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The Neurodivergent Writer’s Guide to Fun and Productivity

(Even when life beats you down)

Look, I’m a mom, I have ADHD, I’m a spoonie. To say that I don’t have heaps of energy to spare and I struggle with consistency is an understatement. For years, I tried to write consistently, but I couldn’t manage to keep up with habits I built and deadlines I set.

So fuck neurodivergent guides on building habits, fuck “eat the frog first”, fuck “it’s all in the grind”, and fuck “you just need time management”—here is how I manage to write often and a lot.

Focus on having fun, not on the outcome

This was the groundwork I had to lay before I could even start my streak. At an online writing conference, someone said: “If you push yourself and meet your goals, and you publish your book, but you haven’t enjoyed the process… What’s the point?” and hoo boy, that question hit me like a truck.

I was so caught up in the narrative of “You’ve got to show up for what’s important” and “Push through if you really want to get it done”. For a few years, I used to read all these productivity books about grinding your way to success, and along the way I started using the same language as they did. And I notice a lot of you do so, too.

But your brain doesn’t like to grind. No-one’s brain does, and especially no neurodivergent brain. If having to write gives you stress or if you put pressure on yourself for not writing (enough), your brain’s going to say: “Huh. Writing gives us stress, we’re going to try to avoid it in the future.”

So before I could even try to write regularly, I needed to teach my brain once again that writing is fun. I switched from countable goals like words or time to non-countable goals like “fun” and “flow”.

Rewire my brain: writing is fun and I’m good at it

I used everything I knew about neuroscience, psychology, and social sciences. These are some of the things I did before and during a writing session. Usually not all at once, and after a while I didn’t need these strategies anymore, although I sometimes go back to them when necessary.

I journalled all the negative thoughts I had around writing and try to reason them away, using arguments I knew in my heart were true. (The last part is the crux.) Imagine being supportive to a writer friend with crippling insecurities, only the friend is you.

Not setting any goals didn’t work for me—I still nurtured unwanted expectations. So I did set goals, but made them non-countable, like “have fun”, “get in the flow”, or “write”. Did I write? Yes. Success! Your brain doesn’t actually care about how high the goal is, it cares about meeting whatever goal you set.

I didn’t even track how many words I wrote. Not relevant.

I set an alarm for a short time (like 10 minutes) and forbade myself to exceed that time. The idea was that if I write until I run out of mojo, my brain learns that writing drains the mojo. If I write for 10 minutes and have fun, my brain learns that writing is fun and wants to do it again.

Reinforce the fact that writing makes you happy by rewarding your brain immediately afterwards. You know what works best for you: a walk, a golden sticker, chocolate, cuddle your dog, whatever makes you happy.

I conditioned myself to associate writing with specific stimuli: that album, that smell, that tea, that place. Any stimulus can work, so pick one you like. I consciously chose several stimuli so I could switch them up, and the conditioning stays active as long as I don’t muddle it with other associations.

Use a ritual to signal to your brain that Writing Time is about to begin to get into the zone easier and faster. I guess this is a kind of conditioning as well? Meditation, music, lighting a candle… Pick your stimulus and stick with it.

Specifically for rewiring my brain, I started a new WIP that had no emotional connotations attached to it, nor any pressure to get finished or, heaven forbid, meet quality norms. I don’t think these techniques above would have worked as well if I had applied them on writing my novel.

It wasn’t until I could confidently say I enjoyed writing again, that I could start building up a consistent habit. No more pushing myself.

I lowered my definition for success

When I say that nowadays I write every day, that’s literally it. I don’t set out to write 1,000 or 500 or 10 words every day (tried it, failed to keep up with it every time)—the only marker for success when it comes to my streak is to write at least one word, even on the days when my brain goes “naaahhh”. On those days, it suffices to send myself a text with a few keywords or a snippet. It’s not “success on a technicality (derogatory)”, because most of those snippets and ideas get used in actual stories later. And if they don’t, they don’t. It’s still writing. No writing is ever wasted.

