Make it a Betta World

@f00l awwwe…get a pet!

@mfladd
Not at this moment. Perhaps within a year. Stuff going on and all.

@f00l Sorry, but pets make everything better…trust me.

@mfladd

pets make everything better…trust me.

Trust me too. I know.

Keep trying there are many things to explore.

@UncleVinny Cute! Name please?

@mfladd Oh she’s a sweetie alright. Her name is Six. Or Snix. Or Snixxle-Pixels.

@KDemo Get pics! I want to see.

@RiotDemon please do.

@Kidsandliz They didn’t tell you two males will kill each other? That’s why they are called Siamese Fighting Fish. People in times past use to fight them like Cock fights (ok, relax people - usually my dept.). You can sometimes put a female with a male, but not always. But then you will end up with babies you need to separate immediately or the male will kill the female to take care of the babies. Male caregiver society in betta world.

@mfladd Nope. They didn’t say a word and I was stupid and didn’t google it. I gave my daughter a price limit and let her pick. The pet store person didn’t say a word.

@Kidsandliz
Ive had these 4 in a 30 gallon tank since November. They share space w an Peacock eel and a large pleco…just give them space to roam/hide and lots of food.

@Unkle_Andy_17 Wish I had known that then, we haven’t had fish in years.

@Unkle_Andy_17

@mikibell YES.

@mikibell No. They count as pests. (grin)

@pitamuffin Salt waters are so cool, but a lot of work. I have always wanted one. When I was younger I also had an Oscar, Ciclid, Jack Dempsey, but I was young and the tank was too small - they just kept eating each other

@darkzrobe I am bugging you now, for later

@darkzrobe My tanks should be bigger, but this is the only set-up that would work for us now. They are 2 gallon tanks and do have filtration, heater, and well cared for. The nice thing about the cory catfish is the bettas never bother them. I have even watched one catfish attempt to clean the female betta.

@mfladd You would be surprised that the 20 gallons dont take up that much room. Also remind me in 8 hours cause I be at work.

@darkzrobe But in my current life position - unless the tank can fit in a suitcase on a month to month basis that’s not going to work. I probably should not have them at this moment, but the joy they bring to my children is worth any difficulties.

@ACraigL Adorable! breed? I never tire of seeing pets

@mfladd Havanese. He came with a box of cigars. J/K, but a really sweet, attentive, but very calm breed. He’s happiest just sitting on the couch (as he is here) with us. We’d definitely consider another one.

@ACraigL Hi Cody!

@ACraigL friends have a couple Havanese dogs. Those dogs are their kids. Nice dogs.

They indicated it was fairly difficult to get them. I think in one case they came from half way across the country.

Something about them getting associated the the Havana, Cuba capitalists during the revolution. The revolutionaries virtually eliminated the breed from Cuba. But a few were sneeked out and saved the breed.

Have no idea how much of that is true vs. “proud parent” boasting.

@RedOak Can’t verify any of that. Wife and kids got him because he was a cute puppy. We didn’t know much more than than until we actually got him. I like it because, as will all terrier breeds, they don’t shed.

@ACraigL we’ve had Cockapoos. Amazing family dogs. Also truly zero shed. (I shed more than our dog!)

Typically just big enough to look like “real dogs” (sorry, that’s the kids!) but small enough to still think they’re lap dogs and fit well with a modest home and yard.

Smart, trainable, playful - at 10+ years ours still tears around the house and goes into the low-haunched “wanna play?” position.

@f00l LOLOL But I had heard your pet rocks ran away due to lack of attention?

@mfladd
I guess I have a thing for bunnies.

@mfladd
PS
I learned how to keep my rocks from wandering.

I house them inside my head. They thrive there, and leaves plenty of room for the whistling wind to live there also.

@mfladd Oh cool @f00l had rocks in her head. That’s the explanation. LOL

@Kidsandliz

I thought every time I shook my head, you could hear the noise way further away than Mississippi.

And for you horse people, I know my form is weird at the end, but it’s one of the only photos I have on the computer of me riding him.

@RiotDemon Sorry, you had to let him. But you loved him, and hopefully the people that came after did the same. And yes, horses are expensive! My sister owned one. My daughter told me they were giving one away at her riding farm - I said, no way, Sweetie - here have a fish.

@RiotDemon He’s a handsome fella. Hope he’s doing well out there somewhere!

@RiotDemon
That is a hell of a horse. I can see the dressage all over him. I hope whoever got him appreciated him.

