You dream that you are a firefighter dispatched to a burning building. You have to climb a ladder to the 12th floor. As you climb, you struggle with your heavy equipment, concentrating only on getting to the top so you can tackle that fire. You hear screams for help and it seems to take forever to reach the 12th floor. Then, you look up and freeze with terror as you realize that the ladder is against the wrong building. You wake up feeling exhausted and frustrated.

Climbing the ladder represents all your hard work and the efforts of other staff at your humane society or animal control department. Putting out the fire is your agency’s objective. Frustration is what you feel when you realize that all your work is not producing the results you expected.

Every agency, whether government-funded or nonprofit, should take time to assess where they’ve been and where they’re going. If you work for an animal control agency, how well does it protect people from animals? If you work for a nonprofit humane organization, how well does it protect animals? How well does your organization treat the animals in its care? How well does it respond to the public’s needs?

The three articles that follow offer advice and inspiration to help your animal control department or humane society assess whether or not it has its ladder against the right building.

 Read the full series of articles.