Janet’s Portuguese Water Dogs Looking Ahead

We’re wrapping up what I referred to in an earlier post, “An Eventful Year.” Yes it was. And not just for me, but for the Avian Community and the world. Not all of it was positive. Not all of it was a step in the right direction. But the learning that went on even during the worst of times was a positive thing.

I always like to look forward to the coming year in hopes that it will be better as a result of what I have learned and experienced. I like to be able to say that I know more now than I did a year ago. And I hope you all can very safely say the same. But what can we as an Avian Community do to make things better? How do we improve our lives and the lives of our flocks? Susan Friedman has a quote that she placed on the bottom of her emails by W. Edwards Deming:

 “Learning is not compulsory…neither is survival.”

I love this quote and while I find it astute, I find it humorous as well.  Even in Susan’s emails, she is forever the teacher. But if you think about it, in order to survive, animals are constantly having to shift with their environment, to adapt to what is happening around them or they perish. We should really follow their lead because they’re the ones getting it right. We’re the ones who are constantly trying to bend things to suit us and our lifestyle. We really need to become more “Gumbyish.”

If we began the new year learning more about diet, behavior and training, general care and enrichment, this will not only improve the lives of our birds, but in turn, our lives as well. And God knows I’m all for upgrades!

I’m not one for making any resolutions but I am one for thinking about stuff I want to accomplish in the coming year. One thing I’d like to do is take the American Federation of Aviculture’s “Fundamentals of Aviculture” online class. I think it would be very enightening and I know I’d learn a ton.

I also want to get more writing done. But then, I always want to get more writing done. 

I want to get my office straightened up. It used to look great. Now? Not so much. And no I’m not posting a photo…

I want to try and save more money. I’m pretty tight with a buck now as it is, but I could probably get tighter. Unfortunately I’m ruing the day that I discovered the “Kindle App” for my iPad. Amazon has never sold so many books to anyone since I did that. I warn you, it’s addictive.

But more than anything, I really want to get ahold of my life and really live it. Yes, I do that now, just as most of us do. But I’d like to get some things moving in the right direction and that is going to take a chuck of time, something I usually don’t have much of. So, I’ll just have to crowbar it in somewhere.

More than anything, I want people in aviculture to learn more about feeding their birds well. That is my hope for next year. I fully support positive reinforcement training, foraging, enrichment, great health care and Vet visits.

But as I once explained my zeal to someone who asked why I was so interested and enthusiastic about bird diet, “You can’t train a deceased bird.”

There’s other things I want to learn, to improve upon, to get better at.

Or as the Mad Hatter said to Alice, “You used to be much more… ‘muchier.’ You’ve lost your muchness.”

http://www.alice-in-wonderland.net/alice2a.html

I don’t want to lose my “muchness.” I simply want to be “Much more so.” Well, here’s to 2012 and “much more so.” May we all become “Muchier!”

http://www.alice-in-wonderland.net/alice2a.html

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