It would appear you’ve not fed him enough. The poor thing is reduced to a single back leg.

So humid you can barely see the hill two miles away

I take my consent from the dog. You’re its caretaker, friend, and family. None of that means the dog’s incompetent to decide and communicate desire to be touched.

edit: I should be more clear. I ask for permission from the owner. I say “Can I say hi to your dog?”

Then I say hi by putting my hand out to smell. Then if the dog wants a pet, I’ll pet the dog.

Permission to approach from the owner, but consent to pet from the dog.

Fittin Kitten

You dog looks a little scrambled

beagle shepherd is not a thing

I think you look very dignified

And this must be Rosie

Mysteries abound

dude what

It may be “direct” but it’s not a real form of power. Nobody’s vote changes the world, unless they’re in an election with a spread of one.

That I know of

Do you see?

How many vegans have you crossed paths with in your life?

Well obviously hundreds of people going vegan isn’t going to make much of a difference, because we have billions of people.

That doesn’t mean an individual vegan can’t make a difference by spreading their lifestyle.

It’s just like any moral improvement: an individual should not expect that their individual actions are going to change the world.

Also yes, there’s no 1-to-1 correspondence between more vegans in a particular neighborhood, and cows not being born and then slaughtered. It’s understood that these two pools are too far abstracted for tracing farm animals to meat eaters.

But the same problem is true of voting too. So if a vegan shouldn’t expect to make a difference by converting others to veganism, then a citizen shouldn’t expect to make a difference by voting either.

I taught my cats to stop clawing me when they kneaded just by teaching them the word “claws” (but since my GF was Peruvian, we used spanish to talk to the cats and it was “uñas”).

All I did was bring their claws out a little, rub my finger across the tips so that my fingerprint vibrated the claws (to draw their attention there) then said “uñas”. And repeated it.

Then when we’d be cuddling they’d be kneading and if they started including their claws in the kneading I’d just say “uñas” and they’d retract their claws and keep kneading.

No operant conditioning required. I used a little classical conditioning to teach them the word, then mere mention of the word was enough because they already knew the claws were uncomfortable to other people. They were just extending their claws unconsciously while kneading.

Wouldn’t claw caps defeat the defensive and climbing functions of claws?

Also not a nut, nor a vegetable, nor a vegetarian. I’m all for a declawing ban. It is utterly cruel to value furniture over the wellbeing of a living creature.

If you’ve got nice furniture that you’re not willing to sacrifice to a cat, DON’T GET A CAT. Mutilating a cat just so that you can be close to said cat is fucked up. Let it live with people who can take care of it without having to alter it.

Kitties have the same right as every other living creature to the means of self defense.

Yeah OP just grabbed a passing baby deer and set it on the dog. Definitely a more believable story.

No, because people can be respectful of animals while using the word “it”.

You’re asserting all this extra stuff that the word does not convey, because you’ve unconsciously decided that is the only way to use the word.

But as others are telling you, and is true, it is common in English to use “it” for animals. Despite what your lit teacher told you, that does not create disrespect for the animals. People have been caring for animals, people with hearts, people who don’t treat animals the way they would a book, while using the word “it”, for as long as the English language had existed.

That thing where you can’t have empathy for an “it”, that a rule in your head.