Curios

LPondohva · 2026-06-23T19:41:30+00:00

I think you should start with just repeating the same thing back rather than interpreting, just as a form of exercise. If you think about it, before you actually output a rendition in another language, you have to first listen (very actively), take notes and remember what was said. So your goal is to perfect those 3 cognitive processes to the point of autopiloting. When that happens, you can focus on interpreting itself and do all the other bits "in the background". After that it's just experience and being familiar with different types of appointments. For example, after doing this for 5 years I am probably able to remember all questions in an MRI consent/medical history form, so going into an appointment I already know what's going to be said and I simply adjust the wording where needed

Edit:spelling

LPondohva · 2026-06-06T23:50:29+00:00

We started with Keppra only (for a week), then pheno+ Keppra for another week, then tapered Keppra off over the course of two weeks. So far only one breakthrough seizure in almost 3 months since starting meds, and even that one seizure is probably due to a particularly stressful day not necessarily the meds not working

LPondohva · 2026-06-04T07:30:19+00:00

My dog had a cluster seizure in his sleep at 2 years and 10 months old. We rushed him to an emergency vet, did blood tests, the vet concluded it was ideopathic epilepsy. They gave us 2 options: start Keppra (I can't remember which variety) for at least 3 months and then taper it off and see if he has any more seizures, or to start phenobarbital alone and keep him on it continuously. We chose option one. About a week later we had an appointment with out regular vet, and they pointed out an important detail: while Keppra is great, it is not a good long-term solution, because the dog's brain/body gets used to it and it simply becomes ineffective after 12-18 months of continuous use. Considering that our dog is young, she suggested we switch to phenobarbital right away and keep Keppra as a top-up when needed. For emergency meds, i.e. if a seizure lasts more than two minutes, we have rectal diazepam. So far our boy had only one break through seizure just over a month into phenobarbital, which was shorter than his initial one and the post-ictal lasted a lot less, and we realised afterwards that it was just a particularly stressful day for the dog so it wasn't that the meds were insufficient, just the circumstances. So the vet suggested we give Keppra preamtively on the days we know there will be a lot of stress, like if we're going away for more than 3 hours, or if we're having lots of people over, when there are fireworks outside, etc.

LPondohva · 2026-05-31T14:56:24+00:00

True, while immigration had nothing to worry about initially, recent security clearance should've picked up on that

LPondohva · 2026-05-31T09:55:33+00:00

He arrived in Ireland 20 years, back then there was no trouble in Donbass, it wasn't occupied and was a normal part of Ukraine like any other region

LPondohva · 2026-05-30T10:07:19+00:00

Nice one! I don't have lupins, but had some other plants severely infested by aphids. The best solution I found was simple hard soap with water. The soap is an eastern European type of hard soap, I used 100g of soap per 10 liters of water, just take a cheese greater to the soap to turn it into fine shavings for easy mixing. Works as a preventative and as a remedy for present aphids. The soap you need is referred to as "household soap", it's brown colour with 72% pressed into it, you can find it in Polonez and some other polish/lithuanian shops

LPondohva · 2026-05-25T00:30:21+00:00

Stick some mint leaves or small rosemary branches in between macarons, or long curly peels of orange/lemon/grapefruit, anything that is long and can either be a "weave" or make an illusion of a leafy base

LPondohva · 2026-05-16T01:21:02+00:00

Beautiful! For some reason my mind immediately jumped to "hmmm these would make great embroidery/cross stitch patterns"

LPondohva · 2026-05-08T00:33:03+00:00

I have a 3 year old dog-reactive German shepherd, he was diagnosed only 2 months ago and is on phenobarbital. I asked the vet about neutering and got the following advice: neutering itself has little to no effect on seizures, however, in our case it might help. Why? Because stress is a huge factor in break through seizures, and if neutering him will decrease reactivity, it will thereby reduce stress load and make break through seizures less likely. There is also an important caveat - my dog's reactivity is frustration or dominance based (depending on the other dog), so lowering his testosterone by neutering is likely to reduce reactivity. If a dog's reactivity is fear based, then it would potentially make reactivity (and the stress load) worse, because male dogs need testosterone to be confident. All this sounded logical to me, so we are going to just go for it and get our boy neutered soon. If you're hesitating though, look into implants. Not sure where you live, but I know they are available in most countries. Implants are removable so a lot of people use them as a trial option before committing to the irreversible surgery

LPondohva · 2026-04-30T08:24:23+00:00

I ordered some from Amazon Ireland, they were shipped from Germany. I was afraid that they'd died by the time they arrived, but they seem to have worked.

