Friday 7 December 2012

It's a Haven, for Kitties and Puppies

In the spirit of early- to mid-December, I'd like to ask you for your money. But not for me! There's a local organisation, Kitty & Puppy Haven, that's hit a spot of legal bother and needs some extra support. They function as a "rescue, rehabilitation and re-homing centre," but have had trouble with local zoning laws, and are now compelled to find and acquire a new center by the end of January. They do good work keeping cats and dogs healthy and alive, as well as sterilising most of them to keep their population a bit more under control. And they channel a lot of these critters to better homes. They're the reason I now live with Frost & Byron:
Byron & Frost, December 2010

Byron & Frost, November 2012


As I understand the problem, it's not just that they have a short-notice move to make now, but that many of their services have to halt now too, meaning new cats & dogs arriving off the street have to be turned away. And in the worst-case scenario, if they can't find a new venue in time, if they have nowhere to keep all the current ones, things get really horrible and messy.

So now they're asking for emergency donations, and I think you should help them out. Every little bit helps, and even under-paid I have given a large chunk of my puny November salary. What I'm not suggesting is that you rush out and "rescue" a bunch of cats and dogs from them, because - in the same way that a kitten or puppy is not just for xmas - they're not just a knee-jerk, emergency adoption either. Only take on new creatures if you were already going to and had everything planned out properly. Besides, I'm not sure that K&PH need a flood of extra admin work right now.

And for anyone feeling too cynical, I have wondered how exactly they got in this mess and my NGO management training has been examining all the angles non-stop since I heard about this. But the short-term bottom line is that they do need to move now, and until that can get sorted, everything else is moot. Fix that first, then worry about other problems afterwards.

No comments:

Post a Comment