#field bred lab

[bones-n-bookles]

I also acquired a new hunting dog book and atlas book!

Game Dog: The Hunter's Retriever for Upland Birds and Waterfowl, by Richard A. Walter's. Originally published 1983, second edition published 1995

Goode's World Atlas, from Rand McNally, edited by Edward B. Espenshade Jr and John C. Hudson, with senior consultant Joel L. Morrison. Originally published 1922, 19th edition published 1995

[blowingglowingdandelions]

Okay I hit the fucking tag limit so I guess I'm putting this in a reblog? I had more to say than I thought. Which no one who knows me in real life will be surprised about.

So, I'm a vegetarian and I was raised to see animals and bugs on the same level as people, more or less, and because of that I have no idea if this take will resonate with anyone but me. But that also makes it very easy for me to explain why the fuck I would never touch this hypothetical product.

Hypothetcially, let's say the human race was going extinct and nobody wanted to have kids ever again. Would it be okay to take a portion of the population and make them or whatever kids they did end up having braindead so they'd never NOT want to have kids and they wouldn't have to feel the pain or other physical affects associated with pregnancy and birth, and then use them as breeders? Still living but braindead. Vegetables, really. They'd never object and they'd never hurt, so wouldn't it be fine then?

But the thought of doing that is horrible and disgusting and no one would ever sign off on it because you know those are supposed to be living, intelligent beings that would feel pain and have opinions otherwise.

It's the same premise here, I feel. My concern, as a vegetarian, is not and has never been about hypothetical souls or anything I can't prove exists. And it's not about never killing anything at all ever again, either. Our society will never be meatless, and unless all the space to keep cattle disappears under urban sprawl, it's never only going to be a lab-grown-meat society, either.

My main concern is the quality of life for all animals before slaughter and not wasting the parts. I mean, they should be free-range, grass-fed, cared for, healthy and happy animals that get to enjoy their lives, however much life they get. And we shouldn't overslaughter, either. Meet the demands of what people are eating and use every possible part of the slaughtered animal that you can, though that part veers more into waste generation in general and the leather argument that's going around, although that comes back to the same answer, for me, too.

What it comes down to, for me as a life-long vegetarian that was raised to see animals as as-good-as people, is this: I am fundamentally against braindead cows because instead of treating animals like beings with autonomy that should be respected, things capable of being happy and scared and in-pain and living, they're being treated as inanimate objects. This suggests that they should be inanimate objects. And listen, we have so many problems with how we treat the Earth and nature already. Eating meat, killing animals, that's not immoral. There is no morality attached to food. That's a natural part of humanity, to hunt. We're omnivores. What's immoral is treating the planet and the animals like they're our playthings. It's immoral to pollute the oceans and to hunt animals to the point of extinction and to keep them in terrible, inhumane, torturous conditions for their entire lives to better serve humanity. Which we're better about now than before, but it still happens. And we kill more than we need to, and and and-

You get it. You know what I'm talking about. And also, as a brief aside, I think it's very, very fucking strange and intentionally pot-stirring to say specifically vegans would be horrified by this idea. I know a lot of people who meat, friends and family and acquaintances, that absolutely love animals. They eat meat, but they still love and are completely respectful of all the animals they come into contact with and they would also be horrified by this idea. Because they know that animals aren't inanimate objects, and that they can be smart and loving and scared and hurt. It's not wrong to eat them because of that, but it is a gross separation from reality to not acknowledge that the meat you eat used to be alive and had a life once.

Here's a deliberately controversial, conversation-starting take on the vegan discourse for you.

Instead of moving human society over to a meat-free model, or mass-industrializing vat growth mean, it could potentially be easier, and certainly more space efficient, to instead genetically modify livestock to be functionally brain dead. You would keep them in racks and tube feed them, a similar arrangement to the factory farm.

I'm sure that there's a neural development gene you could knock out that would leave a given animal unable to have any sort of conscious experience or pain, even in the most abstract sense, leaving you with something that is morally akin to vat meat in the shape of a cow. You could test it in utero with animal foetuses that don't grow to term to avoid ethical concerns in the form of live mutants before the edit is perfected.

Keep a few "pet" populations of each breed to keep the species alive and for more genetic work in the future. That should be just as good as avoiding meat for any vegan, although I would bet my life savings that you'd be hard pressed to find a random vegan who would be anything but horrified by the idea.

[zooophagous]

I'm curious if you'd be willing to elaborate about what kind of behaviours/ attitude in labs and lab mixes your not a fan of, I've only really interacted with labs and lab mixes second hand so I'm honestly not all that familiar with their quirks (and while my family used to sometimes get gun dog super mutts we actually haven't had one since I was born so I'm not particularly familiar with their quirks I'm more familiar with herding breed and sight hound quirks)

I will preface this by saying different bloodlines of lab are better than others. A labrador bred for service dog work will be a different beast than a field bred hunting labrador. A well bred stable labrador is a joy.

Most labs I've met, and that exist around here, are not stable lol. They're largely field bred and expected to work, and as long as they can return a duck to hand and not savage livestock or other dogs, they're considered good enough to keep breeding.

