Dear friends,

I write to you regarding the changes we are forced to make at the shelter when it comes to volunteers coming to Scooby.  Because I have become a bit crazy and I am getting close to having a hysteria crisis.  Either that or I will have to leave to Senegal for a spiritual retreat.

Volunteers come and go from Scooby, but in the end there is a handful of us, that never leave.  We deal with people from all over the world and sometimes these volunteers themselves don’t get along.  In the end, we lose valuable people that have in the past been great for Scooby, but yet they don’t want to return because they have had trouble with some other volunteers.  This is difficult on the regular staff at Scooby, as we seem to be managing people’s relationships, but the reality is that this is about the dogs not the people. So we go on, with one more wrinkle, one more grey hair and a little less will to fight. 

I am getting older and many times I think that this is getting to be a little too much for me. Before I had more strength to fight, now I realize that I get tired more easily, that I am less tolerant with things like human stupidity, the lack of common sense seems so obvious to me, but what makes me more angry is the lack of empathy, what we need in this bloody world is empathy. We need to ask each other why people have done what they have done and which I believe it to be horrible and of course unforgivable.

We do a lot of thinking before any decisions are made regarding the shelter and the dogs.  We have been asked or second-guessed many times if we can do things a better way.  There are even people that believe that they can do a better job than what Scooby is doing now.  My response to these people is, “Come and try to do it better”.  It is very comfortable to be sitting down, criticizing. Come out of your chair and do something to solve the problems, you are part of that solution.

In the coming weeks, there are going to be some changes that some people won’t like. Some of them have already started concerning the volunteers at Scooby. Let me tell you that Scooby is not a place where you can have a cheap vacation. Scooby is a tough and hard place where emotions are skin-deep. And it has of course nothing to do with what one could have experienced before. If you really want to come, then you are welcome, otherwise go to the beach, it’s much more pleasant.

If you do come to Scooby to volunteer, once your stay is completed, you will be evaluated based on your performance.  And unfortunately, some of the volunteers won’t have the chance to return for different reasons.

At Scooby we have rules which obviously must be fulfilled, if someone doesn't follow the rules, they will be warned by one of the members of our staff, that is to say María José and probably in the near future by María. If both of them are absent, the person in charge of guiding the volunteers will be Cobie. We expect the volunteers to make a better life for our animals, and of course for the people who are here, so we will be able to do other tasks, also necessary and too many times delayed because of a lack of time.

The rules are clearly explained in our volunteer manual, which each volunteer receives, but there are some common sense things that need to be high-lighted. Such as: closing the doors; not taking the dogs out of the paddocks without permission; not eating the food of Scooby personnel in the kitchen;  not throwing feminine hygiene in the toilet; turning off the lights, cleaning up your rent-free caravan before you go home;  not leaving cleaning material, like hoses, in the paddocks for the dogs eat them and many other things which seem to be logical but in the end mustn’t be so because in the end they are systematically not fulfilled.

So, if any volunteer after being warned keeps on with this attitude they will be immediately expelled from Scooby. Please do not force us to do it, because it would be very disagreeable for all of us.

On another matter, there are issues from Scooby which should not be questioned by the volunteers, explained maybe, but the final decisions are ours. The volunteer must always remember they are a guest at Scooby, and therefore they will be demanded a respect towards the things and people here. We are forced to do things this way due to various bad experiences we had in the past and that we don’t want to happen again in the future. These rules affect the new volunteer in the same way as the one who already came 10 times, who will be the ones who will be more offended.

I’m sorry, but those are the rules and they won’t change for anyone. If María José, María or Cobie ever warn you about something, please pay attention because otherwise I will have to intervene and will ask you to leave Scooby.

Having said this, I would also like to thank all of the good volunteers who have passed by and who have made us have such a good moments, both to us and the animals. Thank you for coming to Scooby and we would love to have you among us again and again and again. We do all this to save the volunteer program, because we had already thought if it would not be better to end up this program. We want to give it a second chance, to see if with some changes it will work.

Fermín