part of the reason rescue gets so weird at times is because people don't really understand the difference between person and issue. but the difference is glaringly obvious...a person (usually) has two arms, two legs, a body and a head. a person is a living, breathing being. an issue is not living or breathing, an issue doesn't have two eyes and a head...an issue is a concern, a puzzle, a question, a problem that needs to be addressed and sorted out.
now here is where i think it can get confusing...an issue can be surrounding a certain person(s)...or.... people by their actions or inactions, knowledge or ignorance can minimize or maximize an issue.
like...lets say every day, the front gate is left open allowing dogs to potentially escape. the issue is keeping the gate closed and the dogs here and safe. the solution might be telling folks to close the gate properly behind them, or it might be to fix a faulty latch or put on a self closure thing. it is not PERSONAL, it is about keeping the gate closed and the dogs safe.
you cannot NOT address and then ignore the issue even if 8 people are somehow able to close the gate but three people are not because 3 times out of the 11 times that the gate is opened, dogs can get out.
or lets talk about water. lets say someone is filling a bucket in the sink, gets distracted and walks off. the issue is we are on limited water rations over the summer, not that someone is a bad person for leaving the water running unattended.
come on...bad people actually do way worse things than that!
it takes a fair amount of internal work to be able to separate our person from the issue.
can sometimes the "person" be part of the issue? of course. look at what happened with fletcher. fletcher started maturing into a violent and dangerous dog and this affected the issue of the safety of the other dogs. but fletcher wasn't a "bad" dog, he was just a dog who was unsafe to allow freely roaming around here. i became part of the issue when my values and beliefs made me choose not to kennel him for the next 15 years because for me, another aspect of the issue was the quality of his continued life.
was that personal? maybe, sort of? but not in the sense of judging fletcher or me personally as "bad"....the decision regarding his ultimate death was made over the safety of others and the issue of fletcher's ultimate life happiness.
what i am trying to say here is this....when i say the birds got missed, or riley was too close to daphne, or capone tried to bite gideon on the nose...i am trying to bring forward the issues of safety or daily care. i am bringing an issue forward, while trying to work out a solution. yeah, it might involve people or individual persons because we all do play a part in stuff by virtue of just being here.
but the issues are about them...the safety and well being of the animals who have to live here. it is not personally about me or you or who we are... that kind of high school crap has no business here.
i know i sometimes piss people off...i know that sometimes people don't like me that much. maybe i could say things in a way that go down easier, are more gentle and pleasant to hear. but those are not the real issues surrounding the safety and the well being of the animals here. those are just my personal stuff, which have little to do with the job i do here.
i guess to go back to my usual blunt self and just lay it out on the line like it is...anyone involved in rescue needs to grow up, suck up the personal me emotional stuff and focus on the issues surrounding the provision of safe and excellent care.
we are here for the animals.