These high energy dogs are then often kenneled when not working and go sort of insane. They're a friendly breed with no stranger danger but that backfires because they become TOO happy to see you.

So what that means is you can walk into any given home that has one and be immediately assaulted by 80 to 100 lbs of labrador that will merrily pummel the shit out of you with its big stupid paws because it loves you so much that it simply has to beat you to death and lick the inside of your mouth.

It never learned anything useful beyond get the duck so its owners attempts to get it off of you are fruitless because they can't control it verbally or physically (dog is stronger than them) and to top it off labs usually smell bad so even if you aren't phsyically bruised from them you're covered in footprints and bad dog smell.

They bark and they're loud about it. They're incapable of knowing their own strengths, and many of them have PICA and will consume inappropriate items like socks, wood chips or rocks and break their teeth or worse require surgery.

The people raising them seem to have very little interest in making a nice normal dog with a good off switch and instead have created a dog that's friendly and good at fetch but is the most obnoxious brain dead idiot on the planet who doesn't even know he's being an asshole when he runs over you.

I've just been annoyed to death by too many untrained labradors that the entire breed has been poisoned to me. I've met exactly one labrador I thought was a nice calm normal family dog. So far I haven't found her equal. I'd almost prefer a dog that doesn't want to be touched to a dog like that.

[wuxiaphoenix]

Worldbuilding: Cultivating Green

Aquarium snails like lettuce. They really, really like lettuce. Especially Romaine. Apparently it tends to have more calcium than other lettuces, which not only helps snails build good shells but is one reason it’s a preferred green to feed rehabilitating manatees. The fact that it floats, making it easy to grab leaves off the surface, doesn’t hurt a bit.

Greens are good for you. They are also, in some circumstances, absolutely deadly. A few things you might consider before you feed your characters a salad include plant breeding, agricultural tech, and water handling.

First, how advanced is your plant breeding? How cultivated are your varieties? Have they been bred to reduce toxicity?

Yes, toxicity. Plants evolved to be resistant to being eaten, just like animals. Only since they can’t run away, they rely on other strategies. Most plants that we can technically eat, for example grass, aren’t very nutritious. Grazing herbivores definitely chew grass, but they get most of their nutrients from digesting the microbes in their guts that can actually break down the cellulose. Like termites. Grazing herbivores also tend to browse on the tender tips of bushes and trees when they can, for more protein.

Though this has its drawbacks. Plants that are nutritious tend to be very, very toxic. Clover? Very nutritious, good grazing for animals and the occasional human - but humans at least have to eat it fresh, and it has compounds known to be abortifacient in large quantities. Milkweed? You eat very specific parts, and change out some water, to avoid the toxins that make birds seriously sick if they target a Monarch butterfly. Apple leaves and branches? Go ahead and cut fresh bits for your horse or rabbit, but take the bits away before they can wilt because cyanide. Potatoes and tomatoes? Nightshades, they can really mess you up. Only the fruit of the tomato is edible; and if you find a wild potato, or even just an unknown cross - I’m begging you, do not eat the tubers unless someone’s able to test them in a lab first. Farmers in the Andes worked for thousands of years to get our table varieties, and every seed from a cross is still a roll of the dice. Not to mention some actively if slightly-less-toxic potatoes are still grown because they’re tough enough to survive very bad conditions.

(You eat them after they’ve been freeze-dried, and you eat them with clay. Do not skip the clay. It absorbs the toxins.)

There are a very few plants that are both nutritious and nontoxic, but they’re rare. Wild cabbage, ancestor to our modern brassicas like broccoli, radish, cabbages, etc., naturally grows on limestone cliffs with basic soils high in salt and lime, where very few other things like the environment. Though extreme environments cannot be counted on to produce edible plants. Look at some of the nasty compounds that are in cactus pulp. Preferably before you try to drink it.

Second, how advanced is the local agricultural tech? What are they using for fertilizer? Organic fertilizer is often either marl (not found everywhere) or manure. Hopefully well-aged manure; hopefully not human manure. But any kind carries the risk of disease and parasites. There are ways to cut those risks; do the farmers know how?

Third, how advanced is the tech for obtaining clean water, and purifying water that might not be clean? Even the best, cleanest field might get targeted by passing birds; washing your greens before you eat them is good sense. Unless the water’s not reliable. In which case all your veggies might be stir-fry, not salad.

It’s possible all of this is just unimportant background in your story. But if your characters are in a foraging or other survival situation... these are bits to consider. They may be safest just hunting!

[bas-rouge]

If you make a list of breeds you would recommend most to your average household, what would you include? Any best-kept secrets? Any breeds that are popular as pets that you absolutely would not include?

Ohhh man. Hm.

Collies are an easy one - they are best-kept secrets in that not many families have them, but they're almost invariably incredible family dogs when well-bred. I've met one (1) Collie that didn't go "OMG YAY A CHILD" and get all gooey. They're friendly, they tend to be easy to train and live with, and (depending on line) they are often not demanding when it comes to exercise. I know people often say that Smooths have higher energy levels but I haven't seen this myself, just certain breeders who produce dogs (rough or smooth) with higher energy levels... a lot of "sporty" breeders just so happen to breed mostly Smooths ime.

