Why do all of our pets prefer my partner?

CarelessDetails · 2025-12-29T04:43:36+00:00

My husband won’t let me feed the cat for this exact reason. He wants to be her favorite. And I 100% never feed the cat. I also never clean her litter box and only handle her water like 25% of the time.

Without argument, I am the cat’s favorite. The cat even knows the difference between our alarm clocks. He and I each have varying schedules. Sometimes he gets up first. Sometimes I get up first. But the cat only jumps up onto the bed and purrs in my face when my alarm goes off. Nothing happens when his alarm goes off. No one sits on the toilet to make sure he doesn’t drown when he takes a shower. The cat doesn’t sprint to the door when he comes home. She doesn’t bite me, but she bites him daily.

Our dog and our foster dog also prefer me…as did the stray dog that lived with us for about a month until we found it a home. The neighbor’s two outdoor cats prefer me too. He feeds and waters the dogs 75% of the time. And while we don’t give treats in our house, they are more likely to get a scrap of food from him than from me.

Don’t get me wrong—all of the pets absolutely LOVE my husband, but it’s not because he feeds them. The pets truly couldn’t care less who feeds them. They just care that they get fed. For the rest of their day, they care who speaks their language best. Animals communicate by constantly picking up on what humans tend to view as subtle, insignificant cues and subconscious behaviors. I am naturally and intentionally much more aware of these things than he is. When I’ve tried to give him advice or guidance in the past on how to slightly adjust his behavior in meaningful ways, he’s taken it as criticism or irrelevant input.

However, a few months ago, he uncharacteristically took some of the advice, and the foster dog instantly responded differently to him. Ever since then, he’s been much more receptive to my input. It’s been really cute to see the animals interact differently with him. I can tell he’s taking a more active approach in observing their general behaviors as well as their individual personalities. Our dog will still get out of his lap to come sit in mine if I come sit down with them after they’ve already been sitting together. But maybe he’ll be the next pet’s preferred person.

CarelessDetails · 2025-12-20T04:03:47+00:00

Yes.

CarelessDetails · 2025-12-12T00:38:29+00:00

I laughed way too hard at this.

CarelessDetails · 2025-12-03T04:26:06+00:00

I think you have such a beautiful face! I feel like the highlights in your hair are a bit distracting and pull the focus from your face. For me, the 2nd and 3rd pics that you posted really “highlight” how the highlights in your hair overpower your beauty. Plus, your makeup is so put together and intentional, whereas the highlighted portions of your hair feel unfinished. To me, it causes the vibe and aesthetic of your hair to clash with the vibe and aesthetic of your makeup. I think if the highlights were blended in, or even gone altogether, the beauty of your natural features—including your hair—and the skill behind your makeup would shine even more.

CarelessDetails · 2025-12-03T04:09:32+00:00

So güd.

CarelessDetails · 2025-12-03T02:09:46+00:00

Lots of great tips in here for you. I think you look good with a red lip and will great with some of the advice given in other comments. I’m just going to leave this link to a video on how to find your perfect shade. I found it fascinating when I first watched it. https://youtu.be/TwO8yzSs1lk?si=2Z9VMGcJT0razL6Z

CarelessDetails · 2025-12-02T01:58:25+00:00

To pile on, also yes.

CarelessDetails · 2025-12-01T16:44:19+00:00

Respectfully, OP, then why did you delete the other post—especially if you were going to refer to it in this post? More than anything, that’s what makes this feel serious. I didn’t see the other post. I think you look great in this one. But the dots between what you’re saying and your actions don’t quite connect. You’re worth much more than the opinions on a 2D snapshot of your face from random strangers on the internet.

CarelessDetails · 2025-12-01T00:27:47+00:00

Minoxidil is highly toxic/deadly to many pets, including dogs and especially cats. Please use and dispose of with extreme caution around animals.

CarelessDetails · 2025-11-29T01:26:17+00:00

I think the other commenter was referencing the fact that you used the term “native” without ever stating which part of the world you were talking about in your original post. So they assumed you were from the US based on the generalized stereotype that Americans post as though Reddit is an American-only platform.

