Damn mathematicians, always trying to map something onto something else*. You can't map a grandparent onto a dog.

Yeah, XKCD sort of talked about that, albeit for physicists. [link]

Oddly enough, I once started a bar fight in New Orleans by mapping a grandparent onto a dog.

he went on a tangent about how pets are a huge use of resources and we have them because we don't have enough daily social interaction and we should give them to old people, no wait, we should give old people to young people instead of pets.

Or we could give him to a dog.

he went on a tangent about how pets are a huge use of resources and we have them because we don't have enough daily social interaction and we should give them to old people, no wait, we should give old people to young people instead of pets.

He really doesn't have a clue about the evolution dogs and their relationship with humans!

I am incredibly amused. I'm watching a rerun of Nikita, and for some reason, they had Stan Lee as a bystander being interviewed, with the name "Hank Exelsior"

Speaking of the evolution of dogs. I had one of the most challenging doggy lama appointments ever today.

A Bloodhound puppy.

Oy. Especially bad because 6 months ago, I begged the family to leave the puppy with the litter as long as possible...they brought her home at 6 weeks. She is now biting their child and strangers. I begged them to crate train her, especially at night. Nope. Behavior problems like whoa.

She is sweet and adorable and HUGE.

And she will never be obedient. Ever. She can't be. Her breed structure won't allow it. She should be on a farm, sleeping outside with a bunch of her kin, trained to track and given the opportunity to live her life nose-down.

I see 10 years of struggle in their future.

Fortunately, they get it. They've done enough after-the-fact research to know the challenges. But they won't even consider re-homing her. On one level, I respect that entirely...and I will be there for them throughout, but it is going to be a slog.

Sigh.

It may be even funnier if you actually understand mapping.

I should clarify that I DON'T really understand mapping, so I was talking about myself, not Laga.

Yeah, bonny. He was pretty clear about liking to argue and not wanting people to take it personally. IOW, *very* small dose friend for me. I decided pretty quickly I didn't want to date him. And I had a visceral squick when he touched my arm casually. So, no.

brenda, for real, or in a "bit my sister" kind of way?

I'm making him sound awful. He's not. But he's also most certainly not for me.

Oh, bonny, I was going to ask how that went. Okay but not great, sounds like.

we should give old people to young people instead of pets

They did kind of do that to us in high school. We effective had to do charity work every year, and Help The Aged was a popular option, where you get a senior citizen to visit. I spent the whole time panicked we were going to open the door to her corpse, and shying away from cleaning up dubious substances in her flat. Also listening to her talk about coloured people, and marvelling at how they could get jobs nowadays.

Okay but not great, sounds like.

It really did go as well as could be expected. I went to breakfast with the mom so that we could talk quietly before engaging with the dad who doesn't want to hear it and the daughter who is super, SUPER smart but still young enough to not be tolerant of sitting quietly for a long time.

The mom showed me the bruises up and down her arms and talked about how bitey the pooch is. She LOVEs the dog, as is right. The dog really is adorable when she's not guarding her food, biting (she put her mouth around my arm several times. Can you say NUH and UH.) and pulling them down the street like a freight train.

I felt terrible having to give her the bad news. Plus, it's a bit of an affront to my ego that I really can't do all that much for them. I've saved dogs from the needle, and completely changed people's perspectives a lot of the time. This one, I can give them all the good tips and routines, but the problem is, the breed just. doesn't. care. If it isn't a smell or a meal, it's uninteresting!

Believe me, I looked at no less than 50 resources hoping that some outlier would give me useful alternatives to what nearly all breeders and trainers say, which is boiled down to a sarcastic, "Obedience? Good luck with that."

Which kind of pisses me off about this particular breeder who did not educate the family at all, even knowing that the dog would be living in an urban rowhouse in a neighborhood carpeted with other dogs, squirrels, cats and vermin.