Thursday, December 25, 2008

A Simple Fact, Rarely Understood (Reply)


Amby111 Writes: Nice endings like this make all of the frustration and heartache of rescue work a little more tolerable, don't they? I hope this holiday will bring another Josh along to give one of your foster animals a second chance.

Reply: Unfortunately, "Christmas Story" was from ten years ago.

And no, this year, Josh was replaced by "Garth," as well as a number of others like him (see previous entry) and the number of cats dying in our shelters has risen dramatically over the past year.

It was indeed easier for some reason, ten years ago to recruit kind, caring and giving people like Josh than it is today.

I'm not sure of the reasons for that.

I just know that whenever I ask people these days to consider fostering and help save the life of a dog or cat I usually get all kinds of excuses from "I'm not ready" or "That's not what I want" to (my favorite and by far, the most common), "I'm afraid I'll fall in love and won't want to give the animal up!" Of course, I always answer to the last lame line, that fosters always have first option to adopt if that is what they choose to do. But it neither required nor expected of them.

It all comes down to selfishness and consideration for what's good for THEM rather than what is needed in animal rescue.

If only people realized that in most cases, What is good for the animals is ultimately good for humans too, as the story of Josh and "Little Orphan Annie" testified to. -- PCA

1 comment:

Lisa D. said...

I recently got your newsletter in the mail and wanted to thank you for the story of Willow. I followed her in your previous blog and was moved to read about such a happy ending. What an amazing story.

I was also delighted to find out that you are still blogging.

As to loving and caring for animals, some people just don't get it. I have been wanting to foster a cat or two of late, but my husband wants no more pets under our roof. We have 3 ACC cats and a rescue dog. The dog still doesn't completely get housetraining (she's a puppy mill rescue). The cats sometimes claw the furniture. You know the drill. Who cares? Our furniture isn't perfect. The hallway smells a little. What joy these animals give me, and our children! Sometimes I would like to give him up for adoption.

I hope you and Chance and Tina had a nice Christmas day.