Sometimes�

Yesterday, I received a call from a lady asking for help for her stray cat who has a serious illness. The call came from the vet’s, so I took it thinking it was something serious. �AnimalCare does not have a phone service as I do not often take calls. I’m usually either in class, at some meeting, giving some talk or at choir practice, all of which does not permit me to take calls. Hence, we have no phone service. Only emails.

However, since the call came from the vet’s clinic, I took it and it turned out to be a lady.

She claimed she had no money to pay for the deposit to treat the cat and the vet refused to treat the cat unless a deposit is made. I found out later that she owed the vet money since last year. Hence, I can understand why the vet refused to treat her cat unless a deposit is made.

I explained our policies briefly but clearly on the phone and requested that she emailed me a photo of the cat and a short write-up so that our committee could quickly assess the case and make a decision. She claimed she doesn’t have email and her phone could not take photos. I asked her to get a friend to help.

She kept saying she wanted us to pay for the cat’s treatment, but I told her at the most, we could only offer a maximum of 50% subject to our policies and she has to make a claim using the receipt. We cannot bend the rules because previously, there had been people requesting that we pay first and they give the receipt later. We did not entertain them. We have to be fair to everyone.

I stressed that any application has to begin with a photograph of the animal so could she please quickly get someone to take a photo and send it to me? She said she could not take it as the cat was in a carrier. I said then take the photo of the cat in the carrier itself. She then asked me to drive to the clinic to take the photo myself if I needed it.

Actually, I don’t need the photo as I am not the one making the claim. She is. So I told her nicely that we do not make clinic calls. Our applicants come from all over Malaysia, so it’s not possible for me to drive to the clinic and take the photos myself, regardless of near or far.

Later, after I reached home from work, I found an email in my mailbox. It was written by someone on behalf of this lady. In the email, she requested that we pay for the cat and that I take the cat home to nurse as she could not do it since she had many un-vaccinated cats in her house.

I replied and sent her the link to our policies, I also cut-and-pasted our policies and I replied that we do not have any nursing service for any animal.

Today, one of our readers wrote to me saying that this lady was talking about AnimalCare in an unfavourable way at the clinic.

I’m not surprised.

Sometime ago, we received a request to publish a cat for adoption. I replied and sent our policies which require the requester’s full name to be published. The requester was not happy that her full name had to be published and proceeded to call me “adamant” for insisting that we had to publish her full name. I offered to remove the post for her, so it was done (removed from the blog, facebook and twitter). But she kept calling me “adamant”.

It puzzles me why some people think that rules SHOULD be broken because they are not happy with our rules, or exceptions SHOULD be made for the same reason. Can we make such demands if we are at the requesting end? Honestly, I wouldn’t dare… If I were not happy, I’d just go somewhere else, wouldn’t you?

We cannot please everyone. We have policies and rules are not meant to be broken. Our policies are in place because this is as much as we can offer and based on our experience, certain rules are needed for accountability. We work with limitations too. I hope applicants understand this. There is no need for name-calling or badmouthing just because the applicant is not happy with our policies.

There are other organisations to go to which may be able to give them what they want.

But thank goodness we only get such applicants sometimes and not always. I hear horror stories from vet’s clinics and shelters where they get unreasonable people on a daily basis.

It’s a blessing that we only get them SOMETIMES.

Source: http://myanimalcare.org/2013/07/02/sometimes/

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AnimalCare is a registered society that promotes caregiving to street animals and helps in their neutering and medical needs. AnimalCare has a Medical Fund, Food Fund and Education Fund.

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