So Then I Was Like, "Oh, We'll Just Foster This Puppy Till A Good Home Is Found For Her"..

I wanted a puppy.
SO BAD!
I wanted a puppy obsessively.
I don't know WHY.
It's not a PRACTICAL thing, to want a puppy.
I assume it's the same for women who want babies.
For me, the closest I get to wanting a baby is wanting to hold someone else's baby, and then it cries and I give it back to it's parent, then I go about enjoying my baby-free life of sleeping all day and eating junk food, while playing video games.
But a puppy!
That is something I WANTED with completely irrational desire. Being the animal lover in general that I am, I see hundreds of dogs on facebook that need homes. Having "liked" every shelter, rescue and animal advocator page all across the country, and even some international ones, I'm constantly bombarded with pictures of puppies and dogs, from the adorable and happy, to the sad and abused, and even sometimes the ugly (but still cute) and happy. As somewhat of a compromise, boyfriend says "Well, maybe you can foster a puppy for some rescue." with the casual dismissal of "that's not REALLY going to happen lol".

Well, a year of this goes by and I'm starting to get PISSED that we don't have a puppy. I knew he wasn't serious about the foster thing and hadn't really tried too hard to go that route. "We have a puppy!" he says, "We have Ophelia and she's the best dog ever!". I concur, Ophelia is, and will probably remain until the end of time, the best dog ever. Some day there will be a wikipedia of "the best dog ever" and it will be all about my Ophelia and her awesomeness. Her silliness and calmness, and overall good nature, makes her the best dog ever. Even when she does something "bad" like hide my shoes, because she's mad I didn't take her with me when I went to the doctor or something. Doctors don't appreciate dogs in their offices, by the way. But just because she's the best dog ever doesn't mean she doesn't get bored and stare at me with eyes that say "Why are you on the computer, still? Can't we go outside? Or play fetch? I'm bored! Screw it I'm going back to sleep." This led me to the belief that she needed a playmate, and this fueled my desire for a puppy.

So right about the time I'm getting ready to pitch a serious fit and throw a chair through my boyfriend's window, possibly with him on said chair, I find on facebook a puppy that looks startlingly like Ophelia when she was a puppy, I would provide a picture, but I simply can't find one. She was in an "urgent" album at one of the Los Angeles area shelters on facebook. I, of course, am heartbroken at the idea of a puppy looking so much like MY BABY dying in a shelter, I wanted to drive down to LA right then and bring her home! I beg boyfriend who, of course, is like "No. We don't need another dog." etc etc. Well, it turns out that the weekend before the week the pup was to be put down, the shelter she was in took her and a bunch of other dogs to PetSmart for an adoption event, and she was adopted! YAY! Well, kind of....

Now, this has happened before, I find a puppy or dog online, and I'm like "WE MUST SAVE IT!!!", then, a home is actually found for it, and I'm happy, because the puppy or dog was saved, and I didn't have to do anything. I wanted a puppy but I was ok without one, right? So I would be happy when a dog or pup I had my eye on got adopted. This time was different, however. This time I was actually sort of upset that I wasn't the one to save her.

Some time passes, a month or two I think. In that time I advocate for many dogs and puppies, and other animals too, to be saved. One day, I stumble upon this:

Sooooo cute!

For comparison, here is Ophelia as a puppy:

Who's cuter? YOU CAN'T DECIDE CAN YOU?!

I, of course, melted immediately. "I MUST HAVE THIS PUPPY!" goes through my mind, as it had with the puppy months prior that found herself a home down in LA.

So I inquire, where is this puppy?  She is in Chowchilla, CA, which is a decent distance from me, about a two and a half hour drive. Well, that's pretty far, but doable! For a while I was commuting for an hour, sometimes longer, to work everyday, so two and a half hours both ways should be doable once. This time, boyfriend says "Wow, that puppy IS really cute!" but again insists we don't need another dog. I'm informed that this puppy is going to be headed to a high-kill shelter in Madera, CA, as this Chowchilla place is just a holding facility for lost and found animals, they keep them for a time in order for the owners to come find them, then they take them to the actual shelter nearest to them. This shelter is sadly high kill. Well, that sucks. The puppy's time at the lost and found facility ended up getting extended, as something happened, I can't remember what, and the transport that was supposed to happen that week, ended up getting canceled. I had an extra week to find this puppy a home or a rescue! I get to work, I find a rescue in Livermore I can't remember the name of now, and then I find another one in Palo Alto, Pound Puppy Rescue. I remembered this particular rescue, as I'd seen their page and website before, and thought that they seemed pretty awesome. I was rather impressed with their standards for adoption, they seem particular on who takes their babies and that is something I can only emphatically approve of.  So, while I post, and re-post, this picture of the little black and white puppy in Chowchilla, I end up posting her pic to the Pound Puppy Rescue page, and the Livermore rescue page. Then, I remember what boyfriend had said in the past, "Well, maybe you can foster a puppy for some rescue."