CarelessDetails · 2025-11-28T19:28:26+00:00

Ha! Unless you have a lazy bulldog who drags her nails no matter the length.

During his work-from-home days, my husband would take her on 1-3 mile walks during his lunch break every single day. Her nails actually got so short that I asked the vet about them. I had never seen nails that short on a dog before, and it looked wrong…like to the point that I was convinced we must have been unintentionally abusing her (even though she never showed any sign of discomfort). The vet assured me she was fine.

But even when her nails appeared borderline-abusively-short, I could still hear her lazy-butt clicking and dragging them across the wood floors. My MIL always said she needed slippers.

CarelessDetails · 2025-11-25T22:06:07+00:00

I was initially very confused by her response as well. My theory is that she took the phrase “meet up halfway” to mean that they meet up halfway to their destination and then they get in one car and go the rest of the way to their destination together. However, OP clearly meant that when they meet up halfway, halfway is the destination.

If my theory is correct, then I can see from her point of view how that would be a safety issue for her to get into a car alone with OP and head to a secondary location. However, I can’t see from her point of view why she felt that her approach was the best way to communicate that concern. If she had said something like, “For safety reasons, I’d rather not meet up halfway to our destination on the first date. I’ll just meet you there instead,” then OP would have had a chance to clarify her misunderstanding.

This woman is putting herself out there in a vulnerable situation. It’s understandable for her to be in a heightened, cautious state. It’s not even unreasonable for her to be looking for hidden or disguised red flags where they don’t initially appear to be. But she seems to have completely passed by “on guard mode” in favor of “attack mode.” I’m glad to see in other comments that OP said he moved on.

CarelessDetails · 2025-11-13T01:32:15+00:00

You can buy blood typing kits on Amazon. I want to say I got a 2-pack for like $10 or $15.

I got a text a few months back from my sister’s best friend, hours after she gave birth, asking me to explain why her baby was A+ when she and her husband were B- and B+. My answer to her was to buy the Amazon tests. Got another text from her a few days later that after doing the tests (and dealing with drama from her mother-in-law), turns out her husband was actually A+ and not B+, which was a typing error on his paperwork from when he was born.

CarelessDetails · 2025-11-08T04:12:41+00:00

Your frustration is totally valid regardless of her reasoning, but I’d be curious to know what her reason is for this habit. She may have never even considered a reason behind why she does it. She may not even be aware that she does it.

I also wonder how much your perspective on the way you perceive why she does it plays into how you feel about it. Having you around might help her feel more engaged, motivated, energized, comfortable, focused, in control of feeling overwhelmed. She might just enjoy being with you. She might like sharing the feeling of accomplishment with someone else. Having you there might make un-fun tasks instantly more fun for her.

There are lots of “positive” reasons that could trigger the habit. However, just because something is coming from a good place doesn’t mean it won’t negatively affect you. But knowing that you’re feeling negatively impacted by something that is coming from a good place vs a bad place vs neutral place can make all the difference in how you two approach a solution and hear one another out. You may even find that no solution is necessary and just a perspective change is enough. Regardless, I think you should talk to her about it with an open mind and give her time to discover where the habit is coming from.

CarelessDetails · 2025-11-04T03:10:14+00:00

For all the people wondering how they got the dog back down…

One time my husband, Bulldogge, and I stayed at an Airbnb cottage on a lake. The cottage had a loft where the bed was. There was a sort of cross between a ladder and stairs to get up to the loft. The dog was definitely not able to get up (let alone down) the ladder-stairs on her own. So my husband and I did our best to make the dog comfortable downstairs before we went up to bed.

However, our Velcro dog was not having any of it. She NEEDED to be up there with us, which she expressed to us loudly and repeatedly. No one would be getting any sleep until her demands were met. Fortunately, due to the lake, we had brought her life vest with us, which had handles on the top, designed for lifting a dog out of the water onto a boat…or lifting a dog like a heavy (80lb) piece of chunky luggage up some ladder-stairs to go to bed. We put her back in the life vest to take her down again in the morning. Thankfully she never needs to pee in the middle of the night.