Thoroughbred or thoroughbred cross?
Bet he was astonishing over rails. OMG jealous.

Just gorgeous.

A few times I got to ride a horse that had been on a national and and several Olympic Three Day Event Teams.

Was like riding a Platonic Ideal Horse. Unbelievable.

I was decent, but not at that horse’s level. If only …

But that was a long time ago.

@f00l full blown Westphalian (German) warmblood.

He was actually scary going over fences. He loved jumping… To the point where he’d attack the fences and I’d be left behind. I took him over small fences, but never anything crazy. I had already fallen many a time doing jumps before I got him, so I was leery.

I have a photo of a friend going over a jump with him. I’ll have to blur his face before I upload it, so I’ll do that later.

I remember one day turning him out into the arena, while I was walking through it to open the other gate to the paddock with grass. Well, he didn’t want to wait, so he trotted up to the gate, stopped, and then jumped a 4.5-5’ fence from a standstill to get to the grass. The power this horse had was amazing.

I never got to show him dressage. That was my next step, but the barn I was at closed, so I lost my travel connections to the local shows, and then everything else went downhill from there.

I showed him in the English non jumping arena… Which was western judges. They didn’t care for him much, and even spectators in the stands would make comments that I should be in the jumping arena instead. The horses that usually won those classes were in the western classes earlier in the day, and then they had a saddle change.

I remember one equation class which had a pattern with a 10m circle, with a halt when you got back to the line. At the end of my run, the judge actually said, “I didn’t think a horse that big could do such a pattern.” I just looked at her and said, “He’s a dressage horse.”

The only blue ribbon I ever got with him was a class, similar to Simon says. Normally these classes would be five minutes long before everyone was eliminated. This class went on for around twenty. Towards the end, the eliminated people that were waiting in the middle for the class to end, were called back out. Starts, stops, reverses, posting trot without stirrups, flying lead changes, numerous other things, and then the finale was stopping without reins. I didn’t really manage to get him to stop, but he was going slow as hell. I cried when they announced I won. I was so proud that I could win a class where it showed that I had a good bond with my horse.

@RiotDemon My cousins did dressage w/ Arabians back in the 70s & 80s in WI. I seem to remember a State Champion once? They always said that it wasn’t that expensive if you already lived on a farm; the hard part was finding that first (quality) horse for a bargain…

@RiotDemon
How many hands? I thought a full warmblood would be a bit taller with a slightly more muscled body. That’s what you see around here. But your boy didn’t look lean enough to be likely pure thoroughbred.

When, I was young, it was cheap enough to have a horse. The county’s largest employer (at that time, General Dynamics) even ran its own boarding stable for employees and their kids. I didn’t have any relatives who worked at GD, so I had to come as a guest with friends, or but stable manager always liked me and would get me one of their stable horses to ride.

I had several cow horses. Had probs with stables closing also as development drove them out. Finally got a full Arabian gelding who had never been ridden, just turned 3 years old. His dam had been a near World Champion cutting horse of some sort, and he had the reflexes to prove it. I can’t tell you how many times he dumped me in the dust before I learned to stay on him, and I had been riding almost daily for something like 7 years then. He was very hot blooded and skittish and would shy at anything, it was like learning how to ride all over again. He was so fast on his feet that he even dumped my Olympic level trainer a few times before my trainer got the feel of him. He was just in another league.

Finally I learned to stay on his back. He was so sensitive that somehow I could control him, it seemed, just by thinking. He turned into a hell of a reining horse, just because he was a natural. If i wanted to go from full out to stop, all i had to do was change the way i sat slightly. The reins were just for show when going western.

But I mostly rode English. My trainer was a Hungarian refugee from the communist regime who had trained and ridden with the Spanish Riding School in Vienna for several years and had been on the Hungarian Olympic dressage and jumping teams. So I got decent. We were doing a little dressage, and my Arab could go over fences as big as he was. He was a better horse than I was a rider, tho I was ok. But it was getting so expensive. The stables kept closing, and everything had to move another 10 miles, this happened more than once, and the teacher finally got his wife and children out of Eastern Europe, and they retired to near Houston where the wife had relations.

So I lost my trainer, but we could never afford serious training anyway. If you want to be serious as a competitor you needed a $10K horse, minimum, and daily intensive training with someone familiar with the national circuits. And you need to be in that culture and well connected to it, to begin to understand the levels you need to get to. And you need to travel and show all the time. Preferably regionally, and then nationwide. That was way way beyond us. And I turned into a teenager and was riding less. Finally I got an offer from a lady who had always liked my Arab boy and was moving to a ranch next to a dressage training stable/center near Scottsdale. Hated to let him go, but this lady had the bucks to do it right, she was nice, she was serious, and no way I could take him to college. So I said goodbye.

