Blog The Change! A Guest Blog By Cristin Hipke Founder Of Animal Rescues Of Michigan

I get asked frequently why I started Animal Rescues of Michigan.

  I never really have been on a world domination track (sadly), but I've always been extremely driven, goal oriented, stubborn, and ... well, bossy.  I'm a people person.  Give me a hint of attention and I'll draw you into a conversation that will probably boggle your mind (and make you wonder where mine went).  I can talk to anyone, about anything and I'm a book worm, with just enough techy geekiness to make me dangerous.

Jazzi

  

When I was a little girl, one of the things I wanted most in the world was a puppy.  I remember the day we got Beauty (also Black Beauty, as she was a beautiful black lab mix girl with a white blaze on her chest and nose).  I couldn't tell you where we got her from, how we got her, because the second I was in the car with her, nothing else mattered.  She was the center of my universe and I loved her more than I had loved anything else in my life, even more than I loved my parents.  She returned that love and adoration with tail wags, sloppy, puppy fang filled kisses, and by throwing herself onto me.  We were in heaven.

Until allergies struck.  Not mine, mind you, but a family member who, for some reason, didn't want to live in a "people house" in the back yard.  Shockingly enough.  After a few short days in heaven, my beautiful Beauty had to go back.

"Crazy"

Fast forward to my sophomore/junior year of college.  It was a wintery, windy evening.  The light snow was swirling around my third floor apartment deck, while I was curled up on the couch, reading.  A muffled wail reaches my ears.  Again the wail sounds.  As it slowly penetrates my brain, reaching through the fog of my wonderful book, comprehension dawns.  At first the only thing I could think of making that sound was a small child, but no one would leave a child near my deck.  Peering out into the snow swirls, I see a flash of orange.  The wail sounds again.  Snow moves for a nonwind reason.  I open my sliding door, stick my head out, and before more than a few snow flakes had landed on my head, I felt snow cold on my feet.  Looking down, I see a young, thin, striking orange cat staring back at me.  Her yellow green eyes bore into my head and the thought "This stupid human can't even close the door" rings through my mind as snow flies into my apartment.

"Nyx"

After the typical freak out (thankfully with all the doors to the outside closed), including a call to my parents, a call to every vet in the area, a run to a convenience store for the kitty necessities, my brain kicked back on.

I didn't want a pet.  Didn't need a pet.  I was too busy, had too many things to do, never had a cat.... my brain was back on all right, but now it was running in circles.  Trying to find a rescue or group to take this (now purring) cat in with only the information available on the internet was a battle worthy of the saints and archangels.  Finally, in desperation, I founded a group that I was pretty sure was in my area, wrote them an email, and crossed my fingers.

This event was the beginning of Animal Rescues of Michigan, although I didn't know it at the time.  After the organization accepted "Pretty girl" into their program, I discovered the joys of cat foster parenthood, cat care, cat temperament, attitudes, and peculiarities.

Finding Crazy a place that could take him and take care of him was my priority.  Keeping him safe and happy for that family was my privilege.  As it turned out, I was keeping him safe and happy for myself, but that's besides the point.

Crazy was thrown out of his house during a Michigan winter.  His (probably) first family didn't care enough about him to do any research to find a group, organization, or shelter to take him until someone else feel in love with his personality, attitude, and loving self.

Let me say that again, they threw him out.  He was disposable.  His life mattered so little that they couldn't even be bothered to leave their home to take him to a shelter.  He was less then a year old when he found me that wintery day.  He's one of the incredibly lucky 20% that survive a Michigan winter outdoors at that age.

Indeed, Crazy entering my life was the start of the seed that blossomed into the Animal Rescues of Michigan.  There is no reason, no sense, no way I could begin to understand why it was so difficult to find information about reputable animal rescue organizations and shelters.  If I could find a completely obscure text book online that's only available in foreign countries, I should have been able to find more information about reputable local animal organizations.  Because if I, as a dedicated researcher at that time could only find 1 animal rescue and 1 animal shelter, how could donors, potential volunteers, or potential pet parents find these groups? Then, as a volunteer for local organizations, I should be able to tell people trying to find something that my organization doesn't have, be it room to take in another pet or a specific kind of pet, I should be able to tell them "But you should try [insert other local animal organization name] because either they have space or they have what you're looking for."  But I couldn't even do that and yes, this was after petfinder.com.

That's why I started the Animal Rescues of Michigan.  I wanted to make it easier for people in this technologically advanced day to find events going on near them that will benefit animals, to find ways to benefit their animals, to work with the animal community near them and to know of the needs of the animal community near them.  I wanted animal organizations in a community  to be able to talk to each other, work with each other, and stop looking at each other as competition.  So if one group has a need, other groups can help fill that need.  Every day I dedicate to Crazy and the rest of my fuzzy horde, all of whom are rescues.  Every day I work to improve the animal situation in Michigan so that hopefully, some day in the future, there are no more homeless pets in our state, so that no more animals are abused or neglected.

"Sweetie"

So thank you Crazy.  Thank you Nyx.  Thank you Jazzi.  Thank you Dyson.  And Sweetie, I know you're only my foster kitty, but thank you as well.