A side note on high expectations, imposter syndrome, and perfectionism

Obviously, “Setting a ridiculously low goal” isn’t something I invented. I actually got it from those productivity books, only I never got it to work. I used to tell myself: “It’s okay if I don’t write for an hour, because my goal is to write for 20 minutes and if I happen to keep going for, say, an hour, that’s a bonus.” Right? So I set the goal for 20 minutes, wrote for 35 minutes, and instead of feeling like I exceeded my goal, I felt disappointed because apparently I was still hoping for the bonus scenario to happen. I didn’t know how to set a goal so low and believe it.

I think the trick to making it work this time lies more in the groundwork of training my brain to enjoy writing again than in the fact that my daily goal is ridiculously low. I believe I’m a writer, because I prove it to myself every day. Every success I hit reinforces the idea that I’m a writer. It’s an extra ward against imposter syndrome.

Knowing that I can still come up with a few lines of dialogue on the Really Bad Days—days when I struggle to brush my teeth, the day when I had a panic attack in the supermarket, or the day my kid got hit by a car—teaches me that I can write on the mere Bad-ish Days.

The more I do it, the more I do it

The irony is that setting a ridiculously low goal almost immediately led to writing more and more often. The most difficult step is to start a new habit. After just a few weeks, I noticed that I needed less time and energy to get into the zone. I no longer needed all the strategies I listed above.

Another perk I noticed, was an increased writing speed. After just a few months of writing every day, my average speed went from 600 words per hour to 1,500 wph, regularly exceeding 2,000 wph without any loss of quality.

Talking about quality: I could see myself becoming a better writer with every passing month. Writing better dialogue, interiority, chemistry, humour, descriptions, whatever: they all improved noticeably, and I wasn’t a bad writer to begin with.

The increased speed means I get more done with the same amount of energy spent. I used to write around 2,000-5,000 words per month, some months none at all. Nowadays I effortlessly write 30,000 words per month. I didn’t set out to write more, it’s just a nice perk.

Look, I’m not saying you should write every day if it doesn’t work for you. My point is: the more often you write, the easier it will be.

No pressure

Yes, I’m still working on my novel, but I’m not racing through it. I produce two or three chapters per month, and the rest of my time goes to short stories my brain keeps projecting on the inside of my eyelids when I’m trying to sleep. I might as well write them down, right?

These short stories started out as self-indulgence, and even now that I take them more seriously, they are still just for me. I don’t intend to ever publish them, no-one will ever read them, they can suck if they suck. The unintended consequence was that my short stories are some of my best writing, because there’s no pressure, it’s pure fun.

Does it make sense to spend, say, 90% of my output on stories no-one else will ever read? Wouldn’t it be better to spend all that creative energy and time on my novel? Well, yes. If you find the magic trick, let me know, because I haven’t found it yet. The short stories don’t cannibalize on the novel, because they require different mindsets. If I stopped writing the short stories, I wouldn’t produce more chapters. (I tried. Maybe in the future? Fingers crossed.)

Don’t wait for inspiration to hit

There’s a quote by Picasso: “Inspiration hits, but it has to find you working.” I strongly agree. Writing is not some mystical, muse-y gift, it’s a skill and inspiration does exist, but usually it’s brought on by doing the work. So just get started and inspiration will come to you.

Accountability and community

Having social factors in your toolbox is invaluable. I have an offline writing friend I take long walks with, I host a monthly writing club on Discord, and I have another group on Discord that holds me accountable every day. They all motivate me in different ways and it’s such a nice thing to share my successes with people who truly understand how hard it can be.

The productivity books taught me that if you want to make a big change in your life or attitude, surrounding yourself with people who already embody your ideal or your goal huuuugely helps. The fact that I have these productive people around me who also prioritize writing, makes it easier for me to stick to my own priorities.

Your toolbox

The idea is to have several techniques at your disposal to help you stay consistent. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket by focussing on just one technique. Keep all of them close, and if one stops working or doesn’t inspire you today, pivot and pick another one.

