can, can't. do, don't. will, won't.

saints is doing mandatory educational sessions for all of our staff and volunteers...mandatory for each specific area that folks work in but all areas open to anyone interested in learning more about our multi species animals in every area too.

the purpose is to be able to provide the saints animals with safe, respectful, appropriate care.

the goal is to make saints function smoother, calmer, safer by getting us all on the very same page. getting us to look at how we do things and how it impacts the animals in our care.

you would think all of us would be right on board with this..wanting to learn anything at all to make our animals lives better. we might only learn one really important thing, or maybe we learn many things we never thought of..like quit picking up every single dog bed off the floor at the very same time when cleaning because our old arthritic dogs then have nothing soft to lay on until the beds make it back to the floor.
such a simple thing that no one ever thought of before.
or..if there is an issue with fence fighting, the very simple solution is..do not let the offending fence fighting dog outside until the yard on the other side of the fence is cleared.
people do not get that fence fighting is dangerous..it winds the dogs up and wound up dogs are more likely to get into a serious fight..this is why i don't let them fence fight.

95 percent of all dog fights here are directly related to human error...humans providing food in an unsafe manner, humans allowing dogs to get into areas they are not to be in, humans allowing dogs behavior to escalate until all hell breaks loose.

i have very few fights here when i am alone because i don't do the the things that cause dogs to fight..i prevent them. prevention has far less pain for everyone.

when lance killed mini me..i took full responsibilty. i was the one who did not know that severe separation anxiety that was focused on wrecking the house, could redirect and suddenly switch gears to another dog. and i was the one who decided to put the mp building to bed before coming into the house, thus letting lance escalate. what i never asked at the time because i did not want anyone else have to carry that huge burden of guilt was....what was mini me doing in the big dog room??..mini was a bedroom dog. had she been in her room and with lance in his room, both should have been safe.

shit happens but shit happens less the more we know and the more careful we are to prevent it.

hence the education sessions..lets all learn as much as we can.

instead of coming up with all the reasons why we can't do better..how about equal effort in problem solving how we CAN do better...like see what interesting tidbits we can learn from these highly experienced facilitators of these workshops who are donating their time to help us and the animals in our care.

on a personal note...
i am quite frankly horrified that the cat sessions have so little interest. i can say all that i want that the cats are as precious to us as the dogs but it is not turning out that way.

sheila and leila are going to have to come back to do a third cat and dog session because so many felt it wasn't worth their time to try to find and learn ways to care for our animals better..i encourage everyone who has missed in whole or in part the sessions to date to make a special effort to attend this final session. i cannot keep asking them to come back for do overs over and over again.

to be honest..this is highly personal to me. eventually i want to retire and start pulling back and i won't be able to do this if the people who care for the saints animals when i am not here are not interested in learning as much as they can about safely and respectfully caring for the animals here.

saints is a great place but part of its greatness is because i want the best for them...even when it means a bit more time, or some mild inconvenience, or being willing to open my ears and mind to how i can do things better. i expect the same from the people around me who say they care about our animals too. saints has become a group effort..all of us are now responsible.

and for those that skipped out on the cat sections..really?? get back in there and learn something about the cats so they have more value to you. and maybe take the time to go thru the website and learn their names and even one thing about them, like why they are here. they are saints god damn it, they exist here and deserve to be seen and heard.

and i am hoping the rabbits and multi species farm guys with their upcoming session have a lot of interest in their wellbeing and happiness too.