Dog owners aren't really all that different than cat owners, but they definitely have a different kind of relationship with their pet.
Cats tend to act aloof and treat their humans like house guests, but most dogs will happily follow their human around all day long, watching their human do stuff while seeking attention, approval and a snack.
This pack dynamic makes for a strong bond between dogs and their doggy mommies and daddies, and yet it's hard to describe what it's like to live with a furry friend who sees you as the center of their world.
When a 4-year-old goes missing it's crucial to find the child within the first 48 hours, because they know from experience that a young child would have a hard time surviving outdoors that long without help.
So when little Karina Chikitova wandered into a forest in Siberia and got lost her family panicked, and when the hundreds of people searching for her had yet to locate her a week later they began to give up hope.
But Karina was lucky because her dog Kyrachaan had gone with her, and Kyrachaan was able to help Karina stay warm at night and defend her from wolves and bears in the forest until help arrived.
Eleven days after her disappearance Kyrachaan showed up in the village and pointed rescuers in the right direction, and four miles from the village in the tall grass they found Karina.
Karina had survived by eating berries, and had a few scrapes and bug bites but no major injuries, and the first thing she said when she saw Kyrachaan again- "Why did you leave me?"
Squirrels don't know about Santa or Christmas or that it's better to give than receive, and they don't get to experience acts of human kindness as often as they should so they can get a bit skittish around people.
But something tells me the neighborhood squirrels are willing and eager to visit Twitter user @SHESAMERICVN's house on Christmas- because her dad gives out wrapped chestnuts.
Wrapping little presents for squirrels may seem a bit nutty to some, but to me it seems like the perfect opportunity to shoot a hilarious video for AFV!
Back in the day adults were stuck playing the same old boring, repetitive and unimaginative board games because there just weren't any alternatives out there.
But game industries have been booming for the last 20+ years and now there are some amazing, captivating and, most importantly, super fun to play games available for those who are tired of spelling words and passing go.
It's sad to see adults so strapped for game options they reach for games like Mouse Trap, Sorry or Trouble, especially when they could be playing amazing games like Pandemic and The Resistance: Avalon, which are similar in spirit but much more fun to play.
In Pandemic, several virulent diseases have broken out simultaneously all over the world! The players are disease-fighting specialists whose mission is to treat disease hotspots while researching cures for each of four plagues before they get out of hand.
The Resistance: Avalon pits the forces of Good and Evil in a battle to control the future of civilization. Arthur represents the future of Britain, a promise of prosperity and honor, yet hidden among his brave warriors are Mordred's unscrupulous minions. These forces of evil are few in number but have knowledge of each other and remain hidden from all but one of Arthur's servants. Merlin alone knows the agents of evil, but he must speak of this only in riddles. If his true identity is discovered, all will be lost.
Solitaire tends to numb your mind after a while, turning the player into a card flipping zombie, but why flip cards mindlessly when you can play Agricola and flip cards with a purpose?
In Agricola, you're a farmer in a wooden shack with your spouse and little else. On a turn, you get to take only two actions, one for you and one for the spouse, from all the possibilities you'll find on a farm: collecting clay, wood, or stone; building fences; and so on. You might think about having kids in order to get more work accomplished, but first you need to expand your house. And what are you going to feed all the little rugrats?
And I think Cards Against Humanity is a brilliantly simple game that can be played forever, provided you keep adding new cards to the set, but at the same time the gameplay can get a bit boring after a while.
So if you and your friends are looking for a more compelling alternative why not give 7 Wonders a try?
7 Wonders lasts three ages. In each age, players receive seven cards from a particular deck, choose one of those cards, then pass the remainder to an adjacent player. Players reveal their cards simultaneously, paying resources if needed or collecting resources or interacting with other players in various ways. (Players have individual boards with special powers on which to organize their cards, and the boards are double-sided). Each player then chooses another card from the deck they were passed, and the process repeats until players have six cards in play from that age. After three ages, the game ends.
