07/12/2024
This is a post copied from PAWA and epitomizes what so many of us are going through. It tears us up to know no matter how hard and long we work, we can’t save them. Healthy loving innocent animals are dying and we can’t prevent it. PLEASE spay and neuter your pets. If they are not spayed or neutered keep them home and confined. A female dog is only in heat for three weeks every 6-10 months. Do not leave them unattended during that time. How difficult is it??? Every time a litter is born, at least that many die somewhere because there are only so many homes. The dogs in shelters are not all pit bulls and chihuahuas. They are labs, huskies, border collies, poodles. They are young, old purebred and mixed bred. Many are housebroken and have had training. They all deserve a chance and they all could be euthanized. Many of us are trying desperately to figure out a solution but the most important thing the community can do is adopt these dogs.
Just want to chime in here as I am someone who is neck deep in animal rescue. I left Port Angeles in 2019 to move to Mississippi and started a 501c3 rescue. The nationwide animal crisis is the worst most of us have ever seen. We have dogs/cats/other animals in every possible place we can put them. People flood our email, website, social media platforms, telephones with NONSTOP requests to dump more and more animals on us. The public in the comments cry, "Someone save them." Well, we can't. We are OVER capacity. We are broke. We are broken. But yet the public just keep breeding and dumping. They keep dumping animals off to fend for themselves where they slowly starve to death, get hit by cars, or worse. Many of the animals we take in are on the brink of death from neglect and abuse. We are hemorrhaging money trying to keep up. There is no end in sight. And, to top it off, donations are at an all-time low for most of us. We run on fumes. We beg for food and toys for the animals. We beg for adopters, volunteers, donations. We beg for people to please just share the posts so the animals can get seen. But all we get are complaints that we aren't doing enough. We are beyond burned out. Compassion fatigue is through the roof. Some rescuers are taking their own lives because they are so overwhelmed. And we HATE saying no. We HATE the fact that we are a few dollars away from having to close our doors. We HATE the fact that while we spend our days and nights stressed out and crying and trying everything in our power to do EVERYTHING WE CAN TO HELP, the vast majority of people do everything in their power to make the problem worse. The animals sit and wait and wait and wait for homes that never come. There is no space, no money, no help. It is a hundred times worse in the deep south, but in my wildest nightmares I never would have thought I would see it get this bad up north where the animal population USED to be kept in better check and people were more responsible with their pets. We used to be able to adopt a lot of animals out up north, but now there is no room anywhere. So down here our shelters are euthanizing EVERY SINGLE DAY. Even PUPPIES. Whole litters of puppies getting put to sleep. If you get a pet, make good on your committment. Find a way to keep them. SPAY AND NEUTER and STOP BREEDING. NO ONE needs to breed animals right now. NO ONE. I don't care what your selfish reasons are JUST STOP. Take a year off for God's sake and let us catch up a bit. And if you are the one complaining about yet another shelter/rescue closing their doors, ask yourself what YOU can do to HELP. There aren't enough of us in the trenches. We need more people HELPING. Not complaining. Not sitting behind keyboards judging and ASSUMING. Want to know what it's REALLY LIKE to run a shelter or rescue? Go volunteer for a few hours a week and see first-hand what is really happening. I guarantee you that the problem is way worse than you think. We can't rescue our way out of this crisis. The public (YOU) HAS TO HELP or thousands upon thousands of animals will continue to be euthanized every single day and shelters and rescues will keep closing. Step up. DO SOMETHING. Signed, a VERY tired, very stressed, very overwhelmed, very sad animal rescuer.
