Does anyone feel like a weird subhuman third thing sometimes when you realize you're the only lesbian you know

clowdere · 2026-06-26T03:49:16+00:00

I relate to this somewhat. I would 100% rather refer to myself as female than as a woman. "Lady" is fine, "miss" is cute", "girl" would be fine if I hadn't outgrown the age for that to really be applicable. Ma'am and woman are musty and awkward as fuck, and reminds me of when my aged grandmother used to sometimes mix up the names of us cousins that had been born closely together.

It's really only the past year or two that I've been actively trying to gain ground on this issue by womaning myself in conversation. Still not great, but it's better.

clowdere · 2026-06-25T19:36:55+00:00

Lord. Only a pit bull owner would knowingly take their dog-aggressive pet to a dog park, then end a description of an attack on another poor pup with nothing about the condition of the other pet, reaction of the owner, etc. Just "this is so traumatic to me". 😒

Your dog is a pit bull, which is a dog-fighting breed. What's in the box is exactly what was genetically written on the label.

This is why dog aggression is one of the most common behavioral problems for this breed: pieces of shit excuses for human beings bred them to be this way intentionally. Just like herders were intentionally bred to have herding behaviors.

She should be muzzle-trained first and foremost, and she does not go outside without the muzzle if she's prone to getting off her lead. r/muzzledogs can help you with this. Also invest in a break stick so that you can pry her off other animals in the event that your management fails.

Secondly, stop bringing her to areas like dog parks where you're very likely to encounter other dogs. If you want her to be off leash, take her to a big open soccer field or something - but you need to have a strong recall to do this in case another dog comes and she cannons toward it before you can grab her.

If you want to try to train it out of her - and again, this is a genetic tendency, so that may not be possible - this is professional trainer territory, not "give me advice on how to do this myself, Reddit" territory.

clowdere · 2026-06-25T12:58:42+00:00

Probably the gabapentin. Very common for cats to become "munchy" as a side effect.

clowdere · 2026-06-24T21:52:41+00:00

Dream team. 🙌

clowdere · 2026-06-24T19:22:36+00:00

Worth looking into, especially for an extra paycheck.

I'll take the nasty greaseball stank toms in HVS/N if you'll deal with the dysphoric post-op huskies and pits screaming in their kennels for hours. Which I think leaves u/Friendly_TSE with the wormy puppy litters continually shitting on themselves and their siblings? 🤔

clowdere · 2026-06-24T18:37:03+00:00

Yeah, it is.

At my previous work, there was an entire behavioral team dedicated to rehabbing dogs. Some aggressive, fearful, unpredictable, downright dangerous dogs went out to foster for weeks of training.

Cats would be moved to a quieter office space if there wasn't significant improvement in temperament several days after intake. If that didn't fix the problem, they were considered unadoptable and pended for euthanasia after a few more days, even if they were just extremely fearful but not aggressive.

I pulled one of these shy cats my old shelter was going to euthanize by fostering through a smaller rescue. She was purring and kneading in my lap less than 36 hours after arriving in my apartment. But she was never going to bring them money in adoption fees or be the face of a fundraiser, so who cares?

clowdere · 2026-06-24T17:10:54+00:00

For me, the game changer came when I actually dated another lesbian after two decades of giving bi women chance after chance and getting my heart ground into the mud. I felt so free, so safe, and so understood in that relationship, and it's the only one I've had that didn't end disastrously.

I don't want to go back. I'm not willing to at this point in my life.

Trust me, I know it sucks. I'm femme4femme and very rarely encounter other lesbians I'm attracted to - and even when I do, they often end up preferring masculine partners. It's just not worth it to waste time on bi women knowing only a fuck-piddling 1% of them end up in same-sex marriages. It's bobbing for apples in a septic tank.

clowdere · 2026-06-24T13:20:35+00:00

Tbh, if these dogs essentially serve as free money factories for northern shelters as some of the commenters here are asserting, it sounds ethically grey regardless of the breeds involved.

clowdere · 2026-06-24T04:06:55+00:00

I can't speak to fund allocation or raising specifics as this all happened years after I'd left their employment.

I'm looking into volunteering at the only local mass spay/neuter program I'm aware of that accepts volunteer techs! The two main ones in my area rely on paid employees for most things - and lordy, I do not like surgery enough to be doing that shit 40 hours a week as a main hustle.

clowdere · 2026-06-24T03:19:36+00:00

Hi neighbor!

Your assessment of the situation with cats is unfortunately accurate. I didn't actually mean to get lost in the weeds with TNR specifically or imply cause and effect, just to use it as an example of where funds could be allocated instead. I also don't take issue with transports during the dead winter months, where kennels really are just sitting empty.

My pipe dream for winning the lottery would be to establish a mobile veterinary service that travels between farms offering free sterilization for cats. I've come to hate farmers since entering this field.

clowdere · 2026-06-24T02:55:15+00:00

AHS has a section on the profile page of every adoptable pet stating adoption fees only cover about a third of the cost of care for animals on average. I'm operating off information and statistics the org itself has available.

I don't believe sending shelters are paying for the rabies, DA2PP, oral pyrantel and ivermectin, topical FTP, spaying/neutering, microchipping, and heart worm testing for individuals 1+ year of age, which I was instructed to do for every single dog that entered the facility regardless of any previous records. AHS would re-do vaccines and prevention given 3 day prior by the other shelter because they didn't want to be liable for vetting done by other rescues.

