How do you deal with the guilt in rescue?

[rubygirl1968]

I’m posting this here because you don’t know me and I’ll get a honest answer, whether I like it or not.

Once you start fostering, how do you stop? Everytime my numbers get down and I say I’m going to take a break, another one about to be euthanized will pop up and if I say no, I feel like I’m totally responsible for his/her death.

How do you not feel that you’re failing them?

I have five of my own cats and live in a 900 sq feet home. At one point I had 14 fosters. It was then that one of my neutered males started spraying and continues to this day if I bring in another foster cat. He will get used to them once they’ve been there awhile and will stop. (He’s been checked by the vet many times and it’s not medical)

Another one of mine was recently diagnosed with chronic kidney failure, and although he’s doing very well right now, I would like for his home to be as stress free as possible. I’m down to one foster cat that I’ve had for a year and a half, and someone is coming to adopt her next weekend.

Someone just called wanting to know if I could take one in… :sigh:

I said that I was sorry, but no.

Am I a total jackass? I hope the majority will say no, but I guess I have to put on my big girl panties and quit caring. I just feel so darned guilty - there are too many homeless animals and not enough foster homes. :(

[Roxyllsk]

You have already helped out quite a few animals - you shouldn’t feel guilty because you need a break or you don’t want to stress out your own pet who is not in the best of health.

THANK YOU for helping out those that you did ! That’s more than so many people do !

[HPFarmette]

You eventually learn your limits and learn what is really fair to your own animals.

[wendy]

you have to take care of your own first. The one that sprayed was telling you loud and clear that what you were doing was too much for him.

If you’re keeping “fosters” for a year and a half, why don’t you just keep on keeping the animal? no stressful changes, good home for sure, the poor animal doesn’t think it’s going to rehomed yet again.

[JumpQH]

[QUOTE=HPFarmette;6012926]
You eventually learn your limits and learn what is really fair to your own animals.[/QUOTE]

THIS!

[lewin]

Could you do something other than fostering to satisfy your need to help? Offer to teach pet care education to kids? Assist in adoption events and fundraisers? Volunteer at a shelter to walk dogs?

[oliverreed]

Easier said than done, but you shouldn’t be feeling guilty. At all. You have done wonderful things already and I agree, you need to take care of your own first, or you will feel guilty about THAT.

I have 4 cats of my own and really tried very hard to give a barn cat who wasn’t in a really good situation a home. He attacked my girls, hurt them, scared the crap out of them. He had to go back to the barn. While I had him, I neutered him, gave him shots, and microchipped him. He ended up disappearing after getting lost a few times - each time animal control would call me and I’d ask his owner to go get him. The last time he vanished for good. I stlll feel bad about that, I loved the cat, but my own had to come first.

[irkenequine]

I haev before made my living in rescue work and can now only survive doing it as a part time job. For me, where it lacked financially didn’t matter. It will always be my calling and what I do for the rest of my life.

What was said above is the most important thing. At what point are you sacrificing comfort, health, and expenditures of your OTHER animals. I posted about a week ago about euthanizing a shelter dog that I failed…it has taken me a week to work through it. But there’s still, at least at my shelter, 150 more dogs and 60 more cats that dont WANT to wait around on me to stop moping. Gloriously happy and wonderful pets that don’t deserve it.

Volunteer to take high quality photos of some of the animals for the website or feature them on facebook. Take them out on a walk outside the shelter one day at hte local park with an IM UP FOR ADOPTION! bandana, generate interest. Share dogs with your friends. When you see people talking about buying a new puppy, volunteer your information about shelter alternatives. Become an advocate. You can’t fix it all but you won’t be the weakest link in the very long chain.

[candyappy]

Having limits doesn’t mean you don’t care. You have to be practical and having ( was it 14??) cats in a 900 square foot place is a bit over the edge. You do what you can and you do it the best you can. Sometimes you have to say no, and do what’s best for the animals you currently have. Our current dogs were shelter/ stray dogs, we took in a cat that found us. I just took in a goat that was loose on our road. Even doing just a little makes a big difference and you will enjoy it more when you don’t get overwhelmed and pressured into it.

