A blog about adventures, academia, adoption and other things starting with the letter 'A'. I'm a geek, a metal head, a shiba inu wrangler and a vegetarian, and I write about all of the above. You have been warned!
I unintentionally made a bunch of people very angry when I commented elsewhere that either of my dogs is more a "person" than an embryo is. On reflection it was kind of predictable, but to me personhood has nothing to do with abortion laws so it didn't immediately register that I was about to get whacked with a 'pro-life' hammer. I'm just really impressed by my dogs f(^_^; I wondered afterwards if some of the ire directed toward me was caused by the negative use of dogs in English: "I wouldn't treat a dog like that/
treated worse than a dog/ not fit for a dog."
We have many dog-related idioms, most of which don't give dogs a great deal of respect: bitch fight, work like a dog, dog's life, in the dog house,
treated like a dog, every dog has his day, sick as a dog, hair of the dog, dog tired, dog eat dog, dog's breakfast, fight like cats and dogs, raining cats and dogs, see a man about a dog, wag the dog, the dog days of summer, let sleeping dogs lie, dog day afternoon, like a dog with its tail between its legs, and like a dog with a bone.
In Japanese idioms, dogs get a mostly negative treatment as well: 犬も食わない (not even a dog would eat it), 犬と猿/犬猿の仲 (dogs and monkeys, basically the same as cats and dogs in English), 負け犬 (a looser), 犬死する (die in vein), and 犬も歩けば棒に当たる (similar to every dog has his day but with more of a connotation that good things will come if you take action).
I'd love to hear from speakers of other languages. How do dogs fare in idioms around the world?
Obedience training is vital to maintaining a happy home life, and anyone can do it~ all you need is patience and consistency. The most important thing to remember, though, is that no matter how intelligent your human may seem, he or she does not innately know what you expect of him/her, and you must explicitly teach any skill you want the human to master. Before we go into specific commands, I need to mention hierarchies. Human society is deeply stratified, and your human will feel happier and more secure knowing that YOU are in charge. Humans generally display their social status by exchanging small rectangles of cardboard, and consequently it is vital that you immediately destroy any cardboard you find the human bringing into the house. This lets them know that you are the head of the household.
This is what the hierarchy looks like
Fetch
Choosing a good time is important- set your human up for success! Ideal times are when the baby has just gone to sleep, during a work related phone call or while they are watching a movie with a complex plot. First, make it clear to your human that you are interested in playing with something. It works best if the item is heavy or rattles or is in some other way loud and annoying. Drop the item near your human, loudly. Then stare intently at the item and bark furiously. If your human ignores you you may need to repeat the dropping a few times. It works well to drop something from an elevated position like over the back of the couch to maximize noise. When your human eventually retrieves the item and hands it to you, reward them by blanking them and licking your bum. Then repeat again from the beginning.
I'm gonna wake this baby, oooohhh yes I am
Open the Door
Again, timing is important. When a heater or air conditioner is running is ideal. Find a closed door and bark at it. If barking doesn't work, remind your human it is a rental and then scratch it violently. When your human opens the door you have two options- ignore the open door and settle in for a nap, or, walk through the door and once it is closed repeat the process from the other side of the door. Do whichever takes your fancy, or switch between both throughout the day.
Mastering these basics will give both you and your human extra confidence. Have a shiba day!
You’re walking your dog too, but you’re not really there.
Your dog knows it. I see them looking at me and I smile at them,
hoping you’ll notice me noticing them and then realize that at the end
of your arm is a leash attached to everything you’re busy chasing
somewhere else. You really matter to your dog, you know. If you
pay attention, you might feel how important and appreciated you are. It
feels real good.
I see you with your head down, eyes fixed on your phone’s screen,
one arm fully extended behind you. You’re not aware that you’re dragging
your dog along who is trying to sniff something very important. When
you get home, maybe you realize that you forgot to pay attention to
your dog the whole time you were out. It’s almost as if that walk never
happened.
