In 2009-2010, I went through one of the worst personal/professional crises I have ever had. Many of you know what I am talking about, some will think they know....My summary: We were in our prime, helping 600 animals a month. It was my childhood dream to work in that facility and I got to do it for almost 4 years. I am so grateful for that experience and opportunity and plan to use it to its fullest potential for the rest of my life. For reasons still unknown, someone in our community took it upon themselves to wage a war against myself and my husband. The number of complaints and type of complaints messed with the personal lives of many and took the life blood from the organization. It left us with 135 animals to care for without staff and appropriate funds. I was accused of selling controlled substances, beating animals to death with baseball bats while people watched, and child abuse amongst 296 different complaints. From city codes, to the fire department someone turned us in to every regulatory board available, systematically for a little over a year: including our personal home and organization we worked for. We were going through the process of adopting our children and the girl was taken out of our home and put in foster care for 2 days while an investigation, one of many those two years, ensued. To make things worse, during the same time frame I hurt my back. I ran the place out of a wheelchair for several months. I was ordered to bed rest for 3 months to a year, and stayed to take care of the facility for 12 months after that. I was in constant and excruciating pain. I was under constant attack from an invisible enemy. The reason why I am talking about it today is because today, it finally is completely over for me. There is some clean up that still needs to happen, but I have to say, no sweat. Some of that includes, moving animals, getting my cats here, building the rest of the sanctuary, paying off vet bills, continuing physical therapy so that I can continue to walk. But today the dogs that I could not take care of during this time, who were dear friends of mine are on their way to me in less than 10 minutes. They have been living at the Unleashed shelter. They were gracious enough to take over our building and to allow the animals who lived there to stay while we worked to get them out. In summary, I have not always been kind. Im sure that the person I wronged was just trying to teach me a lesson. I hope they are satisfied in knowing that I think I came out of this situation a wiser and better person. Once Levi and Daisy are here, I will feel like something HUGE has been accomplished. And we will continue to move forward. Many thanks to those that have always been there. No reason to say your names, you already know who you are.
Posted on: Sat, 01 Feb 2014 15:25:59 +0000
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