I see many posts about shelters helping dogs. Sadly, there are few of these posts about helping cats.
A well-known national animal sheltering expert and consultant stands out as doing this. These posts appear almost daily. I understand this expert’s livelihood depends on growing your following in order to connect with more paying customers. Frankly, if I was in this for my own benefit, it is a model to be strongly considered. But I am not.
Maybe I missed the boat on this or am misguided by a truer mission to my heart: helping cats AND dogs. I have seen how lucrative this has been for so many. Shelter salaries account for 50% or more of a shelter's expenses and a greater portion of that goes to the people at the top of the organizational chart. (And consultants too.) This also means that in most shelters, less than 50% of available funds go directly to helping animals. A well-respected and wise animal advocate calls this pet-entrepreneurship (the business of animals). That is clever and spot on!
Now back to the posts made for dogs by this particular person. The more I saw them, the more it felt wrong. Why slight cats? Do you not have ideas to help them? Do you not like cats? Only one way to find out - ask.
So when I saw these posts, I would comment: What about the cats (WATC)? I never received one response from the poster. This happened on Facebook, LinkedIn and elsewhere.
If you are thinking maybe the poster didn’t see my question, that is not true. This person blocked me on Facebook. (LinkedIn can’t be far behind.)
If you are a nationally recognized “expert” on animal sheltering, why not answer the question? Why not reach out to discuss this further? What about the cats?
There can be so much drama and infighting in the rescue world. It doesn’t help our cats and dogs. Working together does. Listening to each other does. Supporting each other does. If our national leaders act this way, what example does it set? And what are they teaching others to do by this example?
We need to be One United Voice. But with utmost seriousness, what about the cats?
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Beth Frank is founder/president of Community Cats United, Inc, Fixfinder and Proactive Animal Sheltering. Beth has spent endless hours researching animal sheltering and analyzing shelter data from all over the US, including over 400 shelters. Click here to follow Proactive Animal Sheltering on Facebook.
Community Cats United, Inc. is a CommUNITY of over 96,000 including in all 50 US states and 127 countries.