When an owner brings in a pet, they don’t take it in easily like most
centres. They ask them to remember the time they’ve spent with their
dog or cat, and ask them if they’ve really tried seriously to find a new
owner. One staff member explains, “We don’t want to give local people a
bad impression. But we do want the people who come to us to get rid of
their animals to leave feeling bad about it. Sometimes we might even be
able to change their minds.
“We don’t mind being hated. Even if it comes to tears, we need to ask
the owners to think about what they are doing.” Sometimes there are
disputes, but if the staff persevere they’re sometimes successful at
persuading the owner to take their pet back home with them and give them
another chance.
One time a man in his 60s brought in his corgi, saying, “He chews
everything, I can’t keep him.” The dog’s original owner, his son, had
moved abroad and the dog was nothing but a nuisance to his new guardian.
The man was of the opinion that “if the dog does something bad, it’s
natural to punish him.” In response, the staff asked him, “Isn’t it your
son who’s taught him it’s OK to chew things? If it’s your son’s fault,
why should this dog pay for it with his life?”
This post has been sitting in my draft folder for nearly two
years. I don't know what to conclude about the topic and didn't want to
do ANOTHER post that just trailed off. In the end, though, I realised I
may never figure out how to "conclude", so I'm just going to leave it
here and back away slowly.
Enjoying the view while the human does all the work... excellent shiba-ing!
Back when we just had the one dog... and no kids... and no car, we were a bit stuck on how to transport him around. We found this carrier which is actually for toddlers but modified with a dog insert and thought it was the perfect way to get around by bicycle with dog safely on one of our backs. Like most things we tried with Hayate, it didn't work out quite as planned. He enjoyed it, but his favorite part of the experience was biting the back of the man's head. The man tried wearing a helmet to discourage this, but then Hayate developed motion sickness and vomited all down the man's back. The man called it quits at that point.
Many thanks to Helen of Inn by the Sea for giving me a kick back into blogging with the "five days challenge". The idea is to post five photos, one per day for five days, and to write a story or poem to go with each photo. For each day that we post we are supposed to invite one person to participate.
Today I am tagging Yurikachan for the "five days challenge". Yurika, if you would like to participate, post a photo every day for
five days and write a story to go along with each photo. Your story can
be fiction or non-fiction. It can be a short paragraph, a page, or a
poem. Each day, please select one person to carry on the challenge. It's just for fun, there's no pressure to join in ;)
We don't watch a lot of broadcast TV (we have hulu), but one show we have been turning on regularly is Tensai! Shimura Doubutsuen, a variety show about animals hosted by comedian Shimura Ken, probably best known to the internet for thissketch (the show ran from 1987-1993, not sure when the specific clip aired):
At first I was really against watching Shimura Doubutsuen for a number of ethical reasons, particularly the frequent appearance of Pan-kun the chimp, the featuring of exotic pets and the whole concept of zoos in general. Tiger really wanted to watch it, though, and I believe it is more constructive to watch a show I object to with him and talk about what bothers me as we go rather than banning him from watching something he is interested in. So, we started watching it, and although I have the same concerns now as I did then, I can also see the good the show does in promoting rescue dogs and positive training approaches.
Shimura Ken travels Japan with his rescue-dog Chibi, drawing crowds whenever they go and showing a cute and well-mannered dog with frequent references to his past as a 捨てられた犬, an abandoned dog. The good this must do in promoting awareness of rescues and raising the image and status of rescue dogs is obviously very valuable. Since we have started watching it regularly the show has also been featuring updates on two seriously traumatised nihon-ken who have been rescued and are being rehabilitated by the programme. Having spent their lives confined in a tiny space the two dogs were at first afraid to even come out of their kennel, but on a recent episode one was not only able to take a short walk outdoors but even raised her tail, probably for the first time in her life. I'm not the slightest bit embarressed to say that I cried a little bit during that episode.