After a while, most “tools” run in the background once they are established. Things like surrounding myself with my writing friends, keeping up with my daily streak, and listening to the album I conditioned myself with don’t require any energy, and they still remain hugely beneficial.

Do you have any other techniques? I’d love to hear about them!

I hope this was useful. Happy writing!

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Sending love to you today. Please stay safe out there, Minnesotan to Minnesotan 🫂

We did! Rally completed, we're on the way home safe and sound.

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I have some news for members of the united states armed forces who feel like they are pawns in a political game and their assignments being unnecessary.

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How come you're all about "feminism" until it's time to protest? We haven't seen you make a single fucking post about the LA riots and it's really disappointing.

Hi friends. This is your reminder not to reply to questions like this. You do not need to self-report your behavior. This is a guilt trip designed to make you violate your own Miranda rights.

Also, they are not riots (Freudian slip, fed?), they're peaceful protests and are a democratic right under the first amendment.

where to find your local protest donate to legal funds my local immigrant support network

be safe out there, i love you.

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‘am i Having A Brain Problem or Being a Shithead’: a short procrastination checklist

aka why tf am i procrastinating on The Thing (more like a flowchart, actually)

lots of people who have executive function difficulties worry about whether they’re procrastinating on a task out of laziness/simply wanting to be a jerk or mental struggles. this checklist might help you figure out which it is at any given time! (hint: it’s almost never laziness or being a jerk.) (obligatory disclaimer: this is just what works for me! something different might work better for you.)

1) do I honestly intend to start the task despite my lack of success?

yes: it’s a Brain Problem. next question

no: it’s shitty to say one thing & do another. better be honest with myself & anyone expecting me to do the task.

2) am I fed, watered, well-rested, medicated properly, etc?

yes: next question

no: guess what? this is the real next task

3) does the idea of starting the task make me feel scared or anxious?

yes: Anxiety Brain. identify what’s scaring me first.

no: next question

4) do I know how to start the task?

yes: next question

no: ADHD Brain. time to make an order of operations list.

5) do I have everything I need to start the task?

yes: next question

no: ADHD Brain lying to me about the steps again, dangit. first task is ‘gather the materials’.

6) why am i having a hard time switching from my current task to this new task?

i’m having fun doing what i’m doing: it’s okay to have fun doing a thing! if task is time-sensitive, go to next question.

i have to finish doing what i’m doing: might be ADHD brain. can I actually finish the current task or will I get trapped in a cycle? does this task really need to be finished?

the next task will be boring/boring-er than the current task: ADHD brain. re-think the next task. what would make it exciting? what am I looking forward to?

I might not have enough time to complete the task: ADHD brain wants to finish everything it starts. (if task is time-sensitive, go to next question)

i just want to make the person who asked me to do it angry: sounds like anxiety brain trying to punish itself, because I know I’ll be miserable if someone is angry at me. why do i think I deserve punishment?

no, I seriously want to piss them off: okay, i’m being a shithead

7) have I already procrastinated so badly that I now cannot finish the task in time?

yes: ADHD brain is probably caught in a guilt-perfection cycle. since I can’t have the task done on time, i don’t even want to start.

reality check: having part of a thing done is almost always better than none of a thing done. if I can get an extension, having part of it done will help me keep from stalling out until the extension deadline. i’ll feel better if I at least try to finish it.

no, there’s still a chance to finish on time: ADHD brain thinks that I have all the time in the world, but the truth is I don’t. 

reality check: if i’m having fun doing what I’m doing, I can keep doing it, but I should probably set a timer & ask someone to check on me to make sure I start doing the task later today.

