What appears to be a hidden agenda to bar certain volunteers for the wrong reasons (speaking out?) is exposed in this video. This is an example of what is happening at some shelters as stated by Elisa Black-Taylor in her recent article about volunteers being gagged.
The comment below the video is:
A 6-year volunteer veteran of the Rancho Cucamonga Animal Shelter is moved to inactive status for 2014, after being 3 minutes shy of the shelter’s “5 hour per month minimum” for December 2013. This video shows the volunteer appealing to the Rancho Cucamonga City Council and also goes into great detail about the lies the director is telling regarding this policy, all in a ploy to keep this volunteer out (for good most likely), and how the volunteer program has suffered under Director Fincher’s leadership; all on the city council’s watch.
Dana Keithly commented recently about her experiences with the Rancho Cucamonga Animal Shelter.
The gist of her comment is that Dana was fired for speaking out about unnecessary killings at the shelter. She was gagged, in effect, just as Elisa stated.
Bad shelter management is defensive. Bad shelter management does not have the welfare of the animals in their care at heart. They want to “process” animals rather than truly doing their best for them and bad managers are not open to suggestions on ways to improve the shelter and create a genuine no-kill facility going forward.
I suppose, and I don’t mind being corrected on this, that shelter management are possibly dictated to or in league with the politicians and senior management at local authority level. If the local authority in charge of the shelter has a poor attitude towards animals it will filter down to the staffers at the shelter because management will fire the good volunteers and retain the volunteers who are less concerned.
There has to be a change in attitude at the very top. Gagging through firing is not uncommon. It is the establishment protecting itself and the status quo. They don’t want change because what they have they are satisfied with even if it is no good for the animals.
The concerned American wants to see improvements in the animal shelter system in their country. There has been talk about true nationwide no-kill for a long time. There have been improvements but arguably too slowly. Gagging and firing volunteers puts the brakes on making progress.
Always have.
Any rebuttal is welcomed.
Doubt there is any.
You paint a bleak picture of the shelter system, Dee.
I’ve written before that kill shelters are, basically, secret organizations. All workers must abide by a code of silence or they are ousted.
Visitors (like me) aren’t obligated to be quiet; but these shelters have the right to refuse admittance if they feel threatened enough. It’s a tough line to walk.
It is my great pleasure to try and expose injustice. I am an admirer of shelter volunteers and poor management bugs me especially when cats and dogs are killed for no good reason because of it, and volunteers lose a bit of enjoyment and satisfaction from life.
Thank you Michael for sharing our plight, and you hit the nail right on the head!