Thanks to everyone who is working so hard both behind the scenes and on the list to make this a safe place to discuss behavioural euthanasia. Everyone is doing a terrific job so far, but we have had over 100 new members in the past week, so I want to take a moment to discuss the culture here; what it is, how it works, and what you can do to keep it as the terrific place that it had been.

The first thing is what I mean by culture. Culture is our shared behaviour; how we interact. More than following the rules, it is about following the spirit of the rules. Our rules are simple because we want to be clear, but we don't want to get tangled up in if something is against the rules or not. In short, we have set up rules to help us to keep this as a safe place to disclose the details we may not be safe disclosing to others.

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February 19, 2019

Good Work Lulus. Over thirteen hundred members, and thousands of posts and comments, and for the very most part everyone "gets" it and moderating is relatively easy! Although we have to moderate, comment on and periodically delete most of you understand not only the rules but the spirit of the rules and you are doing an excellent job of making sure that everyone is getting a like, heart or tears to each and every post and that 100% of posts are getting supportive and caring comments. Keep up your compassion! You are doing great.

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March 6, 2019

I have been thinking this morning about how to read. Not just looking at the letters and words and paragraphs and putting meaning to what is on the screen, but how to read what people intend. What we write is important for sure but how we read is equally important.

On Losing Lulu, we try and make sure that every post that is put up gets a response (like, heart or sad is best because those are usually the kindest emojis) right away and an appropriate kind comment from someone as soon as possible. You can help! As a member, if you are reading at 3 in the morning and none of the admin staff are here, you can do that. It will really help someone who is sharing their story, often for the very first time. So we are all practicing how to write kindly. The question is...are we also practicing how to read kindly?

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February 21, 2019

Second guessing is a killer. We all do it and we do it all the time. It can become a habit really quickly. Did I really need to have a piece of bread for breakfast? I mean I know it is yummy and homemade...but really bread? What happened to my good intentions to eat fruit and cheese in the morning? Or at least porridge. Why? Why do I make these bad choices? And what about starting that book at bedtime last night? Should you have done that? Because you know that keeps you up all night! Do you not want to start the week on a full tank? How about that craft workshop last week? Did you really need to go? And just what did that get you? A headache? Yes! And you missed work on Sunday because of it! See? One little nag and soon I am down the rabbit hole of self flagellation and doubt. And guess what? It is worse when someone else questions our intentions!

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March 4, 2019

Being triggered is REALLY hard.

Most of you don't know me well, but some of you do, and some of you may remember me at a conference in the company of my psychiatric service dog D'fer (pronounced Dee Fur). D'fer, or Deefie, helped me with my anxiety, depression and PTSD. I lived with these symptoms for most of my life, and he really made it possible for me to cope, especially when I was triggered. There were a couple of really tough ones for me. The two that could make me turn into a puddle were being a passenger in a car and having someone cut us off, or having the driver need to take evasive action, and having a crowd of teenaged girls approach me. Either of those events could send me into a complete tail spin and could ruin the rest of my day...or sometimes the rest of my week. I understand the seriousness of being triggered.

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March 9, 2019

The Administrators, Moderators and Ambassadors have been getting more questions lately about the rational behind some of how we do things works. Here is a story to help you understand the culture here a little more clearly. Please note: this is perhaps the longest thing I have written for Losing Lulu, at almost 3000 words, but if you persevere through it all, you are going to learn a lot about hippos and the culture of our list and what to do to help support the wonderful place this has become. If you are new to Lulu, or if you want to make sure that you really understand the culture, please take the time to read this. It is in depth, comprehensive and I hope somewhat amusing.

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March 21, 2019

Today I want to give a shout out to the "helpers". The people around us who helped us when we lost our Lulu. The people who often suffer right alongside of us, but who often don't get any recognition. Sometimes in fact they get slammed. Sometimes they are called nasty names and those are rarely deserved. Who are these folks? I have a list.

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March 25, 2019

Another long one folks. Please read. Please read to the end.

We are all in the same boat. I picture that boat as a red canoe. It is a beautiful boat, and we can all go incredible places together, once we understand a little bit about the boat. Now, full disclosure here, I am VERY serious about how I paddle a canoe, and I will be the first to tell you that it is not always fun to paddle with me. I have "ways" that things need to be done and if you don't do them that way, I get annoyed. That is in fact why I am VERY discriminating on who I paddle with and where we go. Let me teach you a little bit about paddling the canoe, and I am going to share how that relates to Losing Lulu.

