Your View: Working in animal welfare is difficult

Working in animal welfare isn’t all puppies and kittens and walking through fields of flowers. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great profession if you’re lucky enough to land in it like I did. Like many other people probably, I expected to be surrounded by loving and playful puppies and purring kittens. Boy, was I wrong.

My first three days consisted of walking 90-pound pit bulls one after another while trying to keep my shoulder from separating. Cleaning cat cages while trying to keep the kittens from escaping the rooms. Scooping up dog poop, emptying litter boxes, scrubbing dog kennels and scooping more dog poop. What little time I had in the office was spent trying to fix our budget. Thankfully though we have great support from the community.

At the end of my first week, in the middle of the night, we went and rescued over 60 beagles. Many had medical issues, were under nourished and some were barely clinging to life. We saved them all. Each and every one of those dogs found a home because of our team.

Two weeks later, we did it all again and rescued hundreds of animals from two different houses. We found homes for all of these animals as well. That’s the good stuff. The stuff that fills your heart, makes you come back every day and helps leave you with a smile so big inside it fills your soul.

It’s the moment when you see a scared dog come in to the shelter and leave a few days later jumping for joy into the arms of the family that is ready to take it home. It’s the newborn kittens that arrive every day in a shoe box and need to be bottle fed. The way they purr with that first bottle is like the sound of a train. It’s the family that brings in their sick pet because they have been turned away by every other vet and our clinic finds a way. It’s the dog who gets to play in our yard and run free for the very first time.

There is so much good stuff in animal welfare that it energizes you every day, it creates such a sense of purpose and meaning in life that for the most part you can look past the hard stuff.

There’s plenty of that too. We deal with it every day. There are the abandoned or abused animals that come into our shelter. The ones who haven’t been fed or bathed. The ones who have been beaten and neglected and made to fear the world. These are the ones that can break you into tears and make you question this occupation.

At the Lehigh Valley Humane Society, we see these abused and neglected animals come in almost every day. It doesn’t make us numb, but it does sap our strength. Yet every day we get back up and try again to give every animal their very best shot at a great life outside in the world. Because if not us, then who?

Humans, though, sometimes they are the worst part in the world of animal welfare. They can be guilty of some of the most horrific crimes against animals. Some of the things we see are better left unsaid. While we save every animal that we can, we never save them all and that is the greatest pain and deepest sorrow. Every loss of life hurts and every one stays with you forever. It’s failure like no other.

It’s hard to imagine, but there seem to be some people who revel in the fact that we can’t save them all. They are the ones who try to tear down organizations that do their best to save the animals. They are ones who look for every little thing and turn it into some darker meaning. The ones who use the tragic loss of life as an opportunity to attack the very people who spend their lives trying to rescue, rehabilitate and rehome every animal despite the incredible odds against doing so.

The damage they do to the animal welfare movement can be devastating. In some communities, these groups have forced some shelters to begin turning away hard-to-save animals for fear of failing to save every one. It’s much easier to have a 100% save rate if you choose to turn away the sick or injured and only serve the fluffy and cute. It’s a much harder path to keep your doors open to every animal and give them all a chance. This is the path that the Lehigh Valley Humane Society chooses.

It’s not all puppies and kittens. It’s a hard but noble life. And yes, sometimes there are the puppies and kittens …which is awesome.

If you know someone in animal welfare, give them a hug today. They need it.

Hal Warner is president and CEO of the Lehigh Valley Humane Society.