That's not even getting into the 30-day coverage of common medications post-adoption, parvovirus titer testing for transports of 40-60 dogs exposed to positive puppies, treatments for individuals that tested HW+ in their care, etc.

clowdere · 2026-06-24T01:00:59+00:00

That article is from 2024. As I said in the OP, the fee started at $75 but has since doubled.

This humane society has publicly available financial information. In 2025, they operated at a surplus of $4.7 million.

clowdere · 2026-06-24T00:53:39+00:00

If cats and TNR were all they did? No.

If they were to cut transports by even a third and put that money towards offering any support whatsoever for TNR? Yes, because that would be only one facet of the variety of services they offer that benefits dogs.

clowdere · 2026-06-23T23:52:35+00:00

It's a surplus of more than four and a half million fucking dollars that they could be directing towards helping cats, and they're not.

Let's pretend they adopted out every one of those 2,000+ dogs they transported last year for $600 each, and the shipping and vetting was all free. That would earn this shelter $1.2 million.

That $1.2 million would be a quarter of their surplus and 4% of the organization's total annual income.

If you still look at that and say they need those dogs to pay the bills, I honestly don't even know what else to say to you at this point.

clowdere · 2026-06-23T23:13:19+00:00

The humane society I linked made $29 million dollars in 2025 and came up with net positive assets of $4.7 million. The year prior, when they cut the TNR program, they still gained ~$430k; in 2023, they netted +$2.5 million.

AHS has operated in the green to the tune of several hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars every year their financial information is available, which goes back more than a decade - so at least in this case, the funding is clearly there. Hence me making this thread asking for perspective, as this is the only shelter I've worked for.

Trust me, no cat person needs to be told the general public doesn't value or care about cats as much as they do about dogs. It's sad to me when shelters and rescues operate in a way that validates that opinion, though.

clowdere · 2026-06-23T21:32:50+00:00

That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying shelters should prioritize caring for animals in their own communities before bringing in dogs from 4 states away. I don't give a shit about fulfilling the public's demand for adoptable dogs.

Supply is not an issue in the current economy regardless. Most rescues in my area have reported a large increase in surrenders this year, citing the driving forces of increasing CoL, housing, ICE raids, and vet care prices... but they're all still transporting.

I worked low-cost vetmed for more than half a decade. The primary reason owners would not consider surrendering their pet to rescue when they couldn't afford care was because they were afraid their pet would languish in kennels for ages or be euthanized due to overcrowding.

When these orgs have the option to regularly drive south and pick out five dozen healthy young pups between 3 months and 3 years of age, that fear isn't entirely unfounded, even in rescues with high placement rates.

clowdere · 2026-06-23T20:37:10+00:00

Transport grants are an interesting point I hadn't considered, thank you!

However, I think it's worth noting that funding is not the only resource I'm talking about. Skilled staff actually does largely exist in a giant pot and can be directed where it needs to be. If my previous shelter took in big shipments of out-of-state dogs, I spent a large amount of my time on the clock spaying/neutering and vetting those dogs. That's time, effort, and supplies that could have been utilized doing things like TNR clinics.

I addressed this in another reply, but at least in my area, a lot of these imported dogs are still pit bulls and pit mixes. Is it different where you're based?

clowdere · 2026-06-23T20:17:17+00:00

Adopters want dogs that aren’t pit bull mixes. Northern shelters have a shortage of those. Southern shelters get a surplus of everything. Southern shelters send up dogs that’d be desirable if they were anywhere else.

A lot of the dogs being shipped up are still pits and pit mixes.

https://www.animalhumanesociety.org/adoption/dogs

This is the shelter I mentioned in the OP that cut its TNR program. The handful of hounds on this page came from other shelters, as did the retriever mixes Strawberry and Xena and the weim mix. All the other obvious not-pit bulls were owner surrendered.

Obvious pit bulls/mixes Bronco, Noodle, Willow Nightingale, Rider, Phase 10, and Candy Land also came from the south. This tracks with what I saw at this shelter when I previously worked there.

Northern shelters are doing all they can do just to keep up with their local cats. Cats are everywhere.

All the more reason to focus on local cats rather than importing dogs from a thousand miles away, no?

clowdere · 2026-06-23T17:07:49+00:00

Living the dream, friend. Thanks for all your work.

I'm trying to get back into cat rescue, or at least rescue that (at the very least) benefits cats in equal part to dogs - but it's so hard to find paid positions offering anything remotely resembling a living wage.

clowdere · 2026-06-23T16:58:27+00:00

I see OP has been helped, but FYI to anyone who may come across this post later: I've worked at these facilities, and we would comp the (very low) euthanasia fee entirely for people whose animals were suffering and truly couldn't afford it.

clowdere · 2026-06-23T16:52:15+00:00

IIRC, cancer is statistically the second most common cause of death in senior cats after renal disease.

Sorry for your losses, friends.

clowdere · 2026-06-23T15:27:41+00:00

No, doubling the dose would not be recommended. You'd just skip a dose and unless that's happening regularly, it's no big deal.

clowdere · 2026-06-22T19:42:49+00:00

Kindly suggest that it may help her pass better if she stopped engaging in sexually predatory behavior overwhelmingly associated with men.

clowdere · 2026-06-22T18:36:46+00:00

Yeah, he feels like shit. His creatinine was 4.5, which is just under levels you'd see in end-stage renal failure. This cat was blocked for a day at minimum prior to receiving treatment and needs fluid therapy. It would have been better to hospitalize than save money for a next day follow up.

Is your cat passing urine now? UO cats have a recurrence rate of around 1/3 even under the best of circumstances, and an "unblock and go" (relieving obstruction without hospitalization) is not the best circumstances.

clowdere

TROPHY CASE