Finally At Last They Are Here!! A Slugcat Design Of Mine That Doesn’t Drive Me Mad!! This Is Separate

Hnfgothinapwsogthoporepdnf why is every discussion on this webbed site that includes dolphins about how bottlenose dolphins commit atrocious war crimes I'm so tired can we please move away from that please please please learn other jokes

I think a lot of people spent their childhoods being very deliberately forced out of their comfort zones by parents / teachers / whomever in a way that was just deeply unpleasant and degrading and so, when they reach young adulthood and are finally allowed real control over their lives, become set on only doing things they know they're comfortable with forever. that's a really important thing to be able to do, especially if you're so used to having your boundaries routinely ignored that you aren't even certain what you like vs what you can bear, so I absolutely see why a person would have a negative reaction to being told that discomfort is good: it can very easily sound like being told that all that work they've been doing to prioritze their needs for the first time ever is Bad and Selfish, actually. and to that I will say two things:

one: as long as you aren't hurting or, like, being a dick to anyone, just staying in your comfort zone isn't an immoral action. if you just want to read one type of book (or just fanfiction), or just eat one type of food, or just watch one type of movie, or not go to new types of social events, you aren't being a bad person for that, and if people say that, they are soundly wrong and just trying to get a self-righteousness kick.

two: trying new things because you want to expand yourself feels a hell of a lot different than trying new things because you're being forced to. you'll feel better about trying new foods if you know you have a back up familiar one in case you can't stomach the new one, it's easier to read new books if you can experiment with audio versions or reading it in little five-page chunks by yourself, you can breathe a lot easier going somewhere new if you aren't chained there for three hours because your parent is your ride home, etc.

tl;dr: new things are good. I get why you might not want to try new things, and that's fine, but it's also more comfortable to try new things as an adult with your own agency so, yeah, what have you got to lose by trying a weird old art film?

O

A

Lmfaoo it’s a thing of beauty

Run bitch RUUUUUUUN!

"We all want a way out. However, your particular... ... Rotundness, might well imply how little you seem to care. A little animal ignorantly accepting it's existence."

Daily fish fact about sparkling gouramis? They're cute and neat :)

Yes they are! :D

Daily fish fact #572

Sparkling gourami!

Each individual has a completely unique pattern of spots! These fish are bubble nesters, which means the males construct nests made out of bubbles where the eggs and young fry are kept.

This is a really good question! Here's what will happen after New Girl gets here.

First, I leave her mostly alone for a couple of days. I give her constant access to fresh water, but I don't feed until Day 3. This gives her time to get settled and acclimated; the stress of the move can cause GI distress, so for the first couple of days, nothing in the stomach. The stress from regurgitation would be more detrimental than the stress of being hungry. Day 3, some nice, digestible food: egg. Day 4, we start introducing greens. Day 5, we have our first vet check!

Now hopefully there's some poop on Day 4, because this is a wild-caught animal, and she will have worms; that's just a given. When you eat raw, rotting meat in the wild, you get worms. My trapper doses them all with Panacur when he catches them, but the fecal sample will have more information on what specific parasites are present and what else is needed. If no poop for the vet check, that's ok, just collect some whenever it happens and take it on over and they'll do the fecal when they can.

At the vet check, they'll do a blood draw and a full blood panel. The vet will palpate all over, feeling for lumps and masses, and they may do some imaging. With a Florida feral, one thing you don't have to worry about is metabolic bone disease, so an x-ray might not be necessary. However, an ultrasound is a good idea with females. New Girl is very young and likely didn't have a partner during the last breeding season, but it's worth it to have a look at the reproductive tract to make sure there aren't any red flags or weird masses.

The vet will also do the standard exam stuff- listen to the lungs, check the reflexes, listen to the heart. They will also check tongue flicks and try to do a visual dental exam. That might not happen at the first visit, though! One of the things I had Kaiju trained to do was let me open her mouth. A voluntary open mouth behavior is something I really want to teach New Girl.

After the vet check, she'll still be on a fairly limited diet, variety-wise, until she's eliminating consistently and we've finished the inevitable course of meds. If all goes well, we'll do a course of fecal tests to ensure that any active parasite infection is gone, and then it'll be annual checkups from there on out!

Please retire the "we are made of stardust" phrase I am so tired of it

more sketches for the silly protag hero au. I cannot be contained

airplane animal