Spacetrawler, audio version For the blind or visually impaired, June 24, 2022.
There’s a dog right here, Bertie, watching me draw, who would be very upset if I started squirting him with a squirt bottle.
Spacetrawler, audio version For the blind or visually impaired, June 24, 2022.
There’s a dog right here, Bertie, watching me draw, who would be very upset if I started squirting him with a squirt bottle.
I shudder to think what Strib-populated planets must smell like on rainy days.
I have yet to come upon any formal report or analysis on the use of drool as an offensive weapon. But I wouldn’t like to face it, no sir.
And thanks, Doc, for making me envision an environment nothing more advanced than a bullfrog could live. Eeeuugh!
Addendum: I forgot about Komodo dragons, who have a pretty nasty bite to begin with, but their saliva is laced with infectious organisms that rapidly cause disease and tissue decay. A victim may escape, but will almost certainly perish from the infected bite and begin the process of putrefaction that is the Komodo dragon’s preferred state for devouring their prey.
Thank goodness they don’t spit. Now I’ve got to get another gin and tonic to wash that image out of my mind’s eye. Eeeughhh squared!
When I was young, I knew someone who had worked at a zoo. Nothing fancy, just a flunky doing clean-up. But I still remember an incident he told me about. It seemed a certain elephant had taken a strong dislike to him (and knowing what he was like, I’m inclined to believe it was for a sound reason). One day when he got close enough to the elephant’s enclosure, it drew up a good volume of water in its trunk and thoroughly drenched him.
I said that yes, that wasn’t pleasant but was that so bad? He asked if I realised that their trunk is actually an elongated nose and I said of course. Well apparently, if the elephant hadn’t used it recently to drink, it’s like any other nose. It forms mucus secretions to keep it healthy and moist. When the elephant squirted him, it wasn’t just water but a good dose of slimy snot too.
Moral of the story? Don’t piss off an elephant, even if you’re outside of trampling range.
An animated squirt bottle! My cat is hiding in horror.
I keep an industrial squirt bottle of water in the car for multiple purposes. Thank you sir for adding another. Cats and birds don’t like it probably for the same suddenly cold reason. On hot days its nice to spray some up top for evaporation reasons. I have used it as a low consequence flyswatter as long as I remember to not spray the computer. Most other things are not bothered by it.
I’ve never felt the need to squirt any cat to discipline. My current cat is ridiculously obedient. It’s very rare that she tries to do something she shouldn’t but when she does try, I only need say her name loud enough to get her attention and say UNH-UH loudly and she stops. I’ll use the word no for certain other reasons but she knows a sharp UNH-UH means don’t you try that. Stop it right now. I swear she’s more obedient than my kids were.
My kitties Reboot and Update were very well behaved and I never had to use the “Dreaded No No Bottle”(TM) on them. My latest, Update, is a different story. She liked to bite, hard, and that was the only thing (with a sharp “NO!”) that would stop her. It didn’t take very many times before she learned what it meant. I keep the bottle beside my bed to help with cooling and she doesn’t even move if she sees me reaching for it when she is behaving. If she bites and I say, “NO!” she will immediately look to see if I am reaching for it. If my hand starts to move towards it, she runs. If I don’t reach for it, she still (usually) stops biting. A second bite will get her sprayed. She’s learning.
Chris, your copyright notice says 2020. You may want to update that.
*its mouth, if you please
Maybe it’s from a planet with life forms which react very unhappy to water. Water is pretty aggressive after all.
Water is the universal solvent!
Just ask the Wicked Witch of the West!
She has no comment.
.
“They defeated the alkartika! What else do we have?”
“The bathth, the kityikat, the vedurnaryan…”
“Ohhh, the vedurnaryan would be so cruel! No one deserves that!”
“Let’s do it!”
All this cat stuff. FINE, MEOWsir (no really that is the name she gave) was supposed to JUST be a foster cat, mostly because I’m lazy and didn’t want to find out a feral cat had died on the porch and was stinking it up come spring. It’s now, June and she’s spayed, well behaved except when zooming. Not to mention tripled in size, still hasn’t figure out some things, like what is and is NOT stable to get on. Heh, Stribs…who couldn’t whip them with nothing more than a rolled-up newspaper? Mind, I’d feel really guilty doing that. For real.