Rescue Journal

i'd like a bath tonight but i guess i will pass...

Carol  ·  Oct. 28, 2009

i want to get the laundry thru without crapping out the well.
i told mo today that if i stopped right here, today...where we are now and just slid thru the next 10 years without letting anyone else in... (i'd be 61 by the way..) theoretically, i could retire with only half a dozen dogs left (these would be the non adoptable younger behavioral dogs...(one of them would probably be phoebe, shit!)...maybe a dozen cats ( all the bloody younger spray-a-lots)...3 cows and 2 sheep. what's that?... 20 some odd animals?..in retirement, i could handle that!
where the hell is the closed sign...i can see the light at the end of the tunnel!

lately i am feeling like my life is just as futile as beating my head against the wall.
and i know some folks think we have it easy..nice place, paid staff, great volunteers, some really wonderful and loyal supporters. but it isn't easy..we work so incredibly hard. we take in the most difficult animals to manage..the ones that not even any one in rescue wants...and we take them in til we are squeezed beyond reason...give us an inch and we will find some new difficult to manage needy some room.
the medical care costs these guys incurr..shit, just the number of daily meds we give out. i had less heavy med assignments in the hospitals than i have here in my home. the weekly baths for the skin guys...do you know how much work one skin dog takes..we have 6....how much did one flooding diabetic stretch you?...we have 4...we have 5 fully blind dogs...several more cats and dogs either with profound vision losses or missing eyes completely, 90% of our animals suffer from profound arthritis, 80% are incontinent, 70% are totally deaf and several are currently dying of cancer. this does not count the many run of the mill cardiac, kidney failure or thyroid disease animals, the feline leukemia and aids cats, the many cats and dogs here without any teeth, the truly ancient, ancients, 16, 17, 18 year old dogs...18, 19, 22 year old cats...33 and 34 year old horses, 800 pound arthritic pigs, uncooperative, demented goats....nor the ones that are just plain freaking nutz.

over one hundred of the most ill or physically disabled that came here as the end of their road....
and folks think that we have it easy, that we are lucky? give me a break.
i'd rather go back to when i did this on my own...it was quieter, it was cleaner, it was cheaper, it was nicer, it was easier, it was a helluvalot less frustraing and painful. it was almost normal..and back then so was i.

and here is the crux of the matter...i couldn't make it home for lunch today...and i really missed all of these guys.

that is complete and total entrappment in a difficult life that may not ever end...not even in 10 years if i stopped right now.

Comments

Carol

she is pooping and peeing and eating and drinking...i think we just have a getting old rabbit problem.

Gwen

Anyone who thinks you have it easy is an idiot. Why is it that it's the idiots who always have an opinion on everything??

Keep up the good work. I will bring more blankets as soon as the Salvation Army calls!

Gwen

vadie

hi carol,

i definately know i could not do what you do...but i love what you and staff & volunteers do there at SAINTS. I always look forward to my (unfortunatly) once a year visit, it always great to see how far you have come through out each year.

ps, carol can you check your email when you have a chance

thanks
vadie

Hillevi

I love and appreciate all that you, your staff, and volunteers are doing. I love animals but I know that I cannot do what you do. I thank God that there are wonderful people on earth like those at SAINTS. Thank You.

lynne

yikes, who said you were lucky and it was easy, maybe they should come to saints for a week and take over.