Why are stores choosing pets over human customers? As an asthmatic person, allergic to animals, I don't understand the new pet friendly rules in retail outlets. How much do the animals spend? When did you last see a dog buy a book? How often are dogs shopping for lingerie?

The issue of pet friendly stores is mostly talked about in favour of having animals in the stores. Pet owners defend their view point by claiming they need to socialize their animals, that people afraid of the animals are ignorant or they will talk about how they were allowed to bring their animals everywhere while travelling in Europe. So what?

Socialize your animal on your own dime. You expect a lot if you think to use people to train your animal this way. Without any consideration at all to the people who may dislike animals, be afraid of animals or just not want to bother having a dog who isn't socialized jump on them, bark at them, etc. Pay people to perform this service for you. Do not expect it from random strangers. If the situation were reversed how would you feel?

People tend to be afraid of animals for a reason. To put down their fears as ignorance is shockingly rude and inconsiderate. The reason for their fear is really none of your business. If they have a fear of animals that's just how it is. Don't sit in judgement when in fact, you are the ignorant and intolerant one in this case.

Last of all, bringing animals into a store should be up to the store owner, no matter the geographic location. However, I would hope store owners and managers would take their shoppers into consideration. It is one thing for animals to be in a pet supply store, it is another thing entirely for animals to be in a store which caters to people, not animals.

Why Do People Consider Pet Friendly to be About Dogs Only?

Most people seem to think pet friendly is about dogs (and only dogs) being allowed into public places. I have asthma and allergies to animal hair so I'm not all for this. But, aside from that, if a place goes pet friendly shouldn't that include all pets: reptiles, insects, birds, rodents, etc? Does your version of pet friendly include a large snake for instance?

Public Stores/ Shops Should Consider their Customers

I worked in a department store where there was a sign on the doors saying "No Pets" and the other standard restrictions about wearing a shirt, not riding a skateboard in the store and so on. No pets suited me very well. I have asthma which is easily triggered by my allergy to animal hair (dander).

When people began bringing their dogs into the store I was unhappy.

We had a regular customer who had a service dog. That dog was trained, very well trained, and no one was allowed to approach and pet the dog. The dog was not handled or carried around or put inside a shopping cart or basket.

Service dogs (service animals in general) are trained. They are trained very well and they are tested for their performance before they are allowed to become service animals. If you see a service animal in public or out somewhere, never try to treat it like a pet. The animal is not mistreated just because it is not being fawned over. Service animals are "at work" and it could be dangerous to distract them from their job. At the very least the animal should not be be put in the place of having to switch roles from being on the job to being a pet. They do get time to be a pet, just not at your convenience.

The pet dogs were far different than any service animal I have encountered. Pet dogs are treated like spoiled, pampered children rather than animals at all. In the store, clothes would smell and show animal hair after a pet owner had shopped, trying on clothes and discarding those which were hung up again, with dog hair. The dogs chewed on various things in the store, both merchandise and store fixtures. It was supposed to be cute and funny when the dog grabbed something and started eating it in the check out aisle.

As a person allergic to animals I did not appreciate being expected to serve people who brought pet animals into the store. I did turn people away from my check out counter as often as I could. At times (like early morning or evening shifts) I was the only cashier. So it was unfair to me that I was forced to suffer asthma and allergies just for someone's need to bring animals into a store.

Pet dogs/ animals are not really trained. They are not trained to be in public and perform a service. Pet animals will bite and chew things, defecate indoors, barf, scratch, will have fleas or worms and pet animals (dogs) will bark. Pet dogs will not keep to themselves. They are likely to jump on other people, chase people and generally be a nuisance to the store staff and other customers who came to shop in the store.

Pet Friendly Stores Need to Warn Customers

Currently, I have stopped shopping at stores which claim to be "Pet friendly". I wish more of them would make note of their pet preference on the door where I walk in. This way I could avoid finding out the hard way.

Having an asthma attack is like trying to breathe under water. Over years of having asthma I have learned to control it and at least, not panic and make it worse. However, people do die from asthma attacks and many people who have asthma also have allergies. Pets being a fairly common allergy, more common than being allergic to peanuts.

Also, I will admit, I do not like dogs in particular. I watched my little sister be attacked by a large dog when she was 4. The dog owner could not pull his dog off my sister's head which was clamped between the jaws of the dog. This was a family pet. So, I have a pretty strong distrust of dogs.

Why do people need to bring their livestock into a public place?

Why do pet owners think it's ok to use me (as a person in a store) to "socialize" their animals?

Why would a store choose to have pets running around rather than people who could actually shop, spend money and come back to do the same again?

Why can't people with allergies and asthma (a real medical problem) have more consideration than people with pets?

If you are a pet owner and can't be without your pet for the time it takes to shop in a store, consider shopping online in order to shop at home, with your pets. That way I can go shopping without wondering if your pet may bother me, scare me, bite me or cause me to have an asthma attack.

I have mixed feelings about healing. It seems to me that people take it too lightly. As if you can heal anything with the right words, the right herb the right touch, etc. I don't believe that's true.

Healing has to come from within. You can add things and hear things and understand things but that alone won't heal you. There aren't instant cures for healing the mind or the body. At least that's how it seems to me.

When people are in pain they want it to stop. That's why any kind of instant cure is hoped for and paid for. But, that doesn't mean it will work or that the same problem isn't still there, just buried or masked.

Yes, you can take Tylenol to get rid of a headache. But the headache goes away when your blood thins due to the Tylenol, but not only that. The body is a mystery, still. We know what's connected to what and how things work in a basic way. There is so much we don't know. So much to do with the power of our own minds and thoughts. Positive thinking.

