~~~~~~~~~~~~Giving it up~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now just look at that face? It's it just adorable? Little bastages, I swear the things you do for the little boogers. I've been volunteering with The French Bulldog Rescue Network for over 2 years now as a foster parent and Review crew person. We don't foster much any more for reasons I won't reiterate and I have some issues with the administration of said organization. Basically it's your typical large rescue organization, it's run by a bunch of women that behave like a sorority. Or like that popular group of girls in high school, do you remember them? The bitches? Oh yeah, looooved them didn't you? Yeah, me too. NOT. They have long lost sight of the good of the dogs and that bothers me and a few of the other volunteers too. One of my favorites being the woman in charge of the review crew, E. She's a grandmotherly type who has been around and in charge of the review crew for 3 years now and has honed and refined the system as we now know it. I help her out and back her up when she needs it, taught her Excel because she was doing it all by hand and driving herself insane poor dear woman.

So that you have an idea of what the hell I'm talking about let me tell you how it goes down, we have dogs that come in, owner surrenders, strays, rarely a dogs that comes in from a shelter (frenchies don't often get dumped), and they get fostered for a minimum of 2 weeks to be evaluated, while being fostered they go up on the foster page. Usually longer. We get them up to snuff and then they go up on the Available Page for a minimum of 2 weeks, sometimes longer if they don't get enough good applications come in. Some dogs are harder to place than others, behavioral/medical issues what have you. Old usually isn't a problem, these are highly desirable dogs. Once we get enough applications the dogs go on to pending and the applications are sent to the review crew (I'm one of those people, there are 12 of us across the nation) and we go over the applications.

Now here's where it gets kinda funky. There can be anywhere from 15-300 applications depending on the popularity of the dog. The review crew doesn't actually pick the home for the dog, all we really do is weed out the crap applications. The good applications then go on to the foster parent who picks the actual home and then the Board of Directors approves the home (and there's a lot of hoops to jump too, it's a loong process). Back in the day, before the present incarnation of the "Powers in Charge" of FBRN the review process was slooow, dogs would go up on the available page for MONTHS and people applying would give up and go buy a dog after waiting for waay too long. This was the main reason E took the job that she did. She went in and streamlined the process, made it so it worked and did the job and got it done. No one else wanted to do it and do it every single week all year long. She gets shit for it too. People quit on her, they don't turn in their picks for the week, they don't tell her that they aren't going to turn in their picks or that they are going to be late, it's bad. Then she gets complaints that the process is too slow, that it's biased, that it's not fair, so on and so forth. It's a blind process, none of us on the review crew have contact with each other and we don't know what each others picks are. Right so then she gets tired of this after while. Damn ingrates. It's not like any one says Gee thanks for the great job you're doing. No no they just bitch and moan and then demand that she do things their way. Which won't work and will jack the system. That works and took 3 years to get right. Hello people like we don't know what the hell we are doing and you do. Not your job back the fuck of. Ingrates. She does it for the dogs, not the sorority.

So the question them becomes, at what point do you give it up? When do you thrown in the towel and tell them to shove it up their collective sorority asses? Because for the last, oh year or so it's been a struggle. Probably longer than that but for the last year it's been really bad. She's a foster parent too, she takes a lot of the hard medical cases that no one else will (you know, the ones that wear diapers), she's been turned down too which is very interesting. They'll beg and plead for a foster home for these dogs, she'll volunteer her home and they'll tell her no thanks. Why? As far as we can tell she's not one of the cool crowd. I'm not either thank God, buncha bitches, they treat me like something nasty they've found on the bottom of their shoes. I'm used to it though and that's why I no longer put up my hand when they beg and plead for a home for a poor soul of a dying medical case dog that needs a foster home. Can I care for these dogs? Hell yeah, I was a vet tech for 5 years, you name it I can do it but I'll be damned if I'll put myself out for those ungrateful bitches. They'd probably just turn me down anyway. Just for being associated in some way with someone they don't like....
When did it become a social game for these women and not an animal rescue organization? Will you look up at that face at the top and tell me this? BTW that's Cactus Jack and if I were into puppies (and I'm not, hate them ,won't own one oh hell no puppies are monsters, I only adopt adult dogs) I'd be all over Jack. He was one of the 7 puppies that came from a group of 12 dogs that were confiscated from a puppy mill front that was involved in a drug bust. We get them from all kinds of places let me tell ya. As of today he has only been up a week, he goes pending (applications stop) next Wednesday so if you want that beautiful face go run now and apply. So far he received a piddly few number of applications and I'm totally disappointed. I know where he lives and I so want to go and baby snatch his ass out of there. He is with one of those women, you know, one of them....