The competition horse I got to ride a few times didn’t belong to the Hungarian riding master - it belonged to a very wealthy kid about 6 years older than me who was moving to Virginia with the horse to train seriously. This one was an Arab-Thoroughbred-warmblood mix of some sort and stood 17-1/2 hands. He had been used on the Olympic Teams of two diff S American countries, I forget which ones. Even back in the 1960’s her family paid something like $25K for the horse.

Someone who wanted to be serious had to either be able to afford to put astounding $ into it or had to be able to draw sponsors. I think one of Steve Job’s daughters is or was serious about it. Those are the sorts of people, along with people who live and breathe the industry, who can get really good.

But I sure loved messing around with it.

The only people I know who, as adults, ride seriously now, are very wealthy, and can clear hours a day for it, not factoring in the drive. That’s another life from the one I have.

In the small towns, you don’t see serious competitive riding except for rodeo stuff. And some of those ropers and barrel racers and bull riders can be amazing. But the nice thing is that all the kids can ride, and many of them can keep horses at home or across the street, or borrow one whenever they want. Just cow horses, mostly. In small towns many of the Dairy Queens still have hitching posts out back, because on weekend evenings and in the summer, a bunch of the kids too young to drive will ride into town and hang out at the DQ.

@compunaut yeah, I probably won’t own a horse again unless I have my own property for it to live on. The barn I was originally at cost around $150. My mom fed my horse in the morning on her way to work as almost a therapy session every day for her. I would feed dinner and clean the stall. Hay would cost me around $8 a bale. Locally where I live now it was at least $12 a bale, for one that weighed a lot less.

Here most places require full board. They usually run around $600+ a month.

Neither price includes monthly shoeing, teeth floating, or vet bills.

@f00l he was around 16.2 or 16.3. Not terribly tall. I used to show a thoroughbred before him that was around the same height, but my guy looked huge compared to him muscle wise. He was more girthy so my legs didn’t look crazy long.

I remember they stuck me on this little pony that was new to the barn, and giving all the kids problems. She was slim around the belly so my feet went almost to her knees. She tried to buck me off, but she could barely move me… So she got stuck actually doing what I wanted her to do. I don’t remember her sticking around that long. My barn didn’t really have anyone to train the horses. They wanted bomb proof ones so kids wouldn’t get hurt. That sometimes meant they got stubborn ones.

I learned how to canter and jump on an Arabian. The barn owner loved Arabians and went to shows specifically for them. The one I was learning on was one of her previous show horses. He was older so she didn’t show him anymore. He was a perfect horse to learn how to ride on. Super well mannered. We had a lot of Arabian mares, along with a few other breeds. They seemed to be pretty high strung. I always preferred the geldings.

Not to say that all the geldings were perfect. There was one Appaloosa I showed for a short while that was a nut job. I remember riding him like a bucking bronco one time during a jumping lesson. There was also the one show that he bucked me off after a jump. Luckily I was ok and got right back on. It was pretty embarrassing though. Looking back, maybe there was something wrong with him or the tack that made it painful to jump. Who knows.

@f00l there was one time me and my friend went to Wendy’s with our horses. The lady at the window said, “Well, I guess I can serve you at the window.” I replied, “I don’t see any place to tie the horses up outside, so…”

@RiotDemon
The Appaloosa may have had issues that made him dislike jumping. But some horses are just assholes. He may have just been a jerk.

Some will figure out crafty ways to get the rider off, by running under a branch or gate brushing deliberately. Some will “innocently” do this and then run home and wait to be fed. I heard of one horse who would do this and then when he got in sight of home, he would actually feign limping. Once he had been fussed over and watered and fed, the limping vanished in the space of a second. Happened more that once. Finally people started riding him out, getting off and removing the bridle, then shooing him toward the barn. People would watch along the way to see when the horse decided it was time to “limp” for a while.

My first horse was way mean - not to me, but to everyone else who got on him. Just a standard cow horse, but that horse never ever ran outta steam. My parents decided he was too dangerous (for my friends, not me, they feared someone would get hurt) and the stable arranged a sale to a ranch that prized the stamina and ability to work, where the horse could be assigned to pretty much just one rider, and the workers were professional ranchhands. My horse did fine out there. But he was mean to anyone would would let him be mean.