I hear people talking negatively and I cringe on the inside. It's a mistake to be negative and then to express that is adding to the problem. Expressing it gives it a chance to exist, to have it's own energy. To become part of the world in a more physical form.

Not that I haven't expressed my share of negativity. Sometimes I express it to purge it from me. I get rid of it by giving it a name. When I name it I then know where to find it inside of myself and that's a start to ridding myself of it or the original problem.

Healing is complicated. Just as people and life are complicated. But, people make life more complicated sometimes more complicated than it would ever be on it's own. Too many rules that must be obeyed. Rules are too unbending. In order to heal you have to bend and be free to let go of some things and accept others.

Sometimes I get writing here and I think I'm making no sense at all and contradicting everything I write as I go. But, it's all theory, opinion and ideas. Take them as they are and make what you will of them.

The main problem with having a period is the bloody mess. After that the problem is the hormones, or lets just skip a few steps and call it the horniness. Yes, here it is day one and I'm already muttering "squish, squish" and then thinking about all the ways I'd love to make lustful sex with some nice, warm body.

Having sex at this point isn't really what I want. I'd rather just let all the bleeding go on in peace. But, there is plenty more sensuality to sex. At least there should be. No wonder men are from Mars and women are from Venus.

Anyway, once upon a time I found a Yahoo Club called Blood Sisters. In theory women were able to talk about their periods. But, all too often some horny dick posted about how much he wanted to fuck us all. What desperate morons.

Mostly, it made me angry that they had to spoil even this womanly ritual. It's not like any of them have anything to contribute. I don't care who they are, they don't bleed once a month, they don't have cramps and moods and they don't get aggravated because their cute new panties just got stained. Don't you just hate when you get those surprises?

I do. That's why I've resorted to wearing cotton granny panties when the mess starts.

Back to the desperate morons... do you ever think that the real reason men like women to suck their cocks (become cock suckers) is to feel accepted by us? I've wondered about this. I mean, everyone wants to feel accepted. Men do have that silly looking thing. Maybe what they really need is to feel we aren't laughing at it behind their backs. Not that we aren't. But, maybe the illusion would make them feel better.

Though, why do we want to resort to being cock suckers just to spare their feelings/ ego? From what I've read in the Adult BackWash messageboards if they get into the gymnastics of the whole thing they can suck it themselves. Would they call themselves cock suckers?

I'm so curious. That and contrary. Right now I think I will go out and get myself some ice cream. Diet be damned. No wonder I was craving the stuff yesterday. At least I was spared all the pre-period zits this time.

Does anyone have links to something about an erotic mad scientist? Yes, I'll be looking for industrial erotica tonight. May as well just go right to IRC and troll bait.

What do you do when you're sick?

I like to watch TV, as a distraction and eat ice cream. The ice cream part is a family tradition. As kids, when one of us was sick my Mom would send my Dad out to get ice cream. Then whoever was sick would get the first bowl, usually. Sometimes they'd have to scramble for it. That's how it goes when you're one of four brothers and sisters.

These days when I'm sick and trying to avoid all those sweet and delicious things, like ice cream, I'm changing my old patterns. At least I'm trying to. I still love ice cream, it's my biggest roadblock to non-fatness.

Anyway, I've started buying myself flowers or a plant instead of ice cream when I'm sick. The flowers certainly last a lot longer. Plus they are nearly calorie free. I haven't tested this theory by actually eating them, but I suppose its always an option.

When my brother is sick he tries to pretend he isn't. He doesn't want to go to the doctor's office and he just keeps going, dripping snotty tissues and spewing mucus like a trail of bread crumbs. He stays sick a long time. If he would just get some medicine he could be feeling better in a week or less.

Both of my sisters go to the doctor pretty quick if they are sick. But, for different reasons. One is a dental assistant. She works in people's faces all day so its not a good thing to be contagious. The other sister is a Mom. She doesn't have time to be sick and doesn't want to be contagious either.

I'm somewhere in between. I try to hang on and hope it goes away. But, I get to a point where I decide it's not going anywhere and then I go in and see what the medical profession has to say about it.

Today I have leftover bronchitis, it just won't finish off and leave me alone even though the antibiotics are gone. I also have a sore throat. I'm hoping that's not another cold/ flu/ mystery bug warming up for the attack. Although ice cream would be so good today, I'm thinking to get a nice little poinsettia today.

Allergies: nature's favourite way of making us appreciate our noses.

So, thinking of my nose today, wishing it would just give me a break. Here are my thoughts about the sense of smell.

It doesn't stink. I've read that people actually have clearer memories of smells from their childhood than they do for sights or sounds. Isn't that kind of odd? But, I believe it. I can remember smells of those old oil based paints we used for paint by numbers. The way the apple pies smelled when they first came out of the oven. The weird smell of my brother's head and hair when he just finished playing soccer. Rotting yet earthy smells from the pond in back of the farm house we lived in when I was in grade one. That odd special smell that I only (ever in my life), smelled in my Grandparents house. The smell that will forever be the Grandma and Grandpa's house smell. It even has it's own colour, a shade of green.

I could sit here and think of a hundred more old smells. Things I wouldn't remember at all if not for the odd time I catch the same smell, in a completely different place. Walking down a street I catch a whiff of something that reminds me of a troll-like doll my Mom got for me in the 70's. Without the smell I would never remember, or even think about, that doll.

Another thing I appreciate about the sense of smell is how it makes things taste. Have you ever eaten something you couldn't stand the smell of? Experimental soup flavourings come to mind first, for me. Even if it tastes like a slice of heaven, the smell will make it almost impossible to eat. Your nose knows.

Well, that's about it for this newsletter brought to you by the letter N and that zit on the tip of your nose. Why do noses seem to get the worst of the zit situation?