Our board President, Cathy Woods, threw out an idea at our January Board meeting suggesting that Board members could really learn more about the inner workings of our organization by taking a turn at answering the Safe Place for Pets phone. Since we are an all-volunteer rescue, we don’t have paid staff to answer our phone, so she has been doing this for the last few months. I agreed to take a turn in March.
I had a very rocky start Having picked up the phone from another Board member’s office, I didn’t realize that the phone was on vibrate until after I received an email from Cathy asking if everything was alright since she hadn’t heard anything from me in about 10 days. I said I hadn’t heard the phone, but when I clicked on one of the buttons, I noticed there were nine voice mails! I called everyone and apologized profusely about my ineptitude with a cell phone. Everyone I spoke with was so forgiving and gracious, and after a few phone calls, I realized that my transgression would be forgiven. Aren’t pet lovers the best people?
Having learned from this experience that mistakes are okay when first trying something, I agreed to write our first blog. I wasn’t sure what I would write about, but then I thought, why not share my phone experience with not only other members of the board, but with our supporters too.
Today is a day in the life of the Safe Place for Pets phone person. I received one call from a granddaughter who was still mourning the loss of her grandmother. She shared her story about how her grandmother had awakened from a morphine-induced coma to say one last good-bye to her great grandchildren. Being a woman in her late forties, I am prone to unexpected bouts of emotion, so it was with some difficulty that I had to let this very caring granddaughter know that we couldn’t take her grandmother’s cat in for placement because we were at maximum capacity. She asked if there was anything I could do, because the cat had meant so much to her grandmother. I did what I could, offering the names of some other rescues and tips on how to place the cat herself. I was feeling a little blue after the call.
My next call was from a woman who was in at-home hospice and she was calling to discuss how to surrender her two poodle-mix dogs, a brother and a sister. She had been referred to us by a groomer. I took her information and chatted with her about our assessment process. She asked if there was any possible way for us to keep the two dogs together, since they had never been apart. I told her that we would try our best, but if we thought that they had a better chance at placement separately, then we would need to do what was best for the animals.
Within minutes of that call, I received another call from a woman who was having trouble with our online adoption form. I asked her to submit the form via email. While talking with her, she indicated that she was interested in adopting Laci, a poodle we had listed on our website. I regretfully told her that Laci was on a pre-adoption visit, but that we might have 2 toy poodle mixes up for adoption. After confirming the weight of the dogs with their owner, I called our adopter back and she told me that the dogs sounded like a great fit. Yes, that’s right; she said she would take both. I’m sitting here crossing my fingers that this will be a surrender- to- adoption scenario, and this time, my eyes are misting from joy. Call it serendipity or call it a divine intervention, but right now, I call it a great day in the life of this phone answerer.
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