Thanks so much for all your help!! I've printed each one of your answers and we've showed them to Daisy's mom. Only time will tell if she follows any one of them. She did say she's afraid to muzzle her because if another dog goes after her, she won't be able to defend herself. But Daisy is not a fighter, so I don't think she'd be that frustrated -- it beats having the owner freak out and yell at her and then ban her from the dog park -- anyway, we'll see what happens. I hate to hear she's not coming to the dog park -- she's half Beagle and I think half Lab -- quite a mix, looks like a Beagle on steroids -- LOL, but just the SWEETEST dog, and she and my pup, Wilbur, a Shih Tzu, are best buds. So I hope the owner takes one of your suggestions. Thanks again so much for your input!! This forum is the BEST!!

Actually I had it occur twice from the same bag AFTER we purchased it. Oddly enough it not in the actual bag but in the container we store the dog food in for easier access. The maggots may have been another type of worm since they looked really small. Oddly enough the suspected and mysterious bugs were only in the cup we used to scoop out the dog food. There were no maggots in the actual dog food itself so we thought it was just in the cup. A few days later again they were in just the cup. I was not as alarmed as my girlfriend was because they were really little and in the cup. She wanted to throw the entire bag away while I was still just trying to figure out what was going on. In order to fix this problem without throwing the dog food away, the container we have is now in the freezer. Since only the container would get them and knowing there was no way they could get in inside the actual kibbles and in the freezer, that is what we have done. The girlfriend is happy because there are no more bugs, I am happy that we did not have to waste the bag, but not sure how the puppies feel about the cold dog food. They do still gobble it up right away so the need to even warm it up or leave at room temperature is not needed. Hope this helps....although the case is still out about where the heck they got in there. I will add to the post if they make it into the freezer. ;)

We're in contract The difference in NYC (over other places) is that the contract comes SO late. All the negotiating (cut in price to compensate for inspection issues, etc.) is done BEFORE the deal is enforceable. In other areas, those things are done to modify the original contract. But in other states, there is still a little bit of time where the circumstance you describe could happen. Verbal communication saying that "the contract will be signed," and then the signer changes his mind. i've seen many posts here about people who say, "we submitted our bid, and we heard they're accepting, but we don't have the signed contract yet." Often that could happen over the weekend even in another jurisdiction! The agent looks at the offers on Saturday, talks w/ the owners, notifies the buyers of the end result (not price, but yea/nay)--but the sellers aren't in the office to put their signature on the paper. So one of the buyers comes back w/ a lot more money early on Monday morning, and the sellers get told about it when they come in to sign the other contract. Not being idiots, they take the new offer. Sorry and all that, but this is business. And it's not like the disappointed seller has lost that much--it was just the WEEKEND. What, 48 hours at most, and one of them was a Sunday? She didn't pay for an inspection. She didn't pass up lots and lots of other homes because she thought she had this one. There weren't any *real* damages in the legal or financial sense. The process of buying an apartment (and don't say "for an apartment?" christopherh. They are the ONLY HOMES YOU CAN BUY in many neighborhoods of the city; we do not HAVE single family homes in many of our neighborhoods. Or if we do, they are three times the price of an apartment, or more--my apartment in such a neighborhood is supposedly worth $450k; a 3BR is worth $575k, and we're considered "affordable"), esp. in NYC where it is likely to be a co-op instead of a condo, is three months minimum, and usually at least a month between offer and signed contract. So the seller is disappointed, but she is not actually OUT anything. She was not at all damaged, except emotionally. As for damages, if a true contract is breached-- If you sue the seller for "specific performance," you can win. As long as there's not some contingency they can use to squeak out of it (and most contingencies are for the BUYER, not for the seller). You could perhaps use that threat to negotiate letting them out of the contract. You could say, "we will not sue you, if you will pay us the equivalent of OUR deposit, to compensate us for the time we lost trying to buy your house." *maybe* just *maybe* a judge wouldn't find in your favor, but I highly doubt it. If they didn't, you could prove damages in terms of the market going up, your inspection money, and the time you lost. HOWEVER, as you noted, in many instances, if a buyer has to back out bcs of an unpreventable disasters, a seller will refund the deposit out of a sense of karma. and likewise, buyers who see that the seller has had a disaster, will often agree to dissolve the contract out that same sense of karma. They may ask for the reimbursement of true monetary losses.

oh wow, nannygoat! talk about getting caught red **handed**!! olivia's teeth are none the worse for wear and i, too, got a good laugh out of it. ya know, it's just "stuff". in the grand scheme of things, "stuff" isn't all that important to me. i mean, i like to have nice "stuff" and i do go to great pains to keep my "stuff" nice but still, it's just "stuff". it doesn't compare to the delight i feel when i see my 9 year old great dane having the time of her life! <3 socks, i had no idea there would be performing pigs in the circus. how funny! my pigs eat pellets specially made for pot bellied pigs. they love fruit of any kind (they will nibble on the rinds but when they get dried up, i toss them over the fence for the coons and possums to finish). they also love anything sweet, most especially marshmallows. lilly takes rimadyl for arthritis and all i have to do is poke the pill into a big marshmallow and it goes right down the hatch. try as i might, i can't get any of them to eat veggies except canned green beans!