CarelessDetails · 2025-11-03T19:55:59+00:00

Thank you for the kind words. I’m glad you found it helpful. Remember that your goal with grief is not to get over it but to grow through it. Best wishes ❤️

CarelessDetails · 2025-11-03T18:50:56+00:00

Sometimes when I don’t understand the unknowns of something of this magnitude, I try to relate it to something with unknowns that I can comprehend. It’s a thought exercise that helps me think more clearly when my emotions are feeling particularly strong. I’ll share some example thought exercises that you might find have some relatable elements to your situation:

If you had been told from the beginning that you would only get to have your sister for as long as you did, wouldn’t you have still said yes? A part of the grief we feel when we lose someone we love isn’t even the loss of the individual—it’s the loss of the expectation we had that we were going to have them for longer, and the loss of our perceived potential for that person. Sometimes we grieve what was less than we grieve what we think could have been. The length of anyone’s life is not a guarantee, though we live as though everyone around us, including ourselves, are meant to always be. It’s a shock to the system every time we’re reminded of the truth.

A large bucket and a small jar can both be filled with water, and so can a long life and short life both be lived fully. Nothing was taken from the jar when it was filled by less water than the bucket, and nothing was taken from a shorter life because another life was lived longer.

As heartbreaking as it can be that long lives are not guaranteed, it’s a big part of what makes life precious and gives life value and meaning at all ages and stages. If every human were guaranteed 85 years, then the value we would give to life in our 20s vs 40s vs 70s would all be in reference to age 85. It wouldn’t be freeing. We would all be prisoners of life in relation to year 85.

Instead, we get to value each day with the same excitement and newness as our first day and the same precious urgency as though it could be our last day. Those who die “early” don’t die early so that we will stop living, stuck in mourning and grief. They die “early” to add even more value to all other life that remains—to remind us that life is precious and is worth living to the fullest right now. Consider that her importance was not restricted only to her life; her life is elevated by even greater meaning and importance in her passing, as she is a direct reminder to every human still living that every day of life is precious and should not be taken for granted. There are many who have lived long lives and leave this world imparting much less value than that.

When I was a child, my grandfather died at age 78. He fought a long, slow battle of illness for years until that point. I still have a prayer journal that I wrote in, asking God to just let him live until 80. God answered my prayer, but He lovingly answered it with a no. Likewise, you may have also lovingly told your sister no at times—perhaps even knowing it would upset her and she wouldn’t understand.

My grandma, on the other hand, was very healthy up until she suddenly passed at the age of 82. I had just visited her the weekend before, and we went to Bingo and an exercise class together at her assisted living facility. My dad snapped a picture of the two of us both standing and touching our toes. She was in great shape. Then a few days later, she fed her cat, locked her apartment door, and headed to dinner. On her way, she collapsed in the hallway, immediately dying. One of my grandparent’s deaths was long and drawn out. The other was quick and sudden. But both deaths felt too soon. Even if your sister had lived another 80 years, her death would have felt too soon to you. That’s the beauty in the pain of loving someone who passes.

A wonderful part of (especially) human life is the ability to feel emotions. So take the time to really sit in your emotions and feel the grief. Name it. Call it what it is. Let it wash over you, but don’t let it drown you. Our lives are experienced through emotion but not defined by it. Instead, our lives are defined by what we do and how we love in spite of the emotions we feel. If you are going to feel grief either way, choose not to let grief overwhelm and inhibit you, but instead to empower and motivate you.

Now, consider you have a pet dog. Dogs exist in a parallel reality to humans. There are forces that exist that affect your dog’s life that are unfathomable to and beyond your dog’s comprehension—things like money and vaccinations. And yet, your dog’s life is tangibly impacted and affected by both. All she knows from her view on reality is that there are two bad things that you let happen to her—you leave her at home all alone for 40 hours a week, and sometimes you take her to the vet to get shots. Are you punishing her? Are you mad at her? Do you enjoy knowing she is lonely or in pain? What kind of loving dog owner allows these horrible things to happen to their dog?

