Happy play faces.

do you. see the vision

Some practice drawing dogs :]

Salukis and Personalities

I don't know if I've ever mention this before, but I worked as a dog trainer and caretaker for years. Like a really long time. And I have worked with a lot, and I mean a lot, of dogs. Even in fact, three Salukis (Ezra, Bailey, and Leo).

Why do I bring this up? Because we should talk about the personalities of these dogs, especially in relation to a character in Sing, Suki Lane.

Now this is all clearly going to be based on my experiences with these dogs, who could be outliers for all I know. However, after chatting with several Saluki owners as well, I'm pretty sure I got a decent grasp on them. Namely one thing,

Saluki's aren't timid.

They are classic sighthounds, yes, but I wouldn't call most of those dogs timid, with the exception of Whippets. Sighthounds by nature are cautious breeds, it can take a while to build their trust. This can extend into them being shy at times yes, but in my experience, it was more like meeting a new cat for the first time. It doesn't know what to think of you yet so it sits back, watches, and then makes it's judgement.

Why does that sound familiar? Oh yeah!

Because that's what Suki was doing to the troupe throughout the second movie. She didn't make her decision on them until she had been watching them for awhile, deciding to ultimately side with them after deeming them trustworthy.

That's what happened when she saved Buster from the office and when she lowered the stage lift, she was making her judgment of them known. For me, one of the Salukis I worked with, Ezra, did essentially the same thing. He acted indifferent to me for a week or so and then seemingly out of nowhere decided we were cool now and I could play with him. And because Salukis aren't particularly demonstrative typically, that's huge.

So, she wasn't being timid, she was being cautious. Something her type of dogs are known for. She would wait and see how things turn out before picking a side. That makes sense. And no, there wasn't any big apology scene or anything like that because, again, Salukis aren't typically demonstrative.

And while they are cautious, that's not actually what the breed is known for. You know what is?

Being aloof.

And that is a word that perfectly sums up Suki's personality. She's aloof. She isn't particularly warm or friendly and neither are most Saluki's unless they like you, and like you a lot. Which also makes sense with her character! She's a higher up at a major entertainment enterprise. She can't be nice to every single hopeful that shows up at their doors. She has to be realistic for the company's sake. So she's aloof and it fits her perfectly.

Saluki's also are known to be quiet and intelligent. The quietness something that isn't extremely noticeable in Suki's character when Jimmy is in the scene since he's so loud, or Buster because his personality is so big, but it's definitely there. Her answers are brief and straight to the point. And other than those few interactions, she doesn't talk much. She doesn't need to, as she is still perfectly filling her role in the scenes she's in through expressions. She might be a verbally quiet character, but like actual Salukis, her actions speak for her.

And the intelligence? We know this girl is smart. She's in her early to mid twenties and is already one of the right hands of an entertainment empire's CEO. She knows what she's doing. Suki was also able to call the police and betray Jimmy without him ever expecting it, which she had to have planned out for it to go that smoothly.

So in short, Suki and Salukis as a whole, aren't timid. They're cautious. They wait things out. And most notably, they are known to be aloof. A character trait that perfectly sums up Suki's personality that we see. Salukis from my experience act more like the stereotypical cat stuffed into a dog's body. It takes time for them to like you and even if they do, they aren't usually demonstrative of this fact. Which again lines up perfectly with Suki's character, much like the other traits Salukis are known to exhibit.

She's aloof and cautious, showing clear intelligence, but definitely not timid.

terfs go climb into a hole and start rotting. animals cannot inherently tell your "biological sex" you are all so fucking stupid. All this post is saying is that animals are not infallible judges of character and some of them make really stupid vibe checks and that people should try not to take it personally. Unless youre a terf in which case they know and they hate you and you should take it personally

re that one post tbh i do want to stress i dont think animals are like magically psychic at knowing your True Gender tbh i think ppl definitely get way too weird about Animal's judgement of ppl.