8) I’ve completed the checklist and still don’t know what’s wrong!

probably wasn’t honest enough with myself. take one more look.

if I’m still mystified, ask a friend to help me talk it out.

hope this helps some of you! YOU’RE DOING GREAT SWEETIE DON’T GIVE UP ON YOU

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Yeah, I think there's some things that escaped containment here that add context to @doberbutts and my conversation in particular. First is that neither of us is a fan of breed bans generally, and I can't actually imagine either Jaz or myself calling for legal breed bans. For one thing, they don't work to promote public safety, and for another thing, we are talking here about how humans conceptualize and interact with our dogs--about the stories we tell ourselves of how we and our dogs came to be. Changing stories is rarely best accomplished via force.

On another point, the Cuban Bloodhound's closest living descendent is the Fila Brasilero, which is a very rare breed in North America. Unlike pit bulls, they are well known for being particularly xenophobic and suspicious of new humans. You can make some arguments about whether banning it and other high-octane LGD/guard dogs like Caucasian Ovcharka is a potentially good idea for public safety reasons, but on balance I think the best legal strategy for handling cases and dogs like that is to implement Calgary-model consequences for dogs that have bite histories and intervene early and often. After all, highly guardy dogs are one of the places where early intervention, sane management and training is crucial for a safe, socially fluent adult dog, and plenty of guardy athletic mastiff breed owners succeed at that just fine.

Also, the breed most implicated as a source of police violence is the GSD and secondarily Malinois, and both breeds are so popular and so commonly used for other functions also that a breed ban would be politically unviable and also, since we are all fully aware that the violence imposed by police dogs is not inherent to the type of dog, stupid and incredibly difficult to implement.

And then for the last thing, Jaz is referring to breed bans in the context of pit bulls because pit bulls are already some of the most-banned and most-popular dogs in North America, where we both live, and because pit bull bans locally are absolutely used as a tool to implement racist policies on housing.... because they are associated with ownership by Black people. Jaz brings up breed bans as a tool of racist and particularly segregationist impulse, not as a potential solution to the problem of racist histories of dogs we love and keep.

(I have some more comments on Jaz' excellent response also but haven't had time to summon my thoughts yet. As usual, we're more or less in agreement--and the point about Louis Dobermann is very well made, regarding intention and... for lack of better words, keeping the story of breed communities who wanted to resist fascism swallowing up their dogs.)

found this really cool article this morning about the history of the use of dogs to oppress BIPOC and particularly the use of the breed referred to variously as slave hounds and Cuban bloodhounds at the time, which was deliberately selected and trained as a weapon of terror. it's a horrifying history, but I think it's worth reading especially for American dog people as we face down a summer of police brutality that will come with the inevitable use of police dogs to perform the same terrorizing function—albeit with more in the way of fine grained, if often theoretical, control over the dog.

I still need to dig out sources to document the relationship between the Cuban Bloodhound and today's Fila Brasilero, because they are strong influences indeed. I am always thinking: what is the ethical underpinning of making the choice to preserve these dogs for the present day? Would it be better or worse to acknowledge their well documented history of colonial violence? We often keep dogs to preserve the parts of our culture and history we want to remember: what role does that play in the case of such a blood soaked, painful history of colonial terror?

Is the rebrand enough to justify keeping the dogs? How about breeds with Cuban bloodhound influence without being the modern form of the strain, such as Rhodesian Ridgebacks? How do the stories we tell about how dogs came to be help us form narratives about our own history?

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I’ve posted about it before, but I’ve been working on archiving Martin and Bosco’s blaze post in case Tumblr randomly disappears one day like a cartoon on HBO Max. I figured I’m probably not the only person or community who wants to archive their Tumblr posts, so I made a project website to explain what I’m doing. It all feels ridiculously extra, but that’s how I am about data science stuff.

You’re welcome to follow along with the project if you’re interested in the post or want to learn a bit about how to make sense of data. Questions are always welcome — whether you're curious about the methods, confused by the plots, wondering what’s next, or just thinking, “can I archive my own posts?”.

Link to the project website: https://lebriggs.com/ Note: The website is readable on mobile, but dashboards aren't really built for enjoyable small screen viewing.