I think most of the small companion breeds are fabulous, too. I've loved the temperaments of the well-bred Frenchies I've met - so sweet and funny. Obviously not a secret since they're so popular. Labs and Goldens (obviously), but I have known people who got a field line Lab as a family pet and ended up with a neurotic, understimulated nightmare. So, yk.

On the bigger end I find Berners to be incredible family dogs, and in my experience well-bred Mastiffs are, too (again be careful re:lines, I know some people who breed for more intense Mastiffs). Saints and Newfs are also great but a lot of maintenance.

Rat Terriers ime are great companions, they are so fun, so clever, and so portable. I've met very few that wouldn't make good family pets.

I wouldn't include Sibes (they don't seem as popular now as they were 10 years ago, but still), pits ( @pitbolshevik correct me if you'd like, I think AmStaffs/APBTs can make great family dogs but I do think prospective owners need to understand a bit about the breed and its history beforehand), GSDs (the well-bred ones I've met have been lovely, but even AmSL (the only ones I interact with) have been very suspicious of strangers... I imagine poor socialisation could still mess them up pretty bad), BCs, and. Sorry. Doodles

I'm not going to bother with Doodle discourse but I DO think that a lot of families buy a Doodle (Aussiedoodle, Bernadoodle, Sheepadoodle, what ever) because they think it's going to be like the Goldendoodle/Labradoodle/Cockapoo they met. "Doodle" has become such an ambiguous thing that I feel like pet owners don't really understand what they're getting when they get an "Aussiedoodle". I've never met two Goldendoodles with the same temperament, but ymmv I haven't interacted with many on account of the dog show thing

On a similar note, I know Mals are constantly touted by some as a "stay away stay away stay away" breed, but I have found show line Mals to be pretty great little dogs. 🤷‍♂️

[vitanmortis]

the worst part about round 7 is that I can't even claim it was out of left field, I knew damn well Till was not winning that one. Who decided to put the discount baby against the lab bred one. Who thought this was a good idea.

[grison-in-space]

okay no actually what is the hardy weinburg expected ratio of labrador colors if we pretend purely random mating and no humans making color choices? i.e., how common should chocolate labs be under Hardy Weinburg?

I found a study (open access, even!) that lists the allele frequencies of Labs in three separate populations (UK show, n=104; US field, n=175; US show, n=92) and also pools them in one pan-Lab sample (n=371) for easy analysis. awesome. (okay so I have to scrape those numbers out of the supplementals, but shh.) that study puts the ratio of the e allele at 0.60 overall: 0.46 for UK show, 0.61 for US field, and 0.75 (!) for US show). excellent.

okay, and apparently there are three synonymous b alleles that can create liver in labs at TYRP1, but they all act exactly the same. so. uh, that's something. for simplicity, let's calculate the allele frequency for B instead...

obviously not all dogs genotyped at all locations, so the ns and allele frequencies for the TYRP1 locus at B for black are... UK show 0.64 (n = 107), US field 0.49 (n = 177), US show 0.83 (!) (n = 92)... with a total sample of 376 dogs here and a combined allele frequency of 0.61 B alleles. we can translate that to say all the non-black alleles (so the remaining fraction needed to make 100% of all the alleles) shakes out with these numbers for the pan-b allele we really care about:

UK show: 0.36

US field: 0.51

US show: 0.17

overall: 0.39

since the formula for the overall proportion of chocolate dogs would be p(bb) * p(B_) (probability of two copies of b = liver AND probability of at least one copy of E for not-yellow)...

easier to score this as p(b allele)^2 (which is the HW phenotypic relationship) and 1-p(y)^2 for the probability of NOT being yellow...

so that would come out with ratios of chocolate phenotypes such within each subpopulation:

UK show: (0.36^2) * (1-0.46^2) = 10.2% of all labs chocolate

US field: (0.51^2) * (1-0.61^2) = 16.3 % of all labs chocolate

US show: (0.17^2) * (1-0.75^2) = 1.3% of all labs chocolate

overall: (0.39^2) * (1-0.60^2) = 9.7 % of all labs chocolate

now I suspect very much that this is NOT the case because of chocolate lab breeders and of course you can selectively breed for anything forever. but this is probably why in many circles chocolate dogs have a reputation for not being "good" dogs: purpose bred lab communities tend not to have them pop up too much and . and especially this is probably driven by how much you give a shit about "yellow chocolates" bc the US show circuit is apparently AGGRESSIVELY trying to minimize the odds there, given that the US show circuit seems to be going in very heavily on yellows.

fuck this paper is awesome actually, it has some really interesting conclusions about breed ancestry and rare allelic variants that indicate deeper relationships. fuckin love that.

[pawsitivevibe]

I've been seeing a rise in popularity of sporting breeds (retrievers, pointers, spaniels, etc) in agility of late, and I think that's great. This all is probably a regional thing, as I imagine different breeds are more or less popular in different places, but this is what it's like for my area.

