To the person who didn’t walk past…

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Behind the scenes of running an animal rescue organization, many aspects go unknown. 

Although most of the time it’s what it says on the tin. Rushing sick animals to the vet, feeding, cleaning, caring, fundraising and documenting.

It’s so much more. 

Sometimes part of the job is giving somebody the information they need to just get a very sick animal to the vet to save their life. Sometimes it’s advising somebody what medicine to give a stray animal that lives in a rural province in the middle of nowhere. Sometimes it’s fitting the puzzle piece together of locating a mother to a recently rescued orphan kitten. Sometimes it’s being there to comfort and advise somebody when they’re struggling to cope with a cat or dog dying in their arms. 

Sometimes it’s not being directly in the mix of things at all, but actually more of a back-seat support on a personal level. 

This blog was inspired by a kind individual who needed help at that difficult time. 

When a rescue was passing there was nothing they could do. 

Occasionally that somebody will say to us that they blame themselves and “if only” they’d found them sooner. 

This type of guilt doesn’t belong in the mind of a rescuer. 

The most important part of the story is that you stopped, you saw their suffering and you acted. 

You didn’t just walk on by…

It’s so important to remember that even in those last moments of that animal’s death, you were present. You acknowledged they were leaving this world and you stayed with them until the end. 

If there was something, ANYTHING you could have done you would have, but there wasn’t. 

When it’s just too late for treatment, you would need a miracle to save them. 

The truth is that they’ve suffered tremendously to get to that point and now they’re finally going to be at peace. 

You must find peace knowing that. 

It’s never easy, even for those who must witness it daily. 

But, it’s important to know that your care for that animal at that time was needed more than you could ever imagine. 

To the person who didn’t just walk past, thank you from the animal who never got to tell you.