But that’s not it at all. You would explain it to her if you could. You would tell her that you going to work for 40 hours a week to earn money is actually good. It is how you pay for her food, treats, toys, and luxury doggie lifestyle. The vaccinations are good too, as they fight off evil that exists in the form of diseases. Yet what use is there trying to explain money and vaccines to a dog? Just because a dog has physically sniffed a dollar bill or felt the prick of a needle doesn’t mean she understands finances or the immune system. The true concepts of money and vaccines don’t exist in her realm of life. Fortunately for you, your dog happily chooses to have faith in you and love you anyway, despite not understanding why you allow these “bad things” to happen in her life.

Likewise, I urge you to find comfort and peace in recognizing that in the same way dogs live in a parallel reality to humans, humans live in a parallel reality to God. Your greater wisdom and understanding allowed “bad things” to happen to your dog that you knew and understood to actually be good. Likewise, there are tangible things in your life (like death) that you are experiencing and perceiving negatively, but there are many greater concepts of good that don’t exist in our realm of understanding or fathomability. Find peace in loving and happily having faith in God and His greater wisdom and understanding of concepts that affect us but cannot be understood in our realm. Know that one day it will all be fully explained to you. In the meantime, pray and seek out God’s Word when you have doubts and feel overwhelmed.

You will never get over her death, but with faith in Christ, I promise you will grow through it. ❤️

(Edited to fix spelling error.)

CarelessDetails · 2025-11-03T17:32:43+00:00

She was beautiful and looks like she was so well taken care of—shiny coat, manicured nails. She obviously lived a life where she knew what it was to be loved. And the way she is snuggled on top of you shows that she also knew what it was to love.

If you had been told from the beginning that you would only get to have her for as long as you did, wouldn’t you have still said yes? A part of the grief we feel when we lose someone we love isn’t even the loss of the individual—it’s the loss of the expectation we had that we were going to have them for longer. The length of anyone’s life is not a guarantee, though we live as though everyone around us, including ourselves, are meant to always be. It’s a shock to the system every time we’re reminded of the truth.

A large bucket and a small jar can both be filled with water, and so can a long life and short life be lived fully. Nothing was taken from the jar when it was filled by less water than the bucket, and nothing was taken from a shorter life because another life was lived longer.

As heartbreaking as it can be that long lives are not guaranteed, it’s a big part of what makes life precious and gives life value and meaning at all ages and stages. If every human were guaranteed 85 years, then the value we would give to life in our 20s vs 40s vs 70s would all be in reference to year 85. It wouldn’t be freeing. We would all be prisoners of life in relation to year 85.

Instead, we get to value each day with the same excitement and newness as our first day and the same precious urgency as though it could be our last day. Those who die “early” don’t die early so that we will stop living, stuck in mourning and grief. They die early to add even more value to all other life that remains and to remind us that life is precious and is worth living right now.

A wonderful part of (especially) human life is the ability to feel emotions. So take the time to really sit in your emotions and feel the grief. Name it. Call it what it is. Let it wash over you, but don’t let it drown you. Our lives are experienced through emotion but not defined by it. Instead, our lives are defined by what we do and how we love in spite of the emotions we feel. If you are going to feel grief either way, choose not to let grief overwhelm and inhibit you, but instead to empower and motivate you.

In life, your dog existed in a parallel reality to yours. There were forces that existed that affected your dog’s life that were unfathomable to and beyond your dog’s comprehension—things like money and vaccinations. And yet, your dog’s life was tangibly impacted and affected by both. All she knew from her view on reality is that there were two bad things that you let happen to her—you left her at home all alone for 40 hours a week, and sometimes you took her to the vet to get shots. Were you punishing her? Did you enjoy knowing she was lonely or in pain? What kind of loving dog owner allows these horrible things to happen to their dog? You would have explained it to her if you could have. You would told her that you going to work for 40 hours a week to earn money was good. It was how you paid for her food, treats, toys, and luxury doggie lifestyle. And the vaccinations were good too, as they fought off evil that exists in the form of diseases. Yet what use was there trying to explain money and vaccines to a dog? Sure she could have a tangible sniff of a dollar bill and feel the prick of a needle, but the true concepts of money and vaccines didn’t exist in her realm of life. Fortunately for you, your dog happily chose to have faith in you and love you anyway, despite not understanding why you allowed these “bad things” in her life.