For agility, we see a lot of "phases" of breed or type popularity. Border Collies and Aussies are pretty much always popular, but other breeds fluctuate. For a few years, around when I first started, it seemed like EVERYONE was getting Shelties. The last few years, sport mixes like Border Paps and Border Whippets have been "the thing." And handlers have started preferring then smaller and smaller (Borderstaffywhippaps anyone?). Recently I've noticed a lot of German Short-Haired Pointers specifically, but also more Goldens and Labs and spaniels. I think this is great, as I personally think these breeds are generally a lot "easier" to live with for a lot of people than a Border Collie. And I personally know several people with herding breeds who probably would have been happier with Labs or spaniels. Like, they love their dogs, but uhhh ... Maybe the herdy behaviours aren't the best fit for them, and their dogs are "problem dogs" these days. I just think some handlers shouldn't necessarily jump to "I'll get a sport-line Australian Shepherd or a farm-bred Border Collie for my next agility dog!" I'd like to see more people say "you know what would be good for me? A Lab! They'll do well in agility too!" or "I want a small agility dog ... But let's get a Cocker Spaniel instead of a Sheltie."

Anyway. I know several people doing awesome stuff in agility with Labs specifically. I've had several Labs in my Hoopers classes lately (some of them happened to be the ones who are amazing in agility). I adore them. Labs are so cool! So many people - me included, once upon a time - think they're boring. But gosh the work ethic! The commitment! The food drive! The tankiness! We love. Hoping more people see these Labs doing awesome and get more agility Labs.

Spaniels I find are coming along a bit slower. But! Have seen more Springers coming into sports. More and more Cavaliers. Some Field Spaniels. I suspect we might be seeing a little boom in Wockers the next few years. Personally I intend to show off how great my English Cocker is at agility to push people along to spaniels lol.

Anyway ... Any trends in breed popularity you find interesting in your dog agility community?

[cloudbattrolls]

Arrival

Etuuya Vannyn | Present Night | Kaningård Cavern

This drabble is followed by Aftermath.

Tuuya stared at the printed notice without really taking it in, their soft hands holding it limply. Their bright green eyes were blank, almost unseeing, their body still. They barely moved within their skin, worms leaden with shock and helplessness.

Hello Matron Superior Vannyn,

We are pleased to inform you that you will be receiving and maintaining Miss Ardoat Lentya as a full matron in Kaningård when she arrives on -

The rest blurred before them.

All that mattered was the name.

The name, and the red trident crisply embossed into the stationary the notice had been typed on.

“Ardie…” they whispered, as if saying her nickname with apology could undo the suffering they’d inflicted on the jade.

The worm swarm shook their head. No use staring at the wall and being miserable; they had to tell the others. She supposedly arrived tomorrow night; no doubt the empire hoped to catch them unawares.

Well, thought Tuuya as they grabbed their silver cane and rose to their feet, stuffing the notice in their sylladex as they walked out of their room, they were going to have to try a little harder than that.

As they walked, they took out their phone, texting all their immediate subordinates; the coordinators in charge of the lab, the kitchen, the young mother grub, the egg incubation room, and so on.

I want things spick and span! Don’t spare the sponges.

A true statement. Also a code to clean up and conceal any suspicious activities, shuffle any mutant grubs and wrigglers to the hidden containment areas or evacuation tunnels, disguise any jades who might be not entirely legal themselves, and purge all their message logs and call histories.

A clumsy job, and the absence of such things would certainly draw attention if investigated, but fortunately, they had an excuse for that.

Viruses could be so unfortunate, Tuuya would comment. Remarkable how this one managed to get even into a cavern system, wouldn’t you know it? Perhaps someone was a little too careless on an online gaming site…or, goodness, pirating movies! The sheer cheek, they’d say, shaking their head in imagined abashment.

Admit to a lesser crime, apparently embarrassed, to conceal a greater one.

Then they made a call, speaking a few sentences before hanging up

“Selene. Take Chroma for a field trip. There’s sandwiches in the fridge.”

Another code. He knew what to do, how long to stay away, to not communicate with them beyond this message until he got the all-clear. 

Then they called Uunive.

“Ardie’s coming.” They said lightly, as if the very name was not a heavy weight between the pair of them. “You know how she is.”

Again, they hung up quickly. 

Only the worm swarm and their daughter did in fact, know how she was. Or how she’d been, once, kept in this very cavern…

They made it where they’d been intending to go. Curse their slower pace, but they knocked on the door, and opened it to see a dear, familiar frown.

“You have to evacuate.” They said quietly to Ailene. “An imperial agent is on her way. One placed here permanently. You know where to go.”

Their human daughter nodded, the large moths she bred fluttering around her as she immediately went to grab necessities in preparation.

Tuuya noticed, as they left her, some beetles in the hall. Hardly unusual; Uunive had her own swarm of them she communed with. But as these scuttled out of sight, Tuuya noted they were not the same species; similar, but their carapaces were silvery gray.

Unease prickled through the worm swarm, and it took restraint to not start tying their insides in knots. No, surely if the empire was already here they’d be getting their doors broken down by drones this very moment. Or else it would have already happened.

Still. There was something about them…

But they weren’t swarm-white, and there no others besides themself, Gallen, Inshii, and Helixe.