@RiotDemon
Did any of the Arabs or other gaited horses you had ever have natural floating trots? My boy had an enormous one - so big that once at an Arab show people kept asking me to demo it. It was one of the reasons the lady moving to Scottsdale wanted him for dressage. (in fact he had both “normal” and “showy” versions of all his gaits - he would do them in pasture as a colt.) That trot was a lot of fun to ride, usually seated, and he loved doing it, could just go on and on it seemed. Kinda like a soft trampoline gait.

These vids give the idea, but his was even bigger:

PS to anyone who watches the bottom video; yeah Arabian horses are like that. Not for beginners, altho they are very sweet tempered. But they have a lot of fire, and look great, so they make great movie horses and were the favs of many generals and royalty.

@f00l Cool! Our dog has a ‘springy’ gait similar to that

@f00l some of the Arabs had that, yeah. My boy was pretty floaty. Watching him trot felt like I was watching him in slow motion. I need to find some of the videos I had of him.

I remember one time I took a saddle from the tack shop to try it out. It was a used Albion (I believe) that they wanted $2000 for. I could never ever afford it, but I was dying to try out a high end dressage saddle. It fit my horse perfectly and it was super comfortable. I’m really sad that it wasn’t affordable because my trainer said it made my horse move in a much more fluid way. It was probably the most comfortable ride I ever had.

Why couldn’t I have been rich while I owned him…

@RiotDemon
It sounds like you got a lot further with dressage than I did. My Hungarian riding master’s huge thing was your seat. So basically you had to learn to do everything without stirrups. His English was never very good, and his accent was strong. Half the time I just had to guess what nuance he wanted me to correct.

Re Arabians
They were normal, if slightly exotic horses after WWII. Then a few people in Hollywood got interested in them. And more to the point, there was some kind of wierd tax deduction you could take for them, for “living art”. So suddenly in the 1970’s-80’s the market and the Arabians farms went nuts. There was an enormous breeding and training facility near San Antonio that was world famous. But those farms were all over the place. One of the biggest was owned by Armand Hammer, the billionaire and friend-of-the-USSR and friend of Prince Charles and of the Reagans. He had an enormous place in AZ, and he owned only the best.

At this time, the prices paid for animals that weren’t bringing in $ except thru fans of the breed and very wealthy people looking for exotic tax shelters, those prices went thru the roof. Insane prices like you see at Thoroughbred auctions.

Well Thoroughbreds can bring in the big bux thru big money breeding and racing barns and investors, and Grand Prix. Warmbloods can do it thru the show circuit, tho a less insane market than racing. Quarter Horses have the $ cutting championships and Quarter Horse racing. In other words, all those breeds have something to back up the prices.

Now there is nothing wrong with Arabians, who have a small racing circuit (small because longer races, at which Arabs hold all the records, are boring for the spectators and bettors, and Arabs have their own cutting trials but with nothing near the money that’s in Quarter Horse cutting. So the Arabian prices in the 1980’s were basically a classic investment bubble, partially backed up by tax deductions, not real income. And finally the IRS revised the tax laws and suddenly all those stables full of deductible “living art” were pure $ loss. So many of those stables went bust in just a few years, and wound up auctioning off their stock. Even Armand Hammer’s Arabian farm went thru this - the horses were sold off and the farm closed. Prices plunged back down to sane levels, like Quarter Horse prices instead of like racing Thoroughbred prices.

During the heyday, the “type” of preferred horse for halter changed. People started breeding for a really strong exotic “Arab look”, and started favoring extreme restlessness, horses who were so spirited they could barely stand still for two seconds. Before that, Arabs still had all the characteristics, but suddenly the emphasis on that went thru the roof.

You still see those as the desired characteristics in halter judging today. The idea is to breed a horse with an almost elfin fantasy beauty, who is so spirited that the horse, altho sweet, can barely be handled by an expert. And altho this photographs well, it’s so stupid. Arabs were bred originally to be war horses, and they were the most effective light war horses, possibly for thousands of years. One thing you don’t want or need in a war horse is for the horse to be insanely restless and nervous, or otherwise nuts. Arabs were plenty spirited, among the most spirited breeds. But the ones you see on Youtube halter and conformation videos are deliberate creations of the modern American breeding craze. I have to admit, they are very beautiful. But it’s almost hard to take them seriously as working animals.

