Moussart

if you were following me on twitter you would already have seen me do the moonwalk

http://twitter.com/ryanpequin

i'll probably do some more comics tonight? no promises, i am a rebel and i do what i like.

Hi guys, I'm studying abroad this fall semester, and have recently been assigned a host family. I am writing a letter of introduction to mail to them following simple guidelines from my school. Since I'm nowhere near fluent (hence the purpose of studying abroad), but would like to make a good impression, I would appreciate it if some of you who are more knowledgeable than I could look over this first draft of a letter, and point out any glaring mistakes.

In addition, any advice to make the letter format more recognizable to a Japanese reader would be appreciated. Specifically, what is common to say as a closing statement? At the moment I have none.

io

And so the kitten I helped save today doesn't get all of the spotlight, here are some photos of my babies:



( meooooowwww )

What should you do if strangers are unkind to you for no reason?

so i was wondering if you guys can give me some tips to make this transition smooth for my acd, quigley? when i first adopted him, he had a bit of separation anxiety, but we worked through it by pairing my leaving with super awesome things (!!), and he now does very well when i leave from my current apartment, did well from my bf's old apartment, and now from his new place.

i know that dogs sometimes don't generalize too well, and especially if he's in a new place, so i was going to start from the very beginning of "practice leaving."

the move isn't very far, only about a block, so i'm going to be moving stuff gradually over the week, and move the big stuff this weekend. on the big moving day, quigley will go to my bf's where he is comfortable while i get things more or less set up and homey.

when quigley comes home, i will have some of his favorite toys out, do some training with really good treats around the house (easy stuff), and give him his dinner in his favorite thing (tricky treat ball).

so what else can i do to make this a positive experience for quigley? should i wait a little bit before bringing him home and unpack most things and get it set up, will it be very stressful if he comes home to an apartment with a lot of boxes? if so, my bf is more than happy to watch him for a bit.

i'm really looking forward to being in this place. i wanted to rent it specifically because i think it will be better for quigley - the place we live in now, the front door opens right onto the sidewalk, so before i take him out, i have to step out and make sure there aren't any dogs or people that he might think are insane coming by. the new one is a rear apartment with a nice porch in a nicer neighborhood. it's quiet and private, and i really hope he likes it!

thanks in advance for your help! :D

Im thinking of becoming a "big sister". any thoughts, advice or stories??
please share! :)

My friend Andrew Schick did some pretty great watercolour pieces:

http://aschick.livejournal.com.

friend his ass because he is a good dude and a great artist

     Odin will be 2 in October. He is a Bullmastiff/ South African Mastiff and a big ol' baby. He has always been very sweet, will walk right up to people unless they give off 'bad' vibes that I usually pick up on , is great with kids and other dogs. In the past 2 weeks or so he has shown a little bit of resource guarding with the other dogs. It was never aimed at humans and I could take things right out of his mouth if I wanted. However we started lots of trade up games anyway and "leave its" on a low value item with the reward being a very high vaule item and I've seen a big decrease in the behavior. 
 
That was background on his history of negative behavior. Here is my problem . My boyfriend has been out of town for 10 days and Odin is very attached to him. It also means he's spent some extra time alone while Ive been out working (normally our schedules over lap where I leave earlier and he gets home later so theres only a few  hours alone as opposed to 7-8). We also usually go to the dog park 4 times a week or so and go running the other 3. I hurt my knee last week though so we have been to the dog park every day which is another change in the routien. For the past 3 days he has begun to fear bark at random situations in the park. He only seems to have one episode a day in which he picks some random person to be very much afraid of and then stands on the other side (over 100 yards) of the park and does a big Bowwww-wow wow! kind of bark at them. Hes never barked before so this in and of its self is a change. He also gets very tense and bristles up. He'll run in circles, pace, stand back and bark again. Rinse and repeat. He'll respond to his name if I call him, but wont come over. The past two days it has been an adult man but today it was a 12 or so year old girl.  

My response to this has been to get him leashed up and do a bunch of 'watch me's while getting closer to the person. He responds reasonable well though tense, but then all of a sudden just seems to snap out of it completely, is back to himself and wants to go give that person kisses just like he does everyone else. I reward him heavily when he does this but it just seems very odd to me.

So what do you think?  The added stress of the week? Hitting that 18 month to 2 year 'adult behavior' area? Some kind of medical eyesight/ hormone/ect condition? Or just problem behavior?

