Ivan:
Last night, I replied to a very difficult referral case. The man first wrote to me sometime in late June. He has picked up a kitten from the middle of the road. The sibling was found dead by this kitten’s side. He went to a petshop for help, and that petshop who gave him my contact. He wrote to me quite quickly and asked if CWS can help foster, adopt, etc. I explained to him that CWS cannot help with because we do not have a shelter, and TNRM being our focus, we do not have the manpower to see through the adoption process for him. However, I gave him several suggestions to follow: post on CWS adoption bulletin, post on SG Cats message board, and I gave links to sample adoption agreement and contract on our CWS website that contains many useful clauses for adoption screening.
He wrote back a few weeks later to say that he cannot do all these as he is very busy. I told him at best I could help him to forward to contacts if they are keen on the cat. He still hasn’t written to CWS adoption bulletin and SG Cats at this point with the kitten’s photo and descriptions. Again, after some time, he wrote back to say he has not got my replies and that the kitten has started to be scratchy, meowy and causing allergic reactions to him and his wife. I shared with him several tips on helping kitten to be more settled and suggest that he and his wife see an ENT specialist (to confirm it was kitten who is causing the allergic reactions).
Again he wrote back sometime later to say that he got no replies and insisted that CWS isn’t helpful and he should have just send kitten to SPCA (earlier he also complained that SPCA cannot do much but put to sleep). I explained to him again that myself and my fellow west end colleagues cannot help as we are innudated; and he is best judge in this case for screening potential adopters as he knows the kitten well already so he should assume the screening responsiblities. The only thing that got done at this point is that he copied adoptions@catwelfare.org and Webgal managed to help him post the descriptions up.
The day before, I decided to check with Aliah and Litin about the few cases we have, to do a review. We felt that perhaps our Volunteer Manager can help him, since Delia is an expert with regard to adoptions. The man then wrote back giving me a good one and said that we mishandled the case, wasted his time with all the emails, etc. He also blamed me for not helping him remove the word “sample” from the adoptions contract and agreement we have online (that I sent to him because he still hasn’t downloaded it for months). He claimed that I was lazy in not helping him remove the word SAMPLE before sending it to him. I thought one should know better that it is a SAMPLE and so I sent it to him as such. And I wonder who was the lazy one in not downloading the links to the agreement and contract?!
My sense of this case after discussing with another CWS colleague is:
1) Man should not have brought home the kitten if he was SO BUSY. Leaving kitten at a safer area nearby probably gives it better chances of survival than bringing it home and locking it in the case, and refusing to take responsiblity for screening potential adopters.
2) Emotionally blackmailing our volunteer that if kitten is not adopted by a certain date, it will be send to SPCA is not right. One has to bear responsiblity for one’s one actions and the kitten’s fate is in the rescuer’s hand and not anyone else’s.
3) If he was SO BUSY, the time he wasted in his long emails could have being productively used to post the kitten’s photos on several forums and also he could have read through the adoption tips website I gave him. He insisted that we do a decent checklist for him, which Delia has kindly help him. Frankly, I think Delia went beyond her call of duty to help this difficult man.
4) It is not that CWS or myself is not willing to bend over backwards to help people. We do actually many times. But there are some people who deserves help more than others (especially those who are willing to help out and not pass the buck to others).
