It's a Haven, for Kitties and Puppies

In the spirit of early- to mid-December, I'd like to ask you for your money. But not for me! There's a local organisation, Kitty & Puppy Haven, that's hit a spot of legal bother and needs some extra support. They function as a "rescue, rehabilitation and re-homing centre," but have had trouble with local zoning laws, and are now compelled to find and acquire a new center by the end of January. They do good work keeping cats and dogs healthy and alive, as well as sterilising most of them to keep their population a bit more under control. And they channel a lot of these critters to better homes. They're the reason I now live with Frost & Byron:

Byron & Frost, December 2010

Byron & Frost, November 2012

As I understand the problem, it's not just that they have a short-notice move to make now, but that many of their services have to halt now too, meaning new cats & dogs arriving off the street have to be turned away. And in the worst-case scenario, if they can't find a new venue in time, if they have nowhere to keep all the current ones, things get really horrible and messy.

So now they're asking for emergency donations, and I think you should help them out. Every little bit helps, and even under-paid I have given a large chunk of my puny November salary. What I'm not suggesting is that you rush out and "rescue" a bunch of cats and dogs from them, because - in the same way that a kitten or puppy is not just for xmas - they're not just a knee-jerk, emergency adoption either. Only take on new creatures if you were already going to and had everything planned out properly. Besides, I'm not sure that K&PH need a flood of extra admin work right now.

And for anyone feeling too cynical, I have wondered how exactly they got in this mess and my NGO management training has been examining all the angles non-stop since I heard about this. But the short-term bottom line is that they do need to move now, and until that can get sorted, everything else is moot. Fix that first, then worry about other problems afterwards.