yakalskovich | (no subject)

I thought it was quite common - there is actually a cat parked around here that belongs to/is for psychotherapy with animals (dogs, and not physiotherapy). And they finally allow one small pet in a few pensioner's homes. Sigh. I wish we had an office cat.

As cats tend to bond to places, having a cat in a busy workplace is quite a good idea. Have you seen the Bodega Cats tumblr?

And yes, animal therapy is common here, but probably not for PTSDed veterans yet.-

... is that an acronym? I avoided the cats tag so far, since it's limitless, but you are forcing me ...

PTSS hereabouts is probably more general - of course it is never just limited to war veterns but there are much higher numbers in the US of course.

PTSD = post-traumatic stress disorder.
PTSS = post-traumatic stress syndrome?

It's got different names in different languages, of course. Here in Germany, for example, it's known as PTBS for 'post-traumatische Belastungsstörung'. So PTSS might well be what they call it where you are.

That article has some terrifying numbers from the US. 18 veterans kill themselves every day, and in those terrible animal-killing non-shelters they have, an animal is killed about every 8 minutes. It seems like a good idea to match them. Picking 'shelter' dogs for them is apparently the especially novel idea.-

I meant what does BODEGA stand for? I just looked at all of them on tumblr, so nice, some sad though, little AJ is edible, but the tumblr doesn't seem as good as Flickr, once again, though I follow it. Urban Fur has stories going with it!

Bodega, last definition.-

I was just reading an article about how pit bulls were considered the perfect family dog in the early 20th c. "Nanny dogs", they called them.

Thanks for posting this! <3

I've got an RPG character in

milliways_bar who is a ex-Crusader knight with bad PTSD, so the subject interests me.

And my friends downstairs used to have a Rottweiler named Q who was a total teddy bear and absolutely good with children. Grown-up strangers tended to be scared of him, but would soon find out they were wrong.

Here he is with my Little Lady (= niece) when she was four:

So yes, both subjects are dear to me somehow, and I do love all sorts of Let your problems solve each other! kind of approaches, which this is, too.

<3 to niece and dog!!

Oh yes! The dog died a few years ago, and the niece is already 12 now, but those were some fun days...

I am a firm believer in the positive influence of animals on children.

Absolutely! I horribly missed having any when I was little. At least my Little Lady got guinea pigs at home...

I was at the other end of the spectrum.

We brought home every stray dog/cat/bird/bunny/horse/child we came across.

It was rather like Noah's Ark on a kibbutz. :)

That sounds delightfully hippie-esque! I always envied people who had homes like that.

The one thing I can say is it made for an interesting life.

But I don't know that I would wish it on anyone else.

Parts of it were wonderful.

Oh, weren't they always! I suspect there is always a spot of greener grass somewhere on the other side...

I've learned to content myself with my drought-stricken patch. :)

God LJ is slow this morning!

You should have seen how slow it was last night! I was getting 'nginx' errors at time!

And yes, I quite like my own patch as well. It contains cats, tea, and lots of things to read.

And books!

The staple of life.

Did you see how many young Russians were reading the classics? It was very heartening!

No. Where did they write about that?

In Writersblock.

The question was "What book do you reread?" and sooooo many Russians said Bulgakov, Gorky, Tolstoy.

I was pleased. :)

As for Russian classics, I always preferred Dostoevsky to Tolstoy. I think I never read anything of the latter...

And I'm not going to any time soon, because from July 1st onwards, I read 'Song of Ice and Fire' before I read anything else.

And by Bulgakov, I only read 'The Master and Margarita', but several times. And gave it to people as presents several times (different people!) because I thought it might be fun for them.

I like Turgenev. :)

You never read Tolstoy? *shocked*

Nope, I never read Tolstoy. Is that very bad?

Even his fairy tales???

Nope, not even those...

That's pretty bad.

I guess I know what I am going to read when Song of Ice and Fire is through?

LOL

Or you can watch the films...

Nope. Ordered a book.-

Good for you! :)

One more for the stacks...

LOL

I now have a mountain beside my bed! I need a month of bed rest to get through them all.

So do I; but I don't want the attendant complicated leg fracture!

I want to take a mental health month.

To recover from dealing with my fellow man!

That would entail conveying to said fellow man that dealing with him (as an old-fashioned generalisation of 'mankind', not a jibe against the male* of the species!) will necessitate a mental health month from time to time...

* My friend the Nazgul is in a women-only workplace, and that's just as bad.