Introducing...

[TheNzJessie]

And my dream animals are an elephant, a capuchin monkey, and a tiger. Clearly, I will never have any of them unless I work at a zoo.

Capuchin monkeys are made of pure evil. My friend has been volunteering at an animal rehabilitation center in the Amazon of Ecuador for the past 2 months. She's got to handle them, and they were EVIL.

Now Squirrel monkeys are where it's at. I handled two adults when I was in Mexico earlier this year. They were complete sweet hearts.

As for the ethical treatment of animals, it breaks my heart to see how the animals we eat are raised. As I said before, I grew up on my Grandparent's dairy farm. I'm not sure if they were organic farmers or not, but I can tell you, those cows had it made. They would name each and every one of them. They spent hours grazing in their many fields. This is how I thought all our food was made when I was younger.

For a real close look at the treatment of livestock, try to watch the movie "Earthlings". It is a very shocking movie, and I don't recommend it if you are squeamish. It is very thought provoking.

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When I move out, I'm going to try to buy more locally raised food. The 100-mile diet. Support your local farmers, and support the ethical treatment of animals.

I would love to have a polar bear too. All the cute animals look so cuddly as babies, but you end up as food for them when they're older. Like on that show Fatal Attractions on Animal Planet.. I may want one, but the people who actually have them are wackadoodles.

I LOVE that show. One episode had this guy living in a rough area of New York City. He wanted to start a zoo, so he somehow bought like 5 big cat youngsters. The plan never went through, and he decided it was crazy to have 5 big cats living in his small apartment. So he sold all but a female tiger cub. Him and that tiger lived in that apartment together for I think over a year (she became fully grown, I don't know the age of maturity in tigers).

He started going "zen" and would meditate with the tiger. They lived peacefully. That is until he decided to bring home a stray cat. The tiger of course tried to kill said cat, but the guy protected it, and ended up getting hurt.

It was pretty messed up, but made good television.

we ahve capuchin monkeys at the zoo and iv never been in with them but iv passed them food and they seem nice, one fo the keepers said when shes cleaning in with him if they are in there teenage stage one of the monkeys swings past and pulls her hair, they often search her pockets but she also said hes made a couple of quick dashes for the door

bear in mind these capuchins are not hand reared. things are a lot different then

[liz]

I went through Basic Training at Lackland AFB, San Antonio TX in May of 1969. I was so hungry all the time that I ate things I had never seen before. If it was served in the Chow Hall it was food.

When I went to Shepherd AFB for training I had to pull a week of KP before starting school.
The kitchen was just spotless. Everything shined. My job in the morning was to crack 300 dozen eggs four to a bowl. My afternoon job was to cut the baked goods and plate them. I walked into a spotless, no refrigerator smell, cooler to get my deserts. The first pie I laid a knife on - cockroaches ran out from under the crust.

If that happened in a military kitchen, heaven only knows what we really eat. Of course in the Philippines I learned to pick the weavles out of the pasta before I boiled it. If I missed one and it floated to the top I just picked it out.

Think about it. When the supply lines broke down in Viet Nam, what do you think the guys found to eat in the jungle.

Eating worms in space.

Dunno, might be tasty!

Drinking water made from urine.

This bothers me not at all. Doesn't your city have water reclamation? I'll wager most of the water on the planet has been through a biological system at one point. If the reclamation process results in chemically pure H2O, I've got no problem with it at all.

Threat of space shuttle explosions.

There is some risk, I'll admit. No so much explosions, but disastrous accidents. OTOH, the freeway isn't exactly a safe place either.

Living in a tin can for months on end.

But oh, the scenery! There was a time when I'd have gone for it in a minute if I had a chance. Ain't going to happen now.

I will not eat bugs. No way, no how.

I'm sure my city does have some sort of water reclamation, but as long as I don't see it, I don't think about it. So to me, my water is just water and never came from anywhere else.

I'm not really as worried about explosions or accidents as I am about the water thing. Knowing about it and seeing it would be weird for me.

If I could have all bottled water and MREs that aren't bugs or anything weird, I could deal with the tin can if I got to see the scenery. Especially if I got to try that whole no gravity thing.

Really, I'm just especially squeamish about what I knowingly eat or drink.

[kaylayuh]

I would never want to imagine what the people in the military eat. My cousin was in Iraq for a year in 2004 - 2005. When he came back, he had all kinds of pictures to show us of things over there. One of the worst was the sand spider. I'm not squeamish about very many things, but bugs and certain food objects are certainly ones that I am.

In biology classes and genetics classes, I skinned and disected rats, cats, and organs from sheep, cows and pigs. We did eyes, hearts and brains. We went to see Body Worlds and saw all kinds of things. None of that made me feel remotely ill, but the idea of eating bugs or what our water reclamation process actually is just really makes me nauseous for some reason.

[zazanomore]

I skinned and disected rats, cats, and organs from sheep, cows and pigs.

CATS? Was this your high school biology class? I had no problem dissecting in school, but a cat? That's just weird.

[entrancedbymyGCC]

CATS? Was this your high school biology class? I had no problem dissecting in school, but a cat? That's just weird.

At my high school, back in the dark ages, the bio classes did cats and the physiology class did fetal pigs, so I dissected a fetal pig. They are very like humans internally. I'm afraid cat corpses are readily available.

[zazanomore]

I've heard of fetal pigs. Our school does them, pigeons and rats. I ended up dissecting a rat.

I wouldn't be able to do a cat though.

[kaylayuh]

It was my highschool AP anatomy and physiology class. I love cats and I thought dissecting them would be really hard for me, but it surprisingly wasn't. The school gets them from a veterinarian that had to euthanize them for a variety of reasons.

The worst one was the sheep eye. If you squeeze it too tight while you're trying to slice into it, the vitreous fluid squirts all over you.

[TheNzJessie]

I've heard of fetal pigs. Our school does them, pigeons and rats. I ended up dissecting a rat.

I wouldn't be able to do a cat though.

i watched a cat be desexed once, didn't bother me at all. im sure i could easily be a vet as that stuff doesn't gross me out but i dont know about a dead cat but im sure it cant be anymore different than doing an autopsy

[patdbunny]

Sooooo. . . It's been a month. How are the babies?

[zazanomore]

Fantastic! They are gaining weight really well.

They are starting to get pretty rowdy, so I think we're going to castrate them soon.

They love to swarm me. I get in the pen with them, and they all surround me and start sucking on my clothes. I'm the only one who can brush them. Whenever my stepdad gets in with them, they run away.

They're real sweet-hearts, and they have such strong personalities.