It takes practice.
I started running during the earliest days of the pandemic. After several years of dedicated daily Crossfitting, I’d become accustomed to the outlet and regular exercise was a critical part of my self-care routine. Suddenly shut out from the gym and trying to weather what we all thought was short-term isolation, I decided to tackle the thing I hated most in all those years of strength-training, plyometrics, and gymnastics. Running was my nemesis and I avoided it whenever possible.
Like any good millennial, I downloaded an app. 16 weeks and I’d be running a 5k it said. Only it took me three weeks to make it through the prescribed week 1 runs. Over and over I struggled through the first steps, steps written for folks who were supposedly coming right off the couch, not ones who’d had a regular fitness routine for years already. My struggle with running is humbling to say the least.
Fast forward to now though, some 2.5 years later, and I’ve come to love it. I never renewed my gym membership (sorry, gym family - I still love you) - having traded that hour of the day for something more solitary. It doesnt hurt that the sport allows me to take my dogs too, which brings me so much joy. Over these past few years I’ve run more 5k races than I can remember and a handful of 10k races, too. I’m still super slow, but I don't care. Every time I travel, I try to make time for a run and in doing so have had the incredible experience of exploring new places, admiring new plants and animals, and sometimes feeling like superwoman at sea level.
That last thing happened over the Christmas break. My family lives in South Carolina and we visited them for the holiday. My parents live near a lovely community park with a nice paved running track (side note - apparently sidewalks are not a thing in South Carolina, so I have to forego the sightseeing in the interest of my bodily safety). Here at home, my training runs have been about 2 miles each time. But one day over the break I ran around that track more times than I counted, accumulating over 5 miles in total distance. During that hour-long run (told you I am slow), I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts about - you guessed it - running. And in this particular episode the host was talking about running form and establishing a running practice and maintaining consistency over time. It occurred to me as I turned my attention to my own form, making minute corrections to the length of my stride, the placement of my feet at each landing, my posture, that no matter how long I run I will always need to practice. I’ll get better over time, and I already have, but there will never be a time when I am so good that I’ll no longer need to practice, that I’ll suddenly have achieved some peak running expertise and that will be the end of my growth in the sport.
The Practice of Sheltering
We talk about practice in so many contexts. Professionals practice medicine, law, music, instruction, even warfare. We practice soft skills like empathy, kindness, and compassion. Some fields value the idea of continued growth, learning, adaptation, and innovation so much that we generalize the professionals in those fields and lump them all together under the singular esteemed title “Practitioner.” Taken a step further, we’ve even developed additive qualifiers, more elevated practitioners like the academic, for example. An academic practitioner being one of those highly regarded educated doers of a thing.
I have been practicing animal sheltering for over twenty years now. I was practicing it before I knew what it was, and now that I think I know a lot about what it is - I find myself needing to practice even more.
From a young age, many of us practice loving animals. We practice husbandry in the form of daily care and feeding, and we practice empathy in our budding sense of relationship to other beings. As professionals in the field we are expected to practice clinical care, nutrition, behavioral science and species-specific needs for any and all creatures who come through our doors. Beyond direct animal care, we practice social change, communications, marketing, fundraising, business management, human resources, leadership, outreach, education, technology and more. And like every field seeking to serve and adapt to ever-changing communities - we are striving to expand the context of our work, ensuring our mission aligns with the community’s needs and values, and protecting and caring for the people who make that mission possible.
I’ve not heard of animal sheltering referred to as a practice before. But I’d like to make the case that it should be. Sure, we can have specialists - like those dedicated to behavior and enrichment, licensed veterinarians (practitioners in their own right), and those super-humans capable of taming even the wildest feral cats. But the scope of sheltering in its totality is immense and the only thing we know for certain about its future is that it is going to get even bigger. Therefore, why not establish the expectation that continued education, professional development, experience, tenure and credentialing ought to be the norm? Perhaps if, both within the industry and within the communities we serve, we come to better understand the work in this way, then we can reduce our turnover, develop more highly skilled workforces, retain our talent, and inspire support for the next mile, and the one after that.
In Practice
The Shelter will be closed again with limited public hours at the end of the month. During this time, our entire staff will be working side-by-side with some of the best industry practitioners in the country. Together, we have redefined all of our core processes and are in the midst of a large software transition that will ensure integrity of those processes and systems as a result. From intake to care to outcomes - every process, every policy, has been gone over and refreshed to reflect today’s industry standards. In order to roll out these changes, we need dedicated training time with our team.
It used to be that the marathon was the apex of running as a sport. But we wouldn’t be human if we were content to stop at one goal and call it a day. We now have triathalons, Ironman events, ultra-marathons, and more. Recently runners around the world are setting new records for the number of days of running consecutive marathons (the record, established this past November, is 62 in case you wondered).
The point is, whether it’s the first step on the first day or the 62nd marathon in as many days - there is always more room to advance and improve.
Establishing correct form and maintaining consistency are part of the work we are doing right now at this Shelter. Work to better train our staff and volunteers. Work to improve our service to this community. Work to earn your support. Please, be patient with us.
We are practicing.