Here’s a screenshot of a dashboard to get your started — you can find it on the website in an interactive form.

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Yan, V. X., Arndt, A. N., Muenks, K., & Henderson, M. D. (2025). I forgot that you existed: Role of memory accessibility in the gender citation gap. American Psychologist, 80(1), 91–105. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0001299

[Correction Notice: An Erratum for this article was reported online in American Psychologist on Sep 19 2024. The name of the author, Amy N. Arndt was incorrectly omitted from the author list in the original article. All versions of this article have been corrected.]

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To this I will add: It ends faster the more social disruption we cause to slow down the inertia of society and make people think. If you can get out to a No Kings protest this weekend (Saturday, June 14, 2025), please do so, even just for a little bit. It would be so convenient to have huge, undeniable demonstrations from massive numbers of people as an actual gesture of strength. I will be going out in my Formal Labcoat tomorrow to talk to people and wave signs. Come on out and join me if you can.

"We're living through the ongoing fascist collapse of the United States but I still gotta clean the kitchen and go to work tomorrow" sure is the mood right now, huh.

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correct. because in Eddie's mileu--and this has been consistent for his entire pre-118 life--anger is the one emotion men are allowed to show outwardly, and it is always the one that explodes out when Eddie's iron control slips. we have in fact seen his reaction to buck pulling away from him before, and it entailed Eddie melting down in a grocery store and subsequently spending an entire Halloween giving Buck the angry, pissy silent treatment until Buck caught him to have a conversation about it.

the one saving grace usually is that Buck apologizing ends the anger immediately, right? but here, Buck's cornered: he cannot stop pulling back from Eddie immediately if he wants to break off being in love with him, but that's what is making Eddie so mad, and it sucks because Buck doesn't want to pull back either but it's that or be in love and alone forever and he can't do that he can't he can't--

I am idly wondering if this is the first time in a fight we get to see Buck pushing back, and what that does to their unhinged batshit dynamic. I damn well hope so: it could be the pressure Eddie needs to actually take his emotions in hand and figure out what he actually wants out of life.

okay i will be honest though i think if buck actually successfully manages to pull back from eddie and starts acting like they're Just Regular Bros (tm), eddie is not going to be tragic and outwardly heartbroken about it. eddie is going to be pissed.

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*piteous* ever since I wrote that post about scientists wanting you to take the bloody pain medicine I can't so much as mention crawling away to die in a corner in peace before @kawuli descends upon me going YOU ARE MAKING THE SCIENTISTS SAD until I actually take pain meds. Awful. Unjust. Terrible.

Hey everyone, remember that being sick or healing from injuries is a hard time for your body. You have to eat a lot and lay still and be kind to yourself! [large neon sign that says HYPOCRITE descends from the ceiling and points at me] Hey what the heck what's this who put that there

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It's in Russia's best interest for you to see all these client nations as basically extensions of Russian empire. Don't fall for it.

The thing I noticed a lot of people from non-postsoviet countries don't understand and frankly don't care about is the importance of NOT calling the Soviet Union just Russia and soviet citizens just russians. Because it wasn't just Russia, it was a multicultural state with lots of nationalities in it and after the collapse of the USSR they all finally gained independence. It was not just russians who fought Nazis in the WW2, it was not Russia that were destroyed and exploited by them the most.

You don't call the whole European Union just Germany or France or whatever because it's not, it's a union (that also acts like a union and not like a totalitarian regime that suppresses all the national identities and forces on everyone just one specific identity that it deems to be superior).

By calling USSR Russia people enable and support russian narrative of all the countries that were a part of the Soviet Union being also a part of Russia. Which is not fucking true and is actually the driving force behind the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

So please be mindful of what you say.

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"these researchers published a paper on something that literally any of us could have told you 🙄" ok well my supervisors wont let me write something in my thesis unless I can back it up with a citation so maybe it's a good thing that they're amplifying your voice to the scientific community in a way that prevents people from writing off your experiences as annecdotal evidence

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Thank you for the link! I think I've read that one, but I look forward to finding out when I get home tonight. It certainly sounds like it does fit neatly into this conversation!

