Rescue Journal

my mind is whirling already this morning...i am starting to feel dizzy.

Carol  ·  Jun. 4, 2011

there are times when i can see the value of crates...it is a good socially acceptable spot to stick everyone periodically during the day or the night so they don't bug me. if i could only get over my natural abhorrence of locking an animal away in a plastic box, my life would be so much easier...i could run this place with a prison routine..up at 6 am, out for a pee, breakfast, meds, march around the yard for an hour and then back in the box until lunch and repeat...do the whole thing over again at supper and bedtime too...hey they were fed, are safe, got 4 combined hours of exercise/socialization and all of their medications too.

unfortunately, i have rules. like... companion animals are family members and if i raised my kids without sticking them in a box for 18 hours a day for my convenience then the animals are entitled to the same. if the same kind of things that were generally considered physical or emotional abuse or neglect with a child, were considered the same for an animal, then animals would have more respected lives.

however...i do wish i had one thing here that we do not have. if i was to do this again, i would do one thing different...the dogs would each have their own bedrooms. not a crate, not a cage..but some kind of open, indoor, easily accessible to human touch, sound and smell bedroom....just like my kids used to have. and once in a while (but not to be overused and abused)..they could, when they need a temporary time out, be sent to chill out and think about stuff in their rooms.

what i do wish we had around here more then individual bedrooms tho..is an area exclusively for the very frail. i am currently thinking on how to accomplish this by re-configuring what we already have. unfortunately i have been thinking on this for quite a long time now...and i keep hitting the very same road block...given the current personalities and individual animal needs (specifically problem children like jesse, lucky, and dusty)....we are unfortunately one room short....and we don't have the money for a major add-on.
ideally if the mp building was free...i would turn that into all cats only and take over the current back cat areas for the frail dogs.
ahhh...but where or where do i stick lucky and dusty?..i could switch them over into the big dog room in the house...but then where or where do i stick jesse? i could put lucky and dusty in the office and turn the mp room into the frail space..but the office is not big enough for lucky and dusty or to be a frail dog area either so those idea won't work very great.
round and round this little old brain goes...the merry-go -round of communal multi-species/special needs rescue....trying to figure everything out.

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