I have been thinking about doing this for years, more years than I would care to admit. So many ideas, so many things to say and share, and never did I take the plunge to put them down on paper let alone a blog where anyone else could read it. So many things that we have learned along the way that could be used to help other people and other rescues. They have all been rattling around in my head for far so long and it is time to get them out.
So much has changed since we started this journey over 10 years ago. They said it couldn’t be done. They said that Miami was too complex, they said that they need was too great. National groups wouldn’t touch the situation, and even a Florida group kicked us out. We knew we had a different way to go about it, we felt in our heart it was a better way, and we wanted to try.
We wanted to show that rescue did not have to be a bunch of (totally) crazy, hippie dippie women driving questionable mini-vans, barely scraping by, having to decide between food and medical care for themselves or food or medical care for their dogs fighting with each other along the way. We knew that talented professional women could bring their unique talents and skills to the table to build a group like no other. We knew the process could be different, we knew that social media would make it possible for us to tell our dogs stories to a much wider audience. We suspected the tides were turning and that awareness was on the horizon.
We suspected we were onto something and we wanted to try. We struck out with nothing in place to make a rescue successful, we needed everything – a name, a bank account, rescue agreements, a web address, insurance, an accountant, a lawyer, an application, policies, procedures, advertising, volunteers, we needed it all. ‘The only thing we didn’t need were dogs….Miami would provide more of those than we knew what to do with. We held our breath and we jumped.
It would be the hardest thing I had ever done, it would force me to figure out things that I never thought I could learn, it would force my heart to grow and shatter in ways I could never conceive, it would show me the worst of humanity and the most compassionate people the world had to offer. It would teach me things I never thought I would learn. My journey in rescue had begun.
