Youtube Rabbit Holes

2026-03-29

Oh my god sometimes I just watch Youtube for ages because the algorithm pulls me in. It feels like such a silly time sink sometimes ahhhh. As I write this up, it's mainly videos to help animals find relief :<

I've been watching four channels recently:

Girl with the Dogs:
A dog groomer (but also grooms the occasional cat), handles some difficult clients. I think watching this channel is informative about just how much exposure training you need to give your pets so that they can be used to grooming. Mainly grooming for their health. Animals with long fur can get matted/sort of hair tangles in people, that end up in bulky pieces.

Lots of undercoat dogs too where they need to get shampooed with a deshedder, blow dried out and then brushed!

One fun fact is that I didn't realize that Sphinx cats are high maintenance ! They still give off dandruff allergens too. They need to be sun screened and bathed weekly. They just attract dirt and dust in their wrinkled pores!

I really like her videos where she is focused on helping shelter animals. One dog was severely matted and their waste was landing in their long fur because she wasn't mobile anymore :(
Making sure their tails and butts are well shaved are so important and I never considered that before. She doesn't wear gloves in these videos no matter how disgusting it is to the viewer for the safety of the animal. She needs to feel for the animal's skin and separate it from the hair.

It reminds me of the shearer from Right Choice Shearers who show how shearing sheep regularly is critical to their health. If we domesticated the animal, we must do right by them and actually care for them!!

Otherwise, I also like how she handles dogs that other groomers deem them problematic or a liability. Dogs are best when they have direction and coaxing where the groomer perseveres instead of stopping entirely.

Its Me or the Dog:
So many owners let their dogs run wild, I've seen my cousins and coworkers just not train their dogs well at all since they jump on people, bark, and pee in the house.

Ugh! I just watch too many dog training videos to ever consider getting a dog myself until I had more free time to actually consider walking them and paying for their pet bill. It's just neglect otherwise. I think it started with Its Me or the Dog led by Victoria Stilwater.

She goes to people's homes like Supernanny to deal with their dysfunctional control of pets. It's not the pets' fault, it is the owner's fault for being too soft and training the dogs poorly. She shows that a lot of dogs acting out is them being anxious and feeling the need to show dominance. However, with positive reinforcement training with the owners, the dogs are able to improve over time. I like many of the indirect training methods she employs.

For example, to avoid dogs from eating poo in the yard, she first trained them to avoid a red flag with treat enforcement. Every time she showed a red flag and they adverted their gaze, she gave them a treat. As such, when the owners flagged poo to clean up, they would avoid the flag and avoid eating the poo for the treat reward.

HoofGP:
The cow hoof "doctor" videos are SO interesting to me. It is so repetitive, but also mesmerizing how they take an angle grinder to the hoof and they just come off like deli slices. I don't doubt that its very difficult to take the grinder and control it with as much precision as this guy does it. The scrapping of hoof to investigate cracks is my favourite part. Is it going to grow smaller and clear up or grow into a cavity!!

Then spray it with blue and block it to take the weight off and off they go!!

It's very interesting to me how the horse and cow hoof differ, the horse farrier videos clip them like toenails since they are so much harder, while the cow hoof is like slicing fruit.

Audiology Associates UK
I've dealt with ear issues ever since Covid with the nonstop headphone wearing for zooms, it majorly sucks to go deaf in one ear from ear wax of all things. It is scientifically interesting to me to watch these videos with how they clear it up. I think it demystifies it and shows that hey, ear wax plugs are a lot more common in the population than I thought :)

The audiologists on the channel are both mild mannered and crack some nice jokes.