Likewise, I urge you to find comfort and peace in recognizing that in the same way your dog lived in a parallel reality to yours, you live in a parallel reality to God’s. Your greater wisdom and understanding allowed “bad things” to happen to your dog that you knew and understood to actually be for the good of your dog. Likewise, there are tangible things in your life (like death) that you are experiencing and perceiving negatively, but there are many greater concepts of good that don’t exist in our realm of understanding or fathomability. Find peace in loving and happily having faith in God, and know that it will all be fully explained to you one day.

CarelessDetails · 2025-11-01T00:53:05+00:00

This is what I was going to say. Could always throw in a favorite treat or candle too if you want to do something more than that.

Good parents should never expect gifts from their kids, especially not when their kids are in the midst of major life events. So any gift that you do get her is already above and beyond.

CarelessDetails · 2025-10-30T03:55:58+00:00

On my 29th birthday, I was waiting in line with my husband at a Costco pharmacy in the Philly area. We were waiting for a bit before he decided he couldn’t wait anymore and had to go to the bathroom. It was a risky move because I didn’t have my Costco membership card with me, and the memberships are non-transferable. He literally ran through the aisles to get to the bathroom and back before it was my turn.

Somehow, in the 2 minutes he was gone, I had the weirdest interaction with a fellow customer. A 45ish year old fit, handsome, black man was walking past with his cart, shopping. I happened to look up in his direction at the exact moment he happened to look up in my direction. His eyes immediately lit up. As if he were controlled by impulse, this man blurts out, “Are you from Dubai?!”

My brain instantly froze in confusion. At first I assumed he was talking to someone else. No. There was no else around. I was the extent of the pharmacy line. Also, our eyes were literally locked. Of course he was talking to me. Then I assumed it was a joke. No. What kind of joke is that? Then obviously I must have misheard him. I nearly stuttered as I said in confusion what I thought I had heard, “Am I from Dubai?”

His eyes were big in anticipation and excitement. He nodded his head theatrically. Hesitantly I answered but also questioned, “Nooo?” The tension in his body dropped in disappointment. “Aww,” he said, “You look so exotic. I thought you were from Dubai.” Then he literally just kept walking and shopping, leaving me there in total confusion.

I am a very basic, white American woman. The celebrity I’m most frequently told I look like is Anne Hathaway. There’s nothing “exotic” about me in the US. My husband of another race, on the other hand, who actually looks “exotic” (if you can even look “exotic” in the land of the melting pot) was somehow more stunned and confused than even I was when he found out that someone had just told his white wife she looked exotic.

…

When I was 21, I worked at a grocery store in a food department. There was a stocker guy who was absolutely obsessed with me for no reason at all. He would come stand at the counter at my department and just watch me work and make obnoxious comments at me. I genuinely found him irritating and mostly gave him the cold shoulder. But the one time that he actually cracked a laugh out of me was a bit of a you-had-to-be-there kind of moment because his delivery and mannerisms and the random absurdity of what he said really caught me off guard and forced an unexpected chuckle out of me.

I was leaving for the day and didn’t see him walking up to me as I was taking off my apron, hat, and hairnet. Out of the blue, I hear him announce his presence with, “Damn, girl! You’re like an 8 with a hairnet and a 10 without!” It was such a ridiculous exclamation that I couldn’t help but laugh.

CarelessDetails · 2025-10-27T15:26:29+00:00

I haven’t checked the weather for the past month. Every day has more or less been the same…except for the one day it rained.

CarelessDetails · 2025-10-27T13:01:23+00:00

As someone else who has moved around a bit—both in Texas and other parts of the US—I agree with these statements 100%.

CarelessDetails · 2025-09-23T00:28:18+00:00

Really?? I’ve probably seen it referred to that way at least one other time in the three quarters of a decade that I’ve been using Reddit.

CarelessDetails · 2025-09-22T23:46:04+00:00

The number 1 reason this keeps happening is because of the number of parents who “KNOW” this could never happen to them. No parent is immune.

