Melker

I'm concerned about my 10-year old daughter's apparent lack of grief over the death of our dog. This Christmas one of our dogs suddenly got very sick and passed away after three days at the pet hospital. My daughter acted very mature when we went to the pet hospital for the last time and she insisted on being present when the dog was put to sleep. During the whole 3-day ordeal she never made a scene but was calm and controlled.

I'm concerned, however, about what appears to be a complete lack of grief over the death of the dog (no tears, no words of sorrow, etc) It is like the dog has never existed in her life. Same thing happened two year earlier when another one of our dogs died suddenly. No signs of grief. It was like the dog never had been a part of her life either.

I cried like a baby for days when our dogs died and so did my spouse. Should I be concerned about our daughter's lack of grief?

I have a three year old female miniature schnauzer. I adopted her from the local Humane Society a couple of months ago. We are her third 'forever family' as she already been surrendered twice to shelters by people who didn't care enough for her to bring her with them when they moved. From my discussions with the people at the Humane Society her last family kept her outdoor 24/7 for over a year. The last month they kept her in a crate pretty much 24/7 because they were too busy with preparing for their move out of country. The Humane Society had to completely shave her to remove all the feces stuck to her badly matted coat. When I saw her at the shelter I couldn't bare to leave that poor dog there so I took her home and made her mine.

In any case, her prior experience with her old families has made her very hesitant about going into the backyard (I guess she fears that she will be left outside and not let back in) and completely terrified of crates, kennels, and cages.

Any useful tactics and strategies I can use to make her more comfortable with the backyard and accepting of using a crate for short periods of time?

Any advice is appreciated.

I live in a sleepy suburban neighborhood with very few people moving about after dark, and I am about to take my dogs out on their late night walk before bedtime. Would it be acceptable for me to take them on their walk wearing my pajamas (tasteful, long-sleeves, long pants) instead of putting on 'proper outdoor wear' such as a t-shirt and shorts.

Is it proper dog walking etiquette? Yea or Nay?

My wife and I need two smart phones by Christmas. Currently we don't have any contract cellphone plans (I got a cellphone from work and my wife has a pre-paid cellphone). T-mobile is currently having a deal with a family program for $99.98 month. It includes two phone lines, unlimited calling, unlimited texting, and unlimited data (throttled after the first 2GB). It's tempting to jump on this deal but I have no real need for the phones or the plan until after Christmas.

Should we do the following?

A. Take the deal and buy a HTC Sensation ($199) and a T-Mobile MyTouch Slide 4G ($199) to go with it.

or

B. Wait until December for a Christmas deal.

Thanks in advance! :-)

I have a 5-month old miniature schnauzer that I rescued as a stray. She has an appointed to be spayed next month due to her lack of known pedigree and no AKC-registration. She's an absolutely stunning b***h and I must say a very fine specimen of a miniature schnauzer. It's a shame that her being a stray will prevent her from being AKC-registered and ever being able to attend competitions and confirmations.

That leads to my two questions:

(1) Is it (in theory) possible for a stray to become AKC-registered and participate in AKC-sanctioned competitions and confirmations?

(2) Is it (in theory) possible for a stray to become a worthy breeding material despite lack of known pedigree? I.e. DNA testing, etc.

No, I don't plan to cancel her spaying. She will be spayed next month and nothing will change that. I'm just curious.

I'm using the latest version of Chrome and I really like the browser except for an extremely annoying 'enhanced functionality' when I visit Wikipedia and click on a link with an SVG-extension.

Instead of Chrome showing the page "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:sample.svg%22 it redirects to Google Docs (https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://en.wikip... I then get this message: "'Sorry, we are unable to generate a view of the document at this time.

Please try again late"

How can I prevent Chrome from redirecting 'sample.svg' to Google Doc and instead displaying it as a webpage?