“You never regret being kind.” –Nicole Shepherd
If you’re a regular reader of the Doobert Caretaker blog, you know I always like to start out each blog with a quote. Some of them are from famous people you’ve heard of, and others are people that may be relatively unknown. Whether you know who Nicole Shepherd is nor not, these five simple words are very powerful when considered.
What I really like about this quote is how short and yet how thought provoking it actually is. How many 
times have we done something that we have later come to regret? Maybe we took out our frustrations on an animal adopter or chastised one of our newer rescue transport volunteers for not following protocol. Or maybe you scolded your own dog for something insignificant because you were frustrated by something else that happened that day. Whatever the case may be, you may have felt regret later for how you treated the other person or animal.
Being kind today is hard
Being kind is not an easy thing to do in our world today when we are surrounded by so much aggression and competition and negativity. Whether politics or morning traffic, co-workers or competing animal rescue groups, everyone seems to be looking to get ahead, get an edge or get a win. Rarely do you run into someone just doing a random act of kindness for someone else.
As many of you know, Ellen DeGeneres is a passionate animal lover and advocate but she is also a passionate kind person spreading humor and joy to all who watch her show. Her famous “Be kind to one another” signature sign-off at the end of every show is something that comes from her heart and truly exudes from her being. She truly loves spreading kindness and helping others and she encourages everyone else to do the same. Often she’ll run contests for random kindness acts where people send in videos of what they did to make someone else smile. I think we should do the same thing in animal welfare.
If you spread kindness to others, you will have nothing to regret. If you absorb their negative words or actions, and return them with kindness, you’ll feel even better about yourself. Give it a try and let us know how it works. We’d love to hear your stories.
