Paying it Forward
So Best Friends said this, in the recent backlash they are getting over Oreo’s Law:
>>In 2007, Best Friends rescued a failed and dilapidated Pets Alive sanctuary by investing over a million dollars and 8 months of a rotating cadre of Best Friends staff to get the organization back on its feet. Best Friends has spent millions of dollars and countless hours of staff and volunteer time in the past few years bailing out or cleaning up after 501c3s and rescues that have gotten in over their head with animals they can’t handle. These include Pets Alive, Gabbs, Nevada, FLOCK in Las Vegas, Oasis Sanctuary in New York….
…In fact, a number of dogs from Pets Alive, to whom the current management did not feel they could do justice, and who had languished there in squalid conditions prior to our intervention in 2007, were taken in at Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Utah.<<
Yes, Best Friends, this is true. Well MOST of it. It wasn’t a million dollars you spent here. We know, because we got the bill from you that your past CEO, Paul Berry eventually waived, when he saw how great we were doing and how we would become a force for animals in this area. That bill, before it was waived, was just under $500,000. A minor point, but please, no need to inflate it. Let’s stick to the facts here. We have not bad mouthed you or beaten you up – in fact when people were saying they were going to withdraw support from you, we said “DON’T DO THAT”! We have stressed how we disagree with your opinion on being neutral about this and how critical we needed your support on this bill. That’s it. Others have run with it and it has gone viral but to attack us isn’t really necessary. We didn’t…we COULD. Remember all the things that happened in those eight months? Ouch. We all know each others secrets, don’t we? Secrets that are better left between us, yes?
WE – Pets Alive – don’t really have any secrets. Our bad history has been all over the web (and we include it on our website). In fact, we make no secret about it at all – I am the one that called you when I saw Pets Alive, and how bad it was. I was the one that personally begged you to come down and save all the animals. WE, the people here now, are NOT the people that were here THEN when the situation was so bad. YOU put us here, YOU trained us, WE are YOU. We follow all your protocols, and all your job descriptions and indeed use YOUR adoption contract, and YOUR surrender forms, and your hiring methods – we are you. We are what you trained us to be. And you trained us to always be on the side of animals and speak out and help where we see wrong.
Filed in Legislation, No-kill by kerry on Jun 29, 2010. There are 33 comments.
Imagine this — there’s a knock on your door and two policemen and an Animal Control Officer enter your house. They walk to where your dog is sleeping peacefully on his bed, put the loop from a pole around his neck and drag him out. He is euthanized that evening along with dozens of others.
The bill requires all owners to surrender their “pit bulls” within 90 days of the effective date of the proposed law. The bill is unequivocal that the dog warden “shall” euthanize all pit bulls within 10 days of their surrender.