I recently had an Amazon delivery, and I watched the camera feed of the driver dropping my package in front of my door. It was a careless act. Then it dawned on me that one of the most important aspects of working in an animal shelter is treating all the animals as if they were your own.
When an animal enters your shelter, you take on the important task of caring for that animal. One of the best rules for caring for a lost pet is to treat it as if it were your own. It makes providing care much easier. One of the hardest tasks in caring for shelter animals is deciding when to provide medical care. Too often, we provide or withhold care depending on what others think we should do. The bottom line is providing the care that you would provide for your own pet.
This extends to animals in your foster care program too. I’ve had to remove people from fostering animals because every small incident with the pet led to a veterinary visit. It is amazing how much money is lost because a foster care person is over-cautious. The trick to pet care is common sense. You’d be amazed at the number of people who don’t have it. They make poor staff picks and poor foster care people.
Of course, you will be dealing with a lot of animals that come into your shelter due to the poor care given by their owners. But the rule in your shelter is not to care for them as their owner did, but as you would do if they were your pet.
Fortunately, nothing was broken in the delivery that started this page, but I am over-cautious not to drop any animals in my care. If someone ever criticizes you for the care you provide your animals, you can reply, “I treat them as if they are my own.” This philosophy is a good one to follow in other lines of work as well.