when i was a teenager we used to call chicken-shits candy asses. those were the kids who wanted to do something bad, talked the talk, made all the right motions, but in the end waffled around with excuses when push came to shove.
in rescue..you cannot afford to be a candy ass. there are things you have to do, that you don't like....like taking in everyone's problems...like taking your income tax cheque (which was supposed to pay off your credit card max'd out with homeless animal shit) and using that much anticipated refund instead to pay for barn feed, emergency fees, and overdue heat/electricity bills.... like somehow becoming the death queen when really you wanted to just save some lives and make them a bit better here and there.
nothing gets a person written off faster with me than the fence sitters who jump from side to side unwilling to stick to a decision they think they are making. i remember the woman from years ago who took up my time over and over, presenting herself as the perfect home for moses. weeks went by with the back and forth til i finally said..look it, until you are ready to take him home, there is no point in talking to me right now. a few months later she was at me again..this time i bumped her off sooner. when she finally did contact me and say that this time she was ready..too bad because moses was already dead and had been dead for over a year...and then she took up even more time sharing how sad she was over this.
or the folks who on monday, HAVE to send the dog here...by friday, they are feeling squeamish, by sunday i make them commit to keeping the dog so i can get him or her off my worry list...and 2 months later they are back again...they say they are serious THIS time, they just can't cope anymore.
people get all tied up in knots...they take on things that put their stress over the edge and then start calling here for help. two things never occur to them...firstly, i don't have time to waste with wafflers and secondly, i don't have the opportunity to unload elsewhere animals who drive me insane or show up from years ago at the most inconvenient time.
if i let an animal in 5 years ago that animal never finds the gate closed again. if i take in a problem child, then i deal with that problem child, whatever that happens to entail...i don't have pretty escape hatches in place to shoot an animal back out of...this rescue is supposed to be the final escape.
i keep telling folks...do not take on what you are not going to follow thru on.
if there are conditions and rules the animal must meet then enforce them before they get in the freaking door cuz once they are in man...the options for getting them out except thru foster, death or adoption do become pretty damn slim.
from the animals point of view...if i go into a shelter and pull an unhappy and stressed dog from a cage and bring them to saints...that animal goes..oh hey, thx..this is different, but this is better than where i just came from. if you pull a dog and stick it in a foster home and baby the shit out of him or her for 4 weeks and then decide..oh gee, this is just too much for me and i just can't cope anymore...then that poor dog just got shifted from a really nice home, with not alot of stress into a refugee camp crawling with other homeless cats and dogs.
nothing like making it as hard as you can on that dog and on me too if the truth be told. if you can't follow thru then leave them where they are and send an email to see if i or someone else have room..you are going to try to dump them again anyway once the warm and fuzzy starts feeling a bit uncomfortable. and if i don't have room and they get nuked..oh well..they got nuked before they got bounced and shifted all over the place which is probably kinder to them in the end too.
if you end up with a problem dog...pick up the phone and try to make an appointment to have them euth'd. if you absolutely cannot do this, then you do have what is needed inside you to help them, keep them and finish what you started to do...so don't call me. if you can't really kill them, now you know you have to do this, you would just rather not because it is harder than you thought. if you are for sure going to nuke unfairly, then do give me a call cuz at least then i know you truly are at the end of your rope and the animal does really need a better option.
don't be a candy ass in rescue..do what you say you are going to do or leave them to their fate..maybe someone else will actually step up AND follow thru...maybe not...but half assed jobs don't help them even halfway..it just meeses them up further cuz once again they are up in the air without a safety net to catch them again.
how many times is it fair to toss them over the cliff and hope they land on their feet? think about that before you take them home to toss them out again.
pissy mood at saints today...i am not the answer to everyone elses freaking problems...count how many problems you have then sit down and count mine.
oh yeah...