Setting the Record Straight

Last week may have been all about giving grace, but this week there’s an apparent need for setting the record straight on a few things…

First, when has it become acceptable to call someone at their place of employment to “chew them out” because you didn’t agree with the way they handled an incident outside of the workplace? I’ll tell you when: NEVER. It’s rude, it’s disrespectful and it’s selfish.

The case in point I’m referring to is an incident that happened last week. I found a pet in the middle of Highway 200, and before it could be hit by an oncoming vehicle, I ushered it out of the street and into my car. After many years (more than 20) in the veterinary and animal sheltering industry, my first thought - and what had been drilled into me by those industries - make sure you and the animal are safe.

In no less than half an hour, I had three people tell me they knew where the pet lived and all three were different places with three different owners. Then there were two different people who wanted to take the pet home, right then. One of the people who said they knew where the pet lived wanted me to just let them take this pet, in their vehicle to the owner. I had already secured a safe location for the pet for the evening so I could do the right thing for the animal and take it to the humane society in Helena, where I worked and volunteered for quite some time. I wanted to make sure the pet wasn't injured and that if it had a microchip, I could return it to the correct owner, and if no microchip was found, start the legal way of having one of the people who wanted to take the pet home to do so. As it happens, the location where the pet was for the evening had someone there who thought they knew who the owner was and called them to come check. The owner did identify the pet and did take it home and, as it happens, was the same owner the individual who wanted to take the pet out of my vehicle said it was.

So, here’s the other part of setting this particular record straight. I will ALWAYS do what’s right for an animal, even if it’s hard, and that includes properly identifying an owner before I just let someone take an animal away from me. I’ve witnessed, on too many occasions, similar incidents where pets didn’t belong to people, and rightful owners lost those pets because someone didn’t take the time and perform due diligence in getting the information needed to return the animal properly.

The good news is that this pet found its’ way home. The bad news is that the individual who wanted to take the pet off my hands decided it was fine to call me at work, two days after the incident, to chew me out for not trusting them and continue on about how they knew who the owner was and I wouldn’t let them take it. Here’s my words of advice to them. If you have a problem with the way I handle a situation, it’s fine to confront and talk to me about it - it’s not fine to call or come into my place of employment to do so. Period.

A second item that needs some straightening out is in reference to my column about family from 6/23/21.

Now, while I don’t always share the exact reasons for writing a specific column, I feel the need to this time because there are a couple of individuals who took this particular column to heart.

My main thought in writing that column had to do with seeing how different people create their own families. In this case, a “bar family” had just lost someone close to them and I was seeing how them gathering in this place, as a group, was helping them grieve their loss collectively. It then got me thinking about how certain groups or friends becomes families. Part of the column said this:

“Some people have work families, others have bar families, while other’s share an affiliation in the clubs and organizations they belong to. In my opinion, they are all families. When you’re going through something, good, or bad, sometimes those families we choose end up being the ones we turn to most, and often more than our own blood relations. Why? I think it’s because sometimes our own blood families are so critical, or they don’t understand the situation the way those we spend a lot of our time with do. There’s a hierarchy in our blood families, and expectations that have been established, sometimes for many years, of how things are supposed to be. Our chosen families may or may not have those expectations, and people we choose to have in our lives on a daily basis are sometimes not nearly as critical.”

While I hope my columns resonate with people, I am generally writing columns from my own perspective. In this case, the part about families being critical or unsupportive was derived from my own family dynamics and that the families I choose are often more supportive. It seems mighty bold, and even a bit self-centered, to think anything I write is about you specifically.

My advice, from my own perspective, to those who took it more personally: if my words made you feel a certain way about you or your own families, or if you thought I was attempting to “call you out” about your family dynamics, it might be time to take a look in the mirror and figure out why. Then figure out how to make it better for you, for your blood families and even for the families you choose, and not blame others for your issues.