Monday is Valentine’s Day, full of hearts and flowers, chocolate and champagne. It’s the time we are meant to show our love for our partners and our sweethearts.
I know that not everyone has a partner or a sweetheart. For some that don’t, it can be a sad day — a reminder of loneliness or lost love.
February is Black History Month, created to address the too often ignored — or suppressed — contribution of Black people to history. What better time to introduce you to two of the most important figures in the history of the animal welfare movement?
When I take my little shih tzu, Pepper, for a walk, we move quite slowly because he’s 12 years old. At the patch of grass by the end of the drive, I throw a few treats for him to find with his nose. Then we move on down the street, pausing often for him to sniff. Many dogs walk along the street every day so there are always lots of smells for him to take in. There’s a line of trees whose branches reach down close to the ground, just at his nose height, where he seems to sniff every needle on the tree. Despite the slow pace, he loves these short walks.
You may have missed it, but last Monday was the day known as Blue Monday. Marked on the third Monday in January, Blue Monday is a 2005 calculation of a number of factors which supposedly make it the most depressing day of the year.
The Association of Professional Dog Trainers has declared January to be National Train Your Dog Month – a month dedicated to sharing information about the importance of dog training. Of course, for dog trainers, every month is dog training month – training hardly ends after one month – but the more opportunities to contribute to these important conversations the better.
I don’t think any of us thought we would be returning to Stage 2 this year, and it’s a bit dishearteningly familiar. At the OHS, we have had to put our plans for the relaunch of our in-person programming on hold for now, but of course we’re maintaining services for the animals who really need us.
On the first day of 1942, in the midst of another tremendous global struggle, on a train speeding between Ottawa and Washington, Winston Churchill called his staff and reporters into the dining car to make a toast:
In 1897, Francis Pharcellus Church, an editorial writer for the New York Sun, wrote an iconic response to a letter from eight-year-old Virginia O’Hanlon. Virginia wanted to know if there is a Santa Claus. I hope Mr. Church will forgive me for taking liberties with his work.
I’ve been at the office since the onset of the pandemic. I’m just not a work-from-home guy. I’m an extrovert, and so I get energy from the people around me. I have to tell you, there is no stronger energy than that which comes from the people I work with at the Ottawa Humane Society.
This time of the year, I often think about Christmases when I was a kid. When I was very young, my parents would put up the tree after we went to bed, so Christmas morning was the first time we would see it. We had to wait until everyone was up and had to have breakfast before even going into the room. The anticipation of waiting to see the presents and the Christmas tree appear in the morning was excruciating.
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