it is about the animals (the lie, the truth and the stuff inbetween)

it was a quiet night last night...i grabbed some of the littlest dogs and just went to bed. my pathetic attempt at positive thinking last night had a few positive benefits...like i actually managed to get out of bed again to carry on today.

i have talked before about how i deal with really extreme stress...i start cleaning house...i don't mean literally...i mean emotionally. i clear out the toxic corners, i cut loose the dead ends...i remove anything or anyone non-animal who brings negativity, selfishness, chaos or just plain too much work for me to manage anymore.

i have been totally honest about this...it is not a very kind trait and it is one of the biggest reasons that i am not a saint.

what is interesting about this is folks can see the writing on the wall about everyone else except for them. i think it is because we lie to ourselves and we make excuses for what we do and what is the biggest lie that we tell?.....

yep...it is about the animals.

indirectly i suppose, for me this is true too. while i will admit i cut people off who simply become too much of a burden for me...in the end, i think i do it for the animals too and to a certain extent, it's true. i only have so much time and energy, my cup is only so full and i am not about to waste it on people when i need it for the work i do.

if you put together the people in rescue, the ex-volunteers, the angry tenants (there have been 2) who i have either surgically removed or encouraged to choose somewhere else...there would be quite a not-so-much-of-a-fan club comparing unhappy notes.

what i find interesting is why humans have such difficulty is recognizing unhealthy relationships...it is like we need this co-dependency of unhappiness for some reason...well frankly, i don't.

now...unhealthy relationships can develop unintentionally and without any blame. like what happens with the dogs sometimes when they twist up their brains. an example of this was when phoebe turned into true psycho dog 24 hours a day because her beloved tammy was not with her every minute of every day. it started to happen with gwen...her need for mo was growing past the reality of living at saints so we did something about it together because we did not want the dogs unhappy (or me going insane.)

tammy started spreading herself around a bit more so phoebe quickly learned...it is not all about her with tammy, sometimes it is about the others too. mo stopped giving gwen the "BIG" love...she held herself back and just gave her the smaller love like everyone else got every day she is here....and while this was hard for the humans to do...it made life infinitely easier to deal with for the dogs which is what we are supposed to do.

so in answer to the last accusations that were levelled at me recently....yes i am a cold-hearted bitch sometimes because i have to be. but it is not entirely correct to accuse me of trying to prevent others from having relationships with the animals. i encourage HEALTHY relationships that promote respect and wellness and meeting the needs of the animals not ones that have the opposite effect.

this would be a good post for folks to think on from time to time...when i have my saints hat on, i am thinking pretty damn hard on what are the animals getting here and weighing positive against negative. i am thinking about how much unhappiness and frustration i am getting drawn into too...if negative is taking over, then i honestly will try to find a way to turn down the the effect but if we can't find a way that works for us all together, then i am quite simply, turning negative off..... permanently.

it sucks but it is true.