And yet, Pan-kun. There are just so many issues that make performing chimpanzees fundamentally unethical (see http://www.janegoodall.ca/chimps-issues-entertainment.php), and I cringe every time he comes on screen (less often now since he was "retired" after mauling a handler). And the exotic pets. And then there are the things that aren't exactly immoral but are just stupid and annoying, like recurring guest "animal psychic"Heidi Wright and the exaggerated performance of foreignness the three "hafu" hosts of the Japanese dog breed segment put on (follow the nihon ken on facebook though, they are ADORABLE).
Does the good outweigh the bad? If you watch (or purposefully don't watch) the show, please leave a comment and let me know what you think.
This meme has been so all over the place I couldn't figure out who to credit it to... if you know, please share!
I've lost 13% of my body weight in the past four months. I've been wanting to look after my health better for a while, and I decided to stop putting it off. The weight-loss was a consequence of a healthier lifestyle, not the goal. Yesterday Tiger forgot something important, so I brought it to school for him and on the way bumped into Ms Smiles (who sadly isn't his teacher this year). "You've lost so much weight" she commented, "are you OK? Is it stress?"
This makes me happier than a number on a scale
Even though I sat down to write about this conversation I am struggling to find words to express how happy her comment made me. She didn't give a casual "looking good" or congratulate me on the "achievement". She knows how hard things have been, and she wanted to check I was fine. There is nothing inherently better about being thinner, and skinny does not equal happy.
Lovely man + puppy is, however, a reliable formula for happiness
The lightest I have ever weighed as an adult was the unhappiest year of my life. I was too stressed to feel hungry. I survived on coffee and lived almost entirely online. My life away from the computer was unbearably painful, and eating meant shopping and cooking and disconnecting my dial-up. When the man and I first moved in together we both put on huge amounts of weight. We had both been unhappy for a long time, and together created a happy domesticated existence that involved a lot of nights in with cheesy pasta-bakes and Stargate SG1. It wasn't great for our health, but man did that weight gain signify a change for the better in my overall quality of life! So although this time, losing weight has been a positive thing, I was so happy to hear someone make a comment that did not assume thinner = better.
Here is a random video of Hayate as a puppy trying to get his reflection to play with him. I was going to try and make it sound profound, but really, it's just another puppy video.
At the end of a particularly good farewell brunch on the weekend I sat
talking to our host, they’re leaving after 13 years in Doha. She talked
about this special life, how your friends become your expat family.
“It’s the one family you actually get to choose. That’s what makes it so
good”.
We will be hit hard this summer, with some of our favourite people leaving Japan. I might have to pull this post out again in August.
“Anyway,” I continued as I unscrewed the wine, “let’s say your
parents were going to buy a new house. Who’d make the ultimate decision,
your mom or dad?
“My mom. And you better not eat those Calbee chips. They’ll make you fat.
“But they’re delicious. They’re black pepper. I love them. And I thought your dad brings home the paycheck?
“True, but it’s not his; it’s the family’s.
“Does your mom give him an allowance?
“She does,” she said with a smile, and this seemed to make her happy.
“Okay,” I continued. “So if they were going to buy a car, who would decide?
“Mom.
“Furniture? Sofas and tables and stuff?
“Mom, of course.
“Washing machine? TV? Fridge? Sony Playstation?
“Probably my mom,” she said, then added, as if surprised, “Huh, Japan is matriarchal!”
“I’m having a moment of clarity,” I said.
“You should’ve bought a bottle with a cork,” she said.
Ken takes a serious topic and puts a very entertaining spin on it. I have been pondering writing something on this topic for a while, but he has nailed it so perfectly I feel there is nothing left to say.
The
word comfort is from two Latin words that mean "with" and "strong".
God is with these women and He makes them strong. He is with us and He
makes us strong. Amy Carmichael said, "Comfort is not a soft, weakening commiseration; it is true, strengthening love." I hope that sort of comfort is what Haitian women are experiencing as they are brought home after giving birth.
