One good thing to come out of the VA rescue situation is that maybe
shelters and sanctuaries ( even jsut pet woners too!) will create an
emergency back-up plan in case the director, owner, or sole proprietor
is incapacitated. Too often that can happen & the animals are not
taken care of because there is no specific chain of command or
contingency plan- especially in home based shelters/sanctuaries.

A written, easily accessible plan of who to contact, list
of volunteers, veterinarians, what animals need what
care/feeding/cleaning/medicines etc must be created and kept
with copies distributed to a few trusted major volunteers.

We learned this the hard way - altho I had the
feeding/cleaning/meds/care list on the computer, it hadnt been updated
in a couple of months ( of course new animals had come in during that
time too.) Since we still operate Critter Camp Exotic Pet Sanctuary out
of our home at least my daughter had a good knowledge of what we do,
but hadnt actually done many of the chores before. We are caring for
over 200 animals from 28 different species - so the care is incredibly
varied, but she is in charge of ferrets & has their needs down pat-
and they can be as difficult as the whole lot of the rest of them- we
have so many older, sick ones that need meds, hand feeding, duk soup,
ferretvite, etc. We do have about a dozen volunteers that come various
times & days to help with feeding & cleaning but their schedules dont
always work with ours - so that help is spotty.

Anyway, this last fall i went in for what was to be a short outpatient
easy procedure, and ended up with serious completely unexpected
complications, and was in the hospital for 7 days! What a shocker
to wake up admitted & doped up on morphine, then trying to tell my
daughter ( who was only 17 at the time!) what to do & who to call-
argh!!! She was an amazing trouper & got ahold of people ( most of whom
were busy or sick!, but some helped) and did nearly all the chores &
cleaning herself- while going to college full time too! Had it not been
for her I cant imagine what wouldve happened in those first couple of
days especially!

Once again- out of a disaster we learned something useful- that';s how
we should all look at the VA situation- if you take in rescues or have
any ferrets as pets - what is your emergency plan?

Beth
www.crittercamp.biz 

[Posted in FML 5869]