06/19/2022
This may seem like a strange place to post something like this, but I do it for three reasons…
1)This is why, at On Pointe, we have families sign contracts that require them to return the dogs TO US should they need re-homed. (PM for information on getting on our waitlist of a returned adult…btw, because of proper vetting of adoptive families for our pups, we have not had any returns so far )
2) I urge you to take owning a new puppy serious. They are a commitment… a 10-15 year commitment. It may require life-style modification, cleaning extra messes, training and lots of patience… in return, you will have a heartbeat at your feet ❤️
3). If you are a dog lover and have been waiting for the perfect opportunity to change the life of a four legged friend, here is your chance.
If you decide to adopt one of these pups, please know I welcome you as part of the On Pointe family, and I would invite you to join our family page. Please PM me if you feel a tug at your heart strings and decide to adopt or foster a rescue from this or any other rescue ❤️💙
~XO
Jessica
We are officially waving the white flag on the rescue and shutting down Mercys Intake for the rest of the year of 2022.
Fam, we have tried for months to find the light at the end of the tunnel. We aren’t getting applications on dogs that should be very easy to place. We cannot get dogs that we once were able to get with ease onto transport out of state for months (we can only assume from overcrowding from our sad state flooding theirs).
While I know we have some wonderful support who will be tempted to talk us out of this, please don’t. Although I promised myself when we opened our doors (officially) 3 years ago that I would never ever allow myself to burn out, I have. I find myself avoiding rescue at all costs. Detaching from my family, my friends, and dreading my phone ringing or looking at facebook. I’m becoming increasingly furious and hateful towards people and always on the defense waiting for the ball to drop and that’s not fair. I am suffering from compassion fatigue, as embarrassing as it is to admit as is my team. Compassion fatigue is a condition characterized by emotional and physical exhaustion leading to a diminished ability to empathize or feel compassion for others, often described as the negative cost of caring too much for too long; sometimes referred to as secondary traumatic stress. We never get a day off. Our phones, our Facebooks, our emails, never stop. People never stop banging on our door and telling us what horrible people we are for taking a day off or not taking their animal. It’s never the dogs, it’s always the people. The ignorance. The lack of spay and neuter enforcement. The amount of cruelty we have to witness. The fact that so many people think they can do it better, yet don’t. The fact that our personal dogs spend their entire lives waiting for us to come home to them while we are out saving everyone else’s unwanted dogs. I look over at my companion who is now 11 years old, greying in the face and wonder where the time has gone and how much it will hurt me to say goodbye to her when her last 3 years have been just sad waiting for her turn to go on an adventure with her mom. She didn’t ask for this life.
We have done some AMAZING work! I know this. We will continue doing amazing work, it’s just going to look different.
Let me tell you what we are tired of. If you’re not in rescue, you cannot possibly begin to understand how unbelievably cruel and impossible it is. You just can’t. and I can’t tell you all the reasons, just the highlights.
*we are tired of adopting nearly perfect dogs out and having them returned for absolutely ridiculous reasons. These animals are your children. They are living breathing feeling creatures. Getting a new pet and then wanting to return your dog that you’ve had for 3 years isn’t a good reason. Having a baby isn’t a good reason (I carried, delivered, and raised my son with 5 LARGE adult dogs and worked 2 jobs) If you can’t handle the commitment, don’t adopt the dog. Divorce? Find a place to take your pet with you. Financial hardship? Ask for help. I could write 19 pages on the obnoxious reasons I’ve had to re-rescue my dogs and I can tell you that there are only 3 that I understand and will accept as a legitimate reason. I will not disclose those here. There are ALWAYS options and ways to accommodate, always. We ALL fall on hard times; I’ve never even considered rehoming mine for a second. We have and would bend over backwards and then some to help you keep your dog. Most, if they wanted to, would. Most don’t.
*We are tired of watching dogs decline in boarding and having to make difficult decisions that no person who loves animals should have to make and then being criticized for it. I did NOT sign up to play dog God.
* For every adoption we think we are making progress, we have 3 to 5 returns waiting to come back.
*submitting dogs to transport is WORK. A lot of work. Papers to fill out, photos to take, videos, all vetting to submit, health certificate, etc. if I were to submit 6 dogs for transport consideration, it would take me literally all day to make sure I’m meeting the requirements and I’ll be lucky if after all that work, one dog may be accepted. This isn’t reasonable for a small rescue with such high volume and demand.
*Fosters – …im leaving this blank. Just ….fosters. thank you for the good ones as few as there are. Thank you. To the rest, thank you for trying.
Rescue is getting harder every day. Shelters, rescues, foster homes, our homes, all overcrowded not able to provide the quality that the dogs deserve and NEED to thrive. Adoptions are down, donations are down, volunteers and fosters are almost nonexistent. We are told daily if we do not take a dog what awful outcome the dog will be set up to have. Dumped, shot, abandoned, etc. We are animal lovers, these people are not. This makes me physically sick daily. There are 2 kinds of “rescues”…the ones who take every single dog with no regard for space, or funds and get overwhelmed and end up on the next episode of hoarders and then there’s responsible rescues who learn to say no, and understand their limits and accept that they will be mentally shredded by the people for doing what’s right for the dogs instead (either way in fact). Because of returns, and lack of resources…we are a walking a fine line on being the irresponsible ones. There is just no way around this. We work thanklessly 365 days a year, and if we are full, we are full. It’s that simple and that complicated. We are not running on deep pockets and we cannot in fact, save them all.
So from June 17th to December 31st 2022 – the only dogs that will set foot back in our doors will be returns. Unfortunately, I’m very confident that we will remain full on that alone. Re-rescuing the dogs we have already rescued. Later today, or tomorrow…I will tell you what my breaking point was that occurred yesterday and the horrific soul shattering re-rescue I had to be part of that is now a cruelty case. A dog we adopted out as a puppy last April who is now fighting for her life at my vet. She is my why. She is the reason I’ve just had enough. But I’m still processing this, and need some time to word my post in a way that I can try to make you even begin to understand why I and we can’t do this anymore.
Please remember that when you make a request to a rescue, there is a living breathing feeling human being on the receiving end of your request. Do not be hateful, heartless, and lacking in manners and regard for a problem we didn’t create.
This is not forever. We are closing our doors to any more intake, for a very long time. But this doesn’t mean we do not still have 85 dogs in our program costing us thousands of dollars a month. The next 6 months I will now have time to tell you their stories. Give them the help they need that I’ve been lacking the motivation to give them. I’m doing this for them, and I’m doing this for us. When January of 2023 comes around, we will be better. We will be stronger, smarter, and successful humans. I will spend the next 6 months educating myself, and educating and building a stronger and very involved team and revamping our entire program, return policy, owner surrender policies, seeking mental help and learning very well how to say NO. And lastly, I will be praying. I will be praying for all the 2nd chance dogs that won’t get a 2nd chance. All the dogs I have to pass on our streets and close my eyes to. Emaciated, pregnant, scavenging, running across highways, abandoned, covered in ticks, suffering from heat stroke, shot, flipped, and all of the other horrific things that happens to them. Mercy will be working silently. I am leaving all of the facebook groups, I am changing my name on facebook, and I’m getting a secondary number and am setting hours that I can reasonably accommodate. Trust me when I say I will be busier providing quality to the dogs we have and quality to my tired volunteers and team, and less time beating thankless humans off my back for telling me that I’m not doing enough. You have no idea.
THAT is what I signed up for. Quality.
Until next year fam. ❤
Mercy sakes 2nd chance dog rescue