Even though he didn’t carry the bottle all the way to me, I cheered so
enthusiastically, another trail walker couldn’t help but wander over to
see what my commotion was about. I started to gush about Bowdu’s amazing
retrieve, but stopped short when I saw this guy was accompanied by a Labrador Retriever; I might as well have been raving about my Shiba’s beautiful dump in the woods.
Why would you want a kid who talks back?
Well, because you aren’t always right; and because other people
aren’t always right. A kid who just accepts what she is told,
uncritically, is a kid who unequipped to deal with a world full of
propaganda and urban myths and flat-out lies.
Between late January and mid March, the Guangzhou baby hatch took in 262
children. This was an unexpectedly high number, causing the baby hatch
to close in late March. In late February, a photojournalist captured 24
hours at the Guangzhou baby hatch, exposing some heart-wrenching, tear
jerking moments.
Here's where it affects the RAD. For years, Genea has had the most
insincere tone interacting with little beings. Seeing her new baby
cousin, she'd say "aww. Oh look. At. The cute ba- there's a squirrel
can I have a lollipop you have to wash my clothes now", with the same
tone as if she were saying " I gotta take out the trash". It made my
internal organs cringe but honestly, I stopped noticing it ages ago.
Just part of Genea, one of those things she is going to have to learn.
But with Bindi, it's sincere. She sounds like she really does think
Bindi is cute. It sounds natural, and that right there is amazing all by itself.
Samahope is a non-profit organization that uses crowdfunding to provide funds for doctors to give life-saving medical care to both mothers and children. The doctorsSamahope
partners with work in Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, Latin America, as
well as right here in the city we call home, San Francisco. These
doctors do everything from correcting birth defects to providing safe
birth services to helping families cope with trauma (ahem, right up our
alley). And while you can give to these amazing doctors anytime during
the year, there's an extra special way you can do it for Mother's Day,
all while honoring your mom and giving her something special to
remember.
The fact that this is now being passed around by proponents of
homeschooling and “unschooling” who are not religious and considered
“progressive” is concerning. It seems that there is a new hatred of
public school that is beginning to take root, and it has nothing to do
with Christians. All the illogical, misinformed, sensationalist
arguments against public schools that I’ve seen for years, is being
repackaged, regurgitated, and spit out all over the websites of people
who think they are some kind of pioneers, that this “rebellion” against
formal education is all their idea. They ridicule other parents who put
their kids in school, saying we must not love our kids if we send them
to “government brainwashing centers” (sound familiar?). Which, of
course, usually makes me laugh out loud because I’m pretty sure the
homeschooling leaders of the conservative movement of the ’80′s invented that term.
A high school sophomore in Pennsylvania who had been bullied all year
by classmates with no help from his teacher decided to audio record the
bullying on his iPad as evidence.
But instead of disciplining the bullies, school officials called
police on him, threatening to have him arrested for felony wiretapping.
Many working mothers have had to give up their jobs just because they
can’t secure spots for their children at such facilities. The problem
has become so acute that there is now a term describing difficulties
confronting working mothers with first-graders: “shoichi no kabe” (the
hurdle of the first grade).
Even students who are fortunate enough to gain admittance to an
after-school club benefit for only a limited time. Many clubs —
particularly the traditional, publicly funded ones — accept students
only through the third grade, meaning that older children often have
nowhere to go after school. Many end up staying home alone, often with a
TV or computer games as their only companion.
We have had so many issues in this regard that I am definitely going to devote an entire post to the topic, but this is good introduction to how f-ing stupid the system here in Japan is.
His roommate got to go home on school breaks and had a mother who called
to check in on him. Adrian had no one to call when he struggled at
school -- nowhere to call home, no one to send a gift, no one to see how
he was doing. He worked nearly 60 hours a week just to pay for college,
and when eventually his grades slipped, he was kicked out. He struggled
with the ups and downs of depression. As Adrian said of children in
foster care: "We are not equipped to go through this world alone."
