05/24/2026
"I don't know how you do it. Aren't you sad when you have to say goodbye? I'd keep them all if I had your job. When i win the lottery im going to open a Rescue.".
For tonight's axe to grind, im taking issue with that statement, invariably heard on the (increasingly) rare occasion someone adopts a dog.
Friends...I get, and appreciate, the sentiment behind this thought, verbalized in some variation at least once a week. You mean well, youre an ally, with a ham-handed attempt at respect, or awe, but you're missing the mark, by miles.
"How do we do it?"
This industry has 3 types of folks, the latter two can't help themselves.
- the tourists, those that 'worked in Rescue once', or those that exist exclusively in the fundraising end, endless galas and luncheons, sitting on Boards believing the nippy dachsund you had once qualifies you to question the embeds, or lobbying for legislation but never in the trenches, an observer of the horrors, rather than trudging through them, and cleaning their sinews off your shoes.
-the embeds, those of us that are driven, compulsively, to right the wrongs, mend the wounds and salve the scars inflicted on our companion animals. How do WE do it? We must. We are embedded. Our lives are laid at this altar, and sacrificed to Dog.
- the CCL's. This group went too far, the line between saving and hoarding was crossed, and buried beneath an avalanche of confusion and waste. Means well, has lost the through line of the narrative. Requires intervention, not enabling.
"Aren't we sad when we have to say goodbye?"
As in goodbye to an adoptive home? My brother in christ, no! We are sad when we have to say hello. We are saddened by the very need for our business. Rest assured, we want to meet every dog, but we want to meet them as happy, healthy fur friends out in the world, not as refugees on the stoop.
I'd keep them all if I had your job.
Friend...keeping them all is not the endless pile of puppy cuddles you're envisioning. I spend 8 hours a day cleaning up after dogs. Keep one, or two, give them a good life, youve done your part.
"When I win the lottery, im going to open a Rescue".
Sigh...you think we are sitting on lottery winnings over here? We, through sheer force of will, turned $50 bucks in a bank account into a functioning Rescue for 8 straight years. This is a sermon on the mount level miracle, that we exist at all.
So don't wait on the lotto. Thats a lightening strike you aren't likely to ever see. We don't need MORE rescues, we need the legitimate ones, run by embedded experts, devoted to the Cause, to be fully supported; emotionally, spiritually and financially.
11000 people follow this page. Imagine if each of them sent $25? Thats a lightening strike, lotto win for ucc, for our dogs, for our cause. It doesn't require a monumental stroke of pure luck, it just requires everyone reading this to say,
I dont know how they do it, but im glad they do.
I can't take anymore dogs, but I can support the ones they have until someone DOES adopt them.
PayPal.me/UlsterCountyCanines
Venmo: (6184)
Or checks to ucc
3539 rt 32
Saugerties ny 12498
Video of Lyle, available for adoption, posted for engagement
