The Volunteers Strike Back!!

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Below is one volunteer’s response to the ADL misinformation email about allegedly cancelled mobile adoptions.

If any volunteer or employee wants to write or post a response to an ADL rant or action, post it as an anonymous comment, or send an anonymous or signed email to me at edward-muzika@sbcglobal.net.

From the volunteer:

You guys need to check out your facts before spreading misinformation. This is in the first paragraph of your latest email: "Those three (MPA'S) are small and very few animals get adopted. The MPA venues are poor and the outreach to the public regarding these three MPA's is non-existent. Ed Boks is now limiting the number of MPA's that can be done in LA."

OK- so what do you call "small" and how do you define "very few animals get adopted". In my view, ANY animal that gets adopted has made the MPA a REAL SUCCESS!!! Isn't that the goal? I don't have a number where I can say....ok, well we got 25 animals adopted so I guess today was a success. But last week, well we only adopted 15, so I guess we failed. NOT EVEN! Any time an animal can get adopted and go on to live his or her life in a loving home is what keeps us volunteers coming back, whether it's one or 50.

Also, the venue at Moorpark park is NOT small- in my opinion- we could fill that park with 50+ dogs if we had enough volunteers!!! Our size depends on the number of volunteers we get, you know. We don't want to bring dogs and put them in a crate. So you know some people who want to come out and help us??? We need the people to make our MPA huge! It is possible, but only if people will come out and help us.

Next, you state the outreach regarding the venues is "non-existent". NOT TRUE! Sure, LAAS could do more advertising, but they do some things in various newspapers and magazines, and we hang our signs and banners the week before. We also have flyers to put out. Want to help us hang flyers????? That would be great....we really need help getting the word out there more about our great events.

These activities are very time consuming given we have fulltime jobs and other commitments as well. But we do our best! Lastly, Boks is not "limiting the number of MPA events that can be done in LA." As I wrote to you in a previous email, we are in the process of expanding the MPA program, and part of any expansion is knowing where to put your resources, especially if they are limited. Hopefully, the resources will expand alongside the MPA program.

Do you have any constructive ideas on other venues we could go to? Want to come out to the site at 8am and start setting up, then stay there all day until 4 and get home by 6pm? How about it? Or better yet, come to the shelters the day before and help us make the excruciating choices of which animals to bring out to the MPA the next day. I can't do this without breaking down crying--of course I want to bring them all. It sucks. But, as I said, we wouldn't have to look in the animals' faces and tell them "Sorry, there's no room for you." if we had more people coming out to support the MPA event, which would allow us to bring more animals. Folks like you telling people that our venues are "poor" turns potential volunteers off from coming out to see for themselves.

So....sit behind your desk writing your hateful emails or forwarding on others that aren't true....or come out and sit with a dog all day, feeling his pain as he looks to potential adopters begging to go home with them, and they say no and move on to another....it's heartbreaking, but how easy for you and your group to not have to face that, and try to ease an animals' emotional pain like we do.....

Now- I'd like to see you forward this to those on your list!