mine is open this week but hopefully will close again soon cuz i am on a roll and once i start rolling, the crash is just a matter of time.
next issue.
money is a necessary evil.
we need money to survive. these guys and caring for them is expensive. once in awhile when we are more desperate than usual, i will send out a general plea for help. but i won't ever directly ask anyone to donate. i figure if someone values our work and wants to help, they will and i am happy to leave it at that. sooo...always needing money is one thing, but where you get it from is another thing altogether.
every time someone attaches a dollar sign to an animal, i cringe. "if you take so and so, i will sponsor him every month." "there is a nice donation that comes along with_____", "take my dogs and i will leave you money in my will"..." here is a $200 donation, and i would like to adopt him" ok, this makes me feel like a pimp and the animals prostitutes, so i want to make something clear.
i think it is really nice and very generous and kind when people donate whatever to help around here. but the animals do not have price tags and neither do i. you cannot pay me a million dollars to take a dog, or another million to get one of ours if i can't or don't want to do either. and if i do want to, i will do both for free.
i had one guy try to buy unfixed bunnies to stick in his back yard, he was goofing with my head when he hit $1000 cuz i knew and he knew there was no way he was going to pay that...but honestly, if he had laid that cash down right in front of me? not on your life or those rabbits lives either. or the guy with cheque book in hand to buy tally for 5 grand, not for 5 million.
and yet some really nice people adopt one of our animals and continue to occasionally donate here and there and i think that is wonderful. or people do kindly leave us something in their will cuz they happen to love either their animals or ours. and this a pure thing about caring, not offerring temptation, cuz money doesn't tempt me. (ha ha it is probably cuz i don't have any!)
i got a letter in the mail today. saints has been stricken from a will...apparently it was a test and i failed, actually not apparently, it said it was a test and i failed..... a high ticket item was generously offered several months ago (i believe i was still in my wheelchair), and the dogs and cat and estate would come with someone's demise. since i didn't hop into my mini van and drive half way across the province to pick up the high ticket item, this meant i wouldn't do it for the animals either. well i would in fact do it for the animals but i won't do it for a "thing" i am too busy to worry about things several hours away from here, (really i am too busy to worry about things anywhere, even next door which is why i forget about them so fast)...the part that made me chuckle cuz someone obviously got me mixed up with someone else was the "there are winners and losers in life......and i hope you are not too disappointed".... i don't feel like a loser in this, i feel like i just won big cuz there are now three less animals for me to worry about. this is worth alot more to me than people might think.
i just want everyone to know that i do this for free, actually, not true....i pay to do this. money is not the way to buy a place here unless you happen to be me cuz i buy a place here every single day, but.... a sad story might be a way in if i can find room. i don't have surrender fees and if someone leaves $2o or $100 or nothing on the counter for taking their sick and aging cat, i don't really care one way or another, all i care about is i have a sick and aging cat to care for now and can he be happy here. dollars don't change this.
somehow i feel that money and animal rescue do not mix, even if we need it to survive. sometimes when it is generously given for no reason other than to help the animals it is like a glass of champane...or it can be worming medicine, you need it, it is necessary but sometimes it leaves a not very pleasant taste in your mouth, or it can be like prostitution (like when i wouldn't sell peter and daisy to a home that i didn't want them to go to) and then you just turn away.
oh and i should say too that i am somewhat hypocrital in this regard...cuz if i die suddenly, a bunch of the animals are going to be showing up on certain door steps with a cheque attached to their collars...but it will be a surprize...you open your door and there is copper grinning ear to ear and happy to have a look in your waste basket on his way in the door.
have i crashed yet?