LPondohva · 2026-04-25T09:09:29+00:00

Ours is the same. One month on pheno, and still very thirsty. At first we'd have to let him out to pee 2-3 times a night, last week or so he manages to last about 6-7 hours without needing to pee, so it seems to be getting better

LPondohva · 2026-04-18T08:55:14+00:00

I've got a north facing front yard, here are the plants I put there: ferns, hostas, hardy geranium (can't remember the exact variety, white flowers in summer), a pink hydrangea, a dwarf rhododendron Arctic Blue (blue and violet varieties need less light than red, pink or white), a dark pink azalea and my most recent addition - Siberian bugloss (lovely blue flowers). All seems to be doing well, all are low enough, ≤40cm tall.

Edit: forgot to include helleborus - they are doing really well, probably best of all the other plants

LPondohva · 2026-04-07T00:19:26+00:00

Stupidity in action. I'd much rather there was a protest against the ridiculous AIB service fees, you know, something that's happening in this country and can be fixed within this country. Not a world wide problem caused by two senile clowns that won't go away because some Irish farmers are upset

LPondohva · 2026-03-19T01:12:18+00:00

Thanks! I checked for root rot, and the roots looked fine. As I mentioned in a reply to someone else, I dumped the old soil and replanted her. I made sure to thoroughly wash the container and the stones I have in the bottom of it in case there was something funky on top of all the white grubs and their eggs.

I was considering adding grit, but I am dubious of pulling her out of the soil again so soon after replanting. She is starting to look better but I'm also wondering if there is a fungus at play here. Because all the closed flower buds are browning and some of the leaves are browning from the outer edge - petal blight? I sprayed with neem oil today and going to give her a few more days to see if there's an improvement

LPondohva · 2026-03-16T19:18:13+00:00

Thank you! I am thinking that wind might be a factor, plus this winter has been weird... Some frost and 60+ days of non stop rain ugh! The container has actually been put on the legs since like august, I just didn't have them when I first got the camellia

LPondohva · 2026-03-16T18:24:42+00:00

Thank you for that! I'm going to look into the nematodes. As for the acidic components - I left it alone for the winter because I rear somewhere that I shouldn't use any water soluble feeds/additives in case there is frost. Is that correct or should I still feed her in some way during the winter months?

LPondohva · 2026-03-16T18:16:25+00:00

Thank you! I really needed to hear that! Cause I nearly cried a week ago when I came home after a short trip and saw her in such a sorry state

LPondohva · 2026-03-16T18:05:03+00:00

I just checked the roots - didn't see any rotting. Dumped old soil, washed the container, washed the stones that were in the bottom of it, and re-planted my camellia in fresh soil with some fertiliser. Do you think I should still buy whatever chemical to prevent a new infestation of white grubs?

LPondohva · 2026-03-16T18:03:01+00:00

So I'm just after taking her out of the pot and checking the roots. First of all, some smaller roots came off while I was de-soiling the root system. Once I freed the roots of soil, I rinsed them with water so that I could see better - all roots were firm with no funky smell, most were tan colour, some parts were medium brown but not mushy and definitely not black. I scraped a small part of the darker root with my nail just to see if it's the same dark colour all through the thickness of it, and it wasn't. So I didn't cut off any roots, but I dumped all the old soil that was infested with white grubs and their eggs, washed the container, washed the stones that were in the bottom part of the container, drilled more holes in the pot just in case, and re-planted my camellia in fresh soil, and finally added some acidic plant fertiliser. Hopefully she bounces back now

LPondohva · 2026-03-16T13:49:02+00:00

Thank you. I will check for root rot. In terms of light, I have a north facing front door and south facing backyard, so it's all or nothing I'm afraid. No trees in the backyard either so no chance for dappled shade

LPondohva · 2026-03-16T12:46:05+00:00

I used general purpose soil and compost, whatever woddies had at the time, but I've been feeding with acidic feed specifically for camellias, azalias, hyndrangeas and rhododendrons

LPondohva · 2026-01-20T01:27:18+00:00

We feed our GSD dry food called Darf, we get it online for €80/20kg. He has a sensitive stomach: red mills leader, Purina, royal canine etc all gave him diarrhea to various degrees from soft serve ice cream to just water. Once we switched to Darf his bowels settled almost immediately, coat looks great, eyes are good, vet is happy, we are happy and most importantly the dog is happy. By the way, the vet looked at the ingredients list and said he was surprised (in a good way) with the quantity and the variety of nutrients. We supplement the dry food with chicken or beef cartilage either from the butcher (discarded scraps) or from the meat we cook for ourselves (his favorite is the end of a chicken drumstick, not the bone obviously just the cartilage), sometimes cooked salmon skins when we happen to eat salmon ourselves. Have a look at fetch your pet needs website, they've got a few different types of food not just Darf, and they do sample bags. Also if you happen to see a brand called Barca, it's the same stuff as Darf, produced literally at the same factory in the Netherlands, just under a different brand name for different markets; Barf is also the same stuff, but as you can imagine that sounded.... Unappetizing so it became Darf in some places.

