[ SHOWGSD-L ] Re: HSUS and Katrina LONG
- From: RihadinK9@xxxxxxx
- To: showgsd-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 26 Sep 2005 02:10:10 EDT
***permission to forward***
I've been trying to track down the now infamous report on HSUS and the
Hattiesburg shelter. I dead-ended at the Petfinders forum. Without some kind
of
attribution, the story is interesting, but not much use in exposing HSUS
wrongdoing. However, I did come to some **personal** conclusions after
reading a
whole bunch of reports in various places from various people who have been
"down there."
-- The animals are probably being as well cared for as is possible under the
circumstances. It is hot and crowded, there are sick and old animals, and
the workforce is volunteer and changes daily. Most of us have experience in
volunteer organizations and quality control is very, very difficult. (What
are you gonna do? Fire 'em?) It's understandble that some of the animals
die. They are in terrible shape when they come in. Some had been swimming
literally for days (they call them "swimmers" when they bring them in) and
yes,
many have diarrhea and are vomiting. When you have *hundreds* with diarrhea
and vomiting, it's hard to get too excited about one in particular. This is a
high burnout operation.
-- When you have 1000 animals to care for, you have to set up a routine
that works best for most of them. You can't have every volunteer making
decisions about what would work best for his or her charges. With that many
animals, that's going to mean too much crate time for everyone. There's just
no way
around it. Example: Feeding animals before letting them out isn't the way
we do it at home, but when you only have time for one walk per animal, that's
the most efficient way and the way least likely tor result in a dog sitting
in feces and urine for the rest of the day.
-- There are indeed rules. Most of those rules are probably reasonable and
the best anyone could do under the circumstances. Many of these animals have
homes. No matter how attached a volunteer gets to an animal or how pathetic
the animal is, that is SOMEONE'S PERSONAL PROPERTY. And no matter how good
the application, you can't just let rescuers walk out with dogs.
-- Some of the policies that seem cold are really the only reasonable way to
manage this situation. Yes, dogs will pee and poop on and chew up bedding.
(Some will even get intestinal blockages from swallowing chunks of it. How
do you know who that will be unless you observe all day -- not possible.)
Though we'd love to think of these dogs as snuggling happily into the $100
beds
we shipped down there, those things are simply not practical in the hard
reality of a 1000-dog makeshift shelter.
-- Rescuers who write these reports are of varying maturity and *none* have
ever worked in a situation this serious. Their reactions are liable to be
emotional and often not very rational. Mine would probably be the same. My
heart goes out to them, but this is an emergency situation and unfortunately
management has to consider the whole population rather than individual cases.
It hurts. Bad.
-- The situation is very sad, the animals are not getting the care we would
all like to see them get, but when you're managing a large operation like
that, decisions have to be made for the good of the majority, even if
different
decisions would be better for a minority.
Okay, all that said, here's the flip side. Again, **personal** conclusions
based on reading a lot of reports, both pro and anti-HSUS on a variety of
sites.
-- "You won't see any feces- or urine-stained HSUS teeshirts." Guess who's
*not* getting dirty? Most reports I read concluded that there were too many
chiefs and not nearly enough Indians. And the chiefs all wore those
teeshirts. See the pretty girl holding the pretty, clean Beagle at
http://www.hsus.org/ ? Think the real "street volunteers" look like that?
-- The volunteers are treated shabbily. Members of the HSUS Clipboard
Brigade have a very elitist attitude and are not polite or appreciative of the
folks coming down there on their own. No one thanks them or acknowledges what
they are sacrificing to be there. HSUS shows very little regard for the
*people* doing the work. No surprise there. I saw very, very few reports
that
said rescuers were made to feel welcome or given positive feedback. At all.
-- HSUS is putting major effort into to getting *all* the credit. To the
extent of removing magnetic signs from vans identifying them as from other
rescues. Control and credit are much, much more important to HSUS than the
actual saving of animals. NO credit is given to anyone other than HSUS. Not
even
to their buddies in the other AR organizations. Read the press releases.
-- Ideas, requests, questions from anyone "outside" are not only ignored,
but are repeatedly described as being received with "sneers," "rolled eyes,"
and "smirks."
-- Since they are not actually working with animals and are putting all
their energy into organization, you'd think they'd be organized, right? Nope.
Apparently they announced that they were the "go-to" people for the whole
animal aspect of the hurricane disaster and then decided to figure out how to
manage it. Could anyone else have done better? I don't know, but with the
money they have collected, *they* could have done better. Even now
disorganization is the name of the game. "Rules change every hour," according
to one
returned volunteer, and you can't get the same answer from two people. After
three weeks, you'd think policies would be in place.
-- Interesting bit: The HSUS leaders only go by first name.
-- Wonder what will happen to all the food and supplies they are *not* using
for the animals? Apparently there is a whole, whole lot.
-- In spite of the fact that according to *every* volunteer (even the
pro-HSUS ones) there is a major shortage of workers, people calling HSUS to
volunteer to come down and help report that they are being told to just send
money.
It will be interesting to see what impact this experience has on HSUS in the
long run. They've lost many, many supporters in the rescue community --
people who sent them money are demanding refunds (good luck!) and there are
more
and more negative reports about the situation. I just hope the information
gets out to the public, the millions of animal lovers who write the checks.
One thing I did find depressing was a Google for "Katrina forum HSUS."
There are *hundreds* of forums all over the internet with innocent people
talking
about how much good the HSUS is doing and how they've sent money and blah
blah blah. Apparently word is NOT out to the general public yet.
One useful thing to do might be to choose a couple of those boards and join
-- post the following link and ask people to check it out. You might open
some eyes.
http://www.ericsdogblog.com/
Eric Rice (contact information, even a phone number provided at the above
site) is *not* an anti-AR, just a regular guy who went down to help. His
experience with HSUS is hardhitting and, as far as I can tell, an objective,
honest appraisal of how they look from a hardworking guerrilla on the ground.
You
can send him money, by the way. Not tax deductible as far as I can tell, but
the blog rings true to me. I think he's probably actually using the
donations to save animals. (He asked HSUS to furnish him with some spotlights
so
his little crew could keep working after dark -- no go. He bought some
himself. That sort of thing.)
Finally, and the most important thing I found out -- The thousands of
people who called the much publicized HSUS 800 number to report trapped pets
probably believed that the list went to rescuers who would try to get to those
animals. It did not. THE LIST OF LOCATIONS OF ANIMALS NEEDING RESCUE SAT AT
HSUS
UNTIL TWO DAYS AGO. Apparently someone did start getting it into a data
processing and put into mapping programs. (I couldn't find out whether that
was
someone at HSUS or someone who finally talked them into turning over the
list) There were people available to get to these places and get these pets,
but
because they didn't "work for HSUS," they were not given the information
they needed. I hope to see a very large class action lawsuit filed over this.
It is criminal and to me, it says all there is to say about how HSUS is
handling this crisis.
--
Sharyn
Ginger Cleary, Rome, GA
"Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security, will not
have, nor do they deserve, either one." Benjamin Franklin.
_http://www.rihadin.com_ (http://www.rihadin.com/)
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