!. Funding - Funding is one of the biggest hurdles a rescue faces being there is not always enough funding to get their rescues completed in a timely manner or even at all. It costs a rescue to plan and prepare for a rescue and depending on the project or rescue they need to first plan out and get an idea what they need to do the task, a lot of rescuing they will need supplies such as food, dishes for food and water, if cats litter boxes and litter, kennels or crates, bedding, then there is the next thing Veterinarian visit for exam, testing for various diseases per each species, then vaccinations and spay or neutering the animal if needed and if treatment for illness is needed or for injuries that too is done, then the cost to transport to do rescue, to appointments, to foster if foster is used, or to meet and greets or adoption events. Rescues depend on your donations, pledges and on rare grants to help cover the costs of doing rescues and of those donations they can take donations of pet supplies, cash, or even donations of services. So consider donating towards your local rescue group and if see a fundraiser consider checking it out and helping them out.
2. Help - Rescues do a lot of work and some rescues especially smaller ones and those who are just starting out lack enough help to keep the flow going smoothly. and tasks completed properly and efficiently. If a rescue only has three volunteers to do the work to care for 20 animals lets say cats in this example, they would have to clean litter boxes daily, make sure kennels or rooms are clean and free of dirt and debris, feed and give fresh water washing dishes as needed or at least once a week, washing kennels if used once a week minimum, if one or more cats need medication then the volunteers would also need to give those as prescribed, socialize and grooming also on a daily basis as needed. There are then the tasks of documenting daily on each animal's condition and tasks done and how much time was spent doing the tasks, and what medications and how given were also performed. If it was for dogs the dogs would also need some exercise or walk and some work with obedience skills, and if needed behavior rehabilitation is also worked on. The volunteers also are responsible for arranging appointments, transportation, and other tasks such as planning and operations of events, adoptions, and fundraising which would take up a lot of their time and if this scenario group had more volunteers they could do even more in less time but in this scenario this group is so busy they have to eliminate some tasks from daily to every so many days such as training, or event planning or fundraising, and so forth. But with hard work and dedication, this group does struggle through but the animals are safe and will be able to find forever homes. Rescues are always looking for good quality volunteers to help with fostering, animal care, socializing, help with cleaning kennels and pet rooms, exercising animals, help with events and fundraising. And volunteering is always a great way to make some new friends both two-legged and four-legged and is a great way to show your community support and your support for the animal world.
3. Safety -Rescues deal with a lot of safety concerns from bites, scratches, broken bones, or even life threatening be it from a scared or injured animal to a very violent angry human, from an animal stuck in a tree or in a storm drain, or trapping of a feral or scared unsocialized animal. The rescues must consider precautions and take all the measures they can to protect their volunteers and the animals as best they can without causing danger or injury to anyone involved or in the surrounding area, If an animal is feral it could lash out and hurt someone or attack another animal as reaction as to protect themselves out of fear. The rescue needs to be prepared for anything that could happen such as someone tripping over a rock and breaking a limb, someone running into something and getting a bruised arm, someone stepping on a sharp object or rubbing against sharp object causing laceration requiring stitches, scrapes, burns, and most of all bites and scratches are possible and doing rescue the bites and scratches are almost always a given. There are rare cases where an estranged person or a mentally ill person may lash out at a rescue or its animals and the rescuers causing stress and a lot of negative results all around. Sometimes a person may have some issue with rescues and will find a way to either harm the animals in their care if they can get to them or they may spread very negative rumors just to harm the rescue and animals with this comes chance of physical safety as well as mental safety. Most Rescues are planning and preparing for the safety of both the animals and the volunteers as well as the public when they do their rescue but they also prepare for accidents and have a plan of action if animal or person are hurt in the process of a rescue. If a rescue is too dangerous the rescues usually try to find a better way to do the rescue but in rare cases, the rescue needs to get done regardless and a rescue may still do it anyway knowing injury can happen.
4.Time- Time is one of the biggest hurdles in rescue as some animals at risk or in need don't have a lot of time to be rescued leaving them at risk of either being abandoned, abused, homeless and in danger. Some of these cases how long it takes to get the rescue done make the difference of life or death of the animal. Sometimes a rescue gets a call for ani animal that is stray that has been hit by a vehicle and injured but wondering around they need to get to the animal as quickly as they can, or an animal needs rescue because owners abandoned it in a house to live off what was left for their food, even times people throw their house cats out of the house for whatever reason or go dump them in areas to fend for themselves which they are likely to be preyed upon by predators or shot at by nearby residents, or attacked and hurt or killed by other cats or even starve to death. Time is always matters as well if an animal is sick no matter what the animal or if they are injured. The sooner they get to the Veterinarian the sooner they can be treated and have the chance to survive and recover. If an animal is sick and showing signs of for an example runny nose, watery eyes and sneezing or coughing this cat needs to go in right away and get tested for various diseases as well as get started on a medication if Veterinarian prescribes it, most cases these are signs of Upper Respiratory Infection in cats for sure and this disease is very contagious so time is of the essence to treat and help the cat recover but also to get cat into quarantine and stop the spread of the disease to anyone else that can get it. The same thing would be with quarantining any animal showing signs something is wrong immediately to assure if they are sick it does not spread to others, but also getting it seen by the Veterinarian and find out whats going on. Time also plays a big part on scheduling appointments and how soon you can get the animals into the veterinarian or how long it takes animals to find a forever home (most rescues now don't have time limits but some shelters do. Animals sometimes take a lot of time to heal from abuse and neglect or injury or sickness and others overcome it quickly. Either way, it is still time-consuming and if the schedule is not planned right there won't be enough time to do everything needed to include animal care, administrative work, planning, and even rescuing. Time management is very important but even with that time is still a hurdle in some instances of the rescue.
Doing rescue has its ups and downs and many people do not realize what rescues do to help the animals people are throwing away, giving away, abandoning, abusing and leaving them helpless and alone. If it was not for rescues more animals would be suffering and struggling to survive on their own. Rescues may have hurdles but they fight through them and do what they do and help the animals and protect the animals.
Volunteering, Adopting, Donatint are all great ways to help rescues continue their jobs and community support is always a great asset in a rescue life.
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