I’ve thought long and hard about whether or not to post this.
Today marks the 5th anniversary of my launching this site. In previous years I’ve viewed this anniversary as a happy occasion, characterised us as the little site that could, run up fun graphics for Facebook and Twitter and thanked everyone for their continued support but this year I’m sorry to say, I’m just not feeling it.
When I started this project in 2009 I was most definitely naive and idealistic. I had just adopted my own first rescue dog and was full of enthusiasm. In my innocence, I thought that hard pressed animal rescues and charities would welcome this idea with open arms, particularly when the service was free and not competing in any way with their fund raising or even sponsorship efforts and only helping raise public awareness of the plight of all Irish animals in a new and engaging way. I invited rescues, charities and the pounds to open a discussion of how we could better tackle the common problems they had and even offered my web development skills for free to try to help address them. In reality, right from the start, I met with sometimes vehement opposition even including personal and nasty abuse from a small but influential number of people and their allies who felt that they ‘owned’ the area of lost and found pets in Ireland. The odd thing about this was that much of the opposition came from parties I had actually gone to privately previously for advice on how the site should operate, who were invited to co-operate and who were given early access to it for feedback purposes in the first place and indeed some of the abuse came for people I thought were friends. None of this was about the welfare of pets, it was essentially a one-sided turf war.
In fact, to this day, the only charities who I feel have really embraced this idea in any way close to what I had originally envisioned are Galway SPCA and Kildare & West Wicklow SPCA, both of whom kindly carry our listings. We have also had great support from private entities such as Topdog.ie, counntryhounds.ie and whatswhat.ie who I guess weren’t caught up in the politics but as for the rest of the rescues, charities and pounds, the response has been at best ‘meh’.
Due to all the negativity and questioning of my motives from the start, I decided to back off and go my own way, opting to build out facilities on the site and to develop our own communities on the social networking sites and let the rest of the animal welfare community go their own way too – it would of course have been great (and easier) to have them on-board but at the end of the day, organisations make their own choices. This strategy has worked out reasonably well, the project has grown substantially on zero budget, I have had a chance to experiment, learn and build my web development, SEO and community management skills, fun is had, support is given within the community and the odd pet gets reunited in the process. I have even had some tentative interactions now from organisations which were initially quite hostile to the project but by and large I think its fair to say, we have remained outside the greater animal welfare community and I frankly don’t think that has been a bad thing
But at the end of the day, no project is an island and I suppose it was inevitable that I was going to crash into that greater Irish animal welfare sector at large again eventually – it seems that time has come.
I am so down today because I am in utter despair at the state of this community in Ireland at present, very fearful for its future and frankly, I am angry.
In recent weeks here I have written a couple of pieces in relation to the ISPCA, Dogs Trust Ireland and Donedeal which at this point over 1,000 of you have read. I think its no secret therefore that I find it appalling that these two major charities, who I would assume, receive funding from the public largely on the understanding that they will take a principled stand on animal welfare issues, are apparently only too eager to give Donedeal animal welfare credibility via their very public support, even if it means thumbing their nose at another major venerable charity who has acted in this matter purely on principle in the process. I have been invited by a very senior member of the ISPCA to have a private discussion on this issue, leaving the public who fund them out of the loop. I politely declined.
To all intents and purposes, it seems as if somehow, one (relatively small) business in Ireland is backed by two of our largest animal welfare charities to allow a certain level of ongoing animal abuse in the course of its business operations as long as it is willing to provide some funding to approved projects and other gestures in return. I can only surmise that the animals who continue to suffer are seen as just acceptable collateral damage. How many abuse cases are deemed acceptable, 5, 50, 500? Your guess is as good as mine – these arrangements have been made in private.
I’ve been told I don’t understand the nuances here. To me, there are no nuances, you either support and endorse those who facilitate animal abuse or you do everything you can to oppose them.
I believe this is simple. In situations where the interests of animals are at odds with the interests of businesses, all animal welfare charities have a duty to the public who fund them, to be clearly and indisputably on the side of the animals and those who seek to protect them, not on the side of the businesses. When that doesn’t happen, not only do the charities who disregard this principle lose credibility themselves but also the entire sector does too, and good people start to believe that it’s OK to make bad compromises when they watch the ground slip from beneath them as principles are quickly eroded for the sake of ‘pragmatic arrangements’ without vision or ambition.
There was an article in the paper yesterday where the ISPCA called for a ban on ‘sulky’ racing. One has to wonder, if the race organisers came to the ISPCA and offered to give 50% of race proceeds to a project of the ISPCA’s choosing, saying that horse injuries and deaths were relatively rare, would the ISPCA be as facilitating of them as it has been DoneDeal? How can anyone credibly call for a ban for one activity that leads to abuse and not another?
That’s all bad enough, but what really breaks me here is the silence of the other animal welfare charities and rescues on this erosion of principles and frankly, the apathy of the public, yeah you.
It is not enough sometimes just to click ‘like’ on Facebook. If you feel something is wrong here, you need to contact these charities and businesses and tell them you expect better. Or maybe ye all really just don’t give a crap and the likes are really just more about being seen to care than actually caring. Charities and rescues, are you really willing to be bought off for a few free ads and the lowest of the low budget spay/neutering awareness website replete with pet classifieds marketing blurb? I simply can’t fathom why people aren’t up in arms about this.
You can call me a self righteous, attention seeking whiner, I don’t care, I’ve been called worse in the life of this project and beyond it believe me. You can ask me who the hell I think I am to speak this way. Who the hell are you? I have spent well over 5 long years, 365 days per year, in my own time, and at my own expense, earning my right to speak my piece here, so suck it up. If you have evidence to prove that any of what I say here is incorrect, let’s be having it, the comments are open.
I guess I am saying it is hard to run this, day in, day out for over 5 years from just the sheer grind, but even harder to run it in the face of such cynicism and apathy and now particularly against the backdrop of an Irish animal welfare sector where leading charities are apparently so lost.
But I am not looking for sympathy here, I am looking for honesty, integrity and action or even, at this point, just an ounce of inspiration and hope – today it’s hard to see it.
So, happy birthday folks.
P.S. To keep up with developments or share your thoughts on this ongoing Irish animal welfare Donedeal funding/championing scandal check out #petsb4profit on Twitter
Please Note: Today, Thursday June 12th, I have been contacted by Dogs Trust to say that they do not receive funding from Donedeal with I am very happy to pass on. However, I still have very serious concerns over the relationship between Dogs Trust Ireland and DoneDeal.
