What's in a name? Part One

What's in a name? Everything, really. The Path Ahead represents the journey all shelter folk are on together, and have been for many decades. Since the days of the pound and the dog catcher, we have all walked the same road and drunk from the same cup. From Coast to Coast, we trudged, walked, ran, sometimes in view of one another but mostly alone, siloed, isolated. Together we cheered as animals were spayed or neutered, adopted, rescued ... together we wept in the endless black sea of euthanasia. Generation after generation, we swelled in hope and fell in hopelessness, believing that things would never change, and that belief ensured that they did not. But not everyone felt that way, and one by one, people started questioning decades-old practices: veterinarians, shelter management and staff, volunteers, started asking the question, "What if? What if we stopped doing that? What if we tried this? What if we change?" As new ideas were tried and new levels of success measured, hope arose in our fraternity, but also fear and resistance. It is human nature to fear change, but to survive is to adapt, and as an industry we have not adapted well. Now, many agencies want to grow and improve, want to increase lifesaving and provide better service to their communities, but because they have stagnated for so long, they don't even know where to start. We can help. It's time to venture out onto a new path, The Path Ahead.