Does that work on dogs? I know it's suggested as a behavior modification tool for cats, though my cat actually liked being squirted with water.
Rant VIII: The Reckoning
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GasBandit
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It worked on my german shepherd puppy for about 3 squirts. Then he figured out when the squirt bottle comes out, open mouth. Free drink.
It's not an end all solution, but some sort of intervening behavior is needed in those situations. It does get my dog's attention, it may not totally modify the behavior. But it has helped with annoying barking/whining when all of his needs have been met besides 24 hour attention.
My lord....THEY ARE EVOLVING! Soon they will figure out the TV doesn't have actual people in it!
I'm kind-of on the fence about getting a puppy/dog because my neighbor's behavior may rub off on him/it. And my mother hates the sound of 3 dogs barking enough as is. Question, do dogs copy behavior off of other dogs?
The company I work for was recently bought out, so we have new owners and bosses now. The individual store I work at has always struggled with sales, due to poor location and signage. Ten minutes away another store (out same company) was opened, in a much better location and much busier area. Despite this, my store has always outsold the other, thanks to marketing campaigns (local advertisements, fliers, calling campaigns) and the like. We have fewer customers, but we work hard in sales quality.
Ever since the new owners took over, they've taken our marketing resources away. Sales have dropped to near zero, and the owners refuse to allow us anything to improve, because they're nit going to spend money on a store that doesn't have sales. Now they're threatening to even cut my hours.
They've tied my hands and complain when I can't do anything. I was consistently top in sales, with highest profit, before this all happened.
RRRAARRGLL
Ever since the new owners took over, they've taken our marketing resources away. Sales have dropped to near zero, and the owners refuse to allow us anything to improve, because they're nit going to spend money on a store that doesn't have sales. Now they're threatening to even cut my hours.
They've tied my hands and complain when I can't do anything. I was consistently top in sales, with highest profit, before this all happened.
RRRAARRGLL
GasBandit
Staff member
Sometimes, especially if they're raised together. I never had problems with my dogs "copying" neighbor dogs but the one time I HAD neighbor dogs I was also very strict master. The dogs I had then got formal obedience training while they were still puppies, and also I think it depends a lot upon the personality of the dog in question. The truth is one dog is/can be as different from another as two people are.
That helps a lot, thank you.
Just throwing this out there...please, if you get a dog/puppy get a breed that fits your lifestyle. I find that that is where a lot of behavior problems arise from. People get dogs that they think are cute/pretty, but they just don't fit into the owner's routine. Like getting a Husky and living in a 1 bedroom apartment in the city. It can work, of course, but...it's just not the best idea.
I'm also seconding GasBandit and to get the puppy into obediance training. If you aren't well versed in training a dog on your own, taking Puppy to someone who is, it's definately a must.
LittleKagsin
I have a big yard, so its kind-of cluttered so a hyper dog would be a problem. My house at the moment is generally cluttered and gets cluttered a lot more. I would probably want a slow breed of dog and maybe a small one as well, though I have heard that a lot of them can have really bad health problems. This lady I know adopted a poodle that had mad health problems. One of those ones bred just for keeping rich people's laps warm. She's a lot healthier than most dogs of the breed thanks to the owner but still.
I have a big yard, so its kind-of cluttered so a hyper dog would be a problem. My house at the moment is generally cluttered and gets cluttered a lot more. I would probably want a slow breed of dog and maybe a small one as well, though I have heard that a lot of them can have really bad health problems. This lady I know adopted a poodle that had mad health problems. One of those ones bred just for keeping rich people's laps warm. She's a lot healthier than most dogs of the breed thanks to the owner but still.
The health problems come from puppy mills that run the gene pools too shallow to make more profit from those popular breeds everyone wants.
My dog came from a rescue shelter, and she's the best dog in the world.
That's where I hope to get my dog if I get one, one of them rescue shelters. Pet stores creep me out to no end and we all know why.
GasBandit
Staff member
Also be aware that if you get certain breeds, they will need "a job." German Shepherds, for example, need someone to herd. Our GS was a nervous, whiny pain in the ass until we got him a little sister (golden retriever) and it immediately settled his personality to have something to watch over, herd, and interact with when we were not at home for long periods of time. It really made him a happier and more well behaved dog.
