Itzl's Social Networking Sites

[talon]

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/social.media/08/05/pets.facebook.networks/index.html?hpt=Sbin

Yanno, I created a Facebook for Itzl because a lot of people were interested in what he's doing, how life as a service dog is, and how it's different for a pet dog - that's why I balanced it by creating a Facebook page for Xoco. If people read both pages, they see not just the personality differences between the two dogs, but the difference in their training, expectations, and treatment.

Xoco is the drama queen of little dogs, things must be her way. Fortunately, her way of having a fit is to steal something to chew on or to go off and sulk instead of displaying aggression, something all too common in tiny dogs. She stays home a lot, mostly out of preference. She hates going to work and she's uncomfortable and stressed out around strangers and in many social situations.

Itzl was born to be a dog of service. He loves going to work, being around lots of people, being at busy, crowded venues like arts festivals. He likes being the center of attention almost as much as he loves the job he was trained for - alerting to sounds. It makes him rather smug when he alerts to a sound for me. We've worked together so long that it's almost seamless between his alert and my response. He has very high expectations for the behavior of both people and animals and he doesn't hesitate to show his displeasure (by shunning) to those he feels are badly behaved.

I know about the "pet" social networks - Dogster, Catster, and so on - but none of Itzl and Xoco's friends are on those sites. Their friends are mostly people, who have LJs and facebooks and so on.

Xoco may be a pet, but Itzl is practically people - he gets a lot of the privileges people get: he goes shopping with me and out to restaurants, he goes to work with me and everywhere I go and he has legal access to all of those places because he's a service dog. He gets a stipend for working, has health insurance, has a 401k-9 retirement plan, a passport, a work ID card, work uniforms (which he wears to work, but trades for costumes at special events and for holidays), and he now has his own wallet because he's acquired a collection of gift cards and business cards. People have given him gift cards to his favorite restaurants and drive-throughs as well as to PetsMart and a few online places for service dog equipment. And then he has his business cards: the service dog ADA information card, the cards from his various contacts like trainer and vet and other service dog organizations and businesses, not to mention his own business card that we give to people with his email, facebook, and LJ, and my card. We keep a spare ID card in there and his insurance card. We need to keep his stuff separate from mine, so he now has his own wallet to go in his own bag (which contains spare food and water dishes, a baggie of food, treats, potty pads, spare work clothes, leash, and his wallet) - and that gets tucked into my bag.

Anyway, he has his own facebook because it's people who are interested in his doings and what his life as a service dog is like, not other animals.

I admit I'm rather bad about keeping it all updated, only doing so when it's something out of the ordinary. That may be defeating the purpose of it and I'm going to try to be a better poster for him.

I'm sure the reason most people who have their pets on facebook have done so for much the same reason I have - their friends are interested in what the critters are doing and facebook doesn't have a way to link the finned, furred, feathered, scaled, and minor children to a "parent" facebook account so that it can be updated and interacted with separately, thus forcing us to create entire accounts for these.

For those who are interested, Itzl's facebook is under his name: Itzl Brothers. His LJ (very rarely updated) is itzl. And his email is storybowl at gmail.