How To Make An Animal Rescue Worker Angry

There are many things that make an individual animal shelter/rescue worker angry; and each day will bring about different frustrations. Some days it's about the shelter/rescue itself. It could be the bureaucracy or the red tape. Some times its the people who give up their animal. Sometimes it's the annoying questions asked by adopters. Sometimes it's the animal itself: you put an enormous amount of energy into an animal that just can't be saved - ok, this is all displaced anger, and we know it, but it can be difficult to help. Some days, its as simple as the hose that doesn't work right.

But there is one thing that will ALWAYS make a shelter/rescue worker angry. This is something that will upset us no matter what day, or time of day, you tell us. It will anger us years after we burn out and get out of the rescue field.

The one thing that will always anger a rescue/shelter worker:

BUYING A CAT

People, there are THOUSANDS of cats that die every day in animal shelters. And in a few weeks, there will be THOUSANDS of KITTENS that die every day.

If you want a kitten, please save a few hundred dollars and adopt an already spayed/neuter, FeLv/FIV tested, microchipped, de-wormed, vaccinated kitten. Why not save a life?

Ravelry

I have been knitting since I was about 18 - that's TEN WHOLE YEARS! There isn't a whole lot that I have been doing for that long. Sometimes I feel so old. . .

I taught myself to knit right before my first trip to Europe. SFO to Heathrow is a long flight and while I enjoy reading, I can't do it for 10 straight hours. The next logical idea was to find something to keep my mind occupied and my body (slightly) busy. And these were the days before 9/11 when you could actually bring METAL knitting needles onto a plane and no one even glanced twice.

So there I was knitting hats, scarfs, baby blankets, pot holders, etc. I then had the briliant idea of learning how to crochet. Not sure what sparked that bad idea, but I was already 3 skeins into a baby blanket before I realized that knitting would have been so much faster. I decided that I needed to join a knitting/crochet group that would reignite that fire under my ass about finishing that blanket for a baby that was already two months old!

After much searching, I found a great group of lesbians who knit/crochet weekly. I was hesitant to join because of the obvious, but I talked my boss - who is "one of them" into going with me. Her girlfriend even came along for support. We figured that we could all hold hands if they started questioning us (I mean, me). The first meeting was great - I learned a lot more about the yarn community then I ever could have imagined. Did you know that some people still spin their own yarn! And they discuss it on this website called Ravelry.com People post pictures of their completed work, they trade patterns and get advice about yarns. They even tell knitting jokes!

Its all just too much. But I am enjoying having a place to get some hooking done. The girls are friendly and the tea is great. I'm learning a lot - even without trying! And I have to say that I am very proud of myself for stepping out of my comfort zone and joining a group full of interesting people that I never would have met otherwise.

Rescue Dogs

People often make excuses for their dog's bad behavior. In my line of work, I hear it frequently - he is a "rescue dog". Like somehow not pulling a dog directly out of it's mother's uterus has somehow contaminated the inside core of the dog itself. Or how not knowing where the dog came from (ie: from a nice lady in Missouri) can automatically make the dog "risky" or "potentially dangerous". People often site the reason for buying a puppy as "so we know it will be 'OK' with our kids.

But the truth is that many dogs that are "bought"are no safer then dogs that are "adopted". All dogs have the potential to bite. Well, all dogs that have teeth, that is - and some that don't! Dogs are dogs, and part of dog language is using the mouth for "corrections". Some dogs bite harder then others (bite inhibition) and some dogs bite more often then others. Some people are lucky enough to never have to witness their dog biting - but the potential is still there. Pure bred bought dogs and the so-called designer bought dogs have the exact same instincts that rescued dogs have. It was not bred out of them.

Even though I know this, I still feel that some dogs are more likely to bite then others. Dogs that have fear issues. Dogs that have guarding issues. Dogs not properly socialized. Dogs not properly trained. Dogs allowed to make their own decisions...

Notice I didn't give a specific breed.

