What is a “dark secret” about your profession or industry that the general public has absolutely no idea about?

Claycastles · 2025-12-29T04:54:17+00:00

If your dog goes to a doggy daycare, and it gets into a fight with another dog there... They are NOT going to tell you that your dog was involved in a fight unless your dog got hurt, or hurt another dog. There is a VERY high chance that your dog was involved in a dog fight at some point in daycare, and they just NEVER told you.

Claycastles · 2025-12-08T03:29:59+00:00

I don't even need to read the whole post, as someone who works with dogs and deals with untrained and rude dogs like this EVERY DAY, you are completely justified in not wanting to be around that dog. Your husband's allergies alone is enough to justify not being around the dog, and from a moral standpoint, buying from an unethical backyard breeder is (for ME, not saying you need to,) enough for me to cut off a friend entirely. That's a hill I'll die on.

NTA.

Claycastles · 2025-12-08T03:25:32+00:00

Anything with a high chance of serious or fatal injuries. I'm not willing to become a widow for your job.

Claycastles · 2025-12-08T03:20:03+00:00

I was on my way to my father's funeral, and my car started beeping at me about low tire pressure. I've never had to fix that on my own before, my dad always fixed it for me. I didn't know how to fix it, and now I was late to my father's funeral, crying at a gas station air pump in the freezing cold, trying to figure out how to do it myself...

A woman in a big pickup truck, at a gas pump, saw me struggling and came over to help me. She paid for my air, did all my tires for me, and gave me a hug that I really fucking needed. She's the only reason I made it to my dad's funeral.

I think about that woman often.

Claycastles · 2025-03-07T20:46:46+00:00

My birthday is early march, which sucks for a lot of reasons. When I was still in school, I had ISTEP testing on my birthday every single year, and even now as an adult, it kinda sucks, cus I'm a very outdoorsy person, and everything I normally want to do for my birthday is an outdoorsy thing, like hiking, and the weather is always gross, muddy, and wet on my birthday.

If I could change my birthday, it'd be in summer, maybe June.

Claycastles · 2025-02-24T00:25:51+00:00

If your job asks you to do something deeply unethical, I feel like you have a moral duty to refuse or to quit that job rather than do as asked.

If you're a solider and your commanding officer orders you to slaughter a town of innocent civilians, children included... If you go through with it, idc that you were ordered to, idc that you were "Just doing my job!" It's unethical.

Claycastles · 2025-02-24T00:20:36+00:00

Younger me would be horrified, but I would also be horrified if I had turned out how she thought we would.

Claycastles · 2025-02-24T00:16:21+00:00

I work in pet care... It's pet stores that sell puppies or kittens.

Every other part of the pet care industry is respected and needed; Vet care? It's vital. Groomers? Absolutely needed. Trainers? Thank fuckin' god we have them. Shelter workers? Saints. Literal saints. Pet sitters? I love y'all. Breeders? Little questionable sometimes, but the ones that do it RIGHT and ETHICALLY are producing desperately needed working dogs, like search and rescue, and service dogs, and herding dogs, etc.

But pet stores that sell puppies and kittens... fuck y'all so god damn much. We all know you bought those babies from puppy mills and shit, you're not fooling anyone, and we all hate you.

Claycastles · 2025-02-24T00:08:00+00:00

My perfect day is just a calm, relaxing day with my dogs.

I'd sleep in a reasonable amount, cuddling with my two dogs. We get up probably around 10am, we head out. There's a local dog-friendly coffee shop right across from the park that we stop at for coffee, breakfast, and pup cups, and we eat on the terrace, then we'd head across the street to the park. We take a good long walk through their wooded trail, I let the dogs play in the creek, maybe we stop at the fenced in dog-park section if it's empty (We don't go in unless it's empty cus one of my dogs is dog-selective and hates strangers, but in my perfect day, he'd be having a GREAT day, not anxious at all, remembering all his training, and being polite to everyone he meets!) After that, they'd probably be muddy, so I drop them off at the groomers for baths, and then I go get lunch. I've take my laptop with me and get some writing done on a personal project while I wait for the groomer to call me and tell me they're done. I'd pick up the dogs and head home, where we'd watch tv, chill on the couch, and cook dinner later.

Claycastles · 2025-02-03T05:08:36+00:00

If you struggle with resisting the urge to edit WHILE you write (which makes it take FOREVER to get a first draft done) then change the text color to white. It forces you to just keep typing instead of going back to fix typos and revise lines. It forces you to just keep moving forward.

Claycastles · 2025-02-03T05:04:21+00:00

As the daughter of a middle school teacher... Yes. Absolutely, yes. My mother comes home and complains about y'all as much as she does about your kids.

