A good friend of mine who recently got a birdseye view of
the darker side of the animal welfare/dog rescue community commented to me that
they felt that rescue was ‘broken’. My
reply was that I didn’t think that rescue itself was broken but that there are
just simply some emotionally unstable people who get into rescue in a
subconscious effort to fix themselves because in one way or another they are
broken. I can't stop thinking about this issue now because if we humans can’t get our collective shit together in this community then how are we going to
stop animal abuse, help people who want their dogs keep their dogs,
abandonment, pet overpopulation and successfully address all of the other things that contribute to
dogs needing our help?
There are so many people involved in dog rescue that are
calm, rational, logical and emotionally stable and who would do anything for or
with anyone to help a dog. We rarely
hear about them being involved in a controversy and will very rarely see them
blasting someone for something on Facebook or other social networking
sites. These people, likely hundreds of
thousands of them, operate their rescues and advocacy's in an organized
effective way and over time help countless numbers of dogs and dog owners. They work as a team and welcome anyone into
their circle that is like minded and who is willing to roll up their sleeves and
get to work helping dogs. These people
are responsible with funds donated to help the dogs and help other rescues as
much as they are able to by sharing the wealth; what little there is of it. This, I would
like to think, describes the vast majority of people and organizations who are
in the animal welfare community. These
people and their organizations are anything but broken and are the backbone of
the machine that runs 24/7 to save and help dogs and the humans who love them.
That’s one side of the animal welfare community coin. The side that we all hope represents MOST of
the people who are in this community.
However there is another side to the coin; the dysfunctional broken side. That is the side that my friend was recently
exposed to in a very real and literally in a very threatening way. In an effort to open the lines of discussion between members of the animal welfare community who are in conflict my friend brought together
several people who had complained to him about the ‘trolls’, the ‘haters’ and
the other people in the animal welfare community who had victimized them, who
had stalked them and who had taken serious steps in an effort to hamper their
ability to rescue dogs. There were many
extremely wordy emotionally charged reports about court cases, stalking, hate mail, slander,
theft and just about every hateful negative thing you could imagine that was
done to them by others in this community.
Both sides, in this meeting, had nothing but hateful and accusatory
things to say about the other and in the end my personal take on it was that
the victims were as much perpetrators as they were victims. Because BOTH
sides view themselves as "THE VICTIM" it's obvious that there were actually no victims but only dysfunctional perpetrators in a struggle for fame, recognition, funding and pity. This is where things are broken in rescue. A lot of shit was slung, a lot of accusations
and a whole lot of dysfunctional behavior was exhibited on BOTH sides. Once the reports of personal slander that
destroyed reputations, cost people their jobs and sent them to the poorhouse were shared then it came out; the real, honest source of the hatred, the judgment and the
anger…MONEY!!!
Surprise! Surprise!!!
In the end it was all over money.
Who gets pledged donations to pull a dog out of a shelter…that money is what they were all fighting over when it all came down to the brass
tacks. Accusations were tossed around
about people who claim to be a legitimate rescue who takes the pledges that
kind hearted people donate to get a dog out of a shelter, pull the dog out of
the shelter and then just get rid of the dog and keep the money. These accusations were being shot around
about rescues that have been around for a while and were considered legitimate,
responsible dog rescues. These accusations
were slung with such venomous fervor that it was hard to believe that any of
the people involved gave a damn about anything but hating on someone else. It was/is ugly and the worst thing is that
during this time my friend was trying to get everyone to talk to work out their
differences, so they could all continue on with their dog rescue efforts in
virtual safety from being harassed by others, HE was attacked. His e-mail inbox and Facebook suddenly was overrun
with hateful messages hating on him. WHAT
THE HELL??? What the hell is wrong with
some people and especially what the hell is wrong with human beings who claim
to be compassionate, caring, selfless people that feel justified in hating on, stalking,
blaming, judging and trying to harm other people??? Other people who claim to want all of the same things that they claim to want. Other people who could be a partner in their goals rather than 'the enemy'.
Here’s the thing from this writer's perspective; the animal welfare
community is over-worked and over-taxed mostly because the general public doesn’t
know much about what’s going on with animals around the world and quite
frankly it appears, as it is very often stated by many of the emotional among
us, as if the general public doesn’t care.
Has anyone ever considered that perhaps most people in the general
public care a great deal about animal welfare issues but that when they see
some of the utter bullshit, dysfunctional, hateful, judgmental and downright
crazy crap that comes out of our community through Facebook and other social
networking sites that they simply aren’t willing to deal with us ‘animal
welfare crazies’ in order to join our causes and help us help animals?
In the end it's a fact that people
are watching us. That’s not paranoia
talking but is simply what I have observed.
The general public is watching and what they are seeing is those who
speak loudest and say the most controversial things…this is what paints their
picture of our community; not our good deeds or dedication to helping one
another and the animals. So I suppose the question is whether or not there's anything we can do to mitigate the effects of these people who are doing what they do for sometimes nefarious and more often than not for purely emotional reasons? Can those of us who choose to work together in harmony influence those who choose dysfunction over partnering and drama over effectiveness? Is our community broken as a whole or do we simply have some dysfunctional groups/areas that we need to focus on cleaning up?