It's worth pointing out that the St Hubert's Hound which became the modern English bloodhound is a very different dog from the Cuban bloodhound, both then and today. That being said, the shared names created a very distinct influence on bloodhounds in horror in particular, and you're very correct that bloodhounds are still used for police work--though that's nearly all mantrailing / tracing human trails as opposed to being expected to actually catch humans without assistance. (Drug work is more typically done by either GSDs or gundogs, depending on how much of the potential for an intimidation factor a given police force wants from a dog.)

found this really cool article this morning about the history of the use of dogs to oppress BIPOC and particularly the use of the breed referred to variously as slave hounds and Cuban bloodhounds at the time, which was deliberately selected and trained as a weapon of terror. it's a horrifying history, but I think it's worth reading especially for American dog people as we face down a summer of police brutality that will come with the inevitable use of police dogs to perform the same terrorizing function—albeit with more in the way of fine grained, if often theoretical, control over the dog.

I still need to dig out sources to document the relationship between the Cuban Bloodhound and today's Fila Brasilero, because they are strong influences indeed. I am always thinking: what is the ethical underpinning of making the choice to preserve these dogs for the present day? Would it be better or worse to acknowledge their well documented history of colonial violence? We often keep dogs to preserve the parts of our culture and history we want to remember: what role does that play in the case of such a blood soaked, painful history of colonial terror?

Is the rebrand enough to justify keeping the dogs? How about breeds with Cuban bloodhound influence without being the modern form of the strain, such as Rhodesian Ridgebacks? How do the stories we tell about how dogs came to be help us form narratives about our own history?

[grison-in-space]

Man, the role of the GSD (and later the Malinois) as instruments of terror during modern history is a whole book in and of itself. I do think there's something interesting about the shift to a herding breed that is supposed to be under precision human control as an agent of terror away from a heavy hound with (judging from Filas) a distinct independent streak and a tendency to make its own decisions about what needs to happen. The modern version has quite a bit more plausible deniability than the older hound-based version.

That is, by the way, why cops and soldiers alike use dogs that bite: a dog is way scarier to most people than a man with a gun, and people get nervous and relatively docile when they're afraid of the dogs. They are more intimidating for guard duty because potential intruders don't want to tangle with the dog. Secondarily, the military-police value of the dog is the dog's increased sensory acuity (both for detection and sentry work), and there were tertiary uses in modern warfare for the dog's increased speed and smaller size, but these latter uses have mostly been obviated by improvements in communications technology.

The intimidation factor, the sheer terror of a barking, pulling, lunging dog that might be released to rend and tear you with its teeth: that's the strongest value of a police or military dog. I don't think you can understand the role of dogs in the military post WWII without understanding that intimidation potential.

(I'm going to be so sad if I never get to write that grant on studying the way Malinois have changed relative to other Belgians over the last forty years to prioritize that intense control over the dog and how historical and current function shapes canine decisionmaking...)

found this really cool article this morning about the history of the use of dogs to oppress BIPOC and particularly the use of the breed referred to variously as slave hounds and Cuban bloodhounds at the time, which was deliberately selected and trained as a weapon of terror. it's a horrifying history, but I think it's worth reading especially for American dog people as we face down a summer of police brutality that will come with the inevitable use of police dogs to perform the same terrorizing function—albeit with more in the way of fine grained, if often theoretical, control over the dog.

I still need to dig out sources to document the relationship between the Cuban Bloodhound and today's Fila Brasilero, because they are strong influences indeed. I am always thinking: what is the ethical underpinning of making the choice to preserve these dogs for the present day? Would it be better or worse to acknowledge their well documented history of colonial violence? We often keep dogs to preserve the parts of our culture and history we want to remember: what role does that play in the case of such a blood soaked, painful history of colonial terror?