I knew what to do!

In those posts I'd made on the rescue's facebook pages, I added a comment at the bottom, saying, "I can foster if needed!"

THAT got me a response from Pound Puppy Rescue! They replied saying that they know someone at the Chowchilla facility, and I should go to their page, fill out a foster application, and they'll talk to the people at Chowchilla!

WHOO!

So I fill out the app, and we start communicating through email with someone at the Chowchilla place, then a few days later, I'm meeting a transport in Pleasanton, and I'm on my way home with this puppy.

There's a little puppy in my car, with her little foot on my leg! SQUEE!

During this entire time, boyfriend was VERY busy at work. I think he worked 24 hours straight one day, it was pretty rough. So I'm explaining to him what's going on the entire time through phone calls, IMs and texts, how we might foster this puppy...how we ARE fostering this puppy.
"We'll just foster her until a good home is found for her", I said.
"You wouldn't want her to be killed, just because she is black, right?!"
Of course he didn't.

So when he came home that Saturday from work, there's a puppy to greet him in addition to our Ophelia! Surprise! Well, it wasn't actually a surprise, he did know about her. I pretty much obsessively only talked about this puppy for an entire week. 

I finally had my puppy! But for how long? This was only a foster thing, we weren't keeping her forever, just until a suitable home was found. Right?

Maybe It DOES Make A Difference?

Today, a woman sent me a message on facebook, about this dog.
She basically asked me if I could keep sharing the pic, because she's trying to save him.

This had an effect on me, because I had actually given up sharing dogs on my main profile and have been using a dummy one for the majority.  I have been doing this because of some snarky comments from some of my personal friends, and a lack of the animals I post (I post all kinds, not just dogs) being shared by my facebook friends in general.
So rather than be ridiculed by my real friends...some friends, huh?  I've been posting animals to my fake account with a name I made up that has over a thousand friends, and I have no idea how that happened so don't ask.

So when this woman messaged me and ended her message with "thanks for all you do" I was really heart-warmed.  I didn't think anyone noticed I did anything.

It may not be much, what I do, spamming my friends newsfeeds with homeless animals and tagging every rescue I know in the posts...but it's all I can do, for now, and it's better than nothing.  I don't know that any animal has been saved as a direct result of my efforts...but when an animal I have networked does get taken up by a rescue or gets adopted by someone, it's a really good feeling.

You Got Your Dog's Ears Cropped...Really? You're A Big, Giant Asshole

So one day I'm walking with my dog, Ophelia, and I see a man taking what appears to be a small black mouth cur and mastiff mix puppy outside to tinkle.  The puppy seems very sweet and friendly, wanting nothing more than to give me and my dog lots of kisses.  I was struck immediately by the cone around his neck, though, and I asked what happened without looking the pup over carefully, he was cute, I was just looking into his big eyes!  The man says he'd had his ears cropped that day.  -_-

As the rage boiled up inside me I weighed my options...

1. I could tell the man he's a big, giant asshole and list all the reasons why ear cropping is ridiculous and stupid in the loudest and rudest way possible. (This was the one I WANTED to do.)
2. I could calmly tell the man why ear cropping is useless, and mean, and that he should NEVER do that to a poor innocent dog again.
3. Or not say anything except "oh" and go blow up on facebook about it later.

I went with option 3.  Because I could tell by the man's unfriendly demeanor and impatience that telling him he's a big, giant asshole would mean I didn't get to pet the puppy anymore, but more importantly, it wouldn't mean a damn thing to him, and he'd just tell me to mind my own business.  Sometimes you have to pick your fights, and when you can tell the person just isn't going to listen, there's really no point, and you'd be wasting your breath.
So when I got home I made a rant on facebook and my friends agree...that guy IS, a big, giant asshole.  :-)

Haven't Been Around For A While...

Sorry about that.  The holidays came about, I was finishing up my work contract, then I started another month-long contract that had an hour commute, both ways.  Phew!
I had wanted to make a post about Star Wars: The Old Republic since I purchased the game and played it regularly for a while.  But it seems the game is losing steam...the guild I'm in isn't even running raids anymore and that's sad, so it's back to WoW for me! Hehe

Well At Least I Got My Money Back

After the episode of receiving the wrong purse, I tried many, many times to contact the "seller" of the purse, and they did not answer.  They didn't even TRY to answer!  So I ended up contacting the payment company, the middle man in this situation, who took my money.  They gave me a vague "contact us again if you don't hear from them in 2 days" answer, and when 2 days passed (I actually waited 3 thank-you-very-much) THEY did not answer me either.

