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sciatrix...because while I have very little interest in owning a purebred cat, I like looking at them sometimes. And purebred Maine Coons are eldritch motherfuckers, which is always fun to look at.
This is how I stumbled across this Metatron Eyes cattery, which holy shit looks like one of the nicest, most ethically put together catteries I've ever seen. Damn. If I wanted a purebred cat, this is the sort of place I'd want to buy it from and support. I mean, in practice I have a strong preference for mildly special-needs cats with extremely strong personalities, and it's just straight up easier to find that sort of thing by going through rescue, and we have such a massive feral problem worldwide that sourcing random-bred cats isn't hard. But it's nice to know that if people are going to be breeding cats, there are people out there working to do it with as much attention to quality of life in their animals as possible.
(As I was writing this, Arthur Dent stomped up, crawled into my lap, and immediately started purring himself to sleep. Aw.)
I was having an interesting Twitter conversation about the weird cultural projections that different regions of the US put on dogs this morning, including a guess that a dog from rural Georgia might have some blackmouth cur in her (quite possible!) and some regional discussion of what people expect out of dog manners, so this is quite a nice bookend for my day. I've been thinking about how dog culture in the US might change as dogs in need of homes become less and less common (as they already are in many areas), especially as spay/neuter culture penetrates the US South, and how racism and classism inform rescue culture and the way different breeds and types of dogs are often promoted. (Especially with respect to pit bulls. It is impossible to understand the cultural trajectory of pit bulls in the US without understanding the racial associations and aspects of the dogs, and it's uncomfortably interesting watching the ways that different groups try to promote the breed for adoption by, well, presenting them as middle class white person dogs too.
People get pretty weird about it.
Disclaimer because it's a loaded topic: my opinions on pit bulls are:
a) they are dogs,
b) all dogs are perfectly capable of doing horrific damage to a human, if they are so behaviorally inclined,
c) there's a lot of really dumb myths out there about pit bulls specifically,
d) pits do tend towards dog aggression no matter what you do, and "it's not the breed it's how you raise them!" is a somewhat dangerous oversimplification,
e) that said "pit bull" is an enormous and extremely heterogeneous population that contains a wide variety of temperaments, body types, energy levels, drive levels, etc etc as well as at least five breeds of dog, some of them extremely popular in the US,
f) shelter workers are notoriously awful at breed identification and everyone is awful at identifying mixes,
g) that there are a lot of really fucked up expectations in North America regarding dog behavior and opportunities for socialization, and breed based legislation is a way less effective way to minimize dog bites than public education and dangerous dog laws.
I am currently taking a long break from MeFi after I, uh, got hit pretty hard in the exclusion trauma side of things in a thread about wlw. Again. So it's nice to have DW to come back to and natter in, and the hell with everything else for a bit.
This is how I stumbled across this Metatron Eyes cattery, which holy shit looks like one of the nicest, most ethically put together catteries I've ever seen. Damn. If I wanted a purebred cat, this is the sort of place I'd want to buy it from and support. I mean, in practice I have a strong preference for mildly special-needs cats with extremely strong personalities, and it's just straight up easier to find that sort of thing by going through rescue, and we have such a massive feral problem worldwide that sourcing random-bred cats isn't hard. But it's nice to know that if people are going to be breeding cats, there are people out there working to do it with as much attention to quality of life in their animals as possible.
(As I was writing this, Arthur Dent stomped up, crawled into my lap, and immediately started purring himself to sleep. Aw.)
I was having an interesting Twitter conversation about the weird cultural projections that different regions of the US put on dogs this morning, including a guess that a dog from rural Georgia might have some blackmouth cur in her (quite possible!) and some regional discussion of what people expect out of dog manners, so this is quite a nice bookend for my day. I've been thinking about how dog culture in the US might change as dogs in need of homes become less and less common (as they already are in many areas), especially as spay/neuter culture penetrates the US South, and how racism and classism inform rescue culture and the way different breeds and types of dogs are often promoted. (Especially with respect to pit bulls. It is impossible to understand the cultural trajectory of pit bulls in the US without understanding the racial associations and aspects of the dogs, and it's uncomfortably interesting watching the ways that different groups try to promote the breed for adoption by, well, presenting them as middle class white person dogs too.
People get pretty weird about it.
Disclaimer because it's a loaded topic: my opinions on pit bulls are:
a) they are dogs,
b) all dogs are perfectly capable of doing horrific damage to a human, if they are so behaviorally inclined,
c) there's a lot of really dumb myths out there about pit bulls specifically,
d) pits do tend towards dog aggression no matter what you do, and "it's not the breed it's how you raise them!" is a somewhat dangerous oversimplification,
e) that said "pit bull" is an enormous and extremely heterogeneous population that contains a wide variety of temperaments, body types, energy levels, drive levels, etc etc as well as at least five breeds of dog, some of them extremely popular in the US,
f) shelter workers are notoriously awful at breed identification and everyone is awful at identifying mixes,
g) that there are a lot of really fucked up expectations in North America regarding dog behavior and opportunities for socialization, and breed based legislation is a way less effective way to minimize dog bites than public education and dangerous dog laws.
I am currently taking a long break from MeFi after I, uh, got hit pretty hard in the exclusion trauma side of things in a thread about wlw. Again. So it's nice to have DW to come back to and natter in, and the hell with everything else for a bit.
no subject
Date: 2019-04-13 02:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-04-13 06:08 pm (UTC)I'm happily married and have no reason to explore but if I were so inclined, that is not a community I would be willing to expose my vulnerability to.
I get not wanting to be some rich kid's learning experience. I read her behavior/comments as going far beyond that. My husband used to date a bi woman before he met me and that thread reminded me a lot of things he has told me about hearing from the bi woman he dated in the 90s, when a lot of hardcore second wavers were still active in the local scene in Houston.
Wherever her heart is, FMK is effectively operating in bad faith where you're concerned. ~siderea nailed the dynamic. You should just leave her alone. Not because her comments deserve to stand unchecked--they don't--but because all you get when you lead a horse's ass to the fountain of wisdom is a big steaming load of horse puckey.