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Very interesting! I had one rescue cat I got from someone fostering her and she was a total sweety and I could do near anything to her. Then I took in 3 semi-feral neighborhood cats who where calm enough until I tried to give them any kind of medicine or trim their nails and would then have no issue biting me or scratching me up and then go hide for a while. Thankfully for all our sakes, they were all pretty healthy and long lived! 😆

You never know what you’re going to see! We get in animals I never even knew existed, or at least anywhere around here. We see a lot of bad injuries, some animal abuse, and a lot of death, but we also see a ton of miracles and the real spirit of survival.

Here is one of my polite patients from today (and a bit of its roommate’s rump! These two were very cooperative, but it’s been a year since I’ve done opossums, and I usually didn’t have to move them to clean them, so when I went to put these guys in the barrel while I cleaned their crate, they kept grabbing the lip of the barrel and I couldn’t get them all the way in! 😁 That tail is just as good as a fifth hand for a number of things.

The one I did after this was very jumpy and bitey (they can be somewhat shockingly fast in small bursts) and it tried to pee on me when I finally got it secured.

They’ve all got their own backstories they can’t share with us, so some have a tougher time coping with us. Feeling them calm down or drift off to sleep after we feed them is very satisfying.

It’s a bit tough in that they will never love me like a dog or cat, and they all eventually get let go to where I will never know if they have success in life or not, but I get to know I at least got them a second chance. They’re all beautiful and amazing creatures that I’d otherwise never get a peek into their lives the way I do by doing this.

I was a bit shocked when I read you had actual therapists coming! Getting a group together in itself is a great achievement, let alone getting therapists involved.

It’s sad that no men participate. Getting men mental help seems to be difficult, and I’m sure some would prefer having another man to talk to.

I volunteer doing wildlife rehab, and though almost everyone seems to say they love animals, that’s over 90% women led too. Come on guys, where you at?!

Very nice! One of the people from my wife’s group tried to have a thing afterwards where’d they’d meet and hang out, but they only had 2 or so meets before nobody was coming by.

Glad to see you doubling in capacity! Best of luck to both of you! ❤️ It blows me away how society would just be fine letting everyone fall through the cracks otherwise.

That is great you are able to facilitate that! My wife was in a DBT group during COVID, so I overheard some bits of stories from time to time.

Their group disbanded after something got shut down with the provider running it, and I worried about a lot of those people losing their people to talk to.

My wife’s story wasn’t so bad, so she was able to transition away from group, but some of the people in that group had it really tough.

I’m very grateful for DBT helping my wife get her life back in order after some huge setbacks, and now she is very successful in her daily life thanks in a huge part to that group. You are doing such a great thing making those services available to people!

I find that very impressive and important!

I work at a wildlife rehab, and today I got bit by a Screech Owl, an opossum, and 2 squirrels. None of that is pleasant, nor is it the first or last time, but after being bit by a lot of animals, I think on the whole, domestics may be worse.

My wild ones pretty much just want to get away from me, but I’m starting to think domestic animals seem to know that they don’t get the chance to escape us, and I think that takes away a lot of the “flight” and we get more “fight” as a result. I’ve been hurt way more by cats and dogs than anything wild.

Also, you getting them calmed down is very important to their future. If my animals hate me, that’s honestly their best outcome. But yours need to unlearn the hard lives they’ve had so they can be in safe homes. I, unfortunately, seem to be built physically like a lot of people that must abuse animals, since a lot of rescue dogs hate me and have given me some scars! 😅 Even my own rescue dog, after 10+ years never liked me as much as she liked my ex or current wife or any female stranger. Shed go to anyone else before me. She’d go to anyone else before me, even though she didn’t quite dislike me, that trust never quite showed up again.

Being able to work with the troubled animals is such an important skill, either to get them care, or in your case to make them able to be rehomed. Good for you for finding out a way to crack the code on these pups! Thanks to you they will get to be someone’s good boy/girl like they deserve!

It’s a depiction of my inner child 😁

Either end with the armrest. I like being tucked in the corner.

If it’s one of those sectionals that has the long chaise cushion, I’m taking that end and sitting on it like a bench.

Glad you’re enjoying it! Johnny Enzyme and I are trying to revive it.

It gives me a place to share great non-owl stuff I come across.

I’m a guy, but much of my childhood was being raised by both my grandmothers who thankfully both lived close by, and for different reasons, they were always my main role models growing up.

Nowadays I volunteer with wildlife rescue and rehab. The field is something like 90-95% women, so you can find strong and amazing women doing every single role, from rescue and transport to all the medical and surgical positions to fundraising and finance. Everyone is there because they are very caring and kind, but also all fiercely self sufficient and dedicated to what they believe.

It’s so awesome and inspiring to be surrounded by so many that embody all the spirit that I saw from both my grandmother’s, and they are my current role models now as a guy in his 40s. Anyone of any age or gender could find things to admire from these ladies I’d say.

And as much as I don’t like having to look at the camera to back up, it does seem to have a wider FOV and the backup sensors see things even further out, and the rear end of cars are just so high and back windows are so small (I think these are now all this way for rear end crash and rollover reasons) that you just can’t see out the back like you could out of an older car. It’s pretty much just how it has to be with the safety requirements these days.

That’s why that’s just fantasy 😄

You can see a good portion of the back of many owls’ eyes if you look in their ears.

And one arm is used especially for octopus sexy time. (hectocotylus)

That’s their loss. I’d laugh. 😄

I assume most folks using that expression are not using it in a deep spiritual manner, so it probably does. Saying it also usually makes people feel at least a smidge better after venting those feelings, so you may inadvertently also be a little more blessed. 😇

Bless you is a great example. I don’t think most people say things like bless you or God gave you the strength to be literally religious, they’re just a spiritual person’s way of being polite.

I was just working on a post sharing some pics by one of my favorite photographers and wrote a little something along these lines.

They praised God for the opportunity to get these very unique photos. While I’m not religious, and to me, the photographer did all the work following this bird forever, through long hours of darkness and cold, waiting patiently day after day, honing his craft.

And that is a good enough reason for praise from me. But he felt a blessing from outside, and I can appreciate that for him. Did he think providence put him and this bird together? I don’t know if it went that deep. Maybe he was just glad this animal existed, and he is here to experience it, and this moment could have randomly happened for anyone, but instead it happened to him.

Whatever the reason, his beliefs led him to experiencing something amazing. I could just call that inspiration, while he attributes it to his beliefs. Does it make a difference to either of us what the other believes? Nah.

If people aren’t proselytizing at me, they can believe in what they please. When most people say they were glad God gave you the strength to do something, they’re just being happy for you from their perspective. They probably have no idea what your beliefs are, that’s just their default and the words that come to their mind to congratulate you. You should kindly take their words with the intention they were spoken with, not necessarily a literal meaning. Jumping to being offended just makes conflict where there wasn’t any, and that would make you the disrespectful one most likely.

Voted in my primary this week.

I rarely see any third party in the ballot, and most seem to be some form of Republican but worse.

I don’t know if I could vote for an anti-capitalist in the near future in the system we have now. We aren’t really set up to give a third party capitalist a fair shot, let alone an anti-capitalist. It is near impossible to even form a union and has so far been impossible to gain universal healthcare, so electing an anti-capitalist is going to be harder than that.

If it were a primary and I was fine with the leading Democratic candidate, then I’d be fine showing support for a more radical party if I shared their beliefs.

It sounds like a quick override for whatever your default settings are.

If anything at this point, Summit has so many features I’ve lost track.