So blessed readers the story of my journey as a rescue volunteer continues.  As previously noted, rescue work is a  volatile and fractured topic to write about.  Proceed with caution.

It is a sad fact of our society that thousands of healthy adoptable animals are ethuanized everyday. For every life saved by rescues, there are hundreds lost.  It is a Sisyphis Rock which rescues relentlessly push up a slippery slope of societal complacency, and ignorance as well as political indifference and breed biases.  Dedication is a minimal requirement.  To persist in rescue work, one needs the emotional resiliency of rubber, the mental strength of tungsten and an unlimited resolve of compassion. It is not for the faint of heart and anger is a common but draining side effect.  It burns through good intentions like lava.

I hold no one but myself responsible for the choices I made. The desperation of rescue work is like quick sand, the more you struggle the deeper you sink. One day a quote from the DaLai Lama came across my Facebook feed.

That was the moment I knew I had to walk away to find those answers for myself.

The crisis at home was a wake up call to examine my priorities. Something had to give. Family, including my own dogs, had to come first.  I filed a final report with the board, asked them to find a replacement training coordinator and drastically scaled back on my rescue hours.  The manager assured me they would have someone in place within a few weeks. Three more months passed. Regardless of some  criticism for my decision to scale back, I held fast to my resolve. Most of the core team were understanding, stepping in take over some of the volunteer training.

Suddenly, there was another change in staff.  When a new manager was hired, I asked for a meeting. To move forward this little local rescue would need to get a firm control on supply and demand, limit the drain on meager financial resources, expand their fund raising and community outreach programs and address basic training needs for the dogs in their care.  Without significant change, the same systemic flaws would continue to stall progress. The new manager had a lot on her plate, even as dogs in need of new homes kept coming in to the rescue. Still, she took the time to meet with me and listened intently to my observations.  It was the first time I knew within any certainty there was hope for the future.  She had the experience, determination,  organizational and interpersonal skills needed to guide the rescue out of crisis mode. I gave her a copy of the report I had written three months prior, a report I would later discover the board members had never received.  I promised to stay on long enough to guide her and a new coordinator through the basics of the training intake and scheduling system I had established.  In return she promised to address as many of the points in my outgoing report as she could.

I was so relieved  after our first meeting I sat in my car and cried.  I had felt increasingly torn between pressing family concerns and the needs of the rescue.  I had been spinning my wheels  trying to resolve an impossible conflict. Extracting myself from the web of responsibility was not as simple as just walking away. I made friends at the rescue, four and two legged ones. I would not turn my back on my friends. I believed in the vision the core team had for a haven where dogs in need of homes could wait safely in good care.  Simply spending more time at home was not the answer to the family concerns either. I realized I needed to regain my sense of direction at home and clarify the purpose of my volunteer efforts at the rescue.

Fortunately  within two weeks of our meeting, one of the board members stepped up to take over the training program. We began working together immediately. At least the training system was functioning well enough to keep a small flow of volunteers so vital to the daily operation of the rescue.  It was the best I could do, I was leaving it in reliable hands and new coordinators would bring new direction.

Six weeks after that crucial meeting,  one year after I started as training coordinator, two years after walking my first dog,  I dropped off my file of volunteer forms and training materials. I walked several of my current favorite dogs, helped clean crates and washed a stack of bowls before leaving at closing.  “See you soon,” the night crew said. I knew they would not. I knew I had to make a complete break to regain my focus.  It would in fact be just over a year before I returned.

And what a difference that year would make… ( to be continued)

Photo Notes:  My handsome walking companion, Bruno was adopted into a loving home soon after the photo was taken.  You can follow his facebook page https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bruno/446392132058234

So blessed readers this post has been a few months in edit mode. Its a significant part of my journey and its telling was a challenge.  Rescue work is a volatile and fractured topic to write about.  Proceed with caution.

About three years ago I was looking for a way to keep active during the long, cold Central New York winters.  I chose to become a volunteer dog walker at a small, independent dog rescue.  I know myself well enough to realize while I might get lazy about keeping a resolution to stay fit, I would never go back on a promise to a pack of homeless dogs who waited in kennels.  My youngest daughter (then 13 yrs old) and I went through the required training  which  back then was comprised of some background information, a quick tour of the facility and one trial walk session.  Yep…here’s a leash and start walking.

