Black Dog Syndrome

WAIT! Before you guys start pounding and slamming me about not blogging here in the past month or two, I need to speak up on my own behalf…..because no one else will. Work has been a total and complete nightmare. Okay, not as bad as IV but bad nonetheless. That dude’s work life S-U-C-K-S!

I work in a government IT department and we are currently preparing for three….count them three new applications that will be going live in two and a half months. What’s the big deal, you ask? Well, no one up until now has decided how they want these systems to work. No big deal you think? Imagine yourself going to, say, a website and every time you need to click on a button for more information or a link or a picture or an order form or whatever, imagine that link not working. You click and nothing happens. Each one of these pages has a gazillion options available to you and no one…NO ONE has decided how they are going to work. Not only that, the current systems (of which there are three) have to be “killed off”. That means they will no longer will be available for use. This means training employees to use the new systems. This means informing employees they will receive training for the new systems. OH WAIT! This means the development of training for employee training. WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU GUYS HAVEN’T GOTTEN STARTED ON THIS YET!!!

So, needless to say I have had early mornings and late nights FILLED with idiots and morons.

I love government work! YES!

I feel like one of those black dogs people have been talking about lately. This leads to my intro into…

The kids and I have been discussing the adoption of another dog to keep our “Pooper” company.

Of course none of us agree on what breed of dog we want; I want an Irish Wolfhound, Spawn wants a boxer, and Spawnette wants something she can carry around and bling-out (that is SO not happenin’.)

Anywho, in doing a bit of research because that what we mommies do, I ran across information about a phenomenon called “Black Dog Syndrome”. Has anyone ever heard of this? My brother mentioned it years ago but I had totally forgotten about it. It’s so prevalent that some local animal shelters even advertise it in order to inform the public.

I’m not one to stand on a really talk soapbox but one less “dead dog walking” is awesome in my book.

I think the effort to educate the public is great. So great, in fact, that I’ve included not only stories from reliable sources but links for those of you that have recently considered bringing into their homes a new member of the family.

Articles of Interest:
Time
MSNBC

Resource for available dogs near you!

Thanks for listening, I'll get down off my cardboard box now and get back to work.