Sometimes a dog will vibe check a man and the dog will be right and you should listen. but sometimes the dog will vibe check someone for no good reason. sometimes dogs have wack judgement. sometimes dogs have biases influenced by their owners or previous owners. like. there are Racist Dogs. its not the dogs fault, but that doesnt make the bias theyve developed less real, or less potentially hurtful. i dont think we need to like, Cancel Dogs Bc Sometimes Ppl Can Train Them To Be Racist, but we do need to stop perpetuating the idea that a dog's judgement of someone is infallible. theyre not responsible for it and its not their fault its developed, theyre just dogs, they didnt choose it, but that doesnt mean theyre RIGHT lmao. i think its important to stress this for many reasons but in regard to that last post specifically, if youve ever been vibe checked as a gender you arent by a judgy dog its literally not your fault. might not even be the owners fault. not the dogs fault cos like. its a fucking dog. you do kinda have to be the bigger person in that scenario cos the other person is. A Dog.

holy testosterone, batman

Kind of a rhetorical question and more of a vent but how do you get over having an "all or nothing" attitude because it's making it hard for me to not get upset and discouraged when I have to admit to myself that there's no guarantee we'll be able to live with the kind of dogs I'd like to have, mainly because of allergy issues. One notable thing about this is I'm pretty sure shepherds and herding dogs are like a special interest to me, on top of the "normal" interest I have in them if that makes sense, and that's why I struggle with the thought of potentially never having one so much. I know it's a good thing to expand your options and keep an open mind and research different breeds but part of me just doesn't want to because that means accepting that there's no guarantee of anything really, and that's what makes me want to give up the whole thing and stop caring entirely 🥲 even though that makes no sense.

two annoying ass cats

bad news; slept like Absolute Shit last night

good news; took a nap & feel great

even better news; marketing article extension GRANTEDDDDDDDDD 🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳

I have been playing Furry Paws, because I literally used to do Punnett squares for fun, and I’ve never seen another petsite with this much genetic experimentation power.  And the art is cute.

Just now I sorted some dogs by level, because I wanted to see who was getting high enough level for me to breed.  These are my highest-level Chihuahuas right now.

(side note: The three-letter code at the start of each name represents the dog’s current sports title.  Then for the actual name, I generally either use one that amuses me, or just go with the in-game randomizer.  There is one amusement name here and the rest are random.)

“Oh, but I’ve already bred Cody and Sophie,” I thought to myself.  “I’ll take a look at the others, see if it looks like their genetics line up nicely.

“Ha!  There’s a Buddy and a Holly.  Oh, and they actually would go pretty well together.  That would mean that, out of my basically-randomly-named Chihuahuas, the last potential breeding pair would be...

“.....,,.,.,,...,”

OH COME ON.  I can’t put those two together, everyone will assume the names were on purpose!!

Pain. Agony

I made the bed ten minutes prior.

Any time a bird is in captivity of any kind without fail there’s someone who shows up and goes ‘:( so sad, it should be FREE!’ Which, I’m very aware of the problems with cagebirds, but someone does this every time including when the bird in question is very clearly a genetic freak of some sort. For example, a rescue aviary near me used to have a lovely fantail dove, who according to volunteers was extremely friendly and loved cuddles and sitting on people’s heads. She’s passed away now, sadly, but on the aviary facebook there’s an old video of her and someone has put one of those comments along the lines of she should be in the wild. But she was so visibly a product of human selective breeding it was unreal. She had a huge, bulgy chest and her neck was bent so far back that the resting position of her head was on her back. If her eyes weren’t on the sides of her head she wouldn’t have been able to see over her own chest. Not all fantail doves look like this, but this one was so extreme looking that they had a little sign on the aviary reassuring people she was alright. I just wondered where exactly this commenter imagined she would belong if all the birds in the aviary were released into the wild and somehow back into their ideal habitats. There’s nowhere in the world outside of in the care of humans where a bird looking like that would be remotely ok.

I'm starting to get a bit irritated with virtual pets sites' tendency to not have a "delete account" option. So what if the player loses everything? That should our decision to make at the end of the day...

Doing photo shoots at the kennel in Nintendogs always gets me so fond of the different dog breeds all over again. All their shapes are so nice and the little mannerisms- the Dachshund giving me the side eye, the Shih Tzu bouncing around and then flopping into a clumsy sit, the Labrador that can't sit still and keeps jumping up to lick my face- even the ones that I generally consider to be not really my type by the end I'm wishing I could take them home with me 😭

I rlly liked pits when I was younger (I kinda fell for the “”nanny dog”” origin myth lol), and I still think they can make great dogs when their owners don’t babify/whitewash their prey drive and the instincts that were bred into the breed(s) and work with them

If I wasn’t always running on empty and had an active lifestyle, and pit adoption groups weren’t shady w their dog’s history, I would have them on my future dog list