When I read your post, I saw no mention of how much time had elapsed,
only that you tried and gotten no response. As far as I am concerned,
you did attack Scales and Tails, and the other two New Jersey shelters,
Your tone sounded very angry to me. Your complaint was in the public
forum, so that is where I responded. As I said, there are only three
of us, and we divide the duties. Patty screens the applications, Dave
houses and provides most of the care, and I am the business manager.

I get copies of the apps. I read them, but I don't do anything with
them until Patty approves them. I do open all of them, I only mentioned
that I delete the ones from the spam bots, and perhaps I accidentally
deleted yours, but that I had gone back through the ones that I have,
and I did not see one from you, or that was recognizable as coming from
you. Even if I did delete your app, it would make no difference - Patty
screens the apps, and passes along them along if she approves.

We try our best, but it takes a lot of time and energy, and when I see
a post that basically says we are doing a crappy job, I get cranky.
There are a lot of people that think this is a job - that someone pays
us to do this. That is far from the truth - we spend huge amounts of
time, and a fair chunk of our own money to care for the animals, and
have to raise the rest.

Are we sometimes, or maybe even often, tardy in responding to people?
We probably are. Do we like that? Absolutely not. Is it going to
change? Probably not, unless someone else steps up to help. I live in
fear that Patty will succumb to her enormous work and home demands, and
not be able to devote any time to reviewing applications. That would
mean we would get even worse at responses. As I said, the animals come
first. It's easy to say that we might be able to adopt out more, if we
were better at responding. In fact, that is probably true. However,
as the old saying goes, "you can't squeeze blood out of a turnip". We
devote the time we can spare, and make sure that the vital things get
done. The ferrets get the best care we can provide, and we do what we
can to find them homes.

If that isn't enough for you, try starting a shelter. We'll be glad to
help.

Larry Anderson
Scales and Tails Rescue

[Posted in FML 7759]