A perspective from the trenches
I was reading a Marc Cameron novel, and he used “stalwart”, “forthright”, and “chivalrous”; words, that he calls “dusty-book words”-that seem to have disappeared from our culture.
Our culture is degrading; but thanks to Marc, maybe we need a reminder or two of a few words that used to mean something.
Hurricane Katrina taught us many things. For the animal shelters that were hit, we learned how our data systems look underwater. Living in Florida, we planned to continue services after we lose electricity. Whenever possible, we attempted to replicate our data on a laptop, so that we could conduct searches of our data when the lights go out. We also had a paper system to support the intake of new animals into the shelter.
We have become too dependent on technology. This blog results from one of our local schools having to cancel classes because they lost access to the internet. It is moments like this that we old guys get together to talk about how we went to school before the internet was invented. I am amazed that our school system has no plan B.
For those of you who have never experienced a hurricane, you probably have not thought about how to back up your data for the day when the power goes out. That leaves you with the possibility that if your power goes out for an extended period of time, you’ll have no records, except what you hang on the cage doors, of the animal in your care.
If you have thought about it, and are backing up your data, make sure that you do it correctly. Back in the days that I was providing tech support for PetWhere, I was approached by an animal shelter in Texas who had been faithfully backing up their data. When their data became corrupt, they discovered that their backup files were worse than the original files because they had been backing up their data on tape drives without ever replacing the tapes. After years of backing up data over the same tapes, the tapes lost the ability to be overwritten. My job was to take their current data and attempt to reconstruct it into a usable format.
Now, many of the database programs used in animal shelter management are internet-based. Hopefully, you’ve worked out a plan in which you are keeping a copy of your data locally. The Internet is more likely to go down before you lose power.
In case you missed it, we are living in funny times. Our last President issued pardons for his entire family when he left the Whitehouse. Half of us think a man playing in women’s sports should have more rights than women. The FBI is actively attempting to hide evidence from the new administration.
Following Brandon’s efforts, our State legislators are writing a bill to protect the identities of government workers when they are believed to have violated the law.
Our society seems to want to protect law-breakers more than they wish to protect their citizens.
Many animal shelters have gotten so caught up in the No-Kill movement that they are more eager to adopt out aggressive dogs than risk their no-kill status by putting the dogs down. We seem to have lost our ability to understand consequences. Are your no-kill statistics so important that you would risk a child’s life? If your answer is yes, then please get out of the business before some poor child loses his or her life.
In the mid-1990s, a woman called our local media and announced that there was going to be a major protest at the County Animal Shelter. The media showed up, and a single protester walked outside our doors with a sign that said, “Save Pookie, Neuter David Flagler.”
In all of my years in animal control, I have to say that was my favorite sign—not that I had many to choose from. Pookie was a Rottweiler who attempted to eat the neighbor’s child. The child was climbing the chain-link fence that separated the two yards, and Pookie grabbed the tip of the child’s shoe and attempted to pull the child through the fence.
Given the circumstances, I deemed Pookie dangerous. My decision was overturned in court when the audience showed up wearing t-shirts supporting Pookie. Then and now, we live in a climate that supports the underdog.
We go, almost daily, reading about protests in our communities. The latest one in my community had 200 protesters, but the media could not discern what they were protesting. It doesn’t matter, people protest everything…. Immigration, transgenders in women’s sports, Trump cleaning out the waste in government spending. We have such a large pallet of causes that it no longer matters, we’re just going from one complaint to another.
All of these protests later, I regret not getting my hands on that first protest sign because Pookie was saved and eventually Flagler got neutered. As I think back, I was probably already neutered at that time. But anyway, it was a comforting thought.
I’ve always said that how you treat a dead animal indicates how you treat a live one. I bring up this issue today when several of our local police officers were discovered cutting up a dead homeless person. Pretty outrageous. They didn’t even cut off their body cameras; pretty stupid as well. I have a lot of respect for police officers, but these guys do not measure up to the level I expect of their position.
“If private revelations agree with Scripture, they are needless; and if they disagree, they are false.” J.I. Packer.
The Bible constantly warns us about false prophets. Many religions today claim that they are handing down prophecies from God. John the Baptist was the last Prophet. The prophets were paving the way for the Christ. Once He came, there was no need for prophets to keep telling of His coming.
The Bible takes on a whole new meaning when you realize that it isn’t just a great book, but that the author was writing to you.
I began working for the US Customs Service right out of the military. They gained an early release for me from the Air Force. I had a skill that they wanted to use on the Mexican Border; I trained and utilized narcotic detection dogs. I would have had no problem explaining to anyone what my role was in government and I could show the results of my work efforts by the amount of drugs that I found and seized.
