A new television commercial will begin airing this week to warn North Carolinians that important, long-standing food safety and animal welfare safeguards are in jeopardy because of a power grab by the North Carolina Chamber of Commerce and their allies in the state legislature. The ad urges state lawmakers to block a special interest bill that would make it a crime for investigative journalists and advocates for the protection of animals, consumers and worker safety to document and expose inhumane and illegal activity at industrial agriculture facilities. Read more.
We now have a North Carolina “Legislative Report Card” so you can see how your state representatives are voting on animal bills!View Legislative REPORT CARDS here.
P.S. Don’t know who your state representatives are? Click here.
Raleigh, N.C. — A bill filed by a bipartisan group of House lawmakers would make it a crime to leave pets unattended in a car in hot or cold conditions and would give law enforcement the authority to take action to save them. Read more
Please register TODAY for the March 23rdUNC Student Animal Legal Defense FundAnimal Law Symposium 2013! It was a SOLD OUT event last year, so don’t wait. Lots of exciting topics and guests this year, including North Carolina Voters for Animal Welfare!
Greensboro, NC — A local organization is spreading awareness about the affects of chains on dogs and having no shelter in the wintertime. Watch video from WFMY
The Citizens’ Pet Responsibility Committee, or PRC, is a no-nonsense name for a group of volunteers devoted to animal welfare. Three years ago, co-founders Angela Zumwalt and Pam Partis came up with the brilliant idea of enlisting the help of schoolchildren to get their point across.
The result has been a popular curriculum adopted by every Moore County public school, as well as three private schools, a devoted band of volunteers, and, most recently, the Governor’s Award for Volunteer Service. Read more from fayobserver.com
The word ‘compassion’ has a Latin origin and literally means ‘suffering with’. Involving sharing the discomfort, pain and distress of other people and animals, compassion can really hurt.
Compassion fatigue is an emotional and spiritual fatigue or exhaustion that takes over a person and causes a decline in his or her ability to experience joy or to feel and care for others. Compassion fatigue can be experienced by caretakers of people as well as animals. Facing a number of crisis & victories, day after day, you can experience a roller coaster of emotional highs and lows. Experiencing chronic suffering of animals, toxic circumstances, and the sometimes abusive acts of owners can leave you detached, numb, powerless and angry.
Whatever your role - animal rescue work, sheltering work, animal control work, political advocacy work, volunteer, employee, supervisor, administrator, board member, your compassion for animals can drain your emotionally.
Compassion Fatigue—The Cost of Caring
A video of how caregivers cope
Compassion Fatigue Symptoms
Compassion fatigue is a type of burnout. Whether you are a paid professional, a volunteer—or both—the symptoms are similar:
Free-floating anger or misplaced anger
Increased irritability
Substance abuse, including food, alcohol, drugs
Blaming “them” (whoever they are)
Chronic tardiness
Depression, hopelessness
Obsessive worry that you aren’t doing enough; irrationally high self-expectation
Diminished joy toward persons/activities that used to bring you happiness
Diminished sense of personal accomplishment
Low self-esteem
Workaholism
Diminished balance between empathy and objectivity
People and Paws 4 Hope interrupts the cycle of at risk kids and shelter dogs creating personal journey experiencing trust, acceptance, compassion and love. Giving each a second chance at life.
Animal welfare activists and some North Carolina lawmakers are pushing for stronger penalties for animal abuse and more regulation of commercial breeders, are at odds with some of the most powerful organizations in the state.