Helixe…

Tuuya cursed themself in Svenska. How could they be so stupid! Their pupa needed them -

No. They forced themself to stop. Helixe would be fine. They had taught it about evacuations, it had learned just like the other at-risk wrigglers…

But they still ached to think of their youngest in other hands, no matter how capable those hands were.

Stress turned to hunger, as it always did. Tuuya sighed, impatient with their own body as ever when appetite struck while they were trying to get things done.

But there was no denying it. They made their way to the nearest fridge in a common room, bereft of other people as they heard distinct activity signaling their orders were being followed.

Ears flicking, they downed a gallon or so of chilled blood in quick gulps. Tuuya preferred it warm, but this was no time to be picky; they needed to stay focused. 

Right. Yes. Time to warn Crimew and Florah against visiting. They texted both of their children at once, wishing they had time to send personalized messages to each, but the basic code would have to do.

At least Melina was safe, totally unknown here as she was. Their quadrants were away; Jaskir never visited, Kamala and Vrayan were busy, and Channi rarely left his hive’s grounds to begin with.

They sent all four a warning to not contact them for the moment, again wishing they had time to personalize it to each one, but no, quick was the word when all their quads were mutants.

Tuuya sat down heavily on a chair near the fridge, propping their cane against it before stretching out their limbs and trying to make sure they de-tensed from gripping their bones so tightly.

Just a minute’s rest, then they’d -

Their phone chirped with a cheerful tone, a red trident flashing on the display.

They felt an eerie calm form from the pit of their anxiety. Yes. They had figured the empire had lied in the notice, hoping to make them think they had more time than they did…

…but this was still quite soon.

Ardie, they thought. You deserve to hate me, to punish me for what I did to you. But it’s not just me at risk here; it’s so many others who do not deserve what the empire would do to them.

The drinker hauled themself up, cane in hand, and strode as fast as they could to the nearest elevator to take them to Kaningård’s top floor.

Where all visitors were received.

The doors opened with a pleasant ding not long after they’d gotten in, and they gripped their cane tightly as they exited, a pleasant closed-mouth smile on their face. Wouldn’t do to show off their needle-like dentition right now.

She looked over to them, expression pleasant, her choppy chin-length hair so much more gray than when they’d last seen her. Her face had lines it had not shown before. Yet she looked as calm and relaxed as they weren’t, if intrigued and perhaps a little baffled to see them.

It was all normal. Sickeningly normal. 

“Tuuya…?”

Ardoat said in a questioning, almost amused voice.

“Is that you?” She added.

They blinked, then remembered how she had last seen them and chuckled despite their tension.

“Yes, I’m rather bigger than I used to be.” They said with humor, for Ardie had only seen them skinny and with fully black hair. That was three sweeps ago.

Three sweeps that they had, if unintentionally, abandoned her.

“Been through a few knocks.” They remarked, lifting their cane briefly. “But I’m still here, and I…I am sorry.” They said, sagging a bit.

Her face was peaceful. Unsettlingly so.

“It’s fine, Tuuya.” She said. 

Her tone was patient. Encouraging.

“Show me what you’ve done with my old home and we’ll call it even.” She added with a light laugh as she walked over to the elevator. They dutifully followed. 

“I admit - I got here early because I was so excited. But I should still get right to the incubation room; reports to write, you know how it is.”

They nodded.

“Of course. I’m sure you’ve picked up new brooding techniques we could use.”

She waves a hand. “You know I won’t be able to say until I examine the whole facility and see what needs to be done.” She said crisply.

Tuuya twisted up inside, dozens of worms gripping their ribcage; this was what she should have been doing for the hundred-plus sweeps they’d held her captive here.

Instead Ardie’s knowledge had only been good for tutoring Uunive, kept in a light fog so she wouldn’t leave - wouldn’t remember she’d seen worms or a limeblood, wouldn’t tell the empire.

Camouflage for a monster. A tutor for their child.

That was all she’d been for such a long time.

Because they’d put a worm in her head. Controlled her. 

All to keep themself safe.

Tuuya led her to the incubation room, praying the trolls there were ready.

They prayed they were ready.

For they had no idea how to send her away without arousing suspicion. They were trapped.

No harm could come to Ardie without the blame being laid on their head, her blood - literal or metaphorical - on their hands.

Their hunger rose again, but Tuuya had no trouble quashing it.

Guilt easily filled them up instead.

[kavehaskblog]

I can't sleep and I just saw the dog breed anon and I'm laughing because Cavalier King Cocker Spaniel is not a breed. It's Cavalier King Charles Spaniel.

Also there's the implication that Labs and Goldens are trained as service dogs and therapy dogs because they're not intelligent. Which I know the dog breed anon probably meant it in a way of like, "poodles are so smart but can be stubborn, so they use these other breeds more because they're dumb" but it first reads as "poodles are too smart to be good working dogs" Which is hilarious to me because poodles literally ARE working dogs. They're originally bred to retrieve fowl from water, very similar to a Lab's original purpose, except Labs are built for freezing temperatures. (Unless you're looking at field line Labs, those are specifically bred for retrieving fowl on land.) I have two Labs myself and they're fantastic, but I can see why poodle fits you more than a Lab. (Side note, my boy is about to graduate as a therapy dog, and prior to this worked as a service dog for me, as well as doing several different sports. My younger girl is working on several different sports and will be taking his place as my service dog. They're goofy dogs but SO smart and ready to work when you give them a job.)

