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Veterinary Practice News Editorial Blog:
April 1, 2011
Faith in Humanity
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A woman brings in a sick puppy and doesn’t want to spend the money to treat it for Parvo, but decides instead to euthanize and just get another puppy…and you wonder if she’ll even bother to vaccinate against Parvo next time, since to her these puppies are “disposable.”
A man calls and describes a cat that is likely dying at home, but he balks at the price of the emergency exam and doesn’t come in. You know the cat will probably die a slow painful death in his home. An animal control officer brings in an animal that has been abused, neglected, or worse, and you wonder how you can retain your faith in humanity when you see such greed, selfishness, and cruelty during your work as an animal caregiver.
It’s enough to make you sick. Sometimes, it’s enough to make you want to leave this line of work and go do something else, anything else, to make a buck.
But you’re special. You feel the pain experienced by these animals because you are compassionate. You feel for the pets, but you also connect with those pet owners who would go to any lengths to provide the best care for their beloved furry family member. You see unselfish acts of love everyday as animals are healed, adopted out to new forever homes, and sometimes even given the gift of painless euthanasia by their families. You come to realize that pet ownership is a spectrum, and there are people at either extreme end, with most falling in the middle; they will do what they can, but they have realistic limits based most often on their financial limitations at the moment.
The truth is, the ugly situations stay with you, haunt you, sometimes for years beyond. They disturb our sense of right and wrong, and inflame our morals and ethics. They put us so far out of our comfort zone that we feel stretched beyond our limits.
If enough of these scenarios occur in our line of work, we begin to feel cold, detached, and even pessimistic about the human race. It’s difficult to keep it all in perspective, that in reality the “good” situations and people outnumber the “bad”; it’s a matter of where we want to focus our energy. While it’s easy to fall into remembering the awful times, it takes conscious effort to instead bask in the positive energy of the good times: the happy animals, the thankful pet owners, and the appreciation from our teammates as we work toward making the world a better place, one animal at a time.
Celebrate the victories, on your own, and together with your team. Pass around the thank-you cards, take pictures of those animals you heal and send home, and recollect the survival stories. Share in those success stories, comfort each other through the bad outcomes, and always know you are making a difference:
We understand and accept that sadness and pain are a part of our job…We begin to understand that our feelings of anger, depression, and sadness are best dealt with if we recognize them and allow them to wash over and past us…We recognize our incredible potential to help animals.
We ARE changing the world!
Fakkema, 1991
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