[bits619]

You really do just have to decide what you will and will not do. We’ll have 20 dogs in our home/farm and get emails weekly of SANDY NEEDS RESCUE OR SHE’LL BE PTS!! HELP!!
Instead of making me feel guilty, honestly, it kinda ticks me off. I fully understand the need to network, i get it. But I have told people to remove me from their lists. If I have room, i will pull. I will not pull if I can’t. End of story. It’s not MY responsibility to save them all, it can’t be! If I find an update on a pound website that a certain dog was pts, i will feel sad for that dog, and for the lost chance it had at a future. But really, there are only so many dogs we can have at any time.
There’s a lady in our group who has said she is no longer fostering, oh about ten times now. Then she pulls a few more. And she pulls from rural areas where she really IS the dogs’ last chance. But for her, fostering gives her purpose. It’s what she does, who she is. Sure, it may not be very wise to depend on something outside of yourself for a sense of purpose and identity, but she’s not alone in that sense.

I’d like to take a break from fostering at some point in the near future. I’m lucky in that I can leave the farm whenever I get too overwhelmed and leave MrB to it for a few days. However, we rarely get to vacation together, and our relationship would only be helped by more time away, together. I think I’d like to break for a bit once we hit 200 fosters. We’re at over 120 now.
We have six dogs of our own, and part of the reason for me wanting a break is to just spend time with OURS. Whenever I start feeling like ‘the gang’ is taking over our house, we put up the fosters and just have ours out in the living room.
I take one of my dogs to the barn occasionally, a few others do car errands with me, and we will be beginning agility classes with two of our dogs after the new year. Just to keep that bond going and building, which is the reason we kept those dogs in the first place.

Instead of doing more or different volunteer work, try giving yourself permission to say NO. Institute a one week policy between adopting out one foster and taking in another. ENJOY those breaks, even if you still have a few leftover fosters still at home. Don’t check those pound websites if you can help it, during your week off. You (and anyone in your position) should be allowed those breaks, that breathing room. It’s exhausting!! Learn to appreciate the quiet times and recognize that you are granted that time off, too. The world will not fall apart when you pause from fostering, i promise- but if you run yourself down for long enough, you WILL fall apart! Lol! Realize that there are lots of other people in rescue work that are also helping out, other groups that can and do step up… It’s not just you. Nor should it be.

[Bluey]

I feel glad for all the animals I can help, any way I may do so.
I feel sad for all those beyond my help, but guilty, no.

I don’t expect thanks for the help I give and I sure don’t expect to be guilted when I don’t help, I have my reasons for giving or saying no and know my limits.

I also resent when others try that guilting on me, as someone else mentioned.
There are those that will keep pushing on your in everything you do, when they know you helped before with this or that, or ask for help again and again and then get huffy because this time around you have your reasons to decline helping.

You may try that, feel rightfully sad for the bad situation, but don’t let anyone push you into what you have reasons not to do.
Be at peace with your decisions, don’t mull on them.

As Grandma used to say, either do something about what is bothering you, or get over it and move on.:yes:

[tallyho392]

just look at it this way…if you become overwhelmed, go under, and are unavailable to help with rescue anymore, you will be good to no one…

so, take care of yourself, in order to be able to continue to help others…in whatever way you can

[vacation1]

Everytime my numbers get down and I say I’m going to take a break, another one about to be euthanized will pop up and if I say no, I feel like I’m totally responsible for his/her death. How do you not feel that you’re failing them?

By recognizing the self-centered fallacy of that thinking. Yes, by saying no you might fail to be the savior, the last resort, and the animal might die. But you didn’t create the animal or the situation. If you take a break, some things will happen that wouldn’t otherwise happen. Some animals will die that would have lived. But that’s always going to be true; when you take in one homeless cat, you can’t take another one that then is euthanized.