Well, I would be very, VERY angry if it had been like, $200 or something like that, but it was $80, so I was annoyed, but I was managing it OK I think.....

I reported the company to Coach.com for selling counterfeit items. *insert evil maniacal laugh here*

The Coach people said "wtf" and they are "investigating" the matter.  So I'm hoping to see that site go down...but other known sellers of counterfeits, like "coachoutlet.com" or whatever, are still up, so I don't have a ton of hope about bringing them down completely, but if I can annoy them (like they've annoyed me) then that's enough to make me feel better. :-)

Then I reported the matter to my bank, who asked me some questions, got the link to the website from me, etc.  They gave me my money back and now I'm happy!  I still have the ugly purse, and they told me to "keep it ready" in case they actually do get a response from the counterfeiters and I am able to send the purse back. My understanding is that this is unlikely.

In an interesting turn of events, after typing out the previous parts of this post, I just tried to go to http://www.louis-outlet-sale.com and the "website has been moved to a different server" apparently.  Annoyed them?  I think I have! :-)

Update On The Toothless Dog...

Remember that toothless dog I posted about a while back?

Well good news!  She's been saved! 

OK so I guess she wasn't really toothless but she doesn't have much to work with is my understanding.  I'm personally VERY happy that a rescue organization stepped in and took her out, they've raised WAY more money then asked for (there are good people in the world....who knew?!) and now she gets to be taken care of and shown some much needed love.

I will forever feel a certain amount of shame for having to share the title of "Human Being" with people who hurt animals....particularly to the extend that this poor dog has suffered.  But I am glad to share that same title with the people who are taking care of Annie now at the Ark Animal Rescue, and the people who donated money for her care.

Apparently, good people still exist!  They seem to be a rare breed but I guess they're out there.

And Now To Completely Geek Out

Today is Blizzcon!
For anyone who doesn't know, this is a two day event in Anaheim, California, that is specifically run by one gaming company, Blizzard.  Blizzard makes video games, and their current games are World of Warcraft, Starcraft and Starcraft 2, and Diablo 3.

They have many games they've made in the past as well, and I've been a fan of Blizzard for a long time.  Last year, my boyfriend and two of his friends and I, went to Blizzcon!  It was amazing, but there was about a quarter of a million people there and I felt guilty for leaving our dog with boyfriend's parents, so this year we didn't go, so I opted for a "virtual ticket" which means I get to stream the whole event and watch it all on my computer!

This means I get to be antisocial AND lazy!  Yay!  Plus my dog doesn't have to suffer from separation anxiety, and while she isn't destructive, I love her and don't want her to be sad, so that's a plus too. :-)

World of Warcraft is the main Blizzard game I play, I've played it since the original release was still in beta, and while I've taken breaks here and there, I've basically been playing the game pretty steadily for six years.  We're getting towards the end of the third expansion, Cataclysm, which brought a TON of changes to the game and basically turned the game into an almost entirely different game.  It's been out since last December, and I'm starting to feel a bit fatigued.  I'm working on getting my fourth character to level 85, which is usually what I do when I've done most everything on my "main" characters and have run out of excuses to avoid leveling it.  So hearing about a NEW expansion is very exciting!

So now we've just been informed the new expansion will be called Mists of Pandaria!  Which is introducing a new race...Pandaren!  Now, unlike all the other races that have come before, the Pandaren are a neutral race, meaning that they are friendly to everyone, until level 10, where you pick which faction you are going to be, Horde or Alliance.
They are also adding a new class, the Monk!  This class looks really awesome, it's a leather armor wearing, martial arts based class.  They can be a tank (which is called Brewmaster, ftw!) a healer or a dps.  Most races can be a monk!  Just goblins and worgen can't be monks.  Now I'm STILL upset that as a horde, I can't be a Worgen.  Why oh WHY?! couldn't the worgen have been a neutral race?!  They are SO cool!  It's so not fair.  I like the Goblins, but come ON!  Werewolves?!  Seriously it's just not fair!
Ah well, spilt milk I guess.

Another thing I'm very excited about with this expansion is the Pet Battle System.  As an avid pet collector in WoW, this is going to provide me with endless hours of entertainment long after I'm tired of leveling, pvping, questing, doing dailies, running heroics....etc etc etc.  It's like Pokemon!  Gotta catch em all!  Hahaha!

So yeah, I'm pretty excited about all this new stuff.

And of COURSE I signed up for the annual pass that will allow me to not only play Diablo 3 for free, although I'm not sure how it'll work if I want the collector's... It will let me get into the Mists of Pandaria beta!
YAY!

So yeah, this year's Blizzcon became chock-full of AWESOME within the first hour.

Good job Blizzard!