Congratulations to NSLDN!!!

Today is the first anniversary of The Nova Scotia Lost Dog Network!  How are they celebrating?   By launching their lovely new website of course!  
They have also issued a press release to celebrate the day:Nova Scotia Lost Dog Network
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 11, 2012 - “More than a dog a day!”
The Nova Scotia Lost Dog Network is celebrating its FIRST anniversary. The Nova Scotia Lost Dog Network, which uses social media (Facebook, Twitter and it's website ns.lostdognetwork.com) to help bring missing dogs home has resolved 470 cases to date. That is well over a dog a day! Nothing the three founders, Ann and Heather Morrison and Janet Chernin ever anticipated last January when they started the network after the successful search for a Bernese Mountain Dog called Annie using Facebook.
Website redesign was necessary for the Nova Scotia Lost Dog Network due to its’ huge success and rapid growth in it’s first year. Implementing new ways to report lost or found dog information more efficiently. This allows for an almost self-service approach. The new Nova Scotia Lost Dog Network website will include a blog discussing important issues surrounding lost dogs such as prevention, animal behaviour, and community issues. The site will continue to provide a comprehensive list of resources for people to use in helping “bringing missing dogs home”.

With the Nova Scotia Lost Dog Network now reaching more than 4000 members the plight of lost dogs is changing in this province. Dogs once considered “strays” are now being considered a “lost dog needing help”. This change makes reuniting dogs with their owners much more likely. Keeping dogs out of shelters and rescues frees up space and resources for the dogs who truly need it. Co-operation from and with animal services, shelters and rescues has been a win-win situation for everyone - especially the dogs. Its’ easy for these services to match up dogs in their system with dogs on our site, making for possible faster reunions with happy owners.

High profile cases and extraordinary success stories have helped heighten the exposure of the Nova Scotia Lost Dog Network which relies on its over 4000 members to share the information they receive to bring missing dogs home. Cases such as that of Luna, the visiting dog from Austria who bolted at fireworks, and was flown home a week later, Buster, gone 9 months and returned home, safe and sound, and Bandit, despite several sightings is still missing. His owner and the network have never given up hope and the search continues.With the new website, Nova Scotia Lost Dog Network begins a new era in helping lost dogs in Nova Scotia. Our hopes for the future are to expand LostDogNetwork.com to include other communities in Canada and the US.

The Nova Scotia Lost Dog Network owes it’s success to, and would like to thank, all its volunteer members and all those who take the time to read and/or share a post of a lost or found dog - Helping “bringing missing dogs home”.
Yes indeed ... I really love these folks!   Inspired by the original social networking success story of Annie .... these volunteer kind hearts have really made miracles on a shoestring.
Four hundred and seventy dogs were reunited with the people who already love them.  Even better, those reunions kept hundreds of rescue slots open for genuinely homeless animals. 
Best of all of course is that The Nova Scotia Lost Dog Network has been educating folks along the way to "think lost, not stray"!
What time is it?  It is always time to congratulate those who conceive a great idea and have the commitment to carry it through to completion!
And that is how I see it on Wednesday, January 11th .... the FIFTY - SIXTH day since the dismissed shelter manager and the disbanded board created the renegade shelter.