Every dog I’ve ever owned came from the pound or a rescue organization (okay, Homer might not have, but my parents got him before I was born, soI don’t think he counts). But wow, trying to get another dog now that I’m not likely to burst into tears at the though of Shasta has become, ahem, challenging.

Some of the challenges:

• every rescue I’ve found lists their available animals on Petfinder. This isn’t a challenge by itself, but it means that you have to use that system to find a suitable animal. And because most of the rescue organizations at best make guesses regarding breed, age, health, training level, whether they like kids or cats, etc. The data is, ahem, suspect. I can’t tell you how many dogs I’ve looked at after searching for “cat-friendly” dogs, narrowing it down to 7 or 8 animals, and having the description say “this dog cannot, under any circumstances, go to a house with cats”. I finally gave up using that search parameter, as it was useless. Same goes for the “young children” parameter.
• just like when we adopted McKinley, there is a huge “application” you have to fill out to even meet these dogs. It’s annoying to me, as I’m sure I’m instantly put on their mailing list (well, instantly in the form of whenever they get around to reading their mail. They don’t let me see any animals or even answer my mail, I just get added to the mailing list. (I’m betting on this, I have no proof, yet)
• but the rescue places are all staffed by volunteers so they don’t have a lot of time to read or respond to email, even if their site says “you’ll get a reply within 72 hours” I figure this must mean hours on Jupiter or something.
• the aforementioned application includes tons of questions about your home, lifestyle, vet, trainer, groomer, etc. which is fine, but so far 2 out of 3 have required references, one required four references – including how long they’ve known you and in what capacity, and they can’t be relatives. (because, I suppose, we all know that Aunt Mary who has been with me and my dogs all my life might be biased and give me a good review, while my co-worker Sarah, who barely even knows I have a dog wouldn’t be… <sigh>

I just wish it were a little easier. I mean, when we got Shasta, we just walked into the pound, saw him, decided to play with him and his brother, then decided to adopt, filled out the form, paid the fee and went home with a dog. When we got McKinley from Rescue Pup, I found him (on Petfinder), asked to see him, met him, filled out the application, they came and visited our house, and we adopted him. It took more than a day (because of the home visit) but definitely no more than a week.

I’m currently on week 3 of trying to find out more about Hope, Darla, and another dog who’s name I’ve now forgotten. I got an answer immediately about Darla, saying “you sound perfect, please fill out an application” so I did, and then nothing. I didn’t get an answer about asking to see Hope until today and all it said was “please fill out an application” when there was nothing on the Petfinder site about an application or anything. I had to dig around to find what I think is the correct application. And finally dog #3 they haven’t answered yet (that’s the one that said I’d get an answer within 72 hours – Jupiter hours, I’m assuming).

I would go and adopt from Rescue Pup again, except that all they have are blue heelers, which they won’t place with kids. Since I remember what Brendan’s pant cuffs were like (they are called “heelers” because they bite the heels of the cattle they are herding, and if they don’t have cattle, they bite the heels of the children they are herding), I don’t blame Rescue Pup, but it is annoying because I understand that about that breed.

What’s sad to me is that the difficulty I’m having makes me want to go to a breeder. Do you know of any “mutt” large dog breeders I can visit? Luckily the pet store that we go to only gets drop-kick dogs in their puppy consignments, so I’m not tempted to go there to get a dog. But man, if they had any large dog puppies (great dane, mastiff, great pyrenees, akbash, shepherd, wolf hound, etc.) the only thing that would probably stop me is that their prices are insane.

So, hopefully my application for Hope will be considered, and maybe I’ll be able to go visit her later this week or this weekend.

But I’m not holding my breath.

I was hoping for a long morning alone with my writing. But instead I got to help clean up a flooded bathroom and attempt to fix the washing machine that hit it’s planned obsolescence date today. Mark thinks the pump cracked.

We bought an expensive washer 3 years ago thinking naively that if we paid a lot for a good brand it would last longer than the cheaper model we’d bought 3 years before that.

Nope. This time, if the repairs cost more than the cheapest model we can buy we are going out and buying the cheap, no frills model. At least that way in 2014 we will have paid less on our rental.

In 2008, we did all this research, but the reality is that washing machine reviewers don’t have 3 years to evaluate a machine. So they really don’t know if they will last a reasonable amount of time. And no, I don’t think 3 years is reasonable. We had the same washing machine my entire childhood with a family of four. My three-year-old son has seen two machines die in this house! (Yes, the last one died about two weeks after he was born!)

So, Thursday or Friday I got a note from my mail carrier saying that I had a box waiting for me from Amazon.com. Since I have received all of my Amazon orders I was not really sure what it could be. Since it was addressed (on the note) to J. Kyrnin, I was thinking it might actually be a present for Jaryth because his birthday is coming up.

So I head to the post office this morning, and after waiting in the long line (of course!) I get my package and open it up and inside is a girl’s size small hockey shorts with “pelvic protector”. Um buh? I checked the box again and yes, it was addressed to me. But on the inside the shipping label was addressed to someone in New York State, both billing and shipping addresses.

