As I did with Twitter when it was new, on Mastodon I’m pretty much following anyone who follows me, anyone who interacts with one of my posts, and anyone whose interesting post finds its way into my timeline. When that adds up to more posts than I can keep up with, I’ll curate much more strictly.
Author Archives: Philip Brewer
2022-11-19 14:20
I was looking for a tug-of-war stuffie for Ashley and saw a sloth one. She loves it. I think she may just hang on to it forever. 📷🐕
2022-11-18 14:17
I have an orange fleece buff that I wear when it’s cold and windy. Ashley, still feisty after a walk, grabbed the back of it and started pulling tug-of-war fashion.
“Don’t do that Ashley! How would you like it if I started pulling something around your neck… Oh.”
2022-11-17 11:09
It just occurred to me that I haven’t been tagging my dog 🐕 picture 📸 posts with the appropriate emojis, so here’s one to give people on micro.blog a heads-up that they may have missed some.
2022-11-16 06:52
Gradually getting my follows arranged for Mastodon. I’m having less trouble than other people, because I had done my best to make Twitter act like Mastodon: I turned off anything that tried to “feature” posts, and just followed a list of people who tweeted interesting stuff.
2022-11-15 08:31
I’m pretty sure Ashley has never seen snow before (she’s not quite 8 months old), but she seems only mildly interested. Pretty unimpressed, actually.
2022-11-12 12:56
Ooh! I got on the mastodon server where all the cool f&sf folks are going!
Follow me there: @philipbrewer
2022-11-12 10:55
I guess I don’t really expect that the demise of Twitter will lead to a grand resurgence in websites that offer RSS feeds as the way to follow your favorite writers.
But wouldn’t it be wonderful if it did?
2022-11-12 10:51
As Twitter swirls around the plug hole, I thought I’d mention that I’m philipbrewer@micro.blog. I encourage you to follow me there.
I am also on Mastodon, but my first account there is for my Esperanto stuff, and is all in Esperanto. I’m looking to establish another Mastodon account specifically for my English-language writing-related stuff, but I need to pick a server first. Any suggestions?
Dog barking
I heard a tip some years back about how to handle dog barking. It made sense, and so I’d always planned to go with it if I got a dog. Trying it with just one pet isn’t much of an experiment, but it seems to be working, so I thought I’d describe it.
The basic thesis is this: You cannot teach your dog not to bark. Your dog has 10,000 years of evolution saying that an approaching stranger is a potential malefactor who must be barked at. You cannot train them out of this.
However, you can train them that they only need to bark until the pack leader has been made aware of the intruder, and that’s what I’ve been trying to do.
When Ashley spots someone who needs to be barked at, I hurry over to where she is and praise her profusely: “Good dog! You have alerted us as to the presence of a potential malefactor! That is exactly what you’re supposed to do! You’re the best! Have a treat!”
During the time that I’m praising her, Ashley will quit barking. She’ll also not bark while she’s eating her treat. Usually by the time the praise and treat are over the potential malefactor will have moved along, so there’s no need for more barking.
Occasionally (especially in these days of cell phones) the potential malefactor will still be in view outside the window, and Ashley will go on barking, but I try not to respond further. The essential lesson here is that she only needs to bark until I have been alerted, and that further barking is pointless.
Ashley has barked at any number of potential malefactors, but she has not barked so much as to be annoying to us or our neighbors. So, it’s looking like a win so far.
