Is Dog Rescue Broken???

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?