Showing posts with label Bearded dragon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bearded dragon. Show all posts
Friday, June 14, 2013
Screw elves...
The mythical forest should be populated by a race of bearded dragons in flower hats. At least thats my take on it.
Sunday, May 12, 2013
Job Opening; Must enjoy Feces.
There is a joke I always make, well not really a joke, more of a truth I poke fun at on a regular basis.. Whenever people apply to any animal related job they always put "I love animals" on the application. Som' girls even get cutesy and put little hearts. This is followed generally with a list of their pets, I suppose to really prove that they "love animals"
The longer the list, the more they seem to think this proves they "love animals". The person reading the application may even be duped into this. WOW this person is perfect! They really LOVE animals, look they have 50 of them!
Its at this point I want to remove my ears. Generally with plastic spoons. Your application is gagworthy, and let me tell you why.
Firstly, if you're putting "I love animals" on an application to a petstore. You are an unoriginal idiot. At petsmart we would have STACKS of applications, all staying the same thing in that same space. I LUVZ DEMS. Way to stand out of the crowd. We'd actually pull the two or three out of the stacks of hundreds that said som'thing different and call those people, no matter how crap the rest of the ap was.
Its also a pretty obvious statement isn't it? If you were applying for a mechanic position, would you put "I LOVE CARS"? Or at a grocery store "OMG I JUST LUVS FUD"
Sounds moronic now right?
Secondly, here is what I hear when I hear (lol) "I love animals"
"I HATE PEOPLE ".
Or...
"Im socially retarded and can't make friends so I have pets instead"
keep in mind, both these things are valid life choices. I used to describe myself as "hating people" at various crossroads. But here's the thing, tell me you hate people on an application for retail I get images of conversations gone awry and me having to babysit you. I'm not maternal. I barely want to train you and explain where the bathroom is. I don't want to have to re-raise you and teach you how to talk to and/or be polite to people. Teaching you to interact with humans was your parents job, and if they failed, guess what? You're an adult now and its your responsibility. Congrats.
I don't want to have to save you from pushy or irrate customers because you have no backbone because the only real world convos you have had are with fluffy and whiskers. I was socially retarded at one point too, but I fixed it. You should get on that.
In short, you are either rude or a doormat, most likely.
The other thing that statement doesn't tell me, is how you feel about feces, blood, death, bedding, food for the animals etc. Petsmart would actually hire people who "loved animals" but were too squeemish to clean up after them. Or too lazy. These questions were conveniently left out at interview time, probably because the moron manager "loves animals" just as much as you do.
Another note is, as it turns out "I LOVE ANIMALS" 99% of the time is a conditional statement. Oh why o' why must you all lie to me? Conditional As in "I love the furry animals" Or I love snakes, but not frogs" or "I love the animals that are friendly but the aggressive ones leave me wimpering" etc etc.
I'm sorry, to me "I love animals" means, I love all animals with either no or very rare exception. If you can't pick up a roach, or restrain a guinea pig, I have news for you Steve Irwin, you should be working the register.
So in closing, next time you see that space that says "why do you want to work here" say som'thing about your work ethic. Your punctuality. Your ability to get along with coworkers etc.
Or be humorous and just flat out say you like cleaning feces, being bitten, and dealing with ignorant people all day for a living. Because honestly, thats the job you're really applying for. ;)
Saturday, August 28, 2010
The dragons are biting.
If it has a mouth...it bites.
Dogs bite, cats bite, shit...fish bite...HUMANS bite...ask any cop or preschool teacher...
I get this "does it bite?" question ALOT. I always say that if it has a mouth it can bite you...If its som'thing that tends to be docile, I say "these tend not to bite". I can not remember a time in recent years where I've told som'one an animal was not going to bite them, in an absolute :never: way.
I find myself, more and more pondering peoples motivations behind pets. I mean, I was one of them, so I can understand it on that level, but I have "moved on" in many ways...as in, I like to have animals, but the need to go out and actively acquire new ones is a need that has left me for the most part.