Hi yes I do dog stuff it's 4 AM and I can't sleep please enjoy my ramblings

I just read this back I am so sorry

Interesting commentary !!

[thicctails]

Spectral Sister

Writing a lil practise blurb for my Speaking Shadows rewrite. It's not canon (at least, not yet) and is mostly just a fun exercise for me. Feel free to read but without prior knowledge of the AU it ain't gonna make much sense.

Crosshair stood ramrod straight as he stood near the entrance of the prison room, his eyes fixed on the girl that sat silent and unmoving behind the same quietly humming force field that had held him and his brothers not long ago. She stared right back, her brown eyes, usually soft and curious, were now cold and sharp as they stayed locked on his own.

He blinked.

She did not.

She hadn't since he'd put her in there.

It made his skin crawl, a sick feeling settling in the pit of his stomach the longer he looked at her, yet he was unable to tear his eyes away. This did not feel like the same little girl that had followed behind them like a lost massiff pup, more like some strange creature trying to pretend to be human.

Crosshair swallowed imperceptibly, mentally chastising himself. He was a fully grown man, and a highly trained soldier to boot. Omega was a child, injured, restrained and locked behind an electrified wall of energy. There was absolutely nothing here for him to be afraid of.

The feeling in his gut did not change.

He did not know how long he'd continued to stare at his prisoner before the door slid open, the slender forms of Nala Se and Lama Su stepped into the room, followed closely by Vice Admiral Rampart. Part of Crosshair, the part that hadn't quite been robbed of all its individuality, bristled at the man's presence, knowing full well what the other man thought of him.

Shoving the insubordinate thoughts away, Crosshair refocused his attention, tilting his head just the tiniest amount to better listen as Lama Su began to speak.

"CT-9904, is the prisoner in stable condition?" the Prime Minister asked.

"Yes, sir." Crosshair replied, biting back the venom that threatened to spill into his voice at the use of his number, "She has a few minor injuries, but nothing that requires any attention at the moment."

"I'm shocked. I figured that clones would be completely inept at keeping a child alive, especially defects like Clone Force 99." Rampart sneered, and Crosshair tightened his grip on his Firepuncher to keep himself from acting impulsively. Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw Omega twitch.

"Clone Force 99 are formidable soldiers, so while they were not bred for childcare, it should not being so surprising that they managed to keep Omega mostly unharmed." Nala Se rebutted.

"Mostly unharmed will be more than sufficient for our purposes." Lama Su said, stopping any potential argument in its tracks, "CT-9904, retrieve the prisoner and bring her to the main lab. We'll extract the genetic material we need, then terminate her. She'd be little more than a resource drain alive at this point."

Nala Se's face scrunched with barely hidden dismay, and Crosshair's feet felt like they were weighed down by concrete as he obeyed the order he'd been given. Part of him had been almost certain that if she was going to be handed back over to her warden, or perhaps given to Crosshair himself to train to serve the Empire. The kid could hardly be blamed for running in the beginning, and she certainly hadn't done anything worthy of execution in his mind. This seemed like a waste of a perfectly good soldier.

'What am I doing?' the little voice that he fought every second of every day to repress began to speak once more, 'This is wrong!'

He punched in the code to the door, watching as the buzzing light disappeared. He strode forward, leaning down to grab the kid's arm.

Omega turned towards him for the first time since he'd captured her on the backwater planet, and he froze in place.

Her eyes had gone from a mild brown to a stark, piercing white. The lights above flickered, the flashes of darkness revealing that they were glowing with an unnatural, eerie light. His breath caught in his throat as the temperature suddenly plummeted, the hairs on the back of his neck raising in instinctive alarm.

"Ba'slanar, verd'ika." a voice, entirely wrong for the mouth it was coming out of, sliced through the uneasy silence that had befallen the room. Blinding pain suddenly erupted in Crosshair's mind, the agony forcing him to one knee.

"What the hell?" Rampart hissed through his teeth, fear leaking into his tone.

Omega moved faster than Crosshair's mind could follow, her restraints snapping under some unseen force. Her hand raised, and as the lights above exploded into fragments of hot glass and all but the clones screamed in terror, something flew into it, the object appearing as if from thin air. For a moment, the cell was completely shrouded in darkness.

Then, with an unnatural crack of energy, the white outline of a blade appeared, flickering and snapping as if it were made of concentrated lightning. There was a slight breeze, as if something had just moved at a tremendous speed past the fallen clone trooper.

Through the ringing of his ears, Crosshair just barely heard the first agonised scream.

[ncisfranchise-source]

At 364 appearances and counting, actor Brian Dietzen has been involved in more than a third of all the episodes in NCIS’ family of shows on CBS. But in a week that welcomed the franchise's 1,000th entry, Dietzen tells Entertainment Weekly that one episode in particular stands out.

“That's one of my tops,” Dietzen says. “That's probably my favorite one.”

