July 20, 2011

An Important Message to Animal Rescue Networkers …

I know I’m often guilty of wanting to live in a perfect world. Especially when it comes to animal rescue. I want all pets to be safe, loved, and to have a home. I want to see more people involved in their local community volunteering with rescues and shelters using their unique talents to truly make a difference. I want Texas to be no kill and for people to really understand what that means – and what that does not mean. I want for Man to remember to ‘care for the least of these’ in response to the animals entrusted to our care. In my perfect world, there would be no more animal cruelty, unwanted pets, nor any untreated injured or sick pets. I believe there are others that share this dream of the perfect world.

But sadly, we do not live in a perfect world. And I’ve come to learn there are few absolutes. That is true in animal rescue too. Not every person that collects money through a chipin or for a pet transport will be honorable; sadly, I’ve received too many reports about this (which is one more reason why I’m such a stickler for how we raise funds on Pawsitively Texas). Today, I received word of another sad story where someone took things too far. A case of misdirected compassion. I’ve asked permission to share this story because it is something very important to us in rescue in order to save as many lives as possible. And how failure to be aware of our actions, can actually harm the precious pets we work so hard to save.

Patty is an employee with Austin Pets Alive! This is a very pro-active Austin rescue that works to save lives as well as keep them from ever entering a shelter. They have a program called P.A.S.S. that Patty manages full-time. She works several days each week at the city shelter, meeting with owners who wish to surrender their pets. She has a challenging job of educating pet owners as to the possible fate of their pet and asking if they’ll hold onto the pet a little longer while she assertively networks the pet with the hopes that a Rescue or Adopter will be found to save the pet. On Pawsitively Texas she recently shared Boomer, a dog whose family had to surrender him due to their child’s allergies, it was doctor’s orders that the dog must go. So Patty posted him and many of us networked him.

A lot of people offered helpful suggestions with hope the family might be able to keep him. In Patty’s role, she must use discretion in what she shares openly about a family’s personal circumstances; it’s not a casual or short conversation, she speaks with them at length and she learns of other critical issues the family is facing. She just doesn’t share everything in the public forum we have in Facebook, so we don’t always know the full story, only that a pet is in need and we have a chance to help get the word out.

For some of us, with our compassionate heart desiring that perfect world, we have a hard time understanding why a person, a family, can’t do as we would. And that’s where this particular situation grew worse. Someone took it upon themselves to use the contact information given to help Boomer and attacked the Andrew, the pet owner, for the heartbreaking decision his family faced. I’m not sure if this person subscribes to Pawsitively Texas or not; I don’t know who  they are. But, I know this person took it so far as to create an email address they used to contact the owner, “yousuckandrew@___.com” and then shared their angry feelings about the family’s situation in surrendering their pet. To me, that time would definitely have been better spent networking Boomer.

Understandably, the owner was very upset. He asked Patty to remove all posts for Boomer. By removing the posts for Boomer, his chances for rescue or adoption diminish greatly  – which is something nobody wants. But sadly, Andrew’s request was fair given the hate message someone emailed him.

In my conversation with Patty, she said “People don’t realize that hateful messages to the wrong owner can actually get a dog physically harmed. I’ve seen it happen. I’ve had people come to the shelter and if they get pissed off they will stop listening and just threaten to go “shoot it myself” or just go “open the door and let the damn dog out.” I get as angry (or angrier) as everyone else but I have to remain professional for the sake of the animals involved and I have found that if you treat people with a shred of decency and dignity, even if they don’t deserve it, the animal is the one who benefits.”

I agree with Patty completely! We must remember to temper our emotions and keep the focus on how we can best help the pet. They depend on us. Angering or harassing an owner can have a tragic result.

The title of this post is “Animal Rescue – An Imperfect World With Few Absolutes” and I chose that because, we would like to believe there is NEVER ANY REASON a person should have to give up their pet. But in our  imperfect world, sometimes good people have to make horrific “Sophie’s Choice” type decisions that breaks their hearts. And our hearts too. But it helps to remember that not everyone is a creep that treats a pet as a disposable commodity. I think we get a bit jaded because we see so much ugly in pet rescue and are sometimes quick to judge another in frustration that we can’t save them all. I even see a lot of judgement and in-figthing among rescuers and networkers; isn’t that wasted time and energy? We have to be careful not to damage the reputation of good people working with us in the trenches to save more lives.

My Maggie Mae, the inspiration behind the creation of Pawsitively Texas, had a series of health problems most of her life. She was diagnosed as epileptic at 4 requiring daily Phenobarbitol for the remainder of her life, had a ruptured disc at 6 requiring thousands of dollars in surgery, became hypothyroid a few years later requiring a second daily dose of Rx, and in the last years, she had chronic kidney failure. The last year of her life, I canceled a vacation in order to spend several thousand dollars because my trusted vet thought she could pull back. I was able to spend this money on her because I was single and could make hard decisions and sacrifice other things in life to care for her. I chose sacrifice because she meant that much to me! And I could sacrifice. I was blessed to have a career that paid well and the financial resources were available to me. I loved that little dog as much as anyone can love a dog (and still miss her much every day!), but not everyone could make those same decisions. Especially given the financial state of our world today; many people are struggling. I can’t imagine what I would have done had I been a single mom, unemployed, ill, or fill-in-the-blank struggling to provide and being faced with those vet bills – I am fortunate that I never had to make those decisions. I realize that and am overwhelmingly thankful for my blessing.

I’ve learned there are no easy answers. Yes, there are a lot of people that treat our beloved paws as disposable and those that will take advantage of the compassionate hearts of the animal rescue community, but there are no absolutes – not everyone is a bad guy because they can’t care for their pet. And even when we are dealing directly with someone that treats pets badly, we must remember our goal is to help the animal and keep the peace with the person in order to assure the pet gets to to safety. My wish is that we focus on what we can do: create awareness,  fundraise, foster, network like crazy, and pray for the safety of the pets. We can’t necessarily change the heart of a person that cares little for pets, but we can work together to save as many lives as possible and raise awareness. Please, let’s keep the focus, energy, and passion on the paws!