Rescue Journal

just thinking and talking

Carol  ·  Jan. 13, 2009

renee read my recent posts...she said today that i am right, we are not spending enough time with some of the cats. she said she and carrie can build some time to sit and play and be with them into their work day. i said we could even have our lunch with them sometimes instead of just with only the dogs, we can sit and eat and watch TV and goof with the cats for an hour or so....it is all about flexibility, creative thinking, pulling together as a team to figure these things out....(and working while we rest)
what i really like is how renee's simple comment illustrates how all of the staff and volunteers here think...how to make the animals happier. we don't have barriers or obstacles, we just have a common goal...happy animals and how we can make things better...it is a gift.

tracey's comments got me thinking about my own guilt attacks whenever i hear of cats (or other animals) in need. and she is right...literally thousands of cats are either being outright killed or tossed out on the streets.

and what is the solution to this? well sadly it can't rest with me or with her, or with any rescuer still stuck in the trenches. we leave the trenches and the critical die, and we can't kill ourselves rescuing and still have time and energy to save the world too. my plan has always been, when i am ready to retire from rescue, to shift my focus to political and societal reform to give many more animals a better life. plus....this is my way to force myself out of hands on animal care before i am too old and wrecked to do it well anymore....i know i will have a hard time just walking empty handed away. so already i am defining purpose and value to when my rescue days are done...i may not have the strength to physically continue the brutal and endless grunt work but i still will have the iron will and the brain that has brought saints so far and i intend to harnass that someday to do even more good work but in a different way.

i think as rescuers we have to somehow figure out how to live two opposing views...one of possibility and pushing the envelope as far as it will go but also at the very same time defining and accepting the reality of exactly how much we can physically do well and putting a limit on ourselves that stops short of us falling off the cliff.

i would like to see like minded, responsible and committed rescuers, animal welfare staff members and volunteers come together periodically somewhere...just to share triumphs, failures, ask for and offer support and ideas and just share these so very difficult lives we try to live so well.

thx tracey and others in rescue and animal welfare who comment on here periodically...we see and hear and feel ourselves in others...it makes us not so alone.

some day (when i ain't so busy) i will host an animal rescue ball where we can all come together from our various different places and perspectives...for once not as the singular odd minority at some real life party but as part of that night's real life norm.

wouldn't that be nice?

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