1. Home /
    2. Fetch Newsletter /
  2. There Are Heroes Among Us
Fetch Newsletter

There Are Heroes Among Us

We hear it every day, “I could NEVER work here. I would take them all home.”

We wouldn’t let anyone take all the cats, dogs, and rabbits home with them. It wouldn’t be good for the animals. They need specialized, individual care. And it wouldn’t be good for the people. It’s hard work! Just ask our medical staff or any of the care providers in the kennels, cattery, or rabbitat.

While a job at your Rancho Coastal Humane Society (RCHS) is never “just a job,” we sometimes forget that it really does take someone special to work here.

  • Since 94 percent of the pets adopted here are transferred from other shelters and rescues that are overcrowded and / or underfunded, we see some sad cases.
  • We see pets arriving from disaster areas on Wings of Rescue flights. It’s pretty cool when the plane pulls up to the hangar, the door opens, and we pull out crate after crate full of pets. The animals are dirty, stinky, and confused. We drive them to the shelter, feed them, get them settled in to clean kennels, and prepare them to start the rest of their lives. The lives they almost missed.
  • We’ve lost count of all the staff members who fell in love with RCHS adoptable pets and couldn’t live without them. We asked one staff member what made him decide to adopt his dog. He said, “I couldn’t wait to get to work because I missed him so much when I went home.”
  • We have a staff member who took home a rabbit who touched her heart as an overnight foster, then couldn’t bring him back.
  • We have a staff member who started taking home a special needs cat to make sure it got its medication overnight. That lasted a week before she came in one morning and announced, “That’s my cat.”

Of course, all of our staff members go through the application process just like everyone else.

A bonded pair of senior dogs left RCHS this week after 8 months in our kennels. They needed someone special who could care for some pretty serious physical needs. When their new “Mom and Dad” came to pick them up, our staff poured into the lobby to watch them leave for the last time. One of the guys rushed back to the kennels saying, “I’m going before I cry.”

Sometime heroes cry.

Many of them work here at Rancho Coastal Humane Society, where we believe Every Animal Deserves a Tomorrow®.