The Blame Game

by John Flores

September 04, 2014

in Main, THE GUNS 'N ROSES CREW

1 Comment

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“Was it you or I who stumbled first? It does not matter. The one of us who finds the strength to get up first, must help the other.”

When I was a little kid, I had asthma pretty bad. I was pretty much allergic to everything. I would get these crazy asthma attacks seemingly out of nowhere. It would happen when my family was at Disneyland; it would sometimes happen at school, it would happen when neither of my parents was around. And sometimes they would be at work and there was no way for them to get there in time so a school nurse or my sister would have to take care of me. Never once did I think my parents were bad parents because I had asthma. Any kid can get asthma. Any kid can get any illness or disease…just like any dog can get mange or Parvo.

In the past few days, while the Parvo Puppies aka my “GnR Foster Litter” has been in the vet, I’ve seen a lot of blaming in the social media world. Yes, there are bad owners out there. In fact, there are horrible owners out there but not every pet owner who has a sick dog is a bad owner. I know it’s hard to not to judge people, I struggle with it too. I’m pretty sure I have blood in my mouth sometimes from biting my tongue so much. Yes, it’s THAT hard to not want to go off on some people. But at the end of the day, I’m here to help these animals. I’m not here to judge people. The best way to help people is to educate people. We can sit here all day and blame each other for who did what but at the end of the day, all this finger pointing does not get the dogs back to health. It’s a waste of energy and it’s everything that’s wrong with social media. We have a means of reaching MILLIONS of people and helping to promote responsible pet ownership and to teach people things they may not know. Not every owner how has a sick dog is a bad owner. Not everyone knows what to look for. Not everyone is around animals enough to know these things so instead of playing “The Blame Game” let’s try to help each other. Let’s try to educate each other and be there for one another.

The Parvo Puppies were surrendered to Priceless Pets. Let’s not forget that. They could have easily ignored us and gone ahead and sold their puppies. Those puppies would have gotten sick and died, possibly spreading the virus to other dogs. Instead, they let Priceless Pets help them and now these puppies have a chance. I hear and see enough stories about bad owners every day that it makes me sick to my stomach so when I meet people that actually want to work WITH us, I like to believe that those people did not know there was a place like Priceless Pets to help them out. So instead of condemning people let’s try to educate them. Trust me, I’m well aware that not everyone you try to help is going to want your help and I don’t know about you but that’s not going to stop me from my mission. There’s a bigger picture scenario here.

At this very moment, someone else’s puppies have come down with an illness. And there’s a good chance they don’t have the means, the education or the outlet to find help. Those people may reach out to you or you may stumble across them on a post while you’re scrolling through your phone. You can either waste your time figuring out if they’re bad owners or you can choose to help them, possibly saving an animal’s life. I know what I would do. What about you?