Although this article is about America, there are very similar issues faced by children in Japan who grow up in orphanages.
Welcome to the April 2014 Carnival of Natural Parenting: Family Pastimes
This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Carnival of Natural Parenting hosted by Code Name: Mama and Hobo Mama. This month our participants have shared stories and wisdom about family pastimes.
I don’t know if empathy counts as a family pastime, but it
is at the core of the life that we have chosen and the choices we make as a
family. When Tiger first came to live with us I worried about his lack of
empathy. Orphanages are by their very nature impersonal and proscriptive, and
empathy is a skill that needs to be practiced, just like any other. Eight years
in an orphanage had not given Tiger many opportunities to practice.
Before coming to live with us, he was fearful
of our dogs. He was, he explained, a “cat person”. He very quickly succumbed to
their charms though, and right from the start sought them out for cuddles when
he was upset with the two-legged family members.The dogs’ needs are fairly simple to
understand, and Tiger quickly became adept at figuring out what they were
feeling. In a way, his empathy practice began with dogs.
During the winter holidays we took him to the video store to
choose some DVDs, and he picked out Himawari (a story about the fate abandoned dogs face in the city pound). I tried to dissuade him from renting it, but he
was adamant, and in my worst parenting decision to date I gave in and let him
watch it. It had been nearly a year since I saw the film, and although I remembered
how sad it was I had not picked up, in those pre-adoption days, how disturbing
the language was going to be for him. As the lead character searches to a home
before the period of stay in the pound expires and the dogs go to the gas
chamber, the word used is 里親 (village parents), the same word used to describe our
relationship to Tiger. The abandoned dogs are 捨てられた犬, which has a
connotation of discarded garbage, and I have heard people refer to children in
orphanages in the same way- 捨てられた子. The film brought up a lot of
upsetting thoughts, and for days afterwards he quizzed me on what happens to
children who don’t find 里親. I reassured him that children don’t get
gassed, but I am not sure he was completely convinced.
Two weeks before the spring holidays began, I was dropping
Tiger at school when we noticed a dog in the play ground with a more than
passing resemblance to Himawari. I sent Tiger running to the staff room while I
tried to get rid of the kids who were excitedly chasing her around. He came
back to say that the Vice Principal’s advice was to ignore her and she’d go
away. Tiger tugged my sleeve and looked up at me. “She’s lost just like
Himawari” he said, “we have to do something.” I had a million very pressing
things to do that day, but he was right. Empathy without action isn’t really
all that useful, after all, and I was proud of him for realising that. So he
went to class, and I picked the dog up and carried her home to find a spare
collar and leash for her. She was thin and dirty and obviously very tired. She
rested her head on my shoulder and fell asleep.
I took her home and fed her, then walked her around the
neighbourhood for two hours asking everyone we saw if they recognised her. She
didn’t lead me in any particular direction, and no one knew her. Her mammary
glands were huge and sore looking. I assumed she had puppies waiting for her
and how long they’d been without milk. I didn’t know what to do. The nearest
vet is a thirty minute walk from our house, so off we went. She was very tired
so I carried her as much as I could and she took the opportunity to snuggle
into me. She was heavy and my arm was burning, but I didn’t want to put her
down. The vet scanned her but she didn’t have a micro-chip. I left my number,
in case anyone came for her. Then we went to the police station. They made a
collar and leash for her from crime scene tape, and a jovial bald giant of an
officer fed her a box a sushi.
After school Tiger wanted to go to the police station to
visit her. I told him she probably wasn’t there anymore, and we checked the
pound website. Sure enough, there she was. “I’m sure her people are looking for
her” I told Tiger. The next day we checked again, and she was still there. “What
if she’s gassed?!” He worried. We called the pound. “Please don’t kill her
without telling us” we asked, “if it gets to that point we’ll do… something.” I
woke up with a sore stiff arm and it took a few minutes to realise why. A
left-over sensation, the weight of a life. A tired head nuzzled into my neck.
