Waiting List for the Rescue...part 1

Let me start this out by saying this -- we almost always have a waiting list to get animals in.  Let me repeat the important words: almost always. 

Here's what this means -- when you call and want to drop off your animal, I tell you about our waiting list and tell you that I can add you, if you'd like.  Many people never respond.  I assume that means, they want their animal gone NOW, not at some undetermined date in the future.

Here's the thing.  Small animal rescues are few and far between.  Yes, most humane societies and whatnot will take in the small animals... but they have considerably less room than the small animal rescues.  The one local humane society has a small animal room that is the size of my bathroom.  Not that most of you have ever seen the bathrooms here, but even my larger bathroom is like a normal sized shower / bathtub, and another space about that big (which holds sink / cabinet / toilet), and that's it.  So basically, you walk in, and have to completely turn around to exit.  Now, how many small animal cages, even stacked, can fit in that area?  The short answer: not many.  When those are filled... that's it. 

A lot of those places, the humane societies and whatnot... aren't no-kill.  Some are even contracted that they are required to take in any animal that is brought to them.  So... guess what that means if all their small animal cages are full, and you bring in another small animal?  Hopefully one gets adopted right away, because otherwise, they have to make room.

We are no-kill.  That's not to say that we've never had to put an animal down, and the same goes for other no-kill rescues.  No-kill means that a rescue does not put down an animal for the purpose of space.  Should an animal have severe medical problems, or something of that nature, they still can have their suffering humanely ended, and the shelter still be labeled as no-kill.  But the point is, if a no-kill shelter is full and all the animals there are healthy... they just can't take any more in.

...and that's often the problem here.  There's only so many cages, and even for people wanting to bring in cages, there's only so much room to keep putting cages before it becomes impossible to walk around and move around in the rescue.  I try my hardest to stop intakes before it gets to that point, as if I can't easily get around, that's not helpful to the animals and that's not helpful as far as adopters coming to look at them to adopt them out.

So usually how it goes is that we adopt out some animals, maybe even sell some cages to make room (and generate funds), clean the empty cages, and then call the people on the waiting list.  Sometimes it's a short wait, sometimes not.

Currently, we had a lot of our chins go home in the last month or two... a lot of the rescues.  This is good, as it's freed up a lot of our bigger cages, and a lot of our foster homes can use a new chin or two as well.  So for the last few days, we've been deep cleaning the big cages.  Sanding all the shelves, scrubbing down the entire cages, replacing the liners, whatever needs to be done, to get them ready for new chins.   We don't always go quite this gung ho to bring in new chins, but now that we have a few empty, this is the best time to do this when we have room to shuffle a few around.  In another few days, I will be calling people on the waiting list, making appointments to bring in chins.

...to be continued...