Today is fall pickup in my neighbourhood. Unlike the 'city folk' who need the sanction of an actual freecycle day, around here there is an etiquette to spring and fall pickup to encourage recycling. Its understood that one man's trash often is another one's treasure and so items are displayed for easy access and high value items are put out early for people to peruse. Everyone slows down to look and over the years I've found all sorts of Very Useful Things. Used carpet underlay works equally well as underlay for pond liners. From tomato cages to toddler beds, its almost as good as Kijiji for finding and recycling things.
At the risk of sounding like a stuck record ... I still maintain that Kijiji is no place for the traffic of living breathing sentient beings. People who wouldn't want their neighbours to know how casual they are about the whole commitment thing don't hesitate to avail themselves of the anonymity of Kijiji. People who wouldn't dare put their pets at the end of the driveway don't hesitate to put them in the online ad sites.
I love my eldercat. I was just forty when she showed up, and at the time my vet thought she was three or four. She could easily pass for a purebred Burmese and at some point before we met, somebody thought enough of her to have her spayed.
Honestly, I don't know what is sadder ... the unaltered youngsters and their offspring who are tossed by the wayside or the more mature adults who have suddenly been left in the lurch.
If people can understand that responsible pet care includes getting the cat fixed, why is it still such a hard sell to convince some to keep their pets through all of the normal bits of living?
It is part of life's journey to meet new partners, get married, have children, change jobs and move. Its called living. And before the keyboards catch on fire, yes I know that many people are responsible pet owners .. but we wouldn't be in the situation we are in with the kitties if everyone kept their pets for life, eh?
There are no easy answers, but it is disturbing to see the "if we can't beat them join them' school of thought that seems to be emerging about placing rescue ads in Kijiji.
Even the society seems to be considering the matter ... in the online minutes of their Aug 30 meeting there was, according to item 7, some discussion of "using the Kijiji online service to promote adoptions"
Seriously? How is possible in one breath to ridicule the Benoit's ad selling their house while having a discussion about using the same venue as the Benoit's to promote pet adoption?
Of course the board has bigger fish to fry as they are having a serious problem getting some of the branches to come to the provincial board meetings. And before the keyboards catch on fire about THAT, nobody has to leave the farm so to speak as they all have the conference call option. It has been such a recurring problem that more than one branch president is on the verge of losing provincial voting status as a result. ( The subject of how one branch president miraculously dodged this by attending the last meeting is an interesting one that would be sheer speculation to dwell on )
But I AM wandering afield here and want to get back to the kitties. For the longest time I have been wondering how to give the kitties more exposure on the homeless pet site. The numbers are so staggering that without having staff it simply hasn't been possible to present them in the same way as the dogs.
I'm a middle aged granny not a professional webcrafter and have been sharpening my skills along the way ... and I finally think I have a found a way to get all the individual kitties faces on the site.
I'm in the process now of building Cat Galleries for each group who rescue cats. Its manageable if I do this by group and so even if I can't hyperlink each individual listing, there are contact links with each gallery
When the galleries are finished, I'll put a drop down slideshow sampler on the front door to add a little extra attention to them
If its not everything that it should be, its a step in the right direction. We do, after all have a pretty good volunteer network of kind hearts who would be more than willing to help kitties get to approved adopters.
What time is it? Its always time to remember that as adorable as it may seem to watch Red Green reruns where everything can be fixed with duct tape, not everything is that easy or simple
Your cat will never threaten your popularity by barking at three in the morning. He won't attack the mailman or eat the drapes, although he may climb the drapes to see how the room looks from the ceiling. ~Helen Powers
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