Rescued dog or not, the burden lies with the owner to make sure that the dog is safe. If the dog is not safe to be around the public, it should be kept behind a sturdy gate. If it not safe around even the family, then it should be taken care of in the manner that the owner, the vet, and the courts seem appropriate.

Owning a rescue dog does not give you a license to possess a dog that is not safe. It is also not an excuse when your "rescue" dog attacks another well-behaved rescue dog. In the same manner, owning a *pure bred* designer dog does not give you the license to own a dog that growls, lunges, snaps or bites the rescuer that is going to take that dog from you when you decide that you no longer can care for it in the manner that he has become accustomed because you are going to have a baby.

At some point, you, the HUMAN, have to take responsibility.

Friday Night In

How in the hell am I ever going to find a date if I spend Friday night in front of my computer playing with my books.

Yeah, you read that right.

Boss Lady turned me on to LibraryThing and I immediately came home from work and jumped on the computer to add my collection and to join groups. I forgive myself for being so boring on a Friday night because it is really Thursday night for me. So far I only added 37 books. 11 of them are sitting on my night stand in the "to be read" pile. The other 26 are books that I remember reading off the top of my head. I may pull out some of the boxes from my closet to add more another night, but for now I have to get off the computer and start reading! I joined a 50 Book Challenge - and while I can do that in my sleep, I figured it would be nice to start slow. It seems that the slower readers are more talkative too - interesting how that works. . .

Lizard Love

I spent a few years in southern California studying zoology. While I took many different classes about animals, one class I didn't take was herpetology. And I regret it at least once a month. And I felt that regret again today while walking our usual trails.

The hike started out ok, but getting there was a battle. For the life of me I don't know why bikers feel the need to pedal their schwinn in the middle of the road - especially when they are riding the bike to take off-road trails! Ok, I know some people actually ride the road with road bikes, but there is an obvious difference between a road bike and a mountain bike and when you ride your mountain bike in the middle of the road, I get mad. I get even more mad when bikers ride in groups of four or more and hog the entire side of the road. The polite thing would be to line up single file and let the giant car ride past you safely. Because if I hit a car head on trying to get around you, you can bet that the energy propelling me forward will suddenly propel me sideways and I will hit you with said giant car.


Now that the rant is over, LIZARDS!!!!!

Because I didn't do a lot of hiking on my own time in college - forced hikes where the biggest drag! Who wants to get up at 7 in the morning on a Saturday to go walking with people you see 5 days a week???? I never understood the value of what I was actually learning while on those walks. Now that I regularly take walks into our beautiful hills I am seeing all sorts of things that I wish I knew what it was. For example: poison oak. It would have been helpful if, in a year of studying botany I had learned to identify poison oak. After an interesting experience of my mom getting the itchiness I learned that I was immune - good thing because my dogs probably tromp through it a few times a week! But I'll probably never know. . .

Today I came across a lizard sunning himself in the path. I was initially interested, then I became worried because he was in the middle of the bike-tire divots on the curve. I had never seen a lizard like this before - he wasn't one of the typical alligator lizards one catches as a child. He was brown on his back and yellow on his stomach. I tried to take some pictures of him but all I had was my camera phone - see problems with camera phones here. On top the camera problem, I had three dogs that almost stepped on him trying to eat the turkey out of my pocket. Poor little guy, I felt bad when we scared him out of his sun - but at least he wasn't going to get run over on my watch!

All the rest of the walk I was kicking myself for taking the "easy way out" and not taking a herp class in college. Sure it would have dropped my GPA down slightly, but what's a 3.2 GPA worth 5 years out of college? Actually I probably wouldn't have remembered his scientific name anyway. But after looking it up on Californiaherps.com I decided that he is a Plestiodon"gilberti" rubricaudatus (yeah, I copied and pasted that one!) or aka: Western Red-tailed Skink.

Here is a better picture:


Here's hoping to seeing him again - or one of his beautiful babies



wait, can anyone say "supanerd"