The First and The Furious

BARK BARK BAR… Whoops, I mean… Hello, everybody! How are you doing today? Like every introduction ever, this one will also start with a name – my name is Aris. My nickname is Arisinho – hence the name of this account. The thing is… I am a dog. I guess by now that you are wondering how it is possible for a dog to type (because I don’t have thumbs). Well, that’s another part of my story – some time ago I have adopted 2 stray humans and gave them a great home in my house (yeah, I know, I’m the best). Just so you know, I will occasionally let them type in my thoughts (and theirs too, reluctantly) on this network you humans call Steemit. That is very generous of me (and also the only way to express myself because, as I said, I have no thumbs). But when did the lack of thumbs ever stop anyone from doing anything? Wait, I think I saw a cat outside… I’ll be back in a sec…

The cat got away, damn it. Anyway, I’m a mixed breed or as they like to call me for fun – Germador (German Shepherd/Labrador mix). When I say ‘for fun’, it is because of the popularity of so-called ‘designer breeds’ these days, which is a bad influence for dog world, but I’ll get to that some other time. Like every other dog, I love food. Besides that, I love swimming, running, tennis balls, sticks and making my slaves (humans) mad. I am also reactive which means I don’t like strangers, but I’m easily befriended when given the chance to get to know me. And I would like to give that chance to the whole SteemIt community (my slaves suggested this sentence, not me, just to be clear, I never suck up to anyone). Anyway, I get to all that later as well.

When I adopted my humans, after long and careful consideration, I decided to name them Vida and Daniel. While I am still unable to take photos of them (lack of thumbs, as I said in the first paragraph), I promise you will get to see them some time in the future. I was talking to other human owners and I’m not sure will I castrate/spay them or not. Because if I don’t I’ll get even more annoying humans in my house, and nobody wants that. Oh, well, problems, problems, story of my life… Anyway, what can I say about them? Let’s see… We’ll start with the bitch first. Vida says she’s all about animals – animals are her main interest and she would like to dedicate her existence on this world to helping and saving animals of all kinds. Well, she’ll have to find another home then because I’m keeping this one for myself. Who does she think she is? She also became a vegetarian several weeks ago. I have stomach pain even thinking of that. How in the world can you survive without some raw meat? I don’t know. She’s weird. Daniel, the male slave, is also a vegetarian since recently. If there’s more plant eaters in this community, don’t hesitate to say hi to them or send them a message, so all 5 of you can talk in private, without disturbing my inner peace. That reminds me, I’m hungry and I have to order my slaves to serve me some fresh meat. I know that’s the highlight of their day. Be pig back… Oh, I mean, be right back.

slurp Where was I? Oh, yes… Daniel is into all kinds of things – cars most of all, computers, music, animals, books, movies, food etc. I have no idea what most of that means, except food. The only music familiar to me is the sound of my stomach growling, which means I didn’t get my food in time, which means the slaves are going to get a beating - again. Oh, yeah, I kind of like cars too. Those big metal containers built for transporting His Highness (yeah, me). Sticking my head out of the window while doing 60 km/h is the closest thing to heaven I have experienced. BTW note to self: humans on bikes don’t like being barked at. Tough luck, because I like saying hi - my way.

Now back to me. I wasn’t used to having a house of my own my whole life (which is 5.5 years, BTW – I was born on 17th of November 2012). Currently I live in Zagreb, Croatia, which is also my birthplace. I have spent the first couple of years in my apartment on the west side of Zagreb. It was OK for a while, but then two older slaves I adopted there started getting annoying and grumpy so I have returned them to the shelter where I found them and decided to sell the apartment. Never really liked living in a multi-storey building anyway – too many noisy neighbours that looked at me in a weird way whenever I went outside to give my humans a walk. Anyway, while living there, on one beautiful sunny afternoon – just kidding, it was cloudy – I was taking my adopted human Vida for a walk. Just before I have let her go off the leash so she can do her business in the bushes, a wild human appeared. Looking all clumsy and sniffing around, I immediately presumed he came here to steal or poison my slave. I slowly started to approach him so I can bark and make him go away. That always works. But, something was strange about him. Until this day, I don’t what it was. Whatever it was, I didn’t feel the need to be hostile, like I usually do with other humans – so I decided to adopt him too. Of course, there was no possibility of two humans and myself living together under the same roof. That meant Daniel was still staying in the human shelter on the other side of the city. I needed to do all the paperwork and some period of time to adapt to the fact that I own 2 humans now. Adoptions can be quite tricky, you know! Anyway, after a while I have decided that Croatia is a bit boring for me and I wanted to explore the rest of the world too. The decision was made – I was moving to Ireland, a place with a cooler climate where longhaired dogs like me are not exhausted after 2 sprints. You have probably all heard about all those irresponsible dogs that leave their humans once they find food in another country – well, I wasn’t one of them – so I brought my human slaves with me. Aren’t I great? The three of us have spent lovely 2.5 years over there and ate… I mean, learned a lot. I definitely became a better owner to my humans. Talking to other dogs and exploring human owners forums made me realise the things I had to change in order to be better to them (although I still don’t understand why). Poop time. I’ll be with you in a second.