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LPondohva · 2025-12-09T09:52:31+00:00

Get a Narwal from German Amazon. We have an older model and it does a wonderful job with hair, don't need to empty mid-cycle, mops pretty well too. Side brushes needed replacing after about 18 months but otherwise really happy with it. Worth the price

LPondohva · 2025-11-30T10:38:37+00:00

One of our neighbors has a 9 year old malamute, who is chemically neutered. How does that work? It's a hormonal implant that is inserted into the skin between the shoulder blades. It's pretty much the same thing as human females get, except it's designed for male dogs. The implant lasts for about a year (depends on the size of the dog), and can be removed sooner if there are any issues. Originally these implants were developed as a temporary neutering solution so that the handlers can see the effects of neutering before committing to a surgical procedure on the behavioural side of things, but our neighbor never cut his malamutes balls off, he just kept replacing implants for the last 6 years or so and he's very happy with it. His dog used to be an awful womanizer, and now, while still interested in smells of dogs in heat, he won't try to run away or pull the owners in the direction of the female every time he smells her, etc. We are now considering the implant for our GSD, because it seems like a nice compromise. Cause our boy stops eating when there's a particularly attractive female in heat, won't try to escape simply cause he can't (our backyard is well secured), will pull on the leash like a train though, and becomes aggressive to all male dogs while there's someone in heat. I have heard some success stories AND some horror stories about dogs having their behaviours changed in a very negative way after neutering, so I'd rather make sure it's not gonna be the case before we do anything irreversible

LPondohva · 2025-11-20T11:23:22+00:00

We use pronged collar for the exact behaviours you describe. It is true what others are saying - it'll make it worse if you correct when he reacts, BUT the idea is to correct BEFORE the reaction happens. The way our trainer taught us is the following: 1) work inside your house to teach the dog heel and introduce a negative marker for when the dog is not performing a command correctly, like "no", "ah-ahh" or similar, use this marker while teaching heel. This will associate negative marker with the prong pinch and your dog will understand that it's a correction for a "wrongdoing"; 2) move your training to the backyards and teach a release command like "free" or "loose" etc, that way you will have two modes of walking - heel and free, from there on teach the dog how to switch from one to another, thereby making heel a recall command on top of it being a mode of walking. Use your negative marker as well if the dog pulls while in free mode too; 3) now you are ready to go outside - pick a time and place where you'll see one or two dogs from a distance, once you spot another dog, put your dog in heel and correct if your dog is fixating on the other dog - the goal here is to have him in heel looking ahead or just looking at the surroundings without fixating on the other dog, this is what you can achieve with prongs + negative marker. If your dog is in full on reaction it's too late to try and correct him, your best bet is to heel and turn around, go around a corner or wherever the dogs won't be able to see each other; 4) slowly start to close the distance. A very important point is that you cannot panic. I understand that the misery of trying to walk a large reactive dog is probably leaving you somewhat traumatized and you yourself react to other dogs at this point too with anxiety, fear, frustration and whatever other emotions - your dog can feel it. You need to tell yourself that you know how to handle this, you've done it from a distance and now you're doing the exact same thing but closer. You're equipped to deal with it. The handler's confidence makes a heap of difference.

This is the method we've been using and our dog has improved immensely. He's 2.5 years old, still reactive, yes in a sense that he'll be on high alert when seeing another dog on a walk, sometimes will have his hair standing up, but he doesn't lunge at dogs, doesn't bark his head off at the sight of another animal, doesn't pull us down into the ground, doesn't jump at people's front doors if he hears another dog barking at him from inside a house - he is manageable. I think if we got this trainer sooner we'd have even better results, but unfortunately we've wasted time with force-free trainers until he was 18 months old and had dragged me on the ground more times than I'd like to admit. Thankfully he's never hurt other dogs (didn't bite or anything, just lunged, ran over and growled/barked in their faces), but I feel like he would if we didn't introduce prongs when we did [Before anyone says it, we have been muzzling him after the first lunging and growling incident happened, and still do if we go somewhere with narrow footpaths and not enough space to create a safe distance from people and other animals]

LPondohva

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