I find it odd that Elon Musk asked federal employees to explain what they do and that request has been considered outrageous. It is possible that many of our current federal employees cannot explain what they do because they do nothing. They are just part of the swamp, draining away the taxpayer’s money. It is hard to see what the government does because you have to wade through so much swamp water.
This is not unlike the spiritual swamp water that exists for Christians. Sometimes the world throws so much at you that it is hard to find God because so much spiritual swamp water surrounds us. Know that God is closer than you think and you can find Him by taking one step at a time. If you find that the swamp water is getting dirtier, then know that you are headed in the right direction. The world will do everything it can to stop you from finding God. When you stumble, just reach up and take God’s hand.
Proverbs 1:20–33 (ESV)
The Call of Wisdom
20 Wisdom cries aloud in the street,
in the markets she raises her voice;
21 at the head of the noisy streets she cries out;
at the entrance of the city gates she speaks:
22 “How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple?
How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing
and fools hate knowledge?
23 If you turn at my reproof,
behold, I will pour out my spirit to you;
I will make my words known to you.
24 Because I have called and you refused to listen,
have stretched out my hand and no one has heeded,
25 because you have ignored all my counsel
and would have none of my reproof,
26 I also will laugh at your calamity;
I will mock when terror strikes you,
27 when terror strikes you like a storm
and your calamity comes like a whirlwind,
when distress and anguish come upon you.
28 Then they will call upon me, but I will not answer;
they will seek me diligently but will not find me.
29 Because they hated knowledge
and did not choose the fear of the LORD,
30 would have none of my counsel
and despised all my reproof,
31 therefore they shall eat the fruit of their way,
and have their fill of their own devices.
32 For the simple are killed by their turning away,
and the complacency of fools destroys them;
33 but whoever listens to me will dwell secure
and will be at ease, without dread of disaster.”
One of the most glaring things about President Trump’s efforts to weed out wasteful spending is the fact that our government went well beyond being wasteful and appeared to spend for the sake of just spending (our tax dollars). Government was not a good steward; in fact, government departments acted like they were competing to be the worst spenders. Government knew of their waste and did nothing to stop it. The feds are not an example that we can afford to follow.
It is one thing to root out the bad apples in government; but, we have people in Congress demanding that efforts to end wasteful spending be stopped and look the other way. The worst part of all of this is that Americans voted these people into office. Either we are blind to the people we vote for or we are just plain stupid. If you still believe what the legacy media is telling you, then you really don’t know what is going on in the world. Anyone who encourages government employees to waste money are idiots.
Sometimes, in order to be a good steward, we need to stop listening to the people around us who are trying to direct our paths. It is easy to take up the cause to help homeless animals if we put on blinders that prevent us from seeing homeless people. I have always advocated for helping animals. But do animals hold a higher priority than that of people?
Animal rights groups are made up of one dimensional people. They only see the animals that exist in our world. That’s great, animals need our help. We can make catchy phrases to “speak for those who have no voice.” Animal rights groups are free to live in that world.
But those of us in animal welfare have to live in the real world. When we are fighting for our budgets, we realize that we are competing against other needs. We are not like the federal government that has been given such large budgets that they are free to spend it on nonsensical things. We have to fight for money just to feed our animals.
You are right, I am still steamed about the animal rights group going to the media to complain that one of our local cities turned down a TNR grant because they could not commit to keeping the grant going after the “free” money ran out. The city had the foresight to recognize that they didn’t have the money to care for feral cats now, so they didn’t want to default on the grant later. We call that integrity.
You see, if you show integrity in your stewardship of your budget, your city/county commission is more likely to fund you. I worked in one county in which our County Administer desperately tried to cut our budget. For a while, I worked full time in creating budget scenarios in which I outlined various levels of budget cuts. But, I had an excellent relationship with our County Commission. We were always funded at the same level. Why? Because we showed that we were serious about being a good steward.
I draw this comparison because there will be people trying to tear down your budgetary decisions for being frugal with your government funds. These people only see things from their own perspective. Given how tight money is, I would gladly forgo funding for a TNR program, if that money could be used to help homeless children. Being a grownup is knowing that you don’t always get what you want; you usually get what you need. Sometimes keeping a feral cat population going only encourages coyote populations to move into our cities. Fortunately, the statistics for coyotes eating cats are not part of the no-kill equation. In case you missed that: the more coyotes that eat cats, the faster that we can become a no-kill community.