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March 29, 2019

This week as I have been reading all the posts, I began to think about how Losing Lulu has changed me. I am finding that I am kinder because I have to model reading and writing kindly (if you don't know what I mean, reread some of the essays in the announcement section; I talk about that a lot). I don't have the luxury here of assuming anything bad from what people write; I have to read kindly in order to keep the list kind. And I have to write kindly because the people who post are hurting. Losing Lulu has made me more kind.

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April 8, 2019

t is really different. Really. I have spent the past month away from work, home and everything that I know. I don’t ride Kayak, or play with Friday. I don’t see John or talk to my friends online. It is different. And different gives me perspective. Probably the biggest difference is the time I spend in the back country. This year I spent 21 days in the back country, paddling around, looking at stuff, doing my dishes and laundry by hand, fishing and generally having adventures. I do this alone, all by myself and if I could have, I would have taken a lot more than 21 days this year; I felt like I was just getting the hang of things when I had to come back into the world. Different is the theme of this hippo essay. By the way, if you don’t know what a hippo essay is, please go into the file where we keep those and read them. Yes, some of them are long, but they are really important, so if you haven’t read them or if you are new, please go in and have a look.

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July 8, 2019

We are here, together, in this group because of the loss of our hippos due to a choice made to euthanize them rooted in behavior concerns. Many of us here on Losing Lulu have experienced various kinds of grief in our lifetimes in addition to the loss of our hippos. We have lost not only individuals, whether human, non-human, or otherwise, but we also lost the relationships we shared with those who are no longer with us. When a relationship – a shared experience – ends, we grieve that emptiness on the other end of that relationship

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July 13, 2019

As we approach 5000 members, I have realized that it has been a while since I have needed to write a “hippo essay”. If you don’t know what those are, go to the announcements section and look at the discussion of our culture and all the links to the Hippo Essays. This is because for the very most part we have worked through the glitches and most people understand the culture here. For the very most part, everyone adheres to #keepitkind and that is core to our success. Lately though, we have been getting more and more people on the list who are considering euthanizing or even waiting for an appointment to euthanize a beloved hippo and some of these folks have not read the Hippo Essays and they either don’t know the rules or don’t understand the culture here. It is really hard! We have very simple rules and a very strong and supportive culture that only works when we all work together to follow the rules and maintain the culture. Part of following the rules includes that modmin team immediately addressing any broken rules. And that is where things get really tricky!

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January 11, 2020

Losing Lulu is a really special place to land. No one wants to need to be here, but if you need to be here, it is a pretty good place to be. There is a reason for this. The reason is simply that we had a vision for a very specific culture and then we put in place the rules of the road to make that happen. We have a small problem lately that the modmin team anticipates will likely grow, so I am going to write a Hippo Essay to address that problem. I am going to outline the issue and then outline the things we need you to do to help us to maintain the wonderful culture we have here.

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January 18, 2020

As the group continues to grow, we have noticed an increase in people trying to post and/or comment about their Living Potential Lulus – animals for whom behavioral euthanasia is being considered. Since this is strictly against our rules, these posts are declined and comments are deleted. The purpose of this post is explain to those who are new to the group why we are so strict about enforcing this rule, and why it is important to maintaining the culture of Losing Lulu.

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February 11, 2020

From time to time, I sit down and put out some thoughts related to current events on Losing Lulu; if you have been here for awhile, you will have read these “hippo” essays. I haven’t needed to write one for awhile, but today I feel the need. In case you are wondering why these are called hippo essays, there is a whole story about that and you can find it at ( https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10161624162125788...) . It has nothing to do with the nickname of hippo that is sometimes applied to pit bulls. It actually refers to the Hippopotamus as being emblematic of the companion animal who just would not make a particularly good pet.