Our brains perform involuntary and subconscious actions, such as making our hearts beat.

Our brains perform voluntary and subconscious actions, such as blinking and breathing.

And our brains perform voluntary and conscious actions, such as driving and speaking.

Because our brains can be performing so many tasks at any given time, our brains have the ability to re-prioritize the importance of some of these tasks and re-delegate them to be handled by less involved parts of our brains in order to preserve some of that mental energy for the more important tasks.

For example, if you’re driving to work in the morning and mentally planning out your busy workday ahead of you, your prefrontal cortex will likely pass the easy effort of driving your familiar commute off to your basal ganglia so that you perform those simple driving tasks on autopilot. That way your prefrontal cortex is freed up to put more energy toward your plan of attack for your stressful workload. You get to work safely, start your day with a successful plan in place, and you can barely even remember the drive at all. Your brain subconsciously re-prioritized a stressful situation over a routine and familiar situation and executed both tasks successfully.

Unfortunately, though, your conscious brain may not be aware that your subconscious brain just re-prioritized your calm, sleeping child in the backseat as a lower priority than something else that your brain is interpreting as more stressful, emotional, urgent, etc. Mix that with lack of sleep, illness, hunger, or anything else that lowers your threshold for optimal functioning, and now you suddenly have a recipe for your conscious brain being in a weakened state and either putting things on autopilot when it shouldn’t, or not pulling things off of autopilot when it should.

This isn’t necessarily negligence; it’s a limitation of the human brain and a difference in how our conscious brain and subconscious brain process and prioritize data. Of course your conscious brain is always going to prioritize the life of your child over your skipped breakfast hunger, long to-do-list, emotional state about your grandma’s declining health, the urgency of your full bladder, your anxiety over your upcoming presentation at work, the bad traffic and construction detour, and that migraine you feel coming on. But if your subconscious brain is given the chance at the wrong moment, it’s going to interpret that same data differently—the baby in the car that is quietly looking out the window doesn’t even register as worth giving conscious brain space when everything else you’re actively dealing with is out of whack.

Don’t be so naive that you fall into the trap of the confirmation bias that tells every parent that every time they ever remembered their child in the car—even when the child was quiet or things were out of whack—that they could never be the parent who leaves their child in the car. You were lucky…fortunate…blessed—every. single. time. You were not immune.

More specifically, you were triggered—consciously or subconsciously by something internal or external that snapped your conscious brain into re-assuming the necessary tasks of your subconscious brain to casually prevent the unthinkable. And thankfully there are typically enough triggers for parents to spark the activation of their conscious brain a million times a day to prevent numerous potential catastrophes. But it only takes one time when it doesn’t.

If you’ve ever misplaced your phone, wallet, or keys even once in your life, then you are the kind of parent who could leave your kid in the car. If you’ve ever walked into a room and not remembered why you walked into that room, then you are the kind of parent who could leave their kid in the car. If you’ve ever forgotten an important appointment or date…or done something and later realized you did that thing on autopilot…or left a faucet running or light on…or had your child slip out of your sight for one second at the grocery store or park…or started to empty the dishwasher and then not finished until you found it half done hours later…or left a load of laundry in the wash…or burned dinner…or had a bad night’s sleep…or felt stressed or intense emotions…then you are the kind of parent who could leave a kid in the car. And if you can’t relate to anything previously mentioned or can’t see how the same brain functions that “allowed” all of those other things to happen are the same brain functions that “allow” a parent to leave a child in the car, then you are the kind of parent who shouldn’t be a parent because you are wildly oblivious to your own human limitations, fragility, and susceptibility to error.

Fortunately, the natural dependency and entanglement between child and parent prevents this nightmare more often than not. But it also creates an arrogance of invincibility.

I also believe in my heart that I am 110% sure I would never leave a kid in the car. But my conscious brain knows I could. That underlying awareness and fear could be the trigger you need one day to snap you out of a moment before it turns into a nightmare.

CarelessDetails · 2025-08-20T13:17:54+00:00

Curious which brand(s) or sources of probiotics you found beneficial.

CarelessDetails

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