That winter,  much like this year, turned out to be a brutally cold and snowy winter. It didn’t matter.  The worse the weather got, the more likely I was to bundle up and drive across town to walk those dogs. I knew only a handful of  the hardiest volunteers would show up on those nights. Without us, the single staff person on duty would be walking dogs until well past 10pm to ensure every dog got a break before closing up for the night.

The rescue was a new organization and only recently moved into the small building.  As with many rescue programs, this operation began with one person and a single rescue ( a female beagle and her litter of pups.)  I remembered seeing the story on the news the year before.  When I joined, the operations were expanding rapidly. Perhaps a little too rapidly.

With more space, more dogs could be rescued.  The organization did not however have the systemic or financial structures in place to manage the expansion. All they had was a fiercely dedicated staff made of one full time vet tech and two part time kennel assistants and a handful of  passionate volunteers willing to endure almost any level of chaos to keep saving lives. The core team of volunteers were a tight knit group often at odds with the rescue’s founding director.  As a student of organizational dynamics (part of my training in pastoral counseling) I recognized the rescue was at a critical development point. As so often happens on my journey I found myself in the middle of a firestorm. Only this time there really were lives at stake.  I would come home thinking about the faces behind those crates, the simple souls who had no choice but to trust us to get them out of there and into better circumstances. There was no walking away from this battle.

Good intentions are not enough to make good happen.  Right action (a concept gleaned from my studies in Buddhism) is not always obvious and compassion does not always guide the passionate.  In an organization divided by dissent and suspicion (often well founded) it was not easy to gain the trust of those in charge nor was it always obvious who really was in charge.  Decisions would be made, policies implemented and within days be “over ridden.” The rescue was spinning from crisis to crisis, a kind of frantic energy vortex that sucked everybody in.  People tolerated the insanity because at the end of the day there were those faces in the crates and pens haunting our thoughts.

Over the course of the next two years, my involvement increased exponentially. I progressed from walking dogs a few hours a week to spending entire weekends cleaning kennels, doing laundry, feeding and bathing as well as walking dogs.  I started helping the volunteer coordinator run orientation sessions and eventually was asked to fill the position of training coordinator.  I talked with my family about the increased time commitment the program would require. I had no idea how seriously I was underestimating what it would entail.

Within a month I found myself spending ten hours a week screening emails, scheduling as well as conducting orientations and training sessions, processing forms and responding to follow up communications.  The BIG problem was I didn’t have ten hours a week available.  I had a full time job ( still do thankfully), ran the Mom taxi between activities in my daughter’s very busy schedule and we had own dogs to care for.  Two nights a week I would throw dinner together, a meal I myself would not eat (if any was left) until after 10pm. I was gone the better part of at least one day every weekend.

I stuck with it, because, like everyone else I told myself those dogs needed us.  The core group of volunteers became increasingly aware things were not as they seemed. Verbal assurances given about changes being made were never acted upon. A series of operations managers came and went within a few months. The number of dogs at the rescue reached a dangerously high volume.  Volunteers burnt out quicker than we could train them.  Dogs and volunteers were injured.   Many of us sensed we were enabling a unhealthy revolving door, yet no one wanted to be responsible for making waves which might shut the rescue down.

Always on our minds there were those faces in the crates. It wasn’t the ones who came and went within a few weeks.  It was the TLC dogs as I called them, the Tough Love Cases, who remained month after month for various reasons. One had a bad leg, a couple were senior dogs, several were great with people but extremely dog aggressive ( a behavior which only increases in a kennel situation.) With no trainer on staff, the TLC dogs had no program in place to improve their chances for adoption. Whenever the rescue was close to a breaking point, something would happen to pull people back in, like the day we lost one of our long term residents to sudden seizures.

Sadly it took a family crisis in my own home to bring me back to my senses.

To be continued…

Note: The dogs pictured in the first two photos have found wonderful loving homes; they are doing well and occasionally come back to visit with us.  Sweet Winnie, pictured above passed before she found her home.  A rescue favorite she had her own special room at the rescue and was greatly loved by everyone.  Often in the evenings she would serenade us with her “singing” as we made preparations for closing.  Her portrait still graces the adoption area and her songs remain in the hearts of many.