Come on people now, let’s everybody get together right now
One of the things I find absolutely frustrating about animal rescue is when personal EGO gets in the way of the work at hand. As a rule, most rescuers are working toward the same goal - lessening the suffering of animals. We may feel there are different ways of going about it, but we all want the same thing as an end result.
This is why I find it just ridiculous when rescuers allow personal differences, opinions, whatever, to get in the way of working together. To state that YOUR way is the only RIGHT way is simply egotistical and short-sighted. If you don’t even listen to others’ thoughts, you’ll never learn a better way. And there could be a better way, which could lead to helping more animals - and wouldn’t that be a wonderful thing? Shouldn’t that be the most important thing of all? More important even than your own sense of being the end all and be all of the rescue world? Success in rescue is defined, after all, by helping the most animals you possibly can.
Methods of TNR (trap-neuter-return) seem to be a point of major contention in the cat rescue world. It’s hard work, exhausting physically and emotionally, so those who do it regularly tend to be very dedicated to the cause and very passionate about it. Dedication and passion are crucial to our work, but if allowed to run amok, well, things can get ugly really quickly. Just for example, one person believes trying to socialize feral cats is cruel, while another has had success at it in the past and wishes to try to get as many of these cats off the street and into homes as possible. Their methods are at odds, but isn’t their goal really, at its root, the same? They both want to help cats, in their different ways, to have better lives. If they listen to each other, and treat each other with respect, the end result will be more cats being helped. Period.
Just because we rescue cats doesn’t mean we have to be catty with each other. Cat fights aren’t pretty, and if you spend any length of time around groups of cats, you’ll know that they only ever really fight over things that matter to their survival. They don’t get into the petty stuff. We should take our cue from them. There are enough cruel and ignorant people in this world who we have to work against - the people who abuse and neglect, the people who breed indiscriminately, the people who abandon or collect - we definitely don’t need to be fighting amongst ourselves and wasting energy that way.
Group hug now,
This Crazy Cat Lady