Is the rebrand enough to justify keeping the dogs? How about breeds with Cuban bloodhound influence without being the modern form of the strain, such as Rhodesian Ridgebacks? How do the stories we tell about how dogs came to be help us form narratives about our own history?

[grison-in-space]

I was hoping you would comment! As usual, this is excellent. I suspect there was at least some gene flow between many of the Southern hound breeds, particularly given the multiple references to crosses between the highly prized, rare-ish Cuban Bloodhounds and more easily abundant local foxhounds and coonhounds being used, especially with eyes to speed over ferocity; in general, the Cuban Bloodhound seemed to have been prized as much or more for its ferocity than for its hunting. I would also not be surprised to see involvement/gene flow between these dogs and American bulldogs and curs.

I think I also go back and forth about how much weight I give to creator intent relative to more recent history re: how the animals are actually being used. Part of that is just because I feel really strongly about honesty in dog breed history, not least because dog people have a long tradition of treating breed history very lightly and with a lot of euphemism or even outright lies--and taking a descriptive tack seems to me to be the fairest way to approach history. I also think more breed historians need to understand that historical research involves corroborating statements across primary sources and other lines of information available to us like genetic mapping.

If I was pointing more fingers, Presa Canario, Alano Espanol, and Ca de Bou are almost certainly descended from the Spanish mastiff strains that first entered the New World and were used as instruments of genocide against indigenous people--just from the dogs that didn't leave. I'm sure there are more: whenever you have a repressive regime and a culture that keeps dogs, you find dogs being used as weapons.

The Russian context (they of the Moscow Water Dog savaging its drowning clients) is an interesting one because it's so strongly divorced from colonial efforts using dogs in the new world, and yet dogs were an incredibly important tool for inciting terror--you can see that by looking at what Russian strains of these dogs actually produced: mostly bigger, scarier, more aggressive versions of other breeds, with the possible exception of the Black Russian Terrier.

Of course many breeds have histories of various levels of unsavoriness. The comparison to pit bulls is perhaps unfair simply because pit bulls are so much more common and popular, but it does seem instructive to me that we have rated dogfighting as a worse sin to carry in the ethics of whether a breed is "worth" preserving than, say, the German Shepherd's use to subjugate and terrorize actual human people. This isn't necessarily an argument against keeping and maintaining them, but I think GSDs by simple merit of being the central military/policing dog have found a number of functions that don't relate to its more unsavory periods of history.

I don't necessarily think the answer for any of these dog breeds is to wipe them off the planet--for one thing, I think that dogs serve as living memories and connection to our own histories for many of us, and those histories get real complex real fast. But I do think that being honest about the worst uses of dogs in history--and how our familiar modern dogs played into that history--helps to reduce the tendency to flinch away from attempts to reckon with our worse histories.

found this really cool article this morning about the history of the use of dogs to oppress BIPOC and particularly the use of the breed referred to variously as slave hounds and Cuban bloodhounds at the time, which was deliberately selected and trained as a weapon of terror. it's a horrifying history, but I think it's worth reading especially for American dog people as we face down a summer of police brutality that will come with the inevitable use of police dogs to perform the same terrorizing function—albeit with more in the way of fine grained, if often theoretical, control over the dog.

I still need to dig out sources to document the relationship between the Cuban Bloodhound and today's Fila Brasilero, because they are strong influences indeed. I am always thinking: what is the ethical underpinning of making the choice to preserve these dogs for the present day? Would it be better or worse to acknowledge their well documented history of colonial violence? We often keep dogs to preserve the parts of our culture and history we want to remember: what role does that play in the case of such a blood soaked, painful history of colonial terror?

Is the rebrand enough to justify keeping the dogs? How about breeds with Cuban bloodhound influence without being the modern form of the strain, such as Rhodesian Ridgebacks? How do the stories we tell about how dogs came to be help us form narratives about our own history?

[grison-in-space]

Blackwork Starburst. The fills fade a little bit toward the points of the star. My own design.

Pattern here (my site) or here (Etsy).