A Different Protagonist

Happy Thursday, Positive Animal Caregivers! ♡🐾

My animal shelter recently held a fundraising walk. I signed up no more than one week before the walk, having procrastinated for months. As I drafted messages to friends, family, and my wider network asking for support, I regretted the decision almost immediately.

I routinely post about adoptable animals. Through photos and videos, I build their profiles, tell their stories, highlight their personalities. I can spend hours describing a single dog I’ve walked, the moments that made them unforgettable.

Yet this time, the story had a different protagonist: me. And I always blush when I talk about myself.

“Oh, tell me more about the work you are doing,” many of my friends said. I typed and erased, typed and erased. How should this story be told? Is it about me, or about the shelter? In the end, I kept redirecting the conversation back to the animals — the dogs I’ve helped, the ones who found homes after care, the ones who made it.

For the first time, I wasn’t advocating for someone else. I was asking people to decide whether I was worth backing. Like an animal up for adoption, I was suddenly the one being looked at, evaluated, and chosen.

Some conversations ended with a donation. Others with a simple: “I love the work you’re doing. Keep it up.”

What surprised me most was not the money itself, but what it represented. These were not just donations to a shelter or a cause. They were expressions of trust — trust that I would continue doing the work, trust that the shelter would make a difference, trust that their support would amount to something real.

I had always thought of fundraising as something we do for animals. But in that moment, I realized that some people were also responding to the person behind the ask.

The animal welfare world is full of asks. On my Instagram feed, there is always another one: Nancy needs surgery. Terry needs a home. A petition to stop cruelty. Most of the time, the animal is the story.

Only occasionally do we see the people behind the work — the foster who stayed up all night, the volunteer who helped an anxious dog learn to trust again. And whenever I see those stories, I find myself drawn to them, even more than the animals themselves.

We tend to assume that people donate to causes. But during this fundraiser, I began to wonder whether that is only part of the truth. Perhaps people also donate to the people they believe in, even if we rarely say it out loud.

That realization made me uncomfortable.

Because I spend much of my time encouraging others to ask for help. Ask for training advice. Ask for financial support. Ask before a problem becomes a crisis. Yet when I found myself making a personal ask, I hesitated.

And that made me wonder whether the discomfort I felt is something others feel too — especially the people who come through our doors.

Pet owners who need financial support. Adopters struggling with behavior challenges. People who may already feel judged, exposed, or unsure before they even ask the question.

I don't know what the answer is.

What I hadn't expected was how much harder it felt when the story became my own.

And if asking feels as uncomfortable for others as it does for me, perhaps we should spend more time thinking about what makes it easier.

One realization that stayed with me after the fundraiser was that some people were not only supporting the shelter. They were supporting me. That was encouraging, but it also felt unexpectedly heavy.

It left me wondering: have you ever discovered that people were supporting you, not just the cause, project, or work that you cared about?

If so, how did that feel?

If you're comfortable sharing, I'd love to hear your story. Feel free to hit reply and tell me about a time when asking for help felt difficult — or when you realized that someone believed in you more than you expected.

Small acts of care often look ordinary until someone pauses long enough to notice them. This week, a few things worth noticing:

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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