Wrestling with change

Thirteen years ago, when my daughter graduated from high school, she used the money she received from family to buy her first computer. It was a sensible choice because even then, one couldn't complete any course at NSCC without being computer literate.
At the time she very generously offered to teach me how to use it. Why did I say no? Was I too busy? Was I unwilling to learn from someone less experienced than myself? Did I not recognize the potential of the darned thing?
If you checked all of the above, you would be closest to the mark.
Like many other compulsive a types .... I've always been a better driver than a passenger. But time went on and three years later I had to learn how to use the darned thing if I was going to get ahead in my career.
There are times when hard work and perseverance are simply not enough. At the end of the day, we learn and grow .... or we stagnate and are left behind.
When the concept of No Kill was introduced a few years ago, there was considerable resistance to the idea from the very folks who should have embraced it from the get go. But they were "up to their ass in alligators" and so had lost sight of the original objective ... which was of course to drain the swamp.
For No Kill ... real honest to gawd open admission no kill .... to succeed it takes a variety of "new' strategies. The wonderful thing is that many of these have already been proven successful elsewhere ... and that they are only really "new" here.
There have been so many pawsitive changes in animal rescue around NS this past year.... and none so evident that the willingness of different groups to change for the cats. This time of year, everyone is "bursting at the seams" with cats , so it is very good to see:

• the TLC Animal Shelter in Digby has reduced its cat adoption fees for July and August
• the LA Animal Shelter must have found its reduced cat adoption to be working, because they have been running a very reduced fee for months now
• here in the valley, CAPS is trying to boost its adult adoptions by taking the innovative step of charging a lower adoption fee for the adults and a higher fee for the kittens.
• instead of charging an adoption fee, P.E.T. PROJECTS asks adopters to make donations
• the Metro Shelter has reduced its cat adoption fee for adults that have been at the shelter for more than three weeks

What a wonderful time of year to have all these options open for adopters .... they could get to see a bit of our beautiful province on their way to find their new best friend.

If we are nowhere near No Kill Nova Scotia yet, we are certainly much further down the road than this time last year.

What time is it? Its time to embrace these new (but only to NS) suggestions and keep the original objective in sight.