www.houltonanimalshelter.com
I’d like to talk to you today about the Internet. I can remember (I’m going to age myself now) when the commodore Vic 20 first came out, I remember Atari, and I remember when Pac Man was cutting edge technology. It seems like just yesterday.
And then came the Internet, and suddenly the entire world is open to all of us. You don’t have to be rich to own a computer; you don’t even have to be particularly smart to run one — I have to admit to being totally computer illiterate when it comes to anything beyond plugging it in or using programs or surfing the web.
I have no idea how this works. It boggles my mind to think that I can Google “fund raising for animal shelters” and in less than the blink of an eye, I have 30 million hits.
The nice thing about computers and the Internet is that you don’t have to know how it works to use it. I leave all the technology stuff to my son, he’s the computer guru, and when I’m stuck, I just call him. The nice thing about computers is that it puts the world at your fingertips. And the wonderful thing about the Internet is that it connects each and every one of us to each other and the rest of the world.
The Houlton Humane Society is very fortunate to have a wonderful Web site on the Internet – www.houltonanimalshelter.com or www.houltonhumanesociety.com – either one will get you there. Our Webmaster is Darlene Kinney and she does this for us on a volunteer basis. Darlene is not only incredibly bright; she is also very “crafty” and has a way of doing graphics that really highlight the available information.
You can go on our website and see a list of members, tile donors, and photos of our pets available for adoption. There are links to various groups and organizations that donate portions of sales to our shelter and others. And there is pay-pal where you can make an on-line donation to the shelter without ever having to lick an envelope or buy a postage stamp.
Our site links to Petfinder.com, so that people from all over can go to just one sight and find a special animal to adopt. Last week we had over 600 hits to our animals via Petfinder – that is just so exciting to think that 600 people have looked at our photos and thought about adopting our pets. I like to joke sometimes that it’s either 600 different people or one person totally lost who went onto the site 600 times, but I would like to believe it was 600 people.
This really amazes me – here we are, tucked in this beautiful little corner of the world in this remarkably caring and loving community and people from Nova Scotia are calling us about our black lab. How would that be possible without the Internet?
When you have a minute, why not click on the website and look around, leave a message, and take the time to thank Darlene for all her hard work in keeping this site up to date. Maybe while you’re there, you’ll find a kitty or pooch to adopt!
