March 12, 2009Comments are closed.attitude, No Kill
If you haven’t already, tag his blog as one of your daily activities because he doesn’t just *get it* he wrote the book on *getting it* and just keeps getting better;
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In search of dolphin leather
by Seth Godin
There’s a story in the bible with very specific instructions for building an ark. Included in the instructions is a call for using tanned dolphin leather. Regardless of your feelings about the historical accuracy of the story, it’s an interesting question: why create an impossible mission like that? Why encourage people who might travel 100 miles over their entire lifetime to undertake a quest to find, capture, kill, skin and eventually tan a dolphin?
My friend Adam had an interesting take on this. He told me that the acquisition of the leather is irrelevant. It was the quest that mattered. Having a community-based quest means that there’s less room for whining, for infighting and for dissolution. Having a mission not only points everyone in the same direction, it also creates motion. And motion in any direction is often better than no motion at all.
All around you, people are telling you two things:
1. whatever you want, forget it, it’s impossible, and
2. sit still, preserve resources, lay low.
And yet, the people who are succeeding, creating change and (not coincidentally) are happier aren’t listening to either of these pieces of advice. Instead, they’re on the search for dolphin leather.
Frank Sinatra had it wrong. Your dream shouldn’t be impossible, but it sure helps if it’s improbable. Don’t choose your dreams based on what is certain to happen, choose them based on what’s likely to cause the change you want to occur around you.
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Right now I’m watching rescuers debate on a forum about the merits of spending money to rehabilitate a pet. Most say; kill the sick ones, the injured ones and the ones that have behavioural difficulties, because spending resources on them takes resources away from other perfectly healthy pets. It’s pragmatisim at it’s finest - we’re a practical bunch and since we see, day in and day out the pets coming through rescue it seems like the most sensible plan to handpick the ‘best’ pets and let the others fall through the net.
But here’s the thing; by not chasing our own ‘dolphin leather’ we’ve abandoned the ‘impossible mission’ that was keeping us all moving in the same direction. And you call tell, because rescue isn’t a community all working towards the same improved future, but a fragmented industry based on sniping, politics and turf wars – and it nearly always comes back to who is ‘worthy’ of being saved.
However, it’s not about resources as they’d have you think; there are organisations with hundreds of millions of dollars of capacity and they still pick and choose the best pets and kill the rest – and who would actively encourage others to do the same. It’s simply people believing it’s impossible and doing their best to lay low. But no one in history has been inspired to great things by a proclamation of  ‘there’s no hope – just give up’. No wonder rescue can be such a gloomy place!
Being pragmatic can only have one result – a future which looks pretty much exactly like today. The groups who will take over and lead the new rescue world are those can see that there is a bigger picture which comes from believing that all animals are worth saving, no matter what the cost. Because if you believe that the community is compassionate and that there is a family to take every single pet, no matter what their problems, you’ll find that the reasons people adopt are as complex and varied as the animals themselves. If you recognise that the aim of rescue was never just produce a ‘perfect product for a perfect family’, but to develop an ongoing, supportive relationship with the community, you turn yourself from ‘gatekeeper’ to providing a service that sees pets have a home available to them for their whole lives.
These groups are chasing the ‘improbable dream’ and by doing so will make amazing things happen. They know it not only that can be done – but absolutely will be.
We rescued a cat which was to be part of a TNR attempt and he turned out to be FIV positive. He has had ongoing problems with a wound on his neck not healing after surgery for a huge abscess and we were told that if he turned out to be FIV positive we might want to have him put down. We declined as he was mostly a happy cat and after more than twelve months I am relieved to say that we are almost on top of this problem. Of course being immune compromised there well may be others.
So…he’s not perfect but who of us are? We have yet to find the perfect cat.
Nearly all of the cats we have collected could be rehomed to people with an absolute regard for the differences in makeup and a need to rise to a very worthwhile challenge in rehabilitating them but we have all been educated to believe that nobody wants these cats.
We very soon learned not to take kittens to AWL as the question was always ‘are they friendly?’ and why were we trying to save ‘feral cats’ when there were just too many out there?
I began to realize that you have to look upon animals as a ‘commodity’ and if they do not perform to expectation they are damaged goods and therefor need to be eliminated so that we can keep the ‘good animals’ and ‘friendly’cats.
This is a very pessimistic way of viewing lives which are worthwhile though I suppose I do understand the dilemma of shelters in this regard.
It is a strange phenomenon that shelters can rehome a three legged cat or a one eyed cat which has undergone some form of physical damage but to rehome a cat which has psychological disadvantages such as being timid, fearful, part feral.. is not a consideration.
Are psychological and personality disorders considered a clear cut reason for euthanasia?
No…I do realize that existing shelters cannot get past this idea but the new order is coming in the variety of no- kill shelters which are beginning to rise.
Seth raises an interesting premise in the debate of saving injured and sick animals or those with other issues. Would these people who say kill them transfer that same ideology to humans? Lets kill them off if they have too much wrong with them and put those strained resources in to looking after the healthier ones? It doesn’t bear thinking about does it?
We witnessed an understandable reaction by a veterinarian when we took two very wild kittens to him for medical treatment and he asked us what we intended to do with them afterwards. he was disgusted to hear us say we were going to tame them and they would be rehomed.
He took us out the back and showed us the ‘friendly’ cats and kittens he was trying to get homes for and he did express the opinion that the wild and sick ones were better put down so that the others could have a chance. His was an extreme emotional response to a situation he saw as hopeless and in which he was forced to deal continuously with little respite. We were upset to know of it but it didn’t make killing the two wild kittens right.
The two wild kittens are now grown up, about fourteen months old and should have been rehomed long ago. They are the most affectionate two cats you could ever meet but are terrified of strangers.
Why haven’t we found a home for them? Because we lacked confidence in knowing that there are people who care and want animals like this and have to redouble our efforts. The thing is..we are as scared of people as they are..afraid of making a bad choice.
We look after twenty eight imperfect cats and each and every one of them could be rehomed, even the more feral ones, because all it takes is a desire to connect, the will to keep trying and enough love and respect to undergo one of the most rewarding relationships you could ever hope to have.
I’m sure perfection is very boring.