The hour of TV in question is “Keep Going,” the season 14 episode that finds Dietzen’s lovable medical examiner Jimmy Palmer out on a ledge — literally — trying to rescue a man threatening to jump. 

But it’s not only the Palmer focus that makes this episode memorable for the former Illinois resident; it’s also what was happening at the same time in the Midwest.

“While we were shooting that episode, I got to watch my beloved Chicago Cubs win the World Series for the first time since 1908,” Dietzen recalls.

The majority of Dietzen’s work in "Keep Going" takes place up against the side of a building, which made it tough for him to follow the action on the field during breaks in filming. Luckily for him, the NCIS crew is full of fellow Cubs fans who gave assists from the ground.

“Chad Erickson is one of our camera guys, and I’d look down between takes. He was like a first-base coach giving me signs on what the score was and what the count was. And then I’d rush home and try to watch the last few innings,” Dietzen says. “It was one of the best weeks.”

Of course, it didn’t hurt that the episode Dietzen was filming during the Cubs’ 2016 victory run ended up being one of the most highly rated of the long-running series, coming in at No. 3 overall with a 9.2 audience rating on IMDb.com.

“Keep Going” is a rare out-of-lab episode for Dietzen’s character, whose kindness and compassion is on full display as he tries to talk a despondent man down from the ledge.

“We’ve got a couple of those episodes over the course of the series, where either Abby or Jimmy or Ducky or Kasie — the lab-coat folks down in the basement — find their way out into the field, and those fish-out-of-water tales are always very entertaining,” Dietzen says. “It's a wonderful thing as an actor.”

The episode was written by Scott Williams, Dietzen’s future collaborator on the three episodes the pair went on to write together. 

“It really turned into just a two-man play out there on the ledge,” Dietzen says. “All the characters were there to support Jimmy, and I think people love seeing that, seeing everyone come together to save one of their own. That was a special one for me, for sure.”

However, Dietzen’s 14-year-old son, one of two children he shares with his wife, Kelly, doesn’t feel quite the same way about his father’s big episode now that he’s started watching NCIS from the beginning.

“He came up to me a couple of weeks ago, and he goes, ‘Dad, I found it, I found my favorite episode of NCIS,’” Dietzen says. “And I'm thinking it's got to be something that's, you know, centered around his dad, right? And he just goes, ‘Probie.’” But Dietzen can’t fault his son for loving the season 3 outing that focuses on Sean Murray’s character, Timothy McGee. “It’s such a good episode! And Sean is so good in it,” Dietzen says. “I was like, ‘Dude, you're right. That's a fantastic episode.’”

When he shared the news with Murray, the two had a similar thought: “Isn’t it wild that our kids now are watching the show? My son didn't exist when the show started, and neither did Sean’s kids.”

One thing that Dietzen’s L.A. born-and-bred children aren’t missing out on is the Wrigley Field experience that their dad grew up with... sort of. On one family trip to the friendly confines, Deitzen recalls a tap on the shoulder from the people in the row behind him with an offer to share the baked goods they'd brought from home.

“My daughter looked at me and my wife as we're taking the cupcakes, and she was like, ‘What are you doing?’” Dietzen says with a laugh. “It’s like, ‘Honey, this is the Midwest. It’s not Los Angeles. People just are really nice here. They'll bring cupcakes to the Cubs games.'"

[ustalav]

next time i run into my neighbors im gonna be weird and ask if they show dogs lmao

they have four purebreds that look to me like well bred showlines lol (esp the lab, it’s real easy to spot a bench lab vs field line or backyard bred)

[adventures-on-foster-island]

Camera!

Professor AU - Ellisa never met Dusk

December 10th, 2016

New Patient: a farm breed Torchic

Reason for visit: wound on neck

Breeder's comments: she keeps getting picked on by the other Torchic and Combusken. Thinking of culling.

Treatment plan: wound was cleaned and stitched, an initial dose of antibiotic was administered. A consultation with the breeder about options led to them leaving the Pokémon in my care.

January 22nd, 2017

First round of children came by to get their first partners. They were so excited they shook as they used a Pokéball for the first time. I hope they listened about taking care of their partners, and that they have a safe journey.

February 19th, 2017

The shear quantity of Luvdisc that have gone through this lab in the last five days is unimaginable. Wild caught, farm raised, show breed, and those poor souls who were mass bred for the holiday. I have been able to take in a lot of data, however I do hope this doesn't happen every year...

March??, 2017

Some days I wish I had the power to strip someone's trainer license. Alas, I am forced to fill out mountains of paperwork, documenting each infraction, in hopes that one day it will amount to enough to ban this person from keeping a Pokémon.

You flip through dozens pages, filled with these little notes, documenting Ellisa’s first year as a Professor. The last page is torn out, however the one before it has one final thought from the Professor.

November 26th, 2017

How I miss the days of being in the field. I used to make a difference, helping Pokémon when they needed me most. Now I sit in this sterile, white room, staring at a computer screen, waiting for someone to bring the problem to me. This is not the life I dreamed of.