A week passed. No one came for. The swelling I had thought
was milk was an infection, and the pound feared that no one would adopt her
because of it. Tiger begged to keep her, promising to walk her every day. We
can’t afford another dog, and with one resource-aggressive dog already in the
house it wouldn’t be completely safe either. We searched for dog rescues,
non-profits, anyone who could help. Tiger borrowed a stack of library books on
dogs, including a book of recipes for dog food and a guide to nursing sick
dogs. I’m so proud of him, and at the same time, I know that what we are
teaching him will not set him up for happiness. When you see suffering you can’t
un-see it. As I explained our latest elaborate plan to the man person (taking
Himawari half way across Japan to Tokushima and the only non-kill rescue we had
been able to find), he commented “you know I love this about you, but there are
so many people with easier lives than ours who could be doing this stuff.” That’s
the thing though; our lives aren’t easy because we are the ones who “do this
stuff”. Much as I want Tiger to grow into an adult who sees the subaltern and
acts to help when he can, I am painfully aware of how much easier life is for
people who don’t care.
Was a bath REALLY necessary?!
Today we are going to the pound to ask them to release
Himawari to us. We couldn’t find a single animal rescue in Kyushu. We don’t
really know what we are going to do, but we will do something, because that is
what our family does. Something, anything but nothing.
Our frantic search for help for Himawari has forced us to
confront how little hope there is for abandoned animals in Japan.
Likewise, Animal Friends Niigata offered advice and support
despite being very much too far away to help directly. They also need support.
As for Tiger and empathy, I don’t think I need to worry
anymore. He has definitely joined the family pastime.
***
Visit Code Name: Mama and Hobo Mama to find out how you can participate in the next Carnival of Natural Parenting!
Please take time to read the submissions by the other carnival participants:
8 Reasons to Go Camping with Your Kids — The weather is warmer, and it is time to think about taking a break. As you plan your family vacation, Mandy of Living Peacefully with Children, guest posting at Natural Parents Network, explains why you should consider hitting the trails with your kids.
Crafty Cohorts — Kellie at Our Mindful Life enjoys crafting with her kids, and the skills they are learning.
10 Hobbies For Families With Young Children — Jennifer at Hybrid Rasta Mama knows that finding hobbies families can do together (with young children in tow) isn't always the easiest of feats. She has compiled a list of 10 family friendly hobbies that children of all ages can enjoy and that won't break the bank!
Helping Himawari — Sophelia's family at Sophelia's Adventures in Japan share a passion for helping when a dog is abandoned at the nearby elementary school.
How we made our own Family Day — Lauren at Hobo Mama shares how her family celebrates the best day of the week, a chance for connection and adventure and endless possibilities: Family Day!
Our Family Hobby — Survivor talks about how animal husbandry has become her family's favorite hobby at Surviving Mexico Adventures and Disasters.
Sowing the Seeds of Passions — Christy at Eco Journey In The Burbs wonders if her interests, and her husband's, will shape her children's passions as they mature.
Harry Potter Potions Party — One of the best activities Dionna at Code Name: Mama has ever done with her family has been a Harry Potter Potions Party. She is sharing the resources she used to create their potion recipes, the ingredients and tools they experimented with, and the recipes themselves. Feel free to use and adapt for your own budding wizards and witches!
Pastimes Have Passed Me By — Kati at The Best Things takes a new perspective on projects that never get done.
10 Reasons I Love Thrifting With My Children — That Mama Gretchen has always enjoyed shopping, but with a growing family she's become more frugal and thus, her little ones are now in tow on her thrift store adventures.
Pastime with Family vs Family Pastime — You can share lots of pastimes with your family, but Jorje of Momma Jorje discovered a family pastime was much more pleasant for sharing.
Posts
