I hope this thread takes off

Jasper

Jasper was a good dog. I met him on the twenty seventh of December, in 2023, and for eighty two days he was the fifth member of my family.

I remember the day we met him. My family and I were driving home from Nevada after visiting my grandparents for Christmas. The trip was long, and I wanted to go home, and I certainly did not want a dog to be on our trip home with us. But we didn't stop at home, because that wasn't what we discussed.

We pulled into a large parking lot full of mostly empty spaces, and we stepped out of the car into what felt like a sea of gray. The sky was gray, the ground was gray, and the buildings were gray, and I felt pretty gray too. I looked it up actually, and the buildings weren't gray. But in my memory they were, so we're gonna roll with that. Maybe I was just looking at the world with a gray perspective.

Either way, I walked inside the main building with my family, and we got to chat with a few employees at a table. I don't exactly remember how the discussion went. But I think that's okay, because this is a story about my dog, and not the animal shelter employees (no offense to them). One of the employees took us on a tour of the facility, introducing us to some of the different dogs at the shelter. They were all really friendly, and it made me happy that there was a place for them to stay and find homes. Although I didn't want one to live in my house with my family, I still did (and do) really like dogs.

Eventually, we met Jasper. The shelter had named him Nickolas, but he was only a bit over two months old, so later we gave him a new (and frankly, cooler) name. A piece of paper on the outside of his room had a bit of information about him. He was a dark brown, mixed, rescue dog. I'm not exactly sure where or what he was rescued from, but I'm glad he was, because all dogs deserve happy lives. Jasper was dark brown, mixed, and estimated to be medium sized as a fully grown dog. The person giving us the tour also told us that he had survived a virus called parvo, which is really dangerous (and often fatal) for puppies. I was really glad he survived, which now that I'm writing this sounds really obvious, but it's still true so I'm keeping it in the story. Jasper was really calm, and he let us pet him, and he was also really cute (as puppies tend to be). So we adopted him.

The adoption process and drive back home took a while. But those things aren't as related to the story, and it's already getting long, so I want to keep things concise.

A couple weeks went by, and along with my family, I discovered a few different things about Jasper. First, he had a lot of energy. Second, he really liked to chew on things. Sometimes we would give him cardboard boxes to sit in and tear up, and other times he would use his bed to sit in and tear up. I'm still not sure why he did that, because we would take out his bed when he did, and then he would have to lie down in his crate or somewhere else. Most of the time, either of the two options were clearly less comfortable.

Another thing we learned is that the piece of paper in the shelter wasn't completely right. Jasper was definitely a dark brown, mixed dog. But he certainly wasn't shaping up to be a medium sized dog. If Jasper's paper at the shelter was a test in school, the person who wrote it would have gotten a 66.6%, which is a D. In American high schools D's get you diplomas, but they don't get you into college, so do with that info what you will I guess. Maybe I'll excuse the size question in our imaginary test though, because whoever wrote it down could only really make their best guess. That was a really long way to say that Jasper got big quickly, and maybe I shouldn't have used that many words. But this my story, so I can use whatever words I want, and people don't have to read it if I accidentally put in too many, so I think it's fine.

Sorry, I'm getting off track.

The fourth thing I learned about Jasper was that he was a very stubborn dog. He was a nice dog, but also a stubborn dog. That, on top of being playful, and chompy, and incredibly big for his age meant that he was really hard to train. My parents would take him to puppy socialization classes, and he was by far the largest puppy there.

When we were home, my parents trained Jasper for hours a day, every day. My brother and I helped as well, but not as much as my parents, and especially my dad. When we had to leave the house, he would have to stay in his crate, and he really didn't like being in his crate. So he would bark, which I can't blame him for. But he would bark for a really long time, and then he would usually fall asleep before starting to bark again. He also had a little fenced in area for his bed, his crate, and his toys, which he quickly outgrew and learned to climb over. After Jasper learned to jump, it was effectively useless. And for a large, playful puppy who didn't like to listen, but also really liked to chew on stuff, that was hard to manage.

Over time, Jasper grew so big that my mom and my brother couldn't keep him in place when holding his leash. Soon after, I wasn't able to either. So my dad would spend most of his day with him. He would wake up in the morning, let Jasper out to take his morning dump, bring him in and feed him, stay with him most of the day, put him in his crate during meetings, and train him in his spare time. All while Jasper would be playfully nipping him or chewing random stuff. As a family, we all decided that he would be better suited in a bigger home with owners who had more time to dedicate to him.

The last time I ever saw Jasper was on the eighteenth of March. Two days after my dad's birthday. My parents drove him back to the shelter and surrendered him back.

The people at the shelter said they had behavioral specialists who could help train Jasper before he went off to another home. They had a policy where they didn't euthanize animals unless they had a serious illness or posed a danger to others. Jasper wasn't aggressive or anything, and he wouldn't really act angry at people. So I do believe that he probably ended up with another family sometime after that. But it was hard losing him. The people at the shelter entered him back into their system where his name was Nickolas, and now he probably has another new name. But I was still really sad, and the rest of my family was also really sad. I didn't want a dog, but I ended up with a dog, and I loved my dog even if he frustrated me sometimes. It felt embarrassing to explain our situation when people asked about him. Because to anyone who hadn't seen him, we might have just sounded like lazy dog owners who didn't want to put in the work to train their puppy. But at the end of the day, Jasper got a new chance to meet new people, and to be a part of a family better fits what he needed. Ultimately, that's what was best for him.

I'm grateful for the eighty two days Jasper spent with us. I miss him a lot, but I know he's out there somewhere living a nice life.

Thanks, Jasper. I hope you're doing alright out there.

Was gonna upload a short snippet of a song I've been working on but I can't upload audio files so all you get is a screenshot for today lol

Been making a font for something

@Zycerak

I've heard a lot of good stuff about Vyvanse, I hope it helps!

My psychiatrist prescribed it to me and it helped me focus but also gave me panic attacks every day, so I ended up on Focalin instead. This isn't to say that the Vyvanse won't work, but just to share that things are always a bit different for everyone and almost everyone ends up with someone that helps them.

Anyway good luck Mr. Zycerak

Working on bringing up the quality of the later parts of my track. A lot of this stuff is kinda old though.

Anyway, this is an interpretive piece I've titled "To Ratio A Robot"

@TPlacella said in creativity MONTH:

@mbcool it's creative when no one else has done it before

I'm not even gonna respond to this. Just gonna let all the downvotes speak for themselves.

Just remixed an old drawing I made

Timeline stuff is cool but AI generated art is not creativity

@Volund said in creativity MONTH:

@mbcool youve been making heat, the thing you made yesterday reminds me a lot of the artwork riot games makes for its darkin champions

Thanks man!

Something feels kinda off about this one but I've already worked on it for a while so I'm just gonna send it lmao. I do like the finished thing also, I just feel like it could be a tad better.

Made another thing. Again I'm not sure what it is. But it looks interesting ig

Made this. I didn't really know what to do today

@elibloodthirst That would honestly go pretty hard

Took off my beanie and my hair reminded me of that one kid from Boss Baby. Now the world has this image, and I'm not completely sure how to feel about it.

(Probably gonna post it without the blue over my face on my instagram story cause why not lmao)

@alexander Tysm man

@Pete Helloooo?? Can you explain to EGRIFFITH why I should actually own this website?

@EGRIFFITH said in update: ghosts and live-rider:

guys I think volund should own this website

@Pete Can you explain to EGRIFFITH why I should actually own this website?