10/05/2026
From another rescue.
Yesenia Hz
10 hours ago
·
I used to take it personally when people didn’t care.
Like genuinely personally.
I would see dumped pets everywhere. People refusing to fix their pets, people giving away a dog they’d had for years, or casually message asking me to take an animal like I had some magical endless supply of space or connections… and I would be furious.
Not just frustrated. Furious.
I couldn’t understand it.
Because if I could lose sleep over an animal I had never even met, how could you sleep just fine after abandoning one that trusted you?
If I could rearrange my entire life trying to save something that wasn’t even mine, how could you just walk away?
I think somewhere along the way, I started believing that if I explained it enough, posted enough, begged enough, showed people enough suffering, eventually they would see what I saw.
They would care like I cared.
They would feel the urgency I felt.
They would finally fu***ng get it.
But one of the hardest lessons I’ve had to learn in rescue is that you cannot make another person value something as much as you do.
You just can’t.
You can scream about spay and neuter. You can post the shelter animals. You can beg for fosters. You can explain over and over why dumping animals is cruel. You can give people resources, offer solutions, educate until you’re blue in the face.
And some people still won’t give a s**t.
That used to make me SO angry.
Because while other people were going about their lives, I was rearranging mine around animals that weren’t even mine.
Losing sleep. Spending money I probably shouldn’t have been spending. Answering messages constantly. Taking on one more because “where else is it going to go?” Feeling guilty when I said no. Feeling like s**t when I couldn’t save something.
And then getting pi**ed off at everyone else because WHY THE F**K DOESN’T ANYONE CARE?
But eventually I had to ask myself something uncomfortable…
Why am I destroying myself trying to make up for what other people refuse to do?
There are not enough fosters.
There are not enough adopters.
There are not enough rescue homes.
There is not enough money.
And there sure as hell is not enough of me to fill every gap.
That doesn’t mean I stopped caring.
It means I finally had to accept that caring more doesn’t magically create more capacity.
Someone else not caring does not mean I have to care twice as hard.
Someone dumping an animal does not suddenly make that animal my personal responsibility.
Someone sending me a desperate message does not mean I have to rearrange my entire life to fix it.
And yes, sometimes that means an animal isn’t going to get the outcome I desperately wish it could have.
That hurts.
But I cannot save every animal by sacrificing myself one piece at a time.
You cannot force people to care like you do.
And if you spend your entire life trying to compensate for everyone who doesn’t, eventually rescue will take everything you have to give and still ask you for more.
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