We learn about different battery sizes when we're kids, which is when I learned it took six D batteries to play cassettes on my boombox for about four hours- and that D batteries were heavy and cost a bundle.
But we're always left with one unanswered question- what happened to the "B" batteries?
To find out we have to go back to the 1920s, when battery cell sizes were standardized by the government agencies, War Industries Board and American battery manufacturers working to create a uniform product:
In 1924, industry and government representatives met again to figure out a naming system for all those cells and batteries they had just standardized. They decided to base it around the alphabet, dubbing the smallest cells and single-cell batteries “A” and went from there to B, C and D. There was also a "No. 6" battery that was larger than the others and pretty commonly used, so it was grandfathered in without a name change.
As battery technology changed and improved and new sizes of batteries were made, they were added to the naming system. When smaller batteries came along, they were designated AA and AAA. These newer batteries were the right size for the growing consumer electronics industry, so they caught on. C and D batteries also found a niche in medium- and high-drain applications. The mid-size A and B batteries simply didn’t have a market and more or less disappeared in the U.S..
While you typically won’t see either A or B batteries on American store shelves, they’re still out there in the wild. A batteries were used in early-model laptop battery packs and some hobby battery packs. B batteries are still sometimes used in Europe for lanterns and bicycle lamps. According to Energizer, though, their popularity is dwindling there, too, and they might be completely discontinued.
Every year we're treated to a bunch of "Best of..." compilations, which are a fun way to watch an entire year's worth of clips in a flash, but none of them can compare to those wacky Japanese TV commercial comps.
That's because Japanese television commercials are the zaniest, craziest and most eye-pleasing ads on the planet, and most of us only get to see them on these year-end compilations.
So close out one of the crappiest years of all time with some super terrific Japanese commercial fun!
JPCMHD sifted through over 2200 commercials to pick out the very best commercials Japanese TV had to offer in 2016, and they really picked a pack of winners!
Rats are used for all kinds of scientific experimentation, and many rats have given their lives so that scientists can figure out how to cure diseases, test theories and generally help mankind live longer and better.
But the rat in this video posted by National Geographic hit the jackpot, because he's the subject of an experiment on tickling!
Researchers at The Humboldt University of Berlin discovered rats vocally express enjoyment when they're tickled, just like humans do, and they like tickling so much they come back for more.
Do you know somebody who is constantly mispronouncing common words?
They leave out the first "R" in library, pronounce nuclear "new-kew-lar" and add an "R" to wash to create "warsh" and, even worse, "Warshington".
These mispronunciations can be a bit frustrating, but as this comic from The Odd 1s Out shows if someone adds an "N" to ultraviolet to make light ultra-violent they might be pronouncing it that way on purpose...
Video games are assumed to be a young person's pastime, but more and more seniors are embracing the awesomeness of video games, and soon the kiddy stigma attached to gaming will fade away.
And older gamers like Grandma Shirley are leading the way for seniors to become pro gamers like their noob grandkids, so they can prove you're never too old to love playing video games.
Grandma Shirley started posting videos of her Skyrim sessions to YouTube on September 18, 2015, and now she has posted over 300 Let's Play-style videos and has well over 200,000 subscribers.
She also receives pleasant comments on her videos, which is a rare occurrence on any site but especially rare on YouTube. Maybe it's because she starts every video out by saying "Hi Grandkids!"
Hiking doesn't seem like a bunny friendly activity, but Sir Quincey seems to genuinely enjoy being outdoors with his human, and she makes sure the cute little guy is comfortable and safe while they explore the wilds together
Commenters have pointed out that birds of prey might want to snack on poor Sir Quincey, and the pic at the top of the post was captioned "30 miles and 5 attempted eagle swoops later we made it home safely".
But it seems like Sir Quincey's human has enough outdoor experience to keep his little fluffy butt out of harm's way.
The holidays are a time for friends and relatives to come together and celebrate, and a time to become re-acquainted with all the characters in your family.