I also say yay to the rescue shelter idea! You're more likely to get a 'mutt', but as long as you know what it's mixed with, it's temperment shouldn't be too hard to figure out. My dog is a rescue and I love him so very much. He did come with behavorial problems (we suspect and are pretty certain he was abused before going to the shelter), but it wasn't anything that couldn't be worked out. His main issue is shyness with strangers.
There are some great small dogs. Not all of them come with health problems or are just for laps. If you want suggestions I'd be happy to make some, but it's up to you and what you want.
There are some great small dogs. Not all of them come with health problems or are just for laps. If you want suggestions I'd be happy to make some, but it's up to you and what you want.
Just make sure you don't get one herding dog another herding dog to watch after. My parents have an Australian Shepherd and a Border Collie mix; and watching the two of them attempt to herd each other is cute and funny, but when they're just by themselves during the day, they both have a tendency to go a little bit mad.
If I get a small dog I'd want one that isn't too hyper-active but still playful. Also one that doesn't bark a lot is a must as I've said my parents hate barking. Course if I move out in the near future if/when I get a job that wouldn't be a problem.There are some great small dogs. Not all of them come with health problems or are just for laps. If you want suggestions I'd be happy to make some, but it's up to you and what you want.
In your opinion, GB, are german shepherds good for kids? My husband wants one when we move to a bigger place but they just scream 'guard dog' to me...however, I can't help but to think a German Shepherd might be a good fit for Jet.
My cousin has a GS, and just had a baby six months ago. The dog rarely leaves the kids side, watching over the little tyke and being incredibly cute and gentle.
Can't speak for all dogs of the breed, but I can say at least one is great with kids.
GasBandit
Staff member
Actually, "guard" dogs of just about every breed make excellent babysitters. It helps if you get them as puppies, but even older ones get a bad rap.
Dogs don't guard "things." They guard what they think is their pack - their family. The image of the vicious guard dog comes from dogs that basically were brought up by psychopaths - teaching them that every unfamiliar being is a lethal threat.
Pit bulls make the most attentive, gentle, and formidable babysitters.
But really, german shepherds are shepherds more than guards. The kids are part of their pack, or their flock, and sometimes it gets a little funny to see a smaller child get "turned" by the dog who thinks they're straying too far. The only caveat is that sometimes they get careless when they're happy, and being big dogs, their wagging tails can knock toddlers over.
Also, they don't know about taking turns on stairs. At least the ones I've owned didn't.
A big dog like a GSD that is socialized is safer around a child than a small dog. Big dogs are harder to hurt than a small one. Step on a GSD's tail and he will look over its shoulder at you until you move, step on a Chihuahua's tail, and you will be putting neosporin on the wound.
Miscarriages suck. That is all.
Cajungal
Staff member
I read it earlier today, man, but it sounded like y'all needed some space do I didn't write anything. You guys have been on my mind all day. So sorry you had to go through that. Hang on to each other and your little cutie.
Fixed.
LittleSin , have you considered a Blackie (Black Russian Terrier)?
(also, anyone else care to comment on the breed?)
--Patrick
Just got a call from my sister. My uncle just passed away. He had just been hospitalized for a heart attack and pneumonia, and has been in bad health for decades really, ever since a paratrooper training exercise went horribly wrong and nearly crippled him back in the '70s. I hadn't spoken to him for a long time, and my dad's side of the family was never really that close to begin with.
Sigh.
Sigh.
My company (X Consulting Firm, not Microsoft) has gone batshit fucking insane. Like seriously, full on, pants-on-head retarded. I suppose that, all in all, this started last October when the current president and VPs bought out two of the five founding partners of the company and rebranded it from Y Solutions (so named because it was a quorum of five like-minded individuals) to X Consulting (a name they paid $100k to a rebranding company to come up with). Now that those two are out, one of the original five partners is the president of the company and they brought in a new CEO. Technically, they called the process of appointing the new CEO a merger, but in actuality, the company was bought out by the new guy, who ran his own business intelligence company... for almost a whole month.
