I've adopted six cats from Brooklyn Animal Action. Yep, six. Over the course of the past two and a half years, it's been my pleasure and my honor to meet many of the organization's members--and, through them, find many new, small, fluffy, confusing, hilarious, wonderful, irreplaceable members of my family. For the record: because of my love for animals and my belief in the hard work these animal advocates do, I volunteer for BAA and have volunteered for other local, Brooklyn-based animal rescue organizations and shelters, as well.
First of all--yeah, nobody's perfect. Volunteers especially have their reasons. They struggle through hardship, lack of funds, lack of time, lack of assistance, and do their best anyway, day in and day out, generally without thanks from anyone. But despite that daily reality, the folks at Brooklyn Animal Action remain positive and continue to fight against the enormity of the ever-growing problem that is the untended street cat population of Brooklyn. On the whole, I've found the volunteer animal rescuers who run Brooklyn Animal Action--through sheer force of their will, determination, bravery, and strength of character--to be helpful, smart, and honest. I've watched them work with families, individuals, and other hopeful adopters in order to make matches that are right for both their adoptable felines and prospective new forever homes.
Here's something that needs to be understood about the volunteers--they all serve the Brooklyn animals in need not because they're paid for it. They all have jobs outside of their animal activism and hands-on animal rescue work. And they've all seen the worst there is and know the cruelness people are capable of visiting on the cats they rescue.
Dumped on the streets. Abandoned when families move away. Forgotten when their owner passes. Abused; living in squalor in hoarding situations; returned when they're no longer little enough or cute enough; countless reasons, excuses, and heartbreaks.
Brooklyn Animal Action rescuers take in kittens that have been separated from their mother far too early and are struggling to make it another day; injured cats in backyards, with broken limbs or eyes threatening to explode in their heads; sick cats huddled in alleyways, infested with ringworm. They field call after call after call from all the people who mean well but don't have the same drive to work hands on in getting these poor cats off the street. They make room wherever they can, beg friends and strangers to foster, pay out of their own pockets to spay and neuter ferals--all while working their actual, paying jobs. They wake up early on weekends rain or snow or shine, take their traps, and head out to feral colony sites to bring in the sick and the unfixed without assistance from local government and without understanding from the community at large.
It is hard, relentless, unforgiving, unceasing work. It requires a core of steel that I know I, personally, do not have. The people at Brooklyn Animal Action watch as some of these rescues don't make it, as these tiny kittens eat a single meal, then die in the night due to someone else's negligence, or as cats who've been declawed and then dumped at a kill shelter waste away waiting for a forever home. They do all this, then meet with people who complain the adoption application is too long, the fee too high, the demands--such as "have screens on your windows" and "don't let this cat we spent 6 months and thousands of dollars on helping back out into the street, where the very life we fought for will be threatened in countless ways." They put on a smile each time. They do it for the cats. They insist that bonded pairs shouldn't be separated, even though it means keeping them longer, paying for their food and lodging and care. They insist that little kittens need playmates because it's better for them, even when people only want to adopt one and yell about how they should be allowed to. They offer foster-to-adopt options for concerned adopters who don't know if they're ready to commit fully. And all the while, they're out and about, answering each new call about a cat in another neighborhood who looks like they need help, running from foster home to foster home to check in on the cats, bring them to adoption events or the vet or their new homes.
For the record, I've only ever received prompt, same-day, oftentimes same-hour responses from Brooklyn Animal Action. I've wept when I see the right cat go home with the right person. I think these folks are actual heroes, and if sometimes, they piss someone off along the way...it's bound to happen. Ultimately, we've all got to leave our egos at the door, because this is about the animals and what's best for them.
That Brooklyn Animal Action always does the right thing by the cats they rescue and adopt out is never in question--and that's what matters most. read more