This year, after everything I have been through, I thought to myself – there’s no place like home. I got fed up with everything, living on the island and all the other stuff, so this March I have organized a transport for my humans back to Croatia. The transport company people were amazing and treated my humans well, although I explained to them that they can be too demanding or tricky to handle when their mobile data allowance is all used up. The slaves came back to Croatia intact, while I was flying first class, of course. Humans feel better here too. I guess I have to be careful about their feelings too. You live and learn.

So that is us today. What else? Oh, yeah… The most important thing my humans always talk about (except making me happy) is bringing value to someone else. They think if you were so lucky to be born as a human (with thumbs) in this world you should always try to make someone else happy and bring value to them. After all, making someone happy doesn’t cost a thing – only a small bit of your time. Trust me, I know – it only takes one fetch to make me happy. The happy/unhappy ratio in this world is terrible. We can change it together, step by step.

What can the three of us do that you would have some use of? Well, that could be a poor choice of words. Let me rephrase – what content would interest you to come back here again and again? For example, I chase tennis balls, sleep with occasional snorting, bark at strangers, eat like a lion, fart without regret and ride in the backseat of the human mobile. If you know any dogs that need a word of advice on any of that feel free to let me know. Now, since this is a human part of the internet, kind of - the question is: what can my human slaves do for you? I’ll name a few things. They already have social network experience. I don’t know why you need a network to get social when you could just go to a dog park and sniff some butts, but that’s just me. Well, the fact is that the last time I went to a dog park 5 dogs died and police came over, so… touche. Anyway, I am really getting distracted here. So yeah, they have grown my personal Instagram account from scratch to about 13K followers. I never noticed those followers when I was taking my humans for a walk, but apparently a lot of people were following me. Whatever. They have also spent countless hours on Facebook and Youtube while they could have been preparing food for me. They should have known better. One of the things they also own that requires thumbs is a DSLR camera. Since they got it they have been working on photo taking and photo editing skills and I have to say – they really do a great job. I am an excellent human trainer. So there’s that. My male human slave also went to a building with many other human slaves with same interests (they call it a “college”) for a few years. He’s pretty experienced with graphic design and Adobe software. If you have any requests or wishes when it comes to that he’ll be glad to work something out for you (because I will make him do it even if he won’t feel like it – I have my methods). Both humans are good at selling too – they know how to attract customers – which is one of the reasons I didn’t put them up for adoption on eBay. Computers and IT are their everyday world, they like staring at illuminated rectangles for a long period of time. Dumb humans. That “ability” also made them learn a lot about all sorts of things this world has to offer. Apparently, everything is online. Except me. I am on a leash. When I want to be. I have to admit, they also know a lot, I mean really a lot, when it comes to dogs, cats and animals in general. If you have anything in particular that you want to know, message them and I just might let them answer you. I mentioned food, didn’t I? Yeah, they are not into eating carcasses like me. But we already established the fact that they are not the brightest beings in this world. So, when it comes to as they call it “plant-based diet” they would also like to exchange a few words with you. You might learn something and they might as well. And the last thing I need is an uneducated slave. Since they’re all about animals, it’s kind of logical that they care about mother nature. They’ll probably publish a post about caring for the environment some time in the future, if I let them. One of the things they support 100% is ban of animal testing on cosmetic/household products. I really have to agree on this one. Humans are far inferior species to dogs so they should be the only one to perform tests on – I mean, come on. Leave the dogs be. There’s 7 billion of you on this world, what more do you want? While I am on the subject, they are able to show you a few neat tricks such as: how to make your own (natural) deodorant, how to make your own (natural) balm, how to make your own dog food (oh yeah, you’ll want to know that) etc. But I’ll get to all that topics as we progress.

So this is my, or should I say our introduction post. We can’t wait to fully bond with this community and we have never been so enthusiastic about something in our lives. All things considered, SteemIt is the future and we’re looking forward to the future, but there’s no future without making most of the moment we live in right now. Best of luck to everyone in whatever you do, just remember – always be positive, respect each other and give something back to the community. We are here to create a better world for all beings. Thank you for taking the time to read this. I’ll give my human a cookie for being a good boy typing all of this up. Any comments, thoughts and advice will be greatly appreciated. Take care, talk to you soon.

Aris (5), Vida (26) and Daniel (28)