The “riding Arab” is almost a different animal, altho it’s still quite incredibly beautiful. For starters, they’re sane. They don’t use up all their energy just prancing and being nervous. And they make great riding horses. There’s a slight prejudice against them in Grand Prix, Three-Day Event, and Dressage. Judges want warmbloods and Thoroughbreds and want size and presence, and will mark other breeds down in dressage, even if the horse is excellent. Quarter Horses, Arabs, other “non-European” riding breeds will never do as well, even if they are every bit as good. There is an idea that if a horse doesn’t “look like a dressage horse” then it’s not completely a dressage horse. And to some extent Arabs may deserve this, because of the insane breeding programs of 30 years ago.

The same prejudice can occur in open breed cutting competitions. Arabs are just as good and effective cutters as Quarter Horses. But Arabs got a rep for being overbred and effete (tho that was mostly the halter horses) and cutting judges basically want a horse that looks like a Quarter Horse or a cow horse.

Where the Arab still rules is in endurance and in any sort of racing over 3-5 miles. They win about everything, more or less. Of the 50+ mile races, Arabs win something like 95% of the races, tho the entry fields are normally less than 1/2 pure Arab. Quarter Horses are wonderful, if you know how to handle them, they make amazing English mounts and jumpers. But I always found it interesting that Quarter Horses simply cannot compete with Arabs on the terrain they were bred to be masters of, over distance. I guess it was that Quarter Horses were bred to handle cattle, and were bred to go endlessly at cattle speed.

The only breeds I know that can really compete with Arabs over those distances and rough terrain are the relatives of the ancient Arabian strains from around the Caucasus. These are pretty rare outside their home regions, but are really really rare once you leave the Caucasus, Persia, and the Middle-East. Like the Arabs, they can handle the terrain, the heat, the cold, long stretches without water, long traveling without rest and come out fine. They also do incredibly well in 50+ mile races, tho it’s rare you see one. There are a number of little known and relatively rare breeds from that area: some of the better known ones are the Kabarda, and the gorgeous Akhal-teke.


https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/Akhal_Teke_Stallion_-Samovar%28his_color_is_Perlino%29.jpg

@darkzrobe Awesome!! Why does it not surprise me you have a skull in the tank? Whose is it?

@mfladd I can neither confirm nor deny.

@mfladd
It’s your skull, idiot.
You are so far gone that you can’t even tell your skull is sitting in @darkzrobe’s fish tank?
Let the water and aeration flowing in and out of your nosehole and eyeholes stimulate a few mental capacities to start working, OK?

Notice your surrounding! Surely your parents taught you that much.

@f00l Odd I dont remember murderin @mfladd

@darkzrobe
I think he’s still alive. His brain just decided it could do without a skull, so the skull, after passing thru various markets, wound up offered as a fish tank ornament. Or so it seems.

@mfladd continues to function. Allegedly.

It seems his skull has also continued to be useful.

@ZaltyMan Oh God, don’t tell my kids that!

@ZaltyMan I promise when I am able I will increase the size of the tanks and add more Cory’s. Way to make a guy feel like he is committing fish abuse

@Tachie Pics! Pics! Please?

@Unkle_Andy_17 Click the picture icon and upload from your device, or use a hosting service like imgur and just paste the direct image link here.

It’s possible all of that meant nothing to you. Let us know.!

@Unkle_Andy_17 if you’re on a phone, you have to rotate your device to see the menu.

@Unkle_Andy_17
If you are on mobile - view the forums in landscape, not portrait. When you start typing a reply or adding a post, at the bottom of the text entry area, there are a bunch of icons for menu options.

Look for the 6th icon from the left - it looks kinda like moonrise over a mountain. That will give you a menu that lets you upload a photo from your device.

If you are on mobile, and you try to do this while viewing the site in portrait mode, you won’t see the menu to upload photos. Gotta be landscape mode.

If your photo is already on a hosting service on the net (such as imgur, free) then just past the photo URL into the text box on its own line.

@f00l

@Unkle_Andy_17 Ooh, a plecostomous. I love those fishies!

@Unkle_Andy_17 Nice tank. I corrected the orientation for you.

@sammydog01 He’s Awesome!!!

@sohmageek Yeah, the reviews are horrible for those.

@mfladd That fish is beautiful!

@sammydog01 Thanks. I fhe and the unusual looking female have babies I will save you one.

@mfladd Ooh, eugenics. I do have a ten gallon aquarium with no actual fish in it.

You will get one mfladd there are many things to explore

@daveinwarsh Photo!

@sammydog01
It’s Feb. Most of the fish hide under the plants & rocks. Today was a bit sunny, so a few came out.

@daveinwarsh Nice pond. Thanks!