Shelter life

SAINTS is complicated. It is this vast mini world made up of individual animal and human personalities and needs, of water, and grass and fences and gates, and food, and laundry, and windows and gates. There are bills, and donors, and accounting and laws, all needing to be taken in consideration, all important in some form or another.

A few months ago one of our former employees felt that i had stepped away, not involved, not caring too much any more about SAINTS. What I was doing was trying to redistribute the various responsibilities so that when I am no longer here, SAINTS would be safe. The problem is I cannot take 20 plus years of knowledge and experience and plunk it ll into everyone else's head in a day or two, or even a year or two, this process will take a great deal of time.

And what I find frustrating about this process is as more and more people take on certain responsibilities for certain areas, is the notion that they alone are the only ones who actually care. I did not give up 20 years of my life to build a place of love, care and safety for senior and special animals to stop caring for any of them. I still am responsible for the well being of up to 120 on site and another 50 fostered animals. I started a multi species shelter because I wanted to help people understand that a cat has as much value as a dog, a turkey has as much value as a goat, a horse has as much value as a turtle' a rabbit is as important as a pig, and a dove is as valued as a sheep.
I don't give a shit what species they are..I want ALL of them happy and well cared for.
And do you know how hard that is?
Shyla can't have any new dogs in her area because she is an emotional freak.
Ginger is causing trouble in her area because she hates Nakita.
The baby and mama sheep cannot live forever in the shop so Chewy will have to move and see if he likes living in the barn.
The turkeys are depressed and not engaging in life and we have to find a solution for them.
Snowman is blind and has to at all times be right next to Frost.
Snape and Dumbledor a couple of weeks ago lost their very good friend.
All of the farm animals need their fields repaired because they are grazing animals who absolutely must have grass but COVID is screwing up the field work.
The pigs need enough open spaces to allow them to rotate out and explore.
The dogs need not only time and space to run but some of them need limits on how they behave.
Stella is being euthanized today. I and others truly would like to be with her but I know she loves Erin, her primary caregiver best. COVID and social distancing means only one of us can go into clinics for euthanizations, so for Stella's sake, that means Erin..

We have to change, adjust, be flexible and creative every single day to meet our responsibilities to our animals. We have to be willing to step forward and try new things and step back if it is someone else that animal needs. If something we try doesn't work, we need to figure it out all over again.
None of us are in this alone. None of us are the only ones who actually care.
ALL of us are trying our very hardest to do the very best that we can.

Its huge, it's complicated, but we are here, trucking along, trying to find the right path for every single individual who dwells here. That is the promise we made and that is a promise we strive every day to keep.