be rude in my inbox but some people might not which can result is awful situations.