We'll see the mothers and grandmothers who are warm and comforting, and although they change very little over the years it still feels good to see them again, just like a Super Mario or Legend of Zelda game.
Your deadbeat dad might show up looking for money, just like that new Call Of Duty game that always seems to come out just in time for the holidays.
And even though he isn't much fun to be around anymore your stoner older brother will probably show up too, cluttering up your house with unwanted "peripherals" you can't even sell on Ebay. (Comic by Julia Lepetit)
Trolling family members with fake Christmas presents can be fun, as long as feelings aren't hurt and the victim of the prank actually gets a present in the end.
But Christmas gift trolls should bow down to the master, Imgur user Lictalon's brother James, because James has turned gift trolling into an artform.
But as he tore into the gift he found something too good to be true inside:
Knowing that The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild wasn't set to come out until some time in 2017 Lictalon said "confusion set in...nah...can't be", and then he took the bait anyway.
James completed this trolling triple play with a specially made insert, earning him a place in the gift trolling hall of fame.
This is Josh, a 24-year-old college student from Saginaw Valley State University in Michigan.
Josh wanted to do something nice for his distant relatives this year, so he came up with a concept for a Christmas card photo that would knock their socks off. But first he had to find a fake family...
A family was located and the prank Christmas card was created, complete with the caption "Season's Greetings from the Brassows. Josh & Patty "Bone-Crusher" Johnson, and the boys Blade & Thor"
His relatives didn't get the joke, but Josh's dad can't look at the card without laughing his head off, so at least one person in Josh's family appreciated all of his hard work!
In order to maintain control of the North Pole and keep his global Christmas toy operation up and running Santa Claus has been forced to assemble an army of clones, which is quite possibly the most powerful army on Earth.
But the polar critters who call the North Pole home don't want Santa and his elves to have free reign over their frigid home, so they've assembled a penguin army of their own to take down the Jolly Old Elf with beaks of fury.
This bloody battle between Santa clones and a seemingly endless army of penguins was created by Brilliant Game Studios to advertise their new game Epic Battle Simulator, where you can create the massive battles of your dreams
Some little kids see Santa as a scary monster, which is understandable since he's typically played by a large man wearing a fake beard, wig and hat, but Santa is the least scary man ever compared to Krampus.
As you may know Krampus is the Austrian keeper of the naughty list, a half goat half demon sent to punish wicked children by beating them with a bundle of birch sticks and dragging them off to Hell.
In Germany and the Pennsylvania Dutch communities Krampus was replaced by the somewhat less scary Belsnickel, a creepy guy wearing dirty robes who beats bad kids but doesn't take them to Hell.
Belsnickel is pretty scary, especially considering he could be anyone in the community, but he doesn't give children nightmares like that creepy old crone Grýla- who boils children and eats them.
Grýla is an evil ogress from Iceland who snatches up naughty children and drags them back to her cave to be devoured, but she can only devour the truly wicked so kids who repent are set free.
She has given birth to at least 72 children of her own, most notably the 13 Yule Lads, who are like a twisted version of the Seven Dwarfs:
Sheep-Cote Clod: He tries to suckle yews in farmer's sheep sheds Gully Gawk: He steals foam from buckets of cow milk Stubby: He's short and steals food from frying pans Spoon Licker: He licks spoons Pot Scraper, aka Pot Licker: He steals unwashed pots and licks them clean Bowl Licker: He steals bowls of food from under the bed Door Slammer: He stomps around and slams doors, keeping everyone awake Skyr Gobbler: He eats up all the Icelandic yogurt (skyr) Sausage Swiper: He loves stolen sausages Window Peeper: He likes to creep outside windows and sometimes steal the stuff he sees inside Door Sniffer: He has a huge nose and an insatiable appetite for stolen baked goods Meat Hook: He snatches up any meat left out, especially smoked lamb Candle Beggar: He steals candles, which used to be sought-after items in Iceland
