Taking Care of Yourself: Where We Fit

Happy Thursday, Positive Animal Caregivers! ♡🐾

I’m writing from Whistler, the host of the 2010 Winter Olympics. It’s the last weekend of the ski season, and I watched people ski, golf, and swim — all on the same day.

How was your week? Did you find a moment, even briefly, to step away from it?

For the next few minutes, you can. This time is yours — not the animals’, not the clients’. Just yours.

Animal caregiving has a way of compressing everything — the good moments, the hard ones — into the same day. Before moving on, let’s pause and check in —

Add a note if you want (I read them all)

I walked into the Humane Canada Conference and felt the usual apprehension that comes with approaching a crowd: Where do I go? Who should I talk to? How does everyone already seem to know each other? And, for me, the most perplexing question — why am I here, and what do I say when someone asks what I do?

Even deciding where to stand during happy hour felt like an existential problem, especially as a solo attendee volunteering at a small, unknown shelter.

Just be confident. Enjoy it, you say. But that’s before considering the lineup — people from the largest animal welfare organizations in the country. Adoption teams placing thousands of animals each year. Fundraisers securing millions for new facilities. Executives appearing on primetime news to speak on legislation and rescue efforts. On the conference floor, my tongue tied explaining “Etobicoke Humane Society. In Toronto. But not the Toronto Humane Society.”

BC SPCA, the conference host, is one of the largest Canadian animal welfare organizations (10,000 adoptions, $70m income annually). Before the sessions began, they arranged for attendees to tour their facilities. I expected something that matched the scale. Polished. Expansive. Definitive.

In contrast to the conference — set in a luxurious resort hotel surrounded by the heavenous ski hills — BC SPCA’s Vancouver shelter was, weirdly, basic. I waited at a reception area that could have belonged to a dated medical clinic. I strolled through narrow, dimly-lit hallways with a low ceiling. And I examined an antique, half-a-century-old X-ray machine that is still humming along. From the outside, the structure was plain: rectangular, grey, unassuming.

It looked a lot like the shelter I visit twice a week.

The dog courtyard, at least, was open and breezy. 

“The kennels face each other, because we didn’t know better when we built this 70 years ago,” Trevor, our tour guide, explained. He didn’t get far. Bob lunged forward, slamming against the kennel door with a force that cut through the conversation. His bark echoed across the space — sharp, insistent, impossible to ignore. 

Bob stayed with me as we continued the tour. Not because he was unusual, but because he wasn’t. Every shelter has a version of him — dogs whose behaviour makes them harder to manage, harder to place. Dogs who take more time. More space. 

Dogs like Bob often struggle in a large, fast-moving, well-measured system. But in an alternative that is slower and more patient, they are given the time to recover and change. This work doesn’t scale neatly. It doesn’t translate into impressive metrics. 

But it exists. And it matters. 

BC SPCA will soon open a new behavioral centre. But it won’t be enough for every dog like Bob. There remains a need for smaller rescues to step in, to do the slower, less visible work. That realization settled in quietly: no single organization can fix the problem, regardless of size, budget, or reputation. 

At the opening keynote, the Chief Executive of BC SPCA highlighted one key message: embrace what sets you apart. 

It’t easy to hear that as a slogan. But standing there, it felt more like a description of how the system actually works. 

There are things larger organizations can do that small ones can’t. That much is obvious. But the inverse is also true. 

And somewhere in that overlap — between scale and patience — is where many of these animals are actually helped.

That’s the average number of treatment sessions required for an extremely fearful dog to become adoptable, according to a study from the ASPCA. It’s a reminder of how long meaningful change can take.

Add a note if you want (I read them all)

Mark your calendars for these upcoming opportunities to connect with others:

Here are the ways to recharge this week. Pick ONE small thing that makes you smile. You’ve earned it. 

Listen: “Count on Me” by Bruno Mars. A song for the people and friends that we meet along the way.

Watch: The Candy Factory. It’s a documentary about a creative enclave in Brooklyn.

Write: A few lines in your gratitude journal. This week’s prompt: What Sets You Apart.

Appreciate: A beautiful piece of art. This week’s artwork: EJ Hughes’s Indian Houses at Alert Bay. He is one of the most famous painters from the west coast of Canada.

Try: The best vegan restaurant in your town. (I had some amazing vegan food at the conference.)

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Thanks for spending part of your day with me and the rest of the Positive Animal Caregivers Club. Take care of yourself this week. Remember - even superheroes need naps. 

– Philip