This has led to confusion in the company direction. What used to be one of the most successful small contingent staffing firms in the region, that concentrated its time and effort in finding the best possible people to provide the best possible services to a small but impressive list of clients (originally just Microsoft, and then later T-Mobile's corporate HQ in Bellevue, WA, and then spreading as they could find new clients) has now branched out into business intelligence analysis (Facebook, Live Nation, Coinstar, a few other big names I can't remember off the top of my head), and more recently into internal software development. There's a guy who used to work a contract here at Microsoft, doing general customer service design work (how to offer customer service), whose contract ended and X didn't want to lose him as an asset, so they gave him an internal position. His job was to find a way to better leverage X employees to various contracts, and as a part of that he came up with the concept of making a database of all X employees and what skills they have, which is searchable by everyone in the company. This way, if I'm having trouble with writing a SQL script, I can check the skills db and see who has SQL experience and ask them for help. Of course, I don't use SQL in my every day job and if I had trouble with a script I'd much rather look for an online resource (no waiting) and figure it out on my own, but that's just me. He's also started work on an internal CRM application, that the company hopes to license to other companies for fun and profit.
Now, none of this is really bad. We're branching out as a company - diversifying our portfolio, so to speak. The problem comes with the way that the new name is influencing management. Y had always run on the idea that their employees were their biggest assets, and that spending time and energy on the employees was the best way to stabilize the business while simultaneously growing the company through new employees and new clients. To that end, they used to host monthly, voluntary "happy hours" at local bars/pubs/etc., where anyone who wanted to get together could do so, over drinks and a nice meal, and talk about their challenges and successes and just unwind and get to know one another. And, they'd also have a mandatory "state of the company" meeting every six months to talk about new opportunities and let all of the employees know how the company was doing financially and what any upcoming projects were. X kept that up, for almost a year.
Now, however, the term "X" has apparently warped the president's brain, because he's decided that we all need to be more in-touch with one another. It's not good enough for us to be 70 individuals (on the non business-intel side of things) who may or may not know one another personally and who may or may not interact once in a while; we need to be a close-knit team of friends who all enjoy each others' company and who know exactly what every member does for X and for their clients. To that end, we're now going to be having bi-weekly mandatory fun-time(tm), where we get together and eat ice cream at an ice cream social (Get it? Social. Like X. We're being an X. WHY DON'T YOU LOVE OUR X?!) and have three minute public speeches by whomever wants to talk about whatever topic they want to talk about (I've been volunteered for the next meeting to publicly shame me for missing last night's meeting because... I was working). And each time there'll be a short presentation on how awesome the company is to work for, and what a great job they do of taking care of us, and what awesome non-standard benefits they provide us with. The whole thing smacks of nationalistic pride parades in North Korea, all Praise Glorious Leader.
Now, I don't have a problem with a company having social events - they can be fun. What I do have a problem with is being required, once every two weeks, to go have fun with four people that I talk to every day, and 66 people who I may never see or interact with outside of my Mandatory Happy Employee Best Company Fun Time. I also have a problem with the fact that all of these Mandatory Happy Employee Best Company Fun Time events are held at X's offices, because while I work for X, I work at Microsoft. X's office is 10 miles (20 - 30 minutes in average traffic) away in an entirely different city than the one I work in. This means that every time they hold an event, I have to leave work at least 30 minutes before the meeting starts and, while I do get paid for that time, that's time that I could use to actually uphold the commitments of my contract with Microsoft. A contract which I take very seriously. And my Mandatory Happy Employee Best Company Fun Time commute is far from the worst... we have people who work as far away as Tacoma or who work from home and live on the peninsula(Tacoma to Bellevue is 36 miles - an hour or more during afternoon traffic, the peninsula to Bellevue trip requires either taking a ferry or driving 80+ miles).
