Rescue Journal

there is deep throat and there is open throat

Carol · Nov. 11, 2007

neither one is very pretty. the first unveiled a ashameful sneaky cover up plot and the second is me with something brutally honest to say.

rescue is not for the innocent minded. it is hard and tough and a battle each day. not in just the work of caring for animals, but to get people's eyes and ears and minds open too. because if you have never lived shelter based rescue, you might not know what shelter rescue really means.

rescue is not about petting animals and saying how much you love them and then putting them in nice people's homes. it is about going without food or sleep, it is about urine and feces and vomit and deciding when an animal should live or die and how you can help them to get there as softly and gently as possible. it is about sifting thru and digging deeper and finding out if nice people know what adopting a true senior means, because 8 and 9 yr old seniors are not the same as 16 or 17 year olds, and cute little andy's aren't friendly to people just because they LOOK like a disney dog.

and it is about people judging you, the peanut gallery has alot of opinions.... like saints has no business providing sanctuary to 12 american FeLV cats or what our fundraisers can serve on the menu, or if a young pig deserves to be here or not because she is not a senior, or how we choose our homes for the animals that we all love, or if we should have a paid staff member to replace me when i am at work.

this post and the post below is in response to a discussion on a pet rescue board..where do donated dollars go and who determines where money is spent. most people are willing to donate to a vet bill, to them that is real and has legitimate value...but would you donate so a rescue could buy 50 mop heads from the dollar store? cuz at saints, 50 mop heads might last us less than 3 months. and if you only want your donated dollars to go to making that animal well, do you mind if the floors that they live on when they are feeling better are really not all that clean? or that the garbage is not tidily bagged up and taken to the dump once a week? or the blankets that they lay on are dirty and not washed every day? do you care that the now well dog is eating from a bowl that hasn't been recently washed? do you think it doesn't matter if the poop guy doesn't get paid? cuz if he doesn't there is a whole lot of poop that will be hanging out here instead of being taken away.

mops and garbage bags and bleach and laundry detergent and legal, environmently friendly poop pickups, all cost someone's hard earned donated dollar, and with alot of incontinent animals, the cost can go pretty high. but maybe it is ok if the animals live in squalor and filth as long as the vet bills get paid.

i am not going to pretend i am not mad here. i am infuriated by how this issue got twisted into simply the right of potential (not real) donors to decide how their money might eventually be spent. how does the general non rescue public know what it costs to care well for homeless animals? are they doing it? well not unless they are helping by donating somewhere.

at saints our donors support ALL the care of our animals, from vet care to chicken feed. they support us in purchasing cleaning supplies when the canadian tire money doesn't begin to cover our need. our donors want all of our animals happy. they want them well fed, vetted, and clean and few have ever asked me to confine their donation to one thing (ooops, wrong, sorry...a rescue offered $500 for a specific vet account for just buddy and sissy's use...we refused the donation because that goes against what we believe in which is comprehensive, inclusive, holistic (meaning the whole package) equality care for everyone.)

tonight my throat is open, and once again i disagree with the party line...by all means donate your money to whomever, where ever you like, research and make your decisions and actually donate to someone if you can. but please don't post on rescue boards what the correct criteria for donating are, cuz in my books it is not a great idea to leave an animal with really good vet care but nowhere decent to live while he hasn't a home of his own.

and i would personally like to thank our donors who support us in the work that we do. they help us in every facet of rescue and for that we are truly grateful for their assistence in caring for our animals well.

Comments

Carol

i would have loved captain jack...i saw his picture and you could see he was a special cat. ronnie is happy, he has lots of friends. i am worried about sanjaya, he is not feeling well tonight. both tiki and aladdin have had blood in their stool since they arrived...aladdin looks good but tiki is still so very thin and he vomits once in awhile. the rock is rock solid, he is an amazing cat and sunrise is still being a bit shy. the rest are doing quite well.
no need to thank me, i saw those cats and wanted to help them just like you did and this was the way that i could. no animal should be starving to death in rescue, all rescues who can should step in and assist when one of our own goes wrong. i will forever be grateful to BF for meeting this challenge head on, it is shameful for all of us when the animals in any rescue need rescuing from their rescuers too.

Heidi

Well said Carol, Deb, and Hillevi!!! I hope people are not making negative comments about a Canadian rescue taking in American cats!!! In crisis it is more important to look at the situation globally and hollistically, not regionally. Carol is really good at assessing and making decisions that not only benefit SAINTS but benefit RESCUE as a whole. I am very pleased that SAINTS was able to help some of those 700 cats!

Hillevi Dodson

Your point is well made. I have volunteered for Best Friends at the Pahrump, Nevada, USA site your 12 Americats came from (I love Aladdin and The Rock). Before I gave of my time I had no idea what it took to support a rescue let alone all of the things that were needed: paper towels, toilet paper, medicine, kitty litter, fly traps, fencing, heaters, food, blankets, food bowls, meals for staff, water, etc. It seems that the list is never ending. If there is a wish list the donor can decide what to buy and send; otherwise, the people at the rescue really do know where to put the donor's money to work.

I am not rich. I am behind on my mortgage. I will give of my time to continue supporting the Pahrump rescue. I hope that people in Canada read this and decide to volunteer and/or donate from the heart and not the mind.

Thank you for taking in the Ameri-Cats. I can only imagine the controversy; but if people spend time with them they will learn that the cats don't know if they are American or Canadian - that is a human distinction. The cats only know that they are cats and that they are no longer with 700 other cats in the middle of the desert (near Death Valley). The Ameri-Cats know that they are in a place that loves them for them (cats). I am only sorry that Ronnie's best friend Cap'n Jack crossed the Rainbow Bridge before having the possibility of residing at your home.

Carol, you are the SAINT! God Bless You and your supporters.

Deb

Some people *get* SAINTS, many do not. This lack of awareness stretches from issues as rudimentary as what criteria is in place for admission to the Sanctuary to housing the animals, the number of animals, paid staffing, medical treatment, palliative care, fostering.....you name it, some schmuck won't *get it* or won't like what he did *get*. No matter. There is a core group, that is slowly but steadily growing, that fully realizes that SAINTS is unlike any other "rescue" in B.C.
The rules are different, the philosophy is different, the mission statement is different, and the biggest difference is Carol. Her home is the Sanctuary. She *says* she has personal, private spaces in her home, but it's a lie, she lives in the Sanctuary with the SAINTS. That is absolutely unlike any rescue group director who has foster dogs here and there, or any rescue with numerous temporary homes available. Once a SAINT arrives at the Sanctuary, he is home. A few animals get adopted or fostered, but most are not in that category, and they are home at SAINTS.
People who wish to help SAINTS financially have the opportunity to make running the Sanctuary a smoother process. Money given with nothing but kindness and faith in Carol's vision aids every creature at SAINTS. Carol has an ever-running, ever-changing list of priorities in her mind, as any good Director should. If SAINTS is given a donation, large or small, she knows where it needs to be spent, and she is never wrong about that. It comes from living in the Sanctuary, she knows it inside, outside, upside-down.
People need to refrain from micro-managing a small, or even a large, monetary donation, they need to say "here's what I can give, and I hope it can make some small difference", then let Carol do her job.
Seems so damn simple to me.

Chris T

Well said, as usual, Carol.