Updated definition + questionnaire.

Last week, after my secondary research, I found out that most of the articles I read about, when referring to "old cats", were considering cats with more than 7 years old. So I updated my research question taking into consideration 7 years old as the threshold. 

So my big problem now is: to decrease the number of older cats (> 7 years old) currently located in cats pounds in Italy in favor of adoption.

I have prepared the questionnaire to send to cat shelters: I already started sending it, and I already received some answers, but I am waiting on some more before posting the first results.

But today I want to share with you the questions that I asked them:

Questionnaire

·   Where is the cat shelter located?

·   Who is the supervisor? How many volunteers do you have? Is there any employee?

·  What kind of relationship do you have with the municipality? Do you receive subsidies?

· What kind of help do you receive from the outside?

·   How many cats over 7 years old do you have?

·   Are there people who specifically ask to adopt those cats? Can you

   show a percentage (even vague) of these people in comparison to

   the visits you receive?

·   Approximately, how many cats over 7 years old are adopted in 

   comparison to younger cats?

·   Do you promote in any way the adoption of older cats?

·   If yes, what you have done?

·   If no, why?

·   Do you know any initiative external to your shelter addressing this 

   issue?

·  Do you think that the adoption of older cats might have some sort of

  benefit on the shelter of a economic kind? Or is it just a moral

  issue?

Kind a flow of words..

What 15 minutes can lead to..

My Sunday in Pictures

The good start of a Sunday morning: a light breakfast, because I know I'm going to eat like a pig later, and catching up on YouTube videos.

Brunch time! It's been ages since I went to The Cheesecake Factory. This is the MonteCristo sandwich.. it was huge and I couldn't finish it!

Back to the reality, I spent 4 hours at the Starbucks in Mockingbird station, working at one of my presentation.. This one is going to be very difficult!

A glass half empty: previous initiatives

This week I've spent some time to examine in depth previous initiatives toward adult/old cats and their adoption in Italy.

Unfortunately, there have not been many and I found only two of them:

"I do not have the expiry date" Adopt an adult cat.

(source:http://www.telefonodifesaanimali.it/adotta-un-gatto-adulto/)

This initiative was published by the "Association Telephone Animals Safeguard", which is an entity mainly in charge of the safeguard and protection of pets, in particular stray cats. To support their slogan, they give 7 reasons for adopting an adult cat:

1. You adopt exactly what you see.
2. A cat with thousands of km is still brilliant.
3. An adult cat is not a chewer.
4. Kittens run innocently while an adult cat walks cagily.
5. Albert Einstein knew the truth about cats.
6. Kittens and children don't mix up.
7. It might be their last chance. 

Adopt a grandfather.

(source: http://nuovoflora.altervista.org/joomla/2-non-categorizzato/15-adotta-un-nonno)

This campaign was launched by the "Association for the safeguard of Villa Flora cats". They make a list of reasons to support it, most of which are the same of the previous campaign, and some are new, for example the fact that if you want to adopt a second cat, you might want to choose an older one because for your first cat it will imply less stress than with a new kitten.

I have also found a website, "Adopt an old cat".

(source: http://adottaungattoanziano.blogspot.com/p/info-e-contatti.html)

This website has the purpose of make aware the viewers about the conditions of the desperate needs of many old cats and, in one's own small way, encourage their adoption. It's basically a platform where you can find notices about old cats waiting to be adopted by someone; it is run by a woman, Barbara, who, of course, loves cats. It does not have a direct contact with shelters, instead people send to her information about the animals.

Research Plan: let's start saving the cats!

This week, in class, we talked about our own "big problem" how we should refine its definition and the aspect of it that we want to solve.

For what concerns my problem, I understood that the possible solution for it would be beneficial not only to my city, Milan, but to all Italy; so I decided to broaden my definition to the entire Country. The definition of my big problem is: to decrease the number of older cats (> 5 years old) currently located in cats pounds in Italy in favor of adoption.