[mantisgodsdomain]

Saw this and thought of Marigold.

https://www.tumblr.com/apuff/724225345127071744/that-poor-insurance-salesman-had-no-idea-what-was?source=share

Anyway, here’s a related question, how does Marigold choose her victims?

We've kinda outlined this before, we think, but it's a mix of convenience, cover, and what she needs to test. Marigold's test subjects tend to be more or less grabbed off the street, or recruited via job posting, if she has the spare change and someone to route it through. Standard, experimental transmutation tends to be quick and messy - the idea of most of these transmutations is to work with properties of new formulas and iron out any kinks before actually putting them up on the market, and ironing out the issues that lead to transmutation failure is part of the point, here.

Initial trials will spread a wide net, and then further trials will narrow down the issue - going for individuals within a specific range of species, for example, until all the quirks are worked out. The alchemical properties of an individual tend to vary, even within a species, so it can be very valuable to figure out if something failed because of the ingredients, or simply because of the nature of who you're trying to transform.

Complicating all this, of course, is cover - you can't just grab people off the street without drawing attention, and trying not to draw attention is something that Marigold's had to practice quite a bit. Visible people with access to resources and people who care about them spur man hunts - but bugs who are already likely to disappear are easy to simply grab.

Bugs with high-risk jobs or bugs who have already been "disappeared" for her are easy demographics to go after, though the latter is usually only something she runs into on jobs. If an adventurer goes off to Snakemouth Den and never returns, and a few days later a monster turns up gnawing on the handle of their weapon, it's pretty obvious what happened.

Besides that, a handful of antiquated laws in the Termite Kingdom make it fairly easy to pick up discarded arena fodder with a go-between. The downside of this, of course, is that it's expensive, and hirebugs aren't always entirely trustworthy - and bugs bred for the arena are generally divorced enough from your average awakened bug that the data isn't too useful for field use. Lab moths are still useful for rough drafts of formulas, before they've gotten far enough along to use on actual bugs.

For jobs, it's both easier and harder - when you're being hired to turn one thing into another, you really only need to test one species, and matching a reliable transformation with whatever properties the client wants means that you can tailor-make the formula, minimizing the chance of failure to near-nonexistence.

That said, it isn't always perfect - though clothes are a rare enough luxury in Bugaria that it doesn't turn up often, having something in the way of a transmutation can easily lead to undesirable results - if your chest's swelling to twice the size, you do not want any armor restricting it.

Prosthetics, surgically imbedded aids, and other such things can easily cause failure, especially if there's enough charmcraft in them to interact with the transforming enchantment. Tinkering with the base enchantment can negate most of the negative side effects, but the big trouble comes when a client doesn't consider it enough of a point to mention - full physical description is a necessity, especially on jobs where she won't be physically present to watch the transmutation.

With some spells, any garments or implanted aids can be twisted with the spell, but this tends to be both a bit difficult and unreliable - if something absolutely must be used in a transmutation, it's far easier to simply turn the object integrated into a charm, allowing for the fusion and the transmutation into a single step rather than adding the fiddly work of grabbing an object external to the charm's actual subject.

We might be getting a bit off-topic by now but - yeah, it's either whoever she's hired to transmute, whoever's convenient, or whoever's convenient within a certain demographic.

[cipher-fresh]

[ID: A tiktok with narration saying "Some people saw this video of Scamp obsessing over a light on the ceiling and-jumped to the conclusion that he is mentally neglected" shown is a comment by Donald Byrnes reading "Angi Cook- because that specific breed was made to kill rats for farmers around their barn. Give the little guy something to chase around. What's the difference between keeping a dog from doing what is was bred to do than physically hurting the dog. Mentally abusing a dog should be just as illegal as beating a dog. An now that dog is wired to look at any reflections it sees and go crazy my point isn whether it was or wasn't a laser pointer fact remains that behavior was reinforced. Footage of Scamp is shown, a white Jack Russel Terrier with black spots, spinning around and staring at a ceiling fan. The narration continues. "Scamp is my biological brother who I've known since he was guinea pig sized." A photo of Scamp is shown, looking very small in the grass. "He suffers from a disorder called Jack Russel Terrier," Shown is an edited screenshot of the google search results for Jack Russel Terrier, which are labelled as "A disorder that affects a person's ability to think, feel and behave clearly" and that "Tumors can start in the brain, or cancer elsewhere in the body can spread to the brain. Common- more than 200,000 US cases per year. Treatable by a medical professional. Requires a medical diagnosis. Lab tests or imagining always required." The person keeps narrating, "-which was named after this dude who drove his wife crazy." with a wikipedia screenshot of "The reverand - Jack Russel" captioned "-Swimbridge. Russel is said to have had expensive sporting habits both on and off the hunting-field, which drained the substantial resources of his heiress wife and left the estate of Colleton in poor condition." Scamp runs to some trees over autumn leaves. "I'm not a dog expert, so I'm not sure if seven acres of horse property is enough stimulation for a 9 pound animal. so we're going to be looking into getting him more mental stimulation by getting him involved on insider trading and heavy cocaine usage. Thank you for your feedback", then shown is the narrator showing dollar bills to Scamp. /End ID]

the wording on this Jack russell vid beamed a permanent mark onto my brain