This has led to confusion in the company direction. What used to be one of the most successful small contingent staffing firms in the region, that concentrated its time and effort in finding the best possible people to provide the best possible services to a small but impressive list of clients (originally just Microsoft, and then later T-Mobile's corporate HQ in Bellevue, WA, and then spreading as they could find new clients) has now branched out into business intelligence analysis (Facebook, Live Nation, Coinstar, a few other big names I can't remember off the top of my head), and more recently into internal software development. There's a guy who used to work a contract here at Microsoft, doing general customer service design work (how to offer customer service), whose contract ended and X didn't want to lose him as an asset, so they gave him an internal position. His job was to find a way to better leverage X employees to various contracts, and as a part of that he came up with the concept of making a database of all X employees and what skills they have, which is searchable by everyone in the company. This way, if I'm having trouble with writing a SQL script, I can check the skills db and see who has SQL experience and ask them for help. Of course, I don't use SQL in my every day job and if I had trouble with a script I'd much rather look for an online resource (no waiting) and figure it out on my own, but that's just me. He's also started work on an internal CRM application, that the company hopes to license to other companies for fun and profit.
Now, none of this is really bad. We're branching out as a company - diversifying our portfolio, so to speak. The problem comes with the way that the new name is influencing management. Y had always run on the idea that their employees were their biggest assets, and that spending time and energy on the employees was the best way to stabilize the business while simultaneously growing the company through new employees and new clients. To that end, they used to host monthly, voluntary "happy hours" at local bars/pubs/etc., where anyone who wanted to get together could do so, over drinks and a nice meal, and talk about their challenges and successes and just unwind and get to know one another. And, they'd also have a mandatory "state of the company" meeting every six months to talk about new opportunities and let all of the employees know how the company was doing financially and what any upcoming projects were. X kept that up, for almost a year.
Now, however, the term "X" has apparently warped the president's brain, because he's decided that we all need to be more in-touch with one another. It's not good enough for us to be 70 individuals (on the non business-intel side of things) who may or may not know one another personally and who may or may not interact once in a while; we need to be a close-knit team of friends who all enjoy each others' company and who know exactly what every member does for X and for their clients. To that end, we're now going to be having bi-weekly mandatory fun-time(tm), where we get together and eat ice cream at an ice cream social (Get it? Social. Like X. We're being an X. WHY DON'T YOU LOVE OUR X?!) and have three minute public speeches by whomever wants to talk about whatever topic they want to talk about (I've been volunteered for the next meeting to publicly shame me for missing last night's meeting because... I was working). And each time there'll be a short presentation on how awesome the company is to work for, and what a great job they do of taking care of us, and what awesome non-standard benefits they provide us with. The whole thing smacks of nationalistic pride parades in North Korea, all Praise Glorious Leader.
Now, I don't have a problem with a company having social events - they can be fun. What I do have a problem with is being required, once every two weeks, to go have fun with four people that I talk to every day, and 66 people who I may never see or interact with outside of my Mandatory Happy Employee Best Company Fun Time. I also have a problem with the fact that all of these Mandatory Happy Employee Best Company Fun Time events are held at X's offices, because while I work for X, I work at Microsoft. X's office is 10 miles (20 - 30 minutes in average traffic) away in an entirely different city than the one I work in. This means that every time they hold an event, I have to leave work at least 30 minutes before the meeting starts and, while I do get paid for that time, that's time that I could use to actually uphold the commitments of my contract with Microsoft. A contract which I take very seriously. And my Mandatory Happy Employee Best Company Fun Time commute is far from the worst... we have people who work as far away as Tacoma or who work from home and live on the peninsula(Tacoma to Bellevue is 36 miles - an hour or more during afternoon traffic, the peninsula to Bellevue trip requires either taking a ferry or driving 80+ miles).
Did you write out Mandatory Happy Employee Best Company Fun Time every time in you post? Or did you use copy+past on Mandatory Happy Employee Best Company Fun Time? Cuz writing Mandatory Happy Employee Best Company Fun Time more then once is tiring.
Mandatory Happy Employee Best Company Fun Time
Mandatory Happy Employee Best Company Fun Time
I hope that's the actual name given to it by the company, and Gared simply forgot to add the appropriate (c) following each mention.
Nope, sorry, Mandatory Happy Employee Best Company Fun Time is my name for it. They don't have their own special name for it. I might anonymously suggest it, though. Oh, and I typed it out each time, because I'm annoyed about it and (not gonna lie) typing it out each time makes me feel superior to whomever thought that this was a good way to run a consulting firm.
tl;dr
OOH FREE ICE CREAM!
OOH FREE ICE CREAM!
It's probably not really a huge issue, but you could be right.