I’ve been carrying this weird guilt I totally manufactured. And instead of sitting with it I figured I’d just put it out in the open, because as a person with zero pet experience, zero cat experience, I think this story matters.
So here’s what happened.
Let me backtrack a little
Right after Conan gave birth I was freaking out. I didn’t know what to do. I was asking friends—friends who had cats, not like, cat friends—whether any of them had dealt with something like this, especially outdoors. And I started reaching out to rescues.
Here’s the thing: most of them were professional. Even when they couldn’t help, they were professional about it. That’s what you expect from people doing real work. But you know how it goes; youu have a bunch of good ones and then you have maybe one or two bad ones.
I reached out to this particular rescue; I won’t name them, but I’ll put up the text message exchange so you can read the tone for yourself.
With the thought that I was not going to surrender this family to a shelter, especially not a kill shelter in Los Angeles, I was reaching out everywhere, just looking for leads, looking for anyone who had capacity or could point me somewhere that did.
The response I got back was condescending and shameful. The kind of tone that makes you feel like you did something wrong just by asking.
And honestly? I didn’t take much of it at the time since clearly they were a HELL NO for me. I was like, “okay, they are who they are.” That immediately told me I did not want to donate to them, and I did not want them anywhere near this family. So I said thank you very much—because I kept it civil—but lowkey I wanted to say “hey, work on your attitude”. Instead what I actually sent, you can read it in the screenshot, was something along the lines of: I’m a first-timer. I had no idea Conan was pregnant. I genuinely could not tell.
Here’s why I’m sharing this
It’s not just about me. I keep seeing it happen to other people.
There are first-timers out there who have found a cat, are doing everything they can, and somewhere in the comments someone says—thank you for caring for the family, but you should have already spayed the mama. Okay. Who knows this stuff, really? Who just walks around knowing that?
I get it. I really do. The spay-neuter thing matters enormously. The overpopulation problem in shelters and rescues is real. The people working on it are often volunteers doing incredibly hard work with very little. I understand the frustration when the same preventable situations keep showing up at the same doors.
How the hell was I supposed to know TNR?
How the hell was I supposed to know spay-abort?
Meanwhile, I was trying to figure out this situation.
And taking that frustration out on a first-timer who is already showing up and already asking for help? That’s misdirection, not education. That’s shame. And shame doesn’t produce better outcomes for the cats; mind you, it just makes the person feel terrible and sometimes makes them stop asking for help entirely.
That’s the actual cost of it.
What to do when a cat rescue shames you for asking for help
The response you got is about them, not about you. A rescue that responds to a genuine ask with condescension is showing you their culture. That’s useful information. Use it and move on.
You don’t owe them anything. I knew immediately I didn’t want that rescue involved with this family whatsoever, even if you threw in $50 off vouchers for TNR or free services through them. You’re allowed to make that same call. Not every organization that calls itself a rescue is one you’d want caring for an animal you love.
Keep going. One bad response is not the whole picture. There are good organizations out there and they’re worth finding. It may take more contacts than you expected but they exist.
Hold your ground. I stayed polite. I didn’t over-explain or apologize for not knowing what I didn’t know.
To anyone who’s been in this situation
And you don’t have to either.
You will have some bad apples.
You will have people that are preachy.
You will have people that are highly judgmental.
But that should not take over your whole psyche, because it is minor compared to the people who will actually show up for you.
If you’ve found a community that cares, lean into it. And if you’re just starting out and you’ve come across something like what I described: it’s not cool what they did, but you get to stay in your ground.
