What's It Really Like to Work in Animal Rescue?

 

I've been involved in cat rescue my whole life. People get all warm and fuzzy thinking about saving animals. That's the part the public sees. The reality behind the scenes tends to be a lot more messy, more political, more crazy.  

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Animal rescue is intense. It's adrenalized. It's scary and weird and causes me to question the sanity of those around me and/or myself on a daily basis. 

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The reality is that the need to rescue animals is created by people. If no one abandoned their pets or took on the responsibility of a pet without the means or intentions to provide that pet with a good life, there would be no need for animal rescue. 

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When you work in cat rescue for any period of time, you come to understand that 90% of the need for rescue could be prevented by something so simple as spaying and neutering pets. The vast majority of unwanted kittens are born outside to cats that were abandoned, the offspring of abandoned cats, or to a smaller degree, lost cats. The suffering of these outside cats is tremendous.