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May 14, 2020

This week has been crazy busy on Losing Lulu. So many people are grieving and on top of that everyone in the world is impacted in one way or another by the Quarantine. Either you are going in, or you are in or you are coming out and no matter where you are in the cycle, you are likely uncertain about what is happening and how stressed everyone around you is. In various places around the world, we are seeing civil unrest, and that is hard to cope with too. This means that not everyone has enough spoons to carefully consider their responses. This means that the modmin or moderation/administration team has had to be extra vigilant on Losing Lulu. We are working really hard to keep things safe for everyone, and to help people to understand why we work the way we do here on Losing Lulu, so I am going to ask everyone to please, go back and reread all the hippo essays (you can even find out why we call these “hippo” essays and it has nothing to do with pit bulls!)

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June 1, 2020

Perhaps my favourite internet meme of all time is a picture of Abraham Lincoln with the quote “Don’t believe everything you read on the internet” attributed to him. Now, in case you happen to not live in North America, and you don’t really know why this is very funny let me explain. Abraham Lincoln lived in the 1800s. He was the president of the United States during the American Civil War and he was assassinated shortly before the war ended. He was well known for pithy and often erudite quotations about all sorts of things. “You can please some of the people, some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can’t please all of the people, all of the time” was one of his. That is one of my favourite quotes! So, although Mr. Lincoln might have had something relevant to say about the internet, he could not have done so because he died long before the internet, or indeed, even the telephone was invented.

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June 14, 2020

Just a gentle reminder folks that this group runs on kindness, and sometimes a little goes a long way. Can I ask everyone to please comment a few times on posts? I am noticing that the very dramatic posts get lots of comments, and sometimes the ones that are just a few words get almost none. Commenting brings so much comfort and the modmin team try and make sure that every post gets a comment within the first hour that it goes up, but with the list being so busy lately, that can get tricky for us to keep up. Thanks so much everyone. You are all the best. #keepitkind

June 29, 2020

DescripWhat a wild ride! As we approach 7000 members, I am prompted to write again and remind us all about what Losing Lulu is all about. It is a bit tricky you see, because of what I think of as me, you and us. In any relationship, I am going to see my point of view, and you (whomever you might be!) are going to see your point of view and we, together are going to see a joint point of view. What does this mean for Lulu? It means that we need to recognize that within certain parameters, each of us sees this place a little differently. We do need to know some basics however. Let me give you an example.

If you want to go to a baseball game, you are going to REALLY surprised if there is a large sheet of ice and a few dozen men on skates with hockey sticks. No matter how much I might tell you that it is a baseball game, you are most likely going to tell me that it looks a whole lot more like a hockey game! We, together, might have to discuss what we are each seeing, and then come to a joint decision about what it is that we are looking at!

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August 14, 2020

Once in a while I tour through Losing Lulu and take note of how things are running. Is everyone doing okay? Are we being kind enough? Does everyone have a good feel for the culture here? Do people need some support to get it right? Is it time for another hippo essay? Mostly the answers are in line with what I hope. Everyone is doing as well as possible under the circumstances. Most people are being extra kind. Mostly the culture is ticking along and doing what it ought to. Most people are getting it right and the modmin team is helping those who need. And most of the time we don't need another hippo essay. This week though, we have had a string of posts and responses that prompt me to reach out with a (hopefully!) short hippo essay.

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December 6, 2020

Just a gentle reminder everyone. We are here for grief support after the loss of an animal friend or family member due to a behaviour problem. I lost my beloved mare, Kayak two years ago. Trish lost Lulu, her dog. Most of you have lost a dog, but we have also had losses of rats, cats, a llama, a snake, birds and rabbits. We also have allies; professionals who have worked with us, shelter workers, and sometimes sisters, mothers, brothers, dads, friends, and aunties. This is a gentle and sensitive place to be. It is very important to READ THE RULES and play according to them. We are having a bit of trouble with two of our rules. Be kind. Don't screen share.

Please note that unkind posts, even borderline unkind posts are removed, and sometimes Facebook does not give us the option to reach out to you to explain why your reply may have been removed.

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September 22, 2021

3000. That is an awfully big number! When I started this group last January, I never expected how much it would change my life, the lives of my friends and touch so many people all over the world. I am simply amazed. Thank you to every one of you who came here, either because you needed some help, or because you are a member of a profession touched by behavioural euthanasia, or because you are genuinely concerned for a friend or family member who has been directly touched by behavioural euthanasia. Each and every one of you has contributed in some way to making Losing Lulu what it is today. On the occasion of our 3000-a-versary, I want to talk a little bit about inclusion, language and the culture of this special place.

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September 28, 2021