Getting Started in Animal Rescue
These are parts 1–3 of 13 (13!) that are all linked here. Here I discuss motivations, your first rescue, and the basics of animal care.
Motivations to rescue
People have many motivations to rescue, and all of those reasons meet an emotional need. These are various circumstances, any one or several of which are behind the participation of anyone working in animal rescue:
- being recruited by a friend, counsellor, or an animal caseworker
- being adopted by an insistent animal
- having sympathy or mercy for a case in need
- unable to adopt or keep pets oneself
- engaging anger at injustice towards an animal or class of animals
- needing an object or subject of care/concern/kindness
- broadening one’s perspective on “scary,” “cute,” or “weird” regarding animals
- having an affinity for either a breed or a class of animals
- rejecting consumerism regarding living things
- having a pastoral/agricultural background
- redemption for past misdeeds
Getting started with your first rescue
Your first rescue will come to you unbidden. You may put yourself willingly in its path, but it will be an inconvenience that shouts to you “If you do not do something here, who will?” You will have the sense that this is your turn to step up to the plate. You may even resist this sense, but it won’t matter. This rescue is going down.
Your first tasks with your first rescue are these: Secure a safe and warm sleeping arrangement for the animal; obtain proper food (research it) and clean litter materials; have a veterinary technician or experienced shelter staff review the animal’s health or take it to a veterinarian to do so should you have any doubts at all; get its food and water dishes and any necessary control devices (leash, collar, harness, crate or cage), and put it in a proper carrier or a temporary cardboard shelter carrier for the journey home.
Now that you’ve embarked on your first rescue, you can start considering what would be your interest in going further down the road. This is where you begin to form a foggy plan in your head, in particular, how you’re going to manage the scope of the help you can offer. You must think about this as a possibility, to make the most of your experience and have reasonable expectations and stress levels.
Animal care from the first day onward
The first 24 hours you have the animal, aside from any exercise that it may need, keep it in a quiet, low-traffic, occupied part of your home. The animal has likely had a tumultuous series of days and it needs to settle into a sense of security before it will be curious about who you are. Completely follow any veterinary recommendations upon getting the animal, although if force feeding or deep wound cleaning is part of the recommendations and you are not skilled at this, be very gentle, or have an experienced friend or colleague around to supervise or take over. Stressing the animal out will delay its healing and its trust of you. (It can even be deadly: After one three-day transport from the Maritimes to Ontario, the new adopter took the animal directly in to the vet to be neutered. The pet died of shock.)
The routine for the first three days should be food, exercise, meds, rest, repeat, with your conversational/playful interaction with treats increasing over the second and third day. After three days — or longer if the animal is still very fearful — socialization may begin. Treat the animal as a member of the family, and teach it your habits and expectations (such as times of feeding, exercise, toilet habits, and ways of interacting). Begin to secure your environment for pet safety, if this has not already taken place. Remember: rabbits like rubbery things. Cats are acrobatic weirdoes. Dogs might chew. Rats will chew, and find hiding places.
Go on to read more on Adopting Out Your Rescued Animals