Some of you might find this interesting:

http://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/ConsumerUpdates/ucm169831.htm

I'm glad to be home. :)

Tonight I was eating couscous for dinner (it was delicious, if anyone wants to know) and out of nowhere I decided that I wanted to make cookies using couscous. Is this possible? Does anyone have any recipes for this? I tried google search, but apparently there is a restaurant in NYC called "Cookies and Couscous" @___@

As a side note, I did manage to find a few recipes for cous-cous cake. Two really caught my eye:
http://veggout.blogspot.com/2008/04/my-best-attempt-at-replicating-old.html

( (Vegan Tres Leches Couscous Cake) )

and

http://howtofeedavegan.blogspot.com/2008/05/couscous-cake.html
( (Coconut Vanilla Bean Couscous Cake) )


Has anyone made either of these before or something similar? Are there even better, tried and true couscous cake recipes? Hit me with your best shot! I'm curious about couscous as a dessert.

Thanks!!!!

( couple_more )

Are there any yoga places located in the East Kildonan area?

Originally published at Cute Art and Illustration by Amy Pronovost. You can comment here or there.

Awesome stuff! I’ve been picked as the featured Muggs artist today on Starwars.com.

Not only that, but this is a sweet professional photograph of Jaxxon, post glazing, so he’s nice and shiny

If you recall, which you probably dont...I posted about a little kitten that has been randomly living in my backyard shed that I've been feeding and working with to try to domesticate her.


Well...lately, she has been letting me pet and hold her and today, my friend's mom who is an avid cat-lover(she has 12!) works at the SPCA and helps run a cat colony that adopts out cats, TNRs, etc.... she came and picked up the kitten to have her taken to her vet.


I was dreading what the vet might say.... Fleas, Worms, FIV, etc ... she was living in a shed the entire 6-8 weeks of her life, without a mother or anything other than the food and water I had been giving her.



She called me after the appointment to tell me the news....


- Tested negative for FIV!
- Not a single flea on her entire body!
- Ears, eyes, and skin were all clean and healthy!


She got her first distemper shot today and in three weeks, she will be spayed and receive the rest of her shots and then my friend's mom will begin interviewing potential parents to adopt her.


She has been known to just end up keeping the cats she had meant to adopt out, being why she has so many haha


agghhh but I couldn't be happier!

Oh, and she is missing some fur on her back leg and it had been bleeding sometimes but the vet said whatever was wrong with it has healed up and she shouldnt have anything else going on with it any longer.....



and so it isn't just a text post:


That is her bad ...er...not so bad leg.


( mooooooooreeee )

I just noticed that one of my cats has a little bald red patch on her head and a little tiny patch of red on her ear. I know what this is, she scratches herself raw basically.

she is prone to feline acne too. She has gone a few years without any of this. However we have been getting some dust storms and I think the winds have really started bothering her skin, even though she is inside only.

My question is, do you know of any home remedies to help alleviate skin allergies? What are some topical stuff i can put on the skin to help with the itching?

I really don't want to go to the vet and pay 100 bucks for an allergy pill, but if thats what i takes...

*sigh*

x-posted cathealth

I decided to hang out with a buddy I hadn't seen in a long time. He was smoking hookah with some people at a hookah shop.
The first thing I noticed is that he has this tiny, furry rag doll looking thing lying across his chest.
It was a sleeping puppy.

Looking at it's adorable face, I melted. Of course, I start holding it and fussing over it's cute widdle face and paws. The puppy (a female) was very docile and sleepy. Immediately after I held her, she fell asleep.

She felt like a limp rag doll. Even when I was moving up to change seats, she was fast asleep. When I asked him about the puppy he told me it was a friend's and it was 4 weeks old   O_o

Me: "Isn't it a bit young? Is the mom okay?"

Friend: "I dunno. But the mom's fine. The owner's just giving the pups away and my friend got one."

I admit she was a cutie and very mellow, but I was thinking, "Isn't she a bit too young to be on her own? Can she even eat solid food yet?"
Turns out the puppy can, (I think), cuz my friend (who was petsitting) gave it some kibble and she ate a bit of it...

I did some googling online and most sources say the pup has to be 8 weeks, unless the mom behaves violently towards the pup or abandons it.... 
I'm not a dog owner, but I thought 4 weeks was a bit too young...

*sigh*  I hope the pup has a good owner....perhaps too early to tell