There is also another issue that was raised during class: is there a reason, apart from a moral one, why this problem should be solved? For example, is this going to help the city where the pound is located, so that its financial contribution is going to be decreased? 

I actually don't know if this is a possible consequence of the resolution, because I'm not sure about what kind of connection there is between pounds and municipality. This is something that I need to discover during my research, and that is why I need a research plan in order to organize my time and my work.

I think that for my problem I need both a primary and secondary research. For next week, I'm going to look into previous work about this topic, if someone tried to actually solve this problem in the past. Then, for my primary research, I need to do two things: 

• a survey to understand the behavior of a person towards this issue, conducted through Facebook and other social media, 
• another survey addressed to cats pounds in order to understand what is the real situation regarding this issue. Of course, since I'm taking into consideration the entire Country, I have to choose pounds located in different area, and so I have to do first a research and then pick some of them. 

For the primary research, I think it is going to take more time, especially because I have to take into consideration the possibility that someone might not answer my questions, and in that case I have to consider another pounds; so it is going to take, I think, 3-4 weeks on average. 

Big Problem #1: Pounds and not-so-much-anymore Puppies

I would like to present you my cat, Tiffany. Isn't she beautiful?

Yes she is, very much actually. My grandparents had a cat, Violante, for a long time, and when unfortunately she passed away, they decided to get a new cat. As for Violante, they didn't go in a shop or in a fancy place where all the cats are beautiful and are already living a perfect life, but they went in a pound. 

These places are run by a group of people who takes care of the animals because they love them, and they sacrifice their free time for their care. You don't usually find the perfect animals in those places, but you can see through their eyes that what they are waiting for every day is a family, a cozy place to rest, and love.

When I was thinking about a "big" problem that I really care about, I immediately thought about those animals inside the cages, and especially about those older animals, usually above 5 years old, that are always rejected in favor of the puppies. I think this is really sad, because even if those animals are not so young anymore, that doesn't mean that they don't want to play or that they are not going to be the perfect best friend for you!

While I was researching on the web about this topic, I found a lot of websites encouraging the adoption of adult cats (and dogs), but I haven't found something that really moved me.. and I think this is not ok because every person thinking about adoption should not reject this possibility, or even never take that into consideration.

ThinkerToys - Challenges

For this week post, I'm going to answer to 5 questions from the ones listed in the chapter "Challenges" of the book "ThinkerToys" by Michael Michalko.

In the chapter, the author suggests those questions as a starting point in order to understand which problems we care about more and so we should solve sooner than others. The all situation is related to a work environment, but since I'm not currently working, I'm going to answer the questions as a student, "working" in the university environment.

What would you like to do better?

I would love to be better at exploit time: I can easily waste a day without accomplish any goal because it's very easy for me to lose attention, and since I'm very lazy It's difficult for me to be back on track once I'm doing something else that I enjoy more.

What excites you in your work?

I think what excites me the most is when I can share my opinions of what I'm studying with my classmates and friends, and we are all interested in the same topic, and even if we don't have the same opinions, it's still a constructive conversation. It's a much more funnier part than the "study and write an essay" part of university.

What angers you at work?

I'm not a very patient person, and what used to make me very angry was when I studied math and sometimes I couldn't understand the rules; more than once I burst into tears because I felt very frustrated. Now I don't have anything that makes me that angry; maybe only when I have to write long essays, which are definitely not my favorite kind of assignments.

What are your unfulfilled goals?

Every september, with the start of the new year at school, I always made the resolution of being the perfect student: always do my homework, always be prepared for class and for possible pop quiz. Of course, that never happened. When I started university, I got a little better at keep my resolution, but still not 100%. 

What is too complicated?

As I wrote before, I'm a lazy person. This is a very bad attitude for a student, because it's easy for me to say that something I have to study is too complicated. It doesn't have to be that complex for me: when I see that the solution is not around the corner, but I have to do some work to see it, I immediately feel overwhelmed, and what I would be able to do in 1 hour, it takes me a day, because I keep losing the attention.