Also, you might take a look at your own desire to do rescue work and consider the psychological reasons it draws you so strongly. When your pull to save animals is so strong that you’re doing it despite the fact that it’s hurting your own personal animals - a story I’ve seen from a lot of rescue people - there’s something more going on than just an altruistic love of pets.

Not saying any of this to be a jerk, just trying to say that if you want to take a break, it’s going to be very difficult if you’re still in the rescue mindset, which tends to emphasize heroic self-sacrifice on the part of rescuers. Stepping back and being a little analytical about how you view the situation might help.

[danceronice]

You’ve got one cat who’s sick and another who gets cranky when you add another. You’re not being a jackass, you’re being reasonable. You can’t possibly take in ever single animal in need who comes along.

[Barnfairy]

@HPFarmette;6012926

You eventually learn your limits and learn what is really fair to your own animals.

Exactly, because in having seen again and again good intentions go awry, I never want to be in a place where it is my animals that need to be rescued.

[IdahoRider]

Respect your own limits, say “no” and realize that this isn’t your failing. Your first responsibility goes to your own animals. Always.
Sheilah

[Kryswyn]

Although I’m loathe to quote the Bible, I do recognize that there is a quote for everything! The applicable one here is spoken by Jesus: “the poor will be with you always”. There will always be the poor and unfortunate. And there will be a homeless cat or dog for each one of them.

You help one animal at a time to the best of your ability. If your ability occasionally becomes limited (due to illness of either your animal or yourself or something else) you remind yourself of the animals you WERE able to help. Don’t beat yourself up, or let yourself run yourself down. Then you won’t be able to help your own animals.

[kcgold]

I refuse to feel guilty because it is not my fault the animal is homeless…it is the fault of the previous owner or irresponsible person who let their dog or cat wander, create litters, etc. THOSE are the people who should feel guilt, not me…

[alto]

@rubygirl1968;6012859

one of my neutered males started spraying and continues to this day if I bring in another foster cat. He will get used to them once they’ve been there awhile and will stop. (He’s been checked by the vet many times and it’s not medical)

Another one of mine was recently diagnosed with chronic kidney failure, and although he’s doing very well right now, I would like for his home to be as stress free as possible. I’m down to one foster cat that I’ve had for a year and a half, and someone is coming to adopt her next weekend.

Just focus on your own kids for the next 6 - 12 months, spray boy will get a chance to really relax (he may prefer you to foster dogs or kittens only or birds etc) & kidney boy will also appreciate the lack of stress (even though he’s not spraying, I’m betting that he’s also not super happy about the invasions, especially when he’s feeling not so great - usually kidney issues mean a fair bit of chronic nausea).

Give yourself permission to enjoy this break - go volunteer at various events, especially fund raisers; try to stay out of any direct contact with animals in needs as that will just make you feel as if you need to do more personally.

Education is the key, so organize workshops that you can present to local schools, go on radio, write letters, put together a shelter cats film/book (someone on another board did a book & shprt film on shelter dogs in Scotland for her advanced photo/film program) - there are many ways to help out homeless animals that don’t involve fostering.

If you want to be especially daring, take a complete break from anything rescue for the next 3months, then consider what you want to do next.

[rubygirl1968]

[QUOTE=wendy;6012952]
you have to take care of your own first. The one that sprayed was telling you loud and clear that what you were doing was too much for him.

If you’re keeping “fosters” for a year and a half, why don’t you just keep on keeping the animal? no stressful changes, good home for sure, the poor animal doesn’t think it’s going to rehomed yet again.[/QUOTE]

I would love to - I feel quite sorry for them once they’ve stayed with me for so long. They think they’re home and then are subject to another move and getting used to more people. I don’t have the finances or room to keep all the ones I had for a year or more. If I did, I would.

There are other foster parents that have their fosters for as long as I did, sadly. I feel bad for the cats - but when the alternative is a cage or pts, a foster home isn’t the worst that can be.

I took/take my fosters to adoption events, but sometimes they’re shy, the wrong color and people want the tiny little kittens so that the adults get overlooked.