u/Historical_Collar_33

TW: bites, and euthanasia

Hello everyone! I'm a member of an adoptions team for a local animal shelter, and recently I think I've hit a wall. I'm very grateful for my job and all it's taught me. I've learned so much about animals from it, I mean I've learned about body language and behavior, as well as anatomy, first aid, and how to vaccinate, and microchip them. I'm an entirely different person from who I was a year ago, and I've learned so much. However, lately, I've been noticing the major issues that come with animal welfare. The biggest one for me is how it doesn't feel like there's any impact. I checked recently, and I've done almost 600 adoptions in the year that I've worked in this field, and the animals. keep. coming. We spay and neuter every animal we adopt out and the babies. keep. coming. Whether it's new intakes, or returns for all the reasons I'm sure we've seen a million times, it keeps coming. From cats not using the litter box reliably because they're terrified, or sick, to teenage puppies who are going through mental growing pains I'm pretty sure I've seen it all. Then we are extremely understaffed, so all the employees are spread thin both practically, and mentally/emotionally. So much so that I, as the second lowest position in the shelter, am tasked with vaccinating, and microchipping animals with very little education, simply because these things have to happen. Not to mention the stress that just comes from walking through a kennel room. Seeing so many animals that need love and attention, stuck in a small kennel, extremely frustrated and scared. It feels like this system does not work. We do all these things, we see all the bullshit, we hear all the adopters rambling on about dominance theory, and nothing has changed. I try to remind myself that the hope is the 600 or so animals I've adopted out will hopefully have a new lease on life with an educated parent, but so often that isn't the case. So many people I speak with think they know better, and in many cases lie about using aversive training in home, until the dogs come back for a vaccine with a prong collar on. I am discredited when providing counsel, and then forced to deal with the aftermath when ultimately the animal isn't respected or treated properly and comes back to be euthanized after a level 4, or higher bite, because they didn't want to listen to me about resource guarding, or whatever it may be. Not to mention the countless animals that come in emaciated, or from horrendous hoarding cases. How have y'all come to terms with the state of animal welfare? How do you navigate the constant trauma, and burnout that comes with working in such a difficult field? I don't feel like I can be optimistic forever when this keeps on happening. I'm sure I'm making a difference, and I promise myself I'm doing all I can, but there's always the thing you feel like you could have done. The adopter you could have been more stern with, the fractious cat you could have been more fear free with when you vaccinated them, the dog you could have spent more time with to make their shelter stay even a little bit easier. There's always so much more to do and so much more on top of that, that you should have been able to do if you could have had the time. So yeah, any thoughts, advice, or sympathy? This is a traumatic field in a way I couldn't have even understood a year ago, and I need help navigating it.

Hello everybody!! I've got a question about backpacking in the Salt Lake area. I'm originally from a significantly more rural area than Salt Lake, and the way you did it was driving up a dirt road until you saw a trail, parking the car and then you start walking, but I'm rather intimidated by the way it's done here. I don't know where to even start, or how long some trails are because where I'm from these trails usually stretched further than even a 2 day trip would take me. I'm just looking for a quick overnighter to test out my gear for the fall season so I'm not experiencing faulty fear when it's actually sub 30° outside. Any recommendations, and how do we do things around here? Do you need like a permit? Or is backpacking not allowed on certain trails, so you have to go to specific ones? Thank you in advance, cuz I have 0 idea how to approach this. Bonus points for it being relatively close to downtown.

ETA: I know about all trails, but I feel like it's actually been far less than helpful with this because I drive up a canyon and see a large amount of trails that were not on all trails or maybe I'm looking at it wrong who knows

Hey yall just came here looking for advice and maybe some sympathy. My (22f) girlfriend (25f) have been together almost 10 months now and we've run into a big issue. She's a social butterfly and I'm just not. I love her friends and totally understand why she does too. They're all great people, however recently there's been a lot of instances where I feel like she would rather go party than show up for me. Take today for instance. I had an absolutely shitty day, I work in animal welfare and recently we had an outbreak of some mystery respiratory illness in our cats. Long story short I had been tasked with deep cleaning, and decontaminating every kennel in a room, and I had about 5 hours of just me in a hot ass muggy room, wearing the most uncomfy PPE, a trash can, and a bottle of rescue vet disinfectant. Then on my lunch break my car had overheated and I had to walk about a mile back to work and I was lamenting to her the whole time because I was fed up. However all she could talk about was her woes. And I'm not saying they're invalid but I was in crisis and she was burnt out from feeling anxious yesterday. She gets off work about 5 hours before I do and did not offer help once, and she only offered just basically "that sucks, I'm sorry :(" and I had to bring it all up. I had communicated earlier this week on multiple occasions that today and yesterday were going to be clusterfucks and I'm not going to be ok, I'm going to need support. Flash forward to after work. My sweet sweet coworker drove me to autozone to get me some coolant and didn't leave until my car got up to temp and didn't overheat. Then as soon as I get in my car I get a text "hey love, how are you?" Honestly I want to right back "Baby what the fuck kind of a question is that???? I got more practical solutions and actual help from someone who works in a different department and I barely know than my own partner! I feel abandoned right now! So obviously not fucking good!!!" but instead I left her on read because I'm at a literal loss for words. I get it she needs to see her friends but I was in a baaaad situation and got 0 support not even emotional support. This is a pattern as well. Many times I feel as though I've had to abandon my own needs so that she wouldn't get all upset that I didn't show up to a get together with her friends and it took nearly 8 months of talking through it for her to understand I don't have a social battery like that and I work a job that takes a massive emotional toll on me so I really can't go out in the middle of my work week on a Friday just cuz it's a Friday and everyone else has Saturday off. And now this. It feels like she doesn't even care and that her needs sit significantly above mine. I'm so fucking tired of this but I can't break it off. I love her, I've been there for her, and she's shown me so many wonderful people. But when I think of what she's done for me. It's only small things. I understand it's the small things that count, but what's a bag of my favorite chips, to supporting me in what feels like a full blown crisis. I need advice. I'm burnt out and I'm trying but she just cannot seem to grasp just how different we are for 1 and also how my needs are needs too. She used to offer me more than sympathy she used to ask me "what can I do to help?" And now I get this. Yall how do I have this conversation without crashing out?? Without yelling from the rooftops that I feel like I'm unsupported and I feel unloved, and that I'm sick of saying that??? That I need her to just care about me half as much as she cares about her friends?? How words really don't mean much to me it's action and it's showing up half as much as I do for her??? I want to raise my voice and I want to just get angry with her but I feel as though that will get me nowhere. Please, any advice or sympathy would be very very helpful. Thank you for reading if you got this far.

ETA now she says she misses me and wants to call when I get home. And I really don't feel like yelling g tonight loll