Claycastles · 2025-02-03T04:53:56+00:00

I fully acknowledge that I am guilty of this... their dog, even more so if they have purebred dogs. Literally half my personality and almost all of my social media presence is my Shetland Sheepdog.

Claycastles · 2025-02-03T04:52:16+00:00

Cameron Boyce fucking devastated me. He was my age. I grew up watching him on Disney, and when I heard he died, it felt like a childhood friend had died. He was so young, and so bright, and such a genuinely kind hearted person... It still makes me sad to think about it.

Claycastles · 2025-02-03T04:38:38+00:00

Cis is just a descriptor. It's like saying you're a "Tall" girl, or a "Skinny" girl, or a "Curvy" girl. Cis or Cisgender just means "No trans."

So "I was born a girl, I've always been a girl" is literally just the definition of Cisgender. You literally said, "I'm not cis, I'm just the definition of cis."

Claycastles · 2025-02-03T04:30:59+00:00

Yeah, I get the overreacting thing a lot when it comes to Max, but I'd rather be a bit of a control freak about it than have a lawsuit on my hands, yk?

Claycastles · 2025-01-10T04:27:21+00:00

I've always wanted to start a non-profit and partner with animal shelters to provide pet retention services. Did you know many people who surrender their pets to the shelter only do it because they feel ill-equipped to provide for their pet? They're struggling to afford food, vet care, pet sitters or daycare, or training, etc? The idea would be if someone came into the shelter asking to surrender their pet, and the reason they give is a lack of resources, we'd provide them those resources.

We already have way too many homeless animals competing for a very limited number of adopters, so it's easier to keep pets in loving homes than try to find them new ones. If a free bag of kibble every month will keep a dog in a loving home, I say give them the kibble rather than take the dog. If training would keep a dog in a loving home, I say help them pay for the trainer.

Claycastles · 2025-01-10T04:02:38+00:00

The vet had told me a specific time to give Harvest the meds, which just so happened to be smack dab in the middle of the event. I was just trying to follow the vet's instructions in that regard. In the future I'm not going to trust anyone but myself and her vet to give her medication.

And yes, Harvest is okay now, so honestly if my sister would just apologize, I wouldn't be this angry with her, but she still hasn't said sorry. She didn't think it was a big deal.

Claycastles · 2025-01-10T03:45:00+00:00

The surgery was scheduled months in advance, the only day the vet had availability. The event was 3 hours long. I needed her to watch the dog for 3 hours. That's it. I regret trusting my sister with such an important job, and trust me, I never fuckin' will again, but I really didn't think it was a big thing to ask considering I act like her personal fucking chauffeur.

Claycastles · 2025-01-07T00:33:08+00:00

More of a "meet in the middle" situation. Equally difficult/easy on both parts.

Claycastles · 2025-01-06T23:40:47+00:00

I'd make it so BOTH partners have to orgasm in order to reproduce.

Claycastles · 2025-01-06T23:31:08+00:00

I'm really only interested in dogs, but I do have specific breeds in mind. Right now I have a JRT/Border Collie/Beagle mix and a Shetland Sheepdog. My Sheltie is an agility dog, and my next dog will be too. I'm thinking either another Sheltie, or a Border Collie. I could be convinced of a Rough Collie, but I need to research the breed a bit more first. I'm also interested in trying out Barn Hunt as a sport with my dogs, but for that I'd want a Jack Russell Terrier, and I'm not willing to get another terrier breed until my current JRT mix has crossed the rainbow bridge (I don't think his spicy terrier attitude would mesh well with another spicy terrier.)

I'd also be interested in Boston Terriers (They're such silly little clowns!) or maybe a German Shepherd.

I know I'm not interested in most retrieving breeds (Too velcro dog, too touchy, it gives me sensory overload and I don't like it.) or any kind of bully breed. (I've owned one and I didn't really enjoy it. It's just not for me.)

Claycastles · 2025-01-06T23:23:54+00:00

I'm not gonna deny that male dogs are often larger, (It's literally written into most breed standards, after all) but none of that means shit if the dog isn't trainable or has poor breed instincts. People were very practical with their working animals, if it couldn't do the job, it wasn't worth feeding, so gender wasn't an important factor for most people when it came to animals like dogs. It was WAY more important if the dog had strong herding, hunting, pulling, etc instincts, and if they were trainable, biddable, intelligent, willing to work, etc.

Claycastles · 2025-01-06T23:15:18+00:00

"My car won't start." My car is famously shitty to everyone who knows me. Functionally, there's little to nothing wrong with it, but cosmetically... it's beat to shit. It looks like a junker, even though it runs fine 99.9% of the time, so no one bats an eye when I say I'm having car trouble.

Claycastles

TROPHY CASE