15 Matching Annotations
  1. Sep 2023
    1. In terms of evolution, animals adapt to their ecological conditions, but as humans, we have been able to control our ecological conditions.
      • for: humans vs other animals, personal experience, personal experience - pets, control vs adaptation, human features, quote, quote - Ruth Gates, quote - humans vs animals, quote - control vs adaptation
      • quote
        • . In terms of evolution, animals adapt to their ecological conditions, but as humans, we have been able to control our ecological conditions.
      • author: Ruth Gates
      • source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJV0Kx7oGxU&t=496s
      • comment
        • personal experience
          • her remark made me think about how often I feel this difference with our pets. They adapt to whatever we do. We control our environment by building something. They just adapt to whatever we build.
            • Our pets never build anything, but simply adapt to what we build.
  2. Jan 2023
    1. Lobsters have a very bad reputation among philosophers, who frequently hold them out as examples of purely unthinking, unfeeling creatures. Presumably, this is because lobsters are the only animal most philosophers have killed with their own two hands before eating. It’s unpleasant to throw a struggling creature in a pot of boiling water; one needs to be able to tell oneself that the lobster isn’t really feeling it. (The only exception to this pattern appears to be, for some reason, France, where Gérard de Nerval used to walk a pet lobster on a leash and where Jean-Paul Sartre at one point became erotically obsessed with lobsters after taking too much mescaline.)
  3. Jul 2022
    1. “Sharing a few minutes with a pet will minimize anxiety and [lower] blood pressure and raise serotonin and dopamine rates, two neurochemicals that play a major ...

    1. Apr 29, 2020 — Why Having a Pet Can Boost Your Mood and Keep Your Brain Healthy ... hormone cortisol and boost release of the neurotransmitter serotonin, ...

    1. Playing with a dog or cat can elevate levels of serotonin and dopamine, which calm and relax. Pet owners have lower triglyceride and cholesterol levels (indicators of heart disease) than those without pets.

  4. Jan 2022
    1. feeding a canary-bird

      The famous opening of Northanger Abbey describes Catherine Morland “as plain as any.” Yet from the list of qualities and habits that set her against narrative expectations—the Gothic and the sentimental—and social expectations—femininity and propriety—Catherine’s character ultimately emerges as unconventional, too. In seemingly trivial and funny details, such as her preference for cricket over “feeding a canary-bird,” the narrator intimates her inconformity with dominant beliefs about the nature of women. The canary alludes to existing associations between birds and women that underscored women’s lack of rationality and their supposed vulnerability.

      In many portraits of the period, young girls were eroticized through their connection to birds, particularly when portrayed weeping for a dead pet bird, a sign of their loss of sexual innocence. Canaries, a favorite songbird in the late eighteenth-century household, were associated with young girls through their delicate size, beautiful and soft feathers, and prized songs [1]. At the same time, women’s musical abilities, as exemplified in Pride and Prejudice (1813) and Emma (1815), were a sure-fire sign of their marriageability: good singers made good wives [2]. Maturity didn’t save women from disparaging associations with birds. Spinsters were oftentimes portrayed surrounded by parrots and bird cages, the equivalent of crazy cat ladies [3]. By creating a heroine who is more likely to be found outdoors exercising than feeding a small, delicate bird, Austen disassociates Catherine from these sexist beliefs. Not all associations to birds were troubling, though. Songbirds figured in stories for young children to instill kindness toward other animals, as in Sarah Trimmer’s Fabulous Histories (1786). Austen’s contemporaries shared a strong belief that educating children to treat animals with kindness was the foundation for instilling sympathy toward other humans [4]. Yet, as Mary Wollstonecraft argued in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), a rational woman knew that compassion “for the bird starved in a snare” came second (or third) to compassion for her fellow humans.

      This annotation draws on research developed for a forthcoming essay which will appear in Science and Storytelling, edited by Dave Alff and Danielle Spratt.

  5. Apr 2021
  6. Jan 2021
    1. Try to figure out when your pet starts to show signs of anxiety and turn that into a low-key activity. If it’s when you pick up your handbag, for example, practice picking it up and putting it back down several times over a few hours. Similarly, get dressed or put on your shoes earlier than usual but stay home instead of leaving right away. Try starting your car’s engine and then turning it off and walking back inside.

      Some good advice on pet training. Potentially useful for helping to calm Lily with regard to our putting on shoes or getting the leash to go for walks.

    2. Treating separation anxiety with behavior change Here, we’re talking about your behavior. The goal is to make your absence seem like no big deal. Making a fuss over your pet when you leave or arrive home only makes matters worse. If you treat it like it’s routine, your pet will learn to do the same.
  7. Feb 2019
    1. Reorder sales are strong: on a TTM basis, they've risen 21% in just the past two years. But the obvious top-line concern here is that smaller new customer cohorts will pressure reorder sales at some point down the line. And with Chewy Pharmacy launching this summer, competitive pressure for new customers is only going to get more intense going forward.

      How will Chewy Pharmacy be structured compared to PETS's business model?

    2. Reorder sales (which includes any customer who has previously placed an order) rose 10%+. New order sales, however, fell by about the same amount.

      What would the re-order sales of PetMed Express vs. new order sales be in the future?

    3. It operates a "gray market" business model, in which it acquires inventory indirectly, angering veterinarians and suppliers in the process.

      Where exactly does PETS source its inventory?

    4. largely irregular purchases

      What is the cycle for sales typically?

  8. Sep 2015