I once was a consumer. Iam still, technically a producer. Even though I have for the most part shunned my former breeding operations, I still produce animals professionally, and due to my "career" assist novices in producing animals. Helping the novices, tends to produce more ill feelings than me producing my own animals, due to the sheer number of people who have bad motivators...and then here Iam, being the one having to deal with aggressive offspring from aggressive parents, having to baby non feeder snakes, which can from parents that were likely non feeders, and having to find homes for, or euthanize animals born with birth defects, when their producers reject responsibility for them
Ah, to cull or not to cull. Iam all for culling, in the spay neuter sense. As in, this dog is not perfect, lets bar it from breeding, but spare its life, and find it a home. But in reptiles, its not so easy. I can't spay/neuter a bearded dragon, and no matter how well I screen people, every year, som' tool decides that that kinked tail shouldn't stop lizzy from having babies. Or the School teacher, that year after year, produced tiny, pathetic, weakling bearded dragons, that grew slowly, the great majority of them with birth defects, and me doing everything, from reasoning, to pleading with her, not to pair the parents anymore. Every year, I'd find her eggs in the incubator, until finally, exhasted, as female beardeds become from egg laying, the mother of the weaklings passed on.
And there in lies the other evil. Egg laying. I'd say 90+% of the female beardeds I've known have died in egg laying. They get old, they get thin and their bodies just can't push them out. Its inevitable. Those that don't die in egg laying, die of accidents, or being euthanized when disease strikes their aging bodies. Males die generally of kidney failure or obesity, tho they do get to live twice as long as the girls do.
I used to say I've been bitten by beardeds twice. I remember both times...one was a very skittish animal that a person saved from a classroom where the kids were caugh torturing it. It nailed me as I tried to examine it for health. It was scared out of its mind.
The second animal, was an animal that belonged to a customer, and he felt the need to retell you its pedigree every time they brought it into the store (which was often). Reminds me of the people who approach you with their dog and blurt out "shes a champion such and such, when you hadn't even noticed the animal yet.....Of course pedigrees in bearded dragons for the most part are simply pretty animals bred to pretty animals, selected for color or pattern mutations. Anyway, despite its pedigree, it was a rather mediore looking animal, and it nailed me as I held up a nail clipper. It gave no signals, it just bit me, let go and was fine. The top of my finger was not fine
but these two stories, while I say they are the only ones, really aren't. I get bitten by babies almost daily now...som'thing I couldn't have said 6 years ago. Baby beardeds seem to be becoming more and more aggressive as the years pass, I have also noticed an increase in flightly skittish animals. Beardeds so skittish, they are almost impossible to handle, and they take quite a bit of forced interactions to 'grow out of it".
I remember a specific group of leatherbacks imported from europe. I have never dealt with beardeds that were so aggressive at a juvenile age. Absolutely untrustworthy and "evil" as we called them. They weren't a hard sell tho, they were a rare morph, and no doubt every last one of them went on to reproduce.
I have seen birth defects increase, with a big peak around 2008, I see fewer today, but I think thats due to most of the novices no longer breeding, and have given away their adults.
Thats the other thing...where are all these dragons going? This year and last, people in mass gave up their pets. It was insane. It was like I missed the "everyone relinquish anything alive" memo. People poured in wanting to give up the animals they swore were family members...many people saying the reason was the animals babies could no longer fund the hobby...ironic since the majority of people who buy a bearded dragon or two are not thinking about breeding for money...yet, once they have, and the money flow stops, the animals are worthless to them
Ironically, the pet, the exotic pet, that makes people different, is slowly going the way of the poorly bred purebred dog.
I see many more bites in my future.
Dogs bite, cats bite, shit...fish bite...HUMANS bite...ask any cop or preschool teacher...
I get this "does it bite?" question ALOT. I always say that if it has a mouth it can bite you...If its som'thing that tends to be docile, I say "these tend not to bite". I can not remember a time in recent years where I've told som'one an animal was not going to bite them, in an absolute :never: way.
