proven formula

"One person can't do it all."  "You can't save all of them."  So many friends and family members have told me these things.  When it comes to dogs and cats, it's true.  *I* cannot save them all.  *You* cannot save them all."  But *together*, we can save a lot of them, maybe even all of them.

In communities all across the United States, people are saving virtually all the dogs and cats whose only crime is being homeless.  In late July 2011 I attended the No Kill Conference in Washington DC.  I learned that there are more than 17 million cats and dogs likely to be adopted or purchased each year, and about 4 million killed in shelters every year.  Even if a shelter or pound or animal rescue never kills another companion animal, there are plenty of homes for all of them.  We--you and I--just need to imagine how to better connect with those homes.  If we eliminate killing (aka "euthanasia," "putting to sleep") as an option, we will come up with alternatives.

See the "No Kill 101" primer about 3/4 of the way down the page at http://www.rescue50.org/groups.html for the .pdf that gives me hope.

another 7 easy things I learned at the 2011 No Kill Conference

• people like to hear stories: aha moments, when did your life change, when did you realize your calling, etc.
• engage callers and online questioners (like a library reference interview!), don't just answer their questions.  "What attracts you to Joe-Joe the Boy-Faced Dog?"  "What size dog are you looking for?"  Not just "Sorry, Joe-Joe has been adopted."
• Scolding. Doesn't. Help.  Yeah, I guess I knew this already, but important to not alienate someone who is reaching out for help.  Today's surrenderer can be tomorrow's advocate... every moment is a teachable one.
• I did not know that The Dog Who Loved Too Much is a good read to help with separation anxiety.
• embarrassed to say I didn't "get" blogging as citizen journalism, even today's investigative journalism.  Figured it was just about venting.
• MAKE yourself an expert. Stop waiting around for instructions.
• there are more reporters who have NOT familiar with animal welfare... plenty of fertile ground.

7 easy things I learned at the 2011 No Kill Conference

In no particular order.

• We don't need more believers. We need believers who are more committed.  find 25 super-committed donors/supporters rather than 1000 average ones.
• social networking operates like buying beer at a baseball game or a mosh pit.  people *want* to do the right thing.  makes it easier that most people want to do the right thing for pets.
• Seth Godin is awesome
• a 9-second soundbite is roughly 140 characters... practice our elevator speeches on Twitter.  repetition is OK, and assume anyone who reads your group's newsletter/news/info is reading it for the first time.
• "why should I give you money?"
• 1 great photo is better than 5 bad ones. photos of animals interacting with kids, old people, married couples, military are all good.
• profile donors, not board members. less "please," more "thank you."  make titles and captions meaningful.

future shocks

Dreamed last night that (a la Groundhog Day), I was "sentenced" to live each day in some alternative future. Examples: water became crystallized all over the earth, so there were whole factories devoted to re-liquifying it to drink. Though some people had evolved to not need water. You could interview famous people "virtually," to the point that no one knew anymore whether the person they were talking to was alive or dead/image.

Collections and organizing them

I was thinking about blogs/thoughts as collections, and how they are kind of similar to museums... in that there really isn't a comprehensive way to go about looking at them all. But then maybe I'm the only one who gets lost in museums... there is rarely a left-to-right, now you're done characteristic to museums, so you can never see it all.

Of course, sitting here thinking about exhibits changing behind you, I guess book collections are the same way, adding and weeding parts of the collection all the time.

I think the reason I was thinking that there will have to be a way to just reach out and touch (with a thought) the desired knowledge, is that there's no way, and really no reason, to collect every single blog/thought together in one place. Maybe once we break that barrier, the great Alexandrian library will just be in the "plane" with us. Need to build a sundial? here are the plans. Need to know why he wants to build a sundial? here ya go. All of our current systems of categorization are so cumbersome, try so hard to control the information, when it's obviously growing beyond any control. The google idea of searching has to be pretty close to the next level, to reaching out to grab a piece of knowledge. Just a matter of using the software with more interfaces than keyboards and eyes (voice recognition, brain/thought waves).

OK, so last night I took this bromide sniffer capsule for my cough, and had a total manic episode. Good thing I'm not a talker. Among the many many things in my head, all of which seemed terribly profound at the time:

talk radio programs and blogs as thoughts-- a step toward having the noise of our thoughts manifested all around us. Even "tags" will become cumbersome to organize thoughts. I kept thinking about chatter, and streams of thoughts, and that eventually we'll rub through that hole in the brain to where all the unused bits are, and be able to just reach out and grab the bit of info we need at the time. Maybe society is getting "louder" in terms of information production, in anticipation of reaching that tipping point.

Which led me to think about "knowing" vs. "learning." That is, all those random bits of useless knowledge that we keep with us, vs. the process of getting a degree or license requiring some specialized learning. Knowledge seems to be more about referencing, whereas learning seems to be more about skills that we have to keep sharp.

Also I was thinking about weird physical feelings. Sometimes before you go to sleep your legs feel a million miles away, but still attached to you. Kind of akin to dreams in which you fly. Wonder if either of these sensations is related to manic-type episodes?

Good dog names

Taffy
Zuzu
Yella
Yasmin
Geddy
Maya
Fritz
Fiji

Famous people blogging

Whenever I see something in the news about people posting stuff "in public," or even keeping a diary, I think *what* were they thinking? And it seems like most of us (even the slackers) have plenty to do without throwing more words out there. Yet the need to be heard (or maybe to talk to ourselves without *actually* being heard) is clearly strong. Why aren't we writing thank-you notes or books or other genres that might make us mom-points or money?

I dunno. Sounds like fun though, especially after being home sick for 5 days. I'm a little hoarse from talking to just the dogs (and of course myself), and I think I've gone as far as I can go (level 16) on Pac the Man. I'm midway through WHAT ARE OLD PEOPLE FOR and the July issue of DWELL.