What I then learned is that Amazon makes it challenging to deal with problems that occur outside of their standard problems. If I wanted to return it, I was told that “returns are easy.” But then I wasn’t sure if the hockey player in New York would get the refund or not. I don’t want the money, it isn’t mine. I then thought I’d return it as a gift, and that wouldn’t work as a) Amazon does gift returns as a gift card to the recipient (ie. me) not the sender and b) this item was apparently not eligible for returns or exchanges.

So then I moved on to their customer care form. First I have to indicate that the problem I’m having is not part of their online help. Then I have to choose from a drop-down that, unsurprisingly, has no option for “I received something I didn’t order and is not a gift.” I chose “other non-order related.” But it is kinda order related, but anyhow… So then I get another drop down, and by this time I’m getting ready to give up, except that I don’t want to throw away a perfectly good, brand new item, as that seems like a waste. So I slog on. I fill in the next drop down in the “other” category again, because again they don’t have one that is related to my issue. I then give details and then “more details” and hit the “contact me by email” option. I am now supposed to wait no more than 12 hours for a response. I hope that the hockey player doesn’t start her hockey games for a while.

This seems like something that many online form creators should be aware of – namely the goals of the customers using the form. My perception of this customer service form was that they were trying to avoid having to talk to me. There was a lot of focus on getting me to use online help, and I’m sure that’s useful for the majority of requests. But for those that don’t fit into that mold, the form can get annoying very fast.

One of the features that this form had that ended up being annoying was that it changed dynamically when I chose various options. Designers and developers love these types of forms because they are interactive, fun to build, and help the customer self-select exactly what they need. But I found it really annoying as there was never any indication that the end was in sight. I would select one option, and another would appear – poof. I would choose from that list, and the form would change again. As I said above I was getting really tired of filling out the form (and you should be aware that this form was the last in a series of things I tried before using it. I tried returning, gift returning, and then just looking for a number I could call before finding that link to customer service.

If I had been even slightly busier or on any type of time restraint I would have just given up and dumped the thing in the trash never to worry about it again.

I suppose the other reason it was tedious is because all of the choices I had for returns, gift returns, and even customer service were assuming that I had made some type of mistake.

For example, when asked why I wanted to return it, I was given options like:

• no longer want
• not what I ordered
• doesn’t match picture
• etc.

The only options that assigned any type of blame to someone other than me were related to the shipping, like arrived broken or arrived after due date. Both of which could be considered issues with the shipper, not Amazon. And in this scenario, Amazon was clearly the guilty party, either their programming messed up or the people packing the shipment messed up.

Ultimately, this form experience won’t turn me off of Amazon—I have had many many many positive experiences with them. But for a smaller, less well-known company this type of experience with a web form could turn a customer off a company forever.

Although, I admit, if I had received these shorts from any other company other than Amazon, I wouldn’t have made any effort to get them back to the hockey player in New York. I would have just dumped them (maybe Freecyle or eBay) and never thought about it again.

So I have a goal of getting our living room (and bedroom) rug cleaned by the end of March. And in order to accomplish that goal, I have a number of mini goals. These primarily revolve around tidying the bookshelves that I haven’t looked at in a while to make sure the books that are in it are ones that I want, need or haven’t read (so can’t decide).

The sad part of this goal is that I discovered that some of the books in that case have not been looked at or touched in so long that there was a fine patina of dust covering them. It’s not helped by the fact that this case is right next to the cat door that the dog forces his muddy self through on a daily basis (hourly when Jaryth is pounding on something).

By my estimation there was about two pounds of dog fur, mud, and allergen filled dust just in that corner of the room. And because of this I sneezed approximately 800 times. Proof that I’m allergic to cleaning!

Let me tell you that sneezing 800 times is NOT fun. My throat was raw, my eyes were running, my nose was completely clogged, and I was generally miserable. I then took some Benadryl which didn’t seem to do anything but put me to sleep. Granted I got a better night sleep than I’ve gotten in a while, but still, it would be nice to not get the major allergic reaction and be able to complete the cleaning in one swoop rather than in about 5 swoops with the final three bundled up like a mummy with just my eyes showing.

Mark threatened to get me a clean-room bunny suit! And what’s really sad is I was considering that as an option. Yes, I know that’s silly. But you would understand if you were biting your tongue while you were sneezing so much that you couldn’t breathe.

Next time I am going to wear a painting mask and possibly gloves and goggles. I may look silly, but that might help deal with the dust allergies. I might include ear protection too, not from the loud noise of my sneezes, but because then maybe my ears wouldn’t itch afterwards either. And the bonus is that we have all these things … somewhere.

Before….

After….

For those who scoff at the idea of carrot sushi, well, I have nothing to say to you. I didn’t have any daikon or other more traditional veggie-sushi veggies. Maybe next week will bring more “real” sushi foods into the house. But really, carrot sushi was yummy. I debated trying celery sushi too. What about tomato sushi?