Animal 3Rs: Rescue, Rehabilitate, Rehome [ Part 3 ]

In Part 2, we talked about how all animal rescuers carry out the good work they do on the premise that we owe a collective responsibility, as humans, to the animals that we are supposed to care for and protect.

To a certain extent, the neuter-and-release strategy also applies to stray dogs that live in largely rural areas where there is strong community acceptance of stray animals. This means that the stray animals are regularly fed, and the society�s tolerance levels are so high that the local authorities are rarely, if ever, called in to deal with stray dogs. Here, animal rescuers also have a large role to play in educating the community and mobilizing their support and assistance in bringing the animals in for neutering.

For most people, the idea of having to commit their time, energy, resources and living quarters to rescuing and helping stray animals can be an intimidating one, especially if you have a growing family or are not a person of means. There are, however, many ways in which you may help animal rescue efforts.

Many animal rescuers are unable to reach out to even more animals as they have limited resources and space. Those that do not operate out of animal shelters often use their own homes and if they exceed the acceptable limit of animals living in their premises, complaints from neighbors may hinder further animal rescue work. Some volunteers have suffered from burnout due to escalating veterinary expenses and caregiver�s exhaustion.

If you have ever felt sad about animal casualties of road accidents, felt concern over the number of relatively healthy animals that have to be put to sleep at our overcrowded animal shelters, or walked past a suffering animal and felt immense pity but are powerless to help; then these are reasons enough to support the animal rescue, rehabilitation and rehoming movement.

How you may help:

1. Adopt from rescuers and shelters

Adopt your next pet from pet rescuers and animal shelters to give them an opportunity to live. For each animal that you purchase from a commercial pet store, one animal from an animal shelter will have to die for lack of a home.

2. Spread the word: By e-mail, text message or phone.

We spend so much time forwarding jokes and meaningless e-mails and text messages to one another. When you receive electronic appeals from rescuers needing homes for animals, kindly forward the same to your other friends. Even if only one out of 50 of your friends agree to adopt an animal, you would have made a permanent change in the life of an unwanted animal. If you are a person of means, you could add an incentive, for example, you could offer to bear the neutering costs for any animal your e-mail recipients adopt.

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Ee Lynn

Ee Lynn is an incorrigible volunteer, advocate, activist and animal rescuer who has managed to survive in the animal rescue and NGO scene by avoiding politics, making allies and keeping her focus on the cause. She lives in a household ruled by 7 cats and 2 dogs.

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