Wednesday, July 23, 2025

If you don't get this app, this dog might die


Kitty

     A dog cannot clear its throat, exactly. What Kitty, our little 15-year-old Shichon, does each morning is appear at my bedside about 6 a.m. and emit a low grumbling sound. My cue to get up, get dressed, pop in earbuds and take her for a walk.
     Center Avenue is empty at that hour. Tree-lined, nice houses. You'd think the pleasant vista of leafy suburban comfort, set to my favorite tunes, would put me in maximum good spirits.
      And it does, to the degree that anything can. Yet, after we return home, the first thing I do is fill her water bowl to the brim, thinking, "I want her to have plenty to drink in case we drop dead and nobody notices for days."
     A grim thought. And a rather improbable one — I mean, yes, people our age, mid-60s, do die abruptly. But the odds of both my wife and me  expiring at the same moment are slim. How would that even happen? An awful coincidence, perhaps. She steps in front of some idiot on an electric scooter blasting down a Loop sidewalk at the same moment I stumble headlong down the stairs at home.
     Morbid stuff. Where did that dog-dying-neglected thought even come from? I'd like to blame Gene Hackman — he and his wife died in February, unnoticed for over a week, and one of their dogs perished in a crate, horribly. But I was having this thought long before.
     Looking for relief, I wondered if there might not be some internet gizmo that will sound the alarm if you don't check in.
     Snug Safety is a cheerful, well-designed little app that sends a text every day at a set time with a big green button to tap. Fail to tap, and it alerts an emergency contact. Hit the button, and you're rewarded with an affirmative little quote.
     You can pay — $199.99 for a year, $19.99 for a month — for access to a human dispatcher. But the basic service is free.
      Every day, a big green button. Then the quote. First day:
     "We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men." — Herman Melville

To continue reading, click here.

If the headline rings a bell, yes, it is
an homage to this classic National 
Lampoon cover.




8 comments:

  1. I've used Snug for several years. I live alone and I'm not getting any younger. It is reassuring, it works, and it's free. It mitigates a mortal fear - dying alone and moldering for days before you are found - I know people it happened to and it's not a path I want to follow. I quickly started ignoring the Snug quotes - they seemed second rate and now I know why. One day you will forget to click on Snug and scare the bejeebers out of a loved one - it's a Snug rite of passage.

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  2. If you pay for the premium service do you get accurate quotes, or just more of the slapdash nobody-will-notice variety?

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  3. Good to know this is out there; I may buy one for myself at some stage of my life

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  4. “Be not too tame neither. “ Shakespeare

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  5. My wife would get so aggravated with me for musing upon mortality. You've been talking about dying for 10 years she would say. Well it WILL happen I would tell her.
    It's going to happen to EVERYONE she would retort. nothing special about you.

    If my dog was 15 I'd be more concerned about it than myself.

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  6. We were fortunate to have dogs in our lives since childhood. Dogs are one of the purest friends on earth. After we lost our last best friend and endured the incredible pain of loss only dog lovers know, we elected to go without for now. Yes, travel and everyday getaways are easier without the responsibility of taking care of a pet, but we sorely miss the joy our dogs brought to us everyday!

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  7. Carbon monoxide poisoning make sure you change your batteries in your detector

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  8. How about, "... Ah, youth is wasted on the wrong people!" Old man on his porch, It's A Wonderful Life.

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