Month: November 2020

Establishing boundaries with any new animal is important. There are behaviors and tendencies that will only cause misery and strife in even the best relationship. At the end of the day, we as pet parents just want what is best for our pets, and what is sustainable for our families.

But what are the appropriate behaviors and habits with your pets? How do you find the most reliable tips among the millions of YouTube videos and how-to articles online? Who do you trust to make the best relationship between you and your pet?

Surprisingly, the answer is YOU! Evaluating the limitations of your family, home, and lifestyle is more than enough information to decide what is appropriate for your pet. The key to making these decisions comes down to answering one question:

What do I want my relationship with my dog to look like?

The rest truly is a choose-your-own-adventure book of possibilities! Of course, there are many possibilities of how you can explore answering this question. Some dog parents want a dog that will walk on a loose leash and will ignore all the outside stimuli while on walks. Some want a dog that can walk beside them safely off-leash while on a hike. Some want to be able to sleep with their dog in bed at night.

Some just want to be able to spoil their babies with stray crumbs of cheese and bread while making dinner in the kitchen and don’t mind the growing moan and droning of whimpers and begging that comes from it. (Yes, that person is me, and I’m not ashamed!)

At this point, dog owners, new and old, type the usual “What do I do” questions into Google. But I counter with the same question as before: What do YOU want to do? Dog trainers are paid to drop their experience and knowledge on you, but those trainers don’t live in your home. They don’t know the importance of sharing a couch and a bowl of popcorn with your pooch. And that’s okay, trainers by in large are trying to help you find THE TRAINER’S version of an ideal dog. If you spend enough time and money into listening to them, you will get that, THEIR VERSION of a perfect dog.

Make no mistake, many trainers have the experience and knowledge that is worth following. But if you don’t mind a dog sitting at your feet during dinner time, then who is someone else to tell you you’re wrong?

My best advice for all dog parents is find balance. Our girls sleep in bed with us and share the furniture because we like them to. We prefer dogs that are cuddlers. To balance that, we have made sure to teach them independence and have made a conscious effort to stave of separation anxiety in not only our girls, but also all of our fosters (either through kennel training, exercise, or other distraction methods). We can strike a good balance between love and independence, depending on the situation, and have put in the years of work to move seamlessly between them.

Let me also be clear, having control over the relationship with your dog does not mean you get to ignore them and only care for them at your convenience. Many animals we transfer in from around the country come from places where people think it okay to chain a dog to a tree and only interact when the dog needs food. That is never an acceptable way for a pet to be treated, and you as a pet parent still have a responsibility to regular care, training, and attention. If you don’t want to invest time and effort into a pet, then please don’t bother.

In the end, no matter what the YouTube trainers try to push on you, the relationship between you and your dog comes down to you and the limitations within your life. Enjoy the time you have together, and enjoy a cuddle from time to time! The world is a scary place, we’ve all earned to be spoiled.

“I wish I could do what you do.”

With every rescue introduction, we are confettied with praise and well wishes. Every animal lover dreams of a world where animal shelters are empty and all the animals have a proper environment to live and thrive. With every ASPCA commercial comes the waves of “if only I could give up everything and truly help.”

Resilient Hearts started with that mantra. “Every animal deserves a forever family.” Every domestic animal that we can save, we want to save. We WILL save. We will be the final piece of a decades long mission by hundreds of groups around the world to FINALLY solve the never ending puzzle that is the homeless pet crisis. We will be the solution.

I wish I could tell you that starting an animal rescue was as simple as walking down the street and taking in a bunch of stray animals and easily uniting them with loving forever families. Honestly, if it was that simple, we probably wouldn’t have a rescue. I wish that was the case.

There are loads of ways to help existing animal rescues in your area. From volunteering and fostering to grant writing and graphic design work, there are literally hundreds of ways that everyone can help their local rescue. But I suspect you aren’t here to learn how to help an existing organization. I’m guessing you’re here to start your own rescue, and I’m here to give you a few things to think about before you start.

Why do you want to start a rescue?
What are your motives in starting a rescue? Think beyond the typical “because I want to save animals.” Simply wanting to save animals will not be enough to help you ride the late night vet visits or the failed adoptions. Your connection to rescue needs to run deeper than simply wanting to save animals.

Each member of the Resilient Hearts team is a rescue parent, and we have all been in the trenches seeing the horrors of shelter life and the toll it takes on animals. We have spoken to other welfare workers who have broken up hoarding situations and coached recent adopters through hard decisions on whether they should keep their new dog. We are here to educate and support the humans as much as the animals, and aim to do as much prevention as actual saving. Our mission runs deeper.

If you can’t find your “why”, then you won’t be able to last in the hard times. Trust me, I have spent too many hours and shed too many tears to let anyone get into this without true expectations.

What’s your structure?
Will you be foster based? Are you going to run a shelter and board animals awaiting adoption? Do you know the difference? How you structure your organization will go a long way to establishing how to fundraise, how to market, and house your animals. Imagine if you are taking in an emergency litter of kittens, where are you going to house them? Will you have a team of fosters waiting to care for them, or are you stuck caring for them in your bathroom?

What is your fundraiser stream?
I don’t imagine very many people reading this are eccentric millionaires looking to pour some good karma back into the universe (if you are, email us!), so a big question you need to ask is where is your money going to come from? Few of us are sitting on big piles of cash, but I feel safe assuming that more of us aren’t sitting on an endless contact list of people willing to dump streams of money (again, if you do, email us!). Where will the money come from?

Running a rescue involves spending time engaging and recruiting donors to fund medical emergencies, food costs, and administration across the board. Donors are clutch for any nonprofit that wants to survive. It is impossible to make it without fully engaged and satisfied donors.

How will you engage them? What events are you planning? How often will you post on social media? How will you manage your email list? And how will that time fit in with everything else that you have to manage?

Who are you saving?
What is your focus? Are you going to save feral cats from a local industrial area? Are you transporting dogs from overseas meatpacking farms? Are you rescuing retired race horses?

See how a choice here can greatly influence the direction of your rescue? Now imagine being someone who tries to take the whole lot of animals on at once. How would you make that work?

Knowing your focus will go light years in deciding when and how you will set up your rescue. Dogs and cats require a house and a family, while horses will require pasture and a stable. The need is much, much different.

What are your local laws?
Briefly put, local laws are really important when establishing any business, let alone one that involves keeping animals. In Seattle, the rules say you can’t have more than 4 dogs living in your residence. If we want to run a rescue and save a significant number of animals, we will need to either find a number of houses to help, or get a shelter permit to open a place to board your animals. Add in all the paperwork needed for establishing a proper business, including taxes, and you’ll have your hands full!

Find your why
You’ve sat down, written a business plan, figured out which animals you’re going to save, established your structure, and checked all the boxes with the paperwork. But have you found your “why”? When you have a house full of medical needs dogs wandering around in diapers that need medications at 3AM and your day job requires you to be in the office at 6, what is going to keep you breathing? What will give you the motivation to wake up each morning and say “today will be worth it”?

If you can explore your soul and find that answer, then maybe you can pull this off. Keep your mind and heart a priority, and dig deep to ensure that you are starting a rescue for the right reasons. Only then can you truly make a difference.