Hello Reader,

We talk a lot about compassion fatigue in animal welfare. It is real. Rescue workers become exhausted, angry, cynical, or leave the field entirely.

Sometimes the animals aren’t what’s wearing people down. It’s the people. The public has become increasingly hard to handle. The current environment in this country encourages entitlement, and people are saying and doing whatever they want with no consequences.

It’s being screamed at because you can’t waive a fee, return an animal that has already been adopted while the original owner has been in jail. It’s being blamed for an animal someone else failed. It’s hearing “if you really cared” from someone asking you to solve a problem they created.

It’s being attacked online by people who know absolutely nothing about the situation but have apparently earned an advanced degree in shelter management from Facebook University.

It’s irresponsible owners. It’s unrealistic expectations. It’s bullying. It’s internal drama. It’s other animal welfare organizations tearing each other apart.

It’s expected to remain endlessly kind and patient while others are allowed to behave however they want because “you work with the public.” This part we have changed, we no longer allow our staff to be abused by the public, we ask them to be reasonable, if they can’t handle that we have our local police force on speed dial.

Maybe some of what we’ve been calling compassion fatigue is actually people fatigue. That’s important because you can’t fix the wrong problem. We cannot control how people act in most cases.

A pizza party isn’t going to fix abusive customers. A self-care webinar isn’t going to fix toxic management. “Remember your why” won’t fix chronic understaffing. Telling burned-out employees to practice resilience won’t fix an organization that refuses to protect them. We must protect our staff, if they know we support them they will keep coming back.

If we want good people to stay in animal welfare, we need to stop assuming their compassion is what’s broken.

Sometimes they’re simply exhausted from being treated badly. I think we need to talk about that a whole lot more.

Roxanne

Thank you, for following, reading, and being part of the solution to the animal crisis. You are appreciated. Roxanne ​Now on Substack​

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