I find myself, more and more pondering peoples motivations behind pets. I mean, I was one of them, so I can understand it on that level, but I have "moved on" in many ways...as in, I like to have animals, but the need to go out and actively acquire new ones is a need that has left me for the most part.
I once was a consumer. Iam still, technically a producer. Even though I have for the most part shunned my former breeding operations, I still produce animals professionally, and due to my "career" assist novices in producing animals. Helping the novices, tends to produce more ill feelings than me producing my own animals, due to the sheer number of people who have bad motivators...and then here Iam, being the one having to deal with aggressive offspring from aggressive parents, having to baby non feeder snakes, which can from parents that were likely non feeders, and having to find homes for, or euthanize animals born with birth defects, when their producers reject responsibility for them
Ah, to cull or not to cull. Iam all for culling, in the spay neuter sense. As in, this dog is not perfect, lets bar it from breeding, but spare its life, and find it a home. But in reptiles, its not so easy. I can't spay/neuter a bearded dragon, and no matter how well I screen people, every year, som' tool decides that that kinked tail shouldn't stop lizzy from having babies. Or the School teacher, that year after year, produced tiny, pathetic, weakling bearded dragons, that grew slowly, the great majority of them with birth defects, and me doing everything, from reasoning, to pleading with her, not to pair the parents anymore. Every year, I'd find her eggs in the incubator, until finally, exhasted, as female beardeds become from egg laying, the mother of the weaklings passed on.
And there in lies the other evil. Egg laying. I'd say 90+% of the female beardeds I've known have died in egg laying. They get old, they get thin and their bodies just can't push them out. Its inevitable. Those that don't die in egg laying, die of accidents, or being euthanized when disease strikes their aging bodies. Males die generally of kidney failure or obesity, tho they do get to live twice as long as the girls do.
I used to say I've been bitten by beardeds twice. I remember both times...one was a very skittish animal that a person saved from a classroom where the kids were caugh torturing it. It nailed me as I tried to examine it for health. It was scared out of its mind.
The second animal, was an animal that belonged to a customer, and he felt the need to retell you its pedigree every time they brought it into the store (which was often). Reminds me of the people who approach you with their dog and blurt out "shes a champion such and such, when you hadn't even noticed the animal yet.....Of course pedigrees in bearded dragons for the most part are simply pretty animals bred to pretty animals, selected for color or pattern mutations. Anyway, despite its pedigree, it was a rather mediore looking animal, and it nailed me as I held up a nail clipper. It gave no signals, it just bit me, let go and was fine. The top of my finger was not fine
but these two stories, while I say they are the only ones, really aren't. I get bitten by babies almost daily now...som'thing I couldn't have said 6 years ago. Baby beardeds seem to be becoming more and more aggressive as the years pass, I have also noticed an increase in flightly skittish animals. Beardeds so skittish, they are almost impossible to handle, and they take quite a bit of forced interactions to 'grow out of it".
I remember a specific group of leatherbacks imported from europe. I have never dealt with beardeds that were so aggressive at a juvenile age. Absolutely untrustworthy and "evil" as we called them. They weren't a hard sell tho, they were a rare morph, and no doubt every last one of them went on to reproduce.
I have seen birth defects increase, with a big peak around 2008, I see fewer today, but I think thats due to most of the novices no longer breeding, and have given away their adults.
Thats the other thing...where are all these dragons going? This year and last, people in mass gave up their pets. It was insane. It was like I missed the "everyone relinquish anything alive" memo. People poured in wanting to give up the animals they swore were family members...many people saying the reason was the animals babies could no longer fund the hobby...ironic since the majority of people who buy a bearded dragon or two are not thinking about breeding for money...yet, once they have, and the money flow stops, the animals are worthless to them
Ironically, the pet, the exotic pet, that makes people different, is